WTO agreement tentative - no thanks to France

Jacque Chirac is a worm - and the WTO talks have essentially confirmed that.

A deal is imminent at the WTO talks in Hong Kong, but the South Korean farmers (who can afford to fly en masse to Hong Kong, but afraid to compete with rice produced in Thailand) shouldn't fear - Jacque Chirac has saved their bacon, and helped maintain distorted trade in agriculture, with a tiny concession for 2013. In doing that, farmers in Thailand, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, Australia and many other countries have little reason to be grateful.

The European Union looks likely to concede a 2013 threshold for abolishing agricultural export subsidies (but nothing on import quotas, tariffs or domestic subsidies), even though the US was pleading for 2010 and the Cairn’s Group (including New Zealand) were pushing for earlier removal of export subsidies and progress on other restrictions. Export subsidies for cotton will go in 2006, largely affecting the US and benefiting a number of developing countries.

Least developed countries will get quota and tariff free access to developed country markets for most of their exports, not that this will help agriculture much when the EU maintains export subsidies till 2013, and domestic subsidies continue to grossly distort trade.

Developing countries have also agreed to some liberalisation in the access they give to imported manufactured goods and services, particularly telecommunications, banking and transport.

So what does this mean?

Not a lot, it is glacial progress. It wasn’t without a lot of goodwill from developing countries and the US – and of course New Zealand was at the forefront of advocating free trade.

Frankly, it means the French, by and large, have screwed efficient agricultural producers - rich and poor. Why?

Because it was the EU which refused to make further substantive progress – NOT the US (although it is touchy about domestic cotton subsidies) and not developing countries.

At the EU, there are two blocs on agricultural trade - the reformist group (the UK, Scandinavia, Netherlands) and the ostriches (French, Italians, Spanish and Austrians). The French basically said no, and were not even happy with the 2013 deadline to get rid of export subsidies for agriculture. Lets note that export subsidies consist of 2% of the total value of all agricultural subsidies. France would veto any EU offer that went further.

The USA is often painted as the great world villain exploiting the poor and holding them back, but the US had pushed hard to abolish export subsidies no later than 2010 and to make progress on domestic subsidies. The US agreeing to accept abolishing cotton export subsidies next year is a worthwhile step forward, all export subsidies should go then at least.

The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union is fundamentally immoral – it props up the wealthiest farms in Europe with subsidies, including those owned by the Queen and Prince Charles – it inflates the price of food to European consumers, and because it is a high proportion of EU spending, costs European citizens in tax. It shuts out efficient producers like New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan, Bolivia and South Africa from the European market. The EU uses export subsidies of around US$3 billion per annum to prop up exports of sugar, dairy products and beef.

My earlier post outlines some of the absurdities of the CAP.

It is unrealistic to expect the European Union – basically a project that unnaturally marries free trade with socialist central planning – to abolish all agricultural protection overnight. However, it should. It uses four types of protectionism to screw up world trade in agricultural products:

- Export subsidies (undercutting efficient producers worldwide);
- Import quotas and bans (shutting out efficient producers from the European market);
- Import tariffs (taxing imports from efficient producers);.
- Domestic subsidies (propping up the wealthiest domestic producers).

These should go in quick succession – by 2010. With export subsidies, which currently cost US$3 billion per annum abolished first. This would match the offer by the Bush Administration to do the same, and challenge it to follow through on its own import restrictions and agricultural subsidies – for now, Chirac the worm has told the developing countries to go fuck themselves if they want to trade on a less tilted level playing field in OTHER countries, because the French want their “right” to use their taxes to undercut them, till 2013.

However, will you see Bono or Bob Geldof going to Paris to protest against this intransigence? Will you see any of the venom directed at Bush for being, well, Bush – directed at Chirac, the French government and the European Union? I doubt it…

Swedish nightclubbing

I've not been to Sweden yet, but hat tip to PC who has a powerpoint presentation of some highlights.

Such as...

not a bad way to start the weekend.

Bunks on planes - as long as you're upfront

The next generation Boeing 747-8 will look a bit different on the inside as reported by this site in Seattle. There will be a skylight, and the option for airlines to install bunks which are located in the ceiling space currently filled with wires and ducts (which are being consolidated and moved to the sides) - this means premium passengers could sit in a regular seat for takeoff and landing, but have a bed for overnight flights - not just a seat that folds down. All the photos are here.

One of the more amusing concepts is the "DreamLav" a more spacious bathroom than the closets currently on board, by using design more cleverly.

However, don't get too excited, it hasn't flown yet and wont till 2009, and only freight versions have been ordered so far. The likelihood that economy class passengers will experience much different beyond the toilet is probably low, as it is first and business class passengers that make most long haul flights profitable (and where the greatest competition on service, comfort is).

Nevertheless, rumour has it that several airlines that serve NZ, including Air NZ, Qantas and Cathay Pacific are interested, given that the mega Airbus A380 is too big for most routes into NZ.

