Da da da dee daa another day another state bailout. Now our self-appointed leadership is in control of even more “charities” as well as the banks and money supply. Is there any individual financial freedom left? The charity issue has been around for a while and has been beautifully exposed and attacked by the great Devil’s Kitchen, but now there are to be even more state-run charities. This may not be a dictionary definition, but I was always under the impression that charity was voluntary. We are all now being forced (under threat of prison) to contribute to even more “good causes”. Who decides which good causes we donate to? The government. The same government which already wastes an enormous proportion of the money it takes from us.
No doubt the reassurance interviewees will be out in force today: “we would rather the charities/banks were not under our control, and they will be run at arms length”… Yeah, right. Virtually everyone in the present government is a former Marxist, CND or other hard-left organisation. The present Parliament was elected on a broadly free-market, post-Thatcher ticket. Now it is nationalising everything it can lay its hands on.
My own opinion is that if the government stopped appearing to panic, then people would be less panicky and the economy would resolve itself more quickly. If the government appeared not to be lurching from one stage of the crisis to the next and announcing knee-jerk reactions to every bad headline, we wouldn’t need such a pro-active stance. Yes, the economy is slowing rapidly. Yes, it is going to be nasty. Yes, we all need to re-adjust. But by throwing non-existent money around like the world is about to end really doesn’t inspire confidence.
But if massive government intervention is one of the options, we should at least be able to have our say in the matter. If voters want rolling nationalisations, then let them vote for it. If Brown has the best policies to get us through the recession, then let him stand on a manifesto to push them through. If people would prefer a more measured, affordable approach then they will vote against Brown’s party.
The control freak statist communists in the Labour government know that they wouldn’t win an election on the manifesto they are implementing, which is why they are doing it in baby steps. Every step they take spooks the markets, consumers and savers and makes the situation even more precarious. They are lovin’ it, the rest of us are not.
The British Council claims to operate “at arm’s length” from government. It does this out of diplomatic premises in China, India, Russia and until a few days ago in Iran, and elsewhere. It is also a registered charity that nobody donates to voluntarily but everybody supports compulsorily, through general taxation. The Charity Commission web site states that as a key legal principle, charities must be independent of government and other funders.See http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/cc37.asp and look for The Charity Law Framework. For charities to be dependent on government is therefore logically impossible, as – according to the Charity Commission – they cease to be charities (as the British Council evidently did the day it became a charity).
So if the legal definition of a charity is no state involvement, how come so many “charities” are majority funded by the state? It’s too much, it really is.
Does El Gordo think that EVERYONE can be supported by a State bailout?
It starts to look like it.
Who does he think is going to pay?