Watched my honeyeater kick the kiddies out of the nest and they’re gone. I love nature.
Open Thread – Tues 18 July 2023
- Open Thread – Mon 25 Nov 2024
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
In local bird news, just watched my resident rail pass the window with a tiny black puffball chick in its…
Looks like the phantom downticker found a new victim. How childish can you get? So be it, I can live…
Exactly. How different would it be if we had an enemy choose our system of power generation?
Why are we fixing something that isn’t broken? And then why are we choosing the least effective and the costliest…
Very good choice, Dover.
I was toying with one of the interpretations of Genesis 6 when the transhumanism debate started.
Left a simple comment about the subject on the dead thread.
For Your Eyes Only – James Bond Music Cover
And because it’s midnight and no one’s around…
More Bergerac
The medieval town is very compact and occupies around 20 acres between Notre Dame de Bergerac (a 19th century neo gothic church) and the wide and sluggish Dordogne River.
The main thoroughfare is roofed with artificial flowers strung on wires between the stooped half timbered buildings. The buildings look as if they are leaning in and conspiring, and to my delight there’s a Café Conspiration on the corner! Shops and cafés below, shuttered rooms above, windows piercing masonry of a dozen different materials, including crazily laid brickwork and very haphazard and inadequate plaster. The shutters are old and gnarled, a history lesson in paint as weather reveals each successive layer back to the bare wood. The roofs are handmade terracotta tiles, flat like slates and sprouting all manner of moss and lichen.
The street continues downhill, past the market and the lovely old St James church. It’s Romanesque, a pit stop on the pilgrim route that winds its way through this region of France. The sign of the scallop shell is a clue. And, a quick glance left, and there’s the man himself…not St James or course, but Cyrano looking up wistfully at the church. Surrounding him is a square planted out with a riot of floral colour.
It’s a warm overcast day today, so after the walk down to the riverbank we sought out a shady seat back up at one of the squares. None to be found. A hasty appeal to the Almighty and the simplest of graces abounded – an empty table in the shade and overlooking the passing parade suddenly vacated. Cold white wine, a couple of beers and an enormous plate of local cheese and sliced meat later and we were off for a siesta.
It’s a tough gig but someone has to do it.
God knows when since I last heard this.
Christopher Cross – Navegando / Sailing (Letras En Español / Subtítulos)
I’ll leave this exploration of Bruegel’s work for you to enjoy.
They originally though it was a Bosch until his signature was discovered on the back. I liked the reference to the “cabinets of curiosities” that inspired his interpretation of what a fallen creature might look like.
Genetically spliced if you like. 🙂
More fun facts beforeI go. I thought there were a great many English tourists here today.
Seems there were even more seven hundred years ago. At least the modern ones only plunder the wine shops and icecream parlours.
John Spooner.
Mark Knight.
Peter Broelman.
Morten Morland.
A.F. Branco.
Matt Margolis.
Al Goodwyn.
Tom Stiglich.
All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.
– Casey Stengel
Thanks Tom.
Please Explain Season 2 – The Playlist –
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAxn3qhG_qL8mplKpsHMbBnYICCgs9Rgk
Tom Cruise, Mohammed, South Park, and Why Streaming Sucks
I’ve never seen massed Poms in France, they must descend in the summer time.
I’m going to put Bergerac on my to do, I meant to visit Gascony in March but spent too long in Sicily and had to fly over rather than train through France.
I hope you get your knee sorted on your return Calli.
Chuckle. A local real estate agent just attempted to sell us a local pied a terre.
Undaunted on being told we were Aussies, he asked us about our kids! Then the conversation turned (yours truly) to Bergerac’s history. More interesting ground, focussing on local German occupation seventy years ago and it’s affects. The Beloved put a smile on his face…they lost…twice!
Meanwhile the BBC is showing me pictures of distressed meerkats in a zoo in Alicante, Spain. Seriously. They seemed perfectly happy in hotter weather in Dubbo last time I spotted some of the beasties.
They’re going insane over this “heatwave”. It was a pleasant 27 in town today, continuing into the evening. With another benefit – no flies or mozzies.
Thanks Rosie. The meniscus popped when I picked up mum just before we left. I’m tough, but my heart tells me it isn’t going back. 🙂
We always weave the “we are Aussies” thing in when in France. The faces change, and they can’t do enough for you. Part of my problem is that even my crummy French has an English accent due to my school teacher.
Calli,
your travelogues have been so enjoyable to read. Close my eyes and I’m there. I do have to say though, your last several comments have been heavy on Bergerac, and try as I might otherwise, the main picture coursing through my mind’s eye is of a young and delectable John Nettles. 😀
Pogria
Jul 18, 2023 5:45 AM
I like her travelogues too, just enough personal details to make you aware of the experience enjoyed or endured by the traveler.
As to John Nettles? Aren’t you supposed to be past that sort of thing by now?
Only joking, only joking!!!
Memories, can’t beat them.
I can’t even type proper English!
Its effects
Sorry about too much Bergerac. Tomorrow it will be Sarlat la caneda, my favourite French town. I am avoiding doing a Poste Gastronomique…but I’m sorely tempted. 🙂
Calli, nothing to be sorry for. There can never be too much Bergerac!
And, if my feet weren’t crumbling I would chase after Gabor with a big stick for accusing me of being past it! 😀
The problem the Albanian ignores is that as time moves on and people begin to see what this is all about, along with the potential ramifications, the less they like it. This is the worst of all possible scenarios.
It could end up being a total disaster.
This was inevitable. The BEEB knows talent when it sees it.
It’s like a modem version of Chauncy Gardener.
The modern left have found their Chauncey Gardner.
I would rather drive a 12inch spike though each eye than watch anything like this.
Bowen is getting his fascist jackboots on today.
Government set to target politically sensitive sectors to achieve net zero targets (Sky, 18 Jul)
Sounds like he’s swallowed absolutely every stupid bit of green hogwash there is. Even the Europeans and Americans are starting to back away from their no nuke policies and crazy car plans. And the farm thing is Dutch for “national suicide”.
Wonder why so many are quoting a data set that only goes back to 1979?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charting-global-temperature-records/
It would be funny if not so tragic.
Any Cats seen Riviera (streams on SBS on demand)?
If so, any views?
Looking for the next series to watch & struggling to find anything that isn’t cliche after 2-3 episodes.
I think the bLIAR era was the end of the BBC as a quality broadcaster. For me it was a corny pathetic program on the y2k bug. Lightweight Tosh. Downhill all the way since then. I used to love the world service radio in the early 90s.
And they wonder why farmers are angry.
Our roads are in a disgraceful state and yet we are told by politicians that it’s a wonderful benefit to us that the transmission line builders and renewable energy companies will put money into improving our roads for access in construction.
Charity from our lords and masters.
A Bonfire of the Vanities
By Alastair CrookeJuly 17, 2023
Hubris consists in believing that a contrived narrative can, in and of itself, bring victory, Alastair Crooke writes.
Hubris consists in believing that a contrived narrative can, in and of itself, bring victory. It is a fantasy that has swept through the West – most emphatically since the 17th century.
Recently, the Daily Telegraph published a ridiculous nine minute video purporting to show that ‘narratives win wars’, and that set-backs in the battlespace are incidentals: What matters is to have a thread of unitary narrative articulated, both vertically and horizontally, throughout the spectrum – from the special forces’ soldier in the field through to the pinnacle of the political apex.
The gist of it is that ‘we’ (the West) have compelling a narrative, whilst Russia’s is ‘clunky’ – ‘Us winning therefore, is inevitable’.
It is easy to scoff, but nonetheless we can recognise in it a certain substance (even if that substance is an invention).
Narrative is now how western élites imagine the world. Whether it is the pandemic emergency, the climate or Ukraine ‘emergencies’ – all are re-defined as ‘wars’.
All are ‘wars’ that are to be fought with a unitary imposed narrative of ‘winning’, against which all contrarian opinion is forbidden.
The obvious flaw to this hubris is that it requires you to be at war with reality.
At first, the public are confused, but as the lies proliferate, and lie is layered upon lie, the narrative separates further and further from touched reality, even as mists of dishonesty continue to swathe themselves loosely around it. Public scepticism sets in. Narratives about the ‘why’ of inflation; whether the economy be healthy or not; or why we must go to war with Russia, begin to fray.
Western élites have ‘bet their shirts’ on maximum control of ‘media platforms’, absolute messaging conformity and ruthless repression of protest as their blueprint for a continued hold in power.
Yet, against the odds, the MSM is losing its hold over the U.S. audience.
Polls show growing distrust of the U.S. MSM. When Tucker Carlson’s first ‘anti-message’ Twitter show appeared, the noise of tectonic plates grinding against each other was unmissable, as more than 100 million (one in three) Americans listened to iconoclasm.
The weakness to this new ‘liberal’ authoritarianism is that its key narrative myths can get busted. One just has; slowly, people begin to speak reality.
Ukraine: How do you win an unwinnable war?
Well, the élite answer has been through narrative. By insisting against reality that Ukraine is winning, and Russia is ‘cracking’.
But such hubris eventually is busted by facts on the ground. Even the western ruling classes can see their demand for a successful Ukrainian offensive has flopped. At the end, military facts are more powerful than political waffle: One side is destroyed, its many dead become the tragic ‘agency’ to upending dogma.
“We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met … [however] unless Ukraine wins this war, there’s no membership issue to be discussed at all” – Jens Stoltenberg’s statement at Vilnius.
Thus, after urging Kiev to throw more (hundreds of thousands) of its men into the jaws of death to justify NATO membership, the latter turns its back on its protégé.
It was, after all, an unwinnable war from the beginning.
The hubris, at one level, lay in NATO’s pitting of its alleged ‘superior’ military doctrine and weapons versus that of a deprecated, Soviet-style, hide-bound, Russian military rigidity – and ‘incompetence’.
But military facts on the ground have exposed the western doctrine as hubris – with Ukrainian forces decimated, and its NATO weaponry lying in smoking ruins.
It was NATO that insisted on re-enacting the Battle of 73 Easting (from the Iraqi desert, but now translated into Ukraine).
In Iraq, the ‘armoured fist’ punched easily into Iraqi tank formations: It was indeed a thrusting ‘fist’ that knocked the Iraqi opposition ‘for six’. But, as the U.S. commander at that tank battle (Colonel Macgregor), frankly admits, its outcome against a de-motivated opposition largely was fortuitous.
Nonetheless ‘73 Easting’ is a NATO myth, turned into the general doctrine for the Ukrainian forces – a doctrine structured around Iraq’s unique circumstance.
The hubris – in line with the Daily Telegraph video – however, ascends vertically to impose the unitary narrative of a coming western ‘win’ onto the Russian political sphere too. It is an old, old story that Russia is military weak, politically fragile, and prone to fissure.
Conor Gallagher has shown with ample quotes that it was exactly the same story in World War 2, reflecting a similar western underestimation of Russia – combined with a gross overestimation of their own capabilities.
The fundamental problem with ‘delusion’ is that the exit from it (if it occurs at all) moves at a much slower pace than events. The mismatch can define future outcomes.
It may be in the Team Biden interest now to oversee an orderly NATO withdrawal from Ukraine – such that it avoids becoming another Kabul debacle.
