GOING
SOFT DOING
THE BUSINESS
I would like to bring your attention to a very serious subject. This following article was produced in the Economist magazine.
Perhaps those who study the economy would like to comment on this issue.
"Why does it cost more to wipe your bottom in Britain than in any other country?" The journalist goes on to state with such concentration that the reason is the British like the five star treatment is because a government survey of international prices found Britain pays two and half times more than the USA.
The explaination given is we insist on softer, more luxurious texture, it has to be 14mm longer and an extra 2mm wide and four grammes heavier per square metre because it contains more fibre and we have 40 more sheets per roll and a variety of colours such as honeysuckle, summer peach other than the standard white unlike other countries.(1)
The article was entitled
"Going Soft?", I think not, the British have just got their priorities right.
In business hardness should be reserved for brain matter only and because most reading takes place in that oh holy of places in the household for peace and quiet.
In a follow-up to the article in another magazine which might be of interest from another position of philosophy:
Montagine offers us "...one man's honest, unguarded portrait of himself - in which he mentions impotence and farting....and explains that he needs quiet when sitting on the toilet - enables us to feel less singular about sides of ourselves that have gone unmentioned in normal company and normal portraits, but which are no less a part of our reality...." (2)
How very banal for economists who study the economy to have to relieve themselves in this way to form a picture of the GDP.
"....An economist is a man
who knows 100 ways of making love but doesn't know any women..."
by Art Buchwald
'Cos they're found in the loo and its the reason the use of hole in the toilet roll was designed ie. for the purpose of supply and demand in quick successions.
Please keep your thoughts clean...
REFERENCE ARTICLES:
(1) The Economist, March 4th-10th 2000 ~ page 34.
(2) Management Today Magazine issue April 2000, ~ page 44.
(3) The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton, published by Hamish Hamilton.
REFERENCE SOURCES:
Economics (sixth edition)
Written by: David Begg, Stanley Fishcher &
Rudiger Dornbusch
Published by: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., London
WEBLINK SOURCES:
Samuel Brittan - Articles and speeches