Just brough my new baby daughter home...
...And become another statistic amongst the unemployed within the same day.
I've been in this place before and now I have all the better the incentive to get looking for work, and fast. Here's hoping that amidst all the gloom that there are things that employers still need employees for.
For those of the praying persuasion, a little help in that department would be appreciated.
T
Was persuaded by my very rotund and frustrated wife to break our normal Saturday malaise with a trip to the Kirkstall Festival this afternoon - weather was nice and I was not much in the mood for housework, so we went, along with our pet labrador, Bonnie.
Amidst the many tents selling their wares for various causes I noticed the following:
Walking along the rest of the Abbey I noticed there was not a single advocate of conservatism, liberalism or libertarianism, and I ask myself why political dialogue was confined to rabid, left-wing ideology.
What was most striking about the event was that these stalls were in the order above as I passed them; reading up on the similarities and differences between the 2 before coming to write this I found the following article; this in particular is telling:
"Socialism is the first step in the process of developing the productive forces to achieve abundance and changing the mental and spiritual outlook of the people. It is the necessary transition stage from capitalism to communism."
"Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—or by vote, as in Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialisation may be total, as in Russia—or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same."
I will be in contact with other members of LPUK next year to see if we can organise something to appear at this and other local fairs; if you like me are few up of a closed-off narrative that merely offs varying levels of theft from your pocket for varying reasons. Then try something different; try LPUK.
Driving home from work last night I often turn on to Radio 4 to listen to Eddie Mair- he tends not to give politicians an easy ride, which is why they must be lining up to take on his standin Carolin Quinn in his absence.
Yesterday evening Rita Donaghy talked about her enquiry findings into fatalities in the construction industry and how they amounted to an equivalent of 1 per day in the UK. She recommended greater protections for workers and the responsibility for good health and safety planning given to the director of any building project, making him prosecutable if the worst happened. Good, I thought. You can read the report here; 365 deaths stopped a year is a noble goal but in the running of things this is quite a good record considering the nature of the work.
It got me thinking about something I read last year here. According to a TPA report based on WHO data were the NHS to have the same “mortality amenable to healthcare” as the average of the other European countries studied (Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain), there would have been 17,157 fewer deaths in 2004, the most recent year for which data is available.
1 death per day in the construction industry attributed (but not proven) to bad health and safety management.
vs.
47 deaths per day (at the last count) caused by poor management of disease and by a system that champions scarcity & rationing as a virtue over good healthcare outcomes - you need only look at Jade Goody's case to understand how this comes about.
Do not get me wrong; I have several friends in the health service who do many difference jobs; doctors, nurses, admin (in my younger days I temped in admin roles in many hospital departments - at one point for over a year in one) and in many of these cases deaths are not always down to poor treatment; the reason for these death I believe are 3 fold:
1. Risk is supplanted by regulation; regulation leads to more i's dotted and t's crossed but dont account for the rules not covering every possibility that good common sense would; frontline staff merely wish to avoid incurring the wrath of the clipboard wielders and, as our MP's expenses scam proves, it so much easier to state you were playing "within the rules".
2. As far as users of the NHS are concerned it is a free service; you dont have to pull out your wallet to pay for treatment ergo it must be free. This assumption is not just an oddity within the NHS but widespread socialist consensus-think has taught us - that nothing important in this country can function without the government sticking its oar in. Thus we do not value our own health or the services which help us when we are sick.
3. The governments attempts to use the private sector as a means of palming off responsibility which rightfully belongs to it (it deeming to control our healthcare system after all) in areas like cleaning, or the more insidious use of PFI or "management consultants" to reduce levels of nursing and support staff leading to faster turnaround for beds and greater risks of infection.
In all 3 cases it is the system that is at fault; you are compelled to buy into 1 system at the barrel of a gun and treated as a right-wing nut when you question the percieved wisdom that 47 deaths per day is a worthy sacrifice to keep this "wonder of the world".
BUT THERE IS ANOTHER WAY
The Libertarian Party manifesto for health is deceptively simple; government doesn't hold the key to the best healthcare system; you do - if you care about your life then you need to take responsibility over it. Understanding your own mortality, accepting it and the cost it takes to keep you healthy in terms of what you do to yourself and how you mitigate the risks when the worst happens is part of that.
For me I believe the best outcome would come from combinatorial medical savings accounts and insurance; considering fully comprehensive insurance for me, my wife and the little one due to arrive any day now would be approximately £80 for all of us (compared to roughly £200 each from my wife and me for NI contributions, considering our employers double these) the cost to offset our insurance against a tax free medical savings nest egg we could take to any provider would ensure the best outcome; the one we want. For those of us unfortunate to have long term ailments this could be covered by a fairer national insurance tax which also covers emergency and maternity services (accidents and healthcare for people who have had little say in needing it should not be forced to pay for it); the costs of these relative to other sections of the NHS are relatively small and manageable.
For a better idea of how this would work; look here.
WORD #2: Regulation: the wiktionary describes the term "regulate" in the following way:
To dictate policy; To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law; To adjust to a particular specification or requirement: regulate temperature; To adjust (a mechanism) for accurate and proper functioning; To put or maintain in order: regulate one's eating habits
Regulation should be an extend from our negative liberties, i.e. be the consequence to infringement on the rights of another, i.e. prison for a thief or murderer agreed upon by all as a means to resolve issues.
EXAMPLE OF COMMON MISUSE: Many believers in the sovereignty of government over our lives rather than over our laws believe that regulation to be a means of correcting "inequality"; this comes from the mistaken belief that laws should be formed to enable positive liberty and/or "equality" - that is "equality of outcome" rather than "equality of opportunity". They develop "regulations" which deprives wealth creators of the fruits of their labours in order to distribute these to others less able.
More so they erect "regulations" which impede the ability of the better able to create wealth so that the less able are led to believe they can compete, ignoring the obvious caveat that it is not through their own ability but by their recognition with those in authority as being less able, or worse, being a group with pull in political circles.
ALTERNATIVE WORD/TERM FOR IMMEADIATE REPLACEMENT: Regulation should form the bedrock of our liberty and should give us all an equal footing to pursue justice; if a manufacturer knowingly hides a fact about their product which lead to a persons injury or death, or a company pollutes land that does not belong to there should be a means of pursuing justice within the court; it is not a perch for others to gain a foothold over others, such as is happening with the CFP, CAP, the BPD or REACh; all of which enable certain groups to gain advantages over others without having to rely on their own natural abilities, but government pull. Regulation at the point of a gun is no longer regulation - it is:
DICTATULATION
i.e. "You will behave have in a certain way in order to constrain your natural ability, so that others less able and/or with better political pull will be able to compete with your reduced ability rather than their equal one; your ability to create wealth is less important than our pursuit of "equality"."
From now on, any use of the word "regulation" when describing a means of constraining human activity where it does not necessarily infringe upon anothers liberty or "equality of opportunity" shall henceforth be corrected with the above term.
Next time: democracy
cross-posted here
THIS IS A NOTIFICATION THAT THE FAIR USE OF THE FOLLOWING TERM UTILISED BY THE LEFT AND OUR POLITICAL MASTERS HAS NOW EXPIRED; YOU HAVE ABUSED IT TO BREAKING POINT AND IN THE INTERESTS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR THE CITIZENRY AND USERS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IT IS BEING REMOVED FROM YOUR USE: FURTHER ATTEMPTS AT DOING SO WILL BE CORRECTED BY YOUR BETTERS BY THE FOLLOWING NEW WORD OR PHRASE CAREFULLY SELECTED TO DESCRIBE THE ACTUAL CONCEPT YOU ARE TRYING TO EXPLAIN.
WORD #1: Privatisation: Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector (government) to the private sector (business). In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement (wiki article here).
EXAMPLE OF COMMON MISUSE: Most common misuse today is to describe the actions of our government with regard to the rail network, e.g. here. The problem being that this is by no means a service that is run privately, i.e. with complete autonomy over the running of there business, their routes and their fees, all of which are set by political diktat with little wiggle room. This concept is best exemplified by a fruit seller who is told he may only sell one particular type of fruit, at one particular price, irrespective of the cost or desire of the customer. This program is largely administered by corporate groups who know full well that without full control over the running of their business they are destined to fail - to this end they can continually rely on government support to keep them ashore - the benefit to the politico is they can blame "capitalist greed" for the failure of such a service; the "capitalist" themselves just keep taking the millions - the taxpayer just gets screwed.
Other examples of its misuse has been identified when describing (either fearfully or fervently depending on the group you are talking to) what is happening to the NHS or any of our social or welfare services under a Bory government.
ALTERNATIVE WORD/TERM FOR IMMEADIATE REPLACEMENT: As this is, effectively, a means of politicos keeping control of something but diverting the vitriol of the public onto "private" business this will require a term rather than outright work - the recommendation for immeadiate correction of the misuse of the term PRIVATISATION is:
POLITICAL-FAILURE-MITIGATION
Users of the term "PRIVATISATION" are reminded that, with regards to the fair use of the English language, they will now be expected to use the new term to describe, accurately, what they mean when they describe what is happening to the railway network and, more extensively, what is happening to public transport in general in this country.An example of a private system used to great effect in many countries (and which has raised living standards in the developing world especially) is the "share-taxi" system. Any concept related to this, where the emphasis is on results and require minimal state intervention, may be described under the rules of fair use as privatisation.
tomorrow: Regulation.
Cross-posted here.
