I am offended by you being offended

Offended is the new black; everybody loves it, wants it and wears it with pride. Better still, it doesn't cost much to be offended. A person, persons, cult or even a chunk of misinformed society as a whole can be offended in one easy-to-feel hurt at no cost to their own life or activities.

Being offended mutates swiftly and seamlessly into being outraged, too, for added bonus points in the human emotion stakes.

However while it is free to be offended (and outraged), there is a cost in terms of your offender-seeking effort. You have to be on the continual lookout for some small thing that offends you. Should you drop your guard and aren't searching for offence then some terribly offending statement or action may slip past you. Fortunately, social media can help here: you can log on to your Facebook account or Twitter and scroll back to see what wretched offence is being handed out.

In terms of our exciting new world, it is so easy to see a broad swathe of offence-giving material every night on your TV or radio and especially on your internet-linked device of choice. It's never been easier, and you can use social media to rally others as equally offended as you to your shared passion.

A simple message will get people hot under the collar, especially if you say something like: 'If you aren't as outraged as I am by the injustice of (insert company or product here) then you aren't human.'

Sadly, popular though it is to be offended, there is a flaw. While you can be freely offended over a wide variety of things from what you think was meant when a person said something to what you think they did or even what goes into the product, it seems it isn't valid to be offended by those doughty souls being offended.

To be honest, no one is interested in what we might call a rebound offence here. Echo-outrage is just not interesting.

Don't be outraged that the outraged are marching and burning buildings, before going home to watch their favourite programme on TV or do some shopping. You are exhorted to feel their pain, share their eagerness to throw things and be abusive in a crowd, but keep quiet about not liking it. Who cares that you are offended that society has become a home for the loudmouthed, scruffy and unintelligent to be offended?

We want what we want and we want you to do it or we'll be offended.

When do we want it? We want it now or we'll be really, really outraged.

Behind all this there are millions of people who aren't anywhere near as outraged and are quietly offended that this outrage business is going on in the first place, but their feelings of being offended by it are of no interest. Of course this may be simply because your being offended isn't as organised, or as troublesome to society, or as well supported by our soft-headed media. Perhaps the initial anger and outrage -- no matter how empty-headed -- is newsworthy, so the news gets to be full of it.

All this can be broadcast to lots of people who are offended this crap is making the news, but their own outrage probably goes no further than turning the TV off.

Brave New World, with syntax errors

I am not American, so the kerfuffle over the failure (there is no other word for it) to get Americans to sign up for the brand new shiny health system they have cooked up has left me cold. Frankly, I have enough concerns with the government of these islands to worry about what goes on with the rulers of the Land of The Free -- although I believe the Affordable Care Act is turning out to be anything but free.

No matter, it is their business. Good luck in treating everyone fairly in health matters: if it is effective the Yanks will get all the benefits of health tourism and if it doesn't work out well they will have a huge bureaucracy quick to cover its own backside. There will be reports galore, new departments created and know-it-all people fully understanding where the scheme's toes have become turned up even if they know nothing of why people aren't being cared for.

America, trust us: we see this in the UK all the time.

The troubles of Obamacare as it has become known are legion, but mostly it resides (if the news is to be believed) in the fact that the all-important Healthcare.gov website doesn't work. People can't log on so they can't sign up though I am sure it is some temporary glitch hiding among what is reported to be around 5 million lines of code needing to be rewritten. Anyway, it is being seen to as we speak and results are expected. The Obama administration demands it and when it comes to demanding, big government does it best. After all, this is what government can afford to do; as they are spending your money liberally they can afford to bring in the very best to help out the nearly-very best they hired in the first place.

Money no object where government is concerned.

However, there is a however. Can you imagine eBay getting into this mess? For that matter, how about any other website that depends on ease of customer use (and you can bet that there are some trying to sign up for a new healthcare package that have no great knowledge of how the ins-and-outs of the web works) in order to make money. I know, you will be saying that Obamacare isn't there to make money, but that doesn't alter the fact that it simply doesn't work.

I am not poking a funny finger at the Americans here because we do this failure pretty well ourselves. Government-inspired databases (like the expensive and protracted balls up that was the NHS database) have a history in Britain of not working despite huge investments. Deadlines slide back, targets get lowered, expectations postponed and barriers not overcome.

We are told, by those who think the future is smart, that the internet and all things computer will control (sorry, benefit) our lives. But the evidence is the opposite. The more we depend on government checking on us via little bits of electricity the more it doesn't work. It doesn't work too because there are too many people involved who have no real involvement with it; there are people who insist they want things in it all but who don't really care because they are just being 'concerned.'

