Don't Confuse Common Sense With Bigotry

If a 24 year old, reasonably attractive, white, Western woman began an internet “relationship” with a fat, 63 year old, financially comfortable white man, should he be suspicious of her intentions?

If a 24 year old, reasonably attractive, white, Western man began an internet “relationship” with a fat, 63 year old, financially comfortable white woman, should she be suspicious of his intentions?

Even a cursory understanding of humanity would say yes.

Now, if a 24 year old, reasonably attractive, black, Nigerian man began an internet “relationship” with a fat, 63 year old, financially comfortable white woman, should she be suspicious of his intentions?

Of course! No racial or cultural profiling required … just a modicum of common sense.

The fact that there is a comparatively high incidence of young, West African men targeting older, Western women via the internet is a cultural issue. This income generating meme has spread quickly around West Africa. Western women seem to believe a poor, young African man will be more likely to want them. Perhaps they are also attracted to the “exotic” nature of the “romance”. However, the race of the man is not relevant to estimating the probability the approach is a scam if the age of the woman is much greater: any young man who strikes up a “romantic” internet relationship with a much older woman almost certainly has motives other than romance. Asking for money confirms the hypothesis.

If a foreign man or woman begins an internet relationship with someone in their own age bracket, the strongest predictor of whether they are genuine or instead after money or an immigration sponsor is the economic health of their country. If someone can’t look up GDP statistics, then the person’s race is a predictor of both the economy of their nation and many of its cultural practices. Note that I’m not saying race is a cause of these, but being highly correlated, it is a strong predictor.

So, if you’re younger than mid 30’s and get an approach on a dating site from a foreigner, if they’re from a poor country, don’t be naively pushed by leftist cant into thinking: “I shouldn’t be racist. They might be a nice person.” No they’re not. They’re a grifter. Their race doesn’t make them thus: it’s their poverty.

If you’re a bit older (particularly if you’re no oil painting) and get an approach from someone significantly younger, they are after at least your money and if they’re a foreigner, a permanent residency visa … almost certainly.

Yes, sometimes older men marry women significantly younger than themselves and yes, sometimes these relationships even last many years. But really, these women are for the most part either glorified prostitutes like Rose Porteous and Anna Nicole Smith or seem to have some kind of need for a father figure, like perhaps Brynne Edelsten or Kristy Hinze, although her husband, Jim Clark is the billionaire founder of Netscape, so she could possibly fall into both categories.

The father figure type of relationship can be lasting and genuinely fulfilling for both. However, there is nowhere near sufficient symmetry in men’s and women’s sexuality to make the induction that a woman 30 odd years older can have a lasting, sexual relationship with a young man unless she’s paying him in some way. He might have mummy issues, but they are probably not the kind which make a successful relationship. As a rule, heterosexual women are attracted to masculine power. Heterosexual men aren’t so attracted to feminine power, although there are exceptions eg Seven of Nine. Additionally, men tend not to see much older women as powerful, even if they are successful (they see single ones as lonely and hence vulnerable).

Knowing the above does not require a degree in psychology or a masterful grasp of human relations; just normal, adult experience. It’s common fucking sense.

I feel sorry for Jette Jacobs, being murdered in South Africa in humiliating circumstances, apparently by her Nigerian internet “lover”, whom she had traveled there to meet. According to news reports, they had “known” each other for 4 years, corresponding online and even meeting in South Africa in 2010. She had also sent him at least $80,000 during this time.

Her recent, fateful trip to South Africa was to meet her “lover”, Jesse Orowo Omokoh. One report suggested she believed they would marry.

Even if he did marry her, he’d have been off like a shot as soon as he got his Australian citizenship … or more likely, he’d have divorced her and attempted a claim on some of her assets.

It’s very sad and I feel for the family, having their mother the centerpiece of such a sordid episode. But shouldn’t mentally competent adults be expected to have sufficient common sense not to allow themselves to be led into such obvious scams?

Ultimately, it is not a liberal state’s role to save its citizens from themselves.

What was Jette Jacobs thinking? Did she really think he loved her? Was attracted to her? What did she think would happen after they married?

She might have been a warm, interesting, generous person, but look at her picture. She’s a fat, old lady. Young men don’t fuck fat, old women unless paid.

When a much older man begins a “relationship” with a young woman, he is often viewed as a fool and she a prostitute, especially is she hails from an impoverished country. Some older men don’t care and are happy to have a mistress. Godd luck to them if their eyes are open.

There is no reason why older women shouldn’t do the same, as long as they also keep their eyes open. But Jette Jacobs didn’t.

If you’re an older woman who isn’t in the best shape and get an approach from a much younger man on the internet, try this reality check:

Take off your clothes and stand in front of the mirror. What do you see?

