It is often the everyday that illustrates the story. My cab driver the other Saturday told me that late afternoon the day before he had spent 45 minutes looking for a fare. The problem, he averred, is that aren’t spending: or not the ones who would usually call a cab. It seems that M&S have had the same problem with selling food.
Category: Modern Life
Another inconvenient truth
City living is not just good for the economy, but for the planet. From Matt Power in June ’08 Wired,
A Manhattanite’s carbon footprint is 30 per cent smaller than the average American’s.
I thought of this reading Rural idyll or stuck in the back of beyond, by Rhymer Rigby in this morning’s FT.
Going up
From the June edition of Wired,
“What high-speed means of transportation emits less atmospheric carbon than trains, lanes, and automobiles?
The humble counterweight elevator put into service in 1857, which has made vertical density possible from Dubai to Taipei.”
Mind the gap
An interesting article by the FT’s Economics Editor, Chris Giles, this morning in which he suggests that ‘the gap between action and sentiment puts the economy at a tipping point’.
Take surveys of households and companies at face value and the economy appears to be in free fall. Most measures of business confidence are sharply down on a year ago and the Gfk/NOP poll of consumers’ confidence about future economic prospects has declined to its lowest level since 1982.
But what households and companies are saying and what they are doing has rarely been so different. For all the misery poured out to pollsters, hard figures so far show people behaving as if they really believe Britain’s economy problems will be short and shallow.
Companies are not yet taking really tough decisions to cut costs. Instead they are keeping their workforce intact, presumably in the belief that it is better to hang on to employees in bad times because the good times will be with us again soon.
Chlorine is good for you
Good to know that swimming will soon be free for the over 60s. According to Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport,
“Swimming has universal appeal for all ages and provides the opportunities for families to participate in healthy activity together. Our aim is to help as many areas as possible remove charges and provide some kind of free swimming proposition. All the evidence shows that it removes barriers to those who are inactive. It is for local authorities to decide just how far they want to go.”
Let’s hope that we don’t get fined if we don’t go swimming. The last thing I want to do is participate in healthy activity with anyone else!
