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Questions Of The Day (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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Yeah, now slope off to Argentina, you Argie.
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Mick Harper
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Woops, that was Galtieri. Welcome, Gualtieri.
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Mick Harper
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So where have we got to? Sub-Saharan Africa has been independent for fifty years—long enough to make some broad generalisations, the chief of which is that sub-Saharan Africans are making a poor fist of it. Maybe this will change, maybe it won’t, but right now it’s won’t. So the way ahead is out-sourcing. Actually it’s always been thus so let us see what worked and what didn’t.

1. Colonial era. Government out-sourced to the colonial power, macro-economy out-sourced to colonial companies, micro-economy out-sourced to protected non-African, non-Colonial minorities eg Jews, Armenians, Arabs, south Asians.
Economically, the natives do not benefit. Politically stable.

2. Post-colonial era. Government not out-sourced, macro-economy still operated by colonial companies (inertia plus neo-colonialist pressure); micro-economy is steadily Africanised as alien minorities are either forced out or go because the economy is going.
Economically, the natives are worse off than before. Politically stable (neo-colonialism).

3. NGO-era. Government not out-sourced. Macro: multinationals replace colonial companies partly from efficiency partly from bribery and corruption. Micro: NGO’s try with some success to buttress Africanisation.
Economically, some improvement for natives. Politically unstable.

4. Chinese arrive.

more later
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Mick Harper
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The panic's over! The OBR has stopped forecasting that productivity will rise so now productivity can start rising.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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This is the big Housing budget.

We are going to halve the homeless by 2022, which is great news for shoppers who don't like homeless encampments spoiling the ambience of their local Burger King.

If the target is achieved, then it will reduce the homeless numbers to (oops) the same level as when the current lot took over in 2010. Apparently we are going to do this by a new policy called Housing First. Three big pilots are being commissioned in the West Midlands and up North.

You have to wonder why London, which has by far the worst homeless problem, was not selected. It might be something to do with that the First, in Housing First, is a new home and London has none available (cf Grenfell tower).

Still it's pretty exciting, isn't it, these pilots could show that the solution to Homelessness is available Housing. Who would have thought that ?
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Mick Harper
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There is no housing shortage. There cannot be such a thing as a housing shortage. Since everybody would like to live in a mansion the 'demand' for housing can never be satisfied. Since everyone would like to live in Central London (or equivalent elsewhere) housing demand can doubly never be satisfied.

The nearest people mean by the phrase 'housing shortage' is that the number of housing units is less than the number of households. Unfortunately the former is actually larger than the latter and, according to a bloke on Newsnight who made sense so won't be asked back, the difference is actually growing.

The 'crisis' is caused by politics. Nobody has either the wit or the will to encourage or enforce the prevention of over-occupation (mainly by the elderly but also by pampered house-buyers) and redistribute--even via sensible social housing provision--to the young.
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Mick Harper
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I am amazed at how everyone is getting this Irish border problem wrong. It is not a problem for us, it is a problem for the EU. Once we've sorted the money and the citizen status business (which apparently we have) this only leaves the border question and then on to the trade stuff (the only one of any importance).

Now the EU cannot force us to be in the single market ... but Ireland can, in the sense that it can veto any hard border settlement. But there has to be hard border if we are not in the single market. Therefore what we are going to end up with is us being de facto in the single market (because of Ireland) but not de jure (because of us).

All we have to do is sit on our hands while the EU negotiates with Ireland about how we are going to be functionally in the single market but not have to pay to be in it, or be bound by it. Exactly what we want!
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Mick Harper
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I had not realised glamour models are drawn to leaders of UKIP. I may throw my own hat into the ring.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Hmmm just because you fancy a Nazi, doesn't mean that you are Indiana Jones.
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Mick Harper
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Carillion is a legal Ponzi scheme
.
1. You price jobs below the market rate
2. and therefore get them.
3. Under PPI and variants you get the money up front
4. This money allows you to expand and get bigger repeating (1).
5. At this stage you are showing a massive theoretical liquidity
6. Which you can describe as profit because accountants don’t understand PPI’s -- nobody does, they’re too new
7. So they can't blow the whistle when
8. You pay yourself massive bonuses every year as per the profits
9. As soon as paying for the long term contracts outweighs the new money coming in you start making profit warnings, explaining how you didn’t do the costing carefully enough
10. You do the honourable thing and resign.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Cripes we can't afford to invest in schools and hospitals, debt is too great.... we can't borrow cheaply enough from financial institutions, to invest to find the massive start up costs... need to get private sector to take risk.

Cripes PFI licence to print wonga they have ripped off tax payer for the next 20 years. Need to find a partnership model.

Cripes PPP all these clauses that ensure on time and on budget, value for money etc have led to Carillion going bust. Financial institutions pulled the plug.

Cripes can't bail out an outsourcing construction company, err bailed out financial institutions that's already left country in massive debt.

Cripes would be cheaper for government to have done it.

Yes thats it. (See top)
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Mick Harper
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Like everyone else, Coyote, you not only start spouting garbage when talking politics but you start spouting the same garbage as everyone else.
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Mick Harper
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But it is worth pondering why it is public-or-private ownership that forms such a continuing fault-line in political allegiances. If you look again at Coyote’s reply (I was perhaps too tersely belligerent, I blame Ishmael) you will see what I mean.

Cripes we can't afford to invest in schools and hospitals, debt is too great....

Wiley correctly points out that this is indeed a parrot-cry even though debt can never be too great so long as people are prepared to lend you money.

we can't borrow cheaply enough from financial institutions, to invest to find the massive start up costs... need to get private sector to take risk.

This is put wrongly since everyone concedes that the state can borrow at practically nil rates, certainly always cheaper than private companies can. What is important (to politicians and credit agencies) is that technically the money does not show up in the current borrowing requirement.

Cripes PFI licence to print wonga they have ripped off tax payer for the next 20 years. Need to find a partnership model.

We have to cut everyone some slack here. PFI’s were so new and so big nobody knew how to cost them. At first the contracts had to be generous to the private sector just to get the idea off and running. Then came the backlash and they got too onerous (eg Carillion) but there is no reason to suppose they cannot work satisfactorily in the future. Unless someone can show they can't.

Cripes can't bail out an outsourcing construction company, err bailed out financial institutions that's already left country in massive debt.

This is where the saloon bar thinking comes in. They are two different things. The banks were bailed out because of the chaos ensuing if they hadn’t been. (You can argue that either way.) Carillion wasn’t bailed out because the chaos was handleable. (You can argue that either way). When somebody starts conjoining things that look the same but aren’t the same, you can be sure that person has a lurking beef against the whole shooting match. AE-ists are not permitted lurking beefs.

Cripes would be cheaper for government to have done it.

The heart of the matter. We just don’t know. It may be, it may not be. It may be for some things, it may not be for other things. An AE-ist always says, “Suck it and see.” It is far too early to say yet whether PFI's are in principle either a good thing or a bad thing. Unless you are starting off as a 'public sector man'. But then you would not be an AE-ist. At least not where politics is concerned.
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Mick Harper
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I had not realised porn stars are drawn to future presidents of America. I may throw my own hat into the ring.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
Like everyone else, Coyote, you not only start spouting garbage when talking politics but you start spouting the same garbage as everyone else.


I reckon my posts on circular thinking and mob thinking are some of my most hated yet.

Still mob thought is a personal Grail.
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