Jack Lacton

Aboriginal Tent 'Embassy', Violence and the Left

2012-01-28T18:58:00.000+11:00

So it turns out that a media staffer in Julia Gillard's office, Tony Hodges, called an intermediary, identified as Unions ACT boss Kim Sattler, and told her that opposition leader Tony Abbott has made a comment about the Aboriginal Tent 'Embassy' and just happened to be conveniently located a couple of hundred metres away from said embassy at The Lobby restaurant.

As reported by Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt this is a scandal for the Prime Minister of increasing proportion.

The Prime Minister tried to head off trouble at the pass:

Adviser Tony Hodges “acted alone” when he called union official Kim Sattler before the ugly Australia Day riot in Canberra, Julia Gillard claims.

The Prime Minister said she was “deeply disappointed” and “furious” to learn her staffer had let protesters know the whereabouts of Tony Abbott at a medal ceremony in Old Parliament House before scenes turned foul.

“He acted alone and his conduct was unauthorised,” Ms Gillard said today in Treasury Place, Melbourne.

“He made a grave error of judgment.”

But she said at no time did Mr Hodges bend Tony Abbott’s words to say he wanted the tent embassy torn down.

Who in their right mind does not believe:

That Hodges acted with anything other than authority of his direct manager?
That he accurately conveyed the sense of Tony Abbott's opinion?
That his action was completely consistent with the reality of the culture of the Prime Minister's office?
That it was completely normal to ring an intermediary such as Sattler when looking to stir up trouble?
That "there shall be no carbon tax under a government I lead" Gillard is telling the truth that Hodges acted alone?

I'll bet that policy cuckolded pokies' reform champion Andrew Wilkie has some doubts about the truth of the PM's story, that's for sure.

But there's a bigger issue at play that has not yet been reported on, probably because the mainstream media are Labor supporters and don't want to face the ugly truth that it's their side that owns political violence in this country and has done since the founding of the nation. That's why Kim Sattler knew that all she needed to do in order to stir up trouble was to tell people the distorted story about what Abbott had said and where he was and let the normal leftist mob mentality run its course.

But, Jack, I hear you cry, these Aboriginal people are passionate about their cause and so you can understand why they become so upset and sometimes things get out of control, can't you?

No, I can't.

Firstly, reports said that there were some hundreds of people at the Aboriginal Tent 'Embassy'.

How many of those people were Coalition supporters, do you think?

Let me think about that for about a nanosecond. How about none?

If it had have been a crowd of Coalition supporters protesting against the carbon tax or the incompetence of the government then do you think that violence would have broken out?

Oh, that's right. That happened. It didn't.

Here's a thought experiment.

If the crowd at the Aboriginal Tent 'Embassy' were all Coalition supporters then do you think that the same outcome could have occurred on the basis of what a Labor leader was reported as having said?

Not on your life.

And here's a real kicker. If even half of the protesters were Coalition supporters then do you think things would have become riotous? No. Because the sensible half would have held the other side in check.

That organised political violence belongs to the left is a fact of life. Who else can bring together unions, uni students, Environmentalists and the anti-globalisation crowd into the kind of destructive force we see on our TVs on a weekly basis?

Where are the organised right wing equivalents? There aren't any.

Leftism is about tearing down what exists be it successful people, institutions they don't like such as the Catholic Church or an economic system that they believe is unfair.

It should come as no surprise that a mindset whose goal is to pull down the pillars of society should also take to literally pulling down the physical infrastructure.

Thus, the Aboriginal Tent 'Embassy' disgrace is a perfect example of the left's careless embrace of lies and violence in order to implement its agenda.

Aboriginal Tent Embassy mob prove they're nothing but scum

2012-01-26T20:00:00.000+11:00

The Prime Minister of Australia had to be evacuated from an Australia Day event this afternoon, along with the opposition leader, due to the racist scum who inhabit the so called Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

I am deadset sick of these people.

They give decent Aborigines a bad name and prove that they have absolutely no care about anything other than themselves while accusing those who have tried to help them for many decades of being racists.

They are scum.

No other term is suitable. Even respected Aboriginal figures said they went too far:

Indigenous leader Mick Gooda has condemned the aggressive behaviour of Aboriginal protesters towards Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at a Canberra restaurant on Australia Day.

About 200 protesters from the nearby Aboriginal tent embassy banged on the three glass sides of The Lobby restaurant chanting "shame" and "racist".

At least 50 police, including the riot squad, were called to the scene shortly after 2.30pm (AEDT).

The two leaders, protected by police and security officers, escaped out a side door after about 20 minutes.

Protesters chased their car down the road, banging on its roof and bonnet.

The tent embassy is celebrating a 40-year milestone with a three-day "Corroboree for Sovereignty", with thousands of indigenous Australians travelling to Canberra for the occasion.

What did these people hope to achieve?

Whatever it is they've surely set back their cause and have probably killed off completely any hope that the constitution could be amended to recognise Aborigines as the first Australians.

So what set them off?

Tensions boiled over on Thursday afternoon following comments Mr Abbott made in Sydney earlier in the day that it was perhaps time for the embassy to move on.

Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott had just spoken at a ceremony for the inaugural national emergency medals when the protesters arrived at the restaurant.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda said he was appalled at the level of disrespect and aggression shown towards the two leaders.

"An aggressive, divisive and frightening protest such as this, has no place in debates about the affairs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples or in any circumstances," Mr Gooda said.

So, Tony Abbott - a man who spends a couple of weeks every year in the outback helping Aboriginal communities (with no cameras and no media) - makes a common sense statement that the eyesore that is the 'Embassy' should move on and it justifies a complete breakdown of law and order, does it?

Scum. Shameful scum.

We need to start treating Aborigines the same as everyone else in this country be they white, brown, black, yellow or whatever and stop treating them as spoiled children. It's the only way they'll be able to improve their lot in life.

Why you should be an optimist

2012-01-24T21:22:00.001+11:00

If you haven't heard of Matt Ridley aka the Rational Optimist then you've missed out on a different point of view to that promoting the fashionable doomsday du jour.

Ridley articulates very well, I think, why we should all be optimistic. His views on this topic align very well with my own. Even though there are rocky days ahead and almost certain financial doom and gloom, when you take a thirty thousand foot view of things for the long term one must conclude that humans will yet again defy the doomsdayers' predictions and work things out.

Imagine how miserable it must be to live life thinking that CO2 is going to make the planet uninhabitable and is already responsible for fire, flood, earthquakes and whatever other natural disasters that used to carry exactly that name until a generation grew up largely uneducated about how the world works - and uncaring, to boot. And uncaring that it's important that they know.

Who seriously thinks that when the oil eventually becomes uneconomical to produce - which is many hundreds of years away - mankind won't have transitioned to something like nuclear to fuel society?

Who seriously thinks the world is going to get to the point that it can't feed itself?

As I said, it would be a miserable life indeed.

Matt Ridley's presentations should be played to all 14-15 year olds in school. It would inspire them and get them to focus on the big picture.

If you like the video then send it to your 'miserable' friends so that they can find a reason to turn their thinking around.

Race baiting crowd won't be happy to confront reality

2012-01-20T11:07:00.001+11:00

Here's the current results of the poll at The Australian. It won't please those who think they'll be able to make a quid suing the rest of us for being racist:

It's a pity that conservative values, especially that of race-blindness, are not more widely held in the community. Perhaps they are but you wouldn't know it from listening to the media. Ironically, those that think these laws are necessary to rein in the racism of (mainly) white men don't understand that those white men inhabit the same political orbit as the race baiters.

My new favourite news site

2012-01-19T18:09:00.003+11:00

Thanks to the great Tim Blair I have now become aware of what must be the best news site on the planet.

Certainly, if you asked the North Koreans then they'd agree.

That's because it's the new English language version of North Korea's official paper, The Rodong Sinmun.

The articles are completely hilarious. My current favourite is an editorial Full Play to Advantage of Socialist Economic Management System.

The DPRK and its people are now greeting the 50th anniversary of the Taean Work System created by President Kim Il Sung.

The President created the Taean System, model of the socialist economic management, in the early 1960s when the socialist system was established and the overall technical modernization of the national economy was progressing in the DPRK.

This system is the advantageous Korean-style socialist economic management that embodies the Juche idea and the revolutionary mass line based on it.

It helps conduct all the business activities under the collective guidance of party committees and rouse the popular masses to the implementation of economic tasks by giving priority to political affairs. The system also makes it possible for the superior to help the lower in a responsible manner and to closely combine the science and technology with production and turn the economic lever into good account in order to ensure the production in a rational way.

It is the people-centered economic management system, whereby the popular masses manage and run the economy in a scientific and rational way as the true masters of its management, and the socialist economic management system that embodies the collective principle of "One for all and all for one!" This is essential character of the Taean Work System and herein lies the source of its inexhaustible might.

The past five decades after establishment of the system are a glorious and immortal history in which the socialist economy of the DPRK hewed out the original path of its development under the leadership of the great leader and the great party and the Korean people have wrought epoch-making miracles in the economic construction while overcoming all sorts of trials and challenges.

It is important to solve any problem arising in the economic activities in a Korean way suited to intrinsic nature of socialist society, with clear awareness that the victory of socialism is just victory of the revolutionary principle.

All the people should give full play to the advantage of the Juche-oriented socialist economic management system under the leadership of Kim Jong Il.

If anyone can tell me what that means then feel free to provide feedback!

My favourite bit is that "One for all and all for one!" is now a collective principle in North Korea. I'm sure that The Three Musketeers is banned there, as it might give people funny ideas about rising up against the oppressors, so the ruling party is probably pretty safe from being discovered.

The left's remarkable lack of knowledge of history

2012-01-17T19:10:00.001+11:00

I tell you something that constantly surprises me - the lack of knowledge of history of those on the left with whom I discuss political matters.

Take Martin Luther King Day as an example.

The left write articles and make speeches and send tweets containing one or other of MLK's profundities in an attempt to cloak themselves in moral rectitude. MLK was the leading figure in the Civil Rights movement and is quite rightly regarded as the man who brought to an end the last vestiges of racial discrimination in the United States.

What these people don't seem to be aware of is that the entire reason there had to be a civil rights movement in the first place was due to the racist policies of the Democrats! From Jim Crow to miscegenation laws to lack of voting rights these were all policies introduced and supported by the Democrats.

Since the time of Lincoln the Republican party has been at the forefront of the equality argument. It's ironic that to now argue that white and black are equal and that there should be no racial preferences for work or university placement is guaranteed to attract a charge of racism. MLK would certainly be shocked at the blatant racism of these policies.

But it's not just the civil rights movement that those who claim to be the defenders of equality are ignorant about.

The eugenics movement of the early twentieth century had as one of its primary objectives the restriction of having children of those who were less educated. It was an almost entirely race based policy.

The union movement is one of the worst racial offenders going. The minimum wage was introduced entirely to deal with the 'problem' of cheap, black labour which would threaten the jobs of a unionised, white workforce. As Thomas Hazlett points out in this terrific article, this policy led to apartheid in South Africa. The great Tom Sowell calls the minimum wage the most racist legislation ever to be introduced.

A lefty will learn more in the three minute discussion between Williams and Sowell than they will in a lifetime of watching the ABC or SBS or reading The Age or Canberra Times or in the USA the New York Times etc.

In fact, while I'm linking to Tom Sowell here's another short lesson for the world's ignorant left.

But it doesn't stop there. The original purpose of Planned Parenthood was to create an environment in which young, pregnant, black women would have abortions on the grounds that they were not able to look after the children.

And there's more! Gun control in the United States south was introduced (by Democrats) entirely because they didn't want newly freed slaves having firearms. They feared, probably correctly, that a number of them might want to exact some vengeance before settling down.

Somehow or other history has been turned completely upside down and it's the historically race-blind party - the Republicans - who are tarred with the racist slur while the historically racist party - the Democrats - have been given a free pass.

I guess that's what happens when the mainstream media and universities and others in the chattering class overwhelmingly inhabit the left side of the political spectrum.

Why fixing Europe's financial woes is so difficult

2012-01-15T10:36:00.002+11:00

John Mauldin is a well known economics commentator and forecaster. I recommend subscribing to his email newsletter "Thoughts from the Frontline", which you can do here.

In this week's newsletter he provides a concise description of what ails Europe and that the banking system's debt is a creation of government policy (allowing banks to buy sovereign debt at a 30:1 leverage ratio) and the inexorable effects of having to borrow more to pay back previous debt.

The root cause, of course, is paying for the increasingly large promises of the social welfare state. Not that today's left can understand that basic fact.

When the Labor government won power in Australia in 2007 it inherited probably the strongest economy on the planet, which included near zero government debt. In only a few years it has managed to grow that debt to $230 billion. The tragedy is not only that the country has nothing to show for all that spending but also that we are not able to learn from the disaster in Europe.

One of the interesting things about being in Hong Kong is that I get to see the weekend edition of the Financial Times 12 hours early. And the headlines were not all that pleasant. As I promised last week, we will cast our eyes to Europe and ponder what is in store for Europe for the year and the next five years. And what do we read on page 2? The "ECB raps revisions to draft a fiscal pact." Seems they feel there are too many loopholes, which will make the document meaningless … somewhat like the treaty they have now. And we further learn that "Greek default threat grows as talks falter." Seems there is a lack of agreement on how much of a haircut the investors ought to take, and the Greeks don't want to guarantee any future debt, just in case they need to default some more in the future. But they do want the €15 billion they need to keep the debt machine running for a few more months.

And on page 1, in big type, we are surprised (but not very) by the headline, "France and Austria face debt blow." Seems those sharp-eyed accountants over at S&P have decided to downgrade French debt from AAA. Which of course leads to another headline on page 2, suggesting "Firepower of bail-out fund cast into doubt." The currency markets were shocked – shocked I tell you – that S&P would do such a thing and promptly took back the euro rally and cast the euro down to recent cycle lows. Who knew, other than the entire free world not watching reality TV, that S&P was planning to do such a thing? And we read elsewhere that the European Commission is dismayed that S&P would do something so clearly not right, at least according to the way they keep their own books.
Even here in amazing Hong Kong, with the growth of China driving a wave of prosperity, eyes are fixed on Europe. How will they deal with the crisis? We read that US exports to Europe were down 7% last quarter, and Europe has not yet really entered into recession, which is almost guaranteed this year. And if US exports are down, then so are Asian and Latin American exports. Global growth appears to be threatened.

Solving the Mayan Code

There are so many pieces of data to go through in order to augur Europe's future – I want readers to know I have left no stone unturned! In fact, I went to some very old stones to get help with this week's letter. I began to scrutinize the Mayan Code from ancient Central America, which so many feel predicts the end of the world on December 21 of this year, bringing my fresh eyes to an old mystery.

After much deliberation, I have come to this astounding insight: The Mayan academics who created the code were not in fact astronomers or even astrologers. No, it is clear they were another breed of even more dubious forecasters, called economists. Once you approach the glyphs with that understanding, it becomes clear they are not predicting the end of the world, merely the end of Europe. One symbol clearly shows the Greek flag dipping to the ground. Another depicts the Italian flag with its wheels coming off. Oh, and you don't even want to know what they have prognosticated for the French. This is a family e-letter and I can't squeeze such language past the censors. But now that I have provided the basic insight, I leave it to you, fellow scholars, to decipher the rest of code.

And we will spend our time together here this week trying to discern what it means, in fact, for Europe to come to the place in its journey where it must make extremely difficult and often painful choices. As I wrote last week, as I started this voyage of discovery with you, the choices the various countries in the developed world are now making will put us on a path that does not allow us to turn back without severe consequences. (If you missed last week's letter, here it is.) We are left with debt that must be dealt with, with imbalances that must be balanced, and with deficits that must be brought under control. No matter what we choose, there will be pain for all of us. You cannot make debt go away without paying it back or defaulting, one way or the other, which means someone loses. And as we will see, paying it back can be very difficult, indeed, once it has grown this large.

To Solve the Crisis You Must Solve Three Problems

There are three main problems in Europe. The first is that most of the banks are massively insolvent, because they have 30 times their capital invested in the second problem, which is the sovereign debt of countries that are going to have trouble paying that debt. If the banks have to mark down the debt to what its real value is – or to what it will soon be – they will be bankrupt on a scale that makes 2008 look like a waltz in the park.

Countries simply cannot function in a manner that can be called normal without viable banking systems, which is why the authorities spend so much time worrying about them. If banks can't make loans, then businesses must cut back, which means fewer jobs, products, and services, which quickly becomes an ugly spiral. Losses in the private sector mount up. This obliges the treasury secretary to get on one knee and beg some elected official who has no understanding of how business and economics work to save the world as he knows it.

But if countries must step in and save their banks, then they have to assume some of the losses. (I am assuming that this time shareholders get completely wiped out, as do most bondholders. Taxpayers – read voters –are actually paying attention this time. They are in no mood to bail out bankers.) But most of the countries in Europe with the worst banks simply do not have the money to invest. They already have too much debt. Where do they get the capital? (More on that later.)

For most of the past two years, European leaders have tried to deal with the problems as though they were short-term liquidity problems: "If we just find the money to buy some more Greek bonds, then Greece can figure out how to solve its problems and then pay us back. Given enough time, the problem can get solved."
They have now arrived at the understanding that it this not a short-term problem. Rather, it's a solvency problem of the various governments, which of course creates a solvency problem for their banks. They are now addressing the problem of solvency and providing capital until such time as certain countries can get their budgets under control and the bond market sees fit to provide the capital they need.

But they are completely ignoring the third and largest problem, and that is massive trade imbalances. Germany exports products to the peripheral European countries, which run trade deficits. As I have shown in several letters, a country cannot reduce private-sector leverage, reduce public-sector leverage and deficits (balance its budget), and run a trade deficit all at the same time. That is simple, unavoidable math, based on 400 years of accounting understanding. Ultimately, there must be a trade surplus if leverage and debt are to be reduced.

Greece runs a trade deficit of about 10% of GDP. Until they can stop that bleeding, they cannot get their government and private budgets under control. It is not simply a matter of cutting budgets or raising taxes. Indeed, their economy will continue to shrink, making it more difficult buy foreign goods without increasing their own production of goods and services. It is a vicious spiral. And that same spiral will spin up to take in all of Europe. Again, more on that later, as we consider what their choices are.

But for now, let's start with my contention that if you do not solve all three problems you do not solve the real problem. Greece cannot "stand on its own" without a change in its cost of production relative to Northern Europe. Neither can Portugal, et al., unless Germany either changes how it exports and consumes more, or Germany is willing to fund Greek (and Portuguese and Italian and…) debt, so those countries can continue to run large deficits.
Let's resort to something I have done in the past, and that is to create a simple model to help us understand the issues involved. As always, when we make simple assumptions we are ignoring the real complexities. I know things are vastly more complicated than the following simple analogies, but the underlying truths are basically the same.

Getting Simple About Europe

Let's assume a country that has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $1,000. In the beginning it taxes its citizens about 25% of GDP and spends the money for the public's benefit. But alas, it spends about 30% of GDP, so it must borrow the overage (about $50) from its citizens or from the citizens of other countries. Because the country starts out with relatively little debt, interest rates on this loan are low, because those who buy the debt can easily see that the the country can pay them back. If the debt of the country is only 5% of GDP ($50) and the interest rate is 4%, then the amount that must be paid as interest is only about $2 per year. Not a whole lot, about 0.2% of GDP.

But this goes on year after year. Sometimes the deficits get smaller and sometimes they get larger, depending on the economy; but government expenditures grow at the same rate as the country grows, and the debt keeps growing at an average of 5% of GDP per year. Now, if the country is growing at 3% a year, after 24 years the economy will have doubled to $2,000 GDP.

That means the debt has grown (roughly) to a total of $1,800, which is now a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90%. Debt has grown faster than the country's economy. Note that if the country had held its budget down to where it grew slower than GDP, thus reducing its need for debt, that ratio would be lower, even if the debt had grown. You can indeed grow your way out of a debt problem if the growth of government spending is less than the growth of the economy.

But what if the size of government grows to about 50% of GDP, rather than 25% or 30%, over the 24 years, as politicians decide to spend more money and voters decide they want more benefits? (Think France.) Then the private sector must pay about 50% of its production to the state – plus, the debt is now growing unwieldly. The private sector has less to invest in new businesses and tools, and the growth of the economy slows.

