# Banks the Road to Ruin



## Garpal Gumnut (29 November 2017)

Ater a dizzying ten years of the Austraian Big Four CBA, WBC, ANZ and NAB screwing their their customers to increase the returns of my self managed super fund which gets up to 8% on their dividends I have had a catharsis. (  look it up )

I believe the big four are in for a whacking. 

Nobody likes them especially the politicians.

My guess is in one years time.
CBA  $35.96
ANZ $12.40
NAB $14.32
WPC $09.01

Sold today.
All of the bastards

gg


----------



## tech/a (29 November 2017)

Don’t know about that GG


----------



## galumay (29 November 2017)

maybe.....but maybe not.


----------



## sptrawler (29 November 2017)

Big call GG, especially when the Government has just introduced a Bank Tax, to bolster a sad deficit.
It would appear to me, that the only thing the Government can bank on, is the Banks.
The population is increasing by 400,000/annum, their money is in the Bank.
Their loans, are from the Bank.
Their house will be funded by, the Bank.
Sad, but they are a required evil.

They in effect are a Government agent, they restrict or allow the flow of money, as per Government directive through the Reserve Bank.
If the Government had to control money supply through thousands of Banks, it would be a nightmare, a bit the same as enterprise bargaining in the workplace.
It is much easier to control en masse, as opposed to a fragmented chaos.
Just my opinion, neither side of politics wants a banking collapse, it would make us a third world country real fast.
All show, pomp and politics.IMO


----------



## MrBurns (29 November 2017)

If you have Netflix you have to watch Saving Capitalism it rings true for Australia as well as the USA 
Big business runs the country not politicians, workers have been screwed into the ground while the big end of town manipulate legislation to suit themselves and on it goes. Watch it.


----------



## luutzu (29 November 2017)

MrBurns said:


> If you have Netflix you have to watch Saving Capitalism it rings true for Australia as well as the USA
> Big business runs the country not politicians, workers have been screwed into the ground while the big end of town manipulate legislation to suit themselves and on it goes. Watch it.




If you haven't already, I also recommend "Requiem to the American Dream".


----------



## sptrawler (29 November 2017)

MrBurns said:


> If you have Netflix you have to watch Saving Capitalism it rings true for Australia as well as the USA
> Big business runs the country not politicians, workers have been screwed into the ground while the big end of town manipulate legislation to suit themselves and on it goes. Watch it.



I haven't got netflix and haven't watched it, but when you see Governments scared to tax miners on a volume basis, it makes you wonder.
Taxing the Banks, will be passed on to the populace, which seems acceptable by both sides of politics.
So what a Royal Commission into Banks is going to do, is beyond me, it will cost the taxpayers money to find out it is costing the taxpayers money.
Seems a pointless excercise.
Why don't the Labor Party demand workers can get paid in a pay packet, as we used to, before they made it compulsory to have our wages paid into a bank account?


----------



## luutzu (29 November 2017)

Garpal Gumnut said:


> Ater a dizzying ten years of the Austraian Big Four CBA, WBC, ANZ and NAB screwing their their customers to increase the returns of my self managed super fund which gets up to 8% on their dividends I have had a catharsis. (  look it up )
> 
> I believe the big four are in for a whacking.
> 
> ...




Read somehwere that some 75% of Aussie banks assets are consisted of OZ home mortgages.

If that's true, it's gonna crash so hard.

I think OZ laws don't allow personal bankruptcies like the US where homeowners and property investeors can just hand over the keys. That they can get a cut of their wages etc.

At some $4 or $5T in property, it'll take a few centuries to recoup half of that asset.

Gov't will bail them out though. So no biggie.


----------



## luutzu (29 November 2017)

sptrawler said:


> I haven't got netflix and haven't watched it, but when you see Governments scared to tax miners on a volume basis, it makes you wonder.




Doco's based on his book and lectures like this



Chomsky's insights. Quick before YT took it off for its subversiveness.


----------



## sptrawler (30 November 2017)

luutzu said:


> Read somehwere that some 75% of Aussie banks assets are consisted of OZ home mortgages.
> 
> If that's true, it's gonna crash so hard.
> 
> ...




The property balloon isn't a big issue IMO, when you have a small population, in an attractive Country and a mass immigration plan in place. 
There will always be someone there to buy someone's misfortune, this will continue untill saturation occurs.
As the saying goes, someones misfortune, is someone elses gain.
The stockmarket works on the principal everyday.
Even a sharp correction, will only effect Sydney and Melbourne, most other places have already had a correction.
So if there is a crash in Sydney and Melbourne, I'm sure there are plenty of punters willing to jump in, on lower valuations.
Just my opinion.


----------



## luutzu (30 November 2017)

sptrawler said:


> The property balloon isn't a big issue IMO, when you have a small population, in an attractive Country and a mass immigration plan in place.
> There will always be someone there to buy someone's misfortune, this will continue untill saturation occurs.
> As the saying goes, someones misfortune, is someone elses gain.
> The stockmarket works on the principal everyday.
> ...




