Blog
23 april 2011, where there be giants
With family and festivities behind us, we're heading up north in the morning, for a short camping trip. My other half, being of the "if you're not in new york, you're camping out" disposition, is none too pleased about the expedition, and will head home after one night. I'm more sanguine, as I camped pretty much every summer as a child - though with youth movement not parents, and so though it made the biggest of impressions on me, that perhaps was not the canvas. Meanwhile the kids, who we're doing it for, are so excited they can hardly speak, and I'm very much looking forward to some time away with them, especially as rather too often when we're at home, I'm terribly busy, and they're transfixed by the tv and computer. And they don't even know the highlight: we're off to hogwart's castle for the day, also known as alnwick. We'll be meandering sunday, stopping off in durham perhaps, where I've never been; pottering (harry) on monday, and then on tuesday, maybe newcastle highlights before the long drive home. Please, please, please let it be sunny...
16 april 2011, signing palestine’s birth certificate
30 years of negotiation between israel, the arabs (palestinians) and america (rest of the world) had two peaks: camp david 1977, successful; and sharm el sheikh 2000, less so. After that, israel turned from moderate to rightist, america from facilitator to observer, and the palestinians to authoritarianism and civil war. Progress became unilateralist, as israel withdrew from lebanon, and then from gaza. Unilateralism replaced land for peace. Both formulae originated on the left, and were then adopted by the right, the wall following the same pattern: it was originally a leftist attempt to nudge forward a palestinian state by drawing borders that no longer existed on a "good fences make good neighbours" basis. In 2000, yasser arafat sought to take a leaf out of the same text book, threatening to just announce a palestinian state, as israel did in 1947; he eventually backed down. Now, not rashly, but after years of patient international consensus-building, the palestinians are well set to declare, kosovo-style, this september. The jericho-based palestinian authority has a good claim to be capable and ready to function as an independent state. I myself worked a little on solidifying the particular institution of its central bank. This will all come down to very real negotiations at the un, with europe likely a strong supporter. The key question is whether obama will, as is usual, exercise an american veto. These are extremely unusual times: the middle east is in chaos; so too is israel at the un; us-israel relations are extremely strained; the broad brush of "terrorist" no longer sits well with the mainstream palestinian movement; and obama is in foreign-policy mould-breaking mood, taking an extraordinary nato back seat in libya. At the last moment of such israel weakness, ariel sharon pushed through the "painful concession" of the gaza withdrawal. What all this means is that the highly reasonable and transparent way the prime-minister salaam fayyad, formerly of the imf, has been going about his business sets the diplomatic price of an american veto unusually high, and so the odds lessen of a scenario where obama takes on the claim that this is bad for israel, and avoids a veto. Watch out for american positioning and some high profile israel alternative initiatives over the next few weeks. The first international soccer stadium in the west bank was inaugurated this week. Bigger things may be kicking off soon.
15 april 2011, the last call
I have just filled in what will probably be the last census ever in the uk. This decennial counting of the people dates back to 1801, when britain, then including all of ireland, had some 9.4m people. Today, we're around 62m, and the cost of counting them is some £500m, mainly accounted for by the 30, 000 people it takes to do it. In a world of highly-mobile people, where 500m voluntarily give more information to facebook, at virtually no cost, there is a general recognition that the system is mildly ludicrous. So, as the country's statistics office cuts costs all round, the probability is that this is the last exercise of its kind. Answering the census was pretty boring, but put me in mind of a security form I had to fill in when first going to work in the bank of england, which had the question - I am not making this up - "are you, or have you ever been, an active member of a terrorist organisation ?". As night falls, I am now going to award myself the prize of most boring blog ever. Watch me on the news, again; will try to do better next time.
12 april 2011, low brow media
I was on the telly today, talking about inflation (3 minutes in). From a fifteen minute interview, they culled just one. To a point, this was because the correspondent lazily concluded with the consensus view, whereas I was making the opposite point, namely that whilst initially the small drop in inflation would ease the pressure to raise uk rates, in fact come a month's time the fact that the ecb has gone, and the resulting pressures on sterling, will have worked their way sufficiently through the system to make a rise likely. As price expectations cast off from their moorings, a direction of travel pointing of the ship back towards dry land will be necessary. The vast majority of the report though was vox pop, using the easy-telly of football, and several versions of "hmm, yes, things seem to be expensive, don't they". Meanwhile, as the clan continue to colonise channel 4, my soon-to-be-sister-in-law produced a dispatches yesterday...
10 april 2011, the power of our upbringing
I had a bet on the grand national on saturday; in fact, I had several. Worse, I explained it all to the kids and let them pick a horse each too. When we got back from an excellent and sunny day at shugborough hall, we played the race we'd taped (or I guess these days we must say skyplussed) and the youngest's 150-1 shot, santa's son, was pretty much up front for the first half, as he and his brother started planning all the things they were going to buy with their winnings. It was heart in mouth stuff - if he lost, dreadful disappointment; if he won, a life of gambling as he tried to recreate that first triumph. In fact it all ended well: we got 2nd & 5th, no money, some good maths, and two slightly perplexed children, who went slowly to bed without complaint. We always bet when I was a kid, the one time in the year, and now we're back, I do the same - even though I have a lot of sympathy for the racing is rather cruel argument. Our familiarity with the things which we are brought up with very easily enables us to clap a blind eye to things that if we saw in alien circumstances we might take a very different view of. Culture is a powerful force, for the good generally, but sometimes it takes an outsider to call things as they are, and wise owls to listen.
