Climbing Mt Everest

What’s the biggest story today? It is the US president, Trump, threatens new tariffs on Mexico. However, I want to talk about something else and come back to this topic tomorrow. Today, I want to discuss about climbing Mt Everest, which is the world highest peak.

The world highest peak is a definitely a challenge for anyone to climb. Since it is so high, climbing is very dangerous and many people have died on their way to the peak. Under such circumstance, we should not see many people climbing the mountain. Right? No, we can see photo shot on the 22nd May showing a long queen of climbing waiting to climb up to the peak and 11 deaths have been reported. Why are there so many people putting themselves into such dangerous sport, if we can call it a sport.

The cost of climbing Mt Everest is not cheap. A climber can be charged $25,000, some companies may charge a bit cheaper and some may charge more expensive, and recent years, Nepalese companies undercut the market and make the trip cheaper than previously; however, this is never a cheap trip. Moreover, the gears these climbers have to carry are not cheap as well. Overall, this is something mainly for the wealthy people.

Among the wealthy people, there are still some people who are richer than the others. Lowering the cost of climbing increases the number of climbers significantly. The Nepalese companies lower the price by approximately a half, but the number of climbers more than doubles. This shows that the wealth distribution among the wealth class is not distrusted fairly either.

What does Brexit really mean to the UK population?

Britain is about to leave the European Union in October, British people want to know how Brexit will affect their lives. There have been many economists predicting that Brexit will cost the UK many jobs and economic opportunities. My opinion is almost the same. However, I think that what people may care more if how their individual lives will be affected rather than how the entire economy will be affected.

Different groups of people will be affected differently. Pensioners are almost unaffected in terms of their incomes; however, their asset valuations will be affected by Brexit. People who are in senior positions in their companies or organisations will be less affected, as their jobs are much more secure than their junior colleagues, because their experiences make them less replaceable. For the UK students, Brexit might be good. At the moment, the EU students enjoy the same level of tuition fees at UK universities as the local students; after the UK leaves the EU, the EU students may need to pay the overseas student tuition fees, this could reduce the demand from the EU students for the UK education, which means less competition for the UK students. For those who depend on benefits, their lives are very challenging at the moment and will stay challenging after Brexit.

The most immediate change brought by Brexit is the consumer goods in stores. The prices will be increased when the UK leaves the common market, since the UK imports lots of goods from the continent, for example, the UK imports lots of fruits from Spain. Anything imported from the EU will become more expensive. This will significantly affect many ordinary people's lives in the UK. Moreover, some British people may take back some low paid jobs from other EU nationals in the UK, the labour cost will be higher, so some services will cost more after the UK leaves the EU.

Overall, there are some jobs at risk; however, such risk is relatively limited, especially in the short term. I think that the major immediate impact of Brexit is an inflation driven by costs.

How dangerous is Tesla?

There have been many bad stories about Tesla, its bad Q1 performance, its battery burnout after crashes, the ongoing trade war, the unstable pricings, the cost issues and the list can go on. The price of Tesla stock has been almost halted and it seems it is unlikely to see a bounce back in the near future. If the investors lose their confidence in Tesla completely, Tesla can inevitably end up with filing bankruptcy.

When investors invest in Tesla, they are attracted by Elon Musk’s innovative idea which can boost the share price. Tesla is a company which is burning lots of cash every day, it needs to continuously get cash from its investors until it can reach sustainably profitability. Tesla has to make itself attractive to investors and the share price is one important factor for attracting investors. When the share price drops to a lower price, it can make some investors lose their confidence in Tesla while attracting those who still have faith in Tesla to buy more stocks; however, a fast drop can only make investors lose their confidence. What Tesla really needs at this moment is stabilising its share price and rebuilding their investors confidence. This is why Elon Musk announced his ambition in the taxi business. Tesla really needs just one piece of good news to rebuild its investors confidence and stabilise its share price.

Buying or holding Tesla stocks is an extremely risky investment. The probability of Tesla heading to bankruptcy is not low as Tesla still needs to burn their investors’ money and the fast dropping share price can potentially cut off Tesla’s life support. However, it doesn’t mean there is no chance for Tesla’s comeback, one quarter’s good performance may be able to overturn the situation. 

What does the EU election result mean?

The EU held an election for the European Parliament and the result provides pro-EU people with some good news and some bad news. Liberal parties gain more support than far right and left parties, given the election result; however, there are some exceptions, as in France and Italy, the far right parties gained more votes than their countries' ruling parties did. The election result in the UK I think gives us some implication about the public opinion about the relationship that the UK should have with the EU. The Brexit Party, which was only established six weeks ago and is led by Nigel Farage, dominated the UK's European Parliament election. Although the turnout rate was very low, this result still sends a strong message.

The UK population is not happy about the ongoing Brexit process. The Prime Minister seems that she has already lost her battle for her proposed Brexit deal with the EU in the Parliament. The Labour Party wants another EU referendum; since they lost votes comparing with their previous election result, they may need to reconsider their EU referendum idea. The Conservative Party did not perform well either, showing at least the people who voted in the election are disappointed about the Conservative Party. Additionally, the low turnout rate I think was caused by two factors. The first factor is that this election does not change anything domestically in the UK, so it was not important. The second factor is that the population are confused and the people may not know what is really good for their country.

However, nothing is changed by the election result. Not only because this election is not important, but also because fundamental problems surrounding Brexit are still there. There is no Brexit strategy or policy that can win the majority support in the Parliament. The only thing that wins the majority approval is there cannot be a no-deal Brexit, and this is near nothing, Because if the Parliament cannot negotiate a deal with the EU by the time when the UK has to leave the EU, then there will be a no deal Brexit.

Overall, the election result is a message that the UK people send to the politicians, but such message I think will not change the fundamental problem about how the UK leaves the EU.

How to avoid scalpers?

Many popular concerts, games (football matches) and other kinds of events attract scalpers and tickets are often sold out in minutes or even seconds after they are made available. Such thing is very annoying to those who truly want to get the tickets and need to buy from scalpers at much higher prices. Is there a system that can prevent scalpers from buying too many tickets?

I think that there is a way, which is auction. Normally these events want to be fair, so they sell all their tickets once at constant prices, whether or not people can buy these tickets depends on how fast they can reach out to the tickets. However, scalpers do have faster access to these tickets (for example, specialised software), then scalpers have their profitable opportunities in such system. If we have an auction system, the people who value the tickets the highest will get the tickets and obviously scalpers are not those who value the tickets high (otherwise, they will not re-sell their tickets). However, this may be time consuming, when the number of tickets is relatively large. Therefore, the auction I propose is an all-pay auction, for example, if there are 1000 tickets, the 1000 bidders who place the highest bids will get the tickets. In an all-pay auction, all people who place their bids will pay despite whether they are losers or winners. Because people are risk averse, they will not place any bid which is higher than their expected returns. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume scalpers are more risk averse than true fans are, because they are doing business, then it is very likely for true fans to place higher bids than scalpers if scalpers also bid for tickets. Then after several events scalpers will disappear as they are not possible to get tickets.

However, there is a potential risk that all-pay auctions are not a straightforward system which requires some learning process, this can give opportunities to scalpers when this system is first adapted. Once people are more familiar with the system, there will much fewer opportunities left for scalpers.

What’s going on around the world?

