Adam Smith Institute

As below, the statue was unveiled today and here's a report of the debate that preceded that last night. And another report from the unveiling.

A slightly odd (but possibly valid in a way) theory that our loss of civil liberties is all to do with gun control.

An alternative (although not mutually exclusive) explanation: that it's badly drafted legislation rushed through in a panic that is to blame.

No, it's not very good but the real question is, is it art?

Reasons not to join the Pigou Club.

People not buying SUVs isn't a problem: it's the market helping to solve the problem.

And finally, imagining Gordon Brown in alternative occupations.

Following on from Madsen's welcoming of the  Joseph Rowntree  Foundations report on the poverty level, one more thing that should be pointed out I think.

Yes, we've got a figure for a single person of £13,400 a year: below that and they don't have the minimum level of both material goods and the ability to participate fully in society. Excellent: but it does need to be noted that this is a pre-tax figure. The report looks at what is necessary in disposable income and then upgrades that by the tax that would be paid to give us this total figure.

Further, we might note that someone working full time on the minimum wage does not in fact earn this sum: so does that mean that said minimum wage should be raised? Leave aside for a moment all of the usual objections (true though they are) to such minimum wages and ponder just for a moment. What we desire to do is raise the disposable income to the level the Foundation says is needed and we can do that in one of two ways. We can increase the gross income or we can reduce the deductions made from that gross income.

On £13,400 a year the total tax and NI bill is some £2,345 a year leaving a nett income of £11,055. Someone who works 37 hours a week for 52 weeks of the year (yes, they will get holiday pay) on the current minimum wage of £5.52 an hour will earn gross £10,620 (or on the higher wage coming in in October £11,024). They will then pay £1,483 (or £1609) in tax and NI on that sum.

Now we can ask ourselves the interesting question. Why is it that those working full time on the minimum wage fall short of the amount the report states is necessary to live out of poverty? The answer that leaps out at me is that it's the tax system, stupid.

That minimum wage worker earns gross, from October, £11,024 and this is as near as dangnit the £11,055 needed to live without poverty. So why on earth are we sucking 18% of the incomes of the poor off to pay for the exigencies of the State? Surely it would be better to simply change the tax systyem so that the poor were not paying in the first place?

Strangely, I seem to remember that a think tank did suggest this, that we should raise the personal allowance to £12,000 or so. Might people start listening now?

It is good for the freedom of individuals if there are strict limits on the information the state is allowed to hold on them.. In the first place it is no business of the state to keep tabs on the private dealings of citizens who have not been charged or convicted of crimes. Secondly, the mere possession of such information is open to abuse by those who have access to it. In the third place, the centralized collection of information is itself a hazard, with the possibility of such information being released inadvertently, or targetted criminally.

The collection of information on ordinary citizens alters the balance between citizen and state, casting the state into a superior, perhaps threatening role, rather than its proper role as our servant. It is there to do our bidding, and should have access to no more information about us than it needs to carry out our mandate. The proposed ID cards with access to vast data records on individuals do not sit easily with a free society. World War II identity cards were abolished postwar precisely because they were felt to be an intolerable intrusion into the lives of free citizens. The same is true today.

Of course the case is made that they are "to fight terrorism," as it is for eroding other liberties. In fact terrorists will equip themselves with forged ID cards as readily as they do with fake passports. ID cards should be seen instead as just another device for government to control the lives of its citizenry, and should be resisted accordingly.

Whiloe we're all discussing 42 days detention over here perhaps worth noting that the longer periods of detention over there don't seem to have been terrribly productive.

On that civil liberties jag, here's what a magistrate had to say to a policeman.

Well, what does happen when the Supreme Court makes a factual error in a judgement?

Now why would a businessman running an illegal business inform on his competitor to the police about the illegal business said competitor is running?

Are we really going to have to put up with another 60 years of this?

No, sadly, your money is not your own to dispose of as you wish.

And finally, what a piece of marketing!

