Interesting stuff
"Nobody can tell me they would rather have somebody else in charge at present."
vs.
"It’s premeditated viral acceleration."
Oh, I could tell him what I thought but what's the point?
"Pretty simple, pretty simplistic.
Indo, all functioning societies require governing bodies to provide for said society. Anarchism is a crock, we're pack creatures, and since the First Agricultural Revolution that's what humans have done, created hierarchial societies with central bodies to protect and nourish the population, whether it be Church, feudal lords, or later the nation state and the various forms of governemnt that lay the rules but protect the constituents.
In the Western world, the nation state has been very stable, largely owing to Britain, namely the Magna Carta, and the Westminster system and versions thereof. It's no overstatement to say that the Western world's owes its propserity to those things. It took many years to shape and to arrive at this point (Magna Carta signed 800 years ago) and there's been many challenges, however the value of concepts such as rule of law, separation of powers, and parliamentary democracy has been proven over and again. It's still the very best thing we've got, by a long margin.
Neo-liberalism is the greatest challenge to that system as it co-opts central governments and hands the central power to corporations, all of whom care more about shareholders than they do the population of the country they operate in. In Australia, the LNP has facilitated this shift to neoliberalsim, though Labor hand's aren't clean either.
Government 'of the people, for the people' is a crock in the age of neoliberalism.
I could go on but I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it and likely to devolve into insult and you know what Blowin thinks about that."
Stu's post.
Agree. The only thing I'd add is for the best result you need hard currency not fiat issued by vested interests - for these 800+ years it was mostly gold and silver, which 'floated' according to demand and supply all over the globe in a most ingenious way - the actions of all the people of the world, the people were the market that determined the relative value. It swung, but after the Spanish discoveries in the New World about a 15:1 ratio was established. The ratio today - lol.
Bitcoin and the cryptos are fascinating as they are an alternative to the central control of money/currency.
My adventures have continued and I was right near the local centre of the CV stuff today. And after all is done, I've done decontam and just gone surfing the little waves on an 8ft board I've had for a very long time >20 years. The feel is still there, it features this unreal glide up into the pocket with a certain elevation of the hips. Straight line speed on this one is pretty remarkable. Good onya Lenny! I'm trying to surf away from others and so far it's dictating trips to weird parts of the surfing bell curve - little stuff on logs, and bigger stuff on gunny boards. Windy and onshore is my friend.
The whole Y2K concern being a myth is a little overstated I think. A friend of mine was involved in the Y2K project at a major Brisbane hospital. She was sceptical, but some medical monitoring equipment was tested and it failed when pushed thru the the date. They fixed it before it really happened.
It’s like all system testing. Why did we spend so much money on system testing when it all ended working fine? Maybe it’s because we spent so much money on system testing.
Staying up late for more limit down futures...
Chris Hamilton is a great analyst with an unchanging message over the years: basically, where working age population goes, so goes an economy. (very basic interpretation). This also explains all the immigration... Lots of colourful charts:
https://econimica.blogspot.com/2020/03/growth-corona-virus-decline-discu...
I tend to agree with "I'm going to suggest that the Corona-virus is more a window or a marker that separates what will be seen as the end of an era and the beginning of another." Everything we know as normal, last 40 years, is about to change.
Is the 40 year marker that we will finally stop listening to anything economists say in regards to anything to do with social realities and politics and anything really other than bean counting?
Fuck the 'dismal science' off and put it back into perspective? The economy serves us rather than we serving the economy? Huzzah! I'm in.
And if anyone thinks the Lib's package is gonna work (for them...the punter), well, I guess you're a typical voter then...
Carry on.
Up the Khyber.
BREAKING: Trump has the Chinese virus!
Almost as cosmically ironic as our resident Swellnet sinophobe contracting it!!!!
There is a god of some sort!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How can anyone criticize a Prime Minister that gives unemployed surfers $750 for a new stick.
BREAKING: Trump has the Chinese virus!
Hopefully Trump will then attend an NRA meeting.
Oh FFS. Not the sharpest tool in the shed are you blowin. That was the point of including that in the list you moron. I guess I gave your intelligence more credit than it deserves.
There's no consistency in the common names, some are named after places like MERS, and some aren't like SARS or HIV or swine flu. Which if you read again, was the point in that post.
You need to seriously take your blinkers off you idiot. This thing has two names in common use but carry on shouting at clouds about how you totally innocently think we should be reminded it started in China. Cos you know, science and naming conventions and shit.
#notracistsomeofmybestfriendsareblack
And a quick edit just to clarify, since you've shown you're such a moron. Generally speaking the name doesn't fucken matter. Naming it after its origin is perfectly fine. What appears to be racist, bigoted and/or xenophobic, is your bizarre fucken obsession with calling this particular virus wuhan flu or whatever. There's two names in common use that are perfectly fine but for some totally innocent reason you're on a weird crusade in this backwater of the internet to change it.
Add to that, the stupidity of morons boycotting Chinese businesses, beating up Chinese people and generally being unmitigated cunts to anyone from Asia (you know cos alllooksame), means there's no need and no helpful reason to use a different name. Unless you know, you're cool with that kind of racist shit. Which I'm pretty convinced you are.
