The anti-Obama strategy that will fail

Giving a damn about his middle name being Hussein
Giving a damn about him being an Arab or African-American or whatever.

At the most this will pander to conservatives who are bigoted xenophobes, with little substance behind why Obama should be opposed. It will shore up the leftwing liberals who respond badly to such doggerell, so it is NOT manna for Republicans.

What DOES matter is that he is leftwing, his economic policies are blatantly anti-free trade and pro-big government. His talk is mostly rhetoric and little substance.

Obama as a President is most likely to be a disaster for New Zealand, as he will have little interest in promoting a liberalisation agenda at the WTO that persuades global abolition of agricultural export subsidies, removal of non-tariff barriers to agricultural imports and moving towards free trade of agricultural commodities.

That is why New Zealanders should, grit their teeth, and hope Hillary wins in Ohio and Texas tomorrow.

Herald nearly a month late on this one

First A380 services to New Zealand

yes I reported that on 8 February Grant Bradley.

By the way, Singapore Airlines is ending its Boeing 747 service to Auckland on 11 May 2008. They get replaced with smaller Boeing 777-300ERs. That isn't a bad thing. The new 777-300ERs have the same new business and economy class of the A380s, and still have first class.

Browningrad?

The swing to the left under Gordon Brown has been modest, but every week or so something new comes along to remind me that the UK is governed by the LABOUR party. A party that thrives on envy, and is willing to slip back into the bad old ways if it is about being popular.

Today two examples of this:

First, according to the Sunday Times, Gordon Brown preparing to put "drastic curbs" on second home ownership, largely to stop people buying weekend pads in rather nice rural villages. This appeals directly to the anti tall poppy "eh uup" constituency that wouldn't think it is "fair" that someone is successful enough to buy a second home. You know, the people who Labour would have trapped in council houses, on the bottom tax rate and forever being reminded that if it weren't for Labour, they would be starving, without health care and the like - the ones Labour LIKES having dependent on the state.

Brown is apparently going to recommend that local authorities - the bastion of petty fascism - prevent "outsiders" (in German it would be "auslanders"!) from buying houses that they wouldn't make their permanent residence. I mean, the audacity of such people, and those selling them to such people! Councils could refuse permission to buy! Interfering directly in a voluntary exchange between buyer and seller.

Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor, showing how illiberal and fascist he really is said “In some communities, 30%, 40% or 50% of the village is dark most of the year. It raises huge issues for the sustainability of the community.” Does it Matthew? Huge issues for who? I guess those who sold the houses don't count, or the people who bought them. Maybe you'd like to buy them instead with your money?

All of this ignores the economics. Doing this will reduce property prices and returns for those CURRENTLY owning properties, it wont encourage more construction and will hardly ensure "communities are sustainable" whatever that means.

Secondly, the Sunday Times reports on the inevitable envy ridden backlash against energy companies, which have been ordered to hand over part of their profits or face a windfall tax by Gordon Brown. Apparently those who invest in energy companies, wisely at a time of increasing demand, don't deserve the proceeds more than the grim, slow moving, inefficient, wasteful behemoth of a state. They should, of course, tell the government to go away, nicely. They are being asked to subsidise the gas and electricity of the poorest. They might ask the government a few points:
- Why does the government continue to levy VAT at over 17.5% on many goods and services for everyone, why can't it cut taxes to help those it cares about?
- If energy companies don't make large returns at times of high demand and short supply, how will they afford to invest in sourcing new energy supplies?
- How does subsidising the price of energy encourage people to use it more efficiently?
- Why doesn't the government reduce regulatory restrictions and compliance costs on competition between energy companies and figure out how, if there are windfall profits, why companies don't compete so much on price?

Thanks Big Sister, we really need you

Big Sister Cindy "Kim Jong" Kiro has spent your money urging you to spend time with the family.

However it isn't YOUR family or YOUR kids, she notably never says that. She does say "our children" in the context of "she's a parent so she's one of us".

