A former colleague of mine sent a message with a photo of Boris making his speech about how he fought off those who would lock us all down again, and how we needed to... blah blah blah
Under the photograph they wrote
"Is anyone still listening?"
Not me, I replied.
We've all stopped listening.
The other day in the queue for the self-serve checkouts, the big guy in the black mask behind me said "I can't wait for this to be over". I nodded.
Most of us know this has gone on too long and the measures are not justified by the facts. Some people are still scared, but some people will always be scared of something.
The handful of Ministers who used 100 different Acts of Parliament to pass 224 different regulations without a single vote are trapped in their own hysteria.
And we the people are twiddling our thumbs, waiting for them to catch up, like they were the huffing, puffing stragglers on a country walk.
Thursday, 1 October 2020
Monday, 28 September 2020
Photographs I'm Printing (25)
(Camera unknown)
Somewhere in Florence. What other country would have so many scooters in one place?
Thursday, 24 September 2020
Never Attribute to Conspiracy What You Can Assign to Stupidity, Ambition, or Cowardice
The problem is that the alternative narratives are mostly conspiracy theories, and in some cases pretty batty ones. Now I like a good conspiracy theory, and a good one is plausible.
One of my favourites is 'bureaucratic cover-up'. If you have ever worked in a bureaucracy, you will know that there is no need for anyone to arrange a cover-up of a cock-up. The people involved do it as automatically as they would arrange a working group to to delay a decision.
Combine the cock-up theory of history with the need of politicians and other members of the Establishment to maintain their position and privileges (and that's another motive no-one even needs to discuss), and you have a powerful explanatory tool.
The only reason we were in the shameful position of having a Prime Minister threatening his electorate with the Army is because of a half-robust broadband internet network in the towns and the wide availability of reasonably capable laptops. In 2000, there would have been no thought of sending people home to work, nor, I suspect would there have been in 2010.
Almost the entire Covid farce follows from the availability of high-speed broadband and laptops.
The rest follows from the fact that while politicians always were a bunch of morally-flawed people with latent personality disorders, once upon a time, even as recently as the 1970's, some of them were capable people with moral flaws and latent personality disorders. Now none of them are capable. Capable people can make much more money in other jobs, without needing to stain themselves with politics. Or university teaching. Or working in local or national government. There are no Civil Servants as capable as Sir Humphrey, though many may be as smug.
Have the sheer nerve to make those judgements out loud, and the need for elaborate conspiracy disappears. A converse of Asimov's Rule might be: any sufficiently stupid group action or decision is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.
If you stop thinking that the world is being run by smart people with stable personalities, and malign ambitions and flawed morals, then you don't need a conspiracy. Never attribute to conspiracy what you can assign to stupidity, ambition, or cowardice.
Whitty and Vallance don't say the things they say because they are conspiring to create Project Fear. Whitty's experience is with contagious diseases in Africa, which will lead him to think of zebras when he hears the sound of hooves, and Vallance comes from the pharmaceutical industry and wants a silver-bullet cure for everything. The man who caused the panic, Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, has never seen a virus he didn't think that culling thousands wouldn't stop. All three of them are willing patsies.
The truth is that the UK Cabinet could not stand the pressure from the press, and the peer-pressure from other governments who had already locked down. Weak-ass bitches.
It is fairly scary to think you live in a world run by dumb, often malicious, people with personality disorders. Even though the current situation has made it fairly clear that many of the Democrat politicians and elected officials in the USA are all of those things.
Over here, Nicola Sturgeon needs some quality time with a psychiatrist, Boris Johnson needs a while with a therapist, and Matt Hancock needs to grow the **** up? None of them understand that their job is not to tell us what to do. Their job is to oversee the large companies, and the institutions and organisations of the State, and stop them from cheating and swindling us. Oh and there's something about secure borders and putting the interests of the UK electorate before any other country's electorate. But I'm just old-fashioned, I guess.
