Irish Alcohol Consumption in 2020

Drink blitz sees bottle of wine rise to €9 minimum 'Irish people still drink an annual 11.6 litres of pure alcohol per capita, 20pc lower than at the turn of the last decade. The aim is to bring down Ireland's consumption of alcohol to the OECD average of 9.1 litres in five years' time.'

What would Irish alcohol consumption be if current trends continue? Knowing this the effectiveness of new measures can be estimated.

The OECD figures are here. I put them in a .csv here.The WHO figures for alcohol consumption are here I loaded the data in R Package

datavar <- read.csv("OECDAlco.csv")

attach(datavar)

plot(Date,Value,

     main="Ireland Alcohol Consumption")

Which looks like this

Looking at that graph alcohol consumption rose from the first year we have data for 1960 until about 2000 and then started dropping. So if the trend since 2000 continued what would alcohol consumption be in 2020?

'Irish people still drink an annual 11.6 litres' I would like to see the source for this figure. We drank 11.6 litres in 2012 according to the OECD. I cannot find OECD figures for 2014. In 2004 we drank 13.6L the claimed 20pc reduction of this is 10.9L, not 11.6L. Whereas the 14.3L we drank in 2002 with a 20pc reduction would now be 11.4. This means it really looks to me like the Independent were measuring alcohol usage up to 2012.

Taking the data since 2000 until 2012.

newdata <- datavar[ which(datavar$Date > 1999), ]

detach(datavar)

attach(newdata)

plot(Date,Value,

     main="Ireland Alcohol Consumption")

cor(Date,Value)

The correlation between year and alcohol consumption since 2000 is [1] -0.9274126. It look like there is a close relationship between the year and the amount of alcohol consumed in that time. Picking 2000, near the peak of alcohol consumption, as the starting date for analysis is arguable. But 2002 was the start of this visible trend in reduced alcohol consumption.

Now I ran a linear regression to predict based on this data alcohol consumption in 2015 and 2020.

> linearModelVar <- lm(Value ~ Date, newdata)
> linearModelVar$coefficients[[2]]*2015+linearModelVar$coefficients[[1]]
[1] 10.42143
> linearModelVar$coefficients[[2]]*2020+linearModelVar$coefficients[[1]]
[1] 9.023077
> 

This means based on data from 2000-2012 we would expect people to drink 10.4 litres this year. Reducing to drinking 9 litres in 2020. So with current trends Irish alcohol consumption will be lower than 'the aim is to bring down Ireland's consumption of alcohol to the OECD average of 9.1 litres in five years'.

There could be something else that is going to alter the trend. One obvious one would be a glut of young adults. People in their 20 drink more than older people. If there are a higher proportion of youths about then the alcohol consumption will rise all else being equal. So will there be a higher proportion of people in their 20s in 5 years time?

The population pyramids projections for Ireland are here. Looking at these there seems to have been a higher proportion of young adults in 2010 than there will be in 2020 which would imply lower alcohol consumption

it would be interesting to see the data and the model that the prediction of Irish alcohol consumption are based on. And to see how minimum alcohol pricing changes the results of these models. But without seeing those models it looks like the Government strategy is promising current trends to continue in response to a new law.

The Mickey Mouse Protection Act

The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years ,..., the Walt Disney Company (whose extensive lobbying efforts inspired the nickname "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act")..supported the act

Disney are very pro copyright. Here is Clay Shirky talking about how you can't let kids draw a picture of Mickey Mouse and put it on a cake without getting sued by Disney for copyright violation



They seem oddly pro remixing, homage and parody when it come to other peoples creative output. I am not talking here about the companies cartoons based on traditional folk tales but about their Joy Division T-Shirt.
Disney's description of the shirt:

Inspired by the iconic sleeve of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album, this Waves Mickey Mouse Tee incorporates Mickey's image within the graphic of the pulse of a star. That's appropriate given few stars have made bigger waves than Mickey!

