As I have mentioned, I teach Jewish studies to a bunch of 7-9 year olds at my synagogue. We're coming up to the end of term so we're going to be doing Chanukah soon. Today, whilst Christmas shopping I saw a copy of The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story. I find it a good technique to read stories which are relevant to the lesson we're going to learn and flicking through it I thought "Wow, this story has lots of factual information about Chanukah in it, and it has pictures, and it's cool. I should read this to my cheder students." However, then I had a niggly feeling that my knowledge of what is appropriate is not as good as some people's, and it is kind of edgy and it is called 'A Christmas Story', so, as with all of life's great questions, I thought I'd as LJ.
Poll #1488951 Cheder poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

Should I read my cheder class "The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming"?

Leaving aside the issue of whether some forms of contraception have post-fertilisation effects, there is a debate about whether contraception makes people more or less likely to have abortions.

I think the arguments go something like this. Anti-contraception pro-lifers* claim that contraception encourages people to be in denial about the connection between sex and pregnancy. This means that people are more likely to have sex in situations where they definitely don't want to get pregnant and if they do get pregnant, they're more likely to view it as a 'mistake' which should be 'corrected' by abortion. This may seem far fetched, but there is evidence from other areas of life that sometimes actions to improve the safety are outweighed by an increase in risk taking. I don't wear a cycle helmet, in part because there is some evidence that they don't improve your overall safety as drivers drive more dangerously around cyclists wearing helmets because they aren't viewed as as vulnerable.

The pro-contraceptive argument is that, even if people are more likely to have an abortion if they get pregnant, the decrease in the number of unplanned pregnancies when people use contraception are so high that they reduce the number of abortions overall.

So, I think this needs to be looked at empirically. I think being a social scientists can help one make more sense of the correlation and causation. One thing said by anti-contraception advocates is that a large proportion of the women who have abortions were using contraception whereas very few were practising NFP, FAM or LAM. I don't think that this correlation results in a causation. Most people who practice NFP are devout Roman Catholics and they'd be pretty unlikely to have an abortion. So in this case, rather than the use of contraception causing abortion it's more that the lack of contraceptive use and the lack of abortion are both caused by the Roman Catholicism.

A pro-contraception argument is that among developed countries with legal abortion, the countries with the lowest abortion rates are the ones where contraception is most easily available and sex education is most comprehensive, such as the Netherlands. A contrasting argument is that abortion rates have risen in England and the US, even as contraceptive availability has increased.

Thinking about this I'm drawn toward a tentative conclusion. I think that ceteris paribus, more access to contraception reduces the number of abortions, because it dramatically reduces the number of unplanned pregnancies. However, I wonder whether the availability of convenient contraception has led to changes in cultural attitudes to sex and children, which in turn makes people more likely to have abortion because they have more sex and are less willing to accept unplanned children.

*This ignores other arguments against contraception just that they cause more abortions.
**This ignores wider reproductive justice issues.

I'm a liberal, right?

I'm pretty sure that I'm on solid ground saying that politically I'm very much a liberal. I manage to shock liberals by coming out with statements like "I really can't see the justification for keeping illegal consensual incest/bestiality/heroine. Where I feel less certain is in the non-governmental sphere. Increasingly I find myself thinking "well I could agree with that, but that's not a conservative position" about quite a few things. I'll go through a few.

Sex. I didn't have sex with my husband until we got married. That was due to his wishes more than mine, but I can definitely see the merits in having done this. It's nice to only have sex with someone you trust and are committed to. Someone you know will still be around if the sex results in a pregnancy. Someone whose sexual history you know. I know sex doesn't have to be a sacred transcendent expression of a spiritual bond and commitment, but why not have it as that? I can understand why other people want to engage in different life styles, but I'm not sure why a lot of people are so hostile about the idea of celibacy until marriage. I suppose it's because historically standards of virginity have been different for men and women, and they've been used to shame and hurt people, and been associated with homophobia. Still, I think maybe more people should take sex more seriously. I get the impression that more people are having regrettable sex than regretting not having sex.

