According to the ONS the average Briton took home around £23,000 last year before tax; amazing by global standards but not, it seems, in the view of the Tory press anything to shout about. Yes, according to Messrs Heffer et al Middle England (sic) has been hit/walloped/raped by the new 50% marginal rate of tax, such are their salaries.
In the bizarre land that comprises the mad ramblings of Daily Mail columnists, Mr and Mrs Ordinary in the UK earn more than £150,000 and thus the recent Budget will squeeze them until their pips squeak. This despite the fact less than 2% of Brits earn such an eyewatering sum; indeed, given that the £23k figure is a mean (and thus pulled up by the minority at the top on megabucks), the actual average income is even lower and further away from the heights of top-rate tax. Those on such sums are by definition elite; they are not Middle England, and their goals are very different.
I suspect this fudging of economic and social reality is not accidental. The Right does well when those who benefit from fiscal largesse are convinced of the very opposite; witness the Republicans' success in the 80s and more recently for an American parallel. Presumably the Tories hope that eventually ordinary folk on ordinary pay will hear that they are being taxed more enough times to actual believe it, much as 2 plus 2 can equal 5.
So let's hear it for taxes that hit the top 2% of people and hence pay for the stuff that the other 98% use and cherish. Let's defend Middle England by defending this tax; truly a class war as the Right suggest, but one for the middle and working classes that need to stop being lied to by those who do lose out from progressive politics. Mail writers are not the same as Mail readers, on this issue if nothing else.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
On the pay gap
There are two types of discrimination in the labour market, and only one should be opposed by any intelligent person. Unfortunately that description does not appear to cover the deputy leader of the Labour party.
For a public school educated woman Harriet Harman holds many reputably progressive and sensible views. On the pay gap, however, she is dead wrong. Harman makes the mistake of many of the left in conflating unacceptable discrimination (such as paying a woman less than a man for the same job, itself illegal since Ted Heath's government) and acceptable discrimination of the sort that, when gender is not in the mix, is acceptable, and even celebrated by much of the political spectrum.
An example: at the micro level we have a potential job offer between a man and woman who are identical in every single way except gender and the fact that the woman has had, say, a year-long gap in her CV thanks to childbirth and all that goes with it. The more experienced man will thus get hired; and replicated enough in many other job interviews, this leads to a macro-economy of men earning more than women.
This is not "bad" discrimination; indeed, it is effectively the same thing as someone with a degree obtaining a job over someone with just A-levels. Women are not getting the better-paying jobs because in many cases they are less well-qualified, not because the labour market is bigoted and they are in the same jobs as men but on lower salaries.
There may be ways of dealing with this issue (increased paternity leave as a right and norm for men might be good for everyone), but if the Left does not understand the problem it certainly cannot solve it. Indeed, it detracts attention away from the very real problems in employment concerning class and connections, of which gender plays but a minor part.
For a public school educated woman Harriet Harman holds many reputably progressive and sensible views. On the pay gap, however, she is dead wrong. Harman makes the mistake of many of the left in conflating unacceptable discrimination (such as paying a woman less than a man for the same job, itself illegal since Ted Heath's government) and acceptable discrimination of the sort that, when gender is not in the mix, is acceptable, and even celebrated by much of the political spectrum.
An example: at the micro level we have a potential job offer between a man and woman who are identical in every single way except gender and the fact that the woman has had, say, a year-long gap in her CV thanks to childbirth and all that goes with it. The more experienced man will thus get hired; and replicated enough in many other job interviews, this leads to a macro-economy of men earning more than women.
This is not "bad" discrimination; indeed, it is effectively the same thing as someone with a degree obtaining a job over someone with just A-levels. Women are not getting the better-paying jobs because in many cases they are less well-qualified, not because the labour market is bigoted and they are in the same jobs as men but on lower salaries.
There may be ways of dealing with this issue (increased paternity leave as a right and norm for men might be good for everyone), but if the Left does not understand the problem it certainly cannot solve it. Indeed, it detracts attention away from the very real problems in employment concerning class and connections, of which gender plays but a minor part.
Monday, 16 March 2009
Anger and what to do with it
Barack Obama is "choked up with anger"! Wow! An angry man with nuclear weapons and so forth - what might happen here?
Unfortunately very little. Obama may be angry about AIG dishing out bonuses to the loser execs who ran the insurance giant into the ground (bailout at $180bn, bonuses at $165m) but the US does love enforcing contracts and all that crazy stuff that keeps liberalism going.