This is Disney's photo.

Hook confirmed that he had not given permission for Disney to use the image, adding that it was a legal grey area. "From a legal point of view, the image is in the public domain, as Disney know and, in a funny way, it's quite a compliment for a huge conglomerate like Disney to pick up on a poor little Manchester band that only existed for a couple of years, it's quite startling," he commented. "I'm amazed they're that hard up that they need to prey on little indie bands,
...
The bassist added that though he spends a chunk of his time "policing" Joy Division bootlegs, all he usually required was that wannabe bootleggers made a contribution to an Epilepsy charity in memory of Ian Curtis and called on Disney to do the same.

Joy Division do not get asked for permission nor do they or their charity make any money from this T-Shirt but Disney will sue a shop for printing children's pictures on a cake? If Disney like to control their creative work to such a huge extent why don't they obey the same rules for others work?



'I hope that [Disney] will be as understanding when we start doing Donald Duck shirts' said Hook


From Wesley Morgan Paraham here
*edit "A representative from Disney says, "As soon as we became aware there could be an issue, we pulled it from our shelves and our online store to review the situation further.""

A Rose Named 20175 Does Not Smell as Sweet

Would we get more or less innovation without patents? The rose that holds patent no 20175 tells us how little we need patents. The plants have been patentable in America since 1930. 16% of Rose varieties are now patented but this increase in protection to rose growers has not increased the variety of rose varieties.

Launching The Innovation Renaissance by Alex Tabarrok is a short €2 book I read on the bus into work. It details as well as the perils of rose patents other hindrences that block wider innovation

The argument against patents is that they give too much protection to innovators. That in covering too much that is too easily thought of they actually hinder people coming up with new products. I have not seen a coherent argument that (non pharmaceutical) patents have too little protection. Tabarrok does a moderate anti patent argument forward in a clear convincing way though.

Next Tabarrok argues we should have more prizes for innovation. I have a major brain erection for kaggle and science innovation prizes in general. Tabarrok makes a clear case that prizes should be used when new ideas are needed.

Many of the faults in education are also well laid out. "the value of a permanent 25-point increase in scores ...would be 80 trillion" ..."A 25 point increase would bring the united states from about the level of mathematics education in Ireland and Spain to the level in Germany and Australia" How are we in Ireland worse at maths than Australia? Australia is mainly populated with Irish people, and the ones with an unhealthily active interest in sports at that. We have no excuse for the Aussies beating us in Maths. The education section gives several good pieces of advise for Ireland. Pay teachers based on their subject. Pay them on results not just years served. Sponsor college courses that result in more innovation that increases the standard of living more than some of the liberal arts that don't. While on the subject there is a very good blog on Irish education from the teachers side at anseo.

Immigration of high skilled immigrants is discussed next. Again like patents a reasonable achievable change is suggested rather than fully free immigration. I think Ireland should go moneyball on this. Find undervalued players in the market and buy them for our team (this would mean letting persecuted people live here, but it is an argument for another time).

The main thrust of the book is that innovation matters. Instead of a welfare state dividing a pie it might be worth thinking of an innovation state that constantly tried to make things better and increase the size of the pie. This would involve fighting entrenched interests "Few people lobby for innovation because almost by definition, innovation creates present losers and future winners and the present winners are by far the more politically powerful".

The optimistic view that we have in our power to create new and amazing things infuses this book. It is about fixes rather than showing how bad the innovation problem is as Cowen's The Great Stagnation does. None of the suggestions are on the extreme side and all are clearly explained. Because of this I think this book is likely to provide a blueprint for many improvements in the near future.

The Irish times has an interview with Tabarrok here

Filling knapsacks with candies

This paper by Marco Dall’Aglio and Raffaele Mosca on using linear programming (and dynamic programming)
it gives two examples of dividing non divisible goods between two people. The paper uses hard candies as a metaphor for any indivisible item.

