
Likely to be a big comment weekend given the #Libspill so , if we get to over 250 comments, I’ll kick off a second page so those on mobiles can still play along…
Italics is gunna ..
China
- Conquering China’s Mountain of Debt– Bloomberg
- China Chart of the Week: The IMF’s Falling Forecast for China– Peterson Institute …ugly chart…
- CDB Told to Return to Policy Bank Role It Left Years Ago– Caixin
- CBRC Warns Public Not to Fall for High-Interest Scams at Banks– Caixin
- State-Backed Automaker ‘Spent Millions to Buy Land, Build Villas’– Caixin
- Minsheng Bank President Resigns amid Corruption Investigation– Caixin
- Devaluation by China is the next great risk for a deflationary world– AEP, Telegraph
- China bank reserve cut deepens divergence – BBC, Yueh
- China’s bank reserve ratio cut targets two birds with one stone – SCMP
- China to have most robots by 2017 as car, electronics factories automate – SCMP
Asia
- In the Shadow of Abenomics, Japan’s Poor and Elderly Are Being Left Behind– Bloomberg
- Japan May Force Its Workers to Take Vacation – The Atlantic
- Expectations for wage hikes grow as ‘shunto’ negotiations draw closer – Japan Times
- China-bound shipments log first fall in 5 years – Nikkei Asian Review
- Gusmao resigns as East Timor PM – Nikkei Asian Review
Europe
- Merkel and Hollande in bid to agree Ukraine cease-fire as US considers arming Kiev– Open Europe
- Danish central bank fiercely defends peg– FT
- Tsipras Vows to Keep Promises After German Rebuff – Bloomie
- Greek credit deterioration continues– Markit
- Obama Joins the Greek Chorus– Project Syndicate
- Greek Leaders Return Home for Rethink After Rebuff From Germany– Bloomberg
- German Industrial Output Rises as Economy Recovers – Bloomberg
- Greece: Here’s What Happens Next– Bloomberg
- Devaluation Edges Ukraine Closer to IMF Aid Amid Merkel Visit– Bloomberg
- Money in Greece. Five graphs and some problems.– RWER
- Greece needs an exit option– RWER
- Obama Joins the Greek Chorus– Project-Syndicate
- Draghi: Let’s Turn this Bank Run into a Stampede– Peter Dorman
- Europe’s Eurasian Opportunity– Project-Syndicate
- Greek and German finance ministers clash at debt relief talks– Guardian
- Greece Advances a Good Idea: Indexing Its Debt Repayments to Economic Growth– Peterson Institute
- Syriza and the French indemnity of 1871-73– Michael Pettis
- Why a Whole Set of Vested Interests Might Come to Greece’s Rescue– WSJ
- Former Greek debt negotiator wades into bailout row– Euromoney
- Europe Weighs the Costs Of Casting Greece Aside– WSJ
- ECB’s QE Helps, But It’s Not A Panacea– ETF.com
- The Greek bravado: Why Greece acts so confident in negotiations with its creditors– Financial Post, Schiff
- ECB collateral damages on Greece– Bruegel
- A major step towards a Greek compromise– Bruegel
- Can Greece become competitive overnight?– Bruegel
- Greece and the euro area need a deal within days, not months– Bruegel
- Spain and Podemos: Can they?– Economist…a Spanish Syriza is a much bigger Euro problemo…
- Spanish Bonds Underperform Italy’s as Podemos Gains Popularity– Bloomie
- ECB split points to sensitivity of Greek liquidity curbs– FT.com
- Three ways Greece could still get out of its debt trap– Telegraph
- The myth of the thrifty German saver– Deutsche Welle
- EU says Gazprom’s Turkey plan ‘won’t work’– EU Observer
- Ukraine’s currency is plummeting (again, and even further)– Quartz
- The Eurasian Economic Union: just another USSR? – World Finance
- Euro Zone Private Sector Grows At Fastest Rate In Six Months In January: PMI – IB Times
- THE IMF’S LAMENT FOR IRELAND – Pieria…very good read…
- Why has the ECB punished Greece? – BBC, Peston
United Kingdom
- The solution to England’s housing crisis lies in the green belt– FT.com, Wolf…superb read, would apply to Australia too…
- George Osborne needlessly shrank 5% off GDP with 2010 cuts, says thinktank– Guardian
- David Blunkett: Labour should bring back the ‘death tax’– Telegraph
- UK Hiring Slows As Skills Shortages Bite, Recruiters Say – IB Times
- UK’s trade deficit widens to 2010 high as consumers take advantage of falling oil – Telegraph
United States
- Costly lockout looms on US ports– FT.com…worth reading – the wrong time to have a major IR disruption in the US…
- Horrific Hack of Second-Largest U.S. Health Insurer Affects 80 Million Customers– Slate
- Fannie, Freddie regulator hesitates to order principal reduction– LA Tomes
- Anthem hack exposes data on 80 million; experts warn of identity theft– LA Times
- President Obama’s 2016 budget targets retirement accounts– Market Watch
- trade deficit shoots up to 2-year high– Market Watch
- Trends in per capita real adjusted gross income: updated through 2013– Bonddad…worth a look…
- China suspected in major hacking of health insurer– Washington Post
- President Obama wants to limit your retirement savings — but not his own– Washington Post
- Mortgage rates slump on weaker than expected economic reports– Washington Post
- Obama’s wrong-headed tax reforms– Financial Post
- Yellen faces rate puzzle after one year in office– Deutsche Welle
- Currency manipulation could kill Obama’s big free trade deal– Fortune
- Department of Transportation Says Your Online Shopping Is Clogging America’s Roads– Slate
Americas
- Why Argentina’s President Really Can’t Afford to Mock China– Bloomberg….she is an idiot…
- After Argentine Leader’s Comments, a Challenge to Try Speaking Chinese– NY Times
- Canadian food prices to climb dramatically thanks to falling loonie: report– Vancouver Sun
- City of Vancouver halts 15 downtown developments– Vancouver Sun
- Four years on, economist stands by prediction of Canadian housing’s ‘day of reckoning’– Financial Post
- Calgary’s housing market under pressure as new listings, inventory soar– Financial Post
- Ontario: Gouging tomorrow’s taxpayers for today’s spending– Financial Post…sounds like somewhere I know…
- US calls for Cuba to open embassy in Havana by April– Irish Times
- Brazil January Inflation at Fastest Pace in Nearly 12 Years– Bloomie
The Antipodes
- Liberals do a fine imitation of Labor chaos– The Conversation
- Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting takes farewell swipe at Fairfax Media– The Age
- East Timor PM Xanana Gusmao offers resignation– Al Jazeera
- Still Short Aussie, But Long AU Stocks– ShortSideofLong
- Reserve Bank cuts growth forecasts and leaves door open for another rate cut– Guardian
- Iron ore tipped to fall below $US40 this year– Fairfax….time to take out a mega mortgage maybe?….
