Open Thread – Weekend 5 April 2025


Boats on the Seine at Argenteuil, Gustave Caillebotte, 1892

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Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
April 5, 2025 12:14 am

La premiere.

Salvatore - Iron Publican
April 5, 2025 12:19 am

La deuxième

Bruce in WA
April 5, 2025 1:31 am

From the OT … because I need an answer:

Just got off an online discussion with an old friend who asserts, quite vehemently, that the decline in the value of the AUD is totally down to the “incompetence” and “corruption” of the RBA. Nothing else.

Can I convince him otherwise? How?

Figures
Figures
April 5, 2025 2:53 am
Reply to  Bruce in WA

They shouldn’t have cut. Indeed they shouldn’t ever cut. Just keep interest rates at 5%, money supply fixed with 100% banking reserves and take a permanent holiday.

But it looks like many commodity prices will collapse in a US China trade war so our currency will collapse too. Nothing to do with the RBA.

Bruce in WA
April 5, 2025 1:31 am

Oh … et troisième aussi!

Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:00 am
Johnny Rotten
April 5, 2025 4:06 am
Reply to  Tom

Ha, ha, ha……………

Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 4:10 am
Johnny Rotten
April 5, 2025 4:22 am

Thanks again Tom.

Johnny Rotten
April 5, 2025 4:24 am

comment image

caveman
caveman
April 5, 2025 4:30 am

https://www.breitbart.com/t/assets/html/disqus-62.html?udca=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fpolitics%2F2025%2F04%2F04%2Ftrump-says-vietnam-offers-cut-tariffs-america-zero%2F|29713943|Trump%20Says%20Vietnam%20Offers%20to%20Cut%20Tariffs%20on%20America%20to%20Zero|Vietnam coming to the tariff party

caveman
caveman
April 5, 2025 4:35 am

Vietnam to cut Tariffs.

caveman
caveman
April 5, 2025 6:38 am

My last link sucked.
Vietnam keen to cut tariffs
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114280292618523684
And Trump wants Powell to cut rates, seems all very political against Trump. No1 economy in the world you can call the shots.

Trump trolling China telling them they’re panicking
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114279915827492021

The Bungonia Bee
The Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 7:28 am

Mark Knight has succumbed to Tariff Derangement Syndrome.
Sad.
The media have rewritten the whole story just as surely as they keep up the “women problem” and “harsh and uncaring conservatives” memes.
Free Trade depends on trading nations NOT imposing restrictions, and doing a bit of tit for tat might wake a lot of them up.

The Bungonia Bee
The Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 7:33 am

Australian governments still impose a huge “luxury car tax” on imports despite the fact that we no longer have a car manufacturing industry!

Eyrie
Eyrie
April 5, 2025 8:21 am

IIRC there is a 5% tariff on ordinary cars too. Why?

Foxbody
Foxbody
April 5, 2025 9:15 am
Reply to  Eyrie

The NDIS, Aboriginal Industry and other bottomless pits can’t be filled by income tax and mining royalties alone.

Crossie
Crossie
April 5, 2025 7:38 am

I still can’t work out the use of the WTO since countries have always negotiated their own trade deals individually. Is it another do-nothing agency whose only function is to employ well-paid bureaucrats?

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 5, 2025 7:31 am

Gold prices on the rise again at end of the auld thread. Well over the $5K mark.

It’s surely time to restart that gold mine project offering hundreds of local jobs and royalties that Plibersek has stalled due to some claimed aboriginal bee, invented by looney tooners buzzing in her ear, a bee that the recognised local aboriginal reps have never heard of?

Tanya meantime feathering her Green electoral inner-city nest.

mem
mem
April 5, 2025 7:36 am

Nancy Pelosi in 1996 denounces free trade with China. This is a very interesting article including the graph on jobs losses. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/04/03/watch-nancy-pelosi-in-1996-assails-u-s-free-trade-with-china-is-this-reciprocal/
NB Won’t let me post live link.

mem
mem
April 5, 2025 7:44 am
Reply to  mem

It’s now live link.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 8:04 am
Reply to  mem

You just snuck that in while I was watching it before posting mem, well done.

Last edited 3 hours ago by Bungonia Bee
Gabor
Gabor
April 5, 2025 7:45 am

caveman
April 5, 2025 6:38 am

Vietnam keen to cut tariffs

I am ambivalent about free trade, on paper it sounds good but there are serious technical difficulties for the different partners.
How can one partner compete with an other where regulations, wages, cost of power is way below that of others?

Look where it got us and the US and mainly the EU.

Tariffs worked for centuries, sure there was smuggling but so it is today.
The secret I think is to finely adjust the level, Trump may have got it wrong unless it was an opening gambit.

Before Whitlam we had a thriving electronics industry, not saying it would’ve but it may have developed into a tech giant, like Taiwan.

Instead we wash each others’ underwear, sell our minerals and moan about the Chinese crap we import.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 5, 2025 7:52 am
Reply to  Gabor

Trump’s call has been to put everyone in the same boat, so that deals must now be done openly. It’s definitely a universal set of ambit claims that can be negotiated every which way in the final wash up.

Albanese and Rudd are going to be late starters given their current tardiness and the expected rush.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 5, 2025 8:06 am

Interesting to note in the recent Quadrant editor Rebecca Weisser correctly takes Albanese and Rudd to task regarding their tardiness in reassuring Trump of our support on the military front as well as for not getting appropriate recognition of our ‘laudable free and fair trade’, in contrast to big power protectionism, especially in agriculture (though she forgets our biosecurity restrictions). John O’Sullivan follows this up with ‘all hat and no rabbit’ (proviso:yet), re Trump’s ‘Disruptor’ reputation and activities in the security sphere, over which tariffs play a reassembling part.

