Abolish child poverty by not having kids you can't afford

An Institute for Fiscal Studies report in the UK has said that government changes to welfare policy will result in it failing to meet targets to eliminate child poverty by 2020.

There is an absurd “legally binding target” to eliminate child poverty by 2020 in the UK. That in itself is a gross misuse of the law. Laws should not be passed to demand that government ensure certain social outcomes arise (there is a similar stupid law requiring the government to reduce CO2 emissions, who gets penalised if the government fails?).

Child poverty in 2021 is largely preventable now. There is no need for any children under 10 to be raised in poverty by 2021. This is my strategy for eliminating child poverty for the under 10s by 2012.

If you can’t afford to raise children then:

1. Contraception is free (taxpayer funded), use it;

2. If it fails, there is a waiting list of financially secure people ready to adopt;

3. First trimester abortions are available for free on the NHS;

So don’t have children you can’t afford.

Some people have children they can afford but circumstances change. That is not preventable, although if taxation were lower, more could afford to take out insurance to cover such situations.

Child poverty is first and foremost the responsibility of the people who brought the child into the world in the first place. Parents have the responsibility to consider how to bring up their kids, how to pay for them, how to provide them what they need.

Nothing would be more important than for government to make this, seemingly obvious point, clear.

In addition, don’t allow anyone to immigrate with children if they also cannot afford to keep them.

One way to do that would be to painlessly phase out the child benefit. Declare that one year from now, no one will get child benefit for any future children. 

Child poverty is not a disease you catch, it is not the responsibility of everyone who doesn’t have children and those who have them, who can afford them.

It wont be eradicated by governments, political parties and “charities” calling for taxpayers to be fleeced to constantly pay for people to raise children they should not have had in the first place.

Depending on government to fix a social problem is deluded and misguided. The best way government can help is to get out of the way. Make the first £10,000 EVERYONE earns be free of income tax and national insurance as a start, and stop paying people to breed.  Raise the income tax free threshold according to GDP growth every year

Steve Jobs - he lived!

So much can and is being said about Steve Jobs. Creator, businessman, salesman, innovator, capitalist. He turned computing, music, telecommunications, publishing and media all on their heads.

The likes of him does not come from the death worshipping stone age cult infested cultures that rule Iran, Afghanistan (still), Iraq (now), Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. They don’t come from the conformist, respect authority for the sake of it, what is yours is everyone’s and what is everyone’s is yours, culture that rules China. They don’t come from the “it’s my right to have what you have”, “equality above everything”, “demonise success and wealth” culture of the trade union movements. They don’t come from the technology scaremongering, armageddon chasing, state violence worshipping, new age fascists and forked tongue demagogues of the environmental movement. They don’t come from the envy dripping, reality evasive, faux “pride” and control obsessed culture embodied by the European Union and its acolytes. They don’t come from the lawless, “might is right”, “the ends justify the means”, lying, hedonistic, crass culture of nihilism seen in Russia. They don’t come from the superstition laden, misogynistic, tribal, faux nationalistic culture of willful blindness to atrocity that infests sub-Saharan African politics.

When the news is dominated by politicians who blithely borrow, tax, spend and print money that they never earned, from wealth that has nothing to do with them, with bureaucrats and commentators, keen to tell others how to live, what to do, and to control the judgments, the passions and thoughts of others. When culture is flooded with mediocrities preaching nihilistic hedonism, and generating mass market pablum that resembles other mass market pablum. When business and marketing is so utterly full of those who worship surveys, cliches, short termism, image over substance and platitudes over invention. Steve Jobs was a breath of fresh air. When he would launch something new, people would watch, because it WAS new - it WAS innovative, and it wasn't because he was looking after the "greater good", it was because he wanted Apple to sell something people would want because it was great. It so happened that millions agreed. Firms worldwide would love a Steve Jobs. A manager, who understands the detail of the products, but also design and what people would want. However, such people wont come from production line education systems or cultures of conformity or aversion to risk.

They come from a culture where individuals can be themselves, where diverse pursuits that many may seem odd, most don’t understand, can provide fertile grounds for minds, imagination, creativity and risk taking. Where those who do take risks to produce, create and sell can keep (most) of the fruits of their endeavours, and bear the consequences when they get it wrong. Where success is lauded and admired, because people see in those who climb to the top, a piece of them, of what it is to be great, to live life pursuing your dreams, your ambitions, your ideas and your passions. They aren’t there to grab their share, to chop down the tall poppy, or to demand that people exist and work for a “greater good”, for the greater good is in all individuals pursuing their dreams, and in free people interacting, sharing, relating and standing on the shoulders of the giants who make their lives that much better.

