There is a currently a wine glut in Australia and hence an opportunity to stock up big on wines that you can happily imbibe over the next decade or so for reasonable prices. One could think of this as purchasing a short-term real investment where – in my case at least – I am more likely to consume than sell the asset over the next five years or so. Some of the purchases could also be an attempt to buy inexpensive high quality wines for medium to long-term cellaring - but this is more chancy proposition. From either perspective the time to buy would seem to be about now since already Australian wine producers see the glut coming to an end.
On wines I am a drinker (with admitted pretensions) not a deep thinker – my critics might say that’s true in other areas as well – but I’ll deal with these sorts of critics with, you guessed it, a bottle of vino.
At Clarke Mansions I have a reasonable cellar of wines with a few going back to the 1960s. I also have considerable practical experience of drinking the stuff although health concerns tend to limit my intake these days to below the unconstrained optimum. Occasionally I will have a posh booze-up with friends when we will discuss glass in hand, earnestly, without necessarily the greatest experience or knowledge, the comparative advantages of a Chateau Latour, a well-aged bottle of Grange or an early Wendouree cabernet.
When it comes to wines I am omnivorous – like ‘em all - whites, reds, dry wines even ‘stickies’ (especially the De Bortoli Noble One ). Really I enjoy anything that is well-made. (I also enjoy most spirits and beers so I am not generally hard to please!). This makes selectivity a real task because my main response in relation to many liquors offered is just 'more please'.
In what follows I present my considered, unbalanced and not very original views on Australian wines. The emphasis is on their crass economics as that’s what I am when it comes to drinking - a crass economist. My comments centre on warnings that occur to me about wines that you might want to try to cellar - some bitter experiences condition my remarks here. The big cellaring bargains at present – shiraz and cabernet – are wines that I don’t have a lot of specific things to say about – just buy lots now and take advantage of cyclically low prices.
Chardonnay. In my view if you want to skimp when you buy wine don’t drink Australian chardonnay. As the French winemakers say Australian chardonnay has ‘too much sunshine’ in it and too much oak. If you want to drink a reasonable chardonnay you have to pay for it. Then Petaluma, Bannockburn and particularly the Art Series Leeuwin Estate wines are all great Australian chardonnays but never cheap. Do yourself a favour and try them if you haven't - they are not expensive by global standards and quite profound wines. An almost acceptable cheapie is Seppelts Victorian Chardonnay which sells for about $12. Both the Leeuwin Estate and the Bannockburn age really well – a 1994 Leeuwin I drank this year was wonderful. But, generally I have had disappointing experiences cellaring Australian chardonnay – it seems to me these wines are generally best drunk young. I enjoy the restrained flinty taste on a good French Chablis but again I have been often disappointed and, again, I find it difficult to secure reliable material that will age well.
Generally don’t cellar chardonnay unless you can buy the more expensive specialist labels. Otherwise buy 'drink now' propositions as you need and target the occasional really good wine rather than the everyday $10-$15 rubbish that dominates offerings in the bottleshops.
Reisling. This is often a bargain in Australia mainly because the masses go for heavily-oaked chardonnays. I like the relatively inexpensive rieslings from the Clare Valley, Eden Valley and from cold-climate Victoria. One of my favorites from the latter is Seppelts Drumborg - this will age beautifully but is also delightful when drunk young.
I still have a 1973 Leo Buring Eden Valley Reisling – claimed by some to be one of the greatest Rieslings produced in Australia.
I recently bought a dozen of the 2005 Leo Burings Eden Valley for about $14-50 a bottle which I will start to drink about a decade from now. These are, in my view, some of Australia’s greatest wines. They will last decades if properly cellared. Jim Barry Reislings and various other wines from the Clare and Eden Valleys are good as is the wonderful Tasmanian reisling Moorilla Estate but there are numerous inexpensive rieslings that you can drink now or cellar.
By the way if you haven’t experienced aged reisling check that you like the flavor of it – it can have 'kerosene aspects' that don’t appeal to all. I like it!
Semillon. The great semillon wines of the Hunter Valley in NSW are widely (and correctly) recognized to be some of Australia’s greatest white wines. Murray Tyrrell makes some of the best. Contrary to popular opinion I have found that Mount Pleasant Elizabeth – a favorite when there was nothing else on a miserable restaurant wine list – has deteriorated in recent years. It often has a corked, ‘nail varnish’ finish that I don’t enjoy. Some of the early vintages however that I had kept for up to 20 years were wonderful.
The semillon that most will buy is Mt Pleasant but, as I say, I now find it disappointing these days. The Murray Tyrrell Semillons used to be a bargain – now much less so – but these are still pretty good. Some of the smaller Hunter Valley vineyards are also worth a look – the promising wines will have quite low alcohol and a slightly soapy, fairly neutral flavor when young. Leave them for 20 years and they will become golden toasted beauties. Generally a much better prospect for cellaring than chardonnay.
Sauvignon blanc. I have developed something of a palate for the non-herbaceous varieties of this over recent years, particular the Western Australian wines and (of course) those from New Zealand. It is definitely not my preferred white wine so I don’t have particularly definite views.
It does not cellar at all well so buy as you need or for a year or so down the track.
Pinot noir. Again don’t try to drink this stuff unless you are flush with funds. The Aussie cheapies are just not worth drinking. The Yarra Valley vineyards like Coldstream Hills and many of the boutique Mornington Peninsula specialists produce reasonably good pinot. But if you want something special you really are looking for at least an $80+ French burgundy and you can pay much more than this. I have wasted a lot of money (and effort) chasing quality French burgundy. Before I die I want to drink a Domaine de La Romanee Conti! The ‘Conti 98, which should cellar well for 30-40 years, will set you back over $3000US a bottle. I was impressed by the wine critic James Halliday’s description of drinking a DRC in the 1970s that was produced in the year of his birth, 1937 – he found tears involuntarily pouring down his face. He had discovered perfection.
I have cellared some beautiful pinots with success – one of the best was some Yarra Yering pinot. The wine snobs have now grabbed this source – it was always pricey – and it is now quite hopeless to try to enjoy without worrying about your overdraft. Others that I bought that have aged well included Bannockburn (a favourite that cellars well) and the Tasmanian beauty Morilla Estate but again these are all quite pricey these days.
Generally don’t try to cellar pinot. Instead target an occasional quality label, pay a lot and enjoy it as a current treat. Look for cellaring bargains among other wine varieties.
Cabernet. You can make some bargain purchases here that can keep you supplied with booze for 20 years. Cabernet has lost out a bit to shiraz in recent years so there are numerous labels out there competing for your dollar. Generally I have bought both small quantities of a wide range of boutique cabernets for $20+ and much larger quantities of the high volume brands such as Wynn’s Cabernet. During the recent glut I have seen this is Melbourne for less than $20. It ages beautifully for up to 20 years – although I recall reading about a vertical tasting of Wynns that was recently held that sampled wines up to 50 years old. I have drunk an indecent number of Wynns from the early 1970s and regard these as among the best-value cellaring propositions I have enjoyed.
While Wynns has always seemed great value to me, there are a host of quality cabernets on the shelves that can be purchased for around $15 plus which will offer good cellaring. Picking almost at random I could nominate D’Arenberg’s the High Trellis which will likewise last for 20 years and which has some gamey French characteristics that are delightful.
Shiraz. The red wine selection that most of us make most of the time. There are literally hundreds of reasonable quality shiraz wines that sell for about $15-$20 per bottle. I think here that buying on the basis of location makes sense – the shiraz wines from MacLaren Vale in South Australia are, in my view, the pick of the country but, defying geography and agronomic sense, the great shiraz wines of the Hunter Valley with their earthy, feral characteristics are also outstanding. The Seppelts cold climate Victorian wines are a bargain at their price as is the outstanding range from Mount Langi Ghiran – I still have a few of the block-buster 1989s that still taste like huge, peppery distinguished wines.
The obvious question here is what to say about the Penfolds brand which is the Australian shiraz specialist and the producer of the monumental Grange Hermitage. I have purchased a vast amount of Penfolds wine over the years and generally find it does not improve much with bottle age. That is a very provocative statement that most will disagree with but I will stick to it. Current vintages of Kalimna (the name of this blog) and Bin 389 are delightful to drink but with more than a few year's bottle age they just seem to fade a bit without gaining complexity. I don't buy Penfolds as a cellaring proposition these days. I still have a reasonable cellar of old Granges - including a dozen of the famed 1986s - and these are delightful to drink with bottle age but their price these days makes them bad value compared to the competition.
Among the Penfolds I do drink with pleasure is one of the cheapest of their range, Koonunga Hill - I like the shiraz/cabernet blend. This will not set the house on fire but is a reliable everyday drinking wine with no obvious wine-making faults.
By the way don't neglect the sparkling shiraz wines made by groups such as Seppelts. These are a unique Australian wine that cellars well and is about the best foil I have ever discovered for barbecued turkey. Will cellar for 20 years in good vintages and currently a bargain.
Any of the good wine guides will help you through the mass of shiraz labels. Buying well-recognised brands which are known to cellar well is better than 'hit and miss'. The big producers have reputations to defend. I accumulate notes on good varieties from knowledgeable wine commentators (Tim White in the Australian Financial Review is good) and of course James Halliday (in the Saturday Australian) and then head off to raid the local liquor mega-markets like Dan Murphy’s or, in Sydney, Kemeny’s. I buy a couple of dozen individual bottles and give them a trial and then return to buy in dozen lots the wines I think might be good. All in the name of science, you understand.
By the way wines are making it big time in the blogosphere. Appellation Australian is a newer blog on Australian wines. Wino sapien is an attractive local web blog on wines – its author Edward also includes an alphabetical listing of tasting notes. A prominent US blog on various wines (with an exhaustive list of all major US sites) is Vinography .
Good drinking. You've heard some of my wine views - I'd welcome news of yours.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Israel the bully?
Israel seems to be heading towards all out war with Lebanon, Syria and even perhaps Iran after Shia-backed Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed seven others in a cross-border raid. This occurs on top of the kidnapping by Palestinians of Corporal Gilad Shalit by Hamas-alligned militants last month. Overnight Israel launched further air attacks both on Gaza (where they destroyed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry) and, along a second line of attack against Lebanon. In recent hours Israel has cut off air traffic into Beirut by a rocket attack on runways - it seems to have blockaded Lebanon. The conflict is becoming more serious by the hour.
Hezbollah is a state-sponsored terrorist group. Despite its cowardly denials, the main sponsor of this terrorism is Lebanon with auxiliary support provided by Syria and Iran. The deterrence principle discussed recently on this blog suggests that the threat of an overwhelming retaliation against these countries should have been enough to deter their aggression. It hasn’t worked.
Iran, Syria and Lebanon, as sworn enemies of the Jewish state, seek its destruction. Israel has a legitimate right to deny these forces the opportunity to wipe it out and to defend itself against jihadist terrorism. It is now under active attack on each of its three major land borders and Israel clearly sees current events as part of a regional conflict that goes beyond the kidnapping of 3 soldiers.
The deaths, injuries and property damage being suffered by the Palestinians are something that everyone can empathise with. Many of those killed or injured are innocent of terrorist involvement. But they (or their parents) did vote for Hamas – even when first elected the Israelis were concerned about its connections to terrorism.
I watched a biased TV report last night which emphasised the evils Israel is inflicting on innocent Palestinians. Innocents are indeed suffering but the reason for the suffering is the militant Hamas regime which launches missile attacks on Israel, kills its citizens and then runs and hides among its women and children and effectively turns its own citizens into hostages. When Israel responds to the outrages launched Hamas hysterics cry 'atrocity' in unison. Israel the ‘neighborhood bully’, being picked on by its neighbours on all sides and daring to assert its claim to be allowed to continue to exist.
Should be ashamed of itself? No, not at all. The only issue is whether the current strong response policy will work.
Hezbollah is a state-sponsored terrorist group. Despite its cowardly denials, the main sponsor of this terrorism is Lebanon with auxiliary support provided by Syria and Iran. The deterrence principle discussed recently on this blog suggests that the threat of an overwhelming retaliation against these countries should have been enough to deter their aggression. It hasn’t worked.
Iran, Syria and Lebanon, as sworn enemies of the Jewish state, seek its destruction. Israel has a legitimate right to deny these forces the opportunity to wipe it out and to defend itself against jihadist terrorism. It is now under active attack on each of its three major land borders and Israel clearly sees current events as part of a regional conflict that goes beyond the kidnapping of 3 soldiers.
