Armageddon, crackpots and governments

Life is colorful, but not necessarily wonderful. And that is how crackpots in both the private and public sectors arise. Some people simply have the talent to paint the most morbid future scenarios, so morbid and graphic that many people and followers believe them. Like the May 21, 2011 apocalypse-armageddon-doomsday-judgment day.

I did not pay attention to it the past few weeks and days. I a blackhole for all those chain emails (send this to XX number of people, you will have luck; ignore this and you will have bad and despicable future), meaning all such mails that enter my inbox do not see any day of resurrection anywhere else. So I can also be a blackhole for such Armageddon scenarios.

The chief architect of the May 21, 2011 hoax is an 89 years old crackpot in the US, Harold Camping. He was somehow successful in fooling several thousands of Americans and other people abroad, that his "predictions" gained traction in various media and social networking outlets.

But he was the first crackpot to make such doomsday scenario. There were many others in the past. And there will be many others in the future. The UN IPCC, FCCC and other governmental and environmental bodies also have the same crackpot predictions of a planet under heavy flooding, but their predictions are still far away, some 90 years from now, by the end of this century.

If crackpots at the UN and many governments can do it, so crackpots in the private sector can successfully emerge too. The key, I think, is the ability to scare the public first, to provide what they call "science-based" doomsday forecasts. Once they have fooled and scared the public enough, then the public are easy prey for what those crackpots would tell them what to do.

There is huge fame, international fame, and huge money too, involved in making such doomsday scenarios. While the crackpots at the UN and many governments are more shrewd, making forecasts on a period where they will be long dead, the private crackpots are less shrewd. They set and predict the date of Armageddon just a few years, even a few months ahead. So they are still alive when their holocaust scenarios are disproven.

So it's the search for international fame, global power and even huge money, that drives those crackpots. Many governments, with UN and other multilaterals' prodding, have succeeded in creating a distorted world and national economies, where a huge army of non-productive, even destructive bureaucrats, armies and monarchies, siphon off so much resources from the productive people. The economic and social distortion, if not destitution that occurred after, is a good environment for such doomsday crackpots to "swim" and fool more people.

It is impossible to stop those crackpots because they just emerge from somewhere and anywhere, from sometime and anytime. People can only protect themselves by relying on their individual capabilities, talents and ambitions. To save oneself from destitution, one must work hard and be responsible always. Religious crackpots and government bureaucrats have nothing to do with delivering us from destitution.

Climate stupidity 10: The Sun and GCRs don't affect climate?

In the last UN IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4), this is the summary of radiative forcing (RF, externally-imposed global energy imbalances) values, in Watts per square meter (W/sq.m.). Meaning, these are the anthropogenic (man-caused) and natural (the Sun's total solar irradiance, TSI) factors that influence planet Earth's climate (warming or cooling).

According to the IPCC AR4, net anthropogenic forcing was 1.6 W/sq.m. while solar forcing was only 0.12 W/sq.m., no other natural factors considered. In short, anthropogenic sources of warming was about 13x larger than the Sun's potential contribution. And the world said "AMEN" to the supposedly "scientific consensus". So, since humanity's modernization is evil, then the UN and many governments shall limit, over-regulate and over-tax energy sources that caused such "unprecedented global warming."

This "consensus" is challenged by more and more scientists (especially physicists, geologists and climatologists) since the IPCC has been producing its Assessment Reports, especially AR4 (released in November 2007). According to this group of scientists, the two main natural factors that the IPCC deliberately omitted and significantly underrated significance, are (a) galactic cosmic rays (GCRs, shown in this illustration), and (b) the Sun, as indicated by the TSI. (a) was omitted while (b) was underrated.

There was a press release last month, Scientists at Aarhus University (AU) and the National Space Institute (DTU Space) show that particles from space create cloud cover. (H/t to WUWT's
New study links cosmic rays to aerosols/cloud formation via solar magnetic activity modulation).

