Trump 2.0

[basilio]

John I don't believe Zoe Williams was referencing "the New World Order" as highlighted in the Wiki post you quoted.

Rather she was voicing the concern of a "New World Order " that sees an aggressively authoritarian US Government encouraging a similar Far Right political movement across Europe and further abroad.

JD Vance actively opened dialogue with the Far Right ADF party in Germany and openly attacked European Countries that don't support the ideas Trump is pressing.

These include
1) Forcing Ukraine into a peace that undermines its viability and offers no security guarantees
2) Forcibly removing 2 million Palestinians from Gaza to enable a US dominated redevelopment plan
3) Demanding that Greenland become an American possession because "It is in the US strategic interest"
4) Demanding that the Panama Canal becomes US controlled again because "It is in the US Strategic interest"
5) Insisting that Canada becomes part of the US again because "It is in the US Strategic interest"
6) Raising Tariffs and starting a Trade war across the globe which threatens international trading
7) Denying the world wide need to combat Climate change and attempting to destroy international efforts to that end.

 

[sptrawler]

John I don't believe Zoe Williams was referencing "the New World Order" as highlighted in the Wiki post you quoted.

Rather she was voicing the concern of a "New World Order " that sees an aggressively authoritarian US Government encouraging a similar Far Right political movement across Europe and further abroad.

JD Vance actively opened dialogue with the Far Right ADF party in Germany and openly attacked European Countries that don't support the ideas Trump is pressing.

These include
1) Forcing Ukraine into a peace that undermines its viability and offers no security guarantees
2) Forcibly removing 2 million Palestinians from Gaza to enable a US dominated redevelopment plan
3) Demanding that Greenland become an American possession because "It is in the US strategic interest"
4) Demanding that the Panama Canal becomes US controlled again because "It is in the US Strategic interest"
5) Insisting that Canada becomes part of the US again because "It is in the US Strategic interest"
6) Raising Tariffs and starting a Trade war across the globe which threatens international trading
7) Denying the world wide need to combat Climate change and attempting to destroy international efforts to that end.

Sounds like the U.S trying to secure its borders and trying to make itself less dependant on Chinese manufacturing and imported goods.

A New World Order could also be caused if the only place the Western World could source all its white goods, all its cars, all it electronics etc was from China and China wanted to hold everyone to ransom.
That would be interesting, it isn't as though they didn't flex their muscles with us over the covid issue.
Imagine if they put an embargo on sending anything to Australia and you couldn't buy a fridge or air con from anywhere else, it wouldn't be good and with global warming it obviously would be life changing. Lol

 

[basilio]

Sounds like the U.S trying to secure its borders and trying to make itself less dependant on Chinese manufacturing and imported goods.

A New World Order could also be caused if the only place the Western World could source all its white goods, all its cars, all it electronics etc was from China and China wanted to hold everyone to ransom.
That would be interesting, it isn't as though they didn't flex their muscles with us over the covid issue.
Imagine if they put an embargo on sending anything to Australia and you couldn't buy a fridge or air con from anywhere else, it wouldn't be good and with global warming it obviously would be life changing. Lol

Fascinating.

Completely disregard the concrete issues of aggression and dominance that trump is pushing and instead come up with a silly China hypothetical. China will never be the sole supplier of cars, electronics ect.

And when did "Secure its borders" encompass taking over Greenland, The Gaza Strip (after cleansing it of the Palestinians) the Panama Canal and Canada ? Or is the whole world a legitimate target of Trumps ambitions to "secure its borders"

Give us a break John.

 

[JohnDe]

Sounds like the U.S trying to secure its borders and trying to make itself less dependant on Chinese manufacturing and imported goods.

A New World Order could also be caused if the only place the Western World could source all its white goods, all its cars, all it electronics etc was from China and China wanted to hold everyone to ransom.
That would be interesting, it isn't as though they didn't flex their muscles with us over the covid issue.
Imagine if they put an embargo on sending anything to Australia and you couldn't buy a fridge or air con from anywhere else, it wouldn't be good and with global warming it obviously would be life changing. Lol

Exactly.


Some would reference The Art of the Sale

The Art of the Sale is the result of a pilgrimage to learn the secrets of the world's foremost sales gurus. Bestselling author Philip Delves Broughton tracked down anyone who could help him understand what it took to achieve greatness in sales, from technology billionaires to the most successful saleswoman in Japan to a cannily observant rug merchant in Morocco. The wisdom and experience Broughton acquired, revealed in this outstanding book, demonstrates as never before the complex alchemy of effective selling and the power it has to overcome challenges we face every day.​

 

[sptrawler]

Fascinating.

Completely disregard the concrete issues of aggression and dominance that trump is pushing and instead come up with a silly China hypothetical. China will never be the sole supplier of cars, electronics ect.

Aggression and dominance takes many forms grasshopper.
Take for example how our nickel industry has been decimated, how our wine and crayfish were hammered and please do tell me how Western car manufacturers are going to compete with China producing high volume cars?
You really do need to expand your thought horizons IMO.
It was only 50 odd years ago that England was a huge manufacturer of motor bikes. Lol
And the Poms thought just like you. Lol
The difference is China, is like Japan on steriods, Japan killed the U.K car manufacturing and they are small fry compared to China.
But hey you keep on the tamborine, it is entertaining.
I tell you what Bas, try and find something electrical or produced from metal in your house, that isn't made in China.
Then check your cookware, cuttlery, cups, plates,phone,fridge, washing machine etc.

 

[JohnDe]

Writing in The New York Times last month, Thomas B. Edsall outlined the extent of the conservative-driven backlash against progressivism that had got so little analytical attention and was under-appreciated in Australian discussion during 2024 about the US election contest.​

​

Edsall quoted Stony Brook University sociology professor Musa al-Gharbi saying Democrats were “increasingly out of step with the median voter as they catered ever more around the preferences of knowledge economy professionals” – those employed in higher education, hi-tech, the law, healthcare, entertainment, human resources, media and information.​

​

Divisions across different economic and social domains had a deeper meaning as “facets of a more fundamental schism in American society”. ​

​

The source of progressive strength – its long march through the institutions – has been derailed in Trump’s victory. Suddenly, it was a negative – a turning point in contemporary politics. In America the institutions that had become the carriers of progressive ideology had become unpopular and untrusted.​

Elite’s long march scuttled by hubris and overreach

The American progressive movement hates Trump yet this movement triggered the pro-Trump rebellion.

The lesson of politics is that every new government is prone to overreach and empowers its opponents – this was Joe Biden’s fatal mistake, it was Anthony Albanese’s blunder with the voice and the question is surely relevant for Donald Trump.
It was Biden’s support for and succumbing to a relentless progressive agenda that refuelled Trump’s remarkable revival.

The American progressive movement hates Trump yet this movement triggered the pro-Trump rebellion.

Witness its support for soft borders, identity politics, law and order laxity, bigger-spending government and corporate diversity policies, its hostility to America’s foundational compact and its quest to recast institutions with progressive ideology.

In retrospect, the scale of progressive and elite hubris testifies to a movement with self-destructive instincts but in denial of its flaws.

Many progressive champions (along with traditional conservatives) issued justified warnings that Trump, given his refusal to accept his defeat at the 2020 election, had defined himself as a threat to US democracy.

Most voters heard the warnings about Trump but refused to act on them. Why? Because they believed American democracy was already in dire trouble because of the unprecedented campaign by a highly educated elite imbued with a progressive philosophy and consumed with a moral superiority that insisted on its top-down implementation.

People rally during the "Not My President's Day" protest at the US Capitol.

The upshot was a collapse of trust in the political system, in institutional, professional and education leaders, and a chronic suspicion of corporations, universities, many police forces, government bureaucracy and much mainstream media.

Trump supporters became fixated by a belief that the US system of democratic accountability no longer worked for them; indeed, that it was betraying them, a cultural conclusion reinforced by the economic damage from high inflation and struggling wage levels.

When Biden defeated Trump in 2020 there was huge relief from the American centre and left. Biden pledged to unite America and bring it together. He did the opposite and betrayed that promise. Much of the Democratic Party assumed Trump was finished and set about imposing a radical cultural, identity, spending and climate agenda on the country.

