Curiouser and Curiouser! on taxation

Away with your railways

Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:50:02 +0000

It's funny, for years I have been a strong supporter of renationalizing the railways in the UK. As I listen to the government talking about bringing management of the railways back in house and talk of the public subsidy required to to do the job I realse I don't believe it any more.

A subsidized railway is not free. It is paid for by our tax money. The goverment takes it from us, by force if necessary, and hands it over to companies over whom we have no control. More and more of it disappears into the sinkhole that is the British rail system every year. Yet have you heard even a single passenger trumpeting the improvements they have made?

The government and the industry say it will cost billions of pounds and take many years just to get back to the levels of service everyone was complaining about before the Hatfield rail crash. I don't believe they will do it. I believe it is good money poured after bad.

I think a significant aspect of the problem is that the Railway companies aren't as interested in the passengers as they are in pleading to government for more subsidy. In effect pleading for the government to rob us of more money, to hand over to them. Well I don't want to give it to them.

Let me repeat that: I do not want to give the government any more money for the railways!

I think that the state cash supply for the railways should be turned off and as soon as is practical. Let them turn instead to their customers for their revenues. Let them persuade customers to pay for their services on a fair basis. All that tax money should be immediately returned to the tax-payer in the form of a cut in the basic rate of income tax, VAT, or National Insurance. Whichever will benefit the most number of people.

To those who argue that prices would go up I say "I agree." If you want to use the railway then pay them. And you should have a little more money in your pocket to do so.

To those who argue that the poor may not be able to afford it I say "I agree." This could be a problem. But I think that there are solutions to be found. Maybe people could come together to create purchasing blocks to force a better price from rail companies? They're surely going to need their business.

And if, after all this, the railways can't survive. Then let them die and be replaced by something more fit to serve us.

But don't keep lining their pockets with my taxes. It's not fair.

Philanthropy

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:56:05 +0100

Don Dodge writes that Warren Buffet is donating a considerable chunk of his $44bn fortune to Bill and Melinda gates foundation.

Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world, announced he is giving the vast majority of his $44 Billion dollar fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I said in an earlier post that "Bill Gates legacy will be humanitarian philanthropy". Microsoft was the result of his first 30 years of work. In his remaining years, Gates is just 50, philanthropy will be his main mission.

That's an amazing coupe for Gates and something that, well regardless of your stand on Microsoft, you can just like the man for it. Dodge also makes another interesting point:

Gates takes a business like approach to solving human problems. He is serious about producing real results with minimal overhead costs. Compare this to the way the US government or United Nations, or Red Cross, approach problems. The bureaucracy and overhead is ridiculous. They talk forever and get nothing done.

This is an idea close to my heart. I firmly believe that a pound spent by government is, often, a £0.95 wasted. But why is it only the first and second wealthiest men in the world that get to be philanthropists? What about the rest of us?

I think the problem for us is that we find so much of our wealth swallowed by taxes that are used to fund unpopular wars, ineffective programs, and to support chums of the ruling party. I think a lot of us see the foreign aid budget and, looking at our pocket books, think "I gave." And we did.

When charities come a calling what you choose to give on top of what the government liberates from you might hurt.

As an aside I think it is bluntly wrong of charities to use psychological tactics like gift-giving to pressure people into donating. No matter what your cause, unethical behaviour like manipulating people, cannot, in my book, be right. I also don't appreciate the aggressive doorstep tactics that many charity workers seem to have adopted.

I think the answer is to reduce taxation and allow people to decide how they want to be philanthropists. Government should not be about charity and giving away our money to the problem de jour in order to win favourable headlines for the ruling party is not ethical behaviour.

I'd rather give to the Gates Foundation.

Aid

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 12:39:46 +0100

A week ago, writing about philanthropy, I stated that I was unhappy with the present situation where the government steals money from me (i.e. taxation) and then makes itself look good giving it away to foreign powers as aid.

Today I read a piece by Walter Williams about the aid situation that just reinforces this point for me:

...

Zimbabwe provides an excellent example of why foreign aid, as a way out of poverty, is a fool's errand. "Few countries have failed as spectacularly, or as tragically, as Zimbabwe has over the past half decade. Zimbabwe has transformed from one of Africa's rare success stories into one of its worst economic and humanitarian disasters."

...

Botswana shares a heritage with Zimbabwe, for it, too, was a British colony. What it doesn't share with Zimbabwe is what explains its success: the rule of law, minimal corruption and, most of all, respect for private property rights.

...

No amount of Western foreign aid can bring about the political and socioeconomic climate necessary for economic growth. Instead, foreign aid allows vicious dictators to remain in power. It enables them to buy the allegiance of cronies and the military equipment to oppress their own people, not to mention being able to set up "retirement" accounts in Swiss banks. The best thing Westerners can do for Africa is to keep their money and their economic development "experts."

Allowing government to get into the aid business is tantamount to making it foreign policy and, as such, I'm against it. I'd much rather give the same amount of money, voluntarily, to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and see it do some good.