PeterAlan

Are you aware of this house?

Not so; it came into force on 25 May 2018.

The primary factor that magically goes away if China imports enough US agricultural produce?

You'll find much more here - do look at his wartime past.

It must be that I had failed to realise that the support you had previously expressed for these tariffs was entirely directed at and conditional on the goal of achieving zero trade deficits, however chimerical that may be, and had nothing to do with support for US protectionism - or indeed with "national security", which I understand to be the pretext for them.

I'll agree with you that it's desirable to remove "the distortions and complications of tariffs" (welcome to the party, though I'm under the impression you're a late arrival). But if equilibrium is reached only in the presence of tariffs, it will be disturbed if those tariffs are removed; otherwise the tariffs have had no effect.

I'm not sure I understand what "equalizing" trade deficits means unless they're all zero. But let's hypothesise the improbable situation where the US reaches a zero trade deficit with the rest of the world. Why would adopting "no tariffs on either side" (removing any residual prior ones) then result in stabilising that zero deficit?

Is it just me that thinks that China's involvement, including Kim Jong-Un's two recent visits for discussions, may have had a lot more to do with producing North Korea's current stance than anything done by the Trump administration? I suspect that "helping" is a significant understatement.

Stephen Hawking

Because that's what the regulation I quoted says. You may think it's completely expected, but the regulation seems quite clear to me.

The relevant elaboration of Blue Book 4 B 1 (b) quoted by paulg above is its regulation 4 H 2 (f): I don't agree with Alex: if a jump completing a transfer shows a specific holding (for example, if it shows 4-card support) then it is alertable under this regulation. Correspondingly, if your agreements are that with 4-card support you will either jump or break (which one depending on other features), so that a simple non-jump transfer completion denies 4 cards, then that non-jump completion is also alertable.

Good second-hand copies are available through AbeBooks for about £6, including postage.

I note that the WBF's regulations appear to need updating in 1.2 (c), since "pause for thought" no longer appears in Law 25 A 1.

There are no numbers for 9th & 10th December (weekend). The (closing) numbers for Friday 8th December were: S&P 500: 2,651.50; +18.43% from close 30 December 2016 Dow 30: 24,329.16; +23.11% Nikkei: 22,811.08; +19.34% CDAX: 1,224.36; +17.14% DAX 30: 13,153.70 +14.31% and the numbers for the earlier days in December show similar relative positions. We don't know the exact range of dates for Yglesias' remark, but given (1) the day-to-day variations in the various markets, and (2) the differences between the indices within each market (the Dow 30 and DAX 30 are relatively poor indicators of their complete markets) the conclusion that there's nothing special about the US market seems in order. Incidentally, the closing Nikkei (NB: the usual Nikkei 225 index) figure for 11th December was 22,938.73 (+20.01%); I assume Andrei's figure for "now" was at some time during the 12 December trading day in Japan.

Yglesias' article specifically cited the S&P 500 index, not the Dow Jones, which is a much narrower 30-constituent index (as is the DAX 30). S&P 500: Dec 30, 2016: 2238.83, today: 2659.99, up by 18.81% YTD PS: CDAX: Dec 30, 2016: 1042.86, today (close 11 Dec): 1221.58, up by 17.14% YTD Edit: 1222.01 was the 12 Dec opening index; 1221.58 the 11 Dec close

subject only to the caveat which does not appear to be in point here.

Law 12 seems sufficient, and avoids entering into nice semantic arguments about the wording of other Laws and their interactions one with another:

I'm a Brit, so my position and perspective is from the viewpoint of a world citizen, not as an American, but I find these statements and comparisons to be extraordinary. To most of us, Hillary Clinton seems far more normal, sane, rational and grounded than Donald Trump, but that's clearly not your perspective: you think she's worse than an "easily" possible Trump disaster. You seem to have regarded last November's election as a pretty extreme choice between the potentially disastrous (Trump) and something even worse (Clinton), but did you never stop to ask yourself whether this could be the reality that you were faced with? In particular, did you ever question whether Mrs Clinton could really be that bad, or ask yourself how and why you had reached such a view about her? Where does all this "how worthless our Constitution would have become" come from?

Tom Petty.

Very sorry to hear this, Timo. My condolences to you and Crystal.

I don't see this. (b) says you can't appoint them. (c) says if they are appointed "in violation of" (b) they can't be paid - presumably so that if a contentious case arises that is finally deemed to fall foul of (b) they don't get to keep what they've already been paid. But (b) still prohibits appointment, paid or not. The only wriggle room would appear to be over what posts are covered, ie what is a "civilian position in the agency".

No. After 4 rounds of spades declarer has a way home by playing on clubs (W is squeezed in the minors when declarer cashes the top hearts). It's necessary for E to switch to a diamond after the third spade; this transfers the diamond guard from W to E.

I'd be pretty confident that dummy won't have known that the Laws mean that a small diamond was being called for. I'm slightly surprised that both here and in over 140 posts on Bridgewinners no-one has mentioned the possibility of an appeal. It seems to me that these lads needed a mentor (preferably with £20 in his / her pocket) to explain gently some of the facts of bridge life and to guide and help them through issues like this one.

It is Pairs-of-pairs but, IMO, the fairest multiple-teams scoring method. About the only head-to-head element left in your scheme is that both pairs of one "team" are playing the same boards against both pairs of the other and in opposite directions (I assume that you're positing the same multiple-teams movements). Consider (as I'm sure you're aware): A's N/S bid and make 6♠ on a board against B's E/W; at the other table B's N/S are -1 in 7NT against A's E/W (there's a cashing A). (1) The rest of the field is in 6NT=. A's N/S get 2 MPs and B's E/W get 100% - 2MPs. B's N/S get 0 and A's E/W get 100%. Overall A gets an average of 50% + 1 MP, B gets 50% - 1 MP. (2) Same result at both A vs B tables, but the field is in 6minor= instead of 6NT. Now at the first A/B table A's N/S get 100% and B's E/W get 0. The MP result at the other A/B table is unchanged; overall A gets 100%, B 0%. Nothing has changed in the A-B "match", but the overall result is determined by what all the other teams do. This is just a specialised and restricted form of matchpoints, so let's not pretend it's anything else.

Following this to its logical conclusion within the VP / IMP dichotomy, one wouldn't VP each 2- or 3-board match; instead one would VP each board within a match. But then one wouldn't need the IMP scale at all, just a revised VP one (aggregate difference -> IMP -> VP can trivially be compounded to get aggregate difference -> VP). The question then becomes: what's the appropriate degree of smoothing of (aggregate difference) results that the VP scale should be targeting, because it's not at all obvious that it's the one we have now by following that compounding process. And we might then end up back at the old IMP scale. The essence of teams is a head-to-head contest, and a scoring system that reflects that (which IMP scoring does). This idea removes that entirely; it's just pair-of-pairs.