It has been a primary axiom of government for millennia that the first duty of a government is to defend itself and its people from enemies who would wish to despoil either the public or the personal assets of the members of the community. This requires maintaining a sufficient police system to keep private individuals safe and secure, and sufficient armed forces, sufficiently well equipped, to secure the position of the nation in the world.
Some states are democratic in nature, some are autocratic; and these differences mean that the means by which governments fulfill their primary duty vary enormously. In Britain, we have been lucky to have a generally democratic and fair system; with a reasonable status among nations: though we now know that these are significantly in danger.
People are decreasingly confident that the system is fair, and that the state has added to the duties of defence and law-and-order the obligations to educate the nation in a fair and sufficient system of schools and higher institutions and the obligation to maintain systems of health provision and social care that meet the recognised needs of an ever-changing population. This past week's budget has again shown the utter failure of a regime of Osbornian austerity to correct the disastrous mistakes of the Thatcherites or the idle complacency of the Blair-Brown era. The promise to patch and mend the schools and the health service, and to ignore [for the time being] the increasingly urgent needs of social care and the police and the military, are generally recognised to be not good enough.
As if to epitomise this situation, the Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace today will be provided by the Royal Navy. Some beancounters in the Admiralty and the Army have recognised that so many of the navy's submarines and surface ships are stuck in harbour because of poor maintenance and a shortage of sailors and of supplies that some seventy sailors can be scraped together to relieve the pressure on the diminished Household Division.
This is not a vainglorious bleat about Britain's lost glory. It is not even a hint that we should try to restore the Empire. But it is recognition - shared with a significant cohort of Tory MPs - that the cuts in defence are dangerous. The more the police is diminished, set against the terrorist threat, the more the army and the navy may be needed to "come to the aid of the civil power" as substitute police and firefighters. If those troops are not there, the nation is in danger.
Against this argument, the government is bleating that the UK has the biggest defence budget in Europe. So, when did Russia cease to be in Europe? Putin has almost completely rebuilt the front-line Russian forces, replacing the decrepit rabble that Yeltsin left behind and raising national morale hugely. France spends less through the formal military budget than the UK; but by other means it maintains the capability to design and build now warplanes, warships, tanks and guns. Yet again, the excuses that civil servants are supplying to minister to defend the indefensible has become embarrassing. In the twenty-first century, Britain cannot aspire to rule the waves: but we must avoid sinking beneath them.
Showing posts with label Osbornian austerity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Osbornian austerity. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 November 2017
Monday, 30 October 2017
Budget Lobbies
A British Government Budget is due to be presented to the Commons next month, therefore the lobbying has begun. Besides the usual sectoral claims from welfare interests and business, a whole range of Brexit-related fears and expectations are being pressed for the Chancellor to take note of.
The situation is bedevilled by the Brexit situation - which no-one, inside or outside government has any grip on - and further complicated by the fact that the Chancellor's 'responsible' stance [largely what the business community have demanded: to keep as far in to the European Economic Area as possible, after formal withdrawal from the EU] is under vicious and sustained attack by the headbanging Brexiteers.
Behind all this, lie crucial social and economic facts. There is no doubt that the National Health Service, the schools, the police and the armed forces are grossly underfunded. This is not simply an issue of how many billions of pounds are spent on those services: nobody can deny that aggregate allocations by the government are increasing [though some services, like the police and prisons, are struggling with the effect of previous real-terms cuts]. The essential point is that what the government has allocated is much less that is needed to meet the expectations of the changing population.
Osbornian austerity has been in force for seven years, during which the economy has stagnated. Real terms economic growth, especially in material output from factories and farms, has in most sectors declined. There is now a major milk shortage in western Europe, including the UK, because the supermarkets drove down the price of raw milk so far that hundreds of farmers went out of the business [at huge personal loss, with the slaughter of thousands of specially-bred animals]. More conspicuously, manufacturing output has declined, and productivity in most sectors of industry is at best the same as it was in 2005. Since the population is larger than it was in 2005, including more school-age children and over-seventies, the needs of education, health and welfare are growing: and the state's spending on educational and social services has not kept pace. Meanwhile, the capabilities of the health service improve and extend life have greatly advanced: if only those improving resources and facilities can be afforded, with people trained and available to provide them.
The state should be spending massively more than it is. The Chancellor and his team know this all too well; but they are steeped in the Osbornian dogma that extra spending can only come from extra taxation or extra government borrowing. Extra taxation will reduce the money that people and firms can spend on their items of choice, so 'demand' will decline; so the private sector of the economy will decline in total turnover. Extra borrowing will give the government and taxpayers higher interest bills to pay in the future: so it is an imposition on future generations that would be inexcusable to impose it. So the Treasury team is stuck with the existing austerity mantra.
This is not the whole picture, however. It is unfortunate that the deeply untrustworthy John McDonnell has been the cheerleader for an alternative proposition that really should be implemented.
In the medium term, the only way of paying for increased and improved public services is by getting more tax from the whole economic system because it is growing. A really growing economy can both pay more wages to employed people and yield more taxes for pensions, benefits, hospital, schools, police and the other essentials.
This policy option does require the government to borrow massively more money: earmarked for investment programmes of improved infrastructure [roads, railways, hospitals and housing] that provide economic returns by providing a healthier and happier and less-stressed workforce.But the government should foster much more borrowing and spending for investment in industry, agriculture and offshore activities both around the British isles and around all the UK's overseas territories [which have been wasting assets since they ceased to be needed as coaling stations and watering points for historic commercial shipping]. It is clear that robotics, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence etc are major components of the future pattern of industry; and that Britain is still a major contributor of new ideas. These are both in microprocessors and in new and improved materials that can stand the more extreme demands of the new era. The government should foster at least a dozen of the technologically fruitful universities as hubs around which other universities, research associations and individual firms can gather their work on new things. There will always be depressives who say that you cannot guarantee which ideas will be successful and which not; so you should do nothing. That is not how the great achievements of the past were made. Bold ventures must take bold chances, and expect some failures: while experienced managers can spot cases where the money is running away faster that output is developing. And the state should provide a lot of money [from borrowing] to float the whole thing.
Companies have built up the biggest reserves ever, and have paid large dividends while not investing in new plant or higher productivity in their existing plant, and they have bought-back shares; or they have bought other companies [usually proving the old adage that the sum of the returns from two merged companies is rarely more than half of the combined return before the merger]. They should be taxed on what they hold in reserve, taxed more on what the declare for dividends, and given massive tax relief on genuine material investments. It is all so simple, so obvious!
New and improved plant is the only way to enhance productivity. Enhanced productivity is the only way to get substantive economic growth. Economic growth is the only way to get more taxation painlessly out of an economy. Taxation is the only way for governments to get the money they need to spend. Simple!
The situation is bedevilled by the Brexit situation - which no-one, inside or outside government has any grip on - and further complicated by the fact that the Chancellor's 'responsible' stance [largely what the business community have demanded: to keep as far in to the European Economic Area as possible, after formal withdrawal from the EU] is under vicious and sustained attack by the headbanging Brexiteers.
Behind all this, lie crucial social and economic facts. There is no doubt that the National Health Service, the schools, the police and the armed forces are grossly underfunded. This is not simply an issue of how many billions of pounds are spent on those services: nobody can deny that aggregate allocations by the government are increasing [though some services, like the police and prisons, are struggling with the effect of previous real-terms cuts]. The essential point is that what the government has allocated is much less that is needed to meet the expectations of the changing population.
