http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/26284

 

AN ALL-PARTY GROUP whose purpose is to further the interests of the Cayman Islands – a Caribbean tax haven – should be closed down, the senior Lib Dem peer, Lord Oakeshott, said this morning.

The parliamentary group is chaired by Graham Brady, the Tory MP who also happens to be the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs - in effect, the senior shop steward for the Parliamentary Conservative Party.

The Cayman Islands is a British overseas territory in the western Caribbean and a major world offshore financial centre, renowned for helping businesses avoid paying tax.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/53368/cayman-islands-parliament-lord-oakeshott-patrick-mercer#ixzz2V9ZllBie

News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch has defended the use of a ''poison pill'' to stave off a hostile acquisition, insisting the use of the mechanism was quite common in the United States.
The comments were made to analysts as part of the Australian leg of an investor roadshow over the looming split of the global media company's newspaper and publishing business from its entertainment assets this month.
In preparing for the split, News Corp has added a provision to allow shareholders to ward off a hostile takeover. Each share of the new publishing company will include a right to purchase $US180 ($186) worth of stock for $US90, triggered when any investor acquires 15 per cent or more of the voting shares.
''I know it's uncommon in this country, but it's very common in America in these situations,'' Mr Murdoch said of the defensive instrument dubbed a poison pill.

The new publishing company, which will retain the News Corp name, kicks off on June 28 with properties such as The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Australian pay TV and newspapers, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun.
News' fast-growing TV and film assets will (be) called 21st Century Fox.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/murdoch-defends-poison-pill-plan-20130605-2nqh8.html#ixzz2VLbWHKZp

 

 

 

In Australia, some companies will do "share swaps" to achieve the same goal... The show Futurama distributed by 20th Century Fox is actually distributed under the "30th Century Fox" banner...

Stocks tumbled, sending US benchmark indexes to one-month lows, while Treasuries rallied as investors weighed prospects for economic growth and the Federal Reserve's stimulus plans. The yen strengthened and shares plunged in Japan.
The MSCI All-Country World Index lost 1.5 per cent at 3:13 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 1.3 per cent, extending its decline from a record on May 21 to 3.6 per cent, while emerging market equities slumped to a six-month low. Aluminum, oil and silver paced commodity gains. Japan's yen gained against all 16 major peers and the Topix index of stocks sank 3.2 per cent, extending its retreat since May 22 to almost 15 per cent. The Dollar Index slipped 0.2 per cent and the 10-year Treasury yield fell six basis points to 2.09 per cent, declining from near a 14-month high.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/world-stocks-down-as-treasuries-rally-20130606-2nr53.html#ixzz2VNstDPEr

 

Market fights back after early plunge

11:35am LIVE Aussie stocks were hammered on the open following huge losses on Wall Street.
From the SMH headlines...
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HUGE LOSSES ON WALL STREET????? AMANDA!!! What are we going to do???? wait for the next yo on the yoyo... I suppose... See toon and story at top...
Remember Amanda is a "Liberal" (conservative) who supports Tonicchio (go north, baby...)...

 

 

This is why global markets are freaking out

 

By Neil Irwin and Katerina Sokou, Updated: June 20, 2013

A wave of selling washed across the financial world Thursday, driving the stock market down, interest rates up, and bringing new tremors of concern that the forces that have been propping up growth are starting to fade away.

The U.S. stock market closed Thursday down 2.5 percent following a 1.4 percent drop on Wednesday, but those moderate declines don’t capture the sense of fear that captured trading floors from Wall Street to London to Tokyo this week. The very underpinnings of a four-year bull market seemed to be coming unglued. An index of expected future market volatility soared 23 percent, to its highest level since the fiscal cliff standoff at the end of last year.

Markets are spooked, interest rates are on the rise across the globe, and a manufacturing survey hinted at new economic weakness in China. If those trends continue it could be enough to take the air out of a U.S. economic recovery that was just gaining momentum.