But should it? Will the West descend to Chinese levels of contempt for property rights if we break the odd contract that, effectively, amounts to pissing on the little people who pay taxes? Why be in government if one cannot alter the rules of the game to adapt to changed circumstance?
ETTL thinks this repeat game needs ending now. The bonus-soaked execs, at AIG and elsewhere, undertook their crazy strategies knowing that they were too big to fail, and that ultimately the risk for them personally was thus minimal. Would they have acted the same way had their bonuses, not shareholders' or taxpayers' money, been at risk? One doubts it.
So let's start halting bonuses that are patently undeserved, let's start violating the odd contract, so that future contracts will never have propped up by the people ever again. Market failure is bad enough; a response of government failure is even worse.
Unfortunately very little. Obama may be angry about AIG dishing out bonuses to the loser execs who ran the insurance giant into the ground (bailout at $180bn, bonuses at $165m) but the US does love enforcing contracts and all that crazy stuff that keeps liberalism going.
But should it? Will the West descend to Chinese levels of contempt for property rights if we break the odd contract that, effectively, amounts to pissing on the little people who pay taxes? Why be in government if one cannot alter the rules of the game to adapt to changed circumstance?
ETTL thinks this repeat game needs ending now. The bonus-soaked execs, at AIG and elsewhere, undertook their crazy strategies knowing that they were too big to fail, and that ultimately the risk for them personally was thus minimal. Would they have acted the same way had their bonuses, not shareholders' or taxpayers' money, been at risk? One doubts it.
So let's start halting bonuses that are patently undeserved, let's start violating the odd contract, so that future contracts will never have propped up by the people ever again. Market failure is bad enough; a response of government failure is even worse.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Booze and its malcontents
ETTL wonders what a minimum price for alcohol would do. Not knowing what the price elasticity is for booze, would the doubling of some drinks in cost cut their consumption in half? Almost certainly not.
Sir Liam Donaldson has been listened to before, most prominently over the smoking ban. But secondary smoke is a clear example of a negative externality and it was quite right (and liberal) to legislate against it. People drinking themselves to death, as his latest proposal is aimed at, is a very different matter.
Apparently the NHS bill for booze-related problems is £2.7bn - significant, but when one factors in the tax take from drink the actual burden on society is far smaller. And how to distinguish between those sozzled middle-classes who cause no trouble and the yobs who revel in the opposite? Taxes are usually too blunt an instrument to affect social change related to consumption.
New Labour is far from libertarian, but ETTL does not think, pace John Reid on smoking, that booze for the poor is their "only pleasure". The UK clearly has an problem with binge drinking. But it is societal, and not related to price. The desperate will simply have to take more pennies that could have been spent elsewhere if drink prices shoot-up. That consumption is a reflection of wider issues that this government, like its predecessors, has singularly failed to deal with.
Sir Liam Donaldson has been listened to before, most prominently over the smoking ban. But secondary smoke is a clear example of a negative externality and it was quite right (and liberal) to legislate against it. People drinking themselves to death, as his latest proposal is aimed at, is a very different matter.
Apparently the NHS bill for booze-related problems is £2.7bn - significant, but when one factors in the tax take from drink the actual burden on society is far smaller. And how to distinguish between those sozzled middle-classes who cause no trouble and the yobs who revel in the opposite? Taxes are usually too blunt an instrument to affect social change related to consumption.
New Labour is far from libertarian, but ETTL does not think, pace John Reid on smoking, that booze for the poor is their "only pleasure". The UK clearly has an problem with binge drinking. But it is societal, and not related to price. The desperate will simply have to take more pennies that could have been spent elsewhere if drink prices shoot-up. That consumption is a reflection of wider issues that this government, like its predecessors, has singularly failed to deal with.
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Dinosaurs in union clothing
Much talk recently of Scargill and the horrendously incompetent National Union of Mineworkers given the 25 years that have elapsed since the beginning of the strike in 1984. One would hope that unions have changed from their old style of incomptent corruption and lack of democracy, but in terms of vision ETTL really wonders.
Last week the Communication Workers' Union, a byword for low productivity if ever there was one, pledged to campaign against any Labour MPs who vote for the postal reform bill currently being mulled over by Parliament.
Right-o.
So if an ostensibly left-wing member isn't left-wing enough, the CWU will fight to ensure a victory in the relevant constituency for the Tory or Lib Dem candidate respectively? Truly bizarre, though given the CWU's laughable organisation and poorly-written propaganda their chances of swinging anything but inevitable Labour losses is next to nothing.
