The Bewilderness

Brussels and Babel

What is actually happening in Euroland now? It is totally confused, as each tries to outdo the other in shoring up or casting down those aspects they do not agree with. I mentioned a few weeks ago that it was unclear to me how the political dynamic of democracies could be so subverted that politicians gleefully skipped to the guillotine.

Do they wish to recreate the Tower of Babel? This was a tower designed to pierce the heavens and ensure that the post-flood generations remained united. Was there not a similar drive in Europe to confound the consequences of war and ensure that it never happened again? 

We are in a time of confounding. The European speech is foundering upon the different interests of each nation. Soon, they will say the same words and mean the complete opposite. It is not a divine punishment, just the natural end of a utopian ideology, driven at maximum speed towards the wall of European histories.  

The perpetual tax machine

It never takes long to find some useless Tory MP who has abandoned the principles of conservatism and clothed himself or herself in the emperor's new clothes. Tonight's candidate is the wrong honourable David Gauke who has decided to denounce people who pay others in cash, especially for services rendered. One notes that his ire is reserved for those who pay, not those who request cash in hand.

What is the cause of this moralising? Gauke, in zero sum mentality, concludes that if some people pay less, others will have to pay more. In his lump sum fallacy, government is deserving of a proportion of the cake and anyone who nibbles into that is committing a sin of omission. 

Yet, the money that the government takes from us in taxes comes from work that we have undertaken, or from savings that we invested on our own account. Like all good socialists, Gauke is more concerned with playing Caesar than returning people's rightful earnings to themselves. He has crossed the Rubicon and now views us as working for him, not vice versa. (One see parallels with Obama's observation that all entrepreneurs depend upon community organisers if they get to be President).

Conservatism would champion a small state, tax cuts and supply side reforms: policies that run with the grain of human nature. Perhaps Gauke is displaying natural cunning: saying something knowing that people will do the opposite; after all he did offer an incentive: do as I say (or we will put up taxes, to make up for the loss, causing a bigger black economy etc etc). But that courts unpopularity, so probably not....

But at least we know, roll up, roll up to Gauke's perpetual tax machine; what is wrong with the Coalition; they have the attitudes and the policies of big government socialists. Like His master, Osborne!

Next: why priests must be forced to act against their conscience to ensure diversity (that famous Tory doctrine)....

The perpetual tax machine

It never takes long to find some useless Tory MP who has abandoned the principles of conservatism and clothed himself or herself in the emperor's new clothes. Tonight's candidate is the wrong honourable David Gauke who has decided to denounce people who pay others in cash, especially for services rendered. One notes that his ire is reserved for those who pay, not those who request cash in hand.

What is the cause of this moralising? Gauke, in zero sum mentality, concludes that if some people pay less, others will have to pay more. In his lump sum fallacy, government is deserving of a proportion of the cake and anyone who nibbles into that is committing a sin of omission. 

Yet, the money that the government takes from us in taxes comes from work that we have undertaken, or from savings that we invested on our own account. Like all good socialists, Gauke is more concerned with playing Caesar than returning people's rightful earnings to themselves. He has crossed the Rubicon and now views us as working for him, not vice versa. (One see parallels with Obama's observation that all entrepreneurs depend upon community organisers if they get to be President).

Conservatism would champion a small state, tax cuts and supply side reforms: policies that run with the grain of human nature. Perhaps Gauke is displaying natural cunning: saying something knowing that people will do the opposite; after all he did offer an incentive: do as I say (or we will put up taxes, to make up for the loss, causing a bigger black economy etc etc). But that courts unpopularity, so probably not....

But at least we know, roll up, roll up to Gauke's perpetual tax machine; what is wrong with the Coalition; they have the attitudes and the policies of big government socialists. Like His master, Osborne!

Next: why priests must be forced to act against their conscience to ensure diversity (that famous Tory doctrine)....

Elections on ice

The European institutions have adopted the very policy positions that spell out the doom that came to Madrid (and Rome, and so on). Incompetence is wedded to demands for greater austerity and banking capital at a time of economic collapse. The Commission twists the touniquet to ensure that more blood spurts out. 

Yet as more countries are taken down for the good of the whole, one does wonder at the strength of the European ideology. An outsider, aware of its flaws and irrationality, expects that the politicians will come to their senses, return to rationality and plot a course that could start to reduce these risks. Yet, they are enchanted by the irreversibility of the project: go forward, never back; except the road has almost run its course and they are out of time. 

The allegiance of all centre parties to Europe will invite extremes. The Greek election was an early example. Other elections will prove more radical in the years to come. If the Europeans prove as competent here as they have in currency union, then we must view democracy in danger, from extremist illiberals and technocrats. Will Europe engineer technocratic suspensions to foil Eurosceptic takeovers; elections on ice until people have again proved their fitness to vote?