The deaths, injuries and property damage being suffered by the Palestinians are something that everyone can empathise with. Many of those killed or injured are innocent of terrorist involvement. But they (or their parents) did vote for Hamas – even when first elected the Israelis were concerned about its connections to terrorism.
I watched a biased TV report last night which emphasised the evils Israel is inflicting on innocent Palestinians. Innocents are indeed suffering but the reason for the suffering is the militant Hamas regime which launches missile attacks on Israel, kills its citizens and then runs and hides among its women and children and effectively turns its own citizens into hostages. When Israel responds to the outrages launched Hamas hysterics cry 'atrocity' in unison. Israel the ‘neighborhood bully’, being picked on by its neighbours on all sides and daring to assert its claim to be allowed to continue to exist.
Should be ashamed of itself? No, not at all. The only issue is whether the current strong response policy will work.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Heartburn over daft congestion economics
Sinclair Davidson in yesterday's Age argues that while 'Many of the 'solutions' to congestion assume it is caused by excess demand for the road. But much congestion is caused by reduced road supply'.
I had to read this statement three times to try to make sense of it. Excess demand here is the demand for road travel less the supply of road travel opportunities. If this is excessive it could be due to either excessive demand or deficient supply. Indeed it doesn't make sense to pose things in these terms - it is analogous to the economist Alfred Marshall's difficulty of trying to work out which blade of the pair of scissors cuts a piece of paper.
But it is quite clear from what follows what Sinclair intends. The congestion difficulties we face in Melbourne have little to do with the large numbers of cars using the roads without paying a toll reflecting congestion costs imposed. They instead stem from the Bracks Governments' speed limits, tram stops and having 'special events' that 'forever' disrupt traffic. Attempts to internalise congestion externalities by levying tolls for travel during congested periods are just a 'revenue grab' by the Bracks Government. Those seeking the imposition of such tolls 'want an immobile population' and 'a dreary, or even abandoned CBD'.
This is unsound economics and Sinclair should know better. People who travel on roads impose congestion costs on others. As has been known for at least half a century, attempts to internalise all such costs makes a community better-off in the sense that the value of the revenues gains exceeds costs to both the 'tolled-off' (those ending road use) and the 'tolled-on' (those who continue but who must pay the toll). Speed limits will have little impact on traffic flows under congested conditions because the traffic itself is moving so slow. And the Brack's Government far from favouring congestion tolls as a source of revenue (I wish they would) initially sought to exclude the consideration of such tolls from the terms of the recent VCEC inquiry.
This kind of daft economics causes heartburn to those of us seeking to change government attitudes to road pricing to improve the quality of life in our cities. We are not anti-travel at all - we just don't want to put up with congestion that can be eliminated to the net benefit of all.
I had to read this statement three times to try to make sense of it. Excess demand here is the demand for road travel less the supply of road travel opportunities. If this is excessive it could be due to either excessive demand or deficient supply. Indeed it doesn't make sense to pose things in these terms - it is analogous to the economist Alfred Marshall's difficulty of trying to work out which blade of the pair of scissors cuts a piece of paper.
But it is quite clear from what follows what Sinclair intends. The congestion difficulties we face in Melbourne have little to do with the large numbers of cars using the roads without paying a toll reflecting congestion costs imposed. They instead stem from the Bracks Governments' speed limits, tram stops and having 'special events' that 'forever' disrupt traffic. Attempts to internalise congestion externalities by levying tolls for travel during congested periods are just a 'revenue grab' by the Bracks Government. Those seeking the imposition of such tolls 'want an immobile population' and 'a dreary, or even abandoned CBD'.
This is unsound economics and Sinclair should know better. People who travel on roads impose congestion costs on others. As has been known for at least half a century, attempts to internalise all such costs makes a community better-off in the sense that the value of the revenues gains exceeds costs to both the 'tolled-off' (those ending road use) and the 'tolled-on' (those who continue but who must pay the toll). Speed limits will have little impact on traffic flows under congested conditions because the traffic itself is moving so slow. And the Brack's Government far from favouring congestion tolls as a source of revenue (I wish they would) initially sought to exclude the consideration of such tolls from the terms of the recent VCEC inquiry.
This kind of daft economics causes heartburn to those of us seeking to change government attitudes to road pricing to improve the quality of life in our cities. We are not anti-travel at all - we just don't want to put up with congestion that can be eliminated to the net benefit of all.
Stiglitz on global warming
Joseph Stiglitz at The Economists’ Voice proposes practical solutions to global warming issues. Stiglitz sees the Kyoto Protocol as positive but recognises (i) that the world’s biggest polluter (the US) has not agreed to join it and (ii) that developing countries, which will shortly be contributing 50% of all emissions, are left without firm commitments to do anything under it. While Kyoto requires that countries bring emissions back to 1990 levels, developing countries complain, with some justice, that their energy consumption was low then relative to developed countries so the cutback requirement is unfair.
Stiglitz’s approach is to provide an enforcement mechanism. Non-signatories to Kyoto, such as the US, who continue to spoil the earth’s atmosphere, should have a WTO case of unfair subsidisation brought against them by countries who have signed such as Japan and Europe. Even the US recognises the role of such actions - it prohibited the import of Thai shrimp that had been caught in 'turtle unfriendly' nets. With respect to global warming the subsidies are the costs to the global environment caused by US firms not paying the full global costs of production. Complainant countries should accordingly prohibit the import of goods that benefit from such subsidies or at least levy hefty taxes on them. This is a bit like earlier proposals for counterveiling tariffs to help enforce international agreements.
Problems of bringing about change in the developing world could be resolved by scrapping the Kyoto agreement but introducing a global environmental tax on emissions that achieves global reductions in emissions equivalent to the Kyoto targets. This tax might change as information about global warming improves and technologies evolve. Each country could collect and utilise its tax revenues as it saw fit and could cut pre-existing taxes on capital and labour in response to the new revenue source. Such taxes would improve efficiencies because they are directed at a ‘bad’ (pollution) not a ‘good’ (like work and saving). Such taxes would have low costs – in some cases there might be net benefits.
These are worthwhile suggestions that apply the notion of unpaid social costs at the global level and which recognise the superiority of green taxes with their ‘double dividend’ advantages at the national level.
Stiglitz’s approach is to provide an enforcement mechanism. Non-signatories to Kyoto, such as the US, who continue to spoil the earth’s atmosphere, should have a WTO case of unfair subsidisation brought against them by countries who have signed such as Japan and Europe. Even the US recognises the role of such actions - it prohibited the import of Thai shrimp that had been caught in 'turtle unfriendly' nets. With respect to global warming the subsidies are the costs to the global environment caused by US firms not paying the full global costs of production. Complainant countries should accordingly prohibit the import of goods that benefit from such subsidies or at least levy hefty taxes on them. This is a bit like earlier proposals for counterveiling tariffs to help enforce international agreements.
Problems of bringing about change in the developing world could be resolved by scrapping the Kyoto agreement but introducing a global environmental tax on emissions that achieves global reductions in emissions equivalent to the Kyoto targets. This tax might change as information about global warming improves and technologies evolve. Each country could collect and utilise its tax revenues as it saw fit and could cut pre-existing taxes on capital and labour in response to the new revenue source. Such taxes would improve efficiencies because they are directed at a ‘bad’ (pollution) not a ‘good’ (like work and saving). Such taxes would have low costs – in some cases there might be net benefits.
These are worthwhile suggestions that apply the notion of unpaid social costs at the global level and which recognise the superiority of green taxes with their ‘double dividend’ advantages at the national level.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
What we don't know about being fat?
A research agenda for obesity research:
We don't have a clear understanding of the connection between being somewhat overweight and being heathy. We are more certain that being obese (very overweight) results in poorer health. Long term, as our weight has increased, our longevity has improved. We have grown fatter but now live longer.
We are unsure that losing weight - perhaps even lots of weight - improves health for those who were originally very overweight. Losing lots of weight may worsen mortality. Most studies do not support the notion that weight loss among overweight people improves their mortality though it may reduce their mortality specifically due to weight-related disorders. If this is true then the modern passion for weight loss is sensibly motivated by aesthetics not health.
We are unsure that people can sustainably lose weight. Diets and exercise programs have short-run effects but invariably seem to fail longer-term. Is weight-gain a hard-wired trait?
As a particular case of this proposition: it is unclear that even 'well-designed' public health programs can lead to weight loss even if this is a good idea.
We don't know exactly why so many people are getting fat. Exercise or diet? Yes, certainly some mix of these two - by a 'law of nature' it must be so - but, exactly what, no-one knows. Or perhaps everyone knows and that's the problem. There are a myriad of theories explaining modern propensities to bulge but none works really well. We are not obviously getting lazier for example.
We don't know why poor people in developed countries are eating unhealthy foods when they are not time-poor and when healthy foods are cheaper alternatives?
This is an index of my modesty. On obesity we know little.
We don't have a clear understanding of the connection between being somewhat overweight and being heathy. We are more certain that being obese (very overweight) results in poorer health. Long term, as our weight has increased, our longevity has improved. We have grown fatter but now live longer.
We are unsure that losing weight - perhaps even lots of weight - improves health for those who were originally very overweight. Losing lots of weight may worsen mortality. Most studies do not support the notion that weight loss among overweight people improves their mortality though it may reduce their mortality specifically due to weight-related disorders. If this is true then the modern passion for weight loss is sensibly motivated by aesthetics not health.
We are unsure that people can sustainably lose weight. Diets and exercise programs have short-run effects but invariably seem to fail longer-term. Is weight-gain a hard-wired trait?
As a particular case of this proposition: it is unclear that even 'well-designed' public health programs can lead to weight loss even if this is a good idea.
We don't know exactly why so many people are getting fat. Exercise or diet? Yes, certainly some mix of these two - by a 'law of nature' it must be so - but, exactly what, no-one knows. Or perhaps everyone knows and that's the problem. There are a myriad of theories explaining modern propensities to bulge but none works really well. We are not obviously getting lazier for example.
We don't know why poor people in developed countries are eating unhealthy foods when they are not time-poor and when healthy foods are cheaper alternatives?
This is an index of my modesty. On obesity we know little.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Peter Costello
Peter Costello's remarkable comments on John Howard's apparent fib 12 years ago ('I will stand aside after 1.5 terms') do not advance his personal objectives. In a ballot of the Federal Liberal Party young PC wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance against old JWH for the PM position. So, as an alternative to a ballot, PC is attempting to derive moral weight for the 'top job' from what he claims was JWH's undertaking, made 12 years ago, to step aside 6 years later - this is ancient history. A pity because PC is an excellent Treasurer and his misconception on this issue may backfire on him.
JWH won't forgive because of the damage it does both to JWH and to the Liberal Party. He will not step aside because of this move - he would hate the idea of being seen to have been 'pressured out'. JWH may retire for pre-established reasons - he is renovating his Sydney home - but, other things being equal, this move by PC will only make him dig in his heels and hang on for a while. JWH is an impressive performer and a winner - and he knows both of these things.
The Opposition parties can take limited joy from these events. They don't have the ministerial talent of the Liberal Party and their tattered policy mix doesn't offer much hope to an electorate with an economy enjoying such a sustained period of prosperity. The Labor Party's best hope to regain government is to emphasise divisions in the Government and watch them do just that.
JWH won't forgive because of the damage it does both to JWH and to the Liberal Party. He will not step aside because of this move - he would hate the idea of being seen to have been 'pressured out'. JWH may retire for pre-established reasons - he is renovating his Sydney home - but, other things being equal, this move by PC will only make him dig in his heels and hang on for a while. JWH is an impressive performer and a winner - and he knows both of these things.
The Opposition parties can take limited joy from these events. They don't have the ministerial talent of the Liberal Party and their tattered policy mix doesn't offer much hope to an electorate with an economy enjoying such a sustained period of prosperity. The Labor Party's best hope to regain government is to emphasise divisions in the Government and watch them do just that.
When does deterrence work?
An interesting piece by father and son team, David and Robert Levine, Deterrence in the Cold War and the ‘War on Terror’ deals with the issue of when 'big stick' military deterrence policies will work for countries like the US and when they will not. I had problems with the exclusive emphasis by the authors on deterrence theory since approaches offering positive incentives for refraining from terrorism seem appealing - for reasons discussed by Bruno Frey in Dealing With Terrorism – Stick or Carrot? But the Levine/Levine piece is interesting. This is my first draft at reading a difficult paper and comments are welcome.
