tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51531798966482743322024-02-08T06:46:51.779+01:00QuiteFreshA blog by a couple of freshies about politics, economics, philosophy and law.Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-64249174259245999432011-01-27T23:37:00.000+01:002011-01-27T23:37:25.496+01:00Alistair Campbell's LiesAlistair Campbell is on Channel 4 right now citing Iraq children mortality increasing after the occupation as a great benefit of the invasion. I don't think I've ever seen anything as dishonest. The only reason the mortality rate was so high in the first place was due to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions">US/UK sanctions</a> regime prior to the invasion.<br />
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Talk about doublespeak.Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-92151817317945474232008-10-15T09:10:00.002+02:002008-10-15T09:16:05.308+02:00Ruining the NHS<div><blockquote>"There is now consensus that if the NHS cannot afford new drugs, then top ups should be allowed"</blockquote><br /></div><div>According to a BBC Breakfast (TV) report.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other solution, addressing why drugs cost so much money cannot even be considered. The press has been running reports on TV and in print for years about top up care but never address the main issue - the cost of the meds which could be reduced by public funding. Even when I was doing econ at school for A-level I was 'informed' that the NHS isn't viable and the private sector will eventually have to take over. The solutions are rarely addressed.</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-11995244620332720972008-06-18T11:35:00.004+02:002008-06-18T12:02:18.499+02:00Dominic Lawson's Oped on the Hypocracy of the Oil Debate<div style="text-align: justify;">Lawson has a good article <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-the-sheer-hypocrisy-of-this-debate-on-oil-848517.html">over at the Independent</a>. It is a bit of lulz when the government justifies high tax on fuels as 'green taxes' but then asks their brutal dictator mates to pump more oil. But there are lulz within his article, by lulz I mean hypocracy of course.<br /><br />Lawson cites the chief economist of BP Christof Ruehl pointing out that the "developing world uses more than three times more energy per unit of Gross Domestic Product". However he doesn't put it into context.<br /><br />The reason for such a high figure because the developing world is in a process of inudstrialisation which is very energy intensive. Take a look at China's use of cement which is <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/files/cement072a.PNG">literally off the charts</a>, a very energy intensive process (China uses entirely coal in the "clinker stage" and in the blending stage electricity (80% provided by coal). When a country begins to inudstralise it uses much more energy per GDP. As a country gets wealthier it shifts its comparative advantage by careful tariff/quota policy towards the 'high tech' economy. Take say the UK for example, a lot of our GDP is in the 'bull shit' economy. That is lawyers, bankers, financial information etc. Take the US, if it didn't shift its comparative advantage it's number one export would be fur or something.<br /><br />In actual fact the amount of energy used by the developing world per capita is tiny. We in the west use about ~ 88% of the worlds resources but have ~12% of the population. Accurate figures at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption#By_country">wikipdia</a>. The myth of overpopulation putting demand on our scarce resources is far from the truth. But then again the instituional structure of western socities mean we find it hard to look in the mirror, so people like Ruehl and the media as a group point to the third world who we have opressed for so long.<br /><br />The second issue is Lawson pointing out that many in the third world subsidise fuel, which as traditional market theory would predict, increases consumption. However this is too simplistic. There is an excellent post over at the <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4132">Oil Drum </a>about it. Briefly:<br /><br /></div><ol style="text-align: justify;"><li>Oil has an inelastic demand curve.</li><li>Opportunity cost issues, but in terms of energy. - "If a government does’t spend $X billion on fuel subsidies, what will it spend the money on? What is the energy intensity of that expenditure compared to the amount of demand reduced through cutting the subsidy?</li><li>Cutting Subsidies Won’t Slow the “Export-Land” Effect<br /></li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;">The only way a reduction in subsidies would reduce the energy cost would be to redirect subsidies torenewable research or adoption. An entirely sane thing to do. But of course the US Senate has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1730263720080617">blocked </a>the debate of a bill proposing such subsidies. Again the instituional structure of our socities encourages Keynesnian lunacy, where we subsidies things (arms especially) that will bring about our distruction.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-19026897725335922292008-06-03T10:12:00.005+02:002008-06-03T10:27:01.725+02:00Richard Dawkins on Bodybuilding<blockquote><p align="justify">Enthusiasts of the 'body-building' cult make use of the principle of use and<br />disuse to 'build' their bodies, almost like a piece of sculpture, into whatever<br />unatural shape is demanded by fashion in this peculiar minority culture</p></blockquote><div align="justify"></div><p align="justify"><br /> </p><div align="justify">What a legendary quote, quite accurate. But there is no disuse principle. Every single muscle is trained relentlessly, even things like the neck and in extreme cases the jaw! Does Ronnie Coleman look like he disuses <em>anything.</em></div><a href="http://www.yardbarker.com/m/1159/xl/Ronniecoleman.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.yardbarker.com/m/1159/xl/Ronniecoleman.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:OaG7Bo80KmAm8M:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbknuHk2LKbTxdMvNQgQqf_DHSnptfReXQT3cBpO4ekDzmBdqzY8LDS6GAzfJKv6QGiOof6dAHKv6dlWqhm7fRLT3-9PmhIeoeWyTLjszf7vPfBZHUYkKXOYbf71-g_j9QmmkVO23Y14UJ/s400/RonnieColeman-FLX-002.jpg"></a>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-65535139915262991102008-05-22T10:28:00.005+02:002008-05-22T10:35:59.020+02:00Terrorism Ltd.