UPDATE: Try this instead -

Just stop participating.

Walk away:

Dear Reader,

Thank you to all who have read, commented on, and in particular, shared content from this blog over the past 2-and-some years. I have decided to take an indefinite hiatus from the daily toil associated with identifying and writing content for this blog, to refocus my energies towards higher priorities. These include the pursuit of a long sidelined desire – to write a book.

I have paid for continued hosting of this site’s content for 12 months, so if any readers would be interested to be made aware of future writings or projects, please Follow this blog if you have a WordPress account, or, submit your email address in Comments to the About page (to avoid spam, use format “[name] AT [url] DOT [ ]“). Rest assured that your email address will never be shared, and would only be used to advise of future writing projects that may be of some interest to you.

Regular readers know that a consistent theme of this site has been debunking the government claims, and legislation – and exposing the motives and connections of the prime movers and key beneficiaries – pursuant to so-called “action on climate change” in Australia. And while a minor contributing factor in my decision to cease contributing to this blog is my view that most, if not all, of the content that I have presented in the past regarding debt, economic (mis)management, and government deceit regarding same, can easily be found by the diligent researcher elsewhere, to the best of my knowledge no other commentator or blogger has identified, much less focussed attention on, the Ticking Time Bomb Hidden In the Carbon Tax. For that reason, I see this article (along with the many closely-related articles, and in particular the epic research project The “500 Biggest Polluters” Exposed – Everything The Government Is Not Telling You) as being my only truly unique contribution to public awareness concerning government propaganda/policy, and its consequences.

Gratifyingly, Ticking Time Bomb Hidden In the Carbon Tax is the most shared blog that I have written. I see it as, arguably, the most significant blog I have written.

Regular readers will also be familiar with my personal view that the most important, and arguably the only way to truly transform human society for the better – from a material, rather than the infinitely more crucial spiritual and moral perspectives, I would hasten to add – is by transformation of the “currency” system. By making “money” a true servant of mankind, rather than our master. In that regard, I am perhaps most contented of all with my July 7, 2011 essay outlining how I believe that can (and why it must) be done -

The People’s NWO: Every Man His Own Central Banker

There are 814 posts here, and over 193,000 views of those posts to date (ANZAC Day April 25, 2012).

The most active day was February 25th 2012, with 5,677 views – 3,961 of which were of this post, which actually saddens me. Contemplative readers will understand why. Unsurprisingly therefore, the most active month was February 2012, with 24,599 views.

Once again, thank you most sincerely to all who have read, commented, and shared. Without your support, I doubt that I would have persisted for so long

Vaya con Dios,

TBI

“Pride is the root of all evil.”
“Debt is not the new black. It is the old red.” 

UPDATE:

Australia’s most decorated active serviceman, Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC, on ABC Lateline last night (segment “Australia remembers fallen diggers”, from 3:30 sec):

“I don’t think we need to sacrifice any more human beings unnecessarily; so if there is another option, then that is obviously the way to go.”

You know it as the carbon “tax”. It has been called a “tax” over and over and over again, by politicians, economists, bankers, and other vested interests, for a simple reason.

There are many who want you to think that the scheme to “put a price on carbon” is safe; that the government’s implementation of a “carbon price” is careful, methodical, and prudent.  A “fixed price” on carbon dioxide for 3 years. And only after 3 years, a transition from a fixed price to a “floating price” emissions trading scheme.

But there is something very important that they are not telling you.

There is a Ticking Time Bomb Hidden In The Carbon Tax.

It is called “derivatives”.

Carefully buried in 1,000+ pages of legislation, just 2 tiny, opaque clauses (109A and 110) have been included that allow the banks to immediately begin creating and trading unlimited quantities of unmonitored, unregulated carbon “securities” (another term for “derivatives”).

What are “derivatives”?

SHORT STORY: Pick something of value, make bets on the future value of “something”, add contract & you have a derivative. Banks make massive profits on derivatives, and when the bubble bursts chances are the tax payer will end up with the bill. This [graphic below] visualizes the total coverage for derivatives (notional). Similar to insurance company’s total coverage for all cars.

LONG STORY: A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else. [Example] A derivative buys you the option (but not obligation) to buy oil in 6 months for today’s price/any agreed price, hoping that oil will cost more in future. (I’ll bet you it’ll cost more in 6 months). Derivative can also be used as insurance, betting that a loan will or won’t default before a given date. So its a big betting system, like a Casino, but instead of betting on cards and roulette, you bet on future values and performance of practically anything that holds value. The system is not regulated what-so-ever, and you can buy a derivative on an existing derivative.