- Why Did Australia Cut Rates 25 Basis Points?– XE.com…because the economy is getting a knee in the nuts?…
- RBA Joins Parade and Market Likes Greek Proposals– Marc to Market
- Chart of the day: Aussie hammer blow may be false break – SCMP
- The Morning Interest Rate Spruik – The Idiot Tax…another good read from the idiot…
- Uncertainty over massive Queensland mine after election shock and concerns over Indian company – Fairfax
- Tackling tax taboos: the reform process the government doesn’t want to have – Fairfax
- East West: the public-private project from hell – Fairfax…it should be worn like a crown of thorns by LNP governments for a generation…
- The economic case for changing leaders – Fairfax
- Workers have most to lose in privatisation – Fairfax…though sometimes customers give them a run for their losing money…
- Charted: Why the RBA cut rates – Fairfax…yuck…
- Why term deposits and annuities may be safer investments in RBA easy-money party – AFR, Joye…pertinent points…
Commodities
- Where Is Germany’s Gold?– Bloomberg
- World’s biggest sovereign wealth fund dumps dozens of coal companies– Guardian
- Venezuela ends Algeria oil imports due to logistical, price issues – sources– Reuters
- Oil majors fail to find reserves to counter falling output– Reuters
- Chinese herdsman stumbles onto a 17-pound gold nugget– Market Watch
- Oil spikes in ‘super volatile’ market amid supply gain– Financial Post
- Long-Term Relationship Between Gold, Oil Challenged– Financial sense
- China’s 2014 gold consumption fell 25% – Mineweb
- The new London Gold ‘Fix’ – undue haste? – Mineweb
- Why are gas prices suddenly heading north? – CBS
- More Chinese iron ore mines seen shutting in 2015
- North Africa’s unconventional oil, gas future under threat – Platts
Capital Markets
- Ending an era, CME Group to shutter most futures pits– Reuters
- London Metal Exchange stands strong as bastion of outcry trading– Reuters
- Currency conspiracy theory wide of the mark with iron ore– Reuters…Clyde Russell…
- Default risk rises for emerging and frontier markets– Euromoney
- Failed ECB asset purchases plan has wrought ‘malign impacts’ for the market– Euromoney
- Welcome to Europe, where the bond market is upside down– Quartz
- Energy Weighing Heavily on Junk Bond Market; Watch for Contagion– Financial sense
- Denmark defends euro currency pegging – World finance
Global Macro
- Hunting the Next Bear Stearns– Bloomberg…thought provoking read…
- Two Cheers for the New Normal– Project-Syndicate, O’Neill
- Europe’s War in Ukraine– Project-Syndicate
- German, French leaders take Ukraine peace plan to Moscow– Reuters
- Fiscal Policy in the Era of Stagnation– Peterson Institute
- Inequalities, National and Global– Economonitor
- What Ever Happened to the Misery Index?– Economonitor…good read…
- Hedge Funds Are Status Symbols– ETF.com
- What’s Up? Quantitative Easing & Inflation– ETF.com
- The Wild, Wild East: Risks & Opportunities In Russia– ETF.com ..not a bad read…
- Negative Interest Rates: Capital’s Reproduction Problem– Marc to Market
- Globalisation everywhere, except in the growth numbers: Pessimism reaffirmed?– VoxEU
- The rich and the Great Recession– VoxEU
- Central banks fight ‘vultures’ in global currency war – Want China Times
- Baltic Dry Index plunges into the red – World Finance
- Central banks fight ‘vultures’ in global currency war – Want China Times
- The illusion of monetary policy independence under flexible exchange rates – VoxEU
- Instead of paying down its debts, the world’s gone on another credit binge – Telegraph
And Furthermore
- The government’s cyberterrorism ‘concerns’ are a pretext for their own hacking operations– Guardian…I’ve actually had this thesis put to me…
- Has Ayn Rand’s day as a business guru finally passed?– LA Times…there are quite a few gargoyles still out there…
- Verizon’s super-cookies are a super privacy violation– LA Times…something to think about …
- 7 ways to help the middle class without soaking the rich– Market Watch
- Why testosterone is the drug of the future– Fusion
- Doctors now make house calls for medical marijuana– Fusion
- The Business of Fake Diplomas– Priceonomics …better value than some real ones…
- Meet the crunchy, chemical-hating anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. From 100 years ago.– Washington Post
- Where people around the world eat the most sugar and fat– Washington Post
- Where do the world’s 2,089 billionaires live?– Telegraph
- I’m Italian, and I thank Greece for reminding us what Europe is supposed to be– Quartz
- Why are wealthy Chinese kids twice as likely to be nearsighted as the poor?– Quartz
- The Chinese government may now have the personal files of US military and Defense Department employees– Quartz
- The disruptive potential of online learning: Comparing the cost and quality of online and traditional education– VoxEU
- How much is a lot? Fiscal adjustments in perspective– VoxEU
- The downing of MH17– Aim Network
- You Have No Idea What Happened– The New Yorker
- New High-Tech Farm Equipment Is a Nightmare for Farmers– Wired
- Report: Tweets will return to Google searches later this year– NExt Web
- Robots Learning to Cook by Watching YouTube Videos– IEEE
- Ukraine Crisis: EU Leaders Head To Moscow For Talks With Russian President Putin – IB Times
- Oil Price Predictions Are Both Science And Art For Energy Analysts – IB Times
- The Rich Get Richer—and More Educated – The Atlantic
- Could working at a treadmill desk make you smarter? – CBS
- Is job loyalty an old concept? – CBS
- DON’T MAKE BASIC INCOME REVENUE NEUTRAL – Pieria
- Unemployment Has Changed. Unemployment Benefits Haven’t. – ThirtyFiveEight
- One Brit discovers why Americans are so fat– Market Watch…are Brits or Australians any thinner?…
- FIXING POLITICS: How online organisation can give power back to the people – The Monthly…there is something very off-putting about a lot of politicians…
Potential Investment Ideas
- 4 ETF Income Ideas In An Era Of Low Yields– ETF.com
- Blood in the Shark Tank: Pre-money, Post-money and Play-money Valuations– Musings on Markets
- Thinking of switching from gold to gold miners? – Mineweb
- World top 10 gold producers – countries and miners – Mineweb
For chuckles
The one thing to make sure you read this weekend
- A Brief History of the Oil Crash – Reuters (Pdf)…very good read…
Latest posts by __ADAM__ (see all)
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I have just two words for our ‘beloved’ Prime Minister, words that all of us should keep in mind in relation to next week’s political developments within the LNP: “Shit happens.”
I’ve waited a *very* long time to say that.
Goodbye Tony. Do not return. Not even for entertainment value. Thank you and goodnight.
My DumDum lies over the ocean,
My DumDum lies over the sea,
My DumDum came over like a boat person,
Oh please keep that DumDum
From me from me
Never bring back
Never bring back
Dear God keep DumDum
From me
From me.
Three cheers, hip hip…
🙂 🙂
I find it hard to hold a grudge long term, but Abbott has been one exception, though I can’t help but feel some sympathy for him.
Now Morrison, that is a different question. I’ve long distrusted Abbott and a lot of other politicians (lib & lab), but I find something in Morrison deeply disturbing in his personality, the way he can hold so called Christian beliefs and yet have so little regard for the circumstances of people in dire straits. I think I’ll have a strong hate and little sympathy for him for ever.
I’d agree, too many bible bashing American influenced (neo con like) evangelical christian types on both sides of politics and media which have emerged in recent decades, and aided by the MSM e.g. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to….”.
This is opposed to the tradition of more secular mainstream, private or personal religious influence (if at all), where policies are developed and discussed with the benefit of ‘the age of reason’ and evidence, not looking after powerful friends, or whipping up witch hunts based upon beliefs, passion and self righteousness.
Always though sport was religion enough for Oz, but the powers that be have decided obviously not, and Australians need to be led away further from serious business of politics and involvement in civil society, leave that to the adults.
Buddy! We shoulda been short f#kn EVERYTHING last night. WTF was that? Gold off 2%, silver off 3%
2YR US paper UP 22%!!
What. The. F
Pure speculation here re US paper increase, but there was a (relatively speaking) massive increase in labour costs in the latest employment number release, and then one of FOMC members was scheduled to speak early today (I wasn’t interested so no idea what he said). Either would have been enough to cause some volatility… personally, I think that the costs number was just wrong. It really was huge. It’ll either be adjusted down next time, or be a seasonal one-off. Reason for that being that the *pariticipation rate* actually went *up* for the first time in a while. On another (related) topic, participation rate goes up and unemployment goes up and yet the market still regards that as a positive just ’cause an absolute number of more people ‘found work’ than last time these numbers were published. Duh. No wonder there’s no such thing as a stable economist. This stuff must be what does it. (Still, I’m not complaining… went to bed happy).
Re paper again: Either that or people are selling out of paper to buy oil. Even I’m thinking about that.
I don’t know if he will be a half-term Tony or not, but I am completely over the half-truth Tony.
Some silly examples over the last few days: 1. Standing over an obviously infuriated Julie Bishop and then coming out and implying they are bosom buddies on the spill. 2. Repeating ad nauseam that the Australian people made him Prime Minister when the voters of Warringah gave him a local seat.
It is understandable that you might use this spin in a tight corner- but shoving it down the electorate’s throat as Gospel is stupid.
His many broken promises, caught in writing and on tape were bad enough. But constantly contradicting that he ever broke a promise is just obstinate deception.
I would be glad to see a person who operates like this go.
But I do worry about Shorten and believe the spotlight will rightly be on him when the time comes. Labor can’t afford to be complacent about its leadership for much longer.
I’ll say it again: in 2005, when Abbott refused to approve RU486 (the morning after pill) because of his private religious voodoo beliefs, it was already perfectly clear he was not PM material. He was abusing his office to pursue his superstition-based anti-abortion beliefs, just like he abused his office to bestow an embarrassingly absurd knighthood on a British royal (tugging the forelock).
Abbott is completely in step with the extreme right in the US, who also oppose RU486, calling it a “baby pesticide” (it’s actually an abortifacient, preventing a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall)
This is the 21st century. We need to kick 1950s-style village idiots like Tony to the kerb. 😈
I don’t know much about religious voodoo, being agnostic myself, but I do know as a fact the human organism is biologically complete and develops as the same identifiable entity throughout life from the culmination of conception.
This factual observation, I think, is far from insignificant
While a fertilised egg has all the genetic material required to create a human being, and all extant humans have been conceived, there are many environmental and developmental factors which need to align before person-hood is guaranteed. Potentiality is not the same as actuality.
being agnostic myself
You don’t sound agnostic to me, champ
Give me the biological existence anyday. in history, the wobbly concept of “personhood” has been arbitrarily used over millenia to define out “human value” with disastrous consequences- too old, too young, too black, too red, too white., too Jewish, too Romanian, too disabled, too atheist, too religious to be a person.
I believe in material existence. a human being is a human being is a human being.
I can see where you are coming from, however surely one must distinguish between single cells and multicellullar organisms (with at least some degree of consciousness). Why insist on the rights of every single-cellular ‘human’ over other multicellular species?
At what point does one assert the right of cancerous cells (or any other pluripotent stem-cell) over the people in which they reside?
I don’t know much about religious voodoo, being agnostic myself, but I do know as a fact the human organism is biologically complete and develops as the same identifiable entity throughout life from the culmination of conception.
No it’s not.
I believe in material existence. a human being is a human being is a human being.
So in your view a woman with an IUD is a serial killer ?
Hi Lighter Fluid,
Distributive justice can Indeed present real dilemmas. I mean situations where the rights or concerns of two parties are competing. Sophie’s choice, as it were.
People will inevitably make their own decisions with their own justification or reason. My concern is that human life, no matter its stage, should never be dismissed gratuitously.
I don’t think cancerous cells or pluripotent cells (focusing on the potential rather than the actual) are good analogies.
Anyway, that’s where I have come to after many years of thought.
My concern is that human life, no matter its stage, should never be dismissed gratuitously
What’s so special about human life, champ? You eat meat, don’t you?
Dear Drsmithy,
From our previous discussion on this matter, you know exactly what I think, without verballing me into specific statements.
So with the extreme unlikelihood of recantation from either party, let’s call it quits for this evening and duel another day.
Cheers
CP
My concern is that human life, no matter its stage, should never be dismissed gratuitously.
