The above quotation is from this article in The Economist, which is not a magazine that I normally go to for good editorial but in this case it goes to the heart of the issues I cover in my last two posts below.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Quote of the Day
Those deep within the security apparatus, within the charmed circle, must therefore make the decision, on America's behalf, about how much democracy—about how much discussion about the limits of democracy, even—it is safe for Americans to have ~ W W Houston
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
NZ Government Joins the Paranoids
I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything
I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or
friendship is recorded” ~ Edward Snowden
In my last post I wrote about the death of free speech and privacy in America. This post is about the same thing happening in New Zealand.
New Zealand has always been a relatively free country, at least in terms of political and social liberties. We were one of the first countries to give women the vote, we treated our conscientious objectors reasonably during the world wars, we decriminalised homosexuality before most other Western nations and from time to time we have tolerated a fair amount of political dissent with equanimity. We have been relatively immune to the paranoia about national security that has infected America and other major Western nations since 9/11, an infection that has led to an unparalleled and unconstitutional expansion of government powers and made every petty bureaucrat and policeman believe he has a mandate to act like a school yard bully. Unfortunately the New Zealand Government finally has been infected with this craziness and is set to expand the powers of its Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to include surveillance of New Zealand citizens.
The GCSB Amendment Bill is being enacted because the Bureau was found to have acted illegally in monitoring the communications of Kim Dotcom, a New Zealand resident. The Government's response to this crime was not to prosecute those responsible in the GCSB but rather to make what they were doing legal. The new Bill allows the GCSB to spy on New Zealanders not only for matters of national security but also for the "international relations and well-being of New Zealand" and the "economic well-being of New Zealand." Furthermore, it allows the GCSB to do so on behalf of any other NZ Government agency or any "public authority (whether in New Zealand or overseas)" or "any other entity authorised by the Minister [in charge of the agency]". This is a hugely broad mandate and, given that the GCSB has already proven it will interpret the law to the point of breaking it, I think it is safe to assume it will be following the Americans' practice of monitoring all domestic and international communications that passes through any NZ telecommunications network. The only other person involved in reviewing such warrants (and only in the case of domestic surveillance) is the Commissioner of Security Warrants, a bureaucrat appointed by the Government.
I have heard commentators from both the political left and right say that if you have nothing to fear if you are innocent, but that misses the whole point. The fact that some people commit crimes is not a reason to assume everyone does and that all of us should be watched and listened upon by the government. Such is the culture of the former Soviet Union and Communist East Germany and that prevails in North Korea today. As US historian and political commentator Dan Carlin said in a recent podcast on the subject, the reason we have our toilets in the bathroom rather than the living room is because we expect privacy when we go to the toilet. It is not just a personal freedom but requisite of self-respect to go to the bathroom in private. Prisoners are often denied this right for the very reasons that it emphasises their loss of freedom and destroys their self-respect.
We shouldn't have to justify our right to privacy, whether it is the privacy of going to the toilet or the privacy of our communications. The government derives its just powers from the people, not the reverse. It is not the legitimate role of the state to know our every move, conversation, opinion or whether we are having an affair with our best friend's wife. Until and unless the state has probable cause that we have committed, or will imminently commit, a serious crime, it has no business invading our privacy. And to have any meaning, 'probable cause' must be assessed by an independent judicial authority, not the bureaucrat carrying out the invasion of privacy or the prime minister authorising it. The process of issuing such warrants and ultimately the warrants themselves should be open to public scrutiny.
The GCSB Amendment Bill is an unnecessary and imprudent expansion of the surveillance powers of the state in this country. Like Edward Snowden, I do not want to live in a world where everything I say or do is recorded by government bureaucrats. I thought New Zealand was relatively immune to the madness that has infected the rest of the world. I'm ashamed and a little frightened to discover I was wrong.
In my last post I wrote about the death of free speech and privacy in America. This post is about the same thing happening in New Zealand.
New Zealand has always been a relatively free country, at least in terms of political and social liberties. We were one of the first countries to give women the vote, we treated our conscientious objectors reasonably during the world wars, we decriminalised homosexuality before most other Western nations and from time to time we have tolerated a fair amount of political dissent with equanimity. We have been relatively immune to the paranoia about national security that has infected America and other major Western nations since 9/11, an infection that has led to an unparalleled and unconstitutional expansion of government powers and made every petty bureaucrat and policeman believe he has a mandate to act like a school yard bully. Unfortunately the New Zealand Government finally has been infected with this craziness and is set to expand the powers of its Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to include surveillance of New Zealand citizens.
