Why did Jesus rise?

Adam Rutherford's latest missive from the frontiers of Alpha shows that he has been reduced to Reason Number Ten for not believing Christ rose bodily:

Of course, as everyone knows, people don't come back from the dead (vampires and zombies notwithstanding). It doesn't happen.

There you have it folks, it didn't happen because it didn't happen. This is what passes for logic at Kings Place. Still, he is eloquent in stating the classic non-Christian bewilderment at the Resurrection of Christ :

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

There it is. The primary limiting factor in setting up and galvanising Christianity to the exclusion of other stances. Paul goes on to say that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then we cannot atone for our sins. Stone me, why can't you see why it's so frustrating that Christianity's vice-like grip on this verse prevents anyone rational from buying into what could otherwise simply be a moral philosophy?

As Tony Nicholls, who is not even a Christian, in the comments puts it, "Because it is a religion and not a self help group."

Christianity isn't "simply a moral philosophy." If you could save yourself, then all you'd need is moral philosophy. But you can't, you need something bigger. You need a dying-and-rising-again Saviour.

You need a dying Saviour because you need to die to sin.
You need a rising Saviour because you need new life, to live to God.

You need a dying Saviour because there is a penalty to be paid.
You need a rising Saviour because there is a righteousness to be fulfilled.

You need a dying Saviour because he must descend into the pit of our sorrow.
You need a rising Saviour because you need him to carry you out.

Why shouldn't the State have all of our DNA?

On tonight's Any Questions?, panellist and Guardianista Tanya Gold espoused the view that a universal DNA database couldn't be misused. "But what could the State do with such a thing?" she was asking, and Damian Green rightly pointed out that she was far too trusting of the State. My first reaction was that Glaxo and Pfizer might be quite keen on access to such a thing, but I quickly thought of a more potent example:

Tanya, your trust of the State is touchingly child-like, but misplaced. I assume you trust the Labour government, but remember, the Labour government won't last for ever. One day, the Tories will get in — or something worse. Don't forget, there are people in this country, sad to say, who would find a database of everyone's genetic history a useful tool in determining all those whose family history lies beyond these shores; specifically, those whose family histories extends back to the African and Asian continents.

And imagine what might have happened some sixty years ago if a certain government across the Channel had had a DNA database of all of its citizens. There is a certain kind of mindset which will pursue groups defined by a genetic similarity with a ruthless efficiency. We would do well not to set up systems which might, one day, prove to be our downfall.

And this illustrates why I'm not in politics. It took me a few minutes to realise that Tanya Gold would probably find this cutting rather close to home, perhaps too close to home for use in public.

As if it should need pointing out, the line about the Tories was what we call a joke. A funny, son. You laff. A-har-de-har-de-har. [/Foghorn]

The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied

Part of the study for my forthcoming sermon on Psalm 22 has, as I indicated, meant casting back into the Old Testament Law on tithes and sacrifices. However, further research has turned up something far bigger and better. I'm uncertain, for various reasons, how much of this I'll be able to explain in-flight. However, it's quite amazing, so big I can hardly do it justice, a beautiful picture of Christian worship and fellowship. Here we go.

The title of this post is the first line of Ps. 22:26, in the ESV/RSV. The background to this line, which is only three or four words in Hebrew, lies in the sacrificial system, and although the tithe is a possibility, the far greater likelihood is that this stems from the peace, or fellowship, offering, one of Israel's six great offerings.

The peace offering in the Law

The way that it operated was that a man of Israel would bring his peace offering to the Temple, a mixed offering of loaves of bread and meat (Lev. 7:11–36). Of the meat portion, the fat, the blood and a loaf belonged to the Lord and a priest offered those to him. The right thigh was the priest's share (you may recall that Eli's sons were declared wicked for abusing this privilege, 1 Sam. 2:12–17). The remainder was returned to the man, in order that he might celebrate a meal with his household (Deut. 12:5–7).

This sacrifice has a pedigree. The very first peace offering recorded in Scripture was made by Israel after the giving of the Ten Commandments and sundry other commands concerning Israel's life in the promised land (Ex. 24). Moses is then sent down the mountain to tell Israel all that he has seen and heard, and the people promise, "All the Lord has said we will do." Then sacrifices are made to ratify this covenant, and among them is a peace offering of oxen. After that, the elders of Israel go up the mountain and they see God. Underneath Moses a clear sapphire pavement appears, and then the gathered elders eat and drink. The most reasonable explanation for the appearance of this meal, on the basis of the foregoing peace offering, is that the elders of Israel were consuming the remains of the sacrificial meal which had been offered to the Lord.

The peace offering in Psalm 22

So, that's the Old Testament background; what's going on in Psalm 22? The psalmist is using this image of the peace offering, but he is doing something different with it. We saw that it was the household of the sacrificer who shared in the feast, but here it is a different group. They share a characteristic with the psalmist, all the same: just as the psalmist was described in verse 24 as a singular 'afflicted' (‘ānî), so here his household (as it were) are the many 'afflicted' (‘ănāwîm).

And see what is going on here. The afflicted one has made a sacrifice. This sacrifice is in the tradition of the sacrifice which ratified God's covenant with his people at Sinai. Around the afflicted one are then gathered a group of people who, like him, are afflicted ones. The sacrifice made by the afflicted one is then shared among the afflicted ones, and they feast on the sacrifice and are satisfied. Indeed, if we press further into the verse, we find that the afflicted one blesses his house with the benediction, "May your hearts live forever!" It appears that the satisfaction they find is more than a mere post-prandial gratification.

A picture of the church's peace in Christ

So we have here a wonderful picture. There is a group of people sitting together enjoying a fellowship meal and peace, with one another, but even more importantly, with God. This group, sharing a meal, shares something else, too: they share the afflictions of the one who prepared the meal. He prepared this meal by making a sacrifice, and now they are enjoying the benefits of that sacrifice: peace, fellowship, harmony, satisfaction and eternal life.

Standing this side of the cross, and with the benefit of the perspective of the author to the Hebrews who identifies the speaker in verse 22 as Christ (Heb. 2:12), we can see that the afflicted one who made this sacrifice is Christ. The priest who administered this sacrifice is Christ. The sacrifice itself is Christ. He did it all on the cross. We contribute nothing to the table which God has spread: we are simply the afflicted ones who come to receive the good gifts which God has prepared for us in Christ. So as Christ is presented to us in the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Supper, God feeds us the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ, and in him we find all the blessings of peace and satisfaction and life.

There's so much more to it even than that, but there's something to be going on with, anyway.

That I may know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. (Phil. 3:10)

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. (Rom. 6:8–10)

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

There is no such thing as a 'right to die'

A woman with multiple sclerosis has made legal history by winning her battle to have the law on assisted suicide clarified.

Where does helping someone kill themselves stop and killing them begin? Especially with rich elderly relatives who are worried about being a burden?

And what is this next bit about?

