In the United States, it is the policy of the ironically named Department of Defense that soldiers are forbidden to carry personal firearms on base, even if they have a concealed carry permit for that state. Outside of live fire exercises, the only people on military bases who are armed are police. This is an identical situation to that found in most American universities, all schools, some shopping malls and even entire cities and states such as Washington DC and Illinois. These policies are designed to create 'gun free zones'. I call them killing grounds.
Mass murderers like Nidal Malik Hasan take no notice of the 'no firearms beyond this point' signs posted at the gates of Fort Hood. The servicemen and women who followed the rules paid for it with their lives. On the 5th of November Hasan shot 43 people before a female police officer and ex-SWAT team member reached the scene and gunned him down. A little over 1% of Texas residents have concealed handgun permits, so there's about a 43% chance that one of those lying dead or in hospital might have been carrying a gun that day, had it not been for DoD policy. When you consider all the people who were in the area but, thankfully, avoided being shot, it becomes all but a certainty.
How many people have to die before people realise that being disarmed does not make us safe?
The Killing Grounds
Unhealthy Bias
In this article the BBC feature a graph, shown below, titled "Private health insurance costs soar."
Now, here's the same graph with a few additions of my own:
The horizontal red line to the right indicates one half of total US health expenditure in 2007. Notice that the proportion that is private only just nudges over the halfway mark, with almost 50% of US healthcare spending being done by government.The red dots are the points where each component of healthcare osts makes a noticeable increase in its rate of growth. Notice that private healthcare has just three increases in growth rate over the period: once in 1970, once in 1980, and once in the mid 1990s. The governmental components, however, have five increases a piece. In 1970, 1980 and the mid 1990s, but also in the early 1990s and the late 1990s. In two of the the three periods where there are also private increases, the public increases come before the private increases. Only in 1970 do private companies precede government in increasing healthcare costs.
More important, however, are the slopes of these components. Notice that over the entire period, the slopes of the two government components are always steeper i.e. increasing faster, than the private component. The angled red line on the private component exactly follows its slope from 2000 to 2007. Above it, are two further red lines showing the course of government healthcare spending had it grown at the same rate as private spending from 2000 to 2007. Instead, we see that both government components have grown considerably faster than the private sector.
Private health costs in 2007 were only just over 50% of the total, and since government costs are increasing at a much faster rate, it's likely that today it is government healthcare which constitutes the majority of healthcare costs.
So:
- Even though it only covers very specific groups, government spends more on healthcare than the population at large
- Government spending on healthcare has accelerated more frequently than the private sector
- Where increases in private and public sectors have come together, government acceleration in costs have almost always preceded private costs, eliminating the theory that private costs might increase public costs, and validating the converse
- State healthcare costs have 'soared' at a much greater rate than private costs
Yes Men
You might think that being given the job of advisor to the government meant that you were supposed to, you know, advise. Apparently "You're doing it wrong," is not advice the government likes to hear.
Shiver Me Backbones
The BBC have some sniveling advice for anyone taking to the high seas if they should be attacked by pirates: don't resist, learn how to say "Hello," and "Welcome," in the local language so they know you won't fight back. My advcie would be that if you ever find yourself in this situation, make sure you have one of these to hand.
Shock Value
The government's unelected politico, Peter Mandelson, has announced plans to forcefully disconnect those who illegally download content from the web.
I was shocked to learn that only one in 20 music tracks in the UK is downloaded legally. We cannot sit back and do nothing.
A shocking figure, no doubt. One might think that if only 1 in 20 music tracks being downloaded are bought legally, that the music industry would be in turmoil, with record labels going bankrupt and artists being laid off left right and center. What's shocking, perhaps, is that the music industry hasn't shrunk to one twentieth of its pre-Napster size. In fact, the music industry is growing.
Success Story
The government claim that a recent 'crackdown' on underage drinking has been "a success." As evidence of this, they cite the following 'results' of the campaign:
• 5,171 litres of alcohol were confiscated
• 3,721 actions were taken for drinking in public, including 500 dispersal orders
• Almost 2,000 young people were referred to support services, including 324 for alcohol treatment
• 1,829 parents were informed about their children's behaviour
• 18,660 youngsters were directed to other activities in their areas
• 2,467 test purchase operations were carried out - 349 licensed premises failed
• A further 515 police operations were carried out in the 69 areas, with 2,074 youngsters who were drunk and causing trouble referred to support services
Of course, we do not know what these figures would be normally. Was there actually an increase in, for example, referrals of young people to 'support services'? If so, how big an increase? You will note that none of the figures given are 'outcomes'. For example, we do not care how many parents were informed, how many litres of alcohol confiscated or how many 'youngsters' were directed to 'other activities'. The ultimate aim of the program was to reduce crime. Did it achieve this? We don't know. We haven't been told. This suggests, since government will be the ones with the figures, that it did not - or else they would be shouting about it.
