Andrew Ferrier’s Blog

A truly great man. The world is poorer (in every sense) with his passing. Russ Roberts was fortunate enough to interview him only a few months ago - his brilliance shone through even at the age of 94. From another interview in 2004:

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

Update: The New York Times has a detailed story and biography.

Getting your hair cut is normally dead time, unless you find the conversation particularly stimulating. So as I was having mine trimmed this morning, I got to wondering:

Why going to the barber’s is like going to the dentist

• You have to sit very still or bad things happen. This is tricky and you tend to squirm. From time to time they re-orient your head.
• They have a special chair that goes up and down.
• They have a large variety of alarming specialist equipment.
• It’s hard to find a good one.

Why going to the barber’s isn’t like going to the dentist

• They are much cheaper.
• It isn’t as painful - normally.

The similarities may not be entirely coincidental. Barbers used to perform surgery - and this is the origin of the red (and sometimes blue) colour of the traditional barber’s pole. Fortunately, we have now specialised into many more disciplines. Adam Smith would be proud.

Conclusion: I still don’t like going to either.

Folks, this is the power of well-constructed fiction. Grave of the Fireflies is an astonishingly powerful animated film about a Japanese brother and sister orphaned during a firebombing in WWII. It’s a film to move you to tears, and feel that frustratingly ironic anger at evil folks who drop bombs on innocents. The characters are so well focused they just draw you into the story, and I found it easy to ride the emotional rollercoaster the entire way. The younger sister (Setsuko) is perfectly honed to behave the way a young child might in such upsetting circumstances, and the older brother (Seita) makes promises he cannot keep, and suffers accordingly.

The film is well-executed, particularly in the scenes where it really matters. Using animation for such a serious subject isn’t common, but it doesn’t detract at all from the themes: the suspension-of-disbelief in this film is just magnetic. The anime is above average, and particularly well-lit in the firefly scenes of the title, although it isn’t to the standard of some of the Hayao Miyazaki films I have mentioned before. This is probably almost fortunate, because (at least at first) it helps insulate one from the horrors of what’s depicted. I turned the English dubbing off, because it seemed that having American voices playing Japanese people in such a film was wholly inappropriate. (Incidentally, for a historical perspective from the other side, see the excellent documentary Fog of War).

I agree wholeheartedly with Roger Ebert’s sentiment that Grave of the Fireflies is probably one of the most powerful anti-war films of all time (my other favourite is Dr. Strangelove, which is easier to watch). It’s not something to see when you want cheering up or a light-hearted evening, but if you are looking for a well-crafted film that portrays a loving relationship in a time of strife, this is it.

Ray is a biopic-by-the-numbers. Depicting the life of Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx does a competent job of portraying someone blind (it’s of course hard to tell how close he is to Charles). The film lurches from one scene to the next, and portrays Charles as a fun-loving but flawed man (cynics might point out that this is what most biographical films of entertainers do). There’s nothing that particularly stands out, but no part of the film that’s truly awful either. Worth watching if you’re interested in Ray Charles’s life, but otherwise nothing special.

Last Tuesday, I attended Bill Clinton’s ‘Leadership for the Future’ seminar at the Royal Albert Hall. Although I don’t necessarily agree with his politics (he obviously sits somewhere around the centre-left and I’m some undecided variety of libertarian), I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see a former world leader speaking. The tickets (£60 - £300) weren’t cheap for the hour and a half’s presentation, and the occupancy of the hall seemed to suffer accordingly, but it was worth it. The Royal Albert Hall, which glittered more than I remembered it from my graduation, was a suitably impressive but slightly gaudy venue.

A large majority of the presentation was dedicated to a speech by Clinton, with the remainder being pre-vetted questions. My heart sank when I saw what appeared to be some Powerpoint slides ready and waiting as I entered the hall, but fortunately he didn’t use the projector. He appeared to being using some notes, which was a surprise, but they didn’t intrude too much into the presentation. He was a clear orator, and delivered plenty of soundbite-worthy phrases - his eloquence and fluency wasn’t quite up to the standard of a legend, however.

His speech focused around four main questions:

1. What is the fundamental nature of the 21st century?
2. How would you like to change the 21st century?
3. What steps are necessary to move from (1) to (2)?
4. Who’s supposed to do it?