For that to happen, Team Biden needs Russia to accept a ceasefire. And here lies the (the largely overlooked) flaw to that strategy: It simply is not in the Russian interest to ‘freeze’ the situation. Again, the assumption that Putin would ‘jump’ at the western offer of a ceasefire is hubristic thinking: The two adversaries are not frozen in the basic meaning of the term – as in a conflict in which neither side has been able to prevail over the other, and are stuck.
Put simply, whereas Ukraine structurally hovers at the brink of implosion, Russia, by contrast, is fully plenipotent: It has large, fresh forces; it dominates the airspace; and has near domination of the electromagnetic airspace. But the more fundamental objection to a ceasefire is that Moscow wants the present Kiev collective gone, and NATO’s weapons off the battle field.
So, here is the rub: Biden has an election, and so it would suit the Democratic campaign needs to have an ‘orderly wind-down’. The Ukraine war has exposed too many wider American logistic deficiencies. But Russia has its’ interests, too.
Europe is the party most trapped by ‘delusion’ – starting from the point at which they threw themselves unreservedly into the Biden ‘camp’.
The Ukraine narrative broke at Vilnius.
But the amour propre of certain EU leaders puts them at war with reality. They want to continue to feed Ukraine into the grinder – to persist in the fantasy of ‘total win’: “There is no other way than a total win – and to get rid of Putin … We have to take all risks for that. No compromise is possible, no compromise”.
The EU Political Class have made so many disastrous decisions in deference to U.S. strategy – decisions that go directly against Europeans’ own economic and security interests – that they are very afraid.
If the reaction of some of these leaders seems disproportionate and unrealistic (“There is no other way than a total win – and to get rid of Putin”) – it is because this ‘war’ touches on a deeper motivations. It reflects existential fears of an unravelling of the western meta-narrative that will take down both its hegemony, and the western financial structure with it.
The western meta-narrative “from Plato to NATO, is one of superior ideas and practices whose origins lie in ancient Greece, and have since been refined, extended, and transmitted down the ages (through the Renaissance, the scientific revolution and other supposedly uniquely western developments), so that we in the west today are the lucky inheritors of a superior cultural DNA”.
This is what the narrators of the Daily Telegraph video probably had at the back of their minds when they insist that ‘Our narrative wins wars’. Their hubris resides in the implicit presumption: that the West somehow always wins – is destined to prevail – because it is the recipient of this privileged genealogy.
I have made precisely two comments – the original pisstake, and the second half of a comment about something else (pretentious and dishonest actors, somehow it seemed to fit).
OTOH, Lizzie is in double figures about the outrage that somebody doesn’t 100% love her and everything she says. There was a complete meltdown where she said she was flouncing, but of course it didn’t happen because she desperately needs an audience. We’ve been down that road numerous times, and anyone with a 13 year old daughter knows what it is like. The nadir of the latest tantrum was where she said she was withdrawing funding of the blog unless something was done, in a revealing episode of what sort of person ‘dear, sweet Lizzie’ really is.
After reading a couple of what experience tells us will be many outpourings of grief for not be adored by everyone always, I went on a picnic with friends. Came back and resumed normal transmission, but more wailing and weeping ensued. Comment after comment about ‘poor me.’
I’m a nutjob? Form your own conclusions.
She is the Michael Mann of Catallaxy.
Last night, on the old fred, KD compared the movies released in 2023 to those released in 1994. When you read the list of movies released in 1994 compared to the present, it’s both sobering and enlightening, and I think his list reveals a lot about the parlous and sad state of our society.
I like going to the cinema, but sadly, notwithstanding Covid, until last year I hadn’t bothered to go to the cinema for a good few years. For years there’s been nothing to lure me, however last year I did go and see three movies, all really good. Of course, one was Top Gun Maverick, a complete facsimile of the original Top Gun, but nonetheless it smashed box office records, which tells us something about what people still want to watch in 2023, in fact I would argue that people are ravenous for good solid quality entertainment, the other was an obscure French film about Jewish children in World War II, and the final one was an excellent Danish film about a Danish medieval queen. Visiting Randwick Ritz or Verona in Paddington, I’d forgotten how much I love going to the movies with friends, sitting down in the cinema seat, munching a choc top, or stuffing my face with popcorn, and at the end of the movie standing up and seeing the popcorn that had somehow evaded my mouth all over me, the seat and ground underneath me, and with me always thinking, my God Cassie, you’re a guts! I just love it! And in January this year I went to see The Lost King, which was another very good film.
So what made all three movies entertaining? Well firstly and most importantly, they didn’t preach to me. As with my television viewing, I categorically refuse to watch anything even slightly infused or tinged with progressive woke ideology. So, sitting down to watch a television programme or movie which has a black Anne Boleyn, a black Queen Charlotte, or black aristocrats in medieval Denmark, will immediately make my veins in my body throb with fury, and if watching television, I’ll immediately change the channel, and if watching a movie I’ll loudly yawn or verbally protest in the cinema.
Which means, of course, I won’t even bother to tune in to the new “Mother and Son”, because I know, even beforehand, that the series will be brimming with woke progressive talking points, after all it begins with a bi-racial Arthur. And anyway, nobody can ever step into the shoes of the marvellous Ruth Cracknell in the role as the ageing Maggie, her cunning, guile and sly manipulation of her son Arthur (played to perfectly by Gary McDonald) was both comedic and sad. I doubt very much that the 2023 reinvention will ever quite capture the nuances of the original series, which is why so many people watched the original decades ago and what it made is both marvellous and timeless.
The most useful phrase for an Australian in France: “Non, non. Australie.”
Bern , forget Riviera . It’s basically a cheap version of Dallas set in Europe. Vista is nice though.
I can’t be bothered with all the crap and infighting that occurs here at times.
Save your time and efforts for the multitude of lunacies that are being imposed upon us.
Thanks JC, it’s into the bin.
For so many platforms, there is so little quality to watch.
feelthebern
Jul 18, 2023 7:40 AM
Any Cats seen Riviera (streams on SBS on demand)?
If so, any views?
Looking for the next series to watch & struggling to find anything that isn’t cliche after 2-3 episodes.
feelthebern,
I am onto well over my 20th Korean Series on Netflix, amazing topics & scripts – no swearing, great plots
Autism – Extraordinary Attorney Woo – Was the 1st Series I watched
Agency – The series follows the story of Go Ah-in (Lee Bo-young) who becomes the first female executive member of a large advertising agency.
Book Publishing – Romance is a Bonus Book
Historian – Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung is a cute romantic period comedy. From its title and a brief glimpse at promotional materials, you may guess that the main character is Goo Hae-ryung (Shin Se-kyung), and that despite being a woman in her time, she secures a position working as a historian. What you may not guess is that a comical part of the plot setup involves a young prince pursuing a secret career as a romance novelist and becoming wildly insecure when he finds out that Hae-ryung, a stranger to him, dislikes his book.
Art Gallery – Her Private Life
Dentist – Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha
Romance
A big-city dentist opens up a practice in a close-knit seaside village, home to a charming jack-of-all-trades who is her polar opposite in every way.
Doctors – Doctor Romantic – Into its 3rd Series
“Romantic Doctor Kim” is a “real doctor” story set in a small, humble hospital called Dol Dam Hospital. It is a story about people who meet Kim Sa Bu (Han Suk Kyu), a genius doctor, and discover “real romance.”
One of my favourites – What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim
And many more enjoyable shows
When Netflix first launched in Korea back in 2016, we would not have believed that in five years’ time we would have made 80* shows and films. It was even harder to imagine the kind of impact we would bring to fans around the world and to the Korean creative economy.
Currently Watching
See You in My 19th Life
Romance
Ban Ji-eum can endlessly reincarnate. But when her 18th life gets cut short, she dedicates the next one to finding her now grown-up childhood love.
If you don’t have Netflix
Try this site – https://www3.asianvote.net/drama/weird-lawyer-woo-young-woo
Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport.
– Henny Youngman
Oh no Uncle Elon is attacking Rumble over Slippery Nick Fuentes!
I don’t think these people understand “free speech” and “build your own platform”.
To be honest, r/ASX_Bets is as close to a free speech forum that you can get. We’re free here too but a tad more civil.
feelthebern
Forgot to mention
King the Land which us being drip released over this month
Romance
Amid a tense inheritance fight, a charming heir clashes with his hardworking employee who’s known for her irresistible smile — which he cannot stand.
Starring:Lee Jun-ho,Lim Yoon-a,Go Won-hee
Creators:Lim Hyun-ook,Chun Sung-il,Choi Rome
“For so many platforms, there is so little quality to watch.”
I was only thinking that two nights ago, whilst scrolling Netflix for something to watch. I think I might go back and watch Outlander from the beginning.
calli, to me the mention of Bergerac always evokes the TV series at the beginning of the very handsome John Nettles’ (Midsomer Murders) career. It was not particularly memorable, except for the stunning scenery, including Nettles.
I’m guessin’ Charmless & Luigi might be doing a bit of pondering over their replacement of Phillip Lowe given their choice might not be in-step ..
Adding extra job losses to interest rates furore, probably, not be the PLan B they wanted ..!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12305311/RBA-push-unemployment-curb-inflation-comes-suicide-risk-new-study.html
Thanks Old Ozzie.
I have a few French & Korean ones lined up on various platforms.
But I was looking for something without subtitles or the weird dubbing.
They’re so disgusting. You have to be old enough to recall that the late 70s was a time there were serious concerns the world was going to freeze and we’d starve. They’re using that period’s trough to exaggerate their claim. Time and Newsweek were filled with stories about the cooling then.
Well, you can get fcked too!
feelthebern
Jul 18, 2023 8:31 AM
Thanks Old Ozzie.
I have a few French & Korean ones lined up on various platforms.
But I was looking for something without subtitles or the weird dubbing.
feelthebern,
you can watch them with English Speaking, but as I said to my Grandkids at they passby every night, saying your still watching Korean Shows – why not in English</em – you miss the Tension & Drama with the English speaking, and the subtitles are perfectly placed to allow seamless viewing and understanding of the Korean shows
The Life of Greta sounds more like the Life of Brian than the Life of Christ.
Who actually changed their mind that we need higher taxes and cap and trade schemes because of Greta Thunberg?
It is such a weird novelty. She isn’t a pawn, she was born a grifter and will die a grifter.
“I’m saving the world!”
We should rename her Jessica Christ.
Farmer Gez
Jul 18, 2023 8:11 AM
I can’t be bothered with all the crap and infighting that occurs here at times.
Very well said !!!!!!!…………..IMHO.
Indigikneeous activist slams welcome to country
Says,
““It was never intended for opening football games or corporate or social events. It was an actually a practice used for ensuring permission and safe passage to and through tribal boundaries. Now, it’s been so mainstream it’s made people be apathetic,” she claimed.”
Sad, a 60,000* year old culture has to make sh#te up.
* could be 64,372 , 85,000, 57,000 year
link
A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.
– Stanley Kubrick
I thought that was just a flo … err … notification of taking a short break.
I didn’t take that as referring to funding.
And, from what I can tell through the recent tech issues, there are plenty of offers of both financial and technical support anyway.
Cold War Returns With Vengeance? It Never Really Ended
The Cold War will continue for as long as the warmongering Western system continues.
NATO statements of hostility towards Russia this week demonstrate beyond all doubt that a Cold War mindset among Western leaders is entrenched more than ever.
