I’m not a fan of David Cameron, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister. Even though he belongs to the Conservative Party that produced the great Margaret Thatcher, Cameron seems to be a bit of guilt-ridden statist with his finger always in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. The policy results are not […]

Many of us know that Obamacare will be very expensive and that supporters, aided and abetted by the Congressional Budget Office, deliberately low-balled the cost estimates. I’ve also cited my Cato colleague Chris Edwards, who has made a more comprehensive (and well-documented) claim that government officials systematically lie about the cost of new projects. Now […]

Demonstrating that he’s probably not a fan of Mitchell’s Golden Rule, Paul Krugman recently asserted that fiscal austerity has failed in the United Kingdom. Citing Keynesian theory and weak economics numbers, he warned about “the austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion” and says that the British government made a mistake when it decided […]

In June of last year, I posted several examples of idiotic government policy from both the United States and United Kingdom and asked which nation had the dumbest bureaucrats and politicians. Since then, we have found new examples of brain-dead government and jaw-dropping political correctness from England, including an effort to stop children from watching […]

Paul Krugman has told us that awful stories about government-run healthcare in Britain “are false.” I guess this means that the media must be dominated by conservative liars, since we keep getting reports about substandard care and needless deaths (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And the Boston Globe and Associated Press must be part of this vast […]

Even though Paul Krugman has told us that horror stories about government-run healthcare in Britain “are false,” we keep getting reports about substandard care and needless deaths (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Well, let’s add another chilling report to the list. Here’s some of what the UK-based Telegraph just […]

bout a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part […]

The Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, is infamous for conveniently forgetting to pay tax on $80,000 of income and then getting kid-glove treatment from the IRS when his crime was uncovered. Not only did Geithner avoid even a slap on the wrist, he was confirmed to head the department that includes the IRS. So […]

The United Kingdom has one of the most statist healthcare systems in the world. Indeed, my Cato colleague Mike Tanner produced an excellent study showing that the U.K. system is  more rigid and centralized than what is found even in nations such as Germany and France. Not surprisingly, this has generated terrible results for the […]

I’ve written several times about the sometimes-deadly shortcomings of government-run healthcare in the United Kingdom (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), so I like to think I’m relatively immune to being surprised. But this story from the Telegraph is a shocking combination of tragedy and farce. Some regional healthcare bureaucracies are […]