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Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic our citizens are confronted by yet another danger; one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies. – Donald Trump speaking in Warsaw today. July 6th, 2017 | 42 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I am writing today to solicit your support in favor of the “And A Pony” Party, the only party that truly cares. Other parties advocate minimum wage laws, but only the AAPP advocates raising the minimum wage to $175 per hour and giving all workers a pony. (We ask why our political opponents lack the courage to stand up for our working people.) Other parties favor preserving old-age pensions, but only the AAPP proposes tripling all old-age pensions annually and giving every retiree a pony. Why do our opponents fail to support our position? It can only mean that they hate the elderly, don’t want them to live well in their golden years, and wish to deny them the companionship that only a pony can provide. Other parties propose providing all citizens with health care paid for by someone other than themselves, but only the AAPP proposes giving all citizens free health care, weekly massage and spa treatments, and a pony. Our opponents clearly do not care sufficiently about the well-being of all our nation’s citizens, and refuse to join us in this call. Other parties propose spending more money on education, but only the “And A Pony” Party is bold enough to insist upon reducing class size to one half (that is, two qualified and state licensed teachers per student) and providing a pony for every child in school. Surely every child will learn better if provided with two full time teachers, and what could be more important than educating our youth? We call on our political opponents, who do not seem to care about our children as much as we do, to stand aside in favor of those who truly are concerned for their future. Other parties would like to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, but only the “And A Pony” Party proposes to provide every family, completely free of charge, with as much electricity as they could ever use, generated entirely by clean technologies, and a pony, too. Our opponents, who are in the pockets of big energy and the anti-pony lobby, would have us continue to enrich the fat cats forever, and would deny families vitally needed ponies. Other parties believe the government should reduce unemployment, but only the AAPP proposes to give a good, high paying job to every worker who wants one no matter what their skill level or age, and a pony. Would our opponents give every worker a good, high paying job? They have been in power for decades, and yet they have not delivered for our people. It is time for a change! Other parties pretend that they want to do something about the growing problem of hunger in our country, but only the AAPP promises to provide every creature with a functioning digestive tract within the bounds of our nation’s borders as much free, nutritious and well prepared food as they can possibly eat, as well as a pony. (The astute will note that we are therefore promising to give every pony a pony. This is correct. You will note that the other political parties do not promise to give every pony a pony, let alone provide free meals to all ponies, thus demonstrating that they are indifferent to the suffering of our nation’s noble equines. Indeed, it appears they do not care about the hungry at all!) Other parties pretend to care about the plight of the homeless and advocate for more public housing, but only the “And A Pony” Party would give every citizen, living or dead, an eight bedroom mansion complete with a fully heated swimming pool, a tennis court, and a stable with a pony in it. Our heartless opponents pass the indigent begging for scraps on the street every day and cannot find even a trace of kindness in their hearts for their plight, let alone work, as we will, to assure that every citizen gets a mansion and a pony. In the next election, you face an important choice. If you truly care about the future of your nation — if you truly want to see our people live the lives of prosperity, happiness and pony ownership that they deserve — there is only one possible party you can vote for: the “And A Pony” Party. I sincerely hope, for the sake of our country, that you support us in our quest to help our children, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the old, and the poor. July 4th, 2017 | 48 comments - (Comments are closed)
Free-marketeers, even at the more purist end of the spectrum, usually accept imperfect approximations of their ideals. (I have met exceptions to this, but not many.) We are comfortable embracing second-best, even third-best and fourth-best solutions. Browse through the IEA’s publications section, and you will find IEA authors endorsing the Chilean pension system, the Swiss healthcare system, the Icelandic system of tradable fishing quotas, Sweden’s approach to labour migration, and many other such examples. None of these endorsements come without qualifications: the authors are saying “This is not real X. Real X has never been tried”. But unlike socialists, they can identify X-approximations that they consider quite good. That is because free-marketeers generally believe in a positive dose-response