Killing Aunty Beeb

Gawd bless my lil Sis; convinced her to get me a subscription to Reason magazine for my birthday and she pulls through (a little over 6 months late but who's counting.

Anyway a brilliant column on the makeup of new agencies and how this correlates with the behaviour of the host state:

In a paper published in the spring issue of the journal Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, Pal analyzed data from 98 countries. Her goal: to see if there were statistically significant correlations between press freedom and seven measures of instability, including ethnic tensions, external and internal conflicts, crime and disorder, military participation in government, and religious tensions. An increase in press freedom, she concluded, reduces all seven measures of instability. (emphasis mine)

Now I think we are far from being able to say explicitly that one causes the other; more likely there are synergies at play that won't show up on an initial analysis but the results are compelling: greater press freedom skews attempts at government at closing down alternative lines of debate (why I feel the internet is so important and rightly feared by our current political elites).

This is particularly interesting though:

Pal also noted that state ownership of media is associated with higher corruption, weaker civil liberties, insecure property rights, lower education and life expectancies, and higher infant mortality and malnutrition.

And yes I realise that Aunty Beeb is not technically state owned, but it does derive it's powers of coercion from the state so will be less likely to bite the hand that feeds it (nibble mildly in the case of the Squandervative coalition maybe, but only because they lack the prerequisite spine to do anything about it).

Worth a try killing the Beeb in any case though eh?

Self Control's The Way To Go

That, or we start handing these out at chemists.

I once went to University and studied chemistry which I enjoyed, but quite frankly, was rubbish at; where you to ask me about some deeply complex chemistry theorem I would most likely look agog at you.

Despite this a fine blend of hubris, ego and lack of self-awareness (or honesty perhaps?) led to me taking my 2:1 Masters degree as evidence I was capable of a PhD; I was to move onto asking new questions rather than answering older ones.

Whether this would have proved I was the idiot I know I am now or not will never be answered, because it was during my first year that my parents teetering marriage finally went overboard and my entire family went mental (a story for another time), not least myself , newly married being unable to cope with becoming father (I'm the eldest) to my siblings whilst the original buggered off to mid-life crisistania whilst Mumra took off to De-Nileism.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, fearless reader I believe there is some relationship between what is happening in scientific "research" today in many fields and how my family behaved (behaves).

Lately science has become less about discovering new things and more about avoiding tricky questions that challenge old rules; my folks tried this for years to everyones detriment and it was once reality finally settled in that things that could've been cordial and polite became destructive and heartbreaking.

This looks like one of those questions scientists have been trying to avoid:

The drive to give free morning-after pills to teenage girls has failed to cut underage pregnancies.
Schemes to offer over-the-counter emergency birth control to girls under 16 have simply encouraged youngsters to have more unprotected sex, damning research found.
In doing so they have fuelled a rise in sexually transmitted diseases.
The findings are a blow to public health chiefs who have argued that handing out the morning-after pill cuts schoolgirl pregnancies.
Family campaigners seized on the research as more evidence that the problem of teenage pregnancies needs a ‘moral solution’ and not one based on dishing out drugs.

Now trying to at least retain some vestige of the scientist within
I decided you use some academic contacts to get a copy of the unreleased paper; this was a Fairly Pale story afterall, only to find that the authors had tried their hardest to back up their claims with several layers of statistical formulae - none of which really detracted from the overall picture the results painted; the evidence may not be on a par with truly empirical observation due to the small numbers involved, but it is compelling.

And it makes sense; people respond to incentives and if you offer them the opportunity to experience something in a little more pleasurable a manner to which the uninformed (or, if Dwayne really was lying to you and did sleep with the town bike, Dwaynerita, the lied to) see as having little cost associated with the action but to take 10 minutes out of their Trisha and Jeremy Kyle watching and pop down to the chemist's.