The GCSB Amendment Bill is being enacted because the Bureau was found to have acted illegally in monitoring the communications of Kim Dotcom, a New Zealand resident. The Government's response to this crime was not to prosecute those responsible in the GCSB but rather to make what they were doing legal. The new Bill allows the GCSB to spy on New Zealanders not only for matters of national security but also for the "international relations and well-being of New Zealand" and the "economic well-being of New Zealand." Furthermore, it allows the GCSB to do so on behalf of any other NZ Government agency or any "public authority (whether in New Zealand or overseas)" or "any other entity authorised by the Minister [in charge of the agency]". This is a hugely broad mandate and, given that the GCSB has already proven it will interpret the law to the point of breaking it, I think it is safe to assume it will be following the Americans' practice of monitoring all domestic and international communications that passes through any NZ telecommunications network. The only other person involved in reviewing such warrants (and only in the case of domestic surveillance) is the Commissioner of Security Warrants, a bureaucrat appointed by the Government.
I have heard commentators from both the political left and right say that if you have nothing to fear if you are innocent, but that misses the whole point. The fact that some people commit crimes is not a reason to assume everyone does and that all of us should be watched and listened upon by the government. Such is the culture of the former Soviet Union and Communist East Germany and that prevails in North Korea today. As US historian and political commentator Dan Carlin said in a recent podcast on the subject, the reason we have our toilets in the bathroom rather than the living room is because we expect privacy when we go to the toilet. It is not just a personal freedom but requisite of self-respect to go to the bathroom in private. Prisoners are often denied this right for the very reasons that it emphasises their loss of freedom and destroys their self-respect.
We shouldn't have to justify our right to privacy, whether it is the privacy of going to the toilet or the privacy of our communications. The government derives its just powers from the people, not the reverse. It is not the legitimate role of the state to know our every move, conversation, opinion or whether we are having an affair with our best friend's wife. Until and unless the state has probable cause that we have committed, or will imminently commit, a serious crime, it has no business invading our privacy. And to have any meaning, 'probable cause' must be assessed by an independent judicial authority, not the bureaucrat carrying out the invasion of privacy or the prime minister authorising it. The process of issuing such warrants and ultimately the warrants themselves should be open to public scrutiny.
The GCSB Amendment Bill is an unnecessary and imprudent expansion of the surveillance powers of the state in this country. Like Edward Snowden, I do not want to live in a world where everything I say or do is recorded by government bureaucrats. I thought New Zealand was relatively immune to the madness that has infected the rest of the world. I'm ashamed and a little frightened to discover I was wrong.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
America - Land of the Closely Scrutinised
It has been interesting watching the contortions of the mainstream media over the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald about the illegal activities of the US National Security Agency and Justice Department. In some ways I don't envy the left-leaning media their dilemma - who is right, the President who is everything they always wanted (left-wing, black and so cool he needs to be kept in a refrigerator) or Greenwald, who has impeccable credentials (gay, Guardian, ex-civil rights litigator) as one of their own? Who should they defend - the symbol of their left-wing liberalism in the Oval Office or the only journalist upholding the principles they have always professed to defend such as freedom of speech and conscience? The very fact that they are caught in this dilemma suggest to me that they were never serious about their principles in the first place.
I have read numerous articles and blogs coming from all sides of the political spectrum attempting to justify the illegal spying by the Obama administration on its own citizens. The gist of the argument in favour of the government breaking the law is that it is necessary for the security of the nation. Of course, every dictator since Sulla has used the same argument to garner to themselves excessive and unconstitutional powers and it has never ended well for the people. Let's be clear, President Obama has been the worst offender in this regard and far worse than his predecessor, George W. Bush. At least Bush sought a legislative mandate in the likes of the Patriot Act for the expansion of his powers. The Obama administration has simply disregarded the need for any legislative or constitutional mandate for what it is doing, although it has used the law when it suits it, launching more prosecutions for espionage against whistle blowers than all previous administrations (the charges against Snowden are the seventh and there have been only three other such prosecutions in US history).