<div style="text-align: justify;">Exxon (well Nigerian government) wants a new <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7412189.stm">subsidiary</a>,<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p>The defence ministry has suggested militant attacks could be brought under control by employing the very militants conducting the attacks to police the pipelines, newspaper This Day reported. </p><p>"We will engage them to police oil pipelines, but they must first <span style="font-weight: bold;">form themselves into limited liability companies </span>for us to discuss with them," Defence Minister Yayale Ahmed told a House of Representatives committee on Tuesday.<br /></p><p><br /></p></blockquote></div><p style="text-align: justify;">Terrorism Ltd. or maybe they'll make a partnership. Terrorism LLP. Wonder how much equity each partner will get? What will the base be? Are they recruiting? Is Hamas and Hezbollah going to incorporate themselves next? More to the legal point what is the point of terrorists becoming Ltds? They're not gonna be taken to court and a court orders all their personal assets away, you know their Ak-47's. They'll shoot the bailiff's that come to collect!</p>I hope Jon Stewart picks up on this!Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-65989840167817715412008-05-19T10:10:00.002+02:002008-05-19T10:19:32.098+02:00China's Earthquake Death Toll<div style="text-align: justify;">The latest reports have the toll at 71,000 dead or missing. This is a tragic figure but Earthquakes are natural disasters. There is nothing anyone can do to stop them, all a nation can do is mitigate their effects by building safer buildings.<br /><br />The death toll has rightly caused international solidarity. However something that is controlled by nations and <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> be prevented - industrial accidents and road accidents get no outpouring of sympathy. <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6KDaIzVZMXJhsf-UwnpIuun8Xgg">Over </a>100,000 Chineese <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1765873.stm">die </a>in road and industrial accidents. The 18.5% of the total caused by industrial accidents are especially entirely stoppable, they can be virtually eliminated by better regulation and compensation. There isn't much said about this.<br /><br />There seems to be a human response where a single disaster attracts more sympathy than slow and entirely preventable deaths. 9/11 versus US policies in Latin America, Hiroshima and Nagasaki versus Iraqi sanctions (200,000 immediate deaths versus 2 million estimated Iraqi deaths) or any natural disaster versus a carpet bombing campaign.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-36354194662900084152008-05-16T10:23:00.002+02:002008-05-16T10:29:17.103+02:00Dean Baker on farming Subsidies<div style="text-align: justify;">I'm a big fan of Baker, he's the only economist I respect because he sticks to evidence and calling out his profession for having no idea about what is going on in the economy. However his opinions on agricultural subsidies sound like a purely theoretical economist sticking to his starting assumptions. <a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=05&year=2008&base_name=food_prices_are_too_low">Baker </a>has a post where he argues that farming subsidies in the west lead to cheaper food pricing in the south. Indeed this is true axiomatically, you can use the fancy models and graphs to show this.<br /> <br />But the issue is that incomes are reduced by lack of economic development because of these very policies (dumping). It doesn't matter if 1kg of rice costs only 3 dollars, if you're earning $2 a day. Now it's not entirely the fault of subsidies that sweat shop workers earn $2 a day. But if you cram people into cities from farms, the over supply of labour is huge so the price they command falls.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;" class="comment-content"> <p>The affordability of the price is the question, not the absolute price. This is so obvious to anyone that thinks about it for more than 3 seconds.<br /></p><p></p><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-81916060093158043492008-05-15T22:10:00.005+02:002008-05-15T22:26:30.914+02:00Courts want Adam Applegarth in jail for 1282051 years<div style="text-align: justify;">According to the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7401317.stm">courts and HMRC</a> there is much concern for the public purse. So much so that some chav who claimied £80k in fradulent benefit claims over 13 months is going to jail for 13 months. Why isn't a similar sentence being handed out to Adam Applegarth, CEO of Northern Rock? As CEO he has cost the public purse £100bn. If we are using the courts treatment of the aformentioned Chav as a metric to calculate jail sentences it is equal to one month in jail for every £6.5k from the public purse. £100bn comes out to 1282051 years in jail.<br /><br />Of course this is ridlcouos. Gordon Brown and Darling are more at fault. But Applegarth is still getting £760k + £475k from the public purse. This works out as 15.8 years in jail, if the laws applied equally to all.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-66381686381452267862008-05-08T20:56:00.004+02:002008-05-10T11:39:29.644+02:00Pinker on the applicability of Darwninan natural selection to human cognative faculties<div style="text-align: justify;">Pinker uses Dawkins argument in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Blind Watchmaker</span> that a complex organ that looks like it is perfectly designed for the task it performs only has one possible explanation - evolution through natural selection. In Dawkins words, "Natural selection is not just <em>an</em> alternative to chance. It is the <em>only</em> ultimate alternative ever suggested"[<a href="http://richarddawkins.net/mainPage.php?bodyPage=article_body.php&id=170">1]</a> or as Pinker puts it,<br /></div><br /><blockquote>Natural selection is not just a scientifically respsectable alternative to divine creation. It is the <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> alternative that can