Knowing several teenage single mums I can see why the results are not as black and white as the Fail would wish (if not for their desire to beef up the rhetoric in the article mind); some rise to the challenge of parenthood admirably and make good with their lot - others not so much. How these 2 groups measure up is beyond me and I will leave it to Proffessor Paton, his group and others to ascertain.

One thing I am convinced of; these children ultimately have no father; they are the States progeny - having torn out the heart of personal responsibility by effectively subsidising baby-making they are now reaping all the unintended consequences.

And once one uncomfortable question is asked, the rest come tumbling out.

Malcontents & Chaos

From my post yesterday morning I see some more folk have enforced my very low opinion of humanity; my growing misanthropy is being fed daily.

They defiled a statue of Winston Churchill by urinating on it, ripped flags from the Cenotaph – the nation’s sacred memorial to those who died in the name of liberty – then lit fires and sprayed slogans on the ground in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament.
...
Windows were smashed at the Supreme Court building. Even the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square – a symbol of peace and goodwill – became a focus for senseless vandalism.

These are not the actions of urban warriors fighting against apartheid; they are not followers of the spirit of great men like Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jnr fighting against the injustice of state-mandated segregation, racism or imperial oppression - if anything they are arguing for more of the latter - and they are certainly not Anarchists (capital A) in the honourable sense; anarchy is the noble belief in absolute liberty and freedom of the individual to rise or fall by their own merit and to contract as they like with whom they like. These are Chaotists and malcontents and are not fighting for a noble cause but against one; they could strive to achieve great things in later life, be entrepreneurs and donate their wealth to real charities helping give poor kids their "right" to a decent education; instead they moan about being forced to make difficult decisions about where totals their life- in effect, being forces to grow up and face reality*.

My company took us on a retreat this week in thanks for all our hard work making it profitable year on year; they hired a motivational speaker who told us that FEAR is 2 acronyms- the first: False Evidence Appearing Real- these demonstrators would do well to understand that this is not the collapse of a "right" but it's genesis.

Me? I prefer the second acronym: Fuck Everything And Run.

* = yes I did get my education "free; I consider it a "privilege", not a right and the following points should be made:

-6 years on my pay is only now coming to levels where I am asked to pay for it; a consequence partly of events in my own life and the New Labour experiment choking the life out of every job market in the country.

- I pay in excess of at least 40% of my wage in taxes of one form
or another, a third being lifted before I even get my weekly pay cheque, the rest extracted by billed taxes like council and road tax. It is probably above the 60% mark in terms of taxation when you consider VAT and ancillary costs of regulation on consumer goods & services which are passed on to the consumer.

- Are education system is incredibly closed down and illiberal; I can download top American university lecture series onto my iPhone for free and learn but how would I get accredited learning this way? Whilst the cost to the education supplier is actually going down due to technology, the cost to the consumer goes up; this is a direct result of a government monopoly in education.

Well There You Have It

Count Yourself Lucky It Was So Warm, Ye Gods.

Anyone else listen to Radio 4's Material World last night?

Apparently last winter was a consequence of other factors including sea currents and so other cyclical phenomena which apparently don't affect the underlying trend in rising global temperatures.

So in a nutshell, were it not for our polluting, mother-earth bashing ways it would not been freezing cold but freezing bollock, nuts firmly trapped in the freezer cold.

Remarkable; has it not occurred to any of them that global temperatures themselves might vary in temperature?

Natural Oligarchies & Hypocrisy

On my way home last week from work listening to Radio 4 O was caught up in the insanity that was the outcry to this story and was able to hear one of the council leaders discuss this with the presenter (I forget whom); it went something a little like this:

PRESENTER: " Right now we have the Tory (enemy of the people & they who are in receipt of the 2 minute hate each day) leader for Numpty on Sea, one of the councils who are thinking of pooling their procurement processes but for the benefit of not causing our listeners brains to bleed out their ears, we will now convince is a coup d'etat by the fascist, BNP-loving Tory lizard people who run these councils."
RANDOM
GENERIC TORY WOODEN TOP SPOKESPERSON: "um hello."
PRESENTER: "Now, Generic spokesperson, can you confirm or deny the rumour that your plan involves using puppies and your constituents elderly populace as kindling in the homes of rich hedgefund and bank managers?"....

I might be misremembering the interview somewhat but you get the idea.

Having worked for my own local council in the dim but recent past none of this strikes me as a bad idea; nor does this supercouncil appear particularly super (except maybe, in the minds of the loons at the BBC and the Gaurdian; you know the type - the same who keep calling the Spending Review "cuts" and believe in fairy's and homeopathy).

All they are really doing here is consolidating their buying power by streamlining procurement of services; this is a good and necessary thing as the recession begins to bite and belts are tightened all over.

One thing I would say in criticism is the call for efficiency savings is coming from the top-down; it is still repugnant and hypocritical that Councils get the majority of their income and rules handed down from Whitehall, particularly when the likes of Pickles and Clegg have been waxing lyrical about localism for months now, taking Carswell and Hannan for mugs.

However this pales in commission to the BBC and it's hypocrisy in discussing the actions of Labour strongholds like Greater Manchester in doing the exact same thing.

Dropping the BBC's licence few can't come quickly enough.

The "Cuts" Explained

"So Mr. Osbourne do you expect me to meow?" "No; I expect you to DIE!

Imagine you run a big department in a major business; the business has made it a policy of offering shares in itself to it's employees and as a result they have built up a large share through this means.

Like all good businesses it give you a CAPEX (capital expenditure), money to invest in making your department more profitable, and you the dutiful manager work out the best way you can maximise the return on your money.

In 2007 you are given £50 million, in 2008 you are given £75 million, in 2009 you are given £112.5 million and in 2010, at the height of your company suffering losses, you are given £168.75 million; overall up to this point the company board has agreed to give you year on year CAPEX increases of 50%, taken partly out of other departments budgets and partly out of issuing new shares.

Finally the stockholders get fed up of their stock value dropping as a consequence of the reckless support of your department and, back up by other departments that have been squeezed, oust the current management board; their coup however is not as effective as they would like, faced down in part by existing shareholders in your department, meaning that dissenting groups have to combine and direct the business in a productive heading.

One faction believes that cutting your CAPEX and reacting to the changing marketplace's demand for your goods is the only way forward; the other believes further investment, but in different CAPEX spends, is the way forward.

At your next review for 2011 onwards you are thus told that, instead of a CAPEX increase of 50% to £253.13 million it is having to reduce the increase to 25% so that it doesn't have to issue as many shares this year in the company; you thus only get £210.93 million.

Your department supervisors are livid, and are backed up by scathing articles in your businesses in-house magazine which slowly forces the board to recant fearing a revolt and being ousted.

And at no point does anyone question what the CAPEX is being spent on.

Osbourne- some QED

“25 percent taxation is about the limit of what is easily borne.”

- John Maynard Keynes found here

Currently? 47% if GDP.

QED.

The Case for Transferable Tax Credits Grows Stronger

Herr Cameron was on damage control today after the special pleading got a little more clamourous with Labor becoming the defender of the richest in societies welfare cheque and everyone else's head-scratching at the bizarre incongruities of the scheme (or maybe genius of social engineering).

However, amidst the vast turd-sandwich that this is for Cameron he was occasionally doling put golden nuggets of corn:

Mr Cameron admitted he needed to convince the public the tax and benefits system was fair and suggested a transferable tax allowance between couples could make it more balanced.

The transferable tax allowance, also known as a marriage tax break, was a key Conservative election pledge.

The party announced it would allow spouses who did not claim all their taxfree personal allowance to transfer £750 of it to their working partner.

Small beer compared to what I suggested and what our cousins have been espousing across the ocean, this meagre offering of £750, or £63 a month is a fraction of the workable income the non-working parent could earn if they ditched the kids and got to the coalface.

