“Warren Buffett said that the one thing that really changes your life is the private jet.”
– Bob Hersov, entrepreneur and the man behind NetJets. Actually, using a private jet need not be just for the mega rich.
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AA Gill, the Scottish columnist and restaurant reviewer, has always come across in my eyes as a man who wears chips on his shoulders like military epaulettes, which for an upper middle class lad seems a bit odd. He does not like the English much, does he? Even so, read the article, as it contains some painful truths as well as some unfair bile. He makes the point that the English/British are not always great adopters of life in New York. I have been to the city many times and saw this clubby sort of behaviour a few times. We Brits do not seem to realise how rude we can strike Americans. When I read of Americans being cut short at dinner parties or insulted by Brit tourists, I cringe, even though I tell myself that I am not responsible for the behaviour of my fellow countrymen and women. I feel much the same way when I overhear some idiot in Paris or Milan refusing to speak the local language and assuming that everyone speaks English rather than French or Italian. I would be interested to know what Jim Bennett, the Anglosphere man, makes of this sort of behavioural friction. It may be just a matter of Gill being an arsehole. But he may also have a point. March 21st, 2007 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Today is ‘Budget Day’, when the UK government lays before Parliament the amount of money it needs to raise to pay for its spending. Since the days of William Pitt, Robert Peel and William Gladstone in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the length of the tax code has grown at a terrifying pace. I came across this from a firm of accountants commenting on today’s performance by Gordon Brown:
(Wall Street Journal, print edition) No wonder accountants love Gordon. There is a sort of unhealthy symbiotic relationship between the whole financial services sector and Brown’s tax morass: the finance minister increases the complexity of the tax code; the accountants make money explaining this to their clients and helping some people to avoid it where possible. This in turn creates a whole industry of people with a vested interest in complexity. A flat-tax, for example, would put a lot of these financial whizzkids out of business and force them to do something more useful instead. At a recent discussion with City types about this, this point was made very clear to me. Assuming we have taxes at all, they should be summarised on two sides of A4 paper, tops. The cost savings to business and individuals would be enormous. Today, Brown grabbed superficial headlines by cutting the standard tax rate to 20p from 22p and cut the rate of corporation tax to 28p from 30p. It sounds like a good step and there will be some net winners from this. Good. However, as is always the case with this sly and driven character, the details are less flattering. The removal of the 10p rate for low earners, adjustments to National Insurance and corporate capital allowances means the overall balance is neutral rather than towards a smaller state. The state will take about 45-46% of UK GDP, compared with 37% in 1997 when Ken Clarke was in Brown’s job (it is worth remembering that Clarke is regarded as a leftwing Tory, but in certain respects his record is pretty good, or at least not as bad as it might be). Watching the House of Commons debate on Brown’s speech, several things struck me. Tory leader David Cameron was plainly rattled by Brown playing the tax-cut card – however bogus a ploy Brown’s is. It might – just might – be enough of a shock to the Tories to realise that competing over which party can push up taxes the most and not get caught might not be a smart strategy with the voters. Brown is trying to pose as a tax-cutter. How odd it is that the Labour Party is now trying to make the running in this direction. Even though it is all hooey, it is interesting to see how Brown’s gambit may pay off. The whole point of this budget, as far as I can see, is in Brown trying to squash Cameron: stealing some of his ‘Green clothes’ while also trying to persuade middle-income voters that Labour is actually more of a tax-cutting party than the Tories. Even if this is utter rubbish – it is – the very fact that Brown wants to create such an impression is interesting. I am increasingly coming round to the view that libertarians and free-marketeer Tories should let Cameron realise that they prefer to keep in Labour than let the Tories win on a Big Government agenda. March 21st, 2007 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Considering the fashionable wail that Britons are a dumbed-down lot, there is a lot of interest in the fiction of Jane Austen at the moment. BBC and other channels are vying, so it appears, to see which one can carry the most screenings of Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility or Emma. More productions are expected. Last night, yours truly and Mrs Pearce went along to see ‘Becoming Jane’, a film which tries to capture the moment in Austen’s life when she fell for a dashing if roguish young London lawyer, tried to elope with him, but failed to carry off her plans when she realised that a whole brood of relations depended on her young beau’s uncertain income for support. The lawyer’s rich uncle, played with menacing brio by Ian Richardson, blocks the marriage (Richardson is brilliant in the film). Austen ended her days unmarried, channelling her experiences of forbidden love into fiction. Her life sounds quite sad in certain ways although we have some of the finest fiction in the English language as a result. Some people wax lyrical or get very cross about Jane Austen. I take a fairly sympathetic line. Toby Young, writing in this week’s Sunday Telegraph magazine (no web link), argues that she is one of the greatest English novelists, a stylist and master of irony, able to catch the foibles