Category Archives: Libertarianism

Judge Eddie Trevino, for one, says theres been a dramatic change over the last 10 12 years in how Austin operates.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas As county judges, commissioners and other local leaders got together to talk about the future of the state, many openly wondered what ever happened to the notion that here in Texas, one size doesnt fit all. And what works in Tarrant County, may not work as well down in Cameron County.

They seem to be intent upon trying to centralize folks, all the power into Austin, where I believe they feel like they can have more influence on the elected officials there. And I think it's caused a great deal of damage to Texas and the citizens of Texas, Judge Glen Whitley said on this week's Yall-itics.

Republican Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley and Democratic Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino were just two of the local leaders from across Texas to meet in College Station for three days to discuss policy and politics at the Conference for Urban Counties. Some met in person. But the Omicron surge led many to attend virtually. And in a first for Yall-itics, the podcast was recorded before that live audience.

While many issues were discussed while we there, the conversation tended to gravitate towards the rules coming out of Austin. Judge Trevino, for one, says theres been a dramatic change over the last 1012 years. He says statewide leaders in Austin now simply tell the rest of Texas they know whats best, so just listen to them and do what they say.

It doesn't make any sense to me because all we're doing is spinning our wheels and spending a lot of time, energy and resources where we're not getting anything accomplished and they're just trying to make sure that, like he said, they have full control in Austin. If that was the case, why do you have school boards? Why do you have county Commissioners? It just doesn't make any sense, Trevino said.

Listen to the full episode of this week's Y'all-itics:

But these are local leaders, so there were plenty of other problems to discuss and game plan for during the conference. And as we approach the one-year anniversary of the power grid meltdown in Texas that left hundreds dead and billions in damage, many fear the grid still isnt ready for another winter storm, even after all of the promises weve heard out of Austin.

Well, let's just say that I'm praying more that we don't have to test it than I am we're all confident that if we test it, it'll succeed, Whitley said.

And county-level leaders always take the brunt of criticism when it comes to rising property taxes. But these County Judges are quick to point out that an increase is often preceded by a mandate coming out of Austin.

If the state passes a law and they don't fund it, that means we have to fund it and for 90% of us that means the only funding mechanism we have is property tax, Whitley said. So, I have been very careful to always describe it now as a state mandated property tax increase because even though I've got to increase it, they mandated that I had to increase it when they passed the law and didn't fund it.

And in terms of pure politics, we are in primary season after all. So these leaders will be watching the election, albeit through different prisms.

Judge Trevino, the Democrat from the southernmost county in Texas, says his party needs to start rethinking its messaging, especially as the GOP is making a concerted effort to attract voters in the Rio Grande Valley. He says family, faith and community remain vitally important to voters in that region of Texas. And theres also the message of growth and opportunity.

We're a huge, huge area of a lot of people. And the growth that we're experiencing with the port of Brownsville, with SpaceX, with the LNG's, with everything else that's going on Valley-wide, the investment in our infrastructure, I just think that we've been found out, Trevino said. Because it's a growing area, it would only make sense that the Republicans would want to get a better foothold here

Meantime, this is Whitleys last year in office. First elected county judge in 2007, he will retire at the end of 2022. And Whitley says his Republican party has changed over those years and he hopes it moves away from the extremes.

I'm hopeful that they will come back more to what I believe is the Republican Party and not so much the Libertarian Party or the Radical Party, Whitley said. We've got some fixing to do in the Republican Party. And if we don't fix it, if we don't come back more to the pro-business, if we don't come back more to working to help our people, then we're going to have some tough times ahead of us over the next 10 years.

Property Taxes. The Power Grid. Even whiskey. These local leaders discussed it all with the Jasons. Hear how theyd tackle some of your most pressing problemsin the latest episode of Yall-itics.

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Local Texas leaders say too much power is centered in Austin - and they want control back - WFAA.com

Remember that Greensboro City Council primary that was supposed to be held on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021 and then was delayed to Tuesday, March 8, 2022 and then was delayed to Tuesday, May 17?

Well, it looks like its going to be delayed again, and not necessarily for the last time, to Tuesday, June 7.

Its not just the Greensboro City Council primary that is being delayed, but the statewide primary that is now being delayed because of the legal challenges to the redistricting maps drawn by the Republican-led legislature for the congressional districts and the state House and state Senate districts.

