Friday
Jun152012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Black's latest
Tim Worstall has read Richard Black's latest outpourings and is agreeably rude about the great man's failure to grasp even basic concepts in economics.
I find it astonishing that it is considered acceptable for our national broadcaster to publish such semi-educated burblings.
Reader Comments (61)
Ha ha, good old Tim. Apart from his bizarre ( I can only assume mind-expanding substance induced ) abherration over a Carbon Tax, he is always on the money. A good addition to the strong Telegraph team.
OT, I went to a meeting last night, where my local Austrian council are trying to erect 10 wind turbines. The audience were pretty hostile. The council is trying to sell the concept of Energy Autarchy, but failed to realise that everyone else would see the logical flaws (ie we don't get to keep any of the energy or receive any financial bonus ) and see right through the scam.
Microeconomics at work !
Whenever I hear of Richard Black I still can’t forget that video of his presentation to his colleagues on the state of the science in climate.
Impartiality and Reporting Climate Change.
His whole demeanour was incredibly puffed up and the fact his Beeb colleagues all sat there in awed admiration made me laugh. I couldn't help being reminded of the scene in the IT Crowd where the techno-ignorant Jen decides to explain the Internet to her colleagues ;)
The IT Crowd - Jen Brings the Internet to the Shareholders meeting
Another good place to find out about this BBC cretin is http://blackswhitewash.com/ (BH seems to be missing from you links at the side.)
Disagreeably rude IMO. If TW could figure out the difference between kW and kWh he might be in a position to criticise.
Given the vitreol from black to us, I regret to say I have to support Black. What he is generally saying is that GDP doesn't necessarily measure something which is better if it goes up. I accept the point about GDP, but generally Black (on this one about GDP) is right. ... but he also forgets that sustainability is a holistic approach and it is just as wrong to focus on environment to the detriment of the economy as to focus on economy to the detriment of envrionment.
Nobody understands GDP in the outside world, and economists seem to define it the same and explain it differently. No use this economist bloviating about this particular journalist when nobody in the BBC appears to know the difference between debt and deficit.
TW and BH think that Richard Black is a bit stupid.
Rio today, max 24C, next few days showers a bit, sunny a bit more, max 26C. Oxford, thunderstorms and rain rain rain, max 16C. Where is Richard Black? Where are BH and TW? Who is stupid?
I hope he went there without using a demonspawn aircraft.
JF
From sunny Coney Weston. I wonder if I should light the Rayburn? Again.
not banned yet:
If TW could figure out the difference between kW and kWh he might be in a position to criticise.
Quite - and his position would be even stronger if he remembered that Black's wages are paid from the TV licence fee, not taxation.
OK, it's a small slip - but it does occur in a polemic about sloppy economics. That's the snag about over-heated rant - you have to do it well otherwise it isn't funny, just a bit foolish.
The MMGW liberal elite realise the CO2-AGW scam is over so they're fighting like rats in a sack to establish dominance in other areas. Par for the course - just look at Monbiot's thrashings.
Dave B - if a compulsory cheque for the TV Licence people just because we own a TV isn't a tax, what is it?
...with the profanity he lets himself down...
Not being an accountant, I didn’t understand much of Worstall’s criticism of Black, except the rude bits.
One bit I did understand, and strongly disagree with, is Worstall’s belief that the problem with Black is that we (I mean you) pay his salary. The problem with Black is that he’s an idiot. There are many other idiots writing in commercial media whose salaries you also pay (unless you boycott every newspaper which employs an idiot, which is admirably consistent, but will leave you short of reading matter). And the problem of him working at the BBC is that his idiocy benefits from the immense world-wide prestige of this organisation, which is due indirectly to the fact that it’s you who pay his salary, and not Murdoch or the advertisers.
You can argue that this prestige is not deserved, because it employs idiots like Black, or that it should sack Black, in order to preserve its merited prestige. The choice is ultimately a political one.
