Bad governments don’t just “waste millions of dollars” — mismanagement kills.
We live in one of the richest nations on Earth. But waiting times for one type of cancer treatment in Australia have blown out to the point where 2,500 people are dying every year. Why do we have money to waste on fruitless efforts to change the weather?
NEARLY 2500 cancer patients are dying prematurely each year due to poor provision of radiation therapy services, experts have estimated — with many more waiting far longer for the life-saving treatment than clinically recommended.
Graeme Morgan, former director of radiation oncology at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, said it appeared state governments were attempting to give preference to other treatments such as chemotherapy due to the high upfront costs of installing the linear accelerator machines required to deliver radiation treatments.
Yet he said the result was that nationally, 15,600 Australian cancer patients were missing out on radiation therapy each year, and 2500 dying early — figures he described as “a disgrace”.
Thirty percent of one cancer patient group was missing out on starting radiation therapy within six weeks (ideally, it ought to be within 4 weeks):
“If you don’t treat patients in the recommended time, there’s maybe a 1 per cent drop in their likely survival for every two to three days that they miss out” beyond the recommended limit, Professor Morgan said.
What if we just said “No” to any more solar subsidies, or windfarm waste, and instead spent that money reducing waiting times and increasing lifespans?
Alan Moran of the IPA estimated that the 20% renewable energy scheme loaded a deadweight loss of 1.8 billion a year on the Australian economy [2009 IPA report]. That’s $6 billion spent from 2009 to now that could have been used to buy medical equipment and pay specialists (not to mention the money left over). How many lives did it cost us to make a symbolic statement on about “renewables” which achieved nothing for the environment. Where are our priorities?
Would our lives be improved more by spending $60 billion on a fibre optic network (cost: about $5,000+ per Australian household), or by installing enough linear accelerator machines and MRI’s so that patients have the peace of mind and possibly years of life to boot? I expect there would be some change too, like possibly enough to fund 50 years worth of medical research or so (oi!).
Our annual medical research budget is just $800 million.
“Science broadcaster turned climate-sceptic blogger and convoy backer, Jo Nova, let loose. “The ABC coverage is so shamefully biased, a government PR agency could hardly have done a better job,” she claimed.
“They carefully avoided selecting any of the key messages in the speeches or petition (but they put in any odd unconnected grievance they could find). They didn’t interview the organisers, instead just showing a snippet of a song and a truckie tooting.” But the opponents of the rally were no less inclined to conspiracy.”
When the media coverage of the Convoy was so dismally biased, I wasn’t suggesting a conspiracy. No one needs a conspiracy when good old fashioned incompetence will do. I have documented some of the poor media coverage of climate science, and especially ABC coverage, at length.
Indeed, Mark Scott, director of the ABC himself admitted that the ABC is there to help the government. The fact that he thought it was OK to admit that publicly tells you how far the ABC has come from any notion that it is there to serve-the-people.
Who needs a conspiracy?
My issue with the ABC, and some other outlets, is their culture and their dismal standards. No one has to issue an order from above, or conspire to get mostly left-learning journo’s to pull the punches or ignore stories that threaten their favorite party. As I said, ABC radio in Perth found time in its 6pm bulletin to talk about back-burning in Broome, but not to mention that some 600 vehicles, some that had actually driven from Broome, were protesting in Canberra that day. What issue do you suppose West Australian citizens would find more interesting? Fire control, or a historic protest asking for an election?
If 600 vehicles from all over the country had turned up to protest against the Howard Work Choices policy, would the ABC ignore it? Would news headlines read “No confidence convoy suffers small numbers”. If a disparate group of farmers, miners, road freight workers and business people were protesting about Industrial Relations, would the ABC have dismissed them as grumpy “truckies”? (Louise Maher even complained that the Convoy caused no traffic delays, which was an “unexpected inconvenience”, people got to work early, or had to make up other excuses if they slept in. The travesty!). Where were the thanks that the Convoy had taken so much trouble to consider the people of Canberra? Where was the admiration that the Convoy was so well organized?
