It’s time again for weekend reflections, which makes space for longer than usual comments on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language please.
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John Quiggin 
Rightio.
Warren Buffet invests big in US Coal infrastructure. This man knows a good investment when he sees it, his wealth proves this :).
ClimateGate makes for interesting reading. Some people really don’t like the guys at ClimateAudit:-
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=793
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”
Apparently Climate Scientists don’t mind dodging taxes:-
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1
New Post: Of State Borders, Wars and Refugees:
Refugee debate at Left Focus
In our latest post at Left Focus Lev Lafayette ( a founder of ‘Labor for Refugees’) considers the history of refugees with a critique ranging from Europe to Africa, and Australia and beyond. His is a passionate plea for the rights of refugees – as against to nationalist populism and opportunism. Well worth a read.
See: http://www.facebook.com/l/e7f48;leftfocus.blogspot.com/2009/11/of-state-borders-wars-and-refugees.html
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
This is going to be a fun little ride. ‘Climategate’ indeed. The denialosphere is going to go into meltdown. Like a certain Mr Pavlov’s dogs, and somebody just rang the bell long and hard. Maybe it will keep them all amused for a while.
Because you can be certain that none of them will comment on how mundane the ordinary tone of the communications is. Far moore important to go on a wild cherry hunt.
This link at RealClimate has a good discussion about it as well. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/
And within 2 days it’s generated hundreds of comments. And this from the white hats.
Here is a local piece from the beaches.
Surfwatch (experienced firm) was going to enter a tender to fly helicopters and do shark spotting but the bad old State Government (NSW)n wrote a nice little piece in the contract saying Surfwatch couldnt contact the media about its shark sightings (thats right – no news at all – no contact whatsoever with the media – not even the Manly Daily).
Given how long it would take the State Government to respond to a shark feeding frenzy at Palm Beach, Surwatch has now declined the tender saying “we reported lots of shark activity in the past that the State Government suppressed it”. NIce one.
What point in having a helicopter shark watch if it cant be reported by something a hell of a lot faster than 5 tiers in the organisational hierarchy of the State Government and only on Monday and only after its been signed off as not “damaging” to NSW labour – if at all?
Everyone has gone home from the beach by then, hopefully in one piece.
Great. There is seriously an argument here to go back to the good old days of publicly funded shark watches.
Or maybe go back to the good old days of a publicly funded State government?
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Well Terje… the climate scientists perhaps need some advice from the Myer Family and TPG and Hoges or Vizard. Doesnt sound like they are very good at dodging their taxes, given the paltry amount? On a scale of one to ten for a stir up Terje? .00015 is all Id give that link.
@Alice
LOL
I was wondering a bit about the manner in which the CRU emails/data/code tarball was constructed – were the CRU staff in the middle of collecting the material specific to an individual FOI, hence discussions about what to delete from it (many people have assumed that Jones’ comments on deleting the communications specific to AR4 meant destroying the actual original emails themselves; I’ll hold judgement on that until someone demonstrates Jones’ wasn’t referring to the *.txt versions of saved and copied emails, copied into the working directory from which the tarball was formed). If this is the situation – creating a tarball for answering an FOI – then the hacker(s) had an easy time getting a copy of the tarball off of the server.
On the other hand, if the tarball is in fact the total construction of the hacker(s), it means that he/she had to go to the trouble of looking through multiple mail server mailboxes and archives (the tarballed email copies go back as far as 1996) to build up the final tarball. Not to mention trawling individual …/home/ dirs to extract data, code, etc. This seems fairly improbable to me: there would be timestamps all over the place and bugger deleting syslogs, that won’t cover their tracks adequately. Furthermore, if this scenario is accurate then it would most likely be the work of an extremely knowledgable insider. I doubt this scenario though.
In the first scenario of a tarball sitting on the server, ready for answering an FOI demand, then either an insider or a kiddy-hacker could be in and out in seconds, although the transfer might take about a minute to two minutes. I wonder if we’ll ever know who did it?
This event is good example of why even with scientific sources that I trust, I still like to read any scientific articles and background papers for myself, and that includes articles that they believe are wrong, weak, or rotten. Another good cross-check of a scientific article that has been published at least a year or so earlier, is to check for citations – both the number and the scientist (groups) citing it. If the paper is any good, their should be a number of citations from scientists not connected to the original authors. Of course, the reasons for citing are sometimes negative and that needs to be checked as well.