The North Carolina Senate is set to vote on Wednesday, Jan. 19 on further delaying the statewide primaries to Tuesday, June 7.

The NC Supreme Court on Dec. 8 suspended filing for all 2022 elections and delayed the primary from March 8 to May 17.

A three-judge panel on Jan. 11 ruled the redistricting maps constitutional, noting that the maps were partisan but that they were not unconstitutional.

The cases were appealed to the NC Supreme Court and oral arguments in those lawsuits are set for Feb. 2.

The State Board of Elections says that it needs finalized districts in place by Feb. 14 in order to hold the primaries on May 17, which would allow the NC Supreme Court only 12 days to hear the redistricting case, rule on it and if the NC Supreme Court finds that the districts are unconstitutional, the legislature would then have to redraw the districts and get those approved all in the 12 day timeframe.

Because the NC Supreme Court has a 4-to-3 Democratic majority it is anticipated that the court will find the districts drawn by the Republican legislature to favor Republican candidates unconstitutional.

The Greensboro City Council election was originally delayed by the state legislature because the 2020 Census data needed to redraw city council districts was delayed due to issues created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current members of the Greensboro City Council are serving terms extended until a City Council election is held. Delaying the primary to June 7 would also delay the City Council general election and the terms of the current members of the City Council presumably until July or August.

The rest is here:
City Council And Statewide Primaries Likely To Be Delayed Again - The Rhino Times of Greensboro - The Rhino TImes

The Fund for Our Economic Future appointed Cleveland venue operator and business owner Sean Watterson as senior consultant, Hospitality Talent and Strengthening Workplaces.

Watterson will be responsible for identifying both short-term and long-term solutions to improve the hospitality industry's ability to attract, retain and promote workers in the position housed within the Fund for Our Economic Future, with funding support from Cuyahoga County's Department of Development, the Deaconess Foundation and the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, and with additional support from Destination Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission.

"For nearly two years, businesses and workers in hospitality have endured significant pandemic-induced uncertainty," said Bishara Addison, director of job preparation for the Fund for Our Economic Future, in a statement. "Together we philanthropic, civic and public partners recognize the critical role hospitality plays in our region's economic success. Sean's work will help restaurants, event venues and other hospitality businesses, and the people these businesses employ, navigate today's uncertainty and build toward a better tomorrow."

Watterson is president and co-owner of the Happy Dog, a bar and music venue in the Gordon Square Arts District, and will work "to advance a more equitable economy, and a newly adopted three-year strategy that seeks creative solutions to the region's most pressing economic challenges," according to the announcement.

Read more here:
Happy Dog owner will lead a hospitality recovery group - Crain's Cleveland Business

Before the announcement in Parliament on Wednesday, the government had looked to appeal to voters on immigration and cultural issues with a raft of policy ideas, such as using the Royal Navy to stem the tide of migrants crossing the English Channel and freezing the budget of the BBC.

Yet none of those hastily assembled gambits seemed to slow the momentum of Mr. Johnsons political unraveling. On Wednesday, minutes before the prime minister appeared in Parliament, a Conservative lawmaker, Christian Wakeford, announced that he would join the Labour Party, delivering a stinging blow to Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Wakeford, who sat with Labour lawmakers, expressed anger at how the prime minister had handled the outcry over the parties and confirmed that he had submitted a letter calling for a no-confidence vote.

In a letter to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Wakeford said, Both you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of providing the leadership and government this country deserves.

Mr. Johnsons earlier public appearances, including a television interview on Tuesday, not only failed to convince his internal critics but seemed to deepen the crisis. He showed more fight in Parliament on Wednesday, and again insisted he would not resign, but was still put on the defensive by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who mocked his shifting explanations about a party he attended in the Downing Street garden in May 2020.

Noting that Mr. Johnson had apologized to Queen Elizabeth II for parties held on the eve of the funeral of her husband, Prince Philip, Mr. Starmer asked, Isnt he ashamed he didnt hand in his resignation at the same time?

Mr. Johnson has struggled to sustain his argument that he did not mislead Parliament an offense that could lead to a prime ministers resignation on the grounds that he thought he was attending a work event when, in May 2020, he joined several dozen staff members drinking in the garden at the height of lockdown restrictions.

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Boris Johnson Says England Will Ease Covid Rules - The New York Times

Al DiamonMaines Libertarian Party has been reborn.

