australian diary

Professor Garnaut (ANU) has released his Kevin Rudd commissioned report.   I have previously explained & predicted the effects of Global warming.   In January 2007 I prophetically wrote:

 any attempt to curtail fossil fuel use would prove v.expensive. Fossil fuel gives the third world cheap food, water, medicines and the transport necessary to deliver those benefits to their people. The first people to die if we curtail fossil energy use will be the poor in third world countries.

Since then, the legislated requirement by some wealthy nations that ethyl alcohol must be added to gasoline has been found by a UN committee to be the prime cause of rising food prices and increased starvation in third world nations.

I later commented on the IPCC and Stern reports (1) (2).  The Garnaut report follows those reports, & is written by an economist who has considered the criticisms of those earlier reports, and sought to avoid them.  The major problem with the Stern report was the nearly zero discount rate on future events.

Professor Garnaut likens application of national carbon use restrictions to the Prisoner’s Dilemma of games theory.  It is an essential condition in “prisoner’s Dilemma” that each player has no indication of the decisions made by other players.  The table of rewards is also dissimilar.

The professor mentions that the cost of greenhouse gas mitigation should be less than the damage that the presence of those greenhouse gases caused.   I could not find where he quantified the dollar value of damage.  He did indicate an increasing death rate among the elderly, that the Barrier reef would be destroyed.  (I am skeptical about both those fears.  With sufficient energy, air conditioning will not be a problem, so no elderly need die.  It is thought by some marine scientists that increasing temperatures by as little as 2 degrees centigrade will kill local coral.  However the Great Barrier Reef extends for thousands of kilometers in a N-S direction.   So it is reasonable to presume that varieties of coral exist, except perhaps at the northern tip of the reef, that can withstand higher temperatures than the local environment.  So extensively damage might occur initially, however it seems reasonable to presume that the higher temperature varieties could migrate south with the prevailing ocean currents as the ocean temperature rose.  In any case, would saving the Great Barrier Reef be worth the thousands of extra lives that would be lost through the privation brought about by overestimating necessary energy taxes?)

The most effective method for controlling pollution is by a carbon tax.  See Nordhaus 1992 in “Nature”. I concur with Garnaut that there should be no exemption for any industry.

Power stations should not be exempted or compensated.  The location of a power station is determined by three factors, which are cost availability of fuel, cooling cost and power transmission costs.  Of these, the most expensive to transport is coolant.  Power stations must dissipate huge amounts of heat, and that requires quite large amounts of water.

Different mineral fuels produce different amounts of carbon per KWH.  The lowest ratio of greenhouse gas to energy produced is from Methane.  Next are the gas fuels, then liquid fuels derived from oil, then anthracite (black coal), then brown coal, then tar sands then oil shale & (probably worst) peat.

Transmission costs are not trivial, but power is cheaper to transport than either fuel or water.

Brown coal power stations would be comparatively expensive to operate in terms of carbon tax.  Brown coal is mined by open cut at Leigh Creek in South Australia, then moved by rail for several hundred Km to Port Augusta, which has access to the ocean for coolant.   With a sufficiently high carbon tax it will become more economical to transport black coal to Port Augusta via sea.  There might be some conversion costs in turning a brown coal power station into a black coal power station, but I expect those costs would be minimal, as black coal is “cleaner”.  The Victorian brown coal power stations are less well placed with regard to ocean transport for supply of black coal.

The real losers will not be the owners of brown coal fired power stations, but the owners and workers of brown coal mines.

DIRECT GOVERNMENT

In NSW the state government (which has total control of local government) has decreed local government elections will be held next October.

If direct government were to be introduced, a good place to start would be at local government level.  I would suggest the following model.

Direct government could be franchised.   It does not need to be a party,

The elected member who has subscribed to the franchise should own a domain.  Electorate constituents would register to participate on the domain, providing their name and address.  The  member would check in the electoral roll that the registrant was a constituent of his district and resident at the nominated address, and thereupon mail the constituent a password.

The member would publish details of forthcoming legislative matters on the website.  Constituents would log in using their password, and could advise how the member should vote.  A running total of votes cast would be available to constituents on the website.

The member would publish a formula.  If less than (say) 5% of constituents had advised a vote, then the member could ignore the constituent’s advice, and vote on conscience.  Where 50% of constituents recommended a particular vote, he would be bound by the vote.  There would be a published sliding scale to determine the cast of the member’s vote between those extremes.

IRAN

I forecast that the Iranian’s will either discontinue uranium refining, or have those centrifuges bombed by Israel.  The attempt by the Guard to bluff ownership of medium range ballistic missiles has been shown to be a lie, which exposes a concern that bombing is imminent.  Either way Iran would be publicly humiliated, which would suit Saudi strategy.  However submission to discontinuation could be presented as the act of a responsible world citizen assuaging his neighbour’s fears, and some of those carrots might still be available…

MIDEAST BACKGROUND

In the mideast it’s all about oil and religion.  The world uses around 80 million barrels a day, and Saudi Arabia  produces more than 10 million barrels a day.  This is more than the next two producers.  The Saud family (several thousand princes and potential successors to the throne at latest count) are the invisible elephant in mideast politics.  Iraq, Iran and Kuwait are the next largest local producers, with potential production levels of about 4 million b/d.  Following are the Trucial states (Qatar, Dhabi etc) Oman and Bahrein.

