"Living Within Your Means"

The Devil, in another delightful attack on Toynbee, raises a key gripe of mine:

My first job, way back in 1997, paid me just over £12,000 (a little higher than the minimum wage, but not for long). It wasn't a fortune, but I was hardly destitute. I was, however, aware that I couldn't afford to have a family—even were I able to find someone stupid enough to bear my spawn. It's called "living within your means", Polly.

Watchdog this week featured a family that was complaining about the health and safety standard of a house the local council had provided for them:

Louise and Tony Shoulder moved into their two-bedroom council flat in Greenwich, south-east London, 11 years ago. But, three children later, the flat became very cramped. So, in 2007, they were put onto the council's priority list for somewhere more suitable.

And now they're expecting a fourth. Explain to me, then, how the situation they have found themselves in is not their own fault. Or is the only way to 'move up' - if that's the right term here - the housing ladder is to reproduce?

Think Before You Speak

There's a 'communist' (read: naive politics student) in my Philosophy class. We try to exclude him from conversation. We started talking about the fact that Monaco is a tax haven. He stuck his oar in:

"But surely, some people have a moral right to your taxes?"

It scares me that a human being, between the stages of thinking up that sentence and saying it, did not identify the many, many things wrong with it.

Immoral

Oh dear. A quote from a pro-EU MEP, a Lib-Dem one I might add, that I agree with wholeheartedly:

"Protectionism will kill the economy stone dead."

-Andrew Duff, Lib Dem MEP

Not a reason to close this blog down, mind you, in spite of a lack of posting lately as a result of coursework, exams, and other things. Duff was talking about the recent strikes, ended today by a pledge from the company in question to create 102 new jobs for the locals. What he means is labour protectionism, i.e., stopping migrant workers coming into the country.

Protectionism, in terms of keeping competitive foreign goods out of the market, is dangerous. It doesn't help consumers or firms. Stopping migrant workers is completely different. In the "good times", I would have argued for it it on demographical and cultural grounds. During a recession of the scale of which we are entering, it becomes cruel and immoral to import labour.

Don't believe any pro-EU MEP when he says he isn't keen on protectionism. The EU couldn't be more protectionist if it was on the moon. The agenda is the "single market", on keeping all European workers on the same level, just as they would be, say, if Europe was one country.

Too Bad

Robinho: "City have the resources, so this is very good for us. If the others don't, that's too bad for them."

Damn straight. Football isn't a socialist industry.