If the Libs cant stay alive this time, theyll have no one to blame but themselves.

Thanks to rulings by a federal judge in November and early January, the Libertarians will be able to participate in the 2022 election with a reasonable chance to place candidates on the ballot. Now, it remains to be seen if other minor parties will have the same opportunity.

Third parties havent had an easy time in Maine. The old rules said that to be listed on the ballot, they had to have at least 5,000 registered members a year before a general election. The Libs managed to accomplish that in 2016, when they topped out at over 6,200 admitted Libertarians. But the law said fledgling parties were required to increase their membership to 10,000 before the next election, a level that proved to be beyond the Libs capabilities.

The party, which opposes most government imposition, from the military draft to mask mandates, went to court claiming the election regulations were unconstitutional. That lawsuit is still pending, but while waiting for a resolution, the Secretary of States Office took it upon itself to declare all existing Libertarians were no longer members, rendering them officially unenrolled.

In November, U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker overruled that action, and in January, Walker ordered Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to allow former Libs to rejoin their old party. He said cleansing the membership rolls was a step too far, because it imposed on political expression, political association and equal protection. Walker ordered Bellows to notify all displaced Libs of their options.

The judge also said Libertarians seeking to get on the ballot could collect signatures not only from their own party members, but also from independent voters.

That should be enough to render the Libertarians a real party, just like the Democrats, Republicans and Green Independents. Except for one slight difference. Walkers ruling doesnt expressly grant the other parties the right to gather signatures from unenrolled voters. That leaves the Greens at a significant disadvantage.

The Greens Independents have about 41,000 members or nearly seven times more than the Libs. But its been 16 years since a Green qualified to run for statewide office. Thats because its almost impossible to collect the required 2,000 signatures from party members to make it on the ballot.

In 2020, Green U.S. Senate candidate Lisa Savage was forced to drop her party affiliation and run as an independent because Green voters were too dispersed across the state to make it practical for her to find them and convince them to sign her petition. Even though Savage had to collect more signatures as an independent, 4,000, she had an easier time because any registered voter could sign.

This year the Greens are hoping to run candidates for governor and the 2nd Congressional District seat. Theyre asking the judge to expand his ruling to include them. Theyre also appealing to Bellows to give them the same break the Libs got. Anything less seems unfair and undemocratic. Also, elections are more fun when they include entertaining wackos.

Such a change hardly means the state will soon be overrun by elected officials from fringe parties. In their entire decades-long existence, the Greens have only managed to run a couple dozen legislative candidates and have elected exactly one.

The Libs did briefly manage to equal the Greens legislative success by a different method. In December 2020, GOP state Rep. John Andrews of Paris, one of the most conservative members of the Legislature, switched his party affiliation to Libertarian, making him one of just two Lib legislators in the entire country.

Earlier this month, Andrews rejoined the Republican Party, telling the Bangor Daily News, many of my principles are aligned with them. But Andrews real reason might be that in a district leaning heavily to the GOP, having he word Libertarian after his name wouldnt have enhanced his chances of re-election.

All of which seems to indicate the Libs still have a struggle to stay alive.

I belong to the Keg Party, and were usually too drunk to sign anything. To join, email aldiamon@herniahill.net.

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Politics & Other Mistakes: Liberating the Libertarians Daily Bulldog - Daily Bulldog

A very large number of people are unjabbed, even though Britains Covid-19 vaccine roll-out has, in general, been a great success. Of the total UK population, some 78% have had at least one dose slightly above the G7 rich nation average of 77% and thats not counting its genuinely worldbeating booster campaign: 53% of British people have received third doses.

The overall figure would be even higher were it not for the UKs cautious approach to vaccinating under-18s. That said, as of early this week, about 9.7% of the eligible UK population (i.e. the over-12s) have still not had even one dose of the vaccine a total of around 5.6 million people.

Around five million of those are over 18, and have been eligible for a vaccine for many months.

There is certainly a sizeable group in the UK who strenuously oppose Covid vaccination and the attempts to encourage it, for reasons from libertarianism to distrust of modern medicine to conspiracism. They have held large protests in London; in some cases, theyve harassed politicians and teachers, and threatened public health officials. On 29 December, protesters stormed an NHS Test and Trace centre in Milton Keynes and assaulted an emergency worker.

