Author Archives: lawofmarkets

Who is the Prime Minister to order the banks to do anything?

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PM roasts banks over Covid fail.

Australia’s biggest banks have been stymieing business attempts to gain bridging finance for wages before the $130bn JobKeeper payments begin next month, prompting Scott Morrison to order them to be read the riot act.

What does “stymieing” mean? Shall we go to the dictionary.

Stymie. The verb stymie means to obstruct or hinder.

Is this what has been happening?

Australia’s biggest banks have been obstructing business attempts to gain bridging finance for wages.

Seriously? Why would they do that? This sounds more like what has been happening.

NAB chief executive Ross McEwan on Thursday night acknowledged the government’s frustrations and said his bank was “working overtime” to provide assistance. “We’ll (today) launch a dedicated hotline for customers needing support with JobKeeper bridging finance and we’ll also expedite any requests we’ve already received from customers so far,” Mr McEwan said.

“We recognise this funding is critical to keeping businesses afloat, people in jobs, and food on the table for the many people who are doing it tough right now.

“We’re working as quickly as we can, with more than 350 people retrained to support customer facing roles so far, so we can support as many customers as we can over this hurdle.”…

The ABA conceded that while the banks had worked “tirelessly to process applications as quickly as possible”, more needed to be done to keep businesses afloat until they could access the $1500 JobKeeper payments.

I find this unbelievable.

A furious Prime Minister vented his anger about the big four during a phone hook-up with tax commissioner Chris Jordan and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg early on Thursday….

Mr Jordan is believed to have delivered Mr Morrison’s blunt message to the chief executives of ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and NAB in a later phone conference that included Mr Frydenberg and Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar….

One chief executive is believed to have tried to make excuses for the delays on getting cash through to businesses, earning a rebuke from Mr Jordan, who said the banks would have a hard time convincing the Prime Minister of that.

Let me see. Out of nowhere the banks have been landed with a massive increase in responsibility that has come from out of the blue and are struggling to fulfil the obligations that have been placed on them. And I will just add this from the end of the story.

Restaurant and Catering Australia chief executive Wes Lambert said many of the association’s members had been asked to prove their acceptance under the JobKeeper program before receiving their bridging finance. That had not been possible because formal applications for JobKeeper only opened this week.

The one thing I could not find out is how much the government is paying the banks to undertake all of this additional effort.

Mill and marginalism

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A conversation based on John Stuart Mill and the theory of value.

PETER:

Obviously I don’t find this stuff as interesting as you do. But have just, admittedly quickly, looked at JSM’s theory of value. I can’t see how this stacks up: “almost equally disastrous [as the Keynesian Revolution] was the Marginal Revolution which undermined the classical theory of value”. Which of Mill’s 17 propositions does it undermine?

ME:

The Marginal Revolution starts with Marginal Utility. And let me mention that Mill was the greatest and most influential utilitarian philosopher in history, yet he absolutely refused to incorporate utility into his economic analysis, as noted here. The abstract begins:

“The concept of utility, which stood at the heart of J. S. Mill’s utilitarian moral philosophy, played only a minor role in his account of economics. The economic idea of (individual) utility, as is well known, neither inspired Mill directly nor excited his attention when developed in the work of other economists.”

And the reason in part, as discussed in my forthcoming book, was, and I argue from plenty of evidence, that the introduction of utility took the analytics of the economy from the supply side to the demand side. Lots of other things I could say and do say, but I hope this is enough for you to see my point. In my textbook I go into it in much more detail but do preserve cost-benefit analysis as part of what an economist needs to understand.

