Spring-cleaning Day

Lots of people think that the one job that local councils should do is the basic one of cleaning the streets and collecting the rubbish. So why do we need this? Because the councils waste too much money on other things.

On the way home today I saw these folk at work:

More photos here.

Time for a new Job?

I'm not actually looking but couldn't help noticing some items in today's Sunday Times Appointments Section.

First I saw that the Wales Millennium Centre is "now seeking a new chair". Why is that in the jobs section? Should I direct them to IKEA?

And then there's this: Natural England needs a chair too. And the new "Director of the English Beef and Lamb Sector" will need to "support the Chair". Is it shoogly? Shouldn't he be milking the cows and shearing the sheep?

Then I could be working for Peter Mandelson as a "Non-Executive Member of the Council of the Competition Commission". Why not just scrap most government activities? That'll do wonders for competition.

If anyone's interested in drugs, perhaps the position of "Director for Wales of the Royal Pharmaceutical Council of Great Britain" may suit. Or if you don't fancy Wales (or the sheep) how about "Chief Executive of the Future of Pharmacy Professional Regulation"?

I like trains and am rather tempted by the job of "Managing Director of London Underground". Cleverly, they require someone with a "track record". No mention of a travel pass though ...

On balance I 'll settle for "Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge".

The University "values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity".

Good, I'll be moving the Vice-Chancellor's office to the public bar of the Queen's Head.

Celtic tiger de-clawed

Is Ireland a good example for a future independent Scotland?

Perhaps not. See here.

I walked past Bute House yesterday and wonder if they were thinking along these lines for Scotland:

The Irish economy rests on the precipice of devastation. Government interventionism has left Ireland with little room to maneuver in this difficult economic climate. The answer to Ireland's economic woes is not further government intervention in the economy, but a return to economic liberalism, small government, and sound monetary policy. Ireland needs to look closely at Austrian economic theory and take a step back from the dissolving, failed Keynesian model. Ireland needs to return to a firm base: it must eliminate, or at the very least curtail, its leviathan public sector; it must bring inflation under control through responsible monetary and fiscal policy; and it must cut down government economic controls in order to bring lasting stability to its economy.

Not even RBS is this desperate...

Hello Dear,

Contact Royal Bank of Scotland London for your money Cheque Draft. The Branch manager of Royal Bank of Scotland London will transfer your money to you immediately. The amount is cash £ 2000,000.00 British Pounds and all the necessary arrangement of Transferring the £ 2000,000.00 Pound in cash was made .This is the compensation money that my boss kept for you for your pass effort in trying to help him in transferring his money abroad though it did not work with you but he has done it with another partner.

Contact them immediately and forward them your information to enable them sends you the money.

This is the information they need to deliver your fund to you.
ATTN: Mr. Bright Edmond
TEl: : +44-70-35-98-11-37 EMAIL: brightedmond.r.b.s.l@live.fr

Please, Send them your contacts information to able them Transfer your money immediately. This is what they need from you.

1. YOUR FULL NAME
2. YOUR HOME ADDRESS.
3. YOUR CURRENT HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER.
4. YOUR CURRENT OFFICE TELEPHONE.
5. YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFORMTION
6. A SCAN COPY OF YOUR INTERNATIONAL PASSPORT

Please make sure you send this needed information’s to the Remittance Director Royal Bank of Scotland London .

Thanks and Remain Blessed.
Desmond Dukor.

Now on Twitter

See here.

Links

I hardly ever use the blogroll anymore - it's all done with Bloglines.

Nevertheless, it was time to add some more links to the Whisky section.

Alex Salmond is "work-shy"

According to the Labour party, that is.

So what's the First Minister's crime?

Apparently Alex has:

only passed seven pieces of legislation since coming to power in May 2007.

Of course, the Labour party thinks that passing new laws is what politicians are for.

Lots of laws.

Like this:

... 3,605 new criminal offences created by the Labour Government since it won power in 1997 - almost one for every day it has been in office.

Let ZNL keep their expenses. Just don't pass any more laws.

Alex is on the right lines.

Guido

I can't do any better than to link to Sean's press release.

