15 April 2010

Conservative manifesto - less worse than Labour but where is the freedom?

Given the electoral system in the UK, the big choice for most voters is whether to support the incumbent Labour Party, and its "we'll look after you, give us your money and promise us your kids' money too" approach or the Conservatives.

Labour, naturally, wants to portray the Conservatives as the "nasty party" proclaiming that it would make "brutal" cuts like Margaret Thatcher did, and claim that the radicalism of that government is where the Tories REALLY have their hearts and minds.

A little odd given the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted on the BBC that LABOUR would have to make cuts worse better than Thatcher.

Nevertheless, on the face of it, given how the Tories have abandoned the closeted xenophobia, anti-homosexual, social intolerance of the past, is there really hope that the Tories are now socially liberal AND the great inheritors of Thatcher's culling of the state?

After all, I would LOVE to be able to give the Conservatives my moral authority to earn my vote. Britain needs to consign the pseudo-Keynesian spendthrift promise breaker Gordon Brown and his tribe of envy peddling control freaks to history. So is there something to hope for in the Opposition? A belief in capitalism, individual freedom, commitment to addressing real crimes and to a state that weans the public from dependency on it for pensions, healthcare and their kids' education?

Not if you read the Conservative Manifesto. No. In fact, the Conservative Party continues to be suspicious of capitalism, embraces wholeheartedly the religion of unquestioned environmentalism. Moreover, you'll be spending a lot of time searching for the freedom in it, because it largely isn't there.

Its first policy is called "Big Society". Remember when Margaret Thatcher correctly said (and was subsequently quoted only in part) that there is "no such thing as society"? She meant that when people say "society" thinks this, or is to "blame" for that, that it is a nonsense as there is no collective brain. Society is simply a group of individuals who interact with their own consciousness, own opinions and diverse views, lives and attitudes.

The "Big Society" policy says "We have set out an ambitious agenda to build a Big Society based around social responsibility and community action." In capital letters? Quite simply, fuck that.

Allister Heath in City AM put it so very well:

their “big society” agenda, which looks suspiciously like a rebranded big state. “Our ambition is for every adult in the country to be a member of an active neighbourhood group.” Really? What about those so busy trying to make ends meet that they have taken on two jobs, or who are too ill or too old or who have to care for young children or elderly relatives? And what about the barmy proposal for vast numbers of state-funded community organisers? It’s nonsense – slightly sinister nonsense, even, with authoritarian undertones and entirely unaffordable in an age of drastic austerity. One can’t chide the state for its bossiness and all-controlling bureaucratic officialdom – and simultaneously try and make volunteering compulsory. There is such a thing as freedom and being allowed to do whatever one wants with one’s life, rather than being bossed about by do-gooders. It is worrying how, for all their empowering rhetoric (and in some cases proposed actions, such as on civil liberties) the Tories have forgotten about this.

He's right you know. It is the classic conservative agenda, not of letting free individuals live as they want as long as they don't hurt others, but putting obligations on your life to "participate" in ways the government approves of. Most people much of the time help and contribute to the lives of others, like parents, family, friends, colleagues. They don't need Uncle David Cameron telling them to volunteer on top of that.

The Tories have made a big deal of not increasing national insurance tax like Labour will, but they will STILL increase it for those earning over £35,000.

Frankly the most positive policy is on education, by allowing anyone to set up a school in competition with the state and have state funding follow students to that school. A form of semi-deregulation of the compulsory education sector.

Beyond that there are some positives:
- Reducing corporation tax and an agenda to reduce regulation on business;
- Resolving the West Lothian question, by requiring issues that only involve England or England and Wales need to be passed by a majority of MPs from those constituent countries;
- Allowing council tax payers to veto increases in council tax by petition;
- Retain and replace Britain's nuclear deterrent;
- Ensure that UK has final sovereignty over its laws (which wont happen as it means leaving the EU in effect);
- Reduce (but not eliminate) powers to enter homes by councils;
- Scrap compulsory ID cards;
- Allow DNA from innocent people to removed from databases;
- Remove consensual gay sex convictions from criminal records;
- Freeze council tax for two years.

Then some negatives:
- Giving other people's money to households to pay for energy efficiency measures;
- Stop the privately owned and funded third runway at Heathrow on spurious environmental grounds, and no more runways at Gatwick or Stansted either;
- Interfering in energy markets because of climate change;
- Introduce voluntary "National Service";
- Create a new bureaucracy to look to prop up food prices for farmers;
- Destroy remaining property rights of BT and other telcos by forcing them to sell broadband capacity to others;
- Force everyone to pay for universal broadband access below cost in rural areas;
- Increase state health spending and foreign aid spending in real terms whilst the country is in fiscal crisis;
- Refusing to abolish the 50p top tax rate while public sector pay is frozen;
- Put a FLOOR under landfill tax;
- Retaining the ridiculous and distortionary "free at point of use" policy of the NHS;
- Encourage councils to build more council housing;
- Limit non-EU immigration;
- Maintain most of Labour's expanded welfare state.

No, it doesn't inspire. It doesn't promise to not increase other taxes, like fuel duty and VAT. Welfare dependency remains, as do victimless crimes and the nanny statism over children that Labour introduced. It is at best devoid of ambition, with the only positive sign the education policy (even that is the ACT policy of 2008). The rest is denial of the need to confront socialised medicine, a complete disregard for private property rights and being hijacked by the inane environmentalist lobby to strangle growth in aviation.

Gordon Brown it is not, New Labour it is not, but does this deserve moral endorsement from me as a libertarian?

Sadly, no. I can't endorse the environmentalism, the confiscation of property rights, the weasel words around the deficit and tax, and the embracing of the NHS.

The question is whether the Tories are that bad that it wouldn't matter if Labour won or the Conservatives won. The problem I have is that if I vote Conservative I hardly have a right to object if they do what they say, since I would have had a hand in saying YES GOVERN ME.

I don't think I want to do that.

Venerate the Great Leader

See this photo? Save it. Print it out, and use it as you see fit to denigrate the image of the man who, more than any other, saw George Orwell's 1984 not as a warning, but as a manual on how to run a country.

It's his birthday today. He'd be 98. Sitting on a newspaper image or folding the newspaper incorrectly constitutes a criminal offence, but I am sure you can do better. I am thinking it gives something to aim at.

Why? Well he started the Korean War, his policy includes imprisoning young children as political prisoners, orchestrated several deadly terrorist acts and has single handedly produced the most totalitarian dictatorship and personality cult run state in history. Go on, make it something the whole family does, they can all learn something.

14 April 2010

New Labour - Trust us, we know how to spend other people's money.

Yesterday, the British Labour Party launched its manifesto. The title "A Future Fair for All" reminded me of a witticism of Sir Bob Jones who once remarked on the use of the word "fair" using the school report meaning. "Fair" is less than good and only better than "Poor". It is apt in this case, as Gordon Brown and what was "New" Labour have mediocre ambitions for Britain, as is seen by their willingness to continue to pilfer so much from those who ARE ambitious and successful.

So what was promised? The Guardian sympathetically has reproduced the whole thing.
  • A significant expansion of the welfare state with a "National Care Service" taxing everyone so that the children of those who own their own homes don’t get their inheritance touched;
  • Allowing good schools and hospitals to take over poorly performing ones, decided by bureaucrats of course;
  • More powers for dour protestant local government to ban betting shops and lapdance bars;
  • "Create" jobs, guaranteeing jobs for everyone under 25 by taking from those who actually create jobs, banning more jobs by raising the minimum wage and forcing longer paternity leave on all employers (except the self employed of course);
  • Borrow from unborn taxpayers to create a "Green Investment Bank" (so the government has a set of all colours);
  • Borrow from unborn taxpayers to build a flash high speed rail line to Birmingham that can't be funded from those who would use it because the time savings aren't worth enough to them;
  • Tax all users of fixed phone lines to pay for people who choose to live in remote locations to get subsidised broadband (i.e. the elderly subsidising farmers);
  • Government able to intervene in poorly performing police forces, guaranteed 24 hour response to anti-social behaviour (useful if you're getting harassed on the spot!) and making rich criminals pay for their prison time;
  • A right of recall for "errant" MPs, a referendum on introducing the Australian style preferential voting system and for the voting age to be reduced to 16 to increase the size of Labour's demographic of people who like the government to spend other people's money.
Finally, there is a promise to not increase income tax or the scope of VAT, which of course leaves the point that:
- National Insurance is going up, which is income tax by another name;
- VAT could STILL go up, and at 17.5% it isn't low;
- Labour promised income tax wouldn't go up in its last manifesto, and created a new top tax rate of 50%;
- Labour increases fuel tax every year according to inflation and none of the extra money ever goes on transport.

