Wednesday 31 July 2013

A Mayor you can vote for

Crikey, it finally looks like there’s an Auckland mayoral candidate I can vote for. And you can too. Because he’s the only mayoral candidate promising to cut rates.

Affordable Auckland candidate for Waitemata & Gulf Stephen Berry is now also a candidate for Mayor of Auckland. “I’ve been waiting for a candidate with real policies that will promote affordable living to step up. As that is yet to happen I am putting myself forward as the ratepayer’s champion for the Auckland mayoralty.”

“Len Brown’s average rates increase of 2.9% is an attempt to disguise the real problems that will burden ratepayers of the future. For starters, 33% of ratepayers today are actually facing increases in excess of 5%. While rates make up 30% of projected council income for the next year, 27% of income will come from borrowing. Len Brown is mortgaging your children’s tomorrow buying the votes of today.”

Stephen Berry and the Affordable Auckland ticket have a plan for housing affordability that stands apart from those of other candidates. “Every other mayoral candidate thinks the council should do more and be increasingly hands on to direct Auckland’s urban development, as if the council has not yet done enough. I say the reason the house prices are so inflated is because the council has done too much already. It is time for a different approach.

“Spending, borrowing and rates need to be reined in as a matter of urgency. The rates increases of today are a heavy burden on existing home owners on limited incomes and they shut the gate on anyone else wanting to realise the kiwi dream of home ownership. Borrowing of over $1 billion a year guarantees crippling rates levels in the future. Without a change in direction, Auckland will become the Detroit of the South Pacific.”

“The debate over the Unitary Plan has become one of two sides of central planners arguing over who can plan the best. The compliance costs involved in dealing with active central planning adds the greatest expense to development and alterations. Zoning needs to be as flexible as possible and common law approaches should prevail. If what you do on your property doesn’t affect my property, then it is none of my business.”

“Finally, the urban limit needs to be abolished immediately to open up the supply of available land for residential development. Year 11 economics textbooks very clearly demonstrate that when supply is artificially constricted, price goes up. The fact our current Mayor can’t grasp that fact is mind boggling to say the least.”

In this year’s mayoral contest, voters have two very clear options. You can vote for one of the five variations promising to continue doing what got us into this mess or you can vote for Affordable Auckland’s Stephen Berry.

Don’t just vote. Why not sign up to stand as an Affordable Cities candidate yourself?

Nude goddesses

There was one value above all the Ancient Greeks valued in their sports: winning. But there was another, hardly less important: athletic beauty.

The ancient Greeks started the Olympic Games as a celebration of athleticism and the human form. They  didn’t have high tech body costumes besmirched with bibs and large numbers pinned to the front.  Instead, their athletes were nude—in celebration of the human form, and of the gods in whose superhuman feats the athletes performed in tribute.

ESPSN magazine continues this tradition today with the ESPN: Body Issue showcasing nude athletes who could be confused for gods and goddesses—like snowboarder and four-time X Games silver medallist Elena Hight.

image

So as long as the nudity isn't that of Bulgarian wrestlers, what's not to be admired?

[Hat tip Jeff P.]

#SurveillanceState: An opposition leader has emerged [corrected]

Why is Russel Norman considered by so many the de facto leader of the opposition—despite Labour leader David Shearer having that titular role? And why is Labour considering having Norman in a senior role in any coalition they lead—despite his party’s loony economics, bankrupt proposals and misanthropic policy positions?

Perhaps he’s taken seriously, despite his frequent insanity, because when he gets it right he’s good—he’s very good.  And on his opposition to having the GCSB listen in to all of us whenever they feel like; to the government taking journalist’s phone records whenever they want to; to the monitoring of journalists’ communications by the defence forces,  he’s been virtually alone in integrating all of the attacks on privacy and a free media—and being very articulate in doing it. Listen here here, for example [from 3:30 1:50], to his succinct response this morning to these issues.

And David Shearer has been virtually silent, except when pushed.

CORRECTED: Audio link fixed.

Adam Smith rips film distributors a new one

Want to watch a film? Then cinema owners and film distributors want a continuing favour from government to ensure you watch it when and where they want you to.

For years, cinemas have enjoyed protection in law: a blanket ban on DVD, Blu-Ray, Pay-Per-View or Free-To-Air providers bringing in new films for 9 months, giving cinema owners a ‘window’ in which to show new films held open by government protection—and downloaders high motivation to harvest films illegally online.

The government’s ban was supposed to be temporary. It has lasted now for ten years. In that time the number of cinema businesses has risen from 66 to 87. So now, in a case study of how “temporary” government rules become permanent, your government now intends to maintain the “temporary” ban, shortening it only to a 5-month window instead of nine.

Why? Since it does no-one else any favours, it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that it’s to appease cinema owners and film distributors. Submitting to the select committee hearing submissions on the ban’s extension, film distributors spokesman Andrew Cornwell (General Manager of Sony Pictures and distributor for the Walt Disney Company) contended instead that the ban would help consumers, because “that’s what New Zealand consumers actually want,” said the self-serving prick. “You know they don’t want Christmas cake in June.”

_SonyCornwellI have news for you Mr Cornwell. If this is what New Zealand consumers actually want, to wait five months to see a movie, then you wouldn’t need your bloody ban.  If they really wanted to wait five months before seeing a new film in someone’s cinema, then you wouldn’t need a ban to stop them seeing it earlier in their home.

It’s not rocket science.

The fact a ban is “needed” is not to help consumers, but only to stop consumers doing what cinema owners and film distributors don’t like them doing, which is patronising their online and shop-based competitors.  The fact this government gives such venal rent-seeking house room is reprehensible.

Way back in 1776, Adam Smith was astute enough to recognise that

The interest of the dealers ... in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respect different from, and even opposite to, that of the publick. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the publick; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they would normally be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens….
[Merchants and manufacturers like Mr Cornwell represent] an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the publick, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the publick, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

The mixed economy of so-called “crony capitalism” we presently enjoy is brought about, following Smith’s argument, by deception and intimidation. Merchants and manufacturers clamour and cajole in an effort to subordinate the legislature to their private interest; appealing to their their "vulgar prejudices” to persuade them that the interests of merchants and manufacturers are actually "the interests of the public."

Mr Cornwell is a prime example.

