What's wrong with Britain? Welfare culture led by the state

I'm constantly astonished by the belief held by all three main political parties in the UK that local government somehow could ever have sufficient competence to manage everything from education to law and order and welfare. This case in the Daily Telegraph, demonstrates the complete disregard local government has for the money it gets from taxpayers.

The Saindi family has seven children. The mother approached Ealing Council for housing assistance in July, and according to the law the council was legally required to find a seven bedroom property for this family. Yes, seven bedrooms. So it did. The family gets £400 a week in benefits/tax credits, but taxpayers are also paying £12,458 a month in rent to the private landlord for this property. In other words the landlord is making a killing from taxpayers - because the Labour government forces councils to find accommodation for families, regardless of cost.

On top of that the system "enables landlords to find out the maximum amount of money available before a price is agreed", so it allows them to completely screw taxpayers. So this one has, and has no shame about it. "Landlord Ajit Panesar, who is acting within his rights, fixed a value for his Acton property so that the Rent Service – an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions - could advise the council what it should pay. It came up with a figure of £12,458 a month." An estate agent said that similar properties typically attract half that.

The mother's eldest son 20 said "It's not that we wanted this big house - my mum is not happy because she has to clean all of it. The first day we moved in here we got lost because it was so big". So the family would have been content with less, but no, the warm loving embrace of the Labour government, and its compliant council, is throwing taxpayers' money for people to live in a £1.2 million house - the same taxpayers struggling to pay mortgages.

Central government sets rules to force generous welfare on councils, it sets rules that allow landlords to rip off taxpayers at extortionate rates, even beyond what those receiving the benefits would seek themselves.

So the winners are:
- The Saindi family which gets a large house but pays next to nothing towards it;
- Ajit Panesar who is ripping off the taxpayer by playing with the rules;
- The bureaucrats who are paid and aren't the slightest bit accountable.

The losers are:
- Future British taxpayers who will face higher taxes or less government supplied services to pay the debt for this largesse.

Socialism is wonderful isn't it?

NZ made? so what, promote it yourself

Unless you have the intellectual breadth of a young child, the idea that taxpayers should be forced to pay for a promotion to buy New Zealand was always banal. There is no more good reason to buy a product made in New Zealand over one made in Australia, Austria, Albania, Angola or Antigua because of where it is made, than there is for someone from Karori to buy Karori made over Khandallah made. The rational consumer should trade off price and value from any commodity. That may also include an element of preferring one producer over another, for moral reasons. This is exercised by consumers across the spectrum, because of concerns over environmental, political, religious or philosophical underpinnings of producers. Governments can't predict nor should they interfere with these billions of choices that influence producers to meet what people want. It certainly shouldn't make you pay for a campaign that is about convincing people that where something is made should influence whether it is bought - rather than price and the product itself.

So, it is positive that the new government has abandoned spending any more money on the "Buy Kiwi Made" campaign. A campaign the Greens strongly pushed, as part of their own economic nationalism agenda. Believing it is moral that all New Zealanders, consumers, producers (including importers) should subsidise advertising for New Zealand made products, on the misguided notion that buying more New Zealand made goods is good for the economy.

The truth is that buying a New Zealand made product is good for the producer - it isn't good for the competitors of that producer, or producers of other things you may have bought, or even where you may have invested or saved the money. However, to create value the money you paid for that product should be worth slightly less than the product you bought. Why buy something New Zealand made if it costs more and is poorer quality than the alternative, or simply doesn't meet your needs? After all, why is the producer of the foreign made good - who used initiative to produce something that DOES meet your needs less deserving of your dollar? The only conceivable answer to that sort of discrimination is racism. After all once you have a product you like at a good price, it is up to New Zealand producers to attract business from the foreign producers - which of course, would be easier if there was free trade.

Oh yes, the Greens oppose that too, indeed have actively supported nonsense like "food sovereignty", the latest leftwing campaign against free trade in agriculture, warmly welcomed by the bleeding parasites of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and Sue Kedgley.

However, stepping back from that, this s not to say that New Zealand producers should not, voluntarily, fund a "Buy NZ Made" campaign if it wins them business. Which they do, and have done so for many years. Air New Zealand, for example, makes a deal about being from New Zealand. However, I'm not flying it back home this Christmas simply because of price - I got a better deal in business class with Scandinavian Airlines (not quite as good but I wanted to spend the extra £1,500 on something else).

You see the government campaign was "Buy Kiwi Made" and has duplicated the privately funded "Buy NZ Made" campaign. Yes there already was and still is an industry led campaign to "Buy NZ Made". Labour and the Greens duplicated it.

Sue Bradford, well renowned economic genius, could put her money where her mouth is and financially support that campaign, and leave everyone else's bank accounts alone.

However, I somehow suspect Sue Bradford's degree of direct support for the privately run "Buy NZ Made" campaign will match the regularity of Green MP's using the train to go between Wellington and Auckland.

Why women don't need to be funny

Christopher Hitchens wrote an insightful piece in Vanity Fair called "Why Women Aren't Funny" and got an expected reaction. His point is simple, men need to make women laugh to attract them - women don't need to do that. Men use humour as a technique of seduction (you all know it, the guy making the girl laugh is a prelude to "let's go back to my place", no girl seduces a guy with humour). An interesting observation.

So watch below as he defends his position.

Hitchens on Obama - prepare for disillusionment

Christopher Hitchens, who supported Obama in the US election (predominantly because the McCain/Palin campaign so infuriated him that he could not support it - despite supporting Bush in 2004) has written in Slate about the delusion of so many that everything will be better now merely because Obama has been elected:

"Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don't think a diet of hope is going to cover it."

His concern is that the threats to the Western world aren't going to go away, and that it is time for some sobriety. He worries that Obama's victory emboldens our enemies and that his supporters don't understand that more than a belief that he can make it better will make it so:

"many Obama voters appear to believe that the mere charm and aspect of their new president will act as an emollient influence on these unwelcome facts and these hostile forces. I can't make myself perform this act of faith, and I won't put up with any innuendo about my inability to do so."

Indeed - it is time for those Obama supporters who did so out of thought not blind following of a superstar to recognise the same. The USA, and the entire Western world deserves to be led by substance. The idea that he will be tested by those who wish to observe weakness in the USA remains a concern. Don't forget, Bush remains President for now.

When is Cindy Kiro going to be fired?

This woman sought to nationalise children under Labour, she continues to collectivise everyone, blaming everyone for child abuse (hat tip: NZ Conservative).

She is an authoritarian, she wants the state to monitor all children, and she engages in the philosophy of collective blame and collective responsibility.

The Commissioner for Children has been abundantly useless in its task, children are NOT safer than they were when the office was set up. It should be abolished, so parents can get a few more cents back in tax cuts to spend on their kids. Cindy Kiro will undoubtedly become an academic and continue to live suckling off the state tit, but her doggerel can be treated for what it is - the ravings of a Neo-Marxist academic.

Abused children suffer because of their parents, guardians and families that abuse them - they are predominantly on welfare, disproportionately Maori and that is not the fault of society - society is forced to pay these people to breed. It is time to focus on the offenders, not some generic nonsensical use of "we".