Lots of things are happening around the world, and the world has been becoming much more exciting now in both good and bad ways. The two major events that attract the most attentions are Brexit and the trade tension between China and the US. The former will re-shape the economic and political orders in Europe and the latter will re-shape the global trade, economic and political orders; therefore, the latter has a more significant impact on the world. However, Brexit may have side effects beyond Europe. For example, after Britain leaves the EU, Britain will become ‘available’ to the global markets without much constraint from the EU (depending on what Brexit deal the UK will form with the EU), countries outside the EU will gain more opportunities to do businesses with the UK, the UK also gains more opportunities outside the EU. However, at the moment, Brexit transition is not smooth at allm as I have repeatedly said that there is not a plenty of mutual interests to unite all Brexit interest groups to cooperate and bring a Brexit deal that can gain sufficient support to make it passed in the Parliament. Meanwhile, the trade tension between China and the US is escalating. The ban on Huawei is likely to be expanded and applied to more Chinese companies while China implies that it still has one important card in its hand, rare earths. Besides the trade war ongoing with China, the US domestic political fights have reduced the efficiency of the government and law making. The Democratic Party cannot get its infrastructure plan signed by the President whom the party is thinking to impeach. Additionally, the Democratic Party is not internally united that there are different opinions inside the Party regarding whether or not to impeach the President. The presidential election is coming and there are two dozens of Democratic politicians fighting to be the candidate presenting the Party. 

Updates to the trade tension between China and the US

Huawei has attracted a lot of public attention since the US government placed a ban on Huawei. The US government does not ban Huawei from involving in building the 5G in the US but also ban US firms from doing business with Huawei. The former was largely expected by the public, since the US government had talked about this ban for a long time and tried to make its allies also ban Huawei in their 5G building. The latter was a surprise. Banning US firms from doing business with Huawei can be expanded to a larger scale and become a ban applying to more Chinese firms. This is a two-edge sword that definitely hurts both sides, which can be shown that both the Chinese stock market and the US stock market were drugged down by the release of this US policy.

Let's talk about Huawei, which probably is the firm that attracts the most attention at the moment. Huawei has been given a reprieve that the US companies can continue doing business with the company for three more months; however, the company founder, Ren Zhengfei, said in an interview that the grace period 'doesn't mean much'. Moreover, all information that came out of the company shows that the company has prepared itself for being independent of its US suppliers including the software supplier, Google. It is undoubted that the technology gaps between China and the US in some sectors are still significantly observable. This cutting-off can affect Huawei's business, especially its overseas business. However, it also means a huge loss for the US companies. The US chip makers are making chips for Huawei as well as other Chinese smartphone makers. The smartphone makers do not perform as well as they did, except Huawei. Huawei is the only major smartphone maker that experienced a sales increase in the first quarter of 2019. The sales increase was not a minor increase, Huawei experienced a over 50% year-over-year increase and made itself the second largest smartphone maker in the global market. Losing such client is definitely a big loss to these chip makers as well as other suppliers.

Of course, it is not all bad news for Huawei. Although the US is putting efforts to push Huawei out of the 5G global market, many countries including some US allies have not shown the willingness to block Huawei from building their 5G networks. In addition, we do not exactly what benefit 5G will bring to is. Huawei is the leader in 5G and provides the lowest price in the market; without Huawei, the 5G in the US can cost much more and slow down the development in 5G, since the lower ratio of return to cost in the US due to the higher cost reduces the attractiveness in 5G investment.

Brexit: where is the UK heading

The UK prime minister, Theresa May, is forced by the MPs from her own party to announce her departure time that she has promised to give the timetable next month. This would mean that a new prime minister will be in charge before the UK leaves the European Union if the UK leaves the EU as scheduled. At the moment, it seems that there is no chance for the UK to get out of the current circumstance via a cross-party talk, as the leader of the Labour Party told the Prime Minister that the discussions have “gone as far as they can”.

I personally think that the schedule for the UK leaving the EU can be potentially delayed again. At the moment, there is only one thing that gains the approval by the majority which is the UK should not leave the EU without a deal.  while anything specific about how the UK should leave the EU does not gain enough support in the Parliament. When the UK is not likely to leave the EU without a deal, then the schedule of leaving the EU can be delayed if there is no deal.

