slaughtering the commonly held shibboleths

Kannu 

I read this article today shown below. Its a great article son. Very very interesting. A small article but which really nails the commonly held tropes and shibboleths which are extant in the world today. Such a clear and articulate argument son. People do not really appreciate these basic truths. The links are very valuable as well. I have remarked on all these points generally other than perhaps the feminism angle, havent really worked or commented on it that much but very interesting son. Worth spending an hour to go through the links, you will find it very beneficial for your studies as well as arguments for politics and philosophy.   

Love 

Baba 




http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/12/labor_econ_vers.html 

My 13-year-old homeschooled sons just finished my labor economics class.  I hope they take many more economics classes, but I'll be perfectly satisfied with their grasp of economics as long as they internalize what they learned this semester.  Why?  Because a good labor economics class contains everything you need to see through the central tenets of our society's secular religion.  Labor economics stands against the world.  Once you grasp its lessons, you can never again be a normal citizen.

Costs of welfare

Here’s some interesting statistics by Angela Merkel.

“If Europe today accounts for just over 7 per cent of the world’s population, produces around 25 per cent of global GDP and has to finance 50 per cent of global social spending, then it’s obvious that it will have to work very hard to maintain its prosperity and way of life,” Ms Merkel said in the interview.
“All of us have to stop spending more than we earn every year.”

Pretty much obvious, but when you consider the levels of government spending across Europe, its shocking. For that matter across the board in the OECD countries, the level of spending is shocking. You know what pissed me off? is that we are spending and asking our kids to pick up the tab. That’s not being very good to our kids now, is it? bah

24 years of incompetence and stupidity

The department of Work and Pensions has, for the last 24 years, managed to bollox up the benefits system to such a large degree that last year, it managed to lose £3.2b and underpay £1.3b.

What is this? Is this what the taxpayer is working his nuts off for? that you cannot manage a benefits system? If the problem is complexity, then simplify it but then, these bloody governments cannot resist tinkering with the tax system. So the cost of a massively complex benefits and tax system, besides the usual economic costs, is this.

Unbelievable. This beast must be starved to death. More austerity and less taxes. Only then will this incompetent behemoth start looking at its own internal efficiencies.

Department for Work and Pensions accounts show £3.2bn lost in overpayments and £13bn underpaid

The Whitehall spending auditor has declined to sign off in full the accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions for the 24th year running, because of the extent of fraud and error in the benefits system.

Some £3.2bn is thought to have been lost through overpayments in 2011/12. Underpayments came to an estimated £1.3bn.

Auditor general Amyas Morse said fraud and error was "unacceptably high" and qualified his opinion of the DWP's accounts, the 24th year consecutive year this has been the case for the department and its benefits-handling predecessors.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee, said the DWP had failed to get a grip on fraud and error despite assurances that it would do so. "This department has the biggest budget in Whitehall and its inability, 24 years in a row, to administer its spending properly is just unacceptable," she said.

"With fraud and error of £4.5bn in 2011-12, roughly the same as in previous years, huge sums of money are being lost to the public purse that could have been spent on our schools and hospitals.

"Government spending is at its tightest for over 50 years and it simply can't afford to carry on like this."

She said the government was relying on the forthcoming introduction of the universal credit to "get its house in order" but that the transition to the new benefit was "full of risks" and potentially off-schedule.

"The department has got to get a grip on fraud and error now. Despite its assurances to my committee, it has not done so and it must do better," she said.

Morse said: "The level of fraud and error in the welfare system remains unacceptably high.

"I recognise, however, the difficulty of administering in a cost-effective way a benefits system of such complexity.

"The department should use the development of universal credit as an opportunity to enhance its processes to demonstrate what a modern, effective and joined-up benefits system will look like.

"In refreshing its approach to reducing fraud and error, the department needs to continue to improve its understanding of the root causes of fraud and error."

