One of my favourite writers, William F. Buckley Jr, died yesterday at the age of 82. The founder, more than half a century ago, of the National Review, Buckley was a cheerful wit, an astute intellectual, a shrewd commentator and an articulate writer. The scourge of leftish sympathies in academia, elite society and the mainstream media, Buckley was a thinking conservative in the classical liberal tradition. He shunned the lunatic fringes of isolationism and protectionism, abhorred communism and totalitarianism, and espoused individual liberty and economic freedom. His passion and popularity made him perhaps the most influential post-war conservative of all, building an intellectual basis that would find its apogee only in the 1980s.

Ronald Reagan once asked Buckley what position he might like in the administration. Deadpan, he replied, “ventriloquist”. I think he got the job.

Other than the original announcement in the National Review, linked to above, notable obituaries and reactions include:

Up from Liberalism, on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page.

William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82, by Douglas Martin at the New York Times.

William F. Buckley Jr., in The Times Online.

Conrad Black on William F. Buckley Jr., by, ahem, Conrad Black, in the National Post.

A remarkable man, by Joe Lieberman.

Shades of gray and Blackie, by Mark Steyn.

Bill was a great American, by John McCain.

But perhaps he is best remembered in his own words:

“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”

“The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.”

“I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”

“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”

“Government can’t do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.”

And finally, what more can a mere mortal say about Buckley, when he said it all himself in a New York Times Book Review article on writing speedily? “I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition,” he declared modestly. “I asked myself the other day, ‘Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.”

And neither can I. As the WSJ said, Ave atque vale, Bill Buckley. Hail and farewell.

As predicted, South African industry is showing signs of being hit hard by the electricity crisis that came to a head early this year. Gold Fields has issued results including a warning that despite a soaring gold price, which normally would make marginal mines profitable, it might have to close those mines because of the 10% electricity cuts it is being forced to make. It operates some of the deepest mines in the world, where life isn’t all that pleasant at the best of times, and is downright deadly without air and water being pumped into and out of the shafts.

It’s worth pulling this story from a major international newspaper, because that makes a point in itself.

Production, the fourth-largest gold producer in the world predicts, will be 20% to 25% down on the previous quarter, and will remain 15% to 20% down for the foreseeable future. Not surprisingly, this brings into jeopardy almost 10 000 jobs — some 18% of the workforce. And Gold Fields isn’t alone in this predicament.

Yet Alec Erwin, the communist unionist in charge of public enterprises — which includes the rather un-enterprising electricity monopoly — told us, not long ago, that despite the power cuts and rationing, “The growth of South Africa’s economy at the current healthy levels can continue.”

What a relief. Presumably, Erwin will put in some extra time to make up for those lost rands of Gross Domestic Production. Perhaps he can also make available, say, 9 700 gardening jobs, paying enough to support a family or so each. He’ll pull through. I have every confidence in his leadership, since his boss clearly does.

PS. Because of other obligations, I’m rather infrequently connected just at the moment. There’s plenty to rant about, but this week will probably be quiet around here. Never fear, though. I’ll catch up.

Economist David Hale includes some fascinating statistics in a recent WSJ op-ed piece. He notes that the rise of emerging markets and their growing ability to finance American debt and current account deficits, is “a complete reversal of 20th-century history.”

The current business cycle will go down in the history books as one which confirmed that leadership in the global economy is now shifting from the old industrial countries to the emerging market countries. During 2007, the developing countries produced over 52% of global growth, compared to 37% during the late 1990s. China alone produced 17.8% of global GDP growth last year, compared to 14.6% for the U.S. economy. The developing countries’ share of total world output has risen to 29% this year from 18% in 1995. The World Bank is forecasting that the economies of developing countries will grow 7.4% this year, compared to 2.2% in the old industrial nations.

As a result of their large current account surpluses, the developing countries also account for 75% of the world’s $6 trillion of foreign exchange reserves. They also have sovereign wealth funds with assets of $2.5 trillion. And there has been a huge expansion of developing-country stock markets during the past decade. Their market capitalization now exceeds $17.8 trillion, compared to $2.2 trillion in 2000. The capitalization of the U.S. stock market is $17.5 trillion.

