intriguing story in today's Guardian about how transport organisations are ordering their drivers to drive more slowly (= sensibly, economically) to conserve fuel and thus save money in response to the high price of oil. London buses are also carrying Mayoral ads telling drivers to change gears at lower revs to save fuel and money. The most interesting statement though was from the airlines who said that notwithstanding the slower flying (2% slower on Easyjet), there would be no discernible difference for passengers.
It will be fascinating to see if this finally causes a reverse in the upward march of transport emissions -- particularly if cuts are significant -- to show what can be done without biofuels and attendant environmental and food price consequences; without taking the politically risky route of appearing to be anti-driver and anti-flyer; without challenging the overmighty car industry to raise its standards and without any major investment in new technology or infrastructure. It just requires people not to check out their brain when they get behind the wheel and to think about what they are doing - which seems harder than it looks. Last time I drove any distance (OK ten miles) my sedate 55 consigned me to very slow as people put their foot on the accelerator and burned down the A 27. Mind you that was five weeks ago so all could have changed now as people and companies realise that rising prices do not need to translate into the same rise in bills.
So have we finally reached a transport catalyst?
For some maybe - but not for everyone. Interestingly two airlines were reported as rejecting these moves and said instead that they would simply be opting to charge their passengers more as they continue to pump out the carbon. Well done BA and Ryanair.
Saturday 28 June 2008
Thursday 26 June 2008
HD or not HD?
My TV suddenly decided to restore colour to celebrate the second Spanish goal (tips seem to be doing quite well!). But I still need to order a new Sky Box. And today a new and very 21st century dilemma presented itself.
One of my team was extolling the virtues of HD if you want to watch sport on television. So should I make the leap? Isn't it an unnecessary carbon indulgence? Is it the sort of thing I could do and stay in the "positive green" behaviour segment? Or would I be relegated a few segments? Is it the sort of thing I could do and still champion sustainable development. And wouldn't it mean consigning my - still functioning - TV to the WEE dump five years before it's due?
What scope for offsetting? Solar thermal? Probably not worthwhile given how long my energy consumption is already? Fly less -- hard to do less than this year so far (zero) but should i abandon a theoretical flight later this year? Would an HD screen reduce social capital and be bad for my health and wellbeing -- more evenings in and fewer in the gym sneaking peaks at the TV - with colour - while on the treadmill?
Or would it be the right counter-cyclical measure -- after all there are all those Dixon employees whose jobs are at risk as the market for electrical appliances crashes? Is it my responsibility to keep the market in electrical appliances afloat and bolster retail confidence? Is that what lies behind the shopping surge in May?And the factory somewhere near Shenzhen which undoubtedly makes all HD screens? Do I have a duty to them?
Or is the worst thing to do to invest now in a new sky box -- and then change my mind in a year's time....and have a redundant box I should never have bought in the first place?
The colour has just disappeared again -- but the BBC are refusing to show the Nadal match and offering me a choice of Murray (yawn) or Keothevang ....
I think the answer is to dither and delay - what I always do when faced with any option of spending money and committing to a capital purchase... and to postpone all purchases.. and hope that today's renewable energy strategy means that by 2020 I can buy a gas guzzling TV screen with a clear conscience. In the meanwhile I can take comfort that at least in Wimbledon even Rafa has to play in white... and as long as the Spaniards win, does it really matter if my TV picture simply shows 11 Germans and a ball as the red-strip Spaniards merge into the green sward of Vienna.
One of my team was extolling the virtues of HD if you want to watch sport on television. So should I make the leap? Isn't it an unnecessary carbon indulgence? Is it the sort of thing I could do and stay in the "positive green" behaviour segment? Or would I be relegated a few segments? Is it the sort of thing I could do and still champion sustainable development. And wouldn't it mean consigning my - still functioning - TV to the WEE dump five years before it's due?
What scope for offsetting? Solar thermal? Probably not worthwhile given how long my energy consumption is already? Fly less -- hard to do less than this year so far (zero) but should i abandon a theoretical flight later this year? Would an HD screen reduce social capital and be bad for my health and wellbeing -- more evenings in and fewer in the gym sneaking peaks at the TV - with colour - while on the treadmill?
Or would it be the right counter-cyclical measure -- after all there are all those Dixon employees whose jobs are at risk as the market for electrical appliances crashes? Is it my responsibility to keep the market in electrical appliances afloat and bolster retail confidence? Is that what lies behind the shopping surge in May?And the factory somewhere near Shenzhen which undoubtedly makes all HD screens? Do I have a duty to them?