So the promises are vacuous.

City AM calls it a "rejection of capitalism", because it proposes that corporate takeovers require a "TWO-THIRDS" majority of shareholders to approve them, effectively giving a veto of minority shareholders to any such takeovers. In addition it proposes a "public interest" test to allow political vetoing of takeovers of infrastructure and utility companies, bureaucrats naturally knowing best how to maximise wealth of businesses none of them own.

Labour has no strategy to cut the structural deficit and the monumental public debt accumulated on its watch. It has ever grown the size of the state with intrusive powers to regulate the internet and most recently require everyone who spends regular time with children to be vetted by a non-judicial bureaucracy which anyone can complain to if they think someone is "a bit funny". Most disturbing of all is its playing of Marxist envy politics - that it is moral to keep taxing those on middle and higher incomes more and more, borrow more from future taxpayers, and to keep those on lower incomes permanently dependent on the state for income, housing, retirement and to decide on their health and education.

It is fundamentally dishonest about economics, and immoral in its view of the relationship between subject and the state. It sees the public as subjects to be regulated and taxed and told what to do, and they better be grateful for it. Government as a percentage of GDP went from 38% in 1997 to 45% today and debt as a percentage of GDP from 42% to over 100%.

The Conservatives? Well that Manifesto was launched today.... I'm underwhelmed and more on that later.

13 April 2010

Pope's moral authority destroyed

As an atheist, what the Roman Catholic Church does or does not do or say amongst its own flock is of peripheral interest to me. What is of interest is when those working for it commit serious criminal offences, and the Church and by implication the Vatican State seeks to cover it up.

There can be little doubt that many people in the Roman Catholic Church are deeply concerned about the litany of cases of child abuse committed by priests. Furthermore, the extended efforts by many in the church to cover up the cases, to demand silence from the victims and then to shepherd the abusers to new flock, which naturally they abused -given the sanction for abuse was simply to be sent somewhere fresh.

To some Christians it appears a new crusade is being fought, primarily by atheists, to destroy the Church. They will see it as unfair, in that there are clergy in all churches who are abusers. Nobody suggests for a moment that the Church has a monopoly on child abusers. However, it is never a defence to a crime to point out that your neighbour commits the same crimes. Particularly when you hold yourself up as a source of moral authority, guidance and trust.

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken strongly about the incidence of child abuse, and many Catholics will have seen his recent statements as showing some contrition and interest in remedying the situation.

However, the basis upon which he can do this now looks wanting. The New York Times has found a letter signed by the then Cardinal Ratzinger. The letter is about a 38 year old priest, who tied up and abused two young. The Cardinal said that "the case needed more time and that “the good of the Universal Church” had to be considered in the final decision. In other words, he put the good of the church above prosecuting and expelling this sadistically abusive priest.

The New York Times continues...

"John S. Cummins, the former bishop of Oakland who repeatedly wrote his superiors in Rome urging that the priest be defrocked, said the Vatican in that era, after the Second Vatican Council, was especially reluctant to dismiss priests because so many were abandoning the priesthood."

Now the priest concerned had already been convicted of child abuse a few years beforehand, apparently not enough for the Church to judge someone unfit to be a priest. The Pope to be considered it a bigger priority to think of the good of the church, that it retain a recidivist sadistic child abuser as one of its own, that to remove him.

Despite the efforts of Bishop Cummins who wrote to the Cardinal in February 1982: “It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry.”

"Cardinal Ratzinger requested more information, which officials in the Oakland Diocese supplied in February 1982. They did not hear back from Cardinal Ratzinger until 1985, when he sent the letter in Latin suggesting that his office needed more time to evaluate the case."

More time? He already had THREE years, he had been convicted in 1978. In 1985 he started volunteering at a youth ministry.

The Pope should explain himself, explain why he thought the interests of the church itself were greater than the interests of children or indeed their parents, who trusted the church.

Given the Pope is now implicated quite seriously in engaging in the same sort of suppress and deflect behaviour that has been highlighted most recently in Ireland, does he not have some sort of moral obligation to confess his own failings?

How can anyone, objectively looking at the Roman Catholic Church, seriously believe that its leader can hold moral authority in damning those who have done what he himself has done?

How can people venerate a man who has preferred to protect the reputation of his employer than the safety of children?

09 April 2010

Will the UK contribute to South Africa's energy crisis?

For the past two years South Africa has faced a serious electricity crisis. Demand has been exceeding supply, with the reasons for this being multi-faceted:

- Electricity generation remains dominated by a state owned company (Eskom), which has been severely undercapitalised (so not investing in new capacity) as the Government refused to inject capital into a company it was seeking to privatise. State ownership without the state seeking to invest;

- Electricity tariffs have been generously subsidised (described by the Chairman here), so that the price of electricity is around a third of the cost of generating it. The reason being the political desire to supply cheap electricity to the population Eskom makes a substantial loss, so cannot finance expansion from its own revenue. Socialism is crippling electricity generation (although tariffs are increasing by 30% to start to address this);

- Privatisation of Eskom has been stalled for political reasons and because no new owner would want to buy a company that loses money without the power to increase tariffs to address this;

- The government deregulated the electricity market, but there is no foreign interest in building new capacity whilst the state continues to bear Eskom's huge losses as it continues to price electricity well below cost.

So South Africa has been stuck, with ample coal reserves, but without the capital investment to translate this into electricity generation, and pricing a scarce resource so cheap, it gets rationed through blackouts.

Now the appropriate answer to all this is to split Eskom into three or more companies, privatise them one by one, letting each privatised one set its own tariffs. This would effectively allow new entrants to decide how to invest in new capacity and match price and demand.

In the meantime, South Africa has sought a World Bank loan to help pay for a new power plant for Eskom. Setting aside whether this should happen at all (it should not), the UK government is apparently considering vetoing it at the World Bank. Why?

Not for economic or financial reasons, but because Greenwar, Foes of the Humans and Christian Aid oppose it as the new power station would be coal fired.

They want money into so-called renewable energy, even though the cost would be twice as much per unit. Not that these organisations are planning to build and fund power stations themselves. No, they would rather South Africans endure blackouts and keep their economy crippled than to let some coal be burnt.

Why is the UK interested? According to the Times, Gordon Brown is looking for a way to capture the "Green" vote, though it is interesting to see how this clashes with the interests of some of the poorest on the planet.

So if the UK vetoes the World Bank loan, it will be about pandering to a Green agenda - it wont be about incentivising South Africa to engage in serious reform of its electricity policy.

After all, even if South Africa did privatise and reform electricity, the anti-human environmentalists would no doubt continue to oppose new coal fired power plants, also oppose more nuclear power, and want to force taxpayers in wealthier countries to subsidise "renewable" energy.

Five more years? Not likely

Gordon Brown has threatened that if Labour is elected again he will serve out another full FIVE year term.

I don't think saying that will have the effect he wishes.

Look at the comments under the Times article about this, find any POSITIVE ones...

08 April 2010

Gordon Brown is not a true Keynesian

A budget deficit of 12% of GDP is apparently "right" so says Gordon Brown. This is a Keynesian view apparently.

