‘Project for a Buddhist Monk Cell,' by Suriya Umpansiriratana

I can hear the cat-calls already, just from you having read the title. "What the hell is Cresswell doing posting this sort of stuff!”  Buddhism, yet!

Well, my first answer would be to say, “Look at it before you complain.” Go on, take a closer look. What Thai architect Suriya Umpansiriratana has done here is to give perfect concrete form to the daily routine of a Buddhist monk, to his daily round of peripatetic meditation in nature, and in doing so he’s given real meaning to the monk’s existence. As the DesignBoom website explains (from whence these pictures derive),

it is designed to create an atmosphere conducive to the monk’s practice of noble conduct.
The circular form allows for continuous walking meditation, but also functions as a symbol
of the 24-hour cycle of the practice schedule:
- the first period, from 04:00 to 12:00: after waking up, during chanting, meditation,
and the daily meal, a single wall to the east shields the monk from the morning sun.
- the second period, from 12:00 to 20:00: during the time for studying the Buddha's teachings,
the simple roof overhead shields the monk from the daytime sun.
- third period, from 20:00 to 04:00: chanting and meditation takes place in a space exposed
to the elements, and the monk then sleeps under the hanging mosquito net umbrella.
    The daily routine is expressed naturally by the design of the building. the circular form allows for precise directional siting of the building [see picture below].
    The primary structural material is steel, and the color follows that of the monk’s robes.

The beauty here comes not from any great ornamentation, because in that respect it’s as plain as a barn door, but in the meaning that this structure builds in. You might even say that it's very simplicity makes as plain as can be the very poverty (or stripped-down simplicity) of the Buddhist project, which calls essentially for the annihilation of all personality—something almost beautifully achieved here.

And that’s why this apparently simple building is worth examining: because it demonstrates once again what architecture is able to do. Said Frank Lloyd Wright, "Architecture is the scientific art of making structure express ideas," and that’s equally as true whether those ideas are false as hell, or as false as heaven.

Since remote times [explains Christian Norberg-Schulz] architecture has helped man
in making his existence meaningful.
With the aid of architecture he has gained
a foothold in space and time.
Architecture is therefore concerned with something more
than practical needs and economy.
It is concerned with existential meanings.
Existential meanings are derived
from natural, human and spiritual phenomena,
and are experienced as order and character.
Architecture translates these meanings
into spatial forms…

You might say that we humans develop rituals that help us handle, understand and enjoy life (i.e., the natural, human and spiritual phenomena that make up each of our lives). Rituals that give meaning to our lives. We develop these rituals, and then architecture builds them in.

And in doing so, architecture does more than just keep the rain off our stuff: it gives real meaning to our existence.  Even (ironically) to an existence we seek to escape from.

You too?

Over the weekend, I was talking to someone who for some unfathomable reason went along to Mt Smart last week and stood in front of Bono for three hours. And then they asked me why I didn't.

I commented that apart from not liking anything they've ever recorded, if I wanted to be harangued by the sort of patronising smugness that sounds like the product of reading too many greeting cards, I'd much prefer to go along and see the Dalai Lama, thanks very much.

At which point another friend suggested I might like comedian Bill Bailey's pisstake of U2 guitarist Dave Evans.  And he's right. I did. And you might too.

Looks like Dave liked it.

GUEST POST: “The Popular Delusions of Crowds”

Guest post by David Galland from Casey Research, which looks very briefly at how the whole world got here, and where “here” really is.

Dear Readers,

Today is one of those days where the sheer volume of possible topics overwhelms.
    Do we talk about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s appearance on last night’s 60 Minutes in the U.S., during which he confirmed that the Fed’s latest $600 billion Treasury purchase program was unlikely to be the last – that the Fed is unswerving in its decision to debase the dollar “however much it takes” in an attempt to stimulate growth. Just as we have been saying it would for lo these many years. Related to that topic, it’s notable that the dollar actually strengthened on the news – though not against the far sounder monies of gold and silver, both of which are up again today.
    A related story, sent to me by steady correspondent Jack A., might be worth discussing – that the Republican leadership, kowtowing to its friends in high places in the big banks, may try to keep Ron Paul from taking the helm at the congressional subcommittee charged with overseeing the Fed.    Here’s the story.
    Do we talk about the vote in Ireland tomorrow? Will the Irish Parliament approve the deeply unpopular austerity budget the EU is demanding as part of the bailout it crammed down the throats of the country’s equally unpopular government? As that budget was a condition of the rescue plan, if it is rejected, will that put Ireland back in play as the first European nation to default?
    Since we’re in Europe, we could discuss the report out on Friday that Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel recently threatened to lead her country out of the eurozone – an act that would leave the experiment in extra-sovereign meddling a gigantic smoking hole in the ground. This is a topic that Bud Conrad spends considerable time on in this month’s edition of The Casey Report, out within the next day or so. (And you can receive it, risk-free.)
    Or perhaps we could talk about the reason for Bernanke’s admission that the gloves are off on monetization – that past and present governments of these United States have led the country into the very dangerous neighborhood shown in this chart. 

