tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14231825929300824062024-03-13T19:42:01.890+00:00Not The Conventional WisdomChallenging the received view, exploding popular myths ... and sometimes just having a rant. Topics covered on this blog will be mostly socio-economic issues, but are also likely to include some random deviations.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-63988670703254419572013-06-21T17:28:00.000+01:002013-06-21T17:28:03.175+01:00Does (department) size matter?Not really, according to <a href="http://www.voxeu.org/article/do-large-departments-make-academics-more-productive" target="_blank">this new research </a>by Clement Bosquet and Pierre-Philippe Combes, who looked at the effects of various departmental characteristics on academic economists' research productivity in French universities. Concentrating on French data has the advantage that although initial affiliation relates to individual publications (as in most countries), this can be captured with an individual fixed effect, while subsequent moves in France are not driven by individual performance. Instead, the authors note, they are driven by personal or family motivations, in part due to the fact that academic salaries are essentially flat across universities, while the most
frequent way of becoming a full professor is via a national contest that
allocates winners to departments in a largely random way. Cool.<br />
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So what did they find?<br />
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Well, firstly, size doesn't matter, much. Instead, the biggest determinants of research productivity are the diversity of fields (within economics) that your colleagues work on - higher diversity being good for productivity - and the degree of heterogeneity of publication quality within the department - more heterogeneity being bad for productivity. So, a mixed bag of apples and oranges (in terms of research interests) is good, but a few rotten apples do appear to spoil the bunch!<br />
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Apart from size, it is also interesting to note that the authors found little or no effect of proximity to other economics departments, a finding in contrast with the conventional wisdom from economic geography, which tends to find large agglomeration effects in economic productivity (e.g. comparing urban and rural areas). <br />
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Other interesting findings the authors report:<br />
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<li style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.2833px;">Contrary to common intuition, more students per academic do not reduce publication performance.</li>
<li style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.2833px;">Women, older
academics, stars in the department and co-authors in foreign
institutions all have a positive externality impact on each academic's
individual outcome.</li>
</ul>
So, when choosing your next career move, look for a department with a wide array of interests, and not just those with lengthy lists of faculty members.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-61438965680302408102013-06-21T10:12:00.000+01:002013-06-21T13:08:47.214+01:00"Oh I do like to be beside the seaside ... "New research from my colleague Susana Mourato, and George MacKerron, shows that people are happiest in marine and coastal environments, and more generally when experiencing the great outdoors. No great surprise there, perhaps, but this is a pretty novel attempt at quantifying the effects. The study is the first to use a tailor-made smartphone app to record individuals' wellbeing in different environments, and is based on over a million observations, from 22,000 individuals. Results are interesting in and of themselves, but the method also has great potential as a new means of estimating the intrinsic value of the natural environment. Could be useful, for example, in evaluating climate adaptation measures such as flood defenses. The paper is published in <i>Global Environmental Change</i>. More details <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2013/06/seaandsunequalhappiness.aspx" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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</span>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-53798271058898757692013-02-03T12:34:00.000+00:002013-02-03T12:34:54.117+00:00Gender discrimination is holding back development, but not just in poor countriesGender inequality has been getting a lot of attention lately in the development literature as a factor that reinforces poverty dynamics. Esther Duflo provides a good summary of the complex interaction between gender inequality and under-development <a href="http://economics.mit.edu/files/799" target="_blank">in this paper [PDF]</a>. I was glad to see the <a href="http://www.post2015hlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Monrovia-Communique-1-February-2013.pdf" target="_blank">concluding communique from the Post-Millenium Development Goals high level panel meeting in Monrovia [PDF]</a> putting gender equality issues up front in their recommendations for action on global development.<br />
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But several articles over the past week have reinforced for me the idea that gender inequality has also been a big factor in holding back economic prosperity in the rich world. An article in the Irish Times (headline: <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2013/0130/1224329422653.html?via=mr" target="_blank">"I told the interviewer I wasn't planning on having more children. I got the job"</a>) highlighted the level of job-market discrimination being faced by young women - particularly those in the so-called goldilocks years for having kids - in Ireland today. This is apparently a result of employers trying to avoid taking on the "liability" of maternity leave. This story is echoed in Italy, which has the third lowest female employment rate in the OECD, according to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/31/italian-election-female-question-employment" target="_blank">this article from Friday's Guardian</a>. The current economic circumstances in these countries doesn't help, with employers being able to pick and choose between numerous candidates for any advertised job. But the problem originates in the unequal treatment of men and women in parental leave legislation and the inadequate provision of childcare. Of course, there is some biological justification for the differing treatment of men and women in relation to parental leave. But not enough to justify a system - backed by unequal legal entitlements - that creates the expectation that a woman who has a child will be off work for six months or more, while a man might miss a few days.<br />
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Friends of mine who live in Oslo and recently had a baby, explained to me that the system there allows parents to choose how they divide parental leave between them. But the system also incentivises fathers to take time off by extending the total amount of parental leave for couples who both avail of it. This means the expectation at work is that both men and women will take leave if they have children, reducing the motivation for employers to discriminate against women.<br />
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Greater gender equality in the form of higher female participation in the workforce has dual economic benefits. Higher participation rates provide the mechanistic boost to prosperity of simply shifting the ratio of workers to overall population in favour of the former. More importantly, the exclusion of women from the workforce deprives the economy of the contributions of many of its most talented members. While unpaid work in the home is inherently valuable, society as a whole benefits when families can choose who engages in that work and how much time they devote to it. I'm putting the focus here on the economic benefits, taking as given that greater gender equality is a worthy and important goal in itself. There are also, presumably, social benefits to greater gender equality, not just for women, but also for fathers and their children, who would benefit from the opportunity to spend more time together.<br />
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<br /><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570840-nordic-countries-are-reinventing-their-model-capitalism-says-adrian" target="_blank">A special report in The Economist this week</a> praised the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway) for consistently topping world rankings in both competitiveness and well-being. While the report notes the exceptionally high rates of female labour force participation in these countries, it gives relatively little attention to the systems that underpin that level of inclusion, choosing instead to focus on reductions in the size of government and Sweden's introduction of private sector competition and vouchers in its education sector (elements of the Nordics' success that The Economist is predictably keen on).<br />
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The Economist is right to point out that some of the cultural and institutional factors on which the Nordic success is built will be difficult for others to replicate. One element of that success that should be relatively straightforward for others to imitate is to legislate for greater equality between the sexes when it comes to parental leave entitlements, and to provide both women and men the basic freedom to decide for themselves how best to share their work and home life commitments.<br />
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Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-29676301138563679692013-02-01T12:14:00.000+00:002013-02-01T12:16:09.676+00:00Teaching Economics<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">This week I reviewed<i> Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics</i> (edited by Kalle Lasn and Adbusters) for the LSE Review of Books. (You can read the full review <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/01/28/book-review-meme-wars-the-creative-destruction-of-neoclassical-economics/" target="_blank">here</a>). <i>Meme Wars</i> styles itself as an alternative ‘Econ 101′ textbook and the core of the book is a collection of short essays that question the ideas
and teaching of mainstream, neoclassical economics. Its radical approach (in both design and content) might be off-putting to some, but I'd recommend it - both for experienced economists, as a challenge to think more broadly about underlying assumptions and fundamental questions about the purpose of the discipline - and especially for those who are new to economics, as an introduction to some alternative ways of thinking about the economy. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">While many of the criticisms raised here are already gaining traction within the discipline, for example through the emerging paradigms of ecological, behavioural and complexity economics, <i>Meme Wars</i> is right in complaining that these developments are generally not reflected in the economics taught to undergraduate students. A recent paper (available <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2203749" target="_blank">here</a>) that tracks changes in the content of the bestselling introductory economics textbooks since the onset of the global financial crisis, would appear to confirm this view, i.e. little has changed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, that is not to say that 'mainstream' voices in economics are not willing to challenge the status quo. <i>Meme Wars</i> contains contributions from the likes of Joe Stiglitz and George Akerlof, among others. I also recently came across a collection of essays titled<i> What's the Use of Economics? Teaching the Dismal Science After the Crisis </i>edited by Diane Coyle (see <a href="http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/page15/WhatsTheUseofEconomics.html" target="_blank">here</a> for details), which includes contributions from numerous established names in economics.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The currents of change and debate within economics make this an exciting time to be a part of the discipline. It would be a shame not to share this excitement with those being introduced to the subject for the first time.</span></span>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-31510849618735834222012-11-07T12:00:00.000+00:002012-11-07T16:48:01.934+00:00Triumph of the 'quants'This morning we salute an historic election victory. And no, I'm not referring to Barack Obama earning four more years in the presidential hot-seat (a victory now immortalised in <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/266031293945503744/photo/1" target="_blank">the most-popular-tweet-ever</a>). The historic victory that has the twitterati salivating with admiration*, is <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/11/07/nate-silver-wins/" target="_blank">the triumph of the nerds</a>--and one 'nerd' in particular; Nate Silver of the New York Times blog <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/" target="_blank">fivethirtyeight</a>. Silver correctly predicted the outcome in all 50 states--<a href="https://twitter.com/cosentino/status/266042007758200832/photo/1" target="_blank">as illustrated in this graphic comparison of his state-by-state prediction map with a map of actual results</a>--beating his 2008 feat of correctly predicting 49 out of 50 (he missed out that time on Indiana, which Obama took by 0.1%).<br />
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The day before the election <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/nov-5-late-poll-gains-for-obama-leave-romney-with-longer-odds/#more-37295" target="_blank">Silver gave Obama a 92% chance of victory</a>, defying the 'gut-instinct' pundits who saw the election as 'too close to call', or those who only weeks ago were talking about the Romney campaign's <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/triumph-of-the-electoral-nerds/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto" target="_blank">'momentum'</a>, while Silver still had the probability of a Romney victory at just 25%. The xkcd comic summed things up neatly as follows: "To surprise of pundits, numbers continue to be best system for determining which of two things is larger" (cartoon <a href="http://xkcd.com/1131/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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The financial crisis did much to discredit the value of 'quants' and their stats-based analyses. But the lesson from the crisis was not so much that 'quants-are-bad', but that quantitative (predictive) modelling needs to be applied carefully, and only where the underlying model <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1563882" target="_blank">has valid statistical relevance</a> (I've blogged about this previously <a href="http://nottheconventionalwisdom.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/expert-accountability.html" target="_blank">here</a>).<br />
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So does Silver's triumph herald a new dawn in the public's attitude towards statistics and quantitative analysis? There seems little doubt that the success of the fivethirtyeight formula--both in terms of its predictive power and its ability to attract a big audience--will change the nature (or at least the methods) of political punditry. But what about its potential to improve the image of stats and quantitative, data-based analysis more widely?<br />
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I saw a tweet today from a former economics lecturer of mine, who said he had his masters class running election prediction simulations in Stata (a statistical/econometric software programme) this week. Seems to me like a great way to inspire students' interest in these analytical techniques. Economics lecturers regularly lament the difficulty of trying to get undergraduates to engage with stats--many, particularly those who are more politically minded, seem to simply switch off at the sight of an equation. This appears to be almost a form of learned behaviour--evidence of a dysfunctional relationship with numbers--a deep distrust of these seemingly arcane methods of analysis and scepticism about their relevance to the 'real-world'.<br />
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The success of movements such as <a href="http://coderdojo.com/#" target="_blank">CoderDojo</a> and<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/nov/04/raspberry-pi-programming-jam-cern" target="_blank"> the RaspberryPi project</a> in promoting computer coding as a hobby for kids (big and small) proves the potential appetite for 'nerdy' pursuits, when presented as engaging, creative--as opposed to mechanistic--activities. Here's hoping the (electoral) triumph of the nerds can do something similar for getting the kids interested in numbers. <br />
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*For example, @monsieurcorway tweeted: 'There's a great quote from a Romney supporter last night at Mitt's 'victory' party...
