Good stuff, Danny. I'd be keen to know what proportion of the overall sector involves maritime law and insurance/reinsurance. I've been told the UK remains very important in maritime insurance business worldwide.
And, as you had asked in a previous post what would be a service that might tempt people to pay for the newsletter: I can only speak for myself, writing a detective novel, but I would pay to be able to clarify based on your personal expertise if, for example, a (fictional) press release from a fictional company listed on the London Stock Exchange of 2000 has the look and sound of what an originally-worded one was then. That is probably quite random and not a request shared by many, but it sort of aligns with the type of singular and specific expertise you point out in today's article.
Sorry Chris, I missed this one! Yes the UK is still huge in all sorts of insurance and shipping, but these are easy enough to identify that they don't usually end up in the "miscellaneous" category (albeit that it's quite possible that a bunch of consultancy services ancillary to shipping and insurance business might do so). Do send me your example! I actually have a standard rate for providing financial consultancy to writers of detective novels, which is "one character, preferably a villain, to be named after me".
Continuing my tradition of coming late to the party (and answering here instead of on Twitter/Bluesky because the threads there are already old).
I'm quite pro us looking after the things we are good at better. It's noticeable for instance that we have a VAT (and some other business related taxes) set up around the idea that we're building a German Mittelstand and doesn't really help the services businesses we do have. Likewise, knowing the structure of the industry, you could probably provide much better export support than we do now, which tends to be designed around other kinds of firms.
(And don't get me started on the post-2010 government's relationship with our higher education sector.)
That said there are a couple of interesting bits of grit for the oyster. Using our current economic metrics, the Old Rectories top out on improving productivity a lot sooner than the original Mittelstand companies. (Partly because they seem to rarely choose to scale up.)
Of course, one can ask if productivity in general (and Baumol) are the best metrics these days, but still it seems worth asking why they so rarely scale up and if we're storing up trouble with an industrial policy that helps them.
Another is one ranter has already pointed to on Twitter, where do these businesses come from and how do they carry on when Brian retires? We might add as well that a significant number of them are not great employers either, from a the perspective of the wider nation.
It sounds like a legacy of the empire. Didn't Pip in Great Expectations wind up with one of those jobs specializing in commerce with Egypt? England ran a vast trade empire, so English law and quirks survive today. It's the way the US mastery of airspace after World War II left us with 1000 foot pressure altitudes and the Pacific Ocean tracks run out of ZOA, Oakland.
When I was an undergraduate at MIT, one of the guys in my dorm was studying to be a historian. That was an odd choice at MIT, getting a BS in history. It's not like there was a history department, but one thing they teach you at MIT is how to roll your own. I looked him up a while ago, and he was running a consultancy specializing in foreign markets. He was using his degree much as I had used mine in computer science.
If you look around, there are all sorts of companies that have highly specialized knowledge available in small bites cooked to order. I worked at one company where we needed advice on numerical precision, and we found a guy who specialized in the black art of numerical analysis. I follow the blog put out by John D. Cook who does mathematical consulting and publishes fascinating though often arcane posts on aspects of mathematics and computing.
I'm sure you can find lots of others. Big companies may have specialists working for them, but they are limited structurally. Working at a big company limits their experience to work at the company . The consultants have worked for all sorts of businesses, so they have a much broader perspective within their narrow specialty. They might engage exclusively for a while, but their advantage is their very lack of a single job.
Back into the 1990s, the action in computing was based in the Boston area where route 128, the ring road was home to companies like DEC, Data General, Raytheon, Prime, Polaroid and a host of others. The big companies are now based near San Francisco, but route 128 is full of small consultancies that are willing to grow but only so far. It's a lifestyle choice. They get to work on interesting projects. They can fire a bad boss. They and a perhaps a small group of others own the place. They are neutral territory. As long as they honor NDAs, they can learn all sorts of things and stay at the top of your field in a way impossible if they worked full time for one of their clients.
Honest question: why is British common law such a strong asset in business? Does it have to do with being less easily changeable than codified law, or what is the particular benefit of that legal system? Or is it the judicial system itself in Britain being the asset, rather than the particular framework of law?
