Saturday, August 25, 2007

We need To Think About Value-Add When We Create Jobs

The Scotsman reports today that 40 jobs will be lost due to ending of tolls on the Forth Road Bridge (http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1352572007). I do hope all these people will shortly find more rewarding employment elsewhere. I also applaud removing these tolls as I can't begin to think of any good reason why it makes economic sense to continue to incur the toll-collection costs considering the marginal value-add of the tolls themselves.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Bias of the BBC

As a resident of the UK and a BBC license-fee payer, I have the privilege of enjoying the full resources of the BBC on television, radio, and increasingly on the Internet and my iPod. It is a tremendous resource and I do not wish it to disappear anytime soon, despite the not-insignificant annual cost for the license. At the same time, over the years I have grown more irritated when I notice obvious biasness in the BBC news reports. Sometimes they just don't know what they are talking about—or maybe it's me? I can't have missed that much in my life to believe those assertions by the BBC report which clashes so much with my understanding of the world. It therefore is somewhat reassuring when I read how the BBC itself is aware of that bias (to what extent is still a mystery) and that it's written about. See "Confessions of a BBC Liberal" in today's Sunday Times, authored by the person who wrote "Yes, Minister".