The valuations are not based out of 100% but just plain numerical values.

candy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 
Alice 12 18 50 40 20 20 10 5 
Bob 5 10 35 30 15 22 30 28 

Which as data for glpk looks like this

data;
param m := 2;
param n := 0;
param o := 8;

param d : :=
1      
2      
;
param c : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 :=
1 12 18 50 40 20 20 10 5
2 5 10 35 30 15 22 30 28
;end;

the worst person got 102 of what they wanted

Person alice gets item number 1 3 and 4
Person bob gets item number 2 5 6 7 8
This is the same allocation as the paper come up with.

The next example given is

candy 1 2 3 4 
Alice 32 28 22 18 
Bob 25 25 25 25

which is the data file

data;
param m := 2;
param n := 0;
param o := 4;

param d : :=
1      
2      
;

param c : 1 2 3 4 :=
1 32 28 22 18
2 25 25 25 25
;end;

Alice gets item 1 and 2
Bob gets item 3,4
The worst performing person gets 50.

To use these data files with the fair divider for two people (the code of which is here)
./glpsol -m fair2.mod -d data -o fair.sol

As pointed out in the comments this isn't earth shaking or anything it just shows another use of fair division which can be used when items cannot be divided.

Fair Division of an estate

This page describes a fair division of an estate between 5 people. The process is described in the "method of Sealed Bids" section. It that requires each participant has money they can use to pay off the others. I think this is a fairly serious drawback as not everyone has loads of money. Also in the case of an estate division it seems slightly galling that the person with more money gets more things, possibly of only sentimental value, then others.

The division works by
"# Step 1. Bidding. Each player produces a sealed bid in which he or she attaches a dollar value to each item in S. A player's fair share is 1/N of his total assessment.

# Step 2. Allocation. Each item in S goes to the highest bidder for that item. If her/his assessed value of the items received exceeds her/his fair share, she/he must pay the difference. If the assessed value of the items received falls short of a fair share, then she/he is paid out of money that others have had to pay.

# Step 3. Dividing the Surplus There is almost always a surplus of cash that is divided equally among the players. "
given results in people getting

Al  BMW, Saab, Miro 
Ben  House  
Cal  Cottage 
Don  Klee
Ed  Yacht

And the minimum receive is $62,500 + $52,100+$18,340=132 940 out of a possible $679,000 or 19% of their desire.

If instead of assuming each player has money to buy stuff off the others I assumed each layer had equal claim to happiness. So I give each persons 100% desire is worth $679000 and those who claimed less then that use the remainder of their allocation as cash.

So this gives a table of desire of this

data;
param m := 5;
param n := 1;
 param o := 7;
 
 /* n divisible items, o non divisible items*/

/*Divorce between Donald and Ivana Trump described in Win-Win solution.
Items to be divided are 
4 divisible items:cash
2 non divisible items: House cottage, bmw,saab,yacht,miro, klee
Item   Al   Ben   Cal   Don   Ed
House  29.46 31.66 28.71 25.77 30.19
Cottage  8.84 7.22 9.2 8.76 8.1
BMW  4.27 3.6 3.68 4.06 4.06
Saab  3.68 2.8 3.33 3.6 2.87
Yacht  17.67 18.4 17.53 19 19.51
Miro  13.99 13.13 7.36 11.05 9.57
Klee  22.09 19.88 14.58 26.36 21.94
cash 0 3.31 15.61 1.4 3.76
*/

param d :  1  2  3  4 5 6 7 :=
      1   29.46 8.84 4.27 3.68 17.67 13.99 22.09
      2   31.66 7.22 3.6 2.8 18.4 13.13 19.88
      3   28.71 9.2 3.68 3.33 17.53 7.36 14.58
      4  25.77 8.76 4.06 3.6 19 11.05 26.36
      5   30.19 8.1 4.06 2.87 19.51 9.57 21.94; 
      
param c :  1 :=
      1   0
      2   3.31
      3   15.61
      4   1.4
      5   3.76; 
      
end;