And then along comes a very nasty recession. The revenues of the government fall as the economy shrinks. If the economy shrinks by 3% and total taxes are 50%, then tax revenue falls to $970. But the government does not cut back; and indeed, because it must pay unemployment benefits and welfare (because unemployment rises in a recession), its expenses actually rise by 5%! So it now needs $1,050 to pay all its budgeted expenses. And it must now borrow $80 to pay everyone it has promised to pay, in addition to the $100 it was already borrowing every year to cover its deficit, or a total of $180 a year, which is 9% of GDP. (Yes, I know that debt must change as a percentage over time and nothing is stagnant, but work with me here.)

Now debt-to-GDP is rising by about 5% a year. Not a large number in the grand scheme of things, and everyone knows that the recession will soon be over and the deficits will come down. Sovereign governments never default on their debts – our government leaders assure us of that. They can always raise taxes or cut spending, can't they?

And things rock along just fine, and the bond market continues to buy the debt, until one day you look up and the debt is 120% of GDP. Then the bond market gets nervous and says that instead of 4% it wants 7%. Now the interest payments are over 8% of GDP and 16% of government spending, which means the government must either cut back on services or salaries or benefits, or raise taxes, or borrow more money. But cutting spending and raising taxes have consequences. They reduce GDP growth over the following 4-5 quarters as the economy adjusts.

What if that interest rate cost rose to 10%? Then the interest cost to the government would become 20% of its expenses and be rising faster than the country could grow, even in the best of times. And if they continued to borrow at 7% and the country did not grow, those interest expenses would rise at least 7% a year – as long as interest rates didn't go up.

And what if the other countries who had been buying the government's debt looked at the basic math and realized that, another step or two down the current path of government spending, there was no way they would be able to get their money back?

How Much Risk Do You Want in a Government Bond?

Now, government bond investors are a curious breed. They invest in government bonds because they actually think there is not supposed to be any risk. They want their money to be safe. If they wanted risk, there are lots of opportunities to invest with the potential for more reward.

The moment that government bond investors begin to think they might be at risk, they leave. And history suggests they tend to leave seemingly all at once. It is the Bang! moment. Someone fires the starting gun, and they all head for the exits. They start selling their bonds to speculators at discounts, which makes the effective interest rates in the market rise, sometimes by a lot. That means that if a country wants to borrow more money, it will have to pay the effective price in the market, or maybe as much as 15-20% IF – a big IF – it can even get someone to buy the bonds, which of course makes it even more difficult to pay their debt as interest costs rise.

Now, let's add a twist. The other countries that have bought those bonds are not actually countries, but banks in other countries. And because the regulators of those banks knew it was impossible – inconceivable – that a sovereign country might default, they allowed their banks to buy 30 times as much sovereign debt as they had capital in their banks. They did not have to reserve against any losses, so these were "free" profits for the banks. You pay 2% on deposits or short term commercial paper and buy bonds paying at 4%. You make a 2% spread, which you then do 30 times. Now you are making 60% profits on your capital and deposits. It is a very nice business – as long as everyone pays the interest. And because it is such a good business, you just roll over the debt every time the bond comes due, because you want more easy profits.

Let's say that banks bought up to 10% of their total government sovereign-debt holdings in our problem country. If the country gets into trouble and says, we will only pay 50% of our debt (we will discuss why below), then that means the banks lose 5% of their total assets. But they only have about 3% capital, because they were allowed to leverage. That means they are functionally bankrupt.

Without a functioning banking system, other countries now have to step in and take the losses (and perhaps wipe out the shareholders and owners of their banks). That would be bad for the other countries, as that much spare cash is not just lying around in government coffers. They are ALL borrowing money already and have their own deficits to worry about.

So everyone gets together and they tell the bankrupt country (because that is what it really is), we will lend you more money to keep you alive, but you must agree to balance your budget. And since that is the only way the problem country can get more money, they initially say, "Sure. We can do that. Just give us some money now so we can get it figured out and get everything under control."
In the world of government, living within your means is called austerity. And it's an uphill slog. Let's say your deficit started out at 15% of GDP (somewhat like Greece's). If you agree to cut that deficit by 4% a year for four years running, if everything stays the same, you could be back in balance. But the other counties would have to agree to lend you the difference between what you budgeted to spend and what you took in as tax revenues. Just to keep things going. Otherwise you'd have to default on your debt. If the countries simply have to guarantee the loans and not actually spend the money, it is a lot easier than having to find real money to save their banks, so they agree.

But the cuts you have to make are not as easy as everyone hoped. It seems that employees don't like having their pay cut, and unions don't want pensions cut, and retirees certainly expect the government to fulfill its promises; and don't even get started on cutting healthcare, which is a God-given right.

So you raise taxes and cut spending by about 4% the first year. But a funny thing happens. That reduces the private economy by about 4%, so the base on which taxes are collected is reduced, which means less revenue is raised, which means that the deficit is much worse than projected. And then the following year you have to make another 4% in cuts, plus the last shortfall, just to make your plan and get to the agreed-upon deficit, in order to get more loan money. It becomes a very vicious circle.

And let's look at the endgame. That debt-to-GDP ratio will rise to at least 150%, while the economy is actually shrinking. If interest rates settle to a mere 7% (hardly likely), it means the people of the country are going to have to pay over 10% of their total production to foreign banks each and every year for decades, never mind paying down the principle.

Let's throw in one more twist. The country has been buying about 10% of GDP more from other countries than it sells to them. That is because the relative wages in the problem country are about 30% higher than in the "good" countries. The good countries get the money from what they sell and have a nice surplus. The problem country soon runs through its savings, trying to buy the goods and service it wants; and the private sector, as well as the government, must cut back.

What happens is that you are locking in what feels like a depression initially, and then you have a slow- or no-growth economy for many years, as so much of your work goes just to pay back that debt to the banks of other countries.

Understand, your government has freely obligated itself to pay that debt. But it means that its citizens in effect become debt slaves for a generation or two to foreign banks. Not a very popular platform for a politician to run on for re-election.

Long-time readers know I think the neo-Keynesians do not have a proper view of the world. They live in a theoretical world divorced from what really happens. But in this respect they are deadly right. Austerity on the scale needed by many countries will only reduce potential GDP. The Keynesian prescription is to therefore run deficits and borrow money until you get growth again; but when you have already exhausted your ability to borrow money, it just doesn't work.

More debt makes if far more difficult to grow your way out of the problem. If you are already drunk, you can't get sober by drinking more whiskey. If Greece cuts its deficit by 15% of GDP, the reality is that GDP over time will be reduced by about 20%, and the debt will grow, both in real terms and as a percentage of GDP. A 20% decline in GDP is by any standard a depression and makes it even harder to grow, as so much of what you do make has to go to basic expenses and not productive capital. And if you have the burden of massive debt it becomes damn near impossible.

That is why individuals can file for personal bankruptcy. We no longer force people into slavery or debtor's prison to pay their debts, at least in most places.

So our problem country goes to its lenders and says, "We think you should share our pain. We are only going to pay you back 50% of what we owe you, and you must let us pay a 4% interest rate and pay you over a longer period. We think we can do that. Oh, and give us some more money in the meantime. And if you refuse, we won't pay you anything and you will all have a banking crisis. Thanks for everything."

The difficult is that if our problem country A gets to cut its debt by 50%, what about problem countries B, C, and D? Do they get the same deal? Why would voters in one country expect any less, if you agree to such terms for the first country?

So now let's return to the real world of Europe. Greece cannot pay its debt without a major depression. So its wants to pay only 50%, but it doesn't even want to guarantee that in any meaningful way; so bondholders scream, "We get nothing in return for agreeing to take a 50% haircut?!" Which is today's headline.

Greece cannot print its own money, so unless it leaves the Eurozone, it's stuck. They can default on their debt, but that means they are shut out of the bond market for some period of time. That would force them to make the spending cuts they are now resisting, as they would simply not have enough money to pay their bills. Even with a 100% haircut they're looking at a shorter but very real depression. And because no one will sell them products they need, like energy and food and medicine, unless they can sell or trade something in return (that trade-deficit problem), they will be forced to change their lifestyles. Wages must drop or productivity rise to be competitive with northern Europe. And that differential is about 30%. I am not certain, as I have not been to Greece in a long time, but my bet is, you won't find many Greeks who think they are overpaid by 30%.

But that is what the market is going to say. And that is the third problem, which Europe is not addressing. Germany and the northern tier are simply more productive than the Southern periphery. (With the possible exception of Northern Italy, but Italy all gets lumped together, which is why many Northern Italians want to be their own country and not have to pay taxes that go to Southern Italy. I am not taking sides, just observing what we read in the papers.) Until Germany consumes more from the peripheral countries or the peripheral countries become more productive, the imbalance will not allow a positive solution.

Prior to the euro, the imbalances would be handled by currency exchange rates. The value of the drachma would go down relative to the value of the deutschmark. Things would balance over time. Now, all of the eurozone countries are effectively on a gold standard, with the euro standing in for gold this time. Britain, the US, and Japan print their own currencies. Their currencies can rise or fall over long periods of time, based on national accounts and the desires of foreigners to buy goods or invest in their countries.
Greece and the other peripheral countries face a difficult choice. Do we stay in the euro and pay as much as we can, and watch our economy drop; pay nothing and watch our economy drop (as we get shut out of the bond market); or leave the euro and go back to our own currency and watch our economy drop?

They have no choices that allow them to grow and prosper without first suffering (for perhaps a long time) some very real economic pain. As I have written in previous letters, leaving the eurozone has severe consequences; but the economic pain of leaving would go away sooner and allow for quicker adjustments, than if they stayed. However, the initial pain would be worse than the slow pain they'd suffer by staying in the euro. Their choice is, simply, which pain do they want – or maybe, which pain do they think they want? Because whatever they choose, they are not going to like it.

And just as I was finishing this section, this note came from Naked Capitalism:

"The three Troika inspectors—Poul Thomsen from the IMF, Mathias Morse from the EU, and Klaus Mazouch from the ECB—are supposed to head to Greece next week to inspect its books; the budget deficit is once again higher than the revised limit that Greece had vowed to abide by. And they're supposed to negotiate additional 'structural reforms.' But there probably won't be three inspectors, according to senior IMF sources. Missing: Poul Thomsen. The IMF has had enough.

"Already, according to more leaks, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde had warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fiscal and economic situation in Greece had deteriorated. Hence, the 'voluntary' haircut on Greek bonds held by private sector investors should be increased to more than 50% to maintain the goal of bringing Greece's debt load down to 120% of GDP. And the second €130 billion bailout package, agreed upon on October 26, should be enlarged by 'tens of billions of euros.'

"The German reaction was immediate. 'There has to be a line somewhere,' said Michael Fuchs, deputy leader of Merkel's party, the CDU. 'This cannot be a bottomless barrel.' Even if Merkel were amenable to committing more taxpayer money to bail out Greece, she'd face a wall of opposition in her own party. And he wasn't brimming with optimism: 'I don't think that Greece, in its current condition, can be saved,' he said."

The article goes on with a description of the chaos in Greece. It is worse than I have described. Really. And so terribly sad.

Butter Chicken delivered by Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'

2012-01-11T14:32:00.000+11:00

As I was munching through a delicious butter chicken the other day marveling at the different flavours, the wonderful aroma and the eye pleasing richness of its colour it occurred to me that if you were born and lived your life in a Marxist state then you would never know what this wonderful dish tasted like.

It's ironic that someone born in Cuba - and by 'someone' I mean your average Joe and not a high party official that travels the world - could live their whole life and never know of the existence, let alone the taste, of butter chicken but a cigar aficianado in Mumbai will most likely know the flavour of a Cuban cigar.

In any state in which the government tells the citizenry what they can and cannot do, and the Marxist kind is the purest example, there is simply no driver that could ever lead to such exotic additions to the culinary landscape. The 'need' in 'to each according to their need' does not include butter chicken. How could it?

During both World Wars, as well as the Depression, rationing and food shortages led to long lines outside the local butcher or grocer. In free economies these events are rare and the fact they happened has led to much historical analysis and commentary in order to be able to avoid them again.

But in countries in which the state controls all aspects of people's lives these queues are normative. During my time in the Soviet Union I used to marvel at the length of the lines for such basics as bread, milk and meat, even in well below zero temperatures. It left an indelible impression on me and is one of the reasons that I was anti the left early in my life. In free societies queues are normally the result of the release of a new Apple product or of tickets to see the world's hottest bands.

This insular thinking leads to a xenophobic result, whether planned or otherwise, in which anything from the outside - including people, their ideas and their culture - are shut out. If you're drawing up 5 or 10 year plans then one of those things that never seems to make the list is:

[101] b) iii) Allow immigration of 500,000 Indians so that we can not only take advantage of their ideas but also go to Indian restaurants to eat yummy butter chicken.

That's assuming that you could find any Indians who wanted to emigrate, as well as anyone who could afford to pay for a restaurant meal.

Thus, the net result of planned, Marxist states is a decaying and calcifying of life due to the inhibition of new ideas from outside, free thought and individual liberty.

Free trade, underpinned by Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', has made available to consumers all around the world a vast array of quality of life improving products and services that they could otherwise never have had access to, assuming they knew they existed.

One of them is butter chicken.

Yanis Varoufakis on the Euro-Greek Crisis

2012-01-10T13:05:00.000+11:00

Yanis Varoufakis has been in the media a fair bit recently given his academic status, clarity of thought and expression, and Greece's prominence in discussions of the financial crisis that has beset Europe.

In this interesting interview they cover the Greek situation, Euro politics and his three pronged solution to it all.

He discusses a topic that I've been meaning to cover in greater depth, which I'll do so in a future post, and that is the concept of national dignity - a different thing to terms you often hear such as national pride or nationalism.

Update: By the way, Yanis is a self described Marxist so it's a funny, old world when the crisis is so bad that Marxists and capitalists are lying in the same bed! I guess that in WW2 many partisan groups fighting with the Allies were also Communists and the need to fight against the common enemy brought them together.

Chinese infrastructure construction

2012-01-08T14:54:00.000+11:00

Critics of the West tend to point to China's ability to build roads, airports, buildings, fast trains and whatnot at a much faster rate than can Australia, the USA, Canada and Europe etc. They're even planning to send a manned mission to the moon.

Watch this terrific video showing what is possible these days.

How are they able to achieve such a great outcome? Here are a few reasons:

They have no shortage of funds to not only build the building but also create the company in the first place;
They have the will of the government to support such expansion;
They have the manpower available to build what they need; and
Critically, they do not have environmental regulations and anti-development green groups to tie up their plans for years.

So what does that tell you about China?

Consider these facts:

Using 1920s/30s technology the 102 floor Empire State Building took just 410 days to build;
In 1933 construction started on the Golden Gate Bridge and was completed just 4 years later;
In 1859 the British started work on the 450 miles of main sewers connecting over 13,000 miles of smaller sewers that would become the London sewerage system, completed in 1865; and
In 1969 the United States landed a man on the moon.

Again, what does that tell you about China?

Well, that they're a number of decades behind the West, for starters, and are racing to catch up, which they're able to do (as are other fast-developing nations such as Brazil and India) by leveraging existing technologies created over the last 100 years in the West.

Combined with the number of empty cities they've built it also tells you that they're going to have a terrific contraction at some point, which will really hurt us out here in Australia given that our government has pissed away the strength of our economy and undermined, through poor industrial relations law, any chance we'll have for a quick recovery.

But the video is impressive nonetheless and really serves as a reminder of what was possible before government regulations and green groups got in the way.

Obama's decision to cut the size of the US military

2012-01-06T14:36:00.003+11:00

In a massive surprise to absolutely nobody, President Obama has announced that he intends to cut the size of the US military by around half a million troops.

Obama is clearly pandering to his loopy left supporter base, as well as that group of people who have forgotten where their freedom came from and simply take it for granted ("it's a human right, don't you know?"). These people think that the defence money can be better used on social programs.

The mighty American military machine that has for so long secured the country's status as the world's only superpower will have to be drastically reduced, Barack Obama warned yesterday as he set out a radical but more modest new set of priorities for the Pentagon over the next decade.
After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that defined the first decade of the 21st century, Mr Obama's blueprint for the military's future acknowledged that America will no longer have the resources to conduct two such major operations simultaneously.

Instead, the US military will lose up to half a million troops and will focus on countering terrorism and meeting the new challenges of an emergent Asia dominated by China. America, the President said, was "turning the page on a decade of war" and now faced "a moment of transition". The country's armed forces would in future be leaner but, Mr Obama pointedly warned both friends and foes, sufficient to preserve US military superiority over any rival – "agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats".

No doubt that conservatives will be having conniptions about such a plan.

I have commented before that the European social welfare states are a Potemkin village, as they rely on the United States to defend them, as well as cheap medical solutions invented in the US, which has allowed money to be spent on welfare programs instead. It's amazing that even given those two huge head starts the Europeans could spend themselves into penury in such a massive way.

It was only a matter of time before Americans got sick of paying for Europe's security while also getting it in the neck. It is somewhat galling for Americans to foot the bill for Europeans' security and standard of living and then be voted the most dangerous nation in the world by the European citizenry.

The Europeans must have known such a reduction was possible and the US has struck right when everyone is holding their breath about Europe's economic future. The UK, at least, understands what it means:

The wider significance of America's landmark strategic change was underlined by British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, who used a visit to Washington to warn that America must not delay the production of US warplanes bound for British aircraft carriers. The US strategy is expected to make a drawdown of some of the 80,000 troops based in Europe.

"We have to look at the relationship with Americans in a slightly different light," Mr Hammond told Channel 4 News. "Europeans have to respond to this change in American focus, not with a fit of pique but by pragmatic engagement, recognising that we have to work with Americans to get better value for money."

Here's my take. It will be another promise like the one to close Gitmo and bring troops home early etc that the left will fall for hook, line and sinker but will never be implemented even if he wins a second term (which I think is more likely than not).

But it should give Europeans something to think about in the future.

Ron Paul. Loser.

2012-01-04T18:11:00.000+11:00

With the result of the Iowa caucus to be decided narrowly in favour of either Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney it's clear that the biggest loser in the field was the one whose hopes were pinned most firmly on victory - Ron Paul.

Make no mistake about it, this is a devastating loss. Paul was all-in in Iowa having a massive ground game, coupled with lax rules for participation and the most fervent activists on the right side of the political spectrum, and got his butt handed to him with his not even close third place finish.

This should come as no surprise. At the end of the day Ron Paul is a loser and is a prime example of the notion that when you're a one trick pony you can't attract anything approaching a majority of the vote.

The problems with Paul as a presidential candidate are many.

While he attracts most of his support for his position on the economy and government spending, quite rightly pointing out that the spending is unsustainable, he has failed miserably over a long period to garner support within Congress even from his Republican colleagues. And it's that last point that really highlights his failure. How could he possibly be a president that gets things done?

His isolationism is problematic. The position that America should withdraw its forces from the world and close most of its bases is no different to that held by such notable lunatics as Noam Chomsky. This is not the position of a serious person. I have written before that the United States has a moral obligation to use its unique power to make the world a safer place and Paul's insensitivity to the suffering of a large part of humanity does not speak well about the orientation of his moral compass.

Over the years Ron Paul's responses to the rank racism and homophobia published in his name have the same ring of authenticity about them as did Bill Clinton's original statements regarding Monica Lewinsky. I don't believe him and neither do the majority of the American public.

It is also odd that someone that takes themselves remotely seriously could make such wishy washy statements when responding to the 9/11 Truther nutjobs. I wonder whether he's read the 9/11 Commission Report (which I commend to all, as it's a great read) or checked out the Popular Mechanics destruction of 9/11 conspiracy theories? Obviously not.

Unfortunately, I doubt his setback in Iowa will lead to a withdrawal from the race any time soon, though there is some suggestion that he doesn't want to get the mainstream Republican base too far offside, as that will hurt his son Rand's chances in the future.

Explaining the European Debt Crisis

2012-01-03T21:24:00.002+11:00

I encourage everybody to watch the following video, which provides an easy to understand overview of Europe's debt woes, how they got there and what their options are.

It really does show that the social democratic state eventually falls to bits under the increasing financial burden of the promises that the left has to make to various constituencies in order to gain power, which leads to the gigantic Ponzi scheme they've got going at present.

