But I also hope that this brings into the minds of those who are at the very pinnacle of our society, the loss and devastation of those more vulnerable around the world. The losses that they have experienced for generations.
Gaza.
The displaced of Ukraine.
Sudan, the world’s worst catastrophe caused through War.
And countless others, both conflicts and areas subject to natural disaster. These people have memories. They had schools that they once went to, now destroyed.
Gaza, of all of these, is the most pernicious and industrial scale of destruction, and from whom Western eyes of solidarity seemed to have found it the most easy to turn away from…
Tariffs: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”
Where do we start with the very bad idea that tariffs are good for anybody? “Tariff is a beautiful word”. When I first heard that Trump had said this I genuinely didn’t understand it. I thought perhaps it was a misspeak or something – so obvious is the fact that tariffs are only a force for damaging both the imposer of the tariff, as well as the recipient.
David Ricardo is one of the founding fathers of Economics and his instrumental principle of Comparative Advantage has led to the creation of international trade, in which countries that excel at producing certain things trade them with countries that excel at producing different things. Ergo, the net gain is greater than the sum of its parts. Even this statement shouldn’t really need to be explained: the fact that we trade, is itself a benefit. By imposing stringent tariffs on any product – and particularly a technologically advanced product, from which by exposure to the presence of that product in our marketplace, it is likely to prompt competitive innovation in the production of a rival product, or novel and innovative ways of including this product in day-to-day living, in ways that had previously not been considered. Either way, invariably it is a win-win. The fact that BYD appears to have become better at making electric cars than Tesla, may not be great news for Tesla but it’s certainly is for the consumer, and thus the transition to electric vehicles.
Tariffs are a very powerful mechanism for the retardation of economic growth. They are also a fairly effective mechanism for prompting homegrown inflation, requiring either domestic interest rate rises, or at best delayed interest rate reductions – all of which will further retard investment in potentially additional productive capacity: thereby reducing economic growth. A downward spiral of retrenchment, both economically and technologically.
And that is before we get into the geopolitics of isolationism. Again, it’s Diplomacy 101: talking with, and trading with economic partners, particularly post Second World War, has shown that we are much less likely to invade each other and treat each other as a latent threat.
Trump’s ascendancy, like Brexit, doesn’t have an economic rationale. It’s a sociological and political manifestation of fear: fear of the unknown, fear of “the other”; fear of being swamped, fear of losing identity, sovereignty and self-determination… Time after time history has shown us that isolationism and retrenchment exacerbates these fears rather than alleviating them. Tariff is not a beautiful word.
For Economic Policy to work, two things have to be right: the Economics, and the Policy. In an earlier post I said, “it’s not rocket science.”
Apparently I miss spoke.
For all the managerial competence that Rishi Sunak exuded when he competed against Liz Truss for the Premiership of our country, in Government he has proven himself always to be following events, rather than creating them…
There are a couple of key caveats that even the most ardent libertarians allow for as an activity of the State in the provision of Government – the first of which is defense of the Nation. By announcing a new plan for national conscription of all 18-year-olds, Sunak displays a bizarre magnetism towards both bad economics and bad policy. The economics is quite simple: this is additional government spending, for actually a disbenefit, rather than a benefit. It is throwing money out of the window, just because you like the patterns it makes in the wind… Prior of course, to he himself being thrown out of the window by the British public.
The stated policy for several decades of the UK Government in relation to defence was that we, as a country, should be able to mount two significant continental land-based wars at the same time. From our history as a colonial power it was implicitly understood that one of these wars may well be in the far East. The logistical support to a war on the other side of the world cannot easily be underestimated. The other hypothetical war was anticipated to be within the European land mass, and therefore supportable and sustainable. Currently we would struggle to deploy 5,000 soldiers in an operational capacity. This is fewer than the numbers currently defending the Kiev region alone.