You’ll be happy to know that most people who have had abortions share the same sentiment.
Anyone who says that a microscopic, insensate zygote is important merely because it has human DNA is speaking from a religious point of view, not a scientific one.
Champ, you may think you are “agnostic”, but you are informed by religious values. You need to examine your thinking carefully to identify the true underpinnings of your opinions. Human exceptionalism is at heart an unscientific, religiously-derived and essentially indefensible farago of beliefs.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/06/stop-squeezing-syriza-europe-greece-eurozone-crisis
“While Greece’s failures are widely recognised, including by Syriza itself, it is time to concede that the eurozone has also failed Greece and its citizens. Without a mea culpa acknowledging that Greece’s rescue was actually a rescue of European banks and the programme poorly designed, German and Greek citizens would never see eye-to-eye. They deserve to be told the truth.
Syriza, more than anyone else, is being honest about what went wrong. Choking them would only catalyse anti-European sentiment and would be the last, potentially fatal, wrong turn for the eurozone. Choosing wisely means a compromise, no matter what the short-term political cost.”
Well said. The counterparty to many of Greece’s transactions are all too often ignored. As is the benefit to Germany of a low Mark (sorry, Euro, Freudian slip).
From Caixin
english.caixin.com/2015-02-06/100782249.html
Chinese property (declared ?) investment, Oz seems to rank number one.
2.2 billion into Sydney?!
As a Sydney-sider I’d say that is grossly understating the actual numbers.
Entire high density blocks (’00s of apartments) are being sold directly to Chinese nationals, in Chinese only marketing and auctions.
Each block would be several hundred million in total contact value I reckon.
That is only 4,000 or so dog boxes.
Great graphic.
I double checked that Sydney figure as well.
Very nice graphic and fits in with that story above about how the Chinese are not likely to sit by as other countries engage in a bit of currency warfare. After all they have been pretty good at it themselves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11391211/Devaluation-by-China-is-the-next-great-risk-for-a-deflationary-world.html
I know I make this point from to time 🙂 but when are people going to understand that you CANNOT be a victim of currency war unless you are stupid enough to allow unproductive capital inflows which are key to that form of warfare.
The Chinese govt does not have $4T in US treasuries because they cannot think of anything useful to do with the money at home. The US govt could quite easily end the game by restricting who is permitted to purchase and hold US government securities. But Wall Street would hate it of course so it will not happen.
They hold them for one purpose and that is to keep their currency lower than it would otherwise be.
That is also why Japan capital investment in Australia is $80B more than our investment in Japan. Even though the trade balance for 2013/14 involved Australian exporting $50B and only importing $18B.
A classic sign of a currency war is when we have the trade surplus but our trading partner is doing all the capital investment or simply shoving as much as possible into the $AUS by whatever transaction works.
http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/resources/Pages/trade-and-economic-fact-sheets-for-countries-and-regions.aspx
The only way this out break of currency warfare will end is when some countries start to wise up and careful regulate capital transactions to ensure their trading partners cannot use capital flows to manipulate their currency.
Once some counties start to do it others will/must follow as they find they become one of the dwindling number of options as targets of currency war capital exports looking for a home.
Unfortunately, down in the dim land downunder we managed to build an entire economy structure dependent on cheap capital inflows and we are shit scared to start the hard work of weaning the economy off the drugs.
Even the most well informed and sensible still cannot let go of the belief that there is some magic about letting capital slosh around the world at a great rate and at the click of a few keys.
Instead of going straight to the heart of the problem (regulating the worst and most unproductive capital flow transactions) most recommend that we try to hide from the predatory capital flows behind a very small interest rate rock – even to the point where the rock is a negative number and the process of doing so ignite assets bubbles and malinvestment right through the economy.
Productive capital inflows are much less of a problem and sure at the margins it gets hard to identify them, but the really obvious transactions that are about nothing more than currency manipulation, can be identified easily and the process of winding them down can start immediately.
It is not as though this is optional.
The currency wars are not sustainable and will end by hook or by crook.
There is no alternative to putting capital back on the leash.
Is it fair to label others as engaging in deliberate currency warfare when one can equally well attribute the outcome to the exploitation of economic ignorance?
Surely a war requires two adversaries – the rest, as they say, is just business.
Hard to take a graphic seriously where the total USA figure is less than the sum of the US cities it presents ($4.0bn).
Also, it’s worth singling out Australia as a nation with $3.0bn, but the UK isn’t worth singling out with $4.0bn minimum?
What is their purpose in deliberately misrepresenting Australia as number 1 rather than, on their own data, number 3?
@Stats. what it that figure represented a figure before it became leveraged locally as the story is oft told here of Oz banks financing so called ‘high wealth individuals’ from Asia.
10% down = multiply the figure by 10, yes closer to the mark.
That’s a different thing and applies anywhere the money goes. I am talking about the American cities being added incorrectly
And that is just declared. Imagine the scale of it when you include the ones bought by local agents for them.
Those saying Chinese investment has no influence on oz property, pay attention!
Don’t worry, if it ever gets really bad I’m sure they’ll give us a leadership spill or some such political contrivance to take our minds off it….
Oh… wait
Nick Xenophon should change causes l think, this is likely more important?
Stand up….someone
Is that a record for the number of links? Ton’s of great reading thanks!!
Sterling aggregation. So much noise about defending EURDKK hmmmmm.
The Chinabot by 2017 story echos China-Bobs many tales over the last couple of years.
“They want to help BHP, they want to help Rio Tinto, they want to help that lady over there,Gina whatever,” Goncalves said
That just needed to be repeated.
And on Abenomics hurting the poor & elderly? Say it ain’t so! I thought MMT was all about helping those groups in particular…
From what I seen this story distorts the picture (with market share at 60% japan, 25% China) Its probably correct from a dollar perspective but think about what this means for unit volume if Chinese robots are available at 1/4 the price point of the Japanese bots. That’d be closer to the truth if you asked me….however I dont have good visibility into the automotive industry (I also suspect a lot of the automotive industry is importing complete production solutions, as in Japanese factory copied in China, so it would make sense that Japanese hardware has such a dominate market presence).
In electronics and clothing the solutions I’m seeing are either developed in Taiwan or China for these markets its function over specification as in it does not need to lift a tonne but the robotic arms do need 5 to 7 degrees of freedom. Interestingly from what I’ve heard adding degrees of freedom simplifies real life programming of the task.
One last point wrt cheap bots.
As I see it we are at a real turning point in automation, we have a situation like existed when cheap PC running MS took market share from large mainframes from companies like IBM. If you just focused on the $TAM for each sector IBM still looked healthy even though the unit volume shift had already occurred. With this came a big shift in the number of cheap PC’s vs expansive mainframes similarly with robotics its the software (very much locked to mainframe hardware) where the real $ are made. Cheap robotics hardware is creating a whole new industry for what are in effect “drivers” code fragments that translate hardware specific control sequences into macro functions. Within the Japanese automation industry these programs are all very hardware specific and very expensive.
The second effect that comes with increased volume is a dramatic expansion of the experienced programmer base. Within the PC space we’ve seen this spawn a whole industry of network admins and support programmers that somehow transform MS crapware into a usable business computing platform. Same thing is happening with robotics, lots of support functions (think of things like Video tracking of pick’n’place over WiFi) today this is available as an integrate-able driver suitable for use in a real-time environment. What’s interesting is the combining of the real-time environments with the non-real time world of normal internet focused computing. Most dedicated real-time communications systems end up having fixed time slots and minimum gain / signal quality requirements that guarantee data transmission within the allotted timeslot. Of course this style of hardware is fundamentally incompatible with the best effort random back off Ethernet spec which underlies cheap consumer network equipment and the whole internet. Its great to see solutions evolving that work in this hybrid real-time / non real time environment and effectively create a synthetic real-time control slot with low latency. This emerging robotics market is so exciting, everything is in transition meaning this is the time when new standards will get locked into IEEE agreed protocols. As we’ve seen with PC’s/ Internet real long term economic value lies in owning (patenting) these emerging standards
Has there ever been a more out of touch government?
This mob of idiots can’t even self preserve.
Their advice has been woeful. Absolutely stunningly woeful.
Hey if politicians need adviser. Why not cut the morons in suits out of it and just have advisers running the place?
With the quality of the advice being provided by Treasury and the RBA you have to feel a bit sorry for them.
One curious observation about #libspill. Abbott has near unanimous support amongst two groups:
1. The extreme right of the LNP (aka the loon pond)
2. The entire membership of the ALP.
Only one of those groups is acting in its best interests.
From Laurie Oakes:
A Turnbull prime ministership is certainly not what Labor’s strategists wanted. His popularity scares the hell out of them.
Exactly.
What are these stupid Libs thinking? The last thing the ALP wants is a Shorten vs Turnbull matchup.
You have to wonder about the intelligence (and survival instincts) of the loon pond. GSM would you like to explain yourself?
Abbott can pull through, he just needs to remind his party room what the Australian people will put up with. He’ll do that by pointing at Pyne. Everyone will nod…
Pyne is a characterchure and accepted by the media and voting public as the govt jester.
Ppl laugh at him, most ppl ignore him and for whomever is effected by his current ministry, he is a lightning rod for discontent.
The gods make mad those they are about to destroy. They will return Abbot and we will have an ongoing implosion and train wreck for the rest of the term of this govt
Or if turn bull gets in watch the destabilisation a la k.rudd and ongoing implosion as above
As far as I am concerned I can’t lose 🙂 … Until shorten becomes PM that is 🙁
Peter van Onselen 38 minutes ago
It’s a pretty simple equation. If MBT runs he wins (close), if he doesn’t the spill fails but wounds PM for a bigger MBT win down the track.
