Following the ballistic missile false alarm, a surge of babies will appear in Hawaii approximately 9 months from now as men and women clustered together under the bed decide to go out of this world in flagrante and without protection.
There may also be a bunch of unmarried teen pregnancies for those who didn't want to die as virgins...
It seems that even the Scandinavians have realised that cradle-to-grave welfare can't be as comprehensive as people might like. Witness what happens when a member of the Danish Parliament spent time with a welfare recipient to see how hard her life was. Joachim B. Olsen, a politician from the Liberal Alliance skeptical of welfare payments, surprisingly found that many of his concerns were actually founded in fact:
The 36-year-old single mother, given the pseudonym "Carina" in the news media, had more money to spend than many of the country's full-time workers. All told, she was getting about $2,700 a month, and she had been on welfare since she was 16.Even the famously tolerant Danes ended up raising an eyebrow at this and similar stories. It turns out that Denmark has a high fraction of the working-age population on long-term disability, a similar situation to the UK. The government has raised the proposal to remove that life-time status guarantee for under-40s unless they really are completely physically or mentally incapable or working. Does this sound familiar to UK readers?
The trigger for concern over cases like this is the remorseless progress of adverse demographic changes in Denmark: 18% of the population is over 65, and not enough people are working:
In 2012, a little over 2.6 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 were working in Denmark, 47 percent of the total population and 73 percent of the 15- to 64-year-olds.From the article, it seems that the Danes don't mind their relatively high tax rates, but they are simply not enough to cover the ever-increasing costs of welfare when sourced from a flat or declining tax base.
While only about 65 percent of working age adults are employed in the United States, comparisons are misleading, since many Danes work short hours and all enjoy perks like long vacations and lengthy paid maternity leaves, not to speak of a de facto minimum wage approaching $20 an hour. Danes would rank much lower in terms of hours worked per year.
When working full time gets you less income than being on benefits, why work? So far the Scandinavian countries have managed because of a good work ethic, where people work because they think they should. In P. J. O'Rourke's "Eat The Rich", a Swede points out to O'Rourke that the hostile weather conditions have effectively eliminated the genes of the lazy. This is less true in Denmark than in Sweden, but Denmark should be regarded as a bellweather - it's a short drive over the bridge from Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmö, Sweden. I wonder how much longer political pundits in the UK will hold up the Scandinavian countries as a welfare model to emulate?
It's rare to see a politican do something actually novel and courageous. US small-government Repulican Rand Paul went to the predominantly black Howard University in Washington D.C. to spread an unusual message for a Republican:
Paul reminded the crowd the GOP has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights, but also the party of limited government. "When some people hear that, they tune us out and say: he's just using code words for the state's right to discriminate, for the state's right to segregate and abuse. But that's simply not true."Bear in mind that the article is written by a self-proclaimed conservative black chick and so can't be regarded as a neutral point of view, but the basic facts are undeniable. Paul went to an environment that anyone would regard as explicitly hostile to Republicans in general, and white privileged Republicans in particular; he didn't apologise for who he was, but rather made a case to the audience that it was in their interests to vote Republican.
The last time Obama spoke at Howard University (a short drive from the White House) was in 2007, before he was president. Why should he speak there now? He knows that the black vote leans massively to the Democrats. Why waste time with solid voters when there are many marginal voters to chase? This is the calculus of politics, and it's what is guaranteeing that issues of real and particular concern to African Americans are of little concern to both Democrat and Republican politicians. Republicans know that the black population won't vote for them anyway, and Democrats know that the black population will vote for them regardless.
I hope that the Howard University students want their concerns to be taken seriously by politicians. To make this happen, they have to make it clear that their vote is up for grabs to whoever can deliver on those concerns. This same phenomenon, I am sure, relates to why inner-city areas in the UK languish in poverty; Labour can rely on those votes, so will spend the minimum possible in money and political capital to keep the inhabitants from outright revolt. The Conservatives and Lib Dems know they will never gain those votes no matter what they do, so why try?