New York Times columnist David Brooks said the attack on classic liberalism – by insisting that people be treated differently by law according to their race, religion, sex and identity characteristics – set up a social schism that would be incompatible with democracy.

For most of the anti-Trump progressive leaders the notion that their own side had undermined the democratic compact in the eyes of many Americans was simply inconceivable.

Political commentator Andrew Sullivan, gay rights champion and savage critic of left authoritarianism, recently said: “On the central questions of immigration and identity politics what Trump is proposing is simply a return to common sense – a reflection of the sane views of the vast majority of Americans who support secure borders and oppose unfairness in sports and medical experiments on children.” It is politics 101 – if you tolerate massive illegal entry of migrants to your nation you will fuel a public backlash that supports forced removal, at least for people who have broken the criminal law.

Addressing critics who say Trump’s campaign wildly exaggerated the transgender issue that concerned so few people, author JK Rowling highlighted its symbolism as a decisive political moment for progressives, saying: “Do not tell me this is about a tiny minority.” She said: “Gender ideology has undermined freedom of speech, scientific truth, gay rights, and women’s and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity. Nobody voted for it, the vast majority of people disagree with it, yet it has been imposed, top down, by politicians, healthcare bodies, academia, sections of the media, celebrities and even the police.”

Writing in The New York Times last month, Thomas B. Edsall outlined the extent of the conservative-driven backlash against progressivism that had got so little analytical attention and was under-appreciated in Australian discussion during 2024 about the US election contest.

Edsall quoted Stony Brook University sociology professor Musa al-Gharbi saying Democrats were “increasingly out of step with the median voter as they catered ever more around the preferences of knowledge economy professionals” – those employed in higher education, hi-tech, the law, healthcare, entertainment, human resources, media and information.

Divisions across different economic and social domains had a deeper meaning as “facets of a more fundamental schism in American society”. In the same article Edsall quoted Yascha Mounk, author of The Identity Trap, saying the reason Republicans were successful in spreading their message was because they were “more adept at telling an aspirational story about the nature of the country – one that, as it turns out, a lot of citizens from all kinds of demographic backgrounds found to be convincing”.

The source of progressive strength – its long march through the institutions – has been derailed in Trump’s victory. Suddenly, it was a negative – a turning point in contemporary politics. In America the institutions that had become the carriers of progressive ideology had become unpopular and untrusted.

Indeed, they generated hostility towards themselves precisely because their progressive values were seen to be about their own image and self-interest, and not the values of the public.

The Democrats chose to become “the party of the educated class” but the progressive arrogance and moral superiority of the educated class began to eat the Democrats politically in the 2024 election.

A critical symbol of this phenomenon became the failure of US universities to address the crisis of anti-Semitism across their campuses – an intellectual and moral failure to appreciate this concerned not only Jewish students but also undermined the principles essential to sustain a multicultural society.

But the irony in America cannot be missed – Trump and JD Vance are engaged in their own project of political overreach. Their mood is hubris on steroids. They are gullible believers in their own propaganda.

In his opening weeks Trump seeks to transform US governance, push executive power to its limits, purge much of the bureaucracy, impose tariffs to reindustralise the US heartland and punish surplus trading nations with the US, signal an agenda for territorial expansion, withdraw from historic commitments to Europe, strike a deal with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and transform Gaza.

Shock therapy is an effective political weapon. But multiple shock therapy never works for any sustained period.

Consider Vance’s “shock effect” speech at Munich that the real threat today is not Russia and China but Europe’s retreat from fundamental cultural values.

The US Vice-President offered some valid truths and was right about Europe’s internal weakness. But his central point was a ludicrous falsehood. The most serious threat facing democracies today is the political and military alignment from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. In terms of relative military power this is a far more dangerous threat than posed by the fascist countries in the 1930s.

If Trump and Vance don’t get this, if they don’t grasp the fundamental power equation in today’s world, then we are all in trouble. Yet, if Vance is taken at face value, they don’t get it. They don’t seem to grasp this is an existential strategic dilemma. Perhaps they are just rationalising the argument for US withdrawal. On display is the demise of strategic reality and its substitution by manic cultural conservatism.

