Vettel is Not All Time Best in Formula 1

Journalism is a profession that has immense value for bloggers and it has been the basis upon which a large proportion of this blog has based analysis or commentary. Many people seem to think that it is only in the area of political coverage does partisanship overtake objectivity but I consider that sports journalism too is especially prone to commentary that includes exaggeration or even outright misstatements.

Take as an the example of this piece by David Coulthard, a retired driver on the Formula 1 circuit, writing in the Daily Telegraph. It is true that during the last race, the Red Bull team for which Sebastian Vettel is a driver took the top two positions on the podium as they have dominated racing this season year and the last. The performance of that team has been very good and it has been the most consistent over the last couple of years. That notwithstanding, the article gives the impression that Sebastian Vettel's dominance is so pronounced that he is altogether worthy of the consideration of the crown of the best driver ever.

I disagree with this for the reason that comparisons across time as David Coulthard makes should of necessity come with a caveat that time references are tricky because of change of rules and circumstances. Secondly, it strikes me as odd that he chooses to concentrate criticism of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton as drivers who supposedly rely on the ability to steer very firast and therefore inferior to the more rounded Vettel. That criticism is allowed but is too limited to the supposed faults of two drivers alone that it makes it unworthy of much consideration.  Knowing as swell that the writer raced against Michael and obviously came out second best means that he is unlikely to be as fully objective. 

To my mind, he should be aware or honest to state that the consistent change in regulations makes the sports particularly prone to shifts in dominance that may have nothing to do with the capability of individual drivers. Formula 1 is also peculiar in the sense that drivers are hostage to the reliability and consistency of their teams. As it is today, the Red Bull team has a superior car in stability and fitness for the rules and the rest are catching up. To conclude, while I defer to his opinions ideas because I have been close to but never driven a Formula 1 machine, I am also reasonably certain that the differences in capability between the drivers is much smaller than that between the cars. Formula 1 is at least as much about  engineering as much as it is about the and capability of individual drivers. That explains why drivers in the same team tend to finish in roughly same positions. One would expect David Coulthard to know that or ask for data to prove that.

Burying Doha Development Agenda

I must admit that for a long time, I have wondered whether the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda wold yield its expected fruit. Reading a number of articles by those in the know, it appears that the Doha Round was all along set for massive disappointment and failure. Jean-Pierre Lehmann writes in the FT (gated) and openly calls for an end to the pretense to end and for Doha to be buried because its long been dead.

I have closely examined and participated in a couple of mMinisterial conferences but I was not always sure that the outcome would be such a mess. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that this Trade rRound was bound to be long and difficult on account of the different expectations between member states. I am sometimes left aghast when I hear that there is a developing country and developed country divide with China, iIndia and Brazil being the torch bearers for the developing nations. The poor definition of sides is part of the problem because it encourages the argument of victimhood into debates with expectations of market opening by the "northern" countries.

Jean-Pierre Lehmann's assessment is plausible but I disagree with the claim that fact that Pascal Lamy's exit would in itself render the WTO's future as safe. As a custodian of the affairs of the WTO round on behalf of the member states, Lamy's demeanour has been exemplary and the problem here is with the intransigence of the members as opposed to the secretariat of the WTO. I am not sure that the WTO can be saved if the Doha Round fails completely especially since the piecemeal approach to trade reforms is the "modus operandi" for many of its members. As a system of exchanging concessions, the WTO seems to be reaching its limits and there's nobody to blame but is members. 

Why Blame Powerpoint?

I learnt from watching this Ted Talk by Julian Treasure that silence and listening is an invaluable, if increasingly rare, skill. As a result, I try to keep at least three minutes of absolute silence every day and dedicate that time to letting my mind go through small thoughts. A few days ago, in my musing, I wondered why one I always hear more calls for banning things than for letting people decide for themselves.

Looking at an article in the Guardian, I received an email link to this piece by Julie Bindel covering the quest by a determined political group that wants to ban the use of Powerpoint in Switzerland. I agree too that some of the worst presentations that I have sat through were by people who misuse of Powerpoint while thinking that flashing pictures and flying bullets on the screen is replacement for intelligible presentation. It may well be that the existence of Powerpoint reduces the cost of producing full colour gibberish. Despite that fact, it seems that this political party is mistaken in thinking that use of flip charts is a solution. tTo start with, it is obviously paternalistic for anyone to insist on another's use of flip charts in addition to the fact that this solution fails to reckon with the fact that poor presentation is often a sign of poor public speaking skills and cluttered thinking. In my view, one cannot resolve that merely by changing presentation tools.

