LATIN AMERICA BLOWS UP

by Jeremy Lee
While Argentineans continue to riot and starve, battering the banks and politicians in daily protests, the currency has devalued to such an extent that exports have burgeoned. They are now expected to increase by 16 percent in the second half of the year. The Australian Financial Review (13/8/02) reported:
"The export boom could affect Australian primary producers as the crisis-hit South American nation ships out a big grain harvest, and beef sales begin to recover with the phasing out of foot-and-mouth disease bans. The Argentine peso has lost 70 percent of its value since January, and exporters are so competitive there are fears there could be domestic shortages as they shun the devastated local market..... Argentina traditionally exports to its neighbours Brazil and Uruguay but these economies have slumped with the regional economic crisis ...."

In other words, there is enough for all in Argentina. Nobody need starve. But the currency has devalued to such an extent that exporters will send much-needed goods overseas while their countrymen and women go without. Truly, modern economics is a marvellous thing! Especially when Argentinean exports are going to make it tougher for exporters in other nations. The money that Argentina receives, of course, will go to foreign bankers.

URUGUAY NEXT IN LINE

The same violent protests are now occurring in Uruguay, where the Government has been forced to close the banks to prevent a run on the peso. So great is concern in the US about the spreading crisis in Latin America that it is not waiting for the vultures in the International Monetary Fund to arrive, but is sending its own Treasury official Paul O'Neill, to hand out emergency bridging loans. The Guardian Weekly (8-14/8/02) gave this report:
"It is the first time the Bush administration has offered direct support for an economy under fire from speculators ....Discontent over Uruguay's imploding financial system and grinding four-year recession spilled onto the streets last week with labour protests and scattered supermarket lootings. The financial system has been hit by the economic collapse in neighbouring Argentina, whose better-off citizens traditionally used Uruguayan banks as a safe haven. With Argentina's economic paralysis now entering its tenth month, Argentineans have been forced to draw on their savings. Nearly $6 billion has been withdrawn from the banking system so far this year, 40% of all deposits. Fearing a run on the banking system and running short of foreign reserves to prop up the peso, Uruguay closed all its banks on Tuesday last week. With the increasing threat of a cash crunch, Uruguay's currency, the peso, has lost about half of its value since it was floated in June ...."

But, of course, it's not only Uruguay. The article continued: "Speaking in Brasilia on Monday on the first day of his visit to the region, Mr O'Neill indicated that he would also back an IMF bailout for Brazil, Latin America's largest economy. .... Brazil is reportedly seeking some $10 billion to prop up the real, which tumbled sharply last week amid investor fears that the two leftwing candidates leading in October's presidential race could default on the country's $250 billion foreign debt ..."

So by far the biggest debtor nation in the world, the US, is lending to much smaller nations to keep them out of trouble. It's a crazy world!

THE PRESIDENT'S CREDIBILITY

PRINCE CHARLES A STUMBLING BLOCK TO GLOBALISM

Prince Charles plans to launch a "country casual" range of garments made from British wool and spun and manufactured in rural workshops in Britain. The Australian (12/8/02) said: "... An informed source said Charles's latest venture was motivated by a 'deep sense of obligation' to tackle the crisis in agriculture. According to figures from the National Farmers' Union, the average British farmer earned about 10,000 pounds ($28,000) in the year to February. Although Charles is a substantial donor in his own right to charity, and raises many millions more, he wants to provide practical leadership,' the source said. The source said rising profits at the Prince's organic food firm Duchy Originals, had convinced him he should test the potential of other rural enterprises. The company announced profits for the year March 2001 of 572,000 pounds, all of which was donated to the Prince of Wales' Charitable Foundation...."

We have heard vague rumours that National Party leader, and Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, together with National Party leader in the Senate, Ron Boswell, are flying to England for urgent talks as to how the same campaign could be adapted to Australia, home of the biggest wool industry in the world, which also has a number of startling innovations in the processing and manufacture of wool products. We have been unable to verify the rumours. Could any reader help out if they hear anything?

TREASURER'S GENIUS

JOURNALISTS' NEGATIVITY

WAR BUILD-UP IN THE GULF

AUSTRALIA'S PROSPERITY

by Antonia Feitz
The worst part about this latest market collapse is that any criticism of the economic system that allowed the abuses to flourish was dismissed as ill-informed and even ignorant. But reasonable people kept asking: if Australia is so prosperous why are people working longer and longer hours when leisure is surely the hallmark of genuine prosperity? John Howard says older Australians must be 'encouraged' to stay in the workforce, even into their seventies! Since when has working till you drop dead been a mark of prosperity? Why have low-paid Ukrainians replaced well-paid Australian crews on ships that ply Australia's coastal waters? Why are public hospitals stretched to their limits? Why does tertiary education increasingly look like being reserved for the rich?

In a genuinely prosperous society people don't ask these sorts of questions. The average wage in Australia may very well be well over $40,000 but what comfort is that figure to the majority who don't earn anywhere near it? For a truer picture of what people actually earn consider that Treasury estimates suggest that the employer super contributions "will not be enough to support in retirement the 70 percent of workers now earning less than $33,560 a year." (Australian, 2217102). Yes, you read it right: 70 percent of Australian workers earn less than $33,560 a year. That's a miserable sort of 'prosperity', isn't it? In any case the results are in on the Washington Consensus and they're dismal. According to Teese, an independent research group examining 116 countries, found that 113 (including Australia) enjoyed better growth performances from 1950 to 1970 than they did in 1970 to 1990-the decades of economic 'reform'. Certainly ordinary people lived far happier lives in the earlier period when one income sufficed to keep a family and workers enjoyed job security.