In commentary, everyone is still playing a guessing game.

Crossie
Crossie
April 5, 2025 8:30 am
Reply to  Gabor

Before Whitlam we had a thriving electronics industry, not saying it would’ve but it may have developed into a tech giant, like Taiwan.

My late sister-in-law worked at AWA in late 60s and early 70s making TV sets. Now we don’t even make screwdrivers.

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 5, 2025 8:50 am
Reply to  Crossie

Might want to check what you paid for those AWA sets.

Crossie
Crossie
April 5, 2025 8:56 am
Reply to  H B Bear

You also paid the same for the imported Philips TVs.

Gabor
Gabor
April 5, 2025 9:05 am
Reply to  H B Bear

You could afford it.

What good is a cheap TV if you are on the dole?
You can lay back on the couch I suppose and watch some mind numbing show like that married stuff.

Balances in tariffs and what to apply them on, I was talking about.

Never mind about skills we lost and probably won’t get back in a hurry.

Sounds like you approve of the present status quo of our trade arrangements with China etc.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 7:58 am
Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 8:02 am

Video of Nancy Pelosi in 1996 addressing the disparity in trade with China and the disparity in tariffs!
Incredible clip from 1996. Nancy Pelosi on tariffs and the trade deficit with China.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 8:05 am
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

There’s also footage of Obama on cheap imported tyres.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 8:09 am
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
Lawgi Dawes-Hall
April 5, 2025 8:10 am

“Polygamy has been demonstrated throughout Australia’s history amongst certain Indigenous Australian communities and certain Muslim migrants,” Ivanov explains.

“The normalisation of monogamy across most parts of the world has been influenced by labour, class, religion — particularly Christianity — and the inheritance and transfer of property.”

In the lead up to the Waffen SSM referendum I would ask my interlocutors what the next campaign would be, and offered lowering the age of consent or polygamy. Which seemed frightfully naive in light of the safe schools/tranny thing that rolled out a week or so after it got up.

Cassie of Sydney
April 5, 2025 8:16 am

The great Pat Condell, who rarely posts anything now, has uploaded this overnight……..

Education For Dummies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXqpAO9CNhw

Condell is a voice of truth and reason. Please watch.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
April 5, 2025 8:21 am

The sickness of half of the USA at every level of society is now being demonstrated on a daily basis.

Crossie
Crossie
April 5, 2025 8:49 am
Reply to  Bungonia Bee

What we are seeing are the upper middle class and their children, the rest of Americans are too busy working two or more jobs to provide for their families.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
April 5, 2025 8:23 am

The EU hierarchy is truly evil.

The EU attempts to control the world economy — again

Today, the EU is a 27-member bloc with a collective GDP of $18.6 trillion, which aims to update the global economic order by inflicting its radical leftist agenda upon the United States and countries throughout the world. This is not speculation — it is already happening.

Unbeknownst to nearly all Americans, the EU recently passed one of the most far-reaching laws in modern history: the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

In short, the CSDDD seeks to impose European Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards upon nearly all businesses and entities involved within the vast EU economic universe. The sheer breadth of American businesses, both large and small, that will be forced to operate under the rules of the CSDDD, means that the United States would basically become economically subservient to Europe.

On the bright side, this isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. Fortunately, the European Union bureaucracy moves at a glacial pace. So far, the EU has passed the CSDDD. Next, it must be transposed into law by the member states. Most likely, this will take time.

Of course, it would be unwise for the United States to sit idly and wait for nations like Germany and France to craft their specific CSDDD national laws.

Instead, the United States should issue a simple message to the EU asserting that America completely opposes all aspects of the authoritarian CSDDD.

Crossie
Crossie
April 5, 2025 8:52 am
Reply to  Mak Siccar

The sheer breadth of American businesses, both large and small, that will be forced to operate under the rules of the CSDDD, means that the United States would basically become economically subservient to Europe.

The other option is to stop trading with the EU, deprive them of a very lucrative market.

Eyrie
Eyrie
April 5, 2025 8:29 am

Before Whitlam we had a thriving electronics industry, not saying it would’ve but it may have developed into a tech giant, like Taiwan.

No, the unions would have wrecked it when it became profitable. Electronics is a completely international industry. If you want to make any electronic equipment you need parts from all around the world. This will be interesting when tariffs are applied.
In its heyday Australia made things like resistors and capacitors but a limited range only. Much of the equipment made by the Australian industry wasn’t exactly brilliant.

Jock
Jock
April 5, 2025 8:57 am
Reply to  Eyrie

If I recall correctly Alan bond at the start of his career sold TVs. But they only had one channel. Often wondered if that was correct or just some blather made up by his “biographer” paul Barry (?)

Gabor
Gabor
April 5, 2025 9:39 am
Reply to  Eyrie

I can recall the terms used for the Japanese cars and electronic stuff early on.
See them now.
Who is to say what could’ve happened? You are talking about today.
Don’t be so dismissive.
Our industry was cut off at the knees, never had a chance after the tariff cut and the subsequent industry policies of both parties.

Cassie of Sydney
April 5, 2025 8:30 am

Sometimes we’re totally consumed by what’s going on in this bleak sordid world we find ourselves living in so it’s good to watch something that isn’t about the religion of pieces, or President Trump, or free trade, or Abalone, or Mutton, or transperverts, or leftist Nazi scum.

