Interesting stuff

Just listened to this podcast of Martin Daly. Definitely lived the dream

https://surfsplendorpodcast.com/281-martin-daly/

The Bert Berger interview is a good listen as well, start up of Firewire, talk about jumping in with the sharks. Goes a long way to explain why some of the early ones might have been a bit off

https://surfsplendorpodcast.com/291-bert-burger/

Having recently returned from WA and having missed a flight because of grid lock traffic in Perth it staggers me that Perth is considered “regional”.

Anyway this is all a smoke screen to fend off criticism about the 80,000 illegal plane arrivals Under Dutton’s watch and the 750,000 foreign workers already here on temporary work visas.

These numbers render as useless the RBAs stated ambition of getting unemployment down to something with a 4 in front of it to force wage increases for the 100s of thousands of punters that haven’t had a real increase in their pay for up to 10 years. Data released recently tells us that great parts of western Sydney have unemployment rates between 6% and 9% so no one should expect a pay increase anytime soon ... neoliberal heaven.

Well Australia opted for these muppets so go team Australia.

The latest CommSec State of the States report, using eight key economic indicators to judge the economic vibrancy of each state, showed Tasmania first in terms of relative population growth, dwelling starts and finance.

In other words, Commsec sets up an award based on its own profit motives (housing construction, overpopulation and mortgages) and the media reports it as 'news'.

This should surprise no-one.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/tasmania-over...

@Blowin,

This is the never ending dominant paradigm. A punch drunk agenda based on greed and gutless politics - we all know it. Corrupt, one dimensional morons who use "go for (contrived population) growth" as their mantra - as if quality of life and life purpose is purely buying white goods, celebrating the diversity bandwagon - a powerful tool to artificially promulgate progressive credentials, slavishly supporting big business agendas and the concomitant ecological degradation that goes with it. Species loss from endless human habitat expansion is a national disgrace - we are world leaders in this regard. And finally, most glaringly, for this travesty to go on unabated, not questioning a fucking thing because our Government, despite choking coasts, loves us all and knows so much fucking better.

This of course means more depraved education, employment and real estate ponzi population schemes will continue to thrive with little or no government intervention because the bastard Feds are driving it!!!

Australia needs immigration unequivocally - at a desert nation sustainable 50,000-70,000 per year. This was the standard rate of intake throughout the 1980's.

Blowin, thanks for keeping up the rage about this. You're probably aware of populationmatters.org - David Attenborough is a patron.

Anyone heard anything about this?

Seems like it's made the news in France, the U.K. and China.

Australia’s outcomes over the last year, according to Credit Suisse’s global wealth databook:

The world’s worst fall in mean average wealth per adult;
The worst decline in house values;
The worst decline in total household wealth in dollars;
The sixth-worst decline in total household wealth in percentage terms;
The greatest decrease in the number of millionaires;
The greatest loss in mean wealth per adult between 2012 and 2019; and
The second worst decline in median wealth since 2012, after Norway.

Wonder why it is that I have to forage for this sort of news on the Independent Australian?

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australias-al...

Blowin, Spuddy and Guy - in case you were still wondering why we're heading down such an obviously destructive path:

"Pulitzer Prize winning author Chris Hedges has long argued that Western societies are undergoing a gradual transformation from democracies to corporate totalitarian states, through a slow motion corporate coup d’etat, in which power is seized not by a demagogue but by “the faceless anonymity of the corporate state.”"

https://newmatilda.com/2019/08/06/talk-to-the-totalitarian-hand-state-re...

And

"U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy - over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy"

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longe...

@AndyM,

Thanks for the Credit Suisse’s global wealth databook info. I'm not surprised given the unrelenting pressure on western democracies to ostensibly hand over/relinquish their sovereignty - powerful agendas are at play to secure unreasonable wealth for the few and greatly diminish if not eliminate the middle classes which were once the backbone of the Anglophone and European economies. Regardless of trends, it seems from the data that the fluid, "murky mercantile" Swiss banking system will always thrive - funny that!

Andy, you have to forage for the information because we no longer have authentic democracy. The Australian political system is rotten to the core and free speech and true liberty is rapidly disappearing. Neo-con backed Canberra (both major parties) has started to effectively dismantle our once world class health and education systems and the very determined Middle Kingdom will sooner or later have its way with us without equivocation due to profound mutual corruption that continues to this day.

The enlightened and courageous journalists exposing the realities are becoming increasingly light on the ground. It's certainly difficult to foresee quality of life trends improving for Australians (in real terms) over the coming decades and mass contrived population growth will continue to be one of the main drivers for the ongoing decline.

