Guest essay by Viv Forbes
To compete in today’s world we need to score well on resource availability, capital assets, energy costs, tax burden and workforce/management. It also helps to have secure property rights and a sound currency. Today’s Australia scores poorly on all counts.
In 1901, the year of Federation, Australia was the richest country in the world per capita.
The Pioneer generations, with freedom to explore and invest, had developed valuable mineral assets – gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, coal, tin and iron. And they had bred up large numbers of sheep and cattle on our native grasslands.
Energy was abundant – wood, horse power, kerosene, gas, hydro and coal powered electricity – we were among world leaders in cheap energy. Sydney had gas lights in its streets as far back as 1820.
The Pioneering innovators also invented game-changers such as the stump jump plough, the Ridley-Sunshine Harvester and froth flotation of minerals, and they developed better Australian versions of Leviathan coaches, Southern Cross windmills, Merino sheep, Shorthorn cattle, Federation wheat, Kelpies and Blue Heeler dogs.
The Builder generations who followed the pioneers invested heavily in productive capital assets like flour mills and wool sheds, mines and collieries, smelters and saw mills, power stations and electric trams, trans-continental railways and overland telegraph lines, orchards and plantations, stockyards and abattoirs, breweries and vineyards, dams and artesian bores, factories and universities, exploration and research, pipelines and harbours, railways and roads. There were no “Lock-the-Gate” signs.
Governments were decentralised with minimal taxes and red tape, creating new business was easy and union power was minimal and generally beneficial for workers.
But then the Termite generations took over, and for much of the last forty years taxes, handouts and green tape have been smothering new enterprise. We are sponging on the ageing assets created by past generations and building little to support future Australians. The monuments left by this generation are typified by casinos, sports arenas, wind-energy prayer wheels, sit-down money and debt.
The trendy war on carbon has already inflated our electricity costs – this will hasten the closure of more processing and manufacturing industries. Green tape is shutting-the-gate on new investments in exploration, grassland protection, dams, power stations, fishing, forestry and coastal development. Taxes are weakening existing industry and the savings that could build new industries are being wasted on bureaucracy, delays, legalism, subsidies, climate tomfoolery and green energy toys. Finally, union featherbedding is crippling any large survivors.
Australia’s future prosperity demands cheap energy, more investment in productive assets, reduced government costs, more productive labour and the freedom to explore and innovate.
We must change, or more jobs will follow Holden.
More at carbon-sense.com
More pomposity, please. >:p
PG,
I understand. But I’m the one who has to defy his neuroses to say it.
:>
climateace – thanks for proving my points with your response:
“(1) If you can explain why an economy that is uncompetitive in divers ways can (a) grow absolutely and (b) catch up on the next larger economies, please do so.”
I have no interest in trying to explain this – I lack the expertise to do so. It seems you have a similar deficit.
“(2) I was using the vertebrates because someone raised them – as a proxy for the rest.”
It seems to me you slung vertebrates and vascular plants out all on your own – and what else would you use to support your specious claim of an ongoing mass extinction? Shellfish would be one – they have always been used as markers for mass extinction events (lots of species, good fossilization). Surprisingly, I don’t see a Wiki page on recent extinctions of Australian shellfish.
In fact, outside of islands, vertebrate and vascular plant extinctions in the last 200 years are surprisingly rare, especially considering the stress that has been put on them by human expansion. The only mass extinction associated with humans is that of the Pleistocene large mammals, but that was associated with our ancestors when then supposedly lived in balance with nature.
If you really cared about protecting existing populations, then you should be trying to stop wind, biomass and other poorly conceived ‘green’ solutions and supporting cheap natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear energy. Rich societies are far more likely to try and protect their ecosystems than poor ones.
“(3) You obviously have no idea about coprophagous invertebrates which are obligate to specific hollow-nesting species of birds.”
You make arrogant assumptions easily, but you are wrong again: I actually do have more than a basic knowledge about nest associates of mammals and birds. I also understand what ‘mass extinction’ means, as you do not.
@ur momisugly Mark Bofill
PG is fine, just so long as you understand that it’s the abbreviation for 1,2-propanediol or propane-1,2-diol. That pompous enuf, Brian? 🙂
Indeed. Rich societies look at their ecosystems and think, “Pretty!” Poor ones look at their ecosystems and think, “Food!”
I suck at chemistry. I honestly think I’ve got more aptitude for childbearing. And I’m male.
