The Filter^

Eagles Flying High

I spent the summer of 2000 having an adventure in Perth, and spent one afternoon at the Subiaco Oval to watch the West Coast Eagles. It's a shame that there's not more tv coverage of Aussie Rules - it's a fantastic game played at quick pace, with plenty of passion. The Eagles have been underperforming in recent years, but have got this season off to a flyer. They trounced the Swans 15.14 (104) to 8.11 (59) tonight (match report), and remain unbeaten at the top of the ladder.

Holy Trinity

The three most important people in c20th economics are:

1. Frank Knight
2. Ludwig Von Mises
3. Lionel Robbins

From these teacher-professors stemmed (almost directly) every great contribution.

Three Orange Books

• Liberals: A History of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat Parties

Roy Douglas
March 2005
Hambledon & London (1852853530)
amazon.co.uk

• Against the Flow

Samuel Brittan
January 2005
Atlantic Books (184354377X)
amazon.co.uk
Samuel Brittan's columns
The Economist review

• Liberal Lion: Jo Grimond - A Political Life

Peter Barbaris
January 2005
I.B. Tauris (1850436274)
amazon.co.uk

Honesty & Ideology

A paper by Roger Myerson in 1993 (link here) measures candidates via two dimensions: honesty and ideology. Under proportional representation, no matter where your ideological position there will be an honest candidate asking for your vote. Consequently, dishonest politicians won't be elected.
In single-member districts, however, only one candidate can be voted. The voter (as a Nash eq.) will prefer a dishonest but ideologically alligned candidate, hence plurality rule in single-memeber districts will be associated with dishonest incumbents, who are hard to oust from office.

There are problems with this paper, because I don't see why strategic voting is only a viable option in the second case. As James Buchanan would say, all voting is strategic.

That said, one of the beauties of Public Choice theory is the wide applicability of some very simple concepts. In a very neat model, I think we can see the crux of the problem with Tony Blair: we'd rather elect a liar than a Tory!

Note - if your immediate reaction is "but he is a Tory" then you've just supported the Median Voter Theory.pdf, the most famous Public Choice model.

Video: Funnies

Check out this video - it's a Trigger Happy style example of anarchitecture, and very funny.

Also, this video is an awkward reminder of The Office, and why alcohol and bosses don't mix. 

Constituent Apathy

I was looking through the BBC Constituency guide and thought it was interesting (and perhaps fitting) to compare the only two seats in which I have voted, during a General Election.

New Forest West
2001 Result: Won by CON, majority 29.9%

• the "safer" of the two New Forest seats is about as close to a Tory archetype of middle England as they come
• Most industry is centred in the New Milton, though forestry, farming and market gardening take place in much of the seat
• this is primarily a seat of genteel retirement. Tory MP Desmond Swayne racked up a massive majority of 29.9% in 2001.

Liverpool Riverside
2001 Result: Won by LAB, majority 54.7%

• Riverside is the heart of Liverpool and covers an area... from the boundary with Bootle through to more affluent Aigburth, by way of some of the poorest and most deprived urban areas in Britain.
• The northern wards of Vauxhall and Everton which have an almost entirely white population suffer some of worst housing conditions anywhere.
  
• Toxteth, or L8 as it is known, lies immediately to the south of the city centre and has gained a certain notoriety from the riots of the early 1980s.
• This is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic constituency with high unemployment.
• Of those who are employed, 16.6% work in health and social work related jobs - the fourth highest nationally.
• Labour have easily won Riverside ever since its creation in 1983, although turn-out here has always been poor.

Closing Times

The Liverpool Echo reports:

LIVERPOOL'S Central Library will stop opening during the evenings in a move aimed at saving around £1m from this year's council budget...The authority has opened formal consultation with union representatives over plans to close the library at 6pm on week nights. The Grade II listed building, on William Brown Street, currently opens until 8pm on week nights, and has the longest opening hours of any library in any major UK city.

The article was published on 29 March, and the Council has since actually changed the opening hours of the Central Library. I have, therefore, written a letter to Councillor Mike Storey, CBE. Here's the letter in full:

Dear Mr Storey

I am writing to express my dismay at the changes to the opening hours of the Liverpool Central Library.

It is unclear to me to whom this change will benefit. The people of Liverpool are getting busier and the opportunity of enjoying the services provided by the Library is already limited. The new closing time of 6:00 pm will make it virtually impossible for the average nine-to-five white-collar workers to visit the Central Library on a week night.

