As part of a college marketing course students were told of one way industry had countered the drift away from drinking tea to drinking coffee. A trend that had begun in America after the Boston Tea Party had spread across the pond to Britain and then greater Europe.
A cunning plan was plotted. A subtle device was constructed. A tea company set up a company selling a particularly bland and mild brand of coffee and spun a line that said – other brands of coffee may be bitter, but not so Mellow (name of the brand marketed by the tea company). The message that stuck in the mind of the viewer, crucially the woman who did the shopping, was that since coffee may be bitter she might prefer to have tea. By apparently trying to sell coffee the advert had turned shoppers away from the whole coffee scene. Brilliant, or what?
When politicians stand up on their hind legs and start slagging off other politicians they are achieving the same as the tea company did – turning customers off the whole political scene. Few people on the average street know who George Osbourne is but a Mr Darling tells us he is practising the politics of the playground, thus messaging that politics is a cruel playground game and Mr Darling is the school bully.
When Mr Brown accused Mr Cameron’s organisation of intending to cut spending of taxpayers’ money the listeners breathed a collective sigh of relief, often verbalised with, “Oh good, now tell us the name of the party that is promising to do that.” Mr Brown duly obliged – his party’s polls rating dropped and remained down.
The message that is emerging from the Westminster village is that the other side are getting it all wrong, even though only one political party is in a position to be doing anything at all, and that politicians don’t know what they are talking about.
Coffee is bitter, and all politicians are detached from reality and talking rubbish? That is the message Mandy has got across with aplomb.
So why would anyone get out of bed and walk to a polling station to cast a vote for the party lording the man who taught us that when they can more easily stay at home and enjoy a cup of tea?
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Saturday 26 September 2009
Splitting up is hard to do
The Labour Party are going to lose the general election and will probably be out of office for at least one generation. The word is that they are going to split again. But what into? There are obvious divisions already visible, but the interesting part is imagining how it will look in two years time.
The Scottish Labour party has lost out to the Scots Nats and have their own unique problems so they might just hunker down into their own cosy familiar place. Sort of like a coalmine. English Northern Labour is again a different animal and will react differently. Disparate and looking for allowances one might expect them to switch their allegiance to another more electable party. Southern Labour is just staying at home, denying they ever voted at all as if that will help claw back some of the stealth tax money their votes cost them.
That leaves the Big Beasts and the fascist left wing of the Labour party at large. Mr Brown will probably retain his friendships and the loyalty of a few close allies. Mr Mandelson does not seem to figure in any patterns but we can bet he will not disappear like the morning mist. That leaves Charles Clark et al, homeless, socially useless and jobless.
So that is a three way split even before we start looking at ideological divisions, of which there are many. Labour instinct is for progressive taxation – that means steadily growing the tax take while employing more in the service of the people. Those people will be looking to retain their income base in the face of drastic quango culls so would be too busy to cater for Gordon or Bambi.
There will be at least 50 Labour MPs left in the House of Commons, but we have no way of knowing who they might be or of what section of the party they might belong to, or even if the party is the second largest in parliament. If they get enough seats to be Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition they will have something to do in Westminster. But if, as looks increasingly likely, the Lib Dems take that position Labour can splinter at will without any impact on the man on the Clapham omnibus – who, incidentally, I heard groaning at the sight of a newspaper stand telling us Gordon was in good health the other day.
Well, they do say you can’t make an omelette without breaking any eggs.
The Scottish Labour party has lost out to the Scots Nats and have their own unique problems so they might just hunker down into their own cosy familiar place. Sort of like a coalmine. English Northern Labour is again a different animal and will react differently. Disparate and looking for allowances one might expect them to switch their allegiance to another more electable party. Southern Labour is just staying at home, denying they ever voted at all as if that will help claw back some of the stealth tax money their votes cost them.
That leaves the Big Beasts and the fascist left wing of the Labour party at large. Mr Brown will probably retain his friendships and the loyalty of a few close allies. Mr Mandelson does not seem to figure in any patterns but we can bet he will not disappear like the morning mist. That leaves Charles Clark et al, homeless, socially useless and jobless.
So that is a three way split even before we start looking at ideological divisions, of which there are many. Labour instinct is for progressive taxation – that means steadily growing the tax take while employing more in the service of the people. Those people will be looking to retain their income base in the face of drastic quango culls so would be too busy to cater for Gordon or Bambi.
There will be at least 50 Labour MPs left in the House of Commons, but we have no way of knowing who they might be or of what section of the party they might belong to, or even if the party is the second largest in parliament. If they get enough seats to be Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition they will have something to do in Westminster. But if, as looks increasingly likely, the Lib Dems take that position Labour can splinter at will without any impact on the man on the Clapham omnibus – who, incidentally, I heard groaning at the sight of a newspaper stand telling us Gordon was in good health the other day.
