No doubt Mr Blair would be very grateful...
>The WEEK
>BLAIR’S BABY BONDS
>
>. . .
>* Don’t trust the parents . . .
>
>mbs; Baby bonds (bb) if anything lean in the
>direction of liberalism, classical variant.
>They are pure cash,
well, yes and no. The bonds are in a trust fund, that the parents are not allowed to access, kept until the child is eighteen.
>not some service controlled
>by agents of the state. See LeGrand (Strategy
>for Equality) for how British public service
>provision, notwithstanding the soc-dem context,
>bend in the direction of upper- and against
>lower-income persons.
I agree with that point about the shortcomings of the UK welfare system. The social scientist Titmuss explained how the better off generally secured a better deal from the British education system etc. than poorer folk.
>
>* Popular capitalism for babies
>The government is making a point of breaking with the traditions of the
>welfare state. Instead of providing education and health from the
>state’s resources to people who need them, the government proposes to
>give them some of the capital for them to invest for themselves; or, as
>
>mbs: it's not "instead"; it's in addition to.
Money doesn't grow on trees, so that £300 payment must be coming out of some other budget heading, 'instead of', not 'in addition to'
>Something tells me JH does not favor an expansive
>welfare state anyway, so this is demagogy.
Whatever the something that is telling you is, it's not me. I've always opposed cuts in welfare, and spent a great deal of my life marching up and down over it.
>
>Harold Macmillan once remarked of Mrs Thatcher’s policies, to sell off
>the family silver.
>
>mbs: depends on how the bonds are financed. It
>could be financed by selling off Macmillan's
>silver.
Not very likely in the context of New Labour's promises to business.
>
>* Thinktank twaddle
>New Labour policy wonks are peddling the superannuated myth that capital
>can be owned by everyone, and if we just invest our bonds wisely they
>will go on growing and growing. They forget that interest income does
>not fall from the skies; capital is a social relation in which some are
>exploited by others, and we cannot all exploit each other.
>
>mbs: some may exaggerate the egalitarian import of
>the BB's. In light of the fact that the target of
>this criticism is a progressive redistribution of
>wealth, it's pretty bizarre.
I don't think so, the point was on the ideological meaning of the bonds, i.e. that they are motivated as inculcating the belief that all can own capital, which, I suggest is the equivalent of saying all can exploit each other. In fact the amounts are so low that the interest component is negligible.
>
>* Don’t trust the babies
>No sooner was the proposal made public than the alarm was raised that 18
>year-olds would spend the money on clothes and holidays instead of
>investing it in their futures. Ministers reassuringly explained that the
>stakeholders of the future would have to be told what to spend their
>money on.
>
>mbs: even if it was regulated, it would still be
>a good thing. Only a madman, for instance, would
>complain about what you can't buy w/Food Stamps.
I must be mad, then. I prefer the UK's payment of Income Support in cash. The state does not know better than claimants what their needs are. -- James Heartfield