Very Funny but Very Un-PC British Video on Welfare and Immigration

I’ve shared this bit of political incorrect terrorism humor from England, as well as this somewhat un-PC bit of tax humor.

But perhaps motivated by the scandal of giving welfare to terrorists, this new video is the most amusing thing I’ve seen from across the ocean.

I almost didn’t post this because it singles out immigrants from the developing world, but since I’ve shared horror stories from home-grown moochers in the U.K., as well as examples of scroungers from Europe who are robbing British taxpayers, I think I’ve covered all the bases.

But in the spirit of inclusiveness, here are other satirical videos worth sharing.

My all-time favorite video satire is from Iowahawk, featuring the Pelosimobile.

And I’ve always thought this left-wing attack against libertarianism is very funny.

And this Tim Hawkins video on the government Candyman is great, as is another version of the song.

Speaking of Tim Hawkins, his home-schooling video is superb.

This spoof of the Chevy Volt also is extremely well done.

Last but not least, here are two brutal Obama teleprompter videos.

Read Full Post »

UFOs, Faked Moon Landings, and Fiscal Policy

I was very pleased to report the other day that the people of France overwhelmingly favor spending cuts, even when they were asked a biased question that presupposed that Keynesian-style spending increases would “stimulate” the economy.

Now I have some polling data about British voters, though I confess I’m not sure whether to be pleased or worried.

You’ll see below two slides that were presented earlier today at the Bucharest stop on the Free Market Road Show. They’re not from my presentation, but rather from the speech by Matthew Sinclair of the UK-based Taxpayers Alliance.

As you can see from this first slide, the good news is that only 12 percent of British people think government taxes and spends too little.

On the other hand, it’s a bit worrisome that nearly 1-in-5 Brits believe in UFOs.

What a bunch of idiots.

Then again, nearly 1-in-3 Americans believe that higher taxes would be used for deficit reduction instead of more spending, and that’s an even more preposterous conclusion.

So I shouldn’t make fun of our English cousins.

Here’s some more good-news/bad-news polling data.

The good news is that only 12 percent of Brits think that the government can pay promised benefits (and I bet that number would fall even lower if they saw this shocking data on the U.K.’s long-run fiscal outlook).

The bad news is that 13 percent of Brits think the moon landings were faked.

But since 17 percent of Americans actually admit to having positive feelings about the federal government, I’m reluctant to throw stones since my country is a glass house.

Let me close on a positive note. I’ve expressed considerable pessimism about the future of the United Kingdom, and I think the current leadership of the supposed Conservative Party is terrible.

But maybe there’s reason to hope. It wasn’t that long ago that I shared a very encouraging story from England about civil disobedience against a revenue-hungry government.

And now we know from Matthew’s data that the British people have appropriately jaundiced views of their government.

So perhaps if they ever find another Margaret Thatcher, there’s a 5-percent chance that they can pull themselves back from the fiscal abyss.

Read Full Post »

The United Kingdom Boldly Rejoins the Government Incompetence and Stupidity Contest

I periodically compare the actions of brainless politicians and bureaucrats in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

One of the most bizarre examples I cited was from England. It showed how a local government decided to install the most pointless sign in the history of the world.

Our British friends are famous for their sense of humor (as illustrated by this glossary of financial terms and this guide to terror alerts in selected nations), so perhaps the sign was meant to be a joke.

Nonetheless, taxpayers picked up the tab.

And now we have another example of incomprehensible government stupidity. Taxpayers in one community just paid to have road markings painted in an alleyway.

I’m not kidding. Check out the photo and this excerpt from a BBC report.

Lines have been painted on both sides of the passageway, off Newhall Street in Swindon, leaving a gap of just 13in (33cm). Nathalie Fisher, a local resident, said it was a “bit of a mystery” as “you couldn’t even fit a motorbike down it.” …The council said local residents had asked the authority to “deal with illegal parking in alleyways”.

Gee, I hope the guy in the picture is being careful. He may get a traffic ticket since his left foot is almost on the double yellow line.

To be sure, I’m not sure this story means that U.K. government official are worse than U.S. government officials. Just look at some of these examples of PC-run-amok and you’ll have plenty of evidence of foolishness on this side of the Atlantic.

The moral of the story is that bureaucrats and politicians want to run our lives, but they’re some of the world’s least competent people.

P.S. While it’s amusing to highlight examples of government stupidity, let’s not forget there are real-life victims of bad government policy in the United Kingdom, particularly if you look at the healthcare system and welfare system.

Read Full Post »

A Tribute to Margaret Thatcher

The woman who saved the United Kingdom has died.

A Great Woman

I got to meet Margaret Thatcher a couple of times and felt lucky each time that I was in the presence of someone who put her nation’s interests first and was not guided by political expediency.

Such a rare trait for someone in public life.

The best tribute I can offer is to share some of her remarks that capture both her strong principles and her effective communication skills.

Here’s a clip from her famous speech stating that there’s “no such thing as public money.”

Can you imagine today’s spineless Tory politicians making such statements. Hardly, they’re too busy criticizing taxpayers for not voluntarily paying extra tax!

And here’s her powerful performance in the House of Commons exposing the left for being willing to impoverish the poor if it meant those with higher incomes suffered even more.

I’ve said the same thing in some of my interviews, but she obviously said it much more effectively.

P.S. If you weren’t sufficiently inspired by Thatcher’s words, here’s Reagan’s tribute to Coolidge and also a memorable passage from his inaugural address.

P.P.S. Let’s not forget that Thatcher was an indispensable ally with Reagan in the fight against the barbarity of communism.

Read Full Post »

This Wins the “Booby Prize” for Great Moments in Government-Run Healthcare

I’ve posted some horrifying examples about what happens when you put politicians and bureaucrats in charge of health care.

The story that makes every guy wince comes from Sweden, where a man wound up having his penis amputated because of government incompetence.

And I’ve shared numerous examples of substandard care from the United Kingdom, in part because I can’t resist mocking Paul Krugman.

Speaking of the U.K., here’s a story that may lure some young men into supporting government-run healthcare.

Did taxpayers get good value for their money?

…22-year-old Josie Cunningham recently was approved for breast enhancement surgery that cost more than $7,000, and paid for entirely by taxpayers, reports Opposing Views. Why? Because she told her General Practitioner that being flat-chested was causing her emotional distress. “My GP referred me for the operation because I wasn’t just flat-chested — I didn’t have any boobs whatsoever,” Cunningham said. “I could never go on holiday as I lived in terror of ever being seen in a bikini and could never set foot outside without a padded bra.” Her doctor’s prescription to counter the “emotional distress” was to enhance her breast size from a 32A to 36DD.

I’ve never heard of the website that contains this story, and I’ve never heard of Opposing Views, where it supposedly originated, so I confess to being a bit skeptical of this story.

Then again, who would have guessed that the government in the United Kingdom would provide taxpayer-financed sex trips to Amsterdam? Or that the bureaucrats at the European Commission would be able to get penile implants at public expense?

Closer to home, let’s not forget that Obamacare allows taxpayer-subsidized viagra for sex offenders! And Medicare pays for penis pumps, which creates frightening visual images.

So even if this specific story isn’t true, I have no doubt that the British government has squandered money in similar ways.

P.S. Speaking of breast augmentation, one of the few well-functioning parts of the American healthcare system is cosmetic surgery. Why? Because consumers largely pay out of pocket and, as a result, costs are restrained.

Read Full Post »

Another Horrifying and Depressing Look at the Human Cost of the Welfare State

When we think of Julia, the mythical moocher created by the Obama campaign, our first instinct is probably to grab our wallets and purses. After all, she symbolizes the entitlement mindset, as illustrated by this Ramirez cartoon.

But let’s think of this from Julia’s perspective and speculate about what it will mean for her life. Shouldn’t we worry whether a life on the dole will destroy her spirit?

Or perhaps that question is too abstract, so let’s make it more personal. Would we ever want any of our children and grandchildren to become wards of the state, living empty and hollow lives of dependency and never achieving anything?

The answer is no, of course, because we want our loved ones to have good and happy lives.

So why, then, would anybody want to impose that fate on a stranger? And this isn’t an abstract question. That’s what the welfare state does, every day, over and over again, subsidizing poverty and sloth.

And not just in the United States. I shared a truly sad video a couple of years ago showing how the British welfare state created multi-generational poverty and misery.

Now we have another video, this one from the folks at The Commentator, showing a news report from London that should anger all taxpayers. But it also should upset all people who care about rescuing people from government-induced emptiness.

I’m almost at a loss for words. At the risk of making sweeping judgments based on a short news clip, it appears that this poor woman’s life has been destroyed by government dependency.

And if you’re wondering how someone could ever allow themselves to be caught in the quicksand of the welfare state, don’t forget the story of Natalija, as well the expose about Danny and Gina. They are all healthy young people who made rational economic decisions to mooch since they could enjoy more comfortable lives.

The same thing happens in America. This story from Pennsylvania also shows that it can be far more lucrative to rely on handouts than to climb the economic ladder.

Just in case you think that’s an isolated example, look at this remarkable chart revealing how life on the dole can be much more remunerative than a life of striving and work (you can see similar charts for the U.K. by clicking here).

Let’s return to the woman in the video. I confess that I’m a bit conflicted. Should I feel sorry for Ms. MacDonald or should I look down on her?

The government has wrecked her life with handouts, yet there are probably people just like her who made the choice to avoid dependency and climb out of poverty. If you believe in free will, then she deserves some scorn.

That being said, I’m much more willing to heap abuse on Natalija, Gina, and Danny. They’re young and they should know better. Then again, in 30 years, how will they be different from the woman in the video?

These questions don’t have any good answers, so let’s close with a few examples of how the welfare state subsidizes some truly odd behavior.

