The destroyer of money

Modern-day macroeconomics -- that's the stuff that justifies government manipulation of money to make booms, busts and regular credit crises like the one the world is in now-- is still infected with the virus of John Maynard Keynes, the man who did more to destroy the value of money than anyone else in any century.

The ghost of this long-dead economist still dominates macroeconomic teaching and thinking today, and can be seen in such nonsensical statements from the likes of Michael Cullen that it's inflationary when we get to use our own money, but not inflationary when governments take it from us and piss it up against the wall.

In the long-run the domination of Keynes the state-worshipper has been all bad both for economics, and for those economies which good Keynesians have been manipulating ever since.

His wisdom may be judged by such "insights" as these, which both common sense and genuine economists had long debunked:

To dig holes in the ground,” paid for out of savings, will increase, not only employment, but the real national dividend of useful goods and services. (Keynes, General Theory, Ch. 16).

No wonder Henry Hazlitt, in his thorough book-length destruction of Keynes' tax-and-spend system concluded "all Keynes's recommendations for practical policy are unsound," and that

though I have analyzed [Keynes's General Theory] theorem by theorem, chapter by chapter, and sometimes even sentence by sentence ...I have been unable to find in [Keynes, General Theory] a single important doctrine that is both true and original. What is original in [Keynes's] book is not true; and what is true is not original.

For those unable to take advantage of Hazlitt's brilliant book-length critique, a much shorter introduction to Keynes and his destructive notions can be found at the Mises Institute site: Spotlight on Keynesian Economics.

If you genuinely want to understand how governments destroy our money, and the nostrums that back up the pillage, then this is a great place to start.

The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt Read more about this book...

UPDATE 1:  The US Federal Reserve is now subsidising failing bankers to the tune of $31 billion, representing a record level of money being printed to prop up the likes of the Maserati-driving bankers who've been writing bad loans.  As Steve Forbes points out in a letter to the New York Times,

Last August when the credit crisis hit, the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, began flooding the banking system with liquidity, like throwing money out of a helicopter. Since then, the American economy has ground to a halt, and global economic growth rates have slowed. Yet the price of oil since August has zoomed from around $70 a barrel to more than $120.

UPDATE 2:  George Reisman has the perfect follow up reading: Standing Keynesian GDP on Its Head: Saving Not Consumption as the Main Source of Spending:

According to the prevailing Keynesian dogma, consumption is the main form of spending in the economic system, while saving is mere non-spending and thus a “leakage” from the spending stream. This dogma underlies much of government economic policy in the United States, including the so-called economic stimulus package that has just been enacted. In this article, I prove, to the contrary, that consumption is not the main form of spending in the economic system and that the source of most spending is, in fact, saving.

Tax cuts? We'll give you tax cuts!

I'm very pleased to see the Libertarianz release their own alternative Budget well ahead of Michael Cullen's tax-and-spend clunker.  Leader Bernard Darnton presents the main points at Libz TV, and here's just some of the highlights to start you salivating:

• Michael Cullen grudgingly gives you back $20 a week after nine years in power. John Key offers $50 – eventually.  Libertarianz will make the first $50,000 of income tax-free immediately. This means that the average New Zealand household, with an income of $68,000, would keep an extra $403 per week..."
• Helen Clark and John Key say no even to taking GST off food.  Winston Peters says tinker with it. Libertarianz says get rid of GST immediately, knocking $20 off a $250 grocery bill and ten dollars off the price of a tank of petrol.
• "The government will say they can't afford this – but it's not their money – it's YOURS. You have the right to spend your money however you wish. Libertarianz is pro-choice when it comes to your money."
• "Of course you can't cut tax without cutting government spending – and we're happy to oblige. Education, health, and superannuation are far too important to be left in the hand of politicians.
  "We will allow people to spend as much or as little of their money on these as they wish..."

See more details at Scoop, Bernard Darnton's presentation at Libz TV, and the whole spreadsheet on which the Budget is based here at the Libertarianz site.  As Darnton concludes:

    "With the Libertarianz budget, the churning of money through the government's sticky fingers will be almost eliminated by the tax-free threshold. A flat tax on income over that $50,000 threshold of 25%, reducing 5% per year for 5 years, will fund a smooth transition. After 5 years, no more revenue will collected from the citizenry by coercion or force. Taxes will be voluntary."
    "It's enough to make you vote Libertarianz!"

UPDATE: Lindsay Perigo says "Bravo!"

