A life saver

This will be a blessing. A feature that allows you to quickly retrieve an e-mail sent to the wrong address...or sent in haste. Only the first applies to me because I can't remember ever sending an "ill-advised" e-mail to anyone. Not in my nature. Too cautious and courteous.

But my laptop recently went through a strange phase of throwing up the list of like names after I typed in the first two or three letters of the addressee, but then, after I selected the correct recipient it defaulted to another on the list. So I had something I intended to send to Cam Slater go to MP Cam Calder - from memory it was only a link to something of interest. And another message intended for Rodney Hide go to Rod Vaughan at the NBR. Neither posed a problem and I was able to send a follow up e-mail telling them to disregard.

But have you ever had a real clanger or OMG moment?



Update; That's funny. Cam Calder isn't even in Parliament any more but I had to look it up on Wikipedia. Left late 2014. So "recently" must have been last year. How time flies.

Welfare state today - the good and the bad

Not widely reported in the MSM so cut and paste from the Minister:

Social Development Minister Anne Tolley has introduced a bill extending the Youth Service to 19 year old parents and other 18 and 19 year olds at risk of long term welfare dependence.
Youth Service provides intensive wrap around support for young people, getting them help with paying bills, budgeting and parenting, and supporting them into education.
“The Youth Service has been very successful, with 86.5 per cent of clients engaged in education, training or work-based learning at the end of March 2015,” Mrs Tolley says.
The Bill extends the extensive wrap around support provided by the Youth Service to at risk 18 and 19 year olds and 19 year old teen parents.
“Extending the Youth Service means more of our at-risk young people will be supported into education, training or work and be less likely to remain on a benefit long term,” Mrs Tolley says.
“The welfare reforms have already reduced the expected future time on a benefit by an average of 2.8 years for youth beneficiaries and just over half of those who left the Youth Service remained independent from benefits three months later.”
Eighteen and 19 year-olds without dependent children will be assessed when they apply for a benefit and those at risk of long term welfare dependence will receive Youth Service support.
All clients referred to the Youth Service will have a youth coach, budgeting obligations and be money managed. They may also receive incentive payments when they meet certain obligations.
Teen Parents referred to the Youth Service also have an obligation to attend a parenting course, enrol their children with a Primary Health Organisation, complete Well Child checks and ensure children attend Early Childhood Education.  
The extension of the Youth Service was part of the Government’s 2014 election manifesto.
More details on Youth Service are available at: https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/welfare-reform/youth-service/index.html

The DomPost has a brief snippet on page two which says the extension will mean an extra 5,700 teens will be covered. Essentially the service is moving up the age scale. In practice I think that'll mean keeping those already in the youth service from exiting to a full benefit as early, and allowing an increase in young newcomers. Remember that those connected to a youth service provider have far tighter financial controls on them through the payment card:

If you’re receiving Youth Payment or Young Parent Payment your provider will give you a payment card.
Some of your weekly benefit payment will be loaded onto your payment card for you to use for things like food, groceries, basic clothing and household items, healthcare items, public transport passes, and things you need for your education or training.
Your payment card is like an debit card, but it can only be used at certain places – such as supermarkets. Items like tobacco or alcohol cannot be purchased with the payment card.

So good move but the payment card regime needs to be rolled out further and faster.

Now for the bad. First here is snippet from the NCPA today:

Despite claims that the economy has come roaring back, Gross Domestic Product growth remains anemic. The number of people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, or food stamps, alone has doubled since 2008, to 74.7 million; in troubled cities like Baltimore, more than one-third of the residents receive them.
Called the "welfare cliff" by policy wonks, this growing trend is little more than people responding to incentives. For example, eligibility for food stamps ends when annual income exceeds 130 percent of the poverty line, or a little more than $15,000 a year, for an individual. When the minimum wage increases above this level, as it has recently in many cities and states, employees reduce their hours to keep their benefits. As a result, people forgo opportunity for safety.

There is evidence that when the Wellington City Council introduced the living wage for its employees that's exactly what happened. They took the opportunity to work less rather than lose their Working For Families payments.

So what has the council done? Extended the living wage to its contractors. The living wage will also be inflation-proofed. How is it paying for this? With a 4.5 percent average annual rate rise over the next three years. Well above inflation.

That'll just push up rents and the costs of goods and services, and make the likelihood of filling all the empty retail space even more remote.

Instead of accelerating the redistribution whirlpool the council must slow it down. If people need more money in their pockets tax them less, and cut your cloth.

