Tim Worstall

Foreign Takeovers

Really?

Foreign buyers snapped up more British companies in 2006 than in any
previous year as volumes of European mergers soared to a record high
boosted by strong markets and an ample supply of cheap debt, data
released today show.

From BAA and ScottishPower to BOC Group and the London Stock
Exchange, foreign companies have raided the UK this year, pulling off
$339 billion (£170 billion) of deals.

Terrible don’t you think?

To the extent that these companies were in fact owned by Brits then what’s happened is that some very successful venture capitalists (ie, all shareholders are in fact such) have sold off mature businesses and raised $339 billion to invest in the next wave of new and potentially faster growing ones.

Pretty good, eh? Roll on capitalism’s creative destruction!
 

In

58 responses

  1. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Well, in one sense it is terrible.
    Fistlly, all shareholders aren’t successful venture capitalists – O2 bought out the grannies before selling itself to Telefonica, netting the execs huge payouts; and iSoft and Marconi aren’t the best adverts for holding shares one could think of.
    According to the Sunday Telegraph of October 29,
    “The City may be partying still, but Britain’s much-heralded equity culture is in danger of withering on the vine.
    The privatisation programme begun in the 1980s once fostered dreams of a British shareowner society on a par with America. The number of investors had fallen to 2.4m in 1980 but rebounded to 6m by 1985 and soared to 11m after the water and electricity flotations. The total slipped as the programme ended and some investors sold, but it reached 12m after the building society and insurance company demutualisations of the 1990s. Now it is on the slide again, slipping back to 10m despite a booming stock market.
    “The people who got shares from privatisations are still selling them,” says Roger Lawson of the UK Shareholders’ Association. “They did not become long-term shareholders as expected. The idea was that everybody would become mini-capitalists but that hasn’t happened.”
    So cui bono? The shareholders of financial institutions; more likely than not other financial institutions.
    And where’s the evidence that this $339 billion is actually being invested and not just banked? You assume that to be the case, but it might not actually be so.

    Reply
  2. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Tim,
    I forgot to put this in the earlier comment.
    Have a look at this pdf –
    http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/fd1206.pdf
    Baldly it says that inward investment in 2005 amounted to £106.5 billion in 2005 – an increase of £76 billion on 2004.
    That is one hell of a year on year increase, don’t you think?
    ASSUMING that the figures you quote above are the same figures that will be reported by the ONS this time next year, that means that ‘inward investment’ for 2006 is going to be £170 billion ($339 billion) – an increase on 2005 of £63.4 billion.
    According to the CIA factbook, UK GDP for 2005 would be estimated at $1.818 trillion –
    https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html
    Wikipedia puts the figure at $2,131 trillion (£1,211 billion) as at March of this year –
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom
    Using a very rough and unscientific methodology, £170 billion is 14.08% of £1, 211 billion.
    Don’t you think that in terms of bald numbers alone that just’s too big a proprtion of GDP to pass out of national hands in one year alone?
    Tim adds: Tsk: GDP is a flow. Wealth is a stock. Wealth is vastly larger than GDP.

    Reply
  3. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Its really laughable that we should consider many of these corporations to be “British”, when they are global in nature, employing people across the world, and service a wide range of shareholder interests.
    And Tim is right – we’re not giving away GDP. ownership of equity has simply changed from one set of folks to another.

    Reply
  4. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Tim,
    I’m not an economist, have never made any claim to be; but should one not be concerned at the sheer scale of these numbers?
    Glenn,
    As above.
    With all due respect, the shareholder interests they serve seem to be narrowly focussed amongst financial institutions.
    And although they do business globally they are not ‘global businesses’ in the sense that they must be incorporated in one particular place, and presumably be subject to that place’s taxation and regulatory regimes.
    I will buy the ‘it’s all just ownership of equity changing hands’ argument when everyone is playing on a level playing field. If the governments of France, Germany and Spain dictate that those countries’ national interests are best served by keeping assets within French, German and Spanish ownership there is no reason why the British should not also be doing so.
    Are we a less important nation than they are?
    Or are our banks just greedier and better lobbyists?
    The lines in the sand, the ones that the people won’t take, are BP and BT.

    Reply
  5. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Martin – UK has always been this way. Perhaps you could say more about what the specific problems are from a corporate governance or economic perspective?
    Not having a go at you – just trying to find out what your specific concerns are. e.g. what are the advantages of retaining domestic control as in France and Germany?
    Some of the specific corporations in France and Germany still have significant levels of national and state ownership (e.g. VW) – so the state has a big hand to play in approving any takeover/buyout or change to the board.

    Reply
  6. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Glenn,
    That depends on how you define economics.
    If one considers economics to be a science unaffected by the existence of nations but merely the operation of a set of markets, the answer to the second part of your first question is none – it might render invalid the title of a book by Adam Smith, but it would have no other consequence.
    If, on the other hand, one believes that the nation state is integral to the practice of economics, and that economics should be practiced for the nation state’s benefit, then obviously permitting those things the nation state needs to survive (food production and energy supply and distribution) into non-national hands weakens the nation state.
    Glenn, has UK always been the way it is now? Really, has it?
    I’m glad you raise the question of corporate governance, because it’s an inherent weakness in our system of corporate governance that make such outward wealth flows possible.
    Obviously comanies are incorporeal entities – one can buy and sell them but they cannot be picked up, put down and thrown from hand to hand like a cricket ball. They are legal fictions, entities designed for the sole purpose of enabling their owners to minimise personal liability for the dealings of the business the company undertakes.
    However, the weakness in our law is that it makes the duty to act in shareholders’ interests a director’s ultimate duty – they have no duty to consider whether or not a bid which might produce the highest return for investors is necessarily in the wider interest.
    Maybe the French value France and the Germans value Germany more than Brits value Britain. Perhaps their less economistic, more nationalistic outlook has helped them overcome the ideological battle between state and private control – and the merits of that view can be seen just by comparing the numbers of new VW’s against those of new Rovers on the streets.

    Reply
  7. john b Avatar
    john b

    Three questions for Martin:
    a) since when has making cars been a sane indicator of national success?
    b) where do you think financial institutions’ money comes from? (clue: it comes from your pension fund)
    c) how does Spanish ownership of a UK generator compromise our national interests? Even in the so-unlikely-only-a-madman-would-even-worry-about-it situation of us having a war with the Spanish, we’d simply nationalise all Iberdrola’s UK assets without compensation, deport/intern a couple of expat top brass types, and allow the engineers and managers to carry on as before…

    Reply
  8. Johnathan Pearce Avatar
    Johnathan Pearce

    Martin’s arguments seem to rest on the idea that if foreign-based owners of capital can buy UK based firms, then the money they make will somehow disappear down a black hole. But suppose, say, BAA had remained in British hands. That firm had foreign as well as UK shareholders already. Is Martin saying that no foreign national should be able to own more than X percent of a UK firm? This is just another wrinkle on zero sum thinking that underlies most mercantilist – ie, wrong – economics.
    And in this globalised age, it is becoming harder to define what is a British firm anyway, other than the geographic locale of its main offices. Some firms are owned by holding companies based in offshore locations.