Most large banks try to prevent smaller investors from gaining access to the derivative market on the basis of there being too much risk. Deriv. market has blown a galactic bubble, just like the real estate bubble or stock market bubble (that’s going on right now). Since there is literally no economist in the world that knows exactly how the derivative money flows or how the system works, while derivatives are traded in microseconds by computers, we really don’t know what will trigger the crash, or when it will happen, but considering the global financial crisis this system is in for tough times, that will be catastrophic for the world financial system…

Australia’s banks already trade in derivatives. Most of their derivatives bets are on movements in Interest Rates and Foreign Exchange Rates. And they have a total exposure to just these forms of derivatives, that is truly mind-boggling.

The numbers are so big, that no one can comprehend them.

You have to see it for yourself.

First, via the superb demonocracy.info website, here is an infographic to help you visualise what $1 Trillion looks like (click image to enlarge):

Click to enlarge | Graphic source: demonocracy.info

Got that?

$1 Trillion is a lot of money*.

The value of all Australians’ superannuation savings combined, is about $1.3 Trillion. As is the claimed annual “GDP” of the Australian economy.

Now, here is an infographic showing the Australian banks’ recent record high total “Off-Balance Sheet” derivatives exposure.  Remember, this is before the official start of a “price on carbon” allows the banks to start creating and trading carbon derivatives too (click image to enlarge):

Click to enlarge | Graphic source: demonocracy.info | Data source: RBA statistics

I want to emphasise the point made earlier.

Almost everyone incorrectly believes that no trading will happen until 2015. But the truth is, the banks can begin creating and trading in carbon derivatives from Day 1. Even though the scheme is supposed to be a “fixed price” scheme for the 3 years up to 2015.

Those 2 little clauses I mentioned earlier (109A and 110), are the reason why trading will begin from Day 1. Trading in carbon derivatives, that is.

They are opaque, easy-to-overlook clauses stating that the Clean Energy Future legislation does not prevent the creation of and trade in carbon “securities”.

The designers of the legislation (no, not the politicians), know full well that the banking industry can and does create and trade derivatives on everything.

Including the date of your death. That’s right. We have previously documented how banks are trading in Death Derivatives.

All that is needed, is for there to be a “price” put on some thing, effectively making that thing a “commodity”.

Once there is an underlying price, then banks can create a derivative.

Provided there is no law specifically preventing them from doing so.

It is that simple.

And that is why the Clean Energy Future scheme has those two little clauses buried inside. As Explanatory Memorandum 3.36 confirms, they are “included for the avoidance of doubt” that the government does NOT wish to prevent the banks creating carbon derivatives.

That is also why, just 3 days after the government released its draft legislation for “putting a price on carbon”, it was reported that:

Australian banks are eyeing opportunities to cash in on the proposed carbon tax by developing new financial products and services that capitalise on a market seen to be worth billions of dollars annually, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.

Australian financial firms that have experience in European carbon markets, such as Macquarie Group Ltd, Westpac Banking Corp Ltd and ANZ Banking Group Ltd are particularly keen to establish their presence in the Australian market….

ANZ’s head of energy trading said the value of the derivatives carbon market would dwarf the $10 billion initially raised by the government, according to the AFR.

You have now seen just how mind-bogglingly enormous is our banks’ exposure to (mostly) Interest Rate and Foreign Exchange Rate derivatives.

$17.93 Trillion is equivalent to nine (9) skyscrapers made of pallets of $100 bills, each towering more than twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The $10 billion that the government will raise from forcing companies to buy carbon permits – the basic mechanism for “putting a price on carbon” – is almost nothing compared to the value of derivatives that banks will create and trade.

Unmonitored.

Unregulated.

Off-Balance Sheet.

The government’s claimed $10 billion in expected revenue from the Clean Energy Future scheme, is equivalent to just one (1) of the 10 x 10 squares of pallets forming the base of one (1) of those derivatives skyscrapers pictured above.

That’s one (1) storey in two hundred (200).

I hope that you now have a better idea – a clear picture in your mind’s eye – of what the ANZ Bank’s head of energy trading meant, when he gleefully said that the value of the carbon derivatives market would dwarf the $10 billion initially raised by the government.

