Footnote of the day

The Institute for Economic Affairs posted an article about the Child Poverty Action Group yesterday:

It is a bit tricky to criticise an organisation that describes itself as “the leading charity campaigning for the abolition of child poverty in the UK”. But when a charity enters the realm of political debate, as the Child Poverty Action Group frequently does, then their proposals ought to be examined without the kid gloves on...

*ahem*

They have since added a footnote: "A reader has pointed out that the CPAG receives a significant proportion of its income from various government departments. See Note 3 to the 2008 accounts."

*/ahem*

Seen on the back of an East London bus...

"The majority of children on adoption waiting lists are of Black African, Caribbean or Mixed Heritage"

Discuss, using as many of the keywords in the 'labels' box as possible.

UPDATE: Here's the article to which Dave H refers (or one very similar to it).

Today's Q&A

Q - when will banks start lending again?
A - when they think they can make profits from doing so.

Q - will quantitative easing work?
A - no, it's just separate branches of the government shuffling bits of paper with numbers on them back and forth. The experience of Japan suggests that is won't even cause inflation, let alone get the economy moving.

Q - what's the main cause of child poverty?
A - poor parents.

Q - would you describe Sir Allen Stanford as a sophisticated fraudster?
A - no, he invested some of his money with Bernie Madoff and then tried to deny having done so. Sir Allen should have claimed that he invested all his money with Bernie Madoff and that he himself was the innocent victim of a fraud. Daft bastard, honestly.

Corporatism at its best ...

You know that we have sunk to a whole new level where it's not specific industries that are holding out the begging bowl, which would be understandable enough, provided the government, as representative of the taxpayer tells them politely to f*** off, but supposedly independent bodies (fakecharities, quangoes, trade unions, regulators etc) doing it on their behalf:

Exhibit One:

Companies will not be allowed to cut cash contributions to underfunded pension schemes if they are still paying dividends to shareholders, the UK Pensions Regulator will announce on Wednesday.

Dude, WTF? The largest single collective shareholder in UK plc are the pension funds of UK plc, whether that money goes in as contribution or as dividends should be neither here nor there. As it happens, cash contributions are much more tax-effective as they come out of pre-corporation tax profits, but hey, if UK plc hasn't worked that out yet, Heaven help you all.

Exhibit Two:

The government is being urged to give the same financial support to manufacturing during the recession as it has to failing UK banks. The Work Foundation think tank wants emergency state funding to help save jobs and companies.

Woah! Stop right there! The Work Foundation is a fakecharity, as we have established before, see footnote here. The BBC also get the inevitable rent-a-quotes from Brendan Barber and Derek Simpson, leader of the largest trade unions, which receive £3 million a year from the taxpayer-funded 'Union Modernisation Fund' yet still find it in their hearts to donate about £10 million a year to the ruling Labour Party.

I would have expected to see a sound-bite from Steven Alimbritis of the Engineering Employers' Federation - who is surprisingly left-wing, but there is none. And this is not just down to BBC bias - the EEF aren't mentioned in The Metro's write up of the same press release either.

Exhibit Three:

An extra £4.2bn a year will have to be spent on tax credits if the government is to meet its target of halving child poverty, a report warns. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) estimates that 2.3 million children will be in poverty in 2010, missing the 1.7 million target set in 1999.

The various Joseph Rowntree bodies are in fact funded by a good old fashioned trust set up by Quaker and erstwhile Land Value Tax enthusiast Joseph Rowntree at the turn of the last century, although they seem to have lost their way badly, and now tackle the symptoms, and not the causes of poverty.

The BBC get the inevitable rent-a-quote from the Child Poverty Action Group, which is a bona fide fakecharity, which receives £500,000-odd from various government bodies (note 3, page 21), as well as from Joseph Rowntree (who pays the piper ...). I'd love to know who pays them £1,314,000 a year for 'publications', I'd hazard a guess that some government department or other pays them to do leaflets and stuff, there's hardly a big market for welfare reform porn in this country.

HH looks at this madness in more depth, the post title sums it up nicely in one word.

Oh, so they've noticed!

Yet more hand wringing about 'child poverty' over at the BBC. This is the best bit:

"A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the government was committed to the cause. She said: "We have lifted 600,000 children out of poverty...

Nope, the taxpayer has. And it is the self-same tax system that is pushing low and average earners back into poverty.

... we are introducing free nursery education for all two, three and four year olds ...

Not true. The much-vaunted 'free' nursery education only pays for two-and-a-half hours a day.

... and have seen an increase in educational outcomes at all ages" ...

Not sure whether I should dignify that with a response.

... She said local authorities and other service providers had to help it raise family incomes, encourage people to apply for tax credit and benefits and help parents work. She said the latter was known to be one of the best ways for families to get out of poverty."

WTF? Getting a job and earning your own money is "one of the best ways ... to get out of poverty"? Not, er, "the only way"?

"More UK children living in poverty"

The paper version of this article contains a classic quote:

Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman Jenny Wilson said: 'It is impossible to understand why, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Britain should have one in five of its children living in poverty.

Er, look love, it's because people with incomes below a fairly arbitrary poverty line choose to have children.

Having a welfare/tax system that encourages such people to have children and then discourages them from getting married or starting a job is of course largely to blame. So how about flat-rate universal benefits that alleviate poverty without discouraging work or marriage? How about reducing means-testing to no more than the basic rate of tax?

How about scrapping Employer's National Insurance, stupid employment regulations and the National Minimum Wage to increase the number of jobs? How about getting rid of VAT, that would make everybody's money stretch further? How about having education vouchers to ensure that children get the best (i.e. most appropriate) education possible at the lowest cost to the taxpayer? Continued page 94.

"Why Gordon axed the 10p tax rate"

Read this and link to it (if you haven't already done so).

H/t Great Simpleton

National Minimum Wage & Tax Credits

At some book launch or other, David Blunkett MP (Lab, Sheffield Brightside) "will argue that the statutory rate should rise steadily to 50% of average wage levels if the Government is to meet its target of halving child poverty by 2010".

Righty-ho. Let's assume that they go mad and increase the NMW from £5.52 to £6.86 (half average wage). The speech refers to 'child poverty', so let's look at a single mum (oops! 'lone parent' in Newspeak) with two kids working 35 hours a week. She currently has a gross income of £193.20, after paying tax and claiming the main benefits, her household's net after housing costs according to DWP TBMT Table 1.3e (page 53) is £223 a week. If they up the NMW to £6.86, her gross income increases to £240 and her net household income to a princely ... £227 per week.

Wot? An extra £4 a week? Yup, that's right, £4.

Conversely, we all know that demand for labour is pretty price elastic - if you force employers to pay more than a job is worth, they will go bankrupt, and so people on the current NMW will lose their jobs. So single mum outlined above may well become unemployed as a result of the change, as a result of which her net household income would fall to £175 (DWP TBMT Table 2.1a).

Which is hardly a storming result is it? Half of such single mums with a job might see their net income increase by £4, the other half will see their net income fall by £48, not to mention the overall loss to the economy, lack of role model for her kids etc etc.

Finally, let's not forget that David Blunkett miraculously secured a job with Entrust, a company bidding for the ID-card nonsense, see Garrick Elder's letter in The Times of 24 Nov 2007 exactly five minutes after his two-year lobbying ban expired.