He was asked if he turned up thinking Mitt would win. His response?
"I read Nate Silver, that son of a bitch." Says it all. Well done, Nate - You legend.' Or this, from @alanbeattie: "Nate Silver can kill people by shooting lasers from his eyes <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23FACT&src=hash"><s>#</s><b>FACT</b></a>".Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-87569359256155785022012-10-30T16:21:00.000+00:002012-10-30T16:23:12.981+00:00Expert accountability<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The <a href="http://world.time.com/2012/10/24/the-aquila-earthquake-verdict-where-the-guilt-may-really-lie/" target="_blank">ruling last week by an Italian court</a> that seven scientists were guilty of manslaughter for failing to warn citizens about the threat of a major earthquake in the city of l'Aquila, raises some difficult questions about accountability and ethics in relation to the provision of 'expert' opinion and scientific advice to governments and the wider public. The scientific community and global media have reacted with outrage, comparing the verdict and threat of lengthy jail sentences for the scientists involved with <a href="http://science.time.com/2012/10/24/scientific-illiteracy-why-the-italian-earthquake-verdict-is-even-worse-than-it-seems/" target="_blank">the persecution of Galileo and the burning of witches</a>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I agree in principle and in spirit with this sense of outrage. The ruling appears to betray a lack of understanding of the inherent uncertainty in any scientific endeavour, which is particularly pronounced when it comes to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/10/david-brooks-v-nate-silver-prediction-polls.html" target="_blank">forecasting future events</a>. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html" target="_blank">putting science on trial</a> in this way threatens to curtail the progress of scientific inquiry generally, and more specifically--in the nearer term--to make the position of those charged with civil protection and disaster prevention, in Italy at least, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/23/us-italy-earthquake-idUSBRE89M10Q20121023" target="_blank">almost untenable</a>. However, there remains an important point relating to accountability and ethics that appears to have been overlooked amidst all the righteous indignation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html" target="_blank">an excellent article in Nature</a>, Stephen S. Hall outlines the sequence of events that led up to the tragedy. In an extraordinary meeting of <span id="articleText">the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks,</span> the seven scientists--who were all members of the Commission--reached the conclusion that an earthquake was
"unlikely" (if not impossible). This in turn was
interpreted by a government official, speaking at a press conference, as meaning the situation in l'Aquila was "certainly normal" and posed "no danger". The same official further added that the sequence of minor quakes and tremors that had been occurring in the region was in fact "favourable ... because of the continuous discharge of energy".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This interpretation is apparently contrary to the scientific evidence. The same article, by Hall, quotes Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at
the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and chair of the
International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting (ICEF), as suggesting that in the aftermath of a medium-sized shock in a seismic swarm (a sequence of tremors), the risk of a major quake
can increase anywhere from 100-fold to nearly 1,000-fold in the short
term, although the overall probability of a major quake remains relatively low--at around 2%, according to a study of other earthquake-prone zones in Italy (<a href="http://www.bssaonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/78/4/1538">G. Grandori <span class="i">et al. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. </span> <b>78, </b> 1538–1549; 1988)</a>, also quoted by Hall.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A 1,000- (or even 100-) fold increase in the probability of a major quake, would have been a very different message for public consumption than the<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html" target="_blank"> "anaesthetizing" </a>reassurances given to the media at the press conference. Clearly, the most egregious error committed here was in the over-, or indeed mis-interpretation, of the scientific evidence by the government official who spoke to the press. The scientists were--apparently--correct in their assessment that a major quake remained "unlikely", although not impossible. But, was this the best way of characterizing the risks for the general public?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the people affected by the L'Aquila earthquake, quoted in Hall's article, admits that he feels "betrayed by science"--"Either they didn't know certain things, which is a problem, or they didn't know how to communicate what they did know, which is also a problem."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It may be that the error here was not in mis-stating
the risk, but in not being specific enough about it. There is an
understandable reluctance to use statistics, probabilities and
scientific terminology in the public communication of scientific evidence.
But at times we take this too far. The public is not stupid, and--problems with common misunderstandings in relation to probability notwithstanding--would be better served by the scientific community and public officials avoiding condescending reassurance in favour of the clear presentation of facts.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is woolly language, such as
"unlikely" really any more useful or informative than saying simply "we don't know"? Might the
committee have been better to present the available statistical evidence--including details about the changes in probabilities--while acknowledging that the precise timing and location of a major quake is <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8990.html" target="_blank">essentially unpredictable</a>?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The advice could have stopped short of ordering a full-scale evacuation--which, on the basis of the best available evidence, would have been unnecessary 98% of the time--and instead, simply presented that evidence, enabling people to make their own informed decisions about what level of risk they were willing to accept.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Returning to the issue of accountability and ethics, to what extent should scientific or other experts be held accountable for the advice they give to governments or to the wider public? In the case of the l'Aquila tragedy, a more relevant question might be; should researchers be held accountable for the way in which their findings are interpreted by policy-makers and, in turn, by the media? Should researchers generally consider how their findings are likely to be interpreted before making them public? This almost certainly places an unreasonable burden on researchers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And yet--while researchers can't be expected to control how others interpret their findings, a greater effort needs to be made in communicating the science--its achievements and its limitations--directly to the public. <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">With
the recent proliferation of sources for news, opinion and analysis, the
authority of traditional media outlets and the role of journalists and
editors as the gatekeepers of public information, is increasingly being
challenged. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">This
presents both a challenge and an opportunity for scientific engagement
with a wider audience. It is increasingly difficult for members of the
public to distinguish </span>the signal of scientific or expert analysis from (a) noise and (b) intentionally biased or deceitful opinion emanating from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/rightwing-insurrection-usurps-democracy" target="_blank">thinly disguised lobbyists, portraying themselves as independent 'experts'</a>. On the other hand, the internet enables researchers to disseminate their findings, methods and data without intermediation by journalists or politicians. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The 'science on trial' headlines may sound melodramatic, but scientists from both the social and hard-sciences are right to feel they are being challenged to justify their art as at no other time in living memory. Public confidence in "science"--in its broadest sense--has been undermined by episodes such as the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/07/climate-emails-question-answer" target="_blank">'climategate'</a> controversy. The discipline of economics, similarly, has been widely criticised for not predicting the financial crisis--and more fundamentally, for persisting with models that appear <a href="http://www.voxeu.org/article/how-should-macroeconomics-be-taught-undergraduates-post-crisis-era-concrete-proposal" target="_blank">unable to explain 'real world' phenomena</a>. This critique certainly has some merit, and economics as a discipline <a href="http://economicsintelligence.com/2012/10/24/bank-of-englands-haldane-on-the-crisis-of-economics-our-models-are-no-longer-working-properly/" target="_blank">is evolving</a> to take account of the lessons from related disciplines, notably psychology, biology and epidemiology. However, it has to be recognised--both by researchers and those who would criticise their efforts--that models, by their very nature, are imperfect simplifications of the world they are trying to explain. One clear responsibility of any researcher, is to think carefully about <a href="http://web.mit.edu/alo/www/Papers/physics8.pdf" target="_blank">the domain of validity of the models that they use</a> [PDF], to define their limitations, and to communicate this in an unambiguous and honest way, along with any findings from the research.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reflecting on the trial of the seismologists, the former president of <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, concludes that<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html" target="_blank"> "scientists have to shut up"</a>. On the contrary, the lesson for scientists from this tragedy and the subsequent trial, is to be more proactive in our engagement with the public.</span></span></span><br />
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A good starting point might be the establishment of a voluntary code of ethics for researchers. This would include, for example, a commitment to publish annually a list of all sources of funding for one's research. Furthermore, the code might also contain a commitment to make public not only our research findings but also the data and methodology used (including
relevant context, limitations and assumptions). Signing up to this code could be a prerequisite for any government
advisers, and could similarly become a useful tool for the media in