Here, 5 scientists from Denmark's AU and DTU Space showed in their paper published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) that GCRS -- charged particles like protons, electrons, other particles -- can create small floating particles, aka aerosols, in the atmosphere, that help form clouds. More GCRs, more aerosols, more clouds, more shortwave (SW) radiation or sunlight reflected back into space by the clouds, less warming (or more cooling).

Now a famous climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer, wrote yesterday, Indirect Solar Forcing of Climate by Galactic Cosmic Rays: An Observational Estimate. He admitted that before, he did not believe the GCRs-Sun-climate theory. But upon investigation of the high GCR count in Russia, he plotted the data with reflected SW (low cloud increase) and long wave (LW) emission, and he came up with this preliminary results:

for a 1,000 count increase in GCR activity as measured at Moscow, there appears to be:

(1) an increase in reflected sunlight (SW) of 0.64 Watts per sq. meter, probably mostly due to an increase in low cloud cover;
(2) virtually no change in emitted infrared (LW) of +0.02 Watts per sq. meter;
(3) a Net (reflected sunlight plus emitted infrared) effect of 0.55 Watts per sq. meter loss in radiant energy by the global climate system.

He concluded that "the cosmic ray (indirect) forcing is about 2.8 times that of the solar irradiance (direct) forcing. This means the total (direct + indirect) solar forcing on climate associated with the solar cycle could be 3.8 times that most mainstream climate scientists believe."

The implication is that there is "a much larger role for Mother Nature in climate change than the IPCC has been willing to admit. And the greater the role of Nature in causing past climate change, the smaller the role humans must have had, which could then have a profound impact on future projections of human-caused global warming."

And here we are still stuck with fighting various governments' various energy and environmental regulations and taxation, upon the plodding and cheating by the UN IPCC, FCCC, UNEP, WMO, other UN bodies. Political science is proven once more, to be a lot more powerful than hard climate science.
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On November 25, 2010, I wrote this,

Sun-GCRs-clouds-climate theory

This illustration simplifies the relationship between an active (or inactive) Sun and planet Earth's climate of global warming or global cooling. This picture is from Something to be thankful for! At last: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes

The blog post is about a paper, "Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes" by B. A. Laken , D. R. Kniveton, and M. R. Frogley. Portions of the Abstract says,

The effect of the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) flux on Earth’s climate is highly uncertain. Using a novel sampling approach based around observing periods of significant cloud changes, a statistically robust relationship is identified between short-term GCR flux changes and the most rapid mid-latitude (60°–30° N/S) cloud decreases operating over daily timescales; this signal is verified in surface level air temperature (SLAT) reanalysis data.... These results provide perhaps the most compelling evidence presented thus far of a GCR-climate relationship. From this analysis we conclude that a GCR-climate relationship is governed by both short-term GCR changes and internal atmospheric precursor conditions.

There you go. GCRs from exploding stars in the universe -- stars are born, stars are dying, endlessly, in our ever-dynamic universe -- help produce the "seeds" in cloud formation. More GCRs, more clouds, less sunlight, global cooling. This illustration explains it further.

Henrik Svensmark from Denmark was among the physicists who made that theory. My picture with Dr. Svensmark last May this year, during the Heartland Institute's 4th ICCC in Chicago. He's in the middle. Beside him is a German friend, Wolfgang Muller of IUF-Berlin.

And here's a graph about the inverse relationship between GCRs and Sunspot number (SSN) in each solar cycle. Active Sun has more SSN, which reduces GCRs in the Earth's atmosphere, with reduces the cloud cover.

Most warmers are either ignorant, or are denying, the important role of the Sun on our planet's climate. They are so dead-set on ecological socialism -- more environmental regulations, more energy taxation, more carbon trading, more global junkets, more money transfer from rich countries to poorer countries, more climate bureaucracies -- with them as mediators.
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And on February 09, 2011, I also wrote this:

SC 24 and Dalton Minimum Pattern

Here's the latest graph of total solar irradiance (TSI), active region count from Dr. Leif Svalgaard, a solar physicist. Graph is from WUWT's Solar images and data page.

Current solar cycle (SC) 24 is now behaving almost exactly, if not weaker, than SC 5, the start of Dalton Minimum global cooling in the 1800s. With expected solar maximum of only 100+ TSI sometime in 2013-14, this is indeed a very weak SC. The comparison of TSI number, about two years after the transition from the previous SC -- in SCs 22and 23, SC 24 really shows a meek Sun.

Warming fanatics do not have this kind of literature -- the role of the Sun in the Earth's climate of warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycles. Solar data are publicly available, free, and updated daily or weekly. But fixation with the "evil CO2", a very useful gas that we humans exhale, a useful gas that our vegetables, rice, flowers and trees use to produce their own food, makes them ignorant about the Sun and other natural factors that can influence planet Earth's climate.

At 342 watts per sq. meter solar energy reaching our planet, it is indeed a huge source of warming. So that a reduction of solar power from 342 to only 340 w/sq.m. would have some significant effect on our planet's climate.

Econ for statists 6: Perfect competition

From my earlier discussion, Why inequality is good, part 3, I explained why a "perfectly competitive" market can happen although it is very rare. I wrote there,

In most cases, perfect competition does not exist, but in a few cases, it does. For perfect competition to occur, ALL these five factors should be present at the same time: (a) homogeneous product, (b) many sellers of a particular product, (c) many buyers of that product, (d) perfect information, and (e) free entry and exit of firms.

Take tomatoes. The small, rounded, red cherry tomatoes are different from small, not rounded (maybe flattened, oblong, etc.) tomatoes, are different from medium-size rounded tomatoes, are different from medium-size, not rounded green tomatoes, are different from large-size rounded tomatoes, are different from large, seedless tomatoes, are different from large, few seeds tomatoes, and so on.

Here, there are heterogeneous products among tomatoes alone. If we talk of perfect competition, then comparison should only be on homogenous, similar or same product in terms of quality and characteristics. Once you introduce a different product, say a different type of tomato, then one factor of perfect competition – the homogenous product criteria – is immediately violated.

Philippine left's website popularity

Leftist and socialist philosophies permeate many societies' public policies. It is easy to spot the groups and individuals who advocate these philosophies. How? Just observe their language and policy pronouncements: Personal and parental responsibility, individual liberty, these are strange concepts for them, you seldom or will never, find such terms in their literature. Instead, you will find these keywords very often -- "more government responsibility and intervention", "more government regulation and taxation", "social equality", and sometimes, "nationalist industrialization."

The most leftist organization in the Philippines of course, is the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA). These groups are fighting for, nothing else but communism in the Philippines (with transition stage in "national democracy" then socialism then communism) via armed struggle and armed revolution.

Both CPP and NPA have no websites of their own. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) handles their online presence with its website, http://www.ndfp.net/joomla/.

I checked its global traffic rank via alexa.com, somehow high:

On IPR Abolition 7: Ideas Cannot be Owned?

Further continuation of my debate with a young Singaporean libertarian, Say Peng.

Say:‎ Where is the evidence to prove a causal relationship between IPR and the creation of all that you listed above? That is to say, how do you know that all the above inventions and innovations wouldn't happen in a non-IPR world? This issue is still disputed, as I've point out.

To give you a counter-example, about the time of the Renaissance, where copyright laws were non-existent or weak, nevertheless, this did not stop artistic and literary creations and innovations. Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer did not stop writing because of weak or non-existent copyright laws, did they?

Nonoy: Proof? All those big and monster companies in music and movie, agri-business and biotech, books and magazine publishing, automobile, pharma, etc., are in developed economies where the rule of law, where IPR is strictly protected. Are thosehuge companies found in the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Somalia, etc. where counterfeits, fakes and copying are rampant? I dont think so. People will still write books, invent new products, with or without IPR protection. It's just that there are more innovators, more inventors, in countries where IPR is strictly protected than in countries where IPR is a joke or not strictly protected.