A few years after Mahommed died, the question of succession arose.  One side said the most popular man should succeed, the other argued that succession should follow blood.  Thus we have Sunni and Shia, who still hold a grudge about a battle fought in the seventh century AD.  A new, fundamentalist sect formed about the time of the breakup of the Turkik empire is Wahhabi, centred in Saudi Arabia.  All these sects are happy to fight each other in the absence of a strong central government.  If the world didn’t need quite oil so much, these countries would quite happily be quarreling with each other over religious issues.   Oil dollars add an explosive ingredient to the mix.

The oil producing regions of the gulf are mainly Shia.  Iran is Shia.  Iraq is mainly (60%) Shia (mostly concentrated around the oil rich Basra region).  The princes of Saud (unlike Iran’s government) do not have religious authority.  They are a kingdom & at risk of internal religious dissent.  Having US troops ensconced is probably a stabilizing effect on would-be revolutionaries, even though it incites cleric opposition.   So it is possible to surmise that the Princes of Saud would prefer stable, autocratic governments in nearby nations, not theocracies.

Unsurprisingly, the USA would like to keep the princes of Saud as friends, because at a word, those princes could remove one eighth of world oil production.  Such a fall in production would do something quite unthinkable to the world (and US) economy.

OTOH Iranians are not such bad fellows.  There are a lot of them, and they are basically friendly towards the USA, and as members of one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, they are educated & understand the vagaries of politics.  In the west they have a very bad press, probably because the Saudi princes have so decreed.  (Sure, Ahminedad is quoted as saying a few provocative things, but anyone in the west should be able to recognize press bias).  According to Obadiah as reported here last December, Iran did a deal with the US.  The deal was: US released an intelligence estimate that Iran was not making nukes; Iran stopped sponsoring Shia terror in Iraq.  With that help the US has (more or less) won the war against terror in Iraq, and they are again making threatening noises about Iranian nukes.   Those threats as the price they pay for 10 million b/d.  It’s not Iranian nukes that has the Saudi princes worried, it is the threat of the spread of revolutionary Shia in the gulf.

The recent peace moves in Gaza and Golan seem to indicate that some sort of a deal has been struck.  (Both Egypt and Syria seem to be prepared to sign peace deals with Israel.)  Paris and other Euro powers are making critical statements about Iran.  One possible spoke in that deal is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

One possible deal would be peace in the borders (Gaza and Golan), with political support from Europe in return for a few Israeli bombs into Iranian centrifuges.  US forces in Iraq and Turkey would preclude a counterstrike.

LIBERALSOLUTIONS

The root cause of the greenhouse problem is that there are too many people.  The liberal end of the political spectrum in Europe (and the US & Oz) has come up with a novel solution.  Under the guise of “green” they have legislated to divert massive amounts of food into the production of “biofuels” for their SUVs.   They are still protesting that the idea is workable.   Now starving third world citizens look across barbed wire fences into fields where biofuels are grown instead of food because wealthy Europeans pay more for biofuel than Africans can afford for food.

Wouldn’t suicide pills be more humane?

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Last week I was caught in a locked room. No way out, no mobile phone, nobody likely to hear me call out, nobody knew where I was.

Here is how it happened.

I parked in the parking station under my local integrated mall. It was after 4.30PM, and the parking station was still crowded. I found a parking spot quite far down on level 2.

From where I was parked to where I wanted to go was practically straight up. I could have detoured about 80-100 meters to an elevator, but there was a fire escape nearby and I was in a hurry. The fire escape (as it was labeled) went up only one floor (from level 2 to level 3 of the parking station) and level 3 was the lowest floor that the nearby elevator serviced. I had some years previously explored this staircase, checked that the doors were not kept locked. It was literally a concrete room containing two solid steel fireproof doors, a stair from the lower door to the upper door, a fire hydrant and a couple of lights.

When I reached the top I discovered that the door was locked. Oops, so back down. The bottom was also locked.

There was no way out. I didn’t even have a book to read. The locks were modern, and none of the keys I had would even fit in. The hinges were sealed. Banging on the door didn’t attract attention, even from within I could hardly hear myself banging on the door. I thought of fusing the lights, but figured somebody might not notice for weeks, and I would be without light.

After about 20 minutes I solved the problem. Can you figure out how?

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COPYRIGHT & PATENT

I have railed against copyright in the past. It seems that the recording industry (both music and video) is in deep shit. There has been a steady fall in music albums sold since 2000, and the fall in singles has been catastrophic. Musicians are dumping the music recording companies and beginning to make an honest living in the old fashioned way, which is to say by charging admission to a performance.

Those US writers who are on strike should get real and stop striking. The era of big movies is ended. My suggestion to the industry is that they obtain sponsorship up front to produce a film, and that the film should contain the sponsors’ messages. If that sounds too abstract, well ask the boys at Google what I mean.

Over at effectmeasure, Revere also objects (mostly to drug patents and copyright held by publishers over scientific papers), The Europeans are also having a shot at drug companies for conspiring to defacto extend the term of drug patents.

