What to read this Christmas

09 December 2019

What to read this Christmas

We are publishing our annual Christmas reading list today. It aims to offer a thought-provoking break from the rigours of Christmas. All are available free and online. You can save these articles on your smartphone's or tablet's reading list. To print any use the print icons, where available, on the webpages to ensure the whole article comes out.

 

* The eradication of smallpox, which killed an estimated 300m people in the 20th century, is one of the great achievements of the modern world. This article looks at the political and religious debates surrounding the development of inoculation. What emerges is that today’s “anti-vaxxers” are but the latest incarnation of longstanding and unfounded set of fears – anti-vaccination societies existed in the US and UK almost 200 years ago. Countering such ideas, as this article makes clear, has led to huge improvements in human health.

 

https://rootsofprogress.org/smallpox-and-vaccines

 

* Online retail has grown exponentially since the turn of the millennium and with it has come greater choice, convenience and affordability – but also fleets of delivery vans, oceans of packaging and strains on supply chains. This piece from the Guardian examines how online shopping has transformed logistics and ponders how goods might make their way to our houses in the future.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/21/how-our-home-delivery-habit-reshaped-the-world

 

* A business, particularly a start-up, bears more than a passing resemblance to a rock band. If talented founders, perhaps with oversized egos, cannot resolve disagreements, both bands and companies tend to fail. Bands, too, need to function as businesses to succeed – canny marketing strategies, multiple revenue streams and personnel management are key in modern music. This piece from The Economist’s 1843 magazine compares the strategy of bands from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones to see what lessons management might learn.

 

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/a-rockers-guide-to-management

 

* We have noted high levels of economic and financial uncertainty reported by chief financial officers in our “Deloitte CFO Survey” since the EU referendum in 2016. Now, a new Bank of England research, based on anonymised data from the CFO Survey, sheds light on the corrosive effect of uncertainty on business investment. In this speech drawing on the research, Michael Saunders, a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, argues that whereas previous spikes in uncertainty have been temporary, the post-referendum elevation has been persistent, driving a marked decline in capital expenditure by businesses. The speech was widely seen as making a case for lower interest rates and contributed to a drop in market rate expectations.

 

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2019/shifting-balance-of-risks-speech-by-michael-saunders.pdf

 

* There are numerous competing explanations for the collapse in the US crime rate in the 1990s. An ageing population, changing criminal justice policies, the banning of leaded petrol and the legalisation of abortion have all been posited. This article from The Atlantic magazine examines new research which suggests that mobile phones reduced the importance of territory for drug dealers, and so reduced conflict. It is a fascinating example of how economics can be used to explain social phenomena.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/05/how-mobile-phones-could-have-changed-the-drug-game/590503/

 

* This article by environmental history professor Dagomar Degroot examines how humanity has tried to adapt to past periods of changing weather, like the Little Ice Age in the 13th-19th centuries. The author concludes that the challenges and risks from climate change are infinitely greater now – yet our “means of understanding and confronting them are greater too”. History, Professor Degroot argues, demonstrates that existential crises can spur competition and innovation.

 

https://aeon.co/essays/the-little-ice-age-is-a-history-of-resilience-and-surprises

 

* The last item in our list is an interloper, a podcast of a discussion I had earlier this month with the business journalist James Ashton, former City editor of the Evening Standard and Independent newspapers. James and I debate the value of trying to predict the future and the role of journalists in sorting fake news from the real thing.

 

https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/about-deloitte-uk/articles/the-green-room-podcast-experts-getting-it-wrong.html

 

PS: The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the latest results of their triennial PISA tests last week. The tests, which are taken by 600,000 15-year-olds in 79 countries and regions, provide the key standard for comparing educational outcomes across the world. Richer countries generally perform well but educational success is not only about GDP. Middle-income Estonia, for instance, outperformed a number of higher-income countries, including the UK. Overall the UK did pretty well, exceeding the OECD averages and improving its rankings relative to other countries in the three test areas of maths, science and reading. 