There is a weird sense of going back in time to a world where the Americans are billed as the good guys wearing white hats whose noble purpose is saving everybody from the bad guys wearing black hats. It’s all very corny and cliched. And yet the world is being gaslighted to believe it and watch a re-run of an old movie. Cold War the Sequel.
The United States-led military alliance convened for its annual summit in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, on July 11-12. U.S. President Joe Biden was joined by leaders of the other 30 member nations, including newly admitted Finland. Also in attendance was Sweden whose membership was ratified, thereby soon making it the 32nd member.
The final communique of the gathering sounds (a touch too dramatically, it can be noted) like a global war plan.
Of course, among other scripted rants, there was a shrill denunciation of Russia, accusing it of mounting “an unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine”. The rhetoric was saturated with militarism and emergency.
The entire continent of Europe is in a state of war not seen since the Second World War, and the whole blame for this crisis was laid at Russia’s door, according to NATO.
There is no room for diplomacy. The Ukraine conflict has been reduced and distorted to a simplistic “good versus evil” parody in which the United States is, as usual, riding to the rescue of European allies who are threatened by alleged Russian malice and supposed plans for invasion. This is a re-run of the Soviet Union as big bad bogeyman.
The Western media, of course, conveniently contrived the necessary atmospherics of frightful tensions, describing how Biden and other NATO leaders were convening in a high-security setting wary of a possible Russian military attack with “chemical and radiological weapons”.
Attending the conference was Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky dressed in his trademark military fatigues and repeating his tiresome lines pleading for more weapons from the NATO bloc. His appeals were duly met with yet more pledges to keep the arms bazaar flowing to Ukraine despite the horrendous slaughter in that country over the past 17 months. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s incessant whining for more military largesse and access to NATO membership for Ukraine showed up divisions and fragility behind the facade of “alliance unity” and bravado.
President Biden and other NATO leaders ruled out definite membership for Ukraine, only repeating vague commitments. They know that bringing the Kiev regime into the alliance at this time could trigger World War Three with nuclear-armed Russia. Zelensky’s over-the-top begging and cajoling were slapped down by the Americans and British who were irked by the spotlight-grabbing antics of the former comedian-turned-president.
Regardless of the antics and showboating, it is abundantly clear that the United States has to a degree succeeded in entrenching a Cold War chasm in which Europe is more than ever subordinated to Washington’s geopolitical ambitions for hegemony. The Americans may want to steer away from an all-out conflagration with Russia, but they do want to demarcate a war-like face-off. That is a reckless high-wire balancing act.
The NATO declaration this week illustrated, too, that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has arrogated to itself a global enforcer role.
The cynical rhetoric about defending democracy and rules-based order was very much directed at China and Iran in addition to Russia. Every corner of the globe is now designated as a mission for NATO’s “security”, meaning security for U.S. hegemony.
It is no exaggeration that NATO has appointed itself as a global military enforcer for U.S. interests whose demand for domination is resisted by others under the pain of death.
The communique issued this week in Vilnius reads like an obsessive war footing – albeit drenched with Orwellian rhetoric about defending democracy, peace, the United Nations Charter, and the rule of law.
This is from Western powers that have made a mockery of democracy and international law by waging countless illegal wars and subterfuges around the planet.
Russia and China both deplored the return of Cold War mentality among the U.S.-led West. Moscow and Beijing lament that this polarized division of international relations is anachronistic and anathema to the present would-be historical development of a multipolar world, one that is not dominated by presumed uni-powers.
The late American diplomat and strategist George Kennan warned in 1997 that NATO expansion would lead to “the return of the Cold War”. Kennan, who formulated early Cold War U.S. foreign policy towards the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, had in his later life enough intellectual integrity to realize that NATO expansion following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was an unwise provocation. If he were alive today, Kennan would essentially corroborate Russia’s arguments for why Ukraine has been tragically turned into a bloody red line for Moscow.
However, the truth is the Cold War has not merely “returned” through the unwise policy of successive U.S. administrations wantonly antagonizing Russia and China.
The Cold War never really ended in 1991.
Admittedly, for a while, the overt military and ideological hostility seem to have subsided. That was partly because Russia was seen during the 1990s under former President Boris Yeltsin as a weak and feckless defeated superpower over which American capital could run amok and plunder at will.
Since Russia recovered its independence and military power, notably by thwarting the U.S. and NATO regime-change war of aggression in Syria in 2015, that rude development has put Moscow in Washington’s cross-hairs as an obstacle to its ambitions for global dominance. China, Iran and others are also bracketed by the United States as “enemies”, meaning obstacles to its sought-after hegemonic suzerainty. Suzerainty and subordination are the zero-sum dictates of Western capitalism. There can be no mutualism, cooperation or parity under such a monopoly system.
The war in Ukraine is, therefore, the culmination – not the return – of Cold War hostility, a hostility that was temporarily latent, disguised by disingenuous talk about “partnerships”.
But we need to go deeper into the systemic problem if we are ever to find a solution.
The origins of the Cold War, or what might be termed U.S. imperialism’s hybrid war, go back to largely hidden nuances of the Second World War. When the NATO alliance was formed in 1949, it was openly declared as a U.S.-led defender of Europe against “Soviet aggression”. Of course, this was the Americans interloping as a self-appointed chivalrous “protector”. It was all an act. The same vainglorious and conceited pretense of noble Americanism is peddled today regarding Ukraine and the rest of Europe. “You’re stuck with us,” joked Biden during the NATO summit in a faux attempt to sound magnanimous and selfless.
When the Second World War was coming to an end, it not solely signified the defeat of Nazi Germany and European fascism – momentous though that historic defeat was largely due to the valor and sacrifice of the Soviet people. The end of that war was already sowing the seeds for a new war by Western imperialist interests against the Soviet Union. That subsequent phase of conflict was labeled the Cold War and sold to the public as a principled cause defending democracy and the “free world”. The reality was that the Americans and their British allies recruited and redeployed remnants of Nazi Germany and European fascism to wage the next phase of hostilities against the Soviet Union under the hypocritical guise of claims about “Soviet aggression”. Those fascist remnants across Europe were the foundation of today’s NATO. Fittingly, the summit this week was held in Lithuania, one of the worst killing fields rampaged by the Nazi war machine and its collaborators.
Truth be told, Nazi Germany and European fascism was financed and weaponized by American and British capital as a bulwark against the Soviet Union during the 1930s. That was before the Second World War had even begun in 1939. So, when Hitler’s dictatorship was defeated in 1945 that event would not be the end of the undeclared long war for “securing” Western imperialist interests. That explains why the so-called Cold War, or hybrid war, was immediately embarked on in 1945. It should strike anyone as strange that so soon after the horror of WWII and 70-90 million dead, the world would succumb to yet more hostility and four decades of nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction.
Hence, when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 (unwisely by Russian leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev who were beguiled by American blandishments about world peace), the long war did not stop. NATO’s inexorable and deceitful expansion is proof of that.
Thus, today, the world is seeing not the “return” of the Cold War. But rather the intensified continuation by the American-led Western capitalist powers to assert their total domination of the planet. Russia, China, Iran, and others are not willing to roll over in obeisance, and that is why the U.S.-led Western powers are increasingly on a maniacal warpath.
World peace will never be possible while the U.S. and its Western lapdogs are indulged with impunity to wage their criminal wars and mass killings in every part of the planet. Peace will always be an illusory figment as long as the criminal Western powers are never held to account and as long as they are allowed to persist in their predations under their grotesque masks of “defenders of democracy and peace”.
The Western powers, their capitalist and imperialist war machines are the font of all wars in recent centuries. Nazi Germany was but a marque of a larger suite of vehicles whose modern souped-up iteration is NATO.
The Cold War is but one iteration of a long war for global domination.
It doesn’t stop or restart. It will continue for as long as the warmongering Western system continues. It will end and, hopefully, world peace will prevail at last only when the Western war system is finally smashed. That outcome will inevitably entail a radical transformation in the present political and economic order particularly among Western states whose bankruptcy is long overdue.
That’s because she’s a dummy. I will never apologise for that.
Low inflation doesn’t cause unemployment.
High inflation lowers purchasing power and thus C and I in the GDP identity.
People losing their shirts in the property market doesn’t necessarily cause unemployment.
Less production (more unemployment) causes higher real prices (lower real wages).
The fact is however we have too many APS and they are overpaid, overly generous welfare and rising costs (due to regulation and specific taxes). Tax paying private sector workers are getting soaked.
Sporting celebs out proclaiming their support for the elitist Voice.
They just can’t help themselves.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. LOL!!!!!
feelthebern Jul 18, 2023 7:38 AM
It’s the beginning of global coverage of satellite temperature measurements.
It also neatly avoids the inconvenience of the 1976/77 Pacific Climate Shift, which overnight (in geophysical terms) added something between 0.5° and 0.7° to the global ‘average temperature’ – for reasons unknown to oceanographers and meteorologists.
The warm phase ocean temperature regime kicked off in 1976 and has driven the ‘data’ behind Climatgeddon. Because of the scale and complexity of ocean systems, ‘real science’ doesn’t have an explanation for what happened, or why.
Fortunately, climate modellers are much better than stupid oceanographers and are able to fully explain what happened, and why – and attribute it to Satan’s Gas.
Be like Shitweasel Bowen.
Feel the models.
Believe the models.
““It was never intended for opening football games or corporate or social events. It was an actually a practice used for ensuring permission and safe passage to and through tribal boundaries. Now, it’s been so mainstream it’s made people be apathetic,” she claimed.”
Of course it was! .. Ernie Dingo has never made any secret of the fact he made it up in the late 1970s (not quite 60 000 or is it 65 million years ago) as a money spinner .. FFS!
The strawberry blonde pathologist was the best thing about Midsomer Massacres.
Indian Punchline
JULY 17, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Ukraine war takes its toll on UK politics
The NATO Summit in Vilnius on June 11-12 turned out to be an anti-climax with the fractured relationship between the regime in Kiev and the Western powers surging. What is happening is more of an implosion than a Russian conspiracy.
Certainly, the announcement by the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace that he will be leaving the cabinet and quitting politics is much more than about himself or British politics. Wallace had a special role in the Ukraine war, being the oldest member of the British cabinet at 52, a Sandhurst-trained soldier-politician who is well-liked in the NATO establishment at Brussels and an influential pillar of the Deep State in the UK, and, most important, a British politician who had close rapport with the leadership in Kiev and could influence the war more effectively than any European leader with the exception of Boris Johnson.
Wallace made the announcement just after the NATO’s Vilnius summit where he levelled some sharp criticism against the Kiev regime, which probably echoed a widely held sentiment among the allies. Of course, he upset the regime in Kiev — and probably10 Downing Street too for being so blunt at a time when nerves were fraught as NATO’s signal was not convincing enough for Zelensky. Zelensky publicly mocked Wallace, further embarrassing the Brits.
Wallace’s exit will spawn many theories, but to my mind, President Joe Biden’s vetoing of his candidacy for the post of the next secretary-general of the NATO played a significant part. Biden’s snub must be hard to stomach at a personal level. There is some merit in Zelensky’s key aide Oleksiy Danilov reacting that Wallace’s outburst in Vilnius displayed a surfeit of “emotion.”