relationship. A little bit of liberalisation does a little bit of good (think of the difference between Mao’s China and Deng Xiaoping’s China), quite a bit of liberalisation does quite a bit of good (think Chile before and after the Chicago Boys), and a lot of liberalisation does a lot of good (think Hong Kong and Singapore). That’s an oversimplification. There are reform bottlenecks: When an economy gets the basics wrong (the rule of law, independent courts, enforceable contracts and property rights etc), measures like trade liberalisations or privatisations count for little. Also, most free-marketeers accept some role for the state, so they do not strive for absolute purity. June 29th, 2017 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Socialism is tribal economics. (These four words suddenly clarified something I’ve been trying to explain for years with mixed success.) June 28th, 2017 | 45 comments - (Comments are closed)
ProTip to wannabe dictators: If you’re a tyrant who wants to centralize power over an industry, first frighten large businesses into your cartel protection racket. Then, eliminate local sovereignty over markets while imposing your own regulations and taxes. But call it “drawing into a common market” and “improving transparency to protect them.” Works every time. The final step is to prosecute non-compliance using men with guns. – ‘Tyler Durden‘, not a source I would usually quote but this pretty much hits the nail on the head. June 26th, 2017 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
So is Barclays Bank effectively being prosecuted for having refused a tax funded state bailout in 2008? Perhaps I misunderstand something but that sure as hell looks like what is happening here, at least when I read between the lines. Am I getting this completely wrong? June 20th, 2017 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
The main political insight of Thatcher and Reagan was that parties of the center-right must be parties of economic growth. Having wavered since, those parties now risk losing their way entirely. Some centrists will argue, quirks of this campaign notwithstanding, that Mrs. May shows how to win an election. The important question for conservatives to ask is: To what end? – Joseph C. Sternberg, Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall) June 7th, 2017 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
John Noakes, who died today, was a children’s television presenter who would do things like climb Nelson’s Column without a safety harness. I have seen comments about health and safety rules preventing such acts of bravery today. Indeed, another presenter on the same programme had the advantage of scaffolding many years later. But in this case it is not that health and safety rules have gone mad, it is that working conditions have improved because it has become cheaper to improve them. Presumably modern scaffolding is cheaper to erect due to advances in materials and techniques. In other words, due to economic growth. Even television steeplejack Fred Dibnah himself pointed out, “to circumnavigate the wall of that chimney, which might be sixty-odd feet circumference, with scaffolding is going to cost a heck of a lot of money. That’s why steeplejacks can still earn a crust of bread.” As admirable as Fred’s craft was, it is a sign of progress if people can no longer earn a crust of bread doing it because scaffolding costs a heck of a lot less. My late night pondering aside, there are some good videos of people at height behind those links. I particularly recommend watching as much Fred Dibnah as possible. May 30th, 2017 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yesterday the BBC’s Andrew Neil interviewed Jeremy Corbyn. A link to the interview is here. Starting at 21:52 the discussion goes as follows: -*- Neil: And as part of the investing in the future you plan to borrow a lot to do that. How much will you borrow? Corbyn: What we will do, is for the public ownership elements there’ll be an exchange for, erm, bonds for shares in it. Neil: But what is a bond? Corbyn: A government – a government bond. Neil: Yes, it’s a debt instrument. It’s borrowing. Corbyn: Well, it’s a bond – it’s a government bond which would be serviced by the income from that service, but in addition we would have control of it. Take – Neil: But you would still have to borrow. Bonds are borrowing. You would borrow. Corbyn: Take the water industry, for example, which has been a method of siphoning off profits out of this country to offshore companies that made a lot of money at the same time leaving us with expensive water and in some cases very bad levels of pollution. Neil: You would need to borrow – I understand the case but you would need to borrow to buy the utilities. Corbyn: No, it’s not a – it’s a swap of the shares for a government bond. Neil: But if you’re issuing bonds, Mr Corbyn, you’re issuing government debt. You are borrowing. Corbyn: Issuing bonds that we own which would be paid for by the profits from the industries, so instead of the profits – Neil: But you’ve said you would cut the water utilities’ profits. That means you wouldn’t have the money to pay for the bonds. Corbyn: Andrew, instead of the profits being siphoned off they would remain here. That’s an advantage, surely? Neil: National debt is already an incredible 1.7 trillion. If you