In a world where so many are obsessed with intricacies of trivia of nobodies, where so many are obsessed with what others think of them, where so many are out to force others to give them what they haven’t earned or created, and demand rights to the fruits of the minds and labour of others, Steve Jobs was none of that.

He wasn’t the nihilist who saw humanity as a problem, he wasn’t the second-hander who claimed what others had done for his own, he wasn’t living for the sake of other people, was not seeking to control the lives of others, to tell them what to do, or to tell people how to be. He was himself, he led companies that created what he thought were good products, and let them speak for themselves.

He was a man who lived his life for his own purposes, for his own dreams, and was a stunning success. The pecuniary reward he got was a tiny fraction of what he generated for Apple shareholders, Apple employees, sub-contractors and Apple customers, and indeed its competitors who have aped him, and now generate further wealth and happiness for millions.

The legacy of what he did for Apple, what he created for millions, pales in comparison to the example he created for the most fundamental thing of all – he lived.

Infrastructure for Britain - an agenda for growth

One of the themes that all party conferences have suggested so far is that the government can help the economy by spending money on infrastructure.  Certainly the Conservatives believe they are doing that.  However, there are only two major ways government can help out in this sector, and the main reasons are because it is such a hindrance more often than not.

Firstly, it can get the hell out of the way of the private sector provision of infrastructure, by not negating its private property rights or stopping it from engaging in large, profitable projects.  The key areas the private sector gets involved in are energy, airports and telecommunications, but it should also be set free to put money into roads and railways (good luck with that, by the way). 

The second way is for it to invest in the infrastructure that it happens to own and run for now, but transition that infrastructure to commercial then private ownership.  What this means is roads and railways, but could arguably even stretch into health and education (though these are so far removed from being commercial as of yet, I'll ignore that for now).

Energy

In energy, the key intervention is the effective "tax" on electricity bills imposed by electricity retailers to pay for the compulsory "sustainable" generation of electricity, at prices far in excess of efficient forms of generation. The motive behind this policy was to chase the ghost of climate change (every new Chinese coal fired power station more than destroys the reduction in CO2 by this measure) and to pursue the illusion of industrial policy.  The latter is more effectively pursued by lowering corporation tax to a level competitive with all of Europe (15%), the former shouldn't be pursued at all.   The "sustainability" agenda is costing British businesses and households, it makes electricity more expensive in the UK than it need be, and diverts investment in power generation from economically efficient (and largely environmentally friendly) sources to more ephemeral, expensive and lower capacity ones.   Modern gas and coal fired power stations produce virtually no deterioration in local air quality.  It is time to truly deregulate the energy sector.

Little need be said about the other intervention in energy, which is the absurd "windfall" tax on oil and gas exploration.  Politics winning out over economics, and jobs.  Why would Britain ever want to deter oil and gas exploration while existing North Sea fields are in decline?

Telecommunications

The key intervention here is the heavy handed regulation of OfCom which regulates, bizarrely, a mobile phone market that is vibrant with competition, and continues to intervene in the supply of telecommunications infrastructure to an extent that hinders facilities based competition.  Why should there not be competing broadband networks being developed to homes?  Why should BT's investment be forced to be shared with others?  The legacy of the twisted copper network should be all that remains as a mandatory, regulated priced shared facility - because that was the deal with privatisation.   Beyond that, the role for Ofcom is difficult to see in this sector.  It is time for a bottom up review of whether heavy handed telecommunications regulation still makes sense.

Airports

No infrastructure sector is suffering from a blindness of economic analysis or vision than this one.  With all three major parties effectively stifling growth of airports around London, you would have to assume they all think that it is time that British Airways and Virgin Atlantic simply never grew again, and that the future for air travel from Britain is based on people flying to the growing hubs of Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol, Frankfurt and Munich airports, and to fly on Air France/KLM and Lufthansa, or better yet fly from regional airports to hubs in Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, on airlines owned by authoritarian misogynistic oil-rich plutarchies.   For that is the future guaranteed by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted could all be expanded, today, with private money.  For a government willing to run roughshod over NIMBYs in building its own taxpayer funded totem - HS2 - to kowtow to NIMBYs in rural Essex, west London and west Sussex is hypocritical and economic lunacy.   The arguments against it on climate change grounds are again nonsensical in the context of new airports springing up in China, and the expansion of Heathrow's competing hubs in continental Europe.  Why should European (and Middle Eastern) airlines gain such capacity, but British ones not? 

