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« Give us this day our Davey toast | Main | There's something about Bristol »
Thursday
May072015

A good day to bury bad science

The University of Bristol has a high tolerance for hoary old tosh, but you have to wonder if they have not been just a bit embarrassed by Stefan Lewandowsky, whose oeuvre could best be described as "Goebbels with graphs". How else do we explain the fact that they have elected to do the press release for the great man's latest psychological petard on the day of the general election? A good day to bury bad science?

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and colleagues from Harvard University and three institutions in Australia show how the language used by people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists’ discussion of the alleged recent ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ in global warming, and has thereby unwittingly reinforced a misleading message.

What insight! What erudition!

What a waste of money.

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Reader Comments (108)

What a load of bollocks.

Stereotype threat, Pluralistic ignorance.

Who's paying for this tripe?

May 7, 2015 at 10:25 AM | Unregistered CommenterAdam Gallon

@Adam Gallon

...Who's paying for this tripe?...

Assuming that you're a UK taxpayer, you are....

May 7, 2015 at 10:29 AM | Unregistered CommenterDodgy Geezer

Is it not about time that someone, somewhere might deign once in a while to question whether the exalted contributions of our proliferation of ivory towers really justify their extraordinarily privileged existence, status, and financial situation? Nah, suppose not.

May 7, 2015 at 10:29 AM | Unregistered CommenterMartin Reed

The idea that ‘global warming has stopped’ has been promoted in contrarian blogs and media articles for many years, and ultimately the idea of a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ has become ensconced in the scientific literature, including in the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Multiple lines of evidence indicate that global warming continues unabated, which implies that talk of a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ is misleading.


Loony fringe denies mainstream science as defined by the IPCC. But he hasn't noticed that he is the loony fringe.
Very embarrassing.

Of course, the real reason that the sceptic narrative is being addressed by real scientists is that the sceptic narrative answers the problem of the Pause better than catastrophism.

Yet Lew refuses to engage in any dialectics. He has the truth as revealed from above. And all doubt is heresy.

May 7, 2015 at 10:32 AM | Registered CommenterM Courtney

re M Courtney 10:32

Thus Lewandowsky is a Denier. Does the Paper apply to him?

May 7, 2015 at 10:38 AM | Unregistered CommenterJohn de Melle

M Courtney, following up on your loony fringe comment,

'Pluralistic ignorance’ describes the phenomenon which arises when a minority opinion is given disproportionate prominence in public debate
Self-awareness klaxon for Lew and Oreskes.

May 7, 2015 at 10:39 AM | Registered CommenterPaul Matthews

You've got to admire this level of stupidity.

Scientists aren't reacting to the lack of atmospheric warming, they've been brainwashed by sceptics to see a lack of atmospheric warming. It appears we have inadvertantly developed the Jedi mind trick. 'This is not the warming you were looking for'.

May 7, 2015 at 10:44 AM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

"seeped into scientists’ discussion"?


Its that old catch 22 again:

If skeptics "use language employed in scientists' discussions" then scientists are "enforcing a misleading message.

If skeptics "use language not employed in scientists' discussions" then skeptics are "denying the science".

May 7, 2015 at 10:53 AM | Unregistered CommenterGeckko

Rest assured that while these prats are awash with taxpayers' hard-earned this nonsense isn't going to end any time soon regardless of the prevailing weather. The real world was long ago consigned to the dustbin of history by the rise of the GCM.

May 7, 2015 at 10:55 AM | Unregistered CommenterMartin Reed

O/T sort of: I saw Johnny Ball on a new BBC prog a few days ago...VE Day stuff? A good and useful man that certainly got denied a living almost.

Think the so called scientists need to do a rigorous Risk Assessment course including Cost Benefit Analysis. Then pay for their dumb emotional drives to wreck our industry and economy. Asset grab ASAP please.

May 7, 2015 at 11:00 AM | Unregistered CommenterEx-expat Colin

The RS moto is 'take no bodies word for it ', one on the underpinnings of the scientific process is the notion of 'critical review ' where you look for mistakes , students at university are told time and again they must show skills in critical analysis.
And yet 'Lew paper' and friends seek to make the word 'sceptic ' a dirty word in attempt to being about a very 1984 approach to 'the cause ' where the options are good or double good , the very idea of bad being impossible .

