What is Land Value Tax? Part 4

Mutually self-punishing trade policy

The government of country X subsidises widget production by giving its taxpayers' money to Widgeprod Inc. Its taxpayers are the losers.

Widgeprod then sells its subsidised widgets in country Y, which makes them good value to those who can buy them. Widgeproduits SA is threatened with the loss of most of its business and persuades the its own government to put a tariff on everything from country X.

This keeps Widgeproduits AS in business but everyone else in country Y paying through the nose for all imports from country Y.

The alternatives would have been for Widgproduits AS to side-step the competition by making something else (these situations rarely develop overnight) or cease production. The money customers save on the cheaper Widgeprod goods is spent elsewhere into the economy of country Y, and the foreign exchange that flows into country X is ultimately spent in country Y.

The subsidy is a net economic loss to country X. The punitive tariffs are a loss to country Y. Why does this idea of mutual self-harm persist?

What is Land Value Tax? Part 3

Part 1s and 2 seem to have disappeared from the website of the Land Value Taxation Campaign but you can see them on YouTube. The website has been re-designed and much improved, but there are still a few issues to be resolved.

More EU self-harm and the animal welfare myth

Irish Stew - the Withdrawal Agreement muddle

 

Japanese cheese blues

 The idiocy of politicians’ interference with international trade knows no bounds. The Japanese negotiators want to maintain a tariff on cheese imports from the UK. There is no tradition of eating dairy produce in Japan and no significant cheese industry, so what are the negotiators trying to protect? The main victims will be expat Brits who fancy a taste of the home country, and a few local people with odd tastes. But the British negotiators should make it clear they they are acting like idiots but if they insist, they can get on with their stupidity. This spat also demonstrates the pointlessness of so-called free trade agreements. Countries should just remove their own barriers to imports. If the removal is not reciprocated, it’s the other countries’ funeral.

Hotels to hostels - is the law being broken?

Is the law being broken when hotels are used as hostels for illegal migrants? Planning permission is required. Has it been given?

British fish should not be given away

Whose fish are they anyway? The British negotiators seem not to have a sound grasp of the principles behind ownership of this natural resource.

Freeports - scam or brilliant idea?

Why not make the whole country into a freeport?

War on UK business continues

The war on British business continues with changes in the system for online VAT returns. An article in the Telegraph discusses this but fails to mention that the problem is the tax itself.

A fairer Council Tax.

A well thought-out set of proposals for reform of UK property taxation. With the advantage of not being over-ambitious, they might get a bit of support, especially if they fine-tune the concept.
https://fairershare.org.uk/

Why Physiocrat?

Why I called this blog “Physiocrat”, who they were and why they are still important.

Twisted logic by Guardian journalist

Twisted logic by Marxist Guardian journalist. “Defund the police” does not mean defund the police.

EU at war against its people

During the war, no effort was spared to get goods into Britain and Europe, as depicted in the new film “Greyhound”. Under EU trade policies, the default position is that goods should be kept out. The economics of the lunatic asylum.

Looking glass economics

Ricardo’s Law in brief

A Canterbury Fail

Hong Kong 2.0

Sweden’s tax system is not designed to be racist but that is its effect.

Rhodes statue row misses the point

Marxists exploiting grievances as usual

Oriel College caves in

The trials of the dead continue, with the governing body of Oriel College, Oxford, stated its desire to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes, under pressure from its pampered and privileged body of students.

The words of the statement are: “The Governing Body of Oriel College has today (Wednesday 17th June) voted to launch an independent Commission of Inquiry into the key issues surrounding the Rhodes statue. They also expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the King Edward Street Plaque. This is what they intend to convey to the Independent Commission of Inquiry.”

How any of this does anything to improve life for anyone alive today is not explained.

If Oriel College and its students are embarrassed by its endowment, they should renounce their claim on the income from the Rhodes endowment. Students who are suffering from guilt ought to give up their studies and get themselves involved on the ground. Virtue signalling is meaningless if it is not backed up by practical action. While the subject is live, the university and colleges could usefully take a look at all their present day investments and the morality or otherwise of the means by which their revenues are generated.

It also needs to be understood that this pressure is being created by cultural Marxist bodies and that there will be no end to their demands.

The statue-toppling epidemic

I wonder if this will bring a bigger audience than the blog?

Skriken av rasism

Händelser i USA har ledit till protester och skrik av rasism. Men brutalitet har alltid hittats bland med militär och polis. Detta handlar om makt och våld. Att skylla på rasism är att missa poängen. I Sverige är svårighet med assimilation först och framst ett problem som uppstår från socialism. Sveriges stora företag och offentliga sektor kultur och ekonomi gynnar inte invandrare, oavsatt sina ursprung, språk, religion, osv.

Traditionellt sätt trivs untlänningar som egetföretagare (skräddare, snickare, torghandlare osv). Då blir rasism ett icke-problem. Om varorna och priserna tillfredställer efterfrågan, ingen bryr sig om ras.

Jätteföretag som Tesco, Marks and Spencers grundades vid slutet av 1800-talets av fattiga judiska torghandlare som flydde från Ryssland och Polen; i dåtiden ville icke-judar absolut inte anställa judiska invandrare som knappast kunde engelska.

I idags Sverige blir småföretagare trakasseras och straffas av myndigheterna, särkilt skatteverket. Problemet är reglerna och systemet. Om assimilering ska tas på allvar, stora ändringar behövs. MP, S och V har tyvärr gjort ingenting att hjälpa till t ex med politiska och ekonomska reformsförslag.

Radicalisation reform programme fails

In the Daily Telegraph this morning.

The Government may have to give up on reforming some terrorists, says its advisor on anti-terror laws, as it emerged high-security prisoners have refused to join a flagship deradicalisation programme. Data released under freedom of information laws has revealed 15 inmates at high-security prisons including HMP Belmarsh, HMP Wakefield and HMP Frankland have refused to enrol on the Government’s main deradicalisation programme since January 2018.
Jonathan Hall, QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said it would be wrong to overstate the significance of the disclosure in terms of the risk to the public because of the uncertainty over the effectiveness of schemes like the Healthy Identity Intervention (HII).

But he said: “We may have to accept that some offenders  and I emphasise some - [can never be reformed] although that doesn’t mean reform should be discounted for others.” He said it was right to expect prisoners to “address the causes of their offending” but in order to do this the authorities including prison, police and probation needed “carrots and sticks.”

The Government’s proposed new anti-terror laws, currently before Parliament, removed “one of those carrots entirely” by denying the most dangerous terrorists the prospect of early release. They will instead be required to serve a minimum of 14 years with no prospect of parole before being released under licence for up to 25 years where they could be recalled to jail for any breach of the tough conditions such as where they live and who they contact. “This may reflect a perception that encouraging reform for these offenders is less important than it was considered previously,” said Mr Hall.

The HII scheme involves the offender attending repeated sessions with a psychologist who encourages them to talk about their motivations, beliefs, identity and relationships with both other extremists and the rest of society.

The scheme, which was piloted in 2010 and will be assessed in 2022, has previously drawn criticism. Christopher Dean, the psychologist who designed it, has even conceded that some of those who have taken part regressed because of their uniquely complex identities.

Those who believe in deradicalisation do not appreciate the power of religious belief. A conversion experience seems to be associated by a kind of re-wiring of the brain, accompanied by a conviction that one has found the absolute truth. This set of beliefs become a sort of 'master programme' which governs everything the believer thinks and does. Any shift from this is extremely difficult. Having recently made the transition from Christian Roman Catholic to Christian Eastern Orthodox - a tiny shift - I have noticed how hard this is, in this case because the Roman church claims to be the sole route to salvation, a claim which is well supported by scriptural and historic claims. My former parish priest and others, genuinely concerned, gave me a talk about the dangers of being out of communion with the Pope and of falling into heresy through not believing in the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

In the case of a radicalised Moslem, what belief could possibly replace it? Although such conversions are known, the individuals are unlikely to become committed Anglicans, Quakers or Catholics. Reversion to a de-radicalised form of Islam would be difficult because radicalisation is a logical conclusions from the texts themselves; as they are recorded in the Hadith, the lives of Mohammed and his followers are not so different from those of today's radical Islamists, who would claim to be taking them as role models.