Say: Indeed, you realize that the media and printing businesses today are dominated by the few "big and monster" conglomerates and corporations--oligopolies who finance the politicians within government to push the IPR agenda so that they may continue to keep out potential competition and dominate the industry.

You list 5 countries where those huge companies do not operate in, not realizing their absence in those countries are due to different reasons....

Look at the origins of intellectual property rights. They were grants for monopoly privileges--the monopoly of intangible ideas and concepts--by the monarchical government, which, when enforced, entails exacting force against nonviolent people doing peaceful things with their own property.

Nonoy: Supposing IPRs will be granted by an industry association, to be respected by industry players. Govt is out. Still an unacceptable situation?

Say: It's acceptable only if it is voluntary, which includes the choice to opt out and not suffer any violent retaliation for nonviolent behavior.

So I do see a possibility of an "intellectual property" social contract, in which it becomes common practice through habit not to copy wholesale the conceptual designs and whatnot of others, and that anyone who violates this social contract will be ostracized and no one would want to do business with him, and so he will be compelled to respect the IP social contract. All that can happen without the initiation of force from the state that current IPR laws entails.

Nonoy: New trend: libertatrians and anarchists' main enemy is supposed to be the state. Now, private capitalists, private individuals and inventors who want protection of their own invention are the big enemy of libertarians and anarchists?

Say: The enemy is the state that initiates violence upon peaceful people. The moral state, which is a state funded voluntarily if I may add, will defend the physical property of people against theft, but not a kind of property that does not exist physically in the material reality but as mental projections from our minds.

Nonoy: I am a rock star, I composed several good rock songs. I want my songs to be protected from some copycatters who they record my songs and do concerts from them with zero recognition of me and get all the money and fame. Now I am an enemy of the libertarians? Why don;t you compose your own rock songs too, instead of spending your energy attacking me for seeking protection of my own invention, my own song compositions?

Say: You will be an enemy, if you want to unleash state violence on peaceful people. But the thing is, you will get some recognition, if the people who copied your music go famous. I have many such examples, from the era of Mozart to Madonna. You won't get as much attention as them, but there will be recognition. Their fame is after all based more on their interpretation and performance of your lyrics than on the lyrics themselves.

I could compose my own songs, but I might not want to. I just want to copy others. I might be deemed a lazy freeloader within the industry, but I haven't used force against you.

Nonoy: People who do nothing but copy my good rock songs and make money from them with zero recognition of me are "peaceful people"? Now the world is upside down. If you're too lazy to compose your own songs and just copy my songs for your own enjoyment, fine. But if you copy my songs to do concerts, to record songs under your name, it's ok? Upside down world indeed.

Say: You won't get zero recognition, as I have said; but even if you get no recognition, the people who have copied and performed your songs are still peaceful nonviolent people. Such acts might be immoral and unprofessional according to your ethics, but it does not warrant the state's violent retaliation.

Nonoy: I already qualified above, supposing an industry association will grant the IPR, not the state. No IP system is good for lazy and non-innovative people, you just copy, it's moral and legal, life is good.

Say: And I have already replied to your point about such a potential IPR system above. The key issue is that one must be free to opt out of it and that the industry association cannot initiate physical force to enforce IPR.

Nonoy: No need for physical force. A country's music industry will grant IPR to rock band A, Then rock bands B and C do nothing but copy the songs of A, do concerts on them, make product endorsements from the songs of A, make lots of money. Pure lazy but good marketing guys. The no IP system will expand their rank. But while there is IP system, the music industry association can blacklist rock bands B and C, tell corporate sponsors not to get their services or they won't get the services of any other music groups in the industry. Just to punish the lazy and non-innovators.

Say: Such an IP system I can endorse.

Nonoy: Then IPR is good. It's just the mechanics how it can be implemented. IPR system will encourage more inventors, more composers, more innovators. The lazy are penalized by exclusivity, so instead of being a lazy copycatter, people would rather become innovators and inventors too.

