Pay Equity is a fundamentally flawed concept

No rational person would argue that people should be paid differently because of characteristics that have no bearing on their capability and willingness to undertake a particular job.  It's rational to be "sex-blind" so to speak, because most employers want employees with the requisite skills, experience, capability and willingness to work, as well as trustworthiness, to do the job.  There are a few exceptions to the rule that men and women should, everything else being equal, be paid similarly, for example, historically the porn industry pays women a lot more, although their "working lives" may be shorter than men. Does that mean that bureaucrats should investigate and seek to correct this? 

Leaving aside that distraction, given RNZ - like most taxpayer funded broadcasters across the world - just swallows the philosophy of "pay equity" as fact, because its unconscious bias is in favour of critical constructivism (which is a more sophisticated way of describing what is commonly called "woke"), I thought it was worth reading its sources for supporting the view that "pay equity" is a problem that needs a complex bureaucratic solution to fix.

As to be expected, RNZ found plenty of "howls of outrage" and of course nothing beats the now much more famous Andrea Vance, who is now one of the country's best known and paid vulgarians. Those who are outraged undoubtedly think that there is some great injustice being perpetrated which can be fixed by the state either making taxpayers or making employers take money away from elsewhere to make pay "fairer". 

RNZ looked to an article by Hayden Donnell on the Spinoff (Donnell is an RNZ reporter) and an article in The Conversation written by three academics (two of whom are sociologists and one in HR management).

Both demonstrate the fundamental flaws in the argument about pay equity. They assert that it is possible to fairly and reasonable assess different jobs based on "comparable levels of skill and training" and "similar amounts of responsibility" which should therefore mean that those jobs should be paid similarly.  

Donnell said:

Though it’s been highlighted in government comms, the librarians’ claim didn’t just look at fisheries officers. It also compared their pay and conditions to property surveyors, teacher aides, customs officers, corrections officers, parking compliance officers, and administration staff. That analysis was carried out using a government-issued assessment tool Te Orowaru, which provides a lengthy set of criteria to help claimants compare work responsibilities in seemingly disparate fields.

Think a bit more about that. A tool, accepted by the public sector, seeks to analyse bureaucratically how jobs ought to be compared with one another.  It is central planning par excellence which appears to have nothing to do with what is always a key factor in pay in the private sector (you know, the part of the economy that actually generates wealth the part of which is taken for the public sector to tell it what to do) - demand.

In the private sector, employers generally pay whatever it takes to attract employees and retain them. The employer works out how much net income the employee will generate, through sales, productivity or savings in administration, and pays accordingly.  Employers will pay what they need to get the people they want.  That's an assessment of a number of factors, but most of all it is around productivity, competence and trustworthiness.  Levels of skill and training may inform that but aren't decisive. Level of responsibility is a factor, but by far the most important point is whether the persons wanted might not stay in the job, which is a matter for them.  Jobs that involve unconventional hours, working away from home,  uncomfortable situations of all kinds, will require more pay.  Most private employers are small, so are not price setters (unlike the state which, given it has the power of coercion to force people to pay for it, is a price setter), and while some private sector employees are unionised, ultimately the decision to hire and pay is a matter for those who take the risk with setting up businesses in the first place. 

The pay equity problem is that academics, bureaucrats and leftwing politicians treat the issue as something fundamentally flawed in capitalism, that employers, including government departments, have paid women historically less than men.  The Conversation article claims:

pay equity seeks to make visible and fix the deep, structural inequalities that have historically seen women’s work undervalued compared to men’s work. It’s about ensuring jobs that are different but of equal value are paid similarly, as a way to achieve gender equality.

Equal value to whom? Two people in exactly similar jobs with different employers may be paid differently because of factors that the academics and bureaucrats (let alone the politicians who create legal mandates for this) have little visibility of. The person in the lower paid job may prefer the employer, who may be more flexible around working hours, and may have colleagues who are more enjoyable to work with, and there may be many other "soft" factors that no bureaucrat could identify.  Anything from location of employment, to management style, to the working environment.  The diversity (a word commonly used but ignored in the case of capitalism) of conditions is almost infinite, but none of this analysis takes this into account.

Is it unfair if someone in a job they chose is paid less than someone else in another job they chose? 

The academics claim "Pay equity is about addressing both the objective and subjective elements contributing to that gap".  Really? How can they possibly know what those are? 

The cost to taxpayers (undoubtedly seen as predominantly men) is dismissed as being "high" but "bearable" apparently (not that taxpayers have any choice), but it is the last statement of that article which is revealing about how bereft of serious critical thinking there is in talk about "pay equity":

Finally, focusing exclusively on reducing fiscal cost risks other costs rising instead. Women who are paid less than they should be will struggle to put food on the table, pay back student loans, get onto the property ladder, contribute to Kiwisaver and afford their retirement.

Without pay equity, in other words, there is less economic activity in general.