Seymour explains rationale behind bill

From Scoop,

ACT Leader David Seymour
The contentious issue of voluntary euthanasia is one I have been considering for some time, and I want to explain here why I am preparing a private member’s (End of Life Choice) Bill to lodge for ballot in Parliament.
The primary motivation for this Bill is compassion.
Many of my constituents have urged me to proceed with a Bill, particularly in light of the withdrawal last year of a similar Bill sponsored by Iain Lees-Galloway, originally introduced by former MP Maryan Street. Two previous Bills on this issue have in the past failed to gain Parliamentary support, but the clear international trend since the 1990s is towards the legalisation of medically assisted end of life choice.

More 


Thanks David.

Is a benefit cap on the cards in NZ?

More impending  welfare cuts in the UK include the possibility of :

- reducing the benefit cap further

- stopping under 25s claiming a housing benefit

- limiting tax credits to the first two children only

Items 2 and 3 could be implemented in NZ. The first is trickier.

The benefit cap  applies to the total amount of benefit going into one household. There is no benefit cap in NZ so it can't be reduced.

It is interesting then, that our government - for the first time -  has been exploring multi-benefit household statistics. If a benefit cap was on the cards here the first thing needed would be data. And there it was in the last Benefit System Performance Report.

126,126 main benefit clients (or 40% of main benefit clients) live in a household with two or more people receiving main benefits. 30% of the 126,126 are partners on related benefits. While some correlation between employment prospects or health status of people in the same household is expected, the extent to which there are multi-beneficiary households seems high.  35,150 main benefit clients (or 11%) live in a household with three or more people receiving benefits.

The rationale behind the benefit cap:

The government introduced a cap on the total amount of benefit that working-age households can get so that, broadly, households on out-of-work benefits will no longer get more in welfare payments than the average weekly wage for working households.

That would not be a difficult policy for National to sell.

A back-handed compliment from the local MP

Tweeted from the Muriel Hopper Art Award.

Not a big fan of Trevor Mallard's politics but he's not a bad art critic!

This is a tiny painting so forgive me for the imperfection inherent in the features. Even with my glasses on, getting a minuscule portion of pigment in the right place is a challenge. It's based on a black and white photo c 1909. More of these wonderful photographic portraits are becoming available on-line as copyrights expire.

Had convivial conversations with both the Labour and National MPs in attendance.  What I really enjoyed was talking to Jane Clifton. I'm a big fan and said so. The humour, humility and earthiness exuded in her writing and radio appearances is utterly genuine.

Messing around with a knife

I've been messing around with a palette knife again, bored with tight and uncolourful portraits.

Paremata Inlet.

Even looser, bordering on abstract, a South Island mountain scene. Looks like a snow storm to me. Both quite small paintings.

(Had two other paintings accepted for exhibition in the Muriel Hopper Art Awards today - yippee)

No consistency in the new world

The Bruce Jenner phenomenon has just illuminated a world bending over backwards to embrace people who want to change their gender,



Not so hot on people who want to change their race...

Turning down welfare

If people are offered assistance, and they don't accept, is it a problem?

An article from Brookings Institute points out that the uptake of food stamps (SNAP) and the earned income tax credit (EITC) among those eligible is nowhere near 100 percent.

There are still millions of Americans not claiming benefits they are entitled to

 The authors speculate on the reasons why. For instance, assistance is too difficult to claim, or too far away. They didn't consider pride or stubborn independence, or an actual lack of need because incomes can be misreported. Then they canvas how much lower poverty rates would be if people took what was available and suggest ways to improve participation rates in these programmes.

Really? More welfare is the answer?

When I was a volunteer one supervisor would always start out with a struggling family with a 'make sure they are getting all their entitlements' strategy. My own observations of unkempt and chaotic homes containing unkempt and chaotic people and their unkempt and chaotic relationships immediately told me the problems were deeper seated than a lack of resources. They weren't universally hopeless, but they were universally on welfare.

Entitlements aren't the solution. They are the problem.

A frank admission from Anne Tolley, MSD Minister

Trying to reduce the numbers and plight of at-risk children is fraught area. The Minister says,

“At the moment there is little evidence of the effectiveness, or not, of funding in this sector, because up until now most contracts have focused on the numbers of clients receiving services, rather than the effect that the service has on improving the lives of vulnerable people.

She wasn't mounting an argument for social bonds but her admission allows me to.

Those opposing social bonds are missing this reality.

When it comes to social services, existing results are often abysmal. Performance is all about ticking boxes and the feel good factor.

I sympathize with those social workers who put in genuine and grinding effort yet can't demonstrate a real change. But within the current model, they keep their jobs.

Their salary is a debit to the taxpayer despite "little evidence of effectiveness" as the Minister puts it.