explain the evolution of a complex organ like the eye. The reason that the choice is so stark - God or natural selection - is that structures that can do what the eye does are extremely low-probabilty arrangements of matter" p360<br /></blockquote><br />However if there is a rich language organ there are also other mental 'organs'. As Chomsky states:<br /><br /><blockquote>The language faculty is one of [the] cognitive systems. There are others. For example, our capacity to organize visual space, or to deal with abstract properties of the number system, or to comprehend and appreciate certain kinds of musical creation</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If we assume UG is true then other mental computation must also have a genetic base. However, it is hard to imagine what selectional pressures led to a faculty to appreciate music or to deal with abstract number lines. These could indeed be examples of random outgrowths of a larger brain due to some unknown law of physics or computation or some concomitant co-evolution of mental organs i.e. a mental organ tagging onto another mental organ. Yet from Dawkins point of view our 'mathematical organ' is perfectly designed to deal with n+1 forever, we can comprehend to keep adding 1 to whatever number we reach, it's trivial. A parrot can't, after 7 it gets stuck. Does this mean natural selection is the only possible explanation? I don't feel it is. I have a (completely baseless) feeling that something as complicated as the human brain has to have a richer explanation than natural selection. Sure the eye is complex but it pales in comparison to the brain.<br /><br />On the other hand perhaps that is why mathematics <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>so hard to grasp for so many. It isn't a result of natural selection and isn't properly a mental organ. Every healthy person can converse in a complex rich way. Not everyone can handle even linear equations.<br /><br />Edit: Dawkins just <a href="http://richarddawkins.net/article,2472,Richard-Dawkins-and-Lawrence-Krauss,RichardDawkinsnet">said </a>something relevant:<br /><blockquote><br />there is still controversy over the theory that natural selection is the dominant driving force. I think no body would doubt it is the dominant driving force of adaptive evolution but many people, including me, doubt it's the dominant driving force behind all evolution at the molecular level<br /></blockquote><br /><br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-68504862234802484152008-05-07T20:38:00.004+02:002008-05-16T10:32:26.884+02:00Adam Applegarth CEO, biggest welfare mum in the globe<div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>The revelation came as experts said the former chief executive, whose cavalier business strategy nearly destroyed the bank last year, can expect a pension worth nearly £475,000 a year from the age of 60. Adam Applegarth's "reward for failure" is on top of the £760,000 "termination payment" he currently enjoys.<br />This money, equal to his basic salary, is being paid on a monthly basis for a year or until he gets another job - which seems unlikely given his epic failure. Meanwhile about a third of Northern Rock's workforce - roughly 2,000 employees - will lose their jobs by 2011, according to the new management team.</blockquote></div><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The man who ran the bank into the ground is being paid £760,000 + £475,000, this all while homes are increasingly being repossessed. Absolutely disgusting.</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-45986221540336563262008-05-06T20:16:00.004+02:002008-05-06T20:24:55.465+02:00The One Show on Benefit Fraud<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/theoneshow/article/2008/05/jr_benefit_fraud.shtml">The One Show</a> just had a piece about benefit fraud. It costs us £800,000,000 a year. This is a serious issue of course. However no mention was made of the far greater fraud being carried about by private banks. Lets put that £800,000,000 figure into context<br /><br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Northern Rock alone took £100,000,000,000. Benefit fraud in comparison costs 0.8% of that figure.</li><li>In total the government has spent £150,000,000,000 bailing out private banks. Benefit fraud in comparison costs 0.53%</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Is benefit fraud a serious issue? Yes, it takes away money that real claimants need. But it pales in comparison to how we are enriching the top 10% of income earners who own the majority of shares. Yet we are telling those on benefits or defrauding that benefit system to learn personal responsibility and get a job! 0.53% is the definition of tiny. It is a shame no one pointed this out on the show. Shows like this, and papers like the free Metro are far more important than papers like <span style="font-style: italic;">The Guardian</span> or the <span style="font-style: italic;">FT</span>. Millions of people watch the One Show. I e-mailed in, as of yet my comments haven't been read out.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-2641969082040478962008-05-01T22:46:00.012+02:002008-05-21T10:13:10.712+02:00Geoffrey Sampson on natural Racism<div style="text-align: justify;">I was listening to a Teaching Company course by <a linkindex="22" style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.teach12.com/store/professor.asp?ID=304">John McWhorter</a> on linguistics. He mentioned Pinker's book <span style="font-style: italic;">The Language Instinct</span> which I'm reading now. He also mentioned that for a good rebuttal to consult Geoffrey Sampson's <span style="font-style: italic;">Language Instinct Debate</span>. In googling the author I came across a couple of controversies Sampson has had. One was with Chomsky (who hasn't had beef with the guy?!) and another was an article he put up on his website <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://library.flawlesslogic.com/racism_3.htm">There's Nothing Wrong With Racism </a>(Except the Name). </span>The Chomsky business consisted of the usual nonsense about Holocaust denial in the preface of Robert Faurisson's book. An outlandish statement from Sampson's website is worth <a href="http://www.grsampson.net/CWikip.html">quoting</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote> I think it was only after writing the encyclopaedia entry that I learned how far Chomsky had been getting into bed with the Neo-Nazi movement</blockquote><br />An anarchist in bed with neo-Nazi's! Is that yet another type of anarchism? like you know anarco-capitalism, socialism, communism, gayism, feminism and now anarcho-neo-nazism?!