Say: ‎"IPR system will encourage more inventors, more composers, more innovators."
I very much doubt so. Just ask any writer, musician, artist, inventor: What motivates you to create what you create? I don't think their answer would be "IPR!"

But I do agree with you that the nonviolent excluding process is a good way to discourage copycats.

Nonoy: People invent or compose something because they want to be creative, to produce something original. IPR system protects them from being copied by others who do nothing but copy the works of the successful composers and inventors. IPR discourages the lazy.

Say: When you the "IPR system protects...", as long as it does not include the initiation of physical force, there is nothing above I disagree with.

Nonoy: ok, case close :-)

Say: Indeed. We've come a long way. I presume you've now rejected the current statist IPR system and embraced a nonviolent form of IPR?

Nonoy: In the absence of private sector-granted IPR, I have to support the state-granted IPR system. My interest is protection of invention and composition by their authors if they seek it, not protecting the state itself. Ultimately, industry associations themselves should issue (or reject) IPR applications, and f___ the state.

Say: Do you not think that the means to attain your ends of "protection of invention and composition by their authors if they seek it" should be peaceful and nonviolent? Or do you think that the ends justify the means?

Nonoy: The end does not justify the means. The latter is incidental and can be replaced.

Say: You are now advocating a violent means to achieve your ends of the "protection of invention and composition by their authors if they seek it". Shouldn't you change it?

Nonoy: That's false accusation. What sentence, what paragraph, did I say that I "advocate violent means"? Is it plain paranoia?

Say: Here: "In the absence of private sector-granted IPR, I have to support the state-granted IPR system."

Nonoy: One rule of paranoia says: If you dont like what your opponent says, concoct stories and imaginations. Like he advocates violence, he is going to kill you, he will steal your girlfriend...

Say: I gave evidence, a quotation of yours, to back my statement about your advocacy of using state violence to achieve IPR ends. Perhaps you should clarify my confusion (if it exists) rather than invoke paranoia on my part.

Nonoy: I gave zero statement, zero sentence, that I advocate violence to protect IPR. What's next, that I advocate raising taxes, creating new govt. bureaucracies, new UN offices, to protect IPR? Concoction and imagination is endless.

Say: To prove that you did advocate state violence to enforce IPR, I shall quote you again: "In the absence of private sector-granted IPR, I have to support the state-granted IPR system." A state-granted IPR system is a system enforced by state violence.

Nonoy: I am a rock star, I produced good music. Rock bands B and C do nothing but copy my songs, do concerts, do product endorsements, make lots of money by stealing my songs without permission. I go to the IPO or other govt agencies in charge of IPR in music, they send a letter to rock bands B and C to discontinue their stealing as they can compose their own songs. Some libertarians now say that I am advocating violence. Weird world.

Say: In the first place, it is not the theft of a physical item, and rock bands B and C did not use physical force against you when they copied your songs. Their copying of your songs, regardless of whether you think is moral or otherwise, was a nonviolent act--which does not merit violent retaliation from the state, which you euphemistically describe as "I go to the IPO or other govt agencies in charge of IPR in music, they send a letter to rock bands B and C"--the paper threat backed by the violence mechanism of the state is what it is.

Don't be so glib about state violence. It's not just "they send a letter"...

Nonoy: Stealing song composition for big money is ok, is alright, the song composer should not even complain. Wow. Robbery morality = libertarianism?

Say: Sure, the composer should complain, but he should not unleash state violence upon the copycat. Because, and I keep repeating this over and over again, the copycat has not initiate violence against the composer; the composer has not lost any of his physical property. The copycat took the composer's idea. It does not mean the composer has lost the idea to the copycat. Both of them now hold the same idea in their minds. It is not robbery since nothing has been robbed; no one party has lost property to another party. You are basically saying that ideas can be stolen. (And since you apparently love sarcasm...) Wow, isn't a miraculous kind of robbery in which previously one person owns something, and after the robbery, two persons own it. Really brilliant kind of robbery.

