"When people of the same trade meet together... the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public"

In the light of that Adam Smith misquote, let's cast a wry eye on this self-preening article in City AM:

There is no need for a “Hippocratic Oath” specifically in relation to tax, as McDonnell called for, since chartered accountants already ensure that taxpayers – individuals, companies, and others – pay the right amount of tax due under the law. In this way, we help reduce the tax gap by supporting good tax compliance.

Of course, it would be naive to hope anyone would take this purely on trust. Which is why, in addition to being subject to legal requirements, chartered accountants and members of other professional accountancy bodies are also required to follow a professional code of ethics...

But what is rarely mentioned is that almost a third of registered tax advisers are not members of any professional body. This means they are not required to follow any ethical or professional standards at all. If politicians truly wish to get tough and raise standards, ensuring that the high bar set by the chartered profession is applied across the board would be a good start.

Sub-text: raise barriers to entry by "regulating" everybody who isn't a Chartered Accountant, who nobly "self-regulate".

How effective is that "self-regulation"..? From The Daily Mail:

Britain’s big four accountancy firms have been savaged by MPs who have accused them of “feasting on the carcass” of collapsed construction giant Carillion and collecting more than £70 million in the process...

Veteran Labour MP Frank Field, head of the Work and Pensions Committee, said: “The image of these companies feasting on what was soon to become a carcass will not be lost on decent citizens. The former directors of Carillion are, unlike their pensioners, suppliers and employees, alright.

“These figures show that, as ever, the Big Four are alright too. All of them did extensive – and expensive – work for Carillion. PwC managed to play all three sides – the company, pension schemes and the Government – to the tune of £21 million and are now being paid to preside over the carcass of the company as Special Managers.

“It was perhaps telling that, with their three fellow oligarchs conflicted, PwC were appointed to this lucrative position without any competition.”

According to information published by the committees, KPMG has banked £20.2 million in fees since 2008, PwC £21.1 million, Deloitte £12 million and EY £18.3 million.

So 'not very' and yet again, we are presented with evidence that they are actually thieving scum.

Innumerate fuckwits of the week.

From the Evening Standard, friend of rent seekers everywhere:

40 cab firms go out of business just months after 5,000% rise in fees

1. There are 2,400 cab firms in London, as the TfL lady says, 40 shutting down in a few months is not statistically significant.

2. The 5,000% rise is nonsense. The point is, TfL put the fees up from a token amount to 'real money' (average about £100 per car/driver per year, it would seem).The percentage increase is irrelevant if the starting figure is tiny.

3. TfL's new system is fundamentally flawed of course. The charge per year per cab/driver seems way too high as it can all be automated. Worse than that, they have a banding system:

Those with between 101 and 500 cars will see their licence fee leap by 5,200 per cent from £2,826 to what the LPHCA calls an “extortionate” £150,000. Operators with between 501 and 1,000 cars could see their bill jump from £2,826 to £350,000 over five years.

Clearly, if you are running exactly 500 cabs, the average cost per cab/driver is £60/year, chump change. But increase that to 501 and the average cost is £140, which is clearly a barrier to growth, and will encourage businesses to merge into larger entities which are just below the upper limits, or for businesses which are just above the limit to scale back. See the example of Greyhound cars in the article.

What's wrong with a flat annual charge per cab/driver? That's what the cab people should be campaigning for, not against charges in general. As I explained before, divide £100 per cab/driver per year by thousands of journeys per year, and the added cost per journey is a few pence.

4. A TfL spokeswoman said... the fee rises were “proportionate” after a dramatic rise in the size of the industry over the last five years had greatly increased the costs of overseeing them. The fees will fund extra compliance officers “who do a crucial job in driving up standards and ensuring passengers remain safe”

That's bollocks. For sure, TfL's costs double if the number of cabs doubles, but the cost per cab is unaffected. Is that really the best justification that this multi billion turnover organisation has dreamed up over the past few months?

More Bureaucratic Failure

One of my people is currently working through the pensions claims for a client of ours.  It's quite a lot of work as there quite a few plans, polices and investments and we are trying to get him a good deal and get it all nicely organised and set up, etc.