A fat, old bag. Maybe a nice, kindly woman, with a lot of love to give, but nonetheless, in sexual terms, a fat, old bag.

Absent a mental condition, no young man will want to fuck you for free. If he tells you he loves you, it’s not true. Recall the cliché of the sad, lonely, middle aged man who pathetically falls for a prostitute and is then emotionally crushed as he is fleeced and discarded? That’s you, but with a Y chromosome.

Remember Jette Jacobs and don’t confuse common sense with bigotry.

Everybody Notice Me ... I Posted A Picture Of A Guy Looking At Porn To Twitter

So you spotted someone in a neighbouring office watching porn at his desk and called all your colleagues to the window to have a look and a laugh. Well, James P, you’re the hero of your office today.

Now you probably feel even more noticed ie. less insignificant, because you’ve put it up on Twitter.

Tomorrow, you’ll go back to being the try hard dork you’ve always been; the adult version of the kid at school who dobbed people in for looking at a porno mag in the bushes or smoking in the dunnies or pissing on the teachers’ cars (and then got bashed).

The guy is certainly an idiot for looking at porn at his desk with an open window behind him. But does he deserve to get the sack (which he probably will when identified)?

That’s the difference between showing a few colleagues and enjoying a communal laugh (which is normal) and being a sad, little attention craving dork and putting it up on Twitter. Now you’ve succeeded in making the guy the next few days’ internet “must watch”, he’ll probably be exposed and fired.

Good work, you sad, little cunt. He’s probably got a wife, kids and a mortgage.

Despite the dishonest and self serving media rants, this is why we need a tort of privacy, to which the defence should be the same test as for defamation: the publication is both true and in the public interest.

This matter would be a reasonable test case. The man was certainly looking at porn at work. But is it in the public interest to know?

It’s almost certainly a breach of his employment contract, but so is stealing stationery, or even using eBay. Is it really in the public interest to know any of these things? Would it affect any reasonable person’s willingness to do business with the company? If not, then one could argue it’s not in the public interest to publish the photo on Twitter.

To argue that the matter is already public domain because several people in a neighbouring office were already watching is not reasonable: putting photos on the internet is orders of magnitude more severe exposure. One could equally argue that because a celebrity goes topless on a yacht and someone else sails past and sees it, it’s automatically OK to splash pictures of her across the internet and every tabloid newspaper.

In his article on the porn watcher, news.com.au’s Matt Young contrived to describe the man’s actions as “an occupational health and safety issue”. Really? How so?

Sounds like news.com.au is trying to establish a flimsy defence against any future privacy complaint.

A more likely OH&S issue would be co-workers slipping on the cum dribbling out of Matt Young’s arse.

I considered whether I should write about this matter at all, thus further exposing the person. I suspect by the time a significant number of people read this post (if that ever occurs), the damage will have been long done.

Better to spread the message that James P is an attention seeking, little twat who deserves his own picture on Twitter … of him sniffing his mother’s panties, or putting Lego up his arse, or whatever he gets up to.

How True #1

I don't think much more than this needs to be said.

A High Tipping Culture Transfers Risks To Labour Which Should Be Borne By Capital

Americans like to make the argument that tipping engenders good service and that without a significant at risk component to remuneration, employees in the service sectors will lack the incentive to do anything beyond that which keeps them from getting fired. Additionally, a tipping culture allows low minimum wages, which helps create employment.

An alternative view is that an employment structure in which tipping constitutes a high proportion of income, possibly even the majority, transfers to labour risks which should be borne by capital and does not lower costs for customers. It creates excessively low minimum wage expectations and precedents which partly flow to other sectors and erodes the work ethic by creating a gouging mentality in both employers and employees.

One problem with tipping in the US is that expectations seem to have increased over time, to the point where the expected amount is excessive. Expectations also seem to vary across the country.

I went there in the early 1990's and was told 10 - 15% was a good tip for a restaurant. I went back in 2004, gave a 15% tip and got a funny look. I thought I was doing the right thing. It was only when I asked a bartender about it the next evening that I discovered 20% is now normal for good service.

A very low minimum wage of $2.13 an hour plus an expectation of 20% tips is an underhanded way for the employer to pass a significant part of the business risk back onto their employees. Even though US law is that the employer must make up the difference if tips are not sufficient to raise the total remuneration to $7.25 per hour, that is still a very low wage, certainly well below what most employees would expect (and need).

Bad service can hurt a business, but businesses which have good service can also suffer declines in customers and revenue. These are sometimes a result of the economy, but often primarily due to poor management.

The point is that in service industries such as restaurants and bars, where staff are not expected to actively develop the business as a salesman on commission would be, income volatility is a business risk which should be borne by capital. Labour do bear some of the risk due to the possibility of layoffs, however they should not be expected to bear continuous income volatility without participating in capital growth.

Sales jobs typically have low guaranteed income components and significant commissions. But this high proportion of at risk remuneration is reasonable because sales people are expected to actively develop the business as part of their jobs.

Suppose a restaurant has less customers, as AppleBee's probably will now, due to a boycott. That's ultimately the fault of management. But it's the staff who suffer by being paid less because there are less customers to give them tips in the first place.

Even if a restaurant is well patronised, that is no guarantee the expected tip for good service will result in the expected income for staff. There will always be dickheads who won't tip anywhere near 20%, even for good service. There will be foreigners who do not know how much tip is expected. So, the staff aren’t receiving the intended remuneration.

Why should the staff experience volatility of income due to forces outside their control? How does this help maintain a stable society, when employees can’t pay their rent or telephone bill because no customers came into the restaurant, or the few who did were stingy?

A large, expected tipping percentage does not decrease costs for customers. If employees are receiving $20 per hour, with $17 of that coming from tips, the customers are effectively paying their wages via the 20% added to their bills. Higher wages and lower tips would result in the same total bill.

Additionally, tips being a high proportion of wages encourages staff to try to get the customer out as quickly as possible, to maximise the number of tipping customers during the shift. That helps the business owner, but detracts from the customer experience. A good system if you believe restaurants exist solely to make money for the owner and staff, rather than for people to enjoy a dining experience.

Some make the argument that restaurant staff shouldn’t complain about a low minimum wage / high tip balance because a significant portion of their income is undeclared, so they don’t pay tax on it. But do we really want to structure part of our economy around tax evasion?

Put menu prices up 15%, pay staff a meaningful wage, plus a small tip if service was good. Let the business owner take the financial risk, or else give staff shares in the business commensurate with the risks to which they are being involuntarily enjoined.

A second problem with tipping in the US is that it’s confusing and tiresome, because it's ubiquitous. No one will get off their arse and do their job unless they are given extra, because everyone from the taxi driver to the bartender to the doorman to the maid to the guy operating the lift expects a tip.

For example, a porter's job is to take your bags to your room. Why do they deserve $1 a bag or whatever it is from me as well? Why does the maid get a tip for cleaning my room? Just add in the value of the tips to the cost of the room, pay the porters and maids a liveable wage and get them to do their jobs.

When I was in New York a few years ago, I stayed in a small hotel on 11th St. The porter had a key to operate the lift and WOULD NOT take anyone up or down in it unless they tipped him. Seriously.

Had he leased the lift from the building owner, I could understand.

That's the kind of menial job which should just be paid at minimum wage. If the employee won't do it properly, sack them and hire one of the dozens of other people who would apply.

The problem is that such a system cultivates a gouging mentality, where employers screw employees with low wages and employees screw customers by refusing to do their jobs properly (or at all) unless the customer coughs up extra. It devalues pride in one's work and doing a good job out of respect for yourself and others.

The term “work ethic” means a belief that work of itself creates value: that as well as being an immediate economic addition, it is character building. At the very least, the satisfaction of doing a task well has a positive psychological effect, not just on the person doing the task, but as an example to others. People would not work as volunteers for charities without a work ethic.

What is not part of a work ethic is an attitude of refusing to do any task unless paid, no matter how trivial.

The quid pro quo is that societies which desire the creation and / or reinforcement of a genuine work ethic need a commensurate minimum wage regime. Statutory minimum wages for manual labour and low skilled service jobs must be sufficient that employees can afford the basic necessities of life. They must be at a level which says that society values the work done so it mandates that all full time employees’ non at risk remuneration is sufficient to participate in society.

Why would a person continue to work hard in a free society if their effort did not provide them with sufficient income to participate meaningfully in that society? Conversely, why would many people continue to work hard in a society which catered to their needs, regardless of their output?

A genuine work ethic can only survive in a society which says to its citizens: Do your job well and you will be able to afford rent, food, clothing, utilities … all the necessities of life. Do your job without concern for quality and you’ll lose it, together with your access to the above.

My third point against a high tipping culture is that it creates excessively low minimum wage expectations and precedents which partly flow to other sectors. To prove the flow to other sectors requires an academic paper in economics, so I will simply posit it as a thesis and provide a heuristic argument.

A minimum wage of $7 per hour in Australia or the US is unliveable and thus excessively low. It’s all very well to argue that many of these employees in fact receive much more than this, however if the business has few customers, they may not.

In the US, many non tip jobs have statutory minimum wages which are well below Australia’s.

I was recently watching a Four Corners program on homelessness in the USA post GFC. They interviewed a 52 year old family man who had been laid off from his sales job and eventually found some menial, customer facing role at Disney World in Florida. After 2 years, he had received a promotion, which took his pay from $7.40 to $8.20 an hour. He said he takes home $228 per week after tax. His family pays $149 per week rent in a long stay motel. Even converting at the longer term $US/$AUS currency rate of 75 - 80c, his take home pay is around $A300 per week, after his promotion!