One of my favourites is 'bureaucratic cover-up'. If you have ever worked in a bureaucracy, you will know that there is no need for anyone to arrange a cover-up of a cock-up. The people involved do it as automatically as they would arrange a working group to to delay a decision.
Combine the cock-up theory of history with the need of politicians and other members of the Establishment to maintain their position and privileges (and that's another motive no-one even needs to discuss), and you have a powerful explanatory tool.
The only reason we were in the shameful position of having a Prime Minister threatening his electorate with the Army is because of a half-robust broadband internet network in the towns and the wide availability of reasonably capable laptops. In 2000, there would have been no thought of sending people home to work, nor, I suspect would there have been in 2010.
Almost the entire Covid farce follows from the availability of high-speed broadband and laptops.
The rest follows from the fact that while politicians always were a bunch of morally-flawed people with latent personality disorders, once upon a time, even as recently as the 1970's, some of them were capable people with moral flaws and latent personality disorders. Now none of them are capable. Capable people can make much more money in other jobs, without needing to stain themselves with politics. Or university teaching. Or working in local or national government. There are no Civil Servants as capable as Sir Humphrey, though many may be as smug.
Have the sheer nerve to make those judgements out loud, and the need for elaborate conspiracy disappears. A converse of Asimov's Rule might be: any sufficiently stupid group action or decision is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.
If you stop thinking that the world is being run by smart people with stable personalities, and malign ambitions and flawed morals, then you don't need a conspiracy. Never attribute to conspiracy what you can assign to stupidity, ambition, or cowardice.
Whitty and Vallance don't say the things they say because they are conspiring to create Project Fear. Whitty's experience is with contagious diseases in Africa, which will lead him to think of zebras when he hears the sound of hooves, and Vallance comes from the pharmaceutical industry and wants a silver-bullet cure for everything. The man who caused the panic, Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, has never seen a virus he didn't think that culling thousands wouldn't stop. All three of them are willing patsies.
The truth is that the UK Cabinet could not stand the pressure from the press, and the peer-pressure from other governments who had already locked down. Weak-ass bitches.
It is fairly scary to think you live in a world run by dumb, often malicious, people with personality disorders. Even though the current situation has made it fairly clear that many of the Democrat politicians and elected officials in the USA are all of those things.
Over here, Nicola Sturgeon needs some quality time with a psychiatrist, Boris Johnson needs a while with a therapist, and Matt Hancock needs to grow the **** up? None of them understand that their job is not to tell us what to do. Their job is to oversee the large companies, and the institutions and organisations of the State, and stop them from cheating and swindling us. Oh and there's something about secure borders and putting the interests of the UK electorate before any other country's electorate. But I'm just old-fashioned, I guess.
Monday, 21 September 2020
Photographs I'm Printing (24)
(Olympus OM10 ?)
Sometime when I was working in Covent Garden for an obscure Finnish telco. London snow is wonderful while it is falling for the first time.
Monday, 14 September 2020
Thursday, 10 September 2020
The Consumer Economy Has Recovered...
I spent a while at work developing some MI to show how the consumer is doing. After a lot of experiment, I wound up with:
Personal loans taken split by credit risk
Personal loans taken split by credit risk
Savings deposits and withdrawals <£1,000
Month-end current account balances
Credit transactions (income, basically) by category in current accounts
Spending by category through current accounts and credit cards
All compared to the same month in 2019. The first three run as a time series. The graph shows if people are doing more or less of whatever it is.
Why these metrics?
Personal loans are a significant decision and commitment. You're not going to take one if you're feeling insecure about your future. What I found was that the best-risk customers were borrowing as much as they were a year ago, but the worse-risk customers were borrowing less. A lot less. My estimate is that 40% of the population don't feel secure.
Savings deposits or withdrawals tell us about how much cash people have spare or need. Withdrawals fell a lot in the lockdown, but are returning to last year's levels. Deposits are up slightly: the longer-distance London commuters are saving a lot, but there aren't that many of them, compared to the size of the workforce, most of whom do not have as much to save.