Remind me again who is 'anti-science' ?

If I was one of his students I demand to be judge by his own standard , knowing that both poor practice and poor ethics , which are the indicators of his work, are acceptable therefore my life would be so much easer has I could hand in any old shit and still pass.

May 7, 2015 at 11:03 AM | Unregistered Commenterknr

I think it is now very clear that Stefan Lewandowsky is an extremist, and should be described as such (extremists all sit at one end of the IPCC future predictions, and never seem to want to discuss the full range of possible predictions). He is someone that seemingly denies the very existence of observed empirical data (the surface temperature record), which shows no warming for 15(?) years. How therefore can the globe be described as continuing to warm? Yes there might be ongoing influences and changes due to the world being warmer today than it was 150 years ago, but you cannot say global warming is continuing.

Also why does Lewandowsky believe that skeptics deny the consensus? The IPCC has a range of outcomes, some are benign. That is the position of skeptics, developed over recent years as increasing doubt has been placed on the extreme IPCC predictions. Skeptics know CO2 warms the atmosphere but believe, due to the ongoing pause in warming, that the enhanced effect due to CO2 is likely to be smaller than previously thought, and hence the risks of ongoing emissions is not as great as previously thought. This is clearly the position of the BRICs, as otherwise, they would agree to cut emissions. That they will not, suggests they too think the likes of Lewandowsky are barking.

May 7, 2015 at 11:07 AM | Unregistered CommenterAbc

" ........ discussion of the alleged recent hiatus or pause"

Science accepts the pause. Even Mann has written about the cause of the pause.

Therefore it is obvious to pause deniers that they need the brilliance of Lewandowsky from Bristol's school of experimental psychology to deny the pause.

I still think that Bristol's school of experimental psychology has employed Lewandowsky in order to evaluate how stupid and gullible, the public are, including those who understand bad science.

The holy grail of gullibility is of course free publicity in the Grauniad. It should not be long now..........

May 7, 2015 at 11:08 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology
So this is just another experiment then - and in the nature of things not all experiments are a success, witness this piece of BS.

They even have the hubris to refer to the "Alleged" pause.

May 7, 2015 at 11:13 AM | Registered CommenterHarry Passfield

“global warming” is particularly associated with hoax frames

What?! They invented the phrase, now it is a "hoax frame"?

May 7, 2015 at 11:27 AM | Unregistered CommenterGeckko

I remember when universities took about 5 % of young people, now the figure is 40% and rising. While some increase is to be welcomed, the huge increase does raise a number of questions.

It would be hard to believe that standards have been maintained. Funding must be spread more thinly, reducing the quality of physical resources such as laboratories. Think of all the extra lecturers, higher degree students and professors. They must be ten a penny by now.

I really do not think that the students or the taxpayers get value for money.

May 7, 2015 at 11:32 AM | Unregistered CommenterSchrodinger's Cat

This suggests the scientific community may be susceptible to arguments against climate change even when they know them to be false.

How do you know something is false if you won't engage with it?

Bigots and zealots and the Royal Society run together it seems.

May 7, 2015 at 11:33 AM | Registered CommenterM Courtney

I wonder how Prof Betts and Edwards feel like being associated with 'Scientists' like Cook and Lewandowsky.

I guess we'll never know but I would be seriously embarrassed.

May 7, 2015 at 11:34 AM | Unregistered CommenterSwiss Bob

Harry Passfield Snap! ish!

Update from BH

Really significant that they are discussing "red states v blue states" and "climate change v global warming"

They have given up on the science aswell.

Global warming science is now clinging on to pschycologists and political analysts for survival. It is all faith and politics, devoid of science, dependent on public opinion.

May 7, 2015 at 11:35 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

For some reason the acronym GIGO came to mind.
There may not have been garbage in, but there sure was garbage out.

