Cuts to foreign aid are expected to save the government’s coffers up to $3 billion. But let’s not forget Wayne Swan declared in 2012 that Australia’s 23 million people needed to bail out the 500 million people of the destitute Eurozone, and the basket-case-that-is-the–EU desperately needed $7 billion from us.
Is there a better argument to show why big government is a big-fail than just saying, E.U.? It takes real skill to start with 20 successful economies and combine them into one large bankrupt entity — and all this in only a decade-and-a-half.
For Australians, seven billion dollars is $320 per man, woman and child. That was nearly $1,300 per household of four.
If someone had knocked on your door with a registered E.U. tin, would you have felt compelled to give $1,300 (of non-tax deductible income) to rescue the poor bankers and burdensome bureaucrats of Europe? Perhaps you might have chosen instead to get a new fridge, take the family on a holiday, or pay for private tutoring for your teenager. But thanks to Swan and the force of big government, you didn’t get that chance. As it happens, Australia doesn’t have the cash to pay it anyway, so the government borrowed $7 billion and we’ll pay the interest, as well as the debt. Good-o.
It’s OK though, Swan tells us “but it won’t involve donating cash into a relief fund.” I’m so relieved.
Instead, we are borrowing money we don’t have, to rescue the regulators, bail-out the bureaucrats, and keep the EU politicians in their cushy but overpaid, net-drain employment who made mistaken decisions we had no role in.
Meanwhile people in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh will just have to make do with a bit less (and, if the Eurocrats get their way, no prospect of life-changing cheap power anytime soon). I’m sure they feel a warm glow knowing their new water-wells, schools, or vaccinations are delayed for a “good cause”.
The opposition estimate Gillard will leave us with a gross debt of more than $270 billion. The cost of five years of mismanaged big-government was that even above the thousands paid in five years of tax, the average person owes another $12,000 dollars — or nearly $50k for a family of four.
What would your household have done with an extra $50k?
When will voters realize the true cost of the parasitic-political class, which voted to rescue fellow parasites rather than the poorest of the poor? What do we call this group who use the goodwill and productivity of others to fund their own mistakes through regulations and coercion: polarasites, politisites?
Budget night in Australia tonight. More fun.
*Minor edits to make it clear the $7b decision was made in 2012.
Bit of pressure here being the first comment…………..
Here is what Costello thinks Swan should say on Budget night
TWO months ago I suggested Wayne Swan try something different in this year’s Budget and tell the truth.
I have put together a draft of the Speech that might be useful for this purpose. It goes something like this:
“Mr Speaker,
I guess by now you have all figured out that I don’t know what I’m doing. That awful truth has finally dawned on me as well. I hadn’t been too good before, but last year’s Budget was the one where I totally blew myself up – you remember? It was May 8 last year. I thought I needed a dramatic opening to my Speech. So I began by saying, ‘The four years of surpluses I announce tonight . . .’
No one heard the rest of the sentence because of the guffaws from the other side. That smart alec Costello called it some of the best stand-up comedy ever delivered in the House of Representatives. But the thing is I really believed it. I’m not good at numbers – of the financial kind. As state secretary of the Queensland ALP I used to run numbers for party ballots. But the outcome was always fixed in advance. I thought that’s how you did Budgets.
I was just getting into my stride when I declared that Labor’s core purpose was, ‘To share the tremendous benefits of the mining boom’.
We were going to do this with a company tax cut starting from July 1 this year but I cancelled that in last year’s Budget. Also, we were going to restore the Liberals’ contribution levels for superannuation but I postponed that in last year’s Budget. And last year I said we would give $1.8 billion to families in more generous payments from July 1 this year. But I’m cancelling that in this year’s Budget. That’s the thing about my Budgets. I do take up a lot of time cancelling what I’ve announced before.
Anyway, there are only so many billion-dollar packages that you can fund out of a tax that raises $126 million. That Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT) has shown me no R-E-S-P-E-C-T. When I announced it, I said it would raise $9 billion in the forthcoming year – whoops! I had high hopes for that tax. I called it ‘the greatest economic change in our lifetime’. Of course I had no idea what I was saying but the Liberals are always going on about GST, which raises $50 billion per year, so I thought I had better lodge my nomination for the greatest tax ‘reform’ ever.
Last year, I came home with a wet sail declaring, ‘The deficit years are behind us. The surplus years are here’.
Looks like I got the words the wrong way around. I should have said that the surpluses were behind us and the deficit years are here. But I did so want to balance one Budget before losing office.
I’ve been thinking about who to blame. For the first few Budgets I blamed the financial crisis. But that was five years ago and we’ve been through a mining boom since then.
Currently I’m blaming the high dollar, although someone in the Treasury told me last year’s Budget forecasts were based on the dollar being just where it is. I’m desperate that people don’t think it’s my overspending because that is something I could have controlled. So we’ve been on a media blitz recently to say it’s an unexpected revenue shortfall.
In April, I said the revenue was down $7.5 billion. A week later Julia said it was down $12 billion. Then Penny went out last week to say it was down $17 billion. I leaked out a Treasury briefing on the weekend to say we were $26 billion down. How do you reconcile all these figures?
Well, it beats me and I hope it beats all of you because that is the whole point – to try to cloud the issue.
AT LEAST no one in the press ever asks me to explain what these forecasts are ‘down’ against. Because the truth is they are down on the false forecasts I made last year. Get it? I am not the victim of these downgrades, I am the culprit. Every time I downgrade, it just illustrates again how hopelessly wrong I got it last year.
I know we can always rely on the ABC, but the thing that amazes me about those other guys in the press is they keep writing what I say – as if that is going to happen (LOL). How many times do you have to get it wrong before they start to see there is a pattern?
I want people to think I am cutting costs – I’ve told you every Budget that I am about to do that. But when I see a state premier who is really cutting costs – someone like Campbell Newman – I just take cheap opportunistic shots. That’s my default position – to attack expenditure restraint.
As well as reducing expenditure I also want you to think I am increasing it – on NDIS and Gonski. Last year I told you that the most important thing for our economy was to balance the Budget and this year I am telling you it would damage jobs if we did.
So how do I reconcile all that? Well, I can’t. And I don’t have to because on September 14 I’m handing it all over to the Liberals. That’s their job: to clean up my mess.”
Peter Costello is a former federal Treasurer
423
Doh for got the link
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/what-wayne-swan-wont-say-tonight-in-his-budget-2013-delivery/story-e6frf7jo-1226641496051
In other news a collective manly NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO was heard echoing around the world just after 3PM CAST today
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/actress-angelina-jolie-undergoes-double-mastectomy/story-e6frf96o-1226642195987
42
Crack24, the woman was always a fruitcake. The vision of her was a mere delusion. The delusion diminished is still a delusion. The women of your own hometown are far more real and appealing than she ever was.
102
I dont know how you can say that when she cried while announcing the NDIS funding. Surely that in itself is enough to confirm her suitability for the role. /sarcasm off
30
Crackar,
Sorry – but the woman has NEVER appealed to me – head stuck too far up her derriere.
She is holier than thou, or me & everyone & a hypocrite to boot. Flies around the world dictating & preaching to everyone about global warming BS and how we’re all going to FRY just like Leonardo Di Caprio. “Do as I say – not as I do!!”
Give me someone with a whole lot of class like Emilia Clarke or Jennifer Lawrence 🙂
Cheers,
81
Good thing She didn`t find a history of bowel or skin cancer in Her family tree , that could have proven to be a bit tricky doing a pre-emptive strike on those .
91
I am curious to know how many guys would click on your second link, before the first?
Not that I expect anybody to answer that question. 🙂
31
did anybody bother clicking on the second link?
30
Nope. Not interested.
20
Maybe i was a little too subtle, what would you think would have a higher priority? Giving 7 billion to a private bank to help bail them out or giving 7 billion to the reasearch and treatment of breast cancer?
62
Remember he got Euromoney’s Treasurer of the Year award a couple years ago. Kinda like Obama getting the Nobel days after stepping into the Oval Office. It’s like a seal of impending failure.
120
… that cost us AUS$7billion, there can be no other explanation as the man is an imbecile !
60
The problem of aid to the EU aid is the same as aid to many of the poorest countries. There is no relief of suffering for the poorest in either case, but prolonging of it, for the money goes to supporting the very institutions that keep people poor or make them poorer.
There is a case for relief of the poorest in countries like Greece and Spain. Greece has seen national output plummet by 30% from the peak, with no end in sight. But the biggest turnaround will come about through institutional change.
160
So what you are saying is that we should stop giving our fiat money to the private central banks and instead put them in jail for fraud and go back to the government issuing all currencies without the interest, just like Iceland?
You know what that might just work.
181
Australias central bank is not private
54
Really? Oh that must be why a non government entity sets the interest rates and also explains why a non government entity prints our money and loans it to us at interest.
Therefore we owe more money than actually exists.
Next thing you will tell me is that the Federal Reserve in the US is wholly owned by the US government LOL.
61
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_Bank_of_Australia
Its interesting how in the past the department responsible for issuing currency was the treasury but now we allow a private bank to do it as a loan at interest, why do we do this?
61
Here is an interesting article outlining the history of the reserve bank (from a US perspective) but it is all the same.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/allwarsarebankerwars.php
Here are some selected quotes
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of our country’s most agile military force — the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent more of my time being a high–class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. “I suspected I was just a part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that the Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. I operated on three continents.” — General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant,1935
The war wasn’t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn’t want to.”- Winston Churchill to Truman (Fultun, USA March 1946)
“Germany’s unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an independent exchange system from which the world-finance couldn’t profit anymore. …We butchered the wrong pig.” -Winston Churchill (The Second World War – Bern, 1960)
“The refusal of King George 3rd to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.” — Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father
“If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.” — The London Times responding to Lincoln’s decision to issue government Greenbacks to finance the Civil War, rather than agree to private banker’s loans at 30% interest.
41
The problem with southern EU countries and other European governments when they have a socialist/Labour government, you get government motivated by trendy whims.
Socialist/labour governments know how to screw things up; they are after all led by people with strong union and/or ‘progressive’ viewpoints. The former have the evenly balanced view on life, a chip on each shoulder, one of spite and one of envy. The latter have an idealistic view of life and an urgency to implement untested theories simply because they cannot understand the time proven concept of: “If it works, it don’t need fixing.”
In any event, Labour governments in both Australia and Britain have the same common characteristics: they always – repeat, always – leave the economy in ruins as a result of the crass stupidity and incompetence.
It just goes to prove the old concept of: “The average IQ of the human race is 100, and 100 is not very smart.” This is why Labour governments are able to get re-elected, they can always rely on the majority support of the sub-100s.
112
Jo recently the government announced that monies received from the Queensland Flood Levy would not be paid out to flood victims because of federal budget shortfalls. They grabbed recently $500 Million of Reserve Bank profit normally put aside in reserve to be used to combat financial attacks on the A$ which lowered NBA firepower. They are cancelling benefits to various sections of the community including breaking their own election promises. They have pledged 10% of carbon tax con revenue to the UN and now more to the EU failed socialist member states. Many more than admitted $Millions spent/wasted on securing votes to obtain a non voting seat at NATO. And more.
They say that the Howard Coalition “squandered the mining boom” but don’t tell us the mining boom did not commence until 2004 and 8 years after the Howard government took office, and not quite 3 years before it left office. However the boom continues and the terms of trade, revenue streams have been higher than at any earlier time in our modern history as a nation. When Swan says revenues are down what he is really saying is that the monies they forecast did not eventuate but not that revenue isn’t the best ever.
Yet they spent $22 Billion the Howard government handed over as a budget surplus and went on to borrow $300 Billion of gross debt being what annual interest liability is calculated against. Plus hidden off budget NBN Co debt of $Billions. All when revenue is at an all time high?
Ireland was in a similar position to Australia in 2007 and is now one of the basket case economies of the EU that we are being milked to help out. What about the 1 in every 8 Australians living below the poverty line and others near to it? What about the thousands of illegal immigrants being welcomed since this government abandoned the working well Pacific Solution that the Howard government put in place, more $Billions of taxpayer monies being spent to house them, look after their welfare and to pay them money to live on, how must our own in poverty citizens feel about foreigners being treated better?
Sorry for this rant but you have added another reminder as to just how bad the present federal government is.
Howard recently told a gathering that in his view our economy has proven to be resilient and in better shape than most other nations’ economies. Well yes, but no thanks to the present government. They took over a strong economy and strong financial position, zero debt. And major economic reforms that had taken place commencing 1985 when the Hawke Labor government adopted the Treasurer Howard iniative Professor Campbell Report for major economic reform, New Zealand’s Lange government also adopted it.
Labor did not complete the reforms because the unions here stopped them however Howard-Costello did complete the process and established the Australian Prudential Regulatory Austhority in 1998 to oversee banking and finance to ensure that excesses of the late 1980s in lending and borrowing did not again result in a severe recession (1990).
Therefore our economy is reasonably strong now but no thanks to the present government. They point to GFC (northern hemisphere financial crisis) to excuse much however Howard managed to overcome the Asian Financial Meltdown, Tech Wreck, 9/11 financial crisis and more, and with less revenue and while repaying the Labor debt of $96 Billion with interest amounting to $176 Billion.
The sooner this incompetent mob is kicked out of office the sooner competent managers can start to manage us out of the mess Australia is in. Thankfully still secure no thanks to this government.
160
“Ineptocracy.
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminshing numer of producers.” Unknown source
80
Dennis
The Govt’s decision not to distribute the Queensland flood levy money –is that legal ? How could it not be contrued as levying money , frauduantly ?
( NB. I’m a Kiwi so I don’t know all the details of the issue )
30
Ross in my opinion what they did is disgusting however it was a federal government special levy or tax and flood relief specific but they are in power and I guess they have the right to change their mind, as with carbon tax con which they promised not to introduce, so another broken promise and too bad about flood victims and taxpayers who thought that their money was going to assist them. It is rotten to the core this Australian socialist government
70
Hey ive been paying the “save the murray” levy for over a decade and it still needs saving apparently
31
You dont need to..Australian politics are corrupt. /sarc
20
Dennis
As far as I am aware, Australia is not part of NATO.
I think you are referring to Australia’s non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, which it will hold until 2014. It is a voting seat, but does not have the power of veto that the Permanent Members of the Council “enjoy”.
50
NA stands for North Atlantic that should give them an idea, btw TO stands for treaty organisation.
PS RW, Australia does employ the NSN system for logistics (NATO serial number) the best way to explain this is that our rifles are the same as the yanks, poms etc although the M16 is a little different our styer will fire the M16 round but it will not eject the empty casing and reload another.
Cheers
20
Um no , Both rifles fire the 5.56 x 45 NATO round , under STANAG 4172 , all ammunition of a designated caliber/length must fire and cycle in service rifles of the same designated caliber . the Australian cartridge ,ball f1 is a clone of the Belgian Cartridge, Ball, SS109 as is the Cartridge, Caliber 5.56 mm, Ball, M855 that the Yanks use ,the latest M855A1 also cycles in all 5.56 x 45 NATO weapons as does the the Mk 262 with it`s heavier projectile
30
So you have fired a M16 with a round from a styer so no um but thanks for your input
20
Nope , but back in `91 (when they were legal in Tas) while a mate of mine was on leave We did burn 300 rounds of cartridge ,ball f1 downrange through a Colt AR-15 and a AAA SAR ( civvy version of the Leader T2 ) to settle a bet , the SAR not only grouped tighter than the AR-15 , it had no failures to feed vs 2 in the AR-15 so He ended up buying the beers that night .
30
Well let me explain further Byron, yes both rifles take a 5.56 round however the base of the round is slightly different so a STYRE round in an M16 will fire but the round will not be able to be extracted due to subtle differences in the design.
I could be used as a single shot but not a semi or full automatic. This was the case a few years ago so maybe there have been design modifications done since then to rectify the problem.
They had to redesign the styre early on because the firing pin was too long and we were getting a lot of UD’s. Not good when you are in the back of a troop carrier LOL.
11
A red thumb LOL
00
You may want to explain to the SASR that the Australian issue cartridge ,ball f1 that they`ve been using in M16A1`s, M16A2`s and in the M4( since 1998)doesn`t actually work , They`ll be quite surprised .
Also the problems with failure to discharge and the appearance of a failure to extract ( it`s actually a failure to eject )were caused by broken firing pins which were a problem ( amongst others )with early issue F88 Austeyrs . Like most rifles the firing pin is free floating and held in position by a spring and , depending where on the pin they break , it can lead to the pin either jamming or sitting in the extended or firing position making it appear that the pin is too long , if the break is well back on the main body of the pin it can leave the tip unsupported so it can behave differently from one shot to the next .
This includes either puncturing or driving the pin tip in deep enough to the primer to stick temporarily and pins the case between the extractor claw and the firing pin so that while the case is extracted it remains stuck to the bolt face , prevents a fresh round from being picked up (obvi) and gets rechambered when the bolt travels forward .
The jolt from the bolt closing can then cause the stuck pin tip to release from the primer allowing normal extraction and the very next round can then either fire normally , not fire at all , appear to fail to extract , and cause a variety of jams by delayed ejection .
I`ve had at least four instances of people arguing that it`s their rifle`s extractor malfunctioning and there`s nothing wrong with the firing pin because the rifle still fires and They`ve kept arguing right up until I`ve dropped the broken pin into their hand .
20
Byron,
You got it arse backwards, a UD is an abbreviation of Unlawful Discharge not a Failure to Fire. What happens is this.
1, You have a round in the chamber (load position)
2, You enter an area where you must be in the unload position so you remove the magazine, remove the round from the chamber and then put it back in the magazine, put the magazine back in the rifle.
3, You then enter an area where you must be in the load position so you put (the same round) back into the chamber.
4, Repeat steps 2 and 3 multiple times
Now normally this would not be a problem however when the firing pin is a wee bit too long what happens is the pin taps against the round ebery time you do the above 3 steps and eventually it goes bang.
The work around was to cycle the rounds everytime you cleared and then loaded your rifle until the pin was fixed.
I am not in the mood to enter into a pissing contest but for someone who acknowledges that they have no knowledge of fitting a styer magazine to an M16 and firing it i am surprised you are asking me to explain anything to the cut lunch commandos. The bottom line is that just because they are NATO rounds does mean they are totally interchangeable which was my initial point.
00
Sorry , I missed the UD off the long list of things that a broken firing pin causes , and I notice that You`ve finally got to the real issue it`s the magazines that aren`t compatible , not the ammunition , F88 mags aren`t STANAG 4179 compliant
10
Thanks Crackar,
I did know what NATO stood for (I used to be part of it), but was trying let Dennis down gently.
10
RW,
My comment was directed at Dennis and co………..it comes as no surprise to me that you used to be part of NATO not sure why its just a feeling i got.
00
Could that feeling come from the Heckler & Koch HK416-10, I have stashed under my desk, do you think 🙂
20
I took you for a MP36 man myself but there you go 416 it is.
10
Crakar
http://www.machinegunbooks.com/mp36sample.html
I am not quite that old.
10
LOL, i didnt mean it that way. You have to accept whatever the standard government issue of the day is i suppose.
00
Sorry, my error, I know better.
10
£A 7 billion is in fact little more than a rounding error in the EU finances. The contribution from one profligate socialist government to another will merely give a semblance of life to a dead currency, it will vanish without trace. There is little chance that the Aussie tax-payer will ever see it again. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that your kitchen cabal got any trade agreement opening up the EU to Aussie goods without punitive tariffs at all, or would seeking an advantage in their Nation’s best interests be too much of a departure from the norm?
130
$7 billion is tiny in the real world, like a successful carbon tax would make no difference to global warming (even if the models were true). But your Australian Government, like the EU exists in the alternative reality of political spin. The money is not to alter the GDP level, but to alter the opinion poll ratings.
90
Its symbolic nothing more, if one was to take a close look at the last 5 years of the KRudd/Gillard governments symbolism is all you will see.
Carbon tax
Mining tax
Fuel watch
Grocery watch
School watch
Gonski
NDIS
Julie Gillard Memorial halls program
KRudds “sorry” moment
Kyoto signing
Cash for clunkers
Pink Batts
Home Solar program
NBN………………and the list goes on
All these programs amounted to or will amount to nothing, they are just thought bubbles from idiots.
Now we hand over borrowed money to bail out gangsters overseas.
180
$7 b may be tiny in the real world, but $1300 is not “tiny” to most households.
370
Indeed, in fact that $1300 is far more focussing to the average family than $7 billion is to your average socialist pseudo democrat polly, who sits at the end of the productive chain with hands out palms upwards and mouths open waiting to be fed. Other peoples money is folly for those who don’t have to give account for their abuse of it.
130
Exactly Jo
70
It amazes me that the intellectuals do not understand how many people they kill……
Ahhh wait… they do know…
101
Jo, late to see the great article. I agree with your sentiments.
We need a reduction of Federal Power. Citizen initiated Referenda as in Switzerland would put a halt the grab for power and socialism.
Note, Switzerland is not in the EU. It is a rich country with financial stability.
40
we should do what Iceland did
http://www.americanbanker.com/people/iceland-indicts-bankers-over-financial-crisis-1057928-1.html
10
Exactly, Jo. UK households are finding out the hard way just how much socialist extravagance with other people’s money is costing them. The effect is to reduce household discretionary spending power and increase the reliance of the lower-paid upon State. (ie National) largesse. This is exactly what Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, warned of. Having had sight of some headline comments on the Swan Song, Labor are doing exactly what the UK Labour did in their last budget, trashing the economy so that the incoming Coalition will get all the flak when they tighten the purse strings out of sheer necessity. The should be a criminal offence: Harming the Nation’s Financial Position for Party-Political Advantage.
40
A$7 billion?
It’s about what the EU ‘loses’ every year due to fraud and the reason that it’s not had it’s accounts signed off by the auditors for a couple of decades.
Dear old Julia has completely lost it! Did she ever have it?
00
Small change it may be, in the scale of the European problem , but it shows willing and may help to secure a place at the top table for one or two Australian pollies facing the dole Queue in just four months time.
70
Also let us not forget that Australia currently sits on the Security Council. Those seats do not come cheap.
40
I forget the admitted to cost, over $20 Million but not discussed is many more millions of dollars in bribes, particularly to African nations but also to other nations, paid to secure promises of votes for Australia. PM Rudd even sent our Governor General on tour in a RAAF VIP 737 executive jet to meet with the leaders his government was trying to win over. A GG is not a foreign minister. All for a seat with no voting rights and a sunset clause and then securing votes again if possible to hold the seat.
60
Australia does have voting rights, but the term is limited to two years. It is the Non-Council members (of the UN) who do not have voting rights.
http://www.un.org/en/sc/members/
10
Thank you that, I discovered elsewhere: While often criticised for being ineffective and paralysed by the five permanent members, the Security Council is the only organ within the UN that can authorise military action as well as establish international sanctions and peacekeeping missions.
As one of the 10 non-permanent members Australia has a vote on such decisions, but lacks the veto power of permanent members – Russia, China, the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
00
Yes which is why everytime Israel steps out of line the US government goes running to the UN screaming VETO!, VETO!, VETO!
10
RW,
Yes but they repay you in spades
20
Yes but, would they call it that ? Monckton’s eulogy to the UN.
10
Presumably they repay the USA in spades.
The first time I heard Australia was getting a seat on the Security Council, my first reaction was “Oh no! This will be end of us. The USA will use us to legitimise a new war.”
It hasn’t happened yet, but Syria is bubbling over nicely.
On a bigger scale, all the Mossad has to do is create a false-flag attack on the USA that pins the blame on Hezbollah and the war on Iran will be on like Donkey Kong. The security council seat will be used to outvote Russia and block Russia from legitimately coming to the aid of Iran.
That was my knee jerk reaction anyway. I hope my knee is wrong. I’ve seen Threads and I didn’t like it.
30
They already tried that, they supplied the “rebels” nudge, nudge wink wink with chemical weapons and blamed it on Syria but the pesky UN said it was the rebels that used them.
Also Russia have the right of Veto not that this matters much they vetoed the Iraq war and look where that got them. The UN will be side lined once again as the bankers wars need to be fought and won (well they havent won one for a while but you get my point).
10
I agree – aid to our own region pays back to us (so self interest is satisfied), but there is also the moral matter of the money being directed to critical aid to help alleviate real human suffering and to assist with real development issues.
Just an editing note regarding a colon.
… just saying, “EU”.
————–
REPLY: Thanks for the editing help. – Jo
12
I’m just wondering how big a debacle September 14 will be.
Can you see former high ranking Government Ministers wanting to sit on a hugely diminished back bench.
If it is such a debacle, then I’m of an opinion that there will be a few retirements, you know, the old stand bys, health, Party renewal, or wanting to be with their families.
There’s 3 high power names on the NSW Senate ticket up for re-election this time, so there’ll be a bit of a grumble over who will get the number 3 slot, the one that will probably miss out, but hey, no real problem there, because I can’t see Bob Carr wanting to be on the back bench.
Imagine the cost we, the public, will be up for, for all those Lower House By-Elections if there is a ship jumping exercise. Speaking of cost, think of the Local Govt Referendum costs, $120 mill plus, a red herring subject changer if I’ve ever seen one. This election will cost an absolute Motza, both before during and after as they all leave, and I’ll also wager some are even secretly hoping they lose so they don’t have to retire rather than sit on the back bench, and let’s hope the public has some sense and expresses their disgust at those by-elections, but dyed in the wool Labor supporters will just follow the Party line, you can bet on that.
Also, just a small conjecture here on my part.
Imagine the rush to pass the NDIS before the election, the crafting of that legislation, the debate, the committee debate and then final reading etc and then transfer to The Senate for their process.
So, keeping that in mind, remember Wayne (Maxwell) Swan’s earlier announcement on how they are going after those on huge superannuation payouts. I’m willing to bet that legislation will not see the light of day prior to the election, what with all those long serving Labor men and women either losing their seats or retiring.
And just on tonight’s Budget, if you think it will be bad, then just wait for next year’s budget after we find out how bad a situation we are really in, which is probably Labor’s big hope. Any incoming Government will have to slash and burn just to keep our heads above the steaming pile. Given that, then Labor will hope that will work in their favour as they will hate anyone who tries to make those needed cuts, in much the same manner as what is happening here in Queensland.
Either way, we have all lost, as there’s no winners in all this.
Bill Shorten, the archetypal pig in mud, just waiting in line for his shot at the leadership. Either that, or they put in a seat warmer, a la Bill Hayden or Kim Beazley.
I just hope that the other side of the House keeps some decorum tonight, as hard as that will be, because this is really serious.
This may be a case of Maxwell wielding the Silver Hammer, only in this case, on himself.
Tony.
120
I suspect that hidden and admitted to in the budget will be a financial mine field that will remind us of a bad tenant given notice who trashes the premises and removes everything to leave the place damaged and bare. And drive off pleased with themselves. In victory revenge, in defeat malice.
110
Symbollically at least like trashing the White House that accompanied Clinton’s departure from office. Which the perpetrators however claimed was normal wear and tear, by their standards.
70
Sir,
can’t ‘we’ start coining pre-election slogans like-
ret… is theft
or
if you are being subsidized by your state government then you have a commonwealth tax advantage that not many other people have…
basically… anyone that has a connected to the grid solar or wind is a taxation advanteged person or organization.
40
Very interesting but scanning page and comments I’m not sure if you refer to AUD or USD
REPLY: They are pretty much 1:1 at the moment. But I refer to AUD. – Jo
40
Nothing short of legitimized criminal wastage! $7B poured over the event horizon of a black hole, never to be seen again. The capacity to achieve so much good mindlessly spurned in favour of collusion with the aspiration of global governance under the aegis of saving the planet. What utter claptrap. And doesn’t charity begin at home?
The reality it seems is more troublesome that that:
http://theconversation.com/australian-governments-face-a-decade-of-budget-deficits-13616
Extravagant donations of $7B simply need to cease immediately and to be seen politically as abject foolishness.
70
“Is there a better argument to show why big government is a big-fail than just saying: E.U.?”
U.N.?
90
Well you know my take on this.
If people ever want to see the ugly face that is socialism just take a look at this collection of scum that are jokingly referred to as Government, it’s a wonder my TV hasn’t walked out with the amount of abuse I’ve hurled at it every time one of these specimens steal valuable air time and O2.
Where is the “social justice” in their allocation of funds where people have to raise money locally to try and save the life of their child but agenda driven zealots can justify running down our economy and sending our money to equally despicable scum.
I urge anyone who feels the same to voice their anger at this treason without diplomacy, as these intolerant anti human psychopaths have shown zero diplomacy or tolerance to us decent humans.
140
THe link under the words “-EU desperately needs $7 billion from us.” does not say anything about $7 billion? Where’s the $7 billion from?
