Cameron visits Israel

David Cameron has visited Israel, and has made a speech in its parliament.  Before I continue, please take a moment to watch this video about the frontiers of Israel.

Did Resolution 242 really say that Israel was entitled to new frontiers?  More importantly, where is the admission that this country is a terror state?  Israel was born in terror, and has expanded its frontiers through terror.

I wonder what will happen when advances in military hardware create a greater threat to Israel than exists right now?  Will Israel demand even more territory at the expense of neighbouring countries?  Time will tell.

David Cameron has opposed sanctions against Israel, although he apparently does not condemn the late Mrs Thatcher, whose government maintained sanctions against South Africa.  Did South Africa bomb other countries and murder innocent civilians?

He also mentions nuclear weapons, but does not explain how any country can hope to build what does not exist.  It is reported elsewhere that he also supports cruelty to animals.

David Cameron does not need to visit Israel, and I wonder who he is trying to impress by going there.  Maybe he should have stayed in this country and gone to visit a food bank instead.

Related previous posts include:
Denmark joins the renegades
The Red Shield versus Syria
Jew couldn't make it up
Four YT channels

The sordid truth about far too many young people

Channel Four is currently airing a documentary about strippers, and it appears that a large number of strippers nowadays are students.  The documentary was filmed in Scotland, where the financial assistance available to students is more favourable than in England.  Nevertheless we cannot expect students ever to receive large amounts of state funding, and so we should not be surprised if many students have part-time jobs during term time.

Meanwhile, a female student at Duke University in North Carolina is working as a pornographic film actress.  Miriam Weeks was raised in a Roman Catholic family and attended a Roman Catholic school.  Duke University was founded by Methodists and Quakers. I merely observe those facts.  Her fees are five thousand dollars each month.  I merely observe that as well.

Miss Weeks has no regrets about working in the porn industry at the moment, but that may not always be the case.

I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that we live in a society which is obsessed with higher education.  I accept that many people see it as a means of self-improvement, and there is doubtless something in that.

Nevertheless there is surely a lot to be said for avoiding a situation which is likely to result in building up debt.  Surely it also makes sense for young women to avoid a situation which is likely to result in them entering a profession which they later have cause to regret.

A stripper is not a prostitute, but many of them are treated like they are prostitutes.  I remember once reading the testimony of a lap dancer who was pleased to be earning around five hundred pounds per week.  I subsequently read in a newspaper that a lot of lap dancers were working as prostitutes because they earned only around five hundred pounds per week from lap dancing.

Let's get this straight.  A supermarket checkout operator earns maybe eleven thousand per year; a call centre operative earns maybe thirteen thousand per year; and a lap dancer earns maybe twenty-five thousand per year.  How many checkout operators and call centre operatives also work as prostitutes?

Maybe we should elect a government which will make it easier for young people to leave school at the age of eighteen (or younger) and find a job within a matter of a few weeks at most.  That way our young people will maybe feel under less pressure to go to university and end up either in debt or working in a dubious occupation.

Update: an American woman called Lea Grover has recently told of her experiences of working in the sex industry while at college.

The minimum wage and prices

If all low paid workers are given a rise will not prices increase to put them back to where they were?

This question was asked recently on a patriotic forum, and I promised to answer it.  So here goes.

There are many factors which influence how much money a given company pays in wages to its staff, and the minimum wage law is just one of them.  Other factors include the skills required of the employees, the cost of owning or renting a home in the vicinity of the workplace, and of course how much turnover the company actually has.

Consider a company which pays each member of its staff at least five percent more than the minimum wage.  If the minimum wage is then increased by exactly five percent, then the company will have no need to increase any of its salaries as they will already be complying with the law.

By contrast, consider the unlikely case of a company which pays each member of its staff exactly the minimum wage and no more.  If the minimum wage is increased by five percent, then the company will have to increase its entire payroll by that percentage.  Nevertheless that would not increase its costs overall by five percent, unless of course the entire costs of the company were made up of its payroll and nothing else.

For example, a company whose payroll makes up forty percent of its total costs would need to increase its costs by no more than two percent (five percent of forty percent) in order to meet a five percent increase in the minimum wage.

Then again, it is perhaps fair to say that every cost is a labour cost.  Most companies will have a stationery bill for example.  If the minimum wage increases, then companies which supply stationery may have to increase their prices as a result, thereby pushing up costs for their customers.  Almost everything a company spends money on represents somebody’s labour somewhere along the line.  Can anyone think of any exceptions to this?

The only exception I can think of is that a lot of the goods purchased by British companies are produced abroad, and therefore are not affected by this country’s minimum wage law.

Another factor is the pay differential.  This is the difference between the wages of two or more people.  Suppose the office junior in a given company is paid £6.31 – the current minimum wage – and a clerk is paid £6.81.  The differential is fifty pence.   If the minimum wage law pushes up the office junior’s salary to £6.61, then the clerk will then have a pay differential of just twenty pence, unless of course the clerk’s salary is also increased.