    (More charts on a similar theme here.)
    A word or two might also be in order for the massive war games the U.S. is now running off the coast of South Korea, involving 44,000 personnel, 60 war ships, and 400 or so aircraft. With the South Korean defense minister, who resigned over the tepid response to the North’s latest aggression, having been replaced by a hardened and hawkish military commander, the situation has arrived at one of those “interesting” crossroads in history where a miscalculation by the North could lead to a map change.
    Not to be cavalier, but things could get wild if the North so much as pops a cork. Even if nuclear weapons didn’t subsequently come into play, the massive metal-throwing capabilities of the North and the close proximity of those capabilities to South Korea’s heavily populated capital zone (consisting of 23 million souls) could lead to a disaster in the proverbial blink of the eye.
    Or we could talk about lighter topics, for instance a fun and interesting Christmas party I attended over the weekend. At the party, one of the area’s leading architects told me that in his long career, the business has never been this bad. A point of view echoed by a friend in the home furnishings business who told me they are stopping spending money on advertising because it does no good: no one is buying anything, no matter what the offer. I may share some additional observations gained from the party, but not today as I’m running late and am a bit worn down by long hours of wiring and editing The Casey Report over the weekend.
    Instead, I will step back to what the corporate types like to call the “50,000-foot view” and note that the totality of what’s hitting the newswires these days falls almost frighteningly within the scope of the intractable crisis we have been so ardently warning you about.
    As a refresher, or as fresh information for those of you new to these musings, though the storyline of this crisis stretches back many years, it is still pretty straightforward. The kernel of the crisis was planted decades ago when Americans first began to look to the government to solve every problem, large and then even small. 
    As this attitude that government was all-powerful served the interests of the politicians, they took every opportunity to encourage it. For example, while in campaign mode, aspiring politicians energetically position themselves as being the best qualified to solve what ails, then layering on the cream and cherries of new benefits to be dredged from the public trough so that they can be delivered to voters.
    As the election records make clear, the myth of an all-powerful government works even more to the favor of entrenched politicians – with each new year served giving the incumbent added firepower come election time. Not so much because their constituents actually like their representatives – but rather because they have been made to understand that the longer a politician serves, the higher their rank within their party and on the committees that dole out the goodies. It is for this reason that the career politicians invariably build their advertising campaigns about their special ability to deliver the pork, and voters keep returning them to office in order to take advantage of that fact.
    Over time, this attitude of looking first to the government for what might be termed a better life gave rise to any number of fictions. For instance that money could endlessly be created out of thin air as needed to deliver on political promises… but especially in situations that might be considered an “emergency.” 
    The problem is that there’s always an emergency – and ironically, over time, those emergencies have emanated from the past deeds of the politicians themselves. 
    For its part, the government has a range of tools it can bring to bear as problem-solvers – coercion, taxation, regulation, directed spending, monetary policy, drone-fired bombs, cheap loans, and so on, and so forth. When the dot-com bubble began to pop, the tools used by the government included ratcheting interest rates lower and actively encouraging loose credit.
    The flood of cheap money and loose credit set the stage for the housing bubble, which is best seen as part and parcel of a bubble in private debt. Of course, the government was not shy about increasing its own spending… because of the 9/11 emergency, and because there is always another election right around the corner.
    With the prices of housing soaring and everyone feeling like the party could go on indefinitely – mostly because the lower cost of interest allowed them to more easily service a higher level of debt – the total amount of debt in the economy began accelerating.

