In which there's some interesting reading ... and the bromancer ...

 

The pond regrets having to put the bromancer in a late arvo slot, all the more so because it suggests, in a deeply perverse way, that Dame Groan might have had something original or interesting to say this morning...

But right at the moment when all the news was focused on King Donald and the Marrickville mauler, the bromancer chose to focus on Susssan's battle with the lettuce ...

By all accounts the pond's plunge on the lettuce is looking good ...

The pond tried to do the right thing by providing an archive link ...

But the archive is a fragile beast, and so a late arvo celebration of the lizard Oz's alleged foreign affairs editor yet again meddling in domestic affairs...

The header: Note to Coalition: free market is a tool, not a god, It’s insane that Andrew Hastie, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Matt Canavan are on the backbench. It’s like a cricket team intentionally fielding a second XI.

The caption for the risible uncredited collage: Opposition Sussan Ley, ‘who can’t manage her team’, and Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

As the bromancer has mentioned markets, please allow the pond a little detour, a note on how there are many alternatives to reptile reading.

The latest copy of the NYRB dropped into the letter box the other day - it's the last gasp of tree killers in the pond home - and there was this beguiling offering from Suzanne Schneider ...

From the Cesspool to the Mainstream, The “new fusionist” intellectuals are the missing link between nineteenth-century race science, twentieth-century libertarianism, and the contemporary alt-right. (*archive link)

Just a teaser trailer...

..These new fusionists included the libertarian economist and anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard, who viewed taxation as theft and regarded the state as the apex of organized crime; the white supremacist Peter Brimelow, once an editor at National Review and more recently the founder of the radical anti-immigration website VDARE; and the German American academic Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a protégé of Rothbard who founded the Property and Freedom Society, which nurtures the bonds between libertarianism and white supremacy. Together they brought what had been fringe ideas about racial differences back into the mainstream—with effects that are all too clear today.
Slobodian skillfully shows how Rothbard, Brimelow, Hoppe, and the other intellectuals of this movement emerged from prominent neoliberal institutions like the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), the Manhattan Institute, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Founded in 1947 by the Austrian philosopher Friedrich Hayek, MPS has proved the most influential of these bodies, counting among its members luminaries such as Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Gary Becker. Their arguments in support of privatization, deregulation, and regressive taxation formed the intellectual core of the Reagan revolution. Reagan joined MPS’s libertarian economic and philosophical outlook to social conservatism and hawkish anticommunism, heralding the advent of the neoliberal era.

The pond couldn't help thinking of crazed Murdochians and in particular of the bromancer.

While at the NYRB, please be sure to drop in on Jacob Weisberg's Algorithm Nation, Fights about digital filtering tools have turned more and more bitter. That’s because of their extraordinary power to shape both political opinion and mass culture. (*archive link)

The pond refuses to honour logarithms with their preferred pronoun, as Uncle Leon got a serve ...

...At Musk’s X, there is no longer much pretense that politically neutral rules determine what users see. The platform now practices what DiResta calls “preferential dissemination.” More recently, the Times investigated the mysterious collapse of the reach of several prominent Trump supporters, from hundreds of thousands of daily views to in some cases just a few thousand, after they challenged Musk about immigration policy.
That these were far-right voices only underscores the point: X is now the kingdom of Musk, and anyone else posts at his pleasure. Instead of optimizing for growth and revenue, the way Facebook does, he optimizes the site for his ever-changing moods. Musk has done what Zuckerberg at his worst has never done: seized his megaphone for a monologue.

On to the bromancer megaphone in a moment, but first a link to Geoff Mann's The Price of Tomorrow, The current discount rate means that the government views the long-term future of humanity as not metaphorically but literally worthless (*archive link) is a rather dry meditation on the matter of discounting, and the way that market mechanisms destroy the future.

It does begin with a nice quote ...

