Stealing Africa

Just watched Stealing Africa on BBC 4.  Eye-opening corruption both in the USA (Clinton pardoning Marc Rich) and Zambia, where Glencore bought the copper mines from a corrupt Government who sold the mines clearly for much less than they were truly worth.

The new government has a number of options
a) Renationalise assets that were nationalised under a corrupt system;
b) apply a tariff based on LME, not tax based on locally accounted profits;
c) if it does re-nationalise then it can still have private companies compete either to pay a license fee or to operate and share equity with the government (as is the case with oil in some countries).  There is no reason why revenue for the government and fair profit for the private investors should not exist side by side.

This is not rocket science.  It just requires honest and hard working representatives of the nation.  And even paying honest  consultants for technical advice is no shame - the money at stake is huge.

And the IMF weighed in on the side of the commodity companies.  Surely sophisticates like the IMF instead of tying unskilled politicians in poor countries in knots would be looking after its investments better if it provided serious expertise to support these governments in their deals with the commodity hungry foreigners.

Women Bishops. Who needs them?

I am not a religious person. In fact I do not believe in a God.  I was a lonely only child and until the age of 10 or so I had an imaginary friend who accompanied me everywhere.  He had one characteristic that was particularly so; he was not quite as good as me at everything we did.  When we raced for the nearest tree, I won by a whisker and when we played marbles, I won.  Of course I had to flick the marbles for him but I can assure you in no way did that influence the outcome. His presence was very comforting and the fact that I was allowed to beat him helped in a small way to build my confidence and spur me on to greater things.

But as I got older, I no longer needed Eggy, that was his name, and I suppose he went to a different school and his life took a different course.  I boarded at school as my parents lived in India.  The school was a religious foundation so we had prayers every day and chapel on Sunday, but I was not particularly taken by the religious aspect; like most people brought up C of E I just put up with it more or less as an obligation.   I dropped out of confirmation classes when the chaplain insisted that children brought up as Hindus in India, would not go to heaven unless they converted to Christianity.  This was my moment of apostasy; how could I consider putting faith in a god that was so unfair as to bring people into this world and then deny them access to heaven just because they had been born in the wrong place?  Of course other priests would have argued differently but this experience showed me that religious belief is a matter of personal taste and so there are no absolutes.

I don't think I gave up on the concept of a god altogether but I reached the position, which I more or less still have today, that it does not matter whether there is a god or not.  If he (or she) is all-powerful and shows any interest in me and my behaviour then so long as I am a reasonable person, kind to my neighbours and friends and considerate of humanity and the world we live in, then he (or she) would look on me in a kindly way and, if there is a hell, then I would probably not be sent there.  I suppose this is a version of Pascal's wager, except that I did not need to believe in God or go to church.  the only downside was that I was excluded from the school choir and the madrigal group, the elite singers, who enjoyed all-expenses paid trips abroad during school holidays.  A small price to pay for principle, I thought, but also confirming the small-mindedness of the school chaplain and the music master.

Which brings me to the subject of Women Bishops.  Despite my lack of religious faith (I do believe in the possibility of goodness in people and I am positive about the future of humanity), I am fascinated by the debate that has gone on in the Church of England about whether to allow, initially, the ordination of women and now their promotion to the position of Bishops.  Despite the fact that active membership represents less than 10% of society, the Church of England remains part of the establishment, which is more than just being the "established church", so it plays an important part in our lives whether we want it to or not.  We should all be entitled to express a view on its machinations and arguably have a say in how it is managed, though perhaps a national referendum on whether there should be women bishops woudl be a step too far. But I have yet to read, or hear, the real arguments that are put for and against. Well I really mean the arguments against as those "for" women bishops are pretty straight forward.

My suspicion is that the arguments against women bishops are so unreasonable, archaic and illogical that the people who hold this position are afraid and embarrassed to put them forward in public. So in the absence of  a clear statement from the antagonists I will have to reach my own conclusions.  As far as I can tell the arguments are broadly as follows:
1.  Jesus was male.
2.  All 12 apostles were male.
3. Women and men have different roles in life ("equal but different") - the bible tells us this.
4.  Men are born to lead, although men and women are "equal in the eyes of God" (I am not sure if the bible tells us this as well)
5.  The bible is the word of God.
There may be other theological arguments with which I am unfamiliar but these seem to be enough to get on with.  But I wonder how anyone with a modicum of common sense, never mind the intellect of a bishop, a Prime Minister or a senior judge, could accept any of this codswallop. The response in each case is clear but lets go through them, just for fun, anyway.