 

UK General Election: Opinion polls and betting odds

 

Poll data and betting odds: Probabilities derived from betting odds from bookmaker Smarkets at 17.00 on Friday.

 

* The average of the last five opinion polls shows the Conservative Party with a ten-percentage-point lead over Labour. This has not changed from the previous five polls.

* Betting odds imply a 96% probability of the Conservative Party winning the most seats in the General Election.

* Betting markets see the most likely outcome, with an implied probability of 71%, being a Conservative majority.

* A hung parliament is assigned a probability of 27% by betting markets and a Labour majority 2.5%.

 

OUR REVIEW OF LAST WEEK’S NEWS

The UK FTSE 100 equity index ended the week down 1.5% at 7,240 due in part to a stronger pound reducing the sterling value of companies’ overseas earnings.

 

Economics and business

* The US Federal Reserve is considering a policy where after periods of undershooting the inflation target, inflation would be allowed to run above target to ‘catch-up’, the FT reports

* In response to the US passing a bill to put pressure on China over Hong Kong, Beijing has banned US Navy visits to the former British colony and will impose sanctions on US human rights groups

* The US added more jobs than expected in November, allaying concerns that weakness in the manufacturing sector would spill into the labour market

* US president Donald Trump announced new tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Brazil and Argentina, opening a new front in the global trade dispute

* Mr Trump also indicated he was happy to wait until after the 2020 election for a trade deal with China

* The US is also considering further tariffs on French goods in response to a French digital services tax which they see as discriminating against US companies

* The French finance minister Bruno Le Maire indicated France would respond to any new tariffs

* Bank of England governor Mark Carney is to become UN special envoy for climate action and finance following his departure from Threadneedle Street

* In a sign of rising investor concern over climate change activist hedge fund TCI announced plans to punish directors of companies that fail to disclose their carbon dioxide emissions

* The cost of a Christmas dinner in the UK has risen by 3% in the last year and by 12% since 2017. Rising turkey prices reflect reduced hatchings during the hot summer. African swine fever has also raised pork prices

* Ratings agency Moody’s cut its outlook on the UK banking system to negative citing “persistently low interest rates” and a weakening economy

* Japan ratified a trade deal with the US. The trade deal was negotiated and approved in nine months, an unusually short period

* Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe announced a ¥13.2tn package of government spending to stimulate the economy

* German industrial output in October was down 5.3% compared to October 2018, its biggest fall in ten years. Falling orders suggest no imminent recovery

* UK household wealth has grown by 40% since 2012 with the wealthiest and those living in the South of England seeing the biggest gains

* Withdrawals from UK property funds due to concerns over Brexit and the high street stores closures have forced the suspension of an M&G fund with others under pressure

* OPEC, an alliance of oil-producing countries, agreed to cut production further in an attempt to boost weak crude prices

* Troubled haulier Eddie Stobart has been taken over by private equity group Dbay, securing the short-term future of the company

* A private equity group and Fifa are in talks over staging a football “club world cup”, the FT reports

* The market value of the consumer technology company Apple has surpassed that of the entire energy sector in the S&P 500 US stock market index

* Activity in the UK services sector contracted in November, its biggest fall for eight months

* The Turkish economy returned to growth, growing by 0.9% in the third quarter

* America became a net exporter of oil for the first time since the 1940s in September

 

Brexit and European politics

* France has seen significant disruption from strikes over planned pension reforms championed by president Emmanuel Macron

* Germany expelled two Russian diplomats over the killing of a Chechen dissident in the summer

* The Finnish prime minister, Antti Rinne, resigned following a coalition dispute on a postal strike

* Plans for a euro area banking union were derailed by Italy over objections to conditions attached to the scheme by Germany

 

And finally… a freedom of information request quoted by the Eastern Daily Press showed that 3,500 wheelie bins were stolen in Norfolk in the last three years. The newspaper quoted a waste management agency as saying this “follows a national trend of bins being stolen and then sold online for less than the amount charged by councils for replacement bins.”  – a wheelie big problem