Well setting aside whether Keynesian is right or wrong (it's wrong, but that's for another day), Allister Heath in City AM has written today about how this was never Keynes's view:

John Maynard Keynes, whose work is often cited as justifying our fiscal incontinence, would in fact have been horrified at the scale of the deficit and our over-sized state sector, which the OECD puts at 52 per cent of GDP. Keynesians argued that governments should allow the budget to go into the red in a recession by a few percentage points of GDP, with 3 per cent usually the maximum – perhaps 4 per cent if things were truly desperate. Nobody ever claimed one could prudently rack up three or four times that level – and crucially, proper Keynesians supported budget surpluses in the good years. Brown’s constant structural deficits even at the height of the bubble would have been anathema to them.

So even if you believe in big spend ups during recessions, what Brown has done is THREE TIMES the scale of deficit spending that Keynes himself argued, and that during times of growth, budget surpluses should be run (which would then pay down debt). Gordon Brown only ran budget surpluses twice as Chancellor of the Exchequer, primarily due to inheriting a prudent Tory budget in 1997 and windfalls from selling mobile phone radio spectrum.

Furthermore, cutting budget deficits is positive because it:
- Reduces transfers from taxpayers to foreign sovereign debt holders;
- Reduces the crowd out of the state in the debt markets, reducing the cost of debt to the private sector.

In addition, the best way to do this is to reduce consumption, not increase taxes and not reduce spending on the few areas of positive economic expenditure like roads (which in the UK are grossly underfunded).

One European Commission survey of 49 countries that cut their deficits found that 24 of these fiscal consolidations promoted growth even in the short term – even when deficits were considerably lower than 12 per cent of GDP. The higher the deficit, the more likely that cutting it will boost growth immediately – a conclusion implied in a February 2010 study from the European Central Bank which found that the crisis has caused markets to punish irresponsible fiscal behaviour even more severely than before.

It’s quite simple: we need to cut the budget deficit as fast as possible by reducing spending. That, rather than messing around printing yet more money, would provide the best, most effective stimulus for the UK economy.

So in short, Gordon Brown has screwed up big time, the UK is only avoiding Greek like concern because UK governments don't default, UK savers have had their cash assets devalued as the pound drops, and the UK government hasn't lied like the Greeks.

To treat Labour as if it has been a profound saviour of the British economy is a joke - it has wasted money, running deficits during the good years and is now running up public debt that will hold down the UK economy for many many years.

It is a good enough reason to kick Gordon Brown out in utter disgrace.

Gordon can't have it both ways

Now if you believe in Keynesian economics, and think that the government pouring money into the economy is “good” for it in prime pumping demand, and consequent economic activity, you think that when the government spends more it is a good thing.

Presumably, you would argue that reducing taxation would similarly be good, as it would leave more money in the hands of private citizens to spend or save (the latter typically in banks or repaying debt).

Well according to Gordon Brown the answer is no.

You see he constantly accuses the Conservatives of wanting to “wreck the economy” by cutting spending more quickly than Labour. Yet when the Conservatives promise to NOT increase tax (a form of income tax labelled National Insurance) as MUCH as Labour, it is doom and gloom because it means the budget deficit will be a problem?

Who is right Gordon?

If the economy should have more money in it, then the state taking less makes sense right? If the budget deficit is a bigger concern, then the state spending less makes sense too?

The ONLY reason you can support more state spending, and more tax is nothing to do with economics, but everything about what you think the role of the state is – to do ever more.

Tony Blair’s “New Labour” which long ago promised to contain spending, following on from Thatcher’s modest degree of fiscal prudence, has clearly disappeared. Labour is now the party of ever bigger government.

A libertarian voting in a UK General Election

So “I saved the world” Gordon Brown has finally called 6 May as the date for the next UK General Election. It is worth noting how electoral terms in the UK are longer than in most countries. The last election was nearly five years ago, and that was a shoo in for Tony Blair and Labour, against Michael Howard and the Conservatives (which barely picked up a handful of extra seats). In coming weeks this will be my primary blogging topic for obvious reasons.

The UK election is likely to be close. Recent polls have put the Conservatives ahead by between 2% and 10%, with 7% needed for an overall majority (bearing in mind the UK has a First Past the Post electoral system). Some pundits are picking the Conservatives winning a plurality of seats, but short of a majority, so requiring the support of others to govern (which currently is mostly the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish and Welsh nationalist socialists and the Ulster sectarians).

The big issue for me is who to vote for (or to vote at all). The Libertarian Party UK is more like ACT in NZ, and probably wont have a candidate in my constituency in any case. It may come down to Conservative vs. UKIP, in both cases there are a long list of reasons to say “no”, with maybe only one or two reasons to say “yes” to either. It goes without saying that Labour is beyond redemption as a party of ever growing nanny state in both regulatory and financial terms, and the Liberal Democrats are just a different version of Labour. There is every reason for the Labour government of Gordon Brown to be consigned to the proverbial dustbin of history, but little reason for the Conservative Party of David Cameron to be given the chance to tinker with the nanny state, and slow its growth. Voting for the Conservatives means removing Gordon Brown, but is it right to endorse a different way of cooking the same dish? Poison laced with chocolate instead of lemon is still poison. Is it better to vote UKIP to send a message to the Conservatives that compromising on your principles costs you support? Or is the populist nationalist rant of UKIP so unconscionably awful that it doesn’t deserve endorsement? Should I simply choose based on the candidates themselves (a good small government minded liberal if any exist)?

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.

Greenwar, what happens when environmentalists get angry

Greenpeace likes to portray itself as embracing non-violence. However, as people around the world have become increasing sceptical about the agenda being peddled by the left dominated environmentalist movement, the continued use of dialogue and discussion has gotten under their skin. Gene Hashimi is from Greenpeace India, and he clearly has forgotten the "peace" part of the organisation's name (not that it has ever used force, no never) with his two part blog post on the Greenpeace blog.

Why would I post a link to it? Because of the threat contained at the end:

he proper channels have failed. It's time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism.

If you're one of those who believe that this is not just necessary but also possible, speak to us. Let's talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.

If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few."

and you'll be up against the wall when the revolution comes. After all, why should you say such a thing unless you were threatening people at their homes or workplaces? Why should it matter that you tell people where they live and work, unless you want to scare them?

Greenpeace has noticed this has caused some alarm. It has engaged in enormous spin to DENY that he is any kind of violent guy. It says "Gene's blog entry is about encouraging PEACEFUL civil disobedience - the kind of peaceful methods that liberated Gene's country (India) from imperialism. I know Gene, and he's a genuinely peaceful guy who believes in the power of peaceful protest to change the world. Some people are trying to portray him as otherwise. Just read what he had to say in context. He is very specific about what he thinks people should do."

Really? In context?

OK. So what does his blog entry say otherwise. Besides the classic anti-US propaganda "Why did the US, despite being responsible for the largest per capita share of global CO2 emissions" - it's not Gene, Qatar is, but too scary to confront Arab monarchies is it?" and then getting upset that the oil industry does what his side has done for many years "The smoke and mirrors created by the fossil fuel lobby are impenetrable. Their own tracks well covered, they operate through front groups, shell companies and think tanks.", it's all just a lot of anger. He is basically upset that some people have a lot of money to put forward their point of view, not that Greenpeace is lacking cash of course.

He talks about how the Micronesian government wrote to the Czech government to tell it to stop the expansion of a coal fired power plant (funny how it didn't write to the Chinese government, except of course China is a generous provider of aid and is unlikely to be responsive). Then lies about it, because the Czech government ignored Micronesia saying "this has revealed that a watertight legal case, a high moral ground and a credible support base are no match for infinitely-resourced and well-muscled think-tanks." Now the coal sector is in cahoots with the oil sector, this "watertight legal case" simply doesn't exist, and what he doesn't say is that the expansion includes modernisation to reduce the rate of emissions. Ahh, Gramsci is alive and well.