Or is the worst thing to do to invest now in a new sky box -- and then change my mind in a year's time....and have a redundant box I should never have bought in the first place?
The colour has just disappeared again -- but the BBC are refusing to show the Nadal match and offering me a choice of Murray (yawn) or Keothevang ....
I think the answer is to dither and delay - what I always do when faced with any option of spending money and committing to a capital purchase... and to postpone all purchases.. and hope that today's renewable energy strategy means that by 2020 I can buy a gas guzzling TV screen with a clear conscience. In the meanwhile I can take comfort that at least in Wimbledon even Rafa has to play in white... and as long as the Spaniards win, does it really matter if my TV picture simply shows 11 Germans and a ball as the red-strip Spaniards merge into the green sward of Vienna.
Sunday 22 June 2008
Double fault?
So who is to blame for the fact that hapless Brits will yet again have to watch from the sidelines as a Swiss or a Serb or a Spaniard lifts the Wimbledon trophy yet again.
According to the head of the Lawn Tennis Association it's me -- or at least people like me, who play what is derisively called "social tennis".
So in a country where obesity is a rising problem; where most adults - and especially most women - get far too little physical activity - why knock a game which people can enjoy playing until they are old (we have ninety years olds playing); which doesn't require you to find 21 other like-minded people for a quick game and which people can and do keep playing (anyone out there playing much netball these days? hockey after thirty? football without needing to spend hours in A and E?).
But social tennis is to blame for the fact that the LTA -- for all its millions from Wimbledon - fails to produce a home-grown champion.
I think they need to look elsewhere for the solutions -- from giving kids whose parents don't play a chance to learn the game - which hardly even happens in private schools these days; to more summer coaching; to more courts; to more indoor facilities. And to stop caring so much - am looking forward to a Federer/Djokovic v Nadal final without ludicrous swooning jingoism from the dreadful BBC commentary team. Tennis is an individual not a team game -- who cares where they come from.
And elite sport needs to recognise its place in the world. If its a choice between sport for the few or sport for the many - chose the many any time - and let's view social tennis as a very good thing - and concentrate on producing the social tennis players of the future. That might even throw up a few really good ones.
According to the head of the Lawn Tennis Association it's me -- or at least people like me, who play what is derisively called "social tennis".
So in a country where obesity is a rising problem; where most adults - and especially most women - get far too little physical activity - why knock a game which people can enjoy playing until they are old (we have ninety years olds playing); which doesn't require you to find 21 other like-minded people for a quick game and which people can and do keep playing (anyone out there playing much netball these days? hockey after thirty? football without needing to spend hours in A and E?).
But social tennis is to blame for the fact that the LTA -- for all its millions from Wimbledon - fails to produce a home-grown champion.
I think they need to look elsewhere for the solutions -- from giving kids whose parents don't play a chance to learn the game - which hardly even happens in private schools these days; to more summer coaching; to more courts; to more indoor facilities. And to stop caring so much - am looking forward to a Federer/Djokovic v Nadal final without ludicrous swooning jingoism from the dreadful BBC commentary team. Tennis is an individual not a team game -- who cares where they come from.
And elite sport needs to recognise its place in the world. If its a choice between sport for the few or sport for the many - chose the many any time - and let's view social tennis as a very good thing - and concentrate on producing the social tennis players of the future. That might even throw up a few really good ones.
Nature notes
contact with nature is supposed to be good for your wellbeing - and so am feeling in extremely mellow mood after some very high grade contacts.
First news to report is that the blackbirds nesting on the light outside my mother's utility room have successfully reared two offspring (to add to the one in the honeysuckle earlier in the year). Our main contribution was to avoid accidental incineration of the aforesaid nest by turning the light on. But who needs Springwatch when you can have a birds' eye view from the comfort of your own ironing board.
Second news is of my first almost downland stroll of the year.... up to the entrance of Kingley Vale nature reserve; wheat rippling in the wind; swallows diving around; a few poppies in the last remaining bit of set-aside land.
Third is that my salad is doing well on my roof terrace - and today my tomato plants planted last week have produced their first flowers. So the delights of home production and food inches is soon to be mine again.
