Brookes News Update

US economy and Pollyanna analysts: Against signs of US tightening labour markets some analysts have adopted the Pollyanna approach to economics, arguing that greater competition and improving technology will fuel productivity growth
Labour market reform, the US experience and the productivity myth: It appears that proponents of labour market reform have sold the Liberal Government the myth that a free labour market would raise productivity
Labour market reform and the capital-productivity fallacy: Australia's self-appointed guardians of free market thought are not the only ones to preach fallacious ideas about labour markets and productivity. Kenneth Davidson is just as bad
Australian Marxist-Leninist David Bradbury slimes US Army: Lying comes naturally to leftists like Bradbury as does their support for sadistic leftwing thugs. In 1984 he produced 'Nicaragua: No Pasaran' a film dedicated to the Marxist-Leninist Sandinistas who had taken over Nicaragua
Workplace reform, Hugh Morgan's arrogance and executive pay: Hugh Morgan has neither the knowledge nor the intellectual capacity to argue the free market case. That he believes otherwise comes from a character defect that allows him to confuse the size of his ego with the size of his intellect
The media are "enemy" within: The ongoing American tragedy is the ability of Democrat-controlled media to hide truth from the American people
The sexy Jihad -- or how to get a bang out of your love life: Before the Arabs solve their problems with their governments or before their governments solve their problems with terrorism, they must first solve their problem with the other sex
Supply and demand fallacies: The orthodox supply and demand framework provides the rationale for government and central bank interference with businesses

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ELSEWHERE

Who pays for farm subsidies? "The general public in rich countries bears much of the cost of agricultural protectionism. First, the public subsidizes the farming community through higher taxes. Second, the public pays food prices that are higher than they would be under a liberalized trade regime. In 2004, for example, agricultural support in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) came to about $280 billion. The EU's agricultural support amounted to about $133 billion, Japan's to $49 billion, America's to $47 billion, South Korea's to $20 billion and Canada's and Switzerland's to $6 billion each. Moreover, in 2003, the British think-tank Policy Exchange found that EU consumers 'pay 42 percent more for agricultural products than they would if the system were dismantled. Americans pay 10 percent extra, Japanese more than twice as much. For less well-off families, for whom food takes up a large proportion of household income, freer trade would mean a noticeably higher standard of living.'"

"Windfall" taxes bad for energy supply: "More fundamentally, all targeted tax hikes on energy-company profits are energy taxes no matter how they're labeled. As every policymaker should know from Economics 101, when government taxes something, the economy produces less of it, and when supply falls relative to demand, consumer prices go up. Thus, 'windfall profits' taxes or their accounting-gimmick equivalents are bound to make energy less affordable. Yet the leading proponents claim to be 'consumer advocates.' Are proponents confused, or is consumer protection a rhetorical cover for other agendas?"

Congress subsidises supporters of illegal immigration: "Thanks to a congressional earmark, an open-borders advocacy group that pushes for driver's licenses, free in-state tuition and healthcare for illegal aliens and bilingual requirements for state agencies and ballots is slated to get $4 million in new taxpayer money to add to the more than $30 million it has received from various federal agencies since 1996. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Spanish for "the race," will get its latest grant through an appropriations bill passed by Congress on November 18.

There is a very good article here spelling out how much the prewar KKK had in common with the "Progressives" of that era. Many of the things that the Left today brand as "Rightist" (including overt racism) were "progressive" in the first half of the 20th century. Excerpt: "In fact, the 1924 election indicates the extent to which the Klan was entangled with the progressives. For that was the year of the Democrats' infamous "klanbake" convention, when Klansmen participated heavily as delegates and blocked a platform plank that would have condemned their order. They also entered the presidential race ... they endorsed the Californian William McAdoo, son-in-law to the late President Wilson...... What were the man's most notable accomplishments? He had been one of the architects of Wilson's war collectivism, helping create the Council of National Defense and serving as head of the Railroad Administration. And as secretary of the treasury, he had been instrumental in creating one of the Progressive Era's most substantial new interventions in the economy: the Federal Reserve system".

Supreme Court considers recruitment case: "The Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to rule that Congress can withhold money from colleges that protest the Pentagon's ban on gay men and lesbians by denying military recruiters access to campuses. Most of the nine justices seemed skeptical of claims by a group of 30 law schools that said their First Amendment rights to speak out against discrimination are violated by a law that could allow the U.S. government to withhold billions of dollars from colleges that inhibit military recruiters."

Gift from Canada?: "Why does President Bush hope Christmas comes a little late this year? Because on Jan. 23, Canada may elect the most pro-American leader in the Western world. Free-market economist Stephen Harper, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is pro-free trade, pro-Iraq war, anti-Kyoto, and socially conservative. Move over Tony Blair: If elected, Mr. Harper will quickly become Mr. Bush's new best friend internationally and the poster boy for his ideal foreign leader. Both north and south of the U.S.-Canada border, this vote matters."

Basic economics: "Economic ignorance, misconceptions and superstition drive us toward totalitarianism because they make us more willing to hand over greater control of our lives to politicians. That results in a diminution of our liberties. Think back to the gasoline price controls during the 1970s. The price controls caused shortages. To deal with the shortages, restrictions were imposed on purchases. Then national highway speed limits were enacted. Then there were more calls for smaller and less crashworthy cars. With the recent gasoline supply shocks, we didn't experience the shortages, long lines and closed gas stations seen during the 1970s. Why? Prices were allowed to perform their allocative function -- get people to use less gas and get suppliers to supply more."

Congratulations to all the Australian bloggers who got linked by the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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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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