Archive for March, 2009
Treading On Your Own Foot.
With the worry about the US auto industry I thought I would trot over and have a look at General Motors website. Now I understand all too well the near impossibility for Western manufacturing to compete against countries that do not have to contend with the welfare and social costs that we consider the norm, but the General Motors product portfolio is pure insanity.
Keep in mind I am an Aussie and all I see of GM is their Australian flavour Holden. In the US though they have Buick, Cadillac, Chevorlet, Pontiac, Saturn and SAAB all of which are essentially what you would call a normal car. Cadillac of course being up market and SAAB being Swedish. Add into this GMC and Hummer.
All of Buick Cadillac, Chevorlet, Pontiac and Saturn sell the same bloody thing!!! They are competing head on in exactly the same bloody marketplace. Doh! No wonder the individual product lines are not profitable. Then to compound the error GMC and Chevy compete with light trucks and the whole bloody lot of them seem to sell SUV’s.
There aren’t even very many key product differentiators here. It’s not like comparing Honda with Mazda with Toyota. Three brands all of which offer significantly different cars. Can someone tell me what the difference between these brands are? Particularly between Buick, Pontiac and Saturn.
And they don’t seem to export them. In fact that is a US problem in general. Chrysler recently dipped it’s toe back into the Australian market after an absence of thirty years, but imported American cars simply are not on Australian roads. American products are simply not on Australian shelves. But then again American products are probably becoming scarce on American shelves as well.
I have no idea what the management of these companies learned at MBA school or did they just pay their $20k+ in fees for a ticket to an executive job…..
So advice guys, it is not Just Pontiac that needs to become a niche car. They all do. Work out where you have duplication in your product placement and which brand that product should live under.
With the cars that you keep, they have to be better. Better design, better engines, better performance, better handling, better everything. A production line can make a great car with the same effort it can make a lousy one.
Take the real niche sports cars and design, build and sell them from a single factory. That should be a business in it’s own right and should target export heavily. There would be people all over the world that would pay good money for a ‘vette.
Find out who in the management tree has held back innovation in design and fire them. Then fire the suck arses who supported them. Rehire they guys you did fire for challenging the status quo.
In fact get a whole lot of new blood into management anyway. Get rid of all the people responsible for product and development and strategy. It hasn’t worked so why reward them.
March 31 2009 | Economics and Opinion | No Comments »
Let’s See What Happens To Justice.
The topic of the Anti Biker legislation has really got under my collar.
As reported last night the NSW Premier Nathan Rees has has seen an opportunity to feed upon the fear created by the media on the biker gang issue and is racing to save us from the two wheeled marauders. It seems they have worked out that if they ban bikers all organized crime in NSW will come to a stop. So far no mention of going after street gangs and or the Islander, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Vietnamese or Korean variations on the Mafia.
While Mr Rees and his saviors race to save us there a few things they need to keep in mind, some of which South Australia fails abysmally on.
Proof of Guilt.
South Australia bypassed the whole unpleasant issue of having to prove that a group of people were guilty of an offense by making the offense that needs to be proven before a court only that someone has associated with the banned organization. Whether the organization is guilty of any crimes is only a matter for the state Attorney-General (Think District Attorney if you are from the US) as per the following from the act.
(4) The Attorney-General may, for the purposes of making a declaration under this
section, be satisfied that members of an organisation associate for the purpose of
organising, planning, facilitating, supporting or engaging in serious criminal activity—
(a) whether or not all the members associate for that purpose or only some of the
members (provided that if the Attorney-General is satisfied that only some of
the members associate for that purpose, the Attorney-General must be satisfied that those members constitute a significant group within the organisation, either in terms of their numbers or in terms of their capacity to influence the organisation or its members); and
(b) whether or not members associate for the purpose of organising, planning,
facilitating, supporting or engaging in the same serious criminal activities or
different ones; and
(c) whether or not the members also associate for other purposes.
