Posting may be light…

I am currently commuting between here and here, with occasional stops here.

Ragghhhghh, living outside London when you work and study in London is a shit.

Filed under: Blogging

I have never asked this difficult and philosophical question before… what do you guys think?

Of course this still leaves the philosophical issue: What if Malthus were right? Suppose we could snap our fingers and increase world population to 50 billion at the cost of a drastic reduction in average living standards. Does the aggregate increase in human life outweigh the decline in the average? Derek Parfit famously argued that it did, but it goes against a lot of people’s intuitions.

I want to say no, my actual, comfortable, modern life is worth more than 7 or 8 potential, difficult, but ultimately worthwhile lives, but I find it difficult.

Imagine you are going to die tomorrow (so the result doesn’t effect you), and you can, without turmoil or increasing the biological damage done, add 40bn or so souls to the planet earth. Would you, at the cost of making everyone radically poorer?

Filed under: Economics, History, Society

Judging by these improvements, Health Insurance in the US used to really suck, now it only sucks a little

Via Brad DeLong:

10 Major New Health Reform Benefits Take Effect Today:

Starting today, insurers will be required to:

1. Keep you covered when you get sick: Simple mistakes or typos will no longer be grounds for insurance companies to cancel your insurance.
2. Cover kids with pre-existing conditions….
3. Allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plan up to age 26….
4. Remove lifetime [coverage] limits….
5. Phase out annual [coverage] limits….

For any insurance plan that goes into effect after September 23, 2010, your insurance company must:

1. Pay for preventive care like mammograms and immunizations….
2. Give you a better appeals process for insurance claims….
3. Let you choose your own doctor… choose any available participating primary care provider as your provider, and any available participating pediatrician to be your child’s primary care provider.
4. Provide easier access to OB-GYN services….
5. Allow you to use the nearest emergency room without penalty: If an emergency arises while you’re away, you will no longer have to drive home to your in-network provider to receive in-network benefits.

How, lord almighty, were typos stopping people getting treatment and were people required to go to anything other than the closest emergency room?

Filed under: Foreign Affairs

Ed Balls for Shadow Chancellor

For reasons discussed here at Though Cowards Flinch, Duncan’s Economics Blog, the FT [1] and Liberal Conspiracy.

ED: Look Ed, a sensible economic policy.

ED: Thanks Ed, that looks great.

ED: No problem Ed. (Other bonuses include easier punning – ed).

____

[1] Which incidentally, I can buy for 25p and issue from the LSE Student’s Union. You pay 800% more than I do for your FT.

Filed under: Economics, Politics

Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher all think the National Debt is too small

At conference Nick was implacable, you should manage state finances like that of a family home:

It’s [the UK Public Finances] the same as a family with earnings of £26,000 a year who are spending £32,000 a year. Even though they’re already £40,000 in debt. Imagine if that was you. You’d be crippled by the interest payments. You’d set yourself a budget. And you’d try to spend less. That is what this government is doing.

The economics is simple for David Cameron:

The country has got an overdraft. The interest on that overdraft is swallowing up things that the nation should otherwise be spending money on.

Thatcher was no less certain, a government should borrow like a household (thanks to LFF and The Staggers):

Why don’t you look at it as any housewife has to look at it? She has to look at her expenditure every week or every month, according to what she can afford to spend, and if she overspends one week or month, she’s got to economise the next.

How does a household borrow? We’ll look at a chart below the fold.

Filed under: Economics, Politics

Theresa May squirms on Channel 4 News

42 years ago a group of women went on strike, protesting the fact that their male colleagues were paid around 15% more than they were.

They stood up for their rights, they helped create the first Equal Pay Act, the were the Big Society, and Theresa May Minister for Women and Equality couldn’t bring herself to say she supported the strike which directly helped create her department.

Has a Malcolm Tucker memo gone round Tory HQ?

Don’t say anything good about any strike ever, got it? Not Dagenham, not the work-in on the Clyde, not the Miners, not the General Strike… don’t fucking mention the Suffragettes and under no condition mention the bastard Chartists. This winter is going to be hell for us and we don’t need any pro-union soundbites coming and biting us on the arse!