But it's good to know that in a recession the centre-"Left" all stay together and don't allow petty differences to divide them. Because otherwise the spirit of Scargill would still be infecting the labour movement - and no-one should should wish for that.
Last week the Communication Workers' Union, a byword for low productivity if ever there was one, pledged to campaign against any Labour MPs who vote for the postal reform bill currently being mulled over by Parliament.
Right-o.
So if an ostensibly left-wing member isn't left-wing enough, the CWU will fight to ensure a victory in the relevant constituency for the Tory or Lib Dem candidate respectively? Truly bizarre, though given the CWU's laughable organisation and poorly-written propaganda their chances of swinging anything but inevitable Labour losses is next to nothing.
But it's good to know that in a recession the centre-"Left" all stay together and don't allow petty differences to divide them. Because otherwise the spirit of Scargill would still be infecting the labour movement - and no-one should should wish for that.
On youth and society
"Our finest young men and women...the cream of society".
If you thought this was a description of writers and scientists, lovers and dreamers, you would be wrong. No, for Tory MP David Davies (the other one) this is an accurate description of the UK armed forces. Hmmm.
ETTL's limited interaction with soldiers and soldiers to-be suggests the cream connection is only that they are both very thick and large quantities of them are bad for the body (politic). Quite why people who voluntarily sign up to a life of shooting people are the finest Britain has to offer is something, perhaps, only a Tory MP could explain.
Indeed Mr Davies goes further. Not content with preferring killers to students, he is actively proposing an amendment to the forthcoming religious hatred bill that would ban people from protesting against the Nuremberg-esque "homecoming" parades that seem to be occuring with more and more frequency. Nice to see Mr Davies following his namesake in defending freedom of speech and thought. Or not.
Though looking at the beardy intolerants demonstrating in Luton last week ETTL finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Muslims or Tories? Alas, pace Kissinger on the Iran-Iraq war, why can't they both lose?
If you thought this was a description of writers and scientists, lovers and dreamers, you would be wrong. No, for Tory MP David Davies (the other one) this is an accurate description of the UK armed forces. Hmmm.
ETTL's limited interaction with soldiers and soldiers to-be suggests the cream connection is only that they are both very thick and large quantities of them are bad for the body (politic). Quite why people who voluntarily sign up to a life of shooting people are the finest Britain has to offer is something, perhaps, only a Tory MP could explain.
Indeed Mr Davies goes further. Not content with preferring killers to students, he is actively proposing an amendment to the forthcoming religious hatred bill that would ban people from protesting against the Nuremberg-esque "homecoming" parades that seem to be occuring with more and more frequency. Nice to see Mr Davies following his namesake in defending freedom of speech and thought. Or not.
Though looking at the beardy intolerants demonstrating in Luton last week ETTL finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Muslims or Tories? Alas, pace Kissinger on the Iran-Iraq war, why can't they both lose?
Saturday, 28 February 2009
How do you solve a problem like Fred Goodwin?
ETTL is big on consumer empowerment. And in these crunched times why not use the leverage (so to speak) ordinary folk have to affect change when those at the top fail to?
Sir Fred Goodwin is clearly a greedy willy-waving twat of the highest order. Regardless of whether or not his pension gets cut, taken away or whatever by our betters, take your money out of RBS, if you have any in it. ETTL has already heard of people doing this in the last week or so and I think it is a splendid example of progressive income redistribution.
In fact a run on RBS might be quite a laugh. Any bank that rewards failure and greed would then know that retail depositors would punish them for doing so, even if HMG stands by pathetically. ETTL would recommend stashing cash into the Co-operative Bank given their unique position in not being total shits like all the other high-street banks.
All money is dirty money. But some banks clean it up.
Sir Fred Goodwin is clearly a greedy willy-waving twat of the highest order. Regardless of whether or not his pension gets cut, taken away or whatever by our betters, take your money out of RBS, if you have any in it. ETTL has already heard of people doing this in the last week or so and I think it is a splendid example of progressive income redistribution.
In fact a run on RBS might be quite a laugh. Any bank that rewards failure and greed would then know that retail depositors would punish them for doing so, even if HMG stands by pathetically. ETTL would recommend stashing cash into the Co-operative Bank given their unique position in not being total shits like all the other high-street banks.
All money is dirty money. But some banks clean it up.
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