(no subject)

It has been well over two weeks since my last post and ennui still leaves me with little to say.
Cameron, Clegg, Brown....bored.

Nevertheless, the degree of hatred that Brown seems to inspire in some folk is beyond my understanding, but leaves me with the feeling that if British folk can't actually determine facts and context from the last few years they deserve what they get: it won't really bother me much, as I'm all right, thank you very much. My income is private and determined by London rental prices, and SWMBO is....in the very top percent of earners. I don't have to waste my time arguing for even limited social justice if it means spending all of my time arguing with either idiots, the delusional, or those blinded by what appears to be an unjustified hatred. It no longer amuses me, and I will admit to having little time as I'm writing again.

Anyway, back to the boring election. John_Sergeant's analysis after the first 'debate' was that Clegg had won the personality prize, and Brown had won the political debate, and poor old Cameron hadn't actually done too well. The polls done immediately after the event however don't reflect this.

I'm sure I'll be personally much better off under Dave's incoming government for the wealthy: how much guilt about this I'll feel all rather depends on the electorate. I love the idea of some impoverished right-wing folk voting to keep me and mine in a luxury which they will hardly manage to reward themselves with after a lifetime's hard labour. It's too too wonderful, my dears. Another crate of Bollinger, please garçon. And please send someone with a taper to light my cigar. Thanks.

(no subject)

You know the way it goes: you wait ages for a bus and then a bunch of them come along at once.
I read this by professor Joseph_Stiglitz in the London Review of Books.

www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n08/joseph-stiglitz/the-non-existent-hand

I draw it to the attention of those folk who are....um, rather less favourable to the idea of government regulation and who believe in Adam Smith's unfettered hand of the marketplace.

I'll quote from the Wikipedia article on Stiglitz.

Traditional neoclassical economics literature assumes that markets are always efficient except for some limited and well defined market failures. More recent studies by Stiglitz and others reverse that presumption: It is only under exceptional circumstances that markets are efficient. Stiglitz has shown (together with Bruce Greenwald) that "whenever markets are incomplete and /or information is imperfect (which are true in virtually all economies), even competitive market allocation is not constrained Pareto efficient". In other words, there almost always exists schemes of government intervention which can induce Pareto superior outcomes, thus making everyone better off.

Although these conclusions and the pervasiveness of market failures do not necessarily warrant the state intervening broadly in the economy, it makes clear that the "optimal" range of government recommendable interventions is definitely much larger than the traditional "market failure" school recognizes. For Stiglitz there is no such thing as an "invisible hand".

Whenever there are “externalities”—where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay or for which they are not compensated—markets will not work well. But recent research has shown that these externalities are pervasive, whenever there is imperfect information or imperfect risk markets—that is always.

The real debate today is about finding the right balance between the market and government. Both are needed. They can each complement each other. This balance will differ from time to time and place to place.

Also, as if to emphasise professor Stiglitz's point about information asymmetry it seems that Goldman Sachs has come a bit of a cropper with the SEC.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8625931.stm

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/16/goldman-sachs-fraud-charges

I imagine they'll get off lightly, if convicted at all.

And buses come in threes, as we know....

So I bought the first hardback collection of Kick-Ass.

Comics of a superhero kind have changed radically since my childhood. I blame Frank Miller: but I didn't vomit, so I must be becoming desensitised.

Also bought the new Alastair Reynolds Terminal World. An improvement on House of Suns, which was readable, if slightly flawed.