Here's my latest Q&A column - if you have
any questions for me, you can message me on Facebook, or email them here j.knight423@btinternet.com
Q)
What is the economics consideration regarding whether society is better off if
house owners can attack burglars that enter their property?
A) Well firstly, I wholeheartedly support
a victim's right to defend themselves if a burglar illegally enters their property.
I support this on grounds that I think people should be entitled to defend
themselves and their family when in danger, and when someone forces their way
into your home their incentive not to get caught and arrested is enough to make
them a viable threat.
As for the economics, burglary has an immense
social cost for the victims (not just having your valuables stolen, but also
the sense of being intruded upon), but a relatively low cost for the perpetrators
because conviction rates are low, and for many burglars addicted to drugs, life
in prison won't be much worse than their current life situation. Therefore, a
law that increases the costs for victims and decreases the costs for burglars
is a highly questionable one.
The other thing to consider is that the
law probably wouldn't do much good anyway. The kind of people that feel
sufficiently threatened to the extent that they would use physical force
against a burglar are unlikely to be the kind of people that would refrain from
doing so because of a law that forbids them from doing so.
Q) What’s good wisdom for mastering the art of great gift buying?
A) The best gift people buy are the gifts I didn’t even know I needed, but was
chuffed to bits when I received them. That’s the epitome of a good gift. The
other bit of wisdom I’ve distilled is that gifts are well chosen when they are
gifts the receiver wants but wouldn’t necessarily buy for themselves.
Good gifts do other things too – they make the giver and receiver
emotionally closer, and they help create memories (either experiences or
objects) that stay with the receiver long after the gift is given. Great
gift-buying exhibits a signal that you understand the tastes, wants and needs
of the person for whom you’re buying – making the gift as much about the
thought behind it as the thing or experience in itself. If you can perfect all
that, you’ll be a) a great gift buyer, and b) mastering something I haven’t yet
mastered.