When it crash, it's going to go below 50%, easy.

That's the only way for anyone on average wage to even think about buying a house or an apartment (and still sleep at night).

I browsed through Domain's auction results last weekend and the average property/detached in, I guess the inner West - canterbury, some 20Km from the city... they're going for $1.3M to $1.6M.

Move a bit north and they goes for the high $million. 

Australia is a great country, population is growing... true. But at the end of the day, demand needs money to satisfy the urge.

We all want [demand] a McMansion by the water, a boat on the jetty and two babes in arms. Can't get that demand on an average $70K a year pre-tax.

WA and other states, yea, they do get investors from the East Coast coming over to buy up when it's down recently. Not sure who can afford the east coast market once it hits the fan.

it could, from the little that I can imagine, be a situation where the East collapses and properties in the West and South need to be flogged off to keep properties in states you live in and know best.

Maybe private equity will do very well out of it. They'll scoop them all up and we all get to be landless peasants, again.


----------



## PZ99 (30 November 2017)

Dear Treasurer

We are writing to you as the leaders of Australia’s major banks. In light of the latest wave of speculation about a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the banking and finance sector, we believe it is now imperative for the Australian Government to act decisively to deliver certainty to Australia’s financial services sector, our customers and the community.
Our banks have consistently argued the view that further inquiries into the sector, including a Royal Commission, are unwarranted. They are costly and unnecessary distractions at a time when the finance sector faces significant challenges and disruption from technology and growing global macroeconomic uncertainty.

However, it is now in the national interest for the political uncertainty to end. It is hurting confidence in our financial services system, including in offshore markets, and has diminished trust and respect for our sector and people. It also risks undermining the critical perception that our banks are unquestionably strong.

As you know our banks have acknowledged that we have not always got it right, and have made mistakes. Together with the Government and regulators, since 2014 we have been taking action to fix issues, and improve what we do and how we do it. We have collectively appeared before, or taken part in 51 substantial reviews, investigations and inquiries since the global financial crisis, 12 of which are ongoing. We continue to demonstrate our commitment to doing the right thing by our customers and seeking to ensure those genuinely affected by these mistakes are appropriately compensated.

A strong, well-regulated and well-governed banking system is in the interests of all Australians and is critical to job creation and fairness. The strong credentials of the banking system ensured Australians were spared the worst of the Global Financial Crisis, and have been fundamental to the ongoing performance of our economy despite global and domestic political turmoil.

*We now ask you and your government to act to ensure a properly constituted inquiry into the financial services sector is established to put an end to the uncertainty and restore trust, respect and confidence.
*
In our view, a properly constituted inquiry must have several significant characteristics. It should be led by an eminent and respected ex judicial officer. Its terms of reference should be thoughtfully drafted and free of political influence. Its scope should be sufficient to cover the community’s core concerns which include banking, insurance, superannuation and non-ADI finance providers. Further to avoid confusion and inconsistency, the inquiry must to the most practical extent replace other ongoing inquiries.
It is vital that the terms of any inquiry consider the many reviews and inquiries that have been conducted into the banking sector in recent years; the significant government and industry-led reforms that have been and will shortly be implemented; the 44 recommendations made in the Financial System Inquiry in 2014; and the broad and positive contribution that banks make to the Australian economy and to millions of customers and shareholders.
It is also important that any inquiry reports back in a timely manner so that we can have certainty about the findings and move forward to implement any recommendations.
We will work hard to ensure our contribution to any process helps to further strengthen Australia’s financial services system.

Throughout this, our focus will remain on our customers. We are proud of the work our people do every day to support them. That work continues.

[ Signed by the al the major banks ]


----------



## pixel (30 November 2017)

And Malcolm promptly complies:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-...announced-by-pm-after-big-four-letter/9209926

Isn't it ironic that it takes a letter from the Bankers to persuade Malcolm into yet another! backflip. Cirque Du Soleil should offer him a job in one of their Shows.

It is also interesting to note how the letter sets out the expected terms. e.g. 







> It is vital that the terms of any inquiry consider the many reviews and inquiries that have been conducted into the banking sector in recent years; the significant government and* industry-led reforms* that have been and will shortly be implemented; the 44 recommendations made in the Financial System Inquiry in 2014; and the broad and *positive contribution that banks make* to the Australian economy and *to millions of customers and shareholders*.



(my bolds)

Malcolm must be pleased to see how much of his job has already been done by his helpful mates, the Bankers. Gotta luv'em


----------



## Toyota Lexcen (30 November 2017)

It’s still going to be the shareholders who will Suffer, not bankers, not PM or staff, will be just people trying to live life

The financial sector gone nowhere for many years,


----------



## greggles (2 December 2017)

Former High Court Judge Kenneth Hayne has been appointed to head the royal commission into the banking sector.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-...nneth-hayne-appointed-as-commissioner/9215780

Will a banking Royal Commission really shake up the sector, or will it just be political window dressing and business as usual?