The Syrian rebels are becoming emboldened and have launched assaults inside Damascus. The insurgency has begun to obtain and defend territory near the Turkish border. Communities are polarised along ethnic or religious lines; a division supported by the Ba'ath party arming Alawites and using sectarian militias to conduct massacres. Using brutality against a fearless population has revealed the sterile foundations of Assad's rule.

The Insiders

Commentators will often leap on the slogan of the day and extend towards whatever pet hate they rail against. For Polly Toynbee, the utterance of moral hazard: private gain and socialised loss, is extended from the banks towards outsourced companies. Her whole column is swaddled with bows to her own lack of knowledge and bullish assertions, rendered without foundation.

Was Polly being ironic when she wrote,

What Thatcher began and Labour continued is an epidemic of evidence-free, faith-based policymaking. Politicians have been seized by a conviction that private is always better. With no public service for fair comparison, the weary old mantras of "monolithic", "sluggish" public services go unchallenged. Some are – but there is no evidence that siphoning profits into private companies is any panacea. One thing is certain. These contracts create moral hazard on a grand scale, where profits are private but losses are ours. 

Polly's argument is that complex contracts and poor drafting have left public sector organisations with their hands tied. Even if companies like G4S fail, they can just walk away, and the state has to step in. Outsourcers do not have to deal with their own failures, are opaque to public accountability and naver face losses if they fail to meet the requirements of their contracts. And, if there were a fair comparison, the public sector would win hands down because it is public. Not that Polly is biased, with an evidence free faith that public is better. No, hers is a reasoned and impartial view that would be changed if, say G4S faced huge losses and strong reputational damage for incompetence....(oh they did....) 

Bad contracts tell us more about the quality of the civil service than the effectiveness of outsourcing. Yet, competition for contracts and the bearing of loss surely embodies less moral hazard than a monopoly provider that faces no comeback if things go wrong, except an arbitrary court of public media. Even well-paid council executives become martyrs to the curse of Polly's moral hazard:

Local authorities are even more prone to bamboozlement. Council chief executives, often castigated as overpaid, are negotiating with companies whose bosses earn millions, aided by battalions of top-flight lawyers.

It is the moral hazard of monopoly: unaccountable bureaucrats running services without oversight and able to hide their failures that we need to break. Polly defends the insiders.

Let's talk it out..

Good news for the government; they won the vote on the bill to gerrymander (a new Liberal Democratic term) the House of Lords. Bad news for Clegg is the Tories threw out timetabling restrictions. 

Let's wheel on the grannies to talk this one to death.

Banking on bob, tarring the traders

Barclays Bob did not excite the crowds with revelations of smoke-filled rooms where Labour politicians and greedy bankers conspired to 'fix' anything and everything. The array of pompous faces, preening before the cameras for a political CSI, must have been deflated by Bob's new slogan: don't blame the bankers, tar the traders and pillory the pols.

Osborne has clearly aimed both barrels at the Labour party with a timely reminder of their involvement in 'touch the light paper and stand well back' regulation. The socialists are rattled: a bit spare to call the potential involvement of Labour spads and ministers in Libor fixing "desperate" and "frenzied". They have been wheezing about a judge-led inquiry all day, as if Parliament is not mature enough to put them all on display and ask some questions. Enough to make them squirm....

At the moment, every Labour politician has denied involvement. If this turns out to be incorrect and Tory spads are scouring Treasury memos for a smoking gun, then I would not be banking on Labour to surface from this scandal without damage.

Financial ferrets in a regulators' sack

Until now, the public has received little or no evidence of collusion between banker and regulator in relation to the manipulation of the markets. Nor have they understood the wider political framework within which such contacts took place. The FSA's investigation of Barclays bank has revealed ambiguous communications between the bank, Bank of England and unnamed parties within Treasury. 

The speculation is forthcoming but this could have profound implications for the Labour party, if the parliamentary investigations uncover evidence of co-operation between government and banks. Miliband's cynical distancing from the last government will be undermined by a reminder that Labour were in hock to banks, just as they are now in hock to Unite.

Nor does this let the government off the hook. Osborne's judgement may prove even more flawed when it becomes clear that his chosen vehicle for clean-up is besmirched by the antics of his predecessors. The Bank of England will suffer reputional damage and the FSA has one final triumph: kicking its rivals after they have succeeded in eviscerating its role.

We can look forward to a few weeks of kicking lumps. 

Cutting off their own hands...

The Wahabist militia which has taken over the northern part of Mali is ensconced in Timbuktu. Its history is now being destroyed as the fanatics destroy shrines in the name of their God. One should not be surprised at the attempts to erase history. The embodiment of rival knowledge and rival beliefs proves a competitor to the black and white attitudes of the Islamist. Saudi financing of the school of Wahabi results in the intolerant erasure of Islamic history. 

The revolutionary destruction of their own history and traditions will shorten the reign of fanaticism. Unable to draw upon deep roots, this belief system will collapse under the pressure of change, modernity and eradication. No doubt there will be more damage to Sufi saints and shrines along the way.