Fraser Nelson looks at new numbers from the Office of National Statistics and comes up with the following startling fact:

there are fewer British-born workers in the first quarter of 2009 than Q1 of 1997.

I think this just refers to workers in the private sector, but it’s still pretty remarkable.

Tim Worstall gives a simple answer to a simple question that he finds in the Guardian:

Does the rightwing coup in Honduras represent a return to the days of rule by violence in South America?

No.

Honduras is in Central America.

Really, where does the Guardian find these people so willing to jump at any chance to excuse the latest left-wing strongman?

A Honduran president can be removed legally, as this one has been by the Supreme Court of Honduras and the Honduran legislature. Unsurprising really, constitutional checks and balances - all that unfashionable stuff.

I tend to really enjoy reading Steyn’s song of the week,  and I usually do it accompanied by youtube versions of the song in question.  I figure it makes sense to post links together in case anyone else wants to appreciate them.

This week’s song is “Dance me to the end of love” by Leonard Cohen. The article is here.

I’d heard it but paid no particular attention to it until ten years ago when I was writing a Valentine’s Day column on the language of love. It made the rather obvious point that the preoccupations of romantic songs are often restrained by the limited rhymes for the word “love”. In French, amour rhymes with dozens of other useful words - toujours (always), jour (day), carrefour (crossroads), tambour (drum)… So, with nary a thought, you have a zillion potentially amorous scenarios. In Portuguese, it’s different. Coracao (heart) rhymes with violao (guitar) and cancao (song), which is why there are a ton of sambas and bossas about giving you my heart while I play you a song on my guitar.

The constraints of language help define our notion of romance, and in English we’re more constrained than most. There are just four and a half rhymes for “love,” approximately three-quarters of which offer very meagre possibilities: “above,” “dove,” “glove,” “shove,” and (the half-rhyme) “of,” pronounced “uv.” The last is the reason why, in English songs, “love” is a thing you spend a lot of time “dreaming uv.” “Shove” is of limited application, except in ballads for spousal abusers.

Here’s the Cohen version:

And here’s the Peyroux version:

This article is truly awful. Truly, truly awful. It’s by Anatole Kaletsky whose writing I’ve commented on before here, here and here.

He uses the article to make the case that the financial and economic crisis has been caused by an over-reliance on rational expectations and the efficient market hypothesis. For this he blames academic economists.

What the “madmen in authority” heard this time was the distant echo of a debate among academic economists begun in the 1970s about “rational” investors and “efficient” markets…… won by the side that happened to be wrong.

He then claims that the rationality assumption in economics has caused the financial crisis. Let’s see how his reasoning holds up.

But the emphasis on market failure by politicians, especially Gordon Brown, who wanted to justify government intervention, was itself a testament to a faith in rational expectations and efficient markets. For explicit evidence of market failure, whether in the form of anti-competitive collusion or false information or some other distortion, came to be seen as a necessary precondition for any interference with market forces. In the absence of such explicit evidence of market failure it was taken as axiomatic that competitive markets would deliver rational and efficient results.

Well, yes, I do like my government to have a reason before it starts its interference with market forces. I’m not sure what alternative Kaletsky is trying to imply: that governments should feel free to make rules arbitrarily and without evidence of their necessity? The market failure test he decsribes is not actually a tough one to beat. I would set the barriers to government interference much higher.

Which brings us to the causes of the present crisis. The reckless property lending that triggered this crisis only occurred because rational investors assumed that the probability of a fall in house prices was near zero.

Indeed: the phenomenon of the rational herd. I’m not quite sure what AK is getting at here though. Surely if these guys are rational then we should model them as rational? They certainly didn’t suddenly become rational when academic economists modelled them as such.

AK then spends a paragraph attacking mark-to-market accounting which is irrelevant to his hypothesis. He doesn’t offer any interesting ideas as to what should replace mark-to-market. Historic cost accounting is certainly inadequate for dealing with financial instruments.

