Auspol March: Trump for Prime Minister, Clive Palmer for Deputy

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol March: Trump for Prime Minister, Clive Palmer for Deputy

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

So is the housing market going to collapse or what

At this point I want it to happen not so much so I can afford a house, more because I want boomers to get their comeuppance

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 00:12

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:18

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Re all the ecstasy stuff, there was an article in The Monthly not long ago that was really great:

https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/richard-cooke/2016/16/2016/1455587273/drugs-are-bad-part-2

quote:

The way drugs are regulated in fact ensures that the risk is retained. There was a bus-ad series run not long ago as part of the National Drugs Campaign that tried to dissuade consumers by telling them ecstasy was MADE USING DRAIN CLEANER, BATTERY ACID OR EVEN HAIR BLEACH. THEN POPPED IN YOUR MOUTH. ECSTASY. FACE FACTS. Presumably drug manufacturers would be quite happy to use pharmaceutical-grade precursor agents if they could get them, but they can�t. This ad showed ecstasy being made in a filthy toilet, which seems like a strange place to run an expensive illegal lab, and a cheap way to make the drugs look extra disgusting. The toilet was dirty enough to suggest it was still being used. Perhaps there are some criminals stupid enough to poo poo on their own multi-million dollar enterprise, but it doesn�t seem very likely.

That toilet might seem like a clumsy prop in a scare campaign, but it�s really a very valuable piece of information about just how the drug war works, as it�s now constituted. Because when anti-drug campaigners say �drugs are bad�, their opponents don�t understand what they really mean. They think they mean �drugs are harmful�. But these people mean �drugs are bad� in same way we think that faeces is repulsive. It might be repulsive because it is linked to sickness, but it is also repulsive because it is inherently repulsive, and that status is enforced and ring-fenced by a whole series of taboos involving cleanliness, purity, corporeal integrity and social sanction. It is more than just a hygiene provision � it is how we constitute a shared communal reality, by deciding what is unclean.

It makes sense then, that the best predictor of someone�s views on recreational drug use isn�t their age, or their political affiliation, or their religiosity. It is their views on promiscuity. The researchers who first identified this linked it to evolutionary strategy. The idea is that people invest in the concept of monogamy to ensure their offspring are their own, then oppose drug-taking because it reduces sexual inhibitions. But that kind of ev-pysch rationale isn�t necessary. It can work from much more fundamental things: the conception of bodily integrity, or the idea that sinful behaviour should be its own punishment. That�s why trying to co-opt conservatives into a harm reduction strategy is waste of time: because they want drugs to remain harmful.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 23:41

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

dr_rat posted:

I'd put money on twenty years, give or take five.

Also on that Morrison will be going fine during the Commission until Dutton fucks up and accidentally says something that ends up unraveling everything and doing them both.

In the event that anybody in Australia ever faces the music for the concentration camps (which they won't) it will be exactly like all the Nazi trials in West Germany in the '60s: everybody in this country knew what was happening, the facts were all there, and hardly anybody cared. But the public narrative will change to the idea that it was somehow all a high-ranking conspiracy that was concealed from us.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 23:47

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

I'll be honest I'd never even heard the narrative that it was only people at the top that knew about the holocaust. So take that as a sample of 1 I guess?

To be honest I only said that the Germans tried to change the narrative because of The Reader, although I think those trials were a real thing.

In a lot of reading I have actually been unable to figure out whether a) the German populace knew about the killings, and b) the Allies knew about the killings. I even read George Orwell's articles and diaries all the way through the 1940s and never got to some revelatory moment where the free world suddenly knew all about the Holocaust.

But obviously everybody knew Jews were being stripped of their assets and imprisoned, which is bad enough. And I can't see how, with tens of thousands of people involved in the killing process, word couldn't have leaked out. Unless that's a mistake I make from a modern and free vantage point; maybe a fascist society in the 1940s was inherently more hush hush.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 12:25

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

OK now that I actually have the internet up and running for the first time since coming back to Australia, I have to ask for a decent VPN again. I think there was one that was like $10 a year? They did end up passing metadata retention right?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2016 12:37

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Brown Paper Bag posted:

Does anyone have any good AusPol podcasts to recommend? SomethingWonky is great, is there anything else along those lines?

It's a podcast-of-all-trades but I quite like Ben Pobjie and Cam Smith's regular political discussion at Gather Round Me

# ¿ Mar 5, 2016 13:30

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

LibertyCat posted:

Suppose Indonesia shoots down a hundred drones - if we're doing it properly, who cares, there will be another thousand behind them. There will be no grieving widows.

Ideally each drone would be programmed to bring down anything it doesn't recognize autonomously.

Are you 15? Serious question

# ¿ Mar 7, 2016 13:03

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Negligent posted:

An airforce can be useful for stuff other than an outright shooting war. You can fly a plane over an artificial island in the south China sea and do other stuff that doesn't involve actually dropping a bomb in anger.

If it's come to actual war, we're already hosed, the international geopolitical system has collapsed and it's all gone mad Max.

