And in real news today

The Greek government continues to try to borrow, yesterday its two year government bond rates were priced an at annual interest rate of just over 39%.

Great investment? No. It's the swansong before the funeral march.  Anyone lending the Greek government demanding such rates sees it as having a high risk of default.  A default that will reverberate loudest in Dublin, Lisbon, Madrid and Rome, but will buffet Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Helsinki, Luxembourg, Nicosia, Valetta, Bratislava, Tallinn, Ljubljana and of course, Berlin directly.  However, the echos will go throughout Europe and be heard globally, for it will be the beginning of the end of the Euro as we know it. 

If journalism wasn't full of solipsistic onanists obsessed with News International, then there would be more than a smattering of well written articles hidden in papers about all of this. 

EU politicians are caught between two unpleasant facts:

1.  Politicians in the "south" of the EU have spent the past generation largely bribing voters with other people's money lent to them at preferential rates.  The other people have started giving up lending it, and the politicians haven't the courage or moral fibre to admit that the state largesse of recent years must end or that taxpayers will have to pay a lot more to get it.  The people in those countries are unwilling to accept either, and blame the lenders for the largesse, not the people they elected who borrowed it on their behalf.

2. Politicians in the "north" of the EU are concerned that if governments in the "south" default, it will be their lenders that lose out.  The banks, insurance companies, pension funds, private investors and businesses who saw lending to profligate socialist politicians in the south as being a "secure investment", risk losing billions.   However, voters and taxpayers in the "north" don't care.  They haven't elected politicians who have been quite so profligate in spending money that they had to borrow, and haven't had lifestyles and living standards substantively propped up by such blatant socialism as retirement ages in the 50.  They don't want to bail out the "south" nor do they care that investors in their countries will swallow the cost of it, as long as it doesn't affect their savings (it shouldn't) or their pensions (it might).

Politicians of the "south" have nothing left to offer, they are almost universally a disgrace, and their philosophy and attitude (and that of their predecessors) has produced a false golden age for their countries.

Politicians of the "north" want to bailout the governments of the south, to avoid bailing out the banks and investors who lent to them, but know that voters in their countries are not amused.   What they want is to control the spending and tax policies of the countries of the "south" in exchange for bailing them out - for otherwise, how can they be brought under control to behave better?

So Germany and France will seek to bring all Eurozone countries under central fiscal policy control, in other words, it wont be up to the Parliaments in Athens, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, etc. as to levels of tax, or levels of spending, it will be up to either the one in Brussels/Strasbourg, or something new.   

Call it the Commonwealth of Eurozone States, or the United States of Europe, or the European Soviet Socialist Republics, or the Union of Eurozone States, but it will be a wholesale surrender of state sovereignty to a super-state.

Will the people of the countries of the "south" tolerate this?  They will be told they have no choice, it is either that or they are expelled from the Eurozone (which does not mean they cannot use Euros, but does mean they would have no role in formulating monetary policy). Ireland, in particular, will baulk at surrendering its highly competitive low company tax rate, which politicians in Paris and Vienna have been keen to attack, among others.

The bigger issue is not only will the countries of the "south" baulk at this, but also will others not in crisis.  Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia may all wonder why they left the yoke of centrally planned economies to have joined a new ones.  Estonians and Slovaks will not want to have swapped control from Moscow (and for Slovenes, from Belgrade) for control from Brussels.  I suspect the Dutch too will be fed up.  France and Germany, and their virtual satellites Belgium and Austria, will happily go along with it as they will have the power in any central fiscal union.

Ultimately, it can only go one of three ways:

- A Eurozone bailout that creates a new fiscal union among Eurozone members, extracating sovereignty from national capitals to the EU and having to implement tax and spending policies in line with France and Germany;

- A Eurozone default, resulting in countries exiting the Eurozone, with dire consequences for their national banking systems, their creditors and needing to implement austerity policies on a grand scale because of the complete inability to borrow;

- Agreement to a massive austerity programme by the Greek government that cuts the budget deficit suddenly and dramatically, reducing the pressure on creditors.

All in all, the countries of the "south" face severe spending cuts and probable tax increases no matter how it goes.  

For countries outside the Eurozone, the biggest concern is managing the fallout from whatever happens, for it is likely to hurt.  As Allister Heath in City AM today says:

Osborne and his advisers ought to be working day and night on contingency plans in case the Eurozone collapses or the US defaults, not worrying about ex-tabloid journalists.

The British government should be ensuring it has no part in any bailout of the Eurozone, that it may be willing to re-accommodate Ireland seeking to abandon the Euro, in favour of the currency of its largest trading partner (if it so chooses) and to lead an effort to restructure and reform the European Union into a looser customs union, with a smaller central role, without grand vanity projects, without grandiose corporate welfare systems, without interference in national economic or social policies beyond basic rules on non-discrimination and freedom of trade and movement of citizens.  If some EU Member States want more control, let them have it, keep Britain out of it.  If the EU project is about to splinter, then let the UK lead efforts to recraft it into something worth salvaging, a basic treaty that keeps borders down and markets open, but does not demand that countries embark on grand unifying projects of statism.

In the meantime, can people simply remember that the Liberal Democrats, Tony Blair, the BBC and the Independent were all wrong on all of this?  (and yes, Gordon Brown was right, along with William Hague, Margaret Thatcher, Nigel Farage, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail were right).

What should be the main story

While the news media in the UK in particular continues to engage in a solipsistic frenzy over News International and the phone hacking allegations, a far more serious and far bigger issue is looming - make or break time for the Euro and the European Union.

Those who damned News International should take note, because it is the BBC that for many years treated Euroscepticism, those who wanted the UK to retain the Pound Sterling and those who disliked the European Union as crusty old fashioned nationalists, who hadn't stopped fighting the war and had bemoaned the loss of empire.  It was seen as a fringe activity by the BBC and ITN, as well as the serious leftwing newspapers such as the Guardian and the Independent.  

The problem being that it didn't distinguish between the racist, protectionist, far-left opponents to the European Union (see in the trade union movement and in the fascist BNP) and the free-market liberal opponents, who saw it as a project to create a federal super state that would enshrine a fortress Europe with generous welfare state, high taxes and high state involvement in the economy as a whole.

The broad consensus of the political classes for some decades has been to support the European project.  There was always something for everyone.  Those on the left loved enshrining trans-national regulations, floors on some taxes (e.g. fuel tax), the social charter and obligations on Member States to supply welfare, healthcare, education and housing to EU citizens across the board.  The EU forever expanded its remit on regulation and spending, with grandiose projects for infrastructure, or in duplicating the US GPS system at multi-billion Euro cost.  The EU became the negotiating body on international agreements on climate change and trade, and it generated a growing bureaucracy, with new directorates and functions to ensure consistency across Member States.  Most of all, it presided over a generous centralised economic welfare state, by facilitating massive transfers of money to poorer Member States, but also sustaining the grossly destructive and inefficient Common Agricultural Policy which primarily benefited France, Spain and Italy.

The right tolerated the EU because it did break down barriers to trade in goods, services and movements of people among Member States.  It also mandated some liberalisation in trade in different sectors, such as aviation, telecommunications and energy.   Most of all, the argument that it was better to be "in" the EU to help set the rules and be part of a trading bloc with a GDP as large as the US, sounded credible.

However, what it all hid was the fundamentally socialist nature of the project in seeking to create a federal European superstate.  The way this has all com to pass has been the abject failure of those countries that joined the Euro to manage the inevitable tensions when a single currency is across multiple economies with differing fiscal policies.

Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy have all "enjoyed" vast amounts of low interest rate credit for public and private sector investors (Greece had the state overspend, Ireland had private investors overspend on property).  It has all proven to be ultimately unsustainable.  You cannot keep borrowing to pay for consumption now in the hope you can borrow more in the future.  This has been the model adopted by all of those countries, and also those which do not currently have much focus, such as Belgium and France (both of which have been rabid overspenders for decades as well).

The risk is that one of the countries will default, which is unexpected by their creditors because banks always assume countries can tax their people to pay back debts with greater certainty than companies can persuade customers to buy their goods and services.  It has proven wrong.