A government that has followed the lemming-like lead of Ireland, by explicitly and implicitly putting taxpayers on the hook for the deeds (and misdeeds) of the banks, by placing the nation as guarantor for the solvency of the Australian banking system.

Meaning, just like the rest of the West, our banks are Too Big To Fail.

And from July 1, thanks to the Clean Energy Future scheme and those two little clauses, the government has handed the banks a licence to print.

It is really a licence to kill.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

* If you wonder how it is possible that banks can have so much money just in derivatives bets, you might like to learn the truth. The “money” does not really exist. Almost all of the “money” in the world, is just electronic code in computers. And banks truly rule the world, by creating “money” (digits in computers) out of thin air, and lending it to you, at interest. Even the biggest central bank in the world, the Federal Reserve Bank, has admitted that this is how banking works. Learn more here.

Indeed, as we have documented many times, the tide has already gone out in preparation for the big wave’s arrival on our shores, with Labor having quietly implemented a sneaky Liberal party policy aiming to direct your employer to send your future super payments to a special new department at the ATO, not directly to your super fund.

We have previously seen that PM-in-waiting Bill Shorten, Minister for Superannuation, has described Australians’ $1.3 Trillion in individual superannuation savings as “our sovereign wealth fund”, a “significant national asset”.

In today’s Australian newspaper, we learn that Shorten is off to Israel to meet and greet, and investigate the Israeli superannuation fund industry.

Your humble blogger’s sceptical eyebrow was raised sharply on noting that, while the emphasis of the story is that, purportedly, Bill is visiting Israel “to examine ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business” – a disturbing development in its own right – Bill’s spokeswoman let a very different kind of cat out of the bag:

SOME of the leading figures in the multi-trillion-dollar superannuation sector will join federal Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten on a visit to Israel later this week as the government examines ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business.

Joining Mr Shorten on the visit will be Australian Prudential Regulation Authority deputy chairman Ross Jones, MLC chief executive Steve Tucker and Challenger Group retirement income chairman Jeremy Cooper, author of the contentious Cooper Report on the superannuation sector.

During the visit, co-ordinated by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce and the Israeli embassy, the group will meet executives of leading Israeli financial services companies, including its largest insurance group, Migdal, and fellow insurer Clal Insurance Enterprise Holdings.

It will also meet officials of the Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Department, which supervises insurance and the long-term savings market.

Mr Shorten is also planning one-on-one meetings with Bank of Israel governor Professor Stanley Fischer, chief scientist Avi Hasson and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

“The chamber is very excited about the Shorten-led trade mission,” said AICC chairman Paul Israel, who is based in Tel Aviv. “For the first time Australian pension funds will be exposed to the vibrant and innovative Israeli venture capital and hi-tech scene.”

Mr Israel said the week-long trade mission would investigate how Israel — with 7.2 million people, a third of the size of Tasmania, 60 per cent desert, only 63 years old with limited natural resources — had produced more start-ups than large, peaceful and stable nations such as Japan, India, Korea, Canada, Britain and Australia.

It would look at Israel’s superannuation, tax reform, venture capital and seed fund models, as well as its innovation and entrepreneurship culture, he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten said it was important that super funds looked beyond traditional assets classes and the government was keen to remove investment barriers to them.

She said the trip was designed to improve Australian super funds’ understanding of Israel as an investment destination, particularly in light of the strong venture capital sector there.

Hold on. Wasn’t the purpose of the trip to examine “ways for the retirement savings system to help kick-start the Australian venture capital business”?

Mr Shorten also hopes Australian super funds can get an understanding of how Israel’s pension funds go about investing in innovative and early stage companies.

“Innovative” and “early stage”.

That is bankster and speculator code for “high risk”.

Given the volatility on global share markets, and the parlous state of the global economy, one wonders why any responsible politician would be interested in finding ways to direct their citizens’ retirement savings into high risk start-up ventures.

In Australia … or Israel.

Get budgets in order, Swan tells Europeans

Treasurer Wayne Swan will tell his European counterparts at this weekend’s Group of 20 meeting in Washington they must continue to adopt the reforms needed to boost economic growth and get their budgets under control.

Ahead of the meeting, Mr Swan said Australia not only needed to get its policy settings right but would do everything it could to help the world avoid a repeat of the “devastation” caused by the global financial crisis.