I thought the entire point of our military was to make a token contribution to a larger ally's wars (and purchase a larger ally's lovely fighter jets) in exchange for protection from Asia. I thought this was the guiding principle of Australian defence policy for over 100 years. Which raises the interesting question of whether we actually have to participate in all of America's boondoggles in order to secure that protection. If we'd passed on dumbshit wars like Vietnam or the second Iraq War, I still can't see the US being cool with a Chinese invasion of Australia, since they're trying to keep the Chinese contained.

I mean that's overly simplistic armchair general pontificating, but that has to be right, yeah? I couldn't see America being fine with the Chinese annexing a major continent in the Pacific just because we didn't show up to one of their war parties.

Although I also think a lot of our recent ventures have more to do with people like Howard and Abbott wanting to play Churchill and sit at the big boys' table, rather than any coherent defence policy.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2016 23:32

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Birdstrike posted:

Tremendous sledge against Malcolm Turnbull

What's the source for this, I want to share it

# ¿ Mar 8, 2016 22:47

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

my stepdads beer posted:

Why do people think a majority government is Good

This happens in the UK too, an argument that always gets put in favour of FPTP voting is that it "delivers strong governments." Basically people don't really understand how Parliament is supposed to function and they want a strong, presidential style leader.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 01:26

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

EvilElmo posted:

Further proof we can't afford to change negative gearing.

Actually we can't afford to continue an absurd property bubble which perpetuates a generational shift in wealth, as baby boomers own swathes of real estate and their own children are forced to rent in sharehouses into their 30s.

But you're a troll and you already know that.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 23:36

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

open24hours posted:

Casual employment seems a lot more controversial in other countries than it does here.

Because they don't get paid any extra than full-timers.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 09:44

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

You can smell the panic in the real estate market, I guess it must be terrifying when the generation you were counting on to prop up the ponzi scheme has second thoughts:

http://www.realestate.com.au/news/confessions-of-a-firsthome-owner/news-story/dca447f3bbdfd779b2e56b14aa219ad1

quote:

I HAVE a confession to make: I�m a homeowner. And in some corners of the country that�s not something you want to say too loudly.

I was in my early 30s and buying on my own when I got my inner Sydney apartment. My deposit was less than 20 per cent, I was on a very average salary and had no family-funded cash injection.

While it may have been only seven years ago, the real estate scene looks pretty different now.

Signing on the dotted line in a mid-GFC market meant I had a helping hand in the shape of government handouts. Back then, both federal and state camps were dolling out grants and tax exemptions like Halloween lollies to help first timers get a leg up on the ladder.

Unfortunately though, those days of government incentives are gone and prices have jumped in a lot of cities, (in Sydney alone, house price medians are up 47.1 per cent in just five years; 39.8 per cent for units).

Now, I have survivor�s guilt. I got in when others didn�t, or couldn�t.

People still ask me �But how did you do it?� while others actually ask �Why did you do it?�

And then there were the gems like �Oh, so you got a one-bedroom in the city, have you decided to stay single then, aren�t you going to have a family?�

I was even asked why I didn�t want to wait for a man to help pay for it.

But these days I mostly get the backhanded compliment. �Well it�s OK for you, you got in. You�re so lucky!�
Getting on to the ladder where others have failed can lead to resentment.

Getting on to the ladder where others have failed can lead to resentment.Source:News Corp Australia

But it wasn�t luck. I didn�t wake up one morning with a set of keys in one hand and a council rates notice in the other.

I had no a car or credit card and rode a bicycle everywhere (despite the shameless mocking of friends and colleagues). I coveted people�s Facebook posts of glamorous overseas holidays, and envied those buying new gadgets and designer shoes while I shared apartments with strangers I didn�t even like to save on rent � at times it was awful.

I never kept up with the Kardashians because I had no Foxtel and rarely went to the cinema. My pop culture conversation around the water cooler would have been lamentable.

During my first few years of a mortgage, 60 per cent of my income went straight to the bank while I ate two-minute noodles and drank cask wine � there�s nothing classy about the first few years of home ownership.

Then there was the reality of giving up on the dream of living in the neighbourhood I really wanted to call home. So I did something really drastic � I bought where I could afford, and what I could afford.

Today I still live in that shoebox and when I say it�s small, I mean I�ve had to become an Olympic champion of Tetris-inspired storage. But now it�s not just my tiny unit, it�s also home to my partner, an obese cat and, soon, a baby.

This is not a cry for sympathy, or a request for a collective pat on the back. I�m a real estate writer so I understand (maybe more than the next person) just how hard it is for first timers to buy property, especially in Sydney and Melbourne.
Becoming a homeowner takes far more than just luck.

Becoming a homeowner takes far more than just luck.Source:Supplied

Four decades ago, a typical home in a capital city was five times the average annual earnings � today it�s up to 10 times that. There�a a titbit for your grandparents when they try to tell you how hard it was in their day.

But don�t give up on the dream. Start saving, get financially savvy and find a way to make it work. Maybe you�ll have to be one of the growing number of Aussies who become a landlord before they buy their dream home. There�s no shame or financial disadvantage in renting if you�re parking your pennies in a growing asset like property.

But I�ll be honest � it�s not going to be fun and life is going to look pretty different.

