Oh great; we give $21.6 million to Disney, or:

Captain Jack meets the broken window theory

Most of us today are familiar with Bastiat’s broken window theory, where those observing the replacement of a broken pane of glass tend to look on the bright side by thinking of how good it is for the glazier to get the trade.  Bastiat points out though that this ignores the fact that the window owner is left with no gain for his expense, and the cobbler, tailor, or perhaps bookseller who might have benefitted from the trade instead, miss out. 

Keynesian economists though, love broken windows and never cease telling us at the advent of any disaster, just how good all of the resultant repair work will be for the economy.  The Kiwis were said to be the luckiest people in the world after the Christchurch earthquakes: 

Our Treasurer Joe Hockey though, sees no reason to hang around waiting for something bad to happen in order to strip the economy of funds to repair damage.  Joe is ahead of the game to the point where he supports event and project lobby groups in spending on what aint broke.  Krugman is so yesterday.

Instead of spending money on devastation, he wants to piss it away on something fun, like making movies with similar results:

MOVIE giant Disney is being offered a near $22 million treasure chest to bring Johnny Depp’s billion dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to the Gold Coast. 

The Bulletin understands high-level discussions have taken place between US film bosses, Screen Queensland and the Federal Government to bring the lucrative franchise to Warner Bros’ Village Roadshow studios at Oxenford. 

The sweetener being dangled in front of producers of the film, tentatively titled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, is a one-off payment of $21.6 million. 

The money, originally offered by the Gillard Government to Disney for director David Fincher’s stalled 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea reboot, is at the centre of talks, with hopes the funds can be transferred to the Pirates production, which is expected to begin shooting early next year.  The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance has also met with Disney.

A film industry insider told the Bulletin discussions had progressed well and that the project was desperately needed for the city’s stalling film industry.  “We really need this movie for the Gold Coast and we are hoping things come together,” the source said. … 

… Gold Coast Tourism boss Martin Winter said securing the filming of a major blockbuster would pay dividends for the city. “The most immediate opportunity would be with the set itself becoming an attraction for people to visit, similar to the ship construction on The Spit for the Chronicles of Narnia film,” he said. 

“However, the long-term benefit to the local economy would clearly be the boost to employment numbers and if we reinforce the industry then it can only be a great thing for the Gold Coast.” …

Effectively, there is little difference between the two ideas; the first being that the diversion of funds to disaster reparations is an economic boon, and the second being that a similar diversion towards an unnecessary project does the same.

Both have visible results to show for the expenditure.  In both cases the lost opportunities of non-government activities in the private sector with the money used for those purposes cannot be assessed.

Industry and regional lobbyists can point to the relatively small amount per capita to be used for this project and the benefits that will accrue to little battlers like Disney and Warner Bros’ Village Roadshow, along with extra wealth for the glitter strip.  The things that might have happened instead elsewhere are invisible, because they didn’t occur.

A better solution

The real injustice of this proposal is that money is taken from taxpayers across the country and funneled into the Gold Coast, only benefitting that area.  If making the movie there really needs to happen here, a scheme that will encourage this yet benefit the wider population would be fairer.

A little imagination, (or in this case whimsy) offers a far more equitable solution to the problem of getting it made here while still spreading the benefit to the wider community.

An approach could be made to Disney offering to use $21.6 million for the following benefits to Australian viewers to encourage them to watch it if it is made here:

• First; Every ticket sold will be rewarded by the government with a free large bucket of popcorn, soft drink, and packet of Jaffa’s, (Do they still roll those down the aisle?) to have while watching the show, and:
• Second; Every rental or download will come with a government gift certificate for a family sized McHappy meal, (or the equivalent from Hungry Jacks, KFC, Subway, etc) along with fries, large coke, and whatever.

While this could cop some criticism from the AMA and associated health Nazis, all of the proposed benefits to the Coast would still come to fruition, and fast food joints across the nation would benefit, creating additional regional employment and generating untold wealth everywhere.

Truly, this represents a win win scenario.

Jew hating journalist quits rather than apologize

Few articles on the Gaza conflict could be as deliberately misleading as the one, by veteran leftist shill and apologist, Mike Carlton who launched into a quixotic diatribe under the cartoon (below, and since removed), which can only be distinguished from Nazi propaganda from the 30s and 40s by virtue of the remote control, which was not available back then.

The Sydney morning Herald has apologized for the cartoon after a week of criticism and complaints, however Carlton has engaged in a vulgar diatribe against readers who have complained.  Some have been told to f**k off, been called pathetic f***wits, likudnicks, and a variety of other abusive terms by him.

The ABC has referred to this as “strident debate with his readers.” 

After numerous complaints about this SMH apologized on his behalf, then decided to demand that he do so and accept a suspension.  Being too arrogant and self-righteous to accept this he has quit his position.  Good bye and good riddance.

Australian media coverage of the Gaza conflict has largely followed the type seen internationally with most of the journalists embedded with Hamas and reporting on the war from the terrorist side of the border.  Reportage therefore is one sided and gives a false impression of aggression by the Israelis against relatively helpless Palestinians.

Most Palestinians are helpless, but are ruled by the terrorist group Hamas which sees advantage in launching rockets into Israel from among the civilian population, who cop the consequences.

