Thursday 31 October 2013

Pub culture is over?

This morning, I ask you to address one of the most important issues facing the world. To whit:

“Pub culture is over. Five blokes talking rubbish over a pint died with the smoking ban.”

Discuss.

Wednesday 30 October 2013

Colin Craig Promises Land Grab

Guest post by Stephen Berry, from Affordable Auckland

If his latest interview with TV3 is anything to go by, New Zealand’s political village idiot Colin Craig plans to surpass NZ First’s vote in the next election by putting forward even more extreme success-hating populism than Winston Peters.

Craig wears a fig leaf of rectitude in saying urban boundaries in Auckland need to be extended. But in saying he and his Conservative Party would give property developers five years to develop their land before invoking the Public Works Act to have their property compulsorily acquired for development by the state, Craig drops the fig leaf altogether and exposes himself for what he  really is: An out-and-out confiscationist.

National should be very concerned about the prospects of entering into coalition with a supposed right-winger who wants to resurrect the very worst excesses of Muldoonist Think Big socialism combined with Proposition One from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Respect for private property rights is one of the main reasons housing in Auckland and Wellington is becoming increasingly unaffordable, and confiscations coupled with further government largesse will only make this worse. Private property owners should be left to decide for themselves how they use their land, with urban boundaries scrapped to remove the windfall gains on which so-called land-bankers rely.

Craig’s comments regarding developer profits are especially hypocritical when he says, "At the moment they have bought sections for 30 grand and they are selling them for over 400 and they just don't need that much money."

Who the hell does this multi-millionaire developer think he is passing judgement on other people as to how much they need?  I’m sure that not all property developers have expensive loony tunes political parties to speak for them, but the last person that should be passing judgements on the rent-seeking of others is Colin Craig.

My Affordable City ticket ran in the last local body election on a platform of affordable housing. The ticket’s proposals included a reduction in rates, elimination of council borrowing within three years, streamlining the resource consents process, removing the ability of non-affected persons to object to the granting of building consent, abolishing the urban limit and respecting private property rights.

Stephen Berry stood as Affordable Auckland’s candidate for Mayor of Auckland. He achieved 13,560 votes and finished, like Colin Craig in 2010, in third place.

It’s inflation a go-go at the central banks tonight!

Generally, when governments and their flunkies intend to change direction, they test it first by launching a few “trial balloons” to see if they’re shot down.

Such a balloon was launched on the front page of last week’s New York Times, a launchpad only used when the plans being trialled are already well advanced, signalling for all to see that the US Federal Reserve (and, by extension, every central bank around the world who follows their lead) intends to double down on its attempt to inflate its way out of its present predicament.

That is, it intends to replace its present implicit policy of devaluing its currency (that has achieved no success anyone can point to) with an explicit policy to send its value down the toilet, and all the way past the ‘S’ bend.

Either that, or as an astute commenter said at one of my favourite blogs, “Looks like they expect to no longer keep their reinforced ebola in the bottle and are lining up their excuses in anticipation.”

You would have thought that the disastrous stagflation of the 1970s would have killed off forever the Keynesian experiment with monetary inflation.

Not so.

They’re obviously hoping too few folk wiped out by the Fed’s inflationary disaster of the seventies to remain alive to make a ruccus.

The key part of the inflationary con they wanted to put over last week was that a gentle deflation is bad (it isn’t) and a “little bit of inflation” won’t hurt you—and that they can control it if it looks like it might. Neither proposition is any bit of it true.

First, it it passing strange that even alleged economists bewail the prospect of the dollar in your pocket being able to buy more things. That means you and I--and especially low-income earners--becoming richer, not poorer. Second, “the leading cause of falling prices is economic progress, whose essential feature is an increasing production and supply of goods and services, which, of course, [is what] operates to make prices fall.”

Strange to call that a bad thing, when instead it’s part of a genuinely sustainable cure for what currently ails the likes of Japan.

Further, as Richard Ebeling points out,

the quick fix of inflation in creating “good times” and more jobs is short lived, is an illusion like many other “fixes” that provide an initial “high” but soon fade away… this “positive” effect … only continues for as long as the increased supply of money has not impacted on and raised all the prices in the economy.

Once the new tranche of monetary inflation does eventually impact on all prices in the economy, pumping up price bubbles along the way, the clamour comes for more of the sugar rush that was just sent out—setting up a vicious spiral that Friedrich Hayek once likened to having a tiger by the tail.

And in the meantime, those people getting the new money first and those whose assets are inflated are made richer, at the expense of savers those folk furthest from the government’s monetary spigot.

The hoped-for boom is bought by quietly picking some people’s pockets. A boom that in the end destroys all that it creates, and more. Because

the entire structure of the economy – the demands for investment and construction, the jobs into which workers and others have been drawn through the inflationary spending – is now dependent on the monetary expansion continuing and keeping the patterns of demands and jobs artificially created by this process to continue to go on-and-on.
    Once any attempt is made by the central bankers to slow down or stop the monetary expansion in the face of worsening price inflation, the entire house of cards begins to crumble. The boom turns into the bust, as investments undertaken and jobs created are discovered to be the misdirected outcome of money creation and the unsustainable patterns of demand and employments that could last only for as long as the inflationary spiral was kept going.
    The “little bit” of inflation that some Harvard economists, Federal Reserve presidents and some in the business world are saying is not only nothing to worry about but is the panacea for all our economic ills, is a phony elixir to cure our national ailments. It will only set America on an even worse inflationary boom-bust rollercoaster than the one that current Federal Reserve monetary policy has been already setting us up for.

LINKS:

Tuesday 29 October 2013

They grow up so fast

Debts, that is.

Ricochet’s Jon Gabriel put together this infographic illustrating the extreme state of America’s finances, brought to you by a bipartisan coalition of fast-spending Republicans and Democrats:

image002
[Graph from Sutherland Institute. Hat tip Julian P.]

I don’t think there’s any evidence anywhere of deceleration…

Afternoon logic

Spiked Math Comic - Three logicians walk into a bar

Cartoon by Spiked Math Comics. Hat tip Stephen Hicks.

Lou Reed, 1942-2013

I woke up yesterday to find that Lou Reed was dead. And as someone just said, no matter how many times you re-check it, he still remains dead today.

Magician take my spirit
inside I'm young and vital
Inside I'm alive please take me away
So many things to do - it's too early
For my life to be ending
For this body to simply rot away

- Lou Reed, “Magician,” from the album Magic and Loss

Lou was still sharp earlier this year, shortly after a liver transplant, appalled at what “his” president has done, and offering sage advice on how to stay creative.

I was lucky myself to find his music young. Like Jenny said when she was just five years old, my life was saved by Rock & Roll. His angular take on it helped a lot.

His music to a young feller was edgy and unsettling, uncomfortably romantic, dangerously thrilling.  Point of fact, despite a million imitators since, it still sounds that way now.

His were music and lyrics suggesting something strange and interesting might be just around the corner—albeit the after-dark corner of of a New York street, if not the safe street-corner of a middle-class South Auckland suburb.

In amongst all his songs about the city’s bright lights and dark heart, I have to confess disappointingly few of whose elements appeared in my neighbourhood—very little of the sado-masochism, the sailors’ orgies, and the ODs—all the elements featuring in most mainstream obituaries I’ve been reading—but what  grabbed me so powerfully then and now was that Reed wasn’t just wallowing in the ordure, he was finding diamonds in the rough. He was writing what Rand called in a different context ‘Bootleg Romanticism.’ He was writing about the city he ran away to find, and stayed to write stories about. (“Just remember that the city is a funny place / Something like a circus or a sewer.”) About folk finding their values amid the struggle, and being redeemed (sometimes) by the glory of love.

Reed liked to say he wrote stories and music for adults (“why should rock music only work from the neck down?”), about characters finding their own (sometimes disturbed) way.  So when he sang “I,” he pointed out, he was no more singing about himself than Dostoyevsky was when he had Raskolnikov kill the old lady. He was writing stories just like his literary heroes did, only his were set to and integrated with rock music. Why not take these adult stories, he asked, set them to two guitars, bass and drums, and send them out into the world to help understand it. That was something a street poet and accomplished rhythm guitarist could do for a lifetime. Even if, like Street Hassle or his album about losing two friends, it could sometimes make for uncomfortable listening.

Reed was an angry man who would get easily frustrated. He was frustrated by know-nothings who knew nothing about what he was trying to do. Or who took his stories straight.

He was especially frustrated by know-nothing journalists. (“John Rockwell, man. Wow! You know how heavy it is to get reviewed by Rockwell, and he says you’re intelligent? Fuck you! I don’t need you to tell me that I’m good… And [Robert] Christgau is like an anal-retentive. Nice little boxes. ‘B-plus.' Can you imagine working for a fucking year and you got a B-plus from an asshole in The Village Voice?”)  He was frustrated by know-nothing fans and nobodies (“I slept through Sally Can’t Dance and they made it one of my biggest selling records”). 

He was frustrated with the success he was often so eager to sabotage. (“They bought Rock ‘n Roll Animal by the truckload and wanted more, so I gave them Metal Machine Music. You want heavy metal music? Here it is.”) Metal Machine Music still hold some sort of record for LPs returned by buyers in the first month, about which he remained inordinately proud.

So he could channel the rage into humour. Here he is in an otherwise innocuous love song (“I'm standing with you on your roof /looking at the chemical sky /All purple blue and oranges /some pigeons flying by / The traffic on Canal Street's so noisy / it's a shock”) admiring his self control at not wanting to throw “each lover I meet up on your roof” under the wheels of that traffic. You know, really, really not wanting to. Because, you know, HookyWooky.

He couldn’t be Shakespeare and he couldn’t be Joyce, so what was left instead? What was left was what he did with the rage that can hurt you; he turned it into music. Music that, over time, understood there was something better than rage, pain, anger and hurt, something to say about life’s great adventure, and some way to try to articulate that.

Always understanding that, “as in most things in life, it’s the little hop at the end that counts.”

Like this:

The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed- Sweet Jane (Live)

Saturday 26 October 2013

Quote of the Day: What are you so frightened of?

"This really shouldn’t be such a radical or unusual thing, but as I look around the world I find so many petrified—not of natural disasters or things that perhaps make sense—but terrified of the opinion of others. That’s what makes it so hard for the human race to achieve all that it might, and should, and perhaps yet will."

- Dr Michael Hurd's Daily Dose of Reason

 

Thursday 24 October 2013

What Gives Your Life Meaning?

What gives your life meaning? 

For some people it’s opposing, trolling, insulting. For others it’s productive, creative work—the central purpose of which serves to integrate a life.

Under the Surface Episode 2: What Gives Your Life Meaning? from The Undercurrent on Vimeo.

So what gives your life meaning.

Let’s have some fun ways of getting around

Andrew Galambos famously declared of traffic jams that they are an example of the collision of capitalism and socialism: capitalism, he observed, being able to produce cars faster than socialism can produce roads.

But it’s much worse than that.

Capitalism is able to produce abundant forms of getting around. But they produce them faster than socialised planners can permit their use to cut down traffic jams.

Roller skates, roller blades, Segways, skateboards, scooters, jet packs, unicycles … they’re all viable forms of transport that “the authorities” either tolerate and regulate (wear a helmet, get a licence, use it in “the right place,” stay off the road/footpath) or, in the case of the Segway, prohibit altogether—deriving us all of potentially easier, cheaper, better, more fun ways of getting around.

More choice in ways of getting around our cities, just as we need more choice in the way we live in our cities.

Easier ways of getting around, perhaps, than needing to get around a crammed city using a large car. 

More individualised ways, clearly, which is probably why they don’t fit easily (or not at all) into the planner’s socialised transport networks.

Like the YikeBike.

Which, like the Segway, offers a modern, clean, easy way of getting around a city. A city that could grow up in a form allowing easy use of such gadgets—with the classic “ten minute walking time” around which cities develop drastically changing urban design theories, just as it would dramatically change cities’ form.

Which, however, just like the Segway, instead of a city being allowed to grow up organically around this, or any other abundant means of cunning, stylish urban transport, it will probably be banned for that purpose so that cities can develop in the same old way under the same old planning restraints with the same old forms of transport. (Another example of “planning” stopping people planning.)

You just wonder how cars would ever have taken off at all if they’d been developed after town planning had been invented!

Options for city transport are often presented as an opposition between folks who want more cars on more roads, folks who want more cycles on more cycle ways, and  folks who want more public transport—no matter how many (or how few) actually use it. That is to say, they all want more money spent on roads, trains or cycle paths.

But the field for choice is actually much wider than that.

It’s just that capitalism can produce more options than socialism can allow.

* Or just made less fun by being made to get licenses and wear “safety” gear and only travel in the prescribed areas and, and, and ...

Offshore oil drilling opponents blow up their case [updated]

POPULAR OPPOSITION TO OFFSHORE oil drilling continues in NZ, even as oil continues to be the world’s most abundantly used energy source—including by its opponents, recognising perhaps in their own ongoing use of energy and products derived from oil that fossil fuels actually improve the planet for human life.

The importance of oil for energy production can easily be seen in Germany and Japan, where their shutdown of nuclear power stations has made it abundantly clear that so-called “renewable energy” sources just can’t cope with the energy demands of our industrial civilisation.

The energy system which currently sustains the 7.1 billion people on earth is powered by 87 percent fossil fuels; 11 percent nuclear and hydro electric; with the remainder consisting of “renewables” i.e., wind, geothermal, solar, biomass, and waste. Is this a case of an upstart on the verge of a breakthrough, or a perennial loser that can’t make the cut? […]
    [I]n May of 2012 when Japan, previously the world’s largest consumer of nuclear-derived electricity, shut down all of its nuclear reactors: a loss of 27 percent of its electrical generation… Thus, the stage was set to demonstrate all of green energy’s alleged potential; a wealthy country, a demonstrated willingness to pass environmentalist policies, and a level playing field. What happened?
    While popular media championed the idea that massive wind power and solar generation projects were soon to be installed, ‘greening’ Japanese power generation, and fulfilling viable green energy tenets—a different reality unfolded in the country.
    With nuclear offline, fossil fuels flowed into the nation. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA),
       
As a result of the nuclear outages, fossil-fueled generation of electricity rose to 90% of Japan’s
        total electricity output during 2012, with 8% from hydro and only 2% from nuclear.
    In 2012 “the combined amount of electricity generated from natural gas, oil and coal” increased by 21 percent…
    During this tragic and perilous time, green energy did very little to alleviate Japanese suffering. Renewables went from contributing around 1.6 percent of primary energy in 2011 to 1.7 percent in 2012, hardly a demonstration of energy sources capable of powering the planet.
    This was not because the Japanese have an ideological preference for fossil fuels—as their anti-nuclear stance shows, they are on the extreme end of environmentalists. But they are environmentalists who were forced to grapple with the reality that if they tried to rebuild primarily using solar and wind, technologies perennially plagued by unreliability and high infrastructure costs, they would fail at rebuilding.
    The Japanese disaster demonstrates the truly life saving value of fossil fuels.