 

One of the plans is an old personal pension from a well known insurer with a guaranteed annuity rate (GAR).  The GAR is very good - 8% I think.  My colleague has 'advised' him to take this deal.

 

Now, if  we DO NOT 'advise' him and get him to declare that he has NOT received 'advice' on taking the GAR, the insurer pays us a commission of £1,500

 

On the other hand if we DO advise him and he DOES declare that he has received 'advice', then no commission will be paid, but the annuity rate will not be increased.  That is the insurer will trouser the £1,500.  (This commission cost is built into the contract at outset).

 

Yes, you read that right.  If we DO advise him we don't get the commission.  If we DON'T advise him we do get it.

 

This is the consequence of the rules set out in the Retail Distribution Review. (RDR).  You might not be surprised to learn that the RDR is viewed throughout the thinking part of my trade as a catastrophic failure. (See here).

 

Of course, the client is paying for all this failure. The incidence of regulatory imprests and deadweight costs falls on the client, not us. (FYI that cost varies between about 18% of revenue to 30% of revenue depending where your business sits in the financial services landscape).

 

(So what we will do here, what we are forced to do, is to game it.  The client will declare that he not received advice and we will take the commission.  And we'll offset it in full against our final invoice). 

 

Kafka would be proud.

Dieselgate lies...

Car weekly Autoexpress reports that Volkswagen Audi Group have been on the receiving end of an ear-bashing from EU officials for refusing to pay compensation to 'dieselgate' owners in the EU.

  "... members of the European Commission have struck out at the German carmaker, demanding it to pay equal compensation to affected owners outside the US. 

European Commission commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said: "Volkswagen should voluntarily pay European car owners compensation that is comparable with that which they will pay US consumers with. Treating consumers in Europe differently than US consumers is no way to win back trust."

 Speaking before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Paul Willis, Managing Director of Volkswagen Group UK, said: “To pay compensation there has to be a loss, and at this stage I see no reason for there to be a loss. Our engineers tell us there will be no difference in fuel consumption or driveability. “So the only other area is on the question of residual values. I, at the moment, have seen no clear evidence of adverse impact on residual values. So when I say that there is no loss, then there is also no need for compensation.” 

 Yet VW may not be off the hook completely. The UK Government has stated that if evidence of consumers suffering from falling residual values or vehicle performance emerges, VW would be liable to compensate owners. 

 Transport spokesman Viscount Younger of Leckie said: "The Competition and Markets Authority has not opened a formal investigation but is continuing to assess whether there is evidence of consumer harm."

Now there isn't really a legal mechanism for the governments of the EU of the UK to secure compensation for groups of consumers. Legally speaking, it is generally up to consumers themselves to sue VAG, either themselves or in a class action, so why are the government not pointing this out?

 As for the question of 'loss', it is true that for some legal remedies do require the plaintiff / pursuer to evidence their loss. In the UK however, there is a little known remedy that allows consumers to be awarded punitive damages where the trader has induced them to contract by a 'misleading action'.

 The Consumer Protection (Amendment) Regulations 2014 insert Regulation 27J into the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 - (official guidance here).  This provides for "the right to a discount". To cut a long story short, a court can award the affected consumer a discount of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%. The most relevant provisions read as follows:

 (4) Subject to paragraph (6), the relevant percentage is as follows— 

(a)if the prohibited practice is more than minor, it is 25%, 
(b)if the prohibited practice is significant, it is 50%, 
(c)if the prohibited practice is serious, it is 75%, and 
(d)if the prohibited practice is very serious, it is 100%. 

(5) The seriousness of the prohibited practice is to be assessed by reference to— 

(a)the behaviour of the person who engaged in the practice, 
(b)the impact of the practice on the consumer, and 
(c)the time that has elapsed since the prohibited practice took place.

While there is much within the Regulations for m'learned friends to debate, most folk would agree VAG's behaviour has been utterly reprehensible let alone 'more than minor'.  But Regulation 27J(5)(c) may well explain why the government is not very keen to point this remedy out to consumers. After all, we wouldn't want a major German company to actually go bankrupt would we?

