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April 2017

The snowflakes are completely losing it

First, in taking the oath of office, a president promises to “faithfully execute the laws and the constitution.” That’s Article II Section 2.

But Trump is unfaithfully executing his duties as president by accusing his predecessor, president Obama, of undertaking an illegal and impeachable act, with absolutely no evidence to support the accusation.

Eh?

Third: The 1st Amendment to the Constitution bars any law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But Trump’s ban on travel into the United States from six muslim countries — which he initiated, advocated for and oversees — violates that provision.

Whut?

Fourth: The 1st Amendment also bars “abridging the freedom of the press.” But Trump’s labeling the press “the enemy of the people,” and choosing who he invites to news conferences based on whether they’ve given him favorable coverage, violates this provision.

Look, folks,

A fifth possible ground if the evidence is there: Article II Section 3 of the Constitution defines “treason against the United States” as “adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Evidence is mounting that Trump and his aides colluded with Russian operatives to win the 2016 presidential election.

Presidents can be impeached for what the Constitution calls “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The question is no longer whether there are grounds to impeach Trump. The practical question is whether there’s the political will.

Someone’s got to own up to putting the psilocybin in Robert Reich’s sippy cup here. Seriously, it’s not fair to keep him this high.

There’s another one at Salon just as bad. Georgian (ie, Caucasus Georgia) diplomat tweets that Trump DC is a great hotel. This violates the emoluents clause? FFS.

Worstall’s Fallacy, Worstall’s Fallacy

Sigh, Polly:

But even if most do comply, from everything we know about inequality after decades of never-ending research, we know that knowing the facts doesn’t lead to action. There is nothing we don’t know about gender, race and social immobility, but policy-makers pick the knowledge that suits them. Women are poorer? This week Damian Green, the work and pensions secretary most responsible for impoverishing them, offered £30m in counselling to stop poor women rowing with their partners as it spoils their children’s employment prospects. Good idea maybe, but no recompense for the £12bn taken mainly from women’s pockets in benefit cuts beginning this week.

We know that women get less money from their employers. We don’t know, because absolutely no one has ever calculated it, whether women have less money after the welfare state kicks in. Thus is Worstall’s Fallacy again, looking at the pre-things we do about a problem not the post-.

Actually, the only person I know of who has even tried to calculate this is me. the answer being that for the median or even mean woman the combination of child benefit and child care credits or whatever they’re called is larger than the gender pay gap.

Good. British employers are notorious for investing too little in training, while our education system has utterly failed on technical skills.

That’s the one that closed down the technical schools in favour of comprehensives, is it?

Umm, this is all they’ve got?

The incident in question took place in an ethics class with Gorsuch, when Sisk alleges he asked students to raise their hands if they knew women who had taken advantage of their employer’s maternity benefits only to quit soon after they had their baby. When only a few hands went up she said Gorsuch insisted everyone’s should be up because, as she recalled him putting it, “many women do this”.

“She said he said something like, ‘How many of you have heard about women taking jobs at law firms to take advantage of good benefits programs so they can then take maternity leave?” Mattern recalled. “I said, ‘That’s a really messed up thing for the teacher to say.’”

According to Sisk’s account of what happened in class that day, Gorsuch not only shared his perception that women take advantage of their employers’ maternity benefits, but he repeatedly brought class discussion back to just how often women take advantage of their companies, emphasizing that it’s very much a women’s issue and a women’s problem, and that such abuses by certain women disadvantage any company unwise enough to employ them.

In Sisk’s telling of the incident, Gorsuch said companies had a right to ask about applicants’ plans to get pregnant to protect financial interests. For employers to ask such family-planning questions of women is not technically a violation of federal law, so long as hiring decisions are not based upon the answers. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said such questions will be regarded as “evidence of pregnancy discrimination” when an employer later makes a decision that adversely affects a pregnant worker.

So, in teaching a law class, consider the following question. Some women do indeed take advantage of such benefits. Anyone saying that no woman ever has is simply wrong. Further, it costs money to train junior lawyers up. There is also a gender pay gap, driven by maternity and child care.