Running this on the linear programming fair division calculator program(you need to add s.t. wor5{i in I}: ((sum{j in J} c[5,j] * x[5,j])+(sum{k in K} d[5,k] * y[5,k])) >= worst;). gives a the person who gets least 20.5388%

Al BMW Saab Miro 
Ben House 
Cal  0.726381 of the cash  Cottage  
Don Klee
Ed Yacht 0.273619 of the cash

which is an slight improvement of over on the initial allocation. Everyone gets the same items as in the initial allocation but the money is divided amongst those who receive the least rather then everyone.

A better fair division program

One problem with the wildly unpopular fair division programs discussed previously is that they assume either everything can be cut into pieces or nothing can.
In the real world as Solomon noticed some items cannot be divided up. But some items are easily splittable . So I have improved the fair division program to deal with combined divisible and indivisible items.

Another problem is that the code only dealt with the two person case. I have fixed this by adding a new constraint for each extra person.

The code for this Mathprog program fair.mod is here. I am providing the source code in case anyone can suggest improvements. Also the world is full of decisions that get made for us that we have no way to challenge or understand. So I would like people to be able to see why the reasoning in and results of an arbitration,

The program (glpk) is run by

Put this data in a data file. Call glpk on it.
./glpsol -m fair.mod -d data -o fair.sol
So the data file could be

data;
param m := 4;
param n := 4;
param o := 2;
/*m people, n divisible items, o non divisible items*/

/*
Items to be divided are
4 divisible items: cash, land, cake, gold
2 non divisible items: dog, table
*/

param c : 1 2 3 4 :=
1 20 30 0 20
2 30 20 0 20
3 20 30 0 20
4 0 10 40 40;

param d : 1 2 :=
1 10 20
2 20 10
3 20 10
4 10 0;
end;

Which means person 1 thinks 20% of the value to them in the estate is in the cash, 10% is in the dog etc.

So now you can divide up goods fairly between m people. I have never seen a program that does this before. Using this program the that parties in a will, divorce, international dispute, merger and all sorts of other areas can achieve optimal solutions. The solutions will be proportional, envy-free (in the two person case) and Pareto optimal.

Now to make the dispute resolution program more usable.

Fair Division

"The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate [calculemus], without further ado, to see who is right" Leibniz

If you want to divide items between two people you want to make sure that the person who gets least gets as much as possible.

This Maximin algorithm where you maximise what the person who gets least gets. To do this each person should put a valuation on each item. You can then use linear programming to divide items fairly between people. This program is written for the GLPK(there is a tutorial on it here)

This program is a modified version of this one

param m, integer,:= 2;
/* number of people dividing stuff */

param n, integer, > 0;
/* number of items to be divided */

set I := 1..m;
/* set of people */

set J := 1..n;
/* set of items */

param b{i in I},:= 100; 
/* resource capacity of person i. 
How much each person can want */

param c{i in I, j in J}, >= 0;
/* amount received if item j 
is given to agent i */

var worst;
/*how is the worst person doing?*/

var x{i in I, j in J},>=0;
/*
here ,>=0; 
   means that the items can be subdivided.
here , binary;
  means that items cannot be subdivided 
x[i,j] = 1 means job j is assigned to agent i */

s.t. one{j in J}: sum{i in I} x[i,j] = 1;
/* item j must be assigned. 
An item can be split due to >=0
 being used instead of binary;*/

s.t. lim{i in I}: sum{j in J} c[i,j] * x[i,j] <= b[i];
/* total amount received by all items
 to person i must not exceed the person's capacity */

s.t. wor{i in I}: sum{j in J} c[1,j] * x[1,j] >= worst;
s.t. wor2{i in I}: sum{j in J} c[2,j] * x[2,j] >= worst;
/*constraint on who gets worst deal*/
maximize obj: worst;

data;

param n := 4;
      
