Thursday 30 June 2011

QUOTE OF THE DAY: On RWC Bans [updated]

Just for the record, folks, it’s not a ban if the public boycotts another work of fiction by a blowhard. But it would be a ban if the govt decided to outlaw it. Alright? Great.  Just wanted to clear that up.

Because while the whole country gets itself all in a lather about a non-ban on a boorish book, the government continues to pass laws, without opposition, that will impose an actual ban on economic activity around or anywhere near a sporting event.

Latest result of them over-reaching themselves: no-fly zones, no-sign zones, a battalion of jackbooted clipboard wielders warming up to fan out around the country to say “No!” … and now a  New Plymouth school offside with the govt's Rugby World Cup laws because they want to do the same thing they’ve done for every major rugby event at Yarrow Stadium  since time began, which is park a few cars on its sports field to raise a bit of dosh for the school.

What insanity.

I loved this quote by friend Daniel Bell on a Facebook thread discussing this:

It's quite silly really. The tournament is running at a loss, pretty much everyone has admitted this now, but the original reason the Government decided to do this was apparently because of the economic benefits it would provide, yet now they're passing laws saying you can't benefit economically from the Rugby World Cup.

We really are a pathetic authoritarian backwater.

In fact (with that first paragraph in mind) make that a pathetic and confused authoritarian backwater.

Wish hard.

UPDATE: See, it’s not difficult to understand: A boycott is not a ban.

Word cloud

Every now and then it’s fun to see what a word cloud of recent posts throws up. Like this one. Hmmm. Interesting.

Wordle

Do your own word clouds with Wordle.

‘St Francis in Meditation’ by Michelangelo Caravaggio



The internet has opened up a virtual cornucopia of art history to anyone with the curiosity to seek it out. But it’s still virtually impossible to convey the brilliance of Michelangelo Caravaggio by way of a picture on the internet—impossible because his method of layering his paint and leaving them partially transparent means that when seen in the original his figures look not so much like paintings as three-dimensional holographs.

This St Francis is just another electrifying figure from Caravaggio’s brush that translates very poorly to a blog post. But here it is, nonetheless, because my memory of it makes it one of the most memorable paintings of the nobility of man I’ve seen.

Wednesday 29 June 2011

“Conventional wisdom” was wrong

Guest post by Vedran Vuk of Casey Research 

The current economic crisis has turned a lot of common wisdom about recessions on its head. Hence, I wanted to make a short list of these ideas. Despite the ideas' faults, many are still followed to the detriment of those who follow them. I know that I won't be able to list everything; so if you have some more points to add to the list, please send them over.

1. Hide from a recession in school - Unless one is getting a doctorate, this strategy has completely failed. Anyone entering a Master's degree in 2008 or 2009 should be done with the degree by now. Unfortunately, in the meantime, the employment situation has not improved.
In some ways, the situation for the students could actually be worse than prior to acquiring the degree. These students are now unemployed with huge loans. If this recession continues into 2012 and 2013, even the PhDs will lose on this strategy.

2. Don't hire overqualified workers - This is pretty standard recession advice for companies. Sure, the overqualified person might be great for the job and a good deal for the moment, but as soon as the economy recovers, the employee will leave the company. And the company is left holding the bag without an employee in a more competitive job market. It's a bad deal.
However, in this recession, the companies that hired overqualified workers scored big. The job market hasn't recovered at all. Furthermore, it takes unemployed workers about six months on average to find a job. If one hires an overqualified employee, they likely wouldn't be able to locate a better job searching part-time for a whole year or more. This has been a great time to get some amazing workers on the cheap.

3. Bet on the next boom - Many investors had a textbook version of a recession in their mind. There's a crash followed by yet another roaring boom. Sure, stocks recovered from their lows, but there's no raging boom taking place now. A bunch of folks are holding bank stocks ready for a leveraged play on the economy, but the banks are doing nothing but collecting dust.
This view has kept many investors away from gold as they still believe in an oversimplified version of the business cycle. As soon as the economy recovers, supposedly gold should collapse. Well, where's that recovery?

4. Fiscal and monetary stimulus creates jobs - In my opinion, never has the United States government spent so much money and created so few jobs. The stimulus didn't even put a dent in the unemployment rate, and even the president has admitted that those shovel-ready jobs weren't so shovel-ready after all. Some have called this crisis the failure of capitalism, but with these sorts of results, big government abysmally failed even more so.

5. The effects of monetary policy are relatively quick - Admittedly, this took many free-market types by surprise. The Fed printed tons of money, and it has taken inflation nearly three years to show its ugly face. Many were expecting hyperinflation as early as 2008. Even the textbooks cited two years as the time frame for monetary policy to filter through to the economy. In this case, it's taking much longer.

6. Wait out the real estate market - This one is pretty self-explanatory. No, house prices don't always go higher, but many still hold on to this hope.

Well, that's it for my list. I know that I've missed some things; so be sure to send in your thoughts.

Forget the GDP figures, we’re still all neck deep in the pooh

“Keynesian macroeconomics is literally playing with half a deck. It purports to be a study of
the economic system as a whole, yet in ignoring productive expenditure it totally ignores
most of the actual spending that takes place in the production of goods and services. It is
an economics almost exclusively of consumer spending, not an economics of total
spending in the production of goods and services.”
        - George Reisman

If GDP measurements  were a good measure of economic health, then the US economy (and, by extension, the world economy) would be in fine fettle.

But who are we kidding? Bill English and Tim Geithner might think things are growing, but it’s not, and we aren’t.