Numerically speaking, however, committed anti-vaxxers are fairly insignificant. Theyre very vocal, and they have a strong presence offline and online, says Dr Mohammad Razai at the Population Health Research Institute, St Georges, University of London. But theyre a very small minority.

Yes, because they spread fear and disinformation to a much larger pool, known by health officials as the vaccine hesitant who dont have a particular political agenda, but for a broad range of reasons are undecided and doubtful.

Research by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that the primary factors driving vaccine hesitancy in younger adults includes distrust of vaccines; distrust of the Government and of those encouragingvaccine take-up; and concern about side effects.

More prosaically, many also believe that in their case vaccines are unnecessary, as they are at low risk of harm from the virus. And according to a recent Oxford University study, up to 10% of Covid vaccine hesitancy in the UK can be accounted for by needle phobia.

In Britain according to the most recent ONS survey they belong disproportionately to specific social groups, notably young adults, those of black or black British ethnicity, the unemployed and those living in deprived areas.

Ethnic minorities are significantly more likely to be hesitant, particularly those with low levels of trust in government. Among over-50s, the national rate for booster take-up is 75%; it is 42% in the Pakistani ethnic group; 44% in black Caribbeans; 45% in black Africans.

Yes. In cities, where there are young and transient populations, as well as more diverse demographics, vaccine coverage is markedly lower than in other areas. In Manchester and Liverpool, about one in three over-12s have not had a first dose; in the London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, 38% and 37% have not had a first dose.

That compares to 22% in the more affluent borough of Richmond, and 11% in wealthy and less diverse areas such as Wiltshire and Shropshire.

Theres no doubt that the unvaccinated are making the pandemic considerably worse. The ONS found that the Covid death rate in England among people who had a second jab was 96% lower than in those who were unvaccinated between January and October last year.

At present, the risk of hospitalisation from the Omicron variant is 90% lower for those who have received a booster shot. Conversely, the UK Health Security Agency estimates that unvaccinated adults are around eight times more likely to be admitted to hospital than those who have been jabbed.

The latest figures show that unvaccinated patients accounted for 61% of the patients admitted to critical care with Covid-19 in the UK in December, though they make up only 10% of the population. Obviously these cases add greatly to the pressure on the NHS. Its also clear now that though vaccinated people do contract and spread Covid, unvaccinated people do so at higher rates.

It has largely restricted itself to promoting vaccines through advertising campaigns and, more recently, to public condemnation: last week, Boris Johnson accused anti-vax campaigners of propagating mumbo-jumbo, saying it was time to call them out.

But unlike many other European nations, the UK has no history of making vaccines mandatory; it has shied away from the draconian measures seen abroad. Indeed, such steps as it has tried to take have proved a political minefield for the PM. When a vote was held on introducing Covid passes to enter some venues, the Government suffered a large backbench rebellion.

In November, Austria which had one of western Europes lowest Covid vaccination rates announced a lockdown for the unvaccinated: a stay-at-home order for those with no proof of immunisation, with fines of s500 for those who defied it. Even that was apparently not enough; it is set to become the first EU country to make the jabs obligatory, as of February.

In Germany, the new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is also pushing to make vaccination mandatory, despite resistance from coalition partners. Italy has opted to make it mandatory for anyone over 50. Greece is pondering a similar move. In France, President Macron has vowed to piss off the unvaccinated by making their lives as difficult as possible: by banning them from cafs, restaurants, entertainment venues and long-distance transport.

Many nations, from Canada to Ukraine, require all public sector workers to be vaccinated; in the US, all those employed by companies with more than 100 workers must have vaccines or recent tests.

Singapore is now charging unjabbed patients for Covid treatment, on the grounds that they make up a sizeable majority of those who require intensive in-patient care and disproportionately contribute to the strain on our healthcare resources.

Given the politics of the situation, mandatory vaccination is out of the question. In any case, many British public health experts feel that to make vaccinations compulsory would only serve to provoke a backlash.

The evidence suggests that with the vaccine hesitant, persuasion at a local level works best: many GPs and community leaders have worked tirelessly to win over hard-to-reach social groups. Ensuring that clear information is available in multiple languages also helps, as does providing convenient booking slots, especially to those who arent online.

The good news is that hesitancy has fallen consistently this year, and is likely to fall still further: nothing convinces as effectively as knowing other people whove been jabbed.