screening 'expert' commentators.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">More generally this code would be based on three fundamental guiding principles; honesty, transparency and humility. Going back to<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html" target="_blank"> Hall's Nature article</a>, he quotes a man who lost his wife and daughter in the earthquake, lamenting the fact that "the science, on this occasion, was dramatically superficial, and it betrayed the culture of prudence and good sense that our parents taught us on the basis of experience and of the wisdom of the previous generations." Perhaps the greatest lesson from this tragedy is the need for a greater degree of humility when it comes to the predictive powers of even the most sophisticated scientific models. </span></span><br />
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Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-83808976662377191972012-08-25T10:23:00.000+01:002012-08-25T10:23:01.603+01:00Dan on crime - a lesson in the abuse of statistics<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dan O'Brien, <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0824/1224322862272.html" target="_blank">writing in the Irish Times on Friday</a>, claims that poverty and inequality are "not key reasons for law breaking" and that "recessions have had no discernible effect [on crime rates]". I call bullshit, and here's why (written as a direct reply to Dan's article, this is an edited version of the comment I left on the Irish Times site).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">************</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 23px; text-align: left;">Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything Kent. Forty percent of all people know that."</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 23px;"> </span></span>-
Homer J. Simpson</span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">************</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wow,
this is a breathtakingly ill-informed piece of lazy journalism, and
an outrageous abuse of statistics!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
commenters on the site have already pointed out some of the flaws in your
argument, but there are other ways in which this is simply wrong.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For
anyone interested in a serious discussion of incarceration, I would
highly recommend<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/nov/19/can-our-shameful-prisons-be-reformed/" target="_blank"> David Cole's article from the New York Review of Books</a> from a few years back (and which I previously blogged about <a href="http://nottheconventionalwisdom.blogspot.fi/2010/01/race-and-prisons-in-america.html" target="_blank">here</a>).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">According
to Cole, “<span style="color: #0e0e0e;">most of those imprisoned are
poor and uneducated, disproportionately drawn from the margins of
society” </span>(referring to the US prison population).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
US has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world. However,
somewhat inconveniently for your argument, Cole also points out that
up<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> to 1975 the US incarceration rate had been
steady at about 100 per 100,000. Since then, the rate has ballooned
to 700 per 100,000. </span>If putting the crooks behind bars is
really what prevents crime, it seems strange that such a massive
increase in the incarceration rate apparently had no preventative
effect on the 'crime waves' of the 1980s, to which you also make
reference.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Incidentally, it
is also slightly inconvenient for your argument that Russia, a
country that you refer to as having “a very high murder rate”,
also has the second highest incarceration rate in world. Huh.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But
of course all of these superficial correlations are meaningless
anyway (as you point out yourself!). What you are doing is taking two
trends that happen to be moving in the same direction (or in some cases
opposite directions), and assigning causation, in blatant disregard of
your own caveat about correlation not necessarily implying causation!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Your
country comparisons are also spurious. You simply can't compare crime rates and income
levels across countries without <b>at least</b> attempting to control
for some other relevant factors. Any applied economist worth their
salt would know this. Two such relevant factors, which you mention in
your article, are the rate of drug use (or perhaps more importantly
narcotics production) and demographics. Controlling for these might
lead to a very different picture of the relationship between income
and crime (or it may not, the point is we simply don't know, based on the evidence you present). In any case, it seems likely that relative poverty and
relative deprivation (i.e. within countries) would be more important
drivers of crime than aggregate national income levels.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
is astonishing that you would make such sweeping assertions about
what does or does not cause crime on the basis of so little evidence,
and that the Irish Times would publish this piece seemingly without
having done even the most basic fact-checking. (On that point, it is
worth referring to <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/kinds-of-wrong/" target="_blank">Paul Krugman's recent article</a> in which he outlines
the fact-checking process that each of his op-ed pieces goes through
before being published in the New York Times.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You
have done a disservice to economics and statistics with this article
– as well as showing an almost total disregard for the other
social-sciences which have produced voluminous literatures on the
socio-economic causes of crime. I sincerely hope that the Irish Times
will give the opportunity to someone with some expertise in this area
to write a response to this article.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-48732984883975499822012-08-24T12:48:00.001+01:002012-08-24T13:36:56.463+01:00The GAA, Irish culture and playing by the rulesSome thoughts in response to<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0822/1224322660315.html" target="_blank"> Sean Moran's excellent article</a> on the (non)-enforcement of rules in the GAA, and Irish society more generally.<br />
<br />
<br />
(I posted this as a comment at the end of the article also)<br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">The article raises a
very important issue about Irish culture with regard to rules and
rule-breakers. There is also an interesting parallel here with political
and economic affairs in that the nearer you get to the 'top' - in
whatever context - it seems, the less stringently the rules of the game
are applied. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">In relation to the hurling example referred to in Sean's article, I was also disappointed with the
reaction of the TV pundits on Sunday (making excuses for the violence on display and refusing to countenance the idea that this shouldn't be a part of the game). </span><br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">I fully agree with the idea that
hurling is - and should remain - a physically intense contact sport.
That intensity - in terms of physicality, skill and speed - is part of
what makes it such an attractive sport both to play and to watch.
However, it is the marriage of that intensity with - what is generally -
an honest and sporting atmosphere amongst players and spectators, that
sets the GAA, and hurling in particular, apart from other sports. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">I thought the GAA had begun to grow out of its adolescent need to appear
"manly" at all costs. What were common practices in the past, such as
mocking players for wearing white boots for example, or even for wearing
a helmet, seem largely to have disappeared. But sadly, experienced
analysts, all true 'hurling men' and supposedly experts on the game -
cannot seem to make what should be a fairly simple distinction between a
physical intensity that is fair and sporting - shoulder to shoulder
challenges, pulling on the ball with both hands on the hurl etc. - as
opposed to some of the cynical and ugly stuff we saw on Sunday (and in
other games). The wild strokes on Michael Rice and TJ Reid were just the
most egregious examples of this.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">Striking your opponent with the hurl
should always result in a sending off. As should interfering with
another player's helmet. There is also what appears to be a fairly
common practice of 'butting' your opponent with the end of the hurl -
usually into the ribs or stomach - which has become the standard
greeting onto the field for a newly arrived sub. This is another form of
striking with the hurl which should result in a straight red card and
yet seems to pass almost without comment, even when it is picked up by
the cameras. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">Between the reappearance of this 'all part of the game' attitude to
indiscipline and the public support from some senior GAA figures for Sean
Quinn, it has been a regressive summer in terms of GAA culture.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="echo-item-text">Update: On a brighter note, this inspirational and very funny speech from Cork inter-county hurler Donal Og Cusack at the Foyle Pride Festival, represents a massive and welcome step forward for GAA and Irish culture: http://www.facebook.com/foylepride/posts/275794492524567 </span>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-91555660704372263942012-08-22T09:17:00.000+01:002012-08-22T09:17:54.195+01:00Scientific theory is always up for grabs<div class="dsq-comment-message" id="dsq-comment-message-625519746">
<div class="dsq-comment-text" id="dsq-comment-text-625519746">
Laurence Kotlikoff (an <a href="http://www.kotlikoff.net/" target="_blank">economist at Boston University</a> ) has written an important op-ed piece on Bloomberg about the politicization of the economics profession: "<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-21/economists-risk-labeling-as-political-hacks.html" target="_blank">Economists risk labeling as political hacks</a>". While I agree with the general thrust of the argument, and much of the specifics, I was troubled by the line "Economic theory isn't up for grabs". Below is my response, left as a comment after the original article.<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
This is an excellent article and you raise some very important points that every economist should be concerned about.<br />
<br />
However, in the last section of the piece (titled "Consumption
Spree") I think you take the argument a step too far. In particular, I
have a problem with the line "Economic theory isn't up for grabs.
Economic facts aren't a matter of choice." Here you are doing a
disservice to economics by exaggerating its claims to scientific
impartiality. No theory exists in a vacuum and empirical "facts" must be
interpreted in order for them to have any meaning (this is true even
for the "hard" sciences, but especially so for social science such as
economics) <br />
<br />
The preceding discussion on savings rates provides a perfect
illustration of this. You take an existing theory (life cycle savings
model) and use it to interpret some empirical facts (savings rates, tax
incentives) resulting in an explanation of America's low savings rates.
