It appears that, like the post office, if you try to compete with Labor's proposed 'National Broadband Network' (NBN) you will be forced to let others use your property and/or be fined. This is all for your benefit, of course.

...cherry-picking could also be discouraged by imposing technical standards on new FTTP networks "to ensure they are compatible with NBN Co infrastructure and thus amenable to unbundling." But if those policy responses were to fail, "the simplest disincentive against cherry-picking would be to impose a levy on cherry-pickers", according to the study's authors. The "universal service levy" would be paid to the Government and be used to fund telecommunications subsidy programs in areas where it was less economic to build NBN infrastructure.

Even before a cable has been laid our omniscient government is deciding how to best keep their legislated monopoly in place. Great. I also hear that as this entire project will be classified as an "investment" on the Government's books, it will not show up in the deficit. I wonder how many other government projects are called "investments" and thus do not record a debt? I'm sorry, but no state project can be called an "investment". The government exists through the involuntary confiscation of private property and is thus immune from profits and losses. It does not matter whether they are servicing the public as revenues can always be coerced from the population. Yes, I'm sure they will make a profit from this project – a profit at the expense of others.

By building the NBN the government will raise the rate of profit in broadband by allowing big business to externalise their costs to the public. Investment in broadband is thus rendered artificially more profitable and economy of scales are artificially shifted upward, allowing them to profit at the expense of the taxpayer (barriers to entry for competitors are artificially increased, meaning the monopoly price they can charge is higher than it should be).

The industry is then cartelised / monopolised through legislation (as we can see above - damn 'cherry-pickers') when the government "privatises" the network, allowing them to engage in rent-seeking behaviour (which the government will blame on the free market and use to justify more regulation, a bigger budget, more staff and so on). The government will then take the "profits" and embark on another tax-payer impoverishing scheme, sorry, "investment".

The NBN will just further enrich well-connected corporations at the expense of the taxpayer. By definition it is not an investment and it certainly is not in the 'public interest'. But at least we will get a "whizz-bang 100 megabits a second" broadband network in eight years, top of the world right? Not really, as Google is already rolling out 1000 megabits a second broadband in the US.

Dr. Marc Faber cautions against China and Australia, suggesting that dumping the $A, Australian stocks and industrial commodities wouldn't be a bad idea. Watch it for yourself, it's good and I tend to agree with everything he says.

...at least that is what the mainstream pundits would say. To me it looks like just another example of malinvestment and why we should not get too carried away with the 'centrally planned miracle' that is China. From the China Youth Daily (sourced at Sinocism), here's a clip:

Although the welfare housing system has been ordered stopped, the covert housing welfare that exists for government employees has not stopped, and has become its own system. Some central government offices in Beijing not only have ample financial resources for housing welfare, but their prices are not even 20% of the market prices. And not only can local officials get a share of ownership in existing houses/property, but they even build new houses in the name of renovation and housing reform...

Housing is meant to be a one of the basic necessities of life, but at present it has become a very common problem. If the people want to realize their dream of having housing, they must count on the government to move. If government employees could feel the pain caused by these housing problems, that would give them the impetus to do something. But housing welfare for government employees is widespread, and it allows them to distance themselves from the housing market. Whether housing prices are high or low has little effect on their housing, so we must take useful steps to get them to do something. We can’t rely on their senses of responsibility or their consciences.

If the law has banned it, but civic organs are doing it openly, then that is public corruption! This kind of corruption not only destroys the government’s incentive to regulate the housing market, it gives government employees a vested interest in the continued rising of housing prices. Because government employees can get houses easily, the value and profit potential of their property increases as the amount of property they have goes up.

As Smith said in the Wealth of Nations (I.ii.2: pp 26-27), "...it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." The same cannot be said for politics. Under economic competition, people compete (earn economic profit) by best serving the consumer. By contrast, the worst tend rise to the top of the political ladder as there is a tendency for these people to both desire power and be effective at using it. Under political competition, politicians compete (earn political profit) by supplying wealth transfers to interest groups through legislation and regulation. This is what we are seeing in the Chinese housing industry and I have no doubt that there are countless examples littered throughout their economy.

Just another red flag...