Friday 28 February 2014

Friday Morning Ramble: The McCarten Edition

If Matt McCarten’s organisational genius is overrated, his easy identification of a phony is not. And this is on the money in any language, “"Everyone talks about the centre ground as if it actually exists. The policies are actually what wins an election.  There's a million New Zealanders who didn't vote last [election] or didn't bother to enrol, they're disengaged in the political process at the moment, and they've got to do it."” Would that some other parties (ahem) understand that. [Pic from Whale Oil, who reckons: “The Chief of Staff title fools no one…we all know that Labour are flat broke, and this is the only way to fund a full time campaign manager. It is the pledge card fiasco all over again,” and who links to Chris Trotter, who reckons this election could be the one when “all that is worth fighting for on the Left will go down to defeat .. for the foreseeable future.” Fingers crossed, eh.]

Topical Message for the Week:

"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding
death. Joy is not the absence of pain."
- Ayn Rand

Australia's Next Top Model Finale Photo CallWe need to find meaning in the news of tragedy. As humans, we must.
     The search for meaning  in Charlotte Dawson’s suicide has reached Britain, with contributions from Julie Burchill -- “If you're tough enough, there's nothing more bracing than an online bitch-fight” – and Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill – “no sooner had it been revealed that Ms Dawson had died, most likely by her own hand, than these Torquemadas of the Twittersphere were insisting she was ‘killed by trolls’ and were ghoulishly marshalling her corpse to their campaign for tougher laws against offensive internet chatter.”
The joy of online hatred – Julie Burchill, SPECTATOR
Trollhunters are a menace to the internet – Brendan O’Neill, SPECTATOR

And the great Oliver Sacks, on an utterly unrelated topic…
The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.) – Oliver Sacks, NEW YORK TIMES

Thursday 27 February 2014

Perkins House, by Richard Neutra

Artist Connie Perkins loved this aesthetically charged corner of her small 130m2 Richard Neutra home so much that she moved her bed into the lounge so she could wake up with it every morning.

Now that’s love.

Can you see where it appears in the house?

[Photo by Julius Shulman. Plan by Barbara Lamprecht.]

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Down To The Doctor's: On Returning to Christmas Island

As a whistleblower on Australian refugee detention facility Manus Island argues, "It's not designed as a processing facility [for asylum seekers], it's designed as an experiment in the active creation of horror to deter people from trying in the first place," * Dr Richard McGrath heads back to help handle medical care at the sister facility at Christmas Island. But not before penning this guest post…

Tall Poppies, Cyber Bullies, Culture Wars & Antidotes–updated

imageIt sounds like a joke, but in fact it’s deadly serious. What do a tennis player, two actors and a model-turned TV presenter have in common? The answer is: being cut down from below by the culture.

The difference between them is how they responded.

The death of Charlotte Dawson is the immediate reason for asking the question – a death she seems to have chosen in response not just to depression, but to a vicious online hate campaign she could never allow herself to ignore.

Deborah Hill Cone wrote a column about the death of Charlotte Dawson, suggesting the path to the freedom she never found in life would have been to abandon the idea that what others think about you matters – “the path to freedom” for women over fifty, for example, (the age of which Dawson was only a whisker away), being to “embrace the idea of being subversive, powerful, batty old broads.”

Quote of the Day: On Quotes

"The thing about quotes you find on the internet
is you never know for sure if they are true."

- Abe Lincoln

Tuesday 25 February 2014

CBO’s Minimum-Wage Report

Since the unemployment machine that is the legal minimum wage is being revved up again, for a start on April 1, here’s a guest post by Jeffrey Miron with an update on the latest report by the US Congressional Budget Office (far from a bunch of partisan small-government hacks) on the effects of raising the federal minimum wage…

In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that raising the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 an hour would raise the incomes of low-wage workers who remain employed while lowering the incomes of low-wage workers who lose their jobs. CBO’s “middle” estimate is that a $10.10 minimum wage would reduce total employment by about 500,000.

These effects are exactly what textbook economics predicts; the question is then how policy should regard this combination of good news for some, bad news for others. On that score, the answer is obvious.

imageA policy that alleges to help low-wage workers, yet forces half a million to lose their jobs, is hard to reconcile with any sensible view of redistribution. People with the lowest incomes are more appropriate targets of redistribution than people with higher incomes, yet the minimum wage forces more people to have zero incomes. A minimum wage is therefore loony from the get-go, even if one believes in a government safety net.

Worse, the minimum wage is poorly targeted toward low-wage workers in poverty, even amongst those who retain their jobs. According to CBO:

Key the Expedient

image

The New ACT Party, in the form of Jamie Whyte, says in announcing yet another rise to the minimum wage the Nats have bowed to the old minimum wage myth that “minimum wages protect the poor.”

But that’s not quite true, is it, not when you read Key’s announcement yesterday, where he said that “advice considered by Cabinet when it made its decision … was that the increase would result in a ‘relatively negligible’ loss of jobs.”

That advice said a rise to $14.50 an hour would result in the loss of about 2,300 jobs.

So what Key hasn’t done is bow to the minimum wage myths at all. He understands perfectly well that raising the minimum wages costs jobs. He understands, as even the US Congressional Budget Office does, that raising the legal minimum wage

raises the incomes of low-wage workers who remain employed while lowering the incomes of low-wage workers who lose their jobs.

So he’s not truly as dumb as Jamie Whyte makes out.  He’s simply happy to sacrifice 2000 or so young and marginal for political expediency.

That’s just the kind of political leader he is.

RELATED POSTS:

Quote of the Day: Marxism refuted in one sentence

A wage is money paid in exchange for the performance
of labour
, not for the products of labour.”
- George Reisman,
taken from his “Remarks at the Conferral of His Honorary Doctorate from UFM

Want to understand how this one sentence undermines the Marxist exploitation meme? Read on.