This is why deradicalisation programmes were always bound to fail. Allowing these men to develop long term relationships with a good imam or priest or nun might enable a few to find a better path, but it would require dedicated work. One possible alternative to lifelong incarceration would be to allow them to migrate to a country of their choice which was willing to accept them.

Brexit row over brand protection

As part of the acrimonious Brexit negotiations, there is a row over protected product names such as Melton Mowbray pies and whiskies generally. This reminds me of something that happened about 30 years ago when some Italians living in Sussex produced a perfectly good Parmesan cheese of their own and sold it as such until they were forced to stop, after which it seems to have disappeared from the shops. Personally I think it was a mistake not to market it in the first place as something new with a local name. There are several villages in Sussex with names beginning with “Par” which would have made the connection.

Pirating brand names is a stupid marketing tactic. Products sold on the backs of others’ names are in the long run doomed to failure; Danish Blue cheese is quite similar to Roquefort but stands on its own merits. The genuine producers can protect themselves by packaging with something difficult to forge, like a hologram, on the label. It is a nuisance from one point of view but can also add value. Cheddar cheese is unprotected but the genuine article cut off the block is still in demand here in Sweden and commands a premium price. It is also the case that most EU countries have their own local products and would not really want to copy UK specialities. Is it really worth getting worried about?

Familje brottsindustri

En artikel i GP diskuterar “släkten som anses styra i Angered” (en av Göteborgs förorter).

Familjen verkar vara en riktig Rockefeller för brott istället för finans. Kanske inte en så stor skillnad; finans också har växt till att globalt brott, mer dödligt i verkligheten än det vanliga slags våldsamt brottet.

Familjedrivna affärer kan vara bra för familje själv, för samhället och näringslivet. Men omständingheter styr. Tänk på det: att Sveriges skattesystem, vilket vi betrakatar som “rättvis” är ingenting annat än ett system för bestraffning av framgångsrik, legal ekonomiska aktiviteter. Varför då är vi förvånade över att sådant brott har växt och utvecklat till en fullständig industri? Systemet har uppmuntrade den i den högsta grad.

Staten har också uppmuntrat drogrelaterade brott, vilka kunde lätt förbyggas genom att sälja legalt villkorligt t ex på Apotek eller Systembolaget. Då blir det inga tillfälle för fösäljning illegalt.

Dessa problem är för det mest konstgjorda.

Willy waving press photographers

For the first half of the twentieth century, press photographers used Speed-Graphic cameras, with a flash fixed to the side. They used 5x4 sheet film, which is slow to use, and the photographer had just one chance to release the shutter at the critical moment. These were well suited to the technology of the time, when photographs were printed in low resolution half-tone using hot metal processes. For about twenty years from the 1950s, the Koni Omega roll film camera was a popular choice among press photographers. Press photographers were slow to adopt 35 mm cameras because the film was too coarse grained. Solidly build 35 mm cameras such as the Leica and Canon came into use during the time of the Korean war, and SLR types such as the Nikon F series during the Vietnam war.

Of course digital photography has changed everything, or should have. I was looking at the photographs of the press of press photographers encircling Dominic Cummings. All of them are encumbered with heavy duty SLR cameras with whopping great lenses. This looks like willy-waving, as the job could just as well be done with a little waterproof camera, or even a mobile phone. It is not as if the pictures are going to end up in an art gallery. The large sensors of the big SLRs are a disadvantage in fast moving situations where depth of field is needed. They are just giving themselves backache, but then news reporting these days is just a part of the whole circus performance.

Västlänkens värdelöshet bekräftas

En artikel i idags GP avslöjar det som vi alltid visste - att Västlänken är ett nästan värdelöst projekt.
 
Det var uppenbart från början att bara en av tre linjer (Udevalla/Trollhättan/Alingsås) kunde få en direkt förbindelse mot Kungsbacka. Också uppenbart var att restider söderifrån skulle ökas. Och vad är egentligen efterfrågan på direktresor mellan t ex Udevalla och Varberg? Och vad är Haga för ett resemål? Vem vill åka dit? 

Det enda sträcka som är till nytta är detta bredvid älven tills Stenpiren. Bästa alternativ är att skrota den resta. Om det är nu för sent, så är det värde att bygga ut till en riktig destination: en tunneln från Haga till en ny station på Linneplatsen, och därefter fortsätter tills Frölunda/Opaltorget på den nuvarande spårväglinje ombyggd för tåg. Tåg kunde också rulla på en del av den gamla Säröbana t ex Askim/Hovås. Det finns också ett behöv för bättre förbindelser mellan Mölndäl, Sisjön och Frölunda - möjligtvis spårväg.

The science was wrong

Trust in science is a weakness of those who have not studied the natural sciences. Scientific knowledge is always provisional and open to revision in the light of new observations and reinterpretation of old ones.

The scientific community has been insufficiently clear on this point of late. The result has been that, based on the science available at the time, advice has led to harmful public policies and recommendations in many fields eg dietary advice, energy, medicine, agriculture; some of those policies have subsequently been reversed.

Economics is a science

Every so often, the statement pops up that economics is not a science, but a product of people’s emotional reactions.

Economics, properly termed Political Economy, is a genuine science. If it were not, then there would be no point in any policy intervention as its effects would be completely unpredictable. The “Science of Political Economy” (there is a book with that title by Henry George) progressed from the time of the French Physiocrats, via Smith, Ricardo, J S Mill and Henry George, until the 1880s. After that, the basic principles were buried and covered with a smokescreen of impressive-looking mathematics.

Basic principles still apply: if prices are higher, less is sold and supply tends to increase. Then there is the Law of Rent, which every street beggar and musician knows: a busker will collect more at the bottom of the escalators at Victoria than outside the station at West Finchley. The difference is due to the advantages of location ie it is what Ricardo identified as “economic rent”. You will not find any of this in most economics textbooks and might go through an entire degree course without coming across it, but there are consistent and identifiable cause-and-effect relationships which mean that economics can legitimately be regarded as a science.

The cycle of money and tax

Sometimes a picture emerges with extreme clarity. One of the reasons why I take part in internet discussions is that it forces one to refine one’s thinking. This was a response to a comment in the Daily Telegraph.

Governments create money to pay for their expenses. It should then be removed through the tax system. To ensure that taxes were paid with sound money, the government paid its expenses by putting into circulation an official coinage impressed with the seal of the sovereign; hence ‘Render unto Caesar’.

A primary function of government is to defend the territory and the land rights of the inhabitants. Rights of land occupation are normally achieved through land titles, which the government defends through the legal system. Government also provides the infrastructure without which land would be worthless. Thus, owners of land titles are able to collect the economic rent of land which has been created by the money spent by government. The cycle would be completed if governments then collected this rent as a result of their activities; rent of land is not created by private individuals and companies but is a stream of wealth over and above that.

Unfortunately, most of those responsible for the design of our tax systems have failed to notice that the process is a cycle: governments create money and spend it to protect land rights and sustain land values. The cycle should be completed by the collection of the land value thereby generated. Because this connection is not recognised, people throughout the world are saddled unnecessarily with taxes which appropriate by force the products of labour and enterprise.

Sveriges ekonomi efter corona

Det finns diskutering om vad ska göras för en bättre framtid för Sverige efter viruset? Tänk över. Om målet var att drabba Sveriges ekonomi som hård som möjligt skulle man införa ett skattessystem som vårt, skräddarsyd. Det fungerar som ett straff mot arbetskraft, varor, näringsliv och framgångsrik affärer och tillverkare. Värre än så är knappast tänkbart. I England under 1700-talet fanns det beskattning av fönster, vilket uppmuntrade ägarna av hus att fylla i öppningar med tegel vilka kan fortfarande ses idag i gamla byggnader. Beskattning av arbetskraft är ett bra sätt att främja arbetslöshet. Beskattning av varor t ex mat och kläder, främjar fattigdom. Beskattning av affärer och tillverkare uppmuntrar dem att flyttar fabriker till U-länder där arbetare exploateras.

