An evening with friends continued

 One issue that I failed to consider was the economic situation. I was just looking at the BBC's website and came across this link  Radio 4 More or Less. It is a discussion of the influence of the Black-Schole equation, largely taken from Ian Stewart.

  The current government keeps try to blame the last government for the financial problems we are facing though this is untrue. I do not know how that can be explained, it seems a simple story but any blame that that government had was at one remove from the real problem greedy and incompetent bankers. It is true that there were problems with regulations but those who want less regulation can hardly complain about . that. Some argue that they support regulation but it was the wrong regulation. The state have been trying to get it right for a long time and it never seems to be quite right.

  The government were faced with a simple issue, do they let RBS, Northern Rock and HBOS go bust with the consequences for millions of savers or do they pump millions of pounds in tax payers money to protect them. The problem is simple the solution isn't and we are still faced with it. The value of the bailout was approximately 37 billion but the total value, according to the Independent the cost of the bailout. So most of our financial problems were caused by incompetent bankers not the alst government.

   How do we get the message across to the public, especially on the doorstep? The Tories and Lib Dems have carefully created the impression, especially after Liam Byrne's stupid joke. How do we explain that the austerity measures won't work, Osborne's excuse that it is because of Europe but unhappily Europe are adopting the same austerity polices that Osborne supports so there is no hope there. But again how do we get the message across?

An evening with friends

   We had some friends round and the conversation turned to how do we explain to people on the door why they should vote Labour? Like many older men I woke up at about 4am needing the toilet and then started to think about this problem.

  If we go back too far it comes to what mechanisms do we believe that will give us a better society. Go back a bit further and you can start arguing about what this means. To me, at a gut level, it is about treating people with dignity and feeling that everybody deserves somewhere clean and warm to live, food, clothing and good health care. That is all very practical but I was also going to say a good education  but what I mean is no necessarily a formal education but a chance to develop those talents which they have.

  Probably most people have some sympathy with those goals whatever their political views, so many of the differences come down to how do we achieve them. Probably we also all agree that somebody has to do some work to produce the goods that we need, whether it is the food we eat or the houses we live in or the clothes we wear. But then, I now I shouldn't start sentences with "but", what is the best way to produce them and how do we distribute the wealth.

  At one end there are those who claim to believe in a "free market". I always use quotation marks around free markets since very few people are sure what they mean. Perhaps the mythical idea that the producers bring their good to a market and those who want to buy the good wander around and bargain and that in the end everything works out for the best. This like many ideas is entirely mythical for all sorts of reasons. The "free market" that most people think they believe in is just a short hand way of saying keep the government out. Let private individuals do their own thing and all will be well. Really that doesn't work very well either, whether they like it or not there is a need for government, see what has happened in Somalia,even the most right-wing talk about a failed state, perhaps even the supporters of  Ayn Rand would believe in the "state".

  I end up concluding that we do really believe in the "state" but can the state provide a society we want to live in? It seems a long way from the question how do we argue for a Labour government on the doorstep but my feeling is that unless you know why you believe something how can you explain it to other people. So lets go back to what people should have, to repeat T it is about treating people with dignity and feeling that everybody deserves somewhere clean and warm to live, food, clothing and good health care. Can we provide a society in which this happens with a minimalist state. The answer quite simply no! With a minimalist state the produce of society accrues to the most powerful and they will use it as they see fit not to the benefit of all.

  Some might argue that this is fair, after all they must have some talents which make them rich and powerful so we will all benefit from that.  However there seems to be very little evidence that this happens, that is why the rich tend to remain rich, people forget that most wealth in the UK is not earned wealth but inherited so most people have no particular talent except to be born to people who are already rich. With a minimalist state the powerful get more powerful and divisions grow and inequality gets greater.

   The argument of New Labour is that people wanted a fairer society and good housing and schools and health but did not care how it was provided. The state should fund it but who actually gave the service did not matter. This combined with "efficiency" led  to the idea that the state would pay for the services but the private sector would provide them efficiently. Also it was important to bring competition into the system because that is what drives up standards in the "free market". The trouble is that both these ideas are fatally flawed from the perspective of providing good services to everybody.

  Why do I argue this, what is my reasoning. This is an argument that I have used in earlier blogs but perhaps it is useful to make the point again. Competition and the "free market" depends on unsuccessful
operators going bust and the successful ways growing. How does that work in health and education, by the time they have gone bust you are dead! One of the discussions last night was about getting the best surgeons but how do we know who is the best surgeon or the best doctor. You might have friends who know but most people won't. Do we want surgeons competing in some league table so they look better than their colleagues? The evidence seems to be that practice makes perfect, that is the more times a surgeon does an operation, the better they get! Who do they practice on? The poor and ignorant, we hope they practice whilst being carefully supervised.  Do we want surgeons advertising cheap operations, like dodgy second-hand car dealers? It seems clear to me that we require a different mechanism to provide high quality health care for all. If you just want it for the rich and powerful there is no problem, the private sector will provide.

  This is rather long and rambling, it is now nearly 6am and to misquote Pascal I don't have the energy to write a shorter  blog. Where New Labour got it wrong was to believe that the private sector and competition would improve public services and whilst there might be an argument to get over short-term emergencies a long term dependency on the private sector won't deliver. I suppose my argument has to be that only the Labour Party, with all its inadequacies, can provide a long term commitment to good public services.

It's the workers what gett he blame!

