What's what?

The Russian thing is going nowhere so dredging up Trump 's sexual past is the next obvious step for those with no respect for the democratic process to impose their will on the Presidency.

Immigrants to Australia tend to have fewer offspring than those who stay home so total populatio growth is refuced

Immigrants to Australia tend to have fewer offspring than those who stay home so total populatio growth is refuced

Hmmm.

Maybe check your accounting techniques BB.

For some reason all the restrained breeders that have arrived from overseas in the last decade have still seen the population grow by nearly 8000000 people.

The population wasn't meant to hit 24M till 2040. So it's probably not such a bad time to question the population predicting models that state such silly and unsubstantiated dross , don't you think ?

And when you say immigrants have less children , which of the non homogenous mass of immigrants are you referring to ?

Lebanese ? Somalis ? Nigerians ? Afghanis ?

It is strange indeed blowin

He's not the only one peddling these contradictions

How about their carbon footprint at home versus once they move to oz?

Yep thats a selfish and contemptuous attitude. But its not to be overlooked.

Just as our footprints shouldnt be overlooked. But blindboy dont wanna talk about that either.

Naomi klien said somthing along the lines of....you cannot talk about climate change without talking about equality, consumption patterns and economic growth.

Blindboy clearly sees it differently

About fucking time!

I can't believe labor let this drag out so long

I actually quite like dastyari, or at least I did. But this episode on the back of the other one is beyond excuseable. Poor form shorten

Dastyari proved himself a dog!!

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-12/sam-dastyari-resigns-from-parli...

Immigrants here vs stay homes. I am thinking global population. So sypkan anything else disappeared lately. You made a completely wrong assertion and, surprise surprise, change the subject

Immigrants here vs stay homes. I am thinking global population. So sypkan anything else disappeared lately. You made a completely wrong assertion and, surprise surprise, change the subject

mmigrants here vs stay homes

Wtf does that mean?

Re. Nyt (a joke in itself that your still citing nyt about trump ) i cannot access it as Im not a subscriber. You being a subsciber (another laugh right there) could possibly cut and paste it so i know what your on about.

But I can imagine they've dragged some of his accusers back out of the shadows as the russian story has turned out to be much more than fake news. Its a goddam conspiracy, and a bloody dangerous one.

Either way, for a whole year, we pretty much heard nothing from these women, and now, with nyt, wp, etc, losing (miserably) the fake news wars they need a new slur (talk about changing the subject!!!)

Ler's see where it goes. Maybe they will squeeze a year out of this one too. Then they only need two more fake scandals until getting beaten at the next election because all these really intelligent people have lost the ability to learn and take in new information.

I don't doubt some of these women have genuine greviances blindboy. Just like the weistein women do. But one has to ask, what was in it for them that they allowed these pigs of men at the time to indulge?

You don't go to the hoar house and then complain later that you were tricked because you feel dirty.

You know what your in for. That's the game, and most of these women were playing it for self benefit. Its unfortunate their dreams weren't met, but if you lie with dogs....

Fwiw trump is a disgrace of a man. Doing some really twisted shit. If these 'journalists' concentrated on that, and just reported the facts they'd slam him and he'd be gone much sooner.

I really cannot understand what these news sources are doing. Either they are addicted to this hyper partisan slur fest that has become the norm and can't break out of it, or they are so fucked up and bewildered they literally cannot see the forest for the trees.

It's time to take the high moral ground they believe they inhabit. That is the only way they will expose and get rid of him, but they just keep loading that needle.

Or they are just lazy and looking for a quick fix.

Even if they took the high moral ground now, and just did their fucking jobs, it will take a long time to win back trust, which will be slow and painful, so I can see it would be a daunting task to undertake.

But the alternative...well...for a rational person it just wouldn't be an option.

Going back a bit,

> CO2 must be reduced
> An extra 200,000 people into Australia per year living Western lifestyle & CO2 emissions

Cognitive Dissonance is massive!

C'mon, we're a surfing site, we are at the coal face of the coastal environment, many of us have studied just how delicate Australian environments are, and the answer is to flood it with more people?! wtf

sypkan I don't subscribe to NYT. You get 10 free articles a month, so if you are blocked you must be a closet reader.