/*Divorce between Donald and Ivana Trump 
described in Win-Win solution.
Items to be divided are Conneticut estate, Palm beach mansion,
 Trump plaza apartment, Trump Tower Triplex
param n := 4;
*/
param c :  1  2  3  4 :=
      1   10 40 10 40
      2   40 20 30 10 ;
end;

This last data part param c is important. The first line the columns are the items to be divided. The rows are the valuations placed on them. So c[i,j] is the value person i places on item j.
With splitting items allowed this results in

        No. Column name  St   Activity     
------ ------------ -- ------------- 
     1 worst        B        73.3333                             
     2 x[1,1]       NL             0            
     3 x[2,1]       B              1                          
     4 x[1,2]       B       0.833333                            
     5 x[2,2]       B       0.166667                            
     6 x[1,3]       NL             0            
     7 x[2,3]       B              1                            
     8 x[1,4]       B              1               
     9 x[2,4]       NL             0 

With splitting items not allowed the answer comes out as

  No. Column name       Activity    
------ ------------    ------------- 
     1 worst                      70
     2 x[1,1]       *              0 
     3 x[2,1]       *              1            
     4 x[1,2]       *              1
     5 x[2,2]       *              0
     6 x[1,3]       *              0
     7 x[2,3]       *              1
     8 x[1,4]       *              1 

This algorithm can be used to divide up items in a divorce, resources between countries and loads of other areas.
I will try make this easier for people to use. Any suggestions/comments are welcome.

Taxing Cannabis

Due to the reduction in house sales there is a one billion deficit in the Irish budget. In order to make up this deficit the finance minister needs either to cut spending or raise taxes. I want to examine the effect of allowing cannabis to be sold and taxed by the government on this deficit.

The amount of cannabis usage can be estimated from the amount of seizures "Cannabis resin valued at €48.7m was seized". Between 10% and 5% of all drugs are seized according to internationally agreed figures. So this means that the current cannabis market in Ireland is worth conservatively around 500 million Euro.

This 500 million could make how much tax for the exchequer?
Profits on cannabis is unlikely to be as high as the 400 times mark up on heroin.
This can be evidenced by the lack of cannabis dealers shooting each other. Still as this is an illegal drug it is reasonable to assume the costs of the actual product are minimal.


So if the legal seller of cannabis took half the cost to create and distribute the product and the exchequer took the other half in tax (this is a conservative estimate of the possible tax take) then at a minimum 250 million Euros in tax could be gathered each year from current levels of cannabis usage.

Fair Trade Heroin

I always wondered about fair trade. They take a product and pay above the market rate for it. This is done on the grounds that this extra cost improves the farmers standard of living and is thus beneficial to everyone because the buyer gets to feel like they are not exploiting poor third world farmers.

How much help to farmers get? Well they get about a third above the market rate.
“Fair Trade partners with cooperatives of subsistence farmers to ensure higher-than-market prices – they can usually guarantee cooperatives about $1.26 per pound of beans – 28 cents higher than the commercial market price.”

When these beans are then sold the mark up for the conventional coffee seller is about 5 times the original cost. For the Fair trade coffee company it is about 4 times. So essentially making 5 times the market rate is classed as immoral whereas making 4 times is more ethical according to the fair trade advocates.


Now here is what annoys me. The same standards that apply to fair trade commodities are not applied to other commodities produced by third world farmers. For someone to lecture you on the morality of fair trade they should not consume any third world produce (that has not been extensively processed) that has more then a 4 times mark up.

Heroin has a 400 times mark up. I believe and look for evidence that cocaine and marijuana have similar “price gouging” levels of mark up. So next time someone lectures you on fair trade coffee ask them if they have ever taken drugs and what was the fair trade efforts they made in this purchase?

Obviously a dealer cannot start a fair trade smack den, my point is that drug users should consider the production of their drugs in the same way they might with any other product. Also anti-drug enforcers should realise the effect their actions have on causing the exploitation of third world farmers.