If you want something from a politician, you have to have something to negotiate with. This "something" is your vote. Go cavort with your politician's opponents, let him know you're doing it, and you'll be amazed how quickly he appears to gain concern for your well-being.
Shock! Horror! Oxford University appears to be discriminating in favour of white students and against ethnic minorities:
In medicine, 43 per cent of white students who went on to receive three or more A* grades at A-level got offers, compared with 22.1 per cent of minority students with the same grades, according to data obtained by The Guardian newspaper.Now, let's bear in mind that as A-level grade inflation has taken hold, three A* grades is no longer the talent indicator that even three A grades might have been 25 years ago:
In a 2007 report Robert Coe compared students scores in the ALIS ability test with equivalent grades achieved in A level exams between 1988 and 2006. He found that students of similar ability were achieving on average about 2 grades higher in 2006 than they were in 1988. In the case of maths it was nearer to 3.5 grades higher.[24]i.e. an 'A' in 2006, which is presumably near an A* in 2013, was a 'C' in 1988. But that 43% vs 22% relative percentage seems to be damning, surely?
Assuming, just for the moment, that Oxford University medical professors aren't rampant racists, what could be the explanation? An Oxford University spokesperson hints:
"We do know that a tendency by students from certain ethnic groups to apply disproportionately for the most competitive subjects reduces the success rate of those ethnic groups overall."Chinese and South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) students are disproportionately likely to apply to become doctors; you can tell this because they are disproportionately (compared to % of UK population) likely to be medical students. This is inversely true for Afro-Caribbean students who are rarely found in the professional medicine track. What the Daily Mail fails to supply is the raw stats on applicant and successful applicant numbers broken down by ethnic group, which could then be analysed based on the ethnic distribution of 18 year old students. I would be very interested in those numbers, which I suspect would tell a very different story to the DM's angle.
I invite the reader to inspect the list of Oxford University physiology lecturers. It's not obvious that they are prejudiced against South Asian or Oriental medical experts. Out of 53 staff, 6 match that ethnic background (11%) which is much greater than the 5% you'd expect even given the most favourable reading of the UK ethnic breakdown.
Reading this Daily Mail article claiming that 64% of people walk on past a gang of teen troublemakers, I can only wonder - what's wrong with the remaining 36%? The poll claims that 27% overall would step in to stop a gang drinking and verbally abusing passers-by, and I'm sure that this overstates the numbers who would actually intervene - still, any rational evaluation of self-preservation would force the average passer-by to avert their eyes and keep walking. I do not, of course, include Chuck Norris or Jack Bauer in that category, but I understand they seldom visit South London or Birmingham
If drunken teens are abusing bystanders, they're not going to stop when someone they don't know from Adam tells them to stop. Why would they? They've been brought up in an environment where there are no effective sanctions on bad behaviour. Even if they've been in the criminal justice system due to thefts, assault etc. the presumption is to hand out suspended sentences to "encourage" them to go straight. Someone mouthing off at them is very unlikely to change their behaviour unless it's their mother - we assume that their father either isn't around, or is a waste of skin.
If it escalates into physical violence, the problems are worse. If you initiate the violence, even if defensively in fear of your safety, you will certainly be arrested and likely charged. The CPS might well not be able to make the charge stick, at least if you're sensible enough to keep your mouth shut and demand legal representation, but that's still several months of your life with the end of your professional career hanging over you. If they attack you without provocation, it's a toss-up as to whether a bystander will back your side of the story when the police turn up; they will claim you attacked them, and there's no downside for them to do this. Perjury prosecution? Don't make me laugh.
Practically, unless you get in fights on a regular basis, you are very unlikely to come out well from a 1 vs 2 engagement with teens; if they're drunk, their reflexes are slower but they feel less pain. Even 1 vs 1, you're gambling that they don't get a lucky hit or kick in and disable you. Once you're on the ground, they're going to kick you in the chest and head, even if they're a woman. A kick in the head in the right place can be permanently disabling, if not fatal.
What's the upside? You won't change anything by intervening. Drunk teens mouth off at bystanders every single day. Even if you scare them off today, they'll be back tomorrow. You can't apply any violent sanction, because you'll either be jailed (if disproportionate), arrested and charged (if proportionate defence), or in hospital or the morgue (if outnumbered or unlucky). Congratulations to the lawmakers and social scientists who have put this incentive scheme in place. May you be verbally abused and threatened daily.
Much sound and fury resulting from today's GCSE results:
Up to 10,000 pupils are believed to have missed out on C grades in English — considered a good pass — as results registered their only annual decline since 1988.Ok, let's reset expectations here. A C grade in 1987 English 'O' Level was a good pass, demonstrating a reasonable understanding of spelling and grammar. The pass rate for 'O' Levels generally at grade C or above in 1987 was just north of 30% (Figure 3.7) Note that boys and girls had virtually identical scoring averages at 'O' Level; only when GCSE was introduced did girls start to rise significantly above boys.
To see the trend, look at the 2001 GCSE results:
The National Association of Head Teachers, looking forward to the day when every subject is awarded at least a grade C, said such a "quantum leap" would require "urgent solutions to the teacher recruitment crisis".So just under 60% of students taking GCSE English (and that's pretty much all students) got a grade C or better in 2001. What about in 2012?
Apparently agreeing, the CBI said it was alarming for competitiveness that more than 40 per cent of the entries in English, maths and science failed to achieve a grade C or above.
The drop in the number of pupils awarded good results in English proved controversial. Nationally, 669,534 sat GCSEs in English language or a joint language and literature paper, but the proportion of C grades dropped from 65.4 last year to 63.9 per cent. It equates to a fall of just over 10,000 on the number of pupils expected to gain good marks.Oh noes! Only 63.9%? How unfair! So, how unfair was it to the 2001 pupils of whom less than 60% scored C or above? Was the class of 2001 noticeably more thick than the classes of 2011 or 2012? If not, why the discrepancy in grades? What about the class of 1987?
You do have to feel sorry for some of the pupils in this year, though. The goalposts moved, but not in the direction that their teachers expected; therefore their grade expectations (on which university applications were based) were overly ambitious. Against that, however, every student this year endured the same penalty; I expect a frantic scrambling by 6th form colleges to reassess acceptable entry levels.
Grading on a curve is (IMHO) the least worst solution to GCSE. Nearly every child in the age bracket takes GCSEs, so by grading on a curve for widely taken subjects you provide a relatively objective assessment of the ability of that child against their peers; since one year is unlikely to be much smarter or dumber than another year, there's reasonable read-across. Note that this doesn't work for more selective subjects where the academic profile of students is very different from the main, e.g. Latin and Greek, but let's solve one problem at a time.
You'd think that an English Lit undergraduate would understand the meaning of common words. Reni Eddo-Lodge writing in CiF would seem to contradict that thesis:
It is an absolute scandal that young women are being denied access to the [HPV] vaccine on religious grounds. Not only are some of these schools opting out of providing the injection, but they're also neglecting to inform GPs of their decision – thus preventing young women from accessing the vaccine altogether.Let's just dissect this, shall we? These "young women" are under 16 years of age, and therefore "girls" in the same way that "young men" under 16 are "boys". The school are merely opting out of making it easier for the girls to get the HPV vaccine. They have absolutely no obligation to fulfill that role. It's up to the girls' parents, who after all are in loco parentis, to arrange for the girls to get that vaccination - if they so choose.
Reni thinks that she has a killer stat:
The human papillomavirus claims 1,000 victims a year in the form of cervical cancers, and the HPV vaccine prevents 70% of them.700 lives saved (in the UK) isn't bad. Of course, the HPV vaccine Gardasil causes 1 death per month in the USA according to the FDA, so parents might figure that they'd rather their child protect themselves by refraining from promiscuous sex rather than receive a vaccine that may (however unlikely) kill them.
