Let’s choose more economic pain in 2012, not less
The debt-for-growth driven Western economic model of the last 30 years has hit the buffers. Boosting consumption and printing money will only add to the debts. We need more economic pain, not less. A few hours under the knife, followed by a period of recuperation, is a much better option……..read more
Article from the South China Morning Post, January 2012
Click here for the complete Bear in Tartan series of articles, many of which are also available for audio download
Swing Shift – article from the South China Morning Post
China has reached a turning point. The great pendulum of economic development, which has provided the country with so much growth, has started to swing in the opposite direction. It has nothing to do with debt, corruption or political shenanigans in Beijing and everything to do with what is happening in the rest of the world at the ending of one global economic era and the beginning of another……..read more
Are we all mad, or economists? Club of Rome guest blog
…..We don’t need any more of this sort of economic medicine, we need a different sort. We need new economic doctors, people with different ideas and a different approach. We need to return to something more like Adam Smith originally intended…….read more
Adam Smith would not have liked modern day economists – Guest Blog CNBC
For someone now seen as a corporate libertarian, Adam Smith’s views on company profits might come as a shock. Even more surprising would be his views on the sort of free-market economics we follow today……read more
Our Age of Endarkenment – Irish Times Article
The consensus suggests we are in a glorious age of innovation, but by historical standards our rate of development is slowing down. If this continues, we face some difficult challenges in the near future…..Article in the Irish Times October 2011
Bear in Tartan 120 – No more charity please, Mr Gates
At first glance, charity seems a good thing. But it is a reflection of a fundamental problem. It attempts to compensate for some of the shortfalls of modern economic thinking. Charities, philanthropists and CSR fans obscure the failings—rather than leaving them, like a puddle, for us all to see…..read more
Bear in Tartan 115 – Almost everything we buy is too cheap
Rather than paying properly for our resources, we have been held hostage by modern economic theorists and corporate libertarians, by those demanding less regulation, by those who say that government interference should always be minimized….this is not the economics of Adam Smith….. read more
Bear in Tartan 114 – We need piggy banks not Western economists
Today’s economists are deluded. They cannot understand the scale of the problem they face. They still think that their ship, their debt-for-growth driven economic model can be saved. It is the West’s economic drum that needs to change, not the way the economists bang it….. read more
The Bear in Tartan 116 – Too many politicians are still not listening
Wherever social and political injustices occur, wherever governments become self-serving, wherever a minority has grabbed an unfair share of the wealth, the same story risks unfolding – in America, Europe and much of Asia too….. read more
The Bear in Tartan 112 – Economic growth. Is that it?
Why are we all here? It is a difficult question to answer, having troubled philosophers and serious thinkers for centuries. Thankfully, modern-day economists have found the answer. Better still, we have all accepted their conclusion. The purpose of life is to consume…… read more
The Bear in Tartan 113 – Let’s make car ownership illegal
I don’t hate cars or even the pollution they cause. I just think they are such a waste of resources. They waste them when they are made. They waste them when they are used. But the biggest waste comes when they are not being used, and that is most of the time……. read more
The Bear in Tartan 111 – Do Chinese companies compete unfairly?
As Chinese and American officials hurl accusations of currency manipulation across the globe like clumps of mud, another battleground is looming. The turf this time is much less squishy. The next fight is over ideology. Many people now accuse Chinese firms of competing unfairly. Yet that is to misunderstand what is going on…..read more
We can copy everything except your mother
The trickle of counterfeit cars in China has become a stream. Legal action against copy-car firms has proved almost useless. Without scale how do these companies make any money? See The Economist
Bad press in China
Foreign firms are not just having problems with fakes in China. They are having troubles with fake news too.
This week’s target, on China’s Consumer Rights Day no less, was French carmaker Citröen. Newspapers across the country published pictures of one of its cars being towed to a dealer by four rather bedraggled-looking horses. The car’s owner, Mr Chen, was making a very public show of his fury, they reported. Despite damage which looked suspiciously like the car had been in a nasty front-end collision, Mr Chen claimed instead that the car was defective. It had ‘exploded for no reason’, he told reporters. ….. from The Economist