Would they have repeated the denigrating claim that it was a convoy of no consequence (sometimes without even quoting it as an Albanese special, but rather adopting it as their own home-made-scorn?) Maybe they were disappointed they didn’t think of it first?
That’s what’s so interesting about the Convoy. The ABC, and the Labor Party used to pretend to be considerate about working Australia. They paid lip-service to “respecting” their views. Not any more. They detest, show contempt and look down on them, and they don’t even bother to hide it anymore.
Bob Hawke would have handled it very differently.
Everybody knows a journalist ought to keep their voting intentions out of their reporting — in theory — but they aren’t even trying anymore. And go on, name the ABC journalists who are conservative, or libertarian…
Welcome to the Land of the Endless Conspiracy
At least Christian Kerr acknowledges the real conspiracy theories tossed by the other side. Though he missed that this particular one he quoted backs up my point to the hilt.
Ramon Glazov, ABC “Contributor’
“The ABC’s The Drum website published a 1300-word dissertation hinting at dark links between the rally organizers and US industrialists David and Charles Koch, the alleged bankrollers of the Tea Party movement.”
Dissertation is a flattering word for the Ramon Glazov unresearched speculation, based on desperately tenuous links, no cause and effect connection, and nothing resembling evidence. Christian missed that Glazov can’t substantiate almost everything he says — sure he was at the Convoy launch in Perth that I was at (at least, he has photos). But what kind of “journalist” attends an event in a carpark where he has easy access to the two people he then writes about at length yet doesn’t bother to “interview” either of them (that would be myself and Janet Thompson by the way). Then — with a straight face — he headlines his story… “Unanswered Questions”?
Please, will the original artist comment so I can give credit and a link?
UPDATE #1: Could be Alex Werchon on CAN-Do? 4-Mar-2011? (h/t Dave N if so).
UPDATE #2: Andrew Bolt describes the Thomson meltdown as “out of control” — Senior members of the Gillard government are being accused of heavying the Health Services Union for reporting the allegation that M.P. Thomson misused Union funds to hire prostitutes... “overnight a dirt-covered shovel is left outside the door of HSU secretary Kathy Jackson, who was home alone.” Bolt also notes that the Labor Party connection with union thugs and conmen has some history.
“What we are witnessing is more like scenes from a mafia vendetta, not the processes of a responsible government.”
Who knew they conquered the low energy density, high maintenance, poor performance, bad weather, and general darkness at nighttime — all in the last weekend? This changes everything… oh, but wait, that’s odd — this only applies in some parts of New South Wales?
Silly me, and I thought the sun shone on the whole nation (and sometimes on the rest of the world too)?
THE cost of solar power in parts of NSW has for the first time crept below that of coal-fired electricity – seen as a key tipping point for the expansion of renewable energy. [SMH]
The dead-set give away is the “parts of NSW” — straight away you know that either someone is stealing sunlight from neighboring councils, or this isn’t a real “cost”, not in the same sense that you and I would use the word. When we think of the cost of something, it means we want to know how much we’ll pay. If we pay less up front, but five times as much tax, then the item is not cheap. And if we pay in lost jobs, ruined businesses, and damaged superannuation then the real cost cost is not just dollars but marriages and lives.
Indeed solar power is so hideously, prodigiously expensive for the people of New South Wales, the subsidies for solar electricity threaten to bankrupt the state.
Anton Lang (who writes as TonyfromOz) has the devastating numbers that Ben Cubby, Brian Robins, or Melissa Lahoud (the SMH journalists) didn’t try to find. To understand why the words “cost effective” and “solar panel” should never be used in the same article, follow Anton’s reasoning:
The three main problems listed below: 1. Night-time; 2. pitiful average power output, and 3. worst of all — Coal is dirt cheap.