Monday 24 February 2014

Myths and Lessons of the Argentine “Currency Crisis”

Guest post by Joseph Salerno

imageThe crash of the Argentine peso last month brings to a close yet another foredoomed experiment in South American left-wing populism. The precipitous “devaluation” of the peso by 15 percent against the U.S. dollar in January represents its steepest decline since the devaluation of 2001 when Argentina defaulted on its foreign debt. From January 21 to the close of trading on January 23 the peso dropped from 6.88 per dollar to 8.00 on the official market. On the black market the peso fell by 6 percent on January 23 to 13 to the dollar. Over the past year the peso has declined by 35 percent.

In a foolish and futile attempt to maintain its overvalued pegged exchange rate, the Argentine central bank has sold off dollar reserves at the rate of $1.1 billion per month over the past year in buying up the excess pesos sloshing around on foreign exchange markets. Overall, dollar reserves have plunged from a record high of $52.6 billion in 2011to a seven-year low of $29.3 billion. Also since 2011, the Fernández de Kirchner government has implemented highly restrictive exchange controls including delays in approving repatriation of the dividends of foreign firms as well restrictions on purchases by tourists, taxes on credit card purchases, and, recently, limits on online spending that have made it nearly impossible for ordinary Argentine citizens to obtain dollars to hoard or invest abroad. Of course, these draconian measures have failed to stanch the outflow of dollars in the face of the salutary operation of the black market in which dollars were freely available at the equilibrium price of 13 pesos per dollar. The government finally threw in the towel on January 22 and 23 by refusing to intervene in foreign exchange markets to prop up the peso, which declined by 10 percent on January 23 alone. On January 24, the government went further and announced a loosening of exchange controls. Now Argentines will be permitted to buy pesos in proportion to their income while the redeemable tax on peso purchases has been reduced from 35 percent to 20 percent.

Now these are the facts as they have been reported but many commentators have erred in their interpretations of the situation.[1]

Len Brown Stand Down March: Media Manipulation Analysis

Picture

Vinny Eastwood and Stephen Berry analyse Saturday’s Len Brown Stand Down March,

a big success according to its organisers and in a way this is evidenced by the enormous criticism thrown at it by desperate left wing commentators and woefully inaccurate reporting by the establishment media.
To counter this propaganda we are releasing a critical analysis of a number of these news stories and blogs so that the public may be made aware of the lengths these scumbaggery filth will go to protect the corruption, financial incompetence and lies of Auckland Mayor Len Brown.

See if they make their case:

QUOTE OF THE DAY: On whitewashing Marxism-Leninism

"No self-respecting person who loves humanity
or wishes for a world of greater equality and justice
should have anything to do with whitewashing the
slavery and extermination of Marxism-Leninism."

—Anthony Gregory, “Stalin Apologia

[Hat tip Scott DeSalvo]

[Hat tip Capitalism]

Friday 21 February 2014

“…a rare achievement.”

Blogger and Melbourne cartoonist Gavin Aung Than, blogging at  Zen Pencils, “turns inspirational quotes into comic strips.”  In this strip, he illustrates life advice from Calvin & Hobbes’s cartoonist Bill Watterson.

image

Read on at Zen Pencils not to only to see what happens next – but for some great life advice.

[Hat tip Jenn Casey and Slate]

Like We Said, It's About More than Your Genes

Guest post by Daniel Jepson and Chris Wood, writers for “Casey Extraordinary Technology”

In last week's article on epigenetics at Casey Research, we began with a brief discussion of the enormous expectations that were placed on the Human Genome Project such as, that its results would lead to the end of disease—and how those expectations ultimately went unfulfilled because of course, things are never that simple. More importantly, in this case, genes are only part of the story.

To quote briefly from that article:

REPOST: Where's my free will?

I don’t know about you, but when I tune in to the infantile ‘debate’ about obesity – about  who to blame when folk get fat and how ‘someone must do something” (for “someone” read “government,” and for “something” read coercion) – I find it disturbing that fatties and pollies alike find common cause in removing personal responsibility from their respective equations.
    If you're a fat bastard and you don't want to be, how about you stop blaming vending machines, your school, your parents, your genes and just try the 'don't-eat-so-frigging-much' diet. (Do you see many fat starving Africans in famine photos hiding at the back going, "Oh, I've just got big bones"? No? Is that a clue? Sheesh!)
And if you're a politician, how's about you implementing a self-imposed 'I-won't-poke-my-nose-into-your-business' week, and just leave us and our eating habits alone.
You see, it's not about victims, it's all about choice -- something you educated people want to remove from our understanding of human affairs.

Why would you choose to do that?

You've probably seen me mention a few times Tibor Machan's view on the basic errors made in the 'ongoing' nature/nurture debate (here for instance). As he's just blogged on how this error affects the 'obesity debate,' allow me to quote:

Thursday 20 February 2014

Democracy Lacking at Auckland Council

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Auckland resident Rick Splinter has had his request for speaking rights at the Governing Body meeting of 27 February 2014 declined. The request has been declined by Deputy Mayor and Len Brown toady Penny Hulse.

What democracy do we really have in Auckland politics if a private individual cannot have a mere five minutes to address the Council and make his opinions known?

The official reason for the application to speak being declined was delivered by Governance Support Manager Jason Marris. It reads:

QUOTE OF THE DAY: On “Giving Back”

"Here’s another gigantic myth about capitalism: That those who
innovate and create owe others for the fact they made a lot of
money. In other words, they create something that’s so valuable,
that so many people need and wish to purchase, that they end up
becoming billionaires. Yet they’re told they have to 'give back.'
Give back? What did they take? If I take your car, I should give it
back. In fact, I shouldn’t steal in the first place. Stealing is wrong,
and it should be illegal. But creating and producing are not theft.
That’s why people become billionaires: Because they created
something very valuable, and in demand. (And if you don’t agree
what they sold is valuable, it’s not your concern to get involved.)" 
Michael Hurd – “Bill Gates is Wrong About 'Giving Back'

Discuss.