Furthermore, at the moment, though the Prime Minister May want to make some progress before she leaves the office, the Parliament may not like a Prime Minister who will leave his or her office shortly making important calls for the nation’s future. Therefore, I do not expect much progress to be made before May leaves her position.

Gender discrimination

Gender discrimination has been a serious social issue for centuries. Nowadays, many governments have made laws to correct gender discrimination and other discriminations (such as race discrimination); however, the effectiveness of these anti-discrimination is limited in many cases that though we are no longer experiencing de jure gender discrimination, de facto gender discrimination still exists. In the UK, female workers are generally paid lower than their male colleagues. The gender discrimination is partially caused by some prejudgment about "female" characteristics. Many people think that females are more emotional but less rational than males, and such prejudgment affects females' performances exogenously and endogenously.

There are more and more female executives and politicians which are assumed to the "leading" class of the society. It does not mean that they are not affected. In the financial sector, females are more likely to be positioned in marketing and client relation while the number of females in actual managing assets and making investment decisions is significantly small. In addition, there are some funds which are managed by females, though they outperform many man-led funds, they do not attract as many investors as man-led funds, and they often experience difficulties of finding investors, such case is largely because the existing prejudgment of the society make males more trusted with managing investment.

Overall, in many societies, it is hard to see de jure gender discrimination, but solving de facto gender discrimination still has a long way to go.

Book recommendation

I would like to recommend a book, “Feeling smart” by Eyal Winter. I need to admit I have not read this book but I have read his papers which are relevant to this book; I am sure this views in this book will inspire me as much as his papers which provide me with a different angle to look at people’s emotion and the rationality deep inside us. Eyal Winter suggests that feelings can change outcomes (angry feeling can provide more payoff in some cases) and people only change their feelings to gain more payoff. He gave an example that students can appeal to their university about their exam results, the satisfaction rate when students are easier to make appeals is lower when the rule is more stricter, because it can potentially increase their chances of getting more marks when they are sad, angry (the unsatisfied feelings).

This theory can work in a much general environment. We always say when a person is grown up, he or she has a higher EQ; and we may find some people who have brilliant IQ do not have brilliant EQ. These can be explained by this theory. When we are growing up, we realise that being nice can give ourselves more benefits, we will become nicer. Moreover, smart guys may be “lazy” to be nice, since they are smart enough to get great payoff and being nice is not effortless, they may not want to take extra effort to be nice. However, this is a theory, and I believe especially in social science, theories can only explain part of the truth in the reality.

Overall, I highly recommend this book because it builds a bridge between game theory and psychology, emotion was never considered from the rationality aspect.

How reliable is the market performance as an indicator?

The market performance is driven by news to move up and down and often used as an indicator of whether the news is positive or negative towards the economy. In general, it is a good indicator as the market performance can show the change in investors’ expectations of the future economic performance, especially the general performance of firms. Maybe one or two investors’ changes in expectation do not reflect the true nature of news; the market as a whole can reliably reflect the nature because it is less likely for the entire market to be wrong and often the future is actually driven by people’s expectations.

However, we cannot ignore that the market sometimes overreacts or underreacts to information. The up and down changes of the market can be caused by various factors. It can be market is self-correcting that the market can be too excited at the beginning then calm down afterwards. Or the market is driven by speculators who are seeking gains from the volatility of market. Or both. Therefore, in terms of reliability, we may be able to say that the implication of the market performance is reliable to some degree, but we need to always be aware of the market performance is one indicator which has its weakness and there are many other indicators. To have a full image, we need to see from many different angles and this does not only work for the economy.

The trade tension between China and the US

The trade tension between China and the US is escalating that while the US imposes tariffs on all Chinese imports, the Chinese government announces that it will raise tariffs on $60bn in American goods. Although the US raised tariffs first and the counter action from the Chinese side should not be a surprise, the US president was unhappy about the Chinese tariff hike that he tweeted "China should not retaliate-will only get worse".