There is one senior Liberal who is desperately hoping for a Turnbull victory:
Michael Bruce Baird.
Won’t someone think of the Hockey!!
“What will happen to Treasurer Joe Hockey if Tony Abbott is deposed?”
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/what-will-happen-to-treasurer-joe-hockey-if-tony-abbott-is-deposed-20150206-1388lx.html
Quite frankly I couldn’t careless, good riddance to Australia’s shitest Treasurer.
He is likely to be bitter and leak like the titanic.
But aren’t they adults?
Not Hockey. He is a child in an adults body.
He will be worse for the Liberals than Rudd was for Labor. He has zero chance of a comeback and only has his bitterness left. Rudd knew he had a chance of a comeback and didn’t leak against anyone but Gillard.
Hockey should’ve been dumped already. Heard talk Abbott supporters may sacrifice Hockey and appoint Turnbull in an attempt to salvage Abbott’s leadership.
Turnbull would be a far better communicator on economic issues than Hockey and better placed to engage with media and the electorate.
My personal preference remains Bishop PM, Turnbull Treasurer, ensuring Morrison is kept in difficult key portfolios. He has promise.
3D1k’s fantasy of Abbott for PM and Turnbull for treasurer is epic.
Seriously, 3d, when life is getting me down and I feel put upon, can I have some of whatever you’re having?
I bloody well hope it isn’t addictive.
Makes sense 3d to dump Hockey for Turnbull for those reasons but we still have Abbott and the associated problems that surround him problem. Keep your friends close and enemies closer? Turnbull and Bishop will get the shits supporting and defending the most hated PM in modern history.
You must have loved the headline pic on the Aus Lorax. I’m just guessing here but mudoch doesn’t like MT?
Why could that possibly be? Turnbull owns a Nolan Rups has always had his eye on? Has to be some blue blood sh#t like that I reckon….
2014 also saw a 57% increase in the volume of bitcoin trading but a 149% increase in the number of active bitcoin wallets, revealing that the number of bitcoin users is increasing faster than the amount being traded.
“Bitcoin is now moving in to its second phase,” Sonny Singh, chief commercial officer at BitPay, told IBTimes UK. “The first phase was merchant adoption and I think this is pretty much done now.
“The second phase is exploring bitcoin’s use cases. For example, one area where companies could see huge benefits from bitcoin is in international payments. This could save them a lot of money.”
I did try to tell you lot.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-now-accepted-by-100000-merchants-worldwide-1486613
Speculation in its purest form.
Nah you’re thinking of #libspill 😉
Meh. I’m sitting bitcoin out. If it becomes another boring, predictable payment system (all good payment systems are boring and predictable), then great.
Time will tell.
So like email?
Surely this is evidence that those who have held bitcoins (and have been burned), are no longer hoping for capital gains and are opting to spend them instead?
Or, you know, it was always about rolling out use cases for it other than the ominous “dark net” (ooohhhh) — the media narrative has been about the price but those who jumped on to mining, they know is application that will make their trade valuable, not some ponzi-scheme rubbish everyone parrots.
Watch Greece though, last there was a banking crises in that part the world (think Cyprus), BTC shot up from $20/40 to $250 or something. If the same were to happen now it would from $230 to $2300….
Totally behind the medium as a means of circumventing the banks in currency transactions, and I’ve no doubt of the value of alternative, local currencies for those who use them on their communities, however I just can’t help a little skepticism when those ‘in the know’ herald the next great leap forward.
If shtf courtesy of Greece, I’m sure many assets will make 10-fold or greater moves, not just btc.
Yes and no, the value of BTC is being able to move it – in that “use case” – so there’s a bank holiday because someone is thinking of bringing the Drachma back, EURBTC will sky rocket more than anything else because of all the people trying to get out bank accounts all at once.
Here you go Hugh
At 559, The Baltic Dry Index (having now dropped 46 of the last 50 days and 12 days in a row) is just 5 points above its all-time record low from 1986. In fact, the global freight index has only been lower for 8 days during the July/August period of 1986 in its 30 year history…
Remember when oil collapse was good for everyone?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-06/baltic-dry-index-has-only-been-lower-8-days-30-years
Increasing influence of Chinese New Year on global trade perhaps?
5 points above its all-time record low from 1986
0.o
I just seem to recall the same dire warnings and local minimums occurring around the same time of the year in 2012 and ’13 in the midst of inventory de-stocks, US-shutdown fears, and now commodity price declines. It just seems that massive declines occur around this time of the year, and lift after CNY, so record lows, if they are going to happen, would be around this season…
Yeah I got you, and yes I think CNY is a factor in global trade that it never was, but that BDI has been collapsing for 18-24 months is the real issue.
Krugman on the (non-existent) relationship between austerity and government borrowing costs:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/rates-and-ratings/
Rather undermines the argument for privatisation of monopolies and the creation of private tax farms.
Cmon Stephen the whole thing is a galaxy sized ponzi anyway. Didn’t you use to be a merchant banker?
From the always good Idiot Tax on the bubble-pumping stupidity of the RBA refilling the punch bowl
“And without a real sniff of controlling the flow of money to investors, except for more of this prick teasing nonsense from the RBA:
“The Bank is working with other regulators to assess and contain economic risks that may arise from the housing market “……
LOL. Yes. Roosterteasers
Turnbull. A guy that wasted an entire term distracting Australia with a republic.
A man that thinks $10k is pocket money.
Couldn’t be a worse choice.
Australia. Land of the idiot.
“Couldn’t be a worse choice.”
Absolutely correct.
Beautiful morning for breakfast in Melbourne, cranes everywhere are a bit of pain but we’ll let that slide.
The Pettis link is brilliant, absolutely worthy of your time.
+1
Criticism of the RBA’s form in relation to auditing our Gold reserves (self plug):
http://www.bullionbaron.com/2015/02/reserve-bank-of-australia-missing-bar.html
Also some other interesting Gold links (sorry for any dupes):
Aussie Gold miner index looking to breakout
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153023106990390
Bull market developing in Gold
http://capitalistexploits.at/2015/02/a-stealth-bull-market-developing-in-gold/
Artificial Gold demand?
http://blog.financial.thomsonreuters.com/china-gold-imports-2014-important-q4-distortions-explained/
7.85kg Gold nugget found by goat herder in China
http://english.sina.com/china/p/2015/0205/780341.html
& for anyone who missed them a couple of weeks ago these were an interesting look ingot Gold stored at the FRBNY
https://www.bullionstar.com/blog/ronan-manly/keys-gold-vaults-new-york-fed-part-1/
https://www.bullionstar.com/blog/ronan-manly/keys-gold-vaults-new-york-fed-part-2-auxiliary-vault/
Even after last night? Aussie gold miner index might look like LNP polling Monday morning :/
Sure, I still think a breakout is very possible within the next couple of months. 1 day doesn’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things.
$A price of Gold has risen recently from low $1300s to high $1500s (recently mid $1600s), for some of the marginal Gold miners in Australia this will result in a doubling or better of profit per ounce.
Not if they’re holding USD debt/swaps it won’t…
That’s the Q. The g miners have an uncanny knack of hedging at the time the bell rings.
We are with Greece and Europe
Three hundred economists and academics from all continents, James Galbraith, Stephany Griffith-Jones, Jacques Sapir, Dominique Meda, call on European governments and international institutions to “respect the decision of the Greek people” and to “initiate negotiations good faith with the new Greek government to resolve the debt issue.”
http://x2t.com/GREU
Per the L.A. Times link on Ayn Rand.
Just goes to show how powerful a stimulant driven narrative can be in formatting young minds, completely contrary more rigorous disciplines of observation.
Belief trumping all things due only to the fervent desire its parishioners hold as a universal truism.
Just hope the same does not hold true for Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” – people read – treat it as a religious article of faith.
See – http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/thomas-piketty-larry-summers-dont-tell-income-inequality.html
Skippy… lemming syndrome…
No one formats young minds! Everything is already Apple format
Ihole,
I wonder if preteens will have the same problems that many had with predatory charges, games, apps, et al that are psychologically modified and walls of conflicting legaleze allowing billing theft.
Skippy… they ended up reimbursing me a few thousand in the end and there was that class action if memory serves. But… but… it was a billing algo glitch…
You want to see a billing glitch? Try derivatives
Yes Mig-i derivatives is Big Finance, its use of complexity to mask risk, and how most if not all of the growth of credit in advanced economies was largely about rent-seeking and not about facilitating growth.
I completely agree and have held this position from pre GFC, e.g. I always point out Born to you, if you remember. Along with the ever growing… cough…. cannibalism of the non financial sectors of the economy, by pure finance.
3d won’t like that link. The 1 % are already being ripped off tax wise.
I read the must read link about the oil crash and I note that several economies plan to get through the crisis by spending their USD reserves. Is this significant enough to curb the USD rise of recent months. That plus decreasing liklihood of a US rate rise, could the USD bull market reverse?
I ask as someone who is long USD atm.
Everyone is long USD atm. Me included. Pick your cross…
US News flow (though I dont think they will lift rates anytime this year) helped late this week
Strong U.S. job, wage gains open door to mid-year rate hike
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/07/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN0LA02P20150207
So say 2YR hawks. Never seen a move in US Treasuries like that before!
Things are cranking at least in California. It’s in the run up to a boom.
This is actually a pretty tricky question. There are many factors in play.
If there’s a race to the bottom currency war, and the US has spare capacity, then other countries selling their USD could result in nothing more than a US stimulus and reduced CAD.
What are you on about?
