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on the support of the poor

An excellent 'article' by Thomas E. Woods, Jr showing the contrast between moral arguments and empirical data.

Woods is arguing against socialist dogmatism and papal dogmatism. He is one of the truly able economists presently active.

"This argument, too, misfires. No one denies that economic activity carries a moral dimension. The Pope is obviously well within his rights to condemn theft or fraud, or to instruct the faithful on the need to be generous with their wealth. He may likewise condemn government policies that involve oppression and injustice, such as burdensome taxation or inflation of the money supply. No one in this debate contests any of this.

The real issue at stake, which is obscured by these straw-man objections, is this. Suppose a Church document recommends a particular economic policy as being morally necessary because its drafters believe it will make the poor better off. Suppose further that they consider it so obvious that this policy will improve the lot of the poor that they do not consider the possibility that it could have any other effect, that there could be any good reason for opposing it, or even simply that a trade-off exists between the good outcome they hope for and unfortunate, unintended side effects of the given policy. And now suppose that the policy will, in fact, not only not improve the position of the poor, but may also make it even worse. What are economically astute members of the faithful to do? Are they forbidden to observe that not even the Pope himself can make reality otherwise than it is? "
[Quoted from iea.org.uk, p.148-9. Extract starts on p.144.]

related material
has socialism ever produced any good for the poor anywhere at any time?
papal encyclicals and marx - some extracts: on socialism and liberalism

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slow recovery from labour's housing collapse

created under tony bliar and gordon brown the clown

"Also not counted are the empty homes brought back into use. But this has been a quiet Conservative success story which is continuing. Last year there were 589,766 vacant dwellings in England, the year before it was 600,179. In 2010 it was 737,147. Applying the New Homes Bonus has proved an effective incentive. In terms of empty council homes the number last year was 23,928. The year before it was 27,421 and in 2010 it was 30,369.

"Within the total there are still some disturbing numbers. To take some examples from London, we see that in Enfield there are 427 empty council homes, in Southwark it’s 578, in Camden 592, in Hackney 600, in Greenwich 733. Ealing has the highest figure at 897. All are Labour councils of course ..."
[Quoted from conservativehome.com]

And plenty more.

We need a housing stats expert!

It's good to see Theresa May turning housing into a personal concern.

"According to Savills:

“Our analysis of newly available Land Registry data shows that at least 900,000 hectares (six per cent) of all freehold land in England and Wales is owned by public sector organisations.”

"A hectare is 2.47 acres so that would come to 2.22 million acres.

"The Ministry of Defence has claimed to own a mere 600,000 acres which is only the size of Surrey. But if the information that Letwin was supplied with is correct and MOD land is equal to the size of Wales that would mean 5.13 million acres. Goodness knows how big the total state land acreage would then be once local authority land is included. Ten million?"
[Quoted from conservativehome.com]

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theresa may - obviously competent but no high-flyer

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory) there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but as there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
[J. M. Keynes, General Theory, 1936, bk. 3]

Theresa May's missed opportunity on housing crisis
Read and comprehend!

Theresa May is obviously a good and dutiful girl with her heart in the right place, but hair-brained schemes for grammar schools and economic nonsense like Help to Buy will not solve educational or housing problems.

Student loan interest should also be halved immediately.

Has she the sense to listen to better experienced and educated advisors, or does she believe she knows better like some Corvyd- lite?

With several years to go, very possibly the Conservative Party is hoping to deal with these serious long term problems nearer the next election and with a more able leader. However, allowing stereotypes to settle in while not going for the core of the problems, could be too late and pitch us into another session of socialist destruction.

Her 'feelings', her common sense and her sense of duty should not be allowed to over-ride her dubious judgement. Removing rivals is a poor substitute for listening to them.

Margaret Thatcher ended up surrounded by a load of mediocrities. I hope Mrs May means it when she says she does not want to be surrounded by a bunch of yes-men.

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