More Points on the Graph of Statism pt.4 - Property Rights re Guesthouses

We are seeing an attempt to prevent business owners, specifically Guest House owners, who stays in their property and how. It aslo suggests a photographer who does not wish to do Gay Weddings takes up portraiture.

ABSURD.

The Devil and Nation of Shopkeepers are doing a good job in a head-on assault on this Statist moonbattery.

This is a breach of property rights. It is not about "gays", nor is it about Muslims or Christians.

It is touted as increasing freedoms for people. New Labour has NOT increased freedom for people. All it is doing is aiming to give "rights". A MASSIVE difference.

Freedoms bring a responsibility on the individual so free not to use that freedom to impinge equal or superior freedoms.

Rights impose an obligation on a third party to enable that right. E.g. a right to welfare imposes the obligation on taxpayers to pay it.

Rights are often zero sum, while freedoms accumulate.

Here, the right to stay in a Guest House is made possible by making it an obligation for proprietors to have you stay. I say "have", not "allow", not "let". There is no "let" about it with this poisonous mindset. No choice. No freedom. The proprietor must have you. For the photographer, they are forced to take the pictures. Yes, forced, by the threat of imprisonment.

I must say that I have less than zero time for Muslims and Christians who are aggressively anti-gay. However, we are talking about their own businesses on their own property. If they were working at a State funded facility, the question would be altogether different, but we are not. The excuse of saying a property is "licensed" by the State is also not good enough either - a license is about saying something does not disobey regulations, NOT that it is "allowed" to operate - though I am sure Statists up and down the country will disagree. Again, a VERY important distinction as to the role of the State. In the UK it has long been there, along with the laws, to tell us what we cannot do, not what we are allowed to do, as in Europe.

Europe is all about "rights". In the UK, it has been, until recently, about freedoms. The EU Treaty is all about cementing this kind of perverse, Napoleonic hegemony over the UK.

Metronet: A Private Company Operating Under A State Mandate.

I touched on this company in my article on monopolies over at LibertarianUK some weeks ago.

Metronet is/was NOT a proper private company at all. It was a consortium, nay, cartel inside an umbrella corporation, a private company operating with a State mandate. A monopoly of the worst kind.

The cartel behind it should pay back what is owed. It is a disgrace that the cartel members were able to suck so much money out of the organisation via the "contracts" they gave themselves.

CORRECTION: Reuters bid

UPDATE: original reports handed to me suggested the deal had been done. I now edit the post to reflect reality!

After over 150 years, Reuters is subject to a takeover by Thomson. Photoshop journalism by stringers aside, Reuters is, or was, a fine institution with a long and proud history. I used to work for Reuters and I still feel like part of it. I joined in the dynamic, freewheeling and innovative days of MD Glen Renfrew, before the stodge and corporatist kiss-butt of the Job phase.

The M&A Lawyer (Glocer) gets to be CEO of the new entity. The Reuters Trust, who hold a share with 51% voting rights needs to be very careful about this. Of course, CEO Glocer's ego is being stroked and I am certain this is what he would have wanted. In 2001 the Board appointed M&A Lawyer Glocer to be CEO. A hammer only sees a nail. Reuters was prepped for sale and we get a sale.

It is encouraging that the merged sub-entity below Thomson-Reuters, a merge between Thomson Financial and Reuters will remain Reuters. I first thought this would mean an asset strip and sell-off, but this may not be the case after all. If Glocer moves out of Reuters it will need a new CEO for the entity...

School Leaving Age Raised to 67 Pt2...

School leaving age raised to 67...then you are on your own!

Following on from my previous post, there has been some talk about the need for some compulsory education as a means to undermine the libertarian arguments against raising it (it exists already, so why the concern etc).

Well, the orgininal purpose of compulsory education was "to prevent young children being sent out to work".

Seeing as many people are (or is that now "were" due to NewLabour infantilisation?) quite fit for work at 14, let alone 16, the need to make education compulsory has a new purpose:

"to prevent young people being (recorded as) unemployed."

Typical NeueArbeit in that they utterly misunderstand what needs to be done.

Schooling should be there to prevent people being UNEMPLOYABLE, something this government has totally failed to do. And btw, don't be fooled by the stats regarding "5 or more GCSEs", as some GNVQs are recorded as the equivalent to 5 GCSEs. Lets see the numbers excluding GNVQs and my guess is it will paint a very different and tragic picture.

Now you can see why NeueArbeit refuses to accept such an idea that schooling is to prevent unemployability - for the solution would be to abandon their dogma surrounding education, that of equality/dumbing down and a "one size f's all" curriculum chock full of wiggle room in the form of "course work".

CourseWork scores should be published separately from exam grades. Cat, meet the pigeons.

More Inequality from the Chancer-lor.

Not content with his damage so far, Gordon has further entrenched his social interference and distortion.

If he had abolished the 10% tax bracket and made it 0%, I might have been supportive, but no, he decides to take more money from those people so the gurning babboon can be seen to hand it back to some of them. BETTER TO NOT TAKE IT FROM THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU IMBECILE.

As for the treatment of small companies, it just shows that Gordon just does not 'get' it. Small companies create employment and make the country's economy more efficient and innovative. It often takes years before the founder of a small business is given the time of day by banks.

I believe the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer should only be open to those who have built their own business, however modest.