Liberty and Property Rights

I quote from this:

"The risings began when Mohamed Bouazizi, a market trader, was driven to the horrific extreme of self-immolation because he had been denied ownership of his own goods and the right to engage in commerce. His was a protest against the violation of property rights, and he was not alone. In an authoritative study of the Arab Spring, the Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, chronicled hundreds of cases of entrepreneurs in Arab countries being driven to suicide by police corruption and harassment.

Why is this different from the effects of all the regulatory quangos in the UK? 

This example from the delectable FSA/FCA which has resulted in a huge loss of jobs and businesses as set out here.

I have maintained all along that the RDR was a fundamental assault on property rights (by the destruction in the value in the businesses of honest citizens built up over many years and the arbitrary interference in the sanctity of private contract leading both to the whole sale loss of jobs and the undermining of all existing client agreements.

Restricting the number of minicab licenses?

People in charge in London are doing it completely wrong:

A limit should be placed on the number of private minicabs in London to prevent "huge congestion", the capital's outgoing transport chief has said.

1. Why pick on them? All vehicles cause congestion equally.

2. If you restrict the numbers, this is a barrier to entry, so people who get a licence will be able to charge higher prices than otherwise, and it destroys the jobs of those refused a licence.

3. If you want to get congestion down, what does work is the Congestion Charge.

Sir Peter told LBC radio: "I don't want to wind up with huge congestion on London's streets, created by [minicab drivers] driving around looking for work"

Ooh, the irony.

4. AFAIAA, minicab drivers are not allowed to drive around looking for passengers. They have to wait for a passenger to book one via a minicab office to meet up at a specific point (often outside the minicab office).

5. Neither are minicabs allowed to use the normal taxi rank at the best spots in front of stations etc, the entrenched 'official' taxi drivers have managed to get themselves the exclusive right to these, I'm not aware they've ever had to pay a penny for this privilege.

6. So if he wants less congestion overall, increase the Congestion Charge; if he specifically wants fewer mini cab drivers round looking for work, then either enforce the existing rules properly, or allow them to use taxi-ranks.

7. Surely, there is a natural upper limit of minicabs which are economically viable, which they can fine tune by increasing or decreasing the Congestion Charge, and then the problems all sort themselves out.

8. And any sane person walks or takes the Tube in London, it's about three times quicker than a car and a lot cheaper.

Leeches on the back of leeches on the back of leeches...

A couple of years ago there was a marked increase in the number of doormen outside pubs etc. in central London, all of whom have a fancy little licence thingy displayed on their arm.

I got chatting to one yesterday (who does it part time while doing a BA in management) and between us we pieced together the sequence of events…

1. After the riots of 2011, a lot of insurance companies found a brilliant excuse for not paying out claims, which was that the shop involved did not have sufficient security guards, and this was written into later insurance policies. (As an aside, the guard reckoned that far too many shopkeepers were robbing their own shops and then claiming for missing goods, not sure what difference it would make).

2. So all the shops and pubs had to hire security guards, and the 'industry' boomed.

3. The government got in on the act and set up the Security Industry Authority to regulate things.

4. To be able to work as a security guard, you have to go and do the accreditation course, which takes a week or two and which costs you £300 to £400. Most employers don't reimburse this.

5. So then we get a load of private businesses providing these courses e.g. here, the guard I was talking to couldn't actually remember learning very much, but you need to do it to be able to get the job to keep the government and the insurance companies happy.

The fact that while paying a couple of security guards to hover at the doors of your shop or pub during opening hours might deter normal shoplifting or general rowdiness, it wouldn't make the blindest bit of difference if masses of people raid the premises after closing time when they are not on duty and would be completely overwhelmed anyway was not lost on either of us.

Presumably, somebody intended this outcome but who and why?

From The Evening Standard:

The Freight Transport Association estimates that as many as 20,000 delivery drivers have taken early retirement or moved to different jobs since the Certificate of Professional Competence became mandatory in September.

The qualification, a new European requirement, involves 35 hours of training and costs up to £300. Drivers who do not hold it risk a £1,000 fine.

James Hookham, managing director of the FTA, said: “This is the first Christmas when we have had this requirement and many drivers are saying ‘I didn’t take up truck-driving to go back to school’ and just voting with their feet.”