All those years when it seemed like no one was paying attention...

Iain gets it - sort of

Iain Macwhirter's latest post has this to say:

The best way is to make inflammatory attacks, preferably on other bloggers. This is the easiest and quickest way to get noticed and to generate traffic for your blog - as my silly stunt this week has confirmed. And apologies again to Iain Dale and Alex Massie for abusing them gratuitously.

So we've all been victims of a stunt! OK, fair enough. Welcome to the blogosphere Iain.

But he hasn't quite got it yet though. Consider this:

There is a science to blogging which mitigates against its mission statement as a new and accessible democratic medium of comment and debate.

Mission statement? The Herald may have one but the blogosphere collectively doesn't. I don't think that most bloggers see the medium as "democratic". We say what we want to say as individuals. Whether we allow others to interact with us is up to the blogger, not to a democratic majority.

In fact I'd go further. Large numbers of bloggers wish to reduce the proportion of human interactions that are subject to politics altogether, no matter how "democratic" those politics may be. In other words many of us are far keener on liberty than on democracy.

Work in Glasgow

I've been in Glasgow three times over the past fortnight. I like the city. It's sad therefore to read this:

Glasgow is home to the most workless households in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics, (ONS).

From reading certain southern blogs I know that some will say: "Well, that's Scotland for you. Load of welfare bums, aren't they?"

Not quite:

However, Scotland as a whole had the highest employment rate of any UK nation, at 76%.

And no we don't all work for the state, as I explained here.

There's a particular employment problem in parts of Scotland, especially in Glasgow. I don't normally support tax regimes being varied in different parts of the country but I can't help wondering what would happen if corporation tax and national insurance were to be abolished in the east end of Glasgow. I might even relocate my own company: I had to pay £0.38P corporation tax a couple of years ago...

And Glasgow's surrounded by the UK's best scenery:

DSC_19931895
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

Mother of the free?

Then:

And now:

Great Britain: RIP

Fred Goodwin seen in Edinburgh!

P1010313
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

More photos here.

MPs' second homes? This is where the big money is.

For some reason my mother used to think that I should become an actuary. I didn't, but this is really fascinating stuff. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Lothian Pension Fund actuarial valuation as at 31st March 2008!

Here's the Executive Summary:

The results are presented in this report and summarised below.

The Fund’s objective of holding sufficient assets to meet the estimated current cost of providing members’ past service benefits) was not met at the valuation date. The funding level was 85% (compared to 85% at 31 March 2005) and there was a funding shortfall of £524m.

Without anticipating an element of future equity out-performance, the ‘gilt-based’ funding level would be 65% at the valuation date, and there would be a shortfall of £1,579m. The Fund’s financial position at the valuation date is illustrated graphically in the chart below.

The employers’ average future service contribution rate as at 31 March 2008 (ignoring the past service shortfall) is 17.1% of pensionable pay. Assuming that a funding level of 100% is to be targeted over a period of 20 years, the common employers’ contribution rate is 22.5% of pensionable pay. These figures take advance credit from outperformance of the Fund’s assets relative to gilt yields on the valuation basis, as set out in the Funding Strategy Statement. Ignoring this credit for outperformance the funding position would be 64%, and the common contribution rate would be 42.0% of pay.

The actuary makes various assumptions. One is that mortality rates will probably improve - there'll be nae bevvying in the new Scotland. But on the other hand, "the increase in childhood obesity may result in a decline in longevity in future generations." Lose some; win some, as the actuary would put it.

So all of those local authority "non-jobs" that we read about in the press a week or so will ago actually cost the Lothian taxpayer 22.5% on top of the quoted salary. Plus employers' NI of course. The rate was 19% at the last valuation three years ago. But note also that the actuary assumes that the fund will make a future "outperformance" over the returns available from gilts. But should that not be achieved:

the common contribution rate would be 42.0% of pay. !!!

And this is all based on the fund valuation as at 31 March 2008. I see that the actuary says that employers' contribution rates would have to be 25.3% were he to use market data as at 13th February this year.

I conclude that the Lothian council taxpayer is screwed. Like the rest of the UK.

No bailout, even for Dunfermline!