…climate scientists are losing the fight with climate sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organized, have nothing else to do, they kind of don’t have day jobs, they can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this isn’t one of them. All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas the sceptics are being funded to put out full scale misinformation campaigns…”
Tom Nelson caught him telling prospective students in the Adelaide Advertiser that they ought to rush to study climate science so they can get paid well, be political activists, and change our understanding of the climate.
Almost invariably, climate PhDs with a physics or maths background find themselves in demand overseas and with excellent salary packages,” he said. ”This is a growing area with a small number of such specialists, making them an elite that are coming in at the ground floor of a worldwide demand, so it is a great way to fast-track a career.”
I rather scathingly explained the 7 errors in Pitmans paragraph last year. (Skeptics are unfunded, with no salary packages, no PR team, no UN department, and little support, yet can name hundreds of studies to support them. Pitman probably gets close to $200k a year for being a professor, yet despite the high salary, makes unscientific ad hom attacks that are unworthy of a grad student, and can’t provide empirical evidence to support his models).
So much for volunteering, he received $60k in grants to attend IPCC events.
But what’s the story with the “new” field of climate science? I thought the science was settled? You mean there are things we don’t know?
It’s important for the big-government-dependent parties to deny the power of the Convoy.
Less than a week ago, there was a rally at Parliament House with around 3,000-5,000 people. And today there was another one, this one with around 600 vehicles according to Matt and Janet Thompson, and this one by people who have gone to extraordinary lengths, driving up to 5,000 kilometers from all corners of the country.
The convoy is a rolling protest that involved thousands of people across the nation. In Sydney, people switched their headlights on in sympathy, and Andrew Bolt records at least one witness suggesting half the cars on the road had their lights on.
Feelings and support for the convoy are widespread and running high. One of the convoy supporters from near Clermont reports: ‘In only 24 hours, we gathered 300 signatures for the petition, local beef producers had organised fuel donations of over $13,000 and the CWA had organised food and drinks for everyone on the convoy. This support from a town of only 2000 was amazing and a testament to a united effort.’
Dale Stiller’s comment is typical on Just Grounds:The convoy has experienced nothing but support. There have been flags, balloons & ribbons on gates, signs & fences all the way from Rockhampton to Goondiwindi. Other trucks as they pass on the highway are on the 2way, wishing the convoy well and of course often accompanied by a blast of the air horns.
The bottom line is that the nation supports the Convoy: There are over 100,000 votes on the NineMSN poll and 80% are with the trucks.
Photo: A convoy of trucks protesting against the Federal Government's proposed carbon tax make their way through the Canberra CBD (User submitted: Michael Sherwood)
So what do you do when hundreds of cars, trucks and vans descend on the Parliament in a historic move, from all over the country, demanding an election? If you are the ABC, you call it “200 trucks”, don’t mention the cars, feature those who have an interest in putting down the protest (Bob Brown), and make sure you mention how it was “smaller than expected” when actually, it started as one driver, and thousands of people joined in. The ABC coverage is so shamefully biased, a government PR agency could hardly have done a better job. They carefully avoided selecting any of the key messages in the speeches or petition (but they put in any odd unconnected grievance they could find); they didn’t interview the organizers, instead just showing a snippet of a song and a truckie tooting. They didn’t mention how far the trucks had come, how much expense they had gone too, or that the Convoy had gone to great lengths to make sure they didn’t inconvenience the people of Canberra.
That ABC report didn’t ask a single driver why they had felt it was necessary to take such extraordinary action.
Unless I missed it, the 6pm ABC radio news in Perth found time to mention there was backburning around Broome (it is a big wildfire up there), but not enough time to mention that thousands of people are so angry with the government they drove all the way from Broome to protest.
The Convoy organizers staged their entry so carefully, coordinating it with the Federal Police. They meticulously planned everything so as not to put out the average Canberran, even starting at 5.30am so as to avoid the peak hour traffic. They were scrupulously considerate. (Perhaps too much so.)