Liberal democracy has meant that voters vote for the goodies that politicians promise them, most giving little attention for how it will be paid for.   The effect of a single vote is tiny, and no voter is accountable for such stupidity as voting for a politician who will creat future bankruptcy.   The politician him or herself is not accountable.   The worst that can ever happen is to lose an election, leaving potentially billions in debt for taxpayers (not politicians) to pay off.  The politician can retire in comfort, and even with some fanfare, as most voters and journalists wont dare blame them for years of profligacy and waste.

So the inevitable is now reached.  Politicians can either support many cutbacks or tax increases, inflicting "pain" on voters, or give up, and the country defaults.  The problem for this, is that it put the country effectively under the control of creditors, and in these cases, the IMF to provide emergency finance.  The IMF then dictates a programme of austerity and privatisation.

Of course, the Eurozone countries don't want this to happen, so they are likely to offer their own taxpayers up as sacrificial lambs to pay for a bailout, in exchange for what is, in effect, the implementation of EU wide fiscal control.  That means that Brussels, not the national capital, will decided on Euro member spending and tax, it fundamentally changes the constitutional relationship between the state and its people, and the EU.

I doubt that people in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain or Italy want the EU to decided on government spending and tax - which will herald the departure of any country facing default from the Eurozone.   However, I also doubt that the people of Germany, France Austria or the Netherlands (to list Eurozone countries that will effectively fund a bailout) will support their taxes being used to prop up feckless socialist inclined Mediterranean countries.  

So the choice becomes simple:

-  Remain in the Eurozone and have your government fiscal policy centrally determined (removing a core part of state sovereignty); or

-  Leave the Eurozone, recreate the junk fiat currencies of the past and inflate/devalue ones way out of debt (whilst facing massive capital flight and loss of confidence).

Neither option is going to be popular, but they are the inevitable consequences of decades of profligacy and the distortions of cheap credit through the Euro.

The only other alternative is for those who lent money to take a hit, a big hit.  That means banks, insurance companies and pension funds.  In essence, a punishment for thinking that lending to governments is a sure thing, when there was never any record of those governments running budget surpluses to pay down debt.  Even if that does happen, it wont be enough.  Quite simply, the EU and its bureaucratic incarnation, the EC, have been willfully blind and fundamentally incompetent in their gross evasion of reality.  It continues with calls for increased budgets at a time when all Member States are struggling.  The EC, the EU Parliament and those who maintain this facade are utterly contemptible.  I've never been more satisfied in my vote for UKIP.

Allister Heath at wrote today's editorial at City AM on this very subject, and concludes:

There is nothing that will make a total EU takeover acceptable to Greeks and others, which is why they will soon want to quit the EU – and the German public will be deeply angry as it finally realises that everything it was ever told about the euro has turned out to be a lie. It will soon want out too. The EU has always worked on the basis that every crisis is good because it invariably provides an excuse to centralise powers. But the present nightmare could prove to be a bridge too far and herald the beginning of the end for the entire project. Fun and games are about to start.

A chance to hack at free speech

It has been impossible for anyone in the UK, and indeed anyone following foreign news to avoid the rampant coverage over the phone hacking scandal arising from repulsive practices from scandal mongering "journalists" at the now defunct News of The World.

Let's be clear, the practice of phone hacking and illegally accessing people's voicemail accounts is immoral, it is an invasion of private property rights and rightfully should be condemned.  Indeed, there should be no surprise that those who accessed the voicemail of a murdered teenager girl should be considered to be scum.  Bottom feeders of the lowest order.   That this should occur doesn't wholly surprise me, because "journalism" and "news" have long been strongly driven by feeding the vapid, scandal seeking, short-term "infotainment" appetite of so many people.  The same people who complain about government failures in areas from economics, to education and healthcare, are completely disengaged at any intelligent level with public policy, because they soak up "crime porn".  In a free market, it is little surprise that people supply this.

In the UK, the market is served by multiple providers, News International continues to publish The Sun, but there is also the left-wing Daily Mirror, the even more sensationalist Daily Star and hoards of celebrity scuttlebutt magazines.   The US has similar scandal rags, and New Zealand supplies this market through magazines, and television.

There is little doubt to me that those who undertook and authorised the phone hacking at the News of the World should face criminal charges and appropriate sanctions.  However, it is also worthy for there to be a wider reflection of a culture that salivates at the details and scandals behind crimes and the lives of celebrities.   Whilst in a free society I don't believe there is ANY role for the state in restricting speech around this, there is very much a role to debate publicly why so many prefer to be entertained about the lurid details of the victims of brutal violent or sexual crimes.

Yet the phone hacking scandal has barely scratched the surface of that issue in the rest of the UK news media.  No, a bigger hobby horse has been rolled out - it is the venal hatred of much of the media for News International and Rupert Murdoch.

The hatred has driven Leader of the Opposition, (red) Ed Miliband to call, in the Observer,  for the "dismantling" of Murdoch's "Empire" with new regulations on media ownership.   Miliband claims Murdoch has "too much power" over UK public life, because his newspapers have more than 20% market share.  Yes, 20% is too much power.   Indeed, the leftwing news media (Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Independent, the BBC, ITN and Channel 4) have all been joining the circus to demand change, along with the competing right wing media (Daily Express, Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph) to cauterise News International.

Precious few journalists have pointed out that this is blatant self interest on behalf of the media outlets wanting less competition, and indeed no one has ever pointed out any issues with News International's other titles being The Times/Sunday Times or Sky News. 

The unadulterated lies spread by the left on News International are the heaving rabid frothing rants of the insane.  Let's look at this so-called "power".

The UK newspaper market can be split between serious, middle market and "tabloid" newspapers.

The papers owned by News International in the UK are:
- The Times/Sunday Times; and
- The Sun.

The Times/Sunday Times competes with the Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph, The Independent,  The Guardian/Observer and the Financial Times at the serious end of the market.

News International doesn't have a presence in the middle market, which includes the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday, Daily Express/Sunday Express.

In the tabloid market, it does lead with The Sun, but competes with Daily Mirror and the Daily Star.

Beyond newspapers, it is the largest shareholder of BSkyB, the first and most successful pay TV provider, but with vigorous competition from Virgin Media and BT Vision, which further limited competition from Tiscali TV and TopUp TV.    However, whilst owning a pay TV network (that supplies over 700 TV and radio stations to its subscribers) is significant, it only runs one TV news outlet - Sky News - which is also broadcast free to air on digital terrestrial TV (Freeview).  This is one of 15 news channels, and of course access to news on free to air TV which is carried by BSkyB.   Including Sky News, it owns four channels on digital Freeview.

News International has no ownership of the British radio market.

Dominance? Hardly.  The newspaper market is open and vigorously competitive, so much so that of the serious titles only the Telegraph and FT are profitable.  Pay TV has never been more competitive.   Indeed, nobody need consume anything of News International without choosing to pay for it.

However, one organisation DOES have dominance. 

It has six free to air TV networks in the UK (plus a global satellite network), two of which are in the top three rating of ALL TV networks, and one of which is the highest rating TV news network.  Two channels it runs are continuous programming for children.  It has ten continuous broadcasting nationwide radio networks (including the most popular radio network and the most popular news network) and a nationwide network of local radio stations.  It has the highest rating news website in the country.  However, unlike customers of the Sun, the Times or BSkyB, this organisation is funded by force.  If you fail to pay, you face criminal prosecution and a fine.   It has been positively salivating over this story - it is, of course, the BBC.

The left don't give a damn when it is the state dominating the media, because it almost inherently gives it a fairly easy ride.   For your political future is significantly affected by how the BBC portrays you, but for the likes of the Milibands, Poly Toynbee or others that is something they like, because the BBC has never been warm towards the free market, scepticism about the EU or concerns about the size of the state, but has always been warm towards more welfare, environmentalism and belief in government as a solution to problems.  As Janet Daley in the Sunday Telegraph explains:


It is worth asking in both the British and American contexts why people who regard themselves as believers in free speech and liberal democracy can be so openly eager to close off – silence, kill, extinguish – different political views from their own. This is the question that is at the heart of the matter and which will remain long after every News International executive who may possibly be incriminated in the current scandal has been purged. 