So all very pleasing and good for my contentment levels. So a bit of a disappointment to read a long report for the Health England group that I am on which is supposed to be looking at health and wellbeing - and yet again for a body sponsored by department of health cannot look at any measures that might improve health and wellbeing that take place outside a doctor's surgery.
First news to report is that the blackbirds nesting on the light outside my mother's utility room have successfully reared two offspring (to add to the one in the honeysuckle earlier in the year). Our main contribution was to avoid accidental incineration of the aforesaid nest by turning the light on. But who needs Springwatch when you can have a birds' eye view from the comfort of your own ironing board.
Second news is of my first almost downland stroll of the year.... up to the entrance of Kingley Vale nature reserve; wheat rippling in the wind; swallows diving around; a few poppies in the last remaining bit of set-aside land.
Third is that my salad is doing well on my roof terrace - and today my tomato plants planted last week have produced their first flowers. So the delights of home production and food inches is soon to be mine again.
So all very pleasing and good for my contentment levels. So a bit of a disappointment to read a long report for the Health England group that I am on which is supposed to be looking at health and wellbeing - and yet again for a body sponsored by department of health cannot look at any measures that might improve health and wellbeing that take place outside a doctor's surgery.
Thursday 19 June 2008
Sex discrimination
No - not a rant on what message we should take from the failure of yet another aggressive but apparently competent woman in the Apprentice ... nor Hillary's failure to get the US nomination - but a question of why the public authorities are so obsessed with whether people are sleeping together.
The immediate cause of this reflection is a letter I am having to write to the New Zealand High Commission. NZ needs people - the big signs above passport control at immigration implore departing passengers to stay in the country ("no need to go...."); she has a job in a shortage profession; but she wants to take her partner and the NZ authorities need to know that they have been living together at the same address for the past year before they are prepared to let them come in as a de facto couple. If for some reason, they had been part of the Microtrend "Living apart together" (remember UK leadership on that one) - they would have had to live even further apart - one staying behind in the UK.
The second prompt is the first civil partnership in my team - taking place tomorrow. As the cake makers in LA are finding out, civil partnerships or gay marriages are a whole new source of parties and happiness. But the fact that friends sleep together (unless of course they are Anglican priests who can enjoy the fiscal privileges of civil partnership but should not of course do anything vaguely dodgy) also conveys a whole bunch of fiscal privileges denied to mere friends -- or as the battling sisters found out at the European court, to people who had lived together and looked after each other all their life.
Why does the act of sleeping with someone bring with it all these benefits courtesy of the taxpayer - while other arrangements are not so favoured? (the weirdest example of this was when I asked if I could bring an Australian friend was visiting to a party at No.10 to view Trooping the Colour from Downing Street - but wasn't allowed to because he was "just a friend" and thus failed the Principal Private Secretary's sleeping together test). This is of course because we start from the premise of favouring marriage; marriage is about sex ... and children... but then we end discrimination (rightly) against other forms of sex - but lose the rationale for the taxpayer subsidy and introduce new and even less justifiable borderlines.
So what to do? Accept variation. Convey benefits attached to the raising of children (which has some public good elements) - and then, for the rest, let every individual have the ability to convey some companionship rights on a named individual(some pension transfer; a bit of tax privilege if we want) or translate them into a cashable equivalent if they need to buy those benefits from the market, because they can't bribe anyone else to provide them for free. And stop being so fussed about what people do in the bedroom - after all, the evidence shows more and more married couples are opting for his and her sleeping arrangements... will they lose their pension rights?
The immediate cause of this reflection is a letter I am having to write to the New Zealand High Commission. NZ needs people - the big signs above passport control at immigration implore departing passengers to stay in the country ("no need to go...."); she has a job in a shortage profession; but she wants to take her partner and the NZ authorities need to know that they have been living together at the same address for the past year before they are prepared to let them come in as a de facto couple. If for some reason, they had been part of the Microtrend "Living apart together" (remember UK leadership on that one) - they would have had to live even further apart - one staying behind in the UK.
The second prompt is the first civil partnership in my team - taking place tomorrow. As the cake makers in LA are finding out, civil partnerships or gay marriages are a whole new source of parties and happiness. But the fact that friends sleep together (unless of course they are Anglican priests who can enjoy the fiscal privileges of civil partnership but should not of course do anything vaguely dodgy) also conveys a whole bunch of fiscal privileges denied to mere friends -- or as the battling sisters found out at the European court, to people who had lived together and looked after each other all their life.
Why does the act of sleeping with someone bring with it all these benefits courtesy of the taxpayer - while other arrangements are not so favoured? (the weirdest example of this was when I asked if I could bring an Australian friend was visiting to a party at No.10 to view Trooping the Colour from Downing Street - but wasn't allowed to because he was "just a friend" and thus failed the Principal Private Secretary's sleeping together test). This is of course because we start from the premise of favouring marriage; marriage is about sex ... and children... but then we end discrimination (rightly) against other forms of sex - but lose the rationale for the taxpayer subsidy and introduce new and even less justifiable borderlines.
So what to do? Accept variation. Convey benefits attached to the raising of children (which has some public good elements) - and then, for the rest, let every individual have the ability to convey some companionship rights on a named individual(some pension transfer; a bit of tax privilege if we want) or translate them into a cashable equivalent if they need to buy those benefits from the market, because they can't bribe anyone else to provide them for free. And stop being so fussed about what people do in the bedroom - after all, the evidence shows more and more married couples are opting for his and her sleeping arrangements... will they lose their pension rights?
Monday 16 June 2008
Feeling inadequate
So Tiger Woods has just played 91 holes of golf to win the US Open with a knee just six weeks out of surgery - and I wimped out of defending my Defra mixed doubles title after four and a half months. And he had 13 other majors, whereas that was my first ever championship, so it can't have meant as much to him.....
But apart from that rehabilitation going very well. Now cycling to work when not disrupted by annoying US Presidents visiting. Going to the gym and walking on the treadmill using my nifty new shoe inserts (8mm on the left), as well as using a wide array of machines (and very satsifying to discover that in some cases I increase the weights when I take them over). And spent the weekend bouncing up and down the stairs as I entertained for the first time since I came back. Next challenge is throwing the rubbish out.
But apart from that rehabilitation going very well. Now cycling to work when not disrupted by annoying US Presidents visiting. Going to the gym and walking on the treadmill using my nifty new shoe inserts (8mm on the left), as well as using a wide array of machines (and very satsifying to discover that in some cases I increase the weights when I take them over). And spent the weekend bouncing up and down the stairs as I entertained for the first time since I came back. Next challenge is throwing the rubbish out.
Saturday 14 June 2008
Signs of the times
One of the things we talked about in Defra last week was the need to capture real time data on what was going on in the economy. So am going to use signs of the times to capture the data I notice -- on the grounds that I won't conceivably remember it to Monday.
We hear lots about the perilous state of the housing market at the moment - and it is clear that the housing as investment asset market is in a bad way. But the housing as consumption of housing services market seems still to be roaring away. At least that is my take-out from the fact that the two estate agents I passed on my way to the farmers market (buzzing - the people of W8 aren't going to Aldi - yet) are ONLY advertising rental properties -- not a single place for sale in their windows. But still worth advertising places to rent at £ 2500 per week!
The second thing on my walk was to see two shops boarded up and for rental - one a pricey sandwich/ juice bar and one a Threshers!
And the third was coming back and falling over my downstairs neigbour's weekend FT - front page headlines: parents are pawning Rolexes and Aston Martins to pay private school fees - which reflected a conversation over dinner last night on the plight of fired investment bankers and attracted varying degrees of sympathy for people who overleveraged themselves while benefiting from many of the actions which put the stability of the banking system at risk; housebuilders offering 10 year 25% interest free loans to first-time buyers to shift property.
Watch this space - and add your own.
We hear lots about the perilous state of the housing market at the moment - and it is clear that the housing as investment asset market is in a bad way. But the housing as consumption of housing services market seems still to be roaring away. At least that is my take-out from the fact that the two estate agents I passed on my way to the farmers market (buzzing - the people of W8 aren't going to Aldi - yet) are ONLY advertising rental properties -- not a single place for sale in their windows. But still worth advertising places to rent at £ 2500 per week!
The second thing on my walk was to see two shops boarded up and for rental - one a pricey sandwich/ juice bar and one a Threshers!
And the third was coming back and falling over my downstairs neigbour's weekend FT - front page headlines: parents are pawning Rolexes and Aston Martins to pay private school fees - which reflected a conversation over dinner last night on the plight of fired investment bankers and attracted varying degrees of sympathy for people who overleveraged themselves while benefiting from many of the actions which put the stability of the banking system at risk; housebuilders offering 10 year 25% interest free loans to first-time buyers to shift property.