Nonoy: I am a univ. student taking up BS Music, or BS molecular biology. My goal is to produce lots of good music or lots of good drug molecules someday. In short, my entire career, my future, is to produce ideas. Now some liibertarians and anarchists say that other people can steal my ideas anytime, anywhere, it's perfectly ok, and I have no right to complain whatsoever. Good message. I can never be an anarchist. An anarchist even views the miniarchists as advocating violence. Absolute truth belongs only to anarchists, great.

Lesson: dogmatic anarchists -- I think they're few -- believe that only them are correct; anyone who disagrees with them are lovers of state violence and are advocating violence.
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See earlier exchanges, On intellectual property abolition, part 6.

Migration and Freedom 8: Denmark's immigration policy

A Filipino friend working in Denmark posted in his fb wall a news report from Politiken.dk, Affirmative action for some foreigners. Portion of the report says,

“The government and Danish People’s Party believe that it should be easier to come here if you have a good education and a lot of money. But this is about Danish citizens who fall in love. So now it’s better to fall in love with an American than a Brazilian,” says Social Democratic Integration Spokesman Henrik Damm Kristensen.

The Marriage Without Borders organisation says it is ‘ridiculous’ to suggest that it is easier to integrate Americans than other nationalities.

Then my Filipino friend added his own comments and observations about Denmark's immigration policy:

Denmark's welfare and social policies remain one of the most humane in the world, but its immigration policy so inhumane. Even the UN concurs. Imagine, there's a government literally telling its people who to marry, who to partner or live with. There's really something rotten in the state of Denmark.

Pol. Ideology 20: Liberalism and the Squatters

(This is my article today in thelobbyist.biz with original title, Squatters, land reform and liberalism)

Squatting or settling illegally on land that people do not own or lease, is violation of private property rights. Land reform and forced land redistribution without timetable, is another violation of private property rights. Liberalism is the philosophy that focuses on individual liberty, rule of law and private property rights.

Early last week, there was a news report, Aquino plans massive relocation of squatters. It reported that:

President Beigno Aquino III said late Saturday more than half a million squatter families in Metro Manila will be relocated and receive two hectares of farm land each under his administration’s program on illegal settlers.

He said the government had identified some 1.5 million hectares of farm land that could be distributed to an initial 560,000 squatter families in Metro Manila in a bid to decongest the capital and improve agricultural production nationwide.



 “The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment inventory shows we can lend, lease or give two hectares of land per indigent family provided they cultivate agricultural crops, develop, and earn from the land they will live on.

“If they fail to stick to these conditions, the land will be taken from them.”

If this plan will push through, there are several negative implications.

One, it pays to become an illegal settler. By living on other people’s private land, you will be rewarded with land up to two hectares that can become yours. Even ordinary employees cannot afford to buy such huge area of land.

Two, for agribusinessmen and women, the threat of forced land redistribution with no timetable will remain. From former President Cory Aquino’s CARP law of 1998 that was supposed to end in 1998, it was extended to 2008, and further extended to 2013. Looks like it will be re-extended to 2018, or longer. The number of squatters nationwide is rising, not declining. So more private lands will be subjected to forced land redistribution in the next few years to be given to the squatters.

Three, not all squatters are former farmers or have the heart in farming. What can happen is that upon getting the land title or similar proof of ownership or lease, some squatter beneficiaries can sell or transfer the right to use such land to other people, get the money and squat again in other cities, then hope that the existing and the next administrations will give them new subsidies and entitlements.

Four, the spend and spend, borrow and borrow and later, tax and tax policy will continue. Giving away land for free or at highly subsidized price, then provision of various farm and marketing support to land beneficiaries, is a costly and expensive program.

And five, liberalism and (classic) liberal philosophy that are supposed to be implemented by the President and his team who come from the Liberty Party, will be sidelined further, if not forgotten.

One of the big burdens and baggage of the Philippine economy and society is the lack of strict promulgation of the rule of law, of securing private property rights like land. Many people and businessmen will be hesitant to develop certain lands into long-term agribusiness projects because the “land reform with no timetable” will be haunting them for several years more to come.

