Europe is still ablaze with heat, mad king Donald gets madder by the day, a Senator goes rogue on the beefy boofhead, an ICAC investigation provides endless juice, and yet those who dwell with the reptiles remain entombed in melongate.
Take it away bouffant one ...
If Anthony Albanese is so clever at deflection, why didn’t he avoid the dumb, degrading questions in the first place?
By Dennis Shanahan
National Editor
Just two minutes? No wonder the pond turned it over to the intermittent archive ...
Meanwhile over at the top of the digital "news" ma ...
Falling house prices: the tipping point that sparks a recession
Australia has not seen a national home price crash exceeding 10 per cent in more than 50 years – economists say that record could be broken.
There isn't an actual recession at the moment, but when has a reptile gone wrong with portents of disaster, and saucy doubts and fears?
It's doom and gloom all the way, but much more importantly, the pond was suffering its own crisis.
No Our Henry!
No Friday foray into Thucydides!
Sure the pond could have stepped back in time to 8th August ... IBAC inquiry exposes the rot at heart of government, but the pond always never looks back, you can never look back ... except perhaps if the pond was travelling and missed yesterday's serve of the infallible Pope ...
Don't get the pond started on how it loathes monster trucks.
The canny Cranston was on on hand to show a deep concern for the working class, as only servile slaves to the billionaire class can do ...
Same job, less real pay: workers’ earnings going backwards
Australians’ real wages go backwards as falling productivity hits economy
Official figures show Australians’ real earnings have fallen up to 5 per cent since Labor came to office, with public servants largely protected by inflation-adjusted union pay deals.
By Matthew Cranston
But he's just Dame Groan lite with his talk of roonation, and he soon got swept away by news of Albo and mad king Donald having a chat, and what do you know? Still more melons! Trump, Albanese talk in phone call; PM doubles down on melons episode, as you'd expect when chatting with a man who loved to go the grope, and so endeared himself to Faux Noise...
Mr Albanese told News24 he has already said sorry for “elements of the podcast” but has nothing to apologise for in relation to the diplomatic incident.
Speaking to News24, Mr Albanese said he respected Ms Takaichi and Japan, while arguing his comments were misrepresented.
“I do respect the Japanese Prime Minister,” Mr Albanese told News24 when asked about his controversial comments.
But where's the hair shirt, the grovelling and the mortification, perhaps with a hundred lashes with a pine branch, Percy Grainger style...
Somehow Killer Creighton managed to tag team himself with whatever was happening, and so stayed near the top of the "news", and that's where the pond began ...
The header: Socialism set to rot New York, as it’s doing in Australia; New York is repeating a government grocery experiment Queensland tried – and abandoned – more than a century ago.
The caption for a piquant snap of bananas in play: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at an announcement event of a discounted grocery plan for city-run municipal grocery stores. Picture: AP
It turns out that Killer was outraged by the Mayor's socialism, but what about mad King Donald?
It was Forbes that recently ran a piece by James K. Glassman, Our First Socialist President:
The hallmark of socialism is control of the means of production. In a manner unprecedented in U.S. history, the federal government under Trump has been gaining direct ownership of American corporations – some of them historic icons.
The government a year ago bought 433 million shares of Intel Corp., the semiconductor manufacturer. Donald Trump (“Trump sees the government as himself,” says Brooke Masters, the U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times in discussing the deal) becomes the largest shareholder in Intel, a half-trillion-dollar corporation, at 10%.
When a Japanese company wanted to purchase U.S. Steel, Trump approved the deal only if the government received a first-ever “golden share”, giving Washington veto power over major corporate decisions. In November, the government made a deal to own up to 20% of Westinghouse Electric. In July, the U.S. took an equity stake in Global Foundries, a profitable chipmaker spun off from AMD, for $300 million.
In the past, the government intervened in a crisis to keep a critical company afloat; the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008 is the best example. Loans, grants and commitments to purchase products to promote federal priorities have been a regular feature of industrial policy. Those subsidies lean toward socialism. But what the Trump Administration is doing is qualitatively different – a full-on embrace of socialist principles.
“They’re converting loan and grant programs into equity stakes,” said Brent Cebul, an associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania who researches business-state interactions. He called the Westinghouse deal “an important precedent-setting disjuncture.”
