Canada Reports: The Bank of 'Mom and Dad'

Originally a Facebook post - apologies for short catchy phrasing. 

Sometimes I'm awfuly harsh about Leftists - often in very polemic ways. I'm not very concerned with inequality or class systems - that's not my prime motivation. But for anyone who IS, however, I beg you to hear me out on this one.

Our Central Planning Board (=Central Banks) choose very low Interest rates little over a decade ago. This fueled a MAJOR Asset price boom, creating a major divide between haves and have-nots. People owning shares predominantly the wealthies) and people owning their homes (=middle class and above) suddenly had assets worth 2x, 5x, 10x their initial purchasing price. = a massive increase in wealth over a very short time period.

In 2008, after perverse U.S governmental incentives and GSEs, combined with collectivisation of mortage-debt spread across the financial world, the party was over - rapidly reduced demand for loans, the value of properties dropped and companies whose Income Statements were doped by too-low interest rates, and Balance Sheets heavy with debt went out of business.

What did Central Planners do? If your only tool is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail; so, they lowered interest rates AGAIN + printing trillions of dollars to effectively create negative interest rates, hoping that price indexes would skyrocket - some of that new money did put pressure on prices, but most of it went to properties and shares. Again, property prices bounced; share prices reach all-time-high even though the economies of US, Canada and western Europe are not much better than 5 years ago. Again, the haves are benefited while the have-nots can't afford neither house, nor savings, because their wages (=productivity) didn't increase because the government printed more money.

So the older middle-class generation, now safely and comfortably retired in debt-free high-priced dwellings pass on some of their assets to their children, so that they can get even a humble home for themselves. Again, have-nots don't have that luxury, and instead have to rent low-quality homes in neighbourhoods they don't like.
"Chances are being inherited", McLaren says; the younger generation's spending powers are artificially propped-up by the older ones who were lucky or insightful enough to be on the Boom to begin with. Now they're all tied to housing prices with new loans, and it's way harder for have-nots to get on the property ladder than 15 years ago.

""And don’t even contemplate a housing crash. If that happens, we’ll all be screwed.", McLaren finishes. Indeed. But Central Banks would rather repeat the cycle than let the inflated prices crash down to reasonable levels.

======= Interest Rates must up to prevent repeat of last 15 years. But Central Banks won't raise them, because majority of population are addictively dependent on them for their mere day-to-day survival. So interest rates will stay down, creating the same Asset Price Booms we've seen, forging the divide between haves and have-nots.

My point is: Seeing as how Central Banks and Governments over the last 15 years made a mess of asset markets, disproportionally harming the poorest in society, increasing the wedge between haves and have-nots, all of it being done to help the poorest to more employment - SHOULDN'T YOU ALL LEFTIST AND INEQUALITY-PEOPLE BE ON MY SIDE?!

"Stop calling me Socialist! I'm actually a Social Liberal"

Hey, everyone!

If you're new to this blog, you might not have realized that I tend to refer to my political opponents or non-AnCap people as "Socialists", "Leftists", "Statists" or other adequate names. It is, however, a feature that makes people unconfortable to say the least; perhaps 'upset' and 'frustrated' are better ways to coin it. From time to time, I'm also told off by some "proper marxists" that I'm misusing the term, that the ones I'm calling socialists really are not - thus, I must be mistaking in my view of socialism.

There are many aspects of Marx's writing, many ideas prevalent in Engels' work and tons of more throughout history since their time. I could focus on Marxism, the Method, relations of Power, or Alienation to define Marxism. But I'll stick with a common theme for now.

If asked to define Socialism in a few words, what you'll most likely get is something like below:

"[...] based on the collective ownership of the means of production". 

Not everything, not the essence, but neither an unreasonable description of Socialism.

Now, Socialists and Marxists have since the time of Marx always struggled with definitions, clear-cut lines. They were constantly fighting between themselves over who's actually part of the Proletariat, who's a capitalist and who isn't. The 19th century French Socialists, refusing women to enter the workforce is a great example. Independent artists, painters and so on, seemed to upset the entire dichotomy of "Workers vs Capitalists", as they were neither exploited workers nor exploiting capitalists.

The Marxist story always falls apart once you start disaggregating their claims and ask for clear-cut definitions.

Let's return to the means of production. What is a "mean of production"?
Superficially, a marxist might tell you that any machine, raw material, labour etc that capitalists use in their exploitation of labour, i.e their production constitute 'mean of production'. The problem arises when you realize that anything can be used in production; if I'm running a Taxi Company, my cars become means of production; If I'm having a restaurant forks, plate and glasses become means of production; if I'm selling newly-picked strawberries to commuters, the table where I have the strawberries become a mean of production.

So here's the scale that confuses Socialists, Social Democrats, Social Liberals, modern-day Liberal, Conservatives and the rest of the lot:

They all argue for some collective ownership of the means of production. 

Socialists say: 100% (sometimes, though, they allow people to have personal belongings)
Social Democrats say: mje, maybe 50% taxation + heavy regulations of labour relations
Social Liberals say: Perhaps 30%, enough to help the poor and sustain a Welfare State
Liberals say: Whenever market failures arise (pollution, insurance, central banks, the poor)
Conservatives: Military, police, courts, immigration and all things related to moral virtue!

My point here:
Collective ownership of the means of production is not cathegorically different in one ideology compared to the others; it is quantitatively different. It's only a question of HOW MUCH collective ownership they'd want.

From that point of view, anyone but a proper AnCap is rightfully deemed a socialist. They all want collective ownership of the means of production - albeit to a different degree, but nevertheless collective ownership of the means of production.

_____________


Tomorrow, I'm off to Vienna for a few days, so LibertarianUni will be silent for a bit. Will post some favourite posts and videos on the blog. Enjoy!

Swedish newspaper runs Washington Monument Syndrome spinoff

"Not enough money for sick people in end-of-life care"
Sub-article reading: "Most people want to talk about life". 

One month before general elections, you're bound to face some intense marketing, from the parties themselves as well as media (as I posted on Instagram some weeks ago when my local newspaper started interviewing people about how important voting is). The entire political class and its distributers have gone into a pre-election Frenzy. Yey!

That, another fairly common newspaper (Metro) decided was the perfect moment to prop up an old classic Washington Monument Syndrome. And I get to ramble about how useless and inefficient Government is.

WM Syndrome in two sentences: whenever governments' budgets are sqeezed, they cut back whatever activity would hurt the general public the most, and ultimately upset them a lot. This, then, has the brilliant effect that citizens become more susceptible to/likely to accept tax increases. Normal examples: Police services, fire department or in the case that gave name to the Syndrome: the Washington Monument.

In the article above, Metro describes how 25% of all deceased patients in healthcare died alone, because there wasn't enough funding so that a nurse could hold them company at the end of their lives. Funny, I think, as the World Bank says we spend north of $5000/capita on health care each year. 

I wonder...

Couldn't they get rid of a few bureacrats in all political levels?
Sell of some old desks or fire some staff at one of the 468 Swedish National Agencies, governing our lives and consuming our tax money?
Or simply not wasting the money in any of the countless examples given to us by Martin Borgs?

