In which there's a Groaning and Ancient Troy, but it's King Donald's expert grifting that entertains...

 

So: 

These stones from Jerusalem, the Eternal City, the Eternal Capital of Israel ...

Or:

In October 2022, Wong announced that the Albanese government would be reversing the previous Morrison government's decision to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, adding that Jerusalem's status should be decided through peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. In August 2023, Wong confirmed that Australia would revert to its pre-2014 policy of designating the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip as "Occupied Palestinian Territories" and the Israeli settlements there as "illegal". (wiki)

Meanwhile the Australian Daily Zionist News is busy as usual in the usual way ...

The pond wasn't inclined to waste time or energy on links - there's always the intermittent archive for those who know how to copy and paste a url.

There was only one response required...

Here's why the pond never runs lizard Oz attempts at 'tooning ...

Such a reprehensible, deeply stupid man, eternally in the grip of some kind of Spoonerism, and yet in his own mendacious, malicious way, entirely befitting the Australian Daily Zionist News ...

And with that unpleasantness out of the way, time to turn to non-Zionist reptile studies ...

COALITION IN CHAOS
Angus Taylor in meeting with top moderate Anne Ruston
Conservative Liberal MPs have warned Angus Taylor he would look ‘impotent’ if he failed to challenge Sussan Ley this week, with a meeting between Mr Taylor and top moderate Anne Ruston sparking counter claims from rival factions.
By Greg Brown and Sarah Ison

Impossible to care really, or to care that the updated version yet to hit the archive started with an imputation regarding Lib manliness...

Conservative Liberal MPs have warned Angus Taylor he would look “impotent” if he failed to challenge Sussan Ley this week, with a meeting between the presumptive leadership candidate and top moderate Anne Ruston sparking a series of counter-claims from key figures in rival factions.

These days it's not a lack of ticker, it's a lack of balls or spunk or whatever passes for manliness in the bizarre world of manly Liberal men? 

The pond supposes that suits a piece of chunky prime boofhead Angus beef ...

At least the fuss was worth an immortal Rowe sporting metaphor (beware broken legs) ...

...and in the detail there was a touching in memoriam ...

Now please get back to the pond when something actually happens ...

Meanwhile ...

The "By" was left blank?

Some might think it was just a typical attempt by the reptiles to outdo the Graudian.

The pond took it as a slight. Surely that editorial had to be written by Dame Slap, and credit where credit is due ... that ongoing, never ending obsession of hers is always predictable.

Luckily Dame Groan was out and about; unluckily, speaking of the predictable...

The header: Nothing productive in Jim Chalmers CGT attack; With the opposition imploding, Labor escaped scrutiny after a rate rise and fresh inflation fears — but Jim Chalmers’ fixation on capital gains tax distracts from the real problem: productivity.

The caption for that insufferable man ruining Dame Groan's life a day and a column a time: Treasurer Jim Chalmers spent the week denying the obvious — that government spending is contributing to inflation — as interest rates rose again. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The pond is only presenting this five minute rant because Dame Groan has something of a cult following. 

Those outside the cult would be satisfied with a bald summary: four legs Dame Groan good, two legged 'tax the rich' Jimbo very bad ...

Were it not for the fact that the opposition spent most of the time talking about itself, last week would have been a bad one for the Labor government and for the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
A rise in the cash rate less than a year after it was cut was unwelcome news. Further interest rate rises look likely. Chalmers spent all his time trying to deny the obvious – that government spending is contributing to the inflation problem.
At the end of the week, the dithering governor of the Reserve Bank came clean and admitted that growth in both public and private demand are problems in the context of highly inflexible supply. Low productivity growth is a central problem.
When asked what the government was doing about productivity, Chalmers rattled off some trivial outcomes of the roundtable held last year: abolition of nuisance tariffs, pausing the next round of the National Construction Code, and the revisions to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t mention the fact that the streamlined approval processes would not apply to gas projects, notwithstanding the fact that the government accepts the critical role of gas in the transition of the energy system.
Let’s be clear, none of these measures will move the dial on productivity. The refusal to accept the consequences of the re-regulation of the labour market as well as galloping energy costs mean that productivity is unlikely to pick up any time soon.
For this reason, among others, the Treasurer was probably quite happy to see much of the media discussion turn to changing the capital gains tax regime. Of course, increasing the tax burden on investors will, all things being equal, lead to lower investment. Investment is the basis of productivity improvement. But most of the media commentary is so muddle-headed that this truism is quickly forgotten. It’s about intergenerational equity; it’s about the unfairness of the system; it’s about increasing the rate of home ownership. In other words, it’s the vibe, rather than the facts.
So it’s worth going through these facts. The first point to note is that plenty of countries do not tax capital gains. New Zealand doesn’t have one. Singapore doesn’t have one. It is highly concessional in the US. When the UK increased its rate of capital gains tax, the revenue raised fell significantly. Our current rate of capital gains tax is high by international standards.
The second point to note is that capital gains tax should only apply to real (after inflation) gains. This was the case from the start of our capital gains tax, although the clunky use of annual CPI adjustment was replaced by the simple discount of 50 per cent at the beginning of the century. (For a time, investors could choose between the two methods.)
Treasury’s estimates of the cost of this discount are completely bonkers because it is using the counterfactual of taxing nominal gains made over the period assets are held. No one in their right mind thinks this would make any sense.

The reptiles only interrupted Dame Groan's rant with just one snap, an entirely meaningless illustration of a building... With media attention diverted to capital gains tax, deeper questions about productivity, investment and reform went largely unanswered. Picture: Newswire

That's the best visual illustration/distraction the reptiles could manage? They couldn't even summon up a single graph like an ABC finance report (YouTube link):

Back to the Groaner merrily groaning away without a graph to her name, as she valiantly battled for the filthy rich...

Another point to note is how capital gains tax is assessed in this country. The proceeds are assessed in the year of the asset sale, and the tax is calculated at the individual’s top marginal tax rate.
In the case of the disposal of property, this almost invariably puts the individual into the top income tax rate of 47 per cent (including the Medicare Levy). This is notwithstanding the fact that the top marginal tax rate is often not reflective of the income position of the taxpayer as judged by prior years.
(This instance is further illustration of the problem with our high, top marginal tax rate and the fact that it kicks in at the relatively low level of income of $190,000.)
Bear in mind here that capital gains taxation also applies to superannuation funds, albeit at highly concessional rates.
When opposition leader Bill Shorten proposed to tweak the capital gains tax regime going into the 2019 election, he specifically exempted superannuation funds from any change. Industry super funds are the equivalent of Labor royalty.
Given the government’s aspiration that superannuation funds invest more heavily in residential real estate, it would be puzzling to see the funds hit by a higher capital gains tax on property.
Without knowing precisely what is being proposed, let’s consider some of the consequences of reducing the discount on capital gains tax for individuals.
There is talk about confining the change to property, while leaving the discount unchanged for other assets. At a minimum, this would cause a disincentive to invest in property, which may be seen as desirable by some commentators, although not by renters with no hope of owning a home.
There is also the issue of grandfathering.

Oh noes, not this again ...

That interruption remains as undecipherable as a Dame Groan column ...

This was part of Shorten’s package: assets held before the change would be taxed in the old way. Of course, grandfathering involves forgoing some tax revenue, although all estimates of future revenue gains are highly speculative. Without grandfathering, there can be a lock-in effect as people hang on to assets.
There is talk of an additional $4bn of annual tax revenue being possible with a change to the discount figure on property assets. But given the size of the federal budget, with spending approaching $800bn, it’s hard to get too excited about the size of this gain.
Let’s also be clear that it’s older people who own and sell assets because it takes time to establish a financial position to do so. There is nothing shocking or immoral about this; it has always been the case. Ditto those with more wealth and higher incomes but note the qualification above about the way the capital gains tax is levied.
Having said all this, rapidly rising house prices and declining rate of home ownership are legitimate issues of concern for any government. But it is imperative that we analyse very carefully the reasons for these unfortunate developments and don’t simply blame property investors and the capital gains tax.
In fact, rising house prices are a global phenomenon; the answer is unlikely to be just about arcane features of our tax system. It should also be noted that the capital gains tax and negative gearing arrangements have been in place much longer than the rapid rise in house prices.
Ask any sensible economist about dealing with housing affordability and the answer will always be the same: increase supply. And the need to increase supply is made more urgent when the population is growing strongly – because of immigration, in our case.
The bottom line is that tweaking the capital gains tax arrangement on property is a low-order issue when it comes to the crucial challenge of raising the rate of productivity.
Australia currently ranks 16 out of 24 advanced economies when it comes to the level of labour productivity.
We should be able to do so much better. The last thing we should be doing is creating disincentives for investment.