I don't think this is special pleading by the hauliers, the government has been piling stupid regulations on them for years, overall, their complaints are justified.

So what's the point? Who stands to gain from this? The people doing the stupid courses?

If we say "Superfast and Unlimited" well, 'Superfast' means what we decide it means, and 'unlimited'

means 'of course we do apply limits' ... is the conclusion you might reach after reading this in the Register

Not that the ASA can prevent EE doing whatever it likes. The self-regulatory body has no teeth and just makes recommendations, though these are generally respected if only for fear that it will be replaced by a proper regulator.

Mick McAteer gets up my nose - again.

The lovely MM, darling of the Beeb, ex Which employee. Brilliant self promoting quango parasite posted a piece on ifaonline, which revealed an awful lot about the nationalising ambitions of the regulatory bureaucracy. I have tried my best to fisk it as follows. Any other comments gratefully received.

It will be interesting to watch the ‘ecology’ of the financial advice sector evolve following the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) implementation and I wish I had the time and resources (Wot, instead of living off the fruits of coercion on the rest of us? You’d be daft to give up all those cushy quango seats to take the risk) to set up a mutual advice service (Twat. The only reason you need ‘lots of resources’ to set up what is a fairly simple business is because of all the sclerotic regulations you have agitated for. And note, these organisations already exist – all small businesses are ‘mutual’ since they operate within society and the market) as the time is right for it.

Overall, the RDR reforms (Classic use of a ‘code-word’ designed to imply that the changes were required by some previous failure) will help the investment services market work better for consumers and society. (Nonsense. The market is consumers and society and is working well except for where you and your kind have stuck their fingers in it.)

But the reforms alone will not be enough to meet the core advice needs of financially marginalised consumers. (Lovely language of the third way exponents designed to condition thought, otherwise meaningless.)

It is unfair to expect the for-profit commercial advice sector to meet their needs – this would likely lead to market failure and consumers getting a raw deal. (Speculation. In any event all professions already devote considerable resources voluntarily for less affluent or clients with problems. Note the slipping in of ‘market failure’. This is another third way code-word designed to triangulate the debate and in the case of financial services is just plain wrong since all the current failures can be traced straight back to failed government and failed bureaucrats).

So, we still need to develop alternative models that provide value products and good advice to those households who are not being serviced by the for-profit, commercial advice sector. (No, you do not, at least not as statist monopolistic way, since it has already been provided. Notice also the additional conditioning that somehow profit is bad. This is standard failed Marxist dogma).

At the risk of gross oversimplification, households in lower to medium income brackets have comparatively straightforward core financial advice needs – getting the right mortgage, paying off debts, building up savings and assets, providing for the future and basic insurance. (Yes, it is gross oversimplification. And those households were served very well until the businesses that serviced them were destroyed by interventionists and regulationists like Mick).

Moreover, for many such households the priority is to get urgent advice on how to deal with over-indebtedness or advice on benefits. (True. And whose fault is that? It is the fall out of 13 years of failed socialist government and third way numpties like you Mick).

There are charities providing this type of specific advice. What we lack are the equivalent not-for-profit organisations that can provide advice on the savings and assets side of household balance sheets. (Wot? So we already have ‘not for profit’ charities. So what does Mick have in mind for other ‘not for profit’ organisations? Note also the insidious assault on ‘profit’.)

This is crucial. We need to find ways of helping households deleverage, build self-reliance (Build self-reliance? From a socialist?) and freedom from debt, and then start to think about planning for a secure financial future. (They are in debt because of your failed policies and that of the previous government.)

When I was at Which? (a ‘for profit' business that makes money by criticising other businesses) we campaigned for the creation of a national financial advice network (Aha, we are getting to it now. Mick wants a nationalised advice service staffed by bureaucrats) to complement private sector advice and information provision, so I fully support the work of the Money Advice Service (MAS). (Well, yes you would Mick. You’re a commie. And please show me anywhere that nationalisation has succeeded?).

However, MAS can only take consumers so far. There is a gap for mutual or non-profit advice organisations that can act as trusted intermediaries (There you go again Mick, using distorted language – the existing intermediaries, banks excepted, are trusted. It’s blokes like you and the state that are not trusted) and provide specific recommendations on core financial needs. (Deep sigh – and this is what they are already doing).