His situation is apparently not unusual. There are many people in the US working for $7.25 per hour with no tips. Would this be possible if US restaurant staff received 5 - 10% tips and $15 per hour?

I’m not saying that all tipping leads to negative outcomes.

In some industries, the possibility of a small gratuity as an incentive gives better outcomes than none. This is only in part due to the financial reward. The tip clearly conveys the sentiment that the customer is happy and the staff have done a good job. The value of such emotional reinforcement versus the financial reward should not be underestimated.

Obvious examples are restaurants and cocktail bars (where they actually bring your drink to your table). Tips work in these industries because of the amount of time staff and customers spend in contact and the scope for enhancing the customer experience with advice, attentiveness, a friendly attitude etc. In Australia, it’s 5 - 10%, depending on how happy you are with the service.

Tips also work in other service industries. I’ll tip the hairdresser if I get a head massage. I’ll tip the taxi driver if I have some suitcases and he loads and unloads them for me. There are more “under the table” tips, such as giving your mechanic a case of beer if he goes out of his way to save you money on parts and overlooks the small crack in the windscreen when your rego is due.

To this last end, even if someone is just pulling beers from the tap, if I’m buying a round and the cost is $18.50, I might give the bartender $20 and say: “Keep it”. I do that to establish a rapport with the bar staff. That’s for two reasons: because I drink there regularly or because I intend on having a few and don’t want to be refused service later in the evening.

But most jobs involve some service component. Why don’t we tip the bus driver? Or the postman and the garbos? Or the polite and knowledgeable employee who spent 20 minutes showing us televisions before we made up our mind? Or the bank manager who made the effort to process our home loan application quickly?

Because that way lies graft and corruption. Very soon, tips will become expected, then required. Wages will fall in real terms and everyone will have to be paid extra just to do their job, which means tax revenue will also fall. Discounts will be available to people who tip, affecting employers’ profit margins and hence taxation revenue and employment. This is how things (don’t) work in many parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Jeremy Fernandez Should Have The Legal Power To Have Thrown His Tormentor Off The Bus Himself

Harking back to “the good old days”, when “things were better” is a common caricature of older right wingers. However, there are some aspects of our society and its rules (written and unwritten) which have definitely degenerated.

It used to be that if a troublemaker began behaving in an aggressive and confrontational manner, at least one bloke present would take it upon themselves to summarily sort the problem out. Moreover, said bloke would have been inculcated with the ethic that the “sorting out” must be proportionate to the trouble.

The specific incident which prompted this post is the racial abuse of ABC newsreader, Jeremy Fernandez on a bus to Marrickville.

What should have happened in a sane, liberal society is this:

The bus driver should have stopped the bus, walked down and asked what was going on. After briefly listening to both sides, anyone with even half a brain could have worked out that Jeremy Fernandez had done nothing wrong and had, in fact shown a level of restraint which many would not.

The driver should have then ordered the woman off the bus. Had she refused to go, he should have physically thrown her off, followed by her two brats. If he didn’t feel comfortable doing that, Jeremy Fernandez or another physically capable passenger should have felt sufficiently confident in the righteousness of their actions to have done it instead.

There were ways to remove the woman from the bus without actually physically throwing her off. For example, pick up her handbag and throw it out the door when the bus stopped. The driver could have said: “I’m driving off now. Whether you want your bag back is up to you.”

Any subsequent complaint by the woman to either the police or Sydney Buses should have resulted in brief interviews with Fernandez and the driver, then the matter deemed closed.

Had the woman refused to get off the bus and no-one felt sufficiently confident to throw her off, at the very least, the driver should have told the woman that he was radioing police to come and meet the bus, then told Fernandez to come and sit near him until then.

What actually happened was this:

The bus driver told Jeremy Fernandez to either move or get off the bus, then told him the situation was his own fault. He did nothing to stop the woman’s harassment of another passenger; he didn’t even report the incident by radio and ask for advice.

The real problem here is that our society has become so infected with a culture of lies, complaint, false victimhood and grifting that law abiding citizens resile from taking appropriate physical action to protect their wellbeing and amenity, for fear of the unpredictable outcome in a bankrupt justice system.

I feel a lot of sympathy for Jeremy Fernandez, being a public figure in that situation. Suppose he had manhandled the scummy bitch off the bus and she subsequently made an assault complaint, plus repeated the allegations about touching her daughter. The police may well have pursued at least the assault. The matter would probably have made the press, where the woman may well have publicly reiterated her dishonest allegations re touching her daughter.

On top of the financial cost of defending himself and the emotional stress to his family, Fernandez’ reputation would have been traduced. Faced with this possibility, he obviously felt sitting there and taking this shit from an absolute dreg of society was preferable. Additionally, no-one else ever wants to get involved, lest they face accusations themselves.