Filed under: Politics

Socialists for a Flat Tax!

This post has three purposes: to further convince Paul Sagar that I am not like any of the other socialists he knows; to further practice mucking about with spreadsheets; and to challenge the preconceptions of those on the right and left.

Everyone knows that Flat Taxes are nasty regressive things associated with the Adam Smith Institute and the reactionary-capitalist-pig-dog-enemy-of-the-people Tim Worstall and  the ex-communist world. What most people don’t know is that in lots of ways a flat income tax is much more progressive than the income tax which we currently charge people, as I’ll show below.

We currently raise about £150bn in taxation through income tax. There are three tax bands, all your income is yours up to the princely sum of £6,475, the next £37,400 you earn is taxed at 20%, between £37,401-£150,000 you pay 40% tax and half of everything you earn over £150,000 is taken by the state. I set up a flat income tax which also raised £150bn and it looks very different to the tax system we currently have.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report that a “single person now needs to earn at least £14,400 a year to reach… a minimum standard of living, according to members of the public.” After tax this £14,400 becomes £11,000 pounds, so this is where I set my tax free allowance. Everyone can now earn enough tax free to have the minimum standard of living the public think everyone deserves. To raise the remaining £150bn from all those earning more than that you have to set the tax rate at 34%.

Mr first reaction is that 34% is a high tax rate to be charging someone earning £15,000, they aren’t rich. Yet, under a flat tax as described above they would be considerably better off. Below are graphs showing each tax system and what percentage of your income you pay as tax. The red line is our current tax system, the blue line my flat tax as described above.

Everyone earning £20,000 or less (about 45% of working people) is better off under a flat tax than under our current tax regime. Unfortunately, there are some losers, below you can see what would happen to “middle England” (about 50% of people). Some lose 5% more than of their income than under our current system.

If the poor are the big winner and the middle the big losers, what happens to the rich you ask? Well, they win pretty big too. Once you earn more than £70,000 you can be comfortably described as rich and the portion of your income taken as tax never exceeds 34% of income.

Above is a flat tax which is more progressive, in that it does not tax the poor but taxes the wealthy, than the regressive income tax system currently in place in the UK.

Progressive taxation may be favoured by some because it allows the rich to be penalised, but I like progressive taxation because it allows us to provide services to people who would not otherwise pay for them, without making them pay for them. If someone earning £10,000 a years gets a library in their area this is a good thing, if they have lost about 8% of their income to help pay for it, this is not such a good thing.

When you collect £150bn from income tax it is difficult to make it progressive. If you favour a progressive tax system then we may need to collect less money through income tax and more by other methods by mathematical necessity. Although I disliked the rest of his campaign, Andy Burnham was onto something when he suggested a Land Value Tax, an annual tax on the market rental value of land.

That the poor pay less than the rich for public services is an important ideal and we are not currently living up to it. There are lots of ways to improve and the fact that one of these is a flat tax should underline exactly how poorly we treat the poor. One of the options is to give the poor money, as Norm says, but the other is to take less from them in the first place.

Filed under: Economics

In which I finally give up any pretense of being a serious blogger concerned only with serious things

From The Telegraph:

A diary entry belonging to a senior member of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has revealed that during the First World War it was discovered that the bodily fluid could act as an effective invisible ink.

In June 1915, Walter Kirke, deputy head of military intelligence at GHQ France, wrote in his diary that Mansfield Cumming, the first chief (or C) of the SIS was “making enquiries for invisible inks at the London University”.

In October he noted that he “heard from C that the best invisible ink is semen“, which did not react to the main methods of detection. Furthermore it had the advantage of being readily available.

[...]

However, the discovery also led to some further problems, with the agent who had identified the novel use having to be moved from his department after becoming the butt of jokes.

In addition, at least one agent had to be reminded to use only fresh supplies of the ‘ink’ when correspondents began noticing an unusual smell.

Filed under: History

If Vince Cable is attacking Capitalism then so was Adam Smith

Vince Cable:

Capitalism takes no prisoners and kills competition when it can.

