The BBC website is carrying a handy guide on how to tell painted wolves apart:
“Faced with a pack of 30 painted wolves coming towards you, you want to know you are pointing the camera at the right animal”. No, that is not what I want to know. What I want to know are my chances of outrunning the wolves, or alternatively of outrunning the cameraman.
There is an excellent economic lesson in the protests about increases in fuel taxes in France, now apparently postponed by the government:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46437904
If you want people to use less of something, put the price up. This is, as far as I can tell, a universal truth. It came up in an opinion piece by Oliver Kamm in the Times yesterday, on the topic of minimum alcohol pricing:
If you want people to drink less, put the cost up. The thing that really impressed me about Mr Kamm was that he raised the question that always comes up:
“There is a persistent criticism levelled by politicians on both right and left that minimum pricing and levies on demerit goods are regressive: they hit lower-income consumers of alcohol, sugary drinks and tobacco hardest”
And went on to answer it correctly:
“It’s not a strong case. If you’re concerned about social and economic inequality, a better remedy is redistribution through the tax and benefits system”.
Exactly. And that is the answer to fuel pricing in France, as it will be the next time a government here tries to increase fuel duty. Incidentally, this is something that every economist worthy of the name knows. Politicians not so much.