At which point we’ve a slightly difficult problem. Those women who aren’t going to become mothers should not be affected by their future decision. Those who are should be. Not should as in righteously but that’s just the way the universe works.

So, when hiring, should people be allowed to ask young women whether they intend to become mothers or not?

It’s an interesting legal question, no? One that we’d expect young lawyers to be able to consider?

As it is current law allows the question but not hiring decisions based upon the answer. And where other than in a law course should you be able to ask whether that’s the right answer to the problem?

How odd

Slee claimed that the archbishops of Canterbury and York were “intent on wrecking” the candidacies of John and Nick Holtam, who was married to a divorcee, “despite the fact that their CVs were startlingly in an entirely different and better league than the other two candidates, and probably every one of the new bishops I can recall in the past 15 years”.

Church decides to follow its own rules on sexuality when appointing bishops.

The gay bloke doesn’t get to be one nor does the one married to a divorcee.

Camilla doesn’t get to be Princess of Wales because she’s a divorcee.

Shrug, their gaff their rules, nu?

The Lancet’s being an unbiased and reputable journal here then, eh?

You can’t buy time – except, it seems, in America.

Increasing inequality means wealthy Americans can now expect to live up to 15 years longer than their poor counterparts, reports in the British medical journal the Lancet have found.

Researchers said these disparities appear to be worsened by the American health system itself, which relies on for-profit insurance companies, and is the most expensive in the world.

Their conclusion? Treat healthcare as a human right.

“Healthcare is not a commodity,” wrote US Senator Bernie Sanders in an opinion article introducing the issue of the journal, which is devoted to inequality in American healthcare. “The goal of a healthcare system should be to keep people well, not to make stockholders rich. The USA has the most expensive, bureaucratic, wasteful, and ineffective healthcare system in the world.”

Sanders, like authors of the lead report, called for single-payer health insurance or what Americans might know as “Medicare for all”, a reference to an existing public health program for older Americans.

An actual consideration of health care financing systems would be useful of course. But I doubt the Singapore system gets a look in, does it?

Err, yes, that’s the point Nicky, a fundamental rupture

Now that the prime minister has triggered article 50, the biggest economic risk facing the UK would be leaving the European Union with no deal at all. Some members of the cabinet have said we should prepare for such an eventuality. I am concerned, as are MPs from across the political divide, that this extreme form of Brexit is being talked about with increasing fervour by those who favour a fundamental rupture with Europe.

That’s rather why we’re doing it.

Hills honey, give it up

Russian president Vladimir Putin should be held to account for destabilising the United States’ electoral process, Hillary Clinton has said, as she called for an independent investigation into the cloud of rumours about Russian interference.

Umm, don’t we need to know first that there was such interference?

“He’s always trying to figure out how to advantage himself, his oligarchic companions, and his country – in that order,” she said.

A significant dose of projection there methinks. Put an S at the front of that and we’ve just described Hillary, haven’t we?

Mrs Clinton said she had a simple answer to why Mr Putin would want to interfere in the election.

“I don’t think it’s too complicated,” she said. “He had this desire to destabilise us and others. And he’s not exactly fond of strong women. So you add that together.”

And she’s still not really grasped what happened. The lifelong politician was politically outsmarted by Donald Trump. Yup, The Donald.

It’s the morning, so tax pays for government

Then there is a lack of understanding of what government, and the taxes it charges, actually does. How many people really think about just how much they are really dependent upon the existence of good government, the rule of law and the services the government provides to make a great deal of life possible? And I mean possible, not better. Without the infrastructure the state supplies there would be no markets of the sort we know to provide us with anything else. But awareness of that is, I suspect, quite low.

In the afternoon it will be government spends and then taxes to prevent the inflation from their having done so.

Third, the understanding of tax in all this is low. Most people, including the vast majority of politicians, still think that tax pays for government services. It doesn’t. Tax reclaims the money the government has spent.

Aha, no, it’s in the next paragraph!

But yes, he does manage to get one thing right.

