Jerry_Atrick

Just recently riots were sparked thanks to Farage quoting "reports" of a Muslim refugee teenager having killed a toddler up North. Garage then baited the mob by saying the police, By not naming the accused was agaist British people and for the Muslims. Farage is, and at the time was an MP and knew it was agaist the law to release the name of an accused minor until a charge had been laid. The police had already released the fact they had a minor in custody, and the source of the reports that Farage was relying on was Andrew Tate (if you don't know who he is look him up). Of course Farage didn't disclose the source of the reports but implied they came from official sources given he is an MP. This sparked mass riots against Muslims and their property.. by thugs who went to the area of the murder (none were from the area). While clearly Farage and Tate are insidious, I don't believe all of the rioters or Muslim bashers are.. but just joining in.. I could of course be wrong, but I can't help but think breaking down barriers through education and integration would go a long way The teenager was eventually identified as a local kid with a history of mental illness and not Muslim

@newsaroundme - how is your Pythin coming along? There have been changes at my work, where although I run a risk technology product team (meaning, effectively business analysts to deliver risk management systems), with new senior management, we are going to change a lot over the next couple of years - not that that will impact me as I won't be there too much longer. But one of the things my new manager has hinted at is that she wants us to be both product and development teams, and with AI looming, wants us to pick up Python and the various libraries. As I am sick of management (I have already told my manager I am not interested in a more senior role, as the current one I have is not what I signed up for), I am looking forward to using company time to learn advancec Python and put together an application framework along the lines of numpy, pandas, matplotlib, and scipy, but wondering what AI libraries you are using in your new quest?

Corowa is a sleepy town in the Riverina district of NSW, near the border of Vic. It is a pretty town and a hit with tourists to the region for the Rutherglen winery region as well (does the Rutherglen Red still rattle along)? I have flown into Corowa a few times as an alternative destination to Tocumwal, and in my flight planning it was always the diversionary airfield. In fact, it is too pretty a town, otherwise it would be on my retirement list ahead of Tocumwal. So, I was a little shcoked to see this in the news today: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-12/white-supremacists-rally-in-country-nsw-town-of-corowa/104465704 Corowa doesn't strike me as a home to white supremacists or other fanatical type groups. But it did get me thinking.. What do we do with these groups? Firstly, I don't condone them, or any others for that matter (yes, black people can be racists, too). But, I remember tThe Age and Huffpost expose a couple fo years ago, or so, of the Nazi white supremacists in Melbourne.. And I recall reading about how there were a few leaders who were alledged to have been quite nasty, but for the most part, they members were lower socio-economic or "poor performng" types, and the feeling of the articles that they are the forgotten and best kept forgotten people, who have found belonging in the Nazi/white suopremacists groups - groups that validate them and either instill or validate them blaming others for their plight. This may be the case, but can we go on ignoring these people, lest these grups continue to gather steam, or do we need to do something else. Look at the Maga movement in the USA. Willing to blame everything on everyone else, but also, they may not have the capacity, for whatever reason - nature or nurture - to rise above it? I have a feeling the white supremaicsts, and other fanatics largely come from the same mould. A couple of evangelical evils offering the "down and outers" for want of a better term a home, belgonging, and a voice... something they lack in mainstream society. Our capitaliistic society does not really cater for them. We won't employ them because they may not be up to the job. The state system also lets them down - The education system isn't geared to handle anything other than the mainstream (the gifted are as poorly catered for as the ungifted), welfare is a dole check and that is about it.. What hope do they have, except when these groups offer them hope? And of course, when they engage in this behaviour, we are quick to cast them aside as evils, when what they may be saying is "hey, we don't have a voice here, yeah we are blaming the dagos (or is it spelled, dagoes), and we want them out so we can have their jobs. You won't give us the jobs anyway, but we don't care now.." etc. If you look at what Trump said about them, there are "good people" on both sides. While the world decried it, I will admit, I agreed.. the trick is how to get the good to come out. Maybe by that stage, all is lost. Or maybe if we can constrcutively engage and find a place for them (some, most, who knows) to feel part of mainstream society, maybe the good can come out? I don't condone the behaviour at all, but let's face it, these groups are gathering steam; we can see it in the USA, in Europe, in the Middle East, and now in Australia.. Yeah, there is a core of these groups that are just like that and there's nothing you can do, but, like Germany in the 30s, and Poland and a lot of Europe, good people turned bad when someone offered them someone (or a few groups) to blame for their problems. Maybe a concerted effort led by government and community groups to engage with them, hear their fears and talk though things can make a difference to some (hopefully) many of these groups. It will take money approipriated from other welfare recipients (like the corporate welfare recipients), but can result in a more stable society. Something is going to have to happen, or we will see very similar things that we saw in WWII... Or, am I just too much of an idealist?