    Reply
  9. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    John,
    a. Why is retaining a heavy manufacturing capacity insane?
    Why was it sane to let the UK’s shipbuilding capacity wither on the vine and die when the shipowners were able to buy Polish and Korean ships whose production was massively subsidised?
    Now that was insane.
    b. Clue – I don’t have a pension, neither do I have any credit cards or any debt other than a smallish overdraft and a mortgage secured until March 2010; don’t even have a chequebook. I don’t seem to have any real stake in these ventures’ success, but as a consumer of essential services I might get to pay more to help someone else get rich.
    c. You seem very certain about what government would do in the event of a circumstance no reasonable person would ever imagine would ever come to pass. Maybe the very fact that a foreigner representing foreign interests has the power to decide the price you pay for your electricity and gas, for your home to be light and warm, is enough to give some people cause for alarm.
    Johnathan,
    “Martin’s arguments seem to rest on the idea that if foreign-based owners of capital can buy UK based firms, then the money they make will somehow disappear down a black hole.”
    Not quite. It’s control that disappears down a black hole.
    “That firm had foreign as well as UK shareholders already. Is Martin saying that no foreign national should be able to own more than X percent of a UK firm?”
    In some cases, absolutely; specifically food and energy supply.
    “And in this globalised age, it is becoming harder to define what is a British firm anyway, other than the geographic locale of its main offices. Some firms are owned by holding companies based in offshore locations.”
    Johnathan, we do not live in a ‘globalised’ age. There is no global currency, there is no global central bank setting a global interest rate. Somalia is not the same kind of place as Somerset. The globe itself is not ‘globalised’.
    ‘Globalised’ and ‘globalisation’ are slogans not unlike ‘Penitense Agite!’ and ‘Set the people free’ – they describe concepts, visions, not realities. ‘Globalisation’, a policy, not a process, which has seen return on capital increase massively while return to labour stagnates across the developed world, effected by nothing more simple than an arbitrage of labour between the First and Third Worlds; a cup-and-ball game that a child should be able to see through.

    Reply
  10. David Gillies Avatar
    David Gillies

    “Perhaps their less economistic, more nationalistic outlook has helped them overcome the ideological battle between state and private control…”
    So, Frogs and Jerries, how’d that work out for you? 15% unemployment you say? Well I never. And the thought of Germans concentrating less on economics and more on nationalism is not a happy one.

    Reply
  11. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    David,
    A glib if slightly absurd comment.
    Please cite whatever proof you might have to the effect that French and German policy of retaining stregic ownership of assets HAS BY ITSELF contirubuted to unemployment rates in those countries.
    Please.
    “And the thought of Germans concentrating less on economics and more on nationalism is not a happy one.”
    That’s a daft comment to make in 2006, don’t you think?

    Reply
  12. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Really the shipbuilding industry declined because of poor management,leadership and use of innovation and technology. When the Koreans and Japanese were pioneered and applying more efficient, quick and stronger seam welding, UK industry was still doing rivets.
    Perhaps if we had a few foreign takeovers with new production techniques from abroad we would still have a decent ship industry?
    Martin you seem to be veering towards Dirigiste nurturing of heavy industries, protectionism, some state control.
    The problem with putting more controls on foreign capital, is that foreign capital will not come the UK’s way. UK is the top destination for FDI in Europe due to its approach to corporate investment and ownership. Ireland has similar open model and high levels of FDI.
    The UK is a mature advanced capitalist economy. By its nature its highly integrated into the global economy. UK residents and interests own a lot of foreign assets, we’re a highly open economy, and lots of foreigners own our assets.
    I am not an advocate of pure market capitalism, nor do I think it exists, and acknowledge the structural and other imperfectiosn of that model but I still don’t understand what your specific problem is – why don’t you give me a specific examples of some problems from foreign ownership.
    There’s no global currency or politic, but economically we are becoming more and more involved in international trade and markets.

    Reply
  13. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Globalisation is here! and its not all doom and gloom (at all really)…
    World Bank Publication:
    Global Economic Prospects 2007: Managing the Next Wave of Globalization
    http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/GEPEXT/EXTGEP2007/0,,contentMDK:21139275~menuPK:3016160~pagePK:64167689~piPK:64167673~theSitePK:3016125,00.html
    Also in the FT today – 3/4 of global manufacturing output is from North America, Europe and Japan.

    Reply
  14. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    “Really the shipbuilding industry declined because of poor management,leadership and use of innovation and technology. When the Koreans and Japanese were pioneered and applying more efficient, quick and stronger seam welding, UK industry was still doing rivets.”
    No, it also went down because they were subsiding their shipbuilders and we weren’t.
    “Perhaps if we had a few foreign takeovers with new production techniques from abroad we would still have a decent ship industry?”
    No we wouldn’t because our cost of living is too high, resulting in our workers requiring commensurate rates of pay – I think the correct term used to describe workers whose bosses don’t want to pay them what they’re worth is that they are ‘uncompetitive’.
    “Martin you seem to be veering towards Dirigiste nurturing of heavy industries, protectionism, some state control.”
    So build me a bonfire for thinking that British citizens should earn real wages in real money and have real money in their pockets as opposed to being shoehorned either into sales or services jobs for which they have no natural aptitude or worthless higher education courses with no guarantee of employment at the end of them.
    Sorry, I forgot, they can all get new ‘skills’..until they become ‘uncompetitive’… and the jobs get shipped off to India…
    Glenn, do you like seafood? If you do, you’ll never eat scampi again.
    Langoustines caught in Dumfries & Galloway are now being shipped to China and Thailand for processing before they are re-imported back to the UK. That means that if you live in D & G and go to buy a bag of frozen scampi you are being a foodstuff which was caught a mile down the road but which has travelled around the world before it hits your plate.
    The rationale for this is that the cost of production in Scotland is too high, and workers have lost their jobs.
    Don’t you think such a practice is nuts?
    Abraham Lincoln – “Give me a tariff and I will give you the greatest country the world has ever seen”
    Patrick J. Buchanan – “Why should the citizens be taxed at 40% and the goods come in for free when the goods could be taxed at 40% and the citizens live for free?”
    At least I think that’s what he said…
    “The problem with putting more controls on foreign capital, is that foreign capital will not come the UK’s way.”
    When did we become beggars? We’re a trillion dollar economy – didn’t we have anything to do with that state of affairs coming about?
    “UK is the top destination for FDI in Europe due to its approach to corporate investment and ownership. Ireland has similar open model and high levels of FDI.”
    The validity of that approach depends on the view one takes of foreign ownership being a good or bad thing.
    And the Irish are also reaping the benefits of 30 years of Euro subsidy and playing the Irish granny card in Wall St. boardrooms.
    “The UK is a mature advanced capitalist economy. ”
    Really? If that’s the case, why is adult male life expectancy in the Calton district of Glasgow currently 54 years?
    “By its nature its highly integrated into the global economy. ”
    Again, no such thing as a global economy. Doesn’t exist. It’s hooey.
    “UK residents and interests own a lot of foreign assets, we’re a highly open economy, and lots of foreigners own our assets”
    Relative proportions please. If they own more of us than we own of them, I think that’s called an imbalance.
    I’ve outlined my misgivings above, Glenn.
    There are some industries which the national interest dictates should not be held in foreign hands.

