Showing posts with label Reality evasion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reality evasion. Show all posts

27 November 2016

Fidel está muerto

So there is a reason to cheer, the death of Fidel Castro, should be a cause of celebration and reflection for everyone who believes in individual freedom, world peace, human rights and has both liberal and conservative values.  For the regime he founded continues to be one marked by violence, intimidation, intolerance and denial.

Castro interrogating a farmer as private property rights get abolished

Castro was a thug, a murderer and a warmongerer.  He urged Khrushchev to attack the US with nuclear weapons, which would have triggered World War Three.  

He incarcerated political opponents, labelling anyone who opposed the regime as "mentally ill" so they could be locked up indefinitely for not realising how lucky they are to be under socialism.  

He imprisoned Cubans who had HIV, he ran a prison state that saw Cubans flee at their own risk by boat to the United States.  Americans didn't flee to Cuba to embrace socialism.

Cuba under Castro was propped up by the USSR, in effect, poor Russians helped keep Castro's revolution alive.  A policy that ended with the collapse of the USSR, but from then on Cuba's rhetoric was that it was poor because the US embargo hindered it.  How a socialist state can claim that its prosperity is dependent on trading with a capitalist liberal democracy remains a mystery.

Cuba's joke is the large numbers of vintage American cars roaming the streets, only recently supplemented by Chinese vehicles.  This is seen as quaint, but is reflects poverty. 

One of the great claims about Cuba's "successes" is statistics around education and healthcare, because it claims low levels of child poverty and life expectancy that is high compared to other Latin American countries.  Yet the source of these statistics is entirely the Cuban one-party state, which imprisons its critics, so has to be at least treated with a high degree of scepticism.   Whenever foreigners inspect the Cuban healthcare system, they get to see what the regime wants them to see.   The UN may take the reported statistics from all member states on face value, but that's naive and absurd.  Only once Cuba is free will the veracity of these claims be clear, for now it is at best opaque. 

Of course, the usual suspects have come out singing paeans over Cuba.  Red Ken Livingstone couldn't help himself on BBC Radio 4 today saying that Cuba was "open and relaxed", even though it is a criminal offence for anyone other than the state to publish or broadcast, and when confronted with the regime's intolerance he said that in the UK anyone supporting Hitler was imprisoned. Odious little worm.

Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn said he was a "champion of social justice" and dismissed imprisonment of dissenters and continued authoritarianism as saying "there are problems of excesses by all regimes",  confirming the man is a moral relativistic sympathiser with dictatorship.

Vladimir Putin said he made his country free, well maybe by his standards..

President of the EU, Jean Claude Juncker said Castro was a "hero to many", which indicates the quisling relativist tolerance of a man and an organisation that ought to be celebrating the end of a man, whose regime provided support and succour for brutal regimes that impoverished and denied the human rights of citizens of 12 current EU Member States.  

Canadian Prime Minister, the illiberal Justin Trudeau lionised him as having "deep and lasting affection" for the Cuban people, including those he killed for opposing him.

Sinn Fein, which until recently lionised terrorism as a legitimate technique to change minds and power, is commemorating him as a hero.

The position people take on Castro should be your litmus test for their morality.

Castro used violence against those who opposed him.  He criminalise anyone who published or broadcast any criticism of his regime, so he was intolerant and authoritarian.   Dismissing any politicians whose core strategy is to do violence to his opponents is appeasement of dictatorship, rejection of any liberal values whatsoever, and places his supporters in the same mould as fascist apologists.  

To claim that "well he gave them education and healthcare" justifies a system of terror for anyone criticising the government or any of its policies or any of those with the privileges and trappings of power, is the justification of a fascist.   For "he" gave them nothing.  He ran a prison slave state which forced teachers and doctors to do the bidding of the party, he used his comrades of another slave state - the USSR- to supply the equipment, technology and training - to deliver a system that could have been delivered under liberal democracy.   Indeed, Chile's post-Pinochet success demonstrates that a liberal free-market democratic government can deliver the prosperity, including high standards of education and healthcare, without pointing guns at its citizens for criticising the regime.  

The best that can be said of Castro is he replaced another vile dictatorship - the Batista regime - and that he could have been worse.  However, pardon me if I don't think reaching the abominable barbarities of Kim Il Sung, Enver Hoxha or Nicolae Ceaucescu is an "achievement".

So to hell with Castro.  Some of the people who claimed with Donald Trump being elected, he is the "new Hitler" are mourning the loss of a man who was much closer to Hitler than Trump is ever likely to be.  

If someone is an apologist for Castro, or says he "made mistakes" or " his human rights were dreadful but", then they are excusing the blood spilt, the poverty, the propaganda, the utter denial of human liberty, and the politics of fear, terror and the jackboot, over the politics of debate, diversity and tolerance.

Treat the apologists of Castro accordingly.  The people in Miami celebrating his death lived under him, or have relatives who do.  The people elsewhere mourning are exercising the freedoms that Castro never tolerated and Cuba doesn't tolerate today.

Let's hope Mugabe doesn't see out the year as well.

Let's hope Cubans in the New Year gain the freedom to speak openly and honestly about the past 55 years of their country, even though thousands of so-called "liberals" in the West couldn't really care less.

UPDATE:  In 2008 I wrote the Top Ten Reasons Castro should be hated.

In 2010 I wrote on how the Green Party of NZ appeased the Cuban dictatorship

Read Katherine Hirschfeld's critical review of Cuba's healthcare system, including how much of it is "informal" and how it is illegal to refuse any healthcare including abortions. 

10 November 2012

Greens support lunatic fringe on food irradiation so why believe them on climate change?

The Green Party says it believes in science and evidence, and to present itself as the face of reason.

Yet the latest press release from Green MP Steffan Browning demonstrates how quickly the Green Party is beholden to the lunatic fringe of the radical environmental movement.

He says:

"Irradiation is not safe. It is the treating a food with ionizing radiation to kill bugs."

This assertion is backed up with nothing whatsoever.  It is the sort of simpleton view seen in this leaflet which claims without citation that "Numerous scientific studies have exposed the harmful effects of food irradiation".

No, they haven't.

The Health department of Queensland produces a leaflet that is more sober, as does the IAEA.

Browning makes not one claim about why irradiation is not safe. Nothing.

So let's speculate on what he thinks, or rather, fears.

- Irradiating food means it is radioactive:  Hilarious.  It is like saying that if you are exposed to light, you start to glow. 

- Irradiating food "changes its structure" so that it "degrades vitamins and nutrition":  Well yes, it can if it is used for preservation.  Much like drying does, and cooking does.  Cooking changes the molecular structure of food, and the chemistry of food and can destroy vitamins.  The obvious examples would be to boil vegetables to death or cooking food till it is blackened and charred.  However, do the Greens want to stop people having that food or cooking their food incorrectly?

It's bullshit to say irradiated food is not safe.  It's scaremongering, hysterical, anti-scientific and irresponsible for the Green Party to embrace such a stance.

Indeed, let me quote the summary of a World Health Organisation report on the topic (High-dose irradiation: wholesomeness of food irradiated with doses above 10 KGy, a joint FAO/IAEA/WHO study group. Geneva, Switzerland, 15-20 September 1997), given the Greens regularly cite UN organisations to hit governments over the head:

On the basis of the extensive scientific evidence reviewed, the report concludes that food irradiated to any dose appropriate to achieve the intended technological objective is both safe to consume and nutritionally adequate. The experts further conclude that no upper dose limit need be imposed, and that irradiated foods are deemed wholesome throughout the technologically useful dose range from below 10 kGy to envisioned doses above 10 kGy.

So.

Given how willingly the Greens are to make unsubstantiated claims that are essentially the baggage of scaremongering hysterical anti-technology, anti-scientific luddites, why the hell should anyone listen to them when they talk about climate change?

