old man emu

Yep. The next four years are going to make the five years of WWII look like a holiday on a tropical island. Even if the Democrats get back in in 2029, it will take years to repair the political and economic damage of the Trump years. Anyone know what Nostradamus foretold of these times?

No. Shrinkflation is when your psychologist stops bulk billing and name their own price.

Reduction in the size of a product while the cost remains the same is still inflation.

We know that one day each of us will die. Of course we all want to live for as long as possible, but we don't know the length of that 'long'. As for what happens to our bodies as they decompose after death, I would like to do my bit towards reducing global warming by having my carbon sequestered in the ground, not expelled from the chimney of a crematorium. I wonder how long it takes for a properly buried body's chemicals to become available to Nature.

But who is there to replace him? Vance would be worse than a puppet. He's be an automaton, programmed to do the bidding of those behind Project 2025. I don't think that the US constitution allows for the removal of the Executive Branch and its replacement following an election. I think we are stuck with the Republicans until January 2029. I can't see the Democrats leading a storming of the Bastille.

Apart from putting a tariff on penguins on an isolated Antarctic island, the Trump administration has been diligent in making sure that no island is missed.

I had a fish filet for dinner tonight. It came from Vietnam. A lot of our frozen or canned food comes from there or other 'developing' Asian countries.

Burial or cremation depends on a lot of beliefs. It is my belief that cremation obliterates you from history. Therefore I wish to be buried, to have a place that will exist until Earth's oblivion. On the other hand, my sister wants to be cremated. What we want done with our remains is a very personal thing. I can accept that this could lead us into a debate in this thread, but it would be a debate without resolution.

The penny drops! So that's why Trump whacked 47% tariff on Vietnam. He's actually going after the Chinese. Initially I thought it was revenge for the Vietnamese beating them in a war.

I'm pretty sure that Trump got the details of how our GST is applied all stuffed up. Of course it's not a tariff. It is just a way for the government to make some money out of online purchasing. The government of the day (probably the Conservatives) just took advantage of the boom in online shopping.

Why not make your own coffin? We are all going to need one one day and who wants to burden family with making a decision about how your carcass is going to travel on its final journey. I'm about to sign up to spend $5000 for a headstone for my wife's and my grave. When she died, the family had to make some quick decisions about her funeral. We selected a very basic coffin, but that cost $1000 three year ago. For $1000 I reckon I can make one with bells, whistles and flashing neon lights. I'd rather leave a few hundred bucks in my estate to benefit the family that fork it out to a funeral director for something that will only be seen by others for a few hours. My Mum arranged her funeral ceremony years ago and has it all documented so that my sister and I just have to follow the bouncing ball. Here's a video about a group in New Zealand who have the right idea about organising their departures. I reckon that it's a good idea to try out at a Men's Shed. All the gear is there and all a bloke would have to do is buy the wood. When out ability to have a firm hand on the control of our lives, why not extend that to controlling how we go out? After all, who of us hasn't made their Will and kept it up to date?

Here's a project for this weekend:

There's a lot of selling on the stock market, but in some ways that might represent a correction to bring the market back to where it should be after a period of speculation. The lowering of the indices might make for sensationalist headlines, but that might be all it does. However, if the drop continues past what might be considered the correct level, then we can start worrying more. Am I correct, Jerry?

There's too many threads dealing with the Trumpster. I just posted something about beef sales in another thread. Basically I expanded on rgmwa's thought, mentioning also the effects of the Queensland flooding on the supply levels. I like Marty's work around of selling our meat through a third party. The problem our meat producers face is that there is a scarcity of countries where eating beef is customary. Either that, or the population does not have the money to buy it.

Fair enough to point that out. However, considering Trump's usual behaviour, you wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. They sound like pretty typical conditions for a Trump deal. Also, a few years ago Australia started imposing GST on purchases from the USA with a value of less than $1000. Apparently, according Sky News, that is one of the reasons Trump is imposing a 10% tariff on Australian stuff. A lot of countries will be wrangling for a reduction in the tariff their products attract. I wonder what would happen if a lot of countries decided to stop trading with the USA and set up other markets. I bet the US hamburger mobs are going into panic mode. Australia supplies a good proportion of their low fat ground beef, which is probably produced in those flood ravaged areas of Queensland. So the US market will be hit with a double whammy of higher prices due to the tariff and higher prices due to lack of supply. Those companies were suffering last year due to cost of living pressures keeping customers away.

The AUD has been hovering around $0.63USD for a while now. And the GBP is worth $1.30USD.

This is an interview on Australia's ABC. The interviewee seems to be presenting an unbiased appraisal of Australia's actions before and after Trump's tariff announcement. He speaks of the long, and important relationship between the two countries and implies that Pine Gap and US Troops in the Northern Territory are more important to the USA than to Australia. Ignore the title as it is a bit of clickbait.

Returning to electoral promises of money being seen as vote buying, I heard a candidate announce a grant to a community for something or other. What the candidate pointed out that before the grant had been approved, those seeking it had gone through all the preparatory work so that work would be able to start if the grant was approved. That prep work involved drawing of plans, obtaining the development approval, arranging contractors to do the work etc. This is the normal practice for these community grants. My Men's Shed is applying for a grant for building extensions and the documentation of these things has to accompany the application. So it seems that the promises made to fund local projects are not in fact promises, but the confirmation of grants that would have already been approved but not announced by whichever government body was making the grant. In other words, such a 'promise' is merely electoral spin.

That's why I think demerit points are a much more equitable penalty than monetary fines.

It would be a case of the bureaucracy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It is interesting to note that since 1973, several attempts have been made by the Labor Party to introduce a Bill of Rights to parliament but the legislation has never been passed. On the other hand, the Conservative former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has argued against a bill of rights for Australia on the grounds it would transfer power from elected politicians to unelected judges and bureaucrats. The idea of power being removed from judges at least seems to be being echoed at present on a continent to the northeast of Australia. When you have a look at the numerous individual documents which bear the title of a bill of rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_human_rights_instruments ) you can see that the concept of a basic, simple list of rights has been swamped by advocates of individual issues. God handed Moses only ten commandments, of which only four relate to behaviour in a society. It is Man who has created a plethora of commandments from those ten.

This was posted yesterday, 1/4/25. Interesting, even if you are not into militaria.

I watched a video involving a simple maths problem. The task was to find the original price of a packet of tea before a 7-1/2% tax had been applied. The video comes from the USA. I posted this as a comment: "Redo the problem after a 25% tariff has been applied." Got three likes already.

The "old farts" was meant to be humorous. Of course there would be a great diversity of opinion amongst the electorate regardless of their ages, however I was trying to imply that each of those groups grew up under different conditions from the other groups. That has got to have affected their outlook towards many subjects. Whichever Party can dial into those different outlooks would gain the most electoral support.

I can't figure out how I'm paying roughly $1.70 per litre in the country, but city folks are paying about $2.00. It used to be the other way around and the claim was that it costs money to transport the fuel. Have the oil companies acquired some sort of Star Trekian transporter beam to move fuel from the coast to the inland?