Certainly the emerging prominence of the Liberal Democrats is another measure of vibrant Australian Libertarianism.  As a matter of fact, this was the first election where I’ve left the polls with a positive attitude after seeing the LDP on the Senate ballot box.

Another measure of growing libertarianism in Australia is the growth of liberty-oriented websites that aren’t associated with any political party.  The last couple years have seen various kinds of Aussie Libertarian websites pop-up on the Internet.  Let’s look at a few:

1. Economics.org.au

A fantastic website with local and global economic and policy analysis with a sharp libertarian edge.  The contributors come from a broad spectrum of libertarian thought, which should have articles that appeal to both classical liberals and anarcho-capitalists.

2. Liberty Australia

This website was in the making for quite some time but was finally unleashed this year by founders Michael Conaghan and Anthony Coralluzzo.  The purpose of the website is to function like an Australian equivalent of LewRockwell.com, which would catalogue various blog and opinion articles by established contributors, with a distinct ‘Ron Paulian’ & ‘Rothbardian’ flavour.  What is really unique about this site, apart from it’s beauty and design, is that registered users can submit their articles for publication review.  Liberty Australia also has an excellent list of valuable Libertarian websites from around the world.

(Disclaimer: I am a major contributor to the following two websites.)

3. Aussienomics

Aussienomics was founded by Austrian School economist Justin Pyvis.  This blog is an Austrian school economic voice that analyses and comments on economic and political policies within Australia. Aussienomics is a great source to visit regularly if you want to escape the Marxist, Keynesian and Monetarist dribble from all the major news outlets AND if you want to read an article containing the words: savings, production, private, capital, Mises, Hayek and Rothbard.

4. The Mule Watch

This website was setup by group of young Queensland scientists who were interested in only one thing: creating a news aggregation source that reported on Big Government activities around the world, and any resistance to it.  The website offers several RSS feeds, updated regularly, to deliver to subscribers the latest news concerning your liberty.  (update: the blog portion of the website recently got spammed, which is being fixed, but the RSS feeds are fully functional though)

The increased presence of Australian Libertarian websites will only strengthen the culture of freedom in our local communities.  With the growing influence of social networking sites as second-hand dealers of news and opinions, these and other future websites can regularly deliver quality libertarian content to your friends and family.

Actually it’s not all that big, NSW Labor politicians seem to be resigning in disgrace so regularly they are starting to resemble lemmings charging toward the abyss. There are indications that other MPs are likely to be called to account on this one.

Here’s where it gets interesting though. New South Wales Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile has made a statement that neither, he or his staff have been “perving” at internet pornography videos on their work computers, but they have been researching the issue. This sounds like those Japanese whalers down in the Southern Ocean researching whale populations.

He admitted using his work computer to access gambling and adult websites.

There are reports the audit also found Fred Nile’s computer had been used to access internet porn.

Mr Nile says, for research purposes, a senior researcher viewed the websites of organisations like the Australian Sex Party and the Eros Foundation, and then followed links from the sites.

The Sex Party is quite cool with this, as their press release makes clear:

The Rev Fred Nile should not feel guilty about accessing pornography per se but should resign over his appalling response to the current situation, according to the Australian Sex Party. His excuse was to blame and defame the Australian Sex Party and suggest that he was looking for ‘criminal links’ off the Sex Party website.

Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, said that Rev Nile should get over his guilt and shame and explain to the public exactly what sort of ‘porn’ sites he and/or his staff were surfing. “Most adult sites that originate in the US or Europe contain large amounts of Refused Classification (RC) material because they do not meet the tight criteria of Australian X rated guidelines”, she said. “Those conducting the audit should not be using the word ‘porn’ to refer to any of the 200,000 sites that the Rev Nile’s office is reported to have accessed. They should be telling us if they were R rated, X rated or RC. This gives us a truer picture of type of material that he was looking at.”

Ms Patten said that Rev Nile had a right to look at R and X rated porn in his office if he wanted to and that his constituents would be the final arbiters of his actions. “However if he was looking at ‘religious BDSM*’ for example, which is a new genre involving flagellation and sexual bondage scenes, most of which would fall into the RC classification, then that would be a bridge too far”, she said.

She called on Rev Nile to make public all the links to crime and the Sex Party that he found in his ‘research’. “The NSW tax payer has funded this research so let’s all have a look at it”, she said. “I’d like to publicly debate him about the links between religious organizations and child sex abuse vs. the links to sex shops illegally selling classified X rated films in NSW”.