Why should the Greens be any more credible when preaching about science on that topic than they are on food irradiation?

Oh, and we've been here before.  Remember Russel Norman's rant two years ago about mobile phone towers that, when challenged (because Russel doesn't seem to mind TV and radio masts for broadcasting) descends into ad-hominem attacks against me?  

Yes - that's the Greens on science.  On the one hand, claim science is right behind you on climate change and that people who challenge that are unscientific, unreasonable and lunatic fringe.

On the other hand, make non-evidence based scaremongering claims based on little more than the ranting fears of fringe groups that don't even have an elementary understanding of science.

In other words - the Greens are not serious about science.

16 May 2012

Greece's tragedy should be lesson to all

Greece's radical leftwing party, Syriza, has one policy I agree with - the prosecution of the politicians and bureaucrats who are the architects of Greece's current tragedy.

That is all though - the policies to "reject austerity" are so demonstrably absurd, that they will demonstrate the simple failure to learn the lessons of the past couple of decades of Greek reality evasion.

As much as Syriza, the Communist Party (truly communist, in the Marxist-Leninist - Soviet model was the way to go sense) and the fascists want to paint it, Greece is not in an economic crisis because of foreign bankers or even the European Commission.

It is in a crisis because perpetual budget deficits are unsustainable.

This will continue, even if Greece exits a fiat currency supported by large economies for one supported by its own incompetent government.  For let's be clear, Greece is no more likely to be able to reject austerity with a currency that will be as trusted as the Zimbabwean dollar than one trusted like the Deutschmark.

There is literally no alternative to austerity in one form or another.

So what are the options?

1.  Greece follows the deal previously done with it.  That means reducing its budget deficit to ultimately balance spending with revenue within the next few years.  Bear in mind this deal already includes 80% of its debt being written off by the creditors.  Not exactly wealthy bankers demanding their pound of flesh when most of what they loaned Greek governments is being written off.   Of course what this means is shrinking the Greek state, less welfare, pensions at ages similar to other EU countries,  less subsidies, privatising trading enterprises (e.g. railways, broadcasting, postal services), cutting the public sector and streamlining the tax system so that it is at a level people may be prepared to pay.    If Greece accepts a public sector that it is willing to pay for, it can stay in the Euro and live within its means.

2.  Greece rejects the deal and defaults.  That means simply being unable to pay its way.  The state can't overspend because it can't borrow (who will lend to it outside some German led guarantee?), so it stops paying wages to public servants, stop paying other bills and essentially shuts down.  It becomes interesting if the military can't get paid. In effect it is instant austerity.  Instead of the Eurozone deal lending, lending ends, so the budget deficit is wiped out - instantly - because you can't spend beyond your income if you have no credit.   In this context, the Euro takes an enormous hit because of perceptions that Eurozone sovereign debt is no longer "safe", so it devalues somewhat.   The Syriza party effectively thinks that Germany will be forced to lend to Greece to cover it - in other words that the Eurozone becomes like the United States - with the richer parts transferring money to the poorer parts.   However, if Germany refuses (why should German taxpayers prop up an ungrateful, previously fraudulent Eurozone country that doesn't think the rules apply to it), then Greece truly faces a hard time, and will be tempted to take the next step...

3. Greece rejects the deal, defaults and announces a new sovereign currency.  As easy as some commentators think this is, it is almost inconceivable.  It is option 2, but with the printing presses coming out to issue a New Drachma which would be the new state currency to pay public servants and pay bills, and new debt is issued in the new currency.  The effect will be collapse of Greek banks as Euro deposits are withdrawn en masse, and millions of Greeks open up new Euro accounts in non-Greek banks.  All Greek businesses and citizens with debts in Euro face default, but suddenly Greek exports and tourism to Greece becomes remarkably cheap because of the new dud currency.   Yet without austerity, Greece will rapidly face hyper-inflation from the government printing money to cover its deficits, plus a massive increase in the prices of imports, such as oil.  In short, Greece turns into the stereotypical tinpot third world country, with a non-convertible currency that makes the Bulgarian Lev look like a safe bet.   

4. Greece rejects the deal and gets a German led bailout with surrender of sovereignty.  It isn't far removed from what was previously agreed, but this time it will be more thorough.  The deal to keep Greece in the Euro includes direct government to government lending, but with surrender of Greek sovereignty in the meantime.  You can just guess the attitude of the Marxists and fascists in Greece to the spectre of this.

Unless taxpayers of wealthier Eurozone countries let their government bail Greece out (which I doubt they will do), Greece faces living within its means.  It will have to do so within the Eurozone or without it.  At the very worst, Greece will put its head in the sand, default, be unable to pay for the army and it will stage a coup - seeing Greece kicked out of the EU and NATO and become the new laughing stock of Europe.  Then the people of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the people of Cyprus (especially northern Cyprus) and other neighbours might fear what a new militarised Greece will be like.   

The lesson from all this is astonishingly simple.   

Government's cannot evade reality forever.  

They cannot borrow endlessly from creditors, especially ones that have already written off many of their past debts as bad debts.

They cannot borrow from other governments, accountable to taxpayers who want to know why their money is being loaned to a government that no one else will lend to, because its taxpayers refuse to pay for the state they demand.

They are not better off if they can just print money to cover spending - because people are not so stupid to believe there is real value in a currency manufactured by the government because nobody else will lend to it.

Austerity is not a policy choice on a whim, it is, as I have said before, just living within your means.

The tragedy in Greece is that the lives of millions are now being hit because past governments pretended this was not necessary, facilitated by public servants and facilitated by past creditors.  They have been hit by the fraud of the profligate deficit spending state.   They gained a welfare state more generous than most of western Europe, and state health and education systems they didn't have to pay for - and now face losing much of it all.

The real insanity is from the hard left, who believe that bankers should be forced to lend the Greek government other people's money, or the German government should force German taxpayers to do so.    They have bemoaned profligate lending by banks that needed bailing out, but now want the same banks to lend to a feckless government that can't control its spending.   They are deluded and use language that claim those demanding Greece face reality as "murderers", when it was their own welfare state philosophy that has brought Greece to its needs.

It is the peculiar brand of statist politics that has ruined Greece - the idea that government can offer more and more without producing more, without getting more money to pay for it.  The idea that better healthcare, education and more generous pensions can just be given, not saved for and earned.

The big question is not whether Greece has austerity or not - it will have it, whether it comes from choosing to cut spending, being forced to cut spending or cutting spending in real terms by shifting to a new nearly worthless fiat currency.

Hard working productive people in other countries are not going to pay for Greece's bloated state sector, and they wont do it whether it is as it is now, or some Marxist or fascist version of the same.   Greek citizens either have to hunker down and work within their incomes today, or leave.  If they choose the chimeras offered by the far left, whether they be Marxists or nationalists, then the austerity deals of today will look like paradise compared to the ostracism their country will face.

UPDATE (since I'm in NZ for now):  Idiot Savant still doesn't get it either.  How can it be a bailout for German banks when it is the Greek government that needs borrowed money to function?  This rhetoric is not dissimilar to the banker bashing that the Greek far-right/far-left is employing.  What do the reality evading statists think will pay for the massive gap between what Greek governments spend and what they collect in revenue? There is NO repayment of debt under the bailout, just a government guarantee for deficit financing.  The gap in understanding is palpable.  The willingness to excuse rampant deficit spending is surreal.   The belief in flat earth economics is expected though, because it's how Greece has been run for the last three decades.

23 November 2011

Why do the Greens get such an easy ride? Part One

With so much going on in the world (Syria, Eurozone, Egypt), it is unsurprising that I have seen no coverage in foreign media about the NZ election.  It is National's election to lose.  The Nats have played the traditional role they always have done well - upset no one - look confident, even though the record in Christchurch alone should send fears down the spines of any business owner, the mainstream media (MSM) has been absymal in confronting this issue.  The performance there has been an utter disgrace, to the point where I think anyone who ticks National who thinks she is supporting a pro-business, less government, is at best naive, at worst wilfully blind.