So on to another topic, responsibility. I think that people should try, as much as possible, to look contribute more than they take, because some people need more than they can contribute. Put that way it sounds quite Bolshevik. It's probably a caricature of liberal individualism to characterise it as take take take.

I'm going to confess, walking through Cambridge on a Friday night makes me think that maybe the Iranians are onto something. This may be terrible hypocrisy as last Friday I got very drunk at a dinner and then had to host a pro-life event the next morning with a hang over. Having said that, I have never been so drunk as to vomit or urinate in the street. I have never been so drunk that I engaged in sexual behaviour with some random stranger. The whole idea of getting drunk without sober trusted friends to look after you nearby seems reckless. That's not victim blaming. People have fallen into the Cam and died because they were walking alone past it drunk.

Porn. I used to find burlesque and pole dancing cool. Now, not so much. I admire the aesthetics of burlesque and the abilities of some of it's performers, but it's just not my thing any more. I suppose I have increasing sympathy for a view expressed that sex like food is a good part of life. However, if people started paying to watch a a roast dinner being slowly revealed and eaten, you'd think something had gone wrong somewhere along the line. I guess a bit part of it is the way that sex has now taken on a meaning for me very much tied up to marriage which isn't conducive to watching it as a performance.

So, have I gone all the way through liberal and out the other side?

I've been thinking about this for a while. To be honest, I don't know if it's a serious suggestion or a bizarre satire.

I think I took things a bit too much to heart as a child when they taught us about sharing. I'm so lucky to have everything I have and I get the urge to share it with people who weren't so lucky. An example of this is that I get the urge to share my husband. I'm so lucky to have him and he's so wonderful that whenever I hear of female friends having difficulty finding a nice male partner I get the urge to say "Look, I found a great one. We could share." Now this is a non-starter because Alec has a say in things and he is deeply monogamous by nature and took the message from Big Love that three wives means three times the nagging and more than three times the arguments. He also claims that if I talk about this to much with female friends they'll start avoiding me.

From a less personal point of view, I notice that there seem to be more good single women than good single men. When I think of my friends, there are lots of women who I can't understand still being single because they seem like such perfect girlfriend/wife material but not so much so with my male friends. I'm starting to think that there just aren't enough good men to go around.

From a more political perspective, I think polygamy could be like political lesbianism lite. I can see the logic of feminist separatism on statistical level. Women with male partners are more likely to be abused by their partners and their children are more likely to be abused by their partners because men are much more likely statistically to be abusive toward their family than women. Sometimes I get infuriated by the way feminism is always having to make itself palatable to men and sometimes I think that logically we should just up and off and set things up without them. On the other hand, I like some men and I don't want men who act kingly and righteously to be excluded from this utopia. I'm also aware that for some women, all the feminist theory in the world isn't going to stop them liking cock.

I think political polygamy could bring some of the advantages of political lesbianism. Women might be safer in polygamous marriages because they are sharing their partners and their living spaces with other women who could be more likely to see and act to protect each other and their children from abuse. They could also help to screen potential husbands for each other. Women could see how a man acted with his current partners to see whether he had abusive tendencies which only came out when he was living with a partner. So one side of the benefit can be summarised as women who share husbands would be able to protect each other.

The other side of it is that if you practise polygamy you don't have to have as many married men as in polygamous society. You can skim off the least sexist/abusive x% of men to have relationships with women and not have to expose women to the rest of them. Furthermore, the very real risk that if they don't sort themselves out they'll not be able to get a female partner, could force men to stop thinking that they're G@d's gift just because they have a Y chromosome. If a man doesn't want to do his share of the housework, he knows that his girlfriend could leave him for a man whose wives will confirm that he does. I suppose it's a similar argument to those saying that popular schools should be able to expand their intake. Good husbands will have more wives and all men will have to be better husbands if they want to have a wife.

Like I said, I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or a parody. Just some thinking out of the box.

