I knew it

I'm fat because of those greedy capitalist food makers! It has nothing to do with my love of not starving or my love for new gastronomic experiences. If food wasn't so moorish I could give it up altogether and live on a diet of sunlight (topping up with maltesers when it's overcast).

Via the Filthy Smoker at DK's place and Leg-iron over at his place it turns out that rats fed a diet of dried pellets tasting faintly of wood chipping for one hour a day preferred a diet of fattening foods rich in all sorts of energy, vitamins and minerals which to an animal that has survived and thrived as a scavenger for thousands of year is a godsend.

They've both highlighted some very good points; I've another on the subject of addiction an it comes back from something I read years ago on the subject of addiction.

Some time ago while reading an essay by Theodore Dalrymple (I forget which) I came across an interesting experiment termed Rat Park; in essence the study appeared to show that addiction observed in rats was actually a product of their environment rather than the pharmacological addictiveness of drugs like morphine; given free choice, in this case putting them in ideal conditions to live, feed and breed and have access to pure water and water laced with morphine there was no discernable discremination towards taking morphine. Even introducing rats who had been fed morphine and stressed in cages reverted to no discrimination when put in the park.

Think about this for a second; up to the 1940's and beyond the vast majority of heroin users were fully functioning; they worked, were taxed and didn't break the law (opium was legal in dem days). Fast forward to 2010 and the stresses of welfare-induced poverty have les to thousands simple seeking an escape to the drudgery of modern, crappy life in socialist Britain**.

Back to convenience food - they've posited that it has addictive qualities; if so there is a simple way to confirm this in a more practicle way and also investigate the model for addiction altogether.

Simply take measurements of the body weight and biochemistry of newborn urban street rats compared to their adults by trapping them in their environment and compare the results against their controlled experiment results; this would reveal whether the availability of convenience food actually has a verifiable effect, or whether, like the morphine-fed rats introduced to rat park they quickly found a happy medium. The prevalence of convenience food detritus on the streets is more than an ample food supply and the data set from all those rats more than sufficient.

But then, what are the chances that they'd do something like that though? That would require the "scientist" to not have an agenda*** and only he interested in his hypothesis.

*= am I the only one out there who thinks this was the kind of experiment done by marketing departments? Listen to the following moniker and decide:

nine out of ten rats prefer...

...and it sounds considerably less impressive no?

**= of course collectivist blame the crushing poverty on a whole host of things from Maggie to the Bory's to those filthy industrialists/capitalists/corporations etc., whilst ignoring the fact that whilst poverty is less of an issue now than it was 40 years ago, and almost non-existent when compared to 100 years ago when poverty meant you starved, rather than meant you had to buy own-label; that's why they need the term "relative poverty", which if you think about it is self-defeating as it can never be destroyed by increasing anyones wealth- fact is the only way you can reduce relative poverty is to make everyone poorer.

***= this is probably the most subtle but destructive problem with the scientific process today and almost certainly due to politicisation; scientists go in with a hypothesis which, proven or disproven, led to the advancement of science overall - the most exciting words in science not being "eureka!" ("I have found it!" in Greek kind of) but "that's funny..."

With the kid glove treatment of children by educators and the pathological inability to tell them they are wrong/have failed/are failing, coupled with the vested interest in many wrong theories being right, a la climategate, it is easier and more profitable to have an agenda to be backed up, rather than a theory to be disproven.

More Reasons to be Incandescent

Had to have my V+ box replaced again today after it failed, losing in the process seventy hours worth of film and tv I would probably never watch but wanted to look impressive with having.

Still the technician told my wife something interesting which again makes me all that bit more vitriolic about the EU and the madness it enjoys- apparently not only do you expose yourself to more toxic chemicals and cause severe migraines with those energy saving light bulbs but apparently they also interfere with IR radiation of the type emitted by remote controls, interfering and reducing their effectiveness, even causing complex machines in their vicinity to malfunction in rare cases; no really:

Electronic devices operated by infrared remote control can interpret the infrared light emitted by CFLs as a signal, this limits the use of CFLs near televisions, radios, remote controls, or mobile phones.

So not only is the EU intent on sucking the joy out of life, the economy and the collective free spirit of every country in it, it now deems to push a device on us that will kill us with toxins, pain us with migraines and wreck our possessions.

And all to save the planet, one watt at a time; that will provide me with little succour come the snow we are expecting in Leeds this week, on the first of April, 8 days after spring officially started.

You know a country is really in trouble...

...when the Internet scammers start putting less effort into stealing your money*:

Notification of new security messages

We are upgrading to Serve you better than before, so we need all
our numerous customers to verify their Log in Details


Click here to verify

Thank You..
* Please do not reply to this email, as your reply will not be received. This is an automatic notification of new security messages.

Sincerely,
The Internet Banking Team at HSBC.

Not even an attempt at addressing me in a personal manner nor was there any attempt at using any fake marketing labels from HSBC. Thats just sloppy work....

*=I don't even have a HSBC account!

Fill yer boots

Apparently bereft of ideas about how to sell themselves to the population as anything other than collectivist wastrels and bootlicks they are now looking to the peasants for ideas.

Create Labour's next ad campaign
In recent weeks progressives across the web have produced some striking political imagery on websites like mydavidcameron.com. We’ve stood back and admired this work. Now - for those who want to extend their creative skills we are offering you the chance to produce a poster which we will release on digital adboards over the Easter weekend.