Or, perhaps, why criminalisation of certain behaviours doesn't. Leave aside which group of prodnoses it is in this case, and have a look at what the Wisdom of Whores blog has to say about prostitution in Cambodia. Put simply, in the face of the HIV epidemic rather than trying to stamp out prostitution the authorities decided to co-opt the infrastructure itself, to ensure that condoms were used at all times (erm, well, at all times of sexual congress, at least).

HIV infection rates came crashing down, halving in just 5 years. It is estimated that condom promotion had saved 970,000 Cambodians from HIV infection by 2007.

The pressure now though is to close down the sex industry altogether, something that no one has ever managed, thus disrupting the way in which that extant structure has been manipulated to reduce those HIV infection rates. Other than those who think that there's something inherently wrong about the commercialisation of sex, something that's in fact so wrong that it's better to try and fail to wipe it out rather than manage the effects, most people would think of this as rather counter-productive. That the sex workers themselves are demonstrating for the right to remain sex workers might also give some thought.

You don't have to fully sign up to the rather extreme version of liberalism that I do, that ingesting what you wish as you wish or offering your gonads for pay or for play, again, as you wish, is one of your natural human rights, to think that perhaps attempted abolition isn't quite the right way to go about things.

As with drugs and their decriminalisation and needle exchanges, perhaps red light areas, brothels and condoms, are better than 970,000 people being infected with an incurable disease that will kill them young.

From the purely utilitarian point of view, what's best? Reducing the ill effects of what people are going to do anyway or attempting and failing to stop them doing it and ending up with all of those ill effects?

A Joseph Rountree Foundation team headed by Jonathan Bradshaw, professor of social policy at the University of York, has published a report which sets out the sum required for a minimum standard of living in Britain. The headline figure is £13,400, but in fact the report sets out different sums for people in different circumstances. The study, which took more than 2 years to complete, defines a minimum acceptable standard as including "more than just food, clothes and shelter."  For example, a single person is reckoned to need "walking boots, a pay-as-you-go mobile phone and a bicycle."  A pensioner couple's sum covers "an occasional carvery meal and a bird feeder."  Wine is included, but no tobacco, and a car is not deemed essential.

One might quibble over the details of what should or should not be included, but the exercise itself is a laudable one. It is useful information for us to know what level of income is needed by specific groups to sustain a minimum acceptable standard of living. It would be a good thing if this were to be institutionalized, with a standing commission reporting annually on how the figure has changed over the year, much as the inflation rate basket of goods is changed from time to time to reflect changing lifestyles.

What is admirable about the new report is that it sets out the poverty levels as specific cash sums. This is a positive step, for it is on the basis of what poor people can afford that the poverty level has meaning, rather than on how they compare with the rich. Too often people talk of poverty when they are actually discussing inequality. For poor people inequality is rather less important than whether they can afford enough to eat, and to live at a minimum acceptable standard. This is not some hypothetical fraction of what rich people earn, or what the average income is. It is whether they have enough to get by on. The Joseph Rountree Foundation rightly includes extras in addition to basic survival needs, for they are part of living a decent life. Their report sets out targets for minimum income levels, and sensibly treats poverty as a problem of deprivation and needs, rather than as one of disparities of income. It is a most welcome and refreshing change.

This is almost (but not quite) unbelievable. The NHS, that wonder of the world celebrating its 60 th birthday, is currently rationing vaccines for babies. Is it any surprise that no country has tried to replicate the system?

Bill Gates' tips for how to succeed, as delivered to high school students. Amazingly, create a monopoly wasn't one of them.

Is it possible to save too much money?

Not all that sure about this campaign to bankrupt the Guardian. Would we really want their columnists released into the community?

There are good ways of financing the insurance of bank deposits, just as there are bad ways. Guess which has just been chosen in the UK?

A ballot initiative in California Netsmith fully supports.

And finally, dancing all over the world.

This week’s Economist warns that America could have the infrastructure of a third world country within a few decades if does not change course quickly.

Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that America, more than Iraq or Afghanistan, is in need of a better-functioning democracy that can work to solve the big issues.

