Ayn Rand Institute addresses Republican Party

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The Republican Party has suffered one of its biggest election losses in history. Its fair to say that a great many people will be looking for a re-think on values. It is fair to say that these people were betrayed by the Republican Party. Its fair to say that the Republican Party has lost a lot of these people to the Democrats, not because of the values conveyed, buy because of the better leadership by Barrack Obama.
There are of course signs that the Republican Party is recognising its error, and that have taken steps to rediscover what the party represents. I would suggest the Liberal Party in Australia has to take the same steps since John Howard did as much to betray the history of the Liberal Party as George Bush did to his party legacy. But its not about these men, its a philosophy that was betrayed long ago, and it has generally got worse. The US is stronger because there was a time when it explicitly recognised its core values. That has been lost, so I want to ask people to listen to this convention to appreciate what values made the USA great. See this presentation to the Virginia Republican Party at ARC-TV.

This speech received a standing ovation. It was interesting however that the audience seemed to agree on all the issues presented except two. They did not applause on two issues:
1. A separation of Church and State: The reason why the separation of Church and State is important is because they are incompatible. The philosophy of the religion is to renounce personal values, the role of government is to protect your personal value. The philosophy of religion is to have faith; but the government's role is primarily to protect your rights, which demands attention to evidence, the facts of reality, and the principles of justice. based on rational discourse. Faith is a repudiation of evidence; it demands that you obey, accept God without evidence. For this reason religion is compatible with the coercive state; not capitalism.
2. The virtue of making money: The speaker could have framed this better, or elucidated upon the point. Basically he is not preaching love of material things. He is saying that there is no conflict between one's spiritual or philosophical values and one's material objectives, goals or wants. He is saying that one's primary responsibility and concern is for oneself. I would also add that it is only through self-love that one can truly love overs. Money is really only the monetary unit underpinning the acquisition of goods. What he didn't explain was the importance of self-esteem, efficacy in one's career, the importance of a long range purpose. This was a shame, because in the context of the current political climate, where you have CEOs getting huge salaries for stuffing up companies, and suggesting a desire to reduce regulation; people will just not embrace that idea.
Apart from failing to address those points it was a very good speech. It also highlights a shift I feel in the Ayn Rand Institute to speak in less technical jargon that people can understand.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Clever advertisement for Chinese market

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This strikes me as a particularly good advertisement by Pantene for the Chinese market. All the better because the message has important implications for thinking throughout Asia. All the better because there is a Chinese element in most East Asian countries. More importantly, these countries have a historical legacy of collectivism, and this advertisement is a repudiation of that value system. So I thank Pantene for creating it. Too many other companies pander to the lowest common denominator. Here is a company which is raising standards. Watch the advertisement!

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Inquiry into state ownership of Australian enterprises

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I lodged this submission with the Australian Parliament - a little late because I was not watching the debate. I wanted to rebuke some of the statements made by the Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull in the Sydney Morning Herald:
1. In isolation (out of context) I agree with the Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull that its not favourable to have state-owned enterprises own buying stakes in Australian mining companies, but I would make the following points (which provide the ALL IMPORTANT context)
2. An 18% stake is not a controlling stake - its a blocking stake to prevent takeover. Further consolidation of the minerals sector is not in the interests of the mining industry, albeit a wasted effort since there is so much new capacity coming on stream in the commodities that these companies will not control. You might wonder why CEOs like takeovers so much. Its because it helps there careers because they get a huge premature payout, and it artificially increases the stock price from low levels before takeovers.
3. I wonder - if the Opposition Leader is opposed to political parties controlling corporations - why it does not push for the privatisation of state-owned enterprises like Australia Post, the railways (be they state owned), the police. These are all management systems that can be structured as private businesses, just as prisons have been sold in other countries, and detention centres have been contracted here.
4. The Chinese government is reducing its level of state ownership of industry, so in that sense its moving in the right direction towards greater liberty. Its easy for the West to criticise China for its human rights record, but it has changed in a decade more than the West did in 100 years. Part of the context for that is the Information Age, so we should expect China to move quicker, but the other context is, they have moved in that direction despite the mixed ideological (pragmatic) philosophy of the West. My point is that the West does not lead by example. Basically the West suxs as a role model. How can we expect them to act with integrity if we don't.
5. The Chinese government is Communist in name only, like Western governments its really a fascist regime. Why? Well they are corrupt in the sense that they offer personal and institutional abuse of citizens. But that is just like the West, just its rationalised in the West. Democracy is used for all manner of rationalisations, eg. The first home buyers grant of uo to $21,000 adopted by the Liberals, expanded by Labor. That is a fascist policy, no better than price controls. It is government manipulating price signals. Worse because it did it with the intent of overriding market signals.