• In the battle of the bums, we’ve had the spectacle of “Diaper Man” vs “Footless Hans.”
• In the contest for most despicable moocher, we have the “Florida Pedophiles” vs the “Gimme Babymaker.”
• In the perverse challenge match to subsidize one’s enemies, there’s the “Australian Jihadist” vs the “French terror suspect.”

And remember, you’re paying for all this!

Read Full Post »

If the NoToMob Gang Is any Indication, there’s Still Hope for England

The spirit of 1776 is still alive in America. We see it in the Tea Party, which has forced real changes in Washington.

We also see it in little ways, such as the heroic actions of Jay Beeber, who single-handedly killed dangerous red light cameras in Los Angeles.

But I don’t want to be jingoistic. We also find pockets of rebellion against greedy and thuggish government elsewhere in the world.

So even though I’ve made fun of the English for statism and political correctness, I want to share some encouraging excerpts from a story in the UK-based Telegraph.

Meet the NoTo Mob, a group dedicated to fighting what they see as unfair parking tickets and charges. During the week they’re normal blokes (and the odd woman). …But on Saturdays they come together for a common cause. They follow council CCTV cars, or “spy cars”, then stand nearby holding signs to warn drivers about the presence of a CCTV vehicle and potential fine if they break the rules.Motorists pull over, wave or give the thumbs up in gratitude. Complete strangers have been known to hug them in support.

Freedom Fighters!

Having been victimized by revenue cameras (which inevitably are set up where speed limits are absurdly low), I would gladly hug one of these blokes if they operated in the United States.

These ordinary men and women fully recognize that these cameras are designed to generate more revenue for government, not to promote safety.

The group targets “honey pots” – high-ticket areas with confusing road markings or unclear signs where the CCTV cars are most likely to operate. …The NoTo Mob…feels motorists are being used as cash cows. “I was near a bus lane and asked drivers who pulled over, ‘Did you see that sign?’ They replied, ‘What sign?’ They didn’t realise. They’d have got a fine if they’d driven down it. “It’s exploiting the average motorist, it’s disproportionate and it’s plain wrong. It’s highway robbery.”

Since I’m praising our English cousins, I suppose it’s also appropriate to give credit to the English government for not outlawing the NoToMob.

In the United States, I’m embarrassed to admit, you can get in trouble for warning other motorists about speed traps.

Read Full Post »

George Orwell Surely Would Be Amused by the Statolatry in the United Kingdom

I just finished up a trip to London.

In previous posts, I’ve expressed pessimism about the future of the United Kingdom, largely because all political parties have a statist mentality.

I criticized Gordon Brown, the former Labor Party Prime Minister, for being a compulsive redistributionist, big spender, and taxaholic.

But nothing’s really changed under Tory leadership. David Cameron is a vacuous statist, undermining the Conservative Party in the same way that George W. Bush eroded the brand name capital of the Republican Party.

This sign was on a train I rode today. It is sponsored by the UK version of the IRS,  and it pretty much symbolizes how the United Kingdom has turned into a predatory state.

The United Kingdom is in terrible fiscal shape. Government spending has reached record levels, and now consumes a larger share of economic output than the public sectors in failed welfare states such as Spain.

And what are taxpayers getting for their money, other than Orwellian signs?

Not much. They get an increasingly dysfunctional society filled with scroungers such as Natalija, Gina and Danny.

They also get a healthcare system that seemingly prides itself on maltreatment, and a tax system that is more designed to be punitive rather than to generate revenue.

Though the UK government does provide taxpayer-financed sex tours to Amsterdam, so at least a few people are getting screwed as a result of government rather than by the government.

But let’s close by contemplating the mindset of a government that would post such a sign. We already know that Prime Minister Cameron and some of his senior deputies think it’s wrong to engage in legal tax avoidance.

And this is a government that is brainwashing kids into becoming servile snitches, and is even considering a system that would have employers send paychecks to the state and then the government would decide how much to send to taxpayers.

Such a shame since so much of what is good in the Western World came from England.

P.S. This is also a country where they send innocent people to jail for shooting burglars.

Read Full Post »

Thanks to the Welfare Hammock, Here’s another Horror Story about Deadbeats Sponging Off British Taxpayers

I posted a horrifying story last week about a Lithuanian immigrant who was mooching off British taxpayers.

She basically had a very comfortable life thanks to beleaguered taxpayers, and I compared her to a Greek woman who thought the state owed her everything.

But there’s no ethnic requirement to be a bum. I’ve also shared stories about American moochers and Austrian moochers.

I’ve even shared stories about terrorists getting welfare handouts in Australia and France!

So I hope my British friends won’t be upset that I’m now going to highlight a couple of English deadbeats.

Here are some odious details from the UK-based Sun.

Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allan, 18, spend each day watching their 47in flatscreen TV and smoking 40 cigarettes between them in their comfy two-bedroom flat. It is all funded by the taxpayer, yet the couple say they deserve sympathy because they are “trapped”.

Does this mean they are imprisoned? Is someone holding them at gunpoint?

Hardly. It simply means that these two scroungers get such lavish handouts that their living standards would fall if they actually lived decent and honorable lives and went to work.

The couple, who have a four-month-old daughter Tullulah-Rose, say they can’t go out to work as they could not survive on less than their £1,473-a-month benefits. The pair left school with no qualifications, and say there is no point looking for jobs because they will never be able to earn as much as they get in handouts. Gina admits: “We could easily get a job but why would we want to work — we would be worse off.” Danny’s father, 46, even offered him a job with his bowling alley servicing company — but could not pay him enough.

So how much are these moochers stealing from taxpayers? Quite a lot, particularly if you keep in mind that £1 is equal to $1.57.

The couple, who live in Hants, receive £340 a week, made up of £150 housing benefit, £60 child tax credit, £20 child benefit and £110 in Job Seeker’s Allowance. They pay just £25 towards their spacious £625-a-month home. Their lounge is dominated by the huge TV and a leather sofa. …They spend the same on tobacco as they do on their daughter’s milk and nappies.

Gee, isn’t that nice. Taxpayers are even financing their cigarettes.

I blame Danny and Gina for being a couple of bums, but I also blame British politicians for creating a lavish welfare state that enables this awful behavior.

It’s not that people are trapped in poverty, but they definitely are lured into dependency.

By the way, the same problem exists in the United States. Indeed, this chart shows that the plethora of freebies from taxpayers means a household can be better off with $29,000 of income rather than $69,000 of income.

No wonder the poverty rate stopped falling once the so-called War on Poverty began.

For more information, here’s a short debate I had about the topic, and here’s a video explaining how the welfare state is bad for both poor people and taxpayers.

Read Full Post »

Olga from Greece Has a Lithuanian Soulmate Mooching in the United Kingdom

The welfare state creates some amazingly pathetic and disgusting individuals.

• In the battle of the bums, we’ve had the spectacle of “Diaper Man” vs “Footless Hans.”
• In the contest for most despicable moocher, we have the “Florida Pedophiles” vs the “Gimme Babymaker.”
• And the fight for most pathetic victim of dependency features the “Connecticut Kid” vs the “English Loafer.”

But I’ve never found a match for Olga, a Greek woman who thinks it is government’s job to take care of her from cradle to grave.

At least not until now. I’m excited to announce that Olga has a soulmate named Natalija. She’s from Lithuania, but she now lives in England, and she doubtlessly will inspire Olga on how to live off the state.

Here’s some of what The Sun reported about this very successful moocher.

Natalija Belova, 33, told The Sun how she spurns full-time work — yet can afford foreign holidays and buys designer clothes. The Lithuanian said: “British benefits give me and my daughter a good life.” She has milked soft-touch Britain for £50,000 in benefits and yesterday said: “I simply take what is given to me.”

And what is given to her? Quite a lot.

The graduate, who became a single mum after she arrived here, rakes in more than £1,000 a month in handouts — £14,508 a year — to fund her love of designer clothes, jaunts to the Spanish sun and nightclubbing. She bragged: “I have a lovely, fully-furnished flat and money to live properly on. …Her handouts total £279 a week — with housing benefit contributing £183, child tax credit adding £56, child benefit £20 and her council tax being paid to the tune of £20.

You might expect Natalija to be grateful, but you’d be wrong.

But she does have one criticism. Natalija moaned: “I think they should help pay for private nannies, rather than just free nursery.” …Natalija vowed: “I am not going to work like a dog on minimum wage.” She added: “I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m not doing anything wrong. “I know people won’t like to read this, but what would they do? “Would they not take the money that was being handed to them to stay with their child all day?”

I’ve written about the benefits of tax competition between nations. Well, this story shows the perverse impact of welfare competition between countries.

Speaking at her two-bedroom pad that came fully furnished in Watford, Herts, courtesy of the taxpayer, grateful Natalija said: “In Lithuania the benefits system does not pay enough. “I have a friend over there who is a single mother. “She only gets £20 a month in child benefit, plus some discounted help with gas and electricity — and some housing help. “It’s not enough to keep a normal level of life, like here. “If I was on benefits there, I couldn’t afford nice clothes or the holidays abroad.” She went on: “I am sure people will say I should return to Lithuania. But that won’t be happening. Being in Britain offers me far better benefits.”

We also have a remarkable example of labor supply economics. This is the real-world example of these charts showing how the British welfare state destroys incentives.

She is careful to work fewer than 16 hours a week so that the benefits keep rolling in. But her wages boost her income to more than £400 a week. On top of that she gets free childcare, fruit and milk vouchers — and even a clothes allowance for “job interviews”. Natalija said: “It is a strange system in this country. Basically, the fewer hours I work, the more I can earn on benefits. But that’s the way it is and it is not my fault.” …She insisted she would be prepared to get a full-time job — but only if the salary tops £25,000. …”Some people may think I am picky. But I am a realist. I need a full-time job that pays at least £25,000 — that is just enough to cover all my living costs that benefits currently pay for. “Otherwise working full time is not worth my while. “If I worked full time, I’d have to pay for childcare costs as well as rent and all my bills. “The benefits system in this country means that I do not have to do this.”