May 7, 2015 at 11:39 AM | Unregistered CommenterGraeme No.3

A hoax frame is a word or phrase that guides perception in a false direction. Here it is intended to evoke emotions and mental images, not reasoning from facts. It is also intended to create a response grounded in the herd instinct that someone should be embarrassed that they are going along with a 'hoax'.

Lewandowsky is a social psychologist and is well aware that with the US, UK, and Australia all pushing the same toxic ideas in K-12 education under the name outcomes-based education going back into the 90s, we now have millions of adults primed to respond to words and phrases like 'hoax' at a cultivated, Arational level. I am the Robin Hattipped last week on the WUWT CRED story, but the Frameworks Institute in the US graphically describes the intended manipulation across a broad range of 'public policy' issues globally going on under the manipulation of framing.

Basically the media and education built around 'concepts' collude to construct an internalized neural net that will interpret experiences and stories and texts and prompt behaviors based on the framework consciously created. UNESCO actually uses the term 'media education now (started in 2010) to describe the active coordination. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/gaining-access-to-and-then-guiding-each-students-subjective-perception-of-reality-to-change-the-here-and-now/ also describes how this Framework is created through K-12 activities so that it is locked in for life at a neurobiological level.

May 7, 2015 at 11:45 AM | Registered Commenteresquirerobin

Schrodinger's cat and others.
A lot of the problem started when polytechnics and technical colleges were allowed to become fully-fledged universities. (and if I remember correctly we have the sainted Margaret to thank for that) The job of the former was exclusively to teach, and mainly to teach useful stuff. To be a 'real' university you need research departments, and publication, lots of publication. Hence the proliferation of execrable 'research' papers.
Of course, Bristol was a university before, but with all the extra researchers needed, and no more clever people available than before ..... need I say more?
SimonJ

May 7, 2015 at 11:48 AM | Unregistered CommenterSimonJ

Schrodinger,

This is the problem with Universitirs today, they are no longer the centres of excellence they used to be.

However this is exactly as Labour had planned it! A university degree for everyone because it's only fair you see! Don't worry about the obvious decline in standards matched by heaping huge debt upon the young who have no way of paying it back because their political science degree is about as useful as a c@ck flavoured lollipop!

In the real world Universities would be turned back to being places for the best and brightest, turning out useful degrees in things like engineering where we can be sure that those coming out can actually contribute something useful to society. Hell, I'd even champion free higher education if that was the case!

Mailman

Mailman

May 7, 2015 at 11:50 AM | Unregistered CommenterMailman

If “Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and colleagues…”

…show how the language used by people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists’ discussion…

…then they are to be congratulated. They will have shown that climate sceptics have not been taken in by two of the many well-known logical fallacies permeating climate science - argumentum ad populum - Appeal to widespread belief, and argumentum ab auctoritate - the Appeal to Authority.

However they do convincingly demonstrate that Lew and his colleague have fallen hook line and sinker for the Psychologist's fallacy - where an observer presupposes the objectivity of his own perspective.

Bad science indeed!

May 7, 2015 at 11:54 AM | Unregistered CommenterJack Dawkins

Schrodingers Cat, you can enrol a pig in university, but it does not improve a bacon sandwich.

May 7, 2015 at 12:00 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

He seems to suffer from false consciousness.

May 7, 2015 at 12:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterIt doesn't add up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vEJz6p5Rndk

It's all explained here.

May 7, 2015 at 12:21 PM | Unregistered Commenterson of mulder

Anyone got the paper? Should be good for a laugh.

It's not a new paper, it was cited in "The Subterranean War on Science" by Stephan Lewandowsky, Michael Mann, et al. as:
Lewandowsky, S., Oreskes, N., Risbey, J. S., Newell, B. R., & Smithson, M. (2013). Toxic seepage: Climate denial and its corrosive effect on the scientific community. (Unpublished manuscript.)

May 7, 2015 at 12:27 PM | Unregistered Commenterredc

Naomi Oreskes said she was writing this paper a little while back, and she told Doug Mcneill what words to use and NOT use his replies were quite amusing..