There is scarcely any outfit on the Right – be it political party, or media outlet – which demands the outright abolition of a Left-wing voice, as opposed to simply recommending restraint on its dominance (as I am with the BBC). That is because those of us on the Right are inclined to believe that our antagonists on the Left are simply wrong-headed – sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes malevolent but basically just mistaken. Whereas the Left believes that we are evil incarnate. Their demonic view of people who express even mildly Right-of-centre opinions (that lower taxes or less state control might be desirable, for example) would be risible if it were not so pernicious.

The Left does not want a debate or an open market in ideas. It wants to extirpate its opponents – to remove them from the field. It actually seems to believe that it is justified in snuffing out any possibility of our arguments reaching the impressionable masses – and bizarrely, it defends this stance in the name of fairness. 

News International brought immense choice in British broadcasting, beyond the means or the imagination of the encumbents.  It created a fourth US TV network at a time when the big three were looking  sclerotic (and there was much talk of one of them dropping network news entirely), it created a TV news network that competes with CNN and MSNBC by taking a different political stance from them.  One that has been immensely successful, which of course upsets those who were always given an easy ride by the media. 

News International has been successful because it has delivered options that millions have been willing to pay for or watch.  The behaviour of some at the News of the World has been disgraceful, and quite frequently I don't like how News International deals with some news stories, as I do with others.  However, I don't have to pay for it, I wont get a criminal record if I don't pay for it.   It doesn't stop others competing with it.  It is one of many in the broadcasting or online news markets, and is one of many in the newspaper market.   It has shaken up news broadcasting in the US, not always in ways I agree with, but it is better for it.

It should be time for the rest of the news media to realise that in joining in the leftwing wailing and moaning about News International, and calls for regulating the media, it is risking its own freedom and supporting a political motivated war against one media outlet, driven by many years of distress at not getting an easy ride from that company's news outlets.  

You either believe in a free press and free speech, or you don't, and as long as News International is accountable for the criminal actions of its employees, that should be the end of it.  You may disagree or hate the views expressed, but if you want them shut down by the state (while turning a blind eye to the media outlets that ARE dominant, particularly those state owned) then you are simply another petty fascist, who has no interest in free speech at all - and shouldn't start pretending that you're a friend of freedom or liberal democracy.

Bravery extends to Pyongyang

The so-called "Arab Spring" has produced unexpected ripples.

One is in the world's most totalitarian state.

Graffiti was found in Pyongyang saying:

"Park Chung Hee and Kim Jong Il are both dictators; Park Chung Hee a dictator who developed his country’s economy, Kim Jong Il a dictator who starved people to death"

Graffiti in North Korea is so rare that known incidents of it since the Korean War are countable on one hand.  To criticise Kim Jong Il in this way is unheard of, and would get anyone associated with it a summary execution.

Read Daily NK to see how the regime is reacting, by closing universities over the summer.

The cracks are appearing, it's just a tragic and pathetic shame that most of the self-styled promoters of human rights in the West ignore it.

Meanwhile, when WILL New Zealand's brainless and inane news media hound North Korea's willing idiot in Porirua - Reverend Don Borrie - for his decades of sycophantic apologies to a regime that holds babies and small children as political prisoners to be enslaved, raped, beaten and starved?

About the same time as it will ask probing questions of Cuba-philes like Matt McCarten and Keith Locke about treatment of psychiatric patients in Cuba, or should I say people deemed by the regime to be mentally ill because they don't embrace the regime.

By the way, I'm heading to New Zealand today... it's been two years...

Greek crisis is taste of things to come

So says City AM editor, Allister Heath in his latest column.

You see Greece is ultimately going to default. The alternative is for the hard-working taxpayers of Germany, France and other wealthy Eurozone countries (and possibly non-Eurozone) to be ransacked by their own politicians to prop up the profligacy of the Greek public aided and abetted by the politicians they voted for over decades.

Heath says:

The real problem is that the Greek public doesn’t really want to change and simply doesn’t accept economic reality – and that the EU has been too slow to learn the lessons of the crisis of 2008. One poll found that 47 per cent of Greeks reject the austerity plan and want new elections – and just 35 per cent back the measures. The Greek public is in denial: it doesn’t want to start living within its means – and yet ordinary hard-pressed taxpayers in other countries are being called upon to stave off Greece’s total collapse. There is no justice in that.

A default would be right, because not only are the Greek public unwilling to balance their budget, but the financial institutions who loaned money to the Greek government to continue its unsustainable way banked on Greece being bailed out.  That bet should fail.  The banks (mostly Greek, German and French) should bear losses as a result, but the inevitable will be more painful.

Is there an alternative? Well there was.  The Greek public could have voted for politicians who promised to balance the books, but they voted for politicians who promised Western European style socialist welfare, health and education systems paid for by borrowed money.   The fact that Greek politics is dominated by thieving socialists speaks volumes.  Of course ordinary Greek citizens think that they are not to blame, after all they couldn't have borrowed as the state did, or spend other people's money so flagrantly.  However, they did sit by and let it happen.   In a democracy (Greeks shouldn't need reminding of this), power is meant to reside in the people, and in this case they don't want the responsibility of their casual blindness to what the last few decades has been built on - borrowed money.

So Greece will default.  Its banks will collapse, it will leave the Eurozone, and the savings and incomes of its population will be wound back around 15-20 years.  There will be more riots on the street.  Foreign investment will flee and the Greek economy will be rebuilt on tourism and low value exports in a highly devalued currency.

Meanwhile, EU politicians will try to evade reality for a little longer, for fear their own banks will face collapse once more.  That shouldn't scare them, as long as depositors up to a certain level are protected, the banks should fail.  It will be an object lesson to the Europhiles that their federalist economic experiment is a failure.  Ironically, but unsurprisingly it will be under the watch of supposedly centre-right governments in Germany and France, though there should be no delusions that it would have been different had the left been in power in either country.

However, there is more to come.  Yet it is important to note how much of this crisis is NOT about the privately owned banking sector being profligate, but about government evading economic reality.

As Heath says:

the biggest error is the establishment’s inability to accept that increasingly, the biggest systemic risk will come from states, not private financial institutions. It is not just Greece, Portugal and Ireland – Belgium is in real trouble, while Spain and Italy are also in the frame. At some point, something will have to change in Japan, a country with an exploding national debt and a weak economy. America is also in terrible trouble, and not just because of short-term issues over debt ceilings.

During times of austerity and cutbacks the left thinks it has an advantage, as it typically promises to spend other people's money on the things that give comfort, like pensions, health, education and subsidised pseudo-employment.   Yet it is failing to capitalise on it, because enough of the public actually understand that governments cannot perpetually run budget deficits and accumulate debt.    Even 35% of Greeks support serious levels of austerity, not a majority, but a significant number are facing the truth.

The obvious biggest accumulation of problems is in the Eurozone, where even France has a longer term issue of sustainability with its finances.   The ramifications of a Greek default and break up of the Euro will be profound.  In the long run it will be good for Europe, but the casualties along the way will be high.  Those are casualties caused directly by the failure to face austerity and controls on government spending in the past.   The people who benefited from profligacy will, in many cases, not be facing the cost of it.

Yet Japan and the USA on top of this are more worrying.  Japan has been engaging rampant Keynesianism for well over a decade now, and failed miserably to restart its economy.  Given it is on the doorstep of China this is scandalous and shows just how featherbedded and corrupt the Japanese state became under the good years, with the Liberal Democratic Party so deeply entrenched with protectionist business (and indeed the Yakuza).   The USA at least has some facing reality, although that doesn't include the President.  Sadly the forthcoming Presidential election shows little sign that the Republican Party can lay old ghosts to rest in favour of a candidate who actually believes in the economy first.

No doubt some time will be bought for Greece with other people's money.  The bigger question is how long is the inevitable going to be delayed, for the longer it is, the more painful it will be - and very few politicians elected in liberal democracies like having to face up to spending less of other people's money.

Banks backs boondoggle blow out

Cut wasteful spending, implores ACT Leader Dr. Don Brash.

Build the underground rail loop, using taxpayers' money says ACT candidate John Banks according to the NZ Herald.

For every dollar of costs it generates benefits of 40c, says an independent Ministry of Transport/Treasury review of Auckland Council's wildly optimistic demand for taxpayer funding "business case", even taking into account so-called "wider economic benefit".