Where do these people think the money comes from to raise a small number of womens' pay? It isn't from a magic money tree, it comes from other people who engage in economic activity. The people who do pay for food, pay their student loans, buy property and save for their retirement. Most the talk of pay equity is about transfers from taxpayers to people paid by the state, and as with all talks of collectivised pay it bears zero relationship to the actual performance and productivity of those being paid. 

It goes further than this, because the advocates of pay equity have lobbied for pay "transparency" requiring employers to publish what they pay their employees (employee privacy is apparently not important).  Why not also lobby for the value of all contracts in the private sector to be transparent, why not tell everyone what everyone is paid for everything? The idea that consenting adults might want their business with other consenting adults around money to be private is an anathema to wannabe central planners who see opposition to their cause as being "resistance to changing or challenging the status quo, benefiting already privileged and advantaged groups", as if it is all a zero sum game.  Hints of Marxism of the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat.  Anyone opposing Marxism is automatically defending the bourgeoisie.

As with so many theories in the space of post-modernist critical theory, extraordinarily complicated analysis is surprising reductive and overly simplistic.  The complexity of a modern economy of millions of actors, making many millions of decisions, based on endlessly diverse factors is beyond the capability of the best intentioned bureaucrats, academics and politicians to understand.  The simplistic reductive fallacy and the conceit (Hayek's Fatal Conceit highlighted this issue) to think that officials can decide what people should be paid, rather that it being about what it takes to attract the right people to a job in particular circumstances, is the fundamental error.

There may be pay equity issues across many different characteristics that, on the face of it, look unfair.  Do short people get paid less? Do overweight people get paid less? Do relatively good looking people get paid more and get more job interviews? Do blondes, especially blonde women get neglected for promotions due to stereotypes? All of this may be true, and there are bound to be more cases. For fairness should the state collect data on all of these factors and engage in complex bureaucratic processes to ensure people of "oppressed" characteristics are paid equally?

Politicians on the left are particularly attracted to the power and capacity of the state to "fix" things. The problem is, as the Soviet Union and the significant list of examples that followed have proven, it is impossible to centrally plan an economy and society in a way that is remotely as productive or indeed fair as a relatively free, open, market economy of people largely left to co-operate, compete and work.

Most people think their work is "undervalued" and want more pay. Most people who own businesses think their products and services are undervalued and want more pay. The path to more people being paid more is not through generating complex regulatory frameworks, managed by public servants, designed by management consultants. It's by enabling people to innovate, to create, produce, hire people to support this, and to let people trade.

Central planning and control of pay might give an illusion of fairness, but when the reason salaries are low is because NZ's GDP per capita is amongst the lowest in the OECD, so that employers can't afford to pay what is paid in Australia, the United States, Europe or Singapore, then it's a delusion.

Feeding "our" children

The debate about the compulsorily funded school lunch programme is being characterised by opponents of the government, as one of mean-hearted people unwilling to feed "our" children.

Advocates of the school lunch programme claim:

• There are children going to school without breakfast and without lunches, and they will perform worse at school than had they been fed...  this is true, but not just for the reasons advocates of state feeding of children claim.

• Simply providing food for the children who are in need (and whose parents can't or wont pay for it) is bad, because it makes those children feel singled out because of the negligence of their parents/guardians unlike that of  children who would not get such meals. this is likely to be true, but neglect to note that is likely to be the case more generally anyway.

• If "we" can't feed "our" children, then what are "our" priorities anyway? 

Of course all kids should be going to school having had breakfast and provided lunches, who would argue against that?

The Government is dancing around the key philosophical argument around this, and despite lazy attempts to portray it as a "culture war", it really isn't. It is an argument around both the role of the state and individual responsibility, and it is obvious that there are people polls apart on this.

On one side is what is, in essence, a socialist position, that it is not only morally right, but there is a moral obligation for politicians to force taxpayers to pay to feed all children at school. The argument being that this provides for the best outcomes for children, and demonstrates a kind and caring society.

On the other side is what is both a conservative traditional, but also a classically liberal position, is that the primary moral obligation to feed children arises with those who chose to take responsibility for them - the parents/guardians.  There being two reasons why the feeding doesn't happen.  First, is if there is genuine poverty, this still obliges the parents/guardians to seek support from the existing welfare system or charitable services to put their children first, and of course people are free to support such services if they want to show kindness to those in need.  Secondly, if parents/guardians put their own needs and wants above those of their children, such as simply feeding them, then it is better to address this neglect, either through education or punitive measures.  

Those on the left diminish or do not believe that compulsorily funded state meals for children undermines parental responsibility, even though it fairly obviously does by feeding all children at school (as the predominantly middle class moans in recent weeks demonstrates). Their belief is that the utility of children being fed (and of course the argument is on the detail of what they are fed, and cost is not an issue for those who simply think the state should take the tax it needs to do what they want) outranks any other consideration.