    Reply
  15. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Martin,
    I agree with you that the benefits of the current economic system, and integration in the world economy mean that some people don’t benefit such as others do. But I am strongly of the view that the protectionist view of the world you espouse is, in the long term, more damaging than the current system.
    Global economy – I fundamentally disgree with you here. The world economy is here, individuals, localities, nations being more integrated into it. Plenty of evidence around.
    Offshoring of jobs… don’t get me started! there’s ample evidence to show that this is not occurring at the rate that doomsayers suggest.
    I wouldn’t touch processed scampi though! I prefer the real thing. For the same money I’d rather have one fresh one than a bag of processed ones.
    “So build me a bonfire for thinking that British citizens should earn real wages in real money and have real money in their pockets as opposed to being shoehorned either into sales or services jobs for which they have no natural aptitude or worthless higher education courses with no guarantee of employment at the end of them. ”
    I don’t disagree with the noble intentions there – its a goal that has proved as elusive as any other. As to your claim about graduates – there’s little evidence to suggest a chronic underemployment of graduates either. Evidence tells us that there may be some underemployment, but its small scale and temporary.
    As for low skilled jobs – many do these by choice as well as circumstance. I know I did once upon a time. Get off your high horse. If no-one was prepared to do low skilled work, who would be washing the scampi production lines, or making up boxes for the frozen bags in Dumfries, if the company chose to keep those functions there?

    Reply
  16. gene berman Avatar
    gene berman

    Martin:
    The folks providing rebuttals and re-rebuttals to your arguments will not persuade you–nor should anyone expect you to be so persuaded.
    All of this category of arguments has to do with the effects of coercive (i.e., governmental) interference in economic affairs, whether involving domestic or international transactions.
    The ONLY thorough analysis of the entire matter has been that provided by the “Austrians” (and, in particular, by Von Mises, best presented in his magnum opus, HUMAN ACTION). I would urge (in light of your obvious intense interest in such matters) that you consider the well-built-up (and impregnable) arguments you will find there.
    As a “teaser,” I shall offer a single, important overview of the topic you’ve addressed: the policies you favor, though relatively popular, have been of primary responsibility for most international tensions and ensuing warfare; both WWs I and II are the nearly inescapable outcome of national economic policies (primarily on the part of the UK and the US). By this I do not mean that either of those nations had any intent to provoke such hostilities but merely to point out that bad policies have bad result and that, if the policies are not abandoned, the bad results will demand intensification of the original measures, with the nearly inescapable outcome being the level of slaughter and destruction marring the 20th century.

    Reply
  17. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Martin – read about Austrian economics but beware there are extreme interpreters of this. I don’t want it to put you off economics!
    Why not read Bhagwati’s book “In Defense of Globalisation’? you might not agree with it all, but its an alternative view to the anti globalisation brigade by an economist of some repute, and in plain english to boot. It offers a view counter to your own which you might find interesting.

    Reply
  18. paul ilc Avatar
    paul ilc

    Martin
    …British citizens should earn real wages in real money and have real money in their pockets as opposed to being shoehorned either into sales or services jobs for which they have no natural aptitude…
    What are the “natural aptitudes” of the British citizen? How have you determined what they are? Are they genetic? If they are culturally-determined, how can they be natural?
    “The UK is a mature advanced capitalist economy. ”
    Really? If that’s the case, why is adult male life expectancy in the Calton district of Glasgow currently 54 years?
    How I love your trademark non sequiturs! I don’t suppose the appalling Glaswegian diet of chips, deep-fried Mars Bars, fags and booze has anything to do it, does it?

    Reply
  19. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Glenn,
    To declare oneself a protectionist in the current climate appears to be a solecism akin to admitting bestiality or necrophilia; it is late, and I have had many hours of worry occasioned by the thought of losing 2450 posts as a result of clicking ‘Switch to Beta’ by accident.
    All I’ll say in relation to the first point is that if one does not exercise a measure of protectionism one ends up with little to protect.
    Doors have locks for a reason.
    Your choice of tenses and cases when describing the globalisation policy is very interesting. You say that “The world economy is here, individuals, localities, nations being more integrated into it.”
    If that is the case, Glen, it is a manufactured process that has never been put to the vote. A significant part of my objection to it is precisely that people are being integrated into it without their consent; economic tyranny.
    “Offshoring of jobs… don’t get me started! there’s ample evidence to show that this is not occurring at the rate that doomsayers suggest.”
    Well perhaps not in the UK – but keep an eye out for stories of Indian call centre operators being trained to speak with English accents…it’s probably not just to keep the customers happy…
    Your comment concerning your taste in sea food reminds me of the Wilsonian (Harold, not Woodrow) remark about salmon – “If I had the choice between smoked salmon and tinned salmon, I’d have it tinned. With vinegar”.
    Give me the processed scampi any day.
    “Evidence tells us that there may be some underemployment, but its small scale and temporary.”
    We’ll see.
    “As for low skilled jobs – many do these by choice as well as circumstance. I know I did once upon a time. Get off your high horse. If no-one was prepared to do low skilled work, who would be washing the scampi production lines, or making up boxes for the frozen bags in Dumfries, if the company chose to keep those functions there?”
    Well, probably not the people who used to do it before May 1 2004, that’s for sure.
    Thanks for the book tip.
    Gene,
    “the policies you favor, though relatively popular, have been of primary responsibility for most international tensions and ensuing warfare; both WWs I and II are the nearly inescapable outcome of national economic policies (primarily on the part of the UK and the US). By this I do not mean that either of those nations had any intent to provoke such hostilities but merely to point out that bad policies have bad result and that, if the policies are not abandoned, the bad results will demand intensification of the original measures, with the nearly inescapable outcome being the level of slaughter and destruction marring the 20th century.”
    Gene, without wishing to be facetious one supposes that the particular pathologies of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler had absolutely nothing to do with those conflicts…
    It’s doubtful that, say, the Trojan War could be explained away in such terms.
    Interestingly you write,
    “By this I do not mean that either of those nations had any intent to provoke such hostilities but merely to point out that bad policies have bad result and that, if the policies are not abandoned, the bad results will demand intensification of the original measures”
    The truth of that comment depends on the intelligence and aptitude of those in charge of the relevant policies – all talk of ramping up troop numbers in Iraq would certainly seem to fall into that category.
    Paul,
    How delightful it isn’t to see you so soon after our little chat over at ‘UK Commentators’.
    You must have run out of rocks to crawl under.
    Ho hum. Here we go, all over again…
    “What are the “natural aptitudes” of the British citizen? How have you determined what they are? Are they genetic? If they are culturally-determined, how can they be natural?”
    Some are more academically inclined than others. Some are more practically inclined than others. Some know a thing or two about the life of St. Augustine; some do not consider the underclass to be fellow citizens.
    The evidence which I see around me where I live and work is that the local economy is apparently unable to generate much employment of any kind other than sales or customer service posts. In order to keep themselves independent of the state, some whose aptitudes might be better directed towards battering wood for a living take such jobs but become frustrated and quit very quickly, or else shuffle from call-centre to call-centre like ghosts.
    But they keep trying, because they know they have to work for a living.
    “The UK is a mature advanced capitalist economy. ”
    Really? If that’s the case, why is adult male life expectancy in the Calton district of Glasgow currently 54 years?
    How I love your trademark non sequiturs! I don’t suppose the appalling Glaswegian diet of chips, deep-fried Mars Bars, fags and booze has anything to do it, does it?”
    Unfortunately your trademark callousness isn’t really appropriate in this instance.
    And if you can find a chippie in Glasgow that sells Deep Fried Mars Bars I’d be delighted if you could tell me, because I’ve lived in this city for the best part of 37 years and have never actually come across one that does.
    The chips, fags and booze – well, yes, they obviously play a part in diminishing life expectancy. But to 54? For a whole tranche of people in a mature, advanced capitalist economy?
    No, Paul, something else must be at work. My opinion is that it’s poverty, real Third World poverty, not the faux poverty of the welfare state.
    Sometime after 1960 we forgot that there are some people who can’t become the next Bill Gates. Not everyone is motivated by making money – in such places as the Calton you’re lucky to find anyone who’s motivated at all.
    We allowed our nation’s spiritual, social, cultural and economic foundations to be eroded in pursuit of lust and profit – and what did we end up with?
    The Calton on one side and you on the other.
    And we are not a better nation for it.