The failure of “renewables” to do the job is made more manifest by the Euro-subsidies given to wind and solar which, rather than building up an economically sustainable industry, has instead simply increased Europe’s energy costs by 17% for consumers and 21% for industry in the last four years.

OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING CAN certainly be perilous, but even to make their case about the perils, in the latest example of local opposition to offshore drilling its opponents have to overstate them.

First, while the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is clearly their poster child for their picture of New Zealand oil doom, the holes drilled into New Zealand’s oil fields harbour nothing like the pressure of the Deepwater Horizon oil field, that pressure causing uncontrollable blowout. In New Zealand, pressures are so slight that in many holes the oil needs to be pumped in order to extract it. Without pumps, there can be no spill.

Second, there are over 4000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. And

since 1975, offshore drilling has had a 99.999 percent safety record [source: EIA]. The amount spilled has decreased from 3.6 million barrels in the 1970s to less than 500,000 in the ’90s.

As David Farrar reflects, “$2.2 billion is being spent in NZ on exploration. Do we want to turn that down for worry about the 0.001%?”  Further,

Believe it or not, more oil actually spills into U.S. waters from natural sources and municipal and industrial waste than it does than from offshore oil and gas drilling.

(This last fact allows some folk to argue that, since “most oil spills are not due to drilling but from natural seepage from the sea floor, and studies have shown that oil drilling reduces the pressure on those seeps and results in less oil pollution,” so offshore drilling might be seen as environmentally beneficial!)

Third, even the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill had lasting impact on the deep-sea ecosystem only to a radius of 16km, “with the most severe reduction of biological abundance and biodiversity impacting a [radius of 3km]  around the wellhead, and moderate effects seen [to a radius of 7km] around the wellhead.”

And, since oil itself is a naturally-occurring substance, it’s only natural there are natural processes for its dispersement, which very rapidly kicked in.  Indeed, “the bottom line from [recent] research may be that the Gulf of Mexico [and, by extension elsewhere, is more resilient and better able to recover from oil spills than anyone thought,” an expert in bioremediation said on April 8 in New Orleans at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Terry C. Hazen, Ph.D., said that conclusion has emerged from research … [using] a powerful new approach for identifying microbes in the environment to discover previously unknown bacteria, naturally present in the Gulf water, that consume and break down crude oil.
    "The Deepwater Horizon oil provided a new source of nutrients in the deepest waters," explained Hazen, who is with the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. "With more food present in the water, there was a population explosion among those bacteria already adapted to using oil as a food source. It was surprising how fast they consumed the oil. In some locations, it took only one day for them to reduce a gallon of oil to a half gallon.

Understanding these natural processes might suggest that a lot of the effort to clean up after the spill was worse than counter-productive, in that it impeded the full effect of the natural processes

Fourth, the opponents of oil drilling argue that it’s only the selfishness of oil companies that drives their anti-social desire to pollute our beaches. This is bogus nonsense on every level. Not only are they acting to meet the  demand for what powers industrial civilisation, it’s easy to make the case that the disasters that do happen, like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, are caused not by companies being selfish but precisely the reverse—by not being selfish enough.

Frankly, in the end, none of the opponents’ claims stack up. They have some lurid pictures, without the science they claim backs them up. And when you have to lie and fabricate your evidence in order to make your case, it suggests you haven’t really got one.

UPDATE: 2:32pm, Discussion expanded, and new links added.

Monday 21 October 2013

Watch out,Winston wants your wallet

If KiwiSaver is Welfare for Empty Suits, as I’ve argued before—a form of “soft compulsion” herding NZers’ paypackets and a forced subsidy from employers and taxpayer towards suits who wouldn’t be able to attract it otherwise—then  what would Winston’s would-be nationalisation of Kiwisaver be?

Maybe we could call it Welfare for Bureaucrats in Suits?

But really, it’s much worse even than that.

It’s means whereby which most of the country’s savings and wealth would be handed over to government to run.

Which would essentially make one large pot in the government’s hands—a slush fund for future governments in need of funds to back up their overspending, with no constitutional restraints against its plunder.

That, right there, is why Labour will have no problem with accepting Winston’s would-be bottom line as their own. Because no government can turn down a chance to plunder a pot like that, especially when the blame for going wrong (and what could possibly go wrong with such a scheme!) can always be sheeted elsewhere.

There is an argument around this morning that Winston making his proposal a “bottom line” in coalition negotiations would pose a problem for Labour.

This, too, is nonsense.

First of all, as every journalist should know, Winston’s only bottom line is baubles. Everything else he says is just window-dressing.

Second, there is enough in common between Cunliffe-and-Peters stated policies already to form some kind of common-law marriage, without their supporters falling out.

Both Labour’s new leader and NZ First’s old leader want to soak the rich.

Both Cunliffe and Winston wish to devalue the dollar to “help” exporters.

The Labour Party announced a few months back it wants to nationalise the electricity market.

And the NZ First Party announced over the weekend it wants to nationalise the KiwiSaver industry.

You’d think all this and more would make the two nationalisers a good fit. And with Winston making his nationalisation plan a “bottom line” for any post-coalition deal, that also gives Cunliffe the chance to pretend (for a while at least) that he’s only a reluctant nationaliser.

And since both these “markets” are already full of what economists call “rent-seekers,” I’d be surprised if anyone involved will be able to make a decent principled case against it.

Mini-Ramble

What’s terrifying about the new Fed Chairman isn’t that we don’t know who she is…
“We All Know Who Janet Yellen Is . . .” – Joseph Salerno, CIRCLE BASTIAT

Julian Burnside on the asylum seeker issue in Australian politics - and how cruelty became Australia’s biggest vote-winner. [Hat tip Sand Longfield]
Julian Burnside on asylum seekers and Australian politics - Julian Burnside, MANAMIA

Minimum-wage legislation is “the explicit means chosen by its champions to further their stated goal of improving the welfare of low-skilled workers.”  It is however a devil disguised as an angel.
The Evil that is Minimum-Wage Legislation – Don Boudreaux, CAFE HAYEK

Millions of people are alive today because the net emissions of carbon dioxide have increased. Perhaps we should remember that.
CO2 emissions in last 50 years made us $3.5 Trillion wealthier – JO NOVA

Alex Epstein remembers. And goes further.
Dear Big Oil: Stop Acting Like Big Tobacco – Alex Epstein, MASTER RESOURCE

Some of these must be worth at least a half mark?
22 ingeniously defaced textbooks & exam papers – STUDENT BEANS

And finally, a word from Frank Zappa.

Zappa.jpgPic by John Cox Art

EVENT REMINDER. Tonight: John Butler on the US dollar – is there an alternative global currency?

Our friends at the Auckland Uni Economics Group wanted me to remind you that their guest speaker tonight is John Butler (right),  is a respected global investment adviser, talking on a subject sure to become more topical by the day.

John Butler: The US dollar – is there an alternative global currency?

“It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world” said a statement from China’s state news agency on Tuesday in response to the fiscal problems in the US.

This Monday evening The University of Auckland Economics Group is excited to be hosting a presentation by John Butler, a UK-based expert on the viability of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. His talk will address the implications of the “Chinese scenario” and the growing loss of confidence in the US dollar, things which will shape the world in the coming years and decades.

John is an incredibly engaging and insightful presenter so you don’t want to miss his talk.

He is the Managing Partner at Amphora Capital, adviser to many of the world’s largest institutional investors, and author of The Golden Revolution, published in 2012, which explores the practicality of a commodity based currency.

And one lucky attendee will win a copy of his book.

John will discuss:

  • the role of the US dollar in the global economy
  • how events such as the global financial crisis are changing the way many, including China, view the US dollar
  • what an alternative reserve currency might look like in the future, and how commodities might play a role in such a currency

John is in Auckland for one day only, Monday 21 October, so we are privileged to have him speak to us. Remember, one lucky attendee will win a copy of his book.

About the speaker: 
John Butler lives in the United Kingdom and is the Managing Partner at Amphora Capital. He has advised many of the world’s largest institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, and central banks. He has served as a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, and Dresdner Bank in charge of global teams responsible for interest rate, currency, and commodity strategy.
    John’s publications include his popular Amphora Report investment newsletter and his 2012 book The Golden Revolution. His research has been cited by numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

About the event:

RSVP: Please register at www.johnbutler.eventbrite.com 

    Date: Tonight, Monday, October 21
    Time: 6pm – 7:30pm
    Location: Case Room 4, Level 0, University of Auckland Business School, Grafton Rd
                          (plenty of parking in the basement, entrance off Grafton Rd)

We look forward to seeing you there.

RELATED READING:

Friday 18 October 2013

Quote of the Day: On responsibility

“I think of a hero as someone who understands the
degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
~ Bob Dylan, interview published with his Biograph album set (1985

RELATED READING:
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities – Not PC

[Hat tip CoNZervative]

John Banks’s electoral fraud

The story was buried under a mountain of lurid mayoral stories, but I did read this week that John Banks, the Minister for Rhyming Slang, stood himself down from ministerial office after being indicted in a private action for electoral fraud.

I immediately assumed the obvious. I assumed it was because a disgruntled voter had taken Banks to court the courts after discovering the ACT Party had defrauded voters, and supporters, in pretending to be a freedom party.

And because he had defrauded the ACT Party hierarchy in pretending to be both a freedom-lover and a politician of integrity.

In which case, it occurred to me, both ACT and Banks have an absolute defence: only a moment’s research would have been enough to reveal to the disgruntled voter that neither Banks nor ACT were anything of the sort. 

Which would make this moment in time something to really celebrate: the moment when the ACT near-corpse is finally euthanased and sent for a decent burial.

I was astonished then to discover the indictment was not for this obvious and compelling reason, but only for a couple of anonymous donations to his failed mayoral campaign of a few years ago, for which Banks had asked the donors, SkyCity and Kim DotCon, to split each of their donations to keep them anonymous.

In real terms, hardly a hanging offence, you would have thought.

Surely, lying to a gullible easily-convinced set of voters, supporters and party members is worse?

Mind you, Metiria Turei has a point that John Banks should be precluded from voting on any legislation involving gambling or SkyCity, on the basis of political donations not being rewarded with political favour. Just as the Greens, for similar reasons based on their own donor list in recent years, should be barred from voting on legislation relating to forestry, finance companies, audiology and classical music; the Maori Party from voting on legislation related to transport and trucking; the National Party from voting on legislation relating to finance, farming, real estate, oil exploration and dining out; the Labour Party from voting on anything related to meat, dairy, transport, oil exploration or labour or employment laws; and all parties, on the basis of donations from Fletcher Building and increasingly generous state broadcasting advertising allocations, from voting on legislation relating to building, construction and increasingly generous allocations to state broadcasting.

Or, just maybe, the point should be that these entities in parliament should be barred from being able to vote into power legislation about what is bought and sold and built. Because as PJ O’Rourke points out, when legislation is able to be passed that controls what is bought and sold, the first thing to be bought and sold are the legislators.

A question for National Party supporters

There’s no doubt the National Party under John Key surfed a wave of support unprecedented in MMP times—riding polls that showed them over the journey easily able to govern alone, if they wanted to.

Key’s own personal popularity with the electorate bought the Party enormous political capital, enough popularity to allow Key and Co to climb out from under a series of mini-scandals with little more than a smile and wave.

If you’ve been a National Party supporter, it’s been a great ride.

I, those five years of power however, I wonder whether they’ve spent all that political capital wisely. 

I wonder if National Party supporters wonder that too?

They took power, they had a whole country looking to them for answers, they acquired the political capital that comes with widespread popular support, but what of long-lasting importance did they actually do with it all?

Given that the National Party now looks to have begun its inevitable electoral decline—these things generally and inevitably being cyclical—and having few supporting parties to bail it out electorally—even to the desperate levels of cobbling together support that the ragtag Shipley parliament managed—I reckon that’s a question National Party supporters should start asking themselves wow their tide is going out:

Did they spend all that political capital wisely?

In other words, and this is what I’d like National Party supporters reading this to answer, if they will, is to reflect on what fundamental changes this National Government they’ve supported has achieved, and whether they National Government they’ve supported has spent the enormous political capital of the Key era wisely.

What did the Key Government do with all that support?

What did they buy with that political capital that made New Zealand a better place?

What real long-lasting achievements can they point to?

What permanent, concrete changes can you point to?

And did they, in the end, deserve your support?

Please. Tell us.

Thursday 17 October 2013

Awards

Congratulations to NZer Eleanor Catton, author of the novel Luminaries, and the winner overnight (which is different to an overnight winner) of the UK’s MAN Booker Prize. Damned fine work. Based on all the fine words that have been said about your prize-winner, if the whole premise and structure of your novel wasn’t based so strongly on astrology, I’d be picking up a copy.  (Although, apparently, this is “not something you notice when you’re reading ... amazingly well written ... very entertaining crime novel”)

And congratulations too, to the 36 award-winners in the NZIA Auckland Regional Architecture awards. Although, to me, there’s something disquieting when the winner of the Enduring Architecture award (the Newcombe House in Parnell, Auckland (above) designed by Peter Bartlett has more simple soul about it than the 35 winners of today. Like this thing:

But the biggest congratulations for the biggest artistic award, has to go to the architects of the Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland’s best public building in nearly a hundred years, and named this week the World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore.

Auckland Art Gallery has been named World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore.

Yes, it’s been derided as “an atrium with an art gallery attached.”1 And you can bicker about the quality, or lack thereof, of the “art” adorning what should be the second-floor sculpture gallery (in which the trees of Albert Park virtually become part of the gallery)—which might at least help bewildered visitors trying to enter the gallery from Albert Park to find the door. But as a great public building linking city and park, as a piece of architecture that began with a great concept that was (unusually) followed through, the architects produced a minor miracle, for which they deserve every plaudit they get.

The terraced northern and eastern edges address Albert Park.

And isn’t this members’ lounge one of the best reasons to join the Gallery as a member?

The members lounge occupies the elevated north-east corner of the gallery, looking out to Albert Park.

1. Come in Mr Litterick.

[Pics by Patrick Reynolds et al, from Architecture Now.]

Bonus Quote of the Day:

“The whole notion that an honest and explicit debt default by the U.S.
government is an unprecedented event and the worst possible outcome
in the current situation is ludicrous given that the U.S. has been continually and surreptitiously defaulting on its debt since World War 2 via inflationary finance…”

- Joseph Salerno, from his article
Bruce Bartlett’s Nutty Government Default
Hysteria: Here’s Another Economist for His Hit List

Quote of the Day: On Reputation

“There are persons esteemed on their reputation who by
showing themselves destroy the opinion one had of them.”
- Joseph Conrad, from the ‘Personal Record’
he attached to his novella The Shadowline,
paraphrasing from an essay by Anatole France

So they’ve raised the debt ceiling.

So they’ve raised the debt ceiling.

For three months.

A reason to drink in celebration?

Or a reason to drink to oblivion?

What’s your call?

UPDATE:

And a further question: “Is There a Big Loophole in the Debt Ceiling Deal that Will For All Practical Purposes Eliminate the Ceiling Forever?

Guest Post: Ten Things to Expect from Obamacare in 2014

Since the arguments about partial government shutdown and debt ceilings were linked to opposition to ObamaCare, I figured some of you might like to know something about it. So here, courtesy of the Casey Daily Dispatch, is Dan Steinhart introducing Dr Elizabeth Lee Vliet to brief you.

Obamacare's health exchanges opened on October 1, with a system so crummy that even the Washington Post is calling it a disaster.

Though Obamacare has been America’s law of the land for 3½ years, this marks its first major milestone that impacts Americans on an individual level. That's because Obama designed his crowning achievement to phase in slowly, over nine years—probably a good idea considering it's a hive of onerous regulations and 20-something new taxes that, if unleashed all at once, would wallop the US economy. Better to boil the frogs slowly.

The next major milestone is approaching fast. On January 1, the individual mandate will take effect, forcing all Americans to either buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Well, almost all Americans. If you happen to be friends with Obama, or a donor, union, or political ally who supports him, you may get a waiver, which you'll read more about below.

Given that the impact of Obamacare will only grow from here on out, I asked Dr. Lee Vliet—physician and acclaimed Obamacare expert—what we should expect as the calendar turns to 2014.

Importantly, Dr. Vliet is independent in every sense of the word. Not only is she an independent physician, she's also a registered political Independent, and has no ties to pharmaceutical, insurance, political, or any other interests. Like any good doctor, she is professionally concerned with one thing and one thing only: her patients. You'll find her criticisms of Obamacare quite harsh, but only because she's disturbed about the impact it will have on her patients…

Ten Things to Expect from Obamacare in 2014
Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

It's been clear to anyone paying attention that the October "rollout" of Obamacare has been a turbulent, confusing disaster. Sloppy IT systems and technological failures combined to cripple Obamacare's sign-up systems. Security flaws put Americans at risk for identity theft.

In an almost comical understatement, President Obama summarized these massive failures as "a few glitches." I think that Luke Chung, IT expert and president of database solutions firm FMS, explained the situation much more accurately:

"What should clearly be an enterprise quality, highly scalable software application felt like it wouldn't pass a basic code review. It appears the people who built the site don't know what they're doing, never used it and didn't test it."

Chung went on to call it a "technological disaster."

Think about what this ineptitude means in the bigger debate about Obamacare. The administration spent 3½ years and $698 million of taxpayers' money to develop this software. They've known since earlier this year that the system wasn't ready to support the rollout of the exchanges. Yet they proceeded anyway, apparently unconcerned about their faulty software costing Americans millions of hours of frustration and lost productivity.

These same bureaucrats continue to assume more and more control of our medical care. What does their incompetence say about how they will handle making life-or-death medical care decisions?

Like a parasite taking over its host, Obamacare will commandeer almost 20% of our economy, crowding out private options. With 2014 fast approaching, what should we expect in its next phase?

Here's my list Top Ten list for 2014:

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Who does the US Govt owe?

Here’s everybody the US Government owes money to, in one simple graphic.

pm-gov_debt_v-624[1]

Oh, and here’s the US Debt Clock. It just keeps ticking. Note, if you will, the unfunded liabilities…

A message from Ayn Rand [updated]

No Comment

There will be no comment here on the only news anyone wants to talk about today.

I'm utterly uninterested in what Len Brown did in the (relative) privacy of the Ngati Whatua Room. Because it's not who he screws in private that worries me. What worries me is him screwing over Auckland ratepayers every day right out in the open.

How about we focus on that?

Guest Post: Debt Ceiling Delusions

Guest post by Peter Schiff

The popular take on the current debt ceiling stand-off is that the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party has a delusional belief that it can hit the brakes on new debt creation without bringing on an economic catastrophe. While Republicans are indeed kidding themselves if they believe that their actions will not unleash deep economic turmoil, there are much deeper and more significant delusions on the other side of the aisle. Democrats, and the President in particular, believe that continually taking on more debt to pay existing debt is a more responsible course of action. Even worse, they appear to believe that debt accumulation is the equivalent of economic growth.

If Republicans were to inexplicably prevail, and the federal government were to cut spending so that its expenditures matched its tax revenues (a truly radical idea), the country's financial mess would be laid bare. The government would have to weigh the relative costs and benefits of making interest payments on Treasury debt (primarily to foreign creditors) or to trim entitlements promised to U.S. citizens. But those are choices we will have to make sooner or later anyway. In fact we should have dealt with these issues years ago. But generations of mechanistic debt ceiling increases have allowed us to perpetually kick the can down the road. What could possibly be gained by doing it again, particularly if it is done with no commitment to change course?

imageThe Democrats' argument that America needs to pay its bills is just hollow rhetoric. Paying off one's Visa bill with a new and bigger MasterCard bill can't be considered a legitimate payment of debt. At best it is a transfer. But in the government's case, it doesn't even qualify as that. Treasury debt is primarily bought by the Fed, by foreign central banks, and by major financial institutions. None of that will change with a debt ceiling increase. We will just go to the same people for greater quantities. So it's like paying off your Visa card with a bigger Visa card.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

Quote of the Day: On growing up

"Growing up occurs at the moment you stop caring about what others think."
- Dr Michael Hurd, in "Tell Me What I Want to Hear" at The Delaware Coast Press

[Hat tip Gus Van Horn]

Guest Post:The Great Nobel Heist of 2013

Add together the diametrically opposed beliefs of two of the three economics Nobel Prize winners, says guest poster David Howden, and you end up with a big fat zero.

The paradox of the awarding of the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science1 is really just par for the course. Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal shared the prize that year – both for their work on monetary fluctuations and the business cycle. While there were some affinities between the two early in their careers: both used a Wicksellian foundation, stressed the importance of Knightian uncertainty and the role of ex ante expectations versus ex post results in investment decisions. But by the time the elder economists won their Nobels they were almost polar opposites. Hayek had moved to his work on to the social order of a free society while Myrdal had taken on a decidedly more socialistic bent.

This year’s Nobel Prize is shared between three eminent economists, Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller. For the purposes of this article commemorating their achievement, I wish to compare Fama and Shiller’s accomplishments, contributions and what the Prize really represents. As we shall see, though both academics won the award for their work on asset prices, their results and conclusions couldn’t be more at odds with each other.