Stansted is the easiest to expand, the land is held by BAA, the transport links to it are good, and it would facilitate a transfer of some low-cost airline traffic from Gatwick.  There is no sound reason to continue to restrict capacity there. 

Gatwick suffers from 32 year old planning decision to not build a second runway before 2019.  Given the lead times for such projects, it should be made clear that this will be supported.  Gatwick is a mini hub for BA and Virgin Atlantic, and is useful for leisure routes short and long haul, that are less suited to Heathrow, as well as servicing the southeast.

However, it is Heathrow where the need is greatest.  Unless the government were to treat a new Thames Estuary Airport as a grand project (which would have to be part funded by property development at the current Heathrow site and a tax on the property value gains for those on Heathrow flight paths), Heathrow is Britain's international hub airport.  Transit traffic does benefit Britain, enormously, because it makes routes to destinations that would otherwise be marginal, profitable, by feeding in passengers from North America and Europe. A third runway would alleviate the chronic delays in both takeoffs and landings that waste fuel, time and increase pollution.   However, most of all it would allow Britain's premium airlines to grow, to add more routes, more frequencies and compete with Air France/KLM, the Lufthansa group, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, United Airlines and others.  It would generate employment not only from construction, but in airlines and the airport itself, but more importantly by lowering the cost of travel and freight for British based businesses and residents.

Let's not continue the lie that high speed rail, which wouldn't be finished for 15 years, would make any meaningful difference, given 96% of flights at Heathrow are not on routes serviceable by domestic rail services.  Let's also admit that the business case for Crossrail was partly based on providing better connections between Heathrow and the City, Canary Wharf and east London.

Railways

The one sector where private investment is almost certainly unlikely to be seen on any great scale, is in rail infrastructure.  With the network not well priced, it should be getting run on a commercial basis so that the franchisees of the future pay demand based prices for scarce slots.  Expansion of the West Coast Main Line should be funded not by taxpayers, but by Network Rail borrowing against future revenues.  High speed rail should be considered on the same basis, but it wont be - because it would never be built.  The government is taking steps to correct the excessive subsidies in this sector, but it should be considered, along with reforms of the roads sector, for commercialisation.

Roads

There will be a handful of opportunities for the private sector to develop new toll roads (e.g. another Dartford Crossing), and it should be set free not only to respond to government proposals,  but to generate its own.  If a company wants to build a new London south circular, why shouldn't it feel free to plan a route, buy land, build and toll it - for example.

However, there needs to be a more fundamental change.  In France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Taiwan and China, major highways are frequently privately owned.  In the UK, the motorway network should be sold, and local authorities required to put local roads into commercial structures.   Roads should be funded through borrowing, paid back through tolls, or (for now) fuel tax revenue.  Given motorists pay five times as much in motoring taxes as they get in government spending, arguments about the private sector ripping off motorists are derisive.  Then let the privately owned networks contract directly with motorists, who could choose to pay tolls or pay fuel tax, and watch there be enough funding for road maintenance and improvements - whilst introducing road pricing in a non-intrusive, cost-effective and low risk way. 

Furthermore, there needs to be a culture change that rejects the failed 13 year policy of allowing road projects to be cancelled, and the land acquired for them sold - which has destroyed opportunities for improved corridors in London.   The answer to traffic congestion is not to stop improving roads for fear it will generate traffic, but to improve pricing (toll new capacity).  In that light, Transport for London should start developing a strategy on capacity of London's arterial road network, instead of considering the network as static.

Conclusion

Sadly, this government has shown little real interest in being revolutionary on infrastructure.  Energy and telecommunications policies are largely a continuity of the previous administration.  Airports policy is anti-growth and says the government has little real interest in the growth of that sector, other than for regional airports being served by foreign carriers.   Railways policy has some promise, but is overshadowed by the ridiculous totem of HS2 - a project to provide massive subsidies to business people based in London travelling to the north, which wont deliver most of what is promised.  Roads policy shows a little promise, but needs radical governance reform, which is seen by the almost Soviet-era handling of maintenance.