The United Kingdom has had a minimum wage since 1999.  The Labour Party promised a minimum wage at the 1992 general election, but it remained in opposition.  I think I am quoting Lord Archer here.  In the run-up to the 1992 general election, Labour’s shadow chancellor John Smith told a businessman that he did not have to worry about the proposed minimum wage because the trade unions had said that they would not seek to push up differentials.  The businessman replied that he needed differentials to run his business, but did he?

Differentials exist for a reason, but it is easy to exaggerate the benefits of paying one person more than another.

Suppose two companies are in the same business, and both pay similar wages to their staff.  Both are forced by an increase in the minimum wage to pay more money to at least some of their staff.  One company also adjusts the wages of all of its employees to ensure that differentials remain the same, while the other company allows its differentials to decrease.  The result is that the second company now has a lower payroll relative to the first company, and therefore can perhaps charge lower prices than the first company, thereby allowing it to win customers away from the first company.

Employees of the second company may grumble about the reduction in their differentials, but at least their jobs are secure.  By contrast, employees of the first company still enjoy their differentials, but their jobs are perhaps less secure.

The costs of a company can be neatly categorised as taxation, payroll, and other costs.  The company’s profits represent its turnover less costs.

An increase in the minimum wage will probably increase the cost of the payroll, and may also increase some of the other costs.  Assuming that the tax bill remains the same, then the company will have to choose to accommodate its increased costs either by increasing its prices or else by reducing its profits.

One of the arguments that is sometimes offered in defence of the minimum wage is that it cuts the cost to the government of tax credits or other in-work benefits.  If this is true, and there is probably some truth in it, then an increase in the minimum wage could result in the government lowering taxes on the basis that it requires less money.  In this case, companies which see their payroll and other costs increase when the minimum wage increases might at some point see their tax bills fall.

In conclusion, it is not inevitable that an increase in the minimum wage will result in an increase in the prices of the goods we buy.  Also, if an increase in the minimum wage results in an increase in prices, then the increase might not be as much as we might expect.  Economics is a complex subject, and any generalisations we might choose to make could easily prove to be inaccurate.

This post follows on from an earlier post:

Should we increase the minimum wage?

Demon words aimed at UKIP

This post is a commentary on three recent news items.  The first is a comment by a communist idiot, published in a supposedly Tory newspaper.  He labels UKIP as extremist and racist, and reveals that his sense of humour is seriously deficient by describing some inoffensive jokes as racist.  Does he think that Irish jokes are racist?

The second is the news that a Liberal Democrat handbook alleges that racism is a characteristic of at least some UKIP voters – or perhaps all of them.  It is unclear.

The third is that a Tory MP has described UKIP as literally akin to the Nazis.  Apparently this is part of a change of strategy for the Tories, who are now increasingly likely to be confrontational when dealing with UKIP.

Let us examine the words used here.  Extremist is a meaningless word.  An extremist is not a moderate – that much is obvious.  But who is to say who or what is extremist as opposed to moderate?

The word racist is fairly close to meaningless.  Suppose a crime is racially motivated.  It can then be termed racist, in which case racist is simply a synonym for racially motivated.  However a lot of actions or beliefs could realistically be described as racially motivated, and therefore also racist.  This might seem obvious, but the problem arises that the word racist appears never to be used except pejoratively.  Is being racially motivated really of necessity a bad thing?

Nazi, like fascist, appears to be a word which communists tend to use about people they despise.  It is always or nearly always the case that these words are used pejoratively.  It occurs to me however that someone once labelled a political party as Nazi because it wanted to protect manufacturing.   Was the word used pejoratively on that occasion?

Leaving aside the question of what these words truly mean, it appears that their true meaning is generally subservient to their negative connotations.  They are demon words, aimed not at identifying the truth, but rather at stifling genuine debate.

The Nazis bombed other countries, and yet our Prime Minister David Cameron also bombs other countries.  Does Robert Halfon MP think that David Cameron is akin to a Nazi?

Another important observation is that for many years now communists and their fellow travellers have used words like extremist and racist and Nazi about the British National Party, and yet so far as I am aware the leadership of UKIP have never sought to distance themselves from such irresponsible behaviour.  Now that such words are being used about themselves though, I wonder if they would care to rethink their point of view.

My final observation is that the people who are now seeking to demonise UKIP may have gone a step too far.  The more that pejorative language is bandied about, the more likely it is that people will tire of it.  Maybe the enemies of UKIP should rethink their approach.

I do not support UKIP and will never vote for them, but all the same I recognise that the Labour Party and the Conservative Party have ruined the lives of millions of ordinary people with their repeated failures of government.  Maybe it would help matters if Labour and Tory and Liberal Democrat politicians owned up to their own failings before they dare to use strong language about UKIP or any other party which has never been in government in this country.

Related previous posts include:

UKIP get some things right

The return of the UKIP hamster

The west should stay out of Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in eastern Europe which borders Russia, but which also borders at least four member states of the evil European Union.  It contains the self-governing republic of Crimea.  The entire region has been an ethnic melting pot since time immemorial.