    Reply
  20. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    As for that Scottish delicacy, Deep-fried Mars Bars, according to a BBC report, the NHS in Scotland investigated the myth a couple of years back:
    “The deep-fried Mars bar is alive and well in Scotland with more than a fifth of chip shops serving up the delicacy. A study by NHS Greater Glasgow found 22% of Scottish take-aways had the foodstuff on its menu and another 17% used to sell them.
    “Researchers surveyed 500 chip shops and found children are the main buyers, with one shop selling up to 200 a week.
    “The first report of battered Mars bars being up for sale appeared in the Scottish Daily Record in August 1995. . . ”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4103415.stm
    As for Alcoholism:
    “LEON, David A and McCAMBRIDGE, Jim. Liver cirrhosis mortality rates in Britain from 1950 to 2002: an analysis of routine data. Lancet 7 January 2006: 52-56 Abstract: Summary: Background Rates of mortality due to cirrhosis of the liver are an important indicator of population levels of alcohol harm. Total recorded alcohol consumption in Britain doubled between 1960 and 2002, giving rise to a need to examine and assess cirrhosis mortality trends. . . Cirrhosis mortality rates in Scotland are now one of the highest in western Europe, in 2002 being 45·2 per 100 000 in men and 19·9 in women.”
    http://www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/services/library/articles/a/alcohol.htm
    As for violent crime:
    “A UNITED Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest.”
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1786945,00.html
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4257966.stm
    Just the facts . . .

    Reply
  21. gene berman Avatar
    gene berman

    Martin:
    If you’re trying to provoke me into an argument, you’ve failed–though I would observe that you’ve tried using the Trojan War as more or less a Trojan Horse toward that purpose (after stretching my statement regarding the WWs I and II; ascribing their cause to “pathologies” of
    specific men is dubious, to say the least.)
    If you read as I suggested, I have no doubt you’ll understand. If you don’t, you won’t–and there’s nothing I can (or would wish) to do about it.

    Reply
  22. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Bob,
    The BBC report you link to is over two years old. It might have been fact then – as I’ve said, I have never seen a Deep Fried Mars Bar for sale; that does not mean that they are not sold – but is it true now?
    Your quotation from the Lancet report is selective to the point of being disingenuous.
    The full abstract reads,
    “Background Rates of mortality due to cirrhosis of the liver are an important indicator of population levels of alcohol harm. Total recorded alcohol consumption in Britain doubled between 1960 and 2002, giving rise to a need to examine and assess cirrhosis mortality trends. Methods: Mortality rates were calculated for all ages and for specific age-groups (15-44 years and 45-64 years) for cirrhosis of the liver. Rates were directly age-standardised to the European standard population and compared with rates from 12 western European countries for the period 1955-2001. Findings: Cirrhosis mortality rates increased steeply in Britain during the 1990s. Between the periods 1987-1991, and 1997-2001, cirrhosis mortality in men in Scotland more than doubled (104% increase) and in England and Wales rose by over two-thirds (69%). Mortality in women increased by almost half (46% in Scotland and 44% in England and Wales). These relative increases are the steepest in western Europe, and contrast with the declines apparent in most other countries examined, particularly those of southern Europe. Cirrhosis mortality rates in Scotland are now one of the highest in western Europe, in 2002 being 45·2 per 100 000 in men and 19·9 in women. Interpretation: Current alcohol policies in Britain should be assessed by the extent to which they can successfully halt the adverse trends in liver cirrhosis mortality. The situation in Scotland warrants particular attention. [Abstract taken from journal head-note]”
    It’s rather foolish to try to cut and paste those bits of academic abstracts which you think suit you, wouldn’t you agree?
    What this paper proves is that alcohol consumption doubled across the whole of the UK over a 42 year period.
    When one deals in facts, Bob, one must deal with all the facts, not just those that you think suit you; a principle of truth-finding that some economists find particularly hard to grasp.
    But seeing as we’re all taking wild shots in the dark, these figures suggest something else to me.
    Why do we drink more? Is it because we’ve all become so much more fabulously stinking rich over that period?
    No. Certainly social attitudes changed over the same period – that the increase in mortality rates amongst females should be so close in both S and E & W might suggest the operation of factors other than geography at work; in 1960, the start of the period referred to, it would probably have been less acceptable for women to get drunk in public – indeed, if it were acceptable for women to enter boozers at all in some parts.
    However, let me also quote you a well-known stanza;
    “Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
    There’s a wonderful world you can share.
    It’s the bright one, the right one.
    That’s Martini..”
    Ring any bells?
    Remember the Cinzano adverts with Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins?
    Perhaps the glamourisation of drinking by television advertising, an art form still in its infancy in 1960 and to whose wiles our culture had no immunity at that time, played a part.
    The study proves that men drink more than women – however, the quoted abstract DOES NOT TELL US whether the male cirrhosis rates for S and E & W in 1987 were similar; in other words, it does not seem to provide an initial point of reference.
    Ha ha ha, drunken Jocks, getting slashed all hours of the day and night, ha ha ha – perhaps; but then again perhaps not.
    Perhaps we were playing catch up.
    But you’re forgetting something else, Bob. What happened right in the middle of the period 1960 2002? Deindustrialisation, that’s bloody what. If you were 64 years old in 1999, you might have left school in 1949 and worked in the same factory for 36 years before it closed. You’ve never known anything else. The local market for your skills is gone. You have none of the skills necessary to get ahead in the roaring ’80’s. You’re never going to be Jimmy Goldsmith or Michael Ashcroft.
    So you get depressed. Your doctor signs you off on incapacity benefit or whichever other tool the Tories used to massage the unemployment figures – and you drink.
    A perfectly credible scenario from the data available.
    Ah yes, the old ‘No Mean City’, ‘booze and blades’ canard.
    Sad to have to tell you this, Bob, but a week after the Times published the report you quoted the Sunday Times published a report saying that in terms of homicide levels the most violent country in Europe is Finland –
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1796899,00.html
    I analysed these numbers here –
    http://theggnomeridesout.blogspot.com/2005/09/crisis-in-race-realism-part-ii.html
    There are a lot of interesting links in the comments.

    Reply
  23. Johnathan Pearce Avatar
    Johnathan Pearce

    “Johnathan, we do not live in a ‘globalised’ age.”
    How you can write such a sentence and expect us not to laugh at you is remarkable. The computer I am typing my response to your point was made in South Korea (which as far as I know, is not next to my home in central London), financed with money via U.S. banks. That money has come to the US via Asian-based savers. The computer was shipped over thousands of miles and is now serviced by British and other nationals working for an international corporation, which outsources some of its technical support and operations to India and Singapore. This little example can be replicated a billion times over. That’s what globalisation means.
    One does not have to have a single global currency for globalisation – free trade – to occur. All one needs is that governments get out of the way of the age-old desire of people to trade with one another. You obviously wish to stand in their way to generate some supposed ideal outcome. It is a delusion.