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What is the impact of those refusing to get vaccinated? - The Week UK

Editors note: Guest editorials may not necessarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper. The following is from Thomas L. Knapp, director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

One perennial proposal in the ongoing fight (actually more a set of dueling theatrical productions a la professional wrestling) over election integrity is a requirement that voters produce official, government-issued identification documents, complete with photo, at polling places.

Anyone whos ever worked door security at a nightclub (yes, I have) knows that possession of a card with a photo vaguely resembling the person possessing it is no guarantee of identity. And polling places have a built-in advantage over nightclubs: EVERYONE has to be on the guest list to get in.

Having individuals pretend to be voters when they arent doesnt seem to be a real problem, if for no other reason than that its an incredibly labor-intensive way to fraudulently swing an election outcome.

In reality, the photo ID requirement drives seem to be more about making sure that only the right people those who have the time and money to sit around government offices waiting for those very special cards get to vote. There being, probably not coincidentally, a strong correlation between being one of those right people and possessing a skin tone that matches one of the lighter shades on the Pantone Matching System Color Chart.

But it seems to me that theres room for a compromise here a way to take the supposed concern seriously, and do something about it, in return for something that naturally follows from doing so.

Side A of this grand bargain proposal is simple: Give the photo ID to vote advocates what they want. You dont get to vote without showing a government-issued photo ID.

Side B is a little messier: Since photo ID is so important that its impossible to trust the results of an election not requiring it, all past elections not requiring it are deemed null, void, and of no effect. Every political official chosen in an election without photo ID requirements is automatically recalled, and every law passed by those officials or by voters in a non-photo-ID election is rescinded.

Yes, all of them, all the way back.

I have it on good authority that not a single member of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, or any of the legislators or convention delegates ratifying the Constitution, possessed government-issued photo identification documents.

How can we possibly know that the gentlemen purporting to be James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, et al. werent just a gaggle of randos in borrowed wigs and waistcoats who fraudulently passed themselves off as the genuine personages?

If, as its advocates claim, photo ID is necessary to election integrity, we cant trust that any past election was properly conducted or properly decided, and should therefore not consider ourselves bound by those elections results.

Your move, election integrity panic-mongers.

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Editorial: Photo ID to vote? Well, ok, but - Kingsport Times News

Unshackling India (HarperCollins India), an ambitious new volume on economic reforms by Ajay Chibber and Salman Anees Soz, is remarkably comprehensive in its coverage. It impressively navigates a finely-balanced path between the usual binaries in development discourse: Dirigisme versus libertarianism, state failure versus market failure, growth versus distribution, public enterprise reform versus privatization, and so forth. Also, before getting into the details of reforms in specific factor markets and sectors, the authors lay out what they consider foundationalchanging the role of the state and human development. I entirely agree with them that a dysfunctional state and the snails pace of human development are indeed the two key constraints that have held India back.

In the chapters on government and public enterprises, as in others, the authors first summarize the main findings of a vast body of research on the subject, often along with relevant research on other countries. Based on that, they then present their own detailed reform agenda. The overarching message is simple. The state in India is not too large, relative to the size of the country, but it spreads itself thin in doing too many things. It lacks the capacity to do all these things well, so we end up with poor governance and delivery of essential public services. The first plank of reforming the state is therefore to reduce its scope. Just do the few things a developing-country government must. The second plank is to strengthen state capability to do those things well, whether it be delivery of public services such as education, healthcare, infrastructure development, law-and-order and defence, or regulation to protect the environment and ensure that markets remain contestable, or macroeconomic management.

Another key message is decentralization down to the local government, the level at which citizens encounter the state and at which many public services should be delivered. This will require major reform, even constitutional amendments, to empower local governments politically, enable them to mobilize adequate resources and build their capabilities. On the subject of public enterprises, the authors focus on privatization. But they also carefully sequence which enterprises should be privatized when.

The second foundational intervention they propose is rapid human development. Summarizing Indias abysmal record on learning outcomes and the appalling quality of health services, underlined by the collapse of our healthcare system in the second covid wave, the authors emphasize that no country can aspire to be a major global player without a skilful and healthy workforce. And none of that is possible without a sound foundation of basic education and high quality basic healthcare. The real commanding heights of an economy are not steel mills, power plants and heavy industries, as early planning models assumed, but education and healthcare. This theme runs through the book.