2011 highlights and lowlights

2012-01-02T20:04:00.005+11:00

With 2011 now behind us what were the highlights and lowlights that historians will write about?

It's a big field to choose from but I'll take a bit of a crack...

Highlights

The deaths of Kim Jong Il, Colonel Gaddafi-Quddafi-Kaddafi and, of course, Osama-Usama bin Laden. It's a shame that we couldn't see off the Brothers Castro and Robert Mugabe, as well, but at least we have that to look forward to in the next year or so.

Kim Jong Il has been replaced by his son, surely the fattest North Korean in fifty years, who will no doubt continue to build the socialist utopian dream. I wonder whether inner city, latte drinking, Chardonnay sipping, Gaia-loving greenies recognize that the implementation of all of their policies would pretty much lead to a North Korean state?

Colonel Gaddafi-Quddafi-Kaddafi was caught hiding in a drain and executed on the spot by some overenthusiastic supporter of freedom and democracy. Note the use of sarcasm at the end of that last sentence. The mad Colonel's last thoughts must have been how he could have been so stupid as to voluntarily reveal his WMD program and give up its development in return for a lifting of international sanctions. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and they asked who Gaddafi was, which you have to admit is a bit surprising, especially when the someone is in their thirties. I replied that he was the dictator of Libya for 42 years but that they took him out and shot him. The question then came, what for? For taking people out for 42 years and shooting them, I replied. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I hope the family and friends of those he murdered aboard Pan Am 103 can be somewhat more at peace now.

I wrote about the death of bin Laden when it happened, describing him as a truly evil bastard and that the wind would be knocked out of the violent extremists' sails. That has pretty much happened and while it will still take a generation for the true believers to get too old/die out, as it has with ETA, for example, the Islamist terrorist threat is now pretty well contained. That it means we have to take off our shoes when going through airport security or have our genitals groped when visiting the US is bin Laden's real legacy.

It's too early to say whether the Arab Spring will turn out to be an Arab Winter. It's more likely that in a few years' time things will pretty much be the same as they were before the uprisings but with different faces adorning placards in the town square so I'm not calling that as a highlight.

In cool things that happened, the world's first artificial organ transplant was done, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.

Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for various acts of conspicuously lunatic bravery in Afghanistan.

The Qantas dispute was an undoubted highlight. In what must be the left wing cage fight of the century, unions representing a large number of Qantas workers were left red faced and blustering when the company's gay, progressive left wing CEO, Alan Joyce, called their bluff and grounded the airline stranding hundreds of passengers getting ready to board their aircraft and inconveniencing thousands more who had to put off holiday trips. Hopefully, Qantas can maintain its independence from union control when the case is arbitrated before Fair Work Australia.

Lowlights

The loss of Christopher Hitchens. No death of a public figure has hit me as hard as did that of this man whose greatness came from his ability to defend Western civilization from its enemies, both within and without, and call out evildoers regardless of their political affiliation. He was a Marxist from an early age and we never knew, as he somewhat wisely avoided discussing the matter, whether he had given up on that odious ideology or was one of these people who would defend Marxism because it 'has never been done properly'. He was also a famous atheist who wrote God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, the title of which somewhat gave away the contents hidden therein. I reckon that in a contest between Religion and Leftism the latter would be by far and away the more potent and destructive poison. He had a way with words that will forever elude the 99.9% of us who hack things out on a daily basis. But it wasn't just his choice of words or defence of free speech and free thought and free living that was the attraction - he was a self described bon vivant, after all - it was that he was, simply put, fascinating. I reckon he could talk about second century Mongolian yurts for hours and keep his audience enthralled and amused as he sat at the front of the theatre unashamedly smoking and sipping from a tumbler of ubiquitous Johnny Walker Black Label. Vale, Christopher Hitchens.

There are other people whose loss we can mourn. Vaclev Havel was a great man at an important time of world affairs as Communism finally fell apart under its own ideological momentum, but he made 75 and his time was past so we remember and thank him for his deeds. Dick Winters, the great wartime officer whose heroic deeds and quiet manner were so brilliantly portrayed in the terrific mini series, Band Of Brothers, passed away at the ripe, old age of 92. In the same category of quiet bravery we also put Nancy Wake whose ability to elude German capture led to her being called the White Mouse. On the shoulders of such great people better societies are built. Steve Jobs also succumbed to illness. His legacy will be getting designers to better understand the human-machine interface providing access to computing and the Internet to many people who were previously unable to cope with it all - and I'm talking about the elderly, mainly, as well as the very young who can do with an iPad at age 3 or 4 what they would normally have to wait another 5-6 years to do on a standard PC.

The Japanese Tsunami. That 20,000 deaths and many more maimed and inured could be so quickly forgotten in the media's rush to scare the world about the non-existent nuclear threat at Fukushima or to blame it all on man made global warming highlights both the intellectual ineptitude of today's media as well as its abrogation of anything remotely resembling moral thinking.

Anders Breivik's massacre of 76 people in Norway. It wasn't just that he calmly boarded a train after setting off the bomb in his first attack and then travelled to where he would continue his killing spree but that he seemed so happy about it all and completely unrepentant. In many ways he was very similar to our own psycho, mass killer Martin Bryant. Naturally, the media pounced on a few paragraphs in his 1000 page 'manifesto' to decry him as a right wing, Christian extremist. That he also included many left wing statements in his manifesto and was never a churchgoer seemed to be missed in the media's race to apportion blame to its ideological opponents.

The Australian government probably had its worst year ever. Bowing to its extremist green coalition partner the Labor Party introduced a super profits tax on mining (the only sector of the economy holding the country up), a carbon tax (to attack the rest of the economy) in spite of a solemn promise not to do so, and new workplace legislation (in case it missed any big business with the previous two). These three things are already severely weakening business confidence and their impact will be felt for a generation, as that's how long it will take to pay back the financial mess we've been put in. What happens if China goes through a downturn is anybody's guess but it won't be pretty. I don't mind having an ideological fight over what the government should spend people's taxes on but I do get cranky that our current crop of political leaders have learned nothing from the social democratic spendathon that has wrecked Europe.

There are other things that could make the list - the Queensland floods and Western Australian fires, the ongoing nitwittery of spending somewhere between $40 and $100 billion on a broadband network, the political to and fro over illegal boat arrivals while hundreds of people continue to perish as a result of Labor's weakening of our immigration laws, and the replacement of a good and decent Speaker of the House, Harry Jenkins, with an immoral, drunken boob in Peter Slipper.

Apparently, we're all doomed anyway. According to Mayan prophesy the world is due to end in December 2012. Does anyone else see the irony of the Mayan's supposed ability to forecast the end of the world this year but inability to forecast their own demise a thousand years earlier?

Predictions for 2012

2012-01-01T23:58:00.001+11:00

With Europe on the brink of financial collapse, the USA spending itself into perdition, China's manufacturing contracting and the rest of the emerging economies in various stages of expansion and contracting what can we look forward to in 2012?

Here are my predictions for 2012. Some are big, bold and brave and some are a bit obvious. We'll see how I go in a year's time.

Europe

The pressure on the banking system is now so great that it's hard to see how they can get through 2012 without some sort of financial ruction. The ECB has recently introduced a scheme in which it will lend money at around 2% to banks that are having trouble raising capital. At the same time as it has made 200 billion Euro available European banks have actually deposited 250 billion Euro with the ECB at a 0.5% rate. What does that tell you? That interbank lending is completely broken and they'd rather get near zero interest rates from the ECB than much higher rates by lending to other banks, which they don't trust. Part of the problem is that banks are not forced to mark assets to market so their balance sheets are completely false. If forced to mark to market a large number of banks would be insolvent.

Prediction 1: A number of large, well known European banks will go belly up in 2012. Their governments will engineer mergers with other banks in the same way that Lehman Bros was.

The infamous PIIGS are in even worse shape now than they were a year ago so the outlook for them is somewhat grim. Whether the technocrats that have been installed in Italy and Greece by the Euro elites can undo the rot remains to be seen. What is clear, though, is that there is a major attempt by European politicians to avoid the situation in which any country leaves, or can leave, the EU. Greece's problems are simply a matter of social and political corruption. People have come to expect an easy ride paid for by the government lavishing wages and entitlements on them that they have not earned. For its part the government has simply borrowed and borrowed - especially once it joined the EU and could borrow at the same rate as Germany - and paid off its constituents and cronies. There are no innocent parties in Greece in that regard. Spain is simply suffering from the excesses of democratic socialism taken to their logical conclusion. Government borrowing in order to pay for a plethora of social programs has really killed their economy. Youth unemployment is something like 50% and their housing market crash makes what happened in the US look like a walk in the park. Italy, on the other hand, can get its house back in order with some reasonably simple financial discipline. I was listening to John Mauldin a few weeks back and he highlighted that in France there are around 35,000 drivers (chauffeurs) for public officials in a population of 65 million. With a few million less people that number in Italy is 160,000 and that if they simply got rid of 75% of them then it would take care of 25% of their deficit. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Prediction 2: No country will leave the EU in 2012.

USA

Given that it's an election year Mr Obama will pull out all stops to get re-elected including doing things that will boost his standing in the short term but hurt the United States subsequently. The Republican field of presidential contenders is probably up to the normal standard of years gone by but because we live in such difficult times people are looking for a strong Reagan-like figure and there simply isn't one there. It's odds on that Mitt Romney will take the nomination and enter what will be one of the most contentious, negative election races in US history.

The US Fed will respond to any quantitative easing by rolling out another round themselves in order to maintain an exchange rate of around 1.3 to the Euro. QE3 could happen in 2012 but it's not a prediction.

Prediction 3: In one of the closest races in US history Mr Obama will be elected to a second term.

The validity of the election result will be questionable given the Democrats' penchant for voter fraud and there may be grounds for appeal in certain electorates.

Prediction 4: Republicans won't have learned to correct the type of fraud that saw Al Franken steal his seat in Minnesota and we'll see repeats in 2012.

Prediction 5: The stock market will end 2012 up 20% so the Dow at around 14,500.

China

Chinese manufacturing is in a contraction at present due to demand for their products from Europe and the USA falling. Inflation, which has been a problem (and was exported to China from the US), is now coming under control so the government will need to look at ways of keeping their export machine going.

Prediction 6: The Chinese will re-peg the Yuan to the US dollar. This will increase their export competitiveness but will force the US to consider countermeasures in the form of quantitative easing and that will lead to an inflation problem again down the track.

Australia

Australia will continue to look like it's doing well while at the same time the foundational strength of our economy is stripped away by the most incompetent government in our history. Fair Work legislation will really bite in 2012, industrial disputes will hit a 10 year high, business investment will slow in the 2nd half due to the dual impacts of the insane Carbon Tax and Mining Tax, and the government debt will top $250B (a staggering number when you consider it was zero in 2007 and is due nearly 100% to ill-disciplined spending). The Reserve Bank will be forced to reduce interest rates in order to keep our dollar from appreciating too much against those other countries that are in the process of money printing. In an environment of rising inflation that could spell trouble for the Australian economy in 2013. All of which makes the next prediction pretty simple.

Prediction 7: The next election will be called early, probably in the last quarter of the year.

Other Comments

With many governments increasingly unable to fund themselves they will turn to the only source of funds left that they can access - pension funds. This will be a disaster, of course, but I expect that governments will force pension funds to invest a percentage of their assets - say 25% - in government bonds. If this happens then make sure you have many, many assets to fund your retirement, as you won't be able to rely on your pension maintaining its purchasing power.

Precious metals will continue their volatility in 2012. Gold is heading up and now is a good time to be buying. The current drop in prices is a result of raising cash to meet margin calls and, while there might be some slight downside still to go, I expect gold to top $2000 by year's end. Silver is a bit more problematic but I think that there's at least 10% in it and maybe more so I'll call $35 and see how I go.

Hope everyone has a terrific 2012. Remember to focus on your health and happiness first, as without that you're nothing!

Update: Prediction 8: Nothing will change in Syria. Assad will not be forced out now or anytime soon.

Update 2: Prediction 9: There's a fair chance that if any other regime is going to fall in the Middle East this year then it'll be Iran.

On the death of a truly evil bastard

2011-05-03T11:11:00.002+10:00

For anyone that has an even remotely well developed sense of right and wrong Osama Bin Laden was a truly evil bastard.

For those in the Middle East for whom attacking the 'strong horse' (in the current world that's the US) brings a sense of pride and purpose OBL was an inspiration and hero.

For those that are into cultural relativism and blame America for all of the world's ills OBL was something of an anti-hero; someone that they knew really wasn't a good guy but they cheered for anyway, partly because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Well, he's dead now and good riddance to bad rubbish.

A few comments and predictions on the whole thing.

1. President Obama deserves praise for not only making a tough decision but also choosing not to use a missile a few months ago when it was determined that OBL was in the compound. Mr Obama knew that people would need to have proof that he had been killed so he took a risk and waited until the SEAL team was trained and ready to go. A gutsy call. In his speech to announce the death he also made a point that America was not at war with Islam and that OBL was not a Muslim leader, he was a murderer of Muslims. It's a good line. He also paid credit to the efforts of George W Bush, which was classy.

2. While there may be a few retaliatory incidents by Al Qaeda inspired terrorist groups OBL's death marks the beginning of the end of Islamist terror. I am reasonably confident about this prediction but make the exception of those atrocities carried out by Hamas/Hezbollah, which existed prior to Al Qaeda and have their own goals. In spite of so called Islamic leaders telling us that OBL did not represent the true Islam he was a hero to the majority of the Islamic world, especially the Arabs, and inspiration to those that shared his belief that Islam could once again be the world's dominant religion with Christianity and Judaism subservient to it. There is nobody who can replace his aura and authority. Ayman al-Zawahiri is clearly an excellent strategist and organiser but does not inspire his followers in anywhere near the same way as OBL did. His death is a body blow to organised terror.

3. Peace will come to the Arab world, excluding Israel/Palestine, sooner rather than later. Another big call. Bush's strategy of taking out Saddam Hussein and bringing democracy to the Arab world is, after a fashion, starting to come together. Have you noticed all of the crowds in the Arab streets cheering at the death of OBL, the man who supposedly distorted Islam and gave all of those 'moderate' Muslims a bad name? No, me neither. That's because there is great disappointment throughout the Arab world at the demise of their idol and, being Arabs, they will go back into their shells. I think that those countries that are currently experiencing uprisings will sort themselves out and, to be somewhat heretical here, even if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over in Egypt and elsewhere (they're the ones behind the trouble in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, as well as being the progenitor of Hamas and Al Qaeda) they will be forced to modernise quite quickly in order to meet the needs of the people. Otherwise, they'll have an uprising of their own to deal with.

4. Bring on the Wikileaks release of information on the hunt for Bin Laden. I am 100% sure that it will vindicate the position of the conservative side of the argument - and prove the wisdom of Bush's incursion into Iraq - as it has been the case in nearly every leak so far, which is a point that is being quietly ignored by the anti-Bush, anti-West, anti-decency left.

5. We now know that Osama was killed in a compound only a short distance from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where he'd been living for quite some time apparently unbeknown to the citizens of Abbottabad. It does seem remarkably unlikely that he could have moved around in Pakistan let alone live in such circumstances without the help of sponsors and supporters in the Pakistan government, military and intelligence service. It also seems unlikely that Pakistan was given advance notice of the raid, as that would surely have allowed OBL to receive the information and escape. People are (rightly) asking questions about the support of OBL by the Pakistani authorities. In my view it would be much better if the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, had provided the information to the US or that he had been 'given up' by the military or politicians because it would be a signal that there has been a change of attitude in the country for the support of Islamic fundamentalism. I think it's 50-50 that Pakistan helped/did not help the operation.

6. What has happened to the moral compass of those who are complaining about the cheering of the death of Osama Bin Laden? Andrew Bolt has a few examples from the ABC that are truly shocking. After 9/11, George W Bush said that it didn't matter where OBL was and how long it took he was going to be hunted down and have justice served. Thus began a task to bring vengeance to those who had attacked the country and killed 2973 innocent people, as well as injuring thousands more. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour killing 2402 people and waking a sleeping giant hell bent on revenge. Correcting such injustice will always carry a euphoric aftermath when the object of the vengeance has been dealt with. On VJ Day millions of Americans (and Australians and Kiwis etc) celebrated mightily. Justice was done. There's no difference between that and celebrating the death of OBL.

7. I know it will be glossed over/ignored by the anti-Israel lobby but it really does show who they're supporting when Hamas calls the killing of Bin Laden an 'atrocity'. Hamas has a slogan "We love death more than you love life". Apparently, when it's the death of one of their own they're not so much in love with it, are they? I can translate that slogan into one that everyone can understand, "We love killing more than you love life".

8. Israel and Palestine. The recent announcement that Hamas and Fatah were working together in order to have Palestine recognised as its own state, coupled with the decision by Egypt to open the border between Gaza and the Sinai, should send shivers down the spines of anyone who can think straight and understand what's going on. At present the United Nations recognises that Israel occupies Palestinian 'territories'. That those territories were fairly won as the spoils of a war started by the Arabs doesn't seem to enter into the calculation and provides further proof, if needed, that the UN is run by despots. If Palestine is recognised as a sovereign state in its own right then all of a sudden Israel is occupying another country and the equation changes massively, especially if the UN recognises Palestine being at the 1967 borders. Egypt has decided to open the border in order to gain leverage with the world's powers, as it will allow Hamas to import a massive amount of armaments and increase the trouble for Israel. At some point Israel is going to need to wipe out Hamas completely. They'll be forced to.

I'm still cheering my arse off at the death of a truly evil bastard. Hopefully, we can get a few more soon, including Gaddafi. It's a pity he managed to escape the other day. Would have made it a real good week.

(Nothing Follows)

There I was minding my own business when Big Green tried to give me cancer

2011-04-27T08:14:00.001+10:00

They say that those things that don't kill you make you stronger.

So what do we do with those things that may kill you?

The list of potentially fatal items has increased by one lately with a report from German scientists that energy saving light bulbs - CFLs - could cause cancer.

Fears have been reignited about the safety of energy saving light bulbs after a group of scientists warned that they contain cancer causing chemicals.

Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.

Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin's Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”

The bulbs are already widely used in the UK following EU direction to phase out traditional incandescent lighting by the end of this year.

But the German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene.

Andreas Kirchner, of the Federation of German Engineers, said: “Electrical smog develops around these lamps.

“I, therefore, use them only very economically. They should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”

British experts insisted that more research was needed and urged consumers not to panic.

Dr Michelle Bloor, senior lecturer in Environmental Science at Portsmouth University, told the Daily Express: “Further independent studies would need to be undertaken to back up the presented German research.”

The Department for the Environment insists the bulbs are safe, despite the fact that they contain small amounts of mercury which would leak out if the glass was broken.
Advice on its website states: “Energy efficient light bulbs are not a danger to the public.

“Although they contain mercury, limited at 5mg per lamp, it cannot escape from a lamp that is intact.

“In any case, the very small amount contained in an energy efficient bulb is unlikely to cause harm even if the lamp should be broken.”

The latest report follows claims by Abraham Haim, a professor of biology at Haifa University in Israel, that the bulbs could result in higher breast cancer rates if used late at night.

He said that the bluer light that CFLs emitted closely mimicked daylight, disrupting the body's production of the hormone melatonin more than older-style filament bulbs, which cast a yellower light.

The Migraine Action Association has warned that they could trigger migraines and skin care specialists have claimed that their intense light could exacerbate a range of existing skin problems.

The list of organisations warning about the dangers and other problems of these things seems quite large. Why is their voice not heard by policy makers?

What does “Further independent studies would need to be undertaken to back up the presented German research” actually mean?

Whenever you read the term "independent research" you can be sure it's a euphemism for "scientists on the public payroll who agree with this policy".

Why is it that everything green turns to crap and costs a heap of money?

If I thought that greenies meant well then I'd have less of a problem with them but, unfortunately, they seem to be made up of people who get their kicks by telling others how they should live their lives.

It now seems that not only are they going to annoy me by making me have to buy these crappy, dim lights but that they could give me cancer, as well.

(Nothing Follows)

10 Institutions That Ruin The World - Redux

2011-04-12T21:54:00.000+10:00

I came up with this list of 10 Institutions That Ruin The World nearly three years ago.

It's interesting to read them again and realise just how accurate they are.