In fact, GDP Is Useless and Deceptive: There Was No Recovery—and probably won’t be until this barbarous Keynesian relic  has been thoroughly discredited.

The GDP figure is next to useless, unless you want to trumpet government’s good works.

The measurement of so-called Gross Domestic Product doesn’t measure production at all, it measures spending.

And it doesn’t even measure all the spending in an economy: Sure, it measures all the govt’s spending—every cent of it, all of which attracts the big tick from the statisticians—and it measures every cent ever spent on big screen TVs, small screen smartphones and Little Lucy’s little pony, but it only measures the tiniest fraction of  business-to-business spending, i.e., the stuff that actually is the economy.

Nice ruse, wouldn’t you say, especially since it allows the govt to posture as a saviour when it uses its own extra spending to “top up” that fraction of business-to-business spending that’s dropped—spending that comes either by borrowing from investment markets, printing new money or taxing the hell out of business folk—al of which hinder rather than help production, and all just to help fake the figures for the next quarter.

So GDP doesn’t measure production at all, it measures spending. Mostly consumption spending. Spending that doesn’t last. Which means, when you think about it, that the more money there is in the system to spend (and after Quantitative Easing I and II, there’s an awful lot of it sloshing around the globe) the more you can pump up your GDP figures.

See how the smoke and mirrors work? See how you can be “not in recession” according to the figures, while all around you is a sea of losses, unemployment and general business-to-business misery. All you have to do is pump out new money, pump up your spending and WHAMMO! everybody’s happy!

Except they’re not. Reality can’t be so easily faked. Because as James Mill pointed out almost two-hundred years ago:

“The whole annual produce of every county is distributed into two great parts; that which is destined to be employed for the purpose of reproduction, and that which is destined to be consumed. That part which is destined to serve for reproduction, naturally, appears again next year, with its profit. This reproduction, with the profit, is naturally the whole produce of the country for that year.”

But this is not what is being measured by the GDP. Instead, this “seed corn” is stolen to pump up a fake figure.

 Fact is, the figures themselves are fake:

We have not recovered from the Great Recession and thus our current economic stagnation is less a new event than a continuation of the original collapse. The basis for the so-called "recovery" was a rise in GDP, that measure of what we have spent in the economy. It's a fairly useless bit of data…
   Economic growth doesn't start with spending: it starts with saving and production and ends with spending. And that is why we should not rely on GDP to measure the health of the economy…
    So when the conventional wisdom says that the economy recovered in June 2009, it didn't.

In fact, we’re all still kneck-deep in the pooh. Just as we were this time last year.

And the GDP equation? Here’s how it really looks:

Read:

Tuesday 28 June 2011

ECONOMICS FOR REAL PEOPLE: ‘The Commanding Heights’

Here’s what’s happening tonight, courtesy of our friends at the Uni Econ Group:

Hi all,

In tonight’s seminar,  The University Economics Group presents the film, “The Commanding Heights.”  A sweeping political and economic history of the 20th century, it portrays the battle across the century between freedom and control--and how globalisation and free trade came out on top.

We will see the power of ideas, specifically economic ideas, and how they have transformed the world for both better and worse.

   Date: Tuesday 28 June (tonight)
    Time: 6pm
   Room: University of Auckland Business School, Owen G Glenn Building, Room 260-325

Look forward to seeing you there.

More broken windows [updated]

Before the Christchurch earthquakes even began, Canterbury’s network of stopbanks, river control assets, and many of its bridges were wholly uninsured. From Thursday however, every part of the rest of Canterbury’s council-controlled infrastructure (and much of it around the rest of the country) will also be wholly uninsuredabout $4.7 billion worth of above-ground and underground infrastructure in Canterbury alone that isn’t already damaged.

Turns out councils’ own insurance organisation, Civic Assurance (who have already paid out several hundred-million), can’t get reinsurance for the now-risky services.

So it turns out taxpayers and ratepayers will be directly on the hook for the multi-billion dollar risk.

So it looks like those who thought insurance payouts might be like a free lunch—like the stimulus a Krugman or Keynes might dream about—were wrong.

Turns out there really is no such thing as a free lunch, and the Broken Window Fallacy really is true: there really are no blessings from destruction. None. At. All.

UPDATE: Just to update the insurance situation then post-earthquake:

  • reinsurers across the world are staying away from NZ
  • council infrastructure around the country is likely to be uninsured—with the risk picked up by taxpayers
  • one of the largest insurance companies in the country fails—and is bailed out half-a-billion dollars by taxpayers
  • the government has begun a process whereby it will be nationalising virtually every damaged home in Christchurch—with taxpayers picking up the tab that should have been picked up by insurance companies
  • it is revealed that the government’s antediluvian Earthquake Commission (who have been slowing down the Canterbury re-building) has more than two-thirds of its “investments” in government bonds—meaning little more than a “promise to pay” by taxpayers.
  • Bill English continues to borrow $380 million more each week.

Lucky taxpayers have deep pockets, eh.

Vote for “change”?

As Lindsay Perigo used to say, one of the maddening delusions of our time is the knee-jerk idea that changing our voting system is going to protect our freedom—far more important, we would say, to put our freedoms beyond the vote altogether.

The knee-jerk idea is back again nonetheless, with a group of worthies, unworthies and former examples of both  announcing this morning a Vote for Change organisation to promote a voting system that allows voters to throw bums out the front door, without them coming in the back.

Unusually for me, I have no opinion on them, their arguments, or the various voting systems they suggest we (might) change to.