If the private sector could be persuaded to underwrite a programme with the promise of real results-based change, and a commensurate dividend, what is lost?

My only misgiving is that this is New Zealand.

A country that can't persuade people to invest in the stock exchange or business (because they are wedded to property investment) hasn't much chance of using social bonds as a regular way of funding the amelioration of social woes.

Is "ending poverty" the wrong goal?

While not personally religious, I take an interest in the division among those who are, with regard to reducing poverty. Some groups lobby government to do more; others would prefer the government did less.

The Acton Institute falls into the second category. The following questions whether the goal should be to end poverty, or to encourage people to "flourish" and to reach their potential. From their blog:

Ending poverty focuses primarily on government policy and programs. It utilizes metrics, numbers, data to “prove” success. The goal is to move a person or family from one income bracket to the next, higher up. It is economics-focused, not person-focused.
How is the goal of human flourishing different? It is more robust, Summers says; it encompasses more than simply economic factors. “We are not simply baptizing a particular public policy agenda or means,” Summers states, but seeking a manner of living that allows each person to reach his/her fullest potential...
Primarily, government must not hinder human flourishing. It cannot and must not stand in the way of human flourishing or worse, encourage human stagnation. 

And we know what human stagnation looks like.

Distrust

Source

It's ironic that the two groups who are least trusted probably distrust each other the most.

Quote of the day

"The greatest threat to the future of our nation — to our freedom — is not foreign military aggression … but the growing dependence of the people on a paternalistic government. A nation is no stronger than its people and the best measure of their strength is how they accept responsibility. There will never be a great society unless the materialism of the welfare state is replaced by individual initiative and responsibility."

- Charles B. Shuman

(Hat-tip FFF)

Obsolete on release

The latest OECD 2015 Economic Survey of New Zealand not only uses a lot of outdated data, but makes recommendations already implemented. For example:

"... priority should be given to raising income by increasing benefits and/or  supplementary benefits for welfare beneficiaries with dependent children. This would help to reduce the high relative poverty risk for sole-parent households , more than half of whom rely on benefits as their main source of income. Increasing main (basic) benefits and indexing them to median wages would reduce poverty across all beneficiary classes, including single-person households (below age 65), who have the second-highest relative risk of poverty."

I don't rate the OECD.

"The weaker sex"?

That's my question mark.

A friend sent the following. My brief and off-the-cuff response to him follows.

Social change

The weaker sex

May 30th 2015 The Economist

Blue-collar men in rich countries are in trouble. They must learn to adapt

AT FIRST glance the patriarchy appears to be thriving. More than 90% of presidents and prime ministers are male, as are nearly all big corporate bosses. Men dominate finance, technology, films, sports, music and even stand-up comedy. In much of the world they still enjoy social and legal privileges simply because they have a Y chromosome. So it might seem odd to worry about the plight of men.

Yet there is plenty of cause for concern. Men cluster at the bottom as well as the top. They are far more likely than women to be jailed, estranged from their children, or to kill themselves. They earn fewer university degrees than women. Boys in the developed world are 50% more likely to flunk basic maths, reading and science entirely.

One group in particular is suffering. Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficulty coping with the enormous changes in the labour market and the home over the past half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn, less-educated men have struggled to find a role in the workplace. Women, on the other hand, are surging into expanding sectors such as health care and education, helped by their superior skills. As education has become more important, boys have also fallen behind girls in school (except at the very top). Men who lose jobs in manufacturing often never work again. And men without work find it hard to attract a permanent mate. The result, for low-skilled men, is a poisonous combination of no job, no family and no prospects.

From nuclear families to fissile ones

Those on the political left tend to focus on economics. Shrinking job opportunities for men, they say, are entrenching poverty and destroying families. In America pay for men with only a high-school certificate fell by 21% in real terms between 1979 and 2013; for women with similar qualifications it rose by 3%. Around a fifth of working-age American men with only a high-school diploma have no job.

Those on the right worry about the collapse of the family. The vast majority of women would prefer to have a partner who does his bit both financially and domestically. But they would rather do without one than team up with a layabout, which may be all that is on offer: American men without jobs spend only half as much time on housework and caring for others as do women in the same situation, and much more time watching television.

Hence the unravelling of working-class families. The two-parent family, still the norm among the elite, is vanishing among the poor. In rich countries the proportion of births outside marriage has trebled since 1980, to 33%. In some areas where traditional manufacturing has collapsed, it has reached 70% or more. Children raised in broken homes learn less at school, are more likely to drop out and earn less later on than children from intact ones. They are also not very good at forming stable families of their own.