and weaknesses of people and also able to spot the virtues and goodness in the most unlikely people. On the other hand, Frances Wilson, writing in the same magazine, says Austen was a money-grabbing snob, a reactionary (horrors!) whose characters all too often forsook the path of true love and chose money and position instead. That verdict seems unfair. Take Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennett initially recoils from Mr Darcy (this is an age when a man is Mr X rather than Dave or Steve) precisely because she fears he will be a snob and a materialists because of his substantial fortune and large country estate. Wilson, who I suspects projects her own liberal sentiments onto a much more conservative age, cannot imagine why Bennett does not go for the more supposedly hunky Mr Wickham instead. But it is Austen’s brilliance as a writer to draw out how an initial lack of attraction can, after a time, turn into something very different. Irony, and the ability to see through the surface of things, is what makes Austen’s fiction so compelling. It is not ‘realistic’ in the dreary, PC sense that she packs it with large lectures about the Napoleonic War, or the Industrial Revolution, or the tumults in Ireland and the New World. She chose a very particular time and place – rural, Southern England – and the preoccupations of minor landed gentry. It does not try to make grand socio-economic ‘points’, although clearly, in its reticent way, it is a very conservative form of fiction, like the crime fiction of PD James. We do not, to take a different author, damn Joseph Conrad for being ‘limited’ because his works are often set at sea. To go back to my first point, it is remarkable that, at least among what is left of the novel-reading classes, Austen remains so popular, and not just with women, although she is seen perhaps unfairly as a writer on women for women. There is a timeless quality about her stories and her themes. In 200 years’ time, I am not sure if anyone will be reading Norman Mailer. They might though, still be reading the woman who wrote this:
March 18th, 2007 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am watching a F1 motor-racing guy drive a racing car with a map of the Earth on it. It is a Honda and apparently the idea is to break with the usual sponsorship of tobacco firms etc and instead “raise awareness about ecological issues”, according to the television commentator. So let me get this right: a F1 car that does more than 200mph and uses a fair amount of petrol – that evil greenhouse effect stuff – is attempting to “raise awareness of ecologicial issues”. Think of how much Co2 is pumped out by all these F1 racing teams from Ferrari, Benetton, McLaren, etc. Think of how much of the stuff is pumped out transporting the drivers, mechanics, press flacks and of course the crowds to places like Melbourne or Monaco. The idea that motorsport has anything to do with saving the planet from doom is preposterous. Has this most red-blooded of sports, once famed for dudes like Ascari, James Hunt or Fangio, become as pussified and guilt-ridden as everything else? F1 cars are supposed to be in bright colours, with emblems of cigarettes and naked women on them, like old WW2 American military aircraft. It is all part of the essential naughtiness involved in driving a car very fast round a track, which if you think about it, is one of the more pointless ways to spend an afternoon, and all the more wonderful for it. You have to hand it to these guys in the Honda racing team. The Japanese are unfairly accused of not having much sense of humour, but this is one of the best jokes I have seen for a while. Keep it going guys. March 17th, 2007 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Okay, enough serious stuff from me. Quick question to you all – what is the funniest book/film you know, and why? My personal favourites include Dr Strangelove, Animal House, A Shot in the Dark, Code of the Woosters and Carry on up the Khyber. March 16th, 2007 | 62 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sorry to link to a depressing story on such a beautiful Friday morning here in ol’ London town, but this Bloomberg article on what is happening in Zimbabwe is a good read – about the monster who has crippled that beautiful country and the desperation of the people living in it. Just think of the missed opportunity: a country with some of the richest natural resources in the world, a great climate for agriculture, English-speaking. Zimbabwe, liberated from the worst aspects of white rule and under the rule of law, could have been the Australia or New Zealand of southern Africa. I fear it will serve as a textbook example instead of the evils of political cronyism and warmed up Stalinist economics. I have heard it said many times that a country with natural resources is almost cursed, while a tiny island with no resources other than the entrepreneurial gusto of its inhabitants is blessed. Zimbabwe certainly adds to that idea. March 16th, 2007 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am not the shockable type but this preamble to an article singing the praises of the tv hit, 24, had a pretty bracing effect on yours truly:
To use the word “normalise” next to the word “torture” is extraordinary. Maybe 24 does raise the issue of using torture as a desperate but necessary act, but I hardly imagine that the viewer is left thinking that there is anything “normal” about it, like brewing a cup of tea in the morning for breakfast or taking out the garbage. From what I recall, torture is seen as shocking, and rightfully so. Think also of the scene in Dirty Harry when Clint shoots and then beats up the psycho. You “know”, unlike in real life, that the baddie is a baddie and hence do not feel bad when he gets the Eastwood treatment. Real life is different, which is why we have pesky laws like no jail without trial, etc. For what it is worth I enjoy 24. I have no idea what the programme-makers would think of their programme being thus described by the American Conservative. For a brilliant demolition of those who use the “ticking bomb” scenario in movies and books to rationalise torture, this by Jim Henley is a must-read. (Update: I should in fairness point out that the American Conservative article makes it pretty clear that it loathes the show, although the way in which the introductory paragraph is written sucks the reader into thinking that conservatives support the practice. I guess I fired off my angry post a bit too quick. That said, it does appear that some of the “appeal” of the show is in how it unashamedly portrays the use of torture. Remind me not to ever watch this show again). March 15th, 2007 | 48 comments - (Comments are closed)
