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April 2014

Timmy elsewhere

At the ASI.

An interesting point about death rates in past wars. The death rate in the American Civil War, for example, was high, yes, but it wasn’t all that different from the normal death rate for that time.

This is interesting on the Cyril Smith stuff

The correction stated: “Lord Steel has asked us to point out that he received no complaint against Mr Smith’s activities when a Liberal MP.

“He was aware from an article in 1979 of allegations against Cyril Smith of unusual behaviour with boys from the first half of the 1960s.

“He questioned Mr Smith about those allegations. Mr Smith denied any wrongdoing and said (as it turned out correctly) that the matter had already been investigated by the police who had closed their file.”

I have absolutely no idea what is the truth here. But we do have something interesting here.

So, multiple allegations of child noncery. OK.

Police investigate, a number of times, and no further action taken. OK.

So, what’s the correct answer?

That the police investigated and there was nothing to prosecute? Or that there was a cover up because the prosecution didn’t happen?

Either answer is possibly correct. But everyone seems to be insisting that the first couldn’t possibly be true and that the second must be true. The very fact that there wasn’t a prosecution is proof perfect that there was a cover up, no one at all seeming to think that it might mean that a prosecution wasn’t justified.

Weird.

Dear Lord, do people this ill informed still exist?

Kathy Lette, Author (Australia)

I agree – because in a country as wealthy, well educated and liberal as Britain sexism should be unacceptable. More than 100 years since Emily Pankhurst tied herself to the railings, British women still don’t have equal pay (we’re getting 75 pence in the pound compared to men).

Jeebus. Even Polly has been forced to realise that the gender pay gap isn’t 25%.

This is quite without the point that we don’t really have a gender pay gap, we’ve a motherhood one. But even if you’re going to deliberately try to misread the statistics you cannot get to a 25% gap.

Shock, Horror!

Sexters aren’t always wearing or doing what they say in messages, according to a new study.

Researchers from Indiana University found that out of 109 college students who had sent sexually explicit texts, almost half (48per cent) had told fibs.

People lie about sex.

Next week is water wet or what?

How did we end up with a commentariat this damn stupid?

Anne Perkins in The Guardian:

In fact, Piketty says, even what he calls the “meritocratic extremists” like bankers with their bonus bonanzas are never going to be as rich as those whose wealth is founded on vastly valuable property rights such as Britain’s super-rich, old aristocratic families like the Cadogans and the Westminsters.

OK, let’s take Piketty’s ideas as being true, just for the sake of this argument. Those that have wealth become ever wealthier simply because the returns to wealth are greater than the general growth rate in the economy. And this means that buying and selling things ain’t ever going to get you to that wealthy peak. All you need is to have inherited some great asset, like a few hundred acres of central London that your family has neither bought nor sold for some three or four centuries, and you’ll be richer than any of the great entrepreneurs, any of those who try to come up through trade or anything like that.

So, what’s the proffered solution to this?

Piketty’s analysis is fascinating and persuasive, but it is hard to see how to make it politically useful when the humblest effort to raise even the smallest levy on financial transactions,

What? The analysis is that doing transactions isn’t what creates the wealth. Have and hold without transactions is what does. So how does taxing the transactions that the greatly wealthy don’t do and don’t have to do deal with the problem of the greatly wealthy?

Seriously what sins have we as a nation committed to end up with a commentariat this damn stupid?

Get a sense of proportion would you?

Jeebus:

  Sexism in Britain is more widespread than in any other country due to a ‘boys’ club culture’, a United Nations official has concluded.

Rashida Manjoo, a South African human rights expert, was charged by the UN Humans Rights Council to monitor violence against women in the UK and report back to them.

She warned that sexual bullying and harassment were now “routine” in UK schools, according to NGOs she had interviewed, and recommended that schools have mandatory modules on sexism.

Ms Manjoo shared her preliminary findings on Tuesday and said: “Have I seen this level of sexist culture in other countries? It hasn’t been so in your face in other countries. I haven’t seen that so pervasively in other countries. I’m sure it exists but it wasn’t so much and so pervasive.

“I’m not sure what gives rise to a more visible presence of sexist portrayals of women and girls in this country in particular.

Dear God. There are countries out there where it’s routine to slice the clitoris off young girls to make sure that they’ll not enjoy sex too much. Places where women are jailed for having the temerity to try to drive. Places where female babies are routinely aborted for there’s a preference for sons.

And we’re the sexists?

Please, you old bat, do fuck off.

Perhaps WalMart should hire me directly?

I thought this was amusing:

Walmart is the beneficiary of billions of dollars per year in federal subsidies, according to a new report [PDF] from the non-partisan, progressive group Americans for Tax Fairness.

