One thing you can hardly avoid in life in the US is the prominent role for medicine here.
It starts when you just walk around. In Europe, hospitals are large and obvious, but other medical practices tend to cluster and be rather discreet. Here they are everywhere. Almost every apartment block seems to have rented out its ground floor as medical surgeries, and quite a few private homes have a medical office as well. There are general practices, large and small, but also an astonishing number of specialities, for things I have sometimes hardly heard of.
Then turn on the TV. Fully 20-25% of advertising is for some medical remedy. In Europe, you see the odd advert for non-prescription medicines like cold remedies, but here these are dwarfed by speciality drugs which require prescriptions.
The industry certainly have money to advertise, but don’t seem to pay a lot to creative agencies, judging by the formulaic and unimaginative adverts. The whole advert usually has people walking around, with an extensive voice over. The walking around tries to convey some sort of discomfort, but never explicitly. Perhaps that would be considered bad taste. An example is a hilarious ad where people seem to spend their lives walking past toilets (rest rooms, in American). I guess we are supposed to discern that sometimes they also walk inside too, and need to do something unpleasant. As the voice over progresses, the actors still walk around, but start to smile more, as though their symptoms are alleviated. Now they walk past the rest room with purpose and a spring in their step.
Meanwhile the voice over has three distinct parts. Part one often starts with the phrase “imagine life without” continued by a description of a symptom and a named ailment I have rarely heard of. Having established a product name (for some reason usually three syllables with the last one –a) can alleviate the symptom, the voice starts to speak more quickly and reads a disclaimer, while the poor actors continue to walk around in the background, unsure whether to act in pain or cured.
The voice over disclaimer is hilarious, and is enough to put anyone off almost any product. For example, it might say that the product can lead to side effects of depression, suicidal tendency or death, before launching on a long list of other potential problems. OK, maybe that one isn’t for me then.
Finally, the happy walk starts and the voice over reverts to the slower tone. Ask your doctor about product X, we are implored, if we really want to walk around all day avoiding rest rooms, and don’t care too much about the suicide risk.
I do not exaggerate, this comes up virtually every break for something ending in –a. After a while it just starts to wash over you.
Not quite so common, but still a major advertising category, are legal compensation chasers. We knows these ones in Britain too, thanks to the lovely banks and their lovely mis-selling. But here, they are everywhere, and usually relate to a medical product which has had bad side-effects. Seemingly, I should be looking out for people who took all these three syllable products and then died or became suicidal, because then I could replace rest rooms with banks and investment products in my own walking life after picking up my compensation bonanza.
So what is happening here, and is it all bad?
After coming to the US, eventually we got around to registering with a GP and a dentist. In Europe, that might involve a quick visit, and never seeing them again in years. Not here.
The first part of any medical visit is the legal and financial part. All surgeries have as many people handling that as the actual medicine. You fill out form after form, with two purposes. One purpose is to tell them we won’t sue. The other is to establish who will pay, usually the insurance that comes from my wife’s work.
Then you make it to the actual physician. They have wonderful equipment and take a lot of time with you. They give lots of tests and send you to other places for more tests. And then they find things to treat. Expensive things.
So I tell the GP I am a bit deaf. In Europe that would lead to a quick inspection for wax and a shrug of the shoulders. Not in the US: I am referred to an audiologist, who turns out to have a financial and legal firewall, followed by impressive assistants and equipment. He sends me for another scan at another place, just to make sure.
The result is that between the four of us we must have made over twenty medical visits in three months. Some are regular, some are following up issues, some are preventative. All lead to a bill for the insurance company, and most lead to a follow up treatment.
And the bills are massive. I have a direct benchmark, since I happen to have had blood tests in Portugal, the Netherlands and the USA during 2012. The USA cost is between ten and fifty times higher, for what I perceive to be similar tests. They probably use more modern equipment, used by more highly paid and plentiful staff, backed by finance and legal overheads and still making good margins.
So now I understand a bit more why so many businesses here are medical. I suppose I can even understand the economics of the advertising, since if I do visit my GP and suggest the three syllable product for my (real?) rest-room problem, she will undoubtedly have the time and inclination (and financial incentive?) to follow it up. In Europe, it would take me two weeks of misery to get to see the GP, who would look at me askance for wasting his time, and probably need to look up the ailment himself.
Much of this is good. I can now sleep easier, secure that I don’t have various ailments that I never thought I had anyway. It is good I am not a hypochondriac, as I would then lose sleep from having so many extra ailments to worry about. But also if I do get something, they will discover it and treat it well – which in some cases must also save the system some money.
But the expense feels horrific, and uncontrolled. The federal government pays for the elderly and the very poor. There is a layer who previously lacked any insurance (and therefore would stay away), but Obamacare will remove that. And for the rest of us we have insurance, paid for by our employers.
Individuals have no real incentive to complain, and generally will not question any recommendation for treatment. It is a brave government which cuts back on expense for the elderly, though one day they will have to. Employers complain, but are not organised enough to make an impact. And big pharma, the many medical professionals, and their friends in finance, insurance and law, will say nothing and quietly get rich.
What can be done? The European systems are far from perfect, and, it now becomes clear to me, are way behind the game in preventative measures and timely checking for common illnesses.
But here things are out of control. Apparently some brave insurance companies are starting to challenge some recommendations, based on statistics. It feels good to me that the payment system rewards them for this, but of course the medics find it an insult that someone sitting in an office with no medical qualification can question their advice. In the end, the government will need to make the same challenges for medicare (older people). It also feels right that individuals should have some incentive to question a treatment.
It will take a long time to fix. Meanwhile, some advice. First, if you have a child, they could do worse than go into medicine in the USA. Second, don’t bet on the USA sorting out its deficit anytime soon. And lastly, if you manage to visit the USA, don’t miss the wonderful TV adverts.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Get out more!
Last week I was in Bucharest. Sometimes I travel there with a colleague, and then we will usually share an evening meal. But last week I was on my own. When that happens, normally I just sit in my room and eat in the hotel or at a fast place nearby.
But last week I forced myself to do something different. One evening I went to the city centre and had a far nicer Turkish meal for far less than I would have paid in the hotel. And I also googled concerts, and got my seat for a choir and orchestra concert at their main hall, the Athenaeum.
So on Friday evening I got in my four dollar taxi and made my way into town to use my fifteen dollar ticket, unsure what to expect. One of the main works of the programme was by a Russian called Taneyev, who I had never heard of.
The hall was full, the choir numbered a hundred and the orchestra nearly the same. The soloist and the conductor gave a lot of passion. I loved the piece I did not know, a cantata of St John of Damascus which I now look up is also known as a Russian Requiem. I loved the whole show.
Then afterwards, the show had started early, so I needed to eat something. I started walking vaguely towards the centre. I almost entered the lowest common denominator, Pizza Hut, just what I would normally do alone and in a hurry, but luckily it looked very busy so I walked on.
Then I came to a Christmas market in university Square. It turned out as tacky as most Christmas markets, and I am certainly not a shopper, but was still an experience, with something for all the senses and a beautiful surrounding. I ended up eating a local seasonal speciality, dough rolled on an outsize rolling pin which is then barbecued and dipped in cinnamon or sugar or nuts. And of course I had a glass of hot wine, which of course was worse than mediocre, but still I got home happy.
I drew three lessons from my unexpected Friday night, one about being active and two about humility.
The one about being active was the most obvious. How much effort did this evening cost me? How much money? I had a delightful time, even on my own, just because I opened my senses and put in a tiny bit of effort. It is clear that the world is a wonderful place and much of it is available to us, yet we plough our narrow, narrow furrows most of the time. We should all get out more! This applies at home as well as away, and doesn’t need anything as dramatic as a night out in an unfamiliar city. Why do I never talk to my neighbour on a plane? Why do I always choose familiar food? Get out more, Graham!
Answering my own questions leads me to the second great lesson from Friday. One reason we stick with the familiar is that we arrogantly assume we know so much about the world that we haven’t got much to learn from or delight in. We don’t reach out to people because we assume we have nothing in common, or worse, that somehow other people are beneath us in some way.
How many times have I had to learn this lesson, and how many times have I just discarded or forgotten it? People always have the capacity to surprise. Romanians can sing beautifully. Composers I have never heard of can write masterpieces (and this is from a familiar genre and culture, what might I be missing from Africa or India?). The most neglected city has wonderful hidden gems somewhere. Traditions can often delight.
Three years ago I joined a specific self-help group for a time, a group which did me a lot of good. Many of the other attendees were quite desperate in different ways, and few had had the benefit of much education or the chance to amass any wealth. One day I was at a meeting with just two of us. I was a bit disappointed because I had a particular dilemma to raise and had hoped for a bigger crowd, while this particular lady I had always discarded as rather dull. I raised the dilemma anyway, with modest expectations. And this lady said three or four things that were as profound as anything I had ever heard, mature, relevant, empathetic. I cannot even remember the dilemma or its solution now, but I remember the lesson that many people have great depths if we can only seek them out. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my whole life – though I wish somehow I didn’t keep making the same mistakes again.
The third lesson is about humility in a different way and came from some thoughts spinning through my head during the evening. As often happens, a moment worked like a bolt, shooting my mind to a memory. The Christmas market sent me to Montreux, and the last time I had been at such a market, and many happy memories of that time. One piece of Rachmaninov reminded me of another, and a moment in my twenties on a plane to a new life with that music in my ipod (or Walkman back then, more likely). Memories are often jogged that way for me.
This concert was probably enjoyed in as many ways as there were people in the theatre, with different memories jogged. Some people may have had a bad day at work, or been stuck in traffic. Others may have enjoyed a compliment, or a hug. Some will have tired, others wide awake. For everyone, the experience will have unique.
Then go wider. There are seven billion humans, all with memories to trigger and hinterlands to be explored. Each of us is made of countless cells that somehow divided when they were supposed to. The Athaneum has a circular mural which I think showed the history of Bucharest – how many people’s lives have been affected? Many in audience will have also been there in Caecescu’s time. So might the homeless people outside. I noticed a young couple on a first date. Flowers laid by a statue recalling the events of 1989. Looking up, I see stars and galaxies.
How utterly bewildering the universe is. How many dimensions of unfathomable scale interact to create history, present and future?
This does not necessarily make me believe in a God. What it does do is make me believe in my own smallness, in the smallness of all of us. We know nothing, yet we muddle along and stuff happens.
I love this thought. It leaves room for wonder and delight and joy. It leaves incalculable space to learn. It leaves reason to hope. But it also helps humility. Whenever I think I know something, or even that collective we know something, I can think about nights like this and realise how little we do know.
That leads to a good sense of exploration, but also a good sense of caution. How can any human make definitive remarks about something like climate change, or something like the limits of the human mind? We are taught to try to be definitive, and to value certainty. We seem to need our politicians and scientists and business leaders and bosses to reassure us, so that is what they try to do. They simplify. But then we believe the simplification, and that makes us too sure, and too arrogant, and stops us listening and observing and learning. And that is how cataclysm might arise. Who can possibly be sure that the complex changes man wreaks on a planet will not end in our destruction? No-one can. Surely we need to start taking out a planet insurance policy?
So, three great lessons from one solitary night. And some good music and barbecued bread too. I must get out more.
But last week I forced myself to do something different. One evening I went to the city centre and had a far nicer Turkish meal for far less than I would have paid in the hotel. And I also googled concerts, and got my seat for a choir and orchestra concert at their main hall, the Athenaeum.
So on Friday evening I got in my four dollar taxi and made my way into town to use my fifteen dollar ticket, unsure what to expect. One of the main works of the programme was by a Russian called Taneyev, who I had never heard of.
The hall was full, the choir numbered a hundred and the orchestra nearly the same. The soloist and the conductor gave a lot of passion. I loved the piece I did not know, a cantata of St John of Damascus which I now look up is also known as a Russian Requiem. I loved the whole show.
Then afterwards, the show had started early, so I needed to eat something. I started walking vaguely towards the centre. I almost entered the lowest common denominator, Pizza Hut, just what I would normally do alone and in a hurry, but luckily it looked very busy so I walked on.
Then I came to a Christmas market in university Square. It turned out as tacky as most Christmas markets, and I am certainly not a shopper, but was still an experience, with something for all the senses and a beautiful surrounding. I ended up eating a local seasonal speciality, dough rolled on an outsize rolling pin which is then barbecued and dipped in cinnamon or sugar or nuts. And of course I had a glass of hot wine, which of course was worse than mediocre, but still I got home happy.
I drew three lessons from my unexpected Friday night, one about being active and two about humility.
The one about being active was the most obvious. How much effort did this evening cost me? How much money? I had a delightful time, even on my own, just because I opened my senses and put in a tiny bit of effort. It is clear that the world is a wonderful place and much of it is available to us, yet we plough our narrow, narrow furrows most of the time. We should all get out more! This applies at home as well as away, and doesn’t need anything as dramatic as a night out in an unfamiliar city. Why do I never talk to my neighbour on a plane? Why do I always choose familiar food? Get out more, Graham!
Answering my own questions leads me to the second great lesson from Friday. One reason we stick with the familiar is that we arrogantly assume we know so much about the world that we haven’t got much to learn from or delight in. We don’t reach out to people because we assume we have nothing in common, or worse, that somehow other people are beneath us in some way.
How many times have I had to learn this lesson, and how many times have I just discarded or forgotten it? People always have the capacity to surprise. Romanians can sing beautifully. Composers I have never heard of can write masterpieces (and this is from a familiar genre and culture, what might I be missing from Africa or India?). The most neglected city has wonderful hidden gems somewhere. Traditions can often delight.
Three years ago I joined a specific self-help group for a time, a group which did me a lot of good. Many of the other attendees were quite desperate in different ways, and few had had the benefit of much education or the chance to amass any wealth. One day I was at a meeting with just two of us. I was a bit disappointed because I had a particular dilemma to raise and had hoped for a bigger crowd, while this particular lady I had always discarded as rather dull. I raised the dilemma anyway, with modest expectations. And this lady said three or four things that were as profound as anything I had ever heard, mature, relevant, empathetic. I cannot even remember the dilemma or its solution now, but I remember the lesson that many people have great depths if we can only seek them out. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my whole life – though I wish somehow I didn’t keep making the same mistakes again.
The third lesson is about humility in a different way and came from some thoughts spinning through my head during the evening. As often happens, a moment worked like a bolt, shooting my mind to a memory. The Christmas market sent me to Montreux, and the last time I had been at such a market, and many happy memories of that time. One piece of Rachmaninov reminded me of another, and a moment in my twenties on a plane to a new life with that music in my ipod (or Walkman back then, more likely). Memories are often jogged that way for me.
This concert was probably enjoyed in as many ways as there were people in the theatre, with different memories jogged. Some people may have had a bad day at work, or been stuck in traffic. Others may have enjoyed a compliment, or a hug. Some will have tired, others wide awake. For everyone, the experience will have unique.
Then go wider. There are seven billion humans, all with memories to trigger and hinterlands to be explored. Each of us is made of countless cells that somehow divided when they were supposed to. The Athaneum has a circular mural which I think showed the history of Bucharest – how many people’s lives have been affected? Many in audience will have also been there in Caecescu’s time. So might the homeless people outside. I noticed a young couple on a first date. Flowers laid by a statue recalling the events of 1989. Looking up, I see stars and galaxies.
How utterly bewildering the universe is. How many dimensions of unfathomable scale interact to create history, present and future?
This does not necessarily make me believe in a God. What it does do is make me believe in my own smallness, in the smallness of all of us. We know nothing, yet we muddle along and stuff happens.
I love this thought. It leaves room for wonder and delight and joy. It leaves incalculable space to learn. It leaves reason to hope. But it also helps humility. Whenever I think I know something, or even that collective we know something, I can think about nights like this and realise how little we do know.
That leads to a good sense of exploration, but also a good sense of caution. How can any human make definitive remarks about something like climate change, or something like the limits of the human mind? We are taught to try to be definitive, and to value certainty. We seem to need our politicians and scientists and business leaders and bosses to reassure us, so that is what they try to do. They simplify. But then we believe the simplification, and that makes us too sure, and too arrogant, and stops us listening and observing and learning. And that is how cataclysm might arise. Who can possibly be sure that the complex changes man wreaks on a planet will not end in our destruction? No-one can. Surely we need to start taking out a planet insurance policy?
So, three great lessons from one solitary night. And some good music and barbecued bread too. I must get out more.
Friday, November 30, 2012
The Greatest Nation on Earth?
The US is a fine place, and I feel blessed to have the chance to spend time here. But one of strangest things about the US is the frequency its people describe the place as The Greatest Country on Earth. Let’s call it the GCE
It is everywhere. Patriotism is fine. People show flags and are proud of their nation. Adverts extol the nation. You expect that sort of thing from politicians and generals. But then this GCE expression sneaks in, in the least likely places. Half way through an NFL match, the commentator is moved to describe the USA as the GCE. Actually, on one recent occasion, he said the USA was still the GCE.
Don’t you love that “still”? There is some self-doubt creeping in, some fear of being in the process of being overtaken. Were the expression GCE to be any less ridiculous, the still would be a little sad. As it is, I love it.
For how would we possibly decide the GCE?
History and legacy? Well, how about Italy, Greece, Iraq or even Kenya? Longevity as a nation? I’ve no idea who the winners of that one are (Greece again maybe?) but for sure it isn’t the USA. Natural beauty? Many contenders there. Queens and Brooklyn are not among them.
Intelligence? That would nowadays be Finland, south Korea or Hong Kong. I am not sure who wins the most Nobel prizes per capita. Human development? Well, they live the longest in Japan, infant mortality is lowest in Scandinavia I think, and the healthcare system in the US is almost an extension of a bank, hardly a role model.
Who tries to lead the world to development? The millennial goals and the best UN initiatives often stem from Scandinavia, and Britain can be relatively proud too. Climate change? Norway, and indeed almost anyone but the USA.
