LOL!
Can money from the sky bump the Japanese out of their liquidity trap? Not if they don’t pick it up! For some, it is just too creepy. “People thought it was too eerie to touch”, AFP reports. And many of those willing to handle the loot have dutifully returned it to the police. It’s okay, people. Just spend it. [It’s raining yen! Free Exchange. July 31 2007]
Have you ever found yourself short on gas and there was no gas station in sight?
I have. I had traveled through roads that offer no refueling opportunity for miles and miles but I had never thought I would have to relive that experience here in Malaysia.
KUALA LUMPUR: The 3,200 petrol stations nationwide, including those along highways, will close at 10pm and open at 7am, with or without the approval of the Government.
This was decided at the annual delegates conference of the Petrol Dealers Association of Malaysia (PDAM) here yesterday.
Frequent armed robberies, increased security costs, higher wages for workers, low night sales, soaring rentals and electricity bills were cited as the key reasons for this decision. [10pm closing time for all petrol stations. The Star. August 2 2007]
Do you realize what does this mean?
Congestion at gas stations just before 10PM and after 7AM.
This would also discourage traveling. I would not want to drive in the middle of the night while the tank is low on gas.
Furthermore, through the same rationale, logistics firms that operate during the night to escape traffic congestion during the day would be adversely affected. This problem would flow to the retailing industry as well as many others that rely heavily on uninterrupted logistics services that run 24/7. In short, this might hurt the economy as a new constraint increases cost of doing business.
Maybe it is time for the government to liberalize fuel prices and allow individual station to set its own prices to cope with their own cost as well as the supply and demand curves they face.
Enough of central planning already.
Do compare that previous report, which the report below, which was published earlier:
KUALA LUMPUR: Fill up your tank before 10pm.
The Petrol Dealers Association of Malaysia wants to close petrol stations at 10pm daily, citing escalating costs and security risk as the reasons.
Association president Alang Zari Ishak said about 200 delegates will attend the association’s annual general delegates conference today to endorse a resolution to close business earlier.
“We want to close for business at 10pm and reopen at 7am every day,” he added.
Alang Zari, however, said that petrol stations along highways would remain open 24 hours. [Fill up at petrol station before 10pm. The Star. August 1 2007]
I think The Star is confused…
One of many lessons that could be learned from Turkey: take care of the economy and the economy will take care of you, perhaps, regardless of your leaning.
The breadth of Mr Erdogan’s success is best illustrated by the new political map: nearly all of Turkey’s 81 provinces, including seven mainly Kurdish ones, are painted in the AK party’s yellow hue. Female representation in parliament doubled with some 50 women winning seats—more than ever before. The party’s liberalising political reforms, which persuaded EU leaders to begin long-delayed membership talks with Turkey in 2005, played a part in the victory. But above all it was the government’s economic performance—7.3% average annual growth, record foreign investment and lower inflation—that won the day. [The burden of victory. The Economist. July 26 2007]
What is the difference between calvinball and a game of chess?
The centrality of a ball in the former and the absence of such sphere in the latter is one of the differences. The main difference however is not so obvious; it is the ever-changing rules of calvinball. Whatever Calvin changes his mind, so do the rules. In fact, with such discretionary-based game, there is nothing that could prevent calvinball from becoming a game of chess. In contrast, it is a faux pas for one to change the rules of chess.
Policymaking could be observed within a spectrum of consistencies or rather, a gradual duality of flexibility and consistency; at one end, it is fully rule-based while the other is fully discretionary. Any successful society, organization or entity, even individual, would find the best policy fit for its situation. As I gain greater experience from my employment and life in general, I have come to especially appreciate the need to strike a balance within the consistency spectrum.
Discretionary policies are best whenever flexibility is valued highly. It frees an entity from whatever constraints associated with rules, save exogenous laws such as physics and economics. It provides a policymaker the freest of hands to wrestle any situation.
If consistency is desired instead, then rule-based policy is the option. While it may limit choices given a situation, it helps in building reputation. Such reputation is important for any law, rule or regulation to be respected. Furthermore, such policies make auditing processes possible. On top of that, consistent policies manage expectation and thus, making planning possible.