PS If Black worked for a commercial organisation, his obscure networking activities around the Stakeholders Forum would be considered completely above criticism, a private affair between him and his employers. It’s not. It’s an affront to us (I mean you) his paymasters.
Black looks like Schmidt looks like Mann...is there something in the genes?
omnologos
Have you ever seen the three of them together? Thought not. Makes you think, doesn’t it.
I don't think that Tim Worstall is "agreeably rude." He is simply extremely ill mannered and the way in which he expresses his criticisms is symptomatic of one of the many things wrong with this country today.
And have you ever seen any one of them with Ricky Gervais? There you are then.
If Schmidt Mann and Black were trees, I bet an examination of their cross sections would give a highly auto-correlated temperature signal. And three’s a pretty good sample size in their line of work.
Tim Worstall's message is completely overshadowed by his profanity.
If he wants to be taken seriously he must rein in his use of expletives.
"Where are BH and TW? Who is stupid?"
Tim Worstall is currently sitting in his Portuguese farmhouse, a few km inland from the Algarve beaches, as a light wind provides a cooling breeze.
Your point was?
"Quite - and his position would be even stronger if he remembered that Black's wages are paid from the TV licence fee, not taxation. "
Some years ago Gordon Brown accepted the argument that the licence fee was a tax. It is officially defined as such these days.
"Tim Worstall's message is completely overshadowed by his profanity. If he wants to be taken seriously he must rein in his use of expletives."
I do not have a message for my blog. Other than that we are ruled by such ignorant f******ts that the only thing left to do is swear at them.
Does Black mean that GDP doesn't discriminate between what greens approve of and what they don't?
Then why not say so.
Tim Worstall
We’ve all been there. Some, like the admirable Richard North, never stray from that position. I’ve just been in a fight at Climate Resistance which spilled over into James Annan’s blog in which a climate scientist called me a shit-flinging monkey. I didn’t enjoy it.
The problem is that if ever Worstall was in the position to influence events, in debate or in giving evidence before some neutral forum, the insults would be flung back at him. “How can you take seriously someone who argues like that?”
The one justification for such language that I can see is to use it in the Marquess of Queensberry gambit, i.e. to do it in such a public and extreme fashion that the victim would be forced to “do an Oscar” and sue for libel, or otherwise react in a public fashion. And in that case I’d choose a more significant target than Black.
Hi Tim,
I think your unloading on Black would look odd, not because Black is not what you say he is, but because lots of innocent people, among which Black is certainly not, also do not get GDP.
These are guys talking about sticking a dollar sign on a bee's ass. Please unload some more.
But what geoff's saying is correct. To take the polemic route, is a choice. 3/4ths of the intelligentsia probably reads North. But they won't ever admit to it.
shub
Really? Then they have no excuse. They really are a load of ignorant f******ts.Every time I'm pressed to spend my money on things I don't want (C) or the state wastes our money on things nobody wants (G) the GDP increases. The state claims 'growth!' yet none of us are better off.
Thanks for the link to the James Annan blog, geoff.
I saw carrick's funny health care example. Just as you said, in treating a patient we would have a result on our hands in a matter of days, or weeks or months. If things go down, we would have a body to perform an autopsy. Both steps produce corporeal evidence. What does climate change produce? Neither, for the analogous steps.
So how can one validly apply "simple application of standard economic analysis under uncertainty" to climate change?
Annan is a catastrophist himself. One that has wrapped catastrophism in math in his head. He is not the first one to hide behind numbers.
You can look at the ozone hole era literature. They produced lots of concave graphs to scare politicians and the public back then as well.
geoffchambers
And look who's the drummer with the Minnesotans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=Vx-t9k7epIk
Black demonstrates, yet again, the bubble dweller world view. No recession at the BBC so it therefore doesn't exist. Another day, another government pay cheque.
"Some economists have long questioned whether GDP is measuring anything meaningful.[...]"
Something pretty [self snip] meaningful to Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Slovenia, Italy [....]
As the Dominoes fall, perhaps one bright light is that people like Black will soon be forced to meet the real economy - good luck with that one Richard.
