The bumpy road to economic liberty

A very humorous piece by the Globe and Mail, which could also be titled "Lessons from Dion". No, I haven't become a Steffi fan, but am referring to the G&M wandering from the topic of the Celine Dion visit to France and the economic reforms tabled by France's finance minister. The lesson can be summarized by the closing line:

Ms. Lagarde's challenge is persuading more French that a workhorse like Celine didn't get the bling by punching out after 35 hours.

The French labour laws and general mentality have stuck the country in a rut. Regulatory hurdles (lessons about which India should have well taught) force the flagship retailer Carrefour into expansion abroad rather than in the home country, while the President himself meddles with the economy by espousing a view of development as a function solely of factory work. It is outdated and counterproductive. A country without factories can have a blossoming economy through the services sector. A bank, a software engineering consultancy or a services centre are as good as a factory in creating wealth.

One of the reforms involves exempting small businesses from the bureaucracy by requiring only a statement of activity from them. Where's the catch?

In Ms. Lagarde's own words: "Someone who wants to sell flowers, design websites or give singing lessons will have only one document to fill out to declare their activity." That is, as long as that voice coach doesn't earn more than €27,000 ($42,750). At that point, the state's tentacles start squeezing again.

27K in Europe is a very small amount. If we include the taxes in the calculation the overall scope of the legislation is merely symbolic, because no-one can live on THAT income alone. Therefore this law would apply for small businesses that are part of a multi-job life, for those struggling to keep their lives free from the state's regulations and the labour unions' stranglehold. Opposition to such a symbolic move denotes granitic staleness in the French approach to work and economic growth in general.

Liberty is definitely coming to France. But it is excruciatingly slow. Maybe, though, this is the right path: the last time they went through sweeping change guillotiners had to work overtime. A 35 hour week surely wouldn't have sufficed!

Bush gets it right, sort of

Whatever we may think of President G.W. Bush, at times his straightforwardness and stubborness are a virtue. Speaking to Israel's Knesset, he linked the desire of many politicians to see dialogue with terrorists and hostile nutjob leaders to the delusion of appeasement that plagued the 20th century. CNN reports this, focusing on his major slip that involved mentioning the Nazi buildup and invasion of Europe. The notion of argument losers mentioning Nazism should have come to the President's attention during his eight years in office. It apparently didn't.

Talking to terrorists is appeasement, whatever Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter might think. Talking to Hezbollah, Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not make them come to their senses for they lack such an attribute in the first place. Negotiating involves two parties in full possession of common sense and willing to come to an agreement. As the aforementioned organizations and leaders lack both, no agreement can be reached. They can be controlled and kept in check at the table only until their firepower is overwhelmingly outnumbered and they haven't got a place to hide. To paraphrase a notorious expression, they will only accept offers they can't refuse.

I once saw hope in Hamas' electoral success, a hope for change. With the responsibility of government, the armed group would need to learn statecraft and open up civilized talks with Israel. Those hopes were shattered as rockets kept pouring into Israeli land. Ahmadinejad was hopeless from day one. America's true vowed enemies seem to lack the ability to learn and reason beyond the language of fire and blood. You'd need armed bodyguards at the negotiation table itself!

More climate scaremongering

A report by Reuters environment correspondent Deborah Zabarenko, taken on by the Globe and Mail today, cites a "vast global study" matched in proportion only by its falsity.

"When you look at all of the glaciers and all of the snowpack and all of the birds laying eggs earlier and all of the plants having spring earlier across a continent, then we see we can detect anthropogenic signals," said Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

I don't see it. Weather is warmer (maybe). So the local flora and fauna adapt, in order to exploit the favorable conditions. Nothing anthropogenic so far. Among the quoted changes due to global warming we find the following:

-- SOUTH AMERICA: Glacier wastage in Peru; melting Patagonia ice fields contributing to sea-level rise.

If all of Patagonia melted down the combined sea level rise would be negligible. If the whole of Antarctica did, that'd be a problem. The report merely uses notions we have been pre-programmed to be alarmed by to convey a very weak argument.

Climate is changing, we don't know for sure why. Scaring us with weak or inexistent correlations is not contributing to reducing the so-called global warming. Hiding this weakness under veils of vastity, inclusiveness, data pool breadth and confusing language (read the quotes in the report, they're insane) does the cause of climatologist advocacy no good.

Totalitarianism seen through the propaganda

In Naples an exhibition titled "The Song of Evil" will show Nazi and Stalin-era Soviet propaganda posters side-by-side to deliver a strong and true point: the two ideologies were strikingly similar in their communication strategy (and other areas as well, sadly).

Pictures available from the website of the Corriere Della Sera here.

Check it out.

What the other side thinks

Al Jazeera brings sometimes overlooked news to the curious Westerner. Today they brought us the Palestinian perspective on some historical events that have shaped the Middle East.

I cannot deny that there have been tragic mistakes on both sides. However, the Arab nations kind of started it... And as far as I know the proportion of rockets that have flown IN to and OUT of Israel tilts towards the IN side. Although George W. Bush's visit will indeed immerse him mostly into one partial reading and interpretation of regional history, one cannot fail to notice that the major fault lies with the Arab nations that so vehemently claim to protect Palestinian rights.

