Nick Stern had it right in his Review

One of the points in the Stern Review is that whatever it is that we do about climate change we’ve got to do it the efficient way. As is obvious about us humans, we do more of cheaper things, less of more expensive. So, if we want to deal with climate change then we’ve got to do it the cheap, efficient, way because that’s how we’ll do more of the dealing with climate change.

The logic there is inescapable. We also though need to mix into this not just the expense and inefficiency of planning by politicians but also the blind idiocy.

We like to think of wood burning as a climate neutral source of energy. This has led to subsidised wood burning for electricity generation and is part of the appeal of an evening around a roaring fire. This idea relies on the carbon released from wood burning being reabsorbed by forests and woodland. Reality is more complex.

Firstly, it takes time for new forests to regrow and absorb the carbon. For large-scale wood burning for power generation using wood imported from North America, it can take decades or perhaps more than a century for forests to reabsorb this additional carbon from our air. This means greater chances of irreversible climate tipping points before any possible benefits accrue.

Sticking American woodchip into Drax increases, not reduces, climate change. We’ve seen one estimate - which we simply mention, not insist upon the veracity of - that says the process, including transport, produces more emissions than simply burning the coal that Drax is built on top of.

We might also note the German idea of reducing emissions by retreating back to using more lignite. Or the EU insistence upon biofuels that produce more emissions in their growing than they save at the tailpipe.

The actual problem with planning to beat climate change is that our ruling classes aren’t competent to do so. By their works shall ye know them….

People do so often get correlation wrong

Slightly old news from the annals of public health research. Food swamps are the cause of obesity. Or at least correlated and then the causation assumed.

Food Swamps Predict Obesity Rates Better Than Food Deserts in the United States

We’ve always had a sneaking desire to call them food desserts given the link with obesity but that “definition” is that it’s a place beyond waddling distance of a supermarket with a fresh veggies section. A food swamp is a place where you cannot move for fast food outlets.

An area stuffed with burger joints and chippies correlates better with obesity than one without cucumber vendors - so, the leap to causation becomes obvious, does it not? Limit the number of fast food outlets and folk will become slimmer.

Except we do have that logical razor that we should use, Occam’s Shaving Kit. Simple explanations are to be preferred where they exist. Obesity is correctly identified in our modern world as being something that poor people suffer from. It’s a glorious sign of how far we’ve come that the poor are fat. Poor people, rather by definition, don’t have much money - they tend to live in the cheap parts of town.

Fast food retailing is not a notably high margin business. The sheer number of outlets is proof of that - you know, the competition thing? So, fast food outlets will be where rents are low - the cheap part of town.

This neatly explains that correlation between obesity and the plethora of fast food outlets.

The lovely thing about science is that it actually works. Put up an hypothesis about why and how something works and the intent is to then shoot it down. Prove it wrong that is. So, grand, we’ll continue with this hypothesis until someone proves it wrong then. Good luck.

Poor people and burger joints are in the same places because that’s where rents are cheap.

Curbing the Mickey Mouse degrees

The government is trying to micromanage university degrees by attempting to cut down on the so-called Mickey Mouse degrees which are largely valueless in terms of career potential. Someone suggested that any university course which has the word “studies” at the end of it should be regarded as deeply suspect, with the notable exception of War Studies at Kings College, London, widely regarded as one of the very best university courses in the UK if not the world.

After expanding university admissions during the Blair years, the government now wishes to act against institutions that charge full fees for comparatively worthless qualifications. It now proposes that students who lack English and maths GCSEs, or two A-levels at grade E, should not qualify for a student loan in England. Their point is perhaps that students who graduate in courses such as “inequality studies” will go tens of thousands of pounds into debt for a qualification that will not help them into a job, except perhaps in an NGO promoting class division and conflict.

This is typical of government micromanagement, adding details in order to alleviate a problem that they themselves caused in the first place. The alternative to stepping deeply into more detail might be to step back and go into less detail. The government allows university students to take out loans, thereby giving its approval to university education as opposed to other career pathways that people might otherwise follow. Now it wants to specify which students shall be entitled to those loans.

It might instead seriously consider extending the availability of loans to all those reaching the age of 18 whether or not they choose to use those loans to pay for university education. Some of them might want to use that money to pay for equipment with which to build a career, or to go into business as budding entrepreneurs. Some of them might want to finance training schemes that will give them a qualification other than a university degree that might be more valuable to them in future employment. Instead of specifying the details of what they approve of and are prepared to sanction, the government might leave that to the individuals aged 18 to decide for themselves if they wish to take out a loan and how they might choose to use it.

