Private vs. Public: A Closer Look, by Paddington

American conservatives like to say that private enterprise is always better than government action. They tell stories of government inefficiency, and promote the idea that competition drives all innovation.

But is it really true?

Before our society fell into the pit of “I've got mine” in the mid-1980's and started to pretend that we could have everything we wanted without paying for it, here are some of the things that the government used our tax funds to do:

- start Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, saving a generation from dire poverty and possible civil war in the Great Depression.
- built a fantastic National Park System
- helped to save freedom in World War II, and to rebuild Germany and Japan afterwards to prevent global war from happening again
- built the Interstate highway system
- cleaned the air and water in places like Los Angeles
- started the nuclear power industry
- started the electronics industry
- started the computer age
- started the modern drug age, developing the first antibiotics, and things like the Epipen
- landed humans on the Moon

Most of these things were of no interest to the business community before they were developed, because the pay-offs were too far in the future at the time. Once the concept was proven, they swooped in and sucked up all of the profits from the taxpayer-funded research and infrastructure.

Now let's look at some of the negative parts of competitive private enterprise:

- we tried to privatize much of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to avoid a draft, and ended up with gasoline delivered there by Halliburton for $15+ a gallon, and dozens of Afghanis beaten to death at Khandahar airfield by Blackwater operatives, in our name.

- even though the average private school underperforms public schools in standard measures, certain parties pushed the charter and voucher movements. The charters in Ohio are so underperforming that they are the laughing-stock of the charter movement itself.

- the state universities in the country are a bargain, producing top-quality teaching and research at 40-50% of the cost per student of private universities, yet get little but criticism and more funding cuts
- we used the overflow of convictions from the War on Drugs to fund a system of private prisons, which turned out to be at least as expensive as public ones, and totally corrupt, with many judges bribed to give longer sentences.*

- we have the most expensive per capita healthcare system in the world, with some of the worst outcomes in the developed world. Until the ACA, the majority of that spending went directly to the insurance companies, which might be a win for capitalism, but makes mockery of the 'competition' idea.

In short, except for the shuddering fear that Americans experience at the word 'socialism', we actually seem to like the concept, when we look at individual cases.
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*E.g.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2011/08/12/pennsylvania-judge-gets-life-sentence-for-prison-kickback-scheme/

Scr*w the savers - even harder!

By email yesterday, from National Savings and Investments to financial advisers:

NS&I confirm Index-linked Savings Certificates to move from RPI to CPI From 1 May 2019, existing holders of Index-linked Savings Certificates who renew into a new term will receive index-linking based on the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation, rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI). This change recognises the reduced use of RPI by successive governments and is in line with NS&I’s need to balance the interests of its savers, the cost to the taxpayer, and the stability of the broader financial services sector. By indexing new investments to the Consumer Prices Index, savers who hold this product will still have protection from inflation, while at the same time the cost to the taxpayer is forecast to reduce by £610 million over the next five years.

I have a better idea: why not give us some of those insider investment tips that MPs are sometimes anecdotally reported to get from their colleagues and contacts?

Weekend Wonders: Dust

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-electron-microscope-photos

Sir Philip Green: Wrong Fuss

So Sir Philip is alleged to have been a naughty boy in the hanky-panky department, outed by the ever-lovely Peter Hain who used Parliamentary privilege in the only way it really should be used, delving into the squalid sex lives of alpha males - whose behaviour is no different from the rest of their ilk throughout history.

It's not as though MPs themselves sometimes misbehave, like for example Tom Driberg, who as I recall reading, once importuned a fellow MP in a House of Commons lift, at a time when homosexuality was still a crime in English law. And in Driberg's case, that is the least of his peccadilloes, if rumours of his having been a KGB agent are true.

Yes, perspective is needed. If our news media had any sense of perspective they wouldn't waste time bigging-up this outing as a blow for Press freedom.

No, they would be revisiting the recent news about Debenhams store closures, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs (with ample knock-on economic effects); they would discuss the fortunes and business strategy of its parent, the Arcadia Group, and the beneficial owners (largely, Tina Green, Sir Philip's wife); and musing on how things might have gone for the retail conglomerate if Sir Philip hadn't loaded a billion-pound-plus debt round its neck in order to pay out (offshore) a monster bonus not justified by the profit made that year (2005, when a billion was a lot of money).*

Consequences can take time to mature. Maybe things might have turned out differently; maybe, in the clickbuy environment of today, not; who knows? But maybe that cash could have been reinvested to help Arcadia adapt to changing business conditions.

Ah well, underpants are so much more interesting!

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*
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2009/04/who-ruins-britain.html
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2009/09/and-another-thing.html
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2011/11/sir-philip-green-and-homing-chickens.html

FRIDAY MUSIC: Carla Bley, by JD

You may not know Carla Bley but she is well known to jazz aficionados and at the age of 82 she is still playing and touring and will be appearing at London's Jazz Cafe at the end of this month.

As you can see from the Wiki entry she has had a rather interesting life and has always been a keen 'musical explorer' having collaborated and recorded with musicians from other musical genres. She has recorded with Jack Bruce (on her jazz opera called "Escalator over the hill" - too long to include here) as well as Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason on "Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports" which is a Carla Bley album in all but name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Bley

The first video here would have been better if Steve Swallow had used his acoustic bass instead of the bass guitar but that is just my own personal preference.

I have also included a live version of "Boo to you too", an oddity from the aforementioned Nick Mason album.

Setting a quote among the pigeons

"Both Capitalism and Communism rest on the same idea: a centralisation of wealth which destroys private property."

G.K. Chesterton, in "The Judaism of Hitler" (1933)

Reference: Collected Works, Vol. 5

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth

SCENE: THE DINOSAURS' BANQUETING HALL

TYRANNOSAURUS REX (for it is he): Bring me a freshly-killed velociraptor, bien bleu et avec beaucoup de frites!

KITCHEN STAFF: Dilly dilly!

T. REX: And we'll have that animalskin-brassiere-clad woman for afters. (ASIDE TO T. REGINA) How she got here I don't know, they're not due for 100 million years yet. Where's our little princess?

T. REGINA: Still in the meteor shower, darling.

...Und so weiter, und so weiter.



I do wonder whether the welter of fiction these days is making it almost impossible for us to appreciate how things really are and really were. Even film and TV drama about the 1960s and 1970s often has little to do with anything I recall from those times. The demand for narrative to wrap itself around the expectations of the modern audience is too strong.