Bereft of effective leadership!

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“I am opposed to the UK government’s key policy (Brexit), but then so, until recently, was she (Theresa May). There’s a job that doesn’t need doing and, increasingly, it feels like she is just the person not to do it.” (David Mitchell, Guardian Weekly, April 13)

Meanwhile, a friend pointed out that the ineffectiveness of the Labour opposition is rational, if hardly patriotic or responsible. Who in their right mind would want to take on the Brexit negotiations? The last thing the opposition wants is a General Election that they could possibly win. Would you welcome this poisoned chalice, especially since many Labour voters are reportedly changing their mind and are now Remainers?

The other side of the coin is this: What are national politicians for unless they aim to help run the country as pragmatic leaders? Looking back years to dreams of pure Socialism, unsullied by reality, is doing favours to no one. There is currently no Her Majesty’s Opposition”. Epicurus advised against going into politics, and you can understand why. But he never said there should be no effective government!

Immigration again: victims of domestic and gang violence

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In recent months, there has been a surge in the number of immigrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigrant rights advocates say that is because they’re fleeing extreme violence in their home countries — violence that shows no signs of abating.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has broad powers over the nation’s immigration courts, has now imposed new limits on who can get asylum in the United States. “Asylum was never meant to alleviate all problems — even all serious problems — that people face every day all over the world,” he is reported as saying. In his decision, Sessions argues the asylum system is intended to protect not victims of violent crime but people fleeing from persecution, like religious minorities or political dissidents. Immigrant rights advocates, on the other hand, fear the lives of asylum-seekers will be in danger when they are returned to their countries of origin.

Sessions and other immigration hard-liners say that it has become too easy to claim asylum in the United States — and that migrants know this and game the system. Immigrant advocates, however, say Sessions is taking away an essential lifeline for victims of domestic abuse and gang violence and turning his back on an American legacy of protecting the most vulnerable, particularly those women who are persecuted by their husbands and ignored by their own governments. (edited version of an article by Joel Rose, NPR News, June 11 2018).

It is legitimate to try to winnow out the cheaters and gangsters. Having said that, the US would almost grind to a halt (only a slight exaggeration) if there were no immigrants willing to serve tables, pick fruit, tidy gardens, clear gutters and paint houses. Why? Because white Americans are not prepared to take those poor-paying jobs, and the white birthrate doesn’t in any case provide a big enough workforce to meet demand. I agree that bringing over grandparents and extended family members is (arguably) a stretch.

It is instructive to note that the Greeks in the days of Epicurus had slaves to do the work similar to that of modern immigrants. But these slaves could look forward to eventual freedom. This wasn’t the slavery of the ante-bellum South. Epicurus himself is noted for treating them with human kindness and respect, welcoming them as equals into his garden.

In short, we need immigrants; let them be.

Are you being a “fascist” if you want to curb immigration?

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“Here’s some advice to my fellow liberals: If you want to defend liberal democracy in this age of “noisy populist movements”, stop condemning people who disagree with you about immigration. In both America and Europe, liberal commentators tend to treat every call for immigration curbs as a xenophobic assault on democracy.

“Yet the conflation of liberal values with an enthusiastically pro-immigration stance “mistakes a policy preference for a first principle”. Wide-open borders are not a prerequisite of a democratic society in the way that, say, a free press or judicial independence are. “Populist” proposals to restrict immigration here and in Europe are “actually quite popular”.

“Many on the Left not only refuse to acknowledge this, but behave as if the very concept of borders is immoral. Activists “egg on” so-called sanctuary cities to defy federal immigration laws, and call for policies that would “eliminate any meaningful distinctions between citizens and non-citizens”. As long as liberals refuse to make any concessions on immigration, and portray “every move to strengthen borders or discourage further migratory waves” as one more step in the march to fascism, “the only people who benefit will be fascists”. (James Kirchick, New York Post, March 24 2018)

What should be the attitude of Epicureans to migration? I reach for one of the obvious principles: moderation. Given a wide enough door you get a large influx, including grannies, aunts and uncles, who may need financial and housing support. The new immigrants keep their own language and culture en masse, making integration difficult. We are all tribal to some extent, and it is natural and human for the indigenous folk to resent the change in their culture and way of life, not to mention the diversion of resources (especially housing). It is not “fascist”.

My personal attitude is that we should accept refugees from violence and war, but for, say , five years or until the conflict ends. These people should be helped, but then return to rebuild their countries. Then, we should welcome those with badly needed education and skills (since we are not good, on either side of the Atlantic, at producing them ourselves). But illegal immigration is illegal immigration, and I think it is reasonable to ask illegals to wait in line and enter through the official system, making their case as they go.

I am a legal immigrant to the United States and I went through (the long, clumsy, bureaucratic) system with increasing dismay, but stuck at it and eventually became a dual citizen. What I did others can do. Moderation.

Helping the less well-off

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What can be done to stem the populist anger felt by people who feel adrift in the modern economy? Across the world politicians have been seizing on the same remedy: raise the minimum wage. Businesses and economists have long claimed this would cost jobs: yet that’s not what happened when Germany introduced a minimum wage of €8.50 in 2015, to help those who’d “slipped through the cracks of its otherwise strong economy”. A new study by the EU agency Eurofound has shown that wage inequality in Germany fell in 2015 by more than in any other EU country, as did wage disparities between rich and poor regions, yet with no damage to job prospects.

So now Germany is set to raise the minimum by a further 4%. It has been a similar story here in Britain: a higher minimum wage introduced in 2016 has led to a 10% increase for those on the lowest wage rung: yet employment rates are at record highs. But it’s no panacea, and not just because raising the minimum beyond a certain level can backfire. The enduring problem is that even if better paid, most of those on the bottom rung never climb up to the next. Until we solve that one, people at the bottom will continue to feel adrift and angry.
(Sarah O’Connor, Financial Times)

The fact is that those on a minimum wage spend all they get and save little or nothing. This translates into higher sales for basic goods everywhere and a stronger economy. Germany seems to be a good example. The corollary is that if you have a huge giveaway to the rich most of the proceeds are either saved or spent on luxuries. If you want to prime an economy you should boost the income of the poorest people and watch as it is all spent immediately on necessities. I am no economist, but this is common sense. Not, however, to politicians dependent on election funds from the rich.

One of the most noticeable things on both sides of the Atlantic is that, as retail businesses disappear at the hands of online commerce, the empty spaces left on the high street or shopping mall are often taken by small fast food businesses or cheap restaurants. This is because they are relatively cheap to set up, require small-ish capital outlays and it is easy to find workers. But their owners can be the most resistant to paying higher minimum wages. We who shop online are making uncomfortable beds for ourselves.

Why Jeremy Corbyn should resign.

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Last week I posted about why the centre-left is in decline. Today, I wanted to talk about a party that has bucked the trend. Since Jeremy Corbyn succeeded Ed Miliband as the British Labour Party leader following its defeat in the 2015 general election, he has done what hardly anyone thought possible- substantially increase the proportion of people voting for a centre-left party. Contrary to expectations, the 2017 general election went surprisingly well for Labour, who received 40% of the vote. Not only that, Labour went from having just over 100 000 members when Corbyn took over to having 550 000 today. Corbyn survived a leadership contest against the hapless Owen Smith, and now has unchallenged authority within the party. And while much of that success was undoubtedly due to an ineffective and lacklustre Conservative campaign, Corbyn nevertheless deserves credit for bringing his partly within touching distance of power.

I’ve spoken before about the British Left’s anti-Semitism problem, before it became the salient issue it is now. I stand my ground in my analysis: that Corbyn has isn’t anti-Semitic himself, but far too tolerant of those who are, partly because some anti-Semites are fellow Palestinian nationalists. But Corbyn’s recent handling of the scandal, including his refusal to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, is shameful. He ought to resign before Labour wrongly gets a reputation as a racist party, not helped of course by a largely hostile press.

However, Corbyn’s approach to the anti-Semitism row isn’t the only reason why he should resign. The Conservative minority government is one of the weakest in living memory. On every major issue, it is bitterly divided. Brexit- the biggest event Britain has experienced since WW2- is being negotiated by the most incompetent and foolish people imaginable. Post-recession wage stagnation is the worst of any developed country expect Greece. London and its hinterlands are facing a severe housing crisis, which has reduced disposable incomes, home ownership rates and increased homelessness. Child poverty has increased as a result of changes to the welfare system and is forecast to increase further. Britain is in a dire state, as the currency markets have made that clear by the Pound’s continued decline.