Evidence
And while we are discarding due process and normal standard of evidence check this out. Not only do we have people being punished by the state in a manner that bypasses the courts. The evidence used as a basis for this decision is not publicly available.
(1) If the Attorney-General makes a declaration or decision under this Part, the
Attorney-General is not required to provide any grounds or reasons for the declaration
or decision (other than to a person conducting a review under Part 6 if that person so requests).
(2) No information provided by the Commissioner to the Attorney-General for the
purposes of this Part may be disclosed to any person (except to a person conducting a
review under Part 6 or a person to whom the Commissioner authorises its disclosure)
if the information is classified by the Commissioner as criminal intelligence.
And the media was complaining about Guantanamo bay for what reasons exactly…
Guilt Through Association.
This one is nasty. Consider there was a war on and a soldier decided to undertake a reprisal against a non combatant that was known to associate with enemy forces. The cry for them to be bought up on war crimes coming from the same media that is currently screaming for anyone who associates with bikers to be imprisoned for five years would be deafening. The logic of “person A is a known criminal, person B associates with person A therefore person B is a criminal” defies belief in this day and age. I don’t know if the social engineers in their attempts to save us from ourselves have short memories of not, but freedom of association is fundamental to western law and society.
Geneva Convention
To understand the cultural values and to see one of the fundamental documents where these principals are put down lets have a look at an important line in the fourth Geneva convention section( 1) paragraph (d)
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
Magna Carta
I know it is obsolete but lets have a look at section 39 the Magna Carta
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
Australian Constitution
Not a bloody lot I am afraid. As I have stated many times before “Liberty” is something Australians simply don’t get. They historically have not had the need to be protected from their own government and as they haven’t needed it they haven’t demanded it.
While Mr Rees and associates come riding to our rescue, we once again have no opposition. Perhaps people have forgotten, but the role of the opposition in a Westminster system is to oppose. To oppose means to call out all the problems with proposed laws.
The best our mob can do is resort to name calling and attempting to find fault with the sex lives of the government while not bothering to defending what most Aussies would consider the most basic of rights.
One day Australia someone will take away your personal freedoms and you won’t know what hit you. Although some would argue that day already occurred when you said a bloke could not go down to the local pub, have a beer, a cigarette and read the newspaper.
March 29 2009 | Law and Politics | 2 Comments »
My Take
With the Biker Laws that have hit my hot button it is worth going back and having a look at an earlier philosophical thread where I was trying to explore what Justice, the Law and Liberty was. It was essentially an exploration of how to avoid damage to Liberty while at the same time moving towards a state that offers protection from unnecessary bumps and bruises of life. In the course of that post I came up with the following principals against which it is interesting to view the current Anti Biker laws.
To revise the principals
(1) The Law is the will of the State.
(2) The Processes and Procedures of the Law themselves must be Legal
(3) The Principal of Justice is to Avoid Damage and Remediate Damage when it occurs
(4) It is the Law that the Law conform to the Principal of Justice.
(5) The Principal Of Liberty Is Freedom From Interference
(6) It is the Law that the Justness of damage to Liberty must be weighed equally by the Law with the Justness of damage to person, property and possessions.
Note: I have made item (6) more robust by inclusion of the words “It is the Law that”
The anti biker legislation is in fact a perfect example of what I was trying to get my mind around. In this situation the State is trying to avoid damage to it’s citizens. To be honest I wish that was true, but it seems to be more of a case of governments jumping on an opportunity created by fear and sensationalism coming from the media rather than an honest attempt at bettering things.
None the less if we assume that avoiding damage is what they are doing we can see their argument would be to create a situation in which the damage to the population under (3) is met which justifies their need for their Law.
Where we have problems is that if we assume that there are certain basic principals upon which the modern state is based such as Freedom of Association, Due Process, Standards of Evidence, The right of a fair trial amongst others. If we assume that it is indeed the Will of the State (1) that these principals be adhered to then a law that bypasses them puts us in a situation where the “Will of the State” contradicts the “Will of the State”. A situation that only a court can resolve I am afraid.
They are also severely damaging Liberty – the right to choose for yourself how you live your own life.
Without the principal of Liberty and the requirement that the damage to Liberty being weighed against the the damage to person property and possession you could easily find yourself in a situation where you could justify by-passing due process, standards of evidence, the right to a fair trial etc as being in the interest of justice. After all as a consequence of these laws the State can break up the Biker gangs and other groups we know but can not prove are committing crimes.
Surely that leads to a safer and hence more Just State….
March 29 2009 | Law | No Comments »
Dangerous Bikers or Dangerous Policy
South Australia once known for it’s liberal legal enlightenment on issues such as womens rights, marijuana laws and the lack of political parties at local council level has taken a dangerous step back into fear mongering and restriction.
It’s hard to miss the “Biker Wars” issue at the moment. It has been played out in the headlines and talkback shows for weeks now. The politicians are feeding upon the public fear of outlaw biker gangs and are calling for national anti biker laws in the style of South Australia’s recent legislation. Sounds good eh. A stroke of the pen and no more violence, no more shootings, no more drugs, no more big scary guys with tattoos.
It brings to mind a statement I saw yesterday to the effect that
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins.”
Which is pretty much the same as;
“The nature of government is to feed demons and create hobgoblins from which the Saviours within the state can rescue us.”
How the South Australian government is going about saving the poor crow eaters from the bearded tattooed hordes that have them all cowering in their cellars at night is with the Serious and Organised Crime Act. This is legislation that boils down to the ability to proscribe organizations and individuals that the state believe are conducting criminal activity. The evidence of such activity does not need to be proven to normal legal standards. Rather it uses balance of probabilities and it also relies upon secret evidence.
I would suspect the intent of such secret evidence would be to protect the source and ongoing operations but how the hell are you to challenge an accusation if – and here I am quoting the legislation
“Information forming the basis for the making, variation or revocation of a public safety order must not be disclosed to any person (except to the Attorney-General, a person conducting a review under Part 6, a court or a person to whom the Commissioner authorises its disclosure)“.
Note: the emphasis on must is mine..
Once this is done if members of this organization meet more than 6 times they can be imprisoned for 5 years. The meetings don’t have to have anything to do with criminal activity. For example two Hells Angels playing for two different 8 ball clubs who meet more than 6 times in a year would be in breach of the law. In fact reading the act if you are not a member of such a proscribed organization but knowingly associate with someone who is you can be imprisoned for five years.
“A person who associates, on not less than 6 occasions during a period of 12 months, with a person who is— (a) a member of a declared organisation; or (b) the subject of a control order, is guilty of an offence. Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years.”
Looks like the whole 8 ball team are criminals simply by association. This law by the way strikes me as unworkable. Making it impossible for OMCG members to associate with anyone else leaves them very little option about who to associate with.
To my mind this goes against the very essence of modern western justice that only allows people to be punished for committing offences that can be proven before a court. You could not even be forced to pay a parking fine without the requirement existing for the state to be able prove your offence.
Where this legislation is nasty is that the only thing the state needs to prove is someones association with a group they declare illegal. They do not need to prove the criminality of the organisation itself.
Freedom of Association
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
or
“Evil would by no means be so foul if it’s face was not so fair.”
The problem though is a little thing called Freedom of Association. The outlawing of outlaw motorcycle clubs because as we all know outlaw bikers are all dangerous criminals is no different to banning Catholic mass in Australia as it was in the early 1800′s because as we all know the Irish are all criminals.
Banning the bikers is in a sense no different to banning various Islamic schools (think philosophical school not blackboard school) because as we all know the Lebanese are involved in organized crime. While we are at it let’s outlaw the Calabrian and Sicilian festivals because as we all know all the Southern Italians are all somehow involved with the Mafia.
The issue of organized crime is real, no doubt about that at all. It is normally dealt with via various versions of racketeering laws such as the US RICO act that was of concern back in the 1970′s. Australia has similar powers under the Australian Crime Commission.