[Hat tip Andy Clarkson]

Never mind Coke, what about that other logo on their chests?

Black Coke
Sugar worshipping?

People Busybodies and stickybeaks obsessed with people enjoying themselves* have found a new target: what the All Blacks are wearing on their chest.

The busybodies managed to get the Steinlager logo removed, concerned it might encourage folk to link sporting success with having a celebratory beer – leading inevitably to everyone but the wowsers themselves becoming alcoholics.

And now they’re worried sponsorship from Coke might encourage youngsters to like tasty, fizzy drinks – leading to a generation suffering from diabetes, tooth decay and an inevitable early death.

There is however one sporting sponsor on the All Blacks’ jersey the busybodies really should be concerned about, but aren’t.  That sponsor is AIG – the worldwide financial insurance company who parlayed crony status into a US$180 billion bailout by American taxpayers. The sole purpose of the bailouts, according to former US Budget Director David Stockman, being “all about protecting short-term earnings and current-year executive and trader bonuses.”

Why don’t the busybodies complain about the All Blacks running out with that disgraced name on their chests?  Perhaps because the philosophy the cronies represents is the same mixed-economy busybodying statism they themselves embrace. And perhaps they hope youngsters might be led to embrace it themselves?

 
State worshipping

*H.L. Mencken’s definition of a puritan is one who is constantly fearful that someone, somewhere, might just be having a good time.

Tuesday 18 February 2014

QUOTE OF THE DAY: On the gap between rich and poor

“The poor are not poor because the rich are rich.
The two conditions are generally unrelated.”
- Robert Samuelson, from his article “The Poor Aren't Poor Because the Rich Are Rich

Discuss…

Darwin doodlings, and more…

You might have missed last week’s Darwin Day, an annual celebration of the great man and his work, but did you know that most of Darwin’s manuscripts can be found online at Darwin Online? True story.

Richard Dawkins points out that one of the neat things about many of the original, and valuable, manuscript pages is that his children were apparently allowed to drew all over them, like in this battle of the fruit and vegetable soldiers  drawn on the back of one of the original manuscript pages for The Origins of the Species

puck

And since we missed Darwin Day, perhaps we should issue a belated, and ironic, Darwin Award. There is surely no more deserving recipient than National Geographic’s 'Snake Salvation' TV Star Pastor Jamie Coots, who came to fame and fortune by leading congregations and TV viewers that their faith in Jesus would save them from snakes’ venom.

His faith went unrequited. He died on Saturday after being bitten by a snake and refusing medical treatment.

[Hat tips Richard Dawkins & Jim Matzger]

Tag team keeps pressure on Brown

Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland 

I’ll be teaming up with anti-corruption watchdog Penny Bright to organise this Saturday’s Len Brown Stand Down March: this Saturday, February 22. (Be there! It departs Britomart at noon, travelling up Queen Street to Airedale Street.)

In the 2013 election I was the third-placed candidate and Penny was fourth placed. Whatever our differences, and they are many, we are united in the importance of Brown opponents from across the spectrum to work together to unseat the Mayor – hence our support for a new Len Brown Stand Down Coalition dedicated to this happy event.

The whole purpose of the Len Brown Stand Down march has always been to create a unified coalition of those who are demanding the Mayor resign. We will probably disagree on other issues, we may even disagree on the reasons why Brown should resign. However, we are united in the opinion that Len Brown is completely unsuitable to be the Mayor of Auckland and needs to resign as soon as possible.

The coalition of Len Brown Stand Down participants are now focused on appearing at as many of Brown’s public appearances as possible and maintaining the pressure on him to quit the job. A contingent appeared at Walker Park in Point Chevalier last Thursday where the Mayor was welcoming the Broncos NRL team.

Persistence was rewarded when Len’s attempt to make a quick escape from our protests turned farcical. His car was blocked in by a Broncos’s bus parked across the exit and protestors surrounded the Mayoral vehicle while attempts were made to find the person with the keys to the Broncos’s bus. (We hope this played no part in the Brisbane boys losing their final.)

We were also joined by other Coalition members yesterday to form a welcoming committee for Len outside the Onehunga RSA. Unfortunately we, along with several groups of media, were not permitted inside the meeting. Berry wonders if Brown is trying to socially engineer future engagements to avoid being held accountable in front of audiences from now on.

Len Brown will have to keep one eye over his shoulder on Friday as Len Brown Stand Down protests follow him around more official engagements. We are adamant, and we are not going away: We will not step back until Len Brown Stands Down!”

Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and was the third-placed mayoral candidate at the last election. Follow him on Facebook or contact him at Stephen.berry@affordable.org.nz.

Monday 17 February 2014

How Special-Interest Groups Benefit from Minimum Wage Laws

Guest post by Gary Galles

Those campaigning for a “living wage,” or a substantial jump in the minimum wage, all assert that the purpose is to help working families. Unfortunately, careful students of the evidence come to a different conclusion. As Mark Wilson summarises it, “evidence from a large number of academic studies suggests that minimum wage increases don’t reduce poverty levels.”

Some workers lose jobs (high minimum-wage places have among the highest unemployment rates); others have hours cut. The least-skilled get competed out of the jobs that remain (e.g., the minimum wage hits teenage employment hardest). It crowds out on-the-job training, impeding workers’ ability to learn their way out of poverty. And those effects are worse in a recession.

It also raises costs and prices that workers pay as consumers.

How can we explain support for a policy that harms people supporters say they wish to help? We explain it by focusing not on low-income workers, but their substitutes.

Consider an analogy. If the price of ice cream was pushed up, earnings of ice cream producers might go up or down, depending on how much less was bought as a result. But producers of frozen yogurt, a substitute for ice cream, will definitely benefit, because a higher price of ice cream will increase demand for frozen yogurt, clearly benefiting its producers.

Similarly, increasing the minimum wage will raise the cost of hiring low-wage workers. And while it might actually hurt low-wage workers, it will help each substitute for low-wage labour by increasing its demand. Thus, what may best explain support for higher minimum wages is not compassion for the working poor, but the narrow self-interest of those offering substitutes for low-skill labour.

Unions top that list. [Which is why union blogs The Standard and The Daily Blog support them.]

A higher minimum wage increases the demand for union workers by reducing competition from lower-skilled workers. For instance, if the minimum wage was $15 and the union wage was $30, employers give up 2 hours of low-skilled work for every union worker-hour utilized. But increasing the minimum to $20 means employers give up 1.5 hours of low-skilled work for every union worker hour.

Union employers benefit as well, because the higher costs imposed on non-union competitors raise the prices they must charge, increasing demand for union employers’ output.

This can also explain why other “altruists” support higher minimum wages.

Other beneficiaries are non-union workers and employers in high cost-of-living areas, where virtually everyone earns above the federal minimum wage, – they benefit by raising the cost of production imposed on rivals where wages are lower (which is why many in high-wage areas in the U.S. favour higher federal minimum wages, while those in low-wage states — the alleged beneficiaries — often oppose them). Workers and producers where state minimum wages exceed the federal minimum also gain because it raises the cost of production where the federal minimum is binding, relative to where they are located.

Because all these substitutes for minimum-wage workers will see increased incomes, businesses and politicians in those locations will also benefit, and so join the bandwagon pushing for “doing good” in a way that directly benefits them.

Even Wal-Mart benefits from this effect. Because Wal-Mart already pays more than the federal minimum, in low-wage areas a federal minimum-wage increase raises competitors’ costs, but not theirs. In high-wage areas, supporting a higher federal minimum wage is a costless way for Wal-Mart to demonstrate compassion for workers.

Virtually everyone who supports higher minimum wages asserts their intent to help working families. But it may frequently be a false compassion whose common denominator is advancing one’s own self-interest while harming working families. That would also explain why so many are unwilling to seriously consider whether such compassion actually works, rather than just sounding good.

The same mechanism is at work in the depression-era Davis-Bacon Act, which is still in force. It required the payment of “prevailing wages” on any project that received federal money. But its genesis was the explicitly racist intent to exclude lower-cost southern firms employing black workers from underbidding local white workers for construction projects, by forcing them to pay their workers more.

A similar illustration came from South Africa, under apartheid. White labour unions backed “equal pay” laws for blacks and whites in the guise of helping black workers. But what it really did was raise the price of hiring blacks, who had less education and fewer skills on average, as well as being discriminated against, relative to the price of hiring whites. Whites gained, but black unemployment jumped as a result of that “compassion” on their behalf.

Another illustration from outside the labour market is the support of corn farmers, corn syrup processors, and those in their communities for restrictions on sugar imports from other countries. By substantially raising the price of sugar in the U.S., the policy has driven many candy makers and the jobs they create outside the U.S., harming those workers and their communities. But it has raised the price of a substitute for corn syrup, increasing demand for corn syrup and the inputs that go into making it, benefiting those in corn-producing states.

Most people don’t seem to recognize this clearly self-interested mechanism behind support for supposedly compassionate or altruistic policies to benefit others, which is why it typically stays under the political radar. But once a person thinks through it, the connection becomes obvious.

Further, it suggests the appropriate test that should be applied in such cases: Whenever someone claims an altruistic reason to support a policy, but it clearly advances their narrow self-interest, the latter effect can explain such support regardless of whether it actually helps the supposed beneficiaries. Therefore, a great deal of cynicism is justified. And when their “story” for how supposed beneficiaries are helped cannot stand the slightest real scrutiny, as with the current minimum-wage campaign, there can be no doubt that such cynicism is justified.

Photo of Gary    Galles Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University, and the author of The Apostle of Peace: The Radical Mind of Leonard Read.
This post first appeared at the Mises Daily.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

You can’t drive a Toyota with a cloth cap

If you had a dollar for every time a local unionist or union supporter was heard to say that higher Australian wages are due to greater union militancy (as if all that extra capital Australian workers have to work with were  irrelevant), you’d have enough money to pay all of Matt McCarten’s outstanding debts.

Sure, unions can push wages high. But sustainable wage levels are generally a function of capital and its productivity – push them higher, and they soon become unsustainable.

Latest example: Toyota Australia, joining Ford Australia and General Motors Australia on the scrapheap.

Killed.

Killed, not just by protectionist businesses (so eager to farm subsidies they forgot their actual bottom lines) and not just by governments keen to pluck a good-looking golden goose (which helped reduce their profits) but by ongoing and crippling union activism (which helped raise costs beyond what could ever be sustainable).

And with this, says the Macrobusiness blog,  The Australian disease enters a terminal phase

ScreenHunter_1162 Feb. 10 17.51

RELATED READING:

The warmist “consensus” concedes the pause [updated]

Struggling to explain why global atmospheric temperatures have refused to rise over the last 16 years in accord with their scary models and frightening predictions – even as carbon dioxide emissions have continued – the warmist story now concedes that, yes, there has been a pause in the onset of catastrophe. And, yes, it is rather inconvenient. And, well, we now have an excuse.

It’s been caused by strong winds.

Yes, true story:

Here’s Graham Parker (“…I reach out to touch it, it’s not there.”):

UPDATE:  Patrick Michaels and Australian Garth Paltridge wonder if  the overselling of global warming will lead to a new scientific dark age.

Columnist Mark Steyn, being sued for the crime of contradicting his government science, wonders if we aren’t already there. Read: Michael E Mann, America's Lysenko – Mark Steyn, STEYN ONLINE

A barometer of reason since the dawn of civilisation

Here’s a neat chart showing  interest rates since the birth of civilisation (not including China).

What do you notice?


Click to enlarge

Here’s two things I find fascinating: it’s like a barometer of the growth and collapse of reason in the western world.

I say that because the time preference theory of interest – the notion that a dollar today is worth more to most folk than a sum slightly more a year or so from now -- suggests that a growing culture of reason, a culture that values longer time horizons, will generally have lower interest rates.  (A lower time preference is required to make greater relative provision for the future. And vice versa.)

And so we see: a general trend of lowering interest rates as a result of the growing Hellenistic age, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment – and the results of the abandonment of reason in the dark ages.

Yet even with these long-term trends, there are short term spikes – spikes that can still be explained in terms of time preference.  How? Because, with the “originary rate of interest” being measured in terms of the currency in use, you would expect interest rates to rise with the ongoing debasement of this currency. And so they do …

See what other lessons you can draw from the trends of commodity prices since the dawn of civilisation.

[Pics from the Macro_Tourist, hat tip Zero Hedge]

Monday 10 February 2014

Len’s Days Are Numbered

Guest post by Stephen Berry

As Affordable Auckland Leader and organiser of the Len Brown Stand Down March, I have now begun a full-time two-week campaign to promote the Len Brown Stand Down March – about which I am heartily encouraged by the feedback of residents and ratepayers around Auckland.

Will Ryan and I have been hitting the pavements of Auckland and I attended Sunday’s Big Gay Out. The feedback we have received has been overwhelmingly in favour of Len Brown standing down.

Yesterday I pressed the flesh with attendees of the Big Gay out, experiencing first-hand the groundswell of opposition to Len Brown’s mayoralty. I would certainly not be exaggerating when I tell you that 75% of the people I spoke to are right behind our campaign to unseat Len Brown as Mayor of Auckland. If my experiences are anything to go by, Len’s mandate is well and truly gone. He may have a thick skin, but the voters of Auckland are wielding one hell of a jackhammer.

The reasons Aucklanders are so supportive of Brown standing down are varied, but that doesn’t dilute their enthusiasm for his removal, and for participation in the Len Brown Stand Down March. I’ve said all along that I don’t care what people’s personal political views are, as long as they come along on February 22nd to make them known. Whether left-wing or right-wing, the majority of Aucklanders clearly want Len to hand in his resignation.

Most people I have spoken to really don’t care about his affair, and neither do I. However they do agree that having sex in the workplace is wrong, receiving undeclared gifts is wrong, and annual increases in rates, spending and borrowing are disastrous for Aucklanders.

The Len Brown Stand Down march will be held on Saturday February 22 at 12 noon. It will start at QE2 Square in Britomart, finishing at Airedale Street via Queen Street. The Len Brown Stand Down – Protest March Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/630259507036725/

Stephen Berry is leader of Affordable Auckland

Wagner rides to rescue

Neil Wagner is pumped after dismissing Zaheer Khan, New Zealand v India, 1st Test, Auckland, 4th day, February 9, 2014

How cool was that win! 

And how cool is it being the only test team having Wagner thundering in taking scalps.

NZ’s test cricketers made it hard for themselves, but Wagner rode to the rescue yesterday with an aggressive 10-over spell with an old ball that broke the 126-run third-wicket stand of Kohli and Dhawan, and then came back to take the crucial wicket of anchor-batsman MS Donhi with the newish ball.

CricInfo’s summary:

image

Here’s Richard:

Friday 7 February 2014

Bonus quote of the day: On our system of government

Ineptocracy: A system of government where the least capable
to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where
the members of society least likely  to sustain themselves or succeed,
are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated
wealth of a diminishing number of producers.”
- Anonymous

Quote of the Day: On political battles

“A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with
muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war.”
- Ayn Rand, from her essay “What Can One Do?”
in her book Philosophy: Who Needs It

Discuss.

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Waitangi Day: Something to celebrate

“Today, racism is regarded as a crime if practiced by a majority—but
as an inalienable right if practiced by a minority… Like every other
form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned.”
- Ayn Rand, “Racism

Oh Galt, it’s Waitangi Week again – and already the hikois of protest and the graspers of the unearned are infesting the place from top to bottom.

The birth of the best little country in the world is being celebrated – not with the deserved pride of a great achievement – but, once again, with the full cast of cant and lies and humbug. A Waitangi Day of one race, once again – with a Prime Minister, once again, being led up the garden path by the same embittered old crone who shows up for the purpose every year.

P I C   B Y   M O T E L L AWhile most of the professional grievance industry can now be found inside the tent pissing out, the regular eruptions of Mt Hone are early warning signs that stuff (beaches, land, “compensation”) isn’t being thrown into the laps of tribal leaders as quickly as the grievance industry would like.

And even if they were given all they wanted, like Oliver Twist they’ll still be back asking for more, sir.  Such is the culture to which modern Treatyism has delivered us: one of separatism and race-based welfare—one in which government is the referee in disputes between free individuals, but instead the great, all-encompassing deliverer of goodness. And the Browntable one-percenters to whom the goodness is delivered (in the form of cash and goods and large tracts of the North and South Island) are sparing indeed when handing on the cash and goods and large tracts of land  to the 99-percent whom they claim to represent.

Which brings us back to the reason for this particularly fractious season. And we might ask ourselves, was it something in that simple document drawn up by Governor Hobson that has caused this annual and ongoing farce? Or something that’s been made up since?

Naturally, it’s the latter.

What the Treaty contained was just three simple clauses and a preamble written in haste by a moderately-educated British-Irish sea captain to bring British law to these islands. That it  has become one-hundred-and-seventy years later a charter for separatism and a regular income for a ‘Browntable’ aristocracy is a measure by which the meaning of those clauses has been distorted, and the ambit of the agreement stretched. 

What the Treaty actually promised was the introduction of good law and of equal rights before the law – in other words, good colour-blind law. In its new incarnation as a “living document,” however, it has become a charter for more nationalisation of land, of seabed or of foreshore—for demands from moochers for the unearned—for eternal grievance and the rise of ohanga-to-poka welfare and brown feudalism.

But what was promised in that short document was, very simply, the introduction of British law to these islands—which at the time meant a legal system in which what we own is protected, in which real injustices could be proven swiftly and without great expense, and where justice can be done and be seen to be done.  That was what the Treaty actually made possible.

The disappointment is that the promise has not always been the reality.

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Perhaps the greatest disappointment for the future, however, is to reflect that for all the time spent on Te Tiriti in New Zealand school rooms, there's so little understanding of what it means, what it actually says, and of the context in which it was signed.  Teaching real history is no longer fashionable.  Teaching myths is. Myths like the so-called “Treaty Principles,” based not on what was in the actual Treaty, but on what today’s academics would have included if they could. . .

Partnership?

Despite the fiction that has been put about in recent years to give Browntable leaders access to the trough, the Treaty did not promise 'partnership' of the form now espoused -- neither word nor concept appeared in the document. It was not a Treaty offering permanent welfare to moochers, nor a tax-paid gravy train for looters.

In three short articles it simply offered the introduction of British law, and the rights and protections that were then protected by British law.  That was it.

Biculturalism?

The Treaty which was drawn up and signed talked neither about race nor culture.  Like British law itself at the time it was colour blind.  What it promised was not the politics of race but the same protection for everyone, regardless of race, creed or skin colour.

Would that today's law be so blind.

* * * * *

AT THE TIME IT WAS SIGNED, the context of British law really meant something.  By the middle of the nineteenth century, British law -- which included British common law -- was the best the world had yet seen.  It was what had made Britain rich, and what still makes the places where British law was introduced or emulated some of the most prosperous places in the world in which to live today.

From the perspective of one-hundred-and-seventy years later, however, when individual rights and property rights are taken for granted even as they're slowly expunged, it's easy to take the framework and protection of British law for granted.  Looked at in the context of the history of human affairs however it was a tremendous achievement: the first time in which individual rights and property rights were recognised in law, and protected in a relatively simple and accessible framework.  Perhaps history's first truly objective legal system.

The introduction of British law to the residents of these Shaky Isles at the bottom of the South Pacific, which at the time were riven with inter-tribal warfare, was a boon -- and those who so eagerly signed up knew that.  The immediate perspective of all involved might have been short-term – of the British, to forestall a feared annexation by France; of the warring chiefs, to gain a foothold for trade and to secure territorial gains made in the most recent inter-tribal wars -- but there's no doubt that all had at least an inkling that life under British law promised greater peace in these isles than had previously enjoyed, and a much greater chance at prosperity.

"He iwi tahi tatou"

'He iwi tahi tatou.' We are now one people. So said Governor Hobson to Maori chieftains as they signed the Treaty that has become the source of so much division. But are we really 'one people'? Not really. No more than our ancestors were then. But nor are we two, three or fifty-four peoples -- do you have a people? -- and nor does it actually matter, since what Captain Hobson brought to New Zealand with the Treaty along with British law (which then meant something) was Western Culture—which, uniquely, makes it possible to see one another not as 'peoples,' not as part of a tribe or a race, but each of us as sovereign individuals in our own right.

That was A Good Thing. A Very Good Thing.

But unfortunately, despite the coming of western culture and the introduction (or at least the aspiration) of colour-blind law, we still don't see each other as sovereign individuals so much, do we?   The tribalism is still there (albeit the warring parti4s now hurl lawyers at each other instead of spears) and the myth-making about 'partnership' and 'biculturalism' is just one way to avoid seeing it.

A charter for objective law

To be fair, the Treaty itself isn't much to see. What Hobson brought was not the founding document for a country but a hastily written document intended to forestall French attempts at dominion (and the Frank imposition of croissants and string bikinis), and which brought to New Zealand for the first time the concept of individualism, and the protection of property rights and of an objective rule of law.

    The Treaty of Waitangi should be commemorated [says Lindsay Perigo] because it bestowed upon Maori the rights of British subjects, thus introducing the notion of individual freedom within the rule of law to gangs of tribal savages who hitherto had been cannibalising and enslaving each other. But it has become a de factoconstitution in the absence of a formal one, a brief for which it is woefully inadequate,” argues Perigo.
    The five-paragraph, three-point Treaty is silent on many matters with which a constitution must deal. Moreover, there are ongoing arguments about what it really meant and which version is authentic. The best thing to do is scrap it and start over.

The five-paragraph, three-point Treaty was short, spare and to the point. It was silent on many matters with which a constitution must deal because what it relied upon was the context of British law as it then existed.   The Treaty's three short clauses promised little in themselves -- as everyone understood, the intent was to point to the wider context of British common law and say 'We're having that here.'

But that understanding is now clouded with invective, and the context of British law and common law as it once was is no longer with us. British law is not what it was, and there's a meal ticket now in fomenting misunderstanding of what it once promised.

The Treaty signed one-hundred-and-seventy years ago today was not intended as the charter for separatism and grievance and the welfare gravy train that it has become - to repeat, it was intended no more and no less than to bring the protection of British law and the rights and privileges of British citizens to the residents of these islands --residents of all colours. That was the context that three simple clauses were intended to enunciate.

And one-hundred-and-seventy years ago, the rights and privileges of British citizens actually meant something -- this was not a promise to protect the prevailing culture of tribalism (which had dominated pre-European New Zealand history and underpinned generations of inter-tribal conflict, and which the modern myth of 'partnership' still underpins), but a promise to protect individuals from each other; a promise to see Maoris not as part of a tribe, but as individuals in their own right; a promise to protect what individuals own and what they produce by their own efforts. That the promise is sometimes seen more in the breach than in the observance is no reason to spurn the attempt.

The Treaty helped to make New Zealand a better place for everyone. Especially those native New Zealanders whom it liberated.

Liberation, and protection

Life in New Zealand before the advent of the rule of law recognised neither right, nor privilege, nor even the concept of ownership. It was not the paradise of Rousseau's noble savage; force was the recognised rule du jour and the source of much barbarity (see for example 'Property Rights: A Blessing for Maori New Zealand').  Indeed just a few short years before the Treaty was signed, savage inter-tribal warfare reigned, and much of New Zealand was found to be unpopulated following the fleeing of tribes before the muskets and savagery and cannibalism of other tribes.

