But there’s now evidence companies are raising their prices over and above the increase in those costs.
“There’s no doubt that corporations have taken advantage of the supply chain problems and the desperation of consumers to jack up prices far more than required to cover their own costs, and their record profits have made this inflation far worse,” economist Jim Stanford, from the Centre for Future Work, told The Drum.
“A country where the prime minister appoints all the judges and is responsible for promoting and firing them has a name, it’s called a dictatorship. When this prime minister is also a defendant who the state of Israel is accusing of serious crimes, it has a name, it’s called a dictatorship of criminals.”
Source: Israel has Always Been a Dictatorship of Criminals – CounterPunch.org
As China grows and prospers many in the US want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the US itself pursued- global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home.
But the record so far suggests that China is different.
Source: The US sees China through the dark mirror of its own unbridled aggression. – Pearls and Irritations
One might well ask if Jacinda Ardern saw her anti- nuke stand as an “aftermath” of the 1985 Rainbow Warrior event after 35 years. I believe her response would have been “bullshit”.
As for Morrison’s Aussie and now Albo’s “tolerance” that seems like “gilding the lily” to the ALP’s misfortune. It has inherited some very damaging perspectives from a decade of the Abbott/Turnbull/ Morrison LNP that can’t be simply be turned around after 9 months.
During this time the Murdochian/ Conservative/Mainstream media stamp and influence has been in place for well over ten years telling us Muslims and China are the enemies. Something that hasn’t been the case in NZ. The Australian LNP depends heavily on cultural “fear” to maintain its status as a government and “win” at all costs, their sole strategy. Culture and identity politics was the focus of a government that didn’t want a magnifying glass put on its economic management for the interests of a particular class rather than the nation. Indigenous Australia and Robodebt ( kicking dole bludgers) are just proof that enemies had to be found or rather fabricated in every aspect of our white Christian European monarchist colonist lives. The Albanese government must find a diplomatic way to dig us out of the hole the LNP created in the eyes of the world and at home this past dark decade.
There was not a ripple of public dissent between the two leaders over NZ’s continuing ban on the entry of nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered vessels into NZ ports. This policy was restated by the visiting NZ Prime Minister. Prime Minister Albanese remained committed to Australia’s participation in AUKUS and to negotiations over the acquisition of nuclear submarines from the US and Britain.
The failure to prosecute American officials and other powerful nations for war crimes has created a jurisdictional mess.
It seems clear at this point that the Biden administration’s position is that increasing Ukraine’s military capacity is a win-win scenario: Even if Kyiv does not expel Moscow’s forces and retake of all of its territory — including Crimea — as Zelenskyy has stated is the central objective, the proxy war will nonetheless deliver a series of potent punches to the vital organs that constitute Vladimir Putin’s reign. Russia will continue to sacrifice the lives of its soldiers and deplete its economic and military capacity — and Putin will be weakened internally and internationally. The goal is that one way or another, Putin loses without having to sacrifice U.S. or NATO lives.
But what if none of that happens? What if Putin survives this brutal war with his grip on power intact? What if Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was right when he said last November that a Ukrainian victory “is maybe not achievable through military means”? What if Ukraine is forced to accept a negotiated solution where it formally concedes the loss of its territory? What type of accountability could then be brought to bear for Putin’s decision to invade a neighboring country?
Referendum- Does the Constitution need to be changed? Or remain racial?
Peter Dutton and his media cabal notwithstanding, The Voice is a well-considered and “detailed” proposition put forward by Indigenous Australians — just respect it. Managing editor Michelle Pini provides the “detail”.
Source: Pipe down on The Voice, your White privilege is showing
News Corp shedding jobs in a market demanding jobs. Signs aren’t looking good For the Murdochs who have invested heavily in gambling
Last month Murdoch scrapped a decade-long ambition to reunite News Corp and Fox after opposition from investors and youngest son James.
will Aston be people upset with Alan Tudge for leaving them, upset with the rising cost of living, upset that Dan Andrews isn’t PM, or upset that Josh wouldn’t stand for them? Who knows, but we live in interesting times!
