Sgt Hulka Uncut

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Archive for category Other Topics

We need to have a chat about Syria

Aug 29

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Evil Motherfuckers, International, Other Topics, Politics | Comments off

Hey, I was downtown at the Senate Forum last night, but didn’t get to share my view on what action we should take in Syria to counter the abominable response by the worst candidate I have met for election to the Senate this cycle, Sue Lines (LAB).

See, the Labor government is now ready to rush to support military intervention in Syria, and Sue attempted to pull our heart strings with ‘I am not sure the children of Syria can wait for the UN or the Australian Parliament to deliberate’.

Once again, a government with no real answers is ready to dance to the tune of the US or Britain with respect to military strikes that will do more damage, be indiscriminate in their effect (surgical strikes, my arse). Like the Coalition before them, then aren’t willing to do the hard work for years, then rush to some populist travesty in order to prove they are doing something.

Now I care as much about human beings as the the next guy, but we didn’t get here in a couple months in Syria, lots of people are already dead or dying, and unfortunately many more are to come, regardless if military action is taken now or not. If you want to do something about genocide, you need to support a change in the definition of the term by the UN, and to put fast action triggers in the UN plan for addressing it when it raises its ugly head. Addressing issues like this with violence in the short term is virtually never effective, doesn’t really save that many lives in the overall scheme of things, and leads to problems of regime change and occupation (who do you support amongst the dozens of rebel groups? Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Druze, Christian, etc?). You can only grow a representative democracy, not impose it, and this is a country that has had more than 40 years of dictatorship, since Assad’s old man Hafez used to compete with the Shah over the title of Most Evil Motherfucker on the Planet.

You want real short term action. How about the NSA using its powers for good instead of evil for a change? How about the NSA publish all it knows on Syria in as transparent a fashion as possible, and keep at it worldwide through all its available propaganda organs? Frankly, that will scare the shit out of all of us, including the Assad regime if they know that they will get no safe harbour anywhere unless they immediately surrender to the International Court of Justice. We can also continue to press the General Council and the Security Council to take joint action as and when we can get it through. Prepare for humanitarian assistance to refugees in neighbouring countries, and do what we can to ameliorate the worst of the negative effects.

That’s reality, and what we should be pursuing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a complete pacifist wuss, and I have a long history here of appropriate use of the dogs of war, but we ain’t there yet.

Even Paul Krugman misses the point

Jun 11

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Economics, Evil Motherfuckers, Good Ideas, International | Comments off

Memo to America, but with lessons for lots of people everywhere. How to kick start your way out of a liquidity trap, by focusing on a root cause. First a definition from Krugman from his very good article on Japan this morning: Liquidity Trap

“But all of this is totally irrelevant to our current situation, where inflation is running below target, the target is too low anyway, and the reason we have mass unemployment is that there just isn’t enough demand, and hence there just aren’t enough jobs, no matter how desperately people search for them.”

But he should finish the point and say why the economy could fail in the manner that it did, and stopped where it did to begin the great recession: the rich took all the fucking money! Or at least they took enough of it already that they caused the liquidity problem that the middle class has right now, which is why that 70% of the economy is not driving the production that keeps all the yanks (and plenty of others) in jobs with ever spiralling wage rises (hopefully based on productivity gains, but that is another story).

See, I’m not a Nobel prize winning economist, or even in the profession by training, but I can still see the whole system of an economy linked together in a synchronistic way. One man’s debt is another man’s credit and all that. Have a good read of Matt Taibbi and Michael Lewis on the con that was perpetrated, and still is going on, but here’s my take on the cause and effect. The rich (banks in particular) tricked the middle class in America into getting in over their head with debt in often a fraudulent manner (I’m look right at you Countrywide) and lot’s of common people did not have enough sense to realise the risk. And the rich took the middle class for their last dollar in debt because remember the context; this is after the slow fall since about 1979 in wage gains by people making a wage. Almost all productivity gains in those decades went to the suppliers of capital to the equation (and not labour or true innovation), and resulted in a significant increase in the concentration of wealth at the top. Look it up, that is published economic fact. So the middle class buying power has been falling for decades, and they supported the demand they were creating artificially with household debt. Then the trigger point and the house of cards all falls in, and even giants like AIG are proven to be fools and criminals (yet strangely enough, none go to jail).

Now the rich will make a show of how fraud was insignificant (or lie, in common language), and how there is just cause for the gains made in the 1%, but that is just maskirovka; the real gains were made in the 1% of the 1% (or 0.1%). And in that club, for every Steve Jobs, I will show you 10 Gina Reinhart’s, greedy opportunists that turned a whopping great big fortune into an immensely whopping great fortune through no real skill or innovation of their own. Parasites that then even turn on their children and deny them their probabilistic right to the spoils that they also did not earn.