Those on the right do not believe that the utility of feeding, essentially children from low-income families, does not justify forcing taxpayers to pay for feeding all children, and are suspicious of what happens next. Will taxpayers be forced to pay for "free" school clothes, "free" school transport  for families living close to public transport that goes to the school they choose) or more? All of this would mean less responsibility for parents to think about the needs of their children, and more taxes for everyone to pay.  Most would agree that it is ethical to help parents in need temporarily, and for there even to be assistance, whether charitable or not, for kids who don't get fed, but that isn't a universal meal programme.

Of course as a libertarian the idea taxpayers should be forced to pay to feed other people's children is morally unacceptable. If you want to help people with feeding their children, then feel free to do so, indeed that is the kind and caring thing to do.  There is no kindness in letting politicians raid money from other people, including those who disagree vehemently with the concept, to pay for a scheme organised by politicians and officials, rather than actually making a contribution yourself. 

A state big enough to feed children for one (some say two) meals a day, is big enough to parent them even more, and the record of the state as parent is woeful. 

Some conservatives think the socialist objective of free school meals is a plot to undermine the family, and make people more dependent on the state. I doubt that, although the willingness of so many to simply grow the state without any concern for the scale of its presence disturbs me.  The more of people's money that simply gets taken for other people to spend as they see fit, the less agency you have over your life, and the less accountability for it.  Whereas the more you have, the more options people have to advance their lives and those of their loved ones, and support those they want to.

What I think does matter is the issue of parental neglect.  After all, if parents can't do something as basic as provide a meal for their children above their own need for food, what else are they neglecting?  

Most parents dedicate their priorities to their children. They think of their children 24/7, they think of what they need and do what they can to provide. It's concerning if parents fail either by their own lack of competence or more insidiously, lack of care.  

More importantly, let's define what the problem actually is?

For decades the state didn't feed children at school, and did this generate a systemic problem that was distinguishable from the children routinely neglected by their parents?

Are there parents/guardians in such abject poverty that they haven't got a few dollars to provide a bowl of cereal with milk and fruit each morning (compared to everything else they buy)?  There probably are some, and in particular this probably happens over short periods for some families when there is unemployment or an emergency (e.g., having to move home, refridgerator 

If so, those people should be helped and targeted, because it doesn't just affect food, it affects everything else needed to raise those children adequately.

Are there parents/guardians who consistently neglect their children? Then they should be identified and appropriate carrots and sticks used to change their behaviour (both rewards and sanctions).

One of the single biggest factors for children failing are parents who neglect them materially and emotionally, and these are directly linked. Parents in material hardship do all they can to provide for their children, whether working or seeking charitable help directly or from family, friends and neighbours, and that should all be encouraged. It is entirely appropriate for people in need to seek temporary assistance. However those that do not do this, are either incapable of being parents or are simply negligent.

The kids in need should be helped, but the posturing over this programme, which papers over cracks that neither side in politics is keen to address (as the hard left regards personal responsibility to be a conspiracy and the hard right fears the state being a parent), is appalling.

It should be gradually wound down and replaced with a targeted programme organised by the schools themselves, out of their own budgets.  

There's no leader of the free world anymore

Nobody who supports either free markets or the non-initiation of force principles can now think that the Trump Administration is an acolyte of either principle, even in a somewhat flawed way (as all governments that may advance in that direction are).  It's an incoherent mash of the feelings of two men who are more upset about their egos being offended, than either projecting an economic policy of demonstrable success or managing international relations based on strength against a weak (albeit dangerous) aggressor that embodies almost everything the United States has been against for decades.

The stupid trade war isn't about leverage to get other economies to open up, it is old fashioned autarky or even Kim Il Sung's fatuous "Juche Idea" (self reliance). It's the economics of hardened Marxists, and the economics of moronic economic nationalists like the bloviator Pat Buchanan. The tariffs wont replace income tax ( a line that some have trotted out) and will push up inflation in the US, and harm consumers and producers there, and the global economy.  However, Republicans are now embodying the economics of destroyers like Juan Peron, who helped take Argentina from being a rich country to being a poor one, through this sort of nonsense.  It will only be made worse by the EU and other developed countries responding in kind.

However, it is the moral depravity of the line on Ukraine which deserves the most approbrium.

There is no morality in surrendering to an aggressor all that it has won, so you have "peace" while it rebuilds its armed forces, rearms, and at the same time your erstwhile ally has blackmailed you into signing a predatory deal to hand over resources for the sake of vague promises of security.  Ukraine doesn't want to do that, but the new appeasers do.

The claim Trump makes about wanting to be even-handed between Russia and Ukraine is a complete moral inversion.  Whilst he has been excoriating about Zelensky, he has said nothing negative at all about Putin or the behaviour of Russia.  He has said little about what Russia should do, and little about what the US will do if Russia doesn't stop fighting. He has only demanded that Ukraine stop.

He talks of Ukraine gambling with World War Three which is absurd, given Ukraine alone, with ample military supplies has taken the war to a stalemate -  stalemate with Russia, because Russia's fighting capabilities are woeful. Without nuclear weapons, Russia would be easily overwhelmed with Western power, and pushed back.  Indeed given the US also has nuclear weapons, it could have simply declared it was controlling Ukrainian airspace given:

• Russian military attack on a civilian airliner
• Ukrainian Government invitation to protect it.

