So here is some from Madsen…
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Common sense is quite uncommonApril 4th, 2018 |
 49 comments to Common sense is quite uncommon |
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We have always had to do our own passports, Mr Pirie is mis-stating the situation. We did not get ‘European’ passports, they were and continued to be made in the UK (as it happened) and had ‘European Union’ added to them and were harmonised as a political gesture. Mr Pirie appears to be sneering at a reversal of a politicisation of passports, a reaction to a political action.
If his point is that we would be better off contracting out the making of passports overseas, well he might be making a purely monetary calculation, but that is not the entire nexus. There are also security considerations as to whether a bid is acceptable. There is a concern, the merit of which I am not at present able to judge, that the contract was under-bid to below cost price and TINSTAAFL, which Mr Pirie should know. He does not ask himself that, he takes a pointless dig at Mr Trump. Perhaps he just wants to be loved by the Lefties in power. So why should the lowest bid be presumed to be the best?
Unless of course we simply go down to British Visitor’s Passports. Of course, Mr Pirie’s ‘teenage scribblers’ would not know what they were, or what trust and freedom they represented.
Then I assume you have never met Madsen 😆
Having control over who gets our passports is the key point – not where we buy the pretty blue covers for them.
I agree with Mr Ed that the issue of security is a proper point to consider. I also wish not to confuse in my own mind with that of protectionism. If Mr Putin were to offer a really competitive price for making our passports, adding biometric data and managing the cloud in which the relevant UK department will hold all the data – then I’d want to be protected from that. However if someone is offering a good price for a batch of blue covers (that any country can counterfeit indistinguishably from the real ones) as a mere first stage of the passport creation programme, that does not seem much of a security issue at first glance.
That said, I’m quite prepared to compromise a lot of free trade principles on the odd petty symbolic issue like passports – provided I see no great risk of its polluting the general case. I want to remain clear-headed, but I’m so not interested in losing an election – or even a sound-byte – on the issue. AFAIAC, if my government showed a moment’s sanity on free speech or law&order, it could be as protectionist as it liked about passports. I’m not just being cynical about voters here. There is a legitimate issue of trust. Our government should be ready to go beyond strict logic in regaining the trust of the public over who is being given citizenship, because that trust has been deservedly lost.
The reason I am *not* willing to compromise on this issue is indeed down to the symbolism
Certainly, if one wishes to foster any sort of neoliberal resurgence throughout the West over the competing progressive socialist mindset, the best tactic is to throw out digs against the barbarian Trump at every opportunity.
Anything that helps those libertarian-minded American Democrats back into power, eh?
There’s not much of an audience anywhere outside the USA, anywhere on the political spectrum, where that doesn’t play well. Sad perhaps, but true.
This is aimed at a UK audience.
I agree about 99.5 percent with what that bloke is after, but I think there’s probably three things that a country should except from international bidding:
1) Passports
2) Currency
3) Military weapons, to the extent possible[1]
I’m on the fence about postage stamps.
I mean, if you’re willing to outsource everything, how about outsourcing your government as well–after all SOMEONE might be able to do a better…
Hey, anyone want to start a company?
[1] Licensing foreign designs is one thing, but one needs the factories and labor to build them should one get cut off. Also, a smaller country might not have the landmass and heavy industry required for things like tanks, ships and aircraft. However one should still make as much of your small arms as possible.
Well my view of the importance of citizenship & passports has not changed since 2002 😛
William O, B
You might note that the company that has lost the UK passport contract provides currency notes and ID documents for many countries, indeed, they boast on their website of working with governments and central banks (boo hiss!):
Now if we had gold and/or silver as money, they’d have an entirely new business model to develop for one core area.
Certainly, but the present level of crosstalk means that everything is available to a global audience. We in the USA have a non-Democrat as president only through a lot of accidents and miscues that all peaked on the same day, and the chance of a recurrence in a few years is becoming vanishingly small.
It baffles me that people are so willing and happy to use the perfect to belittle the good, when by doing so they’re simply opening the door to the bad and the worse. Does anyone truly believe that we’ll come closer to a world of smaller government by lessening Trump’s chances and boosting the fortunes of American Democrats?
We make fun of SJW’s because they’re such inveterate virtue-signalers, but how is this different?
You are asking why would a free-trader would make fun of a president who uses protectionist rhetoric?
Consider this: Trump is not well regarded by the target audience for a variety of reasons we need not ponder (i.e. take it as a given that Trump is not well regarded), and Trump employs nationalist rhetoric about ‘bringing jobs home’. So Madsen seems to be suggesting that if you want UK passports produced by a UK company because it offends nationalist sentiments even though the Franco-Dutch company (with a factory in Fareham) gave the best quote by quite a wide margin, you are basically ‘doing a Trump’. Not hard to see how that might sell well.
