Government thieving from you to build a boondoggle

So Steven Joyce has just made a political decision to piss your taxes down a hole to subsidise the building of the Transmission Gully motorway.

He's bought a series of arguments that are sheer bullshit. Why? Because I saw the evidence a few years ago when they were rejected then.

Firstly, there is the nonsense that somehow Wellington needs a motorway with a huge viaduct to "connect" it to Kapiti and Horowhenua in the event of a major earthquake. Quite what Wellingtonians will gain from this is unclear when:
- There is only one bridge over the Waikanae River;
- There is only one bridge over the Otaki River;
- There is only one route along a faultline from the Hutt to Wellington city;
- Transmission Gully itself is on a faultline.

$1.5 billion is an expensive insurance policy.

Secondly, there is the nonsense that the coastal route would cost "as much". This could only possibly be true if you engage in ridiculous green-plating and gold plating of the coastal route. Why?

Transmission Gully duplicates about a third of the coastal route as it connects near Kenepuru not Paremata.

There has long been a designation for a bypass at Pukerua Bay, it would be little effort to buy back the few properties along the route.

The coastal route could be built along what is essentially a rather mundane coastal embankment that is already reclaimed. Paekakariki can be protected from the highway by some grade separation.

Paremata/Mana does not need a bypass, as the current route is quite adequate, and ultimately a bypass can be built at grade.

Transmission Gully has a cost/benefit ratio which means the gains in travel time savings, fuel savings and pollution are half the total cost of the road. It is a massive transfer to the property owners along Mana, Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki, and many on the Kapiti Coast.

Oh and it can't be funded by road user taxes or tolls, so your income tax, GST and company tax will be subsidising a road, primarily for people to commute to primarily government jobs in Wellington.

Before Labour supporters have a moan, they ought to note they started it. They folded against the pressure of the one man party, Peter Dunne, and the Porirua City Council, to have taxpayers pay for one of the biggest boondoggles in New Zealand's recent history. Labour has spent $90 million on consultants to allow Transmission Gully to be built, now National is going to spend 13 times that to build it.

Oh and Labour destroyed the political independence of the former Transfund to separate decisions on building highways from funding highways (something National opposed at the time).

So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

You thought there was a budget deficit, you thought there wasn't enough money to give you a tax cut. No, there's enough for Peter Dunne.

Gordon Brown steals for climate change

Part of the whole Copenhagen charade is that the European Union has promised £6.5 billion of other people's money to give to developing countries because of their own ineptness in industrialising over the past few decades.

What's particularly galling is that Gordon Brown increased the UK contribution of £1.2 billion of as yet unborn childrens' taxes to £1.5 billion to be thieved from the unwilling. More than any other European country. Even though Germany and France have greater GDPs, this wasteful, thieving, now increasingly socialist Labour government is out committing more borrowing to steal from kids to pay for the corrupt, protectionist and ungrateful developing world.

Gordon Brown acts as if he has money to spend, but he has none. He borrows it to leave to future governments to take from taxpayers, and he can hold his head up high, having nearly bankrupted the UK. It's repulsive.

Developing countries are spreading lies such as how they will be "destroyed" by climate change, so they have the begging bowl out, when so many of them are led by governments of kleptocracy and excess. They ignore that the biggest per capita emitters are the likes of Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. They essentially want Western companies and holders of intellectual property to hand over technology to the likes of China, India and others who are not creators of technology, who will then copy it and out compete the West.

It is an argument of envy, envy of the developed, envy of those that have been locations of technology, of education, of capitalism. It has become an argument for, what is quite simply, socialism.

From each according to his ability (i.e. to the extent the West can pay) to each according to his needs (i.e. the extent to which the developing world asks). It isn't really about the environment so much, because if it was, then maybe the arguments would be different?

Blood for oil? Hardly

Some of the leftwing anti-American opponents of the war to overthrow the Saddam Hussein dictatorship said it was "blood for oil". The fact the Hussein regime had ignored UN Security Council resolutions on weapons of mass destruction (and had used them previously), didn't matter. The fact that the opportunity existed to overthrow a brutal aggressive autocracy didn't matter. It was seen as neo-imperialism, and simply sacrificing lives for US oil companies to pillage natural resources.