So what does he propose to do? "We need to join forces with those within the climate movement that are taking direct action to disrupt the CO2 supply chain". Direct action is code for breaking the law and ignoring private property rights. He endorsed the view of this peaceful person:

"The politicians have failed. Now it's up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It's not working. We need an army of climate outlaws"

Seems to me a little like another movement that existed in China around 40 years ago.

So the lesson is, if you don't get your way, you break the law and you threaten those who disagree with you.

It's always been nonsense that Greenpeace is about non-violence, as it has heartily embraced state violence to ban, tax, subsidise or compel whatever it wants - now it's more open, Greenpeace supports threatening directly.

05 April 2010

UK Election 2010: Libertarian Party UK

Gordon Brown is widely expected to announce the date of the UK general election on Tuesday, and so as a libertarian, it would seem automatic to at least consider the party called the Libertarian Party here in the UK.

The Libertarian Party UK is relatively new, having only been founded at the start of 2008. According to Wikipedia it has 500 members. In the context of New Zealand, which has been running far longer, and has more members, LPUK as it seeks to be known, is truly embryonic.

It has ran a couple of candidates in recent local elections and by-elections, and is solely represented by Gavin Webb, a councillor on the Stoke-On-Trent City Council. This is because Webb defected from the Liberal Democrats.

OK, so it's small.

How does it describe itself? "The Libertarian Party UK is a minarchist party utilising political philosophy based on support for individual liberty" is what was said on its press release announcing Webb has defected. Minarchist means "a political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression". All very well then.


However, do the policies match this?

Well um, only in part.

The economic policy shows it seeks income tax to be abolished, company tax reduced to 10% and the abolition of inheritance and capital gains tax. All well and good (in the right direction). However, then it argues replacing VAT with local and national sales taxes, initially at the same rate as VAT. Hardly ambitious, and handing over taxation to local authorities is rather scary.

Monetary policy is more promising, supporting the Gold standard and free banking.

It is rather limp wristed on quangoes, seeking to make them into departments if they have statutory powers. A better approach would be to go through them and see if any are consistent with the core role of the state, if not then abolish.

However, LPUK would eliminate the statutory minimum wage, which was only introduced under Labour since 1997.

Health policy has low ambitions, seeking competition and a transition to an insurance based model, with no sale of state assets. Far better would be to allow people to opt out of the NHS, give them back their national insurance and then move the NHS to an insurance model that people can opt out of altogether.

Education policy looks like the Conservative one of moving to a voucher based system, but no notion of user pays for the tertiary sector. After all, if income tax is to be abolished then surely this offers greater opportunity for students to finance education from future earnings, and the voluntary sector.

Defence and energy policy is mixed too. Defence is all very well, except armed neutrality as well as remaining a member of NATO. Quite simply incompatible. Either you have allies or you don't. Armed neutrality would have meant the UK conceding continental Europe to the Nazis. By contrast, energy policy is to leave it all to the market, which is welcome.

Welfare policy appears to endorse retaining the welfare state, with most of the policies being about winding back dependency. Far simpler transitions would be to state that non-British citizens could no longer apply for welfare, abolish all welfare for those above the "poverty line" and declare a date after which new applications would welfare would no longer be accepted. Weaning people off of state pensions over time makes sense, but again this might need a little more to it.

Housing and planning policy is perhaps most disappointing. Reviewing planning laws rather than abolishing them. No mention of private property rights. Most disturbing is "ensuring local populations have a strong voice in planning decision making". Nothing libertarian about that at all!

Transport policy is about meddling, with detailed nonsense about seat-belt laws (leave that up to road owners), but OPPOSING "non-freight vehicles" being charged for road use. Taxpayer funded roads are not exactly libertarian either.

Law and order is more promising. Plenty about rolling back intrusions of the state into personal freedoms, legalisation of drugs for adult use and decriminalisation of adult prostitution. Significant steps to legalise ownership of weapons for self defensive purposes. Much detail about the role of the Police.

Finally, Constitutional Policy has some useful gems, such as abolishing the TV licence, Human Rights Act, withdrawal from the EU, and "regionalising" legislation so that MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could not vote on legislation that is about matters devolved to their local executives. There is a fair bit about transparent lobbying and only allowing individuals to donate to political parties, which seems almost irrelevant if you don't deal with the more serious issues like - abolishing or reforming the House of Lords and creating a written constitution. Supporting electoral reform is all very well, but unless the system is reformed to eliminate the elected dictatorships on individual rights, it will do little good.

SO all in all a bit of a mish mash. What is lacking is the selling of principles. Principles like private property rights and the individual freedom to act as you see fit, as long as you respect the rights of others. Such fundamental concepts that should be easy to sell to more than 500 people in the UK.

That was the view taken by myself and three of the most libertarian men in the UK (all kiwis) when we visited the South-East Branch of the Libertarian Party meeting the other evening. There was much nodding of heads in agreement, but maybe a classic English lack of passion and lack of willingness to be fired up and argumentative about individual liberty. I had to leave early, but the conclusion I got was there was some good intentions, just not the "fire in the belly" to argue convincingly with the "statist quo".

After all, it isn't about getting elected, especially in a First Past the Post system - it is about ideas, and about changing the terms of the debate. The other minor parties trying to do this are the Greens, which clearly proudly sit on principles (because they are often mainstream today), UKIP (which is anti-EU for reasons of nationalist state sovereignty not individual freedom) and the BNP (which is a bunch of inept racist state worshippers).

It should be about saying NO to those seeking to bribe voters by spending more of their own money or promising new laws for this or that. It should be about making your terms ones of individual rights and for politicians to argue why they should take those rights away or spend your money, rather than to argue about what rights to take away and how to spend it.

I doubt the Libertarian Party will have a candidate in my electorate, although if so, I would likely vote for him or her after asking a few basic questions. However, it is clear LPUK is far from being a compelling electoral grouping at present.

The leader, Chris Mounsey, has a blog called the Devil's Kitchen, which isn't half bad, though I hadn't notice it till today. So that will be worth watching.

The other major libertarian outlet in the UK is the non-political (as in not a party) Libertarian Alliance. It has a blog too, but its utterings are largely ignored as well (and LPUK members I spoke to had no time for the LA).

Dare I have the audacity to say that a bit of Ayn Rand might do them both some good?

Erosion of private property rights in the UK

Three issues in the past few days have exemplified how the notion that private property rights are sacrosanct has been seriously eroded in the UK. They are around pay TV, mobile phones and bed and breakfasts.

First, Ofcom, the UK media regulator deemed that the UK's most successful pay TV operator - BSkyB - must be forced to sell content from its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels to competitors at 23% less than it currently chooses to do so. The reason? "Sky exploits this market power by restricting the distribution of its premium channels to pay TV providers." This "reduces consumer choice." "

Now BSkyB has brought more choice to British TV viewers than any other broadcaster. It offers 615 TV channels, and people pay for it voluntarily, unlike the BBC which is paid for by state enforced demand notice. The story of BSkyB is how it started operation to the UK without a licence, because it was operating entirely from outside the UK. It easily bet the state endorsed BSB, bought it out and became an enormous success story, against the odds (the story is in this book). It lost money for many years, never seeking a penny from taxpayers, and became successful because it took risks, it bought broadcasting rights for major sports events and people wanted to pay for it.

In other words, it was a great British entrepreneurial success story, something to be proud of. So what does the state do? Kneecap it. It wants to boost the competitors, the lacklustre Virgin Media (which bought out the poorly performing cable TV companies NTL and Telewest), BT's (once the focus of Ofcom diktats till it was cut down to size) Vision service and even the barely known Top Up TV. What it does is say the broadcasting rights Sky bought from various sports codes are NOT Sky's, but the "people's", so it is helping out Sky's competitors.

What will be the result? Sky's competitors wont bid for the sports broadcasting rights, so the price paid to the distributors and clubs will be lower, since Sky will only be bidding against the beleagured commercial networks ITV and 5, and state owned Channel 4 and the BBC. It means Virgin Media, BT Vision and Top Up TV will have to make less effort to appeal to viewers, they can be clones of Sky.

