Blair's economic vandalism

In Labour's manifesto, Tony Blair boasts - yes boasts - of having started to destroy the UK economy. By this I don't mean his tax-and-spend policies. I'm referring to a far greater damage. He says New Labour  has "banished the demons...of outside toilets in our schools."
This poses the gravest threat to our economic future. Outside toilets, particularly for children, are a much over-looked contributor to economic growth.
The fact is, the cold is a vital stimulus to intelligence and education. Just look at the cross-country evidence. Except for a few east Asian countries, tropical nations have generally low education. It's colder, north American and north European countries that have the best qualified people.
Look at Russia. Their idea of fun is playing chess.
Which university has produced the most Nobel prize-winners in economics? Chilly Chicago. Not the University of Mobile, Alabama.
Or just look nearer home. Who is the greatest genius this country has produced? Isaac Newton, inventor of thre catflap. Born and raised in Lincolnshire. Wind sweeps in straight off the Urals.
And what about the Scottish Enlightenment? How can a small country have produced such a great flowering of intellect? Because the stimulus caused by the cold offset Scotchmen's natural genetic weaknesses, that's how.
It's not just the cross-sectional evidence that shows how important the cold is to intellectual endeavour. Look at the time series. There was a little ice age  between the 14th and  19th centuries. Several studies agree that temperatures were especially low in the mid-1400s and early-mid-1600s. One gave us the renaissance. The other was the formative period for the fathers of modern philosophy: Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke. Coincidence? Pah.
And just look at anecdotal evidence - me. Went to a Victorian grammar school, Oxford and Manchester  universities - the last in a cold winter. Left them a clever bloke. But since I've lived in the warm south, I've turned into a mushy-headed moron.
Case proven. People need to feel cold if their intelligence and learning are to develop. Anything that warms them up, like inside toilets, therefore deters human capital formation and innovation. The two major sources of economic growth, then, are in jeopardy from New Labour's reckless policies.
And not just those two. Outside toilets also promote capital formation.
It's a biological fact that you can't crap when you're cold. Outside toilets therefore teach kids to bake their turds. This instills in them the importance of deferred gratification. And this, in turn, encourages savings and therefore investment. Is it a coincidence that the decline of outside toilets a few decades ago  has led today to worries about a looming pensions crisis? I think not.
So, the abolition of outside toilets in schools poses the gravest threat to the future of the British economy. In years to come, generations will look back on this dark period in history and curse the name of Blair. 

Comments

[Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny]

But people who live in cold countries stay inside a lot more than people who live in warm countries. So perhaps it's the staying inside that makes them smart -- in which case you'll make them smarter by keeping them indoors.

(Then again, perhaps it's all that playing sport and lounging besides pools, rather than reading and arguing in pubs, that makes people in warm countries dumber but happier).

[jamie]

It's a biological fact that you can't crap when you're cold. Outside toilets therefore teach kids to bake their turds. This instills in them the importance of deferred gratification. And this, in turn, encourages savings and therefore investment.

Ah, that's good stuff. Putting the anal into economic analysis. You want to watch that the Adam Smith Insititute don't nick this bit of intellectual property.

[Rob]

Mmm, L'Espirit du Lois... Montesquieu would have been proud.

[dearieme]

Yeah, and you learn to piss in your wellies to keep your feet warm.