Reuters reports this week show this to be the absolute nonsense it always has been. US firms have gained few contracts in recently signed deals to service Iraqi oil fields, with firms from many other countries gaining much of the action.

Christopher Hitchens in Slate describes the result as such:

"Three features of the outcome were worthy of note. The auction was to award service contracts rather than the production-sharing agreements that the major corporations prefer. The price was set at between $1.15 and $1.90 per barrel, as opposed to the $4 that the bidders originally proposed. And American corporations were generally not the winners in an auction where consortia identified with Malaysia, Russia, and even Angola did best."

Thus, the vulgar and hysterical part of the "war for oil" interpretation has been discredited: Iraq retains its autonomy, the share awarded to outsiders in development is far from exorbitant, and there is no real correlation between U.S. interests and the outcome.

There was always an argument that spilling blood of one's military largely for the sake of negating a threat to others should be done carefully. The case for attacking Iraq was made on various grounds. The link to Al Qaeda was spurious, although the willingness of the Hussein regime to support terrorism was clear. The suspicion on weapons of mass destruction had a real basis, given the regime's clear willingness to use chemical weapons in the past, and its previous pursuit of nuclear technology, but it proved to be a mirage that even the regime may not have understood.

So what did the war on the Hussein regime achieve? Liberty.

The war removed a malignant regime, that did yes get some Western (and much Soviet) support in the 1980s because it offered a counterweight to Islamist Iran, but most in the so-called peace movement wont let that go, even though it was three Presidents ago. The deaths in the war would easily have been rivalled by the murders undertaken by the Hussein criminal gang.

However, the mostly Islamist insurgency has murdered thousands. Some in the so-called peace movement regarded them to be "freedom fighters", ignoring that whenever the insurgency controlled parts of Iraq, it applied the same approach to freedom as Mamoud Ahmadinejad or Osama Bin Laden.

Now Iraq is far more stable, the surge, opposed by the current US President, has worked enough that the UK has withdrawn, and Iraq is becoming a fairly liberal democratic open state between Islamist Iran, tired authoritarian Syria and the ruthless autocratic Saudi Arabia. It does have almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia, and looks to be taking advantage of it with a government that undoubtedly will be more transparent, liberal and democratic than any other Arab states.

There are still those who believe this shouldn't have happened, that the Saddam Hussein regime stay in place (to say you opposed the war but also oppose the Hussein regime means you either support the outcome of the war or you're lying about it). Certainly the war was conducted appallingly after the Hussein regime was toppled, with enormous incompetence, but the outcome is looking positive, at last.

We'll never know what would have happened had the war not happened, Hussein would undoubtedly have sabre rattled some more, would have killed and tortured a few thousand more Iraqis, and continued to pillage Iraq for the gain of his vile family. Would he have backed more terrorism in Israel? Probably. Would he have sought alliances with Russia? With China? Would he have found a comfortable arrangement with Iran?

I'm grateful we can't ever find out.
What we can know is that

The state owns your shop at Easter

That's what opposing Easter trading is saying. Quite simply, it isn't your shop during Easter, and unproductive petty fascist goons will go around, at your expense, to catch you committing the dastardly deed of opening for business, paying employees and selling to willing customers.

It is disgusting, but telling of what MPs believe small businesses deserve the freedom to choose, and which ones think that this religious based public holiday is special enough that people should be prosecuted for trying to make a living.

So shame on Labour and the Greens for showing themselves up for being the petty fascist little anti-capitalists that they are.

Kudos to ACT and surprisingly Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton for actually wanting to let businesses choose. Surprised given Dunne and Anderton's previous Christian and unionist tendencies.

Kudos to Tariana Turia, Pita Sharples and Te Ururoa Flavell for supporting freedom, brickbats for Rahui Katene and the absent Hone Harawira.

However, brickbats to John Key for not making this National Party policy. For had it been so, this ridiculous victimless crime would be about to be consigned to history. Particular brickbats to busybodies Shane Ardern, Bill English, Phil Heatley, Sam Lotu-Liga, Tim Macindoe, Eric Roy, Katrina Shanks and Jonathan Young. How dare any of you claim to be "pro-business".