There are around 1200 economists on that website but I doubt any of them will want to buy into any of this and they are typically a fractious lot. Not that it’s the reason I bought into this query, but it did stoke my annoyance that it is the editor of our local journal, who want to dispose of the two papers, including mine, that he has held in his hands for two years, that asked the initial query which began thus:

My long message emerges from a series of papers I have received from a retired physicist, Kevin Wilks, who is 95 and argues (as physicists are wont to do) that laws of physics underlie economics, in this case production itself and the industrial structure. Economies capture energy and convert it into value (my summation). He draws on Quesnay and the primacy of agriculture, which I [is] why I write to SHOE for help, both to advise Kevin and to sort things out in my own head. And perhaps Kevin is onto something; if so, it is not straight HET, so what journals or outlets cater for speculative papers by intelligent amateur economists? The main concern here is not what Quesnay really said, but why what is valid in Quesnay is absent from textbooks. Wilks argues that introductory economics should locate the dependency of what we now call the secondary and tertiary sectors on the primary sector. Textbooks would be written differently. Of course, what is valid in a body of thought need not be regarded as important, but I press on.

This chap is a complete economic illiterate who thinks that economics should be reduced to energy flows – an old and idiotic economic concept that completely omits the notion of value and pricing. My article on Mill is however beyond his ken. Is it any wonder that economics has stagnated for the past hundred years, if not actually going backwards? Actually it has gone backwards, but who is this cretin to notice? This is why it is so difficult to get published when trying to say anything against modern textbook theory runs such obstacles as this. It’s only fortunate that I am now beyond the realm of publish or perish.

PETER:

Marginal utility is a demand concept for sure but I would have thought the fault which led to Keynes was the focus on demand as an aggregate not on demand per se.

ME:

Want more? Utility cannot be measured and in any case has nothing to do with relative prices, whereas the supply side of the economy and the cost structure of the economy is the way in which the resource base is allocated to different outputs.

No classical economist bought the marginal stuff in the English speaking world until Joan Robinson and Edward Chamberlain turned the concepts into diagrams.

And fwiw, marginal utility has disappeared from our texts and been replaced by indifference curves, which are just as useless, and also unmeasurable.

PLUS THIS:

And this from “The Physiocrats and Say’s Law of Markets”. I by Joseph J. Spengler.

The Physiocrats and Say’s Law of Markets. I
Author(s): Joseph J. Spengler
Source: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Sep., 1945), pp. 193-211

The physiocrats always expressed their theory of circular flow in interclass, rather than in interindividual, terms. Notwithstanding, their theory of circular flow forced upon them several conclusions of importance. They looked upon money as an instrument whose essential function it is to facilitate the circulation of goods and services, to serve as a medium of exchange. In consequence, they recognized that commerce consists, not in buying and selling, but in the exchange of goods and services for goods and services. They thus laid the ground work for the formulation of Say’s law of markets and evoked its actual statement by their treatment of consumption and expenditure. They recognized, too, that if money ceases to perform its function, the nexus between potential purchasers and potential sellers is broken, thus anticipating Keynes; but they did not develop this theory, for they supposed that in a healthy economy founded upon their principles money would always perform its proper function. (p. 205)

 
Notable here is that goods exchange for goods and the circular flow is in real terms with money facilitating the exchange. This is what Say himself would include in his Treatise in 1803. What Keynes did was recast the entire process into a circular flow of money forgetting to separate out and on their own the real exchanges that simultaneously occur. In a Keynesian model, and therefore in modern macro, the real half of the process is no longer distinguished and discussed.

John Stuart Mill and the theory of value

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I have just posted this note onto the Societies for the History of Economics website in regard to François Quesnay, an eighteenth century French economist.

I found this, from Spencer Banzhaf, the most astonishing sentence I may have seen in quite some time, and I could not agree more.

“One cannot possibly discuss what happened to the role of agriculture/nature in value between Quesnay and today without talking about what happened to the meaning of “value,” conceived of as a moving target.  Rival theories of surplus value from Quesnay to Jevons will have to come into play.”

I often go on about the disastrous effect on economic theory of the Keynesian Revolution, but almost equally disastrous was the Marginal Revolution which undermined the classical theory of value, which was outlined comprehensively by John Stuart Mill in Book III Chapter VI of his Principles. Before I state my conclusion, I will just mention this, which comes from the brief profile of Mill that is on the HET website:

“John Stuart Mill’s greater economic performance was his magnificent 1848 Principles of Political Economy, a two-volume extended restatement of the Classical Ricardian theory.  He believed  Ricardo’s labor theory of value to be so conclusive that, in the beginning of a discussion on the theory of value, Mill confidently notes that:

‘Happily, there is nothing in the laws of Value which remains for the present or any future writer to clear up; the theory of the subject is complete: the only difficulty to be overcome is that of so stating it as to solve by anticipation the chief perplexities which occur in applying it.’ (J.S. Mill, Principles, 1848: Book III, Ch. 1).

