A Letter To Australia
Dear Australia, I don’t want to be negative but fear you are in the grip of vested interests. A letter to Australia to warn you about stuff. Ever since the days of the squattocracy some hard white men have been having their way with your resources. Never minding about the Indigenous blood they carelessly spilt upon your red earth. These determined settlers disregarded British instruction about allowing Aboriginal people to access their waterways and hunting grounds, preferring to slaughter them expediently instead. The British overlords were piss weak in this regard, it must be said.Continue Reading
The Ghostwriter
Formless, genderless, and yet, a teller of stories. A narrator to the nation but anonymous. The Ghostwriter rides the apostrophes and semicolons like a grammarian hustler. Tipping her, or his hat, to the invisible mores of our cultural inclinations. A wordsmith without peer on the frontiers of our literary appreciation. Now you see him and now you don’t. Can you hear the inflection of the author? Do you perceive the true voice of your hero? Do you know the difference between an allusion and a lie? Wherefore art thou Romeo? Who is stirring your pot on the stove in this reading hour?Continue Reading
Plucking Easy Money From The Young Via Cool Tech
If you are young you are likely in too much of a hurry to read this and if you are older – can you remember what it was like to be young? Fast times and cashless highs: Technology’s ode to debt makes for thrilling reading. The young are in love with technology and this is a cashless highway to debt for the unwary. I picture a raceway, like Daytona, and lots of youthful racing car drivers revving their engines in anticipation of going around the bend. Young men and women risking life and limb to achieve victory over the slow lane. If you survey the top items on Santa’s gift list this year they will likely be the latest smart phone or high tech device, as they have been for the last decade or more. Humanity is in rapture with the fruits of technology, as we have always been.Continue Reading
Economics Rules Our Lives
Economics, as a subject and vocation, has been dominated and owned by banks and the people who work for that sector for centuries. Maybe it’s time to take back some control over something that sits at the centre of our lives. Knowledge is power. Economics rules our lives. Did you notice that governments around the world came to the fore when there was a public health crisis. Governments helped individuals and businesses out with money to keep them going through the pandemic. However, once that was over, we were all hit with an economic tsunami of high CPI inflation. Suddenly, no one could help, as all measures of direct assistance were considered inflationary. The money tree had been poisoned.Continue Reading
The Early Education Rip Off In Australia
I have a daughter working in child care in Australia. She loves her job and is very good at what she does. However, she is paid a pittance for her skills in this space and the undervaluing of early education in Australia is a disgrace. Listening to Jessica Rudd from The Parenthood advocacy group speak at the National Press Club was enlightening and inspiring. Very little has shifted over many years in this space. The early education rip off in Australia continues. Ten years of Coalition federal governments did next to nothing for the nation in this important sector.Continue Reading
American Politics Is So Full Of Shit
You can look at the national civic scene in the United States and shake your head in disbelief and disgust. American politics is so full of shit. It is easy to point the finger at the people and berate them for their childishness in believing so many lies. However, they have been lied to from the very beginning of their republic. The fear mongering by vested interests is legion. This whole anti-communist thing is such a load of garbage. I mean there has never been any iota of danger in America becoming a communist nation. It has been a complete beat up from its invention some hundred plus years ago.Continue Reading
America Is So Ideologically Fraught
If you dip into American political history you are confronted with a whole bunch of surprising anomalies. America is so ideologically fraught and vulnerable to domestic propaganda. The riven polarising state of politics in America today is not as unusual as some commentators make out. Perhaps, it is more a reflection on the general ignorance about America’s past that we get this emphasis today. Political leaders have been lying to and manipulating their citizens for the life of the nation. Trump’s lies are legion but they are nothing new in the political framework of the United States.Continue Reading
The Myth Of The Almighty Political Leader
In America, there is this really big focus on the President. The myth of the almighty political leader portrays the whole government edifice to be in the hands of just one man. It is a lie; and it contributes to the shitty place we find ourselves in today. Who really thinks that a federal government responsible for managing some 340 million people’s lives is largely run by one person? It is absurd. But it is a narrative pushed by the media and the whole realm of government and related sectors. American history, academia, and the like all push this falsehood upon the American public of pure concentric power..Continue Reading
Connectivity Is Crucial To Our Future Security
The recent nationwide Optus outage showed us that connectivity is crucial to our future security. Suddenly, everyone felt helpless and reacted with much anger and frustration toward the failing provider. This throws our dependence upon electrical and digitally connected devices into harsh relief. It is not a stretch of the imagination to plot likely scenarios during times of war in this new age of information. Cutting off the population from their institutions and from each other will be achieved via attacking communication infrastructure. This can be done far more easily than many people might think.Continue Reading
Money Laundering In The Australian Property Sector
It continues unabated despite the promises of a Labor government – money laundering in the Australian property sector. Legions of accountants, lawyers, and real estate agents gladly take overseas money from ill defined sources for property deals around Australia. The recent frenzy of high end real estate purchases from Chinese investors in Melbourne and Sydney highlights this. Australia, with its tax free status on the family home, has become a haven for those wishing to stash millions of dollars in this way. Lax laws around identifying the sources of the funds being funnelled into property investment makes this an attractive bolthole for dodgy money.Continue Reading