Oh and world population growth is over 80 million a year. So Australia is absorbing 0.25% of that at current figures. I agree that the immigration program does result in a small net increase in emissions globally. If you do the math on this and calculate the increase as a percentage of total global emissions you will find it is insignificant. I have, in everything I have posted about emissions, emphasised that the main game is the issue and that the only way to make a meaningful difference is through government and corporate policy. Further any potential increase in Australian emissions would be cancelled out within a generation by the increased population growth in the source country.

BB - You think that Australia has a moral imperative to absorb the global overpopulation due to ridiculous birth rates in other countries ?

And that it's a non issue that Australia's environment, economy , standard of living and quality of life should suffer in order to accomodate those same people ?

No Blowin I maintain that the evidence for the impacts you claim is weak to non-existent. As for moral imperatives I think it is in Australia's long term interest to maintain a reasonable level of immigration.

You live in Sydney , BB ?

Take a look around you and then think how it looked pre colonisation .

Every single person added takes us further from that ideal.

There's your inarguable evidence.

There's no shame in stating that your belief in massive unsustainable immigration is anything but emotive. But it certainly doesn't make it the appropriate course of action.

No going back Blowin! My long view is that Australia, with good environmental management can and will inevitably, support a larger population. You.can make value judgements about quality of life or assert that I am wrong about sustainability but that's my view. If you want to change it give me some hard evidence.

Isn't the shallowest of value judgements on quality of life enough ?

How long do you want your grandkids sitting in traffic each day ?

How little exposure to the natural world ?

How compromised the food , air and water that sustains them ?

How destroyed the natural environment that must sustain their mind , bodies and souls ?

These are the sacrifices you are prepared to make ?

And what benefits do you stand to reap from this speculative endeavour to fill every nook and cranny of our fragile home with more and more people ?

I'm afraid the burden of proof is on those that wish to destroy our country , not the reverse.

Lots of assumptions there Blowin. I can't address them all just now but let's think traffic. My prediction is that commuting time will actually decrease as self driving cars come into general Use and public tra nsport. Ontinues to
Improve

Yes I read nyt blindboy. It's not always fake news. But it is sad and disappointing that I have to read it between the lines, and with just as critical an eye as I would fox news or the other trash.

There's that word again....reasonable...

I think most australians are open to 'reasonable' levels of migration. Its just that reasonable has blown out to out of control for more than a decade now. A year or two would be excusable, even tolerable, if that's all it was, but making it the norm, with no end in sight, and no inclination to change is societal suicide when people and environments are feeling the pressure.

And, people would probably be more open to migration if it was explained and defended, rather than it being secretively encouraged, with name calling and belittling being the only thing used to lubricate its facilitation.

I'm not pro or against, but if I was pro I would have some reasonable points and arguments to make it more palatable. Blindboy and his pro mates have been asked many times on here why they are so pro migration but all one gets is steely silence, or some lame economic argument that is totally contradictory at best to what appears to be the rest of their political philosophy.

There's many good arguments for migration....well...better ones than "I'm a migrant" anyway.

"My prediction is that commuting time will actually decrease as self driving cars come into general Use and public tra nsport. Ontinues to
Improve"

Really?

The old driverless cars will save us. That's all you've got

You're a real cornicopian blindboy, I'll give you that.

One would hope that one as smart and educated as you had better material than that.

Cant see how driver less cars are going to solve the congestion issue......maybe make it worse.I recently drove thru western suburbs going north and its been near 4 years since i did that same trip but the amount 'extra' traffic was bullshit.Building tunnels wont save em cause by the time a tunnel is finished the population has increased and counters the benefits......Blowins on the money.......its not sustainable......

it is sustainable if city/region planning occurs as needed. australia is a big country, if we start managing it as a "big country" and not sydney vs melbourne then maybe so many people living in congested cities or dead backwater towns wouldn't be so upset.

