If I understand it correctly, the BS (oh dear, that's an unfortunate acronym, isn't it?) is libertarian by its very nature. A reduction of public reliance on the state is very long overdue after the country has, over decades, allowed itself to be seduced into believing that any problem - however inconsequential or unrelated to the original role of government - can only be solved by a larger state, unsustainable expenditure, and higher taxes to pay for it.
I'm sure we can all point to tasks which are currently undertaken by the state, or local authorities, which shouldn't be their concern and can, and arguably should, be handled by the public or by community associations. Better not go there or we'll be listing them all night.
Community can only benefit by a greater contribution from citizens, rather than just expecting someone else to do it on their behalf ... hand-in-hand with the inflated cost in taxes that involving the public sector brings. Plus, people always, but always, do things better than anything which gets within an inch of authority.
It all sounds so good, doesn't it?
Except that I can't quite get past this bit without feeling a trifle irked.
Also announcing plans to use dormant bank accounts to fund projects, Mr Cameron said [...]Err, sorry, I wasn't hearing what he said after that. Because isn't this, as Longrider calls it, theft? And, as others have mentioned, if not theft, how is this different from taxation?
It's not government's money, every penny of it belongs to an individual. The banks have the investors' names - God knows they make damn sure of that - and even if addresses have changed, with modern technology it's easily possible to allow them the opportunity to reclaim it, though I don't see anything here which mentions such a thing.
If the account holder has been pushing up daisies for decades, there will still be a value which could come in very handy (especially with compound interest added) for their next of kin, and it should be returned there. Good for a re-energising of the economy, no?
Even if - and I certainly don't subscribe to this view - you believe that one loses the right to claim your money after a certain period of inaction, why is this liquidity to be taken away from the banks?
Horace Arkwright's nest egg of £8 10s 6d which he invested with the National Provincial Bank in 1951, before dying of a stroke whilst 'on the job' with Maud from the baker's, has been pinging around the system for so long, it's now quite a tidy sum. It's probably overnighted so many times that Horace would be applauding jealously from his cloud, and each investment by the bank grew his contribution to the financial sector's reservoir of ... lending cash.
Add these little pots together and you have a great big financial monster bucket of cash to lend to, well, those who are crying out for ... more lending in a recession. Horace may have once dreamt of buying a new pigeon loft, but his dormant money has probably helped facilitate any number of newly-wed love nests over the years, and maybe even a few business start-ups too.
Cameron says this isn't a clever way of disguising cuts. I believe him. Instead, it's a clever way of redirecting privately-held money into a new state-administered 'Big Society Bank'. And that is quite obviously nothing to worry about at all, is it? No, not in the slightest. None would ever be so cynical as to suggest such a thing, eh?
Well, maybe one.
- The Big Society Bank will of course be controlled by the politicians, or their chosen appointees.Hmmm, whaddya think?
I wonder if the government will be able to keep their sticky little fingers off the millions that will be hoovered up by the Big Society Bank?
There was someone talking perfect, and incontrovertible, sense today though.
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Tessa Jowell called Mr Cameron's speech "a brass-necked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government".Yep. Can't argue with that.
It was the Labour government, while Gordon was scrabbling around squeezing every possible financial lime till its pips squeaked to pay for his excesses, who introduced the legislation which allows Cameron to steal other people's money.