And my own personal gripe is about software copyright. The biggest offender is Bill Gates. I have gotten so irate with his shoddy windows system that I peeked at the current UNIX/LINUX offering. After a few hours fooling around, I got the feeling that Gates got out from under just about the peak penetration of windows OS in the world market for OS. (in percentage terms). To anybody else who feels similarly I recommend UBUNTU. It is actually better than XP at recognizing the hardware, and (crossed fingers) virii are not a worry…

The whole problem stems from our political system. If music copyrights hadn’t become impossible to police, our music industry would still be supporting truckloads of (recording industry) leeches, because those leeches had the money to buy the best legislation that is available (from the political leeches) to protect their income.

TELSTRA

A while ago a friend asked me over to fix his internet connection. Turned out he had switched providers when he subscribed to Foxtel, not realizing that he was not buying their internet, and cancelled his bundled internet connection.

So I talked to Telstra, and could not believe the prices they charged. For $30 you get around 500MB per month at 256kbs. The overcharge per MB was scandalous (about 10c I think). Telstra charged around $80 to get over 10GB/month. I asked for any deals but they weren’t worth s**t. I advised him to go back to his old provider, who charged about $40 for around 10GB at 256kbs.

I have had other problems with Telstra’s recharge on prepaid dialup. The incredible dorks in their tech section kept telling me that something I had was faulty. Afetr half a dozen letters somebody who actually understood software admitted the fault was theirs, but showed no inclination to repair the fault.

I originally thought Sol Trujillo was going to be good for Australia. I was wrong. Giving the monopoly to Trujillo without ACCC oversight would be a big mistake.

THE CRASH

According to reports, the Australian stock market is down about 147 billion dollars (around 20%) since January 1 2008. That is about $7,500 for each man, woman and child. You might say so what? It’s not my money.

Do you have superannuation? Since compulsory super contributions, now at 9% of salary became law in Australia back in about 1990, (Labour Prime Minister Keating’s time), you probably do. So take your contributions together with interest earned (say 10% of your current wage, multiply that number by the number of years you have worked). Your superannuation fund has probably lost about 20% of that money since Kevin Rudd took power about 2 months ago.

Your money is probably in the custody of a nerdy MBA who thinks he knows what he is doing, but really doesn’t have a clue, because even his professors were probably klutzes (losers).

Once again, it is the politicians who are to blame. Those superannuation contributions effectively raised our national savings rate which is money available for investment. Unfortunately, this created greater liquidity, and those MBAs entrusted with your money by the Federal Government took what it is now clear were excessive risks in chasing a profit (and their own bonuses).

In the worst case, there will be no safer haven than under the mattress. One thing that the government should urgently do is create cash M1 accounts for everybody on the electoral roll. These accounts would allow the individual a safe haven for his cash, and also access to his cash through any ATM. This would be a cheap option, and could be contracted out to one (or a consortium of) the big banks. If the government does not do this, then I suspect that the supply of M0 (cash) might well disappear under mattresses. There will also be a lot of angry citizens who have lost their savings because they were deposited with an unsafe financial institution (which could turn out to be a bank.)

Finance people in the USA think a recession is either there, or on the way. Optimists in Australia claim we will be mostly untouched by events in the USA. “China” they argue “uses Australian minerals for mostly home market Chinese use”.

I am afraid that I do not share their optimism.

Two political parties have dominated Australian politics since Ming (aka R.G.Menzies). Those are the ALP (Australian Labour Party) and the LCP (Liberal - Country Party).

The ALP looks after unionists including the registered professionals (lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers etc). Consequently the ALP favours by legislation the interests of registered professional bodies and the large corporations (that employ most union members). To do this the ALP makes laws that favour trade protection, price regulation & compulsory unionism.

The LCP is the party for entrepeneurs, and tends to favour small businesses and individual enterprises such as farmers, “for hire” tradesmen, truckies. Consequently the LCP enacts laws that favour a lassaize faire economy, such as removal or attenuation of those laws that protect union and corporate monopolies, reduction of import taxes, removal of price controls and removal of monopoly protection.

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Julian Moti is not just a Fijian Born Lawyer with Australian citizenship. According to Wikipedia, he has been Adjunct professor at Bond university since 1992, and has a rather outstanding international CV in India and Oceania.

The proximate cause of his demonization is the allegation that he raped a 13 year old girl in Vanuatu circa 1997. This case was dismissed with substantial damages by a magistrate in Vanuatu at the time. Since then Moti has continued his legal career as a professor at various universities, and finally accepted a position as the top legal person in the Solomon Islands.

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Kevin Rudd has taken power in Australia. There are some warning signs, and some reassurances.

One troubling warning sign is the size of the cabinet. Powerful prime ministers are usually able to keep the count of ministers small. Weak prime ministers must build support by creating new ministries to repay political support. It remains to be seen whether this seemingly conservative prime minister can restrain the 70% of unionists in cabinet, and the massive support they must wield at branch level.

One of the reassuring signs is the blocking of arch greenie Peter Garret from any executive power over environmental matters. Another is the restraint shown at Bali by refusal to commit to limiting greenhouse emissions by 2020. Of course unionists were never particularly committed to being green, after all, many unionists are employed in a greenhouse gas emitting industry.

