There is no way there are millions and millions of people over 120 years old receiving Social Security benefits. That is a lie. 

Today (Thursday), the Office for National Statistics published its monthly set of employment stats. While its Labour Force Survey has been under the cosh for some time for unreliability, the ONS’s data on average wage rates and changes retain their importance. The data – this time for January 2025 – covers average total pay, regular pay and bonus pay for the whole workforce. It also provides average wage data by broad sector.The ONS also publishes its estimate of ‘real pay’ after taking...

Here’s what this really means, and it’s probably opposite of what you are being told. 

I have written up a series of post as a research paper: first post, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh. Here I present the abstract and most of the introduction. Abstract: Empirical research indicates that the reswitching of techniques, as well as multiple switching with more switch points, is rare. This article explores parameter spaces in the analysis of the choice of technique to suggest why reswitching and triple-switching might be hard to find in empirical data. An example...

An interesting economic trend may be developing.

The German parliament today, after heated debate, approved the much discussed debt package worth hundreds of billions of euros for defence and infrastructure. With the necessary two-thirds majority, the parliament in Berlin passed a constitutional amendment allowing defence and security expenditures to be exempt from the Schuldenbremse (debt brake). The previously strict debt rules for the federal states will also be relaxed. Better late than never. Keynes is alive and...

18th of March 2025 My Lords, last Thursday, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked the House to take note of the UK’s international position. My purpose today is narrower but more urgent; to ask the Government what their Ukraine policy now is. It is urgent because the Trump Administration have torn up the familiar script. I wish the Government had offered a full-length debate to consider the consequences of this. I remind your Lordships of the script. The King’s Speech of 17 July...

Vad historien lär oss Vad det förflutna lär oss är att människan gång på gång ställs inför beslut som är avgörande för framtiden. Genom dessa ställningstaganden sker inriktningen av vårt samhällsbygge. Grunden till vårt välfärdssamhälle har lagts av många människors tålmodiga arbete. I det forna Egypten byggde man pyramiderna. Vi har byggt ett samhälle som — visserligen med  kvarstående orättvisor och brister — präglats av solidaritet, gemenskap och ansvar...

In the face of the Trumpian onslaught, Europe urgently needs to regain its self-confidence and propose a different development model to its citizens and the world. To achieve this, it must start by overcoming the permanent self-denigration that too often stands in for public debate on our continent. According to the doxa that prevails in many leadership circles, Europe is living beyond its means and needs to tighten its belt. The latest version of this rhetoric states that social spending...

What’s wrong with economics — a primer This is an important and fundamentally correct critique of the core methodology of economics: individualistic; analytical; ahistorical; asocial; and apolitical. What economics understands is important. What it ignores is, alas, equally important. As Skidelsky, famous as the biographer of Keynes, notes, “to maintain that market competition is a self-sufficient ordering principle is wrong. Markets are embedded in...