Well, not much has been happening on the reno front, still. My partner has done some painting of the open plan kitchen/diner, and the joiners have started making the windows and frames. The sparky was in last week for a day, but as he is fitting us in between other jobs, he coudn't come in this week. Hopefully he has a couple of days next week and is done. We had quotes for an alarm (need it for insurance) and the range was, well, bloody enornous.. from $2K to about £8K for the same system and very similar configuratioin! It does pay to shop around. I have two exams next week.. Tuesday and Tursday.. Both 1am my time (Aussie examinations). Once done, I will take a couple of days off and get into it. Plan to have the whole place done by mid November, and on the market.

There can be,. When I bought the small holding about 9 years ago, now, it came with a David Brown tractor.. A work mate of mine at the time, a wholesale loan originator of German persuasion was very excited when I told him I had an old David Brown that came with the property. He was thinkings well over £100K, informing me David Brown was the designer or founder or something of Adton Martins (hence the DB designations). Alas, I think mine was a 770 or something like that. In the condition it was, it was worth about £3500, and in top condition, about £8K.. and it would have toaken about £4K to get it to top ondition. Though, @willedoo, you may want to check yours. An old petrol one may just be the lottery ticket barn find...

When people say they business has shut down because of the taxman, I am often wary. I have had times when I ran a business when the tax bill came, I had to cut right back on things, but that was because I did not keep the cash aside to pay the tax on the profits I made; I was going to find it from future revenue. Problem is, the revenue thinned right at the wrong time. I learned tha lessonn. That is not the tax man's fault; that is mine. When one runs a business, they have a lot more lattitude with cash flow management than a PAYG/PAYE earner.

Pluck me dead.. the Aussie government has never really looked after Aussies, has it? Over here, virtually all food stuff purchased from the supermarket are VAT free. I am not even sure alcohol is tVAT taxed, but I think it is. Books are also VAT free. I think things like stationery attract a lower rate of VAT (8%) as does energy. Everything else is more or less 20%, which is poop, too. But, it is probably one of the reasons Tim Tams are cheaper here. Yes, businesses are the government's tax collector here, too. However, I amm very wary of tradies I use. They bill you and collect the VAT,but don't pay it, we become liable. I had a debate over this with a HMRC employee - they appoint the tax collectors but we are responsible for the tax collector not doing their job properly? Answer was they don't care and avoding tax is seen as a worse crome than murder.

