On dispelling the mythology surrounding the causes of crime

These are comments I posted about the causes of crime on Lindsay Mitchell’s blog which showed that Jim Anderton is wrong that violent crime is falling.

The unemployment rate has steadily dropped throughout the 2000s according to this government. But the violent crime rate has increased. Unemployment as an underlying cause of crime is now totally discredited.

As are the other so called causes promulgated by the excusers of violent crime since the 1950s

 

“High density living” - discredited - we have all the problems of the highest density cities in the world, even in our provincial areas

“Not enough facilities” – we have spent megabucks on public facilities to the point they often aren’t used to capacity

“I’m depraved cause I’m deprived” (a la West Side Story) – discredited – the vast majority of so called deprived people are very honest and hate the rise in violent crime as much, if not more than anyone else because they are the vulnerable people in our society.

“They only need a chance” (a la “Twelve angry men”) – was true then when some kids went of the rails – now they are given 30, 40, 100 “chances” and still commit violent crimes.

Even if there is any truth in the excuser’s tales they are only proximate causes of crime, not the ultimate causes.

So who should we see about this? Where should we look for the ultimate causes of crime.

Look no further than the attitudes of people like Jim Anderton himself.

-          The lack of personal responsibility for your own actions because there is always an excuse

-          The lack of personal responsibility for your own care because there is always the state to care for you

-          The lack of sustainability of our country which cannot provide sustainable employment for people, creating a sense of hopelessness and low self worth. Unsustainable NZ because all the money that could be used to make us sustainable and improve lives is used on nefarious, inspirational BS to try to make MPs feel good and to “massage the voters erogenous zones”

-          The lack of sustainable industry in this country has meant our social services are unsustainable. Instead the social services are used, cynically, by successive governments as a place to hide unemployment, rather than a place for solving our social problems and thereby putting themselves out of business. (don’t believe me – look at schools – now 18 per classroom where a couple of generations ago the teachers did better with double the number of pupils)

Until the silent NZ majority wakes up to this, nothing will ever change or be solved.

You want to really make a difference Jim? 

Then stop telling everyone they are deprived. Stop telling them they haven’t got a chance because of their skin colour, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc just to further your own political career. Use % ethnicity in the statistics and they look very different – and you support withers and dies. Stop perpetuating lies like “high density”, “depravity” and other BS. Be honest for a change. Then you will make a difference to people’s lives.

Housing Unaffordability I: Let’s make world milk prices fall by increasing NZ milk supply? Yeah right!

Here’s my first post on housing unaffordability, as promised.

 Supply of land, and the council charges are only very minor causes of housing unaffordability. 

We have had 15-20 years of good economic conditions to put NZ on a productive industrialised footing and we’ve blown it. Part of the problem is the housing affordability issue and the major driver of that is the early 90s decision to make rental property investment a “favoured industry” by allowing special tax incentives, and excessively relaxing foreign ownership and loan laws.

Lets make an analogy. We have renewable resources and non-renewable resources in New Zealand. Milk and butter are renewable resources and their prices are going up because internationally demand outstrips supply. But I have yet to hear one commentator, of any shade, suggest that NZ could reduce world milk prices by increasing production! The suggestion is preposterous and would almost make you certifiable. Since our non-renewable resource, land and houses, which we are exporting is also an international commodity it is even more preposterous to think we could reduce land prices by increasing supply!

I would contend that the real cause of housing unaffordability is, as with so many other things, big government. The government needs to buy votes and the parties buy them in different ways. One has been in policies promoting house price inflation.

The real answer to housing unaffordability is:

1. The special status of investing in rental businesses over investing in other business. Brought in during the 1991 downturn when the baby boomers panicked that they would have no retirement investments because the reforms of the 80s had indicated that retirement would increasingly become the onus of the person rather than government. The law of unintended consequences is responsible for the current shambles and I’m sure many baby boomers now regret it bitterly as they see their children being unable to afford houses unless they are no/low income and get government help.

2. The fact that we have never had a balance of payments surplus since 1973 (Anderton, Orewa speech). This is because of the abject failure of successive governments to create the climate where our best people could transition us to a clean lean green productive industrial economy. We sold public assets to pay for it but once that ran out/became politically difficult to sell the government switched over to increasingly encouraging people to sell their own assets - mainly land and businesses - to cover the shortfall. They also cottoned onto the fact that if banking is deregulated they can buy votes temporarily by letting people borrow against inflating house prices, so there was no political will to do anything about it. If you consider that the “deregulated market” for our land is now billions of people you will realise that supply will never ever keep up with demand.

 The solution, as I see it is, as always, a simple free market solution: (smaller government!) 

Make land and rental accommodation come under EXACTLY the same tax laws as any other business. Except for your own house any money you make on housing, including sales, should be subject to business tax minus reasonable expenses.

The shine will go off housing as an investment and our kids will be able to afford them again. many more of our finest people will stay here and help build a real economy based on hard productive work… etc

Additional arguments against the “freeing up land” approach (other than it just won’t work!) are:

1.       People want to live in Auckland city. Freeing up land 30 km away is not living in Auckland city.

2.       People complain about the high council charges but urban sprawl puts great pressure on very expensive infrastructure - roads, poser, water sewerage etc. Why should the existing residents suffer massive rates rises to pay for that?

3.       Traditionally our cities have sprung up in our best farming areas – so urban sprawl gobbles up our best farm land, which is strategically and economically unsound practice long term.

 Until we, as a nation, can be honest with ourselves housing affordability and our other economic ills will never be cured.

Disgraceful article by Brian Rudman, “Goldfish councillor’s byelection blunder”

If Mr Rudman thinks that Aaron Bhatnagar has socred and own goal then Brian Rudman has lost the whole Olympics!

Here is my letter to the editor of the NZ Herald:

I would like to complain in the strongest possible terms about the disgraceful article by Brian Rudman, “Goldfish councillor’s byelection blunder”, that appeared in the Herald on Wednesday morning. This article  implied that a cancer sufferer had no right to run for elected office in the last local body elections. I find this article to be extremely offensive and an example of very selective discrimination on the part of the author. Are we now to expect that hard working cancer sufferers should give up their chosen careers when they are diagnosed on the off chance they may die? Having lived in Linda Leighton’s ward for many years I know that she was a very dedicated and hard working servant of Auckland, whom even her political rivals held in very high esteem as witnessed by the outpouring of grief when she passed away. In addition this article, coming as it does only three months after her death, shows gross insensitivity towards Linda’s family. I would encourage the New Zealand Herald to print a high profile apology for this, a new low in political commentaries. 

Another public service neutrality breach

Oh dear, a public servant has sent an email to the Duneden Labour selection committee supporting David Benson-Pope. Problem is she actually sent it to Katherine Rich’s electorate office! Now one swallow doesn’t make a spring but of course we know its the tip of a large iceberg.

And so the Aussie Junkets begin under Labour…or do they?

“Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says a summit involving 1,000 Australians will be held to tackle 10 major problems that are facing Australia.” … View article…

Oh good, if these junkets are as big a waste of time as the multimillion dollar Junkets we’ve had in the last 8 years, like the “knowledge wave” then this could waste a lot of their money and level the competitive playing field in favour of NZ a bit. But lets not pre-judge. This is interesting. Lets see what Rudd’s challenges are:

“Each of those groups will tackle a specific challenge outlined by the government.”

Oh good an authoratarian start - government knows best – this should ensure their failure…

“The challenges are broad and includes areas such as productivity, the digital economy, water, health, indigenous people and services and the arts.”

….. Yaaaawwwwnnn, same old same old, but I guess you have to start somewhere.

“Mr Rudd said the 1,000 people would be expected to pay their own way to Canberra…..”

Aaaah, whats this? Its a Junket, but not as we know it….be afraid New Zealand

“… and would not be representative of large organisations.” “”We want people to be selected on the basis of individual merit,” the prime minister said.”

Merit? Merit? Perhaps Aussie is going to do this properly – they seem to do most things properly like steal our best workers…. Be very afraid NZ …. Aussie Labour is a very different beast than our politicians ….

Kenya got me thinking

Kenyans are at present taking their politicians very seriously. It made me wonder if the best way to social rest is where politicians are virtually irrelevant and the public just ignores them and gets on with their lives. There does seem to be a strong correlation between increasing irrelevance of governments and civil rest.

Cry the other beloved country

Fifty years about this peaceful country brought conservation into the face of the world, with Elsa and Pippa. Now look at it. Another thing us baby boomers must apologise for - rapid decolonisation. Sorry, we were wrong.

If we in New Zealand had got our own act together ove the last 50 years we would be able to help and do some real good. unfortunately we must now watch impotently from the sidelines, or worse, watch our country hint at going the same way.

What do the Iowa Caucus results mean?

Simple answer: nothing. Despite media hype and a (mis)conception that they are useful in predicting the outcome of presidential nominations they actually have a mixed track record and are controversial. It could seem impessive that Obama won only 40 years after segregation, but is not too surprising to anyone who regularly visits the US.

I’m still betting that for the democrats political expediency will win the day and it will be Clinton for president and a white male conservative for vice president.

Amongst the Republicans, unless Guiliani is chosen I think we are in for a Democrat presisdent for sure. I am still disappointed that Arnie was not able to run, because an Arnie vs Clinton competition would have been a great laugh and would have demonstrated the ludicrosity inherent in the system.

Never mind though the US will still be strong in the forseeable future even it ends up with Obama/Clinton or vice versa. We will still be safe because NZ exists as a small pacific Island democracy because, and only because the US is strong.

So its going to be an interesting race to the Whitehouse this year if only for entertainment value. After the election it will be business as usual as usual in the USA, because, to a far greater extent than our left, their left know full well which side their bread is buttered on.

Now this really made me barf

As if the herald hasn’t been sycophantic enough, toeing the government line on almost every issue, as if to make up for it’s opposition the Electoral Finance Bill, they have now written this editorial. So on the first year of 2008 while everyone else is mourning the first day of the gagging act and reeling from the cash for honours list, the Herald editor is trying to defend giving New Zealand Order of Merit to Owen Glenn, the labour party’s biggest donor and someone who has not lived in New Zealand for over 40 years (although some say 10 years).

 

Oh dear, they really must be worried that we will end up with a 4^th term labour led government.

 

When the ink is barely dry on the gagging bill, after so much opposition, the government immediately turns round and rewards its largest donor with an honour, the only conclusion that can be reached is it is a blatant and cynical thumbing of their nose at the voters and taxpayers. I can imagine the meetings that went on (having been in them in my younger days). “How can we best stick it to these rich male capitalists who dared to oppose us?” “I know lets give a NY honour to our biggest donor” “Oh yes” [now chortling and rolling on the floor], that’ll do it”.

 

And the Herald is trying to defend this? Is this really the governance we need for the 21^st century?

Happy New Year

Let me start off with some New Year disclaimers:

This is a personal non-commercial blog for purposes of the Electoral Finance act and therefore falls outside the scope of that act. It does not support voting for or against any politician or political party and any implication of such is purely in the mind of the reader. If you have problems with this you are most welcome to post your opinion, or contact me so I can set you straight.

Also it is timely to remind people that the opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer(s), friends, acquaintances or people who may advertise with me.