What is the link to that Annan's post?
DaveB : "Quite - and his position would be even stronger if he remembered that Black's wages are paid from the TV licence fee, not taxation."
Say what now?
omnologos
It started at
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2012/06/reinventing-precaution.html
and spilled over to
http://julesandjames.blogspot.fr/2012/06/costs-of-uncertainty.html?showComment=1339453460380
Put your wellingtons on before you wade in.
geoffchambers:
In CAGW land, you just made a death threat.
un
semi-educated burblings.For what it is worth, Tim, I found your blog posting rude. It looked like something you had written in such a rage that you didn't bother to make it either clear or cogent... and it made me wonder a bit about whether your posts on the Telegraph's blog site, which I usually read with pleasure, look like that when you first write them, and then you throw away all the expletives. Black is smug and silly, but is he really all that much worse than other people who go to things like Rio to report on them? Of course, everyone can be angry, but anyone who has read that will view your other posts - your 'message' - in a different way for some time now.
By the way, it is funny you complain about Black failing to understand the difference between a quantity and its time derivative - kWh and kW are in exactly the same relationship. So if Black is an idiot to confuse stock and profit&loss, what does that make people who confuse kWh and kW?
3x2:
Say what now?
Not sure what that means. However, call me fussy but, when a journalist, amateur or otherwise, writes an abusive polemic (no principled issue with the abuse) about the correct use of jargon in economics but fails to distinguish between a licence fee and "taxation" in general, that strikes me as sloppy. So I said so.
I'm told that the licence fee is now officially a tax. If that's so, I apologise and stand corrected but a source would help.
In the wake of the FOI release of the attacks on Prof Jones which are not pleasant, the kind of language used is distasteful - no need for it
We should keep the high road - let Gleick and co sully themselves. No need to go there.
DaveB
It's a tax. In France it arrives with my tax form. I declare it with my tax form. The only thing that separates it from my tax is that I have the choice to have a TV or not.
DaveB:
"[Say what now?] Not sure what that means."
I was simply expressing my surprise at your view that the "Licence Fee" was not a tax. (it sounded better in my head)
"I'm told that the licence fee is now officially a tax. If that's so, I apologise and stand corrected but a source would help."
Try not paying it if you are unsure of its status.
(Wikipedia so pinch of salt) ...
"[...] The BBC states that a search warrant would never be applied for solely on the basis of non-cooperation with TV Licensing and that in the event of being denied access to unlicensed property will use detection equipment rather than a search warrant.
The law allows a fine of up to £1,000 be imposed on those successfully prosecuted. [...]"
Annan and Lewandosky are scary, not because _they_ are, but because they have no idea what will be the consequences of their silly maths.
PP scholars have already noticed how such a "leftist" principle went on to be applied by Cheney et al. (2003) to destroy Iraq and hundreds of thousands of lives, and to empower cleric-ruled Iran. Friedman went fully idiotic in arguing as much for climate a few years back.
I wouldn't be surprised then if somebody in the not-so-distant future will likewise argue, thanks to A&L, that given the uncertainties it is far better to obliterate 25 million North Koreans now rather than risk to be in the fat-tail of a North-Korea-inspired worldwide nuclear war.
Christians have killed many Christians to save Christianity. Muslims have killed many Muslims to save Islam. Likewise, Would-be planet-saviours will kill the planet.
The reason why economics fails, nowadays, to be a real science, is because the route to emplyment and success is not through accurate prediction but through using smoke and mirrors to promote what the paymaster, usually & in the case of anything involving the BBC, the state. Real economists who forecast the current recession and who say that the stateprinting money doesn't create wealth are simply censored from our state broadcaster.
I'd be happy to give a hand with the core extraction.
(Leo...Leo...."death threat" alert!!!)
Remember the famous Cheney fiat: It is not up to us to prove that Iraq has WMDs. It is up to Iraq to prove that it does not have WMDs.
