Thoughts on Freedom

The government has reduced income taxes as at 1 July. But government inflation has eaten into our after tax spending power and they haven’t even handed back this bracket creep. Clearly our rate of tax is still way too high. If we removed the last three rows in the tax table below then we would have a half way respectable tax system. Ideally we would remove the last four rows from the table.

It is a sad fact that the state of liberty in Australia is in a rather sorry shape. The size and scope of government is consistently increasing, our economic and social freedoms are shrinking, and there is no respite in sight. There can be no denying that freedom is on the retreat.

Yet why is this? Our think tanks are world-class. We have many believers of small government in state and federal parliaments (albeit somewhat hidden in the closet), and youth political organisations like the ALSF are completely onside. Why, by any objective standard, have we failed?

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The problem with censorship is **** **** ****

For anyone who has been in a coma over the last few weeks, there is some political upset in Iran.

Some Muslims pretended to set up a democratic government. Some Muslims objected to the farce and started to protest in the streets. Some other Muslims didn’t like the protests, and so started shooting them. Or maybe it was the first bunch. Or something.

This of course is markedly different to every other upset in the Middle East. And before you all say “of course it’s different – this is one is a struggle between freedom and oppresion, between good and evil”, well think again.

Actually it’s just different because of cell phones. Iran is a wealthy country (compared to most of the other poverty stricken Islamic cess-pits in the world), and protestors and passers-by have cheapo cell phones, which do two interesting things which conventional phones don’t.

Firstly, they do texting, so written reports of bloodshed and oppression can be thumbed out in glorious 160 character sound-bytes (er .. I mean text bytes). Secondly, and more importantly, they have cheapo video cameras in them. Video cameras which can actually record the bloodshed in even more glorious (if low resolution) color.

Humanitarians all over the world were outraged by the youtube video of the murder of a pretty young girl called ‘Neda’, shot through the chest by government forces, and bleeding out of her mouth and nose as she died on the street.

Then we learned that the Iranian government was using technology supplied by Nokia and Siemens to detect ’subversive activity’ on the internet, and the cell phone network. And they used it to censor data and shut down the protests. Naughty Nokia and Siemens.

Now Slashdot reports that two US senators (Schumer and Graham) want to punish Nokia and Siemens for providing that technology. Apparently supplying governments with the technology to restrict internet access is an evil thing to do.

Funny thing is, there are many governments with that this kind of technology. Including the US, and including Australia.

In fact Uncle Kevin is part way through an internet filtering trial which would stop us mere citizens from accessing ‘unwanted’ material (so ‘unwanted’, apparently that we wouldn’t want to access it anyway).

Are they willing to punish multinationals for selling that technology to Australia as well – or just to Axes of Evil?

Selling internet censorship technology must be only evil if it it is sold to bad governments, not to good governments. Because we all know that the likes of Uncle Kev would never abuse their power.

Remember: Other governments are evil, but YOUR government only wants what’s good for you.

New government mascot

Every intellectual Leftist is well aware of the faults of their government. The endless whining and bitching about what the government should and could do features highly over the morning latte. But like a bitter wife complaining about a dead-beat hubby who she refuses to divorce: all would be better if only hubby was nicer to her and had more money and power. The answer to government failure is always the same: bigger and more powerful government will solve the problem.

There are two recent laughable examples of this belief. And while they don’t actually involve the four riders of the Apocalypse (pestilence, plague, famine and war), they do involve plague and fire.

The first example was the political stumble from Queensland’s Premier, Anna Bligh. On the threshold of a swine-flu epidemic she suggested that people might like to stock up on food. Common sense suggests that a few extra tins of soup and some dried milk powder might be a good thing to keep in the back of the pantry.

But there was an immediate outcry at the mere suggestion. Apparently people would panic. And in the panic they would buy, well .. food. And then the shops would run low on food, and then that would cause even more panic and then people would stock up on even more food, and then the children would starve (apparently because there was so much food about), and the dead would walk the earth, and .. well .. it would be better just to make people feel safe.

Of course if she had stuck to her guns and there had been mass scale food buying, several things would have actually happened.

• People would have ended up with a stock-pile of food, and be more prepared for an emergency.
  
• People would have realized how fragile supply mechanisms are in the short term.
  
• People would have realized how robust supply mechanisms are in the longer term.
  
• People would have realized how helpless The Gummint is to do anything about it.
  

All of which would have undermined people’s confidence in the Gummint. So she ‘clarified’ her statement to say that she had only meant ‘a day or two worth of food’. Right.

The second example was the number of calls which were ignored during the Victorian bush fires. Some 80% of calls to the 000 emergency number went unanswered on the day. Apparently people who’s houses were being engulfed in flame were ringing 000 emergency in the belief that the Gummint would (or even could) come and rescue them. Why would anyone think, as their homes and all their neighbours’ bush homes burned, that the Gummint fairy God mother type force .. er .. thing would magically appear and protect them from Mother Nature’s fury? Apparently they believed that spending 20 minutes on hold to the Gummint was better than spending 20 minutes protecting themselves and their families from dying. And die they did.

Clearly the Gummint is a more powerful force than Mother Nature. Or it would be – all they need to do is to create a new law. Right?