----------



## notting (2 December 2017)

luutzu said:


> Chomsky's insights. Quick before YT took it off for its subversiveness.




Chomsky is a Shill.

A master of false equivalency. With all the illumitardy's lapping up every word.
He has been ranting, on with the massive chip on his shoulder, for decades and decades about the end of the United States with the same doom and gloom drivel.
Watch what it he does when confronted by a balanced intellect.
Chomsky runs from genuine debate and falls into name calling and sloganeering as soon as he begins to be dismantled.
His main driving force seems to be the love of bathing in this nauseating vanity of appearing to be some grand  insightful intellect.  Unfortunately he has quite a following of naive and not so smart youth who just become dissolution's and really screwed up in their views of the world. He's a kind of cult leader who is quite subtle in the way he destroys young minds.


----------



## luutzu (2 December 2017)

notting said:


> Chomsky is a Shill.
> 
> A master of false equivalency. With all the illumitardy's lapping up every word.
> He has been ranting, on with the massive chip on his shoulder, for decades and decades about the end of the United States with the same doom and gloom drivel.
> ...





Serious?

Chomsky is one of the smartest, most honest, most humane people in the history of the world.

Anyone who want to understand how the world really works should read and listen to his work.

And I come to that conclusion from listening to his lectures and speeches for over four years now. Speeches that dates back to the 90s.

Idiotic sell-out "intellectual" like Sam Harris aren't worthy of shining Chomsky's shoes let alone hold a conversation or debate with the man.

The reason that Chomsky is pushed aside from the mainstream, made to look like an idiotic leftist nutjob while people like Harris are praised and sold as some sort of balanced "intellect" is because Chomsky don't hold back his criticism of anyone.

Useful idiots like Harris would use his deep voiced conman bs to excuse warcrimes, genocide and wholesale murder.

Like in that clip you linked. Harris claimed that the US is noble and good even though it blew up Somalia [Kenya's?] only pharmaceutical plant knowing exactly what was there and why they want to take it out. Why? Because, Harris says, the US meant well.

Ask the Nazi if they "means well". Or the Chinese if they means well; or ISIS if they don't also say they mean well.

Chomsky sums it up best about people like Harris: If we do it, it's for a good cause. If they do the same, it's terrorism.

People like Harris makes good lapdogs. Chomsky is one of those giants whose body of work will be read and studied as long as civilisation exists.


----------



## notting (2 December 2017)

Hook, line and sinker.
WOW he got you


----------



## luutzu (2 December 2017)

notting said:


> Hook, line and sinker.
> WOW he got you




There's very few other people I admire more than Chomsky. 

The man has the most detailed, incisive and honest analysis on geopolitics, politics, history, the media, capitalism, human psychology... I've ever come across. Thing is people have to listen or read his body of work to see that because there's no "Chomsky's theory" or ideology... There's just "this is what really happened, and here's why". 

Apparently he's also a distinguished theorist in the field of Linguistics, mostly established in his 30s. 

----------

Take Chomsky and Harris... 
Harris claims that the US went into WWII to fight evil and Nazism. i.e. fight for good, then bring peace and democracy to Germany and the rest of the world.

Chomsky says bs. 

Here's why: 

The US didn't go into WWII until its own interest was directly attacked [Pearl Harbour];

Before the Poms miraculously avoid defeat in that Battle for Britain, American planners have already drawn up plans for a world where the Third Reich rule Europe, most of Africa and the Middle East. America can rule the Americas and try to work with the Fuhrer. 

At Nuremberg, war crimes are defined as what bad shiet the Nazi did but the Allied didn't do. That's not too objective now is it?

Postwar reconstruction of Europe through such plan as the Marshall plan was not the kindness of a liberator. The Yanks "encourage" practically all the capital from European elites to flee to the US. use those capital to lend back to Europe with such strings as buying American made goods and services; permitting US military bases on their soil; hand over valuable colonies etc. etc.

And that's in Europe. You don't want to know what their plans and actions are for Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East.

An average American patriot wouldn't like to hear such things about their country. They prefer the Harris version. It goes well with a Michael Bay or Bruckheimer production.


----------



## notting (2 December 2017)

luutzu said:


> The man has the most detailed, incisive and honest analysis on geopolitics, politics, history, the media, capitalism, human psychology... I've ever come across.




That's just kind of sad.
I hope this will be the beginning of the pop of that bubble.
Read this carefully -
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse

What you should look for at the beginning is how Chomsky is far more focused on avoiding public discourse than on an *open, honest analyses. * Chomsky thus obviously knows and is afraid of something untenable in his own position.  Otherwise why try to bamboozle Harris with the crap he sends him to try to fudge the debate. Before it even starts and most tellingly maintain a position of *not wanting it to be public!!!!' *
Bamboozling is how Chomsky gets around most people that do try confront him.  He hurls  oceans and oceans of red hearings at them to try to lose them in intellectual muck mixed in with loosely related historical mutations of intent.
Again why is he so afraid of Harris taking him on publicly if he is such an upright rationalist genuinely reflecting truth and interested in honest discourse.


