The MySpace Generation

Somehow I suspect that the MySpace Generation is in charge of the Ladies' College's Wikipedia page.

Property prices wiggling a little bit

Trumpet, fanfare, front page splash, property prices are dropping. Or, to be precise (which of course the Press isn't), the median local market price dropped this quarter compared to last.

So, is this the bubble bursting, or just an excuse for the usual hysterics?

Let's forget for the moment that comparing the houses sold one quarter with those sold in the following quarter is not comparing like with like (after all, they are different houses).

Let's forget that the average conveyance value only reflects the value of houses which are actually changing hands.

Let's forget that the median price always tends to be a round number - by the nature of medians, one extra property sale either side of the median could cause the 'average' price to leap £5,000 (or, er, 1.7%...)

Let's forget all that. The answer to the question is on page 2 of the report in question. Over the six years since 2001, the median local market price has fallen seven times. This quarter it has fallen a mere 1.7%, but in Q1 2002 it fell by 11.1%, and it fell by 7.1% over two quarters in 2005. All during six years of relentlessly rising prices.

So the last six times the quarterly median fell, it was just a statistical wiggle each time. But for the Press, this is it, this 1.7% is the tip of the iceberg, time for the sub-editors to get out the big fat hysterical headline pen. Maybe it's a quiet news day...

Fashion tax

Inspired by the petrol price debate, there have been a couple of callers to the Radio Guernsey Moan In this morning about UK chains and franchises charging the same VAT-inclusive prices in Guernsey as they do in England, mostly it would seem in respect of clothing retailers. In the bizarre words of one caller, 'we shouldn't be paying this tax'.

Er, hello. We're not paying VAT. All that's happening is that the shops pocket as extra profit the money which would normally go to the Chancellor. So what is wrong with that? We have to expect that any shop is going to price their products to make as much profit as they can (in the long run of course). That's why those shops are successful, and that's why they can afford to be in the high street.

The prices of high street mainstays like clothing and cosmetics are driven by the economics of marketing and fashion, not manufacturing. The £40 upwards price tag on a pair of Reeboks has very little to do with the £7 they paid the sweatshop to manufacture them, or the £1 labour cost paid to the people who actually did the work. More than half the wholesale cost of a bottle of perfume is blown by the manufacturer on marketing and designing shiny bottles, and most of the rest is spent on working out how to copy competitor's products, giving product away to very rich people, and ruminating on what the next whim of the public might be. The retailer then stacks on their own costs, staff costs, glitzy displays, the cost of tester bottles and their profit margin. Only a miniscule fraction of what the customer pays actually goes into synthesizing the chemical cocktail in the bottle.

If you think it's worth spending £x because you want to have brand Y, then buy it and don't complain that company Z, owner of brand Y, spends a hefty wodge of your £x just to improve the level of kudos which comes with brand Y.

There is no cartel - if you don't think the brand you buy is giving you good value for money, you can chose a different one. There is no fraud - you pay the price on the ticket, with no hidden costs. So if the ticket price has another 17.5% stacked on, just for the Guernsey customer, and you still buy it, then that's really nobody's problem but yours. The ultimate difference is that whereas in the UK maybe 90% of the price goes to middlemen, in Guernsey it's maybe more like 92%.

In the economics of fashion, prices (and ultimately high street rents) are driven by what people feel they can afford to pay. Whether or not the ticket price contains VAT makes no difference.

If you aren't happy with it, there are plenty of shops on the Bridge, in Fountain Street, in the Pollet and on the Internet with lower rent bills, more enlightened pricing policies, and little or no fashion tax...

The most righteous Guernsey Press

The Guernsey Press reported in their Editors' Blog and Saturday's GP comment that news editor James Falla was the only media representative who turned up to a T&R press conference on the zero-10 strategy - ostensibly a very important meeting about the biggest deal in the States right now.

Shaun Green's blog post was quick to admonish the broadcast media for neglecting this high-profile and far-reaching issue: 'Who was present from our two radio stations and two TV stations (including BBC)? No one.'

Thank you GP for alerting us to this - indeed, one doesn't have to look back that far in the mists of time to see other examples of the media neglecting important stories for the sake of piquing public hysteria with tabloid trivia.