I do this with biomedical articles because of the rampant seeding by pharmaceutical companies – finding demonstrably independent researchers is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Pharma funding doesn’t necessarily imply that researchers are compromised, of course, but I prefer to be conservative on this.
Finally, the timing of the CRU tarball leak just strikes me as too close to Copenhagen to be a coincidence. Perhaps it is but my gut says otherwise – of course, my gut has been known to be spectacularly wrong on occasion. In any case, Senator Inhofe made some “prescient” remarks concerning vindication of the skeptics, and coincidently this dropped in his lap very soon afterwards. The Australian Liberal party has the material IALTB – although I doubt any minister will directly see it – and I expect a big week in parliament this week!
Have I missed it or has JQ commented yet on the QCU commissioned report by Bob Walker?
Would be of interest …….
Donald, the contraband zipfile comes in two parts. One part contains several thousand emails going back to the mid-1990s, but mostly from the last few years. The other half contains heaps of datasets in formats I can’t currently read, along with terse readme files explaining their contents. There’s also some C code.
It’s an interesting forensic question – what can be inferred about the manner of the material’s acquisition. I don’t believe your FOI scenario – some of the emails are quite random. I could believe in a scenario where you have a hacker using a known exploit, and a lay skeptic looking over their shoulder, telling them which directories to copy (e.g. anything with ‘tree’ in the title). One thing which will be indicative of whether the hacker or leaker knew what they were doing is whether any of the datasets and code were already in the public domain or had otherwise been made available to the skeptics. If that is so, that will strengthen the grab-and-run theory.
The emails are something else. Sent by many people over many years, and with no single person always present as sender or receiver, I don’t yet have any sense of where and how they were located and organized before being copied. Maybe a security hole in a departmental mail server? But how many people keep a 13-year-old email in their current set of mail folders? I’d expect a document that old, if it was still around, to be saved separately and privately as a text file. The emails may have been obtained in several ways and on several occasions.
A quick skim through the comments on the stolen e-mails at RealClimate suggests that, if nothing else, the episode should be useful to Professor Quiggins book on macroeconomics – they conclusively refute any assumption of general human rationality.
I used to think “too stupid to live” was just an idiom.
@Kitchenslut
Watch this space …
It is not uncommon for a mailserver to store all email in one database that is in turn essentially one large file. Nick the file and you have all the email to manipulate at will.
This stuff is unbelievable.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Indeed it is unbelievable that the delusionosphere has fallen, yet again, for this week’s silly talking point. Last week, it was “court case proves global warming is a religion”, now it’s “leaked emails contain phraseology that is embarrassing to the senders”.
Honestly, it’s hard to be polite about people who fall for this kind of thing, week after week, for years on end. Look back at the collection here (mostly old ones that you don’t here so much anymore, but might be revived at any time) and you really start to wonder what kind of thought processes are going on.
lol at terje linking Delingpole as “unbelievable” (presumably without any trace of irony)
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Terjeeeeee ( “unbelievable”??… a shocker!) -from your own link..an example of ummmmm evidence against climate scientists (shh..dont want to wake up u know who name ends in G).
“Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.”
Watch out Terje you big stirrer. Some of us here might be so tempted LOL.
John, one must sympathise with Turnbull for putting up with the neo-conservative illywackers who are trying to create dissention and undermine his authority. Furthermore, by rejecting the Government’s emissions trading legislation to avoid a party rift is absurd and nonsensical. Maybe it’s time Turnbull really puts his foot down.
John, there are officials who argue that negotiations in Copenhagen will still yield a political outcome containing emissions targets which would form the core basis of a new treaty next year even though negotiators will have their plate full debating on how best to channel investments to reduce emissions, develop carbon-free energy sources and give aid to poor nations to adapt to the effects of global warming.
@Michael of Summer Hill
Moshie….you mean Turnbull should do a Rees?
Alice, aside from Turnbull there is no credible leader within the Liberal Party. As for doing a Rees time will tell.
‘Indeed it is unbelievable that the delusionosphere has fallen, yet again, for this week’s silly talking point.’
