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ChiefWhiteHalfoat

Listed below are comments made by ChiefWhiteHalfoat between Wednesday, 1st July 2009 and Thursday, 17th September 2009.

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Briatore bows out in unsavoury style 12:57pm on 17 Sep 2009 To the people saying this crash is just like other crashes in the past which went "unpunished" (not entirely - Schumacher's whole season was erased because of the attempt to hit Villeneuve in '97 which was barely anything like a crash, just a nudge): The allegation here is that a crash was caused in order to bring out the safety car. By definition, this means that the crash needed to be dangerous enough that full-speed racing would be immediately halted through the entire circuit. That's entirely different from driving someone off the road, where the intention is simply to prevent that car from being able to continue the race. And any such crash will necessarily lead to pieces of the car flying off - we've seen from Massa that even a spring can nearly kill someone wearing a strong helmet - what of spectators, marshalls and other drivers?

If a team has set about to get this to happen, then I don't see how they can be allowed to continue in F1 at all. Assume they were allowed to carry on - then it's a green light for other teams to do the same. Simply get a fall guy to say "It was all me, me, and no one else", and then if it gets found out, fire him and carry on as before with a new fall guy. Given the committed and successful march to improved safely since Senna, any team which could conspire to derail this cannot be permitted in F1.
The lessons of Lehman 12:11pm on 14 Sep 2009 Some smart people have noted that the problems began with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 by Clinton, which essentially allowed the safety of a deposit-taking institution to be poisoned by the inherent risk of a securities-trading institution. The Act was established in 1933 expressly to prevent any more instances of deposit-taking banks conduction risky trading activities using the depositors' money as the backstop.

From there it was a bit of a given that history would repeat itself, when trading institutions are structurally designed to favour short-term profit and crowd mentality. The former comes about through a bonus structure which favours risk-taking - if it works, you get rich and can retire (etc.); if it doesn't work, you lose nothing and either do it again next year or get fired and go and work for a rival firm to do exactly the same thing! The latter is more of a trend-is-your-friend culture - if all the other banks are making money out of this, then we should get involved ASAP and join the party. A pure consideration of fundamentals isn't always a prime motive.

Now the main issue here is whether the losses that have resulted are sustainable within the system. Governments certainly shouldn't have allowed the financial industry to get too big, but then they were doubtless blinded by the tax revenues coming from the sector.

Banks have failed for a long time, and will continue to do so, but what has happened here is that it has bene acknowledged that the system cannot cope with banking failure. And this is not good for a capitalist system which must acknowledge as one of its tenets that companies may and will fail!

So the "lesson of Lehman" is that banking got to big. The lesson is not learned, as we now know, with there now being fewer, larger, banks than before. For some reason, it seems we can't do without these institutions. Why can't HSBC or Santander (say) fill the gaps provided by dead, failed banks and keep the market working? What is the attachment to the big securities firms that sets them apart from almost all other companies, in that they are allowed to pay enormous compensation for success, yet are given taxpayers' money when they fail?
Pay later? 3:56pm on 10 Sep 2009 For what it's worth - completely agree that we're in a mess in this country and most of the things that have happened (banks given money to reward them for failure; money thrown away in scrapping working cars to buy new ones and artificially prop up the auto industry; rates reduced to 0 (OK, 0.5%...) to punish the prudent savers and bail out the reckless borrowers) have been outrageous.

But... It's worth remembering that national debts aren't designed to be paid back. I can't think of any (normal) situation where a country has significantly repaid national debt. Now I don't agree with blowing up our national debt in order to justify a policy of spending money for the sake of it, but it's not a massive disaster by itself. Japan's debt is 200% of its GDP, it has a population heavily weighted to the elderly with a low birth rate and low female participation in the job market... and yet no fears have been raised about Japan. I wouldn't personally own yen... but it shows that high national debt isn't necessarily a problem.

The real problem is the current Labour government's inability to solve a problem by any means other than increasing spending.
Relishing Schumacher's return 09:31am on 31 Jul 2009 On the subject of it being tough on the test drivers to be bypassed for the race seat - Luca Badoer last raced for a team in F1 in 1999 and is 38 years old. Marc Gene is 35 years old and last raced a season in 2000 (he made some stand-in appearances while testing at Williams in 2003 and 2004). While I don't know either driver at all, it seems unlikely that either is hungry for a driver's seat in F1. Moreover, testing is a different skill to driving, and neither driver was stellar when he was competing years ago.

Ferrari getting Schu back is a stunning piece of marketing. It's good for F1 after the appalling incident that put Massa out. My money's on Raikonen putting in some strong displays now. Yes, he can seem lazy and indifferent, but you don't become WC by being lazy and indifferent, and when the incentive to perform is there, he's as good as anyone. He will desperately not want to be beaten by Michael in the same car, and will drive his heart out to avoid it! Couple this with the increasingly solid performance being shown by the red cars, and a podium or win for Kimi in the next few races looks worth a shout.
A final thought before a summer break 12:45pm on 30 Jul 2009 I bet Mandy wants Labour to be seen as the underdogs, unfairly reaping what they sowed. God forbid the party in power for the last 12 years be associated with, er, the party in power for the last 12 years.