HFC-23 is 15,000 times as potent as CO2 in the greenhouse gas stakes. It’s only made by six factories in the whole of Europe.
Given that, you would think that they’d have this one esoteric compound completely tracked, measured to the nth, audited and cross checked, right? After all, how devastating would it be if governments can’t report something as simple as HFC-23 accurately, how could they possibly expect to run a global trading scheme on a gas like CO2, which is not just made in hundreds of factories, but thousands of cities, millions of cars, and billions of animals. Well, if you thought someone somewhere had a handle on those numbers, get ready to be corrected. Not only did people think it was a good idea if countries self-assessed their emissions, but they trusted those countries to accurately report numbers that millions of dollars of payments rested on, and nobody was looking too hard over their shoulder.
Who has been emitting twice as much HFC-23 as they admitted? That would be the whole of Western Europe. Italy, apparently, has snuck out 10 times as much.
So what does a “binding target” mean exactly? Not much. When we can’t measure the emissions easily, a “binding target” only binds governments to making reports stating that they met the binding target. (Even if they blew that target by 1000%.)
How emblematic of the whole enterprise. It’s like they don’t really care about the results, only that the appropriate bureaucratic machinery be in place and appearances established — which is “consistent with” (as they say) the whole theory being a front for an expansion of government and a boondoggle for banks, renewables, bureaucrats, climate “scientists”, Greens, etc etc.
The modern version of “green” is so tame. When it comes to recycling material, living without disposable goods, and leaving a smaller carbon footprint, the real experts are the long lived people who’ve been there, done that, and did it so much better, so long ago.
Jo
Eco-friendly TV anyone? (via Amberley Working Museum, England). Photo: By Les Chatfield
The Green Thing
The original low carbon lawn mower. Photo: Kallerna
In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.” The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.” He was right — our generation didn’t have The Green Thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
Fifty cars, trucks and vans, and there were at least four helicopters watching the action as the North Queensland Convoy headed through Charters Towers. Images like these will make the Labor Party break into a sweat.
These pics from the You tube of the aerial shots as the convoy went through Charters Towers.
The Convoy travels through Charters Towers
Over 100 in the convoy in the NT last night!
ANNIE HESSE Katherine Times (via Carbon Sense Coalition Blog)
18 Aug, 2011 09:17 AM
A Convoy of more than 100 vehicles – including road trains, campervans and utes – rolled into Katherine last night to show their support for the Convoy of no Confidence, a convoy heading to Canberra to raise a voice against recent government decisions.
Rashida Khan, who led a trail of vehicles from Darwin to Katherine yesterday, said she was on her way to Canberra to speak up for “some of the toughest people” she knows, who “have been pushed to the edge by the decision to ban live export”.
Have a look at the convoy passing through Ingham: (H/t Val Malkus). Send in those links!
UPDATED: Former CSIRO researcher talks about the lack of freedom to speak against the government.
See Angry Anderson’s speech and Art Raiches speech about the decline of CSIRO: Art Raiche on CSIRO Canberra Protest. Dr Raiche talked of the days when the CSIRO was a world class organisation and worked for Australia, Agriculture and Industry.
“Management learned how to bring the most senior climate scientist under their control. It was OK to think independently…as long as Management approved of it.
We were given very strict, VERY strict guidelines on not publishing anything or publicly discussing any research that could be seen as critical to Government policy.If we did not do it, we would be subject to dismissal.
We had now become a Government Enterprise. We were told by the Chairperson that we Scientists no longer worked for Australia, we had to learn that we worked for the CSIRO.”
Destination Canberra – nearly 4000 km away
This is a protest to set records. For these vehicles in Perth, it’s 4 days of driving nearly every waking hour (and another 4 days minimum to return). The cost of petrol, accommodation, wear and tear and camper-hire, not to mention time-off-work, mean you need to be very very motivated to take part in the Convoy of No Confidence from so far away. We were pleased with the turnout in the darkness this morning!
All filmed by Phil Cole and edited by Sean Morris.