“There is a difficult road ahead for many advanced economies, and we shouldn’t be surprised to see bouts of instability continue for some time to come,” Mr Swan said in a statement on Friday.

“That’s why I will first and foremost be making clear to European finance ministers the need to continue putting in place the reforms needed to lift economic growth and get their budgets in order.”

From the 2008-09 Budget forecast:

Total Revenue (estimate) – $319.464 billion
Total Expenditure (estimate) – $292.470 billion

From the 2008-09 Final Budget Outcome:

Total Revenue – $298.933 billion ( -$20.53 billion)
Total Expenditure – $324.569 billion ( +$32.09 billion)

Deficit – $51.44 billion

From the 2009-10 Budget forecast:

Total Revenue (estimate) – $290.612 billion
Total Expenditure (estimate) – $338.213 billion

From the 2009-10 Final Budget Outcome:

Total Revenue – $292.767 billion ( +$2.15 billion)
Total Expenditure – $339.239 billion ( +$1.02 billion)

Deficit – $46.472 billion

From the 2010-11 Budget forecast:

Total Revenue (estimate) – $321.822 billion
Total Expenditure (estimate) – $354.644 billion

From the 2010-11 Final Budget Outcome:

Total Revenue – $309.89 billion ( -$11.93 billion)
Total Expenditure – $356.10 billion ( +$1.45 billion)

Deficit – $50.5 billion

From the 2011-12 Budget forecast:

Total Revenue (estimate) – $349.961 billion
Total Expenditure (estimate) – $365.817 billion

From the 2011-12 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (November updated estimate):

Total Revenue – $344.11 billion ( -$5.85 billion)
Total Expenditure – $371.747 billion ( +$5.93 billion)

Deficit – $43.38 billion

Oh yes.

By the way.

We will not bother to mention the tens of billions in spending on such things as the NBN, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, that are not included in the budget.

Because they are hidden Off Balance Sheet.

Wayne. Europe.

Pot. Kettle.

Both slowly but steadily boiling dry.

Truly, we are governed by muppets.

Dangerous muppets.

And the governing muppets are opposed by more muppets who, if given the chance to govern, would, on this particular topic, be even worse.

God help us.

In that context, I would draw readers attention to a two-part article published on ZeroHedge, titled The Ascendence Of Sociopaths In US Governance, and Sociopathy Is Running The USA. Both parts are quite lengthy, and in my view, very well worth reading in their entirety.

Here are some excerpts from Part 1:

As any intelligent observer surveys the world’s economic and political landscape, he has to be disturbed – even dismayed and a bit frightened – by the gravity and number of problems that mark the horizon. We’re confronted by economic depression, looming financial chaos, serious currency inflation, onerous taxation, crippling regulation, developing police states and, worst of all, the prospect of a major war. It seems almost unbelievable that we are talking of the US – which historically has been the land of the free.

How did we get here? An argument can be made that miscalculation, accident, inattention and the like are why things go bad. Those elements do have a role, but it is minor. Potential catastrophe across the board can’t be the result of happenstance. When things go wrong on a grand scale, it’s not just bad luck or inadvertence. It’s because of serious character flaws in one or many – or even all – of the players….

So is there a root cause of all the problems I’ve cited? If we can find it, it may tell us how we personally can best respond to the problems.

In this article, I’m going to argue that the US government, in particular, is being overrun by the wrong kind of person. It’s a trend that’s been in motion for many years but has now reached a point of no return. In other words, a type of moral rot has become so prevalent that it’s institutional in nature. There is not going to be, therefore, any serious change in the direction in which the US is headed until a genuine crisis topples the existing order. Until then, the trend will accelerate.

The reason is that a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions. Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual and psychological/spiritual fabric of the US….

You may be thinking that what happened in places like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia and scores of other countries in recent history could not, for some reason, happen in the US. Actually, there’s no reason it won’t at this point. All the institutions that made America exceptional – including a belief in capitalism, individualism, self-reliance and the restraints of the Constitution – are now only historical artifacts.

On the other hand, the distribution of sociopaths is completely uniform across both space and time. Per capita, there were no more evil people in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Amin’s Uganda, Ceausescu’s Romania or Pol Pot’s Cambodia than there are today in the US. All you need is favorable conditions for them to bloom, much as mushrooms do after a rainstorm.

