Illiterate

Tell us something we didn’t already know. Sinclair Davidson in The Australian spells out the consequences of Brown’s brainlessness, which he exposed at the National Press Club yesterday:

Economic illiterates make several mistakes in their analysis. Because of his anti-foreign bias, Brown overlooks the benefits of interaction with foreigners. Unfortunately, he is not alone in exhibiting “capital xenophobia”.

Australia has long had to borrow money from the rest of the world to finance our economic prosperity. The local economy has grown and foreign investors got their money back. This arrangement has benefited everybody; Australian savings are simply too small to finance our economic growth and standard of living. Foreigners invest in those economies with good prospects and low levels of sovereign risk.

Australia has a good reputation as an investment destination. But Brown is placing that hard-earned reputation at risk. Suggestions by a major political party, in a formal partnership with government and holding the balance of power in the Senate, that foreign investment can be taxed with impunity, or even shut down, raises perceptions of sovereign risk. What’s worse, he is not alone. The ill-fated resource super-profits tax also raised serious concerns about sovereign risk.

Remarkably, Brown admits that Australia gets “jobs, export income, royalties and company tax” from mining. But that is not enough; he wants it all. He seems to object to foreigners, in return for their loans and investments, getting “profits, dividends, [and] capital appreciation”. There is also a bit of double counting going on; dividends and capital appreciation amount to profits. Or perhaps Brown doesn’t know that.

…

Economic illiterates believe that with some tweaking the world can be made a better place. In Brown’s case the existence of a carbon tax and the demise of the coal industry would make the world a much better place. Yet he has given little thought to how that world would be powered. It’s all very well talking about “renewables”, but which renewables and how much would they cost?

As the Productivity Commission recently flagged, renewables are expensive; wind power costs $150-$214 a megawatt hour, solar costs $400-$473 a megawatt hour. By contrast, coal-fired electricity costs less than $100 a megawatt hour.

A coal-free Australia would be a lot more expensive, with lower standards of living.

Brown quoted the UN statistic that for every year of delay on climate change $1 trillion of costs will be incurred. What he hasn’t explained is how undermining the Australian economy would reduce that cost and why Australians should bear that cost when the UN hasn’t managed to convince its members to act in concert on climate change.

The biggest problem Brown faces is that you can’t intervene in the economy on the scale he desires without a massive reduction in our economic wellbeing. The problem Australia faces is that Brown doesn’t understand that point.

Read it here.

Ruining Australia

I would never have believed it possible. The country that I adopted as my own just eight short years ago has transformed from a healthy, vibrant, prosperous and flourishing society, to a bitter, divided, backward, frustrated mess run by the Greens. They hold the balance of power with two dishwater-weak independents in the House of Representatives, and soon they hold the balance of power in the Senate.

And between them, they are ruining this country, step by step, day by day.

Listen with incredulity to Bob Brown (lovingly reported by the ever impartial ABC, naturally):

Greens leader Bob Brown has guaranteed carbon price legislation will not be repealed despite promises from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that he would “oppose it in opposition and rescind it in government”.

Senator Brown predicts an agreement on a climate legislation is only about two weeks away – but says it is not going to be a “green outcome”.

The Greens will have the balance of power in the Senate from Friday and Senator Brown says his party will not support any rescission motion – even if the Coalition is in government.

“I can give you a rolled gold guarantee that when and if this package, after all this work on behalf of the Australian people passes our parliament, we will be giving it every guarantee for the future,” Senator Brown told the National Press Club.

“Of course we won’t be supporting a rescission motion by Tony Abbott. This is, of course, central to the Greens.

“While ever we are drawing breath in the Senate we will defend the outcome – unless it can be improved.” (source)

The Greens register barely 10 percent of the vote, and yet here they are, determining the future of our country. Brown isn’t particularly knowledgeable about the Constitution clearly (neither are the ABC, who rush to print his insane ramblings without any critical thought) since there is the Double Dissolution procedure if the Senate fails to pass legislation from the lower house (section 57 of the Constitution). And it is a basic tenet of parliamentary supremacy that no parliament can bind its successors – or had you forgotten that in your mad rush to dictatorial power?

So Bob, just to make this quite clear: no one (except the ABC and Fairfax) gives a flying f*ck what you think. After the next election you will be relegated to the irrelevance that you and your despicable party really are.