----------



## notting (2 December 2017)

Back on point



Garpal Gumnut said:


> CBA  $35.96
> ANZ $12.40
> NAB $14.32
> WPC $09.01



If these prices are achieved it won't be due to a Royal Commission, it will be something else.
Highly unlikely at this point, but if the US takes the bait on North Korea anything could happen.


----------



## luutzu (3 December 2017)

notting said:


> That's just kind of sad.
> I hope this will be the beginning of the pop of that bubble.
> Read this carefully -
> https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse
> ...




Chomsky did gave him permission to publish that "debate". So can't blame the man for hiding.

Sam Harris, like Bill Maher, are your typical brown-nosing, social climbing a**holes who will sell their own mother if it get them a higher rating and an extra few bucks.

That and they hate religion. So I guess that make them a "liberal" and an "intellectual".

You find these snakeoil salesman everywhere.

If they're living and earning money from Russia, they'll defend whatever it is the Russian state does. If in China, same bs intellectualising and excusing of murder and torture. Same if ISIS pay them.

Who in their right mind could defend the destruction of half a country's medical manufacturing capability. Harris did.

What "liberal" could defend torture and drone strikes. Harris did. But only if those were done by "us", because we're obviously the good guy. Now put "us" as China or Russia or the Khmer Rouge or ISIS. 


Can't take people like that seriously. Not from an academic or real history perspective anyway.

It's understandable though... The State doesn't need a smart-mouth to tell them what they're doing is wrong. The public rarely want to see their long-held beliefs and "civilisation" insulted. So you get smooth-talking pricks telling people what they want to hear, or at least tell what their paymaster want them to tell.

---------
If Harris is so smart, he'd be working at some Think Tank advising them on world affair and geopolitics and such. Instead he's being send out to beat up on Muslim and Islam, excuse American Imperialism because apparently, one side doing the killing is good and acceptable; the other side doing the same is bad and evil and all their religion's fault.

I did follow the Harris/Chomsky exchanges when it was made public some 3 years ago.
Harris made a bigger idiot out of himself. No sense of what's facts and fiction; and obviously no conscience or moral principles. Basically a perfect Useful Idiot.

I think the reason Chomsky's work ever got published is because serious people actually want to know what's going on. And I don't mean the "lefty" hippy idiots... serious people holding high position of power.

I mean, you don't learn Real Politik, or much of anything useful, from sycophantic Commissars like Harris.

------

As to Chomsky spilling on about doom and gloom for America.

One, he actually admire the rights and freedom of speech the US Constitution permit. Though that's since been somewhat muted and Activist and Whistlebowers better beware.

But basically everything he said about the crisis for the working class over the past 30 years has come true. They're living it.

Some half of the population cannot afford a $1,000 emergency. Working multiple jobs just to make ends meet; Over 3,000 American cities have lead level in their drinking water higher than Flint, Michigan at its worst... and nothing's being done to fix it.

Endless wars, tax cuts to the rich and corporations... taking from the poor, give to the rich, then blame the illegals and migrants and refugees.

Anyway, fark Harris and his bs.


----------



## notting (3 December 2017)

luutzu said:


> Chomsky did gave him permission to publish that "debate". So can't blame the man for hiding.




Mate Chomsky ran from the debate because he new it would be public.  He did not engage!!  Chomsky was reticent from the start because he was wary of Harris who is not easily overcome with irrelevant garbage that sounds plausible to the most people who do not understand the subtleties of the content.  Chomsky tried his normal tack of bamboozlement with a waterfall of red herrings that sound plausible to the disenfranchised internet youth who feel validated by him.
Chomsky quickly ran away as soon as he saw it was not going to work and Harris was about to expose him!!  It's obvious and simple.



luutzu said:


> Sam Harris, like Bill Maher, are your typical brown-nosing, social climbing a**holes who will sell their own mother if it get them a higher rating and an extra few bucks.
> That and they hate religion. So I guess that make them a "liberal" and an "intellectual".
> You find these snake oil salesman everywhere.



That is just childish and desperate.  Maher is certainly more crass than Harris.  Harris is very balanced, polite and never stoops into name calling and so on if found wanting in his arguments.  Harris sticks with the arguments and facts he doesn't rant and rave. Harris is really quite soft spoken not the entertainer like Maher who is primarily a comedian and admits it!!

Your reasons for sloganeering of Harris and Maher are equally leveled at Chomsky who is an  intellectual whoring shill!  A self styled " ranting intellectual, liberal, selling snake oil books, lectures and interviews" (things you seem to have a problem with) to naive audiences lacking the mental scope to see through him.  Chomsky is a media coward who runs from the real debates in order to maintain his brainwashed cult like followers, who have offered him their souls amidst the fog of disenfranchised youthful naivety.  Who tend to become too committed and embarrassed by their investment in Chomsky's spell to step back and take a second and broader look.

If you want to see how accommodating Harris is regarding religion and other intellectuals take a look at These discourses with Jordan Peterson.

Peterson is a very  religious guy who is actually brilliant and makes a great argument for religion.

Harris sticks up for Jordan when Harris's own followers fall for the kind of disrespect and sloganeering that Chomsky himself loads onto Harris to crawl out of the debate.   Chomsky will not engage in a debate like this.





You have to ask yourself why?
It has nothing to do with some character floor of Harris, as Chomsky would have you believe, because that is clearly not validated as you can see by Hariss's ability to engage with others in the way Chomsky claims is not possible or fruitful!

It's simple! Chomsky does not want to be exposed! Chomsky knows he cannot bamboozle an intellect like Harris and so will not allow a fair and balanced discussion! Even if he tentatively agrees to a private email discourse!  Chomsky is a shill and he knows it!!

I've also seen a lot of damage to Chomsky fans who generally are young males who a disillusioned outlook toward the world because they kind find a break and are searching for a way to come to terms with it. Chomsky is a master at sucking them into is vortex of anti American vomit.
You seem OK, but many are not and commit suicide etc cause the world is so bad and it's all the US's fault etc etc etc..


----------



## luutzu (3 December 2017)

notting said:


> Mate Chomsky ran from the debate because he new it would be public.  He did not engage!!  Chomsky was reticent from the start because he was wary of Harris who is not easily overcome with irrelevant garbage that sounds plausible to the most people who do not understand the subtleties of the content.  Chomsky tried his normal tack of bamboozlement with a waterfall of red herrings that sound plausible to the disenfranchised internet youth who feel validated by him.
> Chomsky quickly ran away as soon as he saw it was not going to work and Harris was about to expose him!!  It's obvious and simple.




Trust me, Chomsky is no coward. Not intellectually, not physically either. 

He faced serious risk of being imprisoned in the 1960s for his activist activities. So real was the risk that his wife was planning to go back to teaching to put food on the table. I can't remember why exactly the state prosecution didn't go ahead but other crisis deprioritise the departments' interest to sue him and a few of his friends.

He was also instrumental in the release of the Pentagon Papers. He help Daniel Ellsberg go through and select what could be release and not have Ellsberg be tried for treason.. something like that.

He changed the field of Linguistics. Any student who study education or language must read his work. Did that in his early 30s when the VN War and its crimes changed his life's mission.

If he didn't already have tenure, his activities would have seen him fired and pushed aside a long time ago.

So I don't know how a giant like that would run away from the likes of Harris. It just doesn't make sense. That and I have read and watch Harris' response in that debate, he's very childish... like a good boy to the State that butter his bread.

How can you argue with someone about real life and moral objectivity when the guy can excuse war crimes and genocide? How did Harris excuse it? Well, we (the US, the West) meant well... so that's cool.

I guess ISIS didn't mean well (according to them); or the Soviets or the Nazi didn't have speeches and good intentions either.

BUt let's give it to Harris that the US "means well" whenever it goes to war, i.e. all its killings are justified.

Seriously? That's not even factual. 

Did the US overthrow of a democratically elected president in Iran, install a Shah to rule over Iran like a God... That's well meaning how? 

Every country, big or small, does this kind of things. Ask any of their mandarins if their actions are justified and do they mean well... I bet they all want to bring peace by bombing too.

So how can you argue and debate with a guy like that?




notting said:


> That is just childish and desperate.  Maher is certainly more crass than Harris.  Harris is very balanced, polite and never stoops into name calling and so on if found wanting in his arguments.  Harris sticks with the arguments and facts he doesn't rant and rave. Harris is really quite soft spoken not the entertainer like Maher who is primarily a comedian and admits it!!



Harris is very polite in his speech. As calm as a prick can be in his mannerism and deep, polite words and seemingly reasonable "logic".

Maher, yea, a loudmouth racist idiot who someone sold himself as a comedian and a liberal/progressive.

For people who understand the facts on topics these two talks about, they would just laugh their heads off if it weren't so seriously racist and ill-informed.




notting said:


> Your reasons for sloganeering of Harris and Maher are equally leveled at Chomsky who is an  intellectual whoring shill!  A self styled " ranting intellectual, liberal, selling snake oil books, lectures and interviews" (things you seem to have a problem with) to naive audiences lacking the mental scope to see through him.  Chomsky is a media coward who runs from the real debates in order to maintain his brainwashed cult like followers, who have offered him their souls amidst the fog of disenfranchised youthful naivety.  Who tend to become too committed and embarrassed by their investment in Chomsky's spell to step back and take a second and broader look.