The US Constitution enshrines the principles of freedom of speech, privacy and due process precisely because its authors believed that future US presidents might do exactly what Obama has done. Its drafters saw no situation where the abrogation of these principles was justified (except in the specific instances detailed in the Bill of Rights itself). Take the Fourth Amendment, which says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It couldn't be clearer. The US Government cannot legally search or seize someone's papers (and any reasonable modern interpretation of "papers" must include email) without a warrant that is issued upon probable cause. That means the government must have evidence against a specific person, place or thing it wants to search or seize. Even the broadest interpretation of this cannot include the seizing of information about every American's telephone calls.
The framers of the US Constitution got it right. They knew what was required if the Constitution was to preserve any semblance of liberty. They enshrined these principles to ensure freedom survived the propensity of governments towards tyranny. In my view, the assault on the Constitution by the current US Government is a far greater threat that any terrorist or other threat that has been used to justify these illegal and unconstitutional acts.
Americans can no longer expose the excesses of their government or even express a dissenting opinion for fear of being targeted by agencies such as the IRS, which was recently exposed as having used its powers to illegally harass political groups that oppose the Obama administration such as the Tea Party.
Unfortunately, the judicial oversight of the Executive Branch become a joke. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ("FISA") Court, which is meant to oversee the issuing of warrants in regards to national security matters, has rejected just 11 of more than 33,000 applications for warrants in its 35 year existence and the US Supreme Court has become so politically loaded it has ceased to be any form of guardian for constitutional rights.
All this has meant that America is no longer the land of the free, but rather a land where people are so closely watched by government agencies whose methods and mandate would make former East German Stasi officers envious.
The media should not be debating whether unconstitutional acts are justified, they should be arguing how those who have abrogated the Constitution should be brought to justice.
I have read numerous articles and blogs coming from all sides of the political spectrum attempting to justify the illegal spying by the Obama administration on its own citizens. The gist of the argument in favour of the government breaking the law is that it is necessary for the security of the nation. Of course, every dictator since Sulla has used the same argument to garner to themselves excessive and unconstitutional powers and it has never ended well for the people. Let's be clear, President Obama has been the worst offender in this regard and far worse than his predecessor, George W. Bush. At least Bush sought a legislative mandate in the likes of the Patriot Act for the expansion of his powers. The Obama administration has simply disregarded the need for any legislative or constitutional mandate for what it is doing, although it has used the law when it suits it, launching more prosecutions for espionage against whistle blowers than all previous administrations (the charges against Snowden are the seventh and there have been only three other such prosecutions in US history).
The US Constitution enshrines the principles of freedom of speech, privacy and due process precisely because its authors believed that future US presidents might do exactly what Obama has done. Its drafters saw no situation where the abrogation of these principles was justified (except in the specific instances detailed in the Bill of Rights itself). Take the Fourth Amendment, which says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It couldn't be clearer. The US Government cannot legally search or seize someone's papers (and any reasonable modern interpretation of "papers" must include email) without a warrant that is issued upon probable cause. That means the government must have evidence against a specific person, place or thing it wants to search or seize. Even the broadest interpretation of this cannot include the seizing of information about every American's telephone calls.
The framers of the US Constitution got it right. They knew what was required if the Constitution was to preserve any semblance of liberty. They enshrined these principles to ensure freedom survived the propensity of governments towards tyranny. In my view, the assault on the Constitution by the current US Government is a far greater threat that any terrorist or other threat that has been used to justify these illegal and unconstitutional acts.
Americans can no longer expose the excesses of their government or even express a dissenting opinion for fear of being targeted by agencies such as the IRS, which was recently exposed as having used its powers to illegally harass political groups that oppose the Obama administration such as the Tea Party.
Unfortunately, the judicial oversight of the Executive Branch become a joke. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ("FISA") Court, which is meant to oversee the issuing of warrants in regards to national security matters, has rejected just 11 of more than 33,000 applications for warrants in its 35 year existence and the US Supreme Court has become so politically loaded it has ceased to be any form of guardian for constitutional rights.
All this has meant that America is no longer the land of the free, but rather a land where people are so closely watched by government agencies whose methods and mandate would make former East German Stasi officers envious.