Depends on how it is implemented. If it is a flat fee per transaction or percentage of transaction, then here is the likely outcomes: Financial Markets (trading, securuties financing, etc). Transactions would be netted to as fewer transactions as possible. If I am a retail trader, I will likely pay full whack, but a professional trader will execute many times and net to as few a number of transactions as possible, and to have the lowest transfer of money as possible. This already happens anywas as settling large numbers of individual trades is expensive, anyway. Also, think of a treasury function, whic is about balancing outgoings v ingoings and making sure there is enough cash to operate the business. They tend to have very small net transactions at the end of he day. The markets could easily tructure to minimise a transaction tax. Investment funds and asset managers - agains, they will structure their trading activitiy to minimise the number of transactions and the net amounts to transfer.. Other transactions in the economy are laready taxed as stamp duty or GST. If the transaction tax is based on executions as opposed to transactions, then it can become quite troublesome. Say for example, you placed an order to buy 10,000 shares in company x on the ASX. Say you wanted an algo to run to get you below volume weighted average price (VWAP) for the day.. Granted not many electronic trading platforms will provide this serviec, but some do. The algo starts buying and then selling shares anbd buying and selling based on price deviations to get you your 10,000 shares at an average price that is better than VWAP for the day. They may have executed multiple thousanrds of trades and gross transaction value in the multiples of times more than you actually pay for your shares, especially if there is a lot of market volatility. Suddenly, your transaction taz bill is comping close to your actual sale value. Not sure that is a great way to do it, either. A revenue tax is simple.. How much in revenue did I take? It's sort of binary in most cases. So, while someone invested, say $1m in shares through my brokerage, my fee is, say, 0,1% of that investment, regardless of how many executions were made to fulfill the client order. Not only that, but when most people think of financial markets and transaction tazes, they are thinking stock exchange and equivalents for what are termed cash instruments. These are shares, bonds, exchange traded futures/optons, and the like, where you acquire the asset and the rights to the return of the asset in an agreed trade, usually on a trading venue. However, the largest value of the finanical markets is usually held in what are termed over the counter derivatives. These are usually bilateral, but can be traded, again, over the counter. There are many types, but most are about swapping cash flows (which is why they are called swaps). And, with the expceton of payment of margin (collateral) to, these days, normally a central clearing counterparty, there is no exchange of money on the day of the transaction. Thre is a notional value, and this can be hindreds of millions and even billions of dollars. But that is just a value that determines the cash payments based on the rates set by the swap. I won't go into too much detail, but a simple interest rate swap will have one countperparty pay a fixed rate of interest on the notional (say $100M), say every quarter, while the outher counterparty will pay a floating rate of interest, say the RBA rate on the last day of the quarter + 1.25% on the same notional ($100M). Say the fixed rate the first counterparty is paying is 10%.. So every quarter, the first counterparty will "pay" $2.5m ($10m annual interest payment/ 4 quarters), and the second counterparty will pay 1/4 * ($100M*(RBA Base Rate + 1.25)). This means the second counterparty can effectviely turn a floating rate $100M loan into a 10% fixed rate loan for risk management and treasury management purposes. The reality is that only one counterparty pays - the one who is owed more than the other, and the net amount is pad. So, If the RBA rate is, say, 3.5%, the first counterpary will pay because they will have to cough up $2.5M as opposed to $1.25M for the second counterparty. But, only the net is paid, so the first counterparty will cough up the difference - $2.5m - $1.25M = $1.25M to be paid to the second counterparty. That $1.25M is gross revenue to the second counterparty. These loans don't tend to go for short periods; Swaps range from 7 days to 50+ years.. The point is, when using a transaction tax, you will get one hit of tax at the beginning of the transaction. But, using a revenue tax, you will get many hits, as there are payments in the swap. In the above example, say itwas a 10 year swap and the economics didn't change (i.e. RBA didn't change its rate) for the period, that would be 40 quarters of tax on $1.25M as a simple tax on a single point of the transaction. The value of derivatives transactions dwarves the value of cash instruments transactions. And, I haven't tuched securitised financing transactions, which are sort of derivatives in their own right. A little while ago now, but here is the outstanding value of the derivatives market in June 2023: https://www.isda.org/a/5ihgE/Key-Trends-in-the-Size-and-Composition-of-OTC-Derivatives-Markets-in-the-First-Half-of-2023.pdf

Australia is a margin based cash cow for many companies. Both Holden and Ford sold their cars cheaper in foreign markets that Australia. I can get Aussie wine here cheaper than in Australia (though some of that may be the wine equalisation tax, but even so, it is made in Australia and has to be transported here so as not to deteriorate, and they still do it cheaper hee - for virtually everything from table wines to premiums..) A friend of mine in Aus met a bloke who was establoishing Hershey's chocolate in Australia. Hershey's is probably, IMHO, the worst chocolate I have tasted. My mate asked this fella why would they try and establish a presence in a small market already dominated by their competitors. The response was Australians are willing to pay well over the odds for their stuff, so even if they get a small share of the market, they can still make money.

Is GST payable on food? That is ridiculous.. No VAT on food (apart from restaurants and the like) here. As I said, a revenue tax should mean elimiation of all other taxes. (Revneue includes pay as well as revenue).

