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Computer Reliability in Legal Arguments, with Some Observations about Arguments
The cybersecurity and public policy expert Susan Landau has published an article in the Lawfare blog about Problems with Evidentiary Software in English and US courts; the attitudes of English and US courts towards the evidence generated by, or about the behaviour of, computers in cases they consider. She uses the Post Office Horizon affair as the English…
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The World Bank’s Chief Economist Says What the Problem Is
I don’t often read what Paul Mason writes, but a recent essay at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/19/its-time-to-junk-the-flawed-economic-models-that-make-the-world-a-dangerous-place points to an interesting draft paper by Paul Romer, The Trouble With Macroeconomics https://paulromer.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WP-Trouble.pdf . Romer is an academic economist and sometime entrepreneur who is now Chief Economist of the World Bank. To me, there is an interesting part and an uninteresting part…
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Apple and Corporation Tax
Apple CEO Tim Cook gave an interview to The Irish Independent newspaper about the European Commission’s (hereafter EComm) finding that Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland contravene EU law on state subsidies, and therefore some retropayment of tax is appropriate http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/no-one-did-anything-wrong-here-and-ireland-is-being-picked-on-it-is-total-political-crap-35012145.html The views of Mr. Cook being reported are: this is “political crap“, “politics at play“, and…
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Brexit and UK Software Companies
I was asked recently for any general advice I might have for information technology companies with their EU base in the UK in the face of Brexit, formulated as “issues” and opportunities. I replied that: The main issue would be what tariffs might need to be paid. The current tariff rate of 0 is ideal.…
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McShane on Brexit
I am a UK citizen, a German civil servant about to be pensioned, who also studied and worked in California. I have considered myself an EU citizen and still do so. Readers may well understand why pending Brexit is worrisome as well as saddening for me. It is also frustrating in that there are 1.2…
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Improper Behaviour in the EC
The Guardian at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/eu-leaders-begin-summit-talks-without-uk-for-first-time is reporting that European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker ….. had banned his commissioners from any talks with the British, he said. It is – or should be – unacceptable that an ECommission President “bans” ECommissioners from talking with any EU member state. This needs to be brought to order.
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A Negotiating Strategy
Call the EU countries without the UK the E27. Judging by the announcements from yesterday, the E27 are hoping for an orderly Brexit process which leaves all treaties intact (not just Rome, Maasstricht, Lisbon and so on, but also the EEA and EFTA agreements). The UK wants (arguably needs, but I won’t get into that) something…
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The Results of the European Council Meeting on Brexit
Here’s The Guardian’s report on the European Council (ECoun) meeting Tuesday, 28 June 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/28/cameron-eu-leaders-uk-control-immigration There is a meeting of almost the same group Wednesday, but it can’t be an ECoun meeting because the UK is explicitly not invited. Let me call it the E27. (It’s going to be tricky formulating a legally-valid bargaining position, because…
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Brexit/Bremain
The US has the reputation of being the most iconoclastic and authority-antagonistic democracy in the developed world. But if all of the living presidents (Carter, Clinton, Bush Sr, Bush W, Obama) and VPs (Mondale, Quayle, Bush Sr. again, Gore and Cheney) came out and said “Choose X”, then the American public would choose X. It might still…
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University Education, Again
Rafael Behr has an argument in The Guardian today for the planned UK tuition-fee regime for tertiary education based on a “Teaching Excellence Framework”. Reasonable, well-written, but large parts of it seem to me wrong. Let me pick on a couple here. Behr is right that some market mechanisms in tertiary education are appropriate. But not all…