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when words matter most
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when words matter most
The ACCC stands for Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Did you note that term ‘Competition’? This body is supposed to ensure that healthy levels of competition exist in markets. Yet, we in Australia have the highest levels of market concentration ever seen in our history. ACCC failings: What have they been doing? Down under in Oz we pay lip service to things to avoid actually doing anything about scams and fudges in the business world. Toothless tigers are our speciality when we establish the various commissions and overseeing bodies. Governments make sure that regulators like the ACCC don’t have the funding or the necessary connections to really achieve what their remit states.
Economics Fresh Politics
My heart feels for the forgotten Australians. For those who missed the advantages of well heeled parents and private schools. For those who never quite managed to save up enough for a deposit on a home. For those who rent their residence in an ever shrinking market but now pay through the nose. My heart goes out to the third of Australians forgotten by governments and swept under the rug of their lost concerns. Are we returning to an age where money and property determined your rights in the world? Perhaps, we never really left that unfair realm.
Culture Fresh Politics
Have a think back to when you were in a situation when words really mattered. I mean when your words were like life and death to your set of circumstances. The consequences were dire and what you said or communicated by email or text was […]
Culture
It is hard not to reduce the salient difference between those on the Right to those on the Left, as an overt concern with selfishness vs inclusiveness. Republicans in America always back tax cuts for the rich and big business. The LNP Coalition in Australia follow a similar predilection, when it comes to things, as exemplified by the Stage 3 tax cuts. Those on the Right are fed a diet of the individual’s right to private wealth over most other considerations. They see that capitalism is about such things, and are highly suspicious of the welfare state. Their ideological stance is that everyone must make their own way in life with no handouts. However, they have no problem with receiving a leg up from their family if they come from a wealthy background. A level playing field is not high on their list of priorities.
The Republican party, that GOP, has been bought by Trump and his MAGA forces. In less than 10 years, an American political institution has been brought to its knees by extremists. Donald Trump’s America took over the GOP. Whatever gravitas it may have possessed is long gone, along with respect and common sense. It is now a party with no soul and no appetite for decency or the rule of law. Donald Trump, the property developer and reality TV celebrity, has imbued the traditional party of the right with his own brand of lunacy and grievance politics. A cult has formed around the leader of this once great party, a cult made up of disgruntled, overweight, non-college educated Americans, in the main. Folk who feel like they missed out on the great American dream.
Culture Fresh Politics The Republican party, that GOP, has been bought by Trump and his MAGA forces. In less than 10 years, an American political institution has been brought to its knees by extremists. Donald Trump’s America took over the GOP. Whatever gravitas it may have possessed is long gone, along with respect and common sense. It is now a party with no soul and no appetite for decency or the rule of law. Donald Trump, the property developer and reality TV celebrity, has imbued the traditional party of the right with his own brand of lunacy and grievance politics. A cult has formed around the leader of this once great party, a cult made up of disgruntled, overweight, non-college educated Americans, in the main. Folk who feel like they missed out on the great American dream.
Culture Fresh Politics
Paul Keating tells us that Australia is on its way to becoming the unofficial 51st state of America. The former PM is not being complimentary in his assessment of our current defence policies when saying this. No, Keating is issuing a warning about our docile behaviour in this space. The truth is that Australia does follow the Unites States in many ways when it comes to economic and political trends. Especially, the conservative side of politics are constantly looking to take our country down well-trodden American roads. Financialization and zombie neoliberalism is where the US finds itself with private equity investment firms gobbling up all areas of life and business in America.
The leaders of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) are calling for unemployment to rise. Yes, the RBA want more Aussies out of work so they can slay the dragon they call inflation. You may not have been aware that for the last 50 years the economists at the RBA have adjudged full employment as an unemployment rate of 4.5%. That equates to around 500, 000 ordinary Australians being out of work. These are the sacrificial bodies and souls, apparently, necessary for the economy to work without high inflation. I have an alternative suggestion. Australians: Is it time to eat the rich?