So his selling points amount to: "We're nice and they're nasty, but I can't show any evidence to support that", "Gordon Brown is actually Barack Obama; no, it's not a vicarious attempt to share his popularity, he really does possess the same characteristics of compelling rhetoric, a strong vision for change, a fascinating life story, and a vein of honesty", and "Let's pretend that we're the best choice to sort out the mess we created".

I used to think Mandy was a shrewd politician, if an awful man, but if that's the best he can do to sell the Labour party, the last person out had better turn off the lights.
Surreal politics 08:29am on 21 Jul 2009 Re 26, xTunbridge;

Helping his daughter at his own expense is a noble fault; helping his daughter at our expense is certainly not. If he improperly misuses public money, how is it any different that his daughter benefits rather than him?
When we need politicians 4:13pm on 03 Jul 2009 I can only think that the third of people who don't want public spending cut are the third of people employed in the public sector...
Asking anyone who works in the public sector about waste seems to produce a litany of examples of it. The best thing is surely to go out and ask public service workers what waste they see, and then get rid of it, rather than speculate from an ivory tower about overpaid this and over-funded that...
The problem with swingeing public service cuts is that you move people from jobs (or non-jobs, it's still paid employment for someone) to the dole queue, and you remove business from private contractors on govt contracts. So in the short term, the economy suffers, and we know what politicians feel about the short-term.
If we want politicians to make brave longer term decisions, we should reward them as such. We complain about bankers getting bonuses for short term performance, and throw governments out after only a few years if the short-term consequences of their actions don't please us.
The PM uses the 'C' word: 'Cuts' 09:29am on 02 Jul 2009 Re 97. AFAIK capital spending is spending on assets - e.g. building hospitals, buying school textbooks, replacing defunct computers. Current expenditure is all spending, so capital expenditure plus salaries and admin costs plus anything else, like consultancy and legal fees, utility bills, rent, etc.
The PM uses the 'C' word: 'Cuts' 09:03am on 02 Jul 2009 Re 86, saga and F-C.
You're both right to a degree. Any work done which produces an economic benefit greater than its economic cost is beneficial to society. The key difference between public sector work and private sector work is the motivation behind the work. Private sector work is necessarily based solely on economic benefit; public sector work has an element of societal (ie. non-economic) benefit. In other words, the public sector often chooses not to optimise the economic benefits in order to achieve some other goal (supporting the poor, the sick, victims of crime, etc.).

One can also think in terms of resource allocation. The private sector allocates resources according to a free market - anyone is free to bid any amount for any resource, and the highest bidder gets that resource. This maximises efficiency, but is not necessarily "fair" in our societal thinking of fairness. The public sector allocates resources on various other bases, such as greatest need (healthcare), or simple equality (rubbish collection). Hence the public sector can deviate from optimum economic efficiency.

One last thing - the private sector has a negative feedback mechanism built in, thanks to the free market, that acts against increases in inefficiency. A company that routinely overspends for services rendered will go bust, as other companies out-compete it, steal market share, secure more investment from investors who recognise the better efficiency and return on their capital, etc. The public sector does not have this natural feedback loop because it does not operate in a free market. There are not rival police forces competing with each other for tax revenue. The police force cannot go bust like a private sector service company might, because it would not be allowed to happen.

As a result of all of this, we choose to balance the more efficient (but socially careless) private sector with the less efficient (but more socially agreeable) public sector. But we must be clear what role the public sector plays. It's inferior to the private sector in driving growth.
What would Tories cut? 09:53am on 01 Jul 2009 224 Sutara:

I think there's a difference between journalists/interviewers simply being aggressive and getting an answer to a question. For sure, there's no point in having an ego battle with the interviewee and seeing who can be the ruder. Interviews should be moderate and respectful in tone and balanced in questioning. But if a serious question is put, and a meaningful answer is not provided, the interviewer should press for an answer. He or she is acting on behalf of the viewers, who want to know the answer. If Brown is asked about his government's plans for cutting spending and answers by criticising the Tories (or Hague asked about Ancram's tax-avoidance and squirming; it's not a party political issue), it's not an answer to the question, and not acceptable to the viewers. In this sort of case, the interviewer should insist on a proper answer. Remember it's a two-way process as well - politicians can use the interviews for their own purposes just as much as interviewers can. If they're not prepared to answer reasonable questions, they should simply be left out of the media altogether, and losing the oxygen of publicity should act as a warning that, while we the public don't want to attack and grill and humiliate our representatives, we do want them to treat us with respect enough to submit to our questions.

220 - Susan. Good post.

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