Watch this space - and add your own.
Just deserts
One of the phenomena that those worried about social exclusion are often concerned about is "food deserts" - that poor people can't access nutritious good value food in their travel to shop area - more constrained for them than others by the fact they can't nip into the family size Volvo estate and do a mega-shop at the local (ie within 10 minutes drive) superstore.
It seems odd to add the residence of investment bankers, top lawyers and any number of expatriates to the list of underserved markets - but my experience of trying to but some decent food in Notting Hill Gate on Tuesday evening suggest it should be. The standard of supermarket provision went up here when first the Damien Hirst restaurant "Pharmacy" - where a naive foreign friend went to buy some ointment, suggesting it was a step ahead of its time became a Simply Food - which used to be nice quality, shame about the prices. And then the tired Europa become a new Tesco Metro. But my shopping trip in Tuesday suggested that standards are slipping. The staff in the M and S were cleaning the store around the customers - so fighting your way through only to discover that there was hardly anything on the shelves when you managed to navigate round the bucket to get to them. I walked out of Tescos after one look at the so-called fresh produce suggested that, where food was on offer, it might not be past its sell by date but it was certainly past its eat-by date.
So why is the offer so poor? Was this a one-off? A sign of cutting corners as cost pressures rise? Knowledge that there is not much real competition? A view that the rushed people of W11, having just had a miserable tube experience will be so quickly in and out they won't notice the prices (possibly right), nor the lack of anything much fresh to eat - and if they were fussed they would go to Whole Foods or the new Waitrose - which tells me its in Bayswater, but omitted to say where. Or just decide that its better to watch Gordon Ramsay while eating a takeaway.
The shock was greater because this was my first venture into a supermarket since my operation. I never used to go if I could help it. And shopping by remote control meant that I sent friends to shop -- and then blamed them for coming back with paltry offerings and didn't believe their claims there was nothing much to buy (its Tesco, how can there be no fresh fish/ no decent apples etc etc).
The poor food offer is part of a wider problem of the destruction of Notting Hill Gate which exemplifies clone town features - despite having a potentially tremendous footfall. Estate agents; mobile phone shops; banks galore; the odd surviving independent but unattractive convenience store - but not a baker; no delicatessen; no quality independent greengrocer; a fishmonger but no butcher - and for the rest charity shops - great for dumping junk but not great for buying anything. And chain restaurants.
So we need policies to reclaim the high street - and make it somewhere worth walking to rather than jumping into the car to avoid. For starters, how about a differential business rate - so chains pay more. And some local action like in San Francisco to support more independent stores. There should be a lot of space coming free as estate agents go bust over the next year - so no better time to transform the desert that is Notting Hill Gate?
And now I am off to see if my fond memories of the under threat farmers' market are justified or whether I am ripe for another disappointment.
10.30 a.m update: am now the joyful owner of piles of fresh asparagus; three bunches of carrots with tops on and have just come back from planting tomato plants and mint on my roof terrace -- I love the farmers' market. Now we just need to save it from becoming a Waitrose car park.
Next policy suggestion -- and one that the Competition Commission were not allowed to look at when they did their grocery study as public interest was deleted form their terms of reference in 2004 - make quality and character of high street; encouragement of independent business and diversity of offer part of planning requirements.
It seems odd to add the residence of investment bankers, top lawyers and any number of expatriates to the list of underserved markets - but my experience of trying to but some decent food in Notting Hill Gate on Tuesday evening suggest it should be. The standard of supermarket provision went up here when first the Damien Hirst restaurant "Pharmacy" - where a naive foreign friend went to buy some ointment, suggesting it was a step ahead of its time became a Simply Food - which used to be nice quality, shame about the prices. And then the tired Europa become a new Tesco Metro. But my shopping trip in Tuesday suggested that standards are slipping. The staff in the M and S were cleaning the store around the customers - so fighting your way through only to discover that there was hardly anything on the shelves when you managed to navigate round the bucket to get to them. I walked out of Tescos after one look at the so-called fresh produce suggested that, where food was on offer, it might not be past its sell by date but it was certainly past its eat-by date.
So why is the offer so poor? Was this a one-off? A sign of cutting corners as cost pressures rise? Knowledge that there is not much real competition? A view that the rushed people of W11, having just had a miserable tube experience will be so quickly in and out they won't notice the prices (possibly right), nor the lack of anything much fresh to eat - and if they were fussed they would go to Whole Foods or the new Waitrose - which tells me its in Bayswater, but omitted to say where. Or just decide that its better to watch Gordon Ramsay while eating a takeaway.