A final event that turned crisis into disaster last year was the upsurge in oil and commodity prices. This too was linked to the faith in rational and efficient markets. The sudden escalation of oil and food prices in early 2008 was obviously a speculative panic, but governments around the world refused to understand this because of their assumption that the market is always right. Instead of introducing tighter market regulation to tame oil and food prices, governments and central banks assumed the commodity speculation reflected inflationary risks and responded by delaying interest rate cuts.

Where to start? Apart from the call for price controls, a disastrous policy everywhere it has been tried, what does it mean for commodity speculation to reflect inflationary risks? Certainly a flight to durable commodities can reflect fears about inflation, but not to food. I think AK is confused about the argument that high fuel and food prices could lead to inflation. This is not controversial: higher prices are inflation. Higher fuel prices in particular lead to higher costs of production for many other goods.

REH was originally developed by the Chicago disciples of Milton Friedman as a completion and entrenchment of the counter-revolution against Keynesian economics. REH posited a world in which Keynesian policies could never work because everyone had come to believe the monetarist doctrine that government spending would ultimately generate inflation—and because everyone believed this, they would follow their rational expectations by immediately raising prices and wages, thereby precluding even a transient increase in jobs.

Although there was never any empirical evidence for REH, the theory took academic economics by storm

No evidence? Stagflation, the 70s, numerous inflations worldwide. He then claims that the reason REH has been so successful is that it ties in with the ideology of the resurgent politics of liberal economics in the 80s:

That government activism was doomed to failure was exactly what politicians, central bankers and business leaders of the Thatcher and Reagan periods wanted to hear. Thus it quickly became established as the official doctrine of the political and economic establishments in America—and from this powerful position it was able to conquer the entire academic world.

Does he really think that politicians are that influential over academic doctrine? Why then no massive resurgence of conservative and classical liberal thought in humanities and arts departments during the 80s?

I don’t have the heart the go through the rest of this terrible article. Suffice to say he attacks the strong form of the efficient market hypothesis (fair enough) but then asks:

Why did such discredited theories flourish? Largely because they justified whatever outcomes the markets happened to decree—laissez-faire ideology, big salaries for top executives and billions in bonuses for traders.

This is exactly wrong. If the strong form of EMH holds, there is no reason to pay big bonuses to traders because they cannot then consistently earn outsize returns.

*sigh*

BBC covers Iran like so….

“Until recently, the United States was singled out as the Islamic Revolution’s principal opponent. This has changed.”

“By offering an ‘open hand’ to Iran since taking over as president, Barack Obama has challenged Iran’s traditional view of the ‘Great Satan’.”

“Britain, almost by default, has emerged as the target of Iranian ire.”

Thus managing to combine a nice comment about Barack Obama with an implication that Britain is being targeted because we just aren’t pro-Iranian (read pro-Ahmadinejad) enough.

In other news we have a decent-ish column by Mark Steyn, who hasn’t been on form recently, but regains it with a couple of choice paragraphs:

When the going gets tough, the tough get bailed out. Your car business operates on a failed business model? Don’t worry, the taxpayers will prop that failed business model up forever. You went bananas on your credit card and can’t pay it back? Don’t worry, we’ll pass a law to make it the bank’s fault. Your once golden state has decayed into such a corrupt racket of government cronyism that the remaining revenue generators are fleeing your borders faster than you can raise taxes on them? Relax, we’re lining up a federal bailout for you, too. Your unreadable newspaper has just woken up from its 96-page Obama Full Color Inaugural Souvenir bender to discover that its advertising revenue has collapsed with the real-estate market and GM dealerships? Hey, lighten up, Senator Kerry’s already been pleading your case in the Senate.

and….

There is a phrase you hear a lot in Canada, Britain, and Europe to describe the collection of positive “rights” (to “free” health care, unemployment benefits, subsidized public transit) to which the citizens of Western democracies have become addicted: the “social safety net.” It always struck me as an odd term: Obviously, it derives from the circus. But life isn’t really a high-wire act, is it? Or at least it didn’t use to be. If you put the average chap — or even Barack Obama or Barney Frank — in spangled leotard and tights and on a unicycle and shove him out across the wire, he’s likely to fall off. But put the average chap in spangled leotard and tights out into the world and tell him to get a job, find accommodation, raise a family, take responsibility, and he can do it.