Not to mention, obviously, the 45% of GDP the Government steals from Swedish citizens each year. Since we lost the Global Gold Medal here a few years ago, since tax rates came down from 48% when the Social Democrats were in power, most leftist have drawn the undeniable conclusion that All Misery Comes From the Recent Reduction of Taxes.

I mean, even if I disagree with them in terms of _everything_, it doesn't it make sense at face value. It is undeniable that if you consume 45% of what your economy produces in a year, you should be able to reallocate some of those resources into Healthcare, seeing how that's the primary rationale for these taxes in the first place.

I bet we'll see some more examples of Washington Monument Syndrome over the next 31 days.


_________
Funny note about this election: The opposition, blaming Government for All Misery Imaginable, essentially accepts most tax cuts made over the last eight years on the pretense that you can't keep changing everything (from 48%->45%, MY GOSH, SUCH CHANGES!). Still, in Power, they promise us that they'll change everything into Utopia. 
Funny how tiny differences we have between our political parties: arguying over 6-8% of the entire tax burden. 

Compulsory Reading for any Socialist, Statist or Leftie

After a while of silence due to exam periods, I'm back with one amazing extract for you. With my newly-aquired time, I've finally managed to start reading Deirdre McCloskey's fantastic work The Bourgeois Virtues.

Additionally, my last post had a rather firm question: And you want more spending?, perfectly adequate to this post as well.

In the last two pages of her introductory part she defends capitalism from its severest critics by listing the failures and crimes by states throughout the last couple of centuries. It's as tragical as compelling as a text could be.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ordinary Europeans were hurt, not helped, by their colonial empires. Economic growth in Russia was slowed, not accelerated, by Soviet central planning. American Progressive regulation and its European anticipations protected monopolies of transportation like railways and protected monopolies of retailing like High Street shops and protected monopolies of professional services like medicine, not the consumers. "Protective" legislation in the United States and "family-wage" legislation in Europe subordinated women. State-armed psychiatrists in America jailed homosexuals, and in Russia jailed democrats. Some of the New Deal prevented rather than aided America's recovery from the Great Depression. 

Unions raised wages for plumbers and autoworkers but reduced wages for the non-unionized. Minimum wages protected unions jobs but made the poor unemployable. Building codes sometimes kept buildings from falling or burning down but always gave steady work to well-connected carpenters and electricians. Zoning and planning permission has protected rich landlords rather than helping the poor. Rent control makes the poor and the mentally ill unhousable, because no one will build inexpensive housing when it is forced by law to be expensive. The sane and the already-rich get the rent-controlled aparments and the fancy townhouses in once-poor neighborhoods. 

Regulation of electricity hurt householders by raising electricity costs, as did the ban on nuclear power. The Securities Exchange Commission did not help small investors. Federal deposit insurance made banks careless with depositors' money. The conservation movement in the Western United States enriched ranchers who used federal lands for grazing and enriched lumber companies who used federal lands for clear-cutting. American and other attempts at prohibiting trade in recreational drugs resulted in higher drug consumption and the destruction of inner cities. Governments have outlawed needle exchanges and condom advertising, and denied the existence of AIDS.

Germany's economic Lebemsraum was obtained in the end by the private arts of peace, not by the public arts of war. The lasting East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was built by Japanese men in business suits, not in dive bombers. Europe recovered after its two-twentieth-century hot wars mainly through its own efforts of labor and investment, not mainly through goverment-to-government charity such as Herbert Hoover's Commission or George Marshall's Plan. Government-to-government foreign aid to the third world has enriched tyrants, not helped the poor. 

The importation of socialism into the third world, even in the relatively nonviolent form of Congress Party Fabien-Gandhism, unintentionally stifled growth, enriched large industrialists, and kept the people poor. The capitalist-sponsored Green Revolution of dwarf hybrids was opposed by green politicians the world around, but has made places like India self-sufficient in grains. State power in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa has been used to tax the majority of farmers in aid of the president's cousins and a minorty of urban bureaucrats. State power in many parts of Latin America has prevented land reform and sponsored disappearances. State ownership of oil in Nigeria and Mexico and Iraq was used to support the party in power, benefiting the people not at all. Arab men have been kept poor, not bettered, by using state power to deny education and driver's licenses to arab women. The seisure of governments by the clergy has corrupted religions and ruined economies. The seizure of governments by the military has corrupted armies and ruined economies.   

Industrial policy, from Japan to France, has propped up failing industries such as agriculture and small-scale retailing, instead of choosing winners. Regulation of dismissal has led to high unemployment in Germany and Denmark. In the 1960s, the public-housing high-rises in the West inspired by Le Corbusier condemned the poor in Rome and Paris and Chicago to holding pens. In the 1970s, the full-scale socialism of the East ruined the environment. In the 2000s, the "millennial collectivists", red, green or communitarian, oppose a globalization that helps the poor but threatens trade union officials, crony capitalists, and the careers of people in Western non-governmental organisations. 

All of these experiments of the twentieth century were arranged by governments against bourgeois markets. All of them were disasters. In short, the neoartistocratic, cryptopeasant, proclerisy, antibourgeois theoroes of the nineteenth century, applied during the twentieth century for taxing, fixing, resisting, modifying, prohibiting, collectivizing, regulating, unionizing, ameliorating, expropriating modern capitalism, failed of their purposes, killed many millions, and nearly killed us all.  

A leftie analyses the Financial Crisis of 2008

This is the 3rd part of the "Leftie Serie" which I created after attending the People & Planet Conference on the 8th of March 2014. 
Here's a link to the other posts: Feminist Economics, Inequality

Here's a passage from page 14 in The Austerity Machine, a pamphlet I got at the Leftie conference, that is just so entertaining! On page 14 it tries to explain the origin of the 2008 financial crisis which is such a great example for how the left likes to look at the world: superficiously, of course, and with very little insights.

"Banks continued to give new loans even when it was clear the borrowers would not be able to repay. The sub-prime mortage crisis in the US, which sparked the financial crisis, was a clear case of banks targetting poor borrowers, selling them expensive mortgages that they could not repay. Although this doesn't sound sensible, the banks had a strategy: they sold on the mortgages to other banks and investors in 'bundles', 'packaged up' with good mortgages so they looked less risky. This is just one example of the way finance started developing new ways of trading, to hide high levels of risk." - Economic Justice Project

Now, this is just like the famous Keynesian economist Paul Krugman goes on about everything; He's not technically lying or stating incorrect statements, but he twists them and hides certain facts that change the meaning of what he's saying.

Same thing here. Yes, the crisis originated in the US, it occurred after a housing boom, banks did sell 'Sub-prime mortgages' and they did mix them into packages with high-credit mortgages, obtaining AAA-credit rating on those products. Yes, they targeted the poor (thus: 'sub-prime', = below prime: that is costumers that actually can't afford/support a loan because they, for instance, had no income). That is, banks were injecting risk all over the financial system and these risks were hidden through the rating given to them.