That is not right. Anyone faced with such behaviour should have the legal right to use appropriate physical force to remove or otherwise silence the troublemaker. If they are incapable of defending themselves, any citizen should have the right to step in and do it for them. Citizens should not have their time wasted or their amenity unreasonably curtailed by being required to wait for the police to arrive to deal with minor matters. Nor should they be required to “turn the other cheek”.

That is how society used to see things … and should again. As for physical force against a woman: you lose your right to be “treated like a lady” when you stop behaving like one.

Section 418 2(a) of the NSW Crimes Act deals with self defence. Unfortunately, all it says is that a person may use reasonable force to defend themselves or others. Against what is not clear.

That is not necessarily a bad thing, as taking an evolutionary approach to the construction of law via common law generally gives better outcomes than a constructivist approach via statute, where every minutia of what is and is not legal must be spelt out.

However, in this case, I suggest s418(2)(a) should state that it is lawful for a person to use reasonable physical force to defend themselves against any crime. That includes s529 - Criminal Defamation (or its equivalent in other states), which all citizens should read and know.

By calling him a paedophile (and a black one, no less!), this woman has criminally defamed Jeremy Fernandez. She should be prosecuted as an example to all others who seek to deal with conflict by telling malicious lies.

There is actually provision in the current law for Fernandez or the bus driver to have dealt with the situation physically: either could have made a citizen’s arrest. However, citizens cannot detain others, then let them go. If you make a citizen’s arrest, you must defer to the police as soon as practically possible … and they will determine the validity of your arrest, with charges of assault and deprivation of liberty ensuing if you are in the wrong.

That’s not what society needs: citizens arresting each other for offensive language / conduct or criminal defamation.

Why should the bus have to be stopped and everyone on it inconvenienced to wait for the police to arrive to deal with such a matter? This woman deserves no more respect than something I’d find under my shoe.

A liberal society should expand the notion of self defence to ensure the right to stand one’s ground and to use appropriate force to protect oneself and others from any criminal act, including threats, harassment and defamation. S419 of the Crimes Act already makes it clear that in claims of self defence, the onus of proof is on the prosecution to prove otherwise.

It essentially comes down to the right and level of legal power of citizens to remove a fuckwit from their presence, with minimal interruption to their planned activities. To force citizens to call the police, then waste time waiting for them to arrive and sort the matter out is itself unjust. To that, add the additional risk of the perpetrator making a false counter complaint and the police doing nothing, or worse, arresting the victim.

That is precisely the type of injustice which flourishes in a nanny state, ruled by lawyers and bureaucrats, where fear of the random consequences of action causes docile citizens to allow “the appropriate authorities” to (not) sort out conflicts.

Extending the scope of the right to self defence as above and retaining the s419 onus of proof on the prosecution is what a liberal society should do. Citizens do not have to demand these civil rights: it is us who determine the rules by which we agree to be governed. That we are over-governed is only due to our consistent failure to organize and prevent it.

If bouncers, many of whom are moronic thugs, have the legal right to use physical force in order to remove troublemakers from pubs, how can law abiding citizens not have the same rights to remove troublemakers from trains, buses, shops etc?

Middle Class Guilt Now Extends To Quinoa

Middle class, university educated lefties tacitly tell us that people who are not white and educated cannot be held to the same standards of responsibility as the rest of us, either on a personal or collective level.

If a white man is a drunk who beats his wife and kids, he is an ogre. If a black man does it, it’s because he’s been oppressed by the racism inherent in our social structure and it is white people who really bear the ultimate blame.

White Westerners who mine coal are environmental vandals. The Asians who buy and burn it somehow escape censure. They wouldn’t if they were white Westerners.

Conversely, the Arabs who mine the oil are not environmental vandals. White Westerners are because of their rampant consumption.

Western societies who gear certain industries toward earning export revenue at the expense of higher prices for their own population have been hijacked by greedy, capitalist buccaneers. Non-Western societies who do the same have been hijacked by greedy, (Western) capitalist buccaneers, who co-opt local elites and oppress the remainder of the indigenous population. If Western societies do it, the corruption is internal. If non-Western societies do it, the corruption is external.

Anyone with even a modicum of non-white ancestry thoroughly deserves all their gains in life. In fact, any achievements are that much greater, having been made in the face of a constant struggle against racism … and if it’s a woman, sexism as well.

Everyone who is white and educated should feel guilty for any gains in their life, particularly material ones. Consumption of any good or service should be accompanied initially by self loathing, then neurotic dithering over which is the most “socially responsible”, followed by an overtly smug air of superiority for making the “correct” choice.

Westerners’ consumption of quinoa is the latest scourge of the noble, oppressed masses, as brown people in Peru and Bolivia suffer malnutrition due to rising local prices for their staple grain.