The success of US cold war policies in preventing Soviet aggression was based on deterrence - on the threat of bilateral massive retaliation with nuclear weapons. Thomas Schelling was a major thinker behind this approach with mathematicians like Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter also being important.
Mutual deterrence worked effectively because of the possibility of ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ or MAD. If the other side offered a certain level of aggressive activity and the other country could make perfect commitments, with no constraint on ability to retaliate, then the home country''s best deterrence plan was to commit to a sufficiently high level of response so enemy activity was always deterred. Because enemy activity never occurred as a result of this stance, the cost of going through with the commitment – although not the sunk cost of making it credible - never had to be borne.
Deterrence theory works if the enemy is a rational calculator with consistent values. This is not so for modern, non-state sponsored terrorism where the enemy are religious fanatics and thugs. Moreover, the stakes are lower with such terrorist thugs - potential deaths and property damage from terrorism are likely to be markedly lower than those from even a limited nuclear war. Levine/Levine modify the deterrence story to capture the idea of modern terrorism by assuming the enemy has ‘bounded rationality’ so, with some probability, it will take actions less advantageous than the ideal course of action given an implied response. A probability density parameterizes the ‘rationality’ of the enemy by measuring the enemy’s incentive to take non-optimal aggressions. Then the ‘friendly country’ has to choose a degree of retaliation to maximise its net benefits assuming the enemy plays from this distribution.
Again a simple deterrence policy proves appropriate. For enemy actions of less than some critical level intensity there should be no response while, for actions above this, retaliation should be massively fearsome.
The sense and limitations of this rule are apparent. Suppose there are ‘modest’ and ‘extreme’ levels of enemy attack. Theories of marginal deterrence suggests modest attacks should receive lower intensity responses than extreme attacks to limit scale of attack. But this ignores the fact that some, who previously made modest attacks, will now be deterred from making any attack at all. If low scale responses discourage modest aggressors from aggressing at all and encourage extreme aggressors to become more modest then a low scale response work best and simple deterrence theory fails. But, if a low response does not deter either modest or extreme aggression then a ‘let ‘em have it’ policy works better.
The ambiguity here stems from the fact that increasing response penalties may encourage a change in the mix of types who carry out various types of terrorism and this might be advantageous or otherwise. Generally, neither all-or-nothing policies nor policies of moderation need make inevitable sense.
All-or-nothing punishments also don't make sense if an enemy only ever learns too late that they have gone too far and have crossed a threshold. And the possibility of launching a maximum attack may not be credible – enemies may not believe modest attacks will lead to maximal responses so the pain of a substantial response may produce no additional gain. Finally, a third-party enemy of the enemy (Israel) might engineer modest attacks (such as car bombings), attributed to its enemy (e.g. Lebanon), to initiate a maximal response to that enemy by a third-party such as the US. The enemies’ enemies then have incentives to encourage the appearance of aggressive activity which limits incentives for a maximal response.
When applying deterrence theory to terrorism rather than the Cold War, the claim is that terrorists are less rational and a more heterogenous enemy. The effects on (say) US welfare of dealing wiirth terrorists rather than the old Soviet Union are therefore ambiguous. The US is worse-off dealing with terrorists because of the randomness of the enemy’s response and of the enemy's consequent need to exert more aggression to trigger a maximal response from the US. However terrorists cause the US less harm than even a limited nuclear war so this increases US welfare implying less tolerance of aggression.
Terrorist states such as Syria, Iran and North Korea can be dealt with using the basic deterrence theory. Threats of an overwhelming response will keep such countries in check given the evident desire of their political elites to remain in power. They can cause great harm and will threaten to do so but won’t because they will be totally squashed if they do and realise this.
However dealing with non-state terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaeda, is more difficult. Terrorists are a diffuse group so enemy behaviour has a high random (irrational) component. The enemy is mobile and elusive so threats to retaliate will be less precise. Finally the enemy have imprecise motivating values ranging from thuggish misogyny to ignorant Islamic fanaticism based on zero understanding of any belief systems other than that of their fathers. Finally it will often just not be credible to retaliate massively against limited actions by a bunch of terrorist lunatics.
If the lunatic terrorists have terrorist state support then this increases their danger but then the deterrence theory should be applied to the state supporters if it cannot be applied to the terrorists. It is only with state support that such groups can do relatively significant damage so that fearsome retaliation should be threatened against countries providing such support.
One is finally left with the difficult case of a terrorist group operating without state support. This is difficult to tackle using the deterrence theory but fortunately these terrorists can do much less damage. Levine and Levine argue that a 15 kiloton nuclear bomb in Manhattan could kill upward of 200,000 people which, while terrible, is of a much smaller magnitude than a limited nuclear war between superpowers of the type that could haver occurred during the Cold War. Leviner/Levine claim the main cost of such a threat to the US is the threat of overreaction through lost respect for civil liberties. It requires a response but certainly a community response proportionately smaller than that appropriate to a bilateral nuclear attack. Capture them and/or kill them but don't ruin the democratic values the terrorists are seeking to obliterate in open societies - the cost is too high.
It is here however that deterrence theory does lose attraction and the approach of Bruno Frey, mentioned above, makes sense. Carrots work better than sticks. I’ll post on the Frey viewpoint separately as my review of the Frey book which I'll finish over the next week or so.
Thanks Damien Eldridge for the Levine/Levine reference.
The success of US cold war policies in preventing Soviet aggression was based on deterrence - on the threat of bilateral massive retaliation with nuclear weapons. Thomas Schelling was a major thinker behind this approach with mathematicians like Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter also being important.
Mutual deterrence worked effectively because of the possibility of ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ or MAD. If the other side offered a certain level of aggressive activity and the other country could make perfect commitments, with no constraint on ability to retaliate, then the home country''s best deterrence plan was to commit to a sufficiently high level of response so enemy activity was always deterred. Because enemy activity never occurred as a result of this stance, the cost of going through with the commitment – although not the sunk cost of making it credible - never had to be borne.
Deterrence theory works if the enemy is a rational calculator with consistent values. This is not so for modern, non-state sponsored terrorism where the enemy are religious fanatics and thugs. Moreover, the stakes are lower with such terrorist thugs - potential deaths and property damage from terrorism are likely to be markedly lower than those from even a limited nuclear war. Levine/Levine modify the deterrence story to capture the idea of modern terrorism by assuming the enemy has ‘bounded rationality’ so, with some probability, it will take actions less advantageous than the ideal course of action given an implied response. A probability density parameterizes the ‘rationality’ of the enemy by measuring the enemy’s incentive to take non-optimal aggressions. Then the ‘friendly country’ has to choose a degree of retaliation to maximise its net benefits assuming the enemy plays from this distribution.
Again a simple deterrence policy proves appropriate. For enemy actions of less than some critical level intensity there should be no response while, for actions above this, retaliation should be massively fearsome.
The sense and limitations of this rule are apparent. Suppose there are ‘modest’ and ‘extreme’ levels of enemy attack. Theories of marginal deterrence suggests modest attacks should receive lower intensity responses than extreme attacks to limit scale of attack. But this ignores the fact that some, who previously made modest attacks, will now be deterred from making any attack at all. If low scale responses discourage modest aggressors from aggressing at all and encourage extreme aggressors to become more modest then a low scale response work best and simple deterrence theory fails. But, if a low response does not deter either modest or extreme aggression then a ‘let ‘em have it’ policy works better.
The ambiguity here stems from the fact that increasing response penalties may encourage a change in the mix of types who carry out various types of terrorism and this might be advantageous or otherwise. Generally, neither all-or-nothing policies nor policies of moderation need make inevitable sense.
All-or-nothing punishments also don't make sense if an enemy only ever learns too late that they have gone too far and have crossed a threshold. And the possibility of launching a maximum attack may not be credible – enemies may not believe modest attacks will lead to maximal responses so the pain of a substantial response may produce no additional gain. Finally, a third-party enemy of the enemy (Israel) might engineer modest attacks (such as car bombings), attributed to its enemy (e.g. Lebanon), to initiate a maximal response to that enemy by a third-party such as the US. The enemies’ enemies then have incentives to encourage the appearance of aggressive activity which limits incentives for a maximal response.
When applying deterrence theory to terrorism rather than the Cold War, the claim is that terrorists are less rational and a more heterogenous enemy. The effects on (say) US welfare of dealing wiirth terrorists rather than the old Soviet Union are therefore ambiguous. The US is worse-off dealing with terrorists because of the randomness of the enemy’s response and of the enemy's consequent need to exert more aggression to trigger a maximal response from the US. However terrorists cause the US less harm than even a limited nuclear war so this increases US welfare implying less tolerance of aggression.
Terrorist states such as Syria, Iran and North Korea can be dealt with using the basic deterrence theory. Threats of an overwhelming response will keep such countries in check given the evident desire of their political elites to remain in power. They can cause great harm and will threaten to do so but won’t because they will be totally squashed if they do and realise this.
However dealing with non-state terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaeda, is more difficult. Terrorists are a diffuse group so enemy behaviour has a high random (irrational) component. The enemy is mobile and elusive so threats to retaliate will be less precise. Finally the enemy have imprecise motivating values ranging from thuggish misogyny to ignorant Islamic fanaticism based on zero understanding of any belief systems other than that of their fathers. Finally it will often just not be credible to retaliate massively against limited actions by a bunch of terrorist lunatics.
If the lunatic terrorists have terrorist state support then this increases their danger but then the deterrence theory should be applied to the state supporters if it cannot be applied to the terrorists. It is only with state support that such groups can do relatively significant damage so that fearsome retaliation should be threatened against countries providing such support.
One is finally left with the difficult case of a terrorist group operating without state support. This is difficult to tackle using the deterrence theory but fortunately these terrorists can do much less damage. Levine and Levine argue that a 15 kiloton nuclear bomb in Manhattan could kill upward of 200,000 people which, while terrible, is of a much smaller magnitude than a limited nuclear war between superpowers of the type that could haver occurred during the Cold War. Leviner/Levine claim the main cost of such a threat to the US is the threat of overreaction through lost respect for civil liberties. It requires a response but certainly a community response proportionately smaller than that appropriate to a bilateral nuclear attack. Capture them and/or kill them but don't ruin the democratic values the terrorists are seeking to obliterate in open societies - the cost is too high.
It is here however that deterrence theory does lose attraction and the approach of Bruno Frey, mentioned above, makes sense. Carrots work better than sticks. I’ll post on the Frey viewpoint separately as my review of the Frey book which I'll finish over the next week or so.
Thanks Damien Eldridge for the Levine/Levine reference.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Back
I had 8 days in the Northern Territory and I have been too busy both with work and pleasure to write much for my blog. I spent most time in Alice Springs but had the last couple of days at Uluru. Both towns are reasonably big tourism centres with substantial aboriginal populations. I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the visits. Alice Springs is an interesting conference location and Uluru is just amazing.
John Quiggin gave an interesting talk at the Econometric Society meetings in Alice Springs on Employment in Remote Aboriginal Communities. This is work in progress so no online version is yet available - if one becomes available I'll link to it. John suggested that an improvement would be to expand the role of Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) which currently provide most employment for aborigines in remote areas. These are like Work for the Dole schemes. They could be augmented with various protectionist policies such as employment subsidies, tariff protection for commmunity outputs or even output subsidies.
The possibility of offering 'reserved employment' in particular occupations seems sensible. Aborigines are extensively involved in the tourism industry in cities like Alice Springs and increased involvement in these types of activities might be an option. All these types of policies have a 'tough love' component to them - rewards go to those who work.
It is doubtful that Australia has overspent on aborigines given their poor health, education and low capital base status. John linked the failure of development programs for aborigines with the well-known difficulties in fostering regional development schemes. Sensibly he argued that magic bullets won't work and that evidence-based policies are the way to go.
Talking to locals in Alice Springs it was obvious that substantial barriers are already present between whites and the blackfellas. The recent horror stories on child abuse have produced a kneejerk overreaction among some. But there is also enormous respect among many whites for blackfella culture and skills.
One of my resolutions is to get better informed on the situation facing Australia's original inhabitants. It is something I should know more about and I will.
John Quiggin gave an interesting talk at the Econometric Society meetings in Alice Springs on Employment in Remote Aboriginal Communities. This is work in progress so no online version is yet available - if one becomes available I'll link to it. John suggested that an improvement would be to expand the role of Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) which currently provide most employment for aborigines in remote areas. These are like Work for the Dole schemes. They could be augmented with various protectionist policies such as employment subsidies, tariff protection for commmunity outputs or even output subsidies.
