The Idiots

It's all very well and good to get stuck in to some serious thinking about current affairs  but where would we be without a bit of comedy? Thankfully the newspapers do provide us with a little every now and then. Today's gem has been provided by the South Wales Echo who cheered me up with this little beauty. 

CARDIFF council has cut the number of road sweeper vehicles operating through- out the city by more than a third. It recently made the cuts to its street cleaning department, reducing the number of road sweepers from 24 to 15 and cutting the number of fly-tipping vans in half to two. The reductions have led to route lengths for street sweepers being increased. Councillor for Trowbridge Ralph Cook said he first noticed the changes when he saw a road sweeper travelling down a road without appearing to sweep. When Coun Cook asked the driver why he was not sweeping, he said he had been told to skip roads that appeared clean if he was running short of time. Coun Cook said: “I asked him why this was the case and he said ‘we’ve had our routes doubled’. He showed me the route and there was no way he could do that route in the time allowed. “As a result of the reduction (in road sweepers), while they’re trying to keep the city centre up to scratch, they were having to reduce the efficiency in the suburbs. “We have a situation where drivers had their routes doubled, they’re under a lot of stress, they’re having to make judgements. What a person under pressure views as clean enough may not match other people’s view. I think it’s a recipe for increasing problems.”

 

I would have thought that skipping roads that appeared clean was a sensible policy to save some money in these austier times, however clearly Coun Cook disagrees. Clearly the cut throat world of private enterprise and the long arduous hours put in my nurses and policemen, does not compare to driving, what is essentially a large ride on lawnmower, around your local area.

 

To complete my enjoyment of this piece, a local council spokeswoman was asked to comment on this scandal and said:

 

"A new programme of street cleansing has been introduced deploying cleansing teams to cover a specific area each day"

 

Is it me? or does the idea of your local authority deploying cleansing teams conjure Orwellian nightmares for you too? 

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Buttonwood

I'm not really adding anything here. Buttonwood of The Economist has written a perfectly good blog article which I would recommend everyone read. I think it sums up rather well the very essence of the choices societies face in allocating resources 'fairly'.

The only other thing I will say, having heard as we all have the rhetoric that surrounds these topics, is how refreshing his sensible thinking is. This educated and balanced thinking is sadly lacking in the world.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2010/09/politics_regulation_financial_markets_and_inequality?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ButtonwoodsNotebook+%28The+Economist%3A+Buttonwood%27s+notebook%29&utm_content=Google+UK

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Dawkins to the rescue!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-0t6jjrzs

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Nazi Atheists

The pope is certainly keeping me busy. Not a day of the plane and he has already decided to launch an attack on atheism on the back of a total lie. In his speech yesterday he is quoted as praising Britain's fight against Hitler's "atheist extremism" and goes on to say "Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society".

If I may just quote Mr Hitler himself:

"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work." Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so" Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941

It shouldn't need stating that the head of the Catholic church should know his history in this regard. Not to mention that the man himself was alive at the time, living in Germany, conscripted to the Hitler Youth, and claims to be an academic. So what is he playing at?

Of course a bit of Heathen bashing is to be expected from an organisation such as his, but is there a more sinister reason? some seem to think so.


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The Catholics

I am a little uncomfortable addressing my thoughts regarding any one particular religion. My contempt for all religions, and the harm they cause, means that to pick on any one religion for criticism leads to a suggestion that perhaps there are 'good' religions and 'bad' religions. Clearly my objections to religion stem primarily from the simple premise that we should not believe in anything for which there is no evidence or where the probabilities of it being so, are massively remote.

However, in recognition (not honour) of the pope's 'state visit' I thought that I might just raise a few points. Having read and heard a lot on this issue in the media recently, it became apparent that actually it has all been said by much wiser men than me, Therefore I have posted below a fantastic speech on the issue by Stephen Fry, and a link to Ben Goldacre's latest comments regarding the harm caused by the Catholic view on condoms, which is clearly the largest and most recent 'evil' perpetrated by the Catholic Church.