Years ago one of my relatives was asked to design a web site for a company that made radiators. So he came up with a way that told the installers who needed to know the size of the radiator for the volume of room to be heated. Straight-forward, and uncomplicated. But the project stalled because the company began to argue about what they needed in it. Could they have market research in there? Could they track the customer's heating needs? Most all, could there be one 'magic button' that when pressed did everything?

Multiply this up to a national scale with numerous government departments, pressure groups, legal checks, census information storing and assorted amusements for hangers-on then the project becomes top heavy. So top heavy it falls over and never gets off the floor again. This dogs dinner of needs makes it not only slow to realise but soon renders it all unworkable.

More to the point, not every bit of code ever written is glitch free. Overcome all the needs, requirements and interference and you still have to make it work. The more complicated it becomes, the less likely it is to do what you want it to do within any kind of reasonable time scale.

Web sites aren't simple; I have created them and it is astonishing how much effort you need to put in to make it a coherent whole, or to make sure it works. I am sorry that Obama's people don't know this but I am not surprised as the top of government has many hundreds of experts in everything. Like society and laws and we all know they happen without problems.

If we are to have this Brave New World where digital power (and therefore control) is everything, it has to be a whole lot simpler with achievable targets put together by people who aren't hampered and restricted by the needs and opinions of the elite. But I don't think we will ever get it.

Too many syntax errors, you see, in how big government functions.

On being unbiased

It is hard to contemplate a world where people are unbiased. Most people are biased, understandably, towards the things that matter to them. Family, of course, but also friends and home and probably their immediate environment. For all the problems and difficulties work brings, it's fair to say there is a bias in most workers towards the business or whatever that it should keep going and paying wages.

There are also, less obvious biases in our lives. The adoration of a certain sports team, the love of a certain novelist or singer or even the nature of one's beliefs. Plenty of things tilt us one way or another, either in favour or not.

Most of this bias is sometimes contradictory (just tell me, how can I love someone in my family who nakedly supports one of the worst football teams ever?) but we cope by adjusting and perhaps compartmentalising. In other words, we get by with balance. Few of us anyway, wants to lean too far one way in case we fall over.

But then there are biases that are almost undetectable, and I am looking at you here, BBC.

It is no secret in my family that I think the BBC, or Al-beeb as I call them, are not my favourite entity. Sure, they put out some good programmes but they also put out a lot of dross and no matter how professionally presented it is still dross. Okay, I accept that's the nature of the media: not everything is gold.

Some, for example will think EastEnders a deep and searching examination of the life and loves of a small community, and others will think it is a shallow shout-fest where no one likes each other and has a major crisis in their lives every two months -- at least when it is their turn to be on screen. The BBC naturally believes this is good for us, but that's their bias. They are entitled to their view as they built the sets, after all.

But I am more worried about their supposed unbiased news. A core element of Al-beeb has been the continual drip-drip of propaganda that they are unbiased and merely report what's happening. They are an institution and even were called Aunty because we all loved our aunties, right? Yes, even dear aunt Mavis who has too much of the cooking sherry at Christmas, loveable old nutcase that she is.

But this came to mind when I heard a top member of Aunty's elite (and God knows there are plenty of them all well-paid by the ludicrous concept of a Telly Tax you cannot escape and they can squander) who said he was proud of the Beeb's unbiased news output.

Shocked? I nearly dropped my guide to what's coming on other channels.

I was listening to Al-beeb's flagship news the other day from another room, rather than watching it. I admit I often avoid Aunty's output on current affairs (I admire people who can watch Newsnight and not feel ill) but it was on in another room, so I listened. Without the pictures which play a huge part in news -- the tradition was if you didn't have pictures it wasn't important news -- there was a faintly hectoring moral correctness about what was said by the newsreader and the various correspondents.

They knew, you see, what was good for us. they knew how we should be thinking. To this end they often spice up little bits of news with slightly biased but friendly hints; a 'British' man they say was killed in Syria, fighting to oust the dictator Assad. being the Beeb there is no question asked about how 'British' he was or why he was interfering in someone else's civil war, or more likely tribal conflict.

An elderly muslim male is killed by an immigrant who wanted to spark, the Beeb tells us, a race war. But at the same time they are telling us the old man is a pensioner (thus nicely bracketing the poor unfortunate man in a sympathetic light) they are loathe to tell us that the murderers of Lee Rigby wanted a race war. That would, they suggest, stir up unfair hatred.

