Interesting things too

Matt Warshaw , in his cooking of writer Jack London , using this description as indicative of the man’s low character:

“.... and was called from his morning surf frolics, Charmian recalls, by a “tempting breakfast tray” delivered by “a white-suited Filipino.”

Warshaw has obviously never experienced the euphoria and gratitude of exiting a Mentawai’s lineup , after an mind altering dawn patrol , alighting onto the deck of the charter boat to have a smiling Sumatran native hand him a plate of delicious pancakes loaded with maple syrup . Perhaps garnished with a couple of banana slices which add to the allure .

Best. Moment.Ever.

Oops....starting to tear up. God I miss Indo.

This made me laugh.
" The least of London's flaws is that he invented a manly flex-and-preen surfing archetype who would readily and happily conflate wave-riding with all manner of seriously dangerous activities—war, bull-fighting, boxing—and we've been stuck with this blowhard in one form or another (Buzzy Trent, Laird Hamilton, Billy Kemper) ever since. "

2004 : One for Mom & One for Dad & a bonus experiment for Starshot Academy.

Howard's War On Terror Barcode Babies come of Age for 2021 Starshot baptism.

Uni fees a bit to pricey for yer LGBTQIA.(Starshots course will straighten them out!)

https://issuu.com/faircountmediaasia-pacific/docs/dst_outlook_2020-21

Melbourne Uni : Ready PM! Intel / Auto-enhanced tech / sensors / Cyanide Pills Sir!
Macquarie Uni : 54321 PM! Laser Guns -Drones / Cybernaut Army Sir!
Adelaide Uni : Yes PM! Data / Hacking / ID / Fake News Trumpwarfare Sir!
Murdoch Uni : Good to Go PM! Chem Warfare / Cybersecurity Sir!
RMIT Uni : Having a Go PM! Defense Transport Sir!
C'Darwin Uni : Salute PM! 1st Nation Weather / Fire + Land & Sea Defence Sir!
Sth Qld Uni : Fab PM! Hypersonics / Astrophysics Secret Nasa observatory Sir!
Qld Uni : It's an honour PM! Supa Dupa Hypersonics Sir!
ECU Uni : Big Fans PM! Cyber Citizen Warfare for Arty Types (No Hippies) Sir!
Oz Nat Uni : Aiming High PM! Cube Sats + Nat Space Test Centre Sir!
RMIT Uni : Any Time PM! Gyroscopic Terminators Sir! ( No Arty Types Sir! )
Newcastle Uni: Go Big PM! Cyber Systems / Renewables Sir!
Monash Uni : Bringing it PM! Metallurgy Force Shields Sir!
Deakin Uni : Go Hard PM! Fucking Hard Core Weapons Sir! (No Wimps!)

"Peter Barcode & Johnny Bonus win cadetships into Scomo's Starshot Academy!"
Costello's pick of the litter get reanimated as house pets for Chinese Students.

Scomo's Private armies extend beyond University foot soldiers...

tbb reported a few times on how little Lib Fed Govt bothers to sit in Australia.
Well that's because Scomo has Governed in secret not answerable to Australia.

https://emergencylaw.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/what-is-a-national-emergency/

Come Covid - Scomo's other War Cabinet/s sit well above Government Level.
tbb thinks GG granted PM Executive Cabinet to oversee > Disaster
https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/administrative-arrange...
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2020C00248

PM can invite anyone, even Foreign Govt/s to Pow Wow ...all off the record...
$100m's no receipts handed out to mates in the name of National Emergency.
Forget about yer precious vote or that democratic process thingy.

13 March 2020 Biannual COAG was replaced by now monthly [ National Cabinet ]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/19/national-cabinet-...

[National Cabinet] run borders,Quarantine all Covid Health Security off the record.
[National Cabinet] Quarantine arrangements are exempt from all current inquiries.
Scomo hand picks and chooses what interjection, and timing of what info if at all.
[National Cabinet] sits above all elected people's Powers, unanswerable to any.

25th March 2020 National Covid-19 Commission Advisory Board (Off limits)
This cabinet elevates mates power well above that of elected officials.
https://pmc.gov.au/ncc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_COVID-19_Commission_Advisory_Board

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/27/morrison-broadens...

As it stands, none can explain untold limit or longevity of PM's ungodly power?
More frightful, is that none dare question or challenge it!

Figures out today show that Australia is sinking deep into recession. The 7% drop in economic activity in the June quarter heralds worse to come. The unemployment rate is also pushing 7% and will continue to rise. The rational response to this situation is to increase the stimulus. Instead the Morrison government plans to cut it back.