Each of these questions had detailed answers, and it was here that I began to deviate from the president’s view. His basic premise was sound - the world is increasingly interdependent, and this has both good and bad effects. He focused a lot on security, however, and appears to believe in the current worldview of terrorism (large, complex networks with vast power), whereas I am doubtful (and of course am in the minority). As some compensation, though, it’s good to see him recommending the use of intelligence agencies as the primary weapon against this problem, as Bruce Schneier has recommended many times in the past. Clinton is obviously in favour of income redistribution, and made it sound impressively appealing to me, despite my moral objection. He’s obviously also a competent businessman - his discussion of the return on investment of war, and his wry observation about a country’s budget being controlled by what it spent last year (as is the case in most organisations) betrays his business knowledge. He spoke with admiration about a recent initiative to teach entrepreneurship in Scottish schools - I also believe this should be encouraged.

Clinton’s answer to the fourth question, ‘Who’s supposed to do it?’, was where we deviated most. It’s clear he thinks everyone has a duty to act through democracies, NGOs, and so on, to make the changes they believe are necessary for the world. Irrespective of whether you believe this is an effective method (I think its success is less than overwhelming), this has shades of Kennedy’s famous quote: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country’, but with the USA replaced with the world. As Milton Friedman explains in his introduction to Capitalism and Freedom, this is hardly the rallying cry of someone pro-freedom. Although I don’t think it’s fair to accuse Clinton of being illberal, I drew the conclusion from this and other comments that he cares more about equality than freedom.

It was quite obvious that Clinton now feels that he is able to speak his mind, having left his presidency. He was asked at one point which world leaders he had met whom he admired, and his passion about three of them (Nelson Mandela, Yitzhak Rabin, and King Hussein) was plain to see. He does seem to be as honest a man as one could reasonably expect in such a position, and I admire him, even if I don’t agree with him.

I’m currently podcast-less, due to the continued incompetence of PlusNet, and so am reading Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (at Richard’s suggestion). So far it’s an excellent book, and everything I expected.

It’s interesting how the power of the market might surprise even Friedman himself, however - given that the book was originally written in 1962. On page 30 Friedman discusses the use of tolls on roads, and how they are ineffective in the general case, because of the high costs of administering them on most roads. This is an example of a ‘neighborhood effect’, one of only two types of market failure he identifies. From this, the implication is that a petrol tax is an effective solution.

However, it seems obvious that a technological solution to this problem is not too far away, despite probably being unforeseeable in 1962: it will soon be possible to track people’s exact road usage for a reasonable cost, probably using some radio-based system. Such systems already exist in some restricted areas.

This still doesn’t overcome the local monopoly problem that Friedman also identifies (what happens when there is only one reasonable route from A to B?), but it could certainly shift the balance in favour of some road-use charging, which interestingly even the sluggish UK goverment is investigating.

Amadeus, which could have been more lengthily titled ‘The Rise and Fall of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘, is an outstanding film from the Academy Awards‘ back-catalogue. Winners of eight Oscars, it deserved them all, despite its many historical inaccuracies and liberties. An extremely watchable film, it never drags despite its length, and each scene tells.

Amadeus is a film of contrasts. It depicts Mozart as a fun-loving wally, reminiscent of Yahoo Serious in Young Einstein (or at least his hair). His music, always sublime, provides the soundtrack to the film and makes clear the disparity between it and his outward personality (at least here). It’s possible the film libels Mozart with this playful presentation, but if it does, it does it in a charming way. The distinction is reinforced by the assertions of Salieri, the narrator, that Mozart was a vulgar man, but his music was not. The narration is sometimes presented with visuals, and intercuts with the visuals of Mozart’s life. Richard Frank is superb as the priest of few words: the confessional foil for Salieri’s tales of immorality and blasphemy: his head is often in his hands, unbelieving.

Amadeus is sadly notorious for its use of American language and phraseology throughout, despite being set mostly in Vienna. Although cultural ignorance is Hollywood is wide-spread, in this case, amazingly, it doesn’t seem to matter. The culture is well presented, and besides, it isn’t the main thrust of the film: the relationships between Mozart, his wife, and Salieri are. So this isn’t just excusable, it’s almost justifiable: in fact, with two high-quality leads such as Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham, it’s easy to see why director Miloš Forman decided to keep the language as he did.

This film is a classic, and is a fantastic introduction to, and reproduction of, Mozart and the world of classical opera.

I’ve just watched Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. I wasn’t as moved as I expected to be; perhaps precisely because the film shows only ‘positive’ messages, which I’m not greatly influenced by because of the benefit of hindsight. All the negative connotations of Hitler, WWII, and the Holocaust are absent. In fact, after some time, the film becomes rather repetitive and I skipped several sections. Nevertheless, Hitler’s closing speech to the Party Congress at the end of the film is well worth watching, as a striking example of just how good oratory can get (ironic from a man that’s so hard to admire in most other respects). It is well worth reading Our Masters’ Voices for some academic study of Hitler and other great orators.