By the way, here’s a chart showing the same destructive policies in the United States.

Let’s look at one last excerpt about Natalija. British taxpayers can take comfort in the fact that this human tick is living a nice life.

In September she escaped the dreary British summer by jetting off with her daughter for a sun-kissed week in Spain. Last month she enjoyed a second holiday — back in her Lithuanian homeland. Natalija, who has three credit cards and loves to go on sprees at designer clothes stores, crowed: “After our holiday to Malaga, we went to Lithuania over Christmas and spent £1,000.” She continued: “I love to buy clothes on my credit cards and often have a blow-out at stores like Roberto Cavalli and the Armani Exchange. …”I also enjoy going to nightclubs and parties with my friends. It’s important to go out and get dressed up. It’s good for my self-esteem.”

Her self esteem has been boosted? Oh, joy!

And I can just imagine how much self esteem her daughter will have after growing up with a moocher for a mother.

John Hinderaker of Powerline was first on this horrific story and his analysis is very much worth reading as well. But since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I figured I would share the story and add some of my thoughts.

By the way, if you want more than just horrifying anecdotes, click here for a video that looks at the dismal impact of the American welfare state and click here to see how Obama has exacerbated the negative effects of such policies in America.

Read Full Post »

Is Anybody Surprised that Krugman Was Wrong about U.K. Fiscal Policy?

Just like in the United States, politicians in the United Kingdom use the deceptive practice of “baseline budgeting” as part of fiscal policy.

This means the politicians can increase spending, but simultaneously claim they are cutting spending because the budget could have expanded at an even faster pace.

Sort of like saying your diet is successful because you’re only gaining two pounds a week rather than five pounds.

Deliberately gullible?

Anyhow, some people get deluded by this chicanery. Paul Krugman, for instance, complained in 2011 that “the government of Prime Minister David Cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government’s pullback.”

This was nonsense. There have not been any genuine budget cuts in the United Kingdom. Heck, just compare what’s happening today in the United Kingdom and what happened in Canada in the 1990s to see the difference between gimmickry and real fiscal restraint.

Now we have some new numbers that confirm that the UK economy is suffering because of a heavy burden of government spending.

Here’s some of what Allister Heath, the Editor of City A.M., wrote for the UK-based Telegraph.

The public finances are deteriorating again, making a mockery of the Coalition’s core purpose. Osborne’s fatal problem is that he is proving unable to deliver any meaningful reduction in the size of the state. The extent of his failure will come as a shock to many. Remarkably, public spending actually went up last year as a share of our national income… public spending hit 49pc of UK GDP last year, a shocking increase on the 48.6pc of GDP spent by the state in 2011. Even with a stagnant economy, this implies that Osborne has lost control of public spending.

Gee, doesn’t sound like much budget cutting to me.

Heck, the burden of government spending is worse than it is in Germany (45 percent of GDP). Or even Spain (44 percent) or Portugal (47.4 percent).

Perhaps the most shocking number is the one showing that the UK has radically veered in the wrong direction this century.

Public spending as a share of GDP hit a trough of just 36.6pc in 2000.

Allister hits the nail on the head.

…after all the rows about “slashing spending to the bone”, and following almost three years of coalition government, the state is still spending around half of national income. …it beggars belief that a government that remains so large, so bloated cannot provide much better quality services, and that we have a public debate in this country that exaggerates beyond all recognition the extent of the state’s downsizing.

But there has been some “austerity,” but only for taxpayers.

…real austerity is only biting on the tax side: total UK government revenues increased from 40.3pc of GDP in 2011 to 42.4pc in 2012, the OECD estimates. It’s getting increasingly hard for the Chancellor to extract revenues, with taxes on income and wealth falling to £194.3bn over 2012 as a whole, 2.7pc lower than in 2011, when they stood at £199.7bn, according to separate figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

That last sentence, by the way, shows the Laffer Curve in action.  The supposedly Conservative government of Cameron and Osborne has raised the tax burden, yet revenues aren’t materializing.

Allister also echoes the argument of Veronique de Rugy about choosing the right kind of austerity and reining in the public sector.

Not all kinds of austerity were created equal: cutting current expenditure, such as benefits, is good for growth; but hiking taxes is bad for it… There is also lots of evidence that elevated levels of public spending and large government debts are bad for GDP; no wonder, therefore, that growth is failing to materialise.

So what’s the bottom line? Well, as Allister stated, the real problem is that government is too big and spending too much.

And until Cameron and Osborne are willing to tackle that problem, don’t expect much positive from the United Kingdom.

Read Full Post »

Suspending a Little Boy for Playing Toy Gun with His Hand? I’m Embarrassed for my Country

I’ve shared several horror stories of government incompetence and bureaucratic nonsense as part of my series comparing stupid policies in the United States and United Kingdom.

This has been a neck-and-neck battle, with the United Kingdom recently throwing down the gauntlet with a decision to take kids away from their foster family because the mom and dad didn’t believe in unlimited immigration.

The United States responded by paying to have a bunch of bureaucrats attend a conference so they could learn how to respond to a zombie attack.

I’m not sure which of those decisions wins the prize for government stupidity, but today’s story suggests that it’s time to start chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A.”

After all, surely the United Kingdom can’t surpass the moronic decision by Maryland school bureaucrats to suspend a little boy for pretending his hand was a gun and “shooting” another child.

Here’s all you need to know, as reported by the Washington Examiner, about this laughable – yet nauseating – example of nanny-state political correctness.

I guess he should play with dolls instead

A Montgomery County elementary school student was suspended for a pretend gunshot… The 6-year-old, who attends Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Silver Spring, made a gun with his hands, pointed it at another student and said “pow,” according to Robin Ficker, the boy’s attorney. He was given a one-day suspension, with a conference on the matter planned for Jan. 2, the day students return to school from winter break.

This is not an isolated incident. There are other examples of embarrassing stupidity in America.

• A Rhode Island boy offended the PC nanny-staters by bringing toy soldiers to school.
• A student in San Diego got in trouble for making a motion detector for a science project, simply because someone decided it resembled a bomb.
• A Florida student was expelled for having a toy gun on school property.

Seems like the United States wins this contest for government stupidity.

But, wait, maybe I was blinded by patriotism. Perhaps I wanted America to win and that caused me to overlook equally inane decisions in the United Kingdom.

Indeed, that was the case. Showing that stupidity can reign supreme on both sides of the Atlantic, it turns out that two boys in England were reprimanded for make gun shapes were their hands.

But that’s not all. There have been other idiotic episodes of anti-gun lunacy in the United Kingdom.

• There was a serious proposal to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
• A man got arrested for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
• A prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.
• A bookstore putting shooting magazines in the porn section.

And let’s not forget the woman who got in trouble with the police for trying to scare away some thugs by brandishing a knife in her own home.

So I guess that means we still have a tie. In the contest for government stupidity, the United States and the United Kingdom are both winners.

And the citizens of both nations are losers, but let’s not allow that pesky little fact take away from this exciting contest.

P.S. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Montgomery County is a suburb of Washington, DC. And, as you can see from this map, it is filled with overpaid bureaucrats and lobbyists. Since these are the people imposing so much bad policy on the rest of the nation, at least they’re being consistent and subjecting themselves to foolishness as well.

Read Full Post »

The Bad Results and Unjust Consequences of the United Kingdom’s Gun Ban

I wrote yesterday about a silly proposal in the United Kingdom to ban long kitchen knives.

Some people objected because the story was from last decade, but that misses the point. Proponents of the Second Amendment are vigilant against encroachments in part because we’re worried about the slippery slope.

I predicted in yesterday’s piece that at some point the Brits would resort to banning long knives. I hope I’m wrong, but my prediction is based on what the U.K. government has done with gun control.

Ever since 1920, the government has made it more and more difficult for law-abiding people to possess weapons. And in a perverse example of Mitchell’s Law, the failure of one policy is then used to justify the next policy.

That’s how proposals that sound radical and foolish sometimes get implemented many years later.

We don’t know if this will lead to a knife ban at some point, but we can look at evidence showing that gun control in the U.K. was a precursor for a gun ban. And we also know such policies don’t reduce crime.

Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm of George Mason University has a column in the Wall Street Journal, looking at the impact of anti-gun policies in the United Kingdom.

…the Firearms Act of 1998…instituted a nearly complete ban on handguns. Owners of pistols were required to turn them in. The penalty for illegal possession of a pistol is up to 10 years in prison. The results have not been what proponents of the act wanted. Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time.

By the way, it’s not just gun crime that has gone up. The U.K. has become a much more dangerous and violent society – almost surely in part because the thugs don’t have to worry about armed resistance.

Heck, if you are one of the few legal gun owners in the nation and you shoot a burglar, you get arrested instead of a pat on the back.

The U.K.’s draconian restrictions on individual liberty lead to some Orwellian consequences. Professor Malcolm offers up two examples.

Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens who have come into the possession of a firearm, even accidentally, have been harshly treated. In 2009 a former soldier, Paul Clarke, found a bag in his garden containing a shotgun. He brought it to the police station and was immediately handcuffed and charged with possession of the gun. At his trial the judge noted: “In law there is no dispute that Mr. Clarke has no defence to this charge. The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.” Mr. Clarke was sentenced to five years in prison. A public outcry eventually won his release. In November of this year, Danny Nightingale, member of a British special forces unit in Iraq and Afghanistan, was sentenced to 18 months in military prison for possession of a pistol and ammunition. Sgt. Nightingale was given the Glock pistol as a gift by Iraqi forces he had been training. It was packed up with his possessions and returned to him by colleagues in Iraq after he left the country to organize a funeral for two close friends killed in action. Mr. Nightingale pleaded guilty to avoid a five-year sentence and was in prison until an appeal and public outcry freed him on Nov. 29.