So why is Don Brash supporting him?

Does a party that supports smaller government and less government spending believe in pouring NZ$2.4 billion into a project that:

-  Will continuously require subsidies to be used and maintained because the people who would use it wouldn't pay the fares necessary for the trains to operate, let alone dig the hole and build the stations for the trains to use;

-  Is based on a substantial portion of new Auckland commuter trips being from as yet unbuilt high density housing built adjacent to railway stations, even though there is little evidence Aucklanders want housing more closely akin to London, Manhattan and Paris, than New Zealand;

- Will not cater for the majority of increased trips forecast, as buses are meant to cater for those;

- Will only remove 3,800 car trips a weekday from the roads, which over a thirty year period is over $100 per car per day if you consider the capital cost over that period including interest.   It would be cheaper to give all of those people a free daily commute sharing a door-to-door shuttle with six people in each one;

- Wont cater for the 89% of Aucklanders employed who do not work in central Auckland.

So does Don Brash have to give John Banks a slapdown, otherwise nothing will really have changed.

My birthday rant

I've been extremely busy, so have had little chance to rant.  So here are my two cents on the events that have provoked me:

Mladic the thug:  Few events were more shameful for Europe (and the United States and New Zealand as a member of the UN Security Council at the time), in my view, that the brutal neo-nazi style genocide inflicted in the Balkans in the 1990s.  It is astonishing that if a civilian kidnaps children and then massacres them en masse, that there is more horror than when a "general" is given endorsement by politicians to do the same, that there is craven appeasement to it all.   UN peacekeepers sat by and did nothing whilst Srebrenica - a town declared a "safe haven" (for whom!) by the UN Security Council, was "ethnically cleansed" by Mladic and his knuckle dragging fascists, all happily appeased by the Serbian Orthodox Church as well.  The role call of dishonour and shame at the time is long and disgraceful.  It took Slobodan Milosevic's attempt to do the same to Kosovo for serious action to be taken, by then thousands of men and boys had been slaughtered in a style reminiscent of the Nazi death squads that rounded up and annihilated Jews in Lithuania.   The other victims, the women and girls (don't think too long about the cutoff age because there really wasn't one) who were raped, not only as conquests by the semi-literate Serb brutes, but also to breed little half-Serbs as part of a deliberate "race" driven policy.   However, as blatant and disgusting as was the Serbian ethno-fascism, one shouldn't forget Croatia was led by men who were not much better.  Visit the Krajina region of Croatia today, and try to find the Serbs who still live there, after Croatia's military terrorised the Serb population and chased them from their homes and farms, families with roots there for generations.  It is a primary reason why Croatia should not be allowed to join the European Union - for it must fully face up to its past.

The arrest, trial and condemnation of Mladic should provide an opportunity to remind us all of this period in history and how easy it is to provoke poorly educated, semi-literate young men to perform atrocities with the endorsement of politicians and religious leaders.  It should also remind Muslims that the Western interventions in this case were to save Muslims (albeit moderate or even nominal ones).   It should also provoke at least some consideration from the self-styled "peace movement" about what should have been done, since the left was divided about humanitarian intervention in this case. 

Brash ACT:  Don Brash's takeover of ACT is a lifeline, and also notable among libertarian circles is Lindsay Perigo's employment related to ACT.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  The greatest weakness Don Brash faced in 2005 under National became those in National who sought to spin and populise messages in ways that backfired.  His willingness to address state activities that granted differential treatment of Maori was not portrayed well with "Iwi, Kiwi" which implied something it should not have.   However, Brash is both economically and socially liberal.  He has the intelligence and the ability to take ACT down a path of being consistently in favour of less government and being tough on crime that involves victims.  He is no libertarian, but if this is a chance to shake up the next National government and wean it off of the statist racists in the Maori Party, then it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.  I'm going to be watching this space very closely.  It is clear I have always been affiliated with Libertarianz and remain so, but Brash's leadership could cause me to think carefully about who to vote for this year.  

Auckland rail boondoggle hog-tied:  The Ministry of Transport and Treasury have reviewed the Auckland underground rail loop business case and found it wanting. It is hardly surprising.  Auckland rail has been a faith-based initiative from the start, primarily because the enormous cost premium to move people by rail, compared to bus is not justified by the change in behaviour it provokes.   Auckland rail advocates think because it is attracting lots of passengers (all of whom pay less in fares than the cost of operating the service, let alone the cost of capital) it is a good thing, but scrutiny about where those users are coming from indicates some pretty clear home truths.

First, around half of all trips into central Auckland in the morning peak are by public transport today.  This mode share is high by the standards of any new world city, and most of them are travelling by bus.  Trying to increase this in the absence of any form of congestion pricing is difficult, as the current strategy is to take money from all motorists to subsidise a minority of trip.  The number of trips by public transport has increased by 50% in ten years.  However, 40% of that increase has been by rail, 33% by the Northern Busway alone (bear in mind this is one route that has cost around a tenth of the cost of the rail network which has 2.5 lines) and the remainder by conventional bus and ferry services.   Rail has been important, but for the money spent on it, has not delivered compared to the other modes.  

The notable figure is the 15% decline in car trips, which are partly a function of increased fuel prices.  This will have had an effect on reducing congestion, although not as much as the figure may suggest.

Given only 11% of employment in Auckland is in the CBD, this modeshift is minor in the scheme of transport in Auckland.  However, the officials and politicians involved are totally CBD focused.  In short, the impact of more trips to the CBD by bus and rail is very low on congestion.  

Furthermore, the scope for significant increases in public transport usage is limited, most new world cities would be thrilled to have this sort of CBD mode share.  

However, there is something else the rail enthusiasts ignore.  There is already a NZ$2 billion taxpayer funded commitment to electrify Auckland's rail network with projections of a doubling in rail patronage.  However, these forecasts are not realistic because, as the MoT/Treasury report states:

Much of the future patronage growth forecast for the rail network comes from areas where significant intensified residential land use in growth nodes has been assumed in the model. Future rail patronage growth, including from the electrified do minimum, is therefore likely to rely, in part, on the realization of these land use assumptions.

In other words, it will come only if Aucklanders choose to live in medium to high density housing near railway stations AND work in the CBD AND choose to commute by rail.  A bold assumption, that is not exactly plausible.  It is part of the planners' wet dream that Aucklanders are gagging to live in London, Paris or New York style apartment conditions near railway stations in the suburbs.  Yes, apartment living has appeal for some, by only typically for living near the city so one can walk.  Quite why people in Auckland would want to live in such housing in the suburbs is unclear.

In essence, a fortune is being spent upgrading Auckland's rail network based on patronage forecasts that are fanciful and difficult to believe.  If they prove to be correct, then the network will be constrained without an underground loop (although the constraint will only be in the morning and evening peak - a few billion dollars for a few hours a day).  If wrong, then not only will an inner city underground loop be a destruction of wealth, but so will the electrification.

What is most damning is this statement from the review:

Significant parts of the Business Case assessment were not compliant with the procedures outlined in the NZTA‘s EEM for calculating transport benefits.

In other words, Auckland Council gerrymandered its assessment to suit its own needs.   That isn't even counting the gross exaggeration of wider economic benefits on a scale not seen on comparable projects in other countries.

The Green Party of course went along with this, at the same time as it damned the government for supporting road projects that - analysed correctly - had negative benefit/cost ratios.   

In short, the underground rail loop in central Auckland is a boondoggle. A complete waste of money that ranks alongside the grandious highway projects the government is funding north of Puhoi and north of Wellington.   Those who damn one should damn the other and vice versa.   For the government to embrace negative BCR "roads of National significance" but not the railway, is partly hypocritical.  Partly, because roads are funded from road users, railways are NEVER funded from rail users.  However, for the Greens, the Auckland Council and the railevangelists to damn the roads, but bow down to the altar of the railway is at least as hypocritical.  It is time for the railevangelists to be honest - their belief in rail is no more than that - a non-evidence based feeling that trains are good, better than buses and that whatever it takes to build railways is justifiable.  One need only read the Auckland transport blog regularly to see the evangelical enthusiasm for spending other people's money on new rail lines all over the place.  None of it is linked to demand forecasting, willingness to pay or economic evaluation - it is just a rail enthusiasts build-fest. 

Oh and the same should apply to road building too.

Ireland shows some maturity

The Queen's visit to the Republic of Ireland is about time.  Yes, Ireland's history is peppered by bloody events instigated by British governments of the day, but much has moved on and it is appropriate to grow up and welcome the head of state of the UK - notwithstanding the silliness of having a hereditary monarch in that role.   The potato famine, instigated by Catholic-phobes from the UK, was a gross atrocity.   Certainly the state sanctioned religious discrimination against Catholics in Ireland was a disgrace (and in Northern Ireland state sanctioned discrimination didn't start to be addressed properly unti the 1960s).  

However, independent Ireland's history is not without disgrace.  It disgustingly decided on neutrality in World War 2, whilst the UK fought Nazism.   Ireland was saved from fascism by Allied men and women who fought it, many of whom died.   Whilst it provided unofficial help to the Allies (and to be fair was hardly economically or technically capable of fighting a war), it was a "free-rider".   For decades it funded and armed the IRA in its insurgency in Ulster and ably helped fight the British military presence in Ulster.   That's without noting its repulsive complicity with covering up the rape and brutal treatment of children under the care of Catholic sadists and pederasts. 

Of course much has changed in recent years.  "Peace" in Northern Ireland at least has acknowledged an end to the formal claim from Dublin of sovereignty over Ulster, and it remains true that the majority of residents of Northern Ireland are unlikely to want to be part of the virtually bankrupt Irish Republic.

With membership of the European Union, and end of the Troubles, the openness of the close relationship between people in both countries is palpable.  British citizens do not even need a passport to enter the Irish Republic and vice versa.  There is no border control between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.   Dublin by far the most popular air route from London's Stansted airport, second most popular from Gatwick and third from Heathrow.   The largest foreign born resident community in the UK are those born in Ireland.  The UK is Ireland's biggest trading partner.  The economies are closely intertwined.

Given that it only took the UK and (West) Germany a matter of less than a decade to advance relations from arch enemies to being Allies, especially given the level of destruction and death each had inflicted on the other (because of Germany), it is about time Ireland grew up.  Most people in Ireland have, as they have family, friends and business ties across the Irish Sea and across the nearly invisible border in the north of Ireland.  

UK and NZ roundup

So much has happened, and I've been so busy, I thought it would make the most sense to treat the political events in both countries as a series of vignettes:

UK

UK electoral referendum:  A stunning defeat for reform.  Those who supported AV (mostly on the left) will say it is because it didn't go far enough, those who opposed it (some who appallingly said it meant the end of "one man one vote") say the argument is over.   It is, for a while.  Making the House of Lords an elected chamber is still on the agenda, but there will be a few post-graduate politics theses to come from analysing why in the UK, when politicians are widely despised, at a time of economic stagnation, electoral reform is a dead duck, whereas in NZ, under not dissimilar conditions, it became a vent for frustration (ably hijacked by maverick politicians).

When you're in government, you disappoint us:  Liberal Democrat voters have for decades had the comfort of electing MPs and they doing nothing but criticise the government and the opposition.  Now they are in government, and can't dish out the loot its supporters yearn for, the voters have turned their backs in the 2011 local elections.   The local government elections in England, and Assembly elections in Wales and Scotland all saw the Liberal Democrats punished severely - because they are in government.  A third of Liberal Democrat councillors lost their seats and the number of councils controlled by the Liberal Democrats dropped from 19 to 10 (out of 279 councils to be fair).  Bear in mind this isn't ALL councils, and in half of those councils only one-third of seats are up for grabs.   Still it showed how voters connect local politics to central politics rather than concentrate on local issues.  It also showed how many Liberal Democrat voters are really socialists.

Scotland is for the socialist nationalists:  The Scottish Assembly elections saw the Liberal Democrats hammered from third to fourth place dropping from 17 to 5 seats in the Assembly.   The Conservatives also lost 5 seats from 20 to 15, but Labour also dropped from 44 to 37.  The winner was the Scottish National Party which has won an overall majority, the first time any party ever gained an overall majority in the Supplementary Member based Assembly since it was created under the Blair government.   The SNP's raison d'etre is Scottish independence, but that doesn't appear to have driven Scottish voters.  Rather they have rejected the Westminster based parties in favour of something different.  Cynically one can see the SNP as old Labour, as it promises ever increased spending and public sector growth, based on the inflated taxpayer based funding gained from Westminster.  Bear in mind also that SNP leader Alex Salmond once described Iceland and Ireland as models for Scotland to follow.  He doesn't like being reminded of that, or that two big Scottish banks were bailed out by Westminster as well.  Salmond wants a referendum on Scottish independence, but not for a few years - he knows he would lose one held now.    Meanwhile, the West Lothian question remains - the Scottish Assembly has many powers on issues like health and education, but Scottish MPs at Westminster can still vote on those matters for England.    I wouldn't mind if Scotland's silly socialism (which has contributed to a malaise and stagnation that is only too obvious) was self funded.

Wales is not for socialist nationalists:  By complete contrast, the winners in the Welsh Assembly were Labour and the Conservatives, both gaining seats at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and the nationalist Plaid Cymru. The Conservatives are now in second place in Wales.  The Welsh clearly don't have fantasies of being on their own.

A good election for the Conservatives and just good enough for Labour:   The Conservatives, bearing in mind that they lead the government, gained 81 council seats and gained control of 4 more councils.  Staggering given the publicity and the angst raised by public sector unions and the Labour Party about the modest spending cut programme.   Labour did gain 800 council seats and control of 26 more councils, but still the Conservatives have control of 157 councils over Labour's 57, the big change was around a 40% reduction in councils with no party having overall control.  Yet while Labour did ok in Wales, so did the Conservatives, and Labour was hit hard in Scotland.  Labour without Scotland is highly unlikely ever to govern, so Ed Miliband will be at best relieved it isn't worse, but not enough to really celebrate.  David Cameron will be very happy indeed.

Bye bye fascists:  The BNP had an appalling election, losing 11 of its 13 council seats, proving again that it is a party of incompetent malcontents who are limited entirely by their own personal failings in life.  However, it did come fifth in Wales, standing for the first time for the Welsh Assembly. Some votes no doubt went to the nationalist (but distinctly non-racist) English Democrats, which took 2 seats.  George Galloway's vile pro-communist/Islamist Respect Party lost both of its seats.  On the other side the Greens picked up 13 seats to go to 78 overall in England as the fourth biggest party.

NZ

ACT Mk 4: Mk. 1 of ACT was written up in Sir Roger Douglas's book "Unfinished Business".  It promised zero income tax in exchange for compulsory health insurance, pension plans and education accounts for those with children.  It would have meant a vast reform and improvement in outcomes, although not so much for individual freedom.  However, despite vast amounts spent on literature, it couldn't be sold effectively so along came ACT Mk. 2 - Richard Prebble had a book written called "I've Been Thinking" and offered flat tax, and less government.   That got him into Parliament initially as MP for Wellington Central, and gave ACT a reasonable run through till 2005.   Then came Rodney Hide and ACT Mk. 3, as he became MP for Epsom and ACT became even more diluted, although a smattering of social liberalism also appeared.   Now Dr. Don Brash is bailing him out, after a term of poor performance and being far too aligned with National's goals than ACT's one.   I'm wishing Dr. Brash success, as long as he doesn't bring on the populist old-Muldoonist John Banks along for the ride. For ACT to have any purpose it needs philosophical and policy consistency.  The party to abolish the deficit by cutting spending, the party for lower tax without offsetting tax increases, the party to advocate competition in public services and privatisation of government businesses, the party for less regulation and less government, including a belief in individual freedom.  A party that doesn't support any kind of state privilege for individual, members of groups or businesses.   Frankly, otherwise, ACT may as well wind up.