On this front, Al-beeb often talk about the fears of the muslim community over a backlash over some islamist activity, which neatly waters down the difficult task of telling us what was done and avoids telling us mayhem was on our streets.

When Gordon Brown made some almighty screw up with the economy in his time (yes, I know, it's hard to figure which one it was among so many) Aunty was quick to lead with the headline that told us the Prime Minister promised to try harder in future. Better, they might say in Al-beeb's offices, than telling viewers and listeners and internet readers what had actually been cocked up.

The promise of hope and change trumps all else, apparently.

The sneering in a BBC reporter's voice when asking the then Tory opposition what they intended to do, moments after toadying praise for all things Labour controlled along with softly-lobbed questions to some state-loving socialist, had to be heard to be believed. Anyone would think the reporter loved NuLab more than unbiased reporting.

When that large clothing factory collapsed on the Indian subcontinent at a terrible loss of life a while ago, Al-Beeb's man by the pile of rubble was quick to tell us it was where we got our cheap clothes from. Did you feel guilty about going to places like Primark with this news ringing in your ears? Maybe not, but I think you were meant to feel bad that you had caused it with your careless demand for cheap vests and tank tops, if anyone still wears them.

Nearer home, there was good news the other day about the economy. But dear old Aunty Al followed up in the next breath with boiler-plate socialism by asking how much of this improvement was reaching us ordinary folk? Rising prices and bills were immediately mentioned. Yes, it was serious: improvements in industry but not in our pockets. The news reader frowned at us too so we got the message. You see, Al-beeb likes state control; they benefit from it enormously. It pays their wages without question and allowed them to send 600-odd staff to the Beijing olympics when the vast majority of them could have stayed at home and taken the Chinese media's live feed and made comments from the studio basement.

No, surely not, you say! People like football commentators needed be there to help report on the football which, er, isn't a big olympic sport.

If you want further news on this, just check how many BBC reporters get to report from the US of A or do features or series about life across the pond. They like that we pay for them to get the best, but they go there to tell us how bad for example this Tea-Party lot are for having demonstrations where they don't rape anyone, avoid spoiling the environment, can't bring themselves to crap on police cars or worse of all, take their litter home.

Now this to me is typical of Al-beeb's on-going hectoring tone and unnamed biases. We, the people are wrong not to love all immigrants. We the people aren't served by an improved economy. We the people don't need to know what screw ups are made if it was Labour doing the screwing. We the people have to feel guilty because we shop at places that encourage buildings to collapse. We the people don't need a balanced view at all. We only need Al-beeb's subtly (and not so subtly) biased view to educate us.

Above all, we do need to pay for shout-fests among all the Attenborough documentaries. And pay you shall, whether you watch any of it or now. Owning a TV is reason enough and in time you can bet they will press for a slice of internet provider fees because their web-presence is so huge. So important to us all, they are sure.

Al-beeb tell us this in little ways, with lots of little digs and hints. And they will frown and speak sternly if we even begin to object to it.

Dividing up the social cake

I want to write about something that intrigues me but for all I know it may hardly be original. There are probably better thinkers than me (can't argue with that) and numerous experts who have looked at this matter but I haven't seen their work. On the other hand I have never seen New Zealand so all that means is I haven't travelled very far.

Anyhow, this is a question that touches on two things: immigration and economics.

That the two things are linked is undeniable. We are told, for example, that immigration is good for the nation and there are huge economic advantages in bringing people here to do the jobs that the indigenous peoples of these islands could do. No, that isn't my argument at all, but it is what we are told though I admit I do subscribe to the principle that we are collectively told a lot of things that aren't quite true.

See what I did there? I stopped short of calling politicians liars.

Anyhow, this is my question: if you import a lot of people, what is the total drain on the economy for those people? Do they incur more cost than they contribute to the welfare of all? Noting that some of the immigrants will work (and arguably pay tax to the benefit of all) I wondered if anyone had sought to discover what is the overall cost of each of the working immigrants' dependents.

If every immigrant contributed to the exchequer you can see there isn't a problem. But, and this is a big but, not every one in the immigrant's family does. So, how much does that cost per person?

Let me explain this way. Immigrant A arrives here and can work. Perhaps he doesn't speak much English though the nation is prepared to provide resources so he can understand what he needs to know. True, this is a cost but theoretically a short term one. As A integrates into the British way of life he learns the language. He gets a job -- possibly relatively low paid -- and duly pays tax.