Osbornian austerity has been in force for seven years, during which the economy has stagnated. Real terms economic growth, especially in material output from factories and farms, has in most sectors declined. There is now a major milk shortage in western Europe, including the UK, because the supermarkets drove down the price of raw milk so far that hundreds of farmers went out of the business [at huge personal loss, with the slaughter of thousands of specially-bred animals]. More conspicuously, manufacturing output has declined, and productivity in most sectors of industry is at best the same as it was in 2005. Since the population is larger than it was in 2005, including more school-age children and over-seventies, the needs of education, health and welfare are growing: and the state's spending on educational and social services has not kept pace. Meanwhile, the capabilities of the health service improve and extend life have greatly advanced: if only those improving resources and facilities can be afforded, with people trained and available to provide them.
The state should be spending massively more than it is. The Chancellor and his team know this all too well; but they are steeped in the Osbornian dogma that extra spending can only come from extra taxation or extra government borrowing. Extra taxation will reduce the money that people and firms can spend on their items of choice, so 'demand' will decline; so the private sector of the economy will decline in total turnover. Extra borrowing will give the government and taxpayers higher interest bills to pay in the future: so it is an imposition on future generations that would be inexcusable to impose it. So the Treasury team is stuck with the existing austerity mantra.
This is not the whole picture, however. It is unfortunate that the deeply untrustworthy John McDonnell has been the cheerleader for an alternative proposition that really should be implemented.
In the medium term, the only way of paying for increased and improved public services is by getting more tax from the whole economic system because it is growing. A really growing economy can both pay more wages to employed people and yield more taxes for pensions, benefits, hospital, schools, police and the other essentials.
This policy option does require the government to borrow massively more money: earmarked for investment programmes of improved infrastructure [roads, railways, hospitals and housing] that provide economic returns by providing a healthier and happier and less-stressed workforce.But the government should foster much more borrowing and spending for investment in industry, agriculture and offshore activities both around the British isles and around all the UK's overseas territories [which have been wasting assets since they ceased to be needed as coaling stations and watering points for historic commercial shipping]. It is clear that robotics, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence etc are major components of the future pattern of industry; and that Britain is still a major contributor of new ideas. These are both in microprocessors and in new and improved materials that can stand the more extreme demands of the new era. The government should foster at least a dozen of the technologically fruitful universities as hubs around which other universities, research associations and individual firms can gather their work on new things. There will always be depressives who say that you cannot guarantee which ideas will be successful and which not; so you should do nothing. That is not how the great achievements of the past were made. Bold ventures must take bold chances, and expect some failures: while experienced managers can spot cases where the money is running away faster that output is developing. And the state should provide a lot of money [from borrowing] to float the whole thing.
Companies have built up the biggest reserves ever, and have paid large dividends while not investing in new plant or higher productivity in their existing plant, and they have bought-back shares; or they have bought other companies [usually proving the old adage that the sum of the returns from two merged companies is rarely more than half of the combined return before the merger]. They should be taxed on what they hold in reserve, taxed more on what the declare for dividends, and given massive tax relief on genuine material investments. It is all so simple, so obvious!
New and improved plant is the only way to enhance productivity. Enhanced productivity is the only way to get substantive economic growth. Economic growth is the only way to get more taxation painlessly out of an economy. Taxation is the only way for governments to get the money they need to spend. Simple!
Tuesday, 4 July 2017
Definition, Differentiation and Sense
Yesterday in Liverpool the Chancellor of the Exchequer told a 'business audience' [the CBI and guests] that the government must 'hold its nerve' to strike a balance between the legitimate aspirations of public sector workers and 'the taxpayer'. Such arrant nonsense could only emanate from a scriptwriting team that includes Economists.
The simple truth is that all public sector workers are taxpayers. Some, in the most simple jobs and on short-hours contracts may not pay income tax; but they are open to assessment for the tax and to national insurance. In all other aspects of life they are taxpayers: as drinkers, smokers, buyers of petrol and owners of TV sets.
While the Corbynite faction in the Labour party might include some extremists who mentally separate 'capitalists' from 'workers' and both categories from the rest of society, that is equally nonsensical. Even if their investment in shares and bonds is as exiguous as their slowly-accumulating 'pot' of savings in a compulsory minimum pension scheme, virtually everyone in employment willy-nilly has some capital. Those who have been lucky enough to 'buy' their homes [even though the mortgage lender often owns more of it than they do, and there is always a risk of them falling into 'negative equity'] do have a capital asset so long as they have 'equity ' in the house or flat.
Over the last weekend the media emphasised the bizarre situation that a very large proportion of the new cars that people 'buy' are effectively on loan from finance companies. The user is logged as the owner, but the loan agreement that enables her to obtain the vehicle is such that at the end of the initial loan period [say, two years] the 'owner' has not returned enough cash to the lender for the residual ownership of the vehicle to be given to the user. So the user is tempted to buy another new car on a similar contract to the last one, and the used car passes from the lender into the second-hand market. The lenders are usually able in total to recoup the discounted price at which they buy the cars from their manufacturers. The users are able to feel proud of their new car every couple of years. The economy contains a rising amount of 'unsecured personal debt' in the form of car loans; and the Bank of England can begin to worry about the sustainability of the whole edifice. So the Bank may require the lenders to hold larger balances of 'tier one' capital, which means that they can lend only a smaller proportion of the funds that they have on their books; thus the number of new car loans available in the ensuing months may be reduced, and the demand for new cars may decline. In that way, the impact of the Bank will be to reduce demand in the material economy; which can impact adversely on employment statistics, sales figures and manufacturing output. Thus [at least, in theory] 'excessive' borrowing by a man who works in a car factory can indirectly lead to the tipping-point in the money market that leads to his redundancy. This may seem a far-fetched example, but it does illustrate the principle that at least some producers are also consumers and borrowers.
So if Philip Hammond wants to convince the country that his endeavour to maintain at least the basic outline of Osbornian austerity is in the nation's interest, he has to begin with the recognition that 'taxpayers' and 'public sector workers' are not discrete sets of people. We are all in this together. It may be easier for Economists and statisticians to separate out aspects of whole individuals and put them in separate categories for some illustrative purpose; but in the end we are all entire people who necessarily live in a mixed economy. Simplistic Thatcherites may still try to separate the good 'private sector' from the parasitic and inefficient 'public sector', and some voters can always be conned into accepting that sort of categorisation. But anyone who experiences the wonderful care of the hard-worked staff of the NHS in a family crisis becomes very much harder to convince of the case for despising and oppressing the public sector and the people who sustain it.
Both Corbynite categorisation and Tory classification of people and activities are unsatisfactory. The present government's stand, largely derived from bad Economics, and sustained by a dogmatic assertion that 'debt is bad', is becoming indefensible and ministers are rushing to differentiate themselves from it. Labour's policy is mercifully opaque.
There is an urgent need simply to recognise that we all live in a mixed economy, that we have badly scrambled the mixture, and need rationally to reconstruct it.
The simple truth is that all public sector workers are taxpayers. Some, in the most simple jobs and on short-hours contracts may not pay income tax; but they are open to assessment for the tax and to national insurance. In all other aspects of life they are taxpayers: as drinkers, smokers, buyers of petrol and owners of TV sets.
While the Corbynite faction in the Labour party might include some extremists who mentally separate 'capitalists' from 'workers' and both categories from the rest of society, that is equally nonsensical. Even if their investment in shares and bonds is as exiguous as their slowly-accumulating 'pot' of savings in a compulsory minimum pension scheme, virtually everyone in employment willy-nilly has some capital. Those who have been lucky enough to 'buy' their homes [even though the mortgage lender often owns more of it than they do, and there is always a risk of them falling into 'negative equity'] do have a capital asset so long as they have 'equity ' in the house or flat.