Here's my inspired concept for their digi adboards, delivered in the best possible taste you understand:



Labour: Why Not Try
Another Term of the
Nations Turd Sandwich?

Coming to an idiot census near you soon...

More MyDaves

Sadly inspired by this article

(H/T to fearless leader.)

Coining A New Term Today

Inspired by this piece over at Old Holborn's I am coining a new term that I believe sums up the near pathological contradictions of this man and his party.

People, I give you...sociopatholism, and as with thr cynical libertarians term fascolism I also posit a definition and accompanying adjectives an pronouns (suggestions positively welcome):

sociopatholism.
(so-sheo-paf-o-lism)
Personal: sociopatholist
Adjective: sociopatholistic
Noun:
1. Hegelian ideology which attempts to merge 2 or more contradictory values together.
2. Political belief system in which practicalities are not merely obstacles to overcome but are merely non-existent; the belief that socioeconomic realities are dealt with instantly by legislation and that unintended consequences are either non-existent, unimportant (with no accompanying regard to those it affects directly) or merely a product of another mitigating factor altogether disconnected from the original.
3. Value system driven purely by pathological self-interest with accompanying disregard for others wellbeing; the self-regarding nature of this scheme means success is either fitted around the outcome or the outcome is ignored completely with an accompanying detachment from reality.

Spread the word!

Yet More Indications We Are Ruled By Thieving, Conniving Turds

A Labour MP yesterday. Hope he's got receipts for those

Honestly how is it we are still ruled over by thieves, liars and corrupted souls? When was someone going to tell me Byers was still around causing trouble? Whether he's allowing his buddies to loot British car manufcturers and the taxpayer or undermining the privatised rail industry stock price to enable the government to renationalise it on the cheap, putting old retirees on the breadline he's bad news anywhere he goes*.

Guido and the sunlight centre have him pegged and are petitioning our Buffy to have the "right honourable" bit removed from his name in an official capacity - it was probably removed long ago in the unofficial one. Ofcourse on present form the Queens actions tend not to extend beyond arm waving but we can live in hope.

To make matters worse the Daily Fail is saying that as ex-cabinet ministers they are in line for peerages; this is insult on lasting injury.

What is the panacea to all of this? Politicians will tell you it us mire QUANGOs, more faux-scrutiny and more money to stop them stealing from us or undermining the rule of law; I have a simpler, more elegant solution: a recall law.

Have a localised recall law which comes into effect after the mp's first year in power that allows his constituents to remove him upon collection of more than 51% of registered voters (NOT popular votes; we've all got to want rid of them, not just the ones who are bothered enough to turn up; the right to recall should ensure this figure is closer to the popular one) which immeadiately calls for a byelection.

Likewise a national referrenda (again based on total registered voters not the popular vote) for the removal of a lord which requires a 1% higher than that of the mps who voted to give them a seat in a secret ballot for the lords.

I still think there is some stock to keep the Lords, and that democratising it needs to be done carefully; the only thing that should prevent a Lord entering the upper house is being behind bars and/or being recalled by the citizenry, not the autocracy.

And This Comes As A Surprise To Whom Exactly?

Via the Dirty Flail:

Militants behind the British Airways strike have a secret agenda to take control of the Labour Party, the Daily Mail can reveal.

The hard-Left clique which runs the giant Unite union plans to 'reclaim or refound' Labour, dumping Blairite policies in favour of old-style socialism.

They believe that, because Labour needs union cash to stay afloat, Unite can control its political direction.

Would love to be behind a glass partition when a daily mail hack is told the pope is indeed a catholic and the dali llama isn't actually a llama; and bears do indeed crap in the woods.


-- Post From My iPhone

Predictions for #budget2010

A KFC in every bucket, and an uninsured vauxhall nova in every yard.

Either that or the party slogan (pick any party, doesn't matter).

Vote same. Get same.

The Non-Ideal Solution to Meow Meow

A lot has been made of the use and dangers of legal highs recently, particularly with the deaths of 2 children in Scunthorpe thought to be linked to "Meow meow" or mephedrone as it is known chemically.

Whilst drug deaths, especially those where children are involved are heartbraking I remain convinced that the calls of those directly affected for a ban are misguided whilst those of their political masters are purely taking advantage of the situation; either through more thorough control over us proles or, though a more cynical reason there is none, for political gain (particularly odious considering the cause of these childrens deaths isn't entirely as clear cut); if there were any proportionality to there reasoning why not ban alcohol and tabacco, blowing up distilleries.

Boatang has recorded some of the goings on with prohibition over the last century; he makes the standard libertarian arguements, and I agree with them. All.

Problem is as I found out in very practical terms recently people put very little stock in arguements that are inherently pro-freedom; they are geared to accept a smaller world view and find the path of least resistance in simple punitive arguements of one group or another (Melanie Philips being a case in point).

That is why I would like to propose an alternative to outright legalisation which would reduce the prevalence of deaths attributable to drug taking whilst curbing the spread: expand the powers of the MHRA to include recreational drugs of all kinds (including alcohol and tabacco) and alter the remit of drug laws to inform peoples of the risks involved.

Additionally tax it as you would any other legal recreational drug; weight for weight recreational drugs like alcohol and tabacco mitigate the costs associated with their use many times over - possibly one of the only reasons why they've not been banned outright by a bansturbating parliament, plus the fact that they are populist, attention-seeking scumbags probably figures into it quite heavily too. Either way one of the most egregious aspects of prohibition has been the lack of research that goes into these drugs; a fact that through much of their history has led to pathways of research being controlled by some particularly unsavoury elements, which can never be a good thing.

Drug licencing means that credible research will have to be done into the effects of these drugs in their pure form and delivery methods will be improved - we will swap pharmaceutical-grade talc and polyols for brick dust and cut glass currently used.

All the while drug development can continue in a self-sustaining manner; the burdens of abuse becoming self-mitigated problems.

This isn't ideal; I am effectively calling for the problem of recreational drugs to fall out of one government agencies lap (the police and justice agencies) into another (the regulatory bodies) and to ensure comparisons can be drawn include tabacco (alcohol is covered by strict GMP guidelines making it less worthwhile); the outcome of any credible study would probably make uncomfortable reading for some users of current legal drugs.

All in all though I am advocating a net increase in the individuals freedom; not everyone will make decisions which will be good for them but fewer of those bad decisions will prove fatal or find them taking their life places that will prove impossible to come back from. Drugs will naturally become cheaper and safer, releasing the burden on healthcare and remove the criminal monopsonies that plague our inner cities; the police becoming able to mop up weakened and impoverished criminal gangs.

If the war on drugs teaches us anything it illustrates where denormalising behaviour eventually takes us; to disenfranchise and criminalise an entire subculture merely impoverishes us all.

I am no fan of drugs; I think it is pure escapism, but as a drinker and resident of the UK I have to say of late we have all needed an escape; making drugs pay their own way will only reduce the dependency on them overall and help those who use them become responsible for their own actions.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

It's that time of year again.

Outside of the Leeds Film Festival this is my favourite ongoing event! Yay!


-- Post From My iPhone

Dem Employment Figurhs

Ollie has a good overview of where we are with employment. Amongst all the figures it hard to make out what is really happening as their appears to be a lot of fudging going on. Wat Tyler has more here.

From what I can tell it seems that once people are out of work for a certain period of time they are simply not counted as unemployed but inactive; hence unpopular rising figures that breach the unemployment figure when the Bory's were still in power under Major are simply "disappeared" under a haze of statistics. Tragic.

As Ollie points out none of this accounts for the huge rise in public sector employment* since Laborious came to power; were there a simple way of calculating the rise percentage rise in "diversity managers" and "navel-gazing coordinators" the figures would probably have us up late at night.

That all said I wanted to have my own say on unemployment as it is a concept I became very familiar with 2 days after my daughter was born.

For one thing I hate the phraseology used in describing how people are un/employed; if any of my fellow libertarians are reading this you should hate it also and I'll explain why.

Terms like "economically inactive" put the honus on your activity at increasing economic output, not increasing your own happiness; to our political masters we are little more than a means to an end - if there is anything more at fault for our present darkness it is this concept; it leads and breeds the idea that we are the chattel of a new elite class, allows them to justify encroachments on our freedom and to palm it off to unelected bodies and quangos.

You work for you and yours; there is no greater crime as the one the government has perpetrated on it's people than that which has allowed it to modulate the economy and currency to make you work harder to support it; in a right for the wrong reasons kind of way this report by the left-wing think tank the New Economics Foundation is right - we should have shorter hours**; what they then forget to say that as a consequence of welfarism, cronyism, the sheer cost of the public sector and governments ability to undermine our currency means we are working longer to pay for their mistakes.

I believe what we are seeing is the death throes of an old way of doing things; there was a time when people would buy into the lie that cradle to grave welfarism could be sustainable, that politicians whilst flawed had the best intentions and were altruistic at heart, ultimately that the free market with the honus on competition would create too many losers; now that all those beliefs have been turned on their collective heads us peasants are starting to realise we have voice outside of our troughing representative in this rotten parliament; we just don't know what to shout about.

We have real power at our hands in an innovative market, where the consumer is king.

That ultimately the only real purpose to polticos is to protect this hyper-equality of opportunity, rather than be conjurers of cheap tricks and phony monsters.

Ultimately my view is winning out; there may be some painful death throes but they cannot last.

* = I'm aware that there is a certain sweet irony in the fact that I am currently temping in the public sector; believe me when I say I am trying to make myself value-added and work in one of the only areas which makes a profit (a real profit, not one of those pretend value-added quango profits). Will blog further on thus point when I can be bothered.

**= I would hazard the only difference in my view to the NEF can be put down to one word exchange - should:ought. I want the option to work less and enjoy life more but I respect the right of those who live to work; I doubt the NEF reciprocates this.

Panic Buying

Good God is there no group Gordo won't beat up on and then pander to the next minute like a deranged schizophrenic ex-girlfriend off her meds?

London’s hedge fund and private equity industry won a last-minute reprieve from contentious new European regulations on Tuesday, after Gordon Brown pleaded that the issue be shelved until after the general election.

The personal intervention by the prime minister staved off certain defeat for Britain at a finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels, where France leads a powerful coalition that is calling for tough regulation of the sector.

So having realised the enormous amount of wealth and money these funds generate in the capital he suddenly realises that letting rival countries have a say in the way one of the last best functioning industries in the UK works may not be in the best national interest. Do I hear a mea culpa? Do I chuff.

But the confrontation has only been deferred. Spain, holder of the rotating European Union presidency, signalled that it intended to secure a deal on proposed legislation on the “alternative investments” sector before its term ends in June.

The grandstanding hasn't stopped, but merely delayed- why you ask?

That could create a bruising early test of relations between an incoming Conservative government – if the opposition party wins the election expected on May 6 – and the rest of Europe on an issue of vital economic interest for Britain.

France and Germany have led calls for regulation of hedge funds and private equity, arguing for more disclosure of trading information to supervisors as they pose a systemic risk. Britain accepts the need for regulation but argues that draft rules would be too onerous.

The proposed EU directive mainly affects Britain: an estimated 80 per cent of Europe’s hedge funds and 60 per cent of private equity firms are based in the UK.

To create problems for the Bory's; typical ZanuNuLayabout gerrymandering sleekitness.

So what does this new directive intend to achieve?

The so-called Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive would regulate private equity and hedge funds as well as various other “alternative” funds – such as for commodities, real estate and infrastructure, writes Nikki Tait.

Core measures include requiring fund managers to obtain authorisation before they operate in the EU; satisfying authorities about their internal risk management arrangements; providing certain information to investors; rules on leverage and custodial standards; and rules for offshore funds and managers located in so-called third countries.

The directive must be approved by member states and by the European parliament before it can become law.

So fund managers, with billions entrusted to them by investors to whom they are accountable, to look after their money and make it work for them, are expected to be answerable to an unelected, unaccountable quango in Brussels? Part of the same quangocracy and mediocracy that hasn't had it's own accounts signed off for God knows how long?

The European Commission says the AIF sector in the EU managed about €2,000bn ($2,720bn, £1,900bn) in assets at the end of 2008.

€2 TRILLION is a lot of money from which to cream off a healthy crust (not accounting for all this other points the cash is striped from our unwilling hands. Kerching!

Knowing that Britain would be outvoted in Brussels on Tuesday, Mr Brown made a last-ditch appeal to José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, his Spanish counterpart, to defer a decision by finance ministers on the directive. Downing Street rejoiced at what it portrayed as a diplomatic coup for Mr Brown. “Gordon has spent years building up political capital with key allies in Europe,” said one aide. “Mr Zapatero was very understanding.”

Spain said it wanted to take more time to get a better result.

Pure political point scoring being played by Mr Brown - in the short term he has mitigated the effects of an unelected quangocracy's decisions to further ruin the finance industry of the UK by palming off any decision to the Bory's (potentially) in the next parliament. What's the betting limpet Brown will be on the opposition benches after the GE heckling them about not protecting the finance industry?

And just to prove where the "opposition" lies on this:

However, Mark Hoban, Conservative spokesman for the City, said Mr Brown had been forced to plead for a deferral because he had failed to dilute the directive at an earlier stage. The Tories would base a Treasury minister in Brussels to monitor future legislation.

Notice this is an admission that, either way there is nothing either party can do to stop this; if the EU wants control of this area they will regulate it into submission; this is it's modis operendi since day 1. Also notice that the Bory's actually welcome the chance to interfere in yet more things.

The key issue holding up a compromise deal was disagreement over the conditions on which funds and fund managers based outside the EU – including London-based managers running offshore funds – should be allowed to market to professional investors within the 27-country bloc.

You know all that money we've been buying up Chinese and far east goods with al these years? Now that there is a way of investing that back into the West they want to stop it.

Let me say this as plainly as I can; there was a time long before governments, national or federated, thought their job was to interfere in every facet of our existence; they knew their only role was to protect mens freedom to go about their business without harressment - if a Bernie Madoff-type defrauded you of your lifetime savings he could be tried and put in choky and his assets stripped to pay you back.

The crunch, heck me losing my job, was not caused by greedy bankers and hedge funds; it was caused by the housing being overinflated in an environment of low central-bank interest rates - Brown even then was on course for screwing up the competitiveness of our finance industry and needed an "opiate" to distract us- he was quite happy to let us think the price of bricks and mortar were rising whilst we bet the value of them on our credit cards and the never-never. It is ironic that Spain holding the big seat in the EU and trying to make these laws is also the country which proves it had nothing to do with the banks as that link shows.

When the dust on our country finally settles and we are left impoverised as a result of strangling regulation and job losses, cold when practical proof of the fact that climate change was a con comes in the form of freezing winters and a decrepit, failing energy infrastructure and angry at our increasingly worthless mps, their troughing of the few remaining taxpayers and wonderment that noone in the market wants to buy the hard work of our children and grandchildren (don't get me started on GILTs), when all this has come about the only people to blame will be the ones who felt that these things didn't matter, that all we needed was to change to the "other guys" intent on fixing our broken society without understanding why it was broke in the firstplace.

You vote the same, you get the same.

This Would Get Me Voting For Cambo

I have to say.

I can dream.

While I'm On My Way Home From The Smoke...

Looking back at this story from this week can I reserve the right to call the Government a bunch of "Dog-botherers"? The insinuations are endless...

Who's Lifeline is Mandelson's Vauxhall Deal For?

On my way to the smoke this morning and whilst flicking the telegraph I found this:

The Government has agreed to provide £270m of financial support to Vauxhall to help secure the future of 5,000 UK workers.
After months of negotiations, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, has said that the car maker will receive a €300m (£270m) loan guarantee through the Automotive Assistance Programme.