    Unfortunately, the party ended with the crisis that began unfolding in 2007, after which the availability of credit dried up and the housing bubble began to unwind. Thanks to derivatives and other modern financial innovations that allowed leverage, it quickly became apparent that the problems were not just bad but acute.
    Naturally, because it’s what we Americans now know, the populace turned to the government to fix the broken machine of the economy. With barely a moment’s hesitation, all of the king’s horses (asses) and all the king’s men set to the task. The scale of the problems was so big, however, that so had to be the government’s response.
    Viewed even from 50,000 feet, what then followed beggars the imagination. From the Fed lending out $3 trillion or so to pretty much anyone who raised a hand – foreign banks and private corporations included – to the government takeover of entire industries... to sending checks to hundreds of thousands of individuals… to guaranteeing bad loans by the boat load… to allowing the banks to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic real estate loans onto the balance sheet of the Fed… to dropping interest rates to zero… to providing cash incentives for car buying or installing alternative energy equipment (among others)... to extending unemployment benefits to two years… and on, and on, and on.
    While the consequences of these extraordinary actions are many, with many more to come, the most obvious result has been an annual government spending deficit in excess of $1.4 trillion – with no clear way to reduce that deficit in the years ahead. In fact, with the increasing takeover of the medical system just ahead of the first waves of retiring baby boomers, the deficits are likely to stay at these elevated levels, or even worsen, in the years just ahead. Especially given that the interest rates being paid out on all the debt are at historic lows. Meaning they are an anomaly that can’t last long. And once they start to rise, the deficits will begin to run out of control and the endgame will begin in earnest.
    While woefully inadequate, that’s the big-picture look of how we got here – now a quick look at where we’re headed next.
    And that, as our own Bud Conrad has steadily pointed out, is to a sovereign debt crisis, which in turn leads to a currency crisis.
    What’s going on in Europe, which very much followed the U.S.’s lead in trying to fix everything – versus letting all the malinvestment follow the natural path that a free market would have dictated – is just a preview of what’s going to happen here in the U.S.
    And this is where it gets interesting. You see, when the eurozone was established, there were certain controls put into place to avoid a willy-nilly printing up of new money by the central banks of its constituent economies. Thus, when faced with demands to repay its debt, Ireland can’t just whip up the tens of billions it needs… but rather must accept a bailout from the EU, along with all the attached strings.
    As Bud Conrad explains in his article in this month’s edition of The Casey Report, the eurozone’s problems now revolve around debt that is simply too big to cover. And so, for the reasons you’ll read, the odds are high that the euro will blow up. After which the Irish, the Italians, and the Spanish can get back to the serious business of printing up tons and tons of their own local currencies to meet their oversized obligations.
    In other words, the unbacked fiat currency of the euro will be annihilated and replaced by the unbacked fiat money of a bunch of countries, and the race to the bottom will begin in earnest.
    Meanwhile, back here in the U.S. where there are no restrictions on how much money the Fed can create, Bernanke and friends are already leaning heavily on the monetary levers. Because they can. And, as Ben’s 60 Minutes appearance makes clear, they’ll continue to lean on those levers until Congress decides enough is enough (Ron Paul not being named to head the oversight committee would be a step in the wrong direction) or, more likely, the lever breaks.
    Which is to say, when each new wave in money printing is met by a demand for higher and higher interest rates from prospective buyers of U.S. Treasury instruments. Around the same time, we’ll begin feeling the impact of increasing prices that must follow from the Fed’s monetary inflation.
    At which point the U.S. dollar as currently constituted will follow the euro into the trash bin of history.
    There is, of course, much more to it than that – for instance, the widely accepted notion that the “big countries” of Europe, the United States, Japan, and maybe China are too big to default on their debt will be proven false. That’s because ultimately, the fiction rubs up against the reality that the debt that is a hallmark of this crisis not only hasn’t been resolved, it’s been made worse by all the bailouts. For example, the solution being foisted on woefully indebted Ireland is to layer on another $100 billion or so of debt.
    I guess when you get right down to it, this crisis had it seeds in the madness and popular delusion of crowds. But it’s going to end up on the rocks of the reality that real money doesn’t come from nothing, and that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Sooner or later the tab comes due.
    The tab is now sitting on the table in front of us all. While the bankrupt governments of the world will continue to pretend they are good for it… it’s becoming increasingly clear to just about everyone that they are not.
    (Where does North Korea fit into this construct? Only as a reminder that Black Swans, while rare, are also real. While we can’t know where the next surprise is going to come from, the way things are lining up, the odds are that it won’t be a pleasant surprise when it comes.)
    And it’s not just the federal governments in trouble… it’s pretty much everyone…

David Galland
Managing Director
Casey Research

Reposted by permission from Casey Research.
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A Hick-up on economic history

The ignorance of so-called financial commentators is legion.

Take this just yesterday from alleged financial commentator Bernard Hickey, showing he’s as poor a historian as he is an economist.

Obama is just like Hoover - US economist Thomas Palley
hits the nail when he compares Obama to President Hoover,
the President before Roosevelt who fiddled* while the economy
slumped into recession…

This is just flat-out ignorant nonsense. Dangerous nonsense, since it is intended to reinforces a myth that encourages more meddling, of which Mr Hickey now approves. I replied at his site roughly as follows:

Bernard, you said, "Obama is just like Hoover - US economist Thomas Palley hits the nail when he compares Obama to President Hoover, the President before Roosevelt who fiddled* while the economy slumped into recession..."
    There is no polite way to say this: This is just flat out wrong.
    If Palley has hit anything it is only his thumb--and yours. If you are going to talk as some kind of authority, then please learn what you're talking about before you open your mouth.
    The only thing Palley got right is that Obama (and Hoover, and Roosevelt, and Bush) should not have listened to mainstream economists.  But to listen to Palley peddling lies about Hoover’s record (and you spreading them further) makes my stomach turn.
    Because, far from keeping his hands off while the economy tanked, Hoover was precisely as active as you and your new interventionist mates would have liked him to be **
    He intervened to keep prices up.
    He intervened to keep wages up.
    He borrowed to put deficits up.
    He supported and signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
    He endorsed the Federal Farm Board, which placed the government into the farm business.
    He introduced the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which spent billions on loans (or gifts) to prop up failing banks and industries.
    In short, he did almost exactly what Bush did, and what today’s mainstream economists encourage, with results that were just as dismal. 
    And instead of fixing the crash, he turned it into a full-blown depression.
    He introduced what Benjamin Anderson calls “Hoover’s New Deal,” and with it he delivered what deserves to be called “Hoover's Depression.”
    Virtually everything in Roosevelt’s New Deal was in Hoover’s. Just like Obama did with Bush, And after campaigning against Hoover's "big-spending" and “fiscal irresponsibility,” when elected FDR went right on ahead and did just what Hoover did, only moreso.  Just like Obama did with Bush. 
    And instead of fixing the depression, he made it last for years.
    Between them, Hoover and FDR were a disaster—and their “underconsumptionist” thesis firmly exploded. 
    So if there's any historical comparisons to be made here (and there are) the only one that makes any sense is to say that Obama is playing FDR to Bush's Hoover. 
    And they're both a goddamned disaster.