Slutsats: att Sveriges skattessystem passar inte ändamål och behöves byggas om från marken uppåt. Problemet kan inte längre ignoreras.

https://arenaide.se/rapporter/den-minst-daliga-skatten/

Abuse of credit

The expansion of bank credit was traditionally controlled by imposing a lending ratio of about deposits x (a figure less than 12). This was broken in the 1980s but there had long been ‘back doors’ eg the secondary banks. The underlying issue is abuse of credit, the proper purpose of which is to support production eg the farmer must live until the crops are harvested and sold; the shipbuilders’ wages and materials must be paid for while construction is taking place. At the end of the process, the credit is extinguished.

However, most credit these days is money created, without limit and at zero cost, for the purchase of land (embedded in real estate eg houses). No additional production takes place and there is no increase in productive capacity. The bank is effectively the landlord for the duration of the loan, and what is labelled ‘interest’ is in reality rent. The banks have thereby transformed themselves into land speculators, and as with all speculative activities, there are periodic busts. Unless there is a direct tax on land, assessed on its rental value, the problem will just go on getting worse

GDP illusions

As part of the bad news from the epidemic, GDP figures have been falling all over the world. All the talk now is of getting the economy moving again. However, it is worth keeping in mind that GDP is a rotten measure of economic success and GDP growth is a terrible policy aim. The meal cooked and eaten in a restaurant, and the ready-made meal made in a factory, form part of the GDP figure. The better meal cooked from scratch using mostly ingredients grown in one’s own garden would not register.

Policies intended to grow GDP have the damaging effect of driving activities, previously carried out in the domestic and voluntary realm, into the money economy. A secondary consequence is that with additional money incomes coming into households, a lot of it has driven up house prices and had been ending up as mortgage interest payments to fatten the profits of the banks.

Linux installation and upgrade problems with UEFI

UEFI is a feature of motherboards that was introduced about 2012 to prevent users from running operating systems other than those from Microsoft on their computers. It can usually be disabled in the BIOS settings but it takes some rooting around. Its presence explains a lot of the problems I have had trying to install Linux onto more recent computers. It is, in effect, yet another Windows nuisance feature to keep the Microsoft virus alive and in circulation.

What happens is this. If you attempt to install a Linux on a machine with UEFI enabled you will be asked to create a small partition with a name like /boot-efi or similar. The kernel would normally then be installed to that partition. It then cannot be updated in the normal way (by downloading and running grub) as the symbolic link cannot be made with the vfat filesystem, so you get an error message and the old version of the kernel remains in use. This is apparently yet another Windows nuisance feature.

If you proceed with an installation but do not add the EFI partition, it will proceed to the end and then there is an error message. This cannot be resolved with boot-repair.

In an attempt to resolve the problem, I combed through the BIOS, which involves digging around in all the options,  and disabled all the UEFI and security features, then tried boot-repair again, but this still does not resolve the problem.

However, with all the UEFI features disabled on the motherboard, a fresh install will not ask for the EFI partition to be created. On the 250 Gb SSD (mounted directly in the motherboard slot; it identifies as the last HDD, in my case /dev/sdc) I created just two partitions as msdos, 30 GB for root and the remainder for home; there is no longer any need for a boot partition and the swap partition should be placed on a conventional disk as they are reputed to wear out solid state disks. Installation then proceeded to the point where the grub routine has to be written. At this point I got a warning that if I continued it might be impossible to start another operating system installed on the same machine, eg Windows. Obviously that message could be ignored. The next screen gives an option to chose which disk grub should write to, in my case /dev/sdc.

The system now works correctly, including the kernel updates.

Ubuntu kernel problem with upgrade to 5.4.0-28.32

There seems to be a problem with the routine upgrade of the latest Ubuntu 20.04. It is a known bug. It is probably best not to waste time trying to fix it but to wait until it is sorted out. This is the error message.
===================================
(Reading database ... 277670 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic_5.4.0-28.32_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic (5.4.0-28.32) over (5.4.0-28.32) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic_5.4.0-28.32_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 unable to make backup link of './boot/System.map-5.4.0-28-generic' before installing new version: Operation not permitted
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-modules-5.4.0-28-generic_5.4.0-28.32_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-generic:
 linux-image-generic depends on linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic; however:
  Package linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-generic (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic:
 linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic depends on linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic | linux-image-unsigned-5.4.0-28-generic; however:
  Package linux-image-5.4.0-28-generic is not configured yet.
  Package linux-image-unsigned-5.4.0-28-generic is not installed.
dpkg: error processing package linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 linux-image-generic
 linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-28-generic

Things to do after installing Lubuntu 20.04

Long ago I used KDE which was a simple and efficient desktop much like Windows95 in appearance and mode of operation. Then it got more complicated with the introduction of Plasma, making the computer sluggish, and so I switched to Gnome. Then Lubuntu came out, using LXDE, but it had problems at first, including no way of configuring a mouse for left-handed use. Eventually the problems were ironed out and I have used it for about the past ten years. It is distributed as the lightweight version of Ubuntu. It does the job and does not overload the computer, which normally runs at around 37 degrees.

It used to be the case that as you went from one version of Linux to an newer, or even changed distributions, your desktop remained unaltered. Unfortunately the Lubuntu developers have made fundamental alterations which are not an improvement. Instead of using the LXDE desktop, they have now changed to LXQT. Unfortunately, it has some very ugly panel widgets, and the display manager, sddm, offers an ugly and clunky login screen, and no easy way to change the background image. Whether or not additional installed applications are added to the menu is hit and miss.

So having completed the initial installation, it seems a good idea to install LXDE, the menu editor Alacarte and the display manager gdm3, activate the latter and log in with LXDE. Then you will get our old desktop back and everything works much as it did before, perhaps a little more crisply. It is obviously not thrashing the processor.

Open source developers are falling into the same trap as proprietary software producers, of being unable to leave well alone. When the technology is mature, it does not need more than tweaks to improve the performance. However, there are some good new programs including the raw image processing software Raw Therapee, which replaces ufraw.

Does the camera make the photographer? #1

Groyneshower - Brighton Swimming Club

Promflood

THE FILM AGE

The best camera in the world is the one you have on you when you see a photograph waiting to be taken. These days it would be a mobile phone. “Gryoneshower” and “Promflood” were taken one stormy winter morning twenty years ago. I used to carry an Olympus Trip with me which I had picked up for a few pounds and regarded as expendable. It was small enough to keep with me most of the time. With sea water spray flying around all over the place I would not have risked a good quality camera in these situation. The pictures are not sharp but they are among the more appreciated of the pictures I have taken in over sixty years of photography.

It is perfectly possible to take good photographs with an ancient Box Brownie taking roll film. If the light is right and the subject at the right distance, they will be fairly sharp and clear. These days, pictures taken with such a camera will automatically take on a vintage character.

 However, basic cameras have limitations. There are subjects which just cannot be taken with them, though the cameras on mobile phones will do a lot which in the past needed an expensive camera. During the 1960s I used 120 roll film folding cameras taking eight pictures on 120 film. The quality is often higher than a full frame digital camera can produce, but although the cameras were compact and portable, they were clumsy to use. 

I then switched to a Leica M2, which is compact and ready for instant use, though you need to decide which lens to put on and not keep changing. The camera came with a 50 mm collapsible lens which was good for most things, and I also had the 90 mm lens which still made a reasonably compact outfit. 

When I wanted to take better architectural photographs, I bought the 35 mm Summaron lens, but it vignetted quite badly; also the Leica was not good for close up pictures.  I bought a Nikon F2 to supplement it, and later on, an F3 body to use my lenses with; by then I had accumulated Nikon lenses in a range of focal lengths, as older ones are quite inexpensive. Then I found I was not using the Leica and as I needed to take larger format architectural photographs, I traded in the Leica for a Linhof Technika using 120 roll film. In retrospect, trading in the M2 was a mistake. The Linhof is tricky to use but with a rising front, it takes perfect architectural photographs in large format, which I was doing at the time, again, often for my work. These days it lives in its box as there is unfortunately little demand for these excellent pieces of equipment.

