Tim Blair

God I hate Adams.

The government, which at the time were fatty boy's drinking buddies, owned all that stuff and the 'people' could go fuck themselves if they didn't like the service.

Hate that fat fuck.

It might be better to pass over Fatty Adams's tirade but one correction at least is in order, no two: Howard is undoing Keating's legacy.

No, Howard is not, to the contrary , Howard and Costello during their time on the treasury benches have maintained it and increased it.

The background is: sclerotic failiing sectors due to protectionism and government enforced monoplies. By the end of the 1970's, due to the policies of each of the two parties when in turn in government, the economic reality Australia faced was the prospect of depression, as oppoesed to the depression, not a recession, Hawke, Keating and their party of leftoids gave to austrlaians but which Australians did not, Mr. Keating, need to have.

Hawke and Keating , however,did not relinquish the national socialist aims of the ALP. They redefined those aims along purportedly `non-economic' lines. In effect, markets and capital were to be, in effect, still to be subordinated to socialist aims reflected in two main components, exponential increases in government consumption, imposition of indirect controls and exactions on businesses , with , despite contrary claims, the unlawful maintenance of coercive control over labour markets - the accord, with forced increases in rate of pay direct and indirect - such as super.

The coalition government has not reversed many of the socialist policies.The coalition parties are , to observe also national socialist aperties.
Bye the bye, `left wing , right wing, centre' makes sense of hues of socialism, which otherwise is nonsense in depicting an economy which is genuinely open ,rule of(common) law is the law of the land and govevernments act lawfully .This includes, governments do not have some automatic power to tax as they please, nor raise taxes which are open ended and a tad eternal, nor consume as they please.

Nor , if government was lawful, would it operate a central reserve bank and issue sequestration slips which is paper money to which crime is added inflation, inclusive of by manipulation of interest rates.

There is no hint the coalition is itself committed to rendering government lawful.In the U.S., it might be observed, successive governments have been ,as the current administration also is ,not only in breach of common law but also explicitly of the U.S. constitution viz. the U.S. Fed. Reserve bank, paper money and inflation and government debt.

As for government owned corportations, the `public did not own them. Governments did and of some things still do. They used the sequestration slips called paper money to set them up. They shored them up by imposing monopoly and monoplies,also `cartels', contrary to Alan Fels and the ACCC, cannot exist but for government coercion of which Menzies was a main architect.

Increased ALP imposed measures, yes to judge by the mountains of bureacratiuc rules the government has also imposed on commerce, the sue of supposedly `non-economic' policies to pursue `moral aims' including `family policies', the maintenance of the sacred cows `Medicare' and plethora of zoos called universities.The maintenace of the other wise unlawful courts such as the IRC . The maintence of coerced payroll payments in the form of taxes and super, compounded by states' payroll taxes - and, what remains, a base level of price fixing.

The consumption of all tiers of government is increasing, the trend is sharp - exponential that is. Governments cannot `fire- proof economies' nor can they amke them work in planned ways contrary to Paul Keating and his masturbatory lever pulling ways. The only thing governments can do is to get out of the way of markets and capital and also the conduct of the affairs of government lawful.

Contrary to all sides of the political fence, one is not sanguine about Austyralia's economic prospects.The dangers are compounded by the spiv communisto regimes of each state and many a local council. As for Victoria it is becoming what it was once famous for under Cain and Kirner, the ALbania of Australia.

Yet another pile of illegible conspiracy-theory bilge. Thanks, d!

It is not conspiracy hocus pocus Fork: the so-called economic reforms of the ALP were restricted ,and the force was to some-how make markets serve central-planning - national socialist ends.The current government has only entrenched that.

It is pertinent to observe, the British government in the colonial era expressly declared it is unlwful for the colonial governments to issue paper money (sequestration slips) and any instrument serving the same purpose , the sequestration of property -capital to chattels. It was a criminal offence for the colonial governments , in other words to debase hard money, to overthrow hard money, or to force sequestration chits onto the back of hard money. Today, inflation , including by cutting interest rates by central government owned bodies, rather than letting markets genuinely freely establish rate of interest, is the same in effect as printing paper money.