Tuesday 30 July 2013

Unitary Scam

Readers might be interested to hear that Auckland Council’s coming Unitary Plan will “punish you,” in the words of the Deputy Mayoress, if your building doesn’t get a tick from the Green Building Council.

They don’t seem to have noticed that "Green building" certification is a scam:

What [Green Building] designers deliver is what most [Green Building] building owners want—namely, green publicity, not energy savings.

Do they know it’s a scam? Or care?

[Hat tip Robert Tracinski]

INVENTION OF THE DAY: The device that makes wheelchairs obsolete

Sorry, I don’t know the inventor, but isn’t this another great example of technology making human life better.

It makes you wonder just who humanity’s real benefactors really are, don’t you think.

[Hat tip Terry V.]

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: The Chan Ban & the Bill Banners

1. This week, Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath wonders aloud about Labour’s worshipping of the ugly goddess Xenophobia.

David Shearer's call to restrict ownership of existing homes to New Zealand residents is another direct assault on the free market, and the death knell for Labour's hopes of attracting Asian voters.

Unlike Labour’s kneejerk xenophobia, my party has actually thought things through.  We have a better and much simpler solution to housing unaffordability which focuses on supply, and makes Shearer’s foreigner-hatred unnecessary. It looks like this:

  • deregulate the building process;
  • remove the layers of red tape that add months of time to the construction and tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home;
  • remove the “compulsory contributions” levied by councils on developments that get passed straight on to buyers in higher house prices;
  • get rid of zoning laws and use common law instead;
  • respect property rights by abolishing all restrictions on home improvements; and
  • allow the further expansion of housing development into rural areas.

While Labour's proposal might bring a smile to the faces of those who fear competition from hard-working Asian immigrants, it does nothing for their occasional claim to be a party of tolerance and liberalism.

My own party has no truck with the protectionist anti-foreigner  laws of the sort Mr Shearer is peddling, which are effectively racist and therefore attractive to those of a certain mentality. His thinly veiled attempts to woo voters from the National Front over to Labour do not look pretty under the harsh light of day.

The Libertarianz Party believes in an open and deregulated market in housing, where local councils and central government have no political influence over home prices, and do not advocate or enforce discriminatory laws against the citizens of other countries with whom we are not engaged in conflict.

To this end, we therefore endorse candidates from the Affordable Cities franchise which will be offering candidates at the coming local body elections.

* * * *

2. In which Doc McGrath wonders why the rabble have suddenly discovered the evil of state intrusion into our lives.

Wasn’t it interesting over the past few days watching the various socialist-leaning politicians and protestors who turned out to register their opposition to the GCSB Bill.  I would say “good for them” if not for their seriouly selective opposition to state intrusion.

On the one hand, the Left are quite rightly concerned about the escalation of state power this bill represents, and the huge potential it holds for the invasion of New Zealanders' privacy.

On the other hand, these same people remain unconcerned about the almost unlimited power enjoyed by Inland Revenue and swarms of other government officials, whose mandate is to harass the people of this country and eat out their substance. 

Not just unconcerned about this ongoing state intrusion—they’re positively cheerleaders for it.

If one can be judged by the company one keeps, it is instructive to see creatures from the Labour and Green Parties, along with trade unionists and other rent-a-mob fringe activists from the loony Left, falling in lockstep behind the jolly German copyright-infringing fraudster and embezzler Kim Schmitz/Dotcom.

His fellow travellers may be interested to learn that this corpulent crusader against government spying has a criminal conviction for data espionage. Of course, this inconvenient truth will be shrugged off and rationalised by the tribal Left, who regard the enemy of their enemy as a friend - even if he is a wanted criminal on the run.

It has been amusing to note the same factions who always favour bigger, more intrusive government doing a screeching U-turn to suddenly demand less government - twisting themselves into pretzels as they somehow manage to justify their opposition to domestic surveillance by one office of the state, while supporting equally egregious infringements of individual liberty by other officials.

For the record, the Libertarianz Party supports any move - including encryption technology such as that used by Schmitz's company Megaupload - to keep the prying eyes of bureaucrats and spooks away from the private business of peaceful citizens. We oppose the further affront to personal freedom this bill represents. But we remain suspicious of those whose opposition to state intrusion is as selective as this bunch.

Thanks for reading
See you soon!
Doc McGrath

Monday 29 July 2013

“Free at last!” [updated]

Stephen Spielberg’s recent film on Lincoln dramatised the passing of his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation—justifiably famous for freeing around 4 million slaves in North America, and beginning the removal of the stain of slavery from American law.

This, with the subsequent constitutional amendment outlawing slavery across the continent, was the culmination of an anti-slavery movement that swept the west in the nineteenth century, following on the heels of the movement for individual rights that swept the west in the eighteenth century.

Freeing the slaves was a necessary righting of a wrong that the gradual recognition of individual rights had made imperative.

Abolition began in the birthplace of individual rights, in Britain; the slave trade was abolished in the West Indies in 1807, and abolition exported across the British Empire, so that by 1835 the stain had been removed empire-wide.

And in 1840, a Treaty was signed in New Zealand that was as effective in freeing the slaves here as Lincoln’s later more famous document was over there.

And there were a lot of slaves to free.

It’s almost forgotten today, but when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed virtually every Maori in the country outside the tribal chiefs was a slave—and their life was cheap. There was a caste system in Maori tikanga, with the overwhelming majority, the slaves, enjoying no more rights than a dog.

The life of a slave was entirely forfeit to their master and his chief. One chief blew out the brains of his slave for failing to light his pipe in time.  Another because her husband had “cast her off for a season.” Slaves were taken in conquest, and killed as easily. They were taken on long journeys purely as a source of food, eaten when they were no longer needed as porters. Any person lacking position was “a tutua--a fellow [or woman] not worth a spike nail.” Until 1840, folk not worth a spike nail had no rights. They were chattel.

The “glory” of traditional Maori society, notes John Robinson in his book Two Cultures Meet, was the domain of only a few.

A history of this country must pay due regard to the experiences and fates of all Maori, including the dispossessed, the lower ranks, the slaves—and the women.  Then efforts can be made to improve the lives of all and longer focus on righting supposed wrongs to the few chiefs who benefited from tribalism.

For characters such as Jake Heke, whose tragedy is told in Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors, the legacy of Maori society was not one of glory, but of slavery.