Most of my LJ friends get more comments on their blogs than I do. I suppose I could put it down to their longer mutual friends lists, or their style of writing, but I can't help but feel a little unloved. Anyway, I thought I'd post a blatant comment whoring post. I've noticed that 36 journals have friended me but I haven't friended them back. This is nothing personal, I just tend not to add people unless I'm very sure I want to read their journal. Some of them, I have no idea who they are and why they've friended me, particularly if their LJ is entirely in a foreign language.

So, the question, to mutual friends, people who've friended me and people who are reading incognito is: Why are you reading my LJ?

(Please answer in comments.)

I've never been to a Quaker meeting. It's one of those things I've always sort of meant to do but never gotten around to. This week I've been interacting with a few Quakers and heard an account of the meetings which led to the decision to marry same sex couples. One of my friends, who is dating a Quaker, said that she didn't think I'd enjoy Quaker worship. We're both bouncy talkative people and she thought I'd share her difficulty and discomfort staying quiet for an hour. At first glance, yabbering out lots of pre-written prayers with accompanying ritualistic actions, could not be more different to quiet Quaker worship meetings. This Erev Shabbat, however, I was struck by a possible similarity. The Ereve shabbat service is now very familiar to me, particularly the way it is done in the minyan I usually daven with. I've noticed that increasingly each Friday, as my mouth sings and chants the words, my mind wanders into meditation. Sometimes it will spring off part of the prayers I am repeating and lead me into thinking over the past week, thinking about my life and how it can be more G@d centred and what the prayers of my heart really are. I'm not really articulate enough to compose prayers. When the words are taken care of for me and the verbal part of my brain is kept occupied I'm free to achieve the peace and spiritual engagement associated with quiet meditation. Maybe that's a possible meaning of the part of the High Holidays liturgy about the hearing a still small voice in the loud blast of the shofar.

One of the things about being close to, but not part of, the Anglican church, is that when there is ecumenical drama I can sit back with the pop corn without mourning the situation of my own religion.* On the other hand, this is the church of lots of the people I love, so I do have a vested interest in its goings on. I suppose the thing to remember in all this is that the this whole kerfuffle, whilst making the news, is quite peripheral to most members of the Church of England. Forward in Faith only represent about 800 parishes worldwide, to put that into context the diocese of Ely contains over 300 parishes. More than anything, when sections of the Church of England drive me to despair, I think of the work that Alec does as a part-time chaplain at the local hospital: bringing comfort and listening to the believers and those without a faith; to Anglicans and Roman Catholics all manner of other faiths; to regular churchgoers and those who, for a variety of reasons, haven't set foot in a place of worship in years, but now wish to speak to him; to the healing and the dying. I know that theology and sacraments are important, but increasingly I feel that that human connection, which transcends our doomed attempts to classify and understand the universe, is what it's really all about.

That all got rather earnest so without further ado, some links of reactions to the Pope's announcement of plans for personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering the Catholic Church.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about here is an article about what's going on.

Christina Rees and Rev Dr Giles Fraser of St Paul's Cathedral reacting to the the announcement on the Today programme. Neither seemed particularly concerned by the prospect of chunks of Forward in Faith leaving the church. Giles Fraser's said that he had nothing but congratulations for people who found a better fit outside of the Anglican church. Chistina Rees position could possibly best be summarised as "Off you fuck".

Bishop Alan (the first blogging CofE bishop) echos Rev Dr Fraser's sentiments with the insightful caveat that:

"Assimilating a lot of people who perhaps have struggled, and some might even say haven’t made a raging success of living within their own tradition, you’ll get two sorts of “convert”:

1. people who really should try out and perhaps are called by God to be part of the Roman tradition. Becoming Roman Catholics will enable them to be better disciples, so the whole Church of God, every denomination, is enriched — the wealth of one Christian expression is the resource of all: Hip, hip, hooray!

2. people who aren’t terribly good at living in any tradition on anything but their own terms. “The disciplines and relationships of Community are for the little people...”"