Economics for Real People - Stephen Toplis: Economics and its role in the real world

Well, well, the next meeting of the Auckland Uni Economics Group should see some challenging questions thrown the guest’s way (I hope at least one person asks him about the Broken Window Fallacy).  Here’s the write-up for you:

Stephen Toplis, Head of Research, BNZ
The University of Auckland Economics Group is proud this week to be hosting Stephen Toplis, one of New Zealand’s most well-known economists.
    Stephen is the Head of Research at the BNZ his team providing expert analysis and commentary across most sectors and industries of the New Zealand economy. 
    During this seminar, Stephen will discuss some of the key economic issues facing New Zealand and the world.  What are the economic ideas that should guide us during these volatile and uncertain times? 
    Do not miss this opportunity to hear one of the most engaging and respected speakers in the New Zealand business community.
    Stephen will also be taking your questions at the conclusion of his presentation…

About the speaker:
Stephen Toplis is Head of Research at the BNZ. Previously, he was Chief Economist Deutsche Securities, Chief Economist BT Securities, Chief Economist Doyle Paterson Brown and Chief Economist Fay Richwhite. Stephen has a BSocSci in Computer Science and a Masters in Economics.

About the event:
All welcome.
RSVP: Please register at www.toplis.eventbrite.com

    Date: Thursday, October 17
    Time: 6pm – 7:30pm
    Location: Case Room 4, Level 0, University of Auckland Business School, Grafton Rd
    Parking is available in the basement of the Business School.

We look forward to seeing you there.

PS: This event has been advertised through wider university channels from tomorrow morning, so please register as soon as possible to ensure a space.

Check us out on the web at our Facebook group.

Stephen Berry Says “Thanks Auckland!”

Guest post by Affordable City’s Stephen Berry 

After the local body election results this weekend, I’m extraordinarily proud of the results the eleven candidates of our nationwide local body political party have achieved in such a short time. I’m very grateful for the effort they have put into their campaigns, and for the team of volunteers who have been there for them.

AFFORDABLE CITY CANDIDATE RESULTS

A short quiz on the #DebtCeiling: Who said … ?

Here’s a (very) short quiz on the American Debt Ceiling. Just four questions, the answers to which will make you laugh.

1. Who said about raising the Debt Ceiling, “We can’t just give a blank cheque over and over again”?

2. Who said about raising the Debt Ceiling, “The request sounds like a drunk going to an AA meeting saying, ‘just give me one more drink’”?

3. Who said about raising the Debt Ceiling, “Most Americans know that increasing the debt is the last thing we should be doing”?

4. Who said about raising the Debt Ceiling, “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership; Americans deserve better”?

You want to know? You really, really want to know?

View image on Twitter

See, it’s not about economics at all. It’s about politics.

[Hat tip James Woods]

‘Native Affairs’ scoop

As you might have heard, last night’s Native Affairs programme on Maori TV exposed what looks like a fairly egregious example of folks in what is essentially a taxpayer-funded charity, the Kohanga Reo National Trust, treating taxpayers’ money like their own—spending it on trips, fuel and wedding dresses.

I’m not going to focus on the details of what Iritana Tawhiwhirangi and her daughter-in-law Lynda Tawhiwhirangi, the general manager of the trust's charity-status subsidiary Te Pataka Ohanga, were supposed to have done. Others can do that.

What I want to applaud was how Maori TV went for the jugular on the troughers. A vigorous contrast with the case a few years ago when a director of Maori TV’s ill-starred predecessor, Aotearoa Television, decided he “had the mana” to spend taxpayers’ money on suits, shirts and underpants. Sixty dollar underpants! A small if trivial example of how the board itself “had the mana” to pay themselves an awful lot for very little.

Back then, instead of attacking him, as they should have, other Maori media defended that director, one Tuku Morgan—until recently up to his underpants in the Tainui trough, and with his snout now in one supplied by the long-suffering Auckland ratepayer.

So it’s encouraging now to see Maori TV not only exposing the rorts, but being the ones to investigate and broadcast the scoop—illustrating once again how being given the “mana” to spend other people’s money at will, affects some people in a way it shouldn’t.

Think about it as a warm-up for what’s going to happen when Whanau Ora is really rolled out.

Monday 14 October 2013

So, maybe you had no-one to vote for?

By the way: if you didn’t bother voting for mayors or councillors this election—even though you know that virtually all mayors and councillors both old and new regard your property as their business, and your pocket as their personal ATM machine—then maybe you should have done something about it?

You know, like standing yourself? Or supporting those who did, so more folk could hear what they had to say?

There were a few candidates across the country standing against that premise, and some of them polled well, and some few of them got elected. And I hope some of you do let me know how you did.

And I hope, too, that you build on what you got this election, build up your war chest, encourage others to stand with you, and stand again next time for the right to get our wallets back.

To me, the most exciting result was in the Auckland mayoralty. Not in the race between Tweedledum and Tweedledummer—between the re-elected mayor (who’s bankrupting the city to build monuments) and his opponent, (who wanted to bankrupt it building a second city)—but in the result for the fellow who came third. Stephen Berry. From Affordable Auckland.

image

How difficult is to drop a letter in the post?

People are asking this morning: “How difficult is to drop a letter in the post?” They’re asking, because so few people bothered to vote in the latest local government elections, the results for which (in case you haven’t noticed) were announced over the weekend.

Implied in that question is the notion that the only thing holding people back from voting was the alleged difficulty of filling out a paper form and finding an envelope, a stamp and a postbox. As if fixing low voter turnout would be “fixed” if folk could fix their choice on their iPad.

But the people asking that question are mostly involved in politics themselves. Which is why they’re ignoring what, to me, is probably the major reason most people didn’t vote. It’s because they think all the folk involved in politics are wankers.

And, mostly, they’re right.

Which is why they really are voting. They’re voting None Of The Above.

By that reasoning, putting voting online won’t improve voter turnout. The only thing that will is better candidates—or making the better candidates better known.

So what are you doing next election?

Friday 11 October 2013

Friday Morning Ramble: The #Shutdown Edition

The US Government wasn’t the only thing partially shut down these last seven days. My back came out in sympathy too, thus no Ramble last week. So here’s a few morsels of interest spotted out in the wild these last two weeks…

Just as it says.
US Government Shutdowns, a Brief History. – Chris Mayer, MONEY MORNING AUSTRALIA 
A Brief History of the Federal Debt Limit – HISTORY NEWS NETWORK 
 Shutdown? It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. – NOT PC
Leftist Fanatics Responsible for Government Shutdown – GEORGE REISMAN’S BLOG
Who Shut Down the Government? – Thomas Sowell, TOWN HALL

“The blame for the shutdown belongs on those who want to spend beyond all limits".”
The Governmental Shutdown – Harry Binswanger, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

“For the greater part of human history, leaders who were in a position to exercise power were accountable for their actions… The problem we are faced with today is that our political and (frequently) business leaders are not being held responsible for their actions.”
A Corrupt System that Rewards Stupidity – Marc Faber, DAILY RECKONING

But it’s not even a real shutdown, is it.
13% Spending Reduction Is Called a Shutdown? – Charles Anderson, OBJECTIVIST INDIVIDUALIST
It’s what’s *not* shut down that really matters – Peter Cresswell, NOT PC

“To career politicians like Harry Reid, even cutting back on government amounts to ‘anarchy’.”
Harry Reid’s Conspiracy Theory – Michael Hurd, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
Ten Ways Republicans Are Giving President Obama A Taste Of His Own Alinsky – FORBES

“Yep, it's all about credit and credibility. Cash in your previously earned credit and hope for the best. But at the rate things are going, a few more years of this and the US will have little credibility left. Once your credibility is gone, so is the money.”
Why US Debt Dynamics Could Get Ugly – Greg Canavan, DAILY RECKONING, AUSTRALIA

The real threat is the debt, says Peter Schiff, not the ceiling.

“Those on the Left who decry free trade agreements like the TPP should remember that before wealth can be redistributed, it must first be created.
Chris Trotter speaks some sense on FTAs – Chris Trotter, WHALE OIL

Have they considered it could be these two reasons, and more? After all, as the man says in the comments thread, “Before you can have the ‘expectations of future profits,’ you need an inelastic supply of housing.”
Westpac economists say expectation of future profits - not a supply shortage - is main reason for soaring Auckland house prices – David Hargreaves, INTEREST.CO.NZ

Would-be investors in Christchurch’s CBD are becoming non-investors in droves. Call it the result of regime uncertainty…
Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion, October 2013 - media release – NZIER

“…the importance of regime uncertainty should be manifest to economists even as I have presented it. They need only think about it.”
Thinking Is Research, Too! – Robert Higgs, INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Still, if non-investors in the CBD prefer investing away from the CBD, looks like your government is happy to step in. UPDATE from commenter Mark: “The headline of the linked article (and I'm afraid your summary of it) is a bit misleading. The significant story is that the CCDU are abandoning the worst of their restrictions on development on Chch retail blocks in the former CBD, and now letting individuals owners get on and do their own thing to a greater degree. i.e. it's good, not bad news.”
(The comments are particularly encouraging.  It seems that the govt’s thuggish top-down response to the earthquakes is providing an object lesson on the futility of central planning, and this is even becoming a mainstream view in Chch.)
Government steps in for city mall project – STUFF

The move towards Part II of the governments #SurveillanceState starts soon.
TICS and you – Steffan Browning, FROG BLOG

The government’s ultra fast fibre network is already obsolete.
Solving the Internet Capacity Crunch: First Demonstration of a Multicore Fiber Network – SCIENCE DAILY

“The current rules let Heritage Boards designate buildings and effectively make them untouchable… We need to fix how we handle heritage buildings in New Zealand.”
Heritage Costs – Eric Crampton, OFFSETTING BEHAVIOUR

If it’s not done by smoke and mirrors (about which I’m naturally suspicious), then here is one legitimate reason to applaud this government. Especially in this current worldwide economic and intellectual environment.
Crown accounts show surplus within reach – BEEHIVE

Recently … Wendell Cox wrote on New Zealand for New Geography. If only Nick Smith paid it more than just lip service.
“Unblocking Constipated Planning” in New Zealand – Wendell Cox, NEW GEOGRAPHY
Ten questions for Nick Smith on his Special Housing Areas – Peter Cresswell, NOT PC
The market for affordable housing is still broken – Peter Cresswell, NOT PC

“In Western news-making and opinion-forming circles, there’s a palpable reluctance to talk about the most noteworthy thing about modern Islamist violence: its barbarism, its graphic lack of moral restraint. This goes beyond the BBC's yellow reluctance to deploy the T-word – terrorism – in relation to the bloody assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya at the weekend. Across the commentating board, people are sheepish about pointing out the historically unique lunacy of Islamist violence and its utter detachment from any recognisable moral universe or human values.”
I'm sorry, but we have to talk about the barbarism of modern Islamist terrorism – Brendan O’Neill, TELEGRAPH

With Syria the trigger, “slowly, the map of the Middle East could be redrawn.”  The break is not likely to be clean.
How 5 Countries Could Become 14 – NEW YORK TIMES

Nice that we could help out. “A massive waste of American resources, accomplishing nothing but the weakening of America.”
Afghanistan: Taliban poised to retake power, Karzai says "the entire Nato exercise was one that caused Afghanistan a lot of suffering" – Robert Spencer, JIHAD WATCH

“An old Arab saying goes, ‘Cairo writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad reads.’ These three capitals, along with Damascus, were long the hubs of culture and education in the Arab world.” But now the locus has shifted east.
 Gulf Cities Emerge As New Centres of Arab World – AL MONITOR

Fascinating.
A debate between Leonard Peikoff and Yaron Brook on the question: Who should, or should not, be allowed to immigrate into the US? Moderated by Amy Peikoff (Part 1 of 2) – PEIKOFF.COM

“It is only in state-subsidised theatre (whether the subsidy is direct, in the
form of grants, or indirect, as tax-deductible donations to universities or arts organisations) that the ideologue can hold sway, for he is then subject not
to the immediate verdict of the audience but to the good wishes of the granting
authority, whose good wishes he will, thus, devote his energies to obtaining.”

- David Mamet, quoted in “Elsewhere (100)

John Lennon was not entirely happy with crybaby hippies and big-government worshippers. (Or, as Peter Namtvedt says, here’s “the John Lennon that the New Left evaded”:


“Each IPCC report seems to be required to conclude that the case for an international agreement to curb carbon dioxide has grown stronger. That is to say the IPCC report (and especially the press release accompanying the summary) is a political document, and as George Orwell noted, political language ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’”
Understanding The IPCC Climate Assessment – Richard Lindzen, CATO
What's wrong with the latest IPCC Report? It's full of lies – Don Easterbrook, POWERLINE

“…the idea of a consensus is a bit of a sham…”
Climate fairy tales – BISHOP HILL

“Andy Dessler and Jerry North, both Texas A&M professors and climate researchers, felt the need to lecture the rest of us about the certainty of manmade global warming, and that if we just trust the government, a solution will be found.
Yeah, they pushed my button…”
Roy Spencer: Dessler & North demonstrate why scientists appear clueless – JUNK SCIENCE

“Fundamentally, the IPCC has never had any solid evidence of measurable man-made global warming caused by man's emissions of carbon dioxide.”
The Anti-Science IPCC Global Warming Report 5 – Charles Anderson, OBJECTIVIST INDIVIDUALIST
What the New IPCC Global Warming Projections Should Have Looked Like – Patrick Michaels & Paul Knappenberger – CATO

This complete lack of warming through most of the IPCC’s history has led them to 95% certainty that humans are heating the world out of control.
No Warming For 70% Of The IPCC’s History – Steven Goddard, REAL SCIENCE

Still, “the latest IPPC report dials down the alarm on so many scares.”
IPCC not so confident we’re about to face catastrophes – ANDREW BOLT’S BLOG

It’s clear science journalists need some help.
Six questions the media should be asking the IPCC – Bob Tisdale, JO NOVA

“A perfect example of Darwinism at work, and one we can only hope more climate catastrophists follow.
A climate catastrophism we should all support – ANDREW BOLT’S BLOG

He died forty years ago today. If he were alive today, it would have been his birthday  last week. And if he were alive today, and this were a sane world, we wouldn’t have the economic problems we have today. Here’s George Reisman’s birthday tribute to the best man never to win a Nobel Prize in Economics.
Ludwig von Mises: Defender of Capitalism  - GEORGE REISMAN’S BLOG

“…America today is in essentially the same state of economic and psychological depression as it was in the 1970's.  More importantly, it is in this position for fundamentally the same reasons…”
Obama Brings Back the Carter Malaise – Doug Reich, RATIONAL CAPITALIST

Socialism is a dead end -- always has been. Their leaders can easily deliver torture and misery, but never fresh food, clean water or toilet paper.
As socialist dream crumbles, Venezuelans find Nicolas Maduro 'a bad copy' of Chavez – TELEGRAPH

Can you make the poor rich by making the rich poor?
Confusion on income and poverty – Matt Nolan, TVHE

The real divide is between those who pay taxes and those who live off them.
A Fairytale of Two Cities – Myron Magnet, CITY JOURNAL

Labour productivity measures don’t tell us anything about how hard we’re working.
Low productivity isn’t lazy – Matt Nolan, TVHE

So Greece “cut spending with a cleaver and the next thing you know they are forecasting a return to economic growth. No riots, no blood in the streets, just a quiet reversal of fortune.”
Keynesian economics is such junk science – Steve Kates, CATALLAXY FILES

So much for another ongoing myth. ( Can someone tell, Stephen Kinsella, David Farrar, Francis Till … )
GAO Report Confirms No “Patent Troll” Litigation Problem – Adam Mossoff, CENTER FOR THE PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Former NZ Reserve Bank chairman Arthur Grimes says “the US Federal Reserve should try to stop a damaging cycle of booms and busts by breaking investors’ expectations that it will mop up after asset price bubbles burst…”
Fed should try to break boom-bust cycle, says ex-RBNZ chair – YAHOO FINANCE

“AUSTRALIANS are per capita the wealthiest people in the world on a median basis…”
Capitalism has worked out OK for Australia – Andrew Bolt, HERALD SUN

“Why learn economics? To know economics is to understand how the world works…. Without that understanding, much of the operation of society will remain mysterious.
    “Not only do you want to be the smartest person at the cocktail party, but your health and happiness are at stake. Maybe you’ve cracked open a few economics books, but quickly dozed off as the author sedated you with theory.
“What you need is a book that combines solid theory applied to today’s real-life problems. That book is …
Kel Kelly’s The Case for Legalizing Capitalism.” – Doug French, LAISSEZ FAIRE BOOKS

“Real wages have fallen by eighty seven percent since 1965, to the point that an engineer today makes less, measured in gold, than someone earning the minimum wage would have in 1965.” Thank you, central bankers.
Measured In Gold, The Story Of American Wages Is An Ugly One – Keith Weiner, FORBES

Can economic growth be pumped out with counterfeit capital? Well, no. The pool of real funding is only so big.
Economic growth and the pool of funding – Frank Shostak, AAS ECONOMICS

“The Federal Reserve is the largest player in the world's largest economy... and it's on a runaway train... funding government largesse and ensuring gridlock...” Click the link to see a great infographic.
Picturing The Dangers Of An All-Powerful Federal Reserve – ZERO HEDGE

"I used to think that Alan Greenspan was the worst Fed chairman we
ever had until Bernanke was appointed. He kind of let Greenspan
off the hook. My guess is that Janet Yellen will return the favour…”

- Peter Schiff

It’s a visual demonstration of “economy of scale.”
The Amazon Warehouses - IMGUR


Immigration + Welfare = Police State. So isn’t it encouraging that Australia (in denying immigrating NZers welfare) and now the UK, seem to be realising the problem.
End of free NHS care for migrants under new bill – TELEGRAPH
Immigration Plus Welfare State Equal Police State – George Reisman, MISES DAILY 
Welfare Shouldn’t Ruin Immigration Reform – Alex Nowrasteh, CATO

“England is the only country in the developed world where the generation approaching retirement is more literate and numerate than the youngest adults…”
The culture that is England – Tyler Cowen, MARGINAL REVOLUTION

Wonder why you’ve seen so few American tennis champs in recent years? Turns out, says Chris Lewis, the American tennis bureaucracy is afflicted with the same top-down problems that encouraged him to leave NZ.
How to Develop New American Tennis Stars – Chris Lewis, TENNIS CONSULT
Chris Lewis: Tall Poppy – NOT PC, 2005

A film, a script, and a Kickstarter.
Independent Objectivist Robert Tracinski offers script for Atlas Shrugged movie – Prodos, THINKER TO THINKER

Has modern particle physics reached a theoretical dead end?
Could the Higgs Nobel Be the End of Particle Physics? – SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

“One step therefore we might take to make classical music less boring again is simply for audiences to quit being so blasted reverential.”
The Awfulness of Classical Music Explained – Richard Dare, HUFFINGTON POST

Ten elegantly ingenious moving bridges, including this one in Gateshead:


Apparently I’m still a kid. But I do have a record player than plays The Clash’s London Calling without it skipping.
40 Things Every Self-Respecting Man Over 30 Should Own – BUZZFEED

But I only score 13 out of David Bowie’s top 100. (So I go back three spaces?)
How to Read Like Bowie - David Bowie's Top 100 Books – OPEN BOOK TORONTO

“"British Journal of Sports Medicine, September 2013, Current hydration guidelines are erroneous: dehydration does not impair exercise performance in the heat, Wall BA"  My advice, don't add water to your malt whisky!”
Excess Hydration Is Dangerous – NANNY KNOWS BEST

Running just for the sake of it is not just boring, but deadly. “Investigators who studied a group of recreational marathon runners have established that strenuous exercise such as running a marathon can damage the heart muscle.”
Running a Marathon Hard On Heart, Especially in Less Prepared Runners – SCIENCE DAILY

So maybe your dentist is wrong too? (With bonus Stanley Kubrick clip.)
The Flimsy Evidence for Flossing – NEWTON BLOG

“Science just gives facts, right? Our sense of meaning, in the big-picture, must derive from elsewhere. Right? Wrong.”
10 Sublime Wonders of Science – SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

“Researchers at a US lab have passed a crucial milestone on the way to their ultimate goal of achieving self-sustaining nuclear fusion.”
Nuclear fusion milestone – RYAN’S RANTINGSScreenHunter_351 Oct. 09 13.05

“To all open letter writers,
First of all, hello. I've never met you, but I've been reading a lot of your open letters lately. Sinead O'Connor, just recently, you posted your third open letter to Miley Cyrus. That's about three too many…”
An Open Letter to Open Letter writers: Stop sending Open Letters – Stephen Marche, ESQUIRE

- See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2013/10/an-open-letter-to-open-letter-writers-stop-writing-open-letters.html#sthash.bzTmsabq.dpuf

In architecture right now, “blobitechture” is the new black.
10-best examples of blobitecture named – ARCHITECTURE NOW

“Over the course of human history, many embarrassing events have occurred at Oktoberfest themed parties…”
Beer, bratwursts, brass bands and more cowbell – Oktoberfest – Neil Miller, MALTHOUSE BLOG

Don’t let this happen to your life…(but do click to enlarge)

Austrian economist Waltger Block debates monetarist Stephen Kirchner at a Mises event in Australia.
The debate was scheduled to be on the business cycle. However we also debated Mises’s views, Rothbard’s views, Milton Friedman’s views, The Federal Reserve and much more!”

A song for the physics Nobel Prize winners.

The concluding moments of an interview with Lindsay Perigo and a playful Pavarotti, with several takes reading from a handwritten script.

Tartini Violin Sonata in G minor ''Devil's Trill Sonata''

The science of music.

Chris Lewis’s daughter has got talent. No, really.

 

Hat tips Jeff Perren Novelist, Mike Early, Paul Litterick, MikeM, PhilBest, Hugh Pavletich, Gus Van Horn, SOLO, Peter Namtvedt, Geek Press, Quote Unquote, Home Paddock]

Thanks for reading,
Have a great weekend.
PC