The original perpetrator of this hand wringing political piety appears to be (surprise) from the Guardian’s stable of secular, lefty preachers. Joanna Blythman churns out textbook cant:

“The quinoa trade is yet another troubling example of a damaging north-south exchange.”

She then goes on to tell us that

“NGOs report that asparagus labourers toil in sub-standard conditions and cannot afford to feed their children while fat cat exporters and foreign supermarkets cream off the profits. That's the pedigree of all those bunches of pricy spears on supermarket shelves.”

Right on, Joanna!

Asparagus is a source of even greater Western guilt than quinoa, because Western consumption is destroying Peru’s water security by effectively importing their scarce water.

So you don’t cook with asparagus any more, Joanna? Or do you only buy it from a “local market”?

Like most university educated, Western, middle class, dilettante lefties, Joanna Blythman is an inveterate snob, only wishing to drink her coffee at “indie, artisan” coffee shops like “Tazza D'Oro in Rome or Caffè Pirona in Trieste”. (I’m so cultured, I even know the best cafes in Italy. Not bad for a Glasgow girl, especially one who’s had a touch of the tar brush).

Of course, if you make lots of money writing books on the evils of supermarket chains and GM foods, you can afford “ethically grown” coffee at boutique cafes.

If you really cared about the environment and the poor people in the third world who will suffer the most from climate change Joanna, you’d have written ebooks. But they don’t sell as well, do they? Fuck the trees and the CO₂ when it comes to paying for my nice house, clothes and furniture, gourmet food and trips to Europe to drink artisan coffee, not to mention my cleaner, gardener, masseuse …

It is of course impossible to expect the Peruvians and Bolivians to be responsible for their own economic management, because they are poor little brown people.

If quinoa farmers respond to undersupply by demanding higher prices and other farmers convert to quinoa, it’s all our fault as consumers that their governments do not use the tax system to purchase a quota of quinoa for local distribution at subsidized prices, or establish national corporations to guarantee minimum prices for quinoa growers and manage the exports. Isn’t the latter the type of economic model lefties advocate?

Why are Peruvians and Bolivians not responsible for their own economies? Why are their farmers not responsible for their own choices? In fact, for many quinoa farmers, it’s the first time in their lives they have made decent incomes, as even the Guardian tells us.

Why are their governments not responsible for stabilizing local prices?

“Oh, but those countries are ruled by oppressive elites, co-opted and kept in place by American corporate imperialism.” Actually, it’s Spanish imperialism which installed the elites in Peru and Bolivia. The Inca weren’t exactly a free, egalitarian society either.

There probably are already comparatively wealthy Peruvians and Bolivians making good money from quinoa exports. However, the Guardian article quotes a Peruvian farmer, who tells us that she now sells her quinoa for $2 / kg, up from 25c / kg a few years ago. So it does appear that poor farmers are also benefiting from increased demand and making a conscious choice to cultivate for export.

If people in towns and cities want subsidised quinoa, they need to advocate for that economic policy. However, that’s the Peruvians’ and Bolivians’ business.

The development of stable, liberal democracy has almost always required the growth of a large middle class, many of whom ultimately come from the agrarian sector. As these sections of society gain more economic power, they are able to successfully demand more political power.

Is Joanna Blythman suggesting we halt the economic growth and hence true enfranchisement of Peruvian and Bolivian farmers? Because that will be the outcome if Westerners decrease their quinoa consumption to the point where it has a material effect on prices. Does she believe it is our role to decide on the appropriate distribution of income and wealth in Peruvian and Bolivian society?

Here’s what will really happen:

Western countries with high plains like Canada, the USA and Australia will start growing quinoa for both domestic and export markets. The price of quinoa will fall and eventually fluctuate (in real terms) in a semi stable interval, sporadically jumping if harvests fail. Local quinoa prices in Peru and Bolivia will fall and domestic consumption will again increase.

The lead time on this will probably be five to ten years, unless quinoa is actually just a fad and returns to a niche food, in which case prices will fall rapidly as people like Joanna Blythman encourage their dopey followers to eat the next, latest “super food”.

Does Joanna Blythman really want to deny Peruvian and Bolivian farmers this probably once off opportunity to permanently increase their wealth? To buy better goods? To have better houses?

No, we want them to stay poor and disenfranchised. Otherwise, there will be no victims of American, corporate imperialist oppression for us to champion.

I wonder who Joanna Blythman would blame if her heroic Palestinian farmers succeed in creating an export industry and drive up local prices.

The Jews, of course!

Nanny State Nerd Thinks He Can Ban Smoking On Public Streets

Government has a right to tell citizens they can’t smoke in a public park, or walking down the street? City of Melbourne Councillor Richard Foster thinks it does. He wants to ban smoking in all public spaces ie. anywhere which isn’t private land within City of Melbourne Council boundaries. He then admitted he will try to have the ban extended across all of Victoria.

