26 June 2007

Comments

1. "Providing healthy food in lieu of money, (money is something which Aboriginals are not equipped culturally to understand)."
   Your shared racist paternalistic attitude is exactly what caused the problem in the first place and is still stopping progress.  The fact that you publish crap like this is no credit to you….the shallowness of your generalization is so offensive that it beggars believe!  No wonder there are 0 comments.
   Comment by netfly — 28 July 2007

2. So why are the police in the Aboriginal settlements?
   

   Aboriginals had an anarchic society before European settlement. Back then, whoever caught the food was the King. They said that they wanted to go back to their native culture, which exchanged food for prestige.

   Now the elders are King, courtesy of Labour party largess. Some of those elders are abusing government grants of money to remain intoxicated and enforce sexual compliance out of children.

   If they want money, make them work for it like non-aboriginals. You destroy people when you give them unearned handouts.

   Do not give them fish, give them a fishing line.

   Comment by barvennon — 28 July 2007

3. "So why are the police in the Aboriginal settlements?"

   Because talking and working things out doesn't apply. We decide,you do and we back our paternalistic solutions with force.  This should be called occupation!

   "Aboriginals had an anarchic society before European settlement. Back then, whoever caught the food was the King. They said that they wanted to go back to their native culture, which exchanged food for prestige."

   Thanks for the history lesson….I see you left out occupation, slavery,murder and rape, genocide, land and child theft, theft of human status. Only 40yrs since recognition of human status! But occupation goes on…………

   "Now the elders are King, courtesy of Labour party largess. Some of those elders are abusing government grants of money to remain intoxicated and enforce sexual compliance out of children."

   The above analysis could be applied to most suburbs in Australia! I suggest you surround suburb by suburb with police and the army (and doctors etc) and clean them out. Don't forget to shut all the pubs,clubs and "bottleos".Cut all pensions in half and resume all blocks of land.

   If they want money, make them work for it like non-aboriginals. You destroy people when you give them unearned handouts.  Do not give them fish, give them a fishing line.

   And finally, I suppose you'll exchanging your pension for a fishing line to-day ?

   Comment by netfly — 19 August 2007

4. In your travels around Australia did you notice many aborigines working in supermarkets or fast food outlets… or anywhere for that matter! They are completely under represented in all walks of life…just as (are) blind people, wheelchaired people and anyone slightly different to the hollywood model of our existence.

   I managed a restaurant (Mac's type operation) for a national chain.  One very busy day the CEO paid us surprise visit.  The shop was going full blast so he stepped back and watched the operation. He was most impressed with our quick turnover however he pulled me aside to talk to me about 2 young aborigine boys I had hired 2 weeks prior and was now training in all the different stations etc.
   To cut a long story short he wanted me to sack them because he felt sure our clients wouldn't like "their food handled by people like that". Never mind that they were working out fine and learning real fast.  I managed to have him accept that we knew what we were doing…but not till I had all the rest of the staff speak up for them. However he made sure that no other restaurant in the chain hired "people like that"! 
   

5. His policy was never officially stated but was done with wink and a nod to the management of all the other shops during locked in management meetings.He was a racist bigot running the restaurants for
   a major "Australian" company…now even larger.
   Comment by netfly — 19 August 2007

6. Netfly,

   Occupation by force? I agree, pedophiles arent as bad as we make them out. It was actually an aboriginal custom before we interfered.

   You know, as do I, that the history has been repainted.

   "occupation, slavery, murder and rape, genocide, land and child theft, theft of human status."

   Occupation? Land Theft? so why did the settlers in Melbourne purchase the land?
   Murder & rape? It was escaped convicts and occasional Aboriginals (from a nearly perfect anarchistic society) that originally committed the murders and rape.

   Child theft? The stolen generation? To my reading of history, most of those "child thefts" were removal of half cast children, whom the fathers requested the authorities move them into institutions.

   theft of human status? As I understand it, any aboriginal who wanted to accept full citizenship status (including access to liquor etc) was perfectly free to do so, the only problem was he had to renounce access to that magnificent welfare system provided on the reservation.