<br /><br />The other business is is the racism article. Sampson was a councilor for the Conservative Party so it caused a stir in the press. I read it carefully and it struck me as written by someone who is very unfamiliar with evolutionary science. Now I'm no expert, infact my 'expertise' in Darwinian evolution derives from a bunch of Christmas lectures targeted at children that Richard Dawkins gave, however that article is awful. The hypothesis is that there is a biological urge towards racism, it is a completely natural feeling much like wanting to get laid. The reason there is that urge towards racism is our minds equate those that look different from us as have different genes. Sampson points out this of course is irrational, our DNA is remarkably similar even across species but our instincts don't know that.<br /><br />Sampson goes onto point out how we have a natural inclination to care for our children: we pay for expensive schools, leave them inheritance etc. at the expense of other children not related to us. This leads Sampson to the conclusion that racism is as natural as sexual urges or caring for children, they are all to spread <span style="font-style: italic;">our</span> genes.<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia,Arial,Helvetica;">But this really misses the point. We don't prefer people who share more of our genes over people who share fewer because the latter have particular outward features that we dislike. We prefer the former because they share more of our genes, and we all want our own genes to become numerous. Biology forces us to want that, which is why it forces us to want to get our bodies entangled with the opposite sex.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:Georgia,Arial,Helvetica;"></span><br />This hypothesis would be valid on the assumption that racism only ever applied to the opposite sex. Why is it natural under Sampson's rationale to have a racist inclination towards the same sex? It's impossible to have children with them. If it was about propagating genes racism would only apply in the narrow area of mate selection, which I think it does. I, personally, wouldn't call that racism - it's just taste. Nonetheless, Sampson's Darwnian explanation of racism, if I've understod it correctly, seems to be junk socio-biology. The only perceivable worthy hypothesis one can glean from the article is that humans during mate selection chose those similar to themselves. That is uncontroversial, and I think entirely correct. I think he was trying to work <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection">Kin Selection</a> into it, but if so he shouldn't mention sexual selection because it gives the mis-impression that they are both as powerful. Furthermore the theory of Kin Selection can't explain why we know who we are related to. There's evidence to show that the marker of 'this is my sister' goes off in a subjects brain when they are brought up together, the classic example being Israeli kibbutzim children who though not genetically related all married outside the kibbutz. This also all applies to actual kin, sisters, brothers members of the same family. Not some white guy down the road. Dawkins has <a href="http://scepsis.ru/eng/articles/id_3.php">tackled </a>this head on before,<br /><br /><i></i><blockquote><i>"The National Front was saying something like this,</i> "kin selection provides the basis for favoring your own race as distinct from other races, as a kind of generalization of favoring your own close family as opposed to other individuals." <i>Kin selection doesn't do that! Kin selection favors nepotism towards your own immediate close family. It does not favor a generalization of nepotism towards millions of other people who happen to be the same color as you. Even if it did, and this is a stronger point, I would oppose any suggestion from any group such as the National Front, that whatever occurs in natural selection is therefore morally good or desirable. We come back to this point over and over again. I'm definitely not one who thinks that "is" is the same as "ought."</i> </blockquote><br />Further on Sampson even talks about immigration to the UK being this big bad awful thing that has ruined the natural harmony we had in a Utopian Britan, which was full of British people, all related to each other (no jokes pls!)<br /><br /><span style="font-family:Georgia,Arial,Helvetica;"><blockquote>When I was a child, England and other European nations were racially very homogeneous. Except for a small Jewish community (who don't look much different from the indigenous English anyway), virtually everyone living in England was related to everyone else<br /><br /></blockquote>In actual fact, however, there are more Britain's living abroad than immigrants living here. Before you begin complaining about immigration, recall all your own people. Class issues before mass migration were also tense.</span><br /><br />I haven't read Sampson's book yet but if someone who has apparently ripped apart the Universal Grammar hypothesis, which uses evolutionary arguments, is this bad at biology, I'm not sure I'll be expecting much.<br /><br />Edit: apparantly mentinoing Chomsky, holocaust and Faurisson triggers spam bots to post holocaust denial articles!<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-20237525079981367992008-05-01T09:27:00.005+02:002008-05-01T09:44:20.128+02:00Chief economists of large banks want to keep the housing bubble inflated<div style="text-align: justify;">That isn't a surprise, large banks of course want to keep the bubble artificially inflated because it serves their bottom lines. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7374730.stm">Even </a>Nationwide's chief economist, Fionnuala Earley, wants a reduction, (I say even because Nationwide isn't shareholder owned so puts its memebers first.) But it is amazing that the <a href="http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/119062/diff/14/15">Central Bank </a>wants to keep housing unaffordable for the majority of people, as David Blanchflower of the MPC at the BoE stated,<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p> David Blanchflower, a member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee which sets interest rates, said in a speech on Tuesday that house prices could fall by 30% over the next few years if interest rates were not cut. </p><p>He added: "I am not suggesting that such a drop will necessarily occur, but it may. Cutting interest rates now may help to prevent such a dramatic fall." </p><p> A regular cheerleader for lower rates, Mr Blanchflower said "aggressive action" was needed to stop a downturn in the economy.</p></blockquote></div><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><div style="text-align: justify;">Why should the government intervene to keep housing unaffordable for its people?! In what world is that a sane policy?</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-85826947142788056892008-04-28T10:50:00.005+02:002008-04-28T17:45:33.585+02:00Affordable housing through corproate welfare<div style="text-align: justify;">The recent housing crisis in both the US and UK has led to central banks to pump liquidity into markets and for governments to bail out banks with £100,000,000,000 (billion!) to one corporation alone, Northern Rock. The US governments bailing out of Bear Stearns in comparison is quite minor, both absolutely (weaker dollar) and relatively as a percentage of GDP. With an extreme right wing lunatic in the Whitehouse and a supposed 'Labour' government in no.10, it tells you how far to the right neo-Labourites have flung. FYI that's about £16k each tax payer is underwriting.<br /><br />If governments were serious about helping home owners it would just cut out the middle man, the banks. Rather than give massive loans and underwriting hundreds of billions of pounds of risk they could easily setup a tax free mortgage payments system with loans issued directly by socially owned banks. There is already a system in place like this with The Student Loans company which has lent out £15.5bn in loans since its inception.<br /><br />This would instantly lower interest rates on mortgages, as with the Student Loan Company which offers lower interest rates than the free market can possibly provide. Furthermore all payments into this social mortgage scheme should be tax exempt, both VAT and income. This would instantly reduce payments by 39.5% (17.5+22%) for those who truly need it. I can hear the free market fanatic already, 'how can this be paid for?'.<br /><br />Well, we could perhaps stop pumping liquidity into private markets, pump it into social ones. Further we could save £150bn in bailing out banks and issue mortgages with those savings. Total loans for house purchasing in 2007 was £154.9bn (source: <a href="http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/filegrab/ML1.xls?ref=4623">CML</a>). The proposed scheme could have been funded purely by the bank bailouts for one year even if every single mortgagee defaulted. More realistically not everyone will default, actually default rates would be far lower than on private market due to mortgages being more affordable. This means the asset the government has isn't junk like subprime bonds which have high default rates.<br /><br />All articles assert that central banks have to pump liquidity into the market, they have to bail out banks all so we can afford our mortgages. That is indeed one way of doing it, to be sure it is a very inefficient method of doing it. The rough scheme proposed here isn't workable in isolation. House prices would, of course, soar with buyers swimming in government supplied liquidity*; supply side issues would need addressing, perhaps by social house building schemes if we are to avoid this. Nonetheless, this took me about 5 minutes of googline to find the stats, why doesn't the press talk about it?<br /><br />*: if these social mortgages were only offered to first time buyers on a property they wish to live in (as opposed to buy-to-let) demand would be reduced as only those who actually need to live in a house would buy. The situation currently has all the usual elements of bubble speculation which artificially inflate prices.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-75689474229515283412008-03-03T10:24:00.004+01:002008-03-03T10:32:09.650+01:00José Manuel Barroso talking nonsense, FT fails to correct him<a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ab2bf90-e8a1-11dc-913a-0000779fd2ac.html">Apparantly</a><br /><blockquote><br />Protectionist pressures are increasing across Europe, even among political forces traditionally committed to free markets, according to José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president... Mr Barroso, [is] a committed advocate of free trade<br /></blockquote><br />Yet Barroso, the great "advocate of free trade",<br /><br /><blockquote>saw some progress in China’s position on the defence of intellectual property rights – a key concern for European companies. “The Commission doesn’t want to, but it might be hard to resist the protectionist calls,” he warned.</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">So Barroso truly believes in free trade, but wants to <span style="font-style: italic;">force</span> China to enforce government granted monopolies (IPR) by threatening protectionist measures, aka a trade war. Protectionism to force more protectionism in the name of free trade. How can you even say that with a straight face?<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-42583673927003549242008-03-03T09:59:00.002+01:002008-03-03T10:07:18.679+01:00NYT sees only three options for increasing Medicare/aid costs<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/us/politics/03qhealth.html?ref=us&pagewanted=all">Apparantly</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>The Democrats do not say, in any detail, how they would slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid or what they think about the main policy options: rationing care, raising taxes, cutting payments to providers or requiring beneficiaries to pay more.