Friday: First, food for thought and then just friggin' funny

From the Acton Institute:

In a society that does not value private property and fosters a spirit of envy and class warfare through wealth redistribution, why should we be surprised that young people don’t value someone else’s property?

Said about 'flash mobbing' in the US. Could have been about the UK riots. It's a selective quote on my part because I don't hold with other views expressed by the Acton people. Nevertheless, as it stands, it makes crystal clear sense.

Then (unrelated) Kiwiblog features some recent Bob Jones correspondence. I recall reading a book titled something like Bob Jones Letters which was full of this sort of highly articulate piss-taking. Love it.

(Tried linking to the Acton Institute repeatedly but kept getting total disarrangement of post.)

Message for Paula Bennett

I don't want to repeatedly beat up on Paula Bennett and the job she is doing but her response to Coroner Wallace Bain's call for spot checks on all children under five is incredibly ill-considered and should have been a firm 'no'.

"As a country, we have to decide what we are prepared to give up to stop other children experiencing the abuse baby Nia did."

So those of us who aren't prepared to put up with state authorities sticking their noses into our homes to examine our child-raising abilities (remember the sort of standards being set for what constitutes abuse these days), we are heels. We are now the problem.

Yesterday I had to take both of my children to the doctors. There was a couple with a sick baby, obviously anxious and obviously adoring of their child. This is how most parents are. They love their children desperately. The state has no business monitoring their care of their children. The idea is quite repulsive.

So no Ms Bennett. I will defend the right of good parents to be left alone. Harassing them will do nothing.

The state has a role to play in preventing real harm to children and it is eminently possible to identify where those children are.

Stop prevaricating and buck-passing. You are the Minister.

Checks on sole parents have happened before

The Coroner in the Nia Glassie case is one Wallace Bain. Apparently Dr Bain wants spot checks on all children and...

Dr Bain is also calling for all solo parents on a benefit to be monitored and overseen to ensure the safety of children in their care.

Dr Bain wants a return to the past.

The Child Welfare Act 1925 introduced mandatory inquiries into the living circumstances of all children born outside marriage.

But decades later:

.... the Status of Children Act 1969, [which] ended discrimination between children born within and outside registered marriage and removed the term "illegitimate" from the statute books. This legislation reflected a desire to reduce some of the stigma associated with ex-nuptial birth that New Zealand inherited from English family law and brought the judicial system into line with the much more liberal concepts of Māori (Cameron 1967, 1969, Quin and O'Neill 1984).

And didn't that create a much kinder world? One where children are routinely loved and cared for?

Unfortunately not.

What's in a name?

The Domestic Purposes Benefit has been named as such since 1968. 43 years ago National instituted the DPB Emergency Benefit. How much life has changed since then. For instance women now make up half of the workforce and tertiary education rolls.

The benefit itself is dated and unsuited to the times, and so is the name. The reason I was thinking along these lines was looking at what various US states call their equivalent DPB. Many simply use the words 'temporary' and 'transitional' and 'work' but here are a few of the more imaginary examples:

Arizona EMPOWER (Employing and Moving People Off Welfare and Encouraging Responsibility)

Montana FAIM (Families Achieving Independence in Montana)

North Dakota TEEM (Training, Employment, Education Management)

Oregon JOBS (Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Program)

Virginia VIEW (Virginia Initiative for Employment, Not Welfare)

Wyoming POWER (Personal Opportunities With Employment Responsibility)

You can view the lot here.

The essential difference is the expectation that the name creates. The federal and state funds that go into these programmes only pay out a small percentage in cash assistance. The rest goes into things like childcare, training etc.

I would judge the success of the US reforms primarily on whether they break the inter-generational cycle of dependence. Changing the parent's expectations will change their children's. Poor and working is better than poor and on welfare. Aspirational is better than apathetic.

While many commentators (somewhat smugly) predict the economic decline of the US I think they have been tackling their social problems with real vigour and discipline. Eventually they will see a pay-off. NZ, frankly, is well behind.

Two working parents = problem children?

The front page of the Dominion Post features a story about the increasing bad behaviour of 5 and 6 year-olds. One of the reasons put up is:

Social problems contributed, with both parents in many families having one or more jobs.

This return to the 'latch key' children idea is bothering me.

It was one of the reasons the DPB was introduced in the first place. To allow single parents to stay at home with their children. That proved no panacea.

But I am not convinced that two working parents is really the crux of the problem. Parents who work are taking financial responsibility for their kids. It follows they are more likely to be taking responsibility for them, and each other, in other ways as well.

