http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-28/cassidy-rudd-inside-and-out/4786598
"Labor stalwart, Rod Cavalier, told ABC News Breakfast that the Caucus
embraced a man many of them despised simply to save their own hides.
When, he asked, did Labor stop choosing leadership based on policies and
character?"
What do you expect when you have a political 'profession'. For 'save their own hides' you could substitute any number of more flattering equivalents. 'Protect the country from the forces of darkness' springs to mind. I've shown through compelling argument in this blog why Abbott is totally unsuitable, or even less so than his opposites, to lead us. There is still hope to avert the forces of darkness, but really even I grow tired of all this.
Just bring it on.
Saturday 29 June 2013
Saturday 15 June 2013
"Kevin and Julia merry-go-round" or Kevin and Julia Dance of Death
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4754598.html
"There's not a shadow of a doubt that the media has been used to help build momentum, to help build a sense of chaos, particularly this week. And anytime it looked like it was falling off, there was someone else [from Team Rudd] out and about … There is absolutely no doubt the Rudd forces have been using the media quite cleverly for some time now."
I've been rattling on about this for a while now. Yesterday I lost it and let fly, but at least I'm not the only one who has noticed this. A party that puts itself in a perceived cycle of cynically resurrecting a popular leader to win an election then unceremoniously dumping the winning leader for another one to run the government, one iteration of which has already occurred, has zero electoral legitimacy and is doomed to the backwaters for many electoral cycles.
As quoted above the mainstream media has been complicit in this farce from the beginning, but then that is just the nature of the game. If the Rudd supporters would shut up and coagulate under the Gillard flag, the reconquest of the electorate would be easily achievable. The strategy I outlined yesterday needs to happen as a matter of urgency. The government wins hands down on a rational comparison of policy and the sooner this comparison happens the better. Of course it would help if the mainstream media would pull their heads in, forgo the promise of sales, and simply ignore anything a known Rudd supporter says. This can only happen if the deeply conservative strings controlling the mainstream media, reaching from Rupert Murdoch through to his lapdog pack of senior editors, are released.
Let's not get too melodramatic about it but, to reuse a common image, we stand at a historical crossroads. The rest of the world has chosen the progressive road of cold rational decisions, represented here by the ALP with all its warts and shortcomings. How can we as a nation now choose the fluffy, sepia soaked, road of business-as-usual, post modern, feel-good-do-nothing road preferred by the LNP? The shear ludicrosity of such a proposition renders it unlikely, yet such an eventuality is possible. The opinion polls say it is a forgone conclusion. Something has to happen in the next three months to push us to the left. Not too far to the left but enough to reveal the falsity of LNP policy and particularly its leader who is a proven liar, even more so than is expected of politicians in general, and definitely more so than Gillard.
Both the conservative and progressive forces are split many ways.
The progressive forces, represented by the ALP and its left wing, now called the Greens, are only split three ways: Rudd-ALP, Gillard-ALP, and Green.
The conservative forces are split at least five ways now, and if we maintain consistency its six: Turnbull-Liberal, Abbott-Liberal, National/country party, Hanson's One Nation, Katter's Australia, and Palmer's Liberal Lite.
An unenviable choice, wouldn't you say? If division is death in politics, then we are riding a coffin to obliteration.
But isn't it better to vote for the forces which are the least split? Especially when this choice coincides with the policies which place us on the right track to a better future. I have consistently shown on this blog that the conservative forces in this country base their policies solely on failed ideology and the elitism of the rich. Every policy they dare to release can be shown to create further divisions within our society, which they cynically use to maintain their grasp on power.
I know the way I will vote in September and I hope those who read this blog will be persuaded to do the same.
"There's not a shadow of a doubt that the media has been used to help build momentum, to help build a sense of chaos, particularly this week. And anytime it looked like it was falling off, there was someone else [from Team Rudd] out and about … There is absolutely no doubt the Rudd forces have been using the media quite cleverly for some time now."
I've been rattling on about this for a while now. Yesterday I lost it and let fly, but at least I'm not the only one who has noticed this. A party that puts itself in a perceived cycle of cynically resurrecting a popular leader to win an election then unceremoniously dumping the winning leader for another one to run the government, one iteration of which has already occurred, has zero electoral legitimacy and is doomed to the backwaters for many electoral cycles.
As quoted above the mainstream media has been complicit in this farce from the beginning, but then that is just the nature of the game. If the Rudd supporters would shut up and coagulate under the Gillard flag, the reconquest of the electorate would be easily achievable. The strategy I outlined yesterday needs to happen as a matter of urgency. The government wins hands down on a rational comparison of policy and the sooner this comparison happens the better. Of course it would help if the mainstream media would pull their heads in, forgo the promise of sales, and simply ignore anything a known Rudd supporter says. This can only happen if the deeply conservative strings controlling the mainstream media, reaching from Rupert Murdoch through to his lapdog pack of senior editors, are released.
Let's not get too melodramatic about it but, to reuse a common image, we stand at a historical crossroads. The rest of the world has chosen the progressive road of cold rational decisions, represented here by the ALP with all its warts and shortcomings. How can we as a nation now choose the fluffy, sepia soaked, road of business-as-usual, post modern, feel-good-do-nothing road preferred by the LNP? The shear ludicrosity of such a proposition renders it unlikely, yet such an eventuality is possible. The opinion polls say it is a forgone conclusion. Something has to happen in the next three months to push us to the left. Not too far to the left but enough to reveal the falsity of LNP policy and particularly its leader who is a proven liar, even more so than is expected of politicians in general, and definitely more so than Gillard.
Both the conservative and progressive forces are split many ways.
The progressive forces, represented by the ALP and its left wing, now called the Greens, are only split three ways: Rudd-ALP, Gillard-ALP, and Green.
The conservative forces are split at least five ways now, and if we maintain consistency its six: Turnbull-Liberal, Abbott-Liberal, National/country party, Hanson's One Nation, Katter's Australia, and Palmer's Liberal Lite.
An unenviable choice, wouldn't you say? If division is death in politics, then we are riding a coffin to obliteration.
But isn't it better to vote for the forces which are the least split? Especially when this choice coincides with the policies which place us on the right track to a better future. I have consistently shown on this blog that the conservative forces in this country base their policies solely on failed ideology and the elitism of the rich. Every policy they dare to release can be shown to create further divisions within our society, which they cynically use to maintain their grasp on power.
I know the way I will vote in September and I hope those who read this blog will be persuaded to do the same.
Friday 14 June 2013
Where is that darrned budget emergency....can't seem to find it anywhere...Let's do the Emerson
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-12/kohler-perfect-storm/4747996
"Domestic demand is declining due not to the long election campaign, but to the high levels of household debt. That process is likely to continue after the election, especially if a new government imposes new austerity measures to repair its own balance sheet, writes Alan Kohler."
Alan Kohler can usually be relied on to cut through the fat and shine a light into the white noise put out by the mainstream media, but lately I have been disappointed by two of the best journalists in the country. Barry Cassidy has also gone loopy. The explanation seems to be the election effect. Don't forget the opinion poll effect.
Our budget deficit is between 1 and 2 percent of our GDP. This can, IN NO POSSIBLE WAY be construed as ANY SORT OF an emergency. A balanced budget is always the best possible outcome, but this needs to be seasoned with the reality of the state of the economy. Our economy, the most stable and resilient in the world in the past decade, judging by our weathering of the GFC in such spectacular fashiion, has none-the-less begun to falter a little bit in recent months. A faltering economy is the wrong time for austerity measures in fiscal policy. The experience in Europe is a warning to us. A slowly growing economy has been cast into a prolonged period of stagnation, characterised by high unemployment, with all of the human pain that entails, and shrinkage, by the implementation of crazy Hayeckian austerity in fiscal policy. I've said all this before on this blog.
Just as there is an optimum gearing ratio in business management which achieves the optimum outcome for the business, so there is a balance of austerity and progressive spending in fiscal policy which produces the optimum outcome for the nation, economy, and society. Managing the economy is about finding this balance, more of an art than a science. The deficit as a percentage of GST is probably about right, as it stands, for the level of faltering in the economy, so the present government is managing the economy pretty well, really.
In contrast the conservative forces, with Abbott as their mouthpiece, continue to rattle on about a mythical budget emergency for ideological reasons. They do this so that they will have a justification for implementing the depraved austerity measures practiced in Europe, which will cause unnecessary pain and irreparable harm to our economy, our nation and our society.
If the present government is managing the economy fairly well, as I have shown here, and a conservative government would throw a wrecking ball through it, to coin an Abbottism, WHY CHANGE GOVERNMENTS.
EVERY GOVERNMENT MINISTER NEEDS TO GET OUT THERE NOW. CALL PRESS CONFERENCES, AND GO OFF LIKE CRAIG EMERSON (DO THE EMERSON perhaps), ESPECIALLY THE PRIME MINISTER, DROWN OUT THE WHITE NOISE, SIDE ISSUES AND SILLY LITTLE POLITICAL GAMES, AND GET A RATIONAL DISCUSSION AND COMPARISON OF POLICY AND ACHIEVEMENT HAPPENING.
If this were to happen the government would win hands down and that is what Abbot is afraid of, so he draws Gillard into these silly political games as a side show for a mainstream media that consciously encourages and facilitates them. Gillard falls for it because she is, in some ways politically naive. and her advisers and spin doctors are blinkered and seem incompetent. They must know their business beter than I, yet they hold off on this rational policy discussion.
WHY????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
"Domestic demand is declining due not to the long election campaign, but to the high levels of household debt. That process is likely to continue after the election, especially if a new government imposes new austerity measures to repair its own balance sheet, writes Alan Kohler."
Alan Kohler can usually be relied on to cut through the fat and shine a light into the white noise put out by the mainstream media, but lately I have been disappointed by two of the best journalists in the country. Barry Cassidy has also gone loopy. The explanation seems to be the election effect. Don't forget the opinion poll effect.
Our budget deficit is between 1 and 2 percent of our GDP. This can, IN NO POSSIBLE WAY be construed as ANY SORT OF an emergency. A balanced budget is always the best possible outcome, but this needs to be seasoned with the reality of the state of the economy. Our economy, the most stable and resilient in the world in the past decade, judging by our weathering of the GFC in such spectacular fashiion, has none-the-less begun to falter a little bit in recent months. A faltering economy is the wrong time for austerity measures in fiscal policy. The experience in Europe is a warning to us. A slowly growing economy has been cast into a prolonged period of stagnation, characterised by high unemployment, with all of the human pain that entails, and shrinkage, by the implementation of crazy Hayeckian austerity in fiscal policy. I've said all this before on this blog.
Just as there is an optimum gearing ratio in business management which achieves the optimum outcome for the business, so there is a balance of austerity and progressive spending in fiscal policy which produces the optimum outcome for the nation, economy, and society. Managing the economy is about finding this balance, more of an art than a science. The deficit as a percentage of GST is probably about right, as it stands, for the level of faltering in the economy, so the present government is managing the economy pretty well, really.
In contrast the conservative forces, with Abbott as their mouthpiece, continue to rattle on about a mythical budget emergency for ideological reasons. They do this so that they will have a justification for implementing the depraved austerity measures practiced in Europe, which will cause unnecessary pain and irreparable harm to our economy, our nation and our society.
If the present government is managing the economy fairly well, as I have shown here, and a conservative government would throw a wrecking ball through it, to coin an Abbottism, WHY CHANGE GOVERNMENTS.
EVERY GOVERNMENT MINISTER NEEDS TO GET OUT THERE NOW. CALL PRESS CONFERENCES, AND GO OFF LIKE CRAIG EMERSON (DO THE EMERSON perhaps), ESPECIALLY THE PRIME MINISTER, DROWN OUT THE WHITE NOISE, SIDE ISSUES AND SILLY LITTLE POLITICAL GAMES, AND GET A RATIONAL DISCUSSION AND COMPARISON OF POLICY AND ACHIEVEMENT HAPPENING.
If this were to happen the government would win hands down and that is what Abbot is afraid of, so he draws Gillard into these silly political games as a side show for a mainstream media that consciously encourages and facilitates them. Gillard falls for it because she is, in some ways politically naive. and her advisers and spin doctors are blinkered and seem incompetent. They must know their business beter than I, yet they hold off on this rational policy discussion.
WHY????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Thursday 13 June 2013
Reality: what a concept
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-13/green-two-weekend/4749874
"On Wednesday last week Kevin Rudd's media advisor responded to a standing request from the ABC's 7.30 program. Kevin might be interested in appearing.
An RAAF aircraft on patrol spots a vessel carrying at least 55 people 28 nautical miles north-west of Christmas Island. It is stationary. No distress signal or other communication is received."
The media keep dragging up imaginary prospects of a new Rudd campaign and administration. The farcical prospect of electing a party which has one leader to rule and another to win elections is not credible, but the media keep dragging this up. Even with the Americanisation of our political system we still vote for parties, not personalities. The time for a leadership challenge is not just before an election, yet tht is how it has panned out in the last two iterations. These issues were settled by popular vote in the caucus more than a year ago and remain settled. The media should just leave it alone and concentrate on events like Craig Emerson's summation of Labour's case, which was reported and then lost in the white noise.
Tony Abbott should have zero credibility with anyone. He is on record saying that anything he says that is unscripted is a lie. Two weeks ago we saw that in fact anything he writes or signs off on is also a lie. He represents a party that has a record of gaining office and remaining in office by dirty tricks and lies, I refer to the children overboard lie and the imaginary budget emergency. They insist that they are the natural party of government but cannot attain government by rational comparison of policy, and so must resort to these tactics. This looks like megalomania and we had a quote from Abbott a few weeks ago indicating the same thing.
If Abbott gets elected it will be an unmitigated disaster for this country.
"On Wednesday last week Kevin Rudd's media advisor responded to a standing request from the ABC's 7.30 program. Kevin might be interested in appearing.
An RAAF aircraft on patrol spots a vessel carrying at least 55 people 28 nautical miles north-west of Christmas Island. It is stationary. No distress signal or other communication is received."
The media keep dragging up imaginary prospects of a new Rudd campaign and administration. The farcical prospect of electing a party which has one leader to rule and another to win elections is not credible, but the media keep dragging this up. Even with the Americanisation of our political system we still vote for parties, not personalities. The time for a leadership challenge is not just before an election, yet tht is how it has panned out in the last two iterations. These issues were settled by popular vote in the caucus more than a year ago and remain settled. The media should just leave it alone and concentrate on events like Craig Emerson's summation of Labour's case, which was reported and then lost in the white noise.
Tony Abbott should have zero credibility with anyone. He is on record saying that anything he says that is unscripted is a lie. Two weeks ago we saw that in fact anything he writes or signs off on is also a lie. He represents a party that has a record of gaining office and remaining in office by dirty tricks and lies, I refer to the children overboard lie and the imaginary budget emergency. They insist that they are the natural party of government but cannot attain government by rational comparison of policy, and so must resort to these tactics. This looks like megalomania and we had a quote from Abbott a few weeks ago indicating the same thing.
If Abbott gets elected it will be an unmitigated disaster for this country.
Wednesday 12 June 2013
Speculators
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4745828.html
"Over the weekend we once again had the spectacle of speculation reported as news.
That is not to say the stories are false, but there is a strong desire among journalists to be the first to report that Julia Gillard only has days left as PM."