BB, i admire your optimism on the topic, but historical evidence, trends, and were we are pointed towards with the current climate of city/region planning the result is not in favour of your arguments for a bigger aus. we can do better though and we ahve a big country that can theortically support a lot of people if thats what is considered ideal. plan right and AUS can be a very prosperous country full of happy people for a long long time to come.

2.5 BILLION spent on spin doctors and "consultants" since the coalition took office!!

"Boston Consulting Group, which once employed Human Services Minister Alan Tudge, was given $78 million worth of work."

"Consulting giant PwC, which ­recently hired the former head of the Prime Minister’s Office for Women, Amanda McIntyre, pocketed $523 million."

"Another $422 million was paid to Ernst & Young — whose federal government and public sector leader, Andrew Metcalfe, is a former Immigration Department secretary and ex-deputy secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet."

Meanwhile, there are plans to get over 60yo's to work for the dole via "compulsory volunteer work". Now that's a nice little mid week paradox for ya'....

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/taxpayers-spend-25-billion-on...

That's fucking criminal.

Can we take a quick reverse up the comment thread?

Driverless cars might do a lot of things, but one thing you can be sure they wont do is reduce traffic.

Got a meeting in the city? Why pay exorbitant parking costs when you can set your car to do slow laps for the next two hours.

Why take public transport when you can work in your car while commuting? And who cares if there's more traffic, cos you're already doing work, right?

Also, road freight costs more than rolling stock, but not when you take out wages so expect a freight shift from rail to bitumen.

I liked the line about public transport continuing to improve.

I'm only speculating here as I'm not a public transport user , but isn't the only noticeable difference between public transport now and public transport 30 years ago the fact that 30 years ago it was possible to find a vacant seat ?

And who is going to utilise shared transport on a night out when you can just take your own car and still drink as much as you like ?

Wait till they introduce congestion charges for driving through the city due to the extra 2000 people per week every week on the roads.

Driverless cars are likely to reduce congestion in a number of ways. First they can coordinate at speeds and ways which are impossible for humans which means much faster traffic flows at higher speeds than are currently safe. Second many of the models for the second generation are not based on private ownership. The economics are pretty clear that a faster more reliable Uber-type system reduces costs all round. We already have a hugely improved bus system where I live that can get me around the local area and into the city faster than I can drive. Also having spent time in Japan in areas with incredible population density, it is easier to get around than in Sydney. So yeh I am pretty optimistic about transport.

And how has the urban environment in utopian Japan fared ?

japan has nearly zero immigration.....they're fucking full. its not exactly a model of a future australia that i aspire too. nice country though.

I think we've got a new benchmark for fake news :

http://www.smh.com.au/world/usa-today-calls-trump-unfit-to-clean-obamas-...

Blowin this is a factual report of an opinion piece and is an accurate report of what was published. Trump supporters. apparently lacking the imagination to come up with their own catch phrases, cannot even use the ones created by his critics accurately. Says it all really about the nature of the debate.

This one is for Judge Roy Moore

That's 3 straight losses since Agent Orange. The GOP are now fractured between ultra right nut cases and plain ole conservatives making the 2018 mid terms a likely blood bath ... the Democrats just need to find someone fast to lead the party.

Take this :

"Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!"

And turn it into this :

"With his latest tweet, clearly implying that a United States senator would trade sexual favours for campaign cash, "

And this

". He pours the gasoline of sexist language and lights the match gleefully knowing how it will burst into flame in a country reeling from the #MeToo moment."

And this

"A president who would all but call Senator Kirsten Gillibrand a whore "

And you've got yourself some fake news.

Or if you think that you own the term fake news , then you could always think of it as an utterly hyperbolic , unsubstantiated flight of fantasy . Which is more accurate , but not as reflective of the shrill voiced zeitgeist that passes for objective journalism these days.

And what do you think it says about the nature of the debate and that nobody is allowed to use " your " words ?

Takes an admirable turn of mental gymnastics to dodge the elephant in the room on this issue.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/low-wage-rises-have-become-routine-heres-w...

Even if you're of the sadly mistaken belief that the concept of mass immigration reducing wages is contentious, then isn't it revealing the fact that the MSM won't even mention it as a possible contributor ?

