The Mayoral Election
Oliver Kamm
urges Oona King to stand as an independent, or failing that urges his readers to write-in her name on the ballot paper.
I might be wrong, and Oliver's knowledge of British politics is far greater than mine, but might he have been reading too many American politics thrillers? Surely writing Oona King's name on the
ballot paper won't make it a vote for her, it'll simply be a spoilt ballot paper.
Labels: Mayor
Things of which I am in favour
This is just to let Larry know that I am going to respond to
his request for seven thing of which I am in favour, it's just taking time to compile them.
Labels: Positive thinking
London in colour in the 1950s and 1960s
Not quite up with the Chalmers Butterfield picture for clarity (some seem to be taken from documentaries or films of some sort), but they make up in quantiy.
1950s is here and the
1960s (with many pages) is here (via Dgeezer).
ps And the
1970s!
Labels: London colour
Wii can cure everything
Every week there's a new
story about problems playing with a Wii can solve. One imagines that if you could somehoe combine this with a Citizen's Basic Income and a Land Value Tax, 2006 and 2007's cure-alls, the world would be a wonderful place.
Labels: panaceas
1936 Olympics
I found the IOC's mammoth (and lavish) official report - big (75Mb or something) pdf
here and part II
here - into the 1936 Berlin Olympics fascinating - a very detailed guide into the whole logistics or organising such an event, and with 1930s technology. Some nice early pictures of Hitler and Dr Goebbels interspersed with wishy-washy Olymplic Boy Scout stuff, the aside that the committee, with their new gold chains, began proceedings by deciding Tokyo should the 1940 Olympics destination, and an interesting guide to how the Olympic Village operated, including different nation's culinary requests (the loyal Australians wanted 'English cusine' whilst the French and Italians wanted wine (although the latter heavily watered it down),and the problems of dealing with highly strung female athletes.
All the rest are
here if you're interested.
Labels: Nazis, Olympics
"I want a man with nuclear weapons"
Is apparently what Carla Bruni was
saying to her friends. Given she lives in Paris,
Nicholas Sarkozy must have been thinking he was a dead-cert. The pressure! But of course there was some competition - maybe this explains recent geopolitical events.
Of the Five Treaty nuclear states, aside from Sarkozy, she could have gone for:
George Bush - Quite a fit man, got a lot better nuclear weapons than anyone else, and loads of nuclear aircraft carriers. But maybe a little American?
Gordon Brown - Now we understand his desire to replace Trident. But I just don't see it.
Vladamir Putin - More nuclear weapons than anyone else, but they're a bit rusty. Likes to talk about them though, so Ms Bruni might like that.
Wen Jiabao - "My brain is like a computer", he apparently said, which doesn't sound like what Ms Bruni is after.
There are some others. India and Pakistan, North Korea. Israel - I can imagine E
hud Olmert with head-in-hands, saying to himself, "That deliberate ambiguity about my having nuclear weapons doesn't look so clever now". And then there is Iran - too late now, I'm afraid.
Labels: Nuclear weapons
Athletes shouldn't be our China policy
Should our athletes boycott this year's Beijing Olympics? Nick Cohens in a reasonably interesting article says
yes.I don't know whether he is appealing to individual athletes or to the Government to impose something, but in both cases I am more persuaded by the objections he lists in his final paragraph, which basically are that in the absence of any economic or financial sanctions, I think tellin, or even expecting, athletes to boycott the Olympic Games is rather unfair [1]- putting all of the onus on them rather than us.
There doesn't seem to be enormous pressure on anyone else in the country to make the slightest effort or suffer the slightest cost in their relations with China, or must desire to do so either. All of us interact with or benefit from China via various forms of trade, e.g. buying a flat screen TV or microwave (I'm writing this on a computer made in China), getting cheap new clothes, visiting the Great Wall, having an account at Morgan Stanley, etc. All of these are reliant on the Chinese government to some degree or another, and all of them can be reduced at a relatively small cost.
For athletes this is not really the case - the Olympics is the pinancle of many athletes' careers, and only comes around ever four years, so it's not like they will get many chances at performing in it. Furthermore it's not the athletes fault that it is in Beijing.
One might argue that the Olympics is linked to the government and the government's prestige, but so are the major industries and state investment funds.