In the decade before 2005, American consumers were the growth engine for the world economy, accounting for more than half of global consumer spending. The balance of power is now shifting.

In 2000, the consumer spending of the world’s 17 largest emerging-market countries was equal to 48% of U.S. consumer spending; last year it was equal to 65%. At current growth rates, the developing countries could exceed U.S. consumer spending by 2015.

This consumption boom is changing global trade patterns. America’s share of global imports has fallen to 14% last year from over 20% in 2000. The import share of the developing countries has grown to 40.6% last year from 33% in 2000.

This disconfirms the popular left-wing trope that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. In reality, the rich are getting richer, but so are the poor. It suggests even that “inequality”, the fall-back number on which Western neo-socialists alight whenever they realise they simply cannot claim the poor are worse off than they were 50 years ago, is a fallacy.

These numbers remind me of the spectacular presentation Hans Rosling gave at TED in 2006, and a follow-up in 2007. If you haven’t seen his presentations, do yourself a favour and take the time to watch Rosling make data come alive:

Myths about the developing world, Hans Rosling, TED 2006

Watch the end of poverty, Hans Rosling, TED 2007

“The seemingly impossible is possible. We can have a good world,” he concludes, before debunking the image of the Swedish academic and statistician by swallowing a bayonet.

Today is the last day of nominations for the SA Blog Awards 2008. It would be great if this blog got enough nominations to qualify for consideration in any category, but it would be excellent fun if those categories included “best green blog”. I wish there was a left-wing category too, or an option for socialist site of the year, but green will do.

Here’s my original post, explaining how and why the fluffy creature alongside will benefit from my boundless soft-heartedness if you, most honoured readers, make it so.

Click the big, colourful button to the right (or click here) to do the right thing by this kitty.

Jim Fedako wrote an interesting article over at the Mises blog musing about the nature of accounting in public services. It neatly captures the problem that the public provision of a public good is not meant to be done for profit, so how do you really account for government’s performance? An extract:

Government accounting is a true oxymoron. We can determine the cost of government, but what about the value produced? What is the product? What is its value? What is the bottom line? Of course, these unanswered questions do not stop government from playing business, pretending to create value and profit for society.

[…]

[W]henever government officials speak of fiscal accountability, they are only considering approved budget versus actual spending. They are not referring to worthiness of expenditures, only whether or not they spent revenue according to the budget, with no outright theft of money. Oh, sure, the officials will claim that fiscal accountability means that money was spent on productive activities since, as expected, it is assumed by the governmental entity that only productive activities were approved in the budget. Circular reasoning.

[…]

The implication is that a governmental entity that increases its tax revenue faster than its expenditures is performing a service for its constituents; the entity is achieving a profit for the taxpayers. Conversely, a governmental entity in a deficit cycle is creating a loss for its taxpayers. So, the more a government confiscates, the better off the taxpayers. Does that make sense? Down is up, and up is down. Somewhere, somehow, we ventured down the rabbit hole.

I’m not convinced this is the final word on the subject, but it certainly is food for thought.

As counterpoint to a rant against white supremacists I wrote for the Mail & Guardian’s online opinion site recently, I thought this video was pretty apt. The events portrayed here remind me of the caricature image of the stupidity of “houtkoppe” (blockheads), as the whites I went to school with during apartheid days commonly called blacks. Except, these particular houtkoppe are perfectly white.

But enough with the theory and the rationalisation. It’s just damn funny:

I would like to present the Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa (NIASA) with the Monty Burns PR Award for outstanding achievement in making the nuclear industry look dishonest, stupid, manipulative, and evil. Well done, fellows.

I know they say “fight fire with fire”, but the latest move by NIASA is just plain dumb. It has brought a complaint before the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) after M-Net’s Carte Blanche screened a programme called Uranium Road

One hopes the BCCSA throws this complaint out with the contempt it deserves.

I didn’t see the programme when it was broadcast in November last year, but would not be surprised if it indeed is a biased piece of work.

A glance at the transcript shows that it raises some important issues, especially around nuclear security, environmental risk, and the economic viability of nuclear energy. It also degenerates into sensationalism, however. At one point, the effects of radioactive waste are described in all their gory detail, as if it goes without saying that this waste will not to be rigorously contained, but will be spread around the local environment to cause cancer and grow cute little mutant kittens.

Throughout, the programme it quotes David Fig, who is identified as an “independent researcher”, but in fact is the chairman of a left-wing lobby group named Biowatch South Africa. That should have been disclosed, especially since the programme refers to “the powerful lobbies that support nuclear energy” — lobbies that remain as anonymous as they sound ominous. Worse, Fig is selling a book, called… you guessed it, Uranium Road. This pecuniary interest in the subject is also never disclosed.

I don’t want to go into the actual arguments presented in the programme, or those presented by the nuclear industry, but a cursory examination of the transcript certainly makes me willing to accept that the programme may have to be taken with a pinch of salt, and that it isn’t impossible that the nuclear industry representatives featured in the story have been selectively quoted to fit the programme’s storyline. After all, if it cribbed the title of Fig’s book, it probably cribbed a lot more from his anti-nuclear, anti-corporate arguments.

But taking Carte Blanche to the BCCSA? Is the NIASA insane?

Environmentalists are supposed to be the petty fascists who invoke the authoritarian fist of government to bar free commerce, silence free speech, and sue anyone who dares offend against their fearful, conservative world-view.

This kind of braindead PR by NIASA certainly doesn’t make the nuclear industry look very honest, or sympathetic towards widely held concerns about nuclear energy, be they valid or otherwise. In fact, it reinforces the fear and distrust with which many people — and especially environmentalists and green fashionistas — view the industry. It is certainly not making it any easier for proponents of nuclear energy to make their case.

NIASA should be ashamed of itself.

Update: As I wrapped up this post, I discovered that the NIASA has withdrawn its complaint, following a “settlement”. Settlement with whom? On what terms? Why? And if it isn’t going to go through with the complaint to score a victory on factual grounds, what does the NIASA think it has achieved with this stunt? It may only have been established in June 2007, but if I were a member, I’d move to fire the executive already. So much for “powerful lobbies”.

William McGurn, George W Bush’s head speechwriter until a couple of weeks ago, has written an editorial that is well worth reading. It’s illuminating to get such a view from the other side of the media fence, even if this piece comes across a little plaintive.

When a man hangs up his byline to write for a president, he gets more than a new job. He gets to see how the press and pundit corps look from the other side of the notepad.

And over three years in the West Wing, you see a few things. You see who’s a straight shooter, and who’s full of snark. You see who’s smart, and whose outrageous behavior would have made its way to Drudge had it involved White House staffers instead of White House correspondents. Most of all, you see how conventional wisdom can keep otherwise talented reporters and commentators on the same stale storyline long after the facts on the ground have changed.

He does make a few very good points. In particular, he notes the irony of the protrayal of Bush as a stubborn, intransigent ideologue, when several examples illustrate the stubborn determination of an editorialising media corps to cling to a story once they’ve made up their minds.

A line in his resignation letter (PDF) reads: “I remember [on 9/11] looking up at the sky and wondering what kind of world my girls would inherit. And I remember saying to [my wife] Julie, ‘Let’s be thankful that George W Bush is president’.”

In this article, he echoes that sentiment. I largely agree with his assessment, and like him, I also admire George W Bush for having the courage and conviction to take necessary decisions, difficult decisions, and as McGurn describes it, to “take the heat” for them.

Still, you can’t help thinking that McGurn is defending not only Bush’s failures to communicate, but his own.

Foreign Policy Blog (which also has a very amusing photograph) notes this priceless quotation, attributed to Fidel Castro in a 1959 interview with CBS’s Edward Murrow:

I’m not thinking to cut my beard, because I’m accustomed to my beard and my beard means many things to my country. When we have fulfilled our promise of good government I will cut my beard.

You said it, oh, bearded one. You said it.

Fidel Castro, the dictator and oppressor-in-chief of communist Cuba, has resigned as president. At last!

