Letter to Ahmadinejad

On his birthday, Mein Javedanfar in the Guardian has written an open letter to Iranian coup leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He says, among other things:

"Mr President, you would do well to stop thinking that you are proficient in all matters. Although you have better academic credentials than many of your predecessors, your narcissistic behaviour is driving the country into the ground. Meanwhile with your reckless outlandish speeches, you are tarnishing the millennia-old reputation of Iranians as tolerant people."

Quite. He would be an international joke if it weren't for the sleight of hand on nuclear matters.

"Iran's economy, despite vast natural resources, is the pity of the Middle East. The Iranian passport is the fourth worst passport in international leagues. Even Lebanon, whom you supply with millions of dollars every year, requires a visa for Iranian visitors.

However, Iran has one thing that should be the envy of this world, if it already isn't. And that is its young people. Many of its students trounce western students in maths and science competitions. Unfortunately, you have imprisoned many of them and killed others because they want a genuine recount of the presidential votes."

Mein makes the point that Ahmadinejad is looking a lot like the former Shah of Iran, distant, out of touch and increasingly dictatorial. He suggests that Iran should be a proper liberal democracy with:

"Elections where the people decide, and not the leadership. Where Iranians are not tortured or killed for their opinion, in their own country. That day, Mr President, could already be on its way. The people of Iran are the country's most powerful asset. Ignoring and abusing them has been perilous before, and could be again."

It would be appropriate, of course, for Iranians oppressed by this feeble minded megalomaniac to give themselves a present - as it would be quite moral to put a bullet through his head for all that he has done and the abject brutality of the regime he leads.

He does, after all, lead a regime that executes children.

10 myths you learn from school

The Times has them today including:

Napoleon was short - he was 5ft 7, which was average, then.

Vikings had helmets with horns, no they were buried with helmets and drinking horns.

Edison invented the light bulb. No, Joseph Swan did.

Mice like cheese. No they prefer sugary food.

Humans evolved from apes. No, humans and apes have common ancestors.

Read the rest here.

Lord Stern loses the plot - some more

Lord Stern is known for his report on climate change for the British Government. He claimed the benefits of intervening to prevent climate change exceeded the costs, a cost of 1% of GDP to save "up to 20% of GDP". The report was warmly embraced by the usual suspects and widely condemned by others. Bjorn Lomborg said the numbers were dodgy, there have been other critiques of the analysis. However, let's set this all aside for a moment.

Now he has come about with claims that would frighten some, make many environmentalists smile, but overall look rather ridiculous.

He claims "southern Europe is likely to be a desert; hundreds of millions of people will have to move. There will be severe global conflict". Scaremongering is it not?

Furthermore, he wants people to stop eating meat: "Meat uses up a lot of resources and a vegetarian diet consumes a lot less land and water. One of the best things you can do about climate change is reduce the amount of meat in your diet"

Mind you he isn't a vegetarian himself.

Nile Gardiner in the Daily Telegraph welcomes it though:

"Still, Lord Stern has done us all a favour. His monumentally silly remarks about turning the planet vegetarian will only drive another nail into the credibility of the climate hysteria movement. I look forward to his next interview on why we should all stop driving cars and return to using horse and cart. With the exception of course of gilded grandees who need a limo to the next UN conference on global warming."

For me, until those who are concerned about climate change advocate, first, getting rid of the vast panoply of state interventions that INCREASE CO2 emissions, I'm going to be sceptical about whether they really do want to balance human beings with the environment. What sort of things do I mean?

- Price controls on energy including limits to the profits energy companies can make, and subsidies to consumers;
- Subsidies for any modes of motorised transport, including governments not demanding a real profit from their own transport assets;
- Subsidies for agriculture and trade restrictions on agricultural products that keep efficient producers (like New Zealand for dairy products and Thailand for rice) from supplying countries with inefficient producers (like the EU and Japan);
- Subsidies and protectionism for the motor vehicle industry, aircraft manufacturing sector, steel industry, indeed any industry at all that uses high amounts of electricity or fossil fuels;
- Welfare that rewards breeding;
- Subsidised waste disposal and landfills.

Karadzic planned eradication of Bosnian Muslims

The Times reports evidence at the The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of phone taps when he said in 1991:

They have to know that there are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo.... it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die. They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the earth.

Charming.

The vile murderous vision of nationalist slaughter by this thug, his right hand brute Ratko Mladic and the late Slobodan Milosevic was put into practice, while the world watched.