It gets better:

The financial support, which is subject to a finalising of details between the Government and General Motors, Vauxhall’s owner, will form part of a package worth up to €3.9bn that GM is putting together with governments to finance the restructuring of its European operations.

Vauxhall has 5,000 workers in the UK, primarily at plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton. However, their future has been in doubt since last February, when GM revealed it planned to sell its European business, a proposal it later scrapped.

A brief perusal of wikipedia for those respective areas reveals this:

Ellesmere Port's MP: Andrew Miller (labour)
Majority: 6,486 (15.4%)

Luton North: Kelvin Hopkins (Labour)
Majority: 6,487 (16.6%)

Luton South: Margaret Moran (labour), a women with such a patent disregard for taxpayers money her own party is barring her from standing for them.
Majority 5,650 (14.5%) (not that it matters.)

And Labour dominated councils for each.

“I always said the Government would stand foursquare behind Vauxhall and with this announcement today we have kept our word,” Lord Mandelson said. “These are excellent plants employing a first rate workforce."We need Vauxhall to thrive as part of Britain's automotive manufacturing base and following our negotiations with GM Europe I am confident it will do so”.

Exchange "Vauxhall" for "labour marginals" (for that is what they'll be with 5000 disgruntled unemployed plus loved ones) and you wouldn't notice a difference, you unjust electioneering little turd of a man.

More MyDaves - Topical Edition (tm Tomrat)

Tonight: something about energy. Or not.

Pop-Philosophical Moment of the Day

I've just figured the answer to the classic zen question "If a tree falls in the wood and Boone is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"; no, because biology and physiology tells us so.

To "hear" is to interpet a low frequency waveform created by the release of energy from a source; as the question specifically identifies the ability to interpret this energy and this is omitted then the "sound" doesn't exist.

Quick someone direct me to the president of philosophy!

The Moral Hazard Applies to More Than Just Banking and Business

Just completed a YouGov poll on my way to work; the last question was about Cambo's "sexualisation" of children, saying all the Bory favourites of bashing the media....advertising... Etc

After heartily disagreeing with this theme I left the following comment at the end:

Regarding sexualisation:

The maxim that if you pay more for something you get more of it is all the more true when dealing with the actions and behaviour by our children; a big part of this "problem" (or sexualisation, which is a nebulous, catchall soundbite term and meaningless I'm Cambo's hands) is incentives; a consequence of getting pregnant as a teenager and becoming a single mother is...a council house, bills paid and a modest income. While self control and hard work will put you in line to pay for the former.

This is unsustainable; a product of the social-democratic experiment which is BEng proved to have failed every field it has touched. We ignore the moral hazard in this area whilst our politicos proselytise over a banking industry before engaging in exactly the same actions of removing consequence from action. Again, this is unsustainable.

As regular readers will know I am involved in youth work in my spare time dealing with the sort of clientelle iDave is talking about here; the problem is not oversexualisation or access to materials about sex but about the incentives the state doles out to those who adopt this lifestyle.

In truth th problem is and always has been government, and it's focus on incentivising lifestyle choices; this is as true whether your paying children to have children* as it is when you enable
homosexuals to bully churches into performing acts they are commanded not to**.

The solution? Remove the incentives and treat everyone the same; decades of socialist decay prove you cannot provide this opportunity - only the free run necessary to enabe people to achieve it themselves.

This is why LPUK is so important.

* = it is interesting that the article says nothing about the father responsibilities here; what have we become in our new, feminist enriched paradise when we villify women or making these decisions but completely ignore the mans abrogation of responsibility? Equality? Bullshit.

** = what you do with your genitals is your own business; all I asking is that you keep them to yourself; if you can find it the Southpark Scouts/Big Gay Al episode illustrates what I mean perfectly.

Ashcroft - Are We Missing A Pinacle Moment in History Here?

Via Guido comes this piece about the "growing backlash" in the Bory party against Lord Ashcroft and his being tax efficient (for that is what it is).

There is growing resentment in some quarters with Michael Ashcroft, the feeling is that his Lordship has unnecessarily made difficulties for the Tories by waiting till this late moment to come clean.

I won't go into the cynical electioneering of the fly-by-nite Bory-mp wannabees, that would be too easy.

Instead I want readers of this blog to suspend reality for a minute and think of what would happen if Ashcroft gave this as a press release:

I would like to thank members of the press for coming here today so that I may clarify my position on the present controversies surrounding my tax status and my role in the Conservative Party in the upcoming election and beyond.

I would like to apologise first and foremost to my conservative friends and colleagues and the party leader David Cameron about the perceived distraction in the media of Conservative Party policies; the nature of my apology though is more to do with my involvement in ensuring their are no policies to distract from.

Sadly, in their headlong quest for power they have eschewed the ones capable of giving it to them- their core voters who, unlike Labours core vote, put a little bit of thought into it, and dint like being ignored on all the major issues that are bankrupting this country in every facet imaginable, while simultaneously patronising them on the small.

I like them have come the conclusion that maybe electioneering the vote you want doesn't really work; it only pokes the sleeping giant that is the 60% of the electorate who stay at home on election day who may decide to put all the big 3 on the dole queue en masse is angered enough.

You see, that money that Labour have been shrieking about in the backbenches and in the media, and the cynical Tory strategy of cutting me out of the picture because of my tax efficiency - ultimately that is my money; the state put no effort or risk into my businesses and share none of the consequences of failure if they go belly up- why should I exist to keep them in employment to heckle the rich for being successful? Why should I pay for activities that do nothing to encourage or aid my business or grow my clientelle or workforce, and actively seek and villify me t every turn.

