Hot on the heels of yesterday's post, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, chaired by Alan Milburn, have released their first annual report. BBC coverage of the report is here. The findings are stark. First, real incomes have been flat-lining for a long time, meanwhile prices have been going up. Second, for the first time in over a century, the current generation of children are going to be worse off than their parents. Third, social mobility (i.e., the ability of people to better their lives and those of their offspring) is dying. For me, the big question is do politicians really care about this issue? If so, what can they do about it?
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.