By David G. Eselius
“Britain tackles the welfare state”
By George F. Will, Published: August 10
Washington Post
LONDON
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has a dry, sly sense of humor. George Osborne, 40, says Britain escaped the sort of housing bubble and crash that staggered America because, whereas America recklessly expanded its housing stock, “We were saved by the fact that you can’t build anything in this country.”
He exaggerates, somewhat, Britain’s regulatory impediments to dynamism, just as he exaggerated, somewhat, his prediction, when he became chancellor 15 months ago, that in six months he would be Britain’s most unpopular man. His and Prime Minister David Cameron’s wager is one that should interest Americans — the bet that Britain can simultaneously shrink the state and stimulate the economy.
Since growth resumed here in 2010, it has been a tepid 2.2 percent. In 2011’s second quarter, it was 0.2 percent, worse than America’s dismal 0.8 percent in the first half of this year. Some say the royal wedding distracted British workers. Really. (The riots of the past few days have incited dubious sociology, the theory that social-service reductions propel desperate mobs of young men to storm Nike shoe stores. But perhaps not everything is caused by politics.)
The shrinkage of government is supposed to be more severe here than in America, where the supposedly “savage,” “draconian,” etc., cuts recently agreed to mean that for a decade Washington must scrape by on $43.7 trillion rather than $46.1 trillion. Really.
The British state is morbidly obese. For a third consecutive year, government will spend more than half the gross domestic product — partly because half of all jobs created during the 13 years of Labor Party governance that ended in May 2010 were in the public sector.
Britain’s debt, now 62 percent of GDP, is scheduled to rise to 71 percent in 2013-14 before declining. Government devours 47 percent of national income.
The five-year goal of reducing it to 40 percent will be difficult because Cameron has a tepid mandate. In 2010, Conservatives almost suffered a fourth consecutive defeat, and they failed to win a majority against an exhausted and unpopular Labor government.
This may be one reason Cameron has flinched from seriously reforming the established religion. No, not the Church of England, the National Health Service. It is sometimes adequate regarding medicine but is a sensational jobs program: It is the world’s sixth-largest employer (behind the Chinese army, Wal-Mart, China National Petroleum, China State Grid Corp. and Indian Railways).
Osborne says America’s welfare reform of 1996 “helped change the debate over here.” Perhaps, but almost 30 percent of public spending here is still for a welfare system under which an unemployed single mother with two children has more disposable income than a postal worker. There is, Osborne says, considerable resentment among people who “go to work at seven in the morning and the blinds are down next door.” Almost a fifth of British households have no wage earner, while immigrants are 13 percent of the workforce.
Fortunately, in Britain, as in much of the United States, labor unions are fading forces. British unions have only 7 million members, down from 13 million 30 years ago. When, in June, leaders of a large public employees union engineered a one-day strike, the members were not enthusiastic and the public was not inconvenienced.
Almost half the Conservative members of Parliament were first elected in 2010 and, like Republican members of the U.S. House first elected that year; these Conservatives have a Tea Party-like indifference to conventional pieties, the worst of which celebrate the European Union. Such has been the leakage of Britain’s sovereignty to Brussels; Cameron’s ability to deregulate his nation’s economy is significantly circumscribed. Only 22 percent of the British consider E.U. membership a “good thing,” now that the E.U. is busy transferring wealth to those who do not create it.
With a wary eye on Greece, and a possible contagion from it to Italy, Spain, Portugal and others, Osborne fears a “sovereign debt rerun” of the financial crisis triggered by the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. He also worries that Britain might be unfairly tainted by Asian and other investors deciding that “Europe is a basket case.”
Well, yes. The Economist reports that three weeks ago, at an emergency meeting of eurozone leaders, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, distributed a ranking of countries deemed by markets most likely to default: “Greece, Portugal and Ireland were at the top, riskier than Venezuela and Pakistan; Spain was less safe than revolutionary Egypt.”
Next year may be cheerier. London will host the Olympics, and the nation will celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee — 60 years of her reign. This year, however, the refurbishing of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle has been deferred.
Fin
America’s welfare reform of 1996 ushered in the American illegal drug gang industry as an expanding economic sector for the political low-income class.
In 1996, California Proposition 215 legalized drug sales (marijuana). Sixteen state legislatures have now legalized illegal drug sales.
U.S. welfare reform of 1996 also included expanding illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, and state immigration “shield laws.”
In 2010, for heroin the wholesale price for a kilogram in Britain was typically $US 29,569, in America $US 71,200, and in Australia a whopping $US 221,304. For ecstasy the wholesale price for 1000 tablets was $US 10,000 in the US, $US 6,468 in Britain, and up to $US 25,344 in Australia. Marijuana in California U.S. street price is about $US 4,000 per pound (0.45 kg) or $US 8,888 per kilogram.
