Kiwiblog

An interesting article in Business Insider on whether Palin may leave the Republicans and run as an Independent:

Palin has stated that she will (finally!) announce whether or not she’s going to jump into the Republican primary race by the end of this month.

Expectations were high that she might just announce her intentions a week ago, at an appearance at a Tea Party event in Iowa. Once again, Palin declined to do so.

Palin’s got three options, in essence. Number one, throw her hat in the ring and vie for the Republican presidential nomination against the field.

Number two, announce it’s been a big tease all along, and she won’t be running — and, likely, that she’s going to hold off endorsing any candidate “for now,” in a naked effort to keep her teasing of the media going strong for months to come.

But there is a third option she might opt for, which seems (upon examination) to have a lot of potential upsides for Palin, and relatively few downsides: running as a third-party candidate.

Running as an Independent would seem — to most political commentators and Washington establishmentarians — as a huge mistake for Palin. This is yet another upside, seen from the point of view of Palin herself. She can’t standthe pundits and the insiders, remember. She isn’t afraid of bluntly letting them know this, either. Confounding these two inside-the-Beltway groups would be a source of continuing delight for Palin. She would revel in the opportunity to play the cat among the pigeons, once again. Defyin’ the lamestream media, and defyin’ the Washington bigwigs would be lotsa fun, oh, you betcha!

Wonders will never cease. The NYT has run a column praising Sarah Palin. Why? Read on:

Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.

That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha.

But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.

Really? What did she say?

The next day, the “lamestream” media, as she calls it, played into her fantasy of it by ignoring the ideas she unfurled and dwelling almost entirely on the will-she-won’t-she question of her presidential ambitions.

This is a problem in NZ also. Too much reporting focuses on “process” stories rather than “policy” stories.

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

Funnily enough, I’ve sometimes made a similar point to her last point. Very large corporates sometimes start to resemble Government Departments as they become entirely process-driven, and lose their innovation.

In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.

The recent spending cuts agreed to, will not in fact reduce the deficit. They will just stop it growing as fast.

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

That is a fascinating message she is pushing, and more nuanced that I thought Palin was capable of. I still think she is more likely to not run than run. To run and get the nomination, she needs to give Perry supporters a reason to choose Palin over Perry. As polls show Perry could beat Obama but Obama would thrash Palin, that is a tough job – but she is starting to mark off a niche area.

I doubt there will ever be another day I can recall as graphically as 9/11. My birthday was the previous night (I was born on 11 September, but in NZ of course the attacks happened on 12 September NZST) so I had just been asleep for a couple of hours when a friend from the UK texted me telling me to switch on the TV as a plane has flown into the World Trade Centre.

I switched on CNN and spent three hours transfixed watching the towers get hit and then eventually collapse. To the end of my days, I will recall those awful scenes of human beings on the upper levels of the twin towers jumping to a quick death rather than face a certain slower death.

Within an hour it seemed half of New Zealand was awake – or at least half of my friends. We were texting and talking to each other in disbelief, and even then with some anger about who had done this.

Around 5 am I headed into work at Parliament. Most of the day we did nothing but watch the televisions. Around 7 am though I had an idea. I went to our NZPA/Reuters feed. Normally I set it to NZ Politics, but swapped it over to International General. This covers stories from anywhere in the world which may be of interest to New Zealanders.

I scrolled back five hours looking for the very first story on the attacks, and found it. A one sentence story that just reported a plane had how one of the WTC towers. A couple more bland stories followed and then the all important story reporting a second plane had hit the WTC, turning it from a possible accident to a certain attack. I read every story of those first few hours, as each new detail unfolded with horror.

So much has been written about the attacks, and how the world changed that day (and it did). But my thoughts remain of the 3,000 souls who perished. They were not part of any war. They were not in a war zone. They were just you and me – people at work, plus of course the brave fire fighters and police officers who died trying to rescue others.

And such a terrible blow at New York itself. You see New York is not really an American city, it is a global city. We have three global cities – New York, London and Hong Kong. They may be physically part of the US, UK and China but they are global hub cities, with workers from scores and scores of different countries.

