When I was growing up in Liverpool England, my dad’s favourite word for what he regarded as nonsense was ‘hooey’. I didn’t know where he got it from. Maybe from American gangster or western novels, which he devoured before television took over the household. It’s North American apparently, though its origin seems to be obscure. Possibly a euphemism for horseshit, is one suggestion I came across. It’s a great word which I might, at this late stage, introduce into my vocabulary. It has an almost onomatopoeic air about it. Clearly, hooey doesn’t sound complimentary. And it’s a perfect description of much of what’s happening today.
A good example is Powering Up by former chief scientist Alan Finkel, published in June this year. I will have a take on it in Quadrant Online this weekend, if you want to look it up. Sufficient to say here that it imagines a green energy utopia so removed from reality that it’s hard to believe that anyone could take it seriously; except, that is, Chris Bowen. It will definitely steel his maniacally obsessive resolve to rob Australia of reliable and affordable energy. Good job Mr Finkel!
Another is transgenderism. That on a whimsy, women and girls can be men and boys, and men and boys can be women and girls, is surely up there as hooey of the first order. Yet we have transgender activists who believe biology is a social construct. We have doctors willing to chemically stunt and distort the development of young bodies and even (hard to believe) sever body parts. You could make a horror movie out of it. I’m sure someone has. We have state governments making it a criminal offence to counsel troubled young people, confused about their sexual identity, on the wisdom of making life-changing decisions. And, apparently, to have a grounded commonsensical view on all of this is being transphobic and anti-LGBTQ(++) rights. Personally, I’m sick of LGBTQ rights. I’m sick of gay pride; of rainbow flags. Just keep it to your bedroom, thanks very much; and leave children alone. Then we’ll all get on.
Mind you, we will have to be careful saying this kind of stuff online, if the federal government’s proposed misinformation / disinformation legislation gets up. I’m pretty sure that questioning “gender” fluidity will draw the ire of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). It would be surprising, wouldn’t it, in this day and age, if those populating the ACMA were open-minded free-speech advocates. The Left’s ‘long march through institutions’ must now be close to completion, if not complete.
Misinformation-cum-disinformation is, of course, hooey at its very core. Galileo would no doubt have fallen foul of the proposed legislation. The idea that the earth was not the centre of the solar system is the very epitome of disinformation, calculated to cause serious harm to the scientific establishment advising the Vatican. Hot irons might get him to recant. Or, extremely heavy fines would possibly do the trick.
And, while we are at it, I’m not at all sure of the safety of criticising Finkel’s venture into Climate Wonderland. Questioning climate change; the climate emergency, the climate crisis, is tantamount to denialism; to heresy. As, equally, is any questioning of renewable energy. So we all better be careful in the brave new future.
Finally, let me come to the Voice – that ‘generous offer’ of reconciliation by the Uluru mob. Surely it’s not hooey? Well it is, isn’t it? What is it all about except giving more power and money to a group of activists; most of them well heeled. Most Aboriginal people – by whom I mean those claiming some Aboriginal ancestry – are doing okay. Like the rest of the Australian population, they have among their number people suffering some troubles and hardships. That’s life and without favouring one racial group or another, all deserve what help the community in general can reasonably afford to give them. Aside from that, there are clearly Aboriginal people in remote settings who are suffering particular and unusual hardships.
So far as I can see no one has been able enough to come up with an answer. An answer must be found. And what we shouldn’t do is to assume the problem is intractable by setting up a permanent body to oversee it. No, we want a cure not palliative care of a running sore. Linda Burney is charged with finding a cure. If she can’t; she should resign. The Prime Minister in-between his overseas trips should then endeavour to pick a replacement minister who is up to the job. For too long ministers in charge of Aboriginal affairs, on both sides of politics, have picked up their fat salaries, warmed their cushy seats, and then moved on leaving the people under their charge in exactly the same awful plight as before. To think that the Voice – an unelected committee of largely inner-city activists – is an answer is, as I said, hooey.