Culture? Judging by how much the Americans defer to British culture, on that one not even they would claim a lead. There is Hollywood I suppose. Sport? Per head Australia is a leader, Brazil has the best record in the most popular sport, and many countries score more Olympic gold medals per head than the USA. At least they are the best in US Football (and the Superbowl winners are labelled world champions without irony)!
Everywhere you look in the USA you see grinding poverty and misery. Where is poverty lowest? Norway perhaps. And happiness? Bhutan claims that one, but several South-East Asian nations seem to have faces that only smile. Studies of child well-being I always find interesting, even though they tend to cover only developed nations. In those the Netherlands and Scandinavia win, while the USA and UK rank dead last.
Then there is wealth. Total GDP in the US is highest, but what does that actually mean? GDP per person is higher in Luxembourg and other small states. And increasingly the US is mired in debt, piles and piles of it, with so sign of any reduction. Many great companies come from the US, and the economy is known as innovative, but, per head, Finland would certainly beat it.
What about politics and freedom? Probably liberty and freedom are the words the GCE advocates would back up their claims with. Well, the politics is horrible, if the recent election is anything to go by, with money controlling everything and little attempt at a debate. As for liberty, maybe US passport holders do OK, but the rest of us have to stand in line quite a lot! Religious tolerance seems pretty limited, while social tolerance appears weak. How can a state with so many signs and instructions and caveats and lawsuits claim a lead in liberty? The medical adverts here are hilarious. And the US locks up more people per head than almost any nation on earth, and kills some, including children. Liberty?
There is one definition left. Military power. On that one there is no contest. Since the Bay of pigs it hasn’t actually led to many glorious victories, but for sure the US military might leaves the rest in its wake and enables a decisive voice in many conflicts, for good or ill.
So, when the commentator says GCE, he should really talk about the biggest power to bully others around. Judging by league tables, the true greatest nations might be Nordic ones, though part of their nature would mean they would never claim it – indeed the Swedes would hate the idea.
This is fun, and I should repeat I do love the place and its people. But what interests me is the effect of the continuous GCE claims. Does it do good or does it do harm?
Before that, some slightly related stories. First, in the US the festival of Christ the King is known as Christ the King of the Universe. Listening to that made me think of Superman or Flash Gordon. We wouldn’t try that in Europe. In the same service, we sang a patriotic American hymn to the tune of, wait for it, God Save the Queen. That made me feel slightly odd, though then I realised I’d been singing alternative words to the German national anthem since I was a child (but not patriotic ones).
Anyway, many Americans believe they are the GCE (still, ha ha), and there seems to be some informal campaign to perpetuate the belief. Annoying and amusing to foreigners for sure, but does the perception help the US? Or help the world?
On the plus side, it makes people walk taller, complain less (even in New York), and work better as a team. There is a feel good factor about the place. Strangely, this even seems to extend to immigrants, especially second and later generation ones. And it may even create a market for further immigrants, which allows the US to be selective and still let in productive ones. It creates some unifying values, even if in practice these are not always followed. All these things have some benefit. The nation seems more likely to hold together while it believes in itself.
But, even for the US, there are downsides too. The same factors diminish healthy challenge. Try raising gun laws here and hear the denial. The election campaign did not for an instant consider that there might be something to learn from other nations, only ugly false portrayal of China.
Arguably, hubris is what destroys all empires. They get lazy, they stop learning, they think they can do things that they can’t. The saddest tragic failure of the last twenty years might be the unshakeable belief in the USA that their troops would be welcomed with open arms into Baghdad. That has a real fin de siècle feel about it, as does the denial over economic reality, and the descent into complacent obesity. The Romans and even the British came to see themselves as infallible, and thus sowed the seeds of their own downfall.
To the world, the scorecard is even more weighted on the downside. Having a hegemon can have advantages, for example in leading efforts on something like climate change. But that hegemon has to be able to see beyond its borders occasionally. Arguably, US military might has prevented as many wars as it has caused, but the ones that have happened have become more intractable and damaging.
In that same Church service, we were asked to pray (twice) that the nations of the world should come to see Jesus as their saviour. That seems to cut across general modern beliefs about the separation of Church from State. But, more, the lazy statement seemed to me to epitomise a certainty of rightness, an unwillingness to consider that alternatives might be as good or at least can exist in harmony. True, this was Catholic Christianity talking not US politics, but I sensed that Catholic Christianity would not have been so lazy in a country without a GCE complex. Of course this is the sort of sentiment that ultimately can lead to crusades, intolerance, and war (and then decline of the one expressing the sentiment).
Sometimes I become ridiculously naïve. I argue that nations themselves are the things that hold back the world the most, and the time has come to challenge the whole concept. Fat chance. Now I am asking the USA to go easy on the GCE stuff. Dream on, Graham.
It is everywhere. Patriotism is fine. People show flags and are proud of their nation. Adverts extol the nation. You expect that sort of thing from politicians and generals. But then this GCE expression sneaks in, in the least likely places. Half way through an NFL match, the commentator is moved to describe the USA as the GCE. Actually, on one recent occasion, he said the USA was still the GCE.
Don’t you love that “still”? There is some self-doubt creeping in, some fear of being in the process of being overtaken. Were the expression GCE to be any less ridiculous, the still would be a little sad. As it is, I love it.
For how would we possibly decide the GCE?
History and legacy? Well, how about Italy, Greece, Iraq or even Kenya? Longevity as a nation? I’ve no idea who the winners of that one are (Greece again maybe?) but for sure it isn’t the USA. Natural beauty? Many contenders there. Queens and Brooklyn are not among them.
Intelligence? That would nowadays be Finland, south Korea or Hong Kong. I am not sure who wins the most Nobel prizes per capita. Human development? Well, they live the longest in Japan, infant mortality is lowest in Scandinavia I think, and the healthcare system in the US is almost an extension of a bank, hardly a role model.
Who tries to lead the world to development? The millennial goals and the best UN initiatives often stem from Scandinavia, and Britain can be relatively proud too. Climate change? Norway, and indeed almost anyone but the USA.
Culture? Judging by how much the Americans defer to British culture, on that one not even they would claim a lead. There is Hollywood I suppose. Sport? Per head Australia is a leader, Brazil has the best record in the most popular sport, and many countries score more Olympic gold medals per head than the USA. At least they are the best in US Football (and the Superbowl winners are labelled world champions without irony)!
Everywhere you look in the USA you see grinding poverty and misery. Where is poverty lowest? Norway perhaps. And happiness? Bhutan claims that one, but several South-East Asian nations seem to have faces that only smile. Studies of child well-being I always find interesting, even though they tend to cover only developed nations. In those the Netherlands and Scandinavia win, while the USA and UK rank dead last.
Then there is wealth. Total GDP in the US is highest, but what does that actually mean? GDP per person is higher in Luxembourg and other small states. And increasingly the US is mired in debt, piles and piles of it, with so sign of any reduction. Many great companies come from the US, and the economy is known as innovative, but, per head, Finland would certainly beat it.
What about politics and freedom? Probably liberty and freedom are the words the GCE advocates would back up their claims with. Well, the politics is horrible, if the recent election is anything to go by, with money controlling everything and little attempt at a debate. As for liberty, maybe US passport holders do OK, but the rest of us have to stand in line quite a lot! Religious tolerance seems pretty limited, while social tolerance appears weak. How can a state with so many signs and instructions and caveats and lawsuits claim a lead in liberty? The medical adverts here are hilarious. And the US locks up more people per head than almost any nation on earth, and kills some, including children. Liberty?
There is one definition left. Military power. On that one there is no contest. Since the Bay of pigs it hasn’t actually led to many glorious victories, but for sure the US military might leaves the rest in its wake and enables a decisive voice in many conflicts, for good or ill.
So, when the commentator says GCE, he should really talk about the biggest power to bully others around. Judging by league tables, the true greatest nations might be Nordic ones, though part of their nature would mean they would never claim it – indeed the Swedes would hate the idea.
This is fun, and I should repeat I do love the place and its people. But what interests me is the effect of the continuous GCE claims. Does it do good or does it do harm?
Before that, some slightly related stories. First, in the US the festival of Christ the King is known as Christ the King of the Universe. Listening to that made me think of Superman or Flash Gordon. We wouldn’t try that in Europe. In the same service, we sang a patriotic American hymn to the tune of, wait for it, God Save the Queen. That made me feel slightly odd, though then I realised I’d been singing alternative words to the German national anthem since I was a child (but not patriotic ones).
Anyway, many Americans believe they are the GCE (still, ha ha), and there seems to be some informal campaign to perpetuate the belief. Annoying and amusing to foreigners for sure, but does the perception help the US? Or help the world?
On the plus side, it makes people walk taller, complain less (even in New York), and work better as a team. There is a feel good factor about the place. Strangely, this even seems to extend to immigrants, especially second and later generation ones. And it may even create a market for further immigrants, which allows the US to be selective and still let in productive ones. It creates some unifying values, even if in practice these are not always followed. All these things have some benefit. The nation seems more likely to hold together while it believes in itself.
But, even for the US, there are downsides too. The same factors diminish healthy challenge. Try raising gun laws here and hear the denial. The election campaign did not for an instant consider that there might be something to learn from other nations, only ugly false portrayal of China.
Arguably, hubris is what destroys all empires. They get lazy, they stop learning, they think they can do things that they can’t. The saddest tragic failure of the last twenty years might be the unshakeable belief in the USA that their troops would be welcomed with open arms into Baghdad. That has a real fin de siècle feel about it, as does the denial over economic reality, and the descent into complacent obesity. The Romans and even the British came to see themselves as infallible, and thus sowed the seeds of their own downfall.
To the world, the scorecard is even more weighted on the downside. Having a hegemon can have advantages, for example in leading efforts on something like climate change. But that hegemon has to be able to see beyond its borders occasionally. Arguably, US military might has prevented as many wars as it has caused, but the ones that have happened have become more intractable and damaging.
In that same Church service, we were asked to pray (twice) that the nations of the world should come to see Jesus as their saviour. That seems to cut across general modern beliefs about the separation of Church from State. But, more, the lazy statement seemed to me to epitomise a certainty of rightness, an unwillingness to consider that alternatives might be as good or at least can exist in harmony. True, this was Catholic Christianity talking not US politics, but I sensed that Catholic Christianity would not have been so lazy in a country without a GCE complex. Of course this is the sort of sentiment that ultimately can lead to crusades, intolerance, and war (and then decline of the one expressing the sentiment).
Sometimes I become ridiculously naïve. I argue that nations themselves are the things that hold back the world the most, and the time has come to challenge the whole concept. Fat chance. Now I am asking the USA to go easy on the GCE stuff. Dream on, Graham.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A Fair Start
Last Sunday I witnessed a crowd of over a thousand kids queuing around two blocks in New York City to take a test to qualify to get into some specialised schools. It was quite an event, marshalled by police and enough to stop the traffic, and the event was repeated in other venues up and down the city. The kids were as diverse as you could ever imagine, at least in their visible traits.
Part of me was impressed with this piece of Americana. Any kid is allowed to sit the test, and the result is judged only on merit, with places offered based on the test alone, no interview or background check. It also reminded me once again of the sheer scale of this huge city. I have spent a lot of the last months standing or observing lines like these ones.
The test is designed as much as possible to look for innate ability, but of course it cannot entirely do that for twelve-year-olds. Half were comprehension questions, logic puzzles and scrambled paragraphs (sentences you had to place in the right order). The rest were maths, with a premium on speed of working and stamina.
We had spent (their) time and (our) money mugging our kids up for this event, and here my mood darkens a bit. Is it really as fair as it makes out? Actually, the test is judging most of all how well prepared the child is. It is telling that, even though effort is made to avoid the use of concepts that require teaching, nonetheless the regular US curriculum does not include everything that is required. A kid showing up in class, doing moderately well, and then attending the test, would very likely not do well unless exceptionally bright.
But then a child who was able to supplement regular classes with some tailored tutoring stood a much greater chance, since a lot of the key to success was about familiarity with the type of questions and level of practice at working through them at speed. Now how fair is that? Kids blessed with a good postal address would have attended schools where teachers could train them a bit, but most not. And otherwise, the ones with the best chance were the ones with parents wealthy enough to invest in tutors, especially those doing so over many years.
So New York City have tried really hard to create a system that equalises opportunity, but actually may have made it worse. The cream (or the wealthy?) are skimmed off into specialist schools and some other honours courses that are screened on test scores, while the rest end up in zoned schools. Now let me guess which of these schools the better teachers wish to teach in? Which ones find space in the calendar for extra educational activities, rather than remedial ones?
There is also a potential cultural commentary here. The kids with the tutors and the parent-enforced study ethic from a young age are overwhelmingly Asian. This mirrors what little I know of Asian education in general: Singapore and Hong Kong top international league tables, while South Korea is infamous for the young age that all kids start competing for places in elite institutions. India’s elite colleges create similar pressure there. Viewing the faces in that two block line in Long island City, one could be forgiven for mistaking the location as somewhere in Asia.
New York City does its best. In principle any kid can apply for any school. Schools are forced to provide statistics on graduation and college entry. They also provide a more scary statistic, that of ethnic mix, which provides a horrible proxy for attainment. When researching where to live in New York, we used a book of school statistics as a guide. I can’t say I’m proud of that, but as a parent there is only so much space for altruism. The overall outcome must work to entrench success and failure to locality.
One interesting outcome in New York is the huge range of attainment. Our kids are in a school with ten classes in their age grade (yes, it is a large school, large like everything in this city). The classes are streamed. The teachers work from a standard curriculum, including standard homework assignments. I have the uneasy feeling that the top classes already know most of what is taught and require extra stimulus, while the assignments for bottom classes are way out of their depth. Compared with Europe or Asia, I suspect the range of attainment within a school is far greater.
So the end result is entrenched inequality. And that is without even mentioning the poison (for equality of opportunity) of private, fee paying schools. Your parent’s wealth and lifestyle determine your address and your opportunity, probably more than any other factor. Many countries have attempted many schemes, but, as New York shows, the unintended consequences can outweigh the benefits. Some have managed to drag up the average attainment, but few have truly addressed the equality of opportunity issue. And what may look like higher attainment, for example in South Korea, might only be achieved at terrible cost to social development and the opportunity for kids to enjoy just being kids.
So what is to be done? Usually in this blog I have ideas I believe in, but in this case I am somewhat lost. At the heart of the question is the role of parents. All parents want the best for their kids. Getting them the best education possible is a big priority. And the most successful parents have the greatest ability to achieve their goal. Is that wrong? One can hardly object to the aspiration – that sounds like communism or worse. And by the way it will never win votes. And, oh yes, every historical attempt to take away the opportunity has led to a collapse in standards for all.
So we are left with schemes to make the playing field slightly less sloped but still far from level. Bussing. Lotteries. General tests. Quotas. All have flaws, but before we reject them, we have to reflect on the problem they are trying to address and the lack of good alternatives.
Two other policies must make sense, one for each end of the spectrum.
If money is allowed to create opportunity for kids, let us make sure we tax it heavily or at least fairly. The continued charitable status of British public (private) schools feels to me an example of the 1% taking the piss of the rest. I was a beneficiary, and my Mum could reasonably argue that she sacrificed a lot to give me the opportunity, but this sort of argument cannot trump the general one about equalising opportunity. You also can’t argue with Tony Blair and other politicians sending their own kids to public schools. You can argue if they act to perpetuate the unfair advantages of the system. Another obvious sore is the alumni advantage offered by some US colleges. That is entrenched privilege at its most ugly.
The other policy must be to focus at the bottom end to lift the opportunity for the disadvantaged. Extra incentives to teach in deprived areas, and extra budgets for schools there to face up to their extra problems. And schemes to incentivise parents to at least get their kids into school (Brazil is the role model, but such ideas have a place in the developed world too).
I think that is a fair balance. We cling onto the benefits that our own wealth gives us to give our kids a leg up, even though that wealth is probably driven largely by the leg up our own parents gave us. But in return we are ready to pay some tax to help those deprived of such opportunities as much as possible.
The test results for New York City come out in February. Wish us luck.
Part of me was impressed with this piece of Americana. Any kid is allowed to sit the test, and the result is judged only on merit, with places offered based on the test alone, no interview or background check. It also reminded me once again of the sheer scale of this huge city. I have spent a lot of the last months standing or observing lines like these ones.
The test is designed as much as possible to look for innate ability, but of course it cannot entirely do that for twelve-year-olds. Half were comprehension questions, logic puzzles and scrambled paragraphs (sentences you had to place in the right order). The rest were maths, with a premium on speed of working and stamina.
We had spent (their) time and (our) money mugging our kids up for this event, and here my mood darkens a bit. Is it really as fair as it makes out? Actually, the test is judging most of all how well prepared the child is. It is telling that, even though effort is made to avoid the use of concepts that require teaching, nonetheless the regular US curriculum does not include everything that is required. A kid showing up in class, doing moderately well, and then attending the test, would very likely not do well unless exceptionally bright.
But then a child who was able to supplement regular classes with some tailored tutoring stood a much greater chance, since a lot of the key to success was about familiarity with the type of questions and level of practice at working through them at speed. Now how fair is that? Kids blessed with a good postal address would have attended schools where teachers could train them a bit, but most not. And otherwise, the ones with the best chance were the ones with parents wealthy enough to invest in tutors, especially those doing so over many years.
So New York City have tried really hard to create a system that equalises opportunity, but actually may have made it worse. The cream (or the wealthy?) are skimmed off into specialist schools and some other honours courses that are screened on test scores, while the rest end up in zoned schools. Now let me guess which of these schools the better teachers wish to teach in? Which ones find space in the calendar for extra educational activities, rather than remedial ones?