Why was Biden was so staunchly opposed to the British proposal nominating Wallace as the next NATO chief? Evidently, the UK saw the secretary-generalship of NATO as a leap forward in its “Global Britain” project, as it desperately gnaws its way up the greasy pole of big-power politics. And the NATO establishment was positive about it.
The fine print here is that under Wallace, the alliance system would have most certainly taken a big leap forward in overt military intervention in the Ukraine war in some form — a process that Biden would have found it difficult to calibrate in American interests rather than Europe’s, as he has been successfully doing so far.
Make no mistake that Biden’s authorisation to deploy US reserve troops in Europe is a case in point underscoring why the White House will want to continue to exercise total control over the alliance system in Europe in the short and medium term while the weakening of Russia and its eviction from the centre stage of world politics remains an unfinished business.
That said, Wallace should have no big quarrel with the US’ war strategy in Ukraine, or for that matter, with Washington’s post-cold war containment strategy toward Russia. Wallace’s departure should make no difference to the future trajectory of the war, either.
In fact, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson alleged today that the US and UK are ultimately responsible for the latest terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge. But, interestingly, the Foreign Ministry statement later in the day avoided finger-pointing and merely. said, “If the investigation finds that the surface drones that attacked the bridge are of Western origin, and that Western countries played a role in planning, sponsoring and conducting this operation, it will confirm their complicity in the Kiev regime’s terrorist activity.”
The statement expressed the hope that “the international community and relevant multilateral agencies will put their foot down and give a proper assessment of yet another crime committed by the Ukrainian authorities.”
Will Wallace’s departure make much difference to Britain’s involvement in the Ukraine war? The answer is no.
Undoubtedly, he was next only to Boris Johnson in his commitment to bleed and inflict a military defeat on Russia.
During his watch, Britain took a lead role in providing Ukraine with long-range missiles and set an example. It is virtually certain that the SAS played a key role in most, if not all, of Kiev’s attacks on Russian territory. Wallace has been a solid pillar of the Deep State — and he almost made it to 10 Downing Street.
But, on the other hand, in a potential continental war, the British army today is a pale shadow of what it used to be — with a measly stockpile of 40 battle tanks in its inventory and a standing army of 78,060 active personnel, 27,570 Volunteer Reserve and 4060 Gurkhas. Probably, it weighed on Wallace. Indeed, Wallace sought a ramping up of military spending on a “war footing”, with leading military figures and hawks within the political elite backing him.
Who can say Wallace’s departure has nothing to do with Ukraine war?
The Guardian noted that the “similar language” used by Wallace and the US National security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Vilnius “suggested a degree of coordination and marked a rare check on Ukraine’s repeated requests for military and diplomatic help at a summit designed to step up western support for Kviv, but without offering it an immediate pathway to Nato membership, which could lead to a direct war with Russia.”
But the intriguing part is that although Wallace has powerful supporters in the US, no one intervened to discourage him from throwing in the towel and walking away from the ring.
They knew exactly what they were getting; Chalmers has publicly conceded that unemployment will have to rise.
He ‘s waiting for the cue to announce “the recession we had to have.”
Dot
Jul 18, 2023 8:47 AM
The fact is however we have too many APS and they are overpaid, overly generous welfare and rising costs (due to regulation and specific taxes). Tax paying private sector workers are getting soaked.
Dot,
unfortunately Australia has reached the Tipping Point where there are more APS Federal, State, Territory, Local Govt Level, plus welfare receipients than there are taxpayers, and they Vote Labor/Green
Visiting Villiers Brettoneux, and having lunch in a local cafe – the waiter picked the Australian accents, and we were presented with two (complimentary) glasses of red wine.
Old Ozzie, I was very pleasantly surprised when I took a punt on a Korean movie on SBS years ago. Can’t remember which one, as I have watched so many since.
It really highlights how barren Hollywood is these days. While they try to breathe life into the corpse of yet another Marvel sequel, Asia in particular is generating magnificent and popular films.
Whether it’s Bollywood or Hong Kong action movies or the latest tranche of Korean stuff, they leave Hollywood for dead.
And, the cocaine-fuelled idiots don’t even know it.
I mean ‘cocaine-fuelled’ in two senses. One is the obvious one. But, as I have posited on Wolfman’s threads, the other is that from the late 70s – early 80s onward, film production became a money laundering exercise for the cartels. Hollywood ‘accounting’ has always been as fictional as its products, and people in the business knew people who knew people who supplied generous amounts of cocaine, top quality. It went from there.
The cartels had millions and millions of dollars in cash that they didn’t know what to do with. They even resorted to burying huge amounts of cash in the ground. They couldn’t take it to the bank, there was too much of it and it would attract attention. Same went for large property purchases. OK, some vendors and agents might not wonder about $2m in small, grubby used notes, but it would attract attention.
Then along came Hollywood. Not a scruple to be seen, the cash could be split up among dozens of smaller activities and come out clean as a whistle.
Apart from their moral bankruptcy, which has been there for a very long time, my theory is that the cartels destroyed Hollywood by showering it with free money and cocaine (and whatever else they wanted.)
Pretty sure that quote was from Norman Wisdom.
Not just theirs.
DC_Draino
@DC_Draino
America’s enemies according to the DC Uniparty:
1. Russia
2. White Conservatives
3. Weather
4. Free Speech
5. Crypto
Actual enemies of America:
1. DC Uniparty
2. Communist China
3. Election Fraud
4. Censorship
5. Big Pharma
Right on, man.
Hey…pass the bong already.
A guy walks into a convenience store, and he grabs a single-serving meal, a single-serving drink, a single-serving toothpaste, a single-serving dessert, single-serving everything, and he goes up to the counter with it and the woman at the counter says, “Let me guess, you’re single?” And he says, “Yeah, how could you tell?”
And she says, “Because you’re really f@cking ugly.”…………………………………….
This is beyond doubt. And not just in England but America too. Here we just followed their deadly protocols.
You stayed at Home >> While they emptied the NHS >> So Matt Hancock could turn Care Homes into Midazolam Murder Camps & pretend there were Thousands of COVID-19 Deaths
Yet two weeks ago we were told Yes was going all grass-roots and it was going to be a celebrity-free zone.
BREAKING: VAERS data clearly shows that the COVID vaccines are an unmitigated disaster for pregnant women
FACT CHECK: No Evidence to Support Mainstream Media Claim of “Hottest Day on Earth for 125k Years”; It’s Propaganda
Labor targets farms, cars and waste as 2035 carbon cut fight looms
Jacob Greber and Angela Macdonald-Smith
Emissions from farms, buildings, waste dumps and passenger vehicles will be subject to aggressive national reduction targets in a move that would add to existing restraints on energy generation and industry.
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will announce on Tuesday the government’s focus is swinging towards getting politically sensitive sectors to contribute more to the abatement task.
The move sets up an election fight over Australia’s future internationally binding goal for 2035, amid growing warnings the country is already falling short of Labor’s 82 per cent renewable energy target and the overall UN-pledged emissions reduction goal of 43 per cent by 2030.
Mr Bowen will also slam Australia’s current 2050 net zero plan, which was backed by the National Party ahead of last year’s election, as “a fantasy invented by the Morrison government” that assumes future technology will do the heavy lifting absent investment to make it happen.
To make that target reachable, Labor aims to trigger sharp reductions in emissions from transport, initially via fuel emissions standards that will raise the cost of conventional petrol and diesel motors versus electric vehicles, as well as cuts to agricultural emissions.
So-called built environment emissions could be limited via tougher building codes to reduce carbon consumption related to heating and cooling.
The shift in emphasis from Labor follows the start on July 1 of the heavy industrial emissions reduction policy known as the safeguard mechanism that targets the country’s 215 or so heaviest emitters.
Mr Bowen will say that reaching Australia’s bipartisan long-term goal of net zero by 2050 “is a shared endeavour” that needs to built on “robust but achievable” plans.
Following calls from groups led by the Business Council of Australia for the development of government-mandated sectoral plans, Mr Bowen will use a speech to a conference in Sydney organised by the Clean Energy Council to announce a year-long process of consultation to establish six specific net zero plans.
Investors want detailed plans
The plans will be developed by Mr Bowen, Industry Minister Ed Husic, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, Resources Minister Madeleine King and Transport Minister Catherine King, and will cover electricity and energy; industry; the built environment; agriculture and land; transport, and; resources.
“So today I’m announcing the Albanese Government will be working with industry, the climate movement, experts, unions and the community to develop sectoral decarbonisation plans.”
Labor is also starting the politically charged process of setting Australia’s next so-called nationally determined contribution, or NDC, under the Paris Agreement.
The current NDC pledges to cut emissions by 43 per cent in 2030 from the 2005 level.
Mr Bowen has written to the government top independent emissions advisory body, the Climate Change Authority, asking it to provide advice on the ideal 2035 target by late next year.
2035 target fight
“The sector plans will feed in to both our Net Zero 2050 plan and strong 2035 targets which we will lodge in keeping with our Paris commitments.“
Labor took its 43 per cent 2030 target to last year’s election. By contrast the previous Coalition government had a goal of cutting emissions by between 26 per cent to 28 per cent.
As the next election nears, Mr Bowen and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will challenge Peter Dutton on what the Coalition’s 2035 target would be.
They will also point out that any future Coalition government that seeks to pare back the existing 43 per cent target would effectively be pulling Australia from the Paris deal.
The landmark 2015 agreement, which seeks to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, does not allow for countries to backtrack on their nationally determined contributions.
Australia is not on track to meet its current targets, according to Grattan Institute climate change specialist Tony Wood, who says success will depend on changes in emissions patterns in sectors beyond energy generation, which has already cut emissions sharply.
“In these sectors, emissions come from a large number of small sources, whether the five million homes that use gas, the 24 million cattle expelling methane, or the tailpipe emissions of more than 18 million light vehicles,” Mr Wood wrote in a submission to the government on emissions targets.
‘We are race ready’
But household electrification, vehicle emissions abatement and transmission construction are all likely to take time and money, putting greater emphasis on the coming 2035 target to make up for any shortfall in 2030. That could mean the 2035 target needs to be between 60 per cent and 64 per cent below 2005 levels.
Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton will use his address to summit to reject the growing chorus of voices that are sceptical that Australia can meet its 2030 renewable energy target, saying the goal is achievable despite the pace of building new wind and solar plants falling well behind what is needed.
Mr Thornton will point to the over-achievement on the 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, which was also the subject of scepticism, and the much faster than anticipated addition of rooftop solar systems.
He will say that the 2030 targets of 43 per cent emissions reduction and 82 per cent renewable energy use are “ambitious for sure” and will not be easy.
But he will point to the “wall-to-wall” government support for clean energy across the country, and the volume of projects under construction and the enormous pipeline heading for development. We are race ready, we are fit, and our potential is limitless,” he will say.
“We now need courage and leadership to become a global clean energy superpower.”
Mr Thornton’s comments follow the doubts voiced by some major industrial energy users including Brickworks and Qenos last week that the 2030 targets for renewables and emissions reduction can possibly be met without either the lights going out or the mass closure of energy-intensive manufacturing.
New renewables capacity is being added at only about half the rate that is needed to reach the 2030 goals, on some estimates, while the build-out of the transmission grid is being held up by strong community opposition in some rural areas of Victoria and NSW.