Hooey – a word from the past indeed.
Many of the principles and values from the past are needed today.
As young school kids if any one told a fib , the retort would be …Hooey !. I agree, many old and proven principles, and truths are sorely missing from our current World . It does make me wonder where they went ?
A great piece, Pete.
Sadly, it’s hooey, hooey almost everywhere.
Do they still tell children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes? Or has that been banned too?
It doesn’t take much analysis of available climate data to see that not much is happening, and about three quarters of what has been is due to natural causes – like the ~60 year thermohaline cycle and the longer cycles of the Sun. It amazes me that guys like Prof Finkel seem unable to do such analysis.
As for renewables, well they likewise immediately fail on analysis due to their intermittency. Plus they do vast amounts of harm to the environment, which the proponents gloss over. That hypocrisy alone is a tell.
Well I can’t deprogram cultists who want to believe in climate fairies, but I do wish they’d stop hurting the poor and destroying our country.
Another usefull word from the past – poppycock. Derived from the Dutch word for soft dung.
We live in hooey world. Here’s just some of the daily hooey we’re daily bombarded with…
Renewables are cheap and will power the world.
The world is gonna end if we don’t stop burning coal.
A woman can have a penis.
A man can have a vagina.
A man can breastfeed.
You can change your sex.
Islam is a religion of peace.
A country can never have too much immigration.
Nationalism is evil.
The Voice will be a miraculous cure for all the problems Australian Aboriginals face.
Australian Aboriginals farmed kangaroos and cultivated wattle, the invented space travel and astrology.
If you don’t vote YES to the Voice, you’re a racist.
There are, of course, many other examples of hooey. And if you don’t agree with this hooey, you will face nasty punitive actions. You will be smeared and labelled as a far-right, hard-right, white supremacist Nazi, you will be cancelled, you will be silenced, you will have your bank accounts closed, and you will be erased, effaced, expunged and disappeared from polite society. And none of this is hooey, just ask Nigel Farage, because they finally came for him. Farage didn’t speak out when they purged the low hanging fruit like Robinson and Hopkins, no, no, no, he stayed quiet. But they came for him in the end too, because that’s how totalitarianism works. And this Great Big Banking Purge is coming to Oz soon. Let’s do a guessing game, here’s a list of Oz who make the Great Big Banking Purge list……
Pauline Hanson
Mark Latham
Malcolm Roberts
Craig Kelly
Bettina Arndt
Katherine Deves
Sall Grover
Moira Deeming
Peta Credlin
Tony Abbott
Andrew Bolt
Janet Albrechtsen
Bruce Lehrmann
Christian Porter
Kirralee Smith
John Ruddick
Gerard Rennick
George Christensen
Cory Bernardi
Anyone associated with ADH-TV
Anyone who watches ADH-TV
Anyone who attends CPAC (I’m going next month)
And of course, there are many, many others who will be targeted in the coming Great Big Banking Purge, and like all purges, when they run out of names, they’ll scrape the bottom of the barrel and hunt down other, less notorious names. So, those Liberals and Nationals and other so called conservatives and libertarians who feign being on the right, when all they are are progressive lite, will find they too are targeted in the Great Big Banking Purge, and when that happens I’ll laugh heartily and merrily. And there’ll be nobody left to speak up for them. I know my history, I know how the left works, sooner or later, they will come for you.
And those who accuse me of writing hooey, I’m not, I will be proven right.
I recall Donald Duck saying hooey in some old Mickey mouse episodes
You cannot possibly be right, Cassie.* You’re an outsider, a danger to the herd. Your very existence (as with the rest of us) creates HARM. Regardless of your thoughts and behaviours, you and we, will always be unacceptable. You question, therefore your existence requires erasure.
This is why placing facts as the spearhead of our tactics is doomed to failure. The most impressive, measurable evidence can and will, be dismissed, because it derives from outsiders. Insiders are safe, outsiders are a threat. That’s human (and animal) nature.