What an odd thing to say with the ALP at the helm during this period of interest rises is Dutton finally saying it’s the LNP’s fault?
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton admits it will be an uphill battle to retain the Victorian seat of Aston following the resignation of former minister Alan Tudge.
“It is a tough seat for us to hold, there’s no question about that, and there are lots of families there, though, who are really feeling the pain of their mortgages,” he told the Nine Network’s Today program on Friday.”
Source: Retaining Alan Tudge’s seat will be tough, says Dutton – Michael West
The International Energy Agency, in a new report that is just out, estimates that 90% of new global electricity demand through 2025 will be met by low-carbon sources — renewables and nuclear. It is mostly renewables, but the report mentions the French bringing their reactors back on line and the building of a few new nuclear plants in China, Japan, India and South Korea.
Source: IEA: Renewables plus Nuclear are able to meet 90% of Globe’s New Electricity demand Through 2025
If Australia’s referendum fails will she stand up and cut ties with Australia? Will Israel tell Australia’s Jews to vote “No”?
“We cannot be silent,” said Colau.
Source: Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau Cuts City’s Ties With Israel Over ‘Crime of Apartheid’
Israel routinely refuses to extradite its own citizens — including people who’ve flown there purely to escape justice. Its Law of Return rewards criminals who can claim a vague connection to Israel, even as it denies innocent Palestinians their homeland.
Source: Israel’s Law of Return Lets Criminals Abroad Run From the Law
Informed Comment
Biden’s speech reminded me of how good a president he has been, especially given what he inherited from the former guy, who made a fetish out of dividing and angering Americans while accomplishing nothing except giving a giant tax cut to big corporations and the rich.
I wasn’t naïve. I knew the system was going to be painful. But trust me, if you aren’t dealing with Centrelink, you don’t know how painful it really is.
Source: Even without Robodebt, Centrelink is a hellscape of cruelty | The Shot
Alleged rapist Bruce Lehrmann, who numerous women have accused of sexual harassment and/or assault, has instituted defamation proceedings against Channel 10, News Corp and journalists Lisa Wilkinson and Samantha Maiden.
The capitalist work ethic insists that we keep our heads down and work endlessly, even if our job is degrading. Democratic socialists want to free workers from drudgery so we can develop our full human potential and simply enjoy the one life we have.
Source: If You Care About Human Freedom, You Should Reject the Capitalist Work Ethic
Artificial intelligence, lethal autonomous weapons, hypersonic missiles, cyber battles: The Arms Control Association rings alarm bells over the rush to develop these and other advanced military technologies.
Political Zionists believed, and continue to believe, that force and violence will lead to security and stability. History is littered with the remains of kingdoms, empires, and rogue states which shared that belief. The truth is that true peace, the peace that repeatedly eludes political Zionists, can only be found through justice. Moreover, it is only through justice and equality that the Jewish homeland can become what so many hoped and dreamed it would become: a center of culture and spiritual revival, a model of coexistence and democracy, and a safe-haven for the oppressed.
Source: The Promise and Failure of Zionism | The Smirking Chimp
This should have been a legitimate question for a politician to ask the British prime minister in the House of Commons. But no sooner had Labour’s Kim Johnson asked it of Rishi Sunak last Wednesday afternoon, during an edition of Prime Minister’s Questions, than she was summoned to the office of her party’s chief whip and ordered to apologize.
Source: Israelis are calling their leaders fascists. Why can’t British politicians?
News Corp Cuts Jobs in a Job positive Market.
Chief executive Robert Thomson described the challenges facing the media company, which locally owns The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun as “more ephemeral than eternal”, but said the company was introducing a range of cost-cutting measures, including a 5 per cent reduction in head count – or 1250 positions across the business. This masthead revealed earlier this week News Corp Australia was planning to cut about $20 million in costs by 2025.
Source: News Corp flags job cuts as revenue, earnings decline
Murdoch’s Model of SOTU America is presented by his GOP anchor
Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivers the rebuttal to the State of the Union Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Tuesday night rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address shows that Republican politicians seem completely unable to deliver a message aimed at audiences beyond the party’s Fox News base.
Nobody is Celebrating
February 9, 2023, marks the centenary of the Coalition Agreement, a milestone in conservative politics that we should note – if only because no one else seems to be doing so.
Source: Will the National and Liberal coalition celebrate its 100 year union?
I guess Tony Abbott would label these “scientists” to the what calls the “group think” club
A group of globally renowned scientists have slammed the NSW government for failing to measure the impact of the 2019 Black Summer bushfires and continuing to log native forests at the same rate as before, even in designated high-risk zones. Callum Foote reports.
Source: Scientists slam NSW Government for high-risk logging since Black Summer bushfires – Michael West
The Catholic Church had an opportunity to showcase to the world that it owns the mistakes of the past. It could have honoured Pell without attacking survivors; but it did not, writes childhood sexual abuse survivor Andrew Collins.
Source: George Pell’s passing cannot cleanse the Catholic Church
When Culture War and Identity Politics really don’t matter and Unity is dictated by one’s relationship to work value and need and survival. Class becomes the definer of who you are not your individuality
Key points:
The strike is the biggest in the NHS’s 75-year history
Workers are asking for a rise to match inflation
The British government is urging workers to call off walkouts
Source: Britain’s NHS workers walk off job in largest strike in organisation’s 75-year history – ABC News
Isn’t Democracy diversity and any effort to undermine that drift to Autocracy? It’s not about trust in government it’s about trust that the elected government appointed by the people acts for all the people and not just the interests of its backers alone. Diversity isn’t division and is expected in a healthy Democracy. The division is when those elected fail to do their job democratically and don’t recognize the voices of those that didn’t vote for them and simply say Nope Nope Nope. Trust slumped but in which government and why?
A global survey finds Australia could be on path towards polarisation, with more people believing the divides in our society are not able to be fixed.
Source: Trust slumps in government and media as division rules, Edelman survey shows – ABC News
My thought for the day
Never in the history of this nation have the rich and the privileged been so openly brazen. (John Lord)
Source: Has capitalism captured the world? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Harvard Law
What else do DeSantis and Cruz have in common? Both graduated from Harvard Law School (DeSantis, class of 2005; Cruz, class of 1995).
So, the two likeliest Republican candidates for president as Trump fades, who have both attacked the legal foundations of American democracy, are the products of the most prestigious law school in the nation.
Source: Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz: The Shame of Harvard Law School | The Smirking Chimp
On trust in government, we now rank 26th worldwide between Greece and Hungary.
Such findings are ominous, for the very bedrock of democracy is trust—including trust that political and economic rules are fair so that our voices are heard. And it’s hard to imagine many of us feel heard when wealth and income continue gushing to the top, generating economic inequality roughly on par with Haiti’s and more extreme than in 121 countries. Plus, most of us express reluctance to share our views for fear of offending others.
Source: The American Crisis of Trust—Let’s Learn from Leading Democracies | The Smirking Chimp
Business has had a ” measurable impact” on the world directed however by Capitalism a relationship system driving the outcome of technologies for the short and not the long term to a man-made set of interests, not values. The fossil fuel, tobacco and arms manufacturers all knew the long-term effects of their “new technologies”. Effects that weren’t going to deliver the best outcomes for the planet or the human race.
Innovation needs to be cultural, economic and social as well as technological to address global issues, so businesses must start producing technology that has a “measurable impact” on the world, writes Paul Budde.
Source: Hi-tech new is not enough, we must create a better future
A hypothetical Referendum question: Do you want Health and Education Improved? Peter Dutton would vote No! Because the Government hasn’t detailed how yet detailing how would constrain any attempt in the Constitution. Dutton is simply frozen in time and space unable to move forward or backwards.
The referendum is our pick of a race. The horse and cart come after, and which cart is to be decided after the question of a necessary race is confirmed. Peter Dutton says do nothing because choosing a horse and cart comes first. He and the LNP have done just that nothing for a decade, 10 years of simply saying Nope Nope Nope and then leaving the ALP to clean up the LNP mess. Dutton did nothing about Housing, Education or Health. In fact, he has voted the worst Health Minister on record along with being nominated the worst Immigration Minister ever and is blaming the ALP after 9 months for the mess we are in. Australia we have been Privatised and are paying and feeling the pain of that pleasure yet again.
The opposition leader said he wanted to see legislation in parliament on what the voice would look like and how the body would operate.
Source: Dutton denies his questions are undermining the voice – Michael West
Abbott believes in God, an all “groupthink” club, but dares to call over 60 years of scientific research inadequate “group think”. Guess his devout fossil fuel shareholders all do too, and he hopes they will fund his return to the top job. Because not fucking anyone other than the IPA and the Mining sector will. They are the largest donors to his personal church of Tony Abbott.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has been welcomed into a leading climate sceptic think tank while calling for more “genuine science” and less “groupthink”.
Source: ‘We need more genuine science’: Abbott joins climate sceptic group
Take advice Australia from the UK
In the UK, housing prices are thankfully forecast to drop this year. But without a serious investment in social housing from the government, the housing crisis isn’t going to end.
Source: The Housing Crisis Will Persist Even If Housing Prices Fall
Given the LNP’s approach “do nothing” privatise the market Chalmers can’t be all wrong if we judge the LNP did a fantastic job these past 10 years for the country. Nope Nope Nope brought them to government, through government and still echoes in opposition. Abbott never really left the LNP or the Monkey Pod Room. However isn’t Value Based Capitalism a partnership that has never really worked?
Thus, instead of the neo-liberal model that relies purely on market prices to determine the allocation of resources, with no interference by the state, Chalmers argues persuasively that his “values-based capitalism”, based on “well-designed and well-informed markets, can “facilitate flows of capital into priority areas, and ultimately make progress on our collective problems and purpose.”
Source: Jim Chalmers manifesto in favour of values-based capitalism – Pearls and Irritations
Chalmer’s Value-Based Capitalism seems to be in the footsteps of Biden’s America. Will we ever truley be able to walk and talk for ourselves. Or do both nations really reflect whats best for their peoples
Biden’s larger achievement has been to change the economic paradigm that has reigned since Reagan. He is teaching America a lesson we once knew but have since forgotten: that the “free market” does not exist. It is designed. It either advances public purposes or it serves the monied interests. Biden’s democratic capitalism is neither socialism nor “big government.” It is, rather, a return to an era when government organized the market for the greater good.
Source: The State of Joe Biden’s Union: The Return to Democratic Capitalism | The Smirking Chimp
State-sponsored piracy has been a UK tradition since the British East India Company
The U.K. stripped the assets of a foreign state and transferred them to political actors engaged in regime change, John McEvoy reports. The result has been a form of collective punishment for people in Venezuela. By John McEvoy Declassified UK In late December, Venezuela’s leading opposition
In late December, Venezuela’s leading opposition parties voted to oust Juan Guaidó as “interim president” and dissolve his parallel government.
This was clearly not the ending the U.K. government had in mind.
Four years ago, the British government made the bold decision to recognise Guaidó as Venezuelan president and proceeded to facilitate his legal battle to seize roughly $2 billion of gold held in the Bank of England.
Indeed, the U.K. government insisted at every turn that it recognised Guaidó — and not Nicolás Maduro — as Venezuelan president. In turn, Guaidó’s lawyers argued that he was authorised to represent and control the assets of the Central Bank of Venezuela held in London.
Throughout this time, Guaidó paid his U.K. legal costs by drawing on millions of dollars of his country’s assets originally seized by the U.S. government. In other words, Guaidó tried to seize Venezuelan state assets with looted Venezuelan state assets.