Recessions cast long shadows on those unfortunate enough to become unemployed during them. The job creation that comes with economic growth favours those new to the job market. So coming out of recession, young people who have been unemployed during it, find themselves behind school leavers and recent graduates in the queue for the new jobs. This is how a pool of long term unemployed can be created.

While we can afford the necessary stimulus, we cannot afford the consequeces of it being too small and too brief. The recession will be longer, unemployment will be higher, poverty rates will rise and people, real people with names, families and hopes for the future, will suffer unnecessarily.

If you look at Australian politics over an extended period there is a stark difference in approach between the two parties. The two main concerns of political parties are policy and strategy. Strategy is what gets you elected. Policy is what you do when you have been.

If we look at the last election it is clear that Labor put an enormous effort into policy but too little into strategy. The reverse was true of the coalition. This is the historical pattern. Labor attracts idealists committed to putting their beliefs into action. The coalition attracts econocrats and political strategists: people to whom everything is reducible to numbers, be they of economic value or of polls. The result of this is that the current government has no policy focus.

This is clear across a wide range of issues. Their attacks on the Victorian government are best seen in this light. Conflict over past errors does not advance policy. In fact, as the attacks become personal and cooperation recedes, it makes policy development harder. On the other hand, attacking others for their failings is nearly always good strategy as it distracts attention from failures closer to home.

There is still hope that the penny will drop. That someone will manage to persuade Morrison that the figures justify spending up. Yet the government’s policy record has been so incoherent, reactive and uninspiring, it is hard to see where the necessary spark might come from.

https://www.betootaadvocate.com/entertainment/government-to-combat-reces...

Are you ready for this?

In addition to BB’s comments regarding the government’s plan for the Australian Covid recovery :

The range of challenges confronting the Australian economy over the next five years is extreme:

deleveraging and falling house prices (real or nominal);
smashed incomes and falling wages (real or nominal);
falling terms of trade as China shifts out of emergency mode and keeps structurally slowing;
an overly high currency derived from global central bank printing;
decoupling from the ex-iron ore China;
high unemployment and huge underemployment;
weak private investment trailing crushed demand.
So, what is the plan five-year plan to address this structural shock to Australian growth? Via The Australian:

Josh Frydenberg is preparing a five-year plan to create millions of jobs and reignite business investment, to anchor Australia’s recovery from the most severe recession since World War II.

…“Australia will recover and Australia will grow again,” the Prime Minister said. “The jobs will come back and they will support the lives and livelihoods of Australians. Our plan for that to occur is to build on the resilience, strength and enterprise of the Australian people.”

Mr Morrison said the government’s plan would prioritise skills, the bringing forward of nearly $10bn in infrastructure projects and reducing energy costs to ­turbocharge manufacturing.

Add the AFR:

“We are considering the timing of those tax cuts, and any announcements would be made in the budget, but it is fair to say these are very substantial reforms,” he said of the already legislated cuts which are worth a combined $158 billion and culminate in a 30 per cent tax rate for incomes between $45,000 and $200,000.

…The budget is certain to contain such an allowance to stimulate business investment but Mr Frydenberg also said many of the other measures to stimulate business activity would be regulatory.

These included industrial relations changes and red tape cuts.

The plan can be summarised thus:

open the immigration spigot to address skills which will pulverise wages;
cut taxes for the rich which will be saved and do nothing for demand;
spend $10bn on infrastructure which is one major road or tunnel;
dig up more expensive gas doing nothing for manufacturing and holding broader energy costs higher, and
cutting red tape is motherhood drivel.
I can tell you right now what this will do because it is exactly the same policy settings as last cycle minus a few very large growth drivers in the NDIS rollout and state government building boom:

intensify the Australian demand deficit post-COVID;
leave productivity in the dirt as cheap foreign labour is favoured over capital deepening;
smash wages;
smash private investment, and
deliver epic deflation including asset prices as households cannot support credit expansion with incomes in free fall and the cash rate at zero.
Sure, it will eventually result in a collapsing Australian dollar as well, as commodity prices come off and Australia massively underperforms all other developed economies. But far too late.

This is not reform. It’s not even sensible cyclical fiscal economic management. It is pure Depressionerg trickle-down stupidity. How Treasury could endorse such national interest bloodletting is also an open question.