STEYNALANCHE UPDATE: Welcome Steyn readers! Please stay, linger awhile - your comments constructive and destructive much welcomed. You are at the website of one of the very few people in the UK who doesn’t actually think Barack Obama is the most amazing thing since Al Gore invented the internet whilst eating sliced bread.  Speaking of Al Gore - he should see my blog traffic stats - that, my friend, is a hockey stick graph.   Ha!

Whilst on the bailout theme, politicians in the UK talk about how they want to help normal hard working families.  By definition,  Joe Average should of course not need help,  so the social democrats in power aim to make him think he does.  Money is taken from his left pocket and put back (minus a cut) in his right pocket - so politicians try their hardest to keep his focus on the right pocket.   It’s a trick, and it leads to nasty outcomes,  but can it be avoided in a modern centralized democracy?

There are lies, damn lies and statistics…….and there’s lying about statistics.

I copy underneath a letter I wrote to the Times a few days ago which they seem to have decided against publishing.

Dear Sirs,

Anatole Kaletsky reports in his article of June 18th that 47 million US citizens do not have health insurance. This figure was also reported in your leader of June 11th. This is not true.

The figure of 47 million finds its origin in the Current Population Survey released by the US Census Bureau in 2007. A quick check of this data reveals that of the 47 million uninsured, 10 million are not in fact US citizens.

Furthermore, Kaletsky indicates that these uninsured Americans could ‘die because they cannot afford medical care.’ However, of the 47 million uninsured people in America 17.7m live in households with annual incomes over 50 thousand dollars, with 9.3m of these having annual incomes over 75 thousand dollars. Clearly not everyone who can afford to insure will do so and a significant minority chooses to foot their health care bills as they arise.

Faithfully yours,

Jonathan Newton
Deputy Chairman, The Bow Group

Matthew D’Ancona in the Telegraph:

Brown and Ed Balls cling vigorously to the belief that the 2001 and 2005 elections were won by contrasting Labour “investment” with Tory “cuts”: the reddest of the “dividing lines” beloved by the PM and his acolytes. More to the point, they believe – as an article of faith, of irreducible conviction – that the Cameroons are bad people whose wickedness expresses itself in the slashing of the state. One of the words Brown uses most often in private to describe the Tory leader is “libertarian”: a word that conveys his belief that Cameron’s “compassionate conservatism” is mere window-dressing, but also hints at a decadent strain of Tory libertinage, drug-taking and yacht-fondling.

Hell yeah. Via Samizdata.

Reminds me of a line I’ve heard Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute use before:

A libertarian is a cross between a libertine and a librarian.

Kicks off with some world-gone-to-pot style rambling:

(Ayatollah Khamanei) Remember god,
Iran has gone through a lot since the revolution
Any of them could have put us in turmoil
Even from our neighbors
(Allah o Akbar)
Our youth are in a materialistic world
In a time of turmoil
They need to understand spirituality,
They need to get back to spirituality,
But they don’t know how,

Ah, ok. Turns out it’s our fault:

It’s been two centuries since the west has destroyed cultures,
But our nation wants to regain that spirituality back.
So that the revolution can be regained.

…but it still hasn’t stopped Iran from being the best:

The elections of June 12 was a fulfillment of the nation’s responsibility
It was a proof of participation of the people that was a show of the love towards their system
It is similar but better than the democracies in other countries,
BUT
Those countries don’t have a democracy as good as ours.

He uses high turnout at the election to illustrate the strength of the Iranian system on multiple occasions. Interesting that he leans on this as a source of legitimacy:

The enemies are using it,
If our young didn’t have any hope,
They wouldn’t partake in the election
If they didn’t feel freedom, they wouldn’t vote.
Faith in the system has been shown by the massive participation.

