Trump tax

So, Trump and the Republicans enacted the "most drastic changes to US tax code in 30 years". Inevitably, some Leftard protesters made themselves look completely loopy through the use of ludicrous hyperbole.

As the vote occurred, activists in the press gallery shouted “Kill the bill, don’t kill us”.

Idiots.

Anyway, so what has actually happened? Well, it's a big and complicated law but one of the main features is the reduction of Federal Corporation Tax—from around 35% to 21%. So, some companies have already started offering pay awards to their workers a a result.

Further, Apple is now repatriating a massive amount of their overseas cash, leading to the largest tax bill payment ever—a cool $38 billion. In reporting this, The Grauniad makes a very bold assertion... [Emphasis mine—DK]

The company, which has faced international criticism for its tax evasion policies, also said it would spend $30bn in the US over the next five years, creating 20,000 new jobs.

Tax evasion? Apple is deliberately and illegally evading paying tax?

As Sir Humphrey might say, that's a very brave assertion.

Anyway, so far, I think that we can chalk up these tax reforms as a win for Trump.

The stupid—it hurts (just don't smuggle controlled substances to solve it)

The trouble with relying on harsh prison sentences as a deterrent for idiots undertaking criminal actions is that idiots are idiots. Your humble Devil is forcefully reminded of this fact by a recent BBC story about a prize idiot called Laura Plummer.

A British woman has been convicted of smuggling 300 painkiller tablets into Egypt and jailed for three years.

Laura Plummer, 33, was arrested after she was found with the Tramadol tablets in her suitcase, on 9 October.

Uh huh. Why on earth would Ms Plummer be trying to smuggle 300 Tramadols into a hell-hole like Egypt, I wonder...?

Plummer, from Hull, claimed the painkiller, legal on prescription in the UK but banned in Egypt, was to treat her Egyptian partner's back pain.

Riiiiiight.

Her family said her lawyers had lodged an appeal. Plummer previously said she had "no idea" the tablets were illegal.

As it happens, I had no idea that Tramadol was banned in Egypt; but, hang on—Tramadol is pretty strong stuff, right? In fact, it is an opioid that can cause some pretty bloody side effects, as well as opioid dependency. As it happens, this is the very reason that Tramadol, and many other opioid analgesics, have been banned in Egypt (and other countries).

Gosh. But it's legal in the UK—how lax are we...?

Well, when the article describes this drug as "legal" in the UK, it does qualify that with "on prescription".

It is a class C drug and is only available in the UK with a prescription from a doctor or other qualified healthcare professional.

As a class C drug, it is illegal for anyone else to supply Tramadol, to have it or to give it away, even to friends.

Uh huh. So, when the Beeb says that Tramadol is "legal on prescription", what it actually means is 'in the UK, Tramadol is illegal to possess or supply unless via a prescription issued by a medical professional.'

In other words, as a class C drug, Tramadol is not legal in the UK—except in that one very specific circumstance.

And Ms Plummer somehow managed to get hold of 300 of these Tramadol tablets—how? Did she go along to her doctor and pretend that she had pain back enough to warrant their prescription? Because that would, of course, be fraudulent (and illegal).

Or did she gain them from some other source? Where did Laura Plummer obtain 300 tablets of a class C controlled substance—a substance that is illegal to possess, and most certainly illegal to sell or give away? It's not as though she stumbled on a party-pack in Boots now, is it?

Perhaps she encouraged a whip-round from family and friends (also illegal)?

I put it to you, m'lud, that Laura Plummer knew that Tramadol was a controlled substance since she would have had to go to some lengths to obtain 300 tablets of the bloody stuff.

And, as such, might have had some inkling that maybe, just maybe, trying to smuggle 300 tablets of a substance controlled in the UK into an unstable but socially strict place like Egypt might not be the best idea.

The family has previously said Plummer had no idea that what she was doing was illegal and was just "daft".

She may well be "daft" for trying to smuggle drugs into a third-world hell-hole, but I really don't think that she was innocent. Did Ms Plummer not even ask her beau why he couldn't get suitable painkillers in his native country?