Business NZ go back to the 70s

A report commissioned by Business NZ and a host of other industry associations has been slammed by the Greens for damning the carbon tax.

The report states that carbon tax will result in energy input costs increasing between 11% and 35% for the seven companies surveyed. Which is no surprise, it IS a new tax after all.

Business NZ rightfully damns it as making New Zealand less competitive. The Greens, prophets of armageddon, see it as a "thinly disguised attack from big business on one of the few positive moves New Zealand has made toward protecting the planet for future generations". Of course the carbon tax will make not one iota of difference to any global warming, but will boost the coffers of the state - it is a transfer from the private sector to the government - and since the Greens don't like businesses much and like government, it makes sense for them. They are correct about one point though - the carbon tax will increase the incentive on businesses to reduce energy costs, that's economic fact. That is why the Greens support it, it will have a marginal effect on energy demand, because it is fiddling with the price of energy.

However, the Greens neglect to note that businesses have powerful incentives to be efficient now, through the profit motive (which they don't like). The commercial sector is far more ruthless than the state sector, and private individuals. That is why the carbon tax makes a marginal difference.

So why is Business NZ going back to the 70s? It is because it suggests:

“This study indicates that New Zealand should seek some way other than a carbon tax to meet their Kyoto commitments - perhaps by way of assistance to help companies invest in energy efficient technology - instead of purchasing carbon credits on the international market.”

It wants a subsidy - it goes from opposing a new tax (which is fine) to wanting to tax OTHERS more, to pay for energy efficient technology. However, this is happening anyway. Take aviation, where the average jet airliner has improved in fuel efficiency by 1-2% per year, due to improvements in engine technology and the weight of airframes. That is achieved not by government intervention, but by the demand of airlines for lower costs - technology and capitalism working for good.

Business NZ should stop calling for subsidies, it IS a slip back to the 1970s when business in NZ lobbied government for special treatment, protection, tax incentives, subsidies and the like, instead of wanting to be left alone - it is NOT a sign of good business to seek the government to help you out. Governments almost always only help at the cost of others - you should only call in the government when you or your property are under threat of force or fraud - you call them, don't let them call you.

Dominion Post right on Transmission Gully

The Dom Post is right about Wellington’s Western Corridor highway issue.

It says:

“The "solutions" proposed by opponents of the coastal upgrade do not withstand scrutiny.
Tolling the road to pay the difference between the two alternatives is impractical. Officials have calculated that only $115 million could be raised through tolling, and only if the speed limit on the existing coastal road was cut to 50km/h to make it less attractive.

Reprioritising other roading projects in the region is not an option. There are already more motorists inconvenienced by delays in Ngauranga Gorge, in and around the capital and between Wellington and the Hutt Valley than there are up the coast.

Building only the top half of Transmission Gully or a two-lane version of the road would not solve the congestion problems the road is intended to fix.

It appears from Sir Brian's questions that the Western Corridor committee is investigating the possibility of a compromise that could see some, but not all, elements of the current coastal proposal implemented. “

Quite right too. It is a very hard decision – parts of the coastal route would be very hard to consent, but Transmission Gully is a very expensive waste of money – another Think Big project, which has advocates from some who should know better, given the history of their political party. I've blogged so much on this already which you can read in the November and October archives.

David Farrar supports Transmission Gully, but it appears to be because it is more achievable that the coastal upgrade - although the coastal upgrade consists of 4 discreet projects, and the Nats have proposed a major streamlining of the RMA which would make the coastal route more achievable. I haven't seen where the extra $350 million for Transmission Gully is going to come from though, as this presumably must be from not building other projects (Wellington has already effectively been promised its full share of petrol tax money from Labour, with all the Crown contributions that are being made).

The compromise the Dom Post is implying, would be interesting though there are no details.

My bet is that it involves leaving Mana as is for now, given that the recent upgrade has eased congestion there, but will see a 2-lane bypass at Pukerua Bay (to relieve that community of through traffic) and a flyover at Paekakariki to fix that nasty intersection. Given that Land Transport NZ has already approved funding for a median barrier along the coastal section, it could be argued that 4-laning the coast would be premature. The projects north of Mackays and south of Paremata would be unchanged (Western Link Road, Petone-Grenada), and the rail upgrade would proceed as proposed (without the very expensive double tracking north of Pukerua Bay).

That’s what I’d advocate, don’t do Transmission Gully or 4-lane the coast, for now. Most of the route closures are due to head-on collisions, which the median barrier will prevent. Since tolls wont pay for Transmission Gully even taking into account revenue from petrol tax and road user charges from those who are likely to use it, why should non-users pay? I thought that was what National and ACT advocated.

All of which means that we are back to making incremental progress. The cold hard reality is that once the projects listed above are done, the problems north of Paremata are not that serious and don’t warrant throwing a billion dollars at a project with a negative return. The road will be safe, the congestion will be manageable, and eventually, there will be need to be more work done – but by then there may be congestion pricing in Wellington, which may mean there is no need at all for extra road capacity.