Mr Thorton will also pour cold water on recent calls for nuclear to be part of the solution for the energy transition, describing it as “another distraction promoted by bad-faith actors with no genuine interest in emissions reductions, energy security or lowering power prices”.
Mr Bowen will promise “heavy rounds of engagement with the community” on each sectoral plan.
“The level and quality of dialogue and collaboration with industries, experts and citizens will set these plans apart from anything that’s been done before,” he will say.
“This is a shared endeavour: we must work together to do what’s both possible and practical to stop dangerous climate change and realise the economic opportunities of net-zero.”
Mr Bowen will say that he has been “struck by advice from Australian and international investors that government-guided sectoral plans are vital for attracting billions in new investment in decarbonisation in Australia”.
This has been discussed previously.
BREAKING: Government Reports prove Pfizer & Moderna purposely manufactured Deadly Batches of the Covid-19 Vaccines
Ending Free Speech
Lia Thomas recently came out … as an ‘Antifa Super Soldier’
Not long till Choksondik says “J Curve”
Tom Fitton
@TomFitton
ALERT: Obama, a left-wing extremist who is one of the most corrupt presidents in American history, supports pornography for children.
“This is a shared endeavour: we must work together to do what’s both possible and practical to stop dangerous climate change and realise the economic opportunities of net-zero.”
I’m getting a distinct Stalinist vibe from this Bowen fellow.
What’s next…Climate Commissars embedded in every organisation?
(If they aren’t already.)
That infuriating pantywaisted spineless milquetoast gliberal knobhead julian lesser:
“Thomas Mayo’s name isn’t on the (screeech) ballot paper”.
No, but his agenda is, you stupid lying dirtbag.
It’s no wonder support for this ridiculous treasonous racist idiocy is plummeting – people are simply sick to death of hearing about it, especially given that they might just have other more pressing concerns to deal with.
Four more moths of this incessant whining and hectoring and the screeech will be lucky to get 30% of the vote.
Tin eared tone deaf morons with zero legitimacy crapping on about a complete non issue that would be of no benefit to anyone, bar some of the most useless corrupt repulsive dickheads and crackpots blighting this country.
LOL. Dickhead Hunchback.
Victoria to axe Commonwealth Games plans due to financial constraints, ABC understands
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-18/victoria-commonwealth-games-announcement-daniel-andrews/102613156
If you lot don’t stop with your exotic travel stories l will start with my travel stories on NSW sth coast. I’m in Batemans bay and intend to go a lot further north !
I mean it !
Who is this “we”, you drooling barking mad quisling cretin?
. This we’ve got to get to 2% inflation seems like tunnel vision and doesn’t take into account the changing work practices and consumerism. Why not lift the inflation target to 3 to 4% and let the free market decide. I’m not buying lettuce at $13kilo.
I’m voting No.
Voice to Parliament Yes and No campaigns reveal their pitches
18 July 2023
The pitches for the Yes and No campaigns on the Voice to Parliament have been unveiled, with some sports stars endorsing a Yes vote and opponents arguing the proposal is “risky, unknown [and] divisive”. Source: News.com.au.
The “Yes” pamphlet contains the same old malarkey about the 1967 referendum allowing Aborigines to be counted in the census “The same as everybody else.”
Roger
Jul 18, 2023 9:15 AM
“This is a shared endeavour: we must work together to do what’s both possible and practical to stop dangerous climate change and realise the economic opportunities of net-zero.”
I’m getting a distinct Stalinist vibe from this Bowen fellow.
What’s next…Climate Commissars embedded in every organisation?
(If they aren’t already.)
Roger,
Note the Word I highlighted in AFR Article above
Mr Bowen will promise “heavy rounds of engagement with the community” on each sectoral plan.
“The level and quality of dialogue and collaboration with industries, experts and citizens will set these plans apart from anything that’s been done before,” he will say.
Fun fact:
Boris Johnson’s premiership lasted the same number of days as Neville Chamberlain’s.
Yet in his own mind he’s Winston Churchill redivivus, plotting a come back from the political wilderness.
Bwahaha!
Then you didn’t read what she said. She explicitly made it clear that she was withdrawing funding, twice, as I recall. The second time she said that it was like right wingers withdrawing funding from left wing sites.
Please provide best fish and chip ratings.
Thanking you in advance.
Anybody out there with NAB shares?
These people should be in a padded cell in an insane asylum. How is the verbiage above anything other than ridiculous illogical fantastical sludge?
“Experts” – in what, exactly? Subsidy farming? Tax hoovering? The perils of imaginary pandemics? Wasting trillions on sh*t like this?
Without a doubt the stupidest age in human history and we’re existing in it.
Mmm…yes, they love making a show of consulting with citizens and communities.
Ideologically driven governments never set this sort of thing in train without having predetermined the outcome.
A majority of Australians favour nuclear power, but that has been dismissed from the agenda at the outset.
Johanna’s two comments were the usual nutjobbery about me lying and ‘fantasising’ and whatever other untruths she cares to sling at me and mine. See my comment at the end of the dead thread to Sancho, who like Johanna above, seems to want to continue the ‘stoush’ he claims exists. THERE IS NO STOUSH. I have a right to defend myself from ridiculous comments and upticks approving of them should I chose to do so, to express concern at the way this disturbed woman misuses the blog with her obsession about me, and to wonder if the upticking approval is real or a fabrication. I NEVER INITIATE THESE ATTACKS. I have continued commenting on other matters also since she launched yet another of her attacks. That is not a meltdown on my part. It is getting on with still being here. This ongoing stalking comes from a woman whose dog acts have included trying to doxx both me and my husband, and I still have the screenshot to prove it. Caassie and her lawyer friend sent it to me when it happened. If you approve of Johanna’s behaviour here, so be it. This makes Catallaxy a site I don’t wish to fund. Why should I? It also makes me feel very unwelcome here and if that is so then no wonder I feel that I want to leave it. Many, many times my sweet and loving husband has said to me that the place is like twitter, a sewer. It seems he’s right, again, poor dear man. I will persevere here whenever, but only because there are some few who wish me to do so. I think I will comment more on Quadrant, where the people are civilised and no stalkers and doxxers would be permitted.
Victoriastan reaching the end of the road.
102nd!
I claim this page for peace, lurve and Western Australia-style politics.
Girls, please stop stoushing. It’s not that sort of blog.
Narratives happen, big and small, and in politics and other aspects of life, but their tendency to take on runaway proportions is a feature of our contemporary media.
The major political narratives at present are both nasty and dangerous, and turned into ‘wars’ in ways that may have seemed unimaginable to those of us who remember other ways of living in freedom, where satire was satire and life was less aggressive and divisive. This article focussing on the idea of narrative hits the bullseye.
Victoria cancels the Commonwealth Games.
What an embarrassment.
As for that proposed BBC movie on St. Thunberg.
Vomitous.
Yeah but, it’s OUR sewer 😉
What’s more embarrassing and potentially quite damaging is that it’ll be reported internationally as “Australia cancels Commonwealth Games.”
The runaway narrative here, by the way, of a ‘stoush’ between me and Johanna, can take a running jump and get lost. Nutjobs gotta nutjob. She just loves it. Doxxer.
Breaking news. Dear Leader ‘Dictator Dan’ to replace Commonwealth Games with the Peoples Games, complete with all LGBT neo-marxist regalia.
Andrews scraps the 2026 Commonwealth Games
Europeans Are Becoming Poorer. ‘Yes, We’re All Worse Off.’
An aging population that values its free time set the stage for economic stagnation. Then came Covid-19 and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Europeans are facing a new economic reality, one they haven’t experienced in decades. They are becoming poorer.
Life on a continent long envied by outsiders for its art de vivre is rapidly losing its shine as Europeans see their purchasing power melt away.
The French are eating less foie gras and drinking less red wine. Spaniards are stinting on olive oil. Finns are being urged to use saunas on windy days when energy is less expensive. Across Germany, meat and milk consumption has fallen to the lowest level in three decades and the once-booming market for organic food has tanked. Italy’s economic development minister, Adolfo Urso, convened a crisis meeting in May over prices for pasta, the country’s favorite staple, after they jumped by more than double the national inflation rate.
With consumption spending in free fall, Europe tipped into recession at the start of the year, reinforcing a sense of relative economic, political and military decline that kicked in at the start of the century.
Europe’s current predicament has been long in the making. An aging population with a preference for free time and job security over earnings ushered in years of lackluster economic and productivity growth.
Then came the one-two punch of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine.
By upending global supply chains and sending the prices of energy and food rocketing, the crises aggravated ailments that had been festering for decades.
Governments’ responses only compounded the problem. To preserve jobs, they steered their subsidies primarily to employers, leaving consumers without a cash cushion when the price shock came.
Americans, by contrast, benefited from inexpensive energy and government aid directed primarily at citizens to keep them spending.
In the past, the continent’s formidable export industry might have come to the rescue. But a sluggish recovery in China, a critical market for Europe, is undermining that growth pillar.
High energy costs and rampant inflation at a level not seen since the 1970s are dulling manufacturers’ price advantage in international markets and smashing the continent’s once-harmonious labor relations. As global trade cools, Europe’s heavy reliance on exports—which account for about 50% of eurozone GDP versus 10% for the U.S.—is becoming a weakness.
Private consumption has declined by about 1% in the 20-nation eurozone since the end of 2019 after adjusting for inflation, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based club of mainly wealthy countries.
In the U.S., where households enjoy a strong labor market and rising incomes, it has increased by nearly 9%. The European Union now accounts for about 18% of all global consumption spending, compared with 28% for America. Fifteen years ago, the EU and the U.S. each represented about a quarter of that total.
Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, wages have declined by about 3% since 2019 in Germany, by 3.5% in Italy and Spain and by 6% in Greece. Real wages in the U.S. have increased by about 6% over the same period, according to OECD data.
The pain reaches far into the middle classes. In Brussels, one of Europe’s richest cities, teachers and nurses stood in line on a recent evening to collect half-price groceries from the back of a truck.
The vendor, Happy Hours Market, collects food close to its expiration date from supermarkets and advertises it through an app. Customers can order in the early afternoon and collect their cut-price groceries in the evening.
“Some customers tell me, because of you I can eat meat two or three times per week,” said Pierre van Hede, who was handing out crates of groceries.
Karim Bouazza, a 33-year-old nurse who was stocking up on half-price meat and fish for his wife and two children, complained that inflation means “you almost need to work a second job to pay for everything.”
Similar services have sprung up across the region, marketing themselves as a way to reduce food waste as well as save money.
TooGoodToGo, a company founded in Denmark in 2015 that sells leftover food from retailers and restaurants, has 76 million registered users across Europe, roughly three times the number at the end of 2020. In Germany, Sirplus, a startup created in 2017, offers “rescued” food, including products past their sell-by date, on its online store. So does Motatos, created in Sweden in 2014 and now present in Finland, Germany, Denmark and the U.K.
Spending on high-end groceries has collapsed. Germans consumed 52 kilograms of meat per person in 2022, about 8% less than the previous year and the lowest level since calculations began in 1989. While some of that reflects societal concerns about healthy eating and animal welfare, experts say the trend has been accelerated by meat prices which increased by up to 30% in recent months. Germans are also swapping meats such as beef and veal for less-expensive ones such as poultry, according to the Federal Information Center for Agriculture.
