Month: July 2012

How Not To Do Tax Policy

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Priti Patel, writing in The Spectator’s Coffee House blog, warns that:

… we should all fear Ed Miliband’s praise for a new socialist French President who plans to raise the top rate of tax to 75 per cent. It is a chilling reminder of Miliband’s own commitment to a permanent 50 per cent income tax rate in this country.

But as he visited the Elysée Palace this week, one of France’s leading newspapers warned that the 75 per cent tax rate threat is already leading to French businesses evacuating senior executives to London. Since François Hollande’s victory on 6 May, this exodus of enterprise has caused the waiting list of the prestigious Charles de Gaulle school in our capital to rocket by over 700 places. We haven’t even rolled out the red carpet yet.

Very true. Let this be a warning to all those who think either that there is a binary choice between “austerity” and “growth”, or that Britain’s (or France’s) finances can be rectified, and the current excessive levels of government spending maintained, simply by turning the screws on the rich a little more.

Unfortunately, Patel’s article also misses out the most crucial actions required to get the British economy moving again – introducing much needed supply side reforms. Note:

Yesterday’s economic news reminds us of the need for the Government to continue to focus relentlessly on getting our economy moving – dealing with the debt crisis, boosting bank lending to the real economy, and ensuring sustainable long-term prosperity through radical economic reform.

Nothing about reducing regulation, either independently or through the European Union. Nothing about tackling the restive trades union that are always a day or so away from striking for spurious reasons.

By all means warn about Labour’s policies on tax, but given the fact that Osborne messed up the Budget and left us with a 45% top rate of tax for the foreseeable future, let’s focus on where the coalition government has the political strength to do the most good to restore economic growth.

The Last Word On Chick-Fil-A

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Glenn Greenwald says it best:

Obviously, it’s perfectly legitimate for private citizens to decide not to patronize a business with executives who have such views (I’d likely refrain from doing so). Beyond that, if a business is engaging in discriminatory hiring or service practices in violation of the law — refusing to hire gay employees or serve gay patrons in cities which have made sexual orientation discrimination illegal — then it is perfectly legitimate to take action against them.

But that is not the case here; the actions are purely in retribution against the views of the business’ principal owner on the desirability of same-sex marriage.

Yes. This is why it is so disconcerting to see supposedly “enlightened” liberal politicians in the US calling for more severe sanctions against Chick-Fil-A, including the refusal by cities and municipalities to grant the fast food chain permission to open more outlets. Such bullying tactics have no place in a democracy, least of all one that claims to place such a premium on the right to free speech.

Greenwald goes on to say:

It’s always easy to get people to condemn threats to free speech when the speech being threatened is speech that they like. It’s much more difficult to induce support for free speech rights when the speech being punished is speech they find repellent. But having Mayors and other officials punish businesses for the political and social views of their executives — regardless of what those views are — is as pure a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech as it gets, and beyond that, is genuinely dangerous.

It is a real shame and surprise to see so many politicians taking the opposing view. It certainly doesn’t do much for the image of “Chicago politicians” to see both Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Joe Moreno attempting to punish Chick-fil-A for the opinions of their executives by vowing to deny permission for the company to expand in their city.

Finally:

If you support what Emanuel is doing here, then you should be equally supportive of a Mayor in Texas or a Governor in Idaho who blocks businesses from opening if they are run by those who support same-sex marriage — or who oppose American wars, or who support reproductive rights, or who favor single-payer health care, or which donates to LGBT groups and Planned Parenthood, on the ground that such views are offensive to Christian or conservative residents. You can’t cheer when political officials punish the expression of views you dislike and then expect to be taken seriously when you wrap yourself in the banner of free speech in order to protest state punishment of views you like and share. [My emphasis.]

Amen.

This is one of those times where someone else gets there first and says it better. But I wanted to put on the record of this blog that I agree totally with Glenn Greenwald on this issue. While the cultural and civil rights positions expressed by the Chick-fil-A CEO are to my mind socially regressive and (more importantly) completely irrelevant to Chick-fil-A’s success as a corporation, he should be allowed to say what he says, and the public have the right to vote with their feet and choose not to patronise the restaurant chain if they feel strongly about the matter. Beyond that, no more needs to be said. Elected politicians certainly have no right – moral, constitutional or otherwise – to use their powers to bully or discriminate against individuals or companies with whom they happen to disagree.

Music For The Day

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Rachmaninov Prelude Op.32 No.13 in D flat major, performed here by Vladminir Ashkenazy:

 

A fitting end to Rachmaninov’s wonderful cycle of 24 preludes.

SEMI-PARTISAN SUMMARY

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

CULTURE

Amanda Marcotte, writing at Slate magazine, makes a compelling case for movie scriptwriters and directors to show more condom use in their movies. She makes a fair point: “In the world of movies and TV, people seem to be having sex all the time, but they almost never talk about or are shown using contraception. Since so much of movie sex serves the plot, you get encounters that are much more spontaneous than they would be in real life, without any pause in the action to wrap it up. Young viewers could easily get the sense that the norm is to hop right in bed with someone without ever worrying about unintended pregnancy.” And it’s true – if realism is your aim (and admittedly this is not always the case), pretending that people hop into bed with each other without going through that awkward “fumbling in the bedside cabinet drawer” moment is a misrepresentation, and one that can be easily (and, if done well, humorously) corrected.

Jim Henson Studios, creator of The Muppets, is boycotting Chick-fil-A over that company’s president’s condemnation of gay marriage. In a stern rebuke, their statement reads: “The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors”.

Proco Moreno, Alderman of Chicago’s 1st Ward, joined in the anti Chick-fil-A backlash, stating that he would block the restaurant chain’s attempts to open their second Chicago outlet in his district because of the aforementioned statement issued by their CEO. His statement is somewhat over-the top – “If you are discriminating against a segment of the community, I don’t want you in the 1st Ward” – it is hard to see how any discrimination is taking place, as the restaurant does not check the sexual orientation of its customers upon entry, or have any policies in place that discriminate against one or another. But the fact remains that needlessly coming out in favour of a regressive social policy position that has no direct impact on your business or bottom line, can cost you money.

Getting in on the act, The Onion reports on Chick-fil-A’s new homophobic sandwich. Reports The Onion: “In a press conference to reporters, company representatives said the homophobic new sandwich will include the national fast food chain’s trademark fried chicken filet wrapped in a piece of specially-smoked No Homo ham that would be topped with a slice of Swiss cheese and lathered in a creamy new Thousand Island-based Fag Punching sauce”.

 

BRITISH POLITICS

The UK economy shrank by another 0.7% according to the latest figures released today. Iain Martin, writing in The Telegraph, thinks that George Osborne has six months to turn things around. I would guess that this estimate sounds about right, but I am not optimistic that Osborne will do anything differently, given his obstinate refusal to implement the needed supply-side reforms, and his obsession with trying to score cheap political points from Ed Balls, a diversion which should be beneath him.

The Guardian’s foremost education journalist twists herself in knots trying to explain why she is against private schools, and yet is sending her daughter to a private school. She takes a whole article, and many unnecessary words to explain what I can say in just three – she’s a hypocrite. She says: “I remember reading about Diane Abbott’s decision to send her son to the £10,000-a-year City of London school. She said she was a mother first and a politician second, a point that resonated strongly with me.” Precisely. She’s happy to inflict her left-wing social engineering on other people to make them conform to her ideal worldview (uniform standards, uniform people, uniform outcomes), but as soon as her own interests come in to play, she takes the conservative position.

 

AMERICAN POLITICS

Oh noes. The house of cards built by Grover Norquist has started to come crashing down as more and more elected officials repudiate his “tax pledge”. Whether you think the current tax burden in America is sustainable or not, I think most reasonable people can agree that Norquist’s pledge is overly restrictive on lawmakers, preventing them from closing unwarranted and discriminatory tax loopholes on the grounds that doing so would constitute a “tax increase”. Norquist, and his advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, are one of several significant hurdles standing in the way of a fundamental simplification of the existing byzantine tax code. We should all cheer its demise, and hope that similar obstacles from the American left fall by the wayside too, in the name of meaningful, lasting reform.

It is hard to disagree with this piece from Marbury, discussing the old-fashioned political art of persuasion, and the relative aptitudes of Obama and Clinton at using it. Through the lense of the Northern Irish “Good Friday” peace accord, Marbury looks at the way that President Clinton was able to flatter, cajole and reassure the key parties so that they reached a point where a deal could be signed, and how this skill is currently lacking in the Obama administration. Money quote: “Obama likes the big set-piece speech. But every policy he has backed, from the stimulus to healthcare, has declined in popularity the more speeches he made about it. His speeches explain things very well, very precisely. But they don’t change minds. This, it turns out, was the big hole in Obama’s campaign rhetoric of unification, of bringing red and blue together. He spoke about it eloquently, but he was never going to be the president who put it into action. Obama is a preacher, not a persuader. He’s terrific if you already agree with him, but doesn’t have much impact on those who don’t.”

Jacob Weisberg, writing in Slate magazine, effectively deconstructs the Romney campaign’s attempts to smear President Obama with the “Chicago machine politician” label. Says Weisberg: “Of course, Romney isn’t interested in this kind of nuance. ‘Chicago-style politics’ is mainly just a way for him to call Obama corrupt without coming out and saying so”.

Music For The Day

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

“Fantasy in C” by Orlando Gibbons, performed here on the piano by Glenn Gould:

 

This piece always reminds me of New York. I first heard it while listening to Glenn Gould’s “Great Pianists of the 20th Century” album on the sample headphones at a Barnes & Noble store somewhere near Chinatown, a decade ago, after having walked all the way downtown from my cheap, two-star hotel.

The liner notes to this CD, if I recall correctly (and I’m paraphrasing here), pay homage to Gould’s plausible, natural “English accent” when playing the pieces from this release. Listening again now, it’s hard to disagree.