Property in this war of all against all was not truly owned; instead, it was just something that was grabbed and held by one tribe, until it was later grabbed and held by another. To be blunt, life was brutish and it was short, just as it was in pre-Industrial Revolution Europe, and - let's face it -- it was largely due to the local culture that favoured conquest over peace and prosperity. As Thomas Sowell reminds us:

Cultures are not museum pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives.

Pre-European local culture was not working well for those within that culture. Let's be really blunt (and here I paraphrase from this article):

In the many years before the Treaty was signed, the scattered tribes occupying New Zealand lived in abject poverty, ignorance, and superstition -- not due to any racial inferiority, but because that is how all mankind starts out (Europeans included). The transfer of Western civilisation to these islands was one of the great cultural gifts in recorded history, affording Maori almost effortless access to centuries of European accomplishments in philosophy, science, technology, and government. As a result, today's Maori enjoy a capacity for generating health, wealth, and happiness that their Stone Age ancestors could never have conceived.

Harsh, but true. And note those words before you hyperventilate: "not due to any racial inferiority, but because that is how all mankind starts out (Europeans included)."   Some one-hundred and fifty years before, the same boon was offered to the savage, dirt-poor Scottish tribesmen who were living then much as pre-Waitangi Maori were.  Within one-hundred years following the embrace of Western civilisation, Scotland was transformed and had became one of the centres of the Enlightenment.  Such was the cultural gift being offered.

The boon of Western Civilisation was being offered here in New Zealand not after conquest but for just a mess of pottage, and in return for the right of Westerners to settle here too. As Sir Apirana Ngata stated, "if you think these things are wrong, then blame your ancestors when they gave away their rights when they were strong" - giving the clue that 'right' to Ngata's ancestors, equated to 'strong' more than it did to 'right.'

Who 'owned' New Zealand?

It's said that Maori owned New Zealand before the Treaty was signed, and that while the 'shadow' of sovereignty was passed on, the substance remained.  This is nonsense.  Pre-European Maori never "owned" New Zealand in any sense, let alone in any meaningful sense of exercising either ownership or sovereignty over all of it.

First of all, they had no concept at all of ownership by right; 'ownership' was not by right but  by force; it represented taonga that was taken by force and held by force -- just as long as they were able to be held (see again, for example' Property Rights: A Blessing for Maori New Zealand').  Witness for example the savage conflict over the prosperous lands of Tamaki Makaurau, over which generations of Kawerau, Nga Puhi, Ngati Whatua and others fought.  There was no recognition at any time that these lands were owned by a tribe by right -- they were only held as long as a tribe's might made holding them possible, and as long as the fighting necessary to retain them brought a greater benefit than it did to relinquish them (and by the early 1800s, with so much fighting to be done to hold them, all tribes gave up and left the land to bracken instead).

Second, even if the tribesmen and women had begun to develop the rudiments of the concept of ownership by right (the concept of ownership by right being relatively new even to 1840 Europeans) they didn't own all of the country -- they only 'owned' what they owned.  That is to say, what Maori possessed were the specific lands and fisheries and foreshore and seabed they occupied and farmed and fished and used.  This was never all of New Zealand, nor even most of New Zealand. The rest of it lay unowned, and unclaimed.  They only ‘owned’ what they owned

Third, prior to the arrival of Europeans, Maori did not even see themselves as 'one people'; the word 'Maori' simply meant 'normal,' as opposed to the somewhat abnormal outsiders who had now appeared with their crosses and muskets and strange written incantations. The tangata whenua saw themselves not as a homogeneous whole, but as members of various tribes.  This was not a nation, nor even a collection of warring tribes.  Apart from the Confederacy of United Tribes -- an ad hoc group who clubbed together in 1835 in a bid to reject expected overtures from the French -- there was no single sovereignty over pre-European New Zealand, no sovereign entity to cede sovereignty, and no way a whole country could be ceded by those who had never yet even laid claim to it in its entirety.

Our 'Founding Document'?

So the British came, and saw, and hung about a bit. The truth is that some of the best places in the world in which to live are those where the British once came, and saw, and then buggered off -- leaving behind them their (once) magnificent legal system, and the rudiments of Western Culture. See for example, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course (as noted in obituaries of former governor John Cowperthwaite) Hong Kong. We lucked out.

What the Treaty did do, for which we can all be thankful, was to bring British law to NZ at a time when British law was actually intended to protect the rights of British citizens, and it promised to extend that protection to all who lived here. For many and often differing reasons, that was what the chieftains signed up to.  To become British citizens, with all the rights and privileges thereof.

But as we’ve been at pains to day already, the Treaty itself was not a founding document. No, it wasn't. On its own, with just three simple articles and a brief introduction, there was just not enough there to make it a document that founds a nation. As a document it simply pointed to the superstructure of British law as it then was and said, 'let's have that down here on these islands in the South Pacific.'

The treaty's greatest promise was really in its bringing to these islands those rights and privileges that British citizens enjoyed by virtue of their then superb legal system; the protection of Pax Britannia when those rights and that protection meant something, and when British power saw protection of British rights as its sworn duty. The result of this blessing of relatively secure individual rights was the palpable blessings of relative peace, of increasing security, and of expanding prosperity.

Sadly, British jurisprudence no longer does see its duty that way, which means the legal context in which the Treaty was signed has changed enormously, and the blessings themselves are sometimes difficult to see. Law, both in Britain and here in NZ, now places welfarism and need above individualism and rights. That's the changing context that has given steam and power to the treaty-based gravy train, and allowed the Treaty and those who consume the Treaty's gravy to say it says something other than what is written in it.

The truly sad thing is that the Treaty relied on a context that no longer exists -- and the only way to restore that context, in my view, is with a new constitution that makes the original context explicit.  To restore the original legal context, and to improve upon it with a legal context that protects and reinforces an Objective rule of law -- as British law itself once did -- one that clarifies what in the Treaty was only vague or was barely put. And in doing so, of course, such a constitution would make the Treaty obsolete.