This reminded me that it is often much easier to build a political case around what should be banished from society than what decisions should be reversed. To my mind, it would be helpful for people who sit through pPowerpoint presentations to remind presenters that colour and theatrics do not a good presentation make. pPerhaps it would help for someone to just stop a presenter and ask, "Assume that you did not have the graphics, what would you want me to know?"    

No More World Records for Women

The World Athletics Championships, which I call the truncated Olympics will begin in the South Korean city of Daegu in less than 24 hours. This competition is held every second year and in my view, represents the a more accurate view of capability in sporting events than the popular and congested spectacle called the Olympic Games. I was musing about what the probability of world records being broken until I encountered a fantastic piece of sports and science journalism by Edward McClelland in the Slate Magazine.

It tackles the issue of doping in sports today and traces the story of the effect of steroids and related substances on the performance of individual athletes. An interesting point that emerges is that while both male and female athletes have a history of doping in athletics, the effects of doping onf female athletes seems to have endured. It is a curious fact that the average record in athletics events for women is 21 years old while comparable figures for men is one third of that. It raises the interesting finding that in the days before detection could occur, female athletes gained a disproportionately large "premium" from doping than male athletes did. The explanation is plausible because most of the hormones used are male hormones that appear to give a larger boost to women before the reacheds a point of diminished returns. 

The argument is very sensibly laid and the fact that male records in similar events have fallen many times more than the equivalent for females lends this theory a lot of explanatory power. However, I am sure that the abolition of the existing records to ensure that they are broken again is an inferior choice. pPerhaps the IAAF should design an award system based on how close any athlete gets to the record that has stood for longer. Besides, while it is justifiable to view suspiciously some records that have endured for long, it would be naive to assume that today's male athletes are not cheating in a way that is not possible for female athletes to do. 

Why Fifa is Corrupt

The title to this blog post would not surprise anyone who knows a little about the politics of international soccer. many English newspapers have written extensively about the lack of transparency in the game especially after the curious award of the next two tournaments to Russia and Qatar. It is not as if the world federation of national soccer administration just became corrupt when it's Executive Committee overlooked a very strong bid and denied England the opportunity to host the tournament. To my mind, the fact that FIFA is a strict monopoly is also part of the reason why it is corrupt.

As Brian Phillips traces the corruption through a historical view, I consider that FIFA's monopoly status does make it particularly attracted to exclusive dealing as a standard business approach.    The organization earns a up to 87% of its finances from the Wold Cup tournaments held every four years and which involves political bidding by countries trying to get into a beauty contest and related underhand dealings in order to be host. this structure is typical of monopolies which first asserts itself by choosing safe avenues for revenue and does not offer the biggest asset to bidding through auctions. It would make perfect sense for the organization to auction the right to hosting tournaments to countries and have the prize go to the highest bidder. That it will not subject to a market test its best assets is evidence of the contentment of monopolies.

It is also worthy of notice that while the corruption in the assignment of hosting and marketing rights has a vicarious effect on fans and the the global audience, it is worrisome that the trend shows a steady decline in the democratic credentials of hosts. And yes, while even the citizens of non-democratic countries are soccer fans, their governments are more likely to have wasted public money in hosting the tournaments and paying bribes to secure those rights. It is clear that FIFA has great potential to grow both revenues and raise public welfare but that is not the least concern when governments can underwrite the costs of tournaments while FiIFA's bosses keep the big money and the glory.   

  

Padraig Backs Tiger's Return

http://www.free-extras.com/images/golf_ball-2698.htm

I had initially thought that Tiger Woods would resume his dominant position very quickly after resolving his personal problems. Its clear now that I was wrong about the timing but I still maintain that superlative performance for which Tiger was known would not disappear in a flash. Obviously that view is not considered sensible in light of the player's performance over the last couple of tournaments. I am glad to see that Padraig Harrington, acknowledges here that Tiger's performance is far better than what the rankings show and is cautiously optimistic that Tiger is still capable of breaking the record of 18 Golf Major wins.