There is also a potential cultural commentary here. The kids with the tutors and the parent-enforced study ethic from a young age are overwhelmingly Asian. This mirrors what little I know of Asian education in general: Singapore and Hong Kong top international league tables, while South Korea is infamous for the young age that all kids start competing for places in elite institutions. India’s elite colleges create similar pressure there. Viewing the faces in that two block line in Long island City, one could be forgiven for mistaking the location as somewhere in Asia.
New York City does its best. In principle any kid can apply for any school. Schools are forced to provide statistics on graduation and college entry. They also provide a more scary statistic, that of ethnic mix, which provides a horrible proxy for attainment. When researching where to live in New York, we used a book of school statistics as a guide. I can’t say I’m proud of that, but as a parent there is only so much space for altruism. The overall outcome must work to entrench success and failure to locality.
One interesting outcome in New York is the huge range of attainment. Our kids are in a school with ten classes in their age grade (yes, it is a large school, large like everything in this city). The classes are streamed. The teachers work from a standard curriculum, including standard homework assignments. I have the uneasy feeling that the top classes already know most of what is taught and require extra stimulus, while the assignments for bottom classes are way out of their depth. Compared with Europe or Asia, I suspect the range of attainment within a school is far greater.
So the end result is entrenched inequality. And that is without even mentioning the poison (for equality of opportunity) of private, fee paying schools. Your parent’s wealth and lifestyle determine your address and your opportunity, probably more than any other factor. Many countries have attempted many schemes, but, as New York shows, the unintended consequences can outweigh the benefits. Some have managed to drag up the average attainment, but few have truly addressed the equality of opportunity issue. And what may look like higher attainment, for example in South Korea, might only be achieved at terrible cost to social development and the opportunity for kids to enjoy just being kids.
So what is to be done? Usually in this blog I have ideas I believe in, but in this case I am somewhat lost. At the heart of the question is the role of parents. All parents want the best for their kids. Getting them the best education possible is a big priority. And the most successful parents have the greatest ability to achieve their goal. Is that wrong? One can hardly object to the aspiration – that sounds like communism or worse. And by the way it will never win votes. And, oh yes, every historical attempt to take away the opportunity has led to a collapse in standards for all.
So we are left with schemes to make the playing field slightly less sloped but still far from level. Bussing. Lotteries. General tests. Quotas. All have flaws, but before we reject them, we have to reflect on the problem they are trying to address and the lack of good alternatives.
Two other policies must make sense, one for each end of the spectrum.
If money is allowed to create opportunity for kids, let us make sure we tax it heavily or at least fairly. The continued charitable status of British public (private) schools feels to me an example of the 1% taking the piss of the rest. I was a beneficiary, and my Mum could reasonably argue that she sacrificed a lot to give me the opportunity, but this sort of argument cannot trump the general one about equalising opportunity. You also can’t argue with Tony Blair and other politicians sending their own kids to public schools. You can argue if they act to perpetuate the unfair advantages of the system. Another obvious sore is the alumni advantage offered by some US colleges. That is entrenched privilege at its most ugly.
The other policy must be to focus at the bottom end to lift the opportunity for the disadvantaged. Extra incentives to teach in deprived areas, and extra budgets for schools there to face up to their extra problems. And schemes to incentivise parents to at least get their kids into school (Brazil is the role model, but such ideas have a place in the developed world too).
I think that is a fair balance. We cling onto the benefits that our own wealth gives us to give our kids a leg up, even though that wealth is probably driven largely by the leg up our own parents gave us. But in return we are ready to pay some tax to help those deprived of such opportunities as much as possible.
The test results for New York City come out in February. Wish us luck.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Letting the GINI out of the bottle
I found The Economist report on inequality during October as one of its best pieces of work for a long time. True to form, it dissected the issue without sentimentality or bias, then proscribed workable remedies.
I have started to notice a trend in the Euro crisis. The Economist does some quality analysis. Some weeks later a consensus emerges among leaders in support of the analysis. Finally, something gets implemented. The last part is always a watered down version, constrained as it is by politics. But I see my favourite magazine starting to have a real impact on outcomes. And I like that.
First, it is refreshing to see The Economist tackling inequality in such depth. As a free market paper, it would be easy to assume that it would be quite hard-hearted about the consequence of capitalism. The Guardian whines on about inequality week after week, as you would expect from a more liberal publication. But the Guardian never comes up with sensible solutions, only hand-wringing and business bashing.
So perhaps the best part of the survey was how The Economist justified the need for concern about inequality. It highlighted the inefficiencies of entrenched inequality. Essentially, the rich succeed in putting up walls to keep out the poor, be it in voice, or education, or in protecting monopolies. That in itself constrains total opportunity for the next generation, as precious resources are wasted and many of the most talented cannot make their talent count, while journeymen can wield power without sufficient checks and balances. Then there is the risk of embitterment and social unrest.
This has always been the case, and those of us blessed by the circumstances of our birth should keep reminding ourselves. As a male born in 1960 in the richest end of an English speaking G7 country to well-off parents, I should be careful how good I allow myself to feel about anything I might have achieved.
The survey gives credence to the impression that the inequality trends in the world are currently bad, just like the period at the end of the 19th century (which, by the way, led to some horrific wars). Despite success with the millennium goals, the GINI coefficient and an index of social mobility are rapidly heading south, almost everywhere.
Now, two weeks ago I listened to a Gospel about how rich people had next to no chance of entering the kingdom of heaven, whatever that may be, and should give away all they own. When I listen to that, I wonder how commentators can claim that the natural party of the Catholic Church in the US is the Republicans. But a great thing about the Economist survey is that it gives reason for concern about rising inequality even if we don’t read too many Gospels.
The Economist offered three global solutions, defined in admirable depth.
The first, true to form, was about free markets. Stop cosseting banks and interest groups. Tackle corruption with transparency and technology. Break up monopolies, even in services and in things like education. Unleash the full economic power of women, the old and the young. Let the market do its work. This recipe is required, with different blend of ingredients, in the developed and developing worlds.
The second redirects social spending to where it is needed and does good. Shift from the old to the young, from welfare to education, from the rich to the poor. Brazil is highlighted as a great recent role model, for its scheme of incentives for people to invest in their own education. Universal granny bus passes and fuel subsidies must go.
The third, and least important, leg is taxation. Don’t overtax high incomes, but do make capital tax closer than income tax and remove loopholes for the wealthy like mortgage relief, while taxing property. I loved the idea that inheritance tax should fall on recipients not the estate.
The theme of education comes up again and again. I am currently learning about the US education system from the inside. It is interesting, and far from all bad, but it is so clear how the outcome entrenches inequality of opportunity. I’ll blog more about that next time.
Now all of this is doable, and doable now. I believe it is also sellable. When I listen to the political ads on US TV I despair, as they run completely counter to this agenda. In the obituary of George McGovern I read again his 1972 manifesto, which had strong elements but massive naivety and was killed by interest groups. Perhaps my own proposal of doing away with countries has a touch of impracticality about it as well!
But maybe there is hope on inequality. If I am right, the European elite has started to read and react to the Economist. I suspect the Chinese elite are more humble than most and digest these things too. The US elite I am not so sure, but perhaps someone will. The millennium goals were the last time global leaders managed to think bigger than their next vote. The Economist inequality agenda deserves the same focus.
I have started to notice a trend in the Euro crisis. The Economist does some quality analysis. Some weeks later a consensus emerges among leaders in support of the analysis. Finally, something gets implemented. The last part is always a watered down version, constrained as it is by politics. But I see my favourite magazine starting to have a real impact on outcomes. And I like that.
First, it is refreshing to see The Economist tackling inequality in such depth. As a free market paper, it would be easy to assume that it would be quite hard-hearted about the consequence of capitalism. The Guardian whines on about inequality week after week, as you would expect from a more liberal publication. But the Guardian never comes up with sensible solutions, only hand-wringing and business bashing.
So perhaps the best part of the survey was how The Economist justified the need for concern about inequality. It highlighted the inefficiencies of entrenched inequality. Essentially, the rich succeed in putting up walls to keep out the poor, be it in voice, or education, or in protecting monopolies. That in itself constrains total opportunity for the next generation, as precious resources are wasted and many of the most talented cannot make their talent count, while journeymen can wield power without sufficient checks and balances. Then there is the risk of embitterment and social unrest.
This has always been the case, and those of us blessed by the circumstances of our birth should keep reminding ourselves. As a male born in 1960 in the richest end of an English speaking G7 country to well-off parents, I should be careful how good I allow myself to feel about anything I might have achieved.
The survey gives credence to the impression that the inequality trends in the world are currently bad, just like the period at the end of the 19th century (which, by the way, led to some horrific wars). Despite success with the millennium goals, the GINI coefficient and an index of social mobility are rapidly heading south, almost everywhere.
Now, two weeks ago I listened to a Gospel about how rich people had next to no chance of entering the kingdom of heaven, whatever that may be, and should give away all they own. When I listen to that, I wonder how commentators can claim that the natural party of the Catholic Church in the US is the Republicans. But a great thing about the Economist survey is that it gives reason for concern about rising inequality even if we don’t read too many Gospels.
The Economist offered three global solutions, defined in admirable depth.
The first, true to form, was about free markets. Stop cosseting banks and interest groups. Tackle corruption with transparency and technology. Break up monopolies, even in services and in things like education. Unleash the full economic power of women, the old and the young. Let the market do its work. This recipe is required, with different blend of ingredients, in the developed and developing worlds.
The second redirects social spending to where it is needed and does good. Shift from the old to the young, from welfare to education, from the rich to the poor. Brazil is highlighted as a great recent role model, for its scheme of incentives for people to invest in their own education. Universal granny bus passes and fuel subsidies must go.
The third, and least important, leg is taxation. Don’t overtax high incomes, but do make capital tax closer than income tax and remove loopholes for the wealthy like mortgage relief, while taxing property. I loved the idea that inheritance tax should fall on recipients not the estate.
The theme of education comes up again and again. I am currently learning about the US education system from the inside. It is interesting, and far from all bad, but it is so clear how the outcome entrenches inequality of opportunity. I’ll blog more about that next time.
Now all of this is doable, and doable now. I believe it is also sellable. When I listen to the political ads on US TV I despair, as they run completely counter to this agenda. In the obituary of George McGovern I read again his 1972 manifesto, which had strong elements but massive naivety and was killed by interest groups. Perhaps my own proposal of doing away with countries has a touch of impracticality about it as well!
But maybe there is hope on inequality. If I am right, the European elite has started to read and react to the Economist. I suspect the Chinese elite are more humble than most and digest these things too. The US elite I am not so sure, but perhaps someone will. The millennium goals were the last time global leaders managed to think bigger than their next vote. The Economist inequality agenda deserves the same focus.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Falling with Love
Last week I mentioned the Ryder Cup. I did manage to watch a lot of it over the weekend, though I missed the decisive hour with another commitment.
The Ryder Cup makes for absolutely gripping TV. Normally, I don’t watch golf, finding it rather slow and repetitive, but this is different. The tension builds slowly, but, just like a test match at cricket, there is something gripping all the way through for days on end, with wonderful twists and turns occurring as we watch. The emotions of the participants are also very much on display. Even if you hate golf or do not understand it, I can recommend the Ryder Cup.
It was interesting watching for the first time on US television, and I have to say that overall I was impressed with both NBC and ESPN. In Europe, Sky are excellent at golf as at so many other sports, but at the Ryder Cup they can become overly partisan. The same is true in the USA, but not to an undue extent. Apart from persisting in showing every shot of Tiger woods many times over, the coverage was pretty balanced.
The result was perhaps the greatest come-back victory the event has ever seen, with away team, Europe, managing to claw their way back from 10-4 down to win 14.5-13.5. We have seen this sort of comeback before by home teams, egged on by wild crowds. We also became used to seeing the USA dominate the last day singles, even when Europe had built a lead on the first two days. This come back bucked both those trends.
It is also remarkable just how dominant the USA had been on the first two days. Most of the matches that they won were by multiple holes, while the only games they lost were by tiny margins, rescued by sheer stubbornness of one or two Europeans, notably Ian Poulter, to succumb to superior opposition. Well done Davis Love and the USA team for finding a formula for the first time ever that seemed to enable the USA team to play well in pairs.
But then it all changed. On Sunday, Europe won the first five matches, then shared the rest to sneak ahead overall. This happened despite more than half of the European team appearing down and out before Sunday, either hopelessly off their game (Hanson, Kaymer), or just exhausted (Westwood, McDowell). At times on the first two days, Poulter looked like the only one who could compete.
So then, the question is why? How did this turn around come about? Many explanations have been offered in the press, but in my view the most important factor has been overlooked.
Undoubtedly Jose Maria Olazabal did a good job as European captain in maintaining hope, evoking the spirit of his dead friend and exceptional leader Seve Ballesteros. Poulter’s ability to cling on almost single handed, plus Olly’s speech making, managed to send the team out alive rather than dead. By the way, until about ten years ago, European teams did go out dead on the last day, even when they were ahead in the match, so sure they were of their own individual inferiority.
Europe also had luck. The close games always depend on a few putts, some of which shave the hole while others go in. Luck has to play a part. Justin Rose holed a truly wonderful putt on the seventeenth, testament to himself, but that had to require luck as well as skill. By the way, the reaction of Mickelson to losing was truly fantastic. Kudos to him. The talk of gamesmanship in these matches (crowd or players) is always very partisan, and it is important to recognise that both sides have their heroes.
Love was criticised for the order he put out his players. I always find this hard to accept. It is little more than random, although he must have known that Europe would have hidden the weakest players near the end, and maybe he should have been tempted to match his form players at that end of the draw.
No, for me there was a bigger decisive factor. The USA were over-confident, not ready for an unlikely fight back. Johnny Miller, an excellent commentator, looked at the matches on Saturday afternoon, and said that when he looked at the form of the players, he could see that USA would win more than they lost. Fair enough, that is his job, and I agreed with him. But the job of the team and the team captain is to guard against thinking the same at all costs, and to try to avoid the same mentality in the crowd.
Love did no such thing. His body language and interviews betrayed a sureness of success that I believe was the team’s undoing. He predicted who would hole the winning putt – a position in the draw implying an easy win. He talked about how great his own team were playing, without warning of the risk of Europe upping their game.
Then, when the unlikely resurgence did start to take place, the USA team were off guard and not ready. They will still mentally preparing their acceptance speeches and perhaps even relying on their colleagues (“we are so superior that even if I drop my point we will still win”). By the time they realised, it was too late. The crowd were adding to pressure rather than relieving it, and the players could not respond.
This is an extraordinary part of human nature that I have witnessed in myself too often. When I was leading a bridge tournament, my thoughts would wander into the winner’s circle, and it invariably led to a disaster. By the same token, if I entered a tournament feeling inferior, the results duly proved it. A tiny change in mindset leads to a marked change in performance.
I blame Love for this. It is not rocket science. How often do you hear a player from a winning soccer team quote the team talk from his manager? “We knew it would be a tough game, they have great players”. “We knew they would come back at us after half time”. This demonstrates good psychology by the coaches. Love, and his vice captains and advisors, should have known better. This is especially true since I remember him making the same mistake as a player in many Ryder Cup matches. Someone in the USA should have been able to stop it, but no one was.
The lesson for all of us is clear beyond sports. It is amazing what we can achieve if we perform at our peak. Most of us need remarkable support to reach our peak (a coach in our ear, some anger, lots of belief). And most of us are pulled from peak performance too easily when distracted, notably by momentary over-confidence.
If we remember this in all our activities, we can perform much better. It may be the secret at why some of us are overtaken by people we believe are less talented or deserving. While we are blaming the boss or the system, maybe we should look at our own psychology. And maybe the ability to perform at peak is a talent as well, even the most important one.
In the meantime, arise Sir Ian. Living here, you could be forgiven for thinking that there was only one adjective in US English. We laugh and joke about it whenever we hear the word now. But sometimes a performance deserves the adjective – Mr Poulter, that really was awesome.
The Ryder Cup makes for absolutely gripping TV. Normally, I don’t watch golf, finding it rather slow and repetitive, but this is different. The tension builds slowly, but, just like a test match at cricket, there is something gripping all the way through for days on end, with wonderful twists and turns occurring as we watch. The emotions of the participants are also very much on display. Even if you hate golf or do not understand it, I can recommend the Ryder Cup.
It was interesting watching for the first time on US television, and I have to say that overall I was impressed with both NBC and ESPN. In Europe, Sky are excellent at golf as at so many other sports, but at the Ryder Cup they can become overly partisan. The same is true in the USA, but not to an undue extent. Apart from persisting in showing every shot of Tiger woods many times over, the coverage was pretty balanced.
The result was perhaps the greatest come-back victory the event has ever seen, with away team, Europe, managing to claw their way back from 10-4 down to win 14.5-13.5. We have seen this sort of comeback before by home teams, egged on by wild crowds. We also became used to seeing the USA dominate the last day singles, even when Europe had built a lead on the first two days. This come back bucked both those trends.
It is also remarkable just how dominant the USA had been on the first two days. Most of the matches that they won were by multiple holes, while the only games they lost were by tiny margins, rescued by sheer stubbornness of one or two Europeans, notably Ian Poulter, to succumb to superior opposition. Well done Davis Love and the USA team for finding a formula for the first time ever that seemed to enable the USA team to play well in pairs.
But then it all changed. On Sunday, Europe won the first five matches, then shared the rest to sneak ahead overall. This happened despite more than half of the European team appearing down and out before Sunday, either hopelessly off their game (Hanson, Kaymer), or just exhausted (Westwood, McDowell). At times on the first two days, Poulter looked like the only one who could compete.
So then, the question is why? How did this turn around come about? Many explanations have been offered in the press, but in my view the most important factor has been overlooked.
