Conroy you dumb bastard, come here !

You are the stupidest power-hungry tyrant to be empowered with ministerial responsibility in the history of Australian politics.

Come on.. I dare you. Watch this website. Monitor it closely. I know you want to. You might learn a thing or too.

The Federal Government will begin trawling blog sites as part of a new media monitoring strategy, with official documents singling out a website critical of the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy

Private vs Public sector.

Public transport is a fricking disaster.

(the above sentence applies equally for public health and education)

The latest doom and gloom comes in an Age article titled..

Hard-times just the ticket for public transport.

Most socialists need only glance at the above headline and immediately begin with their usual script full of the empty talking points which are easily demolished through logic, and repeatedly refuted through evidence and facts.

Those talking points are as follows:

• Not enough funding ! The government has been and continues to deprive "the system" of sufficient resources (This talking point comes from public transport lobby groups, unions and the ABC )
  
• Poor and dumb planning. (Usually the opposition political parties and media figures recite this one)
• Unregulated free markets are to blame !! (From the ABC and the hard left)
  

Each of these arguments is vague and shallow. Not a single fan of public transport would care to tell us what sufficient funding is. Nor would they tell us what "good planning" is. And the 3rd falsheood is all too easy to trot out, by asserting that free markets exist everywhere and that no act of government played any role in creating or exacerbating the problems.

Yet ... history clearly and unambiguously reveals that each new decade brings about more and more funding for each public sector industry, more and more efforts placed into planning and regulation, and more pages of regulation and greater government ownership than before.

The exceptions are the success stories - when government privatised AND DEREGULATED industries like telecommunications, banking, transport, trade, commerce and hospitality.

The leftists cannot have their cake and eat it too. They cannot place thousands of regulations on a semi-privatised public transport sector, where only the train operator bids for the government contract to operate a monopoly, and then give their usual knee-jerk reaction of blaming free markets/privatisation when things go wrong.

Back to the story:

THE deteriorating economy is adding to Melbourne's public transport woes, with commuters boarding trains, trams and buses to save money.

A survey of 600 people by public transport marketing and information agency Metlink has found that 75 per cent of Melburnians are trying to save money because of worries over the economy. As a result, a third are looking to use public transport more to cut their budgets.

Read that paragraph. What is the actual news item being reported ?

More people are using public transport.

Why is this "bad" or "grim" news ? ?! Isn't this what the government wants us to do ? They tell us not to use our cars, they place stamp duty, registration, fuel taxes and parking restrictions everywhere, they tell us to catch more trains and do our bit for "the environment".

Could you imagine the same response for any single private industry out there ?
If more people buy televisions, or groceries, or go out to the movies, or go out to restaurants, would that particular industry complain ? No, they would be overjoyed and do their best to serve all these willing customers.

I think even the most hard-core statists, the advocates of socialised health, medicine, education and transport, realise deep-down some of the inherent problems in their huge plans to spend our money on their personal priorities for society, but fail to publicly acknowledge them.

The best overview of the subprime collapse

An 86 minutes long video. This is it.

Boy was this crisis a failure of government regulation and socialism.

The economic boom !

In troubled times, where is this safe-haven that provides high and rising wages, widespread employment and rising standards of living ?

Canberra !!

Employee Earnings and Household Incomes

Average weekly full-time adult ordinary time earnings in Canberra are approximately A$1,280 per week, which is 16 per cent higher than the Australian average. However, as noted earlier, output per capita of Canberra workers is 31 per cent above the national average.

Earnings and the high workforce participation rate are also reflected in disposable household income figures for Canberra. The gross household disposable income per capita at A$49,923 is around 61 per cent higher in Canberra than the national average.

Modern Telecommunications Infrastructure

The high quality of infrastructure serving Canberra provides many advantages to businesses. Canberra was one of the first cities in the world to introduce a broadband fibre-optic network, and the ACT ranks alongside Singapore, Finland, Sweden and the USA as having one of the world’s most IT-connected communities.

Operating a Business in Canberra

There are more than 25,000 businesses in Canberra covering almost every conceivable form of activity and business structure. They range in size from multinationals that have strategically chosen Canberra so they can be close to the Australian Government’s A$200 billion procurement decisions, right down to micro businesses servicing larger businesses, the public sector or the needs of local people.

They range in size from multinationals that have strategically chosen Canberra so they can be close to the Australian Government’s A$200 billion procurement decisions, right down to micro businesses servicing larger businesses, the public sector or the needs of local people.

Workforce

Canberra’s workforce comprises approximately 200,000 people, made up of 190,000 residents and approximately 10,000 people who commute from nearby population centres in New South Wales. About 115,000 Canberrans are employed in the Territory’s private sector, with the balance employed in the public sector. [ 200,000 - 115,000 = 85,000 public servants !]