The auditor general's qualified opinion did not apply to the state pension, which has a much lower level of fraud and error, with £100m of overpayments and £150m of underpayments last year.

But he did also qualify his opinion of the separate social fund account – which includes cold weather payments, winter fuel payments, Sure Start maternity grants, crisis loans and community care grants – because of the extent of errors.

That account has now been qualified for nine years running.

Morse said the DWP had made "improvements" in some areas regarding the social fund but added that it "must build on these improvements if it is fully to resolve the regularity and debt issues".

Bishops show their usual perspicacity

So the bishops are upset, eh?

Eighteen Church of England bishops have signed an open letter, criticising the government's proposed welfare reforms. In the letter, in The Observer, the bishops express concerns about plans to limit the amount any household can claim in benefits to £500 a week. The bishops say the cap could be "profoundly unjust" to children in the poorest families and that they have a "moral obligation to speak up for those who have no voice".

It is estimated the cap, which would apply to the combined income from benefits such as jobseekers' allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit, could result in about 50,000 families being about £93 a week worse off. London is expected to be one of the worst affected areas, because of the high cost of renting in the capital. Earlier this week a study, on behalf of London Councils, said about 133,000 households in London would be unable to afford their rent if the proposed changes go ahead.

So let me see what’s the problem? Why is the government doing this? The government is saying (not that the BBC will report it) that its unfair that a household should get in benefits more than what an average family gets in wages. Now, that sounds fair to me, doesn't it? Nobody said that my taxes have to support you having to live in the middle of Chelsea or in London. Its not like you are working anyway, are you? So what’s the point? Or are you expecting me to pay my taxes so that you have a nice social life with your neighbours? Nice one.

Also notice that these blessed bishops didn't say anything about the millions of below average households who are going to have to pay more to keep these people at an income level higher than they themselves are in. Good for you, rob peter to pay Paul and then these bishops will be supporting Paul. Truly they are irrelevant in today’s life, no wonder nobody is going to church, specially with muppets like this. Bah. What happened to the Protestant work ethic? The fact that they have to go out and work? God Helps those who help themselves? And the proud tradition of working that made western Christendom proud? Unbelievable.

Proposed cap of £500 per week is critiqued

First the story.

The government's benefits cap could make more than 80,000 children homeless and push many thousands more into poverty, says the Children's Society. In a devastating critique of the plan to limit the amount even the largest families can claim in benefits, Bob Reitemeier, its chief executive, said there would be a huge "human and social cost" if the reforms went ahead.

The welfare reform bill, which proposes a £500 a week cap on the amount families can claim for housing, childcare and sustenance, is set to return to parliament in the House of Lords on Tuesday after making unsteady progress through the Commons earlier this year.

The society says 200,000 children will have their lives affected by the changes to the amount their parents can claim and 27,600 adults and 82,400 children could be made homeless.

While supporters of the benefits cap claim it would simply mean families would be forced to move into cheaper accommodation, government figures suggest 70% of those who will be hit are already living in social housing.

Reitemeier said changes to the proposed legislation were urgently needed. "The reason we are so concerned about children is that three in four of the people that are going to be affected by the benefits cap are children and I don't think that's publicly understood", he said. "There are some main concerns: one is that the children will be made homeless, possibly 80,000 children, which would be a significant change to their lives.

"Secondly, what we think could happen is that those children already in poverty, below 60% of the median income line, will fall into severe poverty, less than 40% of the median income. This has a very human and social impact on their lives."

The Children's Society also believes that children, who are nine times as likely as adults to be hit by the cap because of the prevalence of large families among those claiming benefits, will experience lower levels of wellbeing. It says it understands the element of unfairness in people who are on benefits having large families catered for, but that the government should ensure children do not suffer for their parents' decisions.

The £500 cap is based on the average annual household wage of £26,000. The charity proposes that instead the government should work out the level of the cap – the universal credit – by basing it on the average household income of working families with children, which would include in-work benefits.