The report estimates that Walmart and the Walton family—which co-founded the company and still owns a majority share—collectively profit from nearly $7.8 billion per year in federal subsidies and tax breaks.

This report shows that our current system is anything but fair – rather it provides special treatment to America’s biggest corporations and richest families leaving individual taxpayers and small businesses to pick up the tab,” the report concluded.

The $7.8 billion includes an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance for low-wage Walmart employees, including programs like food stamps, subsidized housing, and Medicaid. It also includes an estimated $70 million per year in “economic development subsidies” from state and legal governments eager to host Walmart in their cities.

Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove described the report as “not accurate,” citing a detailed response to its main points on Forbes.com. The author of the response, columnist Tim Worstall, described the report as “fantastical nonsense” and took issue with the claim that welfare acts as an effective subsidy for Walmart.

The existence of these welfare payments means that the reservation wage rises. That is, an employer needs to pay people more to come into work because they get an income (however low that is) whether they work or not,” Worstall wrote.

I don’t think I’ve seen a company refer to something of mine in that manner before.

Snigger

US Airways has profusely apologized after an extremely graphic picture of a woman engaged in a sex act with a model Boeing 777 was tweeted to a customer who complained about her Spring Break flight.

Seems almost appropriate for spring break actually.

Err, yes, maybe

Cut out the banks and earn 13pc a year on your savings, tax-free, inside an Isa run by a large, reputable firm such as Hargreaves Lansdown.

After five years of rock-bottom interest rates that sort of offer might sound too good to be true. It’s not. This sort of return is provided by a number of socalled peer-to-peer lenders, which act as middlemen who connect savers directly with borrowers. Rates are more generous because there is no bank slicing off a hefty margin for a profit.

There’s also no bank there guaranteeing the return of your capital either.

Better returns, yes, and also more risk. Which is the way it usually works.

Wondrous, just wondrous, from you know who

As some will have noticed, I have been critical of George Osborne’s plans for new tax penalties over the weekend.

OK, so what has Gideon proposed? Essentially, that the current law be changed from one where they have to prove intent to dodge tax by not declaring an account to a strict liability offence. You didn’t declare an account to you’re guilty matey.

This is the proposal that Ritchie has been arguing against. What’s his proposal?

Let me offer an obvious solution. I would require that a tax return should demand that a tax payer disclosed all their bank accounts. This is, if course, just about the first information always demanded in a tax investigation so it is important. Most of us don’t have many. And it’s not hard to list them all. Then it becomes a relatively simple matter to prosecute someone for failing to disclose a bank account if that is appropriate. No intent need be proven: it’s error that could trigger the penalty.

That Gideon should change the law to what Gideon has just said he wants to change the law to.

For the collection of idiot Guardian headlines

Despite the Nigel Evans trial, the wrongly accused are not the main victims in rape cases

Well of course they’re bloody not.

The major victims in rape cases are those who have been raped.

The major victims in cases of false allegation of rape are those who have been falsely accused.

We can tell the difference quite easily too. In the one someone has been raped so they are the victim. In the other no one has so that victim position is open to be filled by the accused.

Then we get to Owen Jones’ actual piece:

MPs led by David Davis are on the offensive against the Crown Prosecution Service, and there are renewed calls to grant anonymity to alleged rapists, a privilege no one proposes for accused murderers

We don’t grant anonymity to the murdered either. Nor, in fact, to any victim of any other crime.

This represents a troublesome loss of perspective. No one who is rational can look dispassionately at the facts and conclude that false accusations are the real problem when it comes to rape. Official statistics suggest that 97,000 people are raped a year, yet on average only 15,670 become recorded crimes and, in 2012-13, there were just 2,333 convictions. A CPS review last year found that, over a 17-month period, prosecutions for false allegations made up just 0.6% of rape cases.

Oh, just great. Start with the number of possibly, estimated to be, unreported crimes to give a big number. Trump that at the end with only the number of prosecutions for the reverse crime. Well done laddie. What we actually want to know is what number of allegations are made as against those who are found guilty of doing so. You know, the same as your numbers of alleged, estimated rapes and convictions.

What nonsense, being proud to be British

However, the pride of Britons in their national identity has fallen to an all-time low, with only one in five young people “very proud” to be British, the British Social Attitudes survey has found.

According to the figures, seen by The Sunday Times, a third of people are very proud to be British, compared with 43 per cent a decade ago.

The young and highly educated are the least likely to feel proud to be British than older people or those with fewer qualifications.

Why would anyone be proud of having pulled the winning lottery ticket in life, that random chance of having been born British? Thankful possibly, grateful perhaps, but proud?

The monarchy, the BBC and pubs are among the most important aspects when it comes to defining Britain, according to a new research.