That should be the message, both from London and Edinburgh:

SNP ministers are preparing to organise a multi-million-pound bail-out to save the troubled Dunfermline Building Society, The Scotsman has learned.

It is understood the Scottish Government is prepared to pump a significant sum into the embattled mutual – possibly as much as £25 million – if this can be done legally and without breaking the rules of the devolution settlement.

Of course, this is clever politics from Salmond:

For them, this is a "win-win" situation. If ministers succeed in keeping DBS viable as a independent Scottish institution, they will have proved the Scottish Government has the ability to spark change for the better in financial organisations. If they fail, they will claim they were hamstrung by the devolution settlement and put immense on the UK government to bail out the troubled building society.

But a bailed-out DBS wouldn't really be independent, would it? The government, Scottish or British, would pull the strings.

At some point it will become clever politics for someone to say "No!" We haven't reached that point yet but we're probably getting there. If the banking crisis had happened six months earlier it's quite possible that Ron Paul would be President of the United States and Messrs Brown and Salmond would be looking very, very silly.

No bailouts!

Andrew Lilico is correct. HBOS and the Royal should been allowed to go bust. And I say that as someone with an HBOS ISA account.

Kevin Dowd explains why at the recent Libertarian Alliance Chris Tame Memorial Lecture:

Call to disband all police forces in Scotland

That was the headline in the Herald today. Of course, that's not what they actually meant:

The head of Scotland's policing watchdog has called for a radical restructuring of the country's eight forces to create one single police service.

Who exactly is this "watchdog"? It turns out that he's nothing less than:

The former chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police

Isn't this typical of the state sector? Respond to legitimate concerns by appointing an insider as "watchdog". Far from amalgamating our police forces we should consider making them truly accountable to the public. That means electing Chief Constables. Note the plural.

St Patrick's Day

View on the way to work:

P1010246
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

View from the window:

P1010248
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

View on the way home:

P1010260
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

Centralised Britain

Or rather, not centralised!

One of my clients in Edinburgh is registered with Entrust, a government body that deals with landfill sites. The organisation doesn't have or use any such sites but probably did years ago. It doesn't cost anything and all we have to do is send in a "nil" return each year. Perhaps membership may be useful in the future.

Anyway, today we received the annual return together with a letter that says:

I write to you that following a strategic review of its operations, ENTRUST's Board has decided to relocate its offices from Acre House, Sale to Leamington Spa. In reaching this decision, the Board has considered the requirement for ENTRUST to more effectively serve the needs of its stakeholders and has taken into consideration a number of important factors, including:

Allowing ENTRUST to be more centrally located in the United Kingdom to provide an enhanced service to its stakeholders

But they're now less centrally located in the United Kingdom. The mid-point of the island of Great Britain is around Kendal in Cumbria. Including the offshore islands it's in Dumfriesshire. In Sale they were already in the South, now even more so. Private companies can locate wherever they want, but government organisations shouldn't be concentrated in the expensive southeast. No wonder folk up here vote SNP.

Useful Idiot of the Week

The award goes to Charles Cotton who is reacting to this news:

Large companies could be forced to reveal the pay gap between the salaries of male and female staff, under plans being considered by the Government.

It's clear that the next step will be compulsory changes in pay scales. And what does Mr Cotton have to say?

"There is a business case for ensuring all employees are paid fairly and equally according to their skills and contribution, not their gender or any other irrelevant attributes.

"But this case is likely to be harmed not helped by blunt legislative measures at a time when businesses are struggling to stay afloat."

If there's a "business case" for doing something then business people will do it anyway. Why should anyone else be involved? And are "blunt legislative measures" OK if the economy recovers. I note that Mr Cotton is a spokesman for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. My own company employs just one person - myself. I can't afford to employ a personnel manager. But the companies that can will generally be able to absorb the costs of these changes. Some small companies will be wiped out. Is that the plan?

The Royal Bank

Speaking at the Lib Dem conference, Vince Cable spoke about the Royal Bank crisis:

The collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland would have wiped out the budget of an independent Scotland, the deputy Liberal Democrat leader said.