The Liberal Party under the leadership of Peter Dutton has moved further right into irrelevance in Australia. This is the party that has played politics over climate change for the last 15 years and bogged Australia into the slow lane on this existential crisis facing humanity. Now, the Liberal Party plays politics with Aboriginal Voice and reconciliation. It is a dreadful shame that our nation cannot move forward on something so important united on the political front. The Coalition parties, Nationals and Liberals, were never going to get on board this momentous recognition of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, as they represent the hard right racist minority within Australia.
The opioid crisis in America is a terrible indictment on American doctors. The fact that OxyContin was widely prescribed as a safe cure for pain despite being an opioid is testament to the stupidity and gullibility of American doctors. The training and experience of medical practitioners should have indemnified them with a healthy scepticism for claims made by the pharmaceutical companies in this instance. Opioids have been known to be highly addictive for many decades and there have been no exceptions to this over the period.
The Coalition had run a narrative about Australian dole bludgers and welfare cheats for decades. It was part of the right wing playbook of creating villains for the electorate to focus their frustrations and hate upon. The enemy is all those Aussies gaming the system and not doing their fair share. Robodebt was their policy initiative to clean up Dodge, as welfare cops on the beat clawing back billions for the budget. Robodebt abuse was built on Coalition lies to Australians. Scott Morrison was in such a hurry that he didn’t want to waste time on dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s when it came to the legality of the scheme. Kathryn Campbell, the public servant responsible in Human Services, would make the bullets for Sheriff Morrison to fire at the legion of welfare cheats downunder. A lot of paper shuffling went on between senior bureaucrats in the social security and human services departments. Pleasing the boss was paramount bin the minds of these highly paid functionaries.
Thirty years ago the average person didn’t worry about their digital footprint. They didn’t have a social media profile or a website in most cases. Individuals were footloose and fancy free without the ever present digital shadow hanging over them. Digging into your digital footprint can reveal how our cultural concerns are changing. Young people previously had lives which didn’t demand constant documenting via technological devices. Human beings had identities outside of the pixels and bytes forming shapes and images on screens. None of these things are possible today unless you are willing to swim against the current in 2023 and beyond. Kids are constantly checking their phones for updates re-their on-screen lives. Many cannot commit to things like watching a movie without reference to the small screen in their palm. Concentration levels have been diffused into a multiplicity of intermittent calls upon their flickering attention spans.
The murder of Carol Clay and Russel Hill in the Wonnangatta Valley are gun deaths. Greg Lynn is accused of the murders and will stand trail in the Victorian Supreme Court. Gun deaths in Australia: The murder of two campers in Victoria is worrying for a number of reasons. There are 2.6 million registered firearms in Australia. If licenced gun owners are travelling with their guns it makes for dangerous travelling. Disputes over camping sites may turn into life threatening situations, as, it seems, was the case in this instance.
Rupert Murdoch has been a scourge across this nation and around the globe. Publishing right wing broadsheets and tabloids to peddle influence in western Anglo democracies. Fox News has been his nadir in terms of journalistic standards and any pretence of objectivity in reporting the news. You would have to say that he has made his many fortunes out of giving stupid people what they think they want. The neoliberal shonky manipulation of the ordinary man and woman in the street. Appealing to their prejudices and their short shrift for anything beyond their ken. The anti-woke campaign is writ loud across the right wing playbook to rile up a response from the largely apathetic majority. News Corp publications and networks jump on this bandwagon day and night.
The Trump years were desperately unfunny despite the stupidity of the man and what often came out of his mouth as President of the United States. The laughable state of American politics is reaching new highs of absurdity with the most recent discovery of classified documents in Biden’s possession, from his time as Vice President during the Obama years. Firstly, Trump was under investigation by the DOJ for filching boxes of top secret classified documents when he left the White House. Who knew that Presidents weren’t allowed to souvenir such stuff upon their departure? Some folks steal stuff from their hotel rooms and slip it into their luggage prior to checking out.
Is Dominic Perrottet a Nazi? Even asking this question a few weeks ago would have seemed absurd of the NSW Premier, but who knew. I mean who in their right mind would dress up as a Nazi for their 21st birthday? The rites of passage for a callow youth? A serious young man like the Premier should have known better, indeed, would have known better. Is the obvious truth staring us in the face? Is the best place to hide in plain sight? I have written about the rising tide of fascism around the globe.
Trump has spawned the fantasist George Santos elected to congress in the US. Congressman elect George Santos of the New York district has lied about who is on his official CV. Santos claimed to have worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and this is a lie. George Santos put down on his resume that he received a degree from Baruch College and this is a bald faced untruth too. He put down stuff about running an animal rescue charity of which there is no record. Santos claimed to be Ukrainian and Jewish – both of which are further fabrications.
More information is being revealed about the dreadful police shooting in Wieambilla. It seems a case of Queensland police less than honest in their communication with the community re-Nathaniel Train. The ABC has reported that the younger Train brother was reported to QLD police for illegally crossing the state border from NSW and suspicious activity during the Covid lockdowns in 2021. A local resident witnessed Nathaniel Train dumping stuff into the river from his vehicle after attempting to cross the river during flooding. He reported this illegal crossing to police in QLD. These were loaded weapons, as they were found by locals later. Police were informed and collected the weapons.
The recent police shootings in Queensland has turned the spotlight on the role of religion in terrorism and acts of violence. The Train brothers at the centre of this mass murder were brought up by an evangelical father. The Trains made a YouTube video around the time of the police shootings telling the world that they had killed the demons and devils who had invaded their property (this video has been taken down by the police). This was a reference to the 2 young police officers who were murdered by the trio of armed Queenslanders. Thankfully, 2 more young police officers were able to survive this act of domestic terrorism.
I ask this in light of the police shootings in Queensland coverage. Are there any real journalists left in Australia to ask the important questions? Or, has Murdoch gutted the profession so completely we are left with tabloid news screaming, “Love triangle!” in their click […]
We live in a materialistic age and under the auspices of the capitalist system. Billionaires and oligarchs: Our relationship to them must be examined. Billionaires have been seen as the apotheosis of our economic societies. The general public in western democracies have looked upon these very wealthy people as winners and something to aspire to. In America, individuals like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been held up as examples of real success. At the same time, America and Australia have become much less equitable nations in terms of the distribution of wealth amongst their populations. There are more billionaires but the percentage of shared wealth has become far more skewed in favour of rich elites.
Here in Australia and in America the energy companies are taking us all for a very expensive ride. Why do we unquestioningly accept being fleeced by big business? Gas and oil prices have gone through the roof and then some over the last 12 months. Yes, we have heard the excuses about the war in Ukraine but come on these companies are making record profits in the trillions and hundreds of billions of dollars. Inflation is at 7.2% in Australia, as of November 2022, and the Reserve Bank tips it to reach 8% by the end of the year. The cost of living for essential items like energy and food have gone up substantially. The RBA is rising interest rates to dampen demand within the economy.
It is sometimes difficult to know what to do to get your website working effectively for your business. Finding the right words for your website can be challenging. What to say and how to say it are perennial questions for small business owners and operators. Going down the path of organic SEO can open up a whole lot of questioning worms. Although ultimately it will save you a lot of money and deliver better results in terms of attracting business via your digital presence. It will also focus you on the key words and search terms your potential customers are using.
Creating SEO enhanced content for your website is like anything else in life, there are no instant answers. You can pay others to do it for you. There is no shame in employing experts to establish a body of work on and around your digital presence. However, do not think you can pay peanuts for this utilising ESL writers via low budget SEO companies. You get what you pay for in this life! Remember this truism, as we go further forward into this article. Ultimately, becoming a better creator of SEO enhanced content yourself will best serve your interests.
The Republican party, that GOP, has been bought by Trump and his MAGA forces. In less than 10 years, an American political institution has been brought to its knees by extremists. Donald Trump’s America took over the GOP. Whatever gravitas it may have possessed is long gone, along with respect and common sense. It is now a party with no soul and no appetite for decency or the rule of law. Donald Trump, the property developer and reality TV celebrity, has imbued the traditional party of the right with his own brand of lunacy and grievance politics. A cult has formed around the leader of this once great party, a cult made up of disgruntled, overweight, non-college educated Americans, in the main. Folk who feel like they missed out on the great American dream.