Well, they do say you can’t make an omelette without breaking any eggs.
Saturday 19 September 2009
All TV stars should get paid.
Growing up in a very beautiful National Park we knew early on not to go in front of the many TV and film cameras without first having the cash and a contract in your back pocket. It might be a privilege to share a shot with the stars if All Creatures Great and Small but privilege don't pay the rent so they have to pay. £20 was the going rate for not hiding among the Shambles when someone shouted "Action!", at the top of Settle marketplace. If they wanted a crowd they had to pay the partakers of crowding.
When Blair was first elected PM the flagwaving crowd greeting him to Downing Street were not doing it for free either - they were the staff of his election office. They cheered as if that was part of the job description.
Now we have "reality TV" where people agree to step out of the crowd and be filmed for nothing. Only idiots go in front of camera with the only aim of being famous assuming that in itself is a way of making a living. Stepping out of the crowd does not mean you are no longer part of the crowd. If not on the payroll proper you will be swallowed up by it again when the cameras stop rolling. What is the point of being famous for having agreed to work for nothing? What does that do for your CV? Neither it is acceptable for a major supermarket, or any other big employer, to ask job applicants to work unpaid fpr a trial period, two hours of shelf stacking does deserve a pay cheque, as does a month of working 7 to 3 trialling in a factory.
TV companies and film makers must stop paying a few a great deal and the rest nothing. That is not a right and proper business model. Stars undergo years of training like doctors and priests but the minions should not be taken for granted. Even charity shops have to pay their staff these days!
When Blair was first elected PM the flagwaving crowd greeting him to Downing Street were not doing it for free either - they were the staff of his election office. They cheered as if that was part of the job description.
Now we have "reality TV" where people agree to step out of the crowd and be filmed for nothing. Only idiots go in front of camera with the only aim of being famous assuming that in itself is a way of making a living. Stepping out of the crowd does not mean you are no longer part of the crowd. If not on the payroll proper you will be swallowed up by it again when the cameras stop rolling. What is the point of being famous for having agreed to work for nothing? What does that do for your CV? Neither it is acceptable for a major supermarket, or any other big employer, to ask job applicants to work unpaid fpr a trial period, two hours of shelf stacking does deserve a pay cheque, as does a month of working 7 to 3 trialling in a factory.
TV companies and film makers must stop paying a few a great deal and the rest nothing. That is not a right and proper business model. Stars undergo years of training like doctors and priests but the minions should not be taken for granted. Even charity shops have to pay their staff these days!
Friday 18 September 2009
More of, yes, we saw it coming
A few days before 22 Jan 2005 the Telegraph reported Ian McCartney telling us his belief - "It is about not running out of ideas, not running out of momentum." This is a huge eye-opener of a statement. Presently around 50% of our money is going to pay a number of people, seemingly growing at an exponential rate, to do nothing of any significance and to create nothing tangible, to help nobody and encourage nothing. So much of real people's money is going down this black hole that they have nothing left over for savings. The longer this situation is allowed to continue the more of the older generations' pension capital shrinks and the harder it becomes for first time buyers to gain the capital deposit they need to set up house and start investing in their own futures, the harder it is for them to see any reason why they might bother. With every day there comes another batch of stealth taxes, one this week justified by a need to prevent people drinking away their financial despair on a Saturday night. The money of this country is all being sucked into an interminable vortex they call "public spending", and like any black hole nothing appears to come out of it again. To keep the vortex from expanding its appetite from money to human beings, to prevent it taking life as well as livelihoods, hopes, dreams and entrepreneurial aspirations it is indeed necessary not to run out of ideas and momentum.
It is his raison d'etre that is at fault. The economy should be in equilibrium, a balanced dynamism serving those paying in by reward and provision, not an avenue to a bottomless pit. Extra funding to the NHS is going to cover pension shortfalls, health and safety regulators and ethnic balancing monitors. The extra into schools is showing us a generation of leavers a growing proportion of whom are functionally illiterate and cannot add up, only subtract. The operators within an economy should not be witnessing those appointed to manage it having to run at all, let alone run in fear of their jobs.
Endogenous growth theory
Endogenous growth theory
21/06/2003
Sue Doughty
Endogenous growth theory is what Gordon Brown has given us, a model in which knowledge and capital are used in fixed proportions.
He planned to have growth from within as opposed to exogenous growth from outside input. Input of technological advances ("knowledge" based growth in ideas) or of capital. But at the same time he has conspired to ensure the regulation of every aspect of our working lives to such an extent that innovation is shunned or outlawed. And he has made capital investment so unpopular as to dunk the stock market into a perpetually low tide. Fossilisation from within, not modernisation.