The increasing trade tension has dragged down the global market performance, implying the trade tension is expected by the market to have significantly negative impacts on the global economy at least in the short term. Trade is not a zero sum game that trade can help to improve the efficiency of resource allocation; the increasing trade tension between these two major economies will worsen the global resource allocation and affect the world economic outputs, this will likely lead to a cost-push inflation. A cost-push inflation will affect ordinary people's living standard and even cause a social instability; in addition, China and the US are the biggest two economies on the earth, this means there will be no exception that all economies will be affected by the trade tension. Furthermore, because of the scales of these two economies, it is difficult to find alternatives, China and the US are the two major markets that no economy can ignore.

What will happen next? I personally do not think that the trade tension can be resolved in the short term, the world economy will be affected by this and there may not be immediate significant result for this quarter but as the time passes, the consequence will become more significant.

What's next between China and the US?

The trade negotiation between China and the US are not going well that the latest round failed to reach a deal on Friday. The US trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, said the US president Donald Trump had ordered him to impose tariffs on all Chinese imports. This move is damaging to the trade talk and the relationship (including but not limit to trade relationship) between the two countries. However, neither side ends the trade talk and keeps the talk going.

I think that both the US government and the Chinese government believe the market is vulnerable at the moment and if the countries end the trade talk right now, it will create a significantly negative shock to the global market. Though keeping the talk going will keep the resolve of the trade tension still possible, it does not help to improve the current situation and mitigate the tension between the two countries. The tension between the two countries have increased due to Trump's decision of imposing tariffs on all Chinese imports.

Though Trump tweets about how good his relationship with the Chinese president, it does not seem that the current trade war can end anytime soon. Details have not been released to the public, so we do not know where the two countries have strong disagreement. However, after so many rounds of talks, it seems the disagreement still remains and the two countries may not reach any deal in the near future.

Do we more often have negative feelings

When I was young, I remember I was happy at most time; at the moment, I am not saying that I am sad or unhappy, but the time when I am happy is much less and I feel much more 'normal' and 'stable'. I personally think that people are easier to become more negative than to become more positive.

First, in the real world, there are many zero sum games, and the people with more power and resources are easier to win and they are the minority of the population while the losers and potential losers are the majority of the population. The Chinese stock market can be seen as an example. Secondly, the resources are scarce, when some people feel happier because they have greater resourcs, some others who lose their resources and/or opportunities to these people feel unhappy or even angry. Thirdly, people are loss aversion and risk aversion, when they see the losses of others, they may start to estimate the poosibility that they are facing these losses. Fourthly, people tend to overestimate small probilities and the loss aversion makes people more sensitive about their losses comparing with their gains.

Overall, because of loss aversion and other factors, I think that people are easier to be upset.

The US attitude on the trade relationship with China

The US presidential election is coming and there have been over a dozen of Democratic politicians running for the next president. They rarely attack each other and they mostly attack the current US president, Donald Trump. Many of these candidates attack Trump from the moral aspect and criticise him about not punishing the Russians for its meddling in the previous presidential election and instead allowing the Russians to keep influencing the US elections. In addition, Trump is also criticised about his policies making the rich richer (his tax cuts) and making the poor more difficult (removing the Obama care). His attitudes towards foreigners and minority groups are also criticised by the media and the opposition. However, we are missing one important thing in Trump's presidency, which is his foreign policy with China.

Trump's foreign policies do often face criticism from the Democrats, especially some 'hostile' attitudes towards its allies and too 'friendly' attitudes towards Russia and North Korea. It seems that Trump quite enjoys his time with the Chinese president, Xi, but this does not prevent him from launching the trade war with China. The trade war with China faces some level of criticism from the media, but it has not been a major issue in the ongoing presidential election campaign and debate. There can be several reasons to explain this. First, the trade war with China is difficult to say what exact outcome will be, it is hard to conclude it is definitely bad for the US. Secondly, the trade war may make much more sense than many of Trump's other policies, it is much easier to attack his other policies. Thirdly, some politicians from the Democratic Party may agree with Trump and they also believe a more powerful China can threaten the US and impact the global interests of the US.