How about you?

NB: The 2011 referendum on the voting system gives you five systems to vote for.

  • More Morons in Parliament (MMP);
  • First Past the Post (FPP);
  • Preferential Voting (PV);
  • Single Transferable Vote (STV);
  • Supplementary Member (SM)

All five are summarised here.

Monday 27 June 2011

Bavinger House, by Bruce Goff [updated]

A stunning animation of Bruce Goff’s masterpiece featured here many times before (click the button to enjoy the vid full-screen):

Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind - Bavinger House 1950 from skyline ink animation studios on Vimeo.

Sadly, it looks like the masterpiece may be in the process of being slowly dismembered by its present owners.

UPDATE: More news about the house’s apparent demise here, here, here here

Friday 24 June 2011

Friday morning ramble: The ‘Bleeding Obvious’ edition

Once again, while the world burns and economic fortunes tumble, the local politicians and their commentariat are more interested in a race-based by-election and a bloke who had the temerity to point out the bleeding obvious. So let’s look at more important things, shall we?

  • Don Brash appears to understand the RMA “is the biggest single obstacle to economic growth in New Zealand.” He just doesn’t know how to replace it—or doesn’t care to. But it’s not difficult…
    RMA impeding economic growth: Brash -  N Z   F A R M E R ‘ S   W E E K L Y
    What would 'Party X' do about the environment? - PART 3: Replacing the RMA -  N O T  P C , 2007
    New Zealand's Persecuted Minority: Property Owners  - S C O O P , 2002
  • There are two ways to tackle the mounting welfare crisis. Confront it head on, or lie about it. Which method do you think this govt (helped by an asinine media) have adopted?
    DPB - more going on than leaving – L I N D S A Y   M I T C H E L L
  • Sections in a beleagured Christchuirch are still on the maret $200,000 when they should be around $50,000, if not for the absurd ring fenvcing of New Zealand’s most tragic city. Never has cheap land been so essential, and finally, after years for pressure, we have what High Pavletich calls “ a belated step in the right direction”: The “planners” have released one small part of the ring fence to allow around 5000 plots to be built on.
    Environment Canterbury looks to release land on Christchurch fringes for up to 5,000 homes; up to Environment Court 
    – I N T E R E S T . C O . N Z
  • By the way, here’s something to ponder if you think little old NZ is going to continue weathering the world’s storms while racking up new debt at the rate of more than a billion dollars per month…
  • Here's a thought on the Greek/euro crisis brought to you by Austrian
    economic thinking. As you know, bond yields in the peripheral countries
    are spiking. Greek 10-year bonds are nearly 17 per cent, Irish and
    Portuguese 10-year yields are around 11.5 per cent. Conventional
    thinking says these high yields reflect concerns about default.
    While that's true, they also tell you something far more important.
    That is, there is very little real savings left in the banking systems
    of these economies. Rising market interest rates is
    an indication of scarce savings. Therefore, the price of money
    must rise to encourage saving and discourage consumption.
    When savings are plentiful, the price of money falls to encourage
    consumption and discourage saving. This process doesn't occur
    in a market distorted by central banks and currency unions.
    It only reasserts itself when the money fiddlers
    lose control, as they now have...

    - Greg Canavan, Daily Reckoning Australia

  • This week marks the 40th Anniversary of the "War on Drugs.” Begun by Richard Nixon, everyone’s favourite President. his war has resulted only in failure, misery, violence and death. Isn’t it time to review?
    40 Years of Protecting Us from Ourselves – Valery Publius,  U N D E R C U R R E N T
    War on drugs produced swollen prisons and little else – Zachary Goelman,  R E U T E R S
    Another Admission 'War on Drugs' Has Failed 
    - Charlene Muhammad,  N E W  A M E R I C A N   M E D I A
    Tough birthday for War on Drugs  - C H I C A G O   N E W S
    The Drug War: What is It Good For? – Art Carden,  F O R B E S
  • Warmists constantly claim skeptic scientists make a fortune from their skepticism. They don’t … but warmist James Hansen (who just toured NZ)  does.
     NASA Scientist Accused of Using Celeb Status Among Environmental Groups to Enrich Himself 
    – F O X  N E W S
  • By contrast, here’s a good example of  “principled climate science scepticism.”
    Prof Kelly shows the middle way- Prof. Mike Kelly,  C L I M A T E   C O N V E R S A T I O N
  • Germany shoots itself in the foot (the one they didn’t shoot by joining the European Monetary Union).
     Germany Finds Going Green is Tough Going – N C P A
  • You have one minute on the over-population myth, starting now:


  • Human productivity allows mankind to escape the Malthusian population trap—and with freedom and a greater population, even greater productivity was possible. So why are the anti-industrialists against this? “Today, environmental groups call for a reduction in carbon on scales that would require a gigantic decline in our population numbers: we are told we must self-sacrifice and surrender our standard of living for the general good of a much lower population.  The most extreme voices would send us spinning back to the dark ages and the more moderate would see us stagnating in development.” Why?
    Global Warming: The New Malthusian Scare – Toby Baxendale,  C O B D E N   C E N T R E
  • Just one example of how ingenuity and productivity combined open up whole new areas of the environment in which to live—making even greater population possible: the air conditioner. Hurray for Mr Carrier!
    The Heat Is On! – Mark Thornton,  M I S E S   D A I L Y
  • Shit cars. Cool doors. [HT Tomahawk Kid]