Labour is, understandably, lacking fire under Phil Goff.  A man who I think was probably too good to be leader of the Labour Party, as he didn't feed the vile envy laden, nasty bullying streak that has characterised the Party under Clark - until the latest round of campaign leaflets, which are a shadow of what is now seen in the repulsive self-indulgent and deliberately self-serving nihilism of Sam Mahon.  Imagine if a similar image had been painted of Helen Clark. Yet, he has been unable to attack the Nats convincingly because most of his team are waiting to do to him what was done to Mike Moore after the 1993 election.   Goff is on the right of the Labour Party, an anomaly at best as the last inheritor of those who had their fingers coloured by participating in Rogernomics.  He can't convincingly argue against asset sales, especially since he was in the Cabinet that sold 100% of Air New Zealand, Telecom and Postbank originally.

Beyond the two horse race, most of the attention on ACT has been about the John Key/John Banks meeting and a recording of it - trivia par excellence - and the loud campaign by ACT and National to promote support of Banks in Epsom, and the equally loud call by Labour and the Greens to back, the National candidate in Epsom.  I've already said I believe ACT should also have pushed for electorate votes for Don Brash in North Shore, given Wayne Mapp has retired from the seat.  ACT has fumbled this campaign and faces a media hostile to it on an almost tribal basis.  Compared to National, ACT could offer a change, but not one the media is interested in telling.

The Mana Party/Maori Party show is not getting that much national/non-Maori media attention, although there is a surfeit of material on the Mana Party mob that should render them unelectable (and frighten people if they are not).  However, beyond that the media loves giving Winston Peters the oxygen of publicity to try to bring him down and he loves that the media does it.   It is like a pantomine show, where he gets portrayed almost as a villain, and thrives on it with his shrinking geriatric racist Muldoonist voting base.   Nothing Winston likes more than proving the media wrong, and casting his supporters as heroes for rejecting what the media says of him.

Yet the real winner in all of this looks like being the Greens.  The Greens have, once again, become media darlings.  It's not because the environment is really an issue that would explain the "brand attractiveness".  After all, the words nuclear, GE or even global warming are not exactly important to most voters at the moment.   What it looks like is that the Greens have targeted disgruntled and uninspired Labour voters, on the basis that Labour looks almost certain not to lead the next government.    However, what is also shows is that the mainstream media is giving the Greens a very easy run - topped off most recently by TV3 broadcasting a documentary on child poverty in New Zealand, most certainly presented from a strong leftwing point of view.  Indeed, had TV3 broadcast a documentary that was how high taxation and regulation stymied growth (like John Stossel's series comparing Hong Kong with India) it would be accused of being in the pocket of ACT.

However, all is fair in politics if it is your side doing it.  Yet according to research by the University of Canterbury on the election media coverage up till the halfway point, the media coverage of the Greens has been more positive than for any other party.  51.5% of its total coverage has been positive.  On top of that, coverage of the Greens has been higher than for any other minor party at 9.7%.  

Why is that and is it justified?
On the why, it is rather easy to see.   Party names are potent brands, and only some of the parties have names that lend themselves to instantly reflecting the image they want.   Greens, NZ First, Maori and Mana are the clearest.  Labour is less obvious, but still fairly clear.  National is meaningless (there are no regional parties after all), and the acronym ACT means little to most.  So the Greens start off with a name that is instantly linked to trees, pastures, rivers, lakes and wide open spaces - the types of things many New Zealanders have affection for.   On top of that, it is the only party name that can also be used as a collective noun for its caucus and membership.  Nobody says the Nationals or the Labours or the ACTs.  

So "brand Green" is pretty special, this potency was seen in 1990 when the Greens got 6.85% of the vote under First Past the Post, with relatively little publicity, beating New Labour under Jim Anderton (who still won his own seat).

The images that brand cogitates with reporters are instantly positive, indeed so positive it seems almost counter-intuitive to go against them.  How can one oppose or attack people who love clean air, oceans, rivers, and animals?   It's not just emotive, it can even be seen as rational, given the love of the outdoors and the obvious value of unpolluted air and water.   I think for many reporters that is enough, and to be seen to attacking the Greens may be like attacking parks, pets, home cooking, grandparents and so many things that are "good".

Beyond the brand, the Greens themselves carefully nurture policies and principles that at a high level can appeal to many.   Besides being against pollution (who isn't?) and supporting endangered species (who argues against endangered species?), the Greens carry simple, easy to understand messages that are difficult, on the face of it, to fight.

Who wants to be against peace and peaceful dispute resolution?  The Greens are against war, it takes a hardy soul to be in favour of war when necessary.   Statements like "we shouldn't be involved in other countries' wars" require some effort to claim "what about our allies" and then rebut the string of questions around "What did the Afghans ever do to New Zealand".  Most reporters aren't up to that or delve into a foreign policy agenda that is decidedly apart from Australia and the Western world.

The Greens talk passionately about addressing child poverty.  Children suffering, who will openly attack policies aimed at that, without having to be seriously armed on the philosophical and economic fronts?  The Greens wont say loud that this is resolved by taxpayers spending more on social welfare benefits and giving poor people who breed more money from others. 

The Greens talk of full employment, about meaningful jobs, about increased incomes, about better health and education, about communities, about all of the things that most people find it hard to disagree with at a high level.  What reporter dares think that unemployment is good, that health and education should be worse or that communities aren't important?   However, the Greens don't emphasise the need for much more government spending, and tax revenue to pay for it, nor how they would regulate employment and employers.

The Greens talk of "fairness" "equity" and other carefully honed words that describe and define little, but are general phrases that are again difficult to confront directly for most reporters.   Pushing lower taxes for the poor (and higher taxes for the rich), looks fair to those raised on a basic diet of believing in egalitarianism.   The idea that the poor should be helped, and that society should be "fairer" is powerfully simple to promote, it is rather more difficult to dig underneath that to see what it really means.   Again, the Greens are clever to talk about their goals much more than the means, the goals are more generally accepted than the means - increasing welfare payments.

The Greens talk about "investing" taxpayers money (but they never mention that part) on things that are also hard for reporters to criticise, like "renewable energy", railway lines, schools and the rather amorphous "jobs" in "green industries" and "green businesses".   The Greens are less loud about cutting spending on road maintenance (they will happily talk about a handful of big road projects that would be stopped, as if that would save enough money), or the need to spend more on subsidies for renewable energy and trains, or exactly who or where these "green industries" are, or what happens to the other industries in an environment of much more regulation and tax.

Beyond that, the Greens also seem nationalistic, playing on some of the strings Winston Peters is happy to pluck.  They paint foreign ownership, foreign investors and imports as negative, dark, pernicious and taking "our" jobs, and taking "our" money away to go overseas - that distant, unfamiliar place where we can't protect, regulate or look after our interests.  This is caught in the word "sovereignty".  Who argues against having sovereignty?   Yet, do the Greens ever face a challenge to their rather fanciful notion that has malignant notions of "them" (foreign investors) and "us" (New Zealanders), or that an exporting trading nation can hardly close itself to the world, or it faces not being able to afford what it produces?

The "non-violence" label is one they use themselves, but it never gets challenged that this belief in non-violence doesn't extend to violently breaking and entering property and occupying it, and the violence of the state regulating and taxing, is not seen as violence at all, but as the people exercising their democratic sovereignty.  The image very deliberately put out by the likes of Jeanette Fitzsimons, but now Metiria Turei and Russel Norman is one of friendly, smiling, thoughtful, engaging people, people who wouldn't hurt a fly - not people eager to get their hands on power and to use the state to be as interventionist as Rob Muldoon was in his heyday. 