The late FA Hayek once memorably denounced the way in which socialistically inclined writers used the word ‘social’ to shred any word with which it was conjoined of meaning. For instance, ‘social justice’ begs the question of what sort of ‘justice’ is involved: it is a term which implies that one accepts, for instance, the notion that wealth and property is held collectively and therefore must be ‘distributed’ in accordance with some sort of pattern deemed to be just. Social sucks the content out of the word it is put against, just as the weasel sucks the contents of an egg (hence ‘weasel word’). So when I heard that the UK government had created a “social bank” to seize unclaimed money from “dormant” bank accounts, I knew what to expect:
What is so troubling about this creation is the assumption, baked into the very idea of this body, that wealth that has not been claimed for a set period is automatically the property of the State. In practical terms, it may be the case that very few people will be inconvenienced by this action, and for all I know, much good may be achieved by this bank. But the presumption on which it rests is a further step, a further sign, that property rights are under assault in this country. For some enlightenment, meanwhile, I strongly recommend this collection of essays on property rights. I somehow doubt that Chancellor Gordon Brown has time to read it as he prepares his last budget next Wednesday, but it he could do a lot worse. March 15th, 2007 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Veteran academic and writer Tibor Machan pens a nice defence of outsourcing here, using the example of going to the barber’s to get his hair cut. Like the 19th Century liberal economics writer Frederick Bastiat, he knows how to take a very simple example to demonstrate the absurdity of the idea that there is a ‘fixed’ amount of work out there to be performed, and that somehow, certain people have a prior claim to your wealth and time. They do not. March 15th, 2007 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Enjoying a bit of time off work this afternoon, sitting outside on my back terrace in deepest Pimlico (oh, the wonders of wireless!), I decided to stop bothering about the patronising berk who leads the Tories and came across this story:
Big seas? I wonder if yachting or swiming on the beach is possible?
All that liquid methane – do they have cows on that planet? Seriously, the material being discovered by these probes is astonishing. At a time when our horizons appear to be shrinking in a fear-mongering political climate, it is nice to remember that some organisations, even state ones like NASA, are making discoveries like this. I guess a libertarian purist might object to the NASA funding model, but I am sure privately-funded ventures could pull this sort of thing off, if not in quite the same scale initially. March 14th, 2007 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
In having another bite at the Green issue, one thing struck me as I surfed around the Net looking at some of the comments made by people about the idea of the Tories’ trying to stop people from flying to holiday and business destinations. Some people genuinely seem to feel that a crackdown on global warming, and hence a halt to rising sea levels, is good for the poor. So we capitalist zealots should stop trying to argue that Tory leader David Cameron or Labour’s Tony Blair are acting out of snobbish disdain for Essex Man and the latter’s desire to go to Malaga for a cheap holiday. Oh no. I guess it is true that if sea levels do rise as much as the gloomier scientists suggest, and the Earth gets progressively hotter, that poor people will suffer disproportionately from that. Air conditioning costs money. Buying a home away from a flood plain also costs money. I recall that about 3 years ago, hundreds, in fact thousands of French elderly people died because all the pharmacies were shut for the August holidays and they could not get treatment. That is what poverty does – it cuts your optiions and means of escape from trouble. So maybe David Cameron is acting out of paternalistic concern for the poor — in the future. And that is the kicker. Even if global warming is man-made and can be reversed, the benefits of such an expensive exercise will not come through for decades, centuries, or even longer. How can the interests of a guy who cannot afford an expensive flight be set against the interests of someone living in 2300? Why should a politician, answerable to an electorate, sacrifice or ask to sacrifice its interests for the interests of people in such a long time to come, and over a theory or set of theories that are, at best, not proven to the standards of a court of law? We have been beastly to Cameron and his ilk on this site lately, and with ample justification. If Cameron wants to explain quite why the ordinary citizen should be shafted, yet again, by some grand project to make the world a better place in centuries to come, let him make that case. Meanwhile, my boss, not the most excitable of men, said, in a quite unsolicited moment of rage this morning, that Cameron was a “communist”. He is not even a rightwing Tory voter. I wonder if this view is starting to spread. March 14th, 2007 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
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