What's what?
Been watching quite a few videos on interviews and lectures from Jacinta Price and Anthony Dillion on Youtube etc.
Everything they say makes complete sense and much of it as actually what I've thought and said before.
For the indigenous peoples sake, i really hope more people listen and views and attitudes and approaches in time change.
Because one thing for certain the current approach and views and attitudes don't work.
Ross Gittins is one of the few members of the commentariat for whom I have unreserved respect. He has provided fair and accurate commentary on economics for several decades and has never been afraid to point the finger at politicians of all parties, as well as at bankers, regulators etc. So yes I read the piece and agree with it. So far all you have done is assert that he is wrong. So let me weigh it up, vastly experienced, highly credible commentator vs known chronic suffererer from confirmation bias. Carefully marshalled evidence against bald assertion. So if you want to continue the discussion it is YOU who needs to explain, with supporting evidence, why you disagree with him. And if all you have is the broken record going mass immigration, mass immigration, mass immigration then don't expect a response. It is just too boring.
For sure , BB.
It’s the amazing pace of technology and robotics that have kept the wages of taxi drivers , chefs , baristas , nurses , gyprockers, age care workers and hairdressers down for years now.
Gittens evens admits in the article that he doesn’t have a clue , saying that a couple of years ago he thought that the wage freeze was cyclical.....pretty much says it all really. Your faith in him is completely misplaced. Maybe you like him because he confirms YOUR biases.
.
Actually, not to disagree with the point that immigration puts downward pressures on wages, but the introduction of globalised multi-national platforms that turn people into casualised techno-serfs like Uber has definitely fucked taxi drivers up the arse.
I see that every day.
Did YOU read the piece Blowin because that is a ridiculous attempt at a summary.
What about nurses , hairdressers , baristas , aged care workers ?
The fact that he doesn’t even mention immigration is very telling.
Dispute this then , BB : https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/02/hey-gittins-weak-wages-wont-fix/
So you didn't read it then. Oh and anyone who wants to compare wage growth in the US to here without looking at the fact that for many workers US wages are below the poverty line is simply not serious.
Leith and his boys from Macrobusiness. Get a guernsey. Again.
Nahhhhh, really.
"Everything they say makes complete sense and much of it as actually what I've thought and said before."
Hahaha. But of course Indo.
Fark, you ARE a comedian.
Like Larry Fine. Kinda.
Well, let's not get too excited.
Sorry I ever doubted your comedic timing and skills, comrades.
Meanwhile in Australia...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-02/murray-darling-royal-commission-d...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-04/banking-royal-commission-report/1...
Double trouble!!!!
Using the socialist catchcry “ comrades “ after you’ve tactically ignored a comprehensive dissertation by an expert economist regarding how Capital and their pet politicians use immigration to reduce the worker’s share of the profits from productivity.
You’re just another worker hating fake left muppet, Facto.
You’d rather use ad hominem attacks on the aggregator of the evidence than actually read the conclusions and dare to consider that maybe , just maybe , the workers are being used to reduce their own power .
Chapter 14 https://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/wages-crisis/wages-crisis-ebook...
I’ll be interested in your ad hominem attack on Adelaide University.
Both the major parties are so inextricably intertwined with the banks that any prospect of serious banking reform is an unimaginable fantasy.
“The Goode stuff
Meanwhile, spare a thought for the major parties, who face going into the coming federal election campaign with their major fundraising arms suffering a collapse in shareholdings.
The Liberal Party may have recently struck a peace deal with its Victorian investment outfit, but the Cormack Foundation — now with an added director in former ANZ chairman Charles Goode — face a major hit to the value of its bank investments.
By our count, the Cormack Foundation owns about $18 million worth of CBA shares, about $2.6 million in Westpac shares, and $3.2 million in ANZ investments (as of yesterday).
And when Labor inevitably takes aim at the major banks enriching their shareholders at the expense of customers, don’t forget the John Bird-led Labor Holdings Pty Ltd is also a big bank backer.
That secretive Queensland investment vehicle, set up with the $16.5 million sale from Labor’s 4KQ radio station in 1987, has had money in the banks since 1993.