But I don’t want to get off on a rant here, and back to my point. With the middle class in (now bad) debt up to their eyeballs, low and falling wages relative to their productivity input, and no one who will loan them any more money for a hand up to get something started even if they were entrepreneurial, where the fuck is aggregate demand going to come from to move the economy along? The 70% ain’t got it, and the 0.1% ain’t spending it. That’s your cause, and your trigger point for the GFC. But it also suggests the solution to get things moving again. Find a way to get some money back into the hands of the people who actually buy the vast amount of goods and services in the economy in the short term (and then we will get to countering over concentration of wealth in the mid term).

Wouldn’t you think that at times like these, when the US government can borrow any vast sum of money it wants without raising interest rates from basically 0%, that it might make a good plan for the government to do major maintenance on its infrastructure? Note here, I am not talking build a lot of pork barrel shit that doesn’t go anywhere, but why not fill some of the pot holes near the CBD of some major cities that you could drive a VW into, or I don’t know, upgrade your electricity transmission network and solve your greenhouse gas problem at the same time. Do some thinking on it, and you will come up with of a number of decent ideas for shovel ready projects to improve productivity, reliability and innovation of US infrastructure.

Otherwise, you can do the alternate plan: go beg those like Gina to buy more jewel encrusted golden backscratchers and hope that form of is demand enough to base a modern economy on.

Happy Birthday Paul Krugman

Feb 28

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Economics, Good Ideas, Other Topics | Comments off

His birthday should be recognised as the second most important in Feb after J Willard Gibbs, of course.

If you have been living under a rock and not read his regular an repeated thesis about New Keynesian economic theory, and operation of macroeconomics through the GFC, Great Recession, and current asinine austerity being pursued, do yourself a favour and read his book, or blog.

He makes me wish I had taken economics and not chemical engineering as a degree on a regular basis in the last several years.

They asked, and I said I would, so . . .

Jan 29

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Good Ideas, Other Topics, Politics | Comments off

. . . so I started a State Petition in Montana to challenge Citizens United. And I am supposed to publicise the link on all my portals, so here it is Challenge Citizen’s United Decision

Let’s see if anyone is listening in.

Fantastic food for thought

Jan 10

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Economics, Good Ideas, Other Topics | Comments off

Take the time to read this 27 page summary of the discussion of 4 prominent economists with regard to the appropriate responses to the economic problems to the world economies at present, and what they have learned since the GFC. Three thoughts come to mind following my review of this article:

1. Thanks for the internet. I am grateful each and every day that I have access in nearly real time to the output of really great researchers and thinkers that would be unimaginable. I am still very disappointed that I never had the opportunity to go to UC San Diago, Princeton or someplace like that, but having access to the information coming of of these places through the internet really is almost like being there.

2. I found myself laughing out loud 3 times in the reading. Maybe this shouldn’t be as surprising to me as it is. These are smart people, and the basis of humour is intelligence, and making a point through humour is an effective way to make an argument. But getting a good laugh 3 times in a 27 page summary of the deliberations of a conference on macroeconomics was a pleasant surprise.

3. I think that Valerie Ramey may be on to something truly insightful through her studies. What if the US is being significantly hindered in its ability to come out of the recession caused by the GFC due to aggregate demand loss caused by a combination of the inefficiency of its private health system in conjunction with the behavioural response of people to the shock of the GFC (e.g. spending less, saving more and preparing for things to get worse rather than better). What if they are really willing to take less and be less mobile in their employment decisions due to the fear over loss of health care coverage? Isn’t structural reform of health care in the US (particularly a single payer system) then one of the best things that could be done with respect to stimulus OR efficiency, whether you are a salt water or freshwater economist?

Rational gun control, unless it’s too late

Jan 4

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Good Ideas, Other Topics, Politics | Comments off

So, I think I have the gun control issue partly solved in the USA, if anyone is still listening, but possibly not.

I actually asked my buddy Otto whether or not we need to just admit that these kids in Sandy Hook Elementary just don’t mean that much in the overall scheme of things. Isn’t that right, and shouldn’t we just admit that and move on, unless you are really interested in seeing that this sort of thing gets reduced in the USA? Perhaps the statistics above prove that to be true, but direct discussion with gun advocates suggests otherwise. You see, my buddy Otto is one serious constitution reading libertarian, and he is not interested in giving up any of his guns at all.