I recall the inevitable black humour that emerged within hours. Maps showing a lake where Afghanistan used to be.  I also recall Yasser Arafat donating blood to help the American Red Cross out, Australia declaring under the ANZUS Treaty that they stand ready to help the US strike back, as was NATO under the NATO Treaty.

At the time the US was not engaged in any significant overseas wars. And it is long forgotten, but Bush had been an isolationist President. He was actually sceptical of US even getting involved in former Yugoslavia. I worry that tomorrow’s students will regard 9/11 as a response to Iraq and Afghanistan, when in reality it was the other way around.

Iraq is highly debatable, but few would dispute that the US couldn’t allow this attack on their homeland to pass without those responsible being held accountable. International law clearly allows you to strike back after you have been attacked. The notion that all the US could do was send polite letters to the Taliban asking for those responsible to be extradited was farcical. The US did of course ask the Taliban to hand over those responsible, but they refused.

But despite that I recall how the Greens organised a protest march for later that week. Not to protest the slaughter of 3,000 civilians. But to protest against the United States responding. I was outraged and angered. In my mind they were the latter day Neville Chamberlains. but worse than that, the timing was so appalling. The death toll was still rising daily, and these people were marching against the United States, not against the terrorists. They were marching on Parliament and I was determined that a message go out that not all Kiwis hated the US. So I managed to arrange a US flag. Not a normal size one, but the largest one my “supplier” could locate – off memory it was 60 feet long. When the protest arrived at Parliament we unfurled the flag from our balcony. It was so huge it needed half a dozen of us.

Sadly it only got to stay up for a few minutes as some tosser from (off memory) Marian Hobbs’ office complained to the Speaker, and he sent security to make us take it down.

Anyway 10 years on, and the world has changed forever. Apart from anything else, air travel will never be the same again. Osama bin Laden is dead, and Al Qaeda much weakened. Somewhat remarkably they have not managed another successful attack inside America again.

I often wonder what would have happened if 9/11 had not occurred. Bush may have stayed an isolationist and who knows how this may ave affected his presidency. He may have ended up a one term President, or he may have ended up a less controversial two term President.

But it is too easy to focus on the big global aspects of 9/11. Today my thoughts and memories are on the 2,977 who died in the attacks (excluding the hijackers) and their families. Special thoughts to the 100 or so nine year olds who were born after their fathers died in 9/11.

The other strong memory is the brave passengers and crew of United Flight 93. They knew their actions would probably lead to their deaths. Logically they knew they would probably die anyway, but it still takes courage to rush armed hijackers – not to save your life, but to save others. Thanks to them, the plane did not reach Washington DC.

Horribly, it might not have made DC anyway. Two F16s had been ordered to intercept it. But they did not have time to arm the jets, so if it were not for the passengers, the F16s would have had to ram the 757 which would have have been a terrible (yet necessary) act.

From the Wall Street Journal.

These are not of course all Obama’s fault. But it shows the challenge he will face with re-election. At present his best advantage is the comparative weakness of the Republican contenders.

Enjoy this mashup of John Belushi in Blues Brothers, with Obama talking about the credit downgrade.

Texas Governor Rick Perry could well win the Republican  nomination. Already former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has pulled out after a poor showing in Ohio.

The Atlantic looks at Perry and Obama on jobs:

If Texas Governor Rick Perry is the Republican nominee for president, the 2012 election will have a striking parallelism. President Obama would ask voters to overlook a bad national economy for which he’s not fully responsible. The Republican challenger would ask voters to credit him for an impressive state economy for which he is also not fully responsible.

There are two themes here. One is that the likelihood of a politician to take ownership over an economy is directly proportional to the health of the economy. The other lesson is that even as political leaders can try to guide an economy, they are ultimately victims, or beneficiaries, of its underlying fundamentals.

The Texas miracle is, like so many miraculous things, complicated upon closer inspection. Texas accounted for 40 percent of the nation’s new jobs since June 2009. This impressive statistic is the result of geology, geography, history, and politics.

