The bailout to end all taxes
Guest post by Gavin R. Putland
In Australia we have the world’s most overpriced housing. Federal and State governments and the Reserve Bank live in fear that the bottom will fall out of the housing market, leaving recent buyers with negative equity, causing a financial collapse and depression after the example of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In a desperate attempt to keep the music going, governments have been pumping taxpayers’ money — your money — into the housing market.
The Federal Government brought in the First Home Owners’ Boost to inflate a fresh bubble at the bottom of the housing market, and kept it going just long enough for the bubble to spread to the top of the market — through first-time buyers leveraging their grants, then sellers leveraging their capital gains, and so on. The original $7000 Federal grant for first-time buyers is still in place. Various State governments have their own grants on top of this. Instead of bailing out the banks, Australian governments in the main are trying to bail out the housing market before the problem reaches the banks.
The World needs Hong Kong
… and Hong Kong needs competition.
In the Annual Index of Economic Freedom published by the Frazer Institute of Canada and the Heritage Foundation of USA Hong Kong comes out on top year after year, followed by Singapore.
Hong Kong’s famous Laissez Faire Capitalist system works. It has made Hong Kong prosperous and uniquely successful. Low taxes, predictable rule-of-law, strong property-rights, low regulation, banking privacy and a history of ‘good behaviour’ in the financial and political areas make it attractive to capital and talent.
He Hasn’t Built a Single House, But He Thinks He Can Save the Planet
Guest post by Chris Leithner
I’ve long suspected that the people who design the front page of The Australian have a wicked sense of humour, and today’s (16 November) front page confirms that suspicion. The first paragraph of “Home Scheme Falling Short” reads “Four out of five proposed renovations to houses in several central Australian communities have been scrapped because of cost blowouts in the crisis-ridden $672 million Aboriginal housing program, which is yet to build a single house.”
The lead article (“Bid to Rescue Climate Talks”), on the other hand, informs us that “Kevin Rudd and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, have been at the centre of the late bid to prevent the collapse of next month’s Copenhagen talks, amid acceptance that the conference will fail to produce binding targets for reducing global carbon emissions.” It quoted the Prime Minister: “It’s going to be as tough as all hell but, let me tell you, I believe that everyone is seeking right now to put their best foot forward.” A PM whose government has failed to erect a single dwelling for Aborigines in the Northern Territory nonetheless persists in the delusion that he can “save” the world’s climate. Who needs gifted comedians when we have the front page of The Australian to start the day with a hearty laugh?
“The larger the mob, the harder the test” wrote HL Mencken in The Baltimore Evening Sun (26 July 1920). “In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.”
Mencken continued: “the Presidency [and, it’s worth adding, Australia’s Prime Ministership!] tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House [and The Lodge] will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Entrepreneurs: The Real “Peace Prize” Winners
We live in ludicrous times of rewarding good appearance for evil action. President Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while his war efforts intensify. But those who are true promoters of peace need attention, for they will never likely receive such ostentatious recognition for their noble efforts. Such individuals are those who take risks in a world of uncertainty, and who save or borrow capital to start a business. Such entrepreneurs promote peace by serving the customer better than the next entrepreneur through voluntary transactions in the market, rather than commanding bureaucracy in government.
As part of my entrepreneurship courses, I have students who want to start their own business listen to new entrepreneurs discuss their background, their reasons for starting the business, and of their effort to establish the business. Students usually find these speakers fascinating and inspiring, but also come away with a sense of the enormous amount of effort, capital, risk, and uncertainty that is involved in starting a business. Many of these students decide they no longer want to start their own business. They realize that entrepreneurs, too, have a boss: the customer. Mises put it this way: “Ownership of the means of production is not a privilege, but a social liability.”
Paddy McGuinness’ Private Library up for sale
The private library of one of Australia’s most controversial and contrarian intellectuals, PP McGuinness, will be up for sale in Sydney on Saturday 21 November 2009.
The thousands of books in McGuinness’ collection describe the broad thinking and eclectic interests of a contrarian and often incendiary thinker. From Palgrave to poetry, politics to film, PP McGuinness’ private collection spanned all genres of literature and thought, and influenced McGuinness’s contribution to Australian intellectual history.
Paddy McGuinness’s daughter, Parnell, says “There are almost ten thousand books here — more than I can possibly keep. It’s time to distribute the books to people who want them and will appreciate them. There are some rare, out-of-print editions, as well as some which are almost too common. I think there are five copies of Madame Bovary in there.”
The Paddy McGuinness Last Drinks Book Fair will be held in McGuinness’ garden in Darling Street Balmain on Saturday 21 November. Books, BBQ and drinks will be available 10am-4pm.