    "It's especially gratifying to see the end of the loathsome GST, otherwise known as the ACT Party Tax," says Perigo.
    "By coercive government fiat, GST adds twelve-and-a-half per cent to the price of everything. GST was the means by which Roger Douglas continued to expand the Nanny State (after its introduction, tax revenues rose by 6 points as a percentage of GDP) and grind down the smelly proletariat while lowering taxes for his crony-phony capitalist mates (libertarians, of course, favour genuine capitalism, the kind that is not in bed with politicians).
    "The measures advocated here by Mr. Darnton put meaningful tax cuts on the table for the first time. They would return hundreds of dollars a week to the pockets of their rightful owners, their earners.
    "With the demented Global Warming chooks coming home to roost in the form of skyrocketing food and energy prices, the Libz prescription couldn't be more timely.
    "Just what the doctor ordered. Even Dr. Cullen should order it," Perigo concludes.

Frightening Facebook friends

Dave Gee must be doing something right with his blog since it ranks ahead of Cactus Kate's in the local politico-blog rankings -- no mean achievement.  Maybe it's because he finds stuff like this: What if Facebook was Real Life? 

Frightening!

Kennedy's seizure

What I felt when I heard the news of Senator Edward Kennedy being diagnosed with malignant tumours was summarised very well by Blair Mulholland:

Mary Jo Kopechne's Killer Still At Large. 
Damned seizure didn't quite finish him off.  Bugger.

The second was a paraphrase of a comment made by Evelyn Waugh when Randolph Churchill underwent treatment after a similar diagnosis:

It would be a triumph of modern science -- to find the only part of Edward Kennedy that isn't malignant and remove it.

NB: If you're not sure who Mary Jo Kopechne was, read Myrna Blyth's Remembering Mary Jo.

Beat up

I feel the need to say something about Phil Goff's supposed 'gaffe' in his interview with Oliver Driver last night on Alt TV, segments of which were leaked yesterday to Ben Thomas of NBR.

An interview with Driver being more monologue than dialogue, perhaps Goff should be admired for being able to say anything at all: since Driver's ego almost overshadows the whole interview, I'd suggest it's hard to take too much from it at all.

But even given the words Driver was trying to put in Goff's mouth -- and this is much more obvious from listening to the actual interview than it is from reading the leaked transcripts -- to concoct the overheated hyperbole that so many commentators have on the basis of comments so innocuous is frankly farcical.

The over-excitement says more about the commentariat than it does about Phil Goff (pictured right with a terrorist), or Helen Clark.

And who can say they don't feel somewhat refreshed for once that there's a politician who refuses to deny the obvious?

• You can see the relevant clip of the interview here:
  

UPDATE:  Newstalk ZB's Leighton Smith has an interesting take.  This is no gaffe, he says, (about which I agree, Goff is too experienced for that) but the use by an experienced politician of a two-bit TV station to promote himself as a politician committed to honesty and openness, in the same way that Barack Obama has successfully pulled off the same scam in the US.

Russell Collins House - Bruce Goff

Built in 1959 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. [Photos from 'Ralph's Photography' site.]

Untruth from the usual places

"Pacific Islanders' crime rates, poor education and low employment are creating an underclass and a drain on the economy, a study [released by] economist Greg Clydesdale, of Massey University's management and international business department."  So says the Dominion's front page this morning.

Message to Greg: your figures are in error. As Lindsay Mitchell points out, the figures for crime, employment, housing and welfare don't even begin to support your argument, which means your conclusion doesn't stack up.

So much for Mr Clydesdale, Massey University's management and international business department, and the fact-checking ability of the Dominion.

Truth from unlikely places

I bet you'll never guess either the philosopher whose wisdom appears in the following two quotes, or even his country of origin -- and I'm damn sure you won't pick those for whom he was a mentor.

Said our man:

“It is philosophy that makes man understandable to man, explains human nobility, and shows man the proper road. The first defect appearing in any nation that is headed toward decline is in the philosophic spirit. After that deficiencies spread into the other sciences, arts, and associations.”

Why does philosophy have such power? Explains the author:

“Philosophy is the escape from the narrow sensations of animality into the wide arena of human feelings…In general, it is man’s becoming man and living the life of sacred rationality. Its aim is human perfection in reason, mind, soul, and way of life….It is the foremost cause of the production of knowledge, the creation of sciences, the invention of industries, and the initiation of the crafts.” (emphasis added)

Isn't that wonderful?  And what's more, it's true.

So do you want a clue?  Here's one: our man underwent a philosophical change almost as profound as John Stuart Mill's collapse from eloquent advocate of laissez faire to scum-socking apologist of socialism (though for different reasons -- this philosopher was unlikely to have been pussy-whipped as Mill was).

Give up?  Then for your answer, head over to the history blog of Scott Powell, who uncovered these amazing lines.  As the Resident Egoist says, "Prepare to be shocked."

How many thousand make a "consensus"?

The global warming models are falling into disrepute, global temperatures still flatly refuse to climb, and now the "science is settled" argument is about to look even more unsettled:

The National Press Club in Washington will today release the names of as many as 32,000 American Scientists who reject not only Kyoto-style greenhouse gas limits, but the very premise of manmade global warming itself. [Story: American Thinker]

So what's left of the warmist argument?  Why the need to shackle our producers?  And what's the collective noun for 32,000 scientists? 

A 'consensus'?

Dr Robert

Pssst.  I know that many of you know Robert White, a local Objectivist, so I'm very happy to report that Robert is now Doctor Robert -- his thesis on the philosophy of Ayn Rand has now been accepted, and the title of Doctor about to be bestowed.

Congratulations Doctor.

UPDATE: Oops, apparently my grapevine was slightly inaccurate.  I said the title of Doctor is about to
be bestowed. In fact, Robert's degree was conferred several weeks ago.

Here's the Beatles, with 'Dr Robert':

                          

And here's a very good Peruvian Beatles covers band doing Dr Robert.  Who knew that such things even existed.

NZ blog rankings, March/April

The lads at Tumeke have again done blog readers a service with their ranking of the NZ political blogosphere for March-April just out overnight, with some big changes in the top ten.  You can see it here.  Not bad work for "an insane, radical, anti-semite, Maori-lover, thieving, prisoner-whore" and "a fat, lefty, peacenik, traitor, fag."  Not bad at all.

The chief value of the rankings isn't just boasting rights for bloggers (oh, okay, I'm up from sixth to fourth, jumping ahead of the Green Party's Frog Blog, nyahh, nyahh), it's in the service it offers blog readers.  You may not be able to read the news from twelve different angles as you can in the UK, for example with their wide-ranging and entertainingly opinionated newspapers, but if you read the top dozen NZ political blogs every day you can achieve something of the same effect.  (And if you do read the top dozen NZ political blogs every day, you'd be well advised to download and use an RSS newsreader to make your reading easier.)

But there's still plenty of gems outside the top twelve, some of which Tim Selwyn (he's the the insane, radical, anti-semite, Maori-lover, thieving, prisoner-whore) has highlighted in his summary of the rankings. (And don't worry, that's his own self-loathing autobiographical description.)

I like Tim's summary of #34 Liberty Scott -- "think: Idiot/Savant's style, Trevor Loudon's research, Peter Cresswell's thinking" -- but  I'm not sure the description is entirely intended to be a compliment.

Anyway, take some time and do some exploring.

A deadlock holiday

French women may not be obese, but the French bureaucracy is.  "As much as 55 percent of the state budget currently goes to pay for civil servants and state pensions," says the New York Times, which means a significantly entrenched interest group violently opposed to change, and with abundant time on their hands.

French president Nicholas Sarkozy has a simple plan to trim the fat, says the Times, which is simply to replace only half the number of bureaucrats who retire.  With this rather timid approach, Sarkozy hopes to cut 22,900 civil-service jobs this year, and 35,000 next year.  Hardly radical, considering there are more than 2.5 million Frenchmen and women enjoying a comfortable berth in the bureaucracy, but enough to get hundreds of thousands out on strike in defence of the status quo.

As this elephantine bureaucracy inexorably calcifies the French economy, the need to deflate the civil service bubble is enormous.  What's needed is not timidity, but a genuine circuit breaker. 

Perhaps I could recommend to Monsieur Sarkozy an easier method by which to break the deadlock and to really empty out the civil service, a method I'd recommend to local politicians as well.  It is this: Why not offer every single civil servant -- every bureaucrat sucking off the state tit -- offer them all a year-long holiday at taxpayers' expense.

Who would object?  Well, apart from the taxpayer, of course.  At first, anyway.  You see, I'm suggesting a very special kind of holiday. 

First of all, the effect would be a sort of bureaucratic moratorium; businesses struggling under the weight of Gallic red tape would have twelve months of relief to get a few things done for a change. That would be a relief to every business, and to every one of their customers.

Any difficulties that would arise from the temporary loss of those few bureaucrats who do perform a useful service would be allayed by the loss of those whose job is only to create difficulties.

Which points to the second main benefit: Who's going to miss most of these bastards when they're gone? If most of them aren't missed in twelve months, most people will be asking why not make it twenty-four months ... or thirty-six ... or, permanently.  Bingo!

Over those twelve months of the bureaucratic moratorium it would become apparent even to the most dedicated bureaucrat-lover that the positions occupied by most of their heroes are utterly worthless -- that they are holding down jobs that are really not worth doing, or in their doing are only creating difficulties for others.  Sure, some of them will have been missed --and this will give an easy indication of which ones can't be done without -- but at least ninety percent won't be missed at all and be swiftly sacked on their return (should any even bother to return at all).

I would suggest that wherever the weight of public opinion is now, in twelve months time the momentum would be with Sarkozy and their sackings, without any unrest in the streets.  What do you think?

Roll out the 2008 pork barrel

"An election," HL Mencken used to say, "is an advance auction of stolen goods." As the Herald's front page points out this morning, the bidding is starting earlier this year. 

Only five months into election year and National have already promised to spend $1.6 billion more of your money (and counting), while Labour have already promised to spend $4 billion -- with more to come this week with the reading of Cullen's election-year budget, and later in the year as Labour gets desperate enough to do anything to get itself a fourth term. 

At the same time as announcing new bribes paid for with more of your money, both parties have started another bidding war: this time it's to give some of the stolen goods back in the form of tax cuts -- a non-virtuous circle only a politician is able to square.

Good on the Herald for pointing out this is 'good' old traditional pork-barrel politics, and for their plan to keep a 'Porkometer' to measure the extent of the swindle.

UPDATE: According to Russell Brown's information, the Porkometer is already between $1.5 and $4.5 billion light [see his post 'Shooting for the Moon' to see some pretty hairy numbers around what John Key's fibre promise is likely to cost us].

And David Slack points out that "the story doesn't ask which, if any, of the items proposed by Labour have been expressly ruled out by National."  I think we all know the answer to that one, don't we, so for an accurate figure maybe just take Labour's number and double it.

PS: A point to everyone who spots the provenance of the punchline in the title of David's post.

Studio Cottage, Island of Shikoku - Dean Bryant Vollendorf (August 25, 1929 - May 6, 2008)

Photographer and architectural archivist Edward Schatz just sent me a note to say that the creator of delightfully light-hearted gems like the cottage above has died.  The website on which he was working before his death will continue, with friends posting images and memories of the man over the coming weeks.

Headcase: 'Farmer Bob' Mugabe

Check out 'Farmer Bob' Mugabe's farm at YouTube [hat tip Julian].

The shape of flip flops to come

On the beleaguered Emissions Trading Scheme, TVNZ reports "In a policy announcement on Sunday morning, [National] leader John Key has revealed the party will not be supporting the scheme in its current form." 

Am I the only one who adds Key's support for "a well-designed, carefully-balanced" Emissions Trading Scheme to the last four words in that sentence above to get the prediction of a(nother) forthcoming flip flop?

Those four carefully chosen words reveal the ghost of flip flops past which hovers Sunday's policy announcement. It's the anti-smacking bill all over again, isn't it.

Surveys

If you have a spare moment and you read or publish a political blog, then you can help out a young man doing research on political blogging at the University of Political Correctness in the Waikato by filling out his surveys: here if you read political blogs, and here if you also publish a political blog.

Oh, and while you're doing online surveys, here's one that tells you What Type of Trader you are (I'm Strategic, it seems) and another here to see whether or not you can tell females from shemales.  Very important work -- and not entirely unrelated to political blogging.

Stunts dwarf ACT policy announcement

Rodney Hide's twenty-three point pledge card for ACT electioneering has now been announced.  The first twenty points are rather kindly summarised by Liberty Scott, but for some reason he ignores the last three points.

So perhaps someone else can explain how ocean swims, lambada and dressing up as a dwarf advance the electoral cause -- or any cause at all?

MMP?

MMP?  STV?  First Past the Post?  Doesn't matter to me which electoral system is used in New Zealand -- frankly, the whole argument is a populist sideshow.

What's important is not the method by which governments are elected, but the way in which they're tied up.

What's important is not the counting of heads regardless of content -- whichever method is used to count the empty heads -- but putting things beyond the vote that are far too important to leave at the mercy of an empty-headed majority.

Sure, we can look forward every three years or so to several weeks of no government while the power-lusters negotiate how the cake is carved up, but when the new Government is inevitably formed it frequently looks like a mongrel combination of both fish and fowl, and it frequently ends up spending even more than it would otherwise due to the need to buy off smaller parties (did someone say Families Commission, solar panels and Gold Cards?).

Sure, it can slow down legislation.  A little.  But it's also true that the minority 'tail' gets to wag the whole country, introducing legislation that's a real dog (how amusing that Greens's co-leader Russel Norman sees minorities gaining power through the construction of the electoral system as a problem).

