China:
Niall Clugston writes: Re. “Our commodities caught in China’s inflation cycle” (yesterday, item 21). I hope the Chinese government gets better advice than that offered by the Business Spectator‘s Karen Maley.
The fundamental flaw in her argument is treating China as if it is a standard advanced capitalist economy. While obviously inappropriate, this is the only type dealt with in economics textbooks. From this her argument builds with mechanical predictability: inflation is up; therefore the government must raise interest rates. She dismisses any other measures, even though the government retains the control structures of a command economy, because these aren’t in the textbooks.
As Maley notes, the Chinese government is worried that a rise in interest rates will trigger mass bankruptcies and, through appreciating the yuan, make Chinese exports less competitive. But she doesn’t seem much concerned about sending the world’s largest country hurtling into depression.
“The worry is that the longer the Chinese government delays raising interest rates, the more aggressive the tightening will eventually become, which could cause a huge slump in commodity prices.”
Apart from the slightly contradictory nature of this advice — raise rates or else you’ll have to raise rates — the thing to note is the conclusion: “And countries such as Australia, Brazil and Russia which have benefited from surging commodity prices would face a steep slump in their export earnings.”
That’s right: it’s all about us.
Education:
Marcus L’Estrange writes: Re. “Measuring the ‘crises’ in health and education” (Wednesday, item 2). Bernard Keane quoted The Age‘s Kenneth Davidson who wrote: “There is a crisis in public education and the policies of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Premier John Brumby are making it worse.”
However Kenneth Davidson has missed a key point why so many parents prefer non-government schools. They and a large number of my state school teaching colleagues do so because what they are buying are not better teachers or a different curriculum but a peer group that values education plus the absence of disaffected or disruptive students who are allowed by Minister Pike (e.g. ‘The Victorian Government’s Student Engagement Guidelines’) and the AEU policies to spoil the learning environment of good working class state school students who want to learn.
State Labor (Labor Unity faction) handed over control of state education to the Socialist Left and their fellow travellers in return for LU faction gaining control of the key portfolios of Treasury and Finance. The EL’s control of state education had lead to the current parlous situation. Additionally, the Coalition (and LU) knows that there is no better way of residualising state education than to let the EL run it.
If Kenneth Davidson wants to save state education it would be much better for him to help remove the Educational Left (the AEU, the ALP Socialist Left / Socialist Forum) control of state education and their reigning philosophy of Edubable (automatic or social promotion, no meaningful sanctions against bad behaviour and non-performance of set work, no intelligent streaming with each year being a ‘cage for an age’). Then and only then will good students and funds pour back into the once great State system.
Boeing:
Dave Horsfall writes: Alex Jurkiewicz (yesterday, comments) rants about Crikey folding “like a pack of cards when Boeing politely asked you to take down the A380 pics[…]”. Perhaps I’ve missed something, but what exactly does Boeing have to do with the Airbus A380? Perhaps he meant the 787 Dreamliner which caught fire?
Climate change:
Tamas Calderwood writes: Wil Blackburn (yesterday, comments) assumes that because the world has been on a warming trajectory for the past 130 years, this warming must be man-made. As evidence he points out that latter years are generally warmer and that the 00’s were warmer than the 90’s, which were warmer than the 80’s.
The UAH satellite temperature data show that the 00’s were 0.17C warmer than the 90’s, which in turn were 0.1C warmer than the 80’s. They also show 1998 was the warmest year (again, ignoring the Medieval and Roman warm periods, and multiple other warm peaks during the past 8000 years).
This means we’ve had a single warming spurt, from 1975-1998, in the past 70 years (given that it cooled from 1940-1975).
How is that a crisis? And why do we assume humanity’s 4% share of CO2 caused the one warming spurt that we’ve had since WWII?
I wish Crikey wouldn’t run Tamas’ gibberish. It’s scientifically unsupportable and relies on a number of widely debunked misconceptions. The fact that Tamas clings to these despite the evidence clearly shows he’s utterly delusional about the topic. If he has something new to say it might be interesting, but his repetitive nonsense is tiresome and contributes nothing but noise.