borrow to invest on top of the 50 we do, another 25 you say, you need to borrow to nationalise, you may have to borrow – if the IFS is right – for day to day spending. Corbyn: No, we’re absolutely clear we will not borrow for day to day spending. Neil: But you might have to, if the IFS is right. Our national debt, which has already soared under the current government would soar even more under Labour, wouldn’t it? Corbyn: No, because the – we have the rule that we would only borrow to invest for the future. We would not borrow for revenue expenditure. I mean that’s sort of a sensible rule which has not always been followed. Neil: A technical rise. Corbyn: And what we’d get in return is investment in better services. That in turn would encourage economic growth. Listen, we have a huge imbalance of investment. Far too much goes to London and the south east in transport infrastructure. Far too little goes to the north east, north west and Yorkshire. Those issues have to be addressed. Hence the National Investment Bank, which will be regionally based all across the UK. -*- According to the polls it is looking more likely, though still unlikely, that Mr Corbyn will be our next prime minister. So I would like to know what he means by the above. My base assumption is that he has very little idea what he is talking about. But I must confess that if Andrew Neil were to ask me what a bond is, my answer would be scarcely less waffly than Mr Corbyn’s. Can Samizdata readers explain it all for me and readers like me? What exactly is wrong with his proposals, if anything? May 27th, 2017 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
This reminds of the broader point, made for example by James Hannam, a tax expert in the UK, that “no matter what name is on the bill, all taxes are ultimately suffered by human beings” (What Everyone Needs To Know About Tax.) Far too many people seem to be in denial about this basic fact. Tax a robot, and the robot’s owner gets taxed. A robot in that sense is no different from an electric toaster or dishwasher; these are tools made by Man for his use. Until we reach that moment when robots become truly autonomous (and have to pay taxes and perform jury service, etc), this fact is not going to change. Maybe Bill Gates got swayed by the idea that because robots are displacing human labour in some senses, and this creates a problem, it can be solved by taxing said robots and use the proceeds to give everyone a sort of Universal Basic Income. The idea of a UBI has been embraced even by those who think of themselves as libertarians/classical liberals, on the grounds that in some ways this might weaken resistance to some of the good things that come with disruptive change in commerce and finance. I have a number of problems, however, with UBI, not least its likely devastating impact on any sort of work ethic and a divorce between notions of cultivating a certain character and earning some form of income. At the end of September I am giving a talk on this matter at the end-of-month events that Brian Micklethwait has been putting on. I will update my thoughts on UBI a bit later. For the time being, check this out by Bryan Caplan at Econlog. May 23rd, 2017 | 44 comments - (Comments are closed)
The anti-austerity narrative has taken on a life of its own. For large sections of the Left, “anti-austeritarianism” is no longer about a response to a recession. It has become a mindset in its own right. Its central tenet is that there is no such thing as economic constraints – there are only political choices. It is never “necessary” to cut spending on anything. It is always a deliberate choice. In this way, the anti-austerity mindset has really become an anti-economics mindset. May 19th, 2017 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
This a few months’ old, but I thought of this excellent point on the issue of Single Market access, made by Tim Worstall, when reading some bleatings from Remainers on the subject:
And:
And then this:
Worstall rightly says that this sort of idea is politically difficult, precisely because it is so logical. There is another issue. The Single Market, as envisaged by the late Margaret Thatcher, may have been about trade and economics, but as far as much of the EU political class is concerned, it was part of a wider architecture of a European superstate – hence the way debate is linked to its access being tied up with free movement. Even so, as Worstall says, if access to this market really is so important, and denial of entry is going to be “catastrophic” (to quote an excitable Facebook acquaintance of mine), then exporters should not mind paying a fee. It would be no different to, say, paying an annual membership fee, or “tithe” (Worstall’s neat term) to be a member of the London Stock Exchange, or some other market, such as the Tattersalls bloodstock market, etc. As cannot be said too often, the Single Market is a customs union, surrounded by tariff and non-tariff walls that, for example, have significant costs on consumers. To be a member of such a protected zone ought to be a privilege that those who wish for its membership should pay for, and that payment should not come from the general taxpayer. Worstall’s logic is impeccable. May 5th, 2017 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
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