It's not that I don't believe in sporting boycotts per se, but surely they must be an addition to economic and financial boycotts [2], not as something done instead? If the government can lead trade missions to China, the public buy masses of cheap imports, and investment banks - with large operations in the UK, if not actually British owned - receive cash injections, why can't or even shouldn't an athlete perform at the Beijing Olympics? [3]
[1] It's of course possible that Nick Cohen might have reduced his expenditure on China-linked goods and services to a bare minimum, which would certainly give him the right to demand similar actions of others.
[2] I don't think we should impose financial or economic sanctions on China as a country.
[3] There is also the question of how much they would care if it was limited to us, but I'm not sure that is the main point of such a boycott.
Labels: China, sport
The house of the future in the 1950s
I quite
like it. A shower that uses hot air to blow you dry - that's a good invention. And you do sort of get pans that do the cooking themselves.
Labels: Daily Mail, Future
Familes hit by £1,300 rise in cost of living
This is exactly
the sort of article which demonstrates the Telegraph's (and other papers of course) shift from being a newspaper to a viewspaper. It's an article designed only to be a political statement, and as such its not accurate and its incoherent.
The figures in the table are not particularly inaccurate (
see here for a very comprehensive summary) - I think mortgage payments have risen faster than that, they perhaps are including rent (only up 3% year-on-year). Food, however hasn't risn that fast, it's up 6% year-on-year, not 11%. They've extrapolated from basic goods, which have risen (such as milk, bread, butter and eggs - - all of which are in double figures), ignoring the fact that much of that expenditure is on things that haven't risen so much (beef and lamb have fallen, for instance). Also according to the RPI electricity and gas bills are down year-on-year.
But that isn't the main problem with the table. That is that it ignores other items of expenditure - e.g. electrical goods and clothes, which are lower. That's why the RPI is up 4% year-on-year, not 9% as their table suggests.
There seems two lines of argument they could take:
1. The CPI/RPI is not representative of the 'cost of living'
2. The CPI/RPI is not representative of an important sub-group's cost of living
The first is partly true of the CPI, as it doesn't include mortgage payments. This accounts for about 0.9%, ie virtually all of the difference between the two measures. But it doesn't apply to the RPI (it does to RPI-X, which is at 3.1%). In fact the RPI is pretty broad-based, so it is hard to say that it doesn't reasonably accurately capture the 'cost of living'.
But of course it is a national average, it isn't representative of any one person's cost of living. Here though where it becomes incoherent. If it doesn't capture pensioner's or the poor's cost of living, as Ruth Lea claims because they buy more essential goods, then that whopping figure for mortgage payments shouldn't be there, which in fact is the most important component of the article's argument. Furthermore the Telegraph constantly tells us that for the 'middle classes' inflation is higher than the true rate. So it's higher for the elderly, the poor, and the middle classes. That can't be true.
No-one is arguing that prices of certain goods are rising quickly, and indeed that prices of all goods are rising faster than they have been. But one has to try to make the argument make sense. It then quotes Phill Hammond, the Shadow Treasury Secretary:
"These figures make a mockery of Gordon Brown's boast of low inflation.''Thanks to his economic incompetence, ordinary families are now faced with soaring food and fuel costs. With real take-home pay falling, they will be more squeezed than ever."
There are so many questions the journalist should have asked Phillip Hammond. Clearly he doesn't believe the RPI is a good measure of inflation - how would he change it? Will a Conservative government raise tax thresholds and benefits by a higher rate to compensate? Will a Conservative government intervene in the price of foods such as wheat to reduce them? And does he understand what 'real take home pay' means?
Anyway it's interesting to look at the table of prices since 1987 to see what goods have actually fallen in price - not in real terms - but in actual cash terms, ie the price tag is lower now than it was then. Audio-visual equipment has fallen in price by 87%, toys by 13%. Both seem about right. Two others which are quite interesting - clothes (which the Telegraph calls a 'luxury'), which is not that surprising as any trip to M&S will tell you, and perhaps more surprising, new cars (3% down, whilst maintaining them has risen by 200%). This does chime with my own memory - my mother bought a Vauxhall Cavalier in 1992 for £14k, which seems about the retail price today (for a far superior car - I think the RPI does adjust for quality differences but I'm not sure), with big discounts if you shop around.
Labels: Econnomics, New
"This is a very difficult decision"
Here is a heartrending
story about how the cruel hand of the State can lead to families having to split up. Dermot Smurfit, an Irish paper tycoon and part of a family worth £500m, is facing an additional £30,000 tax bill as a non-domicile. He feels he might have to leave the country:
"This is a very difficult decision, since I would be leaving my wife and children behind," he said.
