The End of the LIne? OK. I Lied.

Much as BilloTheWisp has enjoyed his year long retirement from blogging he has now forced me (the minion who writes this stuff) to start up again.

A lot has changed since April 2018 and actually, a great deal has changed for the better.

Globally literacy is up, child mortality is down and the number living in $1.00 a day poverty is at an all time low. There is the odd sparkle of common sense being spoken about nuclear power too.

Even in the UK things are looking good.

After all, the unemployment figures have resolutely refused to go up. In fact they actually went down - and in style.

Now we have the lowest unemployment for 45 years. In fact if you look at the graph you will see that joining the EU (or EEC as it then was) correlates with a rise in unemployment that was maintained for 45 years.

Correlation does not (of course) mean causation.

Though in this case I bet it did.

Here's a year old graph from the BBC (I don't think they are too keen on updating it anymore as the rate is now 3.8% which hardly fits with their propaganda)

But we've still not left the contemptible EU.  So, I'm just going to have to write a few hurty words about why that is from time to time..

But we are not going to be just limited to the nauseous EU.

After-all there is the latest pompous scientifically illiterate farce calling itself  "Extinction Rebellion" to poke fun at.

Truly this is a grouping that so resembles 1950's UFO fanatics and associated doomsday cults I am going to have enormous fun.

I'll also be blogging about the writing and scientific analysis of one of my heroes. The sadly deceased Hans Rosling. If you want to read a great book that levels the field against doom-mongering, read  "Factfulness by Hans Rosling"

Energy policy? Of course! That includes (Ugh!...) Wind Turbines and other childish fashion statements. As well as energy systems that actually work properly.

I intend diversifying into local UK government which is really in deep trouble in the UK. I'll hopefully show how small partys (like the SDP) can reverse the decline.

Other than that - Crime. It's rise or its fall and/or reasons for it and for (in places) its absence.

So There ya go. A Hotch Potch. A veritable smorgasbord of delight.

I have (at least) written the first forty titles... Now I just need to tap the keys in a semblance of order to fill them out. (A task so trivial any minion can do it)

I contemplated moving this to a bespoke site but for the moment I'll just see if this old blogspot manages to wake itself from the dead.

If it does - Great! If not - I'll move it.

No Zombies allowed.

Globalisation: The Real Enemy.

Dear fellow disowned and derided little Englanders

Billothewisp is going to have a rant (or occasional series of rants) about Globalisation. This is the first.

Today I am just setting the stage with an outline of this wrecking ball of an idealogy.

I promise to interperse this stuff with some more digestable (or at least drinkable) posting or I, like you, will probably have a haemorrhage.

Globalisation

On a personal level, we all hold self reliance and self sufficiency in high esteem. But on a national level, these same attributes are villified and undermined.

Globalisation dictates that a national self reliance is regarded as something to be aborred and Free Trade (which is anything but) should fill the gap.

Nationally all our political parties are beholden to the great god of Globalisation. They appear oblivious to the damage and distress it causes to many societies, not just our own.

There is opposition to globalisation but most of the anti-globalisation movement is firmly entrenched on the more lunatic fringes of the left.

Billothewisp does not think firebombing MacDonald's is going to solve anything. Neither does he think that the average member of the Global Justice Movement has so much as a clue as to what is really going on.

Globalisation is a semi-random methodology that entrenches vested interest. The Great Good and Extremely Well Fed get ever richer, while the rest of us become ever more serf like in our position.

Globalisation encourages many of the woes we see in the world today.

Examples include:

Skilled Worker Theft
Predatory pricing
Unemploymnet
Sweat shop labour
mass migration
poverty
false competition
and many others.

To keep these posts to sensible lengths I will keep to one issue/example per post.

The next post will be Skilled Worker Theft.

There. I have said it. Now I feel better. Pass the cider.

The Trouble with VAT

Cast your mind back my despised little Englander mates. To when the last group of "Those Who Should Be Obeyed", panicked and adopted the ludicrous concept of dropping VAT by 2.5%.

As if that was ever going to make people stampede to the shops.

It did though cost a shedful of money. Not only that, it had no positive effect on employment within the small businesses.

Now of course the latest group of "Great Good and Extremely Well Fed" plan to raise VAT to 20%.

Granted, it is an easy hit. A way of raising a considerable amount of money in a short time. "As is" this rate increase will probably also have little effect on employment levels.

But VAT does have a big affect on employment. Especially within the small business sector. But this is due to the VAT Registration Threshold.

The VAT Threshold is based on the turnover of a business. If a business has a turnover of £70K or more it must register for VAT. This means that any bill the business issues will be inflated by 20% (i.e. the VAT). However this will be off-set by the business being able to reclaim VAT it has paid to its suppliers.

So how does this effect employment in small businesses?

Take a plumber working as a sole trader. Say his turnover (that's not profit... that's everything) is £68K. He does not have to register for VAT. No VAT registration means he has to absorb the VAT on the goods he supplies but does not have to charge 20% on his labour. As his labour will account for probably 2/3rds of the final turnover, he can charge less (or make more profit) than another plumber with a turnover of £71K.

There is a distinct disincentive to go through the VAT threshold. If you are going to breach it then you need to do it in style (aka turnover £150K etc.).

Now let us assume that our plumber decides to expand and wants to employ a labourer. Automatically the plumbers turnover inflates by the wages paid to the additional employee. The plumber goes through the VAT threshold and now (as well as paying the labourers wages) has to increase his bills by 20%.

The labourer will have to bring in a great deal more work to make his employment viable. In essence it make much more sense for the plumber to leave the labourer on the dole and to take a holiday when his turnover gets too close to the VAT threshold.