Tamas Calderwood asks: “….why do we assume humanity’s 4% share of CO2 caused the one warming spurt that we’ve had since WWII?” This is an excellent question I think because its author has offered an hypothesis, suggested some definitions and agreed values, and put it on the table for discussion. It is not a call-to-arms.
But because this climate change debate is littered with references and qualifications and pontifications about WHO is making the proposal rather than WHAT is being debated, I would like to examine the suggested ‘knowns’. In particular I would like to know how ‘science’ (and thereby Tamas Calderwood and the vast majority of writers here at Crikey) has established that the year-by-year contribution of human activity to global atmospheric CO2 is “4%”?
KDKD,
I have always found Tamas’ contributions focus on the issues interesting and relevant even though I hold the view that man made global warming is real. He asks questions that need to be answered and has a foundation in logic. This is underlined by the scientists’ recent answers to his questions that, though supporting a view that man made global warming is real, were careful to qualify the uncertainties contained in the study of climate change.
You on the other hand, with your eco-fascist totalitarian agenda, want to shut discussion down. I read some of the comments sections in Crikey and find it populated by people who need the comfort of like minded leftie green ghetto dwellers who get all flustered should they stumble across an awkward comment that, good grief, expresses an alternative view.
I fully expected a comment from Tamas today because Blackburn’s comment was so obviously inadequate, arguing that the world has warmed up a bit but failing to discuss what might be causing it, which is where Tamas’ point of view is relevant.
I also expected a chorus of green leftie abuse which has come to typify comments in Crikey these days, of which your vituperative contribution is a classic example. Hugh McColl can be constructive. How about you?
Discuss the issue, mate.
Hugh: co2 emissions are easy to account – you just count the amount of fossil fuels consumed each year and calculate from there. But Tamas’ analogy falls apart when you consider the bathtub analogy. If I run a bath and, and leave the tap running then open the plug the same amount of water flows out through the plug as is coming in, so that the level in the bath stays constant. Now let’s increase the tap flow rate by 4%. How long until the bath overflows? The carbon cycle is a little bit like this.
Here’s a great example of Tamas’ idiotic hypocracy. If we asked him what he though of climate models he’s almost certainly tell us that we’d be fools to take them seriously as climate models are unreliable. However he also inflicts his misinterpretation of the UAH temperature data on us. What he doesn’t mention (or probably realise) is that becuase the UAH satellites infer temperature from instruments which measure electromagnetic radiation, they themselves are based on models. Now that’s a grade F for Fatally Flawed on Tamas’ part.
For goodness’ sake, dumbo wanker Crikey editors, why do you persist with this nonsensical publishingof Tamas’s nonsense? He has been shown 100 times to be a total fallacy, an irrational fool and a waste of space. Your accommodation of his idiocy on your pages negates your own usually rational attitude to matters public.
Why do you damage your own reputation in this manner?
Please cease to send your daily emails to me. You have blown my last fuse by supporting this total idiot. You have read the contributions from others, yet you continue, Limited News-like, to walk the road of a fool.
If you really wanted to support scientific, factually based analyis of the horrid things that are in store for our planet, you would rely on peer reviewed reports and analysis; yet you have consistently supported this damaging fool’s world view, which has no factual foundation. You are damaging your own brand, as well as the planet on which we all rely for our existence and that of our children and their children.
Crikey, you have done great damage already and are clearly intent on continuing on this path.
You, editors of Crikey, are fools and idiots. Sorry, but our relationship of quite some years must end here.
Get well and truly stuffed. I am sad. Truly saddened by your blind and unthinking, ridiculous support for a true nong. You can do better.
Want me back as a reader? Send me an apology for this Tamas cr_p. You have my private address. Go on, send an apology. Publish it, perhaps. But get this idiot Tamas away from your pulpit and your microphone.