07 March 2024

Awake

 Awake: A Wake

     The bar was full of strangers dressed in black. I looked at the barmaid. Was she also new? Or familiar? (I had been away six weeks and my jet lag was yet to wear off.) I looked at her full in the face, from quite close up, which combined to render her face almost featureless, and completely unfamiliar.


     Mind you, that was always a problem for me –– I only had to look at a face intently, deliberately, and it ceased to seem familiar. Faces are so arbitrary; faces and names. If only people looked like their names! " Hello Beefy, you seem in good form today". Messers Loud, Acerbic and Peaky! Or Percy, for that matter.


     Words do the same thing for me. I can write a number of words correctly as long as I do not think about the spelling. But if I lose my nerve, they suddenly appear unfamiliar, unlikely, meaningless; and there is no way I can infer the correct spelling; or their correct meaning. In that respect I share one of William Spooner's problems. Once, when reading his own sermon in New College chapel, he came on the word 'misléd'. "Do not be místled", he read; then doubted himself, and the sense was irretrievably lost. Nothing for it but to repeat the exhortation and press on. 


     I think the barmaid is the one they call 'Liv'. I used to call her “Lev” for a while, like a Russian; until H told me it was short for Lavinia. If I could ask her to show me her profile, I might get more certain. I hate calling people by their wrong name. It makes me look so stupid. I suppose I am, in a way. "Your spectacles“ I murmur, in a half hearted attempt to explain my hesitancy, touching my own in case she did not grasp what I meant by 'spectacles'.


     “A wake", I said. She nodded. 

     "I’ve only been in the village 10 years" I said, looking over my shoulder at the crowd.  

      Liv leant forward slightly and said in a quiet voice "I think the deceased was called Jenkins."  

     I was certain that I did not know the deceased, nor any of his folk. I was impressed at the consistency of the black dress code. I have been to some half-dozen of my own family funerals and never wore a shred of black. Nor did most of the mourners, as far as I can remember, except at the burial of cousin Jean at Lilliesleaf in the Scottish Borders. Yet black is certainly the uniform dress in this Northamptonshire village. From the empty plates, and the cheerful conversation, it would seem that they were recovering from their numbing sense of loss, and beginning to enjoy meeting members of the family not seen in a while. Little groups. In each, one person talking, the others listening. 

     "Still awake! Just got back" I said to Liv. 

     "Mexico?" she said, tentatively. 

     "Yes." I agreed. I like Liv.

07 February 2024

Street sounds in our Colonia

 Street sounds in our Colonia

Each time I hear a new noise I am tempted to look out of the window to see if I can identify the source. It might be a wheezy whistle, or a clear warble, a distant trumpet, or a marimba played with 4 hammers, or distant but uplifting snatches of brass band music; or, as yesterday and today, the unrelenting and shattering sound of nearby road works. So today, to escape the frightful din, I popped out before lunch to Sanborns’ to drink a beer, and to recollect the more pleasant, interesting, and distinctive sounds of Colonia San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico City. Sounds that make this so very different from my little village in middle England.


One such sound comes from the truck that tours round each street each day offering to collect any old iron. The cry comes over a loudspeaker with the same childish female voice, the same unvarying intonation, the same repeated words, of which I only catch “..estufas, microondas,…” (stoves, microwave ovens). Towards evening another truck, using a similar business model, advertises “tamales, oaxaqueñas, " and suchlike food.


I prefer, for its old fashioned quaintness, the wheezy whistle that advertises roasted sweet potatoes (camotes). Toward evening, a man lights a small wood fire on his trolly, which presumably roasts the camotes, but at the same time makes steam. When all is ready, he pushes his trolly out onto the street and opens the valve to the whistle. This emits a piercing shriek that dies slowly away to a dismal groan.   


Another sound, which I had often heard over the years, I identified only yesterday, but relish for its throwback quaintness. An elderly man cycled slowly up the road towards me, one hand holding the handlebar, the other holding a small set of panpipes. Every now and then he warbled a handful of notes. Behind, on the carrier, he had a small two-stroke motor that would drive two grinding stones. So here was the 'sharpener of knives and scissors' that I had heard spoken of. One has to know the meaning of his warble in order to rush out and catch him before he disappeared down the road. 


The brass band was a one-off. But the other day, as I worked at my computer, I enjoyed for an hour their rousing snatches of melody and, occasionally, song. I had to go out onto the street to find the source. It did not take me long. The band were having their practice in the converted gym across the intersection, now called "La casa del humor", which, on weekend evenings, emits gales of laughter and applause. 


