Utopia, you are standing in it!

After 30 years and plenty of talk about being ‘competitive’ with coal, gas and nuclear, wind and solar are still being treated like untamable toddlers. The subsidies they begged for in the beginning were meant to help so-called ‘infant’ industries get on their feet. But, even now, the mere mention of reducing subsidies turns them into bawling brats, furious at the prospect of ever having to make an honest dollar.

Even when the subsidy stream is flowing strong and steady, the rent-seekers that profit from the greatest economic and environmental scam of all time are always pressing for more. As John Constable explains below.

Demands for more subsidy expose the illusion of falling wind power costs
Net Zero Watch
John Constable
1 March 2023

Net Zero Watch is highlighting the fact that claims of falling wind power costs are contradicted by demands from wind power operators for additional subsidies on…

Although you’d be hard pressed to see much coverage in NZ media other than brief and superficial outlines, Australia, Britain and the US have now released more deals about AUKUS in San Diego this morning. It is actually Australia’s biggest spend on defence ever. Australia will initially home base, and then procure, five American Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines over the next decade. Australia will then (from the 2040s onwards) take part in a combined Aus – UK – USA production of the new AUKUS SSNs. It will cost AUS $368 Billion over the next three decades.

Geoffrey Miller spoke to Rachel Smalley on the radio about this this morning before the deal was announced. The aim of the deal is very much as a response to growing militarisation of the Indo-Pacific region, all thanks to China flexing its muscles. Retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan analyses the…

Later yesterday morning, before major international markets opened for the week, the US authorities announced two steps in response to the failure of SVB Bank

• first, depositors not covered by the FDIC (amounts in excess of US$250000) would in fact be completely covered, with the costs to be covered by levies (taxes) on other US banks,
• second, a new Fed lending facility was set up, backed by the US Treasury, under which banks could borrow at market rate against securities that for these purposes would be valued at face value not market value.   For most longer-term securities issued in the last decade, market value is currently less than face value.

Legislative changes after 2008/09 were supposed to make bailouts much harder and less likely, but at the first real test – in respect of one failed bank that was 16th largest in the US (and another a bit smaller still)…

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Gough Whitlam, to a heckler in Forrest place:

‘Don’t call me a bastard, you bastard.’

Bill Hayden:

‘They could have won the election with a dead dog’s donger for a leader and they did.’

David Lange:

‘Mr Peters has been delayed by a full length mirror.’

Robert Muldoon:

‘He’s like a shiver looking for a spine to run down.’

Winston Churchill, to Bessie Braddock who accused him of being drunk in parliament:

‘Yes, I am and you are ugly but tomorrow I’ll be sober.’

Winston Churchill, to George Bernard Shaw:

‘Cannot possibly attend your first night; will attend second—if there is one.’

Ronald Reagan:

‘I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.’

Paul Keating, on Peter Costello:

‘He’s all tip and no ice berg.’

Paul Keating, on a speech by John Hewson:

‘It was like being flogged with a warm lettuce.’

Sometimes spotting potential bank failures must be hard. One might think of really serious undiscovered fraud, or the weak controls that enabled a rogue trader such as Nick Leeson (who brought down Barings).

But if you were given the following set of facts about a bank:

• very rapid growth over a short period
• a heavy reliance on deposits withdrawable on demand,
• perhaps especially a heavy reliance on uninsured deposits or similar funding,
• a huge (and unusually large) share of the asset portfolio made up of long-term fixed rate bonds,
• a position greatly expanded at a time when short and long term interest rates were at record lows.
• no sign of any extensive use of interest rate risk hedging.

then even if you had reason to believe that the quality of the loans the bank had made were fine, the alarm bells should have been ringing very loudly.   It was a…

One of Labour’s worst legacies will be the decline in educational standards.

The Government must rule out lowering the standards required to obtain the NCEA literacy and numeracy co-requisites, National’s Education spokesperson Erica Stanford says.

“Revelations that the Government is considering lowering standards to help students pass shows an astounding lack of ambition from Labour.

“Two-thirds of New Zealand students failed to pass the new minimum literacy and numeracy standards for NCEA.

“Instead of simply dumbing down the tests to make them easier to pass, the Government could actually consider teaching kids more maths, reading and writing before they start secondary school.

“The Royal Society has already recommended that kids spend at least one hour a day learning maths. Why has the Government not acted on this advice?

“Rather than focusing on what students need in primary and…

By Dr. John Happs ~

According to Wikipedia the scientific method involves careful observation, rigorous scepticism about what is observed … formulating hypothesis … testing and refinement etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

A number of entries in Wikipedia appear to display an absence of the above principles when it comes to reporting about climate change, with little criticism of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) narrative. Thus, we have excellent examples of why this online source should be closely examined for possible bias when providing information about climate change and influencing factors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_conspiracy_theory

Close inspection suggests that Wikipedia has deleted a list of the many well-qualified scientists who have rejected the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming meme:

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/03/wikipedia-deletes-the-list-of-scientists-who-are-skeptics-of-the-sacred-consensus/print/

William Connolley was noted for promoting Wikipedia’s climate alarmist views whilst suppressing any rational, skeptical information that he didn’t like. Lawrence Solomon noted how:

“He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect…