Quotulatiousness

July 17, 2011

James Delingpole anticipates his heroic progress through Australia

Filed under: Australia, Economics, Environment, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:45

No, really:

Gosh I’m looking forward to visiting Australia later this year. And the reason I’m so excited — apart from the fact that I’ve never been before to the Land of the Taipan, the Sydney Funnel Web, the Box Jellyfish, the Saltwater Crocodile, and the Great White Shark — is that I know I’m going to be given a hero’s welcome.

After all, by the time I arrive in Oz sometime in November to promote the Aussie edition of Watermelons (Connor Court), the Australians will have had a good three months to reflect on the disasters which have been inflicted on their economy in the name of “combating climate change.” They’ll have noticed the $25 billion shaved off the share markets in a spectacular vote of investor confidence in Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s new carbon tax; they’ll have started to feel the effects of the blackouts caused by the needless (and uncosted) closure of 2000 mega watts worth of “dirty” brown coal power stations; and above all, they’ll have done their calculations — as the mighty Andrew Bolt has done — and come to a robust Aussie conclusion:

$24.5 billion is too bloody much, too bloody much by far, for Australia to pay for the privilege of reducing the world’s temperature, by 2020, by 1/4000th of a degree.

Yep, you read that aright. Australian Prime Minister Julia “Toast” Gillard has hit on the ingenious idea of clobbering one of the world’s most thriving — and also one of the most carbon-intensive — economies with a tax on one of its main industrial by-products, CO2, which will punish business, hamstring economic growth, boost unemployment and make life for everyone outside the enviro-rent-seeking professions more difficult and expensive. And all in order to achieve the wonderful goal of ensuring that by 2020 the world’s temperature will be altered with such refinement and subtlety that not even the most sophisticated measuring equipment yet devised is likely to notice the difference.

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch on a libertarian foreign policy

Filed under: Government, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:31

The third part of an interview with Gillespie and Welch, covering libertarian foreign policy ideas:

Federal government to unveil new retirement scheme

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Jonathan Chevreau looks at the federal government’s plan to introduce Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs):

This is a giant potential opportunity for the nation’s banks, mutual fund companies, insurance firms and a growing number of manufacturers of exchange-traded funds. Pension consultants, actuaries, financial planners and investment advisors will also see various business opportunities created as PRPPs catch on — primarily with small- and medium-sized businesses that never before offered its workers a pension plan. Mr. Menzies, the cabinet minister responsible for PRPPs, says he’s travelled the country consulting with the provinces.

“When the concept of the pooled RPP was shared with the provinces and territories they all came together to agree this makes sense.”

[. . .]

PRPPs will be (hopefully) low-cost defined contribution schemes run by the private sector where ultimate benefits will depend on how financial markets perform. The PRPPs would resemble the United States’ 401(k)s or Australia’s superannuation scheme.

They will be administered by financial institutions rather than employers, which is why Bay Street views them as a potential bonanza. As the “pooled” part of their name suggests, assets are co-mingled for investment purposes to keep down costs.

The original idea was that PRPPs would be mandatory for employers that don’t offer their own registered pension plan but Mr. Menzies says that decision would be up to the provinces. “We’re putting it out there that there is an option for the employer and for the employee. I’ve spoken to many small businesses that said ‘finally here’s a low-cost affordable plan I can enroll my employees in.’ It will be a retention and enticement tool.”

Employers won’t be forced to make contributions, but may choose to do so. Employees will be automatically enrolled at a base contribution rate, but they can opt out.

There will be two types of members: Employed and individuals. The latter include the self-employed and employees of organizations that do not offer PRPPs. Benefits are portable. Employers offering PRPPs can move to a new plan if they wish. There are fewer portability restrictions for individual members, making them convenient if they later change jobs and want to take their pension with them.

That portability is key: I’ve wondered for years why unions have not been hammering on that aspect in their negotiations with big employers (although unions generally pay most attention to the needs of current union members at the expense of both retired and future members). By the time you’ve worked at a company long enough to qualify for their pension scheme, you’re often locked in due to the lack of portability of your pension. If you leave the firm, voluntarily or not, you lose much of the potential return on the pension contributions you’ve already made (if you don’t lose them altogether).

This proposal may well solve much of that problem.

In the aftermath of Georgia’s “victory” over illegal farm workers

Filed under: Americas, Food, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:54

Last month, I linked to a story about Georgia’s attempt to crack down on illegal agricultural workers. It was, in terms of achieving its stated goals, a big success: illegal workers left in droves for other jurisdictions. It wasn’t quite as successful from the point of view of farmers:

To combat the shortage, Governor Nathan Deal has authorized using criminal offenders out on probation to replace the mostly Latino migrant workers. It’s not working out so well:

    The first batch of probationers started work last week at a farm owned by Dick Minor…So far, the experiment at Minor’s farm is yielding mixed results. On the first two days, all the probationers quit by mid-afternoon, said Mendez, one of two crew leaders at Minor’s farm.

    “Those guys out here weren’t out there 30 minutes and they got the bucket and just threw them in the air and say, ‘Bonk this, I ain’t with this, I can’t do this,’” said Jermond Powell, a 33-year-old probationer. “They just left, took off across the field walking.”…

H/T to John Henke for the link.

Saudi Arabia upgrades their armoured forces

Filed under: Germany, Middle East, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:49

Saudi Arabia will add a few hundred of the most up-to-date panzers to their defence forces:

Saudi Arabia is buying 244 Leopard 2A7+ tanks from Germany. Saudi Arabia is believed to have already ordered 44, and now has increased that order. It was only a year ago that German tank manufacturer KMW has revealed this, the latest version of its Leopard 2.

Two years ago, the German Army announced that it was going to upgrade 150 of its Leopard 2A6 tanks to the A7 standard. That would include more armor on the sides and rear (especially to protect against RPGs), more external cameras (so the crew inside could see anything in any direction, day or night), a remote control machine-gun station on top of the turret, better fire control and combat control computers and displays, more powerful auxiliary power unit and better air conditioning, and numerous other minor improvements. This would increase the weight of the tank to nearly 70 tons.

[. . .]

Saudi Arabia is concerned about Iran, which has a force of 1,500 much older tanks (most of them Russian T-72s and T-54/55s). Saudi Arabia has 1,300 tanks, most of them older American M-60s and French AMX-30s. But the Saudis also have 370 U.S. M-1s and 150 Russian T-90s. The 244 Leopards will increase the Saudi edge. The Saudis also have the money to buy spare parts for their modern tanks, and Western instructors to provide the best training. But the Iranians are better soldiers, so they might have an edge there.

Testing a new WordPress plug-in

Filed under: Administrivia, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:35

I’ve installed a new WordPress plug-in to display Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ buttons at the bottom of individual posts (not on the main page). If you have any problems using them, please let me know.

Update, 8 August: I had to turn it off, as it was interfering with the stylesheet for both comments and extended entries. In both cases, whatever it was doing was reducing the space between paragraphs to the same as the ordinary inter-line spacing, and treating bulleted lists as if they were just ordinary paragraphs.

Nice idea, needs either a better (less intrusive) implementation, or should only be used by bloggers who know much more about the innards of stylesheets than I do.

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