It's largely path dependence. London (and NYC) had financial hegemony, so they retain financial hegemony (although the Tories have been doing their best to sabotage this.) With financial hegemony came legal hegemony. With legal hegemony came legal infrastructure.
I'm not sure that the common law rules are "better," whatever that means. Back in the day, the flexible common law system was arguably more capable of evolution than civil law. But now, that's no longer true, since civilians have learned that dumb-but-flexible is a lot better i law than the Wisdom of the Ages.
As a former practitioner of US banking law, I think that English commercial judges are very good: well ahead of US judges. (They're more likely to have had a career as commercial lawyers, whereas US judges tend to be former prosecutors.) I'm not so happy with English law. It is a bit too bound by the maunderings of Lord Chinless of Cholmondeley back in 1874, or whatever else it is they use for precedent. The US commercial codes, in contrast, are excellent, especially since they are mostly judge-proofed. They get rewritten every 25-35 years or so, which is about right.
The cerebellum is not a bullshit organ, and bullshit jobs can be essential. But to continue with the biological metaphor, the cerebellum can develop cancer, and bullshit jobs can proliferate past the point of utility. Which they often do, if the immune system (read "top management") isn't on its toes. Bullshit jobs are not directly tied to P&L, so the simpler metrics cannot control them.
I am unfortunately not yet completely sure about the arrangements for selling it outside the UK at all - I think we're in the process of selling the rights
This doesn't answer Greg R.'s question, but I just pre-ordered the ebook on Amazon US. And I won't get it till April, which means I'll have forgotten I ordered it and it'll seem like I got a present!
given my experience with Lying For Money, I'll get my apology in early because depending on who, how and whether we sell the US rights, that April date could be very optimistic...
Good stuff, Danny. I'd be keen to know what proportion of the overall sector involves maritime law and insurance/reinsurance. I've been told the UK remains very important in maritime insurance business worldwide.
And, as you had asked in a previous post what would be a service that might tempt people to pay for the newsletter: I can only speak for myself, writing a detective novel, but I would pay to be able to clarify based on your personal expertise if, for example, a (fictional) press release from a fictional company listed on the London Stock Exchange of 2000 has the look and sound of what an originally-worded one was then. That is probably quite random and not a request shared by many, but it sort of aligns with the type of singular and specific expertise you point out in today's article.
Sorry Chris, I missed this one! Yes the UK is still huge in all sorts of insurance and shipping, but these are easy enough to identify that they don't usually end up in the "miscellaneous" category (albeit that it's quite possible that a bunch of consultancy services ancillary to shipping and insurance business might do so). Do send me your example! I actually have a standard rate for providing financial consultancy to writers of detective novels, which is "one character, preferably a villain, to be named after me".
Continuing my tradition of coming late to the party (and answering here instead of on Twitter/Bluesky because the threads there are already old).
I'm quite pro us looking after the things we are good at better. It's noticeable for instance that we have a VAT (and some other business related taxes) set up around the idea that we're building a German Mittelstand and doesn't really help the services businesses we do have. Likewise, knowing the structure of the industry, you could probably provide much better export support than we do now, which tends to be designed around other kinds of firms.
(And don't get me started on the post-2010 government's relationship with our higher education sector.)
That said there are a couple of interesting bits of grit for the oyster. Using our current economic metrics, the Old Rectories top out on improving productivity a lot sooner than the original Mittelstand companies. (Partly because they seem to rarely choose to scale up.)
Of course, one can ask if productivity in general (and Baumol) are the best metrics these days, but still it seems worth asking why they so rarely scale up and if we're storing up trouble with an industrial policy that helps them.
Another is one ranter has already pointed to on Twitter, where do these businesses come from and how do they carry on when Brian retires? We might add as well that a significant number of them are not great employers either, from a the perspective of the wider nation.
It sounds like a legacy of the empire. Didn't Pip in Great Expectations wind up with one of those jobs specializing in commerce with Egypt? England ran a vast trade empire, so English law and quirks survive today. It's the way the US mastery of airspace after World War II left us with 1000 foot pressure altitudes and the Pacific Ocean tracks run out of ZOA, Oakland.
When I was an undergraduate at MIT, one of the guys in my dorm was studying to be a historian. That was an odd choice at MIT, getting a BS in history. It's not like there was a history department, but one thing they teach you at MIT is how to roll your own. I looked him up a while ago, and he was running a consultancy specializing in foreign markets. He was using his degree much as I had used mine in computer science.
If you look around, there are all sorts of companies that have highly specialized knowledge available in small bites cooked to order. I worked at one company where we needed advice on numerical precision, and we found a guy who specialized in the black art of numerical analysis. I follow the blog put out by John D. Cook who does mathematical consulting and publishes fascinating though often arcane posts on aspects of mathematics and computing.
I'm sure you can find lots of others. Big companies may have specialists working for them, but they are limited structurally. Working at a big company limits their experience to work at the company . The consultants have worked for all sorts of businesses, so they have a much broader perspective within their narrow specialty. They might engage exclusively for a while, but their advantage is their very lack of a single job.
Back into the 1990s, the action in computing was based in the Boston area where route 128, the ring road was home to companies like DEC, Data General, Raytheon, Prime, Polaroid and a host of others. The big companies are now based near San Francisco, but route 128 is full of small consultancies that are willing to grow but only so far. It's a lifestyle choice. They get to work on interesting projects. They can fire a bad boss. They and a perhaps a small group of others own the place. They are neutral territory. As long as they honor NDAs, they can learn all sorts of things and stay at the top of your field in a way impossible if they worked full time for one of their clients.
Honest question: why is British common law such a strong asset in business? Does it have to do with being less easily changeable than codified law, or what is the particular benefit of that legal system? Or is it the judicial system itself in Britain being the asset, rather than the particular framework of law?
It's largely path dependence. London (and NYC) had financial hegemony, so they retain financial hegemony (although the Tories have been doing their best to sabotage this.) With financial hegemony came legal hegemony. With legal hegemony came legal infrastructure.
I'm not sure that the common law rules are "better," whatever that means. Back in the day, the flexible common law system was arguably more capable of evolution than civil law. But now, that's no longer true, since civilians have learned that dumb-but-flexible is a lot better i law than the Wisdom of the Ages.
As a former practitioner of US banking law, I think that English commercial judges are very good: well ahead of US judges. (They're more likely to have had a career as commercial lawyers, whereas US judges tend to be former prosecutors.) I'm not so happy with English law. It is a bit too bound by the maunderings of Lord Chinless of Cholmondeley back in 1874, or whatever else it is they use for precedent. The US commercial codes, in contrast, are excellent, especially since they are mostly judge-proofed. They get rewritten every 25-35 years or so, which is about right.
Thanks, that's a helpful explanation. Interesting point re quality of judges vs judge-proof legislation.
The cerebellum is not a bullshit organ, and bullshit jobs can be essential. But to continue with the biological metaphor, the cerebellum can develop cancer, and bullshit jobs can proliferate past the point of utility. Which they often do, if the immune system (read "top management") isn't on its toes. Bullshit jobs are not directly tied to P&L, so the simpler metrics cannot control them.
This made me think of our neck of the woods in the Gamma Quadrant of mid California western slope of the Sierras.
Germany has a massive hinterland of small manufacturing companies that, to use the slogan “make the thing that makes the thing inside the thing”
Just down the road is Redline Engineering making stuff with automated design tools and machines.
Are you offering signed versions of the book in any way that would not require physically being in the UK?
I am unfortunately not yet completely sure about the arrangements for selling it outside the UK at all - I think we're in the process of selling the rights
This doesn't answer Greg R.'s question, but I just pre-ordered the ebook on Amazon US. And I won't get it till April, which means I'll have forgotten I ordered it and it'll seem like I got a present!
given my experience with Lying For Money, I'll get my apology in early because depending on who, how and whether we sell the US rights, that April date could be very optimistic...