Ben Goldacre - The pope and Aids.




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Distressing Demographics

Just a quick note regarding the problems caused by demographic imbalance.

As I have alluded to in my post on housing, over the last twenty years or so, the 'baby boomer' generation, amongst others, has piled it's earnings into investable assets. Whilst the Bank of England was focused on consumer price inflation, asset price inflation was allowed to run riot. If nothing else this exacerbated the current crisis by inflating property prices.

Of course this 'new money' invested into asset markets by an aging generation, apart from pumping up prices, and in the case of housing to the exclusion of the young, can only be temporary. The demographics show that the 'baby boom' generation is not followed by generations of a similar size. You can guess the effect this will have on the markets.

Buttonwood, of The Economist, has commented on this point whilst analysing where the best returns are expected going forward.

The results are sobering. The best annualised returns look set to come from high-yield bonds, which should earn a little under 6% over the next decade. For investment grade bonds, the expected return is an annualised 4%.

As for US equities, given that both earnings and valuations are above trend, the expected return is just 2.3% a year (if you take the more optimistic view that the profits trend improved after 1958, you can bump this return up to 4.2%). Treasury bonds also offer a measly 2.3% a year.

What about alternative assets? Here the news is even worse. Gold, oil and property will all lose money for investors if reversion to the mean occurs, while the return on all commodities will be flat.

The problem, which Deutsche discusses at length (it is a 100-page note) is demographics. The baby boomers bought assets and pushed up prices in their working years; as they retire, this buying support will disappear .

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The 'R' word

I would like to think that if there is a theme to this blog it is uncompromising rationality. No doubt every blogger thinks that their views are rational, and indeed defining rationality is itself quite a debate (and one for another day!). However, I often feel that many of the topics or issues about which I am motivated to write go hand in hand with irrationality.

As someone who strives to hold only rational views, it is of course not possible to avoid possibly the greatest irrationality of our time, and perhaps all of human history: religion. I must confess that my views on this immense subject are equally substantial and are therefore too extensive for one post. Hopefully I can articulate my views piece by piece as they occur or reoccur to me.

This week has been a fantastic week for the interested atheist. Channel 4 has been running its 'Richard Dawkins Season', the Pope is to visit the UK next week, and to top it all off we no longer need god to create the universe, thanks to Stephen Hawking. As a result, the papers and 'blogosphere' (please note my intense dislike for the word, I shall not use it again) have been alive with debate and comment. This has presented a feast of information, consternation, laughter, and in some cases blind rage, to entertain me of late.

In particular, I have been struck not by comments from those employed directly by the belief industry, but by the ludicrous comments of religious supporters. Those employed by religious organisations, from priests and bishops, to rabbis and imams, often don't provide interesting fodder for observers like me. Their belief and craft is so strong that it is impossible to debate with. The Times this week covered some wonderful examples of this such as

"Physical laws . . . are about the regular relations between actual realities, I cannot see how they explain the bare fact that there is any reality at all" - Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

and

"the fact that we have an extraordinarily complex universe which continues to grow before our very eyes is the strongest possible evidence of the existence of a creator" - Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, Leicester imam.

I struggle to even comprehend Dr Rowan's point let alone counter it. Were I to actually attempt to debate the point with him, I'm sure that within the next few exchanges I would likely surrender and leave searching for a paracetamol.

Religious supporters, however, are a feast of wondrous and troubling comments and insights that both delight and enrage. One might ponder why there is a difference and I can only conclude that either religious employees are trained to be deliberately difficult to nail down, or that religious supporters, who do something else with the majority of their time, have not sniffed as much of the 'spiritual glue' that those who dedicate their lives to it clearly have. As a result their brains straddle the void between occupying the real and logical world around us, and yet also the world of ancient fantasies (which constitute modern day religions) to which they subscribe. This contradiction produces some incredible comments which could only arise from someone who is trying to reconcile the scientific knowledge of the tangible world with the supernatural tales of the religious.