Put it another way: the last thing anyone should think about doing in lizard Oz la la land is tax the rich.

As for a bonus, it being a Zionist Tuesday, there's a dearth of reptile material. 

Where's the bromancer? He's been MIA since the 24th January!

Likely he's off cooking up something, but in the interim, the pond ended up with ancient Troy ...

The header: Why Anthony Albanese must risk bold reform to secure a lasting political legacy; Anthony Albanese will soon become Australia’s longest serving PM since John Howard, eclipsing his contemporaries, but has he delivered the transformational reforms that define great political legacies?

The caption for the smirking man, looking kinda funny: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will soon rank among Australia’s longest-serving prime ministers — but the defining question is what legacy his government will leave. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Inevitably ancient Troy wanted Albo to be bloody, bold, and resolute, so the reptiles could then smack him down, either for his ambition or for his failing - either would do in the "get 'em coming, get 'em going" world of the hive mind ...

In 10 days, Anthony Albanese surpasses Scott Morrison to become the 12th-longest-serving prime minister out of 31 who have held the nation’s top job. He will be the longest-serving since John Howard, eclipsing his five immediate predecessors, and by the time the next election is due, Albanese will be in eighth place on the longevity table.
Time in office and election victories matter but what matters most is a policy legacy. How did the prime minister change the nation? How did they and their government respond to challenges and implement their agenda? Did the prime minister and their party leave their stamp on the country and turn it in a new direction?
The Albanese government has not been idle. It secured legislative change across the board, from education, social and environment policy to the economy and deepened relations with several countries. It has delivered election commitments. Albanese leads a process-driven, methodical, stable government. But what are the signature achievements?
Where are the big-bang reforms future generations will easily remember? Think of the Hawke government’s float of the dollar and introduction of Medicare; the Keating government’s national superannuation scheme and Mabo land rights legislation; the Howard government’s sweeping taxation changes and gun law reforms.
Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers bristle at suggestions they are not reformist enough.
They point to redesigning income tax cuts, extending paid parental leave, and introducing domestic and family violence leave, cheaper medicines and energy price relief, the social media ban for teenagers, and signing every state up to the Gonski school reforms.

Again the reptiles could only drum up one visual distraction, featuring the usual Satanic figures ... Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers argue their government has delivered steady reform — critics say the moment now calls for bolder ambition. Picture: NewsWire / Philip Gostelow

Troy bunged on a listicle, blithely asserting that AUKUS with mad King Donald was actually a thing ...

More recently, there have been environmental law changes and strengthening childcare regulation, cutting student university debt by 20 per cent, and hate speech and gun law reforms. The 2035 climate change target of a 62-70 per cent reduction on 2005 emissions has been set, and won plaudits from unions and business.
The $368bn AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement has been confirmed by the Trump administration and is being delivered. The China relationship was “stabilised” and “repaired”, and new security and defence agreements signed with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The government is making a bid for a UN Security Council seat, reflecting Albanese’s ambition to be a constructive leader on the world stage.
Many of these initiatives are worthy, reflect election promises and show a busy agenda. But are they groundbreaking? Are they really contentious? Has the government tackled the really big challenges: productivity, debt and deficit, and the need to turbocharge the economy? And now interest rates are going up again, adding to cost-of-living pressures.
Albanese has emphasised the importance of unity and stability in party ranks and adherence to a proper cabinet government approach. He listens to advice, works decisions through, and will not be rushed. He wants to lead a government across several terms and establish Labor as “the natural party of government”.
When I interviewed Albanese a few months ago, he insisted now was not the time to throw caution to the wind with a crazy-brave reform agenda or push the limits of his mandate earned last year. The government has a program to implement, with some wiggle room, but process, timing and method matter. “That’s what I mean by bringing people with you on that journey of change as a progressive centre-left government that doesn’t try to do everything immediately but which shapes that change and that agenda going forward,” he said.

Not this again ...

The pond has no idea why they do it, but it's necessary to conjure up the web version experience ... as "reformer" ancient tRoy offered a few ideas from the lying rodent ...