He meant well, poor lamb, so where did he go wrong? In the end Endogenous Growth Theory assumes "knowledge" to be homogeneous. As if it could have been nationalised. But to do that you have to measure it, like SATs testing all of industry. This cannot be done. In the 1950s they devised equations into which to put that measurement and assumed someone who came after them would find a way of quantifying commercial knowledge. By the 1963 conference season nobody had done it and people dared to tell the bottom line truth, that there is no way to do it. They carried on looking for the number because they didn't want to abandon the theory. According to Ian Steadman, at the Growth Theory Conference, Pisa, 2001, "No amount of sophistated mathematical analysis can turn conceptual confusions into meaningful conclusions." http://growthconf.ec.unipi.it/papers/Steedman1.pdf
The hole in engonenous growth theory, that is to say, the reason why is never works, is that talk of increasing, or decreasing, or static, marginal productivity is empty hot air unless the "knowledge" variable has a cardinal identity. Since there is no way to measure "knowledge" in the business terms needed there can be no cardinality, there can be no quantifiable value to that part of the vital equation. This has been well known since 1962. How come Gordon missed those papers?
In short the endogenous growth theory Gordon Brown set his policies by is a busted flush.
So in using the phrase "endogenous growth theory" Gordon Brown openly declared at the outset that he would rely on growth from within, but 6 years on we ask, within that when most industry has transferred to more welcoming lower employment cost and regulation areas? We see he is spending more than he is drawing in, for the month of May the difference between what he received and what he paid out was a net outgoing of £6.4 bn, so the endogenous growth he has created is in government itself. Endogeous growth in government language means empire building, high taxes and big government. That is what he promised and that is what we got. He is a social planner economist, wiping competition out of an equation as if operating in a sealed box where a higher optimal growth rate might be achievable in theory. But we have to operate in the real world, real people looking to live on real pension investments later in life.
Mr Blair abolished the post of Lord Chancellor at the flick of an eyelid, now let him abolish the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and replace him with someone who can thinks fruitfully instead of relying on vintage theories from his father's past.
21/06/2003
Sue Doughty
Endogenous growth theory is what Gordon Brown has given us, a model in which knowledge and capital are used in fixed proportions.
He planned to have growth from within as opposed to exogenous growth from outside input. Input of technological advances ("knowledge" based growth in ideas) or of capital. But at the same time he has conspired to ensure the regulation of every aspect of our working lives to such an extent that innovation is shunned or outlawed. And he has made capital investment so unpopular as to dunk the stock market into a perpetually low tide. Fossilisation from within, not modernisation.
He meant well, poor lamb, so where did he go wrong? In the end Endogenous Growth Theory assumes "knowledge" to be homogeneous. As if it could have been nationalised. But to do that you have to measure it, like SATs testing all of industry. This cannot be done. In the 1950s they devised equations into which to put that measurement and assumed someone who came after them would find a way of quantifying commercial knowledge. By the 1963 conference season nobody had done it and people dared to tell the bottom line truth, that there is no way to do it. They carried on looking for the number because they didn't want to abandon the theory. According to Ian Steadman, at the Growth Theory Conference, Pisa, 2001, "No amount of sophistated mathematical analysis can turn conceptual confusions into meaningful conclusions." http://growthconf.ec.unipi.it/papers/Steedman1.pdf
The hole in engonenous growth theory, that is to say, the reason why is never works, is that talk of increasing, or decreasing, or static, marginal productivity is empty hot air unless the "knowledge" variable has a cardinal identity. Since there is no way to measure "knowledge" in the business terms needed there can be no cardinality, there can be no quantifiable value to that part of the vital equation. This has been well known since 1962. How come Gordon missed those papers?
In short the endogenous growth theory Gordon Brown set his policies by is a busted flush.
So in using the phrase "endogenous growth theory" Gordon Brown openly declared at the outset that he would rely on growth from within, but 6 years on we ask, within that when most industry has transferred to more welcoming lower employment cost and regulation areas? We see he is spending more than he is drawing in, for the month of May the difference between what he received and what he paid out was a net outgoing of £6.4 bn, so the endogenous growth he has created is in government itself. Endogeous growth in government language means empire building, high taxes and big government. That is what he promised and that is what we got. He is a social planner economist, wiping competition out of an equation as if operating in a sealed box where a higher optimal growth rate might be achievable in theory. But we have to operate in the real world, real people looking to live on real pension investments later in life.
Mr Blair abolished the post of Lord Chancellor at the flick of an eyelid, now let him abolish the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and replace him with someone who can thinks fruitfully instead of relying on vintage theories from his father's past.
Tuesday 15 September 2009
Sacrificial spending
There has to be government spending cuts. Revenues have fallen and the government has run out of money so now some spending plans will have to be "sacrificed". That is the new word for cuts, as seen in the FT this morning.
So that begs the question - did this government set up spending plans and recruitment circuses so they would look really professional when those projects were sacrificed at the alter of Prudence?
So that begs the question - did this government set up spending plans and recruitment circuses so they would look really professional when those projects were sacrificed at the alter of Prudence?
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