I am writing to you from Bergamo, Italy, at the heart of the coronavirus crisis. The news media in the US has not captured the severity of what is happening here. I am writing this post because of each of you, today, not the government, not the school district, not the mayor, each individual citizen has the chance, today to take actions that will deter the Italian situation from becoming your own country’s reality. The only way to stop this virus is to limit contagion. And the …
Category: Informed Comment
Australia’s economic growth improves, but hold the champagne. Economic headwinds? Not really. Economy stronger than the OECD, Europe, Canada and the UK? Errr … no. Strong jobs growth? Sorry, no. Alan Austin runs his ruler over the latest quarterly accounts.
via Australia’s economic growth improves, but hold the champagne – Michael West
The Liar from the Shire has sunk to new depths – ok, maybe not new – with his ridiculous claim that “Emissions today are 50 million tonnes less on average each year under our government than under the previous government.”
This crap should be used in school maths classes as an example of how data can be manipulated to mislead.
The latest release tracking Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions includes a table of emissions for each financial year.
Emissions to the end of June 2007 were 627.0 Mt CO2-e. Six years later, they were 537.6, and 533.9 a year after that when the carbon price was repealed in 2014.
In the year ending September 30, 2019, they were 530.8.
To save you doing the sums, under Labor policies, emissions reduced by over 93 Mt CO2-e. Since the Coalition “axed the tax” almost six years ago, emissions have reduced by about 3 Mt CO2-e.
But hey ScottyFromMarketing, run with that line if you want. Get Angus to say it too.
Because we ALL know how trustworthy you two are.
Remarkable, is it not? Trump is openly dismissive of the experts and the number they have announced because what he says is true because he is Donald Trump. He identifies it as ‘coronaflu’ and not a virus. My favourite part of the summary is his suggestion that people with the disease return to work. Not only is this fundamentally irresponsible from a medical perspective, it also shows a quite callous disregard for the sick. The President is effectively saying ‘GET BACK TO WORK!’. He simply lacks the empathy (like a certain Prime Minister I could name) to offer human responses. All he can see is the consequences for him and his fellow rich people. Ordinary people do not enter into the equation.
via Ideology Über Alles: The White House and COVID-19 – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Since 2002, Quinn showed, the most productive Australian firms (the top 5 per cent) had not kept pace with the most productive firms globally. In fact, Australia’s ‘productivity frontier’ has slipped back by about one-third. The best of ‘Made in Australia’ hasn’t kept pace with the best of ‘Made in Germany’, ‘Made in the Netherlands’ or even ‘Made in America’.”
And then there’s the other 95 per cent. In the past two decades, their output per hour worked has barely risen. So 19 out of 20 Australian firms don’t produce much more per hour than they did when Sydney hosted the Olympics.
A Productivity Commission study has found that half the slowdown in productivity improvement in the market economy in recent years is accounted for by manufacturing. A separate survey of management practices in manufacturing firms found that Australia’s managers rank below those in Canada, Sweden, Japan, Germany and the US.
The drop we’ve experienced is “not the fault of employees: there are simply fewer good opportunities available. According to Treasury’s analysis, much of the drop in job-switching is because workers are less likely to transition from mature firms to young firms. With fewer start-up firms, it stands to reason that there are fewer start-up jobs.”
Other parties are not like this.
Whenever you hear someone say “they’re all the same”, point out they are repeating deliberate Liberal Party propaganda.
The myth of sameness is precisely what enables the Liberals to get away with this corruption.
They are counting on people to believe this crap is business as usual – so One Nation, Palmer and now the Greens – can funnel preferences to them with no one even thinking about how important it is to put the Liberals last on their ballot paper.
Don’t let this country develop a culture of corruption. Kick them out.
Once more – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
*’fora’ for the pedantic!
via The enemy is at our door! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Economic growth has halved, debt has rocketed, but the share market is up and bond yields have collapsed. Female representation in Cabinet is down to one quarter, yet women on top boards have edged up to nearly 35%. This is the MW30, a quarterly snapshot of Australia.
via Scott Morrison Scorecard: before Triple Black Swan of bushfires, floods and virus – Michael West
Marles refused even to offer a position on the inherent desirability of new coal-fired power stations, leaving Anthony Albanese to clean it up the next day by saying “I don’t think there’s a place for coal-fired power plants in Australia, full stop”. Now we learn of a group of some 20 pro-coal Labor MPs (including nine frontbenchers), calling themselves the OTIS group, meeting in secret without Albanese and with the aim of bringing Labor to a more coal-friendly position.
Whether this is merely an informal gathering or a more concerted lobbying attempt, it underscores Labor’s limitations on climate politics. This is a fifth of the party who probably see far greater political peril for Labor in distancing itself from coal than in making peace with it.
Related Article
Coal-fired generation in the EU declined by a quarter, helped by a drop in gas prices and higher carbon costs under the EU’s emission trading system.
Exclusive
Superannuation
Super giants funnel billions into fossil fuels, vote down climate pushSo, politically, what exactly has this summer changed? The Coalition is still split on the issue, meaning that a serious climate policy is not an option because it will tear the government apart from within. Meanwhile, it’s unclear precisely where the current policy vacuum will hurt them electorally.
And Labor seems to agree enough with that assessment to continue to be spooked by the damage it sustained last year in coal-mining seats. It’s worth monitoring how this evolves from here, because right now, the signs are that this is the summer that changed everything in politics, except what really counts.
via It feels like an upheaval, but precious little has changed
Hang the names out so we can see them (ODT)
We don’t want another party vying for a centre that keeps moving further to the right. We want people with integrity who make decisions based on expert advice about the best interests of the nation, not on how to appeal to people who will never vote for you.
Trump easily avoided a guilty verdict in his Senate trial for abuse of power and obstruction of justice and, in the same week, was praised by Republicans for a State of the Union address in which he didn’t fall off the stage. Dr Martin Hirst reports.
Sports rorts. Unlawful robo-debts. More than $80m in election donations. Is this the governance we want?
What we need it would seem is not a Sovereign Fund but a Global one.(ODT)
When BHP calls nickel a once in a lifetime investment opportunity, it pays to take notice. At stake is the future of mining in Australia. So, it’s time to learn from history, writes Tosh Szatow. Let’s not squander the next boom, electrification, like the last, a minerals boom whose profits were whisked offshore by a cabal of multinational tax avoiders.
This computerized debacle also deepens concerns about the DNC’s apparent digital incompetence in the face of the extremely sophisticated, hugely funded online campaign already underway from Trump and his high-tech backers.
Iowa 2020 is the ultimate early warning: We can do better. With Donald Trump ready for another apocalyptic term, our survival depends on it.
via Iowa Should Be a Warning — It’s Time to Switch to Paper Ballots | The Smirking Chimp
If what happens in courtrooms across the country to poor people of color is justice, what is happening in the Senate is a trial. If the blood-drenched debacles and endless quagmires in the Middle East are victories in the war on terror, our military is the greatest on earth. If the wholesale government surveillance of the public, the revoking of due process and having the world’s largest prison population are liberty, we are the land of the free. If the president, an inept, vulgar and corrupt con artist, is the leader of the free world, we are a beacon for democracy and our enemies hate us for our values. If Jesus came to make us rich, bless the annihilation of Muslims by our war machine and condemn homosexuality and abortion, we are a Christian nation. If formalizing an apartheid state in Israel is a peace plan, we are an honest international mediator. If a meritocracy means that three American men have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, we are the land of opportunity. If the torture of kidnapped victims in black sites and the ripping of children from their parents’ arms and their detention in fetid, overcrowded warehouses, along with the gunning down of unarmed citizens by militarized police in the streets of our urban communities, are the rule of law, we are an exemplar of human rights.
olddogthoughts 
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