August 16th, 2011. It’s just another huge rally at Parliament House.
There was a crowd of 3000 according to the ABC report, but Nick Bryant from the BBC estimated 4,000-5,000, and significantly he also admitted that the crowd was not a red-neck, ute crowd, and that for many it was their first protest. For others, like one doctor, it had cost them dearly to get to the rally (see the quotes from his piece below). Such is the passion of the protesters.
And they filled the lawns. Photo: Dr Jim Sternhell
This is mainstream Australia talking
A few things struck me about crowd. Many of the protesters were old and retired, as one would expect from a protest in the middle of the week. Many were attending their first ever protest rally, which is more significant. Rising energy bills was something that had got these first-timers out in force. Nobody that I spoke to at the rally thought the Gillard minority government had any legitimacy, let alone any mandate. Most thought it incompetent, and said the carbon tax had crystallised broader fears.
A surprisingly high number, curiously, were Brits who have settled in Australia. Many were farmers and blue-collar workers. But I also ran into a GP, who had given up $2000 in consultation fees for the day to drive down to Canberra from Sydney. In other words, this crowd could not be written off as a “red-neck mob”, tempting though that caricature might be to supporters of the carbon tax. This was an Audi estate crowd as well as a “ute” crowd.
The local state Liberals (the conservative party, who are in government in this state of Western Australia) voted overwhelmingly in favor of a Royal Commission on climate change science. Now that is a news story all by itself. It could have had headlines like: “Liberals demand climate scientists be put to the test”, “WA Liberals demand answers from Climate Science”.
Instead the ABC makes its headlines from almost the only person in the room who disagreed:
Actually, he wasn’t even in the room. As it happens, Mal Washer didn’t attend the conference last weekend, and sums up his total insight into why this motion was passed overwhelmingly:
” I don’t know who brought it up and I don’t know who would be silly enough to support it.”
“I don’t know how many were there when this, I was not there when this happened, right, so I don’t know how many people were there”
“... I don’t know how that slipped through. Whether they’re a bit battle fatigued at the end of the day….”
Since I hear practically the whole party supported it (apart from Leader Colin Barnett, and possibly a couple of young libs), and Mal Washer wasn’t even there, it seems the ABC sought out the one person who knew the least to ask him the question he was baffled by. With this technique of interviewing the people who don’t know the answers, it’s obvious why the ABC are ten years behind on climate reporting. They could have interviewed anyone, anyone else from the Liberal Party ranks, and learned more. Indeed one member wrote to me to describe the meeting, and said there was virtually no dissent in the room, and support for the idea was loudly vocal. It wouldn’t be too hard surely to find someone else to interview?
Tomorrow, a road convoy will set off from Port Hedland in Western Australia for a journey across the country. Two more convoys will leave Perth and Cairns on Thursday. By the end of this week, 11 convoys will be in motion, all heading to a single convergence point next Monday. This is the ”convoy of no confidence”. [SMH]
FOR some it’s climate change alarmism; for others too much wasted taxpayers’ money on boatpeople, school halls, or pink batts; and for others still it’s the importation of Chinese apples, the temporary ban on the live cattle trade, or same-sex couples rearing children.
But the common thread in what is emerging as a national Tea Party-style revolt in the form of a “Convoy of No Confidence” to Canberra is a burning conviction that politicians of all persuasions have lost touch with the real-life needs of the common man and woman they are supposed to represent.
What began as a truckies protest against the carbon tax has grown into a mass alliance of those outside the urban elites who feel they have lost their voice.
It’s an amalgam of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who are mad as hell and not going to take it any more. [Australian]
These are good stories, well written and capturing some of the spirit of the moment, albeit, weeks after the news broke on the new media.
When is enough enough?
Today the editors of The Australian (Convoy of Discontent Rolls On) claim “There is no justification for the early election its organisers want”, but what would be justification for an early election?Do people have to wait for the businesses to go broke before asking? Do they need to wait for the government to legislate a major transformation of the economy that it promised it wouldn’t do? When is government failure big enough to warrant a new election?
