Why I love my Brompton

1. Isn't she a beauty?

2. The greenness of a bike combined with the practicality of having the option to take a cab after a few beers.

- fits easily in the boot of a cab and metro

3. Safe: solidly (hand-)made

4. Folds up wonderfully small and is carry-able

5. It takes under 30 seconds to fold and unfold

6. The gearing is *amazing*. You can comfortably get up steep hills but you can build up impressive speeds on straight stretches of road. (Mine has six gears)

7. Loads of fantastic little features like the bag that clips on the front (and looks professional enough when slung over the shoulder), the nicely tucked away pump, the foldaway pedal, the little bag it packs away into.

8. Much easier to duck onto and cycle on pavements than normal bikes because it is smaller and less disturbing for pedestrians. 


9. Carry it in to restaurants/bars - no need to search for a place to lock it up and then worry about it getting stolen. Even better, the people who give snide remarks about it being a 'children's bike' look like the ones who would be most likely to steal it.

10. There is a World Championship! (see the video)

Learn more about Bromptons HERE.

You can buy them in DC from Bicycle Space.

Will higher fuel prices hurt you significantly?

Apparently, Gingrich sees lower fuel prices as his ticket to the White House. You can vote in today's pole as to whether higher fuel prices will hurt you significantly. (HT: The Daily Beast). Of course, it doesn't matter if they would hurt you significantly; your current low fuel prices are basically a plundering of the poor by the relatively rich (and if you are reading this, you are relatively rich). And if the nice Mr Gingrich lowers your fuel bill even more, it is a lot less free than you think.

Amazing new cyclewear

The Sporty Supaheroe* cycle jacket has "intelligent" sensors and dynamic LEDs meaning that it could glow bright red at the back when the cyclist is breaking. The range should be released later this year by the utopeproject. I want one! (HT: SS)

*The name is not my fault

The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations

I just attended a presentation by Micheal L Ross on his book: The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. I learnt a some very interesting things in a short time that thought I would share whilst wolfing down my lunch*.

-- Oil countries have higher birth rates and lower female participation rates in the labour force. Possibly due to the fact that Dutch Disease kills sectors in which women tend to participate, such as the export manufacturing and agriculture sectors.

-- Oil-producers have considerably less open budgeting processes than non-oil producers.

-- Since the end of the cold war there has been a significant reduction in the number of civil wars in countries. But this reduction comes entirely from non-oil producing countries.

--The number of democracies has increased significantly since the end of the cold war but this is entirely in non-oil producing countries.

-- The oil curse only started to appear following the price hikes/wave of nationalisations that occurred in the 1970s. Prior to this, oil producing countries were no more likely to have a civil war, no more likely to be a dictatorship and their budgets were as transparent as other countries.

-- Countries with only off-shore oil are significantly less likely to have a civil war than countries with some on-shore oil - in fact they are about as likely as non-oil producers to have a civil war. This suggests that tribal, ethnic, regional tensions are exacerbated if those in oil-producing regions do not feel they get their fair share and the ability of fighters for these causes can use oil to prolong fighting. 

-- There are currently only about five major oil producers in sub-Saharan Africa but this is likely to double or even triple by 2050 as more exploration is done on the continent, as oil demand increases, supply runs out elsewhere and the resulting price increases make it viable to produce in the region. This makes it important to try to address some of these issues.

So, you see, oil isn't all good.

*A part of the 'Insights into the exciting lives of economists' series

Climate change and its link to life

I came across THIS nice little collection of articles on how climate change effects life. I think it might be being done for a class.

Market forces to combat climate change

David Frum argues that the best way for the (US) government to reduce oil dependence is to 'do nothing'. By 'do nothing' he seems to mean tax dirty energy and reduce income taxes by an equivalent amount*. If consumers really value polluting, they will spend all of their reduced taxation on that, if not, they can maybe use their extra cash to buy a bike and cut down on petrol. Given that 40% of trips in the US are under 2 miles and 90% of these are done by car, this seems possible even with current sprawling suburbs. Although there are issues, some independent-minded folk from Raleigh, North Carolina have been trying to figure out how to make Americans walk more (a short, fun video). I think that higher taxes on fuel are a practical and moral obligation.

Unfortunately, maybe your kid will learn that climate change is a big hoax in school. And Newt Gingrich seems to think that a free-market supporting American government should intervene to guarantee cheap petrol (HT:JK). The flip side is that taxes would have to rise to pay for the increased subsidies and there will be more floods, droughts, forest fires across America as a result of the increased pollution. It doesn't seem like such a fantastic deal.


* In the sense that this means no net change in the burden on the taxpayer, this is 'doing nothing'. But I think he undersells himself in that changing behavioural incentives to minimise negative externalities is a difficult and important part of governing a country.

Who cares about climate change?

58% of Americans, 68% of Europeans and a full 99% of people who live on small islands. That is what I learnt in a nice little seminar I went to yesterday chaired by Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy for climate change. The Maldives puts some of its tourist dollars into a special trust so that they can eventually buy a new homeland when they go under the sea. Not a bad idea... The US Navy apparently assumes a 1.2 meter rise in sea levels by the end of the century and some of the island nations are working on the possibility of up to 5 meters.