Even if it did succeed in reducing the narrow segment of 'underage drink related crime', how much of that crime was 'caused by drink' as opposed to simply happening to occur in proximity to drinking? Even if a reduction in underage drink related crime was achieved, and even if this did not simply cause a corresponding increase in 'youth non-drink related crime', at what cost did it achieve this?
We are told that the scheme cost £1.4m, but that will be (like most government figures) wildly misleading. More likely, the scheme cost several times that, but the £1.4m is only what it cost above the cost of the normal activities of the bodies involved. For example, £X million of police money usually spent on Z and Y will have instead been spent on this project, but not counted in the figures because it was already on the budget sheets. So, while we may know what it cost us 'extra' in monetary terms, we don't know the real total cost. Although we probably don't even know the 'extra' cost. For instance, does the £1.4m include any increase in visits to these 'alternative activities' or 'support services'?
We also have no idea of non-monetary costs. Did it result in an increase in other areas of crime, for example? How many young people who would not have caused any trouble were unnecessarily hassled by the police and/or had their property confiscated? How much trouble would not have happened under normal circumstances occurred only because of the scheme itself e.g. otherwise pacific teenagers kicking off when police hassled them about drink?
To make good decisions one needs to know the costs of the choices one is faced with. Businesses, charities and individuals have every incentive to find out the true costs of their alternatives and make informed decisions based on those costs, weighed against the potential benefits. Government has every incentive to ignore costs, to make every project appear as cheap and successful as possible. And this isn't merely a PR stunt. Sometimes businesses will say a project was a success when it was a failure to save face, but where as the business will quietly scrap the scheme and do something productive instead, government carries on blindly. It's easy spending other people's money.
A Taxing Education
The CBI says that students going into university should pay higher tuition fees, more interest on student loans and face greater means testing for grants. The president of the National Union of Students, Wes Streeting, dismisses the report as "unsurprising" given that it comes from a group of top business leaders and university chancellors - fat cats, as the NUS calls them. I had to laugh out loud when I heard him say this on television; this coming from the president of the National Union of Students.
He says that this will make students worse off, but for most it will not. Tuition fees are paid for with loans - so higher fees are not paid for by students, but graduates. Equally, higher interest on student loans is only paid after you leave university.
Not that I support the CBIs proposals as such, I would like to see an end to all government funding of students. Can hardly accuse me of bias, right? This would have three advantages
1) Ending government interference in universities, allowing better quality higher education of a kind more genuinely in demand by business and academia to flourish
2) Making students face the actual costs and benefits of the decisions they make, ending the phenomenon of students going to university simply for the 'lifestyle' or to secure worthless 'joke' degrees - creating a more economically efficient situation with more university places for those who will genuinely benefit from the investment of getting a degree, and more workers in the labour force from those who do not really need to go to university
3) End the situation we have today where people who have never been to university or who paid out of their own pocket to go abroad are seeing money fly out of their pay cheques to fund those who go today, and create one where the people who use universities are the ones who pay for them
4) Encouraging saving through parents saving more for their children's educations (rather than that money being robbed in taxes) which encourages investment and benefits the economy
Some people worry, however, that such a system would mean that only rich children can go to university and that even smart poor kids won't be able to afford to go. Of course, there are a number of options one can take in order to go to university in the absence of government funding. Firstly, as mentioned, parents can fund their own children. This is the only option that might not be open to poor children, since their parents will find it more difficult to save. The second option is to secure a scholarship from the university, a company or a charity. Thirdly, student loans, and fourthly one can work at the same time. Lastly, would-be students can enter the workforce full-time and save for university, then go in a few years time.
Some would still say that these options are not convincing alternatives to government funding; surely some smart, poor kids still won't be able to go? Well, take America for example. The United States does not fund university study for students, they must use one of the above options to get a degree. Of those who leave high school ready for college (i.e. with sufficient qualifications and the desire to go) 9% are black, and 9% are hispanic. We know that blacks and hispanics are poorer than whites and Asians, so we would expect them to make up a much smaller proportion of college students. In reality, the figures are mirrored almost exactly with the percentage of first year college students who are black or hispanic being 18% (/ 2 = 9%). This suggests that pre-existing wealth is not a significant factor in whether someone can go to university beyond the tendency of rich children to do better at school than poor children - something which is not solved through government funding of higher education students (16% of the US population is hispanic, 14% is black). It suggests that the five options listed above are indeed sufficient to allow smart poor kids to get a university education and that there is actually no need for government to pay. By 'pay', of course, I mean steal.