In truth the reality is quite simple; I have no problem in paying for services rendered- no one really minds this but it does place a duty on the service provider; I expect my police to catch criminals, not harass drivers and innocents, I expect my council to empty my bins, not heckle me on diversity an climate change, and I expect our schools to teach our children to read, write and think; not jump through hoops for a rotten, spiritually-dead collectivist agenda.

That is why I withhold that tax with my tax status; services are no longer rendered, at some point in the last 50 years the homus was placed on indiviuals to change in line with political thought, not vice versa. This is unnacceptable in a climate where man is free to get the things governments have proved themselves manifestly incapable of getting for them.

Until then, piss off and get your own money.

Now that is a speach I'd like to hear.

I Pity The Next Generation

Heading to my third part time job in the 9 months since I lost my permanent one on the peasant wagon I am being regalled with the loud witterings of the back of the bus gaggle of that species known as Phylum Slaggus.

I don't want to listen, but short of switching off my ears I have little choice in being privy to their innermost thoughts on sexual conquest, the best ratio of cider in snakebite black and their spurious definitions of the words "slut" and "slag" which, luckily, tend to be just above their own estimate of how many they have slept with (direct numbers are impossible for the snakebite generation).

These girls can't be any more than 16.

This slatten generation has some serious problems.

Whom The God Wishes To Destroy, He First Makes Drunk

Amongst the cool super-secret decoder ring, fancy key chain and awesome business cards I get for being part of LPUK I am now also in receipt of emails from the team as part of my (admittedly slacked off) job as (co)regional coordinator.

Mainly this falls to discussions on logistical an finance matters but their are various nuggets of discussion about the meat of libertarian ideals such as this one (h/t to Master Worstall)

Fearless leader has expanded on the lecture notes here at the Kitchen, pointing out that the measures uses to revitalise New Zealand's dying economy are exactly the measures opposed by the modern collectivists (I, as always, refuse to use "left" and "right"- terms which intrinsically have no value), and the reason why so much is going wrong in the west.

A lot of the comments seem to be filled with ennui; feelings are predisposed to despair and maybe, just maybe, it is this collective despair that is making us unable to really change anything; alongside the desire to go down the path of least resistance, even when it us rapidly becoming as resistancy as the harder one.

With this I want to turn to the source of New Zealand's damascene moment; the 1984 election- what happened here marked New Zealand's ascension; they aren't all filthy rich maybe but ask yourself this-have you ever met an unhappy, unpleasant or morose New Zealander*? I've known a few and have yet to meet one O could say a negative thing about.

As it is late and I am demonstrably lazy, here is the link to the wikipedia link to the history of this election; what is most striking are these background paragraphs:

The 1984 election was called when Marilyn Waring told Muldoon that she would not support his government in the vote over an opposition-sponsored anti-nuclear bill. Muldoon, visibly drunk, announced a snap election on national television. There is debate over whether the election was necessary — Waring had not threatened to block confidence and supply, meaning that the government could still have continued on even if it had lost the anti-nuclear vote. Nevertheless, Muldoon appears to have wanted an election to reinforce his mandate (just as Sidney Holland sought and won a mandate to oppose striking dock-workers with the 1951 snap election).

Muldoon's government, which had been growing increasingly unpopular in its third term, was seen as rigid, inflexible, and increasingly unresponsive to public concerns. The Labour Party had actually gained a plurality of the vote in the previous two elections, but had narrowly missed out on getting a majority of the seats. Labour's primary campaign message was one of change — Muldoon's government, which employed wage and price controls in an attempt to "guide" the economy, was widely blamed for poor economic performance. Labour also campaigned to reduce government borrowing.

The New Zealand Party, founded by property tycoon Bob Jones, was launched primarily to oppose the Muldoon government (although it did not support Labour). A right-wing liberal party, it promoted free market economic policies that contrasted sharply with the paternalist and somewhat authoritarian policies of National, the other significant right-wing party.

We have entered such a parallel in NuLabours third term, where the government has grown so inflexible and, more importantly, incapable of changing anything of value they are due for a fall of similar epoc-changing proportions. This is primarily because the state is just not theirs to command anymore; they are mere phantoms in the faulty machinery of state- collecting the biscuits belt fed out the end like the compliant cocker spaniels they are. They bleat about changing a society they don't understand and that can't be changed, only corrupted, and is a mirror to the actions of the state and it's incentives.

One thing I will say in where the parallels diverge a little is in the oppositions complete cluelessness; they look up at the side of leviathan and see no foothold to cut it down, only a reign to hold on to and be dashed to pieces at the cliff face when they get too cocky.

That said it was the actions of a third party which altered the frey and changed New Zealand's destiny; all the more important that LPUK get the logistical help they need to be that alternative.

If you read this and are not a member become one; be the change you want because you are the individual you want to be, and that is worth protecting as is everyones right to that kind of freedom. If you have money to burn donate it- if you can't stand yourself support another in your place. Best of all spread the word, point out the lies and illogical inanity of the collectivist arguement; that they speak about sacrifice for the greater good and yet don't practice it at home is testament to a greater evil they would ever accuse you of having.