Particularly an economist.

Supply and demand being the most fundamental of business elements.

Thanks Blowin. Wouldn't it be boring if we all agreed? Look I understand that it is easy to associate immigration with more competition for jobs and so lower wages. The problem is that there is no substantial evidence for that position and plenty of other possible explanations for low wage growth, as outlined in the article. I think the things they list are more significant than immigration, but accept it is a matter of opinion in the absence of conclusive evidence.

Well today it finally happened.

Received a job application from a Filipino diesel mechanic on a 457 visa looking for work in rural sa. His resume' has long stints all over the world.
The saddest part is its actually a pretty strong resume' too. I'm half considering interviewing him just to see what his rate is.

Here's a start BB.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/12/australias-infernal-perpertual-...

And if you're wondering why NSW is so intent on pushing for the rebuild of the stadiums , it goes beyond appeasing a mincing shock jock and the NRL racket.

It's a way for the government to pour infrastructure construction dollars into Sydney without land acquisition costs or extensive planning delays.

Got to prop up the ponzi shitfight that is Sydney !

I agree with much of that but the first issue for me is global population growth, some of which I think it is reasonable, and in our interests, to absorb. The second issue is cultural diversity and the advantages that brings with it in domestic and international terms. If we want to do business with other countries, fluent, culturally aware Australian citizens are the way to go. In terms of the article it is worth considering one of the fundamental characteristics of economists, that they are great at predicting everything except the future, so while the article makes some interesting points it is almost certainly a long way from what will actually happen. I see there's swell due in Bali, go hard!

Why is it reasonable for us to absorb global population growth ?

Nigeria is on the way to becoming a population bomb , but to suggest that maybe dad should pull out once in a while is declared racist and meddling in their sovereignty. Fuck it , let them wallow in their self created mess.

And how much of this outrageous influx of immigrants does Australia still need to facilitate trade ?

There's already over half the Australian population born overseas including a million people of Chinese descent ?

Anymore Chinese and we'll BE China , let alone appeasing their desire to only transact with a fellow countryman.

Does the desire to conduct or lubricate trade within a cultural boundaries even amount to much ? You think that Japan isn't going to want our dirt cheap LNG or China isn't going to want or iron ore or all our agricultural land and water sources if they're not greeted by an immigrant frontman ?

That is bullshit of course.

All the economic predictions that are being made have been played out over the last decade plus - the era of Mass immigration has borne witness to a decline in living standards for Australians. We are not seeing any real or sustained benefit beyond a cute night out at an exotic restaurant . The fact that many nice people are immigrants is not reason to overwhelm our country with humanity.

Do you think that Bali has improved with the injection of millions more people ? Do you think that Canggu is a better place since it's become a western cultural ghetto ?

PS Surf very small this morning , chest to head high and not too inspiring with the high tide .....but the pulse is coming ! Got a couple just because being in that water is a gift.

This arvo should see some action .

".... including a million people of Chinese descent ?"

Is that right?

If so, that is a bit fucked up, and totally unbalanced.

If there is a moral imperative to immigration I think people would be much more open to it if we were helping our immediate neighbours more. ie. Indo. Papua timor etc.

I know for a fact that the chinese and indians have worked out how to game the system better than anyone else - well except supposed 'rufugees' anyway, but let's not go there.

It is also a well known fact that remmittance payments do way more to helping alleviate world poverty than any overblown aid budgets, as individual people are inherently way more smarter with money than big arse government departments and other agencies.

These are the things we should be talking about if we want to address any moral inperatives whilst encouraging migration.

Its a fucking disgrace that we pretty much only help the already wealthy to escape their shitholes leaving their surrounding neighbours (and ours) wallowing in poverty.

If you want the main cause of Australia's economic problems you have to go back to Picketty. In a capitalist system, when the return on investment exceeds productivity growth, inequality will increase unless governments take strong action. That is the core of the problem. As wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands it chases ever more speculative investments. People on low and middle incomes spend their money on goods and services that create employment. The rich cannot possibly spend their incomes so they "invest" it in non-productive schemes. Why do I care about people in other countries? We only have one planet, we are all in this together. The isolationist Aussie Aussie Uber Alles approach is short sighted, to say the least.