Undoubtedly Jose Maria Olazabal did a good job as European captain in maintaining hope, evoking the spirit of his dead friend and exceptional leader Seve Ballesteros. Poulter’s ability to cling on almost single handed, plus Olly’s speech making, managed to send the team out alive rather than dead. By the way, until about ten years ago, European teams did go out dead on the last day, even when they were ahead in the match, so sure they were of their own individual inferiority.
Europe also had luck. The close games always depend on a few putts, some of which shave the hole while others go in. Luck has to play a part. Justin Rose holed a truly wonderful putt on the seventeenth, testament to himself, but that had to require luck as well as skill. By the way, the reaction of Mickelson to losing was truly fantastic. Kudos to him. The talk of gamesmanship in these matches (crowd or players) is always very partisan, and it is important to recognise that both sides have their heroes.
Love was criticised for the order he put out his players. I always find this hard to accept. It is little more than random, although he must have known that Europe would have hidden the weakest players near the end, and maybe he should have been tempted to match his form players at that end of the draw.
No, for me there was a bigger decisive factor. The USA were over-confident, not ready for an unlikely fight back. Johnny Miller, an excellent commentator, looked at the matches on Saturday afternoon, and said that when he looked at the form of the players, he could see that USA would win more than they lost. Fair enough, that is his job, and I agreed with him. But the job of the team and the team captain is to guard against thinking the same at all costs, and to try to avoid the same mentality in the crowd.
Love did no such thing. His body language and interviews betrayed a sureness of success that I believe was the team’s undoing. He predicted who would hole the winning putt – a position in the draw implying an easy win. He talked about how great his own team were playing, without warning of the risk of Europe upping their game.
Then, when the unlikely resurgence did start to take place, the USA team were off guard and not ready. They will still mentally preparing their acceptance speeches and perhaps even relying on their colleagues (“we are so superior that even if I drop my point we will still win”). By the time they realised, it was too late. The crowd were adding to pressure rather than relieving it, and the players could not respond.
This is an extraordinary part of human nature that I have witnessed in myself too often. When I was leading a bridge tournament, my thoughts would wander into the winner’s circle, and it invariably led to a disaster. By the same token, if I entered a tournament feeling inferior, the results duly proved it. A tiny change in mindset leads to a marked change in performance.
I blame Love for this. It is not rocket science. How often do you hear a player from a winning soccer team quote the team talk from his manager? “We knew it would be a tough game, they have great players”. “We knew they would come back at us after half time”. This demonstrates good psychology by the coaches. Love, and his vice captains and advisors, should have known better. This is especially true since I remember him making the same mistake as a player in many Ryder Cup matches. Someone in the USA should have been able to stop it, but no one was.
The lesson for all of us is clear beyond sports. It is amazing what we can achieve if we perform at our peak. Most of us need remarkable support to reach our peak (a coach in our ear, some anger, lots of belief). And most of us are pulled from peak performance too easily when distracted, notably by momentary over-confidence.
If we remember this in all our activities, we can perform much better. It may be the secret at why some of us are overtaken by people we believe are less talented or deserving. While we are blaming the boss or the system, maybe we should look at our own psychology. And maybe the ability to perform at peak is a talent as well, even the most important one.
In the meantime, arise Sir Ian. Living here, you could be forgiven for thinking that there was only one adjective in US English. We laugh and joke about it whenever we hear the word now. But sometimes a performance deserves the adjective – Mr Poulter, that really was awesome.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Love the Ref
The English football season has started, and the players and coaches are as usual competing to intimidate the referees, and blame them for their own inadequacies. Ferguson seems to have a complete hold on the administrators and is able to bully anyone and get away with it, and Mancini and Wenger occasionally sulk about this state of affairs, while trying to play the same game themselves. Who would be a referee?
Meanwhile, a wonderful experiment is taking place on my side of the Atlantic. I love NFL, and am in awe at the quality of the refereeing of the game compared with English soccer. But this season there has been a dispute between the referees and the owners/administrators, with the result that the regular officials are not available, and have been replaced by refs from lower tiers of the game.
The result has been chaos. The replacement refs are not bad, and they do their best, which arguably is a good as a premier league soccer ref does. But the sport is so intense and has so many marginal calls that the replacement refs cannot quite do the job required.
This weekend many of the results were plainly influenced by bad calls from officials. On Monday night, with half of the USA watching, the very last play of the game led to a terrible call which reversed the result of the game. A Seattle receiver was judged to have caught the ball when plainly he had pushed his opponent cynically, and still it was a Green Bay defender who had really secured the catch. First, two officials on the field made opposite rulings. Then, after a debate, the wrong one was sustained. Then the main ref reviewed the decision again using TV replay and still got it wrong. Pandemonium ensued, including loss of discipline by coaches and commentators.
We had been building up to this moment. Because the refs were not quite up to the task, players had started taking chances with the rules. The normal dialogue and balance of decisions was never established, and cheating became rife while decisions became random. After three weeks, we now have some games where almost every play seems to result in a penalty, yet where other blatant infractions are missed.
The corrosive effect is stunning to witness. Games are lasting up to half an hour longer (for all the penalties and reviews) which ruins TV schedules and entertainment. Clubs have started coaching their players to cheat, and coaches have started to vocally bully refs too. It is noticeable that results are more random than usual – after three weeks only three teams are unbeaten and only two have failed to win. The game is rapidly losing its integrity, week by week.
Does this matter? Well, once you accept that any sport matters, it does. Careers are made and broken by marginal decisions. And the whole edifice of the game requires a contented, credulous audience.
It is pretty clear who the winners are in all of this, and that is the regular officials, watching it all from their sofas at home. For the first time, their true value is being seen, by players, coaches, pundits and fans alike. People used to being derided are now seen for the wonderful professionals that they are. The league is suddenly very keen to resolve the dispute, and no doubt the referees will gain respect and fairer rewards as a result. Good for them.
It is a shame that it takes a strike and disintegration of the game for us to appreciate the most important and possibly most skilful people on the field. Perhaps premier league refs should take a leaf out of the book of their colleagues in the USA and get tougher.
Here are some thoughts for a manifesto for refs to present to the premier league (and/or UEFA).
Point One. A professional body and career ladder for referees, backed up by good pay (a fixed fraction of TV rights?), schools, and training.
Point Two. The professional body sets the rules, not the league, coaches or pundits. Too often we have seen ill-thought out changes leading to chaos. The offside law about interfering with play, the advantage law, and accidental hand ball are examples. Leave it to the pros.
Point Three. More refs per match, and maximal use of technology. Why not have five officials on and around the pitch, communicating with each other? Why not have refs in the booth judging calls in real time based on TV instant replay? I don’t buy the argument that play is continuous and could not apply technology without interrupting the flow. It takes a couple of seconds to view a replay. If the ref on the field is unsure, he can play a sort of advantage until he is sure. Cards can also be awarded (or rescinded) minutes after an offence.
Point Four. Post-match reviews and sanctions. Dissent, diving and other cheating should result in long bans, including for coaches, escalating for repeat offenders. Yellow and red cards should all be reviewed after the game and given a point value, leading to possible future suspensions. I don’t buy the argument that punters want to see stars perform. It is true, and, after a few weeks adjusting to the new realities, stars (and their coaches) will make sure that they comply to stay on the pitch. Coach bans are from their work, not just touchline bans.
In return for the above, refs agree to be judged and rewarded on their performance, which is openly published.
I believe this would take away a lot of the inconsistency, bullying, cheating and bad refereeing and improve the game for all. Soccer has all the money, but other sports (rugby, cricket, tennis) are far ahead in how they set and apply the rules. If the league disagree, then let the refs walk out for a few weeks, and see what happens then. Just like in the USA, everyone will be eating out of the hands of the refs after a few weeks of chaos.
There is also a wider lesson here beyond sports. Every part of life needs clear rules policed by good officials. If officials lose integrity, the whole activity suffers.
So, should we value the police more than we do? Tax officials? What about business regulators? Schumpeter argues (rather sadly) that all business leaders will cheat to the extent they can get away with it. So let us use technology, training, and sanctions to enforce a fair game. A fair game creates integrity, and, ultimately, competitive advantage. It is worth investing in.
In the meantime, the circus of the NFL moves forwards. I wonder what this weekend will bring. And meanwhile, in Chicago, the role model for all other sports as far as self-compliance is concerned will provide the wonderful entertainment that is golf’s Ryder Cup. I envisage having the TV on for quite a few hours this weekend.
Meanwhile, a wonderful experiment is taking place on my side of the Atlantic. I love NFL, and am in awe at the quality of the refereeing of the game compared with English soccer. But this season there has been a dispute between the referees and the owners/administrators, with the result that the regular officials are not available, and have been replaced by refs from lower tiers of the game.
The result has been chaos. The replacement refs are not bad, and they do their best, which arguably is a good as a premier league soccer ref does. But the sport is so intense and has so many marginal calls that the replacement refs cannot quite do the job required.
This weekend many of the results were plainly influenced by bad calls from officials. On Monday night, with half of the USA watching, the very last play of the game led to a terrible call which reversed the result of the game. A Seattle receiver was judged to have caught the ball when plainly he had pushed his opponent cynically, and still it was a Green Bay defender who had really secured the catch. First, two officials on the field made opposite rulings. Then, after a debate, the wrong one was sustained. Then the main ref reviewed the decision again using TV replay and still got it wrong. Pandemonium ensued, including loss of discipline by coaches and commentators.
We had been building up to this moment. Because the refs were not quite up to the task, players had started taking chances with the rules. The normal dialogue and balance of decisions was never established, and cheating became rife while decisions became random. After three weeks, we now have some games where almost every play seems to result in a penalty, yet where other blatant infractions are missed.
The corrosive effect is stunning to witness. Games are lasting up to half an hour longer (for all the penalties and reviews) which ruins TV schedules and entertainment. Clubs have started coaching their players to cheat, and coaches have started to vocally bully refs too. It is noticeable that results are more random than usual – after three weeks only three teams are unbeaten and only two have failed to win. The game is rapidly losing its integrity, week by week.
Does this matter? Well, once you accept that any sport matters, it does. Careers are made and broken by marginal decisions. And the whole edifice of the game requires a contented, credulous audience.
It is pretty clear who the winners are in all of this, and that is the regular officials, watching it all from their sofas at home. For the first time, their true value is being seen, by players, coaches, pundits and fans alike. People used to being derided are now seen for the wonderful professionals that they are. The league is suddenly very keen to resolve the dispute, and no doubt the referees will gain respect and fairer rewards as a result. Good for them.
It is a shame that it takes a strike and disintegration of the game for us to appreciate the most important and possibly most skilful people on the field. Perhaps premier league refs should take a leaf out of the book of their colleagues in the USA and get tougher.
Here are some thoughts for a manifesto for refs to present to the premier league (and/or UEFA).
Point One. A professional body and career ladder for referees, backed up by good pay (a fixed fraction of TV rights?), schools, and training.
Point Two. The professional body sets the rules, not the league, coaches or pundits. Too often we have seen ill-thought out changes leading to chaos. The offside law about interfering with play, the advantage law, and accidental hand ball are examples. Leave it to the pros.
Point Three. More refs per match, and maximal use of technology. Why not have five officials on and around the pitch, communicating with each other? Why not have refs in the booth judging calls in real time based on TV instant replay? I don’t buy the argument that play is continuous and could not apply technology without interrupting the flow. It takes a couple of seconds to view a replay. If the ref on the field is unsure, he can play a sort of advantage until he is sure. Cards can also be awarded (or rescinded) minutes after an offence.
Point Four. Post-match reviews and sanctions. Dissent, diving and other cheating should result in long bans, including for coaches, escalating for repeat offenders. Yellow and red cards should all be reviewed after the game and given a point value, leading to possible future suspensions. I don’t buy the argument that punters want to see stars perform. It is true, and, after a few weeks adjusting to the new realities, stars (and their coaches) will make sure that they comply to stay on the pitch. Coach bans are from their work, not just touchline bans.
In return for the above, refs agree to be judged and rewarded on their performance, which is openly published.
I believe this would take away a lot of the inconsistency, bullying, cheating and bad refereeing and improve the game for all. Soccer has all the money, but other sports (rugby, cricket, tennis) are far ahead in how they set and apply the rules. If the league disagree, then let the refs walk out for a few weeks, and see what happens then. Just like in the USA, everyone will be eating out of the hands of the refs after a few weeks of chaos.
There is also a wider lesson here beyond sports. Every part of life needs clear rules policed by good officials. If officials lose integrity, the whole activity suffers.
So, should we value the police more than we do? Tax officials? What about business regulators? Schumpeter argues (rather sadly) that all business leaders will cheat to the extent they can get away with it. So let us use technology, training, and sanctions to enforce a fair game. A fair game creates integrity, and, ultimately, competitive advantage. It is worth investing in.
In the meantime, the circus of the NFL moves forwards. I wonder what this weekend will bring. And meanwhile, in Chicago, the role model for all other sports as far as self-compliance is concerned will provide the wonderful entertainment that is golf’s Ryder Cup. I envisage having the TV on for quite a few hours this weekend.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Get in Line
Over the years, I have noticed some expectations others have of me once they learn that I am British. They don’t always conform to what British people think is their reputation.
One thing I find consistently funny is about taking tea with milk. Actually, I do take tea with milk, though I am happy to go without. But somehow whenever I order tea from someone who knows I am British, they make a point about the milk.
I wonder how this particular reputation became so strong. Once I developed a theory. Perhaps there is a standard textbook for learning English, used in many countries. Perhaps, in a very early chapter, a British person orders tea, and asks for milk in it. Perhaps the textbook makes some general remark about Brits preferring tea with milk.
I suppose it is possible. There has to be something powerful to have created this reputation. I can almost guarantee a knowing smile and short conversation, anywhere in the world. Probably that is how the French got the reputation for striped shirts, garlic and bicycles.
More recently, people like John Cleese or Ricky Gervais have a lot to answer for. Another thing Brits are known for is a dark humour, cleverness or wit. At least this one is positive. Luckily I fit the stereotype again, or at least I think I do.
In my experience, the people typically having the most wit are the Irish. Many times I have been in Irish company, from all walks of life, and been astonished at the pace and ingenuity of the wit, of almost everyone. I wonder where that comes from. They certainly have a very social culture, which must help.
Other British things are bad (or at least careless) dress sense and bad food – despite the plethora of British chefs (many of whom I can confirm are picking up good royalties from US TV). Once again, as a lazy dresser and hopeless cook, I can count myself typical.
Maybe the most common impression of the Brits is about our reserve. We are seen as formal, snobbish, awkward in discussing emotions, and to use language to avoid plain speaking. We are also sometimes suspected of deviousness.
The deviousness completely contradicts the self-image of the Brits, who talk a lot of the British sense of fair play. I must admit that I am with the foreigners on this one, and have often been embarrassed by British sportspeople and politicians.
I just finished a great book, Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It is a history of that city, and the overwhelming impression is embarrassment for the human race. Before reading this I thought the bible story of Salome putting John the Baptist’s head on a plate was either false or extreme. Now I learn that this has been the norm for human behaviour, for three thousand years and pretty well up to the present. No wonder the politics there is so fraught.
The British come out no better than anyone else. British efforts in Jerusalem have been devious and naïve. Being an island and relatively ethnically homogenous group, I think Brits underestimate the historical complexity of other lands – that would also explain some of the British history in Ireland. But Brits also seem to listen badly, to believe in their superiority, and to be willing to cheat to impose their ideas. The empire might have a lot to do with that. At least the French come out even worse! To be fair, no-one comes out very well.
On this group of traits, I find I am often accused of being counter to the stereotype, though I recently learned that I am seen as formal and uptight on first impression. But I do speak my mind plainly, and that often surprised my European colleagues in Shell. “Very Dutch for a Brit” was something I heard many times – and took as a compliment.
Which brings me to the last trait, the inspiration for this blog in the first place. Queuing. Or as the Americans term it, standing in line.
I’ve never really discerned much difference in national attitudes to queuing. No-one likes it very much, why should they? Perhaps the Southern races queue with less discipline than the protestant North. That would be consistent with other parts of their character. But I don’t see the British as particularly attracted to queues, as the folklore seems to imply.
I can claim some new expertise though. My own attitude to queues has been tested to its limits in New York. Wow, I have spent more time in line here than ever in my life. I think it is just due to the scale of the place, combined with the normal chores of starting out in a country. Wow, it starts at the immigration lines at the airports.
Being on the roads involves some amazing queues. I am generally impressed with how things move here, and take my hat off to the traffic planners. Under huge pressure, they have really put effort into details like the phasing of traffic lights, and it pays off. But the system is still fragile, and if there is an accident or bad weather or some other disruption, the consequences are predictably huge. Hence the queues.
Then there is anything popular. In our first weeks we discovered free summer concerts in Central Park. What we didn’t realise was that everyone else discovered them as well, leading to crazy queues, and most of us ending up listening from the park outside rather than inside the venue. It was still fun, despite the well-known disrespect of New Yorkers – chatting loudly the whole time. We have also discovered a van that comes to Forest Hills on a Sunday to sell Belgian waffles. But so has the rest of Forest Hills. The lines are as legendary as the waffles.
Sometimes it is just the distances. Coney Island on the subway is a direct train for us, at an amazing price of $2,25. The only problem – it is forty stops! Can you recall a time you sat on any train while it stopped forty times? Maybe it is not a queue, but by the end it sure feels like one. (By the way, there was nothing there once we made it).
We hired a car for one day. Shame we chose Labor day weekend. Budget, in their wisdom, seems to have forgotten that fact, even though their computers probably told them they had a lot of orders, just like always on a holiday. We stood in line in the sun for an hour and three quarters. Many people in the line had things like weddings to get to, and I was impressed that there was no riot, and the staff were brilliant – perhaps that is why there was no riot.
