Mangled Thoughts

Tim Blair has a credibility problem and it is his. He should peer at Bolt and shudder. Blair reports on and attacks leftists and their fellow travelers in the media for distorting truths, flying intervention for interests, smearing those who stand in the way of their aims. Fine, but for one thing. He is stone cold silent when it comes to his Rightwing pals and their equally vicious antics. Blair isn’t bright, but he should lighten up, particularly in view of that dolt Bolt.

The sheer hypocrisy and stupidity of Bolt cannot be concealed from the public. It’s on show all the time. Bolt’s snidely expressed deliberate falsification of the truth that there is a deepening international crisis in food production, and the callous dismissal of the real suffering and sheer economic carnage that is driving it and why it is occurring, the ethanol swindle, is typical of the Right. One hasn’t, however, accused the fishwives infesting clubrooms ludicrously named free market think tanks of being the dolt Bolt is. To return to Bolt’s big lie, I have saved one further telling comment for this item. What else is wrong with what Andrew Bolt said:

The lumpenmasse of India have never had it so good (funny, that’s the line he used when calling modest Australians ingrates). It is obvious, because “they are all fat”. They are ‘fat’ because “they are eating more”.

According to Bolt, the teeming masses of India are eating so much that the international food crisis is only a short run supply-demand adjustment, and prices will fall once farmers increase production. The recent food riots according to Bolt have nothing to do with a food crisis. He then continued his flippant snide remarks by saying fashionable westerners react by doing the opposite, eating less and getting thinner. Bolt observed bulimia is “the it” thing to sport.

Bolt should consult Jason Soon to discover what else is wrong with what he said. After all, even Soon can manage the explanation – he does parrot the undergraduate econ textbook. For Tim’s benefit:

1 Bolt holds there is no food shortage.
2 The price rises, which have induced a false panic, are due to the Indians eating more than before.
3. Thus, the rises have nothing to do with a cut in food supply; it’s only gluttonous Indians behind it - the devils.

On the other hand, following Bolt, why should prices rise when as he says, Westerners in fashionable reaction to the unwashed of India enjoying themselves, are starving themselves. Following Bolt, is there any reason why they should not roughly cancel out and thus no price rises? On the other hand, even if he was capable of taking sound advice and digesting it, he has motivation to bury sound advice to this effect:

The prices aren’t merely rising, they are skyrocketing because supply hasn’t been simply reduced. It is being sliced, quartered and diced as huge tracts of land in countries around the world are taken out of food production for ethanol. This is exactly what Bolt supports. Bolt is disappointed Canberra and the States are not shoving the rest of productive land into ethanol.

Bolt waxed lyrically about what a great boon it would be for farmers. Is he joking? Some farmers only. Others requiring material for their production are savaged. And, the majority of Australians are hit to prop up the scam, which is also a destruction of capital. The joy of joys is, many Australians can starve for the sake of ethanol and Bolt’s pals behind the swindle. Next, this great freedom fighter refuses to face the fact, the swindle is in force only by government fiat.

The man is so dense he does not have a clue as to the sheer carnage that is being caused by criminal fraud he fully supports. Committed to the scam, he is deliberately ingoring and suppressing all the evidence rolling in. Well, he has to; it bursts his fantasy of an ethanol Eldorado.

The force of the scheme was predicted roughly a decade ago. Ah, and where were the Right when Rightwing Ministers cooked up this scheme. Indeed, where were they when Jeff Kennett as Premier tried to ram down his version of ‘the great leap forward’, and seize Victorians private property and throw it at incompetent farmers to grow material for ethanol? Nothing, not a hint of a public fight. Stone frozen cold silent. There was one economist who wasn’t, Jackson:

Kennett’s snake-oil economics,‘green gas’ and ‘corruption’

Bolt is a walking polar icecap. In using his employer’s newspaper to promote the ethanol scam, he didn’t realise what he was saying when he opened his mouth Tuesday morning this week. Jason Soon has sufficient grip to at least explain to Bolt the economic basics, using wooden blocks. But that’s Jason’s limit, as demonstrated by two things:

Despite being an admirer of Hayek, Soon, and his pal Humphreys don’t recognise Austrian economic analysis when they see it - this alone is risible. As for the CIS and its seminars on Hayek, it’s best to pass over them in silence.These matters are not all that they cock up. History of economics is another, though they are not nearly so crude as Berg and Kemp and their entire fabrication, “Islam and the Free Market” that the IPA supplemented with a worthless, trivial exercise called “Christianity and the market”. The image of infants wielding bright crayons on butcher’s paper occurs to me for some odd reason, so I’ll just mention it just in case.