HOWEVER, if you really do want to learn about an Administration that sat back while the economy slumped into recession, you really should learn more about the “Great Depression of 1920-21”--where the initial slump was even bigger than it was nine years later. 
    But do you want to know why you don't hear more about The Great Depression of 1920-21? It's simple. While the slump was much bigger, because the government sat back, got out of the way, and allowed the economy to recover, in less than two years the US economy had restructured, recovered, and was back on its way to growth again.
    In short, the authorities then did what Hoover (and Bush, and FDR, and Obama, and Greenspan, and Bernanke) should have done.
    Which was to get the hell out of the way.
    And that's why it's been called "The Depression You've Never Heard Of."  Because their fiddling* in 1920-21 while the economy slumped into recession was what allowed the economy to restructure, to recover, to “rebalance,” and to get back on the road again.
    It’s just impossible for an economy to do that when government is doing all it can to meddle.

* * * *

* Just to be clear, so there's no misunderstanding, by fiddling we all mean what Nero did -- which was "fiddling while Rome burned" -- not what Obama/Bush FDR/Hoover did, which was intervene, intervene, intervene.

** "Franklin D. Roosevelt, in large part, merely elaborated the policies laid down by his predecessor. To scoff at Hoover's tragic failure to cure the depression as a typical example of laissez-faire is drastically to misread the historical record. The Hoover rout must be set down as a failure of government planning and not of the free market. To portray the interventionist efforts of the Hoover administration to cure the depression, we may quote Hoover's own summary of his program, during his presidential campaign in the fall of 1932:

        “We might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead we met
    the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic
    program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the
    Republic.’”  [Quoted in From Murray Rothbard's book America's Great Depression]

*** In the 1932 election Roosevelt attacked Hoover’s meddling, and “promised a free-market approach to economic growth: cut federal spending, reduce taxes, and lower the Smoot-Hawley tariff.  He hit these three points frequently [“… also promising to cut government in size by 25 percent and to balance the budget in each year of his presidency”] , and no doubt won many votes because of that…” [Quoted in Burton Folsom’s New Deal or Raw Deal]

At the time of writing, Hickey hasn’t bothered to respond.

NB: There are two primary reasons an economy needs a hands-off approach in order to restructure.

First, the economy has got out of whack in the boom period, during which much money has been lost and many resources consumed in malinvestments. 

Pumping newly-printed money back in to make up the loss (which as Von Mises used to say is like backing over a man you’ve just run down in your car, in the hope that the new accident will remedy the last) only leaves everyone uncertain about where and when all that newly-printed money is going.  What businessmen need to be able to do is read the price signals, and fit their price “coats” according to the reduced amount of monetary “cloth” around. Once the new price levels have been found, the economy is ready to be productive once again—but that can’t happen when prices themselves are being meddled with. Businessmen can’t do that when the whole price structure is put out of whack by these gobs of counterfeit capital, .  

Second, because the economy has got out of whack, it does need to restructure. Resources are down, and the best use has to be made of what’s remaining. The best way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to bail out bad positions, making sure those resources can’t be put to better use elsewhere. The second-best way to ensure it doesn’t happen is to announce so many new laws, measures, rules, regulations and bail-outs that no businessman knows from one day to the next what he can plan for. This is what Robert Higgs calls the phenomenon of regime uncertainty, which is arguably more responsible  than anything else for so many businessmen hunkering down and refusing to invest.

Here’s the sort of thing I mean: legislation introduced yesterday to break up what was once NZ's largest company.

Recession means recovery—or should do—iff governments get out of the way so businessman can recover.

Explains Murray Rothbard in America's Great Depression (which you can, and should, read online here in PDF),

 The "boom" ... is actually a period of wasteful misinvestment. It is the time when errors are made, due to bank credit's tampering with the free market. The "crisis" arrives when the consumers come to reestablish their desired proportions. The "depression" is actually the process by which the economy adjusts to the wastes and errors of the boom, and reestablishes efficient service of consumer desires.

The "depression" is a necessary thing.