Reni's perspective is made clear:
Projecting adult paranoia about promiscuity on to young women helps no one. At the crux of religious opposition to the HPV vaccine is a belief that young women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.A lot of young women (and men) are promiscuous, by any reasonable definition. If they weren't, we wouldn't be having the STD outbreak that we are currently having. So perhaps young women (girls) can't be trusted by their parents -- who, after all, are responsible for them and deal with the consequences of their decisions.
Hat tip: JuliaM at Orphans of Liberty.
The Labour MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy, is proposing that 16 year olds be allowed to vote. Apparently:
...lowering the voting age to 16 was a way of "this generation showing respect for the next generation" and giving them a share of power.In this game, you must earn respect, Lisa my old chum. And part of that earning could be, for instance, paying some tax and NI. Essentially what you're proposing is that an age group which are massive net receivers of income from the state be allowed to determine how much more income they receive. What could possibly go wrong?
The usual suspects are crawling out of the woodwork and expressing enthusiasm:
Neal Lawson, head of Compass, added: "Young people don't just need policies, they need power – then they'll have a stake in the nation's future".I think that "need power" is a "want power", actually Neal. They clearly don't need it as they've managed several hundred years without it. This is nothing more than naked self-interest by the Labour (and, probably, Lib Dem) politicos who see themselves as disproportionate beneficiaries of the youth. I'd bet that the reason for their concern at this time is hinted at in the article:
The report follows the publication of the first tranche of the 2011 census results, which show the UK population is older than ever: over-65s now make up 16% of the population.Damn all those Tory-leaning old people with money! Let's enact a pre-emptive demographic mugging with 16-18 year olds!
The truly terrifying prospect, however, is self-righteous 16-18 year olds appearing in the Question Time audience and random BBC interviews, being respectfully interviewed by journos.
I hope my readers appreciate the sacrifices made in bringing this blog to the Net: after reading today's Polly missive on how to save the NEETs I have to admit to throwing up in my mouth a little.
In common with so many Polly columns, it takes a small collection of relatively undisputable facts ("the number of 16-year-olds staying on in education has fallen for the first time in years, raising Neets – those not in education, employment or training – by 8%", "Numbers of Neets were falling steadily until 2010, when the Cameron government snatched away that crucial £30 a week.") and builds an increasingly tall and rickety tower of a column whose base spreads beyond the rock of facts to the sand of speculation and the marsh of Polly's opinions.
Polly's pivotal contention is that it's far better for the unemployed youth to remain in any form of education than to seek a job:
At a time when leaving school without plans has never been a worse life choice, more teenagers are walking away to do nothing at all. Unemployment when young scars for life: studies show most are destined for a life of underpaid work, punctuated with no work.I suspect that here Polly is (once again) falling into the trap of confusing correlation with causation. I would totally believe that the average wage of students with one or more A-level is at a statistically significant measurement about that of students with just GCSEs. What I would find harder to believe is that the marginal wage gain of the least able 20% of A-level students from their 2 years studying will outweigh that of equally-able GCSE students working 2 years in their chosen employment. Let's not forget that Educational Maintenance Allowance only pertains to the 16-19 age group so you can forget the degree premium for this argument.
Polly's claims centre around two propositions:
What the abolishment of EMA is about is making students do a practical calculation of what two years of education is worth to them. Why should the taxpayer (and, let us be clear, this means the full-time minimum-wage worker) be on the hook for the student's studying time if doesn't materially benefit them?
Lest we forget this is Polly, she reminds us:
Michael Gove as education secretary seems entirely preoccupied with more able children.Yes Polly, God forbid that we should focus the spending of taxpayer money on those students who are most able to benefit from education. FFS.
Whenever he talks of "social mobility", he speaks of those from humble backgrounds soaring up to Oxbridge.Precisely why this aim is a bad expression of social mobility escapes me. Maybe her own Oxbridge experience put her off studying:
...she won a scholarship to read history at St Anne's College, Oxford, despite gaining only one A-level ... During her gap year she worked for Amnesty International in pre-independence Rhodesia, before being expelled by the government ... After 18 months at Oxford, she dropped out, finding work in a factory and a burger bar and hoping to write in her spare time. She later said "I had a loopy idea that I could work with my hands during the day and in the evening come home and write novels and poetry, and be Tolstoy... But I very quickly discovered why people who work in factories don't usually have the energy to write when they get home."Ladies and gentlemen, that is education. A shame that it burned up that scholarship money for Polly to make that discovery.