We counted about $4.6 million (at yesterday’s prices) in CBA and Westpac.
No word yet on any NAB holdings, although we hope they weren't that stupid.
Its slow-moving bureaucracy and total lack of transparency might be but a small part of the behaviour which led Hayne to conclude "there may be a wide gap between the public face NAB seeks to show and what it does in practice”.”
Not to mention that the spokesperson for the banks was a Labor premier for many years. Yes , one of the most important figures within the party meant to represent the workers went on to be the vocal face defending the indefensible actions of Capital in Australia.
Shows the levels of allegiance to their proclaimed ideology . What a pisstake. Australia needs a viable alternative to the corrupt ALP/LNP parasites.
Oh , the irony in here in this link :
Whilst it’s ostensibly about the mining companies, it could be about any rent seeking industry in Australia which has been green lit by our compliant politicians to treat our nation with utter contempt.
Ironic because even the iron clad beliefs of Peter Garret weren’t immune to the corrupt insidiousness of party politics with the survival of the party trumping every moral obligation to the people they falsely claim to represent .
ALP/LNP are bought and paid for by the Capital who hates the working class with a passion.
Independents hopefully will cause change but given the amount of money that flows to influence the politics it will be incremental at best or pr at the worst
Saw this article a few days ago, it's by a fella called Matt Barrie (nope, never heard of him either), who is an electrical engineer and tech entrepreneur.
The article is a few years old now but still makes sobering reading.
It's a well-researched longish read but puts forward a compelling argument why on so many levels, the Australian economy is in for a very rough landing at some stage.
Not surprisingly, as a techie he's an advocate for a hi-tech future.
"There is no other industry that can create such immense wealth, with such capital efficiency and long term benefit to the world, as the technology industry. Technology is the great wealth and productivity multiplier."
He's pretty blunt, and says that "combined with our lack of future proof industries and exports, our economy is complete stuffed. And it’s only going to get worse unless we make a major transformation of the Australian economy."
Barrie starts with the basic concept that as a whole, the Australian economy has grown through a property bubble inflating on top of a mining bubble, built on top of a commodities bubble, driven by a China bubble.
He touches on familiar topics such as the end of the mining boom, stagnating wages, interest only loans, corrupt overseas investments, a dodgy education industry, why the government is so desperate to prop up the housing bubble, and a media duopoly whose "only major growth profit centres are the nation’s two largest real estate portals, realestate.com.au and Domain."
An interesting measure he uses to assess the health of Australia's economy and its potential future resilience is an Economic Complexity Index. This measure ranks countries based upon their economic diversity- how many different products a country can produce- and economic ubiquity- how many countries are able to make those products.
Where does Australia rank on the global scale?
Worse than Mauritius, Macedonia, Oman, Moldova, Vietnam, Egypt and Botswana.
Worse than Georgia, Kuwait, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and El Salvador.
Sitting embarrassingly and awkwardly between Kazakhstan and Jamaica, and worse than the Dominican Republic at 74 and Guatemala at 75.
Australia ranks off the deep end of the scale at 77th place globally.
And after Tajikistan, Australia had the fourth highest loss in Economic Complexity over the last decade, falling 18 places.
Barrie reckons that the problems are systemic and it's actually all too hard to fix.
"There is something seriously wrong with how we govern this country," he says.
"There are problems throughout the system, from how we choose the Prime Minister, how we govern ourselves, how we make decisions, all the way through."
Even if you want to pigeonhole him off as another punter claiming that the sky is falling, there's enough in his article to make you think that he might be onto a few things.
Banana republic anyone?
https://medium.com/@matt_11659/matt-barrie-australias-economy-is-a-house-of-cards-6877adb3fb2f
Edit - looks like you'll have to copy and paste the whole thing as opposed to clicking on the link.
Yep Andy, forthcoming self-manufactured banana republic. Real estate, education and population ponzi schemes and lack of political will or insight to make fundamental shifts. No vision and verifiable self-interest and short-sightedness haunt the corridors of power. Contempt for dynamic and technological risk-taking employing our own intellectual property all add up to major problems in the future. Last week, Alan Kohler, on his daily market ABC rap reported that business believes economic growth will only be about 2.2% this year in spite of the Government's 3.3% forecast based on adding another (Canberra equivalent) of 400,000 intake into the country this year. Things certainly appear to be unraveling. At the same time a corrupt, morally depraved banking sector smirks behind the scenes, with little more than a smack on the wrist.
I bet on the banks.
Met this bloke on the bus a few weeks ago, high up in the risk assessment part of a bank.
He told me the banks were unlikely to get more than a slap and there would be no major hit to them.
I came home and bought $1500 worth of shares in the cunts.
"You’re just another worker hating fake left muppet, Facto."
What kind of attack is this, comrade? Ad whatchamacallit?
You're making slow progress, Blowie. But it's progress. Of a sort. From pure Blowipedia over the years and weeks and days and hours to at least MacroBusiness...and now this!!!!
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/wages-crisis/wages-crisis-ebook...
A worthy read I daresay.
20 chapters. 5 parts. 328 pages.
Obviously a complex issue. Well, a lot more complex than a few cherry-picked pages from 2 chapters. But hey, that's Macro's business model/plan/shtick.
The chapters:
I. THE PROBLEM
1. Australia, we have a problem
Jim Stanford, Tess Hardy and Andrew Stewart
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-01
2. Charting wage stagnation in Australia
Jim Stanford
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-02
3. Global perspectives on wage stagnation
Stephen Kinsella and John Howe
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-03
4. What's causing the wages slowdown?
Tess Hardy and Andrew Stewart
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-04
II. WAGE SETTING MECHANISMS AND INSTITUTIONS
5. Minimum wages
Tim Lyons
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-05
6. Gender pay equity
Sara Charlesworth and Meg Smith
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-06
7. Collective bargaining power
David Peetz
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-07
8. Public sector austerity and its spill-over effects
Troy Henderson
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-08
9. Contracting out community services, marketisation and wages
Fiona Macdonald and Michael Pegg
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-09
10. Executive remuneration in listed companies and wage setting
Kym Sheehan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-10
III. BUSINESS STRUCTURES AND VULNERABLE WORKERS
11. Fractured word
Josh Bornstein
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-11
12. Wage theft and young workers
Keelia Fitzpatrick
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-12
13. Temporary migrant workers, underpayment and predatory business models
Iain Campbell
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-13
14. Is there a wages crisis facing skilled temporary migrants?
Joanna Howe
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-14
IV. STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES ON CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, AND SOLUTIONS
15. A business perspective
Saul Eslake
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-15
16. A union perspective on the wages crisis and how to solve it
Damian Kyloh
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-16
17. A community perspective: The human and social costs of wage stagnation
John Falzon
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-17
18. Young Australians and the disrupted economy
Annette Cairnduff, Kelly Fawcett and Nina Roxburgh
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-18
19. An investor perspective
Craig Shepherd and Penny Heard
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-19
V. FINDING SOLUTIONS
20. Conclusion: Wages and inclusive growth
Andrew Stewart, Jim Stanford and Tess Hardy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/wages-crisis-20
Actually, in the mood for searching and reading?
And not far to go?
Check the back pages of this thread and read on!!!!
https://www.swellnet.com/forums/politico/307178?page=98
https://www.swellnet.com/forums/politico/307178?page=103
Some interesting stuff on there.
And sorry comrades, but THIS IS A MUST-READ.
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-true-natu...
If just to see the correlations between what happened there and what twisted paths happen right here on Swellnet!!!!
Even the arguments as described and deconstructed are sadly similar.
Forget KAK & Hildebrand, we've got Larry & Moe!!!!
"ANZ was up 6.5%, Commonwealth Bank added 4.69% and Westpac increased 6.36%."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/05/big-four-banks-sh...
That's some stone-cold pragmatism you've got going on there FR.
Haha !
A Chinese National inextricably involved in the upper echelons of his countries fascist , racist , yellow supremacist dictatorship has bought both major parties in Australia’s duopoly democracy piss take.
He was also allowed to buy over a billion dollars worth of Australian real estate.
Pretty much sums up the state of our nation and the political class overseeing its corruption.