The hardest decision, one might think, but utterly understandable given the circumstances. George Osborne - who electrified the political debate with the idea to tax non-doms a flat rate - should hang his head in shame. God knows or cares what Darling should do.
Labels: economics
The possibilities are endless
I've already ordered a few of
these 'anti-teenager' devices for my own use - very handy in any pub or on a bus/train. But there seems a whole gamut of ways in which it could be used for the national good, e.g. one placed on the England goalkeeper during a World Cup game should ensure an attacking team (although it might end up with Michael Owen defending).
I don't know if beats the old method of stopping youths gathering - playing classical music. They do this at Kensal Green tube station, and it always gives me the fear that there's about to be a cinematic slow-motion massacre as a leave the station. I noticed they were doing it at West Hampstad tube station the other day, so maybe it is catching on.
Labels: kids
Things I learnt today
From Iain Dale, of whom most of you will be aware (he's a Tory PPC I think and used to own a bookshop):
Over the last few weeks a huge amount of damage has been done to the British blogosphere. Blogwars have broken out between various parties which have made us all appear like obsessive schoolschildren who have nothing better to do with our time than flame each other.
I had no idea. I'm not sure if that's because what he describes is the normal state of affairs in British blogging, or because I just don't visit the sites involved in this. Still we should all be grateful that we are in such a harmonious corner over here, where the only flame wars between thousands of commenters happen amongst my million Chinese readers.
Update: I don't wish to take sides in the dispute, as I have no idea what it is about or among who it is being conducted. And I just spent 5 minutes trying to. So this is just an observation - if the quote "Invaluable view of Westminster Village" by Angus Robertson, an SNP MP, is the best you can come up with I would leave it off my site.
Labels: Blogging
Consumption v Income
Interesting
article in the NYT on how income equality is radically narrowed when you instead compare consumption equality. The top 5th (in 2006) of households had income of $149,963 a year in 2006, whilst the bottom 5th had income of $9,974, a ratio of 15 times. In ters of expenditure, however, the top 5th spend $69,863, whilst the bottom 5th spent $18,153, slightly less than 4 times as much.
The reason for this is partly higher taxes, but mainly, as shown in the first chart - 'financial flows'. For the top 5th these were a positive $47,171, whilst for the bottom fifth they were a negative $10,716.
What are these flows? Asset sales, dissaving and insurance policies, apparently. Here then lies the rub - to the extent that one's income doesn't vary much from year-to-year, then asset sales and dissaving (and to some degree insurance policies) of an amount higher than your income is clearly unsustainable. Furthermore savings of $47,000 a year are clearly available future consumption. So to what extent this really represents more similar consumption patterns probably depends on the churn of income distribution, which most reports say is pretty low in the US [1]
The article also has an excellent graphic showing the adoption of various consumer goods by the US population this century. It rather loses its way in explaining the point of this chart:
To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed
which they say is basically cheaper consumer goods. But I don't think that makes sense, consumption is
always a better guide to living standards than income, at least in the short run, if you could consume without any income you'd be fine. The issue more seems to me that perhaps financial liberalisation means income and consumption can more easily get out of line, or if it is to do with consuming more than your income in bad times and vice-versa then it is to do with greater income variability.
But anyway the chart is fascinating. I'm not sure it shows as strongly as the authors think that consumer goods are adopted quicker nowadays, although it does to some extent. Certainly the cellphone and internet have been, but so was the radio, color TV, and I would suspect b&W TVs (which oddly are missing). So perhaps people just like communication goods (although telephones themselves weren't adopted that quickly).
[1] Another factor is to what extent these figures are really showing up massive saving by the top 1%, something the article doesn't go into.
Labels: economics
The Maginot Line isn't 200 miles high
As Modern Mechanix author says,
this story from 1934 has a nice juxtaposition of two stories on France and Germany, although of course the Germans didn't actually use rockets to bypass the Maginot Line.
Labels: War
Premier League in China
Daniel Finkelstein says
here and
here that 30m people in China watch the UK premiership on TV, 10 times more than in the UK, and this is one of the reasons why he isn't completely opposed to having games overseas. I think the idea is bonkers, but ignoring that I think those figures are wrong too.
I'm always sceptical when sporting events (or other blockbuster events) quote global viewing figures. Often these are massively over-inflated by sponsors, sometimes even just referring to the number of TV Sets that could - if they wered tuned in to it - pick up the event. When I investigated, for instance, the Boat Race's claim of 400m viewers, I found that it could be as low as 5m (outside the UK), but might be as high as 80m.