As Lindsay Perigo points out, "MMP has already done its damage, giving unreconstructed socialists like Banderton and the Luddite Greens clout in government out of all proportion to their popular support."  The point is not to change the electoral system, but to to protect ourselves from Nanny governments.  We might begin by remembering that

Democracy, so often and so tragically confused with freedom, allows for the destruction of freedom at the behest of majorities or pluralities. In particular it enfranchises welfare cannibals who vote for the party that promises them the greatest amount of money stolen from its legitimate owners. Elections become, in H. L. Mencken’s immortal words, ‘an advance auction of stolen goods.’

"Any meaningful electoral reform must at minimum disenfranchise those who suck on the state tit. Bailey Kurariki, who is no doubt looking forward to voting Labour, the party that most conscientiously spawns his ilk, should not have the vote at all until he is self-supporting.

"Most importantly, the inalienable rights of every individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness must be placed out of harm’s way, beyond the vote. Politicians must be constitutionally prevented from violating those rights, no matter how many state-indoctrinated zombies demand such violation.

"Every adult human being has the right to live his life as he/she chooses, constrained only by the requirement to respect the right of others to do the same. This right should be enshrined in a constitution and made sacrosanct in law,” Perigo concludes.

Clarifying the cost of liberty

Just to clarify a few things for those who are arguing on another thread, NZ Libertarianz maintain:

• that the job of governments it to protect individual rights [See 'Cue Card Libertarianism: Government', and 'Cue Card Libertarianism: Rights'];
• that anarchism is in fact destructive of rights [See 'Cue Card Libertarianism: Anarchy']; it is essentially self-defeating [see 'Anarchism is Self-Defeating']
• that in concrete, practical terms, protecting individual rights means protecting against the initiation of force and fraud -- which means, as a corollary, bringing the right of retaliatory force under objective control [See 'Cue Card Libertarianism: Force', and 'Law' in the Ayn Rand Lexicon];
• that governments should be constitutionally limited only to the protection of individual rights [See 'Cue Card Libertarianism: Constitution'];
• that the essential branches of government required to protect individual rights are a police force, a defence force, and law courts -- all members of which are sworn to uphold the constitution [see Libertarianz policy on Defence, Justice and Law & Order]
• that the cost of a government so constituted would be similar to the amount that people pay voluntarily for insurance -- and would give citizens the same motivation for voluntary payment [see Libz Budget 2007 (.xls), my own 2001 'Gun-to-the-Head Budget': 'Would You Kill Your Mother to Pay Michael Cullen?', and PJ O'Rourke's far funnier 1991 budget for the US -- 'Would You Kill Your Mother to Pave I-95?' -- from which I pinched the idea];
• that support for the Libertarianz Party in these views does not necessarily mean support by the Libertarianz Party for all the views of supporters.

Let me stress too that my own silence on a thread does not necessarily indicate assent with any comments in those threads.

Now, it's not a bad thing to have summarised all that this week, because this week is Budget Week -- the week when the government announces how it plans to pluck the taxpayer goose this year with the minimum amount of hissing. On such a bleak occasion, it's not a bad idea to reacquaint ourselves with the reason we have governments in the first place (which is to protect our rights, not to do us over) and just how little a proper government would cost.

Bossy Boris

Many readers of this ramshackle blog have indicated to me enormous support for Boris Johnson's success in the London mayoralty elections, looking forward to a new era without Red Ken.  Said Liberty Scott of the loopy Tory toff for example, "I have no idea what Boris would bring, other than a healthy dose of skepticism about Nanny State..."

Well, no.  Looks like a predictably unhealthy dose of Tory backsliding and New Puritanism.  Brendan O'Neill reports at Sp!ked that "the very first act of London’s new Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, has been to declare a ban on drinking alcohol anywhere on the public transport system."

As I said before, Johnson's election signals a London without Red Ken, but not a London in which any of Red Ken's policies are repealed (that's the way conservatives roll, you know -- just watch NZ come November).

O'Neill makes the point clear:

You can tell a lot about a political leader by his attitude to alcohol. Historically, your position on the Booze Issue – including the freedom of people to buy it, to consume it, and even to vomit it up again in a hedge if necessary – defined where you stood on individual liberty itself, and on the trustworthiness of the mass of the population to make choices and to live with their consequences.

Where illiberal, elitist, suspicious and quite often Christian outfits sought to restrict people’s access to alcohol, great defenders of freedom and civil liberties groups emerged from the struggle against prohibition. John Stuart Mill’s impassioned defence of freedom, On Liberty, was written ‘in the midst of the growing power of Christian temperance groups’ (1); the American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920, also the year in which the American government prohibited the manufacture, transportation and sale of all alcoholic beverages (2).