Vince Cable said the RBS balance sheet was 15 times the size of Scotland's gross national product

Well, let's see. I recommend looking at Calum Cashley's response:

Vince Cable, old buffer of the Liberal Democrats and former Glasgow Labour councillor, has claimed that the RBS balance sheet was 15 times the size of Scotland's Gross National Product, implying that this makes Scotland too wee or too poor to be independent.

How does he know that? Owing to the complexities surrounding the estimation of GNP no official GNP estimates currently exist for Scotland (penultimate page). The best you can get is GVA - doesn't have the international earnings component of GNP - Scotland's was £98.5 billion in 2007, a per capita GVA for Scotland of 96% of the UK's. The oil industry had a GVA of £30 billion (not included in Scotland's total).

RBS's balance sheet was standing at £1.9 trillion at the end of 2007 - will be substantially less now - one fifteenth of which would be £126.67 billion, so to make Cable's calculation work you'd have to have £28 billion of overseas earnings for Scots (including Scottish companies) - or we can have our oil back, thanks. It's quite possible that Scots earned that much elsewhere in the world. Quite possible and totally unimportant. The UK GVA in 2007 was £700 billion short of the balance sheet value of RBS' assets - that means chuffle all either, all the money for the bank bail-out is borrowed, the UK can't afford this bail-out just as the US can't afford the money being stuffed into its banks.

I hope that Calum doesn't mind my copying so much of his post, but I'm rather fed up with the unthinking claim that an independent Scotland would necessarily be unable to support itself.

Now, I enjoy counterfactual history as much as anyone. Allow me to indulge.

Scenario A:

An RBS in an independent Scotland isn't allowed by the English authorities to take over NatWest. The Royal continues being a smallish conservative Scottish Bank and Fred the Shred leaves the Clydesdale and moves to London to perform his miracles down there.

Scenario B:

Somehow the Royal does buy NatWest and finds itself in a battle with Barclays to purchase ABN Amro. The English authorities are annoyed enough at the Royal being so big and put pressure on the Dutch to go with Barclays. A short while later it's Barclays that's going down the plughole - perhaps even under Sir Fred's leadership!

Scenario C:

The Scottish Government has appointed yours truly as Governor of the (Central) Bank of Scotland. I persuade Prime Minister Cashley that Scotland shouldn't have a Central Bank! A libertarian monetary policy is introduced. It is made quite clear in advance that the Scottish Government will not bail out any company, including banks. Depositors wisely spread their money around. Local savings banks are restarted and prosper. "Know Your Customer" means playing golf with them, not creating a database. More and more banks offer gold-backed notes. In such a climate it's unlikely that a Scottish-based bank would get bogged down in the bizarre world of derivatives and credit default swaps. But let's suppose that somehow the Royal has done just that and goes pear-shaped. What then?

What happens then is that Prime Minister Cashley says: "Nothing to do with us, Gov" and "Not a penny from the Scottish taxpayer. You ken noo..." The world's financial community is shocked and Scotland is traduced in the international press.

But two years down the track things are different. England and the USA have poured trillions into bailing out their fractional reserve banks and all to no effect. Their public finances are in ruins. And Scotland? Well we're sitting pretty. Everyone now sees that it was the others who were out of step, not us. The Scottish financial regime is seen as the soundest in the world and we all live happily ever after.

See you leftie!

It's good to see Za-Nu Lab being hoist with its own petard:

I don't speak Glaswegian: Labour chief in racism row after 'Can you translate that' remark to Scottish activist

Will Russia invade Scotland?

Jeff Nyquist's latest piece is interesting:

The Russian intelligence services have long tracked economic, financial and demographic changes in the United States. Russian analysts know that certain trends lead to political crisis. Such trends include ethnic balkanization, an ideological split in the ruling class, rising indebtedness, economic collapse, and declining moral standards. A country like the United States is ripe for civil war. If this should happen, foreign powers would intervene and the country would be split along geographical lines: California and the West would fall under Chinese control, Texas and the south would go to Mexico, and Russia would lay claim to Alaska. “It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska,” says Panarin. “It was part of the Russian empire for a long time.”

Those symptoms seem remarkably familiar to us in Britain, do they not?