Jesus was male. God did not send non-identical twins, a brother and sister, to save the world but, apparently came himself, in human form (I know this is getting into a difficult theological area and I am not a specialist on the trinity, so excuse me if I have erred in that respect).  And as one person, generally speaking, will be either male of female, this singularity cannot logically be used to exclude the other sex.  Had he been female of course but then the argument would I assume be that all bishops should be female, which would be equally preposterous, though might have resulted in a very different theology.  Perhaps "he" could have been a hermaphrodite  but then there would probably be a shortage of priests. We could also create a cast of castratii to serve as priests and bishops (did the Romans not do this?).  But perhaps we should move on.

All 12 apostles were male.  This may have been true, though a different writing of the text, if for example the church had been led by women, might have treated the women in the story differently.  However the fact that they were all male in my view simply reflects the way society was organised at the time.  Men were in charge and women were chattels.  Now I admit this is speculative on my part as I am not an expert on Rabbinic law of 2000 years ago, though I believe I am right that in Roman law women were subservient to their husbands. But generally it seems clear that women did not have the legal and social rights that we expect today.  And you don;t have to go far back in history to recall when that was the case in our own country.  So the choice of 12 men as apostles is probably no more than a reflection of society at the time, with women struggling at home to bring up their children, feed the family etc.. while men had the time to wander around the country in small bands, entering into philosophical debates about the meaning of life, the existence and form of god, etc... And probably as important, it reflects male dominance also when most of the new testament was written or revised, by men, in the ensuing centuries after Jesus was executed.

From the two arguments above, one might equally ask why women are allowed in church at all?  Should they not get back in the kitchen where they belong  preferably with their chastity belts on?  If the bible is the word of god then does it not teach us that a women's role in society is either a homemaker and mother, or a whore?  No of course not, because this is simply unacceptable today, and indeed there are lots of other models, including of women in positions of power, in the sacred book.  It is only a question of how you interpret the word of your god.
    
Points 3 and 4 above are really extensions of the argument about the apostles all being male, so there is no need to develop them further.

The bible is the word of God.  Of course the evidence clearly demonstrates that the bible was written by humans, and further was written and revised over a period of several hundred years after the Birth of Christ.  The process was  highly political and reflected the changes in the balance of power between various factions within the church.  Now it is possible to believe that throughout this process the people involved were reflecting God's ideas, but this does not explain why the bible would be revised over time.  Is it likely that God could not make up his (or her) mind?  Nice idea but surely not really compatible with any concept of a powerful all-seeing God.  Still some people do believe that the bible is indeed the word of God, to be obeyed  However the bible is a very long book, written over a long period of time, and there are ample conflicting ideas so there is plenty of room for cherry picking and interpretation.  So how can they all be right?

To conclude, because I have gone on too long already, Who needs Women Bishops?  Well frankly it does not matter to me what adult Christians do behind closed doors, but it does matter what the Church of England does because it is part of all of our lives, for the time being at least.  The institutions representing our  society need to be representative of all of us and not factions within it.  And if I have understood the arguments against women bishops (which are also arguments against women priests) then they are not arguments of sane intellectuals living in the 21st century.  These people should not be allowed to determine the future of the established church in this country.

And a few hundred million others also believe that the Koran is the word of God to be believed and acted upon.  These Moslem anti-intellectuals, and the Christian ones implied above, surely represent the greatest threat to humanity and the the long-term survival of our race.  It probably does not matter to them as they think they will all go to heaven anyway  (though whether there will be enough virgins to go round is another matter).  But it does matter to the rest of us and it is time we confronted them.  But that is for another day.

This was going to be about pensions, but...

This post was going to be about pensions.  People don't save enough for their old age.  We know that, but why?  The answer is I believe in two parts and the government - by which I mean governments in general and not just the current bunch - can do something about both. And although I happen to believe that we need less government, not more, in this case it is a legitimate use of their power.

First, people don't save enough because they discount the future. This is not only about the time value of money but about uncertainty.  After all a lot can happen before you get old; you might win the lottery, you might become famous, you might earn an enormous income by being clever and working hard. You might also die and all your hard earned savings would benefit you not at all.