Anyway much the same is true for Premiership football. Some claims have been 100m to 300m viewers, which just has 'made up' all over it - that would be a huge proportion of the population. There is more support for the 30m, in fact I would go as far as saying I think some matches probably did get that many viewers. However it should be noted that this was when it was free-to-air, something that isn't true in the UK. Since the start of this season it has been on subscription, and according to this story audience numbers have
fallen to 20,000.
That clearly underestimates the number of fans in China; some simply won't be able to afford it whilst many more will watch the PPV service on the internet. But it perhaps suggests the financial case for playing games outside the UK is no better than the sporting case.
Anyway, I'd also like to say that someone reading this post is my 150 millionth reader!
Labels: Advertising claims that on the face of it seem bold, Football
More Prince William news
Well, it's from the Sunday Mirror, so it might all be untrue, but apparently he and Kate Middleton are 'on the rocks' again. This
bit caught my eye:
"They are in touch, but their lives are pulling in different directions"
You can picture the scene:
"I'm planning on inheriting the Throne when my father passes away. Where's your ambition?"
Labels: Royalty
Religious Courts
I find it a little hard to get excited by a religious leader's plans for religious courts. That his church is an official State church of course gives it a national significance, and as such the most important lesson of Williams' speech is that the Chuch of England must be in a sense privatised - this blog has no truck with antidisestablishmentarianism. The best time for that will perhaps be when the Queen dies.
As to the merits of Williams' speech, there seems to be a lot of confusion. The most likely view is that he is proposing something similar to Israel's system of religious courts (for Jews, Muslims and Christians). Insofar as these are bound by the national law (and in this case Israel's Supreme Court), their juridistion is limited, and there is always an alternative option, it doesn't seem to be disastrous, although apparently and not surprisingly it is said in marital disputes it favours men (although I am not sure if this is true across all religions).
Personally I think it all sounds a lot of baloney, and not being religious I can't really understand the appeal. As to why Williams proposed it, I tend somewhat to Jamie's view
here that it's a strike on behalf of Religion that he believes will help his particular strand in the long run.
Labels: Relgion
Prince William dances with blonde girl at wedding
It's absolutely stunning
news, and surely hastens the end of the Monarchy/the Queen's abdication.
Labels: Royalty
Prince William has a curry
The news is
flooding in today. He expressed surprise at the size of the naan breads, and he drank 3 bottles of cider. Watch this space for updates...
Labels: Royalty
A great day for the world
Mitt Romney's international political career is hopefully
over. He leaves with some snide remarks about us Europeans for not believing in our Creator, but I guess we can take it.
I don't really have a lot to say about the US Presidential Election. As with most people, I am relieved that the new President will be better than the old one. I don't really care that much if it's McCain, Clinton or Obama. Of course it matters - I imagine only the ultras at the H'S'JS [note corrected] can visualise a world in which Briton would have invaded Iraq without America - but it's hard to get too excited.
If I had a vote I guess it would be the reverse of that list. Also I would warn McCain supporters - on the left particularly - that he is a Republican, and although he has some real qualities those might not be so evident after a long and gruelling fight againt Obama.
Labels: Loons
Euroscepticism gone bonkers
Rather unlovely imagery
here.
Labels: EU
House prices
The BBC
reports the Halifax's findings that house prices were flat in January, and up 4.5% year-on-year. The reporting of this article is by no means up there with the worse of house price reporting, when year-on-year changes were given headline billing when the monthly data was showing something very different (or quarterly). But:
House prices were unchanged in January compared to the previous month, according to the Halifax bank. However, the country's biggest mortgage lender said that house prices were rising at an annual rate of 4.5%.
is still not as clear as it should be. I think they should say:
House prices were unchanged in January compared to the previous month, according to the Halifax bank. However, due to strong increases in the first half of 2007, the country's biggest mortgage lender said that house prices still 4.5% higher than a year ago.
The news is in fact a little worse than that. House prices are now lower than they were in June, ie the six-monthly % change (Jan 08 on Jul 07) has been negative 1%, although on a three-monthly basis they are basically unchanged. If you take out the seasonal adjustment, which after all is how houses are bought in the real world, the average house price is now £10k, or 5%, less than it was at its peak in August 2007.
The headlines should get more excitable. If house prices remain flat in Feb, then the year-on-year change will fall to 2.5%, in March to 1.3%, and then in April they will be unchanged year-on-year.