29
http://www.news.com.au/business/australia-gives-7b-to-europe-bailout-fund/story-e6frfm1i-1226335084303
Story is related so maybe just a mix up in links.
A 10 second google found the article. Less time than it took you to post your comment.
We keep telling you you are such a helpless lemming who can’t think for himself. Couldn’t you think to google “swan gives $7b to IMF”? err scrub that silly question.
101
Cheers Bah. Yes I could have, but I thought I’d be helpful and point out that the link didn’t seem to say what it was meant to say.
310
Don’t take the downvotes to heart, Mattb.
It’s pretty sad that pointing out the 7B figure had no evidential basis in the first version, with the result that it got fixed up for every other reader’s edification, gets you downvotes instead of upvotes.
It shows there’s a lot of people who want to believe they are a skeptic when by their actions they aren’t.
Despite Baa’s bleating you are not Jo’s research assistant. (and for that we can be thankful.
]:-})Now why won’t you apply such a skeptical eagle eye to the dire prognostications of the climate warministas?
Now that we know you can do it, it is quite suspicious that your eagle eye is exercised so… discriminately .
For example, how DO the high priests produce their central estimate of 2.1°C per doubling CO2? Where is the evidential support for that large figure? Have you ever wondered?
If Jo had said “Australia MUST have donated $7B to the IMF because I can’t imagine how any lesser number could meet my expectations” then you would have been all over that fallacy like a rash. But when the CAGW high priest decrees sensitivity MUST be 2.1 degrees because their models don’t work with anything less, you sing “Yes Dr Hansen, Yes Dr Hansen, three bags full Dr Hansen“. Yet it’s the same fallacy.
30
Thanks Matt, I had linked to the wrong page. That’s fixed. The $7bn gift was also a 2012 event, so I’ve made that clear.
50
Sounds like you guys down under need your own Nigel Farage.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if he were to move to Oz and set up OZIP, (UKIP United Kingdom Independence Party in the UK). Could be the quickest win / clean sweep since by a newly set up political party ever.
I could easily vote for him except that I don’t think that leaving the EU is the best option, I’d rather see it be made to work. We (the UK) don’t have to be tied to daft Euro regulations, we should just accept the ones we like and reject the ones we don’t.
I must admit I didn’t realise that you guys in OZ were now beholden to EU regulations. What can I say, welcome to the EU. Will you be changing your flag to suit your new allegiance / bureaucratic obligations ?
50
Well, that works for the French, so we should give it a try 😉
Mind you, I think we just need out. Staying in is much like carrying a dead man across a desert looking for a waterhole.
80
We have a bloke here who aspires to be Nigel Farage.
He has more money than he knows what to do with. He loves dinosaurs, so he buys them. He like the movie ‘Titanic’ so he is going to have a full scale model built.
He also wants to be Prime Minister, but it would appear that can’t be bought.
We also have another Nigel Farge, and he has a few good ideas, but most of the time he is the Mad Hatter.
30
don’t worry – we’ll be back in surplus in *cough* 2016 *cough*
46
I’m glad you can see the lighter side of this, Matt, since people such as yourself and John Brookes, JFC, Catamon and the like have consistently railed against and mocked some very legitimate (especially in retrospect) conservative opinions regarding this government, it’s level of utter incompetence, and the unbelievable level of deception, manipulation and malevolence shown by Labor in its two terms.
Since my children’s and grandchildren’s collective future has been mortgaged to the hilt through stupidity you fellas support, any chance of some shared responsibility? Perhaps an acknowledgement that almost each and every criticism levelled by commenters here and elsewhere having been vindicated by Swan’s economic mismanagement on a grand scale. Matt? John? Cat? Adam Smith??? Anybody?
And by the way, how come Juanita Phillips gets to sleep with Greg Combet, but the rest of us are the ones who get screwed? Just asking.
110
As much as I think this has been the worst government in our history, I don’t fall for the meme that our deficits are that bad.
The federal govt. currently receives about $340b per annum and growing like crazy – I believe about 9% 7% 6% in the last few years.
Taking a basic inflation figure of 3% alone, govt revenue will rise by over $10b a year. It wouldn’t take too long to erase these deficits.
All it needs is a responsible treasurer and finance minister who will put a brake on spending growth.
Starting by taking the axe to anything and everything to do with environment sustainability and global warming alone will bring us back to surplus in no time.
Measures that will reduce the cost of energy and reduce green and red tape (not to mention PINK TAPE, my title for all things PC) will boost industry, jobs, consumer spending and government revenue by amounts that will make the current budget surplus seem tiny in just 5 years.
The collective future of our grandchildren need not be evoked.
41
GDP includes government expenditure which in Australia makes it a falsely inflated figure, and add to that each individual state debt which we are also on the hook for, suddenly we aren’t looking so good, and I don’t believe we will ever recoup this debt, given the demographic tsunami of BB generation retirement we are facing. A perfect storm when combined with our structural current account deficit and high fixed costs, and high external liabilities and over reliance on a few resources vulnerable to terms of trade fluctuations. So, hate to disagree, but our goose is stuffed and well and truly cooked.
50
Baa Humbug:
The situation is a little more complex than you outline. Yes, inflation add X amount to the government budget, but it also adds X amount (if not more) to the expenditure as well, so there will be nothing available to pay off the debt.
Also, as the government’s spending expands faster the economy, its share of the GDP rises. This promotes inflation (check even Keynes) and depresses the economy. The inflation may in time make the debt nearly worthless, but all those public servants (via their Unions) will want a bit more than the inflation rate. Up goes the government share of the economy, reducing the private sector share. Since it is the private sector which generates the wealth to pay off debt, not ten thousand people shuffling pieces of paper, the debt cannot be paid off, at least not until someone stops the rise in government spending. Difficult, even Greece has increased its spending during the crisis.
40
That goes without saying, we are blogging after all.
However in that context, it most certainly is that simple. Take your comment about inflation also increasing costs. Sure it does, but the serious treasurers usually ask all the departments for what’s called an ‘efficiency dividend’. Usually one or two percent.
Add to that the increase in revenue due to real growth and you have the makings of tens of billions extra each year.
The problem with Labor – and in particular this specific government – is that they are totally and utterly beholden to their union masters.
There is no way for instance that Swan can ask his health minister for an efficiency dividend. The health unions would go troppo. Same with the over paid over perked over bloated public sector and right the way through all the departments.
It’s easy Graeme. One just needs to want to do it, that’s all.
31
Agreed. He doesn’t want to save money, but then Swan hasn’t got the brains of a raspberry seed.
20
It seems John Howard agrees with you Bah: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/05/john-howard-praises-warns-on-economy/
16
MattB said:
Your sarcasm there suggests that you are confident that Labor has screwed up enough to make it too difficult for the Coalition to fix in three years. Likely so, unfortunately. Your Labor loyalty and cockiness suggest that the situation pleases you.
It’s a strange sort of pride that you harbour, Matt and like so many of the vocal left, it’s an alien sort of Australian citizenship that you fester.
On September 14th, Boat Labor (not you, Matt).
40
Seriously I can’t win here can I?
17
Sure you can. Just tell everybody that you are voting for the Coalition.
40
never say never slider
12
I just voted for Barnett.
23
It is a tough crowd tonight.
20
And losers are called that for a reason.
20
Apparently not, i thought your comments were of a reasonable standard.
10
MattB said:
Your crocodile tears are serious? Wow! Perhaps the Left have for so long engaged in spin and self-deception that they no longer know the difference. It’s possible.
The trouble with BS is that you always need to remember stuff you previously said that can betray appeals to the misunderstanding of things said later. Actually, the need for a good memory goes for any subterfuge.
Here is what you said earlier in the thread:
Which leaves no possibility of doubt as to the meaning of your followup:
That not only puts into context of your later comment, it is just a variation of the same from the budget bag of leftist boorishness. Jabbing and then playing victim is a speciality of the Left, with Julia Gillard the most notable exponent.
Matt, this is the worst Government and PM in recollection. That’s their fault and the fault of people like you who have encouraged and defended them. That’s your shame, not ours, so wear it without the bitchiness, OK?
20
Hugh – 1st context is Swan saying he’ll get back to surplus in 2016, with the Lib opportunity to counter with “no wonder we’ll be in surplus, we’ll be in Government.”
03
Let’s look again at:
and:
Are you saying that we should infer the ‘cough…cough’ is for Labor having the budget in surplus in 2016 and that the ‘of course’ is a statement of support (not sarcasm) for the Coalition doing it?
Can you see that the distinction is not provided in your comments, for us to draw such seemingly uncharacteristic inferences?
It is possible that there has been a misunderstanding and to play safe, I will extend a provisional apology and will view your posts afresh.
In the meantime, if you have been wronged, I hope you might see how one-liners invite obscurity and ambiguity. It’s one reason I don’t even read Twitter, let alone participate.
30
“Are you saying that we should infer the ‘cough…cough’ is for Labor having the budget in surplus in 2016 and that the ‘of course’ is a statement of support (not sarcasm) for the Coalition doing it?”
Indeed. I’m not saying the coalition “will” have a surplus then, just pointing out the political spin opportunity.
20
HOwever Hockey should make sure that tomorrow’s sound bite is “Of course we’ll be in surplus in 2016, as you’ll have a coalition government”
06
How much of the $7 Billion will ever reach the people in the afflicted economies ?
What did the Greek say about their generous bailout ?
IMF’d
40
Like Queensland flood victims who have been refused Flood Levy monies by this federal government after they levied Australia wide to collect
50
The phrase “obtaining monies by deception” springs to mind.
10
just testing, if that image posting works yet.
10
10
Instead of the, “you bet it will fail” referendum on handing the chance for any federal politician and the need for yet another one or two bureaucracies to administer the shackles to foist Agenda 21 directly on the populace, by-passing the States (Oh, don’t you love the smell of
napalma totalitarian Government in the morning!!), we need the following:Referenda on:
– Taking all of Gillard and her cronies to court for treason, and put all politicians on notice.
– Emasculating the ABC and SBS, retaining 10% of the good programs and sell off the rest.
– Shutting down all climate related departments and prohibiting all research grant for any related purpose (high time to get value for our expenditure).
– Cutting all funding for Universities that goes to socialist programs.
– Applying a freeze on migrant intake for five years and an open debate on what society we want in 2050.
– Getting rid of all foreign banks and printing our own sovereign money.
– Prohibiting foreign ownership of our land (unless one becomes a citizen and a permanent resident).
That will do for a start, no doubt there are plenty of other suggestions.
–
51
I’ve never understood why Australia imports non European migrants.
It’s perfectly obvious from long European experience that they don’t integrate into Western society and they out-breed those host societies paid for by child benefit and other benefits, since they often don’t value education and continue to have large numbers of children, an average of 8 in France, 5 in the UK.
Within 30 to 40 years these largely muslim populations will be the majority within 90% of European countries and as they don’t integrate, each and every European country that will have fallen to this internal alien takeover or conquest will have their culture and civilisation destroyed and reduced to the same sort of level that we see throughout the middle east.
Why is it easy for people from third world countries to emigrate to Australia, 25,000 or more a year, who don’t share your culture and judging from some 50 years now of European experience they mostly never will, when at the same time you make it very difficult for Europeans to emigrate to Australia who would integrate and adopt the Australian culture.
Australia’s naive and blinkered leftist immigration policy will end up destroying the very essence of Australia.
[Americans, Canadians and New Zealanders are non-Europeans. As much as this is a highly misguided rant, Jo Nova mods do not censor except in extreme cases. Let everyone read this and know that opinions like this still exist. Ignoring ignorance won’t eradicate it.
p.s. Keep personal abuse to a bare minimum in replies to this comment please.] oggi
119
wow – just wow. you two take the cake.
13
Yeah Matt, I spotted the ism too as you obviously , gleefully did. Makes ya feel all warm and self righteous inside innit?
50
The dark side of climate scepticism, you find yourself aligned with some genuine right wing, rednecks and all that goes with it.
“At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to
minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects
often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has
sometimes been disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition.” – Lord
Acton
30
If you’re really struggling, give Justine Greening a call in Whitehall. She’s big on helping the poorer nations.
I’m sure we will send you a bob or two. Hell, we’ll even borrow the money tp help you pay off your debt. After all, that’s what the Commonwealth is for, shirley?
10
“Is there a better argument to show why big government is a big-fail than just saying, E.U”
I think part of the reason the EU was formed was to stop them fighting each other, like in WW1 and WW2, which is one thing the EU accomplishes a bit better. But now they just fight over the money, which is better then fighting over land in trenches, anyway.
22
A sovereign government of a country is big government, how it is managed is the issue, surely?
10
I suggest you Google the “Franco-Prussian wars.”
France and Germany were at war with each other, on and off, for over three centuries, culminating in the Second World War. The invention and use of the Atomic Bomb, frightened the beegeesus out of both sides, and motivated the formation of the EU, where they now fight with each other, for supremacy, in a much more civilised manner.
40
Dear Ms Nova,
I am an EU bureaucrat, and I think your diatribe against the EU Commission and Parliament is quite wrong. We only get a salary of 450,000 Euros for putting in a great deal of work from 10am to 3pm every day except Fridays through Mondays with only 2 hours for lunch. We work so hard on inventing new laws – we made 250,487 new laws last week (we now have a computer). These laws will prevent citizens from being able to work too hard, which is a great benefit to them. When they then can’t work enough to feed their families, it merely shows how feeble and irresponsible they are, because if I can feed my family on my limited salary, why can’t they? They are very lucky they have us to look after them. By the way, my government-guaranteed pension, which I cannot take until I’m 45 years old, will only give me a measly inflation-linked sum of 357,000 Euros a year. I think you’ll agree that we are hard-working, low-paid but dedicated workers focused solely on benefiting all EU Citizens. Soon we’ll be a single state, with the old-fashioned and destructive idea of sovereignty for each country being banished for ever. This will ensure that bureaucrats continue to thrive and multiply. Some idiot said that before that happens there’ll be a revolution – or that the EU will collapse because of its internal contradictions, but of course we all know that that’s just British propaganda
Yours sincerely,
[Name with-held for reasons of EU Commission security]
PS: We have banished paragraphs in the EU in order to save paper and keystrokes.
320
Very nicely done, John.
80
The irony is that we spend billions dismantling the USSR and the day after we did this we began recreating it again in our own vision. It looks like the Russian version was better as it has lasted a lot longer.
60
It was also more honest, in that the Soviet rank and file workers always knew they were being screwed.
This time around, the rank and file are actually assisting in the process by helpfully inventing new ways of extracting money from their own wallets.