National Conscription hobbles our already significantly hobbled military. Instead of autonomously being able to pursue two independent land wars simultaneously, there has been a subtle yet powerful shift towards being entirely dependent on NATO’s Article 5 regarding collective security. This, as an independent nuclear state, was never previously the UK’s position. It is a complete philosophical surrendering of our active leadership role, and an acceptance of the denudation of our military prowess. Moreover, it admits to a diminution of our status as a global power in world diplomacy.
Accruing additional debt, and diverting strained military resources, to facilitate 18-year-olds, “escaping their bubble”, is not what we elect a government to do on our behalf. Policy switches such as these appear to have come from a cosseted and privileged mindset that hasn’t had the wherewithal to test them, either with the military or the public. In doing so, I believe that Sunak has gifted Kier Starmer an additional two to three percentage point lead on his forthcoming defeat at the General Election.
There is a huge amount to be said for a shifting in the balance of power from the employer to the employee. Covid genuinely brought home to so many people that whatever we had previously believed – there simply is more to life than work. That wonderful phrase, hard to top: nobody ever said they wanted this on their gravestone, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office”…
I’ve always tried quite hard to maintain several strings to my bow, and I do not consider them strings unless I am actually competent at them. Fitness helps enormously with depression – yet standing in front of a mirror doing repetitious biceps curls, is itself depressing. So, I very much believe the skill is in combining fitness with an activity that has a progressive and deep culture all of its own. This is fitness with a purpose; fitness with an outcome… Lots of professionals do physical sports, whether they be team sports or individual pursuits. I’ve done martial arts for several years, and believe me it’s said with pride not arrogance, that I can jump up spin round and kick higher than my own head height, at 54!! But… much more than this, and I believe with a far greater read across to my broader fields of Economics, business and politics, is Mountaineering. Trying to discern undulations in gradient change on a landscape, in a whiteout, requires the same type of instinct that an Economist would apply in understanding the integration of a new technology into a previous flat industry…
So how do we value the non monetary facets of our life? You don’t need to be an industrial psychologist to realise that it is likely to bring with it financial gains. A happier employee/ independent…is likely to be a more productive worker. A more productive worker is a more profitable worker. Combining these two is also likely to give you a more insightful worker. Stepping away from the coal face affords you mental clarity, and a bit of distance to gain a new perspective… This is not rocket science – even if you’re a rocket scientist! 😊
Where have you been for the past 15 years or more, whilst you have been happily accepting Government contracts of between £200M and £400M of UK tax payers money per year? I’m not a database expert yet even I know that if you have a maintenance contract, with ongoing monitoring and supply management – that if your bespoke product has even the inkling of giving wrong readings – that given your client is a nationally recognized and household brand, in The Post Office, and given that the expedition of your service is conducted through third party small business subcontractors, who actually are your client base – then for me, equal culpability to that of the Post Office, lies with Fujitsu.
Companies have been speaking about Corporate Social Responsibility for over a decade, and yet there can be no other case with as much social responsibility, liability, or moreover moral obligation, as this Post Office scandal? The fact that Fujitsu have not lead from the front in terms of any visible attempt at restitution whatsoever, let alone a corporate PR mea culpa, is in my eyes absolutely astonishing. Were I a legislator, I personally would recommend they be excluded from tendering for future Government contracts for a period of at least 10 years – or arguably as long as the time that has elapsed since the first warning of their systems failure was brought to their attention.
These IT behemoths cannot take it as a given that UK Government – or indeed any government – is beholden to their services. This is what a competitive tendering system is for. Every facet of contract management in the promotion, maintenance and continuation of the Horizon platform needs to be scrutinized by forensic IT and legal specialists, and I would propose a framework for the exiting of the use of the Horizon platform, and its replacement. This is what database management companies do when they take over legacy systems, no matter how complex those systems are, and I am skeptical that the Post Office settlement system is anywhere near as complicated as legacy NHS patient databases, that have been in the process of migration for many years.
