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This headline took me a bit by surprise:
I did not realise that international banks had many ties with one of the last remaining Stalinist totalitarian countries in the world to start with. Live and learn, I guess. August 29th, 2006 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sir Thomas More, played by Paul Scofield in a Man for All Seasons. Even if Tudor history means nothing to you, I definitely urge folk to rent out this movie. It is an object lesson in what integrity means. Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that I got Scofield’s first name wrong. It was Paul, not John. (Dolt!) August 28th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Report here stating that Israel’s response to Hizbollah’s kidnapping of Israeli soldiers took Hizbollah by surprise, particularly the extent and ferocity of the IDF action, according to a Hiz deputy leader. Given the determination of Israel’s armed forces to defend the tiny Jewish state over the years against a host of enemies, why some terrorist organisation like Hizbollah should be surprised is, frankly, surprising. In any event, this interview may suggest that Israel’s campaign to hammer Hizobollah may not be quite the debacle that some commentators have supposed. The jury is still out on the future of the current Israel administration, however. August 26th, 2006 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
British government scientists claim that Britain faces a growing crisis of obesity. And of course such predictions, which carry all the usual credibility of such things, are accompanied by calls on the powers-that-be to “do something” about it, including the likes of bans on advertising for sinful foods, funding for sports and so on. First point: even our waistlines are expanding, is it any of the state’s business? At present, one might argue that because we have socialised medicine in the form of the National Health Service, taxpayers, both slim, chubby and positively enormous, have to pay for the consequences of bad health habits. So the neo-puritans will argue for controls on how we all live to reduce the tax cost of bad habits, which is an example of what economists might call a ‘negative externality’. Surely though, the approach that would encourage good habits and treat citizens like adults is one based on private medical insurance. If people want to cut their insurance premiums, then they will have a strong market-driven incentive to do so. In a private sector model, there may be much more encouragement from health providers to get in shape and give up the triple cheeseburgers. Of course, there will always be feckless people who do not give a damn and end up demanding some kind of handout when things go wrong, but I do not see why the liberties of the majority of us should be tossed away to deal with people who are too weak willed or plain stupid to act differently. In any event, I imagine that as in the days before the NHS came along, there will be health care available for those who cannot afford it – as James Bartholomew pointed out in his book – provided through charitable means. I actually think that a charity which supports doctors might, for example, insist that if a poor person wants to get medical care for his or her obesity-related problems, then as part of any treatment, that person has to do something about their problem. Such an approach may, at first sight, appear to be ‘unaring’ or harsh, but I think there is no greater respect that one can give to one’s fellows than to accord them the ability to act like adults. Goodness, all this venting has made me hungry. Anyway, as I head towards the kitchen, may I recommend this collection of articles by Reason magazine on the obesity issue. Bon appetit! August 25th, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Right, I am taking a break from scribbling about the iniquities of inheritance tax, dumb airline security and so forth to link to this terrific article by Ed Brayton about golfing phenomenon and American icon, Tiger Woods. Even if you do not give a two-foot putt about the game, this article is a fine study of the sheer force of will that has propelled a man to become the master of his sporting world:
Brayton’s blog, Despatches from the Culture Wars, is definitely worth a regular visit, too. August 24th, 2006 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in the Financial Times (sorry, subscription required to get to the link) that normal competitive pressures to improve service are not working in the British airports industry. The privatised British Airports Authority, now owned by Spanish based group Ferrovial, has nothing much to gain, he argues, from improving security because it gets no real benefit in terms of consumer response, but it does have an incentive to boost profits through cost cuts, which must, he says, come into conflict with security. Does he have a point? The way in which BAA operates seems to me to be, at first glance, greatly influenced by government and its regulatory agencies, so I think it would be hard to come down too much on BAA’s neck in this case. The regulatory environment surrounding the current security furore is largely driven by government and looks likely to remain so. So it is probably academic to speculate how security would operate in a ‘pure’ free market environment. If it were possible for people to shop around for different levels of security, it would be interesting to see how businesses would responsd. If airlines could directly negotiate their own security policies with the customer without having to mediate via an airport business or government, then you might get an interesting spectrum. Some airlines would market themselves as high-security, enforcing tough checks on passengers, banning certain types of luggage. If you want to fly on such an airline, fine. Other airlines might go for a more relaxed approach, and passengers would fly in the knowledge that they were taking more of a chance in exchange for not having to put up with intrusive security. Come to that, I am in favour of busineses such as child-free airlines, for reasons spelled out by Jeff Randall recently). And even if BAA were to remain dominant as an airports landowner, if passenger numbers dropped off alarmingly due to heavy-handed security and massive delays, then sooner or later shareholders of BAA would revolt, or sell the business, and new entrants to the airports business would offer something better. The problem with this subject of course is that we have become so used to the idea of a whole network of big airports being run by one former state-established company that it is sometimes hard to imagine something different. But it could change and there is plenty of thinking that can and should be done on how to use the incentives of the market to improve passenger service and give people the security they want. Some related thoughts about airports and privatisation issues here. August 22nd, 2006 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