10
Lets not forget the 5c or so we’ve all chipped in to fund Lewandowsky…
61
From the link (on $7B figure) Jo originally used for this story:
From the new link:
Well it was very artful of Hockey to pre-empt the outrage about the “support”, despite both Labor and Liberal being in favour of sending money to the IMF. The two faces of the same coin show their common bond. But aside from that…
When we pay our income taxes we have almost no say in how those taxes are spent.
When our government decides to donate our tax money to the IMF like it’s a charity there is also no pretence of having any say on how that money is spent – we can’t say “here’s 7 billion but you’re not to use it on the Eurozone”.
This is bordering on hypocrisy for the government when you consider “Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012” Part 3.1 Div 45 section 5 (my emph):
If the government applied the same standards to the IMF that it wants to impose on registered charities, it would have to figure out how the purpose of the IMF is advanced by bailing out countries who thought having 40% of all employment in the government sector was a sustainable plan, bailing out risk-taking investment banks who bet on the same socialism and failed, and generally rewarding bad behaviour. It’s not just un-Austrian, it’s un-Australian, and the only lesson
learned will be that wasting other people’s money is a risk-free enterprise.
As to what the purpose of the IMF really is… well that’s probably another issue entirely. Given that they are pouring money into black holes, having this tactic not work, and then asking for money to try the same trick again, one wonders if the IMF might qualify under Australian legislation as a “Basic religious charity”. 😉 (Religious charities are NOT required to achieve any particular purpose, oddly enough.)
As far as I can tell, the purpose of the IMF is to impede the flight of capital from a floundering country, which occasionally means propping up failed banks that are too big to fail. One opinion states in the case of Cypress and Greece the IMF has tried to prop up the Euro instead of resurrecting the national economies. If the IMF was a charity it has now intentionally acted in defiance of its own purpose.
Again in the Austrian spirit one must question the long term effect of these bailouts, whether they are rescuing a couple of companies, a large bank, or a whole nation’s government. As Robert Murphy wrote for The Mises Institute talking about the 2008 TARP bailouts in the USA:
A very subtle but potentially important point, assuming the analogy from national to international level holds. If the IMF decides which countries are bailed out and the conditions of the deal, it’s going to help countries to have leaders and treasurers that are personally connected with the international banks and the IMF. It’s an enticement to one world government by stealth.
The political connections of the IMF to the USA and EU has not escaped the attention of Russia. The BRICS countries are not bailing-out the IMF like Australia, they are bailing out of the IMF.
This all paints a picture of the IMF being a failure that the fastest growing countries won’t touch with a bargepole.
But don’t worry, mateys, our donations to the IMF are all for a good cause…
Please do not punch your monitor. Suffice to say that protecting Australian jobs does not seem to have been a top priority for Swan and Gillard over the last 4 years.
110
Is this new money in addition to the 10% of the Australian carbon tax pledged by Greg Combet to the UN at Cancun?
Perhaps the UN could direct our – and all the other countries – pledged carbon taxes to Europe rather than to the Third World (that originally was to be gifted to them so that they could cope with the now discredited ‘climate change’ threat.)
(Oh…I forgot; that UN money was to prevent them from becoming industrialised and to keep them in their Third World status, wasn’t it.)
50
The purpose of the IMF is to take vulnerable economies in Africa, heavily encumber them with unaffordable loans, facilitated by bribery to compliant leaders, which then facilitate neocolonialist incursions of corporate raiders acquiring national assets by stealth. Its other function is to keep countries like Spain and Greece in perpetual poverty until civil unrest and breakdown in social order leads to either abject impoverishment or civil war. It is the parasitic arm of the banker class, populated by ex-GS alumni, and what it pretends to do is the absolute opposite of what it does in reality. So, of course we should send buckets of money to it, right?
50
I seem to remember Argentina telling them to ‘stick it’ quite successfully. Iceland didn’t do too badly either. Maybe there’s lessons here.
30
The lesson is that the “solutions” being sold to us across the board are not solutions at all, but a roadmap to serfdom.
40
Winston,
So we contribute (give never to get back) $7 billion to the IMF EU bailout fund, and then the IMF loans (to be repaid) and stipulate their terms of how the country is run?
So this is in effect a simple donation to increase the IMF and it’s cronies?
It’s theft.
10
When you say it like that, it sounds very much like paying the maffia. Protection money? Perhaps job protection money for failed politicians, Rudd comes to mind…
10
My point exactly, Dave and Greg,
Except the only difference is a mafia protection racket wants the money to keep rolling in so helps keep the business viable where they can. For the IMF, the protection money is just a bonus, the point is to enslave, debauch and defile a country in any means it can. Make no mistake, they are the enemy, pretending to be a saviour, the worst kind of vile betrayer, populated by parasites with no conscience and no soul.
They speak very highly of me though.
10
The EU still haven’t repaid australia or New Zealand for their inane war costs
30
Trying to look at the bright side, I agree with Tonyfromoz. If the election give the ALP 21-22% primary (as I have always expected) then the pardy won’t see government for another 15 years, if it survives at all.
30
It’s utterly scary to think that one in five people would actually vote to re-elect these muppets.
Sure, i understand that there is a reasonable amount of people in australia with serious intellectual challenges – but surely the number is less than 20%?
40
Well, over here in Pommyland, there are 30+% idiots who would vote for the Labour party, so ably lead by ‘Wallace’ Milliband. On that basis, only 20% of Aussies proposing to support Labor doesn’t seem too bad.
Anyway, if you do vote in a Liberal government, I hope they are a bit more competent than our allegedly Conservative lot. ‘Hug a Husky’ Dave is irredeemably wedded to the lunatic green religion and the EU.
30
Its scarier to think that even more voted them in in the first place.
Whitlam
Hawke
Keating
Rudd
Gillard
What were the people thinking?
30
OT but as I predicted some time ago and definitely going out on a limb my bets are that NH ice WILL NOT decline to outside normal Standard deviations this WHOLE year and will continue to increase every year (but may stay within higher bounds of SD), for the next 30 years LOL
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
30
Definitely interesting, particularly that little kick upwards at the end of the black line.
How are you making your prediction?
20
there is only one way… by applying a model
03
True dat. Obvious and banal, but true.
It may be an explicit model (a computed result) or a mental model (a SWAG) but it’s a model either way.
BS was probably asking for details of the model. ie how the model reaches that conclusion.
20
Yes I was.
10
If you look at the ‘New Improved’ plot link versus the old plot notice how the new plot shows the mid summer ice melt has gotten worse every year since 2009. Notice how the old plot does not show this.
Got to simplify things so those with IQ’s under 100 can follow the ‘script’ and have ‘solid’ information to show to support their cries in blogs of the The Ice is MELTING
10
Hmm!
Small snippet late in the night on ABC24 with it’s round the clock Budget Analysis.
The ABC got its full funding of $2.6 Billion for the next 3 years, and in fact got a $190 Million raise.
Almost a billion dollars per year to run the ABC. Or as the ALP might say, worth every penny!
I reckon that’s a bit more than the old 8 cents worth.
Tony.
40
That’s about 19.7c per day per taxpayer in the labour force. Unfortunately the 8c per day figure seems to have been calculated on the total Australian population, so by that formula it is now closer to 10.8c per person per day.
The Friends of the ABC estimated it was 11 cents a day in 2006.
The 8c figure was from 1987 and currency devaluation since 1987 bring the nominal increase theoretically from 8c to 17.4c per day per person. This means that ABC funding has in fact declined by 38% in real terms since it was 8c/day.
So the truth is that despite continual budgetary increases, the ABC has been progressively defunded since 1987.
You are probably paying the least now for the ABC that it has ever cost per person since 1974.
And who do you think arranges for inflation to happen? They are laughing at all of us.
20
However many cents per person it costs it makes no sense to continue giving the abc tax money to run.
The abc should be one of the many outrageous bureaucratic black holes cut off from public funding; some of the others include [from Catallaxy]:
“11.the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation”??
80
Ah very clever cohers, when you can’t argue the specific point, broaden the issue.
Well fair enough. Most of them can go.
I still think there’s a place for government funded high-risk research, ie the CSIRO, but reformed.
Actually the ABC’s news web site is pretty darn good, it’s probably the only part of the ABC I would miss if it disappeared in a puff of smoke overnight. Does anyone know of any Aussie news sites that are better?
“11.the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation”??
Only slightly less corruptible than the Australian Wheat Board, surely! 😀
Federal police today found Nigerian officials had been bribed in the Brandy-for-Oil programme….
10
$7 billion to take Loopy Lew …
… and you knew about it last year!
30
We have yet to have a woman in the oval office here in the US and it is debatable which would have been worse, Hillary or Obama. We only have the two terms of the latter as evidence, though she certainly did not demonstrate any competence in her role as Secretary of State.
For many, many years I’ve held the belief that there is no reason not to elect a woman, after all men have been screwing things up for years a woman can’t do any worse.
I’ve had to revise that belief in light of your Julia. Apparently a woman can do worse. Though I still suspect that the right woman could have done better unfortunately for all of you in Australia she was not the right woman.
30
Hillary would have been worse, she is smarter than Obummer, but that does not take much doing.
With luck the Benghazi and the other Capitol Hill scandals will kill any chance of a Hitlery for President push.
Seems “…The most recent scandal to grip the Obama administration came Monday evening, when The Associated Press disclosed that the Justice Department sought its reporters’ phone records — including those of correspondents who sit in the Capitol…” and Journalists are now fuming over DOJ raid on AP. Looks like the politicos finally managed to tic-off their propaganda lapdogs.
20
Time will tell. Pissing people off seems to be about the only thing this administration is any good at. Of course the faithful would still be making excuses for him as the officers put the cuffs on them and hauled them away. I will never understand what they see in the man, because I from what I’ve seen so far he’s not much of a man.
10
$50K each family owes … but it gets worse.
$50K is the debt increase, meaning that it was borrowed. Paying it back at low interest rates may mean $70K these days, but I digress from the point I want to make:
In order to pay that $50 grand, the feds take your tax dollars. Fed tax rates may be 15% of your income. So to give them a dollar, you need to EARN perhaps 7, not the previous 7 you were going to pay them anyway, but an ADDITIONAL
If you say that individuals pay half the federal taxes, while corporations pay the rest, you are at the $25 – 35K per family level for the gross dollars. So the Fed government says you have to earn an ADDITIONAL $175 – 245K over your working life. How do you do that?
By working longer. If the average wage is $60K/year, you have to work about 5 years longer than you did pre-additional debt.
Anyone for raising the retirement age from 65 to 70, or even 75?
This is why retirement ages are going up in the western world. It is not that we want a higher standard of living when we retire, or (mostly) we live longer, it is because debt financing has forced us to earn ADDITIONAL money to pay for stuff we wouldn’t have wanted, shouldn’t have been given, and are rightfully resentful about having received …. that we couldn’t afford at the time.
40
Bureaucrats of all contries, unite!
20
Bureaucrats of all countries, unite!
………………
They already have:
While reading this notice the distinction made between we and the people.
The concept of “…the need to provide billions with decent living standards…” goes back to the 1930s and before. The solution is not what you think unless you think of the real reason the Royal Society calls Lewandowsky “outstanding”
The Guardian UK – Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s closet: Socialism’s one-time interest in eugenics is dismissed as an accident of history. But the truth is far more unpalatable
20
Of course Europeans are starving! Their budgets have been massively blown to bits because of huge subsidies to green and renewable energy programs to the point there is no money left to feed the poor, old aged and retired who have watched their energy costs soar because of practically zero contributions from green and renewable energy sources! It is morally inexcusable for the governments to make the poor, aged, and retired to have to choose between medicine, food or freezing to death!
80
Once you let go of preconceptions that people in power are essentially good and care for their fellow man, you can begin to see the self centred and narcissism at the heart of those who presume to lead us (up the garden path and over a cliff!). They are not only indifferent to the suffering they are causing, they thrive on it, because without it there is no need for half of them and most of what they claim to do.
As sure as night follows day, the “solution” to the demographic problems and ageing population and widespread economic hardship, and it won’t be smaller more efficient government and practical solutions. It will be voluntary euthanasia for those too poor or feeble or depressed by their circumstances that they long for someone to put them out of their misery, followed by pathways to death assisting precipitous decline to death. These pathways will begin as compassionately based, then broadened to include emotional then family then finally financial hardship, this latter firstly for the poor person’s personal financial considerations and then finally what is financial for the state, in other words state sponsored murder for budgetary considerations. Then, when that is not sufficient, age quotas will follow. It is very likely that this approach will not only be advocated in our lifetime, and more than likely it will eventually succeed.
Ironically the only way this wont happen is if global conflict intervenes, on a similar scale to last century’s debacle. This is the likely scenario unless this occurs first, or if medical technology advances rapidly enough in the fields of neurological research into memory loss, hereditary balance issues and promoting mobility and alleviating degenerative joint disease. This is where research dollars need to concentrate, and where stem cell therapy has potential to avoid this unpalatable slippery slope becoming a reality. This is more important even than cancer research, but seems to be relatively advancing at a snail’s pace, and of a lower priority, unfortunately.
30
Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, how is voluntary euthanasia not a practical solution to being infirm and impoverished?
It seems to me it is very practical, it’s only question of whether the sufferer wants to do it.
As to the “demographic” problem, if the less people there are the more each one matters, then the converse is true.
Tweaking the demographic age mix is only of concern to Ponzi schemes such as the old age pension, which could only work if they ensure the age structure is always bottom heavy with the working youth outnumbering the retired. That is only temporarily possible with exponential population growth which must eventually be brought to a halt by resource limits and so is a Ponzi scheme.
Superannuation funds aren’t much better, but may be sustained in the future mainly on early investment in industry-wide paradigm shifts and on incremental transfers of market share between companies, that’s going to be their only source of “growth” in a non-growing population.
Assuming there will always be long term population growth to fuel portfolio returns will break down the first time one generation inevitably finds their super returns are abysmal and their own contributions were therefore insufficient.
Stabilising the total population at the present number is the only long term solution to stabilising the economy, bringing certainty to retirement funding, and preserving the value of human dignity.
Have to agree on the medical research though. If we are going to live longer because of all this hygiene, medicine, OH&S, anti-pollution laws, exercise, and positive thinking, then we don’t want old age to suck.
Our powers of positive thinking can be stretched only so far.
10
Hi Andrew,
Nice to talk with you, even when we disagree I always find your comments insightful and full of good background information.