Well, it does compute for some.. mainly large corprorates and multinationals. I haven't done the maths, but, intuitively, the easiest thing to do would be to institute a revenue tax, and remove all other taxes. Revenue tax would catch all monies received, whether by real people or legal people (i.e. companies/corporates and the like). The only exemptions would be government departments and statutory authorities. I am guessing a flat 7 - 10% would do it, or maybe progressive depending on the maths, but the idea would be to minimise it as much as possible. That would mean a lot more money in the pockets of the vast majority of the population, most of which would go straight back into the economy. It captures transfer pricing tax dodges. In addition, the government can request the money on a monthly or quarterly basis, as it is off revenue, and not waiting for the year end accounting to be done. .So, helps government cash flow. The minus side is that it could stifle new start ups, but I think this would be a negligible impact as they would have to price to cover the cost. And if it is progressive, it could help them, anyway. The other consideration is the state taxes, but tweaks could even mean the elimination of state taxes with a guaranteed slice of the federal pie from a revenue tax. The flip side is, of course, what the government does with our taxes. The structure and conditions of the public services means they are never going to attract the best, though when I worked in the public service in Vic, there were some bright sparks - eventually lured to the private sector. You have to expect some what one would perceive as dumb ideas.. The problem is when you have governments that are profligate - AUKUS being one concern... Need rules in place to ensure that the investments are well directed.

Is almost like saying, "In th world..." Each country has its different standards, both within the EU and outside of it. Cyprus environmental standards, for example, are way more lax than France, and they are within the EU.. And then there are European countries outside the EU, and that includes Russia. So, a bit more info and possibly a reference or two wouldn't go astray.

Yes, absolutely agree. My point was the article was suggesting the process was carbon neutral, which I don't buy - Carbon offestting - yes, which can't be said about coal.

This popped up in my YT feed: OK - Albo has called out Dutton for a hypocrite. Well done, but what is sort of irking me about politics is that is more about, well you did bad, so, so can I (BTW, I am not casting aspertions about the Greens, per se). But this is what is pi55ing me off about modern day politics.. it is just one-upmanship; I would have rather heard why picking the greens as second over One nation was better for the country, and then state that the Libs decided to go with the worst one.

While I don't entirely buy the carbon neutrality of it because ultimately it will depend on demand and time for regeneration, the time to use trees to generate coal sort of makes the above post a bit of a red herring

We should be investing in solar and wind,but they are used in biofuel plants here. In 2022 there was a 30% drop in the imports, and according to this,https://www.resourcewise.com/forest-products-blog/uk-wood-pellet-imports-fell-30-to-a-ten-year-low-why, the co2 absorption during the trees' growth offsets the carbon produced in burning pellets made from them. I am not sure I entirely buy it, but there has to be at least partial offset so better than coal, which for power generation here is a thing of the past.

Not much for the women to look at in those temperatures

Oh my.. maybe I had better stay put And they're on special at the moment.. Or maybe I'll export them back to aus?

Throw any pollie's statue in the mix

Same land area, and thanks to resources, could have same productivity.. but mus more of our land is a lot less hospitable. Many of these states would have a lot if overrepresentation and can you imagine the premiers conferences?

One of the greats

Those Tim Tams neve make it to the border..

Oh, no... that is not all I come for... You see, I can only get traditional, salted caramel (yuk!) and dark (yuk!) Tim Tams here... I can't get white, chewy caramel, or double coat... So, I come to Aus for far more than I can get here Not to mention, the fishing, better lifestyle, wine, food, scenery, travel without needing a passport, etc etc.

I genreally agree with @kgwilson. Japan was the first to really to what China is doing today; then Taiwan (which to some, is China). India had a go, but never really got there, although they are a powerhouse, it is more through population size and cheap labour than technological advances and innovation. China is the new kid on the block, but while the US (and the rest of us) are packing our dacks, there are a few reasons why we should be alert: The Chinese government has an active influence in day to day operations of companies it is interesteed in. They have recently arbitrarily detained leaders of companies that ddidn't bow to their demands (Jack Ma, for example) and they will use coercion and threats and "the law" to achieve outcomes they are interested in. The Chinese heavily subsidise their industries extensively - well except the companies that may fall into the first point and don't acquiesce to the governemnt. This is pretty well document and the CCP have admitted it, for tactical reasons apparently, whatever that means. The labour market is artifically suppressed: One of the differences between more free-market economies is that the Chinese government totally controls the labour market. When you have arbiotrary power, you use it. One of the probelms is that in an economy like China, as it becomes wealthier, wages and conditions would rise, as they did for Japan and Taiwan, and the cost side of the equiation would more or less balance itself out against peer economies (of which the US and Europe as a whole, are). However, wages and other employee costs are kept artifically low to keel the price competitive both at home and abroad. Not to mention that the current Chinese government is starting to try and flex geopolitical muscle, there is little wonder, the US and its allies are tetchy

They always forget the last one.. the budget provided, which has half a frayed rope dangling from the tree