[economy] for and against the free market [2]

If you read my rant about free marketeers, you’d be au fait with the arguments. Though I believed in what I wrote, still, it needed to be bounced off an economist or two and so I sent the link to two of the best going just now, mentally preparing to be torn into strips. One replied and as he says:

There are several things to quibble with. I'll pick three:

1 Do free markets really tend towards monopoly? I'm not sure. They do, if increasing returns to scale are widespread. But in practice, monopolies often get lazy and inefficient, or fail to attend to niche markets, thus providing opportunties for smaller firms. Or monopolies can disappear with technical change; Polaroid had a monopoly on instant photography, that got wiped out with the growth of digital cameras.
And how bad are monopolies anyway? If there's the threat of competition, a monopoly can be kept efficient. Everyone talks about Wal-Mart - but this is an exception.

2. You say "I still support a market society for the reason that I can’t see the obligation to help those who won’t help themselves." This is a different thing. You can have free markets with redistribution, as long as the redistribution doesn't affect prices. The economists' ideal here is lump-sum taxation. And you can have no redistribution but no free markets - think of feudalism.

3. "The market becomes a goal in itself, replacing spirituality as the summum bonum." I'll grant this has happened in many places. But it's an argument against the crass materialism of much of human nature (which politicians encourage). It's no argument against the market. The market is just a tool for allocating goods. How much we use that tool is up to us. In theory, markets can coincide with spirituality - imagine monasteries trading with each other.

Interestingly, Chris Dillow is also running a piece on the Beeb just now.

[women] just the cash please

This in Reuters today merely adds statistical weight to what we already knew anyway.

It’s perhaps a little unfair to the ladies - society raises them to find good partners and to be acquisitive and then when they do, we turn around and accuse them of gold-digging. No wonder many women today are going out and doing it for themselves.

Women regard healthy finances as more important than good looks in a man, according to a London survey published on Friday. Almost half (45 percent) said a healthy bank balance is more significant than physical attractiveness in a potential partner, according to National Savings & Investments' (NS&I) latest quarterly savings survey.

Just 22 percent of men, however, rate finances above looks in women. A salary of almost 50,000 pounds a year is required before women consider a man successful and wealthy. More than one in 10 women would only consider a partner to be successful if they were earning 100,000 pounds or more.

Women expect their men to have an average of 24,281 pounds in savings, while men are happy with savings of 15,143 pounds among women.

Dax Harkins, senior savings strategist at NS&I, said: "Maybe people do believe they can buy happiness after all."

Kate Maycock, from Relate, said: "Feeling financially insecure will put some strains on a relationship. These latest figures bear out that two people are unlikely to exactly agree on what is a healthy nest-egg and what is a financial crisis."

I’m interested in the 22% of men [above]. I don’t know about you but I’ve never ever looked at how much money a woman’s got. Surely we’re the main providers?

[colour schemes] the culture of blue

A natural color, from the blue of the sky, blue is a universal color. The cool, calming effect of blue makes time pass more quickly and it can help you sleep. Blue is a good color for bedrooms.

However, too much blue could dampen spirits. In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, brings peace, or is believed to keep the bad spirits away.

Blue conveys importance and confidence without being somber or sinister, hence the blue power suit of the corporate world and the blue uniforms of police officers. Long considered a corporate color, blue, especially darker blue, is associated with intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism.

Just as seeing red alludes to the strong emotions invoked by the color red, feeling blue or getting the blues represents the extremes of the calm feelings associated with blue, i.e. sadness or depression, lack of strong (violent) emotion. Dark blue is sometimes seen as staid or stodgy — old-fashioned.

In Iran, blue is the color of mourning while in the West the something blue bridal tradition represents love.

A deep royal blue or azure conveys richness and perhaps even a touch of superiority. Navy blue is almost black and is a bit warmer than lighter blues. Combine a light and dark blue to convey trust and truthfulness — banker's colors.

Although blue is a year-round color, pastel blues, especially along with pinks and pale yellows suggest Springtime while deep blue is a colder weather color. Create a conservative but sophisticated look with subtle contrast by combining light and dark shades of blue.

Mix the color of blue with green for a natural, watery palette. Add gray for understated elegance. Sky blue and robin's egg blue, especially when combined with neutral light brown, tans, or beige are environmentally friendly color combinations. Throw in a dash of blue to cool down a hot red or orange scheme. Grab attention with the contrast of blue and yellow.

Dark blue with white is fresh, crisp, and nautical. Red, white, and blue is a patriotic color trio for many countries, including the United States. Use dark blue with metallic silver accents for an elegantly rich appearance.