In the interests of accountability - I'd like to see this submission accepted. Based on previous submissions I have seen no reason to believe that these arguments will make any difference because the real power lies with the arbitrary whim of parliament, as long as the judiciary remains passive in the face of such blatant abuses of process. Those abuses are:
1. The inability of individuals to directly take the government to task (court) over its arbitrary 'democratic' policies. Basically a citizen has to commit a crime in Australia to test the legal system, to challenge the parliament in a forum where reason is the standard, as we know that as long as competition policy is good for companies, but bad for political parties, we are going to get no 'right to life' from government.
2. The unwillingness of the judiciary to ensure that reason is the standard of value. Implicitly this was the intent of the Founding Fathers of the Australian Constitution, in as much as they made reason the standard of value in the court procedures. Not consistently so, but not bad for a pack of Christians over 100 years ago. Sadly the judiciary has remained passive over the last 100 years of arbitrary parliamentary debate. It has no ruled that politicians have a requirement to be rational. In a sense, it is saying the parliament is right because the 'majority' (it thinks 50% of the population) support the party. Well that is of course the mythology of democracy, that it serves anyone. As long as the parliament remains a two-party forum where numbers are more important that facts or ideas, there will be no real accountability.
3. Laws like sedition, which contradict one's rights to free speech remain a huge obstacle to freedom of expression. We of course have a Human Rights Commission, which is a joke because they define what human rights is, and as it turns out its a contradiction in terms. Rights are collectivised (like China), and if there is any intent to personalise then, they are totally arbitrary. They are not grounded in fact (i.e. the nature of humans), such that we have arbitrary assertions of rights, which actually contradict anothers rights. i.e.. the right to education is a claim upon teachers to provide it, the right to welfare is a claim upon others to provide it. That is of course the collectivisation of justice that draws us ever so much closer to China. Why China must love us!
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Andrew Sheldon
www.sheldonthinks.com

How accountable is government?

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One of the blatant contradictions that arises with government is their utter lack of public accountability. Private citizens and business people are required to act with a great deal of prudence in the way they conduct themselves, yet government officers ('bureaucrats') can act with impunity. Under the worst possible conditions they are likely to just lose their jobs. Many of them with just resign before that occurs so they can keep their generous lifetime pension.

We all know that there are laws which require the government to act in a certain way. The problem is that there are no substantive consequences if the government does not act the right way. The public organisations that execute or are enforce the laws are mostly not accountable for their actions. This means that the government is treated differently from companies or private individuals. The implication is that the government faces little deterrence other than bad publicity for non-compliance or poor execution. The reason is that voters have come to expect ineptitude from both sides of politics. Why? Because competition is GOOD right? Oh except for politicians. In politics there is no law preventing parties from forming cozy duopolies. Have you ever noticed that there is a cozy duopoly in every democratic country. Have you ever wondered why that exists? Let's extrapolate a little. Have you ever wondered why politicians are so inept and unethical?
Let's consider NZ - which is a pretty typical Western democracy. Probably freer than most. It was only from 2002 that public organisations were able to be prosecuted for a limited range of offences under the Crown Organisations (Criminal Liability) Act 2002. However, the application of this Act is currently limited only to offences under the Building Act 2004 and the Health and Safety and Employment Act 1992. What is more poignant here is that fact that taxpayers are going to pay any damages. I frankly don't know of any scam that beats that! Why should anyone be free of accountability?
Don't expect the media to do anything about this disparity in political values.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Libertarianism - what's in a word?