In fact let's look at this another way:

1. If Cambo and his Bory/Soc Dem coalition are so committed to "fairness" and "equality" (of outcome; it would seem there us little difference in action to suggest of opportunity) then they would enable people to have full autonomyover their tax allowance and how and who is responsible for it's use.

2. Looked at another way this is actually an encrouchment on the minimum wage; agree with it or not, if we are to assign a state-mandated value to an hourly rate then it should be based on what the individuals time is worth to them (not what it is worth to the state) - by this estimation based on a 37.5 hour working week (to which most housewives would laugh at, wondering where the other 22.5+ hours went) this transferable tax allowance equates to a "wage" of 39 pence an hour; hardly progressive policy that to pay slave wages eh Dave?

Mrs. Rat was increasingly angst ridden and tearful ever since going back to work full time; the strain of not seeing our baby daughter is starting to fray her around the edges; with quite a few simple changes to the tax regime Cambo could allay the fears of millions of people, ease the burden on those hardworking families he says he represents and create true fairness by instituting a truly liberal transferable tax credit regime that would make him a hero to everyone.

And all without dancing a merry jig for Adam Boulton.

Tell You What George...

Despite not being a higher tax rate payer (not having 2 euros to rub together an' all') and not even coming close to it with my wife and my income, and despite you leaving me no choice but to agree with KEVIN CHUFFING MAGUIRE, that their is something asinine about punishing a family with only one working parent on £50k and leaving another with 2 on a cumulative £80k+ plus, I have a deal for you.

I'll give up my meagre psuedo-tax rebate that is the Child tax credit and benefit if you:

1.Sack the adulterer Chris Hunhe.

2. Put Labour's regulatory framework, energy acts of parliament and EU policies out the door with him.

Costs for energy have nearly doubled in 10 years since the great warming swindle came about and their has been little to show for it apart from some heavily subsidised wind farms, plans for the doubling of energy bills again and more green mouths to feed while old ladies freeze in true homes.

It's on the table Osbourne. Take it; reckon I'll come out of the deal breaking even with the ability to drive prices down for the future and guarantee energy security.

Another Blow Against Death by Banality

The BBC reports (with the usual if somewhat tepid bias) that the US Senate has had it's "Net Neutrality" bill killed off.

The bill aimed to stop ISPs from acting as online gatekeepers controlling the content flowing through their pipes.

Let's look at this again through individualist eyes and highlight the key words to see where it failed:

The bill aimed to stop ISPs from acting as online gatekeepers controlling the content flowing through their pipes.

"You know that thing you own and manage? Well now you don't own or manage it- ta da!"

It's good to see the Obama's ideas come crashing down; it is also good to see the TEA party getting so little mention as it again illustrates the extremely limited understanding the BBC has for what is going on, and why it is failing convincingly overall.

Net neutrality is just the next frontier in pushing egalitarian and failed socialist doctrines into yet another media sphere: that because their is inequality of a commodity that this somehow needs to be fixed and/or can only be fixed by government; it isn't always necessary and govt., as should be patently obvious by anyone lately, is the least good way of bringing about change for the better.

You want better coverage of left-wing ideological concepts? present something other than generic bilge, hope enough people read it and garner the advertising and popularity that drives greater bandwidth; heck, Maddox manages to support higher connection by the millions of viewers to his site utilising the thousands made and he posts something maybe once every few months.

Why is the collectivist's first reaction to a problem always to wish it away with government intervention? You see a mountain you need to cross you don't force someone at gun point to dig a hole through it or blow it to mulch and rubble, you climb it and feel rewarded by the endeavour.

Otherwise every molehill becomes impassable.

Fun With Numbers

Mark Serwotka writes today that their is an "alternative" to public spending cuts; predictably his answer boils down to "not cutting his meal ticket":

If, as Osborne plans, we sack 600,000 public servants in the coming years that is 600,000 people with no income, on benefits – since few jobs are being created. They will spend less in the economy, which combined with cutting public capital spending, will have a knock-on effect in the private sector. Cutting 600,000 public sector jobs will lead to 700,000 private sector job losses. We know this, because the document telling Osborne this from his own Office for Budget Responsibility was leaked to this newspaper at the end of June.