Ms Purdy also won on a second point - the Law Lords said she did have the right to choose how she died, under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. (BBC)

Article Eight says,

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

There are enough qualifiers on that second one to make it practically meaningless, eh? Specifically, you could easily argue that a 'right to die' is a danger to public health and morals. Anyway, this business about having a right to choose how you die seems a bit of a nonsense.

Suppose someone decides they want to die in the middle of Trafalgar Square, in the midst of hordes of unwitting bystanders. Do they have that right?

Or suppose someone decides they want to die by an overdose of an illegal drug. Do they have that right?

Or they decide that they want to die by throwing themselves off a bridge in front of a speeding train, causing distress to the driver. Do they have that right?

Ah, so now we get those qualifiers out. There's a public morals problem with the first, a crime issue with the second and a public safety aspect to the third. Suicide is never a dignified way out, and it always leaves people hurt, confused and angry; for that reason, it can never be publicly-spirited to help someone along their way out of life.

Furthermore, dignity in dying cannot be achieved through suicide. Taking the flask denies true human dignity: in fact, it does so three times.

Firstly, because apart from genuine self-sacrifice to save the life of another, suicide is always undignified. Taking the flask asserts that one has lost all value as a human being. That is not dignity.

Secondly, because taking the flask denies the dignity of bearing up in spite of suffering. Western culture might have developed an allergic reaction to the very idea of suffering, but as we know throughout this life, to be human is to suffer. Taking the flask asserts that to carry on in spite of suffering is the worse road; it denies the dignity of all those who have gone on despite their sufferings.

Thirdly, because taking the flask denies the dignity of those who make it their life's work to help those in terminal pain. Medical staff and hospice carers, together with those who develop drugs, are doing a good and noble thing. Taking the flask asserts that they may as well not bother, because it would be best if such people were killed off.

The 'right to die' is not an advance for the cause of human dignity, but its enemy. The DPP should stick to its guns, and ensure that no matter how cases are treated in practice, it does no thing which might give succour to this enemy of human dignity.

Why we need the church, and not just the Church

I know of a chap. For what it's worth, he's retired but fairly active, and — this bit matters — professes to be a Christian. However, he makes a number of rather odd claims, all centred around what he claims is a direct relationship with the Holy Spirit.

He says that he became a Christian without ever having read the New Testament or had the gospel explained to him when young. This, he says, was a result of the direct operation of the Spirit, which he recognised as such. When older, he read the Bible and much of it chimed with him. However, his relationship with a local fellowship of believers has been spotty at best, owing to this "direct relationship" with the Holy Spirit.

This relationship, he says, also allows him to know which parts of Scripture are true, and which parts are made up by "vested interests". He makes rather bizarre, and frankly contradictory, claims about the doctrine of the Trinity. He veers between salvation being all of grace, and works playing some (undefined) part. He argues that the Holy Spirit, being God, is above using words on a page or physical sacramental means to teach and strengthen us. You can see basically where this is ending up, and practically any conclusion you think it might be possible to come to, he's come to it.

My own assessment is that a more functional relationship with a good local body of believers would probably have preserved this guy from many of his errors. He's currently gone to the Salvation Army for fellowship, which is better than nothing I suppose, but they're hardly the most well-anchored group when it comes to doctrine. But deeper down, something is niggling as to whether this chap is not, in fact, in need of hearing the gospel as a non-believer?

In which Johann Hari makes a good point

I know I enjoy mocking him, but Johann Hari has an worthwhile piece in the Independent today. Under the title, "We've forgotten the force which really drives political change", Hari argues that democracy can be vulnerable to two kinds of political misunderstanding. The first is that someone decides that their vote doesn't matter, and that the best thing they can do is to ignore politics and to get on with life. The second is to take the view that what we really need is some Big Man who will solve all the problems: the politician-as-messiah view, which Hari is sensible enough to recognise was one of the less healthy streams of support declaring itself for Obama.

He raises some good points, and certainly nails the quietistic and messianic political errors very well. But I do wonder why people on the "progressive left" have fixated on the idea that every problem is best dealt with by political means? Is this a case of the man with a hammer treating every problem like a nail? I'm not advocating Hari's first target, political quietism, but I do wonder whether its opposite, political activism, is always the correct response. For sure, there are some issues on which it is; but on many, isn't the best response to do what we can first?

Take poverty. There is certainly a political element to poverty, both in terms of what government does and does not do. But to be honest, I think my starting point with poverty would be to challenge readers that if they are concerned about poverty, then their first priority is, as John Wesley famously put it, to earn all they can and to give all they can. If Hari is assuming that his readers are already doing all they can personally, I don't think that assumption is warranted.

Politics is not unimportant; you might expect me to say that, given the focus that I have given to it over the past months. However, the greater part of "people power" is not using the democratic process to achieve certain goals, but having the power to act in accordance with those goals in your own life. When groups on the "progressive left" claim to be in favour of people power but proposes solutions which in fact increase government power, it suggests that "progressive politics" is not really all that progressive.

All that means that truly progressive politics is probably to be found with those who want to increase the power of the citizen and decrease the power of the state. Who would have thought that really progressive politics are more often found on the liberal right than the statist left?

The problem with Keynesianism

Well, an example of the problem, rather than a full exposition. That, if convincing, would probably result in a Nobel prize. This may result in a lone economics student hitting this site from Google. Still, a reader's a reader, eh?

The following quote is a part of the set-up to a joke, but it genuinely reflects Keynesian thinking:

A Neo-Keynesian … writes the equation "Y = C + I + G + NX" on the board. After explaining what each letter represents, the Neo-Keynesian says, "so you can see that, by addition, if consumption, investment, and net exports are held constant, an increase in government spending can increase GDP."

That's somewhat like saying, "Assets + Expenditure = Income, so holding assets constant, if I can increase my expenditure then my income will go up." It's true mathematically, but it's total, complete, and utter gibberish in the real world because the causality does not run like that. You don't increase your income by spending more, and you don't increase GDP by spending more. After all, even the government cannot spend money it doesn't have, so money has to be sucked out of consumption (by taxation) or investment (by borrowing) or all three (by monetary expansion). If an economic theory puts the cart before the horse, beats it with a carrot and dangles a stick in front of it, you can be pretty certain it's not up to much snuff.

Why did Jesus die?

Week three of Adam Rutherford's Alpha experience, and the session addresses the question of the crucifixion. "Why did Jesus die?" Rutherford comments on the use of the cross or crucifix as a symbol saying, "He says that crucifixion is a symbol of death, and a reminder of alienation from God. I think of Bill Hicks saying that if [Jesus Christ] returns to this world, probably the last thing he wants to see is a crucifix."

Those dear tokens of his passion
Still his dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exaltation
To his ransomed worshippers;
With what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

It sounds like the people in his group are asking questions and trying to understand why Christians believe what they believe, which is good. And more than can be said for some of the commenters, of course.

However, amongst the mockery there are some more serious comments. Time and again, for example, the old answer to the question is trotted out: "Why did Jesus die? — Because he annoyed the Romans."

It is an historically unsubtle answer to an historically subtle question, as the evidence as we have is that Christ did not directly annoy the Romans; he 'annoyed' the religious authorities, who fomented enough unrest for the Governor to take the view that it was expedient to crucify the cause of the unrest, Christ. Beyond that, though, it is simply missing the point of the question. One may ask "Why is the kettle boiling?" and receive the answer, "Because electricity is passing through the element causing the water to heat and as it approaches 100°C it boils," or one might receive the answer, "Because I want a cup of tea." Both are accurate, but one looks beyond the proximate cause for an ultimate cause. All these atheists preening themselves on their clear thinking and philosophical sophistication, and they haven't even heard of Aristotle. Whatever do they teach them in schools nowadays?

Then there is the question of why God could not simply forgive our sins: after all, we are called to forgive without sacrifice, so why does God need a sacrifice? But this is to miss the sinfulness of sin. All sin is against the perfect, holy God who has never sinned and cannot by nature sin. When someone sins against me, they are doing so against someone who is, at root, just as guilty and sinful as they, and I am to forgive on the basis of being equal with them. But we are not equal with God. And if we are not equal, then our sin against him must be atoned for, since it is not possible simply to blow sin off as though it were nothing.

Finally, and briefly, someone comments:

God Sacrificed Himself To Himself To Save Us From Himself

That makes no sense at all to me. I imagine Christians just don't think about the underlying stupidity and concentrate on the more rewarding bits.

But this is the point at which everything makes exact sense! For surely as Beza says (thanks: Scott Clark),

Secondly, it is necessary, from the justice of God, that there be a relationship between the crime and its punishment. The crime is infinite, for it is committed against One whose majesty is infinite. Therefore there is here need of an infinite satisfaction; for the same reason, it was necessary that the One who would accomplish it as true man be also infinite, that is to say, true God.

Thirdly, the wrath of God being infinite, there was no human or angelic strength known which could bear such a weight without being crushed (John 14:10,12,31; 16:32; 2 Cor. 5:19). He who was to live again, after having conquered the devil, sin, the world and death united to the wrath of God, had to be therefore not only perfect man, but also true God.

That is to say, arguing backwards, if God offered himself, the only agent who could require so great a sacrifice could be God himself. If God was offered, he can only have been offered, as it were, to God: for to pay a finite creature would take only a finite sacrifice.

If Jesus Christ is God incarnate and if he died and rose to set me free from danger, then surely the danger from which he set me free can be none other than the wrath of that same God himself. No other danger would need so great a sacrifice.

Well, I never knew that!

The things you learn reading the Law. I am preaching on Psalm 22 in a couple of weeks' time, and part of the background is in Deuteronomy, in an interesting and subtle connection between eating, vows and sacrifices. Oh, and this little gem:

You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. (Deut. 14:22–27, ESV)

Every third year, the Levites and the destitute were to benefit from this practice instead of the tither; the Levites also were invited to the other feasts held by people who made Temple offerings. (The way these worked was that some of the offering was returned to the worshipper for them to eat with friends, family, poor people, and Levites.)

So you know that really strict view of tithing, by which church ministers basically try to guilt-trip congregants into giving ten percent of their gross income? It's not even an Old Testament principle: certainly, the ministers of the Temple were not to be neglected by the people and nor should we neglect ministers of the gospel in our day (see Matt. 25 for more details), but any argument for a strict ten percent is forced to come to a screeching halt by this passage.

When Laffer goes rogue

Seen as part of a Telegraph blog comment:

Cameron isn’t a conservative since conservatives understand that if you cut taxes you increase revenue.

Uh-huh. That's every bit as bad, on the other side of the argument, as Mark Steel's wail that, "The argument that raising tax doesn't bring in any extra money is mad on lots of levels."

Many "conservatives" are better educated than the commenter, and there are people on the left who are better educated than Steel. The curve goes up, and it comes down. Sometimes raising taxes raises revenue; sometimes raising taxes cuts revenue. We understand this principle when it comes to things like tobacco duty: why does everyone lose their marbles as soon as we hit income taxes?

No ordinary socialist

On one of Henry Porter's posts at liberty central, some of the banter has given rise to a rather nice little line of thinking. Well, amusing in a gallows-y sort of fashion, rather nice as such:

Forty-two days' detention without charge in a police cell…

Closed-circuit television cameras pointing at you wherever you go…

Identity cards to make you prove your right to be anywhere…

Paperwork beyond belief simply for two men to play the swanee whistle in a pub…

Peaceful protestors beaten on the streets of the capital by police officers…

Club bouncers given the authority to issue on-the-spot fines…

This isn't just a socialist government, it's an M&S champagne-socialist government.

Darling, your wish is granted

Chancellor Alistair Darling meanwhile told [BBC One's Andrew Marr Show] he believed Labour "can and will win" the next election if the party could "come out fighting" after the summer. (BBC)

Labour is almost certain to come out in-fighting over the summer. Is that close enough?

What is a banker worth?

One of the perennials in political discourse is the question of whether bankers (or footballers, etc.) are worth the salaries they are paid. Footballers, it must be said, are easier to argue for than bankers, even at the best of times. After all, someone complaining about a footballer's massive salary could easily be shown that the massive salary was, in fact, arguably less than they deserved: should every Manchester United fan think Rio Ferdinand's skills worth a mere five pence a year, that's still an awful lot of five pences! In other words, while any individual fan may not think all that much of a given footballer, everyone together thinks rather a lot of him. As a result, his potential for drawing in fans to watch and advertisers to sponsor makes him worth the high salary.

A similar chain of reasoning is involved in the value of a banker's talents, although it is much more complicated. So, to start with, we have to ask what it is that an investment banker does.

They work for investment banks, some smart alec replies. And so they do: but what do those investment banks do?

Some of them are consumer-facing, running your personal pension or perhaps administering your company's pension scheme. With enough people putting enough money in their pensions, there is hefty amount of commission available to pay the bankers who provide those services.

But perhaps the investment bank doesn't do a lot of that kind of business. Morgan Stanley does a lot of work for major companies and governments, placing bonds, operating sell-offs and so on. All those are important tasks for which the client will pay a large sum of money. And again, the bankers who do these things will be paid handsomely because the bank is paid handsomely.

So where do these huge sums of money come from? Well, they come from the huge numbers of consumers—you and me—who spend money buying goods and services (or paying taxes) from these companies.

To make this concrete, while each of us only values our supermarket to a certain amount of money, the large number of consumers means that the supermarket is extremely valuable indeed. And while we may not realise it, part of what we value about our supermarket is the high finance which goes into making it possible: in other words, the banking services which keep modern corporations funded and operational.