Adam Smith (1776) Book I, Chapter 10, para 82

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

This is not “the most aggressive assault on the excesses of capitalism by a minister since the 1970s” as the Mail squeals it is a paraphrase of the founder of modern economics.

It is a bit depressing that a fundamental truths of modern capitalism cannot be expressed without the CBI, Mail and Express going into meltdown.

Modern capitalism and governments has fawned over the financial sector since the 1980s, cuddled it, kissed it, told it could do no wrong, picked it up when it fell over and refused to punished it when it helped create the biggest financial crisis in the last 70 years because you know, it was just youthful irrational exuberance.

Cable is suggesting that this was and is a bad thing. Who is arguing with him?

[More with Lenny and Paul]

Filed under: Economics

Public Service Blogouncement: Tickets go on sale 3rd October so don’t forget to register

Go here: http://www.glastonburyregistration.co.uk/

That is all.

Filed under: Blogging, Society

Free Trade and the EU

If the UK dropped its tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade we would get cheaper goods and (mostly poor) foreigners would become slightly richer.

As we are in the EU we do not handle our own trade affairs. Facing inward towards Europe we practice free trade, facing outwards Europe has erected barriers against all sorts of things, from bananas to bras.

If the UK left the EU it could unilaterally drop its tariff barriers in a rerun of the 19th Century. All else being equal, Third World producers get a larger market and become wealthier. This is an advantage of leaving the EU.

But if the aim is to increase the welfare of humanity in general, then leaving the EU and going all William Cobbett might not be the best method.

The UK is a large economy, but it is much smaller than the EU. If the UK’s membership of the EU helps maintain a slightly freer trade regime then staying in “Fortress Europe” may be better for mankind’s welfare than leaving.

Not by any means a perfect situation but it is a scenario that should be taken into account in discussions of the UK’s place in the world.

Filed under: Economics, Foreign Affairs

Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right

This is a book that exists. This is a book that exists and is not a joke. This is a book that says that “Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right” and that the Earth is at the centre of the Universe. There’s a conference too!

Sometimes I have so much faith in humanity, but times like these I wonder how we’ve managed to survive these 6014 years.

Filed under: Science

The missing list of Feminist Blogs (via Too Much To Say For Myself)

As I am notoriously bad at following Feminist blogs even thought I find them quite interesting, this is useful.

Total Bollocks has recently published its annual blog polls, and surprise surprise, feminist blogs are once more conspicuous by their absence. No doubt they’ll be absent from the 2010/11 Total Bollocks Guide to Political Blogging in the UK when that comes out too, as they are, every month, from the Wikio political blog rankings . Because feminism isn’t politics apparently. Well, not according to the men who run the blokeosphere it’s not anyway. S … Read More

via Too Much To Say For Myself

Filed under: Blogging

Wanted: 44 million new jobs a year

In the ten years to 2009, global employment grew from 2.74 billion to 3.21 billion.

Astonishing. That isn’t 470 million gross new jobs of which many have since been destroyed. That figure is the net of jobs destroyed and jobs created.

In the next ten years, more than 440 million new jobs will be needed to absorb new entrants into the labour force, and still more to reverse the unemployment caused by the crisis.

Again, astonishing.  30 million people are unemployed because of the great recession and the global labour force will be growing at 1.6% a year too. Those people need jobs.

This is going to be an interesting decade.

Filed under: Economics

Solar Power

I don’t smoke so I don’t have the back of a fag packet for this.

The earth receives about 274 million gigawatt-years of solar energy, which translates to an astonishing 8.2 million “quads” of Btu energy per year.

In case you haven’t heard, a “quad Btu” refers to one quadrillion British Thermal Units of energy, a common term used by energy economists. The entire human race currently uses about 400 quads of energy (in all forms) per year. Put another way, the solar energy hitting the earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times.”

So 1% of the earth’s surface covered by 1% efficient solar panels would generate more than double the amount of energy we need?

The earth’s surface is about 500,000,000 km³ so we need 5 million square kilometres of solar panels to feed the earth for the next couple of decades.