The media should not be debating whether unconstitutional acts are justified, they should be arguing how those who have abrogated the Constitution should be brought to justice.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Frailty of Global Economy is Obvious
This week we have seen the signs that the global financial crisis (or "GFC" as it has become known after five years of familiarity) is far from over. The US stock market lost more than two percent of its value on Thursday, the Australia market suffered similar losses, China is reporting that business purchasing for the year is much lower than expected, and here in New Zealand our own stock market was down 1% (on top of news that GDP growth is an anemic 0.3% for the March quarter instead of the predicted 0.6%).
What caused the market jitters? Well, US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, made an announcement on Wednesday that set the cat amongst the financial pigeons. Those of you who follow the US economy will know that the Federal Reserve has been 'printing' money and injecting it into the economy at a rate of $85 billion per month (that's a trillion dollars, or around $3000 for every man, woman and child in America, per year). Ordinarily, printing money at that rate would produce fairly massive inflation but Bernanke, who is almost too clever by half, has been buying huge amounts of Treasury Bonds and mortgages (to the extent that the Federal Reserve is by far the largest purchaser of both), thereby keeping interest rates down and containing US Dollar inflation.
Of course, all this money printing and economic sleight of hand can't go on forever. You can't keep writing yourself cheques and expect everyone you buy stuff off to keep honoring them - well, not unless everyone else is completely stupid. There have been signs recently that the world is starting to regard the US economy as much too risky and the US Dollar as something less than the iron-clad reserve currency it has been for many decades. The reason the Federal Reserve has to buy all those Treasury Bonds is that China no longer wants them - not at the low interest rates the US Treasury expects to pay at any rate - and we're seeing the impact in the declining value of the US Dollar.
So what did Bernanke say that spooked the market? Did he call an end to his trillion-dollar a year printing of money? Well, not exactly. He signaled that he might start reducing it towards the end of this year with a view to ending it by the middle of 2014. Hardly what you would call cold turkey, but enough for the markets to suffer their biggest fall this year.
I've been predicting in this blog that the world economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The economic situation in Europe is not improving and the US is plainly addicted to printing money. There is no way out of this except for a major correction that restores equilibrium between the money supply and real market demand for capital. Interest rates must go up signficantly to bring about this correction and that will force a corresponding correction in asset prices, particularly in major capital markets such as real estate and stocks. This loss of equity will have huge flow-on effects for a while on on business investment. In other words, before this is all over many more people are going to lose their savings, their houses and their jobs and we're all in for more pain before things get better.
What caused the market jitters? Well, US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, made an announcement on Wednesday that set the cat amongst the financial pigeons. Those of you who follow the US economy will know that the Federal Reserve has been 'printing' money and injecting it into the economy at a rate of $85 billion per month (that's a trillion dollars, or around $3000 for every man, woman and child in America, per year). Ordinarily, printing money at that rate would produce fairly massive inflation but Bernanke, who is almost too clever by half, has been buying huge amounts of Treasury Bonds and mortgages (to the extent that the Federal Reserve is by far the largest purchaser of both), thereby keeping interest rates down and containing US Dollar inflation.
Of course, all this money printing and economic sleight of hand can't go on forever. You can't keep writing yourself cheques and expect everyone you buy stuff off to keep honoring them - well, not unless everyone else is completely stupid. There have been signs recently that the world is starting to regard the US economy as much too risky and the US Dollar as something less than the iron-clad reserve currency it has been for many decades. The reason the Federal Reserve has to buy all those Treasury Bonds is that China no longer wants them - not at the low interest rates the US Treasury expects to pay at any rate - and we're seeing the impact in the declining value of the US Dollar.
So what did Bernanke say that spooked the market? Did he call an end to his trillion-dollar a year printing of money? Well, not exactly. He signaled that he might start reducing it towards the end of this year with a view to ending it by the middle of 2014. Hardly what you would call cold turkey, but enough for the markets to suffer their biggest fall this year.
I've been predicting in this blog that the world economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The economic situation in Europe is not improving and the US is plainly addicted to printing money. There is no way out of this except for a major correction that restores equilibrium between the money supply and real market demand for capital. Interest rates must go up signficantly to bring about this correction and that will force a corresponding correction in asset prices, particularly in major capital markets such as real estate and stocks. This loss of equity will have huge flow-on effects for a while on on business investment. In other words, before this is all over many more people are going to lose their savings, their houses and their jobs and we're all in for more pain before things get better.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Increasing Desperation from the Climate Change Alarmists
I used to write and debate a lot about climate change but I haven't written about it in the last year or two. Why? Well, to borrow a hackneyed phrase from the man who has probably gained more financially from climate change alarmism than anyone else, Al Gore, "the science is settled." The only problem for Gore is that it is settled on the opposite side of the argument to what Gore has spent his time promoting since his Vice-presidency.