The shock was greater because this was my first venture into a supermarket since my operation. I never used to go if I could help it. And shopping by remote control meant that I sent friends to shop -- and then blamed them for coming back with paltry offerings and didn't believe their claims there was nothing much to buy (its Tesco, how can there be no fresh fish/ no decent apples etc etc).
The poor food offer is part of a wider problem of the destruction of Notting Hill Gate which exemplifies clone town features - despite having a potentially tremendous footfall. Estate agents; mobile phone shops; banks galore; the odd surviving independent but unattractive convenience store - but not a baker; no delicatessen; no quality independent greengrocer; a fishmonger but no butcher - and for the rest charity shops - great for dumping junk but not great for buying anything. And chain restaurants.
So we need policies to reclaim the high street - and make it somewhere worth walking to rather than jumping into the car to avoid. For starters, how about a differential business rate - so chains pay more. And some local action like in San Francisco to support more independent stores. There should be a lot of space coming free as estate agents go bust over the next year - so no better time to transform the desert that is Notting Hill Gate?
And now I am off to see if my fond memories of the under threat farmers' market are justified or whether I am ripe for another disappointment.
10.30 a.m update: am now the joyful owner of piles of fresh asparagus; three bunches of carrots with tops on and have just come back from planting tomato plants and mint on my roof terrace -- I love the farmers' market. Now we just need to save it from becoming a Waitrose car park.
Next policy suggestion -- and one that the Competition Commission were not allowed to look at when they did their grocery study as public interest was deleted form their terms of reference in 2004 - make quality and character of high street; encouragement of independent business and diversity of offer part of planning requirements.
Sunday 8 June 2008
Economic naturists
So its looking good for Claire and Spain -- if you note the rapid support-> victory dynamic I created yesterday by my supertips. Even I felt sorry for Federer by the end as he managed only 1.33 games a set versus the all-conquering Mallorcan.... and we did not need to answer the question of whether it was really fair that the women got the same pay as the men for the final of the French open. The one-sided women's final over two sets lasted a whole five minutes less than the - on paper at least - highly competitive men's final.
That sort of question -- why are women paid the same in tennis as men at all Grand Slams except Wimbledon even though they potentially do less work, is just the sort of question Robert Frank addresses in the latest populist economics outing to hit the bestseller lists. A rather lazy book which seems to consist of rewriting a bunch of student essays. But the basic thesis is that most people who study economics don't; become very economically literate -- but that by applying economic thinking to real world situations it becomes possible to - in the book's modest strapline "explain almost everything" and that in the process of doing so we can all become natural economists by applying such principles as opportunity costs - and a few diminishing returns.
So as Frank does it seems to be a good time to try to identify our own examples...am sure you will want to add your own ....but here are some starters for ten..
* why does it make sense for Vodafone to offer me a £ 200 credit for not upgrading my mobile against a new contract worth only £ 300 over the year? and insist that I only take out a 12 month contract rather than lock me in for 18?
* why are all decent women tennis players now from Eastern Europe when tennis is the one sport where the best women can earn on a comparable scale to men?
* why do even small District Councils seem to offer pay rates well in excess of most central government departments?and finally:
* why after years of having no bestselling populist economics books are there now so many on the market?
But I think the answer is that maybe economics - at least conventional neoclassical economics - explains rather less than Professor Frank thinks. It ignores the role of culture; it ignores institutions; and it assumes we are all the rational beasts that we know we are not. And it runs the risk of pretending that there is a rational justification for what just looks like bad business in the case of Vodafone.
That sort of question -- why are women paid the same in tennis as men at all Grand Slams except Wimbledon even though they potentially do less work, is just the sort of question Robert Frank addresses in the latest populist economics outing to hit the bestseller lists. A rather lazy book which seems to consist of rewriting a bunch of student essays. But the basic thesis is that most people who study economics don't; become very economically literate -- but that by applying economic thinking to real world situations it becomes possible to - in the book's modest strapline "explain almost everything" and that in the process of doing so we can all become natural economists by applying such principles as opportunity costs - and a few diminishing returns.
So as Frank does it seems to be a good time to try to identify our own examples...am sure you will want to add your own ....but here are some starters for ten..