When I sat down to lunch just now, I heard the distant thump-thump of a drum, and some disjointed notes from a brass instrument. As they slowly approached our house I got up and looked discretely out. A man, on the far side of the street, thumped the drum keeping level with a man on our side playing the disjointed notes on a shiny trombone. I was reminded of a tip my father told me regarding busking in London before the war; "the worse you play the more you collect". A similar strategy may have motivated this duo. 


Not so the marimba duettists. They played their two or three pieces with considerable panache and some skill,  though I am afraid they collected little or nothing from either of their two stands in our street. 


These sounds, also, seem to be from a bygone era. These days, with iPod and earphones piping Mozart or Reggae straight into people's brains, who needs a barrel-organ or a marimba duo to enliven the siesta hours? 

25 January 2024

Cost of carbon capture as timber

Cost of carbon capture as timber

     People are pushing the idea of saving the world from overheating by capturing atmospheric CO2. But need that be an industrial process? It happens naturally; in photosynthesis. The world has been through many cycles of high and low levels of atmospheric CO2. I want to know if we can encourage carbon capture by fostering the growth of plants: trees and algae. 
    I have long looked for a comparison between costs of 'Carbon Capture and Storage' (CCS) as an industrial activity compared with simply growing trees. 

     Timothy Taylor's blog essay on Carbon Capture and Storage gives us a start. Carbon capture is cheapest when done at the sources of CO2 for the concentration can be far higher than ambient; let us say $80 (ranging from $15 to $120) per metric tonne captured. Capture at ambient concentration of 0.04% is about $200 (ranging from $120 - $350) per tonne.

     I have seen a figure of 48 pounds weigh of CO2 fixed per tree-year. Likewise a figure of 2014 trees/km^2. Based on those figures, I find the capture of carbon dioxide (per Km^2-year) to be: 
    48 x 2014 = 96,672 lb, 
    or 43,850 kg, 
    or 43.85 metric tonnes per Km^2-year. 

So to fix a metric tonne each year you need land of:
    1/43.85 km^2, = 0.0228 Km^2 = 5.634 acres. 

     The fixing is free; the cost is the cost of the land. In the United States the average cost of land is $14,326 per acre. If annual rent was at 1% of the capital cost (which is admittedly low),  to fix a metric tonne as wood, in the USA, would cost:  
    $14,326 x 5.634/100 = $807 per tonne-year.

     Hmm! A pity, for I hoped forestry would turn out to be cheaper than fooling around with chemical engineering. Unless, of course, the land is loaned free of charge, when the cost comes down to zero. 

20 January 2024

Impressions of Mexico

Some early impressions from my latest visit to Mexico.


It is my tenth visit to Mexico since 2015, but in the first 24 hours of this latest visit I already have three rather terrible stories to record. 

I have often been told tales of kidnappings in the City, and drug-related murders in the country, and learned the shocking word 'feminicidio'; but until now I was always able to waive that away, calling it 'hearsay', and saying that it did not impinge on me personally, nor on my friends, directly. Not now! Perhaps this is a 'new Mexico', a post-COVID Mexico, an AMLO-governed Mexico, suffering a spike in unemployment and a deliberate erosion of respect for middle-class virtues.

I was met by Isaura and her driver as I issued from customs at Benito Juarez airport and we drove in modest traffic to General Juan Cano 79. Eduardo (the driver) brought the suitcases up from the basement garage while we contacted Valeria to see if she was at the Wine Shop (Brutal Vinata) further up the street at No. 42. I washed my face, changed my boots for sandals, stripped off a couple of layers of surplus clothing and was ready to go out. It was only 8 pm and the evening still warm. I calculated that for my internal clock it was 2am and I had been awake for 19 hours. 

At the wine shop we met and greeted Valeria and her friend Mercedes, a friend from primary school days. We joined them at their end of the long stone table, Isaura for a glass of Fluxus Blanco (a Mexican Chardonnay/Chenin Blanc), I for water, as I had already drunk well over my daily allowance on the long flight. I learned that the husband of Mercedes made and repaired instruments (violins, and organs), that they had 2 children and lived near San Angel. On my heavy-lidded way back to our flat at 10 pm (4 am GMT), Isaura told me that Valeria had lent Mercedes a large sum of money which she and her husband were steadily, and scrupulously, repaying. The luthier had been kidnapped and had been forced to pay a large ransom for his release.