[This ban] reveals more about [Boris'] new regime than he thinks. Boris ... wants his booze ban to demonstrate that he will be tough on anti-social behaviour and singular in his determination to restore respect, good manners and possibly cap-doffing to the streets of London. In fact, the ban reveals that, post-Ken, petty authoritarianism and distrust of the London masses is still rife in City Hall.

Over to you, Boris backers.

Adams not hungry any more

I was surprised to hear that former United-No Future MP Paul Adams is alive and well and helping the Density Party Christian Party Family Party launch their election campaign over the weekend, because he undertook a hunger strike three years ago so that God would prevent the "evil' of the Civil Unions Bill being passed into law -- one he oviously failed to finish off.

His God clearly failed to notice Mr Adams' protest (he wasn't the only one), but Mr Adams is obviously eating again, and all the evils he predicted have failed to come to pass.

So too, I suspect, will a repetition of his time as an MP.

Shooting the Koran

Why do some Muslims get incensed about a US soldier using the Koran for target practice, but take to the streets to offer support (or by their silence give tacit support): to fathers who slaughter their daughters ( so called  'honour killings'), to rape victims being executed, to those who insult the Koran being executed, to teenagers being sentenced to death for consensual sex, to adults being sentenced to death for adultery.

Liberty Scott has the question, and the evidence.

As he (almost) says, "the priorities of far too many Muslims are: book first, lives second, goats third ... and women a distant fourth).

And what about those who berate Westerners for being 'offensive' to Islamic culture, but who turn a blind eye to a religion that was born in violent conquest and which today mandates and endorses genital mutilation, the subjugation of women, the stoning of gays, the beheading of those who satirise their stone-age beliefs, and the violent institution of sharia law and dhimmitude across the globe?

What sort of person would get more angry at those being offensive to such a barbaric culture than they would at the practitioners of barbarity themselves?

Frankly, if barbarity like that described above doesn't offend you, then you've failed as a human being. 

And if the barbarity comes from a religious book, then all the more reason to use it as target practice.

Sunday School: Blasphemy

More blasphemy this Sabbath, but this time with humour.

                                   

Don't worry if you don't get the joke -- I had to have it explained to me too.  I don't think you'll have any problem understanding this one: Rowan Atkinson welcoming you to Hell:

                           

Lying about a 'fair tax'

Advocates for the so called 'Fair Tax' say it will result in everyone receiving 100 percent of their paycheck.

It wasn't true when former libertarian Neil Boortz published his first best-seller on 'The Fair Tax Book'; it wasn't true when he published his much revised mega best-seller paperback edition on the 'Fair Tax,' and it still isn't true now that he's published his follow up, called Fair Tax: The Truth: Answering the Critics.

As one of those critics points out, the critics aren't answered, and truth is utterly at odds with the claims of the  'Fair Tax' enthusiasts -- as can be seen in Boortz's new book itself:

    The book ... is intended to be a sequel to The FairTax Book, published in 2005, that offers "eye-opening new insights not covered in the original book."
    Boortz is right. There are some eye-opening new insights unique to this sequel. Like the disclosure that you might "owe more in taxes in the first year of a FairTax system than you do today." Or the admission that "the FairTax could be even more progressive than our current system." Or the confession that the "implementation of the FairTax doesn't mean complete annihilation of the IRS."  Or the proposal that "a procedure should be set up in the Treasury Department to collect taxes on Internet and catalog sales, remitting the state and local governments' share to them."

Fair Tax: The truth is there is no such thing as a fair tax.  Never was.  Never can be.

UPDATE: Now online is an article from that same Fair Tax critic, from the May 12 issue of The New American: "Is Making Taxes 'Fair' the Answer?" Says author Laurence Vance, "This comprehensive article on the problems with the FairTax is not based on a Boortz book, although I think I mentioned him once or twice."  It concludes:

Since it is a tax-reform proposal instead of a tax-reduction proposal, the FairTax merely changes the way that taxes are collected. It is an incremental step toward neither lower tax rates nor lower taxes. And it is certainly not a plan to return the size, scope, and cost of the federal government to its proper constitutional authority. With President Bush’s proposed new budget topping $3 trillion and the national debt fast approaching $10 trillion, the need of the hour is clearly to rein in government spending, not change the way the government raises its revenue. FairTax proponents have the proverbial cart before the horse. Their energy is misdirected. As Congressman Ron Paul has remarked on several occasions: “The real issue is total spending by government, not tax reform.”