Would Russia really have launched a nuclear attack at that point, with the US drawing a clear line that it was defending the territorial integrity of the remainder of Ukraine from air power?

Who was gambling with World War Three the non-nuclear armed Ukraine trying to defend itself from a nuclear power??

Of course Ukraine should feel aggrieved. It has the world's third largest nuclear weapons cache when it became independent and it signed it all away based on promises from the US, Russia and the UK to protect its territorial integrity.  It was Barack Obama who neglected to follow up on that agreement when Russia started its attack on Crimea.  It was Joe Biden who continued to fail once the full blown invasion was launched.

The claims about NATO expansion being provocative are only claims that are echoed by hardcore communists, who pretend that NATO was a project to attack their beloved eastern bloc, not one to defend liberal democracies from it, or from fascist nationalists, who can't believe that countries that spent half a century under the jackboot of the Soviet Union (which they once professed to loathe) would want to be free of Russian imperialism forever more.

Of course Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia etc. do not want their independence threatened by an aggressive Russia - again - and if you dont think that is legitimate, then you're either a communist, or someone, like Hitler, who thinks you can make accommodations with a communist for your own political objectives.  Hating the European Union or "globalists" is all one thing, but if anyone who claims to believe in sovereign borders, the right of states to control their territory and be independent, thinks surrendering Ukraine is consistent with that, then it shows it up for all it is - desperate tribalist support for a US Administration that doesn't care about your beliefs when it suits it.

If territorial integrity of sovereign states doesn't matter to Ukraine, then maybe it doesn't matter anywhere that the Trump Administration doesn't care about, and that includes any country in Europe, or Australia, or New Zealand etc etc.

Of course everyone wants the war to end. It could end tomorrow if Putin just decided to end it, and withdraw, but he's a psychopathic kleptocrat who feeds young Russian men (from poor backgrounds) and North Korean men to their deaths.

Ukraine has been successful in knocking out much of Russia's military strength including knocking out  much of the Black Sea Fleet. Had it been armed more effectively it could have pushed back more inflicting more pain on Russia.

Trump doesn't like that though, because he wants economic relations with Russia.

Had Trump wanted to, he could have demonstrated strength against Russia and demanded concessions or significantly enhanced support for Ukraine, but instead he has demonstrated strength against Ukraine and made it into a supplicant, and emboldened Russia. 

If the war ends soon, on the basis of Russia giving up little, and there being no substantial security guarantees for Ukraine (including US direct military support), then it will prolong the inevitable. Russia can spend a few years rearming, and use its renewed economic potential after sanctions are lifted by the US, to steal military capability and be ready for another attack. It knows the US wont do much, and it doesn't fear European power. At that point, the cost not just to the Europe, but the world of letting it be known that the US is isolationist and wont act to protect any nation states from attack by Russia, is going to be much higher than the tens of billions taken to bolster Ukraine.

Even Marine Le Pen is critical of Trump on Ukraine, because by and large, European countries want to sure of defence against the predatory criminal gangster state to the east, which treats its neighbours with impunity.

Perhaps a deal will be struck, perhaps not and Europe will do all it can to support Ukraine, regardless, it is now a time for small countries everywhere to acknowledge that it's all on now - the US doesn't care if you are attacked, you have to fend for yourselves with any other allies.

There is no "leader of the free world" anymore.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

It's been three years since Russia invaded Ukraine, seeking to take Kyev and reconquer it.

I was, late last year, rather pleased Trump beat Harris in the US elections. It demonstrated that voters wouldn't be treated as if what they think and feel don't matter.  With record numbers of black and Latino voters picking Trump over Harris, the identitarianism of the hard left was given short shrift.  Domestically, there was some promise that Trump could overhaul the US Federal Government in spending and regulatory terms, and the nihilistic critical constructivist culture that sought to right past wrongs through discrimination over merit. The hard left attempt to replace the identitarianism of the past with an identitarianism of the future, based on a hierarchy of oppressor vs. oppressed (within which Jews and poor white trailer park men are oppressors, and wealthy African American entrepreneurs are oppressed) might be broken down by the Trump Administration.

The biggest negative until this week was the economic illiteracy around tariffs.  It's so outrageously stupid the thinking around trade protectionism that it barely deserves a response.  If it were about leverage to open up markets and break the back of the protectionist rackets of the EU and India, it might be one thing, but it's a brainless attempt to "bring back jobs" regardless of the cost, and somehow raise revenue.  Of course some argue that the US Federal Government was once funded by tariffs with no income tax, but there is zero prospect of income tax being abolished, so it remains a measure to tax imports, hike up inflation, punish consumers and ensure the US is less and less competitive internationally.

However that's small fry compared to the moral turpitude around Ukraine.

Ukraine gained independent with the dissolution of the USSR, a point in history anyone with a belief in liberal democracy, individual rights and freedoms and belief in human self-determination would celebrate. Vladimir Putin didn't of course.