The Civil Service, nearly all university educated, might recoil from the idea that individuals might want to decide things for themselves instead of being channeled into approved directions, but they might consider the effect such a move might have on social and economic inequality. The claim is often made that concentration on academic success holds back those from disadvantaged backgrounds, whereas such a move might allow them the opportunities to get ahead in fields that do not necessarily require the academic skills

To make loans available to all 18-year-olds would be a startling reform, but sometimes a system that doesn’t work needs to be replaced by one that does, instead of being merely tinkered with at the edges.

Is John Vidal merely ill-informed or is he actually this dim?

We think this is an interesting question. John Vidal complains about ghost flights by the airlines:

Flying empty or near-empty planes around just to hold on to landing slots at airports now seems close to “ecocide” – an act of deliberate destruction of the environment. A staggering 15,000 ghost flights flew from UK airports between March 2020 and September 2021.

We’d not say ecocide ourselves, emissions from flights are about 2% of whatever problem there is so not a major factor. But yes, flying empty planes in and out of airports merely to hold on to the right to fly in and out of an airport is somewhere between silly and daft. But it’s the next bit that makes us fear for Mr. Vidal’s intellect:

These flights are a symptom of an unregulated, highly protected industry encouraged to keep growing without responsibility.

It’s that word “unregulated”. Airlines would obviously prefer not to be flying ‘planes with no passengers - that’s costs with no revenue. So why do they do it? Because in order to maintain the right to fly in and out of an airport - to maintain the “landing slot” - you must maintain the flights in and out of that airport in that landing slot. The law states that you must do this. Even if you’ve no passengers in order to maintain that scarce resource, the right to fly, you must fly an empty ‘plane.

Ghost flights are a product of regulation, not a sign of an unregulated industry.

Which brings us to that headline question, is John Vidal merely grossly ill-informed or is he actually dim enough not to understand? We can’t, without looking it up, recall whether Vidal’s career was at The Guardian or Greenpeace. Not that it’s worth looking up because either answer wouldn’t in fact resolve that headline question, would it?

We agree, we really should be getting excited about this four-day week thing

This strikes us as a little unfair:

Wales has plenty of genuine problems it should be fixing. Instead it is embarking on a series of half-baked socialist experiments that are doomed to inevitably fail.

Certainly this is when we consider this plan:

Last week, Wales's “Future Generations Commissioner” (nope, don't ask me why as-yet-unborn Welsh children need a no doubt generously paid commissioner to look after them, I haven’t the foggiest) published a report arguing a four-day week should be the norm.

Sophie Howe suggests that the public sector should move to a four-day week to start with, and after that it could spread to what little remains of private industry.

We do agree that there can be problems in government, the state, running an economy for a population of 3.1 million. Observing national politics does not tell us that actual ability at running things is common. So, the talent that will rise up out of a 3.1 million pool is not - necessarily at least - going to be of such stellar quality that we’d want to hand over management of everything to them.

Perhaps this is why those who have so risen haven’t quite understood the issue under discussion.

The basic idea of working time falling as the society becomes richer, yes, of course. This has been happening for a couple of centuries now and we see no reason for it to stop. A richer population will take some of those greater riches as more leisure. We do insist that everyone has to grasp that this includes unpaid work in the household as well as paid work in the marketplace though. The truly massive workload drop of the 20th century took place as we automated that household. But once that’s done then yes, less work, more leisure, lead on!

Even so, there is significant misunderstanding here. The let’s all go do this urge in government these days is being fed by the Icelandic experience. A report on which is here.

Output remained static while working hours fell 10%. OK. But why did this happen?

To be able to work less while providing the same level of service, changes in the organisation of work therefore had to be implemented. Most commonly, this was done by rethinking how tasks were completed: shortening meetings, cutting out unnecessary tasks, and shifts arrangements

So the actual finding was that if the bureaucracy pulled their thumbs out they could do the work with 10% less labour. Which produces some interesting options for us. Most obviously, instead of each bureaucrat working 10% fewer hours it might be possible to have, instead, 10% fewer bureaucrats. Along with a 10% reduction in the tax bill necessary to support the bureaucracy.

For the maintenance of output wasn’t, in fact, because all workers were so joyous at having the time off. It was that the shock to the system allowed the identification of how working practices could be improved. It’s the shock that mattered, not the length of the work-week.

Which is a much more interesting finding than the one usually assumed. It also leads to possibly interesting plans for Wales other than that insistence upon the four-day week.

But, you know, that does depend upon that Welsh talent pool producing those who can understand the reports they’re using to guide their policies. Here’s hoping….

Student loans, Aussie style

It seems that, currently, Australia does cricket better than we do. It also seems that their system of healthcare outclasses ours in terms of quality of outcomes, costs, and access to treatment when needed. To complete their hat-trick, they also finance higher education significantly better than we do. It scores far higher in terms of student satisfaction, and a much smaller proportion of debt has to be written off.

Students accepted at Australian universities have their fees paid, and incur an obligation to repay that sum once they are earning sufficient salary. There are differences, however, between their system and the UK system of student loans.One big difference is that, while the total default rate of non-repayment in the UK is nearly 50%, in Australia it is closer to 15%. There are two reasons that probably account for this.

The first is that there is no interest added to student loans in Australia. They are topped up each year only in line with inflation meaning there is no increase in real terms. In the UK, by contrast, 3% is added to the rate of inflation. This currently means that the outstanding loans in the UK are increasing by 8% per year and the debt is piling up.

A second reason is that the salary at which repayment has to start is set lower in Australia than it is in the UK. This means that Australian students start to repay their loans earlier. These two factors probably account for a default rate which is less than one third of that in the UK. The Australian system of university finance is not a graduate tax because repayments cease once the entire cost has been repaid. A graduate tax, by contrast, would continue as long as the graduate were earning.

As we have urged several times before, the abolition of the interest surcharge in the UK would almost certainly be self-financing because of the very much lower default rate that would result. It would also be very popular with students, a factor that makes it politically attractive as well as making economic sense.

If we were to adopt elements of the Australian system of student finance, this would undoubtedly improve our own outcomes. The same is true of the Australian health system, which also has much to teach us. Alas, the problem of improving our cricket outcomes to match those of Australia’s is much more challenging, but two out of three wouldn’t be a bad score.

On the subject of linen shirts

Adam Smith pointed out that a linen shirt is not a necessity. However, if you live in a society where not being able to afford a linen shirt is taken as a sign of poverty, then if you cannot afford a linen shirt then in that society you can - possibly will be - regarded as poor.

Furniture poverty: the price of moving in to an empty house

We will admit this is a new one on us but there’s an interesting point here:

“Household appliances are not luxuries – they are essentials;”

An example used is a washing machine. Which is a fairly new definition of necessity. The washing machine itself - as opposed to the copper tub and mangles - is less than a century old as anything like a common appliance. As Hans Rosling liked to point out. It’s also possible to point to the post-WWII boom in launderettes and their gradual disappearance in more recent times as evidence in the same direction. The idea that a washing machine is an essential - and we do not doubt that given where we are now that this is true - is very modern.

All of which can and should be taken as a measure of how much richer we are. There’s that ever growing list of things that are now taken to be essentials - fuel poverty today includes the normal middle class lifestyle of the 1970s, certainly that of the 1960s - which people are defined as being poor for being without. That very list itself is proof of how much richer we all are than our forbears.

We can indeed continue to shout about how awful it is that some still do not have these now essentials. But it is worth the occasional nod in the direction of the opposite, a little consideration of how rich we are to consider these those essentials.

On the things we need to regulate and those we don't

The specifics of this example are terrible for the point being made and yet there’s still something here for us:

Most people can instinctively spot a counterfeit bank note in a fraction of a second, according to a new study.

The larger issue is what is it that we need to regulate via the law, bureaucracy or politics, and what can be left to the regulation of folk just getting on with life?

Clearly, the issue of government bank notes is something we do want to regulate by the law, politics and so on. Gresham’s Law is true, bad money drives out good and all that. So we’re not going to try and argue that bank notes don’t need official regulation.

However, there is that larger point to draw from this. Handling a bank note is something that near all of us do with some regularity. Perhaps less than we used to in this digital age and so on, but it’s still something we have substantial experience of. Which is why we can immediately make that decision - we are experienced at the thing being done.