According to Ms Plummer's sister, Jayne Synclair (relation), the Egyptian boyfriend "did not even know she was bringing them."

Riiiight. Of course. The wonderfully-named Omar Caboo had absolutely no idea, did he? He hadn't got an earthly that his "girlfriend" might try to smuggle a bunch of opioid drugs into a country with something of an opioid addiction problem. Definitely not.

As I said above, idiot is idiot.^*

UPDATE: the UK government's Ask Frank website outlines the legal issues if you are caught with Tramadol in the UK [emphasis mine—Ed]:

If the Police arrest you in possession of tramadol unlawfully, they'll always take some action. This could be a formal caution or arrest and possible conviction.

Having tramadol that is not prescribed for you for your own use (called illegal possession) could result in up to two years in prison and/or an unlimited fine. While selling or giving tramadol away for free, even to friends (called supplying) could result in up to fourteen years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.

The three years imprisonment that the Egyptian legal system doled out to Ms Plummer isn't starting to look so bad, is it...?

^* See, also, Tim Newman's amusing digression on the subject of gullible white women and their attraction to swarthy Middle Eastern men.

From the archives: a polemic

I found this across the web whilst researching recently. I wrote it when I first became leader of the Libertarian Party and it was, apparently, posted on the now defunct LPUK website. I rather like it, so I thought I'd reproduce it here, for posterity...

----

My friends,

We are broke. Our country—whatever it may once have been—is now laden with debt. And this isn't "the government's debt": it is our debt.

The government has no money but what it takes—what it extorts—from us.

We have gone beyond consensus politics: if a man were to come to your door, with a gun, and demand half of everything that you earned—on pain of severe punishment, on pain of the total ruination of your life—would you not protest?

For a moment, lay aside those dutiful thoughts of those starving millions beyond your gate, and think, instead, of those within your own household—within your own family: would you not rather protect them first?

Of course you would: they are your kith and kin and you would expect—would you not?—that everyone, like you, would defend theirs against you were you the one holding the gun.

The government has now utterly removed from you the means of protecting yourself and your family against the man with the gun: indeed, you dare not defend yourself because you fear that it is you, not the mugger, who would end up in the dock.

For the government is the man with the gun, demanding tithes from you: the government is here, at your door. But not randomly.

No.

The government has gone out and bought itself nice things—plasma TVs, second homes, duckhouses, moats. And jobs, and votes. All of those things that you could not afford—because it has been here before: at your door, with a gun.

Five years ago, it was here—threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those children who were not yours. You paid, because you had no option.

Four years ago, it was here—threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those unhealthy who were not yours. You paid, because you had no option.

Three years ago, it was here—threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those uneducated who were not yours. You paid, because you had no option.

Two years ago, it was here—threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those feckless bankers who were not yours. You paid, because you had no option.

One year ago, it was here—threatening you with prison if you did not pay up—for the sake of all of those MPs who had no duck-houses or second homes or moats. You paid, because you had no option.

And now the government has spent everything that you had to give, and more, on its pet projects—on buying its second homes, on buying its duckhouses, on buying its votes—and none of it benefited you and yours. Not even by one iota.

The government didn't care that you couldn't afford to give any more: it didn't care that you had no money.

The government didn't care that you had lost your job: the government didn't care that all of those thousands of pounds it took in National Insurance payments translated into a few hundred when you were in need.

And now, when you are getting back on your feet—back in a job that is not as good as the one the government destroyed, back struggling to look after your family on the pittance you are paid, back paying off your debts—the government, too, is back: it's back with the gun.

The government is back—demanding half of what you broke your back to earn—because it has more grand schemes, more votes to buy, more trinkets to deliver to its favoured ones.

Will you so willingly hand over the sweat of your brow? Will you so willingly condemn you and yours to penury? Will you capitulate again?

Or will you fight?

Join us—and help us to stop the extortion.