NIE (National Intelligence Estimate)

Obadiah of Samson Blinded has explained the NIE that Iran has not been building nuclear weapons since 2004  is the result of a deal between Iran & the US. That deal was that if Iran was to stop sponsoring terrorism in Iraq, then the US would make that (btw, I believe that it is probably true) announcement, which would have the effect of reducing the ability of the US to gain political support for an attack on Iran.

That explanation best fits the facts as I see them, including Bush’s continued rhetoric against Iran. I do find it difficult to otherwise explain the reduced Shia terrorism in Iraq. Sure, “the surge” has reduced terror around Baghdad, but that small increase in US forces does not explain the massive decrease in Iraqui terrorism.

This blog started before Serbia was accused of atrocities in Kosovo. Here are my reports of alleged Serbian atrocities. Here, where Serbia alleged KLA fatalities. Here is a blog of conditions after the NATO invasion. and further postwar KLA terror reports, and Milosevic’s illegal capture. And here is the requiem for Milosevic, a very convenient death in World Court custody for those who invaded Serbia.

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The problems of the world economy are largely masked in Australia by the looming federal election. Mostly unreported here, sub prime mortgages continue to erode the balance sheets of the major US banks and hence contribute to the instability of the world financial system. The distortion of the system is obvious in the news that although the US$ cost of oil is nearing $100 bbl, the actual cost per barrel in Euros is dropping.

The proximate cause of this distortion is the support given to the $US by purchase at a fixed rate by the Chinese and the Saudis. Economically this has the effect of joining the three countries together as a single economic entity.

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TELSTRA IN HIGH COURT

When John Howard privatized Telstra, he expressed a vague notion that there should be competition in provision of telecommunication services. Greed got the better part. He neither spelled out in detail exactly how this should be achieved, nor did he (even more obviously) split Telstra into two companies, one for ownership of the copper, one for everything else.

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The following text came into my hand, it is one man’s tale of an escape from war. I have reproduced it verbatim. I do not know if it was ever published. I hold the original typewritten version, with written in corrections.

The Mayfair Hotel,
King’s Cross,
Sydney.
6th December 1940.

An Australian by birth and just having arrived here after nearly six months since I left Antwerp, I thought my adventures could be of some interest to your readers.

My parents having left this country when I was a child and settled in Belgium, I had established in Antwerp, together with my brother (who is also an Australian) one of the largest advertising concerns on the continent and known under the name of La Publicite Nationale where we were sole contractors for the Railway Publicities and others for Holland, Belgium and the North of France.

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After closely watching Rupert since the launch of “The Australian” I feel nearly qualified to comment on his strategies.

Everyone in media KNOWS that the public is a fickle hydra. Murdoch’s genius is to combine that knowledge with the principle of reaction.

What is to be shrunken
Is first stretched out;
What is to be weakened
Is first made strong;
What will be thrown over
Is first raised up;
What will be withdrawn
Is first bestowed.

Although I must say, it’s breathtaking to watch it in action.

Reportedly Rupert is currently playing with his newest toy, (WSJ in case you hadn’t heard). Goodonyer mate, ida never seen it back in (was it ‘57?).

I think Johnny is not going to call the election this week. Following that thought, it would not overly surprise me if some rather radical democratic legislation was introduced next week.

19th October 2007

I seem to have the worst record for predicting Howard. He has called the election. Already the polls are moving his way. The Murdoch papers have stories about “70% of Labour’s frontbench would be ex-union bosses”. Rudd’s defence is “scare tactics” to which Liberal responds “truth, not scare”. He is correct, predicting something bad e.g. “rising interest rates” would be scare tactics, because it is something that people feel might do them harm, and is based on opinion, not fact. The threat of a unionised cabinet is not scary per se, it depends on people’s perceptions of unionism, and is (I think) based on fact.

THOUGHT (1)

So read Babel’s Dawn, and Cognitive Daily, and even random Chomsky.

The question: where does language come from? The “wolf” or “feral” children seem on the one hand to predicate that language is a prerequisite for social thought.

Another strand theorizes a hardwired neural network. Kant introduced the concept “a priori propositions” which could not be derived. He proposed space and time. To those I would add the concept of “force” or “mass”.

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The recent (and predicted on this blog) problems with the world finance system (ascribed by many to sub-prime mortgages) has caused instability in the banking system. One instance was the Northern Rock incident, where British Taxpayers saved the bacon of shareholders of the bank, and reimbursed the funds of the depositors. Martin Wolf has explained the sorry tale in several blogs. ..in the UK such insurance covers only 100 per cent of the first £2,000 and 90 per cent of the next £33,000. Worse, in the case of an insolvency, depositors take their place at the back of a lengthy queue. British deposit insurance does not prevent runs from banks in trouble. It guarantees they will happen. The run was quite rational.

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During my formative years I confidently felt, something like Voltaire’s Pangloss, that I lived in the best of all existing political systems.

Since then the Internet and information explosion have eventuated, and I am no longer so confident.

Let’s start with defining concepts.

Liberalism and Democracy are totally different dimensions in government, each having a range of values between extremes.

Liberalism as a form of government maximizes the liberty of citizens. It’s extreme opposite might be described as a state where “anything not specifically permitted by law is forbidden”.

