Not that we think there's a coordinated plot here....

….but we’re entirely sure that at least some will have noted the implication, effect even, of such a ban:

If we ban second jobs for MPs now, we’ll soon wonder how they were ever allowed

Just for the avoidance of doubt, no, we’re not stupid enough to think that morals in Parliament - even if we just restrict ourselves to fiscal ones - are quite and wholly everything we should collectively be desiring.

Switch, for a moment, to the demand common enough in America these days. That no serving politician should retain control of their own money while in office - blind trusts all the way. Even, that Donald Trump should have entirely sold out of the family business. The effect of this is that anyone who has either the drive or fiscal acuity to build a business is barred from office. Anyone who has been successful in a capitalist - largely - and free market - OK, again only largely - economy is to be dissuaded from taking part in the ruling of a largely capitalist and free market economy.

Back to us here with Members of Parliament. A ban on any outside work would mean that anyone who had built a career outside politics and wanted to continue with it after politics would not be allowed to do so. Cincinnatus would not be allowed to go back to his farm because he’d not be allowed to maintain it while in office.

We end up in the same situation as that theoretic American one. Anyone who has been successful in that real world outside the halls of power is at best dissuaded and at worst banned from being part of the ruling caste of that outside world.

This being something which we rather doubt will increase the quality of the running and management of that outside world. We’d be left with only those who decided upon politics as a full time career and also only those who had no knowledge of anything other than politics. This would not be an advance.

The rot of their dead body politic fills the nostrils of the earth with a glorious stink

32nd anniversaries are not normally chosen for particular remembrance but what the heck, this is the grand moment of the past half-century.

From Conrad Schumann’s jump through to the Pan-European picnic there was a vileness that cut across Europe. And then on the 9th of November 1989 there wasn’t. Yes, the system, the entire countries condemned to oppression, more can be said about all of them but this specific and particular symbol finally fell.

Mr. O’Rourke:

The East German border guards didn’t interfere. Instead they came up to openings in the Wall and made V-signs and posed for photographs. One of them even stuck his hand through and asked would somebody please give him a piece of concrete to keep as a souvenir.

The hand of that border guard - that disembodied, palm-up, begging hand…..I looked at that and I began to cry.

I really didn’t understand before that moment, I didn’t realise until just then - we won.

…

We won. And let’s not let anybody forget it. We the people, the free and equal citizens of democracies, we exemplars of the Rights of Man tore a new asshole in International Communism. Their wall is breached. Their gut string is busted. The rot of their dead body politic fills the nostrils of the earth with a glorious stink. We cleaned the clock of Marxism. We mopped the floor with them. We ran the Reds through the wringer and hung them out to dry. The privileges of liberty and the sanctity of the individual went out and whipped butt.

It’s possible to track it down to one specific moment too. In all those miles of videotape that exist out there of that night. Just before the barriers came up. The Border Guards had not been informed about the change in policy even as crowds were arriving to take advantage of it. A small group were, umm, discussing events with an officer of that Border Guard. Stating that the news was out, they could cross. He, that officer, insisting that he had no directions. So, if they tried then there would be repercussions. Possibly shots, as with so many hundreds before. All should go home and await formal announcements etc.

At which point the citizenry laughed. And that’s the moment, that’s the ripening of the glorious stink of that body politic. When the man in the street - here quite literally, not a euphemism or synonym of any kind - laughs in the face of the bastards with the guns then it’s all, finally, over.

There are times when there’s just nothing for it but the Happy Dance.

Fortunately it's only £9,000

We think this might be overpaying a little even at this low sum:

The National Railway Museum will investigate steam trains for links to slavery as forces behind the expansion of colonial power are readdressed.

The museum, in York, is one of a group of organisations examining how steam power aided imperial expansion and drove sugar mills on plantations and cotton gins in industrial cities.

Trains will be assessed for their role in facilitating expansion, according to experts involved in the £9,000 research project – entitled "Slavery and Steam: steam power, railways and colonialism" – which is backed by the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.

Given that Stephenson proved the viability of railways after the abolition of the slave trade and only just before the Empire abolition of slavery we’d think that the link might not be all that great. Between railways and causing or exploiting slavery that is.