It is another example of pseudo-entrepreneur Richard Branson seeking the gloved fist of the state to take from his competitors to help him out. A charlatan indeed.

Remember, what did Ofcom ever do to increase consumer choice? The UK has one of the most vigorously competitive pay TV sectors in the world, one which has not been subject to the ridiculous rules on price and content that is seen in the US, and the content rules in Australia. As the Daily Telegraph says "the UK desperately needs strong media conglomerates that can compete internationally. In a globalised digital era when Google is eating ITV's lunch, that means we must stop being so parochial and let British companies grow and succeed.That might mean, say, Sky and ITV gaining an uncomfortably strong domestic position. But – like a monthly subscription to Sky Sports – that's a relatively small price to pay."

However, dare the politician speak up against the wide open mouthed "consumer" in favour of the property rights of the producer.

The second issue is about mobile phones. In the UK four companies operate national mobile phone networks of their own - O2, Vodafone, Orange/T-Mobile and 3. In all they, and their wholesalers (for example, Virgin Mobile uses the Orange/T-Mobile network), have 121% market penetration. In other words, there are mobile phone accounts for every adult and child in the UK, and a fifth have a second! With a vigorously competitive industry, multiple network providers, you'd think the free market could reign. Oh no. Ofcom, yet again, sets the price those companies can charge other operators (including fixed line operators) for terminating their calls.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the current price is 4.3p/minute, it is to drop to 0.5p/minute by 2014. Allegedly it is partly due to EU pressure, as clearly it thinks it has some moral authority to set prices for contracts between private companies. Orange and Vodafone are unimpressed saying respectively:

"If these measure are put in place they will stifle innovation. Any incoming government should be mindful of what these ill-considered proposals mean for the future of their country. Handsets may no longer be subsidised, you may have to pay receive calls."

and "A cut of this magnitude deters future investment, makes it less likely that the UK will continue to lead in mobile communications and is at odds with the Government's vision of a Digital Britain."

Of course the bigger question is "Why the hell should the state interfere in contracts between companies in an open fully competitive market"?

Naturally, those advantaged by it are happier. "3" is a relatively new network, so its customers make more calls to competitors than it receives. BT, long been battered into submission by the state for being the former monopoly (and which has withdrawn from a long line of overseas investments in recent years) has also welcomed it.

What WOULD happen if Ofcom said "Set the price you wish"? Well the operators would negotiate rates based on what they thought their customers could bear. Their customers don't want to be on networks nobody wants to call after all.

Again, the UK has spawned one of the world's most successful mobile phone companies, with Vodafone the largest mobile phone company in the world by revenue, and second largest by subscribers. It's UK competitors are French-German, Spanish and Hong Kong owned, and it has thrived. New Zealanders might note that without it they would have waited far longer for text messaging, prepaid mobile phones and competitive pricing with Telecom.

However, what incentive does Ofcom have to NOT meddle?

Finally, a gaffe. Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling was recorded, off the record, by an Observer journalist saying that those who run bed and breakfasts from their homes have a right to turn away gay couples. This is contrary to "human rights" laws which say otherwise. His point was that there should be respect of people of faith who have genuinely held beliefs. His point is the wrong one.

Now, he has since felt the need to backtrack on this, pointing out he voted for the said laws which ban such discrimination, and he voted for civil partnerships to be allowed. There is little sign he himself holds so-called "homophobic" views. Of course, those on the left are out like sharks to claim the Conservatives "haven't changed".

The point he should have made IS about private property rights. It is your home, you decide who enters it. If you run a B&B then you should also be able to turn away anyone, for whatever reason or feeling you have. Simple as that. If you, as a prospective customer or visitor don't like it? Then use free speech to say so, but don't expect the state to come banging down the door to force anyone to let you in.

You don't have a right to enter anyone's property without the owner's permission. Now had Grayling said that, he might have escaped some of the dirt thrown at him. If you had children and ran a B&B, you might not ever want single men staying, or you may not want priests or whatever. You don't need to justify yourself, it's your property.

Sadly, in the UK today, the argument of private property rights is peripheral. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats actively reject such rights and will surrender them at will. However, the Conservative Party hasn't the wherewithal to argue differently.

It's about time there is a choice that does!




01 April 2010

What do you do when you have a record budget deficit?

Go to an election promising to EXPAND the welfare state.

Yes, Gordon Brown has announced he would set up a National Care Service, described as "NHS for elderly care". In other words, he wants taxpayers to pay for everyone who needs it to have resthome care in their declining years.

Great! The budget announced last week is already borrowing an EXTRA £8,000 per household this year to pay for the current bloated UK state sector. Why not borrow more? Gordon Brown will be well retired and not giving a damn when the kids have to pay off the debt he incurred.

Of course the NHS is a model the whole world envies, well rather Michael Moore does, except he doesn't envy it enough to actually LIVE in the UK. The world envies it so much that the model hasn't been adopted anywhere.

After all is it not as if old age is unpredictable and cannot be planned or saved for, especially if the state stops pilfering your income to pay for everyone else in the meantime!

30 March 2010

Spring of discontent

Is it 2010 or 1979 in Britain? One might be briefly excused. You see there is a Labour government in power, far from popular. Two large trade unions are holding strikes literally weeks before the general election.

UNITE representing British Airways cabin crew is now into itsr second strike and now the RMTU, led by the avowed Marxist (yet paid a healthy six figure salary) Bob Crow, is calling the first national rail strike since 1994.

Why? Well British Airways is in dire financial straits. Many of its Heathrow based cabin crew are on pay and terms and conditions that hark back to before the airline was privatised, with the average pay double that of Virgin Atlantic and reportedly higher than any other airline globally. The management is seeking to put Heathrow crew on the same pay and conditions as Gatwick crew, given the airline has had record losses. In short, this is about the survival of the airline, in a world where most recently Japan Air Lines, Olympic Airways and Alitalia have all effectively folded and either been recapitalised or bought out from the creditors.

On the railways, the issue is with Network Rail, the government guaranteed nominally private company that owns and runs the rail network. It is seeking to change maintenance practices so that trains can run more frequently at weekends and late evenings, and has endorsement from the Office of Rail Regulation for the changes. The union is claiming the strike is about safety, but has little support from that from elsewhere.

So many BA flights are not taking off (Gatwick flights will given the crew there have no reason to strike, and some cabin crew at Heathrow are refusing to go on strike), and the four days after Easter will see most trains not running. A spring of discontent is in the wind. Gordon Brown is less than impressed.

Of course the problem Labour has is that UNITE is the largest financial contributor to the Labour Party, and the RMTU is also affiliated. Some Labour MPs support the strike, although they are keeping very quiet about it. However Gordon Brown and the rest of Cabinet cannot hand on heart state opposition to those who fund them. In other words, a very clear political link can be made between Labour and the unions who have decided to go on strike close to the election.

Isn’t this suicide, you say? Surely unions WANT Labour in government? Well, this is about two things. Firstly, the belief that this pressures Labour Ministers to intervene on the side of the union, to get what they might otherwise not get if the government changes. What the unions don’t realise is that this is likely to play into the hands of the Conservatives, by showing Labour as anti-business and back in the bad old days of government intervening in industrial disputes. Secondly, as far as the RMTU is concerned, Bob Crow says that it doesn’t really matter if Labour loses, because both main parties are so similar.

What some in the union movement want is for Labour to lose, so that Gordon Brown can be replaced, and the vestiges of New Labour are purged to move it further to the left. In other words, they still believe in socialism. What they failed to note was how roundly such a Labour Party was defeated in 1983 when it had the socialist wet dream manifesto.