One child psychologist says poor parenting is part of the problem, and exposure to drugs or alcohol in the womb is having a terrible impact of some children.....There was a subset of children who had more challenging behaviour than previously seen. "Part of it could be exposure to drugs and alcohol in utero – we really under-diagnose that in New Zealand. We know we have children who have been exposed to P in utero that are in schools now ... but it's not going to be the only factor."

Holding down more than one job and abusing drugs and alcohol isn't very easy to do, especially with more and more drug-testing in the workplace.

I am more inclined to accept that the worst children are coming from dysfunctional family relying on a mix of welfare, and income from crime or the black market; these families began with a birth to a young mother who has probably been abused in her lifetime, and grow through a succession of partners. Not exclusively but more likely.

There are families with mothers, for example, working night shifts where older siblings are left to supervise the younger and it is true that they get baby-sat by X Boxes and movies and left to play into the night.

A working one or two parent family may neglect a child through sheer lack of time but I would love to see some evidence that the problem is about too much work and not about too much welfare.

There is also the obvious point that needs making. Two parents working by necessity are paying the taxes that support the 113,000 people on the DPB. And the only research available on the subject shows that CYF Care and Protection notifications are nearly 4 times more likely to occur to a child in a DPB dependent home.

Billy T

Billy T James didn't know me from a bar of soap. And this photo is only the result of an uncharacteristic action on my part. Asking someone who did know him slightly to take a photo of us together, with his permission. The occasion was backstage at a Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers concert in 1987, Auckland. I was a sales rep for RCA at the time and as such, met lots of famous people. Well, a few. But I never fawned on them or tried to get memento type shots. I had too much respect for their privacy and my dignity. But Billy was an exception. I selfishly wanted my own little piece.

But lots of people wanted a bigger piece.

I was going to write a review of Billy T: Te Movie after seeing it today. But it feels too close. The times, the gorgeousness of his humour, the loss. I will recommend it but can't guarantee you will come away feeling uplifted. I didn't. I just missed him all over again.

'Compassion' - the Left's buzzword for election campaign

Have you noticed the word 'compassion', or derivatives of it, cropping up increasingly of late?

It's a word that the left loves. But it needs a new definition. Spending other people's money to make oneself feel righteous, perhaps; The state supposedly fixing problems but actually making them worse, perhaps.

The Greens have launched an entire project entitled "A compassionate economy".

By definition if you aren't a Green you aren't compassionate. You are hardhearted, cruel, uncaring.

But do you notice that the Green's form of compassion entails even greater use of force against individuals? Is it compassionate to force people to take responsibility for problems not of their own making? Is it compassionate to prevent people from freely pursuing life, liberty and happiness because others don't understand or care about those things?

Someone called Deborah Russell (a taxation lecturer from Massey) recently wrote a column in the Dominion Post calling for the welfare state to be compassionate. She said she was happy to pay her tax for it to be so.

She said specifically that the welfare system should err on the side of compassion. Rules for eligibility should not be toughened up as recommended by the Welfare Working Group.

NZ has been erring on the side of compassion since the 1972 Royal Commission on Social Policy urged as much. Then around 8,000 sole parents were receiving an emergency benefit and it was considered caring and inclusive to create a statutory benefit that guaranteed welfare to any single parent regardless of the reason for their single parenthood.

Now there are 113,000 people receiving that benefit, along with nearly twice as many children who are often characterised as living in poverty and without the input of fathers.

If that is the result of 'compassion' then perhaps it is time for a little less. The welfare system is in dire need of reform; not the continued application of thoughtless emoting.

Bennett doing a bad job on latest policy

Paula Bennett is being too vague with the latest welfare reform policy. That became more painful to witness yesterday as Labour tried to tease out the details. OK. The policy is actually part of National's election manifesto; not an announcement of legislative change that will occur before November. But the way it is rolling out it really smacks of finger in the wind. Starting tough but softening under pressure. Perhaps the cash allowance will be more generous? Perhaps the range of payment card licencees will be quite broad?

Notwithstanding that I want to see benefits made temporary for most, short of that, income management is not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly not "sinister", how Bradford's outfit described it.

In Australia the policy began in some Aboriginal communities where children were being neglected and women were frequently the subject of 'economic violence' - their benefit cash was stolen from them. The policy was intended to protect women and children by ensuring they got the necessaries taken care of through a BasicsCard. Usually 50 percent (but up to 70 percent) of the benefit was loaded onto a card and could only be used for essentials.