These two sides often talk past each other. But their explanations are not contradictory: both economics and social change are to blame, and the two causes reinforce each other. Moreover, these problems are likely to get worse. Technology will disrupt more industries, creating benefits for society but rendering workers who fail to update their skills redundant. The OECD, a think-tank, predicts that the absolute number of single-parent households will continue to rise in nearly all rich countries. Boys who grow up without fathers are more likely to have trouble forming lasting relationships, creating a cycle of male dysfunction.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, hairdresser

What can be done? Part of the solution lies in a change in cultural attitudes. Over the past generation, middle-class men have learned that they need to help with child care, and have changed their behaviour. Working-class men need to catch up. Women have learned that they can be surgeons and physicists without losing their femininity. Men need to understand that traditional manual jobs are not coming back, and that they can be nurses or hairdressers without losing their masculinity.

Policymakers also need to lend a hand, because foolish laws are making the problem worse. America reduces the supply of marriageable men by locking up millions of young males for non-violent offences and then making it hard for them to find work when they get out (in Georgia, for example, felons are barred from feeding pigs, fighting fires or working in funeral homes). A number of rich countries discourage poor people from marrying or cohabiting by cutting their benefits if they do.

Even more important than scrapping foolish policies is retooling the educational system, which was designed in an age when most men worked with their muscles. Politicians need to recognise that boys’ underachievement is a serious problem, and set about fixing it. Some sensible policies that are good for everybody are particularly good for boys. Early-childhood education provides boys with more structure and a better chance of developing verbal and social skills. Countries with successful vocational systems such as Germany have done a better job than Anglo-Saxon countries of motivating non-academic boys and guiding them into jobs, but policymakers need to reinvent vocational education for an age when trainees are more likely to get jobs in hospitals than factories.

More generally, schools need to become more boy-friendly. They should recognise that boys like to rush around more than girls do: it’s better to give them lots of organised sports and energy-eating games than to dose them with Ritalin or tell them off for fidgeting. They need to provide more male role models: employing more male teachers in primary schools will both supply boys with a male to whom they can relate and demonstrate that men can be teachers as well as firefighters.

The growing equality of the sexes is one of the biggest achievements of the post-war era: people have greater opportunities than ever before to achieve their ambitions regardless of their gender. But some men have failed to cope with this new world. It is time to give them a hand.

Ends

 
Very gloomy but contains quite a bit of truth. I hate the idea (though most accept it) that the "politicians must do something" (though to be fair the writer does talk about scrapping foolish laws). 

When they do stuff, they create unpredictable bad outcomes. If they hadn't started to pay for single parent families, the 'poor' men would have had to adapt to the changing environment re technology. If they hadn't criminalised drugs, poor men wouldn't have found a ready occupation and income. And if they didn't over-professionalise manual jobs, more men could participate. If they didn't buy into the feminist hysteria (the public service is feminist and PC) about the danger men pose to children, they could have attracted far more into teaching jobs.

There will be lots of manual work required in the future. As society becomes more affluent people want upkeep and beautification of their homes and gardens - done by someone else when they don't have the time or inclination (especially with ageing populations). Plumbing, electrical work, building and all the associated trades are still good avenues for males. My son has two friends going down that route, neither academically capable but highly practical. And degrees are OK if you know what you want and the will to get there. Otherwise they can be a wasted purchase from the state.(Surprisingly for me, I am beginning to wonder about user pays universities because the quality of the student, the teaching and the qualification seems to have suffered).

By and large I still think the free market sorts problems better than the state, including social problems like the one this article identifies.

Just out of interest...(Updated)

...does anyone have any particular response to this photo published today above a letter I wrote to the DomPost?

Update: In comments, S Beast (thank you) said :

"Looks like it is there to oppose your letter, but if this wasn't deliberate it certainly isn't congruent with the message beneath. This got past a seasoned editor? "

Here's why I asked the question. My letter didn't contain the line "...announced last week by Jonathan Coleman...". The Dompost inserted that. It's a fabrication facilitating the addition of the photograph.

Is that kosher?

Balanced research - thank you Prof Fergusson...again

Just received via subscription:

Psychosocial sequelae of cannabis use and implications for policy: findings from the Christchurch Health and Development Study.

Fergusson DM¹, Boden JM, Horwood LJ.

Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The Christchurch Health and Development Study is a longitudinal study of a birth cohort of 1265 children who were born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1977. This cohort has now been studied from birth to the age of 35.

