Celebs and refugees - Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck video of refugees in the DR Congo for UNHCR was well received and showed respect to Africans in their terrible plight. Chris Blattman gives his take on it.

More celeb awareness raising

Here is UNHCR's awareness raising on Refugees at Davos this week. The concept is called Refugee Run. The participants of Davos are invited to "step into the world of conflict and experience life as a refugee" and then "a debrief will follow and discuss your experience". Bill Easterly author of seminal White Man's Burden gives his perspective.

Celebs pledge on development

Excerpt from commentary by Marbury:

The problem can be summed up in two pledges that comes hard on the heels of each other early on. We hear one from Courtney Cox and her stalker "to end hunger in America" OK - not bad. A little grandiose, but it's a clear enough goal and the relevant charity is namechecked. Next up, a pledge to "smile more." Smile more? If it's just about smiling more then anything counts. As if that weren't bad enough, it's closely followed by, "To laugh more and to love more." No, no, no.

Cameron Diaz pledges to give her neighbours a smile. Look, by all means, flash those perfect teeth to the bejewelled and befurred millionaires you pass in the lobby, but don't tell me that this is an act of service to your country. Don't you see, Cameron, that this devalues the very notion of service, of "pledges"? Cameron? Are you listening to me?

Somebody else pledges to plant five hundred trees this year - ten out of ten. This, my friends, is what I'm talking about. Next up, P Diddy says he's going to turn the lights off - and then points at me and says, now you turn the lights off. OK Diddy, it's a deal - but only if you surrender your private jet.

Demi Moore: "I pledge to free one million people from slavery in the next five years." Hmm, specific and worthy - if a little over-ambitious for one person.

You see, I'm not being cynical. Quite the opposite. I admire the spirit of collective endeavour and public service. But this video does violence to that noble idea, by confusing public service with the trivial and the personal. If millions of Americans view this video and conclude that they can meet their president's rousing call to service by "smiling more" then it will have done far more harm than good, to the country and to his presidency.

Carbon pricing in a recession

Posner and Becker argue that raising tax on petrol in a recession is a bad idea

" A further weakening of the financial position of American carmakers would increase the size of the bailout of the American auto industry needed to prevent it from going bankrupt. This implies that higher gas taxes would have a multiplier effect on the tax burden facing American families and businesses- not only would they have to pay more for gas, but they also would at some point have to pay higher taxes to finance a larger bailout. "

Different effects of the stimulus package

How economists analyse the stimulus
It depends on which effect you think will prevail:
Keynes effect,
Galbraith effect,
a Housework effect
a Feldstein effect

Too many labels

Do you need 4 organic labels on a pot of jam?

In the picture you can see on the left the 2 blue EU organic logo (2 different languages). On the botton left you have the green AB label which in the national French organic logo and on the right you have the Carrefour supermarket chain's logo "Bio" showing that this is an organic product.

In the queue, if they could find space on the jar would potentially be a fair trade mark, a carbon label and a symbol saying the ingrediants werent airfreighted.

Carrion crows attacking Switzerland

Every year the Swiss anti immigration party UDC come out with an eye catching piece of advertising that is regarded by many as offensive. This year's effort sitting outside my office, and so far with no graffiti on it, shows two large crows pecking at the heart of Switzerland with a by line "Open the door to abuse? No!". This refers to the recent vote to open its borders to the EU Member States.

The crows apparently refer to Romanians and Bulgarians and preys on the usual fears about the loss of jobs/national/racial identity of the electorate.

Last year's poster from UDC showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep out of Switzerland with the words "To create security" - it was banned in Geneva open spaces because of its obvious racial provocation.

One question is how does the political class to the left of the extreme right react to this arguably rascist advertising. (Bird lovers were also angered, seriously) Outrage has not stemmed the growth of the UDC and even creates more interest in it. Perhaps satire is the way forward...