Democracy ranges from the Greek ideal, nowadays known as “direct democracy” to it’s opposite, which is dictatorship, defined here as a system of government wherein an elite has the power to rule by decree, that power unfettered by the people governed.

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APEC

The APEC meeting was here for the last week. The parade was rained on when some ABC journalists drove up in hire cars with Canadian flags flying. Apparently APEC security was not well organized because (reportedly much to the journalist’s surprise) they sailed through two checkpoints unchallenged, and were eventually caught because they began to get frightened by the security breach they were creating, and turned around before the third checkpoint (just in front of Bush’s Hotel) and put up their hands.

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CONTINUING MARKET TURMOIL.

I wrote about the looming problems of the sub-prime mortgage market last April. (Of course that term “sub prime” was not in common use at the time). Well those pigeons have come home to roost.

In some ways I did not apprehend the specificity of the problem. This because the efforts of various entrepreneurs in buying up all those bad (”sub prime”) mortgages, then bundling them into a CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) with a minimum of good mortgages so that they attract a favorable rating from the various rating companies, then selling those well rated mortgage backed CDOs to unwitting amateur retail investors. So most of the hit is being taken by retail investors, e.g. age pensioners and soon-to-be age pensioners, or wealthy but naive local governments.

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In my last post I analyzed the reports of the UNFCC, the IPCC, and the Stern Review. Those organizations produced reports on anthropogenic generated greenhouse gases (GHG). I found reputable and persuasive citations that claimed bias in IPCC4 and Stern. Even assuming that IPCC and Stern were without bias, the central estimate of IPCC 4 was that there was a warming effect equivalent to an 0.15% increase in the radiant energy of the sun, and that there was a 90% certainty that half of the warming was caused by GHG, and that the sea level would rise by less than one meter by 2100 AD.

In most professions (e.g. Engineering, Criminal law, Psychology,) a 90% probability is not sufficient to establish a case.

It is not good enough to merely suggest “better be safe than sorry”. We should consider the probable cost of the damage that would be caused by GHG warming and compare that with the probable cost to our economy of halting or reducing GHG concentrations.

What is the cost of the damage by GHG? Stripped of the alarmist hyperbole, it is predicted that by the year 2100 there would be a two degree centigrade temperature rise, a one meter sea level rise, and (as a result of the elevated temperature) there might be increased weather damage to housing and industry. The weather patterns would move to higher latitudes with negative effects on agriculture in some latitudes, positive effects on agriculture in others. (I note that Stern could have copied his expected damage predictions, (chapter 5 of Part 2 of his review) directly from the prediction that I made more than a year earlier). Earlier IPCC worries that nett agricultural production might be adversely affected seem to have dissolved as it was realized that worldwide crop production would probably benefit from the increased CO2 concentration, although Stern has stated categorically (no cite noted) that a higher than 2 deg C temperature increase would be disastrous.
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A previous post on GW was done in 2005. This is the first of two new posts on Global Warming.

PREAMBLE.

There are three instrumentalities that have made a contribution to the Global Warming conversation. These are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) together with it’s better known amendment, the Kyoto Protocol, and the UK government commissioned Stern Report.

Back in 1990, environmentalists concerned about the observed increase in green house gas (CO2, CH4) concentration (CO2 went from 0.028% circa 1900 to around 0.035% circa 1990) persuaded their governments to form the IPCC. Governments submitted lists of interested scientists, and from those lists panel members were selected by the conveners. Since then the IPCC has brought out four reports at approximately five year intervals.
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After many years predicting his demise, I have come to think of John Howard as either having a charmed life, or as one of the cleverest politicians ever to take the Australian stage. He might be even cleverer than Paul Keating thought himself to be. Kevin Rudd is now feeling the full heat of JH’s attack, and noticeably wilting. Unless KR can find a killer Ap, (see below) I am afraid that he will go the way of Keating, Beazley, Crean and Latham.

One indication of JH’s cleverness was his refusal to ever say “sorry”. I noted that refusal, and admired him for it, because as an old timer with some direct experience of Aboriginals, I believed that the procedures instituted by early governments were humane & appropriate. Definitely not something about which I should feel sorry.

Howard has restored the policies which recent generations of Aboriginals and liberals have condemned. No alcohol on the reservation. Providing healthy food in lieu of money, (money is something which Aboriginals are not equipped culturally to understand). Compulsory health checks for children. If warranted, taking children at risk and putting them in boarding schools or foster homes, and giving them an education which allows them to become productive and valued members of the non aboriginal society.

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QUEENSLAND.

After seeing the recent performance of Queensland Premier Beatty, I am not surprised that parts of Queensland are anxious to split. Beatty is the sort of Premier that makes visitors laugh at the motto on Queensland car number plates which states “The Clever State”. Hehe. So how come they elected Beatty?

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Some Labour party stalwarts have been reported in the press as making an issue of the fact that productivity of the workforce, since the instigation of workplace agreements, has declined.

Lets try to make this simple. Consider the case of a factory making widgets. Productivity is the number of widgets produced by the factory per annum divided by the number of workers producing those widgets.

