It's always been detached, and it's always made the real economy worse.

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As some will have noted, there were a lot of reports yesterday on the fact that £50 billion of banks notes are missing in the UK economy. This got me thinking. And as a result I have to suggest that finding that £50 billion of cash would not be hard. Here’s how to do it.

As the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has noted, around £50 billion of banknotes in issue have no explained use. In other words, they do not appear to be used for regular cash transactions. What their alternative use might be is not known.

Some could be in the possession of tourists, who have not bothered to exchange them on leaving the country. But the amounts involved would be small.

A bigger sum might be cash savings under the proverbial mattress. This is entirely plausible. It is possible that some of this will be related to benefit fraud: the amount of savings a person has can have a significant impact on their ability to claim a number of benefits.

There is no doubt that a significant part of this money Is used within the shadow economy. That can cover activity where tax is evaded, of course. But it also includes drug dealing and many forms of human trafficking and abuse.

0/ A holiday economic theory reading list. Some of my favorite pieces on theory that can be read with minimal sweat, but with the maximal intellectual reward. In no particular order:

1/ Myerson 1999. "Nash equilibrium & history of economic theory." JEL. Written with characteristic Myersonian elegance. "how a few short papers by a young mathematician achieved one of the great watershed breakthroughs in the history of social

2/ Blackwell & DeGroot 1986. “A conversation with David Blackwell.” Stat Science. After his PhD at 21, "There were 105 black colleges at that time & I wrote 105 letters of application." Beautiful discussion on a gamut of ideas & his intellectual life.

3/ Geanakoplos 1992. “Common Knowledge.” JEP. Zuper piece, lucidly written. Lots of interesting puzzles, great for teaching. When Moriarty says "All I have to say has already crossed your mind," Holmes retorts "then possibly my answer has crossed yours."

4/ Morris 1995. "The common prior assumption in economic theory.” E&P. This beauty was Stephen's first chap of PhD thesis! Does rationality imply CP? Does relaxing CP make theorizing uninteresting? Is failure of CP a failure of information processing?

This oil crisis inquiry report once public is going to irk quite a few. Although, this will point towards incompetence of authorities, you can't take the credit away from the PM.

OGRA Ordinance was promulgated in 2002. The rules were not made till 2016. 14 Years of running on SROs, having no legal value. #OilinquiryReport

All oil import decisions are based on data provided by a non-statutory body i.e. OCAC. There is no mechanism in place for the government authorities to verify the authenticity of data provided by a representative body of all OMCs.

90% of the OMCs did not maintain requisite 20 day stocks during Jan-Jun 2020. DG Oil remained mum. In cases of some OMCs the stock suddenly jumped from 0 in may to over 100 days in June. Classic case of hoarding.

The authorities failed to lift sufficient stock from refineries in Feb and Marc, and then ban on imports came, a ta time when oil prices were dwindling. All in the name of Keeping the refineries safe from glut. End result: eventual shortage in Jun and potential saving loss

The problem with (and for) #SiliconValley is their lack of #entrepreneurship. Yes, really: they're bad at being entrepreneurs, at providing the entrepreneurial function in the economy. To put it differently, they are technology driven in their profit-seeking but not consumer

driven. The difference is monumental both for the economy and the companies, and this is why they're failing. No, failing doesn't mean they are necessarily losing money, but that their profits are short-term and that they are undermining their own market positions. The business

they are in is not sustainable. This goes way beyond the selling of eyeballs, which is the focus of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and others. As it's often said, if you are not the paying for the product you *are* the product. Facebook is selling you, and your future purchases, to

their advertisers. The service the company provides is to lure you in, keep you busy, and make sure you don't leave while they feed you ads and collect data on who you are. It's the same with Google's search, maps, etc. But my point is not this, but that the focus by these

technology companies, more broadly, is unentrepreneurial--that they have lost sight of the consumer and, therefore, the real value they facilitate. They're not entrepreneurial. This, in turn, explains their behavior in everything from attempting to steer, direct, if not censor