Paddy McGuinness was one of this country’s most renowned and controversial commentators. His intellectual life traversed both sides of Australian political terrain, and his mischievous pleasure in playing devil’s advocate caused him to be alternately revered and reviled by ideologues in an intellectual arena dominated by partisan politics.
From his early years as a rabble raiser among the libertarian, anti-establishment movement known as the Sydney Push during the 1950s and 1960s, Paddy went on to work as an economist for the Moscow Narodny Bank and lectured at the University of London. After a period as film critic for The National Review, then adviser to the federal government during the mid-1970s, he became editor of the Australian Financial Review, and then columnist for The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1997 Paddy was appointed editor of Quadrant and continued in that role until his death last year.
About Shaken and Stirred:
Shaken and Stirred was started by Parnell McGuinness and Leonie Phillips in May 2008. Modelled on the Parisian salons of the enlightenment, Shaken and Stirred events gypsy through Sydney presenting unusual speakers on provocative ideas. With no agenda other than to encourage lively and interesting discussion, the events bring people from across the political spectrum together for raucous debate in a relaxed environment.
Past speakers have included sociologist Frank Furedi, journalist Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, bioethicist Julian Savulescu, historian John Hirst, former politician Michael Costa, sex-worker activist Elena Jeffreys, founder of Arts and Letters Daily Denis Dutton and blogger Antony Loewenstein.
All profits from the book fair will go to the publication of Binge Thinking, a collection of the thoughts of Shaken and Stirred Supper Club participants from across the political and intellectual spectrum.
To find out more please contact:
Leonie Phillips, Shaken and Stirred
Phone: 0403 063 852
Email: thoughtbroker@gmail.com
Web: http://thoughtbroker.wordpress.com
Confessions Of A Bleeding-Heart Libertarian
A guest post from a self-described left-libertarian…have fun! 
I’ve been going back and forth trying to think of an interesting “left-libertarian” post for Thoughts on Freedom. I describe my new blog, Civil Tongues Australia, as being in part dedicated to Left Libertarian political thought – but really, I’m no expert in this area.
Recently, on this blog, John Humphries wrote an interesting post about what might draw people to left-libertarian visions, and I thought in responding to that post, rather than taking a “foundational” approach and trying to define a left-libertarian theory I would instead write about what has drawn me, pragmatically, to “left” libertarian ideals.
Noam Chomsky, in a paper in the collection “Chomsky on Anarchism”, makes the distinction between ‘goals’ and ‘visions’.
Most people who identify with libertarianism share a fairly similar “vision”: that in order to flourish people must be free to pursue their life in a way that they see fit. No other person, or group of persons, has the right – or the ability – to tell them how to pursue their life or what their goals should be.
If we were omniscient beings who were planning communities, or revolutionaries who believed in wiping the slate clean, we may come up with fairly similar ways* of arranging society.
However, this is generally not our concern – instead, we seek to apply our libertarian principals within complex pre-existing societies. It is in these pragmatic goals that we tend to differ greatly.
In my case, although I would certainly fall on the “illegitimate authority ought to be eliminated if possible, whether it be corporate or government” side of the libertarian scale, I believe that libertarian ideals in the context of Australian/global society today also give a moral imperative to “left” rather than “right” libertarianism.
Can the libertarian in a modern society take as their highest goal the protection of property rights and the minimisation of government when so many of the resources and so much of our success in society is attached to historical (and in some cases continuing) repression of the rights and freedoms of others?
And when the success of a state is based on repression does not the state bear some obligation to redress the balance?
In my opinion, the libertarian cannot ignore the claims of those who have been repressed and continue to bear the burden of that repression. Furthermore, the libertarian cannot simply refuse to accept that the state should have a role in rectifying the problems that is has caused. To do so would undermine the very principles they seek to protect.
As I have said before on my blog, I’ve never really understood why libertarianism automatically leads to a desire for free-market capitalism above all else. For me, the desire should be for everyone to have free and fair opportunities to pursue their lives in the manner they see fit and have as much freedom from the domination of others as possible.
The left-libertarian, then, does not have an obligation to argue against all state intervention full stop, but to argue for a state that, when it does intervene, does so in a way that gives the power back to communities and individuals and allows multiple, flexible approaches that foster the creativity and problem-solving skills of the people they are affecting rather than simply imposing solutions from on high.
While our overall vision of the way society (or perhaps I should say ‘societies’) would certainly not include a big federal government down in Canberra running welfare programs, we cannot move forward without addressing the inequalities in liberty that are the legacy of our past. In order to be useful as well as just theoretically interesting libertarians must deal with the realities of the society they find themselves in.
*well, actually, when it comes to the various evils of power there would probably be quite a bit of disagreement about whether it is only state power that should be eliminated or whether power from corporations is an equal evil… but that’s another post.