Jake asks his children, “Hey kids, Know what I inherited as a Maori? Jake asking our of the blue … Slaves … My family were slaves … My branch of the Heke line was descended from a slave … Five-hundred years of the slave curse bein’ on our heads.

On our heads, and also in their heads. Then and (for some) for ever more. Because the slave mind is a hard thing to shake off.

Californian columnist for The Free Radical Michael Vardoulis sent me a reflection from afar a while back on what Maori activists need to learn about independence and self-reliance from the likes of the late-career Malcolm X (right), who argued that if American blacks were ever to be truly free they needed to free themselves first—free themselves, like Jake had to, from their slave minds.

Says Michael:

Yes, Maori individuals have a lot fewer historical claim to bitterness than Afro Americans, or especially Native Americans and Hawaiians!  Whatever their legitimate complaints, at least New Zealanders never suffered the stain of slavery while the slaveholders proclaimed the protection for themselves of individual rights. 

Maoris are individuals whose ancestors were never enslaved -- not at least after the British arrived.

But Maori individuals need to shake off the great state fixation too many seem obsessed with.  There is a kind of philosophical 'judo' that Malcolm X represents, insofar as the pride of self-reliance he talked about is essential to survival as an individual, and it would apply to Maori as well.  His message of "why look to your former 'masters' for anything, nor to  the government that supported them”?  The only thing a (insert arbitrary racial identity here) individual should seek from the government which supported their former master is to be left the hell alone!"

   The lesson that needs to be tattooed on the soul was expressed perfectly by Isabel Paterson: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got" -- including, if you let them, your pride in your self-reliance.  Self-reliance does not come from sucking nanny's tit, or from the marshmallow embrace of collectivism -- it comes from standing on one's own feet and beginning to take responsibility for one's own future as an individual.

And then we have the conclusions one can draw universally on the issue of 'race' from what Rand wrote so perfectly: the only genuine solution to racism is a colour-blind government supporting the same rights for all individuals as individuals; equality before the law; anything *other* than that merely perpetuates the evil of racism, and (not incidentally) the careers of political figures who benefit from the perpetuation of the problem rather than achieving solutions.

Liberty HAS been stolen from many different arbitrary groups (though compared to what others have suffered over history, including many Europeans it's much harder to find in the case of post-1840 Maori) and in any case it's ultimately irrelevant to the much more important issue of regaining that liberty, which can only be achieved in a society where only the rights of the individual are upheld regardless of any arbitrary 'group' status either placed upon them or with which they choose to identify.

   Hell, the Brits stomped all over my mother's ancestors in Ireland, and the Turks all over my father's ancestors in Greece.  I don't go looking for handouts from Downing Street or Istanbul!  I just pursue a society in which the individual is protected from being interfered with, knowing as a result that no arbitrary group can be singled out either for persecution, or for restitution.  The people who stomped all over my ancestors are long dead and buried -- those alive now bear no guilt for what their great-great-great grandparents did to mine.

But, I fear I preach to the choir.  It's individuals of Maori, Afro-American or Native American backgrounds which need to 'get it'... as my mentor Richard Boddie (right), a former student of Malcolm X, is fond of saying, "People are deluded en masse and enlightened one at a time."

The lesson of Malcolm's own growth and change over his life helps to show that lesson is true -- and dangerous to those who would hope the lesson is never learned.

I think Michael makes some great points, don’ t you?.

The interested reader might appreciate in this context my earlier review of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X' that appeared in The Free Radical at the time of the film's release.  [NB: Some light editing of Michael's post has been done for sense and context.]

UPDATED

It has become somewhat fashionable of late to knock Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and to pillory Lincoln himself as some kind of neo-fascist. As Thomas Sowell says sadly, "today we see the spectacle of pygmies sniping at this giant"--examples of which you can find in the comments section below.

Sowell takes to task these assorted pygmies and their ahistorical criticisms:

People who indulge themselves in this kind of self-righteous carping act as if Lincoln was someone who could do whatever he damn well pleased, without regard to the law, the Congress, or the Supreme Court. They might as well criticize him for not discovering a cure for cancer.
   
Fortunately, there is an excellent new [in 2005] book, titled "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation" by Professor Allen C. Guelzo of Gettysburg College, that sets Lincoln in the context of the world in which he lived.
   
Once you understand the constraints of that world, and how little room for maneuver Lincoln had, you realize what courage and brilliance it took for him to free the slaves.
   
Just one fact should give pause to Lincoln's critics today: When Lincoln sat down to write the Emancipation Proclamation, the Supreme Court was still headed by Chief Justice Roger Taney, who had issued the infamous Dred Scott decision, saying a black man had no rights which a white man needed to respect...
   
Professor Guelzo's book does more than give us some sense of realism about a major event in American history. Perhaps if we come to understand the complexities and constraints of Lincoln's turbulent times, we might not be so quick to seize opportunities to reduce other times -- including our own -- to cartoon-like simplicities that allow us to indulge in cheap self-righteousness when judging those who carry heavy responsibilities.

Perhaps those people that enjoyed this poorly-written smear of Lincoln should give Sowell's points, and Guelzo's book, some much needed thought.

PS: Here's a question for you: How many know who the chap is in the picture above next to Old Abe? Answers on a postcard please. [And if you don’t know the name of that hero and about the Dred Scott decision and its implications, then please do some reading before offering up your opinions.]

Declare Detroit a Free City

Guest post by Patrick Barron

Detroit is bankrupt, and its problems appear to be unsolvable. Its population peaked in 1950 at 1,850,000 only to fall to 706,000 in 2011, surely representative of people voting with their feet. As British politician Daniel Hannan has written, the Detroit disease may be well advanced in the rest of American cities and perhaps in all of America as well. Before the disease can kill the rest of America we have the opportunity to give free market reforms a chance in a fairly controlled setting — the bankrupt and dysfunctional city of Detroit.

The decades’ growing tragedy of a now bankrupt Detroit provides a unique opportunity to test our fundamental principles. What if Detroit became a free city in which government provided for public safety, honest courts, protection of property rights, and little else? Might not unabated free enterprise take hold as it always has in America?

All that Detroit really needs is economic freedom and secure property rights. Give Detroit its freedom from all manner of government, including the federal government. Declare Detroit a free city. (You can rest assured, Detroit, that America will come to your rescue if those bloodthirsty Canadians attack!) In other words, no one would pay any federal taxes whatsoever or be subject to any federal regulations whatsoever. Wouldn’t it be nice not to pay federal taxes, not even Social Security and Medicare taxes? Do the same with Michigan taxes. No taxes BUT also no federal or state aid either.

