It is still fashionable to blame the free market for our troubles with the economy but look again. Should we not first look at the laws under which the market functions? This letter by John Read in the Financial Times explores goes straight to the point.

Polly Toynbee wrote an article in the Guardian today, criticising David Cameron’s proposals for tax cuts. My comments were deleted by the moderator as being off-topic. Somebody must have complained. I asked for an explanation and the comment was reinstated, but they must obviously have got under someone’s skin. Whose, I wonder? Here is the allegedly off-topic comment: All mainstream...

A few months ago a neighbour’s son told me that he was thinking of studying Economics for A-level. I suggested that there were more useful subjects, like chemistry, or woodwork or cookery. If he studied economics he would learn things as they were not, in other words it was worse then useless, and that if he wanted to learn about economics, he should take a Saturday job in a street market,...

Polly Toynbee has been talking about the latest figures on social mobility in Britain, which suggest things are improving, but only slightly. She puts the problem down to educational and pay inequalities and points to the Nordic countries as exemplars.

Has anyone ever succeeded in getting the subject of land value taxation mentioned on “Any Answers?”, the programme that follows Any Questions? at 2.00pm on Saturdays. This week, the first question was “Who is to blame for the crisis?” Just to see what would happen, I sent in this email, to no effect.

During the Great Depression, a programme of public works was initiated by President Roosevelt as a means of relieving unemployement. Will the same thing be needed again?

Recession can be averted by an infrastructure and public works programme.

Republican candidate McCain says he will clean up Wall Street. His opponent Obama says that he does not subscribe to the Republican economic philosophy which has led to the unfolding economic disaster. So what are they going to do about what now looks as if it will be the worst economic dislocation since the 1930s. And would they do to prevent a recurrence? They aren’t saying, are they? But...

Land reform in South Africa was discussed in a recent BBC programme “Crossing Continents – South Africa’s Promised Land:” It investigated the South African government’s controversial attempts to speed up the process of land reform. During the colonial and apartheid periods, ancestral land was taken over by white farmers. In an attempt to redress the injustice, new laws...

  The relation between land and unemployment in a nutshell The economic process is in essence extremely simple. Man (Labour) fashions natural resources (Land) in to useful commodities (Wealth). Some Wealth is consumed directly, but some consists of items such as tools and machinery which are returned to the productive process to help create further Wealth. This is called Capital. The three factors...