Conditions for them in the US are becoming quite favorable. Have you ever wondered where the 50,000 people employed by the TSA to inspect and degrade you came from? Most of them are middle-aged. Did they have jobs before they started doing something that any normal person would consider demeaning? Most did, but they were attracted to – not repelled by – a job where they wear a costume and abuse their fellow citizens all day.

Few of them can imagine that they’re shepherding in a police state as they play their roles in security theater. (A reinforced door on the pilots’ cabin is probably all that’s actually needed, although the most effective solution would be to hold each airline responsible for its own security and for the harm done if it fails to protect passengers and third parties.) But the 50,000 newly employed are exactly the same type of people who joined the Gestapo – eager to help in the project of controlling everyone. Nobody was drafted into the Gestapo.

What’s going on here is an instance of Pareto’s Law. That’s the 80-20 rule that tells us, for example, that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your salesmen or that 20% of the population are responsible for 80% of the crime.

As I see it, 80% of people are basically decent; their basic instincts are to live by the Boy Scout virtues. 20% of people, however, are what you might call potential trouble sources, inclined toward doing the wrong thing when the opportunity presents itself. They might now be shoe clerks, mailmen or waitresses – they seem perfectly benign in normal times. They play baseball on weekends and pet the family dog. However, given the chance, they will sign up for the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, the TSA, Homeland Security or whatever. Many are well intentioned but likely to favor force as the solution to any problem.

But it doesn’t end there, because 20% of that 20% are really bad actors. They are drawn to government and other positions where they can work their will on other people and, because they’re enthusiastic about government, they rise to leadership positions. They remake the culture of the organizations they run in their own image. Gradually, non-sociopaths can no longer stand being there. They leave. Soon the whole barrel is full of bad apples. That’s what’s happening today in the US….

There are seven characteristics I can think of that define a sociopath, although I’m sure the list could be extended.

1. Sociopaths completely lack a conscience or any capacity for real regret about hurting people. Although they pretend the opposite.
2. Sociopaths put their own desires and wants on a totally different level from those of other people. Their wants are incommensurate. They truly believe their ends justify their means. Although they pretend the opposite.
3. Sociopaths consider themselves superior to everyone else, because they aren’t burdened by the emotions and ethics others have – they’re above all that. They’re arrogant. Although they pretend the opposite.
4. Sociopaths never accept the slightest responsibility for anything that goes wrong, even though they’re responsible for almost everything that goes wrong. You’ll never hear a sincere apology from them.
5. Sociopaths have a lopsided notion of property rights. What’s theirs is theirs, and what’s yours is theirs too. They therefore defend currency inflation and taxation as good things.
6. Sociopaths usually pick the wrong target to attack. If they lose their wallet, they kick the dog. If 16 Saudis fly planes into buildings, they attack Afghanistan.
7. Sociopaths traffic in disturbing news, they love to pass on destructive rumors and they’ll falsify information to damage others.

The fact that they’re chronic, extremely convincing and even enthusiastic liars, who often believe their own lies, means they aren’t easy to spot, because normal people naturally assume another person is telling the truth. They rarely have handlebar mustaches or chortle like Snidely Whiplash. Instead, they cultivate a social veneer or a mask of sanity that diverts suspicion. You can rely on them to be “politically correct” in public. How could a congressman or senator who avidly supports charities possibly be a bad guy? They’re expert at using facades to disguise reality, and they feel no guilt about it.

Political elites are primarily, and sometimes exclusively, composed of sociopaths. It’s not just that they aren’t normal human beings. They’re barely even human, a separate subspecies, differentiated by their psychological qualities. A normal human can mate with them spiritually and psychologically about as fruitfully as a modern human could mate physically with a Neanderthal; it can be done, but the results won’t be good.

It’s a serious problem when a society becomes highly politicized, as is now the case in the US and Europe. In normal times, a sociopath stays under the radar. Perhaps he’ll commit a common crime when he thinks he can get away with it, but social mores keep him reined in. However, once the government changes its emphasis from protecting citizens from force to initiating force with laws and taxes, those social mores break down. Peer pressure, social approbation and moral opprobrium, the forces that keep a healthy society orderly, are replaced by regulations enforced by cops and funded by taxes. Sociopaths sense this, start coming out of the woodwork and are drawn to the State and its bureaucracies and regulatory agencies, where they can get licensed and paid to do what they’ve always wanted to do.