The adjustment process consists in rapid liquidation of the wasteful investments. Some of these will be abandoned altogether (like the Western ghost towns constructed in the boom of 1816–1818 and deserted during the Panic of 1819); others will be shifted to other uses.
    Always the principle will be not to mourn past errors, but to make most efficient use of the existing stock of capital. In sum, the free market tends to satisfy voluntarily-expressed consumer desires with maximum efficiency, and this includes the public's relative desires for present and future consumption. The inflationary boom hobbles this efficiency, and distorts the structure of production, which no longer serves consumers properly.
    The crisis signals the end of this inflationary distortion, and the depression is the process by which the economy returns to the efficient service of consumers.
    In short, and this is a highly important point to grasp, the depression is the "recovery" process, and the end of the depression heralds the return to normal, and to optimum efficiency. The depression, then, far from being an evil scourge, is the necessary and beneficial return of the economy to normal after the distortions imposed by the boom. The boom, then, requires a "bust."

Time to stop worrying then, and learn to love the recovery.

And to stop treating the likes of Hickey as an economic authority.

Happy birthday, Dave Brubeck

Legendary jazzman Dave Brubeck enjoyed his 90th birthday yesterday. He may be 90, and just recently gotten over pacemaker surgery, but that didn’t stop him playing a weekend engagement last week at New York's Blue Note Club.

Here he is with his Quartet in the 50s, with Paul Desmond on saxophone (Brubeck is the egg-headed looking chap on piano comping in behind him).

[Hat tip Pete Margasak and Jazz on the Tube]

‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,’ by Caspar David Friedrich

I’ve just hung a print of this inspirational 1818 German Romantic piece above my desk. As you can imagine, I’m thrilled to have it there.

It has that feeling you get when you’ve just conquered a piece of work, a line of thought, something with which you’ve been struggling—you’ve reached a new plateau and you see how all your previous work and thinking fits together—and you’re at that moment of rest, savouring the moment before conquering the next peak.

Like I say, thrilling.

And the piece didn’t cost an arm or a leg. It came at a very reasonable price from Inspirationz, with the words inscribed in the clouds,

“Happy are those who dream dreams, and
are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

It’s made me a very happy man.

Phil goofs

This morning Phil Goff gave his last set-piece speech for this year, and his first for next year’s election campaign.

Allow me to summarise:

Hi there, my name is Phil Goff.

NZ’s middle classes need my help…

…but if we get elected next year, I’m not going to cut their taxes.

New Zealanders need relief from rising prices…

…so we will “reform” Reserve Bank and monetary policy to allow price inflation to go higher.

It’s essential that “we get crown debt down…”

…so I give you my solemn promise we won’t cut spending.

An “active government with vision and a plan is needed…”

…but I give you my solemn promise we won’t raise spending.

National has been picking winners who weren’t, by  cutting taxes in “the wrong areas”…

…so instead we’re going to “actively manage the economy” by picking different winners, and throwing huge subsidies at them…

…and I give you my solemn promise we won’t raise spending.

In short, I’m going to give everyone a pony…

…but I give you my solemn promise we won’t raise spending.

And finally, I know people are tired of the politicking of MMP…

…so I’m not going to rule out going into coalition with Winston Peters.

My name is Phil Goff. You’ve been a great audience…

…and if you hear of any good barbecues over the summer…

NZ Govt living beyond its means. No immediate plans for change. [Updated]

News out today confirms news from yesterday, last month and all the months before that this government is living beyond its means—to the tune of $4.4 billion this last quarter.

The Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the four months ended 31 October 2010 were released by the Treasury today…
    The October results are consistent with the general picture outlined in the recently published financial statements for the first three months of the fiscal year.
    Tax revenue in the four months to 31 October was $1.1 billion (6.3%) lower than forecast … the deficit in the operating balance before gains and losses was $1.9 billion higher than expected at $4.4 billion.

In other words, you’re spending too much, and the figures have been telling you that all year.  The net result of this government’s inability to take responsibility for its actions is this…

New Zealand’s gross sovereign debt as of Oct. 31 was NZ$58.55 billion, or 30.9 percent of gross domestic product, more than a forecast of 30.5 percent.

Yes. Really.

In response to this “surprising” news. Billy Bob English responded instantly. He said “we’ll take a look at it after we’ve had a summer holiday.”

The words “deer” and “headlights” should probably occur to you right about now.

UPDATE: It gets “better.” It’s not deer and headlights, it really is blind leading blind. “Accounts show govt has been fiscally responsible so far this year, Prime Minister Key says…”

FIFA’s stadiums

Yes, it’s turning into a video Monday here at your third-favourite blog, but I figured you’d like to see the stadiums that Qatar is going to build so the Soccer World Cup in 2022 can be played in 45-50 degree heat.

Yes, these are the Stadiums that broke American hearts.

Slick presentation, but there’s clearly something else that persuaded the heads of the FIFA fiefdom to grant Qatar the boon.

Speaking of which, here’s what Russia is going to build for 2018.

And in entirely unrelated news, Vladimir Putin is now flying to Zurich to thank Sepp Blatter in person and return his daughter to him safe and unharmed.

(Hat tip Andrew B. Higher Definition video here.)

The best advertisement ever made?

I’ve been looking at this for ages, and I can’t for the life of me work out why it’s the most popular ad in Denmark.

In fact, some people are calling it “the best advertisement ever made.”

I still can’t work out why. It’s simply an ad to lure Danes to a cross-border superstore in Germany. So what’s the big deal?