  • “If we pursue another economic stimulus of similar size to the previous one, we may as well condemn the economy to another 10-20 years of recession.”
    "Stimulus is like using morphine to fix a broken arm"
    -  Veronique de Rugy, N A T I O N A L  R E V I E W
  • ‎"It's almost as if Washington envisions the economy not as a complex network of billions of voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships, but as a lawn mower which could be forced to run smoothly if only they'd yank hard enough on the starter cord...
    ”Lawmakers should face the facts: Intervention is hurting, not helping, the economy."
    The One Stimulus Government Hasn't Tried – Jonathan Hoenig, S M A R T   M O N E Y
    [Hat tip Keith W.]
  • Is the US economy worse than Greece? The world’s biggest bond buyer says “Yes!” But is he right? And what does it mean for future interest rates? [No, Bernard Hickey won’t  understand any of this.]
    Is the U.S. Economy Actually in Worse Shape Than the Greek Economy? – P J T V
  • So, ah, just how are those risk signals looking in the European Zone? I know, let’s ask the European Central Bank governor…
    Trichet Admits the Obvious "Risk Signals Are Flashing Red"
    – M I S H ‘ S   G L O B A L    E C O N O M I C   T R E N D     A N A L Y S I S
  • Price controls always raise prices. Latest example: U.S. healthcare.
    Confessions of a Price Controller -  T H E  A M E R I C A N
  • Santiago CalatravA’s Chicago Spire was going to be one of the world's tallest buildIngs. But the financial downturn torpedoed its funding, and now it is all but dead. With other major projects on hold or cancelled, some critics say this is the end of North America's love affair with skyscrapers. Robert Bruegmann, of the University of Illinois, considers the fate of super-tall buildings in the US, and explains why he believes the spire may yet be built. And it’s a beautiful slideshow…
    Audio slideshow: Chicago's doomed spire – Robert Bruegmann,  B B C
  • 4472 (1)A poor interviewer takes on the world’s best apologist for his own mistakes, and fails. Watch the man who brought down the world explain over thirty minutes that it was all someone else’s fault, that he and his friends always knew what they were doing, that basically their shit doesn’t stink—helped by an interviewer who never knows how to ask the right question at the right time.
    Charlie Rose interviews Alan Greenspan – C H A R L I E   R O S E
  • “Alan Greenspan has always cared about one — and only one — thing. Every nerve ending in his body at every moment in his life has been devoted to the promotion of Alan Greenspan.”
    Chairman Greenspan: A Fiat Mind for a Fiat Age
    -  Fred Sheehan,  M I S E S  D A I L Y
  • More broken economic theory coming right up: The Phillips’ Curve is really just a load of old junk.
    The Phillips’ Jumble – C A F E    H A Y E K
  • Wealth in a market economy is not a static quantity of stuff, never an inexhaustible fund that pays out goodies to lucky passive owners; wealth has constantly to be created and re-created; it’s never fixed. But the market “distributes” stuff unequally, you say? Baloney. The market is constantly redistributing wealth far more productively and fairly than any government efforts.
    Ludwig Lachmann on Income ‘Inequality’ -  C A F E    H A Y E K
  • Want a bigger slice of the pie? Then bake your own.
    “When It Comes to Wealth Creation, There Is No Pie”
    • Don’t worryabout (former) All Black Stephen Donald. Stephen Donald is holed up at Peka Peka Beach. Just him, a penguin, and a werewolf. [Note: Parts of this may be satire.]
      Stephen Donald resting up on Kapiti Coast beach – S P O R T   R E V I E W
    • Wow!
      Turning The iPad Into A Weapon  - S T R A T E G Y  P A G E
      [Hat tip Geek Press]
    • The ten best things about smartphones (and you doubted there was even one!)
       Why I Love & Hate Having a Smartphone –  T H E   O A T M E A L
    • Turns out you really can make a silk urse out of a sow’s ear.
       Can Do  -  F U T I L I T Y   C L O S E T
    • In March 1974, Ayn Rand faced the improbable task of lecturing on the crucial importance of philosophy—to the graduating class of West Point. She succeeded magnificently: she attracted three times the expected attendance, she elicited an enthusiastic ovation, and her lecture was reprinted in a new philosophy textbook published by the U.S. Military Academy. Set aside a spare hour to relive this memorable occasion and insightful speech, and (re)discover the irresistible intellectual power of Ayn Rand.
      Philosophy: Who Needs It  - A Y N   R A N D
    • Parents, teachers, anyone interested in education … listen up! Here’s the ideal weekend workshop for you: a Montessori weekend in Matakana no less. What could be a better way to learn about the best philosophy in which to raise your children?
      A Montessori Workshop in NZ – A  M O N T E S S O R I   H O M E
    • Should the state waste time and resources tracking down “deadbeat dads”? Or recognise instead that just as there should be no involuntary servitude, there should be no involuntary parentitude (to coin a phrase).
      Video: Fatherhood Should Be Voluntary –  N O O D L E  F O O D

    • Here’s Paul Kelly’s tribute to a favourite place. You know, he’d give you all of Sydney Harbour, all that land and all that water, for that one sweet promenade.
    • Here’s Billy Strayhorn’s impressionistic masterpiece, inspired by the sight of London’s Chelsea Bridge through the fog, played by the masterful Ben Webster. [HT Jazz on the Tube]
    • And this, a few final moments from another of my current obsessions, takes up where Ben & Billy leave off.
    Final moments of Bruckner’s 4th Symphony, with paintings by Caspar David Friedrich

    Enjoy your weekend!
    PC

    PS: Thanks to all those who deserve a hat tip, and my apologies for not remembering who was responsible for which link. My thanks, and my fault.