A Free Detroit would have absolutely no labor and workplace regulations, including minimum wages, mandatory insurance, equal opportunity rules, occupational safety rules, etc. People would be allowed to work together cooperatively for whatever terms their marginal productivity of labor will secure.

End all red tape that thwarts business startups and hobbles its expansion, such as licensing, public health regulations and inspections, zoning restrictions, etc. Do not be concerned that people may be employed in low wage, dangerous jobs against their will. The reality is that business owners must recruit workers and not dragoon them and chain them to their workplaces. Nor are business owners interested in harming either their workers or their customers. If they do, normal civil and commercial law will suffice.

Privatize all government services, such as garbage pickup, water and sewage services, and allow for unbridled competition in these and other areas, even fire protection. Sell off city property (who needs offices that are empty of government bureaucrats anyway?) and deed public housing to its current occupants, making them responsible for their own abodes. You may be surprised how responsible people can be with their own property. End public education and all its costs. Allow the people to get the kind of education that they desire, whatever that may be. Since half the current population of Detroit is functionally illiterate, what’s the risk?

Do you want a safe society? Then let people arm themselves without any licensing requirements. Since it takes Detroit police approximately an hour to answer a typical 911 call, this is simply a practical solution to the basic human right of self-defense. Above all end welfare. The destructive cycle of dependency is driving American cities to the financial and cultural wall.

Do not expect overnight success, but who knows? A free market always surprises us with new innovations. At first one can expect lots of mom and pop startups, sidewalk vendors, unlicensed and untaxed services such as simple property repair, home schools, private taxis, etc. But if Nike and other American businesses are enticed by lower costs and fewer regulatory burdens to outsource their manufacturing operations overseas, why would they not take a good look at a Free Detroit? Expect to be amazed.

Allow Detroit to become a safe, cooperative city that represents the best that America can be. Economic freedom will ensure the rebirth of Detroit. This city can become the beacon of true prosperity to the rest of America and to the world.

Patrick Barron is a private consultant in the banking industry. He teaches in the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and teaches Austrian economics at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, where he lives with his wife of 40 years. Read his blog.

This post first appeared at the Mises Daily.

Friday 26 July 2013

FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: Look what I found on the internet, dear

And you wonder why councils are all in debt?
Candidate stunned at council paying skateboard ambassadors – NZ HERALD
Come On Council, What Does This Cost? – Stephen Berry, AFFORDABLE AUCKLAND

Will central government step in to stop one of the biggest local government rorts of recent years? They will if they’re serious about making cities affordable again. But are they?
Why Development Contributions Are a Crappy Tax Rort – Policy Parrot, WHALE OIL 
Bye Bye Excessive Development Contributions – Policy Parrot, WHALE OIL

Every year the NBR publishes the Rich List. And every year with that publication, we discover which politicians see the rich as milch cows. This year, it’s would-be Labour leader Andrew Little.
NBR Rich List – Inequality … No, No, No – Don’t Go there – Mark Hubbard, LIFE BEHIND THE IRON DRAPE

It doesn’t protect us any better, so surely there must be some kind of logic to allowing our spooks to spy on us? Oh, you mean it’s that kind of logic.
The political logic behind National’s proposed GCSB reforms – Pablo, KIWIPOLITICO

It took a while to find the balls to say it, didn’t it. However…
Labour would repeal GCSB law – Shearer – NZ HERALD

I wonder if the council’s bans on smoking outside are supported by anti-smoking hysteria, or by hard data?
Outside smoking bans not supported by data – WHALE OIL

It's wrong for someone to confiscate your money, give
it to someone else, and call that "compassion." 
- Harry Browne

You might have thought the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman tragedy would have left the news by now, but racialists still want to have their way with it. Here’s a few buckets of cold common sense to throw on the racially charged flames.
Who Is 'Racist'? – Thomas Sowell, TOWN HALL
Print the Legend: Thoughts on The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman Tragedy – Peter Schiff, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE
Culture of Psychotherapy versus Truth and Rights – Prodos, THE PRODOS BLOG
Michael Yon: Obama is a racist. Trayvon Martin old enough to join the Marines. – Prodos, THE PRODOS BLOG

Highly recommended by our friends at Small Dead Animals, “in this podcast, James Delingpole and Tim Stanley discuss a series of topics, including L.A. street gangs, Detroit's trajectory from wealthiest city in America to disaster, global warming hypocrites, why crony capitalists love big government, the Royal Baby, and more. Absolutely delightful!”
Episode 40, Radio Free Delingpole – MEDIA RICOCHET

So much for Hollande & anti austerity - not working.
About That PMI: Unemployed French Rise To New Record – ZERO HEDGE

And while we’re talking podcasts, Don Watkins recently appeared on The Tammy Bruce Show, with Amy Peikoff hosting. “We talked the role of government, our current economic problems, and immigration among other things.”
Immigration In The Free Market – LAISSEZ FAIRE

Worried about immigrant use of welfare? Then build a wall around welfare, not around the country.
Building a Wall around the Welfare State, Instead of the Country – Alex Nowrasteh & Sophie Cole, CATO

image

There’s plenty more bad news where that chart above came from.
A Tour Of The Post-Crisis World Economy In 10 Easy Charts – ZERO HEDGE

Inflation or deflation. It appears to be this week’s debate.
The Hissing Sound You Hear Is Not Inflation…It’s Deflation – Vern Gowdie, PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Inevitable Inflation? – Ed Bugos, NOT PC
The Improper Use of Historical Data in Economics: An Example (From, who else, Paul Krugman) – ECONOMIC POLICY JOURNAL

“The key to blowing up a successful asset bubble is that you must constantly attract new money into the asset class you’re trying to inflate.”
New Australian Home Buyers Aren’t Convinced – Dan Denning, MONEY MORNING AUSTRALIA

I wouldn’t imagine the figures would be very much different here, would you?
Federal Regulations Have Made You 75 Percent Poorer: U.S. GDP is just $16 trillion instead of $54 trillion – Ronald Bailey, HIT & RUN

Hmm, so the unfunded liabilities of the U.S. Government represent a sum more than the entire world possesses, and growing. There’s a word for that, and it’s…
Terrifying – Don Watkins, LAISSEZ FAIRE

Never mind Marc Hotchin et al. How about we convict the real criminals of the global economic crisis.
Big Government and Central Banks: The Real Criminals – Steve Forbes, FORBES

“Supply-side economics”—or voodoo economics as it’s been called--has a bad rap. Well, it did create the huge government deficits of the Reagan years. But does it have anything decent to teach us?
Supply-Side Economics in One Lesson: What the Critics Don't Tell You – Gary Galles, THE FREEMAN

Okay, so this is the first and last time I’m likely to post a video of Bono, so make the most of it.  After many years of blowhardery, he’s apparently discovered that capitalism is the only way for Africa to prosper.
U2's Bono Speaks at GU Global Social Enterprise Event from Values & Capitalism on Vimeo.

