Ebenezer Scrooge economics.

I am tired of being told by the BBC and other news organisations that full shops at Xmas is “good thing”. It’s not: it means more consumption, more carbon dioxide emissions and so on.

Full shops are allegedly good because that implies more jobs, and with unemployment too high – well, more jobs must be good outcome surely.

There is actually a far better outcome, as follows. Unemployment is defined as wanting a job and not being able to find one. The better outcome and better way of reducing unemployment would be people choosing to work fewer hours and accepting a lower standard of living.

How often do you see statistics on the latter variable on the news?

And now I’m off to indulge in some unnecessary consumption.