  • Thursday 23 June 2011

    Storm, by Tim Minchin

    A nine-minute beat poem about idiocy, by Tim Minchin.

    My favourite line:

    “Alternative Medicine
    Has either not been proved to work,
    Or been proved not to work.
    You know what they call ‘alternative medicine’
    That’s been proved to work?
    Medicine.”

    Disappearing in a cloud of Athenian tear gas

    They’re rioting in Greece because decades of welfarism has proved unaffordable.

    They thought the post-war experiment with the welfare state guaranteed every Greek a living at every other Greek’s expense. Now they’re learning otherwise.

    They thought their membership in the EU’s monetary union guaranteed Greece a living at Germany’s expense. Now they’re learning that was never possible.

    They thought that a policy of borrow and spend would work forever—spending based not on necessities of production but on the siren-song of “need,” and borrowing based on an ever-expanding pyramid plan of debt.

    It won’t. It can’t. It isn’t.  The bill is finally being presented, and the post-war welfare-state experiment that supposedly guaranteed everyone a living at everyone else’s expense is revealed for what it is: as unaffordable as cancer, and as destructive. For Greece as for every other welfare state.

    “The state,” as Bastiat once said, “is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at everyone else’s expense.” The fiction is now disappearing in a cloud of Athenian tear gas.

    The biggest clusterfuck in modern European history was as unavoidable as the collapse of welfarism will be in every other place—and a first taste of what it will be like when the reality hits home in every place, either with or without riots, that the welfare state experiment is unaffordable. That borrow and spend is over. That mortgaging your grandchildren’s future to pay for your welfare state today will impoverish their generation, and eventually bankrupt this one too.

    And that lesson goes for us as well.

    How long do you think we can continue borrowing a third-of-a-billion a week to fund middle-class welfare, especially when bond yields start turning—as they can do overnight.

    DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Welfare for the Rich

    _McGRathLibertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath invites you down to his clinic for an inoculation against this week’s stories and headlines on issues affecting our freedom.

    This  week: Welfare for the Rich …

    THE DOCTOR SAYS: Doesn’t it give you a warm fuzzy to know your taxes are being used to make more wealthy someone who I would pick as already doing very nicely thank you, given her first album sold a third of a million copies internationally.
        Isn’t there something wrong with a system that gouges low-earning New Zealanders and hands this loot over to a wealthy singer whose sales indicate she is already well-established on the music scene?
        But I guess that after dragging the iPod/mobile phone middle class into the welfare trap with Welfare for Working Families (an election bribe introduced by Hard Labour and now managed by the National Socialists) there’s only the rich left to mop up--at which point then everyone will be sucking at the teat and willing to vote for more of it.
        But wait, there’s more: another recipient of taxpayer largesse is none other than Annabel Fay, daughter of local knight Sir Michael, who could surely afford to subsidise his daughter rather than have the rest of us do it.
        Have you no shame, Sir Michael, at your daughter’s parasitical exploitation of low-income New Zealanders?
        Have you no conscience, Miss Fay?
        Apparently not. Instead, parasitism like this is considered to be just the way things are.
        The Music Commission is a disgrace to the country and should be disbanded immediately, with its funds returned to the people from whom they were stolen. Ditto Creative NZ who is funding a couple of NZ acts to attend the Glastonbury Music Festival.
        Why should taxpayers have to put up with this sort of nonsense? Answer: because they voted for it. Because both National and Labour believe hand-outs are a better way for a musician to make money than having to sell concert tickets and CDs.
        Unless of course you’re a musician who engages in victimless non-crime, in which case you should be locked up. 

    "If Congress can employ money indefinite­ly to the general welfare …  it
    would subvert the very foundation­, and transmute the very nature of the
    limited Government establishe­d by the people of America."
    - James Madison, future U.S. president

    EDITOR’S NOTE: For those who don’t know the musician to whom Doc McGrath refers in the last paragraph above, that’s him in cartoon form on the cover of John Dix’s classic history of NZ rock ‘n’ roll (pic below)—chosen by Dix because “there are a great many characters in New Zealand rock ‘n’ roll, but Rick Bryant stands unique… As much as anybody, Rick Bryant represents the spirit of New Zealand rock ‘n’ roll. That’s why he’s on the cover.”
    And now, he’s in prison.
    One of his early bands was called Rough Justice. A suitable moniker, you might think.

    Stranded

    Wednesday 22 June 2011

    How’s that global warming working out for you? [updated]

    Just thought you’d appreciate an update on global mean surface temperatures over the last decade, as measured by NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in the US, and the Hadley Centre for Climate Research in the UK.

    trend-3

    trend-24Source: Steven Goddard’s Real Science, Wood For Trees.

    See all that “dangerous” warming, huh. See the out-of-control trend.

    Is it any wonder the likes of Australia’s Julia Gillard is being savaged for using the global warming bugaboo to introduce a new tax?

    UPDATE: Thanks to Blunt for the cartoon, and John Boy & Julia for the fiction-based shakedown:

    JG--JK

    Nozick left? [update 3]

    NozickA few of you  have sent me a piece by Steven Metcalf in Slate, trumpeting the alleged fact that “philosophical father of libertarianism,” Robert Nozick, “gave up on the movement he inspired.”

    It’s all very entertaining, except for two things:

    Nozick didn't start libertarianism.

    And he didn't leave it. [Don’t just believe me, here’s what he said himself about it in one of his last interviews.]