This isn’t a crisis like the ones that struck the United States starting in 2008 or Europe in 2010. Rather, it is a byproduct of the world’s central banks, having intervened on vast scale to deal with the economic travails of the last several years, introducing uncertainty and even a little chaos as they start to contemplate how and when the era of easy money might end.

Over the last five years, the Federal Reserve has injected more than $2.7 trillion in newly created dollars into the financial system and is continuing to add to that total to the tune of $85 billion a month. But in a news conference Wednesday, chairman Ben S. Bernanke made clear that the central bank expects to start pulling back the throttle later this year and ending the purchases entirely, if the economy cooperates, next summer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/20/this-is-why-global-markets-are-freaking-out/?print=1

 

One of the element underpinning the global malaise is the reality of global warming — a reality that necessarily pushes the idea of growth in limbo... A reality that demands a rewriting of the rules of money... It does not have to be bad, but more caring and sharing without the destruction of the planet... At present we have Singapore being in a RECORD smog due to out-of-control greed in Indonesia, where forest are burned for the next lot of investments — mostly inspired by the west... This is crazy, yet it is a powerful symbol of the craziness of the money market...

 

From Amanda Vanstone

...

Are we better off for seeing people in an horrifically frightening situation? I think not. My preference would be to allow filming, provided there was no operational interference, but for it not to go to air until the ordeal was over. An exception would be made if airing the coverage was part of a demand to which the authorities had acquiesced.

Some might say such a limitation would be inappropriate because "we have a right to know" or because of "freedom of the press". I support both those propositions, with a few caveats.

We do have a right to know, but it is questionable whether that right should extend to being able in real time to see how law enforcement is handling a continuing operation. We need a strong media to monitor how our governments and agencies are carrying out their duties. But monitoring a siege situation need not involve relaying it all instantaneously to us. There is always plenty of time after the event to assess what happened and offer praise or criticism.

Our voracious voyeurism doesn't end there.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/treating-the-sydney-siege-horror-as-realtime-entertainment-eroded-our-humanity-20141221-12aq9o.html

 

 

I have no clue if Amanda knows or not. According to people in the media, the images we got from the various TV channels were already censored... and the faff from the "journalist commentating kind" was also quite limited, though puffed up. There was a lot of speculation that prevented us to know the reality of the situation. Even Tony Abbott got a few things wrong. I felt he was possibly trying to score a sympathy vote for appearing to say something which was quite faffy as well — a bit slow like a Michelle Grattan rehash of news for Fran's show, on a loop...

But the police and cameraman had already set up some cameras that gave extra vision and contact we did not see. It was exclusively linked to the police. It was not a movie.

Our voracious voyeurism is often no more than "caring distorted by fear" under the habit of being "informed" in order to sell us more dishwashing liquid. Our entire social system — via its MMMM (mediocre mass media de mierda) demands we become voyeurism addict — to buy something — even to the three word political sound bite. It's not about knowledge. It's about emotions and manipulations thereof so we become sheep who are being informed there is a better floor mop out there. It takes an insensitive bastard like me not to cry when people die in horrific situation, including more than 130 children being slain because they sought education — or eight kids a desperate mum killed. But most of the MMMM will treat far away dreadful act at first as if it was a "faits diverts" while something "closer to us" with less dead people is developing. I have learnt long ago that in order to be level headed, one cannot absorb all the misery on the planet in one's heart... But one can help thy neighbour allay his/her suffering and the feeling should spread around.

As well one is never sure if one's friend John is caught in the siege... We care about John. We need to know and there is nothing vicarious about finding out if John is okay. Or even people I don't know but I know people who know the parents of people inside the cafe during the siege. We know a lot of mistakes were done in trusting a nutcase. She'll be right mate... in 99.99 per cent of cases she'll be right. One some occasion the system goofs, badly. Our system, to a great extend, relies on trust. In many countries, people distrust each other and this is the saddest thing of all. We cannot let ourselves distrust each other because of a nutcase. But our system is designed for maximum freedom and allows for flaws — and benign nut-cases... And we have to maintain our trust between each other, hence the sea of flowers — not because we've lost our innocence (or as some media outlet say "the day things have changed forever" — idiots) but because we need to show we care and trust...

