Marty_d

Apparently Claude is good enough to convince Richard Dawkins, possibly the world's most recognisable atheist, that it's conscious. Utter BS, of course.

It's not just housing. The ratio of working age people to retirees continues to drop. It's only fair that income from assets is taxed at the same rate as income from labour.

So when circumstances change, you would rather the government of the day either stuck to their election promises or call an election every time they needed to pivot? What the hell do we elect them for then? When Howard and Costello brought in the CGT discount in 1999 (from which the wealthiest 10% get 80% of the benefit), did they take it to an election?

Good article by Saul Eslake correcting some misinformation that's doing the rounds about Jim Chalmers' budget. I think it's a step in the right direction, and good on them for having the courage. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2026/may/19/death-tax-startups-and-a-rent-spike-its-time-to-correct-misleading-claims-about-labors-budget

What a lovely thought! Let's just hope the next White house resident is more like Obama, and not a Trump-like replacement.

It's far easier to count the number of times he's told the truth. You don't even need to take your shoes off.

Wealth accumulates wealth. You can't tell me Gina "earned" 40 bill. With that saying of yours, I'd be asking where the "someone else" got their money, because it was most likely them or their ancestor being a robber baron.

Oh, how's that? I'd really love to know how the government works out who voted for them and distributes what it's "taken from everyone" to those people only. You've obviously lived through more governments than me, but I've lived through 3 worse governments than this - Howard, Abbott and Morrison.

This is an interesting read. Stick with it, it's long but puts it all in perspective. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/17/america-china-energy-oil-renewables

It would have been interesting to be a (Chinese speaking) fly on the wall in the Chinese planning sessions leading to Trump's visit. I reckon he'd have some unflattering nicknames.

Everything except 3 and 5. He has no knowledge nor science, but still lacks character and humanity.

Well, you've just put yourself on an ASIO watchlist OT!

What sort of scrap bins do you hang around?? That's high quality scrap!

He's a petty little man. Reckon he must have been a bully at school. This article sums up his (and his family's) profiting from his position. The extent of corruption and fraud is breathtaking. Any one thing he's done, if it had been any previous president doing it, would have led to impeachment and possibly jail. But he just does it so constantly that it's the new normal. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/14/trump-drain-the-swap-billionaires

Yep - banks don't lose value for long.