Unfortunately, I have very mixed feelings about euthanasia dealing as I do with the very elderly frail and infirm. I think the current system is the best of possible outcomes, imperfect though it may be, with palliative care sophisticated enough to deal now with most issues of pain, nausea and so on. The problem is the shifting definition of “voluntary” with coercion not only likely but inevitable, particularly by guilt levelled upon the elderly by their families and even by health professionals.
My former classmate, Phillip Nitschke, is a perfect example of why euthanasia, “voluntary” or not, is not a good idea, being callous, over zealous and egocentric and whose enthusiasm for accelerating the demise of others is unfortunately matched by a significant enough number of reformist colleagues whose motivations are not pure, in my opinion. Forestalling the inevitable collapse of the Medicare system, in train as we speak, would be a very poor reason for motivating clinical decisions regarding who should die and when, but I know that would be the consequence given the general moral decline in society which is slowly infiltrating even my own profession, in spite of the best efforts of some traditionalists who stubbornly hold on against the tide.
20
Well by the same token if people disagree with me I may learn something from them as long as they put up a better-argued case than my own. Although I hate being wrong I find the prospect of being perpetually ignorant to be far more frightening and so is to be avoided at all ego costs.
We may disagree and that’s okay. Thankfully I don’t have any… pressing concerns… in this area, no choices in need of immediate resolution one way or another. I figure I have another 45 years to “see the light”, pun intended. (that’s a joke because I’m an agnostic, except on Monday mornings when I am an atheist.)
Admittedly I am still in the padded General’s armchair on the hill and have not yet been dispatched to the more intense trench-level view you docs must have on this issue.
That seems a bit out of left field. I didn’t think I was implying the entire Medicare system was depending on grannies being put to death. So I take it you were providing a related new topic. My only argument for population control is at the other end of life; that we as responsible adults, and not locusts, should exercise some restraint in how many kids we pop out. That’s partly because I have a sneaky suspicion that if we don’t control ourselves, someone else will try to.
But the collapse of Medicare is an interesting one, I’d not heard of that. Austrian theory says that health care will become more affordable in the absence of Medicare, because without a subsidy service providers will be able to bill for only what customers can afford. Doctor’s salaries will go down, sorry, but OTOH there’s only so many free slots in the club tee-off schedule anyway. 😉
Certainly as a free thinker I am guilty of not being a traditionalist. For that matter I have no knowledge of Nitschke and have inherited nothing from him. I do wonder if this issue attracts a certain kind of character to the proponents’ front lines and that you may be dismissing the whole euthanasia option just because of a few freaks that like pushing big red buttons. It’s a bit like saying that because top leadership positions in companies tend to attract quasi-sociopathic “Type A” personalities that therefore there should be no command hierarchy or performance management in companies. A system that defines people’s roles carefully and limits what they can legitimately do should be able to survive contact with a Nitschke or three, surely?
On the other hand it sounds like you don’t want a bar of it no matter who is signing the forms. What you regard as a moral decline may well be so if it involves coercion and hasty decisions. If there was ever a time one deserved a “cooling off period” it would be matters like this. I don’t buy the guilt tripping line though. If close relations don’t like seeing the sufferer suffering, that’s entirely the point. Nobody does, least of all the sufferer themselves.
One argument there is to highlight what seems to me a double standard between two situations that differ in insignificant ways. When one group of people decided when, where, and how to end their lives, even though they didn’t have to, while all their loved ones wished they could return home safely instead, we applauded their grave decision to die due to its many positive consequences in alleviating the suffering of others, so much so that we posthumously award them medals and have parades in their honour every year for 70+ years afterwards. When a different group of people want to decide when, where, and how to end their lives, even when they don’t have to, even when their family doesn’t want them to pass, and when doing so would also alleviate some mild suffering of others as well as their own acute suffering, we treat them like trash, keeping them prisoner in their own bodies, and treat anyone who supports their decision as criminals.
Is voluntary euthanasia the last liberty that civil rights hasn’t yet secured for the individual?
As soon as we give doctors any power (of yay or nay) in such a process, we’re saying the individual has no right over whether to enjoy or dispose of their life as they see fit. I figure doctors don’t want to have such roles and expectations put on them and you sure sound like you aren’t keen on it either. Well doctors don’t have to have any mandatory role in this. Treatment and palliative care, yes, obviously. Get that Hippocratic Oath firing on all cylinders. Psychotherapy and encouragement to tough it out, of course. But when the patient wants to check out, you shouldn’t be made to stop them and hopefully in most cases you shouldn’t want to.
I’m not trashing any fundamental values here. I actually think that to adopt this viewpoint I understand the value of human life in a more complete way than “tradition” has done. To value human life is an ideology, and so like all ideologies it can never be pure in practice, can never be achieved 100% whole and intact. To be manifest at all it must also be compromised. And so it is every second of the day. It is literally in the DNA of humans that they must die. To value human life in practice then means that you give it your best shot. Because ultimately nobody can be saved. Tradition has avoided this grey area and so has taken a cartoonish view of the value of human life, but this bubble bursts the moment you try to understand what valuing human life can possibly mean in reality for an animal that is built to die. Well it means you try your hardest to make the best of it, and surely the person whose life is in question is the one to decide how much quality is too little and how much quantity is enough.
Finally there is your commendable concern at possible coercion against the patient. At the moment we are forcing a small number of people to exist who don’t want to exist in their condition and have no other better option. That form of coercion is legally mandated and that should concern us more than the competing notional coercion of some families wanting Grannie to sing her swan song. There’s more than one coercion happening here.
00
OT – Interesting article on Gizmodo re. paywalls:
Why Is Science Behind A Paywall?
20
Foreign Minister Bob Carr said on Monday.
“
Indeed.
40
10
From: Aid spending on hold
20
Former treasurer Peter Costello said a while ago referring to the $250 Billion of gross debt as at 30 June 2012 ($300 Billion June 2013) that assuming the terms of trade were equivalent to the Howard Coalition government years 1996-2007 the gross debt would take including annual interest liability over 40 years to retire. For people who do not understand the net debt that the government prefers to talk about what they are saying is that they borrow an amount and use money in hand such as the Future Fund investment to reduce the gross debt amount however interest is calculated on what has been borrowed, the gross debt amount.
Add to the $300 Billion the hidden off budget NBN Company debt which will exceed $40 Billion with estimates as high as $90 Billion by observers and that the government is planning to add to the $300 Billion in the next financial year and there is a significant federal debt for taxpayers today but also
for future taxpayers for decades to come and this situation will impact on government services, taxation and ability to fund infrastructure.
Over 6 years the government has done considerable damage to the nation’s financial position and to the economy. And last night they added more burdens for future governments to overcome for all of us.
90
And so you hear Lawrie Oakes (aka Jabba the Hut) trotting out the net debt figure (not the gross) when talking to Hockey last nightpost budget as a means of softening the appearance of Swan’s mismanagement. Oakes, doyen of the press gallery, is actually an utter joke and a failure as a journalist in his vain attempts to shore up support for people mismanaging our economy so badly. On the bright side, his position as chief government cheerleader/apologist is likely to be made redundant on Sept 14.
60
I got tired of listening to Pizza The Hut about twenty years ago…..
50
Germany’s Roesler says EU CO2 market intervention would breach trust
BRUSSELS, May 14 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Intervening in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to prop up carbon prices would breach trust with industry, said Germany’s Minister of Economics Philipp Roesler, who has been the nation’s most vocal political opponent of the EU Commission’s so-called backloading plan…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2347500
EU dumping ground for over 500 mln banned CO2 credits: analyst
LONDON, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) – EU data to be published on Wednesday will show the bloc’s emissions market has been a dumping ground for more than 500 million U.N.-backed carbon offsets that green groups have said lack environmental integrity, analysts said on Monday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2346073?&ref=searchlist
10
Power firms call for urgent EU reforms to boost investment
LONDON, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Europe’s power companies, warning of a lost decade of low carbon investment, have urged EU lawmakers to set a single mid-term target to cut carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the number of CO2 allowances they hand out each year in the bloc’s carbon market…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2345547?&ref=searchlist
considering the daily demands to FIX the CO2 price, u have to laugh at the following, tho no doubt motorists & others have been ripped off for decades:
14 May: UK Independent: BP and Shell raided over allegations of petrol price-fixing
Oil giants targeted by European Commission in probe into suspected market manipulation
The European Commission today raided the offices of BP and Shell on suspicion that they are playing a central role in what could be the next price fixing scandal – colluding to inflate oil prices and, in turn, the cost of petrol.
In the wake of the Libor interest rate and gas price manipulation scandals, the EC has launched an investigation into whether oil producers and traders are colluding to rig oil prices in a move that inflates their profits at the expense of consumers…
Q: Is it actually a scandal?
No, it’s probably better characterised as a scandal-in-waiting. Following the Libor interest rate and gas-price fixing scandals, the world’s guardians have been looking for the next big rigging target – and in recent months there has been a growing consensus that the price of black gold has also been routinely manipulated.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bp-and-shell-raided-over-allegations-of-petrol-pricefixing-8616293.html
why didn’t the Independent include the Credit Swap FIX?
7 May: BloombergBusinessweek: 12 Banks Sued by Sheet-Metal Union Over Credit-Swap ‘Fix’ (1)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Citigroup Inc. (C) and 10 other banks have restrained market competition for credit default swaps in violation of U.S. antitrust law, an Ohio union pension plan contends in a federal court complaint…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-05-07/twelve-banks-sued-over-claims-they-restrained-credit-swap-market
10
Shaun Micallef ended his comedy series last week with a joking? plea to vote for the party that offers the ABC more money:
14 May: ABC: ABC welcomes multi-million-dollar funding pledge
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has welcomed a multi-million-dollar funding announcement from the Federal Government…
“This investment acknowledges two of the prime areas where the ABC is using its digital expertise to deliver on its charter obligations to inform, educate and entertain Australians,” Mr Scott (ABC managing director Mark Scott)said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-14/abc-welcomes-multi-million-dollar-funding-pledge/4689724
inform, educate? is Mr. Scott joking?
30
OT – Here come the sea level rises again, screaming “Watch out for the one meter sea level rise!!!”
Sea level rises to exceed IPCC estimates: study
Then we get the foot note:
Honestly, I do not believe they can even measure a miniscule 2.79mm rise in sea level. This figure is so small as to be insignificant.
40
Cant possibly be right BS. Tim says so
“Anyone with a coastal view from their bedroom window, or their kitchen window, or whereever, is likely to lose their house as a result of that change, so anywhere, any coastal cities, coastal areas, are in grave danger.” Tim Flannery
That was just before he bought his house on the Hawksebury.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/flannery_admits_no_chance_of_that_flooding_he_claimed_after_all
20
Why did I say 2.79?
Really, what idiot would believe that they can measure 0.42mm sea leave rise?
Yes! They tout that melting from Greenland and Antarctica combined has contributed a WHOPPING (that mean very big) ZERO POINT FOUR TWO MILLIMETERS (that’s less than half a millimeter) of dangerous sea level rise between 1993 and 2003.
What complete and utter BULLSHIT. There is no way in the World they can measure less than 1/2mm of sea level rise, satellites or not.
60
They said it, so it must be real.
Oh wait…
20
And the property alongside as an investment sometime afterwards.
20
I have got a coastal view from my bedroom window …!
I can clearly see the sea from my kitchen window …!
So I am going to loose my house in the foothills of the Tararua Mountain Range, where the sea is only fifteen kilometers away?
What a moron. He can’t even spin propaganda that is not totally … (I am at a loss for words).
40
Tararua Mountain Range
Thats a nice neck of the woods
10
Yep, don’t get much flooding, where I am. Mind you, our road has gone walkabout, on occasion.
00
Dammit, woman, what are you thinking?
It’s absolutely essential that the bankers get their enormous bonuses. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to keep on doing whatever it is they do.
(I don’t know what they actually do, but I know it’s something really vital. You ask them, they’ll tell you.)
They would, reluctantly and sorrowfully, have to stop.
Think of that.
Perhaps no more brilliant financial moves like those we have had in the last few years. Perhaps a return to bank regulation.
7b is a small contribution to avoid such horrors.
As for $1300 per household, that is just nugatory. It would hardly provide a lunch for a Brussels bureaucrat.
40
Swan’s Budget extends the funding for the Renewable flagship, ARENA. (Australian Renewable Energy Agency)
Federal budget 2013: Renewable energy agency spared funding axe
The funding is now extended out to 2021/22 and that funding will be $3.2 Billion for the life of the program.
They talk in Billions these days and it seems so huge, like Billions for Gonski, and Billions for NDIS, so Billions goes a long way, six and ten years in the case of those two big ticket items.
But what does this figure of $3.2 Billion get you.
Look at the now failed Chinchilla Solar Dawn Project, a Concentrating Solar Plant. This was proposed to cost $1.2 Billion, so let’s pretend a plant of this nature will stay static in price, and, contrary to what renewable supporters will tell you, the cost for these types of renewable power plants is not coming down as more of them get constructed. They are actually rising in cost.
For that Solar Dawn Plant, the Federal Government was going to chuck in $464 Million.
So then, let’s correlate the Solar Dawn subsidy with future plants, and spend all of that $3.2 Billion, over those ten years. Keep in mind, part of that $3.2 Billion will go in Admin costs for the ARENA, Admin and wages etc for the people running it, but, hey, let’s pretend all the money will actually go to the plants.
That’s one new plant every 18 Months or so, provided private money can be found for these plants, people willing to actually construct them.
At the end, you will have 7 of these new plants, each delivering around 550GWH to grids across Australia, so here we are looking at around 3,850GWH of power (tops) generated for consumption each year.
Bayswater currently delivers 17,500 GWH each year.
So, Bayswater (alone) will be delivering 5 times more power than these 7 new solar plants.
Now, not all that money will be going on the one technology, so there will be other plants, a mix of them.
Even so, the amount of power actually delivered for consumption will be less than Bayswater, in fact monumentally less.
So, while $3.2 Billion may seem a lot of money in real terms, when it comes to renewable Power, $3.2 Billion is so piddlingly small as be almost insignificant.
This is a shell game, a confidence trick to make you all think that something really significant is being done here, when in actual fact, it’s just fiddling around at the margins.
To actually achieve something here, humungous amounts of money would be needed, and even then, actual power delivery would be so tiny, and on such a small time basis (hours of power delivered on a time basis over the full 24 hour period) that it would still be insignificant.
$3.2 Billion to be spent over the next ten years is actually a waste of money, considering what you’ll be getting for it.
Tony.