On housing prices. Four things can be noted:
1] planning controls - from building prescriptions to `licensing' of `'tradesmen'
2] `planning ' and `zoning' controls on type and where of buildings
3] taxes, including stamp duty.

One will add payroll and CGT and why: for it is the only basis of saving in Austrlia which the thieves called governments and their armiesa of professional mendicants do not tax to the eyeballs. It is understandable why so many , even if the above 3 reasons were not in force,why so many allocate so much of their capital into their homes.

Monoplies, Mork cannot exist except by government coercion. The former two airline policy is an excellent example. It induced: mis-allocation of capital.It5 divorced management from the signals of the market place - a straight producer command model. It underpinned the raison de tre of the IRC and union dominated price fixing inAustralia - the trade off for corruption of markets by coercive government.

Moreover, the above underpinned the collapse of ANsett. On labour, the union chiefy weify Combet is wrong: ANsett was union dominated - rostering was one example of that. It was administratively top heavy.Structurally, it was committed to a basis of operations which did not meet market realities.The price of government coercion, a corrupted market with saw one major established airline unable to adapt according to market signals instead of to, in fact, polticical dictat.

The contrast is Qantas, with Strong and then Dixon having reshaped Q. into a market entity - with the result, Qb is successful.The completley entrepenurial outfit , Virgin airlines is another case in point.Under government imposed monopoly, Virgin could not have been established.Here-in is the bitter, ironic twist.

Reg Ansett was an entrepenuer and so set up Ansett but, he came up against the Socialists in Canberra led by Menzies.

One will add, Menzies was committed to central planning. He set the Liberal party as broader based socialist party than the ALP and the Country Party and thus began the corruption opf the middle classes who are committed to socialism - all those demands which each tier of government readily supplies, from medicare to `family planning', and of course, committed to their great careerahs as administratrive pooh bahs `working' for government.

And what are `pubklic servants payed" well, governments produce nothing which markets value and so price, thus they are paid in the only way open to lawless government, chits of sequestration - paper money. WQhen a public servant buys your house thye exchange nothing, just paper.You pay them to take your house of you since paper money is supported, only partially, by taxation which is the confiscation of capital goods.

Government has grown to be the lawless Leviathan it is.

God, I admire d's typing skills! (even if I don't understand any of his/her stuff)

I haven't read d's posts but if he's upsetting fork then he must be putting the knife in. Keep it up.

Ha.

This is worth adding, successive U.S. Administrations, including this one , are in direct breach of the consitution,so therefore guilty of serious offences.

10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United states... nor prohibited by it (the consitution) to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Prohibited under the consitution to the states, thus too the United States : `No state shall coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of ( government)debts.

The prohibition thus explicitly forbids impairment of contracts , something which each tier of government in Australia are aslo government. Let us pick up this point.

Impairment of contract by either of contracting parties , as volitional contract(central to common law), or both in agreement, dleberately or not, when challenged, will be found to be an unlawful contract, according to the principles which otherwise are intrinsic to the type of contract struck.

Take this further,under the various companies and corporations act have been declared by Australian Federal governments to be also criminal offences. Given, that, common law can more than adequately treat unlawful contracts, the hypocrisy of both major parties is blatantly obvious, not least because they commit the very offences they otherwise moralise about and ram through parlaiment to make else excepting themselves moral.

George Read , a framer of the U.S. consitution observed:if not struck out (paper money), would be as alarming as the mark of the beast in Revelation.' Quite right.
Under the U.S. consitution it is explicitly forbidden, and thus a criminal offence for any government, state or federal, to print money by any means - including by inflation.

It is also forbidden that a government should own and maintain a bank and for the very reason, it would mean the government would have an instrument by which to print money. That prohibition against a central bank has proven correct in the breach of governments of that prohibition. But the same applies to Australian governemnts. It was declared unlawful for any government in Australia, though of the colonial period , to print money. That is, to be clear, for a government to do so is to commit a criminal offence, even in Australia.

Phillip Adams, first line, sixth paragraph:

'Thank heavens for short attention spans.'

Speak for yourself, forgetful Phil, you deluded deliverer of fact-free philippics from your sheltered soapbox.

d,

Who prints the money in the US - Simon & Schuster?