There are very few scientists today who are prepared to state categorically that man is primarily responsible for global warming. This is a marked change from 10, or even 5, years ago. The reason for this sea change is pretty obvious - even as the global atmospheric carbon dioxide has continued to rise (passing through 400ppm earlier this year), average global temperature increases have stalled. Since 1998 there has been no statistically significant increase in global temperatures. Even the grandfather of AGW*, former Nasa scientist James Hansen, admits “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”
Of course, Hansen and others who have made their reputations (and in the case of Gore and many others, their fortunes) out of this end-of-times global hysteria aren't yet prepared to admit they are wrong, instead trying to explain away the global warming pause with fanciful theories such as China's smog (i.e. atmospheric carbon is apparently both the cause of the warming and the lack of it - as claimed in the Economist article linked above).
Some climate scientists such as the authors of this paper claim that Hansen et al have got the cause and effect wrong - carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere follow temperature changes, not cause them. Others such as Dr Syun-Ichi Akasofu of University of Alaska and Dr Murry Salby of Macquarie University state that global temperature patterns are entirely consistent with the recovery from the Little Ice Age around 1600 and long-term cyclical trends such as the multi-decadal oscillation.
The politicians and crony capitalists like Gore who have prospered from the global warming business are not easily deterred, however. President Obama has cynically joined the envangelical, suddenly discovering climate change in his second inauguration address and in Britain, energy secretary Ed Davey continues to push the party line in a vain attempt to justify some of the highest energy prices in the world that cause misery and deaths every winter.
The cause for rational debate is not helped by studies like this recently published by Cook et al, which attempts to bolster the hoary old argument that 97% of scientific papers on the subject endorse AGW. As prominent sceptical commentator Anthony Watts shows here a straw poll of the scientists whose papers were categorised as pro-AGW say their work has been mis-represented by the study's authors.
The real scientific consensus is as follows:
It seems to me the climate change lobby don't know when to concede defeat. In years to come I am sure we will look back on the whole AGW scare as nothing more than a load of hot air.
* Anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) Global Warming
There are very few scientists today who are prepared to state categorically that man is primarily responsible for global warming. This is a marked change from 10, or even 5, years ago. The reason for this sea change is pretty obvious - even as the global atmospheric carbon dioxide has continued to rise (passing through 400ppm earlier this year), average global temperature increases have stalled. Since 1998 there has been no statistically significant increase in global temperatures. Even the grandfather of AGW*, former Nasa scientist James Hansen, admits “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”
Of course, Hansen and others who have made their reputations (and in the case of Gore and many others, their fortunes) out of this end-of-times global hysteria aren't yet prepared to admit they are wrong, instead trying to explain away the global warming pause with fanciful theories such as China's smog (i.e. atmospheric carbon is apparently both the cause of the warming and the lack of it - as claimed in the Economist article linked above).
Some climate scientists such as the authors of this paper claim that Hansen et al have got the cause and effect wrong - carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere follow temperature changes, not cause them. Others such as Dr Syun-Ichi Akasofu of University of Alaska and Dr Murry Salby of Macquarie University state that global temperature patterns are entirely consistent with the recovery from the Little Ice Age around 1600 and long-term cyclical trends such as the multi-decadal oscillation.
The politicians and crony capitalists like Gore who have prospered from the global warming business are not easily deterred, however. President Obama has cynically joined the envangelical, suddenly discovering climate change in his second inauguration address and in Britain, energy secretary Ed Davey continues to push the party line in a vain attempt to justify some of the highest energy prices in the world that cause misery and deaths every winter.
The cause for rational debate is not helped by studies like this recently published by Cook et al, which attempts to bolster the hoary old argument that 97% of scientific papers on the subject endorse AGW. As prominent sceptical commentator Anthony Watts shows here a straw poll of the scientists whose papers were categorised as pro-AGW say their work has been mis-represented by the study's authors.