Ukraine used to be led by a corrupt prime minister called Yulia Tymoshenko.  Following the election of Viktor Yanukovych as president in 2010, she was prosecuted for abuse of office, found guilty, and sentenced to a lengthy prison term.  Her prosecution was condemned by the European Union as politically motivated.

On the one hand she deserved her punishment, but on the other hand Yanukovych was probably no less corrupt.  He has recently been ousted from office after a series of demonstrations instigated by western powers, and Tymoshenko has been released from prison early.

The current posturing by various world powers relates to the fact that the Russian president Vladimir Putin is unhappy with the ousting of Yanukovych, and is not ruling out the possibility of military action.  Many people in the Crimea see themselves as more Russian than Ukrainian, and that – combined with the military might available to the Russian president – could result in an easy victory.

While Yanukovych was a corrupt bully, he was also democratically elected.  By contrast, the leadership of the European Union are not elected, and are masters of the art of wasting other people’s money.  Yanukovych was removed from office by undemocratic means, and his replacement is a wealthy businessman who may or may not be abusing his position to further enrich himself and his business cronies.

The evil warmonger John Kerry has visited Ukraine to show support for this ill-conceived government, but a coward like him is no deterrent to a tough leader such as Putin.

Whether or not Putin orders military action in the Crimea, the west should take no part, either in terms of sending in troops or supplying military hardware to the enemies of democracy.

The west fought for control of the Crimea in the nineteenth century, and that war claimed more than half a million lives.  History must not be allowed to repeat itself.

Related previous post include:
Putin meets Kerry
Putin meets Cameron

The abuse of education

Two items in The Daily Mail deserve comment today, and both concern education.

First, Peter Hitchens has argued for the non-existence of dyslexia.  He comments that:

There may well be a small number of children who have physical problems that stop them learning to read. The invention of ‘dyslexia’ does nothing to help them. It means they are uselessly lumped in with millions of others who have simply been badly taught.

Mr Hitchens seems to contradict himself here.  If there are physical barriers to learning to read, then surely dyslexia does exist.  My own belief is that dyslexia does exist, and that it is the result of neurological abnormalities.  If you have any doubts on this matter, then please watch this documentary about the actress Kara Tointon.

The problem arises that once we have admitted the existence of dyslexia, then the concept becomes open to abuse.  Poor literacy can result from neurological abnormalities, but also from either lack of intellect or poor teaching - or both.  Parents may be unwilling to admit that poor literacy in their child results from lack of intellect, and teachers may be unwilling to admit that poor literacy in their pupils results from poor teaching.

The second item is a report that the Labour Party is planning to make school pupils study English and mathematics until the age of eighteen.  I can remember that the last time Labour was in opposition it adopted the mantra of education education education, and yet its subsequent thirteen-year tenure of government was far from inspiring.  It happily pandered to the whims of certain interest groups, and I see the same thing here.

Suppose a Labour government recruits more teachers.  Those teachers will then have an obvious incentive to vote Labour at subsequent general elections, because any other party in government might decide that there are too many teachers, and look to make some of them redundant.

This policy may well prove to be an own goal, however.  Employers are unlikely to want their teenage employees to have to take time away from their work to take extra lessons in numeracy and literacy which may well serve no practical purpose.

My own experience suggests strongly that many employers care little for literacy.  There are of course a lot of jobs which require numeracy, but not that many which require a high level of literacy.

I believe that politicians should seek to improve the education of pupils up till the age of sixteen, and not obsess about a belief that more is somehow better.  I also believe that there should be a statutory definition of dyslexia which seeks to restrict the use of the word to situations where a neurological abnormality can be identified.

Black violence: a black woman speaks out

It is reported that the owner of a bar in an inner London borough has spoken out about violent disorder which apparently has driven several bars in the area out of business.  The bar owner in question is a black woman, and she has claimed that the absolute majority of people who have disrupted these venues are black men and increasingly some black women.

Some people might think that the area in question is increasingly inhabited by non-whites, and that therefore it is only to be expected that trouble-makers will tend to be non-white.  But of course a lot of older people in the area can recall a time when it was far less violent.

Before I continue, please watch three clips from the 1962 film How The West Was Won, starring (among others) Debbie Reynolds and Gregory Peck.

An early scene
  
The Sacramento river

The ending

This film tells how white people built a great civilisation where little more than open country existed before.  Black people and Chinese people had a hand in the process, but it was predominantly a white entreprise.

Four hundred years ago, North America was poor, as were Africa and Australia.  Europe was also poor by present day standards, but was nevertheless highly advanced by the standards of the time.  Today the USA and Canada are rich, as too are Australia and New Zealand, and their prosperity is the consequence of colonisation by white Europeans.  By contrast, Africa largely remains poor.

Zimbabwe, which was ruled by a white minority as recently as the 1970s, is impoverished even by the standards of Africa - and yet this country was known as the breadbasket of Africa when it was under white rule.

So far I have merely observed facts.  I invite the reader to draw appropriate conclusions.