The introduction of Australian Workplace Agreements has changed an economic fundamental. Now an employer can employ a new worker without worrying, if there were to be a downturn, or if the worker were a dud, whether he would be stuck with an unsackable worker.

So employers have employed new workers, because they anticipated that AWAs would improve the economy, and wanted to prepare by training new workers.

So the factory that had 20 workers producing 2,000 widgets a year suddenly had 21 workers still only producing 2,000 widgets a year. So productivity went from 100 widgets per worker per year to 95.24widgets per worker per year. Productivity has thus fallen by nearly 5%.

It must be the fault of AWAs. Well yes, it most certainly is. So is the rise in employment. Which rise, multiplied across the workforce has increased consumer spending, which means more people will eventually buy widgets, and so the cycle of prosperity continues.

Of course anybody who devotes some thought to the matter realizes that it is unadulterated self interest that motivates those Labour party stalwarts. Significant Labour party funding is tendered by unionist management, who derive their salaries (and those tendered ALP contributions) from union fees, which are shrinking as union membership declines because of AWAs.

And the rank and file? Most that I have talked to are happy. They have increased wages. They can see that there is a shortage of workers. They do not believe that the days of the “Shearer’s strike” could return, but if it did, well they would form a new union.

Port Douglas was a welcome rest. I found shared accommodation (in with 2 German boys) for $21/night. An internet lounge allowed ethernet connection of my laptop for $2.50/(30 minutes). The airconditioning wasn’t really necessary. PD was a hive of activity, real estate is in short supply, new buildings everywhere. Lots of Yachts in port, empty malls, dreadful coffee (except at one location, a combined bookshop/coffeeshop on the main street.) I was told that accommodation would not be available from that weekend, because some sort of festival was starting, and the “stingers” would be gone next week. (Stingers are some sort of jellyfish whose sting is often fatal to humans.)

I headed for nearby (1 hour away) Cairns. Cairns has some of the advantages of a big city, (cheap internet, even wifi). The beach here is a mudslick. Shared accommodation (at least that week) was either unavailable or too expensive (around $30).

In the outback, camping charges for a single person are about $8-$10 per night. Along the eastern seaboard from Sydney to Cooktown, for whatever reasons, a single and double campsite are nearly always combined, so the cost for a single camper is generally about $18-$22 per night. As a consequence I mostly seek shared (dormitory) accommodation, which provides clean sheets and a bed, better cooking facilities, air conditioning, no mosquitos or flies, TV, sometimes internet, and weatherproof shelter. I have pointed out these differences to several campsite owners, but they refuse to reduce their rates. Consequently I generally end up in one of the free campsites provided along the highways, which lack showers and closeness to shopping and rapacious campsite owners.

Next destination was Cooktown. The road has been upgraded to all bitumen, and is an easy 4 hours from Cairns. Same rapacious caravan parks, and no space for backpackers, so I headed for a free out-of-town campsite that I had been told of on the “qt”. That campsite turned out to be quite idyllic, right on the seashore, waves crashing about 5 meters away, onshore winds that kept insects away. Palm trees and A few family campers (including an extended family group) were scattered about, fishing boats moored a few eters offshore. I was told that the best fishing was on the reef, about 5 kilometers out.

Next morning in Cooktown, then on to the aboriginal settlement at Hope Vale. A warning near the entry not to carry more than 2 litres wine or equivalent onto the community under threat of a $70k fine. Then a welcome. This had all the trappings of a showcase community. It was not a large town, perhaps 4-6 blocks, each with 10-20 houses that were well constructed and for the most fairly well maintained houses on large (half acre?) blocks. Happy picaninies running about the streets with assorted levels of clothing (down to zero). Quite respectable 4WD vehicles parked at most of the houses, most of which had dish antenna. An attractive school, a brightly decorated police station completed the picture of urban bliss.

Another night at my free campsite, then next morning back towards Cairns. I stopped for the night at Kuranda at the “Kuranda Backpackers hostel”. It was nearly empty, I paid $19 for a bed in a dorm with 12 beds and no other people. The hostel is a huge oldfashioned “Queenslander” style wooden building. Kuranda is an attractive town, having a contrived village atmosphere, and seemingly filled with penurious artists. There are several shops and markets which sell handmade pottery & jewelery, paintings and artefacts. Quite reasonable coffee can be obtained on the corner coffee shop near the tourist “I” park.

The tourist attraction at Kaunda is the “Barron Falls”. I drove to the viewing area and observed a thin thread of water falling about 100 meters. Lovely mountainous valley, but not much waterfall.

Then on to the big smoke, Cairns.

Darwin was hot and humid. I had arrived late April, which was a tad too early. However I explored a little.

To the northwest of the downtown area is the suburb called Larrakeyah where it appears the wealthy live. There is an enclosed harbor with a lock, and residences fronting onto that harbor with wharves chockablock full of yachts. The lock was presumably because the “king” tides here are nine meters higher than lowest tides. A small retail block fronting the enclosed harbor seemed to be struggling to survive. The only business that seemed to have a chance of success was the restaurant/coffee shop. I think they had better improve the quality of the coffee. What many would be retailers probably fail to understand is that rich people did not get rich by paying inflated prices for the staples of life, and mostly they do know what good coffee tastes like.