And by the way, I did not watch the faff... but I stayed somehow informed... What bothers me a bit is we've got no tab on who shot whom...

 

See toon and story at top

 

Amanda Vanstone tells us to be the shapers of our lives:

 

While prime ministers, premiers and COVID-19 experts are important, in the end it is up to us.

You might not want to place bets but there’s just a chance that through COVID-19 we’ve all learnt a lot from our living lesson in government and society. We might not sign up for it as an interesting short course, the equivalent of, for example, ‘‘Ten easy, delicious curries’’, but we’ve lived it and most of us have learnt. Here are the 10 COVID lessons:

1. Little, outside of my dog’s face and your kid’s smile, is perfect. Governments do not have a key to the, I think mythical, perfect policy storage box.

2. The Commonwealth, state and local governments have different powers and different responsibilities. With a big problem, experienced across the nation, no single government will be able to fix everything.

3. There is rarely a single, magic-bullet solution to any one problem. Usually there are a number of different policy options available and within each option choices that can be made.

4. Experts in their field, politicians, bureaucrats and the general public will often disagree among themselves. Disagreement doesn’t mean of itself that the other person is wrong or an idiot. They might be, but they also might have thought a lot about the problem and just maybe they can see something valuable that you’ve missed.

Here’s an entirely unrelated example. When I had the task of making Christopher Skase wish he hadn’t been so criminally stupid, well trained and experienced minds in the Attorney-General’s Department were on the case. At a meeting of suits, a young female graduate-entry trainee, spoke up. Skase had applied for passport renewal. When the young lady was asked if she had anything to say she said, ‘‘Keep the new passport.’’ I’m told that in a near derisory fashion the suits smirked and pointed out that he didn’t want to use it to travel. She calmly responded, ‘‘Yes, but he won’t have it for ID, which will make life much more difficult.’’ Bravo to her.

5. The stupidity of saying ‘‘they should pass a law about that’’ should now be obvious. They, the governments, often pass laws . . . but that’s just a piece of paper which expresses what Parliament wants to happen. Best example: laws against murder. Some people don’t care what the parliaments, elected by the people, decide. They think you and I can put our laws and parliaments where the sun doesn’t shine. These people think laws are for schmucks. Some dopes just don’t give a damn about the rest of us.

6. Decisions made, laws passed then need to be implemented. Management and implementation are an enormous part of governing. We have various public services which, by and large, do this extremely well, but not always. Problems are often not solved by more money or a new policy. Sometimes things just need better management. Think hotel quarantine.

7. Things change. We need flexible governments and politicians who are willing to change direction. Using derogatory language like backflips or an about-face doesn’t encourage said flexibility.

8. Being able to live in Australia, by birth, acquired citizenship or permanent residence is one of the greatest opportunities and luxuries anyone could have. Irrespective of your wealth, we have so much safety, opportunity and freedom.

9. Some people who are blissfully unburdened by any responsibility feel the need to share their criticisms of those who are burdened. Nitpickers, in the media, in private, wherever, are useless, negative, nasty people. Ignore them. Or better still, cut them out of your life.

10. Some people will always do the bare minimum. They’ll follow the law. But after that you’re on your own. They never bother to put the supermarket trolley back because there’s no law that says they have to, no penalty if they don’t. They don’t see the need for all of us to recognise a contract with each other: a simple commitment to be a good citizen, to do unto others, if you’re feeling a touch nostalgic for those retro religious thoughts.