ALP/LNP are nothing more than salesman. It’s our society that they’re selling to line their own pockets. Their time is well past. The scent of their corruption is getting too powerful to disguise any longer.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/canberra-strands-beijing-s-man-o...
Ain't there a specific China thread for that sorta stuff?
Blowin, in 2015-16 around $32 billion invested in Australian real estate was from Chinese investors, making it the largest investment in an industry sector by a country by far.
In fact it doesn’t seem that hard to get Foreign Investment Review Board approval in Australia.
Of the 41,450 applications by foreigners to buy something in 2015–16, five were rejected. In the year before, out of 37,953 applications zero were rejected. Out of the 116,234 applications from 2012 to 2016, a total of eight were rejected.
What is also remarkable about all of this is that technically, the Chinese are not allowed to send large sums of money overseas. Citizens of China can normally only convert US$50,000 a year in foreign currency and have long been barred from buying property overseas, but those rules have not been enforced. They’ve only started cracking down on this now.
Despite this, up until now, Australian property developers and the Australian Government have been more than happy to accommodate Chinese money laundering.
It’s more about the ludicrous situation where Australians are forced to choose one of two utterly corrupt, self serving major political parties .
How is this democracy ?
ALP or LNP .....doesn’t matter , China has already bought their allegiance.
Remember chaps that Australia needs capital inflows to keep the ponzi scheme going pretty much the same conversation when Japan was on the rise buying up Australian real estate turned out rich Kwis were among the big spenders.
Yay! Share market!
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2019/02/05/royal-commissio...
It's looking more and more like the Banking Royal Commission was designed to be, or became, a multi-level stitch-up.
"The recommendation to whack mortgage brokers, in particular, will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the banks if it is implemented."
Fucking genius.
Ethical behaviour is extinct across the entire business spectrum. From the banks and financial institutions to the insurance companies to the media giants to agribusiness. Why do they get away with it? Because the politicians know that significant parts of the benefits flow onto consumers and investors. The rapacious behaviour of the banks drives up their share price (average Joe's superannuation). The environmentally destructive behaviour of agribusiness drives down the price of food and clothing and so on and so forth across the whole spectrum. Yes, from time to time someone steps over the line and gets shafted (looking at you AMP). But by and large, if we want change we have to demand it and we have to be prepared to pay for it. Try taking that to the next election!
Did you really just use trickle down theory to victim shame Australians ?
The politicians enable the urging of Capital because of CORRUPTION and corruption only.
Trying to convince yourself that Malcom Turnbull prevented a serious incursion into the financial industry because of concern for the punter on the street ......please. And He probably only keeps his cash in the Bahamas because he wants to help fund the steel drum band scene.
Politics attracts the worst of society.
"Ethical behaviour is extinct across the entire business spectrum."
Yep.
And of course you can add the 'business spectrum's' very own political party.
(false equivalence, moral and otherwise, alert coming up!)
John Pilgrr says :https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article25661115.ece
So Blowin, did you read his answer to the first question?
Interesting link Blowin, did not know half of India gov budget spent on military. (Imperial Japan spent north of 25% on its Navy alone)
..."was one of the most violent U.S. Presidents. He launched or sustained seven wars and left office with none resolved: a record. In his last year as President,... according to the Council on Foreign Relations, he dropped 26,171 bombs. It’s an interesting statistic; it’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day, on mostly civilians. The bombing technique... made his own was assassination by drone. "
Guess which one?
Yeah , BB , I did.
Can’t say I agree with him though. I’m sure he’s got a vastly better insight into global political machinations than I have , but I read China’s intentions differently than he does.
As you no doubt read the situation regarding Brexit / EU differently to him also.
The diversity of opinion is what’s important and you make your own mind up from there.
Actually while we are at it with Hindu news sources and bombing people, this is from the Mahabharata:
“Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana,
hurled a single projectile
charged with the power of the Universe.
An incandescent column of smoke and flame,
as bright as ten thousand suns,
rose with all its splendour.
It was an unknown weapon,
an iron thunderbolt,
a gigantic messenger of death,
which reduced to ashes
the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
The corpses were so burned
as to be unrecognizable.
Hair and nails fell out;
Pottery broke without apparent cause,
and the birds turned white.