It is too early to tell whether it means the deathknell of the government. If only because the Conservative Party seems like it engages in the art of spin, of saying very little and criticism rather than ideas. When asked about spending cuts, the Conservatives talk about small ticket items and protecting the NHS. The simple truth is that whatever major party governs Britain, it is made up of politicians who primarily want to spend other people’s money and direct their lives. Until that trap is broken, the cycle of discontent will continue.

25 March 2010

Bribing voters with their kids future stolen money

What do you do on the eve of a general election, when your predecessor as Chancellor of the Exchequer (now Prime Minister) used most of the last 13 years of economic prosperity to grow the size of the state from 39% of GDP in 1997 to over 46% today?

When public debt, at 43% of GDP when this government was first elected in 1997, is now forecast to be 72% this year, and some say when including state sector pension and Public Finance Initiative liabilities is over 100% of GDP?

You do next to sweet bloody nothing.

You keep middle and upper class welfare, like the "Winter Fuel Allowance" which is a subsidy to home gas and electricity prices for everyone over 60 over winter. Yes David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Mohamed al-Fayed can all get this one.

You set up a couple of new financial/planning bureaucracies to "invest" in the economy.

You hike up some taxes, cut the fringes of a few others, and keep propping up the property market (can't let prices drop to market levels to let more people afford to buy can you?).

You optimistically forecast that you'll halve the deficit in five years, which simply means you'll keep borrowing from future taxpayers a bit less each year.

You announce proudly that you're borrowing, on behalf of every British household, ANOTHER £8,000 each. That is on top of the current public debt per household of around £50,000.

You DON'T announce big cuts in spending in welfare, health, education, nanny state bureaucracies, corporate welfare and the like.

You leave that to the next government, which is more likely than not going to NOT include Labour.

Then, no doubt, you'll moan and point fingers at the cruel heartless new Conservative (maybe Conservative/Liberal Democrat) government for all of the spending cuts it imposes, saying how mean they are for NOT wanting to hike up the debt of future generations of taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the 30% plus of the public dependent on taxpayers for their jobs or incomes will dutifully march to give you a tick at the next election, because you now cater for them - because if they weren't so dependent, they might just be less interested in voting for you.

The first bid in the advance auction of stolen goods has been made, and it's pretty much "keep spending and let your kids worry about Greek levels of debt per capita".

Of course one difference with Greece (the most important one is that the UK government isn't lying about the figures, generally speaking), is the pound is responsive to all of this - given UK public sector borrowing is effectively printing money (by issuing bonds).

The Pound has fallen to a two week low against the US Dollar.

You see, one of the tactics (with little concern for the effect) is to simply steal from holders of Sterling in the form of devaluing their cash savings by borrowing more.

Now it's time to call an election, shame the alternatives are as inspirational as a puddle in a tunnel.

Why Obama's health reforms are quite wrong

If you simply read and listen to many in the mainstream media talk about this story, you might ask whether any of them bothered to critically review the legislation passed by the Congress and signed by Obama on healthcare.

In the simple, binary world of so many the impression is given that health care in the US is a "privately owned fully commercial free market system where people are left to die on the streets unable to pay for ambulances or lying in hospitals not being treated because they can't pay".

This is a bold faced lie on multiple levels. How many say that half of all US healthcare is funded by government through Medicare and Medicaid, which provide healthcare for the elderly and poor families respectively? How many say that the budget for Medicare is 20% of the federal budget, with Medicaid being half that again?

How many say that the health market in the US is heavily regulated, with hospitals required to treat accident and emergency patients regardless of ability of pay? How many say that some states restrict the market to protect some health providers, so there isn't free and open competition across the country? How many talk about the burden that precedents to allow ridiculous tort law claims imposes upon the health sector? (In the last case the Republicans do, because high profile Democrats include tort lawyers).

The failure in the US is not about universality. As Libertarianz Leader Dr. Richard McGrath (himself a health professional) states:

"When the figure touted was 47 million uninsured, the breakdown was like this:

18 million earned over $50k (half of this group earn over $75k) and chose not to insure themselves;
13 million were illegal aliens;
8 million were under age 18 and had public cover available if poor;
leaving 8 million uninsured (3% of the population), many of whom were 18-20 year olds at low risk of medical problems."

So the REAL figure of those without insurance is far less than is bandied about by the press. The big issue in the US is cost, and the biggest source of cost inflation has been the public sector. Who says that? The Congressional Budget Office notes:

"total federal Medicare and Medicaid outlays will rise from 4 percent of GDP in 2007 to 12 percent in 2050 and 19 percent in 2082—which, as a share of the economy, is roughly equivalent to the total amount that the federal government spends today. The bulk of that projected increase in health care spending reflects higher costs per beneficiary"

In other words, the GOVERNMENT side of US healthcare (which is largely ignored) is growing exponentially. The legislation signed by Obama doesn't touch this at all.

The Cato Institute solution is wiser. Its proposals are:
- Eliminate tax incentives for employer bought health insurance and apply them to individually bought health insurance. This means people have a vested interest in buying health insurance that meets their needs, and puts pressure on such insurance to not provide excessive cover;
- Eliminate restrictions that prohibit people buying health insurance from providers in other states, this is an unnecessary restriction on competition;
- Eliminate state specified minimum requirements for health insurance that in some cases include cover for procedures many would not wish (e.g. in vitro fertilisation) (indeed allowing interstate competition would produce strong incentives on states to do this);
- Licensing and regulation of what medical practitioners can do, and standards for licensing should be shifted towards industry driven accredited standards.

For example, it makes sense to be able to insure against accident or disease that is not predictable. Not to insure against self injury, or the consequences of heavy drug or alcohol consumption. No bigger incentive towards healthier lifestyles would exist than for people to notice that if they smoked, they might not get any health cover for respiratory diseases.

The Obama health reforms tinker with health insurance to make it compulsory for everyone to have health insurance, and to subsidise those who can't afford it. It does not address the cost escalation in the heavily regulated market, but especially does not address cost escalation in the US's own socialised health care - Medicaid and Medicare.

Expect future years to have healthcare remain a major issue in the US, because Obama is, for now, printing money and borrowing it, to pay for his grand plans. Living for now, letting future generations bear the cost - a curious metaphor for how so many of those living at the bottom treat their own lives.

Oh and while you consider that, it is worth noting that both the UK and New Zealand are rare among developed countries in not having an insurance based model for healthcare. The result of that is a continued growth in concern about significant groups of people who live unhealthy lifestyles, and a desire to tell them what to do in order that governments ration spending on diseases of lifestyle.

A better approach is for people to pay themselves, buy insurance and face higher premiums or the inability to get insurance because no one will sell it to them if they are eating, drinking, smoking and idling themselves into chronic conditions.

However, socialists prefer to treat such people as children, and for you to pay when they don't listen.

11 March 2010

Internet scaremongering by newspaper

The Daily Mail has done one of its usual "the country is full of pedophiles" stories by having a journalist pretend to be a 14yo girl on Facebook, claiming "she" got umpteen requests from older men for sexual attention.

However, look at the comments section for the most popular, and you'll find oodles of people saying the likes of 'I'm unsure how this happened, my teenagers have been on Facebook for ages and don't have this issue as they know how to use it' or 'I used the internet since I was 11, occasionally had pervy attention and just blocked it or closed the window'.

In other words, Facebook isn't the problem. It allows you to control privacy settings, and most teenagers are smart enough to simply block unwanted attention. It's logical and rational, after all it is only words and images on a computer screen.

The bigger issue is clearly when teenagers ARE looking for this sort of attention, which is more a sign of issues with family, confidence and desperately seeking someone to listen to them and make them feel good about themselves. THAT is the issue, the seeking of self esteem from others, when it isn't effectively taught at home or school. A culture of sacrifice, altruism and belief that what matters is what you do for others, not yourself, encourages this.

Of course even with that some will be curious and daring, and make foolish mistakes. However, there are laws to prosecute people who engage in underage sex, and those who use the internet to meet young people for that purpose are leaving obvious trails to track them down and get them prosecuted. Curiously, some of the more recent cases of internet bullying have been with their peers, not adults. Will laws be created to prosecute teenagers for being mean to each other online? Or is it better to promote safe behaviour online, using defamation and harassment laws as they stand and let reason prevail?

