EU to ban neckties in its offices in the summer. Hurrah!
Today’s FT reports that the European Commission is proposing to ban the wearing of neckties by Eurocrats in the summertime. The excuse is energy conservation; men with open collars (and no jackets) presumably can tolerate warmer offices, saving on air-conditioning.
Whatever.
Getting rid of that ugly, expensive, and uncomfortable badge of middle-classness will certainly improve the quality of EU decision-making by improving the oxygen supply to the brains of the Eurocrats, and perhaps making them less pompous. I’ve often believed that there are certain lies — anything said by Tony Snow, for example — that can only be told by men wearing neckties or women equivalently dressed. Without the tie to mark you as a personage rather than a person, you just couldn’t say that crap without giggling.
Who would have expected such a great blow for hippie/Boomer/Angeleno culture to come from Brussels, of all places?
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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