Portrayal of Maori on media is fair, but...

Stuff reports According to a study commissioned by the Broadcasting Standards Authority undertaken by Te Kawa a Maui, the School of Maori Studies of Victoria University of Wellington:

"programmes examined were considered fair; while balance was not always achieved in individual stories, broadcasters generally attained balance over time; and the programmes were almost all accurate. Correct pronunciation of te reo continues to be seen as very important."

Now the BSA is hardly an instrument of capitalism and the VUW School of Maori Studies the same - so are the claims that mainstream media (TVNZ, TV3, National Radio and Maori broadcasting) are biased against Maori perspectives (whatever they are, since Maori are not a homogeneous political entity) going to evaporate?

Would a study about whether the media was equally unbiased between statist solutions or criticisms of government policy and non-statist say the same? I doubt it. Most TV and radio journalists are from the left, and believe the solution to problems comes from banning, compulsion and spending more of other people's money.

Brash and racism

There has been plenty about Frogblog's statement that Brash made racism acceptable in New Zealand and linking Orewa to Cronulla. David Farrar has responded with many comments in reply, but my key point is this, and it is the reason Brash got so much support - NOT anti-Maori racism, which exists but not at the levels the Maori Party and the Greens think (which should please them):

Why is it racist to want the state to have laws, and for its tax and spending policies to have no correlation whatsoever to race?

Why is it NOT racist, to give special funding, or special consultation rights to individuals purely because of what their ancestry is?

Why should anyone be judged on their ancestry, at all?

Why not judge individuals on their deeds, alone?

Racism is mindless collectivism, and it exists both with the fascist/neo-nazi "right" (as seen in the brainwashed blonde twins) and with the neo-Marxist collectivist "left", and with religious fundamentalists of ALL creeds (Islamic, Christian, Jewish etc.).

Most on the "left" are proudly anti-racist and get fired up when they think of apartheid, the old racist laws of the American south, Nazism and the corporal punishment of children speaking Maori at school.

What they don't realise is that most people on the liberal "right" have the same passionate loathing of racism.

Remember the nazi teenage blondes?

David Farrar posted the pic of these cute young teen racists a while back.

Julian Pistorius has found a series of articles about them, apparently they form a racist folk band called Prussian Blue . Unfortunately there is another band called Prussian Blue, a British folk band which is NOT neo-nazi.

There is an anti-Prussian Blue blog, but unfortunately it is unlikely that these girls will get any serious exposure to thinking more carefully about the world until they leave home. Remember, most of what they get from the non-racist world is hatred and anger, which wont inspire them to think twice about racism.

The racist Prussian Blue allegedly plan a tour to Australia - um, great timing?

Internet regulation for national content?

This man wants the EU to regulate the Internet.

I don’t mean child porn or bomb recipes, I mean regulating it for “cultural content” you know the same sort of rules that Labour and the Greens long argued about for TV, to ensure minimum levels of national content? It seems that with the arrival of hundreds of TV channels, the European Commission finds it harder to justify special rules for broadcast TV -so now it wants rules for all audiovisual media to be consistent.

Under the aegis of harmonisation, and consistency across media, the EC, instead of simply calling for the abolition of such rules, wants to extend them - because, after all, bureaucrats produce nothing.

Martin Selmayr, a European Commission bureaurat said that rules on broadcast TV may apply to the Internet, "This might involve requirements in terms of the catalogue they offer," says the quote from Macworld. A further report says that it may cover material that may “incite racial hatred” or seriously impare the “physical, mental and moral development of minors”. An excuse for more censorship – after all, what is the moral development of minors? What is a minor in the EU, when the age for sexual consent varies between 13 and 17? European bureaurats aren't keen on free speech (although Europeans aren't keen on much censorship, as any visit to an Amsterdam sex shop will demonstrate!).

One thing is for sure, that in cultural terms, the Internet has it all – and the users choose what they want to see. You can read about objectivism, literature, rugby, felching or the rambling of Chairman Mao.

The only place for the law online is to cover actual crimes, such as when intellectual property is stolen, when computers are used to initial force through hacking, and when recordings of victims suffering crimes are produced and distributed (images of child pornography).

It is worth noting that the same bureaurat also advocated taking control of the internet from ICANN to a new UN type intergovernmental bureaucracy – a less efficient more political one. It isn't broke, so don't fix it - if the Internet had been left to bureaucrats it would never have grown and developed, they would have been far too concerned with trying to make sure it didn't do all sorts of things they want to control.

EU agricultural subsidies for the wealthy

The Times from London now has some figures showing the absurdities of agricultural protectionism in Europe. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is an abomination and French farmers receive more than British and German farmers combined from this obscenity.

