Michael Bloomberg

The anti-smoking wowsers want to end smoking and one of their tools suggested is massive tax increases…problem is it won’t work.

“IF IT were totally up to me, I would raise the cigarette tax so high the revenues from it would go to zero,” thundered Michael Bloomberg back in 2002. New York city’s combative mayor has since raised cigarette taxes several times. The effect has been limited, so he wants to try something new. He recently proposed to outlaw discounting cigarettes and displaying them openly in stores.

Whether these measures will be approved—and help—remains to be seen. But Mr Bloomberg may well be right to push for more bans. A new paper by Abel Brodeur of the Paris School of Economics, based on extensive surveys in America, suggests that bans on smoking are not just effective but actually make smokers happier. By not allowing them to light up in restaurants and bars (as New York already does), governments give weaker-willed individuals an excuse to do what they otherwise cannot: stop smoking. As an additional benefit, bans also seem to make spouses of smokers happier.  Read more »

Despite Bloomberg’s loss in court over his ridiculous soda ban he and the city are trying to appeal the court decision. But perhaps there is a better way:

Bloomberg is a true believer in the lifesaving consequences of his health agenda, and his smoking ban did indeed sweep the country. Yet his soda measure is so obviously ineffectual symbolism that it has a whiff of imposing his will for the sheer sake of it.

The city’s lawyers argued in court that the Board of Health could hand down the new soda rule because it has broad powers to fight disease. But there is a difference between an outbreak of a deadly communicable disease that has people dropping in the streets and excessive soda consumption. If someone drinks a 32-ounce Cherry Coke next to you at a movie theater, it doesn’t make you sick.  Read more »

Michael Bloomberg’s planned soft drink tax took one in the chook:

A judge struck down New York City’s groundbreaking limit on the size of sugar-laden drinks shortly before it was set to take effect.

The judge agreed with the beverage industry and other opponents that the rule is arbitrary in applying to only some sweet beverages and some places that sell them.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has championed the rule as a pioneering move for fighting obesity. It follows on other efforts his administration has made to improve New Yorkers’ eating habits, from compelling chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus to barring artificial trans-fats in restaurant food to prodding food manufacturers to use less salt.  Read more »

Labour and the Greens think they can control the market when it comes to house prices…they are dreaming.

It seems that New York and Australia have a housing crisis each as well…or so the media and politicians would tell us:

IN NEW YORK they are building tiny apartments less than half the size of cricket pitches. This week the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced the winner of a design competition to build an apartment tower housing apartments of 300 square feet. In Australian parlance, that’s 28 square metres. That’s a portaloo block. That’s half a tennis court halved, then halved again, then halved again, with a balcony.

“We have a shortfall now of 800,000, and it’s only going to get worse,” Bloomberg said of the city’s dwelling stock.

“This is going to be a big problem for cities with young people.”

It has become a commonplace that in big cities in Australia – cities with young people – there is a housing crisis. In this context the term refers to a different sort of housing crisis to the one that swept through much of the US and Europe, where prices dropped and millions were kicked out of homes because they could not meet repayments.

In the Australian context, the term refers to the opposite sort of housing crisis – where people struggle to get into homes in the first place because they are so expensive.

It is more a New York-style of housing crisis.

Demographia, a research firm, has a knack of winning headlines with yearly reports demonstrating just how unaffordable Australian cities are. The most recent iteration hit the papers this week, with its assertion Australian houses were the world’s third least affordable, behind Hong Kong and Canada.

Sound familiar…Len Brown and labour are certainly planning New York style teeny-tiny apartments…they are deciding what we should live in, not the market. Being socialists though they will more likely be like Soviet style or Chinese tower blocks.

The news media here loved to use the Demographia Survey released a few days ago to have a larrup  at housing affordability…except there is a flaw in the data that they so loving used to beat the government over the head with.

It is obviously very expensive to live in big cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. It is expensive, and fast becoming more so, to rent. And it remains, in raw terms, expensive to buy. Just not the way Demographia described it.

The ratio of median income to average dwelling prices is the most commonly cited measure used to demonstrate how expensive Australian property is. Across the country, this ratio reached a peak of about seven (meaning dwelling prices were worth seven times median annual income) in 2003-04. In capital cities, the ratio was above eight. In Sydney it was above nine.