This is all perfectly valid. But it involves the selection of a model -
based on a particular world view - and the interpretation of the
empirical evidence through the prism of that model.<br />
<br />
Your argument sounds convincing - and I have no doubt this is at
least part of the explanation for low savings rates. But the reader -
and certainly other economists - should be free to agree or disagree
with your particular interpretation, and to offer alternatives. Indeed
alternative explanations of low savings rates have been offered by
people who start with a different model or world view and make a
different interpretation of the available evidence.<br />
<br />
This is how good science should work. It is always up for grabs.<br />
<br />
***** <br />
</div>
</div>
Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-43922277498257851752012-07-23T08:31:00.001+01:002012-07-23T08:31:53.417+01:00Media disasters?What influence does popular media coverage have on the allocation of humanitarian aid following a natural disaster?<br />
<br />
In his excellent short films (see <a href="http://vimeo.com/14801914" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2553929" target="_blank">here</a>) Arno Waizenegger documents the responses of both the international aid community and the international media to the tsunami that devastated the Indonesian province of Aceh in December 2004. Donors pledged so much money (about US$8 billion) to the region that one aid agency - Medecins sans Frontieres - took the unprecedented step of announcing that they would not be accepting any further donations for that cause. The tsunami also became a major international "news event". Was the massive aid response directly attributable to the intense media coverage of the event? Waizenegger points to another 'silent disaster' - a civil conflict that claimed 15,000 lives - that had been ongoing in the same region for 29 years prior to the tsunami, but received little of either international media attention - in part because the government had previously banned foreign journalists from entering the areas affected by the conflict - or humanitarian assistance for its victims.<br />
<br />
Of course, the 2004 tsunami was of such a scale - around 170,000 were killed in Aceh alone - that it was almost certain to receive international attention both from the media and from aid organizations. The question is whether relatively marginal disasters are more likely to receive humanitarian aid if given media attention. In their elegant paper on this topic "<a href="http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/122/2/693.short" target="_blank">News droughts, news floods and U.S. disaster relief</a>", Thomas Eisensee and David Stromberg find evidence that U.S. disaster relief depends on whether or not a disaster occurs during periods when there are other newsworthy events - such as the Olympic Games - that effectively crowd out media coverage of the disaster.<br />
<br />
This is the topic of my latest research. I use newspaper archives to quantify the amount of media attention given to a particular disaster event. Based on data gathered from the Washington Post archive, for disasters occurring in developing countries between 1995 and 2010 (a sample of around 3,400 events), there appears to be some distinct patterns of media coverage across regions and disaster types. Earthquakes and storms appear to generate the most media coverage on average (with about 0.6 news articles per person killed), floods generate considerably fewer stories (around 0.14 articles per person killed), while news coverage for drought episodes is an order of magnitude lower again (at just 0.03 articles per person killed). Part of the reason for the relative lack of attention on droughts may be due to the nature of such events, given that they are slowly evolving crises as opposed to dramatic lightning strikes. This also has the added effect of making it difficult to define start and end dates for a drought event. As a consequence the search window (from two days prior to the event onset, up to 40 days after the event) is unlikely to cover the entire drought 'event' - given that some drought episodes can last months or even years - and therefore may not capture the total amount of media attention that the event receives.<br />
<br />
Turning to media coverage by region, again we find a distinctive pattern in the data. Disasters that occur in Latin America and the Caribbean generate the most news coverage (with an average of around 0.6 news articles per person killed), those occurring in either the East Asia Pacific or Europe and Central Asia regions generate slightly fewer stories (on average around 0.4 per person killed), while South Asia (with just 0.16 articles per person killed), the Middle East North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa regions (each with just 0.11 articles per person killed) are relatively neglected. Of course these figures are simple averages and take no account of the relative distribution of disaster types across regions. Therefore the relative neglect of Africa could be a reflection of the relative lack of media attention on drought events, for example. A more structured analysis may uncover whether or not these patterns represent a genuine tendency for some disaster types and regions to be relatively neglected and if such media biases have any influence on the political decision to grant humanitarian aid relief to a disaster affected region.<br />
<br />
The research will also extend to archive searches in major news publications of other countries (starting for linguistic convenience with Anglophone countries - US, Canada, Australia, UK and perhaps Ireland - reflecting the home bias of the author) to investigate whether the media's influence on relief decisions differs across countries. <br />
<br />
This is early stage research and comments or suggestions are most welcome.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-76956696915579220892012-03-04T20:17:00.004+00:002012-03-04T20:29:02.367+00:00The euro crisis and the fiscal compact treatyFrank Barry and David McWilliams both had insightful pieces on the euro crisis and the fiscal compact treaty in<a href="http://www.businesspost.ie/#!cat/Comment"> today's Sunday Business Post</a> (SBP content appears to be behind a paywall). Both make the point that the treaty won't solve the euro's problems. Fiscal deficits were not the cause of the eurozone crisis. Rather it was structural imbalances within the eurozone. The logic of monetary union requires a fiscal transfer union to help absorb the inevitable shocks that will occur in any large, diverse economy. Are Europeans prepared for the creation of a federal European (eurozone) state and the concomitant transfer of national sovereignty to a supra-national government?Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-85726370880035560302012-01-02T20:42:00.002+00:002012-01-02T20:43:56.174+00:00Joe Stiglitz on the 1%Joe Stiglitz, writing in May 2011, sets the scene for the emergence of the Occupy movement in <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105">this discussion of US income inequality</a>.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-61711894693635362752011-12-21T13:38:00.003+00:002012-01-02T18:48:42.214+00:00A Year of Revolution<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;font-size:100%;">Update (2 January 2012): This article has been published in full on <a href="http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/12/26/year-revolution/">Irish Left Review</a> and an edited (shorter) version has been published on <a href="http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/12/a-year-of-revolution/">Social Europe Journal</a>. In <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/dec/08/zuccotti-park-what-future/">a related piece in December's New York Review of Books</a>, Michael Greenberg asks what future for the Occupy movement.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">******</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In a year of revolution, causes have been easier to identify than consequences.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In 1989, following the end of the Cold War, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote in <i>The</i> <i>End of History? </i><span style="font-style: normal">of the “</span><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-style: normal">unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism”, marking “the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote1anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote1sym"><sup>1</sup></a></span></span><span style="font-style: normal"> In the decades since Fukuyama's landmark essay, the very concept of revolution – at least in the context of the rich, Western world – had itself come to be seen as an almost anachronistic idea. While still idealized in some quarters – most notably in student houses where posters of El Che [Guevara] are proudly hoisted to the walls, in defiance of the no-blue-tack clauses of student lease agreements – revolution had attained a quaint, nostalgia-tinged hue. That is, until this year. </span>In 2011, revolution has returned to the center of global geo-political discourse. People have taken to the streets <i>en masse </i>across the Arab world, as part of the Arab Spring popular revolutions. The revolutionary fervour has since spread to the capital cities of the rich world. From Spain's <i>indignados</i><span style="font-style: normal">, to the riots in London, Athens and Rome,</span> to the Occupy Wall St protests that have spread from New York to other major cities around the world, the Arab Spring is turning into a global Autumn of Discontent.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Viewed through Fukuyama's lens, the Arab Spring could be interpreted as the natural progression of these once repressive regimes into modern, Western-style democracies. How then do we reconcile with such a theory, the emergence of the Occupy movement, which originated at the heart of the financial-corporate-political nexus on Wall St? Certainly those involved in these protests, while apparently reluctant to articulate a list of “demands”, do not appear content to be living at the apogee of the modern participative democratic society.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal">There are many parallels in the genesis of these two movements (if the various riots, protests, occupations and revolutions are indeed reducible to two distinct groups according to their Western and Arab origins), and they appear to have fed off the oxygen of each other's success. The Occupy movement explicitly models itself on the Arab Spring's largely peaceful occupations of central squares and plazas. But the Arab world has also been paying close attention to the Western Autumn of Discontent. The London riots in August, for example, provoked jibes from the less “Western-friendly” Arab leaders about popular revolt and the London regime's hardline crackdown in response. The Arab media, more generally, appear to have been paying close attention to the Occupy movement long before Western media began taking the protesters seriously. The Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni has said she is proud of the role the Arab Spring has played in inspiring young people in other parts of the world to come out and “say 'no' to their systems”.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote2anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote2sym"><sup>2</sup></a></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The apparent solidarity between these groups of protesters should come as no surprise. In both cases the protests have been led mostly (although by no means exclusively) by young people. In a direct parallel of the Arab Spring, the Occupiers represent a generation increasingly disillusioned with a system in which many have been marginalized, without work or the prospect of a job, a system they claim has left them without a voice – thus the emphasis among protestors on the use of an elaborate and disciplined form of participative decision making. While national unemployment rates are running at between eight and ten percent in the US, Britain and the Eurozone (with double digit rates in Spain, Ireland and Greece), youth unemployment is significantly higher. In the US, 17% of under-25s are without work. In Europe, that figure is over 20%, while in Spain almost half (46.2%) of all young people are jobless.