The Pin Factory Blog

46. "Getting everyone's DNA on file would allow us to track down criminals and protect society."

If we wanted simply to track down criminals and protect society in the most efficient way, we would watch everyone all the time, listen in on their every conversation, constantly record all their movements, and know everything about them it was possible to know. Criminal activity would be difficult, given this approach, but no doubt clever criminals would find news ways of concealing their activities.

Even though it would undoubtedly be efficient, we don't allow it because we don't want to live in that kind of society. We want a private domain in which we have space that is only for ourselves and those we choose to share it with. The state has no business in that domain.

We treat people as innocent until proven guilty. We do not start with the assumption that all people are criminals, if only we had enough information on which to convict them. Only those who transgress the law, or who give grounds for reasonable suspicion, forfeit the right to that private space and prompt the state to enter it to protect the rest of us.

Our DNA is private information. It not only tells uniquely who we are, it can be used to tell where we have been, and in some cases what we have been doing. The state has no right to such information without good grounds for suspicion. It is more information than it can be trusted with. DNA tells even more than that, however, it tells of our genetic traits, something of our abilities and potential, and the conditions and diseases to which we might be prone. There is no way we want this information in the hands of a body we put in place to serve our interests. It would give it more power than any authority can be trusted with.

It seems the likelihood is growing that the Green-House-Gas (GHG) alarmists' political lobbying may result in final overkill. One of the more serious indications of this is the defection of big business, who had previously sought new opportunities in eco-business but not expected stubborn fundamentalism.

With eco-lobbyists raising the carbon cut targets relentlessly, investment in the mitigation industry looks increasingly risky or outright futile. That’s why even some of the most committed international companies behind the scenes are looking for alternatives to mitigation. When ten of the largest US companies and four environmental groups had formed the U.S. Climate Change Partnership (USCAP) early last year it “was seen as a watershed in corporate environmentalism.” Now it seems some of these are getting disenchanted and place investments in policies that clearly undermine carbon cutting efforts:

Three high-profile USCAP members—General Electric, Caterpillar (CAT), and Alcoa (AA)—also sit on the board of the Center for Energy & Economic Development (CEED), an Alexandria (Va.) group formed in 1992 that opposes regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions. In April, 2007, CEED's board unanimously signed a position paper that, in part, described as "draconian" one federal climate bill that would require a 65% reduction in emissions by 2050.

Too much politicization, as has been the case in global warming regulation stampede, rarely pays off:

Other business groups are also stepping up opposition to global warming regulations. At the end of 2007, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a television commercial that lampooned carbon reductions, depicting a family sleeping in full winter garb, a man cooking eggs over candles, and people jogging to work in business suits, while the narrator intoned: "Climate legislation being considered by Congress could make it too expensive to heat our homes, power our lives, and drive our cars."

Our latest report, Unfair Trade, got lots of media coverage over the weekend. It was in the Sunday Telegraph twice (here and here) and in the Mail-on-Sunday. ASI representatives appeared on the BBC World Service, BBC News 24, BBC One, and Radio 4's Today Programme.

There was more in the Mondays, with the report popping up in The Guardian, The Independent, The Scotsman and The Daily Telegraph. Tom Clougherty wrote a piece for The Scotsman's "Burning Issue" and respected commentator Janet Daley wrote about the report in her latest Telegraph column, titled "Forget Faritrade – only free trade can help the poor".

Correcting the statistics behind the current hysteria over the costs to the nation of drinking. Things really are not as we're being led to believe.

The BMA is not being entirely consistent either. But then there's always been some amusement in the idea of an anti-alcohol campaign being run by ex-medical students.

Caculating the benefits or not of a basic income system. More work needed but this is a start. 

Harriet Harman shows that an expensive education may take you a long way: but it won't necessarily educate you. 

An economist visits Cuba. More exploration of the place.  

Paying £1 million on a 50 p accumulator? It's a rip off! Should be £1,000,000.14 at least! 

And finally, yes, this is the Irish entry to Eurovision. Stay tuned to see if our Continental friends have a sense of humour.

Today the ASI publishes its latest report, Unfair Trade by Marc Sidwell, to mark the beginning of Fairtrade Fortnight.

Fairtrade is a nice idea, and it is great that so many consumers want to help the poor in the developing world. But it is important that we ask whether Fairtrade really helps. After all, 'Fairtrade' does not mean anyone who gives better terms to third-world farmers. It is a particular brand, which competes with other ethical schemes and charities for people's money.