No John, from the University of East Anglia’s FOI policy they all should have been acutely aware of the policy-
“5 key facts that all staff should know about Freedom of Information
The Act gives everyone both in and outside UEA a right of access to ANY recorded information held by UEA
A request for information must be answered within 20 working days
If you receive a request for information which mentions FOI, is not information you routinely provide, is unusual, or you are unsure of, you should pass the request to your FOIA contact or the Information Policy and Compliance Manager
You should ensure that UEA records are well maintained and accessible to other staff, so that they can locate information needed to answer a request when you are not there
As all documents and emails could potentially be released under the Act, you should ensure that those you create are clear and professional ”
As it stands currently these emails and their contents have not been refuted and any cursory examination that delves beyond the usual camaraderie of research teams reveals this is not a good look from the point of view of purely objective science. They hint most strongly at attempts to massage and hide data that’s even mildly problematic for a comprehensive AGW theory, as well as political overtones and a well understood conduit to the public teat. These are the very points the ‘fruit loops’ have been banging on about and now it would appear they’ve been given enormous traction. As the policy said- “As all documents and emails could potentially be released under the Act, you should ensure that those you create are clear and professional ” The question now remains- How clear are they and how professional?
Now that this whistle has been blown I can forsee an inevitable outcome. There will be a demand from scientists of all persuasions everywhere for full and free access to all raw data collection and methodology of anything to do with AGW and no objections will be countenanced. The scientific community in general have their reputations on the line with the public now and they’ll know it. If UEA and other climate change centres think otherwise, they’re in for a rude awakening.
Not to mention references to tax dodging and FOI dodging. And you’re right that it makes for an interesting talking point.
Just because arguments are old and you don’t hear them repeated every five minutes does not mean that they are without merit. I’m sure that you would agree that many of the arguments in favour of evolution (a theory we agree on) are old and not mentioned every five minutes. That does not diminish them.
I note the hacker didn’t release the personal emails from people at orgs like Heartland. If this results in more delay on dealing with climate change we are all the losers from this sordid effort to smear. Rather than proving the lack of integrity of climate scientist it clearly proves the lack of integrity of climate denialists.
TerjeP, do you support the tax office, for example, having full access to everyone’s emails to check for anything incriminating?
Honestly, Terje go and take a look at the list, and the refutations. This isn’t science or even political discussion, it’s bad high school debating.
I’m sorry to say this, but the point I made a little while ago, that, under current circumstances, a commitment to libertarianism or conservatism actively makes people stupid is being exemplified by this talking point, and by your reaction to it.
@mitchell porter
Interesting, Mitchell. One thing is now clear. Email correspondence in a research institution reads much like blog correspondence, only slightly more polite 🙂 A few of the in-crowd are now probably realising they’re part of the out-crowd. Ouch!
The fact of the older emails does make me suspect this is part of an attempt to answer an FOI request. Perhaps the hacker grabbed more of the emails than was ever intended to go into the FOI tarball.
BTW Terje, or anyone really, how does the FOI “request” work? I would have guessed that some scope rules must come into it, otherwise one email – to take an example – could through the sender and recipient lists suck up an all-time mother of a graph (DAG in this case, IIRC). That is probably not the intent of FOI, otherwise everything including the burp contest record holder in the post-grad quarters should be online instantaneously…
The problem with an over-reaching FOI is that rather than provide the public with more knowledge it will inhibit the affected research scientists from carrying out truly exploratory trials on new data, perhaps even on simulated data, or on an existing method that they aren’t particularly familiar with using, any crazy thinking aloud thought that probably won’t work, yet has something to it that is attractive, will get trashed. Imagine how a researcher would feel if six months of failures has to be stored away along with the final, successful version of a new algorithm they were developing, purely in case of an FOI. The failures are merely a sideshow that goes with the territory of trying out a new idea for an algorithm, say a faster parallel nonlinear equation solver or something. Who but the researcher cares about the failed attempts? Release this stuff and as the delusorati blogs in the current climate demonstrates, I wager claims of fraud (eg only published one successful case out of months of failures), or incompetence (eg took six months to stop failing all the time, get someone who can do it right the first time), or not using the “scientific method” (eg should have made observations, collected data, made hypothesis about whether this version of algorithm would work, against not working as null, run on data, recorded failure(s)). Yeah, right!
As is also indicated, there is a dollar cost to responding to FOI. On one of the other blogs (sorry, not sure which one) it was claimed that CRU staff were into double figures on answering FOI requests, and someone(s) well known had issued a few of them. Researchers need to delay other duties in order to fit these in, whether they are well-intentioned FOI requests or capricious ones, it doesn’t matter.
Has a blogger here had to go through the process of responding to an FOI request? Want to elaborate a bit?
Donald – I’m not fixed on the ethics of this leak. I merely questioned your assertion that it was immoral with some counter points (eg ASIO stealing information and information having been stolen from big tabacco). I think it is in very grey territory.
