Daily Archives: November 13, 2008

Fruitcakes of the world, unite!

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The Economist has received some hilarious objections to its endorsement of Barack Obama. This is the wackiest (from some guy in Missouri).

SIR –America’s election laws prohibit foreigners from contributing to the campaigns of elected officials. By publishing your endorsement before the election, you attempted to influence the electorate in a way that has far more impact than contributing money. You have, in effect, violated the spirit and intent of American law. Your European welfare-state mentality inevitably biased your conclusions. Americans are a centre-right people, whereas Britain is at best left-centre (word order is paramount here).

The nicest letter came from someone in Italy:

SIR – I would like to congratulate Mr Obama on his brilliant victory. In his official capacity as president of the United States he will probably have to meet our prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. I apologise in advance.

Obama’s economics transition team

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Wonderful rant by Willem Buiter in his excoriation of Obama’s economics advisory board. In a nutshell, the team is too old, has too few professional economists, too many people associated with past failures, is stuffed with protectionists — and has too many lawyers. It’s this last that gets Professor Buiter really riled.

According to Legal Reform Now! there are 1,143,358 lawyers in the US, one for every 200 adults. The main problem is not that there are over a million socially unproductive lawyers in the US. The problem is that these lawyers are an essential component of a dysfunctional legal framework that has created the most litigious society in the world. The damage this dysfunctional legal framework causes must be measured not primarily by the direct cost of litigation, astounding though it is, but through the actions not undertaken and the creative and productive deeds not done because of fear of litigation. The first thing we do…

Except for a depressingly small minority among them, lawyers know nothing. They are incapable of logic. They don’t know the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions or between type I and type II errors. Indeed, any concept of probability is alien to them. They don’t understand the concepts of opportunity cost and trade off. They cannot distinguish between normative and positive statements. They are so focused on winning an argument through technicalities, that they no longer would recognise the truth if it bit them in the butt. If you are very lucky, a lawyer will give you nothing but the truth. You will never get the truth, let alone the whole truth. Things have degenerated to the point that lawyers and the legal profession not only routinely undermine justice, but even the law.

But the American political system is completely dominated by this largely socially unproductive and parasitic profession. Consider the membership of the House and the Senate (according to the Congressional Research Service 170 members of the House (out of 435) and 60 Senators (out of 100) are lawyers). Consider the professional training and background of past and future presidents (including Obama, 26 out of 44 presidents were lawyers) – and weep.

Country diary: Mayenne, France

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Sarah Poyntz lives in the Burren in Co. Clare (one of the most magical places on earth IMHO) and is one of the contributors to the Guardian‘s Country Diary. She’s been in France on holiday and this is part of her latest Diary entry.

We were walking by the river below the forest when suddenly there was a whirr and between two trees flew a rocket of colour; turquoise, green, blue, orange – a kingfisher – a poem in flight. Down it dived, the stiletto-like beak pronging a small fish and, seemingly all in one movement, up it shot and away.

A squirrel, a kingfisher and a white and orange cat named Chibi. Some years ago we regularly took care of Chibi to let our French gîte owners off for their holiday. Then they sold up and moved, but we met them for restaurant lunches. This year we visited their new home. Suddenly a door was pushed open and there was Chibi. She walked towards us, meowing loudly, looking up at us and purring. She remembered us, remaining curled up at our feet throughout the visit and brought to mind a medieval monk copying from Virgil and writing a poem about his cat in the margins: “I and Pangur Ban my cat, / ‘Tis a like task we are at: / Hunting mice is his delight, / Hunting words I sit all night …”