The story is contained in ‘New Zealand’s Remarkable Reforms’ The fifth IEA Annual Hayek Memorial Lecture by Donald T Brash 1996 (56 pages)published by the IEA who hopefully will make it available again as a PDF download.

I don’t think the Conservatives have got the stomach for it but UKIP might. Perhaps Mr Redwood should make a move?

The failure (and yes it is failure) of marriage is that the state is not up front about what divorce involves. People take marriage too lightly. If they knew what divorce is they would be less like to get married. I believe you need to do some tests to look for potential issues before you get married. 40% of people fail at marriage. It would be better to get the failure rate up to below 20% before you start advocating it.

At the moment most men (I work on a trading floor) are strong advised by their older peers and fathers not to get married. Traders work long hours. Millionaires are 60% likely to get divorced and the law courts will take 75%+ of their assets that they have sweated for because the court believes they can build their assets back again. So why would a friend not say that all that hard work they are doing could be taken away from them – because they are working hard. Men aren’t getting married because the contract sucks. The result is women’s biological drives mean that have children with an insecure partner in their 30s when they get desperate rather than with a husband in a secure relationship.

There is a lot of academic work done into understanding why marriages fail. You may think it is nannying to advise people on the probablity of their marriage failing, but I would welcome a diagnosis of potenital problems up front. When you get married you are in love and often ignore the problems. Imagine signing a contract to buy a beautiful car that you have fallen in love with and not being told what the contract is?

The “marriage contract” should not be hidden from young couples. It needs to be writ large. There needs to be a legal document published every year telling you quite what your spouse can get away with. Couples should be given profiles and warned about potential issues. This is not nannying this is good advice for you to take or leave.

For example the day after you get married your spouse can sit on their hands and spend all your money and have many affairs and you are still obliged to then give them half your house and savings and they can even claim spousal maintenance – so you have to look after them for the rest of your life. In fact it gets worst because the better you treat them and lazier they are then that will be what the courts say that is what they should expect.

You complain about rewarding failure well in that case you should not agree with marriage law. Because it rewards laziness – simply because as you do progressively less you will get progressively more than the amount you put into the marriage.

You honestly can’t expect to have a punitive damages to discourage divorce and not give best advice to those getting married? Marriage is to a large part a finanical contract and you never get to read the contract. You can lose hundreds of thousands of pounds even though you have tried your hardest and done nothing wrong. Family law is by and large secret. Cases are not published. Tell me of any other contract where this applies?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124500992205413331.html

I can’t get over the idea that this is a deliberate trap being shamelessly laid by Labour, using peoples lives as pawns in their own desperation to extend their careers.

It will start to bite in the third quarter and price increases plus incresed interest rates will have people screaming blue murder by Christmas and through 2010.

This will be the final straw which will destroy Nu Labour and will go some way to bringing President Obama back to reality. Neither Brown nor Obama can blame anyone but themselves for wrecking their own currencies through the foolish policy of printing money.

The trouble is that people who live together but are not married are much more likely to bunk off when the going gets tough, which it will any any relationship. That rips the kids apart, as well as causing major pain for the couple involved.

By the way, he’s not quite right about the marriage figures either. The statistics are here http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=322

As you can see the decline really only set in in around 1990. Until then, the figures were roughly stable with a blip upwards in around 1970. Also, the decline does appear to be levelling off. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves what happened in 1990 to trigger off this decline?

A surge in inflation in the UK will become a real and present danger once the US begins to come out of recession. The Fed has already made it clear that financial stimuli will have to be rapidly reversed as that happens which will inevitably put pressure on Sterling. Axel Weber of the Bundesbank said much the same on Germany’s intentions last month.

The choice we are ultimately going to be forced to make therefore will be between a surge in inflation or higher interest rates. Unfortunately, as the 1970s demonstrated the two generally go hand in hand unless tough and effective action is also taken to restore stability to the fundamental value of the pound. This is something that the present government is both unable and unwilling to contemplate.

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We’ve never seen an analysis of just how many of these jobs were part-time. Anyone know please?

JUST A FEW PREDICTIONS AS WE HEAD OFF ON HOLIDAY…

1. The pathetic ‘Mr 10%’ tag will stick to David Cameron as long, and be just about as effective, as the Chameleon moniker…remember that?

2. Staying with God’s creatures, Mr Brown has just about cooked his goose with his backbench after his decision and abrasive Commons performance today on holding the Iraq enquiry in private.
As in the recent Speaker debate Gordon Prentice’s remarks were extremely pertinent in putting to the sword any concerns of Caledonian cronyism!
A good man. Watch out GB!

3. Mandy’s prediction of a further challenge is surely an opening thrust in a manoeuvre to switch horses mid-stream. Remember 1994 Gordon? Watch out even harder…

4. Now the press, universally, have intimate first-hand experience of GB’s lies on the ‘Great Chancellor Switch’ and ‘Heartless Tory Cuts’ he can expect no respite in the reporting of every slip and slide in this slow political car crash. To whom can a chap turn?…Milliband, Johnson? Mmmm…

Despite our good holiday intentions no doubt we shall be inexorably drawn to the hotel’s internet facility to stay abreast of JR, his disciples, Guido and Dale !

Average mortgage rates for the last 50 years has been around the 8% mark, how many families have this factored into their accounts.

Those who have just been able to tread water recently will eventually sink, house repo’s will rise still further and cause more misery for many.

PS George Soros does not see inflation happening because (mainly) of the unemployment which will inevitably hit us. I think this is what he said on the Money Programme last evening.

Sorry. I’m losing faith.