Thoughts on Freedom

As somebody smarter than me once said — the virtue of capitalism is not that it provides more silk stockings for queens, but that it makes silk stockings affordable to the lower classes. Today’s news gives a good example of this success.

An Indian car manufacturer Tata has just released a new four-door sedan for under A$3000. As the company points out, this means that many Indian families will be able to upgrade from motorbikes, which has significant benefits for all-weather travel, large families and for safety.

Of course, some in the trendy left will see this as a horrible step into the evils of capitalistic materialism which undermines the deep cultural ties that Indians have with their motorbikes. And of course there is the extra co2. But poverty is more important than anthropology-tourism or global-warming… and personally I celebrate this wonderful opportunity for millions of poor people to take another step towards a comfortable life.

I think this is a defining issue that separates people who actually care about the poor from those who like to say they care about the poor. Viva capitalism.

Ten observations on the cricket fiasco from a cricket-loving pommy.

i) Peter Roebuck is an unmitigated, pretentious twat and an embarrassment to my country.

ii) That 70% of SMH readers agree with him is an embarrassment to your country.

iii) The Australian cricket team is one of the world’s outstanding sports teams, if not the best.

iv) Australia play thrilling cricket (contrast the 376 runs scored on Day One with the torturous approach to batting adopted by the Indians) and have done more to pull the crowds back into Test Cricket than any other team.

v) Ricky Ponting is already one of the most successful Test captains of all time. 16 victories on the trot is not shabby.

vi) As a four-time tourist with the Barmy Army (lost all four series), i can safely ascert that every single last fan of this traveling band would give their right eye to see Freddie and Vaughny celebrate with impunity and grind our opponents into the dust if we could replicate a fraction of Punter’s success. Read more »