Till that time watch the airwaves; God is moving to destroy them- it is not an accident nor entirely a willful act of contempt of the electorate that parliament subsidises it bars with taxpayers money; it took a useless, inflexible drunk on national television to pave the way to recovery; let's keep an eye out for the glazed eyes over here.

* = the true acid test to how undeserving, morose and miserable a race is can be determined by how often they are depicted as villains in movies- when you can characterise/satirise a nation by it's worst you know your on to a loser.

Message to @Oleuanna

Via Twitter @Oleuanna has asked about this post and the underlying concepts; my answer as it got to long is here for your consideration/ridicule:

Oleuanna the answer is a complicated one & I would never do it justice; in a nutshell governments have several ways of raising money other than direct taxation - in this case they "sell debt"; essentially a govt. bond is a promisory note of a return on it paid out of taxation - money you thought was going to paying for a service actually goes to paying off money they borrowed to pay for it in the past.

Essentially they are paying for the present with our future.

In practice we all do this; debt can be a useful thing for deferring costs till you can afford them; Labour though have taken the piss quite seriously in that they've essentially maxed out the credit card and the bailiffs are now aknocking.

The "structural deficit" everyone keeps going on about is the percentage of spending on public services that is not covered by tax receipts, ergo by NuLabours Bond sales/Credit thing rinse; we are just racking up debt as we go and it would take 75% of GDP in one year to pay back this debt instantly.

For a better idea of how this scam has worked see this post at BOM, a brilliant resource for all things fiscal in govt., otherwise look up LPUK's fiscal policy for a more indepth idea of what's at stake. Lastly for fun go to YouTube and search the term "money as debt"; you'll get some interesting results.

Further Thoughts on Benefits & A Living Wage

The Rational Anarchist writes the following comment to this post.

Sorry - this may be a bit of a necro-post but I stumbled across this post and thought it warranted a reply:

I think the problem is that £15k of tax free income is worth different amounts to different people.

Someone with no earnings may as well get rid of it, so will sell it for as much as they can get.

Someone earning enough to put them in the 20% tax band would probably see it as worth (£15k x 0.2 = ) £3k.

Someone earning enough to be in the 40% tax band would see it as being worth £6k, and someone in the 50% tax band would value it at £7.5k.

So the people with the most reason to buy it would be those with the most income. Of course, if they paid £7.5k for the allowance, they'd be no better off - so allowing 10% or so for time and admin, they'd probably pay around £6.7k. This is enough that everyone else would have reason to sell it to them - even those paying 40% tax only value the allowance at £6k.

Assuming that everyone did the most efficient thing, everyone who paid less than 50% tax would sell their allowance to 50% tax-payers. This would have a net effect of reducing the top rate of tax to 45% instead of 50% and gain everyone else about £5.5k.

Now, bear in mind that the money to fund this has to come from somewhere, and that it wouldn't be all that easy to keep track of where all those allowances are - so the cost of administering this would not be small. Why not just give everyone £6.7k CBI, abolish the tax free allowance, abolish employees NI and set a flat tax rate of 41%? Everyone would be better off than they are now and it would cost a lot less to administer...

These are all good points and I feel it is worth addressing them as completely as possible so will try to answer them on a point by point basis.

I think the problem is that £15k of tax free income is worth different amounts to different people.

The short response to this is yes, 15k is worth different amounts to different peoples; he even illustrates various scenarious as to what it is potentially worth to different peoples.

Someone with no earnings may as well get rid of it, so will sell it for as much as they can get.

Again yes, this is kinda the point; as a farmer would take his grain to market and try to fetch the best price so too would someone hawking their unused tax credit.

Someone earning enough to put them in the 20% tax band would probably see it as worth (£15k x 0.2 = ) £3k.

Someone earning enough to be in the 40% tax band would see it as being worth £6k, and someone in the 50% tax band would value it at £7.5k.

I disagree on both counts; the person who can marshall a £15k tax credit sees it as worth £15k, primarily because that's wot it's worth.

However, to purchase that tax break, yes; that assigns a value to it based on a mutually agreed price between the buyer and seller which determines it's worth which must be mutually beneficial to both parties, otherwise why they agree to it?

So the people with the most reason to buy it would be those with the most income

Quite, this is the point; if a transaction doesn't benefit involved parties what's the point?

The net value to the buyer can this be deduced to:

[gross additional tax allowance] = [value of tax credit] - [cost to buy]

Which, at least in my scenario, is variable; it would be inadvisable to fix the exchange cost for reasons I will get to.

Assuming that everyone did the most efficient thing, everyone who paid less than 50% tax would sell their allowance to 50% tax-payers.

For the owner of the tax credit it is worth a fixed £15k; they can earn £15k before any tax applies (irrespective of what the tax system; regressive, progressive, fixed etc...)

To someone earning more money they have to buy the credit at an agreed cost with it's owner; unless they were mad this would be an amount less than or equal to (e.g. If a spouse wanted to give up work why not give the allowance to their partner to enable more take home pay?) that voucher, e.g. You earn £30k before tax, you pay £9k for a further £15k tax credit so you pay no tax but have spent £9k to earn that privelege: 15-9= £6k.

Now, bear in mind that the money to fund this has to come from somewhere,..

Um yes- the buyer of the tax credit.

and that it wouldn't be all that easy to keep track of where all those allowances are...

And yet HMRC manage to perform just this type of action for the millions of taxpayers an on billions of transactions of every kind.

so the cost of administering this would not be small.