“Thus putting a stone on the matter, and burying supply-and-demand theory for another quarter-century.  When Jevons’s later grumbled at the ‘noxious influence of authority’ preventing the development of economics, there is little doubt he was referring to J.S. Mill.”

That is all we think we know about the classical theory of value and it could not be more completely wrong. Mill did not restate “Classical Ricardian theory”. He explicitly discussed supply and demand. If you go to Mill, the first two of the seventeen elements in his theory of value are firstly, that the issue is not price as such, but relative prices, and then secondly, that the “temporary or market value” of something can be determined by supply and demand. There is no labour theory of value to be found anywhere. This is what Mill wrote:

“I. Value is a relative term. The value of a thing means the quantity of some other thing, or of things in general, which it exchanges for. The values of all things can never, therefore, rise or fall simultaneously. There is no such thing as a general rise or a general fall of values. Every rise of value supposes a fall, and every fall a rise.

“II. The temporary or Market Value of a thing, depends on the demand and supply; rising as the demand rises, and falling as the supply rises. The demand, however, varies with the value, being generally greater when the thing is cheap than when it is dear; and the value always adjusts itself in such a manner, that the demand is equal to the supply.“

The shallow reasoning and lack of depth in a modern textbook is a scandal, but is kept from most of us because no one knows what the economic theory of the past actually consisted of. If Spencer Banzhaf intends to be stating that “rival theories of value from Quesnay to Jevons” will need to be examined, then that is absolutely the case. What astonishes me is that both macro (which has replaced the classical theory of the cycle) and micro were much more profound among the later classical economists than amongst the majority of the economics profession today. We have more diagrams, they had a deeper understanding.

And this from “The Physiocrats and Say’s Law of Markets. I” by Joseph J. Spengler.

The physiocrats always expressed their theory of circular flow in interclass, rather than in interindividual, terms. Notwithstanding, their theory of circular flow forced upon them several conclusions of importance. They looked upon money as an instrument whose essential function it is to facilitate the circulation of goods and services, to serve as a medium of exchange. In consequence, they recognized that commerce consists, not in buying and selling, but in the exchange of goods and services for goods and services. They thus laid the groundwork for the formulation of Say’s law of markets and evoked its actual statement by their treatment of consumption and expenditure. They recognized, too, that if money ceases to perform its function, the nexus between potential purchasers and potential sellers is broken, thus anticipating Keynes; but they did not develop this theory, for they supposed that in a healthy economy founded upon their principles money would always perform its proper function.

Lucky country no more

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This sort of thing is always news to politicians, most of the community and to almost all economists: The Economy Doesn’t Need Government ‘Help’ To Reopen.

Governments don’t create economies. It’s not only beyond their legitimate functions, it’s beyond their abilities. They need to stay out of the way and let the wisdom of markets steer us back to normal.

“The wisdom of markets!” Do you think Dangerous Dan Andrews would have any idea what that means? There are many others I would ask that same question of but will leave it there. Because this is the reality that comes in the very next sentence after.

But some officials see an opening through which they can drive their big government dreams.

These people are incompetent to direct an economy. Or let me put it this way. THESE PEOPLE ARE INCOMPETENT TO DIRECT AN ECONOMY. This is Daniel Andrews bio from Wikipedia.

Andrews was born in Williamstown, a suburb of Melbourne, to Bob Andrews (1950–2016) and Jan (born 1944). In 1983 his family moved to Wangaratta, where he was educated at the Marist Brothers‘ Galen Catholic College.[1] Andrews moved back to Melbourne in 1990 to attend Monash University, where he was a resident of Mannix College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics and classics in 1996. After graduating, Andrews became an electorate officer for federal Labor MP Alan Griffin. He worked at the party’s head office from 1999 to 2002, initially as an organiser, and then as assistant state secretary.

