Flying robot bird

This is truly an amazing flying robot. It may attempt to excrete silicon chips onto your electric car yet there it has an undeniable poetic fluidity.

Text message in a bottle

Two out of three celebrate yet another glorious victory for Laboral Democracy

Who owns your money? (it's not you)

TheAntiTerrorist presents some concise and valuable information on the fiat money systems and the (unsurprisingly) duplicitous role of the government.

One of the surprises for me was the chain of legal logic that demonstrates how little we actually own.

It would be great if you rated these videos on YouTube.


TheAntiTerrorist,  Right on the 'Money'

Gillard takes aim at the electorate

Using a well worn tool, Julia Gillard is now (predictably?) offering free money to the sheeple to support her new tax.

Gillard in the US Congress does not speak for "all Australians"

In response to "What we are for" by George Monbiot

George Monbiot has an article in the UK Guardian - "What we are for".

There are a number of articles written by George Monbiot that I have enjoyed and many of his points that I have agreed with. This article has several that I side with:

1) Protest against taxation

2) Scrapping of military spending projects

3) Gathering together and objecting with a strong voice against government

However, I disagree with a number of his assumptions and am slightly disturbed by some points he presents as facts.

My biggest concern lies in his assertion that it is economically sensible for the government to swell the public service by creating jobs. This is one of the lynch pins of his article and  I consider he is being slightly disingenuous in presenting this as fact.

He references a Richard Murphy article ("The only way to cut government debt is to increase government spending") that is initially quoted by UNISON and which I have a number of problems with Murphy's reasoning:

1) Murphy assumes that all benefits are justified. If you increase the benefits (as pushed for by large corporations such as UNISON (1.375 million members)) then Murphy's equations and arguments fall apart.

2) In his paragraph on extrapolation and statistics Murphy is saying that he is interpreting and effectively guessing that his figures are correct.

3) Murphy states unequivocally that he is promoting a Keynesian philosophy and that the government can spend it's way out of the this problem. The article was written in July 2009 so history has already made some comment on the effects of the bailouts. He concludes the article with the assertion that spending worked in the 30s so we should trust him that it will work now.

4) In his third last paragraph Murphy basically negates his own argument by stating that private sector demand will eventually pick up.

As stated, I consider that Monbiot is being disingenuous.

The next worrying suggestion of significance is the oh so reasonable sounding "Robin Hood" tax. While he marks this as highly progressive it is likely to follow the path of all well intentioned taxes and be another arrow through the arse cheeks of the middle class's scarlet tights.

By his very own admission Monbiot has pointed out that "tax avoidance and evasion are the preserve of the very rich: only millionaires and corporations can afford the specialist advice required to disguise their earnings". In other words the same people who avoid tax now are the same people who will avoid tax in the future and leave the burden of the financial transactions tax to the poor and middle class. As offensive as it sounds, the employees of tax collecting agencies are just not smart enough to outwit the vast majority of "tax avoiders".

Unfortunately the same argument applies to the referenced suggestion by Greg Philo of Glasgow University. His proposition will rescue the people's money from the evil rich that have "stashed [it] away" (saved it for future use?). The well intentioned cap of £1million pounds and the reasonable sounding 20% are exactly the sort of "unmoveable limits" that governments traditionally move and re-limit. 

Unsurprisingly history shows that the burden is gradually shifted to the poor and middle class as time drifts by and memories of good intentions grow dim.

Monbiot's reference to the National Insurance illustrates this point. The National Insurance was initially set up for illness and unemployment. It then later grew to include retirement pensions and other benefits. It then became further entrenched when payroll tax was introduced. While it is meant to be hypothecated (a specific tax for a specific expenditure) the government has ensured that there are self-serving loopholes for it's own rules. A large proportion of the fund is invested in government securities which means that the money raised by National Insurance is available for general government spending. The latest figures show that this is approximately 17% of total government receipts.

And Monbiot and his sources want to give more taxation and more employees to this government machine? Yep, that'll stop the little guy from being shafted.

I have some other minor comments in Monbiot's article:

1) Who is this royal "we" that he keeps referring to? And by inference who is the "them"?

2) It's worrying that there doesn't seem to be any  concise aims being put forward by "the great rally". It risks being seen as a bunch of complainers or worse still, leaving itself open to hijacking by special interest groups/individuals. His point on the measurability of progress is critical. Also the observation that people lose hope without a programme is well made.

3) To combat tax avoidance he suggests putting on more staff at HM Revenue and Customs. What he doesn't address is: How many staff?; How are the staff going to be paid for?; How is an increased level of bureaucracy going change things when the current level is ineffectual and can't even be managed correctly?

4) The minimum wage should be raised by CPI plus 5%? Here's an idea, let's make the minimum wage $1000 an hour and very soon everyone will be millionaires thus eliminating poverty.

5) The money saved by scrapping military projects should be spent on public housing. Saved money that is spent is not saved money.

6) The money saved by scrapping military hardware should be spent on "offshore renewables". Where does he think the natural resources are going to come from for these renewables?(Financial Sense article on Rare Earth Metals)

Basically Monbiot is suggesting that the way to stop finance inequalities and abuse by the government is to make the government bigger and add more taxes. It's the fault of "the rich" and they must be made to pay. As with most articles revolving around this financial pariah the level of what is "very rich" is not addressed. I often suspect that it is the level to which the writer assumes he/she will not attain and therefore concludes that this is too much.

Socialist Pig

I have to thank my friend Andrew for sending me a "Capitalist Pig" cartoon as a potential (?) end point to a series of emails debating the merits of Free Markets and the pitfalls of Collectivism.

Death by Whimsey

Rendition Bunny prays for crucifixion

Rendition Bunny prays to Jesus that some country, somewhere, still practices crucifixion.

Extraordinary Rendition.
Waterboarding.

Two Julian Assange and Wikileaks articles of note

There are plenty of stories doing the rounds on Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Following are two that I consider notable for their accessibility and precision.

The first is "The Shameful attacks on Julian Assange" by David Samuels in The Atlantic. He clearly states why the vast majority of traditional media can hang their snivelling little heads in shame for their spineless bandwagonning against Wikileaks.

"It is dispiriting and upsetting for anyone who cares about the American tradition of a free press to see Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gibbs turn into H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman and John Dean."

"Assange may or may not be grandiose, paranoid and delusional ... But the fact that so many prominent old school journalists are attacking him with such unbridled force is a symptom of the failure of traditional reporting methods to penetrate a culture of official secrecy that has grown by leaps and bounds since 9/11, and threatens the functioning of a free press as a cornerstone of democracy."

"It is a fact of the current media landscape that the chilling effect of threatened legal action routinely stops reporters and editors from pursuing stories that might serve the public interest - and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or lying."

The second story is by Julian Assange himself. "Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths" appears in The Australian. He talks of a new journalism called Scientific Journalism where you can click on the original document that spurned a story and make your own judgements.

A part of the story that I find particularly appealing is a summary of what the US diplomatic cables have revealed:

• The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.

• King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.

• Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.

• Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".

• Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.

• The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.

 Personally, I'd rather have the truth than pollywaffle.

Government regulated markets are not Free Markets

Government regulated markets are not Free Markets. They are like ripping the wings from a Wedge Tail Eagle and conning people into believing that it's an Emu.