Government is not Business

Nothing will change in the West till the West takes Weber seriously

2012-01-25T11:03:00.001+11:00

If ecology, we talk about drivers . In economics of today there is no contest; there is only one driver and its name is "the market" ; very dumb ( monocultural)and almost religiuos in nature

This weeks WEF ( World Economic Forum ) be just another waster of time unless there is a bit more diversity in the discussion about who drives what when and where. If we ecologists did business like most wannabes do business we wouldn't have one to run .
Woosy governnments are partly a product of their own stupidity - created as they often now are - in the image of the market.
One hopes the hit to the fanatasy of faith in real estate values will shake them

There are some people who know how to make a green economy

2011-11-23T21:24:00.000+11:00

But they don't work for Julia and Greenlabor . Chris Ullman (ABCTV )hosted a most welcome discussion tonight that finally let a few experts speak . Jeff,Ian and Judith were so good and reminded us that Greenlabor were more interested in some esoteric kindergarten acccountancy than the stuff that has made this country as good as it is.

Governments across the West stuck in rut of their own making

2011-05-06T10:48:00.000+10:00

Do I believe in capitalism ?
Yes provided it believes in supporting water treatment - purification . Clarity of its benefits and clarity of its limits.
As a production ecologist to the rural sector I say, remember what really works hidden inside the cooperating ecosystems inside us and around us (so much more efficient in energy use than we ever will be )

Compare our brilliant invention in capitalism which I have to say, a la Churchill ," works quite well amongst all those that have been tried ".
BUT The unthinking acceptance of capiitalism ( rife now in government on both sides of politics) is making the rich richer and the poor poorer ......and suits those who love to play exploitative games and have the capital ( and the deterministic mindset) to back them.

Capitalism is not balanced in the same way as a focus on mere competition is not balanced . A mere standard tax on carbon for the poor is a much bigger burden to them than it is those with big cash flows .( not a feature of rural economy)

We must, for those in rural areas esp ,who manage these sensitive ecosystems with more tools than an accountant has seen numbers , stop bundling economic and ecological issues into old wineskins of categories and take seriously the diversity of genuine physical and technological forces and worldviews which together shape sound sustainability.

After all these years sitting on leather and talking- a Saviour comes along. Ledgerman

2011-04-04T13:15:00.004+10:00

Garnaut is a symbol - not science, but economics . And not economics but Ledgerman- the grand bookmaker in the sky . Suddenly out of the confusion there appears something simple that WILL solve what we all fear - the inevitable price rise of oil. Why fear the price rise and taxes on it have been around to push adjustment pressure for decades - why not more ?
But in this hypocritical guilt ridden powerles and innocence projection fog appears - a Price imposition - but it is not the Saviour it looks - a society that worships technology will only accept a technique , a quick fix , a solution that looks like a solution , but is really a quick fix. Our society has a drug problem ,but we wanna call it someone else's problem .Just like we did with batts in the belfry .

The superman ledger Garnaut man has rolled out a really big gun to blast away at a really big economic reality, but is the price of something , really, the real problem here - where does guilt projection and worry ( we live beyond our means in bigger and far more important ways that just price of energy ) Where does the right and proper increase in the cost of oil fit in world that still can produce alaternative energy and where markets are best LEFT do it .
What's it all for ms Wong ?
Wongs assurance that the tax will incentivise industry is complete bullsh .My problem with the tax talk is they can't be fair dinkum - if they want to tax waste they would tax those who waste --those who choose to drive around in trucks like Keating did . Nothing is clear about how the tax will work but one thing we do know iyt will do - increase regional dependancy on bureaucrats

If Wong wants to TAX best , best too to recognise what our natural advantages really are and where govt money has gone to date ( Batts in the belfry and solar and WIND that are now dated ), agriculture support that has never happened before. If the government really believes in the market - when the money runs out agriculture will be back where it is now -----reeling from water price crap ( thanks Megan( CSIRO) - you are so over this stuff aren't you , in the cocoon of the ledgermans club .
Why wouldn't europe invent things before us anyway . Our education and investment doldrums DOES NOT suppot invoative inventors - get real and state it it why it would ever

Why can't scientists solve our problems? Megan Clarke ( CSIROchief ) speaks like an economist rather than a scientist on the carbon tax - she's not credible . Talk physics and chem to those who would sell and would support a political consensus that doesn't exist ( except in the mind of greenlabor)
So what the Saviours name ? called Ledgerman --economists if you want to be PC .Has to be left leaning of course
Its quite simple - what we do is make the tax take big enough that we have enough - and so big that we have enough to pay back the poor if we make any mistakes. Even farmers will become codependant under this regime, bringing them back under the spell of the reactionaries . win win provided we still have someone whose prepared to pay .
Brilliant simple and simply brilliant - just what we need, to save all this tiring talk of reform,
Why reform when we can have revolution. We get the money first and then we decide what to do with it . Amazing isn't it - it seems if we talk of what we would do with the money , the people stop supporting us so we just tell em about the wonderful guilt reducing taxes we will impose on others . Seems to work . amazing

The Libs find out too late again ?

