Dear George, Cutting public spending when there is no other source of growth in the economy is a sure-fire strategy for recession. As if the lack of recovery wasn't bad enough, the lack of growth also scuppers your deficit-reduction goals – the very reason for austerity in the first place. Like throwing away the engine … Continue reading Dear George… Advice to George Osborne

Retirement is not as old as you think. According to the Bible, God expelled Adam from Paradise with the terrible words: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." And that's more or less how it was until about a hundred years ago. Most people worked till … Continue reading Let’s abolish retirement

The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has promised a "massive amplification" of state-backed investments in housing and infrastructure. Words only. But if the words mean anything, they amount to a huge U-turn – a belated acknowledgment that austerity has not brought recovery. The realisation that austerity is having a dampening effect on economic activity has … Continue reading Nick Clegg’s U-turn for the better

In his autumn statement today the chancellor claimed it was his deficit reduction plan that enabled the British government to borrow money even more cheaply than the Germans, thus saving the taxpayer £21bn in interest rate charges over five years. Ed Balls rejoined that "he still clings to the illiterate fantasy that low long-term interest … Continue reading Autumn statement: George Osborne’s cutting fantasy is over

This is the latest in a spate of books provoked by the world economic crisis and one of the best. Jeffrey Sachs calls himself a "clinical economist". In The End of Poverty he applied his clinician's skills to the distempers of Africa; in this book he turns them to the hubristic and wasteful habits of … Continue reading The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey Sachs

The phrase "horses for courses" is as valid for politics as for other activities. It's as impossible to think of Gordon Brown at the recent Fifa meeting in Zurich pleading England's cause for the World Cup as it is to imagine David Cameron expounding the nitty-gritty of capital adequacy ratios at a meeting of the … Continue reading Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalisation by Gordon Brown

The new government is facing daunting economic challenges. The historically minded will recall that the international financial crisis hit in 1931, two years after the start of the great depression, aborting the recovery and forcing Britain off the gold standard. A double-dip recession is a distinct possibility today; and the government's finances are in a … Continue reading Advice for a New Government: a reading list

By Robert Skidelsky and Vijay Joshi Next Saturday world leaders meet in Washington to discuss new rules for the global financial system (though little will be achieved with President-elect Obama absent). So far, thinking about this matter has scarcely got beyond calls for better banking regulation: a microeconomic issue that is doubtless important but misses … Continue reading A dangerous free-for-all