It’s very simple, really. There are two ways people can relate to each other: voluntarily or coercively. The government is pure coercion, and sociopaths are drawn to its power and force.

The majority of Americans will accept the situation for two reasons: One, they have no philosophical anchor to keep them from being washed up onto the rocks. They no longer have any real core beliefs, and most of their opinions – e.g., “We need national health care,” “Our brave troops should fight evil over there so we don’t have to fight it over here,” “The rich should pay their fair share” – are reactive and comforting. The whole point of spin doctors is to produce comforting sound bites that elude testing against reality. And, two, they’ve become too pampered and comfortable, a nation of overfed losers, mooches and coasters who like the status quo without wondering how long it can possibly last….

And from Part 2:

In essence, we’re headed towards economic and financial bankruptcy. But that’s mostly because society has been largely intellectually and morally bankrupt for some time. I don’t believe a society can rise to real prosperity without a sound intellectual and moral foundation – that’s why the US was so uniquely prosperous for so long, because it had such a foundation. And it’s also why societies like Saudi Arabia will collapse as soon as the exogenous things that support them are pulled away. It’s why the USSR collapsed. It’s the reason why countries everywhere across time reach a peak (if they ever do), then stagnate and decline.

This isn’t a matter of academic contemplation, for the same reason that it doesn’t matter much if you’re in a first-class cabin when the ship it’s in is taking on water….

It’s funny, actually, to see how quickly and profoundly things have changed in the US. Back in the ’50s and ’60s, kids used to say, when one of us did something the others didn’t approve of, “Hey, it’s a free country.” I’ll bet you haven’t heard that expression for many years. Back in the ’70s, there used to be a joke: “America will never have concentration camps. We’ll call them something else.” Guantanamo, and the long rumored FEMA detention centers, are proof that it wasn’t a joke after all.

It’s all a matter of mass psychology, which is to say a moral acceptance of collectivism and statism. These systems actually aren’t serious intellectual proposals, despite being doctrine at almost every university in the Western world. They’re psychological or spiritual disorders on a grand scale.

It’s important to gain an intellectual understanding of why freedom is good and collectivism is bad, why freedom works and government doesn’t. It’s important – but it doesn’t strike at the root of the problem. The root of the problem is psychological, not intellectual. Do you think for a moment that if you could make Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or any of the other sociopaths who control the state sit down and listen to intellectual arguments, it would change their attitudes? The chances of that are Slim and None. And Slim’s anorexic.

Why am I so certain of that? It’s not because these people have low IQs and can’t understand the arguments. It’s because most of the people at high levels of government are sociopaths. They’re susceptible to reasoned argument against a police state to about the same degree that a cat can be convinced he shouldn’t torment a mouse before killing it. People like Obama, Hillary or Cheney – which is to say most people with real power in Washington and every other government – do what they do because it’s their nature. They’re as cold, unemotional and predatory as reptiles, even though they look like people.

You may think I’m kidding or exaggerating for effect. I’m not. It’s been said that power corrupts, and that’s true. But it’s more to the point to say that the corrupt seek power. A good case can be made that anyone who wants to be in a position of power should be precluded from it simply because he wants it. As a purely practical matter, the US would be far better off – assuming a Congress and a Senate are even needed – if their 525 members were randomly selected from a list of taxpayers. But that’s impossible in today’s poisonous environment because it would leave over half the population – those who only receive government largess and don’t pay any income taxes – ineligible. This last fact is a further assurance that the situation in the US is now beyond the point of no return.

There are lots of ways to divide people into two classes: rich/poor, male/female, smart/dumb, etc. But from the perspective of political morality, I’d say the most useful dichotomy may be people who want to control the material world vs. those who want to control other people. The former are scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs; the latter are politicians, bureaucrats and assorted busybodies. Guess which group inevitably – necessarily – gravitate toward government? And I might also add, toward big corporations and the media. Big corporations are political arenas where the prize is economic power, and they’re heavily populated by backslappers and backstabbers. The media specialize in a different type of power, manipulating opinion; one way they do that is by promoting an atmosphere of bad news, threats and general paranoia for which they imply government action is needed. Government, mega-corps and media – they are the triumvirate ruling today’s world….

