Another day, another disappointing bunch, and of course Dame Groan would love an ongoing land tax, and no doubt favours a tax on windows too, but the pond felt the need to head offshore to a correspondent slipped in yesterday by the reptiles as a bit of Pommie spackle and space filler ... which, for a moment, commanded space next to the Oreo, commanding the heights ...
'Woke' and 'gaslighting' in the one sentence, and a choice chance for the pond to examine the way that the Murdochian hive mind is a world-wide phenomenon ...
What a prime example, and it's all the fault of vulgar youff, though what they make of all that very dull talk of that very dull movie must remain a mystery. All the pond could think was how sad that the 1940 version is no longer remembered - poor Anton - and what, no mention of Charles Boyer, who behaves very much like an angry reptile in the 1944 remake, all hostile, angry and controlling ...
Never mind, at least there's a chance to work in a reference to cancel culture and outraged mobs, though the pond, being of a movie mind, was disappointed that there was no evocation of the howling mobs of villagers in the first Frankenstein movie ... just an insert of a tweet ... and a chance for the Murdochians to take a pot shot at mortal enemies, the Graudian and the NY Times ...
Kill the trans beast, the howling mob cried, kill the strange creature born in a lab ... or maybe the pond's getting it confused, maybe it was kill the pig on an island, whatever.
Of course in the old days, defenestration was known as throwing people out of windows, preferably through the glass, and many a fine movie enjoyed the moment (as in this ad laden listicle here). These days with "defenestration" the pond isn't quite sure what the fuck it's supposed to mean, there being few signs that Suzanne Moore carried even metaphorical signs of broken glass ...
Ah yes, Eton ... where would the world be without Eton and the gatling and the square run red with blood, and could there be any more consummate attempt at irony? Frankly the pond was greatly saddened that it had only a very short gobbet to go ...
What's fascinating is the way that this piece encapsulates the grey, mindless, repressive conformity of reptiles throughout the world ... so that when people have a go at the pond for talking of the hive mind, as if the pond spent too long watching the X-Files, be assured that the hive mind is everywhere, always wanting the right to insult some passing minority and dismiss it as freedom of speech.
The natural home is the conservative mindset seen in the Weimar republic, and the natural outcome the beast captured yet again by the immortal Rowe, who seemed to want a link to the AFR here ...
Another movie reference!
And so briefly to the war on China, which has been going ever so well, and devoured the reptiles this day at the top of the page...
Naturally the pond turned to simplistic Simon for a reptile insight ...
Beijing weakened, and it was an offensive tweet that did it?
Tell that to the Hong Kongers, tell that to the Uyghurs, tell that to the Taiwanese under daily threat by sociopathic abuse from a dictator for life ... and heroic SloMo is going to slay that beast, and the diplomatic scales have tipped heavily in his favour? Because of just one rancorous tweet? Oh harden the fuck up, precious reptiles, that's just an exchange of pamphlets in 1939 ...
A doctored tweet? The President of the United States has been pouring out lies and doctored images and fake news from well before he landed in the White House, and suddenly the reptiles are outraged? After years of loving the Donald and his work?
Perhaps that helps explain why simplistic Simon could only work up a very short lather, with a couple of embedded videos as a form of seafood extender ... (fortunately neutered by the pond insisting on screen capping) ...
After all that blustering, and posturing, "it is hard to see how any of this can be undone"?
Oh for the heady days when the reptiles were gung ho for the war on China, and took the Donald at his word, and now he's a lame duck waddling around the golf course, and meanwhile, the Chinese - already emboldened by their success with Hong Kong - and lickspittle fellow travellers of the short on cash and bank accounts Carrie Lam kind - are dishing it out to SloMo, who apparently suffers from delusions as well as speaking in tongues ...
It was left to the infallible Pope to summarise the situation ...
Who knows where it will end? Perhaps we should look to the Hong Kongers, to the Uyghurs, and to the Taiwanese ...
And now a bonus, because sharp-eyed observers will have noted that Killer Creighton was up there in the midst of on the war on China, and yet unusually for the Killer, he was anxious to get back to work so he could get hits of the kool aid from the water cooler, and have skulling moments with his reptile mates ...
What the fuck? Where are the reptiles getting their stock images from these days? Did the Killer really want to start off that way? A woman on the piss while hubbie is in the kitchen making the evening meal? And then Killer has the cheek to start off with idle chat about pictures ...
Okay, okay, the pond only runs the Killer for ulterior motives. Remember this immortal outing?
The pond recently checked in on The Sun, of all Murdochian rags, to see how Sweden was going ...
Truth to tell, if you're as foolish as the Killer, it doesn't matter if you scribble from home with a glass of red plonk to hand and a comely companion, or if you head off to load up on the kool aid at work ... either way, you still end up with junk ...
Frankly the pond has learned that with just a few hours on the computer, you can earn zillions from home ... just ask the pond, or better still, the Donald, how the fleecing is done ... all you need is a good graphic designer, putting a good-looking shopfront on line ...
Okay, the pond appreciates that Killer is trying to be serious, but the pond can never take Killer seriously ...
Yes, everything will be just the same as it did before the pandemic ... and Sweden is the perfect model ...
Dammit, Sweden, now isn't the time ...
We don't need to know about the BBC evoking your lifestyle back in March here ... you leave the pond no choice but to abandon the Killer and wrap things up with a couple of cartoons, a few blessed with movie themes ...
The Contributing Economics Editor offered ‘The truth about the rush to phase out stamp duty.’ But, when we got there (and she had to point it out in case we missed the apotheosis.)
ReplyDelete‘The truth is that unless there is some reduced demand elsewhere in the system, there is every possibility that house prices will rise and block out new home buyers for this reason alone.’
er - UNLESS there is some reduced demand?