DaveW said @ur momisugly December 27, 2013 at 7:28 pm
And even if humans were causal, it’s unlikely they were the sole cause. The last stand of the mammoths appears to have been on some uninhabited island to the East of Siberia where they died out a mere 3,000 years ago.
@ur momisugly Brian H
Not just food — fuel!
@ur momisugly Mark Bofill
ROFL!
PG is propylene glycol (an alcohol) that is used as a carrier for nicotine for them who don’t want to smoke, but don’t want nicotine craving either.
Just a couple of points for “climateace”.
The list at Wiki of “extinct” animals is flawed in two basic ways when considering an “Extinction Event”.
Firstly, as has been mentioned, many of the species lived on small islands. Extinctions are far more common in small ecological areas. So these numbers should not be extrapolated to the Continent. One should also consider that they are part of “Australia” as a matter of chance and due to a line on a map. They could just have easily been part of “Holland” or “France”.
Secondly, and more importantly, many of the vertebrates do not even have a drawing and may not have existed at all. “New” species were being claimed on the basis of two feathers and a lower jaw without the creature ever being actually sighted at all. Perhaps it is better that a species be proven to actually exist before claims of its extinction can be considered?
Now one could argue that since it was described it must have existed, however as an Aussie I’ve never heard of a creature that matches these descriptions;
“an animal as large as a grey hound, of a mouse coulour and very swift;”
“The people who went over the River saw the animal again and describd him much in the same manner as yesterday.”
“it was (says he) about as large and much like a one gallon cagg, as black as the Devil and had 2 horns on its head, it went but Slowly”
“he was not only like a grey hound in size and running but had a long tail, as long as any grey hounds;”
Those extracts are from the Journal of Sir Joseph Banks detailing the First voyage of Lt James Cook where in late July of 1770 the HMS Endeavour was careered after being holed on the Great Barrier Reef.
Interestingly the entry for the 29th June says;
“One of our Midshipmen an American who was out a shooting today saw a Wolf, perfectly he sayd like those he had seen in America…”
As there are no wolves in Australia, or creatures “black as the Devil and had 2 horns on its head” then may I claim discovery of the two species “Canis Australis” and “Blackanhairythingyme Frightenus”? Since they appear to no longer wander the land can I also claim them as extinct?
climateace, you have made some good points, but you lose credibility by reaching past what the data can prove.
For the Bibliophiles out there who are drooling at reading such old texts the full directory of the works of Sir Joseph Banks that are digitised at the State Library of New South Wales is here;
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/
The Journal of the First voyage is here;
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/series_03/03_view.cfm
July 1770 is here;
http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/endeav/jul_70.cfm
To put a final spike into the “It was described so it must be real” category I give you some of the works of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) who wrote some 400 volumes on Natural History but I suspect a number of the species described and illustrated did not exist 😉 ;
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/library/blog/2013/02/15/item-of-the-month-february-2013-monsters-in-the-library
Climateace: I understand your point about ” Dutch disease” and i agree with you and your critic of Ms.Forbes. I think that “mass extintions” is a bit exaggerate. And I think you must read more (or better) the great Max Weber: “While recognising bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organisation and even indispensable for the modern state, Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms and the ongoing bureaucratisation as leading to a “polar night of icy darkness”, in which increasing rationalisation of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned “iron cage” of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control.[95][99] In order to counteract bureaucrats, the system needs entrepreneurs and politicians.[95]
Yes I know, it is wikipedia, but…
Wrong; tell that to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Michael Dell. (Well, you’ll have to wait on Jobs.)
The difference is, you didn’t rise to YOUR full potential (or, maybe you did?)
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Re mass extinctions and coprophagous moths:
As an example of climateaces’ hyperbole, I give you the moth that eats the faeces of nestling parrots in termite mounds. According to his arguments ‘suites of invertebrates’ will go extinct with each vertebrate (reminds me of the feedbacks necessary in climate models to get CAGW):
Family Oecophoridae – estimated 5000 species currently living in Australia (about 22,000 species of moths and butterflies are thought to live in Australia at the moment)
Genus Trisyntopa – three described species
T. euryspoda Lower, 1918 – a widespread species associated with several hole-nesting parrots
T. scatophaga (White, 1922) from nests in termite mounds of the Golden-shouldered Parrot
T. nessophila Edwards, 2007 – from nests in termite mounds of the Hooded Parrot
The extinct Paradise Parrot may have had another moth associated with it, but this is speculative.