Ukraine inherited borders from the USSR, as did all of the former Soviet Republics. It made sense because there is no shortage of potential disputes around people split between sovereign states. Besides the Governments of Russia, the USA and UK agreed to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine (and Belarus and Kazakhstan) in exchange for the three former Soviet republics surrendering the Soviet nuclear arsenal based on their territory.  After all, there was genuine fear of nuclear proliferation.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed in 1994 was an agreement that the parties would:

Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act).

Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".

Not to use nuclear weapons against any non–nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.

Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments

Russia broke this agreement in February 2014 by invading Ukraine, first to annex Crimea and again in early 2022. The United States broke this agreement by not guaranteeing Ukraine's borders.

Now Trump has decided to shred what remains of this.

Obama was the start, he ridiculed Mitt Romney warning of Russia being a looming threat. 

Then Obama did little to respond to Putin's invasion of Crimea. Biden's response to the invasion of the rest of Ukraine was more significant, but ultimately was weak. It wasn't to provide air cover, it wasn't to provide the weapons he could, it was to do enough to constrain what Putin could do, and now its over.

There is a line of US self-styled conservative thinking that ranging from loving to being sympathetic to Putin. Why? Because he's a strong man who "defends his country" against "Islam" and in favour of "Christian values". Values that seem to include rampant kleptocracy and Soviet style oppression of dissent.

Some are actual far-right fascists, who yearn for a strongman to jackboot his way through their country, poison and arrest opponents, shut down protests and enforce a traditional view of the role of women, an avowedly anti-homosexual position and embrace an expansionist shameless view of the power of their beloved nation state.  Others are contrarians, who see Putin pushing back against "globalism" (whatever that means), and regard the European Union to be more authoritarian and malign than a virtual one-party state run by a permanent President who runs his country as a mafia state. Of course there is plenty of room to criticise the European Union, but the intellectual vacuum that sees criticism of policy in Western Europe as justifying a war of aggression against Ukraine is eye-watering.

Likewise is seeing the flaws of Ukrainian liberal democracy as being morally equivalent to Russia's kleptocratic totalitarianism. An argument can readily be made to critique the approach of the Biden Administration, but to turn reality into an inversion as the Trump Administration is doing harks of the perversions of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

The idea Ukraine started the war is deranged. Ukraine was not run by a Nazi, and Russians in Ukraine faced no existential threat from the Government. Indeed Russians in Russia face MORE threat from the jackbooted tyranny of the FSB than they do in Ukraine. We shouldn't forget of course that one of Russia's proxies before invading Ukraine proper did shoot down a civilian airliner murdering all of its passengers and crew.

The moral relativists in Washington DC have blanked out flight MH17, just a lot of Dutch people, Asians and Australians after all. 

The deluded concern about NATO expansion, as if NATO has ever threatened Russia and as if ANY country actually has an interest in invading it.  This is Russian nationalist hysteria.  See how Sweden and Finland have joined NATO and Russia barely blinked an eye.  Ultra-nationalists are prone to delusions about conspiracies to destroy their beloved people, and this is one.  The truth of NATO is that it remains because the Soviet Union's former empire doesn't want to go back to being a part of it, and Russia has not successfully deradicalised itself from its past eras of totalitarian irredentism.  Lithuania, Romania, Poland and even Ukraine purged themselves of their past under one of the world's most murderous and morally bankrupt regimes, but Russia is led by a man who misses that.

What Trump has done is invert the moral order.  At the very core of modern international law is the belief that the sovereign state is inviolate and it is a fundamental breach of the international order for one national army to invade the territory of another.  This has only happened because the USA and Europe refused to deter Russia invading its near neighbours, and the consequence are where we are.  However, it is entirely Russia's fault for being an aggressive imperialist invading force.

If the 21st century international order is that naked aggression by a nuclear power, on a much smaller, benign peaceful country, is to be shrugged about and rewarded by another nuclear power, with that other one seeking to do a deal to literally plunder the victim's property indefinitely, it isn't "order". It is a neo-feudalism of bullies, and the only defence against that is offence.  It is the acquisition of the greatest of weapons, nuclear, to deter anyone.  It makes the world a more dangerous place. 

Trump's position is also contradictory.  As Janet Daley said in the Daily Telegraph:

Trump and Vance claim that Putin is not a threat to the West, that his military operations in Ukraine are simply a defence against attacks by Zelensky’s illegitimate regime. This is wickedly fallacious as a factual account of events, and the conclusion that apparently follows is blatantly self-contradictory.

In the very same pronouncements in which they proclaim Vladimir Putin’s benign intentions, the Trump-Vance team excoriate European leaders for failing to increase their defence spending and properly arm themselves against threats to Nato. But if Russia is an innocent victim and Putin is not an aggressor, where does the danger to Europe come from?

Either Putin is a peace-loving, reasonable interlocutor with whom we (which is to say, Trump) can do business – in which case Europe need not worry about increasing its defences – or he is determined to reclaim as much of Eastern Europe as he can seize – in which case the complicity of the Trump government is shameful.