Each year, the federal government collects 2 TRILLION dollars in taxes. State and local taxes push the total amount of taxes collected even higher. Sadly, while infrastructure crumbles and the economy goes to the pits, the government wastes billions of dollars on useless projects and subsidies—and spends far more than the two trillion it takes in.

This situation is not wholly unique to America. The UK sends a ridiculous amount to the EU each year and gets little in return. Meanwhile, consumer confidence is at a 26 year low and housing prices have fallen for the ninth consecutive month.

What should the government do? 1) Focus spending where it is absolutely necessary. 2) Eliminate wasteful spending. 3) Get rid of useless subsidies and entitlements. 4) Get rid of protectionist regulations and tariffs. 4) Lower taxes.

Apparently, the efficiency of power plants in the United States has remained the same for the past 50 years. That's right; in 1957, at a 33% efficiency rate, power plants got just as much energy for every pound of coal as they do today. Why this dearth of technological growth in such an important sector? One author makes a plausible case that it is the extensive regulations and perverse incentives created by government subsidies that have distorted the market, making efficiency unprofitable and competition miniscule.

According to the article, the market "is not stagnant because we've hit any fundamental limit. Indeed, studies by the US Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have identified a whopping 200,000 MW of potential (that's 20% of the peak power demand of the US) for proven technologies that either recover waste energy from industrials and/or cogenerate heat and electricity from a single fuel source."

In other words, we have the technology to drastically increase the efficiency of energy production. In a free market, this efficiency would convert immediately to an increased profit and should therefore be adapted relatively quickly. One major reason that this has not happened is the fact that government regulation makes small start-up companies in the sector unviable – because capital investments are subsidized but energy must be passed on at no mark-up over operating costs. Moreover, mandates to adopt certain kinds of environmental standards have had the perverse effect of shutting out better, more efficient improvements.

Because of its size, importance, and environmental impact, the energy sector is often seen as a sector that requires government intervention. Yet that very government regulation has instead stifled progress to an almost shocking degree. Since the 1950's, we've invented personal computers, the internet, landed men on the moon and sent rovers to Mars. Is it a coincidence that despite all of that progress in unregulated fields, the most heavily regulated sector of the American economy has literally stagnated? I think not.

The U.S. tourism industry is worried about the slowdown in overseas visitors after the 9/11 attack and the subsequent entry hassles caused by increased security measures. So in a brilliant move the Travel Promotion Act was created and is gaining support in Congress. The act is intended to “promote the US as a premier travel destination” and to educate travellers about the entry process, thus making it less of a bother to visit because they understand and are prepared for security procedures.

It’s an easy piece of legislation for most of Congress to support, as it will not use any American taxpayer monies to finance the campaign. And this is why it will also fail: because the act calls for private sector contributions and a user fee on foreign visitors. So imagine the campaign does its job. You are convinced that a holiday to the United States would be nice and that its not a pain to go through loads of security, but now it is more expensive because you are going to actually pay for the nice little brochures that convinced you. A bit backwards in my opinion to have the tourists pay a tourist tax to promote tourism. I guess economic incentives work differently abroad…

Apparently, Swedish schools have now decided that children have a right – yes, a right –  to be invited to birthday parties. An eight-year-old boy was accused of discrimination when he failed to invite 2 of his classmates to his birthday party. According to the boy’s father, one of the uninvited students bullied the birthday boy and the other had not invited him to his own birthday party. But because the boy was handing the invitations out in class, his teacher confiscated them and has accused him of discrimination. According to the BBC, “The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.” The Parliament will decide whether the boy has a right to only invite his friends to his birthday party in September.

A fascinating little map showing quite how large government looms in the economy in the various parts of the UK. There have been nominally socialist countries with lower levels than some areas.

Another fascinating snippet on attitudes towards such government interventions in the economy.

The highly amusing results of advanced technology meeting not very advanced prejudice.

These government consultation things might not be quite all they seem you know. Strange but true.

Total Politics seems to have managed what many new magazines do not: plan for a second edition.

As a bibliophile Netsmith is annoyed with himself for not coming up with this explanation for house price falls.

And finally, the usual uncle at a wedding thing.