Department of Niggling Irritations

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The Metro Section of the Washington Post on February 16 carried an article asking “When things started going downhill?” (it was a tongue-in-cheek article, and quite amusing).

A Mr. Norm Phlion complained that the decline of American civilisation began when Johnson & Johnson removed the tiny red thread from Band-Aid wrappers that made applying a bandage to a bleeding wound quick and easy. “You could well bleed to death before the bandage is available to do its work,” he wrote.

Bingo! For the same reason I will not use Band-Aids. Instead, I use Elastoplast, which used to be made of stretchy fabric that withstood water and rough treatment. Alas, I discovered recently that they have radically changed the product. They have tightly encapsulated each small bandage in sealed plastic that you can’t open. You have to find a pair of scissors, cut right round the plastic and pry the bandage out. By which time there is blood all over everything. To make matters worse the bandage is no longer made of the old fabric and it comes off in no time, especially when moistened. Usage high, utility pathetic.

Why is this petty matter on an Epicurean site, you might ask. Well, the trend is towards cheaper raw materials and easier, automated production, without stopping to think about the end user, standing there getting blood on his clothes etc., using three strips of bandage for wounds that used to be dealt with by one. Secondly, for the injured person the new bandaging from the 2 major global manufacturers does nothing for calm and peace of mind.

They call it ” free enterprise”! Big companies, No.2

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Mr. Brian Moynahan is the CEO of the Bank of America. He was paid $16 million last year, a rise of 23% ($14.5 million was given him in stock and $1.5m in salary). This was after the bank’s share price fell 5.9% over 2015 and has fallen a further 29% this year. During 2015 Bank of America had to re- submit its capital plan under the Fed’s annual stress test, and Moynihan had a battle with investors over whether he should remain Chairman when the bank’s stock was lagging behind that of other banks. (It is generally thought unwise to combine the role of chairman with that of CEO in any large public company). Meanwhile, my wife, who has an account with the Bank of America reports that her local branch has several members of staff typically sitting, peering at computer screens, and usually only one teller working, and a long line of waiting customers, with no one bothering to help them.

This is not free enterprise. It is neither free nor enterprising. An Epicurean government would break it up to serve actual people, especially in small towns and rural areas, where bank consolidation years ago sucked all the savings out of small regional banks and left their customers without lending facilities. The whole Amerocan banking sector has been shamefully mismanaged. Are there no grownups around?

Daylight robbery. Big companies no. 1

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Facebook has set aside more than $2bn (£1.4bn) to settle global tax disputes while refusing to give the British taxman a penny. Mark Zuckerberg’s company, which paid £4,327 in British corporation tax in 2014, is challenging an audit by the Inland Revenue into its operations between 2010 and 2014. The news drags the social networking giant into the spotlight following the Google controversy. (The Week, reporting on an article in The Times)

Meanwhile, at least six of the UK’s 10 largest multinationals — including Shell and Lloyds Banking Group — paid no UK corporation tax in 2014 despite combined global profits of more than £30bn. The Observer newspaper says Tory ministers have been lobbying to protect Google’s £30bn tax haven, telling the European commission that they are “strongly opposed” to sanctions against Bermuda. (http://www.theweek.co.uk/daily-briefing/69102/ten-things-you-need-to-know-today-sunday-31-jan-2016)

The average man in the street has to pay extra taxes to make up for the shortfall created by these huge international companies and their tax evasion boondoggles. Presumably they are playing the same game in every other country they operate in. The taxes saved, one presumes, mostly goes to the management in salaries and perks. How can one support an economic system based on this? It is un-Epicurean to charge people as corrupt without the benefit of actually seeing them give backhanders to pliant lawmakers, but one can’t help but wonder. Bernie is right! At some point the clueless man-in-the-street has to focus on it and vote in politicians who put these tax dodgers back in their boxes. Are there any courageous young people out there we can champion?

Tradeoffs

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Economists talk about tradeoffs, say between equity and growth, and everyone seems to assume that every policy has to have a trade-off, or downside, of some sort. But it is possible to find policies that promote two policies at once that don’t have disagreeable results. Larry Summers, now a professor at Harvard, in an article in the Washington Post (February 8th) gives the example of Obamacare, which has expanded insurance coverage while reducing the rate of increase of overall health costs. He cites anti-trust laws that result in both equity and efficiency, and financial regulation, which reduces the incidence of financial crises and improves economic performance (that is, if stringent enough).

The way to stimulate an economy, for instance, is to get cash into the hands of the poorest segment of the population. Why? Because they spend it immediately, whereas the rich, whose money partially “trickles down” through expensive clothes and fancy apartments, in reality save most of their gains in the form of shares and other monetary instruments. Their money is stuck in limbo, benefitting only the finance industry. Epicureans want policies which try to identify virtuous circles, where positive outcomes are self-reinforcing.

Achievement and ambition, by Seneca

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“It is inevitable that life will not just be very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New preoccupations take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. They do not look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it. (Seneca)

Striving for public recognition, and never letting up, never being satisfied, always comparing yourself to someone richer, more powerful, more talented; all this is stressful and pointless. You might get out of it temporary fame and money, but the toll it takes on you trying to maintain and enhance your position in the public eye is exhausting and, in the end, ephemeral. When you die you die. Nothing will bring you back, and what use is fame and money and power to you dead?