Next morning, after a somewhat restless night, Isaura and I had got up at 8 am to be ready to join the Banbury Spanish class by Zoom. Eduardo the driver arrived punctually at 10am. We decided to go south to the 'Cineteca' to see the new Mexican film Tótem, by Lila Avilés. We set off after lunch with Eduardo to drive the 8 km south (25-30 minutes). There he left us and made his own way to his home in an eastern suburb of the city. 

Why was this punctilious and capable man driving us around the city, and doing odd jobs around the house even washing the dishes on occasion? It turns out that Eduardo used to run (or own) a taquería, had been asked to pay 'protection money' by a gang, had refused; whereupon the shop had been attacked and one of his employees murdered. 

We bought our tickets for the 4.30 pm showing, but had half and hour spare, so we decided to call in on Cati Bloch, now at the age of 81 a sub-director of the Cineteca National and in charge of the library. She greeted us warmly and took us along to the Cafetería, where we drank various types of water. Two senior men passed us, greeting Cati as they did so. When they were out of earshot, Cati wrinkled her nose and told us that the taller man was her boss, the director; no love lost there; did not normally greet her in like circumstance. She then explained that the National Film Library had just celebrated its 50th anniversary, that a book had been planned, and created under the direction of Cati, printer chosen and contracts signed. The director was to write a preface. When that failed to turn up, the director told Cati that he had decided to scrap the project, and with it a year's worth of her time and effort, not to mention that of others, and the costs involved. 

What a climate in which to work! Nothing to compare, of course, with my two previous stories; but the story still shocked me, coming (as it did) on the heels of the other two.

On the other hand, the film Tótem was a delight. It has scored 95% satisfaction in the Rotten Tomatoes scale, and won prizes everywhere. It is surprising, stimulating and warming. Totally Mexican, it is drenched in colour, emotion, fun, flavour, and originality. It seems to speak about ordinary people doing extraordinary thing with complete naturalness, and ordinary things with extraordinary gusto. A birthday party with a hot-air balloon, a parrot, an exorcism. A cancer death framed in love and gratitude.

We came out into the rapidly fading daylight. Still warm. Youngsters in groups on the grass. A short queue quietly waiting to buy tickets for later showings on one or other of the ten screens.
A waxing moon was already bright in the darkening sky, positioned vertically above us something you never see in England; which could as well be said of all the above.  

02 January 2024

Separating Inflation and Growth

Separating Inflation and Growth


I am glad to have discovered this 2016 article by Steve Drew, Phil Lewis and Craig McLaren [2],  describing "chain-linking methods used in the U.K. national accounts". I am finally able to clear up some questions that have been bothering me since 2009.  

It is a complex subject, and it may be that they handle the complexities well. But I wish they had written more clearly; their lack of commas, relative pronouns, and examples make their text hard-going for the newcomer. 


        Drew et al. do define their terms, albeit clumsily, and in a jumbled order.

"A current price (CP) estimate records the actual or estimated monetary value for a defined period. The current price estimate is the value expressed in terms of the prices of that period. A time series of CP estimates can be constructed."

(Or, perhaps, put more simply as: "The Current Price estimate of a product is the actual (or estimated) monetary value expressed in terms of the prices of that period. A time series of CP estimates can be constructed."). 

They follow this with a definition of value (which might have been better defined first):

value = volume x price

        For a car factory, volume could be number of cars produced; for a winery, litres of wine. By converting to value the disparate products may be summed. In this way the total productivity of a country can be found year by year, and tabulated in what Drew et al. call 'a time series of Current Price estimates'. (See e.g. Table 1 from [1])


                                Table 1

Year

UK GDP in US$B

1960

73

1961

78

1962

81

1963

87

1964

94

1965

102

1966

109

1967

113

1968

108



However, the question arises, what part of the increase in GDP is real growth, and what part is inflation? If it was just cars or just wine, we could look at the volume figures to see real growth as a factor or  % increase year on year. And, indeed, we could look at the price figures to see inflation in wine price, or inflation in car price. But it is a big job to work out how important wine is to total GDP. 

The method now used in USA, Europe and the UK for GDP, is to tabulate a 'Chained Volume Series' -- thus. 

  1. For our year of interest, list every product in the economy with its volume and its price. (We know that the sum of the products of those two quantities give us the GDP.) 
  2. List in parallel the data for the previous year.  
  3. Instead of multiplying this year's volumes by this year's prices, use the previous year's prices from the adjacent column. 