Fancy that, eh Blair, only Leftists write tripe and palm it off as history? Where is the outrage over the Right’s falsification of history, and historical facts? Why the silence Tim?

Secondly, Soon, Humphreys, Greg Lindsay and pals blunder over what the real force of carbon taxes is. In this respect, that lot are on Bolt’s wavelength. The ethanol fraud is a tax on capital, it is destructive of capital. Bolt doesn’t realise that, and the CIS are no better, which is really amusing. Soon doesn’t bat for the ethanol version of the carbon tax precisley because of the above reasons. That is, working within the confines of textbook, perfect competition bound economics, he knows cuts in supply raises prices, so he won’t commit the Boltism.

The above is why, Tim, Soon has committed another of what he is prone to, contradictions. He can entertain the carbon tax because its real, true force doesn’t register with what he regurgitates. Indeed, on the force of ethanol, he doesn’t have to trouble himself with capital and the lattice of production either. A man has to know his limits but a reasonable man would be deeply disturbed if his were as low as that pillock’s are.

Ah, and then there is also Soon’s advocacy of intensification of the Australian version of the Sherman Act. What is terrifying is, these giants are typical products of Australian university schools of economics. The Rightwing think tanks, Blair, are actually kerplunk tanks - lead hitting shallow water.

Tim Blair attacks Leftists for their callous, mendacious, incipiently totalitarian aims and their viciousness towards others. What do we see but Bolt deliberately deceiving the public over the ethanol fraud, sneering down at the rapidly increasing very large numbers of victims, and promoting a hard core Leftist aim. Tim is stone cold silent. He is silent not only on this.

Tim is also frozen over his other Rightwing pals and their aim to immiserate Australians through carbon taxes. Tim is silent on the fact his mates are pushing the Green lie, Co2 emissions causes global warming and what should be done about it. It’s a real puzzle Tim, how can a chap attack this by zeroing in on only the Left? I say, Tim, the Left have grounds to lodge reasonable complaints against you. The count is bias and suppression of these inconvenient facts. What a courageous journalist Tim is - he, a journalist, does have to explain this very strange omission.

Tim is silent on the fact his pals act in the same way as vicious leftists. They smear genuine Liberals and in particular, those they fear the most, guns. We know why they do it, the fat cheques they collect from donors and clients.

Tim, while happy to attack the venality of Leftists, e.g. living high on ‘government grants’, ignores the venality of his pals. He attacks cowardly leftists but ignores his pals flying the same colour, bright yellow. Tim covers over his pals are as ignorant as many a leftist is. He is silent on; for all this, as the Left, his pals nonethless expect donors to line their bank vaults for the rot they trot out and, worse, they as the Left get away with it.

Who, Tim, are the parasites? They are not all Leftists. Tim covers up so many things, I’m beginning to ponder whether Tim does know all this - being the good, impartial, investigative journalist he is. That, he only puts up a public front. At home, he downs a few fingers measured from the bottom to the neck of a bottle of scotch, in order to fight down his disgust at the truth of what his pals are.

Tim, your pals are no better than leftists are. They act like tyrants too, brooking no debate. This is why when they publish papers they are shot full of errors and fallacies, and enough of them are unconscionable in force. What counts is the Party line. They are, as Tim freely charges leftists, brain dead, confined to parroting textbooks and lines. Finishing off the accomplishments of these new wave cadres, as Tim charges Leftists, they also bottom out in their callousness and contempt for modest Australians. These are your pals Tim.

