Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-4-2009

[andrewducker]

• Can "Nice Girls" Negotiate?
  (tags: women work society sexism)
• Peru's 'human fat killers' were invented to cover up deaths
  And they managed to get away with it for nearly a fortnight. Huzzah for a free press.
  (tags: news peru police murder)
• An animated journey through the Earth's climate history
  (tags: climate science co2 environment)
• Man beats World of Warcraft
  (tags: WorldOfWarcraft mmorpg geekery)
• All men watch porn, scientists find
  Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users. But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.
  (tags: science porn sexuality sex)
• Bank bonuses - the rational behaviour of the RBS directors
  This pretty much sums up my opinions on the matter
  (tags: banking scotland economics uk)
• A lok at the new mind-controlled interface for PCs
  150ms lag at the moment, but getting better...
  (tags: technology interface TheFuture)
• FarmVille is bigger than Twitter
  Julie's an addict...
  (tags: facebook twitter statistics)

Comments

[0olong.livejournal.com]

150ms is already significantly less than the lag between our brains apparently deciding to do something, and us becoming consciously aware of it!

A bit shit for first-person shooters though.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

“Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.

I'd like to know what comparison population that statement was based on given the point of the article was that they couldn't find a comparison population.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

An interesting post on bankers' bonuses. I completely accept the rationality of the directors' case, but I still think awarding bonuses is a false - and irrational decision. Chris Dillow wrote a post about this the other day - http://twitzap.com/u/Ib0 - and rather foolish in the current climate.

Incidentally, I think the public and media obsession with bonuses really misses the point.

[andrewducker]

I agree with his post - but it would need to be a government backed change, where all banks were forbidden from doing it. If only RBS were stopped then there are plenty of alternate places to get work, and the better people would leave for them. If they were banned across the whole UK then I strongly suspect only a few people would leave for the USA.

[andrewducker]

And here we have it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/12/banks_face_windfall_tax.html

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

A windfall tax makes no sense to me. Banks - and their (high and low paid) employees - already pay lots of taxes. A windfall tax won't help strengthen the banks' balance sheets, which I would have thought was the main idea just now.

It is pure politics.

Oh well.

[andrewducker]

It's a tax purely on the bonuses. Thus encouraging all banks to not pay bonuses.

"One route being considered is to levy a super-tax on bankers who receive bonuses over a certain low level."

...

"We can't impose a tax that weakens banks capital" said a member of the government. "Anything we do must be neutral in respect of their capital resources".

So it wouldn't affect the banks' balance sheets - and that's something they're deliberately avoiding.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Ah - I clearly didn't read Peston's post closely enough. They just mentioned a windfall tax on BBC news, too.

Since any bonus for a presumed higher rate taxpayer is either already taxed at 40% or structured to avoid tax (let's face it, millionaire employees are probably getting effective tax advice!) - well, it just seems vindictive to me; and I doubt it will achieve what the outcome the politicians desire.

Picking on a single profession seems bizarre. UK tax law will warp the market for jobs - and tax law is already highly complicated.

[andrewducker]

If the outcome is to prevent the banks from paying large amounts in bonuses then it may well work. The government seems unwilling to tell companies that they cannot pay large bonuses - but willing to say "pay them if you like, but most of it will be taken away from you" instead. Whether that works, we will have to see. It may, at the least, force more bonuses to be paid in shares.

Personally, I'd have gone for splitting hight street banks from investment banks, but the government didn't seem happy to do that either. Shame.