Naturally some of the funniest statements are often made by ordinary people as responses to a particular article or blog post, and I will endeavour to compile a list from now on of the truly great ones. However, the most enraging are often the authors of articles themselves. Commissioned pieces of opinion writing, which seem to have an uncanny habit of appearing in The Daily Mail. This week I have two articles, one in response to Mr Hawking's less than surprising statement that 'god isn't necessary to create the universe', and one in regard to the forthcoming visit by the Pope.

Starting with Professor John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford no less, who claims right off the bat that 'Stephen Hawking is wrong', and goes on to make some incredible assertions.

One of my favourites has to be:

"It's a simplistic approach, yet in our secular age it is one that seems to have resonance with a sceptical public."

That god wasn't needed to create the universe is not a surprise or news to atheists (which I believe he has confused with secularists) In fact the only reason why this is 'news' at all is that Hawking can now prove his theories. Theories without which the religious would deride as, quite amazingly, lacking in evidence. Having dipped a toe into Hawking's world I can assure you that there is nothing 'simplistic' about his approach.

Prof. Lennox goes on to say:

"Hawking's argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth?"

This reminds me of an unapologetically blunt description by Richard Dawkins of such people as 'the yapping terrier's of ignorance' in much the same way that toddlers are known to follow their parents around continually asking why?, why?, why? to questions that don't have an answer. Asking questions is of course a quality to be commended but as Dawkins again states:

"you are again assuming that the 'why' question is a sensible or legitimate question. Not all questions are. You have no right to expect and answer to a silly question."

To me this is no different from asking why water is wet. The only answer to such a silly question is because it is!

The striking contradiction with this approach often favoured by the religious and the supporters, is that the same silly questions can be asked of their position, and invariably they will have no answer whatsoever. Why does god exist? Who made god? What is god's purpose?

Similarly Prof. Lennox continues with his hilarious contradictions, such as:

"If the brain were really the result of an unguided process, then there is no reason to believe in its capacity to tell us the truth."

I am sure that if you asked Stephen Hawking if he thought the brain were the result of an 'unguided process' he would of course disagree believing as he does in evolution. But the assertion that only if a creator had designed the brain could you believe in its capacity to tell us the truth, is quite frankly complete nonsense. It suggests that this man would argue that if his brain tells him there is a god, and god made his brain, his brain must be telling the truth! I remind you at this point that, somewhat disturbingly, that this is a professor of Oxford. It makes you want to weep.

I encourage you to read the entire piece, and challenge you to not find yourself either scratching your head or laughing aloud at the other points he goes on to make.

Turning to Mr Stephen Glover, and I appreciate this post is turning into a bit of an epic, who thankfully is only a journalist, and his recent article regarding the Pope's planned visit. Stephen jumps in on one of my most cherished issues, in describing Dawkins as an atheist extremist. He says:

"the militant atheist and Christian-hater Richard Dawkins"

Militant? Really? This is a classic middle class Oxford professor who delivers, if forceful in argument, as polite a challenge to religion that I think you can make. Equally I sincerely doubt that Dawkins holds his distaste for religions in any form of preferential order.

He claims that the things being said about the Pope are:

"not merely discourteous. . . but reveal disturbing traits of intolerance among this country's supposedly liberal intelligentsia."

The things being said, include the Pope's insufficient response to child abuse and rape that has occurred across the continent in his organisation, and his refusal to condone condoms which has lead to the unnecessary deaths of thousands in Africa. That the 'liberal intelligensia', and I hope all good people, are intolerant of this is to me a wholly rational and commendable response.

He goes on, in talking up the Pope:

"he does not bend to fashionable secular trends, and holds fast to beliefs which are those of the traditional church, Isn't that admirable?"

Admirable? This is certainly beyond my belief.

"he is not a monster and child abuser to be vilified as though he deliberately committed acts of evil."