The correct link between steam engines, rather than steam rail, and slavery is that the one entirely destroyed the economics of the other. Yes, Adam Smith did indeed suggest that free labour was more productive than slave. But it was mechanical power being made available that wholly killed the necessity of human and animal muscle power as the energy source of the civilisation.

£9,000 does seem a little much to be spending to confirm that already well known point. But then it is only £9,000 so why not allow them their little fun?

Apparently skimpflation is the new thing

To be a public commentator it is necessary to continually find some new thing to comment about. It’s the same with “influencers” on TokTok and the like - it must always be next week’s trend to be showcased, no one gets famous by being old fashioned. Which brings us to this new concept of skimpflation:

“Nothing prepared us for how much life has gotten worse,” Cole told the Guardian. “Most of these factors haven’t been picked up on by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We thought these changes to products were going to be temporary, so it was reasonable not to account for the changes. But now everything has got worse all at the same time, so even if you tried to account for them, you probably couldn’t.”

Even if skimpflation cannot be measured conveniently, consumers have certainly noticed that the quality of service seems to be deteriorating everywhere. Consumer satisfaction indices are trending down, as they have been since before the onset of the pandemic, while consumer confidence was mildly better last month after dropping over the summer.

The thing is this isn’t new. In fact, it’s what those in our right minds have been warning about concerning the minimum wage.

There are a number of axes along which producers can adapt to a change in the price of inputs. One of which is simply make the product worse. Which is one of the things we said could/would hap[pen from a rise in the price of labour. That the offerings to us consumers would decline in quality. Here we have the effects of a rise in the cost of labour and the pointing is to the decline in the quality being offered to consumers.

We ourselves will just have to remain unfamous therefore by continuing to be old fashioned. A rise in the price of labour reduces the quality of products offered to consumers. And?

The incoherence at the heart of the Mazzucato Plan

Mariana Mazzucato has a plan for sorting out the world. It suffers fro a number of problems, only one of which is an illusory belief in governmental competence. There’s a logical contradiction in there.

If we want to ensure a socially just – and thus effective – transition, green investment banks must be governed democratically, and their financial assets should be shared collectively among workers and citizens. This could take the form of a citizens’ dividend that would provide everyone with a guaranteed minimum income, for example.

This is presupposing that the entire plan is profitable. Well, OK. But then if the plan is profitable then the use of green investment banks, governmental insistences, forcings and so on aren’t necessary.

Just assume, for a moment, that the initial diagnosis is correct. There’s a climate change problem, we’re causing it and something must be done. It’s possible that the something which must be done is not conventionally profitable therefore the investment won’t arrive under its own steam. Thus the forcing by government is required.

Or, alternatively, the system is altered so that such investment is conventionally profitable. Externalities are internalised, climate costs are now in prices, green investment makes sense in traditional money grubbing terms.

We would all agree that the capitalists are greedy for profit - sorry, are motivated by their enlightened self-interest. That means that we only require - again, assuming the base diagnosis is itself correct - one of the two sets of actions.

We either require the forcing into unprofitable investment or, having adjusted the system’s incentives, we stand back and gawp at the rush for the lucre to be had by going green.

What cannot possibly be true is that we’ve this gushing fountain of profit to be had which we also have to force finance to gulp from. And yet that’s what the insistence is. There’s going to be this massive profit to be had from greenery which must be shared directly among the citizenry but also we’ve got to force finance into partaking because there’s no profit available in their doing so.

We can’t believe that we’re the only people to spot this logical contradiction at the heart of this plan for the species. But then it never is popular to be pointing to the errors in recitations of currently fashionable nostrums, is it? However contradictory they are when piled upon each other.

So, what are we all going to do about aviation and climate change?

We’ve always struggled with the opprobrium aimed at flying when considering climate change. Currently the sector is some 2% of emissions which makes it an entirely marginal issue. Even when claims about the future are made - that it will be 20% of emissions say - that’s because total emissions will fall, not because aviation ones will rise all that much. Further, whatever limitations there should be, or will be, upon emissions we want those that can happen to be devoted to the highest value use possible. That being the very definition of being richer, that scarce resources are devoted to their highest valued use.

Combine this with the cornerstone of any liberal polity, that it is the individual that determines value - not some bansturbator in an office nor even majoritarian imposition - then if people wish to fly then why shouldn’t they? Staying within those necessary limits, of course.

