Interesting Thoughts

Whilst thinking about Video Posts, and to temper the previous one with a dose of reality (never a bad thing) I came across this video … makes you think, if its stats are true, and I suppose they are …

Shall we go Carbon-Neutral?

I was racking my brains about how we, as a company, can do something about Carbon Emissions.

(We already do a bit. We print nothing we don’t have to, we produce no printed marketing material and only provide electronic invoicing, for example. Small stuff, but we DO think about things like that and do what we can)

Carbon Offsetting seems to be all the rage. I was never kinda comfortable with the whole concept. I just don’t really get it.

To me it was always a bit like that experiment they did with imposing a fine on Parents who don’t pick up their kids on time from school (and hence not inconvinience the teachers/ school). They THOUGHT it would incentivise the parents to be on time … but the OPPOSITE OCCURRED! Since Parents considered that they were now paying, it was suddenly okay to be late to pick up the kids, and incidences sky-rocketed!

See Here for the best reference i can find to this experiment. Best I can find in 20 Seconds anyway. I think it was reference in Tim Hartfords book “The Undercover Economist” or “Freakonomics”. One of the 2. Could be wrong. Good books anyway!

So I did a bit of research and came up with this video which put the nail in the coffin of that thought! Ha ha!

Here is the website … http://www.cheatneutral.com/ … Well done, ladies and gents. Nice!

SURVEY: FRANCE : The art of the impossible

A morose France has fallen behind its competitors. But there is nothing inevitable about its decline, argues Sophie Pedder: all it needs is political will

Bridgeman

“SOMETHING seems very wrong with this country. Once the very model
of a modern major power—stable, rich and smug—it appears beset now by
political and economic instability and by civil unrest and disorder.
One observer has even taken to calling it ‘the sick man of Europe’.
Hardly a month passes without the appearance of a new book or learned
article on the decline and imminent demise of a once proud country.”

http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RDQRNGV

Tired of globalisation

I found this article in this weeks Economist fascinating!

FREDERIC BASTIAT, who was that rarest of creatures, a French free-market economist, wrote to this newspaper in 1846 to express a noble and romantic hope:

“May all the nations soon throw down the barriers which separate them.”

Those words were echoed 125 years later by the call of John Lennon, who was not an economist but a rather successful global capitalist, to

“imagine there’s no countries”.

As he said in his 1971 song, it isn’t hard to do. But despite the spectacular rise in living standards that has occurred as barriers between nations have fallen, and despite the resulting escape from poverty by hundreds of millions of people in those places that have joined the world economy, it is still hard to convince publics and politicians of the merits of openness. Now, once again, a queue is forming to denounce openness—ie, globalisation. It is putting at risk the next big advance in trade liberalisation and the next big reduction in poverty in the developing countries.

Related Links:

THE PROPERTY MARKET IN THE DEPARTMENT OF “LES ALPES-MARITIMES”

Principal Source:
“Les References immobilieres du notariat – Novembre 2004.”
Chambres des Notaires des Alpes Maritimes
18 Rue du Congres
06000 Nice

The laws, decrees, appendices, amendments and numerous administrative circulars that confront the seller and the buyer of property in France can quickly become a fearful source of confusion and disorientation. Fortunately the knowledge and professionalism of the Public Officer, the Notaire that we all must turn to as our intermediary, and in whose responsibility and absolute integrity we place our trust, is not only a legal obligation, but a real source of confidence.