   The new rules for aboriginals already apply to most suburbs of Australia. They did not apply to Aboriginals until Howard's recent "enabling" legislation. (shades of Adolph:) If you want to talk about pensions in Australia, the Aboriginals have had a specially "protected" status until now. For instance, an aboriginal person can put a down payment on a new car, make two payments, and then he (or she) owns it. Lets see the government give that right to our pensioners!

   Exchange my pension for a fishing line? Well negative income tax (aka pension) is the subject of a future post. I have already written about it here.( http://barvennon.com/~liberty/economy.html )

   In answer to your comment starting "In your travels around Australia did you notice many aborigines working in supermarkets or fast food outlets…"

   I guess that you can't legislate human prejudice. All you can do is make everyone equal before the law. I regret the problems that you recite, but legislated "affirmative action" only breeds resentment that exacerbates the problem.

   Comment by barvennon — 19 August 2007

6 June 2007

CURRENT EVENTS IN OZ

QUEENSLAND.

After seeing the recent performance of Queensland Premier Beatty, I am not surprised that parts of Queensland are anxious to split. Beatty is the sort of Premier that makes visitors laugh at the motto on Queensland car number plates which states "The Clever State". Hehe. So how come they elected Beatty?

e.g. Beatty has decided to reorganize local government, so, without consultation, just a few months after being elected, he unilaterally decided to combine local councils (no doubt in an attempt to reduce the expanding count of independent councilors). As a reason he said "many councils are experiencing financial difficulty". When challenged, he was unable to produce a list, however a list compiled by local government indicates that only about 2 or 3 (5%) of councils are in real difficulty. (Maybe, with the Labour party under such financial stress from "work choices", redesigning the lifeboats is not such a dumb move.)

Another example, the state of Queensland is a major mineral exporter. The Queensland government monopoly rail system is reportedly costing the nation $billions in lost exports because it cannot handle transfer of coal and other minerals to the dock. Reportedly about 30 ships are waiting outside Mackay harbour as I write. Beatty has attempted to blame the other players (The mines are to blame, the privately owned docks cannot handle the throughput, etc.) however those other players deny that they are to blame. Then again, maybe that stupidity is not so dumb, if it advantages unions.

FEDERAL POLITICS

Opposition leader Rudd has shown great promise in the polls, despite the difficulties put in his path by PM Howard. However recently he seems to have lost the initiative.

First there was the fact that his wife, a self made multi-millionaire (a business worth around $100M after 20 years, built from government subsidies for expediting the meeting of employers with employees) had been using work contracts, and even had dealings with the much reviled "Work Choices" legislation. Work Choices was a John Howard political initiative that struck a potentially fatal blow at the heart of the Labour party machine. "Work Choices" legislation reversed over 100 years of Union sponsored legislation that had entrenched unions in the workplace. Work Choices is an alternative to unions.

Rudd's wife has now committed to selling the Australian operations of her company. I am having difficulty in calculating whether that was a shrewd business move on her part, or a noble gesture. On the one hand, a Labour win would severely damage the economy, which would be bad for most businesses. On the other hand, this is an employment business, so with the rising unemployment that John Howard has forecast if "Work Choices" is repealed, any business getting a government handout for helping people to find work could be very well placed financially.  I suppose it would ultimately depend on whether the government subsidy was subject to the employment agency actually finding the unemployed person a job.

Then KR had trouble with the "salt of the earth" language of hardline unionists. Howard seems, in the meantime, to be gaining traction (despite the increasing desperation of Garrett and the much diminished Greens) in the Global Warming debate after announcing a "financially responsible" global warming initiative. Again, he was simultaneously able to paint Labour as financially irresponsible because Labour intended to set pollution limits without first calculating their effect on the economy.

The most recent polls indicate a quite massive swing back towards Howard.