Overall, the one which is causing much uncertainty may not be as likely as many people expect to be changed by new leadership if a new president is elected next year.

The trade negotiation

The trade negotiation has been clouded by the US president Trump's tweets and the rising uncertainty about the negotiation has dragged the global stock market down. Trump personally wants to increase the tariffs on Chinese imports and reduce the US trade deficits by lowering its imports; on the other hand, the Chinese government knows the US demand is to lower its trade deficits with China, and seeks a different way that can reduce the costs for China but is able to achieve the same goal, China wants to purchase more US goods and services, especially many agricultural products including soya beans and some high tech equipment which the US does not want to include as part of the trade deal.

The US way will have a greater negative impact on the Chinese economy, as the industries which rely on exporting to the US will be deeply affected. However, if China and the US choose to narrow the trade gap by China purchasing more US goods, the Chinese companies will continue to export their goods and the US economy will be benefited by more exports to China at least in the short term. Therefore, if China withdraws its previous agreement about purchasing more US agricultural products because the US wants to increase the tariffs, then the US agricultural industry will be affected and at least miss a huge opportunity.

Of course, the US idea has its own reason. Increasing the tariffs can increase the competitiveness of its industries in general domestically, instead of only several specific industries.

OMG, Tweets

It is another bad day for the global stock market due to Trump’s tweet habit. Trump’s tweets have been causing huge uncertainty towards the market and they could lead to market rise and fall. Why does the market respond to Trump’s tweets? First, Trump is the president of the United States, the largest economy on the earth. Secondly, as the president, Trump’s words can be used as a guidance of the US’s domestic and foreign policies. Thirdly, Trump’s tweets are generally believed to be spoken out of his heart.

However, what Trump has tweeted about has not always been true. Some tweets are his wishes, but due to the constraints and the reality, they have not come true. Moreover, some of his tweets are bluffing about the situation and his power in order to gain some advantages. Such tweets are not helpful to the reality if all parties are fully informed; however, the market is not fully informed about the situation, for example, the market will never know what exactly is happening in the negotiation room of the trade talk between the US and China, which is definitely known by the two governments. Therefore, the two governments know what will happen to the trade relationship between the two countries, but the market has to rely on the public information released by the governments. At the moment, the Chinese government has been remaining low profile about this important trade talk and there has not been much official information released by the US government. Under such circumstance, the market may have to rely on the information released via unofficial channels. One of the unofficial channels is Trump’s twitter account. As the US president, his information should be credible and accurate; therefore, the market takes the information coming from the US president as the real information.

Because there is a chance that the US president is not necessarily giving the truth, the market is acting volatilly when Trump tweets. Too much volatility is not good for investors, under such circumstance, I think nothing is better than Trump’s tweets.

The UK local election

The local election in the UK has ended and the result I think largely reflects the population’s feelings about the government and the Parliament’s Brexit progress. Brexit has not made any real progress, and the population has a reason to blame the majority party, which is the Conservative party. The Conservative party suffered the worst local election in the last 20 years that the party lost 37 councils and more than 1000 seats. Usually the loss of the party in power means the win of the biggest opposition party; however, ironically the Labour Party also lost 86 seats in the local election. The defeat of the two parties I think was caused by the population’s disappointment about the current Brexit progress. The Conservative party does not have clear Brexit plan or strategy that though the Prime Minister has proposed a Brexit deal, the deal has faced a wide opposition within the Conservative party. In addition, it seems that the Labour Party does not want to cooperate with the Prime Minister who was looking for the support from the Labour Party. In addition, neither party is willing to form a cross-party cooperation to make any real progress on Brexit. Furthermore, given the current situation, the supporters for remaining in the EU are much angrier and the support for the Conservative party in the area where the majority supports remaining in the EU fell by a third based on the election rate.

