We're generally told that the entire economy is slipping down that slope to hell in that proverbial handbasket. and yet when we go and look at what people are saying, away from the politically oriented opinion pages, in those very same newspapers we find rather a different story. Things seem to be getting better, perhaps not as fast as we would like, but better they are indeed getting. From the Guardian: 

Roger Bootle here is nominally telling us about how difficult a problem high executive pay is. We don't think that's a problem but that's not our point here. Rather, to examine one of the numbers being used to bolster the argument. We don't think this number is telling us what people think it is:

We've had our differences with Ms. Klein before. We recall a central tale in her most recent offering: she complained that the WTO's insistence on lifting local content rules on Canadian solar power reduced in some manner the fight against climate change. When, of course, allowing people to install cheaper Chinese made solar panels rather than more expensive Canadian made ones will, presumably, increase the number of such panels installed.

We're continually told that housing in London is expensive just because there's no land to build upon. And of course we can't let the place expand outwards because green belt. Thus, well, everyone should just get used to it. It's not entirely obvious that this is the true cause as this little story shows:

This really does have to be one of the sillier pieces of economic policy now being tried out. The East African Community has proposed banning the import of second hand clothes.