Before the other Australian states – with the exception of Victoria who can’t implement such laws because they violate the Victorian bill of human rights – madly rush into further restricting basic freedoms I really would like to know why the existing legislation is not up to the task. Is it because there is insufficient evidence for the existing organized crime task forces to act upon. If there isn’t the evidence how is it we are so certain that these organizations are as they are portrayed? Perhaps the claim is the police are either incompetent or somehow in league – a la Underbelly – with the Bikers.
An Interesting Exception.
The law specifically states that the powers contained in it are not to be used to diminish the freedom of persons in SA to participate in advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action. This means that provided the organization meets for a political purpose it is legal. Imagine outlawing people gathering for a political purpose…..
The Painters and Dockers and the Builders Labourers unions can rest easy, unless they wear a patch.
I wonder why I can hear the defense echo of “But Your Honor we was just having a political meeting”. In fact I think there will be lots of “Political Meetings” at lots of rallies, runs, club houses and bars that will be very hard to argue against.
In effect the SA government has created a situation that has forced the very organizations they don’t like to work together in a united political context. I am not sure if that was the intent, but the previous disparate organizations are now united at least on this topic.
Perhaps now that the OMCG community are forced to work together they themselves will deal with the rogue elements. So perhaps there will be some benefits.
Bikers All Innocent Cherubs?
Not bloody likely. It is an absolute certainty that some bikers are involved in crime, particularly the outlaw crowd. Note the second to last word in that sentence. They like their weed, their women, their bikes, their beer and they don’t particularly like the mainstream. They choose to deal with internal issues in a manner you and I probably would not desire. We all know that.
From my view as long as it doesn’t impact those of us that don’t choose to live that lifestyle I don’t care if they play catch with a live hand grenade while wearing a pink tutu, crotchless knickers and football boots. None of my business and the Army probably already has dibs on that one.
The question is whether the organization itself is involved in crime. This is a hugely important distinction and a non trivial one. The US tried a RICO case against Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels in 1979 and lost because they were unable to prove the organisation itself was criminal.
In fact this makes sense. Outlaw motorcycle clubs are international businesses certainly but they are not criminal per se from what I can see on the evidence publicly available. They attract criminals but as organizations they are more marketing, branding and fashion. The biker pays his dues in one manner or another and gets to wear a patch and the associated status. They are a testosterone fuelled version of Gucci that Richard Branson’s marketing genius would be proud of. They are in a sense accessories to the Harley Davidson brand itself.
I think a key issue here is whether outlawing the biker clubs will reduce the crime level or will the criminals simply find somewhere else to play. Once again it is a question of whether the organisation causes the crime. Does the existence of the organisation create crime or does it simply attract people who were going to commit crimes anyway. Does the organisation create a context where someone who normally would not act in a criminal manner changes?
So where next?
If the issue of Civil Liberties, Freedom of Association, Personal Freedom concern you I would have a look at FREE Australia. It started as a South Australian political party in reaction to the SA legislation, but has now opened a NSW branch. I would expect a lot of beards, tattoos and patches at their sign up days. I would also expect a lot of people to sign up to create a defense under the allowed political gatherings clause, but the broader issue of Liberty is at stake here. At some point we as a society have to tell the Nanny State we don’t need nor appreciate their Hobgoblins and Demons.
A final thought for you to take with you. In order for you to have your Liberty, a word Australians are only just learning to spell, you have to accept that;
“The price you pay for your Liberty is your obligation to defend the right of another to live their life in a manner you don’t agree with.”
Me
March 25 2009 | Politics | 1 Comment »
I Think We Just Scored An F for Economics
This blog has been quiet for a while, nothing has grabbed me enough to write about that I havent already vented by frustrations on, but an old topic has reared it’s head again. Printing Money……
I still fail to understand what our economists get taught at uni. You can not print money and hope it solves problems. I don’t care if you go about it by selling bonds that you plan to pay back later or whether you simply crank up the printing presses and hand it out on street corners. It doesn’t work.
