The argument for less government is the government we have
This is not, in fact, about the politicians. This is about the level below, that permanent state of the civil service:
The government has been accused of “staggering incompetence” after new school buildings it commissioned had to be closed due to safety fears, while others under construction were demolished before they even opened.
Main buildings at two secondary schools and a primary school in England, which were all completed relatively recently using a modular, off-site construction method, were told to close with immediate effect, disrupting the start of the new term for many pupils.
A government minister admitted there were issues with the structural integrity of some buildings, prompting fears they would not be able to withstand extreme events, including severe weather or being hit by a vehicle.
Those Rolls Royce minds knowing best from Whitehall. Well, no, they don’t. Clearly they don’t.
Which poses a problem. A problem for anyone who desires an invasive and managing state that is. The problem being that we’ve simply not got the staff to be able to have such. All the people who actually know things, how to do things, are off knowing and doing things. Leaving a cadre of adminstrators who, umm, administrate. And, as we can see, being able to file Form C in the C shaped slot is not an aid to being able to get a school built by a competent builder.
Therefore, and obviously, that state, manned by incompetents, should not be managing or even administrating the building of schools. Nor anything else complicated beyond the idea of getting out of bed in the morning.
This is not a theoretical nor ideological position it’s merely the result of observation. The British state is incompetent. Therefore we should ask the British state, heck, allow the British state to do the minimal amount necessary to keep civilisation on track. That would mean that night watchman state which does only - and really only - those things that both have to be done and can only be done by government. Maybe defence - which they’ve not been good at these recent decades - and making sure the bins get taken out. Wouldn’t want to tax the skill level too much after all.
That this does neatly match up with our own ideological convictions is both true and fun. And yet an administrative state that allows schools to be built out of dodgy concrete and people want it to be planning how we’re going to compete with the seven billion nine hundred and 30 million odd people who are not British? Not subject to such expert knowledge? We going to sell them JCBs after we’ve sold them the school building method or something?
No, really, there are people insisting that these same minds - the ones who can’t get concrete, a 2,000 year old technology, sorted - should determine what’s the next mineral to be mined, the energy system of the future and who should make, how, the next generation of microchips but three.
Getting rid of the civil service would be impossible, C Northcoate proved that. But we can sever their relationship with the real world easily enough. Leave them filing C in C and B in B and leave the rest of us to get on with life productively. Simply kill the requirement for anything to need civil service approval or oversight. They’ll still be happy with their paperwork and we’ll be amazed at how much better life gets.
That argument, that is, for free markets and liberty is that the opposite, government control, is incompetent. We are in a reverse version of that movie Idiocracy. So, let’s stop doing that then and be free - and vastly more important, let’s be rich by being free. Anyone gets to do anything subject only to the basic Common Law rules of no harm, no foul, and leave government to pleasure itself with paperwork.
Works for us.
You're right, the Net Zero plan is idiocy
This is not about climate change. It’s not even about that desire to get to net zero by 2050. It’s about the Net Zero plan. Which is, as we insist, idiocy.
Within the next three years, rural households who have relied on heating oil for decades could be forced to spend tens of thousands retrofitting their homes to accommodate a heat pump.
By 2026, replacing a broken oil boiler like for like is set to be banned, leaving homeowners not connected to the gas grid with no choice but to dig deep and buy an electric heating system. A similar proposed deadline for homes reliant on gas is not until 2035.
It is one of the policies put forward by the Government as it marches towards its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Heating oil, the Government argues, is an incredibly carbon-intensive fossil fuel and must be abandoned if Britain is to meet its green pledges.
We can even leave aside the logic being used there - that it’s net zero or be cold. Our aim is the maximisation of human utility and yes, that probably does mean another mm to two of water in Bangladesh as against freezing in a British winter. But as we say, leave that aside.
For two years now, residents of Kehelland, a hamlet near Camborne, have been taking part in a landmark trial using cooking oil recycled from factories.
Hydrotreated vegetable oil is a form of renewable diesel, created by taking waste fat and feedstock and processing it using hydrogen.
The mistake - the insanity - is that they’re proscribed a base technology, the oil boiler. But they can be run on a number of different fuels. Here, the cooking fat. Or green hydrogen gussied up by Fischer Tropsch. Or other things that we don’t know about perhaps.
