We're deeply unconvinced there are too many rich people
Matthew Syed gets a little confused about positional goods:
Turchin argues that resentment among elites is having serious political consequences. He points out that the trappings of social prestige are, by their nature, limited. After all, if everyone had membership of Annabel’s, it wouldn’t be worth having. Status goods derive their cachet from how they exclude others. But this means that as the pool of super-rich swells rapidly, expectations outpace the constraints. This can lead to corruption and, in time, a breakdown of moral order.
That’s to get positional goods the wrong way around. There is always going to be that competition for them. A generally poorer society would have just as many people desiring to bop next to an over-champagned Duchess. A richer one would have just as many with the same lack of ambition and taste.
It is precisely because they are positional goods that the general level of wealth or income makes no difference. For it exactly having that little bit of whatever is defined as unavailable to all which is the point of the exercise in the first place.
Syed uses his misunderstanding to justify this:
There are too many super rich people now, and that spells trouble
When elites grow swollen and opportunities for their children dry up, unrest is inevitable
That could be true of non-positional goods, things that are not, by their very nature, in limited supply. But then if things are not, by their very nature, limited in supply, why would we worry about an increasing number of people who can afford them?
A little linguistic note on market failure
It is entirely true that markets, markets alone and all the time markets, do not solve every problem that either we or society are prey to. The trick is to work out when they are so they can be left alone and when they are not so that some other mechanism needs to be used.
Which brings us to the phrase “market failure”. For example, the Stern Review calls climate change the world’s biggest market failure ever. This is then taken to mean that as markets have failed in this instance then we must, clearly and obviously, move to non-market methods of solving the problem.
This is not actually what “market failure” means. We can take it, if we wish, to mean that this particular construction of markets has failed, so far, to deal with this problem. But a much better translation into colloquial is that “market failure” means “we have failed to have a market in this” rather than “markets have failed with this”.
With this clarification it then becomes obvious what we should be doing - having a market in this. Which is why the Stern Review does go on to insist that the solution to the market failure of climate change is to create a market via a carbon tax. Or, if we prefer, to shoehorn the issue into our currently extant markets.
Given that this is the solution insisted upon it must therefore be true that the meaning of market failure is as we describe. The failure is not of markets, but the failure to have the relevant market.
This also applies more generally. The provision of public goods can be seen as a market failure - given that the logical definition of public goods is something that markets don’t deal well with the provision of this seems reasonable. Often enough, although not always, the answer is the creation of a market though patents, copyrights and trademarks.
So too with externalities. These are things that are external to market processes. Between sometimes and often the solution is to make them into internalities so that markets do deal with them.
We’re entirely willing to agree that markets don’t solve every problem. But we will insist that market failure does, often enough, mean a failure to have a market rather than that markets have failed.
The Polly Toynbee approach to public finance
We can’t help but think that this might not be the very finest manner of running the public finances:
But those deaths are another blow to social care providers. A substantial proportion of the people who have died so far lived in care homes, and they have left empty beds and an even deeper financial hole. Occupancy dropped from over 90% to around 70%, according to Martin Green of Care England, and families are now more reluctant to put relatives into homes. This week, the National Audit Office has warned that 94% of councils will have to cut spending, and social care is the biggest slice of their stricken budgets. On Wednesday, Care England called on the chancellor not to axe relief funds on 1 April: the fund pays (inadequately) towards testing, infection control and extra staff in an industry with an estimated 100,000 shortfall. The Health Foundation says restoring care even to the meagre levels of 2010 would cost £12.5bn.
In other words, a crisis is becoming a calamity.
The claim being made is that as a specific area of public services faces less demand therefore more money must be spent upon it. Because, as far as we can unravel this argument, the less demand requires less spending and that would never do. If public spending were to decrease then where would we all be?
It’s as if the child ageing into leaving home requires the household’s receipt of child benefit to rise.
We would also note this:
A ghoulish figure was hidden away on page 135 of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report on budget day last week. The 125,000 deaths from Covid so far will save the Treasury £1.5bn in state pensions by 2022; savings will continue to be made during all the years those people should have lived. That shocking death toll brings in more inheritance tax revenues, too.
