You're buying some trains!

Yes according to the Dominion Post, NZ$115 million, partly made up of new locomotives, from the centre of excellence - China. Partly 17 "new" (secondhand ex. British) carriages to replace the ones for the long distance passenger services.

No you wont get a free ride on the trains, because although you own it, the vagaries of "public" ownership of the means of distribution means you have none of the benefits of private property ownership, and all of the costs of it. Now the carriages were already committed by Dr. Cullen, and to be fair if you split out the long distance passenger business, the TranzAlpine express is a profitable service that returns enough to pay for new trains. The TranzCoastal (Picton-Christchurch is more marginal), and the Overlander (Wellington-Auckland) we all know is probably at best breaking even on operating costs (with the drop in tourism hurting it).

This isn't helped by Green MPs virtually never using the services for travelling around the country.

Of course it also means that Kiwirail's competitors are not only subsidising the infrastructure, but now the motive power behind the trains. Think truck tractor units will be subsidised? Of course not.

What I found disturbing was that a new Treasury run infrastructure unit would "develop a 20year plan ranking projects according to their economic benefit". Given the first thing that has been approved are a bunch of locomotives, I wouldn't be trusting the evaluation of economic benefit for one moment.

If this unit approves electrification of Auckland's commuter rail network then it will be transparently clear that the appraisal methodology is nonsensical.

If this unit IS going to do good, perhaps it should also appraise based on "will the government spend this money better than the taxpayer" and "does this spending crowd out the private sector in the same sector". Then the unit will spend little time saying "no" and "yes" at least 90% of the time.

Bill, it's simple. The railway should borrow money itself to invest in capital that will generate a return on investment. OnTrack should develop an open access regime so that others can operate on the railway. The roads should be commercialised, and the power companies should raise capital privately. Give Telecom back its private property rights and amend your RMA reform to focus on private property rights. There is nothing else the government can do to assist in the development of infrastructure beyond getting the hell out of the way. Cutting company tax to 20% would be a good first step

Stuff the Times?

Hmm. Stuff now looks a bit like the Guardian website, or the Times website, or the Independent website. Well the headline fonts anyway.

What's that about? And will the Fairfax newspapers in New Zealand start collectively having content that even approaches the Times? (even the Guardian, commie rag as it is, has more quality content - and at least everyone KNOWS it is a leftwing paper, it doesn't pretend to be otherwise).

When the Church endorses grand theft

As one of my eccentric interests, I like to read about the peculiarities of dictatorships around the world. They are a great lesson in what to watch out for, and how not to run countries, and the stories that come from the excesses are often too ridiculous for fiction.

The two common themes of most dictatorships are theft and murder. Most combine both, it is merely a matter of scale. Some do more murder than theft, Pol Pot and Hitler being good examples of that. However some do more theft than murder.

Dictators take money from citizens through taxation, through appropriation of land, appropriation of businesses, granting privileges and monopolies to their own businesses and raiding aid budgets, as well as sly deals with foreign companies as pay offs to trade with nationalised industries. What they do with that money can defy the imagination.

So what has that got to do with the Vatican? Well the picture above is of the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire, with it standing out clearly on Google Earth. It is listed as the largest church in the world by the Guinness Book of Records. It could merely have been a monument to the more thieving and relatively less murdering autocrat Félix Houphouët-Boigny, President of Côte d'Ivoire from 1960 to 1993 when he died, with an estimated personal wealth of over US$7 billion.

The Basilica reflected his mad project in 1983 in shifting the capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro. It was a small agricultural town until he had built a series of large buildings and a airport capable of handling Concorde charters. The Basilica cost US$300 million in 1985 values, and took four years to build. Interesting for a country with a per capita GDP (PPP)of US$1,736 per annum, a literacy rate of just over 50%, and the 19th highest infant mortality rate in the world according to the CIA World Factbook. The Basilica is built of imported marble, and sits essentially in the middle of a jungle.

So what, an African dictator wasted money.

Well the Vatican didn't need to consecrate it (French - translated here). To give him his due, Pope John Paul II required that the government promise to build a hospital nearby before he would consecrate it. He laid the founding stone, which lays to this day as all that has been built of the hospital. Not that this would have made it ok - it is grand larceny. This behemoth of a building, is a grotesque palace paid for by thieving the wealth of the country, of people with an average life expectancy of 49 years. For the Vatican to essentially brush that to one side, and claim to be the bastion of morality for the globe is so ludicrously amusing if it weren't ignoring the tragic consequences. Even had the hospital been built, it wouldn't excuse this grand waste.

The Pope's dedication clearly endorses it:

" Par le Chef de l’Etat, cette basilique a été édifiée en hommage à Notre-Dame, en hommage au Christ rédempteur qui appelle tous les hommes à se rassembler dans l’unité de son Corps"

Treating it as if Houphouët-Boigny built it, then says by HIS generosity the social centre is being built next to it:

Et aussi, grâce à la générosité de Monsieur Félix Houphouët-Boigny, un centre social, la Fondation internationale Notre-Dame de la Paix

This is a church that according to Wikipedia:

"the president commissioned a stained glass window of his image to be placed beside a gallery of stained glass of Jesus and the apostles. This image of Félix Houphouët-Boigny depicts him as one of the three Biblical Magi, kneeling as he offers a gift to Jesus"

Imagine what a boost Houphouët-Boigny got by having essentially Vatican endorsement, not only for building the church, but also being a generous guy, with a quasi-religious Biblical significance!

No doubt the Vatican believed the thieving demagogue President when he said it would be a bullwark against Islam and animist religions. After all, that's what's important in the world isn't it? When Time magazine asked the Vatican about the money it said it was the President's money and land and "The size and expense of the building in such a poor country make it a delicate matter. But it is a project close to the President's heart, and he sees it as an experience of faith. We want to respect that."

Now you see what the Roman Catholic Church respects - the thieving of a poor nation by its faithful autocratic Catholic President, and the building of a monument to him with such money. Shame the Pope couldn't have simply consecrated some small modest building instead, as an act of defiance and protest, and asked for the people of Yamoussoukro to get a reticulated clean water supply and sewage system instead. That would only save lives not souls though.

Cromwell Crown Hotel London? Don't even think about it

Look it up on Google you'll see the website, you'll see numerous sites with the description of it being innocuous.

No.

This is a shithole, probably the dirtiest hotel in Britain according to the Sunday Times AND Trip Advisor. Surely the highlights of that review are:

"Most impressive is the smell. I’ve never come across anything quite like it — a swirling, gag-inducing mix of sweat and industrial-strength disinfectant, with elusive top notes of spice and decay"

"The mattress was a step into another, stomach-churning world: the eventful history of its long, long life was catalogued in a Jackson Pollock of bodily fluids. Among many other things, it looked as if someone had opened a vein in that bed. I wouldn’t have blamed them. "

"I decided to watch TV until unconsciousness arrived. The ancient set didn’t seem to work, though, so I felt back along the wire to make sure it was plugged in properly. Bad move. As I groped under the chipped MDF dressing table, I touched the plug — and the back cover promptly fell off, leaving the live wires exposed to my wandering fingers. There’s nothing like a 240-volt shock to put things in perspective."

"The phone by my elbow — yes, there is a phone — is encrusted with muck, as if a succession of people have jabbered into it while eating peanuts."

Now I might say anyone expecting much for £55 a night in London is having a laugh, but while you can expect small and basic, you should expect clean and safe. The Cromwell Crown is, quite possibly, the worst hotel in London. You cannot get a good deal to stay here.

Time to set students free

Clint Heine blogs about the next attempt to free membership of student unions from the absurd half-arsed legislation at the moment, whereby the majority of those who vote to compel all others to join a student union, regardless of whether or not that association represents their values.

It is a very simple issue, one that so clearly out the "we know what's best for you" authoritarian bullying of so many on the left. It is violence of a quite sinister kind to say you can't buy education from a university, without joining an organisation that does nothing that interests you and which represents the opposite of your views. However, I guess given that student unions have so often been the training grounds for Labour and Green party MPs, kind of makes it ok to force everyone to belong right?

Those that proclaim freedom of association suddenly go "oh um student unions are different". They argue "student unions provide lots of services for students", which of course you could say about ALL unions, or indeed most voluntary associations. The student union could simply exclude participation from those who aren't members, it's not that hard, and hardly an excuse to force people to belong to something they don't want to join. They argue "students advocate for students", which surely should be up to students. I could argue Libertarianz advocates for all individuals. Communist parties claim to represent all workers. The Maori Party no doubt claims to look after the interests of Maori.

Student unions could be organisations that provide facilities for students and advocate for them at the university, and make life at university more interesting. Most do some of that, but they also become rallying points for left wing activists. I was sick of student unions claiming to represent my views when they never did - they got 10% of students voting, and were chronic mismanagers of other people's money.

However, none of that actually matters. What matters is that you are not forced to join an association if you don't want to. Student unions should have to convince people to join them, not force them.

If you can't understand why force is wrong, then maybe I should take some money off you once a year, and tell you that you've joined an organisation you didn't want to join, and that it now represents you.

ACT'S Voluntary Student Membership Bill should be supported as government policy.

I did ask a while ago that all National candidates should be asked whether or not they support voluntary membership of university student unions.

ACT's bill will be a perfect way to out those National MPs who are lily livered wimps, that don't believe in freedom of association. Which is why John Key should declare it is party policy - let those who don't support it show themselves. Let's hope I am wrong, and none exist, after all, what better way to undermine one of the best force funded training schools of the Labour Party than to stop making students pay for them if they don't want to.