The risk for Trump is engaging in many and different forms of overreach. Transformative change that sticks needs to be bedded down and buttressed by public support. Consider the great Peggy Noonan warning about Elon Musk: “He has wild confidence in his ability to engineer desired outcomes, but unstable elements have a way of exploding in the beaker, and like everyone else from Silicon Valley he lacks a sense of the tragic.

“They think human life can be rationally shaped and perfected, that every problem just needs the right wrench, and in any case they all think they’re God. My fear, here we switch metaphors, is that Mr Musk and his young staffers and acolytes are mad doctors who’ll put 30 chemo ports in the sick body. They’ll not only kill the cancer, they’ll kill the patient.”

 

[IFocus]

Trump is actively undermining Western Alliances actively undermining US structures of governance and oversight, not to mention directing DOJ directly on prosecutions/ ceasing prosecutions. Interesting Xi did the same thing under the guise of fighting corruption Trumps Trojan Horse is similar the cult cheering on

 

[JohnDe]

In Europe there seems to be a certain contempt for innovations that are occurring in the United States, not least at the governmental level. ​

​

There has been much whining and howling about DOGE’s attempts to not just stop government waste but actually expose it. One of its great advantages so far is you not only see a way in which a country like America might balance the budget but, in stripping away all those layers of bureaucracy, you also discover the kind of rot our societies have been willing to put up with for so long.​

​

The administration in Washington – after USAID was found to be so rotten it had to be gotten rid of entirety – is now looking at the Department of Education. In America, as in the rest of West, there is no greater task. In New York State, where I spend much of my time, an average spend for state school is now, per pupil, around $US35,000 a year.​

​

In America, the idea remains that life is risky – that success is risky. But across much of the West, we’ve fallen into a kind of complacency, which is a sort of welfarism.​

The truth about our decline: Douglas Murray’s talk that left 4000 people at ARC speechless

One of the questions that all ages ask themselves is what do they call the age they are in? Almost every age confronts this question. Most recently the age of modernism asked what comes after modernism, and the rather unoriginal idea was postmodernism.

Postmodernism, of course, included its offspring deconstructionism, and nothing came from that. But I would like to suggest a name for the age we should be in and the age we can help bring in: the age of reconstruction.

We should be the reconstructionists. The deconstructionists knew something about how to take things apart. But, like children with bicycles, they had no idea how to put them back together. So it will be the job of people like us, the reconstructionists, to try to put that civilisation back together.

I want to lay out two broad ideas of what we can do to bring this to pass. First, let me begin with an example. In Europe there seems to be a certain contempt for innovations that are occurring in the United States, not least at the governmental level.

There has been much whining and howling about DOGE’s attempts to not just stop government waste but actually expose it. One of its great advantages so far is you not only see a way in which a country like America might balance the budget but, in stripping away all those layers of bureaucracy, you also discover the kind of rot our societies have been willing to put up with for so long.

The administration in Washington – after USAID was found to be so rotten it had to be gotten rid of entirety – is now looking at the Department of Education. In America, as in the rest of West, there is no greater task. In New York State, where I spend much of my time, an average spend for state school is now, per pupil, around $US35,000 a year.

For that sum, kindergarten through to 12 students finish with only about half of them attaining basic literacy and about half basic numeracy. So nobody can say money is the problem. You can keep throwing money at this problem, and you can still create more and more illiterates.

There are many things that can be looked at and the first is innovation. There’s an enormous amount to learn, rather than to scorn about the American experience. There are reasons why so many of the unicorn start-ups are from America. There must be something they’re doing right. In Britain we still have a situation where one in five of the working age population simply do not work. The rest of the taxpayers subsidise those people not to work. This is a great national scandal, but still something our governments don’t care to address.

To my mind, one of the great explanations for this disparity in innovation between Europe and America is very simple. It’s our attitude towards risk. In America, the idea remains that life is risky – that success is risky. But across much of the West, we’ve fallen into a kind of complacency, which is a sort of welfarism.