If staffing is the reason for the early closing, could the Library not be opened later in the day rather than be closed early? It is not without irony that many pubs and clubs in Liverpool are currently applying for extended opening hours, while the City Council pushes the Library's opening times are being cut. These pubs and clubs will no doubt take into accounts of their late closing by compensating it with later opening. On a related note: am I wrong to interpret this as how the Council views Liverpool city centre: a place to drink and eat, but nowhere to enjoy a quiet time with a good book? Can I still hear the congratulatory noises about Liverpool being the Capital of Culture in 2008?

Another ironic twist in this tale is that the private sector is now providing a better public service by providing quiet, public spaces to read economically. One can browse at Borders in the retail park in Speke after six o'clock in the evening and does the same on Thursdays at Waterstone's in the city centre. The emergence of Amazon Marketplace provides a place where people can buy and sell their books online, acting almost like a library. If the City Council is no longer interested in providing a sufficient service in libraries or it is failing to compete with the private sector, would it not be wise for it to let go of its monopoly on the valuable resources, such as the grand building of the Central Library in a prime location of the city centre and also to reduce the amount of council tax charged to the citizens of Liverpool?

The new opening hours of the Central Library is a step in the wrong direction. I sincerely hope that in the not so distant future, the closing time will be reverted back to 8 pm.

Yours faithfully

Stephen Lai

English Grub

I've often encountered the assumption that English food is awful.
Here's the World's Best Restaurants:

1 The Fat Duck Bray, Berkshire

2 El Bulli Montjoi, Spain 

3 The French Laundry Yountville, California 

4 Tetsuya's Sydney 

5 Gordon Ramsay London 

6 Pierre Gagnaire Paris 

7 Per Se New York 

8 Tom Aikens London 

9 Jean Georges New York 

10 St John London

Yes - 4 out of the top 10 are English. Here's some vintage Tyler Cowen:

London is now a more interesting dining spot than Paris. The core problems involve an overregulated French labor market and excessively high French taxes.

Protectionism will wither and die that which it professes to save. Who would predict that sardine sorbet or smokey bacon and egg ice cream (full menus here) would land such a title? Freedom to create, tinker and prosper.

Also, well done to Gordon Ramsey. In an article in the Observer some time ago I remember him being interviewed with his son in a greasy spoon. He expressed a real animosity for conceited high-brow folk that take their children to top notch restaurants. In a classic response to the idiocy behind "Super Size Me" he said that a high quality meal is far too rich for regular consumption. Here's the proof. Balance, is the necessity.

Free Market = Pro War??

My results, from the popular Political Survey. As with the Political Compass I have some issues with the reasoning, and don't feel adequately represented.
For example, look at the vertical axis: free market/pro-war vs socialist/anti-war.
No, sorry, I'm not going to have that.

Globalization - that glorious manifestation of free people, free markets and free minds - ties the economic interests of countries together, breeding cooperation and preventing war. In this regard I am firmly a Cobdenite, who sought to develop international peace via free trade. He knew that no major wars have been fought between liberal democracies, and that it is authoritarian states, not private enterprise, that turn to war to get what they want.

This idea is often known as the McDonald's Rule, since no two countries with a McDonald's has ever gone to war. Whatever our personal tastes regarding the nutritional value of a Big Mac I think we can all wonder at such a fact. It should help expose the sickening ignorance of those who claim McDonald's is some kind of imperial force.

In his new book The World is Flat, NYT columnist Thomas Friedman introduces The Dell Theory.
In an interview with Yale Global he says:

The Dell Theory says that no two countries that are part of the same global supply chain will ever fight a war as long as they're each still part of that supply chain.

He traced parts from his computer to some of the nations that supplied them, and  points out that such mutual dependence drastically raised the costs of any military engagement:

If you do go to war and you're part of one these supply-chains, whatever price you think you're going to pay, you're going to pay ten times more.  Once you lose your spot in the supply chain because you've gone to war, the supply chain doesn't come back real soon.They're not going to.

The survey categorizes me "pro-war" even though I answered "The UK was right to go to war in Iraq" as "Strongly disagree". It is they who are being oxyMORONS, not me.

Addendum:
Witty review from New York Press

1-0

Duncan Ferguson, against the Mancs, diving header... into the Gwladys Street.

"Somebody: Shoot Me Whilst I'm Happy!".

Addendum from my brother:

Q. Did you prefer the win in the derby or the one against Man U?

A. Man U. I got my hero back.