There is always ‘every possibility’ that house prices will rise and block out new home buyers. Always. Nationally, we have been silly enough, over several generations, to make having somewhere to live a sink for supposed ‘investment’, such that no economic or financial agency can contemplate the nation functioning without what appear to be steadily rising relative value of somewhere to live, even though most of us are unlikely ever to ‘own’ that place.
Still, it was good of the Dame to pretend to be concerned about those new buyers. Virtue signalling?
Against that, she is so easily offensive at the wind up, when she pins this chap Perrottet with -
‘Perrottet might have been better advised to take a look at the stamp duty and land tax arrangements that NSW operates.’ and the gratuitous ‘That would have been a good place to start.’
I did check - ‘Wiki’ (yes, yes, the senior Akerman, have warned us about believing anything we see in the Wiki) tells me that one Dominic Perrottet is Treasurer of New South Wales. I do not know much about the person, but it is a fair assumption that he did look at the stamp duty and land tax arrangements. His second reading speech on the proposed legislation would have included copious notes and background, but the Dame seldom concerns herself with the nitty gritty of democracy.
I suppose we should have been thankful she did revisit the historic tirade against Henry George.
"... unless there is some reduced demand elsewhere in the system". Well, of course, if we'd let Killer C lead us down the 'herd immunity' dead (haha) end byway, then there well might have been a rush of properties onto the market and hence a "reduced demand" somewhere or other.
DeleteI must say I don't really go for this 'property tax' idea - I paid my stamp duty a long while ago and I don't relish having a new, annual tax to follow me (or drive me) to the grave. But I do have some idea about the ever-increasing price of properties and homes. When I bought my modest suburban double fronted timber (with a bit of brick here and there) house in outer suburbia back in 1982, it cost me $83,000. Now, according to the RBA inflation calculator, given an "average inflation" of 3.5% since then until 2019, my house and land should now be worth $297,443 a 258.4% increase. In fact, my place would fetch at least $830,000 now for a 1000% increase.
https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualDecimal.html
Is it any wonder that the young find it hard to afford a house - even as modest a residence as mine. Furthermore, I simply can't see why anybody would object to people using their accumulated superannuation to fund a house deposit (including the once off, depreciating over the years taken to pay it off, stamp duty). It seems to me that owning a house is a sure way to accumulate 'value' that can be carried through until, and past, retirement.
Ah, but Henry George: now there's a name I've never heard before: oh, the bank of unknown knowns is truly huge. And especially given that: "His most famous work Progress and Poverty (1879) sold millions of copies worldwide, probably more than any other American book before that time." (Wikipedia). I wonder if Bernie Sanders and/or AOC have ever heard of him.
GB - Henry George was alive, and publishing, at the time when the great American universities were growing rapidly in size and influence. Many were receiving plump contributions to their endowment funds from assorted robber barons, whose fortunes often derived from the land grants that lined the pathways of shipping canals and railroads. It was made plain to aspiring lecturers in the emerging study of ‘economics’ (more often ‘political economy’) that their institution, and their own status, could expect to benefit if they produced suitably scholarly works to show what a terrible thing a tax on land - and other natural resources - would be for the future of the great country they occupied.
DeleteSo successful were they that Henry George is still seldom mentioned in textbooks, or, if he is, tends to be passed off as a bit of a crank.
Whether he is mentioned by name or not - there is still a steady stream of papers in journals, or, more often, newspapers, decrying the idea of a tax on land, and other natural resources, as a disincentive to ‘development’. Such notions are always well-received by proprietors and advertisers.
Ah, so this is the 'Animal Farm' or '1984' view: if you lose the argument then you must be written out of history so as not to subvert 'the people' with failed ideas.
DeleteThough we do seem to have some taxes on some 'natural resources' (eg 'royalty' payments on mineral extractions) but I guess serious taxes on land - other than Council rates on combined property holdings - haven't really been imposed much. Not very popular even to this day, I guess.
DP, we are of a mind regarding Gaslight. Last year I wrote "I was lucky enough to see the film Gaslight with Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, and Frank Pettingell many years ago. As the inimitable Leslie Halliwell writes “the painful scenes in the first half, of a man coldly and deliberately driving his wife mad, culminate in Walbrook’s suavity being ripped away as he fiercely seizes a chance to tell his wife: ‘You will die, raving, in an asylum.’ At this point the actor’s eyes and lips seem as out of control as the character.”
ReplyDeleteAnd 'This is in fact a perfect film in almost every sense.'"
It's on YouTube at the moment at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYmtzaHwCKo but it will be taken down at some stage because Warner Bros. owns the copyright (it's only 80 years old!) It's worth watching.
Simple Simon, "the diplomatic scales have tipped heavily in Scott Morrison's favour". Err no, he has walked into a rather obvious trap. They have put an old fish head on a big hook and thrown it in to see if anything is stupid enough to bite on it and, sure enough, a big mouthed bottom-dweller has bitten immediately.
ReplyDeleteWe now get to argue that an offensive meme on twitter has some equivalence with cutting the throat of a fourteen year old. Next, we can discuss the treatment of refugees or prosecution of whistle-blowers. No end of fun to be had.
Paul Barrett's observation on Morrison's diplomacy "I’ve found that politicians’ confidence in their ability to handle our foreign relations is in inverse proportion to their skill.
This is a #DunningKruger - rich environment."
Aw c'mon Bef, a "daggy dad" can do anything he turns his hand to, can't he ? It has to be his hand because there's nothing else available, is there ?
DeleteI look at such things as the recent surge in approval for SloMo, and all I can think is: Australia's Trump.