About half the Sahara or US should do it for world wide supply. We already get much of our energy from that fractious region so no additional problems there. If you’re not with that then two thirds of Australia will do at a push.

If we want it decentralised, then every country needs to have 1% of its surface area taken up by solar cells. The UK would need most of the Isle of Wight or to cover both Birmingham and Bristol completely.

Job done.

Next week, I reveal what killed the Dinosaurs and exactly why it is Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI have such sinister voices.

Filed under: Economics, Foreign Affairs, Science

Tony Benn interviewed by Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers

From The Quietus via Labour List.

As only a politics junkie like would notice, Benn sounds like notorious rightist Hayek when he says: “Every night when I go to bed I’m relatively more ignorant than when I got up that day because the growth of human knowledge is so great.” Interesting that.

Filed under: Politics, Society, The Media

Problems with Socialism: What if a more equal society reduces economic growth? Even just a little bit…

No one should hold a belief unquestioningly. I’m a Socialist, but there are lots of matters on which my mind has been changed by the evidence. For example, I used to be quite anti-market, in a Polanyian sense, now I’m less convinced that non-market institutions will work as well as they could. A market seems like the only rational way to distribute iPods, food or housing; so long as we ensure people can afford what is on offer through their wage or a direct transfer then a market in goods is a good thing.

I once believed the positives of Maoism; an educated, healthy, disciplined workforce with a diversified set of infant industries (for the per capita income) outweighed the negative; the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. When you consider how badly China had been run up until 1949 and how badly it still would have been run in Mao’s absence I found it hard to condemn what Mao left behind (even if it was easy to condemn what Mao did to get China there). These days, I’m less sure that Taiwan’s rulers wouldn’t have been as successful on the mainland as they have been in Taiwan.

Something which is important for Socialists to consider is that some of the things they hold dear may be mutually exclusive.

I quite like the idea of humanity progressively getting richer. By that I mean continuing increases in productivity being used to make and do more stuff from fewer resources (with some of this increase in making and doing being taken as increased leisure). I also like the idea of a more equal society. What if the two of these are at odds with one another? What if a little bit more equality leads to a little bit less growth.

A price worth paying, perhaps? Jimmy Reid said that he was “prepared to sacrifice a margin of efficiency for the value of the people’s participation.” And many on the left echo this statement. However, many on the left have not heard of the most powerful force in the universe, compound interest. A small reduction in growth, become a big reduction in wealth in a surprisingly short amount of time. If an unequal economy growing at 3% a year can purchase equality by sacrificing just 0.5% annual growth, would I make that deal? In the short run, you bet, but in the long run, I’m not completely sure I would.

I used actually existing income distributions of the UK in 07/08 and Norway in 97/98 so I could emphasise that these are realistic income distributions, not wishful thinking. I used 3% and 2.5% GDP  growth figures because a small difference allows me to make my point even more strongly and because they are roughly realistic historical figures. For ease of comparison I’m assuming social mobility is the same in each country and that there is no population growth or demographic decline etc.

Our countries start with an equal income, represented in the below graph. 70% of Redland’s people are better off than their compatriots in blue land and even the top 30% are still doing pretty well. The poorest 10th in Blueland take 1% of income, compared to around 4% in Redland. Whether you’re looking at minimising your chance of the worst outcome, or maximising you chance of a relatively higher income, Redland wins handsdown.

However, things change as we mover through the generations and tiny differences in growth compound over time. After 30 years, 60 years and 100 years our societies become radically different. After one generation (below) Redland is now about 5% poorer than Blueland, but still much more equal and what I would call a fairer society. Bottom half of Redland society are wealthier than the bottom half in Blueland.

After 100 years, a few generations (below), the material benefits of a more equal society more or less vanish as everyone bar the very poorest become worse off than they would have been in more unequal Blueland. (A similar trend is visible after two generations, but become particularly pronounced after a century.)

This change in fortune is the result of a tiny 0.5% difference in growth rates. Blueland is 19 times richer than it was, Redland only 11.