**

So, at least three Anglican's are happy with the move. More concerned is Catholic comedian Frank Skinner in his piece My Church is not a safe haven for bigots. He raises the point that conversion to Catholicism should really be due to positive feelings about the church rather than negative feelings about a different church, although his list of possible attractions to Rome is, perhaps, a little unconventional.

"If the Anglicans seeking this shelter were doing so because of their instinctive recognition of a great truth; because some part of them yearned for the poetry of the Old Church, rather than the prose of Anglicanism; because they had come to believe that the Pope was a direct, if sometimes fractured, link with St Peter; or even just because they felt an unexpected surge of joy when Glasgow Rangers lost 4-1 at Ibrox on Tuesday night, I would rejoice at their return to the fold. The fatted calf would already be on the rotisserie."

Another group not happy with possible exodus is Reform, a group of Conservative Anglican's at the low evangelical end of the church. As their press release shows. They're so keen not to see half the members of their special anti-female bishops club leave that they say that even if a priest believes in the doctrines of the Church of Rome, they should still consider staying in the Church of England so that they don't have to submit to so much discipline.

Finally, there's the people who might leave. I have to say, it's not as if anything's been preventing them from paping all these years and they've even been allowed to keep their wives since the first wave of priests crossed the Tiber to escape female ordination. The tone of the post doesn't generate much sympathy on my part.

"Please note, the desire for buildings and fabric is not a money grabbing point, rather it is a pastoral consideration. The British hold firm allegiance to bricks and mortar, a fact regardless of the rights and wrongs entailed. It would seem churlish, for example, to take S. Barnabas church building from a congregation that has only ever worshipped in the Catholic tradition, especially when there are so many other churches in Tunbridge Wells! Why not offer the emerging RC Anglican Patrimony Church a place in which to worship? A small sacrifice for the gift of women bishops."

That last line just sounds a bit too much like some arsehole blackmailing his wife over a get. What's a few tens of thousands of pounds/churches for getting me out of your life?

As this set of links is, of course, hugely influenced by my own prejudices here's a link to a page of lots more links about the story.

*It reminds me of an anecdote Ed Kessler likes telling about how an Orthodox priest friend of his reads the Jewish Chronicle and explains that reading about all of the broigus in the Jewish community makes him feel so much better about his own church.

**I wonder whether the use of Tinky Winky to illustrate the post was a covert reference to a particular part of priestly discipline that some of the priests and bishops who have threatened t leave the church over female bishops aren't so good with.

00. Think of the first word that comes to mind when you think of me.
01. Go to Google Images and search for that word.
02. Reply to this post with one of the pictures on the first page of results (don't tell me the word).
03. Feel free to replicate this meme or not as you see fit

To insert an image into a comment, use .

No, it's not a spoof and yes, I'm sad I missed it. I think I have a plan for next year's Pro-Life Soc squash.

http://www.cupcakesforlife.org/index.html

It's time to give some money to charity again so I'm having a think about who to give it to. Previously I've tended to give money to Oxfam, as it seems like the charity to give money to if you want to help the neediest people in the most cost effective way. The think that's given me pause on this approach was a session I was in at Limmud last Christmas where mention of Oxfam led to the kind of reaction of tuts which signals that an organisation is seen as 'against us'. Looking at it I can't pin point a lot that Oxfam has done to deserve this branding. It has criticised a lot of stuff Israel has done and to by honest I don't agree with a lot of the things it's criticised. It's not as anti-Israel as a lot of Christian humanitarian NGOs. Oxfam Belgium advocated a boycott of Israeli products with a pretty pretty nasty poster. I'm not sure whether that should influence my giving to Oxfam UK. They do the NGO thing criticising Israel lots because it's easy and Israel isn't going to boot them out for doing it and it goes down well with certain sections of the population who might donate to them. Is that enough to put me off donating to them? On the other hand Oxfam isn't the only charity help the poorest so if I'm feeling uneasy maybe I should go with one which definitely doesn't get involved with Israel.

One which impressed me was Microloan Foundation. I like this for a number of reasons. The first is that it operates to improve things in Malawi, which is one of the poorest countries in the world. Microfinance appeals to me, both as an economist and as a Jew, as I think helping someone get to the point where they can make their own living is one of the highest forms of charity in halacha. Most of all it appeals to me as a feminist because enabling women to earn and control their own economic livelihoods can empower them in every aspect of their lives. Helping to increase women's economic power also tends to improve the health and welfare of children.

Alec is keen on Book Aid International. Both of these charities got good reviews on a 'which charities are good value for money' website.

Poll #1462317 Birthright
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

Should I apply to go on the UJIA Birthright trip this winter?

I moved last month into a lovely huge house, which some of you will have seen at my barbeque. I set up mail redirection before we moved and, apart from it starting a week late despite my applying within the amount of time officially required, it's going well. We're also making progress informing everyone who needs to know of the new address. Some people have not been so organised with their post. Since we arrived we've actually received more post for the previous residents than for ourselves. I'm not sure what to do with it.

So, t'internets, what am I supposed to do with all this post? We're planning to ask the landlord if she left a forwarding address, but failing that, what should we do? Can we return it all to sender? Should we just throw it away?

I'm about to start as a Sunday school teacher, but as it's Jewish Sunday school I've got a text book and a syllabus to follow.

I'm teaching two 50 minute Jewish knowledge classes, one of 7 year olds and one of 8 year olds. So a couple of questions for my readers to help me with.

What kind of a level are 7 and 8 year olds at? At the moment I'm thinking of doing three to four activities a class. I'll probably use the first lesson with each class to gauge how much they know and where they're at.

Do you know any good resources for Jewish education for this age group? With one class we'll be concentrating on the festivals and with the other class we'll be mainly doing Bible stories, along with a bit on the festivals which occur this term. I'm looking for songs, games, worksheets etc.

Any other tips?

I am emailing because my phone isn't fucking connected because I lost the will to live after 16 minutes of what I thought was your "quick" start line but appears to be the Michael Jackson memorial line, which I had to pay to listen to as I had to call from a mobile as my landline still isn't fucking connected. There's a recession employ more call centre people. I'll be switching to BT if your customer service sinks to the depths of NTL.

Connect my fucking phone.

The blogosphere is erupting with criticism and praise for the NHS, which divides along national lines. One thing you have to understand is that the NHS is one of the most sacred things to British identity. We love whingeing about it but we love it and believe it to be better than the alternatives. I'm not sure what a US equivalent would be, maybe Congress, in that they complain about it all the time but say bollocks like that it's the only true democracy in the world.

I'll be honest, some people are better off in the US system then in the UK system. The main people who are better of are:
Very rich people, because they will use private health care in both systems and in the UK system they pay twice, although this depends on how rich they are compared to how sick they get. The NHS effectively subsidises private healthcare in the UK because the moment something goes seriously wrong the patient can be transferred to an NHS hospital for them to pick up the pieces.
People who make money out of the US system e.g. people with shares in health insurance companies, medical staff probably get paid more in the US etc.
People who might benefit from expensive treatments with low success rates. Extremely premature babies are more likely to survive in the US, because US hospitals better, much more expensive treatment for them. All the extra money Americans spend on health care per capita does improve the outcome of some people at the margins.
You might be better off if you've got good, particularly employer based cover, as long as you don't get too sick. However, on average Americans pay more for their insurance than Brits do for our NHS and insurance companies put a horrific amount of time and energy into finding reasons to avoid paying out (more on that later). It also causes problems in that one's options to change jobs or marry and divorce are restricted by the effect it will have one's health coverage.

I think that I take this discussion a bit personally because my family is one of the groups of people who are much better off under the UK system. My husband has a chronic health condition (well actually a couple of them) and don't think he'd be able to get insurance in the US. As there's a strong genetic factor to it, I'm not sure if our children would either.