Here are the consequences of what this little turd is proposing. It would be illegal to:

• Have a quiet puff while waiting on the street for a friend.
• Step outside the pub with a couple of mates for a quick ciggy.
• Eat your lunch in the park, then light up afterward.

This is what Richard Foster believes he has the right to tell other people they cannot do. He’d probably counter that non-smokers have a right not to be assaulted by other people’s cigarette smoke.

Yeah, in a crowded place, such as a food court or sports stadium, where people are close by necessity and can’t avoid a significant dose of someone else’s smoke.

But to posit that someone’s amenity or indeed health is materially affected by the smell of a burning cigarette or a waft of smoke in a public street or park is absurd. You’ll suffer greater health risks from air pollution due to traffic, or stress.

I’m not a smoker, but I don’t believe I have a right to prevent people smoking outdoors if all I’m going to get is the occasional waft of their smoke.

Smoking in open spaces like public parks does not need to be regulated by a nanny state; common courtesy should suffice.

If someone is sitting on a park bench next to you, ask them if they mind if you smoke. If they do, then either don’t, or get up and smoke somewhere else. If you want to sit down on a park bench and someone is already sitting there smoking, don’t ask them to put it out: either put up with it or go somewhere else.

You’ll be surprised to discover that someone so puffed up with self righteousness as Richard Foster is an inner city, lefty lawyer. In fact, he’s president of the Carlton branch of the ALP.

Just look at the weasely, little shit. He’s such a stereotype: weedy, stupid glasses, stupid look on his face, a jerk’s body language. People like this just ask to be punched.

On hearing it, many people who don’t smoke might have thought Foster’s proposal was not a bad thing .. but it is, because agreeing with it, or even acquiescing to it allows people like Richard Foster to succeed in their pet project of foisting an interminable number of rules upon all of us and implementing a smothering nanny state, in which almost all social interactions are regulated.

Do you really believe that if Richard Foster gets his way with this smoking ban, he will stop there? People like him can’t help themselves: they spend their days dreaming up regulations to stamp out their pet hates and to stop anyone doing anything which may offend their sensibilities.

No deep philosophical principle need be espoused in response to this nanny state proposal. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do, you little cunt?” should suffice.

How will the ban be enforced anyway?

Can you imagine a council ranger coming up to a group of tradies having a durry on their break or a group of blokes outside a pub and trying to issue them a fine? Good luck with that.

If this stupid, draconian regulation succeeds in being implemented, smokers should simply ignore it. If a ranger asks for your name, it’s Richard Foster.

Actually, smokers should organise a mass protest. All go to Federation Square or one of the parks in Carlton and light up. How are they going to arrest or fine thousands of people?

If you want to tell Richard Foster what you think of his proposal, he can be contacted on 0418 148 698 or rfoster06@gmail.com

There'd Be Outrage Aplenty Had Abbott Said It

Considering it was made at a public event, Tim Mathieson’s joke about getting an Asian woman doctor to do your prostate exam was in poor taste and certainly ill-considered. Its only real humour was in the number and types of people who would have been upset by it.

A simple apology should and apparently will suffice. He can let the tut-tutting, eye rolling and moans of “what a goose” go through to the keeper and it will all blow over, as it should.

Now imagine the reaction from the ALP and Greens had Tony Abbott or Shadow Minister for Health, Peter Dutton said it.

Would Julia Gillard have accepted the apology? Not bloody likely.

There would have been shrill screeches of confected outrage and more dishonest accusations of misogyny. Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek would have added racism to the list of charges.

As with all moral policing, of which political correctness is a part, it’s the hypocritical double standards which reveal its bankruptcy.

That the ALP feel the need to use such tactics against their political opponents reveals their own.

Equal Pay For Women In Sport Is About Spectator Interest, Not Civil Rights

Periodically, the gender equality debate extends itself into sports prizemoney. Equal prizemoney for men’s and women’s competitions has been perhaps most strongly advocated and debated in tennis.

The US Open made prizemoney in the men’s and women’s events equal in 1973. The other three Grand Slams followed suit from 2000. Prizemoney is usually equal in other major events which host both men’s and women’s tournaments. There are however, more men’s tournaments during the season, particularly on the satellite circuit, so more overall earning potential for men outside, say the top 20 or 30.

Proponents of equal prizemoney tend to argue almost exclusively on political “justice” grounds. Opponents tend to fall into the trap of arguing that men play at a higher standard or play longer matches (thus receiving less pay per hour “worked”). The Daily Mail’s recent, cursory statistical analysis of the 2013 Australian Open is a case in point.

Both arguments are wrong. Obviously their conclusions can’t BOTH be wrong, however both their premises are.