So here’s the thing, the government thinks that that the average wage is a good level to compensate people who have fallen on bad times. But people want to raise it? In other words, when you have problems, the state will take money from people (at least 50% yes?) who earn (that’s right, they earn and work) less than what you will get as a household. Hmmm. That is fair? And why would they be made homeless? And why shouldn't they move into cheaper accommodation? I didn't realise that I was paying taxes to give to people who can live in more swanky accommodation? These people are frikking nuts.

Let me throw another statistic at you. Did you know that the number of households in which NO ADULT HAS EVER WORKED IS 370,000? that’s right, you read right, nobody has worked in these households, EVER. And they rely on benefits. Which are currently much more than the average tax payer and citizen. And these frikking muppets want them to have more? WTF?

STOP SPENDING MY MONEY, you morons!

An American talks about wealth

Interesting snippets

1.  You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2.  What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3.  The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4.  You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5.  When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does  no good to work, because somebody else is going to  get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Pretty simplistic but then, why make things complex when things can be made simple? Have an Occam’s Razor.

I was thinking about this when hearing about the riots and how the spending cuts helped it and how poverty is driving people to riot and break into JD Sports to nick a pair of sneakers or throw a brick into Carphone Warehouse to steal a mobile. Yep, that’s what poor people do, riot.

The Welfare Impact of Microcredit on Rural Households in China

So? does it? Read the abstract.

Microcredit has gained worldwide acceptance in recent years as a flexible mechanism to expand individuals’ (especially the poor's) access to financial services, which is considered as an efficient way to achieve poverty reduction and other social development. A large number of empirical studies have been done to examine the welfare effects of microcredit on the borrowers and such effects are well documented in many other countries such as Bangladesh. However, the impacts of microcredit on China rural households’ livelihood are not well documented. This paper attempts to empirically evaluate the impact of microcredit on household welfare outcomes such as income and consumption in rural China. The estimation is based on the difference-in-difference approach which is an increasingly popular method of tackling the selection bias issue in assessing the impacts of microcredit. The study uses a two-year panel dataset, including both primary and secondary data collected through a household survey in rural China. Our empirical results favour the wide belief in the literature that joining microcredit programme helps improve households’ welfare such as income and consumption. Despite the optimistic findings on how microcredit has changed the rural households’ living conditions, our results show that the vast majority of the programme participants are non-poor, which casts some doubts on the social potential (such as poverty reduction) of China's microcredit programmes.

So the results are, it helps in improving welfare, but its usually aimed at the non poor. So sort of half way house, that little bit of credit helps but not the absolute poor. Perhaps Bolsa Familia?

Looking after children is not work

This was brilliant. If only for the serious wtf and irony. First the facts:

A stay-at-home parent’s activities are not classified as ‘work’, according to the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court. The Court refused to award a Malmö woman unemployment insurance benefits (a-kassa), after the Administrative Court of Appeal (Kammarrätten) had considered that she had no right to receive social benefits, according to the news agency Siren. Even if the children have special needs that prevent the parent from working outside of the home, the parent is still not entitled to receive unemployment benefits.

So its not work, eh? and the chutzpah was the woman asking for unemployment benefits. Having children is a benefit, its a choice, not a duty. This is why I find it bizarre when child benefit is given or extra special benefits are given to have kids. Hello, why? What for? you might as well as give benefits for breathing. And all this in Sweden. Heh.

Does greater education actually increase generational conflict?

This was quite an interesting if controversial paper. Its basically explained by the following chart.

 

 

As the authors state:

The flow chart illustrates the transition to a vicious cycle of population aging and a decline in public education. In the early phases of industrialization, compulsory schooling regulated child labor and promoted technological progress, thereby discouraging fertility. A major education reform was eventually triggered by the rise in the young's demand for skill acquisition. However, the increased population share of the old enlarged their political power to curtail the government budget for education. The resulting positive response of private education induced further fertility decline.