    So, the article is a bust. But so too is Nozick himself. Sure, he’s taught in political studies departments as a (if not the) libertarian with whom to get to grips. Indeed, as the “philosophical father of libertarianism” (to cut and paste a phrase). That’s for three simple reasons:

    1. Academics are dumb.
    2. Nozick was one himself.
    3. Nozick’s ideas were easy to knock over.

    Nozick’s ideas slipped inside the academic tent because Nozick was an academic at Harvard—and when you’re an academic at Harvard it’s hard to be ignored. (He got the gig because he was originally a socialist, an ideology he renounced on the way to his chair). But being an academic from Harvard, his ideas had to be taught. And fortunately for those who taught them, his ideas were easy to knock down.

    This suited political science professors right down their mouldy, Marxist jumpsuits. Just imagine: teaching ideas that make you uncomfortable by teaching the weakest version of those ideas you can find. A version with the academic imprimatur of Harvard no less. What could be more ingenious! Or more useful—if you’re a politicised pol-sci professor with a penchant for collectivism, and a knack of persuading your more pliable students.

    As Sean Kimpton pointed out in 'The Free Radical' a few years back, when it comes to defending liberty, Robert Nozick has long been “doing more harm than good..."

    [Nozick] is considered by academics to be the leading advocate for libertarianism and freedom amongst modern political philosophers, but his weak arguments are too easily trumped by self-serving intellectuals who only feel obliged to answer Nozick, rather than more substantial political thinkers like Rand....
        But perhaps it is the very weakness of his arguments that add to his attraction, he is the ideal libertarian straw man - easy to knock down, and to burn while he's down.
        But Nozick does have value. He shows us that if your arguments lack foundations you will undo your conclusions, no matter how true they might be.

    Nonetheless, a few fellows at Cato have still been trying to defend the poor, late libertarian against the slings and arrows of Mr Metcalf’s outrageous verbiage. If you wish defence against Mr Metcalf, then here it is (nice title on that first piece, by the way:

    UPDATE 1: Matt Welch from Reason magazine weighs in with a slate of further replies, rejoinders and rebuttals to Metcalf’s monstering of the dead professor:

    And someone just emailed me to ask why I’ve bothered posting a defence of someone whom I hold in such little respect. Two reasons, really:

    1. Mr Metcalf’s shotgun blast against Nozick is intended to be a take-down of the political philosophy Nozick was supposed to represent, using him as the target and taking out sundry others in the scattergun
    2. Because tender young pol-sci students who have been taught that I must subscribe to the Nozick wisdom and who tune in here daily (and eagerly) for my gems of insight and political wisdom need to know that all is not as it appears be Nozick-wise—just not in the way that Mr Metcalf thinks.
      So now you know. Both of you.

    UPDATE 2: Nozick admirer Julian Sanchez reckons the very central contention of Metcalf’s is frankly wrong, and the piece proves little beyond “ that there’s nothing too fundamentally confused to be published on Slate as long as it gets in a few good jabs at libertarians.”

    UPDATE 3: So why, you might wonder, have baseless attacks on the godfathers of libertarianism—or even the alleged godfathers of libertarianism—increased in recent times? Well, maybe it’s because they’re getting traction. Hell, even the New York Times thinks they are:

    Legal plunder

    As Frederic Bastiat observed long ago, there are only two means by which people can gain values from one another: Either by trade or free exchange, or by plunder.

    The real problem begins once parties realise they can legalise plunder, and then live off it…

    “Legal Plunder” by the Foundation for a Free Society

    More people fleeing Key than were fleeing Muldoon [updated]

    Looks like whatever the polls are saying, New Zealanders are voting with their feet.

    Record Kiwi exodus to Oz
    The Kiwi exodus across the Tasman has hit a 32-year-high… Statistics NZ figures show 3300 New Zealanders  left for Australia last month, topping the record of 2900 set in 1979.

    That’s more people fleeing Key than were fleeing Muldoon.

    Makes you think, huh?

    And no fear saying it’s all due to earthquakes.

    "The number of New Zealanders leaving permanently, particularly to Australia, had been high prior to the February earthquake, reflecting the challenging New Zealand economic environment and the attraction of the strong Australian labour market," ASB economist Jane Turner said.

    Um, didn’t this government promise to “fix” this problem? Didn’t John Boy stand in the middle of Eden Park at some point before he was elected saying he’d arrest the departure of one football-stadium of NZers per year who were leaving to follow a better dream. I seem to recall there was even a rather mediocre billboard campaign along those lines.

    Lies

    Turns out it was a lie.

    Turns out that that even the “real tax cuts” were a lie—especially since the tax cuts promised were vaporised, and GST and borrowing went up to fund the derisory “cuts” finally acceded to.

    Turns out then that while a smile and wave might do wonders for your poll ratings, it does nothing at all to fix the problems John Boy was elected to address.

    Turns out perhaps that all John Boy is truly “ambitious” about is sitting at the desk with the title “Prime Minister” next to his name.

    UPDATE: The figure includes “carpenters, plumbers and other building trade professionals [who] left for Australia last month at a rate of 20 a day.”

    Twenty a day!

    A legacy, among many things, of the utter mismanagement of the leaky homes fiasco—absolving BRANZ, DBH and Hardies while loading blame onto responsible tradesmen—and the complete, blind, dictatorial ineptitude now going on in Christchurch, where these tradesmen are urgently needed but have been (like many Cantabrians) locked out.