The very interesting account of one man’s complete reversal on the very controversial issue of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
My personal path to Catastrophic AGW skepticism – WATTS UP WITH THAT

The very interesting account of one woman’s complete reversal on the very controversial issue of fracking.
How Tisha Schuller went from environmental activist to industry champion  - WEST WORD

Does fracking contaminate water?
Pennsylvania Fracking Study Shows Chemicals Did Not Contaminate Water – HUFFINGTON POST

The best antidote to genetically-modified food hysteria is truth. See the ten reasons we need biotech food and crops.
GLP Infographic: 10 reasons we need crop biotechnology – GENETIC LITERACY PROJECT

“I can’t see how a sea level rise of less than 1 foot in a century makes any
difference, and it certainly is no reason for busybody politicians to launch
grand schemes in a variant of the old protection racket of organized crime.”
-
Princeton physicist Will Happer

And you wonder why so many cities are full of architectural dreck? Because they have to pass architectural urban design panels full of tools favouring “the "bland, creamy and homogenous."
How The West Was Lost – Architecture: Christchurch Rebuilding – Mark Hubbard, LIFE BEHIND THE IRON DRAPE

Pop corn, potatoes and chocolate-not to mention alcohol and coffee. Just five foods with a bad rap that are actually good for you. So try all 18.
18 foods with a bad rap that are actually good for you – LIVE STRONG

Now this is important work.
The Sociology of Bar Fights – FREAKONOMICS

How to live well and meet scores of people? Read lots of books. At once.
My Rich Society: Novels, etc. – Tibor Machan, TIBOR’S SPACE

Fair question, right.

This is serious, mum.
The Internet is Killing Hyphens– THE ATLANTIC

Let’s make a list for Ne Zealand.
8 (UK) government policies which look like satire but aren’t – Tom Pride, PRIDE’S PURGE

If you’re like me, this will be fascinating.
JFK Library releases Hemingway scrapbooks (online) – HISTORY NEWS NETWORK

Who could forget John Key’s famous three-way handshake at the Rugby World Cup Final. He should have read this first.
4 Reasons Handshakes Can Go Horribly Wrong – FAST COMPANY

I think John Key just missed out on the chance to win $200.
Smallest Penis Contest Winner Tells Us Why He's Proud To Be Less Endowed – THE GOTHAMIST

So, not so many like the new and unfamiliar after all.
We Don't Like Unfamiliar Music, Even Though We Claim We Do – SCIENCE DAILY

Get rid of the film producer to bring back creativity, says Orson Welles. This fascinates organisation theorist Peter Klein.
Orson Welles on Organizational Structure – Peter Klein, ORGANISATIONS & MARKETS

If the grey ones get out of the way, the future will be amazing.
First successful transplant of retinas made from embryonic stem cells- FIERCE BIOTECH

Your primer on online privacy:

There is some astonishing footage of the Duke Ellington orchestra on the internet.

I love this. You can just smell the sea. (Thanks, APO, for a great performance of it last night.) Can you spot the connection with the Ellington vid above?

And didn’t Australia do well in the cricket…

[Hat tip Shane P., Gene Callahan, Geek Press, Jason StottsClimate Depot, Robert Tracinski, Peter G. Klein, Tom Pride, Richard Calhoun, Cathy, Will Wilkinson, Steve Forbes]

Thanks for reading,
have a great weekend!
PC

Thursday 25 July 2013

Inevitable Inflation?

Guest post by Ed Bugos

In an article I first saw on June 28th, Martin Feldstein asserts that quantitative easing is NOT money printing, and suggests that is the main reason we have not seen any price inflation.

_Quote5The link between Fed bond purchases and the subsequent growth of the money stock changed after 2008, because the Fed began to pay interest on excess reserves [which] induced the banks to maintain excess reserves at the Fed instead of lending and creating deposits to absorb the increased reserves, as they would have done before 2008. As a result, the volume of excess reserves held at the Fed increased from less than $2 billion in 2008 to $1.8 trillion now, effectively severing the link between Fed bond purchases and the resulting stock of money. The size of the broad money stock (M2) grew at an average rate of just 6.4 percent a year from the end of 2008 to the end of 2012.

Yet, this is all wrong: every bit of it, except for the fact about paying interest on and the increased quantity of excess reserves after 2008. That may have diluted the significance of the Fed Funds rate as a policy tool, but it has absolutely not severed the link between open market purchases of securities and the resulting stock of money. Feldstein’s analysis starts out with making an incorrect observation, and then proceeds toward a rationalization.

But in fact, I have shown in graphs like the one below that money growth has been growing at a record pace as compared to previous inflationary episodes. If my observation is correct, however, then why have we not seen a major breakout in price inflation, as many gold bugs predicted?

First, let’s nail down the observation…

ECONOMICS FOR REAL PEOPLE: From the Firm to the Wider World

Our friends at the Auckland Uni Economics Group are back for the new semester. Here’s their update for tonight’s show discussion:

YES! We’re back!!
    Welcome to those who have joined the group after visiting us during this Orientation Week. We look forward to meeting you again at our first meeting of this semester which is this Thursday.
    Yes, our weekly seminars return starting tonight at 6pm. And we're thrilled to say that we've got a fascinating talk and discussion planned. We’ll looking at a question that always starts plenty of debates. Put simply: What role should the government take in running companies? Some, none or all?
    Come along and find out what one influential school of economics has to say on this most controversial subject. And learn how the economic ideas that help answer that controversial question have other real world applications. What are they? Come along and find out!
    Where: Room 215, Level Two, Business School Building, Grafton Rd, Auckland University
    Date: Tonight, Thursday, 25 July
    Time: 6pm

Monumental council debts

This is some interesting spin from the head of Local Government NZ:

Councils spent $700 million more than they earned in the past financial year, leading to the worst operating deficit on record, but officials say this was one of the symptoms of keeping rates low in tough economic times… Local Government NZ head [and mayor of underperforming Hastings Council] Lawrence Yule said councils had tried to keep rates as low as possible since the economic downturn and so had incurred some operating deficits.