The authors review the Japanese, USA, British, French, German situations with respect to economic development, ageing, public education, child labour, poverty, etc. The basic premise is given above. I am not sure that this has been thought before but this requires much thought. Actually, what else can one do? Public education is required. Its important to educate society as the economic development happens to move from labour and agriculture intensive sector to intellectual property / knowledge sector employment. Increased automation will anyway force people to work on higher value add jobs or get demoted out of the labour market.

But running the statistics on the overall education spend on the OECD countries here, I am not sure that the level of educational spending is falling. I think this needs to be reviewed a bit more

You cannot adopt, you are too fat

One of the things which I deeply regret in my life (and there aren't many of those, I promise), is the fact that I was not able to adopt here in the UK, and all because of those interfering busybodies in the social services. The range of exclusions and factors were very bizarre. You are a Hindu so you cannot adopt a Christian or Muslim baby! You already have a child so its not fair on others. You are of a brown race so you cannot adopt a white child or a black one and so on and so forth. Thank god they didn't say that I was too fat or too tall.

I can only tell you anecdotal evidence that the number of Asian foster and adoptive parents are significantly lower than white parents. While I can understand and know about cultural and religious factors (such as purity of bloodline, casteism, Islamic reasons and the lot), still, when one does want to adopt, they find it very difficult.

I am still furious about this situation. And that's something that really gets me going every time I read about this. These bloody awful social services people are simply too interfering. They actively force kids into fostering and force them into a horrible situation of not having loving parents. These people are seriously well meaning, but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But hold on, the social services did say this to this couple.

The letter the couple were sent by Leeds City Council, signed by a team manager and seen by the BBC said: "I am writing to confirm that we are unable to progress an application from you at this time.

"This is due to the concerns that the medical advisers have expressed regarding Mr Hall's weight.

"I have discussed this with our medical adviser... who considers that it is important to alter lifestyle, diet and exercise in a sustainable way so that any weight reduction can be maintained in the long term.

It went on: "I understand that you would like to begin the assessment as soon as possible and while appreciating your reasons for this, I consider it would be more appropriate to begin the assessment once Mr Hall's BMI is below 40."

What on earth is this? This is bureaucracy gone mad. Who gives them the right to play god and prevent a child  from having a good family home? Where is it written that fat people are not good parents? Both my parents have had pot bellies and look what I turned out to be (perhaps this is not such a good example…), but all joking aside, this is ridiculous.

While they will take decisive action on stopping kids from being adopted, they dither such as in the case of Victoria Climbié or Baby P. Makes me want to weep for the missed opportunities for the poor babies. Also see this brilliant take on this story.

Then comes news of the fact that a foster parent has been struck off the rolls just because a girl in her care has converted to Christianity. What did the council say?

But council officials allegedly accused her of failing to ‘respect and preserve’ the child’s faith and tried to persuade the girl to reconsider her decision.

So these council officials can literally be prosecuted (and will be, as I understand) for violating the fundamental rights of both the mother and the child. More I read about this and the more upset I get.

They said that she should have undergone counselling to ensure that she understood the implications, especially as such conversions are dealt with harshly in some Muslim countries. In April, council officials told the girl that she should not attend any church activity for six months, so that she could reconsider the wisdom of becoming a Christian. The carer was also instructed to discourage the girl from participating in any Christian activities, even social events. The council then told the carer there had been a breakdown of trust and in November removed her from the register.

Just because some countries have medieval and frankly stupid views on conversion (like India and many Muslim countries) does not mean that I am happy to let the UK also be ruled (in howsoever small a way in a council) by those intellectually vapid theories. Makes one’s blood boil to read about the social service care.