That claim does not sound unreasonable to me despite the caution behind the voice. For the same reasons that I mentioned here, I am sure that Tiger Woods is not to be considered a marginal player. He will win more majors and I would place a wager on his breaking jack Nicklaus' record.  

Looking at Boeing 787

Image Credit: Boeing Image Neg. #K63968
http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/gallery/images/commercial/787/k63370.html  

I recently acquired interest in and posted here on the economics of commercial passenger airlines. I was rather surprised that commercial airlines have been unable to raise the travel speed across destinations for more than three decades. And this is especially interesting because in that time, there have been substantial technology improvements that would make improvements in speed easily possible. To test this hypothesis, I have been looking out for specifications on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Brett Snyder, writing at the CNN page takes readers through the new features that would improve passenger comfort. I noted that the article completely makes no reference to gains in speed across destinations. As the blog post argued, the barrier is not necessarily technology but the costs that would go with increased consumption of fuel at higher speeds. Commercial flight is an industry which faces hard constraints set by fuel costs.

Are All Postal Services Slowly Dying?

Annie Lowrey writes a piece in Slate showing why the restrictions on its operations have left the US Postal Services with a revenue model that is causing increasing revenue losses and shrinking earnings at the same time. the article reminds me that one of the industries that was conventionally considered almost obsolete on account of the rise of email was the postal services. And it is indeed true email communication has dented revenues for post offices that rely on delivery of letters.

Reading the reference piece, it reminds me about how difficult it often is to completely retire an organization that is established in the public sector. I think that the rise of the internet and web-based email was a significant blow to the business model of most postal services but that need not condemn them to guaranteed death. In the case of US Postal Service, one sees that politicians and unions state the intent of ensuring that the organization survives but act in ways that undermine that survival. In the end, it is the public that must continue to provide subvention or pay for the massive debt that the service runs. Among the ideas that constrain the US postal Service is the insistence in maintaining numerous offices while also controlling the price of basic mail delivery.  It is as if some people in authority do not understand that the price ceiling limits revenues due while the reluctance to close offices raises costs. From the description, the US postal Service does a good job but is hamstrung by bad economics.

I would like to examine a postal service in a nation with a substantial land mass and population that runs on a profit or is able to meet its costs. I will post a blog here as soon as I find one example. 

Amazon Takes on Publishers

This blog has covered posts such as this one on Amazon Kindle and its rising effect towards digitization of books and a reduction in the role of publishers. To my mind, it is clear that book publishers are burying their heads in the sand in the same manner that music production corporations did in the early part of the last decade and lost. Among the many things that publishers fail to understand is that the availability of digital books is placing them in a situation where they must justify their value in the book publishing value chain. 

I am therefore elated after reading here that Amazon has created a crack on the door by directly publishing a book by Timothy Ferriss. This is clearly not the first book that has been converted directly into a digital book but it shows that Amazon is now considering direct competition with publishers.As the story confirms, the foray into direct publishing is a well-considered one as the corporation has created a strong complement of professionals with editorial and publishing capability. This mans that more authors will be given the option of considering direct publication through the channels provided by Amazon. And I can bet that an increasing number will take that option.    

Ford Ka Not The Car To Steal

Reading this story in the Guardian has led me to the realization that the Ford Ka is subject to far less auto theft in comparison to other models. Despite the fact that that story has not stated the proportion of automobiles that were used to reach that conclusion, it is still worth examining the reason that this car is less  prone to attracting thieves. To start with, a former car thief suggests that it is because the Ford Ka has less attraction for vehicle thieves. One might see that as an explanation but it is insufficient in my view. This is because there are several smaller cars of that nature in the streets of European cities and yet this car appears to be less attractive to a thief. It cannot be just that car thieves are repulsed by the size because the leader in stolen cars is the Toyota Yaris.

As reported, the Volkswagen Touareg is second most vulnerable to theft, followed by the Volvo XC90 and the Porsche 911. To my mind, these next three are easily attractive because they are high value vehicles with respectable resale values. The quoted ex-burglar seems to understand this and states clearly that this category of cars are well built and have power. And these vehicles are often lost through the momentary carelessness of owners which makes the thief have access to the keys. It is less likely that they do not have safety features thus that would be more difficult to disarm. I find this counter intuitive because I guessed that the high value vehicles would be conspicuous and better protected.  