Over the last weekend the media emphasised the bizarre situation that a very large proportion of the new cars that people 'buy' are effectively on loan from finance companies. The user is logged as the owner, but the loan agreement that enables her to obtain the vehicle is such that at the end of the initial loan period [say, two years] the 'owner' has not returned enough cash to the lender for the residual ownership of the vehicle to be given to the user. So the user is tempted to buy another new car on a similar contract to the last one, and the used car passes from the lender into the second-hand market. The lenders are usually able in total to recoup the discounted price at which they buy the cars from their manufacturers. The users are able to feel proud of their new car every couple of years. The economy contains a rising amount of 'unsecured personal debt' in the form of car loans; and the Bank of England can begin to worry about the sustainability of the whole edifice. So the Bank may require the lenders to hold larger balances of 'tier one' capital, which means that they can lend only a smaller proportion of the funds that they have on their books; thus the number of new car loans available in the ensuing months may be reduced, and the demand for new cars may decline. In that way, the impact of the Bank will be to reduce demand in the material economy; which can impact adversely on employment statistics, sales figures and manufacturing output. Thus [at least, in theory] 'excessive' borrowing by a man who works in a car factory can indirectly lead to the tipping-point in the money market that leads to his redundancy. This may seem a far-fetched example, but it does illustrate the principle that at least some producers are also consumers and borrowers.
So if Philip Hammond wants to convince the country that his endeavour to maintain at least the basic outline of Osbornian austerity is in the nation's interest, he has to begin with the recognition that 'taxpayers' and 'public sector workers' are not discrete sets of people. We are all in this together. It may be easier for Economists and statisticians to separate out aspects of whole individuals and put them in separate categories for some illustrative purpose; but in the end we are all entire people who necessarily live in a mixed economy. Simplistic Thatcherites may still try to separate the good 'private sector' from the parasitic and inefficient 'public sector', and some voters can always be conned into accepting that sort of categorisation. But anyone who experiences the wonderful care of the hard-worked staff of the NHS in a family crisis becomes very much harder to convince of the case for despising and oppressing the public sector and the people who sustain it.
Both Corbynite categorisation and Tory classification of people and activities are unsatisfactory. The present government's stand, largely derived from bad Economics, and sustained by a dogmatic assertion that 'debt is bad', is becoming indefensible and ministers are rushing to differentiate themselves from it. Labour's policy is mercifully opaque.
There is an urgent need simply to recognise that we all live in a mixed economy, that we have badly scrambled the mixture, and need rationally to reconstruct it.
Friday, 16 June 2017
Fire, Tragedy and Prevention
The national news media have overplayed the awful tragedy that happened this week in Kensington. Both the BBC and ITV News have overconcentrated on this item, at the national level; and consequently even the catastrophic failure of the Prime Minister to cope with the election result from the previous week has been grossly under-reported. I am not advocating that that fire and its consequences should be ignored or trivialised; but [as a Lancastrian] I am sure that if the fire had happened in Glasgow or Liverpool it would have taken up less of the national news: though the local media would have performed the wonderful community service that has been available in London.
The greatest honour in my life is that I have twice been able to serve as Master of the Worshipful Company of Firefighters, and I have also been a Trustee of the Firefighters Memorial at the south side of St Paul's cathedral for a quarter of a century. Thus I have had the privilege of knowing many firefighting professionals, as well as my fellow-insurers and others who have an interest in fire prevention, fire protection and mitigating the consequences of fire. The response of the London Fire Brigade to the Kensington disaster was absolutely exemplary.
It is far too early to make any definite statement on the reasons why the fire spread so rapidly through the Grenfell Tower: but it was obvious that it spread outside the main structure, as well as within the building. People living in such blocks all over the country urgently need reassurance; and reference to the history and traditions of the fire service and the insurance industry can help a lot here.
Coincidentally, yesterday's piece by the Master of Economic Commentators, Anthony Hilton of the Evening Standard, dealt with a paper from the recent conference of the Association of Risk and Insurance Managers in Industry and Commerce in which the authors argue that the insurance companies are missing the key fact of the modern economy. This is that around 80% of the recognisable risks that face modern firms are not the traditionally insurable risks of fire, flood and other sources of material damage. He is right to draw attention to that area, and I will refer to it soon: but today I just want to say a very little about the fire tragedy, which is [or should be] absolutely centrally in the insured tradition.
