Lots of Monkeys Running Around in Cirles as Fast as They Can

Paddy Manning

"Turnbull wants to run Australia Inc, with all the risk and opportunity that entails, just as another former NSW Premier, Nick Greiner (with whom he has much in common), ran "NSW Inc" - privatising assets, corporatising agencies and outsourcing government services wherever possible."

"Turnbull is the richest Prime Minister we have ever seen, with the closest connections to the business community. If anyone has the credentials, he does. Hopefully he will avoid the pitfalls of WA Inc in the eighties, where state politicians did questionable deals with entrepreneurs like Alan Bond and Laurie Connell, blowing up hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars and triggering a Royal Commission. Turnbull knows the dangers well, having advised WA's State Government Insurance Commission in the aftermath, as a young merchant banker."

Thus does history repeat itself. The lessons taught by the first attempt have generated tinkering around the edges, so the devil is in the detail, and the details mask this policy direction for what it is (with reference to this post's title). It will be better this time, they say. Behold the ICAC-ACCC Leviathan we have created in order to ensure such an outcome. As if the 'better angels of our character' can be inspired by the machinations of such a behemoth.

So the lesson learned was not the lesson taught. The problem was not with our concept of what will work, but with the way it was implemented.

The mere fact that a monstrous new bureaucracy needed to be created in order to control the side effects of what we were doing didn't ring a few bells to say that maybe our whole concept was misguided rather than only the details.

The sagas of WA Inc and NSW Inc, along with the hardships of Britain have totally discredited this way of governing a country. Yet The LNP still believes in the neoliberal ideology.

Let's just all go and get thatchered and be done with it. 

Innovation? - What do you mean?

Ben Oquist

"Malcolm Turnbull's innovation agenda has never been a comfortable fit with a dependence on coal. An old industry reliant on digging up black rocks and burning them under cauldrons for power is surely an industry ready to be 'disrupted' by photovoltaic, smart-grid and battery revolutions."

" we have a Prime Minister pursuing a big innovation agenda. However, a Prime Minister on the side of innovation will of course have to be on the side of renewable energy."

This is the first thing that jumped into my head when I heard an LNP leader talk about innovation and I would like to thank Ben Oquist for stating it so eloquently. Innovation in a retrograde direction is not innovation. The future world economy will be sustainable, protecting finite resources and using renewable energy sources. Innovation into technology which uses fossil fuels is a dead end.

We seek a 2C world or 1.5C if you are a low-lying land holder. This can only be achieved if fossil fuel deposits stay in the ground. This government has re-approved the Galilee Basin coal project and continues to allow CSG fracking on prime agricultural land. You can't have it both ways.

Innovation in one direction while deliberately undermining that innovation is oxymoronic and counterproductive.

Well Said Mungo

Mungo MacCallum 

"if the Jihadists refuse to play by Queensberry rules, why should we? Bomb them back to the stone age. Tear the place apart brick by brick, raze it and sow salt in the earth.

Invade in vast numbers - Americans, Russians, Iranians, French, Australians, New Zealanders, Heard Islanders - anyone we can find. Shoot first and ask questions later - in fact, don't ask questions at all. Degrade, destroy, demolish. Let's finish the bastards forever.

Of course, there will be a few unfortunate consequences, such as massive collateral damage, but hey, them's the breaks. If IS doesn't worry about civilian deaths, why should we? Fair's fair. It's just a kind of moral equivalence."

With tongue firmly planted in cheek Mungo unleashes the acid wit and implements the black humour in the interests of rhetoric.

Unfortunately these are the sorts of simplistic solutions that are actually, really and truly - let's go over there and do this right now - being suggested on the right. I've heard people say things like: 'they're all so miserable fighting amongst themselves for all eternity let's just nuke them all, start from scratch again, and hopefully do a better job this time.'

I prefer carpet-bombing myself as it will leave a godawful mess, but at least the mess won't be radioactive and uninhabitable. In fact, the soil will be intensely fertilized by all that mashed up human blood and bone, and could build a new bread basket for the rest of us.

But seriously:

'boots on the ground' is what got us into this mess in the first place; the unjust and unjustifiable invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan directly caused one tine of the terrorists' rationalisation for their actions (the anti-west-christian-colonialial argument) - the roots of this going back almost a century to Sykes-Picot and Balfour, followed by the more recent invasions in support of those terrible mistakes of history. If you go back a bit further you come to the Ottoman empire where the ungovernable people of the middle East could only be controlled for the common good by extreme repression. Further still and you come to what I think would be a non-carpet-bombing solution to the present conundrum - a final reformation of Islam, that is, a reconciliation between Shia and Sunni. 