Then the scapegoating of foreigners regarding the protests starts:

The enemies target the belief and trust of people on that system
This trust is the biggest investment of the Islamic republic
They wanted to take it from us
They want it to shake our trust in this system
The enemies of the people of Iran will succeed when people won’t participate.
…………………….

The enemies are trying through their media - which is controlled by dirty Zionists.
The Zionist, American and British radio are all trying to say that there was a competition between those who support and those who didn’t support the state.

Woah! Then another nod to democratic legitimacy:

Everyone supported the state
I know everything about these candidates
I have worked with them.
I know all of them
I don’t believe in everything that they say
some of their views and practices can be criticized
I believe that some of them are better in serving the country
BUT the people have to make the choice.

Further down we have more against the auld enemies:

It is one of the one of the healthiest system in the world as well
but then accusing the government of corruption because of Zionist reports is not the right thing
questioning the credibility of the government is not corrects either.
……………..
political party leaders should be very careful about what they say and do
if they do anything extremist, their radical moves will moves will take them to where it won’t be solvable
we’ve seen this happen before
when extremism is forced upon a society, it leads to another one
if political elite want to fix someone at the cost of another thing
to BREAK the law
they would be responsible for the bloodshed
And any form of unrest
I would like to advise all these gentlemen,
All my brothers and friends
Just observe the hands of the enemy
They are hungry wolves
ambushing and removing the diplomacy cover from their faces
Don’t underestimate them.
I will tell you,
diplomats of other countries in the past few days have taken away their masks and showing their true image
The most evil of them all is the British Government.

Hmmm… a threat to internal dissidents and it looks as if Britain has gained in evilness. Do we get a promotion up from ‘little Satan’ status? It makes me kind of proud for Britain to be considered ‘the most evil of them all’ by the Ayatollah.

This is followed by my favourite extract. I think it speaks for itself:

Inside the country
their agents started their action
they started to cause riots in the street
they caused destruction
burnt houses,
theft and insecurity prevailed.
the people felt unsafe and insecure
this has nothing to do with supporters of the candidate
this is the servants of the westerners
Zionist agents and their servants.
What was clumsily done inside Iran by some, made them greedy
they thought that Iran is Georgia.
An American Zionist capitalist some time ago claimed that he had spent ten million dollars and created velvet revolution in Georgia
They are comparing the Islamic Republic with GEORGIA!?

Watch out Georgia, he seems to have it in for you…. maybe he doesn’t like your human rights record:

What do you think we are?
What are you talking about?
what is the worst thing to me in all this
are comments made in the name of human rights
and freedom and liberty
made by American officials
they said that we are worried about Iranian nations
WHAT? Are you serious?
Do you KNOW what human rights are?!
Who did that in Afghanistan?
The wars and bloodshed
Who is crushing Iraq under its soldier’s boots?
in Palestine?
Who supported the Zionists?
even inside America
During the time of the democrats
Time of Clinton
80 people were burned alive in Waco?

I love the way support for the ‘Zionists’ is evidence of being against human rights. Hmmmm…. there’s only one letter of difference between Waco and Wacko Mr. Ayatollah.

He then witters a bit more about human rights then finishes. You can see the whole thing here.

Iowahawk presents an excellent parody of Barack Obama’s foreign policy stance:

Greetings. As president of United States — or, if you prefer, the Great Satan — I have have been following with keen interest the vigorous post-election debate and vibrant political dialogue which has been taking place in your great and noble Islamic Republic of Iran over recent days. It has been both educational and fascinating, and as a sports fan I have thrilled to the pageantry, the suspense, and the fast-paced, hard-hitting action.

The rest is to be found here. Dry does not do this humour justice - it makes the Gobi desert look like a spa in comparison.

It’s always fashionable amongst leftists to celebrate some previous opponent so that he can be contrasted with the dullwitted chimp who they now perceive themselves to face.

Now it just so happens that Zombietime who writes unarguably one of the best blogs in the world and runs a superb website has unearthed a piece of 80s propaganda that is remarkably similar to the type of thing we saw in the Bush years.

I heartily recommend that you read Zombie’s analysis of it.