Historically, this looked high. In the mid-1980s the ratio was about three. The ratio also looked – and looks – high in international terms. This is where Demographia’s surveys, which always place Australia at or near the apex of the world’s least affordable cities, get their popular bite.

But Australian house prices are not international outliers. A Reserve Bank paper last month compared the ratio of incomes to house prices in Australia to a range of comparable countries, but used a different measure of income.

It used an average measure of income from the national accounts (which can therefore be compared to other countries’ national accounts) that was different in a number of respects from median income, one of which was in including income deposited in superannuation accounts.

This sounds strange, because people generally do not use superannuation income to buy and pay off a house.

But it is needed for a fair international comparison, because in places without advanced super systems people still save for their retirements but in ways that are included in national accounts measures of income.

And when you use these national accounts measures, Australian house and apartment prices are pretty much in the middle of countries like France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Norway and New Zealand.

It is all about the sexy headlines though…while ignoring that there are plenty of ways with which to analyse data.

But the bigger problem with reports like Demographia’s is that they blinker a view of what real housing problems.

What reports like Demographia’s fail to capture – and what terms like ”housing crisis” and ”mortgage stress” in fact only obscure – is the variety of ways in which people respond to what is not so much a crisis as a market.

There are some people in Australia facing a housing crisis. They are homeless. They are couples and individuals facing retirement in a private rental system that offers scant solace to those with little independent income or savings.

Otherwise, people are making choices that invariably respond to the incentives and prices in a big city housing market.

These choices can be uncomfortable – moving back with your parents to save for a mortgage, living in a smaller apartment than you might like. But these are only crises in the sense that seasonal rain is: they can be a drag but they are manageable.

People respond to the Australian housing market every day in decisions about where to live, who to live with, about what to go with or without.

What’s been missing is a similar flexibility and responsiveness on the part of government to help those who genuinely need it; to ensure that if you’re going to live in an apartment the size of a New York shoebox you can be sure it is well made and that you won’t regret the investment; or if you are going to move somewhere with more space, you will have the roads, busways and train stations to ensure that a decision compelled by the housing market doesn’t require cutting you off from the rest of the city.

Len Brown for sure isn;t go to do any of that while he remains focussed on a silly city rail loop.

ᔥ NZ Herald

The Health Commissars are on the march. Now they want to ban legal products from advertising their wares. I expect Cat Pause will protest this though because it discriminates against her beloved fatties:

Health officials worried about an obesity epidemic want fast-food advertising dropped from public property, including bus shelters, and are questioning fast-food and soft-drink sponsorship of public events.

They have also raised concerns over the lack of political power to stop fast-food restaurants being built near schools and in poor areas.

The moves by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service are a return to the healthy-eating principles which drove the national ban on pies in school tuck shops.

The ban was among the last moves of the outgoing Labour Government in 2008. It lasted eight months, then was overturned by the National Government.

And they mirror moves in New York, where mayor Michael Bloomberg has upset the fast-food industry by banning trans-fats and super-size soft drinks.

ᔥ New York Times

Here is a good idea for Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley to consider…at the same time as cleverly funding social programmes it will also unhinge the labour and Green parties:

New York City, embracing an experimental mechanism for financing social services that has excited and worried government reformers around the world, will allow Goldman Sachs to invest nearly $10 million in a jail program, with the pledge that the financial services giant would profit if the program succeeded in significantly reducing recidivism rates.

The city will be the first in the United States to test “social impact bonds,”also called pay-for-success bonds, which are an effort to find new ways to finance initiatives that might save governments money over the long term.

First used in Britain and now being explored in Australia,the bonds are rapidly capturing the imagination of some public officials in the United States: on Wednesday, Massachusetts announced that it was completing negotiations with two nonprofit groups to finance juvenile justice and homelessness programs, with the promise of repayment only if the programs work.

The federal government, Connecticut, New York State and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, among others, are at various stages of considering using the bonds to harness new funds for human-services programs.

In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday that Goldman Sachs will provide a $9.6 million loan to pay for a new four-year program intended to reduce the rate at which adolescent men incarcerated at Rikers Island reoffend after their release.