Various comments and notes of the commentariat and intelligentsia (even Mr. Silvertail himself) suggest this final root cause and therefore solution to this problem. The Sunnis outnumber the Shia, though not by a lot, but are, none-the-less dominated and oppressed by ruling elites dominated by Shia. Historically each sect is opposed to the death to one another and condones revenge in a blood for blood manner. As has been shone in the development of democracy in Iraq, they practice blood feud and revenge as state policy.

You can not undo the mistakes of the past if these mistakes are taught to succeeding generations as deliberate actions which must be avenged in a violent manner. The hatred then spans the generations and the blood feud becomes self fulfilling till the end of time.

If you then don't have the time or the patience to achieve a peaceful outcome then wiping the slate clean can be an attractive solution.

We can understand the fascist side but never agree with it.     







 

Here We Go Again

Ian Verrender

This just keeps going on, but then what would you expect? I commented on tax 'reform' back in October 2014, noting that reform in the guise of an increase in a regressive tax is a reform backwards. Ian Verrender makes similar points here, and reference to George Orwell is extremely apropos. Not enough people read Mr. Verrender and I to get these clowns out of office and prevent further regression of our society and economy. If everyone did, they would understand the urgency of this eventuality.

Elites in society have been gaming the political system in their own interests since the beginning of society. It was easier when a single member of the elite controlled all the levers of power, so the gaming was overt and you could more easily call a spade a spade and people would believe you without too much explanation because everything was self-evident and obvious. So, Louis XIV, The Sun King, having drained the coffers in the pursuit of futile foreign wars, not to mention the maintenance of an extravagantly profligate court, needed more money badly and cast around for new sources of revenue.

I hope this sounds familiar in reference to what is happening now. This all happened around the turn of the eighteenth century, about 300 years ago and the similarities are striking.

Louis had no constraints because he was an absolute monarch, having spent much time and effort ensuring the precision of this label. He simply increased the taxes on the poorest people in society grinding them further into destitution, while continuing to misspend the revenue, wasting vast sums on unnecessary military adventures and bribes. Taxes which have this effect on the poor are termed regressive

No one recognises the present regime for what it is: very similar to Le Roi de Solei 300 odd years ago. History is not studied. Thought is not studied. Conservative governments deliberately take funding away from education, driving its quality down. All in the pursuit of maintaining the status quo. to a state in which the electorate is not capable of seeing these things.

The progressive income tax, haled as such since its inception, is called progressive because the rates progress from low to high as the taxpayers' level of poverty declines. The poor pay little or no tax on their income, while the higher income earners pay progressively more.

Can you get blood from a stone? Is it possible for those who have no money to magically give money to the government?

These are the injustices and absurdities encapsulated in the LNP policy to raise the GST and broaden its base.

They must be stopped.

        

Never Use the words

Ben Saul

"The terrorist attack on Paris raises some hard legal questions. Is it an international crime? Is it an armed attack giving France a right of military self-defence in Syria? Is it lawful for France to declare a state of emergency that suspends basic rights? Are new laws needed to counter terrorism?"

It has now been a week since all this happened. The above is only one of the commentators and little more needs to be said. Of course it is only a strange coincidence that French municipal elections are imminent and the ruling socialists are on the nose - or rather were on the nose until this happened.  I would not imply otherwise and every one and their dog is jumping in with comment, as one would, so I guess I must also, although outrage and publicity plays straight into the hands of terror. As Waleed Aly said this week: 'this is what they want. they have told us this'

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxNJLkIkYQM

How does such a staunchly progressive, left of centre, highly intelligent commentator reconcile his ideological stripes with his main gig with the same people who think it is OK to spread such drivel as the Bolt Report around, thus lending the hue of legitimacy to such absurdity? It allows the Ten Network to at least pretend to be unbiased and well balanced I suppose. His video should be compulsory viewing for everyone.

Now let us all take a deep breath and approach all this calmly, before we fall into the hole prepared for us by these sniveling little wimps. Waleed is correct. The Paris attack is the weak response of a mob of childish bullies throwing a tantrum on an adult scale, with grown-up weapons. They are being hammered on their own soil, losing ground and dying, so they lash out in the only way they know - with ignorant, childish violence, against unsuspecting innocents. The media serves them by creating a mythical image of scary terror but beneath the surface they have every characteristic of a deranged child: weak, sniveling, unable to communicate except by jumping up and down screaming. The media is all about image. Always seek the essence of the image. Use your innate sense of perception to look below the superficial expression of this image.

So let's talk about image and reality and perception and the incorrect use of language to create perception, hence image, hence reality. This all reminds me of the truth reflected in Robin Williams' rhetorical question: "'Reality??' 'What's that??'"

Every time we use a word we build a reality by creating an image in someone else's mind. Each word has a precise definition. One way of defining a word is by describing the characteristics of the thing it is representing. When the words take on characteristics different from those exhibited by the things they represent, a new reality is being created, and when this is done deliberately, everyone should be on guard. But I don't expect you to take this verbiage at face value, so let us now apply it to the topic at hand.

In particular we must apply this to the terms Islamic and State, as used by this barbaric mob of childish lunatics in reference to themselves: Islamic meaning descriptive of nouns exhibiting precisely the defining beliefs of Islam as defined in their Holy Book; and State meaning "a ​country or ​its ​government"

Nowhere in the Koran does it say that it is OK to murder innocents. These subhumans do this and therefore cannot be labeled Islamic. The fact that they call themselves Islamic is incorrect usage. By doing so they are attempting to legitimise themselves and justify their actions. There is nothing Islamic about them and the media, by allowing them to use it, aids them in their evil.

The term state would give them the the aura of a government which makes and enforces laws modifying the behaviour of those they control. They have never made any law. By their own admission their laws are already written in their Holy Book, so by their own logic they cannot be legitimately called a state either. By attempting to apply this to themselves they are pretending to be a state. In truth they are not.

The Islamophobic clashes occurring at this very moment are proof of the efficacy of the process described above.

So would everyone please follow my lead and never use the terms Islamic and State to describe these criminals and their behaviour.       

   

          

Oxymoronism

Jeff Sparrow

"Since the nineties," says British Pakistani writer Tariq Ali, "democracy has, in the West, taken the form of an extreme center, in which center-left and center-right collude to preserve the status quo; a dictatorship of capital that has reduced political parties to the status of the living dead."

The "extreme centre" grew, he contends, out of the Thatcherite notion of TINA: the conviction that there is no alternative to the market. In a capitalist democracy, capitalism means serving the market, whose implacable dictates cannot be bucked.

Hence the inexorable rise of the technocrat: the slick professional charged with interpreting and placating the demands of the economy. Leaders of the extreme centre (whether conservative or social democratic) govern by wooing voters with empty rhetoric at election time - and then keep them out of the way as much as possible, so the professionals can get on with running the country."

_________________________________________________________

As usual Jeff Sparrow is profoundly cogent.

Extremism, even of the centre, is undesirable. Wisdom is everywhere, yet look at the state of the world - drowned out by the white noise of the media; occluded by the superficial oxymoronism of ideology.

By technocrat do we mean ideologue or better yet apparatchik, that now taboo term of the cold war era which somehow sort of rings true? What of the ivory tower syndrome; the plethora of fence-sitting, analysing, commentating, criticising people who possess the the depth of perception and intelligence to see through the white noise and oxymoronism exuded by the elites, yet do nothing about it?

It's all too hard. We're all too comfortable. And we didn't do it so why should we have to fix it.

Welcome back

Six months after my last post, after defeating the black dog once again - this time a particularly vicious struggle - climbing out of the winter hibernation, becoming a card-carrying member of the Rockingham branch of the ALP (aka 'BoganVillea' WA) , dusting myself off, and climbing back on top of things in my usual pose of futile defiance, I offer an olive branch of springtime greetings to my long list of fellow progressives. Abandoning my usual template I shall forego quotes from the MSM to refute or compliment, and wax lyrical ad liberato on the topics of the day. Read on and you may even hear from those masters of meaningless verbiage, the 'Talking Heads', who I am in the habit of ignoring. And. So. What have we here.

Turn down your cringe meters but don't throw them in the bin yet. Our Friar Tuck Moment has transmogrified into a Silvertail moment

Tax reform will be a big topic in the approaching election and rightly so. It is, and has been since the great depression, a creation myth of the welfare state, the great Waggle Serpent of Western Civilisation if you like, which has defined the dichotomy between progress and regress since that time. The ALP is waging a media blitz to make certain of this. Its focus is on a proposed increase in the GST, and the 'fairness', or lack thereof, of such a proposal, tabled by the Silvertails under the seemingly innocuous smokescreen of rigorousness - 'not excluding anything from the discussion'.

Firstly, allow me to point out the utter hypocrisy of commissioning a highly expensive tax white paper - conveniently composed by a fellow silvertail and therefore adding more smoke to the fire - while at the same time spouting off about the profligacy and wastage of the other side, not to mention the great albatross of our Friar Tuck moment just passed - yes I speak of the mythical debt-deficit-disaster, of which much argument and evidence has been revealed to clearly demonstrate the illusory nature of its efficacy. The conflict has now been defined by the Silvertails, unless it is taken back, as between increasing the GST to fix the d's or not, thus distracting the electorate from the main game. The big discussion needs to be about optimising the present system, then - if and only if further funds are needed - limiting middle class welfare (tax perks in superannuation and negative gearing) then - again if and only if further funds are required - redesigning the progressive income tax (allowing those who won't notice the difference to contribute one or five percent of their overvalued remuneration, as opposed to grinding those to whom such an impost means the difference between food-on-the-table and paying-the-rent further into the dust, to give their fair share back to society) then, in the unlikely event that even more money is needed, examine the GST. If you got lost in that last sentence in reading it, just imagine what I went through in writing it.

The logical common-sense progression outlined above to deal with this problem is in fact ALP policy. Our fearless leader implied as much when I confronted him about it at the North Perth Town Hall last Saturday. But let's delve further into the relationship between this important issue and  the ALP campaign for there is a huge difference between a Friar-Tuck-Moment and a Silvertail moment which is ignored at one's peril.

A quick scan of the twitterverse clearly demonstrates the depth of ignorance or what we might call egocenticity out there, characterised by the 'I make over a hundred grand a year so go ahead and raise the GST - it won't affect me', crowd. Sorry guys but, in the extreme extension of the concept, it will drive up the cost of building barbed-wire enclosed enclaves to live in and protect your wealth and that of hiring body guards and security staff. Furthermore, do you and your ilk truly wish to live in a society - oh, I'm sorry; your neo-liberal-thatcherite ideology prevents you from recognising the existence of such a thing as a society - where you are in constant fear for the security of your wealth, let alone your existence.

But all that, while important, is beside the point - well one of them anyway. The ALP campaign focuses on fairness, and how the GST just isn't fair, as if the electorate is populated by small children spitting the dummy. My first question would then be "what do you mean? why is, or what makes, the GST 'regressive' and therefore unfair?"

The terms progressive and regressive  are used in a littoral rather than political sense here. Income tax is progressive in that the tax brackets are designed to focus the effect of the tax on those who are best able to pay it, so that the brackets 'progress' from lowest to highest. Regressive is simply the opposite meaning, implying a tax which impacts the poor but is barely noticed by the rich, and only noticed a bit by the middling rich.

So, instead of treating the electorate like small children, by enunciating the umbrella descriptor 'unfair', why not treat people like adults and explain them as I have done here. Friar Tuck started this by sloganising the political discourse and look what happened to him. Mr. Silvertail is a different kettle of fish and it will take something intelligent and outside the box to defeat him. There are many compelling reasons not to increase the GST and to group all these under the umbrella descriptor 'unfair' treats voters as to stupid or time poor to understand or perceive the detail. It's not that hard.

A logical progression from the above is that the poor characteristically spend their entire income on living expenses, thereby creating demand, hence jobs - ie stimulating economic activity. This is of course contrary to the myth that the Silvertails would have you believe (that rich people always and only spend their excess income on philanthropic pursuits which then 'trickle down' into benefits for the poor - the opposite being closer to reality). So increasing the GST is deflationary and contractionary by definition and would lead, in the extreme, to recession.

That deals with the term regressive as applied to taxes. Not really too difficult to understand. Now to throw a spanner in the works.

The GST has the effect of increasing the price of the item it is applied to by the rate of the tax applied and is therefore inflationary. We've just shown that its effect is actually the reverse of this.

The reason behind this seeming oxymoron is that, unlike the progressive income tax, it is applied to the means of production in such a way that its effect is passed on from the stage above to the stage below until it reaches the consumer who has no one to pass it on to and so must absorb it. Hence the cost of the GST can be both inflationary and deflationary at the same time.

Interest rates rise with inflation. This is an outright observation and needs no explanation. The inflationary aspect of the GST will therefore lead to higher interest rates than would otherwise be the case. Anyone with a mortgage should be worried. This statement also conveniently dispels two more urban myths: that 'interest rates will always be lower under an LNP government' and 'that LNP governments are better at managing the economy than ALP governments'.

That deals with two things. There are many more but time and energy constraints preclude me from addressing them now. It will have to wait for another post and another day. Catch you then.     





    

   

         

 

Missing the point in pursuit of his own agenda

Chris Berg

This is about what you would expect from a libertine neoliberal ideologue but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

His analysis of the various papers floating around the media as evidence in favour of the redistribution of wealth through the taxation system is cogeant and well expressed. His conclusions are risible.

Does reducing inequality increase economic growth? Questionable. Is it just, fair and desirable? Absolutely.

Picketty paints a bleak prognosis for the world economy of low growth - around 2% - well below the level required to create jobs and reduce unemployment, and that this is an inevitable reversion to historical levels experienced throughout history up until the anomaly which occurred between 1945 and 1970. We witness this occurring now.

He notes the extreme imbalance in the world balance sheet and P&L due to the black economy, tax havens and market-based subversion, and suggests increased transparency be imposed as a matter of urgency. A tax of 1-2% on all accumulated wealth is also recommended.

These things are not a huge imposte but will be fought to the death by the vested elites because the status quo is in their interest.

Our continuing dabble with unfettered free markets as the be-all and end-all of policy is frankly dangerous and inevitably leads to the obscene levels of inequality we now have.

Chris Berg might like to think about these things and write about them on the ABC rather than try to convince the ALP it is barking up the wrong tree.

There is a Principle Here

Paula Matthewson

Electoral reform needs to be about making the system more democratic.

At present you can vote, and manually allocate your desired preferences, only to have your preferences stollen and allocated to someone you would never vote for on a fit. This is undemocratic to say the least and in extreme need of reform. It amounts to a manipulation of the electoral system for the benefit of the major parties. Voters need to take back control of the system somehow.

Paula meanders about in this article talking about what effect everything has. That is all well and good (possibly a little bit overanalytical), but it's a smoke screen obscuring the main point of this discussion, which is that when a voter votes, the full expression of that vote, including stated preferences, should be allocated as the voter stated, not to anyone else.

If fulfilment of this principle has the effect of making the greens a mainstream party, or restricting the number of splinter parties in the Senate, or any other effect, that is how the system is supposed to work, as long as the defining principles of the system are followed.

The system as it stands is dysfunctional and needs to change. This article fails to point this out.

Thanks ABC For Some Balanced Journalism

Val Noone

Bruce Haig

You won't find anything like either of these articles anywhere in the mainstream media for the simple reason that they are mythbustingly antimilitaristic and would be lambasted and discredited as unpatriotic. They both make valid points though.

I remember catching something about all this in high school but Val Noone brings it all back. OK, sure, it was just another trade war, but it was a trade war between world straddling empires, and everything began to change until the second part of it finished the job. It was always going to be messy, costly, and deadly, and as such must be remembered so that it can never happen again.

As to the supposed need for a nation to have a creation myth, we live in a time of internationalism. As noted previously on this blog, labour, the third factor of production, is finally internationalising, and this should herald the advent of the Keynesian/capitalist utopia and world government.

Indeed, one point of contrast between the first decades of the 20th and 21st centuries is the dominance of nationalist thought in the former and internationalist thought in the latter.

The Bruce Haig piece is a little harsh on our Bill Shorten. Bill hasn't shown his hand yet, and you won't see it until the coming election, but as I have said on theses pages. We are crying out for the imposition of a true leader, and we await his or her arrival.

With bated breath I might add.

Friar Tuck, The Robbing Hood and Barnie Rubble

Tim Dunlop

And Again

GoooooooTimDunlop

Tim Dunlop for PM now.

I'll print the bumper stickers, you start the campaign.

    "on the way to becoming a police state"?

Depending on debatable definitions we may already be living on a police state.

This incompetent government will eventually pass, but unfortunately we must keep our cringe meter to the fore and tolerate these buffoons for now. Friar Tuck, The Robbing Hood, and now Barnie Rubble and his mining mates will continue to make a mess of everything, stealing the common good, and enriching the already rich, but there will be an eventual reckoning with the electorate, and a change of government, where hopefully a capable operator is installed.

We in the West were hoodwinked into electing Barnie Rubble, bequeathing  him a state debt of three billion dollars in the midst of the most spectacular mining boom yet seen. After six and a half years the boom has turned to bust - as all booms eventually do - and the state debt has been ramped up to $ 30 BILLION. Yes folks that is a tenfold increase of the state debt in the space of 6 & 1/2 years. Six and a half of the richest years in the state's history, with royalties and revenues through the roof, and the mining companies ripping out and exporting untold riches which are gone for ever, these caricatures managed to debase the state's credit rating, increase the state debt tenfold and also actively prevent all of us from ever seeing a red cent for all of the riches-now-gone-for-ever, by preventing a tax being imposed on the mining companies.

It is economic common sense that you save during the good times, putting some money away in expectation of the turning. The Times have now turned Barnie and you manage the situation by crawling, cap in hand, to Canberra, with the other hand out in supplication begging for more revenue to squander.

Once the political times turn who ever wins will be hamstrung to implement any policy by the extreme scarcity of capital with which to do so. The choice will be to wait and save up for it, or acquire more debt with which to implement the policies in their first term.

The behaviour of these non-governments borders on criminal negligence and our system is set up to reward them for it.

The Internationalisation of the Final Factor of Production

Jeff Sparrow

As usual, Jeff Sparrow contributes entertaining insight.

We are witnessing the final spurt to the Keynesian/Capitalist utopia where all material needs and many wants are available and accessible to everyone.

Financial capital has been moving across borders for centuries leading to the creation of multinational conglomerates of capital, which even threaten to displace nation/states as the ultimate source of sovereignty.

In the centuries-long conflict between human and financial capital the human element is now expressing itself in the demographic pressure across the edges of nations. Land borders are not defendable and sea borders lead to this sort of thing.

This is the beginning of a transition to world government and the Keynesian capitalist utopia.

Of Political Leopards and Spots

Lewis and Woods

"Favouring the rich" is what conservative governments do. I know these guys are telephone pollsters but seriously, what else could anyone possibly have expected, knowing the colour of these guys' political stripes.

At the time of the last election I naively thought that the electorate was too intelligent to fall for the rhetoric of the LNP. I mean, OK the infighting and backstabbing of the ALP was pretty bad, to put it mildly, but the Gillard government had, what I thought was a good track record of consensus-driven progressive legislation even though a lot of it possibly was not progressive enough for my liking. Sure, the shock jocks were ranting against her, but really, that is what shock jocks do. Little did I know.

Superficially, these rantings were the misogynistic ravings of an alcohol affected boys club. Surely the electorate wasn't like that. No but it wouldn't tolerate disunity.

I suppose one could say that it has been interesting to watch all of this unfold. I might further characterise it as disheartening, even depressing, but the basic fact remains that the LNP never altered its stance one whit on any issue. Political leopards never change their spots.

Most of the commentariot has said that the change back to Rudd saved the ALP from annihilation but really the infliction of this non-government on us was a punishment for disunity and I think it possible, if not likely, that Julia Gillard may have beaten Friar Tuck in a fair fight.

We will never know, but this all speaks to the self-imposition of topical myopathy by voters, and the media is largely to blame. Yes it is the media which insists on a 24-hour news cycle, the reduction of every issue to a sequence of sound bytes on the television and the obfuscation of reality with white noise. No one forces them to. To write it off as simply an unavoidable byproduct of advances in IT is incorrect.

But that can wait for another post.

Stealing the Common Good

Paul Krugman

"Elections determine who has the power, not who has the truth"

You Can't argue with the truth of this statement, but this presupposes that there is only one truth: the truth. We all like to believe in a world of absolutes where such a thing exists, yet we delve into the media, innocently believing that we will be enlightened with it, but are hoodwinked not believing in myths.

"A better, more democratic answer would be to seek a better-informed electorate. One really striking thing about the British economic debate is the contrast between what passes for economic analysis in the news media — even in high-end newspapers and on elite-oriented TV shows — and the consensus of professional economists. News reports often portray recent growth as a vindication of austerity policies, but surveys of economists find only a small minority agreeing with that assertion. Claims that budget deficits are the most important issue facing Britain are made as if they were simple assertions of fact, when they are actually contentious, if not foolish."

Public education is a good topic. Conservative political elites who have gained power through devious means such as these are notorious for having as one of their core beliefs, the debasement of public education to produce a more malleable electorate, more easily fooled into electing incompetent assholes who are good for nothing but stealing the common good.

Briefly reported in the media this week was an Australian professor of economics displayed on tv saying words to the effect that the only good tax reform would be an increase or expansion of the GET.

This is so breathtakingly ignorant it beggars belief, yet it stemmed from the mouth of a teacher of economics at the highest level.

That is all for now. Read this article. It is a good one.

What a Good Turn of Phrase

Darrin Barnett

"But with polls out this week confirming Abbot and Hockey are doing laps of the toilet bowl, waiting for someone to push the flush button, Morrison might be singing to a different audience."

Need I say more?

My Cringe Metre Has Settled Down Now

Greg Jericho

Well written Grog.

Barnie Rubble, our fearless leader here in the West, continues to show his true colours: blue LNP as you would expect.

After declaring bankruptcy so I could afford my anticringe medication, I nonetheless tried to be admitted to our fabulously expensive Fiona Stanley Hospital due to complications caused by my catching a glimpse of him on the news, only to find that the management contractor forgot to hire the specialist.

Saying Goodbye to Sovereignty

Mungo MacCallum

Always a good read is Mungo.

'"If anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax they want their head read. As a government I can tell you that you're not spending it so well that we should be paying extra."'

I of course remember this episode as I am sure many people do. A good starting point. At the time I thought it was roughly fair enough and a good point. However, I only remember the first part, and tax minimization is what you pay accountants and lawyers to do for you isn't it? 

The sarcastic ridicule which follows is truly a thing of beauty. But that just keeps you entertained.

What is so eloquently described here is a phenomenon noted by thought scoffers and future gazers for some time now. Essentially national sovereignty no longer exists. The legal frameworks and commercial process apparatuses set up by the lawyers and accountants, under the guiding principles of the neoliberal ideology, have created a world economy where every national government is at the mercy of the market. Sovereignty has become a meaningless concept and everybody seems to be happy with this state of affairs.

Thomas Pickety documents the long rise of Capital. He notes that the balance sheet for the world economy is permanently skewed because of the multiplicity of tax havens where wealth is secreted. He concludes, among other things, that much would be improved if transparency were imposed on the financial system. Then there would be nowhere to hide.

We await the world government.

Not Yet Bill

Chris Berg

Because this guy is a right-wing ideologue. A highly intelligent and persuasive right-wing ideologue but a right-wing ideologue none-the-less. I've read his book on the history of free speech so I know all about him. Believe me, the point he sits on the political spectrum, makes that on which you sit look like a Gingin hippy festival.

It will therefore be to his interest that you reveal yourself early enough in the electoral cycle for his buddies to capitalise on the fact.

My apologies to Chris Berg but you have to call a spade a spade.

Demonstrably False Assumptions

Raja Janakar

Minimum wages need to be maintained at a minimum subsistence level and this level of income should not be taxed at all for anyone.

This country has been governed by conservative governments for too many years. These governments have seen fit to tax the poor to feed the rich and rely on what they term the "trickle-down-effect" to redistribute these through the rest of society. What a load of nonsense.

Based on demonstrably false assumptions, here is the evidence for this effect.

The only just and equitable policy is that stated above.

Leadership

Terry Barnes

"Above all, Lincoln believed in something greater than himself, and acted on his principles."

"With malice towards none, with charity for all"

Leaders have the ability to see what is right and to force or manipulate events to progress in that direction.

Can anyone see this characteristic in any of our "leaders"?

Or in any of the "leaders" of the political parties we are forced to vote for.

Shirt-front Policies

Trisha Jha

Look at this. Another thought-bubble-non-policy produced by a shirt-front PM at the head of an idiotic government.

All this for maybe 3% of babies. Lots of budget savings there.

Never Ever Again

John Baron

You have give it to them. The GOP is nothing if not resilient. After two consecutive defeats by the forces of the left, the far right-wing elements in American society continue to find expression. Putting a baby face on your candidate and dressing him up in verbiage about the changing of the generations increases your appeal to the youth vote, butt they are still far right ideologues with a far right view of the world and if they ever get elected again they will do irreparable damage to life as we know it.

Now that the hyperbole is gone. John is being a good journalist, writing a balanced piece, marketable but not really saying much. He implies that there is a ghost of a chance of the republicans winning. An objective observer would have to think that the tea-party-policies of the far right could never attract sufficient votes of a rational-cognitive electorate. But let's not be surprised ever again. The electorate in the US is a tiny proportion of the voting public, because the mere act of voting is not compulsory, so almost anything could still happen.

We in Australia are, right now, as the US did in the dubya years, experiencing the consequences of electoral complacency, and the assumption that the electorate (as distinct from the voting public) will act in a rational manner. The cringe quality of Friar Tuck is so reminiscent of that arroused by George dubya himself, that I have to take anti-cringe medication every time I watch the news. If we don't cringe we are tempted to succumb to fits of hysterical laughter, and/or outright ridicule.

Yet these are our elected leaders.

oh no

Went to my first ALP Branch meeting last night.

Pretty cool.

Lots of heavy duty ALP faithful, lifetime members, union dudes etc.

And they are all around my age.

Mark Mcgowan, leader of the state opposition, MLA for Rockingham, and the next Premier of Western Australia, attended and spoke to us. We are in a seriously bad situation with the state economy and budget. I haven't been paying attention so I didn't realise how bad. The loss of our triple A credit rating, which I did hear about and commented on, pointed to a bad situation, but I hadn't realised it was a full blown crisis..

He said Barney was gifted with a $3 billion budget deficit  on taking office and has so mismanaged everything since then that it has now blown out to $30 billion. Yes that is a tenfold fuckup in the space of six and a half years. These were years of prosperity. The price of iron ore was high. Large royalties were paid.

WHERE IS ALL THAT MONEY!!!???

I am angry. Aren't you?????

The Champion Defender of Everyone and Everything (As Long as it begins with a twig)

Ian Verrender

Does anyone remember the days of the anti-mining-tax campaign and obscene footage of Twiggy Forrest, one of the most offensively wealthy people in the world, dressed in the uniform of a mine worker, pretending to be one with the working class, while prancing around on national television effectively denying truth and justice to all?

Shall we all applaud the turn of events showcased in this article?

Back in the day, in the Eighties, whence all goodness began, there was a book floating around at my alma mater called "Mineral Economics" (don't ask me who the author is) which introduced and promoted a strange concept. This concept was called a 'resource rent tax'. Now a 'resource rent tax' has a number of mystical semi-miraculous but also arcane characteristics. It doesn't tax investment,
nor capital, but only income and not accrual income but only cash income. It is the saviour of capitalism itself and can transmogrify any abstruse mining company into a soft fluffy family friendly entity capable only of acting in the interests of the nation at large. 

The circularity of public discourse is appalling. This concept was applied to the offshore gas and oil industry without any complaint. Then it came around to the land based minerals industry and a firestorm of hellish proportions irrupted. The most absurd criticism was that it didn't actually produce any revenue. By definition these things don't produce revenue during the investment phase. They are designed to do this. Well Duh.

Resource rent taxes are in fact an idea dreamed up by miners for miners in the interests of miners. The minute anyone mentions a full blown sovereign wealth fund which would have the benefits we actually need the miners drag out the resource rent tax and say 'no, no. Look over here. Don't look over there. Here good. There bad. here are all the reasons why.'

And we all just keep going around in circles. getting nowhere at a tremendous speed.

It Reeks of Ideology aka "against stupidity..."

Alan Kohler

Michael Janda

Greg Jericho

Here we are in 2015, staring down the barrel of another joke of an LNP budget. The worst aspects of the robbing hood's first budget were thankfully blocked in the Senate by the forces of the far right, of all people, now clothed in the guise of the progressive. In other words we are now progressing in a regressive manner towards a vague right wing phantasm of an ideological utopia defining our reality in terms of a sepia-soaked image of life reminiscent of a time 60-70 years ago.

I began this entry in the usual format butt now I am simply going to VENT, so those of you with an aversion to brown matter everywhere would be best advised to turn off your devices now.

How can anyone be so stupid, say such stupid things, look so stupid on TV, treat everyone with patronizing belittling contempt, and yet actually be elected???????? Does the electorate despise itself this much?????? That it could elect a party that openly believes it is incapable of understanding the concept of anything????

I was stung out of my apathy by the prospect of being forced to live under Work Choices; a policy so unfair unjust and so biased towards the interests of SME's that the prospect of being forced to live by it's rules was anathematically intolerable. So I became as active as I could in the Keven07 campaign. I attended meetings, chanted slogans and publicized the message under the constraint of time devoted to earning a living.

And so was the joyous facade of the Rudd government initiated.

How quickly it all unraveled.  No one can know what exactly happened. Everything unravelled at Copenhagen.When PM Rudd realised that although anthropomorphic climate change was the existential, defining, issue of the new millennium, but that, due to the power and influence of vested interest groups, whose very existence depended on the defense of the status quo, it would not be recognised as such and acted upon, he sort of lost interest and backed away to lick his wounds and re-energise for the next battle.

This sence of utter disillusionment with reality has been experienced by most of us on the left of politics. It's like "abandon all hope ye who enter here", except instead of the gates of hell we stand at the gates of the planet. The reality of climate change deniers has no basis in reality. To say, therefore, that it is unreal, is an understatement of the first magnitude. But let us return to Kevin'07.

It is to the infinite degradation of the forces of light that Kevin Rudd was not strong enough, indeed was too weak, to ignore or overcome his disillusionment and disappointment with the Copenhagen result and push through his climate change policy regardless of his feelings. All the unfortunate stupidity which directly produced the present incompetent government of Friar Tuck and the Robbing Hood, with its shirtfronting approach to policy, can be traced back to this time. The Rudd Government's abandonment of its principles on climate change, after all its rhetoric on the subject, forced the electorate to reconsider its position, leading to a slump in the polls, which allowed the centrifugal forces within the federal ALP to expose the long knives.


Leaders live and die by their principles. If a leader is to lead in an efficient manner he or she must ponder the morality and ethics of their stance. Only then can they decide what policies lead in the right direction, as opposed to the wrong direction. Correct or incorrect doesn't really matter. Only the vision of the leader can enlighten the path we all choose.

Most people believed in Rudd's original stance on climate change and the resultant need for his policies. When he turned around and stabbed them in the back by winding these policies back, he set forces in motion which lead him to be dispatched in the same way. Now to return full circle in this piece, let us again contemplate stupidity.

Three links occur at the beginning. These and their content are only a smattering of what is out there, freely available to anyone who may care to look. They refute and contradict in a coldly analytical, rational, evidence-based manner, every policy, argument, direction and principle of this illegitimate farce of a government. Yet the electorate is not boiling with civil disobedience, wrath and unrest, but continues to tacitly and openly legitimise this grave state of affairs.

Now that is stupid.