I've been so meaning to write things so often in the last few weeks, but I am having trouble keeping sane enough (if that makes any sense). Once, I did a whole post, proofread it and thought *What am I thinking; I can't write that!*. If you are interested, it was somewhat about the benefits of importing bananas to the local banana farmers, the benefits of eliminating tariffs on clothing for local manufacturers, and the necessity to marginal employees of banning unfair dismissal lawsuits.
Basically, in North Queensland, it is taboo to say that banana imports can lead to anything other than unmitigated disaster.
It is taboo also within the clothing industry, to say that there should be no protection from imports.
It is also taboo to think that unfair dismissal lawsuits hurt most the people it is designed to protect.
It is highly foolish of me to think I can make any headway into relaxing these taboos.
7 comments:
Hey, you've argued against all those taboos on this site before. I've read you!
Hell, why don't I add the taboo against sex education in catholic schools as something else I should just shut up about before I dig my grave and get labelled a liberal, free-market ideological, farmer-bashing, slave-driver.
BTW, how is progress towards your petrol less than a dollar a litre up there prediction going? I saw prices between $1.03.7 and $1.05.9 today in Australia's COuntry Music Capital, cursed with higher state taxes than youse guys...
Not bad - We've had some petrol stations at 101.9 recently. However, my original point was that *futures* in oil are way overpriced. Sandor seems to have made a stock bet in the opposite direction (oil stocks going up). He was right in that I should have put my money where my mouth is. I did suggest to my brother to buy transport stocks. These are likely to go up the highest with an *unexpected* drop in the oil price ie. where current 2008 oil futures are way more than what the 2008 price ends up being - which I would be prepared to lay money on. Futures have lately been tracking current prices and are therefore less useful predictors than they would normally be.
Rereading your post reminds me- have you read Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Chose to Succeed or Fail" yet? Apparently both the Easter Islanders and the Norse colonists on Greenland began their precipitous slides toward disaster when they allowed banana imports from overseas. Amazing but true!
Hence the term "Banana Republic" resonates true :). I kind of want to read the book, but I fear it is absolutely great on accurate history and makes grand points about the environment, but fails to abstract a technical theory from it. I feel that to apply what we learn from distinct (separate) cases from history, we have to abstract mathematical models that explain what is happening. It is of absolutely no consequence if the author allows the reader to come to whatever conclusion they like such as - "That means we've got to stop killing whales, right?" or some general environmental platitude.
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