I like moths and don’t like the idea of any non-pest species going extinct, and the two termite mound nesting parrot species are in strife, but I don’t see any mass extinction here. Even if all the termite-mound nesting parrots went, the genus would still be represented by its known generalist T. euryspoda and the Oecophoridae would still be hyper diverse. Specialization is always a risk over evolutionary time and it is no real surprise when highly specialized species go extinct. So while I find it interesting that climateace is obsessed with coprophagous moths, I don’t see how it adds to the debate about mass extinction through climate change.
Can you support that statement, so we don’t just take this as a wild assertion?
In your answer, please include references to futures markets, farm ‘price support’ payments and the like …
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How Markets Use Information To Set Prices –
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/AgriculturalPriceSupports.html
Who Sets the Price? –
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/who-sets-the-price#axzz2ojzGkJh2
Dairy – http://www.ocregister.com/articles/farm-539730-bill-dairy.html
I agree with Chad Wozniak, but would fill in a few gaps in what he proposes.
First, even more important than stricter penalties for misbehavior by government officials is accountability: meaning every victim must be allowed to sue and/or prosecute. As it is now, officials have both immunity to lawsuits and a monopoly on the right to prosecute; while those stand, any laws against official misbehavior will only ever be used against “out” groups.
This individual right needs to extend to any cop, judge, or prosecutor who defies the Constitution.
Second, ordinary people need to have a means to enforce this right. Thus, I would loosen weapons laws enough that the average person can once again be better armed than the police or the army, as was true in the Founders’ time. While I’m at it I would create a way for community groups to create, or become, their own police departments, thus dispersing to the neighborhood level control of how the police operate.
And third, since even with the first two reforms there will still be ways power can be abused, I would replace the system of elections, at least for one house of Congress, by drawing names from the jury pool. If you’re selected, you’re appointed to Congress for one term after which you can never again serve.
And fourth, I would hold a constitutional convention in the hope of creating a second Bill of Rights that will close a lot of the holes in the original (including those created by technology). I have a whole laundry list of ideas to put in it; #1 is a fundamental right for each adult to make his own risk/reward decisions (aka the John Stuart Mill clause).
What about commercial paper between businesses? What, you’ve never taken a business course?
Sometimes, Gail, I wonder just what it is that you do know …
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Eric, you might as well be talking to the wall …
_Jim says:
December 27, 2013 at 8:40 pm
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I’ve never taken a business course.
I dare you to explain “commercial paper” as it affects the world economy.
Maybe it doesn’t ?
No, you don’t; that won’t work either.
Unless we, the states, open up energy production and manufacturing there WILL BE NO turn around. Energy production coupled with mining and manufacturing is the ONLY true pathway to any kind of ‘wealth’ (simplifying things greatly here in order to move on and make the point below).
From an earlier post on this subject to DirkH:
As the only true wealth is natural resources, which includes energy sources (as well as mineral resources); unless rail cars roll loaded with material or pipelines are busy moving liquids, your society is going to slowly ‘dissolve’ (literally: sent piece by piece/pound by pound to the scrap yards with a final destination ‘offshore’) from within … Keynesian spending would seem to be the ‘procedure’ or economic methodology to accomplish this. This can’t end well for any modern, technological society. (Witness the former economic/production powerhouse cities like Camden NJ or Detroit MI. NYC seems to have survived only on account of being/having been the financial center of the US.)
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re: u.k.(us) says December 27, 2013 at 8:58 pm
“fiat’ money. Between friends. Clear?
jorge c. said @ur momisugly December 27, 2013 at 7:58 pm
Do you always call blokes Ms? You wouldn’t want to try that on with some Australians I know 😉
Hey, Viv! Er, Miss… the link to your website’s borked in the headpost. It’s http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/26/pioneers-builders-and-termites/http://www.carbon-sense.com rather than http://www.carbon-sense.com.
[Verify link properly corrected. Mod]
Bummer. There’s a semicolon in there I missed. Try http://www.carbon-sense.com.
_Jim said @ur momisugly December 27, 2013 at 8:58 pm
Which would seem to imply that Gates, Jobs and Dell you cited earlier generated false wealth. How remiss of them…
@ur momisugly Mod
Thanks. Yer blood’s worth bottlin’. 🙂