What the hell is Yule talking about? “Keep rates as low as possible,” says the dickhead! They’ve risen every year since Sandra Lee’s Local Government Act reform took the handbrake off their spending, with rates nationally rates having risen an average of 7 per cent a year for the past decade. And that’s not slowing down any time soon.

_YuleBasically, since at least 2002 councils have been spending like drunken sailors on non-core council business. Their problem—and their ratepayers’ problem—is that when the economic downturn began not one of them bothered to exercise prudence and cut their overspending. Instead, they all borrowed. They borrowed billions.

Their debt positions are purposely made as opaque as Yule’s spin, but council watchdog Larry Mitchell says

Sector-wide total debt, (including the Regional Councils) has quadrupled from around $2 billion seven years ago to $8 Billion by 2011-2012.
   
Of greater concern, according to Council long terms plans forecast sector debt is scheduled in the period to reach around $25 Billion, with Auckland Council taking a disproportionate share of this at $16 or more billion … or over two thirds of the total.

And that is before Len Brown’s plan to have us pay for all his monuments.

Councils (and government) need to urgently rein in their spending, or today’s children will be working most of their adult lives to pay off the debts of irresponsible politicians. The head of Local Government NZ should be in the forefront of making councils live within their means. Instead, he is an apologist for their failure.

He deserves a good kicking.

Space-saving furniture

Look at the ingenuity of this space-saving furniture, effectively turning one room of your home into two or even three.

Install units like these sliding panels like this, and a small space can easily become a mansion.

[Hat tip Geek Press]

Wednesday 24 July 2013

What happens when you try the Prisoners Dilemma on actual prisoners?

image

So much of modern mainstream microeconomics is built on mathematical reasoning based on the so-called Prisoner’s Dilemma.

But, as if to demonstrate the distance from the real world of the reasoning of mainstream economics, no-one had ever tested the Prisoner’s Dilemma on real prisoners.

And when two Hamburg researchers did, what they found confounded the elegant mathematical reasoning relied on by economists.

Not only did the prisoners cooperate far more than the alleged economists’ models say they would, they cooperated far more than students, on whom, to date, the only testing of the models has been done.

Now, in the real world when theories are found wanting they are abandoned for something better. Not so however in mainstream economics. 

Irving Fisher, for example, wrote the policy of price stabilisation that helped trigger the Great Depression in which he lost his shirt. Yet Fisher is praised to the skies by today’s leading alleged economists, and his policy of “price stabilisation” has been adopted by virtually every central bank in the world, and is promoted in every mainstream textbook in every one of the world’s macroeconomics classrooms.

Further, the graduates of those modern mainstream macroeconomics classrooms famously failed to see the Global Financial Crisis before it happened, and even months before were talking bollocks bout the “permanent prosperity” their policies had produced—yet today’s textbooks still continue to spout the macroeconomic nonsense of self-induced blindness.

So now that the basis of so much modern mainstream microeconomics is revealed as patent bollocks, do you think any modern mainstream micro-economists will begin re-examining the mistaken foundations of their discipline?

What do you think?

And if they don’t, is there any reason any of them should ever be taken seriously—rather than being taken out and shot for frauds?

The day Australia closed the door

Australians aren’t just failing at cricket. They’re also failing at acting on that which they supposedly believe.

This week they begin rejecting refugees arriving in Australia by boat, sending them instead to a concentration camp off Papua New Guinea.

This in the name of a country and people who sing, in their national anthem:

For those who've come across the seas. We've boundless plains to share…”

Turns out that’s just empty words and flatulence.

[Hat tip Sandrine L.]

Today Detroit, tomorrow the world

image

If you discount the life-giving value of continuing economic growth and progress, then check out what happens in a city that has abandoned both.

It teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Members of the City Council have simply stopped showing up for work. Whole blocks are seemingly abandoned. Emergency calls to 9-1-1 take, on average, almost an hour for help to arrive. Police solve – this is apparently true – 8.7% of crimes. 8.7%! The only reason the sky-high crime rate isn’t higher is, apparently, a shortage of available innocent victims.

And look at this description of Detroit from this week’s Observer:

What isn’t dumped is stolen. Factories and homes have largely been stripped of anything of value, so thieves now target cars’ catalytic converters. Illiteracy runs at around 47%; half the adults in some areas are unemployed. In many neighbourhoods, the only sign of activity is a slow trudge to the liquor store.

Just a few decades ago, Detroit—aka “Motown,” the world’s centre of automotive production—was arguably the world’s richest city. Now, it’s a dystopian shithole.  A hovel carved out of industrial greatness,  A bankrupt degenerate wasteland.

There, but for the grace of profits, goes every city.

A lesson for every city and country in the world that thinks prosperity is forever—and today’s prosperity can be borrowed from tomorrow’s.

Like the death of every American industrial centre, and like the slow strangulation of Japan, the death of Detroit was a man-made disaster. Detroit was once the world’s showcase of capitalism. It is now the place that shows the world you can’t kick the can down the road forever.

Like the entire western world, Detroit was built by profits. It was destroyed by those who took those profits for granted; who thought the profits would last forever, no matter what was done to destroy them. Now, all the vultures have to pick over is the rotting carcass their policies produced.

Chrysler, Ford and General Motors built their profits on delivering automotive excellence to the world. But the unions thought those profits were rightfully theirs. They began the transformation of the companies into carcasses upon which they could feed while tying their hands and feet with arbitrary work rules that prevented them from competing. And the companies caved in. And the Asian competition took over.

To keep great companies going, it is not enough just to reproduce the innovations that made you great. You have to continuously re-innovate or die. But from Ralph Nader on the notion grew that men from government centres could write rules about how cars should be produced, how they should run, and how they should be constructed. They shackled the companies with safety and “pollution” rules in which the big companies acquiesced, thinking the regulation of the industry would help raise barriers to entry for smaller competitors. Instead, the calcification of the industry it produced opened the door to the foreign competition that killed them.