So you think that the idea of marine parks and conservation reserves are short sighted and based in ignorant patriotism ?

Same principle as preserving the remaining natural character of Australia. Destroying EVERYWHERE benefits no one.

Maybe the people that are currently fucking over their own countries through unrestrained over breeding are the ones you should be preaching to regarding looking after the planet.

If someone trashed their own house through wilful mismanagement and blatant disregard for their only shelter you'd then bend over backwards to let them stay at your place ?

It just leads to both houses being trashed.

And rather than referring to Picketty's irrelevant theories consider that their isnt many great returns on speculative investment these days.

Gas plants , mines and casinos. A bit of infrastructure, which is very thin on the ground these days. The wealthy are hiding their money rather than reinvesting - that's the destructive component of modern taxation systems.

Apple , Google and a Microsoft alone have $465 Billion dollars between them stashed in tax havens. Rather than speculative investments they are just not investing due to getting canned by the taxman as soon as they attempt to repatriate their money.

Thus Trump's tax breaks are a great idea. It brings shed loads of cash back for reinvesting in the states.

For the same reason Turnbulls tax breaks for business are a garbage idea as the companies affected are mostly foreign owned so their cash gets repatriated in their home lands and Australia loses both tax and investment.

Maybe the speculation you're referring to is the property market ? It being the only gig in town . Too bad it's also a net negative on Australia's finances as it's all funded with offshore capital .

The fact that this ridiculous game of financial musical chairs is perpetuated by the stupidly overzealous Big Australia proponents that continue to flood our country with zero benefit mass immigration brings us back to our discussion nicely.

Now I'll just go and google Picketty.....

PS The Aussie Aussie uber allies remark is well into the realm of an ad hominem for our entire nation.

You do realise that the point of that accusation was bent and blunted beyond recognition when the white Australia policy expired ?

Australia is a far from a homogenous mass of Anglo descendants and the idea that we have enough people already encompasses ALL that are already here.

Too many people is too many people . To frame it as xenophobia when the country is already changed beyond all recognition is disengenuous and farcical.

Ummmm....I looked into Picketty and he's not as irrelevant as I thought.

My mistake.

But you're barking up the wrong tree thinking that inequality stems primarily from the allocation of capital.

It's the tools to retain wealth of which tax minimisation is just one that the problem can be found.

There is plenty of money in Australia , it's just that the workers don't get a look in due to the other tools of wealth retention such as flooding the labour market which leads to competition for jobs and downward pressure on wages .Then capital compounds the approach by flooding it with cheap or free labour that both undercut those legitimate workers who work for the society mandated minimum and have a tax burden placed on top.

These are immigrant workers. Also tax avoiders so they not only reduce our wage standard they also are a net drain on the community as they pay little or no tax.

Another tool in the search for greater profits / increased inequality is to destroy organised labour such as unions.

Most immigrants will never join a union as they are hesitant to upset their employer / sponsor or because they are not legal, registered employees to start with .

Then there is inherent cultural resistance to organised labour. The idea of which is foreign to most cultures and thus their poor standards of living. They bring that culture with them which undermines Australian wage standards.

Result : Declining wages and decreasing standards of living as witnessed throughout the country for the last few years.

Meanwhile - MSM economists and the paid mouthpieces of the vested interests that run our society feign ignorance as to why this situation exists.

Slowly moving closer together on this Blowin. My perspective is global because that is the way things work, that is how the inequalities are generated by straight out tax avoidance as shown in the Panama Papers. Remember the first tranche of data, from one of numerous companies involved in global tax avoidance revealed that the tax stolen from African nations in the last decade exceeds the total national debt of all African nations. This was the money that would have built schools, roads and hospitals. This is the money that would have raised standards of living so that families became smaller. This is why you cannot just deal with things on a national level. The big money laughs and moves on. Yes we need to protect our national interests but the only way to do that is to stop the outright theft of our national wealth and the wealth of other countries. You think immigration interferes with this, I think it helps. Same goal, different paths, hard to pick on available evidence.