    Reply
  24. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    On the reported links between alcoholism and violence in Scotland, let’s read the views of those regularly engaged at the battlefront:
    “Shobhan Thakore needs no academic study or international report to convince him Scotland is in the grip of an epidemic of violence. All the evidence he needs is laid out before his eyes every Saturday night in the bloodied heads, the flailing fists and the terrorised staff of his hospital’s accident and emergency unit.
    “For Scotland’s politicians the debate about violence is about policy initiatives and political point-scoring. For Thakore, a veteran A&E consultant at Ninewells hospital in Dundee, it is about the scenes reminiscent of a battlefield in his unit every weekend — and the unacceptable price being paid by dedicated nurses and doctors as they try to treat the wounded. . . ”
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1796873,00.html
    “The justice minister has repeated her pledge to tackle the ‘booze and blade culture’ after a survey pointed to a high level of violence in Scotland. . . ”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4259374.stm
    “What’s going on here? It’s almost as if the Glasgow City of Culture reinvention and Edinburgh’s continued status as international festival city are a mirage and nothing substantial has happened since the 70s when Scotland and Finland regularly went head-to-head on the major indicators of social instability: murder, suicide and alcoholism.
    “In fact, quite a lot has happened. The city centres have been cleaned up. They now boast more housing for wealthier professionals, more tourist accommodation, and more leisure and recreation facilities. Central zones now enjoy better policing and saturation CCTV camera coverage. The postwar process of rehousing has led to the disappearance of traditional city-centre working-class areas. Large sections of Edinburgh’s Tollcross district, for example, have been demolished to make way for conferencing and business facilities. And here’s the rub: social problems have been removed from the city centre to the peripheries, out of sight and mind of tourists and professionals. In the Victorian era, Disraeli, that great Tory paternalist, talked about the two nations. In our modern urban life, we have two cities. Glasgow is Hillhead or Easterhouse, Edinburgh Merchiston or Muirhouse. And you stand a far better chance of being murdered in one than in the other.
    “But why should there be three times as many murders in Scotland than in England? We are not, and never have been, a nation of violent psychopaths. It’s surely a little trite to say that heavy drinking is the sole reason, as bingeing is now ubiquitous in the UK. More likely it’s the peculiar drinking habits and the urban environment of the most disadvantaged Scots. . . ”
    http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1596079,00.html
    This all sheds much illumination into the motivation for a topical major policy concern of the Scots – Depopulation. One way or another, it seems that the Scots are seeking refuge from Scotland in droves – by migration if not through booze:
    “According to the forecasts from the Government Actuary Department, Scotland’ s population will fall from 5 million in 2004 to just 3.6 million in 2073 – a drop of 27%. Over the same period, the UK’s population will increase by 11% – while according to EU figures, independent Ireland’s population will have already risen 36% by 2050.”
    http://www.snp.org/press-releases/2005/snp_press_release.2005-04-19.8707349370/

    Reply
  25. paul ilc Avatar
    paul ilc

    Basically, Martin, you dislike the idea of free trade because you are a xenophobe – as evidenced by your Foreign Criminal of the Day feature on your dull website.

    Reply
  26. Johnathan Pearce Avatar
    Johnathan Pearce

    Paul, yes, I get the impression too about Martin. Not likely to trouble the Nobel Prize committee for economics.

    Reply
  27. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Guys,
    I’ve written quite a long reply which Typepad thinks is spam.
    I’ll try and post it later.

    Reply
  28. Glenn Athey (angry economist) Avatar
    Glenn Athey (angry economist)

    Bob B – do you need some work as as someone to post clippings and news items to a website, or do you already do that? might be needing someone like that. Seems like you have natural ability…
    My impression of Martin is that his mind is already made up. No amount of gentle persuasion will do.
    I am prepared to be persuaded by hard evidence and decent economics. I guess that’s cos I am a geeky economist, right?…

    Reply
  29. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Johnathan,
    I really couldn’t care less if you laugh at me or not – OK?
    “That’s what globalisation means.”
    Not quite. I refer you to the following website –
    http://www.morganstanley.com/views/index.html
    It’s Morgan Stanley’s Global Economics Forum.
    The most recent dispatch from Stephen Roach, its Chief Economist, reads as follows:
    “On one level, there seems to be no stopping the powerful forces of globalization. Not only has the world just completed four years of the strongest global growth since the early 1970s, but in 2006, cross-border trade as a share of world GDP pierced the 30% threshold for the first time ever — almost three times the portion prevailing during the last global boom over 30 years ago. What a great testament to the stunning successes of globalization!
    On another level, however, there are increasingly disquieting signs. That’s because of a striking asymmetry in the benefits of globalization. While living standards have improved in many segments of the developing world, a new set of pressures is bearing down on the rich countries of the developed world. Most notably, an extraordinary squeeze on labor incomes has occurred in the industrial world — an outcome that challenges the fundamental premises of the “win-win” models of globalization…
    The problem lies with the second win — the supposed benefits accruing to the rich countries of the developed world. And that’s where the going has gotten especially tough. In recent years, the benefits of the second win have accrued primarily to the owners of capital at the expense of the providers of labor. At work is a powerful asymmetry in the impacts of globalization and global competition on the world’s major industrial economies — namely, record highs in the returns accruing to capital and record lows in the rewards going to labor. The global labor arbitrage has put unrelenting pressure on employment and real wages in the high-cost developed world — resulting in a compression of the labor income share down to a record low of 53.7% of industrial world national income in mid-2006. With labor costs easily accounting for the largest portion of business expenses, this has proved to be a veritable bonanza for the return to capital — pushing the profits share of national income in the major countries of the industrial world to historical highs of 15.6% in 2Q06.”
    http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/index.html#anchor4105
    That’s all that globalisation is, Johnathan – an arbitrage of labour between the First and Third Worlds. It is NOT free trade in the classic Ricardian sense –
    “The basic conclusion of Ricardian comparative advantage that all economists are taught to worship from birth holds that trade liberalization not only brings poor workers from the developing world into the global economic equation (win #1), but workers in the developed world then benefit by buying low-cost, high-quality goods from the developing world (win #2). The theory breaks down because of a new disruptive technology — in this case, the Internet — that dramatically accelerates both the speed and scope of worker displacement in the developed world. It used to be that such workers would eventually — with considerable dislocational distress, to be sure — seek and secure refuge in the non-tradable segment of their economies. The shocker is that the sense of security in services has effectively broken down. In recent years, IT-enabled connectivity has quickly migrated up the knowledge worker occupational hierarchy in once-nontradable services, denying displaced workers in the developed world the comfort (i.e., sustainable labor income generation) of enjoying the benefits of the second win of globalization”
    http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2006/20060623-Fri.html
    Given that Steve Roach is Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist and neither you nor I are I’ll take his word for it, thanks.
    Globalisation has nothing to do with people wanting to trade with each other. Its function is to stiff people like you and me.
    The only person in the world whose job is safe is the Pope, if only because his services are non-tradeable.
    Tim adds: Globalisation has nothing to do with people wanting to trade with each other.
    But that’s all Globalization is! People indulging in their natural wish to trade with each other, free of governmental constraints!