Here’s a link to the high-definition video. See if you can spot a detail I might have missed.

(Hat tip Graham C. NSFW)

Inflation?

Phil Ossifer talks to a worried Jane Q about inflation, prices, credit expansion, fiat money, booms, busts … and Ben Bernanke’s role in all of them.

Apparently there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Friday Morning Ramble #365: It’s a WikiLeaks Week!

A serious week in many respects, but not one that can’t be looked back on with humour.

• Animated Taiwanese newscasters wade through 250,000 WikiLeaks documents so you don’t have to… [hat tip Geek Press]
  

• And a quick satirical summary of what was revealed about American “thinking” about the Middle East… “In some quarters of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, it’s an article of faith that the central problem in the Middle East is Israel’s (alleged) injustices against the Palestinians. That premise has shaped American policy for decades. But it’s wrong, in many ways. Iran is the key problem. It has been for years. Some of the documents in the Wikileak cache are confirming that fact.”
   Wikileaks, U.S. peace-making dramatized  - V O I C E S  O F  R E A S O N

• Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton on the impact of the WikiLeaks dump on U.S. foreign relations. [Hat tip Angelia]
  Is Wikileaks a National Security Risk? – F R E E D O M   W A T C H
  
  

 

• Plans at the UN’s ClimateFest in Cancun to shackle “rich” nations with ration books and new emissions restrictions were dealt a death blow by Japan. “Japan will not inscribe its target under the Kyoto protocol on any conditions or under any circumstances,” said the Japanese representative. The Guardian were still wondering what that means.
  Canned in Cancun  - T I M   B L A I R
  Bring on the ration books! – N O T   P C
• That’s rationing for you and me, but party harder for the warmist bureaucrats at Cancun.
  It’s Alarmists Gone Wild! says Kate.
  
• But who’s “rich” anyway? Here’s what decades of Keynesian excess have done for America’s manufacturing base. As Amit says at Thrutch, it’s been “the wrong kind of growth.”
  

• Similar story in New Zealand, unfortunately, as this graph shows. Roger Kerr explains “it pinpoints a major economic weakness – the fact that the tradable sector of the economy (industries that export or compete with imports) has been largely stagnant over the past decade, while the non-tradable sector, of which the public sector is a large part, expanded.”
   The story of an unbalanced economy – R O G E R  K E R R
• And what made Ireland collapse? Similar story again.  “Naysayers try to tell you that the Celtic Tiger was a myth and that free-market policies brought the Irish economy down. The truth is exactly the opposite.  Liberalisation caused the Irish economy to surge until a return to big government crushed it.”
  Why Ireland is broke – R O G E R  K E R R
• Here’s a short summary of a coastal contretemps:
  • The Coastal Coalition is an ACT-aligned protest group that wants the foreshore and seabed nationalised. No irony there at all.
  • Chris Finlayson is an Attorney-General who wants to partially-privatise foreshore and seabed. But only for Maori tribes. Only if they don’t have to go to court to prove ownership in common law. And only if they can’t sell it on, or individualise the title.
  • Conclusion: Both of them are wrong in different ways, and both are busy talking past each other. Latest example: Finlayson calling the Coalition “clowns,” and responding to a Coastal Coalition Q+A.
    Finlayson ready to forgo holiday to battle 'clowns' – N Z   H E R A L D
    Chris Finlayson's response to the Coastal Coalition's Q and A – N Z   H E R A L D
• Cameron Slater has a new target: the duplicitous slimeballs at local website Get Frank who’ve been paying themselves well for stealing content they don’t pay for. The NZ Bloggers Union is not happy.
  Getting Frank with Rich – W H A L E  O I L
• Blogger Adam Smith takes on Simon Power-Lust’s Search and Surveillance Bill, which “gives the police, [menacing, dangerous and wholly inappropriate powers] to compel people to produce information on pain of draconian penalties… Power’s legacy will be undemocratic electoral law and the ability for big brother to control the populace through the police.”
  NZ – A police state? – I N Q U I R I N G  M I N D
• Is this why Tory gossip sheet Trans Tasman likes Power-Lust so?
  Simon Power named politician of the year – T V N Z
• Not just a police state; we’re heading back quick-smart to one that smacks of medieval guild socialism. To professional protectionism. After architects, early childhood teachers, builders, plumbers, designers and real estate agents (and many others whom I’ve probably forgotten), the next group in line for having legal barriers created to entering their profession are financial advisors. Bring on the registration Nazis!
  The new Authorised Financial Advisors (AFA) regulations, or whatever – Mark Hubbard, S O L O
• Stephen Hicks recommends Hans Rosling’s newest, saying “Simply wonderful, both in content and presentation”:
  
• Yaron Brook of Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights comments on the culture clash over Christmas.
  Is There a War on Christmas? [VIDEO] – P J T V
• Luc Travers at website Touching the Art wants to make visiting a gallery or viewing an artwork as exciting as reading a novel or watching a movie. Does he pull it off?  You decide.
  Touching the Art: A New Approach to Art Appreciation
  
  

• Denis Dutton explains his theory of how beauty is an “evolved instinct,” accompanied by an animation that Eric Crampton calls “the best I’ve seen for such things.”
   