Which is it? Is Putin a blameless, misunderstood victim and we can all go back to blithely spending our peace dividend on lavish welfare systems, or is he a malign actor who is an active threat to Nato countries, which must rearm as quickly as possible at their own expense?

And how can this instruction to Nato members to rearm at any cost be consistent with Trump’s support for the Russian claim that it is Nato expansion that is the cause of the recent conflict? Surely a rapid rearming of Nato members would justify Putin’s paranoia.

It also makes the United States a fickle ally. This deranged set of contradictions has no coherence.  The likely outcome is that European countries will increase their military capability, which will upset Russia, and they could provide more military support to Ukraine as well.  The unwillingness to call out any of Russia's actions seems difficult to comprehend, unless it has underlying it, either a sympathy for Putin or an interest in simply surrendering and withdrawing out of fear - the fear that doing anything else will cost the US money or lives.

It is a new isolationism for the US, although this is not new for the country.

Furthermore is the bizarre demand that Ukraine pay the US for the cost of the support the US provided for it to defend itself.  It is an inversion of the demands of Germany after WW1, which was forced to pay reparations to the Allies for starting the war.  This of course turned Germans to be ultra-nationalists, to resist the economic and national shame.  The Nazis came from that.  

Should Israel or Egypt be worried? Both have received billions in military aid over decades from the US, but will Trump demand half of Israel's GDP be handed over to pay the US back for its support? If not, why not by this measure? Why should Ukraine be punished for taking what a previous Administration had granted it? Besides, given the US shows little interest in actually protecting Ukraine from a future Russian invasion, it is difficult to trust that the Trump Administration would actually do anything if Russia tried again.

It's simple now The US cannot be trusted to defend its allies, it cannot be trusted to even advocate for the basic rules of the international system.  It is no longer a bullwark for liberal democracies, when it judges Ukraine and ignores Russia.

What should happen is Trump should threaten Russia with tougher sanctions, with NATO membership for Ukraine, a no-fly zone and greater help unless Russia withdraws. It should be simple, because it is.  It could show the backbone of Ronald Reagan, of JFK, of Harry Truman. It could because Putin is a bluffing minnow.   

What looks like happening is that Ukraine will be dismembered, all because of a deranged fetishisation of a short thieving psychopath, and a moronic disregard for an international order that for, better and for worse, kept the peace by and large.

The only real hope is that this is a lot of bluster and rhetoric.  If it really is, it's quite some technique in diplomatic bombast and disruption.

Sadly I think it is a New New World Order, and it has no real coherent order at all.  What it means for those wanting peace and security, is that they will have to pay a lot more for it.

Yes New Zealand it means 2% of GDP on defence within five years, but it also means Japan, South Korea, European NATO, and many others are going to be spending a lot more. 

The peace dividend of the end of the Cold War is well and truly over.

Forget Goldsmith's media proposals

Since the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (MCH) (in itself a rather Soviet sounding name for a Ministry) took over broadcasting policy from what is now the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise (MBIE), it has had a policy culture that is quite distinctly interventionist. It’s proposals for “modern media legislation” (one should always be suspicious of anyone claiming that their policy preferences are “modern”, which essentially means next to nothing) are worth reviewing because they reflect the lobbying of vested interests in the uneconomic media industry to try to compete with the media the public actually prefer.

I recall around 28 years ago being in a meeting in the then Ministry of Commerce (MBIE’s predecessor) where a manager had set up a PC to run the RealAudio streaming application to play live radio from around the world. He said at the time that this was the future and it would change broadcasting forever. He was right of course, and while some media have survived and been able to find niches (notably consolidation of commercial radio), others have struggled, such as newspapers and free to air television (the latter in part surviving in part due to politicians not seeking to take dividends from Television New Zealand).

Thirty to forty years ago, media for information (news) and media for entertainment were somewhat distinct. Newspapers were the prime authority for news, followed by news oriented radio and then television news broadcasts. It started to change when the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand was split into TVNZ and RNZ, and TVNZ was given carte blanche to respond to competition, of which it had years to plan for, as TV3 got its licence to operate following a tortuous beauty contest. TV3 essentially revealed in public what it would be showing to viewers well in advance of launching, and TVNZ then made sure it could buy up loads of competing content to undermine it, and it succeeded. At the time TV news was dumbed down deliberately.  Local news was scrapped, and the focus was on the approach of local US TV news broadcasts, focusing on making the news “relevant” and “easy to digest”. A big emphasis was on stories that had dramatic video footage and were easy to understand (disasters, crime, celebrities, sports victories/losses and war footage). The idea being to present a “narrative” of “isn’t that awful” (mostly) or “fantastic”, and leaving complexities around events, particularly public policy and international relations aside. The dumbed down TVNZ news won, and today this remains.

Today people largely obtain news and entertainment online because most people can access the content they want in seconds on multiple devices. If news happens, it is reported through news websites and through social media. Moreover, entertainment largely comes from overseas, whether self-made content on social media, or large boxset productions from the rest of the Anglosphere.