Amazing…and nauseating. I already had written about the unjust treatment of Mr. Clarke, but Mr. Nightingale’s legal nightmare is just as absurd.

Gun control laws are utterly perverse. They don’t work, just like prohibition didn’t work in the 1920s, and just like today’s Drug War is an unmitigated failure.

Gun bans turn law-abiding people into criminals, while simultaneously making life easier for the low-life scum of society.

And as the welfare state begins to fall apart and civil unrest becomes more common, the deadly impact of these bad policies will become even more apparent.

Read Full Post »

When Gun Control Satire Becomes British Reality

Back in my less sophisticated days (shocking as it may seem, I wasn’t always the mature, statesmanlike figure I am today), I sometimes resorted to silly arguments when debating gun control, such as, “does this mean you want to ban knives since they also can be used to kill people?”

Smarter opponents would scoff and accuse me of knocking down straw men, assuming a non-existent slippery slope, or engaging in reductio ad absurdum.

I wasn’t even sure what the last one meant, but I secretly felt chagrined because I also thought the argument was nonsense. But it’s not like we had the Internet back in those days so I could quickly peruse the writings of John Lott or David Kopel.

Well, I no longer need to feel shame. It turns out that my straw man came to life and he’s sliding down a slope into a big pool of whatever that reductio thing is.

I kid you not. There’s a supposedly civilized nation that is seriously talking about banning long kitchen knives.

I’ll give you a couple of hints to help you figure out what country is considering this bizarre policy.

• It’s the country that wanted to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
• It’s the country that arrested a man for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
• It’s the country that imposed a prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.

Yes, I’m talking about our friends in the United Kingdom.

They make some decent movies and they have cute accents, but they seem totally clueless about how to fight crime and the notion of individual rights appears to be a totally alien concept.

So the nation that once ruled half the world actually has contemplated whether to ban certain kitchen knives. Here are some details from a 2005 BBC report.

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing. …The research is published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all. …The researchers say legislation to ban the sale of long pointed knives would be a key step in the fight against violent crime. …Home Office spokesperson said there were already extensive restrictions in place to control the sale and possession of knives. “The law already prohibits the possession of offensive weapons in a public place, and the possession of knives in public without good reason or lawful authority, with the exception of a folding pocket knife with a blade not exceeding three inches. … A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: “ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes.”

Given my low opinion of and low expectations for Britain’s political class, I’m impressed that pocket knives are still legal. It’s probably just a matter of time before than changes. After that, the next step will be fingernail clippers.

And I’m glad that the ACPO person warned that there might be problems enforcing such a silly law.

But I fully expect to see that foolish proposal get enacted at some point. After all, this is the country where a women who was being threatened by thugs got in trouble with the police for brandishing a knife in her own home.

Read Full Post »

How the Welfare State Traps the Poor in Dependency, the British Version

Back in 2011, I linked to a simple chart that illustrated how handouts and subsidies create very high implicit marginal tax rates for low-income people and explained how “generosity” from the government leads to a tar-paper effect that limits upward mobility.

Earlier this year, I shared an amazing chart that specifically measured how the welfare state imposes these high implicit tax rates. Unbelievably, some people would be better off earning $29,000 rather than $69,000.

Simply stated, the multitude of redistribution programs are worth a lot of money, but you begin to lose those goodies if you begin to live a productive and independent life.

And since we know that rich people respond to high tax rates by declaring less income to the government, we shouldn’t be surprised that poor people also respond to incentives.

We also shouldn’t be surprised to learn that other nations have these same perverse policies. Here are some excerpts from a powerful piece for the UK-based Spectator.

…today’s Sunday Times magazine has a long piece asking whether there is a “fundamental difference in our attitudes to work”. It’s still one of the most important questions in Britain today: what’s the use of economic growth if it doesn’t shorten British dole queues? And should we blame these industrious immigrants; aren’t the Brits just lazy? …The quality of the British debate is so poor that we almost never look at this from the point of view of the low-wage worker. Every budget, the IFS will dutifully work out if it has been “fair” – ie, gives the most to the poorest. The LibDems will judge a budget by this metric. That’s a nice, easy, simple graph. But what about destroying the work incentive? Each budget and each change to tax should be judged on how many people are then ensnared in the welfare trap. I adapted the below (nasty, complex) graphs from an internal government presentation, which still make the case powerfully. The bottom axis is money earned from employer and the side axis is income retained. The graphs are complex but worth studying, if only to get a feel for the horrific system confronting millions of the lowest-paid in Britain today.

Here are the two charts. the author is correct. They are quite complex. But they show that there’s no much incentive to work harder, whether you’re a young person or a single parent.

After showing these amazing charts, the author makes some very powerful additional observations.

…if I was in a position of a British single mother I have not the slightest doubt that I would choose welfare. Why break your back on the minimum wage for longer than you have to, if it doesn’t pay? Some people do have the resolve to do it. I know I wouldn’t. …So let’s not talk about “lazy” Brits. The problem is a cruel and purblind welfare system which still, to this day, strengthens the welfare trap with budgets passed without the slightest regard for its effect on the work incentives on the poorest. …Meanwhile, the cash-strapped British government is still creating still the most expensive poverty in the world.

The final sentence in the excerpt really sums it up, noting that the government is “creating the most expensive poverty in the world.” Sort of like a turbo-charged version of Mitchell’s Law. The politicians create a few redistribution programs. Poverty begins to get worse. So then they add a few more handouts to address the problems caused by the first set of programs. Lather, rinse, repeat.

In other words, this poster applies in all nations.

P.S. If you want some real-world examples of the horrible impact of the British welfare state, you can see how the welfare state destroys lives, creates perverse incentives, and turns people into despicable moochers.

P.P.S. We have the same problems in America, and even leftists are beginning to admit this is bad for poor people. Heck, just look at this chart showing that the poverty rate was falling until the War on Poverty began.

Read Full Post »

Stories Like this Lead Me to Think there’s No Hope for the United Kingdom

I don’t like bloated government. It undermines economic performance by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy and often leads to destructive tax policy.

But when trying to build support for good fiscal policy, it often helps to cite specific examples of wasteful and foolish government. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been comparing examples of government stupidity and political correctness in the United States and the United Kingdom.

After all, how many people would want to pay more taxes after reviewing these bizarre episodes of government in action?

From the United Kingdom

• A job-placement center got in trouble for discriminating against incompetent people by seeking “reliable” and “hard-working” candidates.
• A women who was being threatened by thugs got in trouble with the police for brandishing a knife in her own home.
• There was a serious proposal to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
• A man got arrested for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
• The government wanted to require “competency tests” for pet owners.
• An ID requirement to buy teaspoons.
• The most useless sign in the history of the world.
• A proposal to ban skinny models.
• A prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.
• Denying children a home because the foster family didn’t believe in unlimited immigration.

From the United States

• A Rhode Island boy offended the PC nanny-staters by bringing toy soldiers to school.
• A student in San Diego got in trouble for making a motion detector for a science project, simply because someone decided it resembled a bomb.
• The EEOC hindering trucking companies from weeding out drunk drivers.
• A Florida student was expelled for having a toy gun on school property.
• And how can we omit the politicians in San Francisco, who decided that banning happy meal toys was an appropriate use of government coercion.
• We also have regulations in Maryland governing the application of sunscreen at summer camps.
• A local politician in Maryland wanting a licensing process to be a bum.
• And proposals in Seattle to require life vests on swimmers who are more than five feet from shore.

I’ve even shared some instances of moronic behavior from the private sector, and I have another story that may belong in that category.

In this instance, we’re talking about the critical need to protect people from pudding. I’m not joking. Here are some of the details of a very odd report in the Daily Mail.

If you’re lucky enough to look about 18, there’s a good chance you’ll be asked to provide ID at the supermarket to buy alcohol, knives or glue. Now an addition has been made to that list of potentially hazardous items – chocolate pudding. Robert Nemeti was amazed when he was asked for ID while buying a microwaveable pudding at Tesco. Mr Nemeti, 24, was going through the self-service checkout when an on-screen warning announced that his purchase had to be ‘approved’. …‘The woman who was monitoring the self-service checkouts came over and asked me for identification showing I was 18. I asked her why and was stunned when she told me: “It gets hot when you cook it – and you may burn yourself”. Surely the same can be said of many of the products they sell in any supermarket? Health and safety has gone crazy if you now have to prove you can be trusted with a chocolate pudding.’ He added: ‘I explained that I didn’t have any ID. Thankfully she agreed that I looked over 18 and she scanned her staff pass to approve the sale.’ Mr Nemeti managed to cook and eat the dessert that evening without injury.

Gee, I’m glad that Mr. Nemeti managed to eat the pudding without causing a fire or suffering burns.

There’s not much I can add to this story. Is this an example of crazy government over-protectiveness, sort of nanny state run amok? Perhaps somewhat similar to Nurse Bloomberg’s attempt to ban large sodas? I don’t know. There aren’t enough details.

Or maybe it’s the fault of the private sector, with some corporate bureaucrat justifying his job by coming up with idiotic rules? Though, to be fair, that’s less destructive than American corporate bureaucrats who have special skills when it comes to getting bailout money.

No warning label?!? Such reckless corporate irresponsibility!

Could it be because the English are learning about America’s lawsuit culture and businesses are having to defend themselves from preposterous legal claims by imposing equally preposterous rules? That would be the indirect fault of government.

But whatever the cause, it’s a sorry sign for civilization. I’ve previously explained that I’m very pessimistic about the United Kingdom’s fiscal outlook. Based on this story, I also should worry about the nation’s mental outlook.

