The Kingdom of Wrong

Predictions for 2012

2012-01-16T22:24:00.000Z

OK, yes, these are a couple of weeks late. Never mind.

Motor Racing: Button will win the F1 driver's championship; Audi will win Le Mans
Iran: Shots will be fired, UN sanctions, no invasion in 2012
Eurozone: Greece defaults, EFSF and FU do nothing, Euro currency limps on (>1.30/£, <$1.20)
Scotland: No referendum date announced during 2012
Olympics: More GB medals than at Beijing 2008, but fewer golds
Terrorism: No attack on the Olympics, nor in the UK mainland
Markets: Gold will top $1900/oz, FTSE >6000 and S&P500 >1350 during the year
US politics: Romney will get the GOP nomination and will narrowly beat Obama
UK politics: Ed Miliband will survive (at least) through the Labour party conference, the coalition will last into 2013
Mayan calendar: the world won't end in 2012

- Mystic KoW

2011 predictions

2011-12-28T10:34:00.003Z

Well, it's been a year since I made some predictions - a year in which I seem to have posted almost nothing. Oops. Let's see how the predictions went, though...

Inflation will remain high, forcing an increase in the BoE base rate by the summer

RPI has been above 5% all year, but the BoE is deliberately allowing inflation in spite of its obligations. Half a point? (0.5/10)

Property prices will continue their recent slide, exacerbated by the interest rate rise, and will finish down about 10% on the year

Nope. Up 1.6% YoY as of November, so a slight fall in real terms but no rate rise meant no crash. (0.5/10)

F1 won't be won by a German this year - I'm going to say McLaren for the double. Probably Hamilton, but it depends how well the new tyres suit Button.

Hahaha! Vettel won damn near every race, in one of the most lop-sided competitions for many years. It was still a damn entertaining season, though, once you ignore the car at the front. (0.5/10)

Audi will win 24 Hours of Le Mans again, despite a close fight with Peugeot, and Drayson Racing will be classified finishers.

Drayson Racing didn't enter for Le Mans, but Audi most definitely won - with Peugeot picking up second through fourth after an incredibly close race which saw two of the Audis crash out. (1.5/10)

Sterling will rise slightly against the Dollar - $1.60 - and fall slightly against the Yen - 115. I'm going to predict a rise against the Euro, though not sure how much maybe 1.20-1.30?

Today, £1 is worth $1.5661 (low in September of $1.53, high in May of $1.66), €1.1983 (low €1.2045, high €1.1065) and ¥121.7295 (low ¥116.985, high ¥139.62). So, we have hit €1.20 and $1.60 during the year, but it's been very volatile - half a point? (2/10)

Oil prices will fluctuate, but petrol prices will ignore this and rise to £1.50/litre for no adequately explained reason.

We've reached £1.32/litre for Unleaded, but I'm going to call this one a failure. (2/10)

Gold will trade above $1600/oz, but most of the volatility will be in silver and/or platinum.

Gold is only just below $1600/oz again - and it hit $1900/oz. Silver has been a little more volatile, but it's been an exceptionally volatile year for all metals. (3/10)

GDP growth will remain anaemic, maybe 1-2% over the entire year. The FTSE will remain above 5000 as a result.

Half a percent in Q1/Q3, flat in Q2 - even without the Q4 figures, I'd say that's a definite hit. Particularly since this time last year we were going to get >3% growth in 2011. The FTSE touched 5000 a couple of times, but has basically stayed above that psychological point for the entire year. (4/10)

There will not be a General Election in 2011. The coalition may not hold for the entire year, but I think it will last long enough.

It's too late now to call a GE before 2012, so even if the coalition falls this week, this one was bang-on. (5/10)

There will not be a significant Islamist terrorist attack in the UK, the US, or on a transatlantic flight. Let's define "significant" as "kills one or more people", none of this "has the Houses of Parliament on a list of targets" nonsense.

None. A couple of lone wolf nutters in Tucson, AZ and Norway, the Irish are back, and plenty of trouble from al-Qaeda et al in the Middle East, but nothing to worry about here. How's that Terror Alert Level doing? (6/10)

I might have been generous for a couple of those, but I'm fairly impressed by that strike rate. Shall have to make the 2012 predictions more specific and objectively measurable...

- Mystic KoW

The most retarded 'argument' I've ever seen

2011-07-02T09:34:00.001+01:00

I came across this article earlier today, h/t to Longrider at Orphans of Liberty, and so it's about time I made another blog post. I'm amused and shocked that this sort of tripe still passes muster from anyone old enough not need help from the teacher to tie their shoelaces.

The article starts off with a bold claim:

Secondhand smoking is more dangerous than main smoking. It creates more serious health hazards. It is the cause of many modern diseases.

Wow! It should have been banned first, then, right? Since it's more dangerous?

There's a discussion of how "voluntary organizations and governments" have checked the "evil effects of smoking", leaving one in no doubt as to the hand-wringing credentials of the author, and then we get to the meat of the argument:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because ...

Yes? Yes?! Because? We're quivering with antici...pation here!

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because it contains more than 50 substances that can cause cancer and other hazards through passive smoking.

Wait, what?

Those "50 substances" aren't being sucked into the smoker's lungs? Being breathed by the smoker, with their nose mere inches from the cigarette? Perhaps the "50 substances" are scared of fire and therefore only affect people more than six feet away from a lit cigarette...

Secondhand smoke is "more dangerous" than smoking purely because it is "dangerous". And it's only "dangerous" by tautology. This is not an argument. Saying that something is, I quote, "more dangerous" requires an actual comparison of the danger.

Well, the article does have a second try:

Since the secondhand smoke has higher concentrations of cancer-causing agents called carcinogens than the main smoke from the smoker, [...]

That's right. Secondhand smoke, from the combustion of a cigarette, contains more carcinogens than, um, the other smoke from the same combustion of the same cigarette. And at a higher concentration, because spreading that smoke through a 32m³ volume of air in a room makes it more concentrated than containing it in the 0.004m³ volume of the smoker's lungs. It's not diluted eight thousand times or anything. There's no attempt to cite a reference for this claptrap, it's simply thrown out there as a 'fact': smoke coming out of a cigarette is 'more dangerous' to non-smokers. Perhaps smokers build up an immunity to the effects? Science demands answers!

There's a bit of a correlation/causation conflation to 'prove' that secondhand smoke is dangerous, but that's it. Apparently secondhand smoke is dangerous because some non-smokers living with smokers die. Guess what? Everybody dies. It's not even that they died of something potentially smoking-related. Heart disease. Y'know, the #1 killer in the Western World, caused by a lifetime of fatty foods and just generally getting old.

This is like someone has heard about arguments, but hasn't quite understood how they work. Yes, arguments usually contain the word "because"; that doesn't mean that everything containing the word "because" is an argument. There's the whole 'logic' thing to consider, too. Let's have some fun with examples...

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because it contains more than 50 substances that can cause cancer

How about:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because the sky is blue

Or:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because my garden wall isn't three feet high

Maybe:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because the giraffe is made of brightly-coloured kites

All of which make about as much logical sense

- KoW

Predictions for 2011

2011-01-03T01:45:00.001Z

OK, well, 30% wasn't too bad, so I think I should push my luck...

Inflation will remain high, forcing an increase in the BoE base rate by the summer
Property prices will continue their recent slide, exacerbated by the interest rate rise, and will finish down about 10% on the year
F1 won't be won by a German this year - I'm going to say McLaren for the double. Probably Hamilton, but it depends how well the new tyres suit Button.
Audi will win 24 Hours of Le Mans again, despite a close fight with Peugeot, and Drayson Racing will be classified finishers.
Sterling will rise slightly against the Dollar - $1.60 - and fall slightly against the Yen - 115. I'm going to predict a rise against the Euro, though not sure how much maybe 1.20-1.30?
Oil prices will fluctuate, but petrol prices will ignore this and rise to £1.50/litre for no adequately explained reason.
Gold will trade above $1600/oz, but most of the volatility will be in silver and/or platinum.
GDP growth will remain anaemic, maybe 1-2% over the entire year. The FTSE will remain above 5000 as a result.
There will not be a General Election in 2011. The coalition may not hold for the entire year, but I think it will last long enough.
There will not be a significant Islamist terrorist attack in the UK, the US, or on a transatlantic flight. Let's define "significant" as "kills one or more people", none of this "has the Houses of Parliament on a list of targets" nonsense.

- Mystic KoW

2010 Predictions

2011-01-03T00:58:00.003Z

Back here I made some predictions for 2010. Let's see how bad they turned out to be...

Inflation will reach double digits

Um... nope. About 5.5% RPI, 3.5% CPI. High, but not double-digit. (0/1)

Conservative victory in the General Election, by >30 seats

Nope. 20 short, but the coalition is 37 over the threshold. (0/2)

Britain will lose her AAA credit rating...
... but will regain it by the end of the year after massive cuts in public expenditure

Somewhat. We didn't formally lose the credit rating, but were marked as a negative outlook and the bond markets were pricing us as de-facto AA. We did need, and get, some cuts. (0.5/4)

The FTSE100 will drop below 4000 before rebounding

Nope. 52-week range is 4790-6021.5. (0.5/5)

There won't be a new Labour leader in 2010, Brown will cling on and smear his rivals as the party implodes

Nope. We now have the Work Experience Kid and Brown vanished like Scotch Mist. (0.5/6)

Sterling will drop below parity with the Euro, and below 120 Yen, but will stay around $1.50

52-week range against the Euro is 1.0966 - 1.2339, so, no, didn't expect the collapse in the Eurozone.
52-week range against the Yen is 125.5190 - 150.7188... damn, so close, especially as it's only 126 now.
52-week range against the Dollar is 1.4227 - 1.6459 (mean = 1.53), so I'm happy with that one. (1/7)

Global Cooling will continue, more neutral/negative results will come out, as will a few more scandals, Copenhagen will be swept under the carpet and most politicians will be claiming by the end of the year that they were always skeptical

Coldest December in decades, unseasonably cold in Cancun for COP16 (and generally only a ministerial presence rather than leaders), a paper claiming no link between CO₂ and temperatures. I'm going to say that's a win. (2/8)

Sebastian Vettel to win the F1 world championship - he'll be the fastest German on the grid, certainly

Boom! Right on the money: Vettel won the championship, beating six other Germans in the process. (3/9)

VAT may or may not increase, but basic rate income tax will hit 25% as a temporary measure

Nope. The coalition wouldn't stand it. (3/10)

So, 30% right there. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't expected more, but I'll take it.

- Mystic KoW

Guido uncovers Anglo-Irish Bank fraud?

2010-10-16T12:52:00.001+01:00

Guido has a very interesting story about the recently-bailed-out Irish bank seemingly providing fraudulent marks to its (less-savvy) customers.

The two circled figures for 3-month yields in the accompanying image, the actual DIBOR at 6.22000% and the figure claimed by the bank of 6.5000%, are supposed to be the same by definition.

Like mortgages, money market transactions have interest rates based on an official index (LIBOR, DIBOR, the Bank of England Base Rate) added to a spread agreed between the parties, which covers the risk to and the profit for the bank. The bank will borrow at the index rate and lend at a slightly higher one, which is perfectly sound business. Just like someone with great credit and a lot of equity will only pay a small amount more than the base rate on their mortgage, so a good corporate customer will get a tighter spread; a new or less-creditworthy customer will have to pay more to borrow.

The problem in this case is that, according to those figures, Anglo-Irish has simply lied about the index rates in order to cream off a bit more from borrowers. This is equivalent to your mortgage provider claiming that the Bank of England base rate is 1.5%, when it's really 0.5%, and therefore your mortgage is an extra £250 per month - that extra £250 doesn't pay down your debt any faster, nor is it a cost to the bank. They're still borrowing at the index rate, so the extra is pure profit without having to worry about pesky contractual obligations - you'd agreed how much you'd pay them, and they're taking more without authorisation or legal authority. Fraud, basically.

The article suggests that this was only done for less aware customers - a professional would likely have other sources of DIBOR marks and would spot the difference, but a naive customer might just accept the bank's numbers without asking, and that might double the desk's profits - if you're getting 28 basis points (1% of 1%) from lying about the index and offering a spread of 25bp, then more than half of the total profit is from the fraud. Now, if the market was uncertain, borrowers might happily pay a 53bp spread - but charging them that while telling them that it's 25bp is surely illegal.

It'll be interesting to see how that one plays out...

- KoW

Autumn of Wrath 2: Autumn Harder!

2010-09-05T15:35:00.003+01:00

So, nearly a year late - it is the tube after all - the strikes are kicking off and will paralyse London. For what? Because the RMT and some other bunch of TSSAs think it's a bit unfair that they shouldn't be paid to sit around reading novels and want 250 unfilled and demonstrably-redundant jobs to be filled rather than being part of a 5% headcount reduction which will not cost anyone their job and will simply be natural wastage.

Wonderful, eh? Doesn't it make your heart sing that Bob Crow is going to fuck up the week of several million people over a manufactured and practically non-existent "dispute". We all know what this is really about - it's not the ticket staff, it's not the union members, it's purely to test the will of the coalition government. "The issue is not the issue". For that reason, it'll keep rolling on with one petty grievance after another trotted out as a pretext for what must be the last hurrah of unions in the public sector. We have a precedent - Lord Scarman ruled against the unionisation of workers at GCHQ, for the fairly obvious and sensible reason that some services are too important to allow union activity to interfere with them. When millions of people can be held hostage for the benefit of a few hundred, half of whom don't exist and none who would lose their jobs in any case, the system is broken.

I'm not going to be affected by it, of course - as soon as talks broke down, I called in some hotel points and booked myself a room within walking distance of the office. There's a bit of an opportunity cost there, but no alternative.

The point is that unions have a stranglehold over the public sector (and the Labour party) and simply cannot be allowed to disrupt vital public services on a whim. As I've said before, strikes only make sense when there is a functioning market and a company can lose customers to its competitors; when the "company" is a state monopoly, they are simply extortion with menaces.

In any field other than industrial relations, blackmail will get you jail time.

Time to step into the 20th century, eh? Forget about all those abusive Victorian mine owners and deal with the fact that, for nearly four decades, we've had adequate protection for workers in potentially-dangerous environments and bans on discrimination on the grounds of race or sex and, for approaching five decades, protection against arbitrary dismissal.

The battle was won half a century ago, it's time to stop fighting it.

The government should ban something useful for once: unions in monopoly services.

- KoW

The Rudest Woman I Have Ever Met

2010-08-18T22:09:00.000+01:00

Well, tonight's train journey (the First Capital Connect 19:45 from King's Cross to Cambridge) was eventful... some woman set her kids a fantastic example by throwing a tantrum when she couldn't get her way.

I'd got to the station too late to comfortably make the 19:15, so I ended up waiting. Naturally, this meant that I was able to get on the 19:45 as soon as boarding started. I found myself a nice seat, stowed my bags and got out a drink and a newspaper. Boring and predictable just like most evening journeys.

Just before the train was due to leave, a fat woman, two other mothers, and four kids got on and decided that, as part of their arrangements, I was going to have to move. I was... non-plussed. Now, if you ask nicely, or give me a few seconds to weigh up "being surrounded by annoying kids" against "the hassle of moving", I'm blatantly going to give up my seat and move somewhere quiet.

But, no, as I had the temerity to want to sit where I was sat, the fat woman immediately goes off on one. Shouting, swearing, trying to insist that I have no right to the seat I'm in, attempting to draw analogies with airlines, making whiny passive-aggressive comments to everyone in earshot. That technique has repeatedly been shown by studies to be the best way to get exactly what you want... if what you want is a punch in the face, anyway.

Obviously goodwill goes right out of the window at that point and you're getting the full-on feature-length Stubbornness Experience (with a cartoon before and ice-cream during the intermission). Needless to say I sat there, quietly reading the Standard, with the fat woman complaining about how unreasonable I was on one side, and one of the kids kicking me in the knee on the other (clearly she sets a good example to them), thinking "wouldn't it be nice if we could all just... get along?" and "if they were doing this to a train company employee, it'd be called 'assault', according to the station posters".

I'm at a loss to understand what distorted sense of entitlement makes someone expect to be able reconfigure the seating arrangements of complete strangers in a public train, and to throw a fit if people don't immediately bend over backwards to accomodate you. It's ridiculous and, frankly, embarassing. One of the kids even suggested calling the police - presumably to tell them that "the bad man won't give up his seat for us", which I suspect is a misdemeanour at best.

As I got up to leave the train, the fat woman gave me a round of applause, which was nice. She probably meant it sarcastically, but who gives a damn? I certainly don't need anyone's approval to occupy a seat on a train, and nor will I apologise for it.

- KoW

Big Society vs. Big Government

2010-08-17T06:54:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning, in what must have been a slow news day, the BBC rehashed the response to this month-old story - 'charities' are worried that government cuts will mean they lack the "resources" (money) to continue.

There's one very simple rule to bear in mind here:

If your 'charity' relies on government 'donations' then you are, by definition, a government agency.

You know, that whole "being given money to do something" Agent-Principal relationship? Fine, you help people and do good things - unlike other parts of government which exist to hurt people and do bad things, naturally. And you don't turn a profit - just like the MoD and the Foreign Office. Just because you can't see the PM on your org chart doesn't mean you're independent, and having to go cap-in-hand to the state means you're certainly not.

The site fakecharities.org (which seems to be down at the moment) has a listing of many organisations which - while putatively charitable - derive >90% of their income from the government. It's amazing how often they appear on the news, lobbying us with our own money, in order to get more of our money.

I'm somewhat concerned about Cameron's "Big Society", though. It's clearly right in some respects - the state has no business inefficiently providing many things that people want. On the other paw, it strikes me as being a progressive, collectivist, left-wing, even fascistic policy - there seems to be no intention to cut back on services provided, only to expect people to do them for free in statolatric devotion.

I do not expect help from others, which apparently makes me some kind of mug, because others expect (nay demand) help from me. The demand is now made with a smile, rather than taken (via tax) under menaces, but it's the same demand.

- KoW

"Stick a Trident in it, this country is done"

2010-07-31T21:54:00.000+01:00

Well, the British Summer has been and gone, so that's probably my last chance to use a barbecue reference. Work - new job - has been busy, so apologies for the lack of updates.

