Follow Stumbling and Mumbling, filter it, and define how you want to receive the news (via Email, RSS, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.) https://follow.it/stumbling-and-mumbling Wed, 22 Mar 2023 10:35:53 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglISl0WZLhyOJOm6srrLMsqK There's a fascinating TV series on now about modern social and economic history. I refer of course to the re-runs of Brookside on STV Player. One thing this shows is how many opportunities there in the 80s were for workers...]]> Mon, 13 Mar 2023 11:05:07 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglISl0WZLhyOJOm6srrLMsqK https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLYUITipr38ZdKEpFgimKzx Labour's promise to "secure the highest sustained growth in the G7" is so far a mere aspiration without a detailed plan to achieve it. It is like a man claiming to want to become a great guitarist without practising or...]]> Mon, 06 Mar 2023 15:12:20 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLYUITipr38ZdKEpFgimKzx https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKsybdJ6TU--B-xWH3zZqEA It's often the case that sport can give us lessons for other walks of life. So it is with Mikel Arteta's recent reaction to Lee Mason's failure to draw the lines on the TV replay which would have shown that...]]> Fri, 24 Feb 2023 15:10:42 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKsybdJ6TU--B-xWH3zZqEA https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIdskZia_4hXX1d0VB8z-7c Rachel Reeves claims to be "pro-business." At risk of mistaking a vacuous cliche for a serious proposition, I'm not sure she should be. It's not obvious that business has intrinsic virtues. Yes, some businessmen are genuinely committed to virtues of...]]> Tue, 21 Feb 2023 15:07:57 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIdskZia_4hXX1d0VB8z-7c https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJ_qdiTilf1YXKSkciKEY1s Lee Anderson's promotion to deputy chairman of the Tory party highlights an under-rated fact about politics - one which perhaps the right understands instinctively better than the left. Defenders of his elevation claim that Anderson represents interests and ideas that...]]> Sun, 12 Feb 2023 15:51:37 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJ_qdiTilf1YXKSkciKEY1s https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglL5tKLgmMu7-htLdxSOwF-n Our political system is dysfunctional. It selects for the incompetent, the dishonest and the downright deluded. So much is obvious to those who care to think about it. What's not so obvious is that there is a more subtle bias...]]> Fri, 10 Feb 2023 14:55:20 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglL5tKLgmMu7-htLdxSOwF-n https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKLv_JZKW_sWKrkJyTkC_2b In the first pages of After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre imagines people trying to revive science after it has been destroyed by catastrophes and know-nothing governments. They would, he said, have only fragments to build upon; bits of theories unrelated to...]]> Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:15:15 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKLv_JZKW_sWKrkJyTkC_2b https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLNWFDmz7hNntaXKMm36c-X Two apparently different things I've seen recently illustrate a common mistake which distorts our thinking about politics and organizations. First, 30p Lee tried to show that one could eat very cheaply with Tesco's Weetabix. And then when somebody posted a...]]> Sun, 15 Jan 2023 11:46:44 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLNWFDmz7hNntaXKMm36c-X https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglL4fjBSRXVp6u4DA87rvhPr Many technocrats think the UK is at or around full employment. What they don't say is that this requires some radical thinking about economic policy. The Bank's chief economist Huw Pill recently said that the labour market so tight that...]]> Wed, 11 Jan 2023 15:44:09 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglL4fjBSRXVp6u4DA87rvhPr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIk0bNelk5tZMfGo0LrnZNO During my long adulthood there has been an under-appreciated change in British politics: whereas left and right used to at least agree upon what the issues were, this is now less true. Historically, left and right disagreed upon economic issues:...]]> Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:42:11 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIk0bNelk5tZMfGo0LrnZNO https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLP3vWQvjUNlN6jHbRcHw3s Should economists pay more attention to intellectual history? I'm prompted to ask by Jan Eeckhout's book, The Profit Paradox. His thesis is that, since the early 80s, many industries have become dominated by a handful of superstar companies whose increased...]]> Thu, 15 Dec 2022 11:25:06 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLP3vWQvjUNlN6jHbRcHw3s https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLCyK49U1gU9Cxhxzpi7FpJ One common mistake non-economists make when thinking about economics is that they think about money when money is often not the issue. I suspect people appreciate this implicitly in their everyday life. The £50 you spend in a record shop...]]> Thu, 01 Dec 2022 10:59:05 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglLCyK49U1gU9Cxhxzpi7FpJ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJ993_pPtBUpagzzHWHxDTV When does innovation work and when not? I'm prompted to ask by Ed Smith's wonderful new book, Making Decisions, which argues for the need for"anti-processes", original thinking and spontaneity to resist "the slide into bureaucratic inertia": If your decisions do...]]> Wed, 16 Nov 2022 16:04:35 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJ993_pPtBUpagzzHWHxDTV https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKcDXT-ba72uX-fx8LWuXng The Tories, aided by much of the media, are trying to pull a con trick. They want to present spending cuts as a technocratic necessity when they are in fact a political choice. A big part of this trick is...]]> Fri, 04 Nov 2022 10:26:03 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKcDXT-ba72uX-fx8LWuXng https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJDOpZ-hSNOwXtuT6pSmY81 It's being said that the government is looking to cut costs. Such a framing is in many cases wrong and dangerous. To take an example, in this clip the BBC's Jon Kay puts it to Jonathan Reynolds that "we can't...]]> Wed, 19 Oct 2022 10:35:40 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJDOpZ-hSNOwXtuT6pSmY81 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKdho0qWriLguQEmsPXZ5C9 All of us tend to interpret political events as confirming our prior beliefs. We must, however, resist this temptation when thinking about the now-reversed Kwarteng/Truss Budget. There are two interpretations of this fiasco which are not as robust as you...]]> Mon, 17 Oct 2022 15:58:54 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglKdho0qWriLguQEmsPXZ5C9 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJy6ypJlJWEIle5jCclomp- The implosion of the Tory party suggests I was wrong. I had thought that economic stagnation - which has seen real wages fall below 2007 levels - would benefit the Tories. As Ben Friedman showed, a weak economy leads to...]]> Thu, 06 Oct 2022 15:12:25 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJy6ypJlJWEIle5jCclomp- https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIqtE1znSB2Dd3hDS9njgCr "Never mind the public finances. Look after the economy and the deficit will look after itself." For years, critics of George Osborne such as me echoed Keynes' old line. At last, the Tories are, by their own lights, heeding this...]]> Tue, 27 Sep 2022 14:36:40 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIqtE1znSB2Dd3hDS9njgCr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJZkZ_9DW9ZOZNaYRWadcX6 There's a paradox: Liz Truss's government contains many members who claim to be free marketeers, and yet the first policy of her premiership has been to freeze energy prices and subsidize energy suppliers. This poses the question: what does it...]]> Tue, 13 Sep 2022 10:31:03 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglJZkZ_9DW9ZOZNaYRWadcX6 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIlZSgA1Po4F7DXWBZfdr71 One of the few silver linings to the cost of living crisis has been the re-emergence of trades union power and the start of the Enough is Enough campaign. These could potentially be the start of a new and better...]]> Tue, 30 Aug 2022 14:47:08 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2N_LpZDgglIlZSgA1Po4F7DXWBZfdr71