The left makes this look like how the banks are awful, how their greed deliberatly caused the world economy to crash - and especially that bankers are so obsessed with their trading that not even risk matters to them.

Let's think about bankers and evil capitalists that only wants to make money for a moment. Let's assume these traits are true. What, in a free market, stops these capitalists from going crazy, lending money to everyone in order to make as much profits as possible? The risk of loosing the initial money, obviously. If they loose their own money after going mental, that's their lose - no problem for the rest of us.

Now, let's wonder for a moment why bankers did sell loans to poor people that clearly couldn't sustain them, or why they even would do that to begin with. Sub-prime costumers represented a HUGE risk for bankers, why would they risk their capital to low/no-income borrowers who would never be able to pay that money back? The left story is simple; because they're evil, greedy and want to exploit the poor as much as possible. The more truthful story is a bit more technical. Since the Clinton era in the US, there had been a political goal of making all Americans own their homes - not too different from UK politics. For this reasons, the administration used something called Government-Sponsored Enterprise (Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac), designed to purchase mortgage loans from other banks, making sure normal banks always had a second market for their loans. Essentially, the risk associated with lending money to someone was transferred to these companies. Banks lended to everyone because Fannie and Freddie would buy that mortgage straight away - leaving the banks with initial profits, but Fannie and Freddie with all the risks.

Fannie and Freddie (and further down the line, Goldman Sachs or Leeman Brothers etc also) packaged these "risky" loans with proper, "good" loans into a financial product, which, by the incentives of rating agencies and Fannie & Freddies government-sponsorship, recieved AAA ratings and were deemed to be very safe. Effect: banks, investors and individuals around the world bought them, because they yielded good returns, while on paper exposing them to very low risk.

Now, when the debtors of the initial bad loans eventually defaulted, a domino fell through the system, causing loses to be made all over - and the rest is, as they say, history.

Yes, if you want to make the superficial analysis that "look, a product bankers made spread risk throughout the system - IT'S THE BANKER'S FAULT!", you can make that. It just simply doesn't deal with the fundamental mistakes made that eventually caused a financial crisis to occur.
Misguided incentives, however, does. Politically-governed idea that "all should own their home", an interest rate held substantially below its market rate and the hydra of moral hazard that GSEs, Sub-Prime purchases and Bank Bailouts represent are more accurate explanations. 

Stop messing around with absurd accusations of "bankers and SPECULATION causing the financial system to crash". Politicians and messed-up incentives did. Like governments, state and politicians do most of the time.

This is a perfect example to when Lefties take one glance at something, find an explanation - regardless of how inaccurate it might be - that fit their worldview and start accusing one of the following 1) capitalism, 2) bankers, 3) rich people, for x, y and z.

Sorry guys, it doesn't work that way.


_______________________

For an extensive story on the Financial Crisis see here, or a more technical, economic debate, see Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle.

Feminist Economics

After the countless amount of ideas, statements and reasoning I was exposed to at the People & Planet Conference on Economics today (the "Lefties Conference", that I refered to previously), I decided to make an extended series. Every day for the coming weeks or so, I'll be posting something that originated at this conference and address the flawed reasoning and/or incorrect premises used in reaching their conclusions.

First up, in honour of the day, I'll dedicate my first blog post to Feminism. Now, I'm not a particularly big fan of feminism, depending obviously of what you choose to fill that concept with. This position I've addressed elsewhere. However, at the Conference I was introduced to the field of "Feminist Economics", and as this blog overwhealmingly focus a lot of its attention of economics, obviously I was curious.

The way I understand Feminist Economics, it includes the regular presuppositions given by marxian approach to class remade and re-organised for Sex or Gender; structure, exploitation, traits inherent to those groups that determine their actions etc. Wendy McElroy has done extensive works in that particular area. Anyways, we touched upon 3 specific areas that came up during the session.

1) Domestic work done by women is excluded from measures of the Economy.
2) Women are forced to choose between Career and Family.
3) Stats and the Wage Gap


1) Domestic Work
The argument here is that domestic work (care ex or relatives of children, household cleaning, cooking) is unpaid, doesn't involve a measurable transaction and is not included in the GDP, thus in the economy as a whole. Feminist Economics try to distinguish itself from 'Traditional Economics' by including such unpaid work into their models and measurements of the economy.

2) Career or Family?
Such an ancient question, constantly been part of the feminist movement. How is a woman to choose? Does she even have to? Can she have both? The discussion here is that there's a social pressure for women to focus on family, a structure implicitly telling women they're bad mothers if they spend too much effort/time on their careers. Because men doesn't face these questions, all things equal, women will be disadvantaged by such anticipations.

3) Stats and the "wage gap"
We had three sets of statistics presented to us. Taking them at face value, they were "Women hold 70% of jobs paying the minimum wage"; "30 000 women are sacked each year because they are pregnant"; "Average Domestic work for women are 3x the domestic work of men".

Also included the discussion about the wage gap, that is men making more money than women, within the same occupation.

Addressing these issues resolve mainly around two things; Refutal of the "Wage Gap" and the notion of Choice. In the first two areas, choice is a dominant factor, largely ignored. Let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say the entire economic society went 'equal' overnight; supply and demand randomly created an equal pay for everyone (women included) and sectorial work identital between men and women. No wage gap, no involuntary part-time work, no penalty for choosing family etc. Now then let's also say there's a change in attitude towards leisure in the case of some women whilst the pattern of leisure/work for men is held constant; these women now prefer staying home, planting flowers in the garden, watch tv, involve themselves in community work and whatnot to a larger extent than before. They substitute some work for leisure and are therefor better off (First, they had a certain ratio between work and leisure that they were happy with; now the change in preference altered that ratio, resulting in a higher rate of leisure, and they recieve more personal benefits from this - otherwise they would stay in the same ratio as before, like the other women did). 

How would we see this? We would see that 1) the wages of men would outstrip women (if women work less and pay is perfectly equal, their aggregate wage is reduced), 2) men would work more than women, 3) women would be overrepresented in part-time jobs. Not too different from the story Feminists tell us today.

My point here is that domestic work is a choice; relationships, assumed here to be male-female, are determined by their reciprocal relations. Simply, in living together, men and women decide who is taking up what task, who is doing what. If that choice comes out with 5 vs 15 hours work respectively, what does it matter? Two people voluntarily choose to distribute domestic work in a certain pattern. No more, no less. Domistic work is, by its nature, unpaid, because it is what you do in your home. The fact that women happen to do more of such work than men means very little, especially for the entire economy. Irrelevant.

Second point: Wage gap. All kinds of numbers are generally presented to support this idea; women make 15% less than men, £5000 less in a year; higher in private sector (19%) than public (13%) etc, etc. What does this mean? How is this measured? The simplest of comparisons are made through dividing all income by women by the amount of women to the same ratio for men. Clearly inaccurate, because that would compare the pay of a female working minimum wage at tesco with a handsomely payed lawyer. Most studies then controll for other factors, most obviously what profession you're in. But even then, same questions arise; differences in productivity, experiences, in certain education etc. Some studies controll for more factors than others, but very few of them are conclusive in the sense that they add such tiny things as choices or personal adequacy.

Truth to be told, when more factors are accounted for (education, experience, career choice or even negotiation skills) the gap narrows into virtually nothing. There is no wage gap, there's only choices. More extensive reading here.

Bottom Line: if there is no wage gap due to sex, and the domestic issue is largely determined by choices, the fundamenta for "Feminist Economics" is largely pulled away.

___________________________

P.S: There was also a discussion about particular male characteristics that women allegedly had to embrace in order to become successful career-wise (ie, the idea that 'female traits' such as emotion or care is less usefull in business and career than are 'male traits' like logic or self-discipline and whatnot). A widely-used UK example is Margaret Thatcher, who, allegedly, wasn't female enough.
That's a perfect example to what I mean with "Epistemology" in my story of Feminism: how can we know that? How is such knowledge obtained? How is even 'male traits' to be defined?

Also, the idea of "Sacked because of Pregnant" faces the same issue; how do we know? Because such an action is illegal in the UK, it's not simply to gather statistics of "reason for redundancy". Furthermore, Wendy McElroy has a great outline of why exactly discrimination is justified.

You're entitled to your own opinion - Not to your own facts

So, tomorrow there's this lefties conference at one of the Student Unions. Exciting! I've talked myself into going with the intention of keeping quiet and listening carefully to all the arguments and positions I will encounter. How thoughtful of me, not to ruin their conference with unconventional views!

Anyway, as a pre-runner, I'm doing some reasoning regarding freedom of opinion - your right to think whatever you want. Fundamental pillar upon which our western democracies rest. Let's go.

One of the most interesting clashes of politics is facts vs. opinion. We all, predominantly, recognize that other people are entitled to their views, just as I am entitled to mine. However, what happens when such opinions are countered with plain facts, insofar that such facts can be obtained?

First, fundamental difference:
Opinion: I like Ice-Cream
Fact: Ice-Cream contains cream (unless it's vegan, made differently, lala).

Regardless of my opinion about what Ice-Cream contains, or my right to excercise that opinion, it doesn't change the fact that cream is a component of Ice-Cream - thus, it renders my opinion ridiculous, superfluous and straight out silly.

So, what happens when opinions are based on or fully rely on facts? That is, what happens when the relation between the two are established?

Let me give you an example. Consider a fairly easy statement, "Cats are the best animals!"
An opinion, easy enough, and a very subjective statement. How is "best" to be defined, or even measured? We can't do anything about it, and the freedom of opinion applies fully.

If we add the next layer: "Cats are the best animals, because they have most legs!"
Now we've established a relation to measurable fact, and the person has also implied the indicator for how "best" is to be measured: the amount of legs.

But here facts come in: There are a number of other animals with more legs than cats, say spiders or ants. Applying the person's own measure for why cats are the best animals (namely amount of legs), his/her opinion is invalidated. Cats simply are not the best animals, regardless of this person's view or opinion. He or she is wrong. Not from my point of view, but from any point of view.

How is all of this relevant for a Leftie Conference?

I tend to encounter socialists or people on the left that carry certain ideas and believes that I find preposterous. Fair enough, we're all entitled to opinions, which is a major criticism I get when I say they're wrong or should change their views: "We're all entitled to our own opinions, why don't you let me have mine?"

Well, insofar as
1) an indicator for measuring that opinion is provided,
2) facts for that indicator can be obtained, and
3) there's a straight relationship between the indicator and the opinion, i.e you use that indicator to say why exactly your opinion is prefered,
then your opinion can be made as useless and incorrect as the one about cats above.

That is, if I can prove to you, within these three conditions, that your ideology is incorrect, your statements invalid and your facts wrong - then no, you're no longer entitled to have that opinion.

This is, I think, essentially why I wanna go tomorrow. If I can prove to lefties that their perception or ideas are factually incorrect, they are obliged to change their position, those perceptions and ultimately their entire ideology.

Seems easy enough, why do we still have socialists around?

The Invaluable Socialist Logic part #2 - Perspective

Link to the first part of Socialist (lack of) Logic

One of these socialist features of University Life is portrayed in certain subjects; sociology is the prime example, but also Public Policy, a subject I had the great (mis)fortune to study last semester. When basing its raison d'être on the right of Government to control and intervene, it obviously becomes very biased toward socialist frameworks/attracts students with those values. Not to mention all the students mopping around about 'intersectionality' or staff going on strike every other day. Where are all the freedom-minded students?

Anyway, here's a fun example from Public Policy course of last semester.

Apart from continuously reading from Fredrich Engels, taking his words for granted, my lecturer had such a striking example of socialist logic:

Before Industrial Revolution
First she explained to us a view of 18th and 19th century Great Britain, before the technical and economical changes of the Industrial Revolution. She depicted an awful environment, vividly describing how poor women in rural areas had to spend their entire day on sewing tiny, tiny laces which were used for table decorations in Upper-class homes. For this, they made the equivalent of 2 pence. Oppressive, horrible life, lots of them became huckle-backed and blind from working in the dark. Let's just neglect the discussion of historical accuracy of this description and take it at face value.

After Industrial Revolution
Now machines were invented that could do 10-20 or even a 100 times what these women had been capable of doing in a day. My lecturer, consequently, condemned the change in society, arguying that these poor women no longer could spend their entire days on sewing laces, because machines took their jobs - and they became unemployed! Horrible, oppressive unemployment.

You'd think that if sewing these tiny laces all day, which were sold for essentially nothing, was such a horrible treat, finally getting rid of it and being able to dedicate yourself to somethink less harsh - that'd be a good thing. Nono, not in Socialist Logic. Whatever happens, whatever the reason, the oppression of poor workers is taken as given. Also, it's a terribly convenient position to take; when workers do a, they're oppressed. When they finally are relieved from doing a, they're oppressed. Falsifiability, anyone?

Especially awkward is this description of 19th century life when the lecturer appropriately forgot to mention that the standard of living between 1780-1860 increased some 150% for regular poor people like these. Well, well. Nobody accused socialists for being thorough. Or even coherent.

Socialist Logic: Everything is always bad and capitalism is oppressive. Period. Especially when capitalism/globalisation over the last 20 years lifted some 900-1000m people out of poverty. Awful, really.

Invaluable Socialist Logic - Inequality

Link to the second part of Socialist (lack of) Logic.

Socialists' main concern normally is equality, or rather its opposite; inequality. To them, it's the most horrible feature of capitalist societies, and they regularly use studies like The Spirit Level to get their points across; more equal societies are better societes (Also where analogies to Scandinavia are plentiful). They also heavily rely on the measure called GINI coefficient, which shows income distribution/equality throughout a country (0 = everyone has the same income, 100 = one person has all the income; most western countries have GINIs between 20-40)

Anyway, let's have a look at how perverse the effects of equality might turn out.