What is worse Tim, your pals are so venal and craven they distort truths and facts as well as the Left. Tell me Tim, who are the fascists? They ain’t only leftists. It is easy to eviscerate the Right, they supply hard evidence by the day. Tim, being a toughened journalist, has an even greater advantage. He has penetrated into the Right’s inner circles. Tim has the goods, the juice, the oil on them first hand and, what are his front-page making revelations? Nothing, zip, not a pip. Tim’s lips are sealed with tarzan grip.

Now we see the problem. Tim does not attack the Right for the very things the Left also must be properly hit for. It’s a complete moral failure. Why even, according to Tim, the treacherous Left is not ok but the treacherous Right is. That, it is ok for the Right to hold many Australians in contempt and trample over them as so many stinking serfs who just don’t know how lucky they are to be shoved around by a pack of thugs. Yet, it is not ok for the Left to do the same thing? Tim must have superior penetration in moral philosophy because I am completely stumped at fathoming the justification for the distinction. After all, one absolutist hell hole is as good as another is and the Right and the Left are driving down that alley.

Tim, it’s no good attacking the Left on matters, when you shield your pals from just punishment. Matters, bye the bye, that should have been well pulped long ago, if it were not for the Right. What is the distinction between Rightwing and Leftist thugs? Where is your credibility Tim? It’s fast going up in smoke, unless you lighten up in quick time. Where is your journalistic integrity Tim?

A journalist is supposed to be independent, objective, principled, and courageous. Look at Bolt, he is none of these things, and he is a dolt to boot. Right now, Tim, you follow in that fat bastard’s footsteps. Oh, I forget, Tim is in with the Rightwing think tanks too. The IPA even has a bibliography of articles by Tim Blair it has published in its Review. Is Tim to them, as Bolt is to Kroger, Costello, David Kemp, and the criminal thugs behind the ethanol fraud? Is this why Tim protects his pals, he is ductile too?

Oh, Tim might not like what I have to say, but consider this: The Right has said as much against Leftist journalists, mixed with the ripest abuse too. Tim has freely hurled such abuse at Leftists. Yet, Tim is dishonest in playing along with this. Rightwing journos, including Janet Albrechtsen, are no better. Bolt is right there with the lowest of Leftists. Tim’s credibility is whiffy too. He’s protecting his pals, and not nervelessly scrutinising and reporting what that lot actually do. Bravo, Tim Blair. This appears to be another Boltist suppression of inconvenient facts.

The Right has adopted Tim because; he has the two virtues they require of a prospective toady, ductility, and cowardice. Tim hasn’t yet sunk to Bolt’s depths, bottom of the ocean, but currently, as a journalist he is not credible. Don’t fool yourself Tim, you are not in the fighting game, you are not hurting leftists, you are not putting a genuine liberal case to the public in fine polemical form, you are not reporting on facts (of the Right). Tim is (currently) compromised. Tim, so far, is a journalistic dud.

Tim, get serious or stick to your strength, motor cars. In the meantime, Murdoch should sack that walking paper bin called a Bolt. What a disgrace. Hey, Murdoch, you can pay me $3,000+ a week to peer at a telephone and even better, I’ll use the bloody thing – and, how’s this for a bargain, you can remove the office mirror parked on Bolt’s desk - only ladies and Andrew Bolt use it. Oh, my mistake, the ladies would use it but they can’t shove him out of the way.

In, Tim Blair attacks the Left for their callousness, but not the Right. Part III,(29/4/2008), attention was drawn to, amongst other miserable failures, Soon’s deliberate deception and smears he published on the Leftwing site, Lavartus Paredo. These offences are compounded by the deceit of not only Soon, but rather too many of the Right and their “free market think tanks”. The deceit compounds their repugnant contempt for those made unemployed due to fixing wages above real market rates.

Soon deceived those readers in pretending it is the Right and their think tanks that defend the unemployed and empathise with them in their plight. None of their statements I have read and heard supports that claim. Thus, it is understandable why the Left made headway also on this matter.

In misleading the public, the Right also suppresses the truth and smears genuine Liberals who do defend the unemployed. Having mentioned three gentlemen who are noted for defending the unemployed, a little expansion is in order, since they smeared one of these three, Mr. Jackson.

