How Will You Use Your Free Electricity?

“Je suis là pour travailler dans l’intérêt du pays

et tant que je serais ministre,

il n’y aura aucune baisse du tarif.

Que ce soit bien clair.”

Ivan Collendavelloo, 2016

The one the CEB will soon supply to you if it does a very average job of using current technology to make us benefit from our geography and topography. See, the cost of producing electricity using wind and sun has decreased significantly while storage has improved enough – one option is a giant version of your smartphone battery – to bring renewable energy close to base-load status. So two things should happen very soon. One is that the cost of electricity – by the way we’re talking clean power here – should fall and two it will be free and even negative on a increasing number of days.

This will require that we tweak our weather reports so they inform us of the expected daily electricity production and its cost which will in turn determine for example when we wash one or two extra loads of clothes and run our businesses a bit more intensively. Other countries like Germany and the UK are already there. We should too. To crawl back from the deep mess we’re in. And not waste another five years.

References

1. Prices Go Negative in Germany, a Positive for Energy Users, New York Times, December 25, 2017.

2. Government Programme 2020-24, Comments, S. Jagatsingh, Forthcoming, 2020.

Inside the International Court of Justice

So we should be expecting to hear from the ICJ within four to six months.

FPTP is a Special Kind of PR System

One that comes with a majority prize. It's a great system as it generates stable government after stable government. This has enabled Mauritius to achieve what it has. Its disadvantage is that a few times the prize may get too big. As we've seen in 1982, 1991, 1995 and 2000. But on the first three of those occasions the alliances did not last very long: between nine and twenty-one months. Which means that our first-past-the-post (FPTP) system saved us from going to vote a number of times because it's not a system which is vote wise and outcome foolish. Plus there are smart ways of correcting the most extreme of its scenarios without resorting to totally undemocratic devices like party lists that would rob voters of an important weapon: the final word to dump a politician.

Adding PR seats to our FPTP setup is not an option as we've seen what happened in Rodrigues election after election. It will eat away the stability that the majority prize provides and which is necessary for governments to operate properly. Besides our parliament is already too big. 

A European joke captures well how lucky we are to have the FPTP system here:

What is European paradise?

British parliamentary system (FPTP)

German engineering

French cuisine

Italian romance

And European hell?
Italian parliamentary system (PR)
French engineering
British cuisine
German romance

Britain has had 20 governments in 100 years. Italy, 20 governments in 5 years.

In fact Italy has had 62 governments between 1946 and 2013. But you get the point.

Can Mauritius Do Better Than 56th in Maths?

That's how we did in the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) survey. That puts us in the company of Thailand but a lot better than Qatar (80th) and Ghana (88th). But kind of far from the UK (28th) and Germany (16th). I think it was the only time we ever participated in this interesting exercise. Germany has used her PISA experience to improve her education system. Surely if its valuable to the exportweltmeister it will be for us too. Besides don't we pride ourselves on being quite good in the Queen of Sciences?

Speaking of mathematics there's also an important competition that we seemed to have missed since it was first organised back in... 1959. The 58th edition of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) will take place in Rio de Janeiro between July 12 and 23. 109 countries have already confirmed their participation. Including plenty of African nations like Algeria, Botswana, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, South Africa and Tanzania. In last year's competition Thailand came out 12th. Even Syria will be in Rio. So should Mauritius. Details are at http://www.imo-official.org/.

Loch Ness Monster Could Get New Passport

If the Scots vote yes in tomorrow's referendum. The UK would then be smaller than Uruguay if the 78,000-odd square kilometres that the monster calls home become a new country. Which translates into a drop of 11 spots -- to 91 -- in the list of the world's largest countries. Mauritius is at 180.

That's not the only referendum happening though: Catalonians will also decide what they want to do on November 9. But not before Brazilians try to elect a woman -- Marina or Dilma -- to another term as President on October 5th.

We need a referendum here too. About whether we want to give up our excellent system of government and electoral setup for some TINA-infected bean-counting galimatia.

French Banker Wants Britain Downgraded First

This comment by Banque de France Governor Christian Noyer is causing ripples and is considered to be retaliation to Britain's use of its veto to torpedo the French-German initiatives to save the Euro. Noyer cited the better economic fundamentals of France. The British responded that the markets believe the UK has a credible plan for deficit-reduction. Which would explain why they are able to borrow at lower yields than France.

WikiLeaks Reveal Purpose of Marine Park in BIOT

And that's to make it more difficult if not impossible for Chagossians to go back home. The UK is essentially saying that fishes and bombs have rights but natives don't.

British MPC Turns 10

Actually, that happened in May 2007. And to mark the event the Treasury of Her Majesty inquired and published the interesting report you can download by clicking on the image below. Here's some of the stuff they found.

Since the inception of inflation targeting, inflation in the UK has been low and stable and economic growth has been very stable. It also confirmed that there is not really a trade-off between inflation and growth or if you prefer that inflation is not only the worst enemy of the poor but also an enemy of growth. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why Sithanen has been producing such a robust amount of it.