The spoof post below about how the wretched Tory leader ‘Dave’ Cameron might react to the case for abolishing inheritance tax – a thoroughly good idea – prompted some commentators to wonder about the UK media. It reminded me of an old quote attributed to the late British broadcaster, Brian Redhead, who is supposed to have said (I paraphrase):
August 21st, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
The ‘end-times’ must be upon us. Former Labour cabinet minister, Stephen Byers, has just said something with which I agree: abolish inheritance tax. August 20th, 2006 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
American judge Alex Kozinski, interviewed recently in U.S. magazine Reason, is roughly billed as a ‘libertarian’ judge. He is asked, among various things, for his views on the infamous Kelo eminent domain decision, which relates to the case in which a local municipality in the States won the power to evict people from their own homes in order to redevelop a site for commercial and tax-raising reasons. It is a decision which has scandalised classical liberals and defenders of property rights. Yet Kozinski thinks the decision is fine, and comes up with the following jaw-dropper:
“We live in society”. And so what? This judge is using ‘society’ as a sort of mystical incantation to shut down debate. His argument seems in broad terms to be a sort of utilitarian one: if the interests of a supposed majority are served by seizing the property of some people, then this is okay so long as ‘fair’ compensation is paid. His argument seems not to accept that though certain outcomes may be desirable, that it is necessary for the state to be constrained by certain long-term rules and institutions, most emphatically, by the existence of property rights. The judge’s position seems to be “property rights be damned”. If we imagine there are alternate uses of property that might put a gleam in the eye of a politician with property developers in his back pocket, then there is no limit to the assaults on property rights that could be permitted under the Kozinski formulation. Eminent domain – what we Brits call compulsory purchase – can be justified, if at all, for creating certain facilities like a road, military base or law court that are essential for the peaceful ordering of a society, essential for human life and in the interests of all, and not just because it makes life a bit nicer for some or most of us, whether we be motorists or whatever. What is terrible about the Kelo decision is that it was driven by commercial gain, not a clear public interest such as defence of the realm. After all, if the economic pie really is swelled by people selling their homes for new development, then that would happen in a market, albeit perhaps not in the neat and tidy way favoured by power-grabbing government official. Yet this ‘libertarian’ judge cannot see that. May we be preserved from ‘libertarian’ judges like this. For an excellent book about this subject, see this work by Timothy Sandefur. As an aside, I should point out that the reason I keep focusing on this issue is because American legal rulings and arguments have a habit of travelling across the Big Pond. August 17th, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have never been to the Edinburgh Festival, which has been, over the years, a launchpad for standup comedians and musicians such as Denis Leary. James Glassman, who went to the event this year, observes that Jew-bashing and “gags” about the Holocaust is going down a storm. Quite what that says about the organisers and the clientele, heaven only knows. Being an ardent defender of free speech, Glassman rightly points out that the way to deal with jerks like the “comedian” mentioned its contempt. I hope a fair amount of contempt is indeed delivered. August 16th, 2006 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
A while ago I briefly referred to a book by Simon Winder about Britain in the decades immediately following the Second World War. The book takes the idiosyncratic approach of looking at post-war Britain through the prism of Ian Fleming’s James Bond adventures. I cursorily flicked through the pages and it appeared to be an amusing and quite cleverly-done piece of work. Winder seems to have added something fresh to what is already a crowded cottage history of Bond studies. Winder’s book, at first glance, looked like a zany and rather affectionate recollection of what it was like to grow up as a young English middle class boy in the era of Meccano toys, WW2 comics and James Bond film premieres.I can identify with some of Winder’s own upbringing and views. So I bought the book and sat down to read it to pass away a few hours. What I read was in fact rather different, more serious and more annoying than what I had expected. Winder makes a lot of astute points about post-war British history but a lot of his book is spoiled by an insistent, splenetic hatred of the English upper classes and Britain’s colonial history. He is determined to lay it on a bit thick, in the manner of a rather earnest sixth-former trying to creep up to his leftwing history master. In fairness, he does grasp how Britain, victorious in the war but materially and financially shattered, rapidly lost its global position, overtaken not just by the already-mighty USA but also by France, West Germany and Japan. While Konrad Adenauer was helping to turn the devastated western half of Germany into an economic dynamo – with a little help from Hayek-influenced economics minister Ludwig Erhard – Britain built its ‘New Jerusalem’ of a welfare state, nationalised industries, crushingly-high income taxes, currency controls and a still-heavy military spending burden. Winder gives an easy pass to the Labour government after 1945 and is savage to the Tories under the elderly Churchill and his deputy, Anthony Eden. For Winder, the Tories are a bunch of old pin-stripped duffers more used to shooting grouse in the Scottish highlands than wrestling with Britain’s supposedly rightful position as a meek European power. His attacks on the Tories seem to be more about their accents and backgrounds than on what they actually did or did not, do. He misses the chance to make what I think is the really serious charge against the Tories of the time, as made for example by historian Andrew Roberts in Eminent Churchillians: these men failed to even make the slightest dent in the Attlee socialist creation. They accepted, for example, the trade union legal privileges and regulations that helped pave the way for the economic near-collapse in the 1970s and early 1980s. It is a harsh charge, but Winder does not make it as it would not, I think, occur to him to do so if my judgement of his political views is accurate. → Continue reading: An entertaining but infuriating book about British post-war history August 15th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
August 14th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
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