Software, whether that’s a CD, a text file of a book, or a computer program, is a good with a marginal cost of zero. Hence basic economics tells us an individual act of software copying makes society in aggregate better off and harms nobody (because the total producer surplus plus consumer surplus is maximised when [...]

There’s a lot of debate in left-wing-commentaryland at the moment about electricity and gas prices, ‘fuel poverty’, and how these relate to the profits made by energy companies.
The problem is, the debate is nonsense: UK utilities are losing out from high energy prices - and utility bills are currently far too low in any case. [...]

So Labour have lost the Crewe and Natwich election, the Tories winning their first by-election in 26 years. Huzzah.
At last Labour seem to be getting the kind of kicking they’ve long deserved - a kicking I’m hoping might finally shake them out of the complacency that’s seen a supposedly left-wing, pro-EU government with no viable [...]

Yes, we all know the current government is hopelessly inept at PR, quite inept at sticking by its decisions, and quite fond of authoritarian intervention (whether on The Terrorists or The Smokers). So it’s nice to be reminded that, on aggregate and including their oh-so-cuddly leader, the Conservatives still hate women and hate gays.
Dunno about [...]

A long time ago on a blog far away, I posted a graph showing the oil price in euros. The resulting trace looked rather different from the conventional US$ measure.
With that blog dead, several years passed, and another round of ‘oooh, isn’t oil expensive’ fussing currently taking place, I thought it might be a good [...]

Craig Murray is the UK’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan. He’s an excellent exposer of evilness in ex-Soviet extremities, and was one of the main figures behind the campaign to stop Alisher Usmanov gaining control of Arsenal. In short, he’s a good man.
However, he’s not a man who should really be writing about financial statements. At [...]

I’ve just invented a new word:
usmanov /’us mÉ™ nÉ’v/ verb to unsuccessfully attempt to stifle undesired content on the Internet by taking legal action against websites where the content appears, with the result that the undesired content becomes more widespread and better known. [named after Alisher Usmanov, a Russian/Uzbek billionaire who did this regarding allegations [...]

Most of the concern about the government’s proposed ID card scheme stems not from the cards themselves, but from the enormous pool of centralized information which would underlie them. Plenty of suspicious minds believe that this is actually the real purpose of the plan.
But if Gordon Brown wants access to a vast system of interlinked [...]

I like to think that, despite living a champagne-and-caviar lifestyle, spending my time with models and rock stars, and living in a luxury penthouse [*], I’m still in touch with my left-wing roots.
As a result, I’m always slightly reluctant to denounce trade unions and strikers: had they not existed in the past, there’s a reasonable chance we’d [...]

Kinnell. Cameron’s Tories are really going for the unexpected candidates. I thought it was far out when they got Zac Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist and one of the consistent frontrunners for most hated Tory on hatemytory.com, to stand for MP.
But now they’re ditching Steve Norris as their attempt at London Mayor. Good. People made [...]

Following the recent vote in the House of Commons, that the House of Lords be 100% elected, Nick Barlow has proposed that they be elected by STV. He notes that one proposal is that lords be elected at the same time as the European election, with a third of the lords being elected each time, [...]

I didn’t get to hear the John Humphreys interview with the Prime Minister when it was broadcast on Friday. Happily, it’s archived on the Today site. The interview itself is available in Real Media format. BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson analyses in Real Media. Most newspapers commented on Saturday; the BBC summarised the interview as [...]

Have you ever heard the story of Emperor Norton? It’s one of those bizarre little curiosities of American history, the San Franciscan who declared himself Emperor of the United States (and sometime Protector of Mexico) in 1859 and remarkably found that many of the inhabitants of his home city accepted him as such. He never [...]

Yesterday, Brendan Barber, the TUC leader, criticised the high pay levels of senior executives and questioned whether their remuneration was justified by their performance. The response from the CBI was predictable:
Complaining about executive pay might give the TUC brownie points with union members, but it ignores the reality of a global economy where there is a fierce battle [...]