Chuggerazis Strike Back

The Faced versus The Po-Faced:

"The ‘Sock Puppets’ report, released today by the IEA, shows a complete lack understanding of civil society and the importance of campaigning and advocacy within the democratic and policy making process, or its importance for a strong and independent sector.

What "Independent"? Paid for by the state is not independent.

Yes, there has been an increase of state funding within the sector as charities deliver more public services. This is not unique to us. There has been a trend towards non-state delivery of public services under successive governments, including outsourcing to the private sector.

This is irrelevant to the case in point - tax-payers getting shafted, charities getting the reach-around, spending our confiscated loot to lobby their government pay-masters for laws and regulations on everyone else and hand-outs for themselves.

Charities receiving public money are independent and not for profit, and have responsibility to their cause and beneficiaries; who ultimately funds the service - be it public, voluntary or trust funded - is largely irrelevant as long as they are delivering their social aim.

They are not independent. They are funded by the government, and much of their work would not exist if the government didn't pay them to do it. Poverty pimps should face the public, not suck up to the state.

Not-for-profit is not a virtue. There is no moral vantage to be reached from abjuring and rejecting profit, that being nothing but the obligation on every shop-keeper and house-holder to pay his bills, and the good common sense to gather a little more, God willing.

It is a shame that there is an absence of thought-provoking debate about the role charities could play in public service delivery to get under the skin of the more difficult social problems."

Yeah.

Expensive? Yes. Unaffordable? That depends on the definition…

In the case of Shelter the definition with regard to house rents, is more than 35% the median local take-home pay, which may indeed signify many people are paying more than they would like, but it is not unaffordable. That word has a meaning in English. If you say something is unaffordable it means you cannot pay. If that were the case the homes would be vacant.

Charities in general seem to suffer from a poor understanding of economic matters and usually seem locked into an etatistic mindset, whereby the only solution that occurs to them is that the state will step in and spend money it doesn’t have. A proper comprehension of the economy leads to the recognition that the state is either causing or exacerbating the problem under consideration, either through action or through enforcing laws which mainly benefit vested interests.

In calling for rent caps, Shelter reveals that however much its heart is in the right place, its economic head is stuck up its proverbial. A market price is the key indicator to the market of how well supply is matching demand, and by demand we mean ‘effective demand’ i.e. demand that is matched by an ability to pay.

The housing market is, no doubt, dysfunctional, and the degree of its dysfunctionality will depend on what is hampering it from performing its job, i.e. matching supply to demand.

As ever, we run slap bang into the monetary elephant, i.e. the centrally-planned government monopoly, run for the benefit of the banking aristocracy. By using the cocaine of cheap credit, and thus keeping interest rates artificially low, the Keynesoids blew up a bubble. By keeping housing prices out of any consideration of price inflation (or ‘inflation’ as its called these days), this was represented as a benefit, as people saw the paper value of their one main asset increasing. With low interest rates and easy money, prices soared.

Added to this central problem are the other areas where the state has hampered the market: planning permission difficulties, the distortions of social housing, which operates in a fenced-off section of the market, the influence of housing benefits on rents, and, dare I say, the remnants of the Norman Yoke, whereby huge tracts of land are still in possession of the oligarchs and off-limits to the rest of us landless peasants.

Social housing and the socialist mindset

As Mises explained, the problem with socialism is that they have no means to make economic calculation, without a market to inform them. This becomes evident when they talk about need or demand, with scant consideration of how such limitless desires will be supplied, but always holding to the idea that, if only we could get those rich bastards, we'd all have a fair share. This same lack of economic sense makes them generally in favour of inflating the money supply. In both errors we see the malevolent influence of the Cambridge Apostle.

Now, when it comes to housing, I must confess certain urges within myself which are not strictly libertarian. I am something of a Prince Charles with regard to architecture, and I much prefer the sight of the rolling countryside over a modern housing development of the ‘little boxes’ variety. Nevertheless, a balance must be struck between preservation, conservation and progress. If more houses are needed, then they must be built, with all due regard to the contentious issues which invariably arise, but not by the state.

Cross-posted at Orphans

Oxfam's recipe for hunger

Oxfam has issued a report warning of food crises coming our way. How accurate these predictions will prove is anyone’s guess. Half of the problem is due to the bogey of ‘climate change’, which, as ever, makes things worse everywhere and better nowhere.

Unsurprisingly the solution they propose is massive government intervention, including price controls, which is hardly likely to help. If demand is rising and supply stagnant, then of course prices will rise. This will lead to an increase of production, as producers cash in on the higher prices, which in turn will bring prices down, unless at every point intervention hampers the market from functioning. Price controls will disconnect the market mechanism for boosting production and thus precipitate the very shortages Oxfam is warning of. However, it is not wholly oblivious to the negative effects of interventionism, and is calling for the end of biofuel subsidies.

I don’t doubt the seriousness of the issues covered in the report, nor do I like the way the world food market is dominated by a handful of massive corporations, another thing pointed at in the report, but Oxfam’s solution makes no economic sense.

Increasingly so-called charities are diverting their attention away from actual charitable work towards political lobbying, which as far as I know is forbidden, although I don't see why it should be. Nevertheless, pushing for government intervention is political, although amongst the state-loving denizens of the politico-cultural hegemony, this passes without remark.