A rare piece of sanity about Greece

It is not by me, but it deserves to be read by as many people as possible.
Indeed, entire generations are currently being sacrificed at the altar of ensuring Merkel a smoother election.

This is by George Stathakis, a professor of economics at the University of Crete. The original article, The Greek Issue and the Imagination of German Politicians, is actually in Greek so you may or may not want to follow the link. Here is a translation (thanks to talos at the European Tribune) of the main points.

I would just add that point 4 is true when the said economy is in depression. An economy with a debt problem but in a boom can address it. An economy in depression, with or without a debt problem, needs deficits. Depressingly, we've known that for 80 years at least, but Germany demands that you forget it.
Oh, and please remember points 1 and 3 next time you hear that Germans are sick of picking the tab. Germany has not paid a single euro, on the contrary, they greatly gained (€10 billions already in 2012, estimated to reach around 67 billions from the crisis episode -and that is with the optimistic scenarios in terms of duration of the crisis, that have consistently been met with disappointment when confronted to reality) from the lowering of their interest payments.

At Ronnie Scott's

It was our tenth anniversary last week (not wedding anniversary, there still is some time before that, but relationship anniversary), and so we went to Ronnie Scott's jazz club for the first time.

It having been the first time makes it difficult to form a general opinion, I do realise that they will not have Ron Carter with the Golden Striker Trio on stage every night, but I would struggle to come up with the appropriate adjectives.
Actually, there will be some things that will be there every night: the place itself, which was very nice. The cocktails were good, at least for this gentleman who rarely drinks cocktail (but when it's your anniversary and one is called "Ma Chérie", and you are French to boot, it would seem impolite to have anything else). And then, since we had decided to have dinner, the food was very pleasant. By the way, if that's a requirement of yours, there was a vegetarian option, in fact it's what I had, and will probably have every time as it was brilliant.

As for the music, I had already liked the supporting act (there was a late night show afterwards, but we had to go home), and then Ron Carter arrived, which sent you out of this world. There had been a double bass in the supporting act, but the sound was immediately very different. Part of it of course came from the amplification choices, but it was still remarkable to hear how different it sounded (the piano too -although it was the same piano of course). Initially I was a little surprised by the sound engineering, but quickly it was clear that it was just what was needed for this band, which blended wonderfully well. And while all three musicians had their shares of solos, they really played as a band, with incredibly good balance and understanding.

If that was a typical night, then I would say that if you like jazz, go to Ronnie Scott's, you'll greatly enjoy it. And if you don't like Jazz, go to Ronnie Scott's, and then you will.

Tuscany

I – a keen cook and keener eater- have long held the view that there is a considerable contextual element to taste. By that I do not merely mean that the table can be well dressed in a pleasant place and the food set in an attractive way, although this is nice (and something that I tend to be relatively poor at). My point is with the time and place where food is eaten.

Many people surely have experienced the delights of a local specialty that, once brought back home, simply does not have the same appeal. Examples abound –Ouzo is not the same away from the Aegean Sea, mulled beer must be had in wintery Poland, hibiscus tea feels out of place in Europe and, while whisky will be enjoyed at home, it will taste very different in a remote pub at the end of a windy trek in the Highlands.

Today in Newspeak

Reading the New Statesman correspondence section (yes, I know…), I came across a letter referring to a leader that had apparently stated that the UK needed an extra one million houses over the next five years is the level to meet present needs. The letter proceeds to explain via a small calculation that the figure is actually four millions over ten years. So far, so good (or not - I really have no idea about the actual figures, the calculation is worded in a way that might suggest that there is some confusion between yearly need and backlog, and I don’t know the source of the numbers used), I don’t mean to dispute the need for extra housing in the UK.

But the reader, after apparently making a call for a strong building program (this is about meeting present “needs”, not fanciful wishes), then adds:

“A damaged economy cannot afford to allocate such a large share of limited resources to housebuilding.”

This left me nonplussed on several levels.

Out and out competition may not be the best management technique...

Via Paul Krugman, via David Atkins, an article about how managing the Sears Group by turning it into small entities that compete against each other is driving it into the ground.

Well, the fantasies about free markets will always remain a wonder. But it's even weirder to think of that as a management technique. I mean, even if you believe that you are in the pure situation where free markets give the optimum social utility (I know, those conditions are never met. But you could believe that you are in a situation that is not far enough from the pure model that the outcome stands -and for some values of "social utility", such situations probably exist), that would not mean that the situation is optimal for the individual actors.

But, surprise, surprise, when you are a company, you are not society as a whole.

It's not the main reason why it fails abysmally of course. I'm just nonplussed because even if you accept all the religion around competition, it should still not make it a sensible management strategy. Especially in retail.

Untangling the covert lobbyists

George Monbiot again, who had previously written in detail about "think tanks", and now comes up with an edifying case.

Think tanks are anything but. I mean, they (most of them at any rate) don't do much thinking -except in terms of thinking about rhetoric. Most of the conclusions are decided in advance, to be creatively justified.
Surprise surprise, even though they do their utmost never to make their funding public, determined investigations will eventually highlight funding by the very groups that the preconceived conclusions would benefit the most.
In essence, they are Public Relations companies. But they are not forced to divulge their clients, and are given much too strong an access to the media, which makes them far more dangerous.

It's high time that they be forced to disclose their sources of funding -and even that would not be sufficient regulation of the sector.
As for me, I'm happy to disclose: so far, no funding ;-)

The Wrong State

George Monbiot has an article you should read.

It is a wonder (OK, maybe I'm using the word rhetorically) that, over the past three decades and a bit, the same political movements that have demanded that governments should get their hands out of the economy (where their involvement is crucial and can be beneficial) have been so sanguine at seeing them obtain increasing powers over their constituents, including their private lives' (where they really have no business interfering) with a total lack of accountability.

That is another way in which this is, in Monbiot's appropriate title, the wrong state. Wrong in what it does, but also in the way that, while abdicating its responsibilities where it should be the main actor, it is grabbing power where it should be absent.