True, and equally it is not hard to see how the Daily Mail might sell more copies with a lead story demanding British passports be made in Britain.
A different issue is raised by bobby b (April 4, 2018 at 10:40 pm). I too dislike anti-Trump virtue signalling – but also hope Trump’s tariffs are de facto restricted to Chinese containment, ‘tu quoque’ exposure of the EU’s protectionism, and negotiated mutual tariff reductions. (And if Trump wins an election while bedding that in, fine by me.) Playing the “Trump” card to shame Euro-statists will inevitably happen as part of that. Insolent attempts to spin that into “Support the EU – vote Trump out” will also inevitably be pushed hard by the usual suspects.
Indeed, and if I was a betting man, I’d hazard that is precisely what he is seeking to counter
Given that off-shoring industry has weakened all western nations and strengthened all their competitors and rivals around the world, I’m not sure we’ve got much out of this arrangement. I’d rather my country made everything it could locally and employed everyone it could locally. I don’t really care to employ people in China or India to make my cars and flat screens.
Both Smith and those who quote him, e.g. Milton Friedman in “Free to Choose” grant various exceptions, e.g. national security, while noting that these theoretically-valid exception arguments are sometimes used to protect invalid cases in practice.
I’m as happy today as I would have been in Queen Victoria’s day to see our trade with India benefiting both nations. I see reasons to think China’s nominally economic activity has a political dimension that we should counter, but I wish to be clear in my mind why I would support that and when I would stop supporting it.
If we cannot ‘ … employ a part of our own industry to advantage … [paraphrasing]’ because of PC regulation, let’s end the regulations, not protect them by tariffing goods made without them.
What I am asking is the following:
Why isn’t that particular free-trader smart/informed-enough to tell apart rhetoric and actual policies? And if he is, why doesn’t he make an attempt to impress that distinction on his target audience?
Where actual policies are being implemented, why can’t he see that they are not making the trade less free – in fact, they are making it more so in the long run?
Why did he not choose an example more relevant to his particular point than the passport-manufacturing industry – unless there is no such example in the UK context? And if not, why is he even raising the issue, other than to ingratiate himself with his target-audience’s dislike of Trump? (Right, I have not met him, so I’m going by what he wrote).
So it seems to me that we actually do need to ponder the reasons why Trump is not well-regarded by that target audience. Sometimes common sense can be too common.
Niall:
I’d also through Mexico into that mix (as I think Trump is doing).
I, for one, am not willing to trade my free-market principles for a bit of jingoistic flag-waving. One of the points of Brexit is that we could become an outward-looking nation which is open and eager to trade with the world.
That said, there’s more to this than just principles. Giving the contract to DeLaRue would cost us, from memory, £120,000,000 more. That is, we would collectively be £120,000,000 poorer.
That’s £120,000,000 poorer for a bit of flag-waving symbolism. And of course, it won’t all come from comfortable, middle-class users who won’t miss the extra few quid it would cost them. It will also affect the poor who wish to travel overseas post-Brexit.
Is saying, effectively, “Screw the poor and give us passports printed in dear old Blightey” really the position we really want to take?
No. I understand this perfectly, and I have to believe that you read enough of my comment to understand that that wasn’t what I was asking.
I’m asking why a free-trader would add to the opprobrium of an erstwhile Republican, smaller-government American president in a manner that can only bolster the forces of larger USA government.
I’m asking why he ultimately cares to add to the voices that seek to bring one of the world’s large powers back into progressive sway for the ultimately esoteric point about who prints your passports.
I’m asking why he feels the need to virtue-signal in a way that allows the goal of a perfect world to interfere with the much more attainable goal of a better world.
I’m almost certain he’s bright enough to have made his point without the smug and facile Trump-bash, yet he felt it necessary to throw it in. He reminds me of the one-half of our existing USA Republican politicians who ultimately keep us from progressing in a conservative direction, simply so they can smirk and point at the boorish president who’s not in their fraternity.
Nothing to do with Trump.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110hr5752ih/content-detail.html
Because it makes domestic political sense to make snide remarks about Trump.
Easy. Because that is an issue in the new right now & generated far more headlines than other more important but more arcane examples that don’t generate front page stories.
Do you think that whether other great powers swing progressive or conservative makes a difference in your domestic environment? I would think that a more conservative world surrounding you makes it easier to foster your own conservativism.