But I’m not throwing stones blindly. I’m fully aware that the United States is a glass house, whether the metric is reckless fiscal policy or a dearth of common sense.

Read Full Post »

Will Obama Learn from England’s Laffer Curve Mistake?

Obama’s main goal in the fiscal cliff negotiations is to impose a class-warfare tax hike.

He presumably thinks this will give the government more money to spend, but recent evidence from the United Kingdom suggests that he won’t get nearly as much money as he thinks.

Why? Because there’s this thing called the Laffer Curve. It shows that it is naive to believe that there is a linear relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. To accurately predict what will happen to revenues when there is a change in tax policy, you also have to estimate what will happen to taxable income.

And when you’re trying to stick it to the “rich,” you need to understand that they have tremendous control over the timing, level, and composition of their income. So unlike the rest of us, they can respond very easily when the government goes after them.

The Wall Street Journal opines on what recently happened across the Atlantic.

A funny thing often happens on the way to soaking the rich: They don’t stick around for the bath. Take Britain, where Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs service reports that the number of taxpayers declaring £1 million a year in income fell by more than 60% in fiscal 2010-2011 from the year before. That was the year that millionaires became liable for the 50% income-tax rate that Gordon Brown’s government introduced in its final days in 2010, up from the previous 40% rate. Lo, the total number of millionaire tax filers plunged to 6,000 in 2010-2011, from 16,000 in 2009-2010. The new tax was meant to raise about £2.5 billion more revenue. So much for that. In 2009-2010 British millionaires contributed about £13.4 billion to the public coffers, or just under 9% of the total tax liability of all taxpayers that year. At the 50% rate, the shrunken pool yielded £6.5 billion, or about 4.4%.

In case you think this is just a special case, the United States conducted a similar experiment in the 1980s, except we lowered tax rates instead of raising them. And as you can see in this “lesson” post I wrote for the President, we got the same results as the United Kingdom, except in reverse. More rich people, more taxable income, and more tax revenue.

Here’s a chart showing what happened in the U.K. It shows tax revenue for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, followed by a projection for 2010-2011, and then the real-world numbers.

Now time for some important caveats. There are lots of things that determine taxable income for the rich, so we have no way of precisely knowing the extent to which the higher tax rate caused taxable income – and therefore tax revenue – to fall. The economy’s weak performance may have played a role, though the recession in the U.K. occurred in 2008 and 2009, so you would expect taxable income to climb for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

It’s also possible that some of the revenue loss was the result of income shifting rather than a genuine decline in the amount of economic activity.

But we do know that the same pattern keeps appearing in nation after nation, whether we’re looking at Italy, France, or Spain. Or states such as Illinois, Oregon, Florida, Maryland, and New York.

You mess with the Laffer Curve and it will get its revenge.

Read Full Post »

The Sadistic Brutality of England’s Government-Run Healthcare

I’m not easily grossed out or nauseated. Heck, I’m on email lists for a half-dozen softball teams and you can only imagine the strange/filthy/nasty things that guys send to each other.

But I read a story about the death panels in the United Kingdom that left me discombobulated. I can’t even begin to describe how I feel.

Here’s the intro of a disturbing report in the Daily Mail.

Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.

And here are some of the horrifying details. Read at your own risk.

One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone. Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a  baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’. The LCP – on which 130,000 elderly and terminally-ill adult patients die each year – is now the subject of an independent inquiry ordered by ministers. …Earlier this month, an un-named doctor wrote of the agony of watching the protracted deaths of babies. …‘I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby.’ …Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, has written to the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health to criticise the use of death pathways for children. She said: ‘The parents feel coerced, at a very traumatic time, into agreeing that this is correct for their child whom they are told by doctors has only has a few days to live. It is very difficult to predict death. I have seen a “reasonable” number of children recover after being taken off the pathway. …‘I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die. ‘I witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.’

My first reaction is to hope that this story is wildly wrong, filled with exaggerations and lies.

My second reaction (and this is why I got so agitated) is to imagine what it must be like for the parents. They get talked into letting their kids die, which must be agonizing, and then (assuming they stick around) they have to watch them slowly starve to death or die of thirst. Wouldn’t it be better to just give your kid a fatal injection? Setting aside the moral issue of deciding to let a kid die because he’s disabled or something like that, doesn’t simple decency mean that death should be painless rather than agonizing?

My final reaction is to wonder what Paul Krugman would say about this scandalous neglect and mistreatment. During the Obamacare debate, he told us we could ignore stories about what was happening across the ocean, writing that “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.” So I guess starving children don’t qualify as a scare story.

P.S. If you want more horror stories about government-run healthcare in the United Kingdom click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Read Full Post »

For Nutty English Bureaucrats, Ideological Bias and Political Correctness Are More Important than the Well-Being of Children

Earlier this month, as part of my ongoing series comparing bone-headed bureaucracy in both the United States and United Kingdom, I wrote a post about a moronic green-energy subsidy program in the U.K. that was so convoluted that nobody in the entire country signed up for it.

Only government could be so bloody incompetent that it can’t even do a good job of giving away subsidies and handouts.

Since I’m a big believer if fairness (properly defined), I normally take turns in this series, first featuring an example of government stupidity in the U.K., followed by an example of foolish bureaucracy in the U.S., and so on and so on.

But I have to break the pattern. Check out these excerpts from a story about English bureaucrats deciding that a foster family no longer could take of kids because they support the United Kingdom Independence Party, which doesn’t believe in unlimited immigration.

The husband and wife, who have been fostering for nearly seven years, said they were made to feel like criminals when a social worker told them that their views on immigration made them unsuitable carers. …Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, described the actions of Rotherham borough council as “a bloody outrage” and “political prejudice of the very worst kind”. …The couple, who do not want to be named to avoid identifying the children they have fostered, are in their late 50s and live in a neat detached house in a village in South Yorkshire. The husband was a Royal Navy reservist for more than 30 years and works with disabled people, while his wife is a qualified nursery nurse. Former Labour voters, they have been approved foster parents for nearly seven years and have looked after about a dozen different children, one of them in a placement lasting four years. They took on the three children — a baby girl, a boy and an older girl, who were all from an ethnic minority and a troubled family background — in September in an emergency placement. They believe that the youngsters thrived in their care. The couple were described as “exemplary” foster parents: the baby put on weight and the older girl even began calling them “mum and dad”. However, just under eight weeks into the placement, they received a visit out of the blue from the children’s social worker at the Labour-run council and an official from their fostering agency. They were told that the local safeguarding children team had received an anonymous tip-off that they were members of Ukip. The wife recalled: “I was dumbfounded. Then my question to both of them was, ‘What has Ukip got to do with having the children removed?’ “Then one of them said, ‘Well, Ukip have got racist policies’. The implication was that we were racist. [The social worker] said Ukip does not like European people and wants them all out of the country to be returned to their own countries. “I’m sat there and I’m thinking, ‘What the hell is going off here?’ because I wouldn’t have joined Ukip if they thought that. I’ve got mixed race in my family. I said, ‘I am absolutely offended that you could come in my house and accuse me of being a member of a racist party’.”

What a disgusting mix of ideological bias and political correctness.

I agree that government officials shouldn’t place children in homes where there’s racism. So if the bureaucrats discovered that a household had people from the English equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan or the New Black Panther Party, then it’s understandable and appropriate that they don’t get to take care of foster children.

But I’ve met many people from UKIP and I keep close track of what’s happening in the English political world. From everything that I can tell, UKIP is a mainstream political party that seems most concerned about the loss of sovereignty to the European Union.

Are there some racists in UKIP? I’m sure that some exist, just as there racists in the Labour Party, Conservative Party, and Liberal Democratic Party. And, for what it’s worth, there are some racist Republicans and some racist Democrats. Like other collectivist impulses, racism is probably an inherent flaw in the human species.

But I’m digressing. The purpose of this post is to express disgust at bureaucrats in England who decided that belonging to UKIP automatically meant a foster family was racist. Even worse, these bureaucrats then took three children from this family, which means they put political correctness and ideological bias ahead of the best interests of the kids.

Let’s hope that those children aren’t now stuck in an orphanage or some other sub-standard form of institutionalized care.

P.S. If you want to be entertained and to learn more about UKIP, I’ve posted some remarkable videos of their MEPs as they speak at the European Parliament.

Farage is the head of UKIP, and he completely skewers the head bureaucrats of the European Commission in this speech.

His most famous speeches specifically eviscerated the “damp dishrag” of the European Commission.

Here’s Nigel Farage mocking European bailouts.

And since you know my favorite issue is tax competition, you’ll understand why I like these two short speeches by UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom.

Read Full Post »

Even British Journalists Are Beginning to Acknowledge that Guns Deter Crime

While I have great admiration and affection for the English people, most of them are downright daft on the issues of guns. And the politicians are the worst of the lot, having imposed draconian gun bans.

But they’ve gone way beyond run-of-the-mill gun control.

This is the nation, for instance, that arrested a man for the “crime” of turning in a gun found on his property. Yes, you read correctly. I’m not making that up.

The government is so bloody clueless on this issue that we’ve seen mind-boggling examples of anti-gun political correctness.

• Disciplining children for making gun shapes with their hands.
• Banning starting pistols at races.
• Proposing to bar children from Olympic shooting events.
• A bookstore putting shooting magazines in the porn section.
• Arresting a woman for brandishing a knife to scare away thugs.

Okay, I cheated. The last example was about a knife rather than a gun, but I think it underscores the central point that the UK government believes in a helpless and passive citizenry.

But perhaps, in a small way, we’re seeing a bit of progress. It seems that a few people realize that this culture of surrender and appeasement isn’t always a good idea.

At least when it comes to thwarting pirates. Here is an excerpt from The Economist about a big decline in attacks off the Horn of Africa.