Arguments that the top men play the sport at a higher standard than women, or play for longer eg. 5 sets instead of 3 are true as statements of fact, but irrelevant.

Salaries and prizemoney in professional sports come from people paying to watch live or on TV and from advertisers: spectators and sponsors. In sports with concurrent male and female competitions, such as tennis tournaments, if the men attract a larger audience for a longer time, then they should claim a larger share of the gate and sponsorship revenue, but only because that tournament revenue is communal. If they played in separate tournaments and the women's event attracted more spectator and sponsorship interest, it wouldn't matter if the men played ten times as long.

Professional sport is one of the areas of the economy which should most be left to the free market, or to determine its own market rules, such as salary caps.

Suppose a particular sport attracts much more spectator interest to the women’s event, say ice skating. Then it will almost certainly attract more sponsorship revenue on top of the extra gate takings. Thus, the women should demand higher pay than the men, just like women fashion models do.

Conversely, in reality most sports have much higher remuneration for men; for example cricket, athletics, golf, basketball. That is indirectly because the men’s events are of a materially higher standard. This leads to more spectator interest, more sponsorship, greater TV rights and hence higher salaries and prizemoney for the players.

This isn’t sexism: it’s people making a free choice to watch the highest standard of competition and the advertising dollars following. Men are better than women at the overwhelming majority of sports and they also play and watch more sport in general. Therefore they will earn more from it … unless the Greens win government, in which case all competitive sport will be banned because it ranks people.

As for women’s tennis, it irks me that women’s prizemoney is the same as men’s in the major tournaments, because the standard of gameplay is so much lower and the matches are shorter (in many major tournaments at least). But perhaps I’m being chauvinist in suspecting the men’s game attracts more revenue because it’s played at a higher standard. Maybe women’s tennis has a sufficient following among women to justify equal prizemoney. That could have been a major factor in the US Open giving in to women’s demands in 1973. I can’t imagine basketball authorities ever doing the same.

However, there is hard evidence that men's tennis finals attract larger TV audiences than women's. They also last longer, meaning that larger audiences are watching more sponsors' ads. The stadia are full, meaning the gate revenue is the same for both, unless tickets for the men's final cost more. This is a pretty solid argument that men tennis players draw greater revenue to the game and therefore deserve higher prizemoney.

Interestingly, there is much less prizemoney for doubles than for singles in both men’s and women’s tennis. That’s purely economic: on the whole, spectators aren’t as interested in the doubles.

Incompetent Media Complicit In Whitehaven Hoax

Notably almost absent from all the media “analysis” of Jonathon Moylan and friends’ hoax press release last Monday is self examination. I’ve found one piece.

The naïve reporting (and re-reporting) of a transparently amateurish, copycat hoax is unfortunately typical of the quality of what mostly passes for journalism these days. So is the near universal “innocent” shrug of the shoulders after the hoax was revealed.

There used to be a requirement for journalists to understand their field, so that they will know instantly when a report doesn’t smell right and have a wide network of contacts who they could call to check its veracity. The requirement to investigate reports prior to publication was understood. It appears that is often no longer the case.

In the internet age, the rush to publish seems to have caused previous standards of journalism to give way to an ethos of delivering “content” or “information” without the responsibility of verification.

The “story” was a fake press release, purporting to be from Toby Kent (a real person) Group Head of Corporate Sustainability in ANZ’s corporate affairs section, stating that ANZ had decided to pull its $1.2B in funding from Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek coal project.

The Age published it on their website, as did the Daily Bull. You can’t find the original articles on their sites now, of course. A Google search for “ANZ pulls Whitehaven funding” used to find the (broken) links to the articles. They are probably still there, dozens of pages down, for those who have the time to spare.

How could financial journalists have been so easily duped? There are obvious clues that the press release is a fake. Did they not think to ring Toby Kent at ANZ, or someone else senior if he was unavailable? Do any of these people have one iota of basic common sense, let alone professional competence?

Firstly, no bank would ever pre-empt a public company by announcing withdrawal of funding for a project, because that is market sensitive. The company would first request a trading halt from the ASX, then make the announcement itself. The bank may subsequently issue a clarifying statement, but in most cases would not. Any competent journalist should know this. Any financial journalist who doesn’t should be sacked.

Secondly, banks rarely make lending decisions for “social reasons”. That should have rung an alarm bell by itself. Exceptions to that rule usually involve old school morality around in particular, sex, as in Westpac’s gutless reneging on funding Sydney brothel Stiletto’s expansion.

But mining doesn’t give banks ethical problems around reputational risks. If the project is legal, has no sovereign risk and a sufficient IRR, they will usually lend.

If the financial media had been doing their jobs, or had actually known how to do their jobs, the story would have been: “Activists Attempt Whitehaven Share Hoax”.