This is not to argue that facts and objective truth must be discarded, but rather that as the sharp edge, this tactic is not opening a breach in our opponents’ shield wall. Once we open a gap in the forces opposing us, THEN we apply follow-on tactics, such as presenting empirical evidence.
What we are doing is measurably not working. A reassessment is required.
* This is not an attack on Cassie, with whom I share some opinions. I chose her comment as it was the last in the list and I could read it as I typed my own comment.
double plus good
I have said before. and reiterate, the problem of aboriginal deprivation in rural and remote communities will only be solved when they themselves accept that their world has changed. Forever. Prancing around in loin cloths and re-instituting some forms of neo-tribalism will not work. Demanding free money is fine, until the money runs out, and other countries decide they might as well join the party. That’s neo-tribalism, though the stakes are higher.
Muddy, I’m not sure I follow you.
“What we are doing is measurably not working. A reassessment is required.”
So, what do you suggest? I’m open to ideas.
Cassie
Add all Catholics to the list.
Cassie asks what to do next.
Return to a free enterprise system.
Geoff S
Cassie,
I wish I had a detailed answer for you, but I don’t. All I can offer is a collection of incomplete thoughts like the one above, which I realise is inadequate.
I truly believe, however, that what conservatives are doing in terms of tactics, is not working, and has not worked for quite some years. If something isn’t working, is not providing any measurable benefit, but the choices as I perceive them are: (1). Continue with the same behaviours/tactics and hope that some random event will provoke a change in the present outcomes, or (2). Reassess what you are doing, discern why the present approach is not working (which means defining desired outcomes), and come up with a more productive solution.
To summarise my above word salad: We (conservatives) are not winning. A reassessment is necessary if we WANT to win.
Nothing else is possible until we better understand what we are doing, and what our opponents are doing. I’m not trying to insult people/organisations by stating that I believe conservatives are deluded. I believe we are simply ‘stuck.’
I’ve also previously stated my belief that our position is not due to a lack of courage. People such as Andy Ngo put themselves in harm’s way in order that we can see what is happening. The product of his (and a few others’) courage is not being utilised in a productive enough manner, however. If ‘raising awareness’ was a solution in itself, we would not still be where we are now. Something else is required.
As I’ve also previously opined, the same applies to highlighting hypocrisy. It’s not a bad tactic, but if it was as productive as we seem to believe, the revelations of the past few years would have placed us in a more enviable position. They haven’t. Again, it is not a tactic that needs to be discarded completely, because the conservative morality is a large part of our strength, however as a tip-of-the-spear tactic, it is not working. As a follow-up third or fourth wave tactic, sure.
Same tactics, same outcomes.
A reassessment is required.
(Yes, I know this comment has been a truck load of words about something abstract, but strategy is vital).
Thank you for your polite question, by the way, Cassie.
I have to head out for a bit, but I’ll attempt to cogitate on something more practical for later this afternoon. (No promises. The last few years have shredded my grey matter).
Speaking of Galileo Galilei:
“It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.”
Cassie @ 8;44
Well said Cassie.
A lot of people still believe that the current lot of Liberals are conservatives.
They are obviously not.
Yet people will still vote for the Libs because they are traditionally the conservative option between Labour or Liberal.
Until this mindset changes we are destined for failure.
“hooey” is good.
A mild sort of word, replaced by coarse ones.
Couldn’t count the times I’ve been told “it’s just a word”. But today we’re told there’s no “just”, when it suits the woke types.
Lizzie wrote of the word “lavatory” sounding ridiculous. Why? No one considers “conservatory” sounding ridiculous. In a coarser world, it’s “toilet” that oddly and daintily reigns supreme.
I agree with Damon’s 9.30am comment.
As for the Aboriginal activists – they’ve turned me into a mild sort of racist.