Picking up on Andy's media distain: Today's Oz has an article by Chris Mitchell about the scourge of "activist journalism", which while it may be overstated, deserves to be questioned, however Mitchell, without a trace of irony, says that it "shows how some reporters have abandoned reporting for political advocacy."

Takes a lot of chutzpah to edit the LNP's own propaganda arm and call out other journos for impropriety.

Chutzpah is an underrated word.
My Israeli housemate (who may be a spy) looks at me funny when I use it.
And he doesn't like it when I call him a schlemiel.

In any case, I honestly wonder if journos at places like The Oz actually believe shit like that or they're just taking the piss and toeing the line.

I had a quick look at the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2019.
Wealth per adult in Australia in US$ increased from 108,901 in 2000 to 386,058 in 2019. Thats an INCREASE of $277k INCLUDING the $30k decline in 2019. Nothing to see here...

Not sure of the point you're making, Ralph?

"Not sure of the point you're making, Ralph?"

Me either

But would that increase be mostly based on increase in real-estate values?

Yep, that and our superanuation system.

"The composition of household wealth in Australia is skewed toward non-financial assets, which average USD 275,420 and form 58% of gross assets. The high level of real assets reflects a large endowment of land and natural resources relative to the population, but also high property prices in the largest cities. While financial assets are just 42% of total assets, they are also high in absolute terms in part because of Australia’s mandatory superannuation system, which generates strong pension wealth."

Wonder if fall in AUD relative to USD explains much of the fall?
Everything here is still going mental, most people don't realise all the relative values have fallen, they just get on with things.

16th Nov 2019 Scomo & Dutto will downgrade Capital City Perth to a regional city.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/perth-gold-coast-dump-major-cities-tag-to-at...
Perth is installing Dutto's social credit cams to spy on more Asian students.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-08/city-of-perth-rolls-out-new-facia...
Joining Oz #1 Spy City Gold Coast to live feed 25,000 Chinese FIFO social credits.

There's nuthin' suss about Dutto spying for China as he doesn't even like Asians.

17th Nov 2019 Scomo rubber stamps Hutt River Province as new WA capital.
http://www.principality-hutt-river.com/

PS: Qld & WA all voted for Scomo & Dutto didn't they? Just checkin' [Tick!]

The media mostly focuses on the negative and sensationalises issues. So they focus on what happened to Australia's wealth estimate in the short 2019 period but fail to put it in the context of the longer 2000-19 period. That was the point.

What happened in 2019 appears to be a mini correction. I'm guessing it relates to real estate values and maybe the currency.

Also those wealth numbers highlight just how wealthy Australia is compared to the rest of the world but that won't stop the media from running stories about how hard things are.

Yep, it relates to real estate - and to a lesser extent compulsory super. See the direct quote taken from the report in my last post.

So the wealth is a product of inflated property prices, among the highest in the world, and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

Yes we do have a heck of a lot of wealth tied up in real estate. I worry about that sometimes but then with the size of the world's population and the numbers of people in the third world transitioning into the "middle class" and both sides of government seemingly on a path of continuously growing Australia's population the chance of a permanent downturn in property values in this country seems unlikely.

It's not just real estate though. We also have lots of other natural resources and heaps of land although a lot of it is very dry which is one of the reasons we can't support too much population.

Do you think that compulsory super is a bad thing? I think its good to incentivise people to save for their own retirement but there are definitely ways the government could improve the current superannuation system imo.

Compulsory super and the NBN - two of the biggest duds in Australian history. Should have had compulsory health care instead.

I'm with Ralph, Nearly 20 years of growth i.e real estate, wages, super and even commodities and as interest rates have dropped, Australian's love affair with real estate has continued to drive prices up.
The media are trying to send the message that the real estate boom is about to come to an end (for about 3 years) but it has bounced again on the back of 2 more interest rate cuts. Australians love a loan or 3.
Against the media campaign, the Govt need the building industry to roll on,(jobs and spending),
We continue to dodge a bullet unlike U.S.A., Europe, Japan and others when the GFC flattened their economies and we generally don't realise the extent of the financial pain to the general public of these countries.
I hope we can have a small correction or tread water for a while .
When the GFC happened there was a lot said by our polies about the strength of our banks which soon after changed to bank bashing and huge fines dished out to them, or as shareholders or bank customers to us.
As an explanation to the affects of the GFC, someone I know has a family home 20km from Tokyo,which in the mid 1980s was a valuable property, and now after all these years since the GFC the values have not changed ,in fact the old house and land is of little value, as it has no street frontage, only pedestrian access (not a problem in the past). The family believe it is not sellable.

I take it (haven't checked for awhile) the Australian housing bubble is still the only financial bubble that hast bust yet, then there are those words "this time its different".

As for superannuation (compulsory) as Keating has said recently its one of the few if only times Australia has been able to be a exporter of surplus capital.