  
• And architect Frederick Gibson discusses the “12 core items” Dutton finds in both art and art experiences.
  What is Art? from Denis Dutton’s “Art Instinct” – L I F E S T Y L E  D I M E N S I O N S
• It’s about time we had some improvisational Frippertronics around here…
  
• Here’s the final movement from Beethoven’s drama-filled Seventh Symphony.  If your speakers can manage it, try to keep your ear on those cellos and double-basses as they start to do the sort of insane things you weren’t supposed to do in 1813.
  
• Art. Music. These are a few of my favourite things…
  

• And finally, Ele Ludemann reflects on yesterday’s memorial to the 29 miners, and concludes (as I will) with these few and appropriate words from the unlikely pen of Joyce Grenfell:

          Weep if you must
          Parting is hell
          But life goes on
          So …. sing as well

House – Aldo Loris Rossi?

I”m pretty sure this is a house. And I’m pretty sure it’s by Italian organic architect Aldo Loris Rossi (not to be confused with architect of death, Aldo Rossi). And I know it was, in some way, inspired by the great Italian theorist of organic architecture, Bruno Zevi.  And I like it.

But outside that, and the few details than can be deduced from the picture itself, I know nothing. Anyone able to help?

Busted Hyman [updated]

There is some good news today, and that good news is coming out of Wellington.

And it it this: The utterly irrelevant “Gender Studies” Faculty at Victoria University of Wellington is to close for lack of interest.

Which means that the seven (yes, just seven) students and the likes of Prue Hyman and friends (yes, that his her real name) can now go out respectively and do some real study, and get a real job.

Let us hope this is the start of a trend. A healthy one.

UPDATE: That said, who now will be able to comment appropriately on research suggesting semen is an effective an anti-depressant? [Hat tip Geek Press]

Bring on the ration books!

Consideration is being given at the Cancun Climate Chinwag to a proposal by one Professor Kevin Andersen of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (the crowd at the centre of the ClimateGate scandal) that the only way to save us all from the evils of global warming is for

1. the world’s “rich” countries to stop all economic growth for the next 20 years so that the likes  of China and India can catch up; and
2. politicians to introduce a rationing system like the one people endured during World War II..

No, he’s not insane. He’s a climate scientist with power lust.

If that’s not too much of a tautological description.

The Vodafone carrier-pigeon network

I apologise for this interruption to your regular viewing.

I’m very happy to inform you that, as of this moment, I’m just starting to receive emails that were sent to me from 8am this morning, and I’d like to thank Vodaphone once again for this excellent service.

I trust no-one has sent me anything which needed an urgent response between now and then, but I can advise in future that should such be the case, a more rapid response may be obtained by sending your message by carrier pigeon.

Thank you. Your normal programme will now resume.

AC/DC cannabis bust should be signal for more sense

No matter what they’ve got on, no matter what real crimes they should be investigating, or what real villains they should be tracking down, it seems the New Zealand constabulary are never too busy to execute a search warrant and bring a prosecution for possession of a thimbleful of cannabis.

What brave cops, says Lindsay Perigo of their arrest and conviction of AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd for having 25 grams of cannabis on his boat in Tauranga.

Couldn't this farce be a catalyst for something more sensible? 

Even the police state of California has begun to see the light, Gov Schwarzenegger signing into law in September a measure allowing possession of up to one ounce of cannabis (about the amount found on Mr Rudd’s boat) to be treated as a misdemeanour with no more seriousness than a parking ticket.

That’s a sensible start.

And in Europe, they still attribute the unusual peacefulness of the 2004 European Soccer Championships to the decision by the Portuguese hosts to openly allow cannabis use.

Branded as 'hooligans', 50,000 fans - notorious for their drunken antics and ability to instigate all-out riots - descended upon Lisbon. Rather than ban alcohol, the authorities decided instead to sanction cannabis use by English and French fans before the game. The police priority was alcohol. As a result, the match took place without incident, even in the immediate aftermath of England's 2-1 defeat.

A lesson that shouldn’t be lost on Rugby World Cup organisers—and a more peaceful message to the world than going through the possessions of someone on the off-chance they might have a bit of leaf.

NOT PJ: Maths and Swearing

This week Bernard Darnton uses the power of made-up numbers to answer the age-old question: is infant formula worse than the Holocaust?

Red Nose Day is back. From wherever it is that Telethon and other such institutions go to rest, Red Nose Day has been resurrected. Like the new Telethon it was naff, but then the original wasn’t that great either.

Last week’s Red Nose Day was to raise money for various childhood illnesses, presumably because cot death, the old cause, has gone thoroughly out of fashion. Having changed its name to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome no one knew what it was anymore, and we all promptly forgot that we cared.

Like any expired fashion, it still has a handful of holdouts. Breastfeeding zealots continue to use the fear of cot death to shove their agenda.

