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EUROPEAN
economic weakness has revived concern about
the direction of global growth. To some,
fleeting patches of good news seem like
flashbacks to yet other nascent recoveries
that turn into false dawns.
One
can wonder whether European growth has suffered
a form of arterial stenosis clogging up
the works. Clearly something's amiss. Italy
is back in recession, and German growth
has faltered and France has "stabilised"
at zero growth, and is struggling with political
impasse.
While
many are in a quandary, others identify
the supposed cure - government regulation
- as the disease, that enervating obesity
of complexity that for safety's sake must
cover every conceivable risk with smothering
mothering scolding, which makes big projects
too difficult to contemplate without massive
state involvement.
This
is the menace of safety. And the electoral
successes of anti-EU national parties in
throughout the member states, particularly
in France and the UK, are symptoms of sullen
rebellion - and some hope, revolution against
Big Mother.
Risk-taking
men who once led the key entrepreneurial
enterprises in the past have been replaced
by careful, caring people, whose prime concern
is that no harm is done in the process of
making gains.
But
there are those who ascribe the current
European malaise to causes they, and the
state bureaucracy feel more comfortable
addressing, such as the geopolitical situation.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a plausible
cause, although it seems unlikely that the
west will go to war over the Crimea which
we all thought Russian since we fought them
in the Crimean War 150 years ago.
No,
it seems the cause of the current European
malaise is an existing fiscal and financial
weakness which narrows business options
along arteries already choked with red tape.
But the forces of government, that is, the
civil service, the "opposition in residence"
sustain the drive to a more regulated world.
Through
what can be called the media, academic,
bureaucratic complex, they work to create
more regulations supposedly for the good
of all, though largely benefit a civil service
trading on its own account and marginalising
elected officials who supposedly control
it.
Grant-dependent
academics, funded by bureaucrats, come up
with data to support fashionable fears.
The media amplifies fears while the civil
servants fashion regulations, enlarge inspectorates,
which necessitates revenue generation through
fines, taxes mandates to buy carbon credits.
This leads to more grants to the academics
with promising fear-mongering projects,
which the media amplifies creating more
regulations and inspectors.
Today,
they clog of the fiscal and financial arteries
of Europe, and to a great extent, North
America, too. Heavily statist Canada recently
surpassed the United States in economic
freedom, according to Toronto's Fraser Institute
rankings. (The Fraser Institute awarded
Hong Kong its top ranking in world economic
freedom, with Singapore coming close behind).
But it was not that Canada had improved
so much but rather that the US had performed
so badly, and no longer stands as the the
global bastion of free enterprise it once
was.
Now
comes a massive dose of arterial clogging
cholesterol in the form of the low sulphur
fuel rule from January 1 affecting both
North America and northern Europe. This
will make fuel 50-60 per cent more expensive
in Emission Control Areas (ECA) than before.
This comes from the UN's International Maritime
Organisation and has not been passed by
any legistature, but attached as amendments
to once benign motherhood treaties passed
long ago, but have since grown teeth demanding
fines and jail time.
The
low-sulphur fuel rule will certainly kill
several short sea trades in the North Sea
and Baltic, not to mention the Port of Montreal,
which being being 1,000 miles from the open
sea is mostly affected by the mandate to
use fuel that costs so much more than standard
bunker.
Playing
its role in fanning fashionable fears into
flame, the New York Times trumpeted a report
from an American environmental lobby, and
in doing so again pursued the increasing
popular practice in journalism of lying
without actually doing so.
The
newspaper reported a study from Natural
Resources Defense Council that solely attacked
Chinese containerships for using the most
polluting fuel available, implying that
"Chinese containerships" were
the sole culprits because the report mentioned
none other.
This
ignores that all ships of every type and
from every country burn the same fuel as
"Chinese containerships", that
is, the cheapest they can get, if they are
under no other legal or technical constraint.
What
makes this story important is that if left
unchallenged by major media - and it won't
be - it will be cited by a bureaucrats wanting
to impose a new costly mandates on shipping.
"Yes, Minister, the danger was reported
in the New York Times... So if you would
be so good as to sign here, Minister..."
The
New York Times reported the study as saying:
"Since Chinese port cities are among
the most densely populated with the busiest
ports in the world, air pollution from ships
and port activities likely contributes to
much higher public health risks than are
found in other port regions."
"Likely
contributes?" Not likely, at all. In
fact, most unlikely as compared to other
non-port cities in China, which generate
much more air pollution - and that's according
to a Greenpeace ranking.
Of
the top 10 most polluted cities in China,
the one closest to the sea, and in seventh
place, is Jinan in Shandong province, 100
miles from the ocean and more that 200 miles
from the Port of Qingdao.
And
in terms of ports, the world's biggest container
port, Shanghai, was ranked 48th most polluted,
Qingdao 47th, Guangzhou 55th, Dalian 57th,
Ningbo 58th, Dongguan (adjacent to Guangzhou)
63rd, Shenzhen 66th and Xiamen 72th. No
other major port even made the Greenpeace
list.
It
is important to understand that subtraction
rather than addition is the agent of media
spin; one creates false impressions by removing
elements that might lead readers to reach
conclusions other than those desired by
the journalist.
So
to exploit a popular negative view of China
in the US and the west for its communist
system, all the more blameworthy for it
success and growing power, and to exploit
bad feelings about the Chinese "stealing
American jobs", the environmental study
and the famous daily newspaper targeted
China's containerships as the most egregious
ship type, when it was no different than
any other ship in this regard. But containership
deliver the goods American and Europeans
once made themselves and can generate greater
resentment.
This
is lying without actually doing so because
if one parses the words and phrases in the
report there is no direct falsehood. Containerships
did indeed use the cheapest most polluting
fuel. The fact that every other ship from
every other country does the same, does
not make the previous statement a lie.
The
study, quoted in the New York Times, perhaps
crossed the line saying that these port
cities "likely contributes to much
higher public health risks", but that
might have been stated as an opinion and
not a fact.
This
is like a famous libel case that was once
taught as a cautionary tale to journalists
who were inclined to sail too close to the
wind: There was once a first mate who disliked
his captain and so entered into the log:
"The captain was sober today."
While the first mate's statement was perfectly
true, it gave the false impression that
the captain was drunk most other days. The
court found for the plaintiff and against
the first mate.
One
selects Europe as a major because its state
of bureaucratic triumphalism and its economic
malaise is so severe that it is easy to
single out as the most blighted economy
in the developed world. It is where political
forces are gathering steam to break up the
European Union. But the problem is serious
elsewhere, particularly in the United States,
whose economy is perking up, but also dragged
down with the same self-perpetuating bureaucracy
that is sinking Europe.
It
is time for the industry to oppose rules
they do not feel are needed and question
the underlying validity of the reasons such
rules are made, and case a forensic eye
of all expert statement and reports, particularly
if the expert stands to benefit from the
information he reports.
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