Then you read this interview of Sharon Shoesmith trying to excuse herself. Yes, there was a witch-hunt, but no hint of an apology. This is fast becoming the face of officialdom. Nothing, nobody is to blame, but yet, a baby has been tortured to death, the mother/father/lodger in prison, some people have been fired, but what is happening? Then this woman has the effrontery to try to defend against what the inspectors said

The inspectors' report into her department criticised everything from insufficient supervision by senior management to poor record-keeping and a failure to identify children at immediate risk of harm.

I know they are doing a good job under trying circumstances, but by God, some of these lot are hideously incompetent and by and large, the entire social services department is full of some very strange principles.

And at end of the day, there is an orphaned baby and two loving adoptive/foster parents who are not together. A tiny tragedy in the great wash of humanity, frequently overlooked in the big news about Israel-Palestine wars or the great Credit Crunch issue.

Technorati Tags: Welfare,United Kingdom

Classic example of Homo Econominius

Man is an economic animal, by and large, their behaviour is a matter of economic incentives. For example, a ton of french men and women have flooded into London to work because London offers them a better place to work, much more money, less taxes and more enjoyment. But now that they are getting made redundant, they are going back to Paris because the amount of redundancy money they get from the state is much better. See here. I quote:

As anyone who has lost their job and been forced to turn to the British government for help will know, you can’t buy much with £60.50 a week.

In France, however, the state is considerably more generous. It pays benefits equivalent to 57.4% of base pay, up to a maximum of €6,366 (£5,506) per month for nearly two years.

Given that some senior French traders, quants, structurers and salespeople who’ve lost their jobs in London were on salaries of £115k, they are now eligible for the maximum level of benefits in France.

According to French news sources, they are going back home to claim it. To be eligible, French bankers who’ve worked in the UK need to have toiled for between one day and four weeks in France, but many are said to be getting a ‘Mc Job’ for 24 hours to overcome this hurdle.

Do check out the comments, some of them are brilliant.

Well, we did pay Matthews to keep having children

Sad, very sad indeed. And this is just typical of showing what this government pushed dependency culture pushes you to do. Some shocking quotes:

 

Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and, in 2001, 90% of births to mothers under 20 occurred outside marriages.

They have grasped better than most politicians the consequences of our poor education system. Last year fewer than half of teenagers finished compulsory schooling with five good GCSEs including maths and English. Recently Ofsted declared that almost 1.5m pupils attend secondary schools with substandard teaching and discipline. Christine Gilbert, head of the school standards watchdog, pointed out in her annual report that it is the poorest children who are most likely to get a raw deal from the system.

What future is there for a girl who graduates from one of these schools? Skilled and hard-working eastern Europeans monopolise menial jobs. The next step up – a job in, for example, catering or hairdressing if she can get it – pays about £10,000 a year before tax. This is slightly less than a single mother with two children receives in benefits and does not include somewhere to live rent-free.

Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of West Yorkshire police, the force responsible for bringing Karen Matthews to justice, put it starkly: “We are talking here about the perverting influence of welfare. The more kids you have, the more money you get.” For some it is the only option.

Babies born to teenage mothers are 60% more likely to die in their first year than those born to other parents. A report from the Children’s Society claims that 25% of all youngsters living in step-families run away before the age of 16; many are younger than 11. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social research charity, discovered that children with one parent are more likely to have behavioural problems, do less well at school, have sex earlier, suffer depression and turn to drugs and heavy drinking. They are also, according to evidence from the States, more likely to get involved with gangs and crime.

Welfare reform has to be done, not because we cannot afford it but because we are creating zombies in our midst. Is that what we want our societies to become?

Less pensions, more children

My father's father ended up having 18 children, my father's mother belonged to a group of 12 siblings, my wife's grandpa punched out 14 odd kids and so on and so forth. At that time and age, children were considered to be god's gift, and a man's virility was considered to be measured by the number of children he had. Plus mix in the fact that there was no good birth control and no safety net, meant that there were tons of kids. But does this mean that this is the case this time and age?