    Reply
  30. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Bob,
    “There was a short debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday about alcohol treatment. It illustrates beautifully the current state of play for alcohol treatment in England and what the government is and is not doing about it.
    The MP for Plymouth Devonport, Alison Seabeck set out the issues for Plymouth and covered the:
    rise in alcohol-related liver disease
    burden on A&E
    antisocial behaviour
    lost productivity
    family breakdown and domestic violence
    effectiveness of alcohol treatment
    disparity between spend on treatment for drugs and for alcohol
    lack of targets for alcohol treatment and therefore lack of investment
    threats to existing levels of funding for alcohol treatment
    need for education, especially of parents”
    http://www.alcoholpolicy.net/2006/06/alcohol_treatme.html
    “Paramedics are faced with violence and verbal abuse as they answer emergency calls across the West Midlands, it was revealed yesterday. By the end of 2005, it is believed more than 200 ambulance staff will have been attacked while helping others. West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) has joined forces with health workers’ union Unison to launch a campaign against attacks on crews. ”
    http://old.paramedic.org.uk/news_archive/2005/october05/violencemiddlands/view
    “WHAT’S CRIME GOT TO DO WITH IT, ANYWAY?
    This Conference was organised by IPSM on behalf of the Government Office for the North West and the Liverpool Health Action Zone and was held at the Marriott Hotel, Liverpool Airport on 30th January 2004…
    The cost each year of dealing with crime and crime related health throughout the NHS from GPs and District Nurses, hospitals and after care treatment is not just financial. Reducing crime can free up NHS resources currently being spent on crime related ill health and which may be used to improve to preventative and emergency services for the wider community.
    Geoff pointed out that there is a strong correlation between persistent ill-health and recorded crime, the worst 10% of wards in health deprivation terms account for some 40% of recorded health related crime.” –
    http://www.ipsm.org.uk/ipsmhealthconf2004.htm
    “Paramedics in Peterborough endured one of the busiest weekends on record after the city was gripped with World Cup fever. Ambulance crews had to deal with a large number of drunken assaults and paramedics were also called out to deal with people who had fallen over, or become dehydrated after drinking too much booze. The East Anglian Ambulance Service was called to Peterborough 148 times over Saturday and Sunday – up from 125 the previous weekend. Peterborough Today…
    Police on South Tyneside arrested 101 people last week as part of the ongoing campaign to stamp trouble caused by booze-fuelled drinkers. When To Stop? is the summer-long initiative targeting drunkenness, violence and disorder on the streets of South Shields and throughout the Northumbria Police area. South Tyneside Today…
    Bolton: Town centre revellers were given a safe drinking message on the opening night of the World Cup on a mobile video screen in a pioneering move by police. The giant three metre by two metre screen, which is fixed to the side of a van, was moved between problem hot-spots in Bradshawgate and Nelson Square to urge drinkers to be careful. Messages included: “Have fun on your night out but don’t over-do it.” This is Lancashire ”
    http://www.alcoholpolicy.net/2006/06/links_for_14606.html
    While they’re deplorable, it looks like the problems of alcohol abuse and violence towards NHS staff happen all over – wouldn’t you agree?
    Bob, you’re not having much luck with your sources today, because the following appears at at the top of the ‘Guardian’ link you provided –
    “The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections and clarifications column, Monday October 24 2005
    The feature below mistakenly quoted a forthcoming University of California report as claiming that the country’s murder rate now exceeds that of America. However, the report combines figures for murder, manslaughter and other “deliberate and non-deliberate deaths” and concludes that Scotland has a higher violent death rate than America. A recent World Health Organisation report, mentioned in the article, gives Scotland’s murder rate as 2.33 deaths per 100,000 people. FBI figures released last week put the US rate at 5.5 per 100,000.”
    Oh well..
    To deal with the substance of Irvine Welsh’s piece, he does make some fair points – for example immediately after the part you selectively quote he writes,
    “The density of housing and the lack of money and mobility in many large local authority or former local authority housing areas led to people being pushed together; forced to share each others obsessions and social space in a way that would be unthinkable even to many lower-middle-class people.”
    Right there you have the absence of social mobility – a key consequence of deindustrialisation and globalisation. He continues,
    “Throughout the years there has been a decline in the sporting, educational and cultural activities that were once an alternate source of affirmation. These have not been deemed market-friendly investments in peripheral housing areas.”
    Another triumph for the XBox and multi-channel TV!
    God bless the market, for giving us such geegaws!
    “Meanwhile, binge drinking often takes on a different, and more dangerous, form than that practised in England, land of lager, high street and punch-up culture. In the west of Scotland, the destructive influence of certain fortified wines such as Buckfast has been well documented. “Buckie” may never make it on to the wine lists of the smarter Glasgow and Edinburgh eateries, but it’s cheap, easy to get down and will get you off your head. Moreover, it’s considered fair game by many Scots to combine potentially volatile cocktails of drink and drugs, with often just about anything considered appropriate in the mix. This makes behaviour less predictable, and the consequences therefore often more dire.”
    For the avoidance of doubt, ‘Buckie’ is made in Devon.
    For better or worse, fortified wines have always sold in Glasgow – there used to be one called ‘Lanlic’ which would apparently blow your head off.
    Welsh was a junkie, so his characterisation of ‘many Scots’ mixing drink with drugs really should read ‘some’.
    “Another big difference north of the border is in the knife/weapon culture. It’s still a widespread assumption, particularly in parts of Glasgow, that carrying a knife is acceptable behaviour. This probably goes as far back as the Highlander’s sgian-dhu, but has more recent roots in the “tools” culture of the city’s industrial past. Thankfully, Scotland’s gun problem has not yet reached the same scale as London, Manchester or Dublin. It would be truly terrifying to think what might happen if this came to pass”
    It has been the law of Scotland since 1991 (‘Pelosi -v- Normand’, later enacted into statute as the Carrying of Knives (Scotland) Act 1993) that if you carry a knife, then you go to jail.
    Welsh is wrong to try to trace the ‘tools’ culture back to the skean dhu. In Glasgow, it is more likely to have its roots in the relentless romanticisation of the razor gangs of the 1930’s, such as the Norman Conks and Billy Boys, by authors such as Alexander MacArthur. A lot of people, such as Glenn Chandler, James Boyle, Paul Ferris, William McIlvanney and if memory serves Welsh himself, have made a lot of money from writing about and talking about violence in Glasgow.
    Their works have done as much as anything else to perpetuate that culture – which one should say is limited to a relatively small part of the population.
    He overplays sectarianism. Sectarianism is a ‘problem’ only in parts of the West, and then mostly only on the occasion of Old Firm games. The violence of the 1930’s carried a markedly more sectarian stamp than the violence of the present.
    He notes,
    “One factor again comes shining through here: alcohol and our twisted association with it. But that relationship might be a little more appropriate if some Scots had better homes, jobs and educational and cultural opportunities. In other words, if many of our people had the chance to genuinely celebrate life rather than simply getting out of it.”
    All rather more complicated than just ‘The Scots get hammered and stab each other’ isn’t it?
    As far as depopulation’s concerned, Scotland’s depopulation is of no interest to me. I am not a Communist, and therefore I cannot understand why so much time and energy is devoted to trying to get the population up. If Scots wish to drink, drug, contracept and abort themselves into history, then the State has certainly given them the means and motive to do so.
    Paul,
    Xenophobophobe!

    Reply
  31. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Tim,
    “But that’s all Globalization is! People indulging in their natural wish to trade with each other, free of governmental constraints!”
    No.
    No.
    No.
    Read Roach.
    Please.
    Globalisation is a policy, it is not a process like free trade.
    Tim adds: Obviously, that’s where we differ. I regard globalisation as simply being the natural order, what people would and do do in the absence of governments stopping them.

    Reply
  32. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    Yes, Martin, but by several reports the murder rate in Scotland is three times higher than in England and that fact leaves us with the challenge of finding a credible explanation to account for the huge difference. Perhaps Blair could set up another of those inquiries to clarify – or obfuscate – the issue but on reflection, rampant “alcoholism” seems the more charitable of the credible alternatives. Indeed, the other main possibility hardly bears thinking about.
    It’s fairly obvious what’s happening – Scotland is rapidly becoming ungovernable.
    That is what is driving the rising population exodus: prudent Scots are leaving to settle in more felicitous places while those with governing proclivities – and let’s face it, there are lots of Scots with evidently compulsive governing proclivities – have migrated down here to exercise what they deem to be their unique personal skills on the long-suffering English. In the 19th century, their like used to go out to run the far-flung empire on which the sun never set but that safety valve is not an option nowadays.