More evidence of the backlash against the dominant Green-memes. (There’s a rich field of possibilities there for the taking.) Funny or Die do a pretty good job. UPDATE: hilariously I hear, these are “warmer” personalities, thanks Bananabender and Curt, but if they thought they were poking fun at skeptics, it only shows how badly this has backfired. (The warmer-team are the ones who not only suggest we can control the climate, and they’re already asking us to pay up now for the service.)
"Stop the Environment", Funny or Die video snapshot.
Warning: Coarse language. (They’re saying, “F U,” to Mother Nature) This is a Funny Or Die creation by Thomas Lennon, Ben Garant, Ed Asner and Mindy Sterling.
It’s hard to believe, but not long ago, people used to write to me to tell me not to use the word “skeptic” telling me it had a bad name. “Use the word realist” they said. But I wasn’t going to let the forces of darkness get away with destroying the English language. I’m proud to be a skeptic. I wasn’t giving that word up. And besides, I had a feeling that if we stuck with the truth, the distortion the-newspeak-team had set up would come back to bite them, and I rather wanted to whip them with that.
After all, what’s not to like about the word skeptic (or sceptic):
1565–75; From the Latin scepticus, meaning thoughtful, inquiring
From the Greek : skeptikós, means to consider or examine (akin to skopeîn, meaning: to look, “scope”)
“Skeptic” is a prize worth having.
In Nov 2009 I pointed out the bleeding obvious truth: What’s the opposite of skeptical — gullible. It caught on(if I do say so myself).
And if we are the skeptics, then it followed that they are the Unskeptics and who wants to be an Unskeptical Scientist?
Bitten by their own propaganda campaign, the apologists-of-authority rushed to make out that they are skeptics (who just coincidentally always happen to agree with authority), and say pat-truisms like “all scientists need to be a bit skeptical” and “true skeptics are useful”. Which meant of course they had to call us odd things, like quote-unquote “skeptics”, contrarians, naysayers, or else resort to their favorite ritual insult: “deniers”. (Which is the richest of all, really when you think about which side of this debate is saying that red equals yellow. See the missing hot spot, and Spot the real denier).
The “debate” meme is falling
For twenty years they’ve said “there-is-no-debate”. Al Gore was doing it back in 1990. But things have changed since then and while this is a work in progress, some are backpedalling. Prof Stefan Lewandowsky said “there is no real scientific debate about climate change” in 2010, so we laughed at him for throwing tenets of science out the window. Now, without admitting he ever got it wrong, in 2011 he’s seen the light and says: “Science is Debate“. (And, you cynic, you think they never listen?)
Climate is a non-problem. What is happening is Cooling
Archibald Speech Rally Canberra 16th August 2011
My first duty to you today is tell you what is happening to the climate. What is happening is cooling. The oceans started cooling in 2003, and the atmosphere is following. There has been no warming since 1998.
In fact, the temperature of planet today is almost the same as it was when satellites first started measuring it in 1979. No one under the age of 32 has experienced global warming. Some of us predate that and remember the heavy frosts of the nineteen seventies. Those frosts are returning, and worse. Solar activity is weakening, and will remain weak for another 22 years.
We in this blessed country will be spared the worst of it, but a large portion of the grain belt in the northern hemisphere will have crop failures due to longer winters and early frosts. Canada will go from being a large exporter of grain to becoming a frequent importer. As long as Australia remains a net food exporter, we will benefit from the shorter Northern Hemisphere growing season.
For us, climate is a non-problem. Carbon dioxide’s heating effect is real, but minuscule. The one hundred parts per million that we have added to the atmosphere in the last one hundred years has heated the planet by one tenth of a degree. We will add another hundred parts per million over the next fifty years. The total of two tenths of a degree will be very welcome by mid-century.