However, even the debate itself seems to be missing technological advance. It’s possible to imagine all sorts of outcomes here. Plastering the planet with a network of trains say. Taking a week - instead of that month by rail - to get somewhere by airship. Limiting long distance travel only to the antinomian elite such as those visiting Glasgow this week.

Or, what we think is far more likely to happen. Synthetic aviation fuel:

Rolls-Royce, working with Boeing and World Energy, has carried out a successful test flight of its 747 Flying Testbed aircraft using 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) on a Trent 1000 engine.

SAF might not meet everyone’s definition of sustainable, true. But insisting that it isn’t also means that all biofuels are not, that burning American woodchips in Drax isn’t and so on.

It’s also possible to see a pathway to something that is sustainable by any definition. Really cheap solar power (Abu Dhabi is apparently managing 1.5 US cents per kWh in new auctions) the electrolysis of water and once you’ve got H2 then hydrocarbons are easy enough. Yes, this might well still be more expensive than current fuels but this is rather the point we’re interested in. Observation of people tells us that they really, really, value being able to leave on a jetplane.

We do not, by the way, offer this as investment advice or anything like that. That route to truly sustainable flying is one of those that is obviously technologically possible and the jury is entirely out on whether it is economically so.

Which does, finally, bring us to our point here. Imagine that it does work out that way. Synthetic jetfuel turns out to be entirely useful and appropriate. We then get to use the standard infrastructure of currently extant airports, ‘planes and so on to continue to travel much as we did before ‘rona. No, just imagine, as a thought experiment.

There are those out there who would decry this, aren’t there? The conclusion we must reach about those people being that their opposition to population mobility is an opposition to population mobility, climate change is just an excuse.

Trains aren't as green as all that you know

An interesting number from the trains regulator:

Due to the effects of the pandemic, passenger kilometres fell by 81% and trains planned fell by 22% compared with 2019-20. As a result, estimated normalised CO2e emissions increased by 316% from 35.2g to 146.5g CO2e per passenger kilometre.

Which we can compare to:

The average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new passenger cars registered in the European Union (EU) in 2018 increased for the second consecutive year, reaching 120.4 grams of CO2 per kilometre.

Yes, clearly, lockdown was exceptional. The point being - and it’s an obvious one but all too rarely baldly stated to our mind - that emissions from any particular mode of transport depend upon the capacity utilisation of that mode.

Empty trains have greater emissions, per passenger km, that single occupancy cars. Further, a little manipulation tells us that a four occupant car has about the same emissions as the average pre-lockdown and special circumstances train journey.

Trains just aren’t as green as many seem to think, nor cars as un-green as the general insistence.

There is also a point that can be derived from this. For a train system to be properly green, as is generally assumed it always will be, it has to be packed. It’s not possible to have a system that goes everywhere, at all hours, with lots of spare capacity, and still have it be green. We can have green transport by the usual measures. But it does require that the trains which are a part of it be a heaving mass of folk fighting for a seat. Or, obviously, just as green, four people in a car.

If only Polly Toynbee understood matters

At least half an excuse for getting that fatted calf backing up away from the bludgeon:

Here’s one action that will be necessary: carbon taxes. Writing in the Financial Times, the economist Tim Harford recently suggested that every product needs a carbon price attached, sending a signal not just to the buyer, but right down every supply chain to use less energy in growing, manufacturing and transporting a product to attract less tax.

This is hardly a new idea and it’s not unique to Tim Harford. Bill Nordhaus gained his Nobel for pointing it out, Nick Stern his peerage. For that is the lesson of the Stern Review. If we accept - whether you do or not is entirely up to you - the basic idea that climate change is a problem we should do something about then the thing we should do is a carbon tax at the social cost of carbon.

Much as it will shock Polly this being something we here have been saying for decades. Get on with it in fact.

That will be necessary. But any climate-abating tax brings on green crocodile tears for poor people, often from the same Tory MPs who just voted to remove the £20 universal credit uplift. The claim that carbon taxes would disproportionately affect the poorest people was what killed off the fuel price escalator – a yearly tax increase devised by the Tories in 1993 to discourage driving – after owner-driver hauliers blockaded oil refineries in 2000. When the climate demands that fuel taxes rise, politicians make them fall.