But the Corbyn-led Labour Party has failed to capitalise on any of this. It hasn’t produced a coherent alternative to the government’s Brexit plans, preferring to criticise the Conservatives opportunistically and inconsistently. It has no post-Brexit vision. Its members are pro-EU and favour a second referendum, yet the leadership lacks the courage and the conviction to argue for one. It talks a good talk on welfare, yet in practice, they propose to keep the vast majority of the welfare cuts in place. Labour has some popular policies, like railways re-nationalisation. But without the willingness to pull those policies together in a compelling, workable alternative plan, as well as the political nous to address scandals, they mean little.

Corbyn should resign because Britain desperately needs a strong opposition and comprehensive alternative to this shambolic Tory government. Corbyn became Labour leader because he was seen as different. In recent months he has failed to distinguish himself- on Brexit, austerity, and an overall commitment to a liberal society. He should be replaced by someone who can properly articulate a social democratic future. My personal preference would be the MP for Tottenham, David Lammy. On scandals faced by the Conservatives, such as the Grenfell Tower blaze or the deportation of British citizens who came to Britain in the 50s, he has held them to account with more eloquence and passion than anyone else. He shares Corbyn’s belief in the necessity of state infrastructure investments and well-funded social insurance programmes. But he lacks the current leader’s Euroscepticism, which has alienated Labour’s youthful base and made an honest, consistent Brexit policy impossible. More importantly, he isn’t associated with the sins of the old Left: the unconditional support for Palestinian nationalists, Irish nationalists, Iran, and South American autocrats like Chavez and Castro. No one can charge Lammy with wanting to take Britain back to the 1970s. But even if it isn’t Lammy, Labour needs to change. Complacency in the aftermath of the 2017 surprise could be the party’s undoing. It needs to be credible at all times. And under Corbyn, that simply won’t happen.

 

Come back melody!

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Yesterday my wife and I went to the Proms at the Albert Hall in London to see a concert performsnce of “West Side Story”. I have seen it three times now and have come to s conclusion: West Side Story is arguably the finest musical work of sheer genius of the 20th Century. Including everything aside from pop music. It encompasses a string of besutiful, moving melodies, sophisticated dissonances, complex Latin rhythms, end even tritones in the melody. And it has a story that parallels that of Romeo and Juliet, with brilliant lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. I had tears in my eyes almost throughout.

Leonard Bernstein was indeed a genius. It made me realise that modern serious music hit the railway buffers somwewhere near the beginning of the 20th Century, and is still languishing there, by and large. It is bare, sparse, repetitive, unimaginative and unemotional, having abandoned melody as old hat (I have a reputation for wild generalisation!) It has been musicals, of which West Side Story, Guys and Dolls and South Pacific are among the most enjoyable, that have seized the public’s imagination and made deep impressions. Music should go to the heart, the emotions, sparking the imagination and leaving you moved and your mind dancing.

Unfortunately, the geniuses left the field, and the musical genre has degenerated. However,I am told that “classical” music composers are gently moving back to melodies, some of which can be hummed. We need music that takes your mind up and away from the tawdry news and culture, the third rate canned music, and modern self-absorbtion, not to mention the ubiquitous cellphone!

China’s economic problem

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There is a fact that few non-economists understand or pay attention to. China has a huge problem attracting foreign investment. US investment in China since 1990 has only been about $250 billion dollars. This is because few people trust the Chinese not to steal secrets, profits or both – their legal protections in China are few, and a virtual semi-totalitarian economy, rife with corruption, is not attractive to foreign investors. About 69% of “foreign investment“ into China is actually from Hong Kong and is thought to be laundered money or recycled domestic Chinese money. Further development is being financed out of savings instead of inward investment, which is what typically happens in a developing economy. (The British invested hugely and consistently in the United States during the 19th Century).

Meanwhile, instead of investing more in their own economy, the Chinese are making huge investments in Africa and other countries, with currently low monetary return. It is also investing in US Treasury bonds on which it gets only a 3% return. Overall its other overseas investments yield 22% compared with 33% earned by American multinationals overseas. In fact, Chinese investment overseas yields lower returns than it would were it invested in Chinese industry, and a lot of the outflow of funds is used for property boltholes in places like Vancouver and educating the wealthy Chinese young in foreign countries.

