{"id":5586,"date":"2019-03-31T19:16:09","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themint.kinsta.cloud\/?p=5586"},"modified":"2019-09-20T07:55:03","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T07:55:03","slug":"whiners-and-losers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/whiners-and-losers\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiners and losers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soft cheese, hard Brexit and the joys of talking trade theory.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like most people, I am wearied with this whole Brexit thing. It got particularly bad when Thomas became obsessively anxious about the future cost of his favourite cheese, Epoisses. He surmised a no-deal outcome would see tariffs erected to protect our delicate farmers.<\/p>\n

He was just about to buy a new fridge for stockpiling this cheese, when I put my foot down. The French even ban Epoisses from public transport as its smell is so unpleasant. How Josephine coped with Napoleon\u2019s love of it before the invention of refrigeration, I shall never know. Perhaps the famous quotation was in fact: \u201cNot tonight Josephine?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas would not let this go and set up a \u201cno deal\u201d planning committee for the building, hoping he might get agreement to cheese stockpiling in our common kitchen. To make peace, I agreed to be the committee\u2019s expert adviser.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is amazing the range of different ways you can cook lamb. Unfortunately they all have lamb in them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My first bit of advice was that there was likely to be a \u201clamb lake\u201d as our hill farmers face increased tariffs from the European Union, their main market. The committee duly bought a lamb recipe book. It is amazing the range of different ways you can cook lamb. Unfortunately they all have lamb in them; I have never been keen on it.<\/p>\n

Still it is fun to be back thinking about trade theory \u2013 one of my favourite subjects. The elegance of Ricardo\u2019s proof that free trade always benefits all countries however useless they are, is quite breathtaking. Ricardo may have been a swindler and a cad (see Box), but he was certainly an economic genius.<\/p>\n

Robena, Thomas\u2019 new best friend, has now asked me to talk to her nephew, Rupert, our local Brexiteer MP. She was quite worried about him getting into a twist about free trade. He wanted \u201cproper\u201d free trade agreements but his farming constituents were not so keen.<\/p>\n

Rupert came to tea in his best three-piece tweed suit. He is quite charming with his old worldly ways but clearly a bit thick. I took him slowly through trade theory while he sipped his tea and he looked a bit bemused particularly when I came to the point that, of course, free trade only benefited a country\u2019s inhabitants on average. I reiterated slowly \u201con average\u201d.<\/p>\n

This of course means there are likely to be winners and losers. As I explained, economists then assume that the winners will compensate the losers, but unfortunately in real life this rarely happens due to the incompetence of politicians. He seemed to get that last point.<\/p>\n

Rupert didn\u2019t seem overly grateful for my advice so I don\u2019t think he will be coming back for more, which is a pity. He could certainly do with some more education in this area.<\/p>\n

The following day I got another invitation to lunch from my old student, Crispin McDonal. Now he certainly understood trade theory and a lot else beside.<\/p>\n

\u201cRupert came to tea in his best three-piece tweed suit. He is quite charming with his old worldly ways but clearly a bit thick.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had heard he had been making a lot of money recently out of the Brexit turmoil. He had been betting heavily against the UK economy ever since he gave a huge dollop of funds to the Brexit campaign. Initially he took losses, but now his strategy seems to be paying off.<\/p>\n

I suppose he wanted to tell me all about this at length to show he really was my star pupil. With the lingering memory of the exploding chocolate patisserie and his pawing of my d\u00e9colletage at our previous lunch, this did not fill me with total delight.<\/p>\n

Still I find it very difficult to turn down a free lunch, particularly in the excellent restaurants he patronises.<\/p>\n

Ricardo's Record<\/div>
Ricardo made his fortune, and I mean fortune, out of the battle of Waterloo. He had an observer on the battlefield who duly reported the English victory to him before anyone else. He rushed into the stock exchange shouting \u201csell, sell\u201d and everyone assumed we had lost. He bought tonnes of shares at rock bottom prices and then cleaned up when prices soared following accurate news of victory.<\/p>\n

Of course he then had to make a swift exit and hide out for a bit. Still this gave him a chance to write his great work, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. I suppose he maybe was the first to use \u201cfake news\u201d to his advantage \u2013 a true innovator.<\/div><\/div>\n

Miss Ettie Kett<\/div>
This month Conflicted writes from Chelsea<\/p>\n

Dear Ms Kett
\nWealthy friends have invited me to attend an opulent corporate charity ball at Claridge\u2019s. The evening expenses will include purchasing a gown, a dinner and bidding on a lavish auction. Is there a polite way to decline without appearing uncharitable?<\/p>\n

Dear Conflicted
\nDoesn\u2019t it seem to you that were some of these large corporations more ethical in paying their taxes, they\u2019d need to salve their consciences less? There would also be fewer people needing charity. This kind of philanthropy seems hollow. I suggest you make your contributions direct to charity and avoid the back-slapping tedium of events like the one you are pondering attending. Then get some new friends.
\nSincerely yours
\nMs Ettie Kett<\/p>\n

Ms Ettie Kett provides advice on modern manners. Please send your requests for advice to msettiekett@
\nthemintmagazine.com
\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soft cheese, hard Brexit and the joys of talking trade theory. Like most people, I am wearied with this whole Brexit thing. It got particularly bad when Thomas became obsessively … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[211,290,592,668,114],"class_list":["post-5586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-brexit","tag-globalisation","tag-international-trade","tag-mar-2019","tag-verity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}