Maybe I’m being parochial, but I would think that your chances for boosting libertarian thought at home lessen as the rest of the world turns progressive. In my American conceit, your chances of both Brexit and the defeat of the forces behind Corbyn are strengthened when your electorate sees a large country to your west thriving specifically due to right-wing influence. Add to the “Trump is a putz” chorus, and your government deals with a President Clinton, and all of the progressive pressures she would bring in dealing with you.
I fear that is correct, but I would say that I would expect Mr Pirie to rise above that. I have not so much met him as encountered him once, many years ago. when he was more prominent, I recall that a lot of the then young political ‘hacks’ around him seemed unkindly to stress the first syllable of his first name when referring to him.
bobby b hits the nail on the head, with Mjölnir.
I remember Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (now there was a goofball genius to whom I could listen all day) speaking in support of that bill ten years ago, and he made the exact argument that Mr. Pirie made, and it was quite convincing. Short bill, to the point, and made perfect sense:
It was one of those arguments that leave you sputtering “but why aren’t we already doing this?!” It was like finding out that The Wall design had been contracted to Mexico.
Exactly – the rest is covered by Mr. Ed’s comment.
Perry, I hasten to add that I deeply respect Dr. Pirie, listened to him lecture way back when at Hillsdale, loved his work with Thatcher, and wish the ASI ran the world. I was simply struck by his aside.
Damn. I said that exactly wrong. He made the opposite argument from what Dr. Pirie made.
Then you want less people to own cars and flat screens, because that is the consequence of ‘make it all at home’: products that are not just way more expensive, they are also crap… cars by British Leyland & BBC green screens. It is the economics of Harold Wilson.
they are also crap… cars by British Leyland & BBC green screens
To be fair, that was more to do with government ownership than being British made.
Doesn’t it all rather depend on what timeline you take? I don’t much care where my passports are made but isn’t Trump’s logic that giving trade to a rival power to save £120m (or whatever) ends up costing me much more than that later?
If I have to wage war against a country made marginally richer and therefore more able to fight by my purchasing decision (such decision being likely one of many millions of such decisions my countrymen and their businesses make) and if said country manipulated the factors of production to increase its trading advantage – by taking advantage of their largesse I am richer in the short term, but if my factories close, my ability to make steel and weapons is shipped abroad then when the war comes I will be that much less able to fight it- especially if my battlefield connectivity is provided via routers made by my erstwhile trade partner.
Of course, you could argue that trade makes war less likely (a la Obama). Clearly, Trump has decided war is highly likely and as he sees it, he’s laying the groundwork to win.
Passports were originally made by the Country who issued them, after all they backed up the Passport by action in the event that it was not recognised by any other Country. It was therefore a mark of the Country of issue had control. Of course, no one thinks of that now, too sloppy, yet it is there in the book.
Runcie, it had more to do with insulating the businesses with taxpayer money and tariff barriers
A government purchase is not the same as a market purchase.
A government purchase is always determined by political forces. A market purchase is determined by genuine economic forces.
It’s naive to pretend otherwise.
I understand the free-market arguments just fine and I accept the trade-off. Things are a bit more expensive locally… BUT the ~20% or more of the population that does nothing but suck up welfare is instead working and contributing to their own lives and the national output. We have removed the employment opportunities for a vast number of low-skill, low-intelligence people and hidden them as unemployable under various government schemes. We have taken away their opportunity for a real life. That is wrong. And improving the lives of foreigners who wish only to grind us into the dust of history makes it not only wrong but foolish. There is enough industrial capacity in the free world to have free trade on something approaching an equal basis where we may all specialise efficiently. We have allowed ourselves to be blinded by ideology that trade with people who undercut our wages is to our own benefit because we get cheaper consumer goods. I count the enormous welfare bill coming out of our taxes to house and feed our redundant workforce as part of the cost of those goods, do you? Do you think “we” have gained by this new arrangement? Perhaps if you’re one of those who kept his job it seems great. But I doubt the millions upon millions of your fellow citizens who were made redundant as people, would agree.
Who is claiming otherwise? The demand is simple: the government must spend less of our tax money so buy the fucking things from the cheapest bidder. That is a political demand.
But that is *not* the trade off. You think you are arguing against welfare by ‘putting people to work’ but you’re not. You are just arguing for a different kind of welfare, corporate welfare. That is what Britain tried in the sixties and seventies and it was a disaster that consumed the economy.