The Council on Foreign Relations has a deal tracker that lists two dozen businesses in which the Trump Administration has announced or closed an equity investment. One of them is IBM, a 115-year-old company that will receive a $1 billion infusion. IBM has a market capitalization of $223 billion and a stock that’s roughly doubled in the past four years.
Another example of a company that doesn’t need the money is SandboxAQ, an artificial-intelligence start-up backed by Nividia, the most valuable U.S. company, and Alphabet, which ranks third. The U.S. government on June 17 signed a definitive agreement to acquire an equity stake in SandboxAQ, plus royalty payments on sales.
And so on, and what an inspiration, but Killer seemed not to have caught up on the trend as he embarked on his rant, because how could he forget the Mayor (he's Islamic, don't ya kno) ...
But self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” New York mayor Zohran Mamdani has proved a strong contender with his plan for a government-owned grocery store in each of the city’s five boroughs from late next year, as part of his “affordability” push.
NYC Groceries, as they are to be known, will sell a “core basket” of staples including meat, milk, eggs and bread at yet to be established locations.
The city council will tip $US70m ($100m) into construction and fit-outs, waive rent and taxes, and hand the day-to-day running to private operators who will receive “affordability payments” on the condition they can sell the produce at a 30 per cent discount to market prices.
Mamdani’s administration says the stores will save New Yorkers $US1000 a year, failing to specify which New Yorkers. Use of the store won’t be means-tested. And with only five outlets in a city of 8.5 million people, the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers will never receive a cent. But they will be paying higher taxes so the time-rich retirees and unemployed living just north of Central Park (one of the first planned locations) can take a stroll to buy subsidised salmon.
But it’s doubtful even those lucky few will benefit.
Naturally the melongate man was inked into the yarn, Anthony Albanese announces the bailout of the Tomago smelter on Thursday. Picture: Thomas Lisson
But Glassman wasn't the only one to note the Mayor's real inspiration.
Over in Foreign Policy, Keith Johnson offered Trump Has His Own Communist Manifesto
If Trump’s foray into state capitalism last year seemed alarming—and it did—it has only gotten worse.
The U.S. government now holds equity stakes in as many as 30 companies across a gamut of industries. What started with a “golden share” in U.S. Steel has morphed into a government takeover of vast swathes of the economy. Trump recently browbeat oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron over their refining margins, as the Iran war’s economic toll has led to higher gasoline prices. His own pick for the Federal Reserve is floundering, even as Trump spam calls him repeatedly. All the while, Trump continues to arrogate congressional powers of taxation to raise import duties on U.S. consumers.
“There are some novel economic changes going on, and nobody is talking about it,” said Tad DeHaven, an analyst at the Cato Institute who is setting up a program to research state capitalism. “Since it is driven by one man’s personal desires, there is no plan and no strategy. It changes by the day.”
Trump’s blitzkrieg on industry has focused on rare earths, mining, metals, and semiconductors, among other sectors. It is a jarring move for a nominally Republican president, from a party that has long espoused free-market values.
There is a case to be made for state intervention in certain industries that need government injections of money, know-how, or support otherwise. Shipbuilding is a good case in point and was, at one point in Trump’s second administration, a priority—until it wasn’t. Semiconductors are another critical sector that requires government support in most cases; Taiwan’s world-beating chip industry grew off government largesse, as did, for a spell, the U.S. chip sector. There are scads of academic research about the spread of state capitalism worldwide.
The difference between what Trump is doing and what other countries are doing is significant. While other countries grapple with the sudden vulnerability of supply chains or a needy infant industry, the Trump administration has turned state capitalism into a revenue stream. The number of exemptions and exclusions for tariffs, and special treatment for certain firms, has grown.
“The spin is always, ‘It’s just the critical industries.’ There is not some sophisticated plan here. This is someone who wants to exercise control over the economy,” DeHaven said.
But Killer still hadn't caught up with the trend ...
Operators may use market data, their own advice or “other observable data points”, to fulfil this requirement. And equivalent products are left vague – private label or premium brand? The whole political sales pitch becomes a joke once specifying a market benchmark becomes impossible.