It is time to get government out of the way of infrastructure investors, and to stop crowding them out.  Furthermore, it is likely to destroy wealth through projects such as HS2 and the fascination with inefficient energy generation sources.  It should allow more airport capacity around London, it should move rail investment onto a longer term, commercial basis, and should shift the road network onto a commercial basis as well.  Now is the time to be brave.

Leninism loses as students get freedom of choice

Finally, you are allowed to.  An issue I have followed for some time.

Despite the Orwellian double-speak of the compulsion touters, a majority finally appeared in Parliament to eliminate one of the most absurd authoritarian laws in the country - the one that demands that university students belong to and pay for a student union to represent them and provide services, whether or not they actually want it.

The critical central focus of the argument on this issue is one of whether rights reside in an individual or a collective.  Indeed this argument is one of the last gasps of true Leninism in New Zealand politics.  Some on the left argued that student unions are akin to "government" and that making them voluntary is akin to making tax voluntary.

When the Greens,  or the Labour Party would talk about "what students want", they weren't talking about individuals, they were talking about the people who students have been forced to pay for, and forced to have represent them.   Neither party, nor their philosophical comrades in the student unions could conceive that it was right for students to be represented, not by themselves making informed choices about whether or not to be represented at all, and if so, by whom, but by organisations that they were forced to belong to.  It had the odour of the people's democracy approach of one-party states that there need only be one party which represents "the people", not any others, because as long as it represents "the people" and "the people" are forced to support it, then how could it do wrong.

Well human beings do not have collective brains, they do not have a "general will", they are individuals.  They can make their own choices, and if most students do not want anything to do with a student union, then to demand them to belong and pay for it, is simply a form of petty authoritarianism.

Of course the true reason Labour and the Greens love the student unions is because they have been fertile, compulsorily funded training grounds for their junior politicians.   As most students are more interested in studying and their own lives, they ignore student politics, so the ones who often have been involved have tended to be those from the left who find warmth, comfort and friendship among the like minded.

The left thinks student unions will disappear, which speaks volumes about how much confidence they have that students actually value them.  When the heavy hand of state violence is taken away from students, the left is scared that they will run away from their comrades in the student unions.  If a student union can present itself as a body that offers services, opportunities and representation that students want, they will join.  If not, it will fail.

It is Labour, the Maori Party and the Greens who don't want their comrades to fail, who want people to be forced to pay for what they don't want or even hate.   No longer will the "anti-ANZAC Day" appeasers of Nazism, communism and Islamism be able to claim they represent students.

As a footnote, some time ago I asked what National MPs would vote it and vote against it.  I can't wait to find out who, if any National MPs disgraced themselves by being Leninists.

Calling the Euro project for what it is

On BBC's Newsnight, the Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne confronts a European Commission bureaucrat (Amadeu Altafaj-Tardio) for his defence of the Euro being a great success, because it is a "political project" not an "economic project". Calling him an idiot, and then he proves it.

He said the UK had a budget deficit the same size as Greece, yet ignored that Greece's public debt was already two-thirds greater (per capita) than the UK, and the Pound had devaluated during the recession allowing exporters to become more competitive and reducing imports.  Greece had no such devaluation.  The comparison is meaningless.  He claims the Euro has "protected" economies, even though it has clearly damaged the prospects for the poorer southern economies.

Then former editor of the FT, Sir Richard Lambert is confronted for having supported Britain joining the Euro some years ago, claiming "the facts changed" when it was France and Germany breaking the rules in the first place (as if Britain would have been able to respond to that).   Peter Oborne then gets his back up because he is confronted with a book about the mistake it would have been to join the Euro by claiming that the title "Guilty Men" means Peter Oborne equates Angela Merkel with the Nazis - an emotive non-sequiter.   Then Lambert proves Oborne right by saying Germany should support Greece withdrawing from the Euro.

Oborne calls the bureaucrat idiot enough times that he storms out of the studio in Brussels.  

It's rather simple, the bureaucrats in Brussels, and the primarily French and German politicians pursuing their grand political project, have caused immense damage and they are unwilling to do what is needed to fix it.  Their only answer is more tax, fiscal union and to print more good money after bad to prop up a failed single currency project.

Watch and if you're not from the UK, note how television journalism can be professional, can have people with wildly differing views and be compelling.