</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Robert Pear thinks the only options are: reducing the quality of care, not providing care at all or increasing the cost of care. The question of tackling costs of the actual treatments and drug aren't a policy option. It would be relatively easy to abandon government granted patent monopolies and would drive costs down dramatically. However, I guess this isn't a main policy option due to either the powers of the lobbies or the fallacy that innovation requires patent protection. To be sure, innovation in an inefficent private market requirse patent protection. Innovation in a public enterprise require no patent protection.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-73790862951987395242008-02-26T10:11:00.004+01:002008-02-26T10:15:01.569+01:00Why care about Pandas, Tigers, Wolves and Whales?Conversation on biodiversity from a forum, I raised the point that why do we care about rare wolves when there is suffering live stock around? A reply:<br /><br /><blockquote>do you understand the value of variety, understand that a concrete desert cannot produce the kind of human stock a mountain full of wildlife & massive variety of life can ? The wolf is a teacher for strong humans & a hunter of weak humans. This is something to be respected & valued more than any gold or possession.</blockquote><span class="postbody"><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="postbody">I understand the value of variety. Key noun 'I'.</span><br /><br /><span class="postbody">These are value terms, everyone can have opinions and everyone's opinion is equally valid. When opinions on what to do in an area collide we fall back on political philosophy where I personally favour true democratic principles. Usually it boils down to the majority wanting to preserve biodiversity, say not mining an area. And an elite minority (corporations) that want to exploit the social environment for private profit.</span><br /><br /><span class="postbody">But I would like a more concrete answer to justify preservation of biodiversity. The keystone species being wiped out causing massive effects to our planet is a good argument. Arguments that appeal to value terms, inheritantly subjective, are not. Why should one preserve the endangered Panda? I think they're beautiful and majestic creatures. But this is a subjective opinion. Why do we spend so many resources targeting preservation of, what seems to me entirely arbitrary animals, when those resources could be used to resolve suffering of live stock? I feel the same about these campaigns against Whale trolling. Whales are free range meat, they only suffer during capture. They indeed suffer absolutely horribly for the hours it takes these huge creates to die.</span><br /><br /><span class="postbody">However, this pales in comparison to live stock. I just don't understand what the difference is. A cow or a chicken or a sheep, to me, is just as wonderful as a whale. I don't justify an animals worth by its rarity, otherwise there should be no such things as human rights because we are so numerous. Who cares if millions die? We bread well, there's plenty of us. I judge them by a formation of a nervous system. And to me it seems quite absurd that we care about wolves, tigers and panadas when other animals with equally well formed nervous systems are suffering. It just doesn't even compare.</span><br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-50289373502236142432008-02-22T10:19:00.001+01:002008-02-22T10:21:11.639+01:00Notes on Kosovo<div style="text-align: justify;">Written 30/07/2008, seemed relevant for anyone doing google searcehs :-p<br /><br />As I see it, it's a pissing match between Russia and the US. EU will remain more docile worried about the gas from Russia, although the UK will probably stick harder with the US for i) traditonal reasons 'strong relatinoship' ii) The Livthinkenyo murder and the associated expulsions of Russian diplomats.<br /><br />Putin doesn't care about Serb/Slav protection or historical links. The slav brothers have been used as a pretext to get involved in foreign conflict since WW1. What he most cares about is pwning Bush and establishing firmly that he can challenge US hegemony and reversing the embarrassment of having the Russian brokered peace agreement, after 1999 bombing, being largely walked over by NATO. He wants to send hte diplomatic message that you cannot treat Russia like that, when we agree to contractal terms, you must stick by them. Furthermore, there's the minor stuff of Russia being hypocrtical of Checnia if it supported independence and Spain for the same reason, they have their own independent movement.<br /><br />I read this article by an international lawyer, was quite interesting saying that the only legal method of independence is partition. The UN holds Kosovo on Trust, this does not entitle it legally to give it away to a new soverign. Holding a country on Trust is not a legal method of annexation of terrirtory so no good title passes. The only legal way, is a 85% 15% split, where Serbia retains control of the majority Serb areas (15%) and Kosovo the rest. I also read in other aticles, that de facto, Serbia is already in control of the Serb areas of Kosvo where Kosovo does not try and exercise authority.<br /><br />In sum, main obstacales to independence<br /><br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li> Increasing tension between US and Russia. </li><li> Dosile EU, effectively hooked on Russian gas. </li><li> Concern for Kosovar-serbs (10%, 200,000) </li><li> Lack of strong economy or muscular legal institutions (corruption, lack of energy) </li><li> Serbian insecurity that an independent Kosovo will lead to a rise in ultra-nationalist elements. </li><li> Political mis-mangement in Serbia, should be telling the public they want to keep 10-15% of Kosovo that is full of Serbs. </li><li> Minor concerns about multi-ethnicity being compromised </li><li> Jurisprudential questions of the legality of Kosovian independence.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-74894694723658384162008-01-21T21:42:00.000+01:002008-01-21T21:54:01.369+01:00Some rough numbers on Northern Rock<div style="text-align: justify;">The Government has bailed out Northern Rock by supplying them with £25bn loans. This is corporate welfare at the worst I can think of. A few rough numbers.<br /></div><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn09.pdf">29.5 </a>million tax payers in 2006-07. </li><li>Each individual tax payer will loan £847.50 to the Rock. </li><li>A rough <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/01/rock_rescue_explained.html">estimate </a>is the loans value to around £1bn subsidy outright. That is £33.90 each tax payer has given the rock.