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.
Sunday 26 May 2013
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.
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