This could be fixed by raising the registration threshold to (say) £100K. It would encourage small enterprises (like our plumber) to expand and to do that he would then require the labourer to help him. Multiply that by (say) 300,000 small businesses across the country and you see the affect.

In the cash straitened time the big question is how much would this cost the exchequer? I think the answer is very little. One of the big savings is the labourer is no longer on the dole (and he is paying taxes) also there is the enterprise affect. As he has expanded once, maybe our plumber will hire more people and risk going go through the VAT threshold. But now it won't hurt so much. Relative to his expanded business, the hiring of extra staff is not so monumental.

So raising the VAT threshold could possibly take 300,000 people off the dole maybe more.

Seems like a good idea to me.

Christmas, Turkeys and their Children

Unite, through their charismatic and vocal leaders have led the BA cabin crew into a strike that will at the very least, cripple BA for years. It could well spell the end for the company.

Perhaps those swayed by the likes of Charlie Wheelan and Tony Woodley should remember the fate of BMC, aka British Leyland, aka Austin Rover, aka Rover Group.

Each name change was a desperate and vain attempt to restore the brand name from the fatal strike and self interested tarnish that beset our car manufacturing in the 1970's

At the bitter end, Rover Group products were pretty good. Its work force dedicated and committed. But the brand never recovered from the petty strikes and stoppages of the Wilson/Callaghan era.

The final nail in the coffin for Rover Group was a government disinterested in its own people and industries.

Rover Group died.

The innocent children of the self interested strikers of the 70's truly inherited the sins of their fathers. They now collect the dole while their fathers collect their pensions.

Perhaps this will be the sad fate of BA in ten years from now.

If not sooner.

At least the cabin crews will have their perks and pensions.

As for their children. Who Knows?

Eight Million Reasons for Change

The polls have narrowed. The Conservative lead has been cut to 6 points. This would in all probability lead to a hung parliament. So why is this happening?

The issue here is not the dynamism of the Labour party. Irrespective of your political leaning, when you look at the Labour Party, what you see is divided, tired and direction-less. The only thing stopping another coup attempt against Brown is the nearness of the next election. They are currently beyond redemption and really, they are a bit like the proverbial dead man walking.

So why are they closing the gap?

The answer has to be the utterly lack-lustre performance of the Conservative party. They have failed completely to get across anything resembling a coherent set of policies. We have the utterly ludicrous commitment to maintaining the foreign aid budget. They have ring fenced “this” and ring fenced “that” and pandered to every fashionable diatribe imaginable. This is not leadership. It is simply dishing out the weasel words in the hope of election by default.

I am sorry if that sounds harsh.

I really, really, really do not want another five years of the rotting cadaver that is this present government.

But it has to be replaced with something that has something other than platitudes to offer the electorate. The only worthwhile thing so far that they have come up with is the idea of selling off the bank shares in a privatisation style sale.

While Osbourne's idea shows merit, there needs to be a raft of new thinking not just one plank.

If they were short of a few ideas and aspects of this failed government to emphasise they would only need to read the Sunday Times today. See Here.

• 8 million “economically inactive”
  
• 1.7 million new jobs created since 1997. 81% have gone to foreigners.
  
• 20% companies now recruit overseas
  

Now add to that:

• Stealing Medics from poor countries but cannot offer our own home trained medics jobs beyond their F2 year.
  
• 3000 new criminal offences since 1997
  
• The greatest divide between rich and poor since the 1930's
  
• Open door immigration.
  
• Poorly equipped military used to slake Labours thirst for war.
  

I could go on and on and on.

But all we hear from the Conservative Party is a mumbling set of fashionable greeny feel good statements.

So far Cameron has failed dismally to marshal both his thoughts and his support.

He needs to pull his finger out.

Inequality and Tax credits

Today a government appointed think tank announced that inequality between the top ten per cent and the bottom ten per cent has widened. In fact it is now wider than at any time since WWII. I do not expect that this was the result the humiliated Hariette Harman was looking for. Even so, it is nothing to laugh about. But I do not want to dwell on the Labour parties pathetic excuses. I would just like to look at this from a recent historical perspective.

Back in the mid 1960's unemployment varied around 250,000 in a population of about 52 million. Two hundred and fifty thousand. I did not miss a nought off the end.

Today unemployment officially stands at ten times the level of the 1960's. That is about 2.5 million, but this is a heavily manipulated figure. There are about another 4 million (at least) syphoned off into higher education or training schemes. There are then maybe another 1 million who have simply given up looking for a job and live off either their savings or partner.

Of these 2.5 million "officially" unemployed about half are young people. Many have never had a job and are trapped into a benefits culture of idleness.

One of this current government's great claims is that it has (rather belatedly) pushed forward incentives for people to work. There are a plethora of tax credits/schemes and other means-tested incentives. Although these make employment slightly more attractive, the sheer technical effort required to fill in the forms, go through the interviews and then actually get a job is a major block to employment.

That really is the problem. The current government is obsessed with regulation and monitoring. There is a all pervading urge to document, control and oversee. If all criteria are met, then the government acts like the majestic Victorian benefactor. But only to those who jump through the hoops like performing dogs.

I have little time for the Liberals but one idea they expounded on recently, was the concept of raising the tax threshold to £10K. With this, at least some of the expensive bureaucratic nightmare of tax credits, claims and rebates can be consigned to history.

The way to getting people back into work and off the dole if to incentivise them. Get rid of the ugly and humiliating benefits. Most importantly, get rid of taxation on the poor.

The way forward is less government, less control,less benefits and much less tax on those on lower wages. This would be bad news for Harriette Harman and the other control freaks. But it would be good news for the poor.