Funding the Future

Why am I so worried by AI?

We already have a massive problem with data overload in our society, with most people having little training in how to use the information they are given. AI creates new risks. It also requires that we understand that human decision making remains key to the process of generating human well-being.

Do we really need Ozempic?

Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are claimed to be wonder drugs that will solve the problems of modern living, like obesity, diabetes and dementia. But there are better ways to do that, like going for a walk and stopping eating ultra-processed food. So are they really just mechanisms to perpetuate the profits of Big Pharma, at cost to us all?

The IMF is wrong about growth

The IMF says it is worried about the world having a low growth, high debt future when in reality we need low growth to manage climate change and high levels of government money creation to fund the services that will be the basis of future prosperity. They’ve got their whole logic wrong.

Rachel Reeves’ disastrous budget

Nothing about Rachel Reeves’ budget stacks - and the backlash to some of it is going to be fierce, exist from the rich who got away almost untouched by her changes. If she could get things wrong it seemed she set out to do so. 

There will be no vision for Britain today

If Labour knew what it was for today’s Budget could be the momentous event Rachel Reeves claims it is going to be. But she has no story to tell, and Keir Starmer stole half her lines in a speech earlier this week. All she’s got left is half a plot with a lot of bad news in it.

The definition of working people is Labour black hole

Labour keeps talking about working people and says everyone knows what they mean when they use the term. Except, most people don’t, and the term makes no political sense in the way that they use it. It’s another fine mess they’ve got themselves into, and it’s all their own fault.

Trump scares me rigid

Trump is a fascist. Of course that scares me. But it scares me even more because I don’t think that Labour will do anything to stop the threat of fascism growing in the UK.

Trump scares me rigid

Trump is a fascist. Of course that scares me. But it scares me even more because I don’t think that Labour will do anything to stop the threat of fascism growing in the UK.

Rachel Reeves’ massive blow to the NHS

If, as expected, Rachel Reeves increases employers’ national insurance next week, and she doesn’t compensate the NHS, education, local authorities and other departments for the cost, then the impact on public services is going to be very big – and in some cases bigger than any budget settlement they might get.

Middlemen are killing the UK’s economy

The UK economy is now a mess built on the foundations of everyone sub-contracting everything they can whenever they think that possible. The result is that we have an economy made up of middlemen, all of them raking off their own bit of profit.