If I’m Russia or Iran or whoever and I start off loading USD reserves it won’t be to buy from the US it will be to buy from Europe or China, who don’t need any USD. So USD will come home to the US and no extra business comes from it, how on Earth is that a US stimulus and reduced CAD?
Of course they’re only dumping USD while its so high, so they won’t do it in a way that crashes it, defeats the whole purpose of getting out at the top….
Buy what from Europe and China? Food? The US is the largest producer. Oil? Ditto. I guess they could buy stuffed toys and perfume; there’s 2 things the US don’t produce much of.
Oh, and it’s interesting that Russia and Iran are your examples. Both are complete basket cases. I can totally see the next Google/Tesla/Space X/Vanguard/Boeing/Starbucks coming out of those countries… Not!
Why would Russia or Iran buy oil? Also…. Ever heard of Holland?
Errrr they’re my examples because it’s them who’ll be selling USD to get through the oil crisis? You’re an idiot sometimes
Do these fuckwits ever learn?
“Campbell Newman, former Queensland premier, sounded out about running in Victorian seat of Indi”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/campbell-newman-sounded-out-about-running-in-victorian-seat-of-/6077502
LOL! Comedy iron ore
Well given that the Torynuffs ran Sophie Mirabella in that seat and had her knocked off by an independent, one can only assume that pissing off the locals through running a deranged ex QLD premier is the logical next step.
ie. They may not actually be capable of learning
But potentially have a strong suite in ‘If at first you dont succeed then try, try again…’
Is there anything as thoroughly morale sapping as tenacious and persistent stupidity?
Is there anything as thoroughly morale sapping as tenacious and persistent stupidity.
Abbott? 3d? Oh. I see what you mean now…
You have to admire their commitment and total belief in themselves. They are totally undeterred by their incompetence and lack of intelligence.
But potentially have a strong suite in ‘If at first you dont succeed then try, try again…’ More like the definition of madness: repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result.
@dt
It’s just Dunning Kruger effect. Not altogether admirable.
It’s not morale sapping. It’s laugh inducing. It always gets to lie in its bed, sooner or later.
Stupid is as stupid does!
Some highlights of the CJ RBA takedown
“The mistake the RBA made this week was falling for the myopic central banking clap-trap that perpetually cheap money is a panacea for growth. By printing trillions of dollars and bidding up privately traded assets in concert with setting short-term rates below core inflation, policymakers are massively distorting savings and investment decisions. Rather than letting freely functioning markets signal where our money (capital) and time (labour) should be invested, governments think they know better than the collective wisdom of markets.
Inflating equities, bonds, housing and other leveraged assets miles above their “market-clearing” prices leads individuals and institutions to allocate scarce resources to the wrong places, which lowers productivity and long-term growth.Bad businesses are not allowed to fail and better firms encouraged to rise in their stead. Capitalism is cannibalising itself by preventing “creative destruction”.
Put differently, the RBA is driving a huge transfer of wealth from prudent savers and business owners to banks, borrowers and speculators punting on leveraged capital gains.
We have interest rates lower than global financial crisis levels. Yet housing and business credit growth have expanded at 2.7 times and 1.8 times wages over the last year. Australian house prices and share prices have leapt 21 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively, over the past 24 months. The household debt-to-income ratio and the house price-to-income ratio are both climbing above their all-time peaks.
The current exchange rate, and the core inflation and economic growth rates over the last year, are statistically indistinguishable from their two decade trends, while the jobless rate is half a percentage point below its average since 1993.”
Bingo
Adapted from 3d below!
“CJ is acting as if someone slipped tranquillizers into their drink 18 months ago. (make that a bit longer ago, actually!) They’ve just woken up and they’re looking [at] the world around them and they’re only
graduallybelatedly coming to terms with what they can see,”But much better late, than never……CJ now continues to advocate the blindingly obvious….
Another quote from the video that 3d posted:
“We know that the Aussie housing market, frankly, is on a different kind of drug not tranquilizers, very much the opposite,” said Every. “They (policymakers) have to ring fence the housing market… and they’ve taken a tentative step towards that direction,” he added, referring to the guidelines revealed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority last month to cool the real estate sector.”
‘governments think they know better than the collective wisdom of markets.’
Really? I thought the independent RBA made that call on Tuesday. No wonder Glenn’s more than just a fly on the wall at Cabinet these days.
the RBA is independent ?? Well blow me down, I always thought they were only supposed to look independent.
for me the biggest mystery for the whole post GFC period is that Asset creation has not been in over drive given the extremely low cost of capital.
from what I can tell China is one of the few countries that are investing in real hard assets most other countries are simply pissing their QE’s up against the wall. Not t say that China’s RE and Roads and Bridges are good investments but at least they are durable goods that should provide some utility.
By asset creation I’m not just talking RE and roads actually I mean absolutely any business with positive cash flow and good margins., in my days positive cash flow was the way we defined an asset (as distinct from a liability which typically has negative cash flow) which is probably why Aussie RE investing makes so little sense to me.
Getting back to the point: Are new assets being created? Sure there are some but at today’s capital costs the whole world should be borrowing to fund their dreams and that’s certainly not happening.. This conundrum suggests that we may have reached the logical limit of “productivity gains” If the pie cant grow then logically its a zero sum game, my business gains come at your loss…but even if this is true its not a reason to not fund new businesses….Frankly I have no answer to this problem, I suspect at some time soon the tide will change and those with newly minted assets to sell will be handsomely rewarded.
Mike Shedlock had a good post on the effects of a decreasing interest rate environment and how it basically favours new competitors over the existing incumbents that undertook CapEx in a higher interest rate environment.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/sowing-inflation-reaping-deflation.html
If you like Shedlock (I don’t; he is a climate denier, Tory, and can’t understand inflation/deflation properly) you can listen to him stuttering away here (recorded this week):
Download/listen
@Cee Interesting point that Mike raises is that cheap FED money sends a false signal about the real world availability of savings (debt). This is to say, IF everyone tries to borrow and build assets then the Fed’s cheap cash line will dry up very quickly. This was true 2 to 3 years ago in the US when interest rates were very low and lots of cheap foreclosed RE was available yet few could qualify (there was a sort of self imposed MP from the mortgage sector) so you needed a large existing capital base before you could borrow, and buy the bargains.
Australia’s record low interest rates are about to head way lower, analysts tell CNBC, as the country’s central bank scrambles to play catch up in the race to the bottom for borrowing costs.
“The RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) is acting as if someone slipped tranquilizers into their drink 18 months ago. They’ve just woken up and they’re looking [at] the world around them and they’re only gradually coming to terms with what they can see,” said Michael Every, head of Asia-Pacific markets research at Rabobank.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102403164
Money is (increasingly) worth nothing.
The system is in terminal decline.
🙂
Sovereign Money is a tax credit.
Only if you bother paying taxes.
Possibly, only, and nothing more. Where will this all lead to skippy?
Fiat is a transactional tool with tremendous risk. Ie if you are using it for valuation or saving then you have kinda missed the obvious.
The part I like best about fiat is the one where the government gets to tell me deflation is bad for me but devaluing my savings is just the cost of civilization….
…. good luck selling that much longer …
@Ortega,
Well it has been as such for thousands of years, it was the impetus for currency in antiquity. The days of gain silos run by the priest class or feudal kings, storing perishable consumables to support society’s activity’s became a hindrance and not a beneficial system. Now if one wants to debate the savagery city and nation states imposed on each other, that’s a huge scope littered with all manner of ideological wankery.
“Money is (increasingly) worth nothing.” – Ortega
To this I would note that money is not a commodity, it might represent the price of a commodity or service at a given point in time, but its not intrinsic in value all by its self. At the end of the day laws dictate sovereign money, where as personal relationships dictate private forms of credit i.e. bar tabs et al.
I would recommend reading a bit of Money as a Creature of the State – Abba P. Lerner
https://esepuba.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/lerner.pdf
@mig-i,
The tax issue was not a big problem post WWII till some metaphysically informed [more like a smoke screen] well capitalized wankers decided to go the full retard. Which now allows a two tiered legal system and off shoring of massive profits accrued by the ability of the public sectors carrying capacity.
Skippy… that place in Chile sounds like it should suit you just fine, off you go, send a post card back about utopia… OK.
Cee U Next Tuesday Abbott and Turnbull.
Just wish Abbott would FOCUS – Fuck Off Cuase Ur Stupid.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has officially declared war on the global gambling industry, warning foreign casinos that Chinese citizens will be gambling much less in China, neighbouring countries, and the US.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/xi-declares-war-on-global-gambling-firms-2015-2
Short Crown Casino. Should do wonders for the Singapore property market.
ROFL!
Ring ring
It’s the British East India Company calling, we want our Opium War back.
A man who was caught driving at 186 kilometres per hour in Melbourne’s west has told police he was in a hurry to get a burger.
Victoria Police said the 28-year-old from Tarneit was pulled over on the Princes Freeway in Laverton just after 2:00am.
2am in Laverton on Princes? WTF would you stop him? Just let him get his burger FFS.
At least wait until he comes back, then confiscate the burger.
LOL
re: A Brief History of the Oil Crash
So a shock event beings the oil crash. This is my fear with the iron ore market. Sure, prices have fallen, but from unsustainable back into the realms of believability.
What, if any, shock could trigger a sudden collapse of the weakened iron ore price? Or have we past some unseen level of fragility now, and shocks will only be ripples, not a tsunami?
Brasil
Nationalisation of Chinese real estate developers.
Chinese imports collapsed 19.9% YoY in January,
Ruh rho
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-07/chinese-imports-crash-worst-january-export-plunge-2009-sends-trade-surplus-record-hi
New hashtag trending: #GameOfTones
Geddit?