The real scientific consensus is as follows:
- Global temperatures have increased modestly (about 1 degree in total) since the mid-19th Century
- Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are increasing on average around 3% per year, although the rate of change varies considerably by season (more in summer) and geographical location (more in highly vegetated areas and less in populated areas)
- Mankind's carbon emissions roughly equate to the level of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide but the increases are poorly correlated to seasonal (mankind's emissions are higher in winter) and geographical (more in populated areas) changes
- There is an increasingly poor correlation between average global temperature and atmospheric carbon levels.
It seems to me the climate change lobby don't know when to concede defeat. In years to come I am sure we will look back on the whole AGW scare as nothing more than a load of hot air.
* Anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) Global Warming
Friday, May 31, 2013
They doth protest too much, methinks
The reaction to the cartoons from Al Nisbet (shown on this blog), about the government's newly-announced policy to provide children with breakfast at lower decile schools, is more interesting than the cartoons themselves. The cartoons have really brought the political correctness brigade out of the woodwork including that old Marxist, John Minto, who laid a complaint with the Race Relations Conciliator, Susan Devoy.
The cartoonist is not saying much more than I said myself in a comment on Not PC's blog. I pointed out that the policy would give parents the moral mandate not to feed their children breakfast (in fact, Al Nisbet's words in his cartoon were so similar to mine I wondered whether he had read mine). I didn't identify the issue as being specific to Maori or Pacific Island families and, actually, neither explicitly did Al Nisbet. Some of the characters in his cartoons have Polynesian features and that was enough for the professional offence takers to do what they always do - that is, take offence irrespective of whether offence was intended.
Green Party leader Metiria Turei asks about the cartoons, "Does our country really hate us?" My response to that, on another blog, is when you treat the rest of us like slaves who exist merely to serve you, are you really surprised? The productive minority in this country, who pay all the taxes (17% of New Zealand households pay 97% of income taxes), are getting tired of being the milch cows for those who are not prepared to take responsibility for providing for the children that they bring into the world. We have a right to be resentful and Al Nisbet was insightful and absolutely correct to express that sentiment.
The reaction to the cartoons, just like the satirical Danish Islamic cartoons, is indicative of how their author found his mark. As Shakespeare's Queen Gertrude said, the likes of Minto and Turei "doth protest too much". They are shouting that tired cliche "racist!" because they would rather not address the sharp truth in Al Nisbet's satire. The real question, as I said on Not PC's blog, is how can anyone justify paying these parents welfare benefits (including supplements targeted at the care of the child) while at the same time relieving them of the responsibility of feeding their children?
The cartoonist is not saying much more than I said myself in a comment on Not PC's blog. I pointed out that the policy would give parents the moral mandate not to feed their children breakfast (in fact, Al Nisbet's words in his cartoon were so similar to mine I wondered whether he had read mine). I didn't identify the issue as being specific to Maori or Pacific Island families and, actually, neither explicitly did Al Nisbet. Some of the characters in his cartoons have Polynesian features and that was enough for the professional offence takers to do what they always do - that is, take offence irrespective of whether offence was intended.
Green Party leader Metiria Turei asks about the cartoons, "Does our country really hate us?" My response to that, on another blog, is when you treat the rest of us like slaves who exist merely to serve you, are you really surprised? The productive minority in this country, who pay all the taxes (17% of New Zealand households pay 97% of income taxes), are getting tired of being the milch cows for those who are not prepared to take responsibility for providing for the children that they bring into the world. We have a right to be resentful and Al Nisbet was insightful and absolutely correct to express that sentiment.
The reaction to the cartoons, just like the satirical Danish Islamic cartoons, is indicative of how their author found his mark. As Shakespeare's Queen Gertrude said, the likes of Minto and Turei "doth protest too much". They are shouting that tired cliche "racist!" because they would rather not address the sharp truth in Al Nisbet's satire. The real question, as I said on Not PC's blog, is how can anyone justify paying these parents welfare benefits (including supplements targeted at the care of the child) while at the same time relieving them of the responsibility of feeding their children?
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The R Word
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned this week that failure to address Europe's soaring youth unemployment rates and dropping the continent's welfare model could lead to revolution. This is the first time we have heard a Western political leader use the "R" word in association with the current global economic crisis but my guess is it won't be the last.
The fact that a sober-minded German finance minister should make a claim that until recently (if you believe the mainstream media) has been the preserve of the gun-toting, Bible-swearing, bolt-hole-building survivalists who are ridiculed for their predictions of a forthcoming economic and societal collapse, is pretty incredible.