Clearly, these organisations would offer limited services and focus on advising on simpler products and advice needs with transparent referral relationships established with providers. Our early thinking is that these organisations would be funded through capped fees and/or external funding (‘External Funding’? Subsidies from taxpayers then?).

We also think established non-profit or community organisations such as credit unions or community development finance institutions could play an important role. Moreover, after years of hype, technology has the potential for being a game-changer in terms of improving access and bringing down distribution costs. (Er, 70% of my distribution costs are tax. So Mick, are you recommending tax cuts? First bit of sense in this drivel).

But why do I think it should be non-profit or mutual? The reasons are twofold: the unit cost of delivering advice should be lower (Wild assumption and not borne out by evidence or experience) and the conflicts of interest that exist in the commercial financial industry are much easier to manage. (Again more assumptions and a fundamental misunderstanding of how businesses and markets work. And what about the conflicts of interest that exist in the state bureaucracies and government generally?)

That’s the idea. If we make any progress we will be sure to update you. (Or you could simply eff off. And if you read his Wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_McAteer you will note that he is an expert at organising his own entitlement funded tax consuming luxury lifestyle. He is paid by coercion on all of us, especially the poorest in society, and is probably making a nice ‘profit’ in the process. Little communist twerp).

... or investors could just invest directly in businesses.

From City AM:

But banks warned that hanging this [empty] threat over the industry cannot be good for long-term prosperity.

"This will create uncertainty for investors, making it more difficult for banks to raise capital which will ultimately mean that banks will have less money to lend to businesses," said Anthony Browne, chief of the British Bankers’ Association.

"What banks and business need is regulatory certainty so that banks can get on with what they want to do, which is help the economy grow. This decision will damage London’s attractiveness as a global financial centre."

The added irony being that of all bank lending, less than ten per cent is to "businesses", ninety per cent of it is mortgages secured on land.

Oh gosh, what a surprise...

... says Bob E, who emailed in this one-two-three-gotcha exchange between the Labour opposition, the civil servants and the Conservative government:

So, late Friday or early Saturday first this:

Ban high-sugar cereals to tackle child obesity, says Andy Burnham

Labour targets foods that can be over one-third sugar as OECD report says English children are among fattest in Europe.

And did the Department of Health have anything to say about this "demand"?

But the Department of Health said it has helped reduce the levels of fat, sugar and salt in foods. A spokesman said: "By working with industry through the Responsibility Deal we have helped to reduce fat, sugar and salt in foods. There is now less salt in the food we buy, companies are cutting and capping calories and artificial trans fats are being widely taken out of food.

"We are working to reduce the amount of salt in food further, cut saturated fat consumption and we are exploring how to promote healthier food choices more widely. We also want more businesses making pledges so we get bigger results."

... and yet, a scant few hours later ...

Childhood obesity: Jeremy Hunt threatens food industry with legislation

Supermarkets and manufacturers told to get 'their house in order' or face laws to curb high levels of sugar and fat in food

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said he will consider introducing new laws to limit the amount of sugar, salt and fat in processed foods to curb childhood obesity but said he wanted to give supermarkets and manufacturers a chance to get their "house in order" before resorting to legislation.

The comments come after his Labour counterpart, Andy Burnham, announced a consultation on capping sugar and fat levels in food targeted at children. Hunt criticised the former health secretary for failing to tackle the problem while he was in power, and said Labour had left the nation with the highest childhood obesity rate in Europe.

Words Fail Me...

Just read this piece...

Report from Planet Zog

I arranged a couple of meetings in London for yesterday and realising I had the morning free, I volunteered to attend an event being organised by an outfit called PanaceaIFA.  The topic being the RDR (which you probably will not have heard of).  The RDR is the next Big Idea from the Failed FSA as to how retail financial service will be delivered and paid for.

There was a panel of five 'industry experts':

Karen Barrett.  Chief Exec of Unbiased.co.uk
Richard Hobbs.  Head of Lansons Regulatory Consulting
Nick Cann.  Chief Executive of the Institute of Financial Planning
Gill Cardy.  MD of IFA Centre
Garry Heath.  Noted 'character'. And a 'Good Bloke' whom I have known for some time.

