Assymetrical information

Last night in a Pimlico backstreet I found some of the most egregious wine pricing I have seen for a while.

Cloudy Bay Sav, for 26 pounds, at the bottom of a very short pub wine list.

This retails for around 19 in UK supermarkets, so the pub is only taking a markup of around a third. A quick look on the interweb shows other places flogging this for between 40 and 65 - the lower bound of this range is about what I would hope to find.

The pub in question wins quite a few CAMRA awards on account of its beer selection (they stock the idiosyncratic Berliner weisse, which I have never seen before outside Berlin!), and when I looked around I couldn't see anyone drinking wine. Decisions decisions - do I exploit their wine underpricing, or stick with the delicious weissenbock on tap. Mmm weissenbock.

Will Ferrell can do no wrong (almost)

Sure, Land of the Lost was absolutely terrible, but when he starred and wrote the production above I think he deserves one free pass.

Today is a great day

I found out my bike thief’s sentence: three months custodial, suspended for twelve months. How do you like them apples? And, I didn’t even have to go to court as a witness because he pled guilty just before the trial. Booyaa!


In other not so empowering news, people more loquacious than I have investigated the latest UK budget and found that the OBR forecasts of growth are predicated on an increase in household debt. From False Economy:

Household debt is set to rise from £1,560bn in 2010 (160% of household income) to £2,126bn in 2015 (175% of income) – an increase of 36.3%. By 2015 UK households will have amassed over two trillion pounds worth of debt.

The household debt-to-income ratio (the best measure of how manageable the debt burden is) fell from 2007 until 2010. It is now forecast to start rising again. Osborne described pre-crisis household debt-to-income ratios as unsustainable – and yet the ratio is forecast to hit a new all-time high in 2015.

To put this another way, compare and contrast:
a) In February 2010 George Osborne described pre crisis household debt levels as unsustainable; and
b) In March 2011 George Osborne delivered a budget with growth forecasts built on household debt increasing to unsustainable levels.

Do the Tories think no-one will notice, or that no-one gives a shit? Either they consider the UK electorate simpletons or lazy, either of which could have led to them gaining power in the first place, so I guess they have a point.