Tackling the big topic dividing our nation

This week I decided it was time to give up sitting on the fence and join in the main political debate that has split the country in two.

So I went to  Greggs and purchased a Vegan Sausage Roll. I was obviously scared when I decided to try it, was this the devil incarnate? Is it going to melt my insides like it did to Piers Morgan? Although obviously if it did nearly kill off Piers Morgan then I guess it cannot be all bad!

With fear I opened the bag and decided on the only obvious cause of action – I let me daughter try it first! After a few minutes of making sure she wasn’t about to keel over I took the plunge and tried it myself. My thoughts? It tasted very similar to a Greggs Sausage Roll. A little bit mushier than a normal sausage roll and not really enough to get me over to the Vegan camp, but all in all a perfectly fine sausage roll.

Still, as long as we are arguing over this it gives us a few minutes respite from Brexit!

Why are (Some) Socialists and Far Right so quick to Assume they know what you're saying.

Holding Libertarian views puts you in quite a unique position where you seem to spend your time being attacked from all sides (granted I do bring it on by getting involved in some emotionally charged topics) so in the average day I tend to have debates with the Right on topics such as Gay Marriage, Immigration, Equality and so on, whilst at the same time having debates with the Left on The NHS, Austerity and EU Membership to name just a few.  Personally I love having debates like this and I see them as a great way to understand other people’s views as well as challenge the validity of my own held views.

This double attack has lead me to see even more similarities between socialists and far right debaters. I first blogged about how I consider the Far Right and the Left to be the same ideology a few years ago. The latest similarity I have noticed is in their common response to a challenging view which I call the Assume – Anger – Attack response. I should stress that I am not saying that this response is constant and there are occasionally some well reasoned and well articulated debates with Socialists however the level of AAA responses seems to me to be massively higher in the Left and Far Right than in any other group I regularly debate with (Although Extreme Atheists come close) Essentially the AAA response goes along the lines of 

1)      Assume I understand what you are saying, allowing my own bias to cloud my judgement.

2)      Get Angry about what I assume you are saying, this prevents logic from entering the debate.

3)      Attack, Attack, Attack – I have assumed you are bad so must now attack first.

As an example, recently I commented on a facebook post, now I should say up front that I was almost definitely in the wrong as I hadn’t quite understood what the original post was about – To be honest it was something that was so far from my view of the world that it never really occurred to me. One of my more left leaning facebook friends then put on a comment that attacked me, accused me of taking an opinion that was actually at odds to my own and stated that my views were actually dangerous. I was obviously confused (This was after all completely at odds with what I was thinking.) so I queried it and was again met with more assumptions about what I was saying – Assumptions based on the bias of the commenter and quite likely the incorrect assumption that I hold Right Wing social views – I responded with trying to clarify what I had meant and for the first time it was pointed out that my view wasn’t aligned to the original post, it went on for a few more comments until I eventually realised what he thought I was saying and I confirmed that I must have misunderstood. A long conversation based solely on the fact that he had followed Assume – Anger – Attack rather than a model that seeks to understand the other side before responding.  I call this the EEE model, Explore – Empathise – Exchange, based solely on the fact that I wanted three words that started with the same letter.

1)      Explore, Does the other person see the world the same as you.

2)      Empathise, Is there an emotional reason they took this view, why do they feel this way.

3)      Exchange, Now that you understand where they are coming from you can exchange your ideas.

Maybe if we all followed this model we could get a lot more understanding and a little less confrontation.

More government politicians that don't understand business

Call for cap on fuel bill surcharges http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27509378

Why are we obsessed with prices being bumped up? There isn't a surcharge for not paying by Direct Debit, there is a discount if you do. What they are calling for here is for the direct debit discount to be reduced so that DD payers are worse off. I wish there was anyone in government who understands business or finance, what a wonderful world it would be!

Vote Labour - There's Nothing to Lose But Your Freedom

So Labour will now tell us when we can sell our Assets?