The only issue with super at the moment is the delay to 12% thank you Coalition.

Also the GovBond bubble I focus. Worldwide, led by USTs. 35 years going strong. Since these GovBonds are used as collateral for much of the planet's financial system...

"...The media are trying to send the message that the real estate boom is about to come to an end (for about 3 years) but it has bounced again on the back of 2 more interest rate cuts. Australians love a loan or 3."

Where's the next bounce coming from, when rates are pretty much zero?

...but yes australians do love a loan or 3...

Apparently we have the highest personal debt in the world. High personal debt, assett rich thanks to an over inflated property bubble, that just keeps on getting pushed along and along by various desperate measures.

It all sounds like a perfect storm to me...

"...As an explanation to the affects of the GFC, someone I know has a family home 20km from Tokyo,which in the mid 1980s was a valuable property, and now after all these years since the GFC the values have not changed ,in fact the old house and land is of little value, as it has no street frontage, only pedestrian access (not a problem in the past). The family believe it is not sellable."

Japan's bubble was way before the gfc. I know a family that bought a family house for a million dollars, still paying the loan. The value of that house is now pribably 500-600k, has been ever since japan's property bubble burst way way before the gfc...

It's gotta hurt paying a million dollar mortgage for a 500k house

...really really hurt...

Could that be the future for oz?

Haven't read MB in a while, check this out:

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/10/retirees-upsizing-to-game-austr...

It's partly firewalled, but will make you cry into your beer all the same.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/10/uq-student-seeks-to-cut-univers...

& this - look to the young to do something! Is UQ completely co-opted?

much of those areas are flood plains and already often flooded in the rainy seasons. wouldn't take much of a sea-level rise to flood them

Heaps of those low lying areas in Indo too on the north coast of Java and Sumatra, but they manage to use it for all kinds of farming (maybe even prawn/shrimp farming) and seems they actually reclaim land rather than lose it.

Thing is any rise is gradual so man can adapt pretty easily.

International insurance ranks SEQ as Climate Change hot Spot, right here & now!
SEQ Natural Disasters rank most costly for electrical storms,wind,hail,flood & seas.
.
World Tourists & Oz flocks to dangerous SEQ shores despite increasing risk.
Chilean Tsunami recorded highest at Gold Coast & attracted outback to the beach.
Relentless wave of humanity laughing off climate change.

World's most affected climate change people just voted to deny it's existence.
Qldurr tbb protested with those you see trying to take a breath...pause! Wake up!
.
Tallest buildings are lighting rod attractions + Cyclonic Surfers star on breakfast TV.
The fact, each family budgets for 4 lifetimes drives real estate rates & stamp duty.
Newer more densely stacked expensive property losses chasing escalating storms.

What are we doing about it...
Downgrade SEQ cities to qualify for more o/s arrivals.
Just so Dutto can steer 25,000 new arrivals into the path of the storms.
This week we flog off latest Tallest Sky Tower & Tombstone the new Reef Break.
WSL: Queues another 2,000 millionaire surf reffos onto Qld flood relief handout.

Qld = 60% of Oz Flood claims & SEQ Govt's rezone Flood Plain just as locals voted.
SEQ is the frontline of climate change and wealthiest climate Change deniers.
Both Dutto & Kelly send locals the bill to constantly sure up their bad investments.
Qldurrz already posted crew their bills for WSL flooded wavepool. Cash is fine!

As opposed to sprouting complete ignorance based on a total misreading of the link, bolstered by a narcissistic inability to acknowledge that anyone ever, no matter how qualified, no matter what topic, could ever be right if the first thought that sprang into your mind was to disagree. Have a nice day!

Blindboy is back, i actually think that names suits you better (not an insult)

@Blowin thanks for the MB article all be it a bit twisted.

Its hardly arguing the point from the workers side unlike Keating.

It quoted Keating out of context but so be it.

Quotes wages growth was 14% last 6 years without adding inflation.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-economy-wage-price-index-rb...

Complains about loss of tax due to super I wonder if the author complained about the loss of tax to high end earners tax cuts without blushing?

BTW Howard stopped tax in pension phase.

Fails to mention the pension is by far the biggest draw down in welfare payments.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parlia...

Fails to point out industry super funds returned 9% per year (at 7% you double your wealth in 10 years) its a great place for lower income contributions.

Perhaps they like the idea of old people sleeping rough?

"mass bleaching in 2016 and 2017 and wiped out about half the Great Barrier' Reef's corals."
Nothing like hysteria to feed the blind......Meanwhile, those that live, breath and work on the reef know the truth.

what sort of shape is it in that you see Fitzy?

I've gotta ask, am I the only one who thinks the climate change movement has gone full on catastrophise everything since trump/brexit?