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote3anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote3sym"><sup>3</sup></a></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Arab Spring was clearly a “liberal” movement, in the sense that popular protests rose up to challenge repressive, authoritarian regimes. But do its participants aspire to the particular version of liberalism that has been predominant in the Western world – and most particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world – over the past three decades?</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Even during the boom times, when unemployment rates were relatively low, income inequality was rising in many rich countries – most notably those that pursued most vigorously the Anglo-Saxon model of deregulation (i.e. the US, Britain and Ireland). One of the most appealing slogans of the Occupy movement – “we are the 99%” – is a pointed reference to the top 1% of income earners, who in 2007 received 23.5% of total US national income, with an average wage income of around $713,000.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote4anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote4sym"><sup>4</sup></a> Not since the late 1920s – in the years immediately preceding the Wall St crash and the Great Depression – the era of the “robber-barons”, have the few at the apex of the income pyramid, captured such a disproportionate share of national income. </span></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The period since the beginning of the 1980s, which has seen the financial and economic elite steadily increase their share of national income, has been characterized by the political economist and former US secretary of labour Robert Reich, as the Great Regression. The systematic deconstruction of social and labour protections during this period has created a sense of financial and economic instability in young people's lives, the social costs of which have yet to be fully counted – but symptoms of which are evident in the recent violence on the streets of London and Rome. </span></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Writing in 2007, <span style="color:#000000;">in response to a UNICEF report at the time, which found British children had the most miserable upbringing in the developed world (with Americans second from bottom), </span>Maria Hampton provided a remarkably prescient <span style="color:#000000;">discussion of the causes and potential consequences of declining living standards for young people in the UK. Her article quotes LSE economist </span><span style="color:#181818;">Nick Bosanquet and Blair Gibbs of the independent think tank </span><span style="color:#181818;"><i>Reform</i></span><span style="color:#181818;">, who in their</span><span style="color:#000000;"> </span><span style="color:#181818;">Class of 2005 survey characterised Britain’s under-35s – the “iPod Generation” – as insecure, pressured, over-taxed and debt-ridden.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote5anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote5sym"><sup>5</sup></a> From among this generation have come the majority of the protestors.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So to consequences. In the Arab Spring, a <span style="color:#000000;">mass popular movement coalesced around the clear and unambiguous goal of overthrowing brutal dictators. Now that aim has been achieved – in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya – the way forward is less clear. Similarly, the aims – and ultimate political consequences – of the Occupy movement remain unclear. From the outset, the Occupiers have been reluctant to specify their “demands”. While some in the media have seen this lack of focus as a reason to dismiss the protestors, for some within the movement, the process – with its egalitarian, democratic ideals and methods – is the cause. Avoiding setting out specific “demands” may also represent a clever strategy for the protestors, at least for the time being. As </span><span style="color:#000000;"><i>The</i></span><span style="color:#000000;"> </span><span style="color:#000000;"><i>Onion </i></span><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-style: normal">recently quipped, the public are waiting for the Occupiers to state their demands so that we can all rationalize our reasons for choosing to ignore them, and “go back to waiting for the sluggish economy to recover while blindly accepting things the way they are”.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote6anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote6sym"><sup>6</sup></a></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As the repeated failed attempts to solve the European debt crisis attest, simply muddling through and hoping for a return to the halcyon days of the mid-2000s, may no longer be a serious option. Lest we forget,<span style="color:#000000;"> there were mass protests in poor countries around the world, in response to high food and energy prices in 2008. Similar protests were seen recently on the streets of Israel. While the poorest may have felt the effects of the squeeze on resources before most, ultimately, these protests are symptoms of the same underlying problems. Indeed it was the rise in commodity prices – food and energy in particular – that pricked the bubble economy of the last decade. The unbalanced and unsustainable growth of recent years has left too many people, in both rich and poor countries, feeling disillusioned, marginalized and concerned about their economic futures.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There is now an urgent need to articulate an alternative to the failed neo-liberal agenda of recent decades. The financial crisis generally, and more specifically the recent protest movements around the globe, challenge us to consider what kind of society we wish to live in. If in every crisis lies opportunity, then we must embrace this opportunity to start a discussion about the ideals of liberty, equality and justice – upon which most modern democratic states were founded – and what these values mean in a modern, globalized society. </span></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This crisis also presents a threat – one which will only grow in its potential to be destructive, if the underlying causes of the crisis are not addressed. The last time a financial crisis of this magnitude occurred, the world was plunged into a period of darkness. In the wake of the economic collapse, self-interested, nationalistic policies were enacted through the exploitation of people's fears and insecurities, culminating in the rise of fascism. The result was a global conflict that claimed millions of lives. We have already witnessed the rise of an “extremist” right-wing party in the US, with sufficient power to force the US government to the brink of default.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote7anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote7sym"><sup>7</sup></a> Even the remotest sense of modern history should suffice to give us all pause for concern at such developments.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Writing in his last major publication before his death, the historian and social commentator Tony Judt warned that if the history of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century has taught us anything, it should be a healthy suspicion of totalitarianism in all its forms.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote8anc" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote8sym"><sup>8</sup></a> One such form has been the disturbing – and ultimately misplaced – certainty of the free market ideologues. Judt also argued that the great failure of the Left, in all its various shades, has been the apparent inability to articulate any coherent alternative to the predominant neo-liberal agenda of the past 30 years. Indeed, the ideological hubris implicit in Fukuyama's <i>End of History</i><span style="font-style: normal"> c</span><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-style: normal">ould only have arisen in the context of an ideological vacuum to the Left of the predominant neo-liberal political-economic paradigm.</span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#181818;">Back in 2007, Hampton concluded her article on the plight of British youth as follows: “If the crisscrossing fault-lines of greed, geopolitics and social inequality do reach a tipping point, we may well see a conflict between youthful brutality and the power of old age”. If we are to avoid such conflicts, we must start a conversation about the kind of society we want to live in and the state of the world we will pass on to our children. </span>These are challenges for which there are no simple answers or quick-fix solutions. There will be dilemmas about how to balance competing aims that we wish to embrace. That does not mean we should not try.</span></span></p> <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;font-size:medium;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Dublin, October 2011.</span><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><br /></p> <div id="sdfootnote1"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote1sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote1anc">1</a>Fukuyama, Francis (1989). The End of History? The National Interest, Summer 1989.</p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote2"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote2sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote2anc">2</a>As quoted in the Irish Times Weekend Review, 22 October 2011.</p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote3"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote3sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote3anc">3</a>Rates quoted are from the Economist, 22 October 2011 (http://www.economist.com/node/21533447) </p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote4"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote4sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote4anc">4</a>Figures taken from Robert Reich's article “The Limping Middle Class”, NY Times, 4 September 2011.</p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote5"> <p class="sdfootnote"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;font-size:100%;"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote5sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote5anc">5</a>The article “Generation F*cked: How Britain is Eating its Young” first appeared in the magazine <i>Adbusters</i><span style="font-style: normal; "> (</span><span style="font-style: normal; ">#71, May/June 2007) and was republished recently on the magazine's website, Adbusters.com (11 August 2011).</span></span></span></p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote6"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote6sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote6anc">6</a>“Nation waiting for protestors to clearly articulate demands before ignoring them”, The Onion, 12 October 2011.</p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote7"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote7sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote7anc">7</a>As characterized by Moses Naim in <i>La Repubblica</i><span style="font-style: normal"> (11 September 2011).</span></p> </div> <div id="sdfootnote8"> <p class="sdfootnote"><i><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote8sym" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1423182592930082406&postID=6171189469363536275#sdfootnote8anc">8</a></i><span style="font-style: normal">Judt, Tony (2010), </span><i>Ill Fares the Land</i><span style="font-style: normal">. Penguin.</span></p> </div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-42332604686794030192011-12-06T11:28:00.001+00:002011-12-06T11:30:53.495+00:00Time to burst the austerity bubble<div><blockquote style="text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; line-height: 20px; "></span></span></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; line-height: 20px; ">Meanwhile, Philip Lane is quoted <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8937224/Heroic-Ireland-can-do-no-more-it-is-up-to-Europe-now.html#disqus_thread">in The Telegraph</a> as saying "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; ">every [Irish] government for the next 20 years will have to keep cutting". As it is, we know the next two budgets will contain even more severe cuts than those being imposed right now. This is just what the government and "troika" have publicly admitted. What happens when the anticipated recovery (i.e. growth) doesn't materialize? More austerity?