Ever since Marilyn Monroe’s less famous namesake, James, came up with his Doctrine almost two centuries ago, America has toyed with isolationism. They tried it in the First World War, and it didn’t work. They tried it in the Second World War, and it didn’t work. And Barack Obama has spent his presidency unsuccessfully trying…
Send in the clowns
One of the highlights of my week is reading The Economist from cover to cover (normally starting with the Obituary at the wrong end). Several hours of sanity and good syntax. Come August and the Silly Season each year, I know I can take my foot off the pedal and glide through the depleted pages…
Who said tax is boring?
I was at dinner with friends late last year when one of the female guests announced that her husband was taking her skiing 'for her special birthday'. My in-built accountant's abacus went into immediate action calculating the lady's possible age. This took into account the ages of her children, her looks, and the milestones of her…
A Sheikh’s home is his English castle
'Cry — God for Harry! England and Saint George!' This year marks the 600th anniversary of King Henry V's victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt. While Britain has had quite a successful run over the years overrunning other countries, it is almost exactly 950 years since Albion was last invaded. (We prefer to connect the…
Yes we can!
2014 was the year when 'Yes, we can' finally became 'No, I couldn't'. It is all over bar the shouting, and Mr Obama is reduced to bumping wedding couples off Hawaiian golf courses so that he can get on with one of the remaining functions of his office. In fairness, it isn't just the President…
Fish without an aye?
The only thing I am prepared to learn from this Scottish Referendum lark is that, if you give people an overdose of democracy, their brains come flying out of their ears. By the time some of you read this, the whole farce may well be over - decided one way or the other: the only statistical…
Bits in pieces
"Look mum. No hands!" It is every parent's nightmare to be forced to watch helplessly as their 7 year-old, with the new-found independence of two wheels, goes careering fearlessly along the uneven pavement in front of the house. Thanks to a guardian angel, the escapade normally ends with nothing more than a toppling skid or collision…
Lies, damned lies and tax rates
Romney 25%! Gingrich 12.5%! Santorum 17.5%! Perry 20%! Remember the old Fair Ground game where you had to guess the number of candies in a jar? If you got the nearest number you won a massive, totally inflammable, furry toy that Mum and Dad refused to take home in the car but relented when they couldn't find a big…
To tax or not to tax…..
Forced to summarize Israel's international tax legislation in half a sentence, I could not better Shakespeare's all time bogeyman - Richard III: "Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time/ Into this breathing world, scarce half made up". Tax legislation in the first half-century following Israel's independence adopted, what might now be termed, the "Mitt Romney Approach" - …
The best of times, the worst of times
As 2011 prepares to hang up its boots, closure is finally coming to one of the finest specimens of legislative panic in recent Israeli history. With the coalition government resembling a concoction of weird and wonderful characters from the Complete Works of Charles Dickens and the middle-classes appealing “Please sir, we want some more”, the…
Tax Break 