That being where Polly is failing to grasp the important point. A carbon tax does not mean “tax carbon ever more”. It means “tax carbon this much and no more”.

Back a decade and a bit the fuel duty escalator was too high as a tax upon those emissions. As we pointed out once upon a time (now sadly lost to the ether, sorry) that hike in fuel duty that Ken Clarke started “to meet our Rio commitments” was 11 pence a litre too high when compared with the social cost of carbon.

The correct solution to climate change thus requiring lower fuel duty, not higher. Of course, this being politics no actual cut was made. Instead, not raising the tax again and allowing inflation to degrade the value of it reaches the same end point.

The IMF just proved this for us too. On page 18 here. UK petrol and diesel is near exactly properly taxed to take account of the expenses of emissions, local air pollution, accidents, congestion and the existence or not of VAT.

Just for the hard of understanding - or hearing perhaps - Pigou Taxes mean the right amount of taxation, not more.

If only there were some system of deciding what to do here

We’re told that lots of something that people use is in lots of things that people use:

About 7% of the world’s gold supplies are trapped inside existing electronic devices, meaning that, according to some estimates, by 2080 the largest metal reserves will not be underground but in circulation as existing products. What’s more, one tonne of extracted gold ore yields 3g of gold, whereas recycling one tonne of mobile phones yields 300g. So waste dumps and landfill sites are the new resource-rich mines.

Gold could be lying around in some mountain somewhere or it could be in some handy or TV that people like to use. We think we’re just fine with the idea that some portion of it is in use rather than lying around in some mountain.

We’d also note that it’s not actually unusual for some large portion of available metal to be in use somewhere. AT&T spent much of the 1970s paranoid that someone would realise that their telephone network was the world’s largest store of refined - and increasingly valuable - copper.

But it’s clear that folk are shocked by this. Or at least worried about that value that might be missed at the end of useful life of the electronics. If only we could devise some system that could sort this out for us. Aid in deciding what to do with that waste even.

Which, of course, we have. That combination of human greed - sorry, enlightened self interest - and the price system. When gold is profitable to extract from waste electronics then gold will be extracted from waste electronics. That lust for lucre will see to that.

That is, assuming that those facts on offer are true (not something we’d wholly agree with, gold plating in modern electronics is much thinner than the old stuff these numbers are derived from) then we’ve already the decision making process in place. The political and societal task then becomes being wise enough to leave it be and allow it to work to its conclusion.

In honour of this week's screaming match about the environment

COP26 is going to lead to an awful lot of insistences that we’re all gonna die, right now, unless we - well, unless we do whatever it is that the person screaming demands. Kill the use of fossil fuels, send $100 billion a year to the despots of poor countries, stop eating red meat, return to the life patterns of medieval peasantry and so on.

We’ve also been told this a number of times before, memory isn’t what it once was but we’d start with an estimate of at least 25 times so far, given that that appears to be how many COPs there have been.

At which point a small examination of another warning of environmental disaster. This comes from the New Scientist of 2007 and has been added to varied school curricula along the way. It’s not just some passing error. George Monbiot, just to name one, was using it as a reference to bolster his argument.

…both indium and hafnium – which is increasingly important in computer chips – could be gone by 2017, and terbium – used to make the green phosphors in fluorescent light bulbs – could run out before 2012.

Indium did not run out in 2017, terbium is still available despite that posited end date of 2013 and the idea that hafnium will ever run out at anything like current consumption volumes is a gross absurdity.

The thing about science is that when an hypothesis meets reality it’s reality that wins, not the idea. The process of science is to examine hypotheses (yes, we know hypothethi is wrong but rather fancy it all the same) and, where reality does disagree with them, change the idea so that it does accord with the facts the universe is presenting to us.

What went wrong here is explained in full in this (free) book. The short answer being that those who made the prediction had no knowledge of metals, minerals, mineral reserves, mineral resources, extraction techniques or even the definitions of most of them. All certain handicaps to trying to measure the availability of metals, minerals, the relationship between them and reserves, resources and so on.

We do not say that every assertion made this week in Glasgow will be as idiotic as our example here. But every one does need to be subjected to the same scepticism. For that is actually the scientific method, that assertions are tested against reality and it is always reality that wins.