Well, interestingly enough, there was this case in Italy where pensions were reformed. This reform meant that pension benefits were dramatically reduced. So if the theory holds right, then you will see a jump in the fertility of women and the number of children which are born will increase. And so this paper so determined. I quote:

simple comparison shows that unaffected individuals had on average 1.7 children, while affected individuals had on average 1.87 children. The magnitude of this difference is reduced once one controls for factors such as individuals’ age, but a difference of about 13% higher post-reform fertility remains. These empirical results are consistent with the “kids as investment good” rather than “consumption” motivation, even in modern societies. They are also consistent with the link between the expansion of pay-as-you-go pension systems and lower fertility – in this case the retrenchment of a pay-as-you-go pension system induces higher fertility.

Hmm, so when you reduce future benefits like pensions, you will see people punching out more kinds. Interesting or what? Perhaps I should try to float this idea to have more kids :).

Technorati Tags: pensions,economics,welfare state

Even in USA, Food starvation

This is a serious problem facing developed economies as well, welfare cheque's are not really meant for permanent support, but as you can see, these people are getting hit by the counter-intuitive problem of being poor as well as obese because all they can afford are fattening and starchy food.

Read and wonder.

Technorati Tags: Agriculture,Inflation,USA

Jobless youth rate higher than in 1997

Now here's a surprise for you. I quote:

The proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds without a job is higher than when Labour came to power in spite of government efforts to reduce unemployment among the young.......blamed the rise on the failure to raise the skills of many youngsters. The New Deal scheme to reduce youth unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work had also failed to maintain its initial success.

What are the solutions? And this is where I disagree:

The OECD said policies such as raising the age to which youngsters must remain training to 18 needed “fine tuning”. It called for increased support for free nursery education; a three-month limit for 16- and 17-year-olds to find work with part-time learning, after which they must return to full-time education or training; more involvement for trade unions in development of apprenticeship schemes; and an expectation that youngsters working under New Deal stay in a job for at least 26 weeks.

See, this is an issue of taking a horse to water but cannot or being unable to make it drink. And here's the actual problem, and I further quote:

One in five youngsters who found work under New Deal held a job for less than 13 weeks, leading to “short employment spells with benefit dependency”.

What these gits do not understand is that for entry level jobs and basic jobs, the difference between the salary and benefits enjoyed is marginal, and in many cases, negative. So what's the point of me dressing up, going to work for a boss who treats me like a coprolite, doing soul destroying work and then ending up after working 10 hours with an amount which is lesser than what my friends earned by sitting at home smoking and drinking and bonking?

Benefit dependency is the issue, link the continued employment to the continued benefit and you will see that economic incentives do work. If you do not work, you do not get the money. And all the kings horses and men, like this whiney article, says, will not make humpty dumpty go back to work again.

Take a look at what Polly is celebrating. She is looking at an estate of 7300 people, and I quote: This vast estate, in much disrepair, had 7,300 residents but virtually no community life, voluntary or council-run. It did have crack houses, prostitution, rubbish tips and violent crime. It did have exceptional numbers of the old, the sick and single mothers.

This is the problem, it was the state's mistakes, the centralised planning, the benefit dependency, the bad public service delivery and the like which landed the estate of Clapham Park in this mess. So Polly is basically saying that the state mucked up, and then the state tried to fix it, and then it again failed. Erm. yes, obviously it will fail, you silly girl, because it was not done by the residents, but to and for the residents by people who never stayed in there. And she is asking for more public money to fix it, keep it going and worse of all, to extend it to other estates and counties where the state has spectacularly failed. Dont you think you should stand back and let the citizens do it themselves?

But here is the problem which goes back to the benefits issue. This state has made a vast swathe of the populace dependent upon benefits and is therefore unable to shift them off it. Take a look at this by-election coming up in Glasgow East. Trace the history of the constituency back and you will see that it has been managed by Labour going back to 1922. Ok? Now let me bring some interesting statistics to bear.