Bono and Bob Geldof would have done better campaigning to abolish the CAP in order to assist the poor of the developing and developed world, than to bleat on about aid.

The Times reports:

131,000 French farmers receive €20,000 or more a year from the EU. 3,200 get more than €100,000 per annum, the biggest beneficiary was a rice farmer who got €866,290 in 2003. How can European taxpayers justify that?

French farmers received €7.38 billion in subsidies in 2003.

The average French farmer receives €16,693 per annum in subsidies – this is more than five times what the average person in the world receives in income.

Prince Albert of Monaco receives around €300,000 a year in subsidies for his farms. The Queen and Prince Charles also get subsidies for their farms.

Rémy Pointereau, a French senator, received €121,000 last year, and Luc Guyau, an ally of President Chirac, received €50,000 in subsidies.

Cees Veerman, the Dutch Agriculture Minister, received €168,000 for farms in France and €22,000 for farms in the Netherlands.

In Denmark, four Cabinet ministers received money from EU farming subsidies in 2004, as did the husband of Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU Farm Commissioner.

70,000 French farmers receive no subsidies from the CAP.

One word for all of them - parasites!

This exposes the utter bullshit of the arguments of poor French farmers that will get kicked off their farms unable to fend for themselves, since 70,000 fend for themselves now (admittedly in a protected market). It also exposes the level of political disinterest there is in some European quarters to end this outrageous waste of money.

3 steps for the EU:

1. Abolish agricultural subsidies;

2. Abolish restrictions on agricultural imports;

3. Abolish tariffs on agricultural imports.

Blair's days start to be numbered?

I’ve already stated before on this blog why I, on balance, like Tony Blair. This was only enhanced by the release of his education white paper, which essentially called for the administration and running of state schools to be transferred to self-governing trusts. These trusts would allow the schools to be responsible for their spending, the curriculum, their property and what staff are paid.

This would be a major step forward in shifting education away from bureaucratic state control and being autonomous – maybe even private (though even New Labour could never countenance such heresy). New Conservative Party leader David Cameron has stated that he will support all of these measures to give more autonomy to schools, and so he should.

However now the left of the British Labour Party has smelt blood. The teachers’ unions oppose these moves, because it will mean they wont be able to lobby for a collective approach to pay and the last thing they want is for schools to be accountable to parents and local communities. After all they are teachers, it isn’t their fault when children fail at school, or if parents think they are poor performers – for some reason teachers’ unions believe they must be immune to the performance pay and accountability measures others have in their professions. Around 100 Labour MPs are reportedly not happy about the proposals – which could put them in jeopardy, unless the Tories back them. However if that happens, then Blair will feel like a lame duck, needing the Opposition to pass his legislation. This plays into the hands of those who want him to resign and pass the banner over the Gordon Brown sooner rather than later.

The reform agenda of the Blair government appears to be waning. The Daily Telegraph (leftwing wits call it the Torygraph) claims Blair is a lameduck PM, which is going a bit far - but it looks like the Labour Party left is starting to come out from under the rocks as it sees a time to get Gordon Brown into number 10. At that point it would have four or so years of stalling reform, moving policy to the left, with the intention of getting a mandate for it at the next UK election which is unlikely to be before 2009 (there was one earlier this year after all!).

It may well be that as Blair loses his ability to implement reforms of education and welfare, that the Conservative Party, revitalised with a young and vibrant leader in David Cameron is in the ascendancy.

Qantas orders 65 Boeing 787s

Qantas has announced it has ordered 65 Boeing 787s for itself and its el cheapo Jetstar subsidiary (which is going to fly low cost international services long haul) with options on another 50. These will replace the 767s which have long provided some of the services to and from New Zealand.

Besides fuel economy etc etc, the most notable thing about 787s is that there will be larger windows and higher humidity levels, so you wont be so dehydrated on long flights. The plane will be largely made of composites, so higher humidity levels will not corrode the fuselage. I'll be happy with larger windows and more humidity, it is not pleasant spending 12 hours in the air and waking up feeling dessicated by the artificial atmosphere.

Air NZ has already ordered 4 787s as the second customer for the plane to replace its 767s on medium distance flights to Pacific destinations, Australia and Asia.

Related to this, Qantas is not buying any aircraft to operate London-Sydney non-stop, partly because neither Airbus nor Boeing could make a plane guaranteed to fly that long non-stop fully-laden, and also because the demand was unlikely to be sufficient (it would have commanded a premium fare).

Greens on poverty

The Green’s have a press release out saying there is a “need to tackle the causes of child poverty”. Sue Bradford is upset that some poor children in South Auckland didn’t know when their birthday’s were – which is sad. At the most it indicates their families can’t afford presents. Then she lists other tragedies of poverty as having not traveled over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, or not traveled on the adjacent motorway.

Now at worst these are sad signs – it is a sad that a child doesn’t get birthday presents, though it isn’t really a big deal if they don’t get to travel on a road. This isn’t a big deal in terms of poverty, not compared to starvation, lack of shelter or clean drinking water.

