My Internet Connection has Crashed

This happens more often than I would like; but not so often that it drives me away from the Internet.

I sometimes think that this happens to prompt me to think about my blog. Well, it often does. My posts often arise from what has happened during the day. Today Tony came to sort out a few domestic problems for me. My new washing machine was not working. Tony surmised that it was not working for the same reason my old washing machine was not working; namely that it was not draining – and he found the cause, a revolting lump of fat and fluff in the drain. He fixed it, as he fixes most things. I now have a washer-drier which is new and which works.

Tradesmen are problem solvers. Politicians are not – at least not to the same degree. You don’t call upon a plumber or an electrician unless you have identified a problem – eg my f**king washer doesn't wash. It was a real problem, which presumably had a real cause.

Politicians, on the other hand, identify problems for you and then, from the depths of their own philosophy impose a solution. There is too much inequality. There isn't. Too much inequality (they say) leads to a host of ills. The fact is that some people have enough and some people don’t. 

Progressives have one solution: take from those who have and give to those who don’t. They ignore the immorality of taking (it is theft) and they ignore the immorality of encouraging dependency. It is hard to say which is the more immoral. They choose to ignore the obvious reason that some people do not have enough. There is not enough wealth in the economy. People are not encouraged (by taking responsibility for themselves) to create wealth, by producing what others want. They are positively discouraged from creating wealth. The miracle is that entrepreneurs create as much as they do, in spite of absurd regulations and swingeing taxes.

It bears repeating that the (perhaps) necessary evil of taxation is staggeringly inefficient. In addition to the actual cost of providing the ‘service’ in question, taxes cost a lot to raise and a lot to disburse – dead money. This is a fact hidden from us. Just suppose that we could quantify the benefit to the UK public of, for example, the NHS. How much does it cost in addition to collect the necessary taxes and how much does it cost in addition to spend the money, in terms of bureaucratic salaries and other expenses?