A touch of North Korea for New Zealand

I can tell from first hand experience, that this story from Not PC, is philosophically and ethically identical to how north Korea sees its citizens.

You are owned by the state, your property is the property of the state if it so wishes, the state is sovereign.   You are to take this as an honour more than anything else.

Moreover, individuals whose greatest achievement is stringing together some sentences in Microsoft Word dare tell those who have worldwide acclaim for REAL achievement (and his wife) that their property is somehow more special if the party state sees it as special for the nation.

The NZ Herald reported: "Ministry for Culture and Heritage chief executive Lewis Holden said today its focus was on getting the watch back because of its heritage and historic importance to New Zealand."

So a collective nation carries "importance", like it has a collective brain, and therefore Holden (now there is a name with heritage for some) must get zee watch back!! It is too important for the people, the party, the state, the nation for filthy foreigners to get their hands on it.

The appropriate response to this is a two fingered obscenity.

Yet one could ask the Minister and the government if it approves of such nationalisation of private property of the family of famous achieving New Zealanders.

Of course the real reason any of this is happening is a family feud, whereby the progeny of Sir Edmund Hillary are upset that mum is selling the watches.  Who is right? I am not in a position to say, it should  be a matter for the courts. What should only be a dispute about chattels among relatives now has the state stomping in, invited of course, by the same progeny (after all, they deserve more than simple property law to mediate such disputes) to nationalise the disputed property.

There hasn't, of course, been a peep from the government, in any party, just going to show, once again, that ACT can't even raise a peep when its alleged principles are sold out like, well any politician really.

Aung San Suu Kyi's moment and maybe hope for Burma

Burma has been misgoverned for nearly 50 years.  It started with General Ne Win's coup in 1962 and the "Burmese Way of Socialism" led by the radical Marxist-Buddhist Burma Socialist Programme Party.  It combined the economic illiteracy of centrally planned Marxism-Leninism, with racism, superstition and heavy authoritarianism.   The country stagnated and protests gathered so that the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) was established after another coup in 1989, with brutal suppression of dissent.  Elections held in 1990 saw the National League of Democracy, led by Aung Sang Suu Kyi, win the majority of seats in the national assembly, which was promptly ignored as she was put under house arrest.  Burma was renamed Myanmar and continued to be one of the hermit states, ignoring the criticism internally and externally, whilst doing business will all those that have similar standards of concern for freedom and individual rights (China, Iran, North Korea).

It's important to not think of Burma's reign of repression as only starting when Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest - Burma has been suffering for most of its post-independence existence, including many years when the Soviet Union was its friend, along with Pakistan.   Burma has suffered from policies that expelled foreigners, but restricted movements and speech of local people.  Ethnic minorities were suppressed or ignored.   Mass uncompensated nationalisation cost the economy badly, so that it has stagnated for decades.   Only the government is allowed to broadcast or publish.   It was widely noted how the government ignored pleas to allow humanitarian aid in after Cyclone Nargis - a government that prohibits others helping its citizens is completely devoid of any moral claim to exist.   Burma has been following socialism for decades, and has demonstrated wonderfully how a regime exists for itself, and to treat the population as either slaves or a nuisance to its warped vision.

Aung Sang Suu Kyi's release may be a prelude to reincarcerating her if she is seen to "cause trouble", which may explain her low key statements in the past few hours.   However, her release whilst not covered in Burmese media, is widely known throughout Burma via foreign media outlets such as the BBC World Service and Voice of America services in Burmese on shortwave (yes a media largely forgotten but critical for people in any dictatorship).

The regime may seek to achieve some reconciliation and abandon isolation, or it may simply be biding time to let everyone know who is boss.   The great hope can be that the people of Burma stand up, and the slithering entities who keep this despicable regime in power turn their back on it.   If only they had the weapons to protect themselves and rid themselves of the scum who think they own their lives. 

Perhaps Aung Sang Suu Kyi's bravery, calm and strength will give the people of this impoverished land the strength to stand up and overturn the mediocre bullies who are contemptible.   All strength to her and those Burmese who want to say enough, and to hell with the traders of many countries (included the French company Total) who happily do business with murderers.

It's NZ's best blogger's birthday

Well he might be aging disgracefully but he still strings out plenty of thoughtful posts on an (almost) daily basis, so wish him happy birthday, although by the time (and timezone) most of you read this in, it will be past.

