If you’re on Team Edward, you might think the fundamental transformation in Twilight: Breaking Dawn is a person getting turned into a vampire. Or if you’re on Team Jacob, you might think it’s a boy morphing into a wolf. But if you’re an economist, it’s the conversion of undifferentiated assets into relationship-specific assets.
Although, umm, this specific economist is in fact writing TV scripts.
This one is going to cause all sorts of shouting matches.
Defendants in rape cases are to be granted anonymity in an unexpected move that women’s groups immediately branded an insult.
The proposal provoked anger among campaigners. Ruth Hall, of Women Against Rape, said that the decision was an insult and a backlash against the rising number of rape reports. “More attention needs to be paid to the 94 per cent of reported cases that do not end in conviction rather than the few that are false,” she said. “If men accused of rape got special rights to anonymity, it would reinforce the misconception that lots of women who report rape are lying. False rape allegations are extremely rare but receive disproportionate publicity.”
Well, yes and no. We\’ve just had a report by Baroness Stern into the number of false allegations of rape.
Other findings in her wide-ranging report include:
:: as many as one in ten rape allegations could be false
Now we don\’t know this, this is true. \”Further research\” is required as the saying goes.
We\’ve also got this:
The peer did not single out individuals for criticism but concluded: \”It is clear to us that the way the six per cent conviction rate figures has been able to dominate the public discourse on rape, without explanation, analysis and context, is extremely unhelpful.
\”There is anecdotal evidence that it may well have discouraged some victims from reporting.\”
She added: \”Some have found it helpful as a campaigning tool in arguing for an improvement in the way rape cases are dealt with.
\”Others found it misleading and deeply unhelpful in building confidence in victims and increasing the number of cases reported to the police that could possibly go forward to a prosecution.\”
She said the way the conviction rate was calculated was \”unusual\” and not done for any other crime.
In contrast the rate of conviction once someone has been charged with rape is 58 per cent.
A report in to the effectiveness of juries, published by the Ministry of Justice last month, confirmed that rapists are more likely to be convicted than acquitted, with higher success rates than those for rates for grievous bodily harm, threats to kill, manslaughter and attempted murder.
But let us return to anonymity. To be known as someone who has been raped is, however much being the victim of a violent or sexual crime should not be, to suffer a blow to one\’s reputation. This is why anonymity is given (indeed, strictly enforced) for such victims.
It is also true that to be accused of rape incurs such a blow: even if subsequently cleared during investigation or found not guilty in a court. And this is where it all gets a little utilitarian.
If, of rapes reported, only 6% end up with actual proof that a rape occured and that x,y or z actually did it, yet the number of false accusations at the beginning of that process is 10%….well, we\’re back in this better 100 guilty go free than one innocent be punished, aren\’t we?
Quite where we\’d draw the line is one of them Sorites things. but if false accusations are higher than the number we can actually prove then joint anonymity seems the right response to me.
A team of more than 3,000 \”behaviour detection\” officers hired to spot terrorists at US airports have failed to catch a single person despite costing the taxpayer $200 million (£140 million) last year.
In the sense that the gin keeps away the elephants at least….
The centuries-old position of ale taster has been reintroduced by a London market, which is describing the role as the \”best job in the world\”.
Might I suggest that applicants read Decline and Fall first?
Oxford students who take \’socially useful\’ jobs could have fees waived
The problem, of course, comes in the definition of \”socially useful\”.
Teaching and social work are suggested.
Hmm….would teaching in a private school be counted as \”socially useful\”? I have my doubts about that. And why would \”social work\” be counted as more socially useful than, say, pharmaceutical research into curing cancer?
Assume that climate change really is happening and also that creation of non carbon forms of energy generation are the solution. It would certainly be socially useful for engineers to work upon such forms of energy generation: some would say vital for the very survival of the species itself. Should not their fees be waved?
Take a concrete example: a particular form of fuel cell needs a particular metal to be found and processed in substantial (compared to current global production) quantities. There are a number of possible ways to do this and all require research so as to work out which will work and within that small class, which would be best. Should researchers, hired by myself for the sake of argument, have their fees waived?
For it would certainly be socially useful to have this metal extracted in those substantial quantities so that this form of fuel cell can be made and thus non (or at least low) carbon energy be generated.
