Profligate Economics

Listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning I heard an economist suggest that we needed higher inflation to revive the economy.

The Keynesian remedy for recession is a combination of budget deficit and inflation. However we have both, and the economy is still in recession, though only just.

It does appear that what stimulates the economy may be not deficit and inflation per se but increasing deficit and inflation, so the proposed remedy risks precipitating hyper inflation.

Jumbled Languages

News broadcasts keep referring to an entity they call 'Bayern Munich'

I suspect that the name is actually 'Bayern München' Rendering that into English would give 'Bavarian Munich' Either the German form, or the English, would be acceptable, but the mixture of languages irritates me.


I wonder why the umlaut was followed by a change of font and ink colour.

Google Analytics

I was alarmed by the EU restrictions on the use of cookies, fearing that without Google Analytics I should have little idea how frequently my site is visited.

I checked the statistics collected by company that hosts my website, and realised that everything I need to know is available there. I also found that Analytics seems to have been detecting only about a third of the visits to my site.

I guess that many people set their browsers to reject cookies, so that their visits are not recorded.

Apparently I shall be better off without Analytics.

An Expensive Way to Produce Books

I recently asked a bookshop if a particular book was available. After some investigation, they assured me that it was available only by a procedure called 'print on demand', at a price of 90 pounds, which seemed a lot for a 310 page book originally published at 20 pounds.

It would be better to offer it in digital form.

Innumerate Journalism

I've just looked at the BBC web site to see the results of the first round of the French Presidential Election.

I gather there were ten candidates, so I hoped to see a list of the candidates stating the vote won by each.

I couldn't find anything of the sort. There were long chatty articles, with a percentage thrown in here or there, but there was no systematic treatment.

It often appears that journalists dislike precision.

Abuse of Monopoly

I've already blogged in complaint at the increase in postal rates, but I find the attempt by the Post Office to prevent people stockpiling stamps especially infuriating.

The post Office has a (partial) monopoly of the handling of small items, and that monopoly is not something that has emerged from the operation of the market; it is enforced by the law.

An excuse for maintaining the monopoly is that, were competition allowed, competitors would concentrate on the easy wok of delivering in urban areas where houses are close together, and neglect isolated houses in the country. As it's much easier to deliver to houses in rows, it seems to me reasonable that post to urban destinations should be cheaper.

The monopoly should end.

Meanwhile I shall use the post only for communications that I cannot make in any other way. I shall send no more picture postcards, Christmas cards or chatty letters.

My First Simnel Cake

I'd often heard of Simnel cakes, but until two days ago I'd never tried one.

Noticing some in Sainsbury's just before Easter, I reflected that they'd be available at half price after Easter. They were, so I bought one.

I found it quite agreeable, but a little too sweet.

I'm glad I waited till after Easter.

A Lingering Moment

"This moment may last for several months yet" I heard someone say on the BBC Radio 4 news.

When I hear such comments, I wonder what may be going on in the mind of the speaker.

Postage

When I bought some first class stamps a few weeks ago, I was astonished to find that 12 stamps cost more than 5 pounds. Before I got round to blogging about that, I learnt that there is to be further price increase, this time to 60p.

When I worked in Lincolnshire an occasional treat was the five course dinner at the Grand Hotel in Lincoln; it cost 12/6, only slightly higher than today's first class stamp.

In those days a modest cheap and cheerful three course 'business lunch' could be had for less than 4 shillings.

Even allowing for inflation, sending a letter is becoming a serious expense, and one that can usually be avoided by sending email or telephoning.

Had I not largely abandoned Christmas cards last year, I should have resolved to do so now.

I wonder how long we shall have a Post Office ?

After the Arab Spring, the Arab Winter.

Various Arab states seem to have disposed of one set of obnoxious rulers only to get another set not conspicuously more virtuous than the first lot, and less capable of maintaining order.

We are urged to intervene in Syria to help bring about a similar change there, so that a new government can set about the popular task of persecuting minorities.

I very much hope our Government will not intervene.

For once I'm glad of the Russian veto in the UN Security Council. That it is self interested does not prevent its being useful.

A Cheerful Pensioner Refuses to Sulk

Some politicians discussing the budget tell me I ought to be discontented because my personal income tax allowance has not been increased while other people's allowances have been.

Yet I have lost nothing. My personal allowance has not been reduced. I just had an increase a few years earlier than other people; now they are being allowed to catch up.

There are several consolations for being a pensioner. One need not work, one doesn't make National Insurance contributions, and bus travel is free.

I refuse to feel aggrieved just to feed the ambitions of unscrupulous politicians.

In the Service of God.

I've just seen this in the Daily Telegraph:

"The Dutch government has promised to investigate "very serious and shocking" allegations that hundreds of teenage boys and young men were castrated while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic Church as a treatment for homosexuality in the 1950s."

there's more at:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7j495ge

Apparently there were cases of young boys being castrated after complaining of sexual abuse at the hands (or should I say penises ?) of priests.

Now that they are on the defensive Priests confine their homophobia to whining about the meaning of the word 'marriage", so it is instructive to recall what they were capable of when intoxicated by the servile adulation of a gullible flock.

Human employers are held responsible for the misconduct of their employees, yet theologians never apply that rule to God.