SCOPE OF THIS REVIEW:

This article examines a series of findings from the CHDS that address a range of issues relating to the use of cannabis amongst the cohort. These issues include: (a) patterns of cannabis use and cannabis dependence; (b) linkages between cannabis use and adverse educational and economic outcomes; (c) cannabis and other illicit drug use; (d) cannabis and psychotic symptoms; (e) other CHDS findings related to cannabis; and (f) the consequences of cannabis use for adults using cannabis regularly.

FINDINGS:

In general, the findings of the CHDS suggest that individuals who use cannabis regularly, or who begin using cannabis at earlier ages, are at increased risk of a range of adverse outcomes, including: lower levels of educational attainment; welfare dependence and unemployment; using other, more dangerous illicit drugs; and psychotic symptomatology. It should also be noted, however, that there is a substantial proportion of regular adult users who do not experience harmful consequences as a result of cannabis use.

CONCLUSIONS:

Collectively, these findings suggest that cannabis policy needs to be further developed and evaluated in order to find the best way to regulate a widely-used, and increasingly legal substance.

What stood out, and my reason for posting this, is the acknowledgement:

It should also be noted, however, that there is a substantial proportion of regular adult users who do not experience harmful consequences as a result of cannabis use.

David Fergusson's research findings are always even-handed.

Why welfare got of control - in a sentence

Good essay from the Heritage Foundation this morning. (The historic  parallel scenario applies to NZ equally. In this country European founders also formed a system of social assistance, "Charitable Aid", but administered it locally and tightly. Read David Thompson's A World Without Welfare: New Zealand's Colonial Experience)

Further into the essay:

Until the mid-1960s, free markets, secure property rights, strong family policy and minimal taxation and regulation supported a culture of work and entrepreneurship. But through the rise of modern liberalism’s redefinition of rights and justice, welfare was officially reconceived as a right that could be demanded by anyone in need, regardless of conduct or circumstances.

Exactly.

Seymour doing what is desperately needed

This is great news and a relief:

ACT leader David Seymour has confirmed he is drafting a member's bill calling for a debate on euthanaisa and will urge the Government to adopt the bill.

The evidence that persuaded the govt to raise benefits

Before the budget I seem to remember the PM  referring to 60,000 children in real poverty (haven't time now to chase down source). I wondered what definition he was using. Looks like the table below which measures items of deprivation. So 60,000 children have 11+ deprivations:

Table D.4

Cumulative distribution for higher DEP-17 scores (% individuals), LSS 2008

DEP-17 score	6+	7+	8+	9+	10+	11+
ALL (%)	14	11	8	6	4	3
0-17 yrs (%)	21	17	13	10	8	6
# of children	220k	180k	140k	100k	80k	60k
# of households with children	110k	90k	70k	50k	40k	30k

Here is the table of items .

Table D.5

18 child-specific items used for calibrating DEP-17 for school-aged children (aged 6-17 yrs)

Enforced lack of essentials		Economised, cut back or delayed purchases ‘a lot’ because money was needed for other essentials (not just to be thrifty or to save for a trip or other non-essential)
	Two pairs of shoes in a good condition that are suitable for daily activities (for each child)	Child(ren) continued wearing shoes or clothes that were worn out or the wrong size
	Two sets of warm winter clothes for each child	Postponed child’s visit to the dentist
	A waterproof coat for each child	Postponed child’s visit to the doctor
	Fresh fruit and vegetables daily	Did not pick up child’s prescription
	A meal with meat, fish or chicken (or vegetarian equivalent) each day	Unable to pay for a child to go on a school trip or other school event
	A separate bed for each child	Child(ren) went without music, dance, kapa haka, art, swimming or other special interest lessons
	Enough bedrooms so that children aged over 10 of the opposite sex are not sharing a room	Had to limit your child(ren)’s involvement in sport
	Have children’s friends around to play and eat from time to time	Made do with very limited space for children to study or play
	Have children’s friends to a birthday party
	All the school uniform required by the school(s) for each child

This is a much better way of measuring hardship than simply measuring household income.


Then,

Main income source for parents

·         Beneficiary families have higher hardship rates than working families, with those who move between benefit and work having rates somewhere in between.

·         Nevertheless, at the less severe hardship levels (eg 7+) children in hardship are split evenly between beneficiary and working families. This reflects the fact that there are many more working families than beneficiary families.

·         Beneficiary families are more likely than working families to be in more severe hardship, though around a third of children in more severe hardship are from working families (families that have no core benefit income at all).

 


 Response - raise beneficiary income.

This data was from 2008. What will be most interesting is when, or if, the exercise is repeated, will the deprivation have eased. What would you expect?

(Sorry will have to sort the presentation later - but the link to the tables is above)