And even if the stores can manage to meaningfully offer cheaper goods, savvy customers will naturally buy in bulk. Indeed, if meat could be bought far below market price, why wouldn’t restaurants or enterprising middlemen buy it in bulk for themselves, or resell it? Stopping such behaviour would mean quantity limits, membership cards and bureaucrats policing shopping baskets, all of which will add to the cost of the whole process.
Moreover, the stores will put some of the city’s existing 1100 grocery stores and 10,000 bodegas (which, unlike NYC Groceries, have to pay tax and rent and get by without lucrative “affordability subsidies”) out of business, thereby exacerbating the above problems.
Mamdani’s argument that existing providers are profiteering or price gouging doesn’t make sense.
American food retailers made an average net profit margin of just 2.1 per cent last year, according to the Food Industry Association. In other words, confiscating every cent of grocery store profits would get Mamdani’s stores only barely one-14th of the way to his promised discount.
If Mamdani’s shops manage to achieve lower prices it’s only because he has shifted the bill from the checkout to the tax system, while adding administrators’ and other compliance costs along the way.
And as Margaret Thatcher once observed, socialist governments eventually run out of other people’s money. New Yorkers collectively cannot save money by subsidising themselves.
Maggie is Killer's inspiration? The woman who produced little England all on her own, and it's been littler England ever since? Sure 'nuff ...Britain’s former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
And so to the final gobbet ...with Killer ranting away for a corporation which in the past has shown an appetite for government funding and/or marketplace "adjustment", as a replacement for failing market interest, though it's never enough.
Just as Anthony Albanese could scrap the energy regulations that make smelting unviable, Mamdani could tear up regulations that make real competition possible. Instead, both prefer to waste billions of dollars of other people’s money and present themselves as the saviour.
The two virtues of Mamdani’s policy are: first, its relatively small cost and scope given the city’s budget of over $120bn. It’s almost as if Mamdani or his advisers don’t even believe the scheme can work or will last. It’s really a $US70m political campaign marketing expense.
Second, it is very likely to become a wonderful case study in economic stupidity.
Socialists often proclaim “health” and “education” are “important” so they should supposedly be subsidised or provided by the government. But food is certainly at least as important as those things, and its provision by the private sector has been one of history’s greatest successes.
Mamdani probably isn’t aware that it was American supermarkets that in fact helped defeat his beloved “socialism”. In 1989, then Soviet reformer Boris Yeltsin made a visit to a supermarket outside Houston, Texas, where he reportedly wandered the aisles astonished at the abundance and variety of food available to ordinary Americans.
“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice,” he marvelled, according to the Houston Chronicle. If Soviet citizens saw it, he said, “there would be a revolution”.
If only we’d learn from our mistakes. A Queensland Labor government launched dozens of government-owned butchers from 1915 onwards, specifically to provide cheap meat and restrain private prices. Naturally they ultimately failed and the last were sold by 1929.
A century later, Mamdani is repeating Queensland’s experiment, proving that if anything requires government subsidy it’s the study of economics and history.
Splendid stuff and all that the pond might expect from an IPA man, and what joy to see public utilities privatised, because it's worked out so well for the Poms - nothing like swimming in sewage - not to mention how well we're doing down under ...
But what to do for a bonus, with much of what's happening in the real world excluded from the reptile purview?
The pond stepped past the usual AUKUS silliness ...
Conflicting ministerial accounts of how long US submarines will rotate through HMAS Stirling have left Western Australian communities exposed to planning uncertainty.
By Cathy Moloney
If it ain't the bromancer, it ain't on ...
A more persuasive AUKUS story will not come from smoothing over these tensions. It will come from showing that governments are prepared to be honest about them, and that places asked to host capabilities central to the Australian defence strategy of deterrence by denial will also be given the planning certainty, investment discipline and political respect needed to manage it. That is why the rotational question cannot be treated as a technical footnote – it is a matter of trust. Australians need a clear account of the trade-offs, safeguards and local obligations that will define AUKUS in practice, because trust will depend not on what governments promise at the start, but on whether host communities can recognise success when it arrives.
Cathy Moloney is an independent strategic adviser and an executive member of Women in Nuclear Australia.
If the government was being honest, it'd have to confess that AUKUS is a turkey of the first water, and a bunch of Moloney isn't going to help with that.
Delusional, but it ain't the pond's business to deal with reptile dreams ...
The pond also stepped past the meretricious Merritt and an educational Alex ...