However, you guessed it, Sue Bradford wants Nanny State to throw more money at these families (although the causes of child poverty aren’t noted).

Charity is a fine way of giving people in poverty a leg up, and a chance to move forward- but having the state use force to take money from others to give to these families is not. It is state violence justified because some children have “sad lives”. Whose fault is that? Well the primary responsibility for children lies with their family – it is up to them to have children when they can afford them and provide for them.

The main causes of child poverty come from people having children when they cannot afford them. Taking more money from those who can and giving it to those who can’t increases the incentive to continue the behaviour of breeding irresponsibly.

The Greens want to use welfare to "fix" this problem, a problem that is better fixed by people choosing to give, and by actively assisting those who are poor, such as the work Auckland City Mission does. You’ll do far more for the poor giving to organizations such as them, instead of paying more in taxes so bureaurats can dish out money.

In fact a good start would be to abolish taxes for people on the lowest incomes - Libertarianz support the Green Party policy for a tax free threshold to be implemented immediately. Of course Libertarianz would ask for a higher one - I think $10,000 tax free would be a good start, of course you wouldn't have state welfare either :)

Government murder toll

Hat tip to PC for his linking to the story about democide or death by government action.

The left like to focus on what companies do, and on the cost of war in terms of lives, but war is a drop of blood in the bucket compared to what government’s do. Democratic peace defines democide as:

“any murder by government, and includes genocide, politicide, massacres, mass murder, extrajudicial executions, assassinations, atrocities, and intentional famines”

He categorises democide into several groupings, and has detailed results on his website here.

262 million people murdered by governments – over 76 million in communist run China alone, 50 million from colonial governments (a good deal being Leopold’s Congo, probably the most brutal colonisation in history).

This is six times higher than those killed in combat. That is why peace between countries is important but not the MOST important pre-requisite for civilisation.

The WTO is good!

The WTO is the one intergovernmental organisation that I hold in high regard. It advocates consistent, non-discriminatory rules on trade, has a dispute settlement mechanism for it and is pro free-trade.

There are umpteen protestors now in Hong Kong claiming that the WTO is unfair. Mostly these are South Korean farmers who can afford to fly to Hong Kong protesting against the looming opening up of the South Korean rice market to cheaper foreign rice from the likes of Thailand (which is far poorer and a far more efficient rice producer). South Korea is a very small country with a high population, so in all likelihood there will be less rice producers in South Korea over the longer term, as the pressure for land shifts the country further from agriculture to manufacturing and services (which it is very good at).

The WTO puts pressure through its members for global liberalisation in trade of all goods and services. It puts the same pressure on the EU to abolish its export subsidies for agriculture as it does to India to abolish tariffs on car imports. All countries should liberalise – but what is happening is that the two largest blocs at the WTO are saying “you first”.

The US is willing to abandon agricultural export subsidies if the EU does so, and developing countries also abandon protectionist policies for agriculture.

The EU is willing to provide special access to products from least developed countries, thwarted the MFN principle which states that all WTO member states should be treated equally (though the EU itself is a great example of thwarting MFN!).

Both the EU and the US want liberalisation in manufactured goods and services in developing countries. Developing countries want an end to export subsidies and protectionism for agriculture and textiles in developed countries.

Most of them are right! However, no deal can be struck without agreement between member states - which is more fair than any United Nations organisation (the WTO is not part of the UN) which works on majority most of the time (and since the majority of countries are corrupt and often despotic, the result is clear).

New Zealand fortunately can step to one side given that it has almost totally liberalised trade (tariffs remain thanks to Jim Anderton’s deal with Labour when the Clark government was first formed), and can argue philosophically for free trade in agriculture, goods and services.

Even this French dairy farmer admits that New Zealand dairy farmers can produce milk at half the cost French ones can. If the Greens were in France, they would argue that New Zealand (foreign) milk cannot be allowed to undercut local producers- in short, the Greens would argue to render New Zealand a small country backwater unable to earn foreign exchange from agricultural products, and unable to afford the capital goods produced in other countries.

Interesting the steel worker in this BBC interview in Brazil understands things a lot better than his US counterpart – arguing that US car manufacturers would be more competitive if the cost of steel were lower for them (which means importing steel from more efficient producers), and that Brazilian steel mills are more up to date and competitive than US ones. Remember Bush agreed to reintroduce tariffs to protect the US steel industry.

Free trade is a no brainer. Professor Jagdish Bhagwati is a world renowned author on free trade. His website contains copies of many papers and articles he has written on trade and related issues. His latest book is In Defence of Globalization which I am currently reading.

