Why is Slovakia not financially bereft?

Simple.

Slovak's borrowed more prudently. Slovak banks lended more prudently.

Was it due to regulation?

No. Slovakia has a fairly deregulated economy, with flat income and company tax.

So says Slovak university students in Bratislava, who largely support the free market and are worried that the rural majority will want to go back to centrally planned socialism. This is from the BBC!

Its main challenge is the collapse in car exports, since it had a booming car assembly industry thanks to lower wages and hard working employees. So it is far from immune, and has seen economic growth plummet - but its financial sector is sound. No talk of bank bailouts at all.

The BBC on Ayn Rand

This time it was Newsnight on Friday night, the culture segment chose to review Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The episode is here, which probably cannot be watched outside the UK, but give it a go (get past the Vince Cable nonsense first and the Rand bit finishes at about 12 minutes). Why is it mentioned? Because sales have taken off.

Now I criticise the book in only two points. Firstly, it IS too long. It makes the same point repeatedly, which to me (given I already was an objectivist when I read it) was unnecessary. Secondly, it became increasingly predictable what would happen . As such I much prefer The Fountainhead, although Atlas Shrugged is a great tale, it was one which had an outcome I expected. Many better written books exist, but still it makes an important point.

What would happen if the inventors and producers DID go on strike?

It starts with Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute explaining the point of Atlas Shrugged and does so well. However, then Kirsty Wark is generally annoying, but to get Ayn Rand mentioned on the BBC is an achievement in itself. However, it was Rosie Boycott, who was once editor of the Express (barely a step beyond a tabloid rag) who missed the point of the book, and so described it as "full of Aryan heroes" which was disturbing.

The BBC showed it was completely incapable of getting a panel on its show of people with differing points of view - NOBODY who supported Rand was presented.

More disturbing is Boycott didn't bother to investigate Rand's own history as a refugee from totalitarianism, a Jew and a despiser of all forms of fascism. Boycott, who has edited the Independent and the Express (neither known for either being that independent or clever), is a Liberal Democrat, and, and it was "dehuman". "Nobody in the book is vulnerable and human. Every transaction is financial", which of course is total nonsense as well.

The swarmy Andrew Roberts, a historian, said "you simply can't abolish income tax and sack government employees" which is nonsense. The narrowness of this view is astonishing. He calls her a strange if not mad woman, who was chucked out of every political organisation she tried to join.

Sarfraz Manzoor (A Guardian writer) criticises it as lacking humanity and any doubt. all heroes are individuals, but in the real world most things are done as teams. He sees it is too easy to blame government intervention, when it should be the lack of intervention that is the issue.

So there you have it - the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation bringing on three people who largely agree with each other who think radical free market capitalism can't be defended, and that Rand was mad and dehumanising.

Looking forward to the debate the BBC has on whether people who disagree with it should be forced to pay for it - nope, wont be hearing that one soon.

Green emotional twaddle about public transport

Now I know the Greens worship public transport as a religion, associated with the railway obsession. It is based on the notion that it is better to force people to pay for others moving than to let people face the real costs of the transport choices they make. Forget the environment or the economy, because the truth of the environmental impacts of subsidising more public transport doesn't bear close scrutiny - after all, those buses and trains spent a lot of time sitting idle or running nearly empty in the counterpeak direction.

I'm more concerned about this nonsense from Frog Blog:

"I used to drive to work along a route that encompassed urban streets, motorway and rural roads.

It was a journey of fear.

Almost every day there was a dangerous road-rage type event. Other drivers tailgating so close you couldn’t even see their headlights, people coming straight from the motorway on ramp on to the fast lane, so I had to brake heavily to avoid a collision. Other drivers changing lanes without indicating."

Car commuting in New Zealand a journey of fear? Oh please! Try driving in Cairo or Beijing! One wonders if frog was such a bad driver that the tailgating was from people sick of the driver sitting in the fast lane and not moving over. Changing lanes without indicating? Yes, it's rude but that's it.

Then this "Life is all about making connections. It’s vital we increase our capability to make those connections." Well yes, but why the hell should I have to pay for your "connections"? If you live, work and play in different places, why don't YOU pay for how you get there? Isn't the most green option NOT using transport at all?

"It’s a strange world indeed when your plane ticket is cheaper than the taxi ride to the airport" No, it is what happens on a long taxi ride for a short flight on a competitive route. Planes are public transport after all. Presumably when you next fly First Class to London, you wont find the taxi ride price an issue.

Then the Greens get into how wonderful public transport is: "Smart people already know the economic and environmental benefits of public transport, but there’s also an emotional pay-off. Instead of driving to work seething with righteous anger at the stupidity of one’s fellow motorists, one can let someone else do the driving, relax with a book or newspaper and feel part of the community, rather than shut off from others."

Yes, that's right. Someone else driving (though virtually never from your origin to destination), relax with a book, if you're not standing and feel part of the community, sitting beside strangers, people who don't bathe, people sneezing. Riding public transport is "being part of the community" now. Virtually everyone on public transport would rather get a taxi ride, than undertake this experience. It's the same on planes. I'd rather be in a Singapore Airlines Suite cabin than sit in cattle class with "the community".