…the fall in the number of successful hijackings since the peak of 2009-11 has been dramatic. The International Maritime Bureau, a body that fights shipping crime, counted 219 cases of pirates trying to board a vessel in 2010 and 236 in 2011. This year’s total is just 71, against 199 for the same period last year. Successful seizures are down from 49 in 2010 to 28 in 2011 and only 13 this year.

Want to take a wild guess about the reason?

Five out of five pirates surveyed prefer unarmed victims

Yup, you’re right. Guns.

…the biggest game changer of all is…that more than a quarter of vessels now carry armed security guards. The shipping industry used to oppose this, fearing that armed guards would escalate violence. But not a single vessel with guards has been boarded. Usually a warning shot is enough to deter the pirates. Lieut-Commander Sherrif says: “The pirates go to sea to make money, not die in a firefight.” BIMCO, the biggest international shipping organisation, has recently produced a standard contract for the industry, known as GUARDCON. Most of the security firms supplying guards are British. Admiral Rix says that his company hires mostly former Royal Marines.

Let’s emphasize part of that passage. It says that “not a single vessel with guards has been boarded.”

That’s a perfect batting average. As John Lott might say, this is an example of “more guns, less crime.” What a novel idea.

Now for the bad news. I doubt that the writers at The Economist or the politicians at Westminster will draw the right lesson from any of this.

So we still have a long way to go before we liberate the British people from the anti-gun superstitions of the political elite. Maybe we should share these very clever pro-gun images (here, here, here, here, here, and here) with our friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

Read Full Post »

The United Kingdom Throws Down the Gauntlet with a Strong Entry in the Government Stupidity Contest

I periodically compare moronic decisions and policies by governments in the United States and United Kingdom. You can peruse some jaw-dropping examples by clicking this link.

To show that politicians and bureaucrats don’t have a monopoly on stupidity, I’ve also shared a pair of examples that expose foolishness in the private sector.

“Won’t anyone take free money?”

I think the contest has been pretty even to date, but now we have an entry from the United Kingdom that may be hard to beat. The government created a new boondoggle program, but managed to make it so convoluted that no households have signed up for the handouts.

This is astounding. How incompetent does a government have to be that it can’t even give away money? Here are some laughable excerpts from the Telegraph.

The Green Deal encourages homeowners to take out a loan to make their house more energy-efficient. …households have had since October 1 to have their home assessed for the scheme prior to its launch. However Greg Barker, the climate change minister, has admitted that “no assessments have yet been lodged” on the Government’s official register by homeowners. Luciana Berger, the shadow climate change minister, described the Green Deal as a “shambles” and said its launch is “lying in tatters”. The Coalition hopes that owners of up to 14 million draughty homes will sign up to the scheme. …In an effort to kick-start interest, DECC last month announced a £125 million ‘cashback’ scheme, offering homes up to £1,000 if they sign up as ‘early adopters’. Ms Berger said that homeowners are being put off by the Deal’s complicated finance arrangements.

Not only did the giveaway fail to attract any household beneficiaries, only one firm out of 10,000 signed up to be “accredited Green Deal” participants.

As well as lack of interest from homeowners, building companies are also shying away from getting involved. According to the Federation of Master Builders, the UK’s biggest building trade body, only one firm from its 10,000-strong membership has signed up to become an accredited Green Deal installer.

Again, this is remarkable. When a government is too incompetent to give away other people’s money, you know that’s special.

Sadly, this is the exception rather than the rule. The burden of government spending is excessive in the United Kingdom, in part because of the faux budget cuts of David Cameron’s CINO regime.

Read Full Post »

If You Want Good Tax Policy, Choose Jersey (but not New Jersey!)

I’m in Jersey, where I gave a speech last night.

But not New Jersey, the state where you shouldn’t die. That’s the state that many people have been fleeing because they don’t like paying confiscatory taxes to finance bureaucrats who make as much as $320,000 per year.

Instead, I’m in the Bailiwick of Jersey, which is a UK dependent territory off the coast of France. Jersey is a so-called tax haven, which I applaud because it helps encourage better tax policy in less enlightened parts of the globe.

Because I’m such a cultured and sophisticated guy, today I used some of my free time to visit the Jersey Museum. I now know lots of useless trivia about how a tiny island 15 miles from France wound up as an English territory.

But I also found something very interesting in the section on the economic history of Jersey. The museum explicitly recognizes the role of low taxation in promoting a prosperous society.

My blackberry camera isn’t that good and I’m probably a crummy photographer, so this image is very hard to read, but the display openly boasts that Jersey’s tax rates are much less onerous than those found in the United Kingdom.

If you want a simple and fair flat tax, Jersey’s 20 percent rate is not bad. And it’s definitely a lot better than the (now) 45 percent top rate in the United Kingdom

If you don’t want double taxation, the capital gains tax rate in Jersey is zero. That’s a lot better than the United Kingdom (though the rate there is now “only” 28 percent.

If you don’t want the government grabbing a big chunk of your income with a value-added tax, then you’re much better off with Jersey’s 5 percent rate rather than the 20 percent rate in the United Kingdom (the museum’s info is out-of-date).

Anyhow, you get the idea. Here’s a close-up photo of that part of the display.

There’s no death tax in Jersey, which is a very important consideration when successful and productive people decide where to conduct economic activity. The United Kingdom, by contrast, has one of the most onerous death tax regimes in the world.

In other words, the people of Jersey have made a very intelligent decision to avoid class-warfare tax policy.

Are you surprised to learn, therefore, that they are richer, on average, than folks in the USA?

Read Full Post »

Political Correctness Run Amok: Some Private Sector Contestants for the U.S. vs U.K. Stupidity Contest

I’ve had some fun on this blog by comparing moronic government policies in the United States and United Kingdom.

In my never-ending search for cheap laughs and juvenile entertainment, I’ve ever turned this into a contest to see which nation has more pathetic and useless bureaucrats.

The United Kingdom has some very strong contestants.

• A job-placement center got in trouble for discriminating against incompetent people by seeking “reliable” and “hard-working” candidates.
• A women who was being threatened by thugs got in trouble with the police for brandishing a knife in her own home.
• There was a serious proposal to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
• A man got arrested for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
• The government wanted to require “competency tests” for pet owners.
• An ID requirement to buy teaspoons.
• The most useless sign in the history of the world.
• A proposal to ban skinny models.
• A prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.

As a patriotic American, I’m proud to say that we’re giving the Brits a run for their money. As you can see, the United States is filled with equally stupid and clueless government officials.

• A Rhode Island boy offended the PC nanny-staters by bringing toy soldiers to school.
• A student in San Diego got in trouble for making a motion detector for a science project, simply because someone decided it resembled a bomb.
• The EEOC hindering trucking companies from weeding out drunk drivers.
• The military was criticized for giving Osama bin Laden an Indian code name (Geronimo) as part of the operation to exterminate the al Qaeda dirtbag.
• A Florida student was expelled for having a toy gun on school property.
• And how can we omit the politicians in San Francisco, who decided that banning happy meal toys was an appropriate use of government coercion.
• We also have regulations in Maryland governing the application of sunscreen at summer camps.
• A local politician in Maryland wanting a licensing process to be a bum.
• And proposals in Seattle to require life vests on swimmers who are more than five feet from shore.

These are all amazing episodes of bureaucratic stupidity, but I must confess that I’ve been unfair.

I’ve been sharing stories about moronic government officials and completely overlooking examples of idiotic behavior and decision-making in the non-government sector.

To be sure, you’re more likely to find stupidity in government, but that doesn’t mean it’s non-existent elsewhere.

So, to rectify that oversight, let’s share two examples of jaw-dropping stupidity from non-bureaucrats in the U.S. and U.K. (or perhaps we should call them aspiring bureaucrats).

We’ll start with some clowns at Tufts University (a private school), who have kicked a Christian group off campus because it refused to change its internal policies so that non-Christians could be officers.

I’m not joking. Here are some of the absurd details.

After the student leaders of Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) declined to revise their leadership policies, the Boston-area research university’s Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) revoked the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter’s status as an officially recognized student organization. …TCUJ originally suspended TCF for its requirement that any student who wishes to hold a leadership position within TCF must affirm basic Christian beliefs. The student judiciary told TCF that those statements violated the student body constitution’s non-discrimination clause by excluding students who do not share these beliefs. TCF was given the opportunity to adapt its constitution and move the belief-based leadership requirement into its mission statement, which is not legally binding. However, TCF declined, resulting in the final TCUJ decision on Oct. 18.

Too bad they didn’t have this policy when I was at Georgia. I could have applied to be an officer in the Black Student Union. Or Hillel, the club for Jewish students.

On second thought, I would have filed suit to join a sorority! Imagine how much fun I would have had hanging out by the showers. And then another lawsuit so I could have been quarterback for the Bulldawgs. After all, how dare they discriminate against the athletically challenged.

To be momentarily serious, I have to wonder about the students at Tufts who first brought the complaint against the Christian group. I bet they feel like big men on campus right now.

Maybe they should demonstrate that they have some real cojones by launching a similar attack on the local Muslim student group. But I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen. Just like I’m not expecting the same from the people in Hollywood who think they’re edgy and brave when they mock Christians and Mormons.

Not that I have any objection to humor targeting religious people. Or atheists, for that matter. But I don’t have much use for cowards who engage in empty posturing.

But I’m digressing. Now let’s turn to our example of private-sector stupidity in the United Kingdom. It deals with bookstore chain that has decided to save impressionable British tykes from the life-scarring horror of buying shooting magazines.

Here are some details from the Telegraph on this ideologically motivated example of political correctness run amok.

