AN OUTSIDE VIEW

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 ...

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.

 

 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.

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

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

Why not make the whole country into a freeport?

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

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

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.

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

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 pra...

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

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 ...

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...

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 poin...

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.

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 SL...

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.

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.

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 iden...

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 go...

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/

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 perio...

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.

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 wit...

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 fail...

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, of...

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 char...

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.

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 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. Credit should be secured only on the goods that the credit is given for eg the part-built ship. 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 o...

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 th...

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

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...

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.

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.

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 a...

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.

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.

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 W...

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 ...

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.

Announce Unilateral free trade will apply from 1 January 2021. 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. Focus on the areas where there is more prospect of mutually beneficial outcomes for co-operative action.

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 Ic...

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.

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.

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 th...

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 The...

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 VA...

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 puttin...

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 electrif...

Pompous, humourless battleaxe.

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 Taxatio...

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 … t...

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 proportione...

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.

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...

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 b...

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...