Muddy, I don’t think ordinary conservatives have been doing anything wrong, except for continuing to vote for “conservative” politicians in the mainstream parties who are leftie stooges in reality. Maybe mass voting for Lim Dems here, for example, might have helped. Republicans tried the Tea Party, which helped in the rise of Trump. And whatever you think of Trump, he did his best to actually implement his promises which is why, of course, the Blob decided he had to go.
As for the march through the Institutions, yes it does seem to be just about complete. The intriguing question is why, when they get there, do they only ever want to destroy – families, religion, society. Make poor people poorer and rich people richer. It is a mental sickness that seems to affect about half the population of most Western Society countries. Has it always been thus?
Completely OT but I wasn’t able to use the word ‘hooey’ for the entirety of my marriage. In Russian, it is a slang term for penis, similar to ‘cock’ or ‘dick’. My ex-husband was a good man and refused to teach me any profanity and somehow I didn’t learn any while studying Russian at university.
Funnily enough, I have started to use it now because there is just so much in our present culture and political life that is complete, well, hooey, as so comprehensively listed above. Must be the influence of the many American blogs and commentators I read.
We are ambushed by words and phrases which, to the rational mind, are completely devoid of meaning and are therefore simply “hooey”.
Examples of the tmeaningsless tosh are “climate change”, “rising sea levels”, and “transwomen”.
Two of the most meaningsless non-words are “misinformation” and “disinformation”.
There is only information. Some of it extremely wrong, some of it the Truth, and in between a sliding scale. It is the responsibility of every individual to determine where any particular isdea fits on this continuum.
“What the COVID crisis has taught, for anyone willing and able to listen and hear, is that we are living in a world where government propaganda, information control, and increasingly mind and thought control has been normalized. A world where ethics and ethical boundaries are treated as an inconvenience to be circumvented whenever deemed “necessary”. Where there is no “right and wrong”, but rather government, UN, WHO, WEF, World Trade, and Centralized Banking decisions are driven by power and the utilitarian concept that the ends always justify the means.”
Dr. Robert W. Malone MD
Roger W.
Roger, from my perspective, it is practically irrelevant who is to blame. That’s a wombat burrow we could snuggle into and spend a few decades hibernating within. There’s a difference between playing pointy-finger, and accepting responsibility. The latter provides an impetus for further movement, the former a security blanket for atrophy.
However, if we exchange ‘effective’ for ‘wrong’ in your sentence, does that change anything?
Putting aside Rod Stuart’s point about meaningless words, how would we define ‘effective?’ How do conservatives (a broad brush there, I know) define ‘winning?’
To me, winning means at the very least, neutralising those who wish me harm, or who threaten my quality of life; at best: annihilating that threat. (You cannot successfully negotiate with someone who wants to end your existence).
Cassie, et. al.
At the moment, I can do no better than continue the abstract, incomplete thoughts recorded in my first comment.
To wit: Repositioning.
Allowing our opponents to maintain the initiative and publicly attack us, puts us at a constant disadvantage. Reacting defensively and reactively is ineffective because we end up spending so much effort countering the allegations against us (which is pointless, given the media cycle), that we have little remaining with which to undermine and weaken our opponent’s abilities. Simplistically, the logical answer is to gain and maintain the initiative. How we do that is beyond my cognitive capacity, but recognising the need to stop permitting our opponents to dictate our actions, is the first step.
Let me provide an example (again, I’ve never claimed to have an answer for everything, nor have I ever stated that my own life is an astounding success):
Indigenous issues: I’ve written previously about what I awkwardly call ‘museumification.’ This is where indigenous and non-indigenous so-called ‘leaders’ advocate and introduce policies which keep those they claim to represent in a stage of inertia. The analogy being that the ‘leaders’ can only derive money (and other benefits) from their Museum of Primitive Trauma/Inertia, if they have exhibits with which to entertain paying customers. It’s like the old freakshow: no freaks, no customers (no income).