'Speculation reported as news': the bane of all rationality. The big question being whether the electorate can discern the difference. Has anybody seen my WMDs? Has anybody seen my budget emergency? And now has anybody seen my recession? Has Rupert Murdoch sent his clowns out to fabricate a sense of panic so that sufficient numbers vote for the conservative forces, or is it just in the nature of the beast? Probably a combination of the two. The 'Children Overboard' lie demonstrated the extreme fallibility of the electorate and instituted a Howard government rendered illegitimate by the fact of this lie. Similarly Dubya bought an election when his relative Jeb, in Florida rigged an election or two.
It is only conservative forces in recent times who deploy these insincere, deceiving tactics based on media manipulation and outright falsification. Furthermore, they dumb down the electorate by taking money out of education in order to create voters unable to discern the fact from fiction; the lies from reality. They also spruick counterenlightenment, postmodern undercurrents championing emotion over reason, so that it is easy to get swept to power and then maintain the status quo by creating a sense of panic and negativity. They thrive on these fantacies, Climate change denial being a major example.
Craig Emerson also got in a big splurge for the government at a televised press conference. The facts are that this country faces significant challenges if we are to maintain our level of well-being: climate change; equality in education; economic management. In almost any area you look at this government has been strong, far-seeing, visionary, in its legislative program. They are effectively facing these challenges. A conservative government would turn away from them and pretend they don't exist.
Why change governments if the present one is doing so well.
The conservative forces are split five ways and GetUp is mobilising. If the likes of Hanson, Palmer and Katter can attract enough liberal leaning voters and the youth and female votes come home, there is still hope, no matter what the speculators in the media put out as news.
"Over the weekend we once again had the spectacle of speculation reported as news.
That is not to say the stories are false, but there is a strong desire among journalists to be the first to report that Julia Gillard only has days left as PM."
'Speculation reported as news': the bane of all rationality. The big question being whether the electorate can discern the difference. Has anybody seen my WMDs? Has anybody seen my budget emergency? And now has anybody seen my recession? Has Rupert Murdoch sent his clowns out to fabricate a sense of panic so that sufficient numbers vote for the conservative forces, or is it just in the nature of the beast? Probably a combination of the two. The 'Children Overboard' lie demonstrated the extreme fallibility of the electorate and instituted a Howard government rendered illegitimate by the fact of this lie. Similarly Dubya bought an election when his relative Jeb, in Florida rigged an election or two.
It is only conservative forces in recent times who deploy these insincere, deceiving tactics based on media manipulation and outright falsification. Furthermore, they dumb down the electorate by taking money out of education in order to create voters unable to discern the fact from fiction; the lies from reality. They also spruick counterenlightenment, postmodern undercurrents championing emotion over reason, so that it is easy to get swept to power and then maintain the status quo by creating a sense of panic and negativity. They thrive on these fantacies, Climate change denial being a major example.
Craig Emerson also got in a big splurge for the government at a televised press conference. The facts are that this country faces significant challenges if we are to maintain our level of well-being: climate change; equality in education; economic management. In almost any area you look at this government has been strong, far-seeing, visionary, in its legislative program. They are effectively facing these challenges. A conservative government would turn away from them and pretend they don't exist.
Why change governments if the present one is doing so well.
The conservative forces are split five ways and GetUp is mobilising. If the likes of Hanson, Palmer and Katter can attract enough liberal leaning voters and the youth and female votes come home, there is still hope, no matter what the speculators in the media put out as news.
Sunday 26 May 2013
Would you like your spin shaken or stirred, or both, and would that be in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-24/cassidy---libs/4709200
"Andrew Bolt, who criticised Abbott this week in the Herald Sun for "campaigning as Labor-lite, without the stuff ups"."
"Former Labor leader, Mark Latham, brought an interesting perspective to this debate in the Australian Financial Review on Thursday when he wrote that the Whitlam and Hawke governments had delivered essential services, like superannuation and Medicare "through the collective resources of the state".
He argued the Rudd and Gillard governments had continued that tradition with DisabilityCare, paid parental leave, public housing reform and the NBN.
Faced with that, he contended that Abbott in his budget reply speech had "rubber-stamped most of Labor's measures and added his own burst of profligacy".
Latham argued the Coalition's strategy amounted to waving the white flag and conceding the battle for ideological supremacy to Labor."
"former federal minister Neil Brown...wrote in part: "…you have to hand it to Tony Abbott for so deftly finessing the Coalition industrial relations policy that it is now well on its way to being a non-issue at the coming election".
Consider the implications of that. Abbott is being praised by an old conservative warrior for actually coming up with something that is "a non-issue at the coming election".
Imagine if that caught on. What a policy-free-zone the major political parties would be, with an overly-cautious do-nothing bunch of politicians taking up valuable space in Canberra."
What was shaping up as the battle of all battles of the spin doctors in September is finally starting to revert to some modicum of rationality. Until the last two weeks or so it has all still been about spinning the electorate in a clockwise direction by casting the government as incompetent and about to fall, and this being inevitable. Suddenly people are beginning to think about the facts.
It began with Abbott's budget reply representing a small revelation of LNP intentions. Then there were rumblings in the business community about new taxes, that is, raising the GST and the paid-parental leave impost. Now criticisms from unlikely sources such as Andrew Bolt, who is absolutely offensively biased and should not be allowed to publish anything because he is no more or less the mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch.
If we take the quote here as gospel then the only conceivable reason to elect an LNP government would be the competence card which is almost pure clockwise spin, and should be easily dispelled.
Latham says what you would expect, but he is naive to talk about 'white flags'. Coalition governments do not wave white flags. They pretend to as a tactical move and then inevitably sneak their preferred policies in through the back door.
This is our first election since the GFC, the effects of which are still being felt. The GFC polarised electorates in the Western Democracies. France elected a socialist president while Mme Le Penn gained a 20% stake. Progressive forces retained control of the White House. Now it is Australia's turn.
Essentially what has happened is that the GFC starkly revealed the neoliberal ideology as a failed ideology. the forces of the right have refused to accept this and have gone into denial mode, taking a large step further to the right, and now occupy the lunatic fringe, insisting on a reversion to business as usual, and deploying the usual tactics of smoke and mirrors with copious amounts of clockwise spin.
If you doubt that his has happened here look at the actual record of the government and compare it to Abbott's baseless rantings.
In this country government falls to the party that occupies the centre. It remains to be seen whether the ALP can step into the void. If not we are doomed to be governed by the lunatic fringe.
"Andrew Bolt, who criticised Abbott this week in the Herald Sun for "campaigning as Labor-lite, without the stuff ups"."
"Former Labor leader, Mark Latham, brought an interesting perspective to this debate in the Australian Financial Review on Thursday when he wrote that the Whitlam and Hawke governments had delivered essential services, like superannuation and Medicare "through the collective resources of the state".
He argued the Rudd and Gillard governments had continued that tradition with DisabilityCare, paid parental leave, public housing reform and the NBN.
Faced with that, he contended that Abbott in his budget reply speech had "rubber-stamped most of Labor's measures and added his own burst of profligacy".
Latham argued the Coalition's strategy amounted to waving the white flag and conceding the battle for ideological supremacy to Labor."
"former federal minister Neil Brown...wrote in part: "…you have to hand it to Tony Abbott for so deftly finessing the Coalition industrial relations policy that it is now well on its way to being a non-issue at the coming election".
Consider the implications of that. Abbott is being praised by an old conservative warrior for actually coming up with something that is "a non-issue at the coming election".
Imagine if that caught on. What a policy-free-zone the major political parties would be, with an overly-cautious do-nothing bunch of politicians taking up valuable space in Canberra."
What was shaping up as the battle of all battles of the spin doctors in September is finally starting to revert to some modicum of rationality. Until the last two weeks or so it has all still been about spinning the electorate in a clockwise direction by casting the government as incompetent and about to fall, and this being inevitable. Suddenly people are beginning to think about the facts.
It began with Abbott's budget reply representing a small revelation of LNP intentions. Then there were rumblings in the business community about new taxes, that is, raising the GST and the paid-parental leave impost. Now criticisms from unlikely sources such as Andrew Bolt, who is absolutely offensively biased and should not be allowed to publish anything because he is no more or less the mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch.
If we take the quote here as gospel then the only conceivable reason to elect an LNP government would be the competence card which is almost pure clockwise spin, and should be easily dispelled.
Latham says what you would expect, but he is naive to talk about 'white flags'. Coalition governments do not wave white flags. They pretend to as a tactical move and then inevitably sneak their preferred policies in through the back door.
This is our first election since the GFC, the effects of which are still being felt. The GFC polarised electorates in the Western Democracies. France elected a socialist president while Mme Le Penn gained a 20% stake. Progressive forces retained control of the White House. Now it is Australia's turn.
Essentially what has happened is that the GFC starkly revealed the neoliberal ideology as a failed ideology. the forces of the right have refused to accept this and have gone into denial mode, taking a large step further to the right, and now occupy the lunatic fringe, insisting on a reversion to business as usual, and deploying the usual tactics of smoke and mirrors with copious amounts of clockwise spin.
If you doubt that his has happened here look at the actual record of the government and compare it to Abbott's baseless rantings.
In this country government falls to the party that occupies the centre. It remains to be seen whether the ALP can step into the void. If not we are doomed to be governed by the lunatic fringe.
Saturday 25 May 2013
Of Open Markets and Level Playing Fields
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4709810.html
Ford announced it would close down its operations in Australia by the end of 2016.
Paul Bastion, National Secretary of the AMWU lists the reasons for this decision from his point of view.
"The high dollar is at the root of these challenges, as well as the actions of our trading partners, which have undermined any level playing field in car sales."
"Government support pales in comparison with that of other nations with strong automotive industries. In per capita terms, Australia invests $US18 per annum. Compare this to the $US330 in Sweden, $US260 in the USA and $US95 in Germany."
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4709208.html
Simon Cowan, research fellow at the oxymoronically named 'Center for Independent Studies' presents the neoliberal side.
"proof that short-term, stop-gap government assistance for industry is an abject failure."
"The Australian dollar is not solely to blame for this ongoing disaster. Australian carmakers were not able to efficiently compete when the value of the Australian dollar was less than US50 cents and have relied on industry assistance for decades."
"Rather than trying to prop up carmakers and continuing the insecurity felt by workers in that industry, governments must focus on assisting workers transition to efficient industries."
"In that environment, corporate welfare for the favoured few simply cannot be justified."
I must confess an interest here. I was a member of the AMWU in the mid nineties when I worked at a factory manufacturing heat exchange units for automotive air-conditioning systems, servicing all manufacturers: Ford, Holden and Mitsubishi. This factory closed because Holden chose to cancel its contract, preferring new technology out of Japan for which we were not tooled. Rather than wait for us to tool up to produce these units it chose to import them. This is the true reflection of neo-liberal remedies. Stupid corporate leaders who make self-serving decisions in a shoot-yourself-in-the foot competitive environment where we impose uncompetitive regulation on ourselves while other countries do not.
The un-level nature of the 'level playing field' was noted and discussed back in the nineties when Howard's tariff reductions were first being imposed. Nothing has changed.
Having said all that, which argument would you believe? The one employing emotive hitwords like 'corporate welfare' and the implied betrayal of Ford in taking our money and running, or the reasoned, fact-dense verbiage of Paul Bastion.
The point is that the neo-liberal ideology demonstrably failed, almost cataclysmicly, in the GFC, yet it is still spruiked by these blind right-wing think tanks, under the budgets of vested interests.
The fact is that there is no level playing field anywhere, and opening ourselves to the competition employed by protected competing industries reveals our soft pink underbelly to the vultures of economic rationalism. If we go down that road we are dead meat.
Ford announced it would close down its operations in Australia by the end of 2016.
Paul Bastion, National Secretary of the AMWU lists the reasons for this decision from his point of view.
"The high dollar is at the root of these challenges, as well as the actions of our trading partners, which have undermined any level playing field in car sales."
"Government support pales in comparison with that of other nations with strong automotive industries. In per capita terms, Australia invests $US18 per annum. Compare this to the $US330 in Sweden, $US260 in the USA and $US95 in Germany."
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4709208.html
Simon Cowan, research fellow at the oxymoronically named 'Center for Independent Studies' presents the neoliberal side.
"proof that short-term, stop-gap government assistance for industry is an abject failure."
"The Australian dollar is not solely to blame for this ongoing disaster. Australian carmakers were not able to efficiently compete when the value of the Australian dollar was less than US50 cents and have relied on industry assistance for decades."
"Rather than trying to prop up carmakers and continuing the insecurity felt by workers in that industry, governments must focus on assisting workers transition to efficient industries."
"In that environment, corporate welfare for the favoured few simply cannot be justified."
I must confess an interest here. I was a member of the AMWU in the mid nineties when I worked at a factory manufacturing heat exchange units for automotive air-conditioning systems, servicing all manufacturers: Ford, Holden and Mitsubishi. This factory closed because Holden chose to cancel its contract, preferring new technology out of Japan for which we were not tooled. Rather than wait for us to tool up to produce these units it chose to import them. This is the true reflection of neo-liberal remedies. Stupid corporate leaders who make self-serving decisions in a shoot-yourself-in-the foot competitive environment where we impose uncompetitive regulation on ourselves while other countries do not.
The un-level nature of the 'level playing field' was noted and discussed back in the nineties when Howard's tariff reductions were first being imposed. Nothing has changed.
Having said all that, which argument would you believe? The one employing emotive hitwords like 'corporate welfare' and the implied betrayal of Ford in taking our money and running, or the reasoned, fact-dense verbiage of Paul Bastion.
The point is that the neo-liberal ideology demonstrably failed, almost cataclysmicly, in the GFC, yet it is still spruiked by these blind right-wing think tanks, under the budgets of vested interests.
The fact is that there is no level playing field anywhere, and opening ourselves to the competition employed by protected competing industries reveals our soft pink underbelly to the vultures of economic rationalism. If we go down that road we are dead meat.
Thursday 23 May 2013
Obviously
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-22/alberici---econ/4706178
"Europe is where the real budget emergencies lie, not in Australia where the deficit represents 1.3 per cent of GDP."
Now where did I put my budget emergency. I know it's around here somewhere. Just can't remember where I put it. That evil witch Gillard must be hiding it. We have to invade Canberra on the pretext and find it. Can't let them have it.
Substitute WMD for budget emergency and Saddam for Gillard and you have the behaviour of Dubya in the preamble to the Iraq war.
Such is the behaviour of Tony Abbott in his budget reply.
"Europe is where the real budget emergencies lie, not in Australia where the deficit represents 1.3 per cent of GDP."
Now where did I put my budget emergency. I know it's around here somewhere. Just can't remember where I put it. That evil witch Gillard must be hiding it. We have to invade Canberra on the pretext and find it. Can't let them have it.
Substitute WMD for budget emergency and Saddam for Gillard and you have the behaviour of Dubya in the preamble to the Iraq war.
Such is the behaviour of Tony Abbott in his budget reply.
Robber Barons?
When does mission creep become censorship?
"The sort of abuse of power we are seeing out of ASIC is endemic to the regulatory state.
The logic is as follows.
The relationship between a regulator and a regulated organisation (let's say a company operating in a marketplace) is like a continuous game of cat and mouse. A regulator makes a rule. A company changes its behaviour to comply with the rule. But, assuming the rule imposes some sort of cost on the company, the company will look for loop-holes to minimise the cost.