I would like to suggest that what really distinguishes political elites from normal people is not just a predilection for stupidity but a real capacity for evil. Evil might best be defined as the intentional and usually gratuitous commission of acts that are cruel or unjust. A person who commits many evil acts is a sociopath. The sociopaths who are naturally drawn to government eventually come to dominate it. They’re very dangerous people. They reset the social mores of the country they control. After a certain point, a critical mass is reached, and it’s GAME OVER. I suspect we’re approaching that point.

In the opinion of this blogger, there is a lot of truth in these observations.

The Australian people’s unencumbered attachment to the land is the ultimate reflection of our people’s wealth, of our people’s freedom.

Every time there has been a moral cause, a reason is given to divest the individual of ownership and transfer it to the state. This clash between bureaucracy and the rights of ownership was ably demonstrated in this part of the world at the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat.

The sympathy we showed for those small, independent miners seems to have been lost. A jury acquitted Peter Lalor even though the Eureka rebellion led to perhaps 35 deaths, including the deaths of 5 soldiers. However, over the past 100 years not much loyalty has been shown to landholders and their rights as they have been taken piece by piece.

Where was the sympathy for farmers when their vegetation rights were stolen off them by government? Or the sympathy to the farmer who has been held back by a plethora of green tape. After rights have been taken off the farmer, such as coal, oil and gas, which happened as recently in 1981 in New South Wales, have they been left in a better position to deal with issues such as coal seam gas?

In most states I am deemed a criminal if I knock down trees on land that I own yet nobody bought the asset from me, prior to it becoming an asset of the state.

The community may see it as their right to restrict the removal of trees by farmers but the community has not been prepared to pay for that right. It wants to steal them. If I were to steal property that I wanted but could not afford I would go to jail. I might have a very righteous reason to steal a car, perhaps I want to take elderly people to bingo night, I would still go to jail.

But apparently governments can steal. And once they have stolen a right they then protect that stolen right through new green regulation.

…

The time has come for us to starting cutting back the green tape lantana that is choking regional Australia. Green tape has become a weed that starves economic activity and takes away our basic property rights.

For the future of regional Australia that has got to change.

For me environmentalism is spraying the blackberries, shooting the rabbits, feral cats and pigs; throwing the carp high up the bank; having that favourite part of wilderness on the place that has been there before me, my family, white settlement, aboriginal Australia.

I do not need a PhD from the University of Google to usurp my connection, belittle my views and steal my rights bought and paid for over generations.

If you love it, live with me in it. If you don’t leave me alone.

Oh SNAP!

That closing line goes to the heart of the dysfunction in our political system.

One where laws directly impacting on the people in the country, are determined by a vocal minority of people living in the inner-city and suburbia.

There is always hope remaining when a brave politician points out the obvious – that a government overriding your individual property rights is an act of theft.

From Farm Weekly today (emphasis added):

QLD Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has condemned the rising amount of “green tape” holding back Australian farmers.

Senator Joyce will raise the issue during an address to the Rural Press Club of Victoria today.

He also plans to tell the gathering that rural Australia will never warm to the Greens as its new leader plans to stamp her leadership by trying to recover lost ground in rural electorates.

“Our side of politics believes that property rights actually mean something,” Senator Joyce told Fairfax Agricultural Media.

“If someone wants an asset I own they can offer me a price.

“If they can’t afford it then they should not be allowed to just steal it.

“The community may see it as their right to restrict the removal of trees but the community has not been prepared to pay for that right.

“If I were to steal property that I wanted but could not afford I would go to jail.

“I might have a very righteous reason to steal a car, perhaps I wanted to take elderly people to bingo night but I would still go to jail.

“Apparently governments can steal.

“And this can be done through a straight transfer of that asset to the government or via regulation that effectively divests you of that asset. “

Senator Joyce said regional Australia would never warm to the Greens because they have been the key drivers of a revolution in regulation via environmental laws over the past two decades.

It was a veiled reference to new Greens leader Senator Christine Milne’s plans to conduct a listening tour of regional Australia.

Senator Joyce said previously the environment was important and it had to be traded off against economic and social factors: “There was a triple-bottom line.”

But now the term environment has transformed into something that invokes omnipotence, “which you must not question”.

He said that was seen in many “ludicrous” examples of green tape now like farmers not being able to farm their own freehold land.

The ownership of trees has been taken off them without compensation and absurd requirements for vicarious environmental issues such as when the constructor of a dam had to fund $1.5 million in shark research to get their project approved, he said.