ᔥ The Telegraph

David Cameron is looking like falling for “The Bloomberg” sting…like Len Brown did:

* Mr Cameron intends to travel to the Olympic games on the Tube and will be taking prominent business leaders with him to events

ᔥ Reason.com

There is constant talk of a tac on foodstuffs to combat obesity, rather than taxing the fat bastard who scoffed the food stuffs. Mike Bloomberg reckons New Yorkers want a fat tax on soda. This is an illogical path based on some pretty common metrics.

Bloomberg also plans to exempt fruit juices, which typically have more calories per ounce than sugar-sweetened soda, and milk-based drinks. So while New Yorkers won’t be allowed to order 20 ounces of Coke (240 calories), they will still be able to get a 20-ounce Starbucks whole-milk latte (290 calories) or even a 24-ounce Double Chocolaty Frappuccino (520 calories), not to mention a 20-ounce milkshake (about 800 calories).

In other words, Bloomberg is right when he says there will still be lots of opportunities for New Yorkers to consume large quantities of high-calorie drinks, which means he does not even have a sound paternalistic justification for his meddling. He is screwing with people not to protect them from their own foolish choices but just to create the appearance of doing so. Or maybe just because he can.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Yesterday I had a guest post from David Garrett that provoked agreat deal of comment. Later on I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that suggests that we have much to learn from the New York experience:

New York has achieved twice the national rate of the decline in crime in the past 30 years while reducing the incarceration rate.

The tide turned when a Democratic mayor, David Dinkins, an African-American liberal in denial about black crime, was replaced by the city’s leading prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani. New Yorkers, who vote overwhelmingly Democrat, were so weary of crime they turned to a Republican.

Under Giuliani, the police began swamping areas where street crime was brazen. They conducted stop-and-frisk operations. They collected fingerprints. This raised the ire of civil libertarians and civil rights warriors but it had a dramatic impact.

Police identified what they called hot spots and although most of those frisked were black and Hispanic, the black and Hispanic communities benefited most from the new policies because they were disproportionately the victims of street crime. Giuliani was re-elected. After two terms he was replaced by another Republican, Michael Bloomberg, who later fell out with the party, but Republicans have been running New York for the better part of 18 years.

Professor Zimring concludes that the police, by inhibiting street crime, inhibited crime generally. They took away a milieu. This had the greatest impact on the greatest source of crimes – criminals coming out of prison – who found their old comfort zones were gone. This led to a reduction of crime, not because prisoners came out ”reformed” but because a reduction in criminal activity on the streets had changed the social environment. It created a virtuous cycle.

Recidivism declined. The incarceration rate declined. The police also took a more pragmatic approach to victimless crime, especially marijuana possession. This led to a further reduction in the prison population.

Today is the last day of the year and what a year it has been. The chaos and mayhem I created was:

January 2011 – 151 posts

The new year started with yet another case of celebrity name suppression. Martin Devlin had thrown a tanty and decided to bounce on the bonnet of his missus’ car. With the ensuing media frenzy he eventually outed himself.

I called time on the Royal NZ Ballet:

From the latest available published accounts for the Royal NZ Ballet.

For the 2009 year.

Ministry for Culture and Heritage funding – $3,959,000
Sponsorship and donations – $2,010,000
Box office revenue – $2,631,000
Total Revenue  - $8,600,000

On these figures the Royal NZ Ballet bludges $1.50 for every dollar they raise in ticket sales. That’s right, you and I pay $1.50 for every $1.00 some liberal elite wanker pays to sit and watch ballet.

I interviewed Judith Collins for my Summer Series interviews. I am yet to decide if I will do another Summer series.

I outed the Albany Superette for selling P-Pipes. It subsequently was followed in the MSM days later. I next day I got my first legal threat of the year.

On January 9 I highlighted Sunday Star Times and their dodgy polling company Horizon. They never learned from that post and went on to become completely discredited with their methodology and results. It still didn’t stop Radio Live from featuring them, though I understand that Horizon actually paid Mediaworks to do it.