This last week, like so many others, has been bad news for defence. Nick Clegg announced four more deaths at PMQs on Wednesday, RUSI suggested cutting back from four Boomers to three and so dropping us to a fleet too small (9 boats) to sustain a submarine-building industry, and then on Friday morning it came out that George Osborne was insisting that Trident funding comes out of the MoD main budget.

The BBC were quick to jump on the story, questioning whether this will mean cuts to carriers or to JSF procurement, and they broadly supported Osborne's statement that "All budgets have pressure. I don't think there's anything particularly unique about the Ministry of Defence.". Really, George?

How many other departments have their staff being killed on a daily basis?

What's that? There are no IEDs in schools? No snipers in Whitehall? No insurgents ambushing doctors in hospital A&E departments? No landmines in police stations?

Defence is unique in that if you do it right, British citizens will die; and if you do it wrong, you won't have a country left to run.

That's not so say things are done well in the MoD, they're not. The procurement process is hugely inefficient and not fit-for-purpose, the tens of thousands of pen-pushers make the ministry top-heavy, and the budgets are too low in any case (2% of GDP is lower than other Western powers and a peace-time fantasy).

I had hoped that ousting infamous defence hater Gordon Brown would mean a change in the way things were done, even though I saw little evidence that they would be. Now it's clear that the Liberal Conservatives are no better. They live in the same centre-left puddle of "nice" middle-class Progressive soi-disant liberalism as New Labour and focus on the same populist demagoguery. Nobody values defence, because "the world is safe"; we have a few token wars thousands of miles away, but no "real threats". We have the luxury of being able to worry about how much aid we give away and what our carbon footprints are and how our eating habits will affect long-term healthcare provision. And so defence spending is always and ever a target for cuts to buy votes from the client state. A few people will wring their hands when Land Rovers are blown up and helicopters shot down, but then go right on claiming their "entitlement" to Tax Credits and congratulating themselves for being "a shrewd investor" by buying a house which is now bubble-valued at significantly more than they paid and demanding action on their "rights" not to have other people smoke or drink or eat unhealthy food.

So, Defence remains under attack from the Treasury, remains incompetent at procurement and remains right at the bottom of the ministerial pile. Useful idiots like Douglas Carswell and Lewis Page continue to attack the "cozy" (adversarial) and "protectionist" (largest open defence market in the world) industrial policy, encouraging us to take - with defence of the realm! - the sort of counterparty risks that the banks are being banned from taking. Liam Fox is a good man, but it now seems clear that he's on a hiding to nothing - rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, in effect.

I left the defence industry when the bank bailout showed that some industries were more equal than others, and that defence wasn't something anyone actually cared about. I guess you could call it a Falling Down moment. I find it hard to express my feelings more succinctly than Michael Douglas' character:

I helped build missiles. I helped protect this country. You should be rewarded for that. But instead they give it to the plastic surgeons.

I wasn't the first to leave the industry on that basis and, from the sounds of it, I won't be the last.

It's going to take a while. Decades, probably. But then the UK won't have a defence industry (or any manufacturing at all, really), won't have a nuclear deterrent (or the seat on the UN Security Council that it buys) and so won't have any influence in geopolitics. So not much point in having a military, really - Belgium and Ireland have pretty much gone that way already. The UK will probably fragment along nationalist lines and will almost certainly be swallowed up into a giant Federal Europe. Citizens will be squeezed for ever-higher taxes to pay for the immense bureaucracy needed to keep the gravy train rolling, the make-work jobs and the "entitlements" of the populace and, just like the USSR, the continent-wide centrally-planned economy will collapse under its own weight. A gigantic public sector will pretend to work and the government will pretend to pay them, all the while sliding into oblivion.

Count me out.

Not today. Not tomorrow. It takes time to build a new career and a new life from scratch, but that's what I'm now working on. Where will I go? Not sure yet. The US or Japan are reasonably safe options; the BRICKs offer lots of opportunities.

- KoW

The Classless Society

2010-06-19T22:36:00.002+01:00

Labour MP, and former minister, Tom Watson has been talking out of his arse as seems to be the fashion amongst his comrades. Apparently the government has a million-pound wine cellar for official functions, which he seems to think can be replaced with £10 boxes from Asda. Because nothing says "classy" dinner to foreign dignitaries than a splitting hangover the next morning.

The scale of the wine cellar is actually rather reasonable. In 2009, the famous Parisian restaurant La Tour d'Argent (try the Pressed Duck) auctioned off 18,000 bottles in the hopes of raising $1m. Its collection at the time was 450,000 bottles - compared to a mere 39,500 with a value of £864k for the UK government. Note that that's about £20/bottle on average - not cheap but hardly excessive, since you'll pay that in most pubs (and even more if you buy it by the glass). The article notes that Government Hospitality, under the FCO buys vintage wine (and port and spirits) relatively cheaply by the case and lays them down to mature. I've no doubt that some of the Premier Cru Clarets bought cheaply last year will be truly amazing in 10-20 years - perhaps when Labour are back in power - and will do the job nicely. The job, of course, is buttering up the French (and anyone else who knows fine wine) at summits. It's hard to put a price on that, but it's a damn sight more than the cost of maintaining the cellar or however much might be raised by selling off the contents.

This is, of course, token politics at its worst. Labour have increased the national debt by close to a trillion pounds and are coming up with toy policies like this which would 'save', at best, one millionth of the debt they incurred. It's appalling. It's the economics of the crack-whore: sell anything and everything to get the next fix of state spending.

It's particularly insulting in that it's a pseudo-populist line - "ordinary people drink Asda wine, therefore it's good enough for the Prime Minister to give to other world leaders" - as if ordinary people, whatever those might be, think that all wine is the same. The working classes don't tend to drink wine, except maybe a bottle of Liebfraumilch with the turkey at Christmas, but that doesn't mean they don't understand that there are differences in quality. Everyone knows that there are cheap wines which will strip the limescale off your sink, and there are really good expensive wines that rich people drink, and there are some in between (but it's a bit fuzzy which is which). My hopelessly untrained palate can easily tell the difference between a bad Merlot, a good Claret, and a 1971 Lafite-Rothschild. I certainly can't afford to drink the latter, but even from the tiniest sip it's clearly superior. Either Tom Watson can't tell the difference, which I doubt unless he smokes a couple of packs a day, or he feels that - while he is cultured - the little people won't understand and therefore the government can be berated for 'lavish' spending. Patronising.

So, just remember, folks: if Tom Watson ever invites you to dinner, either the wine will be poor, or he's a hypocrite.

- KoW

Motor Racing News

2010-06-09T14:12:00.002+01:00

Drayson at Le Mans

Lord Drayson and the Drayson Racing team are, once again, preparing to race in 24 Hours of Le Mans, the classic endurance race which everyone else builds their calendar around. It starts at 2pm UK time (3pm local) on Saturday and, well, the clue's in the name for how long the race is! Qualifying is three two-hour sessions: tonight (9pm-11pm), and tomorrow (6pm-8pm, 9pm-11pm), so we'll see how those go. Best wishes to Lord Drayson, Jonny Cocker, Emanuele Pirro and all the rest of the team!

Canadian Grand Prix

Also this weekend, there's the XLVII Grand Prix du Canada, from the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal. That starts at 5pm UK time on Sunday, so just a short break after Le Mans for us petrolheads! Canada is a relatively unusual circuit these days, with high walls around the edge of the track instead of wide run-off areas - like Monaco, one mistake and it's Game Over. It's been a couple of years since the last F1 race there, when the track cracked and fell apart, but Robert Kubica made a very good showing in his BMW resulting in his only win of the 2008 season.

Massa Staying at Ferrari

Another piece of good news is that Felipe Massa has signed a two year extension to his contract, and so will remain with the Scuderia until 2012 at the earliest. With his injury last year and a tepid start to the 2010 season, it's about time things started going his way - good performances in the last couple of races put him 4-3 up on team-mate Alonso, now a contract extension means he can concentrate on driving rather than negotiations. "Felipe Baby" is one of the most popular and likeable drivers in F1, and an all-round good guy, so congratulations to him and I wish him all the best for another good couple of years.

- KoW

"British Petroleum"

2010-06-09T12:38:00.002+01:00

The political fallout from the BP spill continues, with President Obama continuing to make shamefully populist attacks repeatedly using an archaic name for the American Oil Company (Amoco merged with BP in 1998, the resulting multinational is no more "British" than it is "American") to stir up international discord. The fact that the operators of the drilling rig, Halliburton and Transocean, are both US companies is getting lost behind the attacks on the "foreign" owner - which employs twice as many people in the US as in the UK.

The latest version is that Tony Hayward, Chief Executive of BP, "wouldn't be working for [Obama] after any of those statements". Because political interference in private companies is a sign, nay a hallmark, of free and capitalist societies. Obama has tried to tell the company what it can do with the money it's earned, and paid taxes on, and now he's trying to tell it who it can and cannot employ. In between golf games.

Yes, it's understandable that the POTUS is angry. This is a disaster. A dozen people died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and many citizens on the Gulf Coast are being harmed by the leaking well. It's also understandable why he's lashing out: he can do nothing about this and feels impotent - there is literally nothing that the US government can do about this leak. Understandable doesn't make it acceptable, however, and this sort of divisive rhetoric is ugly.

One one side, we have the world's foremost experts in undersea drilling and oil leak capping, who have been working night and day to fix an unprecedented problem. Over a month ago, they had crews working around the clock to weld together a funnel to catch the oil. Trouble is, it started "icing up" with hydrate crystals. Then came the "top hat". Then a "top kill" attempt failed. Finally, the latest cap has had some success, learning from the previous difficulties (e.g. using methanol to prevent hydrate build-up). It's not over yet, but it's clear that these people have been working hard and when Plan A failed, they tried Plan B, and so on until something finally gets results.

On the other side, we have politicians threatening to "push BP aside" because they've been missing "deadline after deadline". Doesn't that sound like the most incompetent manager you've ever worked for? Pulling dates out of his arse and demanding that everything is fixed by then, then shouting and screaming when reality fails to comply. Just who would they be replaced with? A large committee who will order the oil to stop flowing by fiat? These political lightweights have been implying corruption and attacking the finances of a company which has volunteered to pay (so far) 20x the statutory maximum liability - what bastards they must be! Now someone who's visited the area three times is trying to sack someone who a) doesn't work for him and b) has been dealing with this 24/7 for a month and a half, on the grounds that he was looking forward to the problem being solved, instead of looking back for someone to blame.

I'm disappointed, though sadly not surprised, that Obama is still relying on hollow soundbites and words instead of actions. That political points-scoring works well as a candidate, but not as President. "Yes we can"? No, it's clear you can't. A leader would have immediately and unconditionally offered whatever support could be useful and saved any recriminations for later. The priority isn't making BP look bad, or making yourself look good, it's stopping the oil leak.

If you're not part of that solution, you're part of the problem.

- KoW

Insurance Arbitrage

2010-06-05T09:02:00.001+01:00

The BBC has a story about parents 'breaking the law' over insurance for their children because they don't believe a 400% risk premium is appropriate and proportional. The tone - and uncritical reporting - in the article seem to suggest that the BBC supports the insurers' position and that we'll hear more of this as they bitch and whine about how they can't screw more money out of the vast majority of the population.

The facts are that half of the population (41% admit to it, 61% would do so) are 'fronting' insurance because the punitive rates charged for an under-25 main driver are so completely ridiculous... and to preserve that cartel, the insurers are now resorting to the law. The law isn't there to protect your profits. If you construct a market with such piss-poor dynamics as to allow people to save 75%+ by a trivial arbitrage strategy, people are going to do that. And when it's half of the population, they are right and you are wrong. We call it democracy.

Some industry mouthpiece is quoted as saying:

"Yes, £4,000 is an awful lot of money but it accurately reflects the risk posed by young drivers"

which is utter bullshit. You do not have "accurate" risk statistics because at least half of your customers have been forced to lie to you because of your retarded pricing scheme.

You will note that insurers are still making a profit from car insurance, therefore the prices they are charging are sufficient to offset the risk and the costs of young drivers. Despite the fraud. Since half will admit to fronting, we can probably knock at least £2k off that price for the actual average risk premium received (and sufficient to be profitable). And, hey, doing that might just encourage people to do things by the book...

If not, then there's a good case for a state minimum insurance to guarantee access to the roads. This is the case in much of the US - e.g. the State of California will provide insurance to meet the minimum statutory requirements, since (like here) it's a legal requirement to have proof of insurance to be allowed on the roads. The current situation, which allows insurers to price young people off the roads and encourages fraud and driving without insurance, is ridiculous and needs to change.

If you can't make sensible profits from your oligopoly, then you shan't be allowed to have one.

- KoW

Election: Absolutely Disgusted

2010-05-11T09:13:00.000+01:00

So, after a clear, but not decisive Tory victory and what seems like the minimum amount of negotiation Nick Clegg could get away with (and simultaneously courting Labour behind the scenes), Gordon Brown has been given the shove and we're now hearing about an oh-so-stable coalition of everyone-but-the-Tories to run the country.

That's "putting the national interest first", apparently. Welcome to the New Politics, same as the Old Politics.

So what can Labour, the Lib Dems, the Green Party, the SDLP, Alliance, Plaid Cymru and the SNP have in common? Other than a desire to shaft the English electorate to further their own individual agendas? With all 7 parties, and the DUP going with the Tories as usual, that's about a 10-seat majority - and 21 different internal squabbles as the Welsh fight the Scottish for more handouts, the Irish fight each other (if they can work together, why are there so many different parties?), the Greens demand the abolition of electricity against the wishes of everyone else in Parliament and the economy collapses under the weight of the spending commitments.

The announcements were made after the stock markets closed last night. Forex, which is 24/7, saw Sterling drop by over $0.01 against the dollar immediately. The FTSE100 opened this morning nearly 100 points (~2%) down, and is still down well over 1%. The markets clearly aren't enthused by this.

Reading the comments from Iain Dale's readers, the electorate aren't going to be happy with an alliance of the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th parties scraping together to get enough seats to overpower the country's first choice to further their own agendas. That's not "democracy" by any stretch of the imagination, and I expect the second General Election this year will be a decisive rejection of all those putting narrow party interests in front of the country's interests that they claim to serve.

- KoW

Airport Security Sense

2010-04-30T09:42:00.000+01:00

Metro has a story (p12) this morning on the end of the airline liquid ban.

Finally, 4 years after the ridiculous bans were introduced to prevent the Movie Plot Threat of binary liquid explosives which explosives experts say could never have worked, we're going to be rid of this stupid and arbitrary restriction on air travel. Well, within 36 months, anyway.

Liquids will now be screened, presumably in a non-invasive way. Perhaps by NMR (magnetically 'pinging' atoms and measuring their vibrations to determine what they are) or IR spectroscopy (shining a light through the bottle and detecting, from which patterns of 'colours' are absorbed, what it contains). These technologies are relatively stable and well-understood, and spectroscopic techniques in particular are a staple of astrophysics - we can't yet go to moons and exoplanets, but we can see light shining through their atmosphere and hence detect the presence of various chemicals.

This is a much better option than simply banning liquids (which can be smuggled in body cavities, "smurfed" across 1oz make-up containers, etc.). It also means that, as well as looking for explosives, security can look for such completely harmless things as dimethylmercury, wolfsbane, potassium cyanide, arsenic, polonium-210 and concentrated nitric acid. Sure, none of those would make the plane go "boom" and fall out of the sky, but they're all lethal in their own ways.

Of course, we will still - in the words of the great Dara Ó Briain - "have to show our genitals to a man in a box before we can go on holiday", so there's a long way to go yet.

- KoW

Unintended Consequences

2010-04-23T13:11:00.000+01:00

Another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences can be found in this morning's Metro.

Paper recycling and eco-friendly paperless offices, apparently, have grown to such a significant proportion that high-grade office paper waste is hard to obtain. This means that toilet paper manufacturers cannot get enough pulp of sufficient quality to produce soft toilet tissue.

Which means that the next time you're on the throne and wondering why the bog roll is the hard and shiny type favoured in schools everywhere, spare a thought for the fact that it's your own fault for not using enough office paper.

I shudder to think what we'll have to use if iPads and the like really take off...

- KoW

Why recycling is wasteful

2010-04-23T12:26:00.000+01:00

Today's Metro has a story about recycling - apparently some 200-year-old bottles were saved from being thrown in the recycling bin and have sold at auction for £5000. Which raises an interesting question: how many times has the same mistake been made but without anyone noticing?

I've long felt that the cult of recycling is harmful, and this story is an example of why.

We use huge amounts of energy turning sand into glass bottles, then when we're done we shatter the bottles into fragments and waste huge amounts more energy turning the fragments back into bottles. Why? If you have a bottle, and you want a bottle, why go through all that hassle instead of reusing it?

The simple fact is that people don't think about it. Recycling salves their consciences and makes them feel that they're helping the planet, when it's in fact making sod all difference to the energy consumption or waste levels - and may even be worse given the costs of separating waste. It's become second nature now, though, people don't even think about it. They recycle because recycling is good. Centuries-old antique glass is clearly glass which can equally clearly be recycled, and because recycling is good, it should be done.

Recycling has become a religion, and demands regular sacrifices to its ecological god such that consumerist crap can be reborn and the cycle begun anew.

- KoW

Extremely Extreme!

2010-04-21T09:06:00.000+01:00

According to this morning's Metro, the combination of Free Climbing and BASE Jumping is known as "freeBasing" - which might come as a surprise to people who are more used to hearing the term in a drugs context. It certainly makes Richard Pryor seem more interesting - though setting yourself on fire freebasing cocaine and drinking overproof rum might well qualify as an Extreme Sport...

- KoW

Inflation

2010-04-20T20:27:00.000+01:00

Holy shit, it's been a month since I last posted. How did that happen?

So, today's news is that inflation has jumped up again: 3.4% CPI (up from 3% last month), 4.4% RPI (up from 3.7%). My prediction at New Year's, of double-digit inflation, seems possible.

In this evening's Evening Standard, James Hughes of Black Swan Capital wealth management is quoted as saying

This sharp increase in UK inflation is possibly just the start of an inevitable and unstoppable slide towards double-digit inflation and interest rates within the next few years

Good name for a company, Black Swan. Presumably taken from Taleb's book. Still, we'll have to wait and see - I only win my pint if RPI is over 10% by mid November.

- KoW

Drayson Racing at Sebring

2010-03-21T11:10:00.001Z

Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Strategic Defence Acquisition Reform, and previously (as MinDES) the architect of the DIS has been racing again over the weekend in the 12 Hours of Sebring competition. This is part of the American Le Mans Series - endurance races in the spirit of 24 Hours of Le Mans, with durations of up to 12 hours.

Drayson Racing's car (LMP1 class) started in fourth place and finished fourth amongst the LMP1s and twelfth overall - a very credible performance despite engine troubles and two broken alternators.

The timings show that they were on the pace of the winning pair of cars from the Peugeot factory team - Emanuele Pirro's best race lap (beating his qualifying time!) for Drayson Racing was 1:45.550, compared to 1:45.704 (Anthony Davidson) and 1:44.972 (Sebastien Bourdais) in the Peugeot 1-2, making Drayson Racing's Lola B09 60/Judd the second fastest car on the grid. Sadly, they had to make 15 pit stops compared to 8 for the Peugeots and the mechanical problems meant they were 43 laps down at the end (324 completed vs 367 for the leaders).

Unless the points system has changed from last year, I believe this gives the team 20 points - almost as many as the 24 points the Drayson-Barwell GT2-class Aston-Martin managed in the whole 2008 season.

So, congratulations to Lord Drayson, Jonny Cocker, Emanuele Pirro and all the guys behind the scenes on a great start to the 2010 season!

- KoW

Left Foot in Mouth

2010-03-21T10:01:00.004Z

Will Straw's blog Left Foot Forward has posted an article (h/t Old Holborn) on the great climate-skeptic conspiracy. Apparently, some "research" conducted by a marketing agency - but not yet published - has shown that bloggers on the internet link to each other, and claims that this is part of an orchestrated plan "to have maximum impact on the Copenhagen negotiations".

Apparently this "research" was conducted for Oxfam. Anyone remember when they were a charity that cared about famine, not a political pressure group demanding Tobin Taxes and promoting global warming hysteria? How times change, eh? Ironically, Oxfam's current policies seem designed to exacerbate famine, but I doubt they care about that when there are political bandwagons to jump on - and policies which keep people starving and in poverty gives the "charity" a reason to keep existing.

The post claims that "the story was picked up by a wide range of media outlets, and went global – the culmination of a concerted effort to push it into the mainstream". That's not how I remember it. I remember the story being completely ignored by most of the media, despite UEA denials, Lord Lawson opening a global warming think-tank, and a scathing blog article from arch-climatista George Monbiot, until "climategate" became one of the biggest search terms on Google in a week and, eventually, the press felt they had to say something about the story people were already talking about. If there's a conspiracy, it looks rather more like it was amongst the BBC and Fleet Street soi-disant elite trying to ignore the story in order to push their own COP15 agendas.

He then goes on to cite some pseudoscience about the Overton Window and a linguist called Lakoff talking about "Framing" (straight out of NLP!) the debate, as if the public are simple-minded sheep who will believe everything they're told. No. People mistrust authority figures, and climate skepticism is deep-rooted in personal experience: no matter what the "global average temperature" figures claim, people over 40 can actually remember warmer and colder years and so the ever-greater catastrophes that are prophesied are in direct contradiction to experience. You've oversold it and now nobody is buying.

Then the author claims that "Oxfam’s study shows that almost no-one bothered to back [Monbiot] up in defending the integrity of the science" - which is largely because Climategate showed that there has been no actual science going on at the CRU: irreproducible "results" are nothing more than anecdote, no matter how many bent "reviews" they go through, how many times they're cited, or how pretty the graph looks.

So, co-conspirators, watch out for an organised pro-AGW propaganda campaign being directed through marketing agencies. Don't let them convince you that things didn't happen the way you remember them!

- KoW

Polar bear trading

2010-03-19T12:48:00.001Z

I don't know what the bid-offer spread would be, but I suspect the nicotine-yellow bastards wouldn't be happy about it.

Today's Metro (p30, can't find it online) has an article called 'Polar bear trade ban is rejected'. A UN meeting in Qatar rejected a proposal to ban trade of polar bear skins, claws and teeth.

All of the bleeding-heart eco-worriers, talking about how global warming is harming polar bears, seem to have missed a few facts. Polar bears are not endangered, they are not 'losing their habitats', they are not 'sad' or 'unhappy' or cuddly, they don't care if you drive a Prius, they are huge vicious predators who will gleefully kill and eat you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Polar bears can (and do) swim to shore through arctic waters when they're finished playing on icebergs - they don't drown if they fall in, no matter what inaccurate films you watch.

The proposed ban was backed by the US and all sorts of sunny places, and opposed by Canada, Greenland and Norway who actually have to live with the growing numbers of these things. Funny that.

Polar bears are not your friends.

- KoW

Don't Cry For Me...

2010-03-18T16:24:00.000Z

Today's Metro also has another story about the escalating tensions over the Falklands. Argentina is threatening to ban companies associated with the drilling for oil. As the article notes, this includes Barclays, who are shareholders in Desire Petroleum.

HMS Sceptre, the last of the Swiftsure class, and due to be decommissioned in December, has been sent to keep things under control. Presumably that means there's also a very small chance that she will follow HMS Conqueror's lead in returning home flying a Jolly Roger - this is presumable the last 'opportunity' for the Swiftsures to do so before being consigned to history. It seems (thankfully) extremely unlikely, though.

HMS York is there, as is a large RFA vessel (RFA Wave Ruler - 31,500 tons displacement, about six times the size of a destroyer), providing a visible deterrent. The Falklands are much better protected than they were in 1982: a permanent garrison of around 500 troops, air defences including four Typhoons (1435 flight) and Rapier FSC SAMs.

Enough to deter scrap-metal merchants from raising a flag, certainly.

The Argentinians would have to launch a full-scale attack to gain control of the islands, not just turn up and wait to be kicked out, which would not sit well with the Americans. It may work, it may not, but it would be a huge gamble and the attempt would likely result in significant Argentinian casualties, making it political suicide for Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

So, her only real option is trade sanctions. How effective are those likely to be? No idea, to be honest, but I don't think Barclays makes a particularly large proportion of their money from Argentina...

- KoW

March Snippets

2010-03-18T09:50:00.000Z

Striking Distance

Today's Metro (p23) has the story British Airways 'rushing through' strike breakers, with Unite claiming that the replacement cabin crew have had insufficient training. I don't buy that, they'll have had more than most budget airlines, though perhaps not as much as the usual BA crew - who are extremely competent but frankly overqualified for a glorified waitressing job. Yes, there are things that can go wrong on a flight, and the earliest stewardesses had to be registered nurses, but their safety impact is minimal on a modern airliner - so long as the pilot knows his stuff and the maintenance is correct, there's not much difference from a train: a bunch of bored people sitting around in cramped seats.

Striking resemblance

Meanwhile, this looks set to be the first international strike, with support from the US, Germany, France and (I believe) Australia for their Unite brothers and sisters. The BBC story contains:

US union leader James Hoffa said: "Whatever we have to do, we will do."

That's either a remarkable coincidence, or he's some relation to Jimmy Hoffa. Indeed, Wikipedia suggests that he's the only son of Jimmy Hoffa. It seems that even the most hardcore left-wingers are as prone to nepotism and keeping it in the family as the aristocratic capitalists they claim to provide an alternative to. Then again, we don't need to look much further than our own cabinet to see two brothers, a husband and wife and the son of Tony Benn as clear and present evidence of political dynasties - and let's not forget Jack Dromey (Mr Harriet Harman) being parachuted into a safe seat for the 2010 election.

Going off the rails

Next to the BA story in today's Metro, p22 is a full-page ad from Network Rail's Chief Executive - Iain Croucher - imploring the RMT to negotiate over signal strikes at Easter. I'm vaguely suspicious that the turnout multiplied by the voting ratio means that 50.05% of eligible RMT staff support the strike, but it could be a coincidence.

This is another rather daft strike. The RMT are claiming, as usual, that the Spanish Practices they've managed to accumulate since the age of steam is somehow conducive to running a 21st century railway. It beggars belief that rail maintenance workers are employed Monday-Friday when the work is done at night, on weekends and over bank holidays.

Plus ça change

It seems that the French TV 'torture gameshow' has ruffled some feathers. I don't know why. It's just a jazzed-up version of the Milgram Experiment - one of the key results from experimental psychology. Derren Brown re-ran the as part of his show The Heist and replicated the results. Starting in 1961, Stanley Milgram's work essentially proved that ordinary, good people could be made to kill by even extremely weak instruction from authority figures. Before the experiment, psychologists had predicted that <0.1% of people would go all the way; in reality around half did.

With memories of WW2 still recent, this all but demolished the notion that the Germans were "bad people" - they were, as Eichmann's defence claimed, just following orders, and everyone else would have complied in much the same way.

Of course, that's an uncomfortable notion for most people, and a typical response to cognitive dissonance is to shoot the messenger. Bad luck, France2.

- KoW

KC-X and the Sky-high Cost of Sky-high Fuel

2010-03-17T17:53:00.001Z

EADS' (Airbus' parent company's) annual report, about a week ago, contained an interesting note that slipped by many observers. It caught Lord Mandelson's attention and got a bit more ink, but still was largely ignored. That note was that EADS has pulled out of the KC-X bidding.

There's quite a story behind that, and I shall tell it as well I can remember.

The KC-X is the replacement for the old - ancient - KC-135 Stratotankers, the US military's air-to-air refuelling capability and key to global operations. They were adapted from Boeing's 707 airframe - the forerunner of the 747s, 767s and 777s that we see at airports today - and built in the 1950s and 1960s. The youngest ones are 45 years old, and some a decade more than that!

The story of the bidding process is rather unusual. The USAF issued the RFP (i.e. call for bids) in January 2007. The process began in an unusual way by stressing that this was an urgent requirement, and that delays in procurement would put lives in jeopardy. The two bids submitted were from EADS/Northrop-Grumman using a version of the Airbus A330 to be assembled in Alabama using US workers and imported parts, and from Boeing with a modified 767.

A mere 13 months after the bidding process began, in February 2008, the selection was made: EADS/NG had won. Again, in an unusual move, the USAF made a point at the press conference that, due to the age of the equipment being replaced, delays would cost lives - a not-too-subtle warning. This didn't seem to bother Boeing, though, who filed an appeal against the decision. That appeal was upheld in June 2008, bidding re-opened in July following the forced resignation of the head of the USAF - and then the project was put on hold in September. A year later, September 2009, bidding started again.

The project, particularly the un-selection and reopening of bids, has been dogged by allegations of jingoism amongst the US players: a feeling that letting a foreign company win would be unAmerican. This, despite the fact that Northrop-Grumman is at least as American as Boeing, that a significant proportion of the work would be undertaken by Americans in America, and that Boeing were - in 2003 - accused of corruption and stripped of $1bn of government contracts.

EADS has apparently realised that the deck was stacked against it, and pulled out in March this year, leaving this whole sorry mess as nothing but a historical note. KC-X is still on the drawing board. The US is still flying the creaking half-century-old tankers it was trying to replace. The UK MoD is trying to buy a couple of those rusty old KC-135s, refitted for electronic battlefield surveillance - the RC-135 'Rivet Joint'.

Hey, if you wanted a happy ending, you should have gone to a "massage parlour".

- KoW

Spring of Discontent

2010-03-17T13:04:00.002Z

Yeah, it's been a while since I updated. So, we missed out on the Autumn of Wrath, but we're definitely now on for a Spring of Discontent.

Unite - Labour's life-support - have announced strike dates for BA cabin crew, and are apparently trying to arrange potentially-illegal secondary picketing from the Teamsters. The strikes have been (belatedly) condemned by Lord Adonis and even Gordon Brown, but are going ahead anyway.

A comment on the BBC's 'Prime Minister's questions' coverage says:

Tory support scabs nothing has changed. They need to support the workers nothing has changed since the 70s for the Torys
Mark McQuade, Hamilton

which is certainly an interesting view of the world. I'm happy to say that it's one which the vast majority of the population does not subscribe to - even in the 70s, "up the workers" was an anathema to the general public. The Carry On films parodied industrial relations at the time and it's very much clear that Sid James' ordinary working-class factory foreman was the hero, not the shopfloor firebrand with his NUCIE rulebook.

The public, including the vast majority of the working class, dislike unions.

Workers used to join them "just in case", to protect themselves from being victimised, but then found themselves being forced out on strike for causes they didn't really care about in order to further the political ambitions of, well, half of Labour's front bench. As a result, union membership has plummeted in the private sector: the law gives workers protections that once required a union. It's still over 60% in public sector and former-public-sector organisations, like BA, though.

Every Red Robbo wannabe in those unions should bear something in mind, though: we, the voting public, hate you. You abuse us on a whim to favour your own agenda, holding us to ransom to give your members a bigger share of our earnings. No more.

Collective bargaining has been effective for you for a few years, but there's a flip-side to that: there's a much bigger collective whose pockets you've been picking, and we're fed up with it. There are no more abusive employers, only abusive unions, and the time has come to rid ourselves of these dinosaurs once and for all.

- KoW

What a hung parliament really means

2010-03-02T13:25:00.000Z

Today's Metro (p5) has an article titled 'Hung vote' polls spark pound panic - which is only slightly different to the online version.

The pound has fallen from $1.60 to $1.48 in just a month. Two years ago, it was trading at $2.00. The stack of $20 bills on my desk, bought a little under a year ago, is now worth 12% more than I paid for them - even with the foreign ATM fees and the bid-offer spread, that's a healthy profit.

The falls would have been even worse if it weren't for the problems facing the Dollar (Obama's spending, particularly the healthcare issue) and the Euro (Greece...) - the Yen is now trading against Sterling at a rate I'd have expected for Dollars five years ago: 133¥ per!

That is the cost of Labour's fiscal policies and of quantitiative easing. We've lost 20-30% of the value of our money and Sterling-denominated assets.

We're all 20-30% poorer than we were a couple of years ago.

And the markets know that, and fear it continuing. A hung parliament with Labour as largest party is the worst of all possible outcomes: no power to make changes, and no desire to, either. Unless there is a clear Tory victory, we're about to become a third-world country. Yes, it is that bad. Guido has already noted that as has the FT. The bond markets are already pricing us as AA, even without a formal downgrade, and uncertainty could easily drive that to A+ or below. If the government can't borrow £180bn/year, it either has to slash and burn spending by something like 20-30%, or devalue Sterling by printing yet more money: we could have lost half of our wealth in just three years.

I predicted double-digit inflation at the start of the year (well, actually in November 2007), and the last month has added upwards of 7 percentage points to the cost of imported goods. Green beans from Kenya, Egyptian potatoes, Korean plasma/LCD TVs, German or Japanese cars, oil, gas, Brazilian "British" beef, all likely to be several percent more expensive this year than last. Prices are therefore going to be growing a lot faster than the feeble GDP recovery we're seeing: the dreaded stagflation of the 1970s.

The current war on bankers could well destroy 30% of GDP - so, around 60% of private-sector production, given our bloated public-sector - which would be crippling. As much as people might hate the banks, we simply cannot afford to lose them. The riots in Greece could, and probably would, happen here if the necessary public-sector cuts were forced (by market action) to be taken quickly - 2m jobs lost overnight, if a debt auction is refused.

Brown must go, it's that simple.

- KoW

Climbing Mount Improbable

2010-03-01T12:45:00.000Z

I've touched on this before, but Mark Thoma has another sound reason for why we need a new Glass-Steagall act - the evolutionary pressures on banks. The argument is quite elegant, really.

Given a choice between a retail-only bank and a bank that's 99% retail but has a small investment-banking arm, the latter will (in the boom times) show greater profits and dividends, hence will be preferred by shareholders. This encourages them to play the markets, rewards those who do, and punishes those who do not. Similarly, a highly-levered bank will turn greater boom-time profits than a less-leveraged one - so anyone not using as much leverage as possible will turn lower profits and hence be less "fit". Thus banks are encouraged to do ever-riskier things with their money.

In nature, what stops risk-taking behaviour is death and serious injury: we've been conditioned by millennia of evolution to have various rational (and irrational) fears precisely because heights and snakes and fire and dogs are dangerous, and fear is nature's way of codifying that hard-won knowledge for the benefit of the species.

But that doesn't apply to banks now: they're too big to fail, the governments have implicitly (and explicitly) guaranteed their survival. Risk-taking no longer has any risk, so leverage to the hilt and trade whatever instruments offer the greatest upside - there is no downside, thanks to the taxpayer! Departments will keep on growing, as more people and more trades means more profits, making the banks bigger and hence securing their existence.

Whether this is a conscious decision to pursue short-term profits at all costs, or just organic growth of companies and teams who the markets reward for their success, is largely unknowable and almost completely irrelevant. The lesson from evolutionary biology is that a species without natural predators will specialise to an alarming degree, even to the point - like the dodo and the kakapo - where their survival is threatened by even the slightest shock, and a mildly-bored housecat can decimate the population. With no predation, and financial gravity repealed by governments, banks will maximise their profitability by becoming huge and fragile: exactly what we saw in the 1920s and in the 2000s.

The cure is simple, and was correctly enacted in 1932: separate the retail banks (who must be saved) and the investment banks (who can take risks... but who might be killed by them).

- KoW

February Snippets

2010-02-26T13:45:00.000Z

A400M Saved

EADS has agreed a plan with European governments to save the A400M. This is a good thing as, even though C-17s are lovely and carry huge amounts (~170,000lbs), we can't afford more than half a dozen of them... which means that our air bridge might have lots of capacity, but not enough actual planes to use it. The A400M is half the size (~82,000lbs capacity) and half the price of the C-17, so the capacity is less "lumpy" - rather useful with our diverse commitments. We need something to replace the clapped-out C-130Ks and C-130Js - the Hercules was a fine aircraft, but the oddly-shaped cargo space and now rather small carrying ability means it's well past its sell-by date. The A400M will fill that role nicely, giving more lift into the bargain.

Plus, of course, keeping the ability to build large cargo transports is useful if we don't want to have to rely on the US.

Iceland bankruptcy

The Icelandic negotiators have walked away from meetings with the British and Dutch, refusing to pay anything above LIBOR on the €4bn Icesave debt. Since LIBOR measures short-term rates (various components from overnight to 1 year), Iceland is demanding long-term repayments below the yield curve - i.e. they want to turn their defaulted debt into a loan at below normal market rates.

Iceland is unable to access IMF cash until it reaches an agreement on repaying its debts, and - as the CityAM article notes - this walk-out is likely to result in their sovereign debt being downgraded by the ratings agencies. After all, if someone has just walked out on one obligation, wouldn't you want to charge a bigger risk premium to deal with them?

UK General Election

With Q4 GDP now revised to being +0.3% on Q3, and Labour closing the poll gap despite Bullygate, there is a lot of talk about whether the election will be called this weekend. This has to be at least 17 working days in advance, and a visit to the palace this weekend would mean a March 25th General Election.

I've got a bet on this, doubled since the GDP revision was announced, but we shall see. There are good reasons for a snap election - avoiding the Chilcot inquiry (and hence questions about how he slashed defence budgets and vetoed helicopter purchases), no need to present a Budget, the Q2 GDP figures (likely to show a double-dip from the VAT rise and snow hitting sales) won't be out until late April, and the tax rises on April 5th announced previously still won't have kicked in - but the Labour party is still skint and has to fight local elections on May 6th no matter when the general election happens. Plus there's Gordon Brown's personality - he "bottled" the 2007 election, and I don't think he's in any hurry to face the electorate. Could go either way.

My head says that it'll still be May 6th, but my heart says the election will be called this weekend.

- KoW

We must lament and cause a fuss...

2010-02-16T09:17:00.000Z

Page 7 of today's Metro - "Two die in cord accidents" - mentions a coincidental pair of tragic accidents. Two young children (one 3 years old, one 16 months) strangled themselves with blind cords they got entangled in. This is a terrible shame, and it must be heart-wrenching for their parents.

However, the grieving parents of one of the children have launched an imbecilic campaign to ban looped blind cords. Yeah, because that's the problem. A child couldn't strangle himself on a treadmill cord, or a phone cord, or a belt, or a network cable, a tangled bedspread, any reasonably-sturdy wire. Oh, no. It's only looped blind cords. So we must ban them, obviously.

Never mind that there are millions out there not killing anyone, that the alternative is more complex (and more expensive), that there is no way in hell a toddler should be able to reach a blind 4ft off the floor, no, we must Ban This Sick Filth.

I look forward to having to have my landlord fix my "dangerous" blinds, and maybe put padding on the walls at the same time, because - you never know - someone might hurt themselves. Clearly the world is too dangerous for people to live in.

Whatever happened to parental responsibility?

- KoW

What is Rape?

2010-02-15T09:24:00.001Z

The front page of today's Metro screams "One in 4 women 'is rape victim'" based on a report from Havens.

This is clearly a shocking figure, and it's clearly intended that way, but is it actually meaningful? Have 25% of women been forced down an alley at knifepoint and abused? No. It turns out that the definition of rape they're using is "having sex when they did not want to".

So, yeah, "Not tonight dear, I've got a headache. Oh, go on then..." is rape. Who knew? Not feeling horny makes you a rape victim. Wonderful. So a substantial number of men will have been raped, too, when their wives were in the mood but they weren't.

Sometimes people have to do things they're not keen on, but which mean a great deal to someone else. It's hard work, and people are not entitled to happiness or effortless utopian relationships.

Why are these morons conflating a heinous life-destroying crime with harmless relationship obligations?

This sort of idiocy is why rape convictions are so "low" - the term has been devalued to the point where any doubt or remorse can count as "an offence", causing the number of reports to explode, but the number of actual rapes prosecuted (substantially all of them) is about the same. And that number is very low because the vast majority of the human race finds rape abhorrent.

- KoW

UK "Out of Recession"

2010-01-26T10:23:00.001Z

The BBC has the story here - pre-announced as usual, but this quarter they got it right - by the smallest possible margin, 0.1% of GDP.

The article notes that this is weaker than estimates, is based on only 40% of the figures, and that the figures for every other quarter since 2007 have been significantly revised later - the previous figures changed by 0.2% of GDP from the initial release.

More to the point, the deficit is something like 130x greater than the margin of 'recovery': if the government weren't borrowing, and spending, £178bn/year then we would be much deeper in recession. In real terms, we still are, since this artificial "growth" is paid for by debt which will have to be repaid at some point.

Still, following Laura Kuenssberg's observation on the cabinet going in to Number 10 yesterday, this could well be the news that sends Gordon Brown to the Palace... if the figures are later revised down to 0.0% or negative, he's lost the "recovery" message to hammer the Tories with.

I don't know - and I'm not convinced it's worth worrying about the election date. The Tories have (some) policies and Labour are clapped out and engaging in nothing but bitter points-scoring. Whenever it happens, the outcome is likely to be the same...

- KoW

For Want of a Nail...

2010-01-20T13:23:00.000Z

US news this morning is that Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat has gone to the Republicans (h/t Guido).

I'm not sure what to make of this. I've considered myself right-wing. Tory in the UK and, yet, Democrat in the US. I thought Bill Clinton was great, and disliked both Bushes. But for the last couple of years, I've been less convinced... Al Gore going off on an eco-trip, Hillary and Obama's campaigns, a general leftward shift of both parties, the bail-outs and healthcare row...

Losing this seat means that the Democrats no longer have a majority of 60 in the Senate. This, in turn, means that they no longer have a "filibuster-proof" majority to force through legislation. Without that, they need support from the Republicans or Independents to get President Obama's healthcare plans enacted. And to get that support, they will probably have to compromise on the details - or risk the plans being delayed and derailed.

And therein lie some of my doubts. Healthcare in the US seems, except at the very top, to be a shambles. Millions of people, apparently, have no insurance and hence little or no access to healthcare. Private ambulances, billing people for emergency treatment, hospitals and insurers gaming the system... the US definitely isn't a place to get sick. Something needs to be done.

But I'm not sure Obamacare is the right something - and it looks like it's got a lot of troubles now.

- KoW

Austrian Physicist Demonstrates Explosives Smuggling

2010-01-20T09:23:00.001Z

Seen in Metro this morning - not on their site though - but mentioned here and also in the original German (with video): "Full body scanners fail TV bomb demo". Says it all, really.

The German name - Nacktscanner (naked scanner) - is rather more appropriate name than "full body scanner". As if the metal detectors only scan your kneecap or something! "Full body" neglects to mention the fact that it's an imaging scanner, and is designed to penetrate clothes but not flesh.

As Ben Wallace MP has pointed out, and that video ably shows, these new technological (anti-)terrors are completely useless. Sure, they are claimed to have maybe a 60% chance of detecting explosives - though, is that a near-certain chance of detecting 60% of explosives, and no chance at all of detecting the rest? That would fit the physics better as objects aren't probabalistically visible, they're either visible or not. And if that were the case it'd be a real shame if the Bad Guys™ thought to use one of the undetectable types, wouldn't it? We'd have pissed away millions on completely worthless invasions of privacy... again...

- KoW

Education: Big vs Little 'E'

2010-01-14T11:29:00.000Z

The school league tables were released yesterday and this morning's Metro has a story - Private schools rated 'zero' (p16) - first seen in the Standard last night, but now with a reply from an unnamed official.

Dr Martin Stephen, high master of St Paul's, is quoted as saying:

You need to ask how can we be the highest performing school in the country by every measure except by the government one?

He's absolutely right, of course. Metro has a reply from "a spokesman" from "the Department for Education" - would that be DfES (abolished 2007) or the Department for Children, Schools and Families? This anonymous commenter says it is:

a 'fatuous' argument as 'iGCSEs' did not meet National Curriculum requirements

Which seems to be rather circular logic: an education is only an education if the "Department for Education" says it's an Education?

Public Schools are abandoning GCSEs precisely because of the National Curriculum requirements - which the schools don't feel are stringent enough.

I'm not in a position to say whether or not the requirements, and the resulting exams, are being "dumbed down" - but I am inclined to believe that when pass rates go up and the exams are then publically abandoned by schools with centuries of tradition that standards have, quite possibly, slipped.

I'm rather more concerned by the centralised and centralising bureaucracy that the "fatuous" comment implies, however. Why is a non-specialist minister, or a civil servant (perhaps on an 18-month rotation), making policy (or policy administration, or administration policy) decisions about the - only - curriculum which constitutes an Education? Shouldn't the masters of Eton (founded 1440), Harrow (1572), Charterhouse (1611), St Paul's (1509), Winchester (1382) or Rugby (1567) have some say in what they teach? Aren't they the experts? After all, generations of parents have trusted those schools to provide a good all-round education, wheras the National Curriculum is barely 20 years old!

An education is not the same thing as a state-certified Education and, like with healthcare, it's possible (and even desirable) to support the former without accepting every wart and misfeature of the latter.

What makes Ed Balls think that he knows better than a school paid £10k/term by parents who clearly think that represents value for money?

- KoW

Stop! Searchy time!

2010-01-13T11:34:00.000Z

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Section 44 Stop-and-Search is unlawful, which is good news for photographers everywhere.

Or, at least it would be, if it were likely to change anything - remember that they have also ruled the DNA Database is unlawful, and that's still going strong, ditto the (alleged) illegal wiretapping by Phorm.

One interesting revelation in that story is that the whole of Greater London has been secretly designated for stop-and-search for almost a decade - and that this has been rubber-stamped every 28 days by the Home Secretary. Didn't know that...

Of course, all of this ties in with the ridiculous Threat Level - currently Substantial, ironic given the utter lack of substance to threats. This means that "an attack is a strong possibility", compared with the level below (Moderate) where "an attack is possible, but not likely". Who decides the difference between a "strong possibility" and "possible, but not likely" or even "highly likely"? And how do they justify that there is a "strong possibility", given that there haven't been any successful attacks in the last 1650 days and only three unsuccesful attempts - one ("liquid bombs") which was caught long before? The system is meaningless and arbitrary, and seems to exist only to intimidate the populace.

I'd like to ask Alan Johnson - who, as Home Secretary for more than 28 days, has renewed London's blanket anti-terrorist coverage - what evidence there is of an attack in the next four weeks.

I'm sorry, but "London is a capital city and is therefore a target" just doesn't cut it - every major city of every state has been a potential target since time immemorial, and yet on the vast majority of days nothing happens. Come back when you have specific, credible information. Large cities are targets for the same reason they grow: because there are significant network effects from having lots of people near to each other. Business thrives when there are people to do business with.

To use that to justify anti-terrorism legislation implies that anyone who lives or works in a city is a potential terrorist, and the bigger the city the greater that likelihood.

- KoW

Seventy Million

2010-01-07T10:46:00.000Z

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has backed (Metro, p14) the "70 million is too many" campaign from the Cross-Party Group on Balanced Migration.

Like a huge number of Brits, I have some sympathy with their cause. Immigration under Labour has been a shambles, apparently by design. This has overloaded public services, skewed demographics and the housing market, and created feelings of disaffection and culture shock across the country - leading to greatly increased support for organisations such as the BNP.

These issues need to be addressed, and controls on migration - from the EU as well as from the rest of the world - are almost certainly necessary.

The much-vaunted points system is not the answer - under current regulations I wouldn't qualify as a "highly-skilled migrant" despite ten years' experience and a master's degree in IT, so toughening it up will just create a wider disparity between the skilled people coming in and the unskilled/semi-skilled labour from the EU and the native population, leading to more resentment. Bit of an own-goal, really.

I don't agree that there is a fixed, finite limit to the population. Not within an order of magnitude, anyway - Tokyo ticks over with a population density (January 2009 figures) of 5847/km² - nearly 15x the density of England and 20x the UK as a whole. While high-rise living and working is restricted to city centres, and conjures up Ballardian imagery, it is perfectly reasonable.

The main problems are ones of infrastructure: places to live, places to work, places to play, and moving millions of people between them. The country simply cannot cope, as its infrastructure is inadequate - and crippled by a small amount of snow, as we've seen this week.

Culture is a secondary problem, but of profound importance to the older generations who rarely travelled internationally (except, perhaps, to war) - uncontrolled immigration has resulted in some areas of cities producing the same sort of culture shock that a tourist would experience in Cairo, Delhi or Tokyo: foreign-looking people jabbering away in a strange tongue, weird writing on signs and posters, and nothing that looks familiar - or familiar things that are subtly wrong. It's scary (and exhilarating) when you're in a foreign country, but to someone for whom a week in a caravan in Bournemouth is exotic, getting those same feelings walking down the high street must be deeply unsettling.

In summary, a steady and controlled flow of immigration is likely to remain tolerable for decades - but this needs to be a conscious decision, and substantial efforts must be made in infrastructure and assimilation.

- KoW

News in Brief

2010-01-06T15:17:00.000Z

Lots happening today, so just a few short notes...

Rocking the Boat

Following on from the story yesterday evening, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt have sent out a letter calling for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown's premiership. There are claims that Charles Clarke is associated with it, and rumours that Harriet Harman might be behind it - as deputy PM, a leadership challenge would make her de facto Prime Minister for a few weeks. Haven't heard anyone reporting anything from the Milibands yet...

"I'm just big-boned"

Metro (p11) this morning - 'Bone risk to diet girls' - saying "Those with higher levels of fat tended to have larger and thicker bones, Bristol University scientists found". In other words, they've proven that a fattie/big-bones correlation exists, so we can expect to hear that line a lot more now that it's been scientifically proven.

DNA F-A-I-L

Metro (p12) this morning also has a story on the DNA database. It only helps in 1 case in 150. On burglaries - a crime characterised by the culprit having buggered off by the time the homeowner returns, so theoretically ideal for tracking technology like DNA or fingerprints - the database has less than 40% success. Shouldn't we be scrapping this huge, expensive, illegal mess and spending money on solving crimes?

Flav still 'fit and proper'

Flavio Briatore's lifetime ban from F1 has been overturned, so he can keep his QPR job, and he's been awarded a paltry £13,500 in compensation. The FIA says it will appeal but, now that Max Mosley has gone, does anyone really care? Bury it with the other scandals of the last decade and move on...

Monsters from the ID

Cambridge is to be used as a testing ground for ID cards for foreign nationals, according to David Howarth MP (h/t fanf). I wonder if this is designed to wind up the local NO2ID and security research people? Or to scare off world-class academics/scholars in an anti-elitist move? Or if it's just a conveniently large location sufficiently far from London that they can expect lower press scrutiny?

Also, it's snowing. Bet the 18:23 out of King's Cross is cancelled.

- KoW

Stabby!

2010-01-05T20:37:00.000Z

Lord Mandelson has finally broken cover, and talked to the Evening Standard, sticking a knife squarely between the shoulder blades of Labour's election strategy. He's spot on in his comments - Old Labour, the core voters, could never win after 1979. And that core vote has been (literally) dying off for 30 years, and defecting to the BNP ("The Labour Party your grandparents voted for"). It brought to mind a quote (paraphrased) from Full Metal Jacket:

In strategic terms, Brown's cut the country in half... the mainstream media are about to wet their pants and we've heard even Mandelson's going to say the election is now unwinnable

The story mentions rumours of a cabinet resignation, and both Guido and the New Statesman (h/t Iain Dale) have identified the minister as Tessa Jowell.

Iain has commented on this, pointing out that Lord Mandelson is too politically astute to have attacked Labour's election strategy without a clear intention - but what that intention is remains a mystery. I doubt he would act alone, or be fooled into thinking it was Game On if there wasn't support - but I don't put it past him to invent a resignation rumour knowing that the press will pounce on every cabinet minister and ask them awkward questions about their loyalty.

The resignation rumour is probably false - anyone quitting the cabinet at this stage would be an utter disaster, and I expect all sorts of carrots and sticks have been applied to ensure it doesn't happen, no matter how unhappy anyone is. Plus, we've all seen the last episode of The Thick of It, and Malcolm Tucker's solution is probably as good as it gets.

Or perhaps that's the intent - rock the boat and hope it forces an early election? Before the budget, before the tax rises from the last budget (and PBR), before the Tories have prepared, and before No.10 can cock it up any further?

Who knows? But speculating is fun!

- KoW

Defence Industrial Strategy

2010-01-04T20:29:00.004Z

Douglas Carswell has a blog post about the "Defence Industrial Scam" which he concludes with the words

Getting better value from the procurement budget isn't just about dealing with inter service riviary or dozy officials. It means buying kit off-the-shelf and scapping the Defence Industrial Strategy.

I think this is flat-out wrong. A friend put it very succinctly: "DIS was about the only way of getting cheap kit anyone had ever come up with".

Below is a comment that I tried to post in reply to him last night, but which hasn't appeared for some reason:

Hi Douglas!

The DIS hasn't been implemented, which is part of the problem.

Instead there's a sham of competition where one or two bidders slug it out for months or even years to jump through DE&S hoops before the whole process is tossed aside and something is bought off-the-shelf from someone else, then scrapped after 18 months because otherwise the Urgent Operational Requirement would have to come out of MoD funds rather than from the Treasury as it's deemed to have been part of the Equipment Plan.

Naturally, after being jerked around like that, industry (located anywhere) starts charging more for the hassle of dealing with the UK MoD.

The main benefit to industry from the DIS is not the protectionism, it's the long-term strategy - as with the French 'Loi de Programmation' for the DGA.

Long-term contracts mean that investment can be made, costs cut and risk premiums slashed, lowering the price to the customer, while still being profitable for industry. Short-termism has the opposite effects.

It's either a virtuous or vicious circle, depending on how the hand is played, but the number of players is too small for it to be a free market.

Since the matter has been broached, I plan to write a full post about the DIS. Most likely focusing on the collapse of FRES and the wider AFV sector - a project I have had no direct involvement with, so do not have to worry about confidentiality, but one which I've followed the progress of nonetheless.

UPDATE: The comment has appeared now, must have done something wrong when trying to post it. Apologies all round.

- KoW

Iceland Strategy

2010-01-03T15:52:00.002Z

A quarter of the population of Iceland have signed a petition asking to be let off for the country's debts.

They didn't seem to mind when the billions in cash were flowing into Iceland, but now they've pissed it all away they don't want to give any back. Hmm. Pretty sure that's not how it works.

Since the debt is in Euros, Iceland can't just devalue its currency and inflate away the debt (and its assets). Iceland can, of course, default on its debts - but as an isolated volcano in the North Atlantic that's not going to help much, as tariffs on (needed) trade will just claw the debt back another way. There's the option that everyone the UK and Holland would like: paying up (over a couple of decades).

Or there's a fourth option: prostitution. Get someone else to pay the debt for you, in return for... services. There are three candidates I can see there: the US, the UK, and Russia.

The UK, despite overwhelming naval superiority, lost the Cod Wars - the expansion of Icelandic fishing rights from 4nm in 1958 to 200nm in 1976. We could take that back, write off our portion of the debt, and revitalise the northern ports - Hull (Alan Johnson and John Prescott), Grimsby (Austin Mitchell since 1977) and Fleetwood. A Labour government so profligate with tax money should easily be able to afford a bung to its heartlands, and might even be able to turn a profit if fishing rights were negotiated well.

Russia doesn't have much access to the Atlantic for shipping, and its submarines are tracked by the sea-bed sonar across the GIUK Gap. Strategically and commercially, Iceland is in a prime location for access to the West. It is also a good source of geothermal power, if the Russian oil/gas oligarchs want to broaden their remits. Of course, the Russian ambassador has publicly refused to get involved.

The US, until 2006, maintained an airbase at Keflavik as Iceland was recognised as strategically important in the Cold War. Given the still-endemic fear of "commies" in the US, if Russia were to show an interest in Iceland then it would be easy to find the money to reopen the base and thereby pump enough money into the economy to pay off the debts. If there's no Russian interest, the US has already shown its intentions by closing NAS Keflavik.

I can't see the EU being interested - too many internal squabbles and no real interest. The most likely involvement would be on trade tariffs if Iceland should default on her debts. China would probably love to help, to be owed a favour, but is literally too far away.

Of course, nice though it would be for the UK to get involved and get some fish to go with our chips, we have already shot ourselves in the foot by invoking anti-terrorist legislation to seize Landsbanki assets when the problems started. So that's about as hostile a relationship as you're going to find anywhere outside of a divorce court.

I think Iceland are screwed.

- KoW

The Pants Bomber

2010-01-03T14:32:00.001Z

Catching up on a few things after the holidays. Well, this was the big story on Boxing Day, wasn't it?

To recap the facts as currently understood:

A Nigerian man flew from Yemen to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit
He had 80g of chemicals sewn into his underpants, possibly including PETN
During the flight he tried to inject a liquid into the chemicals which, instead of exploding, caused a fire
The fire was extinguished, the man was subdued and turned over to the authorities

Sounds like everything worked out OK, right? In fact, it bears out what people were saying about the liquid explosives plot: that you can't synthesise TATP on a plane because of the amount of cooling (e.g. ice) required. As soon as the reaction starts, it heats up and blows the reagents out of the container, ending the reaction. Oh, and the fact that aircraft designers try to ensure that their jets don't fall out of the skies when damaged - see the Aloha Airways jet that lost half of its fuselage, or the Qantas one holed by its oxygen tanks.

So, naturally, the TSA knee-jerked into banning passengers from using the on-board toilets - and then tried to crack down on whichever one of the thousands of people involved in implementing this policy leaked its details. Clearly it's vital for security reasons that passengers must be sat down and restrained, and not using a book or laptop, whilst pissing in their seats because they're not allowed to use the toilets.

Spotting a bandwagon and never shy of removing civil liberties from the proles, Gordon Brown has authorised the use of Naked Scanners at all UK airports. Never mind that they're completely ineffective against this threat, require the production (legally-speaking) of indecent images when used on minors, and will take even longer to use than the current useless measures... we're going to have them anyway. Fan-fucking-tastic, there's nothing I like more than getting up at 4am, so I can get to the airport 3 hours before my 10am flight due to the time it will take for the rent-a-plod to make an image of my cock.

And, you know what? The next time this happens, and there will be a "next time" because the world is full of bad people, the attacker will just have shoved the explosives up his arse and pulled them out in the toilets after going through the security theatre. Oops. The Naked Scanners and pat-downs don't detect that, you need a body cavity search. And if you start doing that, they'll find some other way - by the time a plot gets to the airport, it's too late to stop it.

But let's go back to the TSA for a moment. The agency charged with protecting US transport security cannot even take care of its memos. They have a track record of incompetence, and trying to invoke "national security" concerns to cover up that incompetence, and have a police state mentality which will - if unchecked - put the every US airline into Chapter 11 within a year.

Why don't they take lessons from real security agencies and accept the fact that since background checks and the most in-depth vetting procedures can't detect spies, devoting one-minute-per-passenger is about as effective as asking "Are you a terrorist?" at check-in. Probably less effective, in fact, as a good poker player would have a field day asking that question.

- KoW

Predictions for 2010

2009-12-29T22:38:00.000Z

Inspired by Iain Dale's predictions, here are mine:

Inflation will reach double digits
Conservative victory in the General Election, by >30 seats
Britain will lose her AAA credit rating...
... but will regain it by the end of the year after massive cuts in public expenditure
The FTSE100 will drop below 4000 before rebounding
There won't be a new Labour leader in 2010, Brown will cling on and smear his rivals as the party implodes
Sterling will drop below parity with the Euro, and below 120 Yen, but will stay around $1.50
Global Cooling will continue, more neutral/negative results will come out, as will a few more scandals, Copenhagen will be swept under the carpet and most politicians will be claiming by the end of the year that they were always skeptical
Sebastian Vettel to win the F1 world championship - he'll be the fastest German on the grid, certainly
VAT may or may not increase, but basic rate income tax will hit 25% as a temporary measure

- Mystic KoW

Degrees: Supply and Demand

2009-12-09T12:06:00.000Z

Monday night's Standard/Yesterday's Metro story that the value of degrees has been slashed "by 75%" is hardly surprising, though the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills flat-out denial of it is. Interestingly, the story isn't online for Metro, and the BBC hasn't covered Lord Brown's comments - their last mention of him was a month ago when his review was announced.

The claim is that degrees add some X thousands of pounds of salary per year, and therefore graduates can afford to pay lots for their education. This was clearly true and X fairly large when 5% of the population went to university and graduates went into The Professions. Now the figure is more like 50%, and sending half of the population to university is a stated goal of the government.

As should be fairly obvious to anyone with a grasp of even the most basic economics or intuition about business, hugely increasing the number of graduates in the job market reduces the value of a degree - in fact, anecdotal evidence is that jobs now demand degrees where previously they were happy with A-levels. The simple fact is that the distribution of jobs available is broadly similar to what it's been in the past: a few % of high-paying professional jobs, a large block of office work, another block of services, and then unskilled/semi-skilled manual labour. The salaries are commensurate with the work involved and are unlikely to have changed much in real terms - after all, inflation tracks GDP reasonably closely so any increase in earning power is cancelled out by an increase in costs of living.

The inescapable conclusion is that a degree in 2009 is worth less in real terms than a degree in 1999 or 1989 or 1979. Why is DBIS denying something so obviously true?

- KoW

Google Goes To The Theatre

2009-12-08T13:12:00.000Z

Another Google Maps failure here, just east of Aldgate/Tower Hill/Tower Gateway:

That isn't the Garrick Theatre, which is between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square, that's where there was a theatre of the same name stood until it was demolished in 1891.

Yes, the map is showing a building that hasn't existed for nearly 120 years. Score another one for Team Internet!

- KoW

Some you win, some you lose

2009-12-08T09:05:00.000Z

Great news yesterday for Silverstone - a ten-year guaranteed British Grand Prix, in a contract lasting up to 17 years. It's costing them £12m in the first year, and Bernie Ecclestone got his escalator - rumoured to be a 5% increase per year - but not the 7% or even 10% he'd wanted. Seems fair enough - 5% is a pretty good rate these days, at least until hyperinflation kicks in.

Less great is p53 of this morning's Metro (story not online), with this photo:

Congratulations to Jenson for winning the trophy, less so for accepting Jonah's curse - my money is now firmly on Lewis Hamilton to be the McLaren victor (though I think Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso have a good chance of the 2010 driver's title).

- KoW

Cigarette Taxation: Doing It Wrong

2009-12-07T13:13:00.000Z

This morning's Metro (p11) has a story with the headline "Children smoke asbestos ciggies". Aside from the recent hysteria over asbestos - it's nasty, that's why we stopped using it three decades ago - this is a rather emblematic failure of government regulation.

The "fake" cigarettes are being sold for 40p/pack - something like what the market would set, as evidenced by the fact that Japan could still sell Mild Sevens for 100 yen/pack a few years ago - yet the UK retail price is around 15x that. Or 20x if, having imposed extra sanctions on retailers, kids are forced to buy from vending machines.

The price of a pack has roughly doubled under Labour, with the inevitable result of creating a black market. Initially this was people bringing a few packs back from France or non-smokers getting duty frees, but the government started cracking down on that smuggling. That raised the stakes, and the immense taxation raised the possible profit margins, which caught the interest of organised criminal gangs. Now we're warned of "tab houses" where cheap unregulated cigarettes are being sold without the state's oversight. Smokers have been driven out of social environments and hence out of scrutiny.

What did you expect would happen?

This is exactly the same mistake that was made with the "war on drugs" and, while I don't support legalisation, I can't see good arguments for punishing addicts. If you want to stop people from smoking, piss off, it's their choice, not yours.

But, if you're really insistent on meddling, first you need to control the supply - not through legislation and force of arms, because that can never work and has never worked, but by licensing, quality control and allowing manufacturers to compete; cut-throat competition will drive down prices and make the margins unattractive to criminals. That mitigates the problems of people selling asbestos as filler material and means you're not punishing addicts for being addicted. Public education on the dangers of smoking - and I don't mean huge labels and shock campaigns - was good, but everyone knows that smoking is bad for you and now such ads provoke contrarian bloody-mindedness. The main plank, of course, needs to be to consider smoking (and, one might argue, drug-taking) as a medical issue and treat it through the NHS.

Give people the means to stop being addicted and they will generally try. Attempt to force them and you will fail miserably. As we've seen and can see now.

- KoW

Metro Journalists Cannot Count

2009-12-04T09:20:00.001Z

The front-page story on today's Metro contains some absolutely ridiculous numbers. They try to put the £850bn total of taxpayer support to the banks in terms of other spending, saying

The figure is more than the entire NHS budget, almost three times the annual defence budget and more than five times what Britain spends every year on transport.

This is complete nonsense. £850bn is not "almost three times" the defence budget, it's closer to thirty times it!

The 2009 budget is here, on the Treasury website. Chart 1.1 on page 12 (the 18th page of the PDF, just to be annoying) shows a total budget of £671bn (against total receipts of £496bn, but what's a £175bn overspend between friends?). £850bn is nearly twice the total receipts, and a quarter more than the budget.

Of the budget, defence gets £38bn, transport £23bn and the NHS £119bn. If "the figure" were £117bn or £131bn (other numbers mentioned in the article) then the comparisons might hold - we have already spent more than it costs to run the NHS for a year or the armed forces for more than three years. Including the guarantees/liabilities adds nearly 90% of GDP to the country's balance sheet - so much for the "golden rule" of debt not to exceed 40% of GDP!

As an aside, £850bn is around 20 months' defence spending for the entire planet put together.

- KoW

Climategate: Review Announced

2009-12-04T09:04:00.001Z

Yesterday afternoon, the UEA announced that their independent review of the CRU will be conducted by Sir Muir Russell KCB FRSE, a distinguished physicist, civil servant and former principal of the University of Glasgow.

The terms of reference for his review are much broader than previously indicated, and include that he should

determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes

which is what is needed, not merely a whitewash over data security policy. This review fulfills all of my wish list points from Wednesday, and so I hope you'll all join me in wishing Sir Muir all the best and looking forward to reading his review next spring.

- KoW

Heads start to roll... but not very far

2009-12-02T10:12:00.001Z

The CRU has just announced that Prof Phil Jones is stepping down until after the Independent Review. So, nearly two weeks after his position became untenable, he's been put on Gardening Leave.

Before anyone gets too excited, though, that link also contains Prof Trevor Davies' (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at UEA) description of the Review - it:

will address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed

That isn't good enough.

Prof Jones stands accused of blatant academic fraud, conspiracy to withhold data, deleting data subject to FoI requests, and generally falling below the standards of conduct expected of a scientist... yet those terms of reference would allow the review to "exonerate" him based on nothing more than an INFOSEC policy review.

The Review needs to be beyond reproach and truly independent: no IPCC or UEA connections, probably no climate scientists at all, given Prof Wegman's social network analysis of the field. There are plenty of respected academics from fields such as physics, engineering, chemistry and mathematics. They can, and must, provide sound analysis of the data handling at the CRU and whether - as some have claimed - (allegedly) faking results and smearing rivals is "business as usual".

- KoW

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

2009-11-24T20:38:00.002Z

The CRU is now in full spin trying to limit damage. Apparently what they consider the most damaging is this email, which (presumably) they admit is genuine, given that they're arguing over its context.

The relevant passage is:

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline"

Now, there are several different meanings of 'trick'. It could mean a deception, which is clearly what some took it as; it could also mean a skillful technique - like a 'trick shot' in snooker. Clearly Prof Jones would like us to believe it's the latter, and has provided two images and an explanation. This image is the one that was published (WMO1999), including the trick, and this one (which looks rather hastily prepared) shows the series separated.

First, looking at that second image, I'm going to point out a few things that seem rather glaring to me. Firstly, the scale is rather large - let's cut that down for now, as data prior to the instrument record is relevant if (and only if) the data for the overlapping years is a good match. Here we go:

The red/green/blue lines are the "reconstructions" - the CRU data - and the black lines are recorded temperatures. Now, it's a pretty close match in the middle - 1900-1950 or so:

But, um... it's not so good in the 50 years or so before that... in fact, it looks a bit like negative correlation:

Still, things were a bit rough in the Victorian era, so maybe we can forgive inaccuracies there? I mean, they didn't even have cars and aircraft, let alone the satellite temperature readings we have today! Clearly the more modern data is important.... Oops:

With accurate global temperature measurements, the divergence is huge. One of the series is going exactly the opposite way to the temperature, the other two aren't showing any warming. I'd say that's a pretty awful fit, really, wouldn't you?

I agree with Prof Jones on one point: "The ‘decline’ in this set of tree-ring data should not be taken to mean that there is any problem with the instrumental temperature data". Indeed it should not. When your proxy data disagrees with your real data, you reject the proxy - and that's just what we need to do. The tree-ring reconstructions here, while superficially promising for early-20th-century data, are clearly a very poor match and must be discarded as irrelevant.

Yes, they go back a thousand years - the bible goes back further, but that doesn't make it an accurate source of climate data!

Hang on, though. What about how this data was published - using "Mike's Nature trick":

The top circle on there is where the instrumented temperature finishes up, and the bottom one is (as you can see in the graphs above) where the data ends up: below the 1961-1990 average in all three cases. Yes, the data runs out before the end of the graph, but that's hardly a reason to add extra points to the series to make it finish well above the baseline. If I had to pick one word for that, it would probably be "fraud".

I'm not a climatologist, I'm not in posession of the full facts, and I'm not a professor, so I'm in no way competent to judge whether any dishonest practices have taken place. That's up to the relevant academic authorities, the journals, and the funding councils, and I look forward to hearing their decisions. But, for me, this whole thing stinks.

- KoW

The Day Global Warming Died

2009-11-22T10:41:00.002Z

Friday afternoon saw a huge story break: the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has been hacked and a large quantity of email, raw data and (proprietary) climate model code has been leaked. The director of CRU, Professor Phil Jones, has confirmed the leaked information as being genuine.

The CRU is one of the leading lights in climatology and, in particular, paleoclimatology - reconstructing historical temperatures from secondary sources such as tree rings and ice core samples. Analysis of some of their data - released only after pressure from the Royal Society - has already shown significant anomolies.

The emails do not paint a flattering picture - in fact, they seem to show a pattern of deliberate fraud and abuse of the peer-review process with conflicts of interest, hiding models/data from review and manipulating editorial boards. These are not trivial charges and, if the emails are shown to be genuine, they should be sufficient to end careers and probably secure convictions for fraud.

As is traditional, this scandal has got a "-gate" suffix: Climategate. But, for once, it might actually be bigger than Watergate.

- KoW

Free Cheeseburgers!

2009-11-14T15:05:00.000Z

According to this report on the BBC, the figures of 2000 calories a day for women and 2500 for men are inaccurate. The quotas are too low by about 400kcal - "a cheeseburger" - apparently, as we already take enough exercise to burn the extra calories off.

Naturally, I'm shocked - reality often rounds itself to politically-expedient numbers, after all. That's why we can be sure that CO₂ atmospheric concentration targets are Proper Science - they're exact multiples of 50ppm. Next thing you know someone will be claiming that alcohol consumption recommendations shouldn't be an exact number of units (defined as 10ml of pure ethanol, based on the content of a one-ounce shot of 40% spirits, just so it's nice and exact), and the world will go to rack and ruin!

The article mentions a fear that the the Department of Health will "sweep this report under the carpet" - and they should rightly be fearful. As we've learned from Alan Johnson sacking Professor Nutt, we can't have science causing "confusion" with official policy. Such tension has to be resolved, and quickly lest it worry the populace - but, as we all know, the state know's what's best for us, so policy can't be wrong or changed. It must be the science to blame, eh?

I don't know about you, but I'm about to go and eat my free cheeseburger!

- KoW

Mission: Impossible

2009-11-14T11:45:00.000Z

The BBC reports that the IMechE has said that the 80% let's-go-back-to-the-middle-ages CO₂ cuts by 2050 that the government has signed into law are unachievable. No, really. Reducing CO₂ emissions to barely more than the population produces by respiration is a bit tricky. Shocking.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change - yeah, they're going to be neutral with a name like that - have said that the IMechE should be thinking positively. Specifically, they accused the Institution of having a "can't do, won't do attitude". Because that's all it takes to achieve massive geo-engineering projects: the right attitude. And this government wonders why it's consistently failed to achieve anything beyond passing new (and mostly unenforced) laws and pissing people off...

I think the IMechE are wrong about the environmental side of this, but I'm 100% behind their sound engineering approach. You can't make offshore wind turbines or nuclear reactors appear by fiat: you have to build them, which means moving materials and equipment on a massive scale. That takes time and money and people, and there are finite limits to all of them.

More worrying is the quoted prat from the Tyndall Centre saying we need carbon rationing. That really is one step too far: the ability to eat, travel, stay warm and travel restricted by the government and sacrificied to "the greater good". Never.

- KoW

Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence

2009-11-13T13:12:00.001Z

Apparently handing a gun in to the police is a crime - with a minimum penalty of five years and no possible legal defence. Zero Tolerance policing at work, folks! Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime, tough on people trying to be good citizens! Fiat justitia ruat caelum!

(Hat tip to Old Holborn)

Bonuses - in MoDeration

2009-11-13T10:52:00.000Z

So, the MOD has paid £47m in bonuses to civilian staff in the first six months of this year, and nearly £300m since 2003. That's rather a lot compared to the £20m cut in TA funding and it's shameful that they considered their own wellbeing ahead of the troops. What's interesting, though, is that this story is being spun in two different directions.

The BBC story above takes the tack that, as it's split 50,000 ways (out of 85,000 staff), the average payment is less than £1000 - though other reports note that some senior officials are getting £8k and some got bonuses of £17k in 2007-8.

However, Alan Johnson - yes, the home secretary is taking point on a defence story - is pushing the angle that the civil servants are being paid "danger money" and in lieu of overtime for their work in the field. Afghanistan is mentioned and the implication is that the bonuses are going to those people.

Clearly both cannot be true: the number of unique Brits in Afghanistan in 2009 is unlikely to get anywhere near 50k, even including the troops. Main Building and Abbeywood haven't suddenly decamped to there.

The truth of the matter, as I suspect any intelligent reader has figured out for themselves, is that the MOD has decided to make moderate discretionary payments to a bit over half of its staff, and a few larger ones for extraordinary circumstances. Rationally, that's not a big deal - it's a tiny proportion of the wages budget (85k people x £30k salary = £2.55bn), so why the need to lie and spin?

Surely the bigger scandal is why we're paying billions in wages to office workers who have repeatedly failed to deliver.

- KoW

Nonce Sense

2009-11-09T10:26:00.000Z

NSPCC/ChildLine have released a study today, which made the front page of Metro and the BBC also covers it.

It turns out that there's been a 132% rise in the number of women being implicated in sex-abuse cases since 2004-5. That's hardly surprising, given the systematic bias against men (whom we shall refer to as "potential paedophiles") working with children. It's also symptomatic of an under-reporting of woman-on-boy assault - like most teenage boys, I certainly wouldn't have complained to the authorities if a female teacher got a bit frisky (chance would be a fine thing!)

The statistics bear out what we already knew: the vast majority of child abuse is from natural parents and close family. Most of the rest is from step-family, then professional carers. The "paedo under the bed" has - to all intents and purposes - never existed, despite the hysteria about strangers assaulting children.

The number of calls - 16,094 - seems quite high. No doubt there are a fair number of malicious lies there, and a huge number of multiple-callers but, even if not, that represents around one child in 1000 being assaulted. One in a thousand. We're preparing to (ineffectively) vet over 12m people... TWELVE MILLION... for something that affects 0.1% of the population - and that vetting isn't even required of parents or step-parents, despite being 45% of the male and 67% of the female accused.

Sorry, Alan Johnson, looks like the Home Office is yet again failing at Evidence-Based Policymaking.

- KoW

ASLEF is an Anagram for "Total and Complete Bastard"

2009-11-08T10:43:00.002Z

It's obviously not a strike, drivers just haven't turned up for work - in a coordinated action - today. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy to be living on the Hitchin-Cambridge spur of the Great Northern line, so I'm completely unable to travel today - the nearest replacement bus services are about 10 miles away, if I wanted to take a bus to Cambridge and then the Liverpool Street train.

That makes me glad I bought a season ticket.

I don't know if First Capital Connect will call a Void Day, presumably they will as they have no way of running a service today, which means I might get a couple of quid compensation. Woo.

It wouldn't be so bad if the "grievance" wasn't utterly contrived: drivers are objecting to being paid overtime to come in on a Sunday as it's only "voluntary" work. So they've all decided en-masse not to volunteer so, even though there are enough who would want double-time or whatever the pay is on any given Sunday, there is no service to protest this lack of compulsion. We know full well that the union would reject any calls to make Sunday working mandatory, and that would make the system less flexible and worker-friendly than it is currently.

So, what this actually is, is a strike about the lack of grounds for calling a strike.

Thanks, ASLEF. Strikes are only viable if the employer is a non-monopoly: it will lose customers to its competitors, so has an incentive to end the strike. With a monopoly, or a state-run pseudocompany, all it does is victimise customers. This union, like so many others, is playing a zero-sum game against the general public.

This is, it has to be said, a failure of privatisation: awarding of monopoly franchises does not create a market. The airline model is much better - arrival/departure slots bought from the stations, central (state-run) traffic control, and multiple service providers on the same route. This is so tantalisingly close on the King's Cross lines - GNER/NXEC, WAGN/FCC, Hull Trains and now Grand Central all run on the same tracks, and there are multiple providers as far north as Stevenage and Hitchin. Why isn't it a viable model more generally? Why isn't there a choice between easyTrain where I'd be standing for the entire journey, but it'd be cheap, or a First Class-only OpCo with complementary champagne?

- KoW

Quantitative Easing

2009-11-05T14:00:00.000Z

So, the Bank of England is to print another £25bn to pump into the economy, but it will be spent over three months (half the previous rate). By my calculations, that means a shortage of about £8bn/month between QE and the government's borrowing - previously they were about the same. Are the global money markets able to pick up the slack

Now, obviously, the BoE cash isn't going directly to public-sector borrowing - that would violate EU law - but it is going indirectly, giving the banks a profit margin from buying new-issued Gilts and then selling them on to the Bank. The net flow is the same, though - newly-printed money is supporting the government deficit, and there'll be less of it in the near future. The further dilution of Sterling is unlikely to appeal to potential investors, though the "small" delta here probably won't make much difference in the short term; likewise, it's probably too small to have a significant effect on exports.

Which all adds up to bad news for the hopes of getting out of the recession this quarter - if the government can't push enough money through the economy, it can't raise GDP, which means no "technical recovery"...

- KoW

David Cameron on Europe

2009-11-04T21:39:00.002Z

I thought it was a good speech this afternoon - he made good, pragmatic points in a respectful but forceful way. It really is too late to do anything about Lisbon, and it'll be in force in 26 days' time whether we like it or not. It won't have satisfied the "wets" or the UKIP nutters, but it's the only practical response.

And, yes, it'll be a very hard fight to get those three vetos - we'll need support of our partners in Europe, and undoubtedly some squaring will take place. As is traditional, you'll be able to recognise it because there will be absolutely no connection whatsoever between us supporting their pet policies and them supporting ours.

I started wondering about the Sovereignty Act, though. It seems like a very good idea - basic, straightforward, and in lieu of a constitution. We don't need a constitution, because Common Law is based on the principle that everything is legal unless specifically banned - the opposite of the Napoleonic Code where rights only exist because they're specifically granted.

The most obvious objection is based on the Factortame case, which "confirmed the supremacy of European Union law over national law in the areas where the EU has competence" as granted by the European Communities Act 1972. The ECJ said in 1990 that courts can strike down national laws; Lord Denning suggested that this applies only to accidental contradictions, and that Parliament is still sovereign. There are legal arguments to be made, of course, but there is one fundamental principle that makes them irrelevant: there is nothing the EU can do about it. If we declare our sovereignty, and choose not to follow EU Directives we don't like, what are the ramifications? To quote Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister:

"Well, Minister, in practical terms we have the usual six options: One, do nothing. Two, issue a statement deploring the speech. Three, lodge an official protest. Four, cut off aid. Five, break off diplomatic relations. And six, declare war."

Speeches and protests are, as ever, worthless. We're a net contributor to the EU, so they can't cut off aid. There can be no formal diplomatic relations with the EU before December, so we're hardly going to miss those, and trade sanctions cut both ways - we're a market as well as a supplier. Finally, even with the Lisbon Treaty, the EU doesn't have the power to set military policy or declare war. Basically, if (as a nation) we choose not to follow a Directive - assuming we don't then choose to allow ourselves to be punished for the transgression - there is nothing that can be done about it. Naturally, things wouldn't get that far - as in Italy and Spain and France, we'd just be allowed to get away with it.

I think there are a lot of benefits to close ties with Europe - (almost) free travel and working is good, and integrated continent-wide policies on agriculture/energy/education/healthcare/transport could bring obvious benefits. But that's not the same as having to obey every single law that comes out of Brussels, particularly ones that damage our society or economy. I look forward to the next government rolling back some of the more egregious European laws in the UK.

- KoW

Snippets

2009-11-04T10:17:00.001Z

So, lots of things happened yesterday, and I don't have time to post on all of them individually.

Václav Klaus, the Czech President, became the 27th and final leader to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. It will now come into effect from December 1st, creating official President and Foreign Secretary roles and changing virtually all EU-wide lawmaking from unanimous to majority decisions. This, in the language of the EU, is "simplification" rather than a ratcheting up of power. I'm anti-Europe, but I don't think this change is as catastrophic as others have made out - in particular, we now only need a majority vote to begin repatriating our sovereignty, and centre-right politics are in ascendance across the continent.

Since this is now unavoidable - unless some kind soul were to cause a general election in the next four weeks - I support David Cameron's decision to drop the referendum calls. As William Hague says, it's pointless - it can't unratify the treaty and it's too late to stop it. The idea of putting it in as a manifesto pledge is much better. Unlike a referendum which might go either way (see Ireland), a Tory victory will guarantee a mandate for action - and, if the polls are to be believed, such a victory is on the cards. I guess we'll see what Cameron has to say today.

There's been another huge bail-out of the banks by the UK government - £40bn more thrown at RBS and Lloyds. Alex was in quickly with the news, and reports on today's FT coverage. "Worlds biggest bank bailout" as Metro's front page shouted. City AM leads with the story as well, but focussing on Neelie Kroes' influence.

GM has pulled out of the Magna/Opel deal, which is probably bad news for the Vauxhall workers - GM is now going cap-in-hand to the UK and German governments. I can't see Lord Mandelson changing his stance, especially as finances are getting ever tighter, and the German promises were for a different deal and were made prior to an election that's now happened - very easy to change.

M&S are now selling other brands - I thought this was nationwide when they started the trial in April, but apparently it is now. Good. I don't buy shoddy own-brand colas. This now makes their lunch deal much more attractive as I can get a bottle of Diet Coke with the much-better-than-Boots' sandwiches.

Toyota has pulled out of F1, with immediate effect. Poor Kamui Kobayashi... I hope he can get another drive after his fantastic performance in the last two races. If not, we should support him by going and eating sushi at his family restaurant! Bridgestone are going, too, which is a shame. I was hoping there'd be tyre choice back on the strategy menu now that fuelling is off.

- KoW

Government IT Failure

2009-11-03T10:49:00.001Z

Yet another government database project ends in disaster. £161m spent on the project cannot be accounted for. A spokesman claims that "Steps have been taken to ensure that the mistakes made are not repeated.", but isn't that the same line trotted out every single time one of these projects goes tits-up?

What "steps" have been taken? What "lessons" have been learned? And why, if those aren't blatant lies, do things keep going wrong year in, year out? Why is a government so obsessed with databases so inept at their implementation?

The Technology in Business programme and the Government IT Profession were set up several years ago to address these issues, yet what have they achieved? The policy statements for the GITs include this gem:

Enabling organisations and individuals to develop the capability required to deliver excellence through advice and guidance on embedding professionalism and using the skills frameworks, and by creating and signposting learning and development opportunities.

That is gibberish. Complete and utter tosh. Semantically empty. They've produced at least four versions of the skills framework, all talking in generalities and buzzwords. Sound and fury. No doubt the authors of that claptrap would claim I'm "not thinking abstractly" and that classification, categorisation and meta-analysis are vitally important parts of the work. Bullshit.

Databases, despite the impression all this might give, are not all that difficult to engineer. There are around 85k prisoners in the UK. I have a database with more than 170k rows across a dozen tables, used for the back-end to some web services which I wrote in a weekend. That's running, acceptably fast, on a shared server costing me a few quid a month. I'm under no illusions and know that a proper setup - redundant infrastructure, dedicated and distributed hardware, security accreditation, crypto, development and testing of the applications - would cost considerably more, but a million times more? Several thousand pounds for each prisoner in the database?

I know I'm not cut out for the civil service: I actually value results - rather than process and paying lip-service to results. IT projects aren't made by consultants and reports and policies and skills frameworks; they're made by analysts and programmers and admins and engineers. Yes, these people need some direction, but direction in and of itself cannot produce the desired system - you cannot make a database by executive fiat!

- KoW

Nutt Sacking

2009-10-31T09:06:00.001Z

So Professor David Nutt has been sacked by Alan Johnson, for pointing out that the evidence on drugs doesn't say what the government would like it to say, and is predicting a backlash. Mark Easton says "there may be significant fall-out". Good.

It seems to me that the best evidence we could have that independent scientific advice is truly independent is that, when it's ignored by the government for political and ideological reasons, it results in a public bunfight. Not that dissent is quashed to avoid embarassment for the politicians. This should be a public scandal - "Government Scientific Advisor Fired For Disagreeing" - the sort of shoot-the-messenger idiocy that lead the Soviets into Lysenkoism.

I doubt anyone is naïve enough to believe that the Executive actually want independent advice - they want to claim to have taken independent advice, and they want to be supported, but that's cargo-cult decision-making. It's the child sitting (on a pile of cushions) on his dad's chair, peering over the top of the desk, looking intently at a "report", and "evaluating" it - he's seen his dad do the same thing, and he knows how he has to look, but not why or what's going on behind the scenes.

Scientific advice isn't there to provide a veneer of legitimacy; its role isn't to support extant policy decisions; its internal disagreements aren't justification to give "equal time to both sides" or to pick the one which best fits your prejudices. Scientific advice is there to provide a sound basis for rational decision-making.

Ignore it at your peril.

- KoW

Google Moves The Gherkin

2009-10-29T13:35:00.001Z

Not sure if that's anything like "tickling the pickle", but take a look at the map here.

A little off, perhaps? Yes, just a bit...

It looks like someone's changed the address of SwissRe...

... and that's broken the map generation.

One might think a 600ft glass-and-steel tower would be hard to misplace, but Google seem have managed it...

- KoW

Carriers redux

2009-10-27T09:10:00.000Z

Following on from yesterday's post about the carriers, another possibility occurred to me last night: perhaps the two JSFs purchased for evaluation have been evaluated - and found wanting?

If that were the case, we might see the more radical of the two cutting options - if the Fast Jet squadrons have taken a look at the F-35, and don't like it as much as the Typhoon, that would halve the number required. If the Fleet Air Arm feel similarly - or the Royal Navy wishes to, well, spend its money on boats - then it could well be just 30-40 purchased to provide a mobile air superiority capability.

It's still expensive to run a small fleet of aircraft, though, so viability is still a question...

- KoW

Carry On Carriers

2009-10-26T21:41:00.007Z

On page 18 of tonight's London Lite there's a very short story entitled "Navy can't buy jets for carrier". The story doesn't appear to have reached the BBC yet. The gist is that, although there were two Queen Elizabeth class (CVF) carriers ordered, there won't be sufficient budget to put JSF on both - so one may "become a commando craft".
This seems odd. For years, the government has allegedly been committed to "about 150" JSF - OK, the rising costs made that more like 120-130, but even so... A full complement for both carriers is 70-80, and the balance would be for the RAF and an attrition batch. If, as this story implies, the numbers are now being cut, where does the cut fall?

Two possibilities spring to mind:

There is a huge cut, down to 40-60 JSF, which will be flown only by the Fleet Air Arm and from a single carrier - saving £5-6bn?
There is a more modest cut, down to perhaps 80-100 JSF, and the RAF will still get theirs - as well as Typhoon - saving £2-4bn?

I can't think of any other options - though I'm happy to concede that they may exist. In either of those cases, however, something is badly wrong. The RAF has little need for a STOVL aircraft, and maintaining two separate parts/maintenance/munition supply chains is ridiculous. Or, the big-cut option... that makes more sense, but is it going to be sustainable? There are well-known integration problems for munitions onto the JSF - it basically won't fire anything we've got, so we have to either pay hundreds of millions in integration costs or buy AMRAAM/Sidewinder/etc.

Could this be the first step to the UK pulling out of JSF? It's expensive, it's pretty much the antithesis of sovereign capability - look how long it took Lord Drayson to get "guarantees" over source code access - and we've got basically nothing for sinking £1bn into R&D as a "tier 1 partner". Italy and Israel got better deals for far less...

Will CVF end up as a helicopter carrier?

Modern choppers don't suffer the old limitations - a Merlin has a 1400km range compared to 1600km for a STOVL JSF, provides tactical airlift which is sorely needed in both war and humanitarian operations, and is already in service allowing for whole-fleet management.

There's a lack of deep-strike and air-to-air capability, but can those be provided by other means? For fleet defence, we've already got the Type 45s and could, no doubt, fit Sea Viper to the carriers; for deep-strike, UAVs or Storm Shadow/TLAM perhaps? The only thing you're losing is the ability to park off the coast of Baddiestan and pick a dogfight in their airspace - that might well be a pragmatic choice, given that they can't attack us without running afoul of the fleet's air defences.

I wonder why the story was buried so deep in a free paper, though. Maybe nobody cares.

It doesn't bode well, though, if defence equipment spending is being cut back. If there is fat in the budget, it's the huge number of civil servants - a third of the Whitehall total according to one report - not the forces themselves.

- KoW

With a hell of a shout, it's "Out, brothers, out!"

2009-10-26T12:14:00.002Z

In South Yorkshire, fire crews are striking and so are the buses. The TFL Bully has quit - though I wonder if that's the last of that story, given that the RMT has averaged something like one strike ballot per working day this year. BA's flight crews are balloting for a strike. Three more days from the CWU posties.

Are there any groups of public sector workers who don't fancy a crack at "negotiating"? If When the government caves in, you can bet there'll be a lot more...