Of course, it wasn't helped by the arms embargo which meant Bosnian Muslims could not readily acquire the means to defend themselves, whilst Bosnian Serbs had already taken control of most of the arms of the former Yugoslav National Army, which had been controlled from Belgrade. It wasn't helped by the UN declaring Srebrenica as a "safe haven" which Bosnian Muslim refugees fled to, only to be slaughtered (the men and the boys slaughtered, the women and girls raped, as part of a deliberate plan to fill Bosnia with "baby Serbs"). The mistakes were many in the international response to this conflict, but nothing beats the pure brutal evil of the likes of Karadzic, proving some Europeans still have the willingness to undertake atrocities akin to those committed by the Nazis.

Of course, no side was innocent of bloodshed inflicted on the innocent, but without a doubt the Bosnian Serb side was the blatant standard-bearer of "ethnic cleansing". The trial of Karadzic reminds us all of how xenophobic chauvinism remains a cancerous tumour that some politicians are only too willing to encourage, and all too many are willing to kill in the name of.

Roger Douglas damns Nats on ACC

ACC is a pyramid scheme. Who says? Sir Roger Douglas

He says of the government's ACC bill:

Nothing in this Bill deals with the fact that, from its inception, ACC was a flawed pyramid scheme. In the beginning, it operated on a pay-as-you-go basis. That meant that for many years, it seemed cheap, as the full cost was not apparent – all of those with long term injuries were not yet making claims. Unfortunately, those years of low cost also saw the entitlements expand – so that by the time the system had absorbed all those with long term injuries, and covered the expanded entitlements, it suddenly seemed to cost an awful lot.

These problems are set to get worse. We have an aging society. An aging society implies not only more payouts, but also a lower proportion of people paying levies to cover the Non-Work Account. Because it is a Ponzi scheme, it will require ever-expanding numbers of people working to pay the levies.

So you can see how it has gone wrong, as it progresses, more and more claim it, stay on it for extended periods, making it progressively more expensive. Concepts completely alien to the economically illiterate left.

He says Labour knew this, and sought ACC to become fully funded by 2014, but it also expanded "entitlements" effectively setting it up for bankruptcy. The nonsense spread by the left that ACC is in fine shape because it receives more than it pays out, ignores the unfunded liabilities it has:

If any private insurance company had the books that ACC has, they would be declared bankrupt. The only reason that ACC is still solvent is that it has the capacity to increase levies. In essence, it is solvent because it can force people to cover its costs.

In other words, it is solvent because it has a state monopoly - it is solvent because you are forced to pay for it.

He suggests competition "The only viable way to ensure that ACC delivers results for reasonable prices is if it is open to competition. If people can get cheaper rates elsewhere, they should be allowed to leave. If that means risky workplaces start paying higher premiums, so be it – it will encourage them to improve workplace safety"

He makes the same classic arguments about competition, including one I have repeated:

"Currently, ACC sets a flat rate levy based on the risk in an industry. Those employers which have safe environments subsidise those who have unsafe environments. There is little commercial incentive to create safer workplaces.

By keeping ACC as a monopoly, and not properly allowing risk pricing to emerge, we are in fact increasing the number of workplace accidents. In the private market we have insurance excesses, we have no claims bonuses, we have risk-based premiums. The private market is all about mitigating risk. ACC, on the other hand, is about forcing the good employers to subsidise the bad ones."

The ACC monopoly is classic socialism - all employers pay for the collective risk, the good employers subsidise the bad ones, but who cares, it's all warm fuzzy shared and we all feel good about it, don't we?

After all you hear the left saying privately provided accident insurance will include a profit component, increasing costs, which of course implies that profit should be eliminated, and everything provided by the state, because profit increases costs. Classic Marxism.

All the lies of the left about "privatisation" completely ignore the real debate - why the state monopolises a compulsory accident insurance scheme that means the careful and prudent subsidise the reckless and imprudent? So now, of course, National cuts back ACC coverage to try to fit the budget - meaning all complain about the monopoly delivering less than what people want.

The advocates of state monopoly don't have very good arguments against competition, except use of a Labour commissioned PWC report that had terms of reference to effectively justify the status quo (a classic case of commissioning a study to tell you what you want to hear).

No other country runs this sort of pyramid monopoly scheme for accident cover, it is time to dismantle it and move on. Opening the whole damned lot up to competition is the FIRST step.

Then it's time to look at the next Ponzi scheme - National Superannuation.