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So here’s a statement then

To be precise, tearing up regulations is invariably bad for people and the environment.

Because spending £300 million on the planning inquiry into a Thames tunnel is such a productive use of money. Right?

There is one message coming out of this: what Starmer and Reeves are proposing is jobless growth. Growth, in other words, that despoils our environment and pays little or no return to people but does seek to enslave them in yet more debt to buy the goods made here for which they will not have the income to pay, whilst increasing inequality and division in society.

Also, political economist entirely unaware of the benefits of increased labour productivity.

24 thoughts on “So here’s a statement then”

  1. Why are so many young women are trying to become influencers and OnlyFans girls? Because these are industries with low cost of entry and practically no regulation.

    It used to be that a young woman starting a business would try and open a cafe or a hairdresser. That does not really happen now because of the costs of entry and all the regulation that they have to deal with.

    It really is easier for women just to strip off and wobble their bits.

  2. Spending £300 million on the planning inquiry will further enrich many members of the legal profession. They will probably see this as a very good thing and thank their colleagues who have take up positions in the government of the country.

    Similarly the enquiry into the 2018 Novichok nerve agent poisoning death has just opened. Six years on how can that server any purpose other than enrichment of the people conducting the enquiry?

  3. This is the reason why it’s so much cheaper to just keep Queensland’s coal burners running instead of building Dutton’s nukes.

    And politically, the only people it pisses off wouldn’t vote for the Libs anyway.

  4. “invariably bad” – no regulation ever, anywhere goes too far or turns out to be counterproductive?

    It has been suggested that perhaps the biggest problem with having the gov’t do things is that you can’t get them to stop, even if it becomes obvious something isn’t working.

  5. Would have thought “jobless growth” would be perfect for a country where so many advertised vacancies go unfilled & half the working population have sicknotes saying they cant.

  6. There’s no such thing as ‘political economy’.

    There’s economics, which is the study of how things actually work in the real world (along with their 2nd, 3rd and 4th order effects), and which, when done properly, give us an accurate picture of this (or as accurate as complexity and deficiencies in knowledge and data allow).

    Then there’s ‘political economy’, which for no good reason beyond “because I say so” wishes the real world worked differently to the way it actually does, and via laws and regulations tries to alter reality to accord with its wishes.

    Guess which one always wins?

    Sowell tells a fabulous story of how, when still a student lefty, he stood up in class to expound a favourite theory and policy. The prof said: “Great. What happens next?” So Sowell had to expound further. “Great. What happens next?” After a few iterations of this, Sowell had completely demolished his own theory and become a proper economist rather than a utopian, moralistic bullshitter. What a fantastic life lesson.

    Are Murphy, Reeves or any of the other clowns capable of this? Sowell is not only extremely bright, he’s one of the planet’s wisest people. Intelligence is common – half of the human population is of above-average intelligence – but wisdom rather less so, which is why, according to sound economic principle, it has always been highly valued.

  7. OnlyFans.

    If you’re a woman, all you have to do is open your legs, look down, and there before you is a valuable, exploitable asset, for which there is perpetual strong demand.

    Until recently, exploiting this required undertaking the oldest profession or trophy wifedom, both physical activities with obvious downsides. Now it can be done via pixels, with very low startup and fixed costs, and few downsides, none directly physical. And given that there’s no accounting for taste, almost every woman on the planet is in with a chance.

    Why is it surprising that this industry is growing strongly?

  8. Okay, then. Let’s enact a regulation requiring the licencing of ex-accountants writing about economics. Set the fee at… ooh, say £5k a year? Which goes to Tim as the director of Oftwat. Oh dear… he might find that some people aren’t up to snuff. That would be terrible. But it’s for the environment and the Greater Good; what’re you gonna do?

  9. tearing up regulations is invariably bad for people and the environment.

    There’s a cracking article in the DT explaining, with the help of both knowledgeable people and greenie pressure groups, exactly why both plastic recycling and attempts to replace plastic with other materials are mostly environmentally counterproductive.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2024/10/14/myth-plastic-recycling-finally-unravelling/

    In view of this, I would dearly like to know the Sage of Ely’s thoughts on current plastic recycling regulations and the desirability of amending or abolishing them, for the good of people and the environment.

  10. Growth, in other words, that despoils our environment and pays little or no return

    Spud is actually remarkably close to being correct. Apart from the bit about growth, although I guess the act of despoiling the countryside with pylons and solar farms will add to GDP. Of course the end result of vastly expensive electricity won’t be growth.

    The Labour ‘growth’ plan is borrowing money to subsidise green snake oil tech which won ‘t work and therefore won’t turn a profit. However, if you are the CEO of Carbon Eating Widgets Ltd, the subsidies will keep you very comfortable for a little while.

  11. Maybe it is the 21st century equivalent of digging a ditch and then filling it in again. Overall pointless, but it can stimulate demand in the economy.