Following his election to parliament in the Legislative Assembly seat of Mulgrave at the 2002 election, Andrews was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Health in the Steve Bracks Labor government. Following the 2006 election, Andrews was appointed to the Cabinet, becoming Minister for Gaming, Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister Assisting the Premier on Multicultural Affairs. In 2007, Andrews became Minister for Health in the John Brumby Labor government….

Brumby resigned as leader of the Victorian Labor Party following the Labor defeat at the 2010 election, after 11 years of Labor governments. On 3 December 2010, Andrews was elected Victorian Labor Party leader, becoming Leader of the Opposition in Victoria.

At the [2014] election, Labor gained seven seats for a total of 47, a majority of two.

And thus Daniel Andrews, economic cypher but socialist extrordinare became premier. And now he not only guides Victoria right towards the rocks, but he is signalling the way for the Feds to do the same. Shall I mention Scott Morrison and his career. Why not?

Morrison was born in Sydney and studied economic geography at the University of New South Wales. He worked as director of the New Zealand Office of Tourism and Sport from 1998 to 2000 and was managing director of Tourism Australia from 2004 to 2006. Morrison was also state director of the New South Wales Liberal Party from 2000 to 2004. He was later elected to the House of Representatives at the 2007 election, representing the Division of Cook in New South Wales.

Etc etc. And just how on top of things is our PM? The news just in: Scott Morrison to push for WHO to be given ‘weapons inspector powers’.

Australia will push for the World Health Organisation to be given the powers of an international “weapons inspector” that would be mandated to enter a country without invitation to trace the source of outbreaks in any future pandemics.

It is believed that Scott Morrison raised the idea with world leaders over the past several days while seeking a consensus for reform of the organisation be given priority and should not wait for any review or investigation into COVID-19 pandemic which could take as long as five years.

It is believed that Scott Morrison raised the idea with world leaders over the past several days while seeking a consensus for reform of the organisation be given priority and should not wait for any review or investigation into COVID-19 pandemic which could take as long as five years.

Let me add that after all this disruption, the most useful way to get us back to something like how things only so recently were is not to disrupt markets any further but just let conditions work themselves out on their own. Gently, gently. Thus we have the Head of the RBA coming up with this:

Handing down a detailed assessment of the damage being wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Lowe warned that the nation could not rely on a quick return to a pre-coronavirus economy and suggested long-ignored calls for income, consumption and land tax reform, as well as stripping regulations that stifle innovation, would need to be revived.

Does no one in charge know how to run an economy any more?

Speaking of the coronavirus

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Selected comments from the I stand with Gigi thread

In Australia, influenza on average causes 1,500 to 3,000 deaths, about 18,000 hospitalisations and 300,000 GP consultations each year. Ro is around 0.1 to 0.2. Ro for Wuhan flu anywhere from 0.5 to 0.1 not a lot of difference.

Some more numbers. Italy has over 360,000 nurses and 240,000 doctors . As of end of March, 61 healthcare workers have died from Covid-19.

Let me give you a factual account, which is a definite marker on Gigi’s other side of the ledger: A few weeks ago, my brother in law passed very suddenly at the age of 63. Turns out it was a form of preventable heart failure. In the days leading up to this, he attempted to go to a local medical clinic who REFUSED him as they had closed their doors to new patients (he had only recently moved to the area). He was so concerned by media reports about the hospitals that he didn’t go to emergency where he WOULD have been treated successfully. Instead he died. Not of COVID, but of a preventable and treatable illness – which was denied him. He was the price that these politicians are prepared to pay for their handiwork. He is the cost on the other side of their ledger. He will be but one more name on the epitaph of this lunacy.