Heavily Indebted Rich Countries

According to the Fount of all Knowledge, to qualify as a heavily-indebted poor country,

First, a country must show its debt is unsustainable; the targets for determining sustainability [are] a debt-to-export ratio of 150% and a debt-to-government-revenues ratio of 250%. Second, the country must be sufficiently poor to qualify for loans from the World Bank's International Development Association or the IMF's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF, the successor to ESAF), which provide long-term, interest-free loans to the world's poorest nations. Lastly, the country must establish a track record of reforms to help prevent future debt crises.

Ahem. UK government debt, famously, rose to £799bn recently and is still rising sharply. UK exports were £421bn in 2008, and therefore almost certainly will be lower this year. UK government receipts, likewise, are falling from the 2008 figure of £550bn or so. (Can you believe, the UK government taxes more than our export sector earns?) So that means that debt-to-exports are about 190%, and debt-to-taxes are 145%.

So, folks, be proud! We've broken through hurdle 1(a) and are well on our way to breaking hurdle 1(b); we are doing our level best to break hurdle 2; on hurdle 3, however, we have good news! As long as Gordon stays in Number Ten, there is absolutely no chance of establishing anything like reforms to help prevent any future debt crises.

Who would have thought, the best chance for avoiding qualification as a heavily-indebted country lay with keeping Gordon Brown as Prime Minister?

Exciting news from the world of education policy

The Times is reporting that the Tories are considering modifying their schools policy. I am sure I have written about how good their policy is before now: to give parents a free choice of where to send their children to school, to free up schools from the dead hand of the LEAs, and to allow non-profits to set up schools which would be paid per head. The idea is basically nicked from the Lib Dems and/or Sweden, which has much the same system. The obvious effect is that schools will compete on quality of education, and parents will be free to send their child where they wish.

However, there is one key flaw in the Tory scheme, which is that word 'non-profits'. Without a profit incentive, the take-up in terms of new schools will be small. And if an education group finds a way to make education more cost-effective, there is no real motive for trying to extend their reach across a city, or a county, or even the country. In short, without the profit motive, good practice moves only very slowly. When I wrote to Michael Gove about home education recently, I made a throw-away remark to the effect that I wished he would let profit-making companies in as well as non-profits.

So, in the week that even James Purnell acknowledged that private companies may be able to run schools efficiently and effectively, it is great news to hear that Gove is considering precisely that.

Either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative?

Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Iolanthe lampoons, mercilessly, the Houses of Parliament, including both major parties of the day. The sentryman, Private Willis, famously sings,

That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!

However, the Fairy Queen manages to operate outside this strait-jacket, sending Strephon, the title character's lover, into Parliament as a Liberal-Conservative. It seems to me that on some matters, at least, the Fairy Queen got it right and Pte. Willis got it wrong.

It is possible, for example, to be liberal and conservative on social matters. I am fairly conservative, especially by modern standards, but I am also very liberal: conservative, because I believe that monogamous, hetersexual marriage is the appropriate place for sexual relations, I think drug-taking is a waste of time and money (and, to excess, a life), I think alcohol should be drunk only moderately and so on; liberal, because I don't believe that I ought to make the rest of society live by the rules to which I personally adhere. I must, of course, be free to voice my disapproval of immoral behaviour, but should never turn my personal moral disapproval into law.

So liberal is not the antonym of conservative. It is the antonym of authoritarian; conservative is the antonym of something like libertine. And therefore, it is entirely possible to be in any of the four combinations:

• Liberal/libertine: you believe in not imposing moral views on others, and do all sorts of things of which others might morally disapprove.
• Liberal/conservative: you hold firm views about what is right and wrong personally, but are not willing to force anyone else to live by them.
• Authoritarian/conservative: "Family Values". 'Nuff said?
• Authoritarian/libertine: not only do you do such things, nor only do you give approval to those who practise them, but think disapproval should be illegal.

You may think that authoritarian libertines is a contradiction in terms, but I would suggest that the most militant end of the more libertine social movements — the classic example is the lobby arguing for sexual freedom, although others also can be thought of — have tended towards this view: not only may we do what we like behind closed doors (provided it harms no-one else), but everyone else must approve of us. For if my analysis is not tending towards the target, why is there such a fuss about whether politicians attend Gay Pride events?

We are more than naked chimps

Not simply my conclusion, but the conclusion of Jeremy Taylor, producer of science documentaries broadcast on BBC, Discovery and National Geographic channels. Helen Guldman of Spiked reviews his book, in which he relates (among other things) less well-reported experiments showing definite limits to chimps' abilities and suggesting that they may even be less intelligent than crows. If our 'closest relatives' are so unintelligent, then surely there is something special about us? As Guldman, quoting Taylor, points out:

Unlike any other animal ‘we build on very modest foundations and blow them up to extraordinary dimensions of power and complexity’, which has ‘led from the invention of the wheel, less than six thousand years ago, to the wheeling out of the latest passenger jet’.

Yes, we really are different. Singers are found all over nature, but composers are uniquely human. Builders, too, are ubiquitous, but architects are not. There truly is something special about humanity.

Norwich North result

I was not just wrong, but dead flat wrong. Conservative gain from Labour with a majority of 7,348. Second candidate was Labour with a vote of 6,243. Tories achieve a 16.5% swing, which basically a repeat of Crewe's spectacular 17% (figures updated, 'cos Wikipedia can't do sums properly). Winning share of the vote just short of 40%. How many more by-elections do Labour need to lose before they get the message?

Either schools fail, or children do

In today's Guardian, Neal Lawson takes James Purnell to task for saying he believes in "market socialism":

Markets, the mechanism of choice, are designed to allocate the spoils to the winner. That's OK with supermarkets and car makers – it's not OK for the state. We can't have and can't allow schools and hospitals to fail and be replaced by the fittest.

Of course, the government mucks about with supermarkets and, famously, the car industry. But beyond that, can someone run by me the logic of saying that markets are great for supplying food, but not education and healthcare? Is education more important than food?

I'm sure we agree that failing teachers should be sacked. And if so, why not schools, too? Surely that refusal to let schools fail leads directly to the perpetuation of failing schools in precisely the places where successful schools are the most needed?

The Resurrection Moon landings were faked

For the benefit of those convinced otherwise, Greg Melia shows us how the Moon landing were completely fraudulent. Essentially:

1. We don't have the original tapes.
2. Film clips have been jumbled up out of sequence.
3. Major, contemporaneous world events aren't mentioned when these men were "walking on the Moon."
4. The accent of the man they call "Armstrong" wanders, proving that he was at least two different people.
5. The long-held desire to walk on the Moon provided an immediate motive for faking the landings.
6. News reports show some discrepancies, which proves they were making the whole thing up.
7. News reports were far too consistent, which proves they were making the whole thing up.
8. Unofficial accounts, such as A Grand Day Out, prove that the "official" story was doctored.
9. The coverage we received suited the purposes of Nasa and the US government; it therefore cannot be trusted.
10. No-one has ever landed on the Moon.