I drove halfway down the Napier-Taupo highway to meet Garth McVicar for my Summer Series interviews. Followed up a few days later with an interview with Trevor Mallard. I doubt he will do another. While in Wellington I also popped in for coffee with Celia Wade-Brown and talked about her victory in the local body elections.

I started asking questions about Len Brown’s 100 things in 100 days. Len Brown starts to desperately look for things to do in his 100 days. On day 79 Len Brown released 52 things he was going to do.

On January 20 I reminded Len Brown about his promise for a referendum on Maori seats. This was before the Maori Statutory Board blew up in his face:

He made this promise throughout the campaign, but has chickened out of a referendum. On Q&A he was trying to buy himself some wriggle room.

On TVNZ’s Q & A yesterday, Mr Brown said a referendum on creating Maori seats on the council “may well” be possible in the next three years

This blog has reminded him of his promise here, here and here.

Brian Rudman felt obliged to attack Len Brown and his failure of the 100 things in 100 days promise.

I had a beer with Chris Trotter for my Summer Series interviews. I also went to the Unite Union bunker and interviewed Matt McCarten.

I asked whether or not Labour was snooping on your emails. This story develops in later months.

I started my battle with the Teachers unions.

The good people at Kaimata Retreat get suspicious of a lying blonde tart and google Pearl Going. They subsequently contact me and I out her re-emergence as a bullshit artist.

After Phil Goff handed in his man card by dying his hair I started a series of hair do suggestions for him.

 February 2011 – 187 posts

Chris Hipkins kicked off the first SMOG of Labour with porn spam on Facebook profile.

On February 2 John Key said no to Winston Peters and set the election date.

Len Brown finally released his full list of 100 useless things he was going to do inside 100 days.

On the 6th of February Len Brown fell for the classic Michael Bloomberg train sting. Jonathan Marshall and a photographer bust Len Brown and his hypocrisy over riding the rails to work.

The pressure built on Len Brown over his little train ride double standard.

I told Nikki Kaye that she could have a gay Mardis Gras but only if the government or council didn’t pay for it.

Michael Wood announced on 11 February that he wanted to ensure that there were no penis lollies in Botany despite the fact that there were no penis lollies in Botany.

Trevor Mallard uses Red Alert to attack Jami-lee Ross as a “Tory lump of lard” and accuses him of being a “nasty piece of work”.

On February 15 I said that Carmel Sepuloni wouldn’t win in Waitakere.

On 16 February I highlighted for the first time the skulduggery that was going on in Rodney electorate for the National party selection.

It was in February that we had a rash of MSM writing articles completely unrelated to Hanover and Mark Hotchin but tied them in in either headlines or the body of the article.

The Rodney Selection skulduggery continued. At this stage it only involved a local and the electorate chair, it was however to go much deeper than this. I then outed the involvement of a former South African white supremacist in the manipulations in the Rodney selections. It took several posts to tell the story.

Having dealt with the local skulduggery in Rodney it then became apparent that that there was two separate cases of skulduggery going down. The rather inept local incident with Brent Robinson and then the involvement of the regional hierarchy in attempting to stack appointed delegates. The Rodney selection was then postponed. It was to get much worse.

Serious muckraking was then deployed against Mark Mitchell. It was run by a sitting board member and involved a journalist as well. Things were getting very murky in Rodney electorate.

March 2011 – 187 posts

The Rodney selection was delayed so an audit of membership could be completed. On 4 March the selection process was cancelled and a new selection processed launched such was the level of skulduggery. A serious miscarriage of justice in selection was averted. The irony is the board member most deeply involved int eh murk now claims credit for halting the selection. This is hugely ironic because it was him that was visiting delegates with printouts of websites, a tactic that was later employed in Coromandel by the same board member on behalf of the same candidate.

The day after Jami-lee Ross won the Botany by-election Phil Goff claimed victory for the Labour party.

Speaking of the Labour party, I helpfully make some suggestions for their coming campaign. They ignored them. We know where that ended up.

Trevor Mallard hits a snag using email.

I leaked an email from Perry Rush of the NZPF outlining how they were going to run a campaign against Anne Tolley.

The very first Txts from New York.

I reviewed my Savage 17HMR from Hamills.