Most people treat public transport as a necessary evil, when driving isn't available, cheaper or faster. It is tolerated as the best choice given alternatives. However, if driving is cheaper and faster, most prefer its flexibility, door to door service and comfort, and get to know the community by their own means.

TVNZ's trivia

The whole Stephanie Mills moustache incident raises two simple points:

1. How the media, including Paul Henry, is willing to talk about a Houstache (well Cactus Kate coined it so why not use the term), but not the drivel being spouted from the mouth directly below it. THAT is what is truly disturbing

2. The anger surrounding what is a rather childish pointing out of what is true.

Paul Henry seemed very agitated about it. He doesn't go to Wellington enough, Wellington has many women with facial hair. Each to their own of course. It's like men with facial hair, it's absolutely vile to me (I presume most men with it couldn't give a damn about what i think anyway) and I am slightly less trusting of ANYONE with facial hair. It's rarer for women to have facial hair, so I assume (since I've spent most of my life shaving facial hair daily) it is a choice, and the person with it likes it that way.

Whether to comment on it or not is another point. However, in a free liberal society the choice to do so should not be restricted, neither should be the choice to respond.

The Hand Mirror is understandably upset, because a woman is being judged on her appearance, not what she said. Catherine Delahunty equally so spouting nonsense that "She must never think that her work, her achievements, her wisdom and her analysis will be enough to be respected. Not unless she looks like Barbie" forgetting Margaret Thatcher went through much much worse, was treated appallingly by the Conservative Party, and changed so much. Of course, she doesn't count, I've yet to see too many "Barbie like" successful women in politics or business.

So how about this, wouldn't it be nice if Paul Henry ripped into Stephanie Mills for talking sheer nonsense next time? Oh and it's funny how Alison Mau is being seen as a kind of hero for finding Henry's behaviour vile, when she is hardly a journalist of any calibre.

The enemy marches on London

For many protesting the upcoming G20 summit in London, it was a chance to vent frustration at the recession. They are blaming free market economics (where?), the stupid lending behaviour by banks (which they presumably wouldn't want to let fold), and the government for not regulating people borrowing and lending. Reports that it is an unprecedented coalition of various groups are absolute nonsense. It is the usual group of statists, adding a bunch of destroyers (anarchists) as well.

Let's take what some are saying:
Actionaid: "We urge the G20 to lift the veil of secrecy that makes it easy for companies to avoid tax. This would allow developing countries to claim the money that they are owed, so they can use it to build hospitals, dig wells and employ teachers" In other words more government and NO idea about the corruption and theft that developing country governments engage in.
Trade Union Congress: Wants a fairer and greener place. Fair means "take money from those who have it to give to those who don't". Given this organisation spent a good part of its history promoting the progressive Sovietisation of the UK economy, it hardly has credibility.
Save the Children: Wants to take more money from you for the poor. No idea how to create it of course.
Stop Climate Chaos Coalition: Wants to take more money from you to subsidise "green jobs" and "low carbon economies", presumably like Cuba and North Korea. Ignoring how much a recession kills off consumption of carbon based fuels.
Plan: Wants governments to listen to what young people have to say, which typically is "spend more money from the magic money bank", until they get jobs and start appreciating where governments take money from.
Salvation Army: Wants to take more money from you for the poor.
WWF: An organisation you thought was about wildlife, actually wants "equity", so wants more of your money taken.
CND: Wants disarmament, implicitly wants NATO expansion against Russian imperialist threats to stop (I thought it's funding from Moscow ended years ago). Vile sympathisers for authoritarianism.
Stop the War Coalition: Another vile far leftwing sympathiser group for Islamist terrorists.
It has long wanted to leave Iraq to Islamist terror groups, leave Afghanistan to the Taliban, let Israel be overrun by Hizbollah and Hamas and engage in unilateral nuclear disarmament.
British Muslim Initiative: See Stop the War Coalition.

None of this mob say what they want, other than to thieve more with the tax system, and withdraw militarily from the world.

More disconcerting are the anarchists who explicitly call to "Make Capitalism History". These angry little children want to storm banks and start a revolution.

Their "manifesto" is described on a website as follows:

-Can we oust the bankers from power?
-Can we get rid of the corrupt politicians in their pay?
-Can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future?
-Can we establish government by the people, for the people, of the people?
-Can we abolish all borders and be patriots for our planet?
-Can we all live sustainably and stop climate chaos? Can we make capitalism history?

The answer are (in theory):
Yes
Yes and replace them with your own.
Possibly yes, but it will be none of anyone's choosing.
No, you will establish a new dictatorship.
Yes (good luck with that one)
No, not without a fight.

You see bankers are being advised to dress down and avoid work next week, because the City of London Police and the London Metropolitan Police can't guarantee their safety - nice that.

The G20 will be a waste of time, largely because most politicians there are clueless as to why their own interventions precipated the crisis. However, far more dangerous are the insane destroyers out to destroy capitalism, without having any moral alternative (if any alternative). Hopefully most stay at home, don't do any violence and are largely treated with the contempt they deserve.

Sadly nobody will be protesting as to the grand theft that government have engaged in for years - because those protesting not only agree with government theft through taxes, but want more.