While many of the changes have been incremental, there is scope in a second term, Albanese acknowledged, to be bolder. “Term one was turning the corner from an inflationary environment in order to lift living standards,” he explained in September. “Term two is building on that agenda further, for setting Australia up for the decades ahead.”
Prioritising processes alongside reform need not be limiting. He has talked about transforming the “mind and mood” of the country, and being a “change agent” who believes in using the levers of government. But he insists that what many commentators misunderstood about the last election was that voters rewarded his style of government.
“They underestimated the way that people felt about the direction of the country and I think people have respected the fact that it is an orderly government,” Albanese explained. “People who might disagree with it know that we have engaged with them. They know that we don’t shout at them, and I think there’s a lot of shouting in global politics.”
The government’s huge parliamentary majority needs to be used now to take risks and be brave. The circumstances could not be more favourable. The centre-right has fractured, One Nation is surging in the polls, the National Party is divided and the Liberal Party is existentially challenged, with its leader, Sussan Ley, facing a likely leadership showdown.
Albanese and Chalmers need to make taxation, productivity and growth their focus in the May budget. They are talking up reform, which is encouraging. The challenge is to shift the burden from taxing income to taxing capital, while cutting spending and reducing debt and future deficits. Addressing generational equity must be a priority and housing, therefore, should be front and centre.
None of this is easy. Reform is harder these days than a generation ago. Trust in government has declined. Potential allies such as business and unions are not as respected as they were. Reaching voters with a focused message is harder given the bifurcation of media, shorter attention spans and disinformation.
Howard recently told me he would support increasing the GST and using the revenue to provide an income tax cut. This is an opening that should not be missed.
Legacies are not only measured in election wins and time in office. What matters is what you do. The voters, as ever, are looking for leadership. Ambition, courage, boldness will be rewarded if reform is explained, is fair and in the national interest. When it comes to legacies, this is how Albanese and Chalmers can write themselves into the history books.

An opening not to be missed?

It's bold to expand a regressive tax which hurts the poor the most, while avoiding any hint of taxing the rich?

Only in the la la land of the lizard Oz...

Long may they contend ...

Determined not to entirely waste the day, the pond turned yet again to the delights of mad King Donald, delights routinely ignored by the reptiles in the lizard Oz ...

"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules - and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." Ransom K. Fern (Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan)

And still there are some twits who insist there is no such thing as the deep, endless depths of King Donald and his family's corruption.

Tim Miller did a Bulwark YouTube post about a promised series of articles in National Review, a flunky fellow-travelling rag which suddenly seems to have discovered a little spine.

It was also available at The Bulwark in shorter form ... A Conservative Finally Says It: Trump Is Incredibly Corrupt

If National Review Will Cover This, It’s Bad
Tim Miller takes on a stunning National Review series that details the scale of Trump’s crypto corruption—dwarfing anything ever alleged about Biden—and explains how Trump’s crypto business operated as a pay-to-play system for foreign money, why Republican oversight collapsed, and why it matters that conservatives are finally starting to say it out loud.

Miller was concerned to lay out the record because the NR stories were behind the paywall, but that's of little concern to devotees of the intermittent archive.

The pond would like to bring some further reading to the attention of its correspondents.

Andrew C. McCarthy set the pace, with this first outing:

The Sordid Story of Trump, the Trump–Witkoff Family Business, and the UAE
Even if crypto makes your head hurt, you’re going to be hearing a lot about this in the months to come.

Miller was intrigued by what he called the "to be sure" factor, known on the pond as the infamous Billy Goat Butt.

Miller called it "to be sure" on the basis that "to be sure anything King Donald might do, to be sure it wouldn't match the corruption of the Biden crime gang" ...

But this time the "to be sure" riff went badly wrong in the NR piece...

...House Republicans even opened an impeachment inquiry, which generated a scathing report on the “conspiracy to monetize Joe Biden’s office of public trust to enrich the Biden family.” The sum generated over several years of Biden self-dealing — “over $27 million” — flashed in neon throughout the report’s 291 pages. Republicans were especially incensed because the Bidens practiced their harlotry on foreigners — in particular, agents of China. Family avarice, rather than the national interest, drove United States government policy. The House impeachment report thundered:
"Joe Biden has exhibited conduct and taken actions that the Founders sought to guard against in drafting the impeachment provisions in the Constitution: abuse of power, foreign entanglements, corruption, and obstruction of investigations into these matters. The Committees [sic] investigative work has revealed that the Biden family — with the full knowledge and cooperation of President Biden — has engaged in a global influence peddling racket from which they made millions of dollars.
You know what the difference is between the Biden family business and the Trump family business? You’d have to add two digits to the sum of Biden abuses of power, foreign entanglements, and corruption alleged in the report to get near what Trump has raked in just from the UAE."
Of course, Trump can’t be faulted for obstructing congressional investigations. There haven’t been any. Comer is busy tangling with the Clintons, the better to take the Epstein heat off a president whose poll numbers have declined as this year’s midterm elections beckon. Now that self-dealing has achieved heights so astronomical that $27 million would barely be a rounding error, Republicans have lost interest.