Liberalism is supposed to be the main philosophy and guiding principle by the current administration that will help shape public policy. But as things unfold, real liberalism is being pushed to the margins while statism and near-socialist policies take center stage.

Let us hope that there will be awakening in the minds of key LP leaders. That LP stands for liberalism and individual liberty, not statism or socialism.
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On "No taxes, No Government"


This is among the common misconception, honest or deliberate. that some people, academics and consultants, NGO leaders included, would portray someone who advocates minimal and limited government. Personally, I have NEVER advocated that, and I do not believe in anarchy or zero government.

Government is necessary, I wrote several times, on certain functions. I believe in BIG government -- to run after killers, murderers, thieves, rapists, terrorists, bombers, kidnappers, carnappers, land-grabbers, other criminals, especially the organized and well-armed gangs.

Thus, we need taxes to finance government to perform such function, to promulgate the rule of law, to protect private property rights, and citizens' right to life against aggression. 


But we need no taxes for government to over-regulate entrepreneurship and job creation. We need no taxes to create and expand various bureaucracies that do nothing but make the life of job creators more difficult and more miserable.

"No taxes, no government, no subsidies" is a classic paranoid reply by many people who do not understand or appreciate the philosophy of more personal responsibility, more individual freedom, limited government and free markets.

Someone redefined the excise tax as a tax on goods where "the source is scarce or expensive". This is wrong. If this is correct, then the government should also slap medicines, medical equipment, construction and housing materials, others with excise tax. These are "necessary product/s, but we do not produce it out of thin air."
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See also
Pol. Ideology 14: Liberalism, Democratism and Coercion, January 18, 2010
Pol. Ideology 15: Socialism, Conservatism and Liberalism, March 08, 2010

Pol. Ideology 16: Liberalism and Social Opportunity, July 29, 2010

Pol. Ideology 17: The LP and the Philippine President, November 03, 2010

Pol. Ideology 18: John Lennon and Liberty, Purpose of the Law, December 15, 2010

Pol. Ideology 19: What is the Role of Government?, March 08, 2011

DENR, Neric Acosta, and property rights

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is among the corrupt agencies in the Philippine government, though in my observation, not as corrupt as the armed units like the DND-AFP and the police (PNP), and the revenue agencies like the BIR, BOC and LTO.

Dr. Nereus "Neric" Acosta is set to be appointed as the new DENR Secretary next month, when the one-year ban from the last (May 2010) elections will end. Neric is a fellow UP alumni, he finished AB Political Science there, several years younger batch than me. He finished his PhD also in Political Science from the University of Hawaii. During his 9-years term as Congressman of the 1st District of Bukidnon province, I think he was the only legislator with a PhD.

Last May 11, Neric issued this statement:

TODAY, A WELL-FINANCED SMEAR CAMPAIGN WAS LAUNCHED AGAINST ME BECAUSE I AM BEING CONSIDERED BY PRESIDENT AQUINO FOR THE PORTFOLIO OF SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES (DENR).

VIA FULL-PAGE ADS AND OTHER MEDIA, THEY PUBLICIZED AN OLD WORN-OUT CHARGE FILED AGAINST ME 10 YEARS AGO BY MY POLITICAL RIVALS WHEN I WAS A CONGRESSMAN OF BUKIDNON.

WELL, MANY PUBLIC OFFICIALS HAVE PENDING CASES BEFORE VARIOUS COURTS, BUT A PENDING CASE IS NOT AN INDICATION OF GUILT.

I PROMISED PRESIDENT NOYNOY I WOULD CLEAN UP THE WELL-PLACED MAFIA GROUPS THAT ARE IMBEDDED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES (DENR) – FROM THE ISSUANCE OF FAKE LAND PATENTS RESULTING TO BIG LAND SCAMS TO THE QUESTIONABLE GRANTS OF MINING AND LOGGING PERMITS.