I've watched a few debates, live ones, between Chomsky and other right-wing apologists. Chomsky wiped the floors with them. 

Trust me, if anyone pays attention to what Chomsky says, they'll grow up and matured overnight.

The guy's a modern-day Machiavelli. He's at that, and higher, level of intellect and clear understanding of the world and its history. 

And if Chomsky wants to make money from his intellect, he'd do what Machiavelli tries to do and go set up a think tank or be a lobbyist advising corporations.

Instead, he goes to town halls, go to give lectures, write books... telling the common folks what their gov't is doing, how it works and what they can do to take back their democracy. That and you don't make that much money selling books, ask most famous authors how much they earn.

That and Chomsky himself write cheques, small ones, to hundreds of charities around the world all year.

But yea, if Chomsky's a fraud I don't see it. And I have listen to his lectures, debates, audio books, interviews.




notting said:


> If you want to see how accommodating Harris is regarding religion and other intellectuals take a look at These discourses with Jordan Peterson.
> 
> Peterson is a very  religious guy who is actually brilliant and makes a great argument for religion.
> 
> ...





I've seen Chomsky debated Foucoult, Dersowitz on Israel/Palestine; William F Buckley on US imperial kindness. You can look them up on YouTube.

The man is no wall flower, and those he debate aren't children. 





notting said:


> It's simple! Chomsky does not want to be exposed! Chomsky knows he cannot bamboozle an intellect like Harris and so will not allow a fair and balanced discussion! Even if he tentatively agrees to a private email discourse!  Chomsky is a shill and he knows it!!




Harris is no intellect. That's an insult to anyone who can read.

What's a shill? 

Unless the Russian or Arab terrorists pays him to say bad things about US foreign policies, he's one of those the richest and most powerful country in the world can't buy. That's called integrity. 




notting said:


> I've also seen a lot of damage to Chomsky fans who generally are young males who a disillusioned outlook toward the world because they kind find a break and are searching for a way to come to terms with it. Chomsky is a master at sucking them into is vortex of anti American vomit.
> You seem OK, but many are not and commit suicide etc cause the world is so bad and it's all the US's fault etc etc etc..




Henry Kissinger, my professor tells us, told his staff at the States Department to all go read Das Kapital. Why? Because Marx understand Capitalism more than anyone else in the world.

Kissinger didn't read Marx's work and turn Communist. Can't just read fan mail and apologies for how awesome you are.

Chomsky is not anti-American. That's where people get it wrong about him, and about people like him.

He's simply telling it as it is. This is what's wrong with our current policies abroad; what's wrong with our domestic policies. These are the thinking and actions of those we, the people, entrust to our 'representatives'; this is what they say and here's what they've been doing, in our name, with our tax dollars, at our expense.

We shouldn't mistake criticism for betrayal. 

It's not as sweet and can be hard to take, but those who cares for their country don't pay much attention to what's great about it... but focus their effort on what's wrong with it in hope that those errors can be fixed and the country improved.

When a country start to hate its critics and punish or imprison them... we have ourselves a fascist state.


----------



## luutzu (3 December 2017)

From the 4.10 mark. Sums up what the man is about. You can see this in all his work.

Towards the end, the usual attack on him being childish and a dreamer full of conspiracy theories. His response there is short and to the point.


----------



## notting (4 December 2017)

Mate a pussy picks his own fights.
As if a politician is going to get far with an intellectual.
What are you gonna show me next, Chomsky vs Tony Abbot.   It's a fricken joke.

I destroyed all the BS you, and his cult fans, come up with about Harris as justification for Chomsky running away.
None of it stuck so you just reach for something else.  It never ends with Chomsky zombies ya just keep reaching for more as it keeps getting destroyed!!

Chomsky is the king of false equivalency and monologue because he has an irrational ax to grind due to God knows what.  You probably have to go back to his early days to find out where the slight came from.  Chomsky does not have a tenable position, never has.

Bottom line is Chomsky is now an old fool who has been pushing the same disaster for all, all because of the US for more than half a century.  Whilst all the time ignoring the massive human rights abuses and climate catastrophes been carried out far more grotesquely and on a much larger scales in places like China, (India for pollution).

Bottom line is Chomsky doesn't take the real picture he takes snippets and blows them up to be the whole. When he starts getting taken down he rants with loosely related largely irrelevant historical US missteps, by *some* stupid leaders and bad decisions which become terrible incidents, whilst shirking the critical points and the bigger picture to validate the massive chip on his shoulder framed as - 'the Super powerful America is controlling and causing all the evil in the world, I will not stand for anything else!'


----------



## luutzu (4 December 2017)

notting said:


> Mate a pussy picks his own fights.
> As if a politician is going to get far with an intellectual.
> What are you gonna show me next, Chomsky vs Tony Abbot.   It's a fricken joke.
> 
> ...




