It’s election time and the household fallacy is back in vogue. On Radio 4s “Any Questions” this week a lady asked (more eloquently then my version, go to 14.45 minutes in), how are we supposed to teach our children about counting their pennies when politicians are promising to spend on this, that, and t’other? The… Read more
Posts by:
Charles Adams
Rock paper scissors
I never really liked the game rock-paper-scissors, because it seemed, well, ‘kind of random’. But there is another story that is rather interesting. This simple game provides us with an abstract framework to walk through complex questions such as whether the supreme court ruling on the prorogation of the UK parliament was appropriate or not…. Read more
‘Public’ schools
Foreigners are puzzled why citizens in the UK have to pay to attend a ‘public’ school. I tell them, it is the same reason why you need to use a knife and fork to eat a banana! Melissa Benn has written in the Guardian today that our ‘public’ school system is “morally rotten”. I might… Read more
A household is not like a state
As a society we need to be far more concerned about climate and inequality than money, however as it is almost a year since I last wrote about sectoral balances, there are another 4 quarters of data to look at, and I want to make the point again, money is not a contraint on what… Read more
‘I am’ Greta Thunberg
Christopher Caldwell has an Opinion piece in the New York Times called The Problem With Greta Thunberg’s Climate Activism. The problem with Christopher Caldwell’s opinion – “Kids her age have not seen much of life. Her worldview might be unrealistic, her priorities out of balance.” – is that the more knowledgeable parts of the human race… Read more
The progressive Conservative?
Like everyone else I am thinking about declaring my candidacy for the Conservative leadership. A good friend, of long standing, said I should ‘go for it’ and I thought, “Well, why not?” After all, I fancy myself as a bit of a comedian and have an overinflated opinion of my intelligence, but more than that… Read more
Regional inequality: the utility of many metrics
To measure – political success or anything else – we need to choose the right metrics. It is widely recognised that GDP per capita or average income is not necessarily that useful. A point that must be repeated over and over is that when in comes to wealth and income, it is not the crude average… Read more
Chickens and Hayek
I strongly recomment a listen to The Inquiry – How did we mess up antibiotics? A part of the story involves chickens. The figure below is from businessinsider. Clearly, there is something not natural going on here. Back in 1989 I went on a trek in the far north of Thailand. In the villages, chickens… Read more
Not another one? Why not use the numerical evidence to guide us?
I agree with Clement Atlee and Margaret Thatcher, referenda are “a device of dictators and demagogues”. The whole point of representative democracy is that we elect representatives to make decisions on our behalf. If we do not like their decisions, we can elect new representatives. Adding referenda into this mix creates conflicting mandates leading to… Read more
The complete failure of the so-called ‘centre’, and what we should do.
If the centre fails, polarization and discord follows. This is a matter of life and death but rather than use evidence to avoid failure, we allow a disparate rabble of unfit politicans to claim the centre, even when the evidence shows that they are not centrists. Their lies are destroying the fabric of society (where… Read more