Randomly Selected Article or Link

Over at The 1909 Group website - I argue that the past few days have seen the final repeal of all that was good about the People's Budget of 1909. Liberals everywhere should be outraged.

...who seems as appalled as I am at the relish with which our party has taken to banning a four hundred year old "pleasure": Forceful and Moderate: Smoked out....

Now, I accept the public health arguments, and I accept in particular (as a member of UNISON how could I not) the arguments about the dangers to staff. Yet still there are ways round having to illiberally ban something. Many people take on jobs that have risks to their health or personal safety. Health and Safety legislation tries to get employers to minimise those risks in most cases (for example with protective gear) but in some cases, when all that's done and risks still remain, employees can command a premium.

If 80% of people really want to eat and drink in smoke free places this is plenty incentive for the industry to give them that option. Since more than 20% of people smoke anyway (and it's higher amongst the young adult population), isn't there a good chance that only those who do would be prepared to work, for more money if possible, in an establishment that permits smoking - I know almost everyone in my SU bar are smokers - they get extra breaks!

As a party we have, or had at least, policy in our "abolish regulation" stuff to replace the national minimum wage with a more flexible arrangement negotiated and enforced thropugh trade and workers associations on a region by region basis so it could reflect the costs of living in different places. We could add into this premiums for working in smokey bars perhaps. A real liberal response to this would be to try to level the playing field in favour of the workers, not outlaw something (especially something that is still so very, even if inexplicably, commonplace).

Incidentally, does anyone know how this affects hotel bedrooms? I have a get around in my mind already. Small hotel, bedroom suites rented by the hour with more settees and tables than beds, room service delivering booze. Get the picture? The wealthy can get round anything.

From The Register: Aussie council deploys Barry Manilow sonic weapon

Aussie council deploys Barry Manilow sonic weapon
Merciless assault on tearaways
By Lester Haines
Published Monday 5th June 2006 13:03 GMT

An Australian council has decided to deploy the ultimate rowdy youth repellent - piped Barry Manilow backed by a further selection of "daggy" melodies.

The radical sonic attack plan is designed to drive the ne'er-do-wells from a car park in Rockdale, Sydney, where they have been "revving their engines and generally annoying residents", the BBC reports.

Nice one!

...well, perhaps not quite but this is interesting, if blindingly obvious in a sort of a "why didn't we think of that" way:

I've been writing for a while now about how the globalization of communication (and delivery) technology is set to make it ever harder for states to quantify and collect taxes based on trade and incomes and make it imperative, if they want to have any revenue stream into the future, to switch taxation to more fixed sources like ("economic") land - ground rents, airspace, electromagnetic spectrum and so on, or face the prospect of ever increasingly authoritarian measures to force people to repatriate income and assets for tax purposes.

I hadn't counted on VAT being amongst the first to be threatened, but here it is. It's not going to help buying cakes from Tesco yet because it will only work if it is actually imported, I suspect (no getting away with simply operating from a warehouse in every town that happens to be owned by a Channel Island company I would think).

But people, liberal minded political types especially, need to wake up to this double threat - to recognize that revenue collection will be more difficult in future if based on moveable assets, incomes and trade, and to recognize that addressing that means going one of two ways - the more equitable land tax, or the more authoritarian crackdown on trade and "cross-border" earnings.  The ability to move money and income and so on overseas is moving fast and getting ever easier for the ordinary person - you no longer need to be super-rich to go offshore.  We need to act fast to counteract its effects on future tax revenues.

It's a great rarity for me to be heard praising any member of the dysfunctional "Wal-Mart family" but Cod taken off the shelves at Asda to preserve stocks is surely worth some. Well done ASDA.

Don't get me wrong, I love cod. But I love it too much to see the ugly great brutes (and especially the uglier little tyke young'uns now being taken) eradicated by over-fishing.