When I returned to Britain recently, I discovered the great debate was about how to kill the elderly more efficiently. I was struck that the only argument any Labour minister could make against euthanasia coming online with the National Health Service was from an MP who said she didn’t think the NHS was capable of performing euthanasia efficiently.

I mentioned at the time that this was wrong in one important respect. The NHS is a world leader in killing the elderly; it’s just they only kill the people who don’t want to die. The NHS is always said to be the envy of the world and yet no one can find a GP appointment.

Clever people can sometimes say very stupid things. And in a recent interview, Yuval Noah Harari, who wrote Sapiens, was asked if there was any book he would recommend that people could read in the present to understand the future that’s coming. He said no he couldn’t think of such a book because change was going to be so incredibly fast.

That’s flat out wrong. Change has always happened. And if you want a book to guide you, how about having the book that’s guided your forebears? Now to do that, you need civilisational renewal and that includes the ability to look back.

We’ve wasted so much time in recent years. People have made us move at such a retarded speed. We’ve had years of talking about the most basic things that our species already knew, such as men and women and who are they. Who had time for this in the past?

The problem is there’s a cost to this – there has been a civilisational cost to be made to go at the speed of the slowest kids in the class.

One response to the era of mass migration that I’ve written a great deal about has been what I’ve called the deculturation of our societies, the idea that in order to welcome people into our societies, we effectively have to pretend we’re uninteresting and unimportant places until migration makes us interesting.

Recently a friend of mine used an analogy to explain this to me. He said that, as a boy, he had the impression that ice cream was something whose base flavour was vanilla, and all other flavours were added on top of vanilla. It was only at some point in his youth, he said, that he discovered vanilla itself has a flavour, and a very complex flavour.

The West has created an extraordinarily complex and rich flavour, and we have spent recent years pretending we have no flavour, or that flavour is something that only other people bring to us. This is, of course, flat out wrong, but it’s been something we’ve now told more than one generation of young people in the West.

We’ve told them that we don’t really have anything very great, or if we do we ought not to talk about it much. I believe this is wrong because what we have in the cities of Europe and the West are the greatest civilisation the world has known.

We have a choice either to live in the wastelands or to rebuild them. Now, there are cities in Europe – I think of Budapest and I think of many German cities – where the idea is you actually can restore beauty to the built environment, and that people do not need to wander like lost souls around the wastelands looking for meaning against buildings that tell them, “you are nothing, you do not matter”.

We have the opportunity to restore not just the built environment, but the educational environment. And when we talk about our culture we must realise that it’s not just something young people should revere, but something they can add to – to understand the conversation, the poetry of mankind. To understand that just because Mozart is great does not mean you cannot build on Mozart. That just because great buildings are great does not mean you cannot add to them.

In the age of reconstruction, I would urge that our greatest task is not just to break through with innovation but to reclaim what is ours. To say that we love it, and that if people wish to join us in the veneration of this civilisation, they are very, very welcome to do so. If they don’t wish to join us, there are other places they can be.

Everybody who reveres TS Eliot reveres him in part because he told us and tells us still that a civilisation can be reclaimed even at the 11th hour. But I would say there is another possibility, which is that civilisation can also be reclaimed even at the 13th hour, in the most inauspicious circumstances.

Douglas Murray is an English author and columnist. His latest book is The War on the West (HarperCollins, Australia). This is an edited version of a speech he delivered to the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship conference in London.

 

[moXJO]

Trump is actively undermining Western Alliances actively undermining US structures of governance and oversight, not to mention directing DOJ directly on prosecutions/ ceasing prosecutions. Interesting Xi did the same thing under the guise of fighting corruption Trumps Trojan Horse is similar the cult cheering on

Allies have become "progressive sht bombs". Europe and Canada changed the fabric of who they were via mass migration. Europe is entrapped by elites.
I was watching the EU parliament sitting and its just a crock.

USA doesn't need much in the way of allies if they are just leaching off the US taxpayers. I know the narrative the progressives are trying to drive, but I think it's just more propaganda.

 

[finicky]

Corrupt to the core. A slithering creature of the lie.

 

[Smurf1976]

China will never be the sole supplier of cars, electronics ect.

To a considerable extent it already is.