Before my daughter was born we went to an ante-natal class. We were informed by the ‘facilitator,’ whose enthusiasm outweighed her knowledge, that babies who were fed infant formula and whose parents smoked had a 75% risk of death.

“But that’s basically murder,” gasped one of my classmates.

“Yes,” said the facilitator seriously.

I was less credulous: “Are you completely fucking insane? Are you sure it’s not 0.75%? Or 75% higher than the base risk - as in the risk goes from five-eighths of bugger all to bugger all?”

“No, not at all,” she said seriously.

“Where did that number come from?” I asked incredulously.

“The Ministry of Health,” she said seriously.

“Did you read it right?” I asked incredulously.

“Of course,” she said seriously.

“Don’t you think the number’s a bit high? Come on - I mean, when Hiroshima was bombed 160,000 people were killed out of a population of 300,000. That’s a 55% death rate. Do you honestly believe that being fed infant formula is more dangerous than being attacked with nuclear weapons?

“The death rate amongst European Jews during the Holocaust was 70%. Do you really believe that being a baby who lives with smokers is more dangerous than being a Jew who lives with Nazis?”

Even those without my shining ability to combine maths and swearing knew that something wasn’t right. Most of us had grown up in the seventies and if the smoking and infant formula data was right, 75% of us shouldn’t have been there. The real number is less than a thousandth of that figure. But it does have a five in it.

The problem goes much further than gross innumeracy. Lots of new mothers are made to feel terrible for not breastfeeding. Some babies won’t latch on properly. For some mothers it’s too painful. Some breasts only serve up green-label milk when babies really want gold top.

An expensive Ministry of Health advertising campaign is currently nagging mothers as they wander round shopping malls and watch crap television. Of course, it’s not the first government department ad campaign encouraging more people to get on the tit. Advertising and media companies must be awed by Nanny’s bounty.

The Ministry’s propaganda team are backed up by legions of do-gooders who put on their pretending-to-help voices and persecute women who can’t, or - the horror - choose not to breastfeed.

Sadly, many women have a cognitive affliction that makes them take notice of other people’s opinions. There’s really no need. The only parenting advice I would ever give is: Run as fast as you can away from anyone who gives parenting advice.

Oh, except one thing: I’m no epidemiologist but if you happen to be grossly fat don’t put your baby in your own bed and then get so drunk you can’t tell if you’re rolling on top of him. Just saying.

* * Bernard Darnton’s NOT PJ column appears every Thursday here at NOT PC * *

“Memories” – Daniel Chester French

[Hat tip Lynne B]

Pics by Lee Sanstead

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Clueless Nats needed Brash’s dressing down

Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath says he enjoyed watching Don Brash take the stick to his former party…

Last weekend Don Brash outlined the necessary path National needs to take if Ne Zealand is ever to be extracted from the mire into which successive governments have dug it.  His dressing down was necessary, because the current poll-driven government lacks any clear direction of its own.

Brash delivered a list of inconvenient truths that John Key must now address:

• National’s failure to reinstate the Youth Minimum Wage, the abandonment of which has disastrously increased unemployment among young people
• National’s failure to abolish zoning laws, which has kept housing unaffordable for many New Zealanders
• National’s failure to narrow the income gap with Australia
• National’s failure to cut government spending
• National’s failure to get rid of Labour election bribes such as subsidised student loans and child care
• National’s failure to do anything beyond window-dressing to the Resource Management Act
• National’s xenophobia about foreigners investing money in New Zealand
• National’s illusionary cut in company tax, which was wiped out by changes in rules regarding depreciation
• National’s destructive imposition of carbon taxes on industries who dare to produce something 
• National’s embrace of tribalism and racism in its choice of coalition partner

This is a summary judgement that any responsible government would already have seen to.

While my party would take issue with any minimum wage laws at all, I think his list is a useful – though by no means exhaustive – indication of just how comprehensively this government has failed those who voted for it.

This is a government is utterly devoid of any vision. Like the Labour one that came before it, the dominant priority is retaining power at all costs.

There is no secret agenda. There are no secret plans to privatize anything. They have no intention at all of liberating New Zealanders from excessive taxation and regulation.

What a complete waste of time these last two years have been.

What a vacuous waste of space this Key-led Government has been.

Even though he must surely know Dr Brash’s prescription is correct, I hold no expectation that John Key will have listened to anything that was said to him.

Unless serious moves are made to stop the government living beyond its means, however—which will not happen as long as Bill English retains a ministerial house—the  standard of living for Kiwis will only continue to drop further.

What a waste. What a complete bloody disgrace.

* * Read Dr McGrath’s column here ever Wednesday at NOT PC * *

“It all depends whether or not we agree with them…”

Tim Blair wonders why the New York Times—and, by extension, most of the mainstream media—are so excited by the WikiLeaks documents. After all, they didn’t publish the ClimateGate emails because, they said,

the documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all
manner of private information and statements that were never
intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

That was then. Now, by contrast, when faced with a torrent of documents which appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information, the New York Times has decided

the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match…

Oh. Of course. That will be the difference.