Economists on strike?
This is a guest post by Chris Brown, who is a lecturer at the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University. It was originally published at mises.org and Chris blogs at Austro-libertarian.
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A recent teachers’ union strike that included economists and other business faculty members at my university — ironically and yet unsurprisingly led by an economics lecturer — has motivated me to consider the intended consequences of these strike actions.
Economists are prone to call the consequences of many decisions “unintended,” and thus assume the actors are genuinely ignorant of these effects or would otherwise not choose the actions that cause them. However, I must give these economists qua economists credit for a minimum knowledge of the effects of unions and strikes, and assume they knew the likely outcomes of their actions. If they did not understand these consequences, they surely cannot be worthy of what some consider a noble title: economist.
In the union’s political self-interest, these economists are making nearly everyone else worse off by going on strike. They went on strike to request, inter alia, higher wages and more paid leave.
Guest Post: Agorism
The ALS is a very broad and diverse organisation, representing many strands of pro-freedom thought. While I know many of our more committed members would be aware of it, one movement I noticed we haven’t heard much about in Australia is agorism, which at its simplest is the use of black markets to promote free market ideals. A friend of mine here agreed to write up a brief post for us outlining the agorist case, which I think those of you unaware of the movement would find interesting. (As always , I must preface this by saying that I do not necessarily endorse or agree with this post).
Agorism – Peter J. Neiger
While idea of anarchy is far from a new one there are revolutionary developments and strategies being debated and theorized constantly. One of the newer strategies is the use of counter-economics or Agorism to bring about the desired change.
To ensure we are on the same page I feel like one quick definition is necessary. When I refer to Anarchy this is does not mean chaos, I am referring to the original Greek translation of anarchia meaning “without a ruler”. While there are some variations of anarchists most believe that change cannot happen through the current system, this is what separates them in method from libertarians, min-archists, etc.
Now the term Agorism comes from the Greek word agora meaning “market” and agorists call for revolutionary change by utilizing the black market. By operating in this counter-economy an individual can help deteriorate the power of the state and builds relationships based on trust and mutual gain instead of coercion.
Most people participate in counter-economics without ever realizing it. Every time you pay a neighborhood kid under the table to baby sit or receive a tip from a customer that you don’t report to the government you have participated.
Agorist’s view entrepreneurs, innovators and risk-takers as the strength of the free market and are invaluable. On the same note though, a pro-state businessman who attempts to use the government for his own personal profit is the center of evil. Read more »
Guest Post: The Emperor’s New Modem
Dan Nolan, one of the brilliant bloggers from Ultimate Science Team, and previous ALS guest blogger, has provided us with his libertarian perspective on online activism, triggered by the “anonymous” campaign. I should note that my posting of this guest blog in no way means I endorse, support, or agree with, any of the points made within. So with that out of the way, read on:
In March 2007 in Thailand a Swiss man named Oliver Jufer, was convicted of the crime of lese majeste. He had drunkenly spray-painted over posters of the king in Chiang Mai. Lese Majeste is the crime of insulting the sovereign of a nation, and the mere existence of this crime is an offense to those who support free speech in all of its forms. One month later, on the 4th of April 2007, Thailand blocked the popular internet video website YouTube for hosting a video of the king having spraypaint put on his face. Within hours the internet exploded, as thousands of people uploaded their own videos mocking King Adulyadej of Thailand in response to the Thais’ ridiculous attempt to censor free speech.
This is another variation of the Streisand effect (named for Barbara Streisand) which is a massive internet backlash in response to perceived attempts of censorship. The effect was named for Streisand after she attempted to have aerial photos of her house removed from a popular photo sharing website by filing a suit against the site and its proprietor. Streisand had attempted to stop people from viewing the photo but ended up motivating an incredible amount of traffic due to the publicity of her lawsuit. The Streisand effect is one of those beautiful phenomenas that brings together thousands of disparate individuals in support of free speech.
The Thai example was particularly interesting because it wasn’t just the normal instantiation of the Streisand effect. Normally in a Streisand situation individuals just help to disseminate or republish material that individuals, corporations or governments want quashed. An example that I can speak to from personal experience was the leaking of the ACMA Blacklist earlier this year. Senator Conroy and ACMA went on the record to say that those found republishing or disseminating the list could be fined or imprisoned, whilst, oddly enough, denying that the list was the actual blacklist. I, like thousands of others, republished the list which I obtained from wikileaks onto my blog UltimateScienceTeam a few minutes after I was alerted to it being released. This is how the Streisand effect works, it distributes the information to so many sources that it becomes an impossibility for normal legal channels to be used to quash the information and punish people. An element of the ACMA blacklist section that was particularly heart-warming and wonderful was the threat of the Wikileaks to Conroy who outlined that if he attempted to track down and punish the individual who leaked the information to Wikileaks, he would be in violation of Swedish law and they would refer it to the Swedish Constitutional Police (I know, I squeed) to have him extradited and tried. Read more »
“It’s Discrimination”
Guest post by Ben O’Neill, originally published at www.mises.org on 9 July 2009 (with footnotes)
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If there were a prize for the most boneheaded thing that one hears very frequently, it would have to be the astonishment and revulsion that is commonly expressed at the existence of discrimination. You are likely to have heard this horrified expression before: “It’s discrimination!” Heavens above! Alert the authorities!