So today Ed Miliband announced that Labour reject the guarantees from Pfizer ahead of the AstraZeneca takeover.

Am I the only person wondering what it has to do with Ed Miliband? Surely the situation is that there are many shareholders who own shares in AstraZeneca and as such if they hold them or sell them, is up to them?

If I want to sell my car it is between me and the buyer. I wouldn't be happy with the government stepping in to prevent me from selling. No idea why Labour think it is their place to tell me how to manage my assets.

But I am not surprised, after all they have already said I am not smart enough to manage my pension and that they should control what Bank I use and what Energy Company I am supplied by.

Labour rejects Pfizer bid guarantees http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27403777

Why do they think the cure for bad legislation is more legislation?

Listening to a conversation in the Gym this morning between two guys who were discussing the changes to planning to enable councils to limit the amount of Bookmakers in an effort to control the spread of Fixed Odds Betting Machines and it got me thinking about the government and particularly why the government always tries to legislate its way out of trouble, even when the trouble is caused by Bad Legislation.

This is a classic example. basically the government were worried about FOB terminals and so they legislated that shops couldn't have more than 4 terminals, the problem with this kind of "blanket" legislation is that it doesn't consider any specific circumstances, so a shop where the demand can only support 1 terminal is viewed no differently than a shop where demand can support 20. Now as Supply will always follow demand the obvious (To all but the government) result is that the area that wants 20 terminals will get 5 shops.

Now that the inevitable has happened the complaint is that there are too many betting shops and so councils should have power to refuse them, basically trying to legislate out of a problem that the original legislation caused. It does actually appear to me that all of this legislation is caused by one simple issue, They don't trust you enough to make decisions about your own life, but they are not willing to say that out loud.

So here is a crazy idea, why not allow demand to regulate supply, remove all the legislation and that way each area will only have the FOBTs that the people using them want, and there will only be as many bookmakers as the economy can support. (Although you should think about if you really want to reduce the amount of bookmakers on the high street, these are after all people's jobs and tax paying businesses.)

Greedy Corporations or Out of Control Government?

After my recent discussion about fuel duty I was thinking about how we are often told how “Greedy Corporations” remove money from the economy and are responsible for high wages I thought I would look at it through a practical example. Working for an Oil company I thought I would look at how much of £100 paid to me by my employer that was then returned to them by purchasing their petrol. Out of this £100 how much would end up as company profit and how much would end up with the Government.

The first government slice (actually three slices) come before I have even received the money.

Tax Type	Tax Rate	Payable on	Tax	Remaining
Employer National Insurance	0.138	£100	£14	£86
Income Tax	0.4	£100	£40	£46
Employee National Insurance	0.12	£100	£12	£34

So before even receiving the money the £100 is reduced down to £34 (Which is enough to provide me with 28.33 Litres of Unleaded. This gives the Government their next two slices.

Fuel Duty	£0.58	28.3l	£16.40	£17.60
VAT	0.2	£34	£6.80	£10.80

So with over half of the money being taken in direct taxation again we have the actual money that is spent on the product cost, obviously as there have been taxes all along the process part of this cost is made up of the taxes incurred on the product pipeline, unfortunately there are no direct figures available but based on the figures of produced by PWC and available here I have worked out that the supply taxation costs is about 18p per litre. (this includes - Petroleum Reserve Tax, Employee Taxes, Supply Chain Tax, property Tax and Environmental Taxes)

Supply Line Taxation

£0.18

28.3l

£5.09

£5.71

So from the £100 my company wanted to pay me the government have already taken 94% so there is nothing else for them to do but to tax what little they have so far failed to take through corporation tax – including the supplemental levy payable by Oil and Gas companies.

Corporation Tax

0.3

£5.71

£1.71

£3.99

 This gives the Government 96% of the money and the “Greedy Corporation” 4%

And as if the government removing 96% of the money from the economy already if this profit is paid back to shareholders they will take up to an additional 37.5% and should that Shareholder go on to spend the money they will take another healthy 20% in VAT!