Thursday, August 02, 2012
Two puzzles
Puzzle 1, why does Mr. Googlemail think I need to know about a ladies detective agency? How does he know that BH has read books about such an outfit in the past, the Botswanan one invented by a Scotsman? What does he know that I don't know? But I pass on the tip: 'Female Private Detective - traceinvestigationservices.co.uk - Genuine female agency - call now in confidence. Tel 020 3137 8003'.
Puzzle 2, how does the government think it is going to invent unpaid but meaningful employment for 1,000,000 sulky youngsters? A scheme floated in one or other paper the other day. Once upon a time, shortly after the second war when we had plenty of seasoned NCOs to manage things, we had national service, a splendid sink for unemployed bog-standards. A sink which served well until the economy picked up and we had real work for them. An economy which picked up and ran for years and years, a running which meant that I could walk out of school into paid employment (pay which included a cardboard record of national insurance contributions and a similar piece of cardboard to which holiday stamps were affixed) without much planning or aforethought at all. I could wander around the country picking up paid employment more or less when and where I felt like it.
But this does not run any more. We don't have the NCOs and we don't have the paid employment. But, the politicians say to themselves, there is plenty of work out there. There is litter to be picked, there are people with special needs who need to be helped, there are old people who need to be helped. There are companies which could cope with some helpers to sweep their yards whom they don't have to pay. Its just that there is no money to pay for the picking, the helping or the sweeping. No-one wants to pay the tax with which to make up the pay. So how does one organise 20 unpaid litter pickers? The simple option, that favoured in a slightly different context across the pond, would be to put them in orange pyjamas and chain them together into a chain gang. Provide chair and shotgun for a minder and off we go litter picking down Longmead Road. Up front costs fairly modest and just a minder to pay minimum wages plus 33%.
Oh no you don't says the Guardian. That is not showing enough respect for their human dignity and human rights. No pyjamas, no chains and no shotguns. Years ago when the country was still credit worthy and human rights had not been invented, the answer would then have been that we just ramp up a whole lot of low-tech high-labour infrastructure projects. Building roads across the wilds of the north country. Growing potatoes on virgin lands in the western isles. But the country is not credit worthy any more and can't borrow the funds needs to fund such projects. At which point I am puzzled. What on earth does one do instead that does not wind up costing more than the benefit? Even, perhaps, doing some good?
Puzzle 2, how does the government think it is going to invent unpaid but meaningful employment for 1,000,000 sulky youngsters? A scheme floated in one or other paper the other day. Once upon a time, shortly after the second war when we had plenty of seasoned NCOs to manage things, we had national service, a splendid sink for unemployed bog-standards. A sink which served well until the economy picked up and we had real work for them. An economy which picked up and ran for years and years, a running which meant that I could walk out of school into paid employment (pay which included a cardboard record of national insurance contributions and a similar piece of cardboard to which holiday stamps were affixed) without much planning or aforethought at all. I could wander around the country picking up paid employment more or less when and where I felt like it.
But this does not run any more. We don't have the NCOs and we don't have the paid employment. But, the politicians say to themselves, there is plenty of work out there. There is litter to be picked, there are people with special needs who need to be helped, there are old people who need to be helped. There are companies which could cope with some helpers to sweep their yards whom they don't have to pay. Its just that there is no money to pay for the picking, the helping or the sweeping. No-one wants to pay the tax with which to make up the pay. So how does one organise 20 unpaid litter pickers? The simple option, that favoured in a slightly different context across the pond, would be to put them in orange pyjamas and chain them together into a chain gang. Provide chair and shotgun for a minder and off we go litter picking down Longmead Road. Up front costs fairly modest and just a minder to pay minimum wages plus 33%.
Oh no you don't says the Guardian. That is not showing enough respect for their human dignity and human rights. No pyjamas, no chains and no shotguns. Years ago when the country was still credit worthy and human rights had not been invented, the answer would then have been that we just ramp up a whole lot of low-tech high-labour infrastructure projects. Building roads across the wilds of the north country. Growing potatoes on virgin lands in the western isles. But the country is not credit worthy any more and can't borrow the funds needs to fund such projects. At which point I am puzzled. What on earth does one do instead that does not wind up costing more than the benefit? Even, perhaps, doing some good?
# posted by Jim @ 12:30 AM 