1. From the spectator:

Nick Clegg drew gasps at a reception in Westminster by observing that there are parts of Glasgow where life expectancy is the same as the Gaza Strip and North Korea. If only this were so. Glasgow City, as a whole, has a male life expectancy of 71 years which is actually lower than the 72 years of both Gaza and Pyongyang. But this includes its lush suburbs. Those in the welfare ghettoes of Glasgow East can only dream of such longevity. The life expectancy of its sink estates is worth recording here. A boy born in Camlachie is expected to live to 64.5 — the same as in Uzbekistan. In Parkhead it is 62, the same as Bangladesh. Just outside its boundaries lies Dalmarnock where the figure is 58 — lower than Sudan, Cambodia or Ghana. The lowest is Carlton, where the figure of 54 is lower than even Gambia’s equivalent.

2. BBC:

Figures for unemployment are also higher, with the rate for men over 25 about 10%, rising to 25% for women.

This year, NHS statistics showed that the east end of Glasgow had Scotland's highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions.

3. Blog:

Look beneath the lies, damned lies and statistics, and factor in the number of people on incapacity benefits, and we discover that around 50% of the adult 'working' population is unemployed.

4. Spectator again:

When you look at Scotland on any statistical dataset, it is one big horror story. Welfarism, health deprivation, drugs, drink – there are reams of data about what a socioeconomic nightmare the country is.

5. Financial Times:

Male life expectancy is 63, which is 14 years below the UK average. Unemployment runs at 25 per cent and about 40 per cent of the constituents live on benefits. About 40 per cent of the children live in workless households. Sadly, "household" is not always the most appropriate term. The teenage pregnancy rate is 40 per cent above the national average.

And this is from a city which, and I quote: Yet just a few generations ago Glasgow was the greatest industrial city of the British empire. At one time it produced half the world's ships and a third of its railway locomotives. It could be argued that many people in the UK enjoyed a prosperity that was in part built on the gargantuan efforts of industrial Glasgow.

6. The Times: male life expectancy is 14 years below the national average, 38% of constituents are welfare-dependent, 46% live in social housing, 60% of households have no access to a car, and deaths from heart disease among the under 75s are 83% above the national average.

Now yes, I agree that you cannot be up all the time, just look at Detroit, but hey, look at California, it reinvented it. And it did not do it by handing out benefits by the ton. The problem is that people are now accustomed to living by the state. So now why would you be surprised that the people will keep on voting Labour? As the quote goes, a government which promises to rob peter to pay Paul will always count on the support of Paul.

If you want to get people employed and productive members of the staff, you need to help them but just like pain killers, do not make them addicted to it, otherwise you will end up with estates like Clapham or Glasgow East. (Incidentally, the SNP and the Labour party are both the same, whosoever wins in this by election will do sweet sod all. Here's a prediction, 5 years time and the statistics will be worse! and I am very happy to be proven wrong).

Technorati Tags: Unemployment,United Kingdom,Welfare,Scotland

UK seeks private bids on welfare delivery

Now this is a good step(Britain's entire welfare system is to be opened to offers from the private and voluntary sectors, in a drive to shrink the role of the state and improve service delivery), credit where its due. Labour minister, you are to be congratulated for taking this step. Now delivery is another thing, but still, this is good. The fact that citizens need welfare is not in doubt, even if I can quibble about the levels and the recipients. But I can and will quibble about service delivery.

There is no reason why the state has to be directly involved in service delivery just like there is no reason why the state has to provide electricity to me. This will hopefully reduce taxes (dream on, BD..) and make government less intrusive. But this will need good regulatory models. Here in the UK, we have seen both the best and the worst of the regulatory worlds such as in the electricity market, the phone markets, the railway market and the financial institution market.

But good step none the less.