I've been following the debate about TW's use of the "F" word in relation to Roger Black. Normally one to "jump in " and pass my feelings on an issue, I held back a while but now I have some brief coments to make.
Firstly, while awake on and off in the mid hours of the night, I turned my radio on to 5Live. The presenter shortly after I had switched on began an interview with a famous New Zealand actress whom you will all know.
She is Lucy Lawless.
Who, I hear you ask? Well she was the main character in:
Xena Warrior Princess and had just been "done" for trespassing on a drilling ship
('Xena' pleads guilty over N.Zealand oil protest
AFP - 1 day ago
WELLINGTON — "Xena: Warrior Princess" actress Lucy Lawless pleaded guilty in a New Zealand court Thursday to unlawfully boarding a ship ...an oil drilling ship which is shortly to head to Asia (I think) to commence drilling off a coast somewhere.
Lawless, I remember her saying before drifting back to sleep that her fellow New Zealand citizens are being apathetic about AGW. She is an activist as you may know.
This is just so typical of the BEEB in all it's utterings and mutterings and it is also typical of Black & Harrabin and anyone else who broadcasts compliments of YOU the taxpayers.
So, I have absolutely no problem with TW's use of the "F" word when you consider the 100% total bias of BBC staff from top to bottom of the establishment in favour of that great (expletive deleted) lie that is AGW.
pw
Jun 15, 2012 at 9:38 AM | geoffchambers
Splurted my coffee all over the screen :)
I'm still waiting to find out if his latest post is deliberately misleading or not. Doesn't TED stand for Technology, Entertainment and Design?
TheBigYinJames at 11:45 AM
“In CAGW land, you just made a death threat”.
No. I just worry about them ULM-ing near wind turbines. So many bats, boobies and cuckoos have copped it..
omnologos
Gosh, you’re on a pessimistic roll. But it’s off-topic if you don’t say poo words.
peterwalsh
Was Xena in her full kit with dagger stuffed down her fur bikini? Where’s the video?
peterwalsh - She was much better in Battlestar Galactica...
Ah, Lucy Lawless.... Dreamy sigh.
It's a shame she couldn't just stick to the damned mummy rather than shatter my illusions in her hobnailed enviro-jackboots.
To paraphrase Homer Simpson "Actors - is there anything they don't know?"
Oops. iPad autocorrect strikes again. Should have read "mummery".
Spoilt the effect rather, didn't it?
3X2:
Try not paying [the TV licence] if you are unsure of its status.
On that argument (and others of its ilk), a parking ticket and a fine for being drunk and disorderly are also taxes. In Scotland, one's water bill is sent out with the Council Tax demand. And so on. Words threaten to lose their meaning.
Given that the subject of Worstall's polemic against Black was the need for precision when discussing economics and given that Gordon Brown trained not as an economist but as an historian (who should perhaps, if he did indeed assert that the fee was in fact a tax, have remembered why the BBC has traditionally been funded in the way it is), I see no reason as yet to drop my claim that the distinction matters.
Of course, the nuance evades many because of a widely held but nevertheless misguided conviction in some circles that the BBC is a left-wing, "leftist", "socialist" or whatever organisation but that doesn't necessarily make the distinction trivial.
Ironically, it occurs to me that this discussion reinforces many of Geoff Chambers' perceptive points discussed below.
"who should perhaps, if he did indeed assert that the fee was in fact a tax,"
It's not that he asserted that it was. He declared that it was. In a manner which makes the licence fee officially a tax. It is officially part of the tax burden of the country. It now has the legal status of a tax.
Not sure why rude words from Tim Worstall are "agreeably rude" but from [redacted] to p.jones are not.
"DaveB : 3X2:
Try not paying [the TV licence] if you are unsure of its status.
On that argument (and others of its ilk), a parking ticket and a fine for being drunk and disorderly are also taxes. In Scotland, one's water bill is sent out with the Council Tax demand. And so on. Words threaten to lose their meaning."
There is a way to avoid a very demanding tax (20%) - VAT. Simply don't purchase anything. Simples.