2010-09-17T13:27:00.001+10:00

This post is made because I don't think the Libs are smart enough to take advantage of the trend back to them for the next election.
Just why this is confuses them , but not those of us who used to advise them. Like Labor, too many members worry too much about the spin and not nearly enough about the substance.
History will no doubt record the fact that one of the results of confusing the role of business with that of government is dumbing down - us , our leaders and their advisors ; Before you know it its all spin . We are ruled by rhetoric, prejudice and popular opinion - Clearly the price wannabes pay for playing up to popular prejudice is that few then really know the difference .
So why won't Vic Libs do a Tony and talk to the issue - incompetence; Straight and simple.

Today's polys know that bad advice is a greater risk than it was ten years ago, but they don't know why. Modern Governments require a high level of competence ; GreenLabor is a coalition from fanatasyland so why don't they say so . Even if the Libs were lucky enough to win, would they repair the damage or be even more exposed to the wastage of their careless Forebears like Mr Kennett?( this site could be named in "honor" of his formulation of this silly and simple idea that has its home in their comfort zone )
The point is there is safety in much advice, but much advice can be confusing to those who don't know who to trust. So that's Labor's problem in miniature , but why should it be the Libs?
The attraction if business is government is that the noise from business is both overwhelming and simple - The only risk is that , long term, you get kicked out when the people realise you favoured one and forgot the other. Again Tony A got it right - keep it simple and direct
The Libs could still be in power in Victoria if they hadn't confused business with government. Libs deserve the back road while they refuse to get off the back foot on this . Their job is to tell the truth about Labor's incompetence and do it plainly and more powerfully .
If they don't make it in November it seems only reasonable that they, like Labor, still confuse business with government.

July 2010 --Both parties still in the passenger seat

2010-07-21T21:41:00.000+10:00

As we are about to witness yet another election , neither major party in Australia is aware of why they are all suddenly talking up infrastructure projects and unable to talk about why Labors spending is so outta control.
Its Simply because their hand feeding of hand picked industry doesn't allow them the objectivity they need to make lateral planning decisions about major challenges of skilled employment, housing, health and environment and public transport.
Sure they have some good ideas, but the way they allow themselves to pick winners is a sign of real desperation in the ranks.

Reviewing Labor's record

2009-09-10T09:21:00.006+10:00

The last post on this blog was just before Labor took office. Copyright EA sept 10th 2009
This post is necessary because Labor are confused about the nature and position of the boundary between public and private enterprise in a number of really big ways.
1. Labor have given new impetus to the saying ;Thick as a brick and 2 short planks . They think building new public school frameworks will build education. Real revolution is in the mind , not in the bricks . The disease that causes even atheists to send their children to religious schools is not going to go away with windowdressing, but by talking about it . While the matter is in non talk territory Labor are being hypocritical about any revolution (turns on the basis of edge politics) or real cost effective reform, that might be helpful.

2. Distorting the market and creating unreal hot air bubbles that will burst . Garrett Wong and many others in Labor circles are playing with incentives to industry in ways which do not allow a clear response from industry or the market. The boundaries are all blurred and badly so .
Thus, much more than there predecessors, Labor get "results" by offering a confusing and incompetent range of cash and tax incentives and advertising that make "freephone" crap look like handing out lollies. How many billions of dollars of tax payers money will be paid to setup / encourage ( incentivize ) new industries ( often before their time and technology )that will turn into hot air like the ideas behind them . When I was involved in this complex matter, sound ecomomic planning would underpin reviews of any dollar that went in ;
Now the only thing that underpins is spin itself .

