UnHerd: Ruth Davidson - Ctrl + Alt + Del. Conservatives must reboot capitalism

In the UK, just 19% of people agree that “the next generation will probably be richer, safer and healthier than the last”. That figure falls to 15% of Germans and 14% of Americans. Markets might work but they aren’t seen to be working for everyone. [...]

And within those eons, we see individual currents and eddies. We are living at the tail end of a transition which started roughly 35 years ago. It’s a transition which has seen Britain gradually migrate from a manufacturing economy to a service-led one. The UK Commission on Employment and Skills shows the changes over the last 20 years in the UK workforce – fewer people in manufacturing, fewer in the skilled trades, fewer secretarial roles; but a great increase in managerial, professional and technical skills. [...]

It is not inequality that bites deepest, but injustice. People expect that the CEO of a corporation will be the highest paid person on the payroll. What they don’t accept is that FTSE 100 bosses are paid 174 times the average worker’s wage in this decade – compared to 13 to 44 times in 1980.

In 2011, YouGov found that 85% of Britons believed that income should depend on how hard someone works or on their talent. But analysis by the Institute of Policy Studies found that of 241 of the highest paid CEOs between 1993 and 2012, nearly 40% were either sacked, their company had to pay significant fraud-related fines and settlements, or their companies required some form of bail out from the state. Instead of bosses being paid for success, a significant minority were handsomely rewarded for failure.

Adam Smith’s diagnosis “when the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters” while blunt, contains a kernel of truth for the present. If business itself has flunked the opportunity to put its house in order following the 2008 crash, then it is time for governments to take the initiative. Reforms of corporate governance, the break-up of monopolies, restrictions on tax avoidance, lowering barriers of entry to market competitors – each of these actions is required and each needs governments to cooperate in order for them to be effective.

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BBC4 Thinking Allowed: The Subway

Laurie Taylor goes underground - from New York to Delhi.

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Haaretz: This Is Why Arab States Are Conspicuously Silent on Temple Mount Crisis

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu engages in boastful rhetoric about the meetings he holds with Arab leaders – including the recent revelation of a secret meeting five years ago with the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister – he seemingly ignores Islamic forces looking on at these diplomatic moves. The recent tensions over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount make it clear that any diplomatic or security move is also immediately gauged from a perspective that transcends the religious importance of the holy sites.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, like the Kaaba in Mecca and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, is an Islamic site that is inseparable from the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are sites that, when harmed, spark public outrage that can put the regimes in Arab and other Muslim states on a collision course with Islamic movements in their countries.

It also puts them in conflict with a sensitive Muslim public that can delegitimize closer ties between Israel and Arab countries, and places them in conflict with a secular Arab public that views the events as a deliberate attempt by Israel to take over Palestinian sites. [...]

Saudi Arabia, whose king, Salman, did lobby the United States to pressure Israel to reopen the Temple Mount compound to Muslim worshippers, refrained from making statements on the matter – and the silence was not only on the part of senior Saudi officials. It was also impossible to find detailed news reports in Friday’s Saudi press on the sequence of events on the Temple Mount. [...]

These comments contain a hint of a Jordanian expectation of a gesture on Israel’s part that will give the Jordanian monarch ammunition that will convince Abbas to agree to new security arrangements on the Temple Mount. It is possible Netanyahu received similar messages from the Egyptian president.

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The Atlantic: The City of the Future Is Already Here

In central Arizona there exists an experimental town called Arcosanti. It’s built on the principles of arcology, which combines architecture and ecology to envision a city that works in tandem with the Earth’s resources. In this short documentary, The Atlantic goes inside this distinctive urban space to understand how Arcosanti plans to reconstruct how humans envision cities.

Politico: Frankfurt touts expertise, not pomp, in battle for Brexiting banks

On Thursday, Citigroup became the latest to announce it will move some of its U.K.-based trading operation to Frankfurt, and the German city expects to welcome staff from 20 banks relocating from London by the end of the year, with nine already committed. Banks like the U.K.’s Standard Chartered and Japanese bank Nomura have already decided to make the city their legal base in the EU and Goldman Sachs has leased additional floors at the top of Frankfurt’s signature MesseTurm, the city’s second-tallest tower. Morgan Stanley will reportedly double its Frankfurt workforce. [...]

Paris has rolled out the red carpet, with promises of tax breaks of up to 50 percent designed to lure London’s high earners across the channel. “Tired of the fog? Try the frogs!” chirped posters promoting Paris’ business district, La Défense. Frankfurt, on the other hand, is letting numbers do the talking, with the city’s marketing arm Frankfurt Main Finance producing listicles setting out “8 reasons to invest in Frankfurt,” touting the city as the “only location worldwide with two central banks (ECB and Deutsche Bundesbank).” [...]

Although the rest of the world was shell-shocked to find that Britain had voted to leave the EU when they awoke on June 24, 2016, the state of Hessen where Frankfurt is located, put up a website the same day to promote the city as the place to be for U.K.-based banks looking for a new home.

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Politico: Can Macron avoid the Sarkozy trap?

It is not clear that Macron appreciates the urgency. The government’s labor code reform, for instance, was adopted by the National Assembly on July 13 and awaits a vote in the Senate. Its primary purpose is to change the rigid rules around collective bargaining, bringing in more flexibility.

It should impose a ceiling on redundancy payments and make it easier for multinational companies to terminate employment on economic grounds. Currently, the law requires evidence of poor economic performance, not just from the French branch of a multinational firm but also from its branches in other countries.

But there is a catch. Even if approved by the Senate and signed into law, the new legislation does not actually do any of those things. It merely gives the government the authority to change the relevant areas of the labor code by executive orders, which are to be presented to “social partners” by the end of August. Superficially, the legislation appears to give the executive a strong mandate to proceed with labor market reforms by fiat. However, it also signals that the depth of those reforms is still negotiable. [...]

Such a slow pace is risky. France’s loudest anti-reform trade union, General Confederation of Labour, is already preparing for a day of mobilization on September 12 over the labor market reforms. Given the sluggish schedule, even politicians within Macron’s own party, La République En Marche, are bound to come under pressure to water the reforms down or derail them altogether.

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Land of Maps: State Rankings by Gun Violence Rates

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Financial Times: Rural unrest in India | World Notebook

Haaretz: Israeli Police Officers: Decision to Place Metal Detectors at Temple Mount Was Careless

The decision to install metal detectors at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount was careless and taken without a thorough discussion of the matter at the top levels of the force, as had been prior practice on such sensitive matters, senior Israel Police officials said. According to the sources, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan also failed to follow a 2014 policy on the use of metal detectors. [...]

Erdan, who supported the introduction of the metal detectors, submitted the police recommendation in favor of the metal detectors to the security cabinet a day after the shooting attack on the Temple Mount. But senior police officials told Haaretz that, prior to the security cabinet meeting, Erdan had only consulted with Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich and with Jerusalem district chief Yoram Halevy, who wanted the metal detectors installed. [...]

Muslim leaders in Israel and abroad argue that the placement of metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount, which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif and which is the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, violates the status quo at the holy site.

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