In contrast, discretionary policies will change every factor a plan depends on and ruin expectation. When the only expectation is no expectation, planning is an useless exercise.
Perhaps, the current and the last Malaysian administrations — Mahathir and Abdullah administration — illustrate the consistency spectrum within local context. Mahathir administration as far as I can remember was decisive, that whatever was said was done, except, maybe during the Asian Financial Crisis when Malaysia reneged from its payment commitment. Under Abdullah administration (or perhaps more popularly, the Badawi administration), there is too much second guessing being done. Few examples are the “scenic bridge“, the double tracking project and, arguably, matters concerning liberty. This liberal use of discretionary policies might contribute to the declining reputation of the current administration among certain quarters, if not the Malaysian society in general; that words mean increasingly little.
In the realm of politics, compared to rule-based, I am inclined to say that discretionary policies as a set is the favorite tool of any populist. Like As Heraclitus the Greek philosopher once wrote, the only constant is change; a populist has no opinion of his own but instead, rely on the mob.
This may not need an acute observation and I may not be the first to notice this but I have discovered that an established organization usually is guided with procedures that it takes an expert to know every nook and cranny of the company to maneuver. The atmosphere is far simpler in an entrepreneurial setup. Anything could be done here and now and all that is required is willpower.
As a young participant in the labor market, rule-based policies could be excessively suffocating. At each juncture, rules have to be observed and sometimes, one is not at liberty to choose. An organization that is based purely on discretionary policies on the other hand could be intimidating. There is little guidance in a discretionary-dominated entity while ruled-based entity offers one a manual to navigate through corporate maze.
Due to the nature of each policy type, rules encourage stability while discretionary policies encourage creativity, tolerate or accommodative of change. Both policies have a myriad of other effects but at the moment, I am convinced that the two are the most important characteristics of the policies.
Rules themselves come through exploration of ideas. Rules themselves are symptoms of knowledge. When a society has a certain set of knowledge, it no longer becomes worthwhile to explore the same idea all over again, discounting pedagogic purposes. To clearly express this idea, an example is in order. Take classical mechanics for instance. Usually, it is cheaper to simply accept the assertions made by the relevant laws rather than trying to discover the same laws over and over again through trial and error or simply extrapolation. After all, it took hundred of years for the field to be where it is now and alas, we as mortals do not have hundred of years to make the same discovery; having an apple falling down on one’s head everyday of every year might be a painful experience.
Some rules however are based on false, or limited explored ideas or assumptions which might include superstition and religion. Certain ideas become obsolete as new knowledge offer new better methods to deal with old problems. This is where freedom unfettered by rules — rules that suffer from status quo bias — has a large role to play. Alas, identifying such rules is hard.
Reiterating my words, a successful society has a certain mix of rule and discretionary-based policies. The right mix conserve true knowledge while weeding out false ones as well as adding new knowledge to our knowledge tank.
How does one get to that perfect fit?
Now, that is a more interesting question but harder to answer.
Hail to the NYT for staying with rationality, instead of populism.
Trade has been getting an unfair beating from Democrats. Party leaders backpedaled from their agreement with the White House to approve free trade pacts with Peru and Panama and are opposing the agreement with South Korea. They also refused to extend so-called fast track authority, which guarantees a simple up or down vote on trade deals. And Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — playing to the campaign crowds — are backing legislation that would punish China for manipulating its currency and, not incidentally, could trigger an ugly trade war.
Yet for all their concern about globalization’s impact on American workers, Democrats are going after the wrong targets. It is true that wages for most workers are going nowhere. Many fear for their jobs. But, as many centrist Democrats have argued for years, throttling trade would end up hurting a lot more people than it helped. [The Case for Trade. NYT. July 27 2007]
I however am not quite certain what is implied with this statement:
Research suggests that trade inspires less protectionist feelings in countries with bigger governments and bigger social safety nets. Promoting trade and helping America’s workers are two ideas that Democrats should get behind. [The Case for Trade. NYT. July 27 2007]