That is, even if Net Zero really must happen banning the oil boiler isn’t the right way to do it. Banning the use of things that emit is. But what’s the way that the plan has been written? Quite, some combination of bureaucrats and politicians banning all the things they don’t understand. Which isn’t, we suggest, the correct method of running a country.
Even if this is all necessary it’s only ever the goal that should be planned. On the obvious grounds that we 67 million out here will come up with some interesting ways of reaching it, things that simply never would occur to the average PPE graduate who writes these national plans.
The appalling idea of a national mission
The idea that we should have a mission-driven economy is an appalling one:
Of course, that may sound like a lofty and idealistic proposition,
What is this loft?
What is required is a more sophisticated understanding of government debt management, alongside an overarching purpose or mission for the economy – a mission-driven economy as Mariana Mazzucato puts it – that would help shape economic policy.
No, that’s an appalling idea and not just because it comes from Mazzo.
The background to this is that economic policy making should be split up, changed, made different, so as to enable this mission-driven economy idea. But the mission-driven economy idea is also being touted as the reason to change economic policy making. We should change the system so as to allow that imposition of the plan and we should have a plan so as to allow the change in the system.
There’s no actual discussion of why the plan. It’s just assumed that having a plan - something, anything - would be a good idea.
We object and we object vehemently. The only desirable plan for the British economy is that Britons get to do more of what Britons wish to do. That we even have to say this is one of the proofs that we’re the only liberals left in the country.
Now, if the plan were to be that government wouldn’t do anything that would prevent utility maximisation - suitably adjusted for third party effects, of course - then we’d be all supportive. But that’s not what’s being suggested, is it? There should be a plan so that those running the plan should be able to tell everyone what to do to achieve the plan.
But then, you know, that’s Mazzonomics for you.
If a share price drops 70% on delisting then that shafts the financial transactions tax idea, doesn't it?
An interesting little event on the stock market:
The Company announces the proposed cancellation of admission to trading on AIM of its ordinary shares of 0.1p each ("Ordinary Shares") (the "Cancellation"), and the adoption of amended and restated memorandum and articles of association (the "Amended Articles") (together, the "Proposals").
It doesn’t actually matter which company (Fulcrum Utility Services as it happens) but what happens next does - the share price drops 70%. Some of that will be the results announced at the same time but this is wholly normal, that a share price collapses on the announcement of its exit from the public markets.
The reason is that liquidity is valuable. Investors being able to buy in if it looks good, leave if it doesn’t, is something investors value. Therefore liquid investments carry higher prices - solely by being liquid - than illiquid. A publicly quoted company therefore carries a higher valuation than a private one.
This then shows why a financial transaction tax is the suggestion of only the very dim. The entire aim there being to tax liquidity so that there is less of it. So, we are to deliberately tax so as to provide investors with less of what they value. That will reduce the amount of investment - because incentives really do matter.
As both we and the European Union pointed out more than a decade ago. An FTT makes the economy smaller by reducing the amount of investment over time. Exactly and precisely because the thing being taxed - liquidity - is something that investors value and more liquidity means higher investment valuations and so more investing.
A FTT makes us poorer. An FTT is a bad idea.
Not a difficult concept no matter how few are able to grasp it.
Why are we wasting resources to *checks notes * save resources?
As we’ve noted before around here the price of doing something is an indication of the resources being used to do that thing. Money is how we deploy the use of resources after all. Labour, land, capital, they’re all resources, they’re things that cost money to buy and or rent.
Which makes idiocy like this very hard to understand:
The Government’s flagship bottle recycling scheme will cost companies ten times the amount that officials previously claimed, industry analysis suggests.
According to calculations by the British Retail Consortium, the planned deposit system for the purchase of drinks bottles and cans will cost retailers at least £1.8 billion a year.
That’s £1.8 billion in resources that are to be used. Sure, others say that it will only be £200 million but the point still stands.
Under DRS, retailers will receive compensation from the Deposit Management Organisation, which collects the returned material and sells it onto reprocessors, for hosting a return point.
The claim being made is that the value of those resources collected and sold will be less than the costs of the collection and sale. At which point, why on Earth are we doing this?
Prices really do work. If something makes a loss then that is subtracting value from our world. This is also known as making us all collectively poorer.
But prices also tell us of the resources being used. A loss is telling us that more resources are being used than saved. The value of those bottles and cans, collected, is less than the cost of the collecting. We are wasting resources in our effort to save resources.
This is, to be mild about it, mad. To be not mild about it this is insane.
All of this before we even start to discuss the amount of consumer time that’s to be spent hauling empties about and stuffing them into machines.
This is a carefully thought out and designed plan to make the people of Britain, the nation as a whole, poorer. Why are we doing this?
Very good question, wrong answer tho'
The “gigantic” power of the meat and dairy industries in the EU and US is blocking the development of the greener alternatives needed to tackle the climate crisis, a study has found.
The analysis of lobbying, subsidies and regulations showed that livestock farmers in the EU received 1,200 times more public funding than plant-based meat or cultivated meat groups. In the US, the animal farmers got 800 times more public funding.
Why is this allowed, why is this happening, good questions both. This is partially wrong as an answer:
Alex Holst, at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “While European investment in sustainable proteins has increased in recent years, this study shows the sector is still only picking the crumbs off the EU’s table. The sector needs public investment to scale production and reduce prices [or] Europe risks missing out on the enormous benefits.”
We’ve noted that both almond and oat milks are available in the local Aldi. As, we believe, are a number of the fake meats. And let’s be honest about it, if something’s on sale at Aldi then it’s already at scale. So, no, we don’t see that subsidy is required to get to scale as it’s already there.
But it’s this which is really wrong:
“It’s not a level playing field at all at the moment,” Lambin said.
The answer to that which is wrong that is. Level playing field? Sure. Level it by paying off whoever can chat up the minister responsible for subsidy? No. The correct answer is to stop subsidising the alternative. The claim is that dairy and meat gain a £35 billion a year subsidy. We’d not be surprised if that were true. The answer is to stop paying that subsidy.
Free market farming is the answer to the demand for a level playing field. So let’s have unsubsidized free market farming.
Let's make Polly happy - be more like Sweden
Polly Tornbee has, for decades, been insisting that Britain should be more like Sweden. To which we say great, let’s do that:
If Bernie Sanders and AOC wants to imitate actually existing Sweden today, they would have to liberalize markets in many ways, reform Social Security, introduce school vouchers, get rid of the minimum wage and most occupational licensing, and abolish taxes on inheritance and property.
Sweden still has a bigger welfare state than the United States, but the receivers pay for it themselves. The tax burden falls heavily on low‐ and middle‐income households in Sweden, making the tax system much less progressive than in the United States and almost all other rich countries.
The lesson Swedes took from the 1970s was that you can have a big government or you can make the rich pay for it all, but you can’t have both.
We’d perhaps suggest an improvement. If it’s the poor that pay all those high taxes to support the poor, why not lower those high taxes and enable the poor to keep their own money in the first place? The only people who would be worse off are the bureaucrats who do the collecting and distributing and really, who cares about them?
Yes, go on, let’s make Polly happy. Be not just like Sweden, be better.
Making immigration work
It is important, when considering immigration into the UK, to distinguish between migrants who come here to improve their lot in life and asylum seekers, who come to escape civil war or persecution in their home countries.
Some who cross the channel and enter illegally are not asylum seekers, with a high proportion being economic migrants. They already have asylum in France. 45,755 crossed the channel in dinghies in 2022 and were not immediately returned. The system allows lawyers to tell people to claim they were trafficked in order to claim to be asylum seekers instead of the economic migrants they actually are.
The UK has lost control of its borders, while qualified and skilled would-be legal immigrants face daunting costs, paperwork and delays. The two issues both have to be addressed if the problem is to be resolved.
For skilled personnel and those with jobs waiting in the UK, the solution is to auction visas that would allow them to come and settle and work. The visas would be paid for, not by the applicants, but by the firms wishing to employ them, and the auction process would ensure that those admitted would be the ones who would add the highest value to the British economy. This could be streamlined, with offices in the countries from which applicants sought to come to the UK. The UK could decide the overall numbers, and then have British and international firms bidding for the numbers they wanted to employ here.
