Poor Little Rich City

Peter Boyle writes that Howard’s rule: 10 years too long. The longevity is attributed as:

It’s the economy, stupid, chorus the pundits. What do you expect after 15 consecutive years of economic growth?

...

A detailed study, carried out by the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training, found that 60% of Australians feel that their lives are a lot less secure now compared to ten years ago. Greater job insecurity makes people more fearful of recession.

The two major contributors to economic growth over the last decade — the housing price boom and the mainly China-driven resources boom — have had an uneven impact on people’s lives.

First, the rich got richer.

The Howard government has presided over a massive transfer of income share from wages to corporate profits. Profit share of national income rose from 23% in 1996 to a record 26.2% in 2005. Further, between 1990 and 2005 the average annual regular cash earnings of company chief executives, who were also members of the Business Council of Australia, went from $514,000 to $3.4 million. Their incomes now outweigh the average full-time wage earner by a ratio of 63 to 1.

Homeowners might feel better off but mortgages are a bigger strain. For example, the number of Sydney households suffering “housing stress” — where more than one third of income goes on rent or mortgages — has jumped by more than 50% in the past decade. Repayments on first home loans swallow nearly 40% of average incomes.

The housing bubble has really enriched a few and made many others feel wealthier for a while, boosting their spending on credit. However, it has also frightened many into not rocking the boat. Coalition fear campaigns about the alleged danger of a return to higher interest rates under Labor bite hard in the mortgage belts.

Emphasis Mine

In the SMH, Sydney is portrayed as Poor little rich city, this theme is expanded upon. Those with assets have benefited both from their shares portfolio and properties.

The figures reveal how the economic fortunes of the city's people have ebbed and flowed in the past two decades and particularly in the past six years.

Despite the recent sluggish performance of the NSW economy, on the very broadest measure of living standards things are as good as they have ever been.

Income per head of population is at a record high. It has risen 12.4 per cent, adjusted for inflation, since the beginning of 2000, 2.1 per cent over 2005, and by almost half since March 1987.

The wealth of Sydneysiders has also soared. The median house price has risen more than 70 per cent and the value of the typical small share portfolio has gone up by almost 60 per cent in the past six years.

Shares are worth 2½ times what they were in 1987, and property prices are a staggering five times higher.

Emphasis Mine

The SMH report leaves out the effects of cutbacks in government services to the have-nots.

Here we have material interests determining political choices. Those with assets will vote for Howard because they see themselves as better off. Those without assets see no political alternative because the ALP tries to beat Howard at his own game. So Howard wins because he rewards his followers and there is no effective opposition (via the ALP).

Read more!

Rachel Play Postponed

"Rachel Corrie" production in New York is postponed due to the current "very edgy" political situation in Israel.

Film star Alan Rickman is protesting an Off Broadway theater's decision not to bring his hit London play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" to New York this spring.

...

Rickman told The Guardian that the New York Theatre Workshop's decision was an act of "censorship born out of fear." New York Theatre Workshop director Jim Nicola said the play, which his company had not formerly announced it would present, is being postponed due to the current "very edgy" political situation in Israel.

...

Emphasis Mine

The very reason that the political situation is edgy that the play should be presented. People need to have a different perspective to that being presented by the corporate media.

I found this article via Mickey Z.

Read more!

David Irving

I agree with the major points of George F. Will's argument why the imprisonment of David Irving means Less Freedom, Less Speech (Free registration required to view article):

What folly. What dangers do the likes of Irving pose? Holocaust denial is the occupation of cynics and lunatics who are always with us but are no reason for getting governments into the dangerous business of outlawing certain arguments. Laws criminalizing Holocaust denial open a moral pork barrel for politicians: Many groups can be pandered to with speech restrictions. Why not a law regulating speech about slavery? Or Stalin's crimes?

Some defenders of the prosecution of Irving say that Europe -- and especially Austria, Hitler's birthplace -- rightly has, from recent history, an acute fear of totalitarians. But that historical memory should cause Europe to recoil from government-enforced orthodoxy about anything.

American legislators, using the criminal law for moral exhibitionism, enact "hate crime" laws. Hate crimes are, in effect, thought crimes. Hate-crime laws mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed as a result of, or at least when accompanied by, particular states of mind of which the government particularly disapproves. Governments that feel free to stigmatize, indeed criminalize, certain political thoughts and attitudes will move on to regulating what expresses such thoughts and attitudes -- speech.

Emphasis Mine

I suppose that this moral pork barrelling fits in with the idea that we are not supposed to think only obey. Why should we evaluate the arguments for and against the Holocaust, when the Government has a law saying that it happened?

Nearly every week when I am out selling the Party newspaper, I have arguments with a Holocaust denier. This has been going for years, but I persist. He is willing to listen to me in spite of my speech impediment, and I am willing to try to counter his arguments. I am not very good but, at least, I try. Other Party comrades just shut him out. We will not convince each other, but a dialogue is opened up.

In defending the right of David Irving and other Holocaust deniers to the right of free speech, I am defending my rights to the same.

But this challenges the orthodox views of those who believe because someone in authority said something was true. If they had to think for themselves, they would be lost. Their whole lives have been built around the fact that correct thinking brings material rewards: they get the promotion at work because they agree with the boss.

People do not realise how important free speech is to the working of Capitalism (as well as Socialism and Communism). Capitalism primarily relies on innovation: things that have not been done before. Those in authority are not the fount of all wisdom. No human being can know everything or is right all of the time. Assumptions and ways of doing things must be constantly challenged. This is in order to achieve continual improvement. This leads to competitive advantage. Those businesses who asquiesce to the owner in all things will eventually go broke. No one knows who will come up with the next killer application. This is the dynamism of Capitalism. We all have a part to play. And we cannot have innovation without free speech.

Read more!

Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, the rector of the University of Salamanca in 1936, gave the following speech to an audience of fascists (including Franco's wife):

All of you are hanging on my words. You all know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to be silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as asquience. I want to comment on the speech, to give it that name, of General Millan Astray, who is here among us. Let us waive the personal affront implied in the sudden outburst pf vituperation against the Basques and Catalans. I was myself, of course, born in Bilbao. The bishop, whether he likes it or not, is a Catalan from Barcelona.

Just now I heard a necrophilous and senseless cry: 'Long live death'. And I, who have spent my life shaping paradoxes must tell you as an expert authority, that this outlandish paradox is repellent to me. Let it be said without any slighting undetone. He is a war invalid. So was Cervantes. Unfortunately there are too many cripples in Spain now. And soon there will be even more of them if God does not come to our aid. It pains me to think that General Millan Astray should dictate the pattern of mass psychology. A cripple who lacks the greatness of Cervantes is wont to seek ominous relief in causing mutilation around him. General Millan Astray would like to create Spain anew, a negative creation in his own image and likeness; for that reason he wishes to see Spain crippled as he unwittingly made clear.

This is the temple of the intellect, and I am its high priest. It is you who profane its sacred precincts. You will win, because you have more than enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to persuade you would need what you lack: reason and right in your struggle. I consider it futile to exhort you to think of Spain.

pp.120-121
Antony Beevor
The Spanish Civil War
Cassell
UK:1999

Emphasis Mine

An alternative version of this speech is given at Miguel de Unamuno, reply to speech made by Millán Astray, in Salamanca (12th October 1936) and another version is at Argument with Unamuno.

Would any of us have the balls (or ovaries) to say these things in the midst of fascist militia? I could say these things but no one would understand me! Perhaps there is an advantage to having a stutter after all.

Read more!