The key point is that most teenagers most of the time look after themselves well online, and are more than competent to protect themselves and not meet strangers they find online alone in private places. The few who don't, do so for reasons that no law will fix, and those who care about them should provide means for them to be able to communicate what it is they want and why, in a non-judgmental and open manner. If they do stray, and do end up engaging in illegal behaviour offline, the criminal law remains to provide harsh penalties for those who exploit the young, and the internet is a fine tool for finding such people!

UPDATE: The Guardian reports the Daily Mail is facing the threat of a defamation suit because it initially claimed that it was Facebook that was used for this story.

Hedge fund manager puts socialists on the spot

Last night on BBC's Newsnight, a hedge fund manager, Hugh Hendry participated in a discussion about how he is speculating on Greece defaulting on its debt. He was joined by Joseph Stiglitz, a US economist, and Spanish Ambassador to the UK, Carles Casajuana.

Many on the left blame the likes of him who in speculating on Greece's public finances, when what he actually is doing is exposing the real risk. He is doing it with his own money and money of those who have chosen to trust him to manage.

That is the fundamental difference.

He has bet millions on the Euro, betting on it dropping if Greece defaults. As he says, if he is wrong, he and his investors lose. He expects nobody to bail him out. If he succeeds, it will be because he is right.

Why is he in a position to do this? Because the Greek governments, democratically elected for years, have been both lying about the public finances and been lax about getting those who elect them to pay for what they want.

However, the discussion on Newsnight last night was simply beautiful.

Stiglitz claimed there should be more borrowing and spending, and it is "absurd" to bet on a default. Hendry said simply:

"Look what happens - you get into difficulty and these guys over here [pointing at Stiglitz and Spanish Ambassador to the UK, Carles Casajuana] say, "hey we don't like it."

"Suddenly the truth hurts! Suddenly we want to abandon the truth. Suddenly speculation becomes a pejorative term!"

In other words, the politicians and some economists want reality evaded, the truth of the Greek government's inability to see that constant borrowing is unsustainable, is something they don't want to know - because what it really means is that spending must be cut, drastically.

Then he got threatened by the weasel who is the Spanish Ambassador who said "we're coming to get you".

He replied: "I see you champagne socialists when I travel business class, and the reason you're up in arms now is because you've got yourself into a crisis and cannot get out of it. So you're looking for scapegoats".

Indeed. The unaccountable reality evaders, statists both on the left and right, wont confront the truth that they are trying to defend mortgaging future taxpayers with their profligacy of today.

If the European Union decides to pillage taxpayers to save its members from default, then it will deserve the backlash that will be inevitable. Blaming entrepreneurs for betting with their own money for the failings of government is a lame attempt to cover up massive incompetence and failure by governments to spend within their means. Indeed, it would demonstrate once and for all the anti-business, anti-capitalist and pro-statist agenda of the European Union, except this time taxpayers are unlikely to stand for the machinations of those who like to spend their money for them.

Let Greece default, let Portugal, Spain and others follow.

Meanwhile, watch Hendry's excellent performance here and see the difference between someone who has made a success of his life and taken risks, compared to those who have spent their lives living off the back of others:

>

UPDATE: Here is Hendry again, for UK viewers only (through BBC iPlayer) pulling apart Poul Rasmussen, leader of the Party of European Socialists. The start is 22 minutes into the programme...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rdynp/Newsnight_09_03_2010/

10 March 2010

International Women's Day is a day to celebrate the private car

No objectivist could seriously consider there is any room for debate on whether women should be treated equally under the law to men. Furthermore, it is clearly irrational for private individuals to treat the deeds, skills, experiences or opinions of women as being inferior to men, purely due to the presence of different genitalia.

Having said that, there are many cases where discrimination on the basis of sex IS rational, simple things like personal preferences as to the sex of a doctor for sensitive issues, or quite simply human sexuality. As long as such a selection is rational, there is no reason to oppose it.

However, this post isn't about that, it is about how technology and capitalism have benefited women. Of these, one of the most beneficial inventions has been the private car.

The car has allowed more women to have access to employment, as it enables access to jobs that are NOT located in central business districts (which typically are accessible by public transport), and provides flexibility to engage in part time work around tasks many mothers undertake (such as the school run and grocery shopping).

Alan Pisarski notes that in the USA, the number of women with driving licences is approaching that of men, a trend which is not the case in many other countries. This access to personal mobility has been critical in women being able to access more and better opportunities for employment and business, as well as social opportunities. The presence of a second car in homes has particularly added to this, and that has been due to the ever declining real cost of purchasing and owning a car.

In most cases, it is quicker, cheaper and more convenient for women to access employment by car. This trend is unlikely to be reversed by the wishful thinking of supporters of coercively funded collectivised transport, which obviously has a role in assisting with people's mobility, but cannot ever replicate the flexibility that the car offers. It is that flexibility that has contributed towards expanding the horizons of opportunities for women.

Small mercies from new Auckland transport body

Now I've been damning of the creation of the Auckland mega city consistently. Quite simply, making councils in Auckland merge, whilst keeping their nearly unlimited power to enter into business, welfare activities, buy what they wish, set rates for whatever they wish, is a recipe for potentially untrammeled socialism at the local level. The last Labour Government gave local authorities a "power of general competence" (led by Alliance MP and Local Government Minister, Sandra Lee), which National and ACT opposed, yet both parties are now creating the largest government agency outside direct central government control in Auckland.

Transport is clearly one of the big issues for Auckland, but it is important to note the roles and responsibilities for that activity in the city. Bear in mind I am talking about urban transport, not intercity or international passenger or freight transport. Most of that operates quite well with little involvement of local government, except with local roads.

The creation of "Auckland Transport" as the new Council Controlled Organisation responsible for local body transport duties in Auckland has caused a bit of a stir with both Brian Rudman and Bernard Orsman opposing it. Indeed, it is noted that The Treasury, Ministry of Economic Development and Department of Internal Affairs all opposed it. Whilst the Internal Affairs opposition is unsurprising, the opposition of both Treasury and MED should put paid to any belief by those on the left that either agency is dominated by a "new right neo-liberal" agenda. For removing local transport operational matters from direct political interference WOULD be embraced by those who believe in less politics, less bureaucracy and more professional approaches to providing services.

However, let's be clear about what Auckland Transport will do.

It will operate Auckland's local roads, the roads that are not state highways. It will seek ratepayers money to pay for around half of the local road costs, and bid to the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) for the rest (which gets its money from road users through fuel tax etc). It will contract out all of the maintenance and construction work (as usual). There will, in essence, be little change, except that like the state highways, they will be run at an arms length from politicians. Given New Zealand's state highways are acknowledged by the World Bank to be among the best managed in the world, this is no bad thing. The less political interference in managing the roads the better, as we have seen with telecommunications, electricity and postal services.

The second function is around public transport. Auckland Transport will contract subsidised public transport services, and regulate commercial ones. Buses, trains and ferries. It will own some infrastructure, but not the rail network (which is now Kiwirail). So it will do what ARTA does, decide what it wants to use ratepayers money to subsidise, seek funding from the NZTA for it, and contract services. Now as much as I believe that function should be phased out, it is exactly what you want to have at arms length from politicians. Why should politicians dictate bus routes, train timetables or the conditions for contracting services?

So why is Bernard Orsman upset? He doesn't like "unelected" directors making these decisions, yet this is exactly how half of Auckland's transport funds already get allocated, and how Auckland's state highways are managed - by the NZTA board. A board appointed by the Minister of Transport, but which is statutorily required to make its own decisions based on specific criteria such as economic efficiency. Other Auckland transport assets are run the same way, like the Ports of Auckland, locally owned but a company. Auckland Airport is a largely privately owned company. Kiwirail has a politically appointed board, but is a state owned enterprise. It's NORMAL for there to not be day to day political interference in the transport sector.