QED?

Any similarity to arguments concerning the one who was living, and then dead, and then living again, are purely co-incidental. Yeah, right.

Buy American!

Buying American, it's, like, a no-brainer, yeah? (At least for Americans. I assume my readers can see how this applies mutatis mutandis to other countries.) Except that "American" products are not really all that American, while "non-American" products are often more American. The iPod, for example: an all-American un-American product of free trade and globalisation. Whodathunkit? So in response to another magazine's use of all-American bikini-clad women to smash up "un-American" products, the good folks at Reason got their own back.

Conference report: Calvin 500

Since I was asked, I'll give a quick low-down on the Calvin 500 conference. It went very well, and I was pleased to be able to meet Scott Clark and his wife; he pleaded jet lag as the reason for not being as much in evidence as he'd have liked, which I could well believe. I had intended to ask them how they were coping with the time difference, given it is nine whole hours.

I was also able to chat very briefly with Mike Horton (who was probably suffering as badly as the Clarks) and meet Hywel Jones, which was lovely. Hywel was my father's immediate predecessor in the pulpit of the church where I grew up. I also had the privilege of spending a longer time with a young guy from California who had been travelling around Europe visiting friends for some time as well as meeting an American now teaching in a New Zealand Baptist seminary, some Aussies, a couple from Singapore, a lady from Georgia and a missionary from her church now in the Ukraine… it was great to be able to meet people from such a wide variety of backgrounds.

The academic conference was, truth be told, somewhat mixed. Perhaps it is my European, scientific background playing up, but I was surprised to discover that for many American academic theologians, "reading your paper" is quite literally taking your paper and reading it. With as little intonation as possible, in a couple of instances. I'm far more used to presenters who are attempting to inform, explain and persuade; engaging with one's audience is therefore obligatory. However, some of the speakers were more or less outside that mould. Mike Horton was particularly memorable as a speaker who was attempting to explain more than to impart; Henri Blocher and Isabelle Graessle (the only Europeans, I believe) were also far better at presentation. When presented well, though, the material was often interesting and useful. The academics were happy to voice the occasional disagreement, and dealt with matters historical and theological.

On the pastoral side, the opportunity every evening to sing psalms and hymns, to confess our sins and hear forgiveness, and to confess our faith in the same room as believers from across the world was wonderful. All the preachers were good, but one in particular stands out. Despite a foul-up with our flight, I was pleased to be able to hear Bryan Chapell preach on Eph. 1. I benefitted greatly from reading his course, Christ-Centered Preaching, in preparation for my own dipping of toes into that water, and so was glad to have been there to hear him preach.

BBC bias officially confirmed

Ahem.

We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.

(BBC drama commissioning controller Ben Stephenson in today's Guardian; thanks to CentreRight)

Defenders may point out that he is using the phrase "left-of-centre" to mean something like "anti-establishment" or "unorthodox". Very well, but who gave the head of BBC drama the impression that it is his raison d'être to be pro- or anti- anything? As for being "unorthodox", I suspect that if the head of BBC drama tried to challenge his own organisation's reigning orthodoxies, he'd find himself out on his ear fairly quickly.

Might the problem with BBC drama be not that it's too challenging, or insufficiently challenging, but simply that it's complete tripe? Jus' sayin', 'sall.

What use the Equality Act?

Now, I'm no strict sabbatarian, but this nugget from the row over Lewis' Sunday ferry service is positively chilling:

In May, CalMac said it had been approached by the Equality and Human Rights Commission following a complaint which suggested it was operating in breach of the Equality Act 2006. (BBC)

Firstly, this was merely a complaint. The report does not say, and this would be useful information if true, that it was upheld, nor even that it was investigated. Since when did it become sensible to start reporting any and every complaint, regardless of grounds, in order to bully people into acting in a certain way?

Secondly, can it really be the intention of the Equality Act to suggest that one has to ignore and ride roughshod over other people's wishes, preferences and beliefs? Imagine if a butcher's in an area with a large Jewish population refused to stock pork out of sensitivity to their religion. Would it be legitimate for someone without those scruples to report the butcher as breaching their "human rights"?

Thirdly, what starts with companies can soon shift to smaller operators and employees. Will it soon be against "human rights" law to request leave not to work on Sundays? How ever can it be liberal, just or even sane to suggest that "human rights" means forcing an innocent party to do something they would prefer not to do?

Of facts and faith

I hadn't realised that someone at the Grauniad was taking an Alpha course to report on the experience (link). Good on Adam Rutherford, although I suspect that he's going to find it not a little unpalatable. Already, he has hit the issue of the Resurrection, and opens with the following paragraph:

Let's just quickly get this out of the way. There are no contemporaneous documents about Jesus. The gospels were written a minimum of 30 years after his supposed death. Paul, author of much of the New Testament and Christianity's architect, never met him. It's reasonable to say that the Bible is not agenda-free. And early non-biblical evidence is by the Jewish historian Josephus, who also never met Jesus. The authenticity of his writings on Jesus, specifically Testimonium Flavianum, has been continually challenged for centuries. Hearsay is almost always inadmissible in a court of law, and yet 2,000-year-old hearsay – and there is no other way to describe it – is the basis of a 2 billion-strong club, with not so much as an "objection!"

To which I'd probably better say, Hie thee to the Bishop of Durham, young man. But let me give a few brief responses.

• There may be no contemporaneous documents, but if the gospels were written by people who were eye-witnesses to some spectacularly super-natural events, you might expect their memories to be pretty good, hey?
• Paul's non-meeting (Damascus notwithstanding) is a non-issue, given that as we claim, the facts of Jesus' life are every bit as important as his teaching. This is precisely the point, and if he's not going to try and get his head round it now, he'll never understand what's going on.
• That the Bible has an agenda is not untrue, but everyone has an agenda. Even Adam Rutherford. And if he tries to pull the "impartial observer" line, then we can have another look at Luke's expressed intention when he wrote.
• Josephus is debateable, but let's be honest: no-one really founds their entire faith on the testimony of one document. We got four in Scripture, plus a host of Old Testament prophecies.
• To describe this evidence as hearsay, when three of the accounts claim to be eye-witness and the fourth claims to have interviewed eye-witnesses, would be akin to my referring to Rutherford's article as a fantasy.

He goes onto refer to the criterion of embarrassment with regard to Christ's baptism (particularly) and his crucifixion, and writes,

To me this is a daft, ass-backwards argument. If you want to show someone as humble, have them submitting to humble things.

But if you're making your religion from whole cloth and you want it to gain ground, you make it appealing and plausible in some sense. Scientology is actually proof of this, since despite its bizarre 'theology', it appeals to the kind of mind that thinks humanity is basically a pawn of some alien force; it also appeals to the kind of conscience that wants to take the easy way out by paying some cash and getting 'relief'.