This is a parallel of a defence most often used by CEO's on trial for corporate crimes perpetrated by their staff, which fails by the way. Certainly if it works for the Pope someone should let Tony Hayward the outgoing CEO of BP and Fred Goodwyn the former MD of RBS know.

He returns to his attack on Dawkins with:

"there is a hard-core which embraces and promotes atheism with the blind fervour of religious zealots. Richard Dawkins is my prime exhibit".

Dawkins is currently, amongst other things, Professor of Public Understanding of Science, at Oxford University. Were he not to display fervour in promoting his views, he would not be discharging the duty that his position requires. As for zealotry, which I understand to mean committed even to the point of death, I am sure Dawkins like most rational people will believe in their understanding of the world up to the point someone points a gun at you, at which point you'll believe anything they want you to believe. Sad that Professor Lennox, of Oxford University no less, has reduced himself to the sort of sensationalist nonsense that pervades the pages of the Daily Mail.

He ends as I will with,

"We may not agree with everything he says, or even with his most fundamental beliefs. But his visit should be welcome because he is something rare in the modern world. A decent man of principle."

If only he was talking about Dawkins, and not the Pope, he'd be right on the money.

Full article for your amusement.

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A tribute to Hitch

Christopher Hitchens (61) has been an unknown character to me. I still don't know a great deal about him. I know him as an outspoken atheist with a mind-blowing command of the English language. He is a fantastic orator, if you haven't witnessed his skills you should, and a prolific writer on the subject of disbelief.

The other day I stumbled upon this piece, 'Tropic of Cancer', which unfortunately reveals that he now suffers from cancer of the esophagus. Having read the article I was struck by just how beautifully frank it was, how honestly he recounts his personal feelings about being faced with his own death. I found it stunning.

Sentences such as:

"I have been 'in denial' for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light"

and:

"I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me"

articulate a clarity of thought, an acceptance of mortality, and a dislike of drama that only someone who truly accepts the world and our short time here, could appreciate.

In his second piece of the series, 'Unanswerable Prayers', he uses his immense skill to yet again mount an attack on religious belief, from the new perspective of someone terminally ill. As an avid reader of atheistic literature I am aware that authors on the subject often receive significant 'hate' mail or even worse. Richard Dawkins has taken to printing his favorites in his books and posting them on his website for all to see. Certainly having read a few, you cannot help but think that the level of hatred and violence these messages promise could only come from someone thinking irrationally. Hitchens, to his credit, uses his razor-sharp intellect to show how vacuous these people and their beliefs in fact are.

From his new, if not unenviable perspective, he also picks up some rather comic viewpoints that only an atheist would appreciate. As a renowned writer, he mentions that he has received, in addition to hate mail, messages of support from religious people. Many of which wish him well and plead for him to convert to their particular strand of belief before it is too late. He states that he now sympathises afresh with Voltaire, who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.

Despite my lack of familiarity with Hitchens, I have now seen that this titan of logic, is worthy of further research, and no doubt will prompt me to offer further credit in the future.

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The Arts Council

As readers of this blog will come to know, I am not convinced that state funding of the arts is an acceptable use of public money. After all most of the world's 'great' works of art were produced before such funding was even available. How a state funded body should choose to allocate its resources is a big enough problem given the lack of information supplied by the absent market, and I am convinced the current bodies have got it wrong.

The Arts Council, quite apart from my general reservation over state funding of the arts, causes me great concern because its allocation of funding does not seem to take demand for the product into account when making their funding assessments. There appears to be too much funding allocated to projects with very limited demand but perhaps not so surprisingly to projects in favour with the bureaucracy apportioning the funding. I have touched on this point before in reference to S4C.

I now find that even those inside the art community agree.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11228143

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Are we all NIMBY's?

The Not In My Back Yarders must be having a party!

