Project Management, Resource Rents, More Political Meetings

[tcpip]

Have spent the good part of the last fortnight powering my way through my two project management texbooks, surprisingly entitled Project Management and Advanced Project Management. The first emphasises the management of activities with time-dependent, unique and defined outcomes. The second elaborates on the first by applying a more detailed systems approach, dealing with technical ambiguity and high risk areas, and multidisciplinary areas. Whilst very well suited for major developments in "defence, aerospace, telecommunications, transportation, [and] healthcare", I am very interested in appliciability of political campaigns, especially multi-organisational and aimed towards the longer-term.

An nascent example is the project to defend and extend the Mineral Resources Rent with an initial meeting being held this Saturday sponsored by the Isocracy Network. Resource rents, being monopoly profits, are very-well recognised as being highly efficient, effective, productive and ultimately moral means of deriving public income. Although it has been recommended by the Senate Economics Committee, the political campaign to extend this - will of course be challenged by an extremely well-funded opposition.

Last Sunday attended the Unitarians to hear Jan Reilly speaking on International Women's Day, concentrating on reproductive rights in developing countries. On Tuesday went to the Kew branch of the ALP, where the focus was on the many and various failures of the State government (and the lack of media coverage on these issues). A real highlight however was my first visit to the Melbourne Anarchist Collective for the film Okupacion, illustraring how Spanish squatters (Spainards have a constitutional right to housing) have converting empty buildings (real estate speculation is rife) to community-managed "social centres" - good people and inspiring film.

Impending valedictions are sent to Book Affair, a fairly regular haunt of mine in Melbourne over the past 15 years. Unsurprisingly caseopaya and I have picked a small mountain of excellent texts at bargain prices. Finally, as promised, my Sisters of Mercy review on Rocknerd.

Comments

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

The problem I see with the mining tax/rent is that those bringing it and those reporting in favour of it in the papers seem to be pretty much saying. "We want to spend more money on stuff. Oh, look, big shiny pile of money. *grab*" There's little sign of any analysis of what would be fair, nor what level would not damage the industry. Governments have a long history of acting upon a concept that seems fair and then later just milking it. Speed cameras were brought in to increase safety and now are just being peppered all over freeways, which should have a higher limit anyhow, in order to plug holes in the budget. (Holland has just announced freeway speed increases from 120km/h to 130km/h.)

I was thinking of going to Sisters of Mercy, but your review and other exclamations in a similar vein online make me glad I didn't.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough the original presentation of the mining resource rent tried to make it doubly-explicit in the title - it was going to be a "super tax", applied to super-profits (i.e., business profit plus opportunity costs) and used for superannuation. At least with the Coalition and the Greens joining forces, in a way, over the company tax rate it does draw some attention to the actual use.

I have also noticed that I am not the lone voice in the crowd regarding The Sisters concert.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Absolutely right. The resource rent discussion seems to have deteriorated and not only has the ALP not managed to keep it on track, but some of their own proponents in the media are presenting the topic so sloppily and emotively as to, in my opinion, do more harm to their side than good.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, for some time I have been quite critical of the apparent inability of the ALP to sell its message effectively to the public. There is certainly more than a kernel of truth to that. But more recently I am turning my guns on the media itself, which is quite happily giving oxygen to the most ridiculous arguments, even though they've been shot down several times.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

All very inspiring and encouraging !
Good for you and your comrades and friends !

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, encouraging insofar we're all trying to do something about the situation. Less encouraging is how easy it is for Australia's mining companies to pool $100m to combat any attempt to even partially socialise resource values.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Do you have a plank on sharing of rents for distributed resources?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Most certainly! A trickier question in how these public funds are to be distributed. One method is like the Alaskan Fund (an equal value cheque to everyone), or whether it should be used for public expenditures, or - most likely - a combination of both.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

The distro is what I was wondering about, esp if there are multiple polities involved.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, my own preferences is towards using public expenditure for public goods; externalities (reduce negatives, increase positives) and social welfare.