And I am with him, to a point. But I see guns in America as another set of dangerous goods that must be managed. We could also have some discussions around just what is required to maintain a “well regulated militia”, how large a magazine, how many of them, and what rate of fire is required, but even if we don’t go there, I have a set of reasonable suggestions that don’t significantly impact on anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights, while making sure that everyone’s rights under the 1st Amendment aren’t jeopardised inadvertently in the move toward an armed camp in the USA. Because I honestly see it that way. I believe that my freedom of movement, association and pursuit of happiness are significantly diminished by having to worry if I am going to get shot trying to enjoy dinner and a movie, go to work, or school.

Through a bit of reading, and further discussions with Otto, I think I have an answer that appeals to the right, left, up and down in politics with a significant enough plurality amongst all that it works: personal responsibility. It’s always a good time in America to have a chat about personal responsibility, as it seems to be the answer to a number of the ills there, and everyone initially says they are all for it. The religious love it, despite the fact that they go all moral on you. The left can come to support it, because it finally gives them a chance to hold someone in power to account. And the right love it, because it has an emotional appeal to their both authoritarian and libertarian sides. The only people who couldn’t support it are the mentally defective, who by definition can’t be held personally responsible, so who gives a shit what they think.

Here’s how gun control works based on personal responsibility. Guns are a dangerous good that (peculiarly) if used as intended or not can cause the death of people, animals and some potentially significant property damage. They are also required to be available in the population to allow for the forming of militias to overthrow a despotic government, should that come to pass. In order for the government to unsure the maintenance of this potential to removal of itself by force, we need to know what the numbers are, and ensure that there is sufficient distribution and numbers that they can be called to use (I assume by the States individually) to overthrow the federal government. So the States really need the information, but what we really want to focus on is personal responsibility, so we need not write much regulation, that way the law can be cost efficiently implemented, and also generate some friendly competition in service providers for the information.

The law will say this: If you want own a gun in the future, you will be required to register it’s storage location with your state police, and commit to storing and maintaining it in a safe and secure manner. You are personally responsible for the safety and security of your firearm to prevent its being used by anyone who cannot be held personally responsible for its use in the killing of any human inadvertently or with malevolent intent, or in the negligent or wilful killing or damage to any property, unless that killing or damage is found to be lawful through a jury trial. That’s it. It’s also pretty much already law in most jurisdictions in the USA, following the implementation of registration.

You are already responsible if your 7 year old child takes your car and runs down a grandmother during a joy ride, or uses your gun to shoot 10-15 sheep on your neighbour’s property for sport. The only reason I want to make sure you register your gun is so that I can hold you responsible in the event you don’t maintain your dangerous good in a fashion that is safe and secure, and you have tons of leeway in defining “safe and secure” in your particular situation, because there is going to be no “prior restraint” in the implementation of my law. No one is going to be around to check, and no standards are going to be published to define “safe and secure” for you. If you make your guns kept for home protection, hunting or whatever safe and secure such that they are never used in a killing by your children through education or sheer intimidation, great. If you use a trigger lock, safe or concealment to secure your guns, cool. Whatever you want to do, you decide. And if a person breaks into your house, steals your .45 from under your pillow and commits a murder later, we aren’t going to hold you civilly or criminally responsible for his criminal acts. But if you are going to raise a sociopath, psychopath or a person who cannot control their anger, and they get ahold of your gun and use it to kill a bunch of people, you will likely have to pay, and potentially be held criminally responsible for gross negligence. So, you might want to consider some disaster insurance if you want to own an assault rifle and a dozen clips of ammo, or even an automatic weapon, which by the way I am pretty much OK with under my new legal regime. Just be fucking responsible.

Unless they refuse to register their guns, the only time the average gun owner is going to have any brush up against the law is forensically in the investigation of homicide, just like they are now, and even identification of the recalcitrants will be through forensic investigation, as there is no need for proactive audit or inspections. 2nd Amendment supporters are often quick to site how rare the cases of a person who cannot be held responsible is responsible for significant killing, so there should be almost imperceptible impact to those people. If you fail to register your guns and they are identified forensically, but not in relation to a killing or significant damage incident, you will be required to register them at that time and face some administrative penalty. In the cases where an unregistered gun is identified in the course of a criminal investigation, it will be forfeited, registered by the police and recycled for some beneficial use or materials.

For those paranoid of registration, let this be some comfort. Any incremental damage done by this perceived encroachment on your 2nd Amendment Rights is far offset by the benefit of the elimination of incidents like Sandy Hook, Aurora, the temple, Virgina Tech and Columbine. Because those incidents all involve damage to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all those involved as victims. And in my world 1 comes before 2, especially if I can prove no significant reduction in 2 through regulation of my well organised militia.

Sure, but what have you done for us lately?

Jan 4

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Economics, International, Other Topics, Politics, Science | Comments off

So, how’d we do in our predictions? And will I be foolish enough to publish a few more?

Well, as predictors go, I’m no Nate Silver. But that would require a devotion to pure math I just ain’t got.

On the other hand, I predict multiple things, so you know, its harder to hold up a record.

Anyway, on to the specifics:

• The carbon tax will end up being a non-issue, or even net positive to the Gillard government with the electorate when it comes into effect on 1 July.

Spot on.

• Kevin Rudd will not successfully challenge Julia Gillard to take over leadership of the Labor Party.

Spot on, and although only three weeks out, I wish I had tried to find a bet on it.

• Europe is already in a recession, and when they finally do the numbers after the fact, it will be a big one. My guess is a drop in GDP in the Euro zone of 3% and a duration of 2 years. Keynesian economic theory will win out in the argument over austerity or stimulus, but the Germans (and others) who want to paint the sovereign debt issues in Europe as a morality tale will realise this way to late, or refuse to admit it at least.

Still in the running, with all the timely stuff spot on, and the Germans are actually still taking that line.

• Greece will default on its sovereign debt after failing to come to an agreement with its lenders and failing to get assistance from the European Central Bank (due to the point above) and will therefore leave the euro and reintroduce its own currency so that it can devalue it in order to address its problem as an alternative to the austerity program being pushed on it (that cannot work in any case).

Nope. Maybe still this year, but it depends on what the Greek government is forced to propose next, and whether protest on the streets and escalation ensues.

• The USA will escape any serious damage from the european sovereign debt crisis and have surprisingly good growth in 2012 of about 2% of GDP.

Well, the final numbers for 2012 aren’t in, but when they are this is going to be spot on or near enough to.

• Barack Obama will be re-elected as President in the USA over Mitt Romney.

Oh, I rock, spot on. This one is particularly satisfying as I did manage to get a bet on this one, and I had the economy predicted right in the first place.

• Synaptor apps will be one of the biggest internet successes of the year in Australia

Dead wrong. Many problems with the market, the market fit, schedule, etc. Still technologically very good, and the next app is nearing release that should have more broad appeal.

OK, so let’s see if I have nay predictions for 2013. I really don’t have any big shocking ones, as it isn’t like 2012, when there seemed to be a lot of important things coming up that could change history.

Well, I shouldn’t say that, as we will likely have a Federal election in August, or soon after. This government will very much want to pick its time, and will need all the luck it can find to overcome the many stumbles and own-goals of 2012, which distracts from a pretty solid policy output. This government, on balance, deserves to be returned at this point, but only just on balance. If they fuck up even one seriously important thing from this point on, then its the Mad Monk for us for sure.

Economically, I think we have to bank on things getting better, albeit slowly. Australia should have at target, or just below GDP growth. Mining investment may be on the wane, but mining income from its investments will be ok to good, depending on how much growth we see in China on a recovering price. But the continuing recovery will not be wild, and I don’t think the Sydney market is going to go through the roof. Or Perth. Maybe New York, late in the year once any Sandy stimulus is finally passed and works its way into that market.

The US is going to go on at or just below target GDP growth, maybe 2-2.5% growth. It will be constrained by links to Europe, and its own dabbling with austerity when the fight over the debt ceiling raise occurs in 2 months. Keep some money in the bank to make some good buys in the market during that time of uncertainty, as there are likely to be anxious sellers of good value based on how bad the noise of that argument gets, despite the fact that we all know how it will come out. The debt ceiling will get raised to cover the money already committed by the US House in legislation and will not default in any actual way on its debt. Virtually nothing will happen to US interest rates even if any of the ratings agencies bother to lower their ratings during the manufactured crisis. I mean, do we take anything these venal idiots seriously anymore anyway? The US stock market will take a hit and be volatile then, but will recover and have a good to very good year. Who knows in the Australian market, and it’s pretty boring anyway.

The ECB will, as quietly as possible, start carrying out its actions in a manner that is consistent with a belief in keynesian economics, and also act as the lender of last resort as required, to keep the euro alive.

It’s going to be another very cool year in science, from NASA to to the Halron Collider, but I have no predictions there.

Transplant is likely a misnomer

Mar 26

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Evil Motherfuckers, International, Politics | Comments off

I understand that Dick Cheney’s operation has opened up the debate about whether he got special treatment or moved up the donors list.

I can tell you that while he may have used influence to get the kids heart (probably with lots of his blood while you are there), he certainly deserved it more than most on the list because he didn’t have one to begin with.