In the first instance, reading carefully Mr. Jackson’s articles on labour markets, defending the unemployed is ever present. The true, sound economic explanation alone eviscerates the false claims of those who consign many to unemployment. It is a solid moral fact Jackson has reiterated:

Imposed effective minimum wages is a brutal assault on many Australians. Giving many Australians a 100% pay cut is savage. This is only one of the many points Jackson has stressed in his many articles on labour market economics. However, Jackson has written articles dedicated entirely to extended defence of the unemployed. Here are two of them:

The Liberal Government and its supporters must stop kicking the unemployed

BULLYING THE JOBLESS

Compare even only these two items with the slops put out by the brutalist school the Right.

A less charitable chap might say Soon not only smeared a fine economist, he also told a lie. He is, though, a vicious fishwife, who holds a worthy place with the best of them - the likes of Quiggin.

Coming from Soon and and Co, though, defending the unemployed by kicking the poor sods in the groin when they’re down has to be acknowledged as compassionate concern.

Mr. Tim Blair, what a decent gent of a pal you have in one Mr. Jason Soon, the intellectually and spine challenged juvenile that pretends to be an adult and an economist.

Fed up with the bilge pumped out by the mainstream media, Quadrant, IPA and CIS, in the mid 1990’s I searched around for a genuinely hard-edged, analytically solid news and economics magazine. Thanks to Microsoft, the chances of finding economics magazines worth reading seemed good. Sadly, however, it proved otherwise for Australian on-line publications.

After enough time expended fiddling with searches, one eventually came across Mr. Jackson’s first online magazine, The New Australian. I was stunned. At last, here was a magazine written by an Australian for Australians that was worth reading. Superceding, The New Australian, Brookesnews continues it’s fine and forthright work.

For a number of years, I stored articles by fine economists around the world. The article below is one of them. Published a decade ago, the article laid out the case as to why the ethanol scheme is a swindle, predicting what would be the upshot should it be imposed. It is as fresh today as it was the day I first read it. Then, that is due to sound economics.

Kennett’s snake-oil economics,‘green gas’ and ‘corruption’, Gerard Jackson, 12-18 January 1998, read in “Continued”:

(Continued)

To the Left, Andrew Bolt is a lovable buffoon. To genuine Liberals, he is a blundering, vicious idiot - I know because genuine senior Liberal Party figures are fed up to the gills with the Kroger-Costello-Bolt-carbon taxing propaganda machine. This is your Rightwing pal and human bilge pump, Tim Blair. The contradiction is, the Right pretend to be compassionate, and considerate of modest Australians, while grinding them into the dust.

I will refer to remarks made by Mr. Jason Soon. I’ve kept them up my sleeve, from the days of the fight for labour market reform. He made them on the Leftist site, Lavartus Paredo. The subject was labour market reform, and in particular the indeed the bureaucratic device of AWAs:

Under, The Unbearable Sadness of Being a Lefty [boo hoo], Kate wrote on why she “just had to sign an AWA”. She asserted the ACTU false claim of monopsony, with employers holding a ‘balance of power’ over employees’. For someone who claims to be an admirer of von Hayek, one of the doyens of the Austrian school, Soon failed miserably to put the true argument and rebuttal.

I’ve never so much as skimmed over a contract in my employment life once I know what the pay is and whether there are any unusual provisions. What negotiation? No need for a talkfest. The most potent form of negotiation is the ex ante one - you go for the interview and if the employer gives you a number you don’t like, you go elsewhere.

Yes, Sir, that was as effective as Hugh Morgan’s effort, fresh from acquiring a $700,000 oil painting, telling modest Australians they are over-paid. We can tell because Kate jumped all over it to great effect:

Indeed Jason but the rhetoric around Workchoices is that we will be able to Choose! And Negotiate! And most of us probably won’t… just like the pre-Workchoices days. I’ll leave the heavier economic analysis for the Smaht people.

As an aside, some of us rather foolishly have chosen to work in industries where jobs are somewhat scarce. Now, this is a matter of supply and demand and it does push wages down and I accept that I’m not going to make a fortune pursuing my chosen career path.