This is a point we’ve been making for a couple of decades now. People dying younger but after retirement age is something that saves government considerable amounts of money. That is, smoking, boozing and being a fatty lardbucket is not a charge upon the public purse but a saving to it. Of course, we should continue to advise people of the limitations they impose upon their own lives by their behaviours. But the insistences upon using taxation, the law (no BOGOFs and all that) and the panoply of state action to force people out of saving the rest of us money is not justified on those costs grounds.
We have to stop using the “but your behaviour costs us money” argument on the grounds that it simply is not true.
It's even possible to agree with Neal Lawson and Compass on occasion
n that very liberal manner we have of reaching across the aisle to seek common ground it is even possible to agree, occasionally, with Neal Lawson and Compass. Who tell us that:
On the other side of the coin are the services that are essential to live a good life, which people don’t pay for directly. These are worth much more to people on low incomes, so they help to reduce inequalities.
This is indeed true. The education of a child costs perhaps £5,000 a year - that’s what government tends to pay, perhaps £6,000 for secondary school - and such a sum is a greater portion of a lower income than a higher. Therefore this being provided, free at the point of use, to all on the same terms reduces inequality. The same is true of what ever value we ascribe to the NHS, to libraries, to the existence of unemployment insurance, the state pension and on and on.
We expect to pay for some necessities ourselves. Food is an obvious example, so everyone must have enough money to afford a nutritious diet. There are other essentials that most of us couldn’t afford on our own. Think of education, healthcare, childcare and adult social care. Here, we ensure everyone has access by sharing responsibility, pooling resources and acting together. Without providing these services collectively through public institutions, we would need vast amounts of cash to meet all of our needs.
We can have the most lovely arguments about which parts of life should be paid for directly, ourselves. Further, about how, exactly - with competitive markets even if state financed for example - those collective actions should be organised. But that some of them will be collectively, even state, organised is obvious.
Which is where we do agree with Neal Lawson and Compass. We do provide a number of these things collectively, through public institutions. They do, by being so provided, reduce inequality.
The problem being that we don’t measure the manner in which they reduce inequality. For our measures of inequality - Gini numbers and so on - are of income or wealth inequality. They are not of consumption inequality, the thing which publicly delivered services reduce.
That they do reduce inequality but that we don;t measure the inequality reduction they provide means that inequality is very much less than it is currently measured as being. Even, possibly, to the point that we don’t need or desire to reduce it any further.
At the very least, given that we do have such public services, we need to measure what inequality is after their effects. Some years ago the TUC essayed an attempt. The market income difference between the top 10% and the bottom was perhaps 12 to 1. By the time we added in taxes and benefits, the effects of public services and so on, the consumption difference was about 4 to 1.
Which leads to the question, well, is that low enough? Are we done now? If not how much more is there to go?
For, of course, we can only decide upon what next in public policy by considering how far we’ve already come, can’t we?
Is the EU Implementing the Irish Protocol Unfairly?
The trouble all started when Dublin, aided and abetted by the EU, conned the UK government into accepting that Brexit might contravene the Good Friday Agreement. This was nonsense for two reasons.
The Agreement was reached in 1998, long before Brexit was even on the horizon. It has no reference to customs posts or a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic – it has nothing to contravene. It does require north and south to cooperate but it takes two to cooperate and there was no cooperation from Dublin about the mitigations proposed by London. Secondly, the UK was relaxed about goods flowing north. It was the EU that required customs posts and all the absurd documentation devised by the bureaucrats in Brussels. The customs posts would have been south of the border and any security issues would have been matters for the Republic.
The UK proposal of a customs border in the Irish Sea for goods that might travel onward to the Republic seemed to Westminster like a small price to pay. It didn't go to Belfast but by then the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had lost its critical role in Mrs May’s majority.
Rightly or wrongly, the 63 page Protocol is now a done deal and must either be honoured or renegotiated. Significantly, the EU presents the Protocol as being a wholly Irish and EU matter and makes no reference to protecting UK interests: it claims “the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland:
Avoids a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, thereby enabling the smooth functioning of the all-island economy and safeguarding the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in all its dimensions;
ensures the integrity of the EU’s Single Market for goods, along with all the guarantees it offers in terms of consumer protection, public and animal health protection, and combating fraud and trafficking.”
The Protocol is administered by a “Joint Committee” (Annex VIII) co-chaired by an EU Commissioner and a UK government Minister (or their nominated officials as alternates). There are six similarly bipartisan “Specialised Committees”.
The basic idea of the Protocol, at least as presented by the UK government, is that Northern Ireland is simultaneously in the UK and EU customs unions. So long as the goods only travel within each, no formalities or paperwork would be required. It was only for goods travelling from Great Britain to the Republic, via the Province, or vice versa, that paperwork and customs checks, equivalent to those between the UK and continental EU, would be required. Article 5 states “Before the end of the transition period, the Joint Committee shall by decision establish the criteria for considering that a good brought into Northern Ireland from outside the Union is not at risk of subsequently being moved into the Union.” Note, as is true throughout the Protocol, the absence of any reciprocal protection for Great Britain. Article 5 seems the nub of the problem.
Unremarked in the media, there seems to have been a bit of fancy word play. The Prime Minister promised there would be no “customs border” in the Irish Sea and, indeed, if goods are certain to stay in the Province, no duties are payable. However, we do have a “regulatory border”:"Agreement being reached is confirmation that there will be a regulatory border in the Irish Sea.
This proposal from Boris Johnson last year was endorsed by Arlene Foster and her DUP colleagues on October 2 2019." Lord Reg Empey December 2020. The warning was in the preamble to the Protocol: “UNDERLINING the Union's and the United Kingdom's shared aim of avoiding controls at the ports and airports of Northern Ireland, to the extent possible in accordance with applicable legislation and taking into account their respective regulatory regimes as well as the implementation thereof,” [my emphasis].
EU officials are using the Protocol’s application of innumerable EU Regulations to goods in Northern Ireland to prevent their import from Great Britain and/or require massive documentation, irrespective of whether they are travelling on to the Republic or not. Furthermore, “Union representatives” have the right to go anywhere they like in the UK and demand whatever they see fit, no matter how ridiculous: “Where the Union representative requests the authorities of the United Kingdom to carry out control measures in individual cases for duly stated reasons, the authorities of the United Kingdom shall carry out those control measures.” (Article 12(2)).
By the end of February, it was clear that the Protocol was not working. Routine goods for the Province were not getting through and supermarket shelves were emptying. The Protocol was far from bringing peace to the Province; it was bringing unrest. The EU representatives on the Joint Committee were refusing to accept the pragmatic solutions offered by the UK. We are told they were all working very hard but no agreement was reached. Secretary of State Brandon Lewis had no choice but to extend the grace period for six months during which paperwork would not be required for goods intended for the Province itself. Contrary to some questions in the House of Commons on 10th March, this deferral is perfectly legal and mirrors similar technical adjustments required by Dublin.
Of course, extending the grace period deferred, but did not solve, the problem, but it does have other advantages. It shows the international community that the UK is pursuing best endeavours in attempting to implement the protocol, but also allows a continued raising of the issues that fall under it. This in turn allows the UK members of the Joint Committee to suggest to the EU that their measures are too onerous and need changing. Examples are available from elsewhere, e.g. the EU relationship with New Zealand.
The Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Simon Hoare, urged “the Government to desist the narrative of unilateral action and debate, to get back around the Joint Committee table and to make sure that the protocol works.” Duncan Baker asked “Does the Secretary of State agree that fresh minds should be brought to bear on the conundrum? The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, for example, could call on new help and advice from qualified business experts.” The Secretary of State recognised the need for business advice but not the need for fresh minds. After going round in circles for two months, there is little confidence that the same people will find new answers.
One problem is that the Protocol requires the proceedings of the Joint Committee to be kept confidential. The country, or even its MPs, cannot be told what has been discussed and what the obstructions are. We are told that the EU’s Vice-President Šefčovič is trying to be helpful but is being dragged back by his colleagues in Brussels. One wonders why. Senior EU officials are good, intelligent people and there must be reasons why they are behaving in a way that is clearly harmful to the people of Northern Ireland. Does the UK government understand what those reasons are? Surely a step towards resolving them. The current situation is mutually unsatisfactory to all parties.
The Protocol states “The Union and the United Kingdom shall at all times endeavour to agree on the interpretation and application of this Agreement, and shall make every attempt, through cooperation and consultations, to arrive at a mutually satisfactory resolution of any matter that might affect its operation.” (Article 167)
We need the fresh minds of business people with experience of implementing and renegotiating major international contracts, as well as more openness, to let that happen.
It was 245 years ago yesterday...
…That Adam Smith told us how the band doth play. While we’re not on favour of the determination of a legal interest rate at which borrowing may take place or not - for reasons given elsewhere in the chapter - the rest of this advice seems apposite:
The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent, the greater part of the money which was to be lent would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
From today’s newspaper:
The answer is that without Greensill’s backing, Gupta’s sprawling industrial empire probably wouldn’t exist. Tapping enthusiastically into Greensill’s short-term supply chain financing model, his Liberty Steel outfit has taken over 12 UK plants, including in Rotherham, Newport, Hartlepool, and the Scottish Highlands.
It has also bought distressed steel businesses in Australia and Romania, amassing a £4bn debt pile along the way, £3bn of which is owed to Greensill alone, according to The Sunday Times. In the space of just a few years, Gupta went from obscure trading house to one of the biggest industrial outfits in Europe.
To condense Adam Smith’s advice down, it has never been difficult to find new ways to lend money, nor new people to lend money to. There has always been the occasional difficulty with finding people worth lending to.
Reasons for optimism - regulation
Given the tendency for regulation to increase remorselessly, especially in protectionist blocs, there seems at first glance to be little cause for optimism concerning its future. Regulation is used by some countries and trading blocs to raise non-tariff barriers to foreign imports. Where tariff barriers are not allowed under international agreements such as the WTO, use is sometimes made of regulation as the alternative. Goods are kept out because it is alleged they do not met the ‘safety’ standards required, or are produced with insufficient ‘consideration’ of the workers, the environment, or any animals engaged in their production.
One ground for optimism is that there is a distinct trend for protectionist blocs to be superseded by genuine free trade areas, in which countries agree to accept each other’s regulatory regimes, instead of trying to impose their own on everyone else. The largest one, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), formerly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was already the world’s largest free trade area, even before the UK applied to join it, and with the US looking increasingly likely to join.
Two more grounds for optimism stem from the UK’s departure from the EU and its reacquired ability to make regulations via a different approach. The first is that EU practices the so-called “precautionary principle” of not allowing anything until it has been shown to be safe.
A more sensible approach is that of cost-benefit, which balances the possible risks of something against the gains it might bring. The problem with the precautionary approach is that nothing can be shown to be completely safe, even taking a bath or climbing upstairs. It represents a cost-cost approach by not taking into account the potential benefits. The results of these two approaches were illustrated by the development of vaccines against Covid-19. The UK took the risk of ordering vaccines that showed promise but had not completed testing, and it ordered many million doses in advance. The EU accused the UK of risk-taking, and opted for a more cautious safety-first approach. The outcome was that the UK was able to vaccinate more people more rapidly once the tests were completed than the EU could manage.
A second advantage now available to the UK is that it can opt for result-driven, rather than process-driven regulation. The latter gives instructions in detail on what must be done and how it must be done, and it is very much the EU approach, whereas the former sets out the results that must be achieved, and leaves it to ingenuity to come up with different and efficient ways of achieving those results.
We can increasingly expect the UK to join expanding free trade areas rather than protectionist blocs that try to favour their own producers at the expense of outside producers and their own consumers. We can expect, too, that the UK will give attention to cost-benefit analysis when it regulates, rather than following the precautionary principle. It is also likely that the UK will take advantage of its new-found freedom to practice result-driven, rather than process-driven regulation, enabling it to achieve the desired outcomes in ways that are sympathetic to business and industry, and therefore to economic growth.
It's difficult to understand this complaint
We can’t help but think this is rather misunderstanding how business works:
The music industry continues to marginalise women, according to the latest instalment of a landmark US survey on representation in pop.
In 2020, women were outnumbered on the US Billboard charts by men at a ratio of 3.9 to 1, according to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s annual study of the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart.
Women including Dua Lipa, Maren Morris, Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion made up 20.2% of the 173 artists that appeared on the chart in 2020, dropping from 22.5% in 2019 – and a high of 28.1% in 2016.
“It is International Women’s Day everywhere, except for women in music, where women’s voices remain muted,” said Dr Stacy L Smith, who led the survey.
Yes, and?
The more open and competitive a market the more it will not just reflect but be the straight outcome of consumer choices. What gets into the Billboard 100 is, by definition, what consumers decide to consume. There is indeed a vast industry involved in trying to persuade said consumers but even a random reading of the charts shows that PR comes a very distant second to those fickle choices of the people actually paying for the goods. The music business, that is, is one of the most open and competitive markets in the world- viciously open and competitive even.
That consumer choice seems to be a little biased by gender is not something that needs to be cured, it’s something that is perhaps but then the economic outcome is supposed to be emergent from individual choices.
It’s also terribly difficult to work out what should or even might be done about this if something were to be done. Are we supposed to dissolve the audience and elect another?
In Support of Adam Smith's Legacy Against Slavery
“ Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind, than when she subjected those nations of heroes [on the coast of Africa] to the refuse of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and baseness, so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished.”
Does this sound like a man who “perpetuated racism and oppression”?
We generally frown upon the act of patricide, killing one’s father is just not the done thing in polite society. And yet recent calls by members of Edinburgh City Council are targeting one of Scotland’s own fathers: the Father of Modern Economics, Adam Smith. The addition of Smith’s grave and statue to a leaked list of sites that had links to “historic racial injustice”, may vilify his name, suffocate his voice, and if taken to an extreme could destroy his legacy.
Whilst Smith may have taken his last breath over 200 years ago, his words still echo throughout society. Indeed, 245 years to the day since the publishing of Smith’s magnum opus “The Wealth of Nations”, and his work is full of lessons that continue to define our modern economy.
The group justified his name on the list by stating that Smith “argued that slavery was ubiquitous and inevitable”. Would it be reasonable to make the case, from this comment, that Smith was a pessimist? Probably. A cynic? Perhaps. But a racist? No. Is his statement even highly controversial? It is an awful truth, but over 2 centuries later, at least 46 million men, woman and children across the world are still trapped by the horrific bonds of slavery.
Lest we forget, Smith openly condemned slavery on both moral and economic grounds. As an economist, he argued that slavery was inefficient and ineffective for society. He believed that when people are forced to work, and therefore cannot act upon their “own interest”, they have no incentive to innovate, improve or invest their skills and labour. As a man, he was repulsed by slavery. He strongly believed that it was an inhumane and abhorrent institution:
“[W]e may see what a miserable life the slaves must have led; their life and their property entirely at the mercy of another, and their liberty, if they could be said to have any, at his disposal also.”
By appealing to both the self-interested minds and morally conscience hearts of the time, Smith composed a damning attack on slavery. His two-fold argument was used as fuel to stoke the blazing fire of the abolitionist movement. Whilst he may have been resigned to slavery’s presence in society, this defeatism did not deter him from writing vehemently against it.
It is important to note that Sir Geoff Palmer, the lead of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group, has stated that he does not plan on removing Smith’s statue or grave, instead his aim is to educate and “provide people with information about their city”.
Whilst the move to teach people about the oft brutal and tragic nature of our shared history is highly commendable, it does still beg the question why Smith’s resting place and statue were ever on this leaked list of sites in the first place. This is a unique opportunity for the council to educate people on the truths that defined our history. Let’s get it right! I do so hope that when this final list is published on March 15th that Adam Smith, the fierce critic and opponent of slavery, makes no appearance.
Getting on Top of the Obesity Problem
Victoria Street
SW1
“Humphrey.”
“Yes, Minister.”
“I gather all these people have died of Covid not because Public Health England cocked up but because they were overweight.”
“That is correct, Minister.”
“Bur haven’t Public Health England known about this obesity crisis for decades and been taking measures to deal with it?”
“Also correct, Minister.”
“According to a letter I read in The Times last Friday from the Chairman of the National Obesity Forum, wittily surnamed Fry, the government’s new policies to tackle obesity are the same old things and will fail just as surely.”
“Not at all, Minister, not at all. We can now reap the benefit of this lengthy experience and look forward to a panoply of successes. You will recall the announcement of our public health plans last July with no less than 14 actions we will take. The 13th was ‘We will take tackling obesity and malnutrition onto the global stage.’ World-beating, no less.”
“Humphrey, that’s all very well but a simple chap like me would expect to see the measured results of our previous efforts, how they compared with expectations and whether they were value for money. Back in 2004, The British Medical Journal was scathing about the government’s failure to collect any performance measures. To what extent are our 14 new initiatives based on a scientific evaluation of the old ones especially as, according to Mr Fry, they are much the same as the new ones?”
“Ah Minister, far be it from me to suggest that in any way you might be taking an overly traditional view. We are, of course, always led by the data. However we must not look back but bring hope, build confidence that the future will be better and brighter.”