The minute that you realise that the concept of mass immigration was not conceptualised through a desire to extend the international hand of friendship and that it was actually created to extend the leverage of the global corporations that dictate western political policies, is the minute you realise that it's not a good thing for the country on the receiving end.

Surely it must shine a light on the fundamental driving force behind the modern western preoccupation with mass immigration when you find that it's pushed hardest by those that campaign the most tirelessly for Neoliberalism- The LNP.

You realise that the African nations are defrauded out of their sustaining tax dollars by the neoliberalists , yet you openly encourage the tactics of the same neoliberalists to manipulate western nations through the immigration initiatives that they dictate to our governing bodies.

If the LNP is all about it then doesn't it give you pause to question why they're so infatuated with the idea ? Because it disenfranchises and disharmonises the labour force .

Unfortunately Labor, who should be championing the Australian citizen worker ( of whichever origin ) has lost all insight and ability to oppose effectively due to their constant battle for self preservation and loss of fundamental political identity.

This leads them to pander to the divisive cultural factions that have formatted within Australia in order to shore up electoral blocs. The consequent prioritisation of the immigrant vote has seen them lose the Australia workers that constituted their original representative demographic .

So if LNP wants mass immigration to destabilise Australia's labour force and Labor wants mass immigration to shore up votes .....what's in it for Australia ?

Fuck all.

Crowds. Degraded environment. Over stressed infrastructure. Undue pressure on our fragile island homes ability to sustain us. Worsening standards of living. Worsening quality of life.

You say that an influx of foreign flavour enhances the cultural diversity in Australia and I'd agree with you . But when HALF of our country was born overseas- and that equates to 12 Million people - then I'd say that any future benefits from further diversity are well and truly overshadowed by the negatives of the pure unsustainable mass of humanity we are squeezing in to the habitable margins of this country.

Any continued expansion of humanity is just an arms race between two opposing political powers that should be relegated to the garbage bin and their respective puppeteers exposed and expunged from any place of influence over our nation's future.

PS You realise the irony when you say that large family size is connected to poor standard of living ?

So with the continuation of mass immigration to Australia and its inherent and visible downward pressure on our standard of living - doesn't that just forsee a future increase in family sizes here ?

Which leads to further population growth and further reduction in standard of living and further increase in family sizes which leads to further population growth which leads to reduction in standard of living which leads to increased family sizes which leads to....ad infinitum .

Next thing we'll be looking for another country to migrate to .

But it'll be too late cause everywheres fucked.

Thus the relevance of the marine park concept. There is no benefit to the world if it's all fucked equally.

No one wins.

Particularly the planet and the other non humanoid life forms that inhabit it.

I am more optimistic in some ways than you Blowin. I think the neo-liberal era will come to an end in my lifetime and things will swing back towards more reasonable social and economic policies. Another crisis like 2008 could occur at any time and the methods they used to protect the wealthy then, will not work again. This would open the door to genuine reform minded politicians. The milennials have every reason to vote for reform. They have been absolutely shafted. The baby boomers, who stand to gain from the status quo, are dying out. How this will all play out is impossible to predict so I acknowledge that there is the risk of the thieving bastards getting such a firm grip on power that it cannot be shaken, but I think history suggests not.

The millennials have been raised on the false premise that infinite immigration equals never diminishing returns.

They've swallowed the bait to their guts and are taught at every turn in their formal upbringings to never be skeptical that there's a hook.

They'll suffer more than you or me.

As it is they can't even get a job with the cheaper -by -the -dozen uni degrees that they were told was a golden ticket to riches by those wishing to cook the employment statistics , let alone ever owning a house with a bit of space to raise their kids.

Maybe you're right about the next biggest and best economic shock . Though I'm prone to suspecting the outcome will be as much of an orchestrated assault on the hapless base of the financial pyramid as the last one. Only this time it'll be Australia under the axe instead of Greece.

Blowin read this and tell me Trump is a force for good.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extreme-poverty-...