Needless to say the great successes of the likes of Amazon Prime and Netflix have upset those who built careers upon the myth that culture has some nationalist basis for it – the local production industry. Most people no more care about watching programming that is local than they do about listening to local music. People like what they like, and that is not to say there isn’t local content that can be and is successful, but the judgment as to what is good and what is not, is entirely in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Note also that blogging, micro-blogging (X) and the like are all part of this. There are neither state nor indeed financial barriers to most people being able to write, record and publish whatever they like (within the bounds of criminal law). Whereas before people needed to set up a printed magazine or convince an editor to let them write for it, or go on an Access radio station (or buy a frequency from the 1990s onwards), now the barriers to publishing are very low indeed.

Protectionists, legacy medai and politicians with a bent for influencing the public don’t like it that much.

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith has decided to release a discussion document with five proposals to "save local media". It reflects a very shallow approach to public policy in this space.

MCH’s five proposals are justified by the following statement:

New Zealand’s media and content production sectors are facing an uphill battle to remain viable in an increasingly globalised and continually evolving landscape.

Less local content is being commissioned and is no longer reaching local audiences on all platforms. Seeing and hearing our stories and voices has cultural and societal benefits

I’d suggest the uphill battle is simply due to the public not responding to what they produce.  The truth is there is a lot of local content, it just isn’t being commissioned by traditional broadcasters or the State subsidising outlets. I would wager that more NZers than ever before are writing, recording music or videos and publishing them than ever before. Sure much or indeed most of it is trivial and inconsequential, but what matters the most us that people ARE producing content, it just doesn’t meet the standards of public servants. However that last sentence is of course revealing of how empty these proposals are.

What are “our stories”?  We all have stories, I could if I wanted to, write everyday stories and the 90% or so of the population with computers, tablets or mobile phones could do so, and in fact many do. Tens, hundreds and in some cases thousands read or listen to them.  What are the “cultural and economic benefits” of ignoring this in favour of what is essentially a protectionist industry wanting other people’s money taken from them by force, to prop them up because the public isn’t willing to pay for their content voluntarily?

The state hasn’t stepped in to save newspapers, nor book or magazine publishers, so why should it step in to save video and film producers?

So what are the proposals?

Proposal 1 : Ensuring accessibility of local media platforms

This proposal says everything about how out of touch MCH is. It is to force manufacturers of smart TVs (not tablets or laptops or phones) to carry apps of traditional NZ broadcasters. Notwithstanding that many people don’t consume most of their content on smart TVs (MCH isn’t stupid enough to force all laptops to have apps pre-installed), the idea this would make any meaningful difference is ludicrous.  Of course Australia has such a rule, but it has two large state taxpayer funded broadcasters, and a state-mandated oligopoly of free to air broadcasters (only three are allowed), so it has long been highly protectionist of the commercial TV industry, enriching its owners. A survey in Australia suggests a third of owners of Smart TVs don’t know how to download apps. Well I’d suggest the same applies to laptops and even mobile phones. Why don’t the broadcasters find ways to help people do it? Why must the state mandate manufacturers do it for our small market? What about radios being pre-programmed into local stations, or smart speakers having apps for RNZ, Newstalk ZB etc?

MCH stretches a real long-bow to suggest that not doing this might “undermine democracy”.

Given that local platforms host the vast majority of local content, decreased engagement means that audiences are missing out on important societal and cultural benefits. In turn, decreased audience engagement affects TV broadcaster revenue and brand value, reducing their ability to make local content and remain financially viable. If there were fewer local broadcasters/platforms in New Zealand, this would create specific consequences for plurality and therefore accountability in terms of the vital role local news and current affairs coverage (from a variety of sources) plays in a well-functioning democracy.

This is false, as the vast majority of local content is hosted on foreign platforms like Youtube, Instagram and X, it’s just that the traditional broadcasters and public servants don’t recognise the content produced outside their contracts and visibility. This is a claim that without forcing Smart TVs to have TV apps, it makes them less financially viable and would undermine the “vital role local news and current affairs coverage” plays in a well-functioning democracy. Hold on. You already own RNZ and make all taxpayers fund it.  There is next to no local news (not national news) on TV today.  You’d have to be awfully naïve to think forcing LG to put the TVNZ app on its TVs will save the death of TVNZ’s news (noting TVNZ already decided to withdraw from X, for nakedly political reasons – it doesn’t like its owner and being challenged on it constantly for its statist centre-left bias). 

Proposal 2: Increasing investment into and discoverability of local content

This is proposing to force streaming platforms and TV broadcasters to waste their own money on what MCH’s falsely calls “investment” into the local content MCH approves of.  This is a naked attempt by the failing, already subsidised local screen production industry to force successful businesses to prop them up. It is equivalent to forcing book publishers to publish books that hardly anyone wants to buy, or in forcing theatres to host shows hardly anyone wants to attend. 