In the end, I mostly used the Nikon SLR for work photography (I was 14 years in the town planning department at a London borough) but found it too clumsy to carry around all the time so I supplemented it with a Canonet rangefinder. These have superb quality lenses but are on the large size and I traded it in after a couple of years, when I came across an Olympus Trip 35, which became the camera I always had on me. Other good notebook cameras I have had include the Olympus XA and the Minox GL; the latter is a perfect pocket camera which cost next to nothing. I kept one with me until I forgot it somewhere. I picked up another a few weeks ago, again for next to nothing. 

By 2005, I thought it was time to try digital photography. That is the next part of the story.

The Rentenmark - an idea whose time has come back

The financial crisis which the epidemic is bringing in its wake will require drastic measures, including the injection of huge amounts of money. The Rentenmark is the model. This is the currency that was introduced in Germany in 1923 to put an end to the hyperinflation of the previous year. It was based on the yield from a land value tax. The concept of a currency based on the yield from a land value tax cannot be faulted. Land value is solely due to the presence and activities of the government, paid for out of taxation. The primary purpose of government-issued currency is for the payment of taxes (“render unto Caesar”). Its use as a medium of exchange is secondary. The Rentenmark completes a cycle which is otherwise dangerously open. Even gold is subject to inflation risk.

Banking system perversion

The creation of money by banks - ie credit - is a necessary part of the economy and has been for hundreds of years. However, historically, it was found that the amount of credit created should be limited to about 12 times the value of deposits.
A further issue is that credit is abused in at least three ways

1. The legitimate use of credit is to finance the production of physical capital, which will thereby increase productive capacity. This is essential for an economy to function. When credit is used for land purchase, as most of it is, no additional capital is produced and there is no increase in productive capacity. It is dead credit.
2. Credit should be secured only on the goods that the credit is given for eg the part-built ship.
3. Interest should not be charged. The bank's services should be paid for by an administration charge and some kind of insurance bond, which is not the same thing as charging interest.

The banking system has been perverted. A major proportion of its activity consists of the purchase of land using money that the banks create at almost no cost, seemingly without limit. A mortgage is a device whereby the bank becomes a land owner for the duration of the loan. What is labelled “interest” is in reality rent paid to the bank. The banks have turned into rent-seekers.
The solution to this, as to many other chronic economic ills, is land value taxation, which collects land rent as public revenue, taking it out of the hands fo rent seekers. As a bonus, most other forms of tax can be abolished.

The economy after the epidemic

There is now talk about the need for a widespread period of austerity after the economic shock of the epidemic. Such a policy could not be more wrong. It is exactly what is not required. Those who advocate it could not be more wrong. It is time to think outside the box which has constrained economic thinking since 1945. Keynesian theory identified what he called ‘shortage of aggregate demand’. Wages are apparently too low to enable people to purchase everything that they produce. If you stop and think about that, it is an absurd proposition, but leave it to one side for the moment.

From 1945 until 1974 the ‘solution’ was monetary expansion, which gave rise to accelerating inflation, a housing price bubble (in reality a land price bubble) and a crash, precipitated by the oil crisis. Recovery eventually occurred by bank deregulation, which resulted in another land price bubble and the crash of 1992. Further expansion of credit generated a recovery of sorts, resulting in a third land price bubble and the crash of 2008. This was eventually addressed by quantitative easing, ie more expansion of debt, which has kept the land price bubble inflated, now disguised under the label of ‘asset bubble’. The financial system is fundamentally unstable; the coronavirus epidemic just dislodged the house of cards.

The apparent shortage of aggregate demand was, long before Keynes, identified as the supply-side blockage caused because the land market is dysfunctional. Rents and land prices never fall to market-clearing levels, as is obvious from the forest of estate agents’ boards to be seen in most town centres and industrial estates around the country. Given that no business can operate without suitable premises and that a major constraint on is the limitations of those premises and lack of availability of better, it should not be hard to understand that dysfunctionality of the land market is a constraint.
A further issue is the shape of the tax system, with its focus on labour-related taxation; these taxes are in reality a burden on employers and are an important reason why wages cannot drop to market-clearing levels. Here we have a second supply-side blockage.

Getting the economy back on course is in principle simple: it is a matter of mobilising resources as quickly as possible. The easiest way to do this is for governments to inject the money directly into the economy. If the additional money is backed as the Rentenmark was, then there will be no inflation; the Rentenmark, was the monetary device devised by Hjalmar Schacht to stop the hyperinflation of 1922-3, with complete success.

Virus questions - and the Swedish exception

1. Is there a link to particular pre-existing conditions, including diabetes, pre-diabetes and metabolic syndrome?
2. Is there a link to particular prescription drugs taken routinely for conditions more common among older people?
3. Is there a link to secondary bacterial infections and drug resistance.
4. Are there links to smoking and air pollution?
5. Are there occupational links?

Sweden is taking the opposite approach to most other countries. Anders Tegnell, state epidemiologist, seems to be advising that the disease be allowed to take its course, to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible, with older people self-isolating as best they can. This is a gamble as the health services could be overwhelmed. Emergency field hospitals have been prepared by the military. The benefit is that, in the absence of a vaccine, it will not be necessary to take preventative action against further waves of infection. The next four weeks will show whether the policy has worked. In the meantime, things are continuing almost as normal, with even swimming pools and gymnasia being kept open, though people are keeping out of restaurants and bars.

What is government for?

The reactions of different governments to the epidemic have highlighted, yet again, that the time is now overdue to ask fundamental questions about the purpose of government. How about this as a starting point: that government should confine itself to doing what no other body can do? In this connection we have to bear in mind that disputed areas such as teaching, and care of the sick and poor, were, before the Reformation, carried out under the umbrella of the Catholic Church.

Following on from there is the need for debate on how the expenses of government should be paid for. The present tax system is essentially a structure of fines and penalties for successfully engaging in legal economic activity. That cannot be good for the moral health of the nation, since taxes are the fiscal expression of the relationship between  individual householders and the government.

A useful starting point for this discussion is Adam Smith’s chapter ‛On the sources of revenue’, in the original text, not an edited version. Smith’s is not the last word on the subject, but libertarians and others on the political right will find it surprisingly uncomfortable.

Efter viruset?

Snart kommer det att bli fler och fler folk som blev smittade och deras sjukdom har gått över. Då kan de varken bli smittade eller smitta någon annan. Det finns tyvär hittils inte någon prov tillgängligt. Detta virus är också lurigt för att många får inga symptomer alls eller bli bara lite snuvigt. Är det viruset eller hasselpollin eller vanligt förkylning?

Min tänke är att om man har utan tvekan har blivit infekterad av viruset så verkar det vara säkert att gå omkring två veckor efter sjukdom har gått över. Vi behöver råd av myndigheterna.

Brottslingers rättigheter till anonym - varför?

En rapport i Goteborgs Posten handlar om en rättegång någonstans ‘i Skåne’. Tre tjugoåringar blev dömda till fängelse för bombning i Lund och Göteborg. De yrkeskriminalla hör i huvudsak hemma i Angered, en av Göteborgs förorter.

Såg männens ansikte egentligen pixellade ut? Hade männen inte namn? Varför har män dömda till allvarligt brott rättigheter till anonym? Trots pixellade ansikten är det inte så svårt att dra slutats on dessa män och deras ursprung och tillhörighet.

Situation är löjligt.

The atmospheric engine

I have been following a discussion on this website which is trying to shed some light on the carbon dioxide climate change theory, which seems to be based on spurious assumptions. The carbon dioxide claim is that the earth is warmer at the surface than it would be in the absence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, from which it follows that an increase in concentration of this gas would lead to global warming, which must now be stopped as a matter of urgency. The alternative theory is that the temperature at the surface of the earth is simply determined by the  action of gravity on the atmosphere in response to the heat it receives from the sun.