Texas is only 8% of the US population, so 40% of new jobs is an impressive figure.

Texanomics is well-suited to a recession stemming from a financial crisis. When consumers’ balance sheets are hurting, they seek out low cost-of-living. That’s Texas. When companies don’t have access to credit, they hire cheaper labor. Texas again. When young couples look to start a family, they’re drawn to affordable housing, nice weather, and industries that hire: Energy and aerospace in Houston, health care and military in San Antonio, tech and education in Austin, and communications and more energy Dallas.

And the politics:

That the stimulus was a PR-failure says more about the strength of the downturn than the weakness of the administration. But that’s an economist’s distinction, not a campaign platform. The president’s message to voters asks them to see the successes of his policies by imagining how bad things would be without them. In a rotten economy, Obama has to run on a hypothetical. The governor’s economic message is simpler. It’s reality. It’s “Look at Texas.” Perry isn’t entirely responsible for the state’s economic record. But he’s a record worth claiming.

Perry is at 39% to win the Republican nomination on In Trade. Next is Romney on 32%.

Obama’s price for re-election is at 52%, down from 56% a few weeks ago.

In my By the numbers blog at Stuff, I reveal some stats on Tea Party supporters, which may surprise some:

• 43% of Tea Party supporters have an unfavourable view of the Republican Party.
• Only 40% of Tea Party supporters think Sarah Palin has the ability to be an effective president.
• 57% of Tea Party supporters think gay couples should be able to enter a civil union or marry.
• Only 18% of Tea Party supporters say they always vote Republican.
• 36% of Tea Party supporters identify as Independents, and 5% as Democrats.

There’s already a furious debate at Stuff over my characterisation of them.

Matt McCarten writes in the HoS:

US counts financial costs of tea partiers

More damage was done to capitalism this week than any communist revolutionary could have ever dreamed possible.

Matt has it all wrong. The drop in the markets isn’t because Tea Party supported Congressman insisted on spending cuts. It is because the spending cuts did not go far enough to stop US debt growing. The massive deficit and debt is due to a series of Presidents and Congresses spending way more money than they had. Clinton was the one near exception.

Everyday Americans, sick of both parties, rose up and said no more spending increases we can’t afford. Thanks to them, the US may one day get back into surplus – but it is a long time off.

Anyway I would have thought Matt would have liked the Tea Party – like his UNITE union, they don’t like paying taxes. The difference is the Tea Party campaigns to change the law, while UNITE simply takes its employees PAYE tax and spends it elsewhere, rather than passing it onto the IRD as required by law.

The country’s official unemployment is more than 9 per cent and is people’s number one concern. Poll after poll show people want more expenditure on jobs, health and education. Yet the tea partiers – funded by the super wealthy – have forced the Obama administration to cut these three items.

Until now every sane economist will tell a government to spend money when an economy needs to grow. This country is going in the opposite direction.

The 9% unemployment rate came after the biggest spend-up in history. Obama asked for and got a huge fiscal stimulus, in the hundreds of billions. He claimed it would stop unemployment reaching 7%. Instead it made 10%. The myth that the Government can spend itself out of trouble has been dispelled by the evidence.

If that isn’t enough Obama has a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican appointees approving laws allowing corporations to give unlimited amounts of secret funding to politicians.

Not secret. Simply companies in the US, are like companies in NZ. They have to disclose their donations, but there is no limit on them.

A deal has been done on the US debt ceiling, with agreement on around US$1,000,000,000,000 of spending cuts over the next decade. That is not enough to get back into surplus, but is a promising start. And no tax increases.

The Washington Post looks at the winners and losers:

Winners

• Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell
• Tea party
• President Obama
• Congressional Budget Office
• Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax reform
• David Wu (as the crisis overshadowed his sex scandal)

Losers

• Congress
• Gang of Six
• Commissions
• Liberals

Americans for Tax Reform played a big role in keeping the Republicans from agreeing to tax increases as many Republican representatives and senators had signed pledges to never vote for a tax increase. If they broke that pledge, they knew they would face a primary challenge.