What Australia needs to happen instead is:

massive taxation and export tariffs on mining rents shoved into a sovereign wealth fund;
negative gearing reform to deflate property;
RBA and APRA banged together and Phil Lowe replaced by a mercantilist to force monetary easing nation-building and the currency;
any and every productivity reform unleashed;
get the universities off the Chinese tit and fund research publically;
gut the gas cartel to crash energy prices;
a huge push into renewable energy and post-carbon economy;
massive tax and regulatory incentives to rebuild the industrial base;
huge infrastructure investments to keep the nation employed as we transition.
Sure, you can’t do them all owing to past political blunders. But you could do 3-9 and leave the rest to Labor.

The Depressionberg plan should alarm business just as much as it does households. It’s going to gut both.“

Aaah the tax cuts. If we look at their cunning plan in a bit more detail it turns out to be a real Baldrick.

“What programs and services will be cut to fund stage three of the government’s tax scheme?” asked the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese.
“None,” said the prime minister.”

Well if you believe that you believe anything given the statement was made in the middle of July before the latest figures. Then there is the issue of what actually constitutes a “cut”. Given that health expenditures tend to rise year on year as the population ages, does reducing the increase in the budget from a previous 2.7% a year to 0.7% count as a cut? Well probably not for the government but if you have to pay full price for a new drug or wait several months longer for your surgery, you might think it does. You can count on the same principle being applied to numerous other areas. Not least welfare.

Then we come to the unflushable turd of neoliberal economics. Yep, they are serving us up a dose of trickle down economics. The worst economic theory since the alchemists claimed they could turn lead into gold. They are breaking out the Laffer curve, named for a Mr Laffer, rather than the fact that it reduces any economist born later than 1929 into paroxysms of laughter.

The fundamental idea is that tax cuts for the rich and corporations cause an increase in growth which benefits the whole community. The usual metaphor being that a rising tide raises all boats. It’s actually quite a reasonable idea but has the fatal flaw. It does not actually work. It's effect is rather like a lock in a canal into which water is pumped to raise a few boats while the rest wait outside.

“A major study by the non-partisan US Congressional Research Service set out to establish whether there was any correlation between the tax rates paid by high-income earners and economic growth. It ran the data over 65 years and found none. Such cuts, it determined, were associated with “increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution”.
So yep the COALition has a plan, but it’s the same old plan couched in nicer language and it will achieve exactly what all their other plans have achieved. Greater inequity, increasing poverty and a more dysfunctional economy. The quotes and more information here.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2019/07/13/the-reality...

Do either Blowies, or anyone else, have anything constructive to say about Modern Monetary Theory?

It was good to read both your reviews just now btw.

“There are three stages to those legislated income tax cuts and, you know, the benefit was very clear. We’re creating one big tax bracket between $45,000 and $200,000 where people pay a marginal rate of no more than 30 cents in the dollar,’’ Frydenberg said.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-cuts-could-be-brought-forward-0106...

...and who will that benefit?

MMT's main tenets are that a government that issues its own fiat money:
Can pay for goods, services, and financial assets without a need to collect money in the form of taxes or debt issuance in advance of such purchases;
Cannot be forced to default on debt denominated in its own currency;
Is only limited in its money creation and purchases by inflation, which accelerates once the real resources (labour, capital and natural resources) of the economy are utilized at full employment;
Can control demand-pull inflation[13] by taxation which remove excess money from circulation (although the political will to do so may not always exist);
Does not compete with the private sector for scarce savings by issuing bonds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

There is argument about the theory but this is essentially what governments have been doing since the GFC. The core idea is that if you have low inflation then increasing the money supply can be used to reduce high unemployment and stimulate demand. It rejects comparisons of national finanaces to household or business finances and suggests that most recessions are caused by governments obsessed with balancing budgets ( sound familiar?)when fundamentally they should be increasing, not decreasing the money supply.

The argument that this is somehow “getting something for nothing” is wrong. As long as inflation is low, we are getting what we earned.

With regards to MMT.

"(MMT) doesn’t exactly need to tax us to pay for its spending either. Taxes exist to limit inflation. It’s necessary for us to pay taxes to keep total spending – government and private – at a level which will not be inflationary."

Very interesting part of the equation.

https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-modern-monetary-theory-72095

Andy that suggests the best test of the idea would be to slowly increase the tax free threshold until inflation began to move above the target range. Chances of that happening with this bunch of tight arses in control? Zero. If MMT is right, it suggests governments have swung between the merely anal and the "nothing must pass" tight sphincter brigade for our entire history

I expect you're correct with both of your first two statements.

An interesting take on our economic history

https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-economic-reform-the-old-day...

