All good things must come to an end........

And as the year draws to a close, have decided to close this blog. I hope that my readers [wherever they may be] have enjoyed reading it. Goodbye for now.....

FDR quote

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." -- Frankin D. Roosevelt

On hypermobility

This article by Simon Jenkins draws attention to the 'hypermobility' of life for many (mostly affluent) citizens of the developed world. We travel further than in the past to get to work; we travel further and more frequently to go on holiday and we are travelling further than previously to meet friends & family over the Christmas/New Year holiday period.

This hypermobility means that there is more strain on our transport infrastructure than in the past. The system is thus working at full capacity and, if adverse weather conditions afflict it, it gets disrupted and there is no slack in the system to deal with it. To some degree, this is the fault of inadequate investment in the past and in the present. The State and private companies have not invested enough in our transport infrastructure and in equipment to deal with the contingency of heavy snow. But we, as travellers, tourists and commuters, are also putting more strain on the system.

Although travel and mobility is a good thing, it is not without consequences with regard to the environment and to the fraying of social capital in localities [as people use their home merely as a dormitory in between going to work, going shopping and going on holidays]. Perhaps we should stay put more. And public policy should aim to ensure that homes and workplaces are fairly close together and linked by good, adequately funded public transport.

China and the Copenhagen Conference

This article argues that China prevented a strong deal being reached at the Copenhagen conference. It seems to me that the Chinese government prioritises economic growth over all other factors - and so is not prepared to cut China's carbon emissions in case this hinders economic growth. However, it is harsh to single out China for taking this economically-centred view, lots of people in other countries take this view as well. Perhaps it is inevitable that humans will have short time horizons and so be worried about falling potential economic growth over the next few years/decades rather than long-term issues to do with the environment and global warming.

Arguably, China has more justification to take this view than people in the developed world. After all, China has a lower standard of living than Western Europe or North America. As such, an extra dollar of output means more to the average Chinese than to the average inhabitant of the developed world. Also, of course, China can say that - although it may have become the largest polluter recently - historically it has been Europe and the Americans who have contributed to the lion's share of human CO2 emissions. They would therefore argue that it is those who started the pollution first who should make the biggest and firmest cuts. Of course, while this dispute takes place, the environmental situation is not helped. China, as well as other developing countries, will probably be amongst the first to suffer if weather patterns are disrupted and if floods take place. Much of China's most productive land is low-lying and it needs good weather and good harvests to feed its people.

Pop songs and cognitive biases

This article on Stumbling and Mumbling rather amusingly points out what the author sees as cognitive biases in pop songs. Who would have thought that, when Alexandra Burke sings about bad boys catching her eye, she is illustrating sampling bias? Or that Cheryl Cole is illustrating the sunk cost fallacy?

Of course, it could really be that when Joe McElderry or Miley Cyrus sing:

Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

They are actually indicating a sympathy for the views of Eduard Bernstein who, after all, said "the movement is everything, the goal is nothing"! ;)

Reasonableness in pay for both the public and private sector

The view of the House of Commons Public Administration select committee that there should be a High Pay Commission is commented on by Polly Toynbee . Aptly, she points out that it is inconsistent to expect it only to look at public sector pay without reference to the private sector. The high levels of remuneration some bosses of public sector organisations get are normally justified on grounds of comparability with top jobs in the private sector. Unless private sector remuneration becomes more reasonable, it will be hard to toe the line that those in the public sector should get much less.

Of course, the government does not have direct control over the remuneration of private sector firms. They can pay their bosses what they like. And, arguably, it would be too blunt a tool to fix regulations regulating the level of remuneration directors and other senior staff can take home. The Right would also denounce it as a violation of people's economic freedom to operate firms how they like.

However, it does strike me that it is hard to justify anyone getting paid much more than the £200k a year the Prime Minister gets. As such, I would say that much higher income taxes should be introduced on incomes above that figure. If private firms [and remuneration committees in NDPBs and other public sector organisations] want to pay their top people more than that, then they can - but the tax system should tax those earners more, as they are most able to afford it. In addition to the proposed 50% rate, perhaps there should be a 60% or 75% rate on earnings above £250,000.

UK national debt not that high

This article shows that the UK's national debt is quite low compared to other G7 countries, such as Japan and the US. The British national debt was at a low level to start off with, prior to the current recession, of 44.1% of GDP. It has thus grown by a bigger fraction because it was starting from a smaller base. £200bn of debt when the outstanding debt is £600bn looks bigger than a £200bn increase when there is £1trn outstanding.

Even if the forecasts that debt could rise above 100% of GDP prove correct, then the UK would still be in a better fiscal position than a number of other countries are at the moment. In Japan, the debt-to-GDP ratio is 218% and in Italy it is 115%.