Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The dirty war

Despite hundreds of millions of pounds spent each year on UK drug enforcement activity, the commissioners argue there is "remarkably little evidence of its effectiveness".

Drug markets, they conclude, are "extremely resilient" and all the criminal justice activity has had "little street-level impact".

Indeed they go further, warning that law enforcement efforts can have a significant negative impact.


The war on drugs

Monday, July 28, 2008

Halifax: Quarterly report

Northern Ireland down 14.6% Q1 to Q2 !!!

That does hurt ...

More data here


PS: Greater London QtQ -4.3%

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Climate documentary 'broke rules' or Not ?

The BBC says :

The Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial Channel 4 film, broke Ofcom rules, the media regulator says. In a long-awaited judgement, Ofcom says Channel 4 did not fulfil obligations to be impartial and to reflect a range of views on controversial issues. The film also treated interviewees unfairly, but did not mislead audiences “so as to cause harm or offence”. Plaintiffs say the Ofcom judgement is “inconsistent” and “lets Channel 4 off the hook on a technicality.”

But as McIntyre points out :



Ofcom, the U.K. television regulator, has rendered a remarkable decision. People interested in what was actually decided will, unfortunately, have to consult the original judgment at Ofcom, rather than the BBC accounts (here, here) of the judgment.

....

Ofcom summarized their judgement as follows:

In summary, in relation to the manner in which facts in the programme were presented, Ofcom is of the view that the audience of this programme was not materially misled in a manner that would have led to actual or potential harm. The audience would have been in no doubt that the programme’s focus was on scientific and other arguments which challenged the orthodox theory of man-made global warming. Regardless of whether viewers were in fact persuaded by the arguments contained in the programme, Ofcom does not believe that they could have been materially misled as to the existence and substance of these alternative theories and opinions, or misled as to the weight which is given to these opinions in the scientific
community.

Ofcom considers that, although the programme may have caused viewers to challenge the consensus view that human activity is the main cause of global warming, there is no evidence that the programme in itself did, or would, cause appreciable potential harm to members of the public …

Channel 4, however, had the right to show this programme provided it remained within the Code and – despite certain reservations – Ofcom has determined that it did not breach Rule 2.2. On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence.

Not in breach of Rule 2.2.


Ofcom Decision: A Humiliating Defeat for Bob Ward and the Myles Allen 37

So who's right? both?

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Maternity leave



-- update

So what do I think ... Not much, was just surprise that the uk were that "good" on the maternity leave. Too bad for the father though ...

Thursday, July 10, 2008

What is a recession?

It's in all the paper, it's smell bad and it sounds like we should avoiding it by what is it?

It's actually not that bad, it's mainly going back to earth, following a misallocation of investment and work, we need to reallocate the labour to what actually people needs and pay for all the money thought they had but end up not having.

It is manifested by bug lay off, but don't be scared. these lay off are part of the redistribution of the production system. They are mainly located on the company that were only working because of temporally local circumstances like the bubble.

It's in the end a good thing, realigning the production to what people really need, not to what the producer thought they need.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

How did how prices get that high?

Here you go




Liar Loan! already on 2004 ...

Found on the Infamous House Price Crash site.

Monday, July 7, 2008

The economy of transportation

A great great podcast about transportation.

It is about Santiago, Chile. There are a lot of anecdotes that Londoners would empathize with.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

London lack of supply!

Lots of Londoners think that London is - or was - immune to the House Price Crash. Lack of supply, millionaires who don't care about prices ... London price would not fall.

Would it?

I think that Pimlico is kind of central London ...

"Flat I bought for £175,000 last year is now worth less than £100,000"

It's no more a lack of supply but much more a lack of demand, 10 years of lie are coming to an end. Get ready for the british version of the credit crunch.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Is the world Austrian?

As the global crisis continue to unfold I remember a podcast on econ talk where Pete Boettke argue that the crisis we are living now is the consequence of trying to control aggregate, that are just a proxy to the reality. Central Bank would have postponed the needed adjustment by fine tuning the aggregate, every time giving incentive for people to create new bubble.

If that's the case we need to reread Hayek and reduce economic intervention and government drastically.

Unfortunately most people will ask for the opposite, they will ask for an extension of government intervention. Which would be like giving more horse power to a blind driver.