Saturday salon 1/12

1. How not to run a party or a government

Malcolm Turnbull in announcing a royal commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, to be led by former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne, told us that the inquiry was entirely unnecessary, but the government was a couple of seats short and had effectively lost control of the agenda.

Chris Bowen, shadow treasurer, formally wrote to his counterpart Scott Morrison (AFR, pay-walled), saying that the inquiry was neither far-reaching enough nor adequately resourced, that there had been inadequate consultation over the terms of reference, plus the deliberate targeting of union-dominated industry superannuation funds – a political strategy which diminished its credibility.

His letter leaves open the threat of another inquiry should the government’s not be deemed comprehensive enough.

Phillip Coorey in an article The Nationals have visited ruin upon Malcolm Turnbull again (pay-walled) said the current mess was really due to Joyce’s leadership style, or lack of it. Joyce has crossed the floor more than 20 times and is hardly a model for collegiate governance. Coorey said that Warren Truss, apart from gold-plating his electorate (Wide Bay, based on Gympie), would have quelled the rebellion, or gone to Turnbull much earlier, saying that a banking inquiry was inevitable and best make it look like it’s a government mind-change for whatever reason.

Truss, he said, was a leader although no-one knew he was there. Joyce is very publicly there, but is all over the place.

David Marr today said about 7% of the population vote for the Nationals, probably fewer than One Nation.

2. Edging towards same-sex marriage

Here’s Dennis Altman with How the same-sex marriage vote will impact on human rights and democracy:

    Labor is managing its divisions smartly: clearly the handful of anti-marriage MPs were told they could vote no provided they did nothing to delay or water down the legislation. The same is not true of the government parties, where the marriage debate is caught up in the increasing febrile battles for control.

    There will be further attempts in the lower house to introduce “religious freedom” protections into the legislation, despite the fact that it already exempts religious institutions from having to perform same-sex marriages.

    In fact, the amendments the right seeks are largely attempts to water down existing anti-discrimination provisions.

Then we have:

The same-sex marriage bill passed the Senate 43-12 on last Wednesday.

Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke said the bill should be moved through the House of Representatives this week in the same form it passed in the Senate. There is a chance that the whole thing may not be resolved in this session of parliament, which would wreck a lot of wedding plans currently being made.

Turnbull introduced the notion of amendments once again by saying they were unnecessary.

3. Real wages are falling and the RBA doesn’t know what to do

PD Jonson is former head of research at the Reserve Bank of Australia and a former company director. He is currently writing his second book. In an AFR opinion piece he explained that since the GFC in 2008 labour growth has been low-productivity growth and there is serious doubt about official labour market statistics:

    In developed nations, governments have opted for definitions of unemployment that make things look better than they really are. For over a decade, Roy Morgan Research (and myself) have been pointing this out. The latest Roy Morgan survey shows 2.3 million Australians unemployed or underemployed. In percentages of the workforce, this is 9.5 per cent unemployed and 8.5 per cent underemployed, well above the official 5.4 per cent unemployment figure. Hardly shooting the lights out.

He says that the Reserve Bank, the Treasury and the Government comprise a big sheltered workshop. No-one knows what to do, so they keep telling us stories. Here is a graph of the RBA wage-price index forecasts against what really happened:

He says:

    A correct narrative from government would be honest about the battle Australia faces to create some genuine approximation to full employment, with strong productivity growth and a budget surplus. Not the minuscule surpluses currently forecast, but a real and growing surplus based on hard work, productivity-increasing economic reform, increased investment and household spending restraint.

Whatever that might mean.

4. FLOTUS gets ready for Christmas

POTUS Donald Trump has been having a fun time tweeting as usual. So we’ve had:

The sum of all that is:

    “I think this is real dangerous shit,” says David Livingstone Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of New England, who specializes in the history of dehumanization and who authored a book on the topic called Less than Human.

    “This is scary shit,” echoes Jason Stanley, a professor at Yale and author of the book How Propaganda Works, whose father fled Nazi Germany in 1939.

Meanwhile:

    In what we would be concerned was a cry for help, had the Trump women not consistently proven themselves to be enthusiastic collaborators in the family’s stunningly inept attempt at a fascist takeover of the United States, today Melania Trump followed up her own personal Suspiria reboot by unveiling this, um, festive holiday decor:

And:

Here’s Suspiria 1977 and remake Suspiria 2018.

31 thoughts on “Saturday salon 1/12”

  1. “””A correct narrative from government would be honest about the battle Australia faces to create some genuine approximation to full employment, with strong productivity growth and a budget surplus. Not the minuscule surpluses currently forecast, but a real and growing surplus based on hard work, productivity-increasing economic reform, increased investment and household spending restraint.”””
    I think he’s telling Government to be honest, stop bashing the shite out of businesses and encourage saving over debt from the Fed to the individual.

  2. If you’re a bit like me a like cricket and not dwelling in the commentary of just one side, I suggest Guerrilla Cricket.
    It’s commentary from London and extremely tragic.

    https://www.guerillacricket.com/

    I’m on the App but apparently they’re on that Facebook thing too.