    Folsom on U.S. National Debt In History

    _jeffrey-perrenGuest post by Jeff Perren

    Dr. Burt Folsom (author of New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America) provides an historical overview of how different eras and Presidents have dealt with national debt.

    As always, Prof. Folsom leads with facts and perfectly sums up the lessons to be learned. It's even more interesting in view of the fact that it was written almost five years ago and is more relevant (and horrifying) than it was. He points out that “during the last 75 years the United States has failed to balance its annual budget over 90 percent of the time. What’s worse, the government has spent money so recklessly that we now owe over $8.2 trillion, and Congress recently raised the debt ceiling to $9 trillion..”

    That’s almost touching, isn’t it, when now—just five years later--they’re bickering about smashing through a $14.3 trillion ceiling!

    The short essay is so well-written I couldn't find a money quote that stood out, so this will have to do:

    Interestingly, in the 50 years after the Civil War, from 1866 to 1916, the presidents were committed to restoring American credit, and the national debt was slashed from $2.7 billion to $1.2 billion. But World War I sent the debt spiraling again, this time to $24 billion by 1920. World War II added another digit to the nation’s debt, which leaped from $43 billion to $259 billion from 1940 to 1945.

    The whole short piece offers excellent data and a clear moral view. Highly recommended:

    Here’s a graph:

    USDebtSource: Wikipedia

    Tuesday 21 June 2011

    The Depression You Better Hope We Have… [update 2]

    _Kris_SayceGuest post by by KRIS SAYCE from Money Morning Australia 

    We’re often asked why hasn’t the U.S. suffered hyper-inflation… what with the trillions of dollars printed by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

    The answer is quite simple.  Although we’ll admit we overlooked it at first…

    With a gold standard, a nation owed money (creditor nation) by another nation (debtor nation) can demand payment in gold.

    But without a gold standard, the creditor nation can only receive paper or electronic money… money created by the flick of a switch.

    That’s when inflation troubles begin.

    But still, it doesn’t explain why Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe had hyper-inflation whereas today the Western world doesn’t.

    Here’s the key: hyper-inflation only takes hold if a nation expands the money supply much faster than other nations… and if creditors have real alternatives to the inflated money.

    That’s why Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe had hyper-inflation.  And why the Western world doesn’t today.

    Let me sum it up for you…

    Why hyper-inflation happens

    Following World War I, Germany had to pay compensation to the victors in gold or foreign currency.

    But because Germany didn’t hold enough gold or foreign currency, it had to print new money to swap it for gold and foreign currency.

    Clearly when your intention is to devalue the currency, working fast is critical.

    Because as soon as the market gets wind of the plan, holders of the money will look to get rid of it as quickly as possible in exchange for something else.

    That explains the speed of Weimar Germany’s inflation:

    Source: Wikipedia

    In a matter of months, one gold Mark (money convertible into gold) had increased in value from 1,000 “paper” Marks to one trillion “paper” Marks.

    The story is similar for Zimbabwe.  Once the central bank began printing money, creditors stopped accepting Zimbabwe dollars – because they knew they were being devalued.

    They preferred a better store of wealth – such as the U.S. dollar!

    But while hyper-inflation is bad, what the Western world is experiencing is much worse.  Because there isn’t a fixed conversion for paper money into gold for any currency, all central banks and governments know they can inflate the money supply.

    As long as they don’t go too crazy.

    That’s the main reason many central banks publish an inflation target.

    They don’t do it for information purposes.  And it isn’t to try and cap inflation.  It’s there as a form of price-signalling… showing other central banks how much they can increase their money supply without causing a run on the currency.

    As long as every central bank knows the limits, they can engineer a globally co-ordinated period of inflation… without fear of causing hyper-inflation.

    And boy, has it worked.

    How the misery is spread far and wide

    Trouble is, it punishes the whole world – not just one nation.

    And because gold is demonised as a “barbarous relic”, and even blamed for past depressions, most people – even pro investors – don’t realise the value of their money is being eroded.

    That’s the “good” thing about hyper-inflation.  You’re in no doubt what’s happening.  You can see your wealth destroyed right before your eyes.

    But with slow burning inflation caused by central bankers, the effects are near impossible to notice at the time.  It’s only years later you wonder how you can earn three times as much as you used to, yet you’re still no better off.

    You can see the difference clearly in these two charts.  First, this chart from the Bank of England showing the annual inflation rate since 1790:

    Source: Bank of England

    And second this chart showing the U.S. inflation rate from 1914:

    File:US Historical Inflation.svgSource: Wikipedia

    When gold was considered as money, you can see inflationary periods followed by deflationary periods.

    Wealth erosion didn’t happen over the long run.  And purchasing power was broadly constant.

    But once the monetary system removed gold and silver, there have been no periods of deflation.

    Even during economic downturns, there hasn’t been deflation… only more inflation.

    Why the worst is yet to come

    During the past two years the U.S. Federal Reserve has created almost $2 trillion of extra money to keep the U.S. from collapsing.

    And what has it achieved?  According to Bloomberg News:

    “The US economy will grow 2.5 per cent this year, down from 2.8 per cent projected in April, the IMF said today, citing higher commodity prices and bad weather in the first quarter and a weak housing market.”

    The U.S. economy got a temporary inflation boost.  And now the impact has gone.

    If central banks want to postpone the overdue depression, it can only do one thing: and that’s print more money.  Given a choice between that and allowing the global economy to collapse on their watch we know which they’ll choose.

    The fact is, as strange as it sounds, the world needs a depression.