In your new state directed order, the cars and flat screens (to use your examples) get produced by UK companies in a protective environment that shields them from foreign competition, meaning not only are then not under competitive pressure price wise (i.e. more expensive cars & flat screens), they have no incentives to produce better quality products compared to overseas would-be competitors (crap cars & flat screens). And who do these National Champion companies sell their cars and flat screens to? Only Brits, of course, because why would people in other countries with access to better/cheaper products buy our state protected British Leyland-redux junk? Well done, you’ve just lowered our standard of living vis a vis the rest of the world and ensured we only have access to state approved un-exportable goods. Oh and you’ve probably also started a trade war. Back to the era of Harold Wilson we go.
Solving the problem of the ‘20%’ is not so simple. But then we tax & regulate the hell out of employment, motivating employers to employ less people in order to remain viable competitive companies. And of course eventually rather than buying cars and flat screens from Asia, it will stop mattering employment-wise where they get produced as they will all be made by robots anyway.
Apparently you didn’t read what I wrote. At least not very carefully.
“Apparently you didn’t read what I wrote. At least not very carefully.”
Sure I did. So who are your protected industries employing low skill folk going to export to?
“There is enough industrial capacity in the free world to have free trade on something approaching an equal basis where we may all specialise efficiently.”
So you want a First World trading bloc, say, a bit like the EU?
If the government had any understanding of the concept of ‘value for money’ – or the value of anything – it wouldn’t be spending stolen property.
I understand the symbolism of the principle but the reason you’re getting blow-back on this issue is not because we hate free markets it’s because we hate this government and realise that everything the government touches turns to shit.
I’m saying that the free world does not require the 3rd world in order to have “free trade”. We’re not gaining anything from the arrangement, we’re destroying the lives and earning potential of the lower class and transferring that wealth to the rest of the population as cheaper consumer goods, the savings on which are then taken as taxation to pay for the welfare for the now unemployable lower class. It’s a shell game of moving wealth, not creating it. This is the problem in discussions with ideologues, real world circumstances never bother their theories.
Two and a half questions: 1. So how do you envisage it working? As I asked before, a First World trading bloc like EU that sticks tariffs on non-bloc stuff? Or do you prefer idea UK can go it alone and just wall off certain sectors with tariff barriers? Genuine questions so I understand where you are heading.
2. Let’s just say all the cheap high quality cars & flat screens made in Asia are excluded, is that going to employ the least productive 20% that you view as globalisation’s losers? Also, curious, do you also include steel & coal as protected sectors as they are fairly labour intensive (steel less so these days but still)?
Just say it plainly. You are fine with an unemployable lower class because it means you can have a cheaper car. No need to get into policy nuts and bolts when simple self-interest is at the root of your position.
Yes of course self-interest is at the root of my position. I just happen to think the alternatives to my position make things worse across the board. Look, I’m wealthy enough that doubling the price of pretty much everything, I can still buy the goodies large tariffs will price out of other people’s reach & I can always just upstakes and go if the UK starts circling the drain, but I’d really rather not. Having lived through the 1970s the first time, I’m not keen to see those kind of autarkic policies again.
I think many (but by no means all) people who are ‘unemployable’ are because of welfare dependent inertia, excessive regulation of labour & taxing employment in ways that makes some low value added jobs too expensive to create. But I still want to know how you think a way to change that will work (I am not taking the piss, I really want to know). What will cause the bottom 20% to actually have real viable jobs of some kind? Large non-automated tariff protected factories?
For who?
Would you rather things cost 20% less & you’re on welfare and unemployable or would you rather have things cost 20% more & you have an actual job?
Perry de Havilland (London) (April 6, 2018 at 10:59 pm) is asking a sensible question. If you want to reduce the UK’s underclass of welfare dependents, and solve the problem of all the jobs regulated out of existence, is the further state action of tariffs, further distorting the market, the best way to remedy the distortions that state action has caused, or should the general solution be less state action? We are leaving the protectionist zone of the EU (too slowly, but it’s happening) so it would be desirable to get that right.
For the economy as a whole, this is an empirical question which the classical principle of comparative advantage answers very clearly – see my Adam Smith quote above. Later history drops strong hints (to put it mildly) that they were right, and those who ignored them wrong (just as with socialism, though happily the negative effects of a long-sustained gung-ho tariff policy are usually less cruel).
That is a sensible point. I say something similar at the end of my comment above. However it interacts with another point. Smith and his followers grant some legitimate exceptions to their criticism of tariffs – and warn against those ‘exception arguments’ being abused. Passports obviously can be one of those exceptions. Whether they are or not in this case depends on the details – and on whether we trust those in charge to be clued up enough to know those details themselves.