Join us—and understand that providing for you and yours is not a sin.

Join us—and realise that a society that pulls together is a society that stays together.

Join us—and help us fight for a future in which people help each other voluntarily, because it is right and fitting to do so.

Join us—and help to build a future in which men, women and children take back their work, their birthrights, their dignity and their compassion from a government that cares nothing for you.

Join us.

Because—whether the government is Tory, Labour or LibDem—soon you will have nothing left to lose.

The UK's EU negotiating position

Right, fuck this waiting around bollocks. Does the EU really think that the legendary British tendency to enjoy queuing means that we are just going to sit about and wait for these fucking cultural and economic pygmies to dictate our future? They do—so, something must be done.

Pace Pete, for he does understand the issues, but he and others are approaching the whole Brexit issue as technocrats—in, essentially, the same mentality that characterises the EU itself.

I say "fuck this shit". I want this done—and done now. So, here's how we should address this issue...

"Fuck you, ladies and gentlemen of the EU: fuck you very much. We are tired of you dicking us around, and our patience is at an end.

"Yes: we understand the trade problems inherent in customs barriers: but, unless you are stupider than we thought, so do you—and so do your businesses.

"You may not understand the pressures of a democracy, but the Council of Ministers very much does: so we recommend that you ask them how they—and their citizens—feel about cutting off trade with the fifth largest economy in the world.

"Either you will listen, which is fine by us; or you will not listen, which will simply justify our own citizens' decision to leave an undemocratic institution.

"The UK is the first and best democratic government in the world, and our people are irritated by your prevarications, and tired of our failure to enact the path that they voted for.

"With this in mind, we are immediately ending this shambolic pretence at a 'negotiation'. Instead, we will refocus our time and resources on building the systems that we will need to continue trade.

"So, we will immediately sign free trade deals with any countries that want to engage with the UK: what are you going to do—go to war with us? Really? The only vaguely capable military power in the EU is German—and how do you think the world will react to yet another German army mustering outside its borders?

"Yes: that's what I thought. Now get back in your fucking box, you twats.

"Our trade philosophy is simple. Today, we will register a '0% tariff' trade plan with the WTO. Why, when the British people want to buy foreign imports, would we make them poorer? We're not idiots, you know.

"Next, we will examine all of the standards espoused by UNESCO, etc. and, if we agree, adopt them. And we shall once again take our place (and our own votes) at these tables, to influence regulation.

"We shall use our foreign aid budget to influence these standards in our favour. Most importantly, we shall spend considerable amounts of money and influence to ensure that Developing Countries have the governance and infrastructure also to comply—and then we shall do our best to open their trade to our products. With the main point that, with this power, we shall become favoured trading partners with these hugely populous countries.

"But you ladies and gentlemen of the EU need to understand one very crucial thing: we are doing this as of tomorrow.

"Fuck these negotiations: and fuck you all up the arse. The people of the UK voted to leave behind your undemocratic, technocratic bullshit—these farcical negotiations are simply prolonging your entirely unjustified power over the people of this country.

"So, let me say it again, fuck you into the middle of next week. We're done here.

"We leave it to you to go back to the peoples and businesses of your countries and tell them that you fucked up the negotiations with the fifth largest economy in the world. We leave it to you to tell them why there is now a massive customs barrier to their goods coming to the UK.

"Good luck with that.

"The people of the UK have tolerated your bullshit for six months and, let's face it, they are as fucking bored with it as we are.

"So, get tæ fuck, you cunts: you aren't even worthy of being called 'snake-oil salesmen'.

"Fuck you: we've left, as of this moment. So, once more, get tæ fuck—we're done here."

As an MEP, shouldn't you know this...?

At least one German MEP is not happy with Jean-Claude Junker's vision of a united states of Europe.

Speaking to Express.co.uk in Strasbourg, Ms von Storch, deputy leader of the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party, which is part of the Europe for Freedom and Democracy group in the EU parliament, labelled the speech “frightening”.
[...]

“The European Union which has been presented to us today is not the one we want to be members of."