I did that, a few days ago…
In a reply to Margo Kingston I think
@StanSteam2 @roweafr @FinancialReview Game of Tones
12:50 pm – 04 Feb 15
Sorry it was AFR
I rather like #returnbull myself.
LOL brilliant 🙂
Unbelievable die hard spruiking from SMH:
“Make a property plan, then jump in”
http://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/make-a-property-plan-then-jump-in-20150205-136n83.html
Indeed, god forbid you’re thinking about doing something useful in your life that’s going to benefit you and others. All you have to do in this lucky country of ours is just head to the bank, make a plan and jump in as the article says.
Well, it has worked for some so far, but what we fail to ask is at what cost? That’s the question we should be asking. The cost is becoming clearer day by day
No one cares what the cost is, because it’s not ours. Fuck the future we all say. Every one of us We vote for the same people all the time that gautantee we sell our own kids out. Fucking disgusting. .
Seeing there is no Technology section this week ….
First to post on MB from a $35 Raspberry Pi 2 computer with its quad core A7s and 1G of memory using a huge 3 watts of power from a phone charger. They sold 150,000 on first couple of days which is pretty amazing.
Actually usable as a general purpose desktop – even manages to plough through this huge MB mass of html. They make quite a decent little server as well.
It will be hard to see how governments can clamp down on the net when the cost of entry is so low.
+awesome!!
😀
Here comes my next XBMC “machine”
Here comes my next XBMC “machine”
Me too. Although the intel stick computers look pretty good as well.
Well done DM.
Was actually looking at the Raspbery Pi onion router project the other day. Im sure a lot of people will get up to a whole lot of fun and mischief with these puppies.
It really is quite amazing how much difference the 4 cores make – and so far it is still using the old arm11 binaries.
A lot of things should be even better when compiled for the A7. These A7 cores have NEON SIMD extensions which will help with codecs and graphics libraries.
It will be hard to see how governments can clamp down on the net when the cost of entry is so low.
Because eventually you will want to connect to a backbone network.
“Because eventually you will want to connect to a backbone network.”
Well that is a black and white view. Maybe, but perhaps it will not be that simple.
Did you ever see that show “The Wire”? It introduced the idea of the ‘Burner”. A mobile phone that was so cheap that the gangs bought them and destroyed them after a few days – so they couldn’t be traced. Once technology becomes very cheap people start thinking of lateral solutions.
Mobile phones are being churned out at about 2 billion a year. Every one of those can be repurposed to a WiFi server. That means you can make ad hoc networks (and backbones). Suppose that you have hundreds of thousands of “burners” planted all over a city. How hard would it be to find them all and close them down? What about if they were mobile? People carrying a server hub in their handbag?
Look at it this way. How do you reign in the lawyers? It’s their home turf. Laws to stop financial fraud, predatory lending, 30% of the economy – its futile because most of the FIRE sector are lawyers or employ them. They win.
So ….. if you want to win a financial matter and put a lawyer against an engineer … the lawyer wins.
However, if you want to send some data packets around the world and put a lawyer against an engineer … the engineer wins.
Here is the real nature of the next cold war. Its not talked about very much, but it is real. Every financial guru, Hedgie, Banker, Politician and HFTrader is dependent on turning his computer on and expecting it to work. Engineers can turn that off at will.
If you doubt that this is a real issue, consider the case of Aaron Schwartz. He was a programmer, hacker and public intellectual. Not only was he harmless, but he gave a number of public lectures where he spoke about the future of our society and the implications of technology. He addressed the issues that we would hope our elected politicians would address!
Was Aaron Schwartz recognized for this? No. He was facing 30-40 years in gaol for stealing public research papers. As far as the financial elite were concerned he was Public Enemy No 1.
You can be sure that the dependence on technology is very much in the minds of the people who control the economy. They would like to own and control it. Unfortunately, if technology becomes very cheap, you can’t close it down by poverty. Next you have to send in the police. If the police don’t understand it, they cant’t police it.
Do you see the problem here? Putting up George Brandis to collect meta data is not the fix.
Did you ever see that show “The Wire”? It introduced the idea of the ‘Burner”. A mobile phone that was so cheap that the gangs bought them and destroyed them after a few days – so they couldn’t be traced. Once technology becomes very cheap people start thinking of lateral solutions.
Your burn phone needs a SIM to connect to a cellular network to transfer data.
Ostensibly, you need to provide ID to buy a SIM (which is registered and tracked – buy too many SIMs and you will be noticed) and get connected to a network. Now, today this is pretty trivial to avoid; just steal one from a supermarket (they usually have bins of them out) or grab one from a phone store when they’re busy (they’ll usually just wave at you to take it since they’re basically valueless), then activate online with a fake name and address, top up your credit using a voucher you bought with cash and you’re good to go – “untraceable” internet connectivity.
But this is obviously quite easy to crack down on – at the SIM point of sale, at its registration, at the purchasing of credit and at the consumption of credit.
Suddenly your burn phone becomes a lot riskier to acquire (and consequently more valuable and less disposable).
Mobile phones are being churned out at about 2 billion a year. Every one of those can be repurposed to a WiFi server. That means you can make ad hoc networks (and backbones). Suppose that you have hundreds of thousands of “burners” planted all over a city. How hard would it be to find them all and close them down? What about if they were mobile? People carrying a server hub in their handbag?
So a (relatively) small group of people can communicate amongst themselves, but they can’t communicate to anyone outside their clique ? Like walkie-talkies or CB radio ?
Again, I make the point: at some point you’re going to want to connect to an internet backbone. Ie: escape the bubble of people you already know and communicate with the rest of the world. That’s the whole idea of the internet, after all.
This is the point at which the squiddies come and find you.
However, if you want to send some data packets around the world and put a lawyer against an engineer … the engineer wins.
Sure, right up until the point the lawyer calls the cops and the Engineer gets put in gaol, then goes and talks to his own Engineer.
Stephen Morris has talked about this previously. The Elite only need a relatively small number of “Royal Guard” technically capable people to keep their systems working.
Do you see the problem here? Putting up George Brandis to collect meta data is not the fix.
Do not think for a second that I support the authoritarian police state Brandis and Co. are busily building.
I am simply answering the question posed: “It will be hard to see how governments can clamp down on the net when the cost of entry is so low.”
Government clamps down at the bottleneck – where you need to communicate with the outside world, because that is the part they can control. All the cheap rasberry pis in the world aren’t much use if they can’t communicate with the rest of the world.
Not hard to spoof a MAC address. No need for a burner when you can just have software regenerate whatever address you like.
Another interesting concept is a mesh or proximity network as used in the Honk Kong protests:
http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/10/hong-kongs-pro-democracy-protests-shed-light-mesh-networking-internet-things/
Like a flash mob for interwebz.
What you are saying is it is a guerrilla war.
You seem to be assuming that the powers that be will always win because they have the divine right to rule.
At the moment that is true because everyone has a job and a mortgage and life is easy. Everyone pays their bills and if you don’t pay up you get smacked down. True enough.
That is why the whole financial fraud system is working tickety-boo.
What you are not addressing is that the whole system is unstable. The presumption that you can just hire another engineer to replace the one you threw in gaol is not a good long term plan. It is the epitome of arrogance to say that the power to buy and sell other people is superior to all human achievement.
You seem to have given up. The Political Bullies, the Bankers, the Corporate criminals have power and you are just like the guy in Aliens 2 — “Game over man! Game over!”
It ain’t over till the Fat Lady sings and that hasn’t happened yet.
Not hard to spoof a MAC address.
Cool. So all you need now is a known working MAC (since all MACs will need to be registered at a central authority to be allowed on the network).
Another interesting concept is a mesh or proximity network as used in the Honk Kong protests:
Sure, that’s exactly what’s being described. But, again, at some point you are almost certainly going to want to communicate with people outside your mesh.
You seem to be assuming that the powers that be will always win because they have the divine right to rule.
I am saying nothing of the sort.
I am pointing out the flaws in your statements regarding technology and history.
What you are not addressing is that the whole system is unstable. The presumption that you can just hire another engineer to replace the one you threw in gaol is not a good long term plan.
The historical record disagrees.
When have “the powers that be” *ever* had a problem recruiting capable people to their side ?
There are plenty of people like 3d1k who can’t wait to take their 30 pieces of silver.
Once they’ve burnt through those, there’s the unwilling participants. Most individuals, when faced with an ultimatum like: “help us or your family will be fed feet-first into this bark chipper” will decide to help (understandably so).
Their *worst case scenario* is that they have to train people up from children rather than just recruit from the general populace.
It is the epitome of arrogance to say that the power to buy and sell other people is superior to all human achievement.
Please don’t lie about opinions I’ve never even sugested I hold, let alone explicitly stated.
You seem to have given up.
I simply don’t hold any illusions that a bunch of poor computer geeks with cheap computers are going to achieve much on a global scale if shit gets real.
As Mr Morris says, fight the only fight worth winning: fix the system of Government. Anything else is, at best, buying time.
“I simply don’t hold any illusions that a bunch of poor computer geeks with cheap computers are going to achieve much on a global scale if shit gets real.”
And there you have it. “poor” people can’t win .. “poor creative people” can’t win. You have just expressed the most depressing, defeatist position that is at all possible.
Jesus Christ … can’t win
Aaron Schwartz .. can’t win
Martin Luther King .. can’t win
Human history is an a struggle between the good and bad. We mustn’t ever give up. We can’t seem to get rid of the evil, but we have a long history of pulling the rug from under them.
The good things people do are at least interesting. The evil is so mundane. Don’t just give up and pay the mortgage.
And there you have it. “poor” people can’t win .. “poor creative people” can’t win.