The Budget experience gave another hint about American lines. Occasionally some posh bastard would show up and jump the queue, on the flimsy grounds that they had paid a bit more or had a loyalty card. New York has many lines, but I suspect some people spend more time in lines than others.
Which brings me to the Department of Motor Vehicles. So far I have made three visits. You queue (out of the door, almost into the elevator) for an initial assessment, which qualifies you (perhaps) to join a range of other queues. Many of the staff seem to have role models in the military. I think I will have to visit three more times to be become a fully qualified driver in the USA, despite my almost unblemished and lengthy international driving record. I now psyche myself up, forcing myself into a good and fatalistic mood before entering. Wow, you see a lot of angry, almost desperate people at the DMV.
Add in the experience that Time Warner Cable needed me to stay at home four whole days to succeed in giving us TV and internet (how do people cope with that if they have jobs?), and you get a picture of someone getting used to lines.
Actually, I think I am rare good Brit in this respect, as I am quite good in a line. I am usually patient, happy in my own company, and generally remember to bring a book or newspaper. And I enjoy observing the people. In New York, someone will always cause a scene, New Yorkers are rarely shy and retiring sorts. So perhaps, after all, there is something about the Brits and queues, our reputation might be justified.
Now, can I spend less of the next ten weeks in lines please?
One thing I find consistently funny is about taking tea with milk. Actually, I do take tea with milk, though I am happy to go without. But somehow whenever I order tea from someone who knows I am British, they make a point about the milk.
I wonder how this particular reputation became so strong. Once I developed a theory. Perhaps there is a standard textbook for learning English, used in many countries. Perhaps, in a very early chapter, a British person orders tea, and asks for milk in it. Perhaps the textbook makes some general remark about Brits preferring tea with milk.
I suppose it is possible. There has to be something powerful to have created this reputation. I can almost guarantee a knowing smile and short conversation, anywhere in the world. Probably that is how the French got the reputation for striped shirts, garlic and bicycles.
More recently, people like John Cleese or Ricky Gervais have a lot to answer for. Another thing Brits are known for is a dark humour, cleverness or wit. At least this one is positive. Luckily I fit the stereotype again, or at least I think I do.
In my experience, the people typically having the most wit are the Irish. Many times I have been in Irish company, from all walks of life, and been astonished at the pace and ingenuity of the wit, of almost everyone. I wonder where that comes from. They certainly have a very social culture, which must help.
Other British things are bad (or at least careless) dress sense and bad food – despite the plethora of British chefs (many of whom I can confirm are picking up good royalties from US TV). Once again, as a lazy dresser and hopeless cook, I can count myself typical.
Maybe the most common impression of the Brits is about our reserve. We are seen as formal, snobbish, awkward in discussing emotions, and to use language to avoid plain speaking. We are also sometimes suspected of deviousness.
The deviousness completely contradicts the self-image of the Brits, who talk a lot of the British sense of fair play. I must admit that I am with the foreigners on this one, and have often been embarrassed by British sportspeople and politicians.
I just finished a great book, Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It is a history of that city, and the overwhelming impression is embarrassment for the human race. Before reading this I thought the bible story of Salome putting John the Baptist’s head on a plate was either false or extreme. Now I learn that this has been the norm for human behaviour, for three thousand years and pretty well up to the present. No wonder the politics there is so fraught.
The British come out no better than anyone else. British efforts in Jerusalem have been devious and naïve. Being an island and relatively ethnically homogenous group, I think Brits underestimate the historical complexity of other lands – that would also explain some of the British history in Ireland. But Brits also seem to listen badly, to believe in their superiority, and to be willing to cheat to impose their ideas. The empire might have a lot to do with that. At least the French come out even worse! To be fair, no-one comes out very well.
On this group of traits, I find I am often accused of being counter to the stereotype, though I recently learned that I am seen as formal and uptight on first impression. But I do speak my mind plainly, and that often surprised my European colleagues in Shell. “Very Dutch for a Brit” was something I heard many times – and took as a compliment.
Which brings me to the last trait, the inspiration for this blog in the first place. Queuing. Or as the Americans term it, standing in line.
I’ve never really discerned much difference in national attitudes to queuing. No-one likes it very much, why should they? Perhaps the Southern races queue with less discipline than the protestant North. That would be consistent with other parts of their character. But I don’t see the British as particularly attracted to queues, as the folklore seems to imply.
I can claim some new expertise though. My own attitude to queues has been tested to its limits in New York. Wow, I have spent more time in line here than ever in my life. I think it is just due to the scale of the place, combined with the normal chores of starting out in a country. Wow, it starts at the immigration lines at the airports.
Being on the roads involves some amazing queues. I am generally impressed with how things move here, and take my hat off to the traffic planners. Under huge pressure, they have really put effort into details like the phasing of traffic lights, and it pays off. But the system is still fragile, and if there is an accident or bad weather or some other disruption, the consequences are predictably huge. Hence the queues.
Then there is anything popular. In our first weeks we discovered free summer concerts in Central Park. What we didn’t realise was that everyone else discovered them as well, leading to crazy queues, and most of us ending up listening from the park outside rather than inside the venue. It was still fun, despite the well-known disrespect of New Yorkers – chatting loudly the whole time. We have also discovered a van that comes to Forest Hills on a Sunday to sell Belgian waffles. But so has the rest of Forest Hills. The lines are as legendary as the waffles.
Sometimes it is just the distances. Coney Island on the subway is a direct train for us, at an amazing price of $2,25. The only problem – it is forty stops! Can you recall a time you sat on any train while it stopped forty times? Maybe it is not a queue, but by the end it sure feels like one. (By the way, there was nothing there once we made it).
We hired a car for one day. Shame we chose Labor day weekend. Budget, in their wisdom, seems to have forgotten that fact, even though their computers probably told them they had a lot of orders, just like always on a holiday. We stood in line in the sun for an hour and three quarters. Many people in the line had things like weddings to get to, and I was impressed that there was no riot, and the staff were brilliant – perhaps that is why there was no riot.
The Budget experience gave another hint about American lines. Occasionally some posh bastard would show up and jump the queue, on the flimsy grounds that they had paid a bit more or had a loyalty card. New York has many lines, but I suspect some people spend more time in lines than others.
Which brings me to the Department of Motor Vehicles. So far I have made three visits. You queue (out of the door, almost into the elevator) for an initial assessment, which qualifies you (perhaps) to join a range of other queues. Many of the staff seem to have role models in the military. I think I will have to visit three more times to be become a fully qualified driver in the USA, despite my almost unblemished and lengthy international driving record. I now psyche myself up, forcing myself into a good and fatalistic mood before entering. Wow, you see a lot of angry, almost desperate people at the DMV.
Add in the experience that Time Warner Cable needed me to stay at home four whole days to succeed in giving us TV and internet (how do people cope with that if they have jobs?), and you get a picture of someone getting used to lines.
Actually, I think I am rare good Brit in this respect, as I am quite good in a line. I am usually patient, happy in my own company, and generally remember to bring a book or newspaper. And I enjoy observing the people. In New York, someone will always cause a scene, New Yorkers are rarely shy and retiring sorts. So perhaps, after all, there is something about the Brits and queues, our reputation might be justified.
Now, can I spend less of the next ten weeks in lines please?
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
A Sleepy at the Wheel?
It is fascinating to see how retail has evolved differently in the USA compared with Europe, both by looking at outlets and at advertising.
In New York, medical advertising is a lot more prominent, and so are specialist medical practices and pharmacies. I expected this, as a consequence of how the US health market is lucrative for providers. There are also quite a few adverts suggesting you start a lawsuit for medical malpractice. Perhaps as a consequence, ads for drugs are very funny, since they spend as much commentary telling you why NOT to take the product as they do promoting it.
Outside, there are many more banks, with big branches, and many more petrol stations, usually nasty little dealer-owned outlets with service bays attached.
In both Europe and the US, mobile telecoms has become a huge category, both in store space and in advertising. I can be bemused just as easily by Verizon here as I was by Vodafone there!
One category much more developed in the USA is personal grooming, specifically nails and massage type places. They are everywhere, and either people must be buying these services week after week or most of them must be losing money.
What are there less of? Shoe shops is one category. Shoes are traditionally a high margin line in Europe, with many outlets on every high street. Here, shoe shops seem to have retreated into malls.
In the Netherlands, high streets are still very buoyant, due to various factors such as cycling, kitchen sizes and government policy. In the UK, high streets nowadays are bleak places, filled with cheap eateries and charity shops. Everything else has been killed by major supermarkets and malls. These abominations exist in the US as well, but, at least in New York City, small shopping areas have survived, though with many categories missing. Apart from the grooming shops, launderettes (many homes do not have washing machines), small general stores and eateries, you see a lot of small places catering to minorities, such as kosher bakeries. Whole districts have become clusters for particular immigrant groups, from Greeks to Koreans. There is even a Philippine quarter in Queens!
But some differences defy logic, or at least my logic. My favourite is a company called Sleepy’s, who sell mattresses in New York and other North east states. I don’t recall watching any advert for mattresses in the UK recently, nor to my knowledge are there many shops left specialising in mattresses. Like in many categories, IKEA has killed most competition that is not online. And surely this is a good category to go online, as retail stores need spacious inventory while the customer still has to get the product home from there. Furthermore a mattress seems the very opposite of an impulse purchase.
Not here. Sleepy’s are everywhere. Watch a TV show, and there may be a Sleepy’s ad in most advert breaks. Ride on the subway or bus, and you’ll see outside advertising. And you’ll also see quite a few physical stores, even in super-expensive Manhattan. My wife and I are laughing about it now, playing a game of spot the Sleepy’s.
So how can this be? An invisible category in Europe, with seeming good reason to be invisible, is ubiquitous here. I did a little research.
First, to Google. Sleepy’s is privately owned, by a single family who are now in third or fourth generation. Profit figures are therefore not available, but I did discover that sales in one recent year were $790 million, and they had 800 stores, a growing number.
$790m made sense. I guessed that people would buy maybe 3 to 5 new mattresses in a lifetime, and, extrapolating to the market of North East US, that implies a category of $2-3bn annual sales, so these busy retailers might have 30-40% of that. Reasonable.
But then work it out per store. $1m annual turnover might equate to weekly sales of 30 mattresses. That is one every two hours, from these huge stores with high inventory costs.
To check, I visited one near me. It was indeed a huge store filled with mattresses (at least on the second floor so slightly cheaper rental), and with long opening hours. I was not entirely surprised to see just one forlorn salesman, and not a single potential customer. I felt very sorry for the guy as I was making my excuses to leave without so much as a sniff of purchase!
Now some more maths. Sleepy’s is just a retailer not a manufacturer, and discounts a lot, so let us assume a 20% gross margin. Each store must have 8-10 full time staff equivalents, costing say $150,000, and the same costs in rent, utilities and so on. So a store has $200,000 of gross margin and $300,000 of costs. And then, there is the huge advertising budget to fund.
I am defeated. Either my assumptions are way out, or I just don’t understand the category, or the poor Acker family are pouring a small fortune into a business that can’t make money. Possibly all of the above are true. Any other ideas?
What lessons can we learn from comparing the markets? There are several.
First, regulation is always critical. Sectors like banks will evolve very much depending on their regulatory environment and the degree of cut-throat competition, itself heavily influenced by regulation. By that reckoning, regulators here have generally done a bad job, at least in banking, petrol retailing and medical supplies. Each of these sectors looks incredibly fat here.
Next, look at demographics. New York will be more densely populated than most of the USA, with lower dependence on cars. That will explain that Houston to my eyes was one enormous ugly retail parking lot, whereas New York has so far avoided that fate. Add in the diversity of residents, and typical home sizes (kitchens, fridges, washing machines) and you can find reasons for many other differences.
Another lesson is that habits die hard. Things are partly as they are in the USA because that is the way they always have been. Change happens (look at mobile phones) but always more slowly than pure logic would suggest, so differences also perpetuate even if not strictly logical. If you doubt that, just look at the notes and coins. How come Americans still have paper dollars and all notes look the same? Answer – because that it the way it has always been, people resist change, and politicians don’t like annoying core voters.
But my favourite lesson is the one from Sleepy’s. You can explain many things, but some defy explanation. Entrepreneurs and customers have many motives you don’t read about in economics text books, and strange outcomes can result, often for many years. Markets are far from perfect, and we should celebrate that, as it provides glorious diversity as customers and great opportunities as entrepreneurs and investors.
Nonetheless, if I were investing in a sector in Europe, I think I would plump for personal grooming rather than mattress retailing.
In New York, medical advertising is a lot more prominent, and so are specialist medical practices and pharmacies. I expected this, as a consequence of how the US health market is lucrative for providers. There are also quite a few adverts suggesting you start a lawsuit for medical malpractice. Perhaps as a consequence, ads for drugs are very funny, since they spend as much commentary telling you why NOT to take the product as they do promoting it.
Outside, there are many more banks, with big branches, and many more petrol stations, usually nasty little dealer-owned outlets with service bays attached.
In both Europe and the US, mobile telecoms has become a huge category, both in store space and in advertising. I can be bemused just as easily by Verizon here as I was by Vodafone there!
One category much more developed in the USA is personal grooming, specifically nails and massage type places. They are everywhere, and either people must be buying these services week after week or most of them must be losing money.
What are there less of? Shoe shops is one category. Shoes are traditionally a high margin line in Europe, with many outlets on every high street. Here, shoe shops seem to have retreated into malls.
In the Netherlands, high streets are still very buoyant, due to various factors such as cycling, kitchen sizes and government policy. In the UK, high streets nowadays are bleak places, filled with cheap eateries and charity shops. Everything else has been killed by major supermarkets and malls. These abominations exist in the US as well, but, at least in New York City, small shopping areas have survived, though with many categories missing. Apart from the grooming shops, launderettes (many homes do not have washing machines), small general stores and eateries, you see a lot of small places catering to minorities, such as kosher bakeries. Whole districts have become clusters for particular immigrant groups, from Greeks to Koreans. There is even a Philippine quarter in Queens!
But some differences defy logic, or at least my logic. My favourite is a company called Sleepy’s, who sell mattresses in New York and other North east states. I don’t recall watching any advert for mattresses in the UK recently, nor to my knowledge are there many shops left specialising in mattresses. Like in many categories, IKEA has killed most competition that is not online. And surely this is a good category to go online, as retail stores need spacious inventory while the customer still has to get the product home from there. Furthermore a mattress seems the very opposite of an impulse purchase.
Not here. Sleepy’s are everywhere. Watch a TV show, and there may be a Sleepy’s ad in most advert breaks. Ride on the subway or bus, and you’ll see outside advertising. And you’ll also see quite a few physical stores, even in super-expensive Manhattan. My wife and I are laughing about it now, playing a game of spot the Sleepy’s.
So how can this be? An invisible category in Europe, with seeming good reason to be invisible, is ubiquitous here. I did a little research.
First, to Google. Sleepy’s is privately owned, by a single family who are now in third or fourth generation. Profit figures are therefore not available, but I did discover that sales in one recent year were $790 million, and they had 800 stores, a growing number.
$790m made sense. I guessed that people would buy maybe 3 to 5 new mattresses in a lifetime, and, extrapolating to the market of North East US, that implies a category of $2-3bn annual sales, so these busy retailers might have 30-40% of that. Reasonable.
But then work it out per store. $1m annual turnover might equate to weekly sales of 30 mattresses. That is one every two hours, from these huge stores with high inventory costs.
To check, I visited one near me. It was indeed a huge store filled with mattresses (at least on the second floor so slightly cheaper rental), and with long opening hours. I was not entirely surprised to see just one forlorn salesman, and not a single potential customer. I felt very sorry for the guy as I was making my excuses to leave without so much as a sniff of purchase!
Now some more maths. Sleepy’s is just a retailer not a manufacturer, and discounts a lot, so let us assume a 20% gross margin. Each store must have 8-10 full time staff equivalents, costing say $150,000, and the same costs in rent, utilities and so on. So a store has $200,000 of gross margin and $300,000 of costs. And then, there is the huge advertising budget to fund.
I am defeated. Either my assumptions are way out, or I just don’t understand the category, or the poor Acker family are pouring a small fortune into a business that can’t make money. Possibly all of the above are true. Any other ideas?
What lessons can we learn from comparing the markets? There are several.
First, regulation is always critical. Sectors like banks will evolve very much depending on their regulatory environment and the degree of cut-throat competition, itself heavily influenced by regulation. By that reckoning, regulators here have generally done a bad job, at least in banking, petrol retailing and medical supplies. Each of these sectors looks incredibly fat here.
Next, look at demographics. New York will be more densely populated than most of the USA, with lower dependence on cars. That will explain that Houston to my eyes was one enormous ugly retail parking lot, whereas New York has so far avoided that fate. Add in the diversity of residents, and typical home sizes (kitchens, fridges, washing machines) and you can find reasons for many other differences.
Another lesson is that habits die hard. Things are partly as they are in the USA because that is the way they always have been. Change happens (look at mobile phones) but always more slowly than pure logic would suggest, so differences also perpetuate even if not strictly logical. If you doubt that, just look at the notes and coins. How come Americans still have paper dollars and all notes look the same? Answer – because that it the way it has always been, people resist change, and politicians don’t like annoying core voters.
But my favourite lesson is the one from Sleepy’s. You can explain many things, but some defy explanation. Entrepreneurs and customers have many motives you don’t read about in economics text books, and strange outcomes can result, often for many years. Markets are far from perfect, and we should celebrate that, as it provides glorious diversity as customers and great opportunities as entrepreneurs and investors.
Nonetheless, if I were investing in a sector in Europe, I think I would plump for personal grooming rather than mattress retailing.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Lost arts
Last weekend I had the pleasure of being driven from Buffalo Airport to Toronto. It was night time, and neither driver nor navigator had completed the route before, but they did have the benefit of two GPS machines. Supposedly one worked better in Canada, the other better in the USA. I was tired, and vowed to keep my mouth shut.
