“I’m with Tony Abbott” writes Mark Steyn

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And if you want to know why, you need to read When the Arab Spring Blooms in Paris and San Bernardino… wherein we find:

My view of the Arab “Spring” remains what it was five years ago. As I said to Megyn Kelly on live TV an hour after Mubarak resigned, this is the dawn of the post-western Middle East – and more broadly the post-American world. The “Facebook Revolution” went, predictably enough, the same way as the Iranian revolution: All the western-educated intellectuals come home and assure the world’s media that there’s nothing to worry about, the theocrats are pussycats. So in Egypt we were told that moderates like Mohamed el Baradei would get together and there was no chance of the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power, just as we were told in 1979 that Mehdi Bazargan et al would be calling the shots and Khomeini and the ayatollah had no real interest in governing. And then the moderates get shoved aside – as they were in Iran by the mullahs, and as they were in Libya by the tribal militias, in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood, in Syria by ISIS, in Yemen by the Houthi… And, even in Tunisia, where the “Spring” began, the tourist hotels are empty since the jihad boys gunned down Europeans sunbathing on the beach.

Tony doesn’t make it till the last para but it’s worth the wait. And I might add that the most notable aspect of this reference to Tony Abbott is that Mark Steyn, writing for a worldwide audience, can use Abbott’s name as a metaphor for a particular set of political beliefs and the actions that go with them. There really is no one else.

The aim is not to scare you, however . . .

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budget summary

This is from The Public Knowledge Blog which has the above chart among many other insights that are not normally found in public discussion. It really does make a difference to see these things in front of you this way. Here’s another that tells a more historical story, but just as depressing as the first chart, if not more so. The sheer damage done by public spending and deficit finance is hardly understood anywhere, and certainly seldom by those on the receiving end of the cash and payments.

debt and deficits

If you own a stock of assets already, like a house and a car, your livings standards will only be slowly eroded but downwards they will come. But if you are paying as you go, you will feel your living standards slipping away and unless you have some way to protect your income, things will only get worse. The attack on super is just one form in which our falling productivity will manifest itself in lower personal incomes. Economic management is frightening when you can see what’s going on. The Turnbull-Morrison slowly-slowly approach only works for a while, and only on the political side. The economy will continue to wear away unless things are turned around and private sector activity without any form of government subsidy becomes the order of the day. The innovation statement is more colossal waste and evidence they do not have a clue about what needs to be done.

Portable Long Service Leave

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I have just made a submission to the Economic, Education, Jobs & Skills Committee of the Victorian Parliament on the extension of Long Service Leave. There are employees who do not have LSL. The Committee is therefore looking at whether this represents some form of inequity, how it might be rectified and what would be the costs of change. These are the points I have made.

There are employees who do not have Long Service Leave. The Committee is therefore looking at whether this represents some form of inequity, how it might be rectified and what would be the costs of change. Let me therefore make a number of initial points.

First, this is an historic form of payment that exists only in Australia and New Zealand. It was introduced in colonial times so that after twenty years in the colonies, someone could return home to visit the family. This is a vastly different world from our own. Then the calculation was one month to go back to England, one month to visit and one month to return. Its original purpose has, in our own time and with modern transport, entirely disappeared.

Second, Long Service Leave was specifically introduced as an incentive for workers to remain with an employer. This may have had some advantages in times of labour shortages. In the modern world, however, it is, if anything, an impediment to labour market flexibility. An employee will remain with an employer even if other better opportunities become available as the date of eligibility draws closer.

Third, businesses experience Long Service Leave as a cost. Provision must be made to fund a replacement over the period the employee is on leave. It is not one of the major costs of labour, but it remains a consideration that must affect employment.

Fourth, for key employees, Long Service Leave can be a problem for a business if the particular function cannot be undertaken adequately by a replacement. It is thus not just an added impost but is also a form of disruption which are more difficult to deal with.