But Rutherford has not yet got the point where he's had a proper explanation of some of the stuff which ought to have come first (like sin, and the necessity of the Resurrection), so he's not so bothered about this "Did Christ really rise?" stuff. Perhaps that's a flaw in Alpha, or perhaps Rutherford's not been paying attention. Either way, he's still asking the question that all good natural Pelagians will ask:

So this all leads me to ask this question: if I followed the actions of Jesus to the letter, loved my neighbour, turned the other cheek and generally was a good egg, but at the same time regarded him as simply a mythical archetype of goodness and the Golden Rule – if I did all that, come judgment day, could I enter paradise?

The answer is obvious: not exactly, because you'd have to accept God's testimony in history otherwise you're calling him a liar. But parking that for a moment and focussing on the "do unto others" stuff, let's have a look at what Jesus said to the rich young ruler, and find out what he really expects if you're going to Do-It-Yourself. And hopefully, Rutherford might realise that perhaps doing it oneself is not as easy as all that.

Well, the Alpha leaders appear not to have given such a straightforward response. But Rutherford concludes,

If Alpha dictated that Christ's existence were simply a matter of faith, then I would have no beef. But by straining so hard to back it up with facts, hearsay as they are, the whole case falters.

It sounds like a decent précis of 1 Corinthians 15 might have been a useful preparation for providing the evidence that demands a verdict. If Christ is not raised, then our faith is in vain. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Of interest rates and central banks

The typical monetarist account of interest rate-setting gets quite a lot of things right. However, I'm becoming less certain that it quite understands the engine of what's going on, and therefore misses some aspects of the story. Let me try to explain how interest rates operate in a market economy, and how, therefore, altering them can cause problems. Be warned: this is necessarily a Long Post!

Interest rates: co-ordinating investment with consumption

In this story, we have two main players. The consumer is king, and businesses are engaged in the task of supplying consumers' desires. Now, in order ot understand how interest rates work, we need to understand that business and consumer alike can either focus on the present or the future.

Thus, current consumption is that portion of income which consumers are using now to spend on what Smith would term "the necessaries and conveniences of life." Deferred consumption is that portion which consumers are storing away to be used at some point in the future. They might not know which point in the future, but they know they don't want it just yet.

On the other side, businesses are engaged in the challenge of chasing consumption. Even when they only supply other businesses, the ultimate goal of the chain is to satisfy consumer desires. Therefore, businesses want to capture as much consumption as possible.

Changes in consumers' deferral patterns (which is to say, changes in their spending/saving ratio) will mean that sensible businessmen will change their behaviour. Since investment in a business does not pay off immediately, businessmen will only want to borrow money when there is an attractive block of deferred consumption to compete for. But how can they know that such a block of consumption exists?

Enter interest rates. As consumers defer consumption, assuming they put the money saved into a bank or other form of investment, they increase the supply of capital available. When supply increases, price decreases; therefore, the cost of capital goes down. Borrowing, as a form of capital investment, becomes less pricey, which is to say that interest rates go down.

Now turn the picture round and look at what businesses see. They don't see a block of deferred consumption, but they do see interest rates falling. As they do so, it becomes more attractive to borrow money or raise capital in order to invest. Therefore, while individual businesses rise and fall, the business world as a whole grows with the investment and grows in order to take advantage of the (unseen) pot of gold that is all that deferred consumption.

As if by magic, consumers' deferrals of consumption have given rise to business investment to supply that future consumption. This story is so remarkable that I continue to think of it as the miracle of the interest rate.

Central bankers: inflating the bubble

Of course, it's slightly unfair to blame the central bankers alone. In the UK, the UK government famously changed its definition of inflation to try and suppress interest rates; the result of this disastrous policy is now plain to see. However, central banks are responsible for monetary policy. Let's see what happens when they keep interest rates too low, which is the usual mistake.

If interest rates are kept too low, then businesses will be more future-oriented than the situation would warrant. They will borrow lots of money to invest and will spend less of their efforts in satisfying current consumption. However, consumers have more consumption now and less in the future than businesses are being led to believe. This entails two effects:

1. Since current production is less than current demand, prices will be pushed upwards. This is the boom period, when inflation takes off, employment increases and there is both consumption and investment.
2. As we approach the time when this 'future consumption' was thought to exist, production capacity will be shown to exceed consumption capacity (see, for instance, the over-capacity of the car industry). Deflation and lay-offs result. We enter the bust: a recession, perhaps even a depression if the boom was stoked for too long and too greatly.

Clearly, although increasing employment in the boom period is a good thing, it would be better to aim for growth which is sutainable: that is, growth which does not swing to shrinkage so quickly or so hard.

It is worth noting that were a central bank to have interest rates which were too high, then opposite, perhaps worse, effects would result, as businesses would be encouraged to compete harder for a smaller pot of current consumption, which would put them out of operation even more quickly.

How then should we live?

The obvious, and correct, answer is that interest rates ought not to be set by a committee, even of 'wise men'. If you try to fix the pricing mechanism for some good or another, then you inevitably cause a crisis in that market. Fixing the price of investment capital will inevitably cause a crisis in the investment market, and can there be anyone left on the planet who does not realise how dependent our entire economy is on capital investment? Messing around with the flange market might annoy some people; messing around with the capital market is likely to start starving them.

Of course, this will not stop the cycle of boom and bust. However, because market participants tend to find profitable activity in closing down holes and inefficiencies, freeing the interest rate from central control should mean that the booms never reach so high and the busts never dip so low. Isn't mitigating the economic cycle by stopping government interference a project worth undertaking?

Book of Psalms for (modern) Worship

The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church [of North America — there are far too many US Presbyterian denominations for me to keep track] has updated its psalter (link) with modern language, and even (gasp!) some new tunes. That is to say, at least some tunes which already existed but had not had psalms applied to them. And the modern language is still a little clunky at points, which is a natural result of insisting that the psalms follow an English rhyme scheme.

To give people a taste of the changes, Crown and Covenant is retailing a new CD, also downloadable in mp3 (link), with some selections. Thirteen US dollars translates as about eight pounds, which isn't a bad deal for forty minutes of singing, so I'm currently listening to them, and they're quite good. I particularly like 72E, which is set to "We are marching in the light of God". I can't make out half the words yet, but it certainly matches the exultant words with an exultant tune.

Norwich North

Ian Gibson's by-election is this Thursday, and having just heard tonight's Any Questions? from Norwich itself, I'm inclined to believe that Labour will retain the seat. Most of the applause was reserved for Harriet Harman, and even on the issues which did get the room exercised against the Government (wind farms and children's checks), there continued to be a stalwart group supporting whatever lunacy the Mad Hattie came out with. Of couse, AQ? probably attracts a very middle-class audience, so this is not exactly a scientific poll, but unless the local Labour party managed to wangle a large paid crowd (with the BBC, all things are possible), it's likely that there is a pretty solid level of support for Labour in the constituency. Sadly.