There are a number of inconvenient truths about Fairtrade. Indeed, on closer inspection it may not be that fair at all. It only offers a very small number of farmers a higher fixed price for their goods. Given the way markets work, these higher prices come at the expense of many other farmers, who – unable to qualify for Fairtrade certification – are left even worse off.

More importantly, the Fairtrade scheme does not aid economic development. It sustains uncompetitive farmers on their land, holding back diversification, mechanization and moves up the value chain. In doing so it denies future generations the chance of a better life.

The fact that will surprise consumers most, however, is that only 10 percent of the premium they pay for their Fairtrade products actually gets to the producer. The rest goes to people further along the retail chain.

Fairtrade's success rests on its skilful advertising and its ability to persuade corporations, schools, towns and even nations to 'go Fairtrade'. But when you look at the evidence it is clear that for all its good intentions, Fairtrade is not the only way to make a difference, and it is not the best way either.

The Rainforest Alliance operates a similar certification scheme to Fairtrade, but without many of its drawbacks. Café Britt helps its farmers add value by processing and packaging its coffee in Costa Rica. Consumers could even buy bargain products from their local supermarkets and loan the money they save directly to farmers through a microcredit agency like kiva.org. These are just some of the options available.

You can download the whole report here as a PDF.

This story about Debbie Hirst and her cancer treatment has even hit the NY Times. To recap, the NHS does not pay (upon the grounds of cost effectiveness) for the use of Avastin, a breast cancer treatment. Ms. Hirst decided to pay for it herself and then was told that if she did so she would also have to pay for all of the other treatment from the NHS, something that of course she had already paid for once through the taxation system. Alan Johnson said:

Patients “cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs,” the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament.

“That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.,” Mr. Johnson said.

Quite so, the founding principle seeming to be that it's is better that some die so that we can all be more equal. Greg Mankiw asks an interesting question:

Should a parent who hires an after-school tutor for his child be barred from sending the child to the public [i.e. State] schools?

Or the parent who teaches a child to read at home? Or the patient who pays for gym membership, or better food, or vitamin supplements, perhaps those who buy their own paracetamol should be denied the care they have already paid for? As the Professor points out:

Some people like to think of health care and education of basic human rights. Maybe they are. But they are also normal goods. That is, the income elasticity of demand is positive. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the right cost-benefit calculation for providing the good depends on the income of the consumer. Achieving both efficiency and equality in the provision of these goods is impossible.

As both are impossible we must make a choice. Should people be allowed to spend their own money as they wish, over and above the care that the NHS provides? Or must we have the equality of the grave? You won't be surprised to find out that I am for the former: it's your money, do as you wish with it.

45. "Speculators are parasites who produce nothing."

Speculators have had a bad press. Along with landlords, corn merchants, and tax gatherers, they have been the whipping boys of demagogues. They are often thought of as drones who "buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest," adding nothing of value in the process. Typically the speculator buys up something they think will be in short supply later, and can therefore sell for more than they paid.

Yet the speculator helps to smooth out uncertainty. The farmer who plants in the spring does not know what prices might be like when the harvest is in. He might prefer a guaranteed price than face that uncertainty. Someone who buys the crop now offers a sure price; the crop might sell for more than that, but it could also be less. The speculator can carry that risk instead of the farmer, and profit from it if he is right.

This is what speculators do; they handle risk. They live and trade by being able to call the future more accurately than others. They give people certainty and security now, in return for a higher return for themselves in the future if they are correct. Speculators can lose. The goods they buy now at a guaranteed price might plunge in value later. Unlike many farmers and merchants, the speculator can carry those losses.

Speculation in currencies is similar. A manufacturer planning to sell in another currency might prefer the certainty of a fixed value, rather than take chances on the future exchange rate. The speculator will sell him that currency now, at a price he thinks it will exceed in the future.

As long as speculators are right more often than wrong, they can prosper, and they smooth market volatility in the process. So far from being unproductive drones, speculators actually offer a valuable and skilled service: they manage risk.

It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.

– P.J. O'Rourke

An excellent outlining of the problems with ethanol and biofuels. Of course, our Masters took the decision to insist upon them before they found out anything about them. Par for the course.

As, for example, with the proposed rules about ISPs and their policing of file sharing. Not technically possible. 

Looks like the euro (if it doesn't collapse first) could supplant the dollar as the international reserve currency of choice in the next decade. Not that this actually means very much of course....

How to get around the smoking ban.

A look at the British medical blogging scene. 

When picture captioning goes wrong. 

And finally, an Italian confession and humour in typography.