If you think that the government should limit imports from other countries or tax them, then explain why you need to be forced to buy local, or penalised if you don’t. Also explain why the arbitrary national boundaries that exist are so precious to anti-free traders? Why not impose tariffs on products moved from the South to the North Island (that damned Mainland cheese!) and vice versa, why not impose tariffs on products coming from Northland or the Bay of Plenty into Auckland, or vice versa? Silly? Well imagine the USA did this, with 50 states – looks a bit like Europe then. Consider Africa, which is covered in protectionist states, most of which have GDP levels a fraction of New Zealand, with many times the population – see what a lack of free trade does for them.

If you are still not convinced, what if we extended the protectionist principle to its logical conclusion. You are now heavily taxed if you buy anything from outside your own home, but not on anything you grow or make yourself – see how wealthy you are now? Free trade is what happens everyday between you and your community, town and country – if it works within your country, where councils have differing levels of taxes and laws, it will work between countries.

Australian - or rather proletarian racism

A combination of common racism and a latent desire for random thuggery has surfaced in Sydney, with the riots in Cronulla. The Sydney Morning Herald has umpteen articles linked about it here.

Those on the left want to paint this as something encouraged by the Howard government’s approach to refugees, those on the right want to downplay the racial component of it – both are wrong.

There is an undercurrent of violent potential among a certain calibre of young men in Australian (and dare I say New Zealand, British and American society as well) which in certain circumstances sees them willing to act in ways that they wouldn’t as individuals. They get courage they wouldn’t have on their own, and they seek to prove themselves to their “comrades” by being destructive towards other people and their property – it is a brutal, cold, mindless savagery. It is a savagery seen at times with football hooligans, street gangs and when some of them get drunk on a Saturday night. It comes from being, by and large, pathetic little nobodies who don’t feel like they control the world, the probably don’t own a house, haven’t travelled much and don’t have children. Their main interests are watching sport on telly, getting pissed with their mates and shagging whatever they can find. Being tough is important to them, using their brains and being articulate isn’t.

The left like to put this down to capitalism, unemployment, dispossession and the downtrodden working class being angry – which is bollocks. At a time of low unemployment and relatively high prosperity in Australia, these people still exist – they are not poverty stricken, but they don’t like people who are different from them. It is an ancient tribalism, which in nature makes sense – back in caveman days you feared the tribe that looked different from you, because they might be after your stock, land or women – so it made evolutionary sense to be racist. Civilisation tore that away, now these ordinary Australian men are jealous of young people from other ethnic origins who look wealthier, more successful and who also commit crimes, though no more than “real Australians” (Australians of British origin). It just takes one of them to criticise the bloke who looks a bit different, and his mates go along with it- followers sticking up for their mates, and it doesn’t really matter what you do, you stick up for each other. A few people of non-white Australian origin commit crimes, and it's time for "payback" - alluring to those small minded local men.

It’s a simplistic view of the world – and a fear that people who don’t look like you are taking over “your” public space. “your” beach “your” park and “your” women. The classifying of anyone of another race as "probably the criminals" or the same as someone who committed an awful crime - it is how all racists demonise a group. It is the same mentality that saw Anthony Walker attacked in the UK because he was black with a white girlfriend. No doubt the men who did this were offended because one of “their” girls was with one of “them”. Savage gutter collectivism.

However, those on the right who say it is “just thuggery” and racism isn’t important are wrong. The crime is no different no matter what races are involved, the same people are hurt, but it is the collective brainlessness of racism that is behind all this – and it is a brainlessness that does not only lie on one side. People of all ethnic origins can be racist – it just so happens that the racist undercurrent of part of Australian society has come out. However it also exists in Britain as shown by this lot. New Zealand has its share too.

There are plenty of racist people about – they largely wont admit it. You’ll hear “I’m not racist, I just don’t want there to be too many Asians here”. Remember Australians voted in 1968 about whether to allow Aborigines to become citizens – yes 1968! A majority of “true blue Australians” said yes, how generous of them.

The racism of the past is well known, but it takes a lot to remove the instinctual natural racism based on fear of those who are different from you, particularly with people driven by a close tribal instinct of mateship and being “local”. The only way to do this, is for people to leave, travel and find out what people elsewhere are really like, because if an Arab man is shagging your sister – it might be because she wanted him rather than your slopehead mates?

and may they be sodomised by the erect phallus of a bull

Boycott Telstra Clear - hypocritical supporters of fascism

Yes, I am calling a private company, that claims to compete with a large, formerly government owned company, hypocritical supporters of fascism. I also believe in free market economics.

Why?

TelstraClear is a company I hold in the lowest regard for several reasons but more on that later.

It has accused Telecom of lobbying the government to not introduce local loop unbundling. In short, Telecom, on behalf of its shareholders, was pleading with the government to not interfere with its property rights.

