Peak Oil right?

Oil below US$90 a barrel according to CNN.

It's basic economics. The US, European and Japanese economies are stagnant, demand for oil has dropped as the high price suppresses demand globally, demand for Chinese exports has dropped, reducing economic growth there. So with less demand for oil, the price drops. Those hurt now are those, such as some airlines, who hedged jetfuel prices to be getting higher.

Inflation drops, and relief appears for motorised transport users.

The oil age wont end due to a lack of oil. It also doesn't need anyone thieving more of your money to subsidise alternatives.

Bush couldn't get elected - 2000

For those who think McCain is finished, here is an article from Slate in 2000 about why Bush couldn't get elected against Gore.

(Hat Tip - Tim Blair)

Tax cuts for whom?

Before Idiot Savant talks about National “looting the state for the benefit of their rich mates” shouldn’t the following be made clear?

According to the Treasury website, in 2007, those on the top income tax rate of 39% comprise only 14% of taxpayers (remember when Labour said it would be 5%?) but they pay 49% of all income tax. Nearly half of all income tax is collected from those earning more than NZ$60,000 per annum – itself a fairly paltry sum, especially for anyone raising a family.

That’s the rich – the ones actually paying for the state. Go to those earning more than NZ$90,000 and you find that is only 4% of taxpayers, and they pay 31% of income tax.

By contrast, 52% of the population earning less than NZ$30k (and not those earning nothing – e.g. children with no savings accounts) paid only 16% of all income tax.

So if the Nats miraculously got rid of the 39% top tax rate, as is ACT and Libertarianz policy, it would be handing back part of the money earned by those who pay 49% of all income tax.

Besides the point that someone who loots you (the state) can hardly be looting anyone when it gives you back your money in the first place – but even if the Nats DID cut taxes for the “rich”, it would hardly be giving money to those who hadn’t paid it in the first place would it?

Imagine an election slogan - love the rich - they pay half of all income tax already, pay to keep the same number of people and their families clothed, fed, housed, emi-educated and given healthcare, and are those most able to leave.

Imagine moreso, what would happen if that 14% left tomorrow?

The disappearance of half of all income tax revenue and 20% of all tax revenue would the least of your worries - think of all the occupations of those so hated by the left for being "rich". Think of what the economy might look like.

Post 1500

Well it has been three years since I started blogging, meaning I have blogged, on average, more than one post a day. My main inclination was to have an outlet for my endless rants on global, NZ and UK politics, and it has grown a little bigger than that. It is intended to reflect my own profound beliefs in personal freedom, the role of the state and belief in reason and that the highest value is life, and the pursuit of the enjoyment of it - within the bounds of reason and respecting the same right in others.

You see my views on both the NZ and US elections are influenced by that set of beliefs. It starts, you see, with values. My highest value is life - the protection of life, and the enhancemet of it. I don't believe my life exists for anyone else, nor should anyone else's. Your life is yours, and you should enjoy it, as much as you can, as long as you do not interfere with the right of others to do the same.

You see this is where rights come in. Your right to life is fundamental, and in order to realise that life your body is owned by you - it carries life and is your greatest instrument, because it contains your brain. So you must control what your body does, what you ingest and your interactions with other bodies Quid pro quo that others have no right to your body.

So your right to life means your right to control your body, and those rights end with other people's bodies.

Of course you can't survive with body alone, for human beings to survive they need to apply their brains to the environment, and collect, farm, hunt or otherwise produce. So you need to have the right to what you produce - that is called property rights. So you have a right to not have your property stolen or vandalised.

So the right to life means your right to control your body and your property.

Now to maximise your life you almost certainly need to interact with others, but the only person who best knows your interest is you. So all of your interaction should be voluntary. Surely you should own what you produce, and trade on terms and conditions that are mutually agreed.

Reason is the means by which human beings must survive. You can't escape it. Faith wont work. Reason is why human beings know how to hunt, how to farm, how to trade, transport, how to combat disease, prevent disease - how to live longer, how to have enough time for leisure.

The antithesis of reason is force. Force is the tool of the murderer, rapist, thief and government. It is the tool of the censor, the warmongerer, the bureaucrat. Force denies debate, discussion or agreement.

So it is important for people to be protected from force. That is the right to self defence. However, when people commit crimes of initiating force or fraud, it often isn't clear who the perpetrator was, and that person needs to be caught, and tried. That is what government is for- to protect citizens from each other. It arbitrates disputes on contracts, it provides the objective legal framework that clearly delineates rights of property, contracts and relationships.

Anything beyond that by government is the initiation of force. It isn't human beings interacting voluntarily. Democracy isn't that either, it is the counting of votes for who you want to govern - it doesn't give a right to take away the rights of others to not have force initiated against them.

This is why I am a libertarian and an objectivist. I believe all adult human interaction should be voluntary - it doesn't mean I agree with it all, or like it, but it does mean that, fundamentally, what consenting adults do personally, contractually or in trade is not my business.

That's why I despise the cheerful statism of the Greens and the Labour Party, both loving how government can "do" things, meaning use force to make people pay for what they otherwise wouldn't choose to pay for, or to make people do things or ban them from doing things that, fundamentally, are not about initiating force or fraud. National ought to be opposed to this, but it is not much different, ACT is somewhat - but it isn't consistently committed to individual freedom.

So I'll be blogging from THAT perspective - the one that says freedom matters, whether it makes you uncomfortable, or whether it reveals failures in our current set of property rights (public nudity being one), or whether it means you have to convince people to care for others. It's a different way of thinking - the idea that you can't just force change on people - but you need to convince them - and that you can't force people to pay for things, you have to convince people.