If only the GP team could have meted out similar opprobrium to the outlet which decided to run a dismal report on UFOs as their lead story on the 26th April, when the previous day's population debate in the States and the last lobbying efforts and political manouevres in advance of the debate on the Milk Law were at the top of the agenda for most of the media.

It wasn't even news - this was the day after the whole UFO affair had already been thoroughly dissected by every other pundit in the galaxy. So in a desperate bid to whip it up into a good lather the report even included the priceless and apparently shameless aside that 'the sightings come days after reports that scientists have discovered outside our solar system an Earth-like planet capable of supporting extraterrestrial life'.

So which news team was too busy spunking over a quick sales opportunity to give due coverage to the real news of the day? Step forward the Guernsey Press...

Colonic irrigation?

"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

Edmund Burke, 1729 - 1797

Richard Digard recently posted a piece on the This is Guernsey blog which coins the delightful phrase 'the Bottom Up Brigade'. No, this is nothing to do with Deputy Ron Le Moignan's personal Room 101. It's his characterisation of those who are wont to ignore, whenever it's convenient, Edmund Burke's principle (quoth above).

Reflecting on this, I thought I'd pass on to you a glorious example of 'bottom-up' government from The Other Island, which illustrates Burke's point beautifully.

In the 1980s, reports commissioned by the States of Jersey from the British Geological Society showed that water supplies were very limited and contaminated with pesticides. Last year, drought hit the island, and the water shortage became acute. In low-lying areas the water was found to be contaminated with salt water, a sure sign of over-extraction. Senator Freddie Cohen reacted swiftly to draft water conservation legislation and slow consumption.

Enter George Langlois, water diviner, backed up by a lobby group consisting of fellow dowsers and borehole-drillers. It's all fine, he said, Jersey's ground water doesn't come from Jersey rain, it actually comes in under the Channel via 'streams' from France, and it'll never run out!

At this point, we must get one thing straight. Water divining is total bunk. There is bugger-all credible evidence that it works. Diviners and dowsers are deluded or dishonest. Langlois's claim was no more than blind speculation. Worse still, it was flatly contradicted by the available scientific evidence. A senator wouldn't have to do a particularly onerous amount of research to convince himself of this.

Sadly, a lot of the Jersey public either don't have the time, the inclination or the presence of mind to relinquish this little bit of hogwash of its popular pedestal, and who can blame them - we'd all rather be happy than right!

But what does the States of Jersey do? Do they act swiftly on the unequivocal advice of the scientific experts to avert a crisis? Or do they, instead, eject their brains and vote on the say-so of a man with a twig?

You guessed it. Cohen's legislation was vetoed.

A lesser man than Cohen might have thrown up his hands in despair at this point and booked a one-way ticket to New Zealand, leaving George Langlois and his soothing words to waltz the island into certain disaster. But Cohen instead stuck to his guns and used taxpayer's money to buy them out of their own ignorance. He successfully launched a £70,000 investigation to drill two deep boreholes at sites chosen by the diviners, to test whether the water comes from Jersey or from France as the diviners claimed. He even got George Langlois onto the working party, and secured his commitment to accept the results.

The verdict was announced in January. Surprise, surprise, the ground water in Jersey comes from rainfall in Jersey. There is no link with France. New legislation to clamp down on water usage is now imminent.

You'd think that would be the last of it, but no! The protestations of the dowsers still rumble on. The sad fact is that in a perverse way, the £70,000 blown on this utterly unnecessary exercise will only bolster the expectation that dowsers should be taken seriously, and they probably still wouldn't think twice about blowing the same amount again.

The senators can stop a repeat of this, but only if they can learn when to keep their heads out of their bottoms.

Those bloody railings

With much fanfare, Mike Torode revealed the solution to the problem of the 'safety' railings blighting the east end of the brand-spanking-new markets this weekend. Big planters will be installed instead, to achieve the same effect of blocking access to the granite plinths.

If you think the problem with the railings is just that they look a bit crap, we have a solution.

But if you think the problem is that these railings are the most ludicrous expression of nannyism ever to be spewed forth from our executive legislature, then replacing them with differently-shaped but more aesthetically pleasing expressions of nannyism doesn't really get to the nub of the matter...