Ethnic balkanisation is going to be a huge problem in the UK. And I'm thinking of Bradford, not Bannockburn. The economic and moral problems are just as significant here as in the US. I am certainly not the only blogger who fears civil war in this country. It's not at all clear who would win a battle fought between the state and the people. Or rather between the tax-consumers and the taxpayers. Scotland would not be able to sit that one out.

Although I do have some sympathy with the cause of Scottish independence I find the SNP's old-time anti-NATO stance to be worrying. The Freedom and Whisky master plan remains valid. These islands need to be defended collectively against foreign aggressors. It's very naive to think that for us all wars are in the past. If the Russians take Alaska, why not Aberdeen? And we don't even have Sarah Palin...

Liberalism

Neil Craig writes about the "Liberal" Democrat conference:

Taken all in all the LibDems Conference get their funding overwhelmingly from the state, some via middlemen. This perhaps explains why all of the motions under discussion involve more regulation, government spending &/or taxes & none of them endorse anything the founders of liberalism would have recognised as such.

The trouble is that it's not only the "Liberals" who are illiberal, that's true of all of the mainstream parties here in Scotland. The same's the case almost everywhere else of course. Except, that is, on the Internet. It's like a parallel universe out there. Politicians, newspaper journalists and television presenters are running around like headless chickens with no clue as to how to deal with the economic crisis. But the truth is out there.

Things are quite different from the recession of the 1970's, which coincided with my discovery of libertarianism and Austrian School economics. Back then one had to be extraordinarily lucky to come across the likes of Mises, Hayek and Rothbard. Now correct explanations of why the crisis arose are just a few clicks away. But still the establishment doesn't get it. Or perhaps doesn't want to. I wonder if we're going to see one of those paradigm shifts after which everyone will be claiming to have known what was going on all along.

The Rule of Law and how to protect it

The Belmont Club is my favourite blog. It is far better written and more informative than almost anything in the "Mainstream Media".

"Mainstream"? For how long?

I've been reading a fascinating thread on the outcomes that may be expected from the recent socialist takeover of the United States. The Belmont Club is written by Richard Fernandez, a veteran of the Philippine struggles against tyranny.

He writes:

The mistake most amateurs make when faced with a crisis that may involve violence, etc is to become obsessed with underground activity, illegal actions, etc. Bringing down even a dictator is 95% legal organizing and 5% clandestine work. The reason for this is that most people are too scared or unwilling to break the law and rightly so. So the most effective resistance to tyranny happens when you take the law at its word and demand your rights. Eventually a real tyrant must either yield or show his true colors. We used this ploy time and again to force the crisis. It’s always a lose-lose for the dictator; and an aggregate win for the rebels. I must say though, that the fact that you are acting legally doesn’t mean you are risk-free. If things get bad, there’s really no distinction between acting legally and acting clandestinely because the dictator doesn’t split hairs.

But returning to 21st century America, the only advice I can give is to maximally use the liberties allowed under the law and the Constitution. There’s a lot of space there and I believe it has hardly been used. From the courts, to local politics, to media campaigns, to civil disobedience — there are lots of levers yet to be pulled. I think it would be immoral for anyone to go all apocalyptic on the Republic and take to the hills like some kind of militia group, besides being impractical, because there are lots of things that have yet to be pushed to their fullest legal extent. But there’s another reason for exhausting all the remedies under the Constitution. Afterward.

It will be a hollow to gain a political victory at the cost of destroying the framework you were trying to preserve. One day there will be another party, another political movement, another set of views in Washington. And on that day you want the Constitution whole and inviolate; because that scrap of parchment represents a hard won set of rules which by common consent defines legitimacy.

We are in the path of the storm. Men of goodwill should get involved; they should prepare to pay some price for their involvement. But for the moment, it’s all hands on deck and none below.

Richard is correct. As much as we may want to "string 'em all up" (and justifiably so), we've still got other opportunities available.

As Mr Fernandez says:

take the law at its word and demand your rights

And so, much as I too want to "string 'em all up", I'll be voting in the next General Election. For me it's simple. See who's most likely to defeat Gordon's stooge and vote accordingly.