Ok: to whom? HMRC already operate a massive administrative operation to collect revenues and track allowances and tax codes; why not have fewer taxes (I.e. Fewer tax codes) and a more robust tracker of tradeable allowances?how many bodies has the government set up to monitor interactions between people? It can be done.

Why not just give everyone £6.7k CBI, abolish the tax free allowance, abolish employees NI and set a flat tax rate of 41%? Everyone would be better off than they are now and it would cost a lot less to administer...

Right to understand why I think it is a bad idea we need to look at what my idea's main purpose is.

First the problems:

1: As a libertarian ultimately I don't believe we should have an involuntary system of benefits; the present system illustrates that such safety nets invariably become hammocks for the idle. The welfare state should be abolished.

2: Were we to abolish the welfare state today in all likelihood it would generate just as many problems as it would set out to fix, e.g. Starving homeless in the streets smashing shop windows for food, beer and whatever they felt like.

A solution therefore has to

1.provide people with the resources to survive, and hopefully, thrive.

2. integrate with the present system, eventually replacing it.

3. be itself easy to wind down to the abolition of state welfare.

4. encourage free action and put the control in the hands of the individuals these decisions ultimately affect.

The CBI may achieve the points 1 and 2 above, and possibly 3, but in terms of removing the claw-like grip of the state is a crushing and resounding no on point 4, by far the most important.

The CBI presumes one type of behaviour, to ensure people have the minimum required to survive, whilst ultimately negating the long term tools which will ensure individuals ability to thrive; how many thousands are taken with menaces currently to pay for a system riddled with corruption? My scheme removes the immeadiate incentive of cold hard cash while making any attempt to cheat the system open to the auditing powers of the taxman. Heck, who earning the sort of money you'd need to benefit from acquiring loads of tax credits would have the time to cheat the system? Why not work with an outsourced administrative/accounting company specialising in acquiring tax credits in bulk (for a small fee), maximising the rate of return or even taking a more ethical view and guaranteeing a fair return to the tax credit holders (not all wealth is monetary after all)?

You would see stay at home mums able to contribute in more than just logistical returns to their house.

Pensioners comfortably off could gift their tax credit to their struggling children to help them; less well off pensioners could do likewise to help the family support them.

We could make university a near self-sustaining private enterprise for students, able to hawk their credits in exchange for stipends/accomodation/tuition fees etc., relieving the costs and allowing them to focus on their studies, making us all richer.

By far my favourite hypothesis outcome would be for the burgeoning drudgery that are sink estates; it would become very clear to these sellers of tax credits that their diminishing commoditised returns would be better marshalled through work or cooperation on an individual level (e.g. housewives staying at home); responsibilities would be realised and effort made to rebuild communities- until then the companies benefitting from lower taxation through the buying of tax credits would be able to blossom, grow and provide the jobs eventually needed, all in an organic manner; likewise multinationals would seek out Britain HQs for it's potential lower tax take.

The real benefit though is versatility; the list of ideas are endless in how it could be best marshalled- all at the individuals level and choice, encouraging the freedoms we want, not the shackles we don't.

How Does This Work Then?

It seems our bredrin in Greece are about to dig the begging bowl out:

Greece is prepared to turn to the International Monetary Fund for help if its European neighbours fail to provide the financial assistance it wants after announcing the toughest spending cuts in decades.

"Where's my damn welfare cheque? Gimme gimme gimme!"

Now forgive my ignorance but is this without precedent? A broke nation state asking for IMF money certainly not, but using a cross-border currency?

Also I'm TM'ing the acronym PIGIES when it become patently clear to everyone who isn't Gordon that England is financially screwed...




-- Post From My iPhone

Seriously...

...how crap does Camblewick Carrot's conservatives (small c intentional) have to be to achieve this sort of polling?

Possible theories for this include:

-Its an elaborate ruse on pollsters to get that spineless Brown to call an election: course, that would mean anywhere from 50% of the public of voting age (the rough percentage of those who voted NOTA last time) are collectively in on the scam, and I doubt that many could keep the secret, even with a future fourth, a frigging fourth!, parliament awarded to Labour in the offing.

-The pollsters have been sucking on Uncle Brown's teat: to the point where they've been sticking to asking Labour heartlands who they would vote for (on second thought it could be Cambo's paying pollsters here, and Brown should be crapping himself if this many dyed in the wool red are this sick of him.)

-Their is really little difference between the big 3, and the collective wisdom of thos polled knows it<:I>: further their is very little any of the main parties can actually do to change things; with 75%+ of our laws coming from on tranzi (the EU), and Cambo married to climate change and perpetuating the rise of an undemocratic mediocracy by proxy another tranzi (the UN) what does he expect?

You can tell which way I stand; the rise of the mediocracy means the possession of conviction, heck, an opinion would suffice, is enough to have you pilloried by every special interest group, union, news baron and quango/PGO who's existence relies on our political classes continued belief that they matter against a silent majority, quite simply because that silent majority is, well, silent.

How very depressing.

UPDATE:

The clown makes an excellent point:

DING: if you want to treat the electorate like an inconvenience interfering with your entitlement to office, if you refuse to offer an alternative to the one-eyed mong and if you keep spouting Blairite cock-spittle at us - this is what's gonna happen.

If you don't stand something, you'll fall for anything, in this case falling for second place to the most hated primeminister ever (or should that be so far?)