Well actually, people’s faith in the government kills them.

Pick a card, any card

There is an old joke about the Rear-admiral’s vice being the Vice-admiral’s rear, (and the Vice-admiral’s rear being the Rear-admiral’s vice). But in the case of Rear-admiral Geoff Smith, his vice seems to have been of a quite different nature. Apparently the chief executive of Sydney Ferries made some $237,000 worth of questionable purchases on his corporate credit card.

Now, all of us who have a corporate credit card know the score. The card is a bit of a perk. You can make a few questionable purchases on the card, and effectively avoid a bit of income tax. Think about it – you make a few grand of purchases on the card – a few taxi fares, some boozy lunches, a new set of clothes, and even the occasional interstate trip, and these quietly get charged to the plastic, with the silent approval of The Boss.

The money is charged to the company (your employer) instead of having to be paid as bonuses. You end up better off because you don’t have to pay income tax on the money (it shows up as a company expense, not taxable income), and your employer doesn’t have to pay payroll tax on the money. Every one ends up better off. Everyone except for Wayne Swan that is, and let’s face it – he’d just use the money to lend to his used-car-selling mates anyway.

So The Corporate Card is a functional tool in tax minimisation, as well as being a powerful symbol of status and trust. Trust, that is, that you won’t over spend on school fees, alcohol, furniture, trips to the theatre and overseas trips for the wife – like the Rear-admiral did. His excuse was that “No one told me I shouldn’t”, and that he thought that using the cards for personal expenses was “an entitlement”.

Many public servants claim to have a strong sense of ’social justice’. Apparently it’s not as strong as their sense of entitlement.

Of course it’s one thing for a private company to give a little extra to a loyal employee. It’s quite another for those in government to give a little extra to their mates. That’s why the public service has much stricter guidelines about employee conduct than the mere public who pay their wages. The endless (and expensive) paperwork, the double and triple checking that goes into just buying a paper clip – it’s all for the common good to protect your taxes.

But where were the checks and balances on the Admiral’s vice? Apparently no-one was taking up the Vice-admiral’s rear. Apparently no-one told them they should. Or maybe the vice goes further than the Rear-admiral?

Or maybe privatization would mean that at least it wouldn’t be the tax-payer’s problem.

To licence or to not licence, that is the question the NSW government seems to have asked itself according to todays SMH. And at least for some professions the government seems to have concluded “why bother”.

Under the bill, expected to be debated in the upper house today, pre-purchase property inspectors, kit-home suppliers, lift mechanics and floor finishers and coverers will no longer be required to be licensed in NSW.

The Greens are upset.

“Licensing is an important mechanism to protect the public from dodgy operators,” the Greens MP John Kaye said. “It makes it easier to obtain redress for poor quality work. It is the first line of consumer protection.”

Perhaps. I operated in business for 10 years in an unlicensed profession (IT professional) and I’m far from convinced that licensing has much to offer either to consumers or to practitioners.  I’m inclined to see licensing as mostly just an added cost of business which is ultimately paid for by consumers. If consumers want licensed operators there are in any case voluntary professional associations that do much the same thing in terms of certifying credentials and the like.

But maybe I’m just biased. What should be a much easier cost benefit analysis, in regards to licensing reform, is the taxi industry. Even if we kept licensing for taxis the cost of obtaining a government taxi license* should not cost more than constructing a new house. Perhaps the government and the Greens could take a look at that regulatory stuff up. There is no public policy defense for taxi licences being so expensive.

* $390,000 for NSW in Feb 2008 – http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/taxis/19458.asp

I read this on a trading blog  which I thought was really amusing. Some parts seem wrong but it does get the essence of what’s going on, particularly in the bailout and other government actions.

It is a slow day in the East Texas town of Madisonville. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from the East is driving through town. He enters the only hotel in the sleepy town and lays a hundred dollar bill on the desk stating he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. As soon as the man walks up the stairs, the hotel proprietor takes the hundred-dollar bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to pay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer then takes the $100 and heads off to pay his debt to the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has lately had to offer her “services” on credit.The hooker runs to the hotel and pays off her debt with the $100 to the hotel proprietor, paying for the rooms that she had rented when she brought clients to that establishment.

The hotel proprietor then lays the $100 bill back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler from the East walks back down the stairs, after inspecting the rooms. He picks up the $100 bill and states that the rooms are not satisfactory…… Pockets the money and walks out the door and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However the whole town is now out of debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today. If that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, then I don’t know what will.

These days I listen to the radio a lot more than I used to. Steve Fielding has been interviewed many times this past week in regards to his questioning of climate science and asking whether CO2 is really the driver of global warming. He has been asking how temperature could be so flat over the last decade even as CO2 kept on rising. What has been painful to listen to has been Steve’s repeated introduction to such interviews with a deliberate statement that he is not a sceptic or an extremist. Painful because clearly he is a bit of a sceptic. And painful secondly because being a sceptic is somehow such a negative thing that Steve has to go into pre-emptive denial just to remain viable within the discussion. How did being a sceptic become so demonised?

What I also find notable is the media attention that a senator can attract. It is not as if the question he is asking has not been asked by others. In any case he seems to be handling the interviews with considerable ease. For those that have missed it here is a sample.