Finally, the Greens are keen to call out labels of negativity to support those they claim are oppressed by the major parties.  "Racist", "sexist", "blaming victims" is how the Greens respond to policies that they disagree with, if the impacts appear to be higher on certain groups.  Criticising such points takes some effort.   However, the Greens are very strongly supportive of government spending, institutions and authorities that are race based.  The Greens tend not to emphasise any of this, for they probably know that this doesn't go down well with most voters.

The easy ride is something the Greens have masterfully managed to manufacture.   It is obvious to anyone with some political nous that the Greens are far to the left of the Labour Party, yet the mainstream media persists in discussing the idea that there could be some accommodation between the Greens and the National Party.  Not that both parties wouldn't think about it on some level, the Nats will negotiate with anyone except Winston, and the Greens would argue that if they can make some progress on a major issue for them (e.g. RMA or transport), it would be worth it.

Yet a look at Green press releases, commentary and policies over the past few years should have induced investigative journalism into exactly what the party means by certain statements, it should have put all sorts of claims of fact under scrutiny and it should have resulted in the Green brand not looking as unsullied as it is - especially compared to other parties.   Take simple points such as how the Greens advocate non violence and democracy, yet fought to deny university students the right to decide whether they wanted to join a student union.   The Green policy of having a new state regulatory institution for print and broadcast (and presumably online) media that could "impose appropriate sanctions against media outlets in cases where it can be clearly demonstrated that it has exhibited wilful or negligent abuse of power and by doing so has either visited material harm on another party or pursued its own self-interest at the expense of the public interest" should have been highlighted, as it literally means a state bureaucracy censoring the press.  What is "abuse of power"?  The right to decide what you broadcast or print?  What is "material harm"?  Reduced the reputation and membership of a voluntary organisation?  What is "the public interest"?  Whatever the government of the day thinks it is?

So it is time a long list of questions were asked of the Green Party.  Questions voters should see, and that Green MPs and candidates should respond to, and be expected to be questioned about.   For a party that looks like having its best ever result in a general election, and looking to be a serious coalition partner for a future government, the "public interest" demands no less.  It would also be a welcome shift in attention from the childish side-shows around Winston Peters and the Johns' "cup of coffee".  The fact that papers and broadcast media haven't done so, doesn't surprise me, but it is no excuse for it.   Traditional Labour supporters who think they are getting a friendlier, cuddlier version of Labour may think twice, and first time voters might learn that, as in advertising private businesses, marketing does not mean all is as it seems.   I will attempt to raise some of these questions in the coming days...

14 May 2010

Gareth Hughes a clown once more

What the Greens say about an unprofitable Hamilton-Auckland passenger rail service.

Ohhh a new rail link? Yes, we want it, you should pay for it, it must be good, it's a railway. People like trains, see the petition of those people who want it? No we didn't ask how often they'd use it, stop being mean, we want it, you pay for it. Go on, it's good for you. How much? We don't know, who cares, you'll be made to pay anyway. It will reduce congestion? How much? We don't know, we ignored any evidence that says it will do nothing.

Gareth Hughes is proving he is as much of a clown as Keeping Stock showed he himself demonstrates.

He says "the commuter rail connection had real merit and offered a long-term option for linking Auckland and Hamilton. Yes, so hard to get between those cities with that state highway, the buses that use it and even the Overlander rail service.

He goes on as the Waikato Times reports "Hughes pointed to the 2011 World Cup as a "great incentive to get a commuter service happening"". Yes, nothing so good for the environment as encouraging Aucklanders to live in Hamilton and commute, and commuting has everything to do with the Rugby World Cup, right?

Follow the thinking so far? Well Gareth doesn't even know there is a railway already between Auckland and Hamilton (most of it double-tracked) "The Greens wanted to see a "corridor of national significance", with construction of a rail-line – or space for it to be built – alongside the Waikato Expressway". Presumably he's never actually travelled between the two cities by land.

This staggering level of ignorance should render the Greens as being a laughing stock. Let alone the wilful blindness of the Greens and local authorities in Waikato ignoring that the last time such a service was trialled, it was for 16 months from 2000 to 2001, undertaken by the then privately owned and unsubsidised Tranz Rail (you know that awful foreign company that leftwing legend has it destroyed the railways). The trial was not a success, even though it used the relatively comfortable Silverfern railcars, it carried on average 12 passengers a day south of Pukekohe.

That's not even a profitable busload. A profitable rail service would need to carry at least 12 times what the trial did, every day, in each direction.

However, the Greens aren't about economics, or reason, for them railways are a religion, and any idea of a new service must inherently be good because trains are good, always.

You should be forced to pay for them because of this, because it is about faith "Mr Hughes said the Greens did not have costings for a Hamilton-Auckland commuter rail link, but they believed the cost-benefit ratios would still be greater than those for new roads.

No costing, no idea about how many people would use it, but they BELIEVE it would be more beneficial than new roads.

If the Greens are so blindly ignorant about something which is rather easy to dismiss, can you imagine how often the Greens engage in such a faith based view of the world (especially given how they dismiss those who have one they disagree with?).

Nuclear fusion achieved?

Well so says the Korean Central News Agency

So I can't wait for that country's willing idiots in NZ to cheer this on, since it already cheered on the DPRK nuclear weapons programme.

The same agency of course says US troops commit 60% of the crimes in South Korea.

It also claims the US is the worst offender of human rights in the world in that:

"In this society one can live only by way of racketeering and through fraud and swindle. Without these practices one cannot but be pushed to the fringes of society where one can not keep body and soul together, denied even the elementary rights to eat, get clad and have a shelter....Drug abuses getting more rife in the U.S. with each passing day are producing an increasing number of mental and physical cripples."

So methinks that scientists need not be planning a trip to Pyongyang soon to discover fusion.

13 May 2010

Con-Dem anti-reason anti-business coalition

Well it's out, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has shown its true colours, and they are colours of a red and green coloured wolf in the sheep's clothing of Cameron and Clegg. The new government is no more friendly to capitalism and to reason than the last one.

The coalition agreement now published gives the impression of being pro-business, and the impression of dealing with the budget deficit, but it commits to a vast range of new spending measures, and to interfere with private businesses on a grand scale in multiple sectors.

The envy-touting, dependency supporting left should be relieved, and the Greens thrilled.

Take the following:

- "The parties agree that funding for the NHS should increase in real terms in each year of the Parliament, while recognising the impact this decision would have on other departments. The target of spending 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid will also remain in place." Yes, the NHS, subject already to record spending increases in the past, can continue to extract ever greater inefficiencies, and not be accountable for it. Meanwhile, the British taxpayer will have to mortgage to continue increasing state aid to developing kleptocracies.

- "We will restore the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011 with a “triple guarantee” that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5%, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats" So the retired wont have to face any austerity, just their children and grandchildren. Why? Well given they voted for profligate governments in the past you might well ask.

- "We further agree to seek a detailed agreement on taxing non-business capital gains at rates similar or close to those applied to income, with generous exemptions for entrepreneurial business activities" No income tax wont be coming down, it is about increasing capital gains tax. Yes, if you get capital gains for your OWN profit, not for "business" then screw you, Clammyegg wants your money.

- "We agree that a banking levy will be introduced. We will seek a detailed agreement on implementation.. We agree to bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the financial services sector" Why? Well let's tax one of the country's most successful service sectors, never mind which banks never needed a bailout and those that did. Oh and let's deter the most successful people in the sector being tax resident in the UK, to please the envy ridden proletariat. So it's off to Switzerland for that lot then?

- "We have agreed that there should be an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work" Don't worry, you'll not be attracting the best and brightest anyway, they'll be leaving. Nice sop to the BNP though.