* why does it make sense for Vodafone to offer me a £ 200 credit for not upgrading my mobile against a new contract worth only £ 300 over the year? and insist that I only take out a 12 month contract rather than lock me in for 18?
* why are all decent women tennis players now from Eastern Europe when tennis is the one sport where the best women can earn on a comparable scale to men?
* why do even small District Councils seem to offer pay rates well in excess of most central government departments?and finally:
* why after years of having no bestselling populist economics books are there now so many on the market?
But I think the answer is that maybe economics - at least conventional neoclassical economics - explains rather less than Professor Frank thinks. It ignores the role of culture; it ignores institutions; and it assumes we are all the rational beasts that we know we are not. And it runs the risk of pretending that there is a rational justification for what just looks like bad business in the case of Vodafone.
Saturday 7 June 2008
So who will you support?
England -- against New Zealand - at least in this test Match (will let the kiwis have a few one-dayers if it means fireworks from the faux Gilchrist McCullum)
Nadal - to beat Federer tomorrow at the French Open -- and am deeply divided between wanting the smug Swiss to be trounced and wanting a close game -- but I know I want Rafa to win even though I hate his outfits. And that would be true -- in fact even truer - if he was playing the boorish grimacing Scot who fell to the man RN allowed to get three games off him.
Claire - to win the Apprentice - on the basis that she and Alan Sugar deserve each other...
But that is not the question which the BBC is wasting vast amounts of licence payers money trying to get us to answer. In a move which undoubtedly has Norman Tebbit and Bill Cash running to find a grave to turn in, the BBC is desperate to get us to adopt a European country to support at Euro 2008 and so justify their flooding our screens with it through a month which should be dedicated to tennis and cricket and barbecues.
In an age of freeview, interactive and digital, it seems madness to take any of the main four channels and dedicate them to sport - any sport. Even worse when two of them are flogging the same event. Speaking as a sports fan, sport should be on dedicated channels which can do them properly. Whether its Sky or Setanta or a new use for BBC3, sport should be banished form the main airwaves. Eurosport and Sky do tennis better than the BBC which messes up Wimbledon; Sky does cricket perfectly well and has meant you can watch cricket all year round. And in the days of hugely inflated costs for TV rights, it does not make sense for the taxpayer (the TV licence is a tax by any other name) to pay for them when there is a perfectly good alternative delivery vehicle available.
If next year's Ashes can be available only on Sky, then this year's UK free Euro 2008certainly should be.
By the way, the answer is Spain - which it would have been if England had qaulified.... or anyone Scotland was playing in the very unlikely event they ever qualified for a major tournament again. So vamos Torres, Frabregas, Casillas y amigos. But I won't be watching. Unless there is nothing else on.
Nadal - to beat Federer tomorrow at the French Open -- and am deeply divided between wanting the smug Swiss to be trounced and wanting a close game -- but I know I want Rafa to win even though I hate his outfits. And that would be true -- in fact even truer - if he was playing the boorish grimacing Scot who fell to the man RN allowed to get three games off him.
Claire - to win the Apprentice - on the basis that she and Alan Sugar deserve each other...
But that is not the question which the BBC is wasting vast amounts of licence payers money trying to get us to answer. In a move which undoubtedly has Norman Tebbit and Bill Cash running to find a grave to turn in, the BBC is desperate to get us to adopt a European country to support at Euro 2008 and so justify their flooding our screens with it through a month which should be dedicated to tennis and cricket and barbecues.
In an age of freeview, interactive and digital, it seems madness to take any of the main four channels and dedicate them to sport - any sport. Even worse when two of them are flogging the same event. Speaking as a sports fan, sport should be on dedicated channels which can do them properly. Whether its Sky or Setanta or a new use for BBC3, sport should be banished form the main airwaves. Eurosport and Sky do tennis better than the BBC which messes up Wimbledon; Sky does cricket perfectly well and has meant you can watch cricket all year round. And in the days of hugely inflated costs for TV rights, it does not make sense for the taxpayer (the TV licence is a tax by any other name) to pay for them when there is a perfectly good alternative delivery vehicle available.
If next year's Ashes can be available only on Sky, then this year's UK free Euro 2008certainly should be.
By the way, the answer is Spain - which it would have been if England had qaulified.... or anyone Scotland was playing in the very unlikely event they ever qualified for a major tournament again. So vamos Torres, Frabregas, Casillas y amigos. But I won't be watching. Unless there is nothing else on.
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