It might as well be Simon and Shuster - ditto for the $Aussie.And it as good as, federal mints given coerced monopoly by fed govts, U.S. and Aust. for which the governments charge seigniorage which is just another damned tax.

But, to be sure, to prop up paper money, governments have virtually outlawed hard currency, commodity based money. The measure against the use of gold, for example, were raised to serve exactly that purpose. Notice also, when was it, the 60's or 70's, exchange of the South African Krugerand was outlawed in Australia and for the very reasons outlined above, certainly nothing to do with `trade sanctions' against South Africa on the count of Apartheid.

It is not simply governments issue sequestration chits, paper money, they use coercive force to prop them up by the capricious declaration use of hard currency to be an offence.

Forgery is a criminal offence. Forgery inflates paper money in cirulation over and above what governments are , in any case culpable of. It is ironic, therefore, hard currency has been suppressed to prop up a forger's notion of money.

I see.

Nobody get d started on credit cards and consumer credit otherwise we'll be here all week!

Yeah! Bring back the Gold Standard! We'll all be fitter having to lug around the stuff. Perhaps the elderly could operate on a silver standard.

Oh, and when we bring back the Gold Standard, WA will then seceed 'cause we've got shit loads of gold in the ground, not to mention iron ore and gas and oil and . . . and the rest of Australia can go to hell in a hand cart.

Speaking of WA and secession, whatever happened to Prince Leonard of Hutt?

I don't hate Adams. I don't hate most socialists. Not the modern type, anyway. I love them. They're funny, and so long as they stay in the media, they can't do too much harm to the country.
I do wonder, though, how did Phillip start working for the Murdoch press, and why does he continue to?
Nice post, by the way, Tim.

Razor, W.A. can secede, that has nothing to do with commerce. Specie comes into it - as you say, gold, oil , ore, better than toilet roll paper.

Credit has nothing to do with inflation except in the case of nominal creation of money when feds inflate supply- including by arbitrary interest rate cuts.So, you have two cows, I'll supply you with a bucket of feed but, if you fail to return a pail of milk ,I'll colect your cows and sell them to someone else, for some grape juice.

Contrast: you have have two cows, the government wants the milk your cows produce. It takes the milk but , to pay for the milk it sends ATO man to issue you with the notice,` the government owns by the `powers of taxation' one of your cows'. The notice has the rider: but the government doesn't wish to own a cow so we require, by threat of police force, that you sell your cow for turnips which we will take off you and eat. So, you only end up with one cow, but you must still deliver the bucket of milk which is produced by two cows.

To cover the fraction, the government issues photographs of turnips which you produce to sequester a cow from someone else in order to give government one regular pail of milk.Now you have 1 third of a cow.To ensure you have 2 cows for the nex day, you borrow photographs of 3 cows, sell one in exchange two for buckets of feed because, by now, the poor buggers are starving to death.

You only have two cows, then one,then none, but you once had three thousand cows.

That central government bodies set rates, not markets is the poison.

Oh, I hasten to add, and what fuels the larcenous habits of governments, their great spending spending sprees made possible only by stealing assets by why of that tribute to prtoection racketeering, taxation. But taxation serves only immediate cash flows. Secondly, it is inconvenient since governments enjoy spending faster than the flows admit and at greater amounts than the collections admit. So they issue photographs, and wreak greater havoc.

pooh - I believe that the Hutt River Province tourist scam is still running. A fine example of WA's entreprenurial spirit, yes.

d - enoughs enough. As a proud RWDB I am anti-big government as you appear to be, but most of your rant today is bullshit. While not believing that academic qualifications mean everything, may studies of economics and finance show me that the development of paper money (along with credit, contract law, the rule of law, democracy and a miriad of other things)is what allowed western society to reach the level of economic, social and political development that we have achieved today.

If you continue with this unsupported argument people will think that you are some lefty trying to make tim's blog appear to be of the lunar right fringe. He might be right most of the time, but he's not that right.

Cheers

Agree Razor except on paper money. Paper money is issuede as fiat sequestration orders of government.