I do however think that people that publish acadamic papers should make available to critics their underlying data and methods. Those that are wedded to the scientific method rather than a particular hypothesis ought to be keen to have any hypothesis subject to robust scrutiny. This is the best way to keep conclusions robust. For conclusions that effect public policy this is even more signficant.
There seems to be clear evidence from this leak that many academics put a lot of effort into obstructing any release of their underlying data or methods and also into obstructing any FOI request that might otherwise liberate their data or methods into the public domain. And that they conspired with others in the profession to obstruction the FOI process with potential criminal behaviour. None of this seems to be in the spirit of open enquiry that science ought to be about or in line with the law. Surely you are not so biased in this debate as to be indifferent to such revelations.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Terje…re the committment to lower income taxes and no redistribution by governments by the ALS (and small government fanatics) you may be interested to know that for the past 60 years most Aussies have gained from income tax redistribution. Up to 1964 only the top decile lost share because of it. Then hey presto – the 9th lost share and the top lost less share (but they jointly provided all income for redistribution) to 1976. By 1976 the 8th started losing some share as well. Meanwhile the top is winning by contributing a lower percentage of their share to redistribution (?shoving some of their rightful burden down on to the 9th and 8th deciles?). So if you want lower taxes Terje – reverse the trend where the rich have been shoving the burden on to others and gettinh away with it. Dont attack the government – attack the people who really are avoiding their responsibilities and contributing to growing inequality. To be precise – Decile number ten of tax income individuals (then add companies as well).
I know that was a derail – but in terms of the ALS – they spend half their time denying AGW because they want lower taxes but they dont have their tax/government arguments right either.
“The argument that Australia is already overpopulated is nonsense…….. Bangladesh is roughly twice the size of Tasmania, and home to about seven times the population of Australia.” – Lindsay Tanner Min for Finance and Deregulation addressing the Property Council of Australia (lobbyists who pay money to Libs and ALP) .
When the story was reported a week ago I was following the post about the Liberal fruitloops so that word came to mind (about the idea not the person), however Bob Carr has provided in the SMH a more considered and useful word, estrangement.
“Some Australians must have felt similar estrangement when they read federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner’s defence of Australia’s runaway immigration targets, playfully comparing our population densities with those of Bangladesh”
I thought I was making the point that there are two main possibilities for the specific case of CRU, namely a leak/whistleblower or a break-in/hack. Both cases are illegal under the law. In the first case, a whistleblower knows something about the situation because they are on the inside, usually a party to some of what they want to bring to the attention of the authorities. If instead they just release it to everyone via the internet, I fail to see how they are acting legally or even ethically, with the possible exception of the information being so important for the public to know, yet is somehow not the result of illegal dealings, that it needs to be made public. On the other hand, if they release it to the authorities in order to demonstrate potentially criminal behaviour of other staff, then I think they have behaved appropriately. Whether they face prosecution for the release is dependent upon many specific factors, as I’ve answered in previous posts on this thread.
I do agree with you that it is a very grey area.
I agree with you that methods should be made available, in adequate detail that a competent expert could reproduce it and apply it. For mathematical topics the method is probably enough. For non-mathematical, eg biological sample prepping for a novel technique, it might require an expert to visit the lab and to see how it is done first hand. These days that could be achieved through the cheap alternative of a movie file, saving a physical visit. It would reduce misunderstandings.
Data is the tricky one. I myself have run into the problems of ownership, and it isn’t a simple one to overcome. Some data is protected by patent, which means that in principle it is available (via the Patent Office database of patents), some data is part of an application for patent, in which case it cannot be released, some data is synthetic, ie created purely for purposes of demonstration or testing in a situation with known structure, and so on. Whenever data is processed by a commercial software application, only the input data and the resultant data are available for release – if the CSA license doesn’t encumber it in some way. Then there is the question of what is relevant data anyway? In the case of field data, say 3336m of ice core from Vostok or something, the data starts with physical observation of the core itself. There is only so many samples of core that may be taken. Still, some kind of protocol could be worked out I suppose. At the moment it is mainly the journals that dictate what data should be available – from their site usually – and what is unnecessary.
The US and UK academics have various responsibilities towards the financial providers of the grants. These may range to making everything within reason (methods, data, statistical preprocessing steps + reasoning, outlier identification + reasoning, etc) available as a condition of publication (eg NIH with pubmed database, numerous OAJs, etc) through to minimal result data (eg some big pharma grants where proprietary company data was used in part of the research), etc.