The possibility of offering 'reserved employment' in particular occupations seems sensible. Aborigines are extensively involved in the tourism industry in cities like Alice Springs and increased involvement in these types of activities might be an option. All these types of policies have a 'tough love' component to them - rewards go to those who work.
It is doubtful that Australia has overspent on aborigines given their poor health, education and low capital base status. John linked the failure of development programs for aborigines with the well-known difficulties in fostering regional development schemes. Sensibly he argued that magic bullets won't work and that evidence-based policies are the way to go.
Talking to locals in Alice Springs it was obvious that substantial barriers are already present between whites and the blackfellas. The recent horror stories on child abuse have produced a kneejerk overreaction among some. But there is also enormous respect among many whites for blackfella culture and skills.
One of my resolutions is to get better informed on the situation facing Australia's original inhabitants. It is something I should know more about and I will.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Media blabbermouths
When should the mass media shut up and not release leaked material. Well I would have thought that secrecy was a moral stance if it inhibited international terrorism, committed no illegal acts and did not harm the interests of law-abiding citizens.
The NY Times story releasing information on the secret US Government’s attempt to uncover terrorist links by inspecting international banking records is here, Video coverage is here. The LA Times joins in here. Michelle Malkin points out that whatever else you can say about the program it is no longer secret while The Media Blog points out the damage done by these media blabbermouths to the war against terror. A survey of responses is at Pyjamas Media. Tim Blair provides a local view of these irresponsible journalists.
The critical counter-response by Dick Cheney is here while the lame counter-counter response of the NY Times editor is here. It just didn’t stack up. The press in this instance went for a cheap scoop – it was an irresponsible decision that should be condemned.
The NY Times story releasing information on the secret US Government’s attempt to uncover terrorist links by inspecting international banking records is here, Video coverage is here. The LA Times joins in here. Michelle Malkin points out that whatever else you can say about the program it is no longer secret while The Media Blog points out the damage done by these media blabbermouths to the war against terror. A survey of responses is at Pyjamas Media. Tim Blair provides a local view of these irresponsible journalists.
The critical counter-response by Dick Cheney is here while the lame counter-counter response of the NY Times editor is here. It just didn’t stack up. The press in this instance went for a cheap scoop – it was an irresponsible decision that should be condemned.
A town like Alice
I have been slack the last couple of days here in Alice Springs with respect to all things other than enjoying myself.
Yesterday I explored some of the gorges in the West McDonnell Ranges while today I headed east to the equally spectacular East MacDonnell Ranges. Saw some aboriginal Rock Art, some great flora and fauna (notably a flock of about 30 red-tailed black cockatoos) and spent time in the Alice Springs Botanical gardens. I ended up today being locked inside the Alice Springs Sewage Farm after going there (with authorization) to look at the reasonably good populations of water-birds there. A couple of council workers helped us escape over a fence!
Alice Springs is great country for a holiday and I will come back with more time. Tomorrow the Econometric Society meetings begin and it will harder to enjoy myself.
The aboriginal issue here in Alice Springs is stark. Many non-socially functional aborigines and a white population that are generally anti-backfella. It’s a major problem and I’ll post on it once my entirely casual observations after talking to locals have gelled.
Yesterday I explored some of the gorges in the West McDonnell Ranges while today I headed east to the equally spectacular East MacDonnell Ranges. Saw some aboriginal Rock Art, some great flora and fauna (notably a flock of about 30 red-tailed black cockatoos) and spent time in the Alice Springs Botanical gardens. I ended up today being locked inside the Alice Springs Sewage Farm after going there (with authorization) to look at the reasonably good populations of water-birds there. A couple of council workers helped us escape over a fence!
Alice Springs is great country for a holiday and I will come back with more time. Tomorrow the Econometric Society meetings begin and it will harder to enjoy myself.
The aboriginal issue here in Alice Springs is stark. Many non-socially functional aborigines and a white population that are generally anti-backfella. It’s a major problem and I’ll post on it once my entirely casual observations after talking to locals have gelled.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Thoughts on non-romantic love
Love is supposed to be a bit like a cocaine rush –according to Helen Fisher the neurotransmitter dopamine is the culprit that turns the infatuated brain into a Roman candle – a review of her work from a neuroscientific viewpoint is here.
We have known for more than a decade that body odors are a driver of sexual attraction – that women choose men whose smell promises an immune system different from their own. Alternative sweaty T-shirt studies suggest that:
Where does all this leave romantic love? Well some cultures don’t have it at all – for example societies where marriages are arranged. Perhaps romantic love is naïve positivism – certainly better than cynicism anyway. But love driven purely by biological needs seems as unrealistic as the romantic ideal. Biology doesn’t just drive psychology – the two things go together with our emotional responses registering physically and vias versa.
We have known for more than a decade that body odors are a driver of sexual attraction – that women choose men whose smell promises an immune system different from their own. Alternative sweaty T-shirt studies suggest that:
‘what women want most is a man who smells similar to her father. Scientists suggest that a woman being attracted to her father's genes makes sense. A man with these genes would be similar enough that her offspring would get a tried and tested immune system. On the other hand, he would be different enough to ensure a wide range of genes for immunity. There seems to be a drive to reach a balance between reckless out-breeding and dangerous inbreeding'.Men like a waist to hip ratio of 70% in a woman to ensure good breeding prospects while women like broad chests and rugged strength, but - unlike men - are more firmly focused on brains and status as complementary inputs into their long-term breeding investments.
Where does all this leave romantic love? Well some cultures don’t have it at all – for example societies where marriages are arranged. Perhaps romantic love is naïve positivism – certainly better than cynicism anyway. But love driven purely by biological needs seems as unrealistic as the romantic ideal. Biology doesn’t just drive psychology – the two things go together with our emotional responses registering physically and vias versa.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Targeting the red centre
I am heading off to the Econometric Society meetings in Alice Springs tomorrow. What a great place to hold a conference! Apart from meeting old friends I am also making a quick detour to Uluru which I have not visited before.
Many of the conference papers are available online at the ESAM website. These are some that interested me particularly:
Voluntary contributions to a public good (Is being selfish just too complicated?)
The costs of inflation in Australia and New Zealand
Paternal uncertainty and the economics of mating, marriage, and parental investment in children (Economic implications of unfaithfulness?)
The shrinking of middle management and the rise in CEO compensation
An empirical investigation of the influence of employment status on the relationship between obesity and healthy eating for UK females (Fat again).
Healthy, wealthy and insured?
Derivation of nutrient prices from household level consumption
To integrate or not to integrate? The role of country size (relative bargaining power?)
Does the reason for buying health insurance influence behaviour?
Media concentration with free entry (What would happen in Aus?)
Thinking Rationally About Rational Addiction (Yes, that’s mine!)
Demand for marijuana, cocaine and heroin (Yes please.)
A Panel Data Analysis of Addictive Expenditure.
I am unsure how active my blog will be over the next few days – it will depend partly on how I find the conference and what opportunities there are in Alice Springs for fun.
If the reader who lives in Alice Springs feels like a yarn please do so – I am at Lasseters.
Many of the conference papers are available online at the ESAM website. These are some that interested me particularly:
Voluntary contributions to a public good (Is being selfish just too complicated?)
The costs of inflation in Australia and New Zealand
Paternal uncertainty and the economics of mating, marriage, and parental investment in children (Economic implications of unfaithfulness?)
The shrinking of middle management and the rise in CEO compensation
An empirical investigation of the influence of employment status on the relationship between obesity and healthy eating for UK females (Fat again).
Healthy, wealthy and insured?
Derivation of nutrient prices from household level consumption
To integrate or not to integrate? The role of country size (relative bargaining power?)
Does the reason for buying health insurance influence behaviour?
Media concentration with free entry (What would happen in Aus?)
Thinking Rationally About Rational Addiction (Yes, that’s mine!)
Demand for marijuana, cocaine and heroin (Yes please.)
A Panel Data Analysis of Addictive Expenditure.
I am unsure how active my blog will be over the next few days – it will depend partly on how I find the conference and what opportunities there are in Alice Springs for fun.
If the reader who lives in Alice Springs feels like a yarn please do so – I am at Lasseters.
New bird species for Australia
On the 19th of June a new bird species for Australia , the grey-headed lapwing, was observed and photographed at Burren Junction, NSW. It has since been seen by 20-30 observers - though this number may have dramatically escalated over the past weekend since many are travelling there to see it.
On Friday I got rung by a zoologist and asked if economists could put an economic value on this discovery. I have been thinking about this for the last couple of days. I am a bit uncertain about the question itself.
A willingness-to-pay or contingent valuation student would be hard to construct because the discovery presumably makes sense only to those people interested in bird-watching. The zoologist has kept data on those who have visited the bird, how far they travelled to get there, how long they stayed and how much they spent on their visit. Can this be used to construct a demand curve for the new species and hence the consumer surplus yielded to this group?
Does it make sense to seek such a valuation and how might it be used? Does our national net worth inclusive of conservation capital increase? In a sense it is analogous to a mineral or resource discovery though the benefits are non-marketable consumption benefits. The species is unlikely to stick around and may, indeed, migrate back to Asia never to return.
Comments or suggestions from readers are very welcome.
The bird itself breeds in north-east Asia and is migratory to India, the Andamans, China, Taiwan, the Philipines and Japan (the photo above is from a Japanese rice paddy). It has previously been reported as a vagrant in Malaysia but this is the first Australian discovery.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
User-pays in new NSW suburbs
The NSW Government will charge property developers for the cost of new infrastructure provision such as hospitals, rail lines and police stations. Property developers would be required to pay $33,000 per plot which is about 75% of the cost. Victoria, the only other state to levy such charges, currently has an $8000 levy.
Opposition on the grounds that such levies will be passed on to homebuyers is not obviously sound. If land supply is relatively inelastic the charges will primarily reduce the value of undeveloped land - developing it will not longer be based so heavily on a 'free ride' at community expense. It is difficult to see how land developers can pass it on. Such charges would seem most likely to impose capital losses on land developers.
To the extent that land supply is elastic, some of the levies are borne by new homebuyers and this is a point of contention. But the claim that such levies will limit the ability of homebuyers to get into the Sydney market might be sound but, given the evident pressure on infrastructure in Sydney, that might be a good rather than bad thing. In addition, the claim than homebuyers have been able to free-ride in the past so that it is unfair to charge a levy now seems wrong if the state seeks non-wasteful outcomes. It is better to reform things noww than to conrtinue pursuing flawed policies that have generated past sunk costs.
It would be better still if new settlement met not only fixed infrastructure costs but also the congestion and pollution externalities that settlement induces. This would limit inappropriate urban sprawl - here sprawl induced by free-riding on external costs generated. To the extent that (i) infrastructure costs proxy for these environmental costs and (ii) that levies are passed on to consumers, there is an efficiency gain for Sydneysiders from efficiently pricing of the external costs.
Opposition on the grounds that such levies will be passed on to homebuyers is not obviously sound. If land supply is relatively inelastic the charges will primarily reduce the value of undeveloped land - developing it will not longer be based so heavily on a 'free ride' at community expense. It is difficult to see how land developers can pass it on. Such charges would seem most likely to impose capital losses on land developers.
To the extent that land supply is elastic, some of the levies are borne by new homebuyers and this is a point of contention. But the claim that such levies will limit the ability of homebuyers to get into the Sydney market might be sound but, given the evident pressure on infrastructure in Sydney, that might be a good rather than bad thing. In addition, the claim than homebuyers have been able to free-ride in the past so that it is unfair to charge a levy now seems wrong if the state seeks non-wasteful outcomes. It is better to reform things noww than to conrtinue pursuing flawed policies that have generated past sunk costs.
It would be better still if new settlement met not only fixed infrastructure costs but also the congestion and pollution externalities that settlement induces. This would limit inappropriate urban sprawl - here sprawl induced by free-riding on external costs generated. To the extent that (i) infrastructure costs proxy for these environmental costs and (ii) that levies are passed on to consumers, there is an efficiency gain for Sydneysiders from efficiently pricing of the external costs.