If I did the list again with the knowledge gained in the last couple of years then perhaps government would move up a couple of spots given its culpability for the so-called global financial crisis.

It's also worth noting how good a pick the Intelligent Design movement was given legislation like what the asshats in Tennessee have introduced into the State House:

This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming.

What a freaking disaster. Equating the baloney of theories other that evolution with the unscientific nonsense that passes as climate science is a mistake of epic proportions, especially given that Climate Astrology is more religion than science to its adherents.

And here's one that will annoy the Climate Taliban - just as Islam is a political doctrine wrapped up in a religious message, climate change is a political doctrine wrapped up in a scientific message.

The complete Jack Lacton list of 10 Institutions That Ruin The World:

#1 - The United Nations
#2 - The European Union
#3 - Expansionist Islam
#4 - The Environmental Movement
#5 - The Mainstream Media
#6 - Education Institutions and Education Unions
#7 - Government
#8 - The Social Justice Movement
#9 - The Peace Movement
#10 - The Intelligent Design Movement, Discovery Institute

Making some changes...

2011-04-01T14:43:00.003+11:00

As regular readers can tell, I'm making some changes to the blog including the layout and new url.

http://ker-plunk.blogspot.com will still work but the main address has changed to www.jacklacton.com

(Nothing Follows)

Earth Hour flops again

2011-03-31T18:12:00.022+11:00

In typical fashion Big Environment is yet again ignoring the utter failure of Earth Hour by heralding the puny participation rate as a huge success.

I was privileged enough to receive an email from Earth Hour Australia with all of the details (I think one of my asshat lefty mates signed me up to wwf.org.au as a bit of a lark coz I never did).

Here's the first paragraph, along with some analysis:
Wow, what a night!
It sure was! I invited a few mates around, had all of the lights on, turned on the BBQ (well, we did have an assortment of bits from farmyard animals to cook), all of the hot plates, the oven (admittedly, it was also used for cooking roast veggies) and the microwave (also admittedly, one of my mates suggested we heat up cups of water for no good reason other than we could; the man's a veritable genius).
We hope that you enjoyed being part of the biggest Earth Hour ever.
It was that good I'm still recovering.
Earth Hour continues to be embraced by the global community, transcending race, culture and age.
Breathing and eating are also embraced by the global community and, funnily enough, also transcend race, culture and age.
A record 134 countries and territories on all 7 continents registered, with a whole host of countries officially joining for the first time (including Lebanon, Jamaica, Iran, Uganda, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Chad, Azerbaijan, Gibraltar, Palestine, Suriname, Uzbekistan, Trinidad & Tobago and Lesotho).
OK, I'll play your silly game. Which country in Antarctica registered for Earth Hour? And what are the 62 countries that didn't participate? That's actually quite a few when you think about how easy it is to be involved in this pointless piece of environmental onanism.
Across Australia, over 300 schools, 152 councils, almost 2000 businesses, and 220 government departments across Australia officially signed up to take part, as well as thousands of individual Australians.
Wow! That's amazing! What terrific penetration into society! Let's run a few numbers, shall we?

There are, according to the ABS, 9468 schools in Australia so Earth Hour organisers did a sterling job to sign up a whopping 300. That's 3% or, in IPCC terms, a consensus.

There are around 700 councils so 152 represents a mind blowing 22%. Given that councils are mostly run be leftist nitwits and are a haven for Green activists and the Climate Taliban I'm going to suggest that getting only 22% is actually a crap effort.

How many businesses are there in Australia? A heap. Over 2 million. To get a piddling 2000 of them to come on board, a microscopic 0.1%, doesn't seem too spectacular to me. But hang on, you say, aren't most of those small businesses and sole contractors? By jingo, you're right, 80% of them are in that category so it's really 2000 (assuming none are small businesses) out of 400,000 or 0.5%. Thanks for pointing that out!

I've got no idea how many government departments there are in Australia. Thousands, probably. But that's a bit irrelevant because organisers could pick up 100 simply by having the federal government on board, which in these days of Carbon Tax wars is a dead certainty so no points for the Earth Hour people from that, either.

As I said, I complete joke. Tim Blair linked to a report that over 10 million Australians had participated. He correctly described it as a lie.
What a fantastic display of care and commitment to this planet we call home. Thank you for being part of it.
Hey, pal, let me tell you something. I care more for the environment than your entire cohort of envirofascists combined.

The command and control policies you support led to the greatest environmental destruction the world has ever seen. And, embarrassingly for your side, it took free market capitalism to clean it up. Not that you'd ever even admit to that even if you could understand how it did (and continues to do so to this very day).

But thanks for the comedy. Keep it coming.

(Nothing Follows)

Things I don't understand

2011-03-31T09:00:00.000+11:00

OK, how does this happen?

Shane Warne & Liz Hurley??!!

Or this?

Sean Penn & Scarlet Johannson??!!

But THIS is something I do understand.

George Clooney & Elisabetta Canalis...

What happened to his hand?

By the way, this is a photo of a young George Clooney...

...proving that for those of you that have kids who look like they were beaten with an ugly stick...there's hope for them yet.

(Nothing Follows)

Japan's nuclear non-story

2011-03-30T12:01:00.009+11:00

On 11 March a once in a lifetime magnitude 9.1 earthquake sent a wall of water hurtling towards Japan that would destroys hundreds of thousands of homes and take tens of thousands of lives.

By any definition, it's a calamity.

What has also been a calamity has been the reporting. From the time it was announced that the nuclear power plant at Fukushima had been damaged the focus of the media turned from the massive human tragedy to overblown hysteria about the possibility of a nuclear meltdown and radiation throughout the world.

Even the normally reliable The Australian newspaper has fallen for the anti-nuclear agitprop:

People are in dire need and yet this is the sort of drivel we get.

To be clear: there is zero, zip, zilch, nada, nil, none, no problem for anyone living anywhere in the world outside of the perimeter of the compound itself. None.

I happened to have dinner with a scientist who is expert on these matters and helps oversee nuclear safety in Australia a week or so after the tsunami in Japan and he was even more apoplectic than I was (which I didn't think was possible) about the media's reporting.

Even my old mum asked me about what was going to happen when I was driving her home one day. She was genuinely surprised that I said it was all hooey and no problem for anyone other than the plant operators and, politically, the government.

Such is the media hype and scaremongering that even the most senior Japanese politicians have to be seen to be on top of the nuclear plant issue and 'doing something' to protect the citizens. To 'do nothing', even though nothing needs to be done, is to commit political harakiri.

The tragedy is twofold.

Firstly, the Japanese government's attention is taken away, even for a short time, from the real task at hand and that is helping the people affected by the tsunami.

Secondly, those people who need help most from all over the world are not getting it due to the blanket media coverage of the nuclear non-event.

I agree with those who reckon that Fukushima will put back the nuclear debate in Australia by 10 years, such is the public's lack of understanding of the reality of nuclear power.

However, what a fantastic example of the true safety of nuclear power we have seen. Faced with an earthquake of much higher magnitude than engineers ever anticipated and a tsunami nearly twice as high (10m vs 5.5m or so) as what the plant was designed for the thing still shut down in an orderly manner, minimising the possibility of a large problem. Certainly, there have been problems that have needed dealing with. Given the scale of the problem that hit them it's hardly surprising.

But does the media tell us how remarkable a story this is of nuclear safety? No. Instead we get hysteria that radiation levels are 100,000 times normal while at the same time ignoring the fact that it's still many orders of magnitude below the level needed to cause a problem.

It's yet another example of how deeply the left's messages and propaganda have seeped into society that normally rational people would be so concerned by what is only a serious local issue.

(Nothing Follows)

Socialism - before and after

2011-03-29T10:52:00.000+11:00

In the pictures tell a thousand stories category come some examples of the differences between countries before and after socialism was implemented.

After World War II Germany ended up being split in two with West Germany a free and democratic state and East Germany falling behind the Iron Curtain and into the control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - the commies.

This allowed an interesting experiment to play out. Which country would prosper the most given they both had the same starting point in terms of ability of the population?

In 1991 the Berlin Wall fell and, for the first time, the West got a close up look at what had happened in the previous 45 years.

There are many examples of the differences between the two states but this is the most glaring to me.

Here's the height of East German automotive engineering, the Trabant:

'Powered' by a thundering 1L motor that developed a mighty 19kW (26hp) it could race from 0-100km/h in 21 seconds before topping out at 112km/h. According to the Wikipedia entry:
There were two main problems with the engine: the smoky exhaust and the pollution it produced—nine times the amount of hydrocarbons and five times the carbon monoxide emissions of the average European car of 2007. The fuel consumption was 7 L/100 km (40 mpg-imp; 34 mpg-US). Since the engine does not have an oil injection system, two-stroke oil has to be added to the 24-litre (6.3 U.S. gal; 5.3 imp gal) fuel tank every time the car was filled up, at a 50:1 or 33:1 ratio of fuel to oil. Gas stations of the time in countries where two-stroke engines were common served premixed gas-oil mixture from the pump. Today, owners normally carry a container of two-stroke oil in the car for this purpose. The earlier models have no fuel gauge; a dipstick is inserted into the tank to determine how much fuel remains.
How completely awesome.

By contrast, here's a highlight from the West German 1991 motor industry, the Mercedes 560SEC:

With a 32 valve 5.6L donk pumping out 235kW this beautiful beast could thunder to 100km/h in 5.8 seconds on the way to a top speed of 280km/h.

How could this happen? How could people start from the same point but end up so far apart?

The answer is clear. Socialist - and other command and control - economies lack the feedback loop required to create the continuous improvement that comes from good, old fashioned competition.

There are so many examples where this has happened that it's surprising anyone can still believe government intervention in the economy can be a good thing. Hello, Mr Krugman? Time for your reality check.

You'll probably have seen this shocking photo of North and South Korea taken from an orbiting satellite that shows the difference between the two states in terms of electricity use, which is a proxy for economic development.

What's remarkable is that it's only 50-odd years since the end of the Korean War. In the South you see prosperity at a level never before experienced in that country while in the North you see poverty and depravity that has probably never before been experienced even under the cruelest of Chinese despots from days of yore.

These are extreme examples of the negative impact that governments can have on the lives of their citizens, which has given rise to the Tea Party in the United States and is driving a lot of the anti-government protests in Australia.

The point is that people understand that relationship. They can see the pernicious effects of the welfare state. They understand that redistribution of income ends up hurting everyone in the end as jobs evaporate and government debt starts to cause services to be reduced and interest rates to rise.

It's not just socialist ideology that is the problem. Take, for example, the development of Pakistan and India. Created at a similar time to many other countries after World War II and starting with the same abilities of the people, Pakistan has turned into an economic basket case while India - once it started to unshackle itself from the anchor of socialism, which is an important point to note - has accelerated at a massive pace lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty. In Pakistan, like in many nations in Africa, corruption by government officials has a similar effect as having a socialist economy. When you combine the two, such as in Zimbabwe, then you simply hasten the collapse.

And let's not mention the economic miracle in Israel, a country literally carved out of dirt, that makes its Arab neighbours look like something from the Stone Age.

It really does give one pause for thought.

(Nothing Follows)

Climategate really is the greatest scientific scandal of all time

2011-03-24T23:01:00.006+11:00

Shortly after the Climategate scandal broke and I'd had a chance to go through the documents released I described it as the greatest scientific scandal of all time.

Worse than Piltdown Man (which was a corker) or Hwang to name just a couple of famous ones.

The Climate Taliban have been in denial about what Climategate means and the defensive lines seems to be that, yes, mistakes were made but it doesn't undermine the overall scientific support for the climate change thesis.

The scientist at the centre of Climategate is Phil Jones. He had such credibility within the climate community that he was a contributing author to Chapter 12, Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes, of the Third Assessment Report (2001) and a Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 3, Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change, of the Fourth Assessment Report (2007).

In this latter role Jones wielded a lot of power and had the ability to control the direction of the report.

So his credibility matters. A lot.

Now it has come out that not only did his climate group at the University of East Anglia 'hide the decline' in the post 1960 'spaghetti graph' of temperature that is pervasive throughout climate literature but they also manipulated the starting point of the series in order to eradicate an inconvenient result - in pink below - as demonstrated by the one man climate science truth finder, Steve McIntyre:

How amazing is that?

What sort of scientist goes to work knowing that what they're putting forward is a complete fraud?

If Phil Jones can't be honest with what his own team is putting forward then how can we trust anything he's allowed into the Fourth Assessment Report?

More importantly, how could it survive peer review? Aren't we repeatedly told that peer review in climate science is beyond reproach? If that's really the case then why do so many critical errors and fabrications continue to be discovered? It's as if the peer review process is either a sham or is carried out be people who accept the science and don't look too hard.

I have a theory that climate science has attracted a large number of mediocre scientists over the years simply because there's a lot of funding to be had and, critically, there's no demand to prove what they're doing is true. How else can climate models have a zero percent prediction rate yet the people who create them are held in high regard within the climate community? There is so little scientific skill that scientists simply trust each other's work.

The worst part is that the mainstream media will completely ignore yet another piece of proof that climate science is a corrupt, inaccurate discipline that has been taken over by scientific hacks seeking money and prestige, and environmental activists wanting to use it for political advantage.

(Nothing Follows)

Labor's Carbon Tax is really a redistribution of income scam

2011-03-23T21:49:00.009+11:00

Julia Gillard's freakish political contortion, the likes of which have probably never before been seen in Australian politics, of breaking an election promise to not introduce a carbon tax, bowing to the radical Greens and then introducing a carbon tax can have no other outcome than increase the size of the Australian deficit and reduce employment.

Let's assume that the amount raised from power companies by the carbon tax each year is $10 billion.

There are a number of groups that will be especially hurt by an increase in power prices - those at the low end of the income spectrum, trade exposed industries whose position against overseas competition will be damaged and small business, which seems to be a forgotten factor in the conversation so far.

It's clear that the government can't compensate all groups affected so let's assume that they distribute the money to low income earners. Note that they are on record as saying that the money will not simply go into Treasury coffers so let's also assume that it joins the short list of promises kept by this government since being elected in 2007.

The tax is introduced in 2011 and low income workers rejoice as they see the effects in their bank balances. They then feel the pain when they get their utilities bills but, being conscientious with their money and in no way tempted to buy more grog or smokes or stick it in the pokies or back something to beat Black Caviar*, they pay what they owe. So there's no impact on them.

Power companies now have an incentive to reduce the amount of CO2 they produce, which is the whole point of the exercise and so they invest in clean technologies that have the effect of reducing CO2 emissions to zero thus fulfilling the government's ambition.

Can you see the problem?

At this point the government will raise no money at all from taxing so-called 'carbon pollution', the cost of power will not be reduced due the investment made by power companies that needs to be paid for meaning that low income households will still need financial support to meet their utilities bills.

So the government now has a $10 billion hole in its budget. Is it going to fill the void by raising taxes or by increasing the deficit? Either way, the impact on employment is negative.

And while all that has been going on our trade exposed industries have been shedding jobs at a terrific rate to countries that are not bound by the onanistic impulses of the climate brigade.

So let's give all of the money to trade exposed industries instead of low income workers.

The government gets stuck in the same cycle. When the power companies clean up their act the government will need to maintain support for trade exposed industries otherwise there'll be a massive loss of jobs in a short time frame to overseas competitors. Not a palatable outcome for any politician.

And all the while small business is getting hammered and is shedding jobs.

So here's Labor's dirty, little secret. I'm going to shout it at you so that you can take it in.

Labor's carbon tax CAN ONLY WORK IF POWER COMPANIES NEVER REDUCE THEIR CO2 OUTPUT.

The government knows this, of course, which is why it's just a great, big, redistributionist scam but it also knows that its allies in the mainstream media won't point it out to the voting public any time soon.

The result will be that the tax will be in place before an emissions trading scheme is introduced, which the government expects will continue to provide the revenue it needs.

And bad luck to the people who lose their jobs because of it.

* I don't live in this world, either, but the good folk who create government budgets surely must.

(Nothing Follows)

Why does the left wet its pants at the slightest hint of trouble?

2011-03-22T22:30:00.017+11:00

Remember the Bird Flu epidemic that was going to wipe out vast numbers of people, especially in Asia?

Remember the dire warnings about Swine Flu from the World Health Organisation and Joe Biden's classic "I wouldn't go anywhere in confined spaces..." line?

How did that whole heterosexual AIDS thing work out?

What about silicone breast implants? The most negative effect was to the aesthetic appeal of the bodies of those women who chose to get them.

From the population bomb leading to mass starvation to peak oil to the hysteria du jour, global warming, we have had no shortage of end of days scenarios to contend with.

Now we can add to the list the massive overreaction to what has essentially been a serious local problem at the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant that the Japanese have had pretty much under control from the start. That people in the US and Asia were running out and buying iodide tablets shows the massive influence of the mainstream media to panic the masses (or, at least, those masses prone to panic). I wonder what the result of a survey of the political affiliation of those buying the tablets would be.

US radio talk show host Dennis Prager constantly reminds people that the hysterics, who are mainly on the left, are wrong 99% of the time.

How can this be? What drives people to so badly overreact at the slightest whiff of difficulty? Why is the left so much more likely to get things so badly wrong than the right?

I presume it relates to the left's tendency to seek to exert more and more influence over people's lives and nothing provides more control than a potential extinction event.

While that might explain the political advantage the left seeks to gain from upheaval it doesn't tell us why people get so genuinely frightened when there's no rational reason to be so. It doesn't explain why they get so angry and abusive when they're called out on their poor judgements.

I don't know what the answer is, either. What I do know is that there's a high correlation between those who believe in global warming and those who thought that Fukushima was an existential threat to life everywhere.

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me.

(Nothing Follows)

Fear of religion actually means fear of Islam

2011-03-21T20:05:00.006+11:00

Australia's Human Rights Commission, an unneeded organisation if ever there was one, has released a report saying that there's a general fear of religion in the community.

By way of example they use only Islam to make their point, as outlined below in this piece from The Australian:

THERE'S a pressing need to use education to reduce ignorance and fear about religions in Australia, a new report says

It said there is a current anti-Muslim discourse that suggests entrenched hostility which is often related to overseas events.

The report, entitled Freedom of Religion in the 21st Century, was prepared for the Australian Human Rights Commission.

The researchers said some Christians fear the introduction of sharia law in Australia and believe that governments appease Muslim communities by giving Islam preferential treatment.

Some people told the researchers that evangelical Christians demonise Muslims partly because of "high levels of ignorance by churches about Islam".

It also said some Muslim children see themselves as outsiders because they see their religion vilified at every turn.

"They see how they are viewed as Muslims, which in turn affects how they view themselves," the report said.

The report's conclusion said the commission needs to "foster a discussion about the place of religious rights along side other rights".

It said the commission must allow "for the view to be heard that religious rights are absolute, and then to allow that view to be tempered by other views".

It urges religious leaders to play a key role in overcoming ignorance about religion in the community.

There are currently only three groups who have issues with religion:

1. Anyone with half a brain who understands that more than 90% of the world's terrorist attacks (excluding in Iraq and Afghanistan) are carried out in the name of one religion - Islam - in order to promote Sharia and create a new Ummah and is wary of all of those who say that it's a small minority that carry out the attacks and they don't represent the religion.

2. Secular fanatics who worship at the feet of Richard Dawkins' and Christopher Hitchens' post modern atheism that disguise their contempt for Christianity and Judeo-Christian values under the umbrella of rejecting religion completely.

3. The left and its rank anti-Semitism disguised as opposition to Israel.

When the Australian Human Rights Commission says there's a fear of religion then do they include Buddhists? Sikhs? Hindus?

Why would we be afraid of the Mormons? Are they going to be sickeningly nice to us until we're dead?

What about the Rastafarians? Afraid of reggae music and a little weed?

And why didn't they include being a Green as a religion? They're hardly any different to animists, if you ask me.

The reason that people in Australia are afraid, though 'concerned' is probably a better description, of Islam is two-fold:

1. Most terror attacks in the world are carried out in its name (as outlined above) and every, single person indicted for planning terrorist attacks in Australia has been Muslim; and

2. People understand that Sharia is a barbaric, restrictive, misogynistic, homophobic relic that controls people's lives and has no place in a modern, progressive society.

Why am I not surprised that the folk at the Australian Human Rights Commission think that genuine and legitimate concern about the practices of one group of people, Muslims, is the same as a blanket fear of religion?

(Nothing Follows)

Mulling...

2010-12-22T23:06:00.001+11:00

There's a lot going on.

I should probably consider a return to blogging.

(* Considering *)

(Nothing Follows)

Spot the inconsistency

2010-08-04T00:01:00.001+10:00

Can you spot the inconsistency between the two short descriptions below?

I'll give you some time before posting the answer.

UPDATE: Only one is described as "unelected".

(Nothing Follows)

Defining Modern Keynesianism

2010-08-03T13:25:00.016+10:00

For the modern left John Maynard Keynes is the source of all wisdom on matters of the economy.

Keynes was no dummy and his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is a major piece of work and serves as the economic bible for many economists to this day.

Being a major piece of work doesn't make it right, though. Marx was an intelligent man but still manage to bring to life The Communist Manifesto, which brought so much suffering to, especially, people in the 20th century. Like Tolkein, Marx and Keynes invented their own reality and then proceeded to solve all of the problems within it.

However, Keynes's reputation suffered a severe blow in the 1970s when major economies around the world went through a period of stagflation - the combination of high unemployment and high inflation - that Keynes said was impossible.

Due to this failure of Keynesianism, modern economists adjusted his theories and refer to themselves as "New-Keynesian", which replaced the term "Neo-Keynesian". As is the way in all branches of economics there are divergent opinions of which Krugman, Mankiw and Stiglitz are three such examples.

But how do they differ from the plain, old, vanilla Keynesian of days of yore?

Anyone who has even the shallowest understanding of economics will have heard of the term "pump priming", which comes from Keynes's theory that when economic activity slows the government can "prime the pump" by spending money to stimulate the economy.

"How does that differ from what Krugman is saying?", I hear you ask.

Here's the only real difference between Keynes and the Modern Keynesian...

Keynes believed that governments should create a fund into which surpluses would be placed when times were good so that those funds could be used when times were slow.

Saving for a rainy day, as my grandmother used to say.

Instead of using a pool of surplus funds as the source of government stimulus, Modern Keynesians use the next generation of taxpayer in the form of government deficit.

And that's all there is to it.

Modern Keynesianism is about giving the bill to your kids.

That's why Keynes has made a comeback; it provides political cover to those governments whose preference is to spend money rather than reduce in size.

Yet another example of the deep immorality of left wing policies and their ruinous effect on the world.

(Nothing Follows)

Putting the US deficit into perspective

2010-07-28T09:20:00.005+10:00

Need to raise revenue for the government?

That's easy, simply tax the rich.

The United States, like the majority of Western nations, is spending itself into oblivion at worst and massive civil strife at best.

There is some good economic news. The red ink the US is swimming in is not as bad as projected in February. Yes, at $1.471 trillion, it's still huge – 10 percent of the nation's gross domestic product – but an improvement of $84 billion from earlier estimates.

But bad news still looms large. In the next fiscal year, according to the mid-season review released by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Friday, the US deficit will be $150 billion more than earlier projections. It is expected to come in at $1.416 trillion, or 9.2 percent of GDP.

The White House, which released the change in budget estimates, was careful not to overplay the changing numbers.

“These are not substantial changes and nothing we want to make too big a deal about,” said Peter Orszag, director of the OMB in a press call with reporters. “The economy remains weaker than we would like and the unemployment rate higher than we would like.”

So, how the heck much is 1.4 trillion dollars?

Is it actually possible to increase taxes on the rich and deal with the debt (assuming that there's no impact on employment or investment)?

I thought, why not simply confiscate all of the wealth that the rich have? That ought to solve all of the problems. Right?

I looked up the Forbes list of world's billionaires that are domiciled in the United States and are doing business and paying taxes there.

The richest person on the 395 name list is Bill Gates with $53B, followed by Warren Buffett with $47B and a gap back to Larry Ellinson at $28B.

Now, here's the kicker - and the sobering reality check for the soak-the-rich left - if you confiscated ALL of the wealth of these 395 people in order to fund the debt (which means it would need to be sold to overseas interests, of course, as there'd be nobody rich enough in the US to buy it anymore) then how much would you raise?

Ready?

1.328 trillion dollars.

You'd still need to find another $143B to break even for the year! And your wealth creators have now got nothing! Good luck with that...

Here's another way of looking at that $1.471 trillion deficit.

Consider the following: there are 113,146,000 households in the US, which means that in just one year each household now has an extra $13,000 added to its debt. No wonder the Congressional Budget Office describes the debt situation as unsustainable.

Competition from emerging economies in China, India and Brazil, coupled with declining birth rates, undermine the modern Western (immoral) indulgence of giving people money who haven't earned it while putting the bill onto the next generation...and the one after that...in a gigantic, populate or perish, Ponzi scheme.

2010 is a momentous year in world history, I believe, as history will mark it down as the year that the welfare state, in its current form, ended.

(Nothing Follows)

Labor "moving forward" to victory

2010-07-18T09:27:00.006+10:00

If there's been a more banal political slogan in Australian history than Labor's "moving forward" then please let me know.

The first poll published after the calling of the August 21 election comes from Galaxy and shows that the government holds on to its 52-48 lead.

I commented recently that before the last election, which Labor won with a 53-47 margin, their Betfair odds were $1.31.

The current odds are as follows:

The odds support the 52-48 poll so, unless one side or the other puts their foot in it big time, then we've got another three years of Labor government to look forward to. How much more debt will they be able to pile onto our kids? It's remarkable that the modern, "progressive" left has no care for the financial health of the economies of which they're supposed to be custodians.

(Nothing Follows)

The A-Z of the Labor government's incompetence

2010-07-16T15:12:00.007+10:00

This one is doing the rounds of the Internet and highlights the absolute disaster that our Labor government has inflicted upon the poor, old taxpayer for the next umpteen years.

Rarely has a government promised so much, spent so much, said so much, and launched so many nationwide programs, and delivered so little value for money and expectation. Two years of Kevin Rudd has produced 20 years of debt, and most of it cannot be blamed on the global financial crisis. This alphabet soup is self-inflicted.

Asylum seekers. Unless the government can show otherwise, it appears that about 98 per cent of asylum-seekers are getting Australian residency. In contrast, the latest figures from the United Nations refugee agency show most asylum applications worldwide are rejected. The bulging Christmas Island detention centre has become a grossly expensive sham and a mockery of a core election promise.

Beijing. Supposedly Rudd's strong point, the relationship with China deteriorated badly last year after a series of serious missteps with Beijing.

Computers in schools. A million computers promised to schools, one for every student. This turned out to be much harder than it sounded.

Debt and deficit. The Rudd government inherited a massive $90 billion financial firewall when it came to office, via a federal budget surplus, the Future Fund and two infrastructure funds. In two years the budget has gone from $20 billion in surplus to $58 billion in deficit. Net federal debt has gone from zero to a projection of between $130 billion and $180 billion. It took the previous government 10 years to dismantle the $96 billion debt mountain that it inherited. It took Rudd one year to build it back up again.

ETS. The Copenhagen climate conference was a disaster. Rudd's emissions trading scheme is abstract, complex, expensive and polls show about 80 per cent of Australians do not understand or trust it. A T-shirt produced by Newcastle steelworkers distils the political problem: "Rudd's ETS: Higher Prices. Lost Jobs. 0.001 degrees cooler."

Fuelwatch. Big promise, empty outcome.

Grocerywatch. Ditto.

Hospitals. Ditto.

India disaster. Last year Australia degraded relations with the two emerging Asian superpowers.

Juvenile justice. The plight of young Aborigines is worse than ever, with ideology trumping pragmatism. Children are shipped off to violent foster families while government exhibits a mesmerised inertia in the face of pockets of endemic violence.

Kaiser. The aptly named Mike Kaiser, former ALP Queensland state secretary and state MP, became the umpteenth poster boy for the Labor patronage machine this month by landing a $450,000-a-year lobbying job with the national broadband network. The job was not advertised.

League tables. The government's one-size-fits-all league tables for schools, plagued by glitches and misleading data, is another centralised scheme that serves as a substitute for tackling the union-imposed rigidities on teacher performance.

Migration. Permanent migration to Australia surged 550,000 during the first two years of the Rudd government, the highest two-year increase in history. This is at odds with the government's rhetoric on reducing Australia's carbon footprint. It was also never mentioned before the election.

National broadband network. Last year the Rudd government spent $17 million looking for a private partner to co-build the network. The process yielded nothing. The government will now build and operate the network itself at a cost of $43 billion. A money sink.

Opposition theft. The Rudd government inherited the strongest budget position and banking sector of any major Western economy, which protected Australia from the global financial crisis. The government pretends this was all its own work.

Power. The national solar power rebate is a political debacle. The GreenPower scheme has failed. The renewable energy trading certificates scheme is in disarray.

Question time. Question time has blown out by 50 per cent over its traditional running time because of long ministerial answers and incessant points of order, while the time devoted to answering real questions, rather than Dorothy Dixers, has shrunk to less than 30 per cent of question time; a blatant corruption of the process.

Roof insulation. Send in the fraud squad. A good idea gone bad. Rampant false billing and over-charging. Cowboys everywhere. People dead. Houses unsafe. Systemic overspending. A hapless bureaucracy detached from the realities of the building industry.

School spending. The $16 billion Building the Education Revolution scheme is bloated with systemic overspending and over-charging. The problems were encapsulated by a builder who told me: "My company is involved in the BER work and it involves mismanagement, overcharging, schools being railroaded into decisions not in their interests, all hidden behind a smokescreen. It is the country's most expensive political stunt ever." Another money sink.

Tax increases. The federal budget in May will begin to reveal the consequences of panic, hubris, overspending and waste as the government seeks to offset its profligacy with higher fees and taxes. Superannuation was just the start.

Union power. The unions, having bankrolled Labor's election campaign in 2007, have received their payback, with an increase in union rights and powers. Union muscle-flexing is back, from the mining sector to small business. Endemic corruption, blackmail and violence in the building industry was finally curbed by the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Julia Gillard is shutting it down.

Vanity. See B, K, O, Q and U.
Whitlamesque. Spendthrift programs. Empty rhetoric. Self-congratulation. Deficit spending. Debt blowout. Two years of the Rudd government produces 20 years of debt and poses the question: worse than Whitlam?

X Y Z Generations X, Y and Z They will be stuck with the bill.

What amazes me is that Labor voters can read through this list and still manage to find positive things to say about the government such as the "Sorry" to the (non existent) Stolen Generations and, supposedly, keeping us out of recession.

All they've done is to ensure that we will have a weaker economy over the next couple of decades than we otherwise would have. They have guaranteed higher interest rates and higher unemployment, though the effects of those are still to hit.

China's growth is said to be slowing. How much debt is this government going to have? $100B? $200B is probably closer.

It took 10 years to pay off Labor's previous $100B debt. How long will it take to pay it off this time around?

The implementation of left wing policies can only lead to unwelcome, bordering on immoral, outcomes.

(Nothing Follows)

Ongoing collapse of the UK

2010-07-02T12:55:00.003+10:00

Yet another example of the societal collapse in the UK:

A BBC commentator has apologised to a 16-year-old British tennis star after saying she had "puppy fat" on live television.

David Mercer made the remark while discussing Laura Robson's weight as she played her second round juniors match at Wimbledon, The Sun newspaper reports.

"I suppose the one thing that I have at the back of my mind at the moment, is Laura mobile enough around the court?," Mercer said.

"Perhaps a little puppy fat at the moment, the sort of thing you'd expect her to lose as she concentrates on tennis full-time."

Robon said she was not fazed by the comments.

I've spoken to the guy who said it. It's not a big deal," Robson said.

"It's just his opinion. You know, I don't really care."

Since when has it become politically incorrect to use the term 'puppy fat'???

These people are crazy and the UK is doomed.

Good to see that the kid herself is not in the least bit offended by it all, which must annoy those self-appointed overseers of society who make a living by being offended on behalf of everybody else.

(Nothing Follows)

Labor will win the next election handily

2010-06-29T17:49:00.009+10:00

Anyone on the conservative side of politics that thinks we're a chance of winning the next Federal election is, pretty much, dreaming.

And the election will be held soonish.

Here's the Betfair market on the election date:

Now, there's only $700 in the pool and the reason is that nobody wants to put any money into betting against an election date that has already been decided by the government. Sportingbet has a market on the exact date of the election. August 28 is at $2.50, which is pretty short.

Supporting the government's decision to go early is internal polling that shows they've got a strong, election winning lead.

That's reflected in the Betfair market:

Prior to the last election Labor had a healthy lead in the opinion polls and the price available was only a little bit shorter than what it's currently at, which seems to suggest similar polling numbers.

Therefore, my prediction is that the election will be on August 28 and the government will be returned with a 52-48 result.

Friday 2/7/10 UPDATE:

All of the money on the betting markets has been for an August 14 election. Sportingbet has that data at $2.10 and August 28 at $2.75 so I predict that the election will be called this weekend for one of those two dates.

(Nothing Follows)

Expunging Brand Kevin

2010-06-24T16:42:00.005+10:00

During the 2007 election a large number of ALP supporters chose to wear Kevin07 paraphernalia.

They looked like donkeys.

Now, Brand Kevin is being expunged from the ALP corporate memory. I just got on the ALP website and searched the site for "Kevin07".

Here's the response:

(click to embiggen)

Just four?

There used to be pooloads of Kevin07 information.

By comparison, I searched for "minimum wage" and got 12 responses. "Tony Abbott" returns pages and pages and pages of responses. To be fair there are still many responses to "Rudd".

There really are no more vicious politics than when the left executes one of its own.

(Nothing Follows)

Labor finally jettisons the worst PM ever

2010-06-24T10:19:00.005+10:00

The worst prime minister in Australia's history has been jettisoned by the Australian Labor Party allowing our first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, to take the reins.

Congratulations to Julia Gillard.

Will she be a good PM? Who knows? As I write every time there's a change of leadership, either in government or opposition, we will have to wait some time to see how a person grows into the role. I suspect that she will be up to the task.

There does seem to be some schizophrenia in the market regarding Labor's electoral chances. Last week ninemsn ran a poll asking whether people would vote for Julia Gillard if she became leader. The vote was 60-40 against her.

ninemsn has repeated the poll after the vote this morning:

Even with only 7000 votes there's still a big no vote against her.

However, the betting market is the one to follow:

The price before the leadership spill was pretty much the same as it is now so the government is still a strong favourite to win the next election.

One poll goes one way while the other goes the other:

UPDATE: From the ninemsn website:

ninemsn readers have cast doubt on Julia Gillard's future as prime minister, with almost two-thirds declaring they will not vote for her in the looming election.

At 3pm today our homepage poll showed that more than 50,000 readers would not vote for Ms Gillard in the coming federal election, compared to about 23,000 who said they would.

The ninemsn homepage is visited by more than ten million people each month — 70 percent of Australians online.

In addition to the vote, more than a thousand readers have posted comments — revealing a vast mix of reactions — since Ms Gillard was chosen to replace Kevin Rudd in the top job earlier today.

Many readers who said they might have voted for Mr Rudd have hit out at the Labor caucus vote that put his former deputy in power.

"We the Australian people voted in Kevin Rudd as our Prime Minister … who is the group, a handful, of faceless people who can just come in and change our democratically elected Prime Minister???" wrote Holcars from Cranbourne.

"The people elected Kevin07 for PM not Julia-010," agreed Tony G, from Maroubra.

"No one has heard of these Labor factional powerbrokers and the people certainly did not vote for them."

(Nothing Follows)

The left's score on Economics 101 - FAIL

2010-06-09T09:42:00.013+10:00

Every so often a study comes along that so profoundly confirms common sense and the real world that it takes one's breath away.

Zeljka Buturovic and Daniel Klein of Econ Journal Watch will make no friends on the left with the publication of the results of a 2008 Zogby poll on 'economic enlightenment'.

From Klein's article in the Wall Street Journal:

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.

Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.

Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.

In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.

The questions were:

1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services
2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago
3) Rent control leads to housing shortages
4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly
5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited
6) Free trade leads to unemployment
7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment
8) Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.

Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

Adam Smith described political economy as "a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator." Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their constituents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.

We all have good friends on the left, people that we love, like and respect for their decency and humanity. However, we all know that when it comes to matters of economics they're dim bulbs. Their views are not only not part of the solution to the world's problems they are the root cause of most of the issues we face today. Not that the left would ever admit to that basic truth. As Dennis Prager likes to say, being on the left means never having to say you're sorry.

The full study is available here and makes great reading.

There are some interesting tables in the study. Firstly, correlation between education level and response (and they give some reasons for the results):

Here's the most amusing table in the whole study:

I must admit that I am truly astonished by the disparity in understanding of economics between the left and right. Given I got all 8 correct - they're hardly difficult - I also admit to being a bit surprised that the results weren't a lot better across all groups.

Naturally, the left will deal with this study in its usual manner: criticise the qualifications of those undertaking the research; impugn their motives for doing so; and accuse them of being in the pay of Big Left Wing Enemy du Jour. So much easier than refuting the results.

Seriously, though, wouldn't it be great if 16 year olds were taught the basics of economics so that they could answer all of these questions correctly? Perhaps the next generation of politicians would be more careful with the nation's economy than the current lot of left wing incompetents.

As an aside, it's ironic that in the West left wing governments are only ever elected when they campaign on conservative, 'responsible' economic grounds when the reality is that they really don't understand economics at all well. Once they're in power, however, the inner Keynesian pops out, they spend whatever surpluses the previous government has left and then make a good, solid attempt to spend the wealth of the next generation, and the one after that, before being turfed out amidst massive financial upheaval, as has just happened in the UK.

I'll have another post on why 2010 will be marked down in history as one of the most important years in modern history. Needless to say, ignorance of economics will be a major theme.

(Nothing Follows)

It's all George Bush's fault

2010-05-17T11:01:00.004+10:00

This really is an awesome dissection of the Obama administration's continually pinning the blame for their actions on George W Bush.

Chuck Green is a lifelong lefty and registered Democrat.

When people like Green are sick of the spin then it spells trouble for the Democrats, as where are the Independents going to be?

(Nothing Follows)

UK's police must need to increase their anti-terrorism statistics

2010-05-11T11:00:00.003+10:00

Modern police forces around the world have targets to achieve across the issues that most concern the public or, more importantly, the want-to-be-seen-to-be-tough politicians.

One of these targets must be dealing with terrorism. How else can one explain why police would prosecute this case?

A British man who said on Twitter that he would blow up an airport if his flight was delayed by snow was convicted on Monday of sending a threatening message and made to pay STG1,000 ($A1,646).

Who did he send the Twitter to? Only those people who follow him, which they chose to do. It's hardly a public threat.

Paul Chambers, 26, insisted his post on the micro-blogging site was a joke. But a judge at Doncaster Magistrates' Court in northern England found him guilty of sending an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message over a public telecommunications network.

District Judge Jonathan Bennett said the message "was of a menacing nature in the context of the times in which we live." He ordered Chambers to pay the fine and court costs.

The message is not a sign of the "menacing nature in the context of the times in which we live"...the judgement is! How pathetic.

Chambers was arrested in January after he posted the message saying he would blow up Robin Hood Airport near the large town of Doncaster "sky high" if his flight, due to leave in a week's time, was delayed.

Chambers, from Doncaster, said he made the post when the airport was closed by snow and he feared his travel plans would be disrupted.

"It did not cross my mind that Robin Hood would ever look at Twitter or take it seriously because it was innocuous hyperbole," he said.

An airport employee came across the tweet a few days later, but security staff there decided it was not a credible bomb threat. Nevertheless, they passed the message on to police. Chambers was arrested two days before his flight was due to leave.

How did the airport employee come across the tweet? Kudos to the security staff who used more than two brain cells and worked out it was not a credible threat.

Chambers, who lost his job at a car distribution firm after his arrest, said he was considering an appeal.

This should send a chill down people's spines. The guy lost his job because of a joke tweet? What sort of place has the UK become?

News of the conviction sent a ripple of outrage across the Twittersphere, with some users retransmitting the message: "This absurd judgement is enough to make me want to blow up Robin Hood airport"

Everyone with access to Twitter should be sending messages like the one above.

I can't get over how insane this situation is. The bloke lost his job becasue of a joke! That's unbelievable.