The authors then nutshell the literature, draw lessons and present their reform proposals for all factor markets and major sectors. In their tour de horizon, some proposals are inevitably more compelling than others. Let me select a couple which struck me as the most important.

In agriculture, apart from other proposals like replacing product support with more income support, PM-Kisan and MNREGA, and incentivizing crop diversification away from water-guzzlers like rice, wheat and sugarcane, the authors focus on the emergence of farmers producer cooperatives, as shown by Amul in the case of dairy. This is a major institutional development thats gaining traction in several states. Perhaps it is the only way of making agriculture viable when farmland is mainly owned as tiny plots by millions of farmers.

In the case of industry and trade, the authors propose that instead of raising protectionist tariff barriers, which are self-defeating, the government should pursue a light-touch industrial policy,which played a major role in the rise of the East Asian miracle economies, including China. This approach has already helped Indian firms penetrate global markets in sectors like automobiles, auto parts, engineering goods, electronics and pharmaceuticals. Such support could also be extended to defence equipment, green technology, etc, to ride the fourth industrial revolution driven by digitization, artificial intelligence and robotics. In this context, they feel the recently-introduced Production -Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme has great potential.

I could pick many examples. However, there is perhaps an internal inconsistency in the authors approach. Reforms are also interventions requiring state capability and they suggest reform measures for everything from government and privatization to education, health, raising womens labour force participation, social safety nets, labour, land, the financial sector, agriculture, industry and trade, services, climate change, emerging technologies and even disaster management. Yet, their foundational proposal is to reduce the scope of our capacity-constrained state.

In that light, it would be better to focus on a few key reforms, strengthen state capacity to do those reforms well, and leave the rest to the invisible hand of the market.

Sudipto Mundle is chairman, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. These are the authors personal views

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Unshackling the Indian economy will be a tall order - Mint

Damien Grant is a regular columnist for Stuff, and a business owner based in Auckland. He writes from a libertarian perspective and is a member of the Taxpayers Union but not of any political party.

OPINION: We are a content lot. Secure in our Shire as Omicron batters away at our MIQ like orcs raging against the citadel of Minas Tirith. We are remarkably sanguine given what is occurring just over the horizon.

Going about life behind our mighty moat, there is a feeling that we are fine, no matter what happens on the other side of the Misty Mountains.

We need to pay more attention.

READ MORE:* An economic catastrophe is looming* The Reserve Bank is in disarray* Housing rule changes hit retirement plans to help middle-class moaners* The Government's Covid-19 spending will be an economic albatross for decades

There have been enough articles, books and even movies dedicated to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to fill Lake Taup; yet lost in the sheer volume was where it all began. And it began in the back blocks of American suburbia and the unintended consequences of the US federal governments noble desire to expand home ownership to the poor.

STUFF

Investors now own 36 per cent of all Kiwi homes, new research shows.

This process had a long history over multiple administrations, but one of the regulatory effects was to give banks an incentive to make loans to low-income households. It is clear that this played a role in the development of predatory lending practices, such as teaser and no-doc loans.

Many commentators, myself included, believe that these and similar practices contributed to the sub-prime crisis. Others hotly dispute this.

What isnt contested is that by the mid-2000s America was enjoying a house price bubble. From 2004 the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates, which contributed to a fall in house prices and a sharp rise in housing loan defaults. Eventually, a financial house of cards that had been built on institutions who owed these now-toxic loans, fell over.

We know what happened next, but we forget that no one saw the GFC coming. I mean, no one. Not really. It is true there are pundits now pointing to pre-GFC articles predicting some calamity, but there is always some idiot forecasting an economic collapse.

If you dont believe me, just go back and read my last decade of columns. Ive confidently anticipated all sorts of economic disasters that have not occurred. One day I will get something right and will be crowing insufferably about it from that day forth.

My point, which I have taken some time to get to, is that we do not know what will cause the next big thing, because we keep looking back at the last big thing and expecting it to repeat. It rarely does because knowledge works like a vaccine. We see it coming and prepare for it.

We cant stop what we cannot predict.

Because my business and temperament is built around catching the next wave of economic bad news, I am consistently looking for evidence that it is coming, yelling like an exuberant dwarf stumbling over a lost penny when I find it. Predictably I am let down by the failure of the real world to respond appropriately.

As a consequence, I was self-aware enough not to get excited as Evergrande, an incomprehensively massive Chinese developer, fell over this week. Financial journalists appeared even more excited than me as they tapped out breathless stories about the size of the default and the implications for the global economy.