The obvious response is that no one enjoys paying tax. But I am not sure that’s true. No one actually enjoys paying for anything. Just ask them. If they can got something for less very few will deny that they would prefer it. And marketeers know it: that’s why price is used as an incentive on so many occasions. But the fact that price is an issue does not mean people stop buying things. It’s the same with tax: the fact that people would like to get the services they enjoy for less does not actually mean they would not pay for them still. So I’m not convinced people don’t like paying tax. They’re just grumbling about the price.

Sure, we want the goodies and we complain about the price of them. Which is why claiming that tax, in and of itself, is a good thing is so ludicrously stupid. It’s the goodies we want. The tax is the price. Which means that we want maximal goodies for the lowest price. The tax is the bad thing, the cost, the goodies are the good thing, the benefit.

It’s possible to write about the Joy of Government. Even a minimalist like myself will agree that some is a very good idea indeed. It’s also entirely stupid to be arguing about the Joy of Tax.

Well, yes, Owen, where are you?

Props to The Guardian for publishing this:

In Venezuela 82% of people live in poverty – where are our friends now?

Where are Owen, Ken, Jeremy and the rest?

But what about the dozens of politicians and journalists – including the leader of the opposition – who until very recently lauded the “achievements” of Hugo Chávez and have now gone quiet? They always seemed to suggest that they had the wellbeing of the Venezuelan people at heart. Now that 82% of households live in poverty, they don’t seem interested at all in what’s happening in Venezuela. It is a shame, because their voices could really come in handy as the world calls on Maduro to restore democracy and respect human rights.

So Naomi Klein does get markets then

Naomi Klein has revealed she is to publish a book taking on the Trump administration, arguing that a corporate political takeover got him elected and that a rise in activism can be utilised to resist his policies.

No Is Not Enough is the most rapidly written book by the acclaimed Canadian writer and activist, a respected political thinker with a huge following since her 1999 book No Logo. She only began writing it two months ago and it will be published by in June.

Klein said that while she usually spent at least five years researching and writing her books, she felt it was important to put a book out immediately to put Trump into the context of the ideas she has spent the past two decades researching.

“An unprecedented number of people are becoming engaged in movements and politics, which is the silver lining of Trump,” said Klein.

Give’em what they want, whatever the dreck they want is.

Above all, cash in on the passing changes in taste.

Yep, she understands markets. Pity her books never betray this.

Does Nick Dearden actually read his own pieces?

Now we know what “global Britain” means. Optimists have clung to Theresa May’s phrase in the hope that Brexit might avoid falling into insularity and isolation; that a hint of liberal England might survive Brexit. But with May in Saudi Arabia, Philip Hammond trying to build empire 2.0 in India, and trade secretary Liam Fox visiting Gulf tyrants and a Philippines president busy wiping out his own citizens, we can rid ourselves of such illusions.

History repeats itself first as tragedy then as farce, said Marx. Certainly there is something ridiculous about May, Fox and foreign secretary Boris Johnson scampering around the world as if the last 150 years hadn’t happened, dreaming of a military presence east of Suez while clearly desperate for a deal with any human-rights-abusing dictator that will meet them. But it is no less frightening for that. A ruling elite tortured by its inability to rule the world, which believes such a role is its birthright, can still make dangerous decisions.

“Global Britain”, the international component of Brexit, is just such a decision. It is a strategy that the hard right has dreamed of for decades. We will be the financier and arms merchant to dictators. We will be the trading centre for financial products too dangerous for European standards. We will be the premier investment hub for the emerging super rich of the developing world, where everything can be bought for a good enough price. Britain is for sale, and we don’t much care who is buying.

All of that running around the world may or may not be a good thing. Meeting lots of dusky Johnny Foreigners and asking whether they’d like to buy our lovely Maxim guns, agreeing that they can come and trade, no worries about skin colour or national origin, in our marketplaces.

Hey, make up your own minds about the desirability or not of that.

But it’s not exactly insularity and isolation now, is it?

Last week, development secretary Priti Patel opened the London stock market and promised to use British aid to expand the City’s financial tentacles into Africa as a great “development partner”.

That’s insular isolation?