This overseas investment by the Chinese is financed by their huge trade surplus, exporting ever more and buying less food and other imports than one would expect. In short, China has a generally lower standard of living than it should have. It is not the economic powerhouse we typically imagine it is.

I am flagging this up because of the perceived threat of totalitarian China to our way of life and thus to our collective peace of mind.

Snowflake students

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“Snowflake” students have become the target of a new conservative crusade. This narrative can now be found in news stories, political speeches and op-ed columns in Britain on a daily basis: that young people simply gang up to howl down views they don’t like, rather than engage in debate.

Rightwingers claim it is a form of censorship, and that the young need to get better at “hearing what you don’t want to hear”. In a decade of economic stagnation, it is a convenient put-down to use against a generation faced with low pay, high house prices and deterioriating mental health, and a system regulated in such a way as to “maximise the security of asset holders, while impoverishing the future of everyone under 40”. (William Davies in The Guardian).

My early years were spent in the middle of a war. A doodlebug hit the house next to us and we were homeless. I wasn’t aware of it but the future must have looked grim. In fact, most people my age have since experienced peace and a steady improvement of life in general. Leaving university, one worried, not about whether one would get a job, but which job. There was a huge housing shortage, but the government was doing something about it. Yes, the treatment of unfamilar West Indian migrants, brought over to boost manpower, was a disgrace, but in general there was political and social consensus, andfew very rich people (most people were poor).

But out of it all we got the National Health Service, among other things. In those days it was unthinkable to shout down speakers in debate (I took part in many). Underlying it all was a sense that both political parties generally had the welfare of the whole country at heart, snd that capitalism was operating for the community (generalisations! Forgive me!). I think the behaviour of some rude, closed-minded young people arises out of one emotion – fear. I don’t blame them in some ways, but it is immature nonetheless to shout down and ban those you disagree with – it will inevitably come back to bite you. Argue! Use your brains!

Ephemera

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Colombia has been struggling with a particularly large and unlikely interloper: the hippopotamus. The African animals are multiplying in the area around Doradal, in the northwest of the country.

It’s all the fault of the cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar. During his heyday as leader of the Medellín Cartel, he imported four hippos for his personal zoo on his palatial estate. When law enforcement officials killed the narco-terrorist in 1993, they seized the property, along with its exotic menagerie, but the hippos escaped and, with no natural predators in the region, have since prospered. There are now thought to be at least 50 of them in the area. In 2013, officials finally decided to do something about it, and provided funds to the environmental management body to sterilise or relocate the beasts. But that’s proving a challenge. “We do not have a manual to handle them,” complains one of those tasked with the job, pointing out the logistical difficulties of getting to grips with alien animals in the wild that can weigh up to three tonnes and reach speeds of up to 18mph. Twenty-five years after his death, Escobar is still causing Colombia problems. (Sally Palamina, El País, Madrid)

Why is this a matter for Epicurus.Today? Well, the general environment is terribly serious, for good reason. We all need a bit of light relief, but in reality there is little to laugh about, so people don’t. I was mentally noting that comedy writing has abruptly stopped. Not that wild hippos wandering around Colombia is particularly funny, but it will have to do.

I was drawn to Ms. Palamino’s article because I specialise in greeting cards featuring hippos, and recently wrote a book of light verse called “The Rueful Hippopotamus”, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, and selling best in Germany, where they still laugh I am thus being thoroughly American in taking every possible opportunity for brazen self-promotion, and showing praiseworthy integration. If this is all nonsense, forgive me – the daily news is driving me bonkers.

Most Math teaching is functionally useless

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What’s the point of learning maths? For some it reveals the beauty of underlying patterns in the world. But for most of us the point of maths is to help deal with real-life problems – something maths teaching today signally fails to do. You bone up on trigonometry yet seldom encounter it again once you’ve left school. You can get a top grade and still end up financially illiterate. Indeed, it turns out that almost half of UK working-age adults have the numeracy skills of a primary school child. A teacher is meant to prepare young people to be responsible citizens, but if they don’t learn the basics of compound interest, how can they make informed decisions about, say, renting or buying a flat?