Thomas Wolff, an organic-food supplier near Frankfurt, said his sales fell by up to 30% last year as inflation surged. Wolff said he had hired 33 people earlier in the pandemic to handle strong demand for pricey ecological foodstuffs, but he has since let them all go.
Ronja Ebeling, a 26-year-old consultant and author based in Hamburg, said she saves about one-quarter of her income, partly because she worries about having enough money for retirement. She spends little on clothes or makeup and shares a car with her partner’s father.
Weak spending and poor demographic prospects are making Europe less attractive for businesses ranging from consumer-goods giant Procter & Gamble to luxury empire LVMH, which are making an ever-larger share of their sales in North America.
“The U.S. consumer is more resilient than in Europe,” Unilever’s chief financial officer, Graeme Pitkethly, said in April.
The eurozone economy grew about 6% over the past 15 years, measured in dollars, compared with 82% for the U.S., according to International Monetary Fund data.
That has left the average EU country poorer per head than every U.S. state except Idaho and Mississippi, according to a report this month by the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based independent think tank. If the current trend continues, by 2035 the gap between economic output per capita in the U.S. and EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today, the report said.
On the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, businesses are lobbying for more flights to the U.S. to increase the number of free-spending American tourists, said Maria Frontera, president of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce’s tourism commission. Americans spend about €260 ($292) per day on average on hotels compared with less than €180 ($202) for Europeans.
“This year we have seen a big change in the behavior of Europeans because of the economic situation we are dealing with,” said Frontera, who recently traveled to Miami to learn how to better cater to American customers.
Weak growth and rising interest rates are straining Europe’s generous welfare states, which provide popular healthcare services and pensions. European governments find the old recipes for fixing the problem are either becoming unaffordable or have stopped working. Three-quarters of a trillion euros in subsidies, tax breaks and other forms of relief have gone to consumers and businesses to offset higher energy costs—something economists say is now itself fueling inflation, defeating the subsidies’ purpose.
Public-spending cuts after the global financial crisis starved Europe’s state-funded healthcare systems, especially the U.K.’s National Health Service.
Vivek Trivedi, a 31-year-old anesthesiologist living in Manchester, England, earns about £51,000 ($67,000) per year for a 48-hour workweek. Inflation, which has been about 10% or higher in the U.K. for nearly a year, is devouring his monthly budget, he says. Trivedi said he shops for groceries in discount retailers and spends less on meals out. Some colleagues turned off their heating entirely over recent months, worried they wouldn’t be able to afford sharply higher costs, he said.
Noa Cohen, a 28-year old public-affairs specialist in London, says she could quadruple her salary in the same job by leveraging her U.S. passport to move across the Atlantic. Cohen recently got a 10% pay raise after switching jobs, but the increase was completely swallowed by inflation. She says friends are freezing their eggs because they can’t afford children anytime soon, in the hope that they have enough money in future.
Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s chief economist, warned U.K. citizens in April that they need to accept that they are poorer and stop pushing for higher wages. “Yes, we’re all worse off,” he said, saying that seeking to offset rising prices with higher wages would only fuel more inflation.
With European governments needing to increase defense spending and given rising borrowing costs, economists expect taxes to increase, adding pressure on consumers. Taxes in Europe are already high relative to those in other wealthy countries, equivalent to around 40-45% of GDP compared with 27% in the U.S. American workers take home almost three-quarters of their paychecks, including income taxes and Social Security taxes, while French and German workers keep just half.
The pauperization of Europe has bolstered the ranks of labor unions, which are picking up tens of thousands of members across the continent, reversing a decadeslong decline.
Higher unionization may not translate into fuller pockets for members. That’s because many are pushing workers’ preference for more free time over higher pay, even in a world of spiraling skills shortages.
IG Metall, Germany’s biggest trade union, is calling for a four-day work week at current salary levels rather than a pay raise for the country’s metalworkers ahead of collective bargaining negotiations this November. Officials say the shorter week would improve workers’ health and quality of life while at the same time making the industry more attractive to younger workers.
Almost half of employees in Germany’s health industry choose to work around 30 hours per week rather than full time, reflecting tough working conditions, said Frank Werneke, chairman of the country’s United Services Trade Union, which has added about 110,000 new members in recent months, the biggest increase in 22 years.
Kristian Kallio, a games developer in northern Finland, recently decided to reduce his working week by one-fifth to 30 hours in exchange for a 10% pay cut. He now makes about €2,500 per month. “Who wouldn’t want to work shorter hours?” Kallio said. About one-third of his colleagues took the same deal, although leaders work full-time, said Kallio’s boss, Jaakko Kylmäoja.
Kallio now works from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. He uses his extra free time for hobbies, to make good food and take long bike rides. “I don’t see a reality where I would go back to normal working hours,” he said.
Igor Chaykovskiy, a 34-year-old IT worker in Paris, joined a trade union earlier this year to press for better pay and conditions. He recently received a 3.5% pay increase, about half the level of inflation. He thinks the union will give workers greater leverage to press managers. Still, it isn’t just about pay. “Maybe they say you don’t have an increase in salary, you have free sports lessons or music lessons,” he said.
At the Stellantis auto factory in Melfi, southern Italy, employees have worked shorter hours for years recently due to the difficulty of procuring raw materials and high energy costs, said Marco Lomio, a trade unionist with the Italian Union of Metalworkers. Hours worked have recently been reduced by around 30% and wages decreased proportionally.
“Between high inflation and rising energy costs for workers,” said Lomio, “it is difficult to bear all family expenses.”
Well done to those quicker than I.
I thought Socialism was all about giant ceremonies and glorious parades. Guess no one told Chairman Dan.
Mr Bowen will say that he has been “struck by advice from Australian and international investors that government-guided sectoral plans are vital for attracting billions in new investment in decarbonisation in Australia”.
Translation: government-guided sectoral plans (n, pl): Nicely seasoned dishes of OPM served at the correct temperature, laid out on linen tablecloths, gentle music playing in the background.
Surprisingly, their ABC’s Ian Verrender is (almost) onto the joke [scroll down to Coal, gas and oil prices have plummeted.]
Remember Andrews stepped in to replace funding from Gina Hancock for Netball Australia.
Maybe Gina should take over the Commonwealth Games.
Running the games from regional Victoria was a stupid wasteful idea in the first place.
That still leaves The Chook and the ‘32 Olympics. Chins up comrades.
No-one else wanted the 2026 games did they?
Have you ever thought about impersonating a Christian, Lizzie?
Y’know, you could just forgive Johanna [without making a huge Song and Dance about it] and just let the matter slide?
No joke.
NSW overspent on the Olympics so we could probably do it at less than 1 bn, pay up Dan.
It;s OK, Farmer Gez — you don’t have to. You have a life in the real world with real world problems, like the subsidy miners covering Victorian farmland with ugly, giant bird killers.
The Cat is just a well-run online forum where non-leftists can share ideas.
Please keep us up to date with your fight on behalf of Victorian farmers.
Daniel Andrews: “there’s a huge disparity between the original cost estimates for the 2026 Comm Games. Now, it has been adduced to be not the $2.6B originally budgeted for, but likely to be $6.5 or even $7 Bill. So we have met with Comm Games officials in London last night and have baled out.”
The $2.6B to be redirected to other areas. Sporting infrastructure, tourism and public housing, which will get $1B.
Dan says he doesn’t have 7 billion dollars.
I reckon he was always going to cancel it regardless. These neo-marxists hate the crown and the commonwealth.
Bendigo Bowls Club were already in preparation to host that sport of the Games. Greens were being upgraded along with the clubhouse. I’m sure other regional places were in the midst of doing similar for their sports.
I would have thought the road race in cycling would have been required viewing to watch them dodge the potholes
Does Xi Jinping need a plan B for China’s economy?
As growth has failed to pick up post-Covid, calls are growing louder for the president to launch a weighty stimulus package
Looming over the Yangtze River, the Wuhan Greenland Center was meant to be Central China’s answer to the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
When it was unveiled in 2011, the tower was intended to have 120 floors, host a five-star hotel and attract Wuhan’s rich and powerful with its helipad and cathedral-sized lobby. There was to be an expansive Communist party “service centre” where elite patriots can conduct their political affairs in style while enjoying the view. Marketing materials describe it as a “building for individuals who can personally impact GDP”.
Today, however, the colossus stands as a monument to the collapse of China’s real estate bubble and the growing challenges facing the world’s second-largest economy.
On the orders of President Xi Jinping, its planned height had to be reduced mid-construction by 25 per cent to 475m. The hotel has yet to open and many wealthy apartment owners did not receive keys to their properties on time — a common situation across China following the property market’s implosion in the past three years.
“Here most of the homebuyers are rich, so they can put up with very long delays,” explains one person close to the building’s developer, who promised that it would be fully completed by the end of this year — six years late.
Property is just one of the indicators flashing red in China’s $18tn economy. After bouncing back in the first quarter from brutal Covid restrictions last year, when authorities locked down large cities including Shanghai, everything from trade to industrial profits and consumer prices have underperformed analyst expectations in the past few months.
China on Monday reported gross domestic product grew 0.8 per cent during the second quarter compared with the previous three months. This represented a slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy expanded 2.2 per cent.
The weak performance is prompting growing calls for China to resort to the playbook of the past by launching a large monetary and fiscal stimulus to support the traditional, debt-fuelled growth engines of infrastructure and property.
But President Xi Jinping and his top policymakers are adhering to a stance they call dingli, or “maintaining strategic focus”. Many economists take this to mean continuing to reduce debt, especially in the heavily overleveraged property sector while pursuing global leadership in advanced technology and other strategic areas of the economy, such as a transition to green energy.
“Xi Jinping does not define economic success in terms of GDP growth,” says Arthur Kroeber, founding partner and head of research at Gavekal Dragonomics. “He defines it in terms of tech self-sufficiency.”
As long as the government can hit its targets on this front, he says, “then his calculation is we can figure out how to spread the growth enough to keep people content”.
The question is, with the engines of growth stalling, will Beijing be able to stay the course? Or will the old calculus that it needs to maintain a certain amount of growth to ensure social stability come into play — paving the way for a return to large-scale stimulus?
Trade troubles
The problem for Xi, who began an unprecedented third term in office in March, is that during the second quarter not only property but another of China’s key growth engines — trade — also slowed sharply.
During the pandemic, the world turned to China for electronics to help people work at home, and for personal protective gear to fend off Covid. Online shoppers also helped keep China’s trade figures buoyant, offsetting the negative impact of its own strict lockdowns.
But this year, as western central banks raised interest rates to combat inflation, demand for China’s exports fell. In June, they suffered their biggest year-on-year decline since the pandemic started, falling 12.4 per cent in dollar terms, official data showed on Thursday.
Negative sentiment on trade has been exacerbated by the geopolitical tensions with the US, which have led western companies to talk more loudly about “de-risking” supply chains away from China.
The falling trade numbers are hitting Chinese manufacturers, such as Richard Chan, managing director of Golden Arts Gift & Decor, which makes artificial Christmas trees and decorations in Dongguan, southern China.
At the same time, the government launched crackdowns on several important sectors during the pandemic years, starting with limits on real estate company leverage and extending to ecommerce platforms, such as internet billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group, and finance.
There are hopes that the state is now calling a truce on some of these measures.
