Cover photo credit: James Cridland. On June 6th, the Swiss rejected Universal Basic Income (UBI) in a referendum by an overwhelming margin of 77 to 23 %, which I publicly predicted on reddit weeks ago based on intimate knowledge of the … Continued
The Economist ran an interesting article about the ancient question of power corrupting people. Are the kinds of people who seek power predisposed to evil*? Or does power corrupt? *notice the implicit moral judgment of power as bad by definition, … Continued
By now, I could start most articles with “popular opinion has stuff the wrong way around“. For instance, you hear people saying they want to start a business, but worry that “the economy” might not be good enough right now. Let me … Continued
The British government, among others, is trying to figure out how to make people eat less sugar. I propose a better question: Have we all gone completely mad and legally incapable? What the fuck happened to sui iuris? Feel free to call me old-fashioned, … Continued
When people can’t find a good answer to an important question, it is usually the case that they’re not asking the right question. Obviously, that doesn’t apply to scientifically hard objective problems like nuclear fusion, room temperature superconductors and faster than … Continued
The purpose of this article is not deliberately playing devil’s advocate, however, not jumping on hysterical bandwagons frequently looks like devil’s advocacy. The entire planet knows that Volkswagen got caught cheating on emissions. On the face of it, this is a … Continued
This article is going to make some people very angry. Consider yourself warned. Why do some people get what they want, while others not so much? There are a few reasons: Problems of goal setting: Lack of realistic information about … Continued
“Buying local” is the shortest known term for economic illiteracy. There are things that are sensible to make locally. Like bottled water. Nobody can tell the difference between Evian and decent tap water blindfolded, just like nobody can hear any difference … Continued
My friend has a problem that’s uniquely European – only through incredible effort can he avoid being given money by several government agencies. As he is currently quitting his job and preparing for impending fatherhood, the amount of cash various … Continued
All the significant success stories that I am aware of – including firsthand – have one thing in common. If you look at Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla… They did nothing radically new. Apple didn’t invent the mp3 player, the … Continued
I wrote another one of these economics articles, because nobody reads them which gives me freedom. Everything from pub chats through expert debate to government policy in western countries has been split roughly into two camps for the last several … Continued
An “expert” is: A person who is wrong slightly less often than non-experts, which is still most of the time. A person whom the speaker wants the listener to trust. Ultimately, when applied to soft disciplines such as economics (especially … Continued
In “alternative investment”, like in “alternative medicine”, the word “alternative” really means “not”.
In this series, we’ll look at the difference between investment and speculation, and investment and spending. Even if you’re not that much into finance, it’s wise to know the basics, not just to make sense of the world and feel … Continued
One of the R.A.F.’s top priorities during WW2 was improving the odds that its notoriously expensive and strategically crucial bombers will make it back from bombing runs over Germany. The returning airplanes were rigorously scrutinised, and military experts were busy … Continued
The European Central Bank launched a programme of quantitative easing to the tune of 60 billion euros every month. The logic appears solid at first – it seems to have worked in America, so why not in Europe? Because America’s problem was … Continued