Mass extiction
Climate emergency
Climate apocalypse
Climate catastrophe
Exaggerated sea level rises
Loss of cities/villages
Death of ALL coral reefs
The big dry
Humans already dying (apparently)
Refugee crisis already (apparently)
and on and on...

I want to be 'in' on climate change, but some of the language is just getting ridiculous, and seriously cheapening the whole argument.

Plus, they are literally scaring the children ....scaring the bejeeezus out of them...

I have no doubt about some of these climate change effects, but seriously?

Nature has an amazing ability to adapt, as do people. It is a real shame if coral reefs die erc. etc. but surely they will just move north/south. Same with the rest of nature.

I am definitely not anti considering climate change, but geeez this ridiculous hyperbole is just making it hard to take any of it seriously. Especially considering the lack of fruition of some of the past over the top claims.

There's a mass hysteria going on in certain sections of society.

TDS across the board?

....nope, not just me...

https://www.thegwpf.com/wmo-boss-says-climate-discussion-has-gone-off-th...

Also quite concerning all the council's declaring an 'Environmental Emergency" when nil climate change effects are being felt within that shire's boundary. Yes, it is dry in eastern states, but rain will come and floods will come. Sounds like a great excuse to bump up rates and employ dead wood positions.

@FR, there are some areas that have copped some bleaching and are effected. Most in the central region and mid-north region. In saying that, there are also the areas that were hammered by recent cyclones. Also areas where it regularly happens. On top of the reef that regularly gets spring low exposure, in the lagoons that have little or low water movement (without a deep channel to drain and refill/flush).
A lot of these places appear to be recovering quite OK too. Otherwise, a vast majority (I say 95+%)of the reef from the Torres Straight through to the Bunker group is looking great.
All these doom and gloom headlines are really hurting everyone that lives, breathes and work out here. We are all trying to be heard but we are perhaps not quite as articulate as the more vocal groups. The sensationalist quotes like the one I outlined above do more harm than good. Then of course there are the agencies that want to shut down, spend millions on court cases and silence qualified scientists that speak out and offer alternate facts against the dooms day agenda. That doesn't suit their application for more $$$.
Now we (Fishers, charter operators, divers, researchers,etc) try to be heard and show people the facts but people aren't interested in this, as they would rather read articles and "scientific papers" whilst shouting their opinions from the comfort of their southern states, because they went to the reef once and look at all the pictures in the papers and on tv.

100% agree Sypkan

Id go further to even suggest that they way it's now often presented is possibly even damaging to general public views.

Certainly the radical type protest do more worse than good, you have to laugh at the irony of those protesters in Melbourne this week protesting against mining.

Someone forget to tell them that renewables like solar panels, batteries and wind turbines aren't possible without mining.

cheers Fitzy.

In regard to great barrier reef, anybody follow the Peter Ridd case?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-04-23/peter-ridd-reef-science-c...

https://platogbr.wordpress.com

What do you make of that ABC article ID?

Syppo, I loathe hyperbole but basically, things aren't looking good.
Without considering anything else, just population growth, land degradation and clearing, and species extinction alone should have you really concerned.

And what do you propose we do to stop scaring the kids?

If adults and kids aren't a tad worried, they're not paying attention.

@Andy M

The ABC article is just a tiny snap shot of the whole incident and obviously a bit left bias, i shared ABC link because people wont complain of the source. (but there are much better articles on it all)

I remember reading or seeing a very long detailed article or video on it all, the guy was treated like absolute crap for having a differing view (and he is highly respected and experienced in the field)

From memory there was some weird things going on where he wasn't even allowed to talk or communicate with anyone else about it including his wife.

I think its just a great example of the really big problem in the field of climate science and related fields, if you don't tow the line and have a differing view you get spat out and rejected from the system.

Its the opposite of what science should be which should always be critical and open minded reevaluating possibility's etc.

Exactly what I was alluding above ID. It didn't suit the agencies agenda and has alot to do with funding $$$$.

ID -

From what I've read, what transpired was pretty much how science is supposed to operate and Peter Ridd's views have always been out in the open.

Ridd has had "sceptic" papers published which were then refuted by other scientists who said that Ridd's claims were largely based on misinterpretations and “selective use of data”.

Standard peer reviewed process, nothing hidden.

It was when he started slagging off AIMS that JCU started getting the shits.

But I think your point is valid to an extent - when Ridd got too mouthy, too publicly (including cosying up with the IPA), JCU started to "play the man and not the ball" as the judge said.

I'm not so naive to think that this guy wouldn't be an outcast at universities but his scientific findings have been published and if they're good enough they'll stand on their own merits.

At the same time, if he wants to jump in bed with the IPA his motives are always going to have a whiff about them.