However, we have a number of problems. A arrives with a family. He has, say four children and a wife. (He could even have two or more wives, for while it is illegal to marry more than one person in this country it is legal if the weddings were done abroad. Hmm, weird...) He may have parents still able to travel, in-laws who yearn to see Britain, a number of uncles aunts and their offspring. It would deny his human rights to say his family can't come with him, but let's say that there is a limit on who is considered immediate family. I will, for the purpose of this, say there is A, Mrs A and four small A's (should that be a's?) and his and/or her parents.

Now the little a's need educating. Mrs A gets whatever allowances are on offer and perhaps the elder members of the family receive pensions and need health care. Actually, they all need health care. They may possibly need some assistance from local social services, they may need a house paid for by others.

In fact, if you start to add up all the costs of this family's presence it begins to clock up an impressive amount. It's not just a one-off payment either. It is an ongoing cost, year on year. The little a's will grow up wanting jobs, but there are only so many available and until then they need to go to college to postpone being on the dole if there is no work, and anyway it isn't unknown for Mr and Mrs A to have another baby. Or two. As the British state pays for more children, why stop there?

Mr A, for the sake of argument, drives a taxi. At this point it is immaterial whether he can legally drive in this country (rumour has it a number of immigrants like driving round without licenses) but I wonder if he does not issue receipts for his passengers, how does the tax system know what he earns?

(On this matter, an acquaintance of mine who had experience of tax matters told me there was, for example, an restaurant in his area that always went bust just before tax was due. The bankrupt business was then transferred to a family member to start again. In short, it never paid any tax no matter how many curries it sold.)

Of course, Mr A pays at the pump for petrol and the government gains the VAT and fuel duty, and there is an amount of shopping done by the family which garners more VAT. Nonetheless, the costs to Britain for having all the A's here far outweigh the income generated by Mr A's tireless work behind the wheel of his taxi.

(I am also by the way aware that it happens when some people like Mr A doesn't feel like work one of his brothers or cousins takes the taxi out, and before you ask they often don't know their way around the town they are in. A relative of mine got in a taxi the other day and gave an address only for the immigrant driver to shout at her because she didn't know the route he should take.)

Anyway, my point is to ask if anyone has looked at the state's payments to this family compared with the income generated for the exchequer for the benefit of all. I think, and I am happy to be wrong, that there is a huge gap between what this mythical family earns and what they take out. Britain, if you like, is in deficit here.

Now I accept that a balanced society will always have people who require more than they can put in. The old concept of insurance is that ten farmers pay into a pot so when one farmer loses a sheep he can be compensated by the other nine's insurance payments. No, I won't go down the road of when one farmer sells his own sheep to fraudulently claim the cash and his mate does the same... That's another argument.

But do we have a balanced society of income and expenditure when we don't necessarily know what the balance is? If the family of A cost tens of thousands more each year than it can earn and there are thousands of families like A, then how can we check? This is not to say that there should be a limit on how much can be claimed as people's circumstances change and their needs alter. But if it is a need that is there from the outset and it can only grow then that makes it more and more uneconomical.

In the long term all six or more of the A children may have jobs and each contribute at the petrol pump, but if they have lots of children too and require benefits then that 'pay back' is slowed. There is incidentally the fear that there aren't jobs for all the A offspring and social dissatisfaction leads to increased costs in terms of insurance payouts for property damage and greater policing, not to say a wedge of legal costs.

I can't predict the future, and much of this may not come to pass. On the other hand I see the number of male immigrant children going to the local school and don't see so many female immigrant children, which is sure to lead to all sorts of different complications in about ten or twelve years time.

What I can ask is here and now what do we know now of all this?

This is one huge subject that I fear many of our politicians can't even begin to grasp. I know I can't, but then setting the economy isn't my job. I receive a pension, to which I contributed for far too many years, but I did it. Not all our immigrants can yet have made much contribution, and they age like the rest of us.

On this last subject of money and immigrants, I need to point out that round my area there are shops who all offer a similar service under different names: they offer transfer of cash out of the country. Many of their customers are not British born and send money overseas to family and relatives. It is, of course, their money and they can do with it as they wish. But you might ask how much spare cash have they got that they can afford to send it overseas, and more relevantly who provided the bulk of that money?

Do we know how much Britain supplies, indirectly, to other nations? Or are we hoping it isn't too much and somehow there are enough people legitimately working and paying taxes to support all this?

What, we should begin to ask, would happen if this easily-and-freely-available money ran out?

Perhaps it is a question that no one 'at the top' dares contemplate. Maybe they are just waiting for their gold-plated pension and then they can high-tail it out of the country and leave us to it.