Well, fair enough—your humble Devil can understand this position. After all, it's just one of the reasons that the UK voted to Leave. But another comment does rather show how staggering ignorant some politicians can be...

Asked how long the EU could survive in its current form, she added: “It has to be reformed immediately.

“They will change the European Union to the United States of Europe without treaty change. Without the change of the treaties. This is incredible what we have heard today."

Um, yes. Quite so. I don't know why you should be so surprised at this, Ms von Storch.

The ability to change the EU without having to change the treaties was inserted into the Lisbon Treaty—which the Germans politicians were thoroughly happy to sign up to. The clauses concerned are one of the reasons that this author was so outraged that our own politicos pushed ahead with signing the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty—especially after both that nice Mr Brown and that dish-faced arse, Cameron, promised us a referendum on it.

These "passerelle clauses" are referenced by Mr Junker in his speech:

When it comes to important single market questions, I want decisions in the Council to be taken more often and more easily by qualified majority – with the equal involvement of the European Parliament. We do not need to change the Treaties for this. There are so-called “passerelle clauses” in the current Treaties which allow us to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in certain areas – if all Heads of State or Government agree to do so.

I am also strongly in favour of moving to qualified majority voting for decisions on the common consolidated corporate tax base, on VAT, on fair taxes for the digital industry and on the financial transaction tax. Europe has to be able to act quicker and more decisively.

Well, isn't that a surprise? Who would have thought that it might be dangerous to give politicians huge powers, or that they might use them in a way that you don't like eventually?

How naive are you, Ms von Storch?

There is a certain amusing irony to this, of course: Germany has been happily pushing the EU along, enjoying it's dominance for decades. And now, the Germans are being hoist by their own petard. And they can't say that they weren't warned, you know.

If only there were some kind of German word for this...

Beales of laughter: rank feminist rancour in the Grauniad*

Zoe Williams: a very silly woman.

Your humble Devil notes that Zoe Williams has decided that serial perjurer Gemma Beale is, in fact, a victim—a victim of the justice system...

... a system in which men are the norm and women the deviants.

And how has darling Zoe come to this conclusion? Why, because this serial perjurer is not just a serial perjurer but also a woman—and it is for this latter reason (rather than the serial perjury) that she was sentenced to 10 years.

These three ideas – a woman as ambassador for all women, a woman as a threat not to the individual but to the system, and a woman as a dishonesty time-bomb, waiting for the right sentencing conditions before she unleashes her falsehoods – all spring from the same well: a system in which men are the norm and women the deviants. However far any given woman has deviated from honourable, law-abiding behaviour – and unquestionably, Jemma Beale deviated a long way – she wears shackles of cultural expectation that are punitive indeed.

Well, no, Zoe. Jemma Beale was locked up because she lied, in court, repeatedly. And, as Timmy pointed out, the system just doesn't work if witnesses lie in court—that is why we have the crime of perjury. And, as he points out...

And yes, we do go after rich white men too. Both Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken served time for it.

To make this story all about women lying about rape—rather than the wider crime of perjury—is to deliberately and wilfully miss the point. But that's Zoe for you, eh?

What a little scamp she is.

There lingers this question over the length of sentence: 10 years is atypical; recent, similar cases have resulted in two-year sentences.

Really, Zoe? What "similar cases" were those—I mean, I notice that you neither link to them, nor give any other details...? In those cases, did a women report "four separate incidents [...], claiming [they] had been sexually assaulted by six men and raped by nine"; were they found guilty of "four counts of perjury and four counts of perverting the course of justice" and did an innocent man serve at least five years in prison as a result of those false claims?

Did these "similar cases" actually exist, Zoe—or did you just make them up? I fear that it might be the latter, you know.

You wee scamp, you.

But, just to put the icing on the cake, Zoe then decides that Jemma Beale must, poor dear, suffer from mental health issues.

If this were fiction, one’s next question would be about Beale’s mental health: plainly, no one turns their life into a construct of bogus victimhood for fun. But there is no place for that question...