Or if that is a little off the wall, how about installation of solar cells? We already subsidise this, claiming that to do so is socially useful. Ditto insulation installation.
To say nothing of the point that the entrepreneur creates huge social value (one estimate puts the social value created by an innovator at 97% of the total value created, only 3% going to the innovator) and large tuition debts will certainly be a brake upon taking entrepreneurial risks.
An alternative might be that those who go into low paying jobs should have their debts relieved. At which point they might want to have a serious little chat with their own economics department. Wages paid in a job are a useful proxy (only a proxy though, not an absolute measurement) of the value added by that job. So we really would rather that these brightest and best, those benefitting from one of the best educations on the planet, did not go into low paid jobs really: we\’d like them to be off where their human capital (that thing which has been most expensively invested in) is most productive: where it is most valued. That is, in a nice high paying job.
In the end this is simply a product of the grand illusion: that something is worth other than what people are willing to pay for it. \”Social value\” is an attempt to do an end run around market values and as such is always doomed to failure. For market values are simply the sum of individual valuations and thus are the value that society collectively puts upon something.
In the comments here.
Folks I\’m a straight long time married (44 years to the same woman) white haired guy. And I\’m politically and socially conservative. But I could give a flaming rat\’s ass about what Kagan does, or doesn\’t do, in her bedroom. She can screw alligators for all I care. It\’s simply a non issue.
I care about what she thinks–not who she screws. The left is the part of the country that\’s got its little tighty whities in a twist over this. Yes, if she\’s a full blown lesbian–16 forward speeds and a Georgia overdrive butch if you will, she might favor gay marriage. Then again, she may not. Who knows? Who cares? It\’s just one of a multitude of issues to come before the court.
Some of the twits in the \”reality based community\” need to get a grip and get on with life.
Quite. Munchee rugee or no munchee rugee: it\’s as relevant to her qualifications as a Supreme Court Justice as John Roberts\’ taste for doggy style (or not, as the case may be) is.
Irrelevant.
Jesu C….aren\’t we all supposed to be good little liberals these days?
Now, anyone know where I can buy some ferrets? I have a business idea.
After over a century and a half of research the Met Office (formed, 1854) is able to reveal the secret of the British weather system. Far from the common conception of it as a capricious Goddess who must be propitiated with a complex series of manouvres involving kagoules, umbrellas and the ritual incantations of Church members (\”turned out nice again\”, \”brass monkeys\” and the mystifying to the unbaptised \”cats and dogs\”) there is in fact an underlying order. A cycle which, for an as yet undetermined reason, lasts roughly 12 months and involves the temperature gradually getting warmer for some months, levelling off, cooling, levelling off, warming again and so on.
Summer is warmer than winter.
The Met Office costs taxpayers £82.3 million a year.
Diane Abbott has earned her stripes to run as leader
Let her win, please….pretty please?
That would be the end of Labour as a serious electoral force…..
Mark Serwotka tells us all that there is no room for cuts. Oh Noes There Ain\’t!
Today in Brighton more than 1,000 Public and Commercial Services Union representatives from across the UK will debate plans to launch a massive campaign of resistance against what we expect will be the deepest, most damaging public spending cuts since Margaret Thatcher sharpened her axe and laid waste to millions of people\’s livelihoods and the services they turned to for help.
On the side of the page is a Guardian public sector job ad:
Group Manager Community Cohesion
# Salary: £47,907 – £51,741
Join us and you\’ll head up a dedicated team of Community Development and Equalities and Diversity Officers who are working hard to bring diverse communities together. Drawing on your leadership skills, you\’ll equip and manage this team, measure their success and provide them with the training and motivation they need.
We\’ve a variety of projects currently underway, from supporting the strategic development of a thriving third sector locally, to preparing to transfer some of our community halls as assets to community associations. We are also consulting on a Single Equality Scheme for the Council with the range of equalities for a we commission.
Your role will be to oversee all of the above, while driving our service forward and achieving measurable success. Make no mistake, this role is more than just policy and commissioning, it\’s about influencing key stakeholders and developing innovative solutions to a unique set of challenges.
No room for cuts, eh?