ClimateCentral ‏@ClimateCentral Sep 24
Stocker: "Majority of warming is in the ocean. During warming pause, the ocean has been…absorbing all that heat:" pic.twitter.com/fRyEn45iV8

Naomi Oreskes ‏@NaomiOreskes Sep 24
@ClimateCentral @NNUS @jeffgoodell Good work but why are you using the "pause" meme? Please rethink. I realize this is a quotation but...

Doug McNeall ‏@dougmcneall Sep 24
@NaomiOreskes @ClimateCentral @NNUS @jeffgoodell Because pause, hiatus, slowdown etc. are in common use in the climate science community?

Naomi Oreskes
‏@NaomiOreskes
@dougmcneall @ClimateCentral @NNUS @jeffgoodell
Slowdown is correct, if you need to say something. I'm working on paper on this.

Doug McNeall ‏@dougmcneall Sep 24
@NaomiOreskes Tell you what, until you've written that paper, and it's findings are generally accepted, we'll choose our own venacular.

Doug McNeall ‏@dougmcneall Sep 24
@NaomiOreskes I mean "its" not "it's" of course. Terrible oversight.

Richard Betts ‏@richardabetts Sep 24
@NaomiOreskes Met Office Hadley Centre say 'pause' http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming …
@dougmcneall @ClimateCentral @NNUS @jeffgoodell

Naomi Oreskes @NaomiOreskes
@dougmcneall @ClimateCentral @NNUS @jeffgoodell understood but there's no pause. We should not repeated false clams. Even from scientists.

Doug McNeall ‏@dougmcneall Sep 24
@NaomiOreskes Ignoring it won't make it go away. @ClimateCentral @NNUS @jeffgoodell

Doug McNeall ‏@dougmcneall
*brief pause while @NaomiOreskes googles me*
Jacquelyn Gill ‏@JacquelynGill Sep 24
@dougmcneall Is that necessary? She's also a respected scholar, with valid points. @NaomiOreskes

Doug McNeall ‏@dougmcneall Sep 24
@JacquelynGill @NaomiOreskes Oh, sorry for being short. I get fed up with climate scientists being told what to say, how to communicate.


Oreskes/Lew are basically saying scientists are doing it wrong, ie Tamsin, Doug and Ed, Richard ....

Pause for thought - Ed Hawkins, Tamsin Edwards & Doug McNeall - Nature Climate Change
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2150.html

The recent slowdown (or 'pause') in global surface temperature rise is a hot topic for climate scientists and the wider public. We discuss how climate scientists have tried to communicate the pause and suggest that 'many-to-many' communication offers a key opportunity to directly engage with the public.

May 7, 2015 at 12:32 PM | Unregistered CommenterBarry Woods

the same week of that twitter exchange - Tamsin spoke at a Cerrn TedX -


Tamsin – Cern TedX

The first problem uncertainty brings is the extra difficulty for the expert in explaining their results, and the non-expert in understanding them. For example, over the past 17 years or so there has been a slowdown, even a pause, in the rate of warming of the atmosphere. We’re confident the climate is still changing, because the ocean is still warming, the land losing ice, sea level rising, and we predict the atmosphere will start to warm again after this temporary blip

I hope this list will grow, and start conversations that help us deal better with uncertainty in climate science – perhaps even with the messy business of science itself. So if you’re confused about climate … puzzled about the pause … surprised about sea level … or just uncertain about uncertainty … please come and find us. We’d love to talk.

http://blogs.plos.org/models/love-uncertainty-climate-science/

http://tedxcern.web.cern.ch/speakers/tamsin-edwards

look out Doug/Tamsin/Ed/Richard the Climate Word police are out to admonish you.... because peer review (Lew) says so..

May 7, 2015 at 12:35 PM | Unregistered CommenterBarry Woods

Or........on the other hand.....pause-deniers are steadily getting fewer in number as they slowly and painfully realise that the biggest denier of all is mother nature!

May 7, 2015 at 12:37 PM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG

SimonJ: I think you'll find it was Blair who created Units out of Polytechnics. It was his way of making us believe that more people went to university on his watch.