SEPARATION OF POWERS

Last week the NSW state prosecutor (an appointed position, supposedly immune to political influence) sent a couple of NSW policemen to the hotel of Indonesian General Sutiyoso (now a Governor in Java who just happened to have been the general allegedly in charge of the Timor invasion back in the late seventies when the Balibo 5 were killed) with a request for his appearance in front of a court. Perhaps exceeding their authority, those police permitted the hotel staff to use a key to gain entry after successive knocking on Sutiyoso's door elicited no response.

The general was not amused, and a diplomatic incident resulted. Premier Iemma (NSW) apologised to the General and has since demonstrated that the prosecutor is perhaps not quite as independent as we had thought… Premier Iemma is looking worse all the time.

CHAVEZ

Until recently, I have been prepared to give Venezeula's President Chavez the benefit of doubt. He earned that benefit by enacting legislation that gave voters the power to remove him from office, in the same way that voters were able to remove Grey as Governor of California and appoint Schwartzenegger as governator. However Chavez' action in refusing to renew the TV broadcasting license of the leading anti-Chavez network in Venezeula for alleged anti Chavez propoganda appears to be heavy handed. A more elegant (though perhaps less simple) solution would have been to legislatively curtail foreign influence or find some other aspect which had permitted control of the broadcaster by hostile elements.

It has been established in numberless instances around the world that suppression of dissenting opinion generates resentment and opposition. On the other hand, permitting public opposition allows those who are dissatisfied a chance to indulge their grievance until they become aware of the consequences of a change of government.

ABM

Since October 1999 I have been advocating that the US develop an efficient ABM. (1), (2), (3), (4), (5). The Russians have objected to their former satellites obtaining ABM installations. The Chinese have made known their concerns that Taiwan might obtain ABM installations.

It heartens me to see that both the Russians and the Chinese have started to complain. I take those complaints as evidence that the US has produced an effective ABM that might be able to defend against the ICBMs that those nations possess. If those nations had read this diary back in 1999 they might have realized both the technical possibilities for, and strategic importance of a functional, efficient ABM.

Far from the dire warnings of those nations, an effective ABM will reduce the likelihood of brushfire wars, because who would bluff with ICBMs a nation whose ally is defended by a 99% effective ABM shield?

That ABM incidentally removes urgent concerns about a secretly developed nuclear missile threat from either North Korea or Iran. I suspect that the hardline governments of those nations will wither when it becomes obvious that neighboring nations are ignoring them because they no longer presented a threat.

ASSET INFLATION

I have remarked before that the occasional column by a writer who uses the nom de plume "Henry Thornton" (in this instance, "Asset price bubble a worry" in "The Australian" of 5th June 2007) is extremely useful because he almost always gets everything about 180 degrees wrong. His argument in this instance is that asset inflation applies to BHP, the stock market and real estate when those items are compared to the CPI. (From the graph he gives, Real Estate has increased by 400% whilst CPI increased by 200% since 1986)

The CPI (Consumer Price Index) has become a politicized instrument, which nowadays mostly reflects the cost of consumables, (imported Chinese knick-knacks and farming) not (as most punters think), the cost of living. Nonetheless, especially since around 2000, there has been an inflation of real estate and stocks. HT identifies the commonly given reason for that inflation, which is too many dollars (from super funds and capital inflows) chasing too few assets. That explanation does not suit Henry, who reasons that the theory does not explain the booming stockmarket in China, which does not have large capital inflows.

You gotta wonder how Henry makes a living in the real world.

Henry, it's the Chinese (voluntary) equivalent of our compulsory superannuation that causes Chinese asset inflation. Individual Chinese are investing on the Chinese stock exchange. The Chinese have a culture that encourages a very high personal savings rate.

TELSTRA

Seems that Trujillo and Samuel are in deadlock. Each is an expert in his own business, and neither will concede. I guess they just got off on the wrong foot.

Only dialup is available to Barvennon. Even if Trujillo & Samuel stop fighting, I can't see any likely improvement in transmission speeds. Supposedly I could get satellite, but the waiting list is long, relying on misiscule periodic handouts (subsidies) by the government.