Yes, you can guess who this is from:
I wrote about short selling and the danger it causes a few days ago and the right wing blogosphere – blinkered to a man (are there any right wing women?) – led by Tom Worstall (as usual) responded with the usual clkaims that a) I had no clue on the issue b) there was no problem c) there were no consequences.
They are, of course, completely wrong. If you assume markets are efficient and allocate resources perfectly – as these bloggers do – then of course the outcome is always perfect. The reality is that markets are hopelessly inefficient much of the time – because they work on imperfect and not perfect information – and as a result the damage caused is substantial.
Dear Lord Almighty. Is there nothing this man cannot misunderstand?
The assumption that markets are efficient is not that they allocate resources perfectly. It is that markets process the information about what prices should be in markets efficiently.
Further, no one at all argues that markets work upon perfect information. Indeed, the assumption is precisely the opposite, that of necessity everyone always works upon imperfect information. \’Coz we\’re talkin\’ about the future, see? Which is inherently unknowable.
Indeed, if perfect knowledge of the present were possible then central planning would work. But, as has been pointed out in the socialist calculation problem, perfect information, perfect knowledge, even of the present is not possible.
So we do not, at any point assume perfect information: we assume exactly the opposite, imperfect information…and then go on to ponder what is the best method of processing that imperfect information to get as good a view of reality as we can….which turns out to be markets for they are efficient at processing such information as we do have.
Lordy be…..
Just why is the globe\’s international financial centre on a rainy island off NW Europe? Sure, we could argue that it\’s some remnant of Empire, could argue about language, all sorts of things.
We could also note an interesting historical point: there have been two great bursts of globalisation. 1880 ish to 1914 and 1980 ish to today. Both times Germany has, in the international division of labour, specialised in heavy manufacturing, the UK in finance.
I\’ve long argued, not particularly seriously mind, that it\’s to do with the Common Law. We have a legal system which is flexible enough to incorporate the complexities of financial contracts and financial innovation.
I might not be all that far wrong either:
Here is the actual Irish legislation which is just one page; the main action is in the attached schedule which is the Intercreditor Agreement signed between the Eurozone countries excluding Greece that governs the overall loan. Here’s a little irony –
This Agreement and any non-contractual obligations arising out of or in connection with it shall be governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law.
Thus, as with the day-to-day operating language of the Eurozone, when it came time to need a legal architecture for an agreement among the countries, it is supplied by its most prominent non-member.
In, surprisingly, The Guardian.
Today, online trading by retail investors is a huge industry. In the UK, many thousands of amateur traders log on each day in an effort to beat the market – that restless sum of countless, competing bets on the value of stuff. In the main, they fail. And fail quickly.
Quite. What the EMH is trying to tell us is that markets process the information about what prices should be in a market efficiently. Thus, unless you have information which is not known to the market in general (something which weak versions of the EMH allow and strong versions do not) you cannot beat the market.
And as you as an individual trader are most unlikely to have such information even the weak EMH says that you shouldn\’t try to beat said market. Because you won\’t.
Optimists reckon that 80% of amateur traders lose money, which many have borrowed. The figure is probably closer to 90%.
There we go, real world proof that the EMH is correct.
This is an amusing piece from our favourite retired accountant.
But this artificiality will not be the end of the problem. Copying the culture and failed policies of the Republic will be the biggest disaster for Northern Ireland. As the Republic has now resoundingly proven, building an economy on the basis of corporate tax rate competition does not work. That policy has virtually bankrupted the Republic. Why on earth would anyone want to replicate it?
Note the logic. Ireland had/has low corporate tax rates. Ireland had/has an economic collapse. Therefore Ireland\’s economic collapse came as a result of low corporate tax rates.
It\’s that last sentence there which is suspect. Suspect as in \”batshit crazy\”.
Ireland\’s problems came from being in the euro, meaning interest rates entirely inappropriate for a real estate bubble.
But of course for Ritchie the idea that the State doesn\’t take a substantial portion of economic activity is the cause of all troubles.
The ban on naked short sales of euro-denominated government bonds, credit default swaps based on those bonds, and shares in Germany\’s 10 leading financial institutions was announced after European markets closed on Tuesday.