Let’s try to understand some basics. Money itself in this day and age is in fact worthless. A note, a coin, a dollar is simply an intentionally cheap token that is used to have a number written on it. The number represents the economic value of something.
Once upon a time the token itself was gold and had an intrinsic value itself, but those days are gone. In fact money does not even have to have a physical representation in this day and age of electronic commerce. It’s effectively an IOU written on a little yellow sticky thing.
The value of money is obtained from the economy it is associated with. It is the value of your economy divided by the number of tokens on issue. Increasing the money supply by printing money, or selling bonds – which themselves are government IOU’s does nothing apart from devalue the currency already on issue.
Remember the money itself is worthless. It is just a label, a token that represents the value of your economy.
Money Supply
To increase the money supply you have to increase economic activity. You have to make something, sell something, add value to the economy. That means increasing manufacturing, the supply of services, the supply of raw materials.
The problem in the West at the moment is that economic activity is stalling. Manufacturing and jobs flowing out of the West corresponds to economic activity flowing out of the West. As I have written about before, our previously closed bucket of an economy has a hole in it. Compounded by an aging population our economic activity is reducing and the money is disappearing.
Printing money to attempt to fix the problem without fixing the hole is simply a disaster. Particularly as the money in our Western bucket is largely borrowed in the first place. Borrowed money represents future economic activity. It represents work that will have to occur in the future to repay the debt. Adding to the problem by selling government bonds to increase the money in the bucket means creating IOUs that will have to be paid for out of future activity.
The leak in the bucket has to be stopped first. That means you have to stem the flow of money – economic activity – jobs – manufacturing etc out of your economies. You have to retain an industrial base that generates economic activity that repays the debt. You can not repay debt out of someone else’s economic activity. Someone else’s economic activity belongs to someone else’s economy.
What is needed is literally for the hole in the bucket to be plugged and the bucket then given a good stir. You do not need to increase the number of tokens in the bucket to increase activity. You simply have to increase the amount of business that is taking place. Increase the rate at which tokens change hands.
The State itself can provide that stimulus simply by building infrastructure – provided of course that the infrastructure is produced internally to the economy. As bad as it may sound a war would be good for us. The arms production stimulus would do wonders for our manufacturing base. Think the 1950′s compared to the 1930′s. It need not be a war though. Another Snowy Mountains scheme would do the trick, Another space program. Whatever it is it has to be BIG, ambitious and local.
The West has a lot to learn.
Primary amongst them is that non Western nations don’t particularly care what happens to us. In fact they don’t particularly like us. They don’t like our quality of life compared to theirs, they don’t like our political and military control of this planet, they don’t really like us. They put up with us because we have money or more to the point in this day and age because we owe them a lot of money….
Third world engineers don’t like designing and building household equipment and luxury items for less skilled people that they themselves can not afford. They deeply resent the inequality and that is something the touchy feely “lets all hold hands and be friends” West just has not gotten it’s brain around. As much as most Westerners resent the worthless snotty nosed toff with the rich parents who does nothing and lives a life of luxury , the rest of the Worlds resents us.
Remember that emotion of hatred that you feel towards those who through luck more than skill are protected from life’s bumps. Who have all the wealth and just fritter it away. Well that is the way most of the world feels towards you.
The West has to learn to protect itself. That means protecting jobs, protecting social standards, protecting labor standards, protecting pensions, health care, education. Protecting all those things that our competitors who don’t much like us don’t have.
To do this the West has to protect the economic activity that is used to pay for all these things. It has to protect the tax base – income tax, goods and services tax, company tax that pays for schools education and defense.
Salary paid to a foreign worker does not contribute to your tax base and their activity does not contribute to your economy. When you send labor offshore, you are also giving away the economic activity that is used to pay for your children’s schooling, your parents pension and your local police force.
The developed nations with a high social infrastructure burden need to close the doors and only trade with other nations that carry a similar burden.
March 23 2009 | Economics | No Comments »