In fact, the more carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere, the better. During the ice ages of the last three million years, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere got as low as one hundred and seventy-two parts per million. Plant growth shuts down at one hundred and fifty parts per million. Life above sea level was almost snuffed out due to a lack of carbon dioxide. We were only twenty-two parts per million from extinction. We came so close to dying out due to a lack of carbon dioxide. And, for those amongst us who like plants and animals, they would have died out too.
The more we can increase the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, the safer life on this planet will be.
The more we can increase the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, the safer life on this planet will be. For those amongst us who feel for the Third World, increasing the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere is like giving them free fertiliser. Their crops will grow faster. Who amongst us would be so heartless as to deny the Third World that benefit at no cost to themselves? The Government hunkered down here in front of you is that heartless. But then, they don’t care about Australians either.
This fake problem of climate is distracting us from real problems. The first of which is the fact that our oil self-sufficiency is declining rapidly. It is 40% now. It will be down to 25% by 2015. We now import oil from as far afield as Azerbaijan, Algeria and the Congo. We are forced to rely upon their kindness to keep our farms and factories running.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s obvious (to anyone who knows there’s no free lunch) that one way or another this Festival of Funny Money was going to end in tears. And so it flows… but let’s not forget what lead us to this, the problem that lies under all others.
The government can print (base) money from nothing, and they can set interest rates artificially low so as to encourage private banks to create (bank) money from nothing. And governments keep doing it, because it’s so much easier to be elected handing out loaves and fishes, and grants and solar-rooftop-subsidies, in a froth of easy money and rising asset prices. Any fool can spend someone else’s money, especially when the sucker doesn’t even know it was their money.
Thus does inflation steal from all and sundry. Silently.
Watch them print money… say hello to inflation.
In the real world, we have to repay our debts. But the world of the ruling class never has to make ends meet. Alan Greenspan admitted that this weekend — effectively announcing that the US is the United States of Wonderland, where no matter how high the debt is they can never default — because they can print money. Helicopter Ben to the rescue!
There is a pot at the end of this rainbow. And it works as well as any superhero or perpetual motion machine.
As soon as money is blinked into existence, it starts to redirect economic activity away from the things that people-who-earned-money thought were useful. Instead the behemoth of mass activity swings towards producing things that those-who-blink-money want… and they come up with unlimited ways to waste money: like giant windmills that stop floods, bicycle paths that prevent cyclones, and ten top techniques to stuff a fertilizing gas down a mineshaft where nothing will ever grow.
Nice. The CanDo team have printed thousands of sticky notes with a message for consumers everywhere. Australian’s can order them and pop them on items that will cost more under The Carbon Tax (ie. that’s everything except subsidized Chinese solar panels, and bird-blending windmills.*)
Take a photo of your most inspiring spots and send it in to CanDo. People are using these sticky notes in restaurants, airports, petrol pumps, at home and in the office.
This is a chance to remind Australians that the Carbon Tax will cost them, and we will never know exactly how much.
Are you losing sleep because of the Carbon Tax? (Click to see a large version. Thanks to MaxL)
It used to be that being Green was assumed to be the done thing in any advert promoting something, especially something that aimed at the professional set (like a herbal sleeping tablet). So I was surprised to see an advert, on the front page of The Australian a few days ago (August 3rd) which unashamedly played to those-who-don’t-welcome-The-Carbon-Tax.
At least one herbal supplement supplier thinks the tax is the hot topic stressor of the moment, keeping business people awake at night.
I wanted to keep this turning point for posterity, for the poor PhD student in 2035 analyzing how the Great Global Warming meme went from Nobel prize winning grandeur in 2007 to well-known-scam status five years later. This is a point along the way. As far as I know, it’s a first in the Australian print media.
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Nice. The CanDo team have printed thousands of sticky notes with a message for consumers everywhere. Australian’s can order them and pop them on items that will cost more under The Carbon Tax (ie. that’s everything except subsidized Chinese solar panels, and bird-blending windmills.*)
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