  12. Spud at his petulant best……

    “Daniel Baker says:

    “There would be no discussion of wealth taxes now if we had not written ‘Tax Us If You Can’”

    Really? I can recall discussion of wealth taxes in the UK back in the 1970s. Labour published a Green Paper on the topic in 1974.

    Various European countries have introduced (and abandoned) wealth taxes throughout the 20th century.

    Athens had a wealth tax in the 4th century BC!

    Your criticisms of others not acknowledging your work would sound a bit better if you weren’t constantly trying to claim you had invented everything and never acknowledging that your work builds on work done before you.”

    “Richard Murphy says:
    October 14 2024 at 12:51 pm

    People have said this to me for decades now

    People who have achieved noithing, that is”

  13. digging a ditch and then filling it in again. Overall pointless, but it can stimulate demand in the economy.
    Why do people think even the internal logic of this makes sense? There is already a demand in the economy. There always is. What there isn’t, is demand at the current price. So you pay people to dig ditches & fill them in. There’s been no increase in production of consumables. Their wages are just added competition in the market for what production there’s been. Therefore inflationary. Unless government’s increasing taxes to pay the wages. In which case it’s just a transfer of wealth from the taxed to the ditch diggers & fillers & demand stays the same.
    I’d like to know how this translates into future economic growth. You get economic growth by by being more productive, not less productive.

    Recycling plastics. I suspect the manufacturers who are using recycled in production are mainly doing it because government propaganda has convinced consumers that that it’s virtuous. They’re more likely to buy a product labelled “made with recycled plastic”. I doubt if it’s actually economical in its own terms. But the added cost of utilising it is effectively in the advertising budget. So the demand for the stuff is unlikely to increase much more than present.

  14. @salamander

    I’ve not seen the ditches (perpaphs because they were filled in) but I have seen plenty of walls commissioned by wealthy land owners when hard times meant many locals were looking at starvation.

    Although the walls often served no real purpose they did mean a transfer money from the land owners to the workers. It might have been altruism, but it could equally well have been self preservation. A straight gift leaves the workers with idle time on their hands and and an expectation of more handouts. Pay for building the wall leaves the workers physically tired and grateful for the work provided by the landowner that meant they could afford to feed their families.

  15. @Andrew C

    This was for me even better. I can just see him raging into his expensive laptop (Which he doesn’t use all the functionality of its fair to say)

    Steve says:
    October 14 2024 at 8:57 am

    ‘Dan Neidle has much more knowledge and intellectual capability than you could ever hope for and his standing reflects that.’

    Richard Murphy says:
    October 14 2024 at 9:34 am

    ‘ You do know I am the equal lonest running person in the top 50 of international tax influencers – being in tbhe lost for well over a decade?

    You are talking utter nonsense….’

    Reply

    ‘ Jim Hooke says:
    October 14 2024 at 9:51 am

    So much influence yet no-one wants to employ you for your advice. What does that tell you?’

    Richard Murphy says:
    October 14 2024 at 12:52 pm

    ‘You trolls really are stupid

    I am overly fully employed right now’

    RobertJ says:
    October 14 2024 at 9:57 am

    ‘Aah, the smearing & trolling begin.
    Take heart, Richard, the smears mean they are worried. You are cutting through. Because you are RIGHT. (& your detractors are scared).’

    Richard Murphy says:
    October 14 2024 at 12:50 pm

    ‘ There is a lot of trolling this morning

    They’re all heading for the bin’

    I am certainly thinking ‘RobertJ’ is a spoof given the Tory leadership election – what a sad individual he is. If I get to 66 and my claim to fame is ‘top 50 Tax influencers for the longest time period’ I’d hope I had no sharp objects in easy reach. Pathetic.

  16. @V-P

    I did venture to comment that Kim Kardasyan was an influencer but that didn’t necessarily vouch for her knowledge or intellectual capacity but that didn’t make it through.

    As you say, Spud Rage was on display today.

  17. “If you’re a woman, all you have to do is open your legs, look down, and there before you is a valuable, exploitable asset, for which there is perpetual strong demand.”

    Is that true? How many OF girls are making minimum wage? How many would be better off getting a children’s nursery qualification, skills that are in high demand at the moment? Are women as a whole better off now when many will give sex away for free, and loads more are selling it (or the illusion of it) for pennies?

    One suspects that OF work is one of those 80/20 things – 20% of the people are making 80% of the money, the rest are working for peanuts. And because men can access OF content and all the other delights of t’internet, women in general are finding it harder and harder to find men to partner up with long term, because why bother with the hassle of an actual partner when Busty Betty from Bangkok online will do far more than Next Door Nora ever would?

    Women were far better off when they they operated a sexual closed shop, with the only scabs being the ones prepared to risk arrest standing on street corners in all winds and weathers. It meant men had to buy the cow to even get a glimpse of the goods, let alone sample them. Now sex has been commodified and because (as you say) 50% of the population has the requisite assets, the price has been driven to the floor, which can only be in men’s favour.

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