Then the government widened the policy to include young people who had been on welfare more than 13 of the past 26 weeks; families referred by child protection services; others that Centrelink defined as 'vulnerable'; and those who voluntarily chose it.

The reasons for applying the policy to certain groups or individuals are clear. It would be easy enough to implement the same here. And to provide a clear rationale.

It is impossible to stop people spending cash on what they want to but it is possible (with loopholes) to ensure that the basics are more likely to be attended to. Especially important when children are involved.

But the way the policy has been mooted - applying only to 16 and 17 year-olds plus 18 year-old single parents - it is itself very vulnerable to criticism. And ensuing complication. Especially now a letter expressing Bennett's own distaste for income management has emerged.

The Minister needs to be far more definitive about what National wants to do and why.

(This is the gist of comments I made to NewstalkZB when they rang for an opinion. The soundbite they are running doesn't reflect my main, final point. That may come out in a later bulletin.)

Gordon Campbell: Deliberately misleading the public?

In last week's Hutt News Gordon Campbell, doyen of the left, wrote the following article (not on-line unfortunately):




My attention was immediately caught by the quote in the fourth paragraph. It is reasonably well-known that NZ's elderly are relatively well-off. So the quote he used surprised me and warranted further investigation. Here is what I found:

Outside my window

We are about 20 metres above sea level. Just up from the beach. Beautiful. And will be until the power goes out. Like it did last night. Twice. For long periods. I bought two extra hot water bottles today because I can heat water from the gas stove top. But that's it. Another night of chess by torchlight I am not looking forward to. But our trials, while very unusual, are minimal compared to others.

Option for reforming welfare?

Drove through steadily falling snow into Wellington yesterday to pre-record a Close Up interview. It was about National's welfare reforms for youth. Sitting next to me was Gareth Morgan who was against the reform. I was for but only as a first step. Gareth was also launching his new book about the benefit system yesterday and was taking the opportunity to push his Negative Income Tax or Guaranteed Minimum Income scheme - not sure what label he is using. It involves scrapping all benefits in favour of everyone getting a yearly income from the state.

I am against these schemes. They naturally grate with me because require even greater forced wealth redistribution. They require very high taxation (Gareth wants to use tax on capital gain). They disincentivise however in more ways than one. Labour productivity, savings, investment. And some of the worst off, lifetime invalids with high health costs reliant on the state, are ...even worse off. Strangely some of the Libz want these schemes and so does well-known American writer and libertarian, Charles Murray.

Sue Bradford is also all for a GMI. Her and Gareth shared a platform at the initial WWG conference and agreed this idea as a way to solve many of the welfare problems. Consequently the WWG asked Treasury to model a GMI which gave every New Zealander 16 and over $300 a week. Here's their response.

In the event the weather news overtook other items and the producer rang to tell me they had run out of time to use it but want me back on another day.

Claudette Hauiti. More interesting than the welfare speech.

Here's an interesting new candidate for National, Claudette Hauiti. I like her. And I don't think she is just mouthing platitudes when she talks about smaller government, less bureaucracy, more self-responsibility, and greater reward for hard work. But you would have to watch the video to get a sense of that for yourself.

National's welfare reform proposals don't go far enough

NATIONAL'S WELFARE REFORM PROPOSALS DON'T GO FAR ENOUGH
Sunday, August 14, 2011

The welfare reform proposals that relate to young people on benefits announced today don't go far enough, welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell said today.

"Allowing the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development to share information about school leavers going on welfare should never have been stopped in the first place. "

"Attaching obligations and money management regimes to benefits received by 16 and 17 year-olds, and 18 year-old sole parents, is an improvement on the status quo. However, many single parents enter the benefit system older than 18 still without the maturity or wherewithal to raise a child. Which begs the question, why draw an arbitrary line at 18?"

"The new message being sent is, if you go on the DPB at 19 you won't get hassled. "

"Today's announcement is a good start but doesn't go nearly far enough. Not only is it vital that existing teen parents are required and supported to continue their own education or training, but that more potential sole parents are discouraged from choosing or defaulting to the benefit lifestyle."

"Strict time limits across all ages would act as such a deterrent."

"If the government is serious about reducing New Zealand's very high teenage birthrate and the associated deprivation, it should promise an end to 16-17 year-old eligibility, and time limits - with some exemptions - extended to all others."

Child support debt is a putting- the- cart- before- the- horse problem

Deborah Coddington is angry about fathers who renege on their child support payments.