3 Labor's Big Issues focus ; The greatest evil, even if you don't believe in evil , is done by half baked attempts . Labor is not serious about doing Earth reconciliation properly . The only way to remove the noose around scientific( and therefore economic ) progress on these matters ( soil. water eco )is to stop environmental planning being the football of first choice in politics .Every state in the country is under the same spell and distinct smell of misinvestment
A commitment to a independant training institute for earth scientists would give Labor something to crow about ! You heard it first on blogger

Whose wong anyway? If Senator Wong keeps doing what she thinks is right and insisting on it, maybe there will soon be noone in government circles who does know what's right.
Earth reconciliation is not something you play with ; it comes at a cost – the cost of doing earth things properly and professionally. Scarcely little of that at the moment . Copyright EA sept 10th 2009

Left beats The conservatives at their own game

2007-10-25T09:25:00.000+10:00

And the conservatives have only themselves to blame .
I don't want a group of reactionaries running the country, but the Libs have had years to weed out the quickfixers and the business is government choir members who smash their way around the chinashop .

Getting rich is not hard provided you ignore everybody else.
Conservative politics has become engrossed in private good and confused the whole business with public good.
Please do not accuse the left of simplicity when the right have breathed too hard on the window of ideas and see only themselves and their silly simple images of self in the fogged up mirror .
Failure to accept the cracks is helping to keep conservatives out of government . ( Rudd ,for example, is more honest about conservative weaknesses than Howard and could probably win because of it ) .

D day for the Liberals

2007-05-21T12:49:00.000+10:00

Move away from the single desk ?- don't do it !.

Will the Liberal party have the foresight to see its role in being uniquely liberal in the future? . Does it have a vision that is bigger than competetion policy - the policy you have when greed only drives and greed only is good ? Today, it seems to me , is the day they could prove it one way or the other .
Nothing better symbolises the lack of foresight in the libs dominant overgoverning complex than their clear preference for simplicicity over diversity- half baked instead of fully baked . Such blatant rejection of the basis of sound conservative governance must help undermine their right to govern in that name .
They should lose votes from thinking people all over Australai if they allow a renegade marketing authority to operate on the same turf as the one that has done Australians much good .

I will be ONE non farming conservative definitely voting Labor at the next election if The Club of free enterprise allows yet other overt simplicity from the market sector to again overrun any sensitivity they once had to properly governing the whole enterprise ship Australia .

The lib party is now little different in policy focus from their change for changes sake compatriots on the left . Worship of change and business only models of governance is blinding them both to the damage . These constant waves of banging against a diverse and properly regulated economy will create indecent exposure for our children . Good enough for us, but not good enough for them ?

Will be interesting to see what happens today !

2006-07-03T21:28:00.000+10:00

The Canadians have done it again ABC 4 corners killed by care - but will the real lessons of 12 desths in custody be named . In a culture of coverup clearly cultivated up by a blinkered concentration on efficiency , hospital institutions prevent doctors and nurses from owning up - even Chris Masters failed to pick up this possibility .despite all the great testimonies and honest conversation from Harvard down.

While more training may make more doctors talk more , the culture of false confidence created now in health care will have to be unravelled first .
So, presumably will the huge tempatation of doctors and nurses to hide in institutions big enough ( in cities) to give them cover , continue .

2006-04-11T10:35:00.000+10:00

I have been thinkin Of all the paradigm truths that should challenge AUSTRALIANS I think this IDEA is the ONE , mate . Abandoning the olde quick fix myopia would restore some confidence to governments fast evaporating confidence in itself. ( thats what happens when you give in to cringe mentality)
Not one of us wants bigger and more unaccountable government........ BUT we are getting it . The business solution is not the best solution - Anyone who has worked INSIDE the system KNOWS that the business solution is less accountable and creates comfort zones in public offices that should never be there.The PS becomes less accountable simply because it becomes more accountant like. If you don't undrestand that , keep reading - otherwise you will get a big headache and need to lie down . see empire award to Paul Mees this week

2006-02-13T00:23:00.000+11:00

Noone is misleading the house, the house is misleading itself.
Weak is the word

Surely Mark Vaille being in the hot seat over the "Iraq Wheat free trade agreement" is so predictable . Surely thats what happens when goverenment fails to do their job and call good business good governance. "Nothing untoward happens as long as its legal" sounds more like something BONDY would say. WEAK is the word and their words are WEAK .

2006-02-13T00:13:00.000+11:00

Governemnet is not science either
In case you haven't noticed scientists disagree about the harm drugs can do .The issue is not whether the drugs do things well or not but whether we as asociety are able to control harmful uses of them -
If we don't review the decsions of the TGA maybe Canberra should pack up and disperse.
Science doesn't goive us the power to act wisely - only govt can do that > at least they used to be able to ?