Strangely this is both a pro legalisation and anti legalisation argument. What would the consequences of having heroin available at one eightieth the cost be? Junkies would no longer have to steal for heroin as it would be so cheap. But given the rules of supply and demand the use of heroin would soar.

What do you have to do to get dumped?

A WOMAN who admitted the attempted murder of her husband and three children has been given five suspended life sentences after her husband begged she not be sent to jail.

The 28-year-old - who cannot be named for legal reasons - set fire to the family home almost two years ago. Yesterday,

She set fire to your family home? Sweet imagine getting to break up with someone and not having to do the you are dumped talk, how cool would that be? no guilt or anything.

the court heard that despite almost killing her husband and children, she is now living back in the family home and has been forgiven by her partner.

Has this woman got a golden gee or something? What on earth could she offer that would be worth the risk of getting yourself barbequed? I know what your thinking but no even if she could cook like Nigella Lawson would you really trust her around open flames?

it was also revealed that she'd moved her things into a flat in Limerick the week before the fire, where four insurances policies were found, the largest of which was worth €180,000 if her husband had died.

Call me cynical but does the idea of a paranoid schizophrenics with such careful planning seem suspicious to you? I heard in the radio news that the woman believed that satan had told her the house was possesed and should be burned down. I never pictured satan as this Eddie Hobbesian figure of shrewd financial planning.

"Hi I'm Eddie Satan. Before you kill your family it is important that you lay plans for your financial future. I would fill out Hibernian life assurance form 1a6C" I never pictured delusional hallucinations as so helpful and informative.

The Rise of the Irish murder

The trial of Rachel O’Reilly’s husband for her murder is the main headline on newspapers and the top story on news programs. Why is this case is so mysteriously gripping? In “the Decline of the English Murder” George Orwell summed up the ideal murder to grip the media watching public.

“The murderer should be a little man of the professional class…living an intensely respectable life somewhere in the suburbs, and preferably in a semi-detached house... He should go astray through cherishing a guilty passion for his secretary or the wife of a rival professional man, and should only bring himself to the point of murder after long and terrible wrestles with his conscience... The means chosen should, of course, be poison. In the last analysis he should commit murder because this seems to him less disgraceful, and less damaging to his career, than being detected in adultery”

Instead of poisoning with all the forethought and cunning that requires we have a brutal beating but otherwise the details seem oddly similar.

Orwell summed up the reason why these domestic murders so gripped people saying they were the “product of a stable society where the all-prevailing hypocrisy did at least ensure that crimes as serious as murder should have strong emotions behind them.” The hypocrisy was the belief that a murder was preferable to the shame of an affair and of divorce. No “why” has yet been proposed in the Rachel O’Reilly murder trial. The murders which gripped the public imagination in Orwell’s time were the type that people could in some way understand the motivations of lust and social standing behind them. What is frightening in this case is that the level of interest in it suggests that people can understand a crime that is seemingly without motivation.

Libel and Mathematics
John Allen Paulos’s book “once upon a number” discusses the probability that OJ Simpson murdered his ex wife. Two pieces of statistics are raised that relate to the Ian Bailey Libel trial


1.“ But we know that Nicole Simpson is dead, and the more relevant fact is that 80 per cent of women in abusive relationships who are murderered, are killed by their partners.”
Evidence has been presented that Ian Bailey has been abusive to his partner.
2. OJ Simpson had a cut on his hand which Paulos suggested had a probability of 1 in 200 of occurring on any night where he was not engaged in violence. Ian Bailey has similar but more extensive cuts on his hands and head.

As a civil case libel is based not on reasonable doubt but on the less weighty measure of balance of probability. As such these statistics are important. If it was so unlikely that Ian Bailey would get such an injury on the day in question surely this is important to any newspapers case that he was a reasonable suspect in the case?