Warren Buffet on Shared Tax Sacrifice

Despite my being a libertarian, I find it completely annoying that people ascribe their reluctance to pay taxes on non-existent reasons. Writing in the NYT, Warren Buffet bells the cat by stating and refuting the unreasonable stances maintained by politicians who are opposed to taxation by using wealthy investors as cover. Many people assume that the claim that taxation of incomes reduces incentives for investments is established in theory and empirically without question.warren Buffet states that the idea that all taxation is harmful to investment is ideologically driven but is not supported by his own experience or knowledge. hHe makes a valid case that is hard to refute but will not necessarily shut up the ideologues of zero taxation.  

Because the article speaks for itself, I see no need to paraphrase it as I am not close to paying US$ 6 million in annual income taxes and neither do I pay income taxes to the US government. However, I will state that it is understandable for any person to desire to keep as much of his earned income as is possible but that there is no reason to think that a no tax movement is automatically consistent with being necessarily libertarian. In other words, it is not honest to overstate the need to maintain low tax regime or the value of absolving super-rich from paying taxes.     

Rodrik's View on Extrapolation of Growth Data

To my mind, Dani Rodrik is without doubt one of the foremost Development Economists and one to whom I take time to read even when I do not agree or understand his points about the government's role in development. Among his consistent and lucid ideas is the view that industrial policy does have arole to lay in the growth and ultimate development of a country. Having seen the vast number of failed attempts at driving the economy through government's choice of growth sectors, I find this view to be more nuanced than either his detractors or others who approve government action do admit.

That notwithstanding, I am always in Rodrik's corner with regard to assessments about the longer term prospects of selected economies. His article on Project Syndicate demonstrates that nuance again by carefully asking for a review of the conventional opinion that emerging countries and developing countries generally are bound to contribute in a large way to growth in the world economy in the future. As he argues, the US and European nations are faced with both systemic and structural problems that require deft management while most of the rest of the world has had comparatively impressive growth over the last decade.

Dani Rodrik asks the important question about whether developing countries can drive forward the world economy. Judging from his well-argued piece, it is possible that hope on the part of commentators appears to triumph over reality and the empirics of the historical record. many of the forecasts about the world transformation away from the west is based on extrapolation of impressive growth in leading countries and even smaller economies of Africa. It is rather naive to expect all these countries to maintain these rates of growth indefinitely. It will be a very difficult task that requires structural reconfiguration of these economies in an way that is not only historically unprecedented but lead to uncomfortable political relations. Irrespective of one's views about the conclusions, the argument is that extrapolation of today's growth rates one way or the other as a substitute of broader analysis is unwise.      

Kenya Tries to Burn Ivory

Source: www.weforanimals.com/free-pictures/wild-animals/elephants/1/elephant-3.htm

Asian and African elephants are without doubt threatened by illegal poaching and are faced with extinction of stocks in some parts of the world. The major risk for elephants comes from the strong demand for ivory for ornamental and other personal uses. And yet the approaches that advocates and some governments take are merely symbolic and have no demonstrable effect on conserving the species.

Looking at this piece in the BBC news site and another at the Kenya Wildlife Service site, it occurred to me that the symbolic value of setting alight a bundle of recovered elephant ivory was widely broadcasted internationally. Going by that story, that is the third occasion in which Kenya's president set fire to a pile of ivory in order to send the truly powerful message of the country's commitment to conserve its elephants. It is debatable whether the conservation effort would be better off with the sale of that stock of ivory in order to use the proceeds to finance conservation. What is clear to me is that knowing the chemical composition of ivory, it is unlikely that the product can really be set on fire and ultimately consumed. 

And that brings me to my main point about symbolism in conservation. It is undeniably important to send a clear signal that a country or territory intends to conserve its wildlife. What one wonders about is whether it makes sense to put together a spectacular pyrotechnics show and hope that many people are not familiar with simple precepts of chemistry. To my mind, to ban trade in ivory is not the optimal way of achieving conservation objectives but still understandable because a market design solution exists. It is worrying when the symbolism goes from rejecting discussion of market solutions and to ignore the laws of chemistry. Kenya may ban ivory trade but nobody can burn ivory. It pays to recall that like teeth, ivory does not catch fire.