|
|||||
|
Hands up everyone who thinks that Liz Warren wants that shareholder interest to be even more powerful in American firms? Quite, then she’s not proposing the Nordic model of corporate governance, is she? But then, you know, since when did Matt Yglesias allow reality, or even knowledge of it, to ruin a good Democratic Party talking point? – Tim Worstall. Face it, Matt Yglesias has been a fountain of ignorant fluorescent idiocy since the early days of blogging. August 19th, 2018 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
 It is a pity that the lifeblood of industry in this country is small businesses, and by small I don’t mean the UK definition of “SME”, I mean a handful of people, mostly one person, doing their trade. The Conservative Party is transfixed on big business, that they can regulate, and the Labour Party wants more public services under government control, there is literally no-one standing up for the one-man bands of the country that keep us afloat. Under many of the big enterprises are a collection of qualified individuals, major service companies frequently use freelancers. For them, there is no requirement to commit under the company banner, and subsequently the consequences of not having holiday, sickness, guaranteed work, etc, so it is not a great choice but one many people are willing to take nevertheless. Every time there is some form of new regulation or taxation it is the one-man operations that suffer the most. The big business can suck up expenses or tax increases without a problem and the public sector is exempt, just ignores them, or gets someone else to pay for it. The Tories and the Left hate the single operators – and it shows. August 18th, 2018 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
And do note that interesting little difference between London and New York. In NYC you must have a medallion to gain a taxi permit. The money from the restriction on the number of cabs flowed to those who owned the medallions, to those who controlled access. London Black Cabs were not so restricted – so it was the drivers who gained the higher incomes from the customers being screwed. But if we restrict the number of drivers with a middleman like Uber controlling the access then it’s going to be Uber – as with the medallions – who gains, not the drivers. Seriously, this is nuts, Sadiq Khan really is proposing that Uber should have monopoly profits thrust upon it. And why the Hell is a Mayor of London proposing that? Evil or ignorant, your choice. August 16th, 2018 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Perhaps Corbyn really is just unlucky. But it seems more probable that he’s not. And that, far from being the decent man of legend he’s actually thoroughly indecent. The only possible alternative is that he’s thunderously, crushingly, toe-curlingly thick. On balance, however, it seems more probable that he is, in fact, both. Enough of this. Enough, already.” – Alex Massie (Spectator is behind a registration paywall.) August 15th, 2018 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
“I heard the other day of a quite senior minister who has not been rung for the last six years by the political editor of the newspaper in his local city because he, the minister, can be relied on to say absolutely nothing. No one has ever written a profile of this minister. As he transacts the business of his department, he might as well be wearing a cloak of invisibility. One cannot help wondering whether his own family have any idea of who, politically speaking, he is, for even if he knows himself, he lacks the command of language needed to explain himself to anyone else.” – Andrew Gimson, musing on the terrible communications skills and speech-making calibre of our political class. August 14th, 2018 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Something horrible flits across the background in scenes from Afghanistan, scuttling out of sight. There it is, a brief blue or black flash, a grotesque Scream 1, 2 and 3 personified – a woman. The top-to-toe burka, with its sinister, airless little grille, is more than an instrument of persecution, it is a public tarring and feathering of female sexuality. It transforms any woman into an object of defilement too untouchably disgusting to be seen. It is a garment of lurid sexual suggestiveness: what rampant desire and desirability lurks and leers beneath its dark mysteries? In its objectifying of women, it turns them into cowering creatures demanding and expecting violence and victimisation. Forget cultural sensibilities. – Before you click on this link to see who wrote this about burqa-clad women, take a guess… August 12th, 2018 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Perhaps, then, the most dangerous piece of ‘common sense’ in Peterson’s new book comes at the very beginning, when he imparts the essential piece of wisdom for anyone interested in fighting a powerful, existing order. ‘Stand up straight,’ begins Rule No. 1, ‘with your shoulders back.’ – Caitlin Flanagan, in the Atlantic Monthly. August 9th, 2018 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
That’s really what is annoying [Mark Thompson, CEO of the New York Times]. He’s got a newsroom with 1,000 or more people turning out perhaps one, possibly two, pieces each a week. All to impeccable journalistic standards as to process and near no diversity of viewpoint nor thought at all. Then along come some bunch of teenage scribblers, some of them even without Masters degree in journalism, producing stuff that people actually want to read. How Very Dare They? August 4th, 2018 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
In the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, Parliament committed the huge sum of 20 million pounds sterling to compensate slave owners for the loss of their “assets”. That was equivalent to 40 percent of the entire national budget (and five percent of Britain’s GDP at the time), requiring the government to borrow most of the 20 million from private sources. – Lawrence Reed. These numbers really put the political feat of achieving this in perspective. August 2nd, 2018 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
“In relation to the Irish border, we need to be tougher and call the EU’s bluff. Currently a border already exists between the UK and Ireland – in currency, VAT, excise duties and security which do not present any problems at all. Using new technology as well as extending schemes such as the Authorised Economic Operator scheme means any post-Brexit customs checks can be done without a hard border. The EU insists on customs checks but in reality no UK or Irish Government would ever accept a hard border. Those making the case for the Chequers plan off the back of threats about the Irish border are simply playing into the EU’s hands.” August 2nd, 2018 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have never seen so many lefties attacking a Labour leader. And I have never seen so many grass roots Tories attacking a Tory leader. It is a bizarre race to the bottom in which who wins the next election will be based on which despised leader least nauseates their own side. – Perry de Havilland July 31st, 2018 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
And then there’s that rather larger point that if the censor gets to decide what can appear on Facebook then what about claims in the wider media? The opinion pages of all newspapers carry pieces which at least some, on any particular point, will claim is fake including – oft with respect to Oliver Kamm – the use of and and/or or. That a genetic male claiming they are female is correct or not? Which answer – no they ain’t, only if they have surgery or whatever they say – is fake news or not? To give anyone the power to decide upon fake news on any part of the media is to give the same prodnoses and authoritarians the power to censor it all. Well, except the Guardian, obviously – “It accuses them of profiting” – if you’ve not made a profit in a decade then you can’t be accused of that now, can you? July 30th, 2018 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||