Labels: house prices, New
More on the professional poor
The Telegraph
today covers a new study by the Centre for Policy Studies that claims median household incomes have fallen by £1,300 over the past four years. This is a more credible survey than the uSwitch one which was the Telegraph's background to the 'Coping Classes' article, and in fact it completely contradicts the Telegraph's interpretation of that survey, as it shows (using the same method of calculation) that average household disposable income has risen from £12,603/year in 1997 to £15,231/year in 2007. Using an average, not median, and not taking off costs (just taxes) they have it rising from £22,578/year to £34,751/year.
The claim that disposable income has fallen since 2002 essentially rests on three rising costs, as earnings have risen from £23,378/year to £27,557/year. These are taxes (including council tax), which they estimate have risen by about £1,700/year, other household expensives which they have down as rising by about £700/year, and finally mortgage interest payments, up by a whopping £3,800/year. The argument is that on an average £125k mortgage, payments on interest (they correctly do not look at repayments) will have risen.
But how do they arrive the average mortgage figure? Table Four gives average mortgage debt per household as being £46,671, a rather different proposition. The average mortgage
advance in 2007 was around £125,000, but that's also not the same as an average mortgage. Thus it should be noted that their figure is the average mortgage of owner-occupiers who have mortgages, which is about 40% of total housing. This will underestimate the impact on first-time buyers, and overestimate it for those who have owned housing for longer.
The level of mortgage debt has risen because of the tremendous rise in house prices. The survey sees this as all cost, and no gain. The gain comes to those who either are in recepit of inheritances or who have sold their houses and rented. This should really be included in the figures, and the survey clearly acknowledged to be of a sub-set of the population.
Labels: economics, Surveys
Winston Churchill didn't exist?
So say a
fifth of British teenagers. Neville Chamberlain steered the country through the war, presumably. Actually a fifth isn't that many, I suppose. I remember I was very confused about which party Churchill was a member of, but I think that's excusable given so was he half the time.
Labels: Churchill, kids
Cabinet Papers about Churchill's resignation
I'm not sure there is a lot new
here. Just about everyone from the Queen downwards thought Churchill should have resigned sooner.
Labels: Eden, history, Monarchy
Shares fail
For as long as I can remember the advantages of investing in equities in terms of return have seemed overwhelming. But the last ten years have not been so good.
If you'd have put £10,000 in a Ft-se 100 tracker fund ten years ago, at end-Jan 1997, you'd now have £14,500, a return of 44.5%. That include dividends but doesn't subtract costs. It's a return of 3.8% per year, which is not much better than sitting in a high-interest savings account, particularly once costs are subtracted (although there will be tax to consider). For a sterling investor US equities would have been even worse - the same investment in the S&P 500 would have returned you just £13,560, or 3.0% per year.
To an extent this result is because of the dates chosen. Only four months ago the 10 year return was not 44.5% but 86%. Share prices rose strongly in late 1997, and have done poorly in late 2007. But on the other hand 10 years is 10 years, and I know at least one investor who took out an Ft-se 100 tracker (that he still has) in January 1997.
Labels: Investing
Sovereign wealth funds
My favourite site for business and economic news is
Felix Salmon's Market Movers site over at Portfolio.com. I can't really stress how good it is for keeping one informed of such news.
Anyway sovereign wealth funds are a hot topic. Views on these seem to be mixed - some people, such as Felix and also Tim Worstall, seem to see them as simply a player, albeit it a large one, in the financial markets. They take the view that their principles are profit-maximising, so don't compare to other government intervention. Other peope, me included, think it's perhaps a bit worrying to have governments, and unelected governments, controlling large parts of your fincial and (one assumes to come) business sectors. Larry Summers seems to want it both ways - in the post Felix links to
here he describes them as 'terrific' but believes they should sign up to a list of principles, mainly that they don't use their political influence.
Brad Setser has made the good point that they way they have arisen was through government intervention in the markets - in China's case through an undervalued exchange rate, whilst in other cases through oil industry nationalisation (or onerous taxation). The most likely outcome is some funds (Norways for instance) are trusted and some aren't - Russia springs to mind. The important issue will be in which category China's ends up.
Update: Liam Halligan
says that the attitude of some in the west is hypocritical, and you see his point. But some of his other points I couldn't agree with - I'm not sure whether one should welcome SWF as 'active investors', I don't believe the Chinese had the ability to 'drive the US economy into oblivion' and I don't know whether one should refer to 'our' investment banks.
Labels: economics