There are multitudes of reasons why exes refuse to pay, or can't pay, child support. Maybe they're broke. Some scum have income hidden in trusts. Often they just want to punish the other, following a bitter custody battle, so they think nothing of using their children as weapons.

I call that child abuse, on the same bell curve as the man who threw his kids off a Melbourne bridge.

There are many reasons, but no excuses. You split up, you take financial responsibility for your family. You don't blame everyone else and make the country pay.

Not all liable parents are "exes". They were sperm donors. There was no "split-up". They don't pay child support because they are in prison, the mother hasn't named them as the father, they have more children and child support liabilities than a benefit can support. Think of the many who don't pay court fines. Some have been used to supply a meal ticket to the mother. That action might be described as child abuse on Deborah's "bell curve" too.

Yesterday I was speaking at the Libertarianz conference and we had a discussion along similar lines. That fathers should face up to their financial responsibilities. Bear in mind that even when they meet child support requirements most only pay a fraction of the DPB cost to the taxpayer.

I stated my position back in 2009. It is unchanged;

Mitchell said the traditional political response is to demand fathers face up to their financial responsibilities. "However, the child support problem is only a spin-off from the DPB system. If there was no DPB, which acts as an incentive to single parenthood, there would be nowhere near the current number of liable parents - 130,762. The state has effectively replaced many fathers who are nevertheless expected to pay the bills for children they often have no role in raising. "

"As a general rule fathers should take responsibility for their children but the state has to stop skewing the morality of this by putting up cash rewards to prospective single mothers."

"Before the DPB it was difficult for mothers to chase maintenance through the court system and fathers ran the risk of conviction and imprisonment for reneging on a court order. But that was forty years ago. Today, avoiding becoming pregnant and giving birth is much simpler. And in respect of relationship breakdowns, women, who now make up half of the workforce, are much better equipped to handle being a breadwinner and men are much better equipped for sharing parenting."

"Until the DPB is reformed to suit the times, the taxpayer will continue to foot the lion's share of its cost."

Men failing

A quick cut and paste from NCPA this morning. Written about the US but entirely relevant to the NZ situation.

As Girls Excel, What Happens to Boys?

Women today are entering adulthood with more education, more achievements, more property and, arguably, more money and ambition than their male counterparts. This is a first in human history, and its implications for both sexes are far from simple, says Kay Hymowitz, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

You can see the strongest evidence that boys and young men are falling behind in high school and college classrooms.

Boys have lower grade point averages and lower grades in almost every subject, including math, despite their higher standardized testing scores, and they are 58 percent of high school dropouts.
In the mid-1970s about 28 percent of men had college degrees; since then, that number has barely budged.
Meanwhile, the percentage of women with a college degree increased from 18.6 to 34.2 percent and women now earn 57 percent of college degrees.
Male earnings have come to reflect their educational disadvantage -- childless twentysomething men now earn 8 percent less than their female counterparts in 147 out of 150 of American cities.

So what explains this stunning shift between the sexes? The deepest roots of women's current success lie in economic and technological change.

In the early decades of the 20th century, a "household revolution" dramatically eased the domestic burdens primarily borne by women.
Women's release from household drudgery coincided with the emergence of the postindustrial labor market, meaning a growing number of service and knowledge-based jobs -- all areas where women have excelled.

The second and related theory about why men are falling behind is that today's labor market prizes female strengths more than male strengths.

Hymowitz adds a third, more existential explanation, for the male problem: The economic independence of women and the collapse of marriage norms have deprived men of the primary social role that incentivized their achievement. What this means is that boys today are growing up in a culture that, unlike any before in civilization, is agnostic about their future familial responsibilities.

Aside from school reforms that could help keep boys more engaged, the new gender gap has no obvious solutions. The profound economic changes that have led to female success and male stagnation have also transformed our culture and its expectations for men.

Source: Kay Hymowitz, "What's Happening to Men?" Cato Unbound, August 8, 2011.

For text:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/08/08/kay-hymowitz/whats-happening-to-men/

I disagree that there are no obvious solutions. Mine would revolve around getting the state out of areas it shouldn't be. Reforming or discarding social policies that have interfered with the formation and endurance of relationships for instance. Some policies might have been justified as corrective (although foreseeing the unwanted consequences could also have acted as a brake) but they have now outlived their usefulness.

"NZ Classical Liberal"

Here's a new blog that looks promising. Added to my blogroll for your convenience.

Separatism in the City

Another example of different laws. But this one may not work to Maori advantage.

