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May 26, 2008

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"In which case, perhaps the moral (as distinct from economic) case for redistribution becomes stronger."

Why not just have an insurance market?

kinglear

I've long believed in the cock-up theory of humanity. It's not the right decisions (which largely pass unnoticed) it's the wrong ones that point up mistakes. So as we blunder along, every now and again something goes right by sheer luck.
This is clearly seen with Gordon Brown. Everything he has ever done has been a cock-up, which has been spun and spun until finally it couldn't be spun any more - at which point the disaster he surely is became obvious.The problem is he is incapable of recognising he has made a mistake, far less of changing it, which most of us are.
Mind you, that does rather argue for him staying in place. As a Senator remarked when appointing Alan Greenspan, " Everything you've ever done has been wrong - why should it change now?" In the event, if the cock-up is big enough and goes on long enough, people think you're a genius. Until it falls apart.

kinglear

ps - I love your gratuitous use of Jamie Lee Curtis with very few clothes on - or anyone else really.

Blissex

«Inequalities in income are closely related to ability or “merit”*. Instead, they have a large arbitrary element; I, for example, can easily imagine that, with different luck, I would be ten times as rich or poor as I am now.
In which case, perhaps the moral (as distinct from economic) case for redistribution becomes stronger.»

«oligopsonistic hirers or path dependency? Narrowly failing or succeeding in getting into Oxbridge, or onto Goldman Sachs’ graduate trainee programme, can permanently affect your life prospects.»

This is the usual ridiculous use of the Rawlsian veil -- which is ridiculous because policy is not decided by philosophers, but by voters and influence purchasers, who already know and very well if they have won the lottery and been anointed to wealth Oxbridge or GS.

Policy is driven by the fully vested, who could not care less to waste their money on insurance against the risk that they might not have become fully vested, because that's in the past.

"F*ck you! I am fully vested" is the basis of much policy by Tories and New Labour alike, because their voters are largely middle aged, self-congratulating, asset rich winners, and their only desire is for the government to insure them against the decline in the price of their 4 bedroom homes and rental apartments.

Most of the young english voters are the expectant, cant-be-asked inheritors of the fully vested, and the only insurance they want is against having to pay any tax on their splendid windfalls.

Bob B

Wasn't Glen Hoddle the guy whom Blair got sacked as the England's football team manager just because he was a Buddhist?

Jonathan

The Irish hooker Ken Kennedy once said:

"England have the players. What they have to do is find the selectors who will pick them."

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