…After a few hours
all foodstuffs were infected…
…to escape from this fire
the soldiers threw themselves in streams
to wash themselves and their equipment.”
Blowie!!!! First the Adelaide Uni book and now an extended interview with Pilger?!
Are the seeds planted by others over the years - “seeds beneath the snow” (there's another quote from the interview) - starting to bud?
Pilger!!!! And "his documentaries on Australia, notably The Secret Country (1983) and a trilogy, The Last Dream (1988), Welcome to Australia (1999) and Utopia (2013), [that] revealed much of his own country’s “forgotten past”, especially the struggles of its indigenous people."
So many quotes to be investigated. It could be its own thread!!!!
Stoked a coupla of my fellas get a guernsey too.
Chomsky! As well as this:
"At the beginning of the 21st century, [the American journalist and novelist] Norman Mailer wrote that American power had entered a “pre-fascist” era. Others have suggested we are already in it."
Maybe one for the Trump thread?
"Donald Trump can also be described as just another (violent) American President. His distinction is that he is a caricature. Many in the U.S. elite loathe Trump not because of his personal behaviour but because of a far more profound embarrassment; he is America without the mask."
And the China one of course:
"Your recent documentary, “The Coming War on China”, exposes how the U.S. is at war with China. Could you explain the mechanism of this secret war? Do you think that the Asia-Pacific will be the next region of imperialist intervention? How will this intervention unfold and what will be the fallout?
It is a “secret war” only because our perception is shaped to ignore the reality. In 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Manila and instructed the newly inaugurated Philippines President Benigno Aquino to take a stand against China for its occupation of the disputed Spratly Islands and to accept the presence of five rotating U.S. Marine bases. Manila had been getting along fine with Beijing, having negotiated badly needed soft loans for infrastructure. Aquino did as he was told, and agreed to accept a U.S.-led legal team to challenge China’s territorial claims in the Spratlys in the U.N. Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The court found that China had no jurisdiction over the outcrops of the Spratlys; a judgment China rejected outright. It was a small victory in a U.S. propaganda campaign to portray China as rapacious rather than defensive in its own region. The motive lay in the growing insecurity of America’s national security/military/media elite that it was no longer the world’s dominant power.
In the following year, 2011, President Obama declared a “pivot to China”. This signalled the transfer of the majority of U.S. naval and air forces to the Asia-Pacific region, the biggest movement of military material since the Second World War. Washington’s new enemy—rather, renewed enemy—was China, which had risen to extraordinary economic heights in less than a generation.
The U.S. has long had a string of bases around China, from Australia through the Pacific Islands, to Japan and Korea and across Eurasia. These are currently being reinforced and modernised. Almost half of America’s worldwide network of more than 800 bases ringed China, “like the perfect noose”, commented a State Department official. Under cover of “the right of freedom of navigation”, U.S. low-draught ships intrude into Chinese waters. U.S. drones overfly Chinese territory. The Japanese island of Okinawa is a vast U.S. base, with its contingents prepared for an attack on China. On the Korean island of Jeju, Aegis-class missiles are aimed at Shanghai, 400 miles away [640 kilometres]. The provocation is constant.
On October 3, for the first time since the Cold War, the U.S. threatened openly to attack China’s closest ally, Russia, with whom China has a mutual defence pact. There was little media interest. China is arming rapidly; according to specialist literature, Beijing has changed its nuclear posture from low alert to high alert."
Not sure how you shoehorned the fact you’re a wanker into a rehash of a link that we’ve just read , but you managed.
And please tell me you don’t honestly think that you’ve influenced me in any way whatsoever. Remember that thread of mine you regurgitate so much , the part about the deluded , the sanctimonious and the wankers ?
Yeah , you just hit 2 out of 3 in a single post.
Congratulations.
“ A couple of my fellas .....”. Fuck me dead.
Oh dear, Moe, oh dear!!!!
Who knows if you read. Never done so previously. Huzzah! More progress!!!!
As for Mailer & Chomsky, I was gonna say my homies, but thought fellas was more Aussie?
No probs, cobber.
Onwards and upwards!!!!