The government announced a Rmb7.1bn ($984mn) fine for Ant last week that, despite its size, some analysts saw as a positive step — possibly signalling an end to the so-called “rectification” of the internet group.
China’s number two official, Premier Li Qiang, also met tech executives from TikTok owner ByteDance, food delivery group Meituan and Ma’s Alibaba Cloud, and assured them the government would normalise regulations.
This follows a Chinese government charm offensive aimed at foreign governments and businesses, culminating in the resumption of dialogue with Washington after a long hiatus, with US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen visiting Beijing this month.
“The authorities have tried to assure the private sector about the normalisation of regulations,” says UBS’s Wang. But she adds: “The private sector is probably waiting for more concrete specific policies to support that kind of rhetoric and even when those specific policies are implemented, it will probably take them some time to feel reassured.”
Holding the line
At a small dinner of local businessmen in Wuhan, the talk focused on the usual topics — who had the best contacts among the local Communist party lingdao, or bosses, and jokes about which baijiu, or Chinese liquor, was favoured by the country’s top leaders.
Most were still struggling after a tough few years during the pandemic, which started in Wuhan. The city’s streets, which were bustling pre-pandemic, are now much quieter, especially centrally located restaurants, many of which closed during Covid.
But some cited evidence that government policies to support the economy, such as infrastructure finance, were helping keep businesses afloat.
“Things are bad but we are managing to get by,” says one businessman specialising in the construction of tunnels and other government-funded civic works.
One former senior government official in Wuhan says the slowdown this year was partly because companies built up inventories in 2022 during the lockdowns. A sharp fall in the producer prices index in June was related to this, he says. “There is a lot of inventory. You can’t sell so you cut prices.”
But he says the pace of recovery so far is conforming to expectations. “A sick person who is recovering cannot be expected to run a marathon the following year,” he says.
This point was reinforced last week by Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, who said most countries took a year to recover from the end of Covid restrictions. China only abandoned its pandemic controls six months ago.
The question remains, however, whether the government can hold the line and avoid having to stimulate the economy further if things continue to get worse this year, analysts say.
Chan says his company, which exports about 80 per cent of its products to the US and Europe, saw a 30 per cent drop in orders this year compared with last year. It typically receives most of its orders by May each year.
Inflation has flattened the market, the Hong Kong-based businessman says. For example, “a Christmas tree that used to cost a retail price of €100 now costs €150, and people are no longer buying it”.
His factory has hired half the number of summer temporary workers for the company’s peak manufacturing months compared with pre-pandemic years. “The manufacturing industry is dying,” Chan adds. “The outlook is pessimistic?.?.?.?And we can only try to cut costs here and there.”
Other manufacturers are getting squeezed not just by falling exports, but also by weak demand domestically for construction materials and household durable goods because of the property downturn.
“Doing business is more difficult nowadays in mainland China, with a smaller market and stronger competition,” says Danny Lau of Kam Pin Industrial, which produces aluminium curtain walls for residential and commercial buildings from its factory in southern Guangdong province.
The US typically accounts for roughly 30 per cent of Lau’s business, with the rest mostly from clients in China. He predicts a significant recovery only by 2025, when the global economy improves.
Orders within mainland China also fell more than 60 per cent in the first six months of 2023 year-on-year, he says. A recovery would depend largely on Beijing’s stimulus policies and any easing of US-China tensions, he adds.
On the domestic front, there are signs that Chinese consumers and private businesses are still dealing with the fallout from the pandemic, particularly from last year, when several large cities endured long lockdowns, economists say.
While the US and other western countries supported consumers with direct handouts, China’s stimulus was mostly directed at the supply side. The result is a cyclical slump in consumer and business confidence, according to economists. Domestic demand has recovered for services such as local tourism, but consumers are not making big-ticket purchases.
“You have orders and earnings coming down in the past 16 months, so it is very hard for businesses to be confident in that environment,” says Tao Wang, chief China economist at UBS Investment Bank. “Businesses do not want to expand because many of them have excess capacity.”
The property sector poses the biggest challenge. After stabilising early in the year, it has slipped again in recent months. According to a sample of 25 cities, prices of existing homes declined by 1.4 per cent in June compared with May, accelerating falls in the previous months, Nomura said, citing Beike Research Institute data.
The government this week announced that a previous credit support plan for developers would be extended by a year. It has also cut benchmark lending rates and announced other measures to support the sector. But there are doubts whether these will stabilise the market.
Developers do not want to invest and consumers do not want to buy, particularly after the bankruptcy of Evergrande, one of the country’s biggest and most indebted groups, says one real estate expert in Wuhan.
“You could not have imagined that a developer like Evergrande would have exploded overnight. Buyers feel insecure about the market,” he says.
The lingering problem was the huge number of unfinished housing projects in the market, which he estimates at 250 in the province of Hubei alone, of which Wuhan is the capital.
The central government had channelled some funds to local authorities to help developers complete these projects — considered essential to restore consumer confidence. But local governments were reluctant to pick which developers should receive them for fear of being accused of favouritism.
Local governments’ own finances in many cities are in dire straits, as revenue from land sales to developers vanishes and their finance vehicles, known as LGFVs, which often invest in low-return infrastructure projects, struggle to repay creditors.
The Wuhan real estate expert says Beijing may not want property to be used for short-term stimulus, but there’s a lot of pressure to do so at local level. “Local people expect a big stimulus but it’s not happening,” he says.
No bazookas coming
Many economists believe, however, that things will have to get worse before Xi Jinping yields and announces a significantly bigger stimulus effort.
Few in any case expect anything at the scale of the “bazookas” of the past, such as after the 2008 global financial crisis, when China injected Rmb4tn ($559bn) into the economy.
While the financial markets clamour for stimulus, Xi and his policymakers evidently believe the property slowdown is a necessary, if painful adjustment, to the old debt-ridden economic model, economists say.
Kroeber of Gavekal Dragonomics says the general perception is that the leadership is more sanguine than the markets on the property crisis and the slow recovery in consumer confidence.
While growth would probably hit the target of 5 per cent this year, Xi might be prepared to let it drop further in the coming years as the economy adjusted to the new reality, he says. The calculation would be that most families had already bought their own homes and private businesses would adapt to the new, lower growth trajectory.
For Xi, he adds, most important is hitting the overarching strategic objectives of technological self-sufficiency and security as rivalry with the US picks up. “My bet would be that this works pretty well for a long time,” Kroeber says. “Most people in China have done OK over the past 30 years.”
In sectors such as Wuhan’s depressed real estate industry, however, that message will be far from welcome.
At a showroom on the city’s outskirts, far from the Greenland Center, another tower is rising above semi-derelict houses that were acquired for demolition at the height of the boom.
Inside, a sales person confides that business is so bad, she has had zero customers in the past couple of months. When her boss cut prices, people who had previously bought into the development got angry.
“They were threatening to launch a protest,” she says.
Dan’s baled out?
He surely is
Pity that the same realisation Andrews is acknowledging about the real cost of the Games could not be transferred to ruinables.
QED
I never knew PayPal could do this until I got the ad.
They must be flush with cash, taking all of the risk. I’m wondering how use of this is reported to or by credit agencies?
It’s funny too because in a way it might outcompete pay day lending and microfinance.
It was a great plan to splash dosh in regional Victoria and shore up the next election.
Now in tatters, along with the international reputation.
A lot of future immigrants are going to be particularly disappointed.
Ackchually
A combined Winter and Summer sports programme around Myrtleford and the Southern Grampians would be nice, if the facilities could be built at a reasonable price.
There’s your problem, chief.
Daylesford could snatch the gay games away from Sidonee and put one up Dan Andrews for his incompetence.
Premier Dan had saved Victoria a fortune by not hosting the Comm Games.
Now is not the time for blame or recriminations.
Trust the Dear Leader.
This frees up state funds for vital consultancies in planning the suburban rail loop.
Rejoice!
But Roger, it can’t be more embarrassing internationally for us than to vote no to the voice. Isn’t that what the spruikers are telling us?
But the state government can’t find a single dollar to spend on Victoria’s road network, which is now a speed-restricted, pol-holed shambles while Andrews plays apprentice dictator to Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.
This frees up state funds for vital consultancies in planning the 200 billion AUD suburban rail loop.
In Victoriastan
Shut the state down over a flu for months, throw money at a half arsed scheme and expect state recovery. FMD
The suburban rail loop, the new SEC.
All bargains at ten times the price.
Blackout Bowen is the most obnoxious, dangerous thing to ever (dis)grace Parliament. This country cannot survive without reliable energy. Without industry and manufacturing, we are a 3rd world nation. A country reliant on imports!
Things are now so bad in Victoria that Emperor Dan can’t even fund bread and circuses anymore.
I guess the new plastic bottle tax isn’t meeting its revenue targets.
Doing Business in VictoriaStan and Dictator Dan and his CFMEU Union Mates
Daniel Andrews cancels Victoria’s 2026 Commonwealth Games: Reasons why Shepparton, Gippsland, Ballarat, Geelong, Bendigo event will be scrapped
. Games were set to be held in regional Victoria
. Massive cost to state is behind the shock move
The reason behind the shock move is down to finances – Victoria’s state debt is forecast to be $135.4billion in 2024, rising to $171.4billion by 2026-27.
‘What’s become clear is the cost of hosting these games is not the $2.6billion which was allocated, it is at least $6billion or $7billion Mr Andrews said.
Ed Case, I hereby forgive you. lol.
NB. re the matter at hand: I never cast the first stone. I have also offered oil to troubled waters, including a shared coffee, often.
Forgiveness is one of the tenets of Christianity that I do try to live by. I think it has so much going for it, for it ends vendettas and allows disputes to be eventually settled. I suspect that is one of the reasons why Christianity became so successful during the turmoils of the fourth and fifth centuries within the Roman Empire.
But let us recall, as it certainly top of mind for me given the very long sermon I have just finishing writing about in much detail, that forgiveness also requires repentance which will produce redemption. In the grand scale of things though, as my sermon suggests, for a Christian that is up to God.
Just watching Dan who’s just said that there still are negotiations occurring in London and indicating some type of contract break cost? I’m now thinking could this remind the electorate about the $1B cost to cancel that road, which during that election he said would be nothing.
The cultural cringe is back!
The elders of the clans that live in this district have declared that they may have voted “YES” in the 1967 referendum, but this time it’s a “NO” vote.
They’ll always have the AFL.
Lizzie, chin up; he (or she) who is not against you is very much for you.
OK.
I didn’t see that but I must confess to not having read each chapter and verse in the ongoing saga.
What is this sermon of which ye speaketh, Lizzie?
I am enraged.
A system that exploits young doctors with abusive and dangerous overwork, is cross because some try to get rostered on shifts that attract penalty rates? And that choice is INTENDED BY THEIR INCENTIVES to free facilities to others who want to work in normal hours?
Shut it down. Fire them all. Salt the earth.
QED? LOL.
Ridere.
This One
Andrews: ‘Do you deliver it at any cost? And the answer is, we’re not delivering it at any cost.’
Seconded. I enjoy reading LizzieB’s contributions, as for the issue of a stoush, there’s always the scroll wheel.
Accusations of doxxing aside, it seems you are saying that the quid pro quo for whatever contribution you make is editorial rights and censorship.
Is that it?
By the way, whatever you might call it, it really is a stoush.