Maybe predictably, the two GPS’s proved a dubious blessing. They took time to calculate routes, they didn’t seem to know landmarks, they were for ever blaring out “cancel” like a couple of Daleks, and even when they gave out routes they contradicted each other.
Somehow, we made it to Toronto, thanks to a calm and careful driver. But we took a couple of wrong turns, went over a different border crossing than the one we wished, and had some pauses at the side of the road for the GPS’s to get their breath back.
From my vantage point in the back seat, I think I could have avoided all the missteps, despite also never having completed the route (except once in reverse). Often there were helpful road signs. When there were not, simply knowing roughly where North was would have done the trick, or heading for somewhere which seemed sure to be in the right direction.
The reason the driver and navigator missed all the clues were the GPS’s. They were so focused on the machines that they weren’t really tuned into to other available data. Later, I wondered if it was even more fundamental. Having become used to driving with GPS, perhaps they had lost the art of being able to navigate any other way.
I am a bit of a navigation nerd, being a mathematician, having had to learn to get around strange cities on foot and by car, and with a bit of network planning experience for Shell. This has also helped me in New York, with its scale and its variety of transport options. One thing I have really enjoyed is discovering the city on foot and bus and subway.
I sense these arts are disappearing, and the GPS experience offers a clue as to why. Even mobile phones are partly responsible, with their ability to google up support and call friends. I am not saying these are bad things – indeed how did we ever manage to complete appointments at unfamiliar private residences before the days of mobile phones? But I am saying it is a shame if a valuable life skill is lost. Technology does not always work and is not always available, especially in emergencies. And people looking lost are more vulnerable to pickpockets.
For me, geography at school would have been more useful if map reading had replaced learning capitals. Rote learning has become increasingly redundant anyway, due to the internet. We need a new skill now to know the capital of Honduras, rather than the memory of old. This made me think about other skills that had been lost, and which ones should be mourned.
IT itself has seen the biggest changes. I actually came from a very narrow generation who learned to program computers, and was taught all sorts of technical stuff about how computers worked (which I then forgot again). Computers were just come in, but they were large machines rather than personal ones, and it was believed that we would all need to be able to give them instructions in strange codes. Then IBM, Microsoft and Apple changed all that. The nerds in shops and marketing departments haven’t completely dropped the bit and byte speak yet (why not?), but the idea of anyone but a specialist writing programs now seems very quaint. I wonder how IT education has responded? What I hope is that time is spent on stuff like how to navigate a web menu to buy things, how to research information quickly and reliably, and perhaps on creating websites. The former two have become critical life skills now.
Language and writing has changed too. Is accurate spelling a lost art, with spellchecker everywhere? And does it matter? Perhaps we should not mourn the need for mastering spelling too much, especially us English speakers with all our exceptions. The other day I had to write a hand-written letter, and a proper one, not just a one-pager instructing some financial institution of an address change. I found the actual physical act of writing difficult, and the letter construction was not simple either. For me, it is sad that these arts are being lost, as letters are powerful ways to communicate. With text, even alphabets are curtailed. It is efficient, and perhaps it is only sentiment that makes me mourn the traditional methods.
My Mum used to knit a lot. Who does now? It is so cheap to buy finished products, that the only benefit of knitting now is as a creative pastime. Darning does not even have that merit. I think Mum also used to use a mangle, though I am not all that sure what for. This sort of lost art probably doesn’t require us to do anything but celebrate.
What other arts have been lost? Dancing is one that was almost lost in some societies, but is gradually being found again, thanks partly to Strictly (Dancing with the Stars here). A regret of mine is that my generation were the ones who lost the joy of dancing, instead just jumping up and down. I have gained a lot of pleasure from ballroom and Latin lessons these last two years, and recommend them wholeheartedly.
Last month I taught our twelve-year-old how to tie a tie. I enjoyed that. Then I wondered how old I was when I learned, and how many times in the last ten years I had actually worn a tie. Probably more often than he will in how whole lifetime. We need not mourn that sort of lost art, I think, and there are probably many more female equivalents we can be grateful to see the back of. The tie was actually needed for a wedding, but this month I also attended a funeral, indeed had to help to organise one. My sister and I needed help with everything. I wonder if this sort of skill was handed down more effectively in the past?
While on the subject of kids, this month we were delayed four hours waiting for a flight, and neither child had any electronics with them. That made me think two distinct arts might be in the process of being lost. The kids were less resourceful than those of a generation ago in this situation, having been brought up with electronics available almost everywhere. And the parents were also less resourceful. I remember Mum having all sorts of games and gadgets up her sleeve for that sort of eventuality. We struggled but managed, while some of the other parents in the lounge seemed even more lost than we were.
Finally, an art that is still relevant, but I don’t understand why, is driving a stick shift car. Why do we still have these things? Automatic gearboxes make better decisions than humans nowadays and are more economical. Yet many people insist on carrying on making driving more cumbersome than it needs to be by using a gear stick. Well done USA, that is something you have got right, I think.
There must be many similar lost arts, and newly required arts to replace them. Some of the lost ones will be preserved, and hopefully the most creative and satisfying might make a comeback, like dancing. I hope our educators get the balance right between responding to change and retaining skills that, though less critical than before, can still make a difference.
Next time I am in the back seat with a GPS as competition, I wonder if I’ll still be able to keep my mouth shut? Maybe the next generation would find it even harder, as keeping ones mouth shut might itself be a vanishing art, not that I am generally effective at that one myself.
Maybe predictably, the two GPS’s proved a dubious blessing. They took time to calculate routes, they didn’t seem to know landmarks, they were for ever blaring out “cancel” like a couple of Daleks, and even when they gave out routes they contradicted each other.
Somehow, we made it to Toronto, thanks to a calm and careful driver. But we took a couple of wrong turns, went over a different border crossing than the one we wished, and had some pauses at the side of the road for the GPS’s to get their breath back.
From my vantage point in the back seat, I think I could have avoided all the missteps, despite also never having completed the route (except once in reverse). Often there were helpful road signs. When there were not, simply knowing roughly where North was would have done the trick, or heading for somewhere which seemed sure to be in the right direction.
The reason the driver and navigator missed all the clues were the GPS’s. They were so focused on the machines that they weren’t really tuned into to other available data. Later, I wondered if it was even more fundamental. Having become used to driving with GPS, perhaps they had lost the art of being able to navigate any other way.
I am a bit of a navigation nerd, being a mathematician, having had to learn to get around strange cities on foot and by car, and with a bit of network planning experience for Shell. This has also helped me in New York, with its scale and its variety of transport options. One thing I have really enjoyed is discovering the city on foot and bus and subway.
I sense these arts are disappearing, and the GPS experience offers a clue as to why. Even mobile phones are partly responsible, with their ability to google up support and call friends. I am not saying these are bad things – indeed how did we ever manage to complete appointments at unfamiliar private residences before the days of mobile phones? But I am saying it is a shame if a valuable life skill is lost. Technology does not always work and is not always available, especially in emergencies. And people looking lost are more vulnerable to pickpockets.
For me, geography at school would have been more useful if map reading had replaced learning capitals. Rote learning has become increasingly redundant anyway, due to the internet. We need a new skill now to know the capital of Honduras, rather than the memory of old. This made me think about other skills that had been lost, and which ones should be mourned.
IT itself has seen the biggest changes. I actually came from a very narrow generation who learned to program computers, and was taught all sorts of technical stuff about how computers worked (which I then forgot again). Computers were just come in, but they were large machines rather than personal ones, and it was believed that we would all need to be able to give them instructions in strange codes. Then IBM, Microsoft and Apple changed all that. The nerds in shops and marketing departments haven’t completely dropped the bit and byte speak yet (why not?), but the idea of anyone but a specialist writing programs now seems very quaint. I wonder how IT education has responded? What I hope is that time is spent on stuff like how to navigate a web menu to buy things, how to research information quickly and reliably, and perhaps on creating websites. The former two have become critical life skills now.
Language and writing has changed too. Is accurate spelling a lost art, with spellchecker everywhere? And does it matter? Perhaps we should not mourn the need for mastering spelling too much, especially us English speakers with all our exceptions. The other day I had to write a hand-written letter, and a proper one, not just a one-pager instructing some financial institution of an address change. I found the actual physical act of writing difficult, and the letter construction was not simple either. For me, it is sad that these arts are being lost, as letters are powerful ways to communicate. With text, even alphabets are curtailed. It is efficient, and perhaps it is only sentiment that makes me mourn the traditional methods.
My Mum used to knit a lot. Who does now? It is so cheap to buy finished products, that the only benefit of knitting now is as a creative pastime. Darning does not even have that merit. I think Mum also used to use a mangle, though I am not all that sure what for. This sort of lost art probably doesn’t require us to do anything but celebrate.
What other arts have been lost? Dancing is one that was almost lost in some societies, but is gradually being found again, thanks partly to Strictly (Dancing with the Stars here). A regret of mine is that my generation were the ones who lost the joy of dancing, instead just jumping up and down. I have gained a lot of pleasure from ballroom and Latin lessons these last two years, and recommend them wholeheartedly.
Last month I taught our twelve-year-old how to tie a tie. I enjoyed that. Then I wondered how old I was when I learned, and how many times in the last ten years I had actually worn a tie. Probably more often than he will in how whole lifetime. We need not mourn that sort of lost art, I think, and there are probably many more female equivalents we can be grateful to see the back of. The tie was actually needed for a wedding, but this month I also attended a funeral, indeed had to help to organise one. My sister and I needed help with everything. I wonder if this sort of skill was handed down more effectively in the past?
While on the subject of kids, this month we were delayed four hours waiting for a flight, and neither child had any electronics with them. That made me think two distinct arts might be in the process of being lost. The kids were less resourceful than those of a generation ago in this situation, having been brought up with electronics available almost everywhere. And the parents were also less resourceful. I remember Mum having all sorts of games and gadgets up her sleeve for that sort of eventuality. We struggled but managed, while some of the other parents in the lounge seemed even more lost than we were.
Finally, an art that is still relevant, but I don’t understand why, is driving a stick shift car. Why do we still have these things? Automatic gearboxes make better decisions than humans nowadays and are more economical. Yet many people insist on carrying on making driving more cumbersome than it needs to be by using a gear stick. Well done USA, that is something you have got right, I think.
There must be many similar lost arts, and newly required arts to replace them. Some of the lost ones will be preserved, and hopefully the most creative and satisfying might make a comeback, like dancing. I hope our educators get the balance right between responding to change and retaining skills that, though less critical than before, can still make a difference.
Next time I am in the back seat with a GPS as competition, I wonder if I’ll still be able to keep my mouth shut? Maybe the next generation would find it even harder, as keeping ones mouth shut might itself be a vanishing art, not that I am generally effective at that one myself.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Fair Fines
It seems Americans are obsessed by taxes, and New Yorkers are additionally obsessed by tickets.
I am amazed how often tax comes up in everyday conversation over here. In Europe, we don’t like tax, but generally we let it happen. I have a general saying that people who complain about tax, specifically income or wealth tax, have too much money. The more you have, the more you pay. So suck it up.
Here, it is different. There are many possible reasons why. Perhaps wealth here is something you brag about, and tax conversation is a good way to flaunt your wealth. Somehow, many taxes seem more in your face here. Sales tax is added on at the point of sale. To me, this is crazy. An item will be labelled at a cost of ten dollars, but at the checkout it rings at ten dollars eighty something. So it is much harder to budget your overall spending, and, if you pay in cash, you end up with pockets full of change (and loads of paper single dollars as well. Why?)
For me, this flaunts a basic principal of consumer rights. A price on an item should be its price. But Americans seem ready to accept it, and some even express a wish to know what the tax is. Some say that because tax varies between states, the retailer has to do it at the point of sale, but that strikes me as BS. Tax varying by state is another way tax assumes a higher profile and higher everyday concern.
The retailers lobby may be one reason this regime remains acceptable. But I also suspect the politics. It suits the right that tax is always top of the agenda. In some ways that is good, as in Europe it can be the opposite – there everyone wants everything from the state, and don’t think of the trade-off involved. Here it is the opposite. No one accepts tax, and they don’t link that to poor schools or infrastructure or elderly care. On neither continent is there much intelligent debate. And it also makes point-scoring very easy, suiting the side with the big advertising budget.
Last weekend in Atlanta there were referenda where the proposition was a sales tax for a limited time to be spent exclusively on improving the transport infrastructure. They all got voted down. It becomes very hard here to complete any project for the common good. No wonder the roads are all full of holes, and the bridges and tunnels feel unsafe. At least in New York City, there is a well-functioning system overall.
Anyway, as well as taxes, New Yorkers love to moan about tickets. So far, I haven’t got any, not least because I am not driving here yet. But the belief is that the police treat tickets as fair game to raise money, and give them out very loosely. And fail to pay, and you yet loaded with interest, and pretty soon a ban.
I may change my mind when I suffer a glut of tickets, but overall I am in favour of the approach. There are so many police on the streets here all the time, raising money is one way to make use of them. And rules are there for a reason, so we should not complain if we get fined for violating them.
How many times have I been delayed for an hour or so in London because some rich guy chose to park illegally and created a bottleneck? Fine him, say I, and at least we all get some compensation for our inconvenience. If the result is more fines, then presumably we can have good enough service, without higher taxes.
The London example raises the issue of differential fines. The reason the rich guy parks illegally is that the fine is peanuts to him. To get around that, the authorities in London started towing cars away, reasoning that this would hurt the rich guy more, since time matters more to him than money. Good move, except that the very rich guy then pays some contractor to retrieve his vehicle for him.
In Finland, I understand fines are proportional to the ability to pay. I remember this being introduced in Britain years ago, and then withdrawn again almost immediately. The elite managed to find a few old ladies who was fined thousands of pounds for a minor offence, and used them to turn public opinion.
Indeed it would be difficult to implement this system in practice, and well done to the Finns for persevering – no doubt the wonderful public IT systems there help. Without that, the debate about what income counts or wealth counts, foreign income, who owns the car and so on could make things very complicated. Unlike for the Tobin tax, this is a fair argument against a variable scheme. But hardly insurmountable, I would think. The Dutch have become smart at making fines variable depending on previous offences. Variable for some income/wealth coefficient should not be too hard to devise. That might deter the guy on Putney High Street – as long as he wasn’t a diplomat, which seems to be another insurmountable problem – hard for me to understand as insurmountable, and then I suspect some other elite conspiracy.
Joe Public is not the only one worrying about fines just now. The summer has seen many corporate fines, with more to follow. Barclays, HSBC, Google, Airlines, Glaxo and the rest are starting to pay dearly for their indiscretions. First, I often wonder where such fines go. They can be eye-watering amounts, and could help plug some debt holes just now.
Again, in principle I support these fines. In the Economist, Schumpeter argued recently that businesses will do whatever they can get away with, trading off risk against benefit. I am not quite so cynical, but I still favour harsh sanctions. If the regime is fair and consistent, it only creates a level playing field and protects the consumer.
Competition law fines started to become an issue at Shell a few years ago. A Dutch EU commissioner put a strong regime in place, including fines according to ability to pay and previous record. They also included the wonderful incentive of penalties imposed on individual managers not just their corporations. Ouch. Shell was heading into the hundreds of millions, and it had an impact. We all had lots of training, and legal scrutiny became stronger. Training beforehand had seemed half hearted, but not after the fines got nasty. Well done Nellie Kroes.
Businesses also have to worry about a secondary quasi-fine that arises from lawsuits, and a tertiary one in the form of reputation loss. Barclays and the other LIBOR miscreants seem very vulnerable to these now. I often thought Shell under-estimated this type of risk, perhaps as a European rather than a US company. I once did a study assessing the risks to a business of Shell offering services to other manufacturers, and I concluded that litigation and reputation was the biggest risk category. We could earn a few thousand dollars for some advice, but what if, either because the advice was flawed or the customer mis-applied it, the result was some catastrophe? For our own operations, we had to accept these risks, but why extend them outside the company boundary, for only a small reward? Like most of my advice, this was duly ignored – probably quite correctly.
I foresee an era when fines, litigation and reputation become even more important drivers to business success, as regulators and lawyers step up their game, supported by IT and rampant media. Rupert Murdoch may well agree. In general, I find this all to the good, with caveats.
One caveat is the risk that we all feed the lawyers even more than today. Regulation needs to be simple and transparent wherever possible. Another is that regulation becomes a weapon in trade wars between countries. Like so much else, this is a hidden benefit of the EU: Europe regulates as one nowadays.
But generally, just like individual taxes and tickets, if people cheat and are punished, the consumer benefits and money flows to the law-abiding. If you complain about tickets, try the alternative of following the rules. Most of them are there for good reasons. If taxes and tickets and fines reflect your ability to pay, celebrate that you have that ability in the first place.
But I am sure the New Yorkers would still find something else to moan about.
I am amazed how often tax comes up in everyday conversation over here. In Europe, we don’t like tax, but generally we let it happen. I have a general saying that people who complain about tax, specifically income or wealth tax, have too much money. The more you have, the more you pay. So suck it up.
Here, it is different. There are many possible reasons why. Perhaps wealth here is something you brag about, and tax conversation is a good way to flaunt your wealth. Somehow, many taxes seem more in your face here. Sales tax is added on at the point of sale. To me, this is crazy. An item will be labelled at a cost of ten dollars, but at the checkout it rings at ten dollars eighty something. So it is much harder to budget your overall spending, and, if you pay in cash, you end up with pockets full of change (and loads of paper single dollars as well. Why?)
For me, this flaunts a basic principal of consumer rights. A price on an item should be its price. But Americans seem ready to accept it, and some even express a wish to know what the tax is. Some say that because tax varies between states, the retailer has to do it at the point of sale, but that strikes me as BS. Tax varying by state is another way tax assumes a higher profile and higher everyday concern.