Which is ok, because I get a lot of other good things from my career which are more important to me than earning $200k plus a year.

However, in my position the idea of ‘choice’ can be rather ludicrous at times. If I want to work in my field I expect to have limited job choice and it’s very hard to walk away from an employer when I know the next good job offer could be years away

Soon failed to nail what underpins rates of pay, and what raises pay, and thus unpack Kate’s concerns correctly. Instead, $200,000 a year man Soon showed the same callousness as Morgan, and also $200,000 a year man Bolt who, in calling modest earners ingrates, declared they don’t realise that they could be as wealthy as he is if only they stopped resenting their lot as vassal serfs.

Notice the perpendicular “I”. Soon doesn’t have a clue about the real world, and what many modest Australians have to do to earn a paypacket. Taken with his defective economics, he substitutes the great example, himself and how he can knock on any door and collect another $200,000 per annum income. What they saw is as Kate complained of, the Right telling them they are paid too much and should take a hefty pay cut and be grateful they still have a job, any old job.

On the unemployed, Soon pretends to defend them and sympathise with their plight. He does nothing of the sort; neither did his CIS chum Professor Saunders. Their compassion is this: how to push the unemployed into jobs and cut unemployment payments. What’s wrong with this? If Soon is the Austrian school economist he claims to be, he would know why, and would not have written the rot he did.

Unemployment benefits are compensation for being deliberately shoved into unemployment because effective minimum pay rates have been, by coercion, pushed above real market rates. The Right is oblivious to this - another indication of their callousness and reflected in their pet scheme they rammed down on the unemployed, ‘mutual obligations’.

Who has defended those forced into destitution? Gentlemen such as von Mises, Hazlitt, and Mr. Jackson. Again, Soon failed miserably to state the Austrian case. He not only failed to do it, for good measure Soon also smeared Jackson, calling him a brutal rightwing extremist. I say, that is also a deliberate lie. Indeed, rather than a gentleman, Soon shows all the style and elan of a vicious housewife.

Does Mr. Blair appreciate why the Right wrecked the case for labour market reform and brought about the defeaat of the Liberal Party last year? No, he is not that bright. His pals in the Right’s think tanks did not have a grip on what the true, and highly moral case for reform is. Instead, in getting the economics completely wrong, they, not Austrian economists, showed their callousness to the modest voter - ‘It’s alright to push modest Australians into destitution, because, they the good and true know what is good for dumb oafs.’

Jason Soon after all, argued Australia’s Sherman Act and its intensification by Rudd is a good thing. The Rightwing consultants, including the CIS and the IPA, receive their fees by deceiving companies, telling them regulation is good for them. But what are they really telling firms, and ultimately the majority of Australians? This:

A measure that breaks up companies, smashes their capital, cuts production, cuts pay, and forces consumers to pay more for far less is a jolly good thing. That is what he has argued in the paper linked in the item, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces his version of the “Sherman Act”(Monday, April 28, 2008).

What sort of free market economists are they, when they stand up in public and shout from the rooftops:

“Measures no genuine Austrian school economist would contemplate because they are truly destructive are fine, fine, fine, fine.”

What else is to be expected of Soon and his pals when they advocate capital destruction through carbon taxes, and then tell Australians, ‘but you will to still be well off because fatuous, ruinous fantasies will plug the gaping holes blown into the hull of the ship HMAS Economics?’ They push hot red Green measures, hardcore leftist measures, and they claim to be fighting the Left defending free markets, and defending Liberty, truth and all good things.

These are the sods who put the ALP into office. The ACTU knows it, the Left knows it, even Rudd knows it as thick as he is. Genuine Liberals know it. They they are still at it, ‘destroying great causes, wrecking fights that have to be not only fought but won. And, for good measure, they sink their boots into those who can fight fights that have to be won, and not simply Mr. Jackson. I’ve previously mentioned they have trampled over scientists capable of street fighting.