From About

[modern living] are we becoming less patient

This situation happened to me some years back and then, some days later, I read this article in the newspaper. As it was before the time of this blog, I didn't keep the paper and can't attribute but it's too good not to run. Anyone know who wrote it?

At a pedestrian crossing near Victoria Station in London, a man and a woman, walking towards each other on the footpath, did that old urban dance of both dodging to the right, then to the left, in an effort to avoid one another.

I was crossing the road at the same time and heard them. Normally people laugh it off and say "sorry". Not this time.

The man, well-dressed and holding a briefcase, scowled. He tutted. And then he swore: "Oh for God's sake! Get out of the *%^&$* way!" It was not even as though he was hurrying for a train - he was walking away from the rail terminus.

Anger bubbles just below the surface in modern British life. We have become peevish, testy, edgy. You see it on the roads, at the supermarket, and, as I discovered, even on the street in the middle of a sunny morning.

People are fractious. Strangers simmer, motorists thump their steering wheels and Tube passengers groan as yet another goon steps into an already crowded carriage.

Research commissioned by the BBC suggests that tempers are fraying as never before. So what is happening?

Full text here.

[deutschland] reuters berichtet über günter grass

Nach dem Bekenntnis von Günter Grass, als Jugendlicher Mitglied der Waffen-SS gewesen zu sein, hatten polnische Politiker gefordert, dem Nobelpreisträger die Ehrenbürgerschaft von Danzig abzuerkennen. Wider Erwarten gibt der Stadtrat diese Anstrengungen nun auf.

Danzig - Völlig überraschend verzichteten die im Stadtrat von Grass' Geburtsstadt dominierenden Konservativen auf einen Antrag, Grass die Ehrenbürgerschaft abzuerkennen. Der Chef der konservativen Partei Recht und Gerechtigkeit (PiS) in der Region Danzig, Jacek Kurski, sagte, ein Antrag zur Aberkennung der Ehrenbürgerwürde hätte im Stadtrat wohl keine Mehrheit gefunden.

Es war die erste Sitzung des Gremiums nach dem Bekenntnis von Grass, mit dem der Literatur-Nobelpreisträger heftige internationale Diskussionen über seine Rolle als moralische Instanz ausgelöst hatte. In Polen hatten Kurski sowie der polnische Ex-Präsident und Anführer der Gewerkschaft Solidarität, Lech Walesa, die Front der Grass-Kritiker angeführt. Walesa hatte seine Kritik an dem 78-Jährigen jedoch zurück genommen, nachdem Grass in einem Brief an Danziger Ratsmitglieder erklärt hatte, warum er seine SS-Vergangenheit so spät enthüllt hatte.

Trotzdem lassen die die nationalkonservativen Politiker nicht locker: Sie wollen den Literatur-Nobelpreisträger zur nächsten Ratssitzung einladen, damit er dort persönlich zu seiner Vergangenheit Stellung nimmt. "Ein Wort der Entschuldigung würde die ganze Diskussion abschließen", sagte der PIS-Politiker Kazimierz Koralewski.

Allerdings fand der Antrag der Partei, Grass zu einer Diskussion einzuladen, im liberal dominierten Stadtrat keine Mehrheit. Auch die Forderung nach einer Entschuldigung von Grass lehnten die meisten der Danziger Ratsmitglieder ab. "Günter Grass muss sich für nichts entschuldigen", betonte Maciej Lisicki von der liberalen Bürgerplattform.

[economy] for and against free markets

Today I took a car from the side of the road, having agreed a price for the journey to the centre. How legal this is over here I’m not sure but it’s free enterprise, it’s a voluntary transaction between two parties and it was win/win for both today. There are many such transactions over here and it’s not going too far to state that without them, the economy would implode.

Everyone’s making his little on the side. The babushki lined up along the footpath selling jars of berries, jams and salads – that’s free enterprise, as are the million or so deals done by mobile telephone day and night. Today, in front of our house, a car pulled up, then another, two boots/trunks were opened and the deal was done.

I have always operated in a free economic zone. Years ago I got it into my head to follow the family business and get into screen printing sports t-shirts for clubs and so I hawked my wares around the city, made contacts and the big boys waited till simple economics snuffed me out.

Along the way I met a guy who produced trophies for clubs and we combined forces. I had two girls working for me, plus a day job. Big mistake. Suddenly, mindboggling orders came in and we had neither the infrastructure, the talent nor the time. That was the end of the business.

And yet I strongly believe in market forces and feel that in a free economy such as we have [on one level] over here - anything is possible. However, there are distinct negatives, which I never really saw until I got into ‘trade’. Arguments against a free economy do exist and include:

Full text here.