That’s why Bobby Seagull, writing in the Financial Times, advocates ridding ourselves of the “If Alice has three times as many sweets as Billy…” variety of sums and start asking pupils to compare the merits of bank accounts mortgages etc. Only then will they be able to acquire the “survival skills” needed for adult life. (edited version of an article by Bobby Seagull, Financial Times).

I would add: mental arithmetic. One should be able to do simple adding, subtracting and multiplication in your head. You are being charged 8 pounds for 13 gizmos. Mentally check that the supplier is charging you correctly. Right answer 104. Of course, you can use a calculator or a cellphone, but doing it in your head, and quickly, even approximately, saves time and is an essential skill, an aid to peace of mind.

What went wrong for the Left?

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All across the developed world, mainstream centre-left parties are in decline. In France, the Netherlands and Greece, they have ceased to be even remotely relevant. In countries like Ireland and Italy, they have been replaced by left-wing populist movements- Sinn Fein and M5S respectively. In France and to a lesser extent Spain, they have been replaced by centrist, pro-EU parties. Even in the best-cases, such as Portugal and Sweden, the centre-left governs in fractious coalitions with more left-wing parties. There are several reasons for this, which I will explain. But apart from in countries like the US and the UK, where the voting system and political culture only allows for two viable national parties, I think the fate of the international centre-left is all but sealed.

To a very large extent, the decline of the left is result of the declining economic performance of the developed world. After WW2, most developed countries adopted the mixed economy, where private enterprise was permitted but highly regulated and the government controlled large swathes of the economy to achieve strategic aims and provide a comprehensive social insurance system. Although there have been some market-orientated reforms to the mixed economy in recent years, the overall structure of the economy has stayed the same. The problem is that in the 21st century, and particularly since the 2008 crash, the mixed economy has failed to provide for the needs of the masses. Wage growth is virtually stagnant, inequality is generally increasing, and the national welfare systems seem powerless to protect the working class against the might of international capital and the forces of globalised free trade. The traditional welfare state can no longer offer people the social security it once could, particularly as an ageing population is making welfare increasingly expensive and unsustainable.

The social democratic parties of Europe have traditionally relied on the support of the working class. But over time, the relative size of the working class has shrunk, and a vast proportion of people now consider themselves middle class. This has been caused by a decline in traditional manufacturing and agricultural jobs, and an increase in professional jobs that require a degree. These well-heeled professionals don’t feel the allegiance to the centre-left their working class parents would have done. Alongside the decline of the working class numerically has been the decline of working class culture. Trade unions, working man’s clubs and small-town pubs and community centres have all diminished. As a result, the centre-left no longer has a visceral appeal to the working class, who increasingly identify with either the soft patriotism of the centre-right, or the overt nationalism of the far-right.

Mostly importantly, there is a three-way division of those who used to support the quintessential centre-left policy programme. First are those who believe the current manifestation of the social market economy is insufficient to protect the working class against the global wealthy elite. Therefore, far more radical and overtly leftist measures are necessary. Amongst these modern socialists include Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn, France’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Greece’s Alexis Tsipras. Their supporters are diverse: they include young people who feel pessimistic and economically insecure, working class people who feel the brunt of automation and casual labour, and a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities, especially Muslims.

The second group are those who still believe in centre-left economics, but are much more passionate in their belief in internationalism, and in particular, the European Union. They strongly reject any notion of embracing nationalism and isolationism to win back disaffected working class former centre-left voters, preferring to focus on winning young professionals and middle-aged moderates. These people include Britain’s Liberal Democrats, Spain’s Citizens, and Macron in France. They are the most passionately pro-immigration of the three groups, yet they aren’t as popular with ethnic minorities as the leftist radicals; they have a reputation for being almost entirely white and middle class.

The third and perhaps the most interesting group are those who agree with the principles of the mixed economy, but vehemently reject the internationalism and free-trade ideas the centre-left has adopted more recently. They now vote for parties like Poland’s Law and Justice, Hungary’s Fidesz, or France’s Front National, who combine social democratic ideas like child tax credits and generous pensions with a nationalist approach to migration, law and order, and the EU. They tend to be working class, but are older and more nostalgic for a time when their status in society was greater and countries could act more independently.