I quite like how they have made sure of a second round of spending cuts:

The first step would take place immediately, raising the debt limit by nearly $1 trillion and cutting spending by a slightly larger amount over a decade.

That would be followed by creation of a new congressional committee that would have until the end of November to recommend $1.8 trillion or more in deficit cuts, targeting benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, or overhauling the tax code. Those deficit cuts would allow a second increase in the debt limit, which would be needed by early next year.

If the committee failed to reach its $1.8 trillion target, or Congress failed to approve its recommendations by the end of 2011, lawmakers would then have to vote on a proposed balanced-budget constitutional amendment.

If that failed to pass, automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion would automatically take effect, and the debt limit would rise by an identical amount.

So if they can not agree on the next $1.8 of deficit trimming, then they vote on a balanced budget constitutional amendment (a good idea), and if that does not pass then $1.2 trillion of extra spending cuts takes place across the board – including defence spending, but excluding welfare entitlements.

Check this site out.

They’re $100 bills representing what the US national debt will be by the end of the year.

AP report:

Embattled US politician Anthony Weiner is resigning from Congress, saying he cannot continue in office amid the intense controversy surrounding sexually explicit messages he sent online to several women.

The 46-year-old Democrat made the announcement in his home district in New York after two weeks of fighting off pressure to step aside. Weiner apologised again for “the embarrassment that I have caused” and said he hoped to continue to fight for the causes dear to his constituents.

His wife, Huma Abedin, was not with him for the announcement.

Weiner has been on leave from the House and at a treatment facility at an undisclosed location since last weekend. He has not been seen in public since telling reporters on Saturday morning (local time) he intended to return to work.

Was inevitable, and only surprise was how long it took.

What has caused much amusement is this treatment he is meant to be receiving. How do they treat the urge to send hot women photos of your penis?

I feel for the wife – she is pregnant with their first child.

Bill Maher and Jane Lynch read out the Facebook messages between Congressman Anthony Weiner and a Vegas Waitress. How he ever thought he would not get caught out, considering the sheer volume of women he was sexting etc is a mystery. The messages are not safe for work.

The best comment so far on him, comes from his mate Jon Stewart:

WHAT?! A Congressman had a sex scandal, and had to apologize to Bill Clinton? For what? Copyright infringement? A patent violation? Are you insane? That is insane; I can hear the big dog taking the call: “Anthony, I’m very disappointed in you, now, this Twitter thing, can anybody sign up for it, or do I need to go to the Apple Genius Bar?”

Heh.

Phil Goff was Foreign and Trade Minister for many years, and most would say he was a very good trade minister. The China FTA is a huge credit to him (and Clark).

He also knows that one rule to trade negotiations is that the parties do not publicly lay out bottom lines, or rule things out. The reason for this is simple – doing so destorys negotiations. The moment one country says publicly “we will never ever agree to this”, it means all the other countries will do the same. And then you have nothing to negotiate.

So reading the Andrea Vance story:

New Zealand’s drug-buying agency should not be sacrificed for a trade deal with the United States, Labour leader Phil Goff says. …

But Mr Goff said yesterday: “We should not be trading Pharmac off for a free trade agreement with the US.” The agency was an “absolute bottom line and we should not be trading it away”.

You need to understand Goff is saying something in Opposition, he would never ever say in Government.,

For the record as a fiscal conservative, I think Pharmac is great and keeps the cost of drugs down for the NZ taxpayer. I find it hard to imagine that the US could offer us something so good that the Government would consider major changes to Pharmac. But again to have negotiations proceed in good faith, you can’t lay down unilateral bottom lines in public.

Personally I’m sceptical that the US will offer anything greatly worthwhile in terms of trade access. Their rhetoric is much stronger than their commitment to free trade.  However there are strategic advantages to the US in concluding an agreement, so maybe they will actually offer something decent.

AP report:

Federal prosecutors have completed a wide-ranging investigation into John Edwards’ political dealings and could indict the two-time presidential candidate within days, a person familiar with the matter said today (NZ time).