Quite often, this tiny statement, without any elaboration or explanation, is enough to provoke looks of shock or revulsion from others, or at the very least, solemn looks of concurrence and disapproval. In many cases, it will provoke fervent denials and apologetic defensive maneuvers from those accused of this heinous act, even if the accuser has made no attempt to deliver his case. The mere charge is enough.
How zoning rules would work in a free society
Guest post by Ben O’Neill, originally published at www.mises.org on 17 June 2009. Be warned that this article is a bit longer than most ALS posts.
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It is well known that the libertarian political philosophy is antagonistic to coercively imposed rules that limit people’s freedom to use their private property as they see fit. Indeed, the very essence of libertarianism is the nonaggression principle that condemns the initiation of force against person or property. As a result, libertarians have been critical of zoning laws, which restrict the ability of property owners to develop their property or use it for their desired purposes.[1]
Because of this antipathy to zoning laws, some critics of libertarianism fear that a libertarian society would leave people incapable of exercising any control over their neighborhood and preserving the character of their surroundings. They worry that the decisions of surrounding property owners could change the character of their neighborhood to the detriment of their property values or preferred lifestyle. For example, some may worry that their local park will be developed into a housing complex leaving them with nowhere to take their children to play. Others worry that their neighbors may build huge structures that overshadow their now sunny backyards. Whatever their specific concerns, many people share the view that zoning laws are required to prevent their neighborhood from being despoiled by outrageous building developments or uses.
Effectiveness and affordability of an ETS
Guest post from Juel Briggs
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Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, has recently said that by 2030, to meet international emission targets, the world will need to have a carbon price of $US180 ($A225) per tonne. (Source: Bloomberg News.)
Ultimately, such costs will be borne by the tax-payer. At Australia’s current emissions (580 million tonnes p.a.) and working population (10.6 million), a carbon price of $A225 would correspond to a cost per working person of more than $A12,000 per year, or around 25% of the average after-tax earnings. Even if we halve our per-capita emissions by 2030, the cost would still be at least $6,000 each year per working person. Additionally, given the aging of our population it could be expected that by 2030 a greater burden will fall on those working.
The Fed Might Have Painted Itself into a Corner
Guest post by Frank Shostak, originally published at www.mises.org on 12/06/09.
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A growing concern for Fed [United States Federal Reserve] policy makers is a weakening in the US dollar against major currencies. The price of the euro in US-dollar terms climbed from a low of $1.27 in November last year to around $1.41 in May and $1.43 in early June — an increase of 12.6% from November. The major currencies dollar index fell to 78.89 in May from 82.3 in April — a fall of 4.1%. If the declining trend in the US dollar were to consolidate, this could cause foreign holders of US-dollar assets to divest into non-dollar-denominated assets and precious metals. This in turn could spark another financial crisis.For instance, on June 6, 2009, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev said that American financial policy had made the dollar an undesirable currency for reserves held by central banks.
Also China — the largest holder of US-dollar reserves — has voiced its misgivings with the Fed’s massive money pumping, which is seen as an important reason behind the recent weakening in the US currency. Note that in March, China’s US-dollar reserves stood at $1,953.7 billion — an increase of 2.2% on the month before. The value of the China’s holdings of US Treasury securities was $767.9 billion in March against $744.2 in February and $490.6 billion in March last year.
Can President Obama’s Policies Heal the US Economy?
Guest post from Frank Shostak.
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In his interview with the New York Times on May 3, 2009, President Obama said,
I know how to ask good questions of my doctor. But ultimately, he’s the guy with the medical degree. So, if he tells me, you know what, you’ve got such-and-such and you need to take such-and-such, I don’t go around arguing with him or go online to see if I can find a better opinion than his.
We suspect that President Obama has adopted the same approach with respect to managing the US economy. In fact, in the same interview he said that he is very much influenced by the ideas of Joseph Stiglitz, Larry Summers, and Paul Volcker.
During the interview he also expressed his admiration for Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. Although he didn’t say it, we suggest that the US president is also greatly influenced by the ideas of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
All these famous personalities derive their way of thinking from the writings of John Maynard Keynes and endorse heavy government involvement in the economy.
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