Gov borrowing

The Chancellor announced in his Budget today:

• Public borrowing to increase to £175bn this year
• Borrowing levels to rise by £173bn, £140bn, £118bn and £97bn in years after

Boggling quantities and troubling thinking about the taxation (or spending cuts) needed to replay this lot.

(BBC at-a-glance)

Terror police

yet another case of appalling behaviour by police, spuriously citing 'anti-terror':

Elephant & Castle artist shocked by ‘terror’ arrest

and worst of all, they're unrepentant, as with so many recent abuses, so this sort of excess/abuse will continue.

Tesco storm drain on Riverside

Cambridge Evening News story: Storm drain may be a killer, Tesco told.

A FAULTY storm drain close to the River Cam in Cambridge could kill, council chiefs have warned.

They claim that Tesco is responsible for the drain - and are demanding the store giant takes urgent action to make it safe.

The potentially deadly drain runs from under Tesco's Newmarket Road site down to the river.

[...]

The story refers to this clip on YouTube.

I went past this spot a few days later and had wondered about the broken manhole cover in the middle of the road.

I wonder if Tesco will try to evade their responsibility?

They're not behaving responsibly in Mill Road: the No Mill Road Tesco Campaign.

The problem with bail-outs

From the FT, Tue Sep 30th 2008: a very elegant exposition...

The problem with bail-outs

If you owe the bank $10, it’s your problem. If you owe the bank $10m, it’s the bank’s problem.

If you and a million others owe the bank $10 each, it’s still your problem – but now it’s also the bank’s problem.

If the bank then sells to an investor the $10 you owe, it ought to be the investor’s problem. But if you have a problem repaying the $10 and the bank insured the investor against your problem, then it’s both the investor’s problem and the bank’s problem.

Your problems and your neighbours’ problems and the investor’s problems mean the bank now owes another bank $10bn. That is both banks’ problem. But if banks can’t or won’t pay the $10bn they owe to other banks, it’s very quickly a $700bn systemic problem.

And if the government then owes the banking system $700bn, it’s your problem.

andrew.hill@ft.com

Badger culls

I've found the battles over badger culling fascinating : it's one of the instances in current public policy where there's no consensus yet in the science. [DEFRA] The Government's response to the Krebs Report [Commons Select Committee on Agriculture] The Krebs Report [Woodland Trust] Bovine Tuberculosis in cattle and badgers [DEFRA] TB in cattle [BBC 8 March 2006] 'Hedges not cull' for cattle TB [BBC 7 July 2008] Benn confirms TB cull rejection