You can look up various debates Chomsky has with other more learned and intellectual people. See who make more sense. Who's more honest and factual.

I tried not to hero-worship anyone. Just when you listen and hear the arguments and reasoning, you either know the guy is bs-ing or is making too much sense. And I admire people who's honest and not sell themselves out.

Chomsky criticise everyone, every country he looks at. He doesn't do it because he has axes to grind, he don't even blame them to be honest. He simply say that this is what they did, this was their reasoning, here are the evidence... it's natural to do and say what they did. BUt just because it's natural does not make it right.

For example, Imperial Japan and its war crimes during WWII. He said that if you read their propaganda, they never said they were committing crimes or genocide. They say they were bringing peace and prosperity to the Asians. Just, you know, gotta put down a few Asians who didn't get the message yet.

Same with Nazi Germany and their claims to defending such gov't as Vichy France and other puppets they put in place before the demise. That they simply want to fight against terrorists being funded by foreign powers upsetting the peace etc. etc.

So he's saying that guys like Harris who excuses American imperialism... well, what's the difference between Harris and other Commisars and and mandarins serving their state violence? Nothing.

You can't debate morality, right and wrong with a guy that claims that yea... we did wrong but we means well so that make us better. If they did wrong (to us and our allies), well they are evil.

While it might be disguised as being nuanced and intellectual, to say that our wrongs are right because we did it... that's not going to stick to any objective person. That's being patriotic and whatever, but it is not  objective.

-------------------

I'm not that widely read but I know enough history, both East and West to have some idea of how real world politics and wars work. Read enough business history to hvae some idea there too.

The world that I see from those readings.. they're very different from the movies and basic history but are the same as the history Chomsky talks about.

Remember too that Chomsky doesn't have a theory or an ideology. Just your basic research, history and facts. He know them and draw honest conclusions from them. That's scholarship.

Anyway, Chomsky don't need me defending him. Harris can go fark himself.

------------

As to Chomsky ignoring the crimes, the worst crimes, committed by other states... that's not true.

He's one man. He can't cover everything. That and he does not excuse the Chinese or the Soviets or the Russians or anyone's crimes. He's Jewish, should watch what he think of Israel and its genocide against the Palestinian.

You know that he was among the first Jewish settlers in modern Israel? When they were barely a state. Still living and working in communes [Kitbutz?]. Yea, he's that old.

A guy with his intellect and his Jewish heritage being among the first settlers, he could have made fortunes upon fortunes if he stick with the program. Lesser people than him are either multi-millionaires or deified as founders of Israel with statutes of themselves all over the place.

Sometime a good person see wrongs being done and chose to not participate in it. 

---------

All states are violent. Some more than others. Not because they're better, but because they have less need or less opportunity to.

No imperial power in the history of the world do empire to help anybody. They claim they do, but that's just marketing.

The thing about imperialism is that it's never been good for the masses. It's the masses that send their sons to wars and foreign adventures; it's their taxes that's being spent to project power and to hold it. And it's mostly them that will die if the frontier pushes back and take over. 

Those who benefits the most from imperialism will take all their cash and buy themselves citizenships somewhere "neutral". 

So someone who criticises their countr's imperialism do so not because they hate their country, but because they care for the rights and well being of their people.

Anyway, it's one of those things you either see it or you don't.


----------



## notting (4 December 2017)

That all sounds a little more balanced which is good!

I'd continue to caution you on Chomsky, as said, I've seen first hand the damage he does to young minds.  He's quite subtle and the majority of what he says sounds plausible which is what draws people in, but he inevitably tilts it against the big bad US whilst paying lip service to far greater evils!

That basically means that Chomsky is not genuinely concerned about war lords, human rights or the  environment, as with Pilger, it's a chip on his shoulder that drives him.  They target the US which tends to be reactionary, not imperialistic, even in world war 2!!, rather than targeting the grosser perpetrators of the causes of the problems that Chomsky and co claim to be championing.

As  Kissinger(I know!! don't bother) said, sometimes you have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

The US has almost no imperialistic instincts or history if you compare them to any other State that had the kind of leverage and power it has had for about a century! Certainly the US tries to control and fix things when the threat becomes real(often clumsily, violently and stupidly)  and they try to keep the order in place because the alternatives are far more horrifying.  The US is are far from perfect that's obvious.

Perfect is when you advocate non violence to the point of allowing them crucify you rather than take up arms! (for that you would need a vision that goes beyond this  life!)
Only  individuals can take that road! Although Tibet has done it at a state level.  Will be interesting to see how that continues to play out!


----------



## luutzu (5 December 2017)

notting said:


> That all sounds a little more balanced which is good!
> 
> I'd continue to caution you on Chomsky, as said, I've seen first hand the damage he does to young minds.  He's quite subtle and the majority of what he says sounds plausible which is what draws people in, but he inevitably tilts it against the big bad US whilst paying lip service to far greater evils!
> 
> ...