And all that regulation everywhere else made everyone at least 75% poorer, and less able to buy what was produced.

To keep great companies growing, it is necessary to continually reinvest the profits in maintaining the capital goods that are producing the profits, and invest in new capital goods to produce more.  This is the process of capital accumulation that represents real growth and progress, built on the reinvestment of profits that constitutes real saving. But politicians riding the welfare gravy train to electoral success were busy sucking those profits dry with their taxes. 

And as those politicians printed money to pay their welfare bills, the inflation the money-printing caused raised the taxes those companies paid even more, while also raising the price of new capital goods, making new investment increasingly more difficult—until, bit by bit, it finally became impossible.

Yet as the profits declined, the welfare politicians kept on going back to the well. The well their policies have finally run dry.

They were helped in their economic genocide by the intellectual poison produced by John Maynard Keynes—especially by the Keynesians’ manic hostility to saving. i..e, the process whereby consumption is delayed so that prior production can be reinvested into new production.  As economist George Reisman points out,

The Keynesians' preoccupation with the utterly fictitious problem of saving as a cause of poverty bears major responsibility for the very real problem of growing poverty as the result of a lack of saving. Based on their hostile economic analysis of saving, the Keynesians have brought about the enactment of correspondingly hostile government economic policies towards saving. The result has been economic stagnation and decline, whose nature and significance are captured in the words: the rust belt. Over a span of approximately two generations, the intellectual rot of Keynesianism has helped to bring about the physical rot of the industrial heartland of the United States.

Detroit is the bastard child of Keynesian economics and welfare politics.

British MP Daniel Hannan recognises today’s Detroit in the rotting industrial city of Starnesville Ayn Rand described prophetically in her novel Atlas Shrugged.  “Statism is turning America into Detroit, he says in this week’s Telegraph. “It is Ayn Rand's Starnesville come to life.”

Hannan sets his sights too low. Because every country in the western world suffers from the same intellectual rot as America.

And if that rot can eat out the soul of the richest industrial city the world has ever seen, it can consume anything.

So the world’s most highly paid beneficiaries had a baby [update 2]

Yes, William Windsor and his wife are mong the world’s most highly paid beneficiaries.

So why is the whole world going nuts about two beneficiaries popping out a sprog?

UPDATE 1: “In a just world, this innocent child would be going up for adoption, since its family would have been imprisoned for crimes against humanity.” – Hamilton Nolan

UPDATE 2: Non-monarchist Robert Tracinski suggests we could do a lot worse than the House of Windsor…

One of the reasons I don't begrudge the House of Windsor any of their wealth or fame is that they didn't win it, historically, through brute conquest. Quite the opposite. The House of Windsor was chosen by the British and imported from Germany in the Glorious Revolution of 1689, and they were installed on the throne on the condition that they accept a new constitutional settlement in which the monarchy was largely subordinated to Parliament. Since then (despite that notable backslider George III), the House of Windsor has placidly presided over the cession of more and more power to elected officials, to the point where Elizabeth II has basically spent 60 years looking dignified and nodding while she rubber stamps the policies of a succession of mostly mediocre political hacks. It's a job that calls for endless patience and strict control of the facial muscles.
   
In short, the House of Windsor has set a sterling model of constitutional monarchy and has presided over the devolution of executive power to the people. This is one royal family that advocates of republican government can love.
   
But that's not the main reason I don't begrudge the royals their fame—particularly this current generation of royals. The main reason is that William and Kate are just about the only global mega-celebrities who don't make me cringe.
   
There has been a lot of talk about how difficult it will be for the royal baby to grow up normally. But the empirical evidence indicates that the royals are doing a better job of being normal than the modern aristocracy of pop singers and Hollywood stars. They don't keep pet monkeys, get cartoonish plastic surgery, marry and divorce at rapid-fire pace, go off on bizarre drug-fueled rants, give their children bizarre self-indulgent names, or leak sex tapes on the Web.
   
In this reality TV era when you can be famous for being famous, the royal couple are the only ones who do celebrity right: always look glamorous, act dignified, remember your manners, show your patriotism, and stay out of politics.
   
In short, if we're going to have celebrities—and we're always going to have celebrities—better the House of Windsor than the House of Kardashian.

Tuesday 23 July 2013

So, is there any reason EQC shouldn’t shut up shop?

EQC is bankrupt.

There, someone had to say it.

EQC is not some benevolent organisation with bags of money ready to swoop down at times of need to dispense capital. It is an organisation with no capital at all that is just a roadblock to those trying to rebuild after disaster.

Even before the Christchurch earthquake, the Earthquake Commission was skating on thin financial ice. Set up by government after the Napier earthquake to pay for earthquake damage out of government savings, rather than by taxing or borrowing, by the time the ground shook under Canterbury the ambition had been reduced to paying only for the first $100,000 of damage per home (setting up a another layer of confusion through which crippled home-owners have to leap before being able to get their real insurance payout) and its coffers had been so reduced that the EQC had only around $1.5 billion of real assets to call on.

Because it turned out that when the earthquake hit and the spotlight turned on this erstwhile small and dusty corner of the bureaucracy, instead of building up the Natural Disaster Fund, governments had been quietly pilfering from the EQC’s jam jar, leaving behind only little bits of paper IOUs. IOUs payable by you and I.

And after the Christchurch disaster, every real asset in the Fund is now gone. The Fund is done. Finished. Empty. Over. The Prime Minister admitted as much yesterday, saying

_Quote_IdiotWe know that the EQC fund really has nothing in it from the last, from memory, time I looked at it. But
in essence the Government just backs that up.

See what I mean? The EQC fund has nothing in it … in essence you and I (from whom, in the end,  the Government gets all its dosh) just back it up.

Or to put it in its simplest terms, it’s just a Ponzi scheme that you and I are required to pay into.  A bankrupt bureaucracy, an empty tin, that times of need isn’t there with the necessaries—instead it sends around folk hired to hold a clipboard and with the job to say “No.”

So what is it really there for?

And is there any good reason it shouldn’t be closed down forthwith.  Before we have another real natural disaster in which people have to rely on this buggered and bankrupt bureaucracy .

We Need More Affordable Homes, Prime Minister, Not More Subsidies

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Tinkering with subsidised KiwiSaver allowances and “start-up help” won’t help Aucklanders facing paying seven times their household income for their first home. 