Remember, Telecom owns its network, the most ubiquitous local phone network in the country, not the government, not “the people”. The “people” (represented by the government) sold it – and the proceeds were used to pay off debt held by “the people” and pay for some current expenditure. Telstra Clear doesn’t own Telecom’s network either. Telecom’s owners on privatisation agreed to allow interconnection so that competitors could connect with Telecom customers, and this allowed competition in long distance, international and mobile calls quite early on. Local call competition emerged when what was then Clear Communications, Telstra and Saturn (which have all since merged into one) established their own local networks. Since then, the government has forced Telecom to resale its network to competitors for local access as well. During that time, of course, another operator provides what could be seen as local phone service- Vodafone, and nothing is stopping anyone else legally from building competing fixed or mobile phone networks. However - it's a lot easier to not bother isn't it Telstra Clear?

Now having the ability to do long distance, international and local calls using its own network, and reselling Telecom's, Telstra Clear wasn’t happy. It wanted full access to Telecom’s property – akin to Woolworths telling New World that it must be allowed to open a store inside New World’s premises, where it didn’t have premises of its own. How about if Air New Zealand was forced to wholesale part of the seats on its planes to Origin Pacific to promote “competition”?

Now one of the reasons I hate Telstra Clear and its predecessor Clear, is because they mistakenly milked New Zealand public sympathy for years, by claiming to be the telecommunications underdog, even though Clear did next to nothing to provide real competition. When Clear entered the NZ market, the prices for international and national calls did NOT change for retail customers. $5 capped national calls were introduced by Telecom in response to competition from smaller operators, Clear copied this. Clear was hardly ever the innovator - Saturn Communications (which was bought by Telstra and then absorbed into Telstra Clear) was. It was looking to expand its local network across Auckland and into Hamilton, Dunedin and Tauranga, before cost and the moans of local authorities who didn't overhead cabling to be installed put paid to that idea.

When prices dropped, it was either because Telecom led it, or responded to reductions in prices from companies like Worldxchange and Compass Communications, Clear copied this. It has almost never been a price leader, the price leaders have either been Telecom or smaller operators.

I know this because I advised the government on telecommunications policy at the time! At no stage did Clear make a dent in the market based on price.

My other beef with Telstra Clear is the drop in standards of service. I was a Saturn customer when it laid its own network in Wellington (note to Telstra Clear – your OWN network, spend your money, build your own network then compete) and it provided an excellent phone, internet and cable tv service at a very reasonable price. The takeover by Telstra and the subsequent merge with Clear saw standards drop. On one occasion the weather damaged my phone line, and the company came out and changed the wires around so my second line (for the internet) had switched numbers with the first line. So people phoning me would get my computer and vice versa, and it took three weeks for them to fix it, after umpteen calls and the impudent bitch at the other end arguing that I had never called. On top of that, I found their switch to Voice of IP saw call quality drop so that I couldn’t always hear conversations to friends overseas. In short, the service became shockingly bad – even when I was leaving NZ, the company claimed to have sent me a pack to post my cable TV box in, but never did, even though I rang 3 times over 2 weeks asking where it was- the company said it was “my fault” because I apparently hadn’t checked my mail box (I had!).

Telstra Clear is not a typical private company trying to provide services with its own resources and compete in the market – it is a leech forever whinging about how it can’t compete because it doesn’t have access to its competitor’s network.

It accused Telecom of threatening the government that if forced to open up its own network to competitors, its share price would drop and it would have a negative effect on the economy.

Now it has come out that Telstra Clear has threatened that if the government does NOT do this, it is in breach of the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications negotiated with other countries under the aegis of the WTO. So why is it ok for Telstra Clear to lobby the government but not Telecom?

Besides which, Telstra Clear’s argument is utter bollocks. Why? Well for one, I was involved in the negotiations of that agreement at the WTO – the text was very carefully agreed and it does NOT require local loop unbundling. It does not prohibit countries from doing it, but it only requires interconnection.

On top of that, Telstra Clear talked utter bullshit claiming that the Australia-US free trade agreement requires local loop unbundling. It doesn’t.

Telstra Clear should butt out, and start doing what it is meant to do – compete. The service compared to Telecom is shocking – and I nearly switched to Telecom twice, and Telecom was only too willing to help me. Telstra Clear should provide good service, at good prices and win people over through their products and services. It has access to Telecom’s network at a wholesale level and for interconnection, it also has its own local network in the Auckland CBD, and through suburban Wellington and Christchurch.

However, here is my biggest complaint - Telstra Clear wont open up its network. If you are a Telstra Clear local customer, you cannot use any of its competitors, like IHUG or Worldxchange for toll calls – because Telstra Clear wont let its smaller competitors use its network. I tried, as an IHUG net customers to use IHUG for phone service, but Telstra Clear doesn't let it happen - Telecom does.

Fascists? Yes. It wants the state to effectively control private property rights of its biggest competitor, so that Telecom holds its property, but Telstra Clear can do what it wishes with its property.

That is why I am calling for libertarians and believers in free enterprise to boycott Telstra Clear – tell the company you don’t want to do business with anyone who does not believe in private property rights for anyone else other than themselves.

and Labour got this one right in refusing to listen to Telstra Clear's moans.