And for what? It’s not because they ‘cheated’. Ball tampering is cheating, using unauthorised equipment is cheating, being Muralitharan is cheating; but playing badly isn’t. The only people cheated are the Australian team, who deserved to be beaten in Sydney, and the English team, who deserved to be beaten more soundly at Lord’s.

It’s not because they cheated the gamblers or the bookies either. Nobody on the Pakistani team entered a contract with these people. They decided to give and take odds on certain events taking place. This does not entitle them to anything.

But what about the fans? Weren’t they cheating us when they conspired to rig games? No. Sitting on your bottom in front of a television set, while enjoyable, does not automatically confer rights over the actions of the people depicted on the television. To think that it does is the behaviour of an entitled dickhead.

No doubt the pious moralising and entitled whining will continue apace. The ICC will hand down a judgement with some grave sounding words. They will talk about bringing the game into disrepute, about shame. They will have their justice. And just like that, the vibrant fire of Pakistani cricket will be snuffed out. And that will be our shame, not theirs.

News article here:-

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/heady-freedom-as-judge-agrees-helmet-laws-are-unnecessary-20100827-13vz2.html

Her letter to the PM here:-

http://www.cycle-helmets.com/sue-abbott-letter.html

I like the ironic twist from the news article. Apparently a study in 1998 found that even with air bags in cars motorists could reduce head injuries by 25% if they wore bicycle helmets whilst driving their cars. Maybe cyclists should be allowed to ride without helmets and motorists should be forced to encase their skull in foam. Maybe pedestrians should do likewise. Kneepads for pedestrians might also reduce knee injuries. The number of imaginable stupid laws is boundless.

Maybe somebody should organise an annual helmet free bicycle event in honor of Sue Abbott and her stand against this stupid law. I’d be keen to join the ride.

Libertarian thinkers can be plotted on many axes. Presently, the axis I am most concerned with is Policy Libertarianism vs. Structural Libertarianism.

Policy Libertarians (PLs) include the vast majority of the most visible organizations and writers in the modern libertarian movement: the Reason Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Ron Paul campaign, the LP, the Constitution Party, most libertarian economists (e.g. Milton Friedman), and single-issue organizations like Students for a Sensible Drug Policy. PLs, as their name suggests, focus their energies on inventing and advocating a list of policies that governments should follow. For example, you can find policy libertarians opposing liberal eminent domain laws, fighting for lower taxes and deregulation, supporting cultural tolerance, opposing invasive police searches, and advocating the rest of the familiar libertarian manifesto.

Structural Libertarians (SLs) are much rarer in modern times than PLs, although the opposite used to be the case. Structural libertarians include Patri Friedman, Mencius Moldbug, David Friedman, Murray Rothbard, all libertarian Public Choice economists, Lysander Spooner, and the classical liberals that libertarians have adopted as intellectual ancestors. SLs often have the same moral and policy beliefs as PLs, but they focus their energies on the alternative ways to structure a government and the effect that government structure has on its incentive to adopt good policy. At their most extreme, SLs barely sound like libertarians. Under a market-based government system (a common SL proposal), the architects of Singapore would likely find plenty of customers for a burbclave that is incredibly prosperous and clean, but where communists are sent to jail and litterbugs are viciously beaten with sticks.

The decline of the structuralists and the rise of the policyists is a phenomenon that should interest us. It is a by-product of general political trends in the modern western world. Simply: democracy has won. Democracy is considered to be righteousness and goodness and freedom, all else is tyranny. Didn’t the American colonists risk their lives and fortunes to institute democracy and overthrow monarchy? And wasn’t America the shining example on a hill, leading the rest of the world into a democratic century?

I’d recommend a click through to read the rest.

It now seems Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie has decided that his main policy is poker machine reform (remember how in the 80′s, “reform” was all about removing market impediments? God, I miss the 80′s!,) and I’m guessing he’ll get some action in that area. Of course, poker machines would generally be a state issue, which is why Wilkie ever so helpfully suggested use of the Corporations Act – the Fed’s favourite tool for trouncing state’s rights. What this effectively means, is that an independent from Tasmania is laying down the law for NSW clubs and their patrons (all for the greater good, of course).

Just in case you were thinking this is a small enough price to pay, rest assured it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The new minority government (whichever side that might be) hasn’t even started legislating anything yet – all of the current “negotiations” are just for starters. I found the following to be a particularly ominous sign:

The trio (Gillard, Wilkie and Wilkie’s wife and media adviser, Kate Burton) then began talks over a jug of water and a thin black binder placed on a coffee table.