THE SHAMEFUL SILENCE TO WHITE 'ETHNIC CLEANSING'

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND PETER LEWIS COMPACT

A RARE BUT DESERVED BOUQUET TO MR. HOWARD

by Antonia Feitz
Regular readers (of Neil Baird's News Report) will recall that Neil has published occasional articles about Dr. Catherine Hakim's research which shows that when it comes to work preferences, women aren't the homogenous career-focussed group that feminists insist they are. It stands to reason that childless women and mothers who put their careers first are very different to the overwhelming majority of mothers who put their families first. Hakim's research has quantified the proportions. In January 2001 News Report published the following:
"Catherine Hakim from the London School of Economics claims that only a minority of women – between 10 percent and 30 percent – are work-centred and many of them are childless anyway. A similar minority of women are home centred, preferring not to work. The majority favour structuring some work – preferably part-time work – around their family responsibilities. Whether feminists like Eva Cox accept it or not, that is the reality. It follows that any government which tries to 'encourage' – ie force – mothers into the workforce is perpetrating an injustice on the majority of them." So it's welcome news indeed that John Howard is so impressed by Catherine Hakim's research he's seriously considering a homemaker's allowance to be paid to mothers of children under five. (Sun-Herald, 28/7/02).

Howard's social policy adviser, John Perrin, has gone to London to meet Dr. Hakim and discuss her work. What Howard finds particularly attractive is that Hakim's recommendation of a homemaker's allowance is ideologically neutral because it would allow individual families to use the money as they see fit. They could use it to pay for childcare or to supplement the mother's lost income. Consequently the government wouldn't be in the social engineering business of forcing mothers to work, or discouraging them from working. Needless to say Australian feminists loathe Dr. Catherine Hakim's ideas as much as they do John Howard.

Though not in response to Hakim, prominent feminist Eva Cox is on record as saying, "I question any form of payment that rewards women for choosing to stay home." (Bettina Arndt, The Age, 23/12/00). But why? Most mothers are loath to leave their babies. What is Cox's problem with allowing mothers the financial choice to be with their infants or to work? Does the feminist mantra of 'choice' refer only to abortion?

Male feminists are even worse than female ones. The Professor of Demography at the Australian National University, Peter McDonald, is on record as deploring the introduction of what he called the "lucrative" Family Tax Benefit Part B because it was a disincentive for women to re-enter the workforce. He was horrified that the benefit promoted the traditional family model "where the father absents himself more and more from the family home while the wife is always there" (Sydney Morning Herald, 20/6/01). Er, excuse me, Peter, but what's wrong with mum looking after the baby while dad brings home the bacon? This traditional model is still the one that most couples aspire to when they have babies – even after decades of brainwashing in schools and the media, especially the TV media. The nitty-gritty is that we're a mammalian species and only mothers – not gender-neutral 'parents' – produce milk. Wouldn't it be nice if academic Peter McDonald had a chat with fellow academic Catherine Hakim – if ideology met reality, say over a coffee. And wouldn't it be nice if demographers just measured and analysed the vital statistics of populations as in the deaths, births, marriages, divorces, etc. Demographers provide the tools for policy-making. It's not their job to make policy.

ALTERNATIVE BADGE FOR MUSLIMS

BBC, United Kingdom, Sunday, August 11th, 2002
A tiny cross rests on top of the crown on the badge. The Metropolitan Police Force is to drop the crown and cross from its insignia for non-Christian officers because of objections from a Muslim recruit. A Muslim traffic warden resigned because he complained he was unable to wear the symbol from any other faith. The Sunday Times reports that the force has come under pressure from a threatened employment tribunal resulting from the case. Currently all officers in Britain's 51 police areas wear the badge which incorporates the St. Edward's crown, topped with a Christian cross.

CHOICE
Now the Met is proposing to develop an alternative badge for people who do not want to sport the traditional one. In a statement, the Met said it had long 'cherished' its association with the Crown. However, its future depended on its "ability to attract and maintain the most talented people and cater for their individual needs and requirements".

"Uniform should be exactly what the word means – it should apply to everyone," said Glenn Smyth, Metropolitan Police Federation. It proposes that all employees will still be issued with the traditional badges "as a matter of course" but if they object – with supportable reasons – they will be offered a badge without the crown. The initiative could be adopted nationwide after the Met's deputy commissioner Ian Blair discusses the issue with the Association of Chief Police Officers. Traditionalists have rejected the idea. Inspector Glenn Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told The Sunday Times: "Uniform should be exactly what the word means – it should apply to everyone. We swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. The crown is the symbol of that oath and this move attacks its meaning." Tony Arbour, a Conservative member of the Greater London Authority, said it was political correctness "going mad".

BASIC FUND

REPORT – WESTERN AUSTRALIA 36th ANNUAL SEMINAR & DINNER

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

LATE CALL TO HEAR BILL DALY AT THE TRARALGON REGIONAL DINNER

THE SYDNEY FORUM

CAMP TOOWOOMBA

NEW BOOK... 'FASCIST EUROPE RISING'

YOUR RIGHTS 2002

AUDIO TAPE

IS THE EUROPEAN UNION THE NEW SOVIET UNION? In an address to an audience in Committee Room 14 of the House of Commons, Vladimir Bukovsky the Soviet dissident, answers this question from his own personal experiences. Audio tape: $6.00 posted.

VIDEO TAPE
BRITAIN THE EUROPEAN UNION – THE FACTS: This 50 minute video explains the whole basis of the European union, its basic documents, laws and institutions. It outlines what difference the EU makes to the traditional laws and institutions of the United Kingdom. Video Tape: $15.00 posted. Both from Heritage Book Mailing, PO Box 208, Ingle Farm, SA, 5098.