Anglo Irish - a bunch of stupid bankers

Vanity Fair’s Michael Lewis writes about economic disasters, and spells out exactly why countries like Ireland and Iceland should never be left in charge of their own economies.  

It’s also a shrewd warning to people in Scotland over the dangers of pushing for independence from the strong economic reslience of the United Kingdom.  

“Ireland’s financial disaster shared some things with Iceland’s. It was created by the sort of men who ignore their wives’ suggestions that maybe they should stop and ask for directions, for instance. But while Icelandic males used foreign money to conquer foreign places — trophy companies in Britain, chunks of Scandinavia — the Irish male used foreign money to conquer Ireland. Left alone in a dark room with a pile of money, the Irish decided what they really wanted to do with it was to buy Ireland. From one another.”  

Mr Cameron is selling you lies

Ben Goldacre, again, in today’s Guardian, methodically demonstrates how the Tories are deliberately misleading people on the reasons for cuts in health care spending, by cherry-picking the research that supports their policies, while ignoring the overwhelming evidence that refutes them.

“Here is what politicians apparently cannot understand: it’s absolutely fine to make policy based on ideology, whim, faith, principles, and all the other things we are used to. It’s also fine for evidence to be mixed. And it’s absolutely fine if your reforms aren’t supported by existing evidence: you just shouldn’t claim that they are.”