Monday 14 July 2008

Happy (belated) Blogday to me!

Oops. This 'blog is now one year, one week and about three hours old.

Over a thousand posts and thirty thousand visits later, have I ever changed anybody's mind about anything? Probably not. What have I learned from all this? I suppose the enormous resistance to simplification of the tax and welfare systems - it's not just that the losers cry louder than the winners, it's also that people complain if they stand to gain less from any reforms than certain other groups; and that people fail to appreciate the dynamic effects of different kinds of taxes and subsidies/hand-outs.

Which is why I am now (also) using this 'blog to chart my artistic endeavours, which re-commenced last Monday after a twenty-year hiatus, and may or may not tail off again ...

As ever, thanks to everybody who visits or leaves a comment (I am always happy to change my mind if I see a killer counter-argument); and to everybody who links to any of my posts and/or has added me to their Bloglist or blogroll.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats, much as I like the art, don't stop the political/economic commenting. I for one enjoy it.

marksany said...

me too!

AntiCitizenOne said...

Congrats on your blog birthday!

But I just don't see "enormous resistance to simplification of the tax and welfare systems" I see a lot of people who constantly get bombarded by our leftist broadcaster but know something is deeply deeply wrong.

If you want change the first thing to go must be the BBC and all other extortion funded broadcasters.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Thanks for the kind comments. AC1, I get as much flak from the right as from the left (which to me says that I must be doing something right).

Anonymous said...

Ditto.

AntiCitizenOne said...

To be honest... leftist/rightist isn't very useful anymore.

It's the varying level of statism that tends to be a more useful split.

The BBC is more accurately described as statist than leftist (but the overlap is huge).

Snafu said...

It's to be expected that Cameron falls into any trap set by "Today" on Radio 4. He did it again this morning...

Happy blogday by the way:)

AC1, it get's worse! Jacqui Smith was not prepared to face the "PM" microphones last night about hospital visits for offenders or not so the Tories provide a stooge who gets beaten up instead!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!

@AC1: I agree. The campaign against the license fee (and by extension the statism of the Beeb) is an important one.

CityUnslicker said...

well done. Hope there is another year in you yet!!

Ross said...

Happy blogday (+ 1 Week).