And to answer the highlighted part of your question in the above quote, I don’t believe that I am particularly biased in this case. In fact, if there is actionable evidence of criminal transgressions with respect to the relevant FOIA, then they should be procescuted – the due proces of the Law should apply, as I said in a previous post on this thread. We’ll see.
@Donald Oats
PS: by a “competent expert” I mean an expert in the field who has the specific knowledge (competency) to understand the method and to perform it.
Cheers,
Don.
One thing that does get up my craw concerning this whole climate witch burning debate is that some of the most libellious parties, and sneaky individuals keep on rolling on, earning big bucks for every appearance for various contrarian causes – smoking doesn’t cause cancer, DDT is safe as houses, CFCs don’t harm ozone and we can’t find a replacement anyway, CO2 emissions by humans don’t contribute to climate change, which isn’t or is happening, take your pick, lead in exhaust smoke isn’t a problem and besides there is no replacement, and many more causes. The common theme for most of these is that it originates in the US and then spreads out via the tireless campaigning of a well paid group of consultant-lobbyists. They seem to be bullet-proof because they do not generally publish in the scientific literature, they are not active pre-retirement age academics, and so escape the responsibilities of academic enquiry, and they push their client’s position through opinion piece articles in national newspapers. Since what they say is opinion, it doesn’t need to be the truth, of the scientific kind or any other kind.
Bulletproof.
terje your assertion that there is “clear evidence” of obstructing an FOI request is interesting news. Can you show us the clear evidence? Keep in mind slander and libel laws that you have (potentially) breached, already, by making statements along these lines.
Also keep in mind as Gvin Schmidt has made repeatedly at RC:
“It possibly has something to do with the fact that CRU has recieved dozens of vexatious FOI requests from people who are trying to score points rather than do any science” and that a poor request from Phil Jones to delete emails may (potentially) have had nothing to do with an FOI, and, almost certainly, nothing to do with deleting actual data.
If you don’t have any evidence (other than one stolen email with wording that could mean any of the above) – then you aren’t, obviously, making a substantial argument. Do you have any substantial discussion points to raise?
@Michael of Summer Hill
Why must one sympathise? He can simply call what they say by an apt descriptor: unadulterated tosh. After all, he’s as entitled to an opinion as any of them.
If he is, as the revolting members of the coalition partyy room claim, party to the greatest fraud in history, I can’t see that those saying this are entitled to be bothered. He needs to lay down what the is on message, insist upon it, and sack anyone who breaks ranks, and challenge the dissenters to roll him.
In an average year, about 300-400 Chinese coal miners die in mine accidents, though in recent years, the number has been drifting down as some of the smaller unauthorised mines have been closed. In some years figures have been as high as 3000 dead. In the years since Chernobyl nearly 20,000 Chinese miners have died and we are not even counting those coal miners who die from other causes associated with mining — like black lung disease. But I digress …
China coal mine blast death toll jumps to 87
Rescuers worked in frigid cold to reach 21 miners trapped underground Sunday as the death toll from a huge gas explosion in a northern Chinese mine jumped to 87 — the deadliest blast to hit the beleaguered industry in nearly two years.
The government has cracked down on unregulated mining operations, which account for almost 80 percent of the country’s 16,000 mines. It says the closure of about 1,000 dangerous small mines last year has helped it cut fatalities.
Quite apart from CO2 mitigation, there is a case for closing all but those mines needed to produce coal for steel production.
To put the above into some perspective, precise figures are hard to come by. This source puts a much higher figure on Chinese mine deaths
Safety Challenges in China’s Coal Mining Industry
This would put deaths since Chernobyl at a lot more than 20,000.
@Donald Oats
Don – EXACTLY
“The common theme for most of these is that it originates in the US and then spreads out via the tireless campaigning of a well paid group of consultant-lobbyists. They seem to be bullet-proof because they do not generally publish in the scientific literature, they are not active pre-retirement age academics, and so escape the responsibilities of academic enquiry, and they push their client’s position through opinion piece articles in national newspapers.”
They put serious donated monies into setting up their very own BS publishing houses and pay their very own “scab” ex academics!. Thats what gets me. They take the average voter (punter) for fools and sometimes they get lucky at their campaigns…
I dealt with a few FOI requests in my days as a bureaucrat. Couple of points:
FOI requests are often very broadly framed (“all material relating to ….”) and a discussion on what exactly the request is seeking is often part of the process. With most people you can clarify fairly informally, but serial requesters are often difficult to deal with, so then one just does one’s best.
FOI requests usually have end dates. An e-mail after this date is not part of the request – and unless specified, is not part of the topic unless the request is not about a topic but about a process. Even then, a formal process can leave a lot out – most documents go through multiple drafts.
E-Mail formats (long strings, often with several branches) are difficult to deal with. Which is the definitive one? And often the strings stray off into areas not part of the request or, if released, would infringe on other people’s privacy – and permission from all parties must be sought before release. So, again, total open-ness is often not possible.
Where someone has sought material under FOI that follows on from a previous request, or covers slightly different grounds, you have to pick over the previous material, check possible new material, and go through the permissions process again.
So it’s very tiome-consuming, often driven by a desire to find something that isn’t there (so reluctant to beleive there is no relevant material, or that all there is has been provided) and there is latitude for interpretation of what is being asked for. When multiple requests from one person are involved, it’s more like an extended conversation that a simple ask and response.
I have not read the e-mails involved but, having been there, I would not put too much weight on them unless the whole context was included – including the previous history of the requester.
On the issue of open data – all the basic data is out there. This is endlessly repeated, and as endlessly met by requests for greater open-ness. Open-ness on process confuses the science: a conclusion is made more robust if it can be derived in multiple ways, so it’s usually better to limit the detail on process until it becomes an issue.
John Quiggin
“’m sorry to say this, but the point I made a little while ago, that, under current circumstances, a commitment to libertarianism or conservatism actively makes people stupid is being exemplified by this talking point, and by your reaction to it.”
To which one then might note that having become stupid, they then take up socialism.
@Louis Hissink
Which they should have done three and a half decades ago.
Alice – Interesting that you seek dialogue whilst also referring to your opponents as fanatics. I’ll let it pass because I’m a good natured sort of guy however you might want to work on your manners. If you must use a descriptor then I’m happy to be refereed to as “radical”.
Firstly some perspective. To make it into the top decile you need to earn about $73000 per annum. However this hardly represents the obscenely rich. It’s the sort of salary many school teachers earn. It is just over twice the median income. If you want to soak the rich I think you should choose something other than the top decile as your target. Consider perhaps the top centile.
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/5f4bb49c975c64c9ca256d6b00827adb!OpenDocument
A huge amount of the income taxes we pay amounts to churn. It comes back to the same people that pay it except now with strings attached. We could cut taxes dramatically by reducing churn, although I think some churn is probably inevitable in a simplified tax system.
Leaving aside churn we have redistribution. Your concern seems to be that the system is less progressive than it used to be (ie entails less redistribution from the top to the bottom) . However there is no conflict between making the system more progressive whilst lowering taxes. I’ve said this ad nausium so I can only guess that you have not previously paid attention. So please pay attention.
Let us assume we have three objectives:-
1. No reduction in per real per capita government spending.
2. Reduced rates or income tax.
3. A more progressive tax system.
There is no incompatibility between these three objectives. I’ve outlined previously that we could slash all income tax rates in half within a decade and still achive objectives one and two simply by focusing all real per capita revenue growth (driven by economic growth) on tax rate reductions.
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2009/08/18/halve-income-tax-rates-by-2020/
However if you want a more progressive tax system at the same time (ie objectives one, two and three) then you simply focus all revenue growth on the task of increasing the tax free threshold. Or on some similar such progressive tax cut.
Personally I don’t see any reason what so ever why people on median income ($35000 p.a) should pay any income tax at all. We should have a tax free threshold above this amount. And if we focused all revenue growth on increasing the tax free threshold it would not make many years to elliminate income tax for all Australians on median income.
Having said that I also think we should abolish income tax for someone on the salary of a classroom teacher. This takes us up to the top decile. If we can all agree to abolish income tax up to this point then we can quibble about what we do beyond that level some time later.
Donald – obstructing the release of methods is what the leaked emails point to. JQ may think this is a mere talking point but I think it is a corrosive revelation. If the truth is important then such obstruction should not occur.
Terje – again, I’ll ask you. What obstruction do you think is being done? What evidence are you using for your allegations/slander?
Iain – you have ommitted the word “seems”. I said that within the leaked emails “there seems to be clear evidence”. This is a blog not a court of law. If tomorrow we find out this whole thing is a hoax then I’ll be happy to say that “it seems like I got it wrong”. Until then stop being so pedantic.
“seems to be clear”?
On your opaqueness metre – how clear is “seems to be clear”? mildly clear? muddy clear?
For the third time, what evidence do you provide for your “clarity”?