I was just reading about the care home where an old lady was being badly treated. The man has been sent to prison and some other workers were sacked. But what about the bosses, they seem to have got off scot free.

How does that happen, surely of you are managing a care home, or owning one, you are responsible for what goes on and the final responsibility is with the bosses and owners. The Care Quality Commissioners are not up to the job,  it cannot be an isolated incident, does anyone believe that there was only one old lady being badly treated?

It must have been endemic in the institution and condoned by the bosses. This can be done by an active agreeing to the behaviour or passively just ignoring it. It would seem clear to any reasonable person that Ash Court and the owners are not fit to run such an institution and that as a consequence the Care Quality Commission is "not fit for purpose".

Why Clegg doesn't get it.

Hi, Mr Clegg thinks that the power companies should write to us each year telling us about their best tariffs. What a waste if paper and time. Here is a much better idea, why not force the power companies to automatically charge us the minimal each quarter.

The usage would be calculated and then the bill would be based on the lowest charge amongst all their tariffs so there would be no need to write and we would all have a good deal.

This plan could be extended to banks and mortgage companies, even insurance companies, it should be their responsibility to calculate the cheapest or best deal for their customers. For example when a bank introduces a new savings product it should automatically transfer money to that account, assuming it has exactly the same terms and conditions. If not they should then write and explain the differences and give customers the choice.

Simple Income Tax

 This is a bit technical but sometimes it makes sense.

Everyone is getting upset about whether to raise the threshold before people start paying tax. The difficulty is if the threshold is raised the highest tax payers save the most, This is why when the threshold was raised they lowered the point at which 40% came in. This has now rebounded because of the rules about child benefits. There is a way round this which seems quite simple to me but then I am a simple minded mathematician.

  Assume that you want no one to pay tax if they earn less that £10,000. At 20% that amounts to £2000.  So rather than tax the income above £10,000 calculate the tax on all income and reduce it the minimum of £2000 or the tax calculated. So if someone earns £15,000 the tax would be calculated as  £3000. so they would be asked for £3000-£2000, that is £1000. However if someone earned £5000 there tax would be calculated as £1000, this is less that £2000 so £1000 would be deducted and they would pay nothing.

 This makes no difference to anyone not paying 40% tax. But for someone, say, earning £10,000 more then the threshold, the £10,000 tax free allowance would be worth £4,000 but under this system they would only save £2000. It might be politically tactful to adjust rates so that if there was no increase in allowances the new system would not make anyone worst off, but then future changes would not have the effect of giving more back to the better paid.

Shirley v Polly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/12/sorry-shirley-williams-nail-health-bill-myths

Recently Shirley Williams accused Polly Toynbee of lying in the Guardian about the 49% of work that the NHS will be able to provide for patients.

In the article above Polly Toynbee demolishes Shirley Williams argument. One could possible fins and excuse by assuming that she is inumerate  because the bill says that any trust must do more work on the NHS than on the private sector/ Then one needs to do a sum, I make it 49.99% to two decimal places but 49% will do!

The things that bug me!

 Three things today have got up my goat,  here they are in order of hearing them

  Mr Hester about why bakers really do deserve their bonuses. When questioned he couldn't answer the question as to why someone paid over a million a year can't do his job properly without bonuses. It would be OK to pay someone a modest bonus for doing something exceptional but as  a matter of course it seems to me wrong. Perhaps there should be a new system of pay for academics, every time a paper is published they get a bonus, or perhaps every time they give a lecture. Perhaps school teachers should get a bonus if they actually teach a class. not just going into school but spending time with 25 kids.

  What is true is that for most people not doing their job properly means getting the sack doing their job properly means they are kept on. If these bankers and business men with their fat bonuses are so valuable why don't they let their workers decide on the bonus rather than their mates.

  Mr Hester also said in the interview on Radio $ that he wasn't a banker before he took on the job, does that mean anyone could do the job, if you don't need to be a banker to run a bank then it is clearly an unskilled job.  He also claims that you can't get top quality staff without paying bonuses, so presumably the heads of RBS were not getting bonuses before the crash!

  My other thought on this topic was the purchase of ABN was one of the causes of their problems. RBS were in a  bidding war with Barclays, it is not public how much  Barclay's were willing to pay but if they had won the auction would Barclays now be owned by the taxpayer and "Sir" Fred Goodwin would still be "Sir" and an hero?

  Leading on from bonuses to Harry Redknapp, how did the jury find him not guilty. It amazes me that he got a bonus for selling Peter Crouch, did the performance of the club improve as a result of that deal. Or, more likely, that knowing he would get a bonus for selling a player his own personal self-interest would come before the interests of the club. He also admitted he got the money and told a reporter that it was a bonus. He claims, presumably advised by a well-paid professional liar, called a barrister, to say he was lying to the reporter.

  It is quite clear that you can't believe a word Harry Redknapp says, followed by his claim that is was all his accountants work and he didn't know what was going on. It would be fun to know what went on in the jury room, oh he such a character we can't find him guilty,

  Then on to the third item which was all about phone hacking! All these people who just wanted justice done BUT have settled out of court so that NO criminal proceedings can take place. So the rich and powerful can avoid criminal proceedings by paying people off. The most shameful ones are the politicians, who seem to prefer to take money than see criminals prosecuted, doesn't this just make a mockery of their claim to be supporters of the law. So the shareholders of News International are a few hundred thousands worse off but I am sure it is all allowed as a business expense.