82
Spot on Tony, Im now on the cusp of leaving the wind industry (how aptly named is it? lol) after just over 5 years and 4 of the largest windfarm construction projects in Australia. You hit the nail on the head, massive sums of money have been poured into a generation system that is seriously just a token.
I have said to a few workmates that I am convinced in the future some time a show like Time Team will come along and excavate a site where it was rumoured our ancient ancestors were building these curiously primitive windmills for power when they had 45% of the world’s uranium and unmeasured quantities of oil, coal and gas. They will unearth a long fallen turbine, stare into the camera and say “what were these people thinking??” Then one of the experts will explain that at the time this society was convinced they could change the weather as if by magic. So convinced were they that they abandoned all logic and went completely backwards in their efforts to stave off something they couldnt accurately measure, explain or understand.
I feel pretty hard done by to be part of this generation. So much potential being wasted on fear and base ideology.
130
Yes, it’s ironic isn’t it? There was a generation who built nuclear power plants, Concorde, SR-71 Blackbird, and put men on the Moon, who took risks and looked to a future free of fear and full of adventure. I saw them sitting in Mission Control, shoulders and expression tense and anxious, cigarettes burning, pipes smoking, waiting for the Viking Lander to convey news that it had made a successful landing. Then the signal arrived and unfettered joyous laughs, laughs of relief, back slapping and hugs ensued. What struck me was the visible joy, the relaxed and spontaneous ease they all shared with one another, the crystallization of the team work in the successful Mars landing.
In stark contrast today, so many folk look weary and stressed, they have no light in their eyes, they’re gray, listless and dull, and they act religiously with unnatural politically correctness. They worry about everything and they risk nothing. They are afraid of so many things and they are afraid of other people. They are stagnant and incarcerated in a regressive new age dogma that celebrates conformity and frowns on individuality. They have no fight and they shrug their shoulders when they hear the news or listen to the latest bureaucratic vomitus. There are few politicians, just administrators and nodding heads.
Concorde is in a museum now or broken up, as is the all titanium SR-71. Nuclear power is viewed with ignorance and superstition and profound superstition. Windmills are applauded with the same gusto that once greeted the village dunking of the local witch. People, politicians and scientists are scared of the weather, of being inundated and devoured by the supposed rapidly acidifying and rising tide, and most of all, they are afraid of themselves. They are afraid to breathe out, lest they contribute too much CO2, and they are afraid to breath in, because the atmosphere is too toxic, too hot, too polluted, has too much CO2 and is an ace away from being unable to support life.
Hollywood produces more Armageddonesque movies they claim are entertainment, more movies with Aliens coming to admonish humanity, threatening ethnic cleansing on a global scale, ostensibly to free Gaia from the scourge of humanity.
Some say we live in an age of technological stagnation, the result of the great progress made since the end of the nineteenth century, suggesting we’re merely going through a period of ‘rest’ before the next ‘push’. I say we’ve regressed to an age frightened of real life success and imagination, seeking these instead by proxy in films and sporting arenas. We’ve developed a mentality obsessed with constrained walking on the paving stones, never on the joins, watching every step, never deviating.
Orwell was right, absolutely right. He just got the date wrong.
181
Manfred,
how right you are!
I remember Tumut 3 Hydro Plant going in. They went to where the best technology for generators was coming from, Japan, and even in 1974, there were grumblings about that.
Now we have the Chinese leading the push for even larger generators, 1000MW+, driven by coal fired power producing 15% less emissions, having perfected that technology also. Older style Coal fired plants could drive generators of only 660MW capacity. Those new technology plants are smaller, more efficient, cleaner, and produce huge amounts of power that Renewables will only ever dream of.
This technology is not only shunned, it’s downright verboten to even mention it, so older style 70’s technology plants will be run into the ground, long beyond their use by dates, going unreplaced, and the only voices you will hear will be those screaming for their early closure.
Instead, Renewables are looked upon as the way of the future, and by the time the real truth gets out, it’ll be too damned late.
These days, engineering is something that produces movies like Avatar.
We have an education system run by Politicians who virtually demand every student have a University Degree, and yet no one wants to do Engineering as a Degree.
The trendies have won. It is they who shall inherit the Earth. It’ll be easy to spot them in the future. They’ll all be sitting around scratching their heads.
Tony.
91
Thank you Tony. It was a vaguely unthreaded and black that kinda ran away with itself and got the better of me!
As for ‘sitting around’ I agree, though I suspect that by then won’t your ‘trendies’ be sitting around a fire shivering with smug self-righteousness?
21
Manfred I have copied your excellent stream of thought and saved it for future posterity. You really outdid yourself there my friend, you should write a book.
21
Manfred you have eloquently summed up exactly how I feel about the society of my generation. Between the constant lurching from one doom scenario to another (bird flu, terrorism, AGW, AIDS etc etc etc) and the unending bombardment on the television about getting funeral insurance while your still regularly vertical, its no wonder the average person goes from day to day expecting to perish horribly at any moment.
What the hell has happened to us ? We used to be so alive, now we are all in “gods waiting room” from as early as we can understand language.
21
The counterargument is that in the battle of the dystopias, Aldous Huxley was right.
The people have been trained to love their servitude, to seek their comfortable cell whenever separated from it, to never question the origin of the Soylent Green, to seek remedy in groupthink and simulacrum, and to grease the gears of the war machine just to feel they are making a valued contribution.
Of course misery loves company and perhaps we’re all just being a bit over-dramatic.
The difference you say you’ve noticed in people’s energy and demeanour is a meme I’ve heard before. I have to ask whether that is your original idea or whether it is a received opinion that you agreed with?
Age may have something to do with this. If the people you see have changed colour, is that because you’re looking at different people, or looking at people through differently coloured glasses?
Let us say the difference is true, for the sake of argument. Well then here is a hypothetical explanation.
We’ve been robbed of our natural foundations, transplanted into cells, and reprogrammed for the corporations. Seventy years of psychological theory being applied to the advertising industry has left us feeling that nothing is ever enough and problems are everywhere. Every attempt to target a particular “segment” or “subculture” of the market for advertising produces propaganda that feeds back through the minds of the in-group and out-group alike and further amplifies their small differences into even more clearly delineated segments. What was grey becomes lighter and darker and what was lighter and darker becomes black and white.
Individuality is not tolerated because a uniquely shaped jigsaw piece does not fit their pattern. Non-conformances are openly threatened with expulsion.
Banks make housing unaffordable and companies sow seeds of ageism so that losing your job threatens your shelter and so makes loyalty, unpaid overtime, and political correctness at work an essential survival technique, which is all very profitable to The Powers That Be.
Exaggerate the generation gap. Break up the family. Make even friends fear being candid. Divide and conquer. And that’s only the corporations.
It was said over a century ago that it is a miracle if curiosity survives the education process. In the 2000s Carlin probably nailed it when he said modern State education is designed to dumb us down, keep us from questioning authority, and leave us just smart enough to run the machines but not sharp enough to wonder why or to invent a system that is better for ourselves. The fact there are some seasoned education specialists who agree is disturbing. Yet paradoxically, the more educated we are, the more consequences we can predict and the more options we are aware of in any situation, therefore the more buyers remorse we feel about the options we didn’t pick no matter what we do. This is probably why geniuses throughout history have often suffered depression, and wherever people have actually gotten higher standards of education this malaise has spread.
All the while we are told that we are free, we live in a democracy, we have choices, and The Product will make us happy. Because a happy worker is a productive worker.
And if that whole theory is a load of conspiratorial bunkum, then curiosity demands another question be answered. What other explanation is there for why an outcome that nobody would ever want for themselves has in fact happened?
So I answer it: complexity.
We have created a fast-paced highly interconnected automated profit-seeking system that expects people to take actions which have long term consequences that few can predict and even fewer are paid to predict. We screwed ourselves unwittingly.
And speaking of Hollywood, what the hell was Prometheus and Oblivion really trying to tell us? That abortions and clone armies are good? You people do know about behaviour placement don’t you?
10
His prescience didn’t stop there. He accurately predicted the ‘world government’ ideal, along with Agenda 21, in Animal Farm. Piggies, all of them.
00
Tony are you aware that budget forward estimates are normally four (4) years into the future, like five year business plans a lot can change in that time frame. By extending estimates as far as this budget goes is ridiculous, apart from any other consideration there will have been federal elections this financial year 2013/14, another in 2016/17, another 2019/20 and while estimates can be changed by a government, they are not binding and as they are statements of what might be needed in the future looking forward so much can change in between times globally and locally with economics and finances, and global mining markets and similar, that the exercise says more about the incompetence of this government than anything else.
Gonski, NDIS and others are mission statements only.
20
Poached from the wonderful Andy’s Rant this morning
http://www.andysrant.com/
Economist Milton Friedman : “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 yrs there’d be a shortage of sand.”
71
Tristan almost begging for the EU to “fix” the carbon price:
15 May: Business Spectator Australia: Tristan Edis: The ripple effect of a carbon price hack
The government has more than halved its expected carbon price for 2015-16 to $12.10 per tonne of CO2, down from the $29 it projected last year, in light of the depressed state of the European carbon market. However it continues to maintain an optimistic view on the carbon price outlook beyond this, projecting a linear rise for the years afterwards to $18.60 in 2016-17 and, ultimately, $38 in 2019-20.
Estimating the likely European carbon price in 2015-16, let alone 2020, with any confidence is impossible, because the market outlook could entirely change with a single decision of the European Parliament and Council…
Based on a Reuters Point Carbon poll of carbon market analysts the consensus for 2015-16 is a price well below Treasury’s at $8.50 for 2015. Without any major regulatory changes to the EU ETS it is implausible that the EU carbon price could manage to reach the $38 Treasury has assumed…
Following modest growth in 2014-15, carbon pricing mechanism receipts are expected to fall 27 per cent in 2015-16, following the end of the fixed price period in 2014-15 and the link to the European price in 2015-16. Receipts are projected to fall a further 27 per cent in 2016-17, largely because there are no longer any fixed-price receipts…
Rather bizarrely, the government has chosen to actually increase the amount of assistance allocated to the steel sector (the Steel Transformation Plan) to adjust to the carbon price by $37.5 million. This is especially hard to understand given that one of Port Kembla’s two blast furnaces has been shut, so their carbon price exposure has been dramatically reduced…
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/5/15/carbon-markets/ripple-effect-carbon-price-hack
Tristan, surely this is not the right time for the EU to be fixing any prices!
15 May: Australian: AAP: EU raids oil majors in price fixing probe
The Commission did not name any of the companies involved in Tuesday’s raids.
But British energy giant BP, Shell and Norway’s Statoil said that their offices had been visited…
“The Commission has concerns that the companies may have colluded … to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products,” it said.
Additionally, the firms “may have prevented others from participating in the price assessment process, with a view to distorting published prices.”…
Britain’s Office of Fair Trading ruled out a probe four months ago, concluding there was “very limited evidence” that pump prices were being manipulated…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/breaking-news/eu-raids-oil-majors-in-price-fixing-probe/story-e6frg90f-1226642989331
40
If you want to know what is actually happening and which hand is washing what arse you look at the Board of directors.
For example take Shell: link
Chairman Jorma Ollila started his career at Citibank in London and Helsinki.
Chief Executive Officer, Peter Voser, was i.. a member of the Swiss Federal Auditor Oversight Authority from 2006 to December 2010. In 2011, he was awarded the title of Dato Seri Laila Jasa by the Sultan of Brunei.
He is a Director of Catalyst, a non-profit organisation which works to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women and business, and he was appointed to the Board of Directors of Roche Holdings Limited in March 2011. He is also active in a number of organisations, including the European Round Table of Industrialists…
Non-executive Director, Josef Ackermann, is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Zurich Insurance Group Limited and of Zurich Insurance Company Limited. He was Chairman of the Management Board and of the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank AG. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG.
Non-executive Director, Sir Nigel Sheinwald GCMG, was a senior British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the USA, He served as British Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels from 2000 to 2003. Prior to his appointment as British Ambassador to the USA, he served as Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the Prime Minister and Head of the Cabinet Office Defence and Overseas Secretariat.
Non-executive Director, Charles O. Holliday, served as Chief Executive Officer of DuPont from 1998 to January 2009. He previously served as Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Chairman of The Business Council, Chairman of Catalyst, Chairman of the Society of Chemical Industry – American Section, and is a founding member of the International Business Council. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank of America Corporation and a Director of Deere & Company.
Well you get the idea. I wonder how the Greenies would like the quickie resume of that last guy? (Snicker) OH, and don’t forget EVIL TOBACCO.
Non-executive Director, Christine Morin-Postel, is a Non-executive Director of British American Tobacco plc.
10
http://youtu.be/NXqwYMEayc8
I think/hope this is the one (cant see it from here) where Julia asks Swan what happened to the surplus.
As i cannot see the content i cannot be personally held responsible if the contents offends 🙂
Cheers
(I hope it is the right one and not the one with slightly clad swedish girl)
30
No Crackar – it’s the one about Evans & Roxon resigning – still funny though.
Cheers,
20
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3524/wind_farms_continue_to_kill_wildlife_as_government_stays_silent
10
Herr,
This type of eco vandalism by these Green Killers really annoys me. Here we have an Oil Company being fined for killing one Golden Eagle (one per year) yet these Green FUCHwit windmills in one state of the USA kill one every month and OBAMA lets them off because it’s renewable.
This environmental garbage sprouted by all the trolls just proves they don’t give a stuff about the real issues confronting us at the moment. What is their story, we have Cook & Dana (a bloke) telling me that the science is proved from some dipstick study they have done on 12,000 papers that 97% of scientists agree that CAGW is real and we all have to obey?
JFC – how much do we have to put up with, CO2 is not killing the planet, it’s the idiots that are trying to tell me that the following:
1. The oceans are warming
2. The oceans are rising.
3. The temperature is rising
4. The snow falls will decrease
5. You will never see snow again
6. The rains will stop
7. The dams will never fill
8. The storms will be worse
9. The rain will increase
10.The ice will melt
11.The Glaciers will disappear
12.The world will have to get rid of cattle
13.The world will have to start eating insects.
14.Spiders taste like lobsters (on The Project Tonight)
15.Women will have to prostitute themselves to survive global warming.
16. I am getting the shlts with writing anymore.
The whole thing makes me so angry in the fact that they treat a CLIMATE SCIENTIST as the be all and end all of their mantra of worship of the CO2 dollar.
Well – it’s all going to Bloody end in September for these stupid pricks that are on the gravy train like Tim Fuckiig Flannery.