There is a massive history of factory fires in Britain, which have tended especially to occur in times of recession. Hence the early insurance companies insisted on making their own inspections of premises before they would insure them: and making regular sport-check inspections thereafter. The two essential aspects that the inspectors looked for were that the type of structure was entirely suitable for the activities that were to take place within it, and that fire precautions - specifically including sprinklers - were installed and functional.
Whether or not they were traditionally insured, the high-rise blocks of the post-war years had rigorous fire protection measures. The flats within the buildings were each constructed to contain a fire for at least half an hour, before it could spread to other units [known as 'compartmentalisation'] and the external structure had to be absolutely free of flammable materials. it was also imperative that fire escapes were equally free of flammable components.
It was tragically obvious that the cladding of the Grenfell Tower did flare up spectacularly; and that there were no sprinklers in the building.
Regardless of the aesthetic impact, all potentially-flammable materials should be removed from the exterior of high-rise buildings; and sprinklers should be installed - in the first instance, in circulation areas - immediately. Osbornian austerity is [no doubt] partly responsible for the enhanced fire risk in some buildings; and Osbornian austerity must be abandoned to ensure the funding for the necessary works now.
The greatest honour in my life is that I have twice been able to serve as Master of the Worshipful Company of Firefighters, and I have also been a Trustee of the Firefighters Memorial at the south side of St Paul's cathedral for a quarter of a century. Thus I have had the privilege of knowing many firefighting professionals, as well as my fellow-insurers and others who have an interest in fire prevention, fire protection and mitigating the consequences of fire. The response of the London Fire Brigade to the Kensington disaster was absolutely exemplary.
It is far too early to make any definite statement on the reasons why the fire spread so rapidly through the Grenfell Tower: but it was obvious that it spread outside the main structure, as well as within the building. People living in such blocks all over the country urgently need reassurance; and reference to the history and traditions of the fire service and the insurance industry can help a lot here.
Coincidentally, yesterday's piece by the Master of Economic Commentators, Anthony Hilton of the Evening Standard, dealt with a paper from the recent conference of the Association of Risk and Insurance Managers in Industry and Commerce in which the authors argue that the insurance companies are missing the key fact of the modern economy. This is that around 80% of the recognisable risks that face modern firms are not the traditionally insurable risks of fire, flood and other sources of material damage. He is right to draw attention to that area, and I will refer to it soon: but today I just want to say a very little about the fire tragedy, which is [or should be] absolutely centrally in the insured tradition.
There is a massive history of factory fires in Britain, which have tended especially to occur in times of recession. Hence the early insurance companies insisted on making their own inspections of premises before they would insure them: and making regular sport-check inspections thereafter. The two essential aspects that the inspectors looked for were that the type of structure was entirely suitable for the activities that were to take place within it, and that fire precautions - specifically including sprinklers - were installed and functional.
Whether or not they were traditionally insured, the high-rise blocks of the post-war years had rigorous fire protection measures. The flats within the buildings were each constructed to contain a fire for at least half an hour, before it could spread to other units [known as 'compartmentalisation'] and the external structure had to be absolutely free of flammable materials. it was also imperative that fire escapes were equally free of flammable components.
It was tragically obvious that the cladding of the Grenfell Tower did flare up spectacularly; and that there were no sprinklers in the building.
Regardless of the aesthetic impact, all potentially-flammable materials should be removed from the exterior of high-rise buildings; and sprinklers should be installed - in the first instance, in circulation areas - immediately. Osbornian austerity is [no doubt] partly responsible for the enhanced fire risk in some buildings; and Osbornian austerity must be abandoned to ensure the funding for the necessary works now.
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