To hire an opinion pollster as a strategist is to put a spinning weathervane where a compass needle ought to be
– Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph.
Now where did I see the leader of this dismal crew described as a weathervane before back in 2007?
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To hire an opinion pollster as a strategist is to put a spinning weathervane where a compass needle ought to be – Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph. Now where did I see the leader of this dismal crew described as a weathervane before back in 2007? In the 1950s, Anthony Crosland argued that we could take capitalism’s strength for granted. A future Labour government would be able to heap up the tax burden as well as the regulatory one – and the capitalist milch cow would continue to pour out the milk. Through experience, we in the UK have learnt that Croslandism is as flawed as any other form of socialism, but Europe, albeit unwittingly, is still in his thrall. How do I know that my narrative is better than yours? The experiments of the 20th century told me so. It would have been hard to know the wisdom of Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman or Matt Ridley or Deirdre McCloskey in August of 1914, before the experiments in large government were well begun. But anyone who after the 20th century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism, imperialism, mobilization, central planning, regulation, zoning, price controls, tax policy, labor unions, business cartels, government spending, intrusive policing, adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the other thoroughgoing 19th-century proposals for governmental action are still neat, harmless ideas for improving our lives is not paying attention. All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay… If you do not take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system. – Frederic Bastiat Britain’s energy reforms are billed as a key part of the Cameron government’s growth strategy. To understand why the U.K. economy is flat-lining, look to a government that believes a policy to raise energy prices and squeeze living standards is good for growth. Unless Mr. Cameron wants to share Jimmy Carter’s electoral fate, he’d better push the reset button on his energy policy – fast The problem is not that the BBC is on the wrong wavelength, it is that it is on any wavelength at all. That in this day and age a supposedly first world country has a tax funded state broadcast institution is simply absurd. Politicians can’t reform Social Security because they can’t talk about it honestly, and they can’t talk about it honestly because the median voter doesn’t want to admit a basic fact: Grandpa is an embezzler. Unlike terrestrial radio transmissions, satellite transmissions come from a point source in the sky. One must point their antenna in the right direction to receive such signals. Different people may launch satellites in different positions and broadcast without interference. The case for licensing radio spectrum is already weak. There can be no argument for the need for a third party to license satellite radio spectrum. In satellite television, the satellites are privately owned and launched by private space vehicles. And yet in the UK one needs a broadcasting license from Ofcom to squirt photons encoded with television signals towards the Earth from space. In addition, Ofcom gets to decide who is “fit and proper” to hold such a license. There is no definition of “fit and proper”. This is the rule of the whim of bureaucrats. |
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