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The chief minister of the A.C.T provides the following factoids:

• the ACT record low unemployment rates - the ACT’s current unemployment rate of 2.7 per cent in May 2008 is well below the rate in any other jurisdiction;
• an average weekly wage in Canberra about $180 more than the national average.
• increased expenditure on health, which has almost doubled from 2001-02 to 2008-09;

Yes, Canberra, mafia headquarters, is where a lot of the stolen loot is handed out !

Stimulating our debt

How can I possibly debunk each and every fallacy, idiocy and lunacy presented in the:

$42 Billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan

I think these monumental wastes of capital and destruction of wealth and savings speak for themselves:

• Free ceiling insulation for around 2.7 million Australian homes

• Build or upgrade a building in every one of Australia's 9,540 schools

• Build more than 20,000 new social and defence homes

• $950 one off cash payments to eligible families, single workers, students, drought effected farmers and others

• A temporary business investment tax break for small and general businesses buying eligible assets

• Significantly increase funding for local community infrastructure and local road projects

I've always been complaining about welfare and government spending from a moral and philosophical point of view. It is all too easy to attack welfare from a practical point of view, saying that it goes to "bludgers" and "cheats".

But the real hazards behind the system, the very essence of why an extensive welfare system is immoral, and the very rationale that is articulated so clearly by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, is the following:

That people can present their *needs* as a claim on the property and liberty of others.

And thus each and every need (including failures, mistakes and idleness) are ultimately what are rewarded and compensated by government.

Our government occasionally lets the mask slip, to reveal that this very principal and philosophy is at the core of every regulation. Every single "stimulus" measure is carefully designed to exclude the self-sufficient, and those with a good income. Every single stimulus measure rewards failure of some kind.

Build 500 new science laboratories and language learning centres in schools that can demonstrate need.

Urgent maintenance to upgrade around 2,500 vacant social house

$950 Farmer's Hardship Bonus paid to around 21,500 drought affected farmers and farm dependent small business owners receiving exceptional circumstances related income support.

$950 per child Back to School Bonus to support 2.8 million children from low- and middle-income families.

At least 20,000 low-income households will be assisted by having access to secure and affordable public or community housing.

You see my point already ?

Every dollar the government spends is forcibly taken from somebody else who earned it. They are being compelled to pay for certain things. Those certain things are all justified on the basis of need. Nothing more and nothing less.

The fox in charge of the henhouse

Or otherwise - why Australia's federal budget is doomed.

Ken Henry and his band of looting socialist thugs at the Treasury have revealed their ugly stripes in a leaked report given to the PM in 2008.

THE private health insurance rebate paid to millions of Australians is "very poor policy" and should be dumped, according to a confidential briefing to Treasurer Wayne Swan.

Okay, so far, I follow you. After all, if the government was giving a 30 percent subsidy, we could have a tax cut in its place and use the savings, right?

Documents obtained by The Age reveal that Treasury, in one of its first briefings to the Rudd Government after its 2007 election win, urged Mr Swan to seriously consider scrapping the rebate. The briefing said the billions of dollars lost annually to the rebate would be better spent on public hospitals.

Bugger !

Money would be "better spent on public hospitals" ? Public hospitals who feed at the trough, fail to improve services despite their revenue doubling over a decade, and who control, regulate and ration out critical health services to the lucky few ?

How can such bad and unsound advice come from Treasury, who are appointed to spend tax-payers money ? Our budget is entirely doomed, we've already seen a couple of big states hit the financial brick wall (NSW + QLD), its easy to guess that Rudd will drive the federal government into the same situation by the time his first term is up.

But lets not worry about such things. Bless the money hole !

The latest bailout news from the People's Soviet Republic of America

Mike Shedlock magnificently translates financial-speak in this latest joint statement from the Treasury and Fed:
-------------------------------

A strong, resilient financial system is necessary to facilitate a broad and sustainable economic recovery. The U.S. government stands firmly behind the banking system during this period of financial strain to ensure it will be able to perform its key function of providing credit to households and businesses. The government will ensure that banks have the capital and liquidity they need to provide the credit necessary to restore economic growth. Moreover, we reiterate our determination to preserve the viability of systemically important financial institutions so that they are able to meet their commitments.

My Comment: Clearly, the US Government will continue to bail out insolvent banks no matter what it costs taxpayers.

"We announced on February 10, 2009, a Capital Assistance Program to ensure that our banking institutions are appropriately capitalized, with high-quality capital. Under this program, which will be initiated on February 25, the capital needs of the major U.S. banking institutions will be evaluated under a more challenging economic environment. Should that assessment indicate that an additional capital buffer is warranted, institutions will have an opportunity to turn first to private sources of capital. Otherwise, the temporary capital buffer will be made available from the government. This additional capital does not imply a new capital standard and it is not expected to be maintained on an ongoing basis.

My Translation: "This new capital will not cost anyone anything. It will be dispensed by magic fairies and recovered at a later date. We cannot share exactly how this magic works because under the rules of the magic ministry, we would be stripped of our magic hats and lose the rights to dispense magic if we did. Trust us. This is the proverbial free lunch that everyone says does not exist. However, like magic pixie dust, it does exist, it really does."