It is common knowledge that the atmosphere gets thinner, and that the atmospheric pressure and temperature get, lower, the higher you go. Think of the conditions at the top of Mount Everest. The atmosphere is an ocean of compressible gas resting on the solid surface of the earth; as a great over-simplification, it can be considered as an assembly of columns of air about 25 km tall, with a temperature of about 15 degrees C at the base and around minus 15 to minus 30 at the top, where it merges into outer space; the fall-off in temperature with height is known as the ‘lapse rate’. At ground level, the pressure is that due to the mass of a layer of air on top of it, approximately 25 km tall, which is the same as a column of mercury 75 cm tall, which adds up to quite a lot. The air is, as a consequence, relatively compressed – 15 lbs per square inch in old money. At the top of the atmosphere, the pressure can be considered to be zero.

Each column of air receives energy from radiation from the sun at its upper end, which passes through the column and is absorbed by the ground, which then heats up. This sets up what amounts to a heat engine. Heat engines work on the adiabatic principle. If you quickly compress the air in a bicycle pump it becomes warmer. The energy for this warming comes from your work. The same principle is applied in a diesel engine, where the temperature rises to the point where a small amount of fuel will burn if it is forced into the hot cylinder. This happens explosively and the piston is forcibly moved as the gas expands. This force can be transferred to a drive system and the energy can thereby be utilised in an engine. This expansion happens adiabatically ie the temperature falls as the gas expands.

This is more easily seen in a steam engine, where a puff of hot steam under pressure is admitted to the cylinder, and the steam expands and pushes the piston. What happens to the steam? It expands to several times its original volume and its pressure and temperature falls, so that it is on the verge of turning into water, which is what you see coming out of the chimney. This is an adiabatic process ie no energy is absorbed or released through the walls of the cylinder, due to the speed with which the expansion occurs. The energy in the hot steam, which was originally chemical energy in the fuel, has been used to make the wheels go round.

I cannot quite picture this myself but I assume that there is a similar process results in the relatively high temperature at ground level and the existence of a lapse rate; the radiation energy flux arriving at the edge of the atmosphere, passes through the atmosphere to the surface, where it is absorbed and heats the surface. This effectively sets up a heat engine, resulting in the lapse rate described.

On this theory, the carbon dioxide effect on Venus might be attributable not to the IR absorption effect but to the higher density of CO2, which has a molecular weight of 44 compared to the average molecular weight of air which is about 29 ie the molecules of CO2 are 1.5 times heavier. If this is the case, the war on carbon is an expensive and futile diversion.

Västänken - ett värdelös projekt

Skattebetalarnas pengar kastas i Göteborgs leran. Tre linjer, från Uddevalla, Älvängen och Alingsås sammankopplas av Västlänken till bara en linje, mot Kungsbacka. Någon ordentlig tidtabell kan inte ordnas som erbjuder tillräckliga möjligheter för olika resmål. Hur många resenärer vill egentligen åka mellan, t ex, Bohus och Mölndal, eller Stenungsund och Kungsbacka? När Västlänken är slutligen klart, de flesta resenärer tvärs över stan kommer i fortsättningen att bli tvungna att byta tåg vid Göteborg C.

EU sham tax avoidance measures

The EU’s tax haven agenda is a show of futile and cynical window dressing put there to impress the gullible while doing nothing fundamental about the problem, which is systemic. If a tax is vulnerable to avoidance and evasion, it will be avoided and evaded. The EuroTax, VAT, is a perfect example, with leakage rates of over 30% in some EU member countries. It has been known for the past three centuries that taxes on real estate ie land, cannot be avoided or evaded; land cannot be hidden or moved to a tax haven. Those responsible for EU tax policy have no excuse for not understanding this, since land value taxes were widespread in Europe before World War One, the fundamental ideas having been rediscovered in modern times by the French Physiocrats and Henry George. The ideas of Henry George were picked up with enthusiasm in Germany and Denmark.

EU trade power

The main effect of the EU exercising its trade power will be to cause scarcities and higher costs within the EU. Goods and services currently procured from the UK will have to be replaced with supplies from elsewhere. In Ireland, this will result in higher transport costs, and even if the UK government were sensible enough to allow tariff free entry of goods from the EU, this would still result in a reduction of the volume of goods imported, due to the changes in EU-Sterling flows.

The EU negotiators seem to imagine that they are doing the British a favour by allowing people in the EU to purchase UK products. Their view of trade and economics resurrects the mercantilism which dominated in the seventeenth century but had been rebutted by the eighteenth, though not before mercantilist policies had led to the ruin of Spain, Portugal and France; the persistence of mercantilism was an important contributory factor to later nineteenth century colonialism and the First World War.

UK businesses will have to find new customers, within the UK or abroad. Since the UK will be importing more from the rest of the world, without the restrictions imposed by EU membership, the demand for UK products will arise naturally as a consequence of increased sterling balances held in the rest of the world.

Stupidityvirus epidemic

The EU/UK trade negotiations are beginning to look like what in Swedish is known as snopp fäktning. The British position can be summarised as ‛if you do not stop shooting yourself in the feet, we will start to shoot ourselves in the feet’. Shooting its own people in the feet is standard operating procedure in the EU, which takes care of its powerful and vocal producer interests at the expense of everyone else. The UK government is, on account of its free trade traditions, slightly better in this respect. I wish British commentators, and politicians generally, would, for a change, look at the situation from our (I am on the continent) point of view. From the way so many are talking, anyone would think that we (in the EU) only buy British because we feel sorry for them.

The EU is doing us no favours with its negotiating position of threatening to apply tariffs and restrictions on imports from the UK. Here in Gothenburg there is one shop which specialises in British decorating products including Farrow and Ball, and Little Green. Restrictions will affect both the shop and its customers. There are no equivalent replacement product. Another local shop sells popular UK ceramic tableware brands as a major line. Our local garden shops sell brands like Spear and Jackson. Ditto the tool shop. Microbreweries and home brewing supplier use and stock British hops, malt, yeast and sundries. Fisherman’s Friends are popular. Although most of our fish is locally caught, and quite a lot of it from the Baltic and from lakes (pike, zander and perch), there will be a bit of a shortage of fish and prices will rise. Then there is the general issue of spare parts and consumables. The list goes on and on.

The EU’s negotiators are adopting a position which will make a lot of things scarce or dearer. They are shooting us in the feet. Ireland will be particularly badly hit because 25% of its imports are sourced from the UK and it will cost more to transport alternatives from mainland Europe; it is a long way through the Straits of Dover and round Land's End. The end result will be that the EU, already unpopular for a raft of reasons, will become even more unpopular.

The current UK negotiating position is equally absurd. The ‘threat’ is that the UK will cut itself off from EU suppliers, which from us includes SKF ball bearings made from high quality Swedish steel made from the very pure ore from the Kiruna mine.

There is a financial side to this as well. If the UK is unconditionally open to imports from the EU (and everywhere else), then sterling balances accumulate in the supplier countries, which will boost exports from the UK. It seems to be little appreciated that imports prime the pump for a country's exports by creating foreign held balances in its currency.

The best thing the UK government could do would be to announce that it will just open the doors to imports from the EU (and everywhere else), whatever the EU does. If the EU negotiators are sensible they will follow suit. If they do not, and they probably will not, since being sensible is not their style, there are soon going to be complaints from consumers, businesses and manufacturers in the EU who find their supplies have been cut off by order of Brussels.

Invandrare stängde ut ur Sveriges naringsliv

Traditionellt fick invandrare tillträde till naringslivet genom själv driva yrke t ex torghandel, skräddare, snickare, heminreddare, rörmakare, där bra språk kunskap behövs inte. Retailjättar som Tesco och Marks and Spencer började som pyttesmå affär och i bodar i torg. Nu är det nästan omöjligt att börja som småskalig egetföretagare - Sveriges skattessystem dvs inkomsskatt, MOMS och arbetgivarensavgift - utan tröskel - knacker dem ner med alla byråcrati, blanketter, och belastning med tilllkostnader. Systemet kunde likaväl har formats för att stänger ut invandrare ur näringslivet - så är effekten.