Is it beneficial for everyone to be slightly worst off if the non-material benefits are great enough? There are many arguments out there that an equal society provides many benefits that an unequal one cannot; lower crime, happier people, less mental illness, better quality of life.  Does the benefit of knowing you’re a member of an equal society outweigh the cost of simply not being as wealthy? These are empirical claims, and if we are honest, we don’t know either way.

Is it fair that in 100 years time a generation will be about half as wealthy as they could have been? It is impossible for us to know what choices that generation would have made. Perhaps equality is worth the price, but without knowing what the unborn think we would be exploiting those not yet born to purchase ourselves some equality.

Is it desirable to be poorer? This is not just a case of quantitative differences, if we end up in Redland in 100 years not Blueland, there will not just be fewer iPods and smaller housing. In Blueland we are on a manned mission to Mars, in Redland we can’t afford it. There may be diminishing returns to greater prosperity, but are they such that it is worth everyone being a little bit poorer in the long run?

Would Jimmy Reid (and am I) still be happy to “sacrifice a margin of efficiency” if it led to nearly everyone becoming poorer? Well, I cropped Jimmy Reid early. He didn’t just say he was “prepared to sacrifice a margin of efficiency for the value of the people’s participation.” He actually added “in the longer term, I reject this argument.”

As do I. I contend that Socialism as I see it, not a capitalist market economy with tax credits thrown on top, would not reduce growth. A Socialism in which the information and knowledge of normal people working in democratic workplaces would operate more efficiently and more equitably that modern managerial capitalism. However, if a fairer society as I imagine could be shown to consistently reduce growth then my life as a Socialist would become far more problematic.

Filed under: Economics, Politics

France gets slapped down for anti-Roma violence

In a bid to boost his flagging support Nicholas Sarkozy has turned to increasingly disreputable methods. One thing which has won Mr Sarkozy some plaudits (from all the wrong places I hasten to add) is the eviction  from their homes and deportation of Roma EU citizens living in France.

He was yesterday blasted by Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship (H/T Nosemonkey).

I personally have been appalled by a situation which gave the impression that people are being removed from a Member State of the European Union just because they belong to a certain ethnic minority. This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War.

[...]

And ladies and gentlemen, this is not a minor offence in a situation of this importance. After 11 years of experience in the Commission, I would even go further: This is a disgrace.

Let me be very clear: Discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin or race has no place in Europe. It is incompatible with the values on which the European Union is founded. National authorities who discriminate ethnic groups in the application of EU law are also violating the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which all Member States, including France, have signed up to.

[...]

No Member State can expect special treatment, especially not when fundamental values and European laws are at stake. This applies today to France. This applies equally to all other Member States, big or small, which would be in a similar situation. You can count on me for that.”

Too right. The treatment of the Roma in France has been disgusting and any censure of the French authorities is welcome.

Filed under: Foreign Affairs

In the end I couldn’t even be bothered to boycott this and I still came in at number 95

Yep, the results no one was waiting are out! And the crowd went “meh”! (H/T Bob)

After much blogospheric discussion a small boycott was arranged of the awards which for various reasons I felt it not worth joining. In the end, I didn’t really notice the poll taking place and did nothing to publicise this blog with respect to it and nor did I offer any vote and yet still appeared in it (95th in a sub category of a sub category of UK blogs no less).

So I’m not sure if I’ve boycotted this or not. I’ve not bought any Jaffas from Haifa but I’m not sure I can boycott Israel by accident (and nor would I necessarily want to). Perhaps me nothing-ing these awards is a bigger statement than me kicking up a fuss. The ubiquitous call of Saturday night “leave it mate, it ain’t worth it.”

In any case, my sincere thanks is owed to all those who did feel I was worthy of their vote, I appreciate the pat on the back. But bear in mind who you’re tacitly endorsing: Iain Dale. Just ask Tim about him.

Here they are with my congratulations of course to those who take this sort of thing seriously.