(Nothing Follows)

Yet another example of the collapse of the UK

2010-05-06T19:53:00.002+10:00

Here's yet another hair raising example of the intolerance of the left in the UK.
British street preacher Dale McAlpine apparently has no problem telling people that homosexuality is a “crime against the Creator.” But he got in trouble when he said that to someone who is not only a homosexual, but is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for the local police.

On April 20, McAlpine, a Baptist, was passing out leaflets explaining the Ten Commandments or offering a “ticket to heaven” to passersby on a street in Workington, Cumbria where he had been preaching for years, according to the Telegraph of London. When a woman stopped to debate with him, McAlpine said he mentioned a number of sins listed in I Corinthians, including blasphemy, fornication, drunkenness, adultery and homosexuality. When the woman walked away, a Police Community Support Officer approached her and spoke briefly with her, McAlpine said. The officer then came over to McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made and warned him he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the officer: “I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator.” The officer then said he was homosexual and identified himself as LGBT liaison officer for the Cumbria police. Undeterred, McAlpine replied, “Well, it’s still a sin.” He then began a 20-minute sermon in which he says he did not mention homosexuality. But three uniformed officers arrived, arrested the preacher and put him in the back of a police van. He was taken to the police station, where officers took his fingerprints, a palm print, a retina scan and a DNA swab. He was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” in violation of the Public Order Act and, after seven hours in a jail cell, was released on bail on the condition that he would not preach in public. McAlpine, 42, said the incident was one of the worst experiences of his life.

“I felt deeply shocked and humiliated that I had been arrested in my own town and treated like a common criminal in front of people I know," he told the Telegraph. “My freedom was taken away on the hearsay of someone who disliked what I said, and I was charged under a law that doesn't apply.” Police allege that McAlpine made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard and that he used abusive or insulting language, forbidden by the Public Order Act. Christian groups have expressed alarm over this and similar incidents, claiming the 1986 law was designed to stop rioters and hooligans and is now being used to curb religious speech.

“The police have a duty to maintain public order but they also have a duty to defend the lawful free speech of citizens,” said Sam Webster, solicitor-advocate of the Christian Institute, which is supporting McAlpine. It is not a crime to express the belief that homosexuality is a sin, Webster told the Telegraph. “Case law has ruled that the orthodox Christian belief that homosexual conduct is sinful is a belief worthy of respect in a democratic society."

One man was convicted under the Public Order Act in 2002 for holding up a sign saying, “Stop immorality. Stop Homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus Is Lord,” while preaching in Bournemouth. Another was arrested in 2006 for handing out religious leaflets at a Gay Pride festival in Cardiff, but the case was later dropped.

“It would appear that Christianity, the normative faith of this country on which its morality, values and civilisation are based, is effectively being turned into a crime,” Melanie Phillips of The Daily Mail wrote in a May 3 column titled, “The British boot stamping on the face of Christian belief.”

“Surreally, this intolerant denial of freedom is being perpetrated under the rubric of promoting tolerance and equality — but only towards approved groups,” Phillips wrote. “Never has George Orwell’s famous satirical observation, that some people are more equal than others, appeared more true.”
First up, what the hell is a police precinct doing with a "LGBT liaison officer".

Is there anything so ridiculous?

If a bunch of Muslims were walking around shouting "Death to Jews" and "Hang all gays" then would our intolerant of Christianity, gay liaison officer do anything? Anything at all?

That's called a rhetorical question, folks.

How does the UK recover from its cultural malaise?

(Nothing Follows)

How will history view Rudd?

2010-05-03T10:16:00.009+10:00

People are starting to wake up to the empty nothingness that is Kevin Rudd's prime ministership.

Regular readers will know that I've been banging on about his clear incompetence and lack of vision for nearly two years.

The question that we can now start pondering is this; how will history view Kevin Rudd?

Here's my prediction:

1) Worst prime minister in history

Rudd has one thing going against him that his Labor predecessors do not and that is that he is reviled within the Labor Party as the vicious, petty, non-substance tyrant that he really is. Therefore, those people who write history - the left significantly outnumbers the right in this area - will be happy to smash Rudd in order to rehabilitate the reputation of one of their heroes, Gough Whitlam, hitherto Australia's worst ever prime minister.

2) Lost opportunities

Left wing, revisionist historians such as Henry Reynolds and Robert Manne etc regularly attack the right for the so-called 'lost opportunities' of their governments. These lost opportunities are almost exclusively made up of large infrastructure projects that the left deems necessary. The Howard government chose to give back surpluses by way of tax reductions, as they should. This is anathema to the left, which believes that government spending is by definition good, as it stimulates the economy. Keynes really does have a lot to answer for. However, Rudd has been the master of left wing 'lost opportunities' and most recently when he chose to abandon the current Holy Grail of left wing government control of the economy - the emissions trading scheme. Historians will not forgive him for not doing a deal with the Greens.

3) Cast out and outcast

In the same way that former Labor leader Mark Latham is now an outcast from the party, Kevin Rudd will first be cast out by his senior front benchers and almost immediately become a Labor outcast. There are already rumblings in that regard. Ministers who have had to take the fall for Rudd's policy incompetence are now leaking information to the media that it's the PM to blame and not, for example, Peter Garrett for the insulation fiasco. Or Gillard for the rorting of the school building fund. The list goes on. Once the next election is over the knives will come out and I predict Rudd will last less than a year as leader. Once defeated, he will resign from parliament in a fit of pique and force a by-election.

4) Failure on the economy

The list of fiscal fiascos is becoming a national embarrassment. In less than two years the Rudd government has managed to munch through the massive surplus left to it and increase Australia's debt from nil to the nearly $100 billion that the Howard government cleared away during its terms in office. Not only that but it has also announced an increased tax on profits from mining companies, which will be used to fund an increase in superannuation. Can you imagine Hawke or Keating coming up with such a negative, economy killing policy? Rudd and his advisers are completely nuts to
increase structural costs by taxing a variable revenue stream. That can only lead to deficits once the Great China Boom becomes an inevitable Bust. Did they learn nothing from the global financial crisis? Other than spending like drunken sailors, obviously not.

I'm sure there are other negative legacies that historians and political commentators will write about. Feel free to add your thoughts in comments.

(Nothing Follows)

Reviewing Rudd

2010-04-30T18:55:00.008+10:00

There have been so many backflips by the Australian Labor government lately that I can't tell whether I'm watching politics or Cirque du Soleil.

Prior to Kevin Rudd's election in late 2007 the talking heads in the media were singing his praises as an economic conservative and having the right policies on climate change, labour laws, education and immigration etc. Now that the media is questioning the ETS abandonment, Andrew Bolt is quite rightly calling them out on it.

So who was wise enough to write the following on 22 October 2007:
I have likened his (Rudd's) understanding of economics to that other disastrous Labor leader of the past, Gough Whitlam, and nothing I have seen subsequent to making that judgement has changed my mind.
And this on 7 November 2007:
The Australian's Paul Kelly is hardly someone that could be called alarmist. His balanced, thoughtful commentary on the ABC's Insiders is the highlight of the program.

In this opinion piece he describes how Kevin Rudd intends to increase his power as Prime Minister should Labor be elected on November 24. This should come as no surprise. Rudd is fundamentally a policy wonk meaning he must have processes that involve him. He has no idea about what makes the economy tick or what drives the average citizen so he intends to have more of a micro-management role in Australia's affairs than any government since the disastrous Whitlam.
That's right, it was your erstwhile correspondent who saw through Kevin Rudd prior to his election in a way that the mainstream media couldn't - or wouldn't.

In less than 6 months in government Rudd's much vaunted FuelWatch program was thrown under the bus in what was to pretty much define this government's modus operandi and on 30 May 2008 I wrote:
There are two types of control freak: in-control and under-control.

An in-control freak has to be involved in every decision being made. An under-control freak has to be sure that his management team is on top of things and executing policy effectively.

Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, is an in-control freak and the latest example is the mess that he has created with the government's FuelWatch policy.

...Which leads me to articulate for the first time my view of the man. As I've posted previously, leadership changes people. Sometimes they surprise people, step up to the mark and become real leaders in the way that Howard did. Sometimes they crash and burn, as Mark Latham did, though that was much more predictable. Therefore, it's always wise to let some time pass before making a judgement.

Six months into his term I think I've seen enough to have a clear view of Kevin Rudd.

Leadership: As a leader, Rudd is more Custer than Patton; more Whitlam than Hawke or Keating. He is a manager, not a leader. Australia is in a terrific position economically, small inflation worries notwithstanding, and so it's possible that a competent manager can be successful. The job of prime minister at the moment and for the next few years can be done effectively in management mode so Rudd's lack of leadership ability may not work against him - as long as things don't go pear-shaped in the world economy and we don't otherwise face a major crisis.

Competence: Here's a big statement that I think people will come to reflect on the wisdom of in years to come - Kevin Rudd is profoundly incompetent to be prime minister. Profoundly. In fact, I'd go so far to say that when his time has come and gone Rudd will be seen as one of our worst ever PMs. He has Gough Whitlam's understanding of economics and Paul Keating's understanding of the ordinary bloke. I think he will be seen to have squandered a huge opportunity to move Australia forward at a time when international competitiveness is growing ever tougher.

Vision: It is now clear that Rudd has no vision for Australia. His policy of symbolism and populism over outcomes and substance is proof. From the economic disaster of ratifying Kyoto to the Stolen Generations' Apology to a plethora of inquiries into all sorts of issues and to FuelWatch itself Rudd has been focused more on his personal popularity than achieving positive outcomes for Australians. Can you imagine this man taking the tough, unpopular decisions on illegal immigration, workplace relations and even the Iraq war as Howard? Even his most ardent supporters must wonder what he stands for.

Personality: Rudd has no charm and no charisma, traits that are important to hold a leadership team together, especially when times get tough. It can be quite justifiably said that Howard lacked charm and charisma. He turned out to be one of this country's best ever leaders so why can't Rudd follow suit? The fact is that Howard slept the sleep of a leader. Rudd sleeps the sleep of a manager.
Not bad, eh, given it's a nearly two year old assessment. The world economy did indeed go pear shaped and Rudd's incompetence was on immediate display with huge, do nothing spending plans rolled out in too short a time and with minimal effect, other than adding to the national debt and, unfortunately, leading to the deaths of a number of home insulation installers.

In July 2008 I was joined by a few others who were starting to doubt Rudd's abilities:
Australia's go it alone attitude to addressing the non-issue of climate change is a prime example of how far out of touch with community attitudes Rudd is, let alone reality. It seems that he prefers to pander to European and United Nations institutions than do what is right for Australia.

In Kevin Rudd we do not have that strength of leadership. Unfortunately, he does not understand how limited his ability is and that will be to the detriment of all of us.
By January 2009 I passed the baton as Australia's most incompetent prime minister from Gough Whitlam to Kevin Rudd:
I tell you who is sleeping more soundly tonight and that's former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

Why?

Well, Whitlam's government was a shambles that wrought chaos upon Australia's economy that took many years to overcome.

Whitlam himself has long been viewed as the worst PM we've ever had and for good reason.

But with the current Labor PM Kevin Rudd's 8,000+ word socialist screed published in the leftist The Monthly this week Whitlam can let out as big a sigh of relief as his 92 year old body will allow now that the mantle of Australia's worst ever PM has been lifted from him by Rudd's unbelievable incompetence.
And, just for a change, on 4 February 2009 I continued:
I wonder how long it will be before your average Australian voter wakes up to the fact that Kevin Rudd is the new Gough Whitlam?

Of course, there are millions of voters who either weren't born yet or politically aware during Whiltam's reign of chaos and who still think that Rudd is doing a good job by throwing tens of billions of dollars at the economy in order to stimulate it and get past the Global Financial Crisis.
..and on I banged until the end of the year.

With an election looming, which the government is an overwhelming favourite to win, it's worth looking back to see what this government's achievements are.

Are there any?

In fact, in many ways we've gone backwards.

Certainly, our fiscal position has been weakened by Rudd's insane spending spree.

Our foreign relations have been damaged by Rudd's remarkable incompetence in an area touted as his greatest strength.

He signed Kyoto, amid much fanfare by the symbolism-as-policy left, and has now punted the associated economy killing emissions trading scheme down the road to at least 2013. In the meantime, power stations can't raise capital due to the uncertainty over policy. Nice work, Kev.

Again, what have we got to show for having elected Kevin Rudd?

And how much better off would we have been under a Coalition government?

Plenty.

(Nothing Follows)

Returning soon...!

2010-04-26T18:41:00.002+10:00

In news that may or may not excite you depending on your point of view I shall be resuming blogging in the very near future.

Has anything interesting happened in my absence?

Fox News on global warming

2009-12-22T09:16:00.002+11:00

Fox News continues to prove why it calls itself fair and balanced in this piece looking at global warming.

(Nothing Follows)

Climate Poetry

2009-12-16T21:31:00.009+11:00

Al Gore really must be right into this whole climate change thing.

After all, what else could inspire someone to turn one's hand to poetry?

Here's Al's climate poem:

One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun

Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
Neptune’s bones dissolve

Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly

Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration

Unknown creatures
Take their leave, unmourned
Horsemen ready their stirrups

Passion seeks heroes and friends
The bell of the city
On the hill is rung

The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools

Oh, bravo! Bravo! The talent! The wonder! Magnificent!

Can you imagine the screeching scorn from the cultural elites if George W Bush had written such drivel?

I think that The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy needs to be updated.

I might have a crack at some climate poetry, too...

Tracking brave souls
Data inconvenient
An abacus to use

Water ebbing up and
Down across endless
Stools in the night

Belching cars go
By jingo I say
These graphs are not

Round and round they
Go to the dogs
Stars shine down dimly

Half a degree
One degree
Two degrees upward

All in the Valley of Death
Predicted the Six Hundred
Climate Models

I can no longer continue
A crisis befalls us
Not of climate but of poetry.

How'd I go?

Al Gore, as they say in The Simpsons, eat my shorts...

(Nothing Follows)

These people are crazy

2009-12-04T12:32:00.003+11:00

Add to the myriad of dire predictions of the consequences of climate change today's warning that the fish are going to go crazy.

Warmer ocean temperatures caused by global warming could cause sharks and other fish to become more aggressive, according to a new Australian study.

Research conducted by the University of New South Wales found that a slight lift in water temperatures — just two or three degrees — can cause some fish to become up to 30 times more aggressive than they normally would be.

The studies were conducted on young damsel fish, but head researcher Dr Peter Biro told ninemsn "he would be surprised" if sharks did not also undergo a similar transformation in warm water.

"I would imagine it ought to affect sharks ... We think it is linked to the metabolism of the fishes — it increases their need to feed," Dr Biro said.

The research involved putting the damsel fish in varying temperatures of water and placing other fish behind glass to see how they reacted.

Dr Biro said it was "obvious" the warmer water had an effect.

"Some fish would literally charge at the glass," he said.

"I'm quite confident that if the glass was not there they would have torn the other fish to shreds."

He predicted the increased aggression caused by climate change would cause some fish populations to dwindle, but it would eventually correct itself.

"I think in the short term we might see some effects," he said.

"But I think the animals will adapt, they won't all kill each other."

The test also exposed previously unknown behavioural traits that exist among the damsel fish species.

While some fish showed extreme aggressive reaction to the warm water, others did not react at all.

The majority of the fish tested appeared to be at least twice as aggressive in the warm water.

How could this test be carried out in anything that remotely resembles reality?

In the event that the oceans do heat up by 2-3C, which they show no signs of doing, then it'll take decades or, more likely, at least a century, as there's an enormous amount of heat required to do that.

So how did they undertake this test? Heat water up slowly over a week or two? No wonder the fish become pissed off - they're too bloody hot.

And what did they conduct this test on? A damsel fish.

This is a damsel fish:

Apparently, after testing on this little feller they expect sharks to get just as grumpy.

I dare them to try it on sharks.

Here's another point.

Sharks move around between colder and warmer oceans but it doesn't seem to matter what temperature ocean they're in to munch up the ocassional human...

(Nothing Follows)

Collapse of standards - Example 54390442

2009-12-03T21:53:00.005+11:00

Two stories today demonstrate the ongoing collapse of standards in today's values-free, morally relativistic world.

First, thanks to Tiger Woods:

What's in a word?

Well, for Internet searchers, many aren't quite sure.

When Tiger Woods apologized today for "transgressions" after Us Weekly posted a voice mail of the world's No. 1 golfer talking to an alleged mistress, confused readers flooded Google with searches of the 14-letter word in search for clarity.

Google Trends, which lists in real-time the fastest rising searches on Google, lists "transgressions" as No. 1.

The search engine gave the query its highest ranking: volcanic.

To help you out, I've reached over to the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary on my desk for the definition:

• an act, process, or instance of transgressing: as a: infringement or violation of law, command, or duty b: the spread of the sea over land areas and the consequent uncomfortable deposit of sediments on older rocks

(We're pretty sure he meant the first part.)

What has happened to the standard of education when people don't know what trangression means?

I've mentioned my 20 x 20 question before (ask your teenager what 20 times 20 is; 90% won't say 400) and this is another example of not teaching the basics.

The next example comes from the world of cricket. Apparently, retired English captain Michael Vaughan has taken up art.

First it was tennis legend Martina Navratilova, and now former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan is using his sporting skills to produce art.

Vaughan, who led England to Ashes glory in 2005, has created a series of paintings by throwing paint-spattered cricket balls at canvasses, in a technique dubbed artballing.

The works -- with titles such as "Six!" and "Power Play" -- went on display Wednesday night at a gallery in London's upmarket department store Harrods.

"With my art it's been good to get away from cricket and switch off those thought processes required to captain at the highest level, the day-in day-out questioning of yourself and the team - the art is quite therapeutic," he said.

Vaughan, 35, who retired from professional cricket in June, admitted he first became interested in art when teammate Ashley Giles took him to trendy London galleries during rain-delayed Test matches.

"I tell people what I'm doing and they raise an eyebrow and say 'Oh, really?'. But then they see the finished works and it really takes them aback, which is great," the former batsman said.

A work entitled "183" commemorates his Ashes Test innings in Sydney in 2003, with a maroon ball spot for every single he scored, a red spot for every two, a pink spot for his fours and a solitary green spot for his only six.

Navratilova held an exhibition at Roland-Garros, home of the French Open Grand Slam tournament, in 2007 of her works produced by hitting balls soaked in paint against canvases, and bouncing them on canvases on the ground.

Check out the so-called 'art'...

All that's missing is a government grant.

When bouncing painted balls against a canvas counts as art then there's nothing that doesn't.

In the bottom left (Vaughan's right) you can see that he signed the 'art', as well. Is he beyond embarrassment?

(Nothing Follows)

Do Labor understand the danger Tony Abbott poses?

2009-12-02T09:56:00.004+11:00

I wonder whether the government understands the danger posed to them by Tony Abbott's ascension to the Liberal Party leadership?

In his first speech as leader he attacked the ETS as just another great, big, Labor tax and quite rightly compared the government's reckless spending to that of Whitlam.

Opinion polls are published regularly showing that people are 'concerned' about climate change (in the same way that the Secretary-General du jour of the UN is 'concerned' about Iran building a nuclear weapon or genocide in Darfur) and that they want something done about it.

The left uses these polls as evidence that Australians want something done and they want it done now.

What are not published are any of the polls showing that climate change doesn't rate in the top half dozen things that voters are concerned about, which show that the economy and jobs are, unsurprisingly, at the top.

Tony Abbott can't win the next election, but he can make big inroads into the government's majority by focusing on jobs.

If I was him I'd be banging on at every opportunity that "The Liberal Party is the party of jobs and we are not going to sacrifice even one Australian job to implement a great, Green tax that will achieve nothing without the world's major emitters acting first."

Focus on jobs. Focus on the cost to families.

If he calls the ETS a "great, Green tax that will achieve nothing" then he might even take out a few Greenies along the way, which would be the greatest public service of all.

Labor, and its media acolytes, think that Tony Abbott is easy meat, that he can be made fun of for his Christian beliefs and history as a political strongman.

I think that they will be given a rude wake up call over the next few months as the Coalition finally gets its act together and forms a coherent policy narrative that the Australian people can support.

Andrew Bolt highlights a line from the Sydney Morning Herald as summing up the policy line that will be run:

TONY Abbott will steer the Liberal Party back to its conservative roots with a 2010 election campaign portraying Kevin Rudd as a Whitlamesque big spender whose climate change policies will smash Australian jobs.