No, Zoe—there is not. Because it doesn't really matter, you see—Jemma Beale lied repeatedly and did so (in one case, at least) with malice aforethought.

But in the days before the alleged assault, Mr McCormack said Beal had threatened to get him into trouble with the police.
...

Prosecutor John Price QC told Beale: 'You were already planning out what you were about to do – accuse him of attacking you.'

'It was the opportunity to do what you had been threatening to do which was to get Steven McCormack in trouble with the police...'

The problem with writing all of this behaviour off to "mental health issues", Zoe, is that we are constantly being told that people with mental health issues are just like us. Indeed, apparently, we all have mental health issues at some stage in our lives (your humble Devil's are largely measured in how many bottles of wine he drinks a night).

But if all women who make false rape allegations are, actually, suffering from mental health issues and thus should not be treated like the criminals that they so obviously are, then the perception is that anyone with mental health issues might do something similar. And so we start to wonder if people with admitted mental health issues might not bear a close watch on their behaviour; indeed, perhaps they should not be on the streets at all; perhaps, indeed, it might be better to lock them up—in some sort of camp. You know, a nice camp where they can work to free themselves from their troubles.

But I digress, and Zoe has more treats for us—as she demonstrates that she does not understand how the law works...

Arguably, a stiff sentence for a false allegation in itself compromises women’s access to justice: any reported rape, if it fails to secure a conviction, has the potential to be turned into a counter-accusation of perjury.

Hmmm. Well, no, not really.

Let me explain this concept to you, Zoe: in our courts, the prosecution has to convince the jury that the accused is "guilty beyond all reasonable doubt". So, if the accused is acquitted, that does not mean that the accuser lied—it just means that there was not enough evidence to persuade the jury that the accused was guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

And, given the nature of rape, this is why—whilst not every trial leads to a conviction—the accuser is not done for perjury all the time. And this applies across the board—to every accuser and every witness, in every trial for every type of crime.

Come on, Zoe—this is pretty basic fucking stuff.

But wait—Zoe has another feminist complaint to make!

By this rationale, a mendacious woman has undermined the access to justice of all women, since she has made them less likely to be believed. There is common sense to this – rape defences hinge on the possibility that the putative victim is lying, which is made more plausible every time a woman lies. Yet it’s not something ever levelled at rapists, that they’ve made it more likely for other, innocent men to be convicted. Men never have to act as ambassadors for one another in a court of law.

Yes, they fucking do. There have been endless bloody changes to the way in which rape and sexual assault trials are conducted—including the accused no longer being able to cross-examine the victim. The law has been changed, so that men (not women) are compelled to demonstrate—through some kind of fucking voodoo, presumably—that the woman explicitly consented; and women cannot consent if they are intoxicated (the opposite does not apply, of course).

There were, at one point, proposals to reverse the Magna Carta-enshrined presumption of innocence for rape trials; and the MoJ was even rapped on the knuckles for issuing guidance that, essentially, told people that they had to show that they were not guilty—rather than the prosecution having to demonstrate that they were.

So, your statement, Zoe, is demonstrably fucking false. Your entire article, Zoe, is a tissue of lies, stupidity, and blinkered feminist mendacity.

J'accuse!

And, were the above actual crimes, Zoe, you'd be going down for 10 years too. And not in a good way.

^*I know, I know—not exactly news.

Trade: no easy answers

Warning: this post contains detail for grown-ups. Again I find I am having to repeat the same basic points. As you should know by now, Britain cannot stay in the customs union. The customs union is one of the founding frameworks of the EU. It is the amalgamation of all customs rules, practices and tariffs - where all tariff revenues go to the EU under a single customs code. The EU has a Common External Tariff regime which varies according to product types.

Though we cannot stay in the customs union we can have an agreement on customs harmonisation. Tory Brexiteers have it that we cannot make our own trade deals if we have such an agreement. This is only partially true. It prevents us from diverging from the common external tariff rate. That though does not preclude new deals on removing non-tariff barriers, which are more significant.

