The state will not compensate the unemployed citizens • At the end of this economic attack, anyone who saves routine will survive several months of deluge • or join the civil service, and then we will pay for it

My extended stay at home certainly affects my memory and sense of time, so I cannot commit myself when I find out that some official authority - obviously not remembering which - has canceled the duty of licensing for restaurant deliveries. I distinctly remember reading the amazement I heard myself saying: Walla? Need to get a license to put food in a plastic box, load it on a moped and drive it to someone's house ???

Illustration: Shimon Engel

The answer, of course, is a great "yes", since a citizen cannot be trusted to perform such a complex operation without some officials giving him a license for a modest fee. This is because if the state or local authority gives up only one regulatory action - a market failure will arise in which ten unnecessary officials will deprive them of their livelihood, which is to interfere with the other's business, and perhaps they will have to find a job and imagine what a world we have here.

For the sake of entertainment, I will refer to the Tel Aviv Municipality's Licensing Guide for Dining, which incorporates, among other things, strict rules for the standard required for a home that Borks sells. You will be pleased to find that the rules of the borax are completely different from the rules of a Sabih food house - that is how it is good for me, I do not invent. For example: The total area of ​​a borax dining room will not be less than 39 square meters and in place of Sabih - 35. Some would assume that calculating the minimum area according to regulatory science is twice as long as an eggplant, or borax. But it is a mistake, because there is in Tel Aviv An area called the "Special North", to which different scientific principles apply, and where the minimum area of ​​the boraxia and sabihya is the same! 40 sq.m. Maybe in the northern North the people are fatter.

This is just a small example of a plethora of regulations aimed at harassing the business owner as much as possible in order to support his harassers. Therefore, canceling the duty of licensing to operate a shipping service excited me. Perhaps with the corona's shore, the state and local authorities will give up unnecessary restrictions. And here I am fixing myself and know that no such thing is going to happen.

The closure and its damage have already spawned even deeper macroeconomic discussions on the issue of regulation. For example, socialists have argued that the state is the most effective cause of a crisis, and therefore why bother the citizen with business and economic independence even in routine. It may be an argument that has something in it (there is no, but it is for another column), but provided the state efficiently uses our tax money and makes every effort to save unnecessary expenses. But what to do is that "unnecessary expenses" are always salaries to six people who do a month what a laptop can do in an hour.

The state's demand to help people whose livelihoods were impaired because of the corona is justified in every respect, as it is the state that imposes unemployment and closure of its citizens. Before the close of the economy, Israel enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in its history, and now - almost a tenth of its population is unemployed. This is not mass laziness. It is a multi-victim economic attack.

But when asked by the state to take responsibility for its decision - however justified - to shut its citizens home, it is worth remembering that the "state" is not an abstract technical institution, but people, that is, human beings, who, at the same time, concern for public service, also care about their personal interests.

That's why the UAE - a computerized tax processing service - threatened a strike this week in light of the state's intent to use the Air Force's technical capability to improve its computing system, and thus its ability to cope with managing financial aid for the victims of the Corona crisis. He is the enemy of the bureaucrat.

And this is why the abstract "state" is currently considering extra salaries for civil servants working from home, which is why despite the need and obligation to help hundreds of thousands of people whose livelihoods have been harmed - and in the case of private businesses, the injury may be fatal - none of the "state" steering wheel have seriously considered the possibility Cut the budget pensions of spoiled "civil servant" strata. These, among themselves, have set economic conditions for themselves and their friends who have never had moral justification, and now more than ever have no practical justification.

Needless to say, even in this case, I know that there is no chance of anyone touching the budget pensions, even though they cost the taxpayer, that is, about NIS 30 billion a year. The state's commitment to budget pensions over the next few decades is almost NIS trillion. NIS 1,000 billion. At the expense of the rape unemployed who are now waiting for the tax authority's employees to better upgrade their computing system.

I have no expectation from the state that will compensate for the full damage done to one million civilians. She can't do it anyway. Some of the aid will come to those who need it, and that will not be enough, and eventually all the civil servants' committees and the Shalter organizations will first stand in line for a tap. Apart from financial aid, the best thing the state can do after all is over - is to let go. Remove regulations. Let people set up and run businesses in a short-cut procedure, and not force a small cafe an extra 30 cm into the kitchen space on every chair they pull out. Yes, that's in the bylaws.

And the citizens themselves, you should understand that relying on the state in the field of economic management is to her and thorn in it, and when I say "to her and thorn in" I mean a sore thorn with a little lamb fat. The state will not save anyone who is in trouble, but anyone who saves routine can survive a few months of deluge.

And when the pigeon shows up with an olive leaf, it would be useful to calculate every shekel, every trip abroad, every delivery from a restaurant when they cook, what car to buy, what mortgage to take, what city to live in. .

And of course you can join the civil service, or one of the Shalter factories, and then we'll pay for you.