The governments proposed plan to hold local referendums on new housing schemes in England which will require 80-90% of local people to approve new building schemes in villages would likely bring projects to a halt. Lord Taylor of the Rural Commission captured the problem well when he said

"What they will do is create not a right to build, but a right to block for a very small number of 'nimbys'”


It could be argued that even getting 80-90% of residents to turnout and vote would be a challenge in most locations. However setting a 90% benchmark for approval is just ridiculous. Planning in this country is hard enough to overcome, and allowing 'local resident's' to have a veto is definitely a bridge to far.

It's an interesting point though, because neighbours are definitely stakeholders in their surroundings and there already exists not only consultation systems regarding planning, but legislation to protect a landholders interests from neighbouring activity. But a balance has to be found between existing residents rights, and the needs of those with no home. At present the advantage definitely lies with existing homeowners.

The seemingly un-stoppable rise in house prices in the UK is, I believe, primarily driven by supply & demand. Of course house prices we are told are a factor of incomes, which to a certain extent they are. However the laws of supply and demand cannot be ignored.

We have seen a large rise in asset prices over the last twenty years despite consumer price rises remaining modest. Consumer prices are of course measured through inflation statistics, CPI and RPI, however to my knowledge there is no similar measure of asset prices. If statistics were published on the performance of asset prices, by which I mean property prices, equities, and other popular investments, this 'asset inflation' would be more identifiable. After all, to a large extent it was this asset inflation which the Bank Of England couldn't control though interest rates and contributed or caused the latest crisis.

This asset inflation has served to enrich existing asset holders, who particularly in the case of property would be older people who held property assets before 1990. As they realised the profits of this gain they of course reinvested them in the same market. Obviously many lavished the profits on luxury spending which goes some way to explain the recent success of luxury brands like Waitrose, John Lewis, and M&S, but sufficient numbers of them reinvested the proceeds in the same market that had rewarded them so richly before. This new investment money is what has made up the gap between incomes and house prices.

Of course, increasingly lax mortgage terms and low interest rates have also allowed greater participation and additional money, but I don't believe this should be seen as a bad thing. Yes, the banks do have many non-performing mortgages but they are not comparable with the US sub prime problem, and are lower even than the number during the 1992 recession. Most non-performing loans occur in the self-cert market or so called 'liar loans' business. These were mortgages given where no evidence of repayment capacity was required which is of course crazy. That doesn't however mean that 100% mortgages for first time buyers where sufficient income is evident to provide for repayments are a bad idea.

The point I have been coming around to (I seem to have drifted from the topic of NIMBY?'s), is that NIMBY's are known for taking action against development plans in their location. However with so much investment money pouring into the housing market, and so much of the economy now reliant on the continual rise in house prices, a large portion of the population now have a vested interest in restraining the supply of new homes, even nationally. Headlines about house price rises are often cheered in the press and falls met with dismay and pictured with rain clouds. Can anyone think of another living cost that is cheered when the price rises?

The governments plans to give residents a new build veto is in effect a huge barrier to new houses anywhere. We have become a nation on NIMBY's, and central government initiatives to strengthen this movement represent a frightening development.

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S4C

I will no doubt return to my dislike of state sponsored culture, but this piece regarding S4C is a fantastic example of the problem.

Firstly I note, that virtually all calls to protect state funded culture seem to come from wealthy government or in this case ex-government employees. This is only relevant because when the wealthy call for areas of government expenditure to be protected it is usually rounded upon by the press as a poor use of government funds. However culture spending is seemingly excluded in the press from being classified as middle class expenditure.

The article states that

Lord Morris said the likelihood of big funding cuts, coupled with recent disclosures in the Western Mail about low viewing figures for some of the channel’s programs, made it all the more important for responsibility for S4C to be transferred to the Assembly’s hands

Lord Morris is obviously aware then that S4C does not entertain the majority of even the Welsh population, and I doubt even the Welsh speaking population, and yet goes on to say

“I can’t understand why there isn’t unanimity on the subject. S4C should be part of the Assembly’s responsibilities – I can’t understand how the Assembly can run roads and housing, but not such an essential part of Welsh life.”

well, I am sorry but roads and housing are issues which affect every single person in Wales and to suggest that S4C has the same gravity as these issues shows how disconnected this man is from issues that effect most people.