In Sweden, Will Voluntary Self-Isolation Work Better Than State-Enforced Lockdowns in the Long Run? Those who want to show how great Sweden is doing have produced charts comparing us to countries like Britain, Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy. Those who want to prove the opposite replace those countries with Norway, Denmark, and Finland, all of which have fewer deaths. If you want Sweden to look bad, compare it to the U.S. as a whole—120 deaths per million in Sweden vs. 94 in the U.S. according to Our World in Data’s April 16 numbers. If you want Sweden to look good, compare it to New York state, which is at a more similar stage to us in the virus’s spread—120 vs. 580. The truth is that Sweden is somewhere in the European middle when it comes to deaths per capita, which in itself is interesting. We are outliers in terms of policy, but not in terms of outcomes. There are also reasons to think that Sweden is doing better than these comparisons suggest. Many countries don’t count COVID-19 deaths outside of hospitals. When people die at home, in nursing homes, or in prisons, they don’t show up in the coronavirus death count. In the Stockholm region of Sweden, 42 percent of deaths took place in nursing homes for the elderly. In many countries, and some U.S. states, those deaths would not show up in the data. This has a major effect on where you are compared to other countries. According to Johns Hopkins University, Belgium has twice as many COVID-19 deaths per capita as the Netherlands. But in Belgium, almost half of those deaths are from nursing homes, while testing is more rare in Dutch nursing homes so fewer deaths there are attributed to the disease.

Health care workers have been stood down and people are not getting life saving surgery now. My mother is one of them. People are dying now and will be in future precisely because health care workers have been told to walk off the job. Bloody women and their core belief in government combined with hysteria, is a big part of the mess we are in. Judith, I ask you, why are you so happy for the other deaths to occur, in their thousands (and destroy the western world, knowing what will take it’s place), due to the draconian totalitarian jackboot of government, as long as they don’t die of Corona virus? You are proof an education is not a guarantee of intelligence, but in your case, what caused the lack of morality, if it isn’t hysteria?

Pretty soon there will no economy for economists to study Judith. This is already traversing back through supply chains. A recession on the scale of 1930 to 1935 will indeed lead to many deaths and ruined lives. As a respected economist, perhaps you would do some estimates and scenarios. Then we could compare the relative damage over 5 years say. We seem to already know that the infection and death rates are not as high as proposed by Imperial College. It looks like Italy and Spain are one end of the spectrum, Hong Kong and Taiwan the other. Sweden would be a control case precisely because there had been no lock down other than for at risk groups. Then select a few ‘average’ cases such as Germany and the UK, Mexico, and others. It’s likely that the weather has played a part, as someone said above. You’d also need to control for numbers of returning Chinese students and business people, certainly in Italy and Switzerland. That done, show the average infection and death rates grouped by weather, age profile, returning Chinese and date of lockdown. Thanks to Sweden we shall know the same figures where there is no lockdown. Similarly, there will be the second peak to take into account. We end up with average rates of infection and deaths by the filters set out above. Compare with deaths by economic slump.

Again, Judith is a classic example of the sex that never designed or fought for a civilisation, making decisions without understanding the true costs her idiotic hysteria will cause.

10% unemployment is a distressing turn of events. 15% is a bit terrifying. I think the lockdown has been too extensive for Australia and the National Cabinet and the media have terrorised people in their own homes and they don’t feel safe going out anymore. I think the real reason is that PM Morrison and the premiers can go to their respective next elections and say, without me 20,000 of you lot would have died so vote for me. Whether the 10% unemployment and misery with that makes people vote the other way, who knows right now.

Unfortunately our governments have delegated decision making to the chief medical officers and given them fall rein to wreak havoc. They went in without an exit plan and there is still isn’t one. Interestingly the slogans have morphed from “flattening the curve” to “no more lives lost”.

Judith, as an economist, I would have thought you of all people would know of the long-term damage a lockdown could do to the economy. Not to mention, the number of suicides now and into the future as a result could vastly outnumber Covid19 deaths.

I guess Judith must have missed the bit about hospitals being half empty and major CBD hospitals with Max 3 virus cases in their ICU. It is a hard balancing act I know but 6 new cases in Qld does not justify what is going on. I heard a caller to 2GB mention there had been 8 virus related suicides in Melbourne. I did read about one who had returned from overseas and was self isolating in hospital but did not say why suicided. No idea where he got the figure from but would guess the average age is much lower than virus deaths. I doubt Melbourne has even had 8 virus deaths. I heard on radio saying job keeper payments would go for 6 months. A week ago I heard Michaelia Cash, almost proudly, saying 800,000 businesses had applied for job seeker. Today I heard a figure of 500,000 mentioned. If they are businesses then there are obviously applying for more than one person. Where are the economists calculating the daily, weekly, monthly, 6 months of job seeker etc costs of what is happening to the economy. Whilst the Govt probably knew how many would be affected by the closure of the hospitality industry did they factor in what would happen when their actions scared off the visitors to retail shops. Look in an almost deserted Westfield shopping centre to see the impact of lost GST. Then how about an economist let us know how much of a budget hit the low petrol price and cars not on the road has caused. I guess it is easy who Gigi is but she is on the right track. If I recall Sally McManus was early on suggesting workers be paid 80% of their normal salaries whilst stood down. Unfortunately she was referring to private business and not civil servants many of whom are being fully paid not to work. How about Judith look into areas where the Government could make some savings in these times when they are being so generous with other people’s money.

As a boomer (tail end), I’m widowed, self-employed (so if I don’t work I don’t eat much), have a small amount of capital behind me, but nothing you’d get excited about, own my own very modest house and owe nobody anything (because we both had to access our superannuation early to pay for my husband’s care and costs and made sure we had no debts.) I’ve worked in private businesses; gave enough years of my life to the Army; gave a further bunch to high risk border patrol work; then the last decade of my working life to 12-hour day and night shifts in front-line state operations that actually facilitated the export of royalty-earning product. If you think I’m somehow spongeing off the rest of the economy, or stealing from younger generations, or withholding my “wealth” from the next generation or whatever your envious little soul thinks I’m doing, then F..k You! If you think you’re joking, then still F..k You! You’re a long way from funny.

Hearing the truth which no one on the left ever does if it doesn’t suit them

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It’s amazing how knowledgable Crenshaw is. He completely routs the interviewer who as usual is running the Democrat 20-20 hindsight line.

Taken from WHY DOES AN EPIDEMIC BRING OUT THE WORST IN LIBERALS?, “liberals” in the American sense, as in socialists, buffoons, liars and fools.

Trust in institutions must be continuously earned

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This is from Dara Macdonald, a new voice at the IPA, in a post titled, A crisis should not stop democracy. Great to hear all this being said.

Australia right now like the rest of the world is fighting a battle on two fronts. We are trying to stop the spread of a dangerous virus and we’re trying to ensure that we mitigate the effects on society and the community of that fight. But I don’t believe that democracy and the accountability of the government to the people should be a fatality of the coronavirus.

Many states, in particular New South Wales and Victoria, have restricted activities such as walking the dog, reading a book, or getting some sun, all activities which do not constitute a “reasonable excuse” to leave the house, but which can be conducted whilst keeping an appropriate social distance. This is an impingement on civil liberties above and beyond what is required to ensure that people are socially distancing. Making people justify being outside, even when they are alone, is extreme. There is no risk being averted by restricting people’s movement to this extent that could not be prevented by observing them and their adherence to social distancing orders.

These restrictions are more than just disproportionate, they also don’t adhere to principles of due process. They reverse the burden of proof. People are not presumed to have left their house legally, but have to be ready to prove they have a lawful excuse to be outside.

Our legal system is designed in accordance with the idea that it is so egregious to deprive one innocent man of their liberty that it is better that 10 guilty men are acquitted. There is a presumption that the state has resources and knowledge at their disposal that the individual does not. It is incumbent on the accuser to prove the guilt of the accused as opposed to them having to prove their innocence.

The enforcement methods used by police at the moment exemplifies the inequity between individuals and law enforcement and further illustrates the importance of due process. Some examples of policing that are particularly invasive include:

  • the couple in Victoria that were “fined $1,652 each for breaching coronavirus restrictions after sharing year-old holiday snaps on Facebook” that were found by police with time and resources to sift through people’s social media accounts for infractions.
  • Tasmanian police posted a picture of a helicopter with the text “if you are somewhere you shouldn’t be, even a remote campsite, then expect to be spoken to by police and directed to return home.”
  • Western Australian police are using drones and internal tracking devices.