After all, look at the state of Auckland transport. The worst congestion is on the local road network, the network starved of investment in part because local government prevaricates about funding new capacity. In addition, it has been obsessed with introducing bus lanes, but showing no interest in allowing the capacity of those underused lanes to be shared with trucks or taxis.

A better solution would be to run the roads as a company, and give it the right to charge motorists directly (in exchange for refunding fuel tax and road user charges), and for property owners to take back the roads outside their premises in exchange for a cut in rates, but to be grateful for small mercies - at LEAST transport in Auckland will be one step less political.

Still politicians will raise rates to pay for roads and public transport. Public transport that if the roads were properly priced based on cost and demand/supply, wouldn't need to be subsidised. Roads that should be paid for mostly by road users, with property owners paying for accessways (for example).

Brian Rudman doesn't like having an arms-length organisation for Auckland transport, yet gives arguments as to why it should exist. There are plenty more. How many councils have roads fixed up to the point where a councillor lives, or a major friend of some politicians? How confident are you that YOUR needs are to be met by a local authority politician?

So there is no reason to worry, it might be slightly better than the way things are now, but not much. The left oppose Council Controlled Organisations because they see them as a step to their bogey - privatisation. It isn't that, unfortunately, but it is a step towards transport being driven by professionalism and delivering infrastructure for users, not meeting political demands first.

Those who oppose it might wonder why they seem to have no problem with it in so many other parts of the transport sector, or whenever else government provides infrastructure.


04 March 2010

Devon and Cornwall Police harass peaceful residents

The Daily Telegraph reports how the Devon and Cornwall Police raided a home that contained a S & M dungeon. Not a brothel (though I suspect they thought it was), no one was being kept against their will, but for some unidentified reason three people have been arrested.

The report shows how utterly disinterested the Police are in the individual rights of the owners or anyone who would come to visit:

"The first officer who approached the home was wearing a suit and tie and when he knocked on the door we believe they thought he had an appointment.

"They invited him in but then several officers followed him in and carried out the search and found the dungeon. While we were conducting a search one gentleman arrived.

"He walked straight passed police vans and cars and several officers and rang the bell inquiring about an appointment. We had to have a word with him."

No you didn't, he wasn't hurting anyone. Fight some real crime! It's a disgrace, with the Police attitude even more telling:

DS Gilroy said: "We are glad to have disturbed this activity and restored normality to the neighbourhood. We would also like to thank residents who reported the activity to us."

Inspector Phil Chivers, police inspector for the South Hams, added: "This incident demonstrates that we, the police, are reliant on information from the community."

WHY are you glad to have disturbed this activity? What damned right did you have to be proud of disturbing people when you have NO evidence of any real crime? What the hell is "normality", are adults not allowed to have interests that you don't think are normal? Does Britain have a Ministry of Virtue and Vice now?

It's absolutely disgusting that the Police don't think they work for everyone and to protect their rights, rather than to be the interfering Stasi style busybodies.

It's not as if there is a lack of real crime to be chasing, or is this sort of case far too interesting for the Police to not stick their beaks into?

Michael Foot, committed Marxist altruist, is dead

Michael Foot is best known for having led the British Labour Party to the greatest defeat in its history, in the 1983 election. After the 1979 defeat of James Callaghan, Foot was the choice of the far left of the Labour Party and so helped produce the “longest suicide note in history” as the 1983 Labour Manifesto was called. It openly called itself a programme of socialist reconstruction.

It offered, at the height of the Cold War, to scrap Britain’s nuclear arsenal, withdraw Britain from the EEC, nationalise more industries, raise taxes, and return to the economy being run by diktat by meetings between government, unions and business. It promised massive increases in welfare, and new bureaucracies across many aspects of life, including consumer shopping advisory centres!

Foot was unashamedly socialist, he took on Margaret Thatcher and the result was a split in the Labour Party, as moderates fled to a party that eventually merged and formed the Liberal Democrats.

Had Foot won the 1983 general election, it would have been a disaster both economically and strategically for Britain. It may have been a turning point in the Cold War, as the UK stepped to one side, and the West would have been weakened, heightening Reagan’s resolve, but isolating Britain. The withdrawal from the EEC would have further isolated Britain, as investment would have dropped away, and the long slow decline of post war Britain would have accelerated once more. The dream of so many on the left was not wanted by the majority of voters. His election would have emboldened the likes of Constantin Chernenko, and would not have provided sustenance for the Solidarity movement in Poland, but rather the intellectual pygmies that ran their criminal states east of the Iron Curtain. He would have eviscerated friendship between the US and the UK, and frightened those on the front line of the Cold War. A socialist wet dream of accelerated decline, economic deception and surrender to the Soviet threat.

The 1983 election, in the height of recession and high unemployment, saw the Conservatives pick up an additional 58 seats, Labour losing 60 and the SDP/Alliance (which would become the Liberal Democrats) picking up 12 more seats. It also saw Gordon Brown get elected to the seat of Dunfermline East, his second attempt to get elected. You may think Labour in the UK today is far removed from that of Michael Foot, but Brown still espouses much of the philosophy of Foot.

Foot, you see, once said this:

We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer 'To hell with them.' The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.

He didn’t believe people existed for their own purposes, to pursue their dreams, their endeavours, but for others. He was a committed altruist. He believed good only came from helping others, he believed in redistributing wealth, he didn’t care how it was created. Therein lies the practical failings of the man.

Morally he expressed the view that people existed for the sake of others. I would condemn that, but then why pick on him? He was, at least, open and honest about his principles and convictions. The likes of Gordon Brown are not, yet they have the same philosophical approach. Conservatives do as well, as do almost all across the political spectrum. The belief not that your life is your own and your purpose is to pursue your values, but that your life has an unchosen obligation to provide for others.

Fortunately Michael Foot did not get to impose democratic Marxism on the UK. Sadly, whilst a man of principle and honesty, he still, fundamentally, held the belief that is basic to what most politicians believe in – that the individual does not primarily exist for his or her own purposes. That philosophy, as important in all major political parties across liberal democracies, has not died with Michael Foot - all he did was espouse it more openly, consistently and radically than others.

Curious, you see, that the 1983 manifesto did include a national state owned broadband network...

03 March 2010

EU screws Britain on Olympics

Reported this morning on BBC TV news.

EU law prohibits the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics from setting aside tickets for sale only to Londoners or UK citizens/residents - because it would be discriminatory.

So despite UK taxpayers forking out £6 billion for the Olympics, those paying for it aren't entitled to privileges regarding ticket sales.

Yep, another reason why the EU goes so far and beyond what is useful....

Democrats don't understand the Tea Party

Now I've seen it all, arch statist in the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi is claiming to share some of the views of the "Tea Partiers".

"that's why I've fought the special interest, whether it's on energy, whether it's on health insurance, whether it's on pharmaceuticals and the rest" she said according to the Daily Telegraph

So apparently it IS having an impact, when a party which has made the careers of hundreds of vested interest supporting, pro-protectionist, pro-subsidy, pro-government intervention politicians thinks it has to listen. In fact, the Democrats have such a disgusting filthy tradition of corrupting politics in the US that they deserve nothing but contempt, and of course many Republicans are little different.

So much which is great about the United States has been corrupted by the relentless growth of government, fueled in part by the ambitions of the vile little thieves in both houses of congress, constantly demanding other people's money for their pet projects, pet industries and pet lobbyists, and demanding protection and regulation to mollycoddle industries, unions, government agencies and the like.

Nancy Pelosi has always been part of the problem, opposing moves towards balanced budgets, supporting the endless expansion of Medicare and Medicaid and the welfare state.

What's important is that the Tea Party movement has struck a chord, with millions who are sick of politicians thinking they are spending their money, and thinking they can keep doing it.

What it lacks is a single individual to rally behind politically and to take the message consistently forward.