The frustrated regulator will write another rule to close off the loop-hole. The cycle continues.
The economist Edward Kane calls this relationship the regulatory dialectic. ASIC is a perfect case study.
Caught up in its never-ending battle with the companies it regulates, it has been lobbying for powers which no free society ought to grant even to its national security services. It has been trying its hand at censorship. And it's launched legal crusades to raise its profile and its political and financial support.
Lawyers and economists like to talk about the content of regulation. What does a regulation permit? What does it prohibit? Nobody wants to legalise fraud or theft.
But ASIC's extraordinary abuses of power reveal how regulation plays out in the real world - not on the clean page of legislation, or the tight confines of an economists' model, but when self-interested bureaucrats are asked to enforce uncertain laws against an unwilling private sector."
Deregulate everything and bring back the robber barons.
Chris Berg shows his true colours once again. There is a place for these views in a robust democracy.
"The sort of abuse of power we are seeing out of ASIC is endemic to the regulatory state.
The logic is as follows.
The relationship between a regulator and a regulated organisation (let's say a company operating in a marketplace) is like a continuous game of cat and mouse. A regulator makes a rule. A company changes its behaviour to comply with the rule. But, assuming the rule imposes some sort of cost on the company, the company will look for loop-holes to minimise the cost.
The frustrated regulator will write another rule to close off the loop-hole. The cycle continues.
The economist Edward Kane calls this relationship the regulatory dialectic. ASIC is a perfect case study.
Caught up in its never-ending battle with the companies it regulates, it has been lobbying for powers which no free society ought to grant even to its national security services. It has been trying its hand at censorship. And it's launched legal crusades to raise its profile and its political and financial support.
Lawyers and economists like to talk about the content of regulation. What does a regulation permit? What does it prohibit? Nobody wants to legalise fraud or theft.
But ASIC's extraordinary abuses of power reveal how regulation plays out in the real world - not on the clean page of legislation, or the tight confines of an economists' model, but when self-interested bureaucrats are asked to enforce uncertain laws against an unwilling private sector."
Deregulate everything and bring back the robber barons.
Chris Berg shows his true colours once again. There is a place for these views in a robust democracy.
Intelectual Elitism
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-23/green-progressive-chatter/4706610
"The argument, conceived no doubt in tertiary-educated repose, is that this country is burdened by an 'insider' class of over-educated inner-urban progressives, people divorced from the mainstream interests and opinion of the country's overwhelming majority: simple plain-thinking folk, who care not a jot for same-sex marriage, climate change or the internationally acknowledged right of the marginalised and oppressed to seek asylum and refuge."
How would you rather have it? To be governed by The Mob? The well educated and most able people are rightly looked up to and elected as our leaders. This happens in every division of human interaction. You can call this an elite if you like, with all the negative connotations associated with this term, but this is the best way to run things. All else is chaos. Think of the Paris of 1897 or the Moscow of 1917. It is fair if there are no barriers to entry into the elite. That is why Gonski is so important and why Whitlam's free tertiary education was such a good idea, so that any member of the "simple plain-thinking folk" can aspire to leadership through membership of the elite.
"Progressive. That seems suddenly to be a dirty word. Tarred with all manner of political overtone. But surely it's a notion that can be as embraced by the right as much as it can by the left? By libertarians and social democrats … as a idea, progress seems blithely agnostic and overwhelmingly positive."
Surely the term 'progressive conservative' is an oxymoron.
"The argument, conceived no doubt in tertiary-educated repose, is that this country is burdened by an 'insider' class of over-educated inner-urban progressives, people divorced from the mainstream interests and opinion of the country's overwhelming majority: simple plain-thinking folk, who care not a jot for same-sex marriage, climate change or the internationally acknowledged right of the marginalised and oppressed to seek asylum and refuge."
How would you rather have it? To be governed by The Mob? The well educated and most able people are rightly looked up to and elected as our leaders. This happens in every division of human interaction. You can call this an elite if you like, with all the negative connotations associated with this term, but this is the best way to run things. All else is chaos. Think of the Paris of 1897 or the Moscow of 1917. It is fair if there are no barriers to entry into the elite. That is why Gonski is so important and why Whitlam's free tertiary education was such a good idea, so that any member of the "simple plain-thinking folk" can aspire to leadership through membership of the elite.
"Progressive. That seems suddenly to be a dirty word. Tarred with all manner of political overtone. But surely it's a notion that can be as embraced by the right as much as it can by the left? By libertarians and social democrats … as a idea, progress seems blithely agnostic and overwhelmingly positive."
Surely the term 'progressive conservative' is an oxymoron.
Wednesday 22 May 2013
An Exercise in Futility
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-21/barron-presidential-image/4701918
"in 1999 that NSW Liberal Party MP Barry O'Farrell said, "When I lose weight and shave off the beard then you'll know I am after the Liberal leadership".
Eight years later, beardless and 40 kilograms lighter, the erstwhile 'Fatty O'Barrell' was elected Liberal leader and in 2011 won a landslide election victory to become Premier."
I initially commented:
What a superficial world we live in. Everything is image and spin and if you ain't got image and spin, then you just don't get it.
What's more, what a waste. Think of all the people of high caliber, perfectly suited to the job but for the mere fact that they 'just couldn't lose weight'; or 'just couldn't change the colour of their skin'; or 'just couldn't grow testicles'. What a different, even maybe better, world it might have been.
Then big joe commented (I suspect this may be Big Joe Hockey stirring the twitterverse pot):
"I suspect that the US is not very different from Australia, appearance is everything and substance is nothing, our present PM is a living example of this."
To which I replied:
If you bothered looking at the 'substance' displayed by our present PM instead of basing all your opinions on ignorant shock-jock influence you would not be able to hold such views. Look at the facts:
In a legislatively difficult hung parliament she has pushed through a raft of far-reaching progressive measures that will have a continuing positive effect on the common good: the carbon pricing system and environmental measures to push us into a sustainable energy regime so that something of the Earth will remain for future generations; a school-funding scheme that goes a ways toward tapping the full potential of our entire talent pool with less emphasis on whether you can pay for it or not; a fairer and more efficient tax system where the tax-free threshold is almost a living wage...etc, etc, etc.
If you don't like any of this by all means continue to vote for the LNP, but just bear in mind that if you do, you are voting for a party which staunchly and steadfastly believes in division. The single salient characteristic of every single one of their policies is that an unmentioned side-effect is that it will create or promote a division in society along the lines of rich-vs-poor, black-vs-white, have-vs-have-not, native-born-vs-alien; etc. This is how they compete: the old rule of 'divide and conquer'.
Do you really want to live in a divided society?
"in 1999 that NSW Liberal Party MP Barry O'Farrell said, "When I lose weight and shave off the beard then you'll know I am after the Liberal leadership".
Eight years later, beardless and 40 kilograms lighter, the erstwhile 'Fatty O'Barrell' was elected Liberal leader and in 2011 won a landslide election victory to become Premier."
I initially commented:
What a superficial world we live in. Everything is image and spin and if you ain't got image and spin, then you just don't get it.
What's more, what a waste. Think of all the people of high caliber, perfectly suited to the job but for the mere fact that they 'just couldn't lose weight'; or 'just couldn't change the colour of their skin'; or 'just couldn't grow testicles'. What a different, even maybe better, world it might have been.
Then big joe commented (I suspect this may be Big Joe Hockey stirring the twitterverse pot):
"I suspect that the US is not very different from Australia, appearance is everything and substance is nothing, our present PM is a living example of this."
To which I replied:
If you bothered looking at the 'substance' displayed by our present PM instead of basing all your opinions on ignorant shock-jock influence you would not be able to hold such views. Look at the facts:
In a legislatively difficult hung parliament she has pushed through a raft of far-reaching progressive measures that will have a continuing positive effect on the common good: the carbon pricing system and environmental measures to push us into a sustainable energy regime so that something of the Earth will remain for future generations; a school-funding scheme that goes a ways toward tapping the full potential of our entire talent pool with less emphasis on whether you can pay for it or not; a fairer and more efficient tax system where the tax-free threshold is almost a living wage...etc, etc, etc.
If you don't like any of this by all means continue to vote for the LNP, but just bear in mind that if you do, you are voting for a party which staunchly and steadfastly believes in division. The single salient characteristic of every single one of their policies is that an unmentioned side-effect is that it will create or promote a division in society along the lines of rich-vs-poor, black-vs-white, have-vs-have-not, native-born-vs-alien; etc. This is how they compete: the old rule of 'divide and conquer'.
Do you really want to live in a divided society?
Saturday 18 May 2013
The Aroma of Pork
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-16/cassidy---budget-2013-reply/4694256
"Fraser Nelson, writing for the Spectator in June 2006, quoted a senior Conservative policy maker who said the game plan was to create a "Cameronian aroma" which was "vastly more important than any specific policies the party would advocate."
Nelson wrote: "The task (according to the policy maker) is to create an aroma around the Conservatives so people naturally imagine our policies are the right ones without necessarily knowing what they are. It is about turning the intangibility of Mr Cameron into an asset.
"If this sounds naïve, then we must ask why the opinion polls suggest that the Tories' non-existent health and education policies are already more popular than Labour’s (all too real) measures in this area.…to team Cameron it shows that the leader’s aroma is successfully wafting through the country and that voters are inhaling it with the whetted appetite of Bisto kids."
Analogies between David Cameron in Britain and Tony Abbott in Australia, presented by Barrie Cassidy are hopefully contradicted by the superior intellectual capacity of the Australian electorate
Policies are already in place and functioning correctly to achieve everything that Abbott aspires to. So why change government?
I smell the aroma of pork.
"Fraser Nelson, writing for the Spectator in June 2006, quoted a senior Conservative policy maker who said the game plan was to create a "Cameronian aroma" which was "vastly more important than any specific policies the party would advocate."
Nelson wrote: "The task (according to the policy maker) is to create an aroma around the Conservatives so people naturally imagine our policies are the right ones without necessarily knowing what they are. It is about turning the intangibility of Mr Cameron into an asset.
"If this sounds naïve, then we must ask why the opinion polls suggest that the Tories' non-existent health and education policies are already more popular than Labour’s (all too real) measures in this area.…to team Cameron it shows that the leader’s aroma is successfully wafting through the country and that voters are inhaling it with the whetted appetite of Bisto kids."
Analogies between David Cameron in Britain and Tony Abbott in Australia, presented by Barrie Cassidy are hopefully contradicted by the superior intellectual capacity of the Australian electorate
Policies are already in place and functioning correctly to achieve everything that Abbott aspires to. So why change government?
I smell the aroma of pork.
Wednesday 15 May 2013
What's the Point?????????????
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-14/kohler-budget-2013-analysis/4688294
"But it does add $2,285 million in net new government spending from now until June 30 next year."
"Tickle the actual numbers in the budget papers and they'll laughingly confess to being as soft as a baby's bum."
Why do we have taxes which create revenue for the government? First and foremost it is for governments to provide services back to us. This requires the hiring of public servants to provide those services at the coal face.
Secondly, if we go out into society and markets and see things which need to be improved, and our ideology leads us to believe that government is the most efficient and best placed entity to address these needs, then it will require funds to perform this task, and this funding must come out of revenue.
So sometimes, when there is a screaming need identified, revenue needs to increase to cover that need, fix it, and increase the common good.
All budgets are estimates, sometimes guesstimates in times of extreme uncertainty. They start with an estimate of income over the financial period under consideration. For governments income is tax revenue which varies with the state of the economy.
When the proceeds from the mining resource rent tax came in at a fraction of their projection a lot of people were running around screaming robbery and obfuscation. This reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of a resource rent tax.
This category of tax specifically taxes entities low, when their costs are high, ie in the construction phase, and high when costs are low, ie in the production phase. It is precisely for this reason that they are recognised as an efficient tax.
For the financial periods under consideration, all the massive mining projects expected to overflow the coffers of the mining resource rent tax were still under construction, and therefore taxed low because costs were high. It was to be expected that revenues would be well below projections based on producing mines.
These massive projects are now moving into production and will provide a dividend in the mining resource rent coffers for years to come.
Is this recognised in the budget? Who knows and who cares.
What's the point of getting your knickers in a knot over a bunch of estimates based on insufficient data about an uncertain future.
"But it does add $2,285 million in net new government spending from now until June 30 next year."
"Tickle the actual numbers in the budget papers and they'll laughingly confess to being as soft as a baby's bum."
Why do we have taxes which create revenue for the government? First and foremost it is for governments to provide services back to us. This requires the hiring of public servants to provide those services at the coal face.
Secondly, if we go out into society and markets and see things which need to be improved, and our ideology leads us to believe that government is the most efficient and best placed entity to address these needs, then it will require funds to perform this task, and this funding must come out of revenue.
So sometimes, when there is a screaming need identified, revenue needs to increase to cover that need, fix it, and increase the common good.
All budgets are estimates, sometimes guesstimates in times of extreme uncertainty. They start with an estimate of income over the financial period under consideration. For governments income is tax revenue which varies with the state of the economy.
When the proceeds from the mining resource rent tax came in at a fraction of their projection a lot of people were running around screaming robbery and obfuscation. This reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of a resource rent tax.
This category of tax specifically taxes entities low, when their costs are high, ie in the construction phase, and high when costs are low, ie in the production phase. It is precisely for this reason that they are recognised as an efficient tax.
For the financial periods under consideration, all the massive mining projects expected to overflow the coffers of the mining resource rent tax were still under construction, and therefore taxed low because costs were high. It was to be expected that revenues would be well below projections based on producing mines.
These massive projects are now moving into production and will provide a dividend in the mining resource rent coffers for years to come.
Is this recognised in the budget? Who knows and who cares.
What's the point of getting your knickers in a knot over a bunch of estimates based on insufficient data about an uncertain future.
Saturday 11 May 2013
Megalomania??????????????????
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-10/benson-the-abbott-approach/4681908
"No personal beliefs or preferences, no ideological goal will take precedence over the re-election imperative."
This sounds disturbingly like megalomania. Contrast with Gillard who calmly and quietly implements far-reaching, controversial, progressive policies, regardless of the electoral consequences.
But is it worth electing a megalomaniac.
"Tony Abbott has never been an IR hardliner, he fought John Howard's WorkChoices when it came to cabinet, but the new policy when it was revealed was at the low end of expectations for people looking for a change from Labor."
There may be a possibility that an Abbott government would not be as disastrous as I have been saying.
But the fact that low income earners such as I would no longer receive the benefit of a $14-20,000 tax free threshold under a prospective Abbott government is the kicker.
MAKE NO MISTAKE. ANY LNP GOVERNMENT WOULD ADOPT DIVISIVE POLICIES DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO MAINTAIN THE ELITES BY DIVIDING SOCIETY ALONG THE LINES OF HAVE-VS-HAVENOT, RICH-VS-POOR, NATIVBORN-VS-IMMIGRANT, CANAFFORD-VS-CANTANDMUSTGOWITHOUT.
This over-riding characteristic of conservative policy in this country should ban the conservative parties to the outer reaches of the boondocks until it changes. Yet the polls say otherwise.
Go figure.
"No personal beliefs or preferences, no ideological goal will take precedence over the re-election imperative."
This sounds disturbingly like megalomania. Contrast with Gillard who calmly and quietly implements far-reaching, controversial, progressive policies, regardless of the electoral consequences.
But is it worth electing a megalomaniac.
"Tony Abbott has never been an IR hardliner, he fought John Howard's WorkChoices when it came to cabinet, but the new policy when it was revealed was at the low end of expectations for people looking for a change from Labor."
There may be a possibility that an Abbott government would not be as disastrous as I have been saying.
But the fact that low income earners such as I would no longer receive the benefit of a $14-20,000 tax free threshold under a prospective Abbott government is the kicker.
MAKE NO MISTAKE. ANY LNP GOVERNMENT WOULD ADOPT DIVISIVE POLICIES DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO MAINTAIN THE ELITES BY DIVIDING SOCIETY ALONG THE LINES OF HAVE-VS-HAVENOT, RICH-VS-POOR, NATIVBORN-VS-IMMIGRANT, CANAFFORD-VS-CANTANDMUSTGOWITHOUT.
This over-riding characteristic of conservative policy in this country should ban the conservative parties to the outer reaches of the boondocks until it changes. Yet the polls say otherwise.
Go figure.
Thursday 9 May 2013
Further
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-09/green-journalism-tainted-by-conviction-isnt-journalism/4677612
" The other 'journalism' that 'works' in this uncertain environment is the sort of polemic that may have limited commercial worth but enormous political purpose ... and this might be the most unfortunate mutation of the craft in our times, turning journalism to cynically political purpose while claiming all the protections, rights and respectability of the fourth estate.
Fox News - that's the best example of how this works: an entirely parallel universe that determines its own agenda, facts and logic according to an often bellicose political mission. This is not journalism created with intellectual curiosity to inform; this is journalism dedicated to the insistent prosecution of a series of political propositions.
We see its muted fellow travellers in our own TV and press, most notably in our national broadsheet The Australian, a paper whose political purpose and occasional flights of "truthiness" can routinely obscure its better journalistic angels.
And then we have the opinion formers of the tabloid blogosphere. Little s-bends of ill-humour like the Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair, or great vaulted Taj Mahals of polished ego like the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt. They are not for profit. They are for politics and influence, pivots of opinion, so loud, so insistent, so ubiquitous that they are capable of turning the national mind."
To answer the question posed in my previous post.
" The other 'journalism' that 'works' in this uncertain environment is the sort of polemic that may have limited commercial worth but enormous political purpose ... and this might be the most unfortunate mutation of the craft in our times, turning journalism to cynically political purpose while claiming all the protections, rights and respectability of the fourth estate.
Fox News - that's the best example of how this works: an entirely parallel universe that determines its own agenda, facts and logic according to an often bellicose political mission. This is not journalism created with intellectual curiosity to inform; this is journalism dedicated to the insistent prosecution of a series of political propositions.
We see its muted fellow travellers in our own TV and press, most notably in our national broadsheet The Australian, a paper whose political purpose and occasional flights of "truthiness" can routinely obscure its better journalistic angels.
And then we have the opinion formers of the tabloid blogosphere. Little s-bends of ill-humour like the Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair, or great vaulted Taj Mahals of polished ego like the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt. They are not for profit. They are for politics and influence, pivots of opinion, so loud, so insistent, so ubiquitous that they are capable of turning the national mind."
To answer the question posed in my previous post.
Run for the Hills
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-09/green-journalism-tainted-by-conviction-isnt-journalism/4677612
"journalism has historically built trust among its consumers"
"this edifice, a cornerstone of smart democratic practice, is crumbling. The happy commercial accidents that funded journalism businesses for a century and a half and led to a political culture of well-scrutinised accountability are going, going, almost gone. We are yet to stumble upon new ones."
"Two kinds of journalism look certain to endure. The subspecies that has perhaps the best chance of commercial survival is the debased populism of the tabloids, the papers that drip faux familiarity - they're "For Your City" - then feed their readers on a patronising diet of calculated political fabrication, fear mongering and pap."
My previous post noted the behaviour of the Australian newspaper, the only remaining national flagship carrier. Here we have Jonathon Green, a very astute journalist saying similar stuff. He identifies two types of newspaper which may retain commercial viability in the digital age. One is described above and the other is base biased political propaganda, where the newspaper is simply and only a mouthpiece for its supporting political party. To which category does the Australian belong?
"journalism has historically built trust among its consumers"
"this edifice, a cornerstone of smart democratic practice, is crumbling. The happy commercial accidents that funded journalism businesses for a century and a half and led to a political culture of well-scrutinised accountability are going, going, almost gone. We are yet to stumble upon new ones."
"Two kinds of journalism look certain to endure. The subspecies that has perhaps the best chance of commercial survival is the debased populism of the tabloids, the papers that drip faux familiarity - they're "For Your City" - then feed their readers on a patronising diet of calculated political fabrication, fear mongering and pap."
My previous post noted the behaviour of the Australian newspaper, the only remaining national flagship carrier. Here we have Jonathon Green, a very astute journalist saying similar stuff. He identifies two types of newspaper which may retain commercial viability in the digital age. One is described above and the other is base biased political propaganda, where the newspaper is simply and only a mouthpiece for its supporting political party. To which category does the Australian belong?
Wednesday 8 May 2013
Where the Power Lies
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4674208.html
"The Australian put Abbott on notice "
"The Australian also served notice that it did not like Abbott's paid parental leave scheme"
"The Australian won"
We live in this pseudo-democracy where vested interests and power clubs rob society of the common good. No clearer example can be found than the influence described here, exerted by a monopoly controlled by a multibillionaire, octogenarian, citizen of a foreign country.
Beware of your verbiage Mr. Grasshopper. Your meaning is becoming opaque.
The flagship, one and only, national printed news carrier (ie a monopoly in this category), wholly owned by Rupert Murdoch, an octogenarian plutocrat who cynically shafted this country by adopting US citizenship solely to legally remain in control of his US assets, essentially forces the leader of one of the two major political parties to change one of its key policies to its own, or perhaps we may assume, its owner's whimsical liking.
In an enlightened democracy the only principle that should ever guide policy-making is the common good. Policies which increase the common good should always be developed and adopted. Strong leaders pursue such policies in the face of pressures such as those described above and cop all the flack and negativity, and don't forget the scare-mongering, but in the end implement the policy, and either are rewarded for it with electoral longevity, or are not.
So who is the strong leader here, who imposes good policy that increases the common good in the face of curtailed electoral longevity. Abbott is being tested on this issue, without even being in power (watch out for the expected back-flip). Gillard, on the other hand, has consistently implemented such policy, and faces electoral Armageddon in reply.
"The Australian put Abbott on notice "
"The Australian also served notice that it did not like Abbott's paid parental leave scheme"
"The Australian won"
We live in this pseudo-democracy where vested interests and power clubs rob society of the common good. No clearer example can be found than the influence described here, exerted by a monopoly controlled by a multibillionaire, octogenarian, citizen of a foreign country.
Beware of your verbiage Mr. Grasshopper. Your meaning is becoming opaque.
The flagship, one and only, national printed news carrier (ie a monopoly in this category), wholly owned by Rupert Murdoch, an octogenarian plutocrat who cynically shafted this country by adopting US citizenship solely to legally remain in control of his US assets, essentially forces the leader of one of the two major political parties to change one of its key policies to its own, or perhaps we may assume, its owner's whimsical liking.
In an enlightened democracy the only principle that should ever guide policy-making is the common good. Policies which increase the common good should always be developed and adopted. Strong leaders pursue such policies in the face of pressures such as those described above and cop all the flack and negativity, and don't forget the scare-mongering, but in the end implement the policy, and either are rewarded for it with electoral longevity, or are not.
So who is the strong leader here, who imposes good policy that increases the common good in the face of curtailed electoral longevity. Abbott is being tested on this issue, without even being in power (watch out for the expected back-flip). Gillard, on the other hand, has consistently implemented such policy, and faces electoral Armageddon in reply.
Tuesday 7 May 2013
What??????
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4671752.html
"a Liberal Party strategist named Toby Ralph had published a piece in which he averred that the real cure for the economy could be found not, as Craig Emerson had suggested, by a slight increase on the superannuation of the fabulously rich, but by a judicious cull of the enormously poor.
"In contrast to the fabulously rich, the enormously poor make little useful contribution to society," Mr Ralph wrote. "They consume more than they contribute, putting tremendous strain on the national budget. A modest cull would strike at the root of our fiscal dilemma. This bold initiative would rid us of indolent students, hapless single mums, lower-order drug dealers, social workers, performance artists, Greenpeace supporters and the remaining processing personnel in our collapsing yet heavily subsidised manufacturing industries.""
I had to read and re-read this. Someone actually publicly came out and said this. These are the people expected to win government. If they do win government, after this has been publicised, one would be justified in saying "well, you knew the nature of these people you elected. You've made your bed, now lay in it. All the harm this government-you-elected causes is self-inflicted. Don't come here for any sympathy. You won't get any." The problem with this is that I have to accept the consequences of an LNP win in September along with the morons who elected them in the face of all this. I object to this and so hope for a miracle.
"a Liberal Party strategist named Toby Ralph had published a piece in which he averred that the real cure for the economy could be found not, as Craig Emerson had suggested, by a slight increase on the superannuation of the fabulously rich, but by a judicious cull of the enormously poor.
"In contrast to the fabulously rich, the enormously poor make little useful contribution to society," Mr Ralph wrote. "They consume more than they contribute, putting tremendous strain on the national budget. A modest cull would strike at the root of our fiscal dilemma. This bold initiative would rid us of indolent students, hapless single mums, lower-order drug dealers, social workers, performance artists, Greenpeace supporters and the remaining processing personnel in our collapsing yet heavily subsidised manufacturing industries.""
I had to read and re-read this. Someone actually publicly came out and said this. These are the people expected to win government. If they do win government, after this has been publicised, one would be justified in saying "well, you knew the nature of these people you elected. You've made your bed, now lay in it. All the harm this government-you-elected causes is self-inflicted. Don't come here for any sympathy. You won't get any." The problem with this is that I have to accept the consequences of an LNP win in September along with the morons who elected them in the face of all this. I object to this and so hope for a miracle.
Monday 6 May 2013
Stupidity or Targeted Policy???
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4667484.html
"One possible justification of the two diametrically opposed policy settings in Europe and in Japan might be that these two advanced economies are facing different challenges. Europe's leaders like to imagine that, unlike Japan, Europe is not facing a long-lasting recession, let alone deflation. For them, there is no need for eurozone governments to loosen up the purse strings, or for the ECB to flood the financial markets with digital euros. What matters to them is that the crisis is utilised to force upon the eurozone's laggards (the Club Med nations in particular) the reforms that will help them regain their 'competitiveness'."
Is there method to this madness?
"One possible justification of the two diametrically opposed policy settings in Europe and in Japan might be that these two advanced economies are facing different challenges. Europe's leaders like to imagine that, unlike Japan, Europe is not facing a long-lasting recession, let alone deflation. For them, there is no need for eurozone governments to loosen up the purse strings, or for the ECB to flood the financial markets with digital euros. What matters to them is that the crisis is utilised to force upon the eurozone's laggards (the Club Med nations in particular) the reforms that will help them regain their 'competitiveness'."
Is there method to this madness?
Mental Black Hole
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4667484.html
"Japan's national debt is by far the highest in the civilised world, making the decision to allow the budget deficit to rise to more than 11 per cent in 2013 the boldest Keynesian move since Ronald Reagan's expansionary fiscal policies in the early 1980s."
Reading the word Keynsian and Reagan in the same sentence dropped my mind into a mental black hole. Assuming we are comparing apples to apples, if it worked for Reagan why would it not work for Abe, in which case there is nothing experimental about it.The Keynsian strategy is a proven remedy for these macroeconomic circumstances, begging the question how the idiots at the IMF and EU can rationalise their austerity policies which are proven not to work.
"Japan's national debt is by far the highest in the civilised world, making the decision to allow the budget deficit to rise to more than 11 per cent in 2013 the boldest Keynesian move since Ronald Reagan's expansionary fiscal policies in the early 1980s."
Reading the word Keynsian and Reagan in the same sentence dropped my mind into a mental black hole. Assuming we are comparing apples to apples, if it worked for Reagan why would it not work for Abe, in which case there is nothing experimental about it.The Keynsian strategy is a proven remedy for these macroeconomic circumstances, begging the question how the idiots at the IMF and EU can rationalise their austerity policies which are proven not to work.
Sunday 5 May 2013
No need to
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4667484.html
"Economic experiments: Abenomics versus Euro-austerity"
Why is there a need to experiment? Evidence, in your face, true on the basis of evidence, data which proves the absolute falsity of the neoclassical paradigm of macroeconomic, is everywhere. What is wrong with these so-called leaders? Why do they continually go down the wrong road, causing disruption and heart-ache to large sections of their people?
This is all too disturbing to bother with.
"Economic experiments: Abenomics versus Euro-austerity"
Why is there a need to experiment? Evidence, in your face, true on the basis of evidence, data which proves the absolute falsity of the neoclassical paradigm of macroeconomic, is everywhere. What is wrong with these so-called leaders? Why do they continually go down the wrong road, causing disruption and heart-ache to large sections of their people?
This is all too disturbing to bother with.
Tuesday 30 April 2013
I'm not the only one
http://www.smh.com.au/business/beware-the-oneeyed-budget-brigade-20130428-2imov.html
"Many economists believe the answer to budget deficits is always to cut spending and never to raise tax collections, because of the libertarian political ideology implicit in their dominant ''neoclassical'' model."
"Many economists believe the answer to budget deficits is always to cut spending and never to raise tax collections, because of the libertarian political ideology implicit in their dominant ''neoclassical'' model."
Take the Voo Out of the Doo
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4657404.html
"Over the past fortnight, the Gillard Government has arrived at the position that any transition back to budget surpluses in the near, or more likely distant, future must depend upon revenues growing more strongly, rather than significantly reducing expenditures."
Well duh. Can we please expunge all verbiage containing even a hint of the 'voodoo economics' promulgated by the discredited supply-side, fresh-water economists from the public discourse. The idea that reducing taxes on the wealthy, hence increasing vastly their disposable income, inadvertently balances the national budget is so patently absurd that even a scion of right-wing thought such as George H.W. Bush could come up with a descriptor such as 'voodoo'.
The concept is relatively simple. Extra disposable income in the hands of the wealthy, created by reduced taxation of their wealth, inevitably, automatically and absolutely is always expended on innovation of existing wealth-creating endeavors, and creation of new wealth-creating endeavors. This theory therefore assumes that the wealthy elites are in the best position to know where best and most efficiently to allocate this wealth so as to create the greatest increase in the common good. Since when is an increase in the common good even a marginal goal of the wealthy elites? But just for fun let's examine the imbedded assumptions of voodoo economics further, and perhaps to their logical conclusion.
If we reduce taxes on the wealthy and the excess disposable income is expended on innovation of existing wealth-creating endeavors and creation of new ones, government revenues will increase, even at reduced taxation levels, because of the increase in taxable economic activity. Budgets could then be balanced, even pushed into surplus if desirable. This concept was tested in the US economy, by the Dubya administration in the noughties. No rises in government revenues were observed and an offshoot result was the real estate bubble and subsequent GFC.
Why is this verbiage even available for view?
"Over the past fortnight, the Gillard Government has arrived at the position that any transition back to budget surpluses in the near, or more likely distant, future must depend upon revenues growing more strongly, rather than significantly reducing expenditures."
Well duh. Can we please expunge all verbiage containing even a hint of the 'voodoo economics' promulgated by the discredited supply-side, fresh-water economists from the public discourse. The idea that reducing taxes on the wealthy, hence increasing vastly their disposable income, inadvertently balances the national budget is so patently absurd that even a scion of right-wing thought such as George H.W. Bush could come up with a descriptor such as 'voodoo'.
The concept is relatively simple. Extra disposable income in the hands of the wealthy, created by reduced taxation of their wealth, inevitably, automatically and absolutely is always expended on innovation of existing wealth-creating endeavors, and creation of new wealth-creating endeavors. This theory therefore assumes that the wealthy elites are in the best position to know where best and most efficiently to allocate this wealth so as to create the greatest increase in the common good. Since when is an increase in the common good even a marginal goal of the wealthy elites? But just for fun let's examine the imbedded assumptions of voodoo economics further, and perhaps to their logical conclusion.
If we reduce taxes on the wealthy and the excess disposable income is expended on innovation of existing wealth-creating endeavors and creation of new ones, government revenues will increase, even at reduced taxation levels, because of the increase in taxable economic activity. Budgets could then be balanced, even pushed into surplus if desirable. This concept was tested in the US economy, by the Dubya administration in the noughties. No rises in government revenues were observed and an offshoot result was the real estate bubble and subsequent GFC.
Why is this verbiage even available for view?
Saturday 27 April 2013
The Keynesian Capitalist Utopia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/thedrum/
"Just as you shouldn't run a deficit if the economy is overheating, there's nothing to be gained from running a surplus if the economy is then kneecapped, writes Stephen Koukoulas."
At last a voice of reason beckons in the wilderness of online opinioin.
You really must tone down your verbiage Mr. Grasshopper, the readers might mistakenly believe that you are sane.
It must be a wonderful thing to be as balanced as the drum website is. Others of us are decidedly unbalanced.
It's all really very simple. Fiscally, when in recession rum a deficit; when in boom run a surplus. The former stimulates the economy and requires action and vision by governments; the latter happens spontaneously due to increased tax revenue from booming companies.
This is all part of the Keyesian set of recommended policies which came out of the Great Depression. If applied correctly this set of policies leads directly to a societal state of Keysian Capitalist Utopia.
Unfortunately everyone seams to be confused.
"Just as you shouldn't run a deficit if the economy is overheating, there's nothing to be gained from running a surplus if the economy is then kneecapped, writes Stephen Koukoulas."
At last a voice of reason beckons in the wilderness of online opinioin.
You really must tone down your verbiage Mr. Grasshopper, the readers might mistakenly believe that you are sane.
It must be a wonderful thing to be as balanced as the drum website is. Others of us are decidedly unbalanced.
It's all really very simple. Fiscally, when in recession rum a deficit; when in boom run a surplus. The former stimulates the economy and requires action and vision by governments; the latter happens spontaneously due to increased tax revenue from booming companies.
This is all part of the Keyesian set of recommended policies which came out of the Great Depression. If applied correctly this set of policies leads directly to a societal state of Keysian Capitalist Utopia.
Unfortunately everyone seams to be confused.
The difference is division
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-26/cassidy-laying-down-the-cudgels-and-debating-the-policy/4650944
"The Opposition embraced of an alternative National Broadband Network. That much publicised event gave the electorate a clear choice. Labor's Rolls Royce version with all the funding implications or the Coalition's more modest improvement on today's standards with a lesser price tag."
I object to this adjective Rolls Royce because it implies opulent over-expenditure for flippant reasons.
The difference between the two policies, which should decide people's choice is that, if you stop the fibre-optic cable at the node and require people to pay for the connection to the home, then there will be those who can afford this expense, most of whom vote Liberal, and those who can't. The Liberal policy is divisive because those who can't afford it simply won't have this necessity.
You can't really expect anything better from a party that absolutely thrives on divisions within society and then runs around screaming about class warfare, deliberately to muddy the waters, in the hopefully vane hope that people will be confused by such oxymoronic utterances into thinking its actually the other mob doing. Not big on intelligence either.
The fact is that Australia is astoundingly prosperous and can easily afford to give all citizens high speed fibre-optic cable based internet access.
"The Opposition embraced of an alternative National Broadband Network. That much publicised event gave the electorate a clear choice. Labor's Rolls Royce version with all the funding implications or the Coalition's more modest improvement on today's standards with a lesser price tag."
I object to this adjective Rolls Royce because it implies opulent over-expenditure for flippant reasons.
The difference between the two policies, which should decide people's choice is that, if you stop the fibre-optic cable at the node and require people to pay for the connection to the home, then there will be those who can afford this expense, most of whom vote Liberal, and those who can't. The Liberal policy is divisive because those who can't afford it simply won't have this necessity.
You can't really expect anything better from a party that absolutely thrives on divisions within society and then runs around screaming about class warfare, deliberately to muddy the waters, in the hopefully vane hope that people will be confused by such oxymoronic utterances into thinking its actually the other mob doing. Not big on intelligence either.
The fact is that Australia is astoundingly prosperous and can easily afford to give all citizens high speed fibre-optic cable based internet access.
Issues. What issues?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-26/cassidy-laying-down-the-cudgels-and-debating-the-policy/4650944
"The issues are once more front and centre, free of the nasty distractions. If this continues, there's plenty of time before September to have a proper debate on policy"
Is politics about issues? Do we live in a functioning democracy? Are we distracted by these distractions and what is so nasty about them? Was the implied state where issues were not front and centre because of these nasty distractions a normal state or an aberration? Do we have a concept or template for shedding sufficient light on these questions to reveal their answer.
Take care Mr. Grasshopper, you are in danger of confusing yourself.
If a functioning democracy consists of an enlightened polity who debate important issues at length, test solutions to problems arrising from these issues and inform leaders how they must proceed, such that optimum courses of action are always pursued and the greater good increases, then there is no way we live in a functioning democracy. In such a system politics can only be about issues.
However, the system we live under is notionally labeled a democracy, with absolutely propagandistic cheek, and should therefore exhibit at least some of the above characteristics. The great fog of nasty distractions which descended on society just after the last federal election had the effect of forcing a deviation from ideal operation of this ponderous system and is now showing signs of lifting and carrying with it this effect, so that the system can now revert to its far-from-perfect ideal behaviour.
"The issues are once more front and centre, free of the nasty distractions. If this continues, there's plenty of time before September to have a proper debate on policy"
Is politics about issues? Do we live in a functioning democracy? Are we distracted by these distractions and what is so nasty about them? Was the implied state where issues were not front and centre because of these nasty distractions a normal state or an aberration? Do we have a concept or template for shedding sufficient light on these questions to reveal their answer.
Take care Mr. Grasshopper, you are in danger of confusing yourself.
If a functioning democracy consists of an enlightened polity who debate important issues at length, test solutions to problems arrising from these issues and inform leaders how they must proceed, such that optimum courses of action are always pursued and the greater good increases, then there is no way we live in a functioning democracy. In such a system politics can only be about issues.
However, the system we live under is notionally labeled a democracy, with absolutely propagandistic cheek, and should therefore exhibit at least some of the above characteristics. The great fog of nasty distractions which descended on society just after the last federal election had the effect of forcing a deviation from ideal operation of this ponderous system and is now showing signs of lifting and carrying with it this effect, so that the system can now revert to its far-from-perfect ideal behaviour.
Friday 26 April 2013
The Great Clown of Queensland........
Is Clive Palmer the saviour of ALP electoral success in September?
In announcing the formation of the Uniting Australia Party to contest the next federal election, with identical (or almost) policies to the Liberal Party our favorite mining magnate with delusions of grandeur has potentially split the conservative vote a third way.
Conservative voters will now have the mouthwatering choice between the LNP represented by Tony Abbott and his Clayton policies on every imaginable issue, Bob Katter with his unknown policies, and now Clive Palmer with his modified Clayton Liberal policies. My mouth salivates.
If the conservative vote were split evenly (never going to happen) between these three alternatives the ALP would make a killing in September.
The light on the hill may have just received a burst of flammable gas.
In announcing the formation of the Uniting Australia Party to contest the next federal election, with identical (or almost) policies to the Liberal Party our favorite mining magnate with delusions of grandeur has potentially split the conservative vote a third way.
Conservative voters will now have the mouthwatering choice between the LNP represented by Tony Abbott and his Clayton policies on every imaginable issue, Bob Katter with his unknown policies, and now Clive Palmer with his modified Clayton Liberal policies. My mouth salivates.
If the conservative vote were split evenly (never going to happen) between these three alternatives the ALP would make a killing in September.
The light on the hill may have just received a burst of flammable gas.
Tuesday 23 April 2013
I Can't Believe......
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4646276.html
"Power is not meant for bureaucratic hands"
POWER IN BUREAUCRATIC HANDS IS THE ONLY THING THAT PROTECTS SOCIETY FROM RADICAL NEOLIBERAL FREE MARKETEERS SUCH AS chris berg .
CONTRARY TO HIS BELIEFS IT IS AN OBSERVABLE FACT, OBVIOUS TO AN OPEN MINDED RENAISSANCE MAN SUCH AS MYSELF THAT THE MARKET IS A HARLOT WHO/WHICH NEEDS TO BE CONTROLLED, AND THAT OPEN SLATHER COMPETION IS ALWAYS A BAD IDEA.
I can't believe the crap that is given credence via publication.
Rather, I fully understand the need for the ABC to publish ALL opinions. Given this, I congratulate the ABC for none-the-less refraining from publishing the rabid shockjock opinions extant on talkback radio.
I follow Chris Berg. I've read his book- have it on my kindle so I can re-read it when necessary- and I always read his articles on the Drum website. He is a highly articulate and intelligent person who deserves to be published.
His association with a right wing think tank: The Institute of Public Affairs, means that everything he says must be viewed through the sepia-glass of right-wing bias. Most people do not possess this sepia-glass and so someone who does possess such a tool must step into the void to maintain the balance.
I note that Mungo McCallum does a good job of this. Jeff Sparrow jumps in now and again. Greg Jericho, whose book on the fifth estate is a good read, goes into battle on a weekly basis, in a lucid and persuasive stile backed up by lots of data proving his points. How can any one argue with observations backed up data to prove and show it. Chris Berg always finds a way.
Did I hear someone say "What is your Point?"
Yes Mr Grasshopper we can always remain relatively content that the opinions of the Right will be balanced by the real opinions of the Left in such a way that a middle road is followed in the public discourse.We must remain forever vigilant that this process is achieved. If not our ponderous democratic system is in peril and we are all in danger.
"Power is not meant for bureaucratic hands"
POWER IN BUREAUCRATIC HANDS IS THE ONLY THING THAT PROTECTS SOCIETY FROM RADICAL NEOLIBERAL FREE MARKETEERS SUCH AS chris berg .
CONTRARY TO HIS BELIEFS IT IS AN OBSERVABLE FACT, OBVIOUS TO AN OPEN MINDED RENAISSANCE MAN SUCH AS MYSELF THAT THE MARKET IS A HARLOT WHO/WHICH NEEDS TO BE CONTROLLED, AND THAT OPEN SLATHER COMPETION IS ALWAYS A BAD IDEA.
I can't believe the crap that is given credence via publication.
Rather, I fully understand the need for the ABC to publish ALL opinions. Given this, I congratulate the ABC for none-the-less refraining from publishing the rabid shockjock opinions extant on talkback radio.
I follow Chris Berg. I've read his book- have it on my kindle so I can re-read it when necessary- and I always read his articles on the Drum website. He is a highly articulate and intelligent person who deserves to be published.
His association with a right wing think tank: The Institute of Public Affairs, means that everything he says must be viewed through the sepia-glass of right-wing bias. Most people do not possess this sepia-glass and so someone who does possess such a tool must step into the void to maintain the balance.
I note that Mungo McCallum does a good job of this. Jeff Sparrow jumps in now and again. Greg Jericho, whose book on the fifth estate is a good read, goes into battle on a weekly basis, in a lucid and persuasive stile backed up by lots of data proving his points. How can any one argue with observations backed up data to prove and show it. Chris Berg always finds a way.
Did I hear someone say "What is your Point?"
Yes Mr Grasshopper we can always remain relatively content that the opinions of the Right will be balanced by the real opinions of the Left in such a way that a middle road is followed in the public discourse.We must remain forever vigilant that this process is achieved. If not our ponderous democratic system is in peril and we are all in danger.
Those Who Ignore The Lessons of the Past.....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-19/wright-a-fallen-superpower-distracts-itself-with-the-past/4639658
"We were the dominant superpower in the world pretty much without the use of electricity or the petrol engine. We are the grown-up always harking back to high school. Wouldn't it be great if we could go back to 1895?! We could send a gunboat into the IMF and shell it with impunity! That's a way to deal with economic ruin at home!
But we can't do that anymore. The most offensive thing we can send in is George Osborne or if it's really hopeless Tony Blair. (As Middle East Peace Envoy, it's a bit like sending a pyromaniac to put a fire out.)
And so this week there was another explosion of pomp, uniforms, old buildings, and drunken protesters playing Falstaff all adding up to a nice advert for tourists to come see "all that history" as a divisive prime minister "who made Britain great again" was laid to rest."
This is a beautiful piece. It says a lot about England and the EU.
In a democracy the final decision of the majority has to be accepted. Right or wrong, far-seeing or shortsighted, positive or negative, when the electorate speaks either accept the consequences or move overseas. The fall of England and Europe from economic dominance is now a fact of history.Only Germany, the loser of two world wars, has been able to rise above the pack, but fortunately is shackled by the bureaucracy and obligations associated with it's leadership of the EU.
England is a basket-case precisely because it chose to become one by embracing Thatcherism with open arms. A brief interlude with 'New Labour' did not help matters and now, in the wake of the GFC, and in meek obeisance to its EU partners, it continues to elect week conservative governments who maintain the main elements of Thatcherism to this day.
There exists a baffling belief in the efficacy and truth exhibited by a thoroughly discredited macroeconomic philosophy. I speak of the Austrian school of macroeconomics personified by the teachings of a man called Von Hayek. The austerity policies imposed by the ruling elites of the EU have now doomed Europe to economic malaise and decrepitude for generations. Even if more enlightened economic policies were adopted tomorrow, three years of this economic Hayekian madness has created an underclass of unemployed people which over the space of those three years will have been rendered unemployable, or designated Long Term Unemployed (LTU). Once this is allowed to happen the economy can not recover without expensive and time-consuming retraining programs, spanning a generation, importation of foreign labour, or some combination of these elements. There is no other way.
Europe is exhibiting the effects of going down the road of macroeconomic policies which focus on markets rather than people. The verbiage is all about interest rates, profits, yields and invisible hands. These policies ignore the fact that economies consist of entities exchanging goods and services such that they are economically entwined in such a way that the prosperity of each entity is dependent on the prosperity of those it is entwined with. These policies are stupid and the demise of Europe as a source of economic prosperity is in the process of proving this stupidity
It's sad to watch and the plight of the LTU underclass is heartrending.
In the meantime, on the other side of the Atlantic, the conservative forces who promote and employ these discredited policies only controls the tools of legislation, creating an environment where, any progressive attempt at legislation has to be snuck finessed and finaggled through, because if you calmly explain to these people the benefits of what you propose, they vote it down. In other word they are incapable of seeing reason, no matter what you say. The forces of progress are in control at the top and the country is moving forward at a pace which, while being far below what could be achieved if the tools were in their hands, is inevitably slow given the circumstances.
I've been sensing a hint of revolution in the air since the private debt of the banks was unfairly rendered public through massive bailouts and the lower reaches of the socio-economic pyramid forced to pay it of through austerity and taxes.
God gets what God wants. God help us.
"We were the dominant superpower in the world pretty much without the use of electricity or the petrol engine. We are the grown-up always harking back to high school. Wouldn't it be great if we could go back to 1895?! We could send a gunboat into the IMF and shell it with impunity! That's a way to deal with economic ruin at home!
But we can't do that anymore. The most offensive thing we can send in is George Osborne or if it's really hopeless Tony Blair. (As Middle East Peace Envoy, it's a bit like sending a pyromaniac to put a fire out.)
And so this week there was another explosion of pomp, uniforms, old buildings, and drunken protesters playing Falstaff all adding up to a nice advert for tourists to come see "all that history" as a divisive prime minister "who made Britain great again" was laid to rest."
This is a beautiful piece. It says a lot about England and the EU.
In a democracy the final decision of the majority has to be accepted. Right or wrong, far-seeing or shortsighted, positive or negative, when the electorate speaks either accept the consequences or move overseas. The fall of England and Europe from economic dominance is now a fact of history.Only Germany, the loser of two world wars, has been able to rise above the pack, but fortunately is shackled by the bureaucracy and obligations associated with it's leadership of the EU.
England is a basket-case precisely because it chose to become one by embracing Thatcherism with open arms. A brief interlude with 'New Labour' did not help matters and now, in the wake of the GFC, and in meek obeisance to its EU partners, it continues to elect week conservative governments who maintain the main elements of Thatcherism to this day.
There exists a baffling belief in the efficacy and truth exhibited by a thoroughly discredited macroeconomic philosophy. I speak of the Austrian school of macroeconomics personified by the teachings of a man called Von Hayek. The austerity policies imposed by the ruling elites of the EU have now doomed Europe to economic malaise and decrepitude for generations. Even if more enlightened economic policies were adopted tomorrow, three years of this economic Hayekian madness has created an underclass of unemployed people which over the space of those three years will have been rendered unemployable, or designated Long Term Unemployed (LTU). Once this is allowed to happen the economy can not recover without expensive and time-consuming retraining programs, spanning a generation, importation of foreign labour, or some combination of these elements. There is no other way.
Europe is exhibiting the effects of going down the road of macroeconomic policies which focus on markets rather than people. The verbiage is all about interest rates, profits, yields and invisible hands. These policies ignore the fact that economies consist of entities exchanging goods and services such that they are economically entwined in such a way that the prosperity of each entity is dependent on the prosperity of those it is entwined with. These policies are stupid and the demise of Europe as a source of economic prosperity is in the process of proving this stupidity
It's sad to watch and the plight of the LTU underclass is heartrending.
In the meantime, on the other side of the Atlantic, the conservative forces who promote and employ these discredited policies only controls the tools of legislation, creating an environment where, any progressive attempt at legislation has to be snuck finessed and finaggled through, because if you calmly explain to these people the benefits of what you propose, they vote it down. In other word they are incapable of seeing reason, no matter what you say. The forces of progress are in control at the top and the country is moving forward at a pace which, while being far below what could be achieved if the tools were in their hands, is inevitably slow given the circumstances.
I've been sensing a hint of revolution in the air since the private debt of the banks was unfairly rendered public through massive bailouts and the lower reaches of the socio-economic pyramid forced to pay it of through austerity and taxes.
God gets what God wants. God help us.
Monday 22 April 2013
Markets Marked
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-22/janda-auto-subsidies-should-stay-for-now/4640226
"Holden's decision to slice another 500 jobs from its already much diminished workforce has again reignited debate on whether the Australian, South Australian and Victorian governments should drop their support for the auto industry.
Orthodox free-market economists argue that such assistance prevents the most efficient allocation of resources in the economy from taking place, causing a loss in output for society as a whole."
Can't let this one go through to the keeper. My posts lately spoke of the abject failure of an experimental free market in carbon emissions to modify the behaviour of consumers, demonstrated clearly by the collapse of the carbon price in the EU carbon trading market.
Our lives are controlled by neoliberal free-marketeers who continuously muddy the waters and actively prevent the establishment of the Keynsian Capitalist Utopia.
Let us debate the proposition that "The market is a harlot and free competition is a bad idea"
"Holden's decision to slice another 500 jobs from its already much diminished workforce has again reignited debate on whether the Australian, South Australian and Victorian governments should drop their support for the auto industry.
Orthodox free-market economists argue that such assistance prevents the most efficient allocation of resources in the economy from taking place, causing a loss in output for society as a whole."
Can't let this one go through to the keeper. My posts lately spoke of the abject failure of an experimental free market in carbon emissions to modify the behaviour of consumers, demonstrated clearly by the collapse of the carbon price in the EU carbon trading market.
Our lives are controlled by neoliberal free-marketeers who continuously muddy the waters and actively prevent the establishment of the Keynsian Capitalist Utopia.
Let us debate the proposition that "The market is a harlot and free competition is a bad idea"
Sunday 21 April 2013
'Thus spake Zarathustra'
"The jubilation across the Tasman as New Zealand authorised same-sex
marriage throws into stark contrast the awful mess into which Labor has
plunged itself here."
Jeff Sparrow is always lucid.
They say Nero played his fiddle placidly while Rome burned.
Would someone please ask "What the f@#$%^k do you mean by that?"?
Mr. Grasshopper. There are many more pressing matters to attend to. This side-show is all very well, and I congratulate the gay activists for there skill in stirring up sufficient ground swell to peak in NZ and Tasmania, but it must be recognized as a side-show with the potential to distract our attention from matters of more import.
My last post mentioned that solution to these problems will require intense focus for extended periods over many terms of government. They are pressingly urgent, need to be solved yesterday.
Can we please get on with the main game now.
Jeff Sparrow is always lucid.
They say Nero played his fiddle placidly while Rome burned.
Would someone please ask "What the f@#$%^k do you mean by that?"?
Mr. Grasshopper. There are many more pressing matters to attend to. This side-show is all very well, and I congratulate the gay activists for there skill in stirring up sufficient ground swell to peak in NZ and Tasmania, but it must be recognized as a side-show with the potential to distract our attention from matters of more import.
My last post mentioned that solution to these problems will require intense focus for extended periods over many terms of government. They are pressingly urgent, need to be solved yesterday.
Can we please get on with the main game now.
But wait there is more.
Further to yesterday's post and the failure of market driven processes to produce a sustainable Economy, it worries me somewhat that I see so much hoo-hah in the media about fossil fuels. I even heard about a pilot carbon capture electricity generator in the US. In the mean time I hear a lot about fracking, shale oil, Coal Seam Gas, Gas and oil hubs, new oil reserves.
What we should be hearing about is technological advances which increase the efficiency of solar cells, projects to build massive solar panel arrays in the world's deserts, advances in nuclear fusion technology, the discovery of new sources of energy...etc.
Seems to me someone has lost the plot. We need to focus on this problem for an extended period 100%.
Right Now.
What we should be hearing about is technological advances which increase the efficiency of solar cells, projects to build massive solar panel arrays in the world's deserts, advances in nuclear fusion technology, the discovery of new sources of energy...etc.
Seems to me someone has lost the plot. We need to focus on this problem for an extended period 100%.
Right Now.
Saturday 20 April 2013
What a Scam
We've all been duped and scammed.
I can't decide whether to start at the end result or the beginning way back in the sixties. The greenhouse effect was recognised as a threat 40-50 years ago. Its existence was debated in academic circles, even though its existence is proven by some very simple chemistry and physics (so why the need for all this debate?). Whether there was a need or not, or whatever, these events occured in this sequence, the end result being that it was belatedly realised that us humans had to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent gases or face ecological armageddon.
Methods of achieving this result were debated and the neoliberal free-market ideologues prevailed. Under their preferred method the behaviour of fossil-fuel consumers should be modified by market forces and there invisible hands. If we set up a market for carbon emissions a sustainable economy would result through the action of the invisible hand.
A carbon market was duly set up in the European Union; the first test of the above hypothesis. Australia's carbon trading system is linked to the EU carbon market.
Last week the price on carbon emissions in the EU carbon market fell to $4 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The proposed starting price for such emissions in the Australian Carbon market is $23. I hope no one who reads this needs to have the consequences of such a price differential explained to them.
So. We were informed and persuaded, wined and dined, bedded and screwed, into believing in the power of an unfettered market to deliver our needs through the machinations of the invisible hand.
This is what the free marketeers delivered after, if you will recall, a sustainable economy.
I can't decide whether to start at the end result or the beginning way back in the sixties. The greenhouse effect was recognised as a threat 40-50 years ago. Its existence was debated in academic circles, even though its existence is proven by some very simple chemistry and physics (so why the need for all this debate?). Whether there was a need or not, or whatever, these events occured in this sequence, the end result being that it was belatedly realised that us humans had to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent gases or face ecological armageddon.
Methods of achieving this result were debated and the neoliberal free-market ideologues prevailed. Under their preferred method the behaviour of fossil-fuel consumers should be modified by market forces and there invisible hands. If we set up a market for carbon emissions a sustainable economy would result through the action of the invisible hand.
A carbon market was duly set up in the European Union; the first test of the above hypothesis. Australia's carbon trading system is linked to the EU carbon market.
Last week the price on carbon emissions in the EU carbon market fell to $4 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The proposed starting price for such emissions in the Australian Carbon market is $23. I hope no one who reads this needs to have the consequences of such a price differential explained to them.
So. We were informed and persuaded, wined and dined, bedded and screwed, into believing in the power of an unfettered market to deliver our needs through the machinations of the invisible hand.
This is what the free marketeers delivered after, if you will recall, a sustainable economy.
Friday 19 April 2013
To Gonski or not to Gonski. That Mr. Grasshopper is the 100 billion dollar question
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-19/cassidy-gonski-funding-is-an-offer-too-good-to-refuse/4636794
"While raiding university funding to pay for the Gonski reforms hasn't helped the Federal Government's case, the premiers will find it hard to say no."
I fear that you underestimate the willfulness of our silly stuck-up twat of a LNP Premier, who no doubt still plays tennis poorly. Ah the nostalgia. Sepia-shrouded memories of playing pennants on Saturdays with Collin Barnett. On the same team no less. This could be the only time in history when a self confessed radical lefty played on the same team as a pillar of the far right. Why, you might ask, did these two particles not annihilate each other in a puff of self-inflicted oxymoronity, as particles of matter and antimatter are wont to do? The answer lies in the bin with the other great mysteries of life which must be pondered independently at one's own expense and on one's time.
"While raiding university funding to pay for the Gonski reforms hasn't helped the Federal Government's case, the premiers will find it hard to say no."
I fear that you underestimate the willfulness of our silly stuck-up twat of a LNP Premier, who no doubt still plays tennis poorly. Ah the nostalgia. Sepia-shrouded memories of playing pennants on Saturdays with Collin Barnett. On the same team no less. This could be the only time in history when a self confessed radical lefty played on the same team as a pillar of the far right. Why, you might ask, did these two particles not annihilate each other in a puff of self-inflicted oxymoronity, as particles of matter and antimatter are wont to do? The answer lies in the bin with the other great mysteries of life which must be pondered independently at one's own expense and on one's time.
Wednesday 17 April 2013
Requiem for the Boston Marathon
You didn't deserve to be blown up.
It was inflicted on you any way.
Your recovery will be swift and strong and you will return to the world stage in a better condition to continue exerting your influence.
It was inflicted on you any way.
Your recovery will be swift and strong and you will return to the world stage in a better condition to continue exerting your influence.
Tuesday 16 April 2013
Still Can't Get Over It
A Woman dies and her grave is danced upon by all and sundry
People of the centre left, neoconservative and/or neoliberal to whatever degree, but in all truth and honesty labeled as progressive, are by definition compassionate and kindly so would never dream of this no matter what her perceived biases, sins or achievements.
Would someone please explain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh that's right. Events such as this alter the general state of apathy ennui and innertia in the facebook twitosphere.
Something to say other that "I'm washing my dog......isn't he cute" amongst other world shaking revelations.
********************************************************************************
At the time, from a sterile vantage on the opposite side of the world, Little of Maggie's shenanigans were perceivable except in the realm of foreign policy. A defining characteristic of regimes of this ilk is their single-minded dismantling of secondary manufacturing economic systems, with the intent of stimulating in a proactive manner their evolutionary transformation to the tertiary state of economic being ( this logic string implies the existence of a quaterrnary economic state whose characteristics are not really predicable from a point inside a tertiary system) characterised by the dominance of service industries. To this end, policies are created or adopted which, either directly or indirectly eliminate manufacturing firms from the economy.
There is only one exception to this wholesale elimination and that is those factories and firms whose sole function is to develop and produce weapons.
Which brings us back to Maggie Mae's foreign policy.The Harrier Jump Jet had been developed for deployment on the British Navy and at the time of the Falklands War was at the prototype-further-testing-required phase.
What a great idea. In stead of taking it out to an empty place, firing it up and observing what it can do, let's take it down south and smack some Argentinians around, in the process stirring up such a furor of patriotic, nationalistic neocolonial sentiment that I am forced back into the highest office in the land (much to my feigned ambivalence) by a landslide vote of truly seismic dimensions, for a further five year term as the savior of the Falklands Colony, and the hero of the Falklands War. Everybody wants to be a national hero in their heart of hearts, and here was a godgiven way of achieving this outcome without getting shot or shot at
Maggie must have thought that all her Christmases had come at once.
People of the centre left, neoconservative and/or neoliberal to whatever degree, but in all truth and honesty labeled as progressive, are by definition compassionate and kindly so would never dream of this no matter what her perceived biases, sins or achievements.
Would someone please explain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh that's right. Events such as this alter the general state of apathy ennui and innertia in the facebook twitosphere.
Something to say other that "I'm washing my dog......isn't he cute" amongst other world shaking revelations.
********************************************************************************
At the time, from a sterile vantage on the opposite side of the world, Little of Maggie's shenanigans were perceivable except in the realm of foreign policy. A defining characteristic of regimes of this ilk is their single-minded dismantling of secondary manufacturing economic systems, with the intent of stimulating in a proactive manner their evolutionary transformation to the tertiary state of economic being ( this logic string implies the existence of a quaterrnary economic state whose characteristics are not really predicable from a point inside a tertiary system) characterised by the dominance of service industries. To this end, policies are created or adopted which, either directly or indirectly eliminate manufacturing firms from the economy.
There is only one exception to this wholesale elimination and that is those factories and firms whose sole function is to develop and produce weapons.
Which brings us back to Maggie Mae's foreign policy.The Harrier Jump Jet had been developed for deployment on the British Navy and at the time of the Falklands War was at the prototype-further-testing-required phase.
What a great idea. In stead of taking it out to an empty place, firing it up and observing what it can do, let's take it down south and smack some Argentinians around, in the process stirring up such a furor of patriotic, nationalistic neocolonial sentiment that I am forced back into the highest office in the land (much to my feigned ambivalence) by a landslide vote of truly seismic dimensions, for a further five year term as the savior of the Falklands Colony, and the hero of the Falklands War. Everybody wants to be a national hero in their heart of hearts, and here was a godgiven way of achieving this outcome without getting shot or shot at
Maggie must have thought that all her Christmases had come at once.
Saturday 13 April 2013
Ding Dong The witch is dead; hubble bubble toil and trouble; The Passing of a Great One; Which will it be
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4620464.html
"The masses are divided. In one camp, it's a postmodern Wizard of Oz redux - "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" and "olay, olay, olay" soccer strains are sound-tracking booze-fuelled festivities and relief tweets.
The other camp is playing it sombre. Genteel. They're playing the like-her-or-loathe-her-the-dead-deserve-respect card. That the dead deserve not to have their proverbial graves tap-danced upon. That now, apparently, isn't the time to ask too many questions."
I've been following the reaction to the death of Maggie Mae. A lively discussion is taking place on 'The Conversation. Someone asked the question of whether her domestic policies, ie Thatcherism, changed Britain. I just couldn't let that one go.
If results and consequences are any indication the answer is yes, in a bad way. Thatcherism, with its denial of the concept of society and its Geckoesque individualism and greed played a large role in precipitating the GFC. It continues to thrive as a major plank in the platform of the British Conservative Party. Its blind application in the wake of the crisis, focusing on Hayekian austerity has left Britain staring down the barrel of a triple dip recession, a generation of unemployed people.
Judging from the above observable facts, her effect was pronounced, profound, far-reaching, polarisingly divisive, and above all deeply negative for all but the social ruling elite which she represented.
Tony Blair was quoted condemning the 'ding dong the witch is dead' street parties springing up everywhere celebrating her death. Show some respect for the dead spake Blair. My initial response was to agree with him. Stripping the better progressive instincts from the forefront of my being I valiantly tried to keep an open mind. After all the record does indeed show that she was elected by at least a clear majority of British society as Prime Minister for three consecutive five-year terms, the implication being that a clear majority approved of her policies. Then reality set in. Looking with an objective eye on the Britain of the seventies and today's Britain, one can easily come to the view that every difference, socially, economically or politically has a negative vector attached. Britain today is a worse place than it was.
"The masses are divided. In one camp, it's a postmodern Wizard of Oz redux - "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" and "olay, olay, olay" soccer strains are sound-tracking booze-fuelled festivities and relief tweets.
The other camp is playing it sombre. Genteel. They're playing the like-her-or-loathe-her-the-dead-deserve-respect card. That the dead deserve not to have their proverbial graves tap-danced upon. That now, apparently, isn't the time to ask too many questions."
I've been following the reaction to the death of Maggie Mae. A lively discussion is taking place on 'The Conversation. Someone asked the question of whether her domestic policies, ie Thatcherism, changed Britain. I just couldn't let that one go.
If results and consequences are any indication the answer is yes, in a bad way. Thatcherism, with its denial of the concept of society and its Geckoesque individualism and greed played a large role in precipitating the GFC. It continues to thrive as a major plank in the platform of the British Conservative Party. Its blind application in the wake of the crisis, focusing on Hayekian austerity has left Britain staring down the barrel of a triple dip recession, a generation of unemployed people.
Judging from the above observable facts, her effect was pronounced, profound, far-reaching, polarisingly divisive, and above all deeply negative for all but the social ruling elite which she represented.
Tony Blair was quoted condemning the 'ding dong the witch is dead' street parties springing up everywhere celebrating her death. Show some respect for the dead spake Blair. My initial response was to agree with him. Stripping the better progressive instincts from the forefront of my being I valiantly tried to keep an open mind. After all the record does indeed show that she was elected by at least a clear majority of British society as Prime Minister for three consecutive five-year terms, the implication being that a clear majority approved of her policies. Then reality set in. Looking with an objective eye on the Britain of the seventies and today's Britain, one can easily come to the view that every difference, socially, economically or politically has a negative vector attached. Britain today is a worse place than it was.
More on the Passing of Maggie Mae
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-10/baird-thatcher-paved-the-way-for-one-woman/4620668
What a polarising girl. How Cute!!!!!!!!!!!
What a polarising girl. How Cute!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday 10 April 2013
Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4618576.html
"Last month the ABS released its attempt to determine the relative level of advantage and disadvantage across the nation on the basis of information contained in the 2011 census. Its Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage takes into account not only income but also such aspects as overcrowding in homes, people's occupations, the number of cars per household, the number of households with single parents, and also the number with no internet connection.
The index provides a score for each geographical area (from 0 to around 1,250 - the higher the score the higher the advantage), which allows for areas of various size to be compared. The ABS has compiled this data to the level of SA1 - i.e. areas with an average population of 400 people each. This allows for an incredibly detailed picture of cities and major areas within Australia. They have also converted the data into Google Earth, with dark blue denoting "most advantageous" and dark red "most disadvantaged"
Greg Jericho informative as always
"Last month the ABS released its attempt to determine the relative level of advantage and disadvantage across the nation on the basis of information contained in the 2011 census. Its Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage takes into account not only income but also such aspects as overcrowding in homes, people's occupations, the number of cars per household, the number of households with single parents, and also the number with no internet connection.
The index provides a score for each geographical area (from 0 to around 1,250 - the higher the score the higher the advantage), which allows for areas of various size to be compared. The ABS has compiled this data to the level of SA1 - i.e. areas with an average population of 400 people each. This allows for an incredibly detailed picture of cities and major areas within Australia. They have also converted the data into Google Earth, with dark blue denoting "most advantageous" and dark red "most disadvantaged"
Greg Jericho informative as always
China
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4615756.html
"the Chinese leader who brought China to the heart of global politics was not Chairman Mao, but the faded and reviled figure of Chiang Kai-shek, his Nationalist predecessor.
If Chiang is remembered at all, it is as a corrupt and incompetent leader whose greed led the Americans to nickname him "Cash-my-Check". Yet in recent years, Chiang's status in the People's Republic, the state founded by his deadly enemy Mao, has risen as his homeland acknowledges his contribution to the Allied effort in World War II."
Way back in my callow youth as I studied the modern history of China I came to identical conclusions. Not about 'Cash-my-Check' but about his colleague and predecessor Sun Yat-Sen. There was a brief period, prior to the untimely, tragic and unfortunate death of this man through natural causes, when China was shakily on track towards a western style polity of some description, although recent research has indicated that even Sun Yat-Sen would not entertain the possibility of a liberal democracy as he is found to have said that the Chinese people are historically and culturally unequipped for aught but authoritarian styled government.
Bare in mind that this article is by an academic historian specialising in this area.
I have at least a modicum of interest and knowledge here and 'Cash-My-Check' was a monster who unleashed his green shirt assassin brigade on the unsuspecting communist faction of the then highly polarised national assembly, called by Sun Yat-Sen to extract some form of national government out of the turmoil of post-empire warlordism which then existed in China, precipitating the long march and the death of a large number of his own countrymen.
On his defeat in the ensuing Chinese Civil War and retreat to the island of Taiwan he inflicted a bloody purge on the inhabitants, killing tens of thousands of innocent people.
Its all very well to point out inadvertent and unintentional historical consequences of his actions, and these are valid and fascinating points, but you still can't apologise for the evil of this man.
"the Chinese leader who brought China to the heart of global politics was not Chairman Mao, but the faded and reviled figure of Chiang Kai-shek, his Nationalist predecessor.
If Chiang is remembered at all, it is as a corrupt and incompetent leader whose greed led the Americans to nickname him "Cash-my-Check". Yet in recent years, Chiang's status in the People's Republic, the state founded by his deadly enemy Mao, has risen as his homeland acknowledges his contribution to the Allied effort in World War II."
Way back in my callow youth as I studied the modern history of China I came to identical conclusions. Not about 'Cash-my-Check' but about his colleague and predecessor Sun Yat-Sen. There was a brief period, prior to the untimely, tragic and unfortunate death of this man through natural causes, when China was shakily on track towards a western style polity of some description, although recent research has indicated that even Sun Yat-Sen would not entertain the possibility of a liberal democracy as he is found to have said that the Chinese people are historically and culturally unequipped for aught but authoritarian styled government.
Bare in mind that this article is by an academic historian specialising in this area.
I have at least a modicum of interest and knowledge here and 'Cash-My-Check' was a monster who unleashed his green shirt assassin brigade on the unsuspecting communist faction of the then highly polarised national assembly, called by Sun Yat-Sen to extract some form of national government out of the turmoil of post-empire warlordism which then existed in China, precipitating the long march and the death of a large number of his own countrymen.
On his defeat in the ensuing Chinese Civil War and retreat to the island of Taiwan he inflicted a bloody purge on the inhabitants, killing tens of thousands of innocent people.
Its all very well to point out inadvertent and unintentional historical consequences of his actions, and these are valid and fascinating points, but you still can't apologise for the evil of this man.
Reactionary Populism
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4615260.html
"Labor's embrace of economic rationalism precipitated its current identity crisis."
"Hawke and Keating's embrace of economic rationalism wrong-footed the Liberals in opposition and they too struggled to determine their agenda in an era in which Labor appeared to have stolen their thunder."
Tony Abbott it has adopted a new course; that of reactionary populism. While Abbott may well support many of Howard's policy prescriptions, this doctor is more about "no".
Abbott's Liberal Party is committed to destroying the Labor government, whatever it takes. If this means disowning initiatives of the Howard era or contradicting long-held Liberal policy, so be it."
Both political parties have reached a nadir of market differentiation that makes a mockery of the barest concept of democracy. If you vote for either of these parties you get the same set of policies in all important areas.
Could the Greens form government as the new progressive party of the left?
"Labor's embrace of economic rationalism precipitated its current identity crisis."
"Hawke and Keating's embrace of economic rationalism wrong-footed the Liberals in opposition and they too struggled to determine their agenda in an era in which Labor appeared to have stolen their thunder."
Tony Abbott it has adopted a new course; that of reactionary populism. While Abbott may well support many of Howard's policy prescriptions, this doctor is more about "no".
Abbott's Liberal Party is committed to destroying the Labor government, whatever it takes. If this means disowning initiatives of the Howard era or contradicting long-held Liberal policy, so be it."
Both political parties have reached a nadir of market differentiation that makes a mockery of the barest concept of democracy. If you vote for either of these parties you get the same set of policies in all important areas.
Could the Greens form government as the new progressive party of the left?
Tuesday 9 April 2013
Quotables
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4615654.html
"great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes: 'I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilisation.'"
Pardon me for feigning naivety but how is it that the minority plutosphere (all definite collective nouns may now be denoted by words composed of a Latin prefix indicating the defining characteristic of the collective referred to followed by the suffix '-sphere') are blind to the inarguable, demonstrable, purely objective truth of this.
"Murray Rothbard: 'Taxation is theft.'"
"great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes: 'I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilisation.'"
Pardon me for feigning naivety but how is it that the minority plutosphere (all definite collective nouns may now be denoted by words composed of a Latin prefix indicating the defining characteristic of the collective referred to followed by the suffix '-sphere') are blind to the inarguable, demonstrable, purely objective truth of this.
"Murray Rothbard: 'Taxation is theft.'"
'Class Warfare' or Rational Redistribution
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4615654.htm
"Sloan would recoil from the mere suggestion: new taxes are bad, by definition. She clearly belongs to the anarcho-capitalist school of economics which enjoyed a brief boom in the middle of the last century under such luminaries as Murray Rothbard, whose motto was: "Taxation is theft."
"Tony Abbott declared flatly: "This is a government which is prepared to tax the people to fund its own spending."
Well, duh. Governments levy taxes to fund their programs - to build schools and hospitals, run the defence force, and look after the needy by setting up a national Disabilities Insurance Scheme, which Abbott whole-heartedly approves. Taxation is not theft; it is not even a necessary evil. It is a public good, without which we would lapse into ... well, anarcho-capitalism, the law of the jungle, red in tooth and claw."
Good old Mungo.
As I have been saying here and elsewhere for quite some time now, the answer to most of the world's problems is to tax the wealthy in an equitable manner and actually-for-real use the revenue for the improvement of the common good, while adopting pure Keynsian economic policies.
It's all been done before.
If this is 'class warfare' then bring it on.
"Sloan would recoil from the mere suggestion: new taxes are bad, by definition. She clearly belongs to the anarcho-capitalist school of economics which enjoyed a brief boom in the middle of the last century under such luminaries as Murray Rothbard, whose motto was: "Taxation is theft."
"Tony Abbott declared flatly: "This is a government which is prepared to tax the people to fund its own spending."
Well, duh. Governments levy taxes to fund their programs - to build schools and hospitals, run the defence force, and look after the needy by setting up a national Disabilities Insurance Scheme, which Abbott whole-heartedly approves. Taxation is not theft; it is not even a necessary evil. It is a public good, without which we would lapse into ... well, anarcho-capitalism, the law of the jungle, red in tooth and claw."
Good old Mungo.
As I have been saying here and elsewhere for quite some time now, the answer to most of the world's problems is to tax the wealthy in an equitable manner and actually-for-real use the revenue for the improvement of the common good, while adopting pure Keynsian economic policies.
It's all been done before.
If this is 'class warfare' then bring it on.
Sunday 7 April 2013
Trends
The aftermath of the latest crisis of Capitalism labeled the GFC has seen a dramatic polarisation of politics in the West. France, Australia, and The USA have gone down the left road, characterised by NeoKeynesian economic policies focussed on government intervention in the market to stimulate the economy and create jobs, while Europe has veered to the right, inflicting Hayeckian austerity policies which have produced a triple dip recession in Britain, a generation of uderperforming economies, and a mass of unemployed.
Obama's re-ellection reignited the light on the hill in that country while the socialist regime in France is on a five year term. Here in Australia the light is threatened by the implosion of the ALP. None-the-less, if the Gillard government were judged on the number of progressive initiatives it has been able to push through, they would win easily in September. The fact that the opinion polls point to a rout, and they can't be that far off, has been generated by a dishonest spin campaign, and the electorate has swallowed it. A miracle could still happen. Media reports during the US election insisted on suggesting that the GOP had a good chance right up to the end.
Obama's re-ellection reignited the light on the hill in that country while the socialist regime in France is on a five year term. Here in Australia the light is threatened by the implosion of the ALP. None-the-less, if the Gillard government were judged on the number of progressive initiatives it has been able to push through, they would win easily in September. The fact that the opinion polls point to a rout, and they can't be that far off, has been generated by a dishonest spin campaign, and the electorate has swallowed it. A miracle could still happen. Media reports during the US election insisted on suggesting that the GOP had a good chance right up to the end.
Of Blogospheres and Pundospheres
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-04/green-insight-isnt-the-main-game-in-punditry/4607604
"The chaotic daily churn has left news organisations with gaping holes that political pundits are all too happy to fill. But don't assume they're motivated by a desire to inform..."
"Richard Cooke at the Monthly"
"Graham Richardson"
"Mark Latham in the Australian Financial Review"
So there is only little such thing as news now and instead we are being fed a modicum of what was once called 'news' followed by much 'punditry' epitomised by these examples.
Several thoughts spring to mind.
This 'chaotic daily churn' has sparse raison-d'etre except as an illustration of the evolutionary processs occurring in the fourth estate, initiated by the confluence of the IT revolution and the neoliberal paradigm. The neoliberal paradigm forces the fourth estate to compete within itself, producing winners and losers, as is inevitable. The winners bolster the fourth estate, increasing its quality and efficacy, while the losers retreat to form the blogosphere and the pundosphere, which together may be described as the Fifth Estate. ideally this is a description of the process, however nothing is ever ideal in this world.
Does this Fifth Estate have any influence on the democratic process? Does anyone pay any attention to what they say? I fear the answer is no, or more accurately, only to a small extent. The size of its readership and therefore the extent to which it influences public opinion can only be guessed at. The extent to which radio shock-jocks represent mainstream opinion, for instance, has been demonstrated to be relatively small. Together with what I have labeled the Fifth Estate, with which it overlaps to a greater or lesser extent, it seems to form a useful addition to the process.
On the issue of balance and bias, Richard Cooke must be assumed to be left of centre if he appears in the Monthly, which is often used as a podium for tirades against the right wing press and for cat fights amongst the intelligentsia of the left. This latter appears to be what is referred to here. His criticism of Richardson is probably valid, but this really isn't news.
I would have expected a lightning bolt from the gods of neocon plutocracy to smite the offices of the AFR for publishing Mark Latham, a scion of the far left who has rebranded himself as elder statesman of late, but then the AFR as does the ABC needs to project at least a facade of balance. Whether this is only a facade or is their actual state is a moot point. The reader of the AFR can safely ignore this article if they so wish as do I ignore anything written by Peter Reith or Amanda Vanstone on the Drum, while applauding them for publishing them in the interests of balanced journalism.
"The chaotic daily churn has left news organisations with gaping holes that political pundits are all too happy to fill. But don't assume they're motivated by a desire to inform..."
"Richard Cooke at the Monthly"
"Graham Richardson"
"Mark Latham in the Australian Financial Review"
So there is only little such thing as news now and instead we are being fed a modicum of what was once called 'news' followed by much 'punditry' epitomised by these examples.
Several thoughts spring to mind.
This 'chaotic daily churn' has sparse raison-d'etre except as an illustration of the evolutionary processs occurring in the fourth estate, initiated by the confluence of the IT revolution and the neoliberal paradigm. The neoliberal paradigm forces the fourth estate to compete within itself, producing winners and losers, as is inevitable. The winners bolster the fourth estate, increasing its quality and efficacy, while the losers retreat to form the blogosphere and the pundosphere, which together may be described as the Fifth Estate. ideally this is a description of the process, however nothing is ever ideal in this world.
Does this Fifth Estate have any influence on the democratic process? Does anyone pay any attention to what they say? I fear the answer is no, or more accurately, only to a small extent. The size of its readership and therefore the extent to which it influences public opinion can only be guessed at. The extent to which radio shock-jocks represent mainstream opinion, for instance, has been demonstrated to be relatively small. Together with what I have labeled the Fifth Estate, with which it overlaps to a greater or lesser extent, it seems to form a useful addition to the process.
On the issue of balance and bias, Richard Cooke must be assumed to be left of centre if he appears in the Monthly, which is often used as a podium for tirades against the right wing press and for cat fights amongst the intelligentsia of the left. This latter appears to be what is referred to here. His criticism of Richardson is probably valid, but this really isn't news.
I would have expected a lightning bolt from the gods of neocon plutocracy to smite the offices of the AFR for publishing Mark Latham, a scion of the far left who has rebranded himself as elder statesman of late, but then the AFR as does the ABC needs to project at least a facade of balance. Whether this is only a facade or is their actual state is a moot point. The reader of the AFR can safely ignore this article if they so wish as do I ignore anything written by Peter Reith or Amanda Vanstone on the Drum, while applauding them for publishing them in the interests of balanced journalism.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
A brilliant bit of sarcasm from Mungo MacCallum
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4603440.html
"It must be some small comfort to know that her enemies frequently adopt exactly the same approach. Is there anything sillier than to read in The Australian constant exhortations to Gillard to be more consultative, more ready to listen to abroad range of opinion, more - yes - tolerant of dissent? This, while every other page of the paper is devoted to Rupert Murdoch's Generalissimo Chris Mitchell's crusades against union bosses, the Greens, the ABC, the Fairfax press, public school teachers, intellectuals, chardonnay quaffers, latte sippers, political correctness, Julian Assange, Tim Flannery ...
But of course, that's all right. That's a free press just doing its job. Julia Gillard's in a quite different position. I mean, it's not as if Rupert Murdoch and Chris Mitchell are trying to run the country. Well, is it?"
Sadly true. In our darkest hour the ALP self-implodes leaving the country at the mercy of the forces of darkness. It may possibly be that an Abbott government will not be able to undo everything Gillard has done for the common good but I would rather not find out. There is no hope of this government winning another term according to many I speak to even in the face of the media. Is there a rabbit to be extracted from the bag?
"It must be some small comfort to know that her enemies frequently adopt exactly the same approach. Is there anything sillier than to read in The Australian constant exhortations to Gillard to be more consultative, more ready to listen to abroad range of opinion, more - yes - tolerant of dissent? This, while every other page of the paper is devoted to Rupert Murdoch's Generalissimo Chris Mitchell's crusades against union bosses, the Greens, the ABC, the Fairfax press, public school teachers, intellectuals, chardonnay quaffers, latte sippers, political correctness, Julian Assange, Tim Flannery ...
But of course, that's all right. That's a free press just doing its job. Julia Gillard's in a quite different position. I mean, it's not as if Rupert Murdoch and Chris Mitchell are trying to run the country. Well, is it?"
Sadly true. In our darkest hour the ALP self-implodes leaving the country at the mercy of the forces of darkness. It may possibly be that an Abbott government will not be able to undo everything Gillard has done for the common good but I would rather not find out. There is no hope of this government winning another term according to many I speak to even in the face of the media. Is there a rabbit to be extracted from the bag?
Friday 8 March 2013
'Law Enforcement' Post 9/11
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4558324.html
"the Obama administration's targeted killings program, under which terrorist suspects are taken out by drone strikes without any judicial process...the Cameron government's Justice and Security Bill, which would introduce secret courts for civil cases involving national security - in particular, claims of wrongdoing by British intelligence agencies."
Civil liberty advocates directly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks warned of this eventuality. Anyone on the planet can be targeted and eliminated by a US drone, for any reason.
"the Obama administration's targeted killings program, under which terrorist suspects are taken out by drone strikes without any judicial process...the Cameron government's Justice and Security Bill, which would introduce secret courts for civil cases involving national security - in particular, claims of wrongdoing by British intelligence agencies."
Civil liberty advocates directly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks warned of this eventuality. Anyone on the planet can be targeted and eliminated by a US drone, for any reason.
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Full Employment??????
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4553274.html
"The Treasurer - who appeared with Gillard at Rooty Hill - is fond of reminding us that Australia is at nearly full employment."
The neoclassical concept of full employment is hogwash. This holds that there is a residual unemployment rate arbitrarily guessed at 4-5% which is optimum for any macroeconomic equilibrium, and this level of unemployment is called 'full'. The 457 visa scheme should never come into play until this residue is employed. The adoption of this concept of full employment plays into the hands of the employers as they use it to justify importing labour rather than training up this residue.
"The Treasurer - who appeared with Gillard at Rooty Hill - is fond of reminding us that Australia is at nearly full employment."
The neoclassical concept of full employment is hogwash. This holds that there is a residual unemployment rate arbitrarily guessed at 4-5% which is optimum for any macroeconomic equilibrium, and this level of unemployment is called 'full'. The 457 visa scheme should never come into play until this residue is employed. The adoption of this concept of full employment plays into the hands of the employers as they use it to justify importing labour rather than training up this residue.
Neoliberalism in a nutshell
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4553254.html
"The Costello-Newman set of values is one in which a government's only purpose is to be efficient in a unit-per-output sense - where providing services to the public is a luxury to be outsourced to a private company."
This is extremist neoliberalism. If various experiments have been tried and demonstrably failed, why are we trying them again? To confirm the results of the first experiment?
"The Costello-Newman set of values is one in which a government's only purpose is to be efficient in a unit-per-output sense - where providing services to the public is a luxury to be outsourced to a private company."
This is extremist neoliberalism. If various experiments have been tried and demonstrably failed, why are we trying them again? To confirm the results of the first experiment?
Curiouser and curiouser in Queensland
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4553254.html
"The crux of the report is laid out on page 11 which outlines the role of government. It states that the Queensland Government should "provide core services such as policing, public safety, emergency and justice services, which have a strong public good element".
Everything else - including education, health, prisons, housing, community services and public transport - should be encouraged to be done by the private sector."
You can usually count on Greg Jericho to shed some light on things. If political polling is to be believed this is what the majority of Australians want for the entire country, assuming that those polled realise that election of an LNP government in Canberra will inflict an identical set of policies on the nation at large. Lewis and Woods presented the results of targeted polling showing a clear majority of Australians want the opposite flavour of policies so it would appear that this assumption is not realistic.
Election of an LNP government in Canberra would be an unmitigated disaster for this country on so many horizons that I would hope that the electorate delivers the appropriate result. The conflicting polls suggest both the existence of a silent majority which is never asked the question and an ALP unable to use the media as the tool it has become to get its message out. Does the electorate really want this result, which a vote for the LNP will inevitably deliver?
"The crux of the report is laid out on page 11 which outlines the role of government. It states that the Queensland Government should "provide core services such as policing, public safety, emergency and justice services, which have a strong public good element".
Everything else - including education, health, prisons, housing, community services and public transport - should be encouraged to be done by the private sector."
You can usually count on Greg Jericho to shed some light on things. If political polling is to be believed this is what the majority of Australians want for the entire country, assuming that those polled realise that election of an LNP government in Canberra will inflict an identical set of policies on the nation at large. Lewis and Woods presented the results of targeted polling showing a clear majority of Australians want the opposite flavour of policies so it would appear that this assumption is not realistic.
Election of an LNP government in Canberra would be an unmitigated disaster for this country on so many horizons that I would hope that the electorate delivers the appropriate result. The conflicting polls suggest both the existence of a silent majority which is never asked the question and an ALP unable to use the media as the tool it has become to get its message out. Does the electorate really want this result, which a vote for the LNP will inevitably deliver?
Sunday 3 March 2013
Weaponised Keynesianism
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/opinion/krugman-kick-that-can.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
It’s true that Republicans often seem to believe in “weaponized Keynesianism,” a doctrine under which military spending, and only military spending, creates jobs.
It’s true that Republicans often seem to believe in “weaponized Keynesianism,” a doctrine under which military spending, and only military spending, creates jobs.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-01/maher-act-political-rematch/4546564
"Seselja waited until the last moment to announce he was running for Senate preselection, catching Humphries and his supporters off guard. It quickly emerged that hundreds of ACT Liberal members would be ineligible to vote in the preselection ballot because they'd either failed to attend a party meeting in the past six months or had attended meetings that didn't count because they failed to reach a quorum. Some members claim they were told they could vote only to have that right 'withdrawn' on the day.In the ballot on the weekend Seselja defeated Humphries 114-84; the Senate ticket was decided by just 198 people in a party membership of more than 600 in the ACT."
This is a microcosm of democracy as practiced today: manipulative tricks by elites to gain and hold power (get what they want). The entire system is rigged to maintain the status quo and keep the elites where they are. This situation is not necessarily a bad thing but it needs to be identified for what it is. Take all news from the present mass media with a grain nor two of salt.
"Seselja waited until the last moment to announce he was running for Senate preselection, catching Humphries and his supporters off guard. It quickly emerged that hundreds of ACT Liberal members would be ineligible to vote in the preselection ballot because they'd either failed to attend a party meeting in the past six months or had attended meetings that didn't count because they failed to reach a quorum. Some members claim they were told they could vote only to have that right 'withdrawn' on the day.In the ballot on the weekend Seselja defeated Humphries 114-84; the Senate ticket was decided by just 198 people in a party membership of more than 600 in the ACT."
This is a microcosm of democracy as practiced today: manipulative tricks by elites to gain and hold power (get what they want). The entire system is rigged to maintain the status quo and keep the elites where they are. This situation is not necessarily a bad thing but it needs to be identified for what it is. Take all news from the present mass media with a grain nor two of salt.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-01/cassidy-going-out-west-where-the-wind-b...
"The Western Bulldogs Football Club is sending out players, fans and staff to try and build community support for the club. To support the cause, the Prime Minister went on Triple M radio with Eddie Maguire and Mick Molloy.
This from Molloy: "Morning Prime Minister. You've got my vote so long as you keep hitting the streets on behalf of the Bulldogs. Congratulations!"
And this from Maguire: : "... how do you put the point across to people that in Australia at the moment we have got low inflation, low unemployment, low interest rates, we've got through the GFC, the share market is coming good. Every indicator would suggest we're actually in Shangri-La at the moment, yet people still think we're going around in a third world country."
The Prime Minister should bottle that sentiment and take it with her to Sydney, because there's nothing like it within a 50 kilometre radius of Rooty Hill."
Few in the media tell thre truth like Barrie Cassidy. So why is it so hard to get this message across? Apart from the unwillingness of the media to cover the truth, there is no apparent reason why members of the ALP Caucus can't get out there, in front of the cameras, at media conferences and photo shoots, and simply state the underlined excerpt; over and over and over again. It may then dawn on the twitterverse to ask the question of why these positive elements are measurably and objectively true.
All political parties employ media consultants and spin doctors. The mere existance of such denominations suggests the convergence of capitalism and our warped form of democracy has transformed the media into a tool of 'the powers that be' rather than a check upon their actions. The conservative forces have been the first to recognise this and to capitalise. The ALP needs to hurry up, grow up and start using the media as the tool it has become for herd manipulations. It needs to do this quickly before the negative reality created by Abbot's minions undoes all of their achievements of the past few years and drives us all back to the stone age of the fifties.
"The Western Bulldogs Football Club is sending out players, fans and staff to try and build community support for the club. To support the cause, the Prime Minister went on Triple M radio with Eddie Maguire and Mick Molloy.
This from Molloy: "Morning Prime Minister. You've got my vote so long as you keep hitting the streets on behalf of the Bulldogs. Congratulations!"
And this from Maguire: : "... how do you put the point across to people that in Australia at the moment we have got low inflation, low unemployment, low interest rates, we've got through the GFC, the share market is coming good. Every indicator would suggest we're actually in Shangri-La at the moment, yet people still think we're going around in a third world country."
The Prime Minister should bottle that sentiment and take it with her to Sydney, because there's nothing like it within a 50 kilometre radius of Rooty Hill."
Few in the media tell thre truth like Barrie Cassidy. So why is it so hard to get this message across? Apart from the unwillingness of the media to cover the truth, there is no apparent reason why members of the ALP Caucus can't get out there, in front of the cameras, at media conferences and photo shoots, and simply state the underlined excerpt; over and over and over again. It may then dawn on the twitterverse to ask the question of why these positive elements are measurably and objectively true.
All political parties employ media consultants and spin doctors. The mere existance of such denominations suggests the convergence of capitalism and our warped form of democracy has transformed the media into a tool of 'the powers that be' rather than a check upon their actions. The conservative forces have been the first to recognise this and to capitalise. The ALP needs to hurry up, grow up and start using the media as the tool it has become for herd manipulations. It needs to do this quickly before the negative reality created by Abbot's minions undoes all of their achievements of the past few years and drives us all back to the stone age of the fifties.
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