WH Smith, Britain’s biggest chain of newsagents, has banned youngsters from buying copies of country sports magazines after a campaign by animal rights activists. The retailer…says it has introduced an age limit on such magazines as Shooting Times because children are not allowed to obtain a firearms certificate until they are 14. However, sports enthusiasts point out that this is wrong. There is no minimum age for holding a shotgun licence in Britain…They question why the high street chain does not restrict the sale of motoring magazines such as TopGear to those old enough to drive. “It is extraordinary that in WH Smith you can buy a car magazine at any age, despite the age limit of 17 for driving,” said Christopher Graffius, of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. “You can also buy numerous war magazines which depict the killing of people, yet WH Smith is concerned about children buying shooting magazines, a legal and an Olympic sport. “They are also causing enormous offence to adult shooters who are stopped at auto-scan tills.”

Kudos to Mr. Graffius for exposing the absurd hypocrisy of the company, but I gather his is a lonely voice. It’s remarkable that a nation that once ruled half the world now produces people who decide that shooting magazines should be restricted like porn.

Not that I’ve ever had a reason to patronize a bookstore in England, but I will make sure not to visit WH Smith on my visit later this month.

Since I believe in private property, I want to stress that WH Smith has the right to restrict access to shooting magazines. Or to ban their sale completely. But I sure hope English consumers will exercise their rights to patronize other bookstores.

Feel free to comment on who deserves to win the prize for empty and vapid stupidity, the clowns at Tufts or the buffoons at WH Smith.

P.S. I don’t mean to slight the rest of the world. There are many examples of bureaucratic incompetence and political idiocy in other parts of the world, including Italy, Greece, Germany, and the European Union. So I hope nobody gets offended that their country isn’t on the list. There’s only so much time in a day.

Read Full Post »

Higher Taxes on the Rich Are a Precursor to Higher Taxes on the Rest of Us

President Obama repeatedly assures us that he only wants higher taxes on the rich as part of his class-warfare agenda.

But I don’t trust him. In part because he’s a politician, but also because there aren’t enough rich people to finance big government (not to mention that the rich easily can alter their financial affairs to avoid higher tax rates).

Honest leftists are beginning to admit that their real target is the middle class. Here are a few examples.

• The New York Times endorsed higher taxes on the middle class in 2010.
• The then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer also gave a green light that year to higher taxes on the middle class.
• Earlier this year, MIT professor and former IMF official Simon Johnson argued that the middle class should pay more tax.
• The Washington Post also called for higher taxes on the middle class this year, as did Vice President Joe Biden’s former economist.

In other words, politicians often say they want to tax the rich, but the real target is the middle class. Indeed, this is the history of tax policy. In a post earlier this year, warning the folks in the Cayman Islands not to impose an income tax, I noted how the U.S. income tax began small and then swallowed up more and more people.

…the U.S. income tax began in 1913 with a top rate of only 7 percent and it affected less than 1 percent of the population. But that supposedly benign tax has since become a monstrous internal revenue code that plagues the nation today.

The same thing is true elsewhere in the world.

Allister Heath explains for London’s City A.M. newspaper.

The introduction of income taxes around the world have tended to follow a very similar pattern over the past couple of centuries. First, we get generally low income tax rates, with most people exempt and with the highest rate only affecting a few people relatively lightly. Eventually, tax rates shoot up for everybody – including to crippling levels for top earners – and millions more are caught by income tax. The next stage is that the ultra-high tax rates for top earners are reduced to manageable levels – but ever more people are brought into the tax system, with the higher brackets also catching vastly more folk.

By the way, you can see that Allister makes a reference to tax rates being reduced for top earners. That’s largely because many politicians learned an important lesson about the Laffer Curve. Sometimes, the best way to “soak the rich” is by lowering their tax rates. Unfortunately, President Obama still needs some remedial education on this topic.

Allister then looks at some specific U.K. data revealing how more and more middle class people are now subject to higher tax rates.

The biggest change in the UK has been the number of people paying what is now the 40p tax rate: up six-fold in thirty years, from 674,000 in 1979-80, 2.5m in 1999-2000 to 4.048m in 2011-12. This number will jump again to around 5m in 2014, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. When Margaret Thatcher came to power, just 2.6 per cent of taxpayers paid the top rate; by the time of the next election, 16.7 per cent will.

If Obama and other statists get their way, we’ll see similar statistic in the United States. Higher income tax rates for the rich will mean higher income tax rates for the rest of us. Though I’m even more worried about a value-added tax, which would be a huge burden on ordinary people and a revenue machine for greedy politicians.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that the American tax code actually is more “progressive” than the tax codes of Europe’s welfare states. This is largely because we don’t screw over poor and middle-class taxpayers with a VAT.

P.S. Since I mentioned the Laffer Curve above, I should emphasize that the goal of good tax policy should be to maximize growth, not to maximize tax revenue.

P.P.S. And don’t forget that poor and middle-income taxpayers also will be hurt because slower growth is an inevitable consequence when tax rates climb and the burden of government spending increases.

Read Full Post »

Rewarding Hospitals to Let Old People Die? That’s the Wrong Way to Cut Government Spending

I used to think I was in favor of every possible step to reduce the burden of government spending.

• Are agricultural subsidies wasteful and corrupt? Yes, so get rid of the Department of Agriculture.
• Is Medicaid spending out of control? Yes, so cap outlay growth and block grant the program to the states.
• Has NATO outlived its usefulness? Yes, so let’s save money and bring troops home from Europe.

But I confess I’ve come across a budget-cutting strategy that even I can’t support. And it’s not in the area of national defense or public safety, which even I agree are legitimate functions of government.

Instead, I’m talking about the government-run healthcare system in the United Kingdom, which apparently is bribing hospitals to make greater use of the “Liverpool Care Pathway,” which is the UK version of a death panel. Here are some jaw-dropping excerpts from the Daily Mail.

Hospitals are paid millions to hit targets for the number of patients who die on the Liverpool Care Pathway, the Mail can reveal. The incentives have been paid to hospitals that ensure a set percentage of patients who die on their wards have been put on the controversial regime. In some cases, hospitals have been set targets that between a third and two thirds of all the deaths should be on the LCP, which critics say is a way of hastening the deaths of terminally ill patients. At least £30million in extra money from taxpayers is estimated to have been handed to hospitals over the past three years to achieve these goals. Critics of the method warned last night that financial incentives for hospitals could influence the work of doctors.

Here’s some additional info of how the program works.

The use of CQUIN payments to encourage the spread of the LCP through the wards and to persuade doctors to meet Pathway targets was revealed in answers to Freedom of Information requests. Among trusts that confirmed the use of targets was Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which said that in the financial year which ended in March the percentage of patients who died on the Pathway was ’43 per cent against a target of 35 per cent’. Over the year the Trust received £308,000 for achieving ‘goals involving the Liverpool Care Pathway’. Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust had CQUIN payments connected to the Liverpool Care Pathway almost halved after failing to reach targets.

Somebody should ask Paul Krugman about this horrific story. Even if the occasionally overly sensational British press is exaggerating and the real story is only half as bad as these excerpts, this is a nightmare. And it definitely shows that Krugman was wrong in 2009 when he wrote that, “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”

Unless, of course, proponents of bigger government don’t think bribing hospitals to hasten death qualifies as a “scare story.” In that case, I’ll give them credit for being consistent, but only if the political elite has to live (or, in this case, die) by the same set of rules.

For some reason, though, I don’t think the Paul Krugmans, David Camerons, and Gordon Browns or the world will be subjected to the same treatment as the rest of us peasants.

And that’s also an issue with Obamacare. When push comes to shove, I strongly suspect the politically well connected somehow will avoid any of the headaches that are bound to result from that costly legislation.

If rationing is going to happen, I’d rather it be the result of markets rather than connections.

P.S. Other horror stories about the UK health system can be perused here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Read Full Post »

The Deadly Impact of Government-Run Healthcare in the United Kingdom

I’m not a fan of the American healthcare system. It suffers from huge inefficiencies because of problems such as third-party payer, which is caused by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid along with a system of tax code-driven over-insurance in the supposedly private sector.

But regardless of how much I grouse about the damage government causes in the United States, I can say with considerable confidence that the government-run system in the United Kingdom has even larger problems.

Here are some of the shocking details from a report in the UK-based Daily Mail.

Patients having major surgery in NHS hospitals face a much higher risk of dying than those in America, research has revealed. Doctors found that people who have treatment here are four times more likely to die than US citizens undergoing similar operations. The most seriously ill NHS patients were seven times more likely to die than their American counterparts. Experts blame the British fatality figures on a shortage of specialists and lack of intensive care beds for post-operative recovery. They also suggest that long waiting lists mean diseases are more advanced before they are treated. Researchers from University College London and Columbia University, in New York, studied 1,000 surgery patients at the Mount Sinai Hospital, Manhattan, and compared them to nearly 1,100 people who had similar operations at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, in Portsmouth. The results showed that just under ten per cent of British patients died in hospital afterwards compared to 2.5 per cent in America. Among the most seriously ill cases there was a seven-fold difference in the death rates.

Here are some additional findings.

Professor Monty Mythen, head of anaesthesia at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “In America, after surgery, everyone would go into a critical care bed in a highly-monitored environment. That doesn’t happen routinely in the UK. …Prof Mythen said waiting lists in the NHS would “put patients at greater risk”. He added: “We would be suspicious that the diseases would be more advanced simply because the waiting lists (in the UK) are longer.”

Since I’m in London right now, I guess the moral of the story is to stay healthy.

On a slightly more serious note, I wish I had this story in front of me when I was guest-hosting Larry Kudow’s show a couple of years ago and my lefty British co-host got all agitated when I said the British system was worse for patients.

I think I saw this guy at the Paddington tube station this morning

And on a completely serious note, the point of this post is not to say the United States has a perfect system. I hope that’s obvious from my opening paragraph. And nor am I asserting that the UK system is universally bad. In my limited understanding, British doctors and nurses do a fairly good job with basic medicine and emergency medicine.