- Finally, taxpayers will prop up a massive programme of Green fetishes and an effective end to growth in the British aviation sector including "The creation of a green investment bank" (quite where the money comes from is irrelevant), "Measures to encourage marine energy" (again, whose money?), "The establishment of a high-speed rail network" (ah the grand show off project that has next to no positive environmental impact), " The cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow. The refusal of additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted" (privately owned airports and the airline industry can go to hell, less competition for European airports and airlines), "Mandating a national recharging network for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles" (with whose money?).

So that's it. More spending, more taxes, more regulation of the current crop of hated businesses (banking and aviation), and worshipping at the totem of environmental fetishes regardless of cost and benefit.

No reason behind most of it, and a distinctly anti-business agenda particularly if you are in finance or aviation.

Anything for freedom? Well, besides scrapping ID cards, ending the storage of internet and email records without "good reason", and something called a "Freedom Bill", there isn't much. Free schools, paid for by taxpayers maybe, and talk of some tax cuts (which don't offset tax increases of course).

Anyone who voted Conservative expecting less government, less interference in business and a more reason based view of policy should be sorely disappointed. When the Treasury briefs the new government on the fiscal debacle, it will become clear how little of this can be afforded, and so it will be a lie, taxes will go up dramatically, other spending will be slashed substantially or a conbination of it all. Furthermore, with a new agenda of faith based Green initiatives, reason appears to be distinctly absent from this administration. The government wont be shrinking.

Fortunately I didn't vote Conservative.

06 April 2010

Greens continue to oppose economics and individual freedom on transport

It's not just because transport is my area of expertise that the Greens particularly annoy me in their treatment of this sector, but it actually displays so much more of their ideology and their approach to reason, economics and individual liberty than many other sectors do.

The Green answer to everything in transport is to take a simple child-like approach to it all. It comes down to:

"People make the wrong choices (according to us), we should force them to make the right choices by taxing the wrong choices and subsidising the right ones, and banning the development of wrong choices."

One of the most liberating development in modern history has been the technology of transport. The steam engine changed the face of international trade and travel by sea, and then nationally and locally by rail. The internal combustion engine did the same for road, sea and rail, and facilitated the development of air travel. Since then, asphalt, mass production, radiocommunications, the jet engine and the continued advances of technology have opened up the planet to exploration, communication, trade, travel, commerce and social exchange.

Now there is no doubt that there have been some negatives along the way. Millions have died through accidents by faster transport. It has been inevitable that engines would explode, catch fire, or fail to function, or that people would get in the way of vehicles, or would make mistakes while driving them. Yet on a per passenger km basis it is the safest it has ever been.

Many cities suffered from chronic pollution due to high concentrations of vehicles, but few environmentalists today would think that it was the steam locomotive that first caused that concern. The now very sought after suburb of Thorndon in Wellington was once not so appreciated, as the steam locomotives in the Wellington rail yards produced smoke and noise that was less than pleasant for many local residents. However, again the pollution from vehicles on a per vehicle km basis is steadily lower, as they become more and more fuel efficient. The introduction of electric cars promises to take this further, but the Greens are willing to dismiss this.

Why? It will "take too long" to have more electric cars in the fleet (apparently not believing their religious faith that Peak Oil will price petrol powered vehicles off the road), and it wont solve congestion.

Well they are right on that front - congestion is simply due to demand exceeding supply of road space. The answer is to price usage of the road so they are in equilibrium, and surpluses might be spent on additional capacity if it makes economic sense. Nowhere has a new world city reduced traffic congestion by the Green fetish of highly subsidised public transport.

However, embracing the technology of the stone age in the form of walking (and its close cousin cycling) is also telling. Now both are perfectly viable for short trips, for many people. They are useless for freight, useless for trips of more than a few kms and of course many (elderly for example) simply can't use them for much. How can anybody looking forward get excited about walking and cycling?

Of course, the main competitors for walking and cycling are public transport - which the Greens want to heavily subsidise, so that people are more likely to ride a bus or train than to walk or cycle. However, that's about economics, which is simply ignored in the Green view.

The Greens reject reason in ignoring the overwhelming evidence that forcing others to pay huge amounts of money for public transport does not resolve traffic congestion, and still only means a small minority of trips are taken by public transport in cities. They further ignore any talk about public transport sometimes being less environmentally friendly than driving - such as the support for the trains that carried less than a busload of travellers to Napier and Invercargill.

They reject the clear economic case that the main problem with roads is that they are managed and priced as commons, not as economic commodities. They furthermore embrace the slowest modes of transport, despite the obvious evidence that they have a peripheral role in most cases, but reject the private car EVEN when it is to be electric powered, because even then it means people travel not when they are scheduled to do so, on a collective mode of transport, but because they choose.

The rational approach to transport is to let the state get out of the way, use private property rights for roads to manage environmental issues and let users of each mode pay their own way. However, for those who believe in collective brains and collective thought, it somehow seems fair for people to pay for how others move, not how they move, and to ignore that the price mechanism remains by far the fairest and most effective tool to ration scarce resources.

03 November 2009

Caveat emptor on Destiny Church surely

That's all there is worth saying about this case from the Taranaki Daily News.

If you enter a relationship with someone who is deeply religious, or as a couple enter a deeply fundamentalist religion, and you find the religion gets between you and your partner, why should you be surprised?

Unless the church or your partner forced you, you have a mind. Use it. If you fail to do so, then caveat emptor (and with Density Church you most certainly are "buying").

As much as I have no time for religion personally, the fact remains it is voluntary for adults. The state is not. If you think Destiny Church is a rip off, then don't go and warn others to not go if you wish. If you think the government is a rip off, then your only choice is to complain, or leave to experience another one, which rips you off in a different way.

29 October 2009

Rodney Hide's going to harm you!

That's effectively what Sue Kedgley is saying about Rodney Hide's announcement of very modest (tinkering) changes to the Local Government Act to put water on a similar footing to other local government activities (whereas before private sector involvement was severely constrained).

She said:

"This has the potential to be hugely harmful to the public,"

How Sue? Will private managers pour poison into the supply? Will they use it to drug the population en masse? Will they turn off the supply and sell the water to (spit) foreigners? Will there be no water left??

Then she said: "This theft of the public's assets is alarming and dangerous."

Hold on, so letting COUNCILS decide what to do with the assets they control, under the principle of the power of general competence that YOU support, is alarming and dangerous? Presumably because you actually want to force councils to hold onto assets because of your own hysterical belief in government ownership.

Kedgley twists and manipulates the truth saying "That would give private interests free reign over the whole water management process and effectively wrest control from local councils". No, councils could grant control TO private companies. It doesn't wrest control at ALL, but gives councils freedom to offer it.

Who is it a danger to? Who is thieving what exactly?

Yet Sue has a rival, with the inane pronouncement from the hysterical Penny Bright that "water services should never be run to make a profit. Affordable water was a basic human right."

What's food then you silly bint? Should councils supply that too? Should we all just stop paying for water and say "it's a human right, bring me it"?

The Water Pressure Group's website hasn't been updated in 7 years, which tells you a little about what an incompetent little group of Marxist mediocrities it is. Penny Bright opposes commercialisation and privatisation of water supplies, despite England managing rather well with it, but this issue, like ACC, is being treated by the left as a beat up.

In the UK, of course, water was privatised in England and the World Bank wrote a report on it here. The result being that while prices went up, there was an 83% increase in capital spending to fix decaying infrastructure which meant all water companies became compliant with drinking water standards. It has also meant more prudent use of water, as many pay for what they use - better use of resources being something the Greens care about, until it clashes with their Marxist bias.

Rodney should, of course, force all councils to separate out their water activities into companies and divest them, either by sale or giving shares to ratepayers. Then water can be treated like other utilities, those who use the most will pay appropriately, the capital cost of infrastructure can be spread over the life of the assets, and it probably will be good for the environment too.

However, since when have the Greens put the environment ahead of ideology?