Several countries, including the US and some EU members, make business (or ‘golden’) visas available, sometimes with a fast track to citizenship, for those who invest a minimum sum or who purchase a requisite amount of property in the country. This ensures that the recipients will be net economic contributors to the countries they apply to. The UK should establish a similar scheme for foreign nationals prepared to invest here.
For those who are crossing the channel in small boats, the policy should be to make it clear that those who enter the country illegally will not be allowed to stay. It must be resolved by Parliament that no international or European court will interfere with this determination. Instead of being housed in hotels or barges or other temporary accommodation, they should be immediately deported with no process that will prevent this. Australia and Denmark have used versions of this policy.
Much more could and should be done to prevent them from coming in the first place. Just as people who buy used cars with cash are subject to surveillance in case terrorist use is planned, the UK, in cooperation with its European allies, should establish that purchasers of dinghies should be subject to surveillance to determine if they have any legitimate uses for them. It might be useful to have tracking devices incorporated into dinghies so that their movements can be tracked.
Once it becomes more difficult for illegal crossings to be made, and there is certainty that none who do so will be allowed to stay, the UK will have reasserted control over its borders and will be able to process those applying to come here legitimately to take up jobs, or who are genuine asylum seekers, usually wishing to join relatives in the UK, and can be admitted as part of the UK’s humanitarian contribution to a worldwide problem.
So, that's greedflation dealt with then - nonsense
The profitability of non-financial companies in Britain edged slightly higher in the first three months of this year, running counter to claims that “greedflation” is fuelling price rises.
Official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that companies made a net return of 9.9 per cent on production in the first quarter, up from 9.8 per cent in the final quarter of last year.
Profitability is lower than its pre-pandemic level. In the three months to December 2019, UK non-finance firms made net returns of 10.3 per cent.
The ONS numbers are here. Yes, they are broken out into manufacturing, services, oil and gas offshore and so on. No, there is no empirical support for the idea that increases in corporate profits drove inflation. On the basic grounds that corporate profits did not rise by the amount necessary to be driving inflation.
So, that idea’s dead then. Well, OK, that idea’s dead in a rational reality but clearly not in politics.
Which leads to two further issues. One is, clearly, we should not be using politics as a way to run the world. Because politics has been infested with the idea - the untrue one, the one that just is not, you know, true - that it is profit margins which have been causing the recent inflation. A system that can end up so misinformed about reality is not a useful manner of making decisions about reality now, is it? We’ll just have to return to markets then given the corruption of the information flow into political decision making.
The other one is much more fun. Which is that those who were pushing this idea, so, how do we get to punish them? Misinformation, disinformation, after all these are the modern crimes, right? Deliberately lying to the body politic should carry some punishment?
Even if it’s only not believing a word these people ever say again. Sadly, that then runs into another problem. Other than those working in politics who ever has believed the comment pages in The Guardian?
Isn't it wonderful that wealth inequality is falling?
Given that bien pensant thinking insists that wealth inequality is the very terror of our times this looks like good news:
More than 3.5m people were stripped of their millionaire status last year as soaring inflation and a collapse in global currencies hit the value of private wealth.
The number of people with assets totalling $1m (£790,000) fell from 62.9m to 59.4m during 2022, a report by UBS and Credit Suisse found.
Britain suffered the third largest fall globally, with the number of millionaires dropping by 440,000 to 2.6m.
The decline is the result of global wealth falling for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis.
So society is better off then, isn’t it? That appalling burden that so oppresses all has been lightened and now kittens gambol in sunbeams.
Except, of course, we’ve seen no celebrations. The Guardian’s comment pages have carried nary the one celebratory piece. Which is odd, very odd - for if wealth inequality were the problem those same pages insist then there should be encomiums to the new revelations. Also, life should be markedly better given the claimed problems the former inequality were said to have caused.
It does occur that possibly, just maybe, the effects of this reduction have simply not been noted. Which does rather mean that the wealth inequality isn’t a problem in the first place if a reduction in it makes no difference.
The thought that the whole idea was just tosh cooked up to justify excessive taxation is just too horrible to contemplate of course.