And this is where Dearden shows he’s a twat:

And what sort of society is this is likely to create? While this pomp and wealth is enjoyed by the government overseas, it presides over a society where public services are collapsing, homelessness is more visible by the day, social divisions become deep canyons. The domestic implications of “global Britain” will only pour salt into these wounds. A service economy for the corrupt super rich has no need of well paid and fulfilling employment, or a healthy and educated workforce. It needs cleaners and baristas, and call centre operatives and fast food workers. It needs them to be cheap and plentiful. Everyone else will have to survive on jingoism and blaming migrants for their problems.

The best paid jobs in Britain are in the financial services in The City, nu? It’s our biggest export sector, most productive industry…..

Tinned spaghetti pizza

If a prime minister wants to truly unite a nation – one way not to do it is to cook a pizza with spaghetti topping.

This seems to be the lesson that New Zealand’s leader, Bill English, can take away after he dabbled in the kitchen and sprinkled his result on social media this week.

On Tuesday night English cooked dinner for his family – a 1980s rural Kiwi classic: tinned spaghetti and pineapple pizza. Later, he posted a series of photos of his home-spun efforts on Facebook.

Fortunately we’ve Adam Smith and David Ricardo to come to the rescue here. Division and specialisation of labour, the resultant trade from the greater production, we’re best off when everyone does what they’re least bad at.

Meaning that perhaps English should be trying to run the country because he most certainly shouldn’t be trying to cook for it.

Then again, the Southland, eh?

Some said tinned spaghetti and pineapple pizza was a nostalgic staple of a Southland childhood (English hails from the tiny farming community of Dipton at the bottom of the South Island) and they praised his budget-friendly dinner as an affordable option for “beneficiaries”.

One woman wrote: “Yup this is how we made pizzas growing up! Must be a Southland thing! Still make them like this for my kids and they love them. Sometimes we use baked beans – oops, maybe I’ve just opened another can of worms……”

Must be why they breed such fierce rugby players down there. Desperate to go touring with the All Blacks in search of a decent meal…..

Umm, what subsidy is this?

A Labour government will impose VAT on private school fees to pay for free meals for all primary school pupils, Jeremy Corbyn is to announce.

The Labour leader will say on Thursday that the policy will boost the health and educational attainment of all children while ending a “subsidy to the privileged few”.

Can’t quite see what subsidy no VAT on school fees is.

The taxes which pay for the state system aren’t charged VAT as well. The grants to the state schools from the tax aren’t carrying VAT. Private schools aren’t paying VAT on fees. What subsidy?

That two versions of something are under the same tax regime isn’t a subsidy to one of them.

Interestingly, if the VAT is imposed then private schools will no longer have any incentive to reach out to those other local schools, will they? It being the threat of VAT which has been driving such programs. Might rather backfire….without the threat much of the power over them goes.

Today’s report on CEO pay

But even more frustrating than this theoretical misunderstanding is that the LPIT method has proved so popular because it has encouraged more long-term thinking, not less.

The committee has managed to grasp the wrong end of the pay package stick here. Their recommendations would set us back several decades to a pay model that we abandoned precisely because the new one was better at the MPs’ stated goals. Perhaps it is MPs’ pay that needs changing. If we offered the market rate, we might get some who knew what they were talking about.

Sigh

Steve H says:
April 4 2017 at 2:38 pm
I guess its how far back you want to draw the date line? Gibraltar was British before the US was American but I can’t see many people suggesting the US should pass sovereignty to the native Indians. The hypocrisy of Spain in relation to Gibraltar when it has two Spanish enclaves in North Africa is hard to reconcile. Surely she should give these back to Morocco before trying to raise the issue of Gibraltar? Perhaps the UK should give Gibraltar back to the Morocco not Spain as the Moors inhabited Gibraltar for 500 years before the Spanish. Or perhaps I should study more tax and all would become clear 🙂

Reply
Richard Murphy says:
April 4 2017 at 5:43 pm
The clear anachronism is now Utrecht

And tit for tax is excerpionally childish – as I suspect you know

Spain does also not operate tax havens

So your arguments are pretty hollow

Ceuta and Melilla are tax havens. 50% the normal corporate and income tax rates….

Does his knowledge ever start?