A puncture in my tyre: Keynes, Smith and GDP in the UK

I've just fixed my bike, after the second suspicious puncture in the back wheel tyre. Suspicious as it occurs at night: romance, chance, or more likely cheap financing, as per recently surveyed by the Guardian?

Adam Smith wrote about the needle factory in 1776, perhaps similar sharp objects hit my wheels tonight. Just a coincidence or is a new Industrial revolution, the 3rd to date, forthcoming!?

I got my wheels punctured twice in less than three years:  you need to be street-smart and bike-street-smart in London!

If active bike thieves keep punching tyres at a sustained pace, how many bikes will they reap by so doing? How much money to bike shops, and any unintended actions there!? Enough to revive stagnating domestic demand (for tyres) in the UK? Would John Keynes agree on similar reasoning, and Mr Cameron?

Gaddafi, the British government and the LSE

Muammar Gaddafi has been in power in Libya for longer than fourty years.

The US and the British condemned Gaddafi's regime. However, the oil wells in Libya were too appealing to US and the British firms to miss such an opportunit. The "Oil for us and regime for you" program that was tolerated internationally sounds like a less noble trade than the more popular oil for food UN program. Hard to conclude whether this was the best world possible or additional diplomatic effort may have anticipated the home made "oil for democracy" plan that Libyans are ready to put forward by themselves now.

The recent uprising in Libya follows one that led Mubarak to stand down in Egypt. However, Gaddafi's regime sounds determined to stay in power for longer. Will he succeed? Differently from Mubarak's son Gamal who did not manage to take over from his father, Gaddafi's second son Saif has been actively involved in non-for-profit activities in Libya. He has also recently contributed to tame the protest in a televised message. The message is skillfully pitched by blending popular Arabic norms and values with notions from international relations. No surprise, Saif studied at the London School of Economics (LSE) and also made generous donations to finance research there as his profile suggests.

The admission committee at the LSE must have had a hard time when screening the application by Gaddafi's son beyond his academic credentials. Rejecting the application would not do much as the next top school in the UK or elsewhere woul admit him. By admitting him instead the training that the LSE offered Saif a chance to return home to do one of two things. Either take over the "Gaddafis family business" when his dad retires or, more bravely, make a U-turn and pay back Libyans in the streets by making their dreams about democracy a reality.

NIMA: Not In My Anthem!

Cristina Aguilera has recently sung the national anthem at the Superbowl of American football in the USA. She freely re-interpreted a few words which cost her boooos from the audit.

Jumping across the pond to the older Anglosaxon and multi-cultural country, the UK, the prime minister David Cameron has recently downplayed the role of multiculturalism in his political agenda. Is this to minimise the probability of mistakes in the event a non-British native sings the national anthem in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London!? Perhaps a new acronym, short words which are dear to Anglosaxons, could effectively summarise this: NIMA which stands for Not in My Anthem!

Fiscal austherity in the UK: TINA embarasses the government at Davos

The UK government faced a harder question time than expected about its fiscal austherity plan by journalists in the World Economics Forum at Davos. "Is there really no alternative" (TINA, a popular acronym among politicians in the UK) to a fiscal belt tightening in the UK?" is the hottest question by journalists. Paul Krugman suggested that the UK government is wrong-footed in his column in the New York Times some months ago. Has the message crossed the Atlantic? Should somebody place it in a bottle!? Or perhaps remind the UK government about what happens in the long run (see bullet point # 2 in the link) according to Mr J. M. Keynes!?