Fifth, expanding the range of Long Service Leave will have a small cost on some businesses whose impact will wash out over the course of around three years. But even if it will wash out, it should not therefore be assumed that the impact will be negligible and it certainly will not be zero. At the end of three years, the number of employees in the industry that has newly introduced portable Long Service Leave will be lower than it might otherwise have been. In a labour market that turns over around a million employees a year, it would be hard to detect this loss of jobs. Nevertheless, raising the relative cost of employment for some industries will have a negative impact on growth and a negative impact on employment.

Sixth, the effect on the employees themselves must be considered. An employer recognises when taking on a full-time employee that there may be a cost seven years from then as the Long Service Leave pro rata period comes into effect. But with portable Long Service Leave, the effect, if the liability comes in the form of an entitlement to a period of leave, may induce some employers to reject candidates for jobs they might otherwise have engaged. If an employee is about to enter the period where Long Service Leave applies, an employer may prefer an alternative candidate where the period is not as short.

Seventh, there will also be the cost and disruption perhaps ten years into the future of any employee who is engaged if Long Service Leave is introduced where it had not previously been available. Most private sector employees do not remain with the same employer for a decade, so for most it will merely amount to a sum of money. With Long Service Leave well and truly embedded in the economy, virtually every firm will recognise the need to make provision for such absences and the costs they entail. The certainty is that with such a mature entitlement, the cost of Long Service Leave has been financed by a lower rate of wage payment over the previous period.

Conclusion: There is no particular reason to extend Long Service Leave.

There is no serious likelihood that anyone is being relatively underpaid at the present time because they do not have Long Service Leave. The labour market is a flexible market. Wage adjustments are attuned to the value of the work undertaken relative to the remuneration in full. People do tend to get paid their economic value.

Employees where Long Service Leave is not available currently receive more than they otherwise would receive if Long Service Leave were in place. Introducing Long Service Leave will lead to lower remuneration relative to what might otherwise have occurred.

It is quite possible that employees prefer to receive the relatively higher amounts of money they receive than have their incomes pared back to finance this future contingency.

The concept itself is an anachronism but an important part of our history. It should not be removed but there is no reason that it must therefore be extended.

Any change would be for populist reasons. It would raise costs in some businesses and lower employment in some industries. It would not make the labour market any more equitable than it currently is.

Unless there is some serious injustice which is invisible to me, I would leave matters as they are.

How many of these are there?

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I looked at this and thought that there had to be something wrong. It couldn’t be this easy to defraud the government of $16 million, but it is. And these have been picked up only because they were so greedy. How many are around that only defraud the government of a million or two?

Six people have been charged in Melbourne’s western suburbs for allegedly submitting fraudulent claims for taxpayer-funded family day care payments worth nearly $16 million[!!!!!].

Australian Federal Police have also seized assets worth $1.1m that are believed to be proceeds of the alleged crime, including two Melbourne properties, a “significant amount” of funds in bank accounts and two luxury vehicles.

The AFP arrested the alleged scammers with a range of serious fraud offences after executing a number of search warrants yesterday. . . .

“It will be alleged that members of this group have repeatedly submitted false claims on behalf of family day care centres in Melbourne’s western suburbs, particularly to exploit the Grandparent Child Care Benefit scheme,” AFP Manager Criminal Assets, Fraud and Anti-Corruption Commander Peter Crozier said.

“This scheme helps grandparents with the childcare costs for grandchildren in their care. It covers the full cost of fees associated with up to 50 hours of childcare per child per week.”

So you tell me how this could happen? The supposed moral of the story is exactly the other way round.

“Perpetrators of fraud are on notice: you will be caught and there are severe consequences, including the possibility of jail time,” Senator Birmingham said.

“This tough stance is necessary to ensure our taxpayer dollars are directed to those operators doing the right thing, compliant with Family Assistance Law and delivering high quality, flexible and affordable child care to families.