I call him NZ's best blogger not because of humility (bugger that), but simply because it is the ONLY NZ blog I read almost every day.  It almost never annoys me, it regularly inspires me and is not filled with the tribalism seen in too many other places.  He attacks the poseurs and pseuds on the right as much as the obvious targets on the left.   He laughs and expresses dismay when advocates of Islam and Christianity are found wanting, but also points out when some on the left actually get it right (though almost always for the wrong reasons).

It's beyond the middle muddle ground of current history that is Kiwiblog, the abusive hypocrisy of Idiot Savant and the "politics for kids" partisanship of The Standard.   Not PC has been more philosophical than most, with smatterings of art and lifestyle.   

All in all it is a pretty good read, not just because I usually agree with him, but because it tends not to be a rant.

So go over there, wish him a belated happy birthday, he's the best daily read you can get on NZ public affairs.

Privatisation reveals high speed rail is a dud

For the Blair Government, building a high speed railway from the private built, funded and owned Channel Tunnel was a matter of national pride.  The "business case" was questionable, with a benefit/cost ratio of less than 1, propped up by estimates of "regeneration" impacts at Ashford (which have by and large failed to come about).   However it was about Britain have a high speed railway because France had one at the other end (and Belgium too).   The support for a high speed railway was driven by emotion, because the economic (and the monetised environmental) case was not driven by reason.

The main beneficiaries of the line are not freight users (freight trains don't operate at high speeds, and the lines bypassed were not near capacity), nor those who move road vehicles by shuttle through the Channel Tunnel, but travellers on the Eurostar international service.   Many of them are business people who otherwise would have travelled by air, leisure travellers are not so time sensitive so would largely have gone by rail anyway. 

Why does it matter now?  Well the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government has privatised it.

Yes amazingly coalition government in the UK, (which includes a party that has been solidly leftwing for some years)  is not shy about privatisation.  It doesn't upset the government that railway unions are upset about it, because most people don't care.   

It was bought by foreigners.  Yes!  A foreign consortium dominated by two Canadian pension funds is paying £2.1 billion for a 30 year lease on the rail line from St. Pancras to the Eurotunnel railyard near the tunnel entrance.  If you believed socialists you'd think that it will result in the asset being run into the ground, services deteriorating and becoming too expensive, in actuality the expectation is that there will be more services, as new train operators are expected to be allowed to use the line.

Yet the real tale is what an atrocious "investment" this line was in the first place.  You see the line cost £5.8 billion in the first place.   Taxpayers' money (well borrowed on their behalf).   A 63% write down on the initial investment.   Yes, it can be leased out again, but in 30 years the interest on that write down value is more than double the sale price.

So yes, the first high speed railway in the UK was a deadweight loss, a destruction of wealth for the British economy.   Even a bid that goes beyond expectations shows that the new owners can't even expect to recover half of the capital cost from train companies.  

So you might wonder if that was such a dud "investment" then why is this deficit cutting government so keen to pour money into another one that wont even come close to covering its costs from users?   More grandstanding, national pride and totem building.

Of course if it's lousy for Britain, it is many times more lousy for the USA.

Marxist thuggery takes over London protest

The UK government faces a chronic budget deficit and so one of its policies has been to significantly increase university tuition fees so students pay a far higher proportion of tertiary education costs.  Given the benefits of university education are carried almost exclusively by the people getting the education, it is hardly unfair.   The state student loan scheme even allows students to borrow their fees and not have to pay back the loans until they earn over £27,050 a year.   So it hardly forms a barrier to anyone, unless they fear their education isn't worth it once they start earning the average annual income. 

Of course to the socialist National Union of Students (voluntary membership in the UK by the way, but universities fund it directly), it's unfair.  They moan that current generations of politicians got a free university education - back in the days when a far smaller fraction of people went into tertiary education and the welfare state wasn't draining taxpayers of so much money.  

This attitude that the world owes them an education, that the budget deficit isn't their problem (presumably they don't think they should pay more tax to cover the debt Gordon Brown threw their way) and that other people should pay for their choices means they are obviously disrespectful of property rights.   It shows too.

A bunch of them marched to Conservative Party headquarters, smashed it up, invaded it and one even threw a fire extinguisher off the roof at police officers below.

In other words, if you don't give us what we want, we'll take it and do violence.

and the Labour Leader of the Opposition is silent...