Tony Abbott's inflation headache
"If inflation proves enduring this year, the Coalition will
have to prevent any wage push from causing a breakout - and that means
falling standards of living, writes David Llewellyn-Smith."
Inflation is the least of Abbott's worries. LNP economic policies are proven to create a low-employment economy with all its associated human suffering.
Mark my words. We will have double digit unemployment by the end of the calendar year and may well be at war with Indonesia.
If you want proof just look at EU data. Every country that succeeds with these policies does so at the cost of widespread unemployment. And it's not the vested interests or the drones they elect who suffer under these policies. It's the you-and-me common people.
Get used to it. Everyone has reverted to business as usual so the next economic crisis is just around the corner and the pundits are taking bets on whether the climate crisis will pre-or-post-date it.
Saturday 25 January 2014
The Market is a Harlot
It's not just the rich who benefit from free markets
"In an unhampered, free-market economy, the distribution of income is wholly determined by the interplay of mutually beneficial market transactions between sellers and buyers.
Incomes are attained by selling goods and services to customers willing to pay for them, and suppliers who most closely meet the needs and desires of consumers are rewarded with revenues that more than cover production costs.
The resultant inequality, therefore, derives from the personal choices of the millions, or even billions, of participants in the market process"
This sort of absurd oversimplification is particularly prevalent in the pseudo-science of economics and always results in a false argument which creates a myth which in turn bolsters and recreates the status quo.
Firstly, an 'unhampered, free-market economy' is a contradiction-in-terms and an utter impossibility in the context of human interactions. The vested interests 'hamper' the market for their own benefit every day through the election and manipulation of their drones in government.
Secondly, I can think of a number of significant sources of income which have nothing to do with the selling of goods and services, not to mention the common goods which are shared and used by everyone free of charge, and therefore have no value according to this outdated oversimplified model.
I could go through this whole article and pick it to pieces, but you get the drift. The starting point is absurd so all that derives from it is also absurd.
So the title is true in an absurd sort of a way. It might more accurately be read as 'be happy and satisfied with the few crumbs which fall to you as we devour this crust of bread'.
There are way too many right-wing neo-liberal free-market extremists spreading this sort of drivel around and not enough realists to counter their absurd arguments. Even if there were sufficient numbers though, they would never make it into circulation to the major portion of the electorate because these people get their information from the mainstream media, and these are controlled by the vested interests who benefit from everyone believing this crap. If you say it enough times any lie becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thus are the myths created which procreate the present reality and doom us to repeat the mistakes of the past.
But enough of this morbidity. Since the market is a harlot let's go have a bang.
"In an unhampered, free-market economy, the distribution of income is wholly determined by the interplay of mutually beneficial market transactions between sellers and buyers.
Incomes are attained by selling goods and services to customers willing to pay for them, and suppliers who most closely meet the needs and desires of consumers are rewarded with revenues that more than cover production costs.
The resultant inequality, therefore, derives from the personal choices of the millions, or even billions, of participants in the market process"
This sort of absurd oversimplification is particularly prevalent in the pseudo-science of economics and always results in a false argument which creates a myth which in turn bolsters and recreates the status quo.
Firstly, an 'unhampered, free-market economy' is a contradiction-in-terms and an utter impossibility in the context of human interactions. The vested interests 'hamper' the market for their own benefit every day through the election and manipulation of their drones in government.
Secondly, I can think of a number of significant sources of income which have nothing to do with the selling of goods and services, not to mention the common goods which are shared and used by everyone free of charge, and therefore have no value according to this outdated oversimplified model.
I could go through this whole article and pick it to pieces, but you get the drift. The starting point is absurd so all that derives from it is also absurd.
So the title is true in an absurd sort of a way. It might more accurately be read as 'be happy and satisfied with the few crumbs which fall to you as we devour this crust of bread'.
There are way too many right-wing neo-liberal free-market extremists spreading this sort of drivel around and not enough realists to counter their absurd arguments. Even if there were sufficient numbers though, they would never make it into circulation to the major portion of the electorate because these people get their information from the mainstream media, and these are controlled by the vested interests who benefit from everyone believing this crap. If you say it enough times any lie becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thus are the myths created which procreate the present reality and doom us to repeat the mistakes of the past.
But enough of this morbidity. Since the market is a harlot let's go have a bang.
Tuesday 21 January 2014
Is the light on the hill a mcmansion
Dethroning GDP as our measure of progress
"Whatever you think it is that makes life worth living, as Robert F Kennedy pointed out in 1968, it's almost a sure bet that it isn't measured by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP."
"One of the frontrunners to replace GDP is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)."
"While the unbridled pursuit of GDP growth has not done much to increase our well-being over the past few decades, it has been a triumph for big business and the finance sector, i.e. those who disproportionately benefit from raw economic activity. Not surprisingly, as a result of this windfall, these sectors - and the politicians who serve them - are likely to resist any move to a more comprehensive metric of national economic well-being."
Tim Dean succinctly and eloquently outlines this problem, which has been talked about and analysed and bandied about and then talked about and analysed some more, ad infinitum, since the sixties, just as the reality of the greenhouse effect due to it's basis in the physical characteristics of chemical bonds, and therefore global warming and climate change, has been, but still we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
We are already doomed to at least a two degree world and probably worse. The last time there was a two degree change in the average global temperature the glaciers retreated from central North America and Europe. These are the sort of macro effects you can expect from only a two degree change. And yet we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
It has been demonstrated that even a two degree world can not support the lives of 7-8 billion people. At least a billion people will have to be eliminated. But still we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
You can't argue with physical laws. The very existence of our species is at stake, so we build bigger and bigger coal mines, coal trains and shipping facilities, extract crude oil from coal seams, and from the Arctic ocean-bed. But that's OK because we can always maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
David Suzuki visited Australia and spoke on ABC TV. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness for something like fifty years now. The commercial media take no interest at all. He has not abandoned all hope, as many futurists have. He said that we simply don't know enough to predict what is going to happen and described an example to illustrate what he means.
If we keep maintaining the status quo and voting conservative governments into office, we all have blood on our hands, and the answer is yes. I personally never vote conservative, so I can pretend to have washed my hands of this blood, but we are all collectively members of the electorate, and the electorate voted this government into office, so no one can escape responsibility completely.
Revolution or the status quo. which would you prefer?
"Whatever you think it is that makes life worth living, as Robert F Kennedy pointed out in 1968, it's almost a sure bet that it isn't measured by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP."
"One of the frontrunners to replace GDP is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)."
"While the unbridled pursuit of GDP growth has not done much to increase our well-being over the past few decades, it has been a triumph for big business and the finance sector, i.e. those who disproportionately benefit from raw economic activity. Not surprisingly, as a result of this windfall, these sectors - and the politicians who serve them - are likely to resist any move to a more comprehensive metric of national economic well-being."
Tim Dean succinctly and eloquently outlines this problem, which has been talked about and analysed and bandied about and then talked about and analysed some more, ad infinitum, since the sixties, just as the reality of the greenhouse effect due to it's basis in the physical characteristics of chemical bonds, and therefore global warming and climate change, has been, but still we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
We are already doomed to at least a two degree world and probably worse. The last time there was a two degree change in the average global temperature the glaciers retreated from central North America and Europe. These are the sort of macro effects you can expect from only a two degree change. And yet we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
It has been demonstrated that even a two degree world can not support the lives of 7-8 billion people. At least a billion people will have to be eliminated. But still we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
You can't argue with physical laws. The very existence of our species is at stake, so we build bigger and bigger coal mines, coal trains and shipping facilities, extract crude oil from coal seams, and from the Arctic ocean-bed. But that's OK because we can always maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.
David Suzuki visited Australia and spoke on ABC TV. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness for something like fifty years now. The commercial media take no interest at all. He has not abandoned all hope, as many futurists have. He said that we simply don't know enough to predict what is going to happen and described an example to illustrate what he means.
If we keep maintaining the status quo and voting conservative governments into office, we all have blood on our hands, and the answer is yes. I personally never vote conservative, so I can pretend to have washed my hands of this blood, but we are all collectively members of the electorate, and the electorate voted this government into office, so no one can escape responsibility completely.
Revolution or the status quo. which would you prefer?
Wednesday 15 January 2014
Is it time to panic yet
The environment would pay for 'free trade'
"The potential benefits from these clauses to Australians are very limited. Australian businesses have apparently never used the ISDS provisions in Australian treaties. The Productivity Commission, in a 2010 report into ISDS clauses, recommended that our government "avoid the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement provisions in [international agreements] that grant foreign investors in Australia substantive or procedural rights greater than those enjoyed by Australian investors" - advice that the Abbott Government appears to be ignoring in the TPP negotiations.
Do we really want to create an Australia where we have to pay a foreign corporation not to dig up or destroy our coastline or native forests? Our laws should protect Australians and the places we love - not the profits of foreign multinationals."
Is this a trick question? Who or what will stop this imbecile government from signing-off on this stuff?
This is precisely the sort of irreparable damage I've been rattling on about since the election.
"The potential benefits from these clauses to Australians are very limited. Australian businesses have apparently never used the ISDS provisions in Australian treaties. The Productivity Commission, in a 2010 report into ISDS clauses, recommended that our government "avoid the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement provisions in [international agreements] that grant foreign investors in Australia substantive or procedural rights greater than those enjoyed by Australian investors" - advice that the Abbott Government appears to be ignoring in the TPP negotiations.
Do we really want to create an Australia where we have to pay a foreign corporation not to dig up or destroy our coastline or native forests? Our laws should protect Australians and the places we love - not the profits of foreign multinationals."
Is this a trick question? Who or what will stop this imbecile government from signing-off on this stuff?
This is precisely the sort of irreparable damage I've been rattling on about since the election.
Ideology of War
Asylum seekers and the language of war
"The cloak of a military campaign against the hapless asylum seekers has been adopted as political camouflage, partly to inflate the importance of what is, by any normal measure, no more than an irritant, and partly to justify the cult of secrecy ("we do not comment on operational matters") that Abbott and Morrison have invoked to cover their own mismanagement. And it appears that there is a fair amount to cover."
Come on Mungo. Your language is too neutral. The language of war is an ideological tool of the Conservative forces of evil and the harbinger of abuses of power. Look at how they used the 'war on terror' to inflict turmoil on the world and infringe the rights of all of us pseudo-free individuals.
Big Brother is watching you but don't worry. It's OK because we are at war and the enemy is everywhere and we are infringing your rights for your own security. It's all for your own good.
Now go back to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow making lots of money for me while I pay you a slave's wage
"The cloak of a military campaign against the hapless asylum seekers has been adopted as political camouflage, partly to inflate the importance of what is, by any normal measure, no more than an irritant, and partly to justify the cult of secrecy ("we do not comment on operational matters") that Abbott and Morrison have invoked to cover their own mismanagement. And it appears that there is a fair amount to cover."
Come on Mungo. Your language is too neutral. The language of war is an ideological tool of the Conservative forces of evil and the harbinger of abuses of power. Look at how they used the 'war on terror' to inflict turmoil on the world and infringe the rights of all of us pseudo-free individuals.
Big Brother is watching you but don't worry. It's OK because we are at war and the enemy is everywhere and we are infringing your rights for your own security. It's all for your own good.
Now go back to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow making lots of money for me while I pay you a slave's wage
Ideology and Education
The farce of an ideologically neutral curriculum
"That rule by unelected experts is supposed to be more legitimate and morally superior to rule by elected representatives just shows how anti-democratic our era really is."
For 'legitimate' and 'morally superior one could substitute 'rational' and 'sensible'. It is only the 'unelected experts' who will save us from this disastrous government and the irreparable damage their failed ideology will inflict on us. Rule by unelected experts may be 'anti-democratic', but it is far preferable to rule by this elected swill.
"Ideology isn't a bad thing. Everybody's thought is shaped by ideology, whether they're aware of it or not. But it's ideology nonetheless."
Actually, historians and historiographers define an 'age of ideologies', beginning around the turn of last century and terminating with the end of the cold war. This age was characterised by genocides, wars, suppression, repressions and other events of ideologically driven slaughter, which made the wars of religion in Europe pale in comparison, although these were of course ideologically driven as well. So we can categorically conclude from this that 'ideology isn't a bad thing'.
"The curriculum is explicit, open, and unabashed about its ideological content. It's not buried or implied. It's as bold as a billboard."
True. But the question is whether this 'ideological content' is based on rationality and reason, backed up by evidence-driven facts and the behavioural consequences of these facts, or derives from myths created by ignorance, and blatant manipulation of the sources of information.
This question needs to be applied to every ideology to discern whether it 'isn't a bad thing' or not.
"The sustainability theme is intended to "[create] a more ecologically and socially just world through informed action". That's virtually the definition of ideology: a positive description (we are harming the planet) combined with a normative ideal of a better social order (an ecologically and socially just world)."
Yes, and ideology underlies all thought, and drives the national curriculum.
If only we had a curriculum which produces people able to identify and analyse ideologies.
"That rule by unelected experts is supposed to be more legitimate and morally superior to rule by elected representatives just shows how anti-democratic our era really is."
For 'legitimate' and 'morally superior one could substitute 'rational' and 'sensible'. It is only the 'unelected experts' who will save us from this disastrous government and the irreparable damage their failed ideology will inflict on us. Rule by unelected experts may be 'anti-democratic', but it is far preferable to rule by this elected swill.
"Ideology isn't a bad thing. Everybody's thought is shaped by ideology, whether they're aware of it or not. But it's ideology nonetheless."
Actually, historians and historiographers define an 'age of ideologies', beginning around the turn of last century and terminating with the end of the cold war. This age was characterised by genocides, wars, suppression, repressions and other events of ideologically driven slaughter, which made the wars of religion in Europe pale in comparison, although these were of course ideologically driven as well. So we can categorically conclude from this that 'ideology isn't a bad thing'.
"The curriculum is explicit, open, and unabashed about its ideological content. It's not buried or implied. It's as bold as a billboard."
True. But the question is whether this 'ideological content' is based on rationality and reason, backed up by evidence-driven facts and the behavioural consequences of these facts, or derives from myths created by ignorance, and blatant manipulation of the sources of information.
This question needs to be applied to every ideology to discern whether it 'isn't a bad thing' or not.
"The sustainability theme is intended to "[create] a more ecologically and socially just world through informed action". That's virtually the definition of ideology: a positive description (we are harming the planet) combined with a normative ideal of a better social order (an ecologically and socially just world)."
Yes, and ideology underlies all thought, and drives the national curriculum.
If only we had a curriculum which produces people able to identify and analyse ideologies.
Sunday 5 January 2014
Freedom and Individualism
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-01/burdon-dont-leave-it-to-politicians-to-change-the-world/5180862
"The Abbott Government has done a remarkable job resurrecting a rhetoric of "freedom" and the "individual" which Australian politics has not seen since the Howard years. More broadly, it is reminiscent of Thatcher and her famous quip that "there is no such thing as society", only a collection of individuals.
According to this ideology, individual freedom is more important than the common good of society. Moreover, the individual is seen as separate from and superior to the ecological community. Two recent actions from the Commonwealth Attorney General George Brandis illustrate this perspective."
No one is free or has freedom without funds, income. This focus of the LNP on these concepts is really just a reinforcement of all that I have been saying about their ideology. This is really just old-fashioned laissez-faire, free-market, neoliberal ideology and you can substitute any of these into much of the rhetoric issuing from any of their mouths. Only those who have disposable income above and beyond that required to sustain life under present socioeconomic circumstances can have any modicum of 'individual freedom'. The wage slaves generated by the semi-free market can have no freedom nor the mortgage slaves generated by the housing bubble. These segments of society are generated and exacerbated by neoliberal ideology practiced and promoted by the LNP. They have successfully sold it to just enough of the electorate to gain office by manipulation of the media and the creation of myths through deliberate misinformation and repetition.
Thatcherism and Reaganomics have been tried and gave us a global financial crisis and a series of crises, noted by the experts in the centre, including the ongoing consumption crisis, the emissions crisis, and the wealth gap crisis. Business as usual is not an option, yet that is what we are getting. Conservative parties around the world stand for the preservation of the status-quo. The status-quo will generate at least a six degree world by 2100, capable of supporting perhaps a human population of one billion people. It is a death sentence for at least 6 billion people in other words.
In the meantime the largest coal mine in the world has been approved for Queensland, arguably corruptly considering it is owned and operated by a federal MHR, and the Russians are intent on finding and taking oil from the Arctic Ocean. A six degree or higher world will not be averted unless most of the fossil fuels remaining in the ground are left there. These changes need to happen NOW. They can not possibly happen under conservative governments. The USA has gone down the progressive road. France turned left with the election of a socialist president. When it came our turn to elect a government to lead us through these challenges, we stuck our heads back in the sand and retreated into the false comfort of this sort of conservative fairy world. I am forced to use the term 'we' for the electorate. I did not vote for these bozos and neither did many.
The "limits to growth" are being reached. It appears that the intelligentsia and the public service in this country will be able to constrain the willful damage this government is intent on inflicting on us and we await a leader of sufficient stature from the ranks of the progressive sections of our political elite.
"The Abbott Government has done a remarkable job resurrecting a rhetoric of "freedom" and the "individual" which Australian politics has not seen since the Howard years. More broadly, it is reminiscent of Thatcher and her famous quip that "there is no such thing as society", only a collection of individuals.
According to this ideology, individual freedom is more important than the common good of society. Moreover, the individual is seen as separate from and superior to the ecological community. Two recent actions from the Commonwealth Attorney General George Brandis illustrate this perspective."
No one is free or has freedom without funds, income. This focus of the LNP on these concepts is really just a reinforcement of all that I have been saying about their ideology. This is really just old-fashioned laissez-faire, free-market, neoliberal ideology and you can substitute any of these into much of the rhetoric issuing from any of their mouths. Only those who have disposable income above and beyond that required to sustain life under present socioeconomic circumstances can have any modicum of 'individual freedom'. The wage slaves generated by the semi-free market can have no freedom nor the mortgage slaves generated by the housing bubble. These segments of society are generated and exacerbated by neoliberal ideology practiced and promoted by the LNP. They have successfully sold it to just enough of the electorate to gain office by manipulation of the media and the creation of myths through deliberate misinformation and repetition.
Thatcherism and Reaganomics have been tried and gave us a global financial crisis and a series of crises, noted by the experts in the centre, including the ongoing consumption crisis, the emissions crisis, and the wealth gap crisis. Business as usual is not an option, yet that is what we are getting. Conservative parties around the world stand for the preservation of the status-quo. The status-quo will generate at least a six degree world by 2100, capable of supporting perhaps a human population of one billion people. It is a death sentence for at least 6 billion people in other words.
In the meantime the largest coal mine in the world has been approved for Queensland, arguably corruptly considering it is owned and operated by a federal MHR, and the Russians are intent on finding and taking oil from the Arctic Ocean. A six degree or higher world will not be averted unless most of the fossil fuels remaining in the ground are left there. These changes need to happen NOW. They can not possibly happen under conservative governments. The USA has gone down the progressive road. France turned left with the election of a socialist president. When it came our turn to elect a government to lead us through these challenges, we stuck our heads back in the sand and retreated into the false comfort of this sort of conservative fairy world. I am forced to use the term 'we' for the electorate. I did not vote for these bozos and neither did many.
The "limits to growth" are being reached. It appears that the intelligentsia and the public service in this country will be able to constrain the willful damage this government is intent on inflicting on us and we await a leader of sufficient stature from the ranks of the progressive sections of our political elite.
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