    Reply
  33. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Bob,
    What is your problem?
    To even suggest that Scotland is becoming ‘ungovernable’ is absurd – just absurd.
    Somalia is ungovernable. Iraq is ungovernable. Afghanistan is ungovernable.
    Scotland is not ungovernable.
    “That is what is driving the rising population exodus”
    No Bob, that’s lack of opportunity caused by (sigh) deindustrialisation and globalisation.
    “…prudent Scots are leaving to settle in more felicitous places while those with governing proclivities – and let’s face it, there are lots of Scots with evidently compulsive governing proclivities – have migrated down here to exercise what they deem to be their unique personal skills on the long-suffering English”
    That’s a consequence of having a Union, Bob. Without Scotland or its people you would be living in a different country.
    Think about it for a moment.
    You have batted link after link at me, and I’ve batted them right back at you.
    You haven’t addressed any of my points in detail, seeking instead to be evasive and snide about a people and place about which you seem to know little.
    If a Scot has ripped you off at some point, Bob, please accept my apologies – it happens to the best of us.
    But even a Unionist’s hackles start to rise when one starts reading stuff like “there are lots of Scots with evidently compulsive governing proclivities” or “what they deem to be their unique personal skills on the long-suffering English”
    Your problem, Bob, and this is a problem many English seem to have, is that I doubt whether you have ever been required to rationalise what it means to be British.
    With Tim’s indulgence, I’ll post a URL of mine which describes precisely what I mean when I say that –
    http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-being-british-means-to-me-if.html
    If all us, English and Scots, exercised that discipline then our Union, which is after all our nation, might just be a little stronger.
    Tim,
    That particular interpretation is perfectly understandable if one assumes that people have no ulterior loyalties to family, tribe or nation.
    We’ve eroded our personal bonds to the extent that employers view their staff as being nothing more than resources – the very phrase ‘Human Resources’ is a form of pornography, a commodification of human beings.
    Having abandoned any pretence at nationhood years ago we’re not the ones who need to be sold on the idea of putting our own interests last. Sell it to the Chinese and Indians.

    Reply
  34. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    “What is your problem?”
    Don’t blame me.
    The Scots by their own accounts are serially worried about depopulation. We English worry too but for rather different reasons – the Scottish governing classes feel impelled to come down here to govern us when their arts aren’t appreciated back home.
    There must be some motivation for the projected population decline and exodus – in notable contrast to the projected population growth in Ireland and England. Such massive contrary demographic movements have a cause: they don’t just happen.
    The “ungovernability” of Scotland is one very likely factor – I mean, just look at the several Monklands inquiries in the 1990s, the numbers of Scottish council leaders who get suspended, the saga of the Scottish Parliament building and why Hamish McCleish was ditched as First Minister.
    The higher homicide rate, sectarian bullying in Glasgow and the starkly adverse dietary and environmental factors are others. It must be difficult to attract inward migrants to settle in Scotland to counter balance the population outflow with these reports:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/5139054.stm
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6161100.stm
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/5094262.stm
    Note: I’m just dutifully following the practices and modes prescribed for the effective political marketing model set out by an estimable sage at the University of Aberdeen:
    http://www.abdn.ac.uk/pir/notes06/Level4/PI4052/Political%20Marketing.ppt
    In early historic times – when Tony Blair was first made Great Leader, that is – I learned then from the new enlightenment that the “eristic” approach was the recommended debating mode for New Labour spin practitioners and was suitably impressed.
    Eristic: arguments aimed at victory rather than at truth
    Btw in ancient times, about half a century ago, I was a guest visiting speaker for a political debate in the (notorious) Glasgow Students’ Union and absorbed at the time the Glasgow debating style!

    Reply
  35. paul ilc Avatar
    paul ilc

    My daughter chose to go to university in Scotland, and she regrets it. Anti-English prejudice is everywhere, and hardly a week goes by without her telling us of some abuse she has received from taxi drivers, fellow students, shop owners, yobs in the street….
    She briefly shared a flat with a postgraduate, Swedish medical student who had to come to Scotland to study facial reconstruction surgery. In Sweden, perhaps she would see one case a year. In Glasgow, she saw up to 10 cases a week, given the local habit of slashing faces with knives and broken glass….
    In the small East Anglian market town where I live, my doctor is a Scot, as is my barber, a local priest and two dentists. Scotland is fast approaching the point where anyone with any get up and go will have got up and gone, leaving behind a parasitic residue of whining, socialist, subsidy junkies.

    Reply
  36. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Guys, I’m done.

    Reply
  37. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    If you people are what the UK is about…you can shove it.

    Reply
  38. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Paul,
    “Scotland is fast approaching the point where anyone with any get up and go will have got up and gone, leaving behind a parasitic residue of whining, socialist, subsidy junkies.”
    Count me among the parasitic residue.

    Reply
  39. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    And Bob, the guy’s name was Henry McLeish.
    The Parliament building fiasco was recognised as such almost immediately and a full enquiry was held.
    We do get Private Eye up here. I don’t see many Scots councillors appearing in ‘Rotten Boroughs’
    Monklands – Westminster?
    ‘sectarian bullying in Glasgow’ – are you blind as well as thrawn? Didn’t you read what I wrote?
    Paul,
    If your daughter behaves the way you do and speaks to people the way you do it would hardly be surprising if she rubs people up the wrong way.
    “She briefly shared a flat with a postgraduate, Swedish medical student who had to come to Scotland to study facial reconstruction surgery. In Sweden, perhaps she would see one case a year. In Glasgow, she saw up to 10 cases a week, given the local habit of slashing faces with knives and broken glass….”
    That’s an unverifiable anecdote – and we don’t like those, do we?
    “In the small East Anglian market town where I live, my doctor is a Scot, as is my barber, a local priest and two dentists.”
    Again, an unverifiable anecdote.

    Reply
  40. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    “A clear majority of people in both England and Scotland are in favour of full independence for Scotland, an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph has found. Independence is backed by 52 per cent of Scots while an astonishing 59 per cent of English voters want Scotland to go it alone.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/global/2006/11/26/nunion26.xml
    Of course, NuLab is absolutely terrified at the prospect of a split – in the 2005 election, the Conservatives attracted more votes than Labour in England.
    Blair’s government is crucially dependent on Scottish MPs to vote through legislation applying to England on issues reserved for the Scottish Parliament and on which MPs for English constituencies are shut out. There’s no way Blair’s government will address what’s known as the West Lothian question:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question
    It’s a variation on the usual NuLab theme: Do as I say, not as I do.

    Reply
  41. paul ilc Avatar
    paul ilc

    Martin – You evidently do not know the meaning of ‘unverifiable’.

    Reply
  42. Johnathan Pearce Avatar
    Johnathan Pearce

    How did an item about foreign takeovers morph into stuff about Scotland?
    Martin is some piece of work, I must say.
    Happy Christmas!