Things you can learn from a watch museum

One of the things I realised as I walked around the Genevan watch museum I mentioned in a previous post is how many different strands of history can be seen woven together in the displays. It is very difficult, in fact, to do this without a large collection of similar objects drawn from across the centuries, and broadly organised by historical period. Let me give a few examples of some of the interesting strands I found in the museum.

Geneva's Calvinist heritage. Watch-making became associated with Geneva because of Calvin in the first place, in two directions. Firstly, the Huguenot refugees arrived with useful skills. Via the Netherlands, the UK's Huguenot refugees brought weaving as well as a mercantile spirit; Geneva received a good many jewellers. However, the other strand was that jewellery was banned by the city council as an ungodly extravagance; watches, as useful objects, were not included. So these new Huguenot refugees quickly found a new outlet for their skills. This heritage was evident in the decorations as well; enamelling spread across Europe, but Genevan enamellers were less keen on Madonna-and-child and crucifixion scenarios, preferring instead to take inspiration from classical and Renaissance art. (Some examples do exist of seventeenth-century Genevan 'graven images', which is an interesting reflection on how quickly the Calvinist heritage seeped away.)

Scientific advancement. The Danish Copernicus, English Hooke and Dutch Huygens all received name-checks in the tour: the first because heliocentrism had an effect on our understanding of time, and the second and third for their work in the mechanics of springs and pendula. The development of quartz regulation was another milestone. The last four centuries have caused progress in all sorts of areas, and time-keeping is no different.

The relationship with time. What is time for? Sounds like an odd question, but really it is not. One early watch, made in the shape of a skull, indicates that time is there to remind us that we are all mortal. Later watches, not significantly improved in accuracy, continued to be impressively ornamented for their major use as status symbols. However, the advances in shipping pressed the requirement for accurate longitude calculations, and watchmakers like John Harrison made chronometers designed for marine use. As watches became more accurate, time took on more uses. From an important tool in working out where you are, time became useful for scientific inquiry and eventually, a mass-market tool for everyone to organise and order their day.

International trade. Of course, the story of Huguenot watchsmiths was an example of international movement of people, but the movement of goods was also important. The antiques collection has watches exported to Turkey and China, while many of Patek's first customers were Polish compatriots. The idea that Geneva, a land-locked independent city, should have such trade links with the Ottoman and Chinese empires was quite a surprise.

Industrialisation and specialisation. The ghost of Adam Smith could be almost visibly seen walking among the exhibits, as several of his ideas and observations can be seen making their influence known. The earliest watches were made by craftsmen whose levels of specialisation were very low: the highly ornate appearance of watches testifies to the high prices they necessarily commanded. However, as time went by, the crafts became increasingly specialised and productivity grew. Industrialisation of some of the procedures, as well as technical developments in the manufacturing process, also made watches cheaper and more easily available.

From the upper classes down. Initially, watches were so hard to make and so expensive that only the richest could afford one. The aforementioned processes of industrialisation and specialisation meant that the costs dropped, and consequently watches became more affordable to a wider class of customers. The high-end watchmakers, of course, continued to cater to the demands of the richest customers, with royalty, merchants and bankers being among the most prominent of those customers. The mass market appeal of watches developed, however, and with development it became possible for everyone to have access to a time-piece.

New Labour and society

Several high-profile authors are to stop visiting schools in protest at new laws requiring them to be vetted to work with youngsters. Philip Pullman, author of fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, said the idea was "ludicrous and insulting". (BBC)

If I were to be snide, I might observe that Pullman withdrawing his brand of atheism from schools might not be such a great loss. But the truth is that he is an excellent writer, and along with the other authors and illustrators listed, does a great job in encouraging children to enjoy reading and literature. And not only authors, but we might also think of all those other professionals who from time to time visit schools to talk about what they do and to give children a wider view of society: firemen, doctors, policemen, scientists, industrialists, engineers, and even politicians!

Margaret Thatcher famously said, "there is no such thing as society." Tories like to argue that she was misunderstood, but even taking this comment in its barest form, New Labour's approach to society is more poisonous than that quotation could ever indicate. If there is no such thing as society, you can't undermine it. But by clamping down with these ever-tighter regulations which whisper the insidious lie that everyone is a child abuser, by denying children access to a wider view of the country in which they are growing up, New Labour is systematically dismantling society.

"There used to be such a thing as society, but then we had this Labour government."

Most amusing news

Amex axes pension contributions (BBC)

American Express has suspended pension contributions for all its UK employees for the next 18 months, saying that the payments had become unaffordable.

Amex can't keep up its payments? Perhaps it'll have to send in the bailiffs against itself.

Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself (Fox)

(With thanks to the Fearsome Comrade). Well, Amex sending in the bailiffs against itself sounds quite plausible now, doesn't it?

Potter actor admits drug charge (BBC)

A Harry Potter actor has admitted growing cannabis in his mother's north-west London home.

It's the guy who plays Vincent Crabbe. Well, it would be, wouldn't it?

Geneva on a grant

I'm back! And what better way to start up again than by a few observations from my trip to Geneva, undertaken with Luke Leong and another friend from church. I'll probably show a couple of photos here in a few days' time, and if you're a friend on Facebook you'll see more of them.

The big observation is the cost of living there. Geneva is, as many of the conference guests commented, extremely expensive. Scott Clark said on his blog that not a few well-known Reformed scholars and pastors had found refuge from the prices in Migros (which reminded me of an early 90s Tesco) and McDonalds. Even more so with me!

To which end, I managed to find out a few things which make Geneva a little more affordable without being less enjoyable:

1. Bottled water is unnecessary. You need a bottle, but Geneva is riddled with fountains bearing the phrase eau potable. On a hot and sticky day, a cool drink from a fountain is extremely welcome, and never far away.


2. A nice half day trip is to Le Salève, a mountain just inside the French border. The crossing is generally unmanned, although passports are a reasonable precaution. You can take a cable car up the mountain (ten euros for an adult, families can get a very good deal), or walk: the chap at the office said it would take about an hour to do the descent. The views from the top are stunning. Getting to the base of the mountain is free if you're staying in Geneva.


3. The attraction I've been raving about to everyone is the Patek Philippe Museum. Patek is a high-class Geneva watchmaker, and one of the company's old presidents had a large collection of watches, such as the famed pistol and songbird, pictured here. The museum itself is beautiful, and the visit a steal at ten Swiss francs.


4. In the Cathédrale St.-Pierre every Saturday evening there is an organ recital, paid for by donation. The organist changes each week, and generally comes from a cathedral from somewhere in continental Europe. The music is drawn from the long history of organ composition.


5. That cathedral has a very long history, dating back as a site of 'religious worship' in whatever sense to before the birth of Christ. Excavations under the cathedral's floor (although avoiding the foundations!) revealed just how the site has evolved over the centuries, even to the extent that it evidently took some time for the Christian edifice to shake off its pagan origins. The tour was eight francs, includes an audioguide in any of a variety of languages, and takes a couple of hours.