By all means Al Jazeera has all the right to convey an alternative viewpoint on Palestinian history. However it fails to note how regional politics and the short-sightedness of the thugs who invaded the State of Israel the day after its creation have caught the Palestinians in a cross-fire they would have gladly stayed out of.

Classics from across the pond

David "the man" Cameron termed Labour's policymaking strategy "government by management consultant and policy by PowerPoint". He strikes a painfully sensitive nerve there, as the current British government has grown so big it is tragically out of touch with the ordinary citizen. No wonder they get a drubbing in the local polls.

Although some of the policy proposals the British Conservatives outline may seem a little too interventionist or unfeasible (microgeneration isn't cheap to install), their approach puts citizens first and government last. Independent schools, locally accountable police forces, microgeneration and incentives for small business are set to erode the power of central bodies.

As I have maintained previously, the Tories have realized that the British system is too socialist-ized to be dealt one deadly blow that would allow its sitizens to breathe freely. A slow erosion of the mammoth nanny state erected by Labour would be, however, set in motion. Hopefully, given a little freedom to run their lives, greater numbers will demand even more.

Red tape can kill!

This is why the government should cut it. Producing generic life-saving antiretroviral drugs for specific countries with patent owner consent proved an odyssey for Apotex. (Globe and Mail)

But under Canada's legislation, the African country's interest was not enough for Apotex, the only company to express interest in selling the medication at cost, to produce and ship the drugs.

Apotex had to get permission, or a voluntary licence, from brand-name pharmaceutical companies Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. and GlaxoSmithKline Inc., which together hold patents for the three components in Apo-TriAvir in Canada.

It then needed to get a compulsory licence from the federal Commissioner of Patents before it could formally submit a bid to the open tender process by the Rwandan government that is required by the WTO deal.

Why isn't interest by both parties and patent owner consent sufficient? Why all the paperwork, delays and civil servants? I don't get it.

An Industry Canada report tabled in December said the government had no plans to change the process.

They bloody should!

How to wreck Ontario

That's the title the Ontario job strategy concocted by labour unions should bear. (CBC)

A new provincial job strategy focused on green industries and unionization of low-wage jobs could play a major role in replacing Ontario's disappearing manufacturing jobs, says a new report by local anti-poverty and labour groups.

Imposing MORE costs on Ontario consumers (that's what a Liberal environmental policy is anyway), ripping out their purchasing power, transmitting some of the causes of the manufacturing sector illnesses on other provincial jobs will only deepen the plight of some of the province's already suffering areas. The labour advocacy groups are trying to capitalize on the hardship of manufacturing workersby aiming to expand their influence and slip their tentacles into more areas of the job market.

NEVER!

Is Al Gore drooling now?

I like John McCain. However his latest courting of environmentally-concerned voters is a little too much territory conceded to the scaremongers. (Reuters)

In remarks he prepared to give at a wind technology firm in Portland, Oregon, on Monday, the Arizona senator said he would seek international accords to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and would offer an incentive system to make businesses in the United States cleaner.

"The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington," McCain said in remarks he planned to give at the Vestas Wind Technology plant.

"Good stewardship, prudence, and simple common sense demand that we act to meet the challenge, and act quickly," he added.

Thinking of cutting worldwide greenhouse gas emissions is delusional, and McCain shouldn't feed the delusions of people duped by Al Gore who are generally trying to find answers to questions they can no longer ignore. Advocating clean technology is a sound policy without the "global warming" and "worldwide challenge" bells and whistles. The Cap and Trade system he proposes is workable, nuclear energy works just fine and no international accord can stop China's or India's emissions, if anything because they have the world's two vastest populations to spare on the altar of tiger growth.

Don't get carried away with the appealing to America-loving Democrats.

British court sides with terrorists

Does anyone have more news on this? A British Court apparently removed a terrorist group from the British watchlist. Searching Google News I came across mostly Iranian sources, with only one from the UK.

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization has been accused of (and sometimes taken responsibility for) several attacks against Iranian establishments, including embassies. They are also accused of Helping Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and helping him suppress internal dissent. The group is on most terrorist group lists compiled on this planet, as well as being a sketchy bunch who do not hesitate to harm their own country's interests by collaborating with its foe.

The IRNA report is not exceedingly vitriolic, although it does criticize the British Government strongly.

The Britain government is held responsible for such a ruling, he said and urged the UK ambassador to convey Iran's protest to his country's high ranking officials.

Fortunately on this side of the Bosphorus we do have something called "separation of powers", which means courts can be a Government's biggest pain in the butt. Despite the bungles I do hope it stays this way.

The Council of Foreign Relations has some more info on the MKO or MEK:

MEK was founded in 1963 by a group of college-educated Iranian leftists—supporters of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq—opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The group participated in the 1979 Islamic revolution that replaced the shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. But MEK’s ideology, a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism, put it at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran

Not a good starting point and not a good tactic. The British court system should know better.