This weeks woosiness in the senate is a scandal . After all the Senators who voted to remove the power removed more than the power of Abbott they tesified to their own weakness.

2005-10-12T21:49:00.000+10:00

Join a party - no brains needed . When will the mass of sheep in paraliament stand up with the indepenadants and defend THEIR right to exist /think/represent something other than chanting .
Sell an idea - not with parliamentary members but via slogans Nothing symbolizes the conservative parties death wish than leaving the thinking/ talking to some dangerous concoction of predudice ridden fact short intelligence testing AD campaigners on IR.

2005-09-13T08:23:00.000+10:00

Great news that 2 people, who take their job of representation seriuosly in the Senate, are voting against a decision that is not properly prescribed.
Changes to legislation on the sale of TELSTRA are rushed through and our own PM spends most of Kerrie O'Briens program chanting the same old mantra as though we, the audience no longer THINKS. IT STINKS .

This is the sham of parliament right at this very moment – it doesn’t answer the questions and it appears to have no respect for those who still have them !For more questions .

2005-08-23T13:46:00.000+10:00

No choice is customer- centric
The temptation to simplify ----business models are no exit .
The temptation to simplify is real for any government at any moment in history . But in our airy fairy age of choose your own values, even business is clutching at straws for paradigm control . Take this example from Charles Green at Trusted advice .
The head of sales at a major technology company told me, “we have two
strategies: one--be customer-centric; two--increase share of customer wallet.”Question: do you tell your customers both strategies? If so, you may offend. If
not, you are hiding key objectives. Neither choice is customer-centric—because
the second strategy itself is intrinsically not customer-centric.

Even if you only use JUST two paradigm controils out of context you get garbage .Are our citizens customers or con-targets .Plus we are lots of other things as well .

2005-05-18T08:49:00.000+10:00

For another misapplication of competition theory and its effect on exploiting our own people ,look at the latest evidence from India mexico , canada on how we are killing oour own people with the cruel kindness of it . mark vaile is a kind man but maybe his heart is where head should be - not chanting the rich and comfortable's road to success.
Free trade 'behind suicide epidemic'
AFP
17 May 2005

LONDON: The hardline policies of trade liberalisation and privatisation backed by Western governments have led to a suicide "epidemic" among Indian farmers and inflicted terrible social costs in other developing countries.

The London-based Christian Aid group has urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to use Britain's temporary presidency of the G8 group of leading industrial countries to "bring about a radical change of direction" in development policy.

Case studies in a report from the aid agency illustrate the costs of what the group termed the "free-market credo": in India, the crop farmers are driven to suicide; in Ghana, it has crushed poultry producers and threatened democratic institutions; and in Jamaica, sugar cane production has plummeted, sending women into drug-running and prostitution.

When the IMF and World Bank stepped in to help India in 1991, they encouraged the government to devalue the rupee in an attempt to boost exports, while farmers were told to produce cash crops for export, such as cotton and sugar, at the expense of staple crops such as rice and wheat.

But the move pushed farmers into debt as they borrowed money to buy essentials, while state subsidies were cut.

Meanwhile, liberal banking reforms meant that interest rates grew unchecked, making it harder to get loans and easier to have property seized when farmers could not pay back debts.

Emphasis on exports, of both cash crops and staple foods, led to a sharp decline in food stocks for domestic consumption and increased hunger at home, Christian Aid said.

"So debt rises, heaping misery on poor farmers to such an extent that many take what they see as the only way out: suicide," the report concludes.

In the state of Andhra Pradesh, suicide rose from 200 in 1999 to 2115 last year. Almost 4400 suicides have been recorded since 1998, according to the report.

2005-04-12T12:19:00.000+10:00

For a recent example of enterpise culture going bad, check out cuttingedgeconservation

2005-03-04T13:15:00.000+11:00

yeh learn to show some respect for Authority you old 60's reactionaries - good on ya King Charles and Mary.