Häromveckan pratade jag med en skomakare i stan som kommer snart att gå i pension. Fragade varför han inte kunde anställa en ung kille och lära honom yrket så att affären kan fortsätta i framtiden? Sväret var att det skulle kostar för mycket pga skatt, avgift, försäkring, under träningsperioden. Resultatet: en arbetslös kille och trasiga skor gå inte att repareras men måste kastas.

UK-EU negotiating strategy

Announce

1. Unilateral free trade will apply from 1 January 2021.
2. Licences to fish in UK waters will be open to all bidders. Dates of auctions and terms and conditions will be announced by the end of August at the latest.
3. Focus on the areas where there is more prospect of mutually beneficial outcomes for co-operative action.

Conflicting traditions on the two sides of the Channel

There are powerful producer interest groups in the EU which make sure that things are run to suit them. In addition, there is the continental dirigiste tradition, which stems partly from its legal forms, which are not derived from Common Law, and partly from the centralising religious tradition which originates in Roman Catholicism and was carried over into Lutheranism and Calvinism, which are different animals from the Anglican/Nonconformist branches of protestantism which prevail in England and Wales.

On top of that is the persistence of the seventeenth century mercantilist view of trade and the economy, which lies behind the single market obsession. There is an irony here, because it was the French Physiocrats who first exposed the falsehood of mercantiism. One of the Physiocrats, Turgot, was appointed by King Louis XVI to introduce free trade reforms. Unfortunately, the vested interests prevailed, people starved during the famine of 1783/4 (caused by the volcanic eruption on Iceland), and the King lost his head.

The ideas of the Physiocrats was built on by the British economists Smith, Hume, Ricardo and later on, Henry George; the last named was influential in the commonwealth countries, notably Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, as well as China and Japan, which was the reason for the rapid industrialisation of Japan and accounts for the present day success of Taiwan.

One of the reasons for the unpopularity of the EU in Britain is the abhorrence of taxes and tariffs on food. The Corn Laws were abolished in 1846, by a Conservative Prime Minister, after a campaign which had run for 50 years. The Peterloo protests and massacre were a part of the Free Trade movement. That gain was heedlessly thrown away in 1973. Many have not forgotten.

Access to markets - Orwellian Newspeak

The term ‛ACCESS TO MARKETS’ ought to be banned. Access to markets is something that customers enjoy. The EU works by denying its unfortunate inmates from access to markets. The EU politicians have turned the meaning of ‘access to markets’ inside-out. It is Orwellian Newspeak.

Gissa vart spårvagnar går?

Göteborgs spårvagnar rullar i tjänst utan linjeskyltar. Problemet uppståd i början av förre sommar. Förklaringen är att skyltar använder ett slags komplicerad elektroniskt system. Det går inte att lagas och leverantör har gått i konkurs.

Var är det med Göteborgs Spårvagars ingenjörer att ingen av dem kan hitta en tillfällig lösning? T ex skriv på nummret med viteboardpennor? Klistra på transparent färjad plastfilm med tejp? Skriv på nummret på en bit kartong och sätt upp backom rutan? Visserligen inte den vackraste lösning men bättre än ingenting.

Långsiktigt varför inte använder ett helt tåligare system t ex textil rullskyltar som håller lika längt som fordon sjålva - och är dessutom mer läsbar än de nuvarande svårtlästa LED / matrix skyltar.

Mercantilism wherever you look

Discussion on the future of the UK outside the European Union rages on. Reading through most of the articles, and comment on the articles, in the newspapers, it is as though Adam Smith had never written “Wealth of Nations” and Henry George had never written “Protection or Free Trade?”

The prevailing idea of economics expressed here, on both sides of the EU debate, is the seventeenth century mercantilist view which was refuted by Smith and all the classical economists who followed in his wake. Smith is a hard read, though not impossible for a reader of one of the newspapers which are aimed at the better educated sector of the public. George wrote a popular exposition of the argument against mercantilism.

Mercantilism is the dominant theory behind EU trade and economic policy. It will drag the continent to disaster if it is not abandoned; it was the ruin of France, Spain and Portugal in the eighteenth century; these countries and their former colonies still suffer from the legacy. But when commentators advocate boycotts of EU products and the imposition of tariffs on imports from the EU, they reveal the same mercantilist notions as those who support the EU and all its works.

Please take some time off from the internet and come back when you have read and digested these volumes. Both are in print and available on line.

War on carbon – gas boiler ban threat

Here comes more folly in the War on Carbon. There is a plan to force everyone to replace their gas heating boilers with electric heating systems. This is strange, because the thermal efficiency of modern gas boilers is over 90%, which is about as good as it can get. Over its complete cycle, electric heating is only about 30% efficient due to thermodynamic and transmission losses. Such a proposal can only have come from people who do not understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In 1959, in a lecture with the title ‘The Two Cultures’, later published as a book, C P Snow had a thing or two to say about just such people.

“A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?” 

The efficiency of electric heating can be improved by using heat pumps but relying on the electricity supply creates a security problem which is less of an issue with gas supplies which contain substantial reserves in the distribution system. Moreover, the gas supply system could be used to store and distribute hydrogen, which could be an effective way of utilising the energy created by the surplus from wind generation, which has the grave drawback that supplies cannot be matched to demand.

A better option, based on sound thermodynamic principles, is to promote more local generation in the form of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in which hot water for heating is created as a by-product of the electricity generation. CHP generation can be on-site for large buildings such as public and industrial premises and blocks of flats, or through the use of district heating systems. In the case of on-site generation, surplus electricity is fed into the grid and paid for.

A bad and unscientific decision is about to be made, yet again.

EU sends bill for an extra £1 billion to UK

The EU has sent an additional bill of £1 billion to the UK government, on account of the growth in the UK economy relative to the rest of the EU (which we were assured would not happen because Brexit would be a disaster).

The EU has no reliable figures on which to base its claim on the UK. Not every member country returns reliable figures. Those with large black economies will not be required to pay their share as so much of their economic activity does not turn up in the official returns to the EU, and their governments have an incentive to report lower figures.

Romania and Greece are the biggest offenders and are getting away with fiddling at the expense of the countries with traditions of honesty. Fraud is rewarded. The UK should make payment dependent on the submission of accurate figures from every one of the E27 countries.

The UK should agree to pay when the trade returns of all 27 countries have been audited so that it pays its correct proportionate share.

The VAT gap – official EU report.

Brexit a right wing conspiracy?

Is Brexit a right wing conspiracy? It is curious how this accusation has arisen. The EU’s policies are fully in line with the ultra right neo-con agenda. The main beneficiaries are the Franco-German industrial giants, plus owners of large agricultural land holdings. That is not surprising because the EEC was set up as a way of getting the European military-industrial complex to work together, instead of against each other, and they have the resources to pay for the best lobbyists. These are the main beneficiaries of the EU’s trade and economic policies: protectionism, the CAP, VAT and the Euro, which favours mercantilist Germany. Freedom of movement ensures that wages are driven down to the lowest level. The Euro is a device for paying German workers in an undervalued currency, while at the same time providing an easy market for German products. Minimum pay and workers’ rights are nothing more than window dressing. The CAP and import tariffs drive down real wages by putting up shop prices. VAT does the same.

The very same corporations and individuals bankrolled the Nazis in Germany and fascist parties elsewhere in Europe. Many of the employed slave labour during the war, and many of the survivors never received compensation from their exploiters.

It is time this myth of Brexit as a right wing plot was laid to rest. The perception of Labour opponents of EEC entry in the 1960s was not mistaken.

Crossrail - a case study in mission creep

Crossrail is now running about three years late. Several layers of bad decisions have led to this.

Crossrail was originally conceived as an east-west relief route for the Metropolitan and Central Lines. A quick and easy fix would have been a new tube line on roughly the same alignment. This could have used small bore tunnels and been self-contained, with self-driving trains as currently operating successfully on other tube lines. Being a self-contained route without junctions, the line would have been optimally reliable, with a service of 34 trains an hour being achievable, as on the Victoria Line. It might have been extended to Heathrow, or it might have run to Hammersmith over part of the present Metropolitan Line. It might have joined end-on to the Jubilee Line at Stratford, avoiding two sets of reversals. Such a line would have been running at least five years ago.