We’ve all learnt other equally valuable lessons, not about government but about ourselves. With the hustle and bustle slowed down, we’ve had a chance to experience a slower life. Reflection can be very therapeutic. Somehow, people have recognised that travel, parties and pubs are fun, but they’re entertaining rather than fulfilling. Now we have a clearer focus on those things that are important to us. Friends, family, our pets, our neighbours. The things money can’t buy.

Hopefully our living tutorial has also taught us that while prime ministers, premiers, bureaucrats and experts are important, in the end it is up to us. We the people. What we do and think and say to each other is important. We can, more than people anywhere else in the world, be shapers of our lives.

Amanda Vanstone is a former federal Coalition minister.

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/amanda-vanstone-s-10-lessons-learnt-from-covid-19-20200724-p55f4q.html

 

Read from top...

 

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So what do we do? Become sheep? Follow orders? Frolic? Is Amanda telling us that it's up to us to follow the "expert advice" or not? Do we believe in Scott Morrison as if he was god or a marketing advert for us to buy a better shower curtain? Do we do what we want? Wear a mask Like old Granny?...

 

 

Of course we are the shapers of our life! Especially when we've been found dead in custody. 

 

"Using derogatory language like backflips or an about-face doesn’t encourage said flexibility." This is a neat twist, Amanda... Often in politics, especially CONservative politics, when a backflip is performed, it's a trick of the trade to make you accept the same crap or WORSE  with "flexibility"... Backflips are rarely honest. About-face are even less so in Amanda's CONservative (Liberal) Party when a minister has been "found to be lacking" or dishing out "sports grants" with some bias. These actions, explained by our sarcastic euphemism, are designed to deceive. 

 

And of course, Australia is the best country in the world, but some people have to live somewhere else, don't they? What sort of inflated platitude is this? 

 

"Some people who are blissfully unburdened by any responsibility feel the need to share their criticisms of those who are burdened." Bravo! Oouchhhh! "Nitpickers, in the media, in private, wherever, are useless, negative, nasty people. Ignore them. Or better still, cut them out of your life..." Yes, Amanda tells us we should not take criticism kindly, because of course we're always right pushing shit uphill... and the naysayers are always wrong.

 

We all know that (we all should) Tony Abbott was the BEST prime minister until Scotty from Marketing came along... and that Julia Gillard was not much loved by Amanda, who of course did everything perfect, when minister in charge of Christopher's passport and of making sure your kids' smiles are the best in the world — or else...

 

Okay, Bad Gus. He is nitpicking... As a politician for bogans, Amanda gets top marks... As a philosopher, she passes under the bar like an expert limbo dancer, which for her is a major feat...

 

Read from top.

 

 

...

Labor Senator Penny Wong has urged the Prime Minister to stop treating the allegation “as a political problem”. It’s a clever tactic. Wong and Labor are using Higgins’ situation to be political, yet urge the Prime Minister to not do so. It is sadly all too common to see people using someone else’s misfortune to paint themselves as models of concern. You use a potential victim to promote your own caring credentials. It’s conspicuous compassion at its worst.

In federal Parliament, there is a high prevalence of advisers under 35. It’s a high-pressure job. They’re away from home, eating out and alcohol is at almost every restaurant. It’s a heady mix. There are things that could be done to improve the culture. But that mix will always be potent

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/linda-reynolds-doesn-t-deserve-criticism-her-response-to-higgins-rape-claim-was-textbook-20210221-p574dd.html

 

Yes, dear Amanda... Everyone in this saga has shown "conspicuous compassion at its worst", especially the Prime Minister... But I trust that Penny Wong is above this conspicuousness... Meanwhile a fourth woman has come forth to accuse the "alleged rapist" of rape as well... Anyone under 25 is loony and should not be employed as advisor to politicians in Kanbra or else. Anyone above 25 should be there as observer and offer limited advice until they have understood "politics". Few people understand politics before the age of 50...

 

 

Read from top.