Nationalist socialist:  What more to say about Hone Harawira?  He treats taxpayers like a Mafia don treats protection money, he expresses his true feelings about Islamist terrorism and Western liberal democracy and capitalism, before backtracking to save some face.   His Mana Party (there was a radical Mana Maori Party for some years don't forget) is a party for race driven thugs who want to treat the state as their own gang to strong arm cash from taxpayers to pay for their families and their pet projects.   It is no wonder it is filled with hate-mongers like Matt McCarten, apologists for child abusers like John Minto, cheerleader for 9/11 Annette Sykes and refugees from the far too moderate Green Party, like Sue "Wow Mao" Bradford and Nandor Tanczos.   My great hope can be that it pulls enough votes from the Maori Party to get rid of the two seat overhang (these seats going to Labour, which is no net gain for Labour as they will be taken from list seats), takes enough votes from the Green Party to knock it a seat back as well.  Hone will probably win his seat alone, and will continue to provide an avenue for the racist, anti-semitic, pro-Marxist-Leninist, pro-violence for politics and anti-capitalist far left to vent its hatred of the human individual.

Bland vs bland:  Everything else is so tiresomely uninteresting as to be soporific.  The Key government does what National is good at, very little except spend other people's money.  Phil Goff proposes variations on this.  Quite why anyone could rouse themselves to get out of bed for either party is beyond me.

To AV or not to AV

As part of the coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party agreed that there be a referendum on electoral reform in the UK. The Liberal Democrats as the UK’s long standing third party has always sought this in order that it get a more proportionate share of seats in the House of Commons. However, whilst it has always supported a form of proportional representation, the best it could get is a referendum on perhaps the smallest possible change to the electoral system – it is called the Alternative Vote or AV, and is similar to the Preferential Vote system in Australia.

Of course New Zealand went through electoral reform in the 1990s, because Jim Bolger was willing to hand it up on a plate for no good reason at all, in the midst of the economic reforms being continued by Ruth Richardson. New Zealand’s electoral reform process was complex, and was undertaken in a period of heightened anxiety about the economy and distrust of politicians (mainly because Jim Bolger lied in the 1990 election campaign, fully aware that the Nats had to backtrack on promises to abolish student fees and the superannuation surtax because of the massive deficit Labour left it with).

The electoral reform debate in New Zealand was ably driven by a coterie of leftwing politicians, celebrities, activists and a compliant media, all dissatisfied that both Labour and National had policies that today might only be seen with ACT. The left drove the Electoral Reform Coalition, and opponents to MMP only campaigned late in the day, with Peter Shirtcliffe (and later his daughter Janet) arguing largely on the basis on what was wrong with MMP. National and Labour both had no official view on the matter, whilst NZ First and the Alliance, with their pinups of Winston and Jim Anderton self-servingly advocating MMP (although the media rarely challenged that self interest).

In the UK it has been quite different. AV is NOT a proportional system. It simply means every MP would need a majority of preferences to get elected. Constituencies where the leading candidate gained less than half of the first preferences, would see the second preferences of those who voted for the bottom candidate get reallocated. This would continue until one candidate crosses the 50% threshold.

The real arguments for and against change are actually quite simple. A strong argument can be made that in a fully representative system an MP should have the support of the majority of voters in a constituency. That can either be done by having a runoff ballot (as in the French Presidential elections) or some sort of preferential based voting. If the highest value in an election is that majority counts, then AV can be supported.

The argument against is that people’s second or third preferences shouldn’t decide who gets elected. What AV would enable is for people to vote for whoever they like as a first preference, including any small party, safe in the knowledge that given the low probability that minor candidates could do well, second preferences could be given for the least offensive major candidate. It gives those with views not represented by major parties a better chance, which may be seen as benefiting those parties unfairly.

However, the debate has not been about that. The Pro-AV campaign has been claiming it will “change politics”, make MPs more accountable and should be supported because the Tories oppose it. It has been supported by the Liberal Democrats and some in Labour (including Ed Miliband), largely because they think a majority of UK voters are leftwing oriented.

The anti-AV campaign has been pushed by the Conservative Party based on a whole host of erroneous reasons. It is claimed AV is a lot more expensive, which it isn’t. It is argued that it is wrong to support a system only adopted by Australia, PNG and Fiji (with a quasi-neo-colonial/racist overtone that such countries are inferior). It is claimed first past the post is popular, yet the only developed countries that share it are Canada and the US. It is claimed AV is too complicated, yet somehow the Irish can get their heads around STV and continental Europeans all have far more complex systems. Most stupidly an analogy is drawn between an athletic race and the person who came third winning.

In other words, the argument has been infantile and insulting. It is presented either as a radical change that will make a big difference (which it wont), or as a complex, expensive system that only Australians use.

The Conservatives simply think they cannot get a majority of support and will lose if AV is put in place. The entire campaign for first past the post is based on retaining strong single party government (which outside the context of the Thatcher administration is hardly welcome).

So the question for me is what to do? Most of those who I have some broad political alignment with will say “no” to AV, because it will benefit the left. Yet, inherently any system based on representation should, at least, gain the endorsement in some way of a majority of voters in any constituency. Whilst AV may benefit the Liberal Democrats, the truth is that the party faces serious losses because it is in coalition with the Conservatives, so the future political map is difficult to predict. UKIP came third in the last by-election, comes second in the European Parliamentary elections and is a serious alternative for those who want less government.

So I am going to vote for AV. Primarily because, in principle, I want to be able to vote for a smaller party and for that vote not to be wasted by enabling me to choose a tolerable second best option. I think it may enable politics to be more diversified on the “right” by giving UKIP more of a voice. It will do the same for leftwing parties like the Greens and BNP (nationalist socialism), but I am NOT beholden to thinking that the Conservative Party really holds the monopoly on political sanity in the UK – it needs to be challenged. It is a rather inept and bumbling advocate for capitalism and a highly inconsistent supporter of freedom and less government.

However, I do so holding my nose – because as much as the left in the UK will take solace from an unlikely win for AV (polls are strongly against reform), I think it is a misguided measure of an electorate that is actually more conservative, more euro-sceptic and less keen on government than they may think.

That day

Whilst most of the British media and many (but not all) switch their brains into neutral for the taxpayer funded wedding of the year,  Christopher Hitchens writes that the best thing that Kate Middleton and William Wales could do is abdicate:

If you really love him, honey, get him out of there, and yourself, too. Many of us don't want or need another sacrificial lamb to water the dried bones and veins of a dessicated system. Do yourself a favor and save what you can: Leave the throne to the awful next incumbent that the hereditary principle has mandated for it.

I for one will be fleeing to the West Country to avoid the crowds, tat and banal tourism (led curiously by airhead Americans and continentals).   Some, I hope, will be protesting a handful on the guest list including the following murderous scum:

- Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz (second in line to the Saudi Islamist theocracy which has intervened in Bahrain to suppress dissent and does not tolerate any basic political freedoms);

- Crown Prince of Bahrain (the regime that is turning its guns on its people).

I have nothing personally against either of them, any more than I have of any random strangers.  They mean nothing to me.   However, what is telling is how far too many people, who call themselves conservatives, wax lyrically about merit, about people being allowed to achieve, keep the proceeds of their success and to live their lives as they see fit.   They talk of how society should mean that people can aspire and achieve, and that those who do not, should not have their lives subsidised, propped up or featherbedded at everyone else's expense.

Yet they embrace the least meritocratic, most featherbedded state institution there is - hereditary monarchism.

For a country to move beyond views of class, or even bigotry against regional accents and dialects, there needs to be a mature discussion about the future of the British "constitution".  The House of Lords has been moved from a hereditary institution to a politically stacked talking shop.   It would be appropriate to discuss the future of the monarchy, particularly when the future monarch does not remotely meet the test of being political neutral or impartial.  Charles is a buffoon, who is not fit to be head of a book club let alone a country.

My only hesitation is the motivation of many of those who want a republic.  The likelihood they would advance a constitutionally limited government is not high.

However, the reason to not proceed should not be because of any perceived merit in the status quo - for if the only reason to continue with the monarchy is because the alternative could be worse is no ringing endorsement.

So whilst the millions of airheads watch a wedding of two mediocrities in some peculiar fawning  ritual, I'll be ignoring it.  Although, I know many of you wont be able to resist the spectacle.

The slaves commemorate their dead leader

Today is one day in the year when I can always feel thankful.  For it is the day that 24 million people who live in the world's largest prison are required and expected to celebrate the birthday of their dead, but still constitutionally empowered, President.

