John Redwood Western governments mainly know just one refrain. They say they need to spend more, so they need increased revenues. When the economy is doing well they want to spend more, so the public sector participates in the success and modernises to keep up with the private sector. When times are bad for the  [ Read More ]

Ruth Lea Leaving aside the turmoil in the financial markets, driven by fears for the US economy as well as concerns over Europe, August has been a difficult month for the Eurozone. Fears over the rapidly rising yields on Italian and Spanish debt triggered major, and controversial, purchases by the ECB at the start of  [ Read More ]

John Redwood Many governments have run out of road to borrow more money. Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and now Spain and Italy are having to rein in their deficits owing to the reluctance of the markets to lend to them. France is undertaking pre-emptive cuts to avoid a run against her bonds. The USA is now  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell When the credit crunch first hit in 2007, the Western elite told us it was caused by insufficient regulation, market failure and reckless capitalism. It was not. The credit crunch came about when markets called time on a massive credit bubble. The credit bubble was itself caused by Big Government deliberately trying to use cheap credit  [ Read More ]

John Redwood      Markets have been in the limelight because they have simultaneously decided there will be too little growth ahead to sustain the massive debts the west has built up. The spend now pay later model followed by the US, and  much of Euroland, only works if enough of the money is spent  [ Read More ]

Douglas Carswell The United States Congress has insisted that the American government does not increase the country’s overdraft by as much as President Obama had wanted. You might not have guessed it from the appalling BBC coverage over the past few days – which has portrayed Congressional efforts to limit the debt as grossly irresponsible  [ Read More ]