 As it was, there was mission creep. Large bore tunnels were used, with full size trains and overhead electrification, the trains had to be designed to accommodate three different systems of signalling, and the route is shared with the main lines, which builds-in unreliability and potential widespread disruption.

Having got to that point, however, risk could have been reduced by putting in a conventional signalling system on he tunnel section, which is the current obstacle to getting the service running.

The instant that shows how right it was to leave

Pompous, humourless battleaxe.

Satisfaction after 47 years

I was furious for two reasons when Britain joined the the European Economic Community in 1973.

The first was the return of the Corn Laws, 127 years after they had been repealed in 1846, after many decades of hard campaigning by people like David Ricardo and William Cobbett, a campaign punctuated by events such as the Peterloo Massacre and the Swing Riots. The result was that cheap food from Commonwealth countries and a few other traditional suppliers was locked out of the the country, leading to a chain of events including a round of strikes for more pay to keep up with the higher cost of living, the Three Day Week, the Winter of Discontent, the election of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands War; the latter would obviously not have happened as long as Britain was one of Argentina’s biggest customers.

The second was the replacement of Purchase Tax, a bad tax but we could live with it, by the infinitely worse EuroTax, VAT, which fails all four of Smith’s Canons of Taxation – a considerable achievement, but it was invented by a German who was obviously unfamiliar with Smith. It was sold on the myth that it is neutral and non-distorting, which is like saying that putting sand in your car’s lubrication system will not damage any particular component more than any other. A more harmful and inefficient tax would be difficult to devise.

The difficulty now is that the EU mantra that “our farmers” need protection is embedded and will be difficult to shift, while for decades, Tory governments have pushed up the rates of VAT so as to reduce the headline rates of income tax, which looks good in election manifestos, and the public is fooled. So undoing the damage will not be so easy and take more than just Brexit.

It is a myth that the EU led to a renewal of prosperity in Britain. The prosperity never extended far beyond the motorway corridors a couple of hours drive away from London. The EU regional development grants led to little or now trickle-down. Personally, the EU gave me an opportunity to go and live in another country at a time when Britain was going through a bad phase in the middle of the 2000s, but the problems – primarily due to the decisions resulting from long-term misgovernment – have caught up and overtaken me in the country to which I have moved. Hopefully, change will come here after Brexit as the forces that lead to these political shifts are not confined within national borders.

The EU has evolved from what is sometimes described as a “noble concept” into a sprawling monster with a remarkable ability to mess up, consistently, almost every policy area it gets involved in. Britain is well out of this failing enterprise.

Deathly grip of Post-Modernist solipsism

REMAINER DERANGEMENT SYNDROME
Brexit has destroyed old friendships, or perhaps friendships that were never as well grounded as I thought. Here is a recent email exchange. It began when I sent this link to a Guardian article about the mysterious increase in explosions in Sweden.

* * * * *  

ME: Here is how the Guardian reports a recent phenomenon in Sweden. It shows how the Guardian will write nothing that spoils its narrative. Who are these bombers? Where have they come from? Why Malmö (though we have had them here, too). Why are these a recent phenomenon?

The Guardian is utterly untrustworthy and the editors are a disgrace to their predecessors.

* * * * *  

RESPONSE: The Guardian is one of the few newspapers with truly investigative journalism despite what you might think.

The whole BREXIT saga is the real utter disgrace, leaving this country deeply, deeply divided for generations to come … you played your part in this - extremely disappointing … thinking this is over now … think again, this is definitely NOT over and not forgotten.

* * * * *

ME: Since 2016, I have learned a lot about the EU which I did not know. It seems that the policies are dominated by the Franco-German military/industrial complex: Schneider-Creuset, Alstom, Krupp-Thyssen, Siemens, Mercedes Benz, Bayer, BASF, and the corporate and private holders of large agricultural land holdings. These are very same as payrolled the fascists and Nazis between the wars. It suits big business to have a pool of cheap labour from the former communist countries. EU money sent to those countries is pocketed by corrupt politicians. The Euro is at least 10% cheaper than a German currency would be, which means that Germans are working at least half a day a week for nothing. It is exploitation big time. VAT, a requirement of being in the EU, is one of the most inefficient, regressive and damaging taxes it is possible to have.

When the UK joined the EU, within weeks, food prices almost doubled as inexpensive food from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Argentina vanished from the shops. I remember it well. The increased cost of living was the cause of the continual industrial unrest in the 1970s, which led to the election of Thatcher in 1979. The fish off the Sussex coast were mostly hoovered up. Then we got the food mountains, subsidised prairie farming, and then set aside, followed by payments to landowners, which include the wealthiest people in the land. What also came to light after 2016 was the democratic deficit. The elected parliament has no power to initiate legislation. That is the preserve of the commission. A place on the commission was a way of getting rotten politicians like Mandelson quietly out of the way. There is also the issue that the English legal system based on Common Law and habeas corpus is fundamentally incompatible with continental systems based on Roman Law.

My own preference would have been for a radically reformed EU. Unfortunately, they have no incentive to reform.The next thing that will happen will be that the incipient German banking crisis will blow. As you know, they are full of debt from southern Europe which will never be repaid.

The Guardian has never talked about any of these things. Goodness knows why. I am astonished that progressive people supported remain. I can only assume that they were not aware of the economic implications of the EU's policies. The EU has followed a Rake's Progress of economic mismanagement, largely due to the following of what are seventeenth century economic policies, based on a long discredited view of economics known as 'Mercantilism'. Since I am, having studied these issues for the past fifty years, how can I be expected to support such folly, which were no part of the essential EU project?  But you will not read about that in the Guardian.

Here in Sweden, public services are now, if anything, even worse than those in the UK. The money pledged to support the million people who have been welcomed into the country over the past ten years has run out. Now we have swinging cuts, and a demand for a huge increase in contributions to the EU to make up for that paid by the UK. It is not fair. We are now a poor country.

* * * * *

RESPONSE: Oh dear, a lot of sweeping statements based on assumptions, which are “half-cooked” ... evidence please.

The EU is by no means perfect, but is worth defending! I totally and utterly disagree with your very odd assumptions.

* * * * *

ME (evidence supplied) Which assumptions are odd and what is odd about them? There would not be 30,000 expensive lobbyists in Brussels if their efforts were fruitless. The EU’s trade and economic policies favour EU Big Business: a low paid labour force is available and skinflint employers exploit the situation. The Euro favours German big business and gave them low labour costs and an easy market to sell into, even if the banks had to lend the money to the Greeks and the Greeks couldn’t pay it back.

The CAP gives us high food prices, bolsters the rental value of agricultural land and keeps sub-marginal land in farming use. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

As I said, I have been studying this subject, under good guidance with plenty of opportunity to discuss the issues all round, for nearly fifty years. I know more about it than people like Hutton, Rawnsley and Toynbee. Actually, the Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliott, is broadly in agreement which what I have said, but gets brickbats when he makes the points.

When the history comes to be written, there will be a lot of head scratching about how so many people allowed themselves to be deceived.

I would agree that the EU is worth defending, but the people who have taken over control have wrecked it. The EU was founded on the principle of subsidiarity, but that principle was promptly ignored.

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RESPONSE: Don’t pretend you “would agree that the EU is worth defending”. You evidently do not want to miss a chance to undermine it - your self constructed narrative is a a jumbled mix of out of context arguments. ‘Classic’ for your age group and symptomatic for the deep divide in this country for generations to come. Ce la vie!  

I do not share your views and btw nor Larry Elliot’s.

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ME: The EU leaders undermined the EU with trade and economic policies which fly in the face of three hundred years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. As an intelligent and well informed citizen, I expect better from you than to dismiss my points as “a self constructed narrative” and “jumbled mix of out of context arguments.” “‘Classic’ for your age group and symptomatic for the deep divide in this country for generations to come.” It is like a child putting its hands over its ears and saying ‘Shut up, I don't want to hear”.