Not sure if this has been posted here but it does provide some comparison between then and now. $750 for a new stick just ain't going to cut it.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/gfc-v-corona-crash-why-its-different-this...
You just found out that MERS stands for MIDDLE EAST RESPIRATORY SYNDROME.
Wow you're having an ADD - an acronym discovery day.
You're on a roll. Here's a few more to test your intelligence:
AIDS, PTSD, ADHD, BS, BSS, UTI
I tried to make it more fun for you by finding those with geographical references but had no luck!!!
Why do pollies only listen to the experts when it suits their agendas? ....rhetorical question. Business as usual - the mantra of the neolib.
yeah the messaging is all over the fucking shop.
the quiet australians are waking up to the fact that they elected a giant turd as pm, hence the reason for the dunny paper crisis
Words of wisdom from Andrew P Street about the stimulus package and the political ideology the LNP has been hammering us over the head with:
This means that the government has always known that stimulatory economics works, but that until now buoying up the economy hasn't been to the benefit of the people the government deem as deserving.
It means that all of the living-within-our-means, lifters-not-leaners, back-in-black, get-a-good-job-with-a-good-income rhetoric of the last seven years was pure political victim-blaming horseshit.
It's proof that cuts to services and refusals to raise Newstart are not tough love or responsible government: they were deliberate, targeted punishments for the poor, designed to injure and silence them - because the second that things got so bad that the top end was going to be affected too, they suddenly got all Keynesian in their economic outlook and the only way to stimulate demand in the economy was by pumping cash to encourage spending.
That, friends, has been true of the entire time that the Coalition has been in power, and also ever since we had economies.
The GFC was the perfect proof of concept: Australia went for a stimulus while all the other comparable nations went for austerity, and our economy coasted by with barely a blip while most of Europe and the majority of the US hadn't returned to pre-GFC levels before this pandemic hit.
And yet the Liberals and Nationals have literally spent the entire period since castigating Labor for their "debt and deficit disaster" as a way of implying that the issue is that there's just no gosh-darn money every time someone's asked "say, why are you closing down remote communities or canning CSIRO virus labs or slashing funding for TAFE, or giving millions to sports clubs in marginal seats?"
Labor even got blamed for growth slowing - not stopping, or reversing as in most of the rest of the world - during the largest economic crisis in modern times.
Wage stagnation? That was a choice. Retail slump? That was a choice. Manufacturing shutdowns? That was a choice.
So yes, let's respect the government for changing their mind, however begrudgingly. Let's thank them for believing in economic reality and accepting that this is the time to spend, and to spend big, and hope that said spending gets a damn sight more equitable in the coming months.
And let's also remember everyone who has done it tough on Newstart, the pension, or any other benefit, been pursued with Robodebt, had their job or department culled in an efficiency review, found their access to services abruptly limited or curtailed, waited in vain for NDIS support, had their ongoing funding stopped, been told that their medical/environmental/legal service is stretched so thin that they can't help fight some rank and obvious injustice, or told that living on their traditional land was a "lifestyle choice" that shouldn't be subsidised.
Remember that this government made those choices, not because they believed sincerely in an alternative economic model, but because they refused to do the things they knew would help all Australians because of an odious ideology.
It's one thing to believe in an alternative cure for the poison. It's quite another to deliberately withhold what you know to be the antidote.
Good viewing last night. Always enjoy a squirming minister (though not as much as he should have).
Yep, sums it up stu.
Frydenberg was less smirk and more squirm last night.
The Malibu Flu
@ synchro .... I think you be right, have you seen his new cap?
Received this am from a mate who lives and works in Shanghai ...
"We are well down the containment phase path (after identify and isolate phases, although they never fully cease).
I’d say around 800 million people have already been tested or are at least sitting there wondering about symptoms every 15 minutes with masks on generally avoiding crowds and with reduced personal contact.
Around 300 million (give or take) people have moved back across the country to resume work after the extended new year break and so far, touch wood, no breakouts reported.
Next phase to watch is return of schools and universities – I understand that is happening later this month.
China will be working furiously to develop a vaccine before anyone else which they can licence back to the USA and calculate the value for importing into their America First trade deal policy.
Fascinating watching the different government approaches (styles) between USA, Australia and UK.
Good time to get the politicians into the back seat and have health professionals speak.
Back to earth, in my world we are back to work but the rest of the world is still moving in the opposite direction shutting down so a little difficult to function.
Traffic on streets, subways and offices back to around 80%. Less pushing in queues – hard to do that whilst avoiding physical people contact. Ong may that last but I think not.
Still having my temperature taken every time I enter a building or public place of any kind. I am sure the reporting of people buying cold symptoms medicines continues and of course, the Chinese moved quickly to upgrade their facial recognition scanning technology to cope with face masks. They probably already started on that in HK 9 months ago. "
It's almost as though, as I said in response to blowins dumb post about mers, the name doesn't matter.
Gosh blowin, you got me. I take it all back, you're not dumb after all! And you even know words like sophistry. So smart you!