Ng Han Guan/AP

The Evergrande Group headquarters at left is seen near other skyscrapers and construction sites in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021.

I do not think this will amount to anything, because the monetary authorities in Beijing have seen it coming and will have observed how the Americans handled similar defaults. They will probably successfully navigate the financial fallout of Evergrandes demise without their entire economy contracting.

Yet; there is something else occurring in China that isnt being widely reported and, consequently, is more interesting to me. LGFVs, or Local Government Financing Vehicles. Id never heard of this odd financial instrument until I read an article in The Economist during the Christmas break. Now I am seeing them everywhere.

LGFVs became popular in China after the GFC. They are loans raised by Chinese provincial authorities to build infrastructure projects; at least nominally. They are usually off-balance-sheet and secured by the returns from the projects they funded.

According to the South China Morning Post, most of these loans are short-term, while the returns from the projects have proven to be inadequate to cover the debt.

The Economist and others have reported that the scale of these opaque instruments is massive, rising from 16 trillion yuan in 2013 to 53 trillion yuan today. This is equal to half of Chinas GDP.

Local authorities are beginning to default. Assuming that LGFVs constitute a substantial part of a large number of global balance sheets, a systemic China-wide default would have a greater impact on the Chinese economy than the sub-prime loan defaults did in the United States. The sheer scale of the problem could be beyond even Beijings ability to contain.

AP

China's President Xi Jinping.

When we look back at the GFC, it helps to remind ourselves that even though this economic collapse happened on the other side of the Pacific, the contagion spread to our shores. Today our trade with China is considerably more important than our commercial relationship with our American friends. Our exports to the Middle Kingdom are worth around $20 billion annually.

If that market falls over we will lose not just a substantial export market but expect to see a massive repatriation of capital as Chinese investors pull cash out of New Zealand. Readers would be surprised by the extent of Chinese capital propping up large sectors of our economy, especially in construction.

Of course, none of this might happen. Or it could happen tomorrow. What should concern us, sitting smugly behind our quarantined moat, is that we are plugged into a deeply uncertain global economy with risks and potholes that we neither know about nor would really understand if they were explained to us.

Like Frodo and his band of merry halflings we are wandering blissfully into a dangerous environment not really comprehending the risks that abound, and ill-equipped for the challenges certain to be tossed our way. Let us hope that our pluck and charm will serve us as well as it did Tolkiens little creations.

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We Kiwis are a content lot, but trouble looms over the horizon - Stuff.co.nz

January 14, 2022

January 14, 2022

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this week announced it would create a new internal unit to focus on domestic terrorism. Citing ethnically and politically motivated killings in El Paso, Pittsburgh, Charleston, and two attacks against Congress Jan. 6 last year and the shooting at a Republican practice session for the annual congressional baseball game in 2017 Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told the Senate Judiciary Committee that countering violent domestic extremists is among DOJ's "highest priorities." The new unit will work closely with the Civil Rights Division,Olsen added, likely to allay civil libertarian fears of government overreach.

Certainly, given the troubling episodes of violence meant to harm or intimidate political opponents and national organizations implicated in those events, a coordinated federal response seems appropriate. Indeed, federal law enforcement is most justifiable when state and local agencies are unable or, in the worst cases, unwilling to effectively protect civil rights and liberties of individuals in their jurisdictions. The federal government is often the organization best positioned to find and prosecute political actors whorepeatedly participate in violent incidents in different jurisdictions across the country.

However, political and ideological views and the right to disseminate and organize around those views no matter how noxious are protected by the Constitution up to the point those actions spur violence or other crimes. Even with the best intentions and staffed with attorneys of the highest integrity from the outset, a domestic terrorism team will be inherentlysusceptible to shifting politics and mission creep that could impermissibly target protected First Amendment activity and violate the due process rights of law-abiding Americans.

This is hardly a baseless worry.Recent history is replete with examples of federal abuses of power that violated the civil liberties of Americans in the name of anti-terrorism.

Most notoriously, the Church Committee investigation revealed how the FBI, CIA, and NSA repeatedly and illegally spied on and undermined protected First Amendment activities as part of the COINTELPRO operation from the 1950s through the early 1970s. Closer to the present day, fear of terrorism led to surveillance of Muslim communities in the United States before 9/11, and famously increased thereafter, including warrantless wiretaps of telephone calls and surveillance of politically active Muslim Americans. Other investigations have led to specious charges against less-than-competent individuals for conspiracies mostly or wholly concocted by law enforcement agents or informants.