Much of the investigation, however, focused on money that eventually went to keep mistress Rielle Hunter in hiding along with former campaign aide Andrew Young, who claimed paternity of Hunter’s child in 2007 so that Edwards could continue his White House campaign without the affair tarnishing his reputation. Investigators have been looking at whether those funds should have been considered campaign donations since they arguably aided his presidential bid.

Edwards is a pathological liar, and it is a worry he alsmost became Vice-President. Being a liar is of course not a crime, but using campaign funds to cover an affair up may be a crime. As always, it is the cover up that gets them.

AP reports:

Tim Pawlenty is casting himself as the Republican candidate willing to tell the United States the hard truths as he seeks the presidency, announcing in corn-dependent Iowa that its prized federal subsidies for ethanol should be phased out.

Pawlenty made his first public appearance today (NZ time) since announcing his candidacy yesterday.

He told supporters and GOP activists in the leadoff caucus state the nation can no longer afford to support the corn-based fuel additive.

Pawlenty says he knows it’s risky to challenge the prized subsidy on Iowa soil, where the former Minnesota governor must win or do very well in next year’s caucuses.

Pawlenty also said he plans to discuss changes to Social Security tomorrow (NZ time) when he campaigns in Florida, home to millions of the nation’s retirees.

Good. He will get respect for being prepared to announce tough polciies where they may be most unpopular. It may harm him in those states, but he will be seen as someone credible in terms of getting the massive US deficit under control.

At this stage, Pawlenty is my pick for the Republican nomination.

Reuters reports:

Billionaire real estate magnate and television personality Donald Trump says he won’t run for the White House in 2012.

The announcement thins the field of potential Republican candidates for the upcoming US presidential election.

The host of NBC-TV’s “Celebrity Apprentice” said his decision followed “considerable deliberation and reflection” after weeks of an unofficial campaign.

“I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election,” Trump said in a statement, adding that he is “not ready to leave the private sector.”

Trump’s poll ratings for the Republican nominations have plummeted to 8% after he was humiliated at the WHCD. It is bad enough to have made a fool of yourself by becoming the highest profile champion of the “birthers”, but to not be able to laugh at yourself as you get roasted makes it even worse.

The Republicans have quite a challenge finding a candidate who can be competitive against Obama. Newt Gingrich has declared and he is formidable. But scandal may trip him up. The base still has not warmed to Romney. For now I’m still saying look out for former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Intrade has Obama’s re-election chances at 61%, and that seems about right to me.  The Republicans are rated 65% likely to win control of the Senate (I would put it higher), so if Obama is re-elected he will probably have to deal with Republican control of both Houses.

Roger Kerr blogs:

I have spent much of this week in Houston, Texas. Texas is the go-ahead large state in the United States today, and Houston is the oil and gas capital, America’s second largest port and home to a huge medical complex.

With it’s business-friendly environment, Texas is attracting firms and people from other states, notably over-taxed and over-regulated California, in large numbers. It has no state income tax. The state legislature only meets for 8 weeks every two years – and without air-conditioning so that politicians do not get too attracted to the place.

Heh. Amusing but not the part I suggest we emulate.

Houston is famous for having no zoning (land regulation). Yet it looks pretty much like many other US cities. Without controls you do not find an oil refinery next to prime residential real estate and the expected collection of businesses cluster around the port. But there are many neighborhood associations that set their own rules about things like how close to a boundary you can build or what colour you can paint your house.

The absence of land supply restrictions makes housing (and much else in Houston) incredibly cheap. You can get a very nice two-garage, four-bedroom house for as little as US $200,000. Some 500,000 ‘refugees’ from New Orleans moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina without putting any significant pressure on house prices or the land market.

If ever the government gets around to a fundamental review of our dysfunctional Resource Management Act, there would be many lessons to be learned from Houston.

What I find most interesting is that the absence of zoning hasn’t resulted in the city being vastly different to other cities – just cheaper.

Think how much time and money would be saved, and lawyers dispensed with, if there was no district plan for a city!