Thank goodness.

The Dream

Waitangi Day comes just two weeks after Martin Luther King Day. The contrast is spectacular. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of King's dream for the future of his own children:

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character...Perhaps we will one day celebrate that same dream down here -- not as a dream, but as reality.  Celebrating our national day not as a charter for grievance that continues to poison discussion, but instead with real joy.  Shaking off the gravy train of grievance, and celebrating that the colour of a man's skin is of no importance compared to the content of his character.

Perhaps one day we will actually celebrate the birth of this great little country, instead of seeing its birthday as an annual source of conflict.

Wouldn't that be something to really celebrate?

* * * * *

Linked Articles: Unsure on foreshore: A Brash dismissal of Maori rights? - Not PC
Do you have a people? - Not PC
Property Rights: A Gift to Maori New Zealand - Peter Cresswell
Education & the Racist Road to Barbarism - George Reisman
What is Objective Law? - Harry Binswanger
No Apology to Indians - Thomas Bowden
Superseding the Treaty with something objective called "good law" - Not PC
All hail the Industrial Revolution - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Individualism - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Rights - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Need - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Welfarism - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Ethnicity - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Government - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism:Constitution - Not PC
Cue Card Libertarianism: Property - Not PC
A Constitution for New Freeland - The Free Radical

“Trickle down”

Here’s Thomas Sowell at his best.  A slice (but do read the whole column):

Years ago, this column challenged anybody to quote any economist outside of an insane asylum who had ever advocated this “trickle-down” theory. Some readers said that somebody said that somebody else had advocated a “trickle-down” policy. They could never name that somebody else and quote them, though.

Mr. de Blasio is by no means the first politician to denounce this nonexistent theory. Back in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama attacked what he called “an economic philosophy” that “says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.”

Let’s do something completely unexpected: Let’s stop and think. Why would anyone advocate that we “give” something to A in hopes that it would trickle down to B? Why in the world would any sane person not give it to B and cut out the middleman? All this is moot, however, because there was no trickle-down theory about giving something to anybody in the first place. [Hat tip Cafe Hayek]

But Thomas Sowell is wrong. “Trickle down” does exist.

It emanates from government.

It emanates from government in the form of favours, and of subsidies and of welfare social. Perhaps the best place to see it in action was Labour's 2008 Welfare for Working Families package: the govt takes some large part of your money, waste a large portion of it (fiscal drag, you see), and then dole out some small proportion of it back to a selected class of voters (for which those voters are supposed to be pathetically grateful). That's trickle-down for you, as administered by the residents of an insane asylum.  (And, since the electoral effect of each tranche of trickle is short-lived, that’s the same sort of “trickle down” proposed for this election by the current Labour leader in the form of his baby bonus election bribe.)

Trickle down also emanates from government, and in ever-larger gobs in recent years, from the likes of central bankers. Here’s newly-appointed Federal Reserve Chairthingy Janet Yellen, making it explicit in her defence of The Fed’s programme of Quantitative Easing:

_Quote5You know, a lot of people say, this is just helping rich people. But it’s not true. Our policy is aimed at holding down long-term interest rates, which supports the recovery by encouraging spending. And part of it comes through higher house and stock prices, which causes people with homes and stocks to spend more, which causes jobs to be created throughout the economy and income to go up throughout the economy.

You want to find the failing apostles of trickle down? You’ll find them in big government.

Quote of the Day: On the Keystone Pipeline

“'The green movement will have been soundly defeated [on their battle
against Keystone] not by special interests or some perverse capitalist
desire to desecrate the earth, but by a very simple set of facts.”
- Walter Russell Mead, “Is Keystone the Biggest Green Defeat Ever?

[Hat tip Climate Depot]

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Quote of the Day: On Changing the World

“If you are seriously interested in fighting for a better world, begin by identifying the nature
of the problem. The battle is primarily intellectual (philosophical), not political. Politics is the
last consequence, the practical implementation, of the fundamental (metaphysical-
epistemological-ethical) ideas that dominate a given nation's culture. You cannot fight or
change the consequences without fighting and changing the cause; nor can you attempt
any practical implementation without knowing what you want to implement.
    “In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone. History is made by minorities
—or, more precisely, history is made by intellectual movements, which are created by
minorities. Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing actively to
concern himself with intellectual issues. Here, it is not quantity, but quality that counts (the
quality—and consistency—of the ideas one is advocating).
    “An intellectual movement does not start with organised action. Whom would one organise?
A philosophical battle is a battle for men's minds, not an attempt to enlist blind followers.
Ideas can be propagated only by men who understand them. An organized movement has
to be preceded by an educational campaign, which requires trained—self-trained—teachers
(self-trained in the sense that a philosopher can offer you the material of knowledge, but it
is your own mind that has to absorb it).
    “Such training is the first requirement for being a doctor during an ideological epidemic—and
the precondition of any attempt to ‘change the world.’”

- Ayn Rand, “What Can One Do?,” from the book Philosophy: Who Needs It

Discuss.

Monday 3 February 2014

Motivation

Some of you who overdid it in January, are going FebFast. This might help:

[Hat tip Stephen Hicks]

Yesterday was Rand’s Day…

…and this is one of my favourite photos of my favourite thinker.

Photo of a young Ayn Rand, taken in 1931 by her husband-to-be Frank O’Connor, on top of her apartment
building in Hollywood; the water towers in the background mark the studios of RKO and
Paramount, where she worked as a clerk in the wardrobe department.

To celebrate Randsday,

you do something not done on any other holiday: you give *yourself* a present… Randsday is for reminding ourselves that pleasure is an actual need, a psychological requirement for a human consciousness…
    Randsday is the time to challenge any duty-premise, re-affirm your love of your values, and honour the principle that joy in living is an end in itself.

Have a selfish Randsday!

PS:  Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand -- Why are you still so misunderstood?