At the same time as emergency powers are being wielded our parliamentary democracy based on representation, debate, and transparency is being suspended.

It is of paramount importance that the parliament remains open and functioning.

The seizure of emergency powers asks something very significant of Australians. It asks us to place an enormous amount of trust in our institutions. However, at the same time as our institutions are being empowered, the norms, such as due process and democracy, which enable our confidence are being discarded.

Trust in institutions must be earned, but the institutions we are asked to place our trust in are the same ones that have been riddled with scandal and deserve our suspicion.

We are asked to trust that the Victorian Police will show discretion when empowered to hand out fines for petty infractions. Yet this same organisation is the one that has recently seemed to have no concern for the basic principles of justice as exemplified in the Lawyer X debacle and the recent collapse of the case against Cardinal George Pell in a 7-0 High Court judgment. Likewise the NSW Police that were hurled before the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission for the strip-search of minors have in response to the current health crisis been granted discretionary powers to hand out fines of up to $11,000 for anyone not complying with the lockdown restrictions.

With our institutions so eroded the amount of trust that people are willing to give our institutions has been surprising. It is a wonder that the removal of our civil liberties and democracy hasn’t been met with more uproar. This is likely a product of enormous goodwill that has been built up through many years of a functioning liberal democracy. For Australians authoritarianism and tyranny is so outside the realm of experience that we trust that our government has our best interests at heart. However, those in power must be reminded that this trust in our government and institutions is neither limitless or indefinite, and senseless overreach and prolonged uncertainty will wear out the public’s confidence.

The hounding of people who dissent to take every government edict as gospel, like Peter Hitchens or Lord Sumption in the UK, or my colleague Gideon Rozner for a video suggesting that this lockdown should begin to be ended, is akin to a kind of heresy worthy of being burned at the Twitter stake is telling. It suggests that maybe people don’t want to know how the sausage is made at the moment. They don’t want to hear debates or contemplate that there might be trade-offs or need for political judgments because that implies that the models we are all relying on to determine policy are not prophecy.

Jonathan Sumption is a former judge of the UK Supreme Court and what he said on the BBC a few weeks ago continues to echo:

The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it’s not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It’s usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat. And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated. That’s what I fear we are seeing now. The pressure on politicians has come from the public. They want action. They don’t pause to ask whether the action will work. They don’t ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying. They want action anyway.

Perhaps it is not just Orwell that has come to life in the form of incursions on civil liberties, but also Aldous Huxley. Technology has facilitated the enforcement of lockdown, but also made it tolerable. Our wish is our command. Everything from entertainment to food can be ours with a click of a button without having to leave the lounge. As our interactions have moved online we have become more and more physically isolated for years making the final leap to complete isolation barely noticeable.

I agree with every word.

Frauds and conmen

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We are dealing with totalitarian mentalities which must always lurk behind everyone who runs for political office. They want not just to manage our affairs, but to run our lives. There is no longer anything to worry about, and the data are even more stark by the day. But was in an argument this afternoon – online of course – over the data. In the end, I went looking for the numbers, and this is what I found.

This was published by the ABC in Feb 2020 so “last year” in the story refers to 2019. Flu season which struck down 310,000 Australians ‘worst on record’ due to early outbreaks. The final lines:

“While 2019 saw the highest number of influenza cases across the country, 2017 still holds the record for the highest number of flu-related deaths, with over 1,100 cases.”

Last year there were over 900 influenza linked deaths in Australia.“

And then there was this from the ABS, not the ABC this time.

Australia’s leading causes of death, 2018

Influenza and pneumonia (J09-J18)

Number: 3102
Median age: 89.3

The number of deaths from the Corona Virus will possibly never reach 100 and will certainly never reach 1000.

We are in the midst of a gigantic fraud and a burst of the most disgusting hysteria. We are not led by leaders but by hysterics and conmen who love power and love to tell everyone else what to do. They have no business being leaders in a free society. First they do everything they can to scare as many people as possible and then invent a near-on-totalitarian system to protect virtually all of us from virtually nothing at all.