Since you're hung up on that and choosing to ignore the rest of what I wrote, I'll leave you to peruse this incredibly long list of shit that's happened around the world, including the best most incredible and perfectest country in the world, Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%...
25? I forgot you selectively choose what you read and ignore what suits your prejudices but I didn't realise you also couldn't count.
OK mate I'm out. I learned long ago that arguing with racist people is pointless, especially ones who confuse time on their hands and verbal diarrhea with intelligence. I guess I needed a reminder today so thanks for that.
We’ve hit the point that cases in australia are doubling every 5 days.
7/3/20 - 73 cases
12/3/20 - 156 cases
Worth revisiting?
Exponential growth and epidemics.
just to lighten the mood
what a lovely story...
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-13/kid-from-jakarta-indonesia-far...
is it racist to fetishise an indo done good in oz?
...probably...
lots of talk of airlines going under thanks to trump's european travel ban
bitch of a year to be retiring me thinks...
Definitely Andy, especially considering a report yesterday that the area it started in China is seeing a slow down in cases. And here we are 2 months behind. A big hill yet to climb for us.
That Andrew Street knows his onions!
Thanks Stunet.
Worth an absolute re-read or 1st read. LET. IT. SINK. IN.
And prepare for the Austerity budget we had to have from these gronks.
And then FFS stop voting them in!
"This means that the government has always known that stimulatory economics works, but that until now buoying up the economy hasn't been to the benefit of the people the government deem as deserving.
It means that all of the living-within-our-means, lifters-not-leaners, back-in-black, get-a-good-job-with-a-good-income rhetoric of the last seven years was pure political victim-blaming horseshit.
It's proof that cuts to services and refusals to raise Newstart are not tough love or responsible government: they were deliberate, targeted punishments for the poor, designed to injure and silence them - because the second that things got so bad that the top end was going to be affected too, they suddenly got all Keynesian in their economic outlook and the only way to stimulate demand in the economy was by pumping cash to encourage spending.
That, friends, has been true of the entire time that the Coalition has been in power, and also ever since we had economies.
The GFC was the perfect proof of concept: Australia went for a stimulus while all the other comparable nations went for austerity, and our economy coasted by with barely a blip while most of Europe and the majority of the US hadn't returned to pre-GFC levels before this pandemic hit.
And yet the Liberals and Nationals have literally spent the entire period since castigating Labor for their "debt and deficit disaster" as a way of implying that the issue is that there's just no gosh-darn money every time someone's asked "say, why are you closing down remote communities or canning CSIRO virus labs or slashing funding for TAFE, or giving millions to sports clubs in marginal seats?"
Labor even got blamed for growth slowing - not stopping, or reversing as in most of the rest of the world - during the largest economic crisis in modern times.
Wage stagnation? That was a choice. Retail slump? That was a choice. Manufacturing shutdowns? That was a choice.
So yes, let's respect the government for changing their mind, however begrudgingly. Let's thank them for believing in economic reality and accepting that this is the time to spend, and to spend big, and hope that said spending gets a damn sight more equitable in the coming months.
And let's also remember everyone who has done it tough on Newstart, the pension, or any other benefit, been pursued with Robodebt, had their job or department culled in an efficiency review, found their access to services abruptly limited or curtailed, waited in vain for NDIS support, had their ongoing funding stopped, been told that their medical/environmental/legal service is stretched so thin that they can't help fight some rank and obvious injustice, or told that living on their traditional land was a "lifestyle choice" that shouldn't be subsidised.
Remember that this government made those choices, not because they believed sincerely in an alternative economic model, but because they refused to do the things they knew would help all Australians because of an odious ideology.
It's one thing to believe in an alternative cure for the poison. It's quite another to deliberately withhold what you know to be the antidote."
And blow in, now moving onto real Alan Jones-like pedo proclivities? Really? I know it must feel good to almost be coming out of your bigot closet, but c'mon now...?
Gloria, I think they got your number...
Wu wu.
The two incredible strokes of luck Australia has had as a country are Hawke/Keating being in charge when the world charged headlong into the neoliberal maelstrom and Rudd holding the reins when the GFC hit.
That saved countless people from ending up on the scrapheap like the UK, Europe and USA.
Fucking hell how much does Scomo look like a deer in the headlights now.
Being totally overtaken by events.
This was his big chance to redeem the bushfire debacle and he looks more and more like some shiftless, clueless second hand car dealer.
...well... I thought that article was ok, but a bit of long bow drawing going on... a bit of political point scoring/telling people what they wanna hear/preaching to the converted/conflating many issues
of course they're guided by ideology ...just as labor are.. we all are...
which is why labor totally overdid their keynesian thingy, ...meaning the pain was just delayed, as the bubble just got bigger and bigger
the inevitable pain was delayed (not all bad), but because they just pumped more helium into the balloon pushing shit higher and higher, meaning the ensuing hindenberg crash and flames will just be more severe
...but hey, we all get what we want and read what we want into things so there's no objective truth to such an article...
but cue slurs accusations and belittlings...
...and denials of any bias...
confirmation bias of confirmation bias
cognitive dissonance anyone?
Have it cunts