For some years now, pundits have been speculating whether Fidel Castro really is still alive. A case in point is the Wall Street Journal’s resident funny man, James Taranto. Despite clear indications to the contrary, Taranto speculated in August 2006 that his condition might improve to such an extent that doctors may soon be able to pronounce him dead. The following January, he noted a headline that began, “Castro Reportedly in Grave…”, and bemoaned the fact that the next word was “Condition”. He wished the adjective were a noun.

I share Taranto’s disdain for Castro. Having overthrown the corrupt Fulgencio Batista almost 50 years ago with promises of liberation, he instead murdered hundreds of opponents, jailed thousands more, and established an oppressive, communist tyranny. The pretence of a glorious revolution for freedom and democracy didn’t last long. However, the cult of El Lider Maximo, as he became known, took on heroic proportions. First, the Bay of Pigs betrayal was spun into a glorious victory by Cuba over the evil Americans. Not long afterwards, the legendary stand-off between him, as proxy for Nikita Kruschev, and John F Kennedy cemented Castro’s reputation, and the secret deal that ended the Cuban missile crisis cemented his political survival and longevity.

Surprisingly, Cuban communism survived — but only just — the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the real Cuba, described by people other than leftist propagandists led by the nose by state minders, remained rather less romantic than the fantasies of useful idiots would have it. Still, Cuba remains an icon of hope for people who love 1950s automobilia, or pine for the glory days of Soviet anti-capitalism. People like Thabo Mbeki, for example. Apparently, we have a lot to learn from Cuba. I’d agree. We can learn how not to run a country, or an economy, for example.

Here’s hoping Cuba rouses itself from its torpor and shakes off the bonds of Castro’s mind-numbing personality cult. Here’s hoping they reject the regency he has installed, in the person of his brother, Raúl Castro. Here’s hoping that when they do, they also renounce the destructive communist idealism of which El Lider Maximo was one of the last hold-outs. Here’s to the fall of Fidel Castro.

Update: Corrected an error, introduced by careless editing, which made the last sentence of the second paragraph refer to the wrong antecedent.

Prompted by Wessel van Rensburg’s comment on another post, I dug through my archives to find a story I wrote for CIO Africa in September 2004, on Somalia’s telecommunications industry. It is not available online, but I have permission to quote it here in full:

Absent rules, luxuriant growth
Somalia’s telecom sector: a case study in anarchocapitalism
By Ivo Vegter

“A wild rose roofs the ruined shed / And that and summer well agree.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Day Dream

The most unlikely places throw up the most unlikely tales. Though Somalia has had no government for over a decade – or rather, because of this – international call rates are the lowest in Africa, most of the country has telephone coverage, and you can get an Internet account in a day.

When Somalia’s former ruler, General Muhammad Siyad Barre, was ousted in January 1991, the country rapidly degenerated into turmoil. The country has been fought over by secessionist factions and warlords ever since. A shortlived attempt at US intervention led to a famous withdrawal, and more recent peace negotiations in neighbouring Djibouti have spluttered fitfully without achieving much by way of either peace or effective government.

Before the collapse of the Barre regime, there had been 8 500 fixed lines, most of which were in the capital, Mogadishu. Even that meagre public switched telephone network was destroyed, leaving the country entirely bereft of telecommunications of any description.

Yet, when Walter Brown, an African telecommunications expert with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), was asked by the Ugandan delegation to a 1999 conference on rural telecoms about the best way to introduce a mobile phone operator, he suggested talking to the Somali delegation. At the time, the Somalis had a deal on the table for a tenth of what the Ugandans could extract from likely equipment vendors.

Speaking to CIO Africa at Johannesburg’s Kind of Blue, the jazz restaurant to which he has since retired, Brown says, “My presentation to the ITU conference said that technology lends itself to a private sector approach, by moving away from circuit-switched telecoms to packet-switching even in rural areas. It can be done cheaply, using any bearer you wish – radio, powerline, satelite, copper, fibre – and you can deal with any vendor you like.”

He recalls: “I made many friends, but made enemies of large industry players who needed to dump circuit-switching technology somewhere. Many delegates said the environment didn’t allow them to speak out.”