28 October 2009

Lord Stern loses the plot - some more

Lord Stern is known for his report on climate change for the British Government. He claimed the benefits of intervening to prevent climate change exceeded the costs, a cost of 1% of GDP to save "up to 20% of GDP". The report was warmly embraced by the usual suspects and widely condemned by others. Bjorn Lomborg said the numbers were dodgy, there have been other critiques of the analysis. However, let's set this all aside for a moment.

Now he has come about with claims that would frighten some, make many environmentalists smile, but overall look rather ridiculous.

He claims "southern Europe is likely to be a desert; hundreds of millions of people will have to move. There will be severe global conflict". Scaremongering is it not?

Furthermore, he wants people to stop eating meat: "Meat uses up a lot of resources and a vegetarian diet consumes a lot less land and water. One of the best things you can do about climate change is reduce the amount of meat in your diet"

Mind you he isn't a vegetarian himself.

Nile Gardiner in the Daily Telegraph welcomes it though:

"Still, Lord Stern has done us all a favour. His monumentally silly remarks about turning the planet vegetarian will only drive another nail into the credibility of the climate hysteria movement. I look forward to his next interview on why we should all stop driving cars and return to using horse and cart. With the exception of course of gilded grandees who need a limo to the next UN conference on global warming."

For me, until those who are concerned about climate change advocate, first, getting rid of the vast panoply of state interventions that INCREASE CO2 emissions, I'm going to be sceptical about whether they really do want to balance human beings with the environment. What sort of things do I mean?

- Price controls on energy including limits to the profits energy companies can make, and subsidies to consumers;
- Subsidies for any modes of motorised transport, including governments not demanding a real profit from their own transport assets;
- Subsidies for agriculture and trade restrictions on agricultural products that keep efficient producers (like New Zealand for dairy products and Thailand for rice) from supplying countries with inefficient producers (like the EU and Japan);
- Subsidies and protectionism for the motor vehicle industry, aircraft manufacturing sector, steel industry, indeed any industry at all that uses high amounts of electricity or fossil fuels;
- Welfare that rewards breeding;
- Subsidised waste disposal and landfills.

26 October 2009

Maldives stunt just lies on climate change

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives created a widely reported publicity seeking moment on Saturday with images of him and his Cabinet holding an underwater meeting. The whole story was to highlight the alleged threat climate change would bring to the country he leads.

The report on CNN said:

Maldives is grappling with the very likely possibility that it will go under water if the current pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels. The Maldives is an archipelago of almost 1,200 coral islands south-southwest of India. Most of it lies just 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has forecast a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century.

So take away 7.1 inches from 4.9 feet and you have, more than 4 feet left. The stunt was a grotesque hyperbole.

Christopher Brooker in the Sunday Telegraph notes that the President of the Maldives was sent an open letter from Dr Nils-Axel Morner, the former head of the international Inqua Commission on Sea Level Change. It says "that his commission had visited the Maldives six times in the years since 2000, and that he himself had led three month-long investigations in every part of the coral archipelago. Their exhaustive studies had shown that from 1790 to 1970 sea-levels round the islands had averaged 20 centimetres higher than today; that the level, having fallen, has since remained stable; and that there is not the slightest sign of any rise. The most cautious forecast based on proper science (rather than computer model guesswork) shows that any rise in the next 100 years will be "small to negligible"."

So it is a monumental fraud to scare the world into thinking the Maldives will be swamped.

Furthermore, Dr Morner has sought to reassure the people of the Maldives, but its government isn't interested:

Professor Morner offered to explain his team's findings on the local TV station, to reassure viewers that their homes were not about to disappear underwater as they had been told. The government refused to allow his film to be shown. Egged on by climate alarmists, successive Maldivan leaders since the 1980s have pleaded for vast sums of international aid to save them from rising sea levels.

Brooker concludes rightly:

"If President Nasheed really believed his own propaganda, he would of course immediately ban all flights into his country and turn off the lights in all its hotels. But since this would put an end to the international tourism which is almost his country's only source of income, he would rather carry on staging his publicity stunts, while holding out the begging bowl which he hopes gullible world leaders such as Gordon Brown will soon fill with large quantities of Western taxpayers' cash."

Nasheed is a fraudster, perpetuating his fraud to whoever will listen, enjoying the tourism from environmentalists that it generates ("last chance to visit Maldives") and with the begging bowl out ("it's not our fault, but come fly to see us").

Of course the Guardian swallowed it like the true believers they are claiming the Maldives would be the first nation submerged.

22 October 2009

Freedom of speech may have caused the Holocaust

Who said that?

A member of the House of Lords. A member of the British Labour Party.

Baroness Uddin said this on BBC Radio 4, when interviewed on the 5pm news on 16 October 2009. You can hear her say this at 38 minutes into the one hour programme, (perhaps only if you are located in the UK), until Friday 23 October (when week old programmes get removed).

What did she say?

"I think when we say that freedom of speech is important and I will support to the death the freedom to speak but we have to remember that maybe what gave rise to the mass genocide of the Jews in Germany was freedom to speak

Baroness Uddin was lauded for being the first Muslim woman member of the House of Lords. She has already faced scandals of claiming for a second home in Kent, that she doesn't live in, while she lives in London, in a "housing association" home - in other words, public housing which exists for the poor, with rents a fraction of the private sector market rates. Prima facie there is evidence of her pilfering the public purse for her own benefit.

She is a new Labour pinup, her list of achievements are:
- Diploma of Social Work;
- Labour councillor in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets;
- failed to gain candidate selection to stand for Parliament for the 1997 election.

So New Labour put her in Parliament anyway, in the House of Lords.

A woman who thinks freedom of speech is equated with Nazism.

Why is she not being pilloried by the British media, unless this wasn't picked up? (Notice the BBC didn't challenge her on this outrageous claim).

I'm gobsmacked.

(Hat Tip: Old Holborn who is righteously furious about this and far from speechless)

17 October 2009

Islamists threaten Dutch MP

Geert Wilders entered the UK today, finally permitted to do so thanks as described earlier by myself.

What does he encounter? The very thing he describes. Militant freedom hating Muslims.

According to The Times:

"around thirty male activists from a group called Islam for UK began chanting, "Wilders burn in hell" and "Sharia for UK""

"Brandishing banners saying, “Sharia is the solution, freedom go to hell” and “Geert Wilders deserves Islamic punishment”, the protesters were held back by about fifty policemen."

These lowlifes hate Britain, they hate the values of free speech, freedom of religion and individual rights, and they seek to destroy it. They, not Wilders, should be the focus of the government.

No. Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary is seeking to protect these flowers of hatred from being offended because Wilders "would threaten community security and therefore public security".

No. The Islamists threaten me, they threaten most residents of the UK who live here because it offers the freedoms available to practice the religion you wish (including none), free speech, and live your life by and large as you see fit (notwithstanding the Nanny State around many activities).

Make it fundamentally clear, the vision these Islamists have for the UK would make New Labour's Nanny State look like a holiday in comparison.

Wilders expressed his opinion “I have a problem with the Islamic ideology, the Islamic culture, because I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the less freedom that we get.”. He's right of course, given the separation of religion and state is rare indeed in Muslim majority countries (only Turkey, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Albania have this). He justified comments that Islam is retarded by saying that in some Islamic dominated countries "homosexuals are beaten up and killed. Journalists are jailed. That action is retarded."

In response, a spokesman from "Islam for UK" said "because there is a war on Muslims he gets an easy ride". No, the war is on Islamists. Your misuse of language shows you're uninterested in confronting the Islamist threat. He continued "When Muslims defend their faith, they are seen as extremists." No, it is HOW you defend your faith. Calling for violence against those who disagree with you is the problem. Calling to overthrow the constitutional structure and fundamental values of British society, is the problem.

Mr Wilders is NOT like the BNP. However, the BNP rides on the wave of snivelling pussy footing around Islamists that is seen in the likes of the attempt to ban Mr Wilders. Wilders supports individual freedom, the BNP supports a big intrusive fascist state.

The UK government has for far too long been concerned about "offending Muslims", when in fact the freedom and right to offend whoever you wish is fundamental to British society. It is not racism, it is criticism of a philosophy, a point of view. Being Muslim is not something you have that is inate, it is, or should be, a conscious choice. If you say "freedom go to hell" then I say "to hell with you and your ideas". You are then the enemy.

If you cannot stand a society that criticises your strongly held beliefs and allows debate and derision of them, if you would rather threaten and use force to stop others offending you, then there is a better answer that should make you happier, and would make most Britons happier...

leave.

16 October 2009

Fascists shouldn't be forced to be politically correct

The British National Party, a far-right nationalist racist socialist party (socialist? Just look at its economic policy, health policy and education policy), has been told by the Central London County Court that it must not prohibit membership on the grounds of race and religion. The Equality and Human Rights Commission brought the case. Why? Because it wanted to embarrass the BNP.

It is incredibly unlikely that anyone who isn't a white British chav bigot at least nominally Christian person would seek to join this gang of malcontents, so it isn't as if it was a real issue for any individual. Not as if it would be legitimate anyway.

The real issue is that it should be nobody else's business. If the BNP wants to be racist, so it should have that freedom. Stripping this right helps to make the party seem more mainstream, more acceptable. Exposing its own braindead irrationality is GOOD for those seeking to keep it far from power.

However, to say it cannot restrict by religion is more insidious. Race is not a matter of choice, religion is. Religion is, like politics, a set of deeply held views. You may as well say the BNP can't prohibit Marxist members. Are political parties going to be forced to allow anyone to be a member, including those actively opposed to what they stand for?

The BNP is a private organisation. Its membership is voluntary. If you don't like the rules, don't join. It should not be the state's business who is allowed or banned from joining political parties, regardless of the philosophy behind him.

All this does is play into the BNP's hands, helps it become more mainstream, and strips another layer of freedom away that can be used against others.

Will Mosques be required to admit Jews? Will the Conservative Party be forced to admit communists? Will the Green Party be forced to admit laissez-faire capitalists?

Fascists should be allowed to be fascists, exclude whoever they like and be the knuckle dragging vermin they are. For they are no more offensive than the finger pointing parasites who create such absurd laws because non-existent people have non-existent offence over self-defined pseudo-rights.

15 October 2009

How do the Greens spread misinformation? Part 2 – Kedgley’s speech

In Part 1 I explained the rather complicated background to the Kapiti expressway issue. It’s one Sue Kedgley feels she can contribute to. Let’s see how she did. She made a speech to a Kapiti environmentalist group, supporting the council. So what did she say that was wrong? Note I’m only selecting the most blatantly obvious mistakes…

She said the Government was “announcing it is going to bulldoze a four lane motorway through Kapiti” including on one strip of land that was originally going to be used for a motorway in the first place, but Sue blanks that out. She uses the word “motorway” although the proposal is for an expressway, a subtle difference, but adds to the drama.

The government's justification for the proposed motorway from Foxton to McKay's Crossing” there is no proposed motorway from Foxton to McKay’s Crossing, the NZTA website explicitly says expressway from McKay’s Crossing to Otaki.

“is to… make the journey through Kapiti a few minutes quicker for long haul travellers and provide a fast lane between Wellington and Auckland for huge, juggernaut trucks” The NZTA website says nothing of the sort. This is further emotive hyperbole. It is to relieve severe congestion for local and through traffic. She made up “a few minutes” and the point about huge juggernaut trucks, for dramatic effect.

there is overwhelming international evidence that trying to solve congestion on one road by building yet another one simply doesn't work.” In the context of rural bypasses in New Zealand this is complete nonsense. Porirua and Tawa have been bypassed for decades successfully, so have places like Fairfield, Timaru, Richmond, Stoke, Upper Hutt, Waitara, Kaiapoi, Albany, Pokeno, Mercer and more recently Orewa and Silverdale. Quite simply bypasses DO work. “It's an almost irrefutable transport law” sorry Sue, I just refuted it.

The Government will “build a massive and expensive 4 lane motorway that will have a devastating impact on your community and your local ecology but will be of little use to local residents when petrol rises to $2 to $4 dollars a litre, as it inevitably will?” devastating impact? Not if it is built along the route reserved for it. Will it really be of little use if petrol rises so much? It will have taken through traffic out of the town centres, but then again Sue isn’t putting her own money on oil futures, so she’s not THAT convinced roads will be empty.

Two decades ago, in 1990, the then Commissioner for the Environment, Helen Hughes, investigated what would be the most effective way of solving congestion on the so-called Western corridor.” Yes, but the study was about access between Kapiti and Wellington, not traffic through Kapiti. Everything you say about this report is irrelevant, it did not touch upon roads through Kapiti. Nevertheless, you don’t tell the full facts about this either…

She concluded that that upgrading the rail service, not building a new motorway, was the solution” No, she concluded upgrading the rail service should be the first priority, before building a motorway along Transmission Gully. You oppose Transmission Gully Sue. Selectively quoting a report isn’t very honest is it?

So you see, Sue has now switched the issue from how to manage congestion from traffic travelling around and through Kapiti, to how people commute from Kapiti to Wellington, an quite different issue. Her entire focus is now nothing to do with what the expressway is meant to resolve or even the Council’s alternative proposal. In short, she’s subtly changed the topic to talk about what she wants to talk about – commuter rail. Remember this, nothing she says from now on is directly relevant, unless you think trains going south of Kapiti can be some sort of answer for traffic within and going north of Kapiti.

Since then, however, nothing has been done to rescue the rundown Kapiti rail service from further decline, although 48 new 2 car units were finally ordered last year, and the rail line is finally being double tracked and extended through to Waikanae.” What an oxymoron. Nothing has been done, EXCEPT order new trains, widen the track and extend electrification to Waikanae. Let's minimise hundreds of millions of dollars of spending.

Except she is wrong again. Since 1990, the current (Ganz Mavag) rolling stock was extensively refurbished from 1995 to 2002 with new seats. The double tracking also includes a wholesale upgrade of the signaling and electrics for the entire Wellington rail system. “Nothing” is false.

we need to transform what is at the moment a rundown suburban rail service into a fast efficient commuter rail system that commuters will want to switch to. So why isn't that our priority?” Again it’s false. It is the priority. The money the last government set aside for the Western Corridor had rail as the priority, with new trains, extending electrification to Waikanae and increasing the frequency of services. By comparison, nothing substantial has been spent on the highway except investigation and design work on Transmission Gully. Money for construction has not been approved.

Almost nobody drives from neighbouring suburbs into London, Perth, Tokyo or New York. They all commute by rail.” This is the Kapiti Coast Sue, not London. Besides which, how can those cities remotely compare, and the roads are all heavily congested in those cities. Funny that.

according to Kiwirail, more than 13 thousand people use the Kapiti line every day” No Sue, that’s misuse of statistics. That is the number of people along the whole length of the line, including people going between Wellington, Tawa and Porirua. 13,000 is not those going to and from Kapiti, indeed it would be maybe a third of that.

despite the fact that the trains are run down, 50 years old, often late, overcrowded, and freezing in the winter.” They are not 50 years old, they are 28 years old, hardly overcrowded at Kapiti and the heating is quite reliable. However, Sue doesn’t catch trains unless it is for a photo op.

An 8 train carriage takes at least 592 passengers and gets the equivalent of 440 cars or 1.2 kilometres of traffic off our roads.” No it doesn’t Sue, not everyone who travels by train would have travelled by car.

that's all it would take to solve the congestion on the Western corridor, as Helen Hughes predicted all those years ago, and for a fraction of the price.” Helen Hughes did NOT say that it would solve the congestion, and on price, how do you know Sue? You don’t give a price, but estimates I saw were that the track improvements alone would cost around $300 million, another 48 trains would cost $210 million, and then there are ongoing subsidies. So quite simply, you’re wrong compared to the cheapest expressway option of a maximum of $500 million.

why is the government building massive new motorways around the country spending $6 on roads for every $1 on rail” Sue, you know because the $6 comes from road users and about 40% of that is for road maintenance. The $1 on rail comes from taxpayers.

The problem is that these juggernaut trucks will be too big to travel on most of our narrow winding roads, they will need four lane motorways to travel on.” No they wont. This is a complete fabrication. They do not need motorways. The former Transit NZ investigation into this indicated most major highways could easily handle an increase to 50 tonnes. Most 44 tonne trucks can carry 50 tonnes with no increase in dimensions.

That's one of the reasons why the government wants to build a four lane motorway all the way from Wellington to Auckland, even if it means destroying hundreds of communities in its wake.” Really Sue? The government has said nothing about an expressway between Otaki and Cambridge. What community is being destroyed again?

But instead of building motorways to cater to an endless stream of juggernaut trucks, we should be requiring heavy freight to travel by rail, which is so much safer and far more energy efficient.” Oh so you want to force freight to go by rail? Like the old days when trucks were prosecuted for hauling freight more than 150kms. The energy efficiency claim is heavily restricted to train loads of goods over long distances, not truck loads over shorter distances.

This is code for saying that the proposed motorway which will cost a billion has a cost benefit ratio of .5% and that no matter how much they try to spin it or massage the figures, it will cost far more than any expected benefits.” No Sue, you’re wrong. You’re talking about Transmission Gully. None of the proposals has that cost, no matter how much you try to spin or massage the figures.

Meantime public transport is so cash strapped, that we've discovered there won't be any toilets on the brand new Kapiti trains” There weren't any on the current or the previous generation of trains either. It isn’t news Sue, the trains were ordered by the Wellington Regional Council before the current government was elected, when the Greens worked in partnership with Labour on transport. Hardly National’s fault is it?

So, on the one hand the government can suddenly pull a billion dollars out of a hat, overnight, for a motorway that no one wants. But on the other hand it can't even afford to put toilets on our new trains.” No Sue, no billion. $930 million is the most expensive option, the cheapest is $410 million tops. No Sue, this Government didn’t order the trains or fund them, it was a previous commitment.

So, exhaustively, you have it. Sue Kedgley has:
- Used heavily emotive language to describe what she hates (massive juggernauts, massive motorway, destroy communities), exaggerating for effect;
- Blanked out facts about the proposed expressway possibly being on land set aside for a motorway in the first place;
- Grossly misrepresented the Government’s proposals and justification for them, exaggerating them ridiculously;
- Claimed evidence for an effect which demonstrably isn’t true in numerous cases;
- Used a report to back her position that was not even on the topic in question, and which also supports a position she vehemently opposes;
- Talks extensively about a solution that is only slightly related to the issue at hand and talks not at all about the proposal at question (or even the counter proposal by those opposing it), maybe she doesn’t know anything about it;
- Says nothing has been done about rail, then lists several expensive projects that are being done;
- Claims rail isn’t the priority, yet the rail projects are the ones under construction, the road ones are being debated;
- Uses mega cities like London, Paris, Tokyo and New York as examples of how Paraparaumu and Waikanae can follow;
- Misuses official statistics about rail patronages;
- Is wrong about the age of the trains by over 20 years;
- Claims her preferred solution is cheaper than the ones proposed, when it isn’t;
- Misrepresents the cost of the proposed expressway and the economic appraisal;
- Makes a false claim that 51 tonne trucks need 4 lane motorways, when previous reports said the current state highway network can handle them no problem;
- Wants to ban long haul freight going by road, a new radical policy;
- Implies the current government is to blame for no toilets on new trains, when it isn’t, and none of the trains ever had toilets.

Now I can do this fisking on this issue because I know it very well. How many other times does Sue Kedgley misrepresent the truth out of ignorance or laziness, and how many other times does she exaggerate for propaganda effect?

Is she the only Green MP who does this? If so, why do the Greens tolerate such senselessness. If not, how can the Greens be taken seriously when they are so lackadaisical with the truth?

Finally, does anyone know if Sue took the train to this meeting or drove? Given I have seen her drive from a public meeting in downtown Wellington before, I’m not holding my breath that she even caught the train.

14 October 2009

Idiot Savant's analysis woeful (updated)

Idiot Savant's latest post exclaims "The way the right talks, you would think that government policy was all about wealth and increasing GDP. Today, we have a stark reminder that that is not the case, in the form of the European Quality of Life Index".

Well no, some people talk about freedom as well, he chooses to select what he listens to about standard of living.

He continues "According to the index, the UK has the lowest quality of life in Western Europe...This is where NeoLiberal growth maximisation gets you: a country where no-one wants to live and everyone feels miserable. The lesson for New Zealand ought to be obvious."

So what IS the Index? Where does the data come from? How comprehensive is it? The answers are, a shonky piece of publicity, difficult to tell and not at all. Even with that, the conclusions he draws are little to do with neo-liberalism. All in all it's very woeful analysis that doesn't stack up.

The European Quality of Life Index did not come from a university, government institution, think tank or international organisation. It came from a private company that makes money running a price comparison website for consumers to choose the best value utility companies. Uswitch. Frankly, whilst it is nice for private companies to do a bit of research that they pay for, I'd like some robustness around it. So how does it fail?

1. Idiot Savant claims this is about Western Europe, yet it leaves out at least 10 other countries. Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Iceland, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal. Given it includes Poland, you might ask why not also Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. So really who knows if the UK ranks bottom?

2. The dates for data used are often missing with the sources. In some cases there are no sources (e.g. average working hours a week), others quote a date with the source but is that publication date (as some look like) or year? If years are not common across data, then it should be justified, as you are not comparing like with like.

3. GDP per capita is used, not GDP per capita adjusted by purchasing power parity, although the report looks like creating its own PPP measure. Frankly, I'd rather trust the more widely used ones. PPP matters for the same reason anyone comparing earning £ to NZ$ without looking at purchasing power makes it look like anyone living in the UK is rich.

4. Under wealth the report talks of council tax and travel expenses in the UK, but doesn't say the same for similar taxes or charges elsewhere, or housing costs. The UK may cost more than many for both, but is the highest?

So all in all, it looks a bit shabby. More shabby are the conclusions that this is about "neo-liberal" policies. Why?

1. One of the measures is "hours of sunshine", no need to explain why the UK comes out worse than France and Spain on this measure. Not a lot to do with government.

2. Education spending for the UK is similar to the average, as is France, Spain is less. So how does spending more on this matter? Finland is the interesting case as it is seen by some as a model, but it isn't included. Note Sweden spends more and has a voucher system.

3. The UK has one of the most centralised health systems of all, and the outcomes are relatively poor. The NHS is a huge central bureaucracy, compared to insurance based models in France, Germany, the Netherlands and others. However, that's been ignored as well as something "neo-liberal" when the UK is anything but.

4. One of the measures is cost of fuel, alcohol and cigarettes, all very high in the UK because of? Tax. Yes, nothing "neo-liberal here". The Netherlands and the UK have the higher fuel tax in Europe, so surprise surprise, they have they highest prices of fuel.

So what does this piece of work prove? Precious little. The data is hard to compare, but what can be compared shows that the countries with the best standard of living, have the most sunshine, spend the same or less on education, have insurance based health systems and lower taxes on commodities.

Hardly neo-liberalism vs socialism is it now, even if you do think a price-comparison website operator is a sound source for analysis.

UPDATE: Seems he has removed the link to this post from his website, doesn't like criticism does he? You'd think something ostensibly interested in free speech would allow his reliance on a pathetic piece of publicity driven research to be critiqued?