In the 'age of austerity' and with government spending cuts planned, surely it is the most important policy areas which should be protected and to have to watch wealthy bureaucrats running around trying to protect their pet projects paid for by the taxpayer should be attracting more criticism from the press than it does.

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No way to run a country!

Robert Peston, the sometimes quite odd BBC business correspondent, is back from his holidays and back to blogging with this post on British political party funding.

No doubt the ways in which political parties in this country are funded will not be a surprise to most. That the donations to both of the main parties seem to emanate largely from groups or individuals with a clear and direct advantage from gaining influence will also not be a revelation. However given the history of scandal and abuse that MP's have proven is not uncommon amongst out ruling classes, in 2010 there must be a better way to fund British politics.

The often touted alternative to the current system is state funded political parties. The problems with this system are far to numerous to mention here, suffice is to say that under a state funded system taxpayer money would be paid to the BNP and that should be reason enough to object to the idea. However the current influence wielded by political backers seems almost equally objectionable.

It could be argued that I am over doing it. Despite the entire political class being funded largely by minority interest groups, party policies are broadly considerate of the majority. However as any lawyer will know in reality most British law although based on a premise considered for the majority, is rife with special interest provision and exception. When taken in totality some special interest groups or individuals can seemingly command huge power and influence in the real world despite their minority status in society.

Of course consideration of special interest is key to good legislation. A blanket policy which is enacted across the board without consideration of special interest is likely to be damaging and invoke unintended consequences, however at present the consideration of minority positions and special interest seems limited only to those lobbying the 'honorable' members of parliament.

Of course Winston Churchill got it right when he said 'Democracy is the worst form of government. . . except for all the others'.

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Where to start?

My first post . . . it's not been easy. Despite the daily debate in my head over issues covering a multitude of topics, deciding what to base my first post on has been troubling. Launching into a tirade over any specific subject seems like the wrong way to start a blog. Having been an avid follower of a number of other blogs I know that readers develop a context for the writers posts, and although all blogs must start somewhere, and all readers join at some point, to just commence seems odd to me.

I wonder what context a reader might develop of this blog, at present almost nothing I'm sure! However virtually all of the writers of blogs that I follow have created defined personalities in my mind, this despite the posts being often short and very topic specific. In some ways however a blog is far more revealing about the writer than a fully published text. Not only is the content not subjected to a publishers polishing but the rate of posts and sequencing can give an insight into the writers own life and work.

My favorite blog posts are often punchy and to the point, which is not to say they are short or lack depth. However I find that authors of published texts often go to lengths to substantiate their claims or statements and deal with any possible criticism at the same time. Blog posts however are more conversational and often sound more natural and emotive. The great benefit a blog author cherishes is of course the ability to revisit a subject and deal with critique as and when it arises. This advantage makes a profound difference to the project because in many ways a blog, unlike a book, never ends.

Blogs therefore have many similarities with a diary, and whilst I consider my personal thoughts and daily habits far to mundane to warrant recording, blogs have shown me that recording your interests can be rewarding. As one wanders through life reoccurring themes and subjects are common . . . one could say reoccurring, and recording your opinions can allow you to make progress on these issues and enhance your understanding on each revisit of a subject. In addition a blog can be a public space and encourage discussion and feedback without which your thoughts and opinions lack the validity and cogency that outside scrutiny brings.

My objectives here then are straightforward. By committing my thoughts and opinions to record, I hope to 'off-load' the information, allowing me to develop further without the burden of a mental haze of previous information on any given subject. I also want to create a forum of sorts for my readers to critique and discuss my posts in the hope that everyone gains from the ensuing mutual exchange.