The reason U.S. State Legislatures legalize illegal drug sales has to do with political corruption. There is now a great deal money transferred within the illegal drug industry—politicians get their cut of the drug money. Globally (which includes the UK) the illegal drug industry is more than a trillion USD a year tax free business.
U.S. Gangs - Resulting from 1996 political values, within the U.S., approximately 1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs are criminally active within all 50 states and the District of Columbia as of September 2008. Local street gangs, or neighborhood-based street gangs, remain a significant threat because they continue to account for the largest number of gangs nationwide. Most engage in violence in conjunction with a variety of crimes, including retail-level drug distribution. Gang types are: Street Gangs, Prison Gangs, and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.
To ensure a consistent profit stream from the wholesale drugs they purchase from Mexican drug trafficking organization, Hispanic prison gangs distribute drugs through street gangs that they largely, if not entirely, control. Through force or intimidation, Hispanic prison gangs exercise significant control over local gangs that distribute their drugs.
Gang members are migrating from urban areas to suburban and rural communities, expanding the gangs' influence in most regions; they are doing so for a variety of reasons, including expanding drug distribution territories, increasing illicit revenue, recruiting new members, hiding from law enforcement, and escaping other gangs. Many suburban and rural communities are experiencing increasing gang-related crime and violence because of expanding gang influence.
Current estimates include approximately 1,000,000 gang members residing within local communities across the country and more than 147,000 documented gang members incarcerated in federal, state, and local correctional facilities, according to state and federal corrections data. Increased gang membership is most likely the result of gang recruitment efforts and the release of incarcerated gang members.
Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of the crime in many communities, according to law enforcement officials throughout the nation. Typical gang-related crimes include alien smuggling, armed robbery, assault, auto theft, drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, home invasions, identity theft, murder, and weapons trafficking.
Gang members are the primary retail-level distributors of most illicit drugs. They also are increasingly distributing wholesale-level quantities of marijuana and cocaine in most urban and suburban communities.
Street gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs pose a growing threat to law enforcement along the U.S.-Canada border. They frequently associate with Canada-based gangs and criminal organizations to facilitate various criminal activities, including drug smuggling into the United States.
In America drug crimes pay quite well and have low judicial risks. Mexico’s criminal problems are a result of the large consumption of illegal drugs within the U.S.
On August 12, 2011, authorities in the central state of Mexico arrested a suspected drug-gang leader who confessed to directly carrying out 300 homicides and ordering 600 others. Oscar Osvaldo Garcia Montoya, a deserter from Mexico's marines, is one of the country's deadliest drug assassins. Over 7,000 people have been killed in Mexico this year.
The only reason there is not similar violence within the America is that the U.S. illegal drug economy corruption is a quite and effective influence within the U.S. political system and judicial systems and has local, state, and federal political representation.
Depending upon the local politics of crime reporting, accuracy of gang and crime activity statistics can vary.
New York gangs - The influence of drug-trafficking organizations and gangs from the New York area — New York City and northern New Jersey — reaches nearly every sizable drug market in eastern Pennsylvania.
While maintaining their gang allegiances and drug connections with associates in the New York city-area, the gang members use this infrastructure to recruit local teens and young adults to join the gang and distribute drugs. Gang members often facilitate their transition from the New York city-area to smaller drug markets in eastern Pennsylvania by forming relationships with local girls and women.
East Coast Dominican drug-trafficking organizations and gangs are the most active of these groups, and their influence within the region is increasing. However, in some East Coast drug markets, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are dominant and growing.
Mexican sources are increasing the flow of cocaine and heroin from the southwest U.S. border directly to Philadelphia and Reading, ensuring a more stable and consistent availability of those drugs.
Pacific Region Gangs - Approximately 6,900 gangs with more than 237,000 members are criminally active in the Pacific Region. Hispanic gangs, specifically 18th Street, La Eme, Nuestra Familia, and MS 13, will continue to fight for control of retail-level drug distribution in locations throughout the Pacific Region.
Gang-related criminal activity in the Pacific Region is significant and likely will remain significant as gang members continue to fight for control of territories. Gang-related extortion and firearms violations likely will increase. MS 13 poses a significant threat to local law enforcement. The gang is involved in criminal activities including drug trafficking, extortion, and firearms violations.
The latest 2011 count shows California's 33 prisons housing 143,565 inmates. California’s prison system illegal immigrant population is much greater than the national 17 percent average (some place California’s illegal immigrant population more than 50 percent of prison population).
Including illegal immigrant welfare costs and prison costs for illegal immigrants, taxpayers pay many billions of dollars per year to support the political retention of drug violence and the illegal drug economy within California and the U.S.
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state’s budget went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education.
I can think of better things to do with a trillion USD than keeping drug cartels and politicians building the welfare illegal-drug business.
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