What it really says to me is that these Commonwealth programs are run by such dills that there is money there just for the taking if you are larcenous enough to try your luck.

A deeper shade of economic ignorance

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The greatest political disaster of Keynesian economics was to shift the political focus away from how to raise living standards to how to increase the number of jobs. And the Keynesian answer of increased public spending has been the wrong answer on both counts, it neither increases real incomes nor adds to the number of jobs. For an example of the profoundest idiocy, I have been sent this article on Jobs to flow from NDIS in SA. I won’t mention names, but the article came with a note which read, “Reference your article on the electricity woes in our state, please read what Mr Weatherill said yesterday about NDIS being the future for jobs in our long-suffering state. Someone needs to save us!” Someone needs to save us all since these are the same beliefs that are found everywhere across the political void, with Malcolm a serious carrier of the disease. This is what that article said:

More than 6000 jobs will be created by the full rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in SA, Premier Jay Weatherill says.

The increased workforce will provide support for 32,000 people when the scheme is fully operational from July 2018.

Many of the new jobs will go to people in the northern suburbs who will be hit hard by the closure of car maker Holden in 2017, the premier says.

“This scheme is important because for too long people with disabilities have not been included in all of the benefits of our society,” Mr Weatherill told reporters on Wednesday.

“For too often they have been second-class citizens in our community.”

The premier said the disability scheme would also provide the biggest boost to job creation in SA over the next few years.

Job opportunities will include 1600 positions for support workers, 1500 for personal assistants, 900 for therapists and more than 500 for mental health nurses.

Mr Weatherill said more than 1700 of those were expected to go to workers in the northern suburbs, hopefully to those who face losing their jobs with the decline of the car manufacturing sector.

“Some people have already transitioned into disability care and the NDIS will provide many more opportunities for those who work in declining industries,” he said.

JOBS EXPECTED TO FLOW FROM THE NDIS IN SA:

1600 organisational support workers

1500 personal assistants

900 allied health therapists

800 case managers

600 local area co-ordinators

550 mental health nurses

400 direct care workers

Either a job pays its own way or it does not. There are lots of worthy and important tasks that we should undertake if we can afford them. But if you are of the view that these kinds of things will create growth and prosperity, you could not be more in the dark about what actually makes a community prosperous. This is such deep set ignorance that unfortunately only insolvency may be able to cure.

What is to be done?

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This is what Arthur Cummings II, the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of counterterrorism and national security investigations in the United States, has said about trying to get cooperation from Muslim groups in dealing with terrorist threats.

The FBI has outreach programs to try to develop sources in the Muslim community and solicit tips, but Mr. Cummings found little receptivity. He found that while Muslims have brought some cases to the FBI, Muslim leaders in particular are often in denial about the fact that the terrorists who threaten the United States are Muslims.

The article should be read in full. Fascinating detail of the kind that seldom becomes available.

Meanwhile this is what the head of ASIO in Australia has said, and done with the full support of the PM and Julie Bishop:

ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis has phoned Coalition poli­ticians to urge them to use the soothing language favoured by Malcolm Turnbull in their public discussion of Islam.

In what is thought to be an unprecedented intervention in politics by a head of the spy agency, Mr Lewis is said to have told the MPs that their more robust comments risked becoming a danger to national security. It is believed the Office of the Prime Minister has been involved in arranging for these phone calls to take place.

I take it that ASIO finds the same lack of cooperation as does the FBI in America but is hoping for a better result. The kid gloves treatment does however seem to lead to the kind of problem that has surfaced at Rotherham where the preference was to let the abuse continue rather than to feed various non-PC attitudes, even if as in this case they were accurate.

