Coppola Comment

So Toby Young was eventually hounded into resigning from the board of the Office for Students. I confess, I was one of those who hounded him. I thought, and still think, that his appointment was wholly inappropriate. I was not sorry to see Jo Johnson subsequently moved out of the Department for Education, either, though personally I would have sacked him. Johnson, who was instrumental in bringing about Young's appointment, defended it to the House of Commons on the extraordinary grounds that Young was on a "developmental journey". It's absolutely fine for Young to go on a developmental journey, of course, but not paid for by my taxes or affecting the lives of my children (my daughter is currently a university student). But there is a much bigger issue here. Why was Young ever appointed in the first place? He admitted to me on Twitter that he did not have the academic experience the Department of Education said he did, but then said that it did not matter becaus

Eugenics has a bad reputation. Even the word "eugenics" is repugnant to many people, associated as it is with atrocities - forced sterilization programmes in America , for example, and of course the horrors of Nazi Germany . We like to see eugenics as discredited pseudo-science that has been consigned to the dust of history. Never again will we treat people as expendable simply because of their inherited characteristics. But ideas that we discard because of their horrible consequences have a way of returning, dressed up in respectable clothing. Eugenic ideas have existed - and been acted upon - since ancient times. The idea of eliminating those who are, or will be, a burden on society because of disability raises hackles now, but in ancient Rome it was regarded as a public duty. The Biblical ban on marriage between close relatives effectively prevented birth defects due to consanguineity - but among the Pharaoahs of ancient Egypt, marriage between very close relatives wa

Last week, I went to my son's graduation ceremony. He has just completed a B.Sc in sound & light echnology at Derby University. So he is one of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) graduates that we are told this country so badly needs. As I watched the graduates from the College of Engineering and Technology walking past the dignitaries on the stage, I became aware of a huge gender gap. The vast majority of the young people filing on to that stage were boys. I calculated that only about 16% were girls, and they were concentrated in architecture, computer animation and - above all - mathematics. A number of disciplines, notably civil engineering, electrical engineering and most branches of computer science, had no girls at all. I asked my son about this. He doesn't have an answer. But he commented that even in his own discipline (sound & light engineering), of 34 people who started the course, only five were girls. However, all five girls g

Please note that throughout this post I take "labour force" to mean people aged 15-64, which is consistent with OECD definitions. I exclude over-65s and children under 15.  Patrick Artus at Natixis notes that there is something “odd” about the US’s economic recovery. The labour force participation rate (or rather "activity" rate, as I am using OECD definitions) is falling for both men and women.  The male activity rate has been falling for a long time. But until about 2000, the female activity rate was rising sharply. It levelled off during the 2000s and is now falling. Falling activity rates are often blamed on the long-term unemployed giving up the quest for work. And indeed the US does have a long-term unemployment problem at the moment: But of course, measures of the long-term unemployed tell us nothing at all about discouraged demand: if they are reported as “unemployed”, then they are counted IN the active labour force.

The NY Federal Reserve’s  Household Debt & Credit Report  shows that student debt is rising fast and is now at an all-time high: Household Debt and Credit Developments as of Q4 2013: Category Quarterly Change* Annual Change** Total as of Q4 2013 Mortgage Debt (+) $152 billion (+) $16 billion $8.05 trillion Student Loan Debt (+) $53 billion (+) $114 billion $1.08 trillion Auto Loan Debt (+) $18 billion (+) $80 billion $863 billion Credit Card Debt (+) $11 billion (+) $4 billion $683 billion HELOC (-) $6 billion (-) $34 billion $529 billion Total Debt (+) $241 billion (+) $180 billion $11.52 trillion That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It shows that lots of young people are signing up for college instead of sitting around at home doing nothing or doing dead-end jobs. But all is not well....... Read on here .