Can you imagine Malcolm Turnbull coming up with such a simple strategy?

People can both understand it and relate to it.

I might send Tony Abbott a copy of Frank Luntz's Words That Work:It's not what you say it's what they hear to help him keep on message.

(Nothing Follows)

If the Liberal Party votes for an ETS then they lose my vote forever

2009-11-29T11:08:00.005+11:00

The following is the Liberal Party of Australia platform:

What does the Liberal Party stand for?

We are the party of initiative and enterprise;

We believe in the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative.

We believe in government that nurtures and encourages its citizens through incentive, rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor's corporate state and bureaucratic red tape.

We believe in those most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy - the freedom of thought, worship, speech and association.

We believe in a just and humane society in which the importance of the family and the role of law and justice is maintained.

We believe in equal opportunity for all Australians; and the encouragement and facilitation of wealth so that all may enjoy the highest possible standards of living, health, education and social justice.

We believe that, wherever possible, government should not compete with an efficient private sector; and that businesses and individuals - not government - are the true creators of wealth and employment.

We believe in preserving Australia's natural beauty and the environment for future generations.

We believe that our nation has a constructive role to play in maintaining world peace and democracy through alliance with other free nations.

In short, we simply believe in individual freedom and free enterprise; and if you share this belief, then ours is the Party for you.

Surely, anyone who believes in the scientific fabrication called climate change or global warming or whatever the heck it's called these days and supports an economy deadening tax cannot be a Liberal?

So what is Malcolm Turnbull thinking?

And how can he be a member of the Liberal Party let alone it's leader?

If the Liberal Party votes with the government and passes an emissions trading scheme then they will lose my vote forever.

The problem for the Liberals are that there are a lot of people like me.

(Nothing Follows)

No real world experience required to run US government

2009-11-27T07:03:00.000+11:00

If this graph is accurate, and there's no reason to assume otherwise given it came from research done by JP Morgan, then it explains a lot about why the Obama administration seems to be such a bunch of incompetents.

How can President Obama give more than 90% of his cabinet appointments to people who have no real world experience?

These people will naturally choose ideological positions rather than those born of the experience gained in the real world of hard knocks.

No wonder the Obama administration can choose to abandon Honduras to the Chavista wolves or the pro-democracy movement in Iran to the Ahmadinejad thugocracy. They have no idea.

(Nothing follows)

NZ climate scientists massage things other than sheep

2009-11-26T12:22:00.003+11:00

NZ climate scientists go to work on the NZ temperature record.

Before:

After:

They've turned a 0.06C rise per century since 1850 into 0.92C...

Apparently, THAT is science!

Read all about it.

(Nothing Follows)

Climategate comments

2009-11-25T10:04:00.000+11:00

Many people are passing the so-called Climategate scandal off as not being important and not affecting climate science.

The problem with that view is that without confidence in the dendro temperature record climate science is pretty much reduced to localised physics and the ice core record, which, inconveniently, shows warmer Roman and Medieval Warm Periods than present.

The corruption of the HadCRU temperature record is plain to see in the very code that produces the models. We already knew that the NASA GISS temperature record was suspect so it was amusing to see the CRU crowd casting doubt on Hansen's methodology.

Here are the best examples of just how bad this situation is:

Summary of emails from Bishop Hill.

Willis Eschenbach's attempt to get information via the FOI.

The comments in the code tell the story:

; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses "corrected" MXD - but shouldn't usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

And for terrific entertainment:

One might be able to defend one or two emails here and there and I have defended the use of the term 'trick' to describe a programming shortcut (though the trick referred to looks dubious) but the overall tone of the emails and code is one of manipulation of both data and scientific journals.

It's also interesting that all of the people involved seem to be activist environmentalists with email exchanges with Greenpeace, WWF and the NYT's enviro reporter, Andy Revkin. People in the hard sciences tend to split down the political middle. Perhaps the conservatives go to work for industry and the lefties go and work in theory-land at the universities.

I developed a view quite some time back that climate science seemed to attract mediocre scientists to its ranks. My reasoning is that they are able to undertake research that is not able to be tested in the here and now whereas decent scientists want to see their research create tangible outcomes. Michael Mann and our very own David Karoly are two shining examples of this mediocrity. These scientists have achieved prominence (and funding) far beyond where their abilities should have taken them. Nothing I have read in the emails changes my opinion.

I have also been commenting for a long time that climate scientists will give real scientists a bad name in the public square. Job done.

(Nothing Follows)

Thought for the day

2009-11-23T15:32:00.007+11:00

If the leftie health police are so concerned about the effect of advertising on children (and the rest of us) then how is it that 99.9% of people who work in advertising are lefties?

(Nothing Follows)

Climate debt payments will go to world's most corrupt countries

2009-11-22T23:08:00.006+11:00

Ironically, if the United Nations has its way then there will be a massive wealth transfer from the light blue shaded countries to the dark blue as payment for so-called 'climate debt'.

The Central Americans want money:

CENTRAL American nations will demand $US105 billion ($114.2 billion) from industrialised countries for damages caused by global warming, the region's representatives say.
Central American environment ministers gathered in Guatemala overnight to discuss the so-called "ecological debt" owed to them and to set out a common position ahead of climate talks in Copenhagen next month.

Guatemalan environment minister Luis Ferrate said the $US105 billion ($114.2 billion) price tag was "an estimate" of the damage done by climate change across 16 sectors in Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama.

Ferrate minister said the region "had never faced" so much drought, aridity, flooding, and precarious food security.

A formal proposal will be presented in Denmark, officials said.

His Nicaraguan counterpart Juana Arguenal said that Central America would press industrialised countries to reach concrete decisions to reduce "greenhouse" gases at Copenhagen.

"We hope for a deal that is ethical and moral," she said.

Why wouldn't the Central American countries be asking for money from Brazil due to that country's clearing of 'the lungs of the earth', The Amazon?

Thieves, the lot of them.

(Nothing Follows)

The greatest scientific scandal since Piltdown Man will have no impact

2009-11-21T09:52:00.009+11:00

The information provided yesterday by the hacking of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit is the greatest scientific scandal since Piltdown Man.

Here we have a large number of high profile, interconnected scientists who are actively conspiring to fabricate scientific results that show alarming 20th century warming and reduced warming during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods.

A number of people are going through the emails including: Andrew Bolt, Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts and Lucia at The Blackboard so I don't need to.

This will have no impact - nil, nada, none, zero, zip - on the whole global warming/climate change movement.

The problem is that the mainstream media is too invested in advocating for climate change to even consider undertaking an investigation into the information provided by the hack.

By the end of next week this will all have died down. People like Steve McIntyre might find some data that shows results have been fabricated but he's done that before and the media has ignored him, which they'll do again this time.

If the mainstream media does not investigate a situation is which there has been conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice, falsification of data, suppression and tampering with evidence and public corruption (as Robert M pointed out at WUWT) then it will be yet another example of the slow decline of Western civilisation.

Here's an email that I haven't seen elsewhere, has an Australian reference:

From: "Thomas.R.Karl" To: Phil Jones Subject: Re: FW: retraction request Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:21:57 -0400 Cc: Wei-Chyung Wang

Thanks Phil,

We R now responding to a former TV weather forecaster who has got press, He has a web site
of 40 of the USHCN stations showing less than ideal exposure. He claims he can show urban biases and exposure biases.

We are writing a response for our Public Affairs. Not sure how it will play out.

Regards, TOm

Phil Jones said the following on 6/19/2007 4:22 AM:

Wei-Chyung and Tom,

The Climate Audit web site has a new thread on the Jones et al. (1990) paper, with lots of quotes from Keenan. So they may not be going to submit something to Albany. Well may be?!?

Just agreed to review a paper by Ren et al. for JGR. This refers to a paper on urbanization effects in China, which may be in press in J. Climate. I say 'may be' as Ren isn't that clear about this in the text, references and responses to earlier reviews. Have requested JGR get a copy a copy of this in order to do the review.

In the meantime attaching this paper by Ren et al. on urbanization at two sites in China.

Nothing much else to say except:

1. Think I've managed to persuade UEA to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to do with Climate Audit.
2. Had an email from David Jones of BMRC, Melbourne. He said they are ignoring anybody who has dealings with CA, as there are threads on it about Australian sites.
3. CA is in dispute with IPCC (Susan Solomon and Martin Manning) about the availability of the responses to reviewer's at the various stages of the AR4 drafts. They are most interested here re Ch 6 on paleo.

Cheers

Phil

Disgraceful...!

UPDATE: Bishop Hill has a terrific summary going...

(Nothing Follows)

Well, this should be interesting...

2009-11-20T09:29:00.007+11:00

On such important issues to their agenda the organised left tends to overwhelm online polls, as I've demonstrated previously.

Let's see how this one goes:

9:29AM

10.47AM

11.37AM

Yes:No ratios so far are 1.62, 1.68 and 1.68. I'd expect the final result to be close to that.

4:38PM

UPDATE:

Someone has posted what appears to be a heap of emails and other documents from the Hadley Climate Reseach Unit that would be, if true, should be the end of climate science as we know it.

I predict the following:

most of the information will be shown to be true;
the mainstream media will give this almost no coverage;
there will be small, inconsequential discrepencies found that will be used to discredit the entire document set; and
it will have no impact on the climate debate, which, ironically, has very little to do with the actual climate.

(Nothing Follows)

This passes for research...??

2009-11-19T14:10:00.003+11:00

Why is The Australia Institute described as an 'independent' think tank when all it does is spew out far left garbage?

Its founder and former head, Clive Hamilton, retired from the organisation recently and is standing as the Greens candidate for Higgins in Melbourne. Methinks that the Greens are too far to the right for old Clive who has suggested democracy needs to be suspended in order to respond to the threat of climate change...

Here is the latest example of what passes for research at this esteemed institution:

Australians work more than two billion hours of unpaid overtime a year, a $72 billion gift to their employers, a new study by an independent think tank shows.

The Australian Institute research shows a typical full-time employee is working 70 minutes of unpaid overtime a day, which equates to 33 eight-hour days per year, or six-and-a-half standard working weeks.

Now, there is no greater example of the fact that The Australia Institute doesn't know anything about Australia's workplaces than this blatantly ridiculous figure. Anyone who has been an employer, and I used to pay the salary of over 30 people before selling my business and moving into the corporate world, knows that the 'typical full-time employee' turns up on time, takes a lunch break and leaves on time. In the public service (in which I worked part time during my university years) there was much more turning up late, taking a long lunch and leaving early than there was working long hours (typically by the most senior executive level).

Across the workforce, the 2.14 billion hours of unpaid overtime represented six per cent free labour for the economy depends.

"While Australians might have a reputation for taking 'sickies' and 'smokos', the evidence suggests otherwise," the institute's executive director Richard Denniss said when releasing the research on Wednesday.

During the past decade Australia had simply accepted the "dubious honour" of working the longest hours in the western world, when other developed countries had sought to reduce working hours.

Australia does not work the longest hours in the western world. The US does. How we could work longer hours than the US when we get 4 weeks of holiday and they get 2...?

"The amount of unpaid overtime worked in Australia is the equivalent of 1.16 million full-time jobs," Dr Denniss said.

"In an economy where unemployment is rising, overwork is an obvious area for government to address."

So how's that going to work? Businesses lay off staff in order to reduce costs and survive the downturn. By definition, the productivity of the remaining staff increases. If there are people working significant extra hours, and I'm sure there are but not even one-tenth of what TAI is claiming, then any government legislation in this area can only harm the recovery by imposing costs on business that they can't afford.

The survey found 45 per cent of workers, and more than half of all full-time employees, work more hours than they are paid for on a typical workday.

45 per cent? I call BS. How did they get their data?

The online survey of 1,000 respondents, commissioned by the institute, found that 44 per cent of people who work unpaid overtime said it is "compulsory" or "expected".

Slightly fewer (43 per cent) said overtime was "not expected" but also "not discouraged".

Ooooooooh...an 'online survey'...how remarkably scientific. I never saw it. How did they choose people to send it to?

Australians also work three times more hours or unpaid overtime than they volunteer to community organisations.

More BS, I reckon.

In response to its findings, the institute has nominated November 25 as national Go Home On Time Day.

"Ultimately, managers and business owners have a responsibility to create an environment in which employees can work reasonable hours without risking their career, their health or their relationships," co-author Josh Fear said.

Fear. What a terrific name for someone pushing such rubbish.

The institute is encouraging workers to postpone all last minute tasks and register for a "leave pass" at www.gohomeontimeday.org.au

I downloaded the research paper from their website to look at their methodology.

Under 'Survey of workers' they have:

The Australia Institute commissioned an online survey of 1000 people in July 2009. The survey sample, sourced from a reputable independent online panel provider, was
representative of the adult Australian population by age, gender and state/territory. Of the total sample, 626 respondents were in paid work. These people were asked questions about unpaid overtime and how it affects them.

The reputable independent online panel provider was Valued Opinions Panel, the Australian arm of Research Now. How can you survey 1000 people who are representative of the Australian population and come up with only 626 being in paid work? It's not credible.

There's also an issue they haven't addressed. What is the impact of people taking smoke breaks on having to work 'overtime' in order to get their jobs done.

Yet again The Australia Institute demonstrates that it's more interested in pushing its far left agenda than deal with truth.

(Nothing Follows)

Proof that there are at least 20,368 morons in Australia

2009-11-18T14:26:00.002+11:00

Ninemsn's latest poll question is - Do you think Australia is a corrupt country?

Here's the current count:

Do the 20,368 people who voted yes actually understand what a proper corrupt country looks like and how far from it we are?

How would they cope with what goes on in Africa?

Or in almost any Asian nation?

Or in South America?

These people are nitwits.

I blame their teachers.

(Nothing Follows)

Mendacious leaders the new norm

2009-11-17T10:42:00.000+11:00

One of the most troubling aspects of the current highly charged political climate is the mendaciousness of its leaders in both Australia and the United States.

Everyone expects their politicians to tell them the odd lie here and there; it's part of normal political discourse.

Most people accuse the other side of lying for no other reason than political partisanship but it's when people who are not normally known as rock throwers start questioning the honesty and integrity of their leaders that one should be concerned.

Greg Sheridan is the foreign editor for The Australian newspaper. An experienced journalist, Sheridan has over 30 years of experience in his field and is known for the even-handedness of his opinions.

In an article on the cave-in of the Rudd government to asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking he writes:

Rudd needs to stop a recent and baffling practice he has developed of telling the most outrageous lies about Australian foreign policy. Last week, in India, he claimed the decision not to sell India uranium was bipartisan. In fact, the Howard government had approved uranium sales to India and the Turnbull opposition continues to support it.

For some bizarre reason Rudd keeps saying the people on the Oceanic Viking have not got a special deal. This simply defies the ordinary meaning of language and common sense. The first principle of good foreign policy is generally to tell the truth. One reason governments don't tell the truth is when they are trying to avoid a hard decision...

As Andrew Bolt identified, Kevin Rudd has increasingly been telling lies on the asylum seeker issue. He can rely on the media to run cover for him for a while but there are now articles being written by committed leftists such as Michelle Grattan expressing disquiet about Rudd's playing fast and loose with the truth.

I'll tell you right now why Rudd lies - because he's completely incompetent to be Prime Minister; he makes policy on the run, which results in mistakes largely due to his arrogance and way too high opinion of himself and then has to cover things up with lies.

The media would never let a conservative prime minister get away with what Rudd is managing.

Over the big pond in the US of A, Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post is equally troubled by the gap between what President Obama is saying and what his administration is doing.

Samuelson is an old-style journalist whose reporting is balanced and informative. As a Washington Post and Newsweek columnist one would expect him to be on the left. However, he does not vote, as he says that voting would interfere with his ability to report objectively. Over the years of reading his articles it's hard to tell which side he's on - the sign of a good journo.

When someone like Samuelson is troubled then we all should be:

There is an air of absurdity to what is mistakenly called "health care reform." Everyone knows that the United States faces massive governmental budget deficits as far as calculators can project, driven heavily by an aging population and uncontrolled health costs. Recovering slowly from a devastating recession, it's widely agreed that, though deficits should not be cut abruptly (lest the economy resume its slump), a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending, and curb massive future deficits. The administration estimates these at $9 trillion from 2010 to 2019. The president and all his top economic advisers proclaim the same cautionary message.

So, what do they do? Just the opposite. Their sweeping overhaul of the health care system -- which Congress is halfway toward enacting -- would almost certainly make matters worse. It would create new, open-ended medical entitlements that threaten higher deficits and would do little to suppress surging health costs. The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.

Rudd and Obama were both elected by similar margins and both campaigned as centrists with Mr Rudd promoting himself as an economic conservative while Mr Obama promised a bipartisan administration.

Anyone with half a brain knew that they were not telling the truth at the time (but that's how campaigns are run so c'est la vie) so it should come as no surprise that what the electorate got was not exactly what they thought they were buying.

In Australia, Rudd's arrogance and dishonesty has damaged our relationships with China, Japan, India and Indonesia, to name just a few. Quite an achievement for someone who ranked international diplomacy as one of his greatest strengths.

In the US, Obama has backflipped on a climate change deal, introduced a health 'care' bill nobody other than true leftists wants that will further harm the country's finances, committed trillions of dollars in further spending and generally taken the country in a direction about 180 degrees from what he tells people and what they expected when they voted for him.

Last year I wrote that the English Speaking World is the world's leader and that the change from Bush-Blair-Howard to Obama-Brown-Rudd would have very negative consequences.

Unfortunately, I was right.

(Nothing Follows)

Lying pieces of crap scientists tell more climate lies

2009-11-16T15:59:00.000+11:00

These people really piss me off.

Who?

The scientists who keep making predictions of doom and gloom about the fate of the Great Barrier Reef unless Australia unilaterally slashes its economic wrists.

Why do they have any credibility at all when every, single one of their previous predictions about the reef have been hopelessly wrong?

THE Great Barrier Reef has only a 50 per cent chance of survival if global CO2 emissions are not reduced at least 25 per cent by 2020, a coalition of Australia's top reef and climate scientists said today.

The 13 scientists said even deeper cuts of up to 90 per cent by 2050 would necessary if the reef was to survive future coral bleaching and coral death caused by rising ocean temperatures.

90 percent. How would they know? It's impossible for them to know that. Impossible.

"We've seen the evidence with our own eyes. Climate change is already impacting the Great Barrier Reef," Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said in a briefing to MPs.

Bullcrap. There is no evidence that the Great Barrier Reef is being impacted by anything remotely resembling the negative affects of climate change - affects, it should be noted, that won't actually be noticeable for 40-50 years and that's ONLY if the predictions of the hitherto useless IPCC climate models are correct.

Australia is one of the world's biggest CO2 emitters per capita, but has only pledged to cut its emissions by five per cent from 2000 levels by 2020. The Government said it would go further with a 25 per cent cut, if a tough international climate agreement is reached at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December, but this is looking increasingly unlikely with legally binding targets now off the agenda.

Why bring out the per capita statement when it's immaterial to the argument? China ADDS Australia's output every 3-4 months. We can cut our emissions by 100% and have zero effect.

"This is our Great Barrier Reef. If Australia doesn't show leadership by reducing emissions to save the reef, who will?" asked scientist Ken Baldwin.

Why would any country - and I assume they mean India, China, Brazil and Russia etc - take any notice of Australia 'showing leadership' when Europe has had a carbon trading scheme for a number of years, thus 'showing leadership', that NO COUNTRY HAS TAKEN ANY NOTICE OF??? These people are truly zealots.

But the Government is struggling to have a hostile Senate pass its planned emissions trading scheme. A final vote is expected next week.

The World Heritage-protected Great Barrier Reef sprawls for more than 345,000 square km off Australia's east coast and can be seen from space. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" within decades, with deadly coral bleaching likely to be an annual occurrence by 2030.

Bleaching occurs when the tiny plant-like coral organisms die, often because of higher temperatures, and leave behind only a white limestone reef skeleton.

Predictions of bleaching have the same record as climate models - nil, nada, zero, zilch, none.

The Australian scientists said more than 100 nations had endorsed a goal of limiting average global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, but even that rise would endanger coral reefs.

They said global warming was already threatening the economic value of the Great Barrier Reef which contributes $5.4 billion to the economy each year from fishing, recreation and tourism.

Are they saying that if we pass an ETS that it will protect the $5.4 billion? Making travel, accommodation, food and everything else will somehow protect this income? Have they done a projection on what the revenue will fall to if an ETS is implemented? If not then why not? It should be easy for them given they calculated that we need to cut emissions by 90% by 2050.

These people are seriously the pits and an embarrassment to real scientists.

(Nothing Follows)

Man-made climate change finally proven to kill people in China

2009-11-12T18:40:00.004+11:00

Here's proof that it's possible for man to interfere with the climate and end up killing people, which takes the climate change scorecard to:

Real man-made climate change: 38
Fake man-made climate change: 0

At least 38 people have died in some of the worst snows to hit northern China in decades, state media says.

The most fatalities occurred in Shanxi province where nearly 500 traffic accidents left 24 people dead and 70 injured when heavy snowfall pummelled the region this week, the China News Service said.

Officials have said the two storms in Beijing were artificially induced, sparking anger among residents. The extent of the weather manipulation efforts remains unclear.

In some places this week's snowstorms were the biggest in up to 60 years, leaving up to one million people in need of some form of disaster assistance, the report said.

Some scientists including Australia's own Climate Anti-Prophet, Tim Flannery, have suggested that sticking sulphur and whatnot into the atmosphere would help avoid the consequences of any warming. Not factored into their calculations is the loss of life that is almost certain to occur. Not that they seem to care too much about that...

(Nothing Follows)

The terrific 'Yankee Lady'

2009-11-09T13:01:00.000+11:00

What a terrific photo (courtesy of Airliners.net) of 'Yankee Lady', a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress.

And here's where B-17 pilots went to work. It's remarkable to look at the complexity of dials and levers and remember that this aircraft was only designed around 35 years after the Wright brothers first took to the air.

(Nothing Follows)

BBC confirms it's still a lying pack of anti-free market commies

2009-11-08T17:20:00.002+11:00

I'll tell you an organisation that is helping to wreck society, lower standards and impoverish people - the BBC.

The BBC has just released a survey on worldwide attitudes to capitalism, the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall.

Wide Dissatisfaction with Capitalism — Twenty Years after Fall of Berlin Wall

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC World Service global poll finds that dissatisfaction with free market capitalism is widespread, with an average of only 11% across 27 countries saying that it works well and that greater regulation is not a good idea.

In only two countries do more than one in five feel that capitalism works well as it stands — the US (25%) and Pakistan (21%).

The most common view is that free market capitalism has problems that can be addressed through regulation and reform—a view held by an average of 51% of more than 29,000 people polled by GlobeScan/PIPA.

An average of 23% feel that capitalism is fatally flawed, and a new economic system is needed—including 43% in France, 38% in Mexico, 35% in Brazil and 31% in Ukraine.

Furthermore, majorities would like their government to be more active in owning or directly controlling their country’s major industries in 15 of the 27 countries. This view is particularly widely held in countries of the former Soviet states of Russia (77%), and Ukraine (75%), but also Brazil (64%), Indonesia (65%), and France (57%).

Majorities support governments distributing wealth more evenly in 22 of the 27 countries — on average two out of three (67%) across all countries. In 17 of the 27 countries most want to see government doing more to regulate business—on average 56%.

Now, in the midst of the global financial crisis one might think that there had been an opinion shift against free markets, especially given the onslaught of misinformation and agitprop from the BBC, ABC, NYT, CNN etc.

However, given their well established reputation for being leftist lying bastards it's always worth going to the source documents to see what the survey really said to see whether the BBC had cherrypicked information that supported their socialist doctrine.

Let's go to the graphs provided in the survery conducted by Globescan.

Looking at the information wouldn't it be more intellectually honest to say that 73% of people who have an opinion support free market capitalism?

Not if you're the BBC.

How do the answers stack up by country?

(click to embiggen)

It's interesting how low the percentages are in Japan and Germany that capitalism is a fatally flawed system. Perhaps it's because those two countries are massive exporters and understand that free markets benefit everyone who participates.

The BBC deliberately pushes leftist agitprop, which is picked up by unthinking media outlets around the world that spreads its distortions before, as they say, truth has a chance to get out of bed and get its boots on.

It really is a wonder that we have any freedom left in the world at all given the left's 50+ year assault on it...

(Nothing Follows)

I Am Dumbfounded

2009-11-06T18:14:00.002+11:00

I cannot believe this. I simply cannot.

What can one say?

Unlike George W Bush when he first got news that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre and that the situation was being assessed (people initially thought that it was a small, private plane), Barack Obama had all of the facts of the Fort Hood attack and yet still chose to dribble on about the organisation of the event he was at and how he looked forward to next year's event et blah.

US soldiers are lying dead and he has the temerity to smile and crack a joke???

Unbelievable. He should call George W and get a lesson in respecting the military.

Words fail me in the same way as Obama failed to respect the dead and wounded at Fort Hood.

(Nothing Follows)

Australia's worst ever PM sells us down the river

2009-11-04T13:04:00.007+11:00

Australia's worst ever prime minister, Kevin Rudd, seems determined to sell Australia's future generations down the financial river in order to feed the here and now of his megalomaniacal ego.

I cannot for the life of me understand why he is trying so hard to implement an economy-wrecking emissions trading scheme in advance of the Copenhagen Convention.

Does it give us any leverage at Copenhagen? Can't see how, myself.

Is such an expensive political wedge worth it in the long run?

When Anthony Watts first posted the link to the text of the treaty to be negotiated I took the time to read through it and became more and more concerned with what is in there.

While nobody has been looking, Australia's climate negotiators have been working on a treaty that will cost Australian working families over $7 BILLION per year.

Where will the money go?

To the United Nations so that they can give it to third-world and developing nations as payment of the West's so-called 'climate debt'.

Who in their right mind would think that the bulk of the money would not end up in the hands of UN middlemen and tinpot dictators?

Why would the West want to continue to donate to Africa, for example, when the more than $2 TRILLION of aid already given to that benighted continent has been so appallingly wasted?

I wonder whether the Average Joe Labor supporter is concerned with his side's abandonment of fiscal responsibility in the name of 'saving the planet' or dealing with the 'global financial crisis'?

Anyhoo, here are a couple of logos that are more appropriate given the times we live in:

(h/t Andrew Bolt for some links)

(Nothing Follows)

More to drive the cultural left nuts

2009-11-02T15:12:00.005+11:00

I think that ninemsn is doing its best to try and put up a poll question that gets a favourable response for asylum seekers but the Australian public refuses to co-operate.

The other day I posted their poll question "Should the army get asylum seekers off the Oceanic Viking?" which went 3:1 in favour of using the army.

Today's question is "Should we adopt a softer approach to asylum seekers?". So they've turned the question from being hard - use of the army - to soft.

The previous 3:1 has blown out to 7:1 against the asylum seekers.

This is also at a time when it is being reported that 20 people may have lost their lives when a boat traveling to Australia capsized northwest of the Cocos Islands.

Australians are generous to a fault but we really get riled up when people take the mickey out of us, which these so-called asylum seekers clearly are.

Andrew Bolt has more on their non-real asylum seeker status and how the despicable Greens tell lies in order to further their agenda.

(Nothing Follows)

Fudging health care figures

2009-10-31T13:32:00.003+11:00

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is part of a phrase attributed to the 19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, among others, and later popularized in the United States by, among others, Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions. The phrase is not found in Disraeli's works nor is it known within his lifetime and for years afterward. Many coiners have been proposed. The most plausible, on current evidence, is Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911).

How remarkable that in the 21st century a phrase that was coined before air travel, before radio, before telephones, before elevators and (gasp) before the Internet can be so applicable.

Financial market models and global warming models are just two examples du jour.

Health care is another. Have a look at the following from good.is:

The 78.11 is life expectancy and $7,290 is the cost of health care. If you knew nothing else then you would think that Americans spend a lot of money to achieve ordinary outcomes. Zooming in on the graph gives:

(click to embiggen)

Gee, higher infant mortality than Norway? Worse cardiovascular results? More money spent? What a waste? Right?

Wrong.

You see, nearly every country listed on the image leeches off of the innovation of the US health sector in order to provide their health outcomes. Take away the US and the cost to each nation would be much, much higher, as they would be forced to take on the R&D costs currently borne by the US.

Not that left wing politicians and their supporters will ever make that argument, of course, in spite of its truth.

Here is an inconvenient fact for people who believe the above represents the whole picture - if you are diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and a whole host of other conditions you will live longer post-diagnosis in the US than anywhere else in the world.

The issue in the US is not quality of care but access to care, brought about completely by ridiculous government intervention in the market, which restricts access across state lines, as well as tying health care to employment.

There is another problem with the above image - it compares a nation of 300 million people with much smaller ones.

Norway has a population of under 5 million. Every other country on the image has a much larger population than Norway. The bigger question is how is it that Norway can have such poor outcomes compared to the rest of the countries listed?

Of course, the comparison of the US can only be valid when compared to the whole of the European Union (500 million) or the whole of South America (385 million). There are states of the US that outdo Norway, Canada, Germany or Australia. So what?

Speaking selfishly, I hope that the health care bill as proposed in the US is defeated, otherwise our healthcare costs here in Australia will start to increase, as they will in the rest of the world.

And another thing - if health care reform is so urgent then why won't it be implemented until 2013, after the next presidential election?

(Nothing Follows)

This will drive the cultural left crazy

2009-10-29T14:56:00.004+11:00

So there's a bunch of Sri Lankan economic refugees and assorted ex-Tamil Tiger terrorists living on the Oceanic Viking somewhere off of Indonesia in a political tug-of-war between crap knows who but mainly involving Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, trying to look compassionate, tough and statesmanlike all at the same time; a stance that he has failed spectacularly to achieve, which comes as no surprise to those of us who think he has little diplomatic skill and a decidedly nasty streak about him.

So here's the boat. There's 78 Sri Lankans camping on it.

Now, here's the bit that will drive the cultural left crazy.

Outspoken Liberal MP, Wilson Tuckey, suggested that the government may need to call in the army in order to remove the Sri Lankans from the boat and place them in detention in Indonesia.

Cue the usual whinging and carry on from Australia's left.

Here's the current status of ninemsn's poll on the issue - Should the army get the asylum seekers off the Oceanic Viking?

(click to embiggen)

Queue-jumping asylum seekers have very little support from the Australian people. We have a strong sense of fairness and these people are well past what we consider acceptable.

Now, would the cultural left accept the result of the poll?

Surely they would twist it into an example not of Australia's fairness but of its inherent racism?

No doubt there'll be much chatter among the chattering class over the injustice of it all.

(Nothing Follows)

Give that man an award for bravery

2009-10-26T22:53:00.004+11:00

The loopy left must really be hating the fact that the fraud that is climate change is being exposed for all to see right before the Copenhagen Climate Junket is due to take place.

Here's Liberal Party senator Cory Bernardi putting into simple language the reason why the proposed emissions trading scheme is such a disaster for Australia.

You know, when a company changes its brand it's normally because the old one has problems.

Thus, when the earth's climate stopped doing what climate astrologers predicted it changed from global warming to climate change, which allowed activists to ditch the inconvenient truth of the old brand and include a whole bunch of other apocalyptic consequences - flood, famine, drought, pestilence - to scare the kiddies with.

Simple. as. that.

The greatest threat to freedom does not come from Wall Street or the Religious Right or even Islamic Fascism.

The greatest threat to freedom comes from Big Environmentalism.

(h/t Andrew Bolt)

(Nothing Follows)

ABC journalism plumbs new depths

2009-10-25T10:16:00.001+11:00

Here's the headline from this ABC news article:

And here's the opening paragraph:

Afghans held at an Australian-funded immigration detention centre in Tanjung Pinang, a town on an island south of Singapore, allege they are beaten at night.

Now, a reasonable person would read the headline and the opening paragraph and draw the conclusion that Australia is funding a 'Guantanamo-style' detention centre.

The article continues:

It is the same place where 78 asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking are being taken.

Speaking from behind barred windows, an Afghan man calling himself only Hashim shouted out that there were currently about 80 men inside the Tanjung Pinang detention centre.

It is believed to be capable of holding up to 600 people but to date, 200 has been the maximum held there at any one time.

Hashim said he was from Kandahar but most of the men inside were ethnic Hazaras, and that there were also some Sri Lankans inside.

He said they had been there from two to six months. While they received three meals a day, he said there was no air conditioning or television and nowhere for them to exercise.

"Sometimes the immigration people take some people during the night," Hashim shouted.

Let's get this straight. They are being detained in a facility at one-third capacity, so no problem with overcrowding, are getting three square meals a day while at the same time complaining about no air-conditioning or TV?

Nearly halfway through the article and we're yet to get any evidence of the beatings. So how do we know they happened?

Let's continue:

Asked whether they were beaten, he replied, "Yes. There isn't any human rights. We aren't getting any human rights."

Get that?

"Asked whether they were beaten..."

A journalist asked whether they were beaten? Why the hell would he do that? He has plucked the question out of his arse, got the answer he wanted and then used it as a headline for his article.

Just when you think that journalism is at its nadir the ABC manages to plumb new depths.

How about this for a headline?

"Detainees fed three meals a day, receive medial care, complain about no TV"

(Nothing Follows)

The ongoing collapse of the UK

2009-10-20T22:23:00.002+11:00

Theodore Dalrymple is one of the greatest commentators on the collapse of Western European civilisation.

What has happened to a society in which this can happen?

Leanne Shepherd and Lucy Jarrett, both 32, are close friends. They work as police officers, but on different shifts. For a long time, they babysat for each other, an arrangement that suited them perfectly and enabled them to continue their careers. The authorities recently told them, however, that their arrangement was illegal. If they did not desist, they would face prosecution.

Why? Because they exceeded the permitted time to babysit without having received professional training in such matters as resuscitation and child psychology. Moreover, the state considers their mutual babysitting a potentially taxable economic benefit. It does not matter that the arrangement was entirely reciprocal and voluntary. British citizens may no longer make such private agreements among themselves.

One of the nastiest aspects of this little story is that the authorities were alerted to the two women’s terrible crime by one of their neighbors. An increasingly intrusive state engenders an increasingly nasty population of secret informers.

There was a not dissimilar story in the US recently from Michigan in which a woman was in trouble because families would drop their kids off at her house in the morning, as the bus stop was right out front. She'd take care of 2 or 3 kids for up to an hour, which allowed the parents to get to work on time. Apparently, she's running an illegal child minding facility.

The world is going slowly crazy.

(Nothing Follows)

The collapse of the United States in pictures

2009-10-19T22:15:00.003+11:00

Then:

Now:

Nothing more needs to be said.

(Nothing Follows)

Plod investigate wooden spoon smacking

2009-10-15T09:35:00.007+11:00

I tell you what group is a piece of crap - those that advocate against using a smack or, as in the case below, a wooden spoon to discipline their children.

A Victorian woman has been questioned by police and threatened to be charged with assault after hitting her 9-year-old daughter with a wooden spoon.

That's why we have police. To hunt down wooden-spook smackers.

Claire Davidson was warned by police that she risked an assault-with-a-weapon charge after her child revealed in a classroom discussion that her mother hit her with the spoon.

How did it come about that she 'revealed' this information?

Ms Davidson said she was shocked when a support worker from Yea Public School reported the smacking to police.

Did the support worker deliberately go fishing for the information? Why didn't she, and I assume it's a she, talk to the mother first? Is being a support worker the same as being one of those apartment 'managers' in Soviet Russia that were an extension of the tentacles of the KGB? The support worker is an immoral piece of crap.

"We only use the wooden spoon and that is only when she is being naughty and we give her fair chance to rectify the situation and we talk her through it," she told the Herald Sun.

She said her daughters gets three warnings and, then, "it is spoon time."

Seems remarkably fair to me. I never got the three warnings as a kid. My mother stopped hitting me with a wooden spoon when she kept breaking them. The fact I was laughing might also not have helped.

Ms Davidson of Flowerdale, north of Melbourne, was told by police she would be charged with assault if another instance of her daughter being hit with the spoon was reported again.

So, the police will charge the mother even if the daughter simply makes it up?

The incident has sparked a debate about smacking between parents and child-welfare advocates.

Child-welfare advocates have a horrible history of producing destructive outcomes for children and families. The sooner that various Departments of Community Services are completely restructured the better off kids will be.

A criminal lawyer said that whether parents are charged with assaulting their children or not depends on how severe the smacking is.

"Just because you are mother or daughter doesn't make you exempt from the law," criminal lawyer James Dowsley said.

More nitwittery, this time from the legal profession.

Violence is one thing.

Discipline, which includes light smacking, is entirely another.

The whole point of violence is to inflict serious injury.

The point of light smacking is to discipline the child.

Now, are there some fathers and mothers who go too far? Of course there are but blanket banning of light smacking DOES NOT STOP those who are inclined to violence in the first place.

So now we have a good and loving mother with a potential conviction for assault.

Chalk up another innocent victim for the cultural left in Australia.

What do Australians feel about it? Here's the poll from today's ninemsn:

I wonder how many of those who voted no have kids.

(Nothing Follows)

Thomas Friedman writes one of the great speeches

2009-10-13T13:48:00.007+11:00

Thomas Friedman is the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of US political commentators. He takes an almost European approach to domestic matters while being a traditional Kennedy Liberal on international affairs.

To read Friedman on domestic affairs is almost as cringeworthy as reading Maureen Dowd; he is in lock step with the Democrat left on health care, global warming, social security and taxes. His articles lack depth, intellectual rigour and, most disturbingly, the support of hard evidence, relying more on emotion than logic.

Once he's taken his medicine, however, and turns his attention to matters beyond the US mainland then he becomes a serious, deep and impressive thinker. I might disagree with him on some of his foreign policy solutions but I can't fault him on his thought process.

Every man and his dog has had a crack at the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for not only making an ass of itself for awarding the prize to President Obama but also for diminishing the meaning of the award, yet again, so that it is now even more meaningless than it was after being given to Al Gore.

Friedman weighs in with the speech that the president should give at the acceptance ceremony. It is one of the great pieces of (speech)writing of modern times.

“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.

“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army,Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin with an airlift of food and fuel so that West Berliners could continue to live free. I will accept this award on behalf of the tens of thousands of American soldiers who protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq, helping to protect Baghdad’s fledgling government as it tries to organize the rarest of things in that country and that region — another free and fair election.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the thousands of American soldiers who today help protect a free and Democratic South Korea from an unfree and Communist North Korea.

“I will accept this award on behalf of all the American men and women soldiers who have gone on repeated humanitarian rescue missions after earthquakes and floods from the mountains of Pakistan to the coasts of Indonesia. I will accept this award on behalf of American soldiers who serve in the peacekeeping force in the Sinai desert that has kept relations between Egypt and Israel stable ever since the Camp David treaty was signed.

“I will accept this award on behalf of all the American airmen and sailors today who keep the sea lanes open and free in the Pacific and Atlantic so world trade can flow unhindered between nations.

“Finally, I will accept this award on behalf of my grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day, and on behalf of my great-uncle, Charlie Payne, who was among those soldiers who liberated part of the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald.

“Members of the Nobel committee, I accept this award on behalf of all these American men and women soldiers, past and present, because I know — and I want you to know — that there is no peace without peacekeepers.

“Until the words of Isaiah are made true and lasting — and nations never again lift up swords against nations and never learn war anymore — we will need peacekeepers. Lord knows, ours are not perfect, and I have already moved to remedy inexcusable excesses we’ve perpetrated in the war on terrorism.

“But have no doubt, those are the exception. If you want to see the true essence of America, visit any U.S. military outpost in Iraq or Afghanistan. You will meet young men and women of every race and religion who work together as one, far from their families, motivated chiefly by their mission to keep the peace and expand the borders of freedom.

“So for all these reasons — and so you understand that I will never hesitate to call on American soldiers where necessary to take the field against the enemies of peace, tolerance and liberty — I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military: the world’s most important peacekeepers.”

Give the man his credit. That is one terrific piece of writing. It is even suited to the president's style of speech.

There has been no greater force for peace than the US military. If you disagree then you need to name what group has done more to achieve peace, not talk about it or simply wish it were so.

I hope that by December President Obama has made the tough decisions he needs to in order to succeed in Afghanistan, which would then make giving this speech even more effective.

(Nothing Follows)