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I have not had much to do with libertarianism, though on some level I might be considered one. Certainly I am a fan of small government. I might even be a fan of competing governments depending on what grab bag of functions you think government should be taking care of. I tend to think it matters little who administers anything as the responsible party is responsible or accountable and that reason is the standard. This need not just apply to the law......and this is where I depart from a great many libertarians.
I have this problem with them. They are advocates of freedom on the premise that freedom is restraint from initiating force. On this point I am in agreement with them. But this strikes me as law, and not morality. This philosophy of libertarianism has no theory of values. It defines what you can't do, and offers no moral guidance for what you should do. You might argue that you should do anything up until the point at which you start hurting others.
The problem of course is - what constitutes hurt or injurious behaviour? Certainly we can see the impact of stealing something of value, or the hurt or injury of a gun shot wound. But what about more intangible actions like:
1. Giving a child, or even selling their adult parents alcohol
2. Selling pornography to anyone who pleases
3. Selling drugs to kids or adults

Now, depending on your country's attitudes to these things, these actions might be either legal or not. Legality really comes down to repressed religious oppression or self-indulgence on such issues because I have yet to see a rational explanation or a 'theory of values' to explain why these actions are right or wrong.....apart from the general 'consensus' that its impractical to break the law. Clearly people do, and they are tolerated, or they get away with it.

I would argue that these actions are unethical, or immoral, and I make no distinction between these words. Someone might want to waste their time? Just give the job to a bureaucrat. I am only interested in words to the extent that they denote something in reality, and not words that fit into some arbitrary construction, detached from reality. Conclusion...because its the law!

I would argue that pornography, drugs and alcohol are not ethical practices if they detract from your quality of life, and if they medicate rather than solve problems. They detract because they don't resolve issues, and nor are they a stepping stone to finding solutions. They are an act of evasion. Do they hurt other people? No. That is why they are not often illegal. But herein lies the problem, they are not going to help you solve problems, and given a proper theory of values, they are going to just medicate people. This is not an inappropriate thing to do when you live in a police state. The worst police states in the world like Soviet Russia have the worst problems.

So in conclusion I find libertarian valueless - but then its the law - its not supposed to be based on a theory of values. It is the role of the law to provide the context in which the law is applied. Another problem is, after spending all that money on libraries, the government leaves nothing for justice, and that to me is the essence of liberty. Instead we get CEOs, bankers doing all sorts of damage, and the government is too underfunded to do anything about these issues.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

NSW government to squander privaitsation funds

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According to the SMH, the NSW taxpayers are about to lose $3 billion in public funds. You might be asking why? Well there are several reasons:
1. The NSW government is selling state assets at a time when public assets are at their lowest value in 20 years, and confidence is low
2. The way previous privatisations have been performed is that the government commits the utilities to long term vested contracts which lock in future revenues in order to get a higher price from the sale. The implication is that taxpayers are effectively being taxed
3. The broking industry is paid huge sums to coordinate a privatisation process which would be far cheaper if the government just tendered the sale of each power station, yet made a commitment to sell all of them.
4. The taxpayer would have been better off if the government had reformed the sector prior to sale
5. The taxpayer would have been better off if the industry was structured in a way which delivered competitive electricity services
6. The taxpayer would be better off if