If you don't think a shop should be open on ANY particular day then you can do three things:
1. Don't shop there. Ever.
2. Use freedom of speech to ask others to boycott the shop.
3. Buy the shop.

Instead you choose to use force. For shame.

More tax more state more thieving from children

Alastair Darling released the Brown government’s last ever Pre Budget Statement (let’s be honest it wont be a stunning victory for Labour at the next election) and what does it bring? The Times tells all and the ledger goes like this.

In terms of restraining state spending there is:
- A senior civil service pay cut worth a paltry £100m
- Treasury approval needed for government appointments earning more than £150k;
- 1% cap for public sector pay settlements other than the Armed Forces;
- State contributions to public sector pensions to be capped by 2012;
- Bingo Duty (yes really) cut from 22% to 20% in 2010;
- Deferral of corporation tax increase for smaller companies;
- Electric cars exempt from company car tax (!) for five years.

Pathetic really. Political pablum, leaving the hard decisions to the Tories.

How about new or higher taxes?
- VAT to return to 17.5% on 1 January (buy before then);
- Threshold for top tax rate not to rise for one year after 2012;
- National insurance increased by 0.5% of income in 2011;
- Inheritance tax allowance frozen for one year (not increased);
- 50% one off tax on banking sector bonuses over £25k;
- 10% Corporation tax on patent income in the UK;
- 50p a month tax on phone lines to subsidise rural broadband.

Again, more tax, taking more from the economy because Labour is limp wristed on cutting spending, when it should be ruthless. These bastards can’t keep their hands out of people’s pockets. What’s truly disgusting is how they are going to spend MORE, so basically stealing from people’s children in debt to buy some votes as follows:
- 2.5% increase in state pensions in 2010 (go on old folk embrace Labour stealing from your grandchildren and great grandchildren);
- Guarantee scheme for bank loans to small businesses to be extended;
- £200m more money for a “Strategic Investment Fund” stealing from productive businesses to bribe new ones;
- 6 month extension of welfare to help the unemployed with mortgage payments, effectively propping up housing prices and rewarding those who don’t buy mortgage repayment insurance;
- 10,000 undergraduates from poor (Labour) backgrounds to be subsidised into jobs;
- Guaranteed training or education for all 16 and 17yos, and all under 24 who are out of work for more than 6 months are guaranteed work or training;
- Child benefit increase of 1.5% in 2010. This isn’t means tested so children of the wealthy mean a £20 benefit a week for the eldest and £13.20 for each other child. Welfare for every family;
- Four carbon capture and storage demonstrations to be paid for;
- £200m more to subsidise home energy efficiency (rather than letting energy companies raise prices);
- 125,000 homes subsidised to get more efficient heating boilers;
- Extend free school meals to half a million primary school children of poor parents;
- Rail electrification between Manchester, Liverpool and Preston (can't have fare payers paying);
- Minimal increases in education, health and police spending;
- £2.5 billion for Afghanistan;
- £5m to help ex. Service personnel set up own businesses.

Other than the last two items, this is just more bribes using stolen loot. Not surprising, but certainly disgusting. Profligacy and waste in health and education remain rewarded, picking winners through subsidies is the order of the day, and next to nothing done to confront net debt reaching 78% of GDP by 2014/2015.

A chance that Darling had to acknowledge he wont be doing this a year from now, and he could make the hard decisions to cut spending, was wasted. Why? Because the Labour Party just wants to keep their people in Parliament by bribing voters with their children's money.

So voters will face an election which will probably see the Tories win, hopefully see the Tories engage in serious cuts in spending to take Britain away from risking debt default, and saddling generations with debt.

Then Labour will say how mean and cruel and heartless they are for cutting spending on “vital services”. Yes ladies and gentlemen, if this isn’t an example of the lead up to an advance auction of goods, stolen from children, I don’t know what is.

For shame. How soon can the UK be rid of this tired vile socialist oriented big government regime?

Oh and for now, just don't remind me of what the other lot are like. Can they seriously make it any worse?