“You mean Public Health England really has cocked it up and can be expected to go on doing so?”
“You may have forgotten, Minister, we have re-named it the National Institute for Health Protection. It is now led by Baroness Harding so it cannot fail.”
“No, I hadn’t forgotten but none of the 11 responsibilities we announced it was to have include obesity. Furthermore as valuable as Dido’s experience is, I’m not sure the Jockey Club is a fount of wisdom on obesity.”
“One can be cynical, Minister, but we have made progress, school meals for example. We have replaced junk foods with healthy foods. We have persuaded the marketers of fizzy drinks to reduce their sugar content.”
“I’ve never really understood what junk foods are. A burger sold by McDonalds is junk food – right? But exactly the same ingredients prepared by Mom in her own kitchen is healthy food? And a bowl of cereal sugared by the manufacturer is junk whereas a bowl of cornflakes covered by a couple of spoonfuls of sugar is healthy?”
“Well that’s roughly right. If the food is advertised to children on television by profit-seeking corporations, probably not paying all their taxes in the UK, we have to hit back. Labelling their products ‘junk’ is one way of doing it.”
“So we are protecting the national interest, Humphrey. Jolly sensible that. I have the same kind of concern with inequality. It is clearly unfair that the deprived members of society are more likely to be victims of obesity than the more affluent. We must do something about that.”
“Yes, indeed, Minister. It is truly shocking.”
“Yet my Shadow colleagues tell me that our mishandling of the pandemic and the economy is causing starvation in deprived areas. Queues at food banks have never been longer, Moms can only afford one meal a day for their families and we have failed to provide adequate compensation for missing school meals.”
“All true, Minister.”
“So why is it that obesity is most prevalent and growing fastest amongst the deprived who are also starving?”
“Junk food perhaps?”
“But thanks to the evil profit mongers, junk food is more expensive and the deprived don’t have any money.”
“Our educational system is probably to blame, Minister. We don’t explain calories very well and, as there are seven kinds, that’s not surprising. The basic idea is that one calorie raises the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.”
“Well that’s odd. When I put a lump of sugar in my tea, the tea gets cooler. I suppose teaching evolution doesn’t help: the survival of the fattest and all that.”
“Very droll, Minister. The truth is that we do not really know the answers to any of these questions. For a start most of our scientists and civil servants, not being noticeably deprived themselves, do not empathise with those suffering from obesity which is, of course, a disease that should no more be blamed on its victims than we should tell those with mental health problems to get a grip. In fact, obesity is a mental health problem.”
“Which causes which?”
“I’m talking correlation, Minister, not causality. To quote from a 2006 academic paper, I happen to have about me, ‘Obesity is associated with an approximately 25% increase in odds of mood and anxiety disorders and an approximately 25% decrease in odds of substance use disorders.’”
“So telling the obese to stop putting jam on their bread is about as useful and telling anorexics to buck up and start eating?”
“Pretty much but the Skinifers who make the rules are offended by overweight folks filling up our hospitals and thereby costing the NHS millions of pounds. They insist we do something, or appear to do something, about it. The public is quite good at holding two opposing beliefs at the same time, e.g. ‘belief that [being] overweight is caused by the food environment or genes – both seen as outside individual control – was associated with greater support for government policies to prevent and treat obesity.’”
“I can see why something must be done but surely if the obese are dying early that is saving the NHS money, not the reverse?”
“The cost of the obesity crisis is indeed far from clear, Minister. It is all to do with comorbidities. Would you like a briefing paper on that?”
“Perhaps not, let’s get on with what I can tell the media we are doing.”
“You can announce two crucial initiatives. The first arises from our recognition that this is a marketing problem. The junk food industry uses marketing to harm the victims of obesity by spending money they cannot afford on food and drink they do not need. Our answer, following Sun Tzu’s advice, is to take the enemy’s weapons and use them against him. We have engaged Sir Keith Mills to lead our £30M marketing campaign. He is a top marketer, including the London Olympics so successfully – no obesity there.”
“The other part?”
“Ah yes, Minister. We will be spending £70M on scales so that the obese can monitor their weight levels and get advice. Obese people know they have a problem and want to do something about it. Watching their weight will provide the nudge.”
“At least we can say they are on top of their problem...”