11
OK, I guess I might be nitpicking, but did we actually give them $7bn? Or did we loan them $7bn. Or did we promise to give/loan them $7bn if they needed it?
Interesting to note that our contribution as a fraction of the total fund is about the same as our CO2 emissions as a fraction of the worlds total.
27
Well the collective of brains in this federal government are a fraction of the nation’s total based on their behaviour and decision making.
40
Nope, it went to the IMF, of which we are a member. Still, misrepresenting it as a “gift” to a so called “parasitic-political class” is a much better way to drive some frothing outrage isn’t it? Worthy of a Ltd News subbie actually.
28
Frothing outrage? An outragacino?
45
And is the creator of such and outragorista?
11
Try counting to one billion
40
I get to around 700,000,000 and the phone rings…
00
The climate change left, previously the global warming left, before that the environmental pollution left and quite mad, and billions to them are dream time over latte throw away lines
20
And giving tax$$$$ to the IMF is BETTER?
HAHAHAHahahaha…..
20
Nice riposte.
I notice that your comment got no response from Catamon and John … funny that.
30
Lookeee…that rare creature rarely seen on rare occasions in bis manor yard, the John Brookes!
20
Your either in it or your not i reckon. So many apologies Rereke!! What could be more important than being online on a fringe humour site when you want to hear from me after all!!!
02
Cat[gotyourtongue]
They are handing out memberships to the International Monetary Fund? Really?
So if it is not a gift then they are going to pay us back? At what interest rate? I hope Swannie held firm and got a higher rate than what it has cost us.
Twit
31
Didn’t you hear? He’s using the gain to fund Gonski, NDIS AND the next three surpluses.
00
i usually enjoy max keiser & stacy herbert’s take on the financial market on russia today, tho not always, and certainly not today when max interviewed these two smug, non-profit CarbonTrackers. so many cliches, failure to mention no warming for 16 years, failure to mention 400ppm wasn’t reached at volcanic Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii last week, etc, etc. of course, they barely mention their own real interests – grabbing hold of people’s money for the CAGW scam carbon bubble:
CarbonTracker.org: The Team
Mark Campanale, Founder & Director
Mark is a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment products at Jupiter Asset Management with the Ecology Funds; NPI with Global Care Funds; AMP Capital with the Sustainable Future Funds and Henderson Global Investors with the Industries of the Future Fund. Mark is a Founder Director of the UK Social Investment Forum (1990-present), he served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit; was a Member of the Steering Committee of UNEP Financial Sector Initiative (1999-2003), and continues to advise a number of investment funds.
Luke Sussams, Project OfficerLuke has a broad range of skills from across the environmental and NGO sector. Having spent time at Forum For the Future and 38 Degrees, Luke brings a wealth of communications and campaigning experience. Luke also brings climate change and environmental policy expertise having received the highest grade in the Environmental Technology MSc from Imperial College London…
Donors:
◦The Rockefeller Brothers Fund
◦The Growald Family Fund
◦The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
◦The Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation
◦The Tellus Mater Foundation
◦The Ashden Trust
◦Zennstrom Philanthropies
◦Wallace Global Fund
http://www.carbontracker.org/team
interview begins halfway through, with Australia mentions:
Keiser Report: Decapitated Consumers (E444)
http://www.youtube.com/user/MaxKeiserTV
40
Yes it is yet another sign that even smart people can be prone to applying their intelligence selectively.
I was quite disappointed when I found Stacy was a warmist. (I guess that makes Max a warmist too, nudge nudge wink wink)
They spend their hours scanning the headlines for signs of financial fraud and investment scams, and yet they haven’t spotted that CAGW abatement is one of them. This surely has to be because they believe “the science is settled”, and the word cannot get out fast enough about this.
I tried arguing it once or twice on their blog but they never responded.
I was surprised at how many comments they got telling them that CAGW is exaggerated, the carbon trading is a scam, the dearth of evidence etc. One can’t guess what fraction of their fan base this represents though.
10
Jo might want to take a look at the latest from Dana Nutticelli:
Is the science settled?
Its your ABC.
Clearly we need to look at this study…. and RIP it to pieces.
10
Thanks for the link.
Noticed it’s all over the usual spots, ABC, Tristan at Climate Spectator, etc etc.
Boring re-run of Oreskes original.
Amazing they get 97% out of 12,000 plus papers, when only 4,000 of them actually wrote about CAGW in the actual paper. Just John Cook and Dana on the Gravy train again.
When the money supply is going to be cut in September, they have to start going for the life boats. They shout louder now:
“100% of warmists disagree with Skeptics” So OLD.
Pick ME, Pick ME!!!! Please, it’s all true, More Money Please.
10
The comments over at ABC are being heavily censored. The selective hand of alarmism advocacy continues to fashion consensus for a gravy train.
What is it about 97% ? No matter the input, no matter the data, the answer has to be 97% once again.
10
The banking cartel controls governments which allow them to create money out of nothing, out of thin air, which they then lend to these governments which charge the interest to the taxpayers.
http://politicalvelcraft.org/2012/09/24/10-ways-youre-being-fleeced-by-the-banking-cartel/
http://www.libertyforlife.com/banking/federal_reserve_bank.html
This began in London, the City of London is not in the UK, it is another country hiding behind a curtain..
http://www.iamthewitness.com/books/Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/The.History.of.the.Money.Changers.htm
20
[…] Australia cuts foreign aid but sent $7b to starving European politicians in 2012 Cuts to foreign aid are expected to save the government’s coffers up to $3 billion. But let’s not forget Wayne Swan declared in 2012 that Australia’s 23 million people needed to bail out the 500 million people of the destitute Eurozone, and the basket-case-that-is-the-EU desperately needed $7 billion from us. (JoAnn Nova) […]
00
Off topic but here is the Viscount Ridley’s maiden speech in the Lords:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130514-0001.htm#13051441000438
10
Myrrh, the apologists for Fractional Reserve Banking (FRB) always roll out the excuse that the economy needs an expanding money supply to fuel growth. However the facts on the ground at least in the USA do not support that.
They even LIE about what FRB actually is.
Actually what happens is you get a double claim on the money. Joe the plumber thinks his $100 is safely tucked in his checking account while Susy Homemaker who took out a home improvement loan is spending it on new curtains. This is the real cause of BANK RUNS and can be attributed to failure to have a specified contract that is FULLY ENFORCED. For example if money is in a ‘warehouse account’ then you pay fees and the bank can not touch it.
Bank runs are because depositors realize they had been defrauded. The bankers were lending out receipts for gold coins that was not theirs by right of ownership or by contract as an investment facilitator.
The other definition, which is what I use is: According to the 9:1 ratio, they keep all of their deposits and loan out of thin air up to nine times the amount in fairy dust fiat currency the bankers created on the spot based on the actual money deposited.
This is closer to what actually happens. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago even states it: Banks do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. – (Modern Money Mechanics last paragraph..page 6) You can’t get much clear than that.
My definition is backed up by statements by top tier bankers.
Robert B. Anderson, Secretary of the Treasury under Eisenhower, said in an interview reported in the August 31, 1959 issue of U.S. News and World Report:
Then they LIE about what actually fuels the economy
Hate to tell you but small businesses are completely frozen out of the loan loop. One very successful stone mason told me he could not even get a home loan without having his son sign as co-borrower! (You should see the house he build drool…)
There goes the myth that the economy NEEDS FRB
So the question then becomes just who actually benefits from all those fractional reserve fairy dust financed loans.
The big boys transferring wealth from our pockets to theirs.
Kings and princes are all for FRB because:
1. The goldsmiths would lend them money (gold warehouse receipts) for gold belonging to other people without the permission of those people and included receipts for gold that did not exist.
2. Since goldsmith/bankers lend out money faster than the economy actually expands the value of the money falls, prices increase but wages always lag well behind inflation. Inflation therefore is a tax on the general population without the hassle of actually telling people they are being taxed. If you have a graduated tax system it is even better because instead of a pay rate of $3,000 (a good wage for a chemist in the 1960s) you now have a pay rate of ~ $50,000 and got booted from a 10% tax rate (USA) to 16.9% without the voters having the slightest clue. (16.9% = 10% on the first $8,925, plus 15% on the next $5,300 and 25% on the next $13,750)
3. Kings and Princes get to pay back the loan with depreciated currency.
It is FRAUD and the bankers and the government split the ‘Take’ while the voters get the shaft.
20
Hi Gai – it’s like the physics ‘justifications’ for AGW, they create such a complicated explanation for their twisting of it that the gist of it is lost and everyone ends up talking about the tweaks as if they are real.
I think it’s really hard to get one’s mind around the concept that banks create money out of nothing when they do everything to distract from that. Maybe some people get it quicker because they’re used to ‘money language’, but it took me a while as I kept having to fish it back out when I got lost in the arguments..
I finally pinned it down to two scenarios for myself as if I was the bank and without the distractions of the ‘justifications’ to how it works now as it developed.
The first is your 9:1 – if I have a salary of $10,000 and put it into an account I can immediately times it by ten and now I’ve got $100,00, I’ve just created $90,000 out of nothing. This is what the banks do with our money keeping the $90,000 created out of nothing for themselves which they can then lend out and charge interest on. The second is if someone wants to borrow money from me and I have none to lend them I can put their iou for it into an account and times it by ten, so I’ve not only magicked the 90% out of thin air, but also the initial 10% which only exists as a debt, and then I can charge them interest on it and they have to pay me back with actual money meanwhile I’ve sold it on clearing the debt to the borrower I created out of nothing, so the borrower paying me back the capital means I have been payed twice for it, and the borrower has simply borrowed back his own money from himself, while paying me a hefty interest for the privilege of doing so..
If say they wanted $100,000 for a mortgage I have immediately created a $million out of nothing based on their iou being the 10%, and I’ve got them to fund the money they thought they were borrowing from me, and I’ve sold it on so have been already payed for the money the borrower will in time provide which he has borrowed in advance.. I think I’ve got that right..
The banks keep this going by passing this on, selling it on, in a ponzi scheme when the fraction the next banks can create gets smaller, but this means the money created out of nothing gets bigger. That’s why the bankers are so rich they’re now ready to buy up the whole world..
What also confuses people is the idea that this “fiat” money is essentially worthless because it has no gold to back it up, but that again is a distraction, limiting the supply of money to the amount of gold available limits the free expansion of barter/trade among the general populationn and of course always ends up with the rich taking control of it, as in the Wizard of Oz who wrecked the farmers and stole their land in repossessions, but that aside, in this piece is a good description of how banks scam on mortgages:
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/05/all-bank-loans-are-fraud-2648914.html
“17) Banks create money out of “THIN AIR” by simply
creating debits and credit on the accounting computer system. This is called
the Matching Principle and is governed by the Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles (GAAP). etc.”
It’s from this that some have argued, and won, that the bank never lent them any money so there is no mortgage to pay off and/or that the mortgage has already been payed to the bank by a third party so the bank has no claim on them and as they’ve never had a contract with the third party who paid off their ‘debt’ – but I get lost in this argument..
The beginnings of fractional reserve came from the banks ability to use 90% of the money deposited as if it was their own keeping a fraction, 10%, of the depositors money in the bank. This of course means that the depositor has effectively loaned that 90% to the bank without knowing it and does not have the right to demand it back, it is considered a debt of the banks and they may or may not be able to pay it.
The legal arguments about fractional reserve has been going on for some time, naturally.., the judgements go with the banks.
Like here, but it’s interesting what happened when the grain market warehouses thought they could pull the same trick:
I have to keep coming back to simple explanations to keep my bearings in this and one such is Lew Rockwell, but in this piece written in 1995 is something he thought could never happen because the tax payers would rebel:
But that’s just what has happened in the bank bailouts, the taxpayers money earmarked for general services have been given to the banks. Ireland gave them some 85 billion euro, and is now slashing services putting people already poor into further misery, and, borrowing money from the banks to pay for the services they can no longer afford because they gave away the money to the banks.., and of course the interest charged by the banks for this loan is being paid by the people swindled into further poverty by higher taxes, serfdom they thought they had got rid of, but it’s the same masters.. There’s a self proclaimed Baron Rothchild quote from the early days where he says that he doesn’t care which puppet is on the throne, he owns the money supply and the British Empire is in his control.
And the scam continues, because that money loaned by the banks to the government doesn’t exist and they’ve already times it by ten to create more money out of nothing..
The banks are common forgerers and thiefs and the goverments are complicit in their swindles. And these criminal acts are getting bolder, the governments have now given themselves the right to access bank accounts and help themselves to whatever they want for the part they play in this banking fraud.
I have no idea how we can stop that, besides making it better known. As Henry Ford and one of the Bank of England governers put it.. Some suggest taking our money out of the banks, but that doesn’t deal with the fraud against borrowers who think they are in debt but are providing their own capital for it..
The corporations are all owned ultimately by the banks, as they are in control of it where they don’t have shares directly and they’re the ones providing controlled opposition in the polical system, all the candidates are dancing to their tune so the corporations create all kinds of money scams.
I think this is another distraction leading us away from drawing back the curtain to see who is pulling the strings. The bankers set up the corporation cartels and then the industrial/military complex out of their beginnings in backing both sides in national disputes by lending to each which led to creating wars to do this and of course then to providing the latest hardware, and the same ol’ same ol’ imperialism to take the assets of countries unable to fight back, and not even knowing why they’re fighting ..
I’ve been thinking about this for a few months now, that it is a fraud which people have to know about, but I only found out about it myself around 18 months ago and I just can’t think of an easy way to explain it, not least because I’m still trying to understand it. It’s frustrating, I just don’t have the ability to precis this to one, or at most, both sides of A4 so everyone can see behind the curtain..
00
Myrh you might be interested in researching a political party that for some years after the last war attempted to address this issue. Unfortunately it was eventually taken over by the Left.
The evils of fractional reserve banking and central banks in particular, were feared by several early presidents of the USA, notably Andrew Jackson. Woodrow Wilson caved in to the banking community before WWI. There is a book about this by G. Edward Griffin “the Creature from Jekyll Island” 1994.
00
Hi Rod, I can’t access your link, have you another one?
What’s really bothering me about all this, is that banking cartel is so entrenched and so much in control that linking any solution to political party changes will always end up in these being infiltrated and turned to the benefit of the cartel, they’re well practiced in the art of illusion..
There’s a quote I’ve just found which addresses the problem I see in all the discussions, that the subject and its history end up enthralling and that discussion of a solution becomes a passing comment and then ignored, and, that also deliberately manipulated as the banking cartel manipulated the Russian revolution leaving all the people in slavery, not just the original serfs.. I seen several references, for example, to the IMF calling for an end to fractional reserve.. (grin).