I don't regard myself as one of those right-wing nut jobs (believe it or not) but I have been predicting for some time that the current global economic situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better and that it will lead to widespread violence in some of the worst-affected countries. I think the course of events is obvious and if you want a road map, you only need to look at the 1930s. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 was followed by a deep and prolonged economic downturn that became the Great Depression. It took 4 - 5 years for the impact of the initial stock market collapse in October 1929 to be felt in economies all around the world. The parallels to the banking crisis of 2008 followed by the Global Financial Crisis, which continues until today in much of Europe, is obvious. Governments tried to spend their way out of recession in the 1930s but that only made things worse, particularly in the United States where FDR's huge spending programme ("The New Deal") led to the longest and deepest economic downturn of all. We all know how it turned out for the world at the end of the 1930s.
The Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, in the same article referenced above, calls for more state aid and liberal lending policies towards small businesses - in other words, more of the excessive state spending and central bank pump-priming that led to the recession in the first place. It didn't work in 1935 so why does anyone think it will work in 2013?
There is a myth that Europe is pursuing austerity policies. If austerity means cutting government spending, Europe is doing anything but (as this article shows). Almost all European governments have been spending more than ever before. If that was going to work, it would already be doing so.
I agree with Herr Schaeuble that Europe risks revolution if the dire economic situation there is not addressed but I do not agree that more state spending on welfare and more money-printing to fund it are solutions. It is precisely the entitlement culture of the welfare state and the head-in-the-sand faith that more and more government spending will generate economic growth that is the problem. It is the cause of societal collapse, not the solution. We have seen evidence of this already in the riots in Greece and Spain - disaffected youths who understandably can't fathom why jobs don't magically appear and welfare payments won't keep flowing.
The West has forgotten what made it so successful economically in the first place - a combination of individual self-reliance, largely free markets and respect for private property, plus another important factor - a monetary system with integrity. All of these things have been abandoned by Western governments and all of them must be restored if the West is to prosper again.
The fact that a sober-minded German finance minister should make a claim that until recently (if you believe the mainstream media) has been the preserve of the gun-toting, Bible-swearing, bolt-hole-building survivalists who are ridiculed for their predictions of a forthcoming economic and societal collapse, is pretty incredible.
I don't regard myself as one of those right-wing nut jobs (believe it or not) but I have been predicting for some time that the current global economic situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better and that it will lead to widespread violence in some of the worst-affected countries. I think the course of events is obvious and if you want a road map, you only need to look at the 1930s. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 was followed by a deep and prolonged economic downturn that became the Great Depression. It took 4 - 5 years for the impact of the initial stock market collapse in October 1929 to be felt in economies all around the world. The parallels to the banking crisis of 2008 followed by the Global Financial Crisis, which continues until today in much of Europe, is obvious. Governments tried to spend their way out of recession in the 1930s but that only made things worse, particularly in the United States where FDR's huge spending programme ("The New Deal") led to the longest and deepest economic downturn of all. We all know how it turned out for the world at the end of the 1930s.
The Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, in the same article referenced above, calls for more state aid and liberal lending policies towards small businesses - in other words, more of the excessive state spending and central bank pump-priming that led to the recession in the first place. It didn't work in 1935 so why does anyone think it will work in 2013?
There is a myth that Europe is pursuing austerity policies. If austerity means cutting government spending, Europe is doing anything but (as this article shows). Almost all European governments have been spending more than ever before. If that was going to work, it would already be doing so.
I agree with Herr Schaeuble that Europe risks revolution if the dire economic situation there is not addressed but I do not agree that more state spending on welfare and more money-printing to fund it are solutions. It is precisely the entitlement culture of the welfare state and the head-in-the-sand faith that more and more government spending will generate economic growth that is the problem. It is the cause of societal collapse, not the solution. We have seen evidence of this already in the riots in Greece and Spain - disaffected youths who understandably can't fathom why jobs don't magically appear and welfare payments won't keep flowing.
The West has forgotten what made it so successful economically in the first place - a combination of individual self-reliance, largely free markets and respect for private property, plus another important factor - a monetary system with integrity. All of these things have been abandoned by Western governments and all of them must be restored if the West is to prosper again.
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