Among Carlton’s more hyperbolic rating is:

 … Yes, Hamas is also trying to kill Israeli civilians, with a barrage of rockets and guerilla border attacks. It, too, is guilty of terror and grave war crimes. But Israeli citizens and their homes and towns have been effectively shielded by the nation's Iron Dome defence system, and so far only three of its civilians have died in this latest conflict. The Israeli response has been out of all proportion, a monstrous distortion of the much-vaunted right of self defence. 

It is a breathtaking irony that these atrocities can be committed by a people with a proud liberal tradition of scholarship and culture, who hold the Warsaw Ghetto and the six million dead of the Holocaust at the centre of their race memory. …

Carlton neglects to mention the tunnels through which Hamas launched attacks into Israel, which along with rocket attacks were the primary source of the necessity to invade.

His defense of Hamas appears to be based on the argument that their barrage was largely ineffective, owing to Iron Dome, which intercepted many of their rockets, more than 300 of which were reportedly defective to the point where they fell on their own population.  Incompetence in offensive actions does not make those actions excusable, nor insulate them from consequences.

There will probably still be a position available for him at the public broadcaster, The ABC, which has no worries about offending subscribers as the taxpayer picks up the tab.

Leyonhjelm doing the right thing for no good reason (or something)

Statists struggle to understand libertarians on those odd occasions where they actually bother to try to get a handle on the thinking behind non-interventionism and personal liberty.

Patrick Stokes, a lecturer in philosophy at Deakin University is an example of this phenomenon.  Patrick seems to think that it is not enough to accept that it is OK to let people do stuff that you might not care to do or might even not like on the grounds that it is non-coercive and doesn’t affect you.  You have to have a good reason to leave people alone in his jaded point of view.

Stokes starts off with the antics of Philip Nitschke in the euthanasia field, then attempts to link this with the LDP’s stance on same sex marriage.  He demonstrates his confusion on the subject matter by trying to link libertarian thinking to the old left/right paradigm: 

This problem isn’t unique to the euthanasia debate. Last week, newly-minted Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm announced plans to introduce a bill to legalize same sex Marriage. 

As a libertarian, Leyonhjelm has called for lower taxes and a massively reduced role for government. Yet his position on marriage equality aligns him with a policy more closely associated with the political left. … 

… Philosophers such as Richard Mohr have argued that committed same-sex relationships already are marriages in a substantive sense, and the law should simply recognise that.For libertarians (for the most part), the only real substantive good is individual autonomy. 

Leyonhjelm doesn’t argue, as far as I can see, that certain types of relationship have a special, substantive value; he simply thinks, “It is not the role of government to define relationships.” (In which case, we might ask, why should governments get involved in certifying marriage at all?) 

Those of us who support same-sex marriage can probably live with that tension, if it delivers the outcome we want. But the philosophical tension between approaches is still there. 

And the very moral thinness of libertarianism, its refusal to trade in any ethical currency other than liberty, sits uneasily with issues of life and death, where all sorts of other moral considerations are in play. …

There is no explanation offered as to why we should think, “that certain types of relationship have a special, substantive value.”  In an argument for marriage equality, it simply makes no sense to claim that one form of relationship is special, something that those opposing SSM claim as a key point.  Such a claim is counter-productive.

It is nice to know though, that statists arguing the issue as a special case for SSM as some kind of state granted privilege are prepared to hold their noses and accept Leyonhjelm’s support, even if they don’t really like it. 

He then goes on with the following doozy:

One reason death is viewed as normally being a harm to the person who dies is that it deprives us of goods we would have enjoyed had we lived. In a situation where there is nothing left in the patient’s future but pain and loss of dignity, there are no more goods to lose.

For those of us who deal more with the real world rather than academic navel gazing, the biggest reason for death to be considered a harm, is that we don’t get to live longer. 

At this point, he exposes the weakness of his argument under the rather dramatic heading of:

Libertarianism’s moral moonscape 

If you think, as Nitschke apparently does, that the question here is simply about exercising a right to suicide, why should it matter whether someone is terminally ill or not? If someone wants to die, and they’re clear-headed enough to make competent decisions, who are we to interfere with their personal liberty in order to stop them? … 

… When teaching classes on the ethical debate over euthanasia, I’ve found that students often seem to struggle with explaining why it should matter whether the patient is dying (or at least permanently debilitated) or not. Yet from a mercy perspective, it matters very much that there are, in fact, no truly good options left open. …

It sounds like those students have a more consistent view than their teacher.  To assume the right to deny a person the right to die, we are adopting the assumption that we have a right to insist that they live, even against their own wishes.  No explanation of this position is offered.

Assuming the right to refuse the right to die implies a form of ownership over the person involved which is an anathema to all decent civilized people.  The problem most of us have with Nitschke’s position on the recent suicide of a depressed 45 year old is that he didn’t advise him to seek psychiatric advice.

Nitschke is not a libertarian, never was, and never will be.  He is a statist leftist who proved in the Western Australian senate election rerun, that he prefers to support leftist parties, even those who oppose his cause to a libertarian party that in the main, supports his single issue.

In attempting to secure some sort of dispensation from the state in relation to his plea for special interest, he has fluked a position where the LDP has a similar morality based position.  This does not make him a libertarian in any way, shape, or form.

The LDP policy on voluntary euthanasia can be found here.