</span></span></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; ">It's time we all realized that the path we're on is unsustainable. Just as the boom was unsustainable - and on some level we all knew this, but allowed our instincts to be over-ridden by reassuring talk of "economic fundamentals" and "soft landings". The logic is simple and clear - this programme of austerity will not work. I think most people intuitively understand that. But we are allowing ourselves to be mollified by talk of restoring confidence, of "growing" exports and jobs. Just where are we going to export to, with the eurozone - and possibly the global economy - facing a sharp recession next year? Who is going to create jobs as domestic consumer demand continues to fall? The only thing we are growing right now is a generation of young people for export.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; "></span></span></blockquote></div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-21664505365758415352011-12-06T10:57:00.003+00:002011-12-06T11:28:29.196+00:00Stiglitz on the Euro Crisis<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Joe Stiglitz discusses the sources of the present crisis and the (misguided) attempts to solve it, in <a href="http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/12/what-can-save-the-euro/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SEJColumns+%28Social+Europe+Journal+%C2%BB+Columns%29">this</a> article. He includes several references to Ireland (direct and otherwise) ... </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; font-family:Arial, Tahoma, Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><blockquote>The prevailing view when the euro was established was that <em>all </em>that was required was fiscal discipline – no country’s fiscal deficit or public debt, relative to GDP, should be too large. But Ireland and Spain had budget surpluses and low debt before the crisis, which quickly turned into large deficits and high debt. </blockquote><blockquote>...</blockquote></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; font-family:Arial, Tahoma, Verdana;"><blockquote></blockquote></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; font-family:Arial, Tahoma, Verdana;"><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Without a common fiscal authority, the single market opened the way to tax competition – a race to the bottom to attract investment and boost output that could be freely sold throughout the EU.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Moreover, free labor mobility means that individuals can choose whether to pay their parents’ debts: young Irish can simply escape repaying the foolish bank-bailout obligations assumed by their government by leaving the country. Of course, migration is supposed to be good, as it reallocates labor to where its return is highest. But this kind of migration actually undermines productivity.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">...</p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; font-family:Arial, Tahoma, Verdana;">Public-sector cutbacks today do not solve the problem of yesterday’s profligacy; they simply push economies into deeper recessions. Europe’s leaders know this. They know that growth is needed. But, rather than deal with today’s problems and find a formula for growth, they prefer to deliver homilies about what some previous government <em>should have done</em>.<em> </em>This may be satisfying for the sermonizer, but it won’t solve Europe’s problems – and it won’t save the euro.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; "></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; line-height: 20px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: normal; "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; "></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; "></span></span></span></blockquote></div><div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana; line-height: 20px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; "></span></span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(40, 40, 40); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; "></span></blockquote></div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-22246912417696330732011-12-02T10:58:00.005+00:002011-12-04T18:02:31.486+00:00"Talking about depression" ... the media and editorial decision based on "legal advice"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;">Update (4 December 2011) : The Irish Times has issued an apology - and in the process, essentially accused Kate Fitzgerald of lying in her last words:</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1203/1224308526623.html?via=mr" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">http://www.irishtimes.com/<wbr>newspaper/opinion/2011/1203/<wbr>1224308526623.html?via=mr</a></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; ">Some responses from the blogosphere:<br /><br /><a href="http://ourmaninstockholm.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/a-right-of-reply/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">http://ourmaninstockholm.<wbr>wordpress.com/2011/12/03/a-<wbr>right-of-reply/</a><br /><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; "><a href="http://backfromthepast.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/suppressionofsuicide/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">http://backfromthepast.<wbr>wordpress.com/2011/12/03/<wbr>suppressionofsuicide/</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;">Original blog post (2 December 2011):</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;">I submitted the following letter to the Irish Times yesterday, 1 December 2011 (not published in today's paper), in response to various articles and letters relating to the death of Kate Fitzgerald (see broadsheet.ie coverage <a href="http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/02/the-irish-times-and-kate-fitzgerald/#comment-89133">here</a>).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Sir,<div><br /></div><div>Thank you for continuing to publish articles and letters that discuss issues of suicide and depression (e.g. Tony Bates, Opinion, 1st December; Kevin Byrne, Letters, 1st December; Peter Murtagh, Weekend Review, 26th November; Kate Fitzgerald, Opinion, 9th September). These issues are badly understood in our society and stigmatized as a consequence. </div><div><br /></div><div>However, I must join with others in expressing my disappointment at your decision, on "legal advice", to edit the words originally written anonymously by Kate Fitzgerald. Giving a voice to those who experience depression is crucial in fostering greater understanding of this illness. Her article was deemed fit to publish in your paper on September 9th. If something in that original article has been found to be untrue and/or libelous, you should issue a correction and apology immediately. This could be added as a footnote to the original article in your archives. If not, the original article should be restored in full, and you should have the courage and editorial conviction to stand over what you publish.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yours etc.,</div><div><br /></div><div>Tom McDermott,</div></span></span></div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-30193938829041749162011-11-25T15:33:00.004+00:002011-11-29T17:21:53.591+00:00No Alternative to Budget Cuts?It is often argued that there is simply "no alternative" to the destruction of social safety nets implicit in proposals to cut government expenditure, e.g. the Irish government's consideration of cuts to child benefit, a reduction in unemployment benefit and the introduction of medical card fees etc., as ways to achieve the required €3.8bn "adjustment" in the forthcoming budget. This line was repeated by Stephen Collins in <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1126/1224308182287.html">Saturday's Irish Times</a>. However, the idea that there is "no alternative" to a government decision could never be accurate. The "no alternatives" myth is nothing more than a politically convenient way of saying we don't want to consider the alternatives.<div><br /></div><div>Thankfully, various groups outside of government have put together detailed proposals on alternative ways of saving money in the budget. Michael Taft of TASC has outlined potential <a href="http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/11/24/6-billion-alternative/">"alternative" savings of around €6bn.</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>It's worth noting that some of the proposals here - e.g. removal of property tax reliefs - present the relatively rare opportunity for government, in imposing taxes, of a win-win on both equity and efficiency grounds. Removal of these reliefs would also represent a reversal of the much criticized policies of the previous government. Rather than subsidizing asset accumulation, taxing wealth (in the form of a property tax or capital gains tax) makes sense as both a progressive tax measure and one which avoids the disincentivization of work entailed in higher income taxes. </div><div><br /></div><div>On income tax, the proposal to increase the top rate to 48% is still some way below the "optimum" top rate of tax (to be applied only to the top 1% of income earners) of over 70%, as calculated in <a href="http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.4.165">this</a> new paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, and discussed <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creators/">here</a> (Paul Krugman's NYTblog) and <a href="http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/11/raw-data-laffer-curve-rich">here</a> (Kevin Drum of Mother Jones). </div><div><br /></div><div>The calculation is based on US data. For Ireland we might consider that the "behavioural elasticity", as Krugman calls it - i.e. the reduced work effort in response to higher taxes - is likely to be higher than for the US, given the historically high international mobility of Irish workers and the infamous culture of tax exiles among Ireland's elite. I'm not sure if studies on this elasticity exist for Ireland. But there is another way of looking at this. If we assume that the current top rate of income tax in Ireland is the optimum rate, what degree of "behavioural elasticity" would this imply? Ireland's top marginal rate of income tax is officially 41%. However, if we include the top rate of the Universal Social Charge (USC) at 7% and PRSI at 4% we have a top marginal rate of 52%. This implies a "behavioural elasticity" of about 0.62.* This is still higher than even the most conservative upper bound estimates for the US - around 0.57. Also, as Diamond and Saez note, most of the behavioural response observed in studies to date consists of tax evasion or avoidance behaviour, and not the kind of changes in real economic behaviour that opponents of higher income taxes claim to be concerned about (e.g. labour supply, business creation and savings decisions). </div><div><br /></div><div>So while increases to the top rate of tax will be dismissed by this government on pragmatic grounds - that such increases would be self-defeating - such claims may not stand up to close scrutiny. Imposing a higher rate of tax on the top 1% of earners in society - and ensuring they actually pay their tax by closing loopholes, removing tax reliefs, and clamping down on tax exiles and tax evasion - could offer a more socially equitable and sustainable means of closing the gap between public revenue and expenditure.</div><div><br /></div><div>Certainly the notion that we have "no alternative" to the proposed cuts, appears to have no basis in the available facts and figures. Instead it is revealing of an ideologically driven budgetary process. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*The calculation is based on the formula used in the paper by Diamond and Saez cited above: T = 1/(1 + ae), where T is the optimal top rate of tax, a is the Pareto parameter that describes the distribution of incomes at the top, and e is the behavioral elasticity. I assume that the distribution of incomes at the top in Ireland is roughly equivalent to that in the US and so I use the same Pareto parameter as used in the Diamond and Saez paper, i.e. 1.5.</div><div> </div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-55730793218247451482011-11-22T12:52:00.001+00:002011-11-22T12:53:36.620+00:00170 economists sign statement in support of OWS170 economists have signed a statement in support of the Occupy Wall St movement. Read the statement <a href="http://econ4.org/statement-on-ows">here</a>.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-88688259620608964672011-11-20T20:13:00.001+00:002011-11-20T20:34:03.206+00:00The value of third level education and who should pay for it<div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">Mass student protests took place in Dublin last week (see photos <a href="http://nottheconventionalwisdom.blogspot.com/2011/11/selection-of-posters-and-placards-from.html">here</a>) over expected increases in fees and cuts to maintenance grants in the forthcoming budget. Students feel betrayed by the <span style="text-decoration: underline ; color:#3100ee;"><a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/caught-red-handed-174189.html">apparent unwillingness</a> </span>of the Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn of the Labour Party, to stand by his pre-election pledge not to raise fees or cut grants for third level students. The protestors also rightly question the wisdom of the proposed measures, given the likelihood that they could end up costing the government money as hard-pressed students are forced out of college and on to dole queues. Roughly one in four young people (17-25 year olds) in Ireland is unemployed, while the figure is more like one in three for young men (see <a href="http://www.youth.ie/sites/youth.ie/files/Youth_Unemployment_in_Ireland_web.pdf">here</a>,<a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/ireland/youth-unemployment-rate.html"> here</a> and <a href="http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/labyouthprebudget.pdf">here</a>). The alternative to the dole queue is, of course, emigration. According to the CSO, 76,000 people left Ireland in the year to April 2011. Almost all of those leaving were aged 15-44 (see <a href="http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/population/current/popmig.pdf">here</a>).</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">Forcing young people out of education and on to dole queues - or on to planes - represents a personal tragedy for the young people and their families who are directly affected. It is also clearly not in the long-term social or economic interests of the country. However, the question inevitably arises as to how we should fund the third level sector in this country. Should free third level education - funded by the state - be offered to all those who wish to attend (and meet some basic minimum academic requirements)? Or should students themselves be asked to pay for their education through some kind of fee system? There appears to be an ideological (or at least political) aversion amongst the current government to the idea of fees based on the full economic cost of a third level education. However, the current approach of creeping fees (or "student contributions" to use the euphemism favoured by politicians) and cuts to maintenance grants, represent highly regressive mechanisms for plugging the funding shortfall. They also guarantee that only those who can afford the fees (and other associated costs of attending college - cost of living, books, foregone income etc.) will pursue third level education. Not only is this morally wrong, it is also economically inefficient - the most talented and those who are determined to make the most of their education are not afforded the opportunity to do so in such a system. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">This matter of public funding for third level education is particularly pressing, given the government's current financial difficulties. A simple short-term solution would be not to repay <a href="http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.com/2011/11/dirty-dozen-we-nov-20th-2011.html"><span style="text-decoration: underline ; color:#3100ee;">these bonds</span></a>, thus alleviating the need for such severe austerity in the forthcoming budget. However, even such a dramatic u-turn in government policy would not address the wider issue of the long-term sustainability of a third level sector that, because of Ireland's youthful demographics, will have to cope with large increases in the demands on its services over the coming years - that is, if we expect to continue offering third level courses to a large proportion of the population. Out of a population of almost 4.5 million in 2011, 1.25 million are aged 19 and under, with a particularly large cohort born in the last 5 years. Over the coming years, the college-age population cohort will increase considerably (see CSO figures <a href="http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/population/current/popmig.pdf">here</a>).</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">The protestors and their student leaders were understandably coy during the week about proposing any alternative to raising fees as a means of funding third level education. The USI president was right, however, in pointing out the limitations - particularly in the Irish context - of an Australian style system of student loans repaid through income tax (which appeared to be the preferred approach of the Fine Gael party - now in government - during its time in opposition). For one thing, such a system would only exacerbate the short-term funding crisis, as it would (presumably) involve removal of the existing "non-tuition" fees and would not see any returns to the exchequer until graduates began earning sufficiently high incomes to pay the implied graduate tax. Given youth unemployment rates, this could be quite a wait. There is also the issue of the international mobility of Irish young people and Ireland's history of emigration. Returns (societal or economic) to any investment in education, are dependent - at the very least - on people remaining in the country.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">Any debate on the appropriate way to fund education must also consider the value of education, both to the individual and to society. A number of recent analyses have begun to question the value - from the student's perspective - of the enormous investment involved in attempting to acquire a third level qualification (e.g. <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/our-universities-why-are-they-failing/?pagination=false">this</a> New York Review of Books article). In the US, where students pay extremely high fees, young people graduating from university are leaving with worse job prospects and higher debts than ever before (see <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/columbus-cleveland-ohio-unemployment">this</a> Mother Jones article). Worse again, many leave before graduating - with a heavy debt burden and no qualification to show for it. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">Over the medium to long-term we must consider what role the third level sector should play in our society, and what sort of graduates (and in what numbers) will be needed or desired in future. Will churning out large numbers of undergraduate degrees, masters and PhDs deliver the hallowed 'Knowledge Economy' of so many political speeches and government documents? As Paul Krugman <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/29/magazine/white-collars-turn-blue.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm">argued back in 1996</a> - in what already seems like a highly prescient piece of futurology - "when something becomes abundant, it also becomes cheap. A world awash in information will be a world in which information per se has very little market value." </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">Much has been made recently of rising income inequality in rich countries - the US in particular - in part thanks to the issues raised by the Occupy movement. Many economists have - mistakenly it seems - linked rising income inequality to the proliferation of technology, leading to higher returns to education. In fact, most of the rise in inequality appears to have been driven by the runaway increase in incomes for the top 1% (see <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/nov/16/americas-new-robber-barons/">here</a>). For everyone else - including the majority of college graduates - real incomes have not risen over the last 20 or 30 years. The Occupy slogan "we are the 99%" appears to have captured the reality of modern income inequality.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">So perhaps the debate ultimately comes back to a question about what kind of society we wish to live in. Certainly, if we wanted to we could decide that a third level education represents a basic right of all citizens and as such should be funded by the state. This would have to be paid for - through taxation of one kind or another, or reduced spending elsewhere - but is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility, as politicians might conveniently argue. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">Education is undoubtedly a fundamental right. But should that extend to third level education? Education is also a public good - an investment (as opposed to a cost) to which the returns from a societal point of view far outweigh the benefits to the individual. As such, there is plenty of justification for public investment in education. However, the scientific evidence indicates that the greatest returns to investing in education accrue to investment in early childhood (see <a href="http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/11/two-year-window">here</a>). This is also likely to be the most progressive form of educational investment - given that a child's prospects for educational attainment appear to be determined from a very early age. It is worth noting that the free fees for third level system in Ireland does not appear to have had much of an impact on the participation rates for different socio-economic groups.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia; min-height: 19.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Georgia">So while there is no denying the desirability of significant public investment in education, to the extent that this is constrained by available resources, it should be concentrated on early childhood interventions. The question, then, is whether a free fees third level system is a luxury we can no longer afford, or a social programme we would be poorer without.</p></div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-6876630478322275802011-11-20T16:57:00.003+00:002011-11-20T17:01:11.140+00:00NYRB on the Occupy movement two months inOn the <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/nov/18/crackdown-zuccotti-occupy-wall-street/">NYRblog</a>, Michael Greenberg gives a detailed account of a dramatic week for the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, while Jeff Madrick looks at the evidence on runaway incomes for the top 1% - <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/nov/16/americas-new-robber-barons/">America's new robber barons</a>.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-55437787616103535112011-11-20T16:07:00.002+00:002011-11-20T16:13:29.979+00:00The meaning of crisis<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; "><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; "></p><blockquote><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; "></p><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><p></p><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; ">Crisis is a term rooted in Greek tragedy, meaning “a decisive moment or turning point in a dramatic action”. It is a moment of suffering and confusion, a time when everything that seemed to be fixed becomes suddenly unstable. The events of November 2010, with things spinning wildly out of control, certainly meet this definition. But the point of crisis in Greek tragedy is that it leads to catharsis, a sense of things being purged.</p><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; ">Václav Havel, then president of the Czech Republic and himself a distinguished dramatist, used precisely this metaphor while addressing his nation in 1997, when it had been hit by the twin scandals of political corruption and a banking bubble. “However unpleasant and stressful and even dangerous what we are going through may be, it can also be instructive and a force for good because it can call forth a catharsis, the intended outcome of ancient Greek tragedy. That means a feeling of profound purification and redemption. A feeling of newborn hope. A feeling of liberation.”</p><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; ">From that perspective, a cynic might be tempted to remark that the Irish are not even capable of having a proper crisis. We’ve had the unpleasant, painful and dangerous bit – and we’re going to go on having it for the foreseeable future. But we don’t do catharsis. </p><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; "> <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/1119/1224307810659.html">- Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times, 19 November 2011.</a></p><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; "></p><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><br /><p></p></blockquote><p style="line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; "></p></span><blockquote></blockquote>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-24299352673257960452011-11-20T13:44:00.005+00:002011-11-20T16:25:33.329+00:00Deciphering the jargon of economic crisis<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Frank McNally provides <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1119/1224307822905.html">a guide to the crisis jargon</a> in Saturday's Irish Times (19 November 2011). Two definitions that stand out: </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;">Quantitive Easing: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; ">The process whereby the number of economists appearing on Irish TV shows is increased indefinitely, in the hope that the country can talk its way out of the crisis, even at the risk of rampant ego-inflation.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; ">Standard & Poor: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; ">Adjectives describing the two main types of judgment exercised by ratings agencies when assessing the sub-prime mortgage packages that started the whole mess in the first place.</span></span></div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-19361694121167543462011-11-17T13:58:00.002+00:002011-11-17T14:09:37.148+00:00More children living in poverty, while the 1% keep getting richerThe Irish children's charity Barnardos yesterday estimated that <a href="http://www.barnardos.ie/media-centre/news/latest-news/budget-2012-must-be-poverty-proofed-to-ensure-children-are-protected-barnardos.html">130,000 Irish children are now living in consistent poverty</a> (up from 90,000 in 2009). On the same day, in his Irish Times <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1116/1224307633498.html">column</a>, Vincent Browne discussed two new reports showing that both the number of millionaires worldwide and the value of their combined assets, have continued to grow since the financial crisis began.Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-28055596091596518502011-11-16T18:18:00.019+00:002011-11-16T19:01:26.211+00:00Selection of posters and placards from today's student protests in Dublin, Ireland<div><br /></div><div>Thousands of students marched in Dublin today in protest against increases in fees and expected cuts to student maintenance grants in the forthcoming budget. Here is a selection of posters and placards from the march.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7eCQCvrHkyXA4Q84AybK0nrf-ubncwHZ3YyuRAHSQCqjMmO87EPtNFmSBw36psC5CLFgnzUQHL9BfL7nRGXd2l5G_IOCEBM10sVx8oRWA0P1jc6Gh40eYGVKoTTQM3RRKpuJwzO6K-g/s1600/what_ever_happened_to_free_education.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7eCQCvrHkyXA4Q84AybK0nrf-ubncwHZ3YyuRAHSQCqjMmO87EPtNFmSBw36psC5CLFgnzUQHL9BfL7nRGXd2l5G_IOCEBM10sVx8oRWA0P1jc6Gh40eYGVKoTTQM3RRKpuJwzO6K-g/s200/what_ever_happened_to_free_education.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675669089497775202" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"What ever happened to free education"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_t8ko5gJhZFYW7YjeD-eStSiD6l-ZLscqWPtQz9IA9A36VSH4ljbNvLl68V37ZGPjPpXIymT_f7JFnWw4_ZpsZFpAaHN_7Bsa2-Wx4Pi-kepoA72ffXOwB-YHusMbhXgMAyXTfZJYtuQ/s1600/we_write_the_future.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_t8ko5gJhZFYW7YjeD-eStSiD6l-ZLscqWPtQz9IA9A36VSH4ljbNvLl68V37ZGPjPpXIymT_f7JFnWw4_ZpsZFpAaHN_7Bsa2-Wx4Pi-kepoA72ffXOwB-YHusMbhXgMAyXTfZJYtuQ/s200/we_write_the_future.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675669022998177202" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"we write the future"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VqYg1-ZMz9PyPRoAdR5FY1BSNdxAgD7Sc5SbXzdDovWzesNsr5JUAiB3C0-vtBzACBbMjlCYhAAsUTqb59tz2PAI9gFSTz95Pnbn5eVXGj5QVs115XWLrE2Yy37Bn-C09up0eDFCttw/s1600/take_my_education_book_my_ticket_to_australia.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VqYg1-ZMz9PyPRoAdR5FY1BSNdxAgD7Sc5SbXzdDovWzesNsr5JUAiB3C0-vtBzACBbMjlCYhAAsUTqb59tz2PAI9gFSTz95Pnbn5eVXGj5QVs115XWLrE2Yy37Bn-C09up0eDFCttw/s200/take_my_education_book_my_ticket_to_australia.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668954271617234" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"If you're gonna take my education, at least book my ticket to Australia"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXEBU6dJj8pfeCuOBuuy_LpSZTSB6hJjJoperrdHRbSBQDiPuEKkAYdjqxGey_APre3_VJbUbJINDUUA-C3S7m_DC8ETfG0dwYmsNWV9FIC-acxjDDRKYwHBmySMZC77ayMURoy9MfUeU/s1600/photo-41.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXEBU6dJj8pfeCuOBuuy_LpSZTSB6hJjJoperrdHRbSBQDiPuEKkAYdjqxGey_APre3_VJbUbJINDUUA-C3S7m_DC8ETfG0dwYmsNWV9FIC-acxjDDRKYwHBmySMZC77ayMURoy9MfUeU/s200/photo-41.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668818058663426" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Make the 1% pay"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBmRXscD11xR7sHVTBWEze7BfmY4GSrDIxbVmw5onuXCibsGxSmxBjLGkjjel6lbPu9lcYFHCwshH5EPf93276LHFb7xsTy108CkNTcdll_y6gyXTuTirpHXFNJB4NztbJq29B2bF97y4/s1600/no_cash_no_jobs_no_hope.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBmRXscD11xR7sHVTBWEze7BfmY4GSrDIxbVmw5onuXCibsGxSmxBjLGkjjel6lbPu9lcYFHCwshH5EPf93276LHFb7xsTy108CkNTcdll_y6gyXTuTirpHXFNJB4NztbJq29B2bF97y4/s200/no_cash_no_jobs_no_hope.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668643733159314" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"No cash, no jobs, no hope"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7kGJEDoHEg1KeNomLwcZ0hKN9pOWsyE1GlI4gLcOMyQLBqsOvBCP6O3esQtj9HKuHj6SymNTzkNFElPy7VMp9E0WVIhNgSPR-brlS-OFGkKn4sQ3buX8eXk4RLge0bv3Zf-Ntr4qCXo/s1600/sentenced_to_debt2.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7kGJEDoHEg1KeNomLwcZ0hKN9pOWsyE1GlI4gLcOMyQLBqsOvBCP6O3esQtj9HKuHj6SymNTzkNFElPy7VMp9E0WVIhNgSPR-brlS-OFGkKn4sQ3buX8eXk4RLge0bv3Zf-Ntr4qCXo/s200/sentenced_to_debt2.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668547204449810" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Sentenced to debt"</div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_H9Rpc78W24sntT1EpQWR15wl6eoQ8ycSuDc75n31ZJQ9KoI1xQosPDsABHdLvnYa950UWIS0_fk_yv03PFB5_CL9PqqDS_-7hzstE50dsPtpBLMd6_ZsxSmpGaXBjPAA9WZUkKbvTvw/s1600/pay_my_fees_or_pay_my_dole.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_H9Rpc78W24sntT1EpQWR15wl6eoQ8ycSuDc75n31ZJQ9KoI1xQosPDsABHdLvnYa950UWIS0_fk_yv03PFB5_CL9PqqDS_-7hzstE50dsPtpBLMd6_ZsxSmpGaXBjPAA9WZUkKbvTvw/s200/pay_my_fees_or_pay_my_dole.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668368478539506" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Pay my fees or pay my dole"</div></div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5l3Cu6TSoYoBQ_J2HM9zlcdOxsC6RydonzaYPpnHHqeGdUth1Glia66uZM1fv8wHc_YE7p__2EIhk6gyfBZEtUurDFFWOdxf8My8iUOnoeNDo4AwhB-ehWrWhLkGs4HDq-Xy_O9ddjXs/s1600/No2.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5l3Cu6TSoYoBQ_J2HM9zlcdOxsC6RydonzaYPpnHHqeGdUth1Glia66uZM1fv8wHc_YE7p__2EIhk6gyfBZEtUurDFFWOdxf8My8iUOnoeNDo4AwhB-ehWrWhLkGs4HDq-Xy_O9ddjXs/s200/No2.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668262464245506" /></a></div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI88mjPqtqolfQ0ec8UetUx5prCOtkXaxcmrtnFiv3s2GueNtHw4wDF824Yu2YKPlSoD5jVUj2OrAetnwy050luFOxaKQk0kOWJ7-15JjQjL4r88Y0jN6w_-02BqCWGf6lmSHPc45aHno/s1600/nil_me_sasta.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI88mjPqtqolfQ0ec8UetUx5prCOtkXaxcmrtnFiv3s2GueNtHw4wDF824Yu2YKPlSoD5jVUj2OrAetnwy050luFOxaKQk0kOWJ7-15JjQjL4r88Y0jN6w_-02BqCWGf6lmSHPc45aHno/s200/nil_me_sasta.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675668180606538226" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><u><br /></u></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1oHe6rLXPdq0wVzyF0a5MoEyl5taxD4T3w8h-ivEXTkda6FTgTKBYL-Pp18E-5rSNLhPiPfx6SHC6ANfkuxtS8Gl8Cb5F_HieW_FfwfJ5GjI4eFE4zmtlHZCT53gWZ62VZ2pK9rOcR2o/s1600/feck_off_fees.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1oHe6rLXPdq0wVzyF0a5MoEyl5taxD4T3w8h-ivEXTkda6FTgTKBYL-Pp18E-5rSNLhPiPfx6SHC6ANfkuxtS8Gl8Cb5F_HieW_FfwfJ5GjI4eFE4zmtlHZCT53gWZ62VZ2pK9rOcR2o/s200/feck_off_fees.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675667771976675666" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Feck off fees"</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsigw5ECNnndjIwTb5E8U_IUc-lIVYnfzBe4S3V1g18Mc5GP1MndjollBt_-zI3wzLZF0ROAHnjzOmaLD3h30YuSL1xOISYW_faklaftnQutAS7R1w5XLo4WB_Q4i8zQI7aEqtINfLEDE/s1600/Emma_was_here_but_probably_wont_be_next_year.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsigw5ECNnndjIwTb5E8U_IUc-lIVYnfzBe4S3V1g18Mc5GP1MndjollBt_-zI3wzLZF0ROAHnjzOmaLD3h30YuSL1xOISYW_faklaftnQutAS7R1w5XLo4WB_Q4i8zQI7aEqtINfLEDE/s200/Emma_was_here_but_probably_wont_be_next_year.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675667590292557138" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Emma was here! (But probably won't be next year ... )</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFv9tMECFDC6uDEjNOwnn8U433W-TWTgaEfSTjybckgrwr_3bbkL3lo2Z99uWiVJmaBg1NQh82-reyVFaBwmK_uJ_jtD7dGEyqvN-W91mYBQsDVFWPwMkkpkNkYlYtDghWVTJviONhhKM/s1600/Dumbledore_wouldnt_stand_for_this.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFv9tMECFDC6uDEjNOwnn8U433W-TWTgaEfSTjybckgrwr_3bbkL3lo2Z99uWiVJmaBg1NQh82-reyVFaBwmK_uJ_jtD7dGEyqvN-W91mYBQsDVFWPwMkkpkNkYlYtDghWVTJviONhhKM/s200/Dumbledore_wouldnt_stand_for_this.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675667511529741890" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Dumbledore wouldn't stand for this sh!t"</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><u><br /></u></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNjw9sA_jpStkqsBrnGPlydy5jv3KhyQKF-WbKYzzb1vOUuMGoN31Dhigc3Sq27kjhe2P537KnSsjrWRMQZW3wnOMISw3Vj1YUTXzfL2WTn9ORJ9LNo1by4f2CYZaGxGjT2Te2caZfWo/s1600/dole_office_here_we_come.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNjw9sA_jpStkqsBrnGPlydy5jv3KhyQKF-WbKYzzb1vOUuMGoN31Dhigc3Sq27kjhe2P537KnSsjrWRMQZW3wnOMISw3Vj1YUTXzfL2WTn9ORJ9LNo1by4f2CYZaGxGjT2Te2caZfWo/s200/dole_office_here_we_come.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675667355189291570" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><u><br /></u></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHW9NNOD1BU6NZ-z4H8FYAbUuf6qwm7QA7BRP_lOB20FcFSJVlX1I1qyNkXXolCu_NCMZ0dHvThyphenhyphenk7ivHpRW2n8MMU5_PlsCIer9TKQX4WSGy7FjbfQpoOkBqDPMZHDkAQFZp33gFyb4/s1600/beans_on_toast%252Bfees%253Dtoast.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHW9NNOD1BU6NZ-z4H8FYAbUuf6qwm7QA7BRP_lOB20FcFSJVlX1I1qyNkXXolCu_NCMZ0dHvThyphenhyphenk7ivHpRW2n8MMU5_PlsCIer9TKQX4WSGy7FjbfQpoOkBqDPMZHDkAQFZp33gFyb4/s200/beans_on_toast%252Bfees%253Dtoast.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675664495692652770" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">"Beans on toast + fees = toast"</div></div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423182592930082406.post-51010110384275108782011-11-13T14:34:00.003+00:002011-11-13T14:50:22.280+00:00Blaming the poor for their condition...Faced with inexplicable inequalities and injustices in society, and feeling disempowered to challenge the status quo, we have a natural tendency to try and rationalize the situation by assigning blame; the unemployed must be lazy, rape victims were "asking for it" etc. In this way we try to evade the unpleasant prospect that such circumstances could befall any one of us.<div><br /></div><div>Oliver Burkeman describes this phenomenon in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/11/oliver-burkeman-just-world-bias">his latest Guardian column</a>. However, he mistakenly sees this "just world hypothesis" as a difficulty the Occupy protestors will have to overcome. If the majority of us view the travails of those less well off than ourselves as their just desserts, why bother trying to alter "the system"? In fact, the Occupy movement presents an alternative to the vicious cycle of inequality being reinforced by negative stereotyping of the less fortunate members of society. The Occupy protestors force us all to face up to the injustices, to which we have become - subconsciously or otherwise - desensitized. Perhaps even more significantly, the movement also offers a voice of empowerment and the prospect that such inequalities are not inevitable.</div>Tom McDermotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02587154603621871733noreply@blogger.com0