“It feels like you are living in a Kafka novel,” he said.

Senator Joyce said the productivity growth in agriculture had reversed over the past decade from being one of the strongest performing sectors to one of the poorest.

“A large part of that must be due to the encroachment of green tape which stops farmers from innovating to grow more at a cheaper cost,” he said.

“If we keep on the path we are going we will lose the opportunity to be Asia’s foodbowl.”

[see Swan's Anti-Australian Rant A Smokescreen For Treason; also The Galactic Hypocrisy Of Wayne Swan; also What Your TV Will Leave Out Of The Clive Palmer "CIA" Sound Bites]

Indeed, it is a veritable cesspool of international intrigue, plutocratic coercion and bribery, treason, and geopolitical manipulation.

So I am confident that many readers will, as I do, closely identify with the profound sense of frustration felt by all those who are awake to the far-reaching implications of the lies and deceit at the core of Australian politics; a frustration well enunciated here by Daily Telegraph writer Joe Hildebrand (h/t readers “Kevin Moore” and Twitter follower @Prronto for the link):

Baby-bonus brouhaha became a brain-teaser

It became quite apparent that the journalist was trying to contact me. There had been two phone calls, and a text message, rather Alice-in-Wonderland-like, saying ”please call me”.

So, in respect of the public’s right to know, down the rabbit hole we went. She asked the question, ”Do you support your party’s baby bonus policy?” I will confess, I didn’t know what our baby bonus policy was or, rather more pointedly, didn’t know we had one. Ah, here lies the trap, I thought, there will be an article written about me: ”Barnaby unaware of Nationals baby bonus policy.”

I tried the usual political evasiveness. I told her that babies are wonderful, that they are our ”most important resource”, that the Nationals support, indeed have always supported, babies and, in particular, support those most inclined to have babies, women.

She then went on to tell me that our policy was to double the baby bonus.

That took me back a step, because the reality is that the original baby bonus, which was paid as a lump sum, was a ridiculous policy that caused immense damage.

Sending $5000, in a lump sum, to a household experiencing problems, such as alcohol or drug addiction, was not a solution but a disaster.

Last week, I visited areas where these social problems are quite apparent by the green cans adorned with two initials on the front lawns of indigenous housing in one of our most remote areas. No doubt the same problems exists in the non-indigenous areas of some of our urban centres.

The journalist accused me of mumbling and I was.

I was desperately, with the phone to my ear, trying to think where and when this policy came about.

Anyway, she had me. I was girding my loins for the inevitable banner.

However, the next day the banner didn’t decry my ignorance; in fact, it proclaimed my effusive endorsement with the headline: ”The big push for $10,000 baby bonus by Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce.”

The article went on to say that I had been pushing Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to double the baby bonus. I must admit this was news, especially to me.

Not at any time, sober or otherwise, have I ever broached the topic of doubling the baby bonus with Abbott, and there was certainly nothing that I had said to the journalist that could possibly be interpreted that I personally was pushing for it.

Editorials were written, it was time for me to be ”put back in a box”, which, on this topic, I had never crawled out of.

While I was sleeping, a poor Treasury clerk had been jerked out of the Holy Grail and sent to work to open Microsoft Excel and cost my policy, to which I remained happily oblivious.

Then, on the back of my presumed maternal benevolence, came a retinue of forthright condemnation by a whole bevy of media commentators, government ministers and colleagues of an idea that I never had. I was tempted to join the conga line myself: ”Barnaby condemns Joyce.” Later in the day, I did.

After putting out a statement denying that I had ever lobbied Abbott on doubling of the baby bonus, some emails from constituents who perhaps paid more attention to Insiders than to my media statement asked whether I had lost my marbles and why did I now advocate a doubling of the baby bonus.

The next day, despite my attempts to douse the flames created by my friendly incendiary scribe, I had to deal with the headlines that ”Joyce backflips on baby bonus position”, with a sneering incredulity on the subject of whether I had in fact lobbied Abbott to double the baby bonus.

Two days later, it was my ”apparent” position. Where did this story come from? I know the journalist is competent, so she would not have just made it up. It is highly unlikely she would have believed the Labor Party if it said I had been lobbying Abbott. So where did this credible source come from?

I have had curt exchanges via email with the journalist concerned, and even though we still ”adore” one another, we have decided not to talk to each other for a little while.