2005-03-04T13:00:00.000+11:00

Practical people from the old world would be agast at the way modern polys fall for simple ideas .
That rebel Saul and old greek and roman thinker ,for example , after writing about
revolutionary paradigms restated the old adage of his forebears that Governments, whether we like it or not , believe it not. ( according to Romans 13:1) have very special status above business .
Those heretics who want it otherwise need to remember the consequences of their simplicities in promoting greed ,cringe mentalities , corruption, singlemindedness and woosiness .
Anyone who wants to revolutionise or destroy western civilization as we know it better not ignore the effect of that simple principle widely adopted andaccepted for thousands of years---

2005-01-07T14:06:00.000+11:00

Armchair rhetoric in new "business knows best" lounges can't believe the plebs are so unaccepting of their brilliance on matters of new judicial process.- it may be more efficient, but is it just . Clearly many don't even know they are undermining justice with such shortcuts !
Take this eg from QLD
The guilt of a person accused of a vegetation clearing offence under the VMA is determined not by a court but by an official. (The judicial trials mandated by Division 3 have no application to vegetation clearing offences under the VMA). If an authorised officer issues a compliance notice, a failure to comply without a reasonable excuse results in an automatic penalty. (Maximum of 1665 penalty units or $ 116,550 - s.55) The innocuous term ‘compliance notice’ masks what is actually a straightforward conviction and sentence without trial.

The greatest evil is being done in the name of the environment .
Adrress the issue before sound environemental gains get thrown into the "too hard basket" see dogood blogspot and nreplanners

2004-06-25T11:29:00.000+10:00

tangle of public and private interests with few effective rules
at last! ---From The Age yesterday
"The NGO phenomenon, if taken too far, constitutes a challenge to
representative systems and traditional political accountability," Johns and ....argue "The collection of all possible NGOs does not constitute
public opinion."
The result is a form of government much different to a generation ago, and a
tangle of public and private interests with few effective rules of
accountability. It is time there were.
Gregory Hywood is a former editor-in-chief of The Age.

the next step forward means knowing where the distraction towards the precipice occurred

2004-06-11T20:07:00.000+10:00

From "someone is responsible" to "somebody" ( you know that bloke!) is responsible.
J Ellul summed up our dilemma a long time ago. Time our leaders consulted him .
IF there is to be a new effective move back to governing with efficency-
FIRST Recognise the realities -we have gone full circle within a decade from quangos to quangos..We did'nt really move at all? Worse we have manged to slip from the efficient "someone is responsible" to "some bodies..is responsible".Sir Humphrey never been happier ?
SECOND Apply the KISS principle- democracy has worked well for a long time in some quite specific cultural paradigms - It doesn't need rocket science . Ditch what Ellul might have called the blunt tools of the "technological society " -its worship of change!

THIRD don't ask them, ask us !

2004-06-04T13:53:00.000+10:00

Democracy may not be business but what is it? According to the new courtiers Government is not even planning anymore - see below Maybe noone in canberra believes anything anymore? partly explains the left-right march on both sides?
Chandran Kukathas CIS lecture this week

"The folly of central planning, in the end, Hayek tried to show, was not simply that it spelt economic disaster but that it corrupted the body politic. The danger was not economic planning as such but the planning mentality. Today, the ideal of economic planning, if not quite dead, is a limping dinosaur. But central planning itself is alive and well, and its corrupting effects are everywhere to be found, though they are seldom noticed. Hayek, more than anyone, can still help us see this"

2004-05-14T09:37:00.000+10:00

Isn't it great how Labour and Liberals are in such a smoochy mood over economic policy - the invisible clothes haven't looked any better for years!. http:/users.gsat.net.au/ tuf

Like birds in a cage they sing the same tune, wondering why the people in regional areas don't want to vote for either of them . Maybe its a cage of their own making , a god or their own creation? The real test is - is it working to make the taxpayers dollar go further!

2004-05-07T13:58:00.000+10:00

How come it talks to us about efficiency and gets away with playing high and mighty on a subject its not accountable for ?

2004-05-07T12:41:00.000+10:00

Competition policy is going to be the biggest budget blower of this century . Great looking clothes, but as thin as the the paper they produce is thick . Great that the Feds have now got an enquiry into it . Get your submissions in - or send some see for eg http:/ourland3.tripod.com/submissionsnow.htm

2004-03-08T23:56:00.000+11:00

Great to see CPR assocaition form -hope it will be the start of something much bigger . shke the comfortable out of their cosy caomplacency over competeition policy . "The CPR holds real concerns in a number of areas –

-A proliferation of new liquor licences and increased problems with alcohol abuse;
-Diminished professional services in rural areas;
-An undermining of professional accountability;
Compromised patient care in the dental, optical and pharmaceutical areas;
-A deterioration in customer service and duty of care, including erosion of standards of responsible service of alcohol;
The destruction of small family owned and family run businesses.

2004-02-18T07:14:00.000+11:00

Don't know about you, but I've seen in my lifetime in environmental health care, an increasingly unstable and ineffective balance between the accountable and the accountants .
There has got to be a better way for retaining the levels of efficiency of service in government that were more common in decades past .