The reason we would seek a customs agreement is to avoid Rules of Origin (ROO). If we have a zero tariff agreement with the EU but then started to give preferential access to third countries, goods could be re-exported to the EU at a rate less than the EU's own common external tariff. The EU does not allow this so it has a system of rules where exporters have to prove true origin and where there is a disparity a top up tariff must be paid in order to stop us undercutting member states.

This is condemned widely as bureaucratic and protectionist - which it is, and would lead to tariffs being applied to UK car exports - which could kill tens of thousands of jobs. The workaround for this is to unilaterally mirror the EU's rules of origin and to keep our regime of tariffs the same as the EU's. There is then no lawful basis for the EU to apply ROO.

That means any tariff agreements we look at will effectively have to be cleared with Brussels - which will in all likelihood say no. So here we have to do a value assessment as to whether a truly independent customs regime can provide sufficient economic progress so as to offset the loss of the UK automotive sector. Given that tariffs are complex and difficult to remove politically, there is no guarantee of that - therefore an accord must be struck with the EU. That means the Toryboys don't get to tinker with tariffs. Tory "free trade" ideas have no basis in fact.

This does not stop Toryboys bleating about tariffs on coffee but that little nugget of received wisdom is sufficient proof for them to gamble the entire UK automotive and pharmaceuticals sector. They are never going to grow up - nor are they going to crack open any books on the subject any time soon. This is what it means to be a Tory. Why would you crack open a book when you already know everything?

The hard reality of Brexit is that there are no sweeping unilateral measures the UK can take. UK consumption of goods alone is not sufficient to make an impact on global trade thus any issues we seek to resolve will have to be done on a multilateral basis with patience and skill. The process of reaching these such agreements is time consuming, politically contentious and very often sabotaged by the French looking after their former colonial interests. This is why we have to seek a number of allies across a number of sectors outside of the EU. That means we are going to have to find ways of securing goodwill which will be difficult when we don't have the ability to unilaterally open our markets.

This is why international development must be at the core of our trade policy because it is pretty much the only means at our disposal to enhance market access. We have to invest to ensure that LDCs can overcome the regulatory barriers. This is why our aid budget is so critical. It is an arm of our foreign policy.

As mentioned before, we could diverge from the EU regulatory regime but this would have consequences for EU trade as our risk assessment rating increases. This could lead to more costly border inspections - and it's not something we want to do anyway. Now you can bleat til the cows come home that the EU is protectionist - but it is a fact of life and something with which we must contend simply because we are not the trade superpower in this equation.

It would seem that Brexiteers are imbued with the idea that leaving the EU gives us an entirely free hand in trade. That was never likely. The only means of leaving the EU that will give us complete control of regulation and tariffs is to leave unilaterally - which comes at the expense of most of our trade. It is not a good idea.

This does not mean that we don't have considerable freedoms The UK could still negotiate its own trade agreements with other countries on services, investments, e-commerce, food, and agriculture – i.e. on all the areas that the UK disagrees with the rest of the EU - but again, any policy will have to be made with due consideration for its potential impact on existing trade and our general relations with the EU.

What we need to see is effects based trade policy, seeking to resolve political objectives, not least stemming the flow of counterfeit goods and migration. For that to happen we need multilateral solutions and some innovative thinking. One of the chief benefits of leaving the EU is regaining our right of initiative at the top tables - and that is something we can use to our advantage - not having to clear every decision with Brussels.

The short of it is, we have a very limited toolset at our disposal and no free hand in an ever globalised world of trade. It is going to take time to rebuild our trade instincts and we must pick our battles wisely. Brexit most certainly does open up doors - but we should not walk through those doors just because they are open - and we must not deceive ourselves into thinking there are shortcuts. We cannot expect miracles and we can expect no real progress for a decade or more. That is why safeguarding our trade with the EU is a paramount consideration for Article 50 talks. Too much is at stake to gamble it all on Tory free trade fantasies.