See if you can work out what Merkel meant

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Merkel gets seven minute standing ovation for this:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just last week was named TIME magazine’s 2015 Person of the Year for her stance on the refugee crisis, received a seven-minute (or nine-minute, according to some reports) standing ovation Monday for a speech at her ruling Christian Democratic Union congress in which she promised to “tangibly reduce” the number of refugees coming into her country. Still, The Independent reported, she said it was Germany’s humanitarian duty to take in war refugees. “We are going to manage this — if there are obstacles to overcome, then we will have to work to overcome them. We are ready to show what we are made of.” Germany has taken in an estimated one million refugees this year. . . .

Another noteworthy theme that turned up in Merkel’s speech was disdain for multiculturalism, according to The Washington Post. “Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies and therefore remains a ‘life lie,’” the chancellor said. She went on to say that Germany may be reaching its limit in terms of accepting more refugees. “The challenge is immense,” she said. “We want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably.” . . .

Despite her vow to reduce the number of refugees coming into the country, Merkel still refused to set a ceiling on the number of migrants allowed to enter Germany, or to deploy more controls on the country’s borders “until necessary.” But she acknowledged the enormity of the challenge that mass immigration presents for Germany and called on other European nations to help share the burden. Her plan to reduce refugee numbers focused on Germany’s support for tougher measures on the European Union’s border, specifically the sea between Greece and Turkey. And she still plans for the German government to give billions in aid to help Turkey cope with its refugee population. She also wants measures to speed up the return of migrants who failed to qualify for asylum.

She must be using Stalin’s technique of executing the first person to stop clapping.

“He hasn’t done much yet”

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I can no longer get through a Janet Albrechtsen column since she like so many others over at The Oz has gone beyond ridiculous as shills for our new PM. But really, this is just stupid.

The current PM deserves an A ­because so far so good.

Malcolm Turnbull earns early good marks too for setting a new tone and focus. Positive words are no substitute for good policy but there is undeniable power in a dose of upbeat leadership.

Turnbull’s can-do attitude (even if he hasn’t done much yet) makes a change from the wet blanket worn by Tony Abbott as PM, whose whingeing about the Senate grew tiresome. Turnbull’s approach to the still recalcitrant Senate is different, and welcome. But again, it’s only so far so good.

I don’t know whether she caught her paper’s front page this morning, you know, where it talks about debt and the never-to-arrive surplus. Well we shall see how Mr Positive deals with all of this.

The government is on track to spend more than $21 billion a year on interest payments on commonwealth debt — more than it spends on public hospitals — as it puts off a budget surplus until early next decade.

A grim update to the federal budget shows that government spend­ing is growing faster than planned while tax revenue has fallen short of forecasts issued just seven months ago, widening this year’s deficit to $37.4bn and inflicting greater damage in later years.

Scaling back its ambitions, the government yesterday talked of delivering budget surpluses “as soon as possible” but abandoned a forecast by Joe Hockey in May that promised a surplus by 2019-20. Instead, small surpluses would be delivered from 2020-21.

Well, Janet, what do you think about all of that? And how do you suppose fixing any of it can be done with the Senate the way it is? Such muddled reasoning really is an irritation and not the best way to start the day.

Electric karma

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This story is so incredible that you have to wonder how these people cannot see the irony of their idiotic situation. As I read it, they are having trouble building metallic inputs for solar panels because their wind-powered electricity grid is not generating enough power and the intermittent supply is raising electricity costs. Read it yourself.

South Australian Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis called a crisis meeting of energy users and suppliers today to deal with sharp rises and falls in wholesale electricity prices that threaten the redevelopment of a Port Pirie lead and zinc smelter to make metals for solar panels and mobile phones, even with a $291 million government subsidy.

The volatility in wholesale prices – caused mostly by the state’s reliance on wind power and the ability of coal and gas power stations to charge high prices when the wind drops – is creating havoc for industry in the state, which is one of the country’s most economically depressed.

“The state government recognises we must do more to address issues in the market as we transition to a low-carbon economy,” said Mr Koutsantonis, who also serves as Energy Minister.

Is there really no mechanism for these people to learn anything?