On the other hand, the Liberal Democrats are the biggest winner of the local election. However, based on the current electoral system, the Liberal Democrats may further expand its political power in the next general election, but the expansion could be relatively limited.

Labour Market in the New Era

Labour market largely determines one economy's performance and structure. When wage level is relatively low, the economy is likely to focus on manufacturing; when wage level is high, the economy is highly likely to focus on high value added industries. Labour market is determined by other factors in the economy as well as the society. Usually labour market with a high general wage level is in a society where the population receives high level of education and is productive.

At the moment, labour market is facing another "revolution", which is led by the development of AI and robots. Though I said that AI and robots would not cause an immediate impact, they will inevitably influence labour market as well as economy and cause a structural change. The development will further advance the power of capitalists. There are several factors of production - land, capital, labour and entreprise. What factor of production does the ordinary people control? Most ordinary people have labour as their main contribution to the economy's production, while at least two out of the other three factors are largely controlled by capitalists, who have the wealth to own land and capital. The development of AI and robots can improve the returns of capital investment in AI and robots, making it more attractive to replace human labours by AI and robots. Of course, people with talent and entrepreneurship are and will be always highly demanded in the labour market; however, some talents might be less significant or importance under the threat from AI and robots.

The wage level in the labour market can be pushed down by AI and robots, even in some technical industries. When the use of AI and robots become more widespread, the demand for AI and robots experts will increase and the wage in this field can increase; however, the demand for other field experts, especially where the jobs can be done by AI and robots, can decrease, the wage level will decrease. On the other hand, capitalists are the biggest winner, since they can enjoy from improved productivity and lower costs of production, they will become wealthier and wealthier and the wealth gap between the wealthiest and the ordinary will become larger and larger.

How biased is a letting agent?

I am currently looking for renting an apartment through a letting agent. I am definitely this letting agent's client; however, my landlord is this agent's client if I find and rent an apartment through this agent. Then this agent needs to take care of both my landlord's benefits and my benefits, often my benefits and my landlord's benefits do contradict. When my benefits contradict with my landlord's benefits, then how does the agent balance its clients' benefits? Is the agent likely to be biased towards any party?

My belief is the agent is very likely to be biased towards the landlord. Landlord is much more likely to stay with the same letting agent than someone who is renting a property because people who rent are likely to move around and different places have different letting agents while properties do not change locations. Therefore, it is not surprising that letting agents are biased towards their long term clients. However, letting agents cannot take no care of tenants' benefits at all, because this will make letting agents difficult to let properties to people and make the tenant periods shorter than they should be. Maybe agents can use information asymmetry to make some more benefits for themselves and their landlords; however, this is not consistent, especially when the Internet has help to improve information perfection.

Overall, letting agents are likely to be biased towards their landlord clients, but they still have to take some care of tenants' benefits.

How can robots threaten human labours?

The development in robots and AI has been making some good progress and there is always a question surrounding the development in this field, which is how much threat it causes to human labours. There are some obvious advantage and disadvantages about using robots to replace human labours. 

First, using robots can lower firms' costs of labours, but using robots has a cost of maintenance. Secondly, using robots can increase productivity and robots do not need any holiday or break; on the other hand, it does not mean robots cannot make mistake, robots can make mistakes due to technical issues, human errors and many other factors, once robots fail, it is very likely to have a systematic failure, which can be much more damaging to the firm. Thirdly, using AI or robots reduce the demand for labours, but the requirements for the skills of workers employed become much higher, and overall it may not reduce the overall cost of labours.

Therefore, especially at the starting period, robots should not affect human labours too much, since the cost reduction by using robots is not significant and attractive enough; moreover, even when the technology is more mature, the demand for highly skilled labours can increase and be paid better, because firms cannot bear systematic failure caused by "bad" designs of robots.