Now if we lived in a society which provided no safety net, where if you failed to save or were unlucky enough not to have some friends or relatives to look after you, you would simply die starving in the gutter.  But we don't, and I don't think there are many advocates of such a free-market system around today.  In the context of pensions this means that the Government should act to correct the distortion that logical individual decisions, in this case not to save enough for their old age, creates in society as a whole so that the overall good is greater than the sum of the individual goods.  Governments then should force us to provide for our old age.  The only question then becomes how; through a publicly funded scheme or privately.  By the way I am not discounting the current old age pension arrangements as an option, whereby old people are supported by the younger generations through tax-funded pensions, but I don't think this is now an acceptable way to address the issue especially as we cannot, as was probably the case when state pensions were first introduced, assume that the real standard of living will increase indefinitely.

The second reason for the Government to intervene is because market places do not work perfectly and in this case prevent people from saving effectively.  Why are pensions providers able to charge rates of 3% (or more) for provision of services, when less than 1% is more than enough in, for example the Netherlands?  With 3% fees (forgetting the profits generated by churning investments) and 2-3% inflation, real returns are required of 6% or more to generate any income whatsoever.  And this is what some providers set as their "target". I believe but please correct me, this is also around the long-run yield on stock-market investments.  Anyway the point is that you cannot live on that and maintain the value of your savings, even with £1mln in the bank.

Governments have provided many different tax-efficient saving schemes over the years but the returns on these also seem insignificant, unless you are able to take very significant risks in a large and broadly-spread portfolio.  So the only options available to most people are high street cash or share ISAs where there returns are wholly inadequate, or putting your money with a financial institution which suck up most of the returns on your savings in their fees.

Governments can address this by putting ceilings on the fees that institutions charge for this kind of service.  What about free enterprise you will cry.  Well that does not stop some people offering enhanced services for a higher fee, but I am sure there is a huge and profitable market out there for low-fee long-term savings institutions.  They already exist but the financial services industry has persuaded the present government to bias the recent pension legislation against them, in order to protect their fat fees and high living.  Well that is free enterprise for you.

But this blog is not about pensions, it is about my lousy "3" telephone service and the still worse "my 3" customer services.  However that better be reserved for another day.





          

LIBOR scandal was inevitable

So the parliamentary committee has published it's report damming just about all who were involved or should have been (the regulators). It was indeed entertaining to watch the poachers and the gamekeepers deploying weasel words to defend their complicity, nievety, complicity and incompetence against the probing of a panel of self effacing Members of Parliament with no interest but the public interest in mind.

 To be fair I ought to be less cynical as these institutions are the only ones we have and we must make  the most of them. But is it also not so symptomatic of the cosy relationships that exist between those at the heart of the British establishment.  The key to the LIBOR scandal is self-regulation.  Parliament which has so ineffectively policed the moral standards of its own, somehow thinks that others at the pinnacle of society will always act in the best interest of the wider community instead of to enrich themselves at eveyone else's expense.  The concept can only work in a system where the benefits of compliance clearly outweigh the rewards of noncompliance.  This may have been the case in Victorian times when a gentleman could be blackballed from his club for the minutest of misdemeanors, and as a backstop there was God's opprobrium and a promise of hellfire.  Neither applies today , at least for the vast majority, so self-regulation clearly will not work.

Every economics student also learns about moral hazard. So when the FSA and the Bank of England are told of "trouble at mill", what went through their minds?  Was it that they did not want to cause trouble, and that they wanted to keep options open for their next jobs.  After all, non-exec directorships are a nice way to  ease into retirement.

Postscript  20 Aug 2012:  The war of words between MPs and Bankers (partiuclarly at Barclays) continues.  Mr Diamond "categorically refutes..." the suggestion that he was anything but candid and truthful in front of the Treasury Select Committee.  We should not doubt him, at least in his own terms and anyway except for the fly on the wall of his office, who is to know?  The sad thing is that the corporate ethics at Barclays were probably not considred by any involved to be other than normal behaviour.  In all big companies ethics starts with the tone at the top.  But tone at the top is not sufficient to embed particular behaviours throughout an orgnisation.  It requires a conscious effort at all levels and by all line managers, supported by clear guidance from functional experts.  And it requires appropriate consequences for people who step out of line.  The kind of draconian fines and imprisonment ofr senior managers with oversight that oversight agencies in the US and elsewhere are beginning to impose on corpora wrongdoers, focus the mind.  They are though all too apparently missing in the UK.  Time to forget self-regulation and draw up strong laws that make it uneconomic not to comply.

