Davos Newbies

I’d love to discuss the blog Jeff Sachs is doing for the Financial Times from the G8 summit, but when I look at the page it’s completely blank. Could it be a Firefox thing? Given the technical incompetence of the FT website, anything is possible.

Since I can’t read it, this might be unfair, but I find it strange that Jeff is doing this for the FT. He should take a page from Gary Becker or Brad DeLong and do it on his own account. I suspect he’d get at least as many readers that way, and he sure would establish a far greater web footprint.

The New York Times’s coverage of London’s victory strikes me as very odd.

First, the headline. “Corners turn upward on stiff upper lip.” Leave aside the awkwardness of upward and upper. Who in London has a stiff upper lip anymore? That’s a hackneyed phrase that has very little reflection in reality.

And then, this paragraph:

The announcement also provides an enormous lift to the fragile national ego, which deep down has never really recovered from Britain’s loss of its empire after World War II. Lately, Britain has been under attack from fellow members of the European Union about its support for the Iraq war and the amount of money it receives from the European Union budget. So the Olympics decision is a welcome moment to indulge in some self-congratulation.

I don’t think there’s a person in Britain who feels fragile about the attacks from other members of the European Union. Perhaps they should, but they don’t. And it may be that Britain’s national ego doesn’t compare to the American one, but I think in a global perspective it’s not one of the more fragile ones.

I jumped into the air when I heard London had won the 2012 Olympics.

It’s great news for London, for sport and for the Olympics. I’m sure Paris would have staged a great games, but no other place touches London for its richness and for its passion about sport. And I have to say I was very pleased that Jacques Chirac received another comeupance.

It has already become a cliche to remark that Sebastian Coe led the London bid the way he used to run his race, coming from behind on the final turn. But I heard Olympic silver medallist Roger Black say something more meaningful on the radio coverage of the news. “In every sporting contest,” he said, “there is of course someone who wins. But there’s also someone who manages to lose. I often found that I could beat people who were more worried about losing than determined to win.”

Perhaps this will be the jolt all the many grumblers in Britain need to finally stop moaning about everything.