The GDP so calculated is inflation-proofed, and any increase over the year is due to volume; at least for the 12 month from last year to this.   Why not simply look at volumes? The answer is that we do not know the relative importance of cars and wine, unless we calculate the "values". Or, for another way of seeing this, you cannot sum "wine + cars", only "£ + £". [3]


                                                                        Table 2


Item

Vol. in 2000

Price in 2000

Value in 2000

Vol. in 2001

Price in 2001

Value in 2001

'Volume only

GDP' in 2001

Cars

10

100

1,000

10

101

1,010

1,000

Wine

20

1

20

80

1.0

80

80

GDP



1,020



1,090

1, 080



        In Table 2, the right hand column ('Volume-only GDP' in 2001) could be called 'inflation-corrected GDP for 2001. We see that the apparent 6.8%  (1090/1020) increase in 'uncorrected GDP' was partly (1%) due to inflation, and partly (1080/1020 5.9%) due to a good wine harvest. 


So far, in this exposition, there is no 'chaining'. So let us look at 2002, or year 2. The question is whether to keep 2000 as base year (year 0) for the next 2 decades, or always use the 'previous year'. The advantage of chaining over indexing to a distant reference year, is explained by the International Monetary Fund [5]: 


"A key recommendation in the 2008 SNA.....is to move away from the traditional national accounts measures “at constant prices”  toward chain-linked measures. Annual chain indices are superior to fixed-base indices, because weights are updated every year to reflect the current economic conditions. Chaining also avoids the need for re-weighting price and volume series when the base year is updated every five or ten years, which usually generates large revisions in the history of price and volume developments." [5]



Table 3, Showing an economy of 3 items through 3 years.

(P0=Prices in year 0, Q= quantity or volume, PxQ =Value in currency units.  C.f. [6].)



P0

Q0

P0 xQ0

P1

Q1

P1xQ1

P0 xQ1

P2

Q2

P2 xQ2

P0 xQ2

P1 xQ2

Cars

100

10

1000

101

10

1010

1000

102

10

1020

1000

1010

Wine

1.0

20

20

1.0

80

80

80

1.5

20

30

20

20

Paint

1

100

100

2

100

200

100

4

95

380

95

190

GDP 'current'



1120



1290




1430



GDP 'constant'



1120




1180




1115


GDP 'prev. year'







1180





1220


We can see, by comparing P0 with P1, that there is inflation, but we do not know how important the price of paint is to the whole economy.  Uncorrected GDP (shown here as the sum of all the products of P1 x Q1) increase from 1120 to 1290  (which is  a rise of 15%); corrected GDP only rose from 1120 to 1180 (i.e. by +5.4%). It looks like annual inflation of some 10%; growth of 5.4%. (Even though car prices have only gone up 1%, and wine 0%.)

Comparing year 2 with year 1, the uncorrected GDP has risen by a factor of 1430/1290 (i.e. by 1.109 or 10.9% ). But, using P1 prices for both years, we see that GDP corrected for inflation (GDP 'constant p') has fallen 1220/1290, so real GDP fell by a factor of  0.9457, or -5.42%.

Using P0 throughout, we would conclude growth in the first year was from 1120 to 1180 (i.e. growth of 5.36%), and, in the second year, negative growth from 1180 to 1115 (i.e. negative growth of -5.5%) more than cancelling the positive increase the provious year. So, between year 0 and year 2, negative growth 1120 to 1115  (so -0.4%).

Just as we can strip out inflation from real growth by comparing adjacent years using the prices of the earlier year, so we can strip out growth by comparing adjacent years using the quantities from the earlier years (or the later years, or both and take the average) to find an index of pure inflation freed from growth. 


=================

References:

[1]  https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gdp-gross-domestic-product

[2]  https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/methodologies/chainlinkingmethodsusedwithintheuknationalaccounts#chain-linking 

[3]  Note (for the scientifically minded): Volume [in litres] x Price [in GB£ per litre] = Value [in GB£].

[4]  https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04962/SN04962.pdf 

[5]  https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/qna/pdf/2017/chapter8.pdf 

[6]  https://www.dsec.gov.mo/elearning/en/knowledge/124










Suppose car volume remains at 100 but price continues to rise, let us say to £1022/car. 

We could express the value in current (2002) prices as £102,200. 

Or we could express the 2002 value in 2001 prices as £102,200 x 1010/1022=£101,000.

Or we could express it in 2000 prices as £102,200 x 1010/1022 x 1000/1010=£100,000, chaining back to our initial year.