Mangled Thoughts

In the item, “The odd couple”, I wrote:

One has witnessed it, and many senior figures have witnessed it - inclusive of Greg Lindsay of the CIS telling lies about Mr. Gerard Jackson. The reasons why Lindsay smeared Jackson is clear to all who know about it – after all, some only got it straight from the horse’s mouth.

The background is a conversation, some time ago, with sources on various serious matters, which involved comment on the CIS. One of the sources, who raised the CIS , contacted me yesterday evening, having read the article, to clarify something, which entails an unqualified apology to Greg Lindsay and retraction of the statements.

I apologise sincerely to Mr. Lindsay, and retract the offending statements.

I do not retract all else in the item, inlcuding reflection on the contradiction between the CIS claim to be a “leading” free market ‘think tank’, and its output. Their claim is:

The Centre for Independent Studies is the leading independent public policy ‘think tank’ within Australasia. The CIS is actively engaged in support of a free enterprise economy and a free society under limited government where individuals can prosper and fully develop their talents. By critical recommendations to public policy and encouraging debate amongst leading academics, politicians and journalists, the CIS aims to build a better society.

Analysis of economic questions and matters, ,and supplying advice to Cabinets and other parties, is not a child. We are also talking about politicians, their advisers, and bureacrats and what they do, and what they act on. For a decade the Coalition cabinet has acted on bad advice with ruinoius consequences. The problem, therefore, is so-called adults are playing loose and fast with Australians. It is nothing less than immoral, but the culprits are not simply ignorant, unprincipled, spineless politicians and bureaucrats.

The problem are those, including the CIS, who claim to be defenders of “free markets” , and supply advice based on, accordinlgy sound economic theory. The CIS, the IPA and the HR Nicholls Society, far from having done that, have severely damaged the Liberal case, because their output is appallingly bad.

Humphreys on “carbon emissions” economic controls is just another instance of what is wrong with the “think tankers”. His paper involves two lines, science and economics, and he gets both badly wrong. No Austrian school economist would have written what he did on “Carbon -trading-taxes”.

No Austrian erconomist would have mentioned the “man causes global warming” grand lie unless they had read and understood the arguments, or had brought in somone who understood claim and the science behind it, or rather the dung heap of pseudo-science on which the “AGW” claim sits.

No Austrian school economist would have written a paper dedicated to helping politicians impose more heavy burdens on Australians, which also entails capital destruction. Every Austrian school economist knows “carbon trading” is both a tax, entails further regulatory burdens to force compliance, and it is a scam that makes a lucky few wealthy, while many Australians are impoverished.

So, what is the CIS banging on about when it publishes rubbish like that, by someone who pretends to be of the Austrian school. They are not defending free markets at all by such not a-typical rumblings palmed off as serious economic analysis and advice. They are on the same level as the IPA, damaging Liberalism, not advancing it, and with it supplying bad advice to those who can ruin the lives of many Australians. That is an appalling state of affairs and it shows.

The decade of the Liberal Cabinet has been wasted, ending in a disaster - the defeat of labour market reform, triggering the election defeat. A decade of nothing much to disturb socialists and statists at all but instead, much that entrenched the objectives of socialists and statists.

During the weekend, I caught up with an acquaintance. He will be closing down his firm in the near future. The reason why: he has had it up to the gills with the burdens each tier of government has imposed. The final straw for him has been the disgusting OH&S regime of the Bracks-Brumby regime. Well, at least he won’t have to worry about the impact of “carbon emissions” punishment. His is not the only case of an entrepeneur shutting down because of the hideous burdens polticians, and their advisers, have imposed. I know of many such cases.

Ah, Liberal Senator Helen Coonan, another ignoramus, had the hide to stand up in public and declare regulation is not a burden and doesn’t damage enterprises. That, it supplies, according to her, a predictable framework for entrepeneurs to engage in markets. She could be mistaken for the illiterates that stuff the ALP, the Greens and the Democrats. Who was her ‘adviser’, as Minister of ” Communications”, another damned lawyer? A clueless “think tanker”? Des Moore, Hugh Morgan, Ray Evans, Andrew Bolt?

It is shocking. And, what are the “free market think tankers” doing. They, in damaging Liberalism, have only entrenched politicians and their advisers, and the bureaucrats on their demolition derby run. It is not that lot, the whole lot of them, who bear the consequences, it is every Australian, who, having no choice, unless they wish to indulge prison time, have to wear the grand schemes and burdens and endure the ensuing carnage.

That, readers, is also why one is happy to savage not only the HR Nicholls Society, but also the likes of Bolt and Albrechtson. Juvenile delinquents, playing games with matters they do not have much of a clue about at all, and sneering at the man in the street to boot, and wreaking havoc with it.

It is not funny, readers, a joke, writing about the types who have damaged Liberalism. It’s not a game, hitting lefties and “Liberal” twerps.

At times, readers, it makes me wretch, no,truly. It’s not a laughing matter; which is why sarcasm is a safety valve. There are very serious figures around Melbourne who take the same dim view of the types who have done nothing but wreak havoc - the commentariat, politicians, bureaucrats, and “think tankers”.

They enjoy sarcasm too, but they also don’t find the matter funny, a game, a joke. But, then, they are serious men and women, as opposed to the dilletantes, ignoramuses, and buffoons who have wrecked the Liberal Party and Liberal causes.