Lizzie, chin up; he (or she) who is not against you is very much for you.
Nicely said.
Most of us here remember that period and therefore are aware of the fraud but the media neophytes haven’t a clue.
I remember the very hot summers in the late 70s and the extensive Blue Mountains fires in the summer of 77/78. Then came the very cold winters from 1980 to mid-80s. That cold period is ideal to start charting temperatures. This is also why they had to hide the cold April/May/June this year because it skews their numbers. No wonder people don’t believe so much that is broadcast about the weather, climate or anything else.
De Excidio et Conquistu Britanniae
Yes and No campaigns issue their official pamphlets for the Voice referendum with eight reasons for and ten against – but NO explanation of how it will work
REASONS TO VOTE NO – A SUMMARY
. This Referendum is not simply about “recognition”. This Voice proposal goes much further.
. If passed, it would represent the biggest change to our Constitution in our history.
. It is legally risky, with unknown consequences. It would be divisive and permanent.
. If you don’t know, vote no.
RISKY
. We all want to help Indigenous Australians in disadvantaged communities. However, this Voice is not the answer and presents a real risk to our system of government.
. This Voice specifically covers all areas of “Executive Government”. This means no issue is beyondits reach.
. The High Court would ultimately determine its powers, not the Parliament.
It risks legal challenges, delays and dysfunctional government.
UNKNOWN
. No details have been provided on how members of the Voice would be chosen or how it would operate. Australians are being asked to vote first before these details are worked out.
. Australians should have details before the vote, not after.
We don’t know how it will work, we don’t know who will be on it, but we do know it will permanently divide us as Australians.
. Some Voice supporters say this would just be a first step to reparations and compensation and other radical changes. So, what would come next?
DIVISIVE
.Enshrining a Voice in the Constitution for only one group of Australians means permanently dividing our country.
. It creates different classes of citizenship through an unknown body that has the full force of the Constitution behind it. Many Indigenous Australians do not support this.
PERMANENT
. Putting a Voice in the Constitution means it’s permanent. We will be stuck with negativeconsequences.
TEN REASONS TO VOTE NO
1. THIS VOICE IS LEGALLY RISKY
2. THERE ARE NO DETAILS
3. IT DIVIDES US
4. IT WON’T HELP INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS
5. NO ISSUE IS BEYOND ITS SCOPE
6. IT RISKS DELAYS AND DYSFUNCTION
7. IT OPENS THE DOOR FOR ACTIVISTS
8. IT WILL BE COSTLY AND BUREAUCRATIC
9. THIS VOICE WILL BE PERMANENT
10. THERE ARE BETTER WAYS FORWARD
https://origin.go.theaustralian.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Yes-Case-pamphlet.pdf
If they wish to characterise it that way then Da Voice people aim to create a body for which “everybody else” will not be counted.
Is it a good principle now?
Sounds like they’re suffering from the boycott which resulted from them high-handedly fining users $2,500 for saying unwoke things. I haven’t canceled my account, but I’ve stopped using it. PayPal had been getting a reasonable amount out of me, but no more.
NB. re the matter at hand: I never cast the first stone
Whazzat gotta do with it?
You’re fixated on Johanna being in the wrong.
Try to rise above pettiness.
I have also offered oil to troubled waters, including a shared coffee, often.
There’s the problem.
Today in Liberalism:
I would hate to see a rough one. The Cook Regime off to a rocky start. Long way till the next election though. Can’t even see Covid in the rear view mirror.
The Yes pamphlet does not explain how people will be chosen to be members of the Voice or how it will operate in practice.
Whereas
In stark contrast, the No campaign argues that legitimate questions and concerns of many Australians have been dismissed in favour or famous faces.
‘This referendum won’t be decided by politicians, corporations or celebrities.
‘It will be decided by every Australian. It affects every Australian. If you don’t know, vote no.’
The No pamphlet calls the move legally risky and says it would be the ‘the biggest change to our democracy in Australia’s history’.
‘It is a leap into the unknown. This Voice has not been road tested. There is no comparable constitutional body like this anywhere in the world.
‘Enshrining a Voice in the Constitution means it is open to legal challenge and interpretation by the High Court.
‘Legal experts don’t agree, and can’t know for sure, how the High Court will interpret such a constitutional change.’
The advertisement argues there are ‘no details’ about how the proposed constitutional changes will actually benefit First Nation’s People.
‘Australians are being asked to vote first before these details are worked out,’ the campaign material reads.
‘Australians should have details before the vote, not after.
‘We don’t know how it will work, we don’t know who will be on it, but we do know it will permanently divide us as Australians.
‘Some Voice supporters say this would just be a first step to reparations and compensation and other radical changes. So, what will come next?’
Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who has been a mainstay of the No campaign says the referendum is driving the country apart.
‘This Voice will not unite us, it will divide us by race.’
‘Right now, many voices are crying out for help in tackling devastating social problems in some remote communities. What’s needed is action.
‘What we need in Canberra is ears, not a Voice.’
Like Keating before him, what does Chalmers care about the people who will be disemployed to help out his theory, he will still have his job which is all that matters.
Not of my choosing, Sancho.
As for funding, I want the Cat to be a free and open forum. I don’t want editorial rights at all. That has been my forever consistent opinion re censorship here. How many here do fund the Cat? I have done so, and will do so again if Dover puts out the call (I asked him here if he needed a funding refresh a few weeks ago: the box seems absent right now). But I reserve the right to make my own decision as to what I think the forum is worth. Just as the rest of you do.
It isn’t ‘malarkey’.
The confusion arises from Mixed Race people being able to self identify as Aboriginal since the 1971 Census.
Prior to the 1967 Referendum, mixed Race people were counted as ‘Australians’.
Aborigines, then known as Australian Natives, weren’t counted.
So, in a sense, Linda Burney is right.
Prior to 1967, she wasn’t counted as a Native Australian, because she isn’t one.
I think we can assume Greg Sheridan is the mysterious author of The Australian’s Ukraine editorials. Today’s unhinged installment includes the fatal phrase, “stay the course,” praises deceased presidential contender Mike Pence and hates on Trump and Tucker:
—————
Correct, Roger, the ALPAFL.
The truth was, Dan was hoping to stiff the Feds for the Commonwealth Games costs, both by direct grants, and by throwing events at regional councils who would have to take the begging bowl to Canbra.
No-one let him in on the secret.
That is, no-one gives a shit about the Commonwealth Games, apart from athletes hoping to score a B-medal and those hoping to benefit from a build programme.
God loves good works carried out in silence.
Something to think about:
Spot the cycle. Note when 1979 is, and note when 1910 is, which BoM not so arbitrarily chose to start their official temperature record. Oddly they start their official rainfall series in 1900. It’s a mystery!
(The first is detrended HadCRUT 3, which was before they really got going with their “adjustments”. The second is the AMO with a ten year running average applied to show the cycle clearly. Incidentally Roy Spencer has a good post today that demonstrates that much of the rest of the warming is actually due to land use changes and the urban heat island effect.)
Just got an invoice for the ambulance trip from Queanbeyan to Canberra Hospital – $519.72. Love the 72 cents!
I am informed that it is subsidised about 50/50, so the real bill is around $1,000. The cab fare is about $40.
No wonder health expenditure is skyrocketing.
I get that there was an equipped ambulance with trained staff. They did a great job. How the price is justified is another matter.
The average punter, let alone a pensioner, does not have a spare $500 lying around after they have been taken away in an ambulance, And, why does an ambulance cost (allegedly) $1000 an hour to run?
I’m doing a family get-together next weekend, including two sisters who work(ed) at Westmead. I don’t expect the news to be good.
I don’t disagree.
I am not trying to be a saint here.
Low budget fillum shot in Melbourne when Dan Andrews was in short pants. John Flaus plays a character who, if it doesn’t work out, will head north.
Queensland?
Bull sh!t. Aborigines have been counted in the census ever since 1911. The results are on- line.
Big W comes under fire for graphic sexual book aimed at children co-written by ABC personality Yumi Stynes
Yumi Stynes writes explicit child sex manual
There are demands that Big W stop selling the book
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
How tight is the stranglehold Andrews has on Victoria, especially the media, that not a word of the cancelation leaked out beforehand ?
It’s disturbing. This must have been under discussion for a while but not the merest hint came out.
It’s a sewer.
Facebook, sponsored post – just now.
“FIGHT DISINFORMATION
Learn critical thinking with Noam Chomsky”
We’ve bred a mob of mewling inner city pissants who are the natural prey of the left:
Why Our Kids Would’ve Died in the Jungle
“the ALPAFL
More like the ALPLGBTQIAFL.
I wonder when they’ll add the “P”?
Thank you.
Genre wise I’d say it’s in the form of an epistle, not a sermon.
Carry on.
Yes, it is hard. That’s why I pay or part-pay many of my wider family’s medical and dental bills. Recent 20 year-old grandson’s wisdom tooth extraction and x-rays went up to $650 on Monday compared to $450 for the one done last year. De facto daughter-in-law I picked up from hospital the other day paid around $2000 for a simple day procedure, and had saved for the anaesthetist and surgeon’s bills, which I paid to give her a break. Although uninsured she’d chosen to go private due to the long waiting lists and her need to keep working. Many in the current grandparental generations help out, not being saints, just tryin to be a bit fair.
As for the ambulance costs, they run as a business, not-for-profit but they do have to cover the escalating costs of equipment, servicing vehicles, and having the highly trained staff always on call. Co-payments and poorer uninsured people privately paying to jump lengthening queues are increasingly going to be part of the medical deal given the financial world of today, and costs will escalate with inflation and technological advances.
Would make morning tea with Friends of the ABC a walk in the park.
Australian Natives were not counted in the Census prior to the 1967 Referendum.
After that, the Aboriginal Category was created, which was self identifying, so the issue of the Australian Natives being counted still wasn’t addressed.
Thanks for that, Roger. It is generally called a sermon, some say a ‘letter’.
I wonder what the author thought he was writing?
Razey
Jul 18, 2023 9:18 AM
LOL. Dickhead Hunchback.
Victoria to axe Commonwealth Games plans due to financial constraints, ABC understands
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-18/victoria-commonwealth-games-announcement-daniel-andrews/102613156
I always remember that joke from the early 1990s when Joan Kirner was Premier of Sicktoria from 1990 to 1992.
Q. What is the Capital of Victoria?
A. One Australian Dollar.
I see Minns is interested in the Games
Waverley Shire in Sydney, Daily Telegraph:
Johanna, about 15 years ago, I got stung about $2000 for a 30-km ambulance ride, so I became an ambulance member, which costs me $12 per quarter. I assume all states and territories have similar ambulance membership schemes. A good investment.
An epistle; I’m yet to check the Latin text but I’d be reasonably sure he used the word epistola to describe what he was writing. The epsitle was, of course, a recognised genre of writing in the ancient world.
Post-Christian moderns might call it a sermon because it references scripture but there is no sermon text given which he subsequently expounds, which is a generic feature of the sermon, ancient and modern.
And a travel back in time
The U.K. banned Gas in Tilt Panel buildings after an explosion on the 8th floor of a near new 14 storey apartment building pancaked to top 6 floors.
That was around 2012.
Wanker of the week:
See multi-millionaire businessman’s astonishing plans for this Melbourne property: ‘It will look like a superyacht’.