Friday, May 28, 2004
Cullen would never win at Monopoly
Anyone who has played Monopoly knows that to succeed, you need to pile houses and hotels onto your properties as quickly as possible. In other words, you build capital and infrastructure. The quickest way to be out of the game would be to party your way around the board.
But that's about what happened in Michael Cullen's Budget yesterday. New Zealand's infrastructure is running down fast, but the Finance Minister decided that it was far more important to party up. There was narry a single mention of money to get our essentials back on track.
The headline in my newspaper today read: "Cullen gives millions to the poor." It would be as well to reflect where Dr Cullen got those millions from. If he keeps taking it off them - those people who actually build the economy - without giving them something back, the party is going to come to a very sorry end in a few years' time.
Anyone who has played Monopoly knows that to succeed, you need to pile houses and hotels onto your properties as quickly as possible. In other words, you build capital and infrastructure. The quickest way to be out of the game would be to party your way around the board.
But that's about what happened in Michael Cullen's Budget yesterday. New Zealand's infrastructure is running down fast, but the Finance Minister decided that it was far more important to party up. There was narry a single mention of money to get our essentials back on track.
The headline in my newspaper today read: "Cullen gives millions to the poor." It would be as well to reflect where Dr Cullen got those millions from. If he keeps taking it off them - those people who actually build the economy - without giving them something back, the party is going to come to a very sorry end in a few years' time.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
A Budget is forever
Finance Minister Michael Cullen is handing out one of the biggest social service spendups in New Zealand history in today’s Budget. Political commentator Brian James says Labour is finally revealing its true colours.
Several major questions beg to be asked of this budget, but probably will not be. Sure, New Zealand allegedly has the surplus cash at the moment to support a wild spending spree. But just like a Christmas pet is forever, so are the expectations of people once they have been handed a new social entitlement. We may be able to afford massive increases in benefits for the next three years, but will we be able to continue affording them in five years, or 10 years? If there should be a downturn in the economy, what happens then? The government that is forced to wield the knife in that case, is going to be the target of a gigantic hate campaign.
And before people start getting euphoric about all the money they are being promised, it is well to reflect on where it is coming from.
The government has no money of its own. It can only give what it has taken from someone else. So serious questions need to be asked about whether it is morally just for governments to rack up big surpluses year after year....just as it needs to be questioned whether governments should go into debt year after year (as frequently happened back in the 60s and 70s).
And few people in New Zealand are questioning whether massive redistribution of other people’s money actually works in the long term. Does it ultimately really improve the lot of the average person? What does it do to the nation as a whole?
We have some very good long-term studies that provide the answers to those questions. They are called “the history of Communism�.
The most redistributive society in recent history was the Soviet Union. The government worked valiantly to make everybody equal. The results of the experiment are now in. When will we learn from history.
I conclude by reiterating what Larry Reed of the Mackinac Institute calls the Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy:
PRINCIPLE #1: Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
PRINCIPLE #2: What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
PRINCIPLE #3: Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
PRINCIPLE #4: If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
PRINCIPLE #5: Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.
PRINCIPLE #6: Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen is handing out one of the biggest social service spendups in New Zealand history in today’s Budget. Political commentator Brian James says Labour is finally revealing its true colours.
Several major questions beg to be asked of this budget, but probably will not be. Sure, New Zealand allegedly has the surplus cash at the moment to support a wild spending spree. But just like a Christmas pet is forever, so are the expectations of people once they have been handed a new social entitlement. We may be able to afford massive increases in benefits for the next three years, but will we be able to continue affording them in five years, or 10 years? If there should be a downturn in the economy, what happens then? The government that is forced to wield the knife in that case, is going to be the target of a gigantic hate campaign.
And before people start getting euphoric about all the money they are being promised, it is well to reflect on where it is coming from.
The government has no money of its own. It can only give what it has taken from someone else. So serious questions need to be asked about whether it is morally just for governments to rack up big surpluses year after year....just as it needs to be questioned whether governments should go into debt year after year (as frequently happened back in the 60s and 70s).
And few people in New Zealand are questioning whether massive redistribution of other people’s money actually works in the long term. Does it ultimately really improve the lot of the average person? What does it do to the nation as a whole?