The cold soulless omnipresent photo of Kim Il Sung

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (you need that name to top off the entire effect of this vile absurdity) has Kim Il Sung as "eternal President" as he lies in state at his immaculate marble and granite palace in Pyongyang.  Koreans unfortunate enough to be on the northern side of the DMZ pay tribute to this wily murdering warmonger every day, bowing four times to his embalmed corpse.  They all have this very photo in their homes, offices, schoolroom, looking down upon them all, everywhere.  Yes Orwell was prescient. 

The prisoners are all expected to give gifts, but in turn they also get small gifts for their children.  They are, of course, expected to be grateful for they have "nothing to envy in the world" according to state media.  However, whilst they get gifts for their children, they are not foolish - they now sell them on the black market because food rations are so meagre.

What is particularly tragic is that the country is so closed that most of the slaves actually like him.  Why?  Because he maintained such a totalitarian grip on media, publishing and in completely rewriting history (and removing those who inconveniently know the truth) that he has painted himself as a hero.

His tale is that he founded a revolutionary army in his teens and he led that army to defeat the Japanese and expel them from the Korean peninsula by 1945.   The truth is that he led a small brigade in his late 20s who fought the Japanese in a few battles, but then fled to the Soviet Union.  Korean was liberated from Japanese enslavement because the US defeated Japan, helped by Chinese partisans (nationalist and communist) and the latecomer Red Army at the last minute.   

His tale is that he arrived in Pyongyang to crowds celebrating his return as a famous hero, when he was virtually unknown and installed by Stalin as a compliant local who would help mould Korea into a client state.  

His tale is that the US invaded in 1950 and he and his army fought back the imperialist invasion, despite US use of biological weapons and heinous atrocities committed against Koreans.  In fact, he invaded south Korea, brutally took over nearly the whole peninsula before the UN Security Council authorised a US led multilateral counteroffensive that would have defeated him, had Mao not gotten frightened by MacArthur's rhetoric and saved his skin.  There is no credible evidence of biological weaponry being used in the Korean War, and tales of US atrocities are grossly and obscenely exaggerated (but not completely without foundation).

His tale is that he rebuilt the country into a workers' paradise whilst south Korea lived under the tutelage of US capitalist slavedrivers using south Koreans as subjects, oppressing them under a brutal military dictatorship.   The south Korean people's single hearted desire being to reunify the country under Kim Il Sung's leadership.  The truth is that while dictatorship DID reign in the south until 1988, and working conditions in the 50s and 60s were harsh, the dictatorship was nowhere near as pervasive as Kim Il Sung's.  Living standards in south Korea soared since the Korean War, materially surpassed the north by the late 1960s and virtually no one in the south have any time for Kim Il Sung.  He is widely hated in the south.

His tale is that he developed a unique special ideology, called Juche, which empowers humanity and has millions of followers and acolytes around the world, who look upon him as their leader, a genius, "peerlessly great man" and numerous other sycophantic titles.  The truth is that he had academics concoct a contradictory and vague philosophy of isolationism, nationalism and pseudo-monarchical hypocrisy, which is virtually unknown in the world except for a strange handful of peculiar malcontents found in the likes of India, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Stoke on Trent.

His tale is that his people have nothing to envy in the world, that the world is full of famine, disease, exploitation, oppression, war, slavery, crime, depravity and death.  The truth is that he has created a country that has lost millions from famine, imprisons people in their home towns, tells them where and when to work, denies them privacy at all levels, demands their constant unquestioning obedience, lies to them on a scale and extent that is almost incomprehensible (virtually nothing positive about the outside world is ever reported, and with the exception of a tiny elite, little is shown of foreign culture, news or major events - such as the moon landing).  

His tale is that he has always worked long hours, tirelessly for the people, always giving them wise guidance and helping in all fields, and his knowledge and skills are unbounded in their brilliance and breadth.  He being a modest man who demands little, but gives all.  The truth is that he lived the life of a wealthy king with numerous well appointed palaces, food, drink, clothing and consumer goods from around the world, enjoyed his own "joy division" of especially selected beautiful young women to enjoy orgies that would make Berlusconi jealous, and by the mid 1960s had so ruthlessly purged any challenges to his rule that he could relax. All the time he called for his enslaved people to work ever harder, more tirelessly than before, filling up their "spare time" with activities either to defend the country, or extra-curricular activities for the monthly "celebrations" of him, his inarticulate playboy son, the party, the country, the army or Juche  Meanwhile, there has never been room for anyone disabled in the workers' paradise.

So whilst Libyans fight to depose their megalomaniacal ruler  (who has long been loved by the Kim gang), and others go about their daily life.  Be grateful for a moment that you're not in a country led by a lying murdering corpse, where you can't leave, where you are denied the truth of his life and his rule and are told to sacrifice more every day and you have nothing to envy in the world.

Icelanders shrugged

Taxpayers in Iceland are fed up.  They have in the past year or so faced two referenda on whether they, personally, should be responsible for the costs of bailouts of depositors of privately owned Icelandic banks.  Quite rightly they told the UK and Dutch governments (and the EU implicitly) to go fuck themselves.

So what is it about?

Well the Icelandic government set up a Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee for its banking sector.  It was set up as a legal obligation under the European Economic Area decision to follow EU Directives on banking guarantees.  In short, if Iceland wanted to maintain free access to the EU markets for its goods and services, it had to comply with EU laws demanding state guarantees for banks.

So it did.  One private bank, Landsbanki set up aggressively with branches in the UK and the Netherlands, offering retail bank accounts with highly competitive interest rates.  It attracted 300,000 customers in the UK and 125,000 in the Netherlands.  Another bank called Kaupthing Edge was also part of the Icelandic banking boom, but for simplicity let's leave that one out for not.

The long and the short of it is that Landsbanki collapsed.  It had been over leveraged with extensive foreign debt linked into banks outside Iceland.  The bank was put into receivership and the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority declared that domestic deposit holders would be protected.

For UK depositholders the situation was clear.  The UK government guaranteed them up to a relatively high limit, which meant they were safe from any risk.  However, the UK government wanted this guarantee to be born by the Icelandic Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee, which was effectively bankrupt.   So it confiscated the assets of Landsbanki in the UK, under anti-terrorism legislation, albeit rather late as Landsbanki had already moved most of its assets back to Iceland.

The dispute since then has been because the British government wants the Icelandic government to pay back its guarantees of British depositors.  It claims that under the EEA agreement, the Icelandic government agreed to do this, which may very well be true.  However, Icelandic taxpayers are not happy and don't accept it.

However, this raises the far more fundamental point - who are those who agreed to this and what right do they have to do so?

At a basic level UK and Dutch depositors took a risk in getting accounts with Landsbanki - a risk they largely unconsciously thought was not real because of national government guarantees of deposits. 

The UK and Dutch governments decided to guarantee those depositors regardless of risk, and have used their taxpayers' funds to do so.

The Icelandic government signed up to certain guarantees for deposits, up to 20,000 Euro.  However, there is not enough in the guarantee fund to cover this for UK and Dutch depositors.  Understandably, given it is taxpayers' money, the fund has covered Icelandic depositors as a priority. 

So the relevant governments argued and negotiated, but Iceland's government decided on only paying out 4% of the country's GDP to the UK and 2% to the Netherlands to pay up.   Both the UK and Dutch governments refused to accept this.   A new bill was submitted to the Icelandic parliament for Iceland's taxpayers to cough up 3.8 billion Euro over 14 years.   They were not amused. It comes to around 12,000 Euro for every man, woman and child.  They petitioned for a referendum on the matter.   It was held in 2010 and 93% of Iceland's voters said no.

The reaction from the bigger countries was despicable.  The Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lord Myners (Financial Services Secretary) said they expected Iceland to meet its obligations, the Dutch Finance Minister said essentially the same.   Iceland's taxpayers had said enough.

The Icelandic government negotiated another deal, spread over 30 years at an interest rate of 3%.

Iceland's voters have just rejected this once more, but with a 60% to 40% margin.

