United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been dealing with backlash for his participation in a series of parties that took place last year during national lockdowns. The series of parties took place at the Prime Minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street. These gatherings have been viewed by the English public as flouting the government’s own lockdown rules. Boris attended at least 3 of the parties and some English MP’s are asking for his head - not literally - I mean they want him to step down citing “a serious failure of leadership”.
The PM has apologised. I don’t know if that’s enough. Governments all over the world resorted to extreme measures to try to contain the threat of the Corona Virus over the last 2-year period which I can only describe as trash. I’ve hated life under Corona so much. Examples of such stringent measures include restricted travel or outright travel bans in some countries. Similar measures were imposed on alcohol sales. Apparently, all these rules that were put in place to combat the pandemic did not apply to the people that were enacting them. Or at least that’s what it feels like when a story like this breaks out.
Nassim Taleb wrote an entire book about this hazard, Skin in The Game. His overall submission is that nobody should subject others to risks that they are not taking themselves. We’ve spoken about this before on Thought Bubble, R.I.P, but it’s worth repeating here. Hammurabi, a king in ancient Babylon, had a famous code that compelled engineers and architects to demonstrate their confidence in every structure that they erected.
For instance, if you built a bridge, you would have to sleep under it. If a house you built collapsed and killed its owner, you too would be put to the sword a la Eddard Stark. You get the gist. It kept people honest. This code’s success is so wide spread that we still use it for risk management today. In Brazil, they reduced helicopter crashes by having engineers fly on the very helicopters they serviced once a month. People are just a little more thorough when there is personal downside exposure for any failure. People must be forced to eat their own cooking.
In my country of nationality, we see politicians making the craziest decisions affecting schooling and health for example. When you take a look at the lives of those making these rules, their doctors are in India and their kids are at private school. When they called for schools to be closed, their own kids didn’t miss a single day. When local hospitals run out of food and drugs, they are receiving treatment at a first world facility leagues removed from the struggles of the ordinary Swazi. This is immorality. There is no incentive for them to be circumspect and considered in their pronouncements because they never have to live with their failures.
I would recommend reading Nassim. On a good day, I can only understand 20% of his arguments. He is a complex fellow with harsh opinions about economists. Reading him will be bumpy, but it will be worth it. I don’t think anyone can read Antifragile and remain the same.
I understand the displeasure that UK citizens may feel about this whole thing. Lockdown was so painful and traumatic and to see your leaders flouting those rules without facing consequences, when many of us had to face these consequences is an unstable equilibrium. Something will have to give. I do not think Boris will survive this, but stranger things have happened on that island. I still cannot believe they voted to leave the EU.
Statistics South Africa is Changing CPI Basket
Economists use an index called the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to track price levels in an economy. This is the index that is used to compute headline inflation, a term that has gained in popularity over the covid recovery period. To construct a CPI, you take a basket of goods and services that is representative, on aggregate, of goods and services consumed in that economy.
Representative is the operative word there. You don’t want to find that a 2022 index is still tracking vinyl prices or DVD players. We are way passed that. People are streaming now. This basket of goods tracked by economists is updated regularly to ensure it keeps up with the society it describes and serves.
Stats SA is doing just that. They review the basket every 4 to 5 years. That’s enough time for consumer patterns to change in a significant way. The January 2022 CPI contains 415 items which is an increase from the 404 that were tracked in 2016. A total of 14 new items were added, while two items were removed from the basket and other products underwent a transformation where they were either split into two or combined into one. The item ‘internet usage’ was split into wired (e.g. fibre) and wireless (e.g. cellular) forms of access.
Gin has finally made the cut. It has been gaining in popularity for a while now. I won’t say how I know this because my mother reads SirLushaba. Hi Mom👋🏾. Gin is the only new inclusion in the alcoholic beverages category. Cappuccino sachets have also entered the basket, as well as dairy/fruit juice blends, samp, pureed baby food and jam.
On cappuccino sachets. I thought it was just me who found the process of making instant coffee tedious. Pour water into a cup. Open a bottle to scoop some coffee powder. Close the bottle. Open a second bottle for the creamer. Close creamer bottle. Open a third bottle for the sugar. Hhayi ngeke! It’s too much. How about mixing everything in one sachet and let me just pour the concoction into hot water once like the good Lord intended. I was so excited to learn that it’s not just me in this market. Si-lazy, sibaningi!
The Perils of Hiring via Zoom
I read a story written by a woman who has been having interesting conversations with her husband. Her husband works for a software company and they recently filled a vacancy in the company. The problem they are having now is that they are not sure if they made the right hire. The person they got seems totally different from the person they had interviewed.
During virtual interviews, people have a few more degrees of freedom than in physical meetings. You could dress formally up to your waist and adorn your lower half with your pink pyjama bottoms and it wouldn’t affect the interview materially. All you have to do is to remember not to get up from your seat until everyone’s logged off the call. You could, as well, prepare for the interview until the very last second. Don’t forget to keep your notes in your line of sight in case the interview panel is a tough crowd that won’t stop asking technical questions of superlative complexity. None of this is available in physical meetings.
Some interviewees take it further than this. They approach the interview as a group project. They attend the interview with friends in the background passing the answers to them after consultation with a trusted source like Google. I could never pull this off. I need to prepare beforehand or my anxiety lumps up in my throat and I can’t get any words out. If the assistance of your trusted squad is not enough, you could just ask the best of the bunch to take the interview in your stead.
On a balance of probabilities, the latter is what the husband’s software company believes it is faced with. The successful candidate is so different in mannerisms and cadence from the person they interviewed. He is struggling at work with concepts he articulated confidently during interviews. Some anecdotes that were shared with him during the recruitment journey he appears to be hearing for the first time. He is introducing himself to people he already met during the interviews. I find this hilarious.
The storyteller says that the next move being considered is confrontation with the guy. They want to have him explain all these anomalies to reconcile his side of the story with theirs to help decide if the company has indeed been defrauded. I’d love to be a fly on the wall. “Okay, Jack. It’s been a week now. Is this a ruse? Who the heck are you? Did you even apply for this position or you got a call from HR one day and you just went with the flow?”
More News
A high voltage cable snapped and and fell into a ditch at a popular market in Kinshasa electrocuting at least 26 people to their deaths. The cable snapped after it was struck by lightning during a storm sources say.
An oil production ship exploded off the coast of Nigeria on Thursday. At the time of writing, there are no reported casualties. This is the second oil related explosion since November 2021. The energy regulator in Nigeria has some work to do, clearly. The safety standards are on the floor.
What I’m Reading
There wasn’t much reading that happened this week. A lot of characters popped out of nowhere and we followed them for pages and pages. Their lives finally crossed with Dantes’. He had to rescue one Albert de Morcerf, a wealthy young man from Parisian noble society, from the clutches of bandits. This begins a friendship. It seemed random to me at the time. It wasn’t. Er… I didn’t clock it until it was too late. But the man Dantes rescued is the child of his ex-fiancé Mercedes and Fernand. You will remember Fernand is one of the three men that conspired to have Edmund Dantes arrested for treason. The ex-con has located Fernand and ingratiated himself with his son. Maybe the acts of vengeance are starting soon.
On another note. I am worried about this guy’s spending habits. The Count of Monte Cristo is splurging wherever he goes. Every time his spending habits are described, I cringe. He is paying for overpriced horses, houses and ships every 10 pages. Itawuphela letreasure yakhona.
If anything else happened this week, I missed it. Till next Sunday 👋🏾.
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