During the Roman Empire, debasement of currency was executed by physical debasement of coinage, substitution of metals of far less worth than gold and silver, and the consequences then were the same as today.

In the West, Britain,Australia and the U.S. , fake money was introduced as war measures, the articles of the U.S. consiution written with very recent experienc of forger's money in view.

Paper money certainly did not deliver the explosive growth in commerce in the 19th century.

The South Sea Bubble was itself an excercise in forging money.The South Sea Bubble is, true to form but, curiously a counter example rpoving the rule.

Following the disastrous civil war and totalitarian regime of Cromwell, at least eqaulling that of HenryVII and VIII,William Pitt the younger , leader of the Whigs and youngest P.M. , was faced with a thorny problem.

Fresh out of the troubles, England was in economic ruins. His inclinations were , let the markets run and keep government out of the way. Against that, however, he had to face the next great savage of history, Bonaparte and his horde of yokels. The proposition was then, in erms of his duty, to fight Bonaparte, involving how to finance the `allies' and Pitt had to work hard to stiffen their spines against the savage.

Taxation would cripple economic recovery, as would increased consumption by the government, albeit to fight the frogs ( nothing has changed, what Bonaparte attempted by armed force they now seek by force of legalese).The South Sea Co. was an attempt to finance the expense by issuing debt in the form of capital. In short, it was paper money but it swallowed up hard money.And that is what Western GOvernments do today, they get hold of real assets, in exchange for crap paper.

It is worth repeating, the absolute amount of government's of Australia payroll is increasing at a high exponential tend the curve compsed to two things: the sheer increase in numbers payed incomes by governments over the last 6 years and abosolute increases in the rate of pay to each reicipient of thosde real taxpayer incomes.

In the case of Victoria, that trend was intiated within the first couple of months of the Victorian adds. By the end of the first six months in government, one estimated, becuase of the sheer quantity of people hired, the current plus present value of long term liabilities to real tax payers,to9 be in something int he order of 4 billions.During since then, that government has continued to add to numbers and has continued to increase the abosolute rates of pay.

It is not surprising, in view of the above, the absolute amount of genuinely non-government payroll and the rate of pay is decreasing . It is not , as yet, decreasing at the rate of the trend of government payroll.It will soon, one expects, catxch up. In other words, those engaged in real market enterprises are being impoversished by the shyster and shysters whose regular sobriquet is, `government'. As for all the peasants pursuing their wunnerful guvnmnt careerahs,and enjoying their bounties of requestration slips, it will come to end, if only for no better reason than those whose assets are stripped to keep you supplied with sequestration strips will be stony broke and can't, therefore be taxed anymore to supply you with your prequisites.

Given reforms under Hawke/Keating covered a wide range of areas is it not possible Adams views some of them as good and others as bad? That could explain the two articles in question.

Still, he could have made things clearer by specifying which of Keatings reforms he felt 'fireproofed' the economy.

D, you need to start your own blog mate, you've got a god-given power to rant that most bloggers dream of.

www.littleblackhelicopters.com, or LGH, would be a good potential name.

Indefinite Delay on Weapons Report
The London Advertiser

Monday 15 September 2003

LONDON: The US and Britain have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The London-based Sunday Times newspaper said inspectors had found no evidence any such arms exist.

Efforts by the Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, to scour Iraq for the past four months to uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons had so far ended in failure.

The newspaper reported British defence intelligence sources had confirmed that the group's final report had been delayed and may not even be published.

It had been expected a progress report would be published today.

Yippee! Bring back Saddam, they must have been wrong about him too.

d, you said:
"Prohibited under the consitution to the states, thus too the United States : `No state shall coin money...'"

Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power...To coin Money..."

See, damn it?

Here's a little more for you:

"The Congress shall have the Power To lay and collect Taxes...
To borrow money on the credit of the United states [that's right, THE CREDIT OF THE UNITED STATES]...
To provide the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States [yes, the SECURITIES IN ADDITION TO the coin... the constitution does not waste words, so what might those securities be, hm?]...
To regulate Commerce...
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the forgoing powers..."

Two centuries worth of Supreme Court justices are a LOT SMARTER THAN YOU.

AH HELL, leave my damn constitution alone!