I don't really have any doubt that governments have thought that they're doing the right thing by being "frugal" but I suspect it's the amount of power that they can wield with that sort of economic management style that really appeals, and would be particularly hard to relinquish a hold of.
Not just economic power but social power as well, really defining demographics through income and taxation strata for the purpose of politicking.

Whatever the truth of MMT, there is no doubt that Australia can afford a much larger stimulus than the government seems willing to create. We would be in an even stronger position without the very significant increase in debt produced by the COALition's mismanagement of the economy. Have a look at this.

https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/government-debt-to-gdp
If that figure seems bad. It's not.

Given that countries with double or triple or even five times our debt are still functioning, there is minimal to zero risk in Australia taking on more debt to finance the recovery.

so basically that graph shows that australia's deficit has grown and grown since 2008 financial crisis, ...as expected, ...as other countries have done, ...but less so, ...because we're 'the lucky country' and stuff...

do you really think those numbers would've been better under labor? really think? ...not some partisan dribble...

even alan kohler reluctantly got on board with mmt a few weeks ago. nowhere else to go it seems. ...so the argument goes... every other country is fucked, and printing lots of money, money more than us, so we should too...

fine, the inflation argument stacks up, but what about a cohesive over arching vision for all this spending?

...nothing from labor

...besides lets give students and other dodgy visa holders lots of money, because our economy is now fucked, and your opportunities, (and ours), are diminishing fast, so we'll support you to stay here longer and compete for the diminishing jobs...

visionary!

...all this despite every visa holder agreeing to be self sufficient for their time here

...another winner labor... go albo! ...killing it...

I said when the stimulus was first introduced it was 'a bridge to nowhere', a massive stupid cash splash to see us through bad times, without addressing any of the obvious structural deficiencies that have been exposed by the virus

it is

still

4 x later down the track...

innovation libs! ...very adaptive...

if labor had some sort of principled over arching plan, they would be walking all over morrison right now, smashing him, with all their considered, (principled), and well developed plans ...plans to dismantle the so bloody obviously failing system. the privatised and sold off everything system that resisting and dismangling of such a system should be labor bread and butter

but they got nothing

...besides whinging about temporary visa holders that is...

winning

the train wreck just gets harder and harder to watch

especially as one so obviously, ...so brutally, watches labor's ideology fall apart at the seams in melbourne

"........if labor had some sort of principled over arching plan,"

https://www.alp.org.au/media/1539/2018_alp_national_platform_constitutio...

Short, short short, short memories my friend

the same neoliberal shit plan they took to the last election?

or an updated version?

seriously seriously, how can albo (and labor) be so tractionless in the current climate?

its like they don't even exist

You just don't get it do you sypkan. The Libs are very good at doing the easy things like tax cuts for the middle / upper class and business tax cuts. They are pretty good at gutting / freezing spending on things they don't like (ABC, medicare, dole) and lousy about do they heavy lifting. eg cracking down on multinational tax avoidance, franking credit rebates, cutting back on military spending, ending middle class welfare.
They've also pissed away billions on corrupt contracts which their mates end up winning. This is why the budget blew out under the LNP even when the global economy was improving from 2013-2019.
So yes, the budget would be in much better shape if the ALP were in charge.
2020 is the first time the LNP has had to govern in a crisis since 1983, and their recovery plan is a joke. They are basically heaving money at the investor class who are paying down mortgages and not spending it. It's economic insanity.

FFS VL, and you don't think your beloved ALP hasn't been king of cuts too?
KRudd 2008
CSIRO $63.4M cut with over 100 jobs lost
ABS $20M cut
Could go on and on, all sides do it, it's called economic management.

thanks for explaining that ...man...

well the first bit, you just drifted into lala land after that

Slyppery I'd bet the farm on you not having read a single word of that document.

except this bit

"They are basically heaving money at the investor class who are paying down mortgages and not spending it. It's economic insanity."

blindboy, why is albo invisible?

not bill shorten Im hiding invisible

but Im albo trying my hardest invisible?

literally invisible, its not just me saying it, the lefties on insiders had the same concerns last week, really concerned

I have no idea why you would think that anyone would for an instant think that came from a Labor document....oh wait, hang on a second, now that I think about it, it's all clear...you're an even bigger idiot than we thought.

..

Quick change the subject before you're caught out looking like a complete moron....again.

change the subject?

I was talking about labor's response with corona, and how scomo has made a quite a mess of things, but labor can get no traction whatsoever, none, nothing, ...invisible...

and you post some bullshit document that was produced pre corona that means fuck all because no one is listening anyway

yeh i changed the subject

No, you posted a quote that you inferred was from the Labor 2018 Policy document that was clearly not from that document. When I called you out, you posted this.

"why is albo invisible?

not bill shorten Im hiding invisible

but Im albo trying my hardest invisible?

literally invisible, its not just me saying it, the lefties on insiders had the same concerns last week, really concerned"

..and explained that you werne't changing the subject by stating

"I was talking about labor's response with corona, and how scomo has made a quite a mess of things, but labor can get no traction whatsoever, none, nothing, ...invisible...

and you post some bullshit document that was produced pre corona that means fuck all because no one is listening anyway"

FFS try to make some sense, maybe once a day would be a start. Your track record is just endless shifty slyppery bullshit. But I get a bloody good laugh most days so maybe I shouldn't complain. slyppery wins the Gold Logie for comedy, yet again.

wtf are you talking about?

I didn't quote anyone

here's a hint, maybe if you talked about the subject at hand rather than constantly going for the attack you may not look like such a fool

its all subjective of course

maybe...

ha ha what a good idea. You know I could do things like post graphs to support my argument and make sure that I link to authoritative sources and write in coherent sentences. Oh shit, too late I already do those things while you just post garbled, incoherent illogical nonsense....but shit it makes me laugh sometimes.

VL quote: 5.08pm "They are basically heaving money at the investor class who are paying down mortgages and not spending it. It's economic insanity."

blowfly quote: 5.30pm "Slyppery I'd bet the farm on you not having read a single word of that document."

sypkan quote 5.31pm "except this bit

"They are basically heaving money at the investor class who are paying down mortgages and not spending it. It's economic insanity."

blowfly quote 5.34pm "I have no idea why you would think that anyone would for an instant think that came from a Labor document"

sypkan: bullshit, abuse, denial, anger, confusion.

Go to bed sypkan. You're drunk.

ok boomer

boomers?

seriously you two are trying so hard to slander people you cannot even follow the story

triggered

'reactionary'

constantly...

I was quoting you then viclabor you demented cabbage

and you cannot even pick up on it

this shit is just weird

working it too hard boys

Imagine if a visionary government had borrowed even half of the $200B Covid stimulus money back in 2000 and built state owned iron ore mines and LNG plants instead of selling our resources for a pittance to foreign owned multinationals.

Imagine if Australia had invested in itself and built state owned industries to process our raw resources. The skills , jobs and wealth we would have by now . Not to mention the fact that we would not be contemplating indulging a bullying China . We would not have had to sold our priceless land overseas.

75 percent of BHP’s income is derived from the Pilbara yet its headquartered in England and majority foreign owned. How did this happen ? It’s not like the location of the ore or the technology to merely dig it up , crush and ship it was ever a big secret.

Instead ....we have no sovereign wealth fund. We are borrowing to survive and selling our home piece by piece just to keep the lights on.

What a shit show.

Nationalise the mining industry? Stalin would be proud of you!

Raise the scarlet standard high
Beneath its folds we'll live and die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here

No need to get weird about it. We weren’t pinko commies when we had a Commonwealth bank . What’s the difference ?

No, but of the majority of a mining companies income is derived from Australia it must be headquartered there. Also, the government either federal or state must be a major shareholer contingent on the size of the company and its market cap. No foreign state owned shareholders unless that country has equal reciprocity and finally, instate the MRRT with no exceptions.

I think that would be a nice place to start. Win/Win.

and while we are at it, let's just turn the rivers around and create an agricultural utopia in the Australian desert.
I know it's impossible, illegal, impractical, and immoral, but announcing idiot "solutions" is all the rage these days.

"We weren’t pinko commies when we had a Commonwealth bank . What’s the difference ?"

No we weren't but we were moving from a highly protected economy to one dominated by globalised free trade. You might want to argue against that but the evidence is pretty clear that without the reforms of the Hawke/Keating government we would have been a much poorer country over the last thirty years. The idea of taking on the multi-nationals by attempting to nationalise the mining industry was, even in 2000, a seriousy bad idea. One of the things thsat is too easily ignored in these discussions is that foreign investment in Australia roughly equals Australian investment in other countries. The point being that if we start changing the rules to our advantage, other countries will do the same. The resulting mess is usually called a trade war and results in a loss/loss situation for all involved. The terms of trade and investment are so fiendishly complex that simplistic, broad brush suggestions are just irrelevant.

Except for Norway.

Except for Norway.