5 april 2011, the politics of everyone getting something
On the other side of the fence, I always wondered how a rich country like the uk could possibly claim a slice of regional funding which was always, in my understanding, intended to redistribute money to poorer eu countries where investment in infrastructure would pay massive dividends in building up the internal market, which the goods and services of those richer countries would be very much in line to fill. And how much more disparities were amplified when the new member states joined. Now, 43% of the eu's total output, and some 75% of investment in research and innovation is concentrated in just 14% of its territory, the pentagon between london, hamburg, munich, milan and paris. The statistics bear this out: whilst the top british region is some 343% of the european average, there are parts of bulgaria with gdp as low as 28% - which having been amongst horses & carts on main streets I can believe. It is of course a more shades of gray picture, with a quarter of eu regions below 75% of the average, including parts of the uk (like west wales); my own manchester is 102%. Now working for a uk city, the pressure of course is for the union to pay up and deliver here, and be seen to do so: it is seemingly a question of how much of our money do we get back (and how many little blue plaques can we show to prove it). Strange how perspectives shift depending on the angle you are looking at something from. Meanwhile, two days until the world's interest rate logjam is broken in frankfurt ? I think so.
26 march 2011, let’s ignore the rise of the right
Fear is rising that a new wave of far-right parties seems to be breaking on europe's shores. In france, ever the leader, the national front's next generation le pen looks increasingly serious about a rerun of the 2002 presidential election, where it came second; the same placing as austria's freedom party, which has survived well the bizarre death of its last leader. Late to the party but now constant is holland, where geert wilders too lies second, all but part of government; and I have written before (12 april 2010) of the chilling rise in hungary of jobbik, to which we can now add a parallel story in its linguistic cousin, the true finns, who may yet join government. Denmark's far right has already been propping up government for a decade, and there are stories to tell elsewhere, including sweden, switzerland and slovakia. In some cases, like belgium (see 19 september 2011), local factors are relevant (feeding on the pointlessness of the federal state), but in all two factors seem strongest: anti-europeanism, and immigration, especially islamic. In britain (not without its issues, see 12 january 2010), this splits neatly into two parties, ukip and the national front. Sustained immigration in an era of depression brings conditions reminiscent of the 1920s, and the elitist edifice of the eu is easily portrayed as powerful accomplice, feeding immigration through open borders and labour market freedoms. History teaches us to pay attention to these seismic shifts, especially as economic uncertainty and widening inequalities are going to be an enduring feature of our lifetimes in europe. How can we help ? On the front line. The jews became the bogey then; muslims, roma and others today: read the new jews. Suspicion is not a far-right monopoly; everyone has moments when they are wary, when they understand. The urge to protect one's own is overwhelming; strange clothing, isolationism, jealousy all breed distrust. Many easily see things as us and them, with live and let live becoming an alibi for inaction. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
19 march 2011, the art of taxation
For an awfully long time the european commission has been plugging away at the awfully named common consolidated corporate tax base, but the new integrationist spurt on the economic governance front has given this new life. The eu's history is one of each crisis leading to the jolting forward of ever closer union, and this euro crisis is no exception. Many immediately elide this policy with a common tax rate (e.g. 12%), which it isn't. Rather it is a common system of calculating the corporate (not personal) tax rate, applying consistency to the world of exceptions and methodologies each country has. It's a precondition to a common rate, but does not bring one about: ireland could still undercut everyone else in its successful quest for investment. The main advantage is reductions in costs for big multi-nationals filing returns in many members states: bad news for accountants & consultants. It would also be a boon for smaller companies seeking to break into cross-border eu markets. Britain and the usual suspects are set against it, but as this initiative is now one of a big agreed package (the euro pact) for the 17 not the 27, and as there is a mechanism - enhanced co-operation - available to get it through (after ten years, looks like, eventually, we're going to have a pan-european patent, without spain and italy), the ccctb seems finally to have legs.
16 march 2011, son of japan
My eldest, nine, is just discovering the real world. He's absolutely there science and geography-wise, but is just now discovering news, and beginning to understand that things happen. I tried to get him in front of a tv the day mubarak fell in egypt, but I suspect the first big thing he really remembers will be the japanese earthquake. We watched an early video together on the web, and he's had a million and one questions we've tried to answer. He wrote it up in his own blog (the first one that's not been about him/school) and he has been patiently trying to explain the whole thing to my second-born, seven. A couple of nights ago we caught him long after lights out in his den - also known as his top-bunk bed with blankets around it - reading the sunday newspaper, which it's hard to be hard on him about. He's especially interested now in the nuclear situation, as indeed we all should be. Nachas.
10 march 2011, pensioned off
Whilst our erstwhile peers in the emerging (or should we now call them growth) markets squirrel away savings for their old age, leading to the massive savings glut and global imbalances, the west struggles impossibly to balance turbo consumerism with something to live on in our senior years. For some generations now the gap has been bridged by state pensions and, for those in the public sector, extremely generous pension provisions justified by wages that once upon a time were lower than the private sector's. Today though public and private are increasingly shades of grey. We have known for some time that such largesse is totally unsustainable, although attempts to remedy have been slow and painful. This is because those who will pick up the bill, our children, have no vote: over the next 45 years they will pay at least 4% more in tax. As today's workers can only lose, we are all reform-blockers, resisting working longer and linking benefits more to contributions, even as the working age population is set to fall in the next decade by some 16%, and over-65s rise by some 77%. The net effect of this is large-scale wealth transfer from future generations to our own, giving them less stake in a stable future, where jobs are harder for them to get, will pay them less, and from which they will be taxed more. A former labour minister today reported on the uk side of this to a conservative government, placing the strain on working longer and everyone paying in more: sensible indeed inevitable, but politically explosive. The biggest change is from an understanding of a pension as a right, to a pension as a personal investment we need to save today for to enjoy tomorrow. It's not something a very privileged caste is going to give up easily.