Top copyright law professor Michael Geist blogs on how Wikileaks revealed the extent of the US lobbying pressure on our copyright laws:

Wikileaks has also just posted hundreds of cables from U.S. personnel in New Zealand that reveal much the same story including regular government lobbying, offers to draft New Zealand three-strikes and you’re out legislation, and a recommendation to spend over NZ$500,000 to fund a recording industry-backed IP enforcement initiative.

Yes, the US Embassy actually offered to do the rewrite of Section 92A. Thanks, but no thanks. We’ll write our own laws thanks.

Geist also notes:

Finally, an April 2005 cable reveals the U.S. willingness to pay over NZ$500,000 (US$386,000) to fund a recording industry enforcement initiative. The project was backed by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) and the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS).  Performance metrics include:

“The project’s performance will be judged by specific milestones, including increases in the number of enforcement operations and seizures, with percentages or numerical targets re-set annually.  The unit also will be measured by the number of reports it submits to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) on its contributions to IP protection and enforcement methodology.”

The proposed budget included four salaried positions, legal costs for investigation and prosecution, and training programs. The RIANZ still runs an anti-piracy site, but does not include disclosure about the source of funding.  It certainly raises the question of whether New Zealand is aware that local enforcement initiatives have been funded by the U.S. government and whether the same thing is occurring in Canada.

The current S92A is not too bad (but it should not have termination as an option), but the real danger is the TPPA negotiations. The US is demanding as part of those negotiations a total rewrite of our intellectual property laws in their favour. This is a price we should not be willing to pay, unless the trade gains from the deal are massive. To date the NZ Government has been resisting the demands. I hope they continue to do so.

The more I read about the Osama operation, the more you realise what a risk it was. This wasn’t some dumb luck, or bombs hitting the right place. It is a story of intelligence agencies piecing together a puzzle over many months, and then havign enough trust in the intelligence, but also the SEALs, to send a team in.  If the mission had turned out the same as Jimmy Carter’s helicopters in Iran, then Obama would probably be joining Carter as a one term President.

But the mission was flawless – no soldiers dead, no civilians dead, no neighbour destroyed etc.

Now this will not guarantee Obama is re-elected, but it sure will give his poll numbers a boost for a fair while. And it will pretty much permamently put heed to any notion of him not being tough enough on the war on terror.

Nate Silver blogs:

Historically, the correlation between a president’s overall approval rating and his rating on foreign affairs is stronger than is the case with his rating on the economy. If you place the two variables into a regression equation, it finds that foreign affairs is the more important component, although both are clearly statistically significant.

That is a surprise, as common wisdom is economic issues trump everything.

Unless the economic indicators significantly outperform consensus expectations, the election is still liable to be fairly close, with Mr. Obama hardly assured of coming out on top.

I think one of the boggest factors will be the quality of the Republican candidate also. Donald Trump is threatening to turn the race into a joke.

Green co-leader Russel Norman tweeted:

Call me old fashioned but aren’t we different to terrorists because we don’t assassinate people and we adhere to rule of law?

As most of the world celebrates, the Greens demonise the United States.

Does Dr Norman think that the US should have knocked on the front door of the highly fortified compound, and asked bin Laden to come out and surrender? That would have probably resulted in a death toll of hundreds – and possibly lead to bin Laden escaping.

When will the Greens realse that heading up a terrorist army is not the same thing as being some thug who held up a dairy with a gun.

The US action was legal under US law. It was authorised, and bin Laden was a legitimate military target. Again, he was not some bank robber, but head of a global army of terrorists.

Also Dr Norman misses the key point of terrorists. Terrorists deliberately attack civilians and the more dead civilians the more sucessful they deem their attack to be. In military operations, the more dead civilians, the bigger the failure it has been.

President Obama about to hold a press conference. Have heard a rumour he will announce that Osama bin Laden is dead. Will find out in a few minutes.

1440: Obama yet to speak, but the Osama speculation is now widespread and being reported. A good day for mankind, so to speak. Not the end of terrorism, but a major blow. Yay. Obama now expected on at 1450 NZST.

1443: Seems the US has his body. I guess this means Donald Trump won’t demand a copy of the long form death certificate

1510: It seems he was killed in Pakistan, not far from the capital. No statement yet.