Since at least the early 2000s, progressives and civil libertarians repeatedly warned about potential and subsequently confirmed abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Passed in 1978 as a check on executive authority to spy on Americans, the act and the FISA court (or FISC) it created eventually enabled the very behavior they were meant to prevent.

Following 9/11, FISC approved hundreds of requests that resulted, inter alia, in the phone record data collection of millions of Americans with no conceivable tie to terrorism or espionage. Although the post-9/11 abuses started during the George W. Bush administration, and reforms were initially resisted by Republicans, FBI agents later misrepresented evidence to FISC to investigate Carter Page, a Trump campaign advisor, prompting outrage and calls for reform from conservatives.

Presumably, few domestic terror investigations would fall under the purview of FISC and its typically secret proceedings, but the evolution of FISA from a bulwark against government snooping into a conduit for mass data collection is instructive in three key respects.

First, well-intended legislation is not enough to protect American civil liberties. Procedures to implement a law may naturally evolve into patterns and norms that hinder oversight and prevent accountability, especially in institutions not regularly subject to public scrutiny.

Second, particularly within a law enforcement context, any investigating agency will necessarily try to gather as much information as it can, even to the point of taking in more data than it can reasonably handle. This is not because law enforcement is inherently bad; rather, the essence of investigation is the collection of information, and thus it is unreasonable to expect those agencies to strictly limit a core function of their own accord.

Third, bureaucratic institutions are never fully insulated from partisan pressures or interference. Politics will always play some role in how a government institution is run and what protections it receives from the elected branches of government. This doesn't mean that every new president or attorney general will target specific groups or shield others, but political appointments and publicly stated enforcement priorities will invariably influence who ultimately faces investigatory scrutiny.

Thorough internal reporting, continual congressional oversight, and public legal challenges to asserted government authority are essential to reining in potential due process abuses in any federal enforcement agency. Current practices provide ample reason to be on alert for future abuses.

Last year, Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Eddington wrote in the Orange County Register that the FBI had opened up an "assessment" of the Concerned Women for America (CWA), a conservative non-profit advocacy organization. An assessment is a type of FBI investigation, created by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey in 2008, that requires no direct evidence of criminal activity to begin. According to internal documents Eddington obtained, the Obama-era FBI opened the assessment on CWA in 2016 after the organization received a two-star rating from Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog that rates organizations' use of funds on a five-star scale.

The agency was ostensibly investigatingthe "possibility of fraudulent activity," but, put simply, assessments are a way for the FBI to go looking for crimes they have no legally justifiable reason to suspect. This is a blatant violation of basic principles of due process, yet a 2011 New York Times report showed the FBI initiated more than 80,000 assessments in a two-year period, most of which amounted to nothing as did the CWA assessment.

But just because the government ultimatelydrops a groundless investigation does not mean no harm has been done by their snooping. News of federal investigations can be ruinous to personal reputations, even if the targets are ultimately exonerated. Moreover, if criminal investigations become commonplace against political actors, they can have a chilling effect that dissuades Americans from exercising our constitutional rights.

Crucially, all of the above instances happened without a dedicated domestic terror unit at DOJ. Adding a new unit will increase the likelihood of similar abuses.

The creation of any law enforcement entity with an open-ended mission invariably provides incentive to fulfill that mission, whether or not it is the best use of resources at any given time. Just as gang, drug, and gun task forces in local police departments can always find something to do, the potential for domestic terrorism will never fully go away. So even if the risk of domestic terror declines, any lawyer in that unit will havea built-in incentive to find new terrorists. So long as the DOJ and FBI have the investigative authority to look at political groups for no particular reason, the risk for abuse is so great it can be treated as inevitable.

Ethnic and political violence cannot be tolerated in a free society, and the government has an obligation to protect Americans from such intimidation. However, the government must not violate our political rights in the name of their protection.And while it is too early to pass judgment on the initial actions of the new domestic terrorism unit, history and experience teach us to be wary of its power going forward, no matter how well-intended it is or which political party is controlling the office.

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The dangerous incentive in a new domestic terror unit - The Week Magazine