The retailers lobby may be one reason this regime remains acceptable. But I also suspect the politics. It suits the right that tax is always top of the agenda. In some ways that is good, as in Europe it can be the opposite – there everyone wants everything from the state, and don’t think of the trade-off involved. Here it is the opposite. No one accepts tax, and they don’t link that to poor schools or infrastructure or elderly care. On neither continent is there much intelligent debate. And it also makes point-scoring very easy, suiting the side with the big advertising budget.
Last weekend in Atlanta there were referenda where the proposition was a sales tax for a limited time to be spent exclusively on improving the transport infrastructure. They all got voted down. It becomes very hard here to complete any project for the common good. No wonder the roads are all full of holes, and the bridges and tunnels feel unsafe. At least in New York City, there is a well-functioning system overall.
Anyway, as well as taxes, New Yorkers love to moan about tickets. So far, I haven’t got any, not least because I am not driving here yet. But the belief is that the police treat tickets as fair game to raise money, and give them out very loosely. And fail to pay, and you yet loaded with interest, and pretty soon a ban.
I may change my mind when I suffer a glut of tickets, but overall I am in favour of the approach. There are so many police on the streets here all the time, raising money is one way to make use of them. And rules are there for a reason, so we should not complain if we get fined for violating them.
How many times have I been delayed for an hour or so in London because some rich guy chose to park illegally and created a bottleneck? Fine him, say I, and at least we all get some compensation for our inconvenience. If the result is more fines, then presumably we can have good enough service, without higher taxes.
The London example raises the issue of differential fines. The reason the rich guy parks illegally is that the fine is peanuts to him. To get around that, the authorities in London started towing cars away, reasoning that this would hurt the rich guy more, since time matters more to him than money. Good move, except that the very rich guy then pays some contractor to retrieve his vehicle for him.
In Finland, I understand fines are proportional to the ability to pay. I remember this being introduced in Britain years ago, and then withdrawn again almost immediately. The elite managed to find a few old ladies who was fined thousands of pounds for a minor offence, and used them to turn public opinion.
Indeed it would be difficult to implement this system in practice, and well done to the Finns for persevering – no doubt the wonderful public IT systems there help. Without that, the debate about what income counts or wealth counts, foreign income, who owns the car and so on could make things very complicated. Unlike for the Tobin tax, this is a fair argument against a variable scheme. But hardly insurmountable, I would think. The Dutch have become smart at making fines variable depending on previous offences. Variable for some income/wealth coefficient should not be too hard to devise. That might deter the guy on Putney High Street – as long as he wasn’t a diplomat, which seems to be another insurmountable problem – hard for me to understand as insurmountable, and then I suspect some other elite conspiracy.
Joe Public is not the only one worrying about fines just now. The summer has seen many corporate fines, with more to follow. Barclays, HSBC, Google, Airlines, Glaxo and the rest are starting to pay dearly for their indiscretions. First, I often wonder where such fines go. They can be eye-watering amounts, and could help plug some debt holes just now.
Again, in principle I support these fines. In the Economist, Schumpeter argued recently that businesses will do whatever they can get away with, trading off risk against benefit. I am not quite so cynical, but I still favour harsh sanctions. If the regime is fair and consistent, it only creates a level playing field and protects the consumer.
Competition law fines started to become an issue at Shell a few years ago. A Dutch EU commissioner put a strong regime in place, including fines according to ability to pay and previous record. They also included the wonderful incentive of penalties imposed on individual managers not just their corporations. Ouch. Shell was heading into the hundreds of millions, and it had an impact. We all had lots of training, and legal scrutiny became stronger. Training beforehand had seemed half hearted, but not after the fines got nasty. Well done Nellie Kroes.
Businesses also have to worry about a secondary quasi-fine that arises from lawsuits, and a tertiary one in the form of reputation loss. Barclays and the other LIBOR miscreants seem very vulnerable to these now. I often thought Shell under-estimated this type of risk, perhaps as a European rather than a US company. I once did a study assessing the risks to a business of Shell offering services to other manufacturers, and I concluded that litigation and reputation was the biggest risk category. We could earn a few thousand dollars for some advice, but what if, either because the advice was flawed or the customer mis-applied it, the result was some catastrophe? For our own operations, we had to accept these risks, but why extend them outside the company boundary, for only a small reward? Like most of my advice, this was duly ignored – probably quite correctly.
I foresee an era when fines, litigation and reputation become even more important drivers to business success, as regulators and lawyers step up their game, supported by IT and rampant media. Rupert Murdoch may well agree. In general, I find this all to the good, with caveats.
One caveat is the risk that we all feed the lawyers even more than today. Regulation needs to be simple and transparent wherever possible. Another is that regulation becomes a weapon in trade wars between countries. Like so much else, this is a hidden benefit of the EU: Europe regulates as one nowadays.
But generally, just like individual taxes and tickets, if people cheat and are punished, the consumer benefits and money flows to the law-abiding. If you complain about tickets, try the alternative of following the rules. Most of them are there for good reasons. If taxes and tickets and fines reflect your ability to pay, celebrate that you have that ability in the first place.
But I am sure the New Yorkers would still find something else to moan about.
Monday, July 30, 2012
IKEA - My fallen Icon
This week I visited an IKEA store in the USA. Well, I visited a blue and yellow warehouse type place with the name IKEA on the front and furniture with odd Scandinavian names inside, but there the resemblance to the IKEA I love ended.
The visit was to a store in New Jersey, right by Newark Airport, at a place called Elizabeth. This area constituted a new benchmark for me for the term industrial wasteland. It seems the whole of this part of the state consists only of motorways, railroads, swamps and factories.
I was already a bit stressed, the visit coming half way through a day of picking up bits of furniture in a van from most of the New York City boroughs as well as New Jersey. But I wasn’t ready for what happened inside my blessed IKEA.
The physical layout was familiar, though the car park was vast, uncovered and bleak, and the inside seemed tired, even the restaurant. But the real problem was the service.
First, the store did not have a single catalogue inside. That is a bit like a pub with no beer, as the catalogue is at the heart of the business model. The staff were blasé about it. Seemingly, a new one was just coming out next week. But really, how can it be acceptable ever to run out of catalogues?
Then, the place seemed understaffed, and the staff that were there just didn’t have motivation or knowledge. Only three checkout lines were open, with long queues, though the people manning them seemed happy talking among themselves some of the time. After establishing upstairs that the storage units I wanted did not get supported upstairs (why?), I found the warehouse, and some computer screens which got me tantalisingly close to the information I needed to go and fetch my components. But only close. Some pictures didn’t come up well on screen, and the menus were not good enough. I just needed a catalogue! Or even the IKEA website would have sufficed. But neither were available.
Instead I asked for help. The first guy was offhand and pointed me to another guy behind a desk. Who was rude, ignorant and useless. In the end I had to guess what I needed I still don’t know if I guessed well or not.
The other thing that struck me was the absence of joy in the whole place. The staff were just going through the motions, and no managers were in sight. The customers were grim faced. Many were confused and unhappy, and more than one was handing out abuse to anyone who would listen, shouting “this place stinks” or things like that.
All in all, after a long hour and a half, I was very happy to get back to the van and drive off into the industrial wasteland, fortified only by the good meat balls, but otherwise in a foul mood. And I suspect many other customers left the same way, and some of those would not return.
When I got home, I tried to work out what had happened and why. Many European retailers struggle in the USA, and IKEA has had a mixed experience here. Does my experience this week offer any clues as to why?
When I thought about it, many of the direct aspects of the experience were similar to Europe. IKEA is nearly always in something close to an industrial wasteland, and parking is never fun there. Choosing items from the warehouse is always a fraught experience, and often leads to mistakes and follow up visits. There are frequent queues at check outs. Staff often seem to be absent from where you need them and not to quite the knowledge needed.
So the European experience is not a bundle of laughs either. Yet somehow there is something about it which makes me feel good. Something plainly missing from the experience in the USA.
I thought back to my first visits to IKEA in Europe. These had been tough too. It took time to build belief in the business model and faith in myself to make it work for me. I remember long queues in Croydon as well, and the misery of having to take loads of stuff back due to my errors. Yet I came back, and became a fan.
I think there were two reasons. One is the end product. I managed to persevere long enough with IKEA to get benefits, and to believe that I would continue to get benefits. The products are great, and wonderful value, and brilliantly designed, and even I can put them up. If I keep my head down through the difficult parts of the experience, I would emerge at the far end with a good outcome. I came to believe it was worth it.
The second reason is that IKEA did everything they could to make the experience bearable, with positive aspects mitigating the inherent bad bits. The catalogue is clear. If my mood is light enough, I can marvel at all the great products. The restaurant is a miracle. I can take myself out of the experience itself and intellectualise how superb the business model is. The staff do their very best to help. And somehow a combination of all this means that lots of other people, with their kids, are in a light, positive mood around me in the store, which keeps my own mood lifted.
So in Europe the two factors build a strong brand. The positive parts of the experience are just enough to get you through the inevitable negatives, until the great outcome kicks in, from when your mood on visiting is so good you stop noticing the negatives.
Obviously what was missing in Elizabeth was the positive aspect of the experience. Far from happy kids and great staff, this place was just miserable, and we were all dragged into the void, even long-time fans like me. And this came down to basic operations. Not enough staff. Management not caring enough (or bothering to find out) about a lack of catalogues. Undertrained, under-motivated staff.
The USA is strange when it comes to staff. I receive some wonderful service every day, from people who lift my mood. I used to think the famous “Have a nice day” cliché was a false thing forced on people by training and coercive management, but I learn that usually it isn’t. When this wow factor exists it is powerful. But I also frequently experience the opposite. Just now, having arrived, I meet a lot of government departments, and they are notorious, not just in the USA. The Department of Motor Vehicles has scarred me already, and just from one visit.
I suspect the main problem European retailers have is in creating this wow factor among the local managers and staff. This certainly seems to be the case with IKEA. Which suggests that US staff respond to a different combination of stimuli. The package of pay, teamwork, training, job security, incentive and other things needs to be different here.
I’ll observe more and develop some theories. One possibility here is that the freshness fades more quickly, so managers have to find new ways to keep people motivated more often. That would correlate with the focus on marketing and continuous renewal here.
Whatever the secret, IKEA in Elizabeth do not have it, or if they once had it, they lost it. IKEA global managers should be ashamed of that store, at least based on that one visit. I will be going to the one in Brooklyn this week, with some trepidation. Can my icon recover?
The visit was to a store in New Jersey, right by Newark Airport, at a place called Elizabeth. This area constituted a new benchmark for me for the term industrial wasteland. It seems the whole of this part of the state consists only of motorways, railroads, swamps and factories.
I was already a bit stressed, the visit coming half way through a day of picking up bits of furniture in a van from most of the New York City boroughs as well as New Jersey. But I wasn’t ready for what happened inside my blessed IKEA.
The physical layout was familiar, though the car park was vast, uncovered and bleak, and the inside seemed tired, even the restaurant. But the real problem was the service.
First, the store did not have a single catalogue inside. That is a bit like a pub with no beer, as the catalogue is at the heart of the business model. The staff were blasé about it. Seemingly, a new one was just coming out next week. But really, how can it be acceptable ever to run out of catalogues?
Then, the place seemed understaffed, and the staff that were there just didn’t have motivation or knowledge. Only three checkout lines were open, with long queues, though the people manning them seemed happy talking among themselves some of the time. After establishing upstairs that the storage units I wanted did not get supported upstairs (why?), I found the warehouse, and some computer screens which got me tantalisingly close to the information I needed to go and fetch my components. But only close. Some pictures didn’t come up well on screen, and the menus were not good enough. I just needed a catalogue! Or even the IKEA website would have sufficed. But neither were available.
Instead I asked for help. The first guy was offhand and pointed me to another guy behind a desk. Who was rude, ignorant and useless. In the end I had to guess what I needed I still don’t know if I guessed well or not.
The other thing that struck me was the absence of joy in the whole place. The staff were just going through the motions, and no managers were in sight. The customers were grim faced. Many were confused and unhappy, and more than one was handing out abuse to anyone who would listen, shouting “this place stinks” or things like that.
All in all, after a long hour and a half, I was very happy to get back to the van and drive off into the industrial wasteland, fortified only by the good meat balls, but otherwise in a foul mood. And I suspect many other customers left the same way, and some of those would not return.
When I got home, I tried to work out what had happened and why. Many European retailers struggle in the USA, and IKEA has had a mixed experience here. Does my experience this week offer any clues as to why?
When I thought about it, many of the direct aspects of the experience were similar to Europe. IKEA is nearly always in something close to an industrial wasteland, and parking is never fun there. Choosing items from the warehouse is always a fraught experience, and often leads to mistakes and follow up visits. There are frequent queues at check outs. Staff often seem to be absent from where you need them and not to quite the knowledge needed.
So the European experience is not a bundle of laughs either. Yet somehow there is something about it which makes me feel good. Something plainly missing from the experience in the USA.
I thought back to my first visits to IKEA in Europe. These had been tough too. It took time to build belief in the business model and faith in myself to make it work for me. I remember long queues in Croydon as well, and the misery of having to take loads of stuff back due to my errors. Yet I came back, and became a fan.
I think there were two reasons. One is the end product. I managed to persevere long enough with IKEA to get benefits, and to believe that I would continue to get benefits. The products are great, and wonderful value, and brilliantly designed, and even I can put them up. If I keep my head down through the difficult parts of the experience, I would emerge at the far end with a good outcome. I came to believe it was worth it.
The second reason is that IKEA did everything they could to make the experience bearable, with positive aspects mitigating the inherent bad bits. The catalogue is clear. If my mood is light enough, I can marvel at all the great products. The restaurant is a miracle. I can take myself out of the experience itself and intellectualise how superb the business model is. The staff do their very best to help. And somehow a combination of all this means that lots of other people, with their kids, are in a light, positive mood around me in the store, which keeps my own mood lifted.
So in Europe the two factors build a strong brand. The positive parts of the experience are just enough to get you through the inevitable negatives, until the great outcome kicks in, from when your mood on visiting is so good you stop noticing the negatives.
Obviously what was missing in Elizabeth was the positive aspect of the experience. Far from happy kids and great staff, this place was just miserable, and we were all dragged into the void, even long-time fans like me. And this came down to basic operations. Not enough staff. Management not caring enough (or bothering to find out) about a lack of catalogues. Undertrained, under-motivated staff.
The USA is strange when it comes to staff. I receive some wonderful service every day, from people who lift my mood. I used to think the famous “Have a nice day” cliché was a false thing forced on people by training and coercive management, but I learn that usually it isn’t. When this wow factor exists it is powerful. But I also frequently experience the opposite. Just now, having arrived, I meet a lot of government departments, and they are notorious, not just in the USA. The Department of Motor Vehicles has scarred me already, and just from one visit.
I suspect the main problem European retailers have is in creating this wow factor among the local managers and staff. This certainly seems to be the case with IKEA. Which suggests that US staff respond to a different combination of stimuli. The package of pay, teamwork, training, job security, incentive and other things needs to be different here.
I’ll observe more and develop some theories. One possibility here is that the freshness fades more quickly, so managers have to find new ways to keep people motivated more often. That would correlate with the focus on marketing and continuous renewal here.
Whatever the secret, IKEA in Elizabeth do not have it, or if they once had it, they lost it. IKEA global managers should be ashamed of that store, at least based on that one visit. I will be going to the one in Brooklyn this week, with some trepidation. Can my icon recover?
Thursday, July 19, 2012
An aural Assault
Life in New York City is certainly fast-paced. It is no wonder that I frequently look into eyes that seem very, very tired, and also into eyes that appear utterly defeated. This is no place for anyone lacking spirit.
I have come to realise that one symptom of the intensity of life here is that all my senses seem to under fire all of the time. It is nice in a way, life is spicy that way.
Touch is more frequent than elsewhere. Despite the frequent warnings in the subway about sexual assault, it is impossible to live here without touching more human beings than in other places. The subway is just crowded. So are the buses, and so are the pavements (should I say sidewalks?). Anyone over sensitive to being touched will have a miserable time here.
Taste is assaulted mainly in a good way. Food and drink are a big part of life, with little and often being the metier. I have never seen so many cafes and restaurants and street stalls, and the variety of their wares is stunning. Whereas we have been rather shocked by the cost of many things here, casual eating and drinking is quite cheap. And the variety is wonderful, so the taste buds get used to many flavours. You have to be careful to avoid things with added sugar, as much of the diet seems unhealthy. It is no wonder so many Americans have become obese, even here with its built in exercise regime.
This is a city of many smells. Human flesh is a large part of it. In the heat and the crowds, it would be good to be able to shower many times a day, but of course that is not what people can do. So odour is a part of the human diversity here. Add in smells of food, and of various forms of pollution, and there is plenty to smell.
There is always something to see, anywhere in the world that is not dark or confined. But what sights there are in New York! Nothing is petite. I was looking at some building today, very majestic architecture, somewhere in Gramercy. I have no idea what is was, but it struck me that the building would have been the centrepiece of almost any town, but here it was almost mundane. We can be snobbish about our history in Europe, but there is majesty a plenty here. Add in the human diversity, which surprises me every single day in some way, and even our eyes get life full on.
All the senses get battered, but it is the ears which bear the brunt. I remember an Indian once telling me that it was the silence in Europe that he never got used to, since there was no such thing as silence in an Indian city. It is the same here. So far, the only thing I miss of Europe is the absence of noise. I expect that would be common, it is the absence of something that we don’t appreciate so long as we have it, but miss when we lose it.
Noise here is everywhere. Start with the background noises. Air conditioning machines or power generators are never far away, with their tell-tale hum. To sleep at night in summer either requires great tolerance for heat or tolerance for noise. Open windows let in the world. Air conditioners are just noisy. When we watch television with the aircon off, we set the volume to about 16. When the machine is on, we need to set it at 40 to hear properly. Imagine what that is doing to our ears.