Wellington bar owners say drunk Maori will be specifically targeted during the World Cup, by a 50-year-old law that has been pulled from the archives by police and the city council. The law allows Maori wardens to enter bars and remove drunk or violent Maori.

It'll be interesting to watch the response from Maori politicians. No doubt this form of 'privilege' - having their own, additional security force - will be labelled as discrimination. That's what the bar owners appear to see it as. In practice the whole idea looks utterly fraught.

The law means Maori wardens can stop the bar selling liquor to any Maori who appears to be drunk, violent, quarrelsome or disorderly or likely to become so.

"Likely to become so." That is a licence to turf anyone drinking.

And just how do Maori wardens go about identifying Maori? Isn't ethnicity now about self-identification? The mind boggles.

Meantime overseas visitors will be given the impression that NZ has a problem with Maori drinking similar to that seen with Aboriginal drinking in some Australian cities. Great image to carry away with them.

God-awful excuses for UK rioting

(I lived and worked in London for four years and it is the only other place in the world I have ever regarded as home or would want to make my home again, entirely because of the people who live there.)

Right on cue the socialists start to recount the reasons why young men in London, Birmingham and Liverpool are rioting. But before we read the excuses let's remember what these rioters are doing. Destroying private property and invading private homes. Thieving from and terrorising private individuals.

This isn't some sort of intellectual response to material deprivation directed at the state. It may be a subconscious, base response to emotional deprivation. That is the most generous response I can summon.

It certainly jars with the idea that the welfare state would prevent such malcontent.

Hell, these guys don't even have the balls to chance their arms at real crime with real risk. No. They create a contrived circumstance whereby they can loot and assault without consequence. Cowards. Creeps. And there is another word beginning with 'c' I have never uttered in my life. I hope those who are detained feel the full contempt of the already incarcerated in due course.

In recent months the government has tripled the cost of university tuition and abolished the Education Maintenance Allowance, paid to some 640,000 16-18 year olds to help them continue in higher education.

Areas like Tottenham, amongst the most deprived in the country, have been particularly hard hit. Unemployment officially stands at 8.8 percent, but will be much higher amongst young people. Claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance have risen by 10 percent in the last year, while Haringey Council has cut £41 million from its budget, reducing its youth services by 75 percent.

This is the social reality that underlies the London disturbances. It is replicated in working class areas across the country. It is the reason Cooper anticipates “repeated” disorder in the coming months.

Bad haircut

A Northampton garage owner was apparently sick and tired of thugs breaking into his garage shop to steal tools, etc. So he came up with an idea. He put the word out that he had a new Mexican Lion that would attack anyone that tried to break in or climb his fence.


Would-be thieves saw the "Lion" from a distance and fled the scene.

What's behind Paula Bennett's 'good news'?

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says Future Focus changes implemented last September have saved taxpayers more than $6 million.

“The changes implemented last September as a pre-cursor to major reforms introduced clear obligations and greater fairness to the benefits system.”

Future Focus changes include requiring:
• Unemployment Beneficiaries to reapply if they remain on the benefit after a year and prove their eligibility to continue receiving assistance.
• DPB recipients with children over six to look for part-time work.

“This common sense approach has seen 7,400 people go off Unemployment Benefits and taxpayers have saved more than $6 million,” says Ms Bennett.

About half of the 7,400 didn’t complete the process, more than 2,000 were in work and 1,400 had left the country, were studying or just failed the work test.

“This simple policy change alone is expected to save a further $3.5 million by October,” says Ms Bennett.

Since September last year, more than 10,800 people have gone off the DPB into work.

“The number of people who’ve found jobs and gone off the DPB since last year’s welfare changes has gone up by 20 percent, that’s significant”

Prior to Future Focus changes there were 13,700 people on DPB doing some part time work and now there are 15,300.

ENDS

DPB statistics

Sept 2010 112,765
June 2011 113,429

Doesn't matter how many go off when more come on.

And those going off most likely represent short-termers best capable of gaining employment while those coming on most likely represent young unskilled and uneducated types quite likely to stay for years.

In earlier years (granted they were years of lower unemployment) MORE people were leaving the DPB and going to work with NO work-testing regime.
2004 12,773
2005 13,484
2006 16,132

One other thing. $6 million represents about 0.03 percent of the $20 billion MSD budget. Big deal. They could easily save the equivalent by dropping some of the highly paid bureaucrats.

Having just been reminded about our $300 million a week borrowing here, that also makes $6 million look skinny; not even worth the iou it was printed on.