There’s a difference between cunning and intellegence

Mar 21

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Economics, Evil Motherfuckers, Other Topics, Science | Comments off

So, the Minerals Rent Tax has made it through the Senate and will become law on 1 July 2012, delivering a 30% tax on the wealth dug out of OUR ground by a few to make THEM bazillions. And despite the likely legal challenges from Twiggy on a constitutional basis that are unlikely to hold water {cough cough, petroleum rent tax at 40%}, the law is likely to hold. And fair enough. There is certainly nothing wrong with all of Australia sharing in the wealth of minerals we all own, and nothing unfair in taxation that is drawn from wealth that is currently being generated in Western Australia versus the more populous eastern states. Remember that it was only up until the very recent past that Western Australia wasn’t supported annually through sharing wealth of the east over here. You didn’t hear anything about unfairness of taxation from the sand-gropers when their schools and roads were all being subsidised by the folks out east. Remember, we may need them again when the boom goes bust, because the GDP in Australia is still primarily generated in NSW and VIC, despite the current mining boom (ref. Wikipedia)

Screen shot 2012-03-21 at 7.51.25 AM

But so as not to miss out on the news cycle that reported the Minerals Rent Tax, one of the current new developments that he is not suing anyone over, Clive Palmer instead waded into the conspiracy theory market, accusing Greenpeace of being funded by the CIA to undermine Australian coal exports. He’s already backing off the statements made, as he is demonstrably full of shit, but I bet the retractions don’t make the national radio and TV like the first assertions did. Funny that.

Now if Clive was really worried about a conspiracy of foreigners trying to shape the debate here in Australia, he would watch a bit of Media Watch and then look into the funding of the fluffy sounding Australian Environment Foundation, and Australian Climate Science Coalition. What he would see is that virtually all the funding coming from German and US agrichemical companies and the American Climate Science Coalition. The AEF and CSC promote views that are based on climate change denial from the US and have an agenda on the Murray Darling Basin that are not in the public interest as much as they are in the interest of the agrichemicals industry. Also very funny that.

Pity none of the networks that take statements from the AEF point out these connections when they are basically reading off the AEF’s media releases to meet their story deadlines, or that Clive isn’t railing on the TV about them.

Now I acknowledge that a lot of these super rich mining magnates got there by their own skill and hard work, but an equal number got there by coming from a life of privilege, their connections and inheritance, or simply making a big pile of money a huge pile of money by turning the handle on machine already invented for them.

That’s cunning, not intelligence. So the next time you are at something that Clive is presenting at, feel free to call him out on his bullshit, as you are more likely than not to win the argument. He has all the intellectual depth of a carpark puddle, and is possibly also going burko.

Measures of devotion

Feb 22

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Evil Motherfuckers, Good Ideas, Politics, Science | 5 Comments

An update on my post from Monday. Today we find out that Peter H. Gleick, founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security is the person that duped the Heartland Institute into releasing a number of its confidential documents regarding its funding and plans to attempt to refute the science of climate change and counter or attack those that believe in the scientific method and the weight of evidence in favour of the arguments regarding anthropogenic climate change.

The links to the above go to the Boards of the two organisations above so that readers can do their own research where it matters, at the top of the organisations. I encourage interested parties to also look further into the funding of both, as that information is as illuminating of the agendas of the two groups as anything published on their websites.

Based on his admission, Peter Gleick will now almost certainly face the full force of the best law money can buy from his adversaries, and the truth is that he should. He obtained the confidential information he released through deception, as he has admitted in his statement published by the Huffington Post. If that is a criminal act, or breaks a civil code, he should be tried, convicted and sentenced appropriately. However, that will not diminish the substance of what he collected, as was covered in my previous post.

In the progress of whatever trial ensues, we will find out for sure which of the documents are real and which are fake, as Heritage has claimed both. But you can’t have it both ways, either the documents are genuine and therefore the alleged theft substantive, or they are fake and there is essentially no case to answer.

Perhaps Peter Gleick wants it that way so that his legal journey is well publicised. If that is the case, it will be a demonstration of one of the only real ways to counter the climate deniers. Because the truth is that the climate deniers are funded by phenomenally rich arseholes and corporations they control, and the likes of the Pacific Institue and DeSmogBlog are funded on a pittance in comparison. The only thing the latter have to provide a balance to the war chest of the evil are the scientific facts being on their side and their devotion to the scientific method. I hope that the measure of devotion that Peter Gleick is demonstrating ends up being worth it to him, and worth all the money that Heritage can scrounge together to fund their side of the story to unfold.