Still, at least there's no chance of another Sunny Jim - I think we're stuck with a Gloomy Gordon until next year.

- KoW

Why regulation CANNOT work

2009-10-23T17:50:00.002+01:00

There is an interesting paper discussed here on derivatives and computational complexity - the paper makes the case that, while it may theoretically be possible to value a CDO, in practice it is likely to require intractable amounts of computation. They reduce the pricing problem to the Densest Subgraph problem, which is believed to be NP Complete (read that as "impossibly slow" if you're not interested in the details), and also show that some deliberate fraud in the CDO construction would be undetectable. Essentially it would be the same difficulty as factoring a large number - which is so hard it's used as the basis for cryptosystems.

The paper is an interesting read, and suggests that neither counterparties nor regulators nor ratings agencies could hope to know the true situation, even after the fact. That obviously implies a lot more risk than people were expecting. Hindsight is 20/20, eh? Future regulations will hit the same problem, though - there are some theoretically calculable things that you just can't work out fast enough, and we're not talking "a few days" here, we're talking "billions of years". The FSA can't do the risk calculations here, and nor can anyone else.

Ken's comment down at the bottom of that blog post makes a much more important point: it's possible to construct undecidable derivatives. I'd have gone one step further, had a paper C which pays out if B doesn't - making it superficially similar to A - and have the holdings consist only of C. With that chain, the solution isn't just unknown, it's unknowable: C will pay out if - and only if - C doesn't pay out.

This is fundamental computation theory, closely related to the Halting Problem and some mathematical results (Russell's Paradox, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem). If the FSA had infinite computing resources, they still couldn't solve it. No matter how smart the people involved are, or how fancy the techniques, or how shiny the machine room, it's impossible. Truly, mathematically, impossible.

It follows from this that Mervyn King is completely right: the solution is to firewall the retail banks from the risks in the market. You can't tax, or risk-weight things which cannot be calculated. If two "casino" banks want to tie themselves in knots over undecidable derivatives, fine - their lawyers can make money negotiating a solution, and if one or both collapses, so be it. But the banks we rely on have to be insulated - and this can be done.

Undecidability only exists in "sufficiently powerful" computation models. Arbitrary derivatives are clearly sufficiently powerful. Long positions are not, even when the companies and funds own shares in each other. The solution, and it's a nice simple one, is to work out what instruments a retail bank can safely trade in, and limit it to only those things. You could even let the bank invest some small amount of its assets in a dodgy-as-you-like hedge fund - with the proviso that it can expect to lose 100% (but no more) of its investment and plan the risk accordingly.

Northern Rock may still have collapsed, of course - it made very poor lending decisions - but its assets would have been snapped up as a going concern. All people would have noticed is a change in the letterhead on their statements. Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers couldn't have affected the high-street banks, as they wouldn't have been allowed to gamble on them - and the other investment banks (Goldman Sachs, et al) and their shareholders would simply have had to eat their losses. Rather than the taxpayer.

- KoW

Are we depressed yet?

2009-10-23T12:41:00.001+01:00

Alex comments on the BBC's volte-face (here to here) on the GDP predictions and makes an interesting point: a huge proportion of the GDP is government spending (from the £175bn-ish 2009 deficit), so the real economy is doing much worse. The BBC got the pre-announced figures but those were 60 basis points too high - a bit over £8bn (two weeks' deficit) of economic activity by my reckoning.

One thing I'd add, though: despite blowing £20m of borrowed money every hour, the government still isn't spending enough to rig the GDP figures.

The implication is that the deficit would need to be about half as big again, £260bn or so, to mask the decline in wealth creation. Of course, if they were able to borrow that much, they could give £30k/year to 2.8 million people... Hey, Gordon, I think I've solved the unemployment problem! (At least until the bailiffs arrive...)

- KoW

(Silver)Stoned to death?

2009-10-23T09:32:00.003+01:00

According to the BBC report here, Donnington Park has effectively given up on hosting the British Grand Prix - let alone exclusively for the next decade. With luck, it'll be back to Silverstone - but Bernie Ecclestone should make it clear that there will be a British Grand Prix no matter what. We have enough tracks in this country, a long tradition in all forms of motorsport, and millions of fans: if Brazil's and Italy's fans are enough to guarantee a race every year, so should we be.

Donnington yesterday pulled a £135m bond issue, presumably because there was no chance of raising that much money... I wonder what that says about the regular government debt auctions. No money out there? Government already borrowing it all, and at a better credit rating? Investors worried about inflation or a Sterling crash eating the value?

- KoW

The honourable member for Morley and Rothwell is a pillock

2009-10-21T12:53:00.000+01:00

Colin Challen MP tabled this Early Day Motion about a week ago, full of the usual eco-nonsense. Amongst other things, he discusses:

"the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration for a stable planet"
"the need to reduce this level to 350 particles per million or below"
"the majority of money spent on reviving the economy should be on green measures and that at least two hours of prime time television per week should be used to explain the gravity of the crisis to the public"
"domestic flights should be phased out by the end of 2010"
"that a speed limit of 55 miles per hour should be introduced"

Well, it's probably better than Eastenders, but I think the even the State Broadcaster would object to that level of indoctrination. Though, as one wag put it, "Two hours per week? So he's proposing a reduction. Excellent!".

I'll leave off the logical error or needing to reduce the "safe level", since it's obvious what was meant. Isn't it great, though, that we can be Saved if we get the level down to 350ppm? Not 351ppm, or 349ppm, of course... those are poisonous. As Harry Hill might say, "what are the chances, eh?".

That number is a political one, with little or no science behind it. Science doesn't produce neat figures, because the universe isn't neat, so where did it come from? The simple fact is that there is no critical tipping point or runaway positive feedback - if there were, at one of the many points in Earth's history when CO₂ concentration was higher, they'd have been triggered and we wouldn't be here to argue about it. That's how positive feedback works: it doesn't suddenly decide to stop and go back, it goes on accelerating forever. If the change slows or reverses, the system exhibits negative feedback, end of.

So where did that number come from? The IPCC's made-up political target is 450ppm. That's a pretty big difference for anything other than sticking a wet finger in the air and guessing.

Why ban flights? Why 55mph? Some cars at 55mph produce more CO₂ than others do at 70mph, so this isn't purely about the environment. If it were, you could simply ban (or punitively tax) higher emissions rates no matter how they were produced. That might actually result in innovation and job creation as people find ways to do the same stuff but better/faster/cheaper. So why create a fatuous link between speed and carbon dioxide? To buy the political support of the anti-car lobby? To push a personal agenda?

Look at the measures proposed: arbitrary and irrelevant limitations on behaviour, two hours of propaganda per week. Doesn't that sound rather like Soviet Russia? We're spied on through ubiquitous CCTV cameras and RIPA powers, can be searched without probable cause ("section 44"), can be imprisoned without charge for a month (and let's not forget that it was nearly 42 days!)... does that sound like Great Britain to you?

Or is this one of those Early Day Motions which nobody cares about and which serve only to waste taxpayers' money?

(Hat tip to Dizzy)

- KoW

Alcohol and ID checks

2009-10-20T09:49:00.001+01:00

This morning's Metro letters page has Carole from Gloucester telling us that it's a "Fact" that it's an offence to purchase alcohol for someone under 18, or to sell it to someone under 18, and that's why a 44-year-old man wasn't allowed to buy alcohol because his wife looked under 25 and she didn't have ID.

This statement about the law is, of course, true. It's also, to some extent, completely irrelevant. It's a law, and laws change. Specifically, that one was changed in the Licensing Act 2003 to make the penalties much harsher and much broader. The penalties on the Standard Scale are up to level 3 (£1000) for the child and up to level 5 (£5000) for the adult.

It's an offence for the supermarket manager, the supermarket cashier, the person buying the alcohol, and the person receiving it - so, potentially, £16k in fines for a single bottle of adult fizzy pop. Doesn't that seem a little... steep? Those are eye-watering penalties for a cashier or bartender, and the fact that a prosecution will almost certainly mean being fired (not to mention the record being retained forever thanks to yesterday's decision), are ample to ruin lives. Is that really justified for letting a kid have a bit of booze?

It's almost as if the government implemented exponentially higher penalties because the "problem" wasn't being addressed sufficiently. Remind anyone of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Simple fact: teens want to be adults and so will try to smoke and drink. If you let them, there's not really much harm - arguably it's better than letting them turn 18 and go out on a bender; if you try to stop them, you destroy lives for an ideology.

- KoW

EC insists banks pay larger bonuses

2009-10-20T09:09:00.001+01:00

On page 2 of City AM this morning is a story entitled 'EC gets tough on derivatives'. Apparently the European Commission plans to drive more derivatives trading onto exchanges and hence "under the gaze of regulators".

I think this is great. New categories of exchange-traded instruments means loads more front-office IT work doing exchange connectivity, more autotrading, and - since it's not possible to get everything 100% perfect at 8am on Day One - a lot more opportunities for arbitrage and high-frequency trading. The banks or hedge funds with the quickest developers and the sharpest quants always have a new market to themselves for a while, and make a ton of money off the low-hanging fruit. I expect to see some great short-term (<1s) opportunities where price movements in the underlying asset aren't reflected in the derivative price but there is sufficient liquidity on the exchange to execute a trade. Which, of course, means more profits for the bank (yay!) and large bonuses all round (yay!).

Good to see that the Law of Unintended Consequences is still in effect!

- KoW

Something for the CWU to think about

2009-10-19T12:49:00.002+01:00

While dismissal of an employee during an official strike is automatically Unfair, that carries a minimum penalty of £2700 and a maximum of £66,200 (only typically reached for extremely high earners).

Sacking 30,000 workers and keeping the temps on would therefore cost between £81m (a quarter of Royal Mail's 2008-2009 profits) and £1.99bn (less than a third of the Royal Mail pension deficit, and about a fifth of its gross revenue) in fines. An award of 12 weeks' pay at £30k per annum, for 30,000 workers, would cost £207m.

A swing of 21,208 votes would have given a majority voting not to strike in the recent ballot, and mass sackings would certainly affect the willingness of people to strike.

In a recession, with 3m officially unemployed (and about the same on incapacity benefit or the like), you do not have the public's sympathy, the costs of unlawfully firing you can be met, and there are many people willing to do your jobs without union "protection". Just a thought. Not a pretty one, admittedly, but there's nothing inherently special about people who deliver letters.

- KoW

The Autumn of Wrath

2009-10-17T11:20:00.002+01:00

The Summer of Rage is fashionably late, it seems, but it has started. The Autumn of Wrath is here.

Tory Bear hit the nail on the head. People are outraged about bank bonuses, MPs' expenses, postal strikes, the recession, lavish wasting of public funds, the police state, flagrant law-breaking by politicians, feral chavs... it's not being addressed, and it's spilling out in all directions - the Trafigura/Carter-Ruck gagging order, the TFL bully, Jan Moir...

Twitter is playing a large part simply because the news travels so quickly - assuming six degrees of separation and one minute to re-tweet, awareness of a story can cross the world in five minutes. The stories themselves are generally in the mainstream media, but there are no more "good days to bury bad news". The dead-tree press are, to their credit, reading the mood well and increasingly using online sources. The morning's Metro still feels like it contains two-day-old news - the same stories as the Lite and Evening Standard the night before, which were on the wire by breakfast - but it's still fresh to the majority of the population.

Predictions for the next few months? Nights are drawing in, and the recession is going to see cut-down xmas parties: people are going to be cold, wet and miserable, and will probably spend more time following the news. They'll have lots of time. Redundancies and strikes will dampen moods still further - I'm betting the RMT is out in London before xmas (possibly over the ponytailed git's "unfair" sacking), and RMT and/or ASLEF disrupting national rail wouldn't surprise me; the postal service is pretty much gone now as we've missed the union's "last posting day" for cards and presents. Other public services might strike as well - there are already signs, and they seem to feel they deserve job security and pay rises, which aren't on the cards.

It probably won't kick in until the quarterly bills arrive in January/February/March, but the price of energy is going to cause another blow-up when people realise just how much staying warm cost them in the winter - are you sure about those green energy subsidies, Mr Miliband?

While ever this lame-duck government remains in power, people are going to keep finding abuses of taxpayers' money, civil liberties, the law (particularly ironic when officials break any of the myriad new laws they've introduced in the last decade) and natural justice... and nothing is going to be done about them, which will only fuel the rage. A slap on the wrist here, a fine there, an apology, an inquiry - nothing.

The people of this country are metaphorically baying for blood... if these abuses continue long enough, that adverb will become "literally".

And I don't mean "OMG, I, like, literally died of shame!"... I mean literally.

- KoW

Climate Maths

2009-10-16T10:59:00.002+01:00

Right, I'm getting fed up with this. This morning's metro has a quarter-page ad for the government's ACT ON CO2 campaign, explaining that I should use less water in the shower. Yes, water, that well-known carbon emitter.

According to this campaign's FAQ, "Over 40 per cent of CO₂ emissions in the UK come directly from what individuals do – for example, using electricity in the home and driving cars. That means we can all make a difference. If every home can install 270mm loft insulation, it would save 3.8 million tonnes of CO₂ – the same as the annual emissions of around 650,000 homes."

OK. Maths time!

A typical person breathes about 7-8 litres of air per minute, 11000 litres per day.^[source]. Sanity checking, this means that a person would breathe all of the air in a lift once in a few hours, which seems plausible.

Using the ideal gas law, pV = nRT, we can calculate how much air this is in molecular terms. Pressure (p) is around 1 atm (by definition) or 100000 Nm^-2. Volume (V) is 11m³. R is the gas constant, 8.31 Jmol^-1K^-1. T is the temperature, let's say 293K (20 degrees Celsius / 68 degrees Fahrenheit). Solving for n, we get 452 mol of gas.

The air we breathe out contains approximately 4% more CO₂ than the air we breathe in.^[source] This means that 18 mol of the gas is CO₂. The reason for using the mole (~6.03x10²³ molecules) as a unit is to simplify calculations: CO₂ has a molecular weight of ~44 g/mol (12 for the carbon atom, 16 each for the oxygens) and so 18 mol of CO₂ weighs 795g (1.75 lbs). Let's round that to 800g / 0.8kg as these calculations aren't accurate enough. That's on the same order of magnitude as the food and water intakes, so it seems plausible.

A typical person produces 800g (0.8kg, 1.75lbs) of CO₂ per day.

Now, the fun begins. There were approximately 6,790,062,216 people in the world in July 2009. ^[source] A bit too much precision, there - let's call it 6.8 billion now. Multiplying 6.8bn people by 0.8kg/person/day and 365 days/year gives us 1986 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. Can't really support four significant figures, so let's round it to 2000 million tonnes.

The human population of Earth produces 2000 million tonnes of CO₂ per year simply by breathing.

Hang on, though. That rounding was 14 million tonnes! Let's go back to our ACT ON CO2 quote. A mere 3.8 million tonnes is the annual emissions of 650,000 homes, so that rounding error would be the emissions of 2.4 million homes - about a tenth of the UK. Wow!

Talking of those 650,000 homes, though... their 2.2 inhabitants will each produce 0.292 tonnes of CO₂ per year, so 0.42 million tonnes of CO₂ - 10% of their total emissions - is produced by respiration. Is that supposed to be scary? That we breathe as much CO₂ as we waste through not having 9" thick loft insulation?

The government wants us only to emit 159 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2050. Bit of a shame that the UK population exhales over 18 million tonnes of CO₂ per year - more than 11% of the total.

Even more telling: the UK's entire current "carbon budget" - for power, transport, and everything else - is the same as the amount produced by the Chinese population simply breathing.

More than a tenth of the "damage" we do to the environment is through respiration; I'm inclined to think that such small multiples are irrelevant. Exercise and sex greatly increase respiration volumes - by more than a factor of 10.

Your breathing during heavy exertion, 150 litres/minute, accounts for more than twice as much CO₂ production as everything else in your life put together - driving, flying, importing non-seasonal vegetables, technology, heat and light, etc.

How about we stop worrying about trivial amounts of CO₂ and just get on with living?

- KoW

Climate quackery

2009-10-11T12:38:00.002+01:00

I just stumbled across this from the BBC: "[In 2007] the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change."

Pretty damning, huh? Except it isn't. ">90% likely" is another way of saying "<10% that this could happen by random chance" or, as it's often shown in scientific papers, "p < 0.1". Or, rather, that's how it might be shown in scientific papers if they were published with such loose bounds - but they're not. The publication standard for most reputable journals is 5% significance. My supervisor once described it thusly: "if you haven't proven it to 5% significance, you haven't proven it". And with good reason - no journal's reputation could survive long if it published, on average, one incorrect study each issue.

One- and two-sigma errors crop up all the time. In a moderately-sized physics class, you would expect one student to get a result two standard deviations from the mean, not through incompetence but through random errors. With a "science" as complex, fuzzy and politicised as climatology, p<0.1 is a null result.

The BBC also has this graph of atmospheric CO₂ readings from Mauna Loa from 1958 to date:

Here's my rather less scary one from the same data:

Note that the population of the world reached 3 billion in 1960 and 6 billion in 1999, so the atmospheric CO₂ per person is down over 40% in that time! Hardly convincing, prima facie, that people are the problem.

Then, of course, we have this BBC piece telling us that the hottest year on record was 1998 and that temperatures have been stable for the last decade - and will quite possibly decline over the next 20-30 years. I'll not mock the secret models which have utterly failed to predict any of this, but suffice to say that if you put garbage in, you get garbage out, and it's not a good idea to set policy based on garbage.

So, yeah, "global warming" (or "climate change" as people prefer to call it now that it's not actually getting warmer) is very much unproven. And yet... we're forced into using mercury-filled lightbulbs, taxed through the nose for petrol and flights, "encouraged" to use renewable energy sources as our politicians argue over whose hair-shirt is hairier and who can cut emissions the most.

History will judge harshly the current mass-hysteria over climate: "they actually thought they were saving the world"

- KoW

Prince Philip is right

2009-10-10T16:50:00.002+01:00

While the Duke of Edinburgh mostly provokes rolled eyes and sighs with his gaffes, he is always forthright with his opinions - something sadly lacking these days. His latest comments, on user interface design, as quoted here by the BBC, are spot-on.