Start by saving on the extras. According to a (particularly conservative, in my opinion) ASIC study of spending habits, young single Australians (under 35) spend an average of $1248 on alcohol alone each year while young couples are spending about $2132 on grog.

The same groups spent almost $2000 and $2700 respectively on clothing each year as well as $5500 and $9500 respectively on a mysterious category called �recreation� (double or quadruple those figures if you�re in a city � bespoke cocktails, pilates and stand up paddle boarding classes don�t come cheap).

That adds up to $8748 (singles) and $14,332 (couples) spent on things each year that a lot of us could probably do without.

OK, that kind of money might still be far from the huge deposits needed to get on the ladder in a place like Sydney, but after a couple of years you could have enough for a down payment on an investment property in a regional town where price growth looks promising.

According to property experts, they�re predicting only very modest price growth across most capital cities in the near future anyway, so why not park the cash where it will work for you?

Then in a few years (post the two-minute noodles phase) the dream of a forever home, or burgeoning property empire just might be a little closer.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 09:53

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Frogmanv2 posted:

Its still the same bullshit, but at least they sort of recognise that the current market is bullshit.

That's what I mean by panic - a few years ago they never would have dreamed to acknowledge that housing is overpriced, but now that it's getting traction in mainstream media, the narrative shifts to "OK it's hard but you still NEED to dedicate your life to owning a house."

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 00:40

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Brown Paper Bag posted:

I'm not sure Stephen Smith is going to increase the ALP's chances - he's more high profile

Until yesterday I had no idea he was even in state parliament.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 00:11

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Lol. What makes him think he deserves to be ambitious? He has less personality than Shorten.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 01:06

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Au Revoir Shosanna posted:

i am all for small government but wait, who then will protect me from the blacks?

truly i am laid low by my own lovely ideas and insecurities.

It was only recently that I realised a huge, unspoken drive behind the Second Amendment wasn't "freedom from government tyranny" or whatever - the whole 18th century New England revolutionary war vibe - it was something that persisted well into the mid-19th century, which was the Southern slaveholders' fear of armed rebellion. There were some areas where black slaves outnumbered the white population 10 to 1 and the whites were petrified of an uprising.

And that's persisted well into the modern day. It never occurred to me before - maybe because American pop culture takes care to make the country look like a harmonious multicultural wonderland - but when they're talking about defending their homes from intruders, it's not white people they're imagining. I was in Alabama talking to a distant relative, and he was talking about how he'd set up a springloaded secret compartment in his truck that he keeps his Glock in, in case someone tries to carjack him. And at the same time he would occasionally drop references to "the blacks," just like, for example, my relatives in Perth will talk about "the Abos" with irritating regularity. And you realise that these people have this weird siege complex mentality because of the underclass that they - or at least their ancestors - were solely responsible for creating. I guess the difference in America is that the underclass makes up a much bigger chunk of the population, especially in the South.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 23:51

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the lesson of the 2013 election that personal popularity/unpopularity doesn't matter? i.e. the public widely disliked Abbott but voted Liberal in a landslide anyway because 2PP is what matters to most people. Which would suggest Mal's personal approval rating is irrelevant.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 23:40

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

So are we looking at a July 2 election or what? I've been meaning to volunteer for the Greens for ages and an election campaign seems like the time to do it.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 10:03

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Recoome posted:

I mean like everyone I work for is usually amazing, that's not really my problem. The issue I have is that we basically put so little money into mental health that unpaid internships are the only way for undergrads to gain experience unless you are about to luck out on a stable paid psychology job (you won't be working as a psych though, you need your degree first). It's this lovely catch-22 bullshit which forces undergrads to be slaves in order to have a chance at doing anything.

But hey guys it's cause I'm a lazy no-good uni student i mean i'm just a leaner

I could understand your dad having weird and rigid ideas about working for free, but I honestly cannot see how he could turn that into the idea that you're the leaner.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 23:23

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the biggest issue with this state-tax thing the fact that it jeopardises horizontal fiscal equity or whatever they call it? Like, right now, all the states get funding based on need, so poorer states like SA and Tassie get more money, so every Australian has equal access to healthcare and education no matter where they live. Whereas this would seem to drag us towards an American system where wealthy districts get wealthier and poorer districts get poorer.

A country as small and homogeneous as Australia shouldn't even have states in the first loving place.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 12:48

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:18

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Negligent posted:

I think you are referring to the GST revenue which is set by the grants commission based on need. It was very unpopular with WA for a while, because it went down to something like 17c out of every dollar came back from Canberra.

GST replaced state sales tax, which as a tax on consumption, was regressive.

Income tax is progressive, so actually increasing the income tax rather than GST hits the rich harder than the poor.

Yeah that's what I meant. Income tax is all federal though right? What do states draw revenue from?

I only read up on the grants commission/GST thing because I'm from WA and Barnett kept having a royal whinge about GST. It's very funny when you find out that the grants commission was set up for WA's benefit in the first place and WA has been a beneficiary for the vast majority of financial years ever since. Then all of a sudden they have a mining boom and start shrieking about how they're "propping up" the rest of the country.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 13:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol March: Trump for Prime Minister, Clive Palmer for Deputy