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The Stuart Highway from Alice Springs to Katherine is through mostly flat, mostly mostly desert. (Meaning it is mostly what is most of the time, except after a wet “wet season”, desert.) Alice Springs is just below the Tropic of Capricorn, so this road is in the tropics, and the wet season in the Australian tropics is September to March.

In contradiction to what the NT dept of Agriculture thinks, I saw what looked very much like serrated tussock on the roadside between AS and Tennant Creek. Much of the country that I passed through did not look like desert. April is the beginning of the “dry season”, and I was told at various points by locals and truckies between AS & TC that the rather extensive and juicy looking (well, if I were a sheep or cow) grass I saw growing was normally red dirt. Regardless, there was an awful lot of good feed going to waste. Down around Bathurst/Orange, prices for hay (if you can find it) are treble what it would fetch in normal times. I guess the cost of cutting and transport must exceed the cost of hay in Bathurst.

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Just what is the world economy doing?

We have had a straight run (except for the SE Asian bubble) since about 1992.

The really top financial wizards (Buffet, Greenspan, Grantham) are sounding warnings, but the premier investment houses are between a rock and a hard place. They need to invest their client’s money, and telling their clients that it is better placed in government bonds is not an option.
The price of real estate around the world has reached what appears to be unsustainable heights. The world seems to be awash with money looking for a quick profit. Even the highest risk homebuyers in the USA or Australia are reported as able to obtain finance, Barbarians like KKR are able to obtain $billions for leveraged buy outs of companies that are making a good return, but not high enough for the cutting edge financial analysts. World business has been on a boom cycle ever since financial and trade markets were liberalized.

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Driving into the Northern Territory (NT), the first thing noticed is the speed limit. It is 130 KPH on major highways, 110 KPH elsewhere, and as directed in built up areas. The roads are straight, and 130 KPH is an easy speed to maintain.

Alice Springs is nearly 300 KM north of the border. The turnoff to the Rock (Ayer’s Rock) is about 200 km south of AS. A warning. Named spots (eg Eridanu Roadhouse) on a map of the NT are sometimes a single building.
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The Spencer Gulf is the larger, westernmost gulf of the twin gulfs in the SE corner of the state of South Australia. Towns in the northern Spencer gulf primarily depend on mining & industry to survive. Most of the land around the upper gulf is either poor grazing country or desert. Tides in Spencer Gulf are about 2 meters, and the gulf is quite shallow in parts. On a map I saw at Point Lowly near Whyalla, a sand spit at low tide off Port Germein appeared to reach about 5 kilometers further into the gulf than at high tide. There are numerous warnings at gulf beaches that ocean currents are strong.
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Over Easter I was at a “Confest” near Deniliquin.  Deniliquin is a largish town (20,000?) on the NSW side of the NSW-Victorian border, a  few hundred miles East of the state of “South Australia”.

For “Confest” think “Woodstock”.  It is a sorta  a hippy conference-festival.  Lots of people camping in tents, living tribal fashion.  Mostly unorganized and a lot of goodwill.  All ages & inclinations are represented, (Gay, families, exhibitionists).  Various people giving talks on a variety of subjects (I attended a good talk on Henry George & a lousy talk on the I Ching.)

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Since 2003 the regions of Iran that border Iraq have suffered from terrorist attacks. The Iranians blame the USA and the UK.

Back in January 2007 the US captured some of the elite “Iranian guard” in Iraq. Allegedly those guardsmen had in their possession supplies and technology for terror. Iran objected strongly that those captives were diplomats. (despite the fact that Diplomats should not be armed beyond the need to protect themselves). The US is adamant that they were spies supplying weapons to terrorists. They are not recently mentioned in the media. There must be a presumption that they are being “questioned”.
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The latest political star to appear on the federal scene is Kevin Rudd. Like John Howard he is short, displays an impeccable honesty and is a shrewd tactician . He has crafted a policy that differs only in carefully selected issues from the government.

OK first my own disclosures. About three years ago I went to a MEAA (Journalist’s union) meeting in Darling harbor Sydney at which KR spoke. He was witty, a great orator, and shared “in” type media jokes, concerning the gullibility of the public. Not that I felt that he felt that way, but the cynicism displayed by that crowd was quite disconcerting.
The liberal party of John Howard appears to be floundering. Following Rudd’s overthrow of Beazley & election to leadership of the Australian Labour Party (ALP), there was the traditional media honeymoon period. Then Howard appeared to be gaining traction on the outing of Rudd’s meetings with Brian Burke, prominent felonious ex-premier of Western Australia . (more…)

Recent events: Cheney has just left Oz, and the US is moving major naval assets into the gulf. John Howard has promised more trainers for Iraq, Blair has taken a couple thousand troops out of Iraq, and boosted a couple thousand into Afghanistan.

Some forecasters are predicting that the US or Israel will bomb Iranian nuclear assets back to tors. I am afraid that the horse has well and truly bolted. The nuclear war that was for so long feared seems to be getting much closer. (more…)

In recent weeks China has surfaced a (reportedly undetected) submarine in the midst of a US fleet, and shot down an old satellite.

In a recent post “ABM & Space Stations” I warned that destroying a space station was not very advanced rocket technology. I speculated that Democrat politicians wanted a space station because the component parts would be mainly made in Democrat states.