  3. Also Triple M is a huge larf.
    Kerry O’Keefe is there and Micky Robins.
    Straight off the radio.

    If they could delay their telecast by about 9 seconds it’d be in sinc with the Win vision.

  4. On PD Jonson, the main clue I’ve got is that he says he was there and liked what Hawke government did:

    As a minister in the Whitlam government once said: “One man’s wage increase is another man’s job”, or words to that effect. The Hawke government accepted that logic and the unions agreed at Bob Hawke’s Economic Summit, which I attended as a ‘Sherpa’. Jobs grew.

    Also he reckons the last four PMs have been duds.

    FWIW.

  5. I’m working through that list you put up zoot.
    Still haven’t found any blog ( that one can comment on and get banned) that is Libertarian.

    You didn’t check did you ?
    Cheap easy gotcha that no one would look into right?

    Any who, there may be a real McCoy in that 100, thanks.

  6. Hey, one list at a time dude.
    The first list seems like a dud.
    I’m beginning to doubt your authenticity in this.

  7. Geez Louise BilB, booted from Catallaxy!!

    The only miscreants Ive seen banned from there have either made Professor Davidson fear legal trouble, been a serial racist or constantly target women.

    What on Earth did you say ?
    What monicker did you use there, perhaps I can help ?

  8. Applied rational thinking, Jumpy, persistently applied. They just don’t like their misinformation being exposed.

  9. Yeah, na, that doesn’t pass the sniff test.
    Sinc is extremely tolerant of anyone expressing any information.
    In fact libertarians hold free speech as a foundation of society which made me a touch sceptical of your claim of banishment in the first place.

    Again, what monicker did you use ?
    I’ll judge for myself useing the primary data ( your exact words )

  10. Unlike yourself, Jumpy, I am always BilB.

    “In fact libertarians hold free speech as a foundation” ha ha ha!
    ohh you’ve got to be kidding.

    I’ll think that you will find that is free speech for themselves, not any one else.

  11. Oh, ok I’ll check it out.
    And not kidding about the free speech thing, you might be confused with LP and it’s like.

  12. That’s strange. I searched BilB, bilb and Bilb but nothing.
    Obviously I’m not doing it correctly if that part of BilBs story is real.

  13. And not kidding about the free speech thing

    Of course you are.
    No libertarian defended Yassmin Abdel-Magied and her right to freedom of speech. Not even you.

  14. Nonsense zoot, she can say what she said, in fact she repeated it, despite apologising the first time, on Remembrance Day.
    I’m free to criticise her for it, both times.

    I defend both her and my right to free speech.

  15. I also defend free speech for your little masked antifa singers.
    Just not their violence and vandalism.

  16. I defend both her and my right to free speech.

    My statement stands.
    You conceded her right to free speech, but no libertarian I am aware of defended it.
    They were all too busy exercising their right to howl her down criticise her.

  17. Just going back to PD Jonson, I would have reservations about putting him in charge of the economy. He seemed to think John Howard and Peter Costello did a good job.

    They were the people who told us we should spend more, save more and work for less, then everything would be fine.

    However, his graph about the Reserve bank forecasts are a bit hard to overlook.

  18. Good observation, zoot, there is the (libertarian) empathy (lack of) connection.

    My experience of Libertarians (blog sites) is that they really don’t like having their views challenged, discussion very quickly (and freedomly) turns to personal abuse.

  19. BTW

    Can somebody please explain why the US President believes he can decide the location of the capital of Israel?

  20. Zoot

    My statement stands.
    You conceded her right to free speech, but no libertarian I am aware of defended it.
    They were all too busy exercising their right to howl her down criticise her.

    Perhaps you didn’t look with both eyes. Both can’t de done in one sentence.
    ” I defend her right to say any disrespectful dross she wants and also my right of reply in kind. ”

    BilB
    Useing the ‘ empathy deficit ‘ insult again I see, ironically in a comment about others being abusive over challenged views.

  21. Perhaps you didn’t look with both eyes. Both can’t de done in one sentence.

    That’s not any form of English that I recognise so I have no idea what you are trying to say.
    But I defend your right to say it.
    i.e. I will not argue with it or cast aspersions on the thinking behind it or your motives for saying it. And should anybody else cast aspersions I will not agree with them, but I will point out to them that you have the right to express yourself freely.

  22. Ah yes stupid iPad and girthy index phalange !
    Both can be done

    But I defend your right to say it.
    i.e. I will not argue with it or cast aspersions on the thinking behind it or your motives for saying it. And should anybody else cast aspersions I will not agree with them, but I will point out to them that you have the right to express yourself freely.

    So that the standard you set for yourself is it ?

  23. Ambi, you are going to like the board game I am developing, its called Termangle. You have the gift.

  24. Thanks BilB

    Will this be a commercial venture, or will you give it away free through the chain of Libertarian Opp Shops, which support tax avoiders who have fallen on hard times?

    Ambi

  25. It is commercial, Ambi, but the other option you outline is so tempting, my heart really goes out to those guys!

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