Shock! Horror! The BBC discovers that Women are losing their jobs!
Beneath the headlines are many puzzling aspects of the jobs market, one of which is that female unemployment has been rising a lot faster than the male total.Now, why might that be? Well, the public sector has been losing a lot of jobs recently, and women are overrepresented in that sector (not least because of its positive attitude towards flexible hours and part-time working). Oddly, the article doesn't follow that line of enquiry.
Instead we get a parade of anecdotes, which the author hopes will add up to actual data:
Jessica Beale, who is in her 30s, has a son at primary school and is his sole carer. She needs to find work which will allow her to fit in her childcare commitments. [...] Jessica Beale fears her need for flexible working hours is affecting her chances of getting a jobWell... yes, it would do really. Her situation immediately limits the kinds of job she can get, and places her in competition for the remaining jobs with all the other part-time or reduced-hours mothers. And yes, it is almost always the mothers rather than the fathers in this situation.
And on the more educated end:
Rose McConnachie, 27, has a degree and postgraduate qualifications from Edinburgh University. She cannot find any work relevant to her training in psychology and criminology, so has widened her search for any paid work. But she has drawn a blank.I'm not surprised that she can't find relevant work - for criminology, I can only think of a few potential employers and they're all in the cutbacks-and-no-recruiting parts of the public sector. Unfortunate timing by Ms McConnachie, and I can't help but wonder why she thought that taking a Masters (I assume it's not a Ph.D.) in the subject would help her prospects at all.
However, Rose is looking for paid work outside her specialist sector. Why has she drawn a blank?
"I mean, I'm great! I'm very clever, I'm very talented, I've got a lot of transferable skills and I'm very employable, but there just doesn't seem to be anywhere for me to be utilised for anyone's benefit."Oh Lordy. I think I see the problem. While I'm sure part of the issue is that she's 27 years old and therefore many employers are automatically assuming she'll get pregnant within a year of joining, a much more immediate issue is that she thinks she walks on water.
I would not have been at all surprised to read this in the Telegraph, but even the Guardian thinks that Abercrombie and Fitch produces too much sexual advertising and is lowering the tone of Savile Row. Reassuringly it finds a racial angle to the whole thing:
It appointed a diversity and inclusion officer to increase the number of non-white employees in its stores, from 10% in 2004 to 53% in 2011, but there have been two recent lawsuits filed by women who alleged they were discriminated against for wearing a hijab.although in my experience at least half of the employees are hyper-skinny Chinese or half-Asian girls, coupled with extremely well-dressed and well-coordinated young men, who if not actually batting for the other side are certainly fraternising with the enemy; I feel the Grauniad is on rather shaky ground. If you were accusing A+F of being ageist, sizeist, or anti-minger, I'd say you have a slam dunk.
Oppressed customer Andy Pike, however, is spot on:
"It's a loathsome experience," says Andy Pike, 47, a risk analyst for a bank, who leaves with a present for his niece. "It's so contrived, it's overpriced. It was so dark I couldn't tell what colour something was." And the music is so loud! He nods. "That makes us sound really old doesn't it? I'm not the target customer."Andy, my friend, you should seek out your local Hollister store and spend fifteen minutes there; given the choice, you would dive back into A+F and welcome it.
For the reason why this article was commissioned, look at the opening:
This week a protest was staged to stop it opening a second store – this time selling the Abercrombie childrenswear brand – on the Row itself.Ah, the old "they lower the tone" argument. Just buy them out, chaps. If you're not willing to pony up the cash for that then suck it up and stop whining to the newspapers; you can't expect the taxpayer to do it for you. Whiny old farts.
"This is one street in a city full of chain stores and it's not the right place for Abercrombie & Fitch," says Gustav Temple, editor of The Chap magazine ("a journal for the modern gentleman"), who organised the protest.