Any government capital will be in the form of mandatory convertible preferred shares, which would be converted into common equity shares only as needed over time to keep banks in a well-capitalized position and can be retired under improved financial conditions before the conversion becomes mandatory. Previous capital injections under the Troubled Asset Relief Program will also be eligible to be exchanged for the mandatory convertible preferred shares. The conversion feature will enable institutions to maintain or enhance the quality of their capital.

My Comment: The market cap of Citigroup is $11.5 billion. The market cap of Bank of America is $20.3 billion. How does a Government guarantee $400 billion of Citigroup and Bank of America debt and inject another $75 billion in preferred convertible shares without costing anyone a dime and without requiring any new capital? Why, magic pixie dust of course.

The ACCC responds !

To my mock-complaint made last week, about electronics retailers who offer "best price guarantees" and who sell goods "below cost price" to consumers.

Of course, I am personally satisfied, not outraged, that businesses make every effort to sell goods and services to customers. They should have every right to offer and set whatever prices they please.

But the sad reality is that Trade Practices Act, and all of its devilish detail exists, and the ACCC has been known to successfully prosecute businesses for charging prices too high, too low, changing prices quickly or simply for being a dominant market player.

The ACCC representative suggested that my accusation that these large electronic retailers were engaged in some kind of predatory pricing under Section 45 of the TPA would fail on two counts:

1/ You need to prove the seller is in an "extremely dominant market position". Harvey Norman and Clive Peeters, although both are large, are considered to operate in a highly competitive market where lots of people sell competing electronics.

2/ You need to prove that the seller is "keeping their prices below cost for a prolonged period of time with a specific intention of targeting their competition".

I explained how the legislation is quite vague and ambiguous, that is why I thought that it could be applied to just about any succesful business in Australia. The ACCC representative replied that the legislation in Australia is quite short, and the rule of thumb is to interpret case law to look at similar situations.

I questioned how the ACCC establishes the "intention of targeting a business" part - was it by guessing ? They responded that there are cases where there is evidence - giving the example of a large supermarket that continually and repeatedly undercutting a small grocery store in the same shopping centre, whilst making inquiries about its suppliers and costs.

( This is what I call normal competition - and the consumer benefits from this )

What isn't mentioned is that if, by the same token, the small grocery store monitors the supermarket prices, and responds by undercutting every price and outdoing them on every special, the legislation cannot or would not likely be used against the small player.

The way I see it, basically is that a judge, on his whim, *can* choose to punish a business under the TPA for engaging in regular trade. And the business is in extreme trouble of it is the most succesful player in its industry.

Recessions are healthy things

Yes indeed, recessions are the medicine an economy needs to take before it gets better.

Certainly, it has tragic consequences for many hard workers and home owners and borrowers throughout the economy as output contracts. But the underlying theme is that so many human activities and so many resources were mis-allocated towards speculative bubble activities.

The best thing about these depressions is that it uncovers all the irrationalities, myths and misconceptions that existed during the bubble period. We just emerged from the biggest credit bubble in history. The assumption was that property and share prices would continue to soar, Asian economies would continue to grow and make things cheap, the Western consumer would never satsify his appetite to consume imports and grow their debt, and the savers of the world (Brazil Russia India China and the Middle Eastern states) would fuel America's debt forever.

THATS A LOT OF RISKY ASSUMPTIONS THERE ! I say good riddance to them.

And Obama and Bernanke think this kind of process is unhealthy ?

Whenever the crunch hits and people try to pull their money out, you see just how honest and sound some of these speculative activities were. Yet another ponzi scam was just unconvered. How many years did the SEC have to investigate these guys??

Texas financier R. Allen Stanford is accused of cheating 50,000 customers out of $8 billion dollars but despite raids Tuesday of his financial empire in Houston, Memphis, and Tupelo, Miss., federal authorities say they do not know the current whereabouts of the CEO.

Of course, you can't pull off a scam without government connections. Why doesn't an angry mob form outside Washington and demand the heads of the following politicians ?

But in addition to angry clients, Stanford, like Madoff, has many friends in Washington.

Stanford's business is headquartered on the Caribbean island of Antigua. In the last decade, Stanford and his companies have spent more than $7 million on lobbyists and campaign contributions in efforts to loosen regulation of offshore banks.

Among the top recipients: Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the members who took a trip to Antigua where he was entertained by Stanford.

Look how blatantly corrupt America has become - Washington has an ever increasing budget to spend ($1 trillion stimulus anyone ?) with growing regulatory powers each year, its no wonder every business tries to lobby and bribe politicians to get on board. How can Washington have the infinite wisdom to dish out $1 trillion of payback within a few days, in an optimal way that will stimulate economic growth ?




During the recessions, you get to re-discover reality.. it can be ugly, but society is better off without all these ponzi schemes.