Chomsky is bad for me in that I don't invest in arms and military/security companies. Given the state of the world, any idiot could make a killing buying those stocks. But it's just wrong to celebrate increased dividends knowing how the money's made.

Add to that my Dad's smoking and the affect of gambling on people I know... So that cut out a fair chunk of the easy money business. And I'm almost going green because of the guy, so yea, pretty bad.

Might make listeners a better person though.

More seriously though, while eager young minds might listen to Chomsky and dedicate their life's work to fight for the poor and the abused with a few bucks to their account. That's going to be a series of uphill battles but it's a whole lot better than mindless graduates from the school of finance and economics who's taught by people funded in large part by corporations that greed is good or something.

In the end, it's knowledge. People make of it what their character and circumstance allow.

----------

I don't agree with your assessment of US foreign policies though. I mean, the original 13 colonies don't become 50 plus countless territories and military bases around the world because other countries and empires decided to hand it over. 

Thta's not to say that countries like China or Russia are nice, peaceful countries with no hegemonic ambition. I mean, Chi'n was a tiny state in the Eastern Chou's [?] splintered empire. They didn't get to their current size through Confucian ethics and Taoist do-nothing-ness.

So who's good and who's bad... we can't say. Who's worst.. can't say either. Just have to look at each action and judge accordingly.  

--------

To want peace is not the same as to ignore the need for war. To go to war does not necessarily mean you go to keep the peace.

If our sovereignty and people are attacked, we obviously go defend it. 

The problem arise when our great leaders decided to go to war for reasons other than serving the national interest. National interest here we define as interests to the masses, not the interests of the few titans and other great men of destiny and what not.

Being a democracy with freedom and stuff, the peasants wouldn't put up with it. Hence the need for what Chomsky and Edward Herman called "The Manufacturing of Consent". A phrase they didn't come up with but copied from Ed Biney [?] when he discuss the need to convince an idle public to do what must be done.

States can become great, and be safe from invasion and harm, by not participating in wars of ambition. By only preparing and fighting wars of absolute necessity.

Doing that keeps the peace. Keep the treasure. Permit its investment towards the education, the health and well being of its citizens. Those are things that make a country stronger and able to defend itself better.


----------



## Toyota Lexcen (5 December 2017)

WBC gone from 25-32 in 10yrs, NAB nothing, CBA only one which has done well

Clearly a lot of hatred towards the banks, in recent times they are a dud for investors and moving forward they have no hope with all the regulation that is going on.

They make large profits, doesn’t help share price


----------



## No Trust (9 December 2017)

The banks are in for a canning... The Royal Commission could open a Pandora’s Box of evil deeds... Further inquiries / prosecutions may spiral out of control... ASIC has been complicit in not investigating complaints of fraud... Many heads will be exposed to a very sharp blade...


----------



## sptrawler (10 December 2017)

No Trust said:


> The banks are in for a canning... The Royal Commission could open a Pandora’s Box of evil deeds... Further inquiries / prosecutions may spiral out of control... ASIC has been complicit in not investigating complaints of fraud... Many heads will be exposed to a very sharp blade...




Let's wait and see what the outcome is.


----------



## sptrawler (10 December 2017)

Toyota Lexcen said:


> WBC gone from 25-32 in 10yrs, NAB nothing, CBA only one which has done well
> 
> Clearly a lot of hatred towards the banks, in recent times they are a dud for investors and moving forward they have no hope with all the regulation that is going on.
> 
> They make large profits, doesn’t help share price




If you had dividend investment, as a young investor, what is the problem with the share price?


----------



## Toyota Lexcen (15 December 2017)

surely a $1000 investment in shares is going to grow outside of a dividend reinvestment plan


----------



## TikoMike (16 December 2017)

Toyota Lexcen said:


> WBC gone from 25-32 in 10yrs, NAB nothing, CBA only one which has done well
> 
> Clearly a lot of hatred towards the banks, in recent times they are a dud for investors and moving forward they have no hope with all the regulation that is going on.
> 
> They make large profits, doesn’t help share price



Looking at just the share price smh. In the last 8 years you would have got all your capital paid back through dividends.


----------



## sptrawler (17 December 2017)

TikoMike said:


> Looking at just the share price smh. In the last 8 years you would have got all your capital paid back through dividends.



Like I said, if you are a young investor, what is the problem with the share price staying low if you have dividend reinvestment.
I can't see any down side.


----------



## PZ99 (17 December 2017)

Toyota Lexcen said:


> WBC gone from 25-32 in 10yrs, NAB nothing, CBA only one which has done well



That's not bad considering the GFC event in that timeline. The ASX fell around 8%.

I can't be the only one regretting not buying WBC for $15 nine years ago


----------



## Toyota Lexcen (12 January 2018)

its okay if you have money to invest, 10yrs on WBC still around $30

definitely real estate owners been the winners not bank shares


----------

