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Australia Needs To Ensure Its Sovereignty

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The European Union and Canada are both reducing their reliance on US financial systems like the Visa and Mastercard credit card sector. This has controlled upward of 90% of their digital payment arrangements and the realisation has sunk in just how vulnerable they could be to having the plug pulled on this. Obviously these moves are in reaction to President Donald Trump and his regime’s threatening stance on everything from tariffs to NATO. Australia is in the same boat on this score and is it time to take control of our own digital money sector. In Brazil they have PIX which is a feeless digital payment system not dependent upon American multinationals. Australia needs to ensure its sovereignty around its financial sector and stop being so dependent upon American corporations.Continue Reading

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Break Up These Big Companies & Bust Their Monopolies

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In: corruption, democracy, economics, featured, Government, latest post, politics, power

We need to break up these big companies and bust their monopolies and oligopolies. Capitalism only works effectively for all when there is real competition in the marketplaces. Right now, this doesn’t exist in Australia and in most countries around the globe. There are too many sectors where only 2 or 3 corporations control markets. This prevents consumers having buying power and employees having any wage bargaining power. The chips are all in the corner of the bosses and the shareholders. Think about Coles and Woolworths dominating the supermarket and the liquor sectors. Think about the 4 big banks and the 4 big accountancy consulting firms. The insurance business is, likewise, dominated by a small number of giant companies. The telco business is Telstra, Optus and not much else. Big Tech is even worse, with most of them holding monopolies. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and their ilk control their markets monopolistically. Consumers are screwed when multinationals have such domination over markets and sectors. Capitalism does not work when competition does not exist.Continue Reading

The Americanisation Of Australia

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In: corruption, democracy, economics, featured, Government, latest post, politics, power

I read in an ABC news report about a doctor earning $600, 000 a year. University vice chancellors on $1.5 million per year. Dentists earning half a million, whilst many older Australians cannot afford to go to the dentist because of the high cost involved. This is the Australia we now live in. A country, in which 20 of the last 25 years have had LNP Coalition federal governments. Inequity and inequality are riding higher than ever before downunder. This has Americanised us via the concentration of corporate ownership via mergers and takeovers creating duopolies and oligopolies in nearly every sector. This failure of the ACCC and ASIC, under the government’s watch, has stripped away consumer buying power and worker’s rights. The competition watchdog has been asleep at the wheel or paid off by nefarious means and the revolving door. This is the Americanisation of Australia.Continue Reading