UK economists reject big Keynesian spend up

In a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, 16 economists oppose plans by the British government to spend its way out of recession, by borrowing from future taxpayers.

The letter states:

"It is misguided for the Government to believe that it knows how much specific sectors of the economy need to shrink and which will shrink "too rapidly" in a recession. Thus the Government cannot know how to use an expansion in expenditure that would not risk seriously misallocating resources. Furthermore, public expenditure has already risen very rapidly in recent years, and a further large rise would take the role of the state in many parts of the economy to such a dominant position that it would stunt the private sector's recovery once recession is past."

Indeed, the state is too arrogant to know it doesn't know best and that what it does crowds out the private sector. Now these economists are clearly not of the small state Austrian school kind, but they do come to one conclusion:

"If this recession has features that demand more active fiscal policy, which is highly disputable, taxes should be cut. This would allow the market to determine which parts of the economy shrink and which flourish to replace them".

Indeed. Politicians of all persuasions and parties may think about that.

Oh and if you continue to believe that all of this is about the failure of free market capitalism, then you might read George Reisman's response to this (Hat Tip: Not PC)

UK sex pay gap is not about discrimination

Professor J R Shackleton in the Sunday Times writes that the so called "gender" pay gap is not an issue for public policy concern:

"What accounts for the gender pay gap? Not discrimination. For one thing, you find differences within male and female populations that employer prejudice can’t explain. As an example, although married men earn more than married women, single women earn the same or, as they get older, more than single men."

Don't see too much concern about THOSE variations do we? Furthermore:

"There are differences between ethnic groups. Black Caribbean women earn slightly more per hour than black Caribbean men, while Bangladeshi women earn a quarter more than Bangladeshi men. Or consider sexual orientation: gay men earn more per hour on average than “straight” men, while lesbians earn more than heterosexual females. How does that fit the view that labour markets are riddled with discrimination? These pay differentials arise partly from differences in the jobs people do. Few Bangladeshi women work: those who do are well educated and so have jobs where they earn more than the typical male, a third of whom work in restaurants. Gay men are relatively highly educated and concentrated in a narrow range of well-paying jobs. "

On top of that there are other factors, such as risk:

"Men are 1½ times more likely to be made redundant than women and 2½ times more likely to suffer a serious injury at work."

The UK's pay gap is higher than other European countries, but only because of a higher proportion of women in work. Bahrain, Shackleton notes "has a pay gap of about 40% – in favour of women. Very few women, only the educated members of elite families, are in paid work". I doubt whether leftwing feminists would regard that to be a role model country.

As British "Equality Minister" Harriet Harman said, her new "equality bill" will be about "empowering the resentful". Surely public policy can be on a basis of evidence and rational analysis, not the anger of aging socialist feminist politicians?

UK government could learn from the Stasi

The report last week of the proposal of a compulsory national register for everyone who owns a mobile phone in the UK harks back to the era of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania. There, everyone who owned a typewriter had to have it registered, so that any anti-government literature could be traced to the person who typed it.

GCHQ wants to keep a database of every single phone call, email and website accessed by the general public. The presence of millions of anonymous prepaid cellphone accounts interferes with this. This is being sold, obviously, on the basis that "terrorists and criminals" are the ones with such accounts, because obviously if you're innocent, why would you fear such surveillance? That, you see, is the answer of every defender of dictatorship.

You shouldn't fear the state, unless you have a good reason to do so, and a good reason obviously is because you've done something wrong.

Simon Jenkins in his final Sunday Times column makes a plea for liberty. He notes:
- Privacy International put Britain bottom of the European league for surveillance and civil intrusion (A mistake as Belarus would be lower, he means EU);
- The "interception modernisation programme" is budgeted at £12 billion, on top of ID cards;
- How 25 million child benefit recipients had their personal details, addresses and bank accounts lost by the state;
- How the anti-terror laws have been used to seize Icelandic bank assets, and for councils to monitor rubbish disposal by residents;
- the Association of Chief Police Officers warned that collecting so much data was "a real threat to the individual".