That’s the second time in as many posts you’ve grossly misrepresented what I wrote.
Clearly you’re just looking for straw men to rant against. I’ll leave you to it.
@DM In support of what you’re saying there’a an interesting Bluetooth app that was developed in Egypt and basically creates an end point mesh network out of available mobile phones (as far as I know its only an sms equivalent) from what I understand the packets for local to local transmission never get to the main network backbone they’re resolved locally. I know some of the engineers involved and they are super paranoid so I’m guessing it actually maintains anonymity not just for message contents but more importantly for the connectivity and end point metadata. meaning the authorities dont have the who’s talking to whom data to fall back on….very important because Egypt is well known for the efficiency of their rubber-hose cryptanalysis methods.
That’s cool I set up one of the B+ ones last year it was just a little to slow for my liking. The sd card doesn’t work in it now for some reason.
I like this little project; http://makezine.com/projects/browse-anonymously-with-a-diy-raspberry-pi-vpntor-router/
I’ll have to get a new card though.
All The Ways To Hack Your Phone: Phreaked Out (Episode 3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dysnKiXUlRU
Free wifi network?
RBA cuts to save the fiscally incompetent govt.
http://www.afr.com/p/national/economy/abbott_government_politics_forces_GerZE4V0XAhKEmpJ3gQZKL
MORAL HAZARD
(Sigh)…
“But the economy is also far from crisis…Within five months ….Australia will have officially completed 24 years of straight economic growth….. NSW and Victoria, and perhaps even Tasmania, are now on the cusp of a meaningful upswing. Much of that has been driven by a rebound in property markets….”
Sadly – for all current and future Australians – Tony will prevail, together with his executive team.
What damage has he, Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann, especially, done to the economic budget debate over the last 12 months !!! Most of their LNP preferred choices have been shown to be completely unacceptable – to the extent that even they themselves now are dumping key elements in recognition of their very unwise choices.
As for all of his others who also supported the dumping of the Carbon Tax and the Mining Tax , and the down-playing of the need to encourage renewable energy at the expense of coal , climate change denial impacts …. One just can’t believe even they themselves really believe in what they are doing in this regard.
Equally sadly is Labour’s credentials in terms of absence of credible policies, very bleak historical record (that does not foster confidence in their management abilities) and absence of inspiring candidates.
So, we are not looking too good either, or any, way.
I’m starting to think he will too. Apparently Abbott has been making the “more consultative, listening, change” statement since he was in opposition, apparently about 20 odd times and nothings happened. What will happen over the next 6 months is just reinforce at the next spill why the fuck didn’t we do this the first time!
@WN More than likely that Abbott will succeed as its a backbench rebellion without much focus BUT the record on these things is that the party is irredeemably wounded. It goes on like an open sore for months and the media pick at it like a scab reminding voters of the problem. Whether Tone or Mal, some other Tory bloke, or Jules – as the economic and political narrative deteriorates it’s curtains as voters try the other lot to keep the exceptionalism fantasy alive.
Lets just workshop that shall we……..
May budget (after not getting up last years through senate) involving the cuts they didnt get to impose last year or budget return to surplus some time in late 2020s ……..’So Mr Backbencher, do you think that Prime Minister Abbot has turned his communications with the Australian people around?’
Ford Closure in May and impending closure of car industry – ……..’So Mr Backbencher, do you think that Prime Minister Abbot has turned his communications with the Australian people around?’
Rising unemployment later this year with no apparent traction from monetary policy stimulating retail or services demand ……..’So Mr Backbencher, do you think that Prime Minister Abbot has turned his communications with the Australian people around?’
LNG Plants opening for export creating higher gas and electricity prices on east Coast ……..’So Mr Backbencher, do you think that Prime Minister Abbot has turned his communications with the Australian people around?’
Rising tradable inflation as declining AUD kicks in ……..’So Mr Backbencher, do you think that Prime Minister Abbot has turned his communications with the Australian people around?’
…and thats just the known knowns….
Nonsense! He’s toast. He was toast the moment he announced Sir Prince Phil.
He might not get rolled on Tuesday, but a few more months of disastrous polls, and leadership tensions and the LNP party room will be literally begging for Malcolm.
$1.3m to $360,000 in 4 years.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/house-passed-in-at-auction-after-million-dollar-price-dive/6077724
A spectator at the auction said “it was an extraordinary event”
It’s about to become very ordinary
PtH median rent for a 3bdrm house is still $1100pw!
http://www.sqmresearch.com.au/graph_median_rent_weeks.php?postcode=6721&t=1
That 10%+ yield looks good
This and other markets that have relied on solid mining wages will remain ‘sticky’ for some time.
The Bogan mentality will not compute the new normal and will be waiting until the cargo cult resumes and the manna flows again.
Only 6x the typical punter’s wage for a fibro shack on a postage stamp of land in Port Hedland. BARGAIN !
I can remember those going for less than a hundred gorillas.
Overpriced then I thought…
more underperformance than FMG shares
‘Six decades ago, an agreement to cancel half of postwar Germany’s debt helped foster a prolonged period of prosperity in the war-torn continent. The new government in Athens says Greece – and Europe – now need a similar deal.’
Something for a China to consider too?
http://www.france24.com/en/20150129-london-agreement-1953-debt-write-germany-economic-miracle-greece-austerity/
Difficulty lies in the complexities of counterparty positions and the interwoven interdependent nature of modern financial instruments.
True – Germany was a serial defaulter in the 20th century but now as a creditor nation completely refuses to extend the same assistance it received from the USA and other European nations.
Germany remains as a major aggressor in Europe.
WHEN this all goes wrong, globally, let’s remember…. it was all the RBA’s fault!
” China may be feeling increased urgency as it looks around the Asia-Pacific region. On Feb. 3, Australia surprised markets with a 25 basis-point rate cut, a step that Christy Tan at National Australia Bank says “stoked speculation of a currency war.” That move, she says, might have been what prompted the PBOC to suggest that it’s “preparing possible responses” to shifting financial dynamics.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-06/is-china-preparing-for-currency-war-
$30 oil, currency wars
“If China decides to play the same game, it will be a disaster because commodity prices are going to crash because China consumes 40 percent of the world’s basic commodities,” Woo said. “And then you’re going to trigger a competitive devaluation around the world. The 10-year yield is going to go to 1.25 percent if China wants to devalue [its currency] 10 percent.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102399810
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/house-passed-in-at-auction-after-million-dollar-price-dive/6077724
“A house in the mining town of Port Hedland has been passed in at auction for $360,000 after it was bought four years ago for $1.3 million.”
A spectator at the auction said “it was an extraordinary event”.
😉
I love it.
Well done Glenn Stevens, the outcome you so desired and be dammed with the rest of the country.
“Investors embrace rate cut at Sydney auctions”
http://news.domain.com.au/domain/investors-embrace-rate-cut-at-sydney-auctions-20150207-138ir8.html
We will have / already have macroprudential to take of this. She’ll be right mate!
82% clearance rate!
BREAKING# Glenn Stevens voted Life Member of the REIA!
Wellie its seems the whole Adani’s Australian coal mine project has that special smell about it…
Adani’s Australian coal mine project hit by ownership controversy
“The report said “it appears that Gautam Adani does not ultimately control many of the companies associated with his company’s Australian coal developments. Instead his eldest brother Vinod Shantilal Adani holds pivotal positions.”
The report said Vinod has been named in an Indian criminal investigation into the alleged siphoning of 1 billion dillar from Indian shareholders in three Adani companies into offshore accounts.
“Whatever the truth of the untested allegations, a trail of documents appears to tie Vinod Shantilal Adani to the ownership of the Abbot Point lease. One of the difficulties in following Adani’s corporate trail is conflicting paperwork,” the report said.
“Company documents, including annual reports filed in?India, say Adani Enterprises ? the Bombay Stock Exchange-listed parent company for a network of related Adani entities ? had divested, or sold, its interest in Abbot Point Port in 2013 for 235 million dollars to a private company in?Singapore?called Abbot Point Port Holdings,” it said.
“A company record lodged in?Singapore?names Abbot Point Port Holdings’ sole director as Vinod Shantilal Adani, the report said adding that?records at Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and annual reports for Adani’s registered Australian companies, were in the name a publicly listed Indian company, Adani?Ports?and Special Economic Zone, as the ultimate shareholder for the port,” the report said.
It said the company that interacted with Queensland and federal governments has been another subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, Adani Mining Pty Ltd.
Adani spokesperson insisted there was nothing untoward about this arrangement.
“Ownership structures of the companies reflect the required level of ring-fencing and financial governance architecture required for a mine, rail and port project, and T1 (Abbot Point) port operations.
“The above is also layered to meet the various regulatory and funding regimes that apply to these assets,” Adani’s spokesman said.
Any suggestion of irregularities or non-compliance was “fanciful”, he said adding it was unnecessary to respond to allegations about Vinod Shantilal Adani.
“The claims about ownership structures that are based on this premise, having been shown to be incorrect, don’t follow,” he said.
“This is unfortunate. Having emphatically rejected the premise of these falsehoods, it is self-evidently unnecessary to rebut supplementary falsehoods.”
The latest report has come after Adani Mining stated that the Queensland poll results would have no influence on its Carmichael Coal Mining project.”
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-adani-s-australian-coal-mine-project-hit-by-ownership-controversy-2058901
skippy….all the mean while India, china and others are saying their going to massively expand solar, Buffet 15 billion [Yep renewable credits do have a part to play in it].
Another blow to the Coalition and its dirty export schemes.
Thanks for that, it is interesting. Seem lika corporate battle now that the price has collapsed and – – as you say, solar in India? – the project isn’t even finished.