They all gave a five minute chat of what they thought of the RDR and how it would affect us and what we could do.

Then they asked for questions.

I put my hand up.  "Would the members of the panel, who think that the State should regulate financial services please raise their hands?"

Nick and Karen sort of half put up their hands then quickly brought them down again.  Gill asked me 'Can you explain what you mean by that question"? (!).

"It's very simple, do you think that the State should regulate financial services?"

She replied by going off on a long statement about 'capitalism' and how it doesn't work [some/most] of the time.

Then Richard pops up.

"Well, if you mean that we should have self-regulation that has clearly failed.  And when you get 'market failure'....look, supposing you turned off all the traffic lights there'd be chaos right?

Me. "Er no. Since my previous career was  a highway engineer I can categorically state that turning off traffic lights is excellent for traffic flow and safety. So, I'll ask again.  Do you think that the state should regulate financial services?"

More pointless dissembling and rambling but no justifications and no real answers.  The Lansons' blokey -Richard Hobbs - (read his CV here under our people - you'll get the picture) got off on 'market failure'; 'consumer detriment' and all the other weasel words loved by the bureaucrats.

More general dissembling and the Chairmen quickly selected another question.

I mean.  Tell me.  We are doomed aren't we?  I don't mean just FS, but all of us?  When 'industry figures' cannot feel confident in regulating themselves what the Hell hope is there?

(N.B.  Garry likened Hector Sants to a Rumanian Dictator as he has taken to announcing FSA policy by way of 'speeches' made at whatever do he has wangled an invite to.  Garry and I lunched together after this farrago and cried in our beer).

BAAPS

I would like to congratulate The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons on their excellent choice of name and acronym.

However, I don't approve of the fact that they are calling for more regulation and a ban on advertising, as we know this is just a way in which existing players in an industry create barriers to entry, thus protecting their own profit margins at the expense of the consumer and of all those who are preventing from setting up in competition.

Just for completeness, here's an example of the advertising they'd like to ban, taken from here:

Help Wanted

I am not Mark Wadsworth

There is growing realisation in the UK (and in Italy and Greece) as to just how unaccountable and out of control are the ‘technocrats’ and the bureaucratic quangos in which they serve. These nouveau institutions are beloved by politicians as a method of putting responsibility at arms length, and crucially outside the disciplines of the genuine Civil Service or the rule of law.

These nouveau institutions are the creation – in the main - of socialists (of both the right and left). Their purpose is to proto-nationalise by regulation all types of enterprise. The excuse used is that they are needed to ‘protect the consumer’. This is, of course, nonsense. The ‘consumer’ is best protected by a vibrant and competing business sector without special privileges for any sub sector (banking? Trades Unions?) and the firm application of the principles of ‘buyer beware’ and ‘professional responsibility’. You might also add that Baking must take its role as a fiduciary more seriously. No central planning bureaucracy, especially one without democratic accountability and whose funding is under no democratic or market control is never anything other than self serving.

I have quite a bit of experience of one set of these outfits, those that regulate financial services. There is a trio of these; the Failed Financial Services Authority, The Financial Ombudsman’s’ Service, and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. They were all introduced under the now entirely discredited FSMA 2000. Brown’s, at the time much lauded, ‘tripartite regulatory system’, but now revealed as a ramshackle construct designed purely to proto-nationalise all financial services by sclerotic, inept, overweening tick box reg-yew-lay-shun and, by destroying all the existing checks and balances and entirely eliminating the necessary separation of powers and making every one of the new quangos utterly unaccountable, ensured that he, Brown, could do just what he liked with our wealth, the end game of which we saw in banking failures in 2008.

The Failed FSA is set to be replaced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2012/2014 and there is a special Commons committee looking into how the FCA should be best organised. You will not be surprised to learn that the Failed FSA’s submission is that the FCA, in order to function effectively, must be subject to less accountability and should not in any way be subject to sanction by the Courts. It should be entirely outside the common law legal system of the UK. Considering that the regulatory and financial failures are entirely due to the predictable failure of technocrats (aka capricious bureaucrats with a self over-estimation of their skills and IQ) one might think that the Failed FSA evidence would be given very short shrift by the Committee. But, no, they are taking the Failed FSA seriously.