1 Left Foot Forward
2 (3) LabourList
3 (1) Tom Harris MP
4 (2) Hopi Sen
5 Liberal Conspiracy
6 (8) Next Left
7 (4) Alastair Campbell
8 Political Scrapbook
9 (5) SNP Tactical Voting
10 (6) Luke Akehurst
11 The Staggers
12 (58) John Rentoul
13 (16) Blog Menai
14 Labour Uncut
15 (27) Penny Red
16 Guardian Politics Blog (Andrew Sparrow)
17 (12) A Very Public Sociologist
18 (10) The Daily (Maybe)
19 Hadleigh Roberts
20 (22) Socialist Unity
21 (9) Stumbling & Mumbling
22 Mehdi Hasan
23 Bright Green Scotland
24 (13) David Osler
25 (7) Harry’s Place
26 (64) Anthony Painter
27 James Macintyre
28 (14) Third Estate
29 Counterfire
30 (15) Two Doctors
31 (34) Subrosa
32 (24) Tom Watson MP
33 (38) Though Cowards Flinch
34 (42) Lenin’s Tomb
35 (55) Barkingside 21
36 Mary Honeyball MEP
37 (41) Plaid Wrecsam
38 (33) Syniadau
39 (46) Another Green World
40 Al Jahom’s Final Word
41 (52) Splintered Sunrise
42 Enemies of Reason [fn1]
43 (43) Lallands Peat Worrior
44 Jack of Kent
45 (25) LabourHome
46 (83) Gaian Economics
47 (37) Harpymarx
48 (18) Blackburn Labour
49 (19) Kerry McCarthy MP
50 Pickled Politics
51 (49) Bob Piper
52 (69) Madam Miaow Says
53 From One End of Kent
54 (23) The F Word
55 (44) Tory Troll
56 Progress
57 Simon Fletcher
58 Go Lassie, Go!
59 Everyone’s Favourite Comrade
60 (85) Cllr Tim Blog
61 Blog Guto Dafyyd
62 George Monbiot
63 (76) Rupert Read
64 Mid-Wife Crisis
65 Michael Payne
66 (48) Pendroni
67 (47) Bob from Brockley
68 Mabinogogiblog
69 (70) Dave Hill’s London Blog
70 (56) Rupa Huq
71 (57) Normblog
72 (88) Ruscombe Green
73 Anthony McKeown
74 A View From the Public Gallery
75 (79) Touchstone Blog
76 (31) Welsh Ramblings
77 (50) Conor’s Commentary
78 Innerbrat
79 Bad Science
80 Glenis Wilmott MEP
81 (100) Louise Baldock
82 Weggis
83 Radical Wales
84 (59) Obsolete
85 Red Rag
86 (60) Bethan Jenkins AM
87 Luna17
88 Novocastrian Abroad
89 Scarlet Standard
90 (53) Stroppy Blog
91 Michael White
92 John’s Labour Blog
93 (28) Go Fourth!
94 (29) Duncan’s Economic Blog
95 (65) Left Outside
96 Claire French
97 Left Futures
98 (21) Bickerstaffe Record
99 Cornish Zetetics
100 Stilettoed Socialist

I know Left Outsiders, I know, you’ve been waiting, and yet this is the first “substantive” blog post I offer you. But listen to me, I can change. I promise to do some proper blogging soon. I know you’re not interested in excuses but moving to London is hard work – I will return momentarily.

______

[fn1] Seriously, who edits this stuff? Anton moved from that website months ago. Bunch of amateurs.

Filed under: Blogging

Idiot, or Thug? (via Bad Conscience)

I’m not sure what worries me more, the idea that this Police Office is a moron promoted beyond his (feeble) ability, or the idea that he is perfectly suited to his job because he is a total thug.

As Osborne's Axe begins to fall, pleas for exemption are coming thick and fast. And no surprise. Andrew Rawnsley recently highlighted how the Coalition is cutting deeper and quicker than any government since the 1920s. The pressure is on for organisations to hang on to whatever funding they have – at the expense of rivals if need be. Hot on the heels of Rawnsley's claim that ministers fear "lynch mobs", yesterday police Chief Superintendent Derek … Read More

via Bad Conscience

Filed under: Politics