Rather than continually grovelling ‘No, I’m not racist, I have indigenous friends (etc.),’ conservatives need to place the emphasis on those making the allegations: What have YOU done for those you claim to represent? Why do you advocate for policies that will NOT bring improvements? Why do you emphasis culture, which is ever-changing, over economic opportunities? Why do you prioritise collective outcomes which will inevitably benefit only a small elite (including yourselves), over individual opportunities? Why do you present indigenous people as 2-dimensional cartoon characters, who have no other aspects to their personalities other than their ancestry? etc. etc.
‘Attack is the best defense’ is somewhat trite, cliched, and not always effective. I rate almost as awkward and misunderstood as ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’ However, the benefits of the former might be worth examining when it comes to seizing and maintaining the initiative.
Think of the conservative task as a professional sporting team. Do we let the opposing team dictate where our players position themselves on the field, and what ‘plays’ they execute?
There is a scoreboard. Winning is measurable.
On people who should know better about the climate change/renewables thing, it seems they sometimes justify this by their desire to “do something about fossil fuel use”.
They all tend to see the world as bad, that fossil fuel use is bad and everything else seems to be linked to it. An example: Kids mining Lithium is caused by .. fossil fuels, of course it is, if we didn’t use fossil fuels, duh, we wouldn’t need batteries and scientists would have found another way to get energy. We’re in this terrible position of poor renewables because all the effort and investment for decades went into fossil fuels.
Thus, even if all the climate science they support is wrong, that’s OK, because it is reducing fossil fule use and that above all else is salvation.
Look at the rapture on their faces, when believers talk of networks of infrastructure linking solar and wind generation sources.
Easy to dismiss everything else, even bad science when you are in that moment of gloria.
On people who should know better about the climate change/renewables thing, it seems they sometimes justify this by their desire to “do something about fossil fuel use”.
They all tend to see the world as bad, that fossil fuel use is bad and everything else seems to be linked to it. An example: Kids mining Lithium is caused by .. fossil fuels, of course it is, if we didn’t use fossil fuels, duh, we wouldn’t need batteries and scientists would have found another way to get energy.
We’re in this terrible position of poor renewables because all the effort and investment for decades went into fossil fuels.
Thus, even if all the climate science they support is wrong, that’s OK, because it is reducing fossil fuel use and that above all else is salvation.
Look at the rapture on their faces, when believers talk of networks of infrastructure linking solar and wind generation sources.
Easy to dismiss everything else, even bad science when you are in that moment of gloria.
billie, the phenomenon you describe is very powerful wherein people who have their reasons challenged for an action or belief immediately invent or develop new, more powerful reasons (‘supports’) to do what they already were doing.
One of the best explanations you can find is in Robert Cialdini’s ‘Influence: Science and Practice.’ This wonderful book makes much clear that was unclear.
Muddy
Start where they did, with the language used.
There are no real “progressives”. Some are simply opportunists, some are communists, and the majority are closer to fascists, with their enthusiasm for linkages between government and business.
At the simplest level, it is easy to identify the proto-fascists. Look at their private financial arrangements. Those with lots of investment houses might talk about rent control, but they will ensure that it does not affect their rental properties. They will hob-nob with Bug Business (see many of the current Labor Party, and some of the Liberals. Call them what they are.
The opportunists will move with the wind. Change their perception of the prevailing wind.
The communists are the most fanatical, but in some ways the easiest to counter. A bit of publicity about the more infamous communists (to their potential audiences, not them) will start the process. Many of them are academics, rub their noses in the multitudinous crimes of communism. Refer to them as Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Kim, or Pol Pot.
The blame lies with the right adopting Laissez faire economic models, that were never part of Republican policies in the past; ignoring the culture and abandoning the middle and decent working class people.