The sale of NSW power assets is expected to raise $10 billion for the government. The decision is being taken because the NSW Labor government has placed the state’s finances in a parlous state. It is now under pressure to sell assets to buy its way out of the political dumpster. This is a political backflip by a government that has long campaigned for public utility ownership. Now it finds itself in a bind, it wants to sell off the family jewels for a song. This is just further evidence of the short-range thinking of politicians. Whilst I agree these assets should be sold, this approach is nothing more than a short term grab-for-cash. The notion that these assets needed to be sold, according to Finance Minister Joe Tripodi, was because “private sector investment was needed to ensure power supplies in NSW into the future”. This is nonsense. There is no reason why the government cannot tender for a build-own-operate power station. There is no reason why these assets need to be sold. This is political party cash raising prior to the next election to find future election bribes. This is a power-hungry party placing its own interests ahead of taxpayers.
Joe Tripodi’s other reason for privatising power assets was to “return proceeds from the sale to NSW taxpayers”. Of course there will be a return because these assets have been held by the government for decades. The question is why now? Why sell when the stock market has fallen through the floor. There is a very good reason and its totally political. They want access to the cash, at a time when they will not get a good price for an asset which is a cash cow.
There are many examples around the world where taxpayers experienced a deterioration of service and a huge increase in costs after privatising power supplies. NZ has amongst the lowest cost power plants in the world, but its power costs have blown out since these businesses were privatised. Why? Because assets which were previously political instruments (and thus not open to service price increases) are now ‘market instruments’ upon which the government has poorly conceived the ‘competitive market model’ such that these utilities can collude to charge what they like. Prices are at the end of the day going to be charged
The problem is that by selling these assets in such bad times most investors will steer away from these ‘cash assets’. The bulk of shares will go to foreign investors who will be using their cheap $A to buy up these assets. The profits will go to foreign utilities and brokers for doing nothing. For cutting staff to trim costs which the government was too scared to do for political reasons. There will also be higher consumer prices after the next election because the utilities will not have the same compelling ‘political’ reasons for keeping prices low.
This is not good policy, this is not goo leadership. This is political expediency from the NSW. We saw the same with the railways in Sydney. Talking up a non-commercial railway then dropping the project after the election. This is typical political electioneering and VERY CYNICAL POLITICS. Taxpayers might superficially think that the state is making money from this deal, but it’s getting a fraction of what it should because the government will squander the benefits. This should be considered as taxation (for the high prices you will pay), higher surcharges (for all the commissions paid to brokers) and kickbacks (for all the money they will spend on marginal seats prior to the next election).
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Brown and rhetorical thinking

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Well I just read the speech by Gordon Brown to the US Congress. I would have to say it was the most boringly predictable, uninteresting speech I have read of late. It talks of course of his love of America, shared values, fighting terrorism, climate change and the perils of economic crisis. The reality is that you can no longer learn the mark of a man from his speeches because they no longer write them. They are fluff pre-conceived to be safe and uninteresting. Its not a platform to influence people but to be magnanimous in the most shallow of ways - with words rather than deeds. The reason I say this is because:
1. The reaction of Arab terrorists is partly in answer to the lack of principle exhibited by the US and Britain in the Arab world. These countries did not care about Arab people, only that they got their oil revenues, and after nationalisation of oil assets, only that they got cheap oil supplies. The price they paid was Sept 11th. Was blowing up the trade towers justification for 9/11? Yeh, if you magnanimously talk about friends and crap without dealing with the levels of disenchantment in the Arab world on the issue of US foreign policy.
2. Greenhouse gas policy - the US has been far from a supporter of 'good oil' policy. It has artificially over-stimulated the US economy, to the point of precipitating a sustained recession/depression. It continues to have among the cheapest petrol in the world. If it was opposed to greenhouse theory, let us here its arguments.
3. Western alliance - how can you talk up an alliance with Britain, Australia, NZ and ignore the absence of other Western countries.
4. Economic crisis - How can you talk about being defenders of economic prosperity when your government is complicit in the unravelling of the global economy.

I personally love crises because that is when I make a lot of money. Crises are followed by commodity booms. In crises people think short term. That is when I do my long term planning. But that does not change the fact that I would happily do something else rather than destroy people's lives - that is those people who depend on economic activity. So such speeches really do speak words of shallow rhetoric. Talk and deeds are transparently different. But no, he is a fitting addition to the US Congressional bench.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com