Spinning the climate out of control

By metaphor/analogy, and just as sensible a spin…

In the national interest must strike a balance with initiatives so they will not be harmful to our economy.  For example, there are some lunatic proposals to limit the amount of junk food advertising to children.

Both the Liberals and the ALP are in agreement and rejected this.  This is not me-tooism but a demonstration of sensible common ground.

The proximal industry hit, of course, will be the commercial media, the loss of advertising income would naturally lead to cuts in the quality of programming the vast majority of ordinary Australians enjoy – we’d hate Ramsay Street to be reduced to Ramsay Dirt Track.

More importantly, decreasing consumption of food, particularly highly processed food, inevitably leads to a drop in consumer demand that would cause many job losses in the retail and services sector, as well as making it even tougher for our farmers already suffering from the drought.

There are other hits the economy would take if there were unreasonable fixed targets for a decrease in average adiposity.  The medical industry, which has become efficient as private companies have entered the sector with reforms over recent years, would see a massive decrease in patronage on a per-capita whole-of-life basis, because of the significant decrease in the number of years their consumers would be in the market for high-profit products such as the hypocholestraemics.

Excellent LP post on Oz military procurement incompetence

I strongly recommend the 2007-10-30 post on LP by Robert Merkel, that discusses Australia’s incompetent spending on military hardware, kicked off by the 4-corners program that explored this incompetence using the Super-Hornet scandal.

To help get the gory details on the Howard/Costello regime’s dangerous and expensive military incompetence, so you can point out to the nongs who think Howard has made Australian militarily strong (rather than aggressive but weak), read the earlier LP posts in the same thread, the 4-corners transcript, my 2007-03-31 post wondering if this was incompetence or corruption (probably both).

If you are interested in the Super Hornet, I strongly recommend you visit the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and put "Super Hornet" in the search box.  This paper (2007-02-13) has a lot of details, including comparative costs of the SuperHornet to the F-22 Raptor (which the US would let us buy if they actually liked us), and pointing out the significant lack of commonality of parts between the Hornets (which we’ve had for a while) and the SuperHornets – despite the similar names.

Andrew Robb BS about so-called tough economy

ABC Lateline’s interview with Andrew Robb (2007-10-29) left me gobsmacked when Robb started spouting about how the Howard/Costello government has been a good economic manager through difficult economic times.

What???  Apart from some pretty shocking economic figures (Rate the CEO and CFO of Oz) that tell me the economy is tick, tick, ticking and will go "Boom!" all too soon, the "difficult times" is rubbish.

I posted some time ago (The Economist damns Howard with faint praise 2007-05-17) that the most reputable economic journalists in the world think Howard has had an easy ride, and The Economist (2007-10-18) again pointed out that Chinese demand is the driver, not Howard’s government.

Steering the economy through a boom fuelled largely by China’s demand for Australia’s minerals has served Mr Howard well up to now.

… or, another gem in the same article …

Mr Howard’s tendency to use budget surpluses to throw money at voters in marginal seats shows a reckless side that has probably hurt as many voters as it has helped.

Frankly, with Chinese demand for raw materials, Australia should be as profitable as a knocking shop when the US Navy is in town… cashed up, putting in new mattresses, … instead, while lots of customers have definitely been getting their jollies, we have been running a massive deficit, the mattresses have got springs poking out of them, and the showers are running dry.

The general belief that Howard is a good and cautious manager of the economy in the national interest, when the most authoritative journal-of-record on economic matters describes him as "reckless" says much about the excellent capabilities of the Liberal Party spinsters, the gutlessness of the ALP to engage in robust economic debate, and the ignorance of the Australian public.

Patients per Doctor: Oz ain’t brilliant

From the always interesting Strange Maps site comes a map of the world made up of patient/doctor ratios, which you can see here.

Parliamentary Inquiry for Citizen Feedback Blog

All Australian bloggers with an interest in politics should be aware of, and probably participate in the current consultation process by the government to create a blog mechanism for citizens to engage in policy development.

Responses will be accepted until 2007-12-01, with the report due early 2008.

Gary Nairn, minister inter alia for the excellent (because of staff, not the executive) Australian Government Information Management Office, is pushing for such mechanisms for citizen engagement, and I urge you to read through the discussion paper (which covers issues like moderation rules, publication of responses, yadayadayada),available here.

One thing I’ll note is that I’d hate to see the existing formal method of making submissions to parliament disappear.  If the volume of messages to government increases, the quality will probably go down, and this may give governments the opportunity to ignore the more scathing perceptive analysis as the government can claim to be "too busy" reading over everything.

Szechuan Skippy and the Parliamentary Inquiry

The Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee have opened up an appropriately large window for an Inquiry into Climate Change and the Australian Agricultural Sector that deserves many well-considered submissions.  I’m thinking of reworking the thoughts of "Szechuan Skippy Anyone?" as I think roo farming (and eating) is one topic unlikely to gain attention, yet involves significant environmental and economic benefits, especially given the forecasts from the IPCC.

I’m after comments from readers on the benefits of roo farming and any suggestions for schemes that might help farmers migrate from environmentally-damaging hoofed quadrupeds, and recommend you first also read the original post at the DeadRoo which has much useful feedback from someone who has looked into the economic and environmental effects of roo farming.

More importantly, I hope that many of you will consider making a submission, or at least, if you are associated with any groups with an economic, environmental, and/or farming interest, pushing your group to make a submission.