1536: It’s now official, with Obama making his statement. I wonder if the delay was teleprompter broke down

More seriously while this is news that will be welcomed by hudnreds of millions, my thoughts are with the families of the 9/11 victims. For them, this is more personal. Today is the equivalent of having the guy who killed your Mum or Dad sent to prison for life. The guy primarily responsible for their deaths is no longer a threat to anyone else.

1539: The operation was only launched today on Obama’s orders. No US deaths and they got Bin Laden’s body. Obama is about to shoot up in the polls. He is no Jimmy Carter.

Keith Locke will be very upset reading Wikileaks, according to Stuff:

A discreet diplomatic lunch, a free trip to Washington and assurance of “assistance” from the US Embassy in Wellington have been used to blunt the Green Party’s “radical positions on many issues”, a leaked American diplomatic cable reveals.

The Americans seduced Green co-leaders Metiria Turei and Russel Norman, the latter with a free trip to Washington, and managed, over a lunch, to get a commitment from list MP Kennedy Graham “to turn (to the embassy) for any assistance he may need in the future.”

Accepting Uncle Sam’s free lunchs and trips to Washington will not go down well with the Comrades.

But to be fair to the Greens, these cables are just standard stuff from Embassies. They have to make themselves sound relevant and important, so of course they talk up a meeting or a lunch.

Stuff reports:

Responding to critics’ relentless claims, US President Barack Obama has produced a detailed Hawaii birth certificate in an extraordinary attempt to bury the issue of where he was born and confirm his legitimacy to hold office. He declared, “We do not have time for this kind of silliness.”

By going on national TV from the White House on Wednesday (local time), Obama portrayed himself as a voice of reason amid a loud, lingering debate on his birth status. Though his personal attention to the issue elevated it as never before, Obama said to Republican detractors and the media, it is time to move on to bigger issues.

Maybe now people will STFU on this issue. It has been the right wing equivalent of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists on the left.

I suspect Obama finally released his long form record as Donald Trump has started championing the birthers claims.

I recall the days when the most feared US agency was the CIA. Now it is the TSA.

This video shows them frisking a six year old girl. Madness. In fact 99% of the new airport security measures do nothing apart from piss customers off. Strengthening cockpit doors is the only vaguely sensible thing they have done.

I booked airfares to the UK this week, as I have a mate’s wedding to attend in July. Even though it cost me slightly more, and is slightly longer, I am flying via Hong Kong both ways – just to avoid having to go through a US airport.

Few people are more enthusiastic advocates of free trade than me. I basically want to see a world without trade barriers.

The path to free trade is difficult due to entrenched interests. The best path is a multi-lateral agreement such as the GATT agreement which set up the WTO. Failing that, bilateral trade deals are worth pursuing. The China-NZ FTA, for example, has already led to a huge increase in exports to China. And CER with Australia is part of our economic DNA.

Personally I think bilateral free trade agreements are far too complex. My ideal FTA would be as follows:

1. Country A agrees that the businesses and residents of Country B can sell any goods or services they like to the business and residents of Country A, so long as they are legal in Country A.
2. Country B agrees that the businesses and residents of Country A can sell any goods or services they like to the business and residents of Country B, so long as they are legal in Country B.
3. There shall be no duties, tariffs or other barriers on exports or imports between Country An and Country B
4. ENDS

NZ is currently negotiating a free trade agreement, called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, or TPP.

The TPP is now a brand new agreement. It is an extension to an existing agreement between Brunei, Chile, Singapore and NZ called the P4. Five additional countries are seeking to join it – Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam and the US.

Now New Zealand would gain immensely from free trade with the United States. One study estimated our exports to the US would increase by 51%. That’s an extra $2b a year approx.

So free trade with the USA would be great. But sadly free trade agreements are not as simple as the one I wrote above. They include areas which are not about reducing tarrifs, such as intellectual property laws. The United States wants New Zealand to agree to change our intellectual property laws, as part of any TPP agreement.