Next time you get a chance to ask a politician about a policy ask him or her, why do you have to make people do this? Why can't you convince them, and if you can't, why is it moral to use force?

NZ First launches campaign

One truth about NZ politics has been to never write off Winston Peters, he's not going down without a fight, and he didn't in every election he fought on his own. So his launch of the NZ First campaign is the lifeline he is hoping to grab to save his political career - because have no two ways about it, without Winston Peters, NZ First will be like the Alliance without Jim Anderton, a tiny rump ready to fade away.

So Winston has launched his campaign.

NZ First is playing the nationalist card par excellence now with a curious range of policies.

- Cutting GST to 10% and having a tax free income tax threshold of NZ$5,200. (Both of which I agree with of themselves, obviously);
- Cut immigration (immigrants make many talkback callers feel inferior because many are better educated, harder working and use better English than locals. This is just unabashed xenophobia);
- Renationalisation by choice, with the state setting up a fund for the public to invest in to "buy back" "strategic assets" (nationalism with socialism, but in a more liberal form - after all, Labour just renationalises with taxes);
- Restrict foreign investment (depressing prices for businesses and restricting capital investment);
- Engage in trade protectionism (inflating prices and deflating quality and choice for consumers. It's a bluff of course, as New Zealand can hardly reverse its low tariffs without being hurt by retaliatory measures by other countries under WTO rules).

So it's "fear the foreigners and stand strong, buy NZ made and buy back assets from foreigners".

However, NZ First has some other messages, some sane, some sinister.

He talks some basic simple sense about Maori:

"Real Maori men do not beat up women and children. They do not feed drugs to young people. They do not hang out in gangs that prey on the weak and defenceless. They do not sell their teenage sisters and girlfriends into prostitution. And the Maori women we know nurture and protect their young. They do not mistreat them."

Though not one policy on this.

"We’ve been told that it is not important to win, and that it’s good to hug a tree." An inkling of sense in this, but he hasn't really got the point, and when he said "We’ve been taught not to compete and that boys and girls are exactly the same." you wonder how different he thinks boys and girls are? Sexism after all is irrational and nonsensical.

"why are government and local body accounts with foreign banks, so they can clip the ticket on every transaction." It's the Jews Winston, the Jews run the world. Maybe they offer better deals than the locally owned ones for those bodies? Maybe New Zealand owned and operated isn't always offering everyone the best deal?

"We will protect your investments and savings by providing a government guarantee to approved financial institutions like Kiwibank and the Taranaki Savings Bank.
We’re going to guarantee deposits up to $100,000 in NZ owned banks." This would be contrary to WTO commitments, but joins the lunacy of the Europeans all of which offer taxpayer guarantees for banks. Given Kiwibank is state owned is should be rather obvious, but TSB? Why? It is a good bank, I am a TSB bank customer and have found it to be so, but it does not need a government guarantee. Indeed that would be a reason to withdraw my funds.

"New Zealand First is going to use the States credit and loan facilities to drive interest rates dramatically down. We will stop this vacuuming of over $4 billion per year profit to foreign owned banks." Heh heh heh, Rob Muldoon is alive and well. So Winston after doing that, which no sane government will ever let you do, you plan on price freezes to combat the massive inflationary effect? Or have you joined Social Credit (maybe Winston is after the 0.05% Democrats for Social Credit got in 2005?)

"after decades of National and Labour governments you are living in a country with scores of imported cultures, some with no respect for normal human values." The imported cultures shouldn't be feared of course, but yes a handful have no respect for values such as non-violence. Winston means the handful of Islamists who abuse women and children, does he? He could mean the Pacific Islanders who beat up their wives and kids. He could have just focused on people needing to respect our laws, but no - he's playing his dusty old race card isn't he?

So we are back the old formula, keep the foreigners out, keep the foreigners' money out, keep the foreign made goods and services out, and spend taxpayers' money on the elderly and on subsidising export led businesses. It's Muldoon all over again.

Winston's finest moment was in 1996, when as the third party with 13.4% of the vote and 17 MPs he was the kingmaker, and after Jim Bolger and Helen Clark acting like the town sluts seeking to seduce Winston into bed, Winston picked Bolger. That coalition lasted two years, was the downfall of Jim Bolger, and saw Winston face the 1999 election barely scraping by thanks to a handful of people in Tauranga. 4.3% in 1999 was followed by 10.4% in 2002, as National was forlornly led by Bill English and Winston was seen as the only Opposition. It took a determined National Party to fight back in 2005, with NZ First down to 5.7% and Winston losing Tauranga.

Tauranga looks like a lost cause again, and it really will be a case of whether the recent scandal over Winston's alleged obfuscation of party funding will cost him enough votes to drop below 5%. National is counting on NZ First not being elected, otherwise it wouldn't have ruled it out of any post election deal (we all know the Nats are political whores par excellence, as can be seen in 1998-1999). However, we should not forget that NZ First has been the party of government for the last three years. Labour has depended on NZ First support for confidence and supply, taxation, spending and almost everything it has done.

It isn't over yet though. Winston Peters has a habit of capturing enough media attention to waken up the handful of neurons inside his supporters heads, and enough might just tick the box to keep the party above 5%. Prolonged media scrutiny plays into his hands as would any TV debates, where he tends to perform quite well.

I want NZ First gone - it is probably the political party that more want out of Parliament than any other - it is perhaps the least intelligent, most populist driven and conspiracy driven party in Parliament. It suits nutters basically.

However it is worth noting one point - the Greens and NZ First basically agree with each other on trade, foreign investment and state owned businesses. That's the inconvenient truth the Greens would never ever admit to.