Jerry_Atrick

I guess Dave Allen's take on dog albitey is such that he was always guaranteed mere mortality. Shame, as one of the best comedians about. My kids watch him and keel over (laughing) every time...

Hmm.. control of the press.. more 1930s, or curren day Russian and Chinese beheaviour... Is this the beginning of the end of the "free" world? Ironic he isn't going after Fox, which has been successfully sued for promoting fake news in relation to Chump.

Chump is now extorting Harvard, by witholding funding unless it curbs political discourse. Columbia University already relented, but Harvard is standing firm at the moment. Chump is also curtailing the first amendment by trying to cut out publoc consutlation on laws. 1930s coming back now.

I traveled to Pittsburgh about a week after 9/11. When I was leaving, I presented my boaridng pass to the check in, which was the return leg to London. The check in clerk asked me for my onward ticket home. I was a little perlexed so I asked her if I needed to show a pre-booking for a taxi, or a train ticket or something.. She said, "No, sir. You have an Australian passport. We would like to see your ticket home." Dumbfounded, I responded, "I live in London.. Doesn't America allow temporary work visas?" She had to call her supervisor to validate it was OK to let me get on the plane. A couple of weeks later I had to go to San Francsisco (head office of the company I was working for). On the way out, as one passed through security, there were a bunch of home guard fellas dressed in their fatigues and wielding M-16s. Obviosuly, if someone was found to have a fork in their carry-omn, they were to have it confisgated, and I guess they were there to make it known if you try a runner, you aren't going to get very far without being shot. After I collected my laptop bag, I walked past them to the gift shops, many of which were selling pocket knives amongst other implements. The US has always been nuts when it comes to travel.

I have to admit, there are parts of London that do seem like a foreign country.. Especially in the South East. Muy niece's grandfather (from my sis lin law's side) is an English diplomat that has a hankering for foreign women.. seems apropo, I guess. So my sis in law's mum was, I think Lebanese, from the time he was based there. His second wife is African and up until recently, they lived in a suburb of SE London. I gave my niece a lift and when we got there, it was like crossing a border and driving into a different country. It really was an eye opened, and I know Melbourne had its enclaves, but this was something else. Having said that, like our cities, it is localised. Like many large cities in progressive countries, there is immigration. When I'm on the train from SW London to Walterloo, and on the tube, there sppears to be a decent mix of locals and immigrants. Same in the office. My team is a little heavier on immigrants, but two of those are Aussies...

When people allege the Brits are bigoted racists for voting Brexit, I point to this. If you look at all the electorates that voted Brexit, they were downtrodden. I was in a pub shortly after the vote talking to a small business owner that imports car parts from Germany and how he apologised for Britain being racist. I challenged him on it, and his response was, as per the press, that they were more worried about voting to boot out EU immigrants than to vote for their economic prosperity.. I explained that if he looked at where those votes cam from, they are already not enjoying the benefits of economic prosperity. All they see are the South East fat cats and European bureaucrats taking the prosperity while sending Eastern Europeans in to take their jobs. So, when they were sending their protest vote, they couldnt care about the economic outcomes, because it would affect them. Chumpism is the same thing. The red belt are poor states and poor people. Typically the least likely to be represented by the Republicans, but they see no hope from those that wold normally represent them. Yet, Biden presided over the best performing economy in relative terms - its just it wasn't shared. Reform (Farages party) are on track to becoming the main opposition ahead of the conservatives to the point the latter are starting to entertain talks with them merging. If Starmer and his team are not careful (and the article is framed in the savings his treasurer, Rachel Reeves has framed her Spring economic statement), Reform will probably assume power of the country one or two elections sooner than they planned. I thought it was ironic, after formally exiting the EU, the Home Office awarded a French company the contract to print British Passports, taking it away from a British company and sending them broke and their employees out of work.

Very Aston Martin-y, but I asked Chapt GPT to do concept sketches, and models of a sporty tourer with European lines but Aussie ruggedness. Heres what it did: And then the model: And, of course, right hand drive: And I like the two tone of the right hand drive much better... Not exactly what I was wanting, but not a bad effort for 1/2 hour... It even suggested a model name of Australis GT..

Here are some things you shoudl think about when voting: #

Youre both right.. To them, the number on their consolidated investments in whats important. Any primary concern of covering costs was long forgotten for them.

It's a state of mind. I was a project analyst on a what was then the worlds largest corporate bond issue at £76bn, to observe potential conduct risk scenarios to put in system to prevent it.. I got to know our deal lead very well and I was talking to him and asking what sort of comission he woudl earn. It was a tidy sum, and I said I oonly need to do that once and I would be happy. His response was that is why I will never make it as a deal originator - not greedy enough.