As so they should.  Iceland's taxpayers primarily work in the fisheries, aluminium and manufacturing sectors.  They don't see why they should be responsible for those who risked their money in a private bank they had nothing to do with.  They don't see why their governments should bind them to bail out governments who decided to guarantee nationals of their countries for investment in a private bank.

They are right.

The Icelandic government should work for them.  It should accept that they, as productive, hard-working people don't owe their government, let alone foreign governments, anything.

Iceland has NOT defaulted on sovereign debt, it has not got a major fiscal problem.  It is not seeking a bailout because of years of socialist economics and bloated welfare.

The UK and Dutch governments should leave them alone.  THEIR taxpayers should be demanding the skin of the politicians who demanded they guarantee the deposits of those willing to invest in new banks with high rates of return.

It is especially galling at a time when the UK government is quite happy to throw taxpayers money at Portugal to help bail out its fiscal incontinence.

Icelanders have told the world that they are not responsible for governments promising to use their money to rescue those who chose to invest in a privately owned bank.  They are right.  They shouldn't be bullied to give up their money as a result.

The value of the African Union's deal on Libya

Nil.  Indeed it may make things worse.

Nothing at all.  It is because the African Union is an association of killers, rapists, thieves and scum of the earth.

The only compromise possible with murdering dictators is your own slavery.   Jacob Zuma came from Tripoli having "negotiated a ceasefire" with a man who happily uses jet fighters, artillery and snipers on his own people.  Why not "negotiate a ceasefire" with your next armed murderer?  Or perhaps this is what crime fighting is like in South Africa.

The African Union is chaired by none other than Obiang Nguema Mbasogo - President of Equatorial Guinea, since 1979, having undertaken a coup against his insanely drug riddled murdering uncle -Macias Nguema.   Equatorial Guinea has remained under the iron grip of Obiang, whilst he and his family, including his playboy son Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, enjoy the lavish wealth of one of Africa's richest oil-soaked countries, whilst most of the population remains illiterate and with a subsistence lifestyle.

The African Union has improved performance in recent years, suspending the Ivory Coast and Madagascar because of their political crises.  It should do the same for Libya.  The problem is Libya helps fund the kleptocratic scum and their comfy lifestyles.   Zimbabwe notably has also faced no real sanctions from the African Union.   It refuses to recognise the international arrest warrant that was imposed against Omar Bashir of Sudan in response to the massacred in Darfur.

In short, a club of scoundrels is not a reliable one to eject or punish one who acts as they do.

The rebels in Libya quite rightly are ignoring all of this.  Jacob Zuma, who leads a country that is increasingly looking more and more like a one-party state in practice if not in law, has no standing or credibility in Libya for anyone other than Gaddafi seeking power.

Oh the cuts!!

The big news in the US is how the Republicans leading the House of Representatives are refusing to accept a budget that doesn't cut spending sufficiently, whereas Obama and the Democrats are portraying it as some great social mission to hit abortion and the like.

The truth is that the Republicans are doing what they were elected to do - to cut the deficit.

The proposed cuts are less than 4% of the budget deficit (2% of the total budget) according to Reason Magazine.

4%!

Consider that the UK government is seeking to abolish its structural deficit (deficit not attributed to reduced tax revenue and higher welfare spending because of recession) within five years.  4% needs to be closer to 20% to make a difference, and Obama and the Democrats wont even accept 4%.

The Cato Institute has a more ambitious plan that should be the least that is adopted, as this would abolish the budget deficit and set a path to start rolling back the US national debt, as well as lowering taxes.

The question I wonder is why anyone on the left thinks they can evade reality by building debt mountains for future generations to confront - or more importantly, why they think this is moral?  Do they think "if only we could confiscate the wealth of the rich" or are they so stupid to think they can have their heads in the sand?  If they "don't know any better" or are "just guessing" then it isn't good enough.  If they DO want to confiscate wealth, then just admit it, and show themselves up to be the violent crooks they want to be.  The same crooks that didn't want banks to collapse, didn't want motor manufacturers to collapse, didn't want ANY businesses to collapse, so used other people's money to pay for it.

Auckland Council heading for more congestion

That's if you take the latest report from INRIX and see the comparison between lower density US cities and higher density European cities, and the effect on traffic congestion.

New Geography reports that "the added annual peak hour congestion delay in the United States is roughly one-third that of Europe".

It follows a report last year that indicated that intensification of development in Sydney is exacerbating traffic congestion and local air quality.  It is logical, of course, that having more people in the same area will mean even if a greater proportion don't drive that there is more traffic and more exposure to vehicle emissions.

Given the Green Party, the Auckland Council (and indeed Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and most other urban councils in New Zealand) and the Ministry for the Environment all endorse what is variously called "Smartgrowth" "New Urbanism" "intensification" and the like, you might wonder why they don't look at such evidence?

What it means is that the attempt to intensify Auckland's development within urban growth limits and so-called "Transit oriented development" is counterproductive.  Well it would be clear if the point of intensification was clear.  It isn't, you see.  It isn't about reducing traffic congestion, because if that was the primary goal then a whole raft of measures would be proposed that are not about land use, but around the supply and pricing of roads.  It isn't about reducing emissions, because if that was the primary goal then measures would be taken to clean up the vehicle fleet and reduce congestion.  No, it is something less direct and far more utopian - it is about long term changes to the urban form of the city.  I was told this directly by a manager from the MfE some years ago - it is about changing the housing and employment patterns so that - eventually - people would cluster their living near railway stations and their employment near railway stations.  It is a railway fetish based on the notion that railway transport is the most economically and environmentally efficient.   The problem is that a railway can't deliver this unless it moves large numbers of people regularly - in Auckland it doesn't even start to do that.

Take the Western rail line, which Auckland Transport blog reported carrying around 305,000 in the month of February 2011.   Wow.  Except that figures from just two years ago on the North Western Motorway, between Newton Road and St Lukes indicate 123,000 vehicles on an average weekday.  With an average occupancy of say 1.2, that means around 147,000 people, per day.  Even if you divide the whole of the rail patronage among weekdays only, you get 15,260 per day, just over a tenth.  Bearing in mind that there are other roads carrying traffic parallel to the railway (New North Road and Great North Road), that means the railway is carrying one tenth of the people of the road.  

Now the railphiles are getting all excited about record patronage of their heavily subsidised services, but ignoring the price of this.  Len Brown is factually incorrect when he claims tram lines were ripped up in the 1950s so motorways could be built.  In fact, tram lines were being ripped up after the war because they lost so much money it wasn't economic to replace the wornout track, so trolley buses were put in place (which in turn faced the same fate from the 1970s).   The trams were owned and operated by Auckland City Council, the motorways (which didn't start getting built until after the trams were virtually all closed) by the Ministry of Works.

However, note the pattern for patronage.  Rail patronage has climbed 276% between 2002 and 2010, but bus patronage only grew 8.5%.    Why?  Well bus patronage fell two years in a row (2004 and 2005) by a total of 10%, whilst in the same year rail went up 53%.  Bus patronage dropped marginally again in 2007, but in effect by 2008 there were less trips by bus than in 2002.  Bus patronage recovered almost exclusively because the North Shore busway was such a stunning success.  

That doesn't mean rail hasn't attracted more than people from buses, it has generated new trips, and has no doubt taken some people out of cars - it should, it has cost taxpayers over $1 billion so far.

However, you see this is what intensification is about.  It is about moving the mountain to mohammed so to speak.  Most people in Auckland don't live within a coooeee of a railway station, so said Helen Clark.  Building railway lines closer to them would be ridiculous (although look at the Think Big plans for the North Shore, even without the electrification opened, they want more!), but changing planning rules so that new housing is about living on top of or close to railway stations - that's what they want.

People wont divert long distances to go to a railway station, but making them live near them - that will solve the problem!!  Then Auckland will be like Copenhagen or Paris or Stockholm (or whatever quaint European holiday city the fantasisers imagine Auckland could be)!   The actual impact is higher housing prices, less homes that people want and worse congestion because, even if a few more people ride trains at peak times, the rest of the time almost everyone still drives.

The whole SmartGrowth, intensification policy is quasi-religious - the evidence does not demonstrate that it delivers improvements in terms of transport outcomes, let alone housing or environmental outcomes.  It is simply a tool to try to make new urban railways seem more viable - but it fails on all counts.