Still though skip… screenspace?
From what I understand efficiency to the 6th power increase is imminent and as such improvements proceed, screenspace is reduced equally.
If you like corporate skullduggery you should read Richard Smiths exposes at NC, their a ripping yarn.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/scammers-behind-virgin-gold-mining-corporation-bit-off-chew-iii.html
Skippy… we made special friends with Cathy Odgers awhile back… waves….
Chinese New Year being brought with a literal bang all around my area.
A lot of the year I miss living 100m from Victoria street, Abbotsford. This weekend I don’t.
I once lived in that knick of the woods in the mid 90s – great place to live with all the Viets, and just around the corner was the pub they used to to do the Sullivans in (which did good meals then) and the Abbotsford did good meals then too, and they still played games at Vic park back then too. I had a mate (from up country) get out of the train at Collingwood station one day and walk straight into the Laird ‘O Cockpen (which we used to refer to as the Leather Cockateel) and in the midst of a phone call from the bar to work out where i lived spot a large papier mache penis suspended from the roof above the pool table (he didnt realise the pub was for a select clientele when he went in) – he was still in a state of considerable shock when he got to our place 5 minutes later. There was still industry about there then – I have no idea if there is now.
There’s self-storage on the same street as the Laird. We lived close enough to walk overlflow items around there, which we did once on a public holiday – interesting sight seeing people changing into Laird appropriate attire in the cars and in the street.(that public holiday seemed to be a major festival for bears).
Still some small factories, of course many now apartments, and it continues.
Melbourne’s most valuable real estate per square foot, incidentally.
War by media and the triumph of propaganda
http://johnpilger.com/articles/war-by-media-and-the-triumph-of-propaganda
From above link
” Today, many of the premises of civilised life in Britain are being dismantled in order to pay back a fraudulent debt – the debt of crooks. The “austerity” cuts are said to be £83 billion. That’s almost exactly the amount of tax avoided by the same banks and by corporations like Amazon and Murdoch’s News UK. Moreover, the crooked banks are given an annual subsidy of £100bn in free insurance and guarantees – a figure that would fund the entire National Health Service.
The economic crisis is pure propaganda. Extreme policies now rule Britain, the United States, much of Europe, Canada and Australia. Who is standing up for the majority? Who is telling their story? Who’s keeping record straight? Isn’t that what journalists are meant to do?”
Obedient workers doing their job.
John Pilger. Probably the best product Bondi ever turned out!
Now they’re finally turning against Hockey.
The problem’s not Abbott, Hockey or Turnbull.
It’s the whole stinking LNP philosophy and ethos. Get rid of them.
Senator Ian Macdonald says Tony “knows what’s good for Australia”.
Selling our assets and populating is good for Australia?
How fucking ridiculous.
Camperdown yesterday. Small 3 bed townhouse strata.
Auction yesterday, 8 groups bidding, went for an amazing 1.26M, the projected value 1.1M
Won by a buyers agent buying for chinese resident
It is on video….
http://media.domain.com.au/property/domain/has-the-rate-cut-affected-house-prices-6236734.html
Bought on behalf of my client who is based in china?…hello!
The issue we have is the state gov in particular is more concerned about to 5% stamp duty bonus, then the long term effect this is having on our, let me say that again, our, society.
This quasi Political correct rubbish, I’m done with it. It’s time to step on a few Chinese fingers for the good of our society.
This quasi Political correct rubbish, I’m done with it. It’s time to step on a few Chinese fingers for the good of our society.
What ? It has nothing to do with politically correct anything, it’s slavish adherence to a market ideology that dictates anyone who has the money should be able to buy whatever they want, wherever they want [because they’ve “earnt” it].
Hope that agent is paying GST on his commission.
The smugness by all concearned in that video!
So if a 0.25% rate cut = +$35000 bid on a property then cutting by say another 8 x 0.25% will result in say the $600,000 property now being ‘worth’ $880,000.
I know thats domain.com.au economics but that should scare the bejesus out of anyone.
….my money is starting to drift towards TestosterTone having the numbers for this particular meeting, with His Malcolmness not nominating.
Liberal party room to meet on Monday morning to vote on spill motion
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/liberal-party-room-to-meet-on-monday-morning-to-vote-on-spill-motion-20150207-138tos.html
Abbott brings spill forward after Turnbull emphasises need for time for party members, backbench and front, to talk and consider the motion. Another Captain’s Pick…
Transcript MT doorstop
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/liberal-party
Turnbull obviously favours secret ballot, will Tones?
Yeah just imagine doorstops like that being played out over the next 18 months…….
Mr Abbott appears to hanker back to his days at Queens College at Oxford. The setup he runs in his office and Cabinet Room seems to mimic a Senior Common Room at an English Public School.
The formal dining, no doubt dressed for, the calling in of recalcitrants to the Master’s office for an appeal to the old school spirit. The chosen prefects ( we all know their names) enforcing the rules by hazing and bullying. Mr Murdoch knows this and uses the same methods on Mr Abbott himself.
I would love to know whether late suppers at the Prime Minister’s office involve cocoa and sticky buns.
I’m alll for the public having secret ballots, but politicans not so sure.
If Turnbull and colleagues can’t make the hard decision and ask Tony to step down mano-a-mano then has he really got what it takes to take hard decisions to the Australian people?
Abbott will win. Problem for the Libs now going forward is the effect on the party by entrenching Abbott rather rather than removing the individual to save the party. Abbotts abit like a sun spot that’s turned cancerous; the party have the opportunity to remove the damage because if left untreated, will kill the host. Will Abbott ultimately destroy the party by saving himself?
@ Gunna,@nyleta,@3d1k,@wing nut
Maybe Captain Australia has got wind of this….
https://www.change.org/p/tony-abbott-show-us-your-papers-renouncing-your-british-citizenship-before-you-were-elected/u/9570086?tk=5tibB8bWTpXeLiZ1OHE4_IWa4cgY8D85Jl601jYk5OY&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&utm_term=
Congrats to Wollongong on being crowned an international city of the calibre of London and New York and all other Aussie capitals.
https://sobata416.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/21.jpg
And all with double digit unemployment!
It’s a miracle!
First Dog on the Moon: Political Schadenfreude
Direct link to podcast
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/02/sra_20150208_0955.mp3
An article on current lobbying practices in NSW
http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/how-beverage-companies-joined-forces-to-attack-baird-recycling-scheme-20150207-1389dx.html
It is interesting to read the ministers reasons for not declaring contact with the lobbyists.
Question for the readership.
If the policy proposal in the next LNP budget was *BOOM* Negative gearing abolished.
Would you vote for the LNP if Labor took the line “It’s an attack on hardworking home owners”?.
Yes.
The Torynuffs absolutely appall me (As do the ALParatchiks). But I will swallow my wider thoughts and reservations about my fellow travellers for the first party which begins the process of winding back the politico housing complex. I dont think removing NG will do it all (or even all that much in the first instance) but I would consider it a start and would vote on that basis.
I also think the housing rort lobby knows that it is a fine balance with everything in its favour that keeps the lobby where it is, and that the removal of one thing in its favour simply means it is a matter of time for the rest.
Depends on what their other policies are…
Couldn’t bring myself to vote for the gargoyles in the LNP over a single issue.
The Greens generally support sane policies like that from either side anyway, and would probably end up with the balance of power.
Proposal? Pffft no!
If they had been trying for 18months to do something about it, with bills in place that had been rejected by Labor many times. Then yes. But until then its just more empty words like “no surprises government”
@Mig and others
I want to get some cheap “burner” / travel laptops and was wondering if anyone has directly installed Mint on a Chromebook looks possible based on a quick check but no idea which hardware is most supported. I dont trust Google so I’m not happy with a Cinnamon loaded via Crouton I also want to maintain LiveUSB capability.
Any ideas?
Yes I have installed mint on a chrome book, totally doable
PAY BACK THE DEBT MERKEL
WWII reparations – Greece’s other dispute with Germany
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite6_1_07/02/2015_547019
“Greece’s occupation by the Nazis from 1941 was one of the most bloody in Europe, with Hitler’s forces rampaging, pillaging and shooting, and encountering a nation that fiercely resisted.
The Nazi regime ended up bleeding Greece dry. The Third Reich forced the Greek central bank to loan it 476 million Reichsmarks which has never been reimbursed.”
A German Bundestag lower house of parliament report in 2012 put the value of the loan at $8.25 billion.
Albrecht Ritschl, a professor of economic history, said in an interview with Germany’s Spiegel news weekly in 2011 that “Germany has been the 20th century’s worst payer of debts”.
PAY BACK THE DEBT MERKEL!!
WWII reparations – Greece’s other dispute with Germany
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite6_1_07/02/2015_547019
“Greece’s occupation by the Nazis from 1941 was one of the most bloody in Europe, with Hitler’s forces rampaging, pillaging and shooting, and encountering a nation that fiercely resisted.
The Nazi regime ended up bleeding Greece dry. The Third Reich forced the Greek central bank to loan it 476 million Reichsmarks which has never been reimbursed.”
A German Bundestag lower house of parliament report in 2012 put the value of the loan at $8.25 billion.
Albrecht Ritschl, a professor of economic history, said in an interview with Germany’s Spiegel news weekly in 2011 that “Germany has been the 20th century’s worst payer of debts”.
RC into nuclear power in SA.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-08/nuclear-issues-royal-commission-jay-weatherill/6078260
Keep scraping that resources barrel…
Yep if current spot prices are anything to go by a vast majority of it is not worth digging up unless you have ISR exploitable deposits……
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=uranium&months=240
USD 36.95 / lbs and heading south again.