"England most crowded in Europe"

Yawn. Two can play at that game.

From Wiki, UK population 61 million, surface area 94,526 sq miles = 645/sq mile (249/sq km). Not spectularly high, so they strip out S, NI and W and look at England only. From Wiki, population 51 million, surface area 50,346 sq miles = 1,000/sq mile (391/sq km).

But why don't we go one further and strip out Greater London? English population (excl. GL) 43.5 million, surface area 49,727 sq miles = 874/sq mile (342/sq km). That gets us down to well below The Netherlands and only a quarter of Malta's density.

I mean, I have utmost respect for Sir Andrew Green, and completely agree with him that we are letting in too many of the wrong sort of people, but messing about with numbers like this just discredits the whole argument.

Reader's letter of the day

From the FT:

Sir, Asset price bubbles in financial markets undoubtedly show that money capital as a factor of production does not behave like consumer goods in a free market ("Capitalism and the credit crunch", Samuel Brittan, September 12). Nor does land, as the present housing crisis so manifestly proves.

Since land is not produced, its price is almost entirely demand determined; hence demand changes act almost entirely on price without affecting supply. The disastrous effect of this in the housing market is only too evident, for it is the land price element in "house" prices that fluctuates so much, not the cost of the building.

How much more evidence is needed that a tax on land values to reduce land prices permanently and, at the same time, to relieve taxes on things that really are produced, such as consumer goods and real capital, is the right way to make competitive capitalism work?

Brian Hodgkinson, Oxford, UK

"Lib Dems to outline crime plans"

There's one thing missing here...

What do the Lib Dems propose to do about tax evaders making large illegal donations to political parties?

The First Rule Of Warfare

As my theme for today is "half way lucid comments that I have left on other 'blogs", let me round off with my comment over at C-at-W regarding recent Russia/Georgia/South Ossetia unpleasantness*:

"... what the cold warriors forget (on the Russian side and in the West) is The First Rule of Warfare**, that has held pretty well for the last hundred years.

It's quite simple.

Millitarily, it is a piece of piss to invade another country, especially if you're big and they're small.***

Politically and economically, it is impossible to hold on to occupied territories in the long run. The cost of doing so - in money, in lives, in unhappy families of soldiers who've died, in the drain on the economy to support the military spending, the terrorist attacks that you provoke in your own country, the international opprobrium, the trade sanctions, the ignominy of the ultimate withdrawal - always exceeds any short term benefits.

So whatever Russia hoped to gain from smashing up Georgia (and I can sort of sympathise with them) will be outweighed by the long run costs of occupying Georgia. The same applies to the USA and Iraq, BTW. Or Israel and the West Bank. Etc etc.

So sooner or later they will withdraw. And every rouble they waste on that war is a rouble less they can spend on attacking us (in this case, attacking us by proxy via the Islamofascist bastards in Iran).

And they'll have learned their lesson ... for a decade or two before the next power mad shithead in the Kremlin (or in the White House - or the Knesset - or in Tehran or Pyongyang for that matter) - does it again."

* As you may have noticed, this is a topic that does not overly interest me. So far I have restricted myself to posting Denis Cooper's fine fisking of Dave The Chameleon's sub-GSCE drivel.

** I once expounded The First Rule Of Warfare to a history teacher chum and he hummed-and-hahed. A month later, he told me that he quoted this handy rule-of-thumb in his lessons.

*** UPDATE. Make that "Militarily, it is usually a piece of piss, especially if you're big and they're small, but even then, the large country can get its arse kicked e.g. Russia v Finland".

UPDATE, UPDATE. Having now taken the trouble to read up on The Winter War, I conclude that Russia got its arse severely kicked and failed miserably in its original objective, but managed to grab a small slice of S.E. Finland which is still controls to this day. This still fits the overall generalisation that 'invading other countries is a bad idea'.

F***ing hellski

See Roger Thornhill.

"Accountable transparency"

The Purple Scorpion highlights more crass and heart-breaking examples of government waste.

My comment was as follows:

"Hurray for accountable transparency!

It also strikes me that every layer of gummint involves waste and corruption. So the answer must be for local councils to be in charge of as many functions of the State as possible, i.e. just about everything except defence, immigration control and prisons (which have to be at national level), and maybe a gummint department to arbitrate in the event of disputes over e.g. where a new road or railway is going to go.

People get confused with millions and billions, but if you can see how money is spent locally, line by line and department by department, we'll soon track down that 20% of gummint spending that is pure waste.

Further, there should be a lot less national taxation and more local taxation for much the same reasons.

(Yes, of course local councils waste money and are corrupt, but at least there'd only be one layer thereof.)"

"Against high bonuses"

Tim W's musings have got a good debate going, which I sparked off with this:

"It’s simple.

The people who lose most from silly bonus payments are shareholders. As long as we have a daft tax system whereby you are at a disadvantage if you own shares directly and get tax breaks if you own them via a pension fund/unit trust, then people will do the latter (hence the decline in small shareholders and the rise in the % of quoted shares that are owned by ‘institutions’).

These institutions are in cahoots with Big Management at UK plc and together they rip off the little guys and nod each others’ salary packages through.

Ergo, the solution is to reduce tax breaks for pensions and at the same time reduce tax burden on direct share ownership (get rid of Stamp Duty, CGT and higher rate tax on dividends, for example) and there’ll be a lot more small shareholders kicking up a stink at AGMs and refusing to approve directors’ salary packages.

That’s that fixed. Next."

Former Tory seconding, Kay Tie opposing, as ever.

"Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy"

What's the big deal?

As I commented at C@W;

"... if you look at it sensibly, the losses boil down to good old fashioned unsecured lending* to people who can't repay (primary losses). All these CDOs and stuff are just a way of spreading the risk/losses around (secondary losses), but in theory they don't add to total loss.

It may well be that these losses are sufficient to wipe out the shareholders' capital of all banks, but so what? The banks' core businesses (customer base, computer systems, land and buildings etc) still has some value. And the economy needs banks to function. And the bulk of banks' mortgages haven't fallen in value.

Plan A is to force the banks to raise a bit of capital, write off a bit more of the loans, raise a bit more capital, write off a bit more etc, which is what they have been doing so far but I don't know how much longer they will get away with it.

Plan B must be (short of chaos) for Fed or Treasury or whoever to make banks come clean (in private at least) about losses (primary and secondary so that we can net off double counting) and ask solvent ones to buy up insolvent ones.

To the extent that losses exceed banks' shareholders' capital, you then lop off the next slice of losses from bondholders, if they are wiped out as well, then you only repay depositors** pro rata and so on (so that a solvent bank doesn't get landed with another bank's losses, obviously).

You could fix the whole thing in a few weeks.

* Of course, legally, secured on a house but if the house has fallen in value to less than amount of loan etc.

** I realise that there is a blurred line between bondholders and depositors, but you get my drift, hopefully."

Labour and inherited privilege (2)

Continuing my occasional series, it transpires that Siobhain McDonagh MP, the Whip who was sacked for suggesting that The Goblin King might seriously consider f***ing off, is the sister of Baroness McDonagh, who was the Labour party's General Secretary under Tony Bliar.

Even by Nulab standards, Ms McDonut has an impressive CV:

She was a clerical officer for the DHSS between 1981-3, then a Housing benefit (sic) from 1983-4, then a receptionist at the Wandsworth Homeless Persons Unit from 1984-6, and a housing adviser from 1986-8. Prior to being elected to Parliament she worked as a Development Manager for Battersea Churches Housing Trust from 1988-97.

Unlikely heroes (5)

Three young first-time buyer couples!