Anyway, what I really want to talk about, and the inspiration for the title of this post, is rationing in healthcare. Here is the uncomfortable truth: all healthcare systems involve rationing. The amount of money we could spend on healthcare tends toward infinite, or at least exceeds the per capita GDP of any country. Even if we spent the bare minimum on housing and food and every other penny on health care, we'd still have to ration healthcare in some way, and our health would be worse because access to good food and housing have a much bigger impact upon health than access to MRI machines. I'm at peace with that. I honestly prefer to have a MacBook and a house with a garden, to the couple of months my life expectancy might be extended by spending more on healthcare. If I felt differently, in the UK I'm free to purchase private healthcare and the only limit would be the amount of money I was willing and able to spend. All systems require some way of deciding which treatments, which might improve a patients chances, aren't worth the extra expense.

One of the arguments being used against a UK style system is the bogey man of healthcare rationing, which led to the amazingly stupid statement that “scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” Of course, the (sadly for my faith in humanity not deliberate) mistake is that Stephen Hawking is British has lived in Britain for the majority of his life (his being a professor at the University of Cambridge is a clue) and regular relies upon the NHS for healthcare. Maybe they were confused because he his speech box has an American accent.

The picture being spread by opponents of healthcare reform is of Orwellian panels before which people will have to justify their existence to receive healthcare. That's not actually how it works in the UK. We have an institution called the National Institute for Clinical Evidence, or NICE for short. Their job is to decide what treatments are cost effective to provide. They do this by comparing a treatment to the number of QuALYs (quality adjusted life years) it can be expected to provide a patient. Here is where the tiny grain of truth in the likes of Palin's criticism of the NHS comes in. As the years are quality adjusted, treatments which return a patient to full health are more likely to be paid for than a treatments which leave a patient in pain or with a disability.* This is a much discussed paradox in healthcare economics, it intuitively makes sense that a treatment which saves your life is better than a treatment which saves your life and leaves you blind, and patients faced with two treatments, one of which is slightly more risky but one of which may lead to a serious disability, may well prefer the more risky treatment. However, we don't like the result that saving the life of a blind person is worth less than saving the life of a sighted person. Happily most of the time these kinds of concerns aren't very relevant to NHS rationing decisions. Most treatments which don't get approved by NICE don't get approved because they're not very effective, or even have negative consequences which outweigh the positive ones, or there are alternative treatments which are cheaper and just as good. The big one which has made the headlines are certain very expensive cancer drugs. The thing which really stopped NICE approving them was that they only had quite a low chance of extending life a few months. We could get all sentimental about doing everything possible to extend someone's life, but if you give someone with terminal cancer the option of a 5% chance of an extra three months with end stage cancer or the equivalent money's worth of really good palliative care, such as 24 hour nursing in their own home, they might not pick the drugs.

And as a stated above, all healthcare systems involve rationing, even in the US. In the US rationing takes the form of whether your insurance company or you yourself will pay for it. I think maybe Americans get more squeaked by the government making life of death decisions than by leaving them to the private sector. Some insurance policies have explicit exclusions. A lot of the time they do it through rescission. Rescission is the process by which an insurance company declares a policy invalid, without having to return the premiums paid, usually under the legal reason that they was a misrepresentation or mistake on the patients original application forms. I say 'legal reason' because if you want to make a profit, there's not much point dropping clients whose medical costs are less than their premiums, even if they have made a mistake on their forms. If they're motivation were purely legal they'd explain it as "rescission is essential for combating fraud" rather than "it is one of many protections supporting the affordability and viability of individual health insurance in the United States under our current system" as Don Hamm’s (CEO of Assurant) said. He also said that rescission only effects less than 0.5% of the people Assurant covers, which sounds pretty small until you take into account that 90% of the US population use less healthcare each year than the cost of the average insurance premium. There's not much point in an insurance company rescinding their policies, given that they're making a net profit. So that 0.5% becomes a 5% chance that your insurance will cancel your policy if your healthcare costs more than that year's premium. If they target the rescissions at the 1% most expensive patients you're looking at a 50% chance of rescission if your healthcare costs go over $35,543. Here's blog a cribbed most of this off. It also features a great video in which no one in a commerce subcommittee, including the CEO of Assurant, can work out what their "easy to fill in" form means. Insurance companies have a really strong financial incentive to make sure that you don't fill in your form correctly so that they can get out of it if you get too sick. Rationing happens in all healthcare systems. In the UK it's done by government agencies; in the US it's done by insurance companies. I prefer a system in which these decisions are made transparently by people who answer to the people I elect.