Actually, with the notable exception of Victoria, the conservative parties in the the US, Canada, NZ, Australia, and the UK are the ones who usually incur heaviest debt on a marginal basis. And even Dan Andrews is not that big on the scale of things but the problem is, Victoria has little head room for tax receipts beyond where they are now. What I can guarantee is that a nutcase party like Trumpets of Patriots would do far worse for the economy than any of the majors. Like Chump, they see tax breaks for the super rich as key to their plank, and of course, Clive will have uber low borrowing costs (AAA rating of the Aussie government) that would be funneled to his own private interests. If you for a minute think you will be better off under them, then you would really have to question your definition of being better off, which I would guess involves seeing others becoming worse off. If it were me today, assuming there is no stellar independent in my electorate and I wanted the best for the economy and social cohesion (including getting to a consumer bureau), ALP seems to be the more sane party, though I will admit that they are reducing themselves to cheap vote buying tactics as well.. Feeding the chooks is a time tried and tested method, it seems. Dutton just plays populist and the government he was part of previously has a horrid track record of economic mismanagement as well as open corruption, even before COVID struck. I would have put Greens up there, but they seem to have governance problems (as do the Libs).

He s one of my favourite musicians... This is may favourite song of his, but to be honest, most are so good, it is splitting hairs. Though, I can relate to this a bit from my consulting days where I travelled for months on end...

I find this fella usually has a balanced take on things:

Yeah.. but he is talking the chooks into thinking they will get ore feed than they actually will... From my perspective, most people are probably thinking too little too late for alleviating the cost of living increase; aka inflation.

I read that Albo is offering to increase the receipt free tax deduction from $300 to $1,000. Of course, unless it takes you below the tax free personal allowance, it is not a full $1,000 tax refund; it is proportional to the tax you pay. So, you will get back between c. $800 to $650 depending on your tax rate. Nothing to sneeze at. But, I cant help bet think Duttons petrol relief will mean more to more families.

There is a worldwide conservative movement: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/pan-conservativi-a-new-global-conservative-reality/ And of course, JP had attended their international conferences. At the moment, the movement seems to be centering around Chump. Hopefully, any wannabe MAGAmaniac in Australia (and the UK) sees beyond the hollow promises. Dutton has been distancing himself from JPs shenanigans, presumably because he sees it as a vote loser.

As my daughter says: KIA: killed in action

Canada also targeted imports from red states, albeit tariff based rather than banning them. But individual provinces removed US products from booze shops where the government controlled sales

I may have previously submitted this, but jeez this bloke is good:

We have consistently failed to look beyond the next election (or erection.. I am not entirely sure)

Of course, not.. remember the Republican stacked Supreme Court ruled something like the president can't be criminally liable for any action while in office. Also, despite some damning evidence post his last time in office, they took forever to bring any charges and now all that work seems a waste of money

Hmmm This may change your mind a little on the plausibility: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-billionaire-profits-dropped-tariffs-b2731386.html Of course, I haven't fact checked it, and there may be nuance's that make it more doubtful, but Chump would have known the effects of pausing given the effects of implementing... And In any case, there is no general requirement to prove mens rea (guilty mind) in a market manipulation case.. As long as you conducted it, you are generally liable. Proximity to the public company (you can have inside trading on private companies, where they have publicly issued bonds, for example) does not generally come into the question of insider trading. It is a question of whether you are trading on asymmetric information - i.e. material non-public information. The material bit means would it affect the rice investors are willing to pay if they have that information. Now, technically, there is another type of market abuse called front running, which for all intents and purposes is the same.. And there are many cases where say a trader or executive's friends and/or relatives have been convicted of insider trading even though they have nothing to do with the company (officially called the issuer), but have been in receipt of that material non-public information when they have traded. But, I don't think this is insider trading because it doesn't pertain to any one issuer. It is a mass movement of the market prices amongst a lot of companies/issuers. So there is another market abuse scenario, trash and cash - where you take action (usually through rumours, but POTUS has more levers to pull than traders), and then buy up when you have trashed the market. Then the levers to trash the market have stopped being pulled and the market returns to its normal price.. you have earned a nice little profit, and if, in starting out with the tariffs this was not his intention, one can't help but think that pausing them he and his cohorts would have known the effect and if they traded ahead of him doing it, knowing he would do it, that would be the crime of market abuse through trash and cash. If he gave anyone a reasonable indication that he was going to pause the tariffs, and they traded on it before he announced it, then they are likely guilty of market abuse and should go to jail given the sums involved, with extra penalties for abusing the mechanisms of the USA as well as the position of privilege (the POTUS) to commit it . Also, Chump would be guilty even if he didn't trade for facilitating it and not taking the requisite steps to ensure they did not trade on that information.

BTW, some economic commentators are framing this story as market manipulation on a grand scale - effectively insider trading or trash and cash - take your pick Chump knew when her was going to pause the tariffs, likely to know that they would have resulted in a rally on the stock market, posted on his social media site that now is a good time to buy and some other cryptic message he is about to make an announcement. And hey presto - he makes the announcement, stocks go up, lots of people profit.

Don't count on it...