This came up on my Youtube feed late last night and it’s delightful. Next year I hope to be in Rome and I will most certainly visit the Jewish ghetto. Unlike the ghost ghettoes of Eastern Europe, the Jewish ghetto in Rome is NOT a museum piece, Jews still live and work in the Roman ghetto.

I have known two Italian Jews, one whose family was from Rome, from the ghetto, his family survived the roundup in 1943 thanks to a Catholic family.

The History of the Roman Jewish Ghetto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd2rtOdWejg&list=WL&index=2

The Roman Jewish community is ancient, it predates Emperor Augustus and it predates the destruction of the second Temple. Roman Jews (called Italkim) have their own distinct prayers and way of praying. They are neither Ashkenazim nor Mizrachim nor Sephardim.

shatterzzz
April 5, 2025 8:32 am

Watching an episode of LIONESS-Special Ops* (2) last night & heard something I’ve never come across before in these special forces shows .
The female leader of the SF team on entering a US base in Iraq after a surprise, not-so-welcome, firefight marches straight up to the colonel in charge & gives him a mouthful when he retaliated with a “Don’t you know who I am” she replied, “I don’t give a f*** I’m a DoD special operative leader & whenever I set foot on a US military post I, automatically, outrank anyone on that post” …….
No idea if true or not but never heard of it before ………

*Lioness .. same as Seal Team but with different actors .. LOL!

Top Ender
Top Ender
April 5, 2025 10:02 am
Reply to  shatterzzz

Bollocks! Served in the war in 2006 and did quite a bit of work with SF teams. What a weird idea.

There is a thing called “Command and Control” – basically yes you can’t go into someone’s op and just because you outrank them tell them to do something. A bit like being an army general and going onto a navy ship and teling the captain what to do..

But “I arrive on a base” and now outrank everyone – very strange.

Bruce
Bruce
April 5, 2025 10:25 am
Reply to  Top Ender

Typical “alternate reality” from the Fantasy Factory.

Crossie
Crossie
April 5, 2025 8:38 am

April 5, 2025 8:06 am

 Reply to  Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

Interesting to note in the recent Quadrant editor Rebecca Weisser correctly takes Albanese and Rudd to task regarding their tardiness in reassuring Trump of our support on the military front as well as for not getting appropriate recognition of our ‘laudable free and fair trade’,

As far as Abalone is concerned not upsetting Rudd is more important than getting a favourable trade deal for Australia. He knows damn well that if Rudd were recalled from Washington he would work against him during the election campaign just as Turnbull is doing now against Dutton. As far as Abalone is concerned there is no greater cause than him getting re-elected, he believes l’etat c’est moi and the media is helping him think it.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
April 5, 2025 8:38 am

Sicktoria leads the race to the bottom. Free speech there is officially dead. RTWT, but only if you don’t have high blood pressure.

In Victoria, Free Speech is Dead

On Wednesday, April 30, 2025, the Victorian Parliament passed the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Act 2025. The law amends the Crimes Act 1958, the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, and the Bail Act 1977 to lower the onus of proof and increase the penalty for alleged vilification offences that previously carried a maximum penalty of just six months.

?The law confidently states that ‘The diversity of the people of Victoria enhances our community and Victorians embrace the benefits provided by this diversity and are proud that people live together harmoniously.’ However, a careful reading discloses the precarious position of free speech in Victoria (and Australia) and challenges the expectation that all people be treated equally before the law. We argue that the law is yet another instalment in the fight against free speech and Australia’s Christian and socially conservative silent majority.

The newly adopted law now increases the protected attributes to include disability, gender identity, race, religious belief or activity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, and personal association with a person who possesses any of these attributes. It criminalises conduct that is likely ‘to be considered by a reasonable person with the protected attribute to be hateful.’ It also increases the penalty to three years imprisonment (for serious vilification) or five years (for harm or damage to property). It does not matter that the alleged conduct, which includes any form of communication, occurs on private property or land, or at a place not open to the general public.

Two new serious vilification criminal offences with higher maximum penalties have now been introduced in the Crimes Act 1958: an incitement offence and a threat offence. These offences will prohibit not only intentional but also “reckless” behaviour that occurs in private or public (including online). In determining whether a person committed or incited vilification, it is irrelevant whether the person who allegedly committed a “hate crime” had the intention to do so or to offend anyone.

Boambee John
Boambee John
April 5, 2025 8:55 am
Reply to  Mak Siccar

I look forward to arrests and charges after the next “River to the Sea” demonstration.

But I won’t hold my breath.

Bruce
Bruce
April 5, 2025 10:27 am
Reply to  Mak Siccar

Ultimately, in the REAL world, “offence” can only be TAKEN, not GIVEN.

Think it through.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 5, 2025 8:42 am

The unelected PM of Canada really is a nasty piece of work.

Last edited 2 hours ago by Miltonf
Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 8:48 am

Amazing painting.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 8:49 am

@DC_Draino

Do people really think Trump isn’t going to usher in the strongest economy of our lifetimes after he already did it in 2019?

Have a little patience and let the man cook

It hasn’t even been 3 days

Decades of rigged trade deals aren’t going to unravel overnight without a price being paid

If you want someone to blame, look at the uniparty that’s been robbing us for decades

Black Ball
Black Ball
April 5, 2025 8:51 am

Thanks Vic Plod. Andrew Rule on Tony Mokbel in the Hun:

The first thing that has to be said is that Antonios Sajih Mokbel is not a celebrity nor a cartoon figure nor a good player out of luck. He is much more than the punchline to a bad wig joke.

Tony Mokbel is a criminal and a big one — an international and national drug trafficker, a gang leader, a crime boss and an enthusiastic corrupter of everything from jockeys to the judiciary.