Let's say we have a country consisting of 100 people. They're all poor, with very little means to get around, living below the PPP $1,25/day (Extreme Poverty Line), with all the bad stuff associated with poverty: disease, low life expectancy, high child mortalities, undernurished etc., etc. Quite bad. On the other hand, however, because they're all more or less equally poor, this country is gonna score very low on GINI, say 5-10.

Now, let's introduce something else. For different reasons, say capitalism or globalisation, 10 of these people start selling their crops abroad, invent some machinery that's terribly useful for foreign people etc. For whatever reason, these 10 people are now a lot wealthier, makes substantially more money, build nice houses for themselves and whatnot. If we ignore spillover effects that socialists generally criticize capitalism for not having, what's going to happen with the GINI indicator? It will soar. Completely fly through the roof. We'd be talking numbers of 60, 70, 80. A riddiculous increase in inequality.

According to the socialist interpretation of GINI, this new country is a horrible place. Inequality, some rich people are extremely wealthy while others are on the brink of starvation. But what has actually changed? Capitalism lifted 10% of the population out of poverty, increasing the standard of living for 10 people - while the rest are still at their previous level. According to Socialist ideals, this country went from equal (and bad) to unequal (and worse), even though only 90 people instead of 100 are in extreme poverty. For all intend and purposes, 90 people starving rather than 100 people starving is an improvement, regardless of what the GINI says.

Since capitalism and globalisation is doing just that, why stop it?

My point here: focus on equality, income distribution or the GINI-coefficient is misleading. It doesn't tell the story and is rather useless to explain lives in different countries. Socialists should stop using it as an argument to why capitalism is bad. Especially when capitalism  over the last 20 years has lifted a billion people out of poverty.

On Unions again - Some Objections

Sometimes I get objections that have so many different issues intertwined. Not to say that socialists are always this way, but I tend to run into socialists that argues using so many different statements and topic at once, that whatever comes out is a mish-mash of rhetorically well-sounding rubbish. Unfortunately.

Anyways, I had a friend of mine replying this to my post on Union Strikes the other day:

"This makes me genuinely angry. Some things can't be left to the market. Your definition of employment lacks one very important point: stability. We have to, as a society, compensate some things so that humans are viewed as humans, and not commodities. You would never pay for librarians if there was a volountary cost, yet we all agree that they are an important institution for culture and education.

Do you have any idea how many people have died for the right to organize unions? How much the opportunity to strike has changed the working and living conditions of workers everywhere? When you are a craftsman or local farmer or whatever, your customer is your employer, and you have leverage by your self. But in a post-industrial world, most workers have very little power over their bosses. That's a necessary trade off for effectivity. Unions is the only leverage most workers have. The government allows strikes as a guarantee of stability. There are certain jobs that nobody would ever train for if there wasn't the opportunity to organize. In your ideal world, everyone would be a farmer, we'd have no culture and the world would only support a fraction as many people as there are today."

Here are my replies. I tried to be brief, but failed. I'll work on that. 

1) Some things can’t be left to the market you say. Like what? And why is that? If the market is more efficient than the state in providing shoes, massage, food or homes that people desire, why would the state suddenly be a much better actor in healthcare or education? I’m still to find any area where the state outperforms a free market, essentially in any respect.

2) Humans, commodities and stability. I’m not sure what stability has to do with it, but everything IS a commodity (or rather a service), whether you like it or not. Only thing is, in socialist Sweden we made sure some of these services are provided free of charge for the user, under the communist dogma that everyone deserves x according to y. In no way does a view of services mean humans are less humans. We are the carries, providers, recievers, producers etc of these services, essential to the process.

3) Librarians. First, not everyone agree librarians are important institution for education/culture. Libraries, knowledge and books might be, but hardly librarians. Besides, in a free market, if people would demand libraries in their current forms, that would be provided. I don’t know about you, but I’d be willing to pay quite substantial amounts to have a properly-working library accessible to me.

4) People dying for Union Rights. Ok, you made this argument in the sense that BECAUSE people died for something, it is worth preserving. I strongly disagree; people have died for all kinds of things (anti-gay, rallying against women entering the work force, stopping migrants etc), and none of that means it’s a good thing. What I DO think you were trying to say was that because loads of people valued the rights to unionize so much as they actually died for them and because they perceived that to help them in the past (and the present), we should be thankful for their sacrifice. I disagree in that regards as well. Unionized workers cannot produce better salaries in any other way than creating employment for others. The working conditions in the past were indeed improved, but not because the Unions demanded it and fought for it, but because it made economic sense for business to change. What kinds of jobs are you arguing ‘nobody would train for’ if not for Unions? In a free market services are values and provided according to what people are willing to give up for them. In a sense, there CANNOT be such jobs, because employers would raise wages/conditions until people accepted them, thus leveling out the “nobody” part of it.

5) Leverage against employer. The only leverage workers have is quiting. Provide your services to someone who values them differently. If whatever demand you’re making is a sensible one, the employer could see to that, and improve. If not, you'd have to value if whatever inconvenience is worth whatever difference another employer would provide. If it is, your option is leaving. No need to Unions, no need for strikes, no need for messing around waving signs and pretending you're fighting for something. You're wasting and destroying resources. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Right, in my world everyone would be a farmer. Not quite. How did the world move from such a society in the 1700s to a countless times more affluent one today? Unions? State interventions? Hardly. Free markets, trade, globalization, business. In my world, defined as a free market without state regulations or interventions, we’d likely see similar improvements. 

University Unions on strike AGAIN

Ok. Apparantly some of the University Unions are on strike today (again, since they shut the Library down just a few weeks ago).  So, here we go.

I'm not a fan of Unions, big surprise, and I'll explain why. But first we have to begin with what an employment is. An employment occurs when someone (employer) values the services someone else could provide (employee) higher than the cost for that service (wage + social costs). Likewise, an employee voluntary sells such service when the value of the wage exceeds the cost affiliated with that service (time, unpleasantness, opportinuty cost etc). If some of these conditions are unfullfilled, there's no employment. Essentially, employment is a voluntary exchange of goods and services just like anything else (additionally, there's a bunch of regulations and government restrictions for that when employment occurs, but that's beside the point). It is also influenced by the demand of such services relative to the accessability to it, that is supply.

Only this far, striking would make little sense. If you, as an employee feel you can provide better services elsewhere or you're selling your service for too low amount, the only action for you is leaving. Go to the place that'll value your abilities higher/more accurately. Stop messing around waving signes, playing socialist revolution. Consequently, if you prefer the wage payed to you for the service you provide over whatever your alternative might be the action is staying. Provide that service, and stop hindering the lives of others (in this case, students who require access to the Library; you could even argue that the Unions are liable to reimbursing the tution-paying students for losses due to the strike, but that's also a bit beside the point).

Ok, second of all, now let's consider the points and demands the Union's actually making. The core of it, like most strikes, involves increased payroll. The argument is that 1% increase in salary is actually a cut, because current UK Inflation is at around 3%, thus the salary recieves is worth ~2% less than a year ago. That is correct, in real terms it is a pay cut. And they argue that to be unfair, especially since the UK Universities aggregate surplus is £1 billion a year, or something like that.