I'll just quickly add a smutty innuendo about his idea of making love involving either "lying on the floor, with a torch in your teeth, magnifying glass, instruction book" or "employing a grandson at age 10 to do it for you". There are Laws on the internet, after all ;-)

I have here two remotes, one for my (Wharfedale) TV and the other for my (Sony) DVD player. The TV control has 45 buttons, the DVD has 44. They look like abraded, battle-scarred hedgehogs. It's traditional at this point to quote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and I'm a traditionalist, so: "Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Are those 89 buttons all needed? No. I've a master's degree, and more than a decade's experience, in computer technology and I've no clue what half of them do! Of the ones I do understand, a bunch are completely useless:

I have a phenomenal memory for numbers, but even I can't remember what chapter to skip to in Basic Instinct if I want to watch Sharon Stone crossing her legs! DVD cases no longer contain a chapter listing card. The keypad is therefore worthless and would be better replaced by a non-volatile memory in the player (or perhaps on a memory stick) that lets me select bookmarks and remembers them when I put the disc back in.
The DVD control has buttons for a TV: volume up/down, AV, power. All completely useless as I don't have a Sony TV!
The eject button on the DVD player remote is actively harmful. I can't put a disc in from 20 feet away, so why let me eject the one that's in there? If I have to go to the box to put a disc in, I can press the button by the disc tray!
The TV control has a bunch of buttons which don't even seem to do anything - "subcode", "mix", "mode", "time", "p.std" and "ssm". Your guess is as good as mine!

Those buttons are mostly identical looking and feeling, suggesting that they are of equal status - which clearly isn't the case. Look at any old remote and you'll see half a dozen buttons with the silk-screened legend rubbed off the rubber pad (and the pad cracked at the sides in a really worn one). It'd be better to put half, or two thirds, of the buttons onto on-screen menus - where they can be given tooltips or even a "help" button to explain their function. This isn't rocket science. This is geeks designing for other geeks, not for the people who will actually use the product, and even they don't know what most of it does.

(Subtitle for the techies: it's EMACS vs Vi when the world wants Pico.)

- KoW

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

2009-10-10T15:10:00.000+01:00

The BBC reports that TA training budgets have been cut, saving a pathetically small £20m.

For those who don't know, the Territorial Army's "weekend warriors" are already serving in Afghanistan, yet now those in the UK will have no training for the next six months. It's already been reported that general army fitness levels are insufficient for the hot-and-high environment of Afghanistan - ground altitudes in Helmand province can reach 10,000ft, where the air is noticeably thinner - and that some troops have arrived in theatre without ever having practiced with their weapons (particularly grenade launchers, but also rifles, as I understand).

There is one inevitable and, frankly, obvious outcome here: more British troops will be killed because training was cut back.

Gordon Brown can try to score points off General Dannatt in the press with beancounter quibbling over the precise numbers of troops in theatre, but the simple fact is that one cannot say that 7999 people isn't enough but 8000 is. It doesn't work like that. While a small force and a large one may both achieve the same goal in the end, the larger force will likely do it with fewer casualties. It therefore follows that we should not be fiddling around the exact number to deploy, we should deploy twice as many men and vehicles and do the job right.

- KoW

They think it's all over

2009-10-10T11:14:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reports that government-funded¹ think-tank NIESR disagrees with George Osborne's pension figures, and doesn't feel that they'll raise as much as he wants. They may even be right. I've an assessment of the pension situation of my own waiting to be written-up, which doesn't paint a nice picture for the state pension.

The sixth paragraph in that article is an absolute jewel, however: "Opposition politicians said the miscalculation cast doubt on Osborne's fitness to be chancellor."

O RLY? Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are united behind their Shadow Chancellor, the Lib Dems are (as ever) irrelevant, so should one draw the conclusion that even hardcore Labour supporters consider themselves to be in Opposition now? A Freudian Slip, perhaps? The choice of Phillip Inman to pair that line with a quote from Alistair Darling does amuse...

(Hat tip for the article's existence to Ben Wegg-Prosser and, I think, Flying Matters - not sure now where I got the retweet!)

- KoW

Nanny knows best!

2009-10-09T09:19:00.001+01:00

Today's Metro (p30) and the BBC (Wednesday night) have a story about Nottingham City Council's expansion of fixed penalty notices.

"Offences such as leaving a car engine running [...] attract fines from £50 to £300."

WTF? It's an offence to leave a car engine running? It's expensive, certainly, at £1.29/litre, but how the hell is it a crime needing punishment?

I suppose they're going to ban turbo timers (devices which keep the engine idling to allow a turbocharger to cool down gradually) as well? Given that engines are hopelessly inefficient just after starting, forcing people to stop and restart their engines when their passenger pops into a shop for a one-minute errand, will pollute more, waste fuel, waste battery power, wear out starter motors and generally make life worse. So that'll be another stealth tax - in the same vein as speed bumps - from government deliberately inflicting damage on motor vehicles...

Apparently these fines will be meted out - unaccountably, no doubt - by "Community Protection Officers". That raises the question of whether they exist to protect the community, or to protect something from the community, because I don't think fining people for keeping their engines ticking over or leaving their bins out is particularly public-spirited.

A thought for such authoritarian governments: you are accountable to us, not we to you.

- KoW

Defence Spending Clarification

2009-10-08T21:15:00.000+01:00

As the point has been raised, I should clarify one of my earlier points about defence spending.

I believe that the MOD has far too many desk jobs, and probably still would even if it had only one civilian for every ten squaddies in the field. I've not seen the figures, but I'm inclined to believe that 25% of the departmental budget is wasted on personnel and pointless faff, and that it's probably a reasonable savings target.

However, I do not believe that any such savings should be returned to the Treasury or used to pay for current operations.

The current level of defence spending (~2.3% of GDP) is a peacetime fantasy: it implicitly assumes that nobody will ever attack us or our foreign interests, and that if they do, we'll have some warning. Which we never have had in the past. Conflicts look predictable in hindsight, but this is a Black Swan fallacy. Given the lead times required to develop arms and to ramp up production (and, analogously, to recruit and train people), this is a luxury we cannot afford to take. It's telling that the last time the spend was this low was in the wake of the Great Depression - and meant we were caught flat-footed later that same decade when WW2 started and we had to spend extra in lieu of preparation time. Lend-Lease nearly bankrupted the country.

We must use the defence budget to ensure we have balanced forces ready and equipped to operate against plausible enemies in any battlespace - maritime, aerial or land. Just because the last couple of skirmishes have been against poorly-equipped tribesmen doesn't mean that the next one will be: Iran has a decent air force and Russian "double-digit" SAMs, to pluck an example from the press. Or if we have to enforce a naval blockade against Somalia or North Korea - Admiral Nelson would be spinning in his grave at the thought that we didn't have enough ships to do that.

- KoW

Death of a postman

2009-10-08T13:27:00.000+01:00

So the CWU have voted 3-1 to strike, then. That's going to work out well for them.

The postal service has been unreliable and, quite frankly, bordering on useless for weeks, and now it's going to be stopped entirely. Fair enough. We're mostly managing without postal service at the moment, and you're going to force us to go cold turkey.

Like many people, I do my banking and credit cards online. I get a phone bill occasionally, but I never open it, as it's paid by direct debit. As are my council tax, insurance and utilities. If I get things by mail order, they come by courier. Airline tickets are emailed and printed (and are e-tickets anyway). The only thing I've desperately needed in the post this year - an employment contract - turned up five days late on a first-class stamp.

The post is not fit-for-purpose and striking is not going to make it so.

What do we need a postal service for, anyway?

- KoW

Cutting defence spending is a mistake

2009-10-08T12:58:00.002+01:00

The BBC is reporting that the Tories want to cut defence spending by 25%. This is foolish. Defence spending (as a proportion of GDP) is already at its lowest point since the 1930s.

The MOD has, like it or not, already made huge spending cuts - the 1992 recession, the Strategic Defence Review in 1997, and through Gordon Brown's well-known aversion to defence while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, its budget has been slashed by around 50% in real terms in two decades. Other departments have picked up the "slack" and blown the cash on... what?

One must remember that we are fighting a war at present, and that like no other department in government, the MOD has personnel killed by the enemy almost every day.

I agree with Dr Liam Fox that there are far too many staff in Main Building and, in particular, at Abbeywood, both uniformed and civilian. Defence procurement is a horrendous mess, and - literally - billions have been wasted through inefficiencies.

That money should be spent on equipment, not slashed from the budget.

The MOD is, at best, struggling to pay for its commitments. Lord Drayson's Defence Industrial Strategy has been almost completely side-lined, Bernard Gray's damning report into defence procurement has been buried, and it's likely that cuts will come to "big ticket" projects if the budget is cut further.

I don't support the view that Afghanistan is "the war", it's just "a war". While support and equipment for front-line troops (which is generally a euphamism for the army) is vital, and Dr Fox has rightly pledged to maintain the spending in these areas, there are strategic challenges for which we are completely unprepared.

We're hopelessly underprovisioned for both strategic (C-17/A400M/Hercules) and tactical (Chinook/Merlin) air-lift, long-range strike (strategic bombers, aircraft carriers), defending commercial shipping (T-23s are good, but there aren't enough to go around and FSC is already late) and ground-based air defence; we'll lose our suppression/destruction of enemy air defence (SEAD/DEAD) capabilities fairly soon, sacrificed on the altar of "stealth".

We cannot put enough boots on the ground, jets in the air or boats in the water to handle even the small conflicts we find ourselves in. If something like the Falklands kicks off again, we probably couldn't handle it. Our most-similar neighbour, France, already spends more (as a proportion of GDP) than us, and President Sarkozy has guaranteed this for the future. We should not cut back our defence spending as a response to the sort of economic problems which are likely to cause wars, not avert them!

Defence of the Realm is the first duty of government.

Without that, there is nothing to govern.

- KoW

Old Professions

2009-10-06T13:23:00.000+01:00

Last week, Harriet Harman insisted that a foreign government take action against a website that's legal both in its jurisdiction and ours.

As far as I'm aware, prostitution is still legal in the UK. Having an opinion about a service most definitely is! And yet here we have one of the most powerful politicians in the country creating an international incident over something she personally dislikes, on the flimsiest of excuses (very few prostitutes are trafficked...).

Tom Miller, Labour PPC for Woking, has suggested that since the site isn't doing anything wrong and is in a foreign jurisdiction, Ms Harman should take matters into her own hands with an illegal (in both jurisdictions) Denial of Service attack. WTF? Is that not Hate Speech?

I wonder how long before the Internet Watch Foundation is either replaced, or leant-on, to block access to Politically Undesirable sites such as PunterNet. As most ISPs in the UK - covering something like 98% of users - accept the IWF blacklist, that would be a rather trivial step... and yet another towards 1984.

Here's a radical notion: websites don't create demand for prostitutes.

A review site simply makes the existing market more efficient by providing a basis for price information, and might even reduce consumption by adjusting the supply curve. Not that I expect our business-illiterate government to understand that argument...

(Hat tip to Dizzy, for Tom Miller's imbecilic contribution to the debate)

- KoW

Epistemic Paradox

2009-10-06T09:34:00.002+01:00

Metro (p7) this morning has a quote from the charity Kidscape: "As criminal record bureau checks bring to light only convictions, cautions and reprimands, a sex offender who is active - but has not been found out - passes through the safety net". For this reason, they say vetting should be tightened.

Aside from the fact that an Enhanced CRB already also shows "soft evidence" (undeniable unsubstantiated rumours that weren't sufficient to attempt a prosecution, and spent convictions), this argument holds about as much water as a particularly leaky colander. It fails on fairly basic philosophical grounds - person X may be a kiddy-fiddler (ontology, "what is") but if nobody knows that (epistemology, "what is known"), they can't cause a vetting failure. That bears repeating.

If a paedophile has not been found out, no amount of vetting will block them from working with kids.

In fact, in a classic piece of security failure, the more trust is placed in vetting schemes, the more likely people are to slip through the cracks. If nobody is vetted, parents and co-workers have to rely on their judgement - judgement honed by years of experience and æons of evolution - as to who to trust and to what degree; if someone is vetted, "obviously" they're safe, so there's no need to be alert. One can easily envisage a child porn ring using something like the Carnival Booth Algorithm to defeat any sort of vetting: all they need is one person who can slip through the net and they all get the resulting abuse pictures.

The new Vetting and Barring scheme is particularly stupid, as it is a one-time check with no expiry or revocation. Such things are like gold to a determined attacker: "cast iron" proof of safety based on out-of-date evidence. The more the government tightens its grip, the more people slip through its fingers.

To paraphrase something a rather wise site security officer once told me: "everyone who's ever been arrested for spying held a security clearance, it's not proof of anything".

- KoW

When £3k is more than £83k

2009-10-04T15:31:00.006+01:00

I once had an argument with someone who took a nominal amount of time, multiplied it by the internal billing rate of the company's engineers, and the number of employees, and came up with a 'cost' of £83k in order to strike down a proposal.

This seems to be a fundamental misconception that occurs time and time again in large companies and in government: that something denominated as a currency is somehow money.

Money only exists at boundaries. Boundaries between people, boundaries between organisations, boundaries between countries, but boundaries nonetheless.

Aside from the fact that essentially nobody was actually paid at the internal billing rate, they were all on salary anyway. No matter whether they spent the time watching an installer's progress bar, picking their noses, talking at the coffee machine, or actually working, they'd be paid exactly the same amount.

The alternative suggestion related to a saving of only £3k, but £3k of incremental spending on energy bills: extra money that would have to be spent, that would have to leave the company. A transfer of wealth from us to the energy supplier.

My counterparty in this argument thought that, since £83k was much bigger than £3k, it was self-evident that his way was better. I disagreed. The £83k never existed, never would exist, and was merely a figment of some fevered imagination.

Now, at full utilisation, where time really was money and a delay would cost us sales, the internal billing rate would be a floating currency, with an exchange rate of around IB£2 to £1 - a sign that inflation had already bitten - but it was treated as though the IB£ was pegged 1:1 to Sterling and was somehow real rather than an accounting abstraction.

It got me wondering about where else such ideas crop up, and helped crystallise some arguments I'd been pondering for months. More to come.

- KoW

And besides, the wench is dead

2009-10-04T11:44:00.004+01:00

The SFO case against BAES has been praised by the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith. "The Serious Fraud Office intends to prosecute BAE unless it pays a fine." according to the BBC, and the story was leaked to the press on Thursday morning.

The allegations are certainly serious, but this whole affair stinks. "Give us a billion pounds or we prosecute"... targetted leaks to embarass the company and harm its share price (the worst performer in the FTSE 100 for most of Thursday, down 5% just after opening)... how is this any better than the man claimed to have been blackmailing Letterman?

Surely, if you have a good case that someone has done wrong, you prosecute them? Maybe allow them to admit guilt after being charged and get a lesser punishment for saving the effort of a trial... but to start out with dirty-tricks negotiation of what the plea-bargain will be seems... wrong.

It also suggests that maybe the SFO's case is nowhere near as strong as they'd like, and so they have to rely on anti-arms-trade sentiments and public embarassment as they can't prove it in court.

Thinking along those lines, why might that be? Well, the BBC Today programme claims that the prosecution is to be under the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2001. Slight problem there, in that said Act is an Irish law! No doubt they mean Part 12 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, 2001 - the same law they'd previously accused BAES under. Yes, that's right, the same people accusing the same company again, but for a different incident - shades of the "we'll keep prosecuting until we get a conviction" attitude over Saddam Hussein's trial?

Let's look at some facts.

The Act in question received royal assent and came into force on 14 December 2001, in the wake of 9/11. The Tanzania deal was made in 2001 (before October, when the ICAO commented on it), the South African one in 1999. I'm told that the Romanians investigated the allegations and found no evidence of criminal activity. No idea about the Czechs, but that's starting to look awfully thin: someone may have done something that was legal at the time but would now be illegal, therefore they should pay us a billion pounds for having not broken the law in the past? Or is the law retroactive - despite there being no hint in the wording and a strong tradition against ex post facto laws?

Then there's an issue of jurisdiction. Nobody is suggesting that bribes were paid in the UK, and if bribes are legal (as is the case for much of the world) where they were paid, what business is that of the SFO? The UAE has extremely strict policies on drug-taking - is it reasonable for them to prosecute people in Brighton and Amsterdam? Should US citizens drinking beer at 18 in the UK be locked-up for underage drinking when they return home (sober) to a 21 drinking-age? It seems to be a somewhat idiotic form of cultural imperialism, yet ironically it's widely supported by soi disant liberals and left-wingers - presumably because of a personal distaste for the military-industrial complex.

Even if the law is valid and applies in these cases, how strong is the evidence? Arms deals are notoriously shady, and usually involve government help on one or both sides. Is the SFO really expecting to get testimony from Saudi princes, senior foreign government officials, and the accused themselves? The UK MOD won't even let the NAO have full and accurate figures, so it's a bit unlikely that their foreign counterparts will suddenly decide to admit to accepting bribes.

So what sort of case does the SFO have? I once heard a very wise quote from a detective sergeant: "If you can't prove it without a cough, you shouldn't try and prove it with."

- KoW

... but some are more equal than others

2009-10-04T10:20:00.000+01:00

The BBC have an interesting story about Harriet Harman flouting the Highway Code. I always thought that one was required to stop and exchange insurance details (a note under the wiper blade if the other car was unattended, and report to the police), not drive off with a Do You Know Who I Am comment to a witness.

The date was given as 3 July, yet the law requires the police to be notified within 24 hours at most - so the fact that this is three months later and the police are investigating it now doesn't look good...

(Hat tip to Guido)

About this blog

2009-10-04T09:30:00.002+01:00

This blog will be explicitly political. I'm apathetic about party politics and uninterested in smear campaigns, but the abuses of the last decade need to be brought to book.

Particular interests, and forthcoming posts, include: defence (funding, strategic challenges and political interference), economics (housing, the ongoing recession, and taking a systems-engineering approach to economics), personal freedom (the police state, ID cards, databases, the myriad stupid laws introduced to control and curtail our lives), transport (trains, planes, and automobiles), science & technology (video games, computers, software), environmentalism (Green is the new Red) and sundry posts on funny/stupid/random events.

Expect some guest rants, too.

- KoW