Great piece on Brexit
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/02/21/brexit-fool-britannia/
Facty this is for you. I reckon you could have weeks of enjoyment:
http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl
Just keep clicking 'next paragraph' and you get an infinite amount of Chomskyite verbiage.
"...Another finding in this week’s poll should provide pause to progressives, currently thinking through how hard to push the Labor opposition pre-election. It’s way too late to be newsworthy, but the extremely low numbers – just 15% – endorsing a change of the Australia Day date, should serve as a reality check to activists everywhere. While the electorate is ready to throw this government out and accept that the power balance has shifted too far to big business, they have not bought the entire progressive agenda.
The voters who will decide this election are not from the left, they are the disengaged centre for whom politics is an unwanted distraction rather than a source of passion. There is a risk in reading disdain for one proposition as endorsement of another.
Over the past few months, we have got an accurate view about where that centrist sentiment is lying: they support renewables but are not ready to kill coal, they want kids off Nauru but they don’t want open borders, they dislike privatisations but they don’t want the state to control their lives, or most of all their data.
As we approach the federal election, the challenge is to keep seeing our nation as it is, rather than as we want it to be. This election is not a foregone conclusion – it is easier to change a prime minister than a government, and the powerful will throw everything at maintaining the status quo."
A rare bit of rational thought and reality from the guardian
It's not fucking rocket science, yet it still seems all so alien to some...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2019/feb/05/aus...
And the longer view on Brexit:
https://qz.com/721596/brexit-the-longer-view/
"It’s worth remembering that this not the first time the British have backed away from European schemes. In the 16th century, the country walked out of the Pope-dominated, European-wide Catholic world, defying predictions that this separation would mean their doom. In fact, the grandeur of England started right there. Great Britain also stood alone in Western Europe against Napoleon and, for almost two years, against Hitler during World War II. Thus, separation from the continent is not a novelty.
As a rule, the British have differentiated from the rest of Europe throughout their history, as when they opted for constitutional democracy in the 17th century when the norm in the continent was absolutism. Right at the same time, they opted for a free economy while Louis XIV was taking control of the French economy and establishing incentives like widespread subsidies and regulations, sure that this was the way to create industries.
The deep disdain that many continentals felt for this expression of provincialism was marvelously expressed by Napoleon, whose Continental System of European trade was the acknowledged antecedent of the EU. Trying to see the coast of England from across the Channel while planning to invade it, he called England “that nation of shopkeepers.” The shopkeepers then proceeded to put forward a navy that sunk in Trafalgar the two most powerful navies in the world, the Spanish and French together, and an army that defeated Napoleon himself in Waterloo. This stopped the unification of Europe under one single, talented leader.
In the aftermath, the Industrial Revolution soon became the biggest and deepest social, technological and political transformation in history. It brought about modern democracy and the possibility of sustainable growth. But it did not begin under the aegis of the bureaucrats who were working day and night in the continent with incentives and disincentives to bring it about. Embarrassingly, the Industrial Revolution began in England. And it began there 70 or 80 years before it started in most other countries. Even worse, it expanded to other countries only when they copied the shopkeepers, liberalizing their economies and reducing the power of their lofty bureaucracies."
"It's not fucking rocket science, yet it still seems all so alien to some..."
What are you exactly advocating here re: that article?
A good read from Sypkan and Velocity..well done...As for me I'm going to Vote for Liberal/ National simply because I don't want us to be broke again. You cant do anything if your broke regardless of your good intentions. As for Brexit, the Brits are simply wise enough to feel Europe's tentacles starting to squeeze again and who knows what dark forces may end up running it. Freedom to choose your own path is much better.
You're a religious man, are you not, Optimist?
And an optimist too going by your moniker I take it?
"You should never talk about religion and politics". A hoary old chestnut.
BUT...maybe applicable if the view is that the two are interchangeable (as seen through the 'blind faith' prism)?
Personally I try to never discuss religion - especially with a person of faith - if I can avoid it. You can't debate with faith. Well, you can, but it's kind of pointless, and time is precious. Moreso, these days.