It shouldn't fool you. Cindy Kiro wants to nationalise the raising of children, by having a Stalinist style monitoring of every child, and a plan for every child authorised by the state from cradle till whenever. This warm and otherwise benign press release is unnecessary, but paints a picture of the Childrens' Commissioner have a useful role - when she has none. She undoubtedly cares a lot for children and abhors child abuse - hardly controversial. However, she thinks we are ALL responsible for this. This justifies her call for Orwellian monitoring of children including:

Planned assessment at key life stages, including early childhood, primary and secondary school entry, and moving to tertiary education or employment and training opportunities, is a key component of the framework. The assessment will take into account the whole child; their physical, social, educational, emotional, and psychological development.

She is either ignorant of the evils of totalitarianism, or an advocate of it! Simply, how fucking dare she call for children of responsible, loving, non-abusive parents have their kids monitored by the state?

She dilutes the blame by being unable to confront the truth - the problem is abusive families, no others. There are thousands of children barely being parented at all. Their teachers know this, and no doubt also do neighbours, distant family members and the like. THAT is where the state effort should be, as part of the criminal justice system. It is about intervening when there IS abuse, not watching everyone else. Yes, it will mean intervening in a higher proportion of Maori households than others, because it is disproportionately a problem with families of Maori background.

So no Cindy Kiro. Parents will decide what they want to do childrens' day, some will be working to pay taxes to fund your well about average income and the big nanny state you warmly embrace - think how much more time the parents might spend with their kids if they didn't need to work so hard to pay taxes (for you and the state) as well as earn a living. The children living in New Zealand are not "ours", they are not a shared responsibility. They are the responsibility of their parents and guardians, and they should be accountable when they abuse or neglect their children. If you were to do ANY justice to your job you'd stop making blanket statement about everyone, and focus on CYPFS and support efforts to intervene when there is demonstrable abuse and neglect. You would also work to deny custody of children from those who are convicted of abusing kids, permanently. Instead of monitoring all families, how about breaking up the ones that are destructive and stopping those who are from being near kids.

To be fair, Dr. Kiro is not an apologist for child bashing unlike one blogger who wants says "the structural issues which leave people so broken that they torture a three year-old", in other words "capitalism makes people torture a toddler".

Greens Canadaphobic

Sue Kedgley is at it again, hysterically trying to ban something. This time the sale of private shares in Auckland airport to a (wait for it, it is horrifying and disgusting) FOREIGN company. Those wogs (well they are Canadian, but they are foreign, so they must be inferior) can't be allowed to have "our" airport (well actually it is owned by the shareholders, but Sue doesn't understand property rights), I mean after all, think what they could do. They might want it to run efficiently, at a profit, encouraging people to use it and that would NEVER do.

Sue's press release on this says "The Green Party sees no reason why a Canadian pension fund should be allowed to gain control of the gateway to New Zealand"

Well I see no reason why it shouldn't? Why is a Canadian pension fund less of a good owner than a New Zealand pension fund, or local government, or central government (remember Wellington airport when it was majority government owned?)? Sue doesn't say, just apparently as long as the Green Party doesn't see a reason to allow something, it should be banned.

Then she goes on a little to suggest that "New Zealand cannot afford the economic, environmental, biosecurity and security risks of letting control of our main aviation gateway pass into foreign hands"

What are these Sue? Economic risks. Hmmm that it will be efficiently run, will seek to encourage passengers and airlines to operate there. Are you concerned about monopoly pricing? Well apparently not since the Green Party opposes outright Whenuapai being developed as a second airport.

Environmental risks? What are the Canadians going to do Sue? Use the airport as a toxic waste dump? Encourage less fuel efficient planes to fly in? I mean those Canadians are such environmental vandals.

Biosecurity risks? Oh yes, apparently they will take over the MAF role too will they Sue? Or the Canadians will just let it rip on foreign plagues of insects and plants to ravish our countryside.

Security risks? Yes they'll let those Canadian terrorists in to hijack planes, or Canadian thieves to steal luggage.

Not a single rational reason to stop the sale, other than xenophobic hysteria.

Blame Canada, with their evil little eyes and their heads that flap with lies.

Bloody hell Sue, take some pills and get some therapy, it's not nice to discriminate against those from other countries.