Tim Blair finds nothing wrong with these moral and intellectual pygmies. He cites them as bright, learned, compassionate, principled, ferocious oppressors of the Left. Blair persists in pretending that they have not advanced the Left’s aims and discredited genuine liberalism.

He has failed to deal with his Rightwing pals in a forthright manner, a sure sign he is not serious at all. It is worth reminding Blair; it was types like that lot who paved the way for fascists such as FDR, Hitler, and Mussolini. Types like that paved the way for central planners, for tyrants waiting in the wings. Types like that paved the way for FDR’s new deal and what do we see in Australia today, the Right paved the way for Rudd’s fascist aims. Spiffing, absolutely spiffing.

Tim has a problem. He’s a journalist and his credibilty is at stake. Bolt doesn’t have any credibilty, he made sure of that himself. That doesn’t excuse Tim. Attacking the Left but remaining silent on the Right for the same reasons is a contradiction. He can’t stick by his pals too look good. Stick to your subject Tim, motoring, or get serious. Your Rightwing pals are not as bad as the Left, they are worse.

They are destroying the Liberal Party, and have discredited the great, thoroughly sound case of genuine Liberalism in the eyes of the voter. They are also cowardly, backstabbing vicious fishwives. Tim calls that lot his pals? It doesn’t look good at all Tim.

Oh, dear, we haven’t finished with Tim’s predicament, but the three parts today is enough for Tim to stew over, until tomorrow. A journalists’ credibility Tim - keep that in view, Bolt is an object lesson in what it is not.

While content to jab his finger at leftists for advancing ruinous propositions, Tim is strangely silent when his Rightwing pals do the same. He hasn’t caned Bolt over the ethanol swindle. Funnier is, when he attacks leftists over another criminal fraud, he doesn’t mention that his Rightwing pals also back it to the hilt. No hint of even a gimcrack, and here is Mr. Blair in action:

WORLD COOLING ON WARMING
“The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries,” writes Mark Steyn…

Another enviroscam may cause hardship locally:

The other ‘environscam’ Tim Blair refers to is carbon taxes, in the form of carbon credit trading.

He links an article dedicated to one consequence of carbon taxes that Mr. Jackson, and others have dealt with. However, the article ignores the full appalling force of carbon taxes. It is the destruction of capital, thus the destruction of production, and this means the immiseration of Australians.

There is no point in worrying about the impact of the tax on lower-income families. They won’t have an income to be taxed. Their pay will be smashed and wiped out altogether because the source of income, capital and capital accumulation has been wiped out.

Blair is silent on his Rightwing mates, who have pushed for carbon taxes. They are rightwing Liberal Party (ex-) MPs, and his pals in the CIS and the IPA. Despite Moran’s paper, the IPA still published the Davidson-Berg paper that slips in advocacy of carbon taxes. The IPA has a collection of papers on the theme of how Kyoto compliant ‘regulations” - in effect carbon taxes, might be imposed the ‘right way’.

Blair is totally silent on the fact his friends, John Humphreys and Jason Soon are pushing hard for carbon taxes, and that their position is the position of the CIS. He is completely silent on his pals’ “case” for carbon taxes is the case the Rudd Cabinet is using to justify the demolition of capital and the immiseration of millions of Australians.

Soon and his pals advocate capital destruction on a hideous scale through carbon taxes. They then have the hide to tell Australians, “but you will to still be well off, and even do better, because fatuous, ruinous fantasies called ‘alternative’ energy will plug the gaping holes they have blown into the hull of the ship HMAS Economics.” How bright are they Tim? What about you Tim?

After all, your pals are advocating what you are ostensibly attacking, and why you linked that article in The “Spencer Street Soviet” Age. Will you be consistent and hit them too? Face it Tim, they are pushing hot red Green measures, hardcore leftist measures, and they claim to be fighting the Left defending free markets, and defending Liberty, truth and all good things.

You, Tim Blair, while you jab the Left, don’t have the spine to face up to the treacherous Right

I have challenged Mr. Blair to get serious, or stick to the subject he is expert in, motor cars. One aspect of getting serious is facing up the fact his Rightwing pals are as rottenas as the treacherous as the Left.