    Reply
  43. Johnathan Pearce Avatar
    Johnathan Pearce

    “That’s all that globalisation is, Johnathan – an arbitrage of labour between the First and Third Worlds. It is NOT free trade in the classic Ricardian sense”
    Nonsense, Martin. And quoting Roach does not help since he commits as many fallacies as you do. If a “Third World” nation trades with a rich nation, then how exactly is that harming either party? If I want to buy a box of bananas from Africa rather than from a greenhouse in central Scotland, why is the former trade at the detriment of the other?
    Yes, the cost of labour in the Third World is miles less than it is in Britain, but then the cost of living is much lower in the Third World, and the marginal value of labour in the Third World is less because it has enjoyed less productivity, less capital investment. As trade expands, so the capital investment in the Third World rises, the wage rates of the Third World states go up – as is happening rapidly in India.
    There are plenty of other examples, such as the rise of East Asian economies such as South Korea from abject poverty to relative prosperity in a relatively short period of time, while Africa has stagnated. Yes, S.Korea is not a model of pure laissez faire, but then neither is Africa, frequently hobbled by wars, tariffs, regulations and corruption.

    Reply
  44. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Paul,
    My apologies – I forgot that an ‘unverifiable’ comment means one you don’t agree with.
    Please, Bwana, no more of the stick! It is tickling too much!
    Johnathan,
    I don’t know how the discussion changed – I think it’s because Bob’s a raving Scotophobe who doesn’t understand either what his country is or how it works.
    When you say ‘some piece of work’ I assume you’re being complimentary. Thank you.
    In respect of Roach committing fallacies, well, he IS the Chief Economist of Morgan Stanley…
    If you are able to buy such a thing as a box of bananas grown in a greenhouse in the Clyde Valley I’d be surprised. It might not have been the best analogy to use.
    And India might not be the best example to use of how wages are going up in the Third World. On December 6 Peter Foster wrote the following on the Daily Telegraph’s blog –
    “This month, information from the Indian government’s National Family Health Survey (NHFS) 2005-6 is starting to dribble out into the public domain..
    This is the third NHFS survey – the last one was conducted in 1999 – and some of the numbers are shocking enough to make you fall off your chair.
    In two of India’s most populous states – Madyha Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh – several of the key malnutrition indicators have got WORSE over the last seven years.
    In Madhya Pradesh, for example, the number of children under 3 who are “wasted” has risen from 20 per cent to 33 per cent. And the number of under-3s who are underweight from 53 to 60 per cent.
    In Uttar Pradesh, scene of this year’s polio outbreak, the figures aren’t quite so bad, but still stark.
    The number of wasted under-3s up from 11 to 13 per cent, the number of anaemic under-3s up from 73 to 85 per cent and the number of children under 2 who have been fully vaccinated has increased just 2 per cent in the last six years, from 20 to 22 per cent.
    The figures for Bihar have yet to be released, but my sources in the aid world tell me that they are just as bad.
    These are mind-boggling, astonishing figures.
    It’s one thing to crib about the pace of change in India not being fast enough, but quite another to discover that in the deprived northern states things are actually getting worse.
    And just to ram the point home, in the same period, almost all the states show a rise in obesity rates among urban women.
    For the sake of comparison, it’s worth noting that during that same six-year period India’s stock-market has grown from 5,000 to 14,000, with analysts confidently predicting that the benchmark Bombay Sensex will become a trillion-dollar market by next year.
    The price of property has quadrupled or more in some places; forex reserves have quintupled from 32bn to 150bn dollars; mobile phone users have broken the 20m barrier; domestic airline passengers up from 10m to 40m; 50 new television channels, blah, blah, blah…
    The next time you read about India’s imminent debut as a new world superpower and how India’s record years of economic growth are lifting people out of poverty, remember these figures.
    The gap between perception and reality in India was already huge, but as these statistics show, for the poorest sections of society it’s getting bigger – in absolute as well as relative terms.”
    Wonder what the Chinese figures are like?
    “There are plenty of other examples, such as the rise of East Asian economies such as South Korea from abject poverty to relative prosperity in a relatively short period of time, while Africa has stagnated. Yes, S.Korea is not a model of pure laissez faire, but then neither is Africa, frequently hobbled by wars, tariffs, regulations and corruption.”
    And the EU?

    Reply
  45. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    “How did an item about foreign takeovers morph into stuff about Scotland?”
    It’s the usual line, believe me.
    All problems relate back to freeing Scotland from oppression by the English when it’s pretty obvious that the Scots, in fact, are disproportionately well represented in leading positions in the UK professions, business, banking, sciences and the media. That’s also why so many English who have gone to Scotland to work or study there in good faith get abused, harassed or even beaten up just for being English.
    For the Scots, foreign takeovers are just another dimension of what they regard as fundamentally the same issue. For years, they went out of their way to attract direct investment by foreign companies to (re)build manufacturing in Scotland. However, there’s a general problem of retaining manufacturing operations across western Europe against the competitive attractions of relocating in eastern Europe or south and east Asia where costs of hiring skilled labour are so much lower at current exchange rates. But the Scots think that if manufacturing companies were British owned, it would be much easier to exercise political leverage to force the companies to retain manufacturing operations here. They are probably correct about that – in the short term, that is, before the businesses go the way of the British owned car industry.
    IMO I’ve already mentioned Britain’s real competitiveness problem:
    “One third of employers have to give their staff remedial lessons in basic English and maths, a survey suggests. Managers said staff needed to be able to use correct spelling and grammar and should be competent in simple mental arithmetic without a calculator. One in five employers said non-graduate recruits of all ages struggled with literacy or numeracy, the Confederation of British Industry poll found.”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5263812.stm
    “There are now 1.24 million people aged between 15 and 24 who are neither in education, work or in a training scheme — a 15 per cent increase on 1997. The rise has been particuarly rapid for 16 to 17-year-olds and men, both up by almost a third.”
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2498386,00.html
    “More young people are out of work now than when Labour won power in 1997 by promising to cut youth unemployment, official figures obtained by The Times reveal . . .”
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2513754,00.html
    According to a recent issue of The Economist, Britain is especially well-endowed with low-skilled young people compared with most other major European economies. See the bar chart in:
    http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7843638

    Reply
  46. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Bob,
    Yeah, You’ve got to be careful around us Scots.
    Wherever we go we grab control of the means of production and distribution – just think of Andrew Carnegie. We control world finance (Jardine Matheson, HSBC) and own much of the media (I mean, who but a Scot would have a name like Keith Rupert Murdoch?).
    And rumour has it that the first draft of an infamous book published in Tsarist Russia was ‘The Protocols of The Elders of MacZion’.
    If Kevin MacDonald didn’t have a Scotish name he’d be publishing books on our group evolutionary strategy…

    Reply
  47. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    It’s all about control, which is why the lead character in Muriel Spark’s novel: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher in an Edinburgh gels’ school in the 1930s who has fascistic proclivities, is so utterly credible as a stereotype.
    While so many of us are focusing on how to liberalise European economies so as to boost economic performance, the Scots in Scotland are looking up to Putin’s Russia as an economic model. They revile Adam Smith in Scotland nowadays.

    Reply
  48. Johnathan Pearce Avatar
    Johnathan Pearce

    The next time Martin wants to hold forth on David Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage, a subject on which i suspect he is rather off-base, may I commend this Wikipedia link:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

    Reply
  49. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Bob, Bob,
    Don’t let Jack McConnell hear you!
    Or he’ll have The Krankies after you with a vial of Polonium-210!
    Johnathan,
    Thanks for the link.

    Reply
  50. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Er, Bob,
    “While so many of us are focusing on how to liberalise European economies so as to boost economic performance”
    Who are ‘we’?
    More to the point – who are you?

    Reply

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