Virtually nobody defends the innocent British citizen from this Stasi like growth in state surveillance. It is fueled by a pernicious infectious desire by security services to "know more", be "more intelligent", to be "more responsive" oblivious to who they are serving and why. It ignores the sheer incompetence of such a state, and its complete lack of accountability when it gets it so very wrong - my mismatching data, by leaking it, and most of all by accusing the innocent.

Jenkins concludes:

"The war on terror has been a wretched blind alley in British political history. It has revealed all that is worst in British government – its authoritarianism, its sloppiness and its unaccountability. Yet restoring the status quo ante will be phenomenally hard.

In all my years of writing this column, from which I am standing down, I have been amazed at the spinelessness of Britain’s elected representatives in defending liberty and protesting against state arrogance. They appear as parties to the conspiracy of power. There have been outspoken judges, outspoken peers, even outspoken journalists. There have been few outspoken MPs. Those supposedly defending freedom are whipped into obedience. I find this ominous."

However, I expect few will do anything. The Conservatives get sold this snake oil on the basis that it fights criminals. Labour gets sold on it making the state "more efficient in delivering services". The public shrugs it off and doesn't care. The criminals care even less. After all, what nincompoop in Whitehall thinks registering prepaid cellphones will stop criminals getting falsely registered or unregistered ones? Ah, so there needs to be more surveillance...

(Check out the NZ ranking by Privacy International here)

GM tomatoes with higher antioxidants

The Sunday Times reports scientists at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK have developed genetically modified tomatoes, including snapdragon genes, to produce anthocyanins, which are antioxidants that offer some protection against cancer, heart disease and diabetes. This complements the lycopene in tomatoes.

A great step forward which potentially could enhance the health and wellbeing of millions.

So of course Pete Riley of the anti-science group "GM Freeze" says that even the idea of "GM superfoods is fundamentally flawed". There being "no need" for foods to ward off cancer. Furthermore it is unlikely to "benefit the world's poor". How utterly evil. Almost every single major advance in medical science has not benefited many of the world's poor, because they are hardly in a position to access it or afford it. Pete Riley would presumably prefer that research on disease stop till the "world's poor" (him not being one) have access to all other treatments, something he no doubt is doing little to achieve himself.

My own family, and a friend of mine both have propensities to cancer, without smoking, without any of the other lifestyle factors, it is genetic. Anything which can help ward off cancer is welcome, but the ecologist zealots, worshipping their "nature is better than science" dogma would stop that.

This is one area where it is clear what the Green Party (in any country no doubt) would think. It would say no. Ask yourself on what basis. Is it evidence of ill effects of genetically modified food? No. It is purely a belief that there are no positive effects and people "don't want it". People not wanting something is a good reason to ban it, apparently. That's what the Green Party is about.

The sad filthy fury of the Red Army in Berlin

"A Woman in Berlin" is a film to be released early next year about the experiences of women raped by Red Army soldiers as Nazi Germany fell. According to the Daily Telegraph:

"An estimated two million women faced savage, multiple attacks which would start with the spine-chilling words – 'Frau, Komm'. The film is based on "Anonymous," an autobiographical account originally published by a German journalist and editor in the 1950s, describing her experiences between April and June 1945...Most have hidden their agony and shame since those terrible days in 1945 when girls as young as seven and grandmothers as old as 90 were attacked by legions of drunken, depraved and diseased soldiers. Women were raped on their death beds, pregnant women raped hours before they were due to give birth. Some women were raped by 30 men one after another and day after day. "I can smell them now," said Ingeborg Bullert, now 83, but 20 when the soldiers came for her in her bomb cellar in Berlin."

It is clear the atrocities of that era remain to be uncovered, but sadly it is unlikely that the current Russian government is likely to countenance any denegration of the great myth that the Red Army "liberated" Berlin. For it would be justice if those who committed such crimes could be brought to trial. Sadly it almost certainly is not to be.