How about countering the points I made? I expect an adult response.
The next event will be a German bank crisis. German industry has been kept busy supplying goods to people who have had to be lent money to pay for their purchases. The debt is unrepayable. This was never a sustainable business model. If Germany had kept the DM, its value would have risen and the persistent balance of payments surplus would have been checked. As it is, the debt has grown and grown, and Germans are effectively working at least half a day a week for nothing. The economist Nigel Calder long ago warned forty years ago of the dangers of a single currency. What will the ECB crisis do for the EU? As I say, the EU politicians and policy makers are the ones who have done the damage, not the people who have criticised their folly. Don't shoot the messenger.

ME AGAIN: Does the term “self-constructed narrative“ come from Derrida or Adorno?

The postmodern analysis is ultimately solipsistic, because it denies the existence of objective reality. It is the high road to collective madness. It is also an effective tool to shut down rational discussion. The Guardian has been constructing narratives for the past decade or so. It is widespread in the Swedish media and among Swedish politicians. Thus we can be told that explosions and other crimes “happen”, without further information being provided about who was responsible and what might be the motives and causes, since the answers to those questions would destroy the narrative. There is nothing new about the technique, except that it used to be described as dishonest propaganda, or being ‘economical with the truth’, the phrase famously used by a Cabinet Secretary under questioning.

I was taught to use the Socratic method: the use of reason to support or refute propositions and assertions. It seems to have gone out of fashion. That will end badly.

Horrible Brexit 50p piece

The Brexit coin has been criticised, “for rubbing the remainer’s nose in it”. This seems unreasonable, considering that a coin was issued when the UK joined in 1973, and there was another one in 1998. Philip Pullman made a fool of himself by complaining about the absence of the ‘Oxford comma’, a convention of the Oxford University Press. I would have thought that Pullman, as a member of the Oxford Militant Atheists Brigade, would have been more concerned about the letters ‘FD’ in the inscription around the Queen's head.

It is depressing that no-one has criticised the design of the coin itself. The typeface looks like, though it probably is not, Zapf Chancery, one that comes with every computer. The seven-sided UK 50p coins are an ugly lump of metal; in fact the entire UK coin set lacks coherence, unlike the Euro set. When coins are worth more than their face value if struck in copper, it is time to withdraw that denomination. The best of the UK coins is the finely proportioned £2 piece, which makes it better suited as a commemorative, and also allows an inscription round the rim. A appropriate choice would have been a revival of the long-lost and charming Britannia design used on the 1860 bun penny, ruling the waves with a ship and lighthouse in the background. There has been a sad failure of imagination or knowledge of history.

Surely the Royal Mint could have done better?

Project Fear changes direction

With Brexit almost out of the way, the focus has shifted to the war on carbon dioxide. I have covered this in previous blogs here and here. Even the term “Greenhouse effect” is misleading and creates a false picture in people’s minds. IF the climate is changing, and IF it is due to human activity, the cause is almost certainly something other than an increase in carbon dioxide levels. That is the devil in the hysteria. It could be making everyone aim at the wrong target.

Time to get “Wealth of Nations” off the shelf

As the outlines of the Brexit settlement emerge, it is important to study Adam Smith and break out of mercantilist habits of thought; to keep the focus on IMPORTS as well as EXPORTS. A balance of payments surplus means that there is a net flow of real wealth out of the country. The surplus is other countries’ paper. The EU negotiators are behaving stupidly, in particular, because they ignore the effect that treating the UK as a third country will have on IMPORTS to the EU. Ireland in particular, will be badly hit because the UK is a major source of so many goods. After Brexit, the Irish will suffer as they will either have to pay the EU tariffs or the extra transport costs of bringing goods from continental Europe instead. They will be hit with a price hike. In other EU countries, there will be specific problems as UK products become more expensive and difficult to obtain – for example, Swedish microbreweries like to use UK malted barley.

The best thing that the UK government could do is to announce that it is committed in principle to allowing unrestricted importation of goods from everywhere in the world (including the EU), without waiting for the governments of other countries to reciprocate. I was going to say ‘reciprocate the favour’, but reciprocation is doing their own consumers and manufacturers the favour; they are the ones who want or need UK products – they do not buy them as an act of charity. The only politicians who seem to have been aware of this and understand why are some in the European Research Group. If the principles they advocate are not followed, the UK will not get the most out of Brexit. There are people outside the UK who want to see Brexit succeed and set the example to other countries of the benefits that will come from a return to the British free trade tradition. Waiting for reciprocation is not part of that. If the other countries’ governments do not reciprocate, it’s their own funeral.

UK to abandon EU standards shock horror

I got this from a former neighbour who for ten years has worked for the European Food Safety Authority – a tax-free appointment 

In the news: “Today’s Politico Morning Agri & Food covers the post-Brexit farming plan that the UK government presented yesterday. According to plans, UK will no longer be part of the European Food Safety Authority, which regulates the active substances that make pesticides work using the so-called precautionary principle, which obliges policymakers to err on the side of caution when the potential hazards are serious, even if the supporting evidence is incomplete or speculative. Pesticides regulation will be taken over by the U.K.’s Health and Safety Executive; UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also trumpeted a ‘liberation’ from EU rules holding back the use of genetically modified crops.”

It seems that some people are blinded by the EU faith. My reply was “Job opportunities for you. Keep an eye on the appointments adverts. Where will they be based?”

The EFSA still has not banned glyphosate, and are unlikely to, seeing that Monsanto has been taken over by Bayer, the German company which was part of the giant IG Farben industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals group. It employed slave labour at Auschwitz during the war, conducted horrible and often fatal medical experiments on concentration camp inmates, and has always refused to pay compensation to its victims. The EFSA still permits a load of E-number substances which are known to be harmful. They are so widespread that it is hard to avoid some of them, including sodium and potassium nitrate and nitrite, and some colouring – which are banned in the USA. The EU's blanket ban against GM is ludicrous. People have been eating GM crops for 8,000 years. Whether a GM is good or bad depends on the GM. If it enables farmers to drench their crops in poisonous chemicals, then of course it is bad. If it results in improved flavours, or removes a natural poison from a plant, then GM is an excellent thing.

An interesting thing about the EFSA is that it employs only EU citizens. If the leading expert in the field is an American, or Chinese, or Japanese or Russian or Israeli, they will not be engaged. Whose interest are they working for?

Mercantilist futility

The European currency board is currently squabbling. It has a set inflation rate target, the idea being that inflation will help to reinvigorate the sluggish economy of the Eurozone. With a rise in inflation due to higher energy prices, the target is on the way to being reached, though it is not clear how higher energy prices will stimulate the economy.

Underneath all this is a set of trade and economic policies which should, in the twentieth century, never have seen the light of day. German banks have had to lend to other Eurozone countries in order to maintain demand for German products, but they now hold vast amounts of urepayable debt.

Germany has the supposed advantage of a currency that is undervalued (for them) by at least 10%, possibly more. In reality, of course, it is a disadvantage. It means that Germans are working at least half a day a week for nothing. German workers are, literally, being short changed. What will happen when they notice?

How has this situation arisen? EU and Chinese economic policy is based on the conception of trade and economics known as “mercantilism”, which held sway in the seventeenth century. The underlying principle is that the aim of economic policy should be to bring money into the country, for example, by importing gold and silver, as the Spanish and Portuguese did. It was ultimately their downfall. They had devoted vast resources to shipping precious metals across the Atlantic. But this proved to be a futile effort; gold cannot be eaten, or used to for shelter, or fuel, or worn to keep out the cold. All that happened was that prices rose. Nowadays, mercantilist policy concentrates on exporting as much as possible and thereby maintaining a persistent balance of payments surplus.  In its modern incarnation, it has left the German banks full of worthless paper.

Mercantilist theory had been refuted several times over before the eighteenth century was over but it survives in a zombie-like after-life in the minds of those responsible for making economic decisions at the highest levels.