The income tax should be repealed, not replaced. The IRS should be abolished, not given a new name. Tax reform should result in revenue reduction, not revenue neutrality. Because the FairTax falls far short of these goals, it should not be considered a “fair” tax. It should therefore be rejected by all Americans who favor a return to the limited government of the Founders.

Who in all honesty could disagree?

On activism

I've just discovered an astonishing essay from 1953, and from the unlikely pen of an economist:  it attacks those who sniff that any proposed policy or proposal that might alter the status quo, no matter how slight, the change, is "too radical" or unrealistic."

As Clarence Philbrook points out (yes, his name is as unlikely as his profession),

the only thoroughgoing escape from the charge of impracticality is never to advocate any change whatever in existing conditions.  But to take this approach is to abandon human reason, and to drift in animal- or plant-like manner with the tide of events.

He might have been talking about John Key, mightn't he?

As Philbrook commentator Daniel Klein points out,

    The "realism" philosophy must, therefore, come down to a set of beliefs about which policy reforms are politically viable and which are not. It must rest on a set of beliefs about the probabilities associated with various reform proposals. Free banking, for example, however desirable it may be thought to be, is regarded to have such a small probability of realization that it is foolish to even discuss it, and hence is dismissed as "unrealistic." ...
    The probability that free banking, for example, will be realized depends on how many other economist-advisors advocate the reform. "If all, however, follow the 'probability' principle, no one can commit himself until many others (nearly all?) have committed themselves." If making their choices simultaneously, economists' advice will "be the product of infinite involutions of guesses by each about what others are guessing about what he is guessing about what they will advocate."

It's like talking to a row of zeroes, isn't it.  One almost expect to find the word "consensus" -- and one almost does.

    Philbrook is pointing out that if science is what scientists say it is, and scientists are those who practice science, then scientists are playing a coordination game with bad equilibria. One equilibrium in particular stands out for its focal properties. Philbrook (p. 858) writes of the "mutual anticipation ending only in universal support of the status quo."
    The focal power of the status quo shapes the evolution of professional ("scientific") norms. The profession suffers from what path-dependence theorists call "lock-in." Philbrook (p. 847) remarks: "There has grown a widespread practice of cooperation with 'things as they are,' without explicit criticism of them, which is bound to have the effect of active approval regardless of whether such is intended."

As Marx would say in support, the point of philosophy is not just to understand the world, but to change it.  But the status quo merchants aren't just relying on an endless row of zeroes for their judgement; they're not just hung up on belonging and fitting in; they're also scared of real change -- which is why they talk up the bogus change represented by a Key or an Obama.

But the honest man doesn't just seek to fit in and preserve the status quo.  The honest thinker wants to make the world a better place.  Another Philbrook fan, Murray Rothbard concludes (well, I've quoted Marx in support, so why not Rothbard):

    We must make clear our policy convictions not on the basis of what others believe [or say they believe] the best course to be and then try to convince others of this goal, and not include within our policy conclusions estimates of what other people may find acceptable.
    For someone must propagate the truth in society, as opposed to what is politically expedient.
    If scholars and intellectuals fail to do so, if they fail to expound their convictions of what they believe the correct course to be, they are abandoning truth, and therefore abandoning their very raison d'être.
    All hope of social progress would then be gone, for no new ideas would ever be advanced not effort expended to convince others of their validity.

And then the grey ones will have won.

Beer O’Clock: Auckland Beer

This week in Beer O'Clock, Neil from RealBeer gives Auckland beer-lovers the benefit of his Wellington wisdom:

In these modern times, many people think nothing of driving for hours and paying a premium to secure local, organic produce. We seem fascinated with the welfare of our chickens, the provenance of our mushrooms and the age of our venison. That’s understandable – it is all about sustainability and flavour.

Where it gets interesting is when these same people are selecting a beer to go with their gourmet conquests. All too often, their “buy local” philosophy is abandoned in favour of the bland certainty of a global mega-brand. It is a shame – there is wisdom in the old saying that beer is best drunk in the shadow of the brewery.

During a recent visit to Auckland I had the chance to try two new local beers and was pleasantly impressed.

Brown Teal Ale (5%) is a rich brown beer with a tight stream of bubbles in the glass. It has a smooth caramel body and a lingering, almost oily, bitterness from the use of organic hops. This beer was darker and more flavoursome than I had expected. Brown Teal Ale has a lovely balance and is very refreshing. It’s not easy to find at this stage but you can contact them through their still rather spartan website.