Meanwhile, it seems certain that the Foreign Office also used a significant amount of public funds to sustain its backing of Guaidó.
Now that Guaidó has been ousted, the legal argument for transferring the gold to the Venezuelan opposition has effectively disintegrated. Despite this, the gold remains frozen in the Bank of England, with no clear resolution in sight.
Illustration by Mr Fish
Terrible predatory forces are eating away at the country. The corporatists, militarists and political mandarins that serve them are the enemy. It is not our job to make them more appealing, but to destroy them. There are amongst us genuine freedom fighters of all ethnicities and backgrounds whose integrity does not permit them to serve the system of inverted totalitarianism that has destroyed our democracy, impoverished the nation and perpetuated endless wars. Diversity when it serves the oppressed is an asset, but a con when it serves the oppressors.
Source: Chris Hedges: Woke Imperialism
Remember the LNP slogan “Privatisation” makes things cheaper? When did that ever happen?
As for how much money it means for the government, Mark Butler also said that the average gap fee for a standard GP consultation is now more than the Medicare rebate for the first time in its 40-year history.
Source: Social repair, especially fixing Medicare, must trump budget repair
Big 4 consultancy PwC has been caught red-handed with partners leaking confidential information, obtained while advising the Federal government on combating tax avoidance, so their multinational clients could avoid tax. As the government ponders its response, Rex Patrick argues it’s time to introduce a procurement black list to deal with corporate cowboys.
Source: Rex Patrick: put PwC top of blacklist for government procurement payments – Michael West
George Pell’s funeral in Sydney has shown clearly the divisions within the Australian community at large, the Catholic Church itself, and the conservative side of politics. It all boils down to whether or not Pell was a decent human being. Aside from the well-known path from obscurity to eminence, there is the ongoing debate as…
George Pell has divided the country, and he will continue to do so. He was found to have facilitated the actions of known pedophiles, by consciously ignoring criminal behaviour, and by moving them on to fresh pastures.
He was charged with sexual offences against children, and eventually acquitted. This does not mean he was innocent. It means that the case was not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
On a moral basis, he spoke of having “not much interest” in hearing accusations against what were his ‘staff’. He seems to have had no understanding of what it takes to manage people, and to protect children. He appears to have had no insight into victims’ suffering, nor that of their family and friends.
For the conservative politicians who are swarming to support Pell, take a look at your own, contradictory position. Abbott, Howard, even Dutton are singing Pell’s praises, while apparently totally ignoring the findings of a Royal Commission.
As politicians they are aware of the legal and moral power of a Royal Commission, and yet two prime ministers and someone wishing to become one, dismiss the institution. I would call that contempt for Parliament, or contempt for logic.
A saint for our times? I would describe Pell as a rather shabby individual who failed on every measure. The fact that the conservative side of politics is now rallying around such a man, proves there is something rotten in our fair land. Children are our most precious resource, and look how they were treated.
Source: Was Pell a decent man? No – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The authors wave a red flag at public-private partnerships, which, despite major failures, continue to be promoted by institutions such as the World Bank to finance social services and infrastructure. By Océane Blavot, Rodolfo Bejarano and Mae Buenaventura in Brussels, Lima and Manila
“Our Future is Public: The Santiago Declaration for Public Services” — an agreement signed by more than 200 organisations vowing to work to “transform our systems, valuing human rights and ecological sustainability over GDP growth and narrowly defined economic gains.”
One of the most damaging initiatives that has deeply affected the delivery of public services and infrastructure projects on all continents is the rise of public-private partnerships, or PPPs.
Source: Building a Public Future
They want to Privatize the Planet but then so did the East India Company which started the ball rolling. It resulted in America’s war of independence. Now the Republicans want to turn back the clock on Independence,
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has voiced support for a Social Security privatization scheme that the George W. Bush administration unsuccessfully pushed nearly two decades ago.
Source: ‘Republicans Keep Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud’: Pence Calls for Privatizing Social Security
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