    It needs to purge the economy of all the past mistakes.  Sure, you can sit there and hope it doesn’t happen.  But that’s just accepting you’re happy for your wealth to be destroyed by slow-burning inflation…

    This is much worse than the quick shock of hyper-inflation.  But the slow-burn can’t and won’t last.

    Our guess is that time is fast approaching.  And that means inflation – even though it may not be hyper-inflation – is set to soar.

    Cheers.
    Kris Sayce
    Money Morning Australia

    RELATED POSTS at NOT PC:

    UPDATE 1: A contrary opinion on the coming calamit(ies) here:

    • Permanent Gold Backwardation:The Crack Up Boom – Keith Weiner,  Z E R O   H E D G E
      ”I agree that one way or the other we will get a depression, and the sooner the less severe. But for the rest, well I published this paper on a different theory of hyperinflation…”

    And … “Anyone who thinks ‘inflation’ is about rising prices, and hyperinflation is about hyper rising prices needs to read this article [as well]. It is about the increasing tensions around insolvency and what happens when a debtor cannot pay. Picture this happening to country after country, bank after bank.”

    UPDATE 2: The latest Casey Daily Dispatch links to a relevant wee video.

    “It's a 1933 propaganda piece promising to bring the United States out of the Great Depression with inflation. Most of our readers will find this funny - especially the part about higher commodity prices. However, this video also reminds me of propaganda's changing face. The message is essentially still the same today, but Washington has become more subtle in presenting its views.”
    1933 Inflation Propaganda Video (YouTube)

    US Government Inflation Propaganda - 1933

    The Telecom litmus test works again [update]

    Politicians’ attitude to and handling of Telecom has always offered a litmus test of their attitude to (big) business, never more so than in recent times, by the two most recent governments.

    Their handling of Telecom offers an eloquent demonstration of the difference between these two governments in their attitude to business: where the Clark Government did its best to nationalise and dismember Telecom  (scratch today’s Labour MPs, and you’ll still find a Marxist underneath), the Key Government is now doing all it can to turn it into a government department.

    Such is the way the Key Government apparently sees business: as part of his corporate state, kept onside by subsidies and state-guaranteed monopolies.

    A monopoly we would always have been better off without.

    And, sad to say, instead of attacking Key’s crony capitalism Don Brash has shown he still doesn’t understand how politics works.  In accusing the Labour opposition of “sabotage” and “wanton economic thuggery” because it says it would repeal Telecom’s sweetheart fibre contract,  he is opposing precisely the position National should have taken over Kiwisaver when it was in opposition—back when it claimed to be opposed.

    As I said at the time, for all their flatulent opposition at its introduction, John Key could have extinguished Kiwisaver before it was even born by one simple statement that, if elected in 2008, he would deal to this scheme as Muldoon did to the last Labour compulsory savings scheme -- by scrapping it.

    That would not have been sabotage. That would have been a kindness. It would have shown balls.

    No wonder he didn’t try it.

    UPDATE: In Australia, opposition leader Tony Abbott has pledged to scrap Julia Gillard’s carbon tax if his Coalition wins the next election. Presumably Brash would call that, too, “economic sabotage.”

    Which shows how absurd his mis-directed mini-tantrum really is.

    Don Boudreaux's Open Letter to Paul Krugman

    Guest post by Jeff Perren

    Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek gives an excellent smackdown of Paul Krugman (albeit far more polite than he deserves). Krugman writes:

    if you ask a liberal or a ‘saltwater’ economist, “What would somebody on the other side of this divide say here? What would their version of it be?” A liberal can do that. A liberal can talk coherently about what the conservative view is because people like me actually do listen. We don’t think it’s right, but we pay enough attention to see what the other person is trying to get at.

    The reverse is not true. You try to get someone who is fiercely anti-Keynesian to even explain what a Keynesian economic argument is, they can’t do it. They can’t get it remotely right.

    Or if you ask a conservative,”What do liberals want?” you get this bizarre stuff – for example, that liberals want everybody to ride trains, because it makes people more susceptible to collectivism. You just have to look at the realities of the way each side talks and what they know. One side of the picture is open-minded and sceptical. We have views that are different, but they’re arrived at through paying attention. The other side has dogmatic views.

    To which Dr. Boudreaux replies, in part:

    Let’s overlook your failure to distinguish conservatives from libertarians – a failure that, for the point I’m about to make, is unimportant.

    You’re able to conclude that “liberals” are open-minded thinkers while “conservatives” are dumb-as-dung dogmatists only because you compare the works of “liberal” scholars to the pronouncements of conservative popular pundits [like] Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh ...

    Because, as you claim, you study carefully the works of non-”liberal” scholars, you surely know that the late Frank Knight, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman – influential economists whom you would classify as “conservative” – were all steeped in and treated seriously the writings of Keynes, Marx, Veblen, Galbraith, and other “liberal” thinkers.

    The same is true for still-living influential non-”liberal” scholars.

     I’d be obliged to conclude that you in fact, contrary your claim, do not carefully engage the works of non-”liberal” scholars if you insist that “liberal” scholarship is ignored by conservative and libertarian thinkers such as James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Ronald Coase, Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, Anna Schwartz, Gary Becker, Vernon Smith, Leland Yeager, Henry Manne, Deirdre McCloskey, Allan Meltzer, Richard Epstein, Tyler Cowen, Arnold Kling, George Selgin, Lawrence H. White, and James Q. Wilson, to name only a few…

    In short, Krugman once again has been caught peddling intellectual porkies.

    The whole thing, while short, is well worth reading in its entirety, as are many of the comments.