You can see the attitude on here when faux libertarian idiots start up mocking working class accents, “naffink” and show they are more concerned with winning an archaic class war than defending traditional values. Mass immigration to drive down wages, deindustrialisation to free up even more labour to mow their fkn lawns and clean their sh*tty dunnies, high inflation to steal the ordinary man’s savings, an unearned “lord of the manor” attitude; a stupid dogmatism around free speech that was never a part of traditional values, therefore ceding the ground to the worst of the left who never play by any rules, oh yes, they will use your “free speech” principles to create all sorts of havoc culturally while simultaneously booting your counter arguments off every platform, and a complete inability to formulate an appropriate response to the ploys of the left.
All of this stems from one basic, autistic trait of the purveyors of these stupidities: the assumption that the other side will for some reason play by your rules. No. The left will not respect your right to speak. No, other players in international trade won’t play your stupid game of a hypothetical equal playing field. There is a reason why the Republicans had a policy of low or no taxes but high tariffs. They understood that the national defence, civil society and practical rights rested first and foremost on a large middle and working class doing well enough they were firmly invested in the system. They understood that you can only run a small government off the proceeds of tariffs, in order to have large government you have to broaden the tax base. No libertarians, a broad tax base is NOT a good thing, it is the PREREQUISITE for large government. A government sector that now controls directly more than 40% of economic activity. A government sector that now seeks to increase ties with other governments around the world and pursue the narrow interests of an elite over representing their own citizens.
The fight back, if it ever comes, will come from a realisation that the fight must be about standards, not freedoms. That a good policy sets a bar and requires entrants to exceed those standards. That in order to have something good, you have to say “NO”! To many bad things.
You have to abandon libertarian ideals. They are as pie in the sky and unrealistic as the socialist ones.
Muddy, my point was essentially that ordinary individuals have very little power. The actions you suggest are fine but an individual, unless in a position of power and influence, can say what they like and have no discernible effect. That is why conservatives vote for people who say they will do certain things. The problem is, of course, that all too often they do not do these things once in power. In the UK voters have wanted to stop unauthorized immigration, for example. Labour makes no secret that this is not their thing. The Tory Party consistently say they will fix the problem and have been voted in for 13 years now. The public have made their position very clear. But, of course, the Tories have repeatedly lied. The likelihood is that they will finally be destroyed at the next election because you can only lie to people so many times. Then there has to be an alternative party that may deliver. This switch is starting to happen in some parts of Europe, in Italy, for example. May be happening in Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Spain. Has already happened in Hungary. People are clearly saying what they want at the ballot box which, short of open revolution, is all they can do. Here, people shift from the Libs to One Nation, Lib Dems etc but not in great enough numbers. It is weird that the Tories in the UK are well aware of the wishes of their supporters but think they can ignore them because the alternative is Labour. The actual Tory MPs are, of course, from a group that sees (however maybe mistakenly) that they benefit in fact from mass immigration but benefit electorally from pretending to oppose it. We have the same thing here, where people like Matt Keen and Malcolm Turnbull are natural Labor but saw a better opportunity to further their political careers by joining the Libs.
The only time ordinary people can clearly make their voice heard is ironically in a referendum. The likely significant defeat of The Voice will be one of the few times when conservatives can not only make their wishes clear but also be heard, because politicians cannot intervene and “interpret”what they really want!
Boambee John, Arky, and Roger W.
You all make good points (though my libertarian policy knowledge is poor, so I cannot comment on that).
B.J.
Yes. Definitely yes. Everything begins and ends with language. A point I’ve made many times previously (though obviously not effectively). This was one of the reasons behind the Catictionary – to find language alternatives to more accurately describe a world that is no longer the 1950s.
It still frustrates me how some on here still use the complimentary titles of our opponents (including ‘progressives.’ I’m not sure if it was John Constantine or someone else who coined ‘pregressives,’ but it was apt (though I cannot now recall the definition).
Roger W.
