“The current rate of exchange is around $1.50 to the pound. When I tell my American friends that anyone earning the equivalent of $66,900 a year in Britain pays income tax at 40 per cent, they don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Any American politician who suggested such a thing would be vaporised before he could make his first TV advert. Even Mr Obama, the most Left-wing president in a generation, would think it outrageous. In fact, he said last week, in a keynote flog-the-rich speech, that no one earning less than $250,000 a year (the majority of Americans, as he put it) should have his taxes raised. He presumably would not adopt the Cameron-Clegg-Miliband definition of “the wealthy” to mean anybody earning a bit more than the average. Just as a matter of interest, he also stated last week that one exemption that he would not tamper with was the tax relief on charitable giving. Even for a Left-wing president, that would be going too far.”
– Janet Daley
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April 15th, 2012 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Hmm. I haven’t read Mill for many years. Back when I was a student in the mid-80s, I read On Liberty, and like some people I was not entirely happy with the “harm principle” that Mill used in his formulation of a liberal order. And he was a bit flaky on economics, or at least there was enough ambiguity in there to presage the transformation into the “New Liberalism” of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries (ie, greater state involvement). The Bleeding Heart Libertarians group blog think that Caplan is being unfair on Mill:
Interesting stuff. Regardless of such disputes, one thing I am certain of is that Mill was one of the greatest defenders of free speech. April 13th, 2012 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
A bit of a buzz has generated around the idea of Jonathan Haidt, with his notion that some people are born more “conservative” or “liberal” (in the US usage of those terms) than others, and that we can use genetics to explain, or partly explain, why people hold the views they do. It is easy to see why a lot of people might be wary about this sort of thing, as it might smack of determinism, but I think Haidt tries to be very careful to avoid falling down that particular rabbit hole:
My own take on all this is that yes, it might well be very useful to know more about why we hold the views we do, act as we do, and so on. To know thyself is the beginning of understanding and all that. I am struck by this paradox: we are, as humans, a species that, unique among all others, has the desire to “look under the cover”, so to speak, to see how we got to be what we are and why we are the creatures we are, and then, hopefully, overcome whatever shortcomings and problems we find to become, well, hopefully better. In other words, we may not be a blank slate, but we are not prisoners of some sort of ruling, all-powerful genetic code, either. I sometimes worry that some people become beguiled by these new forms of Darwinism to such an extent that they forget that pesky, and awkward thing that we seem to have in us: volition, or Free Will. Another point I’d make about Haidt’s idea is this: if it is true that people have certain traits like a predisposition to hold certain views because of their genes, how does he deal with those children who rebel against their parents’ views? I know of several libertarians, for instance, who clearly took against their parents’ hard socialist/other collectivist opinions. And in some cultures, children are more conservative than their parents out of rebellion – I am sure this is something that has happened among parts of the Muslim community in the UK, for example. Anyway, food for thought. Here is a TED lecture by Haidt. April 10th, 2012 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Further to my brief remarks yesterday on the UK government’s plans to intensify scrutiny of the internet (although it may be that the government is changing its tack), comes this piece of crap from Dan Hodges, a Labour Party supporter who writes approvingly of the Big Brother state. This man is beyond irony. Take this as an example of his thinking:
And of course this is his idea of the killer argument:
Ah, “only the innocent have anything to fear” argument. Mr Hodges is undisturbed by the thought of mistaken identities, or youthful radicalism catching up with anyone. No sir, ordinary good men and women of the UK can rest easy in the knowledge that their innocuous, dull messages to friends and business will not incur the suspicion of those men from GCHQ or wherever. This sort of thing is mildly terrifying to the extent that it shows how trusting so many people are of the modern state and its apparatus. And there is simply no space in Mr Hodge’s mind, it appears, for any suspicion of how such intelligence might be misused. If the recent allegations of corruption by the UK police over the supply of data to bent journalists has taught us anything, it is that if we aggregate vast caches of data into one place, someone, somewhere, will be tempted to make wrongful use of it. It boggles the mind that Mr Hodges does not see this. Mr Hodges also argues, not very convincingly, that recent some miscarriages of justice would not have happened had we British not been so precious about privacy:
Ah, yes, if only Britain had been completely festooned with CCTV and the rest in the early 70s and later, then all those folk banged up for killing people would have been free. I would recommend Mr Hodges spends some time reading the thoughts of security expert Bruce Schneier before opining again about the “benign” nature of an all-encompassing surveillance state. April 5th, 2012 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Having been very busy these last few days, I hadn’t had a lot of time to comment on the latest attempt by the UK government to tighten its surveillance powers over the internet and other forms of communication. Another article at the Daily Telegraph gives some flavour of what is at stake. Any relief that the Cameron administration had decided to scrap proposed compulsory ID cards when it got into power have been short-lived. As predicted, once the first flush of some liberal optimism had faded, this government, like all of its peers, reverts to type. In fact, I am slightly surprised it has taken this long. April 4th, 2012 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Oh, the joys of counterfactual history:
Thanks to EconLog for the link. Of course – and this is going to get debate going – if the US had not entered WW1, how do we really know what would or would not have happened several years hence? What configuration of forces and political developments would have arisen? There is simply no way anyone can know for sure. March 29th, 2012 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of the things that any reasonably consistent defender of freedom realises is that freedom means the freedom to do or say stupid, offensive or silly things. (A key proviso, of course, being the freedom to do that so long as you are not imposing your views on others, such as by entering private property and spraying graffiti on the walls, or posting offensive comments on a privately run blog such as this in violation of the blog-owner’s house rules). The recent case of Liam Stacey, a young man jailed for up to 56 days for making offensive comments about the Bolton footballer, Fabrice Muamba, is a particularly bad case. Mr Muamba is a black footballer who, over a week ago, suffered a heart attack during a football match. He had to be rushed to hospital and is in a critical condition, but it is hoped he will recover. His case has touched the hearts of even the most partisan supporters of the game; people from across the sport, not just in this country, have posted messages of support. Some might sneer that this is typical sentimental guff, but I disagree and it seems genuinely meant and rather a good reflection on a game that often gets its share of abuse. Now this young student who used Twitter to make crass remarks is obviously an idiot. But it seems to me to be utterly nonsensical to suggest that he should be punished for it by the law. (We don’t have big enough jails to hold all the bigots in this country, let alone anywhere else). He has not, as far as I can tell, incited violence against Mr Muamba or his family and friends. If he had done that, then there might be more of a case. And where exactly are we going to draw the line? Those internet users who post messages hoping for the death of Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher or other political figures – are they going to be prosecuted? (I can think of a few people who might be in quite serious trouble on that score). Should the odious Baroness Tonge, whom I denounced for her anti-semitic remarks the other day, be slung in jail? (No). Should those who preach that non-believers in some god or other will burn in hell be put away? Should people who send jokes to friends and inadvertently offend someone be sent to jail? (I offended someone once many years ago this way and got carpeted by my then boss, to my shame). What about stand-up comedians like Frankie Boyle or Jimmy Carr who say nasty things, such as about the Queen, Scotsmen or children with Down’s Syndrome? I personally think these “jokes” are bloody awful but I certainly don’t think people should be sent to the slammer. Instead, we just make sure we don’t pay to watch these characters again. Of course, in making the case for freedom of speech for yobs, idiots and bigots, it is important to be crystal clear that tolerance for such behaviour is not the same as approval of it. We tolerate that which we do not ourselves approve. There is no doubt that this rather ignorant and unpleasant young man has learned a painful lesson, but it would have been far better had this student learned the perils of making unpleasant comments not by going to jail – places which should be occupied by genuine criminals such as robbers and rapists – but by incurring the ridicule and contempt of those who rightly regard racism and bigotry with scorn. Defending liberty, if it means anything, means defending the freedoms of those you might personally regard as repulsive. Being a libertarian sometimes demands that we take such a stand, however uncomfortable. March 29th, 2012 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.'” – Barry Goldwater, as quoted by the blog, Unforeseen Contingencies. He is talking in relation to the absurd Rick Santorum. The Republican Party has, in my view, paid a high price for not heeding Goldwater on this issue. I sometimes wonder if a similar thing could ever happen in Britain with the Tories. I think it is, hopefully, unlikely, although the spirit of old puritanism does stalk the land in different guises, some of them not, on the face of it, remotely religious as traditionally understood. March 23rd, 2012 | 44 comments - (Comments are closed)
“There is nothing original in the reflection that football has a frightening capacity to make shocking hypocrites of us all.” So writes Matthew Norman, apropos the recent changing circumstances of a player who at one point was on the verge of being fired and shamed for refusing to play, and is now regarded as a great guy for his recent performances. What all this tells us is that sports fans, like others who have a tribal loyalty to an institution, can convince themselves of contradictory views with ease. On the positive side, if sport allows people to channel their atavistic urges in a vaguely harmless way, all well and good. Alas, the absurdities of the situation do become quite irritating particularly in cases where a sportsman is a villain one minute for allegedly saying or doing something nasty, and is treated as a god the next for being able to, say, kick a ball accurately over 50 yards. George Orwell, by the way, was very harsh on team sports, particularly when national alliegances were involved, but the same on a smaller scale applies to clubs within the same nation. Here is a quote:
Set against all this, it has to be said that it is heartening to see what appears to be mostly genuine sympathy for a Bolton footballer who had a heart attack during a match a few days’ ago. He’s very lucky to be alive. I do wonder if one problem with football these days is that in the English Premiership particularly, it is played at a helter-skelter pace. If you look at a match of, say, 40 years ago when the likes of George Best or Jimmy Greaves were strutting their stuff, the game seemed to be a bit slower. Just a thought. March 23rd, 2012 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
“To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine – despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide.” March 21st, 2012 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Reuters carries this rather biased piece (well, at least the headline gives the game away) about London and the “rise of the plutocrats”:
The article goes on to quote those leftists at The Tax Justice Network:
(Update: Tim Worstall fisks this piece of nonsense). This seems to be wrong on a number of levels, while superficially plausible. First, unlike oil or gas, Londoners did not benefit from some discovery by others, as is the case when Western firms developed the oil reserves in the North Sea, the Middle East or wherever. Instead, London has seen the benefits of a number of largely Man-made factors, such as the rule of law; stable property rights; a cluster of legal, accounting, banking, insurance and other industries; a relatively benign tax and regulatory environment (at least until recently), a measure of peace; the English language as the language of global business; the timezone in how it intersects Europe, North America and Asia, and finally, its proximity to Europe and its attractions. Transport, despite all the moaning and groaning of we townies, is still broadly effective, although things might deteriorate if we don’t improve air and rail links. But in general, this “curse” – if it is a curse – of having lots of money in London is something that cannot be likened to the oil or energy industries of say, Russia. The problem with the whole thrust of this approach – as perhaps is hinted at if you read the entire Reuters piece, is the zero-sum mentality. I don’t become poorer because a rich guy moves in next door. Yes, if I am not yet a homeowner, then the presence of more rich people will make housing more costly if – and this is the crucial bit – there are planning restrictions on new housing, or if it is very difficult for me to easily commute in from a cheaper part of town. In fact, if house prices rise due an influx of say, wealthy foreign investors from Asia, then that is the sign of prices doing their job in communicating the shift the relative supply and demand for X, and if a market is working with some measure of efficiency, it will generate a response, such as people selling up and moving to cheaper places to capture a benefit, or more high-rise developments, or more development of brown-field and green-field sites, or more remote working from low-cost areas, etc. In fact, if the “curse” of London being an incredibly expensive place remains, then expect other towns and cities outside London to start taking a bigger share of business from the aspirational middle class that no longer wants to live in London. We might start to see more stories of whole businesses moving up to the Midlands, East Anglia, west country, etc, as a result of this “curse”. If transport networks are up to the job, I see no reason not to regard this as wholly favourable. Some other thoughts occur to me. For one, it is sometimes said, even by people who like to think of themselves as pro-market, that London’s financial services industry is “too large” compared with the rest of the economy and it is “distorting” the economy. That rather begs the question of how anyone can imagine a counterfactual reality in which we would know how large London’s financial industry would be if other things had been different. Also, I dislike the implicit notion that there is some “right” or “wrong” size for any economic segment. At the present time, it would be nuts to say that the energy sector is “too large” in Russia; if the division of labour and the relative cost/benefits are such that energy is the big industry in Russia, how is this an issue? And talk of division of labour leads me to this point. London now benefits from the global division of labour. London is not just the banking, insurance and legal hub for the rest of the UK (apart from Scotland, maybe), it is, increasingly, providing such a hub for much of the planet. So it makes perfect sense for London to have the pull and economic clout that it does. There are no doubt the effects of a period of very low interest rates to consider. The current phase of Quantitative Easing is surely bound to underpin a part of this prime central London property boom, and bear in mind that the asset bubble was in part caused by such derangement of the monetary order in the first place. Debt has tended to be more favourably treated in tax terms than equity – it would be better for the balance of the economy if that were not so. Another point which I have challenged before is the idea that this situation would be less severe if we had a land value tax. Although not directly comparable, jurisdictions such as Hong Kong have taxes similar to an LVT in some respects. But property markets in places such as Hong Kong are highly volatile, so maybe property taxes are not effective in making things more stable. Another bad feature of LVT in this context is that people in central London who are not that well off but who have seen their property values skyrocket would have to sell up to one of those “plutocrats” – hardly quite what those socialists at the Tax Justice Network would intend. In fact, an LVT is a plutocrat’s dream. Another tax suggestion is some sort of punitive tax on homes worth more than a certain amount, but I read that such a tax is not as simple to enforce as some think, and also that driving the wealthy from the UK is bad policy (as well as being objectionable generally). Also, remember that whenever one of these evil “plutocrats” buys a house in Kensington or Hampstead, they already pay a shedload in stamp duty – a transaction tax – which, ideally, could be used to finance cuts in income taxes on the rest of us, possibly. (That would be a good idea and of course, general taxes should be cut anyway, for all sorts of reasons). And a final point, as mentioned by the Reuters piece. Yes, it may be the case that an influx of rich folk is not always going to benefit those who are temporarily priced out of the housing market, but then again, such rich immigrants are also going to spend a lot of money here, or they should be encouraged to do so, and that surely will translate into good things for those able to capture that spending and investment. If we really do believe in the mutual benefits of voluntary exchange, then complaints about “plutocrats” and foreign investors should be seen as a rather dodgy hybrid of nationalistic dislike of foreigners and socialistic misunderstanding of capitalism. Those who seem to want to drive wealthy foreign investors from the UK should beware the old saying: Be careful what you wish for. It might come true. March 21st, 2012 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are several reasons why no sane Londoner would want former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to ever hold sway over even the smallest fragment of life in this fine old town ever again. But even by the standards of his immoderate, incendiary rhetoric over a long and inglorious career, this material I link to via Harry’s Place blog surely has to take the proverbial biscuit. Last year, investigative journalist – and no right-wing hack – Andrew Gilligan, had a fascinating story about Ken’s interesting sources of funding. From Iran, no less. Update: Livingstone’s anti-semitism has been a feature for some time. Even his own party is starting to get seriously rattled. He’s playing a very dangerous game: pandering to fundamentalist islam and trying to score points with them by bashing Jews. FFS. Another update: Harry’s Place has more on the latest outrage. March 20th, 2012 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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