Brookes News Update

Will the baby boomers cure Australia's unemployment?: Commentators have yet to realise that the contention that retiring baby boomers will cure our unemployment supports the economic argument that unemployment is caused by over pricing labour
CIA intelligence failures, Iraq War and the Democrats' treason: Democratic Congressmen went out of their way to cripple America's intelligence agencies. In this endeavour they had the aid and encouragement of the Washington-based Institute of Policy Studies
Consumption and economic growth: the economic fallacy that won't die : The economic situation in America, China and Australia has brought into focus the old economic fallacy that consumption drives the economy
Money supply and the velocity myth: Doing nothing as far as the central bank and the government are concerned is the best policy. For it is active governments and central banks that cause the boom-bust cycle
Australian economy: unions, minimum wages and unemployment: Fallacies about the desirability of minimum wages are like noxious weeds, they just keep on returning. And now the Australian Council of Trade Unions is at it again

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ELSEWHERE

Well, how about that! All that is old is new again. In the time before we had antibiotics, the only effective treatment for syphilis that we had was to induce a fever in the patient -- as the high temperature of a fever could kill off the spirochaetes that cause syphilis. But high temperatures these days are treated as dangerous and as requiring suppression by antipyretic drugs such as aspirin. A recent scientific paper however has just "discovered" that drug resistance in pathogens "was abrogated by Hsp90 inhibitors and by febrile temperatures". In other words, the therapeutic value of fever as one of nature's defence mechanisms is creeping out into the light again.

Star Parker on black poverty: "Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. More than $7 trillion has been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson declared his "war on poverty" 40 years ago, with effectively zero impact on overall black poverty. Yet 40 years of failure doesn't seem to be enough to suggest to liberals, black and white, that their approach to poverty might be wrong..... At least as incredible as the insistence of liberals on perpetuating failure is their absolute refusal to consider a single new idea.... Black kids are trapped in hopeless, failing inner-city public schools. There is only one answer here, and that is school choice. We need voucher programs that would let black parents send their kids to school wherever they choose. The marketplace delivers the best products in the world to American consumers. We need to let that same marketplace deliver education.... Social Security private accounts is another issue, proposed by Bush, that the Black Caucus has fought to the detriment of its own community. Black politicians, if they really wanted to lift the economic shackles off their own constituents, would be fighting to free them from the regressive payroll tax that deprives them of ownership and wealth creation. Despite the political smoke, this reform is for poor people, not rich people. The wealthy can pay the tax and have plenty spare cash left over to save in 401(k)s and IRAs. But for someone making $25,000 a year, that's not the case. The only cash that could be available for saving is taxed into Social Security.

Reliapundit tells the facts about Vietnam. Excerpt: "Vietnam suffered about 2-4 MILLION casualties inthe Vietnam War. They LOST nearly every battle, INLCUDING the Tet Offensive. Their only successful strategy was getting the Left to get the American public to abandon their ally - the emerging democracy in the south - by withdrawing the US troops and ending financial and military aid to the SVG. On this front - and only on this front - they succeeded, in LARGE measure due to TRAITOROUS activities by people like John Forbes Kerry. The Vietcong generals have ADMITTED this fact; (Google General Giap)...."

Whimpering about poverty: "You don't have to be helpless, nor useless, nor immoral because you were born poor. If this were not true, the Irish, Italians, Jews, the Chinese of railroad coolie days, the Poles and the Czechs would still be in slums. They aren't. They made it, as Violeta made it, as Eva and lots of black cops made it, without Section Eight housing, welfare, scholarships, minority preferences with no expectations attached, medical charity, or monotonous self-pity. She has a contempt for those who could, but don't, that would peel chrome from an engine block."

It's not just Australian Aboriginal (black) leaders who are raiding the Aboriginal affairs gravy train: "A deep, dark secret dominates the politics of Aboriginal disadvantage. Millions upon millions of dollars of federal money given to the states and territories never finds its way to the tens of thousands of Aboriginal Australians who are living in conditions that are as shocking as anywhere in the world. The Commonwealth Grants Commission, the Productivity Commission and experts such as Dr John Taylor at the Australian National University have been saying for some time that money given to the states and territories does not find its way to the people intended."

Red Cross criticized, urged to share cash : "As its hurricane relief donations near the $1 billion mark, more than double all other charities combined, the American Red Crossis encountering sharp criticism of its efforts and mounting pressure to share funds with smaller groups. The complaints -- that Red Cross operations were chaotic in some places, inequitable in others -- have stung deeply within an organization that is proud of its overall response to Hurricane Katrina, by far the most devastating natural disaster it has confronted on U.S. soil. ... The frustration stems partly from the fact that the Red Cross has worked to avoid a recurrence of the humbling fundraising controversy that flared after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Back then, the Red Cross raised about $1.1 billion -- its record so far for a single disaster -- but the organization was assailed when donors belatedly learned that $200 million of their gifts were being earmarked to prepare for future crises rather than to help victims."

Typically nutty Anglican bishop: "The new head of the Anglican Church of Australia has delivered a strong warning against what he describes as the evils of materialism and the dangers of scientific advances. In his first sermon as the youngest ever primate of the church in Australia, Archbishop Aspinall also denounced terrorism while describing "supposed security measures" among the evils of society. Dr Aspinall, who was elected to lead the nation's four million Anglicans in July, delivered the sermon at St John's Cathedral in Brisbane last night. He said today materialism was fast emerging as an evil "dragon" afflicting society".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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