It is possible. As the outrage that has finally been provoked and the furore that this has caused, it is also necessary. Every single penny UK Government pays sub-postmasters in compensation should be refunded directly by Fujitsu, and I would argue, more.
Fujitsu should have been all over this; their corporate reputation should not survive, and there are numerous other cases were companies have imploded when they are guilty of such commercial and arguably, moral, failure.
To start with such a comment as, “Israel has the right for self-defence”, is now, in my eyes, an act of apologism.
Of course Israel has the right for self-defense. What it doesn’t have the right of, is unimpugnable, repeated, and State directed acts of war crimes. Disproportionate to the extreme: essentially war crimes themselves, as an act of military offense. Collective punishment and forced displacement are war crimes. The legal minutiae of justification is indeed complex, such that there are those skilled in the Law of Arm Conflict, who state “the estimated offensive outcomes prevented, by attacking a place of (otherwise) safe harbour, if the enemy are known to be hiding in such a place, are justified in the Laws of War, if the estimated acts’ prevented are greater than the offensive act on the (otherwise) safe harbour.” This is offense in regards to proportionality and preemption – which of course has its place in warfare. However given the sheer level of disproportionality, this means in practice, Israel is conducting its war with one eye on constructing a future defense to the International Criminal Court.
Yet this is not how the court of public opinion works, and there is such a court, and it’s important. If, in Israel’s eyes, moral equivalency exists here – then each Israeli Jewish citizen is worth six and a half Palestinians, at the current death rate. And given that roughly two thirds of Palestinians are children, this equates to 6,000 children dead, of the estimated 9,000 total. Very few of these children, I would suspect, are trained Hamas mercenaries.
1400 dead Jewish Israelis is indeed an atrocity – a terrorist atrocity. Collective punishment is not the correct response. Death ratio’s such as this, justified on grounds of moral equivalency, are also perceived in more simplistic terms – and that is racism. It says to the outside world, “I am worth more than you.” The average death ratio of Palestinian to Israeli Jew, roughly across the last 20 years of conflicts, equates roughly to 13-1. On current trajectory this means Israel needs to kill 9,000 more Palestinians, just to get to the average. Is this not ridiculous? Yet how much more so than the 9,000 currently dead?
This is not to even mention the economic cost of devastating infrastructural destruction, to the tune of perhaps, who knows – but a fair guestimation from previous conflicts would be of the order of $50 to $80 billion dollars in infrastructure cost? This is also to not account for the productivity lost in the absence of such industrial capacity – even if this capacity is indeed represented through the actions of small traders and mercantilism, typical of the way a Gazan economy, whose access to a more sophisticated and modern world of production and financial transactions, necessarily has to conduct itself.
Beyond racism and enforced economic dislocation, we come onto the fundamental question of Survival.
By such disproportionate actions, Israel is blithely damaging its future security. The Abraham Accords are a series of treaties designed to integrate Israel into the economics and international politics of its Arab neighbours – surely a wholly wonderful thing? These are likely, almost certainly, suspended – if not even to be rescinded. Palestinians have often been treated as the poor cousin within the Arab brotherhood, and yet the neighbouring nations are almost surely likely to embrace again their claim for Statehood within a State. In my view a one state solution is actually more problematic for Israelis, as it can only function with equal rights for all citizens. If Israel believed in equal rights it would never have annexed such swathes of the West Bank.
You cannot kill an ideology – nor should you appease it. In the United Kingdom, the Bloody Sunday atrocity was a calling card to the IRA. Undoubtedly this led to a lengthening and deepening of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Never in modern history, has a war, on its own terms, been conducive to a lasting peace. And the only way prior to modern history that war was indeed conducive to securing a lasting peace – was to kill the entirety of one’s enemy. Given that Israel seems unable to differentiate Hamas from civilian Palestinians, is this something that she is willing to do? If not, the only show in town is a negotiated and diplomatic solution.
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