The Chinese missile test has hopefully put paid to those Democrat plans. I think it would have been obvious to any engineer who thought about it that a military space station was extremely vulnerable to mid range technology. However most people are not engineers, and believe what their elected leaders tell them. I see any attempt by those who promote a military space station (& should know better) as a very dangerous form of corruption.

If the Chinese submarine was in fact undetected until it surfaced, then the technological implications are profound. So profound that I find it hard to believe.

I would (if that sub was truly undetected & I was in charge) be quadrupling the research effort. Need I point out that hostile submarines (if undetected) could launch an attack which would take less than ten minutes to deliver to most major cities in the USA?

These developments (and N Korea & Iran) make it even more crucial than ever that ABMs as proposed in July 2000 and subsequently be developed asap. (The recent submarine technology displayed requires that those ABMs double as anti cruise missiles).

I actually have faith in the US military. It is quite easy to covertly obtain technology to within six months of the leading edge. Getting on the development wagon is another deal entirely. It requires a totally different team, a different ethos, and open communication.

That last six months is hardest to overtake, and it is the winning edge.

The Democrats are newly in power in the US Congress, and house speaker Nancy Pelosi has created a “global warming” committee. “Weather Channel” Weathergirl Heidi Cullen has

metamorphosed from a tizzy predicting storms into a scientist who wants to muzzle colleagues by stripping those who are not following the “alarmist” line on global warming of their professional weather reader certification.

“Anti alarmist” weatherpersons have counterattacked, charging that many reputable scientists believe that the extreme weather this year is “normal” variation, and cite their colleagues silence as being the product of the unavailability of grant money to establish a contrary position.

As early as April 2005, Professor Lindzen who occipies the “Alfred P Sloane” professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT charged that “Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.” I am already on record as having theorized that global warming would produce more energetic weather. With that caveat, I did not find Professor Sloane’s counter argument to Sir John Horton’s (similar “more energetic weather”) theory at all convincing. That led me to google “Alfred P Sloane” who, it turns out, was a past President of GMH. Follow the money indeed.

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Australia is having difficulty with the client governments in the region. East Timor, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, & Vanuatu. Other small states (e.g. Nepal) are having difficulty with the Western model of a Liberal Democratically elected Dictatorship.

In some cases the problem arises because the head of the military believes that the elected government has exceeded it’s franchise. This argument does not go well with our democratically elected dictators in Canberra or London where the model we use is held out as the epitome of good government (although if pushed, they would probably allow that there could be a few improvements, like longer terms, outlaw independents, stronger libel/defamation laws curtailing unwanted comment, more pay etc.)

Consider the latest crisis in Fiji. The democratically elected (by a slim majority) government decided to sell foreshore land. The military decided to intervene using that as an excuse, sacked the PM, sacked then reinstated the President, who then appointed the military chief as PM.

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One of the most divisive incidents since Australian Federation presaged the election of Prime Minister Malcolm Frazer. That incident was the dismissal of then PM E.G.Whitlam by the Governor General that EGW had appointed earlier, and the subsequent election of Mal.

Under the rules of our government, cabinet papers are released after thirty years. The following information has been released. Just before his dismissal, EGW had communicated to Indonesian President Suharto Australian acceptance of the Indonesian intent to invade the newly independent Portugese colony of East Timor. That invasion proceeded, during which time four Australian journalists who were present in the region were executed by the Indonesian army.

Just after being elected, PM Mal Frazer confirmed Australia’s consent to the Indonesian invasion.

That invasion was directly and subsequently responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of East Timorese people. Now Malcolm is pretending to be extremely upset that an Australian terrorist, David Hicks, should still be locked up in Gautanamo without being charged after 60 odd months.

The reason that PM Howard is not in a hurry to have David Hicks back in Australia is that he does not want the same embarassment as the Indonesians suffered in their action against Bali Bomber Godfather Abu Bakar Bashir.   Five years ago, we did not have specific anti terrorist laws such as “being trained as an Al Quaida terrorist in a foreign country” listed as a crime. So even if it were proven that Hicks had been trained personally by Bin Laden, Hicks would not have been guilty of any crime under Australian law. It might not be legal, but it is justice.  Hicks should be in jail.

Sometimes I wonder where our pollies learn their ethics. For all I care, terrorist Hicks could rot in hell forever if it would save those East Timorese that Mal killed.

Frazer was a politician, so I should not be surprised that he had the chutzpah to speak out against the sequestration of Hicks.  If I had any say in the matter, Frazer would be there with Hicks for his part in causing those thousands of Timorese deaths.

There are sections of the community that anticipate a recession within the next few years. Economists seem to be concerned with the levels of consumer debt in Australia & the US. Their concern seems to be that consumer anxiety over personal debt compounded by rising interest rates and falling real estate values will inhibit consumer spending. At the other end of the economic predictor spectrum are the new Malthusians, exemplified by LATOC. Latoc believes that “cheap” carbonaceous minerals have provided a “free ride” economically for the last 80 odd years, but that when oil is exhausted (or even in short supply) then the unmet demand will cause a price rise that will produce an economic crash.

I have previously written about Oil & Ecology, in March 2005 and January 2006

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