Obesity and the state
I have earlier expressed my own ambivalence towards seeking an increased role for government in thwarting the obesity/diabestes epidemic sweeping much of the develloped and some of the developing world. Chris Berg from the IPA today undertakes the standard right-wing demolition of an earlier Ross Gittins piece on the role of the public sector in influencing people's food consumption habits. Berg argues government regulation is not the answer to obesity. His main points have been made on many occasions - many I agree with, some I would qualify and some I am unsure of.
Berg argues that even though the average weight of Australians is increasing:
Measures of obesity are flawed since many of the 21% of Australians classified as obese are 'big-boned'. That BMI measures are imperfect is correct but the weight shift being observed is not a subtle one - the broad impression is that we are getting genuinely fatter.
Our consumption habits suggest lower energy consumption at 125 kilojoules with reduced sugar consumption. This is interesting - there is aso not good evidence that we are not becoming more sedentary - but energy balance ideas suggest something here is factually wrong. More research needed.
Centres for Disease Control in the US found 'overweight' people had a lower mortality than those of normal weight. Correct - we have discussed this on this blog - but there was evidence that being obese did bring about higher mortality even if being merely overweight did not.
Technological change and supply-line innovation in food manufacturing have reduced costs in time and money of food preparation so it can be a rational economic decision to eat out. Agree.
Most of the recent growth in weight is not directly attributable to our food. Darius Lakdawala and Tomas Philipson found that only 40% of weight gain since the 1970s is due to changes in diet. Rather, the large part of our weight increase can be attributable to changes in lifestyle and work practices. $40% of course is still a lot! Nutrition survey data in Australia are poor so it is a bit difficult to evaluate these claims.
Government regulation doesn't work. Sweden has every program on the book to combat childhood obesity. Advertising aimed at children under 12 is banned. Sports programs are heavily subsidised. Healthy cooking is part of the curriculum. But numbers of overweight Swedish children have tripled in the past 15 years. Obviously the issue of the counterfactual is important here. This requires serious statistical analysis and a program evaluation.
The market is good at educating people on the negative consequences of their decisions. Balancing against the advertising for high-sugar snacks, television programmers have provided shows like What's Good for You and The Biggest Loser. This is unclear since I think advertising encourages very unhealthy fast food choices and record levels of high-sugar soft drink consumption. Messages about what constitutes good nutrition are frequently confused and shows like 'The Biggest Loser' seem to me to be potentiially dangerous and the competitions they encourage ill-advised.
These programs have been produced not by government, but by corporations eager to maximise their ratings, and therefore their profits. Yes, markets will emerge to deal with obesity issues. But information is a public good so we can expect it to be underprovided unless it services a private interest.
Data from the US indicates the number of food and restaurant commercials viewed by children declined over the last decade. I cannot comment as I am unaware of this data.
Consumers are becoming aware of the consequences of fatty and unhealthy food. This change in demand goes far past the salads at McDonald's. Juice bars, wheatgrass shots, bioengineered food and even sushi were unheard of to Australians 50 years ago. Agree.
The idea of government regulating to protect against obesity shows us how far debate has moved from personal responsibility to government responsibility. 'But is there a clearer area in which individual responsibility must take the fore than when choosing what we eat? Government regulation is not the solution to the obesity crisis'.
Examining this last claim is the point of my current research. It is not obvious that government action is inappropriate - governments have had success in reducing smoking and it may be that obesity and diabetes can be similarly dealt with. But I am keeping an open mind at this stage. The work that I am doing suggests there are basic problems with active intervention policies in addition to those identified by Berg. In particular it is unclear that encouraging people to loose weight is effective or that it improves health.
Berg argues that even though the average weight of Australians is increasing:
Measures of obesity are flawed since many of the 21% of Australians classified as obese are 'big-boned'. That BMI measures are imperfect is correct but the weight shift being observed is not a subtle one - the broad impression is that we are getting genuinely fatter.
Our consumption habits suggest lower energy consumption at 125 kilojoules with reduced sugar consumption. This is interesting - there is aso not good evidence that we are not becoming more sedentary - but energy balance ideas suggest something here is factually wrong. More research needed.
Centres for Disease Control in the US found 'overweight' people had a lower mortality than those of normal weight. Correct - we have discussed this on this blog - but there was evidence that being obese did bring about higher mortality even if being merely overweight did not.
Technological change and supply-line innovation in food manufacturing have reduced costs in time and money of food preparation so it can be a rational economic decision to eat out. Agree.
Most of the recent growth in weight is not directly attributable to our food. Darius Lakdawala and Tomas Philipson found that only 40% of weight gain since the 1970s is due to changes in diet. Rather, the large part of our weight increase can be attributable to changes in lifestyle and work practices. $40% of course is still a lot! Nutrition survey data in Australia are poor so it is a bit difficult to evaluate these claims.
Government regulation doesn't work. Sweden has every program on the book to combat childhood obesity. Advertising aimed at children under 12 is banned. Sports programs are heavily subsidised. Healthy cooking is part of the curriculum. But numbers of overweight Swedish children have tripled in the past 15 years. Obviously the issue of the counterfactual is important here. This requires serious statistical analysis and a program evaluation.
The market is good at educating people on the negative consequences of their decisions. Balancing against the advertising for high-sugar snacks, television programmers have provided shows like What's Good for You and The Biggest Loser. This is unclear since I think advertising encourages very unhealthy fast food choices and record levels of high-sugar soft drink consumption. Messages about what constitutes good nutrition are frequently confused and shows like 'The Biggest Loser' seem to me to be potentiially dangerous and the competitions they encourage ill-advised.
These programs have been produced not by government, but by corporations eager to maximise their ratings, and therefore their profits. Yes, markets will emerge to deal with obesity issues. But information is a public good so we can expect it to be underprovided unless it services a private interest.
Data from the US indicates the number of food and restaurant commercials viewed by children declined over the last decade. I cannot comment as I am unaware of this data.
Consumers are becoming aware of the consequences of fatty and unhealthy food. This change in demand goes far past the salads at McDonald's. Juice bars, wheatgrass shots, bioengineered food and even sushi were unheard of to Australians 50 years ago. Agree.
The idea of government regulating to protect against obesity shows us how far debate has moved from personal responsibility to government responsibility. 'But is there a clearer area in which individual responsibility must take the fore than when choosing what we eat? Government regulation is not the solution to the obesity crisis'.
Examining this last claim is the point of my current research. It is not obvious that government action is inappropriate - governments have had success in reducing smoking and it may be that obesity and diabetes can be similarly dealt with. But I am keeping an open mind at this stage. The work that I am doing suggests there are basic problems with active intervention policies in addition to those identified by Berg. In particular it is unclear that encouraging people to loose weight is effective or that it improves health.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Muslims and Non-Muslims
I found this piece about Muslim attitudes to non-Muslims and Non-Muslim attitudes to Muslims enlightening. The two groups are not that far apart - they, for example, share common prejudices about each other.
The enemy for both sides, in my view, is divisive religious belief and prejudice not the other party.
The enemy for both sides, in my view, is divisive religious belief and prejudice not the other party.
'Western respondents tended to see Muslims as fanatical, violent, intolerant, and disrespectful towards women. This, frankly, is hardly a shock. What might surprise Western readers is that Muslim populations tend to think of them in precisely the same way - though they add that Westerners are selfish, immoral and greedy for good measure.'
Israeli tit-for-tat
Palestinian terrorists capture a young Israeli teenager Gilad Shalit and Israel lets them have it. 80 Hamas officials arrested including 8 cabinet ministers, warplanes buzz the 'summer palace' of the Syrian President Bashir Assad (the sonic booms must have put the fear of God into this supporter of factions like Hamas and Hezbollah) and dozens of air raids by Israel on the Gaza strip. What can Hamas say? 'All this and we only kidnapped one young Israeli and murdered a few. It 'aint fair'. It is you know, and very effective.
The Israeli's have met an ugly show of force by Hamas with a controlled though strong counter-punch designed to destroy Hamas. Hamas has nowhere to go and its naive Palestinian supporters will bear the costs.
If Hamas releases the young boy they are revealled for the terrorist supporters Israel has always described them as. But what is their alternative? To murder him as they did to the 18 year old Eliyahu Asheri. Then what happens to the Hamas politicians Israel has arrested? And what happens to Hamas' already tattered international image?
Further threats from Hamas - we will escalate? So what? How are they holding themselves back now? The Israeli response is appropriate.
The Israeli's have met an ugly show of force by Hamas with a controlled though strong counter-punch designed to destroy Hamas. Hamas has nowhere to go and its naive Palestinian supporters will bear the costs.
If Hamas releases the young boy they are revealled for the terrorist supporters Israel has always described them as. But what is their alternative? To murder him as they did to the 18 year old Eliyahu Asheri. Then what happens to the Hamas politicians Israel has arrested? And what happens to Hamas' already tattered international image?
Further threats from Hamas - we will escalate? So what? How are they holding themselves back now? The Israeli response is appropriate.
Drugs that cure addiction
The grand daughter of Leon Trotsky (Nora Volkow) is a neuroscientist who believes that understanding the dopamine mechanisms in the brain will soon take us close to a pharmaceutical cure for addiction that is also a vaccine for all forms of addiction (gambling, sex, drugs).
Making money out of obesity & diabetes
The pharmaceutical companies have come up with Rimonabant that will control appetite weight and perhaps inhibit smoking.
The food company Nestlé comes up with a cereal bar that will inhibit obesity and diabetes. There is money in flab and this is the most promising basis for assuming a discovery will be made which limits the world epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
The food company Nestlé comes up with a cereal bar that will inhibit obesity and diabetes. There is money in flab and this is the most promising basis for assuming a discovery will be made which limits the world epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
At the company's mountainside research laboratory... scientists are working on new products that alter the body's absorption of sugar, reduce fatty acids in the bloodstream, and step up the burning of carbohydrates during digestion. The first of these offerings, a cereal bar with a fiber additive that tamps down surges in blood sugar levels after eating, was launched in Asia last year and will soon be rolled out worldwide.Thanks John Shannon.
For now, the cereal bar is marketed mainly to people with type 2 diabetes, which is often triggered by obesity. But Nestlé says the same additive could later find its way into mass-market brands such as Stouffer's and Lean Cuisine prepared meals. And with more than 300 million obese people worldwide, including 30% of U.S. adults, it's easy to understand Nestlé's interest in the market.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Chinese car love
I tuned into ABC news radio this afternoon to hear a snippet on the Chinese car industry. By 2020 the Chinese market may be the biggest car market on earth – perhaps bigger than the US, with 18 million new vehicles per year and a fleet of 130 million vehicles in all. More models are now sold in China than in any market in the world including the US. Moreover, as China is increasingly the centre of world manufacturing, and car production is manufacturing, this is where car production as well as consumption will be concentrated. Chinese car production plants are already using robots in highly automated settings and sell a budget car for under $6,000 with a profit-margin per vehicle of about $16 per vehicle.
Last year The Economist set out the major commercial and environmental issues that kindled my interest in this industry. The following segments drawn from the Bangordaily set out things succinctly:
Last year The Economist set out the major commercial and environmental issues that kindled my interest in this industry. The following segments drawn from the Bangordaily set out things succinctly:
‘China, with its big city's broad boulevards suddenly jammed with cars, is plunging into the same love-hate automobile obsession that has long since absorbed the United States. As The Wall Street Journal reported recently, nearly 1,000 new cars are hitting the streets in Beijing every day, crowding a city already clogged with traffic and choked with pollution. The mayor complains that the flood of automobiles makes it hard to run the city. And local officials may ban private cars temporarily to improve air quality during the 2008 summer Olympic Games. Cars in China are already a curse and a blessing.
Aside from traffic jams and air turned blue by exhaust fumes, the country's automobile industry is a mainstay of its booming economic development. The
Journal reported that car sales were up 54% for this year's first quarter compared with last year. It said the Chinese auto market, the world's second largest, employs 1.7 million workers. At the current rate of increase, the 33 million vehicles on Chinese roads will surge to 130 million by 2020. As in many developing economies, owning a car has become a mark of success, widely achievable with higher wages and reduced car prices. A Chinese-made hatchback sells for $5,200. Consumer demand and the vital role of the automobile industry in the Chinese economy have left environmental considerations and mass transit largely in the lurch. Pollution restrictions and applications for a dozen new or expanded subway systems have been put on hold in deference to the automobile craze.Does this sound familiar? Most Americans love their cars, often still preferring big SUVs despite record gasoline prices and rollover hazards. They put up with bumper-to-bumper morning and evening traffic in most big cities rather than turn to carpooling or mass transit for the sake of personal convenience and because the traffic burden has grown incrementally. Both countries will do well to mitigate their traffic problems by expanding rail service. And both must seize the pollution problem by improving exhaust control and limiting the use of high-sulfur fuels. They can see in each other a reflection of the consequences for not acting.China and the United States have a responsibility to harness their automobile industries to reduce the greenhouse gases that pollute the world's atmosphere and contribute to climate change. In their shared affection for the automobile, there is an opportunity to set
standards that will improve the health of the planet while still providing drivers in both countries all the traffic they can handle’.