Which brings me back to Stephen Hawking. Today, Prof. Hawking would receive great healthcare in either country because he's famous and eminent. However, if he'd been a US grad student when he was diagnosed with his condition at the age of 21 how likely would he have been to one of those 0.5% of patients who face rescission?

*Just to clarify, this doesn't mean that you're less likely to receive a treatment just because you have a disability. NICE makes decisions about treatments not patients. The only way in which patients pre-existing conditions work their way into the maths is when they impact upon the likely effects of the treatment, for example, there's not much point treating someone's prostate cancer if their going to die from kidney failure long before the cancer spreads from their prostate. The only place I see rationing based upon pre-existing conditions really biting is in donor transplant, where your chances of receiving an organ is lower if your life expectancy is lower or your condition makes the transplant less likely to be successful. I'm not sure of a way private healthcare could get around that other than the even more distasteful idea of organs going to the highest bidder or buying organs.

I think I may be becoming a Post Keynesian, or rather a Keynesian, as I've been won over by his own writings rather than those of his followers. I've never previously had much of an interest in macroeconomics. I think this may be because the macroeconomics I was taught tended to be tosh. It would be an insult to the intelligence of a small child to try to get them to buy the idea that the economy is always efficient and all unemployment is voluntary, so trying to convince Cambridge undergraduates of such things is ridiculous. Of course we need to know of such theories so that we can accurately mock critique them.* One of the thing which annoys me is how badly the few ideas of Keynes we were allowed to hear were distorted in the retelling. I clearly remember a lecturer claiming that Keynesian economics were silly because it claimed that people always saved a fixed proportion of their income. This is completely false. Having just finished reading The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money I can tell you that he doesn't claim that. He makes the quite reasonable claims that a) people tend to consume more when their income is higher and b) richer people tend to save a larger proportion of their income than poorer people. He also includes a complex of analysis of what factors, economic, cultural, social, influence people's decisions to consume and save. I'm not sure whether they just simplify everything because all economics has to be in terms of equations to be allowed in an undergraduate lecture course or they are purposely misrepresenting Keynesian economics to provide a straw man.

*One of the most amusing things about these models is the ways they try to find 'empirical evidence' for their theories. Not put off by the argument "but there is such a thing as involuntary unemployment", a fact which is felt particularly pertinently by my third year undergraduates, they tend to do this thing where they set up a stochastic mathematical model, run it a shit load of times, and then proudly declare that, once they calibrate their variable correctly, that the mean and standard deviation of various economic variables is the same as that for the real economy. If I were a journal editor I would publish their paper next to one in which a stochastic mathematical model of how the flying spaghetti monster controls the economy manages to come up with the same mean and standard deviation for pertinent economic variables.

I am thinking about our finances. I've formulated a plan for saving in a slightly more organised way once we move into our new house and have covered all the costs of that. My mind now turns to insurance. One of the letter agents we spoke to when looking for a house required tenants to have contents insurance. Our letting agent hasn't mentioned anything about this, but I'll ask him when I call to organise signing the contract tomorrow.

Neither Alec nor I have ever had contents insurance. We just didn't own enough stuff for it to be worthwhile. When we moved into our current flat I called around for a few quotes, but the total value of our possessions is about half the minimum amount of most insurance companies.

Some factors to consider:
I get the impression that the reason some letting agents require one to get insurance is so that it covers the cost if the tenants damage the building. Is it worth getting this kind of insurance?
I've had a bit of a look and I think it would cost about £100 a year to insure all our stuff.
We have more money in the bank than the total value of all our possessions to a factor of nearly two.
Most of our possessions are second hand and if we needed to replace them we'd prefer to replace them with second hand objects.
Poll #1441826 Insurance
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

Should we get insurance?