Here we have a few issues. First of all, pooling all the surplusses of the 150+ Universities in the country is greatly misleading, but obviously screaming "1 BILLION A YEAR" sounds a lot more intimidating than the actual truth. What's the real deal? So, let's have a look at Uni of Glasgow Financial Statements for 2012:


Uni of Glasgow Financial Statement 2012
Income               £440m

Expenditure       £430m

Surplus:               £10m
Margin:                2,27%

This income consists of some £150m straight from governmental funds, making the income rather risky; political instability, changes of government budgets or conditions for student loans etc can occur rapidly, putting the University's financial position at risk. Hence, if the Scottish Government decided to cut Higher Education expenditure by some 10% or so, the University will be showing red digits. Apart from that, if faced with a reduction of students, not even substantially large, same thing would happen; red digits.

But still, £10, can't the margin be reduced a little? On the contrary, arguying from a financial stability point of view, it should be increased. Tesco, for instance, runs with 5-6% profit margins, and financially healthy companies such as H&M or Apple carries some 40-50% profit margins. Definately no, 2,27% margin is not excessive in any way.

Following that line of thought, if the margin is low already (and virtually can't be reduced), what effects would an increase of wages have? Three options: 1) fire some staff, while others get their salaries increased, 2) allocate more funds to wages than other University costs such as facilities, technology, library etc, 3) demanding more money from the government (essentially, increased taxation).

If 1), you redistribute money from some people to pay others, 2) you reduce the service/usefulness of facilities, university buildings, lecture halls etc, 3) through taxation, you take money from everybody in Scotland, in order to pay for University staff. In either case you're taking money from other groups in order to met your demands, some of which could arguably be a lot worse of an outcome than a general ~2% pay cut. Typical Union thinking.

So consider the entire argument for a bit. The bottom line for this strike is that "University Staff deserves more". That, in turn, relies on the propositions that they can't "make their ends met", implying that they're underpaid. From quickly googling the avarage salaries of Uni of Glasgow staff, I found digits of around £15 000/year for the lowest paid staff (somewhat around the levels of relative poverty line, which I discussed the other week). Probably not accurate for all serviced the staff provide, and I'll look for some more digits later today when I talk to the strikers. Putting that amount into comparable sites such as Global Rich List, gives us the following result:
£15 000 amounts down to top 3,23% income-earners world wide. I hear 'Solidarity'? 'Decent wage', you say?

Ok, striking per se, is absolutly preposterous and riddiculous. BUT, even considering the Unions' demands, the picture turns even uglier; people, top 3%-earners in the world, are refusing to fullfill their commitments on the ground that they're underpaid. For real? Is that some kind of sick joke? An insult to anybody else earning less than that?

To the rest of the world, or anyone with a pair of working glasses, that's like Bill Gates (or any other super-wealthy guy) refusing to work because he finds his wage too low. Get real, and stop striking.

An Austrian Economist reads the news

As fellow students are very well aware of, waking up is not the hardest part of starting day; getting out of that bed actually is. This unfortunate morning I spend little over an hour reading the news. Not snapchatting like my flatmates would do, not mindless facebooking. Doesn't seem too bad, right?

Turned out, reading the news from an Austrian's perspective (here's a quick overview to how we approach Economics) could be detrimental to your mental health. Gosh. Here's a brief review of today's catch. Apologies for Sweden-biased.

ECB Considers Negative Interest rate

A Swedish article regarding a piece of news from last week. (Eng:Bloomberg, Swe: SvD).

Right. The Keynesian conviction of controlling and governing the economy through the almighty power of injecting/extracting money from the economy with by means of Interest Rate doesn't seem to be enough. Negative interest rate essentially means that someone is paying you to take up a loan; not only would the European Central Bank be giving away loans for free, now they're supposed to pay others for taking up loan. The Keynesians are becomming restless. Their front figure Paul Krugman occationally calls for extended measures, such as negative interest rates etc. Essentially, the Keynesians believe in AGGREGATE SPENDING, and during recessions everything needs to be done in order to increase such spending. Whatever that might be. 

Problem for an Austrian Economist is that we use the theory of Business Cycle , that is up- and downturns in the economy are NOT an inherent feature of the free market; they're created by central banks through increased money supply. Low interest rates makes investments (predominately those in a far off future) seem profitable while they weren't at a higher interest rate. This creates a whole lot of additional investments right now, which is exactly what the Keynesians are looking for. Problem is, once interest rates are stabilised or normalised, one after another investors will realized that investments made actually don't pay off. All they've done is destroying resources in what we like to call malinvestments. 

So, when I read "Negative Interest Rates", that is BELOW 0 interest rates, this is how I feel:

Prominent Swedish Journalist: "Are European Politicians Stupid?"
That's a claim I'm not going to dispute, but for completely opposite reasons. Andreas Cervenka accusted the EU politicians in favor of austerity measures stupid yet again referring to Krugman. Why? They reduce spending while in a recession, because of too high national debts. 

Yet again the Austrian asks themselves, WHY have these countries run up such debt? In the case of Greece, Spain and Italy yet again it comes back to the Business Cycle; way too low interest rates gave birth to completely brainless investments, that eventually unfolded themselves (and banks, governments etc took over such debts, spend taxpayers money to save bad investments, not solving any problems, and additionally multiply government debt). 

*sigh*

Politics should be STATE-FUNDED!

Steve Richards in The Guardian says political campaigns are threatened unless they're state-funded. 

Really. 

Everytime I see "X should be State-funded", "Taxpayer should pay for Y", I slowly want to strangle myself. A simple 'no' would suffice; If any state at all is justified, its tasks involve upholding private property rights, possibly a military force or court system. Except for that, there's no justifcation.

But from an Austrian perspective, this is quite useless on the ground that taxes raised for whatever purpose takes away resources that could and would have been employed elsewhere. That is, such mearues restricts the investments that could have been made by those individuals, thus moving resources from private to public. Not exactly beneficial for an economic system, moving money from productive to unproductive sectors such as political campaigns.   

Housing Market!

Le Grand Finalé!

Swedish socialist got media attention with their article of "how to solve the housing crisis" in one of the largest nespapers. Just like the debates had throughout the UK, Rent Control, Collective Measures and State Intervention are the natural solutions at the core of such reasoning. Let's all blame the market and those filthy capitalists for what they've done!

Problem is, blame is to be put elsewhere. As always, the socialists forget a lot of things, particularly what is causing a housing shortage/crisis. 2 major lines of answers here; 

1) by restricting rent levels, profits gained from letting your property is reduced, necessarily resulting in less capital willing to construct such houses/less amount of people willing to let some of their properties. They can simply find better use for those resources than let them for housing. So, by restricting rent levels you'll have LESS homes available for letting.

2) state interventions, building permits, restrictions and bureuaucracy involves costs in terms of money, time and opportunity costs. The process of actually constructing a house, not to mention an entire complex of apartments, is ridiculous. This is mainly in regards to the Swedish situation, but from what I've learned it applies fairly well in the UK too.

So, calling for more State Interventions to solve the problems caused by the State's last Interventions?   I've heard that before...   Brilliant reasoning.