The intermittent archive also had the second in the series (there are to be five all up):

The Corrupt Pardon at the Center of Trump’s UAE Windfall

Of course the WSJ has been running hot on all this stuff in recent times ...

One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed In on Crypto.
Sons of top Trump administration officials made billions for their families, but their investors didn’t always fare so well (* intermittent archive link)

It's entirely possible the Murdochs are envious and jealous of this level of grift, and wish they could do the same...

In the depths of Donald Trump’s interregnum, his eldest two sons huddled in a Mar-a-Lago conference room with boyhood pal Zach Witkoff to conjure up a new money machine. Two other would-be cryptocurrency entrepreneurs showed up, one in sweatpants.
That pre-election confab sowed the seeds for World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that, with the senior Trump back in power, is generating cash far faster than the president’s decades-old real-estate business.
While his father Steve Witkoff acts as President Trump’s all-purpose special envoy, 32-year-old Zach Witkoff now heads up World Liberty, which has doled out at least $1.4 billion to both families since the president’s re-election, based on a Wall Street Journal analysis of public disclosures and private documents. Among the payouts: a secret $500 million deal to sell almost half the company to an Abu Dhabi royal and his co-investors.
Witkoff is part of a small cadre of Trump administration offspring who, since their fathers moved to Washington, have metamorphosed into wealthy financial celebrities in their own right. 
Key to their transformation has been the crypto sector, where they were all neophytes a few years ago, but now run businesses that raised billions of dollars from investors before the market turned sour. And because they were able to extract real cash from their ventures quickly, they are far less exposed to the current crypto downturn than retail investors who loaded up on digital tokens. 
The younger Witkoff now tours the globe alongside a phalanx of aides with an American flag pinned to his suit jacket and counts some of crypto’s most powerful figures as friends, including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who Trump pardoned in October. He sports a Richard Mille timepiece worth half a million dollars on one day, a $250,000 rose-gold Patek Philippe on another.
Eric Trump is the public face of a bitcoin company where he holds a $90 million stake, while his brothers, Don Jr. and 19-year-old Barron join him as co-founders of World Liberty. Brandon Lutnick, the 28-year-old son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, runs his father’s former Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, a midtier investment bank that has become a top choice for crypto deals.
World Liberty has earned the Trump family at least $1.2 billion in cash in the 16 months since its launch, not counting paper gains of at least $2.25 billion from various crypto holdings. By contrast, it took eight years for President Trump’s real estate, golf and brand empire to throw off that amount of cash between 2010 and 2017, according to Trump Organization financial statements disclosed in a New York lawsuit with the state attorney general. The Witkoffs have earned at least $200 million from World Liberty.

And so on, and again ...

‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips (*intermittent archive link)

Also including ...

Top Democrat Launches Probe Into ‘Spy Sheikh’ Deal With Trump Company (just the archive link)
World Liberty said lawmakers are ‘harassing a private American business to score political points

There's a reason that King Donald loves the way his MAGA cultists are poorly educated and completely clueless, they're as thick as bricks, and dumb as sticks, and whatever other synonym you might deploy ...

That's how he can get away with the endless grifts and shakedowns of a government and a country he's purporting to be running ...

How Trump's $10 billion suit against his own government could go sideways
Any number of developments in and out of the courtroom could sidetrack a payout arising from the president's complaint, experts, lawmakers and ethics specialists told NBC News.

Over the years, Trump has cast himself as a careful steward of taxpayer money. He is using private donations to underwrite the massive White House ballroom he is building where the East Wing once stood.
Here, his suit demands a sum of money that exceeds 80% of the IRS’ budget last year.

Uh huh ... charity? 

Donald J. Trump pays court-ordered $2 million for illegally using Trump Foundation funds ...

then there's that other grifter shakedown ...

Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases (archive link)
Senior department officials who were defense lawyers for the president and those in his orbit are now in jobs that typically must approve any such payout, underscoring potential ethical conflicts.

It's vastly more amusing than Vlad the Sociopath's psychotic war on Ukraine, or Chairman Xi punishing free speech in Hong Kong ... and it sets up TT for seasonal greetings and best wishes ...