But any system is likely to deteriorate and suffer adverse effects as government takes a larger role. I’ve had fun over the past few years with anecdotal horror stories about government-run healthcare in the United Kingdom. But as you can see from all the links in this post, I sometimes share those just for the enjoyment of mocking Paul Krugman.

The academic study linked above is far more important if you want to assess the damage of giving politicians and bureaucrats even more control over healthcare.

That’s actually a good rule for just about everything. As shown in this poster, if you ever think the answer is more government, you’ve asked the wrong question.

Read Full Post »

Another British Healthcare Horror Story, but It’s “False” According to Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman assured us back in 2009 that, “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”

If that’s the case, then the British press is filled with liars who deliberately make up horror stories about their nation’s healthcare system, as you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

We now have another nightmare to add to this list. Here are some of the horrific details from the UK-based Daily Mail.

An elderly woman died alone after doctors failed to tell relatives they were ending her life on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway. Olive Goom, 85, passed away with no one by her side after medics neglected to consult with her family about her treatment at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. …As Miss Goom lay dying alone, staff reassured relatives on the phone just hours before her death that there was no urgent need to visit – even though doctors had already removed tubes providing vital food and fluids. Her family discovered that she had died only when her niece went to visit her and found she was already being prepared for the mortuary. They said last night that they will never be able to stop feeling guilty that no one was there in her final hours. The Mail has been contacted by several families who claim that relatives were put on the Liverpool Care Pathway – the controversial system designed to ease the suffering of the dying in their final hours – without any consultation. Some said they found out that their relatives were on the pathway only after they happened to read their medical notes; and by that time it was too late.

Keep in mind, by the way, that the Liverpool Care Pathway is sort of akin to the IPAB “death panel” in Obamacare.

Defenders of government-run healthcare say that’s nonsense and assert that there won’t be any rationing, denial of care, or requirements for euthanasia. That’s technically true, but the Obamacare death panel will be determining what’s an acceptable treatment and what’s the government-approved payment schedule.

Crushed by Obamacare?

So it’s sort of like holding a rock in your hand, standing over a kitten, letting go of the rock, watching it hit the kitten, but then claiming that you did nothing wrong because gravity caused the rock to fall.

Okay, that’s a morbid example, but you get the point. And my concern isn’t that rationing only exists with a government-run system. Any healthcare system will involve rationing. The real issue is whether individuals are part of a free society so they can make the choice of how to ration.

(h/t: Ben Domenech)

Read Full Post »

Evidence from England Shows that If You Want to “Soak the Rich,” Keep Tax Rates Low

I’ve pulled evidence from IRS publications to show that rich people paid a lot more to Uncle Sam after Reagan reduced the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent.

The good ol’ days

But the Gipper wasn’t the only one to unleash the Laffer Curve. The United Kingdom saw similar dramatic results when Margaret Thatcher lowered the top tax rate from 83 percent to 40 percent. Allister Heath explains.

During the 1970s, when the tax system specialised in inflicting pain, the top one per cent of earners contributed 11pc of income tax. By 1986-87, with the top rate down to 60pc, that had increased to 14pc. After the top rate fell to 40pc in 1988, the top 1pc’s share jumped, reaching 21.3pc by 1999-2000, 24.4pc in 2007-08 and 26.5pc in 2009-10. Lower taxes fuelled a hard-work culture and an entrepreneurial revolution. Combined with globalisation and the much greater rewards available for skilled workers, Britain’s most successful individuals earned a lot and paid a lot in tax.

In other words, Margaret Thatcher’s supply-side tax rate reductions paid big dividends, both for the economy and for the Treasury.

Unfortunately, just as American politicians have forgotten (or decided to ignore) the lessons of the Reagan era, British politicians also have gravitated to a class-warfare approach. Allister points out that this is having a negative impact.

Yet times are changing, and not just because of the recession. HMRC recently slashed its forecasts for revenues from the top 1pc. It now believes the number of people expected to report £500,000 or more in earnings will fall by a tenth this year; those on £2m are set to drop by a third.

Why have the numbers headed in the wrong direction? There are almost certainly lots of factors, but tax policy has moved in the wrong direction and presumably deserves part of the blame. The top income tax rate is now 45 percent. The value-added tax has jumped to 20 percent. Allister provides more details.

Capital gains tax is too high. Luxury homes transactions are falling because of higher stamp duty. Britain is now a high tax economy; this is distorting work and investment decisions, gradually shifting talent and capital overseas. The overwhelming majority of high earners are already contributing disproportionately to the exchequer; tightening the screws further will be disastrously counter-productive. The lesson of the past 30 years is clear: the best way to entice the rich to pay even more tax is to keep rates low and allow them to get even richer.

I have to admit that I don’t want anyone to pay more tax, but I’m even less happy about punitively high tax rates. So I’m reluctantly willing to let the clowns in government have more money in exchange for a tax system that is more conducive to economic growth.

Here’s my Laffer Curve video, which explains more about the relationship of tax rates, taxable income, and tax revenue.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to shrink the central government so that the legitimate functions of the state can be financed at very low tax rates. Heck, if the United States and the United Kingdom had the kind of limited governments that existed 100 years ago, neither nation would even need a flat tax. A few user fees and excise taxes would suffice. Now that’s hope and change.

P.S. I periodically share two great Reagan videos, which can be seen here and here, but I also have a couple of inspiring videos of Thatcher in action, which can be viewed here and here.

Read Full Post »

Tax Humor From the United Kingdom

Everyone seems to agree that the Brits have a good sense of humor, and I think you’ll agree if you peruse this modern glossary of financial terms and this example of politically incorrect terrorism humor.

I was wondering whether their use of humor is a defense mechanism to endure the predations of statist politicians such as Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

But then why aren’t the French famous for humor considering they’ve had to deal with Sarkozy and Hollande?

So maybe there’s an alternative explanation for British humor. In any event, we can now add some tax humor to the list. I have no idea who Jeremy Kyle is, but I’m guessing an infamous moocher (sort of like America’s Diaper Man or Germany’s Footless Hans). The other dependents are self explanatory.

Quite clever, sort of like this letter defending drunken sailors from unfair and malicious comparisons.

At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, we do have some very good American tax humor, such as cartoons about the value-added tax that can be seen here, here and here.

There are also lots of jokes at the expense of the IRS, as you can see here, here, here, here, and here.

Also, I suspect this comedian has helped improve awareness of excessive taxation.

And everyone seems to like this beer-centric explanation of the tax system.

Last but not least, we also have the official cigarette of the Obama campaign, as well as cartoons here, here, here and here that mock the President’s class-warfare tax agenda.

Read Full Post »

The U.K.’s Upside-Down Approach to Crime: Shoot a Burglar, Go to Jail

Last year, I held an unofficial contest to see whether the United Kingdom or the United States had the dumbest bureaucrats and/or most absurd examples of political correctness.

Since that time, I’ve posted additional examples of gross government stupidity from both sides of the Atlantic. From the United Kingdom, we have these gems.

• An effort to stop children from watching Olympic shooting events.
• The most pointless sign in the history of the world.
• An ID requirement to buy dangerous products such as teaspoons.

But American officials have been busy as well, with impressive displays of incompetence and stupidity.

• Preventing a girl from boarding a plane because her purse had an image of a gun .
• A local school calling the police because a little girl kissed a little boy in gym class.
• An ID requirement in Illinois to buy drain cleaner.

Now it’s time to revisit this contest. The United Kingdom has decided to arrest a man for the horrific crime of shooting some thugs that broke into his home. Here are some details from a column in the Telegraph.

A farm tenant and his wife who were arrested after two suspected burglars were shot at their isolated home had been the victims of a number of robberies. …The man is believed to have grabbed a legally owned gun after they were disturbed by the break-in early yesterday. He is understood to have fired at the intruders who then fled the isolated house at Melton Mowbray, Leics, before calling the police. …The arrested man’s mother said: “This is not the first time they have been broken into. “They have been robbed three or four times. One of them was quite nasty. …the businessman and his wife were arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. Four men, understood to be the suspected burglars, were also arrested.

“Arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm”? Isn’t that the point when confronting criminals?!?

Though I guess we should be happy that the burglars also were arrested. And given the country’s oppressive gun control laws, I’m pleasantly surprised that there are still a few legal guns in the United Kingdom.

But that’s about the only silver lining I can find to this dark cloud.

Moreover, it turns out that the U.K. has a track record of persecuting the innocent. The column mentions outrageous examples.

The case will reignite the debate over a householder’s right to defend his property, which began in the late 1990s after the farmer Tony Martin shot two burglars at his remote Norfolk home. In 1999, Martin fired at Brendan Fearon, 29, and Fred Barras, 16, after they broke into the house in Emneth Hungate. Three shots were fired, Barras was hit in the back and despite escaping through a window died moments later. Martin was convicted of murder and jailed for life, which was reduced on appeal to manslaughter and five years’ jail. In 2009, the millionaire businessman Munir Hussain fought back with a metal pole and a cricket bat against a knife-wielding burglar who tied up his family at their home in Buckinghamshire. Hussain was jailed for two and a half years, despite his attacker being spared prison. Appeal judges reduced the sentence to a year’s jail, suspended. The case prompted David Cameron to announce that home owners and shopkeepers would have the right to protect themselves against burglars and robbers.

I’m glad to see, by the way, that David Cameron is at least saying supportive things about people having the right to self defense. I’ve hammered Cameron for undermining the U.K.’s system of personal retirement accounts, giving taxpayer money to statist environmental groups, increasing the capital gains tax, increasing the burden of government spending, and whining that it is wrong for people to minimize their tax burdens.

But I also believe in giving credit where it’s due, so I’m glad he wants to change the law. I hope that includes the right to shoot burglars.

That would put the U.K. ahead of Illinois, though that’s a very low bar to clear.

Read Full Post »