We have some very good long-term studies that provide the answers to those questions. They are called “the history of Communism�.
The most redistributive society in recent history was the Soviet Union. The government worked valiantly to make everybody equal. The results of the experiment are now in. When will we learn from history.
I conclude by reiterating what Larry Reed of the Mackinac Institute calls the Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy:
PRINCIPLE #1: Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
PRINCIPLE #2: What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
PRINCIPLE #3: Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
PRINCIPLE #4: If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
PRINCIPLE #5: Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.
PRINCIPLE #6: Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Bio insanity
Do you have days when you rapidly swing between being sure you are the only sane person in the world, and doubting your own sanity? My mind definitely went into tailspin with some of the latest items from BioEdge, the BioEthics Newsletter. Among them:
Do you have days when you rapidly swing between being sure you are the only sane person in the world, and doubting your own sanity? My mind definitely went into tailspin with some of the latest items from BioEdge, the BioEthics Newsletter. Among them:
US bioethicist Dr Norman Fost has a simple answer to the problem of drug-taking athletes: lift the drug bans. "If you're going to interfere with someone's liberty to take drugs, you need to have a reason," says Dr Fost, the director of the medical ethics program at the University of Wisconsin. Fost claims the health risks associated with the newer injectable steroids are wildly exaggerated. Sporting injuries themselves are more damaging than drugs. Fost scoffs at the argument that drugs make pharmacology triumph over character and natural skill. He says fans accept the use of fibreglass vaulting poles and sleek swimsuits; rich countries have better training facilities than poor countries. Drugs, he argues, are simply another strand in a evolution towards ever higher sporting achievement.
In the increasing competitive US healthcare market, sports doctors are paying professional teams as much as US$1.5 million for the right to give players medical treatment. In return, they receive the exclusive right to market themselves as the team's official doctors. Admittedly, many doctors fret about the ethics of sponsorship deals. "What's it say about our profession when the most high-profile jobs are awarded not by merit, but by auction?" asks Dr Robert Huizenga, past president of the National Football League Team Physicians Society. I’m just thankful the All Blacks doctor isn’t chosen by who puts up the best sponsorship deal.
US fans of reality TV can now watch ugly ducklings become swans on three networks. After the success of "Extreme Makeover" on ABC last year, MTV has created a series called "The Swan" in which 16 homely women are beautified with cosmetic surgery, diet, exercise, and psychological counselling. One of them will advance to a beauty pageant held at the end of the series. The Fox network presents "I Want a Famous Face" in which seven men and women who want to look like a star (e.g. Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez or Elvis) get cosmetic surgery.
Some bioethicists are worried about the increasing normalisation of potentially risky cosmetic surgery and perplexed by the growing appeal of these bizarre shows.
The world's first embryonic stem cell bank opened in Britain this week with a deposit of two stem cell lines created by scientists at King's College London and the Centre for Life in Newcastle. The lobby group Life says the new bank "trivialises human life by creating embryos... effectively turning them into pharmaceutical products".
Two UK artists want to insert DNA from loved ones into an apple tree to create a living memorial of his or her biological essence. Every cell of the tree would contain part of them. It may not get get off the ground because of government red tape, though.
Alarmed by the rapidly growing market for high-resolution, artistic photographs of children in the womb, the US Food and Drug Administration has issued a blanket warning on the practice. It fears that an irresponsible practitioner of what it called "entertainment ultrasound" could expose the unborn child to dangerous doses of ultrasound energy.
If you knew EU like I know EU...
If you are confused about just what is the significance of all those new member states of the European Union, take heart - you are not alone. So are most Europeans. But Simon Upton (ex-pat Kiwi MP who lives in Paris) helps us through the mire in his missive from the EU heartland.
Further down the page, Simon has a delightful (!?) note which answers the unspoken question, What do you do with the products (ie, children) of a civil union? Why, a civil baptism, of course!
If you are confused about just what is the significance of all those new member states of the European Union, take heart - you are not alone. So are most Europeans. But Simon Upton (ex-pat Kiwi MP who lives in Paris) helps us through the mire in his missive from the EU heartland.
Further down the page, Simon has a delightful (!?) note which answers the unspoken question, What do you do with the products (ie, children) of a civil union? Why, a civil baptism, of course!
