Stop the Benefits Scroungers

With the Westminster government intending to hammer benefits claimants on Monday I thought that this picture published on Twitter by @RCdeWinter  is quite pertinent, despite the fact that it relates to the USA (however Walmart is, of course, the parent company of ASDA on our side of the pond).

@wallbngr54 they're disgusting hypocrites #Walmart #Waltons twitter.com/RCdeWinter/sta…
— RC deWinter (@RCdeWinter) March 31, 2013

If companies pay so little to their employees that they have to depend on state handouts in order to have a basic standard of living then it is not those in receipt of benefits who are the cheats and scroungers so despised by The Daily Mail and its ilk, but the owners of these companies who abuse the benefits system as a means to boost their profits by underpaying their staff.

If the government really wanted to tackle the benefits bill for fiscal, rather than ideological, reasons then they would increase the minimum wage to a level where a working couple with an average amount of children wouldn't need to claim any state support.

Before the usual suspects accuse me of socialist ranting or bolstering the left, I would point out that I am a fiscal conservative, and this post makes a free market point. 

The welfare state should support those in greatest need, not one of the wealthiest families in the world and a company that relies on huge state subsidies in order to pay its workforce is not working in either the true private sector or in a free market economy. If paying a fair wage would make the company unprofitable (doubtful) then they should go bust - which would be a boon for the thousands of small companies that their abuse of state subsidies squeeze out of the market place!

A Christmas Boost to the Economy

Gideon Osborne wants to cut back on benefits in order to do what he wants to do with the economy.

There is one really pathetic state benefit that he should tackle if he is serious about boosting the economy. The Christmas Bonus.

The Christmas Bonus is £10 that is paid to all benefit recipients in late November, it was first paid in the 1970's; I can't recall if it was Mr Heath or Mr Wilson's government who introduced it, but I can remember my Grandmother being thrilled to bits because the £10 enabled her to buy a pair of socks for all of her descendants – the first time she had been able to buy all her kids and grandkids a Christmas present.

The Christmas Bonus is still £10 forty years later – it probably costs more than £10 to distribute it and in this day and age ten quid is hardly a bonus of any real value to the recipient.

Abolishing the Christmas Bonus would be a sensible saving if one just wants to cut the benefits bill. Let's be honest a tenner at Christmas isn't really a benefit anymore! Ditching the payment and the cost of paying it would make serious inroads into the benefits bill!

On the other hand – the best way of boosting the UK economy in the run-up to the important Christmas quarter would be to update the Christmas bonus to a sum that enabled grannies to buy gifts for all their descendents again!

Giving every scrounging bastard, older person, tax credit parent, disabled individual, single mum etc a £2K Christmas bonus - that will be spent rather than saved will result in a HUGE boost to the economy!

And therein lies the problem of the Tory attitude to solving the economic downturn in these islands' prosperity – the idea that the economy is top down as it use to be 200 years ago, that the "poor" depend on those higher up the financial / social scale is wrong in this day and age. It isn't so now!

The way that the mass economy works is that the things that sell best are the things that we ALL must have – if we are on the dole or on a £5K per week – for the economy to grow we must enable the poorest to buy!

In a mass international market – the mass is the key to economic success, not the elite – The Cameron / Gideon axis doesn't get this modern truism and is, therefore, bound to fail.

The Unacceptable Face of Capitalism

Standards & Poor's is a company, nothing more nothing less; but it has just threatened 15 Euro Zone countries with downgrading their creditworthiness and those sovereign countries are expected to react to this single company's musings by changing economic policies that will affect over half a billion citizens.

When a single company can dictate economic policy to 15 countries and half a billion people, we don't have democracy; we have a tyranny that is worse than that used by any Self-serving Monarch or Evil dictator in the past history of mankind.

The Euro Zone should tell Standards & Poor's to ****** (expletives deleted), make its sort of trading illegal, ban it and stop it from blackmailing democratically elected governments in future.

The answer to the current economic crisis is not to bow to the markets that created and are exacerbating the crisis. The answer is to regulate the markets so that companies like Standards and Poors can no longer profit out of the economic misery that they wish to impose on billions of people for the sake of a fast buck for their few shareholders.

Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves!

Yesterday morning I received a letter from the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency. The letter was sent by first class recorded delivery in a J6 bubble pack padded envelope, the package contained a copy of a letter that I had sent them and an acknowledgement that they would include my letter into the Statement of Case that the letter referred to!

The client that I am representing also received a recorded delivery copy of the same letter in the same packaging.

Eighteen quid for what could have been provided for by two 41p plain first class stamps!

Even the 82p would have been a waste of money because the Agency has no choice but to include the letter into the Statement of Case, and me and my client already knew that!

Eighteen quid might be chickenfeed in the sum of the overal national budget, but how many Bubble Packed Recorded Delivery Acknowledgement Slips does it take to build a new hospital?

When I budget for my kids birthdays or for Christmas I find that the things that make one go over budget aren't the big items like the PS3 or the new bike, but the pound-for-this-fifty pee-for-that little incidentals!

The Government should start to look after the billions of pennies wasted in this way, if it wants to save billions of pounds from the overall state budget!

Why is VAT a regressive tax?

I admit that I am not very good at sums and that I am easily confused by economic arguments. So I hope that somebody will be able to explain a comment made by Roger Williams on Sunday's Politics Show and by David Milliband on today's Daily Politics - that raising VAT is a regressive tax because it falls most heavily on the poorest in society.

If a poor person spends £20,000 a year and a rich person spends £200,000 I would have thought that the richer person would pay at least 10 times as much in purchase taxes than the poorer person. Because VAT is a purchase tax that is only charged on luxury goods, with essential goods being exempt, I would also have thought that it stands to reason that the richer person would spend a greater percentage of his money on luxuries whilst the poorer person would spend a large proportion of his money on tax exempt essentials. If this is the case then the richer person will pay even more in tax. This doesn't appear regressive or disproportionate to me; it appears to be fair and proportionate. So how do Mr Williams and Mr Milliband come to the opposite conclusion to me?

Who is the money owed to?

This is a serious question asked for the sake of an answer, rather than to make a political point.

Apparently the UK owes £890 billion pounds. Who does it owe the money to? Is it to some of the banks that it borrowed money in order to bail them out?

101 Reasons for not voting Labour # 29 - 53

When the Labour Party was first elected back in 1997 Gordon Brown gained a reputation for economic prudence and competence. It was probably never deserved. Little of the so called economic miracle effected Wales, which has remained as poor as it was in the aftermath of the de-industrialization policies of Mrs Thatcher. Without doubt that reputation is now completely shattered. Rather than causing the end of boom and bust Brown has presided over one of the worst busts since the 1930's. My next 25 reasons for not voting Labour are all based on the economic mess that the party has caused.

29) The worst economic recession since the great depression

30) £697 billion of government debt which it will take generations to repay

31) Unemployment rates soaring. Up to 100,000 jobs per month being lost with projections that unemployment will reach 3,000,000 before long.

32) Savings made worthless due to the 0.5% interest rate

33) Output from factories hits fastest rate of decline for 28 years, with a likelihood that the rate will accelerate.

Welsh factories closing on a daily basis

34) Indesit in Bodelwyddan

35) Rexam Plastics in Flintshire

36) Corus steel plants, across Wales

37) Serious Food, Llantrisant

38) Bosch, Miskin

39) L’Oreal, Talbot Green

40) Dolgarog Aluminium

To name just a few

41) A generation stripped of self-belief as unemployment hits the under 25s in Wales particularly hard

42) Thousands of families loosing their homes

43) Northern Rock

44) HBoS

45) RBS

46) Printing £75 billion of extra money

47) Devaluing the pound.

48) Small businesses are essential to improving the economy, but they are generally ignored by Labour

49) Advice services for small businesses are being withdrawn

50) Despite paying billions to bail out the banks, the Government can't persuade the banks that it now owns to support small businesses

51) Gordon Brown refuses to accept any responsibility for the recession. Blaming "the world" rather than his own poor judgement and mismanagement

52) The arrogant assumption that those who got us into this mess are the only ones who can get us out of it

53) At a time when competence is most needed Alistair Darling always gets his predictions wrong

How many MPs does Wales need?

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that my answer to the question how many Westminster MP's does Wales need? is none, nil, zero, zilch, nix etc.

Since the 1930's Wales has always been at the bottom of the list of every economic and social indicator. The reasons for this are quite simple. When times are bad the London economy, being the powerhouse of Great Britain, needs shoring up. As Eddie George admitted in the 1980's allowing other parts of the UK to suffer in order to support the London economy is a price worth paying. When times get better the last places to benefit from recovery are places like Wales and Cornwall, but because of economic cycles when Wales starts to recover London goes into another economic downturn and Wales is smacked in the teeth again, in order to save London.

Gordon Brown promised the end of Boom and Bust, the truth is, that as part of the UK, Wales has never had a Boom and Bust problem; being part of the UK has made us suffer from a Bust and Bust again economy for the past eighty years.

Edward VIII, as Prince of Wales, memorably said Something must be done, as he observed the grinding poverty and desperate queues of the unemployed in south Wales during the 1930's. The fact is that sod all has been done to change Wales since those days, and sod all will be be done unless and until Wales has control over its own economy and it's own destiny as an independent nation!

Poems and Politics: Anglomaniacs Anthem

I haven't posted a Poems and Politics post for some weeks. How remiss of me, I apologise.

During the last few weeks we have been told that a crisis caused by Unionists is proof that Wales and Scotland can't survive as independent nations.

Apparently we can't survive because Billions of pounds have been poured into the City of London, to save the City - money taken out of Wales and other parts of the UK to shore up the City.

