Sam Bowman

By now you’ll probably have heard of #Kony2012, a social media campaign that exploded on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube yesterday. The campaign centres on a video documenting the crimes of Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who heads the Lords Resistance Army and is said to have overseen the abduction and press-ganging of over 60,000 children into his militia.

There have been some grim stories from Apple’s factories in China, of a spate of fatal accidents and worker suicides at Foxconn plants, which make parts for iPhones and iPads. The news has caused many to accuse Apple of exploiting Foxconn workers. Some say it’s capitalism in action. This is understandable, but wrong.

Above is an advert released by the EU today, making the case for more EU enlargement. It was pulled almost immediately, and you can see why. The advert inadvertantly exposes the worldview at the heart of many EU types: one that wants a Fortress Europe, closed off from nasty foreigners in Asia, Africa and the Americas. It's hard to see how any internationalist could defend the EU.

Tom Palmer (speaking at the ASI tonight) writes in City AM's excellent Forum section on why he loves free-market capitalism:

Today sees the launch of the Raspberry Pi, a fully-functional computer the size of a credit card selling for about £22. It’s a brilliantly stripped-down device, with a mobile phone charger power socket, a modest (but functional) amount of memory, a few USB ports and a video output that works with most televisions. It comes bundled with Linux and some software that teaches you the basics of computer programming.

Banking is a tricky topic for liberals. The lines between state and private sector are blurred: if a private bank knows it will be bailed out by the government, it won't act with the prudence it should. Banks, trading in state-monopolized money, act as intermediaries between the state and the private sector, and can be the direct beneficiaries of monetary expansions by the Bank of England, like QE. Government interventions in the banking sector create bad incentives.

It's the force that drives prices down and wages up; that lets us take longer holidays and have better quality products. Outside of economics, it's the force that drove our ancestors out of the sea and turned us into human beings. Yep: it's competition time. This week Madsen explains why we can afford things we want without anybody having to intervene to force suppliers to sell things cheaply.

We've reached the halfway mark and, inevitably, the conversation turns to taxation. There will always be someone with a big stick breathing down your neck, creaming off as much of your stuff as he can. The only surprise is how many people want him to take more!