I’ve been saying (to some Cats’ irritation, apparently) for some years that the Liberal Party is dead. D.E.D. dead. In fact, I call them the Festering Zombies, because they give the appearance of life, but for some reason, it’s bloody difficult to (metaphorically) kill them. Nostalgia, however, is a powerful drug, and inevitably, conservatives will vote for the Zombies because ‘at least they’re not Labor’ (ha ha). We don’t HAVE to vote for anyone. We are compelled to attend a voting booth, have our names crossed off the electoral roll, accept a voting paper, and deposit that voting paper in the appropriate insinkerator (i.e. ballot box). What we mark on that ballot paper, as far as I’m aware, is up to us. I do not intend, for the remainder of my life, to vote for any party that existed during the covidiocy. To those who declare that voting informally is a waste… gifting a party which acknowledges you only at election time, with (whatever the amount is; $2.60?) of taxpayers’ money, is a waste. Besides, it’s MY vote, and I’ll bloody well do what I want with it. If there is no-one worthy of my vote, I will not be giving it away.
The Liberals are incapable of interpreting any message sent by disenchanted voters other than ‘ashes to ashes…’ They must be destroyed so an alternative can be free to grow in their place. Nothing will grow in their icy shadow.
Arky is spot on:
If there is one thing anyone can do to maybe make a difference as an individual, it is to always use cash. The biggest threat to our ongoing freedom is CBDC. Once that takes hold, your every action can be controlled.
” always use cash”
Unfortunately, only too true.
The aboriginal industry needs to admit the world is bigger,, and a lot rougher and tougher than they are. They may catch the coat-tails of the. discrimination bandwagon, but they’ll fall off n the end.
The Thought Leader isn’t just a hypocrite, but he’s also a mindless nincompoop feverishly trying to pretend his views have worth. They don’t.
This is the former fitter&turner who loved blue collar work so much he moved on to teaching. You can’t get lower level white collar than teaching in a government school.
He extols the virtues of North Korean economics by suggesting our way of life ought to be more sustainable, but more sustainable in the sense that we make nafink and we now purchase goods below cost because we import them – therefore we should erect massive import barriers and go it alone.
And Muddy, if you’re going to criticize, I suggest you at least offer solutions otherwise this blog is laced with whining.
So, just who is Leadership criticizing here? Australia or the US? Neither country has a laissez faire economic system. Ironically the nation that would go close to having something resembling a free market system would be Switzerland. I don’t see much criticism of Swiss living standards.
No one is mocking working class people. We’re actually mocking you – a former school teacher now unemployed, with blue collar pretensions. We mock your hypocrisy and general idiocy.
What a depressing world salad. So sure let’s close down free speech and turn the place into Franco’s Spain. That worked so well.
No one plays by the rules, least of all the US. What a clown.
Go ahead, let’s impose tariffs only and no income tax. Most of us would be all for that.
Libertarians – at least a good number – believe that the government should only receive around 10% of GDP. If it comes through taxing international trade then go for it. We’re all ears how you would implement that though,
Does anyone know what that means?
You idiot, it’s a libertarian ideal to move government taxes away from taxing income and focus on indirect taxes to no more that 10% of GDP. Saying that you don’t support libertarian ideals means you would nix your own policy even before you started.
Leadership, you aren’t 10% smart as you think you are.
If Leadership is going to spew unfounded criticism like a depressed maniac, he should at least be a little up to date.
An import tax was proposed back in 2016 but went nowhere. The idea was called, A Border Adjustment Tax. It went nowhere, but the idea that Republicans are at fault is a fraud.
Leadership makes shit up to support his Franco-ist ideology. He’s against free speech because he hates being challenged on his simplistic low iq views. Enough!
Here was some of the chatter about the Border Adjustment Tax back in 2016.
Koch Industries Criticizes Key Feature of House GOP Tax Plan (Dec. 7)
House GOP Business-Tax Plan Upends U.S. Policy, Bares Corporate Fault Lines (Nov. 24)
In Split from Trump, GOP Leaders Emphasize Tax Overhaul Over Tariffs (Dec. 5)
Republicans Take New Tack on Taxing Companies’ Overseas Profits (Aug. 21)
Here’s the main story.
GOP Proposal to Change Tax Treatment of Imports and Exports Raises Questions
Movement to cut corporate rate and place a levy on imports gains momentum, but impact of changes being considered still questioned
Lol.
Luzu
Jul 9, 2023 12:24 PM
Same idea came to me at once when I saw it.
Had a Russian gent working for us years back, and his favorite reply to something he didn’t approve of was “kony huy”. Not sure of the spelling but it sounded like it.
Lots of laughs yourself, you depressed imbecile. Let me explain the rules of life to you, genius. You’re never going to get away with your depressed crap without a response.
LOL, from the genius who reckons we make nafink and when he tried, he burned his freaking house down.
FMD.
Sounds scary … but actually how would it work and who is going to stop us paying with cash if needed. In Singapore many small shops do not accept payment by card, it must be done using cash and the same for many taxi drivers.
Don’t discount the ability of ordinary folks to organise their lives in new ways when they see a threat to their lifestyles or freedoms.
One of the reasons I began commenting on SincCat after a few years of lurking, was my desire to learn more about economics, one of many knowledge deficits. It hasn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, however, because any questioning or admission of doubt has been met with ridicule/derision. It’s a shame when the person you’d hoped to absorb knowledge from, chooses instead to forego humility and use the imbalance as confirmation of their perfection. Who wins from that?
Well, if those were the reasons you came to the Cat, and it appears you’ve learned nothing over the years, then I’m not very hopeful for you, Mud. I say this because I don’t see you as an objective player as a result of the dumb and offhand comment you made towards me when you were taking sides by defending that other faggot, Old School, who often chimes in with chides and subjective opinions on various arguments.
Your comment earlier, was another one of those: “I’m not voting for the libs ever again”. Sure, it was much more long-winded, but it essentially said the same thing.
While you were personal with me the other day, let me chime in about your activities. Those threads you post are boring drivel meant to make people you favour like you more.
However, let me be open-minded with you for a moment. What exactly do you find lacking in the responses to Leadership’s stupid comments? Put a little focus, particularly on the subject that he wants to see free speech curbed. Do you agree with the idiot? Yes or no?
Also, do you agree we should simply curb imports because we make nafink?
but actually how would it work and who is going to stop us paying with cash if needed. “
Alamak, please tell me…
1. How do you get cash when employers no longer pay in cash (please tell me of an employer who does, I am not aware of any, the last time I was paid in cash was back in the early 1990s)?
2. When you are paid by your employer into your bank account, and you attempt to go to an ATM or to a bank branch to withdraw cash, you now find that both are as rare as hen’s teeth. So, where do we get our cash from?
I actually agree that people should start using cash en masse, but it’s not going to work for big purchases over, say, $200.00. Nobody will accept that amount of cash anymore.
“Don’t discount the ability of ordinary folks to organise their lives in new ways when they see a threat to their lifestyles or freedoms.”
I agree with your sentiment, and I’ve been arguing this here for a long time, but tell me this, how we will be able to organise our lives when we can’t access our cash? Do we keep it under our beds? Do we stash it in books in a bookcase?
And even if we still used cash for everything, people still need bank accounts, for savings, for loans, and so on. Nigel Farage and others have been/are being deprived of a basic right, the right to have a bank account, all because of their politics. That’s not just dangerous, it’s iniquitous.
Spot on, Cassie. That’s when 1984 becomes real.
Roger
We are in a version of 1984. Call it the early edition. We lost the right to our privacy between 911 and about 2010.
I dread the answer to this, but is there anyone here who thinks people will still be using cash in 2100? I don’t think so. Next, is what type of world will it be then?
Good thread Muddy.
Keep them coming.
Damon, there is more to it than that, Muddy makes the following point a little downthread from yours:
The Aboriginal industry derives its power and money from these ‘museum pieces’. The very last thing any of them want is to end it. Hence, we are spending a lazy $30 billion annually to sustain it. Expect that to increase exponentially if the ‘voice’ gets up.
lol