Fascinating; let's look at this another way:

The percentage difference between the median level of full-time earnings in the public sector (£539 per week) and the private sector (£465 per week) widened over the year to April 2009, following annual increases of 3.1 per cent and 1.0 per cent respectively.
(From here)

So the cost of firing these people in terms of lost earnings is £33.75Bn. Measured against the average welfare payout (I'll generously say it's £17.5k) in terms of the afforded benefits in kind means the cost in added welfare payouts is £22.75Bn, meaning we make a net saving of £11Bn; a healthy swipe at the structural deficit and one that the markets will certainly take notice of.

Let's make a wilder assumption here: say Osbo takes this 10% drop in the number of public sector plebs and marks it with a resultant drop in the amount of work it dips it's oar in, e.g. winds down every NHS PCT passing funds directly into GPs hands or adopts a full educational voucher system and privatises education provision voiding local education authorities en masse or passes logistic control of the army to generals and reforms the MOD thusly; let's say 10% of government spending based on that's £66.1Bn.

In total we have saved £72Bn just by cutting these numbers and several of those assume that their us no splash effect on the economy; we don't take into account that those unemployed civil servants will not remain unemployed for long or that private education providers will become net contributors to the tax pot than detractors (though this strays dangerously close to Seworta's neo-Keynesian assertion that we should continue to dig holes for others to fill, which is just silly). None of which takes into account how inefficient public funding is processed - if we accept a conservative value of say £1 in 4 is wasted just by churning it through HMRC then we put £90Bn back in the economy instantly.

Numbers are fun yes?

MPs Need Schooling.

Andrew Gwynne engages in a bit of misdirected "free market" bashing this morning:

‘There is no money’ – this is the message blasted across the Chamber by Ministers every time an Opposition MP (and increasingly, some Coalition backbenchers) condemn a decision to cut a project in their constituency. And to some extent, this is true. The public finances could not grow indefinitely and, given the banking crisis and the global recession, huge deficits followed. Had Labour won the 2010 General Election, there would still have been cuts – deep cuts – though not as severe or immediate as the Coalition’s plans.

Now there are whole shovel-fulls of wrong in this first paragraph that should be put in the context they so thoroughly deserve. First off let's deal with the spending "cuts" - these are not actually cuts but a decision by our new coalition overlords not to endorse an unfunded spending plan put in place before the election by the previous overlords in a contrived bit of scorched-earthing; a veritable "vote for us or this puppy gets it" ploy - now that we didn't vote for them they are saying "well will you look at all those dead puppies surrounding the new overlords collective feet? Terrible". Then lets look at the "backbench revolt" at cuts in their constituency - Gwynne appears to be shocked at the concept of pork-barrel politics as if this is the first time a Laborious politician has ever heard of this; I wonder what would happen if we explained what gerrymandering and electoral fraud where? Then the biggy; the ongoing NuLaborious canard that the crunch was "nowt to do with us init; dem stinking Yanks and Tory donors working in the city" ploy. That's certainly one potential excuse - it was someone else's fault - here's what my reading of the event make me think happened:

1. Greenspan artificially lowered interest rates after the last recession to encourage credit agencies to lend; Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, both federally sponsored institutions, inflated the mortgage market and encourage home-ownerism- combined with the Community Reinvestment Act, pushed through by far-left groups (to which Obama was a junior member) to enable poor people to get access to loans they could never dream of paying back, generated a stream of toxic debt, re-polished, packaged and sold worldwide.
2. Brown as Chancellor "raid private pensions"; dividends are taxed to pay for his already unsustainable public sector jobs boom which alter private investors behaviour encouraging the "buy-to-let" market to inflate overnight, driving up house prices in an incredibly over-regulated and controlled system where new builds are made ridiculously difficult. At one point the amount of money being "earned" by bricks and mortar overtakes normal wages; Labour nod through lower interest rates to encourage banks to lend more in credit and mortgage amounts.
3. Eventually the number of defaults reaches critical mass and the investment vehicles they are folded into falter; overnight the bubble burst taking with it Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac as well as several major investment banks, mass nationalisation of much of the industry (or part nationalisation); Brown, now the British PM despite facing no popular vote in this country, who panics, seeing the banks most exposed and liable to fold are in in key labour strongholds, bails out the worst hit, thus validating the fears of moral hazard and enslaving future generations with debts as big as they were left post-WW2. "Quantitative easing" is used to inject further cash into the banking industry by buying back bonds from them with freshly printed money.
4. Mass unemployment in the private sector is masked by disingenuous spending splurge in public sector so Brown can debate Cambo in parliament that he is not destroying jobs through all his other asinine laws. Ongoing debate between multimillionaire public school boys does nothing for my daughter, her newly unemployed father agonising over how the house will be paid for, let alone her food.

But no Gwynne your probably right: was dem damn yanks dat dunn it.

However, for Building Schools for the Future, this wasn’t the case. Gove tried to use the mantra that the money wasn’t there, only to be shot down by his own Permanent Secretary who confirmed that Ed Balls was correct to say that full Treasury approval had been given to BSF. The money was there.

No Andrew I think you misunderstand what is meant by the "there's no money left" mantra; it is not a case of what NuLabour placemen have said you can use the coffers for, or that brown removed the purse strings altogether and hid them; there are no coffers - you didn't plan the costs you just stuck them on; dead puppies remember?

We are currently borrowing £1 in 4 we spend hence spending should be cut just to stop us haemorrhaging more money on debt repayment by somewhere considerably higher than this; ask my credit card manager if you don't understand this.

And if the money was there, it must still be there.

See above.

Now call me a cynic but I’ve not yet seen Gove scurrying up Downing Street with his bags of treasure wishing to please his master in Number Ten. So has this all been a cunning ploy to generate a slush fund of capital money for Gove’s ‘Free Schools’ plan? I suspect it might be.

Again: see above- the reason you haven't seen this treasure is because it doesn't exist; it is unfunded.

You see, apart from a small number of middle-class mavericks who may be quite happy to have their Tarquin (apologies if any readers are called Traquin) educated above a shop or in an industrial unit rather than mixing with ordinary kids in the Comp down the road, most parents are not going to buy into that. They want their children taught with the best facilities too, and for ‘Free Schools’ to work, they need to be in shiny new buildings.

Your right Gwynny, because middle class parent definitely don't have Tarquin's (like the class envy poke BTW; very old Labour) best interests at heart; and as for the patent nonsense about the need for "shiny new buildings" it is that kind of nonsense that has got us in so much trouble; besides, if advocates of free school actually agree with him they will accommodate the changes necessary and build his "shiny new buildings", for that is the power of the markets.

The real concern is that this whole policy will be at the expense of the majority of children.

No... 1 in 5 children with functional illiteracy, classrooms out of control, highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe is at the expense of our children.

It cannot be cost effective to create extra capacity in the schooling system when there is just no need for it. And nor can Local Authorities effectively plan for the future when, if parents don’t like a sound strategic decision, they can just declare UDI!
I have very real doubts that this free market approach to schooling will work. I also have very real concerns that in these financially tight years ahead, it will waste public funds on a scale rarely seen; and in the process, will have denied our children of that best start in life that Building Schools for the Future promised so many.

At last we start to see the real reason why they are scared witless at this; the vast client scale and fifth column of teachers unions will no longer be able to sit cosily by while parents demand the bare minimum in vain; schools will have to offer the education the parents or see them walk their cheque to someone who will.

Of course this is overlooking the mindset of Gwynne et al; that this money is not the parents money to be wasted on things like an education they know will cater best to their children- it is for the state to spend, and politicos to waste on whatever flavour-of-the-month educational or social theory is gripping the left by the nipples.