My point is that the decline of the developed world’s economic performance, the decline of the working class, and the increasing divisions in what should be the centre-left’s natural supporters, mean that centre-left parties are increasingly outdated, and there is virtually nothing that can be done to reverse that trend. The only way our nations can thrive in a post-social democratic era is if our political systems allow for these new divisions to be represented fairly and proportionately. Trying to shut people down, or to downplay the salience of the centre-left’s fracturing, will only lead to disaster.

Britain saves the EU from falling apart!

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It may sound crazy, but “Brexit has saved the EU”. Think about it. After the 2016 referendum, many sensible people thought Britain’s departure would spark a “stampede” out of the bloc. Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders schemed to duplicate the result in France and the Netherlands. Donald Trump’s promises of a “glorious” UK-US trade deal convinced many Europeans that the grass might really be greener. Yet now it has become dispiritingly clear that “Brexit will be a failure”. Both sides are largely agreed that whatever path we take – soft Brexit, no-deal Brexit or no Brexit – will lead to national “humiliation” and make Britons’ lives worse. Across the Channel this has not gone unnoticed. Support for the EU around the continent is at its highest since 1983, and talk of the bloc falling apart has all but vanished. Even the populists have been “quietly dropping” the promise of an EU exit from their manifestos. Indeed, the chaos of Brexit has probably helped stem the populist tide by highlighting the fact that the thing populists do best is sloganeering”. Whatever you feel about the EU, the Brits have shown that you can’t leave it. (Simon Kuper, Financial Times)

The EU was always going to make it difficult to leave. Of course. So why did the Brexiters fail to study the problem in depth and do their homework? Maybe because their emotions trumped everything. As far as I know nobody worked out the technicalities. Thus they are left with masses of egg on their faces: “Oh, we didn’t think of that! We didn’t think of unharvested farm produce, the Irish border, Gibraltar, long lines of trucks waiting all day in Calais, the effect on the pound sterling, the lack of interest overseas in special trade deals with the UK, flight of the banks”….One could go on, but I won’t. Brexit is a betrayal of the country by lazy-minded, incompetent politicians far too close to Putin and Russia for comfort. Yes, they will shift the blame (they are experts at that) but it is they who are solely responsible for the upcoming disaster.

Thought for the day

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Unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old.”. (G.K. Chesterton, quoted in The Sunday Times)

Was he thinking of the Constitution, liberal democracy, the rule of law, international treaties and cooperation, universities as promoters of critical thinking (not just job training), and financial services as servants, not masters, of the people? If so, he was prescient.

Why fraudulent news travels fastest

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False news travels much faster online than the truth because of our craving for novelty. In the largest-ever study of how news spreads on social media, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysed 126,000 stories on Twitter from between 2006 and 2017. They found that false stories were 70% more likely to be retweeted than those that were true. True stories took six-times longer, on average, to reach an audience of 1,500 people.

One surprise was that automated robots – or bots – played no part in this discrepancy. “False news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it,” said the authors of the study, published in the journal Science. They concluded that the high visibility of false stories is not necessarily the result of malign intent: fake news is popular simply because people find it more surprising, intriguing or reassuring than the truth. “False news is novel, and people are more likely to share novel information,” said co-author Professor Sinan Aral. (The Week. 24 March 2018)

Aside from a small number of people paid by the oil companies to counter the facts, the scientific community wholeheartedly agree that the muck poured into the air over nearly 300 years since the start of the industrial revolution accounts for the rapidly warming world environment. This is arguably the greatest single threat to mankind and its future on the planet, and it will affect every living soul. And yet there is a substantial body of non-scientists who not only don’t believe in the cause of man- made climate change but are actually wrecking efforts to counter it. It must be reassuring to hear politicians and special interests on social media claim the change is natural because then you don’t have to actually do anything, in particular spend money. It is convenient to deny the facts, even if, in doing so, you’ll be wrecking the future of your children and grandchildren.

I write from Southern England, which has had the hottest summer I can ever remember, and no rain to mention. You have to live in la-la land to believe this is a normal weather fluctuation, but, of course, it is convenient to do so. Selfishness rules.