Wanted: a warrior against decline
Plus: how nukes stopped WWIII, and the hidden taxes on your new home
Watch out: the AIs are teaming up. OpenAI has revealed that some of the advanced systems it is testing created their own secret message board where they could share ideas on how to carry out hacks.
Here in Britain, the tech frontier is moving a bit slower. The first self-driving taxis have finally been approved in London – but San Francisco has had driverless cabs for several years. At least Wayve’s London fleet won’t come with a man waving a red flag.
And if you haven’t listened yet to my interview with Alex Tabarrok on the economic illiteracy of our ‘equal value’ pay laws, he has posted about it on the Marginal Revolution blog. Watch the whole conversation on this week’s episode of The Capitalist.
Below you’ll find all the latest pieces from CapX, plus what we’re reading from around the web.
Marc Sidwell
Editor, CapX
Today’s Takes
Fresh thinking from CapX
We need you to fix Britain
Karl Williams
‘After she had left office, Thatcher remarked: “The Centre for Policy Studies was where our Conservative revolution began”.’
The CPS is looking for a new Research Director. If you’re a seasoned research professional who wants to fight for a high-growth, low-tax, small-state Britain built on personal and economic freedom, then this is the job for you. The application deadline is 17 August. Read More
Are linkers still worth the risk?
Damian Pudner
‘Inflation-linked gilts remain useful, pension funds and insurers still need them, and abandoning a large and liquid market would be perverse. The question is one of scale and price.’
In 1981 Chancellor Geoffrey Howe introduced index-linked gilts. They allowed the Treasury to secure a reliable source of cheap long-term finance and save £86.9 billion by 2026. But just because linkers brought savings in the past doesn’t mean that issuing more is a good idea. The Treasury needs to justify their value to today’s taxpayers. Read More
The hidden taxes on your new home
Alan Hibben
‘In practice, the buyer of a private home pays – indirectly – for things that politicians frame as contributions from developers.’
The buyer of every new home is paying extra to fund affordable housing, local roads, biodiversity credits, planning bureaucracy and the time it takes to navigate our planning system. Yet they are never shown the bill. Britain needs legislated transparency for every new-build sale, so households can see where their money is actually going. Read More
Best of the Web
Borrowing isn't a growth strategy
Andrew Lilico, The Telegraph🔒
‘Taxes and spending divert the economy away from the web of contracts, trade, property and leisure that people choose for themselves more efficiently than any government central planner could ever hope to do.’
The new Chancellor John Healey reportedly wants to raise spending and borrowing to drive growth – the same bet Rachel Reeves placed before him. But why expect a different result this time, given Britain has already run this experiment and it didn’t work? Even on the Left, there are more promising routes to growth than this. Read More
Why nuclear weapons have made us safer
Alex Alfirraz Scheers, The Spectator
'In an age of geostrategic uncertainty, the answer is not to abandon nuclear deterrence, but to sharpen it.'
Nuclear weapons rewrote the logic of great-power conflict. Their value lies in the threat they present, not on the battlefield – there have been 20 nuclear crises since 1945, and not one escalated into war. With three great powers now competing for dominance, nuclear parity between them can still keep the peace. Read More
The decline of British academia
The Capitalist: Alex Tabarrok on equal pay
And if you want more...
– The thoroughbred paradox (Works in Progress)
– The case for beautiful data centres (UnHerd)
– Are we already in the Singularity? (Axios)
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