The definition of ‘local content’ is intended to capture content that reflects New Zealand stories, places, voices, and faces. Relevant factors could include if the subject of the content is New Zealand or New Zealanders, if New Zealanders hold key roles in production and if it is filmed in New Zealand.

Every time you post videos of your family or friends doing something, it is local content, but that doesn’t count to the MCH. It shows MCH is beholden to the local production industry,and is fundamentally protectionist. This proposal should be thrown in the bin on merit alone, but it fails even further.

New Zealand’s CER agreement with Australia including commitments on audio-visual services which around 25 years ago saw New Zealand TV programmes being deemed to be “Australian” for the purposes of Australian TV stations complying with the country’s local content quota. It is entirely plausible that if this proposal proceeds, that the platforms could all simply pass on Australian content on the basis that CER grants free trade in audio-visual services and give Australian content “National Treatment”.  Furthermore, NZ’s commitments under the WTO Agreement on Trade in Services also include granting national treatment to foreign audio-visual service content, so that other countries could demand that the requirement for New Zealand content actually covers them as well. In short, according to New Zealand’s international trade agreements, the proposal could be meaningless. 

Proposal 3 : Increase captioning and audio description

Mandating this wont do anything to support local content at all, and will actually load more costs on production, which shows how utterly incoherent these proposals are. Weirdly MCH is concerned about the legal consequences of New Zealand not complying with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It’s clearly a sop to some lobbying, but given it runs completely contradictory to the earlier proposals (although there is obviously some merit to this for some people with disabilities), it makes little sense being here.

Proposal 4 : Modernising professional media regulation

In short, the proposal is to expand the scope of the increasingly irrelevant Broadcasting Standards Authority (a better proposal would be to scrap it) to “ensuring positive system-level outcomes”, whatever that means. It would apply to all “Professional Media” whatever that is other than “organisations that commission, produce, or directly pay for media content and distribute it as their primary business”. 

This is clarified further as:

• including New Zealand broadcasters and streaming platforms, global streaming platforms, online text-based media, newspapers, and magazines.

• not including online platforms that primarily host user-generated content or provide access to others’ content, such as social media (like Facebook and TikTok) and search engines (like Google).

Online text based media? Yet not platforms that host user-generated content? Where's the line between those?

This is unnecessary and intrusive. There was once arguably a role for the BSA when free to air TV was dominant and children in particular could be exposed to content unsuitable for them at certain times. However, this is now an anachronism. Parental neglect and naivety todays means many children get exposed to content that would never be seen on Pay TV let alone free to air TV, and the MCH wants to retain and expand the BSA. At best this is silly and futile, at worst there is something sinister and frightening about the call for a wider media regulator. Of course, the MCH didn’t consider abolishing the BSA.  It should be abolished and be simply replaced it with a basic code of practice as a condition of using radio frequencies.  Every other content that passes over the internet should not be subject to more regulation than any other.  

Proposal 5: Streamline Crown content funders

Also could be called merge state subsidisers of preferred content. It is essentially to merge the Film Commission and NZ On Air. I’d abolish them both, as they aren’t needed, there being no more reason for taxpayers to fund TV programmes and films they aren’t willing to pay for, than for them to fund books, haute couture fashion, posters or New Zealand made porn.  MCH didn’t consider this, because it thinks the content that most New Zealanders aren’t willing to pay for, let alone watch in numbers that are attractive to advertisers, is “inherently” some sort of public good. 

What should be done instead?

Stop trying to save something that people don’t want. The Broadcasting Standards Authority should be wound down, and made into a private industry body like the Advertising Standards Authority. That means broadcasters can choose to belong to it, and restructure broadcasting licences to ensure some very basic standards of freedom of speech and protection against defamation and inciting violence.

NZ On Air should be wound down as well. It should be phased out, and if RNZ is to continue to be subsidised, it should be funded directly from the MCH. There is no need to continue to force taxpayers to fund specific content. The Film Commission similarly so. 

Privatise TVNZ. Start by offering shares to every citizen equally and let the public dispose of those shares if they wish.  Beyond a heritage function, for which it might be funded from taxes, it should be unshackled from the state. 

Shift media policy from MCH to MBIE.  Media is a business and deserves oversight by a Ministry that is business oriented, not one that is a taxpayer funded lobbyist for the industry of dress-up and make-believe.

There is a debate to be had as to whether taxpayers should be forced to pay for content they don't want to pay for or don't consume, that's where the focus should be. MCH assumes this is the majority or dominant view, and that is simply wrong. MCH has proven itself to be a poor custodian of the media sector and is beholden to the pleadings of those simply wanted their businesses to be propped up by subsidies either directly from taxpayers or from businesses that provide content people actually want to pay for.

Most of these proposals had their genesis under the Ardern/Hipkins Government as can be seen in the Briefing for the Incoming Minister (PDF). Make of that as you wish, but it demonstrates an ongoing philosophical belief in the role of a interventionist state in forcing others to pay for the production of content that MCH thinks is good for people.

You have until 23 March to submit on these proposals, go right ahead.