Analysis

Paying for Universal Healthcare

Otto von Bismarck looms large in German history.  He unified the Prussian states and became the first Chancellor of the fledgling German Empire in 1871.

Ironically, the man known as the Iron Duke – who was aggressively anti-Socialist – presided over the introduction of the world’s first health insurance bill in 1883.  His Social Insurance program found many imitators across the world.

Free the people by freeing their bank accounts

It didn't happen and it wouldn't have worked anyway. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, was expected to legislate that every bank in the UK provide a free bank account to every adult. No money, just the account.

Which is why it was silly. Just about anyone can walk into a UK bank and open a savings account. And legislating that banks provide the account leads to the question: how is this to be coordinated so that I don't end up with 50 bank accounts, one from each bank?

Administration to Creation - Microsoft recovers its mojo

Back in 2006, Microsoft was on top of the world.  Then they released Vista and Apple released the iPhone.

A company with Microsoft’s scale can drift into faded grandeur over decades, like the last years of the Ottoman Empire, before finally vanishing beneath the weight of history.  An efficient and capable administration can keep the wheels spinning and replace worn-out cogs.  What it cannot do is invent new things that will delight, inspire and renew.  That is the province of leaders and visionaries.

The unforgivable cost of state-protected monopolies

“A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate,” wrote Adam Smith in 1776.