Issue 3 of the Spectator Business

We've just uploaded the content from the latest issue of the Spectator Business - you can access it here.

In particular, I'd recommend you read Michael Millar's piece on the resurgance in trade union militancy - "Are we heading for an autumn of discontent?" 

It'd be great to hear your views on this, or on any other articles in the magazine.  Just register them in the relevant comment sections.

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Department of Extremely Bad Ideas

Hw did we in fact get to the point where financial illiterates get to propose policy for an entire continent?

Tony Robinson, chief spokesman for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, said the capitalist system had disgraced itself and must now face much stricter regulation.

"There is a groundswell of opinion building up for action at a European level. Our group wants a ban on all investment funds speculating on food. We support a proper functioning market, but what we have seen in this crisis is a most distasteful morality where decisions are driven...

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Put your questions to George Osborne

Over on Coffee House, we've arranged a Q&A with the shadow chancellor, George Osborne.  Please click here to see more details and to put your questions to him.

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Department of Bad Ideas

I wish we did in fact have such a department for bad ideas like this one:
Former students should pay a "graduate tax" for decades after leaving university, according to a former Labour education minister.

The charge should be levied on all graduates to enable more schoolchildren to stay in education beyond the age of 18, it was claimed.

Baroness Blackstone, an education minister between 1997 and 2001, admitted such a move would prove hugely unpopular.

But she insisted that she would be willing to pay such a charge - 40 years after graduating...

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Environmental Economics

Or rather, environmental non-economics. Arlo Brady today:

And then there is the observation that products that are more environmentally friendly tend to have used (and use) fewer resources than their conventional counterparts, and should therefore be cheaper to buy or run.

If this were in fact true than we'd all be environmentalists. It's just that a quick look around the world tells us that environmentally friendly products (at least those that call themselves such) are more expensive than conventionally produced items.

Solar power, windmills, are still vastly more expensive than fossil fuel generation, even if you include the costs...

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