The binder looked identical to packages Ms Gillard handed recently to three other independent MPs which touted Labor’s record and election promises bearing on their electorates.

Welcome to the new paradigm.

UPDATE: Wilkie has now released his 20-point list of priorities. Delivering on these would cost billions – and that’s just for the dental plan. But most amusing was number 20, which basically asks for a bigger office:

Adequate staffing and office space to deal with the workload of an Independent Member of Parliament.

The simplest type of short sale is a forward sale agreement. If I enter a contract to sell a bicycle one week in the future I have made a short sale. If I own a bicycle at the time I enter the contract it is a ‘covered’ short sale. If I don’t own a bicycle at the time I enter the contract it is a ‘naked’ short sale.

Almost all commercial contracts involve a short sale because the delivery of goods comes after the contract is entered. Many are naked short sales, usually because the seller needs the cash to pay suppliers before they can provide a product.

From this perspective short sales are not very strange or scary. On the other hand if short sales are ‘selling securities you do not own with the intention to benefit from a fall in the price’ they sound quite strange and dodgy, possibly dangerous.

The confusion comes from convoluted explanations of repurchase agreements. A short seller will borrow a security for an agreed rental rate and immediately sell it for cash. When the time comes to give the security back to the lender he will purchase it at the market price. The lower the price when he repurchases the more money he makes.

Many people feel uncomfortable with this. Part of the discomfort probably stems from the process, which seems a little complicated. Part stems from the fact that it seems a bit dodgy to sell something that someone just lent you. Another part stems from the fact that the short seller wants the price to go down: he desires the misery of others. He might even attempt to manipulate the price downwards to further his evil agenda.

All this silliness can be dissolved by looking at another example of a short sale: a cash loan. If I borrow $10 for a week and use it to buy lunch I am short $10. I have borrowed the cash at a set rental rate, sold it immediately at the market price, and need to repurchase it before the loan is due. It is exactly the same process as short selling a stock, except now it is much less strange and scary.

The effect of short sales is unambiguously positive in terms of market efficiency. Markets work by agglomerating information from many buyers and sellers. Some people think a security is underpriced: they buy it and push the price up. Some people think it is overpriced: they sell (if they own it) or short sell (if they don’t). If short selling is banned a part of the market is not permitted to express their views on the price. The result is biased prices, at least temporarily.

The net effect of bans and restrictions on short sales is not necessarily higher prices. Prices eventually reflect value, even if they are initially imperfect. Market participants might rationally respond to a short selling restriction by selling any stock they own, anticipating the upward bias. The net effect on prices might be up or down, but volatility will certainly increase.

There are also broader issues of property rights and freedom of contract at play. Bans on short sales are enacted by preventing current holders of stock from lending it. The ban lowers the value of their property by denying them a rental income. This is simply an appropriation of property rights without just compensation.

Short sale bans have been popular government reaction to financial crises. Hoover condemned short sellers for their role in the 1929 crash and investigated their role in prolonging the depression. Various restrictions were introduced. In 2007-8 governments around the world responded to a market downturn by banning or heavily regulating short selling.

Short sellers are a convenient scapegoat for a crisis. Restrictions create the appearance of government action during a public panic. A witch is burnt; the villagers are appeased. Nothing changes. When the harvest fails again there will always be someone else to blame.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/08/munger_on_priva.html

In short Chile went from having an average commute time of 40minutes to having an average commute time of 1 hr and 40 minutes because the government took over the bus industry in 2007. Not only did they take over the industry but they changed drivers incentives. Now the buses are half empty, people can’t get on them, they take longer to get anywhere, congestion has increased as people have shifted to cars and taxis and where the industry once made a modest profit it now loses masses of money. Tragic.

In addition, I have changed the authority on the blog. There remains four “admins”, which are the three executive positions (Tim Andrews, Terje Petersen, John Humphreys) and the person who set up this website (Sukrit Sabholk). There are two “authors”, who are the regular bloggers Jim Fryar and Fleeced. And all irregular bloggers have been kept on as “contributors”, who will need to have their posts approved before they are posted to the website. When/if contributors become regular posters, they can be upgraded to “authors”.

Comments on the look of the blog, of the structure of the two websites (including the main ALS page), and who else should be added as an “author” or “contributor” are very welcome.