The Chinese car industry is a remarkable development that will improve the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people although, this will be qualified by environmental concerns. Locally the development has major implications for the way we see the future of the Australian car industry which, to be blunt, looks dim. It also emphasises the urgency of developing non-fossil-fuel based car technologies and of dealing comprehensively with the global public good consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. If we don't do it, they won't and we should.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Mid week review
I have been busily marking exams and have just finished the last paper. Most teachers whether at schools or universities will tell you that the most uninteresting part of their work is grading assignments and exams. There are bright spots but, for the most part, it is an effort to keep your concentration and focus.
Hopefully I can now return to some serious blogging.
There have been a couple of recent posts on other blogs that interested me but which I didn't have time to pursue. One by Jason Soon at Catallaxy looked at the value of freedom - amongst other things it discussed the role of risk and the ability of people in a free society to make mistakes. A post by John Quiggin similarly asked whether he could be a libertarian social democrat. On this blog there have been heated exchanges over the right of the state to attempt to manipulate people's eating, gambling and drug-taking behaviours.
The extent to which you want the state to intervene in people's lives is, of course, a major issue distinguishing different camps of political philosophy. The debate is confused since no-one outside of North Korea or Cuba favours state socialism any longer - there is universal agreement on the value of a market economy - and, similarly, few endorse unbridled libertarianism. My own (not entirely consistent position) is that I am support free markets but have an ambivalent attitude towards the state. I support state intervention to address market failures, income and opportunity inequalities and to pursue active interventionist policies to stabilise the macroeconomy. In this respect my views are just consistent with those of most economists. But in fact I would go a fair bit further than this.
As the conservative I am, rather than the liberal my critics would suggest I should be, I am also concerned with the fact that people do seem to act irrationally and that, sometimes the State might want to intervene to nudge things in a particular direction. For the most part these are negative nudges (drug, food and gambling restrictions) but there are also positive nudges as well - I support public education and activities of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and SBS.
I can justify these views by appealing to pragmatism but justification is probably unnecessary since many in the Australian community support these public interventions.
The age old issue of the appropriate role of the state is a broad question and one that I will return to. But how involved do you believe government should be in changing habits of citizens? Are activist drug, food and gambling policies valuable or are they are pernicious interventions by the nanny state?
Hopefully I can now return to some serious blogging.
There have been a couple of recent posts on other blogs that interested me but which I didn't have time to pursue. One by Jason Soon at Catallaxy looked at the value of freedom - amongst other things it discussed the role of risk and the ability of people in a free society to make mistakes. A post by John Quiggin similarly asked whether he could be a libertarian social democrat. On this blog there have been heated exchanges over the right of the state to attempt to manipulate people's eating, gambling and drug-taking behaviours.
The extent to which you want the state to intervene in people's lives is, of course, a major issue distinguishing different camps of political philosophy. The debate is confused since no-one outside of North Korea or Cuba favours state socialism any longer - there is universal agreement on the value of a market economy - and, similarly, few endorse unbridled libertarianism. My own (not entirely consistent position) is that I am support free markets but have an ambivalent attitude towards the state. I support state intervention to address market failures, income and opportunity inequalities and to pursue active interventionist policies to stabilise the macroeconomy. In this respect my views are just consistent with those of most economists. But in fact I would go a fair bit further than this.
As the conservative I am, rather than the liberal my critics would suggest I should be, I am also concerned with the fact that people do seem to act irrationally and that, sometimes the State might want to intervene to nudge things in a particular direction. For the most part these are negative nudges (drug, food and gambling restrictions) but there are also positive nudges as well - I support public education and activities of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and SBS.
I can justify these views by appealing to pragmatism but justification is probably unnecessary since many in the Australian community support these public interventions.
The age old issue of the appropriate role of the state is a broad question and one that I will return to. But how involved do you believe government should be in changing habits of citizens? Are activist drug, food and gambling policies valuable or are they are pernicious interventions by the nanny state?
Monday, June 26, 2006
Got a minute?
My work life is plagued with interruptions – people who want me to deal with their concerns right then. Alison Motluk in NewScientist this week looks at the phenomenon of 'being interrupted'. Interruptions cost the US economy $588 billion per year. Information workers get interrupted on average every 3 minutes.
The effects are severe. Being bombarded with emails and phone-calls has a larger effect on your IQ than smoking marijuana and none of the euphoric delight. It can create apparent attention deficit disorder (distraction, disorganization, impulsiveness) so you can’t eventually get anything done – but symptoms disappear if you take a holiday.
Moreover, it is not just external events that drive us to distraction – 50% of interruptions we experience are self-imposed – about half of interruptions. We need to be delivered from temptation to be diverted, from the compulsive need to check our email, too chat with friends and so on. We need to prioritise.
The suggestions made for ‘surfing the wave of interruptions’ include making your office face away from the flow of people – I’ll switch mine so that – when I work I face out the window. Stand up when someone is in the process of interrupting you so they know what they are doing and don’t offer them a chair. Put a big clock in full view of visitors and glare at it while they are interrupting you. Cutting two centimeters off the front legs of a chair discourages long stays.
If you must put up with interruptions keep a notebook to signify where you are up to when interrupted. Or put workers in an open space environment of the type despised by Jason Soon – in such environments people interrupt each other more often but at more convenient times.
And, of course, be tough. Tell people twhen you are busy and apologise while doing so. Offer to schedule a meeting for another time, or have regular times each day when you have an open-door policy. Finally - and this is painful - have the guts to turn off your email, phone and instant messenger until the job is done.
The effects are severe. Being bombarded with emails and phone-calls has a larger effect on your IQ than smoking marijuana and none of the euphoric delight. It can create apparent attention deficit disorder (distraction, disorganization, impulsiveness) so you can’t eventually get anything done – but symptoms disappear if you take a holiday.
Moreover, it is not just external events that drive us to distraction – 50% of interruptions we experience are self-imposed – about half of interruptions. We need to be delivered from temptation to be diverted, from the compulsive need to check our email, too chat with friends and so on. We need to prioritise.
The suggestions made for ‘surfing the wave of interruptions’ include making your office face away from the flow of people – I’ll switch mine so that – when I work I face out the window. Stand up when someone is in the process of interrupting you so they know what they are doing and don’t offer them a chair. Put a big clock in full view of visitors and glare at it while they are interrupting you. Cutting two centimeters off the front legs of a chair discourages long stays.
If you must put up with interruptions keep a notebook to signify where you are up to when interrupted. Or put workers in an open space environment of the type despised by Jason Soon – in such environments people interrupt each other more often but at more convenient times.
And, of course, be tough. Tell people twhen you are busy and apologise while doing so. Offer to schedule a meeting for another time, or have regular times each day when you have an open-door policy. Finally - and this is painful - have the guts to turn off your email, phone and instant messenger until the job is done.
Immaturity increasing: Academics as kids?
Neoteny describes a process by which paedomorphism is achieved – in neoteny, the physiological (or somatic) development of an animal or organism is slowed or delayed. So adults retain child characteristics.
Biologist Bruce Charleton argues that higher education is making people less psychologically mature. The modern world is unstable so a psychological neoteny effect – retention of childlike flexibility of attitudes, behaviours and knowledge - means adults never mature. Formal education, although continuing past physical maturity, leaves adults with immature minds.
In hunter-gatherer societies, maturity was probably achieved during a person’s late teens or early twenties but modern adults, particularly highly-educated and socially-valuable people, fail to attain this maturity.
Charlton added that modern cultures favour cognitive flexibility so immature people thrive and succeed, setting the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future, when our genes may change as a result of the psychological shift.
The faults of youth are retained along with its virtues. These include the mixed virtue of impulsiveness (as argued before), sensation and novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of cultural shallowness.
David Brooks, in Bobos in Paradise documents a related phenomenon concerning the current blurring of the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. Brookes believes people have lost the wisdom and maturity of their bourgeois predecessors due to emphasis on expertise, flexibility and vitality.
Are your colleagues neotenic? Are you? Not me!
Flag Tim Blair.
Biologist Bruce Charleton argues that higher education is making people less psychologically mature. The modern world is unstable so a psychological neoteny effect – retention of childlike flexibility of attitudes, behaviours and knowledge - means adults never mature. Formal education, although continuing past physical maturity, leaves adults with immature minds.
‘The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity. But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility. When formal education continues into the early twenties it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age’.
In hunter-gatherer societies, maturity was probably achieved during a person’s late teens or early twenties but modern adults, particularly highly-educated and socially-valuable people, fail to attain this maturity.
‘People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact.’
Charlton added that modern cultures favour cognitive flexibility so immature people thrive and succeed, setting the tone not only for contemporary life, but also for the future, when our genes may change as a result of the psychological shift.
The faults of youth are retained along with its virtues. These include the mixed virtue of impulsiveness (as argued before), sensation and novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of cultural shallowness.
David Brooks, in Bobos in Paradise documents a related phenomenon concerning the current blurring of the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. Brookes believes people have lost the wisdom and maturity of their bourgeois predecessors due to emphasis on expertise, flexibility and vitality.
Are your colleagues neotenic? Are you? Not me!
Flag Tim Blair.
Gittins supports food policies.
Co-worker Samantha pointed out to me this article by Ross Gittens supporting a case for activist food/obesity policies based on market failure ideas.
Sweethearts not bleeding hearts
I am not a fan of advertising on blogs - and not a fan of advertising generally - but I was interested in this match-making advertisement from the conservative Ace of Spades blog.
It seems sensible - go for a partner who shares your main political precepts.
It seems sensible - go for a partner who shares your main political precepts.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
David Tilley under the knife
A powerful account of surgery and its aftermath by David Tilley at Barista. Fantasies, hallucinations and some keen observations on our health system. Well-written.
Courtesy of Tim Blair.
Courtesy of Tim Blair.
Water trading
Farmers are complaining about being given the right to sell off their claims to Australia's water supplies under the National Water Policy. There are circumstances where being given a choice can make you worse-off but this is not such a situation.
If a farmer facing bankruptcy is forced to sell his water rights then the sale is a consequence of the imminent bankruptcy not a cause of it. If denied the right to sell water in this sitiuation the farmer will be worse-off not better-off. We need trading of water rights so that scarce water resources go to their highest valued uses so that valuable irrigation water is not used to flood fields so grass will grow to feed dairy herds. Nor does the rice-growing industry make much sense in arid Australia.
For once The Age's editorial gets it right.
If a farmer facing bankruptcy is forced to sell his water rights then the sale is a consequence of the imminent bankruptcy not a cause of it. If denied the right to sell water in this sitiuation the farmer will be worse-off not better-off. We need trading of water rights so that scarce water resources go to their highest valued uses so that valuable irrigation water is not used to flood fields so grass will grow to feed dairy herds. Nor does the rice-growing industry make much sense in arid Australia.
For once The Age's editorial gets it right.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Being fat & poor: The case of Krispy Kremes
Being fat can be caused by not having enough to eat and by being poor. Budget-constrained people eat a lot of junk food because they are not in a position to make healthy food choices. If they live day-to-day on low incomes they will gravitate to pubs and fast food outlets. This is particularly harmful for children of the poor who come to see potato chips and soft drink as food. Poor parents may not be able to afford to feed kids decent high-nutrient food and may end up providing them with the standard high carbohydrate poisons that leave them obese with the danger of diabetes. People in developed countries without access to adequate food tend to be overweight. Partly this is due to lack of information and opportunity but also MacDonalds is an affordable treat for the poor.
As a junk-food food case study, doughnuts are nutritionally barren. They are high in carbohydrates, fat and salt and contain dangerous transfats. To burn off the calories added by a single plain doughnut you must walk for more than 30 minutes. I’ve never liked doughuts even as ‘treats’ because they taste overly sugary and often seem to be stale. We have better food produce than this in Australia.
The US doughnut producer Krispy Kreme (much beloved by the heroic loser Homer Simpson) has been criticized for worsening obesity in Britain and has now arrived in Australia. An article in The Age (‘Krispy keeps us korpulant’) sets out the nutritional implications of this food and also explains where these stores are locating. Yes, almost all are in areas of socio-economic disadvantage. In Sydney 12 of 16 planned stores are in highly disadvantaged areas ranked 2-13 in the ABS list of 44 metropolitan councils. The first store in Victoria - at Narre Warren – is in the 10th most disadvantaged area in Melbourne.
Junk food enclaves in poor areas will worsen Australian’s future mortality due to obesity and diabetes. They will increase our national health bill and so should be taxed to internalize public sector health cost externalities. Most importantly, people who enter these stores must be provided with accurate information on the crap they are feeding themselves. 3-4 doughnuts can provide 75% of daily required calories, up to 108 grams of sugar and 96 grams of fat. The impact of eating 4 doughnuts with a coke is equivalent to eating 38 teaspoons of refined sugar. This is a plausibly horrific, meal for many kids. Parents and children should be aware of these facts both at the point of sale of such foods and in schools.
It is pointless to ban soft-drinks in schools if school kids can ingest more sugar from legally-supplied junk such as doughnuts. No-one likes the nanny state telling us what to eat but stores such as Krispy Kreme are a social negative. We need to bankrupt them by coupling hefty taxes on the poisons they supply that capture the costs to society of the people they help to damage, by providing consumers wiuth information on the effects of eating such so-called 'food' and by providing consumers with the education and the opportunities to buy non-junk food.
As a junk-food food case study, doughnuts are nutritionally barren. They are high in carbohydrates, fat and salt and contain dangerous transfats. To burn off the calories added by a single plain doughnut you must walk for more than 30 minutes. I’ve never liked doughuts even as ‘treats’ because they taste overly sugary and often seem to be stale. We have better food produce than this in Australia.
The US doughnut producer Krispy Kreme (much beloved by the heroic loser Homer Simpson) has been criticized for worsening obesity in Britain and has now arrived in Australia. An article in The Age (‘Krispy keeps us korpulant’) sets out the nutritional implications of this food and also explains where these stores are locating. Yes, almost all are in areas of socio-economic disadvantage. In Sydney 12 of 16 planned stores are in highly disadvantaged areas ranked 2-13 in the ABS list of 44 metropolitan councils. The first store in Victoria - at Narre Warren – is in the 10th most disadvantaged area in Melbourne.
Junk food enclaves in poor areas will worsen Australian’s future mortality due to obesity and diabetes. They will increase our national health bill and so should be taxed to internalize public sector health cost externalities. Most importantly, people who enter these stores must be provided with accurate information on the crap they are feeding themselves. 3-4 doughnuts can provide 75% of daily required calories, up to 108 grams of sugar and 96 grams of fat. The impact of eating 4 doughnuts with a coke is equivalent to eating 38 teaspoons of refined sugar. This is a plausibly horrific, meal for many kids. Parents and children should be aware of these facts both at the point of sale of such foods and in schools.
It is pointless to ban soft-drinks in schools if school kids can ingest more sugar from legally-supplied junk such as doughnuts. No-one likes the nanny state telling us what to eat but stores such as Krispy Kreme are a social negative. We need to bankrupt them by coupling hefty taxes on the poisons they supply that capture the costs to society of the people they help to damage, by providing consumers wiuth information on the effects of eating such so-called 'food' and by providing consumers with the education and the opportunities to buy non-junk food.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Problem gambling at 50%?
A new study claims that up to half of poker machine players in Victoria are problem gamblers. What does 'up to' mean here? Under a reasonable definition of 'problem gambling' this estimate seems high - the Productivity Commission's figure (for all gambling) is 15%. This is high in itself and signifies a real problem - but the 50% figure seems too large. The difficulty with exaggerated claims is that they can bring about disbelief in more modest, accurate claims. I'll dig out this report, check the data and report back.
The pokies are a menace but it is plausible that more than 50% of Victoria's Labor Party and more than 50% of the State Treasury are problem gambling supporters. Instead of trying to show that the Labor Party in Victoria are a sleezy bunch of dirt throwers (who glorify suicide bombers and President Assad of Syria) Victoria's Liberals should admit they were wrong in seeking to expand gambling in this State (following foolish early moves by the Labor Party) and pursue the principled actions of the Greens to dramatically slash poker machine numbers.
This is a worthwhile even if problem gambling on pokies is 15% not 50%.
The pokies are a menace but it is plausible that more than 50% of Victoria's Labor Party and more than 50% of the State Treasury are problem gambling supporters. Instead of trying to show that the Labor Party in Victoria are a sleezy bunch of dirt throwers (who glorify suicide bombers and President Assad of Syria) Victoria's Liberals should admit they were wrong in seeking to expand gambling in this State (following foolish early moves by the Labor Party) and pursue the principled actions of the Greens to dramatically slash poker machine numbers.
This is a worthwhile even if problem gambling on pokies is 15% not 50%.
Iraq shootings
My friend and colleague Professor Imad Moosa has just heard terrible news from his home town Basra in Iraq. His brother-in-law has been shot dead and his sister critically wounded by Shia militia. She was shot in the chest and stomach.
These ordinary people's lives have been threatened and damaged by the Iranian-supported militia that are turning Iraq into a fundamentalist madhouse. Today I saw a death threat letter received by Imad's family with photos of automatic weapons in its header - grim stuff. Imad's sister was threatened because she works for the 'infidels' - as a translator at the British Consulate. She is also a Sunni Muslim but married (for only 7 months) to a Shia! The sectarian hatred is not only evil, it is foolish and non-discriminating.
Imad's sister had been waiting for 2 months for emergency evacuation to Australia. Imad is an Australian citizen so it should be possible for his family to be evacuated here as soon as possible. In the meantime, the British forces in Basra should obviously protect their employees. It is difficult to understand why the Coalition don't do more to protect such civilians. There is a responsibility to protect such innocents.
You might think about trying to persuade Senator Vanstone to hurry up - she is a good Minister. You can (politely) email her regarding 'Imad Moosa's sister and family' at minister@immi.gov.au. I sent Vanstone an email today.
Update: Imad's sister is in Kuwait and will be allowed to settle in Britain or Australia. What a nightmare for her and for the unfortunate people of Iraq.
These ordinary people's lives have been threatened and damaged by the Iranian-supported militia that are turning Iraq into a fundamentalist madhouse. Today I saw a death threat letter received by Imad's family with photos of automatic weapons in its header - grim stuff. Imad's sister was threatened because she works for the 'infidels' - as a translator at the British Consulate. She is also a Sunni Muslim but married (for only 7 months) to a Shia! The sectarian hatred is not only evil, it is foolish and non-discriminating.
Imad's sister had been waiting for 2 months for emergency evacuation to Australia. Imad is an Australian citizen so it should be possible for his family to be evacuated here as soon as possible. In the meantime, the British forces in Basra should obviously protect their employees. It is difficult to understand why the Coalition don't do more to protect such civilians. There is a responsibility to protect such innocents.
You might think about trying to persuade Senator Vanstone to hurry up - she is a good Minister. You can (politely) email her regarding 'Imad Moosa's sister and family' at minister@immi.gov.au. I sent Vanstone an email today.
Update: Imad's sister is in Kuwait and will be allowed to settle in Britain or Australia. What a nightmare for her and for the unfortunate people of Iraq.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The rise of cybersex
NewScientist discusses online games that lead to animated cybersex. In Second Life , a game that initially was of a non-sexual role-playing genus, a you can buy sexual positions and fetishes from minority online communities and get to the point where a nymphet will undress you and take you to bed. Couples can use it as a graphics enhanced version of phone sex. It is pretty hard to buy your way into an online sex community and, even if you did find a ‘sex room’, you might not be ‘accepted’ – you can’t just turn up!
Capitalism however is now generating online cybersex games for the masses – Red Light Centre was released in May and Naughty America is due for release later this year and will tie cybersex to online dating. Red light centre allows characters to try on erotic lingerie which can then be purchased online. In both games characters can be pre-programmed with a set of sexual actions.
The games are intended to appeal particularly to women who are too tired to dress and go out or women who have safety concerns with casual sex.
Rape? In the two new games cited this is impossible since both partners must consent before the games will perform any sexual act. But in Sociolotron, virtual rape is an integral part of the game, though users must ‘consent’ before rape occurs. This seems potentially scary. It’s the usual story - ambiguity. Will allowing violent people to commit virtual crimes reduce or increase the likelihood of them carrying out a crime in the real world? Psychologist Bruce Bartholow believes the impulse to commit violent acts is increased by playing such games.
Sounds right to me - although I think that, for many people, these games will be a liberating form of sexual expression that does not displace real sex. Indeed to use some economics jargon, there will be complementarities between real sex and cybersex as well as substitutions. It will, in time, come to be treated as neutrally and, with as little public interest, as masturbation or homosexuality.
There are also interesting issues related to fidelity and adultery that are well-discussed in this wikipedia entry. There are also cybersex addicts, cybersex jokes and even cybersex instruction hotlines. Cybersex is not a fringe activity – when I Goggle it there are 4.5 million entries!
In any event the horse has bolted. Censorship won’t work and moral criticisms won’t prevent those who wish to use cybersex technologies from doing so. We will have to learn to live with these new technologies – legally or illegally. My guess is that these types of software will make fortunes for the first-movers who create them. I also think these technologies will, in time, profoundly alter relationships between human beings and, of course, how we view the all-important activity of sex.
Capitalism however is now generating online cybersex games for the masses – Red Light Centre was released in May and Naughty America is due for release later this year and will tie cybersex to online dating. Red light centre allows characters to try on erotic lingerie which can then be purchased online. In both games characters can be pre-programmed with a set of sexual actions.
The games are intended to appeal particularly to women who are too tired to dress and go out or women who have safety concerns with casual sex.
Rape? In the two new games cited this is impossible since both partners must consent before the games will perform any sexual act. But in Sociolotron, virtual rape is an integral part of the game, though users must ‘consent’ before rape occurs. This seems potentially scary. It’s the usual story - ambiguity. Will allowing violent people to commit virtual crimes reduce or increase the likelihood of them carrying out a crime in the real world? Psychologist Bruce Bartholow believes the impulse to commit violent acts is increased by playing such games.
Sounds right to me - although I think that, for many people, these games will be a liberating form of sexual expression that does not displace real sex. Indeed to use some economics jargon, there will be complementarities between real sex and cybersex as well as substitutions. It will, in time, come to be treated as neutrally and, with as little public interest, as masturbation or homosexuality.
There are also interesting issues related to fidelity and adultery that are well-discussed in this wikipedia entry. There are also cybersex addicts, cybersex jokes and even cybersex instruction hotlines. Cybersex is not a fringe activity – when I Goggle it there are 4.5 million entries!
In any event the horse has bolted. Censorship won’t work and moral criticisms won’t prevent those who wish to use cybersex technologies from doing so. We will have to learn to live with these new technologies – legally or illegally. My guess is that these types of software will make fortunes for the first-movers who create them. I also think these technologies will, in time, profoundly alter relationships between human beings and, of course, how we view the all-important activity of sex.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Mid-week review
I've been trying to get my head around the debate on industrial relations reform. As a supporter of the conservative side of politics I am untroubled by Kim Beazley's pact with the unions to emphasise the role of collective bargaining. With only 20% of the workforce unionised it won't work - it got the thumbs-down with voters in this morning's opinion polls even though many voters are influenced by Labor's scare campaign. The Coalition would easily win a Federal election now with more than twice as many (at 55%) supporting John Howard than Kim Beazley. The Australian electorate will be reluctant to support a leader who seeks to abandon our American allies and leave Iraq to a terrorist fate.
I am interested in some of the IR arguments being used to try to injure John Howard. One of the silliest to me is the claim that collective bargaining will induce greater productivity gains than individual contracts. How paying workers with different skills the same wage will improve productivity defies logic. In addition, some have argued that such uniform payments to all will reduce inequality in Australian wage outcomes. But paying everyone the same regardless of skills will reduce employment and increase inequality between prioveledged workers and those thrown on the unemployed scrapheap. The best employment outcomes that Australia has enjoyed for 30 years are threatened by these fantastic theories.
The best way to deal with inequality is via the tax/transfer mechanism not by forcing firms to pay wages in excess of productivity. It is embarrassing to have to state this to good economists who allow their politics to cloud their judgement.