Before flying back to Wellington, I was enjoying a couple of pints at Galbraith’s with the owner of this august blog. Galbraith’s (left) is a near perfect brewpub. In fact, the only thing I can find to criticise is the constant presence of Chris Trotter when I’m there. One of the scariest sights I’ve ever seen was Comrade Trotter (right) bursting through Galbraith's front door wearing a National Party conference badge. Thankfully, he hadn’t joined the party [hard to notice - Ed.] but he had been drinking their free booze in preparation for another year of relentlessly attacking them in his columns.

Speaking of columns, the new seasonal at Galbraith’s is called Full Nelson, a brown ale. It is not a style I’m usually too keen on. I’ve honestly never really seen the appeal of Newcastle Brown – affectionately known as Newkie or “the dog”. “Taking the dog for a walk” is apparently code for “going to the pub for ten pints with my mates.” However, I always thought Newcastle Brown got “the dog” nickname because it smelt like a wet Bassett Hound.

The Full Nelson is thankfully a different beast. It is a smooth, creamy, cask-conditioned ale. It pours a rich brown with a small, well-formed head. It has plenty of caramel and malt before a firm hop finish. Overall, it’s very tasty yet eminently sessionable.

Besides, how was I ever going to resist a beer named after a wrestling hold?

As they say, thing globally, drink locally.

Cheers, Neil

All but speechless

If a politician gives a speech and nobody willingly shows up to hear it, does he make a sound? 

The question must have occurred to poor Michael Cullen yesterday when only thirty-six people turned up to hear his pre-Budget briefing in Christchurch, most of whom were paid to be there.

Crikey, even the Libertarianz can pull more than that -- and make better sense.

Not exactly Titian, is it.

                                                            

The world's most expensive painting by a living (bullshit) artist depicts a woman "in training for the Couch Potato of the Year Award in 1995, captured by the trembling hand of Lucian Freud."  (Here, by the way, is the Couch Potato.)  Says Coxsoft Art of the work: "Only a myopic hippopotamus could find 'Big Sue' aka Benefits Supervisor Sleeping aesthetically pleasing."  Apparently a myopic hippopotamus did take note, because  Lucian Freud's painting just sold at auction in New York for the whopping sum of US$34 million.

It's not exactly Titian, is it?

                                            

Cue Card Libertarianism: Renewable Energy

Each 'Cue Card Libertarianism' entry forms part of a series intended to introduce newbies to the terms used (or as used) by libertarians. The series so far can be found archived here, and the Introduction here.

RENEWABLE ENERGY:  Energy is the very lifeblood of an industrial civilisation, hence the opposition of civilisation's opponents to energy production, and their concomitant support for so called 'renewable energy.'

Renewable energy may be defined as energy produced by means that would be uneconomic without such tax breaks and subsidies.  The distinguishing characteristic of so called 'renewable energy' is not that it is renewable, but that it doesn't produce reliable energy.  For the most part, the "renewables" so heavily touted just aren't available. What distinguishes the "new energy" touted by the likes of David Parker and Nick Smith and Jeanette Fitzsimplesimons from the "old energy" on which industrial civilisation depends is that while "old energy" is reliable and actually produces energy, so called "new energy" is still experimental, and mostly doesn't.

It's the modern day equivalent of snake oil.

While "old energy" fuels the world's industry, "new energy" still requires your money to prop it up, and barely scratches the surface of the sort of capacity required for a modern industrial nation. Said former Australian PM John Howard recently, (and accurately):

Let's be realistic. You can only run power stations in a modern Western economy on fossil fuel, or, in time, nuclear power."

Alan Jenkins from NZ's Electricity Networks Association issued a similar warning two years ago which has still been widely undigested, saying

It's very hard to invest in coal [because of Kyoto], nuclear's a sort of four letter word... hydro is suddenly becoming too hard... what's left? ...we can't do everything on windpower.

We don't learn, do we.  Even as they're draining our lifeblood, the anti-industrialists are still taken seriously.

This is part of a continuing series explaining the concepts and terms used by New Zealand libertarians, originally published in The Free Radical in 1993. The 'Introduction' to the series is here. The series so far can be seen down on the right-hand sidebar.

"Nanny State - Is the Govt OTT in Telling Us What to Do?"

Did anybody else see Close Up last night?  I must confess, I usually skip the flatulent half-hour of non-news on the two main channels, but last night I was seduced to watch by the invitation to watch an investigation of Nanny's advertising -- "Is the government over the top in telling us what to do?" asked the teaser -- that seemed to have noticed Sus's hilarious anti-Nanny rant posted on Libz TV the other day.

Frankly, I think Libertarian Sus has a much better line in ridicule, but see what you think: 

• It's not the Advertising, it's How We're Advertising - Libertarian Sus, Libz TV
• Nanny State - Is the Govt OTT in Telling Us What to Do? - Close Up, TVNZ