Technorati Tags: taxation,welfare State,united Kingdom

4.5 million UK households without full time earners

Ok, leave aside the political posturing over this statistic. But what does this tell you? This can mean that the pattern of work has shifted from full time work to part time work, or it can mean that more households are of single parenthood (who obviously cannot work full time given the shocking costs of child care in this country) or it can mean that there are no incentives given to the adults of working age to go out and work full time.

By definition, part time working will not give you as much earnings as earning full time will (generally!), so I can only guess that their survival is dependent upon the welfare state. But this is shocking because one in four households is effectively working much below potential at best or being a parasite at worst.

Given the fact that we are heading into a recession, taxes cannot be raised any more, where and how will the government try to get these dead weights into full time gainful employment? And its actually not getting better, its getting worse.

Technorati Tags: Employment,Welfare State,United Kingdom

Meet the families where no one's worked for THREE generations - and they don't care

Even discounting the hyperbole, this kind of story pushes one to question the whole idea of the welfare state. We are now hitting recession in the UK and in rest of the world, job security is low, inflation is getting higher, commitments increasing, and then on top of that, our tax monies is going to go to supporting scroungers like these? And then Bishop Nazir Ali wants us to give MORE? Calling us greedy bankers, eh? I quote:

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, singled out high-earning City traders such as hedge fund managers as the kind of people who must swap their desire to “make a quick buck” for a commitment to “share [their] wealth generously”.

Really? For people like the McFaddens? Are you freaking out of your bloody mind? I am the son of a refugee, he didnt ask for any help, i did not ask for any help, we both supported and are supporting tons of family members and supporting other charities, paying top whack on our taxes and then we get to hear that we aren’t paying enough? Bollocks.

Technorati Tags: Refugees,United Kingdom,Welfare

Britain's benefits generation: State handouts now a 'way of life for six million'

This is unbelievable.

Six million Britons are living in homes where no one has a job and "benefits are a way of life", a report by MPs revealed yesterday. And they cost the taxpayer nearly £13billion a year in state handouts. This army of families on benefit - nearly one in six of all households in the country - has been untouched by a decade of Labour's attempts to get them into work, said the Public Accounts Committee. Four out of five of these homes have no one who is even looking for a job.

If somebody will give me money, food, clothing, shelter and a house without wanting me to work or anything, tell me why on earth would I want to work? It is perfectly logical to me. So what about all the jobs that have been created? Well, they have mostly gone to the immigrants. And then people whine about immigrants flooding in? Well, stop the welfare system from producing this level of dependency! And its not like these 6 million are old age pensioners or children or disabled people, we are talking about 4.3 million adults who are basically sucking on the tit of the taxpayer. Welcome to Britian.

And get this! The mind boggles, I am paying taxes for these dead beats?

Some 100,000 drug users and alcoholics are claiming state handouts on the grounds that their habit is a disability, it was revealed yesterday.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Labour: if you want a council house, find a job

Sounds about right to me, and its sad that it took them decades to realise it. If you are going to give out things for free, dont get surprised if they take up that offer. So if you are giving out property for people to live on which was built with tax payer's money, one would expect them to put something back into the pot (physically being able, that is!). Otherwise, hey, there are others who are working hard and not sponging off the state and still unable to get a place to live. So off yer butts! So move in people who are working into those jobless hotspots and soon you will change the character!

Read and nod! I quote:

Up to a million people in social housing, including those on council estates, should be expected to actively seek work as a condition of their tenancy, the new housing minister, Caroline Flint, proposes today.
The new "commitment contracts" would initially apply to new council tenants, Flint said, but could be extended to existing tenants.
It is thought to be the first time the government has proposed making a traditional social housing tenancy conditional on seeking work. However, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, has committed to a radical welfare reform package, including greater use of the private sector.
Flint, who switched from employment minister in the mini-reshuffle after Peter Hain stepped down, said: "It would be a big change of culture from the time when the council handed someone the keys and forgot about them for 30 years. The question that we should ask of new tenants is what commitment they will make to improve their skills, find work, and take the support that is available."

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!