6. The Musée de l'Histoire des Sciences is located in a park to the north of the centre, only ten minutes' walk from the YHA hostel. It's quite small, but is free to enter and has a lot of different exhibits of artefacts from the history of science, even science in Geneva, including a number of hands-on exhibits. For families with children, the first-floor section on water power (with cogs and gears and the like) would act as a good introduction to the principles which lie, in a far more intricate way, behind the Patek watches.


7. If all that activity has made you desperate for some decent relaxation in good weather, a guided cruise around Geneva's corner of the lake is a lovely way to spend an hour. You can get a different perspective on features seen from the land, and also find out about some of the interesting places on the coast of le lac Léman. There are a few different cruise companies, I believe; the cruise I went on charged fourteen and a half francs for the cruise, but stung badly if you wanted to buy drinks.

Making you feel worse

Self-help 'makes you feel worse' (BBC)

Bridget Jones is not alone in turning to self-help mantras to boost her spirits, but a study warns they may have the opposite effect. Canadian researchers found those with low self-esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves.

People with high self-esteem felt only marginally better.

Surely, a brilliant sermon illustration where necessary.

In other news, until the 16th this blog is likely (short of some major world panic, or something equally momentous) to go ssh! vewwy qwiet because I'm hunting wabbits in Geneva at Calvin 500 over the next few days, and then gadding about the city and its surroundings. Ah, bliss; and the joy of not being a wage-slave. Yet.

A pair of vulgar potatoes

Or common taters, as they are also known.

In yesterday's Guardian, Phillip Blond wrote about the need for the Tories to set up a 'new capitalism' that gives assets to the poor. Now, obviously I think that it is important that ownership be distributed widely; however, I am unconvinced that it is either possible or desirable to use the state as the mechanism to make this happen. Let me explain, by using Blond's own assertions.

First up, his proposal to give poorer people investment vouchers. These could only be used as part of a larger group of voucherised investors, and he advises that these vouchers could be used to invest in social enterprises and local shops: or, out of code, less profitable investments. Now, I'm not against social enterprise, but I think it is desperately short-sighted to think that encouraging the poor into making less-profitable investments is going to do much to help them advance relative to their freer, richer compatriots.

I don't even understand his second proposal, which he describes as 'the capitalisation of welfare streams.' His third proposal is a community right to buy, which is an interesting idea, but causes similar problems to the understandable business rates exemption for charity shops: you end up with streets full of them because they have such a massive advantage over the taxed competition. Likewise, I fear that a community right to buy would end up driving private enterprise away, which in the long-term will not help poorer communities.

Fourthly, he wants to encourage deposits made by poorer people to stay in their communities, by modelling legislation on the American Community Reinvestment Act. Apart from the fact that this legislation has been linked by some economists and politicians to the credit crunch, this proposals suffers from exactly the same flaw as his first: by forcing poor people to lend to poor people, they will suffer from bad debts and poor returns. Poor savers will not be helped by forcing them to lend to people with a bad credit history and nor, at the end of the day, will the borrowers. Shouldn't we be encouraging poorer savers to save in places which will help them to earn better returns on their investment?

His fifth suggestion is pension reform. I'm not sold on his particular model, but the need for reform is undeniable. One of the things I would point out is that a long-term poverty reduction strategy needs to encourage the poorest to invest in assets they can pass on to their children: any pension reform aimed at poverty reduction must allow people choice and open the possibility of leaving a legacy for the coming generations.

To be honest, the old capitalism was actually pretty good at helping anyone with half a mind to save and invest prudently. Helping people to take advantage of what exists, rather than constantly innovating the menu, would seem to be the greatest need.

So that's Red Toryism, now for Spineless Illiberalism, courtesy of Johann Hari (aged 13¾). Nice and quick one: apparently, it is democratic not to believe in the rule of law, at least if you're Honduran. Perhaps Hari is less worried about the will of the majority than me, but in a strict choice, I prefer the rule of law and constitutional government over a government founded on majority vote. I should have thought that a gay man might have been a little more alive to the dangers of strict majoritarianism, but I suppose some people leave their common sense at home when they go to work.

Interest liberalisation

I'm pretty sure I have quoted the Times' occasional contributor Jamie Whyte before, and here he is again with an incredibly cogent and well-written piece on why, as he puts it,

The economy would benefit from a weaker Bank of England, stripped of its principal power: namely, the power to set interest rates. This is not intended as a criticism of Mr King or of the other members of his Monetary Policy Committee. No one should be allowed to set interest rates.

Not, of course, that we should not have interest rates, but our rates should float free of any centralised command committee. Of course, the MPC's operation does not determine our interest rate, but it acts as a clear guide: Whyte's proposal, which I endorse, is to stop believing that Mervyn King and the rest are best placed to decide what interest rate to use, and let individuals and institutions aim for the rate which suits them best.

Whyte also gives a potted but fairly clear account of why interest rates perform a useful function. We can often think that interest rates are meaningless, but in fact they are not. As he puts it,

Suppose the demand for borrowing rose, perhaps because technological advance leads to entirely new products, and investment in businesses making them. This would increase competition for access to the limited supply of savings and drive up interest rates. Saving — that is, deferring consumption — would now be more rewarding. So more people would do it, and the supply of savings would rise in response to the increased demand for borrowing.

The point then is that this deferred consumption can then be used later with interest, perhaps even to purchase some of the products of the innovation which was funded by the savings. In other words, there are two phenomena at work: consumers saving now to purchase things in the future, and businesses borrowing now to invest for growth in the future. Interest rates are the way that the two are — mirabile visu — connected; and therefore tinkering with interest rates is bound to cause economic problems in finance, just as fixing prices in the food market invariably causes food crises.

Yes, he really did say it

Apparently, public spending is due for a stonking 0% rise in 2013. Lucky public sector, eh?

Academic despatch

All the governmental activity could be imperilling higher education. That is the implication of a recent column from Sue Cameron at the FT (link). She writes:

Confusingly, the large slice of Whitehall over which [DIUS Perm. Sec. Fraser] and Lord Mandelson now preside – Business, Innovation and Skills – makes no mention of universities in its title. So when HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England) called Lord Mandelson’s office there apparently followed a panto-style exchange along the following lines: “You’re not with us,” from Lord M’s people. “Oh, yes we are,” from HEFCE. “Oh no you’re not, you’re with Ed Balls’ Children’s Department, aren’t you?” HEFCE rightly insisted: “Oh no we’re not – we’re with you.” At which point Lord Mandelson wisely insisted on having someone in the room who knew what was going on.

This is not a little concerning for UK academia. Clearly, the over-titled Baron Mandelson &c. has a brief which is far larger than any single individual, however talented, can handle. And we're lost in the middle of it.