In the limit the case for collective bargaining is false - if all unionised workers were paid the same wage the outcome would be massive inefficiency and unemployment.
The best way the welfare of the Australian workforce can be improved is to reduce unemployment to a low level and to increase the competitiveness of labour markets.
These claims seem to me to be self-evident. The counter-claim is that OECD labour market reports provide 'evidence' that minimum wages, employment protection and centralised bargaining do not adversely impact on unemployment. I'll look at this evidence over the next few weeks (it seems more ambivalent than commonly supposed) and report back but I must acknowledge my prior prejudices. I don't pay much attention to evidence unsupported by logic - it is just so difficult to isolate the effects.
In the meantime I am completing work on alcohol policy and have completed presentations for the Econometric Society in Alice Springs next month and the Economic Society of Australia in Perth in September. The illicit drugs research group of which I am a member will send 4 speakers in all to each conference. With the Australian Professional Society on Alcohol and Other Drugs (APSAD) Conference in Cairns in November I have much to do over the coming months. I am also doing consulting work on transport economics.
This is my informal weekly discussion and it is full of personal pronouns. I am interested in how your week has gone, your take on current industrial relations issues and on the political scene.
I am interested in some of the IR arguments being used to try to injure John Howard. One of the silliest to me is the claim that collective bargaining will induce greater productivity gains than individual contracts. How paying workers with different skills the same wage will improve productivity defies logic. In addition, some have argued that such uniform payments to all will reduce inequality in Australian wage outcomes. But paying everyone the same regardless of skills will reduce employment and increase inequality between prioveledged workers and those thrown on the unemployed scrapheap. The best employment outcomes that Australia has enjoyed for 30 years are threatened by these fantastic theories.
The best way to deal with inequality is via the tax/transfer mechanism not by forcing firms to pay wages in excess of productivity. It is embarrassing to have to state this to good economists who allow their politics to cloud their judgement.
In the limit the case for collective bargaining is false - if all unionised workers were paid the same wage the outcome would be massive inefficiency and unemployment.
The best way the welfare of the Australian workforce can be improved is to reduce unemployment to a low level and to increase the competitiveness of labour markets.
These claims seem to me to be self-evident. The counter-claim is that OECD labour market reports provide 'evidence' that minimum wages, employment protection and centralised bargaining do not adversely impact on unemployment. I'll look at this evidence over the next few weeks (it seems more ambivalent than commonly supposed) and report back but I must acknowledge my prior prejudices. I don't pay much attention to evidence unsupported by logic - it is just so difficult to isolate the effects.
In the meantime I am completing work on alcohol policy and have completed presentations for the Econometric Society in Alice Springs next month and the Economic Society of Australia in Perth in September. The illicit drugs research group of which I am a member will send 4 speakers in all to each conference. With the Australian Professional Society on Alcohol and Other Drugs (APSAD) Conference in Cairns in November I have much to do over the coming months. I am also doing consulting work on transport economics.
This is my informal weekly discussion and it is full of personal pronouns. I am interested in how your week has gone, your take on current industrial relations issues and on the political scene.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Bird Watching in Iraq (Cross-Posted at Birding Aus)
It interests me that in the midst of a chaotic war people go bird-watching. I am a pretty keen bird-watcher myself and have seen a fair number of Australian bird species. But bird-watching in a combat zone? The Economist book review section reports on bird-watching in wartime Iraq:
'IN EARLY 2004 Jonathan Trouern-Trend of the Connecticut National Guard started a year-long posting in Iraq. A birdwatcher since he was a boy, he used his spare time on base, and on trips "outside the wire", to look for birds, and wrote about the 122 species he saw in the Gulf in a blog that attracted thousands of readers. This tiny, beautifully illustrated book, produced in the style of a birdwatcher's diary, collects together the highlights of his online journal into a gentle war memoir that conveys a simple message of hope.
Mr Trouern-Trend was stationed at Camp Anaconda, one of America's biggest bases, in the Sunni triangle north of Baghdad. Although under almost daily mortar and rocket attack, the camp was full of wildlife; "a refuge of sublime natural beauty to those who looked."
Despite the effort of birdwatching in "full battle rattle", and the searing desert heat, Mr Trouern-Trend delights in the antics of the birds he sees: a spectacular Smyrna kingfisher perching on the reeds of the pond by the base laundry; white-cheeked bulbuls chasing each other in the tamarisk trees; wood pigeons unfazed by the roar of F-16s tearing down the runway; a flock of white storks riding a thermal "never once flapping their wings as they spiralled up higher and higher".
What makes this little book special is the author's joy that "something worthwhile or even magical" could take place amid the horror of war. "Knowing that the great cycles of nature continue despite what people happen to be doing is reassuring," he writes. "There is an order we can take comfort in and draw strength from."
Although the chaos in Iraq continues, those great cycles have already started to repair the damage. Iraqi ornithologists have begun surveying the birds of the country's southern marshes, which stretched for 20,000 square km (7,722 square miles) until they were drained and destroyed by Saddam Hussein's government. Some species feared extinct have recently been seen. Life goes on.
This was for a time recorded on a blogsite here. The book is Birding Babylon: A Soldier's Journal from Iraq , J. Trouern-Trend, Sierra Club Books; 79 pages; $9.95US ( in Australia , the cost $23.95 plus postage from Fishpond.com.au).
Update: Via Andrew Taylor at Birding-Aus I am referred to Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq.
'IN EARLY 2004 Jonathan Trouern-Trend of the Connecticut National Guard started a year-long posting in Iraq. A birdwatcher since he was a boy, he used his spare time on base, and on trips "outside the wire", to look for birds, and wrote about the 122 species he saw in the Gulf in a blog that attracted thousands of readers. This tiny, beautifully illustrated book, produced in the style of a birdwatcher's diary, collects together the highlights of his online journal into a gentle war memoir that conveys a simple message of hope.
Mr Trouern-Trend was stationed at Camp Anaconda, one of America's biggest bases, in the Sunni triangle north of Baghdad. Although under almost daily mortar and rocket attack, the camp was full of wildlife; "a refuge of sublime natural beauty to those who looked."
Despite the effort of birdwatching in "full battle rattle", and the searing desert heat, Mr Trouern-Trend delights in the antics of the birds he sees: a spectacular Smyrna kingfisher perching on the reeds of the pond by the base laundry; white-cheeked bulbuls chasing each other in the tamarisk trees; wood pigeons unfazed by the roar of F-16s tearing down the runway; a flock of white storks riding a thermal "never once flapping their wings as they spiralled up higher and higher".
What makes this little book special is the author's joy that "something worthwhile or even magical" could take place amid the horror of war. "Knowing that the great cycles of nature continue despite what people happen to be doing is reassuring," he writes. "There is an order we can take comfort in and draw strength from."
Although the chaos in Iraq continues, those great cycles have already started to repair the damage. Iraqi ornithologists have begun surveying the birds of the country's southern marshes, which stretched for 20,000 square km (7,722 square miles) until they were drained and destroyed by Saddam Hussein's government. Some species feared extinct have recently been seen. Life goes on.
This was for a time recorded on a blogsite here. The book is Birding Babylon: A Soldier's Journal from Iraq , J. Trouern-Trend, Sierra Club Books; 79 pages; $9.95US ( in Australia , the cost $23.95 plus postage from Fishpond.com.au).
Update: Via Andrew Taylor at Birding-Aus I am referred to Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq.
Save the whales?
Should whales be treated differently from other non-human animals? Should whaling continue to be restricted or should controlled harvesting, beyond levels of ‘scientific whaling’ now practiced by Japan and Norway, be allowed? To be frank I don’t want to see any whales killed but, if pressed, my (non-vegetarian) arguments for this position fray at the edges.
There are claims that there is currently a surplus of whale meat in Japan and that it is currently being turned into dog food – a claim rejected by the Japanese. The role of whale meat as a significant Japanese food has even been questioned. As Masako Fukui in The Australian remarks:
There are even moves to distribute whale meat to Japanese school children to reactivate traditional demands for it.
Finally, there are claims that whale killing is cruel because whales die an agonizing death – this argument in itself will drive endeavors to come up with an efficient means of dispatching whales.
The argument favoring harvesting seems to be that the Japanese regard whales just as large animals that can be harvested for their protein and fat. Others regard whales as charismatic megafauna that should be protected. This is an ambiguous claim in terms of brain size though whales are indeed charismatic social animals .
Japan and the pro-whaling nations seem today to have wrested control of the International Whaling Commission from those opposed to whaling setting the stage for a resumption of commercial whaling from next year – the ban on commercial whaling has been overturned by a small majority though this needs to be agreed to by 75% of the 70 delegates when the IWC meets next year to have effect. The Japanese will presumably attempt to make voting at the IWC secret and to eliminate the attendance at IWC meetings of conservation groups as observers. This might swing the vote to resumption of whaling as the ‘shame factor’ is eliminated from voting in favor of whaling.
Whales are a global common property resource and, on this basis, John Quiggin’s suggestion that the case for whaling should be resolved by a vote among nations is a sound one. Since most Australians oppose whaling – 93% disapprove of eating whale meat - the Australian Government is correct to pursue strong opposition to whaling via the IWC. (By the way since only 37% of Japanese approve of eating whale meat the Japanese Government too should reconsider their position).
One interesting proposal that won’t go over well with whale kill supporters is to create a quota of whale harvesting rights that could be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Then those who would prefer to see whales swim free would be able to outbid the few remaining humans who want to kill and eat whales. This won’t work because the Japanese see whale populations as residing at the top of the food chain – they not only have to be killed off for food but also to protect fish stocks. This claim is widely rejected by fishery experts (here and here) – dwindling fish stocks are due to over-fishing not to increasing whale populations - but this false claim is unlikely to dent the enthusiasm of the Japanese for killing these magnificent animals. They seem just as hell-bent on their mission as I am in opposing their intentions.
There are claims that there is currently a surplus of whale meat in Japan and that it is currently being turned into dog food – a claim rejected by the Japanese. The role of whale meat as a significant Japanese food has even been questioned. As Masako Fukui in The Australian remarks:
‘…traditional whaling seems to reside in that realm of mythical reality that characterizes so much of what's called tradition in Japan. After all, whale consumption took off in Japan only after World War II, when US general Douglas
MacArthur encouraged whale consumption to supplement Japanese protein intake. By the time of the moratorium in the 1980s, beef and other sources of protein were being consumed in the Japanese diet. So when the ban began in 1986, fewer than 1000 jobs were lost in the whaling industry’.
There are even moves to distribute whale meat to Japanese school children to reactivate traditional demands for it.
Finally, there are claims that whale killing is cruel because whales die an agonizing death – this argument in itself will drive endeavors to come up with an efficient means of dispatching whales.
The argument favoring harvesting seems to be that the Japanese regard whales just as large animals that can be harvested for their protein and fat. Others regard whales as charismatic megafauna that should be protected. This is an ambiguous claim in terms of brain size though whales are indeed charismatic social animals .
Japan and the pro-whaling nations seem today to have wrested control of the International Whaling Commission from those opposed to whaling setting the stage for a resumption of commercial whaling from next year – the ban on commercial whaling has been overturned by a small majority though this needs to be agreed to by 75% of the 70 delegates when the IWC meets next year to have effect. The Japanese will presumably attempt to make voting at the IWC secret and to eliminate the attendance at IWC meetings of conservation groups as observers. This might swing the vote to resumption of whaling as the ‘shame factor’ is eliminated from voting in favor of whaling.
Whales are a global common property resource and, on this basis, John Quiggin’s suggestion that the case for whaling should be resolved by a vote among nations is a sound one. Since most Australians oppose whaling – 93% disapprove of eating whale meat - the Australian Government is correct to pursue strong opposition to whaling via the IWC. (By the way since only 37% of Japanese approve of eating whale meat the Japanese Government too should reconsider their position).
One interesting proposal that won’t go over well with whale kill supporters is to create a quota of whale harvesting rights that could be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Then those who would prefer to see whales swim free would be able to outbid the few remaining humans who want to kill and eat whales. This won’t work because the Japanese see whale populations as residing at the top of the food chain – they not only have to be killed off for food but also to protect fish stocks. This claim is widely rejected by fishery experts (here and here) – dwindling fish stocks are due to over-fishing not to increasing whale populations - but this false claim is unlikely to dent the enthusiasm of the Japanese for killing these magnificent animals. They seem just as hell-bent on their mission as I am in opposing their intentions.
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