The truth is that Wales will suffer, and suffer disproportionately, in order to save London.

In order to justify our suffering for the grater good, we will be offered crumbs, again, from London and be expected to show gratitude!

We will be asked by Labour, Tory and Lib Dem MPs to see such crumbs of gratitude as Manna from London's heaven, part of the Union Dividend

Oh, we're looking up England's arsehole,
It's the prettiest view we know,
It's the height of our ambition,
It's where we want to go,
It's the finest sight in the universe
Though you seek both high and low,
So we're looking up England's arsehole
Waiting for the breeze to blow.

They tell us Wales is a nation
But we don't believe that story,
Though she's going bust we put our trust
In the Land of Hope and Glory,
So we're looking up England's arsehole,
There was never a view so fine,
Yes, we're looking up England's arsehole
Waiting for the sun to shine.

Here we crouch in our proper stations,
Obedient to her orders,
Though she's in the shite she'll see us right
If we earn our keep as warders,
So we're looking up England's arsehole,
It's the loveliest scene of all,
Yes, we're looking up England's arsehole,
Waiting for the manna to fall.

Harri Webb

Bird Flu and the Credit Crunch

As I have said before, I don't understand economics. The economics that I have some inkling of relate to the pound in my pocket, the price of bread & milk and hoping that the money doesn't end before the month does.

Cross fingers, touch wood etc, despite the headlines I don't think that the credit crunch has affected me yet. So why am I panicking like the rest of the herd?

This time last year I was worried that my family and I were going to be wiped out by avian flu. It was a crisis that was mentioned day in day out by every newspaper, TV and radio channel. We were doomed, all doomed; but me and mine survived, as did everybody else!

Isn't the current economic crisis just a repeat of last years news? The 24 hour news agencies HAVE to have a crisis to report in order to justify their existence.

Wouldn't pulling the plug on BBC News 24 and similar channels that peddle pessimism, doom and gloom every hour of the day be a cheaper option than nationalising the banks?

Getting Abreast of Economic Indicators

The Welsh blogosphere's economics guru, Prof DJE, is currently on a research trip to the USA (nice work if you can get it).

On his return I wonder if the Prof will be able to adapt the latest US economic indicator to the Welsh economy. Apparently the state of the American economy may be gauged by the number of boob jobs performed each year, and some plastic surgeons are predicting that 2008 will be ... ym ... er... flat !

I think I should bring this post to a premature close now, before I make any unsavoury comments about the pair of tits that are currently in charge of the Welsh economy or say something sexist about Helen Mary's cleavage. (I don't want to be accused of being vulgar again!!!)

The Economy and Independence

The economic argument pertaining to nationalism is an interesting one. Not the most sensible one, just one of the most interesting.

It is interesting on a number of levels. It is an argument with few definitive facts to support it or to argue against it. The figures are part of a great unknown, and in the void supporters of both sides make their own facts up.

Take tax, for example. Some say that more tax is spent in Wales than is raised in Wales

However if you spend £100 on a new suite in a major store on Rhyl High Street, you pay about £14 in tax on it. That tax is not raised in Wales; it is raised in whatever part of England that the shop's accounting department happens to be located in. The assistant who serves you in the shop earns her income in Wales, with out any doubt, but her income tax is also paid in the English town that is home to her employer's accounting department - its all English tax. And when Wales gets that money, spent in Wales - earned in Wales, back; its English tax subsidising Wales!

Tax raising moves the other way too, some English money is taxed in Wales in a swings and roundabouts movement. But the figures to prove a tax and spend balance for Wales (or England) do not exist. So arguments for or against independence based on tax and spend are all just whistles for my side and not based on fact. The true figures aren't available. I know that I'm a miserable old cynic, but I suspect that if the true figures proved, beyond doubt, that Wales was a leach on the rest of the UK, that those figures would, somehow, be in the public domain!

The economic argument is also interesting because of the absolute tosh spouted by both sides of the economic argument. If Wales became independent tomorrow it wouldn't become an impoverished third world country, overnight, as some Unionists claim; but neither would it suddenly become the new Celtic Tiger economy that some nationalists claim.

The truth is that an Independent Wales' economy would remain at about the same level as it was on Independence Day for some time. If the economy improved or declined over time after independence would depend on how well the Welsh Government managed the economy. It would depend on the sort of Government that the People of Wales decide to elect.

However, whatever sort of government we elect, it would be a government that would be committed to try, at least, to govern the economy in a way that was beneficial to the Welsh economic interest, something that an Unionist British Government can never guarantee to do.

The most interesting thing about the economic argument however, is the way in which A Poor Welsh Economy is the main plank of the Unionists argument. Take away that plank and the Unionists have little else left to stand on, so Keeping Wales Poor is in the Unionists' best interest.

And if Keeping Wales Poor is in the Unionists best interest, opposing the Union, MUST be in Wales' best economic interest!