The nineteenth-century abolitionist Lorenzo Dow, who spent years wandering the US as a revivalist preacher, once wrote of the American settler’s unholy hunger for more:
And what does he want with more land? Why, he wishes to raise more corn—to feed more hogs—to buy more land—to raise more corn—to feed more hogs—to buy more land—and in this circle he moves until the Almighty stops his hoggish proceedings.
More than a century and a half later, we have had all the hoggish proceedings we can take. Carl Sandburg quoted Dow’s phrase in a 1936 poem critical of American economic mythology, in which a businessman crows about how “it wasn’t luck nor the breaks/nor a convenient public/but it was him, ‘I,’ ‘Me,’/and the idea and the inference is/the pay and the praise should be his.” Since then, the drive for yield, the celebration of those who seek it, and the supplication before the investors who demand it has only intensified. Risks and sacrifices today are supposed to deliver a future of more as soon as possible.

... but ends in gloom ...

...To describe the commitment to the future as those of us in the present “sacrificing” ourselves is to fundamentally misrepresent what is at stake. Doganova quotes a report by the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that blandly claims it is “impossible not to discount,” but Discounting the Future shows that this kind of thinking totally misses the point. By reducing everything we value to the present, we have, as she puts it, decided that our “sacrifices” must be rewarded “regardless of what that future might actually hold.” The measure of an ethically or politically adequate relation to the future cannot be valued at a rate decided by the S&P 500 or the yield on ten-year inflation-protected US government securities. We have unilaterally indebted future generations (and the rest of life on earth) to the present, and the discount rate is the interest we make them pay on a debt we have fabricated out of nothing but our own narcissistic accounting. If we are to listen to an economist at this moment—it’s certainly not required—we are better served by A.C. Pigou, who once remarked that discounting is a sign that “our telescopic faculty is defective.”

Speaking of defective, that brings the pond back to the bromancer, who somehow in his defective way imagines the defective The Price is Wrong, the Canavan caravan, and the pasty Hastie might be the way forward. Always wanting more in a clueless way, without ever considering what that more might mean .... 

With all that other reading to hand, there hardly seems any point bothering with the clueless bromancer, and yet here we are, as the bromancer began with a classic flourish of bromancer panic and hysteria ...

It’s difficult to imagine any government doing more long-term harm to Australia than the Albanese government ...

It's difficult? 

Always that classic amnesia when it comes to the onion muncher, as besotted bromancers must do...

 Ah, the memories, the spinning of the platters that batter, but do go on, show off your unquenchable lust for conflict ...

 ...yet it’s equally impossible to imagine an opposition making less out of this, applying less pressure, winning less support, than today’s Liberal-National parties.
Both sides of politics in substance are appalling. The government, however, is easily winning the politics. It has a mostly tame media that shares its agenda, a dismal opposition, and is willing to spend any amount of money to mollify interest groups.
Discussion within the opposition about whether they should be populist or orthodox, free market or interventionist, socially conservative or liberal, whether they should demand big, or extremely big, cuts to immigration, what they should say on taxes, etc, are all legitimate up to a point.
In France and Italy, populist right-of-centre parties have replaced traditional right-of-centre parties. Nigel Farage might do the same in Britain. But as Italy’s admirable Giorgia Meloni shows, when they get into government, budget and security constraints mean they can’t quickly transform their nations.

Then came another reminder of the reptiles deep fear of Victoria, not the monarch, but those dastardly sparrows down south ... ’The Victorianisation of the Australian economy’ was the most interesting line from James Paterson’s ‘rightly lauded speech’. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The bromancer kept up his hysteria...

Meanwhile, Australia’s economic, security and social trajectory is disastrous, only clearly worse during the bleak chaos of the Whitlam years.

Really?

The pond is surprised that the bromancer didn't compare the country to Argentina, what with it being run by Killer Creighton's favourite economist ...

President Trump late Sunday defended Argentina as his administration is looking to secure $40 billion in financial assistance for the country.
“Argentina’s fighting for its life, young lady, you don’t know anything about it,” Trump told a reporter on Air Force One in response to a question. “They’re fighting for their life. Nothing’s benefiting Argentina.”
“They’re fighting for their life. You understand what that means? They have no money, they have no anything. They’re fighting so hard to survive. If I can help them survive in a free world — I happen to like the president of Argentina, I think he’s trying to do the best he can. But don’t make it sound like they’re doing great.”
Trump’s administration is seeking to secure a total of $40 billion in financial assistance for Argentina to assist the country’s libertarian leader in stabilizing its turbulent financial markets.
Earlier this month, the U.S. locked down a $20 billion currency swap line with Argentina’s central bank to hold up Argentine President Javier Milei’s struggling economy.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the U.S. wanted to give an extra $20 billion to Argentina, by way of a mix of financing from sovereign funds and private banks.
“We are working on a $20 billion facility that would complement our swap line, with private banks and sovereign funds that, I believe, would be more focused on the debt market,” Bessent told reporters.
“Many banks are interested in it and many sovereign funds have expressed interest,” the Treasury secretary continued. (The Hill)

Two loons together ...

Now that's an interesting economy, and a very interesting example of America first, as the bromancer carried on ...

Because of the structure of US politics, the populist revolt against failed establishment policies occurred within the Republican Party. The US resembles Australia in its being much harder for a new party to succeed than for an established party to transform.
But the Australian opposition, virtually all of them, could profitably spend less time theorising about the ideal party structure and more time trying to improve the truly dismal and unprofessional performance they’ve put in.
He won’t thank me for saying this but James Paterson is the only exception.
The most interesting thing from his rightly lauded speech was the line that the Albanese government was producing “the Victorianisation of the Australian economy”. Victoria is, notably, the basket-case state, having suffered a long period of a government that was good at politics and truly dreadful at the substance of policy. It’s now flat broke, deep in debt and doesn’t work at any level.
Opposition is often about creating memorable images or phrases that capture a reality that is true and simultaneously hurt the government. Tony Abbott as opposition leader was a genius at this. The carbon tax was “a great big tax on everything”. Rather cruelly and personally, Kevin Rudd was “a toxic bore”. The opposition’s policy was to “stop the boats” and “end the tax”.
These days an opposition needs to be very clever and active on social media as well. It needs lots of images there. But the striking thing is that in nearly four years, the “Victorianisation of Australia” is the only memorable line or image the entire opposition has come up with.

The pond has no idea why the reptiles have it in for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, but their selection of snaps is unremittingly savage, Angus Taylor should ‘stop talking about agile and innovative ... words completely without meaning’. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Did he just swallow a fly? Or did he spot those whale-killing windmills?

At this point the bromancer came up with a billy goat butt ...

This is not to reduce politics to slogans. 

Then he let loose with a series of wannabe slogans ...

Rather, the inability to communicate ideas effectively can arise equally from poor communication skills, rank laziness compared with what the job really requires, or a lack of serious ideas to communicate in the first place.
In my nearly 50 years of writing about politics, among other things, three of the most effective opposition politicians I’ve encountered, especially in recent decades, were Abbott, Rudd and Josh Frydenberg.
Each, like all of us, had his downside but one thing they had in common was that they started off each day at the crack of dawn, loaded with energy, went hard all day and much of the evening, dropped exhausted into a brief slumber late at night and emerged again next morning, Energiser bunny-like, wanting to talk on any radio station that would have them, contribute op-ed articles, devour policy research, hone new lines of attack, attend or create any community event, dream up gimmicks for the media and so on. None of them remotely kept gentleman’s hours. Who in today’s opposition, beyond Tim Wilson, fits that description?
Airy talk about free markets is all but meaningless. Abstract nouns are the enemy of oppositions. Angus Taylor, for God’s sake stop talking about agile and innovative. These are words completely without meaning. No voters say to themselves: give me agile and innovative.

Would it be a bromancer piece without the war on China by Xmas? 

Of course not ... The Australian government is seeking a response from Beijing over another allegation of a dangerous incident between the defence forces.

The bromancer then turned his attention to wannabe defence slogans...

Before it’s agile and innovative, a defence force needs firepower. Concentrate on firepower.

Good slogans.

Want another slogan?

Similarly, the free market is a tool, not a god. It’s useful in some areas, not in others. 

Had enough of slogans? You're in the wrong place with the wrong reptile scribbler...

Take the topic du jour: rare earths. These are essential for virtually all hi-tech. China totally dominates their production and processing.
No one will ever match the renowned “China price”. This is because Beijing will always sell rare earths below cost if necessary to maintain market dominance. The US and all its allies, including Australia, have to buy rare earths from China to build the weapons they need to defend themselves from Beijing. Per capita, China is much less wealthy than Australia. Yet for strategic reasons it takes a serious chunk of that wealth and subsidises rare earths and other key industries.
The free market cannot solve this problem. Companies will always buy the lowest cost unless directed by their government or offered a subsidy. Yet Western governments, which waste money on every nonsense imaginable, won’t commit to this obvious need for government subsidy of a national security industry.
Collectively Western governments have spent trillions of dollars on green energy subsidies for very little return. Energy prices have skyrocketed while greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb.

Would it be a proper bromancer piece without the bromancer at some point joining the Canavan caravan? 

Of course not ... Senator Matt Canavan has nudged disenchanted Liberals to rally behind the Nationals banner after a particularly tense party room meeting in Canberra last week. An unnamed Liberal MP has mused that if seven Liberals switched to the Nationals, the balance of power in the Coalition would switch. Mr Canavan told Sky News Australia that the numbers “check out”.

Go coal, it's the only way forward ...

Go, go, go, all the way ... if you don't mind entirely discounting and stuffing the future ...

It turns out that the bromancer is an old fashioned socialist with a love of government interventions ...

Yet they can’t do these basic security subsidies partly because the people who argue for defence are mostly the same people who argue for free markets in economics.
It is indeed a tragedy that Australia no longer manufactures cars. For a few hundred million dollars a year we had an industrial base and infinitely better trade education than a hundred TAFE systems could provide. We’ve spent countless billions on failed defence projects trying to pay off Adelaide for killing the car industry.

But not all interventions. 

The bromancer loves to discount the future ...

Obviously the opposition will eventually need to ditch the net-zero commitment. The world is moving away from net zero. I tried with absolutely no success to get senior ministers in the previous Coalition government to explain what their net-zero commitment meant. The Coalition could commit to emissions reductions and even keep net zero as a vague aspiration but ditch it as a commitment.
But it needs spokespeople who can passionately and convincingly argue these positions, focusing on what the government has done to energy prices, and win a public debate, as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price won the voice. That’s a herculean task for this opposition because none of them is even known by most of the public.

And so to the real insanity. 

The notion that The Price is Wrong, the hastie Pasty, and the Canavan caravan are the way forward, but then the bromancer's first love was the onion muncher, and that pretty much explains everything you need to know...

Which leads to a final point. It’s insane that Andrew Hastie, Nampijinpa Price and Matt Canavan are on the backbench. It’s like a cricket team intentionally fielding a second XI. 

If that trio of troglodytes should be in the first XI, at last there's an explanation for why the Australian cricket team routinely stuffs up ...

The fault here lies both with Sussan Ley, who can’t manage her team, and with Hastie, Nampijinpa Price and Canavan. Occupying the backbench may allow you a Winston Churchill wilderness years fantasy. It doesn’t produce effective politics. It’s equally absurd that Ley has given Dave Sharma such a marginal role.
The opposition is a shambles. It’s thus facilitating some of the worst governance Australia has seen. Surely they can do better.

Yes, that unruly mob need to take a leaf out of King Donald's playbook, see how it should be done...