Cycling is dangerous for your health

On my way home today by bicycle,  I was nearly killed by a pedestrian.  She ran across the road and when she saw me she stopped dead, by which time I had begun to brake and swerve, right over the spot where she stood.  Any cyclist will know that in this situation wherever you try to go, other than stopping dead of course, the chance are that you will collide.  A few choice words shouted by me, along the lines of "go, for **** sake" convinced the young lady to run on and I continued with my swerve so disaster was fortunately avoided. Just a few nerves frayed.

Shortly after this experience I was nearly killed by a car.  The junction of Prince of Wales Road and Kentish Town Road is a scary spot.  Cars queue impatiently to turn right to turn into Kentish Town Road and after a bus had passed a driver decided to dive across; after all the next car was visible 50 metres back from the crossing.  He did not see me just behind the bus of course but as I have been through the junction many times I was half expecting something of the sort. This time I braked and would have stopped, until it was clear that the driver had belatedly seen me.

A typical ride home for any London cycle commuter, you would say and I would agree.


I have been knocked off my bicycle by cars making illegal turns and by pedestrians stepping into the road.  I have also been scared by cyclists turning without warnings of any kind.  The number of cyclists in London, and across the country, goes up rapidly and the number of deaths rises too while total deaths on British roads, apart from a blip in 2011, routinely goes down.  The government also encourages people to take to the bicycle both to reduce traffic and to make them fitter.  But dead is not fitter.  We urgently need to interest  politicians and TFL in radical change including segregated cycle lanes (not white-lined ghettos that disappear the moment a hazard is encountered), cycle only traffic lights and other "Dutch" offerings.  And what about banning all cars in Central London on Sunday, apparently a strategy adopted in over 100 cities in the world. 


I have also fallen off my bike with no interference or encouragement from anyone at all.  That was just incompetence but at least I did not endanger anyone else.  Far too many cyclists though put their own lives at risk and those of others by jumping lights, maneuvering without signalling or just cycling irresponsibly.  I like to think that they are not drivers, and have not been taught the highway code but it is probably another symptom of the self-centred public behaviour that unfortunately plagues our daily lives.  Is it not time for the Police to take a less lenient line with "dangerous cycling" and perhaps we should be required to wear "L" plates until we have passed a cycling proficiency test (sorry I find it hard to use the re-branded name  "bikeability"). 


Sorry for the rant. But being alive is great and I would like to keep it that way.

Have a nice day friends

Limiting immigration is not illiberal

"Theresa May to restrict entry of foreign students to the UK".   This may be a strange issue for the first post in this blog.  More so because I support this apparently illiberal view. The fact is that all immigration should be controlled and if someone comes to the UK on a student visa, then they have no right to stay on completion of their education, illegally or not.

I don't believe an argument exists to ignore illegal immigration, so I won't try.  But even for legal students, a case should be made for them to remain in the UK based on value to the economy.  And if others have educated themselves abroad they should be allowed to compete equally; there is nothing to argue that we should support UK-educated foreign students versus those who are foreign-educated. And I see no problem with asking anyone wishing to live and work here to speak our language.  This is nothing to do with being liberal or otherwise; it is merely practicable and realistic.

An open (liberal) border is fine when labour markets are genuinely open and not distorted by differences in welfare and political systems.  But these differences mean that individual decisions about where people want to live are not based on labour economics alone.  Not that I am asking for the destruction of the welfare state; it compensates for distortions of our un-free market economy and frankly I don't think I would like to live in a society where the less able live in poverty and social dis-harmony threatens the freedoms we enjoy.

I love the multicultural aspects of living in London, one of the great world cities.  It is amusing when acquaintances from elsewhere in the country arrive in London and are shocked by the fact that "no-one on the tube is speaking English". But the economic reality is that those who want to live in the UK should be able first to demonstrate their economic value or financial independence, as well and accepting our social and moral standards.

Have a good day friends.