At home we can keep the windows closed, but what about when we are outside? There is always a steady hum of traffic, often punctuated by loud heavy motors and sirens. The subway trains are brilliant, but wow do they make a racket.
New Yorkers almost all respond to this by employing ipods, and I have come to do the same. But I wonder if that is so smart. Firstly, I cannot listen to anything with loud and soft bits, as either I am deafened in the forte or the piano is absent. Hooray for Bach and renaissance music! But even when listening to something of a steady volume, I find I need the volume set very high. These ears seem destined to be assaulted one way or another.
We luckily found a haven of peace last Sunday at the episcopal cathedral, with a lovely recital by a Cambridge college choir of all things. But even then the silence was less than I was used to. Once the conductor had to give a tone in competition with a mysterious noise emanating from somewhere. And there was also the audience. To be fair, people were quiet during the singing, but not immediately before. Two New York ladies behind us had plenty to discuss, and did not seem to mind who heard it.
Which brings me to the last source of noise, the people. Wow, are they loud, and in your face. Actually, I rather like it. A bus journey is never dull, there is always someone telling their life story or moaning about a New York sports team. In restaurants, everyone talks all the time. In Europe, I had already got used to choosing places which muffled sound better, and sitting with my good ear facing my companions. Here, even those precautions will often not be enough.
As someone whose hearing is already a little impaired, I worry what effect New York will have. I would like to see some studies on the subject. I have blogged about hearing before, and I feel this is still an under-researched area, compered for example with the science of vision. There are occasionally (rather contradictory) studies about what electronic mobile phones might be doing to our brains, but I also wonder if we are destined to be a generation of half-deaf people, especially those of us living in the biggest cities. I only hope the science of hearing aids develops quickly, for I am sure to need them before too long.
Is any relief at hand for our suffering ears? Well, I hope so. First, it will not stay mid-summer for ever, and the air-conditioning can be turned off for much of the year (though I am told that the steam heating common here makes a racket too). And we have rented a house with central air conditioning and heating, so hopefully that impediment to sleep can be removed.
Secondly, we will be living in Forest Hills, which is not anything like Manhattan, or Roosevelt Island where we are temporarily. The background noise will be less there, especially since we seem to be a good distance from railways and motorways. I am already wondering if people will speak more softly as a result.
Finally, I think we have to look to ourselves. All lives need balance. I have written about simplicity, and here we will need to seek simplicity of sound. We can seek out places of silence, and reflect more on silence when we find it. We can coach each other to speak more softly and to listen more carefully. Meditation may play a role. I wonder if the Church here might turn out to have subtly different benefits here compared with in Europe.
New York has many wonderful things to offer, and most of the surprises so far have been positive ones. But I sense that we will need to utilise our ingenuity to negate the assault on our ears that New York might be.
I have come to realise that one symptom of the intensity of life here is that all my senses seem to under fire all of the time. It is nice in a way, life is spicy that way.
Touch is more frequent than elsewhere. Despite the frequent warnings in the subway about sexual assault, it is impossible to live here without touching more human beings than in other places. The subway is just crowded. So are the buses, and so are the pavements (should I say sidewalks?). Anyone over sensitive to being touched will have a miserable time here.
Taste is assaulted mainly in a good way. Food and drink are a big part of life, with little and often being the metier. I have never seen so many cafes and restaurants and street stalls, and the variety of their wares is stunning. Whereas we have been rather shocked by the cost of many things here, casual eating and drinking is quite cheap. And the variety is wonderful, so the taste buds get used to many flavours. You have to be careful to avoid things with added sugar, as much of the diet seems unhealthy. It is no wonder so many Americans have become obese, even here with its built in exercise regime.
This is a city of many smells. Human flesh is a large part of it. In the heat and the crowds, it would be good to be able to shower many times a day, but of course that is not what people can do. So odour is a part of the human diversity here. Add in smells of food, and of various forms of pollution, and there is plenty to smell.
There is always something to see, anywhere in the world that is not dark or confined. But what sights there are in New York! Nothing is petite. I was looking at some building today, very majestic architecture, somewhere in Gramercy. I have no idea what is was, but it struck me that the building would have been the centrepiece of almost any town, but here it was almost mundane. We can be snobbish about our history in Europe, but there is majesty a plenty here. Add in the human diversity, which surprises me every single day in some way, and even our eyes get life full on.
All the senses get battered, but it is the ears which bear the brunt. I remember an Indian once telling me that it was the silence in Europe that he never got used to, since there was no such thing as silence in an Indian city. It is the same here. So far, the only thing I miss of Europe is the absence of noise. I expect that would be common, it is the absence of something that we don’t appreciate so long as we have it, but miss when we lose it.
Noise here is everywhere. Start with the background noises. Air conditioning machines or power generators are never far away, with their tell-tale hum. To sleep at night in summer either requires great tolerance for heat or tolerance for noise. Open windows let in the world. Air conditioners are just noisy. When we watch television with the aircon off, we set the volume to about 16. When the machine is on, we need to set it at 40 to hear properly. Imagine what that is doing to our ears.
At home we can keep the windows closed, but what about when we are outside? There is always a steady hum of traffic, often punctuated by loud heavy motors and sirens. The subway trains are brilliant, but wow do they make a racket.
New Yorkers almost all respond to this by employing ipods, and I have come to do the same. But I wonder if that is so smart. Firstly, I cannot listen to anything with loud and soft bits, as either I am deafened in the forte or the piano is absent. Hooray for Bach and renaissance music! But even when listening to something of a steady volume, I find I need the volume set very high. These ears seem destined to be assaulted one way or another.
We luckily found a haven of peace last Sunday at the episcopal cathedral, with a lovely recital by a Cambridge college choir of all things. But even then the silence was less than I was used to. Once the conductor had to give a tone in competition with a mysterious noise emanating from somewhere. And there was also the audience. To be fair, people were quiet during the singing, but not immediately before. Two New York ladies behind us had plenty to discuss, and did not seem to mind who heard it.
Which brings me to the last source of noise, the people. Wow, are they loud, and in your face. Actually, I rather like it. A bus journey is never dull, there is always someone telling their life story or moaning about a New York sports team. In restaurants, everyone talks all the time. In Europe, I had already got used to choosing places which muffled sound better, and sitting with my good ear facing my companions. Here, even those precautions will often not be enough.
As someone whose hearing is already a little impaired, I worry what effect New York will have. I would like to see some studies on the subject. I have blogged about hearing before, and I feel this is still an under-researched area, compered for example with the science of vision. There are occasionally (rather contradictory) studies about what electronic mobile phones might be doing to our brains, but I also wonder if we are destined to be a generation of half-deaf people, especially those of us living in the biggest cities. I only hope the science of hearing aids develops quickly, for I am sure to need them before too long.
Is any relief at hand for our suffering ears? Well, I hope so. First, it will not stay mid-summer for ever, and the air-conditioning can be turned off for much of the year (though I am told that the steam heating common here makes a racket too). And we have rented a house with central air conditioning and heating, so hopefully that impediment to sleep can be removed.
Secondly, we will be living in Forest Hills, which is not anything like Manhattan, or Roosevelt Island where we are temporarily. The background noise will be less there, especially since we seem to be a good distance from railways and motorways. I am already wondering if people will speak more softly as a result.
Finally, I think we have to look to ourselves. All lives need balance. I have written about simplicity, and here we will need to seek simplicity of sound. We can seek out places of silence, and reflect more on silence when we find it. We can coach each other to speak more softly and to listen more carefully. Meditation may play a role. I wonder if the Church here might turn out to have subtly different benefits here compared with in Europe.
New York has many wonderful things to offer, and most of the surprises so far have been positive ones. But I sense that we will need to utilise our ingenuity to negate the assault on our ears that New York might be.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
First Bites of the Big Apple
Today seems the first time in a month that I have been able to draw breath. Some periods of our lives go at turbo speed, with decisions and actions far faster than normal. We get by somehow on adrenaline, supported if possible by good friends and some project management skills. This has been such a period for me, combining my wedding last month with a relocation to New York City on 1st July.
When I look back at what we have managed to achieve this month I am rather proud. Somehow we have enjoyed a milestone celebration in a great way, while emptying a flat, finding new places, and all the million and one other things required to relocate. So far nothing serious has gone wrong, at least nothing with any longer-term consequence. We hope to sign a lease for a permanent apartment here this evening, not bad for nine days after flying in. There is still much to do, but hopefully from now on we can gradually revert to our normal pace of life.
So what of New York? Two clues are in the paragraph above.
First, somehow the place works. I managed to get a working mobile phone on the first day, and a bank account on the second day, with funds transferred into it by day four. I know from bitter experience that would have been much harder in the UK, and in other European countries as well. For all that we Europeans tend to look with scorn at the market-created chaos in the USA, my experience so far is that things work. You can find what you need, unnecessary obstacles are removed, and people are anxious to help. That is a pleasant surprise. At least I expected some problems because of our international backgrounds – after all the UK seems incapable of understanding that some people come from other countries, so I would have expected the same in an even more insular land with even more power and arrogance. But not so – well done USA.
Heck, even the public transport works. Transport is one of my favourite topics to extol central planning and its benefits. The Dutch are brilliant, the British rubbish, and it really shows. Until now, my assumption had been that only governmental oversight (national or local) could deliver this well. New York proves me wrong. Think of one place in the world where you would expect gridlock, and you might choose Manhattan. It is an island, reliant on bridges, in a land worshipping the car. Now, admittedly it is a holiday season, but somehow the various forces at work seem to have happily conspired to prevent this.
The subway may not be beautiful, but it is mighty extensive and effective. I did not expect to see so many buses, or even local trains. People even walk. And Manhattan has smartly used its reliance on bridges and tunnels as an effective defence mechanism by imposing large tolls. On Saturday, we went to New Jersey. On the way, we used public transport, and paid a flat fare $2,25 for a subway ticket and $4,50 for a bus, altogether travelling quite a distance. London, are you watching? On the way home, we took a lift in a car. The journey took longer, and was punctuated by $20 in tolls, not counting fuel or other costs. To my mind, that is how it should be – and not how I expected it to be in the land of the free and the powerful.
The system is also helped by a plethora of helpful announcements and signs. Some of this might emanate from the litigious nature of US society (“please tread carefully onto escalators”), but much of it simply helps. Each subway train and station has great maps and signs, and they announce things clearly. It also helps a mathematician like me that they use smart systems. The numbered avenue and street grid in Manhattan is well-known, and wow does it help navigation. They have the same in other boroughs, and signs use compass directions very usefully too. House numbers follow the pattern so you can find an address approximately quickly. In Forest Hills, some of the streets have real names, but consecutive streets start with A, B, C and so on. Smart. This is a mathematical navigator’s paradise!
The other clue about first impressions is about the pace of life here in New York City. It is not slow. People walk more quickly and converse more purposefully. Of course I have been ringing and visiting many estate agents this week. I would characterise these encounters by the expression “cut the crap”. No small talk, just down to business. If they haven’t got what I want, they work it out quickly, tell me, and kick me out the door, with a friendly “have a nice day” delivered to my back.
I have to say I like it. No one is unfriendly, but they don’t waste each other’s time either. It is not all about money, but money plays its part. Time is money. Space is money too. I just love the way they use the vertical axis of space here. Car parks use every square inch, and then do more by using cubic inches too, stacking the cars on winches high into the sky. Brilliant. But will life at this speed become tiring? I’ll let you know in the months ahead.
One bonus I have now is that for the first time in sixteen years I’m living in a country where I speak the native language. I’ve got by before, somehow understanding the gist of what is coming on around me, using all my senses and asking for help. But here they speak English! What heaven! I only realise what a handicap it has been for all these years now the handicap has finally been removed. Lucky me.
Mind you, you do hear some strange versions of English. I thought I was living in a diverse society in The Hague, but I was kidding myself, compared with here. True, we had many nationalities in The Hague, and Dutch society is tolerant of lifestyle choices. But here I have had to add extra dimensions. Take affluence. In The Hague we had poorer and richer people living together, but somehow within limits and with some borders. Here the range is wider and the borders less clear. Poor and desperate people, some missing limbs, are living side by side to the most affluent. I have seen some of the shortest and some of the tallest people I’ve ever come across in the last week. Colours blend, and you sense that within a generation or two they will have blended even more. I am amazed at how many Asians are here, and from so many countries. This is all great, in my opinion.
You also see some very tired people, with “lived in” faces. Living at this pace for so long and with some of life’s disadvantages must be tough here, yet many do it, year after year. You see some desperate life stories in the faces on the subway, every day. Many faces betray some cynicism and suspicion as well. This is a tough place to live, if you are not affluent, young or loved. I don’t think this is somewhere we would consider growing old.
I am looking forward to experiencing what New York City has to offer. I feel truly blessed. Each morning I open the blinds to see the might of Manhattan stretching before me across the East river. What a testament to humanity this place is.
When I look back at what we have managed to achieve this month I am rather proud. Somehow we have enjoyed a milestone celebration in a great way, while emptying a flat, finding new places, and all the million and one other things required to relocate. So far nothing serious has gone wrong, at least nothing with any longer-term consequence. We hope to sign a lease for a permanent apartment here this evening, not bad for nine days after flying in. There is still much to do, but hopefully from now on we can gradually revert to our normal pace of life.
So what of New York? Two clues are in the paragraph above.
First, somehow the place works. I managed to get a working mobile phone on the first day, and a bank account on the second day, with funds transferred into it by day four. I know from bitter experience that would have been much harder in the UK, and in other European countries as well. For all that we Europeans tend to look with scorn at the market-created chaos in the USA, my experience so far is that things work. You can find what you need, unnecessary obstacles are removed, and people are anxious to help. That is a pleasant surprise. At least I expected some problems because of our international backgrounds – after all the UK seems incapable of understanding that some people come from other countries, so I would have expected the same in an even more insular land with even more power and arrogance. But not so – well done USA.
Heck, even the public transport works. Transport is one of my favourite topics to extol central planning and its benefits. The Dutch are brilliant, the British rubbish, and it really shows. Until now, my assumption had been that only governmental oversight (national or local) could deliver this well. New York proves me wrong. Think of one place in the world where you would expect gridlock, and you might choose Manhattan. It is an island, reliant on bridges, in a land worshipping the car. Now, admittedly it is a holiday season, but somehow the various forces at work seem to have happily conspired to prevent this.
The subway may not be beautiful, but it is mighty extensive and effective. I did not expect to see so many buses, or even local trains. People even walk. And Manhattan has smartly used its reliance on bridges and tunnels as an effective defence mechanism by imposing large tolls. On Saturday, we went to New Jersey. On the way, we used public transport, and paid a flat fare $2,25 for a subway ticket and $4,50 for a bus, altogether travelling quite a distance. London, are you watching? On the way home, we took a lift in a car. The journey took longer, and was punctuated by $20 in tolls, not counting fuel or other costs. To my mind, that is how it should be – and not how I expected it to be in the land of the free and the powerful.
The system is also helped by a plethora of helpful announcements and signs. Some of this might emanate from the litigious nature of US society (“please tread carefully onto escalators”), but much of it simply helps. Each subway train and station has great maps and signs, and they announce things clearly. It also helps a mathematician like me that they use smart systems. The numbered avenue and street grid in Manhattan is well-known, and wow does it help navigation. They have the same in other boroughs, and signs use compass directions very usefully too. House numbers follow the pattern so you can find an address approximately quickly. In Forest Hills, some of the streets have real names, but consecutive streets start with A, B, C and so on. Smart. This is a mathematical navigator’s paradise!
The other clue about first impressions is about the pace of life here in New York City. It is not slow. People walk more quickly and converse more purposefully. Of course I have been ringing and visiting many estate agents this week. I would characterise these encounters by the expression “cut the crap”. No small talk, just down to business. If they haven’t got what I want, they work it out quickly, tell me, and kick me out the door, with a friendly “have a nice day” delivered to my back.
I have to say I like it. No one is unfriendly, but they don’t waste each other’s time either. It is not all about money, but money plays its part. Time is money. Space is money too. I just love the way they use the vertical axis of space here. Car parks use every square inch, and then do more by using cubic inches too, stacking the cars on winches high into the sky. Brilliant. But will life at this speed become tiring? I’ll let you know in the months ahead.
One bonus I have now is that for the first time in sixteen years I’m living in a country where I speak the native language. I’ve got by before, somehow understanding the gist of what is coming on around me, using all my senses and asking for help. But here they speak English! What heaven! I only realise what a handicap it has been for all these years now the handicap has finally been removed. Lucky me.
Mind you, you do hear some strange versions of English. I thought I was living in a diverse society in The Hague, but I was kidding myself, compared with here. True, we had many nationalities in The Hague, and Dutch society is tolerant of lifestyle choices. But here I have had to add extra dimensions. Take affluence. In The Hague we had poorer and richer people living together, but somehow within limits and with some borders. Here the range is wider and the borders less clear. Poor and desperate people, some missing limbs, are living side by side to the most affluent. I have seen some of the shortest and some of the tallest people I’ve ever come across in the last week. Colours blend, and you sense that within a generation or two they will have blended even more. I am amazed at how many Asians are here, and from so many countries. This is all great, in my opinion.
You also see some very tired people, with “lived in” faces. Living at this pace for so long and with some of life’s disadvantages must be tough here, yet many do it, year after year. You see some desperate life stories in the faces on the subway, every day. Many faces betray some cynicism and suspicion as well. This is a tough place to live, if you are not affluent, young or loved. I don’t think this is somewhere we would consider growing old.
I am looking forward to experiencing what New York City has to offer. I feel truly blessed. Each morning I open the blinds to see the might of Manhattan stretching before me across the East river. What a testament to humanity this place is.
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