This only applies in Germany but still, what on earth are these people trying to do?
Banning CDSs on bonds? You mean people must now carry the risk of default themselves, rather than being able to hive it off to others?
Umm, don\’t people understand that this will simply increase the interest that governments must pay to borrow?
Seriously, what on earth are these people doing?
Umm, no. For that is not the preserve of Archbishops, however mighty they may be. It\’s only the Big Boy himself who gets to make that decision.
There was an intake of breath among the congregation, yet I wondered if I\’d misheard the Archbishop. I hadn\’t, for the text is on Rowan Williams\’s website: \”If Henry VIII is saved (an open question, perhaps) it will be at the prayers of John Houghton.\”
Of course it\’s an open question. The definition of \”Saint\” is someone that we know is in heaven*. As Henry VIII is not a saint we do not know that he is \”saved\”.
QED.
* Yes, I know that I don\’t believe this and you may or may not. And there are of course any number of different groups with different methods of \”knowing\” and thus declaring sainthood. But if we are to debate matters theological it\’s worth using the terms and assumptions which are used to debate matters theological. There\’s no point in starting every discussion about the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation with an \”of course Jesus was just some itinerant mystic, not the Son of God at all\”.
The Government will establish a commission to consider a UK Bill of Rights that would give British courts supremacy over European legislation.
You can\’t. Not without repealing the European Communities Act 1972 you can\’t.
Not something you\’d expect to see here I know. But along with his decision not to join the euro he did make one other good decision. The 3G auction for spectrum….so good in fact that India is following in his footsteps.
And the cost of its India expedition is set to increase still further as the price of rights to third generation (3G) mobile spectrum spirals. The current price for country-wide 3G spectrum stands at $3.6bn on the auction\’s 33rd day, compared to analysts\’ predictions of $2.5bn. However, there are hopes that the price may not rise much higher as the daily increase in bids has slowed from $140m a day to about $80m.
Vodaphone is of course whining:
\”Spectrum should not be seen as something that governments must use to squeeze money out of operators,\” he said. \”Spectrum is the fuel to power future economic development. We need a different mindset – instead of seeing spectrum as an opportunity to squeeze it is an opportunity to invest.
\”Every time you take money out of investment [by discouraging companies from bidding from investing in the country] you are taking money out of future economic growth.\”
That is what is known as talking your own book….or alternatively, as \”bollocks\”. Spectrum is a limited natural resource, as much as land or oil or coal is. there are therefore Ricardian rents available to those who own them. And the correct response to the allocation of such rents is to tax them away: people make a profit by using the scarce resource, certainly, but not from ownership of them.
It\’s not going to make any difference to hte price that companies charge anyway: they\’ll still charge the maximum the market will bear. The auction of the spectrum creates tax revenues and thus other tax rates can be lower for whatever level of services is provided.
Brown was right to do it in the UK and the Indians are right to do it now….perhaps the first adoption of a UK lefty economic policy that has actually benefitted that poor benighted country. Their earlier adoption of the wilder shores of Fabianism and the dotty theories of the Webbs has certainly done them no favours.
Evidence from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests the state would make considerable savings by raising the minimum wage – as every extra pound earned is knocked off the bill for tax credits.
Two thoughts for Polly.
1) While it is indeed true that some people do lose benefits pound for pound as their incomes rise this is a conbination of benefits and taxes, not just tax credits themselves. And even then the number is fairly small….some hundreds of thousands (as opposed to some millions who lose 60 p out of each extra pound).
2) If this were true this would indicate that the working poor faced 100% marginal tax rates. Which would be rather a useful explanation of why it\’s so damn hard to work your way out of poverty in the UK. And it is true for some (those hundreds of thousands) but not for all…..but even so, it\’s an example of the problems with Brown\’s tax credit system, not an example of anything else.
Citizens UK brilliantly confronted the party leaders in the election with miserably poor Treasury cleaners in their campaign for a living wage. They succeeded in squeezing from Labour a promise that a living wage minimum of £7.20 would be paid to all Whitehall staff, even the outsourced.
If the Lib Dem policy of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000 is in fact enacted then that living wage falls to £6.54 an hour.
I look forward to everyone adjusting their targets accordingly…..