China has a far greater stranglehold over Western society than the Arabs ever had via oil.

Check the device you're reading this on and where it was made. Unless you've cobbled together some Frankenstein arrangement that involves a Commodore 64 connected to an old Astor TV as the monitor and with the internet being accessed via a 75/1200 modem then you're using Chinese equipment that's a given.

The other big problem is this. Without getting into a debate about the issue itself, you've previously expressed concern in regards to climate change. Now I'm aware that's a contentious subject so I'm not entering a debate about that here, just noting it.

Now at present Australia exports $183.4 billion a year worth of fossil fuels based on the figures Google brings up with about half that being coal. That's over $500 million per day, every day.

Under the present world order Australia has no alternative to not only continuing that fossil fuel export but increasing it over time. In other words, we need more, not less, CO2 emitted if we're to stick with that economic model.

Now I don't think one needs to be an environmentalist, or even consider climate change to be legitimate, to have at least some concerns about that. Even if someone considers the CO2 to be a non-issue, there's still the problems that gas in particular is a relatively limited resource then there's the other environmental impacts of open cut mines and so on.

I've been consciously aware of and watching relentless decline since Hawke was PM of Australia. Industry after industry has gone, to be replaced with more coal, gas and iron ore exports. To the point that entire industries are now actually extinct in Australia and it's not just cars.

For a practical example of the decline of the West in general, just get a sheet of A4 paper. Nothing fancy, just ordinary white A4 paper. Place it in front of you and take a good look at that sheet of paper.

Now realise this. The process of hardwood Kraft pulping, was invented and first commercially used in......

Tasmania.

That Tasmania yes, the island state south of Victoria. Tasmania Australia. That was the first place to successfully manufacture paper from hardwoods, achieved by heavily modifying processes in use for softwoods at the time. Prior to that, everyone said you can't make paper without pine trees - turns out oh yes you can.

Now if you'd bought a ream of white A4 paper 40 years ago then there was a high chance it was the Reflex brand, manufactured by APPM at Burnie Tas. And that's also where Burnie Bond and Burnie Board came from among other products.

Now that mill was still a technological leader 50 years ago with the process enhancement of AQ pulping.

Go there today and you'll find a derelict site, mostly demolished, and a Bunnings store on part of it. APPM, or simply "the pulp" as locals called it, is long gone.

And it's not just Burnie. Not far away the Wesley Vale mill owned by the same company met the same fate, so did Shoalhaven in NSW and so did every other mill in the country. Today we manufacture no white office paper at all in Australia, the closest it gets is there's still some production of low grade packaging papers and newsprint although the proverbial writing is very much on the wall there especially the latter.

So we can't even make paper using a process Australia invented the first time, then reinvented and improved a second time. With the particular twist that the paper industry, and APPM specifically, were directly targeted by a federal Labor government that blocked modernisation plans, sealing the fate of the industry.

So we've scrapped an entire industry and switched to imports that we balance by selling fossil fuels. I trust the problem here is readily apparent.

Now repeat that for everything from windows to tools to cars to TV's to light switches to shoes to bed sheets. All met the same fate.

Now I'm not exactly a huge fan of Trump as a man, but as I've previously noted in my view he's the wrong man with the right message but all things considered well at least he might bring the change that's needed, because it's pretty clear the others won't.

Because quite simply the path Australia, the US and many others have been on just isn't sustainable in any way. Environment, geology, economics, the tolerance of the general public or a war starts - it's a question of which gives out first but something's going to give if we continue down that path.

So I don't like Trump's approach at the personal level but someone needs to force change and at the international level he's really the only card on the table.

 

[moXJO]

To a considerable extent it already is.

China has a far greater stranglehold over Western society than the Arabs ever had via oil.

Check the device you're reading this on and where it was made. Unless you've cobbled together some Frankenstein arrangement that involves a Commodore 64 connected to an old Astor TV as the monitor and with the internet being accessed via a 75/1200 modem then you're using Chinese equipment that's a given.

The other big problem is this. Without getting into a debate about the issue itself, you've previously expressed concern in regards to climate change. Now I'm aware that's a contentious subject so I'm not entering a