Whether or not you agree with me about financial services being full of a lot of good blokes, as well as not a few rotten ones (as it true of pretty well all trades and professions) you ought to take seriously this further erosion of freedom and the usurpation of power by capricious and unaccountable functionaries. This is the same mindset that puts approved European unelected Technocrats in charge of Greece and Italy.

It is not just me that thinks like this. You will see above a scanned image of the leader from one of the trade magazines.

In any event if any of you want to have your say and to halt the march of the bureaucratic state you can make your point to the Committee at:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/joint-select/draft-financial-services-bill/contact-us/

As they say in the charity ads on TV, please help, every contribution however small will help some disadvantaged native. The native in this case being your neighbour.

Crowd Sourcing?

This link takes you to a pdf of an OFT report on a thing they've called 'consumer detriment'. I have skim read it and I am in the process of reading it properly - around professional work, running a business, studying for pointless exams and having fun etc.

Now, not only do I lack the time to go through it and respond to (debunk?) it thoroughly, but I also lack all the knowledge I may need. This is where what I think is called 'crowd sourcing' comes in. If by placing it on this open 'blog I can access the intelligence and knowledge of lots of other people I may be able to more quickly construct a more thorough analysis.

Now, I accept that some (all?) of you may think that the OFT is right about 'consumer detriment', and if so fair enough. But for those of you who don't I would much appreciate your thoughts and help.

Lola

Highs and lows of the Evening Standard "Get it off your txt" section...

There is at least some form of poetic justice in the attack on Sony's Enfield warehouse. Many of the young rioters will have acquired their moral compass playing Grand Theft Auto and similar on Sony PlayStations. Michael Smith

It is high time TfL regulated rickshaws as happens in other European cities. Professional and insured pedicab drivers are asking for it but don't get a response from TfL. How can any industry operate correctly without regulation? Artur

THAT Ronald Reagan quote...

... received another airing in today's City AM:

Reagan’s soundbites were brilliant; they still have much resonance in today’s Britain, where the economy is shackled by Kafkaesque burdens and an increasingly defeatist, declinist mindset. As he once put it, “government’s view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.” Tragically, despite the coalition’s best efforts, this remains true in the UK today.

If you squint a bit, that's actually a very Georgist-Libertarian way of looking at things:

"...government’s view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it can't move because it's land and buildings, subsidise it." Tragically, thanks to the coalition’s best efforts, this remains true in the UK today.

WHO makes these silly rules? (2)

By signing the imfamous Article 8 of the FCTC, the UK agreed to:

"... recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability."

On this basis we agreed (emphasis mine):

"Each Party shall adopt and implement in areas of existing national jurisdiction as determined by national law and actively promote at other jurisdictional levels the adoption and implementation of effective legislative, executive, administrative and/or other measures, providing for protection from exposure to tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport, indoor public places and, as appropriate, other public places."

So different nation states implemented different smoking bans. Some, like the UK, went the whole hog other took a more relaxed approach, much to the annoyance of WHO. So the 2008 guidance on implementation of Article 8 sought to clarify what WHO really meant: (again, emphasis mine)

"[Article 8] creates an obligation to provide universal protection by ensuring that all indoor public places, all indoor workplaces, all public transport and possibly other (outdoor or quasi-outdoor) public places are free from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. No exemptions are justified on the basis of health or law arguments. If exemptions must be considered on the basis of other arguments, these should be minimal. In addition, if a Party is unable to achieve universal coverage immediately, Article 8 creates a continuing obligation to move as quickly as possible to remove any exemptions and make the protection universal."

Pesky thing this national law, isn't it? Luckily, Andrew Lansley hasn't been ordered to ban smoking in private homes and cars. The guidance states:

Public education campaigns should also target settings for which legislation may not be feasible or appropriate, such as private homes.

So Lansley's 'Tobacco Control Plan' proposes the following 'Big Society' solution:

"We will encourage local areas to create networks of local smokefree ambassadors at a community level to encourage people to make their homes and family cars smokefree."

So no big government snoopers, just 'Big Society' busybodies.