Current account balances at month-end tell you if people have enough money to get by. Overdrafts are down on last year, credit balances are up slightly.
Now sit down.
Income and spending are at the same levels as they were last year.
I told you to sit down.
Yes, 1.2m people have lost their jobs and are claiming benefit. My data shows me the share I expect to see. Yes, in July around 4m people were getting 80% of their salary on furlough. These things are hitting the lower-paid more. The net effect of them losing income, but getting benefits, and of pay rises on last year for the remaining 80% of the working population still in full-time employment, is about zero.
Spending is at about the same level. How can that be when The Ledbury has closed and no-one can fly anywhere? Those activities have a high profile - at least for elite London-based journalists - but are a very small proportion of the economy - and again, mostly employ lower-paid workers. The bulk of most people's spending is non-discretionary: food, water, gas, electric, council tax, landline, mobile, insurance, petrol, road tax and the rest. Of discretionary spending, people have been doing DIY, buying furniture, or upgrading TV's, signing up for streaming services and spending more in supermarkets. Less spending in high street shops, more via mail order. Winners and losers in a zero-sum game.
That recovery everyone thinks is going to happen?
It happened. This is it. Same money, different consumption. That's how consumerism rolls.
What this tells us is that, faced with disruptive nonsense, people will attempt to lead the best lives they can within the restrictions. That's why everyone who was working in over-crowded hot-desk offices went home in a flash. Or why people on furlough did DIY or really did learn to play the piano.
And local high streets, and smaller commuter towns, with cafes and family restaurants are doing well.
All compared to the same month in 2019. The first three run as a time series. The graph shows if people are doing more or less of whatever it is.
Why these metrics?
Personal loans are a significant decision and commitment. You're not going to take one if you're feeling insecure about your future. What I found was that the best-risk customers were borrowing as much as they were a year ago, but the worse-risk customers were borrowing less. A lot less. My estimate is that 40% of the population don't feel secure.
Savings deposits or withdrawals tell us about how much cash people have spare or need. Withdrawals fell a lot in the lockdown, but are returning to last year's levels. Deposits are up slightly: the longer-distance London commuters are saving a lot, but there aren't that many of them, compared to the size of the workforce, most of whom do not have as much to save.
Current account balances at month-end tell you if people have enough money to get by. Overdrafts are down on last year, credit balances are up slightly.
Now sit down.
Income and spending are at the same levels as they were last year.
I told you to sit down.
Yes, 1.2m people have lost their jobs and are claiming benefit. My data shows me the share I expect to see. Yes, in July around 4m people were getting 80% of their salary on furlough. These things are hitting the lower-paid more. The net effect of them losing income, but getting benefits, and of pay rises on last year for the remaining 80% of the working population still in full-time employment, is about zero.
Spending is at about the same level. How can that be when The Ledbury has closed and no-one can fly anywhere? Those activities have a high profile - at least for elite London-based journalists - but are a very small proportion of the economy - and again, mostly employ lower-paid workers. The bulk of most people's spending is non-discretionary: food, water, gas, electric, council tax, landline, mobile, insurance, petrol, road tax and the rest. Of discretionary spending, people have been doing DIY, buying furniture, or upgrading TV's, signing up for streaming services and spending more in supermarkets. Less spending in high street shops, more via mail order. Winners and losers in a zero-sum game.
That recovery everyone thinks is going to happen?
It happened. This is it. Same money, different consumption. That's how consumerism rolls.
What this tells us is that, faced with disruptive nonsense, people will attempt to lead the best lives they can within the restrictions. That's why everyone who was working in over-crowded hot-desk offices went home in a flash. Or why people on furlough did DIY or really did learn to play the piano.
And local high streets, and smaller commuter towns, with cafes and family restaurants are doing well.
Monday, 7 September 2020
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