Trust
Discuss. From here, where you can look for other correlations.
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Music post
Let’s have a music post. So we went to this, Crouch End’s version of the Camden Crawl/Land of Kings/presumably originally SXSW. It was…slightly awkward. Well, an ice cream shop is always going to be a bit sporky as a music venue, however hipstery. Also, the organisers didn’t schedule anything after 10.30pm, so it cuts off…
Read More Music postthe wider relevance of #defenduss. defined contribution is the new sugar
As a spin-off from #defenduss, Martin O’Neill circulated this report by a US thinktank, which demonstrates that final-salary pensions are actually cheaper to provide than the defined-contribution sort. The point is simple, but far from trivial – as Max Sawicky is fond of saying about US Social Security, a defined-benefit system is insurance, not mere…
Read More the wider relevance of #defenduss. defined contribution is the new sugarImperial turns on the EPF – #defenduss news
A bit more #defenduss blogging. Imperial College, that most monopoly-minded of schools, has come out against the USS valuation and the EPF proposals. And it’s come out swinging, too – check out the statement here. We are disappointed that you appear to be focused on trying to fit your current proposed benefit solution to the…
Read More Imperial turns on the EPF – #defenduss newsHow transparency met total corruption and they beat Napoleon
Reader Simon Hinrichsen’s MSc thesis on the Bank of England in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars is here. He argues that the UK paid for the war by borrowing as much as France, but on better terms, and by printing much more money, but it also succeeded in keeping inflation lower and more stable. Inflation…
Read More How transparency met total corruption and they beat Napoleon104 great minutes
If you’ve got 104 spare minutes, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Eric “Winkle” Brown, legendary test pilot, gives a lecture to the Yeovilton branch of the RAeS. There are encounters with Winston Churchill, Frank Whittle, Wernher von Braun, Hermann Göring, Hanna Reitsch, and Heinrich Himmler. There are aircraft as wonderful as the Spitfire IX,…
Read More 104 great minutes#defenduss document alert: action this day
Via Mike Otsuka on Facebook, here is a very important document for the future of USS and for UK pensions more broadly. A group of eminent statisticians, mathematicians, and economists have prepared a detailed critique of the USS valuation methodology, highlighting the points made here, as a letter to the USS Trustee. They argue that…
Read More #defenduss document alert: action this dayIn which data visualisation solves a practical problem
Remember this post? I never got around to making any more maps, but Duncan Stott’s map of English identity is suddenly relevant. Interesting map of Census data showing how many people identify as 'English': pic.twitter.com/lX3mKE32Ph — Duncan Stott (@DuncanStott) September 24, 2014 I had been planning to mock Daniel Davies for being an expert on…
Read More In which data visualisation solves a practical problemProgressive as in “progressively reducing benefits for the poorest”
This piece about Catalan #indyref crystallises everything I hate about what I call Euro-nationalism. It’s wonderful that they’re all so engaged: Kilted men wearing saltire capes and foam fingers on both hands danced in the aisles as “The Red Hot Chilli Pipers” played a bagpipe version of Don’t Stop Believing. Sorry. That was the other…
Read More Progressive as in “progressively reducing benefits for the poorest”#lazyweb: my notes are trapped in a Kindle.
A technology thing. I am getting increasingly annoyed with the process of getting notes I take on a Kindle back out of the device and into posts on this blog. The problems are numerous, but: Notes aren’t returned with any context Notes aren’t available in a sensible format The web page they show up on…
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