</li></ul>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-10259449593558034752008-01-19T11:12:00.000+01:002008-01-19T11:33:29.757+01:00Jan 5th Economist faking stats<blockquote>[1968] ended with almost 60% of Americans voting for either Richard Nixon or George Wallace, a Southern segregationist [40 year itch, p39 in pdf edition]<br /><br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">In the 1968 Presidential Election 56.9% of <span style="font-style: italic;">those who voted</span>, voted for Nixon and Wallace. According to the <a href="http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/voting/tabA-10.xls">US Census</a> there were around 116 million eligible to vote. 41.6 million voted for Nixon and Wallace. That's near 36% of eligible Americans voting for Nixon/Wallace or 20% of Americans.<br /><br />In the words of Dean Baker, it would have been useful to inform the readers of this information.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-8519375434447684922008-01-18T12:43:00.001+01:002008-01-18T12:56:48.529+01:00Gaza Violence<div style="text-align: justify;">Astounding quote by Shlomo Dror <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7195459.stm">today</a><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's unacceptable that people in Sderot are living in fear every day and people in Gaza are living life as usual."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Life as usual, living in an open prison. Thought experiment: how about we swap the two sides?</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-48279289577462042272008-01-11T22:46:00.000+01:002008-01-11T23:08:50.355+01:00The Pursuit of Profit<div style="text-align: justify;">Whenever I read critique's of corporate power, I always see <span style="font-style: italic;">Ford vs. Dodge</span> get a mention. That is the case that famously decided that a corporation has no goal but the pathological pursuit of profit for shareholders. In the case Mr. Ford wanted to give his workforce a bonus, the shareholders filed suit and won. Thus the common critique from the left is radical judicial activism has caused this psychopathic pursuit for profit. [find citations] and this is a core principle of Anglo-American corporate law.<br /><br />Indeed it is a core principle, however there are also plenty of other legal obligations a corporation has. The genesis of the Tort of negligence is an example of that. Companies have a duty of care to make sure their products do not harm consumers (<span style="font-style: italic;">Donohogue v Stevenson)</span>, they also have innumerable obligations under environmental law. However these are less often followed, despite them having the same normative force as the decision in <span style="font-style: italic;">Ford vs. US. </span>The main reason why the normative force does not result in substantive changes is due to the lack of enforcement, which is a structural problem of capitalist societies. i.e. powerful groups can enforce their legal rights, the right to exploit the environment for profit. They have white shoe and magic circle law firms for that. However, the majority cannot enforce their environmental rights due to lack of either standing in court lack of funds or under staffed and overworked enforcement bodies. However, it does also seem to be as Friedman said, a core of human nature - to profit. Well, human nature of elites and power centers.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ford vs Dodge</span> is not the reason we live under corporations pathological pursuit of power, that argument seems to me to reverse the chronology and ignore the rest of the innumerable legal obligations corporations are under and hugely overstate the importance of a single case. Corporations are required by law to peruse profit, but that's irrelevant, they're also required to follow environmental regulations and they rarely do. The problem is not <span style="font-style: italic;">Ford</span>, the problem is formal equality necessarily leading to substantive inequality. A critique that usually holds accurate for all of law.<br /></div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-48103671550104087552007-12-23T21:55:00.000+01:002007-12-23T22:31:20.849+01:00On Brainwashing<div style="text-align: justify;">I often here that suicide bombers are brainwashed morons. Whether this be from a guy at the pub, friends, family, respected political commentators or politicians. Lets make no mistake, they are but it's far more understandable than our brainwashed armed forces. Unlike 'them' 'we' are rich, we're not being constantly bombed, occupied, starved and treated like vermin. An elementary moral truism is with with privilege comes culpability. We are millions of times more privileged than the people we occupy and slaughter. Even those in the slums of Harlem, LA or Brixton.<br /><br />Our armed forces are far more brainwashed than any suicide bomber. Worse than killing in the name of religion, we kill on command for a state. We take 18 year olds, usually straight of high school with no other prospects, enlist them, put them through grueling boot camps that have no athletic or training goal but to break one's spirit so they blindly follow commands. We then equip these boys with M-16's, M1 Tanks, we equip our pilots with B-52s and tell them to slaughter on command thousands of innocent villagers below. We tell them to purposely target dams so they can starve the population by flooding their lands. We tell them to inflict gruesome, sadistic 'interrogation' methods on their fellow men, because they are designated the 'bad guy' without any evidence, without a court of law reviewing the case. All this because we defer to authority. I recall the most ironic thing back in 1999, there were loads of people whining about Kosovars (or as the locals say 'Kosvans') coming into England and stealing shit. That is astounding. We go round bombing their country, causing a pogrom against them and we have the audacity to complain about them stealing ? I was working with a guy from Nigeria recently, he said something damn funny: "you guys whine about people wanting to come here, yet you go about bombing other countries, keeping others down. Of course people are gonna come here. It's nice here". Another example I can whittle off is the minor £37 million given to Asslym Seekers to go back home, pennies in budget. This sparked outrage in the press and pubs alike. Yet the government gives tens of billions of tax payers money to Northern Rock, a large corporation, money it may never get back. I've not heard one person whine about this.