________

Sometimes I think I should watch a cartoon, draw a painting or simply ignore these awful ideas put forward in the media or everyday life. They never cease to surprice me. 

A reassessment of Public Policy

I have run up the somewhat exhausting habit of expecting the worst from every single encounter with the Public Policy course. Up until today, all of my lectures and most of conversations had in tutorial sessions have been greatly biased towards socialism, as seen in earlier posts. 

The current unbeatable record of time before blaming Thatcher and/or NeoLiberalism for most evils in the modern history of UK stays at 4 minutes. A standard has emerged for how those lectures took place - until today!

The first series of lectures in any particular field is always interesting, because it says something about the topics and an introduction to how the lecturer approach them. Today, as any other day, I didn't expect a record but no more than 15-20 minute before Thatcher ruined the show. To my surprise the entire 50 minute lecture elapsed without any charge against neither the former president nor her political convictions.

Instead the lecturer showed us fascinating numbers on British Public Expenditure - astonishing numbers that I'll go into at some future point. And I only percieved one tiny violation of math, and I even suspect it was unconciously done in passing. That is, my post on Social Scientists to learn math was uncalled for.

Thatcher-relating topics was mainly reduced to displaying the following quote, as a bridge to tomorrow's topics. As true back then as it is today. Enjoy!

"The Problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher

Maybe I judged the entire staff of Public Policy lecturers at Glasgow a bit too severe. After all, some of them need to justify their salaries! We'll see about that tomorrow.

Seminar Time - And the tendency of intervention

As I take the introductory course of Public Policy here at University of Glasgow, I also attend the weekly 1-hour long tutorials in the course. To be fair, put aside all the obvious objections I have towards this subject, its lecturers and the ways in which  it is taught, the Tutor of my neat seminar group is great. She openly displays her opinions and always let us discuss freely our own ones. Shame time is such a scarce resource.

Naturally, as most of the group consists of sociologists or students of other social sciencie, the tendency is very much towards an intervetionist "The State Will Fix Everything" kind of idea. And, yet as natural, whatever comment I make disrups the status quo of allowable opinion, at times producing a war in that little room of ours.

Todays subject; Health Inequality. Appearantly, the percieved and measures "Inequalities" in health related areas in Glasgow are particularly interesting to sociologists due to the fact that they are heavily correlated to geography within the city. It even has given name to the international phenomenon of WHO.

Our tutor gave us the task of suggesting Policies to Solve this Problem (a future post will be dedicated to explain why it isn't even a problem to begin with). What types of policies did my wonderful group come up with?

1) Regulations
2) Tax on unhealthy food
3) redistribution of income

It's gotta be a good life these keen supporters of public policy have. The answer to EVERY question is STATE INTERVENTION or STATE REGULATION. It's a bit like listening to Keynesian Economists, their magic trick being INCREASED SPENDING.

It's a funny world we live in.

________
Oh, btw!

During this mornings lecture (Time of first Thatcher critique: 22 minutes) we were fed the faulty socialists' concepts of transforming correlations to causality; Health in Glasgow, we were told, are appearantly determined by 1) Race, 2) Gender, 3) Social Class 4) Geography and OF COURSE the almighty Income (and Income inequality). Funny that, I had the impression determinism was long ago considered a bit out of fashion, if you'd like. That individuals make choices, preferes DIFFERENT THINGS was of course readily discarded as some black magic Mumbo Jumbo. Funny.

Why Social Scientists need to learn math

Obvious statement: math is useful for a lot of things.

Yesterday morning I had an infamous lecture of Public Policy. It's interesting in the sense that you can predict the kind of socialist ideas that'll come out of it;

1. Thatcher was bad, 
2. Critique of Neoliberalism, 
3. The horrible effects of market economy

Yesterday was a special day in that the third was arguably not even included. However, the Professor did give a good start, critizising neoliberalism ideology after a mere 9 minutes of speaking. Even better, I think he set some kind of record; 4 minutes into the class, his first severe charge against Thatcher was laid. Impressive.

Not to say that this example means anything in particular, but I suppose it's fair to assume that Public Policy at University of Glasgow foster a rather strong hatred towards anything non-socalist, especially if it can be connected to Thatcher & Co.

Enough, what I wanted to convey today was the surprising lack of math insights and how that cripples the social scientists. This was his example:

Amount of UK Labour force in Manufacturing employment:
1978      28,5%
2009      10%

Conclusion; only a third of the people who worked in manufacturing 30 years ago, remain in that industry today.

Wait. Read that again.

Ok, well, no. First of all, people change jobs. They can change occupation/exit or enter industry, especially over a 30 year period. Second, a fair share of the people employed in 1978 will have moved on to enjoying a life of retirement by now. But 10/28,5 = 0,35, so the math still works out, doesn't it?

Math issue: between 1978 and 2009 the population (and the distribution of people in working age) have changed significantly. Thus, if inputs in a %-figure changes, the output changes. That is, 10% of the Labour force in 2009 is most likely not 1/3 of 28,5% of the Labour force in 1978.

Additionally, I've even stopped being suprised of the cases where people misuse Percentage for Percentage Point, ending up with completely flawed conclusions. My point here is that social scientists tend to have a limited understanding of math and what affects the numbers (especially regarding %). And, as they use statistics and math in describing their field, they inevitable end up with flawed or unsupported conclusions. That's a serious issue, heavily diminish the value of their study, should this be a theme for a larger part of social scientists. Let's hope it isn't.

If you're to use math or statistics, you need to understand what comprice and influence them. If you don't, you'll end up misinterpret data. Some kind of "know-thy-limitations" argument, I guess.

____

This lecturer also gave me some idea to why there are so many socialists in University environment - and what happens to them afterwards. Well, in his case, some of them seem to remain at Uni, teaching Public Policy (or some other fluffy subject like sociology).

Swedish Union presents its demands; Citizen fee & increase ALL taxes!

This morning, a think-tank of LO, one of Sweden's largest unions  (respected and reknown for mindless strikes and other craziness), published a report on how to reform Swedish tax system. The title in the largest newspaper:

"This is how we get a smarter and more just high-tax society"

Well, my dear union, are you familiar with the concept of Oxymoron? It has very little to do with an actual 'moron', altough you certainly are approaching that concept aswell. Oxymoron is an inherent contradiction such as 'bittersweet', 'a warm coldness' or something or the sort. Or, in this case, "just high-tax society".

First of all, taxing is ALL but just. It might actually be the most injust principle I know of. Normally taxes are directed at incomes, sales or property, crucial parts of economic transactions and as such taxes WILL inevitable have an effect on those areas. But more importantly, all of these features (income, sales, property) is created by productive, enterprising and thrifty induviduals pursuying self-interest by serving consumers. Whatever these individuals created is the fruit of their work, entirely belonging to them. Taxes enter this domain by robbing such individuals of their reward. In what universe can such an action be named just?
(Imagine the Usain Bolt situation; An insane amount of training, strict diet, discipline, and after countless hours improving that body of his, the Government steps in and redistribute half of it to less-abled contestants. A just, fair system? Not even close).