I was watching Sex: My Big Decision and, during a bit in which the mums recounted their awkward/traumatic first sexual experiences, Alec commented "I should go on a show like this and say 'I didn't have sex until I was 25 when I got married and it was brilliant. Ha!'"

This morning began with me yelling at the radio and feeling violent urges toward a government minister. The reason was Phil Woolas* discussing plans to introduce a points system to obtaining British citizenship. He talked about how people would gain points by having needed skills and qualifications, by speaking English and by doing slightly nebulous Good Things. I've got less of a problem with this, although I'm concerned that it may be administered in a way which discriminates against people with disabilities. Will knowing BSL count for as many points as being able to speak English? Will people with intellectual disabilities have a lower standard to reach than people without intellectual disabilities? I wouldn't be surprised if these sorts of issues were just overlooked by the Home Office. There was a case recently where a man was refused a visa for his fiancée because, although he worked full time and had enough money to support her, he received non-means tested benefits because he was blind, and this made him ineligible as a guarantor for her. So the Home Office has previous form of completely failing to take into account how their stupid rules will impact upon certain minorities.

The issue which got me yelling though, was his explanation of what one could lose points for (and remember points mean passports). They say that immigrants could loss points for 'bad behaviour'. You can listen to the interview here.

Anyway, here are some choice quotes:
"Well clearly freedom of speech is guaranteed by law for citizens"
"we thinks it's right to say if we're asking the new citizen, as incidentally other countries around the world do, have an oath of allegiance to that country it's right to try to define in some objective terms what that means and clearly acceptance of the democratic rule of law and the principle behind that we think is important and we think it's fair to ask that. You're absolutely right to say that the definition is going to be what's debated but the principle which we're putting forward this morning we think will carry support and we think it's right but..."
Interviewer: "Are you effectively saying to people who want to have a British passport "You can have one and once you've got one you can demonstrate as much as you like, but until then don't?"
Woolas "In essence yes. In essence we are saying that the test which applies to the citizen should be broader than the test which applies to the person who wants to be a citizen. I think that is a fair point of view to say that if you want to come to our country and settle er that you should show that adherence and incidentally I think part of the mistake in this debate in/and the public comment is the assumption that the migrant doesn't accept that point of view. The vast majority in my experience do want to show that they are willing to integrate and support our way of life."

The thing I find most disturbing is that this interview clearly indicates that lawful peaceful protest is seen by the government as not part of our 'way of life' and as 'bad behaviour' which will just about be tolerated from citizens, due to those pesky human rights laws, but will be punished in all who the government discretion over the fate of. A similar pattern can be seen in school citizenship education, in which the emphasis is placed upon being compliant rather than active engagement political issues and debate. Peaceful lawful protest is set in opposition to "the democratic rule of law" whereas in my view, peaceful lawful protest is an integral part of the democratic process and part of the purpose of the rule of law is to protect it and allow it to flourish. I am a better, not a worse, citizen for the protests I have participated in. There is a LJ icon I've seen some Americans have which says something like "Because I love my country I challenge my government". The democratic process needs activities other than just voting in elections to function. The parliament in Westminster elected every 4-5 years and only a hand full of parties stand a hope of being elected. Manifestos are only a few pages long and don't even begin to cover everything, and even if they did, circumstances change and policies need to change with them. This is where campaigning comes into play. We didn't get the Gender Recognition Act didn't get passed because people just voted in the election. Voting in a government who would be open to the idea was a start, but the Act wouldn't have been passed if Press for Change had not spent years organising themselves and campaigning, including protesting, for the change in the law. Most government policies are never in election manifestos and for this reason the democratic process requires continual engagement in policy making from the public.

Anyway, here's a fun example of protest changing government policy, involving Phil Woolas.


*When I mentioned his name to a sleepy Alec he replied "Is that that racist government minister?" and "He's like the Daily Mail in a badly fitting suit".