Human rights charters make almost no difference to protecting ordinary people, as NSW parliament considers adopting its own Human Rights Bill.
By Chris Merritt
Memo to self.
Must at some point advise dumb Yanks of how useless their dumb bill of rights is ...
Australia’s classrooms once built a shared national story – now the traditions holding the country together are going untaught.
By Alex McDermott
Bonded society?
Memo to self.
Must at some point boast about having avoided being a teacher, despite being a bonded student, destined to wake in fright out woop woop way ...
Memo to Alex, must at some point explain to reptiles that living in the days of Ming the Merciless wasn't some sort of golden age.
Must point out that this might appeal to the aged lizard Oz demographic, but the days when a cheap arsed medal and a commemorative booklet worked their magic are long gone.
Been there, done that, move on ...
And with that the pond could allow itself an indulgence.
And it wasn't ...
Pauline Hanson unable to name leaders of Japan and Indonesia
In a moment reminiscent of Senator Hanson’s infamous ‘please explain’ moment, the One Nation leader was unable to name leaders of key international partners but maintained diplomacy with South East Asia would be ‘no problem’.
By Noah Yim
No, it was the bouffant one talking up the Canavan caravan, a man these days attempting to sound saner than Malcolm Roberts and Gina's pet, despite them all sharing a deep love of coal ... and better still, it was an EXCLUSIVE ...
The header: Matt Canavan push audit of foreign treaties as Nationals meet and discuss Pauline Hanson threat; Nationals leader Matt Canavan has called for a full audit of more than 4000 international treaties, warning some are being weaponised against Australians.
The caption for the snap of a man attempting to catch flies with his mouth: Matt Canavan on Thursday, and Pauline Hanson, inset. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire, Getty Images
What's more, it was only a two minute read, because when attempting to puff up a boofhead, the less said the better ...
In a speech to the Nationals’ conference in Canberra on the weekend, Senator Canavan will declare that an audit is necessary to know what treaties Australia is subject to and to ensure “each treaty puts Australians first”.
This is the best he's got? This will turn the tide against Gina's pampered pet? So it seems...
Senator Canavan will tell the conference he is concerned that there are thousands of treaties in which the content and intent is not known and whether they “serve the national interest and protect the sovereignty of Australian people?”
“The Australian public deserves to know, do the thousands of international agreements that we have signed up to and that any agreement that Australia is party to must serve the interests of Australians, not foreigners,” told The Australian on Thursday.
Senator Canavan said some of the 4000 treaties “were signed by the King of England on behalf of his British Dominions, and others were with countries that no longer exist”.
“In the past few years, international bodies have lectured Australians about what energy we should use, what cars we should drive, what food we should eat, who we should let into our country and even what we should be allowed to say,” he said.
“The only people that should decide what happens in this country are the Australian people.”
In 1995, Liberal elder Rod Kemp backed a Senate committee recommendation that government conduct an audit of treaties, partly because “there is still uncertainty as to the exact number of treaties to which Australia is currently a party”.
But, the audit was not done and Senator Canavan said it was time it was done.
“Too often, international agreements have become weaponised to take away the basic rights of farmers and everyday Australians,” he said. “The increasing abuse of the external affairs powers is weakening our federation.”
Senator Canavan said the Albanese government did a deal with the Greens to use international treaties’ powers to expand the laws surrounding the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. “For many farmers this means the federal government has effectively taken over control of their entire farm, when it should be the states that have control of basic land planning issues,” he said.
“The only people that should decide what happens in this country are the Australian people.”
Senator Canavan said the Nationals would be accused “of all sorts of bad things for wanting to oppose the attempt to impose a global tyrannical order”.
“But I will not apologise for being a patriot. I will always defend the right of a free people to decide what happens in their nation,” he said.
Senator Canavan’s speech will be his first as leader. The party conference comes after Senator Canavan’s predecessor David Littleproud quit following two Coalition splits and questions over his ability to mount an electoral case against Pauline Hanson’s surging populist party.
What a dismal bout of impending blather ...
The pond felt so bereft it turned to the lizard Oz editorialist, still trying to coach some sense into the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way ...
Thanks coach, that ought to fix everything ...
Stay focussed, take the ball up the guts, and don't get distracted by dreams of glory ...
And so to a whiff of heresy ...