The underlying assumption of its entire report, is that high taxes are harmless to the economy, if they're made "in a good way". Such a claim requires an additional post, and I'll focus on that idea at some other point.*

The background for this report is that tax levels have come down in Sweden during the last decades, since the record of 51,5% of GDP (that is, more than every second unit the economy produces was taken in taxes) to some 45%. Appearantly, this has produced a revolution in the lines of Swedish leftists; we lost the unglamourous position of the country with the world's highest taxes. Clearly, something had to be done.

What the creative brains of leftist forefront came up with is the following;

• The Government transforms a healthy surplus in public finances (one of few in Europe) to a 3% deficit of GDP, that is approaching the Spanish deficits, leveling the French or Italian public deficits
• Flat tax reform on income as well as capital gains. Altough, the tax on income would suffer an increase of 10% to current average levels, capital gains of +16% increase of tax rates. 
• 10% increase of employer pension deposit, with accompanied increased state pensions
• Increased employment tax
• A 18 000 SEK/year (Equivalent of £1700/year) Citizen Fee with fussy intentions
• Increase all VAT levels to 25% (that is raising the VAT levels of books, food and restaurants from 6%/12% to 25%)

So, after increasing virtually every tax in the Swedish tax system, they add that corporate tax will be abolished. Woah, I thought, an actual useful thing coming out of a leftist... BUT, replaced by a 'tax on commercial property' unspecified. I assume whatever benefit an abolished corporate tax would bring is ofset by such 'commercial property' tax.

The overall effect on State Budget would be 30% Increased Government Spending, turning a healthy public surplus into deficits and fussy so-called 'improvements' in areas ranging pensions, equality and welfare.

This absolutely knocks US budget quarrels, makes the British disagreement on fiscal policies look like a harmless little poodle and surpasses anything I could even have expected from Swedish leftists. What is a mere 1-5% tax increase US taxpayers suffered from early 2013 budget drama? Swedish leftists absolutely SMASHED anything concievable by their UK or US counterparts.

Yep, that's Sweden for you!

All in all;

Conclusion from the Unions of the land of promised welfare;

it doesn't really matter WHAT you aim to do with funds from taxing population (or the consequence), as long as you raise them to world-record levels, previously unrecognizable by anyone.



___

*It seems that for every post I make, 2-3 more are required. Not too unfamiliar with how an institution such as a state works, by the way. I will probably expand this topic with a post for why every single reform they have suggested are seriously detrimental to swedish economy, to individual property and standard of living.

Socialists' Objections: October

Right!

Here we go with last month's report in terms of objections, insults and other non-founded arguments to why libertarianism is evil, capitalism is awful and I, as an advocate of both is obnoxious in every way.

OBJECTION #1

"I really hope that one day you'd change your view on the value of other people. Otherwise I fear that you will live a very, very lonely life. Nobody wants to be around someone that only cares about themselves and doesn't have any understanding of other people."

That sounds like a valid claim for an overall hateful person. What did I do to provoke this effect? Am I really guilty for such severe charges?

Found in a facebook debate, I had been explaining the idea of self-interest as Yaron Brooks interpret Ayn Rand. That is, that we all pursue our self-interests, strive for more personal satisfaction, through illustrations of what's going on in the market place; a farmer sells me a litre of milk for 1£ because he prefers 1£ to a litre of milk (his satisfaction goes up with the trade). I buy the litre of milk, because I prefer 1 litre of milk to £1 (my satisfaction goes up). Also I had expressed my wish not to pay taxes for what the government does.

For some reason, that played out as a "you-hate-all-non-white/wealthy/males-and-what-about-the-disabled-you-horrible-prick" kind of argument. Deep down I suppose they're fair accussations, and I'll come back to the topic of disabled people in a free, libertarian society.

We pursue that which gives us highest satisfaction. As satisfaction differs between people (and over time within same person), the outcome will necessarily be different. That difference is what creates a value of trade, a way of getting something I value at the expense of something I value less. That is what self-interest is about, and it doesn't make anyone an awful person. Nobody is hating disabled people, and admitting to ideas of pursuing self-interest does not make people ruthless, cold, unfeeling etc. It's a way of describing market activities. No more, no less.

OBJECTION #2

"Without taxes we wouldn't have anything. No infrastructure, no schools, no health care. Basically nothing!"

Right, after explaining that taxes essentially and for all intents and purposes are a violation of property rights (namely, theft), a commenter laughed and explained to me all the beautiful things tax-funded, public services provide. As if I for some reasoned had missed out on state interference throughout my life.

All of those examples above are build and made because they're demanded by individuals. Not because we have taxation. There's a proper misuse of causality here. Furthermore, if nobody in a welfare society would want any schools, few (or any?) politicians would decide to spend tax money on such things. They are in existence because we demand the goods or services they provide. In a libertarian society (without, or with a very limited state only) that demand would still exists - and will be satisfied accordingly. Through trade or voluntary effors of individuals who pursue their self-interest. Also, the statement assumes that such things can only exist under a tax-funded government. Nonsense, such activities are perfectly able to be held by private individuals, enterprises or voluntary societies. Ye, I think I made my point now.

OBJECTION #3

"You cannot be taken seriously. You are so obsessed with your money that you'd rather see people succumb without the social protection, before paying taxes."

Ok, so this is a typical example of where someone else is trying to tell me about my opinions. Again, libertarianism has very little to do with obsession about money or preference to someone's death. It has to do with justice; a government, at the point of a gun, can never justify stealing property from private induviduals, whatever the cause, however noble the cause might seem, as the statement implies.

And, as oppossed to general leftist ideas, libertarians normally refuse to believe that people merely 'succumb without social protection'. A society without an interventionist state will have other ways of organisation social protection, ways set up voluntarily by acting individuals. History has given us examples of workers' societies, where medical care was at the centre of cooperation. Solutions can be arranged through business on a free market. Charitable societies can freely devote themselves to such issues, should they wish to.

There's no reason to believe that people would 'succumb' without a state-based social protection.

Socialists' Objections

Today I though I was going to assert some socialist claims I've had experienced over the last few weeks.

And I'm making this a monthly report. Every month I'll gather objections, responses, attempts of counterarguments, insults and charges that I have had pointed at me (or seen in debates/media) - predominantly in regards to libertarianism. To be honest, the amount of horrible statements people (in my experience often on the left-flank) can come up with, really fascinates me. I think my favourites in terms of insults would be the ones attacking me as a person, or perhaps the ones trying to tell me what I really, deep down, actually think. That's funny!

Ok, so the objections will be taken from different sources (facebook, real-life arguments, texts, academic discussions etc) and as far as possible within context. If the comment was made in a different language than English, they'll be translated as best as I can. In regards to anonymity I'm still undecided. Maybe I'll include the source at some point, maybe not.

We'll see. You can expect comments and ideas that'll blow your mind, make you laugh hysterically or yawn at humanity. Entertainment promised!

All 'Socialists' Objection' can be found here.