A good rant lets orff the steam .. heck, otherwise, according to the Spring St.communards who are now proposing to drop Vic.s urban limit to 40 kph, I might just jump into the car and find a pedestrian or bycicalist and squish them.So long as they're a greenie.

On forging, there is no contradiction between stating that is nasty, since the distinction in the constitution is between hard specie and fools money which fed bodies are pumping out faster than bilge water which is forbidden under the consitution as well as a fed govt central bank which serves to do the same thing.

`Power to lay and collect taxes, also in the Australian constitution which trearts of scope to do so.

In the Australian federation debates and framing of the constitution, it might be added,the aim was to restrict federal government in favour of states govts. On the other hand, those articles on powers of taxation are objectionable to say the least, in common law countries - well formerly so of the US given all but a couple of states of the union have struck down common law.

The objection rests in, in common law, goverments do not have some divine right to tax, nor impose unlimited eternal taxes. Whether King in council or parlaimentary cabinet, a tax , even though at times formally, had to be justified and restricted to very limited use of short duration.Peel usurped that with his non-reform by transforming the administrative apparatus of government into departments with the unbderlying , the aim of which wasn't fully realised until after WWII.

With his `reforms' he rammed through the house unfettered taxation measures. Peel barely managed to survive the storm which ensued, unfortunately.

Behind the restriction on executive government, whether of monarch or parlaimentary cabinet, stood the test, common law. Assertion of some divine right to tax and spend as a government may please was understood, the government was lawless.And that was the view of Peel's so-called reforms, a view justified by the subsequent trajectory of govts in Britain, Australia and the U.S.

The same applied to debt. Executive was not free to contract debt as it pleased which would also be treated as evidence of a lawless tyrannical government. The circumstance was , war.

Unfortunatley for the U.S. and Australia, continental pseudo-philosophy of government and law , including the piffle `human rights, duties, obligations and `rights' as some benevolent grant of government',was an influence on those responsible for the induction of the institutions of government,in the U.S. and Australia.
Certainly modifying those pseudo theories to avoid the full ramifications of those, in effect, dogmas, with the example of the French revolution and Napoleon's regime in view.So, what can be said of the constitutions of each country is that they are a compromise between common law and belief in the psuedo-rational doctrine of government , which trace back to Hobbes and Filmer, whose positions otherwise were ridiculed and Hobbbes properly chased out of England.

This is all to say, the framers of the constitutions felt free to hold some unhappy propositions alongside sound propositions, on government, taxation, money.On the other hand, pro-federationists, as also unionists were a mixed. Some holding to economic autarchy, some with absolutist aims, others holding mercantilist beliefs. And also those who were genuinely liberal, as in open free markets, restricted government whose conduct must be conformed to common law. The latter were outnumbered.On the other hand, the positions of each of the other parties were modified.

Of the U.S. constiution, though, the framers were very clear on sound money, governments are prohibited to corrupt hard money, even if they were unsound on debt.

The Australian 1990's `constitution debate' over monarchy /republic was so much hot air. There is a need for a debate, to rectify those articles of the constiution which effectivley place government above the rule of law, even if the count is only taxation.But, in the case of Australia, there are also such monstrosoties as the IRC to be squished.

OK now how does the private running of monopolies help Australia weather overseas financial crises? Just a question. I would have thought the floating of the dollar, microeconomic reform, an independant central bank and a diverse economy would have helped. Personally I don't see the benefit of privately run business in (near-)monopolies (water, telephone infrastructure, Sydney Airport, etc)nor the government ownership of businesses in an effective market (banking, internet provision, etc)

What is "d" taking?

Simon , the floats were dirty but not on reasons which might be assumed by thi9s remark.

Forex is dirty because of central bank rate fixing and other currency manipulations like inflation which are government, not market driven.

One thing on `weathering' any crisis is this: they run to market and sell to market price: conversely yielding a faster adjustment of capital allocation than the producer command economy run when governments dictate capital and the businesses into which capital is sunk.

Secondly, if it can be done at a better price than overseas suppliers, they hold.Nothing protects anyone, however, from larcenous governments.In that case, the question is time as in who outlast whom.