With the median house price in the city now at over $550,000, the government is considering lifting the $400,000 price cap for KiwiSaver first-home buyer deposit subsidies in Auckland. Unless the structural issues causing house price inflation are addressed however then instead of spurring new building activity, any increases in subsidy will feed directly into prices.

The key here is spurring new building activity—something needed but still given only lip service by government and councils. Yet while demand has exploded in Auckland due to low interest rates, easy credit and foreign investment, housing starts remain in the doldrums. So prices skyrocket.

Land supply is the key.  The Demographia housing affordability survey, which rates Auckland’s housing market ‘severely unaffordable,’ has shown year after year that cities with responsive land markets don’t experience price bubbles. The Productivity Commission agreed, determining that all councils are helping trigger house-price inflation: by restricting land supply, by taking too long to process consents and by failing to finance infrastructure properly.

The Auckland Council is a particularly egregious example of this institutional failure. The result is that Auckland houses are too expensive—not because the government isn’t providing enough taxpayer-funded hand-outs to first homebuyers, but because the market is being restrained by bureaucracy from acting on clear market signals.

Auckland’s “woeful” building consent numbers, just over 4700 in the past year, are a damning indictment on the Auckland Council’s planning failure. This equates to only three new homes per 1000 residents, a level that is only barely covers the replacement rate for existing stock—and nowhere near enough for a growing city. Houston, Texas, on the other hand, a city three times the size of Auckland, is building at a rate of 15 houses per 1000 people.

If Auckland built at this rate it would put up 22,000 new homes per year. Instead it is building less than 5,000.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank is planning to limit high loan-to-value ratio (LVR) lending, which will make it even more difficult for first-home buyers. Getting a big enough deposit is already hard in Auckland. At the median house price a 10% deposit would be $55,000, while if a 20% deposit is required homebuyers would have to come up with $110,000. These are eye-watering numbers for young savers.

Affordable Auckland, which I lead, maintains that the solution to house price-inflation is to get Councils out of the way, preventing them from increasing regulation-related expenses. More tinkering by central Government and the Reserve Bank is only going to make this situation worse.”

candidatephoto1Stephen Berry is the leader of the nationwide Affordable Cities ticket, and the Affordable Auckland candidate for Waitemata & Gulf.
Contact him at Stephen.berry@affordable.org.nz, or join the ticket at www.affordable.org.nz, or www.facebook.com/mrberry.

Monday 22 July 2013

Earthquakes & Density: Will We Ever Learn?

Guest post by Hugh Pavletich

With the 6.5 magnitude Marlborough earthquake events beginning a little after 5pm Sunday 20th July 2013,and the accompanying fore-shocks and after-shocks radiating in to New Zealand’s capital city Wellington some 56 kilometres away (USGS Information), Wellington’s central area and commuter train service was shut down, and the high-density central city turned into a ghost town.

A lesson to take from this and earlier earthquakes: High-density urban centres do not perform well in earthquakes on the “resiliency front.”

And a question for planners to ponder: What would or could happen if this significant and shallow earthquake event occurs in Wellington Harbour?

Following the 11 kilometre deep  7.4 magnitude Darfield event some 38 kilometres outside Christchurch on 4 September 2010, seismologists were generally of the view the worst was over, and aftershocks of diminishing intensity could be expected for another year or so.

Based on this professional assurance, most in the Christchurch area were rather pleased with themselves, and how they had coped with the 4 September 2010 event. Particularly pleased with themselves were the Authorities, from whom there was much political grand-standing.

Then about 5 months later on 22 February 2011, the shallow 6.3 magnitude earthquake stuck  (6 kilometres deep 7 kilometres from CBD) at the Lyttelton Tunnel.  And on 13 June 2011, a 6.4 magnitude event occurred in the Redcliffs, some 9 kilometres from the CBD at a depth of 7 kilometres.

Seismologists had remarkably little to say following these events.

Within months following the February event, the engineering profession, in conjunction with the Royal Society, released an important report The Canterbury Earthquakes. This report illustrated from accelerometer readings throughout the city the intensity of the g-forces experienced in specific locations.

The great untold story of Christchurch has been how the low and light structures in low-density areas coped remarkably well (often well outside their design limits), provided the ground underneath them remained stable.

In contrast, the high density and aged CBD did not cope at all well.

What the 22 February 2011 earthquake event failed to destroy in the central area, the Authorities did, by banning essential and timely  redevelopment and restoration.

Time was always a critical factor.

Instead – devoid of elementary commercial and urban development knowledge, the public bureaucracies at local and central level saw it as an opportunity to arrogantly engage in surreal “visions.”

The politicians were simply the parrots. (These issues have been extensively covered by the writer within Christchurch: The Way Forward (incorporating hyperlinks to earlier articles), and just recently, within a New Zealand National Business Review Opinion Christchurch: The political shambles.)

Since the first earthquake event 4 September 2010, near 3 years ago now, there have been some 13,500 tremors in the greater Christchurch area, as the Canterbury Quake Live website illustrates.

Urban Planner Joel Cayford explained with Councils Fudge Christchurch Seismicity, around the time of the release of the Royal Society report, how urban planners had ignored earthquake risks.

Earthquake risks had been well understood by those involved in urban issues for decades – particularly engineers and developers. (The Engineering School at Canterbury University had for decades following World War 11, been regarded as one of the lead research institutions international on earthquakes.)

In 1996, the TV3 Inside New Zealand "Earthquake!" documentary, provided a snap-shot of the understanding by that time.

With the follow-on Wellington earthquake events, one is reminded of the song by Royal Wood (Youtube Video) "Will We Ever Learn" … with the lyrics …

Will we ever learn?
From what we’re feeling
Will we ever learn?
As sorrows deepen

Will you ever see?
Just what you mean to me

Will we ever learn?
It all but breaks us
Will we ever learn?
When it forsakes us

Will you ever say?
How much you love me
Will you ever say?
No one above me

h my we’re wasting time
Oh my we’re wasting time
Oh yes we’re wasting time again
Will we ever learn?
Will we ever learn?

Will we ever be?
Behind the curtain
Will we ever be?
In a life that’s certain

Hugh Pavletich is the Coordinator for Cantabrians Unite the co-author of the Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, and the webmaster for the archival website  Performance Urban Planning.