Politics is a different kettle of lime-scale though. Most times.
vj I think there a lot of people in the UK thinking exactly along those lines, that whatever problems Brexit causes in the short term, they will be better off without it in the long term. It's a big punt and a lot of those supporting it are not the ones most likely to suffer. The comparison to the industrial revolution is drawing a pretty long bow and it would be easy to argue that while the British economy boomed it was at the expense of the health and welfare of the working class. If you had to choose where you were going to live in the 18th or 19th Century it would almost certainly not have been in a British city unless you were wealthy.
"..."It's not fucking rocket science, yet it still seems all so alien to some..."
What are you exactly advocating here re: that article?"
A little presumtuous and self important there, you expecting an answer to a direct question on here. You know, after years and years, and various personalities, and not a single contribution that remotely resembles an answer or opinion. But anyway I'll indulge you, you owe me one... or ten...
I'm not really advocating anything. I'm just making the point that labor (or the left) thinks shit's in the bag.
However..."While the electorate is ready to throw this government out and accept that the power balance has shifted too far to big business, they have not bought the entire progressive agenda."
I'd argue the 'progressive agenda' is actually on the nose, and 'the left' needs some serious self assessment going forward if it wants to be taken seriously, because the politics they've become beholden to is pretty much cause for ridicule and not much else. Pleasing the 15%, whilst isolating the voters you actually need, is kind of dumb.
"...centrist sentiment is lying: they support renewables but are not ready to kill coal, they want kids off Nauru but they don’t want open borders, they dislike privatisations but they don’t want the state to control their lives, or most of all their data."
I've been arguing, or advocating, this paragraph for a long time. Renewables are a winner, big time, surprisingly so in fact. Open borders (or even the impression of) are a big time loser, big time! As is the government meddling at every level of our lives, be it data hoarding, political correctness, or the general propensity towards their nanny state bullshit, people are done with that shit.
And a little bit of coal is good for humanity...apparently...
Labor are assuming it's in the bag. I'd say that's a bad assumption, especially when it's independents that are taking up the slack.
On top of that, as the article states, libs are going to make it all about economy, be it perception or reality, that's not a good thing for labor. Now focus is changing to narau, refugees and percieved open borders, also not a good place for labor. Sco-mo has been flogging the political correctness thing too, definitely not good for labor. And now the libs are stepping up their climate chamge position, again, not really good for labor, given their track record...
Labor needs to pull something out of the bag. Something new, a paradigm shift. But it appears they've got nothing new at all, and billyboy is MIA...again!
Sco mo's government is woeful, normally in such a bleak landscape I'd argue libs are better for digging us out of debt, but their recent track record shows otherwise, it appears they're struggling with no plan. Fertile ground for labor, you'd think....except they've got nothing too.
It's the battle of public disdain damage control and nothingness for both sides. The only advantage I see for labor is sco-mo is a bit of a gumby. But then again, they've got bill, still...still bill (in more ways than one).
That's a reasonable view sypkan. Certainly a lot of the movement is with traditional Liberal Party voters drifting to small l liberal independents. I would still think that the election is Labor's to lose, which is why no bullshit Bill is keeping his head down. I mean we have had a major ecological catastrophe on the Darling caused by maladministration in a government authority, a banking Royal Commission showing that the government regulators have colluded with the banks to tolerate malpractice, climate change driven disasters in Tasmania and FNQ, and a PM whose basic position is that it doesn't matter if climate change occurs because Jesus gonna be here soon. I could probably go on, but if that isn't enough to get a government thrown out, then we are in deeper shit than even I imagined.
I actually think Sco mo is the best leader the liberals have seen since Howard.
Only issue i have with him is he lets his religious views get in the way of things a bit.
Labour on the other hand haven't had a leader of any substance since Julia/Kevin era and even then it was obviously a mess.
If labour wins its not through any substance or leadership, its just because nobody wants the liberals in again
Personally i don't really care who gets elected and i will most likely just leave my ballot blank, because i feel torn.
IMHO Liberals are better at running the country in most aspects but Labor look after the average to lower class into which i fall, on social issues i give an easy tick to Liberals.
Sounds like you're a sucker for the cult of personality Indo.
Look deeper mate, look at policies and what they mean not just for your short-term benefit but also for the future of your kids, the country, the world etc etc
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