A crook whose first conviction, typically, was for an attempt to bribe a county court judge. A crook who paid more jockeys and trainers to rig more races than that other money-laundering drug baron “Aussie Bob” Trimbole.

The second thing about Tony Mokbel, apart from the inescapable conclusion he made untold millions from massive criminal activity, is that he actually pleaded guilty to the serious crimes that have kept him in prison for the last 18 years.

He pleaded guilty because his expert defence counsel, a respected Queens Counsel, advised him the evidence against him was overwhelming and watertight.

But as Lawyer X scandal would later reveal, when he pleaded guilty, he didn’t have the full story. That was, his lawyer was a snitch.

And here’s the thing: some of the most damning evidence against Mokbel came from inside his own camp, from the heart of the criminal enterprise he called “The Company.”

It came from an insider codenamed “the musician”, who was, in fact, a musician — but also a trusted gang member.

He volunteered his help because of the drug addiction of one of his own family members, a personal grievance that turned him against the Mokbel criminal empire.

After secretly meeting investigators, the musician took a risk his police handlers thought were too great: he used a minute alone with a key “company” laptop to download vital information about bank accounts and telephone numbers that led police to Mokbel’s hideaway in Greece in 2007.

That is the sort of evidence that got Tony Mokbel locked up, not the devious and dishonest machinations of his sometime lawyer Nicola Gobbo, in cahoots with cynical police “cowboys” who should have known better than to get into bed with a probably treacherous and unstable person.

But when Tony Mokbel “walked” shortly after 10am Friday, it was proof of how things go wrong when cops start acting like crooks, cutting corners by corrupting the conventions and procedures of a legal system that relies heavily on the honourable conduct of police and officers of the court.

Forget Mokbel the walking wig joke. Bald man walking is the biggest joke of all. But it’s not funny.

Indeed Mr Rule.
Can’t tell me that Mokbel’s influence and wealth have waned over the last 18 years.
Not sure an ankle bracelet and conditions to remain in Melbourne and report to po po daily will be any hindrance to his operation either.
But bravo plod. Screw up for the ages.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 5, 2025 9:28 am
Reply to  Black Ball

Andrew Rule tells a good story but he has been known to put a bit of mayo on as well.
If they had Mokbel cold with an informer and hard documentary evidence, why did they have to pull the subterfuge of the QC turncoat?
The real story here is cops cutting corners to get convictions, none of whom have been charged and some of which are still in VikPlod.
Not interested in Rule’s “right result, wrong method” ends-justifies-the-means story. If he was truly a bwave investigative journalist he would have named names from within VikPlod.
But he didn’t.
Because that is his newsfeed.
If Covid taught us anything is that coppers with no boundaries won’t stop at stitching up The Big Fish. In fact, the vast majority go after softer targets.

Maman
Maman
April 5, 2025 9:57 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

“If Covid taught us anything is that coppers with no boundaries won’t stop at stitching up The Big Fish. In fact, the vast majority go after softer targets.” Yes, watched it first hand, including the lawyer and the magistrate. Cosy.

Integrity is so last century.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 8:53 am

@WesternLensman

Amy Klobuchar gets absolutely wrecked as she goes after Trump’s comments on judges —

— and gets reminded of Chuck Schumer’s own words by GOP witness Jesse Panuccio.

BOOM

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 8:55 am

@EricLDaugh

BREAKING: Trump is signing an executive order keeping TikTok up for another 75 days while a deal is hammered out

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 8:59 am

@seanmdav

Remember when the biggest Wall Street banks on earth dumped all their garbage mortgage-backed securities on unsuspecting buyers, then turned around and demanded hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts because of the trash securities they created? And the politicians all just went along with it?

These are the same people telling you to trust them that tariffs are icky.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:00 am

@WeLeftTheEUSSR

It looks like Le Pen will be the next French PM.

Her judgment has been deferred on appeal until next summer. The 3 judges who jailed her have had to go into hiding with protection.

20 thousand new members have just joined her party.

shatterzzz
April 5, 2025 10:45 am
Reply to  Indolent

I’m guessin’ weekends in “gay Paree” are about to get a bit more hectic than usual .. LOL!

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:02 am

If this includes all the government restructuring and layoffs then it really is amazing.

@TrumpWarRoom

MASSIVE JOB GROWTH SHATTERS EXPECTATIONS

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 5, 2025 9:37 am
Reply to  Indolent

Many of the government “job cuts” haven’t bitten yet.
Some are on paid leave, for up to eight months.

johanna
johanna
April 5, 2025 9:58 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

I often wonder where all those laid off ‘journalists’ and tech employees go when they are laid off.

Now that the NGO taps are being turned off, life might get a bit harder.

They will be turning on each other in no time, as the jobs-for-identity pool shrinks.

Gabor
Gabor
April 5, 2025 10:28 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

If their input is not missed after 4 weeks then it should be good bye and good riddance.

mem
mem
April 5, 2025 9:04 am

I’m interested in gaining a better understanding of the impacts of Trump’s tariffs on Australia’s trade with other countries particularly China and India. Does anyone know if this has been discussed or written about yet? Or maybe a Cat can give some pointers.

hzhousewife
hzhousewife
April 5, 2025 9:09 am
Reply to  mem

No refs but I did hear that China will be reducing their imports of US beef and cattle feed. Hmmm, where could they possibly get replacements from?

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
April 5, 2025 9:59 am
Reply to  hzhousewife

Which should be great news, except for the fact that our silly, unserious, country will still gets its face ripped off by the ChiComs in the negotiations.

johanna
johanna
April 5, 2025 10:13 am
Reply to  mem

We have the lowest tariff – 10%.

India has sensibly entered discussions, and Modi is a pal of Trump. I don’t think it’s a big deal there. They will work something out.

The big picture is blowing up the many cosy cartels and supranationals (principally the WTO) that have dominated trade policy across the world for decades.

I think it’s awesome. As I mentioned in the OT, I know someone who has made a successful and lucrative career out of being an expert on the Byzantium maze of of internatonal trade. She has spent her life flying around the world (first class, of course) from one gabfest to another where they argue about regulations.

A self-licking icecream, like the COP, a job for life with plenty of perks.

It’s a paradigm shift.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:06 am

@DC_Draino

Macron wants European companies to stop investing in the US?

Screw that globalist clown

We should respond by canceling the $5 BILLION loan we just handed to French energy giant Total

No more handouts to countries that spit in our face

America First – always

Cassie of Sydney
April 5, 2025 9:08 am

The plain truth is, and it’s taken Donald Trump to expose it, is that free trade, globalism, mass immigration, are ALL crocks of shit that have seriously damaged, probably permanently, the West.

The free trade ‘equilibrium’ that has beholden the West over the last 20 to 30 years is now being ripped apart by Trump. As Stephen Kotkin wrote in the hours after Trump’s tariff announcement (and quoted by Sharri on Thursday night), Trump’s strategy might fail but that doesn’t matter, something had to be done, the current equilibrium that has held sway across Western economies over the last few decades could not continue. Trump is like a meteor crashing into earth.

As I wrote the other day, we sold our souls to China for cheap toasters. We thought buying cheap toasters was bloody marvellous except the price to pay, 20 years down the track, is that we now have a Chinese military spy ship circumnavigating this continent as I write.

Bluey
Bluey
April 5, 2025 9:41 am

I grew up in an Australia that made just about everything we needed. All of which has been offshored over my lifetime and if now largely imported from china.
What little remains hangs on by the skin of their teeth, buried under more and more red tape and input costs.
Was talking with my dad last night and commented I’m of a generation that is just old enough to know exactly what’s been lost. He said something about looking back now, he can’t believe how good he had it as a working age adult, despite some of the difficulties. The opportunities he had are gone for anyone under 40.

Gabor
Gabor
April 5, 2025 10:25 am
Reply to  Bluey

Hear, hear! And some here dismiss Arky’s laments about our lost opportunities, because they happen to had made some coin in the new world order.

johanna
johanna
April 5, 2025 10:32 am
Reply to  Bluey

Please don’t romanticise ‘the good old days.’

The subsidised and tariff protected clothing and footwear industries meant that my parents struggled and went without to make sure that I had proper school uniforms and shoes, and they were very expensive at my public school.

I’m not defending where we are today, but when I grew up, locally made clothes were out of the question for working class families with multiple children. My mother, like many others, made a lot of my clothes at home.

While the Greens might applaud this model, I prefer the consideration of the baby and the bathwater.

shatterzzz
April 5, 2025 10:43 am
Reply to  Bluey

Thru the 1980s I worked at Berger Paints in Rhodes .. 90% of the suburb was manufacturing businesses, some quite large, Berger, Tullochs Engineering, Union Carbide, a giant chemical/oil installation next to Berger not sure who or what they did, no signage) even Phillips Electronics had a small manufacturing & large warehouse site ..
Rhodes today .. all gone …….!

Makka
Makka
April 5, 2025 9:56 am

The plain truth is, and it’s taken Donald Trump to expose it, is that free trade, globalism, mass immigration, are ALL crocks of shit that have seriously damaged, probably permanently, the West.

Absolutely. And everyone is screaming Orange Man Baaad because he is actually doing something to expose and correct the cosy corruption. That is what the elite are so upset about- their scams, deals, corruption getting exposed and their grift being dissolved, in public. It’s endemic, everywhere and WE are the marks.

Eventually, this tariff situation will all calm down, DOGE will have done it’s job, businesses in the US will grow significantly and countries like China will organise themselves around the US/Trump economic reality.

Meanwhile, this will become a very good buying opportunity IMO.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:12 am

They’re after Russell Brand again.

@catturd2

Full disclosure … I know nothing about this; if it’s true or not … but when a famous liberal actor turns into a famous Christian conservative podcaster and suddenly gets these kind of charges from 20 years a go – It automatically seems suspicious to me.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:14 am

@nicksortor

#BREAKING: World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab has informed the board he will be RESIGNING, per Reuters

Another MASSIVE blow to globalism, thanks to President Trump

Schwab has infamously been on a warpath against the United States and conservatism for FIVE DECADES, but his reign is now coming to an end.

Good riddance.

Jock
Jock
April 5, 2025 9:42 am
Reply to  Indolent

His fuhrer is calling him home.

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
April 5, 2025 10:03 am
Reply to  Indolent

Fantastic, no doubt Klaus will be retiring to Uruguay or somewhere these types disappear to, but he will have cloned a lot of mini-me’s in his secret labs high in the Swiss mountains in the meantime.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
April 5, 2025 9:14 am

Chuckle #1:

China has always been a staunch defender of the international economic and trade order and a staunch supporter of the multilateral trading system.

Get a lobster up ya.

Jock
Jock
April 5, 2025 9:41 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

I have a dozen stranded coal ships that says you are not .

Johnny Rotten
April 5, 2025 10:47 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Load of BS. Wine, barley, etc, etc, etc………….

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:19 am
calli
calli
April 5, 2025 9:37 am
Reply to  Indolent

Excellent news.

shatterzzz
April 5, 2025 9:19 am

Vote carefully .. LOL!

Dick
Hugh
Hugh
April 5, 2025 10:29 am
Reply to  shatterzzz

Haha, sadly I think it is inevitable that a dick will be elected, irrespective of what I put on my ballot paper.

Jock
Jock
April 5, 2025 9:20 am

In a discussion I had with the infamous Matt keen about climate and net zero he admitted that EU and international trade pressures were at play. Tarriff and regulatory imposts would be imposed if we didn’t know tow. The reality is that free trade is a big myth.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
April 5, 2025 9:20 am

Chuckle #2:

Albanese’s double pike dismount – brings a warm glow on each viewing. Like Peter FitzSimons being decked by Phillips Sella.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 5, 2025 9:41 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Apparently it wasn’t a fall.
He just stepped backwards off the podium.
The Russian judge only scored him 3.2 for the dismount, though.

Boambee John
Boambee John
April 5, 2025 9:48 am
Reply to  Sancho Panzer

MSM was much harder on Howard when he stumbled, but did not fall, on some steps.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:23 am

He’s doing what he does best, stirring up division and violence.
Obama Warns: “Sacrifice May Be Necessary” to Resist Trump

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 5, 2025 9:26 am
Reply to  Indolent

Not for Obama though

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 5, 2025 11:12 am
Reply to  Indolent

Barry is a real problem.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:30 am

@Bubblebathgirl

Hey @elonmusk, Greenpeace has been ordered to pay $660 million in damages as a result of their fraudulent and violent protests related to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Whoever is orchestrating the violence against Tesla needs to similarly be bankrupted.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:31 am

@LauraLoomer

Up bright and early today in Los Angeles for my deposition of @billmaher.

Bill Maher will be held accountable today for his egregious defamation of me.

I am a professional woman and I won’t tolerate Bill Maher falsely accusing me of having an affair or committing adultery simply because he doesn’t like the fact that President Trump invited me to the Presidential debate as his guest.

The video deposition is taking place today at noon in Beverly Hills.

People who defame me and go out of their way to assassinate my character and disrespect President Trump and @MELANIATRUMP will be held accountable.

I have zero tolerance for it.

bons
bons
April 5, 2025 9:46 am
Reply to  Indolent

Showing the way.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:32 am

@ImBreckWorsham

Shocking.

Absolutely shocking.

Johnny Rotten
April 5, 2025 10:42 am
Reply to  Indolent

Well done Lady. No need to fence against a ‘Ladee’.

Women’s sports are for Women.

The Trans can have their own sports if they want them so much.

Last edited 37 minutes ago by Johnny Rotten
Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 9:35 am
Filbert
Filbert
April 5, 2025 9:43 am

Someone requested this pic last thread.
You’re welcome.

image-2
Filbert
Filbert
April 5, 2025 9:49 am
Reply to  Filbert

Or perhaps this…
(thanks Grok)

image-3
calli
calli
April 5, 2025 10:03 am
Reply to  Filbert

I hope Grok thinks Albo’s left leg is a gun barrel and not another piece of his anatomy.

Unless he’s sitting side saddle. Which wouldn’t surprise me.

bons
bons
April 5, 2025 9:44 am

Starmer is reported to favour agressive punitive responses against Trump’s tariff policy.

Um!

And Fuhrer von der Leyen has announced that the EU has always been willing to negotiate on tariffs.

Um!

The Wall Street led panic concerning the threat of Trump’s tariffs to their globalist corruption diguises the underlying principal behind Trump’s international relations policy. He is returning to the traditional conservative policy of favouring bilateral or limited scope arrangements over multilateralism.

Multilateral arrangements rely on participants being good actors, but rarely have any means of constraining bad actors which is why the Left love big unwieldy arrangements. WTO, WHO, Human Rights Agreements, and endless climate arrangements are all engineered to constrain good actors while allowing criminal regimes to run wild. Trump is right, the US has been nothing more than carrion to these thugs, none more so than the German EU.

Keating, Gillard and the ABC overwhelmed Australian conservative’s preference for bilateral arrangements and wise scepticism for UN, UNESCO NGO or EU sponsored arrangements. An incoming conservative government would have to sack the whole of DFAT down to the cleaning staff if it wishes to exert Australian interests in foreign affairs. Trump is showing the way.

Gabor
Gabor
April 5, 2025 9:48 am

Probably old news but new to me.
Water takes its time but it gets there, gravity prevails in the end.

Screenshot-2025-04-05-094631
calli
calli
April 5, 2025 10:01 am
Reply to  Gabor

And Lake Eyre will be full again. Another cycle.

Tom
Tom
April 5, 2025 10:09 am
Reply to  calli

I love the Australian climate — it’s a marvellous continent impervious to the human grifters trying to use its floods and rains to steal from others.

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 5, 2025 11:18 am
Reply to  Tom

As a West Australian standing on the banks of the Murray 30 or 40 feet above the river level is something you can’t quite your head around.

Cassie of Sydney
April 5, 2025 10:06 am

Terrorist who kidnapped Bibas family eliminated in Gaza

Nice, very nice. I hope ALL of the terrorist’s family are also eliminated. Shiri, Kfir and Ariel were held by the terrorist’s family.

They can go meet Allah!

calli
calli
April 5, 2025 10:33 am

I immediately thought of this

Tash-and-his-servant-Large
bons
bons
April 5, 2025 10:12 am

Lots of ignorance based squeaking last night on Sky about Trump’s unfair 10% tariff imposition upon Australia.

None of the experts bothered to note that Trump is focused on both tariff and non tariff barriers.

Australia’s non tariff barrier GST is, surprise, 10%.

Roger
Roger
April 5, 2025 10:35 am
Reply to  bons

Trump’s administration argues the main non-tariff barriers to free trade are the PBS, a de facto ban on all beef products (plus some fruit) citing biosecurity and the news media bargaining code. All of these have bipartisan party-political support domestically. Our best option, then, is to ride it out and seek other markets for our beef if necessary.

Putting defence agreements and installations on the bargaining table, as Dutton seems to be suggesting, is highly irresponsible in what is a short to medium term period of adjustment.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 10:14 am
Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 10:16 am
Makka
Makka
April 5, 2025 10:16 am

Yep. When we look to the horrendous COL in Australia, we don’t need to look passed those immense parasites living off us thriving in Canberra and our state capitals. Start there with the blame, as they connive and scheme their way to steal more of what we earn.

Down that thread a comment brings clarity- goods on the way to the retail shop are taxed several times over for which WE PAY.

To support what, exactly? Fat Cat khunts in Canberra growing like a cockroach infestation , designing ways to steal more from us.

As the Australian Media have a collective meltdown over Donald Trump imposing a 10% tariff on Australian goods here’s a friendly reminder about some of the taxes imposed ON AUSTRALIANS that they hardly mention:

– Capital Gains Tax

– Goods & Services Tax

– Land Tax

– company tax

– local government rates (tax)

– Pay as you Earn Tax

– Superannuation Tax

– Luxury Car Tax

– fuel excise (tax)

– carbon tax

– Stamp Duty (tax)

– payroll tax

https://x.com/goodfoodgal/status/1908244365237248018

Roger
Roger
April 5, 2025 10:38 am
Reply to  Makka

And to add insult to injury, a proposed hotel bed tax in QLD to pay for local infrastructure that you’ve already chipped in for via income tax and gst

johanna
johanna
April 5, 2025 10:16 am

https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/333718a4df62bf71731a78320fbeea0a?s=64&d=identicon&r=g
johanna
April 5, 2025 10:13 am

Reply to  mem

We have the lowest tariff – 10%.

India has sensibly entered discussions, and Modi is a pal of Trump. I don’t think it’s a big deal there. They will work something out.

The big picture is blowing up the many cosy cartels and supranationals (principally the WTO) that have dominated trade policy across the world for decades.

I think it’s awesome. As I mentioned in the OT, I know someone who has made a successful and lucrative career out of being an expert on the Byzantium maze of of internatonal trade. She has spent her life flying around the world (first class, of course) from one gabfest to another where they argue about regulations.

A self-licking icecream, like the COP, a job for life with plenty of perks.

It’s a paradigm shift.

Indolent
Indolent
April 5, 2025 10:21 am
shatterzzz
April 5, 2025 10:29 am
Reply to  Indolent

Problem is .. question asked 43 times but no names just speculation .. waste of 4 minutes ……. duuuuuh!

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
April 5, 2025 10:22 am

I sincerely hope that Oz does not follow suit, in spite of our notorious eKaren’s wishes, and jeopardise sites such as New Cat.

A thousand poxes on our political and bureaucratic classes.

How the Online Safety Act shut down a hamster forum

This terrible law is already making the internet a lot less free.

When the Online Safety Bill was first introduced to the UK parliament in 2022, it was touted as an urgent, vital piece of legislation. It was supposed to prevent children, in particular, from seeing distressing or illegal content, such as terrorist propaganda, pornography or graphic violence.

….

Small, community-led sites have been announcing to users that they will either restrict access, introduce sweeping rules or even go offline entirely – all because of the regulations imposed by the new law. Smaller forums, many of which have been around since the early days of the web in the 1990s and early 2000s, have been particularly badly hit. Victims include a group for locals of a small town in Oxfordshire and a cycling forum.

….

A particularly galling example is the Hamster Forum. Describing itself as ‘the home of all things hamstery’, it is the last place you’d expect to feel ‘unsafe’ online. Still, it too has posted a farewell notice to its users, announcing that it is shutting down. ‘While this forum has always been perfectly safe’, the administrator wrote, ‘we were unable to meet’ the compliance requirements of the Online Safety Act. The administrator of the Charlbury in the Cotswolds forum similarly wrote that the law was ‘a huge issue for small sites, both in terms of the hoops that site admins have to jump through, and potential liability’. As a result of the new rules, the forum was being forced to more strictly moderate its content.

Bruce
Bruce
April 5, 2025 10:56 am
Reply to  Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
April 5, 2025 11:00 am
Reply to  Bruce

Beware the wrath of the patient man.

Makka
Makka
April 5, 2025 10:38 am

As Joh used to say, “feed the chooks”.

Anything to take our eyes off the REAL problem. The exorbitant cost we are forced to pay for our useless, bloated, corrupt Govt.

The Australian government has identified the nation’s critical minerals riches as a potential weapon in the tariff war now being waged by US President Donald Trump.

Australia has been hit with a 10% tariff as part of President Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs for countries around the world, which have created havoc in financial markets.

The tariffs have become a major political issue in the lead-up to Australia’s federal election, with the government and opposition rushing to come up with answers.

Makka
Makka
April 5, 2025 10:57 am
Reply to  Makka

Albo: Yeah, I’ll show him. We’ll put a big fat tariff on our REE exports to US and put Orange Man Bad over a barrell. (Giggle)

REE Miners : Hey, hang on a mo. What about our investments, our employees, our share prices and our taxes paid?

Albo: Are your operations unionised yet?

Last edited 21 minutes ago by Makka
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 5, 2025 10:47 am

I expect China will be putting big tariffs on Australia and outright banning some of our stuff. No more lobsters and wine exports, again.

The reason? Both Dutton and Albo have now promised to take the Darwin Port lease away from the Chinese.

The CCP is already super sensitive about such things due to Panama, so when whoever wins the election does this they will go stratospheric.

JC
JC
April 5, 2025 10:48 am

Trump’s administration argues the main non-tariff barriers to free trade are the PBS, a de facto ban on all beef products (plus some fruit) citing biosecurity …….

Cali cherries are grades superior than ours and we get them in our off season too. Peaches are great too. What fruit are we banning? Their apples are fabulous too, which we don’t see.
Australia, open up the apple trade!

Last edited 30 minutes ago by JC
calli
calli
April 5, 2025 10:53 am
Reply to  JC

Could be apples because scab and other pests. We do that with NZ too.

We also get beautiful Cali Navel oranges, sweet as.

Roger
Roger
April 5, 2025 11:03 am
Reply to  calli

Yes, apples and pears.

shatterzzz
April 5, 2025 10:51 am

Why do prison inmates get ‘prioritized” medical treatment whilst, honest, Medicare card holders go on waiting lists ..?

JC
JC
April 5, 2025 10:52 am

Look, they may move at the edges and perhaps do some sort of deal with less significant countries, but these tariffs are permanent, at least with the big players, They need the freaking money to cover the debt and they’re not going away.

Roger
Roger
April 5, 2025 11:12 am
Reply to  JC

That’s my take.

If they’re not permanent the promised boost to domestic industry won’t happen.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
April 5, 2025 11:01 am

A reasonable piece by Sheridan in today’s unlinkable OZ.

Our welfare addiction is killing Australia

The central theme:

Almost unbelievable budget growth has come in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In 2012-13 disability services cost the federal government $1.2bn. This year the NDIS will cost $49bn.By 2028-29 it’s forecast to cost $64bn. That figure itself is dubious and relies on keeping growth of the NDIS to 8 per cent a year, a heroic prediction.

It’s self-evidently a good thing to help genuinely disabled people. Australians don’t begrudge that. But the NDIS is perhaps the worst designed public policy initiative in Australian history. There are now more than 700,000 people on the NDIS. Some 13 per cent of boys aged five to seven are on the NDIS. This is not only financially disastrous. It’s a species of social madness.

Roll back the clock to 2012.

A teary Gillard:

In an emotional speech, Ms Gillard spoke of some people with disabilities she has recently met, including a 17-year-old boy from Brisbane, called Sandy.

“Sandy has big dreams for his future, like any teenager, but his future also has some big needs: mobility aids that cost tens of thousands of dollars, personal care to maintain his hygiene, physical therapy to maintain his muscles and his health,” the Prime Minister told the House of Representatives.

NDIS came into life as a support for desperate, aging parents caring for profoundly disabled relatives – wondering who would look after them when they no longer could.

The explicit concept was to provide respite for carers, physical supports (wheel chairs and specialised equipment), home modifications to make caring physically easier, and early medical intervention for children to give them the best chance of being self-supporting.

At a suggested annual budget of $4bn this all seemed like a reasonable and decent use of resources.

There were warnings. Up to 400,000 Australians would benefit (a number which included overstressed carers as well as recipients) and it would only cost taxpayers ‘a dollar a day’. So a government program at large scale.

But overall not leaving battlers stranded was a ‘good thing’ in a compassionate society.

My how she has grown. Mission creep on steroids: 700,000 direct recipients – with a surrounding 500,000 person industry dipping into the tray of money at will.

At will? Pretty much: a quick glance at the massive Support Catalogue ‘support providers’ can choose from to spend their client’s budgets on, gives you an insight into the scope of the service.

Too big to sustain; politically too big to trim. When it eventually fails the social consequences will be huge.

Yet no sign from either UniParty that this is a significant concern.

The Coalition says it will ensure the country’s disability insurance scheme (NDIS) will remain “fit for purpose and sustainable for future generations” after Labor accused the opposition of looking to gut the growing $47bn program.

The Grauniad 25 Mar (out of links)

Not really in the best of hands.

Last edited 18 minutes ago by Dr Faustus
Roger
Roger
April 5, 2025 11:08 am
Reply to  Dr Faustus

Further, the NDIS drives a lot of essentially unskilled or low skilled migration. Not many Australians want to be professional carers, it seems.

Not to mention the cost to the taxpayer of the reportedly rampant fraud.

It’s a government program that is multi-tasking!

Last edited 7 minutes ago by Roger
Makka
Makka
April 5, 2025 11:12 am

When you are 36 TRILLION$ in debt, you better have a Plan.

This guy explains it, succinctly. Clearly.

https://x.com/TONYxTWO/status/1904206868269945336

No wonder the grubs are squealing like stuck pigs. Over 2 decades of cosy deals and corruption being unwound overnight. US manufacturing and industry gutted. Careers and fortunes now being overturned. Cry me a river.

The Swamp and their corporate parasite buddies are screaming in pain at their loss of influence and power. Fk ’em all. Go hard DJT.

  1. Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges@Mont_Jiang4hAs I said, pro money, fine.401k bagholders, the white collars… toasted.Quoteunusual_whales@unusual_whales7hBREAKING: Hedge funds sold global equities…

  2. When you are 36 TRILLION$ in debt, you better have a Plan. This guy explains it, succinctly. Clearly. https://x.com/TONYxTWO/status/1904206868269945336 No…

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