Where did I see that fact....thought I saw it lying around here somewhere

Peter Lewis and Jackie Woods

"Over the years, Essential polls have shown how factual misconceptions can skew public debate. We've found a direct correlation between those who overstate the numbers of people seeking asylum and a belief we are too soft on border protection.

          We have also found that concern about Muslim influence in Australia is directly linked to an   
           overestimate in the numbers of Muslims living in Australia.

And we have established the link between acceptance of climate change science and support for measures to reduce carbon emissions."

Strangely the odd fact has a profound effect on public discourse and debate. The electorate is not supplied with the facts, rather a biased or even blatantly untrue set of facts, and are therefore unable to make an informed decision. Of course an untrue fact is an oxymoron but it makes as much sense as anything else this government says.

Friar Tuck and the Robbing Hood Continue on Their Merry Way

Vic Alhadeff

"The late Justice Lionel Murphy said: 'Freedom of speech is what is left over after due weight has been accorded to the laws relating to defamation, blasphemy, copyright, sedition, obscenity, use of insulting words, official secrecy, contempt of court and parliament, incitement and censorship'."

This mockery of a government continues to send a wrecking ball through much of what is good in this country. Will we now build a tradition of defamation, blasphemy...etc. by removing this clause from the anti-discrimination laws? The drivel issuing from the mouths of the libertine extreme represented by Andrew Bolt is testament to the shallow facade covering these disagreeable elements in our society. Tinkering with this legislation will encourage Boltian bigotry and could 'open a floodgate' as they say. At the very least it sends the wrong message.     

The Saga of Friar Tuck and the Robbing Hood Continues

Robert Simms

"Offensive March in March placards and the controversy over the Carolyn Habib pamphlet demonstrate that both sides of politics are guilty of double-standards when it comes to personal denigration, writes"

If you don't want to be offended, don't get into politics. Democratic processes should be about rational debate, agreement (or the agreement to disagree), consensus. All these things happen under the surface and it is true that the personal stuff highlighted here shouldn't be there but that's life in the big smoke as they say.

The march in march was a success and a message to Friar Tuck. He pretended to shrug it off and ignore it but he will have to take such a large demonstration into account, especially when it is supported by intelligent argument. To criticise it because it included some personal stuff against Friar Tuck is to focus on superficiality. 

Another Conservative Myth Debunked

Paul Krugman

"everybody knew that doing anything to reduce inequality would have at least some negative impact on G.D.P.

But it appears that what everyone knew isn’t true. Taking action to reduce the extreme inequality of 21st-century America would probably increase, not reduce, economic growth."

You really do start seeing conspiracies everywhere. A great conservative tome, in this case Arthur Okun's Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, was hauled out and touted as proof of the truth and justification for maintaining the concentration of obscene wealth in so few hands and the dire consequences of touching this wealth, much as Hayek has been used to justify austerity policies. Beautifully crafted arguments all with the ring of truth and appealing to common sense. All proven to be completely false, except that the application of these arguments had the underlying effect, in addition to any other effect, of maintaining the status quo.

Balanced and Unbiased but Unjustified and Untrue

Julie Novak

"This week, 70 years ago, Friedrich Hayek's book The Road To Serfdom was first published in the United Kingdom. Dedicated "to the socialists of all parties", the book quickly became a bestseller with five reprints within 15 months in the UK, and with US sales in the first six months exceeding initial expectations 10 times over."

"Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system would be the most powerful monopolist imaginable."

I appreciate the commitment of the ABC to balanced, unbiased journalism, and that this involves printing both sides of any story no  matter that it is untrue and proven to be untrue by the application of logic and reason, but publishing this drivel is akin to the radio broadcasts of Lord Haw-Haw in the 1940's or the continuing publication of climate change denialism. 

'Freedom of choice' is a myth. Look around you and you will see the homogenation  of the so-called 'free' market. Many of the houses in my neighbourhood are on the market from time to time, and I walk around and look at the display boards, noting all the time how similar these houses are to mine. Cars are the same. Go out and buy any car on the market and you will find that it does pretty much exactly what they all do with a minor, superficial deviation here and there. Even that bastion of Hayekian economic thought Niall Ferguson notes this problem.

I have deconstructed the Austrian School of economic thought on this blog for the past year or so. In fact it has been one of my favourite themes. The ABC chooses to publish the alternative to this in the interests of balanced journalism. I applaud them on this. Fortunately this drivel is shouted down by the voices of  Greg Jericho, David Llewellyn-Smith, Ian Verrender, and Mungo MacCallum, among others.
This is just a token article which no one with half a brain will take any notice of. 

Friar Tuck and the Robbing Hoods Part IV (The Wolf is revealed)

Greg Jericho

"Last week there was a bit of news because various Liberal Party backbenchers were openly talking about penalty rates. It started with Dan Tehan and by the end of the week there were about 10 Government MPs lining up to tell the media they think penalty rates need to go."

Well done, again, Greg Jericho, for a lucid piece.

Did anyone mention deja vous? I was active with GetUp in the Kevin07 campaign when the LNP version of IR Reform was supposedly put to sleep permanently. I was working at a factory in Sydney when the EBA was under negotiation and the AWU turned the Howard Government Attack on it's head.

When you talk about penalty rates you run up against the prima facie argument that an hour's work has the same economic value whether it is consumed on a weekend, public holiday, day of annual leave, sick day, or normal work day. This has credence when you put zero value on common goods, all of which have sociosociatal value (apologies for the abuse of language but coining a new term seemed appropriate). Politicians, indeed all salaried workers, are actually paid penalty rates- they are hidden in the fine print of the employment contract. As part of EBA negotiations average hours worked are calculated as the arithmetic mean of observed hours worked over the entire industry. If you then observe a figure for total economic value created in the same period, divide this number by your Arithmetic mean, and subtract an arbitrary percentage representing profit margin for the company, you then arrive at a fair and equitable hourly wage rate, which can be expanded into an annualised amount, paid as a salary, and everyone can get on with life under win-win conditions.

IR policy is a positive-sum game, under ALP policy. This LNP swill continues to attempt to play their traditional divisive, divide-and-conquer, games, all dressed up in harmless-looking, prima facie, rational-sounding, negative-sum game, clothing.

Beware the wolf. His sheeps'-clothing has now been removed.                

And It's Finally Hit The Fan.....But

The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott

"In July 1846, the American writer Henry David Thoreau went to prison for refusing to pay his poll tax. He couldn’t abide the thought that his money would be used, however indirectly, to perpetuate the Mexican-American war and the institution of slavery. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison,” Thoreau reasoned, and so that’s where he was."

A breath of fresh air appears to finally be blowing today. Everywhere I look there is counter-argument to the drivel and lies that have polluted the media since the election of this right-wing swill.

We have been here before.

Is this stuff too hard for the mass of people as the mainstream media obviously believes? Are the majority of people really stupid?

I don't believe they are.

But that will not get this stuff in front of the small number of people who's votes determinew government.