The 2 party preferred system in Australia locks the nation into this dualistic cage where important stuff doesn’t get done. Partisan politics prevents progress. That’s a lot of ‘P’s’ and it pisses me off! Currently, we have a Labor government in the thick of a housing and cost of living crisis. On the other side, we have Peter Dutton doing his best Tony Abbott impression as a wrecker in Opposition. Dutton has taken the Liberal party to the extreme edge of centre right by doing stuff like running a disinformation campaign during the Voice referendum debate – spreading fear and polarising the population. You get the distinct sense that Dutton looks to Donald Trump for ideas and inspiration.
I want to start this article by acknowledging the wonderful speech given by John Longmire at the Sydney Swan’s Club Championship dinner. That speech inspired me to write this piece. Sydney and the Black Swan Grand Final event. Hands up who knows what a black swan event is?
If 40% of the American voting age population actually support Donald Trump and intend to vote for him in the coming presidential election what criteria are they basing that on? Donald Trump, in his first administration, fired most of those individuals he chose to work closely with.
I have a confession to make. My football team, the one I support and have done so for the last 30 years, was cruelly smashed in the Grand Final. This, unfortunately, is a repeat performance, as it happened also in 2022. Getting to a GF is no mean feat in and of itself – it is a heck of an achievement. This, paradoxically, makes the experience of seeing your team get thrashed in the ultimate game even worse. Not to make a fist of it but to be wiped off the stage so utterly is a devastating feeling, even for the fan. A gloom descends over one’s life and you feel like wearing a black arm band following such a build up and such a comprehensive defeat.
We measure ourselves against our peers. Australia is a wealthy nation raising little tax revenue, which is revealed by OECD economic research. It is important to state we are not talking about income tax exclusively here but all revenue raising taxation. Considering Australia is in the top 10 wealthiest countries globally it is surprising that we trail our peers like Canada and New Zealand in raising tax revenue annually. Taxes pay for our public services like Medicare, education, our military, and law and order to name a few important of these essential services.
Big congratulations to the Swans for their victory over the Giants at the SCG. It did not look like happening for much of the afternoon, as GWS were on top for three quarters. The Sydney Swans Qualifying Final win report card must pay the ultimate […]
I am sitting there in my armchair trawling through movie possibilities on streaming services. There are a lot of films featuring guns, just in case you have been living in a cave for the last 25 years and may have missed this. Mostly dumb American movies featuring actors brandishing weapons like they are magical talismans. The biggest guns attracting more attention from an adolescent audience that seemingly never grows up. Lots of guys watch flicks with actors playing with toy guns pretending to be baddies and tough hombres. Imagine if they banned guns from the movies – a lot of stupid stuff would never see the light of day.
Productivity in Australia has been on a downward trend for decades. The latest moribund GDP figures for this quarter are not anything particularly new. Yes, interest rates are hurting the economy, as they are supposed to be according to monetary policy in the Reserve Bank’s inflation beating crusade. The greater diminishing productivity trend is, however, an indication of a much deeper problem facing our economy. Successive governments have overseen the concentration of ownership in nearly all of our business sectors. Duopolies have replaced any real competition in our markets and this damages productivity. Capitalism works optimally when there is competition between businesses operating within sectors of the market. These corporate giants have circumvented this by gobbling up their competition via take overs and mergers. The ACCC and ASIC have been asleep at the wheel in preventing the overconcentration of corporate power in Australia.
Heaven help us and let it burn. If the sector is so moribund that it has come to this, I do not think that governments should prop it up. Australians do not want to be assailed morning and night with ads from largely overseas owned corporate bookmakers. What kind of country are we living in? Aussies lose $25 billion a year gambling! That is a lot of money, to state the obvious. Do we have too much money and are we too dumb to care? If free to air TV is dependent upon gambling ad revenue? Surely, something is wrong with the business and, perhaps, it has reached its use by date.