Top IT lawyer Rick Shera, has done a guest post at Public Address on what the US is asking for. I highly recommend you read his post in full. A summary is:

• Rights holders would be allowed to prevent parallel imports
• Massive extension of copyright terms, from life of author plus 50 years, to 70 years
• Circumventing a Technological Protection Measure (TPM) will to be a criminal offence even if the work it protects is in the public domain or you want to exercise fair dealing rights like educational use or current affairs reporting
• The return of guilt upon accusation three strikes Internet termination laws
• Forcing us to reverse the decision recently taken to exclude software from being patentable
• Introducing statutory damages (which give rights holders windfall damages up to 3 times their actual losses)
•  ISP policing of IP rights including a requirement for ISPs to give up their customers’ identities when they receive a mere allegation from a rights holder
• Criminal liability even where the infringement has no commercial value at all
• Pushing Courts to impose imprisonment as the default sentence for infringement even where no monetary benefit is obtained

Bloody nasty isn’t it. And it is not as if NZ is a country with weak copyright laws. The Property Rights Alliance do an annual index of property rights. Their 2010 report for New Zealand ranked NZ the 4th best country (out of 125) in the world for (lack of) copyright piracy.

The New Zealand Government position has been to reject these provisions, which is good. But at some stage, there will be some calls to be made and compromises to occur to get an agreement.

This will pose a challenge for free trade advocates such as myself. Is allowing the United States to rewrite our copyright laws, a price worth paying?

Well if it was a true free trade deal, where the United States agreed to phase out all (or at least the vast majority) of its tariffs, then yeah it might be. An extra $2b a year of exports would create a lot of extra jobs, extra investment, extra wealth and extra tax revenue.

But what if we don’t get the US to agree to let in our lamb, our beef, our wool, our milk, our fruit without restrictions? What if the lowering of trade barriers is modest at best? This can not be ruled out – the US/Australia free trade agreement was very modest in terms of lowering trade barriers.

Eric Crampton has blogged on the TPP agreement. I know Eric well enough to confidently say that he is probably just as big a fan of free trade as I am. However he is pessimistic about the TPP:

I suggested New Zealand might do best by sidelining the US for now. The biggest potential gains to New Zealand from a free trade deal with the States would be an opening of American dairy markets to New Zealand dairy products. But that won’t happen – a trade deal that would actually open up American dairy markets to New Zealand product would never make it through the Senate.

The actual economic impact on the US of allowing dairy competition would be minor overall. But it would create a political fuss in certain states which would make it very difficult for Obama to ignore.

Eric continues:

I’d put decent money that, if America signs onto the deal, there’d be years of costly arbitration before New Zealand had any kind of increased access to American dairy markets. For starters, American dairy farmers would argue that failure of the New Zealand competition authorities to prosecute New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra as a monopoly constituted a subsidy under US law and justified counterveiling duties. …

I don’t think the United States has any credibility on free trade when it comes to agricultural products. They can’t make time-consistent pledges. At point of signing it’s all friendly, then you’re straight into arbitration over whether you’re hurting US domestic competitors – never mind the benefits to American consumers who are paying double what Kiwis are paying for baby formula.

His solution:

And so it’s better that New Zealand sidelines America in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations so the rest of us can have a serious free trade zone. Get a serious free trade zone, then look to widen it by inviting China. The threat of a Pan-Asian free trade zone that includes China is about the only thing I can imagine that would bring the States around on agriculture. Since New Zealand already has a free trade deal with China, it’s not implausible that China could someday join the TPP.

The idea of a TPP without the US may sound implausible, but I think it is more important to have a high quality agreement that actually reduces trade barriers and doesn’t force IP law changes on us, then a free trade agreement that is more symbol than substance. John Key I believe wants this too – he basically told Japan to stuff off from the TPP negotiations, unless they were seriously willing to commit to a “high quality” agreement.

The same attitude should apply to the US. If at the end of the day we can’t get decent lowering of trade barriers, and they insist in trying to force draconian IP laws on us, then we should be willing to say that we’ll go ahead with Australia, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam joining the P4 – and leave the US for another day.