Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 23/02/2000
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Wednesday February 23, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
[Music up, music down!]
Here in the brave new world of the Democratic People's Republic of Aotearoa, the new regime of Comrades Clark & Neanderton is in the process of setting up a new gang of Commissars called the Ministry for Economic Development. At least, I assume that's what it will be called, since Comrade Neanderton is MinistER for Economic Development, but I couldn't get confirmation of that from the Comrade's office yesterday. Nor could I elicit a definite date when the new monster would be announced. "Perhaps within a month" I was told. When I asked what its brief is to be exactly I was told, "I'm sorry I can't give you that information." How many parasites are likely to be involved? "We're in the process of working through a structure right now."
Plus ça change in Wellington, it would seem. Or perhaps the relevant luminaries haven't yet returned from their study tour of North Korea.
What we can safely say is that we are on the verge of another orgy of pork-barrelling, palm-greasing, "winner"-picking, cronyism & corporate welfarism. Not what you know but whom you know in or from Wellington will determine your success. The sickening thing is that there'll be no shortage of candidates lining up for the confiscated, forcibly redirected money that Comrade Neanderton's new politburo will be doling out.
In this regard I can't do better than direct you to a speech by T. J. Rodgers entitled "Why Silicon Valley should not normalise relations with Washington DC." It has just been posted on the web site of the Cato Institute: www.cato.org
T. J. Rodgers is president & Chief Executive Officer of Cypress Semiconductor, one of the wondrously successful corporates based in Silicon Valley at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay area. It started as six founders with a fifteen-page business plan which they sold to a consortium for $3.5 million - it is now worth $1 billion. Silicon Valley itself, says Rodgers, "is a successful & dynamic example of basic American values at work: private property, intellectual property ownership, free trade & free markets. Just as Americans are more prosperous than people in other countries because our economy is freer, the people of Silicon Valley are better off than the average American because Silicon Valley economy is even freer from & less dependent on government."
But the siren seductress of subsidisation & protection is rearing her head - CEOs "are constantly told to stop sitting on the political sidelines, recognise the value of 'industry-government partnerships' & become donors, lobbyists & recipients of subsidies." "Statist" CEOs - i.e. businessmen more skilled at licking politicians' bottoms than at business - are lining their businesses up for Other People's Money. Morally & economically, says Rodgers, this is the kiss of death. "The political scene in Washington is antithetical to the core values that drive our success in the international marketplace. The collectivist notion that drives policymaking in Washington is the irrevocable enemy of high-technology capitalism & the wealth creation process - Silicon Valley is an island of capitalism & freedom admired around the world. We must remember that free minds & free markets are the moral foundation that has made our success possible. We must never allow these freedoms to be diminished for any reason."
Comrade Neanderton could save himself & the rest of us a heap of trouble by forgetting about this new politburo & reducing taxes & regulations instead. Make it possible for new T. J. Rodgers to breathe & bloom. Who knows, if we freed things up sufficiently, we might lure the original down here.
Politically Incorrect Show, celebrating free minds & free markets - 309 3099.
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