May 7, 2015 at 12:41 PM | Unregistered CommenterHarry Passfield

So research at Bristol Uni has come down to seaching a bunch of tweets for key words.

Nice work if you can get it.

Below are the search terms used.....

The complete list of issue frames and associated search term strings is as follows:
(1) real frames included the terms real OR fact,
(2) hoax frames included the terms hoax OR lie OR fraud,
(3) impact frames included the terms impact OR impacts OR threat OR threats OR consequences OR effects OR affect OR affects OR disaster,
(4) cause frames included the terms cause OR causes OR fuel OR carbon OR CO2 OR human, and
(5) action frames included the terms act OR action OR stop OR fight OR policy OR policies

May 7, 2015 at 12:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Richards

Met Office climate science jokes... should they be banned. question for Lew/Oreskes

John Kennedy @micefearboggis Sep 24
Climate Scientist walks into a bar, says, "A pint of...
...
...
...
bitter"
Barman: "Why the long pause?"
Climate Scientist: <sobs>

And:

John Kennedy‏@micefearboggis Sep 24
I say Hi-ah-tus, you say Hi-ay-tus. Hi-ay-tus, Hi-ah-tus Hi-ay-tus, Hi-ah-tus Let's call the whole thing off

May 7, 2015 at 12:46 PM | Unregistered CommenterBarry Woods

That's right - climate scientists are too stupid to tell the real from the false are being brainwashed by climate sceptics. They don't even know it.

May 7, 2015 at 12:48 PM | Registered Commentershub

@Harry Passfield: Polytechnics were changed to Universities in 1992, on John Major's watch. I doubt it was part of some nefarious Common Purpose march through the institutions to undermine western civilisation.

Some of the Polys gave a pretty good technical education and turned out some decent engineers.

May 7, 2015 at 1:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterSebastian Weetabix

So a pause is a sort of slowdown?

What is the problem, can't they bear to admit that the temperature increase has stopped? Even my watch can tell the difference between a pause and a slowdown.

May 7, 2015 at 1:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterSchrodinger's Cat

"when a minority opinion is given disproportionate prominence in public debate,"

Re-readingthrough this piece of prose, I realised that as far as I know, there has been no "public debate", apart from one held in Oxford(?) a couple of years back I think it was, in which the warmists got thoroughly trounced!

May 7, 2015 at 1:03 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlan the Brit

Tamsin - if you are reading, please explain this phrase:

"We’re confident the climate is still changing, because the ocean is still warming, the land losing ice, sea level rising, and we predict the atmosphere will start to warm again after this temporary blip

a. How long does a 'blip' have to be to become a refutation of the hypothesis? We've been told variously 5, 10, 17 years. Somehow it always seems to be about 5 years in the future doesn't it?
b Smith et al. already tried this 'warming will return' ruse but at least they named the year for the return as 2009. Now Smith says about the 'pause' that 'we just don't know'. Is your opinion not just a 'gut feeling' that springs from the unwillingness to admit the same?
c. Tell us what amount of the continuing sea level rise, (alleged) ocean warming or ice loss that can be scientifically described as not being just 'a natural return from the little ice age'? It all looks perfectly natural to an objective observer - ie one whose living doesn't depend on the scare.
d. What do you think about the pause-deniers? Are they denying the reality of the pause in warming? Are they anti-science?

May 7, 2015 at 1:07 PM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG

Barry Woods, I look forward to the day the general public understand those jokes.

In the summer of 2006 after the usual presentation of runaway warming graphics. I asked a Met Office representative* 'Since it's not warming at the moment, how many years of no warming or how many degrees of cooling would have to happen before you would decide the science was wrong?' She was somewhat shocked to be asked such a heretical question but since most of the people at the presentation were* sheltering from the freezing summer rain she should have expected it. 'Never.' was the reply. For some that even means never admitting that there is missing heat.
[*corrected by request. BH]

May 7, 2015 at 1:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

I wonder what politically correct word or phrase will be used to replace "pause" if global cooling were to take place.

May 7, 2015 at 1:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterSchrodinger's Cat

Barry Woods, good to see that there is a climate change in semantics, sweeping through global warming.

With Oreskes now the self appointed leader in global warming semantics, no improvement in the uncertainty, is likely.

Real Climate Scientists will be very relieved. Those involved in studying genuine science in climate, really ought to help science speak.

May 7, 2015 at 1:23 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

I remember reading an essay written by Dr Naomi Oreskes back in 2002 on computer models used in climate science which was very well written. It was objective in its assessment of the validity of using computer models to model the climate and make predictions. I am unsure of what sort of journey she has been on in the last 13 years, but she appears to have completely gone off the deep end somewhere along the way, particularly as there has been no warming in the surface temperature record in that period of time to warrant such a journey into extremism.

And I should say I commend Dr McNeil and Dr Betts in politely telling Dr Oreskes that there is actually a pause in the temperature record as recognised by scientists.

I do wonder if the likes of Dr. Lewandowsky has asked the question that the issues he believes exist, exist because of the activities and papers he writes. i.e. he (and his colleagues) are the (or one of the) causes of the language used on twitter by their extreme denial to accept the empirical evidence.

May 7, 2015 at 1:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterAbc

Several comments have been critical of British universities. Those criticisms are not unjustified but the present situation is the result of continual political pressure on universities to justify their "relevance." What could be more relevant than a global disaster that is a few decades away that might possibly be averted with enough funding?

May 7, 2015 at 1:45 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoy

@ Schrodinger's Cat

I wonder what politically correct word or phrase will be used to replace "pause" if global cooling were to take place.

"Climate change!"

May 7, 2015 at 1:48 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoy

Objective science : "how the language used by ALL people who oppose the scientific consensus on climate change has seeped into scientists’ discussion"
In Lewandowsky's study they seem to show that they are just making propaganda cos they only seek to consider one angle, and also attempt to FRAME discussion by asserting there is a 'consensus' yet indicate no definition.

The press release similarly seeks to FRAME: it uses melting ice graphic : instead of the normal photoshopped power station steam

@redc you say it's the 2013 paper but "The study is published today in Global Environmental Change"
However in the contents I can't actually see that named paper ‘Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community’ by Stephan Lewandowsky, Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell and Michael Smithson

I checked the list of reviewers for that journal :
of 3 Editors one is Declan Conway of Grantham Research, LSE
Assistant Editor is N. Jennings of Grantham Research Institute, LSE
International Editorial Board (of 30 names) includes : R. Betts, M. Hulme UEA

May 7, 2015 at 1:51 PM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

JamesG
I was about to pose almost the same set of questions to Tamsin, should she happen to be passing, until I saw yours. So I'll simply record that I support what you say and would be interested to hear what she has to say.
I think perhaps I might add one further question which is what evidence does she have that this is a temporary blip as opposed to a blind belief that the models must be right and that warming will resume tomorrow, next week, next year, next decade.

May 7, 2015 at 1:53 PM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

Schrodinger's Cat, a pause, hiatus halt, stop or cessation, is still not acceptable to the political faithful.

A "temporary blip" may become acceptable after another 5 years or so, if objections to an unexpected downward reversal become unsustainable.

By the time a "temporary blip" becomes a term of derision, its previous proponents, will have "realligned" their position with the latest cause, and rewritten the history of their belief, to show it was misinformation by big oil.

Of course by then ocean acidification will have eaten through the earth's crust .......

May 7, 2015 at 1:56 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

We will only be able to say that it was a "pause" if the temperature starts to rise again sometime in the future. If it starts to fall maybe we can say that it "took a rest". Or something.

May 7, 2015 at 2:00 PM | Unregistered CommenterJimmy Haigh

The increase in the universities and the student population has produced significant economic gains in their local.* I have often wondered if this was part of the plan when it was determined to be beneficial to increase student population?

One thing for sure the economic gains were derived from significantly increasing borrowing through the subsequent large PFI projects and student loans. Also the extra mortgage borrowing by benevolent parents.

Suppose we could look at it as form of infrastructure spending?
[*local and locality? BH]

May 7, 2015 at 2:03 PM | Registered CommenterGreen Sand

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