Not so the Somali delegation, which had no government to answer to, no vendors to mollify, and no legacy systems to consider.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the small industrial sector has been looted for scrap metal – among the country’s chief exports – and there is no formal banking sector. Yet despite this seeming anarchy, Somalia’s service sector has managed to survive and grow.

“Telecommunication firms provide wireless services in most major cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent,” it states.

Accurate statistics are hard to come by in a situation as fluid and chaotic as Somalia.

While the ITU estimated there to be about 10 000 main lines in operation at the end of 2000, the latest World Factbook figures, which date to 2002, estimate that there are 100 000 main telephone lines, 35 000 mobile phones, and 89 000 Internet users.

Writing in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) magazine, Choices, reporter Finbarr O’Reilly quotes Abdi Karim Mohamed Eid, manager of private telecommunications company Telesom, as saying, “If you add up the other companies, there may be around 20 000 Internet subscribers in [the northern region of] Somaliland. That’s much more than we anticipated initially and it’s a remarkable achievement given that there is no backing from the international community. This is solely done by the Somali business community. We are really proud of that.”

According to O’Reilly, 87% of the country now has telephone service, and some operators claim to be able to install fixed lines withing two days of applying, and establish Internet accounts within 24 hours. His figures of 105 000 fixed and 39 000 mobile lines back up the CIA’s numbers. An older report from the Somali Telecom Association (STA) state that 47 out of 74 towns have telephone service. And international call rates are as low as $1 per minute.

“It was clear supply and demand,” says Brown. “There was a need, and it got supplied. The service is reliable, because operators know if there is no service, there is no money. And you can get service within days of applying.”

The STA was formed at the behest of the UNDP and the ITU, in order to address the problem that to reach all people will telephones in Somalia, people had to subscribe to at least three different networks.

“With no government, no regulator, and no policy, they formed interconnect agreements,” says Brown. “Vendors didn’t take them seriously, until they started making money. Now companies like MCI help broker deals for Somali operators. Tariffs are set according to supply and demand, and are the cheapest in Africa.”

He adds: “They did well, and were able to advise Uganda to get rid of their oversight yokes.”

Not that complete anarchy is necessarily a good thing, of course. Though nobody imposes taxes on telephone calls, protects incumbent monopolies, demands exorbitant licence fees or imposes counter-intuitive technology restrictions, nobody collects refuse, supplies reliable electricity or provides adequate security either.

But Somalia’s experience with free-market telecommunications shows that the continent’s penchant for regulation, red tape and big government is not the solution to local development challenges.

It adds a new dimension to the existing weight of evidence that argues the benefits of telecommunication for the developing world.

“Consider the ITU study on the transport sector in Yemen,” explains Brown, “where simply providing communication long highways cut the costs of trucking companies by as much as 80%. Or the study in Sri Lanka, where farmers improved their income by 70% simply using a public telephone box.”

Somalia is a case study for the truth Brown learnt in a career spent at telecoms operations ranging from Zimbabwe’s PTC to the Iridium satellite venture to the ITU: “Oversight should not manage. It should lead, encourage and incentivise.”

Left free to innovate, an entrepreneurial people will find ways to succeed despite the most adverse of circumstances. Development goals foisted upon them by supranational organisations merely sound lofty. Liberalisation plans managed by government merely sound responsible. What makes the difference, in the end, is mere supply and demand.

2004 (c) CIO Africa, BDFM Publishers

In 1979, Jerry Pournelle, a science fiction author famed for his columns in computer magazine, Byte, wrote a non-fiction book, titled A Step Farther Out. The book was a fascinating collection of essays, rich with ideas and ideals. It would probably bear re-reading even three decades on.

Pournelle decried the defunding of space exploration, arguing that the moon had become viewed as a destination, rather than merely a first step of man’s journey into space. Motivated, no doubt, by apocalyptic visions of the population explosion, his argument was that not only was this the first generation that had the resources to expand into space, but it might well be the last. Moreover, the solutions to the world’s energy crisis and resource shortage, lay in space.

I think this is what he had in mind:

My word, Jerry Pournelle turns 75 this year!