<br /><br />I think the scene in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Bourne Ultimatum</span> where Bourne's trainer instructs him to kill on command, without any knowledge of his victims crimes is a perfect image of our armed forces. As Emma Goldman put it<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The military spirit is the most merciless, heartless and brutal in existence. It fosters an institution for which there is not even a pretense of justification. The soldier, to quote Tolstoi, is a professional man-killer. He does not kill for the love of it, like a savage, or in a passion, like a homicide. He is a cold-blooded, mechanical, obedient tool of his military superiors. He is ready to cut throats or scuttle a ship at the command of his ranking officer, without knowing or, perhaps, caring how, why or wherefore. I am supported in this contention by no less a military light than Gen. Funston. I quote from the latter's communication to the </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><span style="">New York Evening Post </span></i></span><span style="font-size:85%;">of June 30, dealing with the case of Private William Buwalda, which caused such a stir all through the Northwest. "The first duty of an officer or enlisted man," says our noble warrior, "is unquestioning obedience and loyalty to the government to which he has sworn allegiance; it makes no difference whether he approves of that government or not."</span></blockquote><span style=";font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;font-size:12;" ><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />I wonder how brainwashed we all are.</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-78463034043175815082007-11-08T11:16:00.001+01:002007-11-08T14:51:19.693+01:00More lulz from Bush<div align="justify"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Apparently</span></span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/world/asia/08pakistan.html?ref=world">he was on the phone </a>to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Musharraf</span></span> and told him, "You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time". I wonder if <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Musharraf</span></span> informed him that is precisely what the president of the United States is, as commander-in-chief the US <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Constitution</span></span> provides the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">president</span></span> shall be:<br /><br /></div><blockquote><p align="justify">shall be Commander-in-Chief of the <a title="United States Army" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army">Army</a> and <a title="United States Navy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy">Navy</a> of the United<br />States, and of the <a title="Militia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia">Militia</a> of the several States,<br />when called into the actual Service of the United States</p></blockquote><div align="justify"><br /><br />Bush is not ignorant he's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">CIC</span></span>. As he constantly goes on about, the nation is at war, you don't change <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">CIC's</span></span> at a time of war. This is indeed epic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">lulz</span></span>.<br /><br />Furthermore, this is not just of academic importance. The substantive effect of the president being <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">CIC</span></span> has enabled the executive to effectively unilaterally declare war without Congressional approval, evidenced by a long bloody history in Latin America and Indochina that is so obvious it doesn't even need to be discussed. In the words of Dean Baker, it would have been useful to point this out to readers.</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5153179896648274332.post-34013060029676751102007-11-06T14:53:00.000+01:002007-11-28T12:57:01.375+01:00Prototypical example of a lack of empiricism in jurisprudence<div align="justify">Guido <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Calabresi</span></span>, in his paper on the <a href="http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?context=jtl&article=1052">roots of Tort law </a>distinguishes criminal and contract law as such:<br /><br /><br /></div><blockquote><p align="justify">Contract law reflects the most libertarian set of relationships, in which – once<br />an entitlement has been given or recognized by the polity – that entitlement can<br />only be transferred if the parties themselves agree to do so at an individually<br />determined price. Regulation/criminal law represents the most collective set of<br />relationships in which the State not only decides who owns what, but determines,<br />under pain of criminal sanction, when that entitlement can be removed,<br />transferred or abrogated. </p></blockquote><div align="justify"><br /><br />In <em>all </em>of legal theory this is just a given, it is beyond debate. It is seen as a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">fundamental</span> axiom from which all other <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">theories</span> derive. However as I <a href="http://dush-law-politics.blogspot.com/2007/07/property-and-coercion-in-absence-of.html">constantly bang on about</a>, this just isn't the case. There is hardly a distinction between the two when we consider what it means in reality for the majority of the world. Perhaps jurists should consider reading the history of the United States as a great example of what the sanctity of contract meant in reality for the working class, rather than reading hundreds of pages of judgments and law journals.</div>Dushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07251655211282661995noreply@blogger.com0