It’s the things we are inexperienced at, which we do rarely, where we can be more easily fooled. Practice does, after all, make perfect.

Which gives us a guide to what needs to be regulated by that law and politics and what doesn’t. Things that are done regularly can be left to us folk on our own - markets in effect. Things that are done rarely might well need that governmental intervention. Regulate pensions by all means - 50 years later is a bad time to find out about an error. Toothpaste flavours perhaps something reserved to the people.

If we could just suggest a solution here?

The problem is that if all of the area is concreted over then too little of the rain soaks into the ground, too much of it floods through the storm sewers:

House builders face new rules on paving driveways in an attempt to tackle river pollution, the water minister said as she called for an end to the practice.

Rebecca Pow, who spoke to The Telegraph about its Clean Rivers campaign in her Somerset constituency of Taunton Deane, said new developments could have to prove they had sustainable drainage systems before they were allowed to connect to local sewage networks in order to avoid them becoming overwhelmed and pumping sewage into rivers.

That is likely to include restrictions on solid paved driveways,

Well, yes, we agree, it is possible to try to micromanage matters in that manner. You’d probably have to go on to make sure no one created rockeries in the back garden, paved over any area for a little patio and so on. For it is the absence of soil to soak up the rain that is the problem.

There are those who would welcome the delights of so micromanaging other peoples’ lives as well. Every society, sadly, has more than its fair share of those.

We’d like to suggest that there is an alternative solution here. Lift the restrictions that insist upon 30 to 35 dwellings per hectare of planned land. That is, allow people to have the large gardens that are the traditional desire of the British. At which point, if they pave over a car’s worth of land there’s still that much larger area of flowerbeds, lawn - possibly even a veg bed - and so on to do the rainwater management trick.

That is, the problem is to resolved not by government doing something but by government stopping doing the damn fool thing it is already doing. As is so often the case.

Or, to put it more bluntly. The problem will be solved once we stop herding the helots into hovels. Now there’s an idea for a free country, eh?

We agree entirely, let's abolish subsidies

We have a little and simple test when people start talking about subsidies. If they say that subsidies to fossil fuels are around the $500 billion a year level then we’ll - barring further investigation - assume that their other subsidy numbers are about correct. If they say $5 trillion then we’re going to insist they’re not really talking about subsidies.

The difference is that the $500 billion number is actual subsidies. Governments buying up oil and or gas at one price then selling it to the population at a lower, that sort of thing. This is also something that doesn’t really happen in the rich world. The $5 trillion number includes the idea that everything should pay full VAT, if domestic gas - as in the UK, where the 5% rate applies - doesn’t then that’s a subsidy. Non- or under- taxation from some ethereally perfect rate might not be wise but it’s not really a “subsidy”.

At which point:

The world is spending at least $1.8tn (£1.3tn) every year on subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, according to a new study, prompting warnings that humanity is financing its own extinction.

Checking the report we see that fossil fuel subsidies are pinned at that $500 billion mark.

Fossil fuels: $640 billion

Well, right order of magnitude at least. So, we’re willing to accept, for the sake of argument at least, that the $1.8 trillion total is talking about actual subsidies. Also, in the footnotes:

The IMF has estimated that fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020, but the bulk of that number refers to the cost of selected externalities. The Dasgupta Review (2021) estimated $4-6 trillion for multiple sectors, but this figure includes the IMF estimates and represents subsidies as a whole and did not single out the environmentally harmful component.

A slightly different point from our own but leading to the same conclusion. The IMF judges by that ethereally pure taxation system that includes congestion, carbon, accidents etc all being properly taxed as externalities.

It’s this point that we disagree with:

The authors, who are leading subsidies experts, say a significant portion of the $1.8tn could be repurposed to support policies that are beneficial for nature and a transition to net zero, amid growing political division about the cost of decarbonising the global economy.

No.

We’re entirely willing to agree that such subsidies are a bad idea. OK, so stop paying them. But why not just not collect the money from the people in the first place? Why divert that sum, instead of not feed it into the political process in the first place? For we’ve evidence, pure and simple here, that politics spends such sums the wrong way. So, don’t collect the tax, don’t allow the politicians to spend it and make the world a better place. In both these environmental terms and also leaving near $2 trillion fructifying in the pockets of the populace?

To be possibly crude about it, if politics micturates away 2% of everything on killing off the environment then stop politicians having access to 2% of everything.