The immorality of executing drug dealers

BZP has commented on the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore, for the crime of trading in a banned substance. Yes I know that doing this through Singapore is a risk, and you take the risk when you do it - but I agree with BZP that what is particularly vile is Marc Alexander - former United Future MP, and one of the more sensible ones - agreeing with the view that drug dealing is like mass murder.

It isn't. Most people who take drugs are not addicts, they are people choosing to ingest a substance for their own pleasure. Most drug users do so occasionally for a certain period of their lives, and then drift away from it. Some are addicts, as there are alcoholics, addicts to gambling, porn and food. Those people need to help themselves, but just because they exist is not a reason to criminalise all of the others. Criminalisation also means that the quality and price go down and up respectively - many drug related health problems are related to the impurity of the drug.

However, for people like Marc Alexander a drug dealer - someone selling to a willing buyer - is no different to an executioner, someone applying force against another individual.

The Economist magazine some years ago stated, in essence, that drug use may not be smart or even safe, but that it is no reason to ban it.

Abolish Auckland City Council

Rodney Hide has announced he is resubmitting his private member’s bill on capping council rates increases to the rate of inflation, after reporting that Auckland City Council will be increasing rates by 55-196% over the next ten years.

Of course this was going to happen for three reasons:

1. Local government is full of petty bureaucrats and inexorably works to increase its size and influence. It is cancerous, it doesn’t seek to shrink.
2. Labour (and the then Alliance) and the Greens voted in 2001 to give local government a power of general (in)competence. This means that councils can get into whatever activity they wish, as long as they consult “the community”. Since most of “the community” spends its time working and living, and can’t be bothered responding to these consultation processes, most things councils do get rubber stamped. Council were set off the legal leash with the Local Government Act 2002.
3. The lefty council elected last year by Aucklanders is even more enamoured by more interference and more council spending – so Aucklanders made things even worse.

So there you have it – until local government is slashed to the bone, or better still, abolished it will grow and grow, like a tumour. Rodney’s Bill ought to be supported by the Nats and United Future (since United Future campaigned on abolishing GST on rates), so we should let NZ First argue in favour of growing local authority rates. You might ask National Party member and Auckland City Councillor Aaron Bhatnagar what he thinks - after all, Auckland City Council simply grew SLOWER under the Banks/CRN council that got voted out in 2004.

If Libertarianz were in Parliament, it would support the Bill too, although would be working on amendments to at least cap rates for ten years, if not slash them.

The truth is that rates shouldn’t be capped at inflation, councils need trimming, so they should have rates capped indefinitely, and prohibited from entering into any new activities and required to privatise (by whatever means) any businesses they operate.

User pays should apply to all services that can be charged that way practicably, and what is left to councils should be the remaining “public good” activities that are most difficult to shift to the private sector.

Within three years, Auckland City Council could have sold or given away shares in all businesses it is involved in, and sold all surplus property. Subsidies would have been abolished. User pays could apply wherever it could be practically implemented.

Within six years, Auckland City Council could have given to the voluntary sector all of its social activities, such as community centres and pools and parks. Activities unable to be operated by user pays would be transferred to the voluntary sector, or adjacent private property owners (e.g. trusts for footpaths).

Within nine years, the remaining planning functions of Auckland City Council could have been abolished, as property rights were granted in a wider range of factors (airspace, noise, pollution). Roads would be held by either body corporates for local streets or a company for major arterials - and the relevant owner would charge for road use.

See, Auckland City Council could be abolished within ten years.

and kneesocks would be compulsory for all women 18-35

Greens opposing more state violence?

Well, just to be fair to them, it appears the Greens have dropped the gun in one case – the regulation of dietary supplements. Now I suspect this is largely because of a warm fuzzy feeling the Greens have towards so-called natural remedies, you know all those extracts of plants, bugs and whatsoever that are vastly overpriced, and tend to do anything short of promise better sleep, fitness, sexual performance. The Greens don’t tend to like the pharmaceutical sector (all that science and cold hard analysis using chemicals), but like anyone who can take a lemon and make a cold and flu tablet out of it – forgetting that all substances are chemicals and just because it is natural, doesn’t mean it is good for you. Uranium, arsenic and lead are all very natural and pure.

Sue Kedgley is right, regulating dietary supplements through a proposed Trans-Tasman Therapeutics Goods Agency is not in New Zealand’s interests. It would be a highly bureaucratic system with huge compliance costs. A better approach would be to return to the right to sue (tort law not Kedgley) and opening ACC up to competition, so that producers of dietary supplements that sell products that are negligently harmful can be held to account.

Unfortunately, Sue having dropped the gun for the big bureaucracy, is still holding a baton when she says that “we can begin work on a sensible, New Zealand-based scheme to improve the regulation of dietary supplements”. Imagine there’s no regulation, it’s easy if you try, no bureaucrats or authorities, above us only sky.