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” –Buckminster Fuller
It has got to be simple enough, i.e. logical and without jargon, that the average person more than capable of making judgements, we serve on juries, can get to immediate grips with it. This is what is beyond my abilities to write even if I understood it all, so I keep looking for expressions of it, and it should be kept as short as possible.
There has to be a powerful explanation of the problem, but what’s important is a powerful explanation of the solution, or the banking cartel having the full backing of governments will merely grab it back by pretending they’re the solution, as they did in creating the Federal Reserve. And it’s the solution that doesn’t get enough discussion.
I don’t know if you’ve seen any interviews of those protesting at Wall Street, which now being financed by the cartel.., but it’s the same ol’ same ol’, people against the ‘banks’ as a ‘target of discontent’, plays into the hands of the cartel who are expert in fomenting revolutions and wars. They just become more powerful.
It’s a solution to the money fraud system itself that needs to be found and I haven’t been able to find concentrated discussion on this, they all end up getting sidetracked into economics or offering solutions which are, appear to be, just more of the same problem. Like the Ron Paul solution of:
http://www.pmbug.com/forum/f9/ron-paul-hr-1098-free-competition-currencies-156/
Sounds ok until I read: “it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it;”
So we’re back to the a commodity becoming the money supply, same problem of gold and some now suggesting silver.. That will just end up as it always does, the ruling rich grabbing it all for themselves and we’re left with the same system we have now – small businesses can’t borrow money because the banks are controlling supply, and that supply they’ve now engineered to be practically limitless in their ability to create it out of nothing which is why they got rid of gold standard which was limiting their fraud..
This aspect shouldn’t be brushed under the carpet in coming up with solutions..
I’ve just found this link from the page:
Looks like I’ll have to get the book to find out if it’s any different from other ‘solutions’ which end up getting me even more confused.. Like this, http://deanhenderson.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/the-federal-reserve-cartel-the-solution/
Until someone pointed out that the Fed Reserve wasn’t the problem..
another link to follow..
Has anyone actually come up with a solution that allows money to be used for what it is good for, a means to facilitate exchanges such as in barter, in renumeration for labour?
If I have something to sell, my labour or goods, and want to get beef potatoes and veg for my dinner and buy some clothes and pay the rent and fill my car with petrol..?
If money becomes just one more of these, as in gold or banks controlling it, whether creating it out of nothing or not, and these tied to it then the free exchanges of life and business are limited. How can we get money that is just money representing value?
I can understand the solution offered of governments making interest free loans, charging a fee for the service rather than interest which they say interest would kick start the same inflation, but how does one get the money in the first place that represents the value of something one has, do I have to sell my house to the government because where is the person who wants to buy my house going to get the money to do this?? Or is this the point where I get an interest free loan from the government?
As I said, I really, really, need some very simple, bog standard explanations that make sense to me.
These give the owners of the Federal Reserve Bank, all roads appear to lead back to the City of London.., and some interesting quotes from history:
http://www.4thmedia.org/2013/01/01/the-truth-about-the-federal-reserve-bank/
http://www.libertyforlife.com/banking/federal_reserve_bank.html
How are the Aussie banks set up? Who owns them? The Bank of England turns out to be a private company and no list of shareholders.
00
First of all, the struggle between Good and Evil has been in progress since homo sapiens has been on this planet. We are witnessing a period in history in which Good had the upper hand and seems to be surrendering to Evil through apathy, sloth and greed.
You say you are struggling with understanding. Aren’t we all! However, I suggest you put some effort into understanding what money is, and where the concept of money originated. Works by Niall Ferguson and Ludwig Von Mises are a good place to get stuck in, and discover that precious metals always have been and always will be a ‘store of value’ but not necessarily a ‘medium of exchange’.
“The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return, quo ad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers.”
–Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, 21 March 1819
00
Hm, that’s what I’ve been trying to do.. I have yet to find any discussion of a solution to put in place of the present system, my point being generally that the banking cartel fraud dismantling requires a solution to put in its place. And discussions where solutions are mentioned stop short of going into detail, that I have found. I’m still looking.
Well, I’ve had a quick look to see what I can find on Niall Ferguson’s views online on money, no luck so far. It appears he’s written a book on the Rothchild’s which has been praised, but I doubt its accuracy from this:
“Yet the Rothschild’s failure to establish themselves successfully in the United States proved fateful, and as financial power shifted from London to New York after 1914, their power waned. At once a classic family saga and major work of economic, social and political history, The House of Rothschild is the riveting story of an unparalleled dynasty.”
Their power waned when? Before or after they set up the privately owned Federal Reserve with a few of their favourite cronies?
That, together with his penchant for imperialism and wars
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/18/niall-ferguson-bbc-reith-lecturer-radio4
appears to me to put him into the shill for bankers slot, not impressed.
And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises didn’t know what we know now, fascism won, the bankers control it.. It was never useful anyway.., except for the wannabe slave owners.
Here:
“is demanded for its usefulness in purchasing other goods rather than for its own sake”
Is where I agree.
What follows simply isn’t true – it’s not uncontrolled expansion of bank credit that’s to blame for the boom and bust cycles, it’s the bankers being in control of the money supply. They create the booms and busts by deliberately expanding credit and pulling it in. This causes the busts as businesses, not their own of course, are denied credit which works its way down to job losses and negative equity and the banks calling in loans and repossessions. Exactly what they did to the US farmers when gold was the standard.. [see the Wizard of Oz].
It’s the private control of the money supply which is the problem, this was not all well known in the past, so, von Mises and others, well intentioned they may have been, could not assess the problem accurately.
This in fact is just what I’ve said confuses me, that discussions about it go into the ‘economics’ and get lost.
So my point is still that I am looking for simple explanations, of the problem and solution, and, free of jargon, which “store of value” and “medium of exchange” are fully paid up members, if it was easy to explain I’m sure you would have done so..
Here’s an example:
Would you care to explain the argument here?
Do they know what they’re arguing about?
As for the Jefferson quote, more here: http://www.famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff1325.htm
And this is an argument I have difficulty with, gold or silver are commodities, and, comparatively rare, so by their very nature they are unsuitable as the means of exchange as this limits the number of exchanges. And, of course, it doesn’t take the bankers long to corner the market which they did, and even they gave it up as the juggling of it from one bank vault to another turned to farce..
The following is a link I found on one of the Mises pages:
Is not answer. It has never worked. It has always ended up being in the control of ruling elite now morphed into the bankers and a growing slave class unable to access it – I read a passing comment some time ago that this was what really brought down the Roman Empire, when they replaced the system they had with gold, but I haven’t had any success so far in find anything else on that, I don’t know what had been in place before.
00
It takes a lot more than reading a couple of paragraphs to understand a topic. Neo classical economists are followers of John Maynard Keynes (or at least they pretend to be; I don’t think most of them read all he wrote either) The other school of thought is Austrian, which more and more appears to be the economists that have an inkling of how a natural economic system functions. If you disregard Von Mises and Hayek, you really don’t stand much of a chance.
Seek out Antal Fekete, from the University of Newfoundland. You will soon discover that there is ample precious metal in the world to form the basis for a monetary system. Nixon did not close the gold window because there wasn’t sufficient gold (well, perhaps not in Fort Knox). He did it to place the USA on the high side of a tilted playing field.
00
Rod – Gosh.., I’ve just read through that wiki link to Social Credit – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
I’m going to have to read it a few times to see if I can understand what he means in terms of doing business, but as far as principle behind it, that of Common Law, this is certainly thinking outside the box..
Is this what you were referring to? It was tried out in Cananda but altered enough to destroy it and created yet another political party. He was attacked by the Fabians, no surprise there, and the banking cartel played its antisemitism card too.
“Douglas considered the constitution an organism, not an organization.[32] In this view, establishing the supremacy of common law is essential to ensure protection of individual rights from an all-powerful parliament.”
This is what the founders of the US Constitution had in mind, some of that history:
http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_british_constitution.htm
Lots of attacks on the Constitution in recent years, the Patriot Act and so on, but one of the problems of Common Law which is the Law in Britain, Australia, India.., is that we’re not taught it and so don’t know when its being destroyed by our governments.
A comment I read when I first began looking into this, don’t recall who said it or where, was that we’re taught as children not to put up with bullies at school and we pass that on to our children, but when it comes to government we lose sight of the principle and think that as long as something is passed in legislation and no matter how bullying the goverment gets, then somehow it’s ok and we have resign ourselves to be victims.
Anyway, Douglas came up with something completely different as a solution, now all I need is someone to put it into simple language for me so I’ve got a chance of understanding it..
00
Jo
Here’s a clever clip that deserves to go viral:
http://youtu.be/p0eh6uD-c8o
30
That is very good – how on earth did they get Bowie to make it 😉
11
Priceless.
00
bit late for ABC to be pushing this nonsense…without any sceptic input, of course:
16 May: ABC: Dana Nuccitelli: Is the science settled?
DID YOU KNOW THAT most scientific papers that take a position on the cause of global warming agree that it’s due to human activity? If so, you’re better informed than most…
As Michael Mann and I noted in a previous ABC Environment article, several recent studies have concluded that surface warming has slowed in recent years because global warming has accelerated the heating of the world’s oceans.
But you don’t have to trust our results; you can test the consensus for yourself. We have set up an interactive page at Skeptical Science where anybody can view and rate the same abstracts as in our study and compare their results to our ratings and the author self-ratings.
Our paper can also be downloaded for free, thanks to the generous donations from Skeptical Science readers. And a website has been created (TheConsensusProject.com) centered around the results of our surve…
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/05/16/3759876.htm
10
desperate numbers!
16 May: Bloomberg: Alessandro Vitelli: Carbon Reaches 3-Day High as EU’s Delbeke Sees Glut Fix Progress
Carbon permits advanced to the highest in three days after Jos Delbeke, director general for climate at the European Commission, said a decision on a supply fix could be possible in the second half of the year.
The December benchmark futures contract closed 3.4 percent higher at 3.64 euros ($4.68) a metric ton on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange…
“We are up because the 3.28 euros level held and we are still in our little uptrend from 2.46 euros,” Owen-Lloyd said today by e-mail. “3.80 euros is a resistance level, and I think we will have a go at that again.”
United Nations carbon offsets for December advanced 1 cent, or 2.6 percent, to close at 40 euro cents a ton on ICE Futures.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/carbon-reaches-3-day-high-as-eu-s-delbeke-sees-glut-fix-progress.html
00
7 beggadollars to the EU Central bansters and criminal EU empire. That money will be funding more credit default swaps and toxic derivatives, engaged by Deutch Bank,the ECB, Credit Suise and other crooked banks, which have destroyed the people of the EU likes of Greece, Ireland, Portugal all shanked by the EU crooks. Also undoubtedly will be used to fund more NATO wars of aggression to expand the ’empire’. Juliars a crook.
41
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/billion-dollar-figure-that-damns-the-labor-government/story-e6frfhqf-1226643891992
Funny how the numbers line up just a coincedence i am sure.
10
Jo – don’t worry about those in Indonesia. Their own government doesn’t think they’re a priority, so why should we?
While we’ve been cutting out Defence spending so that we can keep sending the Indonesians more than Half-a-Billion dollars a year, the Indonesian Governments been spending up big-time on other things.
Here’s a list of some of the things they thought were a higher priority than feeding the poor:
• 8 AH 64D Apache battlefield assault helicopters for $1.4 billion.
• 42 batteries of Brazilian made self-propelled long range rocket artillery for $402 million.
• 36 batteries of French made self-propelled 155 millimetre artillery for $170 million.
• 100 German made Leopard heavy main battle tanks for $280 million.
• 24 F-16 fighter-bombers for $750 million.
• 6 Russian-made Su-30 fighter-bombers for $470 million. More planned.
• 37 Russian-made BMP-3F amphibious tanks for $114 million.
• 24 locally built 40 metre long KCR-40 Class fast missile boats for approx $240 million.
• 1,000 R-Han 122mm rockets, for its locally developed Artillery Rocket System.
• 180 Javelin anti tank missiles for $60 million.
• 1 factory to manufacture various Chinese designed guided missiles.
• 3 Korean made Type 209 submarines for $1.1 billion. (More planned).
• 2 Turkish made Milgem Class stealth frigates for approx $500 million. (More planned).
• 1 Dutch made Sigma Class stealth frigate for approx $250 million. (More planned)
All-up Indonesia has spent around $8.1 billion in the last 6 years on military hardware, (but apparently still can’t detect or stop unarmed fishing boats full of illegal immigrants heading on to Australia).
20
This is off the main topic, but it is related to the Budget, and also to the introduction of the CO2 Tax.
In the budget papers, there’s the usual huge outlays for, umm, Government advertising, virtually paid political party advertising if you will, and hey, I know that both sides do it, But Labor has it down to a fine art.
Now, remember the TV ads spruiking the introduction of the CO2 tax and the family benefit packages that came with it.
There were three main ads, set in kitchens of what is supposed to be the average home.
Originally, one ad was filmed in an actual household kitchen, but then it was decided to do the filming on a set.
So, they had to construct the kitchens.
That was done at Fox Studios.
Just the bill for those three fake kitchens. $100,000.
A real kitchen costs around $15,000 to construct.
Your money ….. going to a (fake) home near you.
Tony.
20
$100,000
For fake kitchens:
This money could have bought 1/3 of a nice unit for a destitute family, or maybe given to the Salvo’s who are getting smashed by
illegal immasylum seekers seeking basic necessities.The ALP are criminal in their behaviour at the moment.
20
Fake costs more
and that’s fer sure. 🙁
20
Hi every one who may still be awake, Tony Delroy on ABC local radio is currently discussing the cook paper. If you are able call in now and give a skeptics view. For those outside Australia his show is online. Calls will be taken to 1.45 on the east coast, 11.45 in WA.
00
I just cannot wait for everybody to begin publishing their debunk.
00
The money is donated to promote Global Governance and it is part of one of the many international treaties Australia signed with the UN and the EU. Just for the record, this doubtful tradition goes back the signing of the Lima Agreement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5E6pvDv2Y
As the commentator in the video states, if the Australian people would know about the content of these treaties which affect their lives in a negative fashion, undermining their future and the sovereignty of their country by their own politicians (which is an act of treason if you ask me) the political capitol of Australia would be burning. The Anthropogenic Climate Change Hoax is part of this lunatic and evil policies. Oh well, it’s never too late to [SNIP] a capitol isn’t it.
[lets not start something] ED
00