William Shakespeare, the House of Commons and our weather also top the list of key British associations.

The major feature of being British is that we don’t try to define it. There’s none of this Germanic nonsense where people try to look for the soul of the nation, the blood of the race n’all. No Froggie insistence that it’s all contained in three word phrases, not for us a l’Americain where it’s hand on heart to the flag. We simply are and that’s the end of that.

Think how damn difficult it is to really come up with a definition of Britishness. The best I can do is that we’re the only group of people who are willing to entertain the idea that not all Morris Dancers are entirely and completely mad. Not sure about it mind, but willing to entertain the idea. Or is that the English?

 

 

All hail the glorious GallMeister!

This is just incredibly fabulous from the GallMeister himself:

One of the underlying important themes that the Tax Justice Network and I have emphasised over the last decade has been the continual shift of the burden of taxation from capital onto labour. As if evidence were needed that this trend is continuing, this was the headline from an email that I received this morning from the OECD:

oecd

Of course, the situation varies from country to country.  It is the trend that is important,  and that is a continuing explanation for the crisis that our economy, and that of the world at large, faces.  Growth without a rising share of labour income  is not possible:  inequality prevents it.

No, no, just let that sink in for a bit.

So, labour is being horribly oppressed as the tax burden upon it rises. This is being done by reducing tax free allowances on labour income, thus subjecting higher portions of total income to labour taxation.

That is what the OECD is stating and that is what the GallMeister is complaining about, yes?

And yet what is the case in the UK? Where the personal allowance has risen considerably (admittedly only to make up for decades of fiscal drag but still) thereby reducing the portion of total income that is subject to labour taxation? One of the implacable opponents of this policy being a retired accountant from Wandsworth currently resident in Norfolk?

Can you imagine what gall you must have to hold both positions at the same time? That the neoliberal lackey running spit dogs like myself are wrong for oppressing labour with ever higher taxation and also the spitlackey dog running neoliberals like myself are wrong for reducing the taxes paid by labour? The former by reducing tax free allowances and the second by increasing them?

Still, I understand such gall will be rarer in future as they’re going to surgically remove it.

Ritchielogic

First, the proportion if NHS resources going to GPs is already falling, significantly. It is now less than 9% of all resources when it was over 10%. So the service is already underfunded.

Eh? A fall of the proportion of a budget going to one activity means, by definition, that that activity is being underfunded?

What?

Oh dear Nick, Oh dear

Food banks will be to the 2010s what hunger marches were to the 1930s. But they are not dramatic places. You don’t see queues of distressed people waiting by their doors. The food banks are discreet. The Anglicans who run them show their kindness by doing nothing to draw attention to their clients’ poverty.

For all their unobtrusiveness, food banks might do as a symbol of our times too.

Let us take food banks to be a sign of our times then. What do they signify?

That Brits seem to be entirely happy to put their hands in their pockets and provide charity for their fellows? Seems like a pretty good thing to me.

But this is simply silly:

In America, the average worker has not had a pay rise since 1973. In Britain, median full-time pay stopped rising in 2000, then collapsed after the crash. The great recession came after 30 years of the rich leaving the rest behind. (In the past two decades, for instance, the top 1% has grabbed three-fifths of all the gains in American growth.)

You cannot believe both of those things. That the average USian has not had a pay rise in decades and also that the rich have only been taking three fifths of the economic growth. It’s an either or. Either the rich have been taking all of the economic growth (for we all do agree that economic growth has been taking place, yes?) or the wages of the average worker have indeed risen.

And we know where this confusion comes from too. From the way that health care insurance is paid for in the US. It is part of labour compensation but not part of labour wages. And an increasingly large part of labour compensation has been devoted to health care insurance over the decades (given that the health care sector has moved from 8 % or so of GDP to 18% this must be so). Meaning that looking just at cash wages shows no great post inflation change but labour compensation has grown strongly.

To clarify why this is important think about our own health care financing system. It’s paid for out of taxes (nominally, but not in fact, out of national insurance). The cost of the NHS has increased (some 5% of GDP to 11% or so). So, let us try to equate the two systems. Have UK wages risen over this period? Yup, they sure have. Has NI risen over this period to pay for the NHS? Yup, sure has. But, do we look at the rise in wages after the increased costs of paying for health care? Do we look at post NI wages when determining whether wages have risen? No, we don’t. And thus to compare with the US system we should compare after health care has been paid for: or, both before. But not look at one set of figures before health care costs and the other after.

Is North Korea more free market than the UK?

Ridiculous question but the answer could be yes:

As much as three-quarters of the country’s household income now comes from the private sector, estimates Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.

Given that the UK government is 45% or so of GDP that might mean that North Korea is actually more free market than we are.