Here is the blurb from the terms of reference:

Babes with Chainsaws

AV’s post(1) about Christian sabotage of Western technological and scientific advancement is correct (despite strange comments by some readers) as far as it goes, but I think the real damage is that philosophical and moral development was, and still is, held back even more, leaving us as "babes with chainsaws", a very dangerous state of affairs.

CEO and CFO of Oz : Rate them!

Imagine that Australia was a company, Howard & Costello were CEO and CFO, look at the following graphs, think about what would happen to such managers in the private sector:

Ballooning debt

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Balance becoming blood red

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More bankrupts

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More household debt

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Workers getting less of the pie

Now imagine what would happen if the CEO and CFO trotted such graphs out at an AGM and said that the company has never had it so good and they were brilliant managers!  You can bet that the CEO and CFO would make their presentation by video link rather than in person so they could avoid the significant risk of being lynched!

And even if the shareholders didn’t throttle them, you can bet that ASIC would be taking action for being so misleading!

It’s a pity the graphs don’t go back to 1996, or even 1990.  Does anybody out there have the data and want to post the graphs so we can all make proper judgements?

The data is taken from Parliamentary Monthly Economic and Social Indicators.  The links will probably point to very different images after one month, so if the links look weird, go here and browse…  What a pity we can’t all get the spreadsheets!

Sense about the tax cuts – from a brave pollie

Finally, Some sense from a politician about the blegabuck tax cuts reported by the ABC 2007-10-24, pointing out that the tax cuts proposed by the ALP and Coalition are bad for the economy and people. Lyn Allison (Dem), risking the ire of voters who love being porked, said:

Both parties have added to that interest rate pressure with their shameless vote buying… Treasury has warned about election campaigns triggering bad policy decisions and true to form they [the major parties] are both rolling them out… Re-direct expenditure to where it is badly needed – in health and education… Restrict tax relief to low income pensioners, carers and working Australians… $34 billion worth of pork-barrelling plus many billions more without adequate attention to inflationary pressure means we’ll all end up paying for it in the end.

I couldn’t agree more.  Allison could only have been more accurate about the state of things by commenting about electors’ attitudes picked up by focus groups run by the majors – but saying such things out loud would be a politician shooting h{er|im}self in the head, not the foot.

It’s refreshing to see a politician saying exactly the opposite of what the major party strategists have figured out the electorate wants to hear.

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See Also:

• A fistful of dollars by Geoffrey Barker, 2007-10-19, on Australian Policy Online
  

  The Coalition’s tax cuts will entrench private affluence and deepen public squalor…  Rudd Labor does not seem much inclined to focus on broader economic and social implications.

• Howard and Rudd prevent choice by voters 2007-10-24

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Pollies should give spreadsheets with pledges

Apart from the wisdom of the A$30 billion tax cuts over the next few years promised by both major parties, I’m skeptical about whether they will actually be delivered.  Perhaps another way of informing voters of such matters is required.

The pledges (not necessarily just tax cuts) depend on a number of factors describing capacity to pay and possible changes to the need.  Both of these are modelled from forecasts by departments of Treasury and/or Finance, themselves dependent on forecasts of economists.

Election: Bias Disclosure

A {reminder,hint} to {older,newer readers} so you can take my election comments with the salt of my declared biases: you can see an outline of my position on economic and political spectra here and my recently-published rationale for upper-house (and below-the-line) voting here.

Howard and Rudd prevent choice by voters

While touting a philosophical preference for individual choice, Howard (and Rudd) have decided to limit the choice of individuals about what to do with 30-odd billion dollars.

The choice removed from electors is to spend that money on programs or infrastructure in the national interest to the benefit of all.  Such choices about expenditure are not available to individuals through mere tax cuts.

What would enable true choice for electors is the ability to hypothecate a proportion of that $30B to tax cuts and/or a selection of government programs.

Rudd’s flawed laptop proposals

Rudd’s plan to provide funding for student computing resources is welcome, but some of the details seem flawed.  This post will not only point out some of the flaws, but how the weaknesses can be overcome.

Outline of flaws

1. I’ve seen no mention of funding for tertiary students, who arguably have a greater need than secondary or primary students.
    
2. A direct and timely rebate administered through educational institutions would be better than a tax rebate.
    
3. Funding should not be available for software.
    
4. Funding for internet connections should be minimal.

NFF ads on IR

The National Farmers Federation advertisements pushing for further industrial relations changes (in line with the Howard agenda, even if denied) are interesting for two reasons:

1. If there is no chance that Howard/Costello would continue their assault on workplace rights, then it is a waste of money taken from hard-pressed farmers.
2. The major problems facing small farmers, who are committed to their land, rather than corporates who can readily move their capital elsewhere, relate to climate change, in which case the Howard government deserves criticism and not support.

If I was a farmer on family land, I’d be asking questions about these ads and the responsibility of NFF leaders.  As I’m not a farmer, the ad raises questions about the true intent of the coalition for industrial relations.

“Lateline” admits campaign is issueless?

Did ABC’s Lateline (2007-10-17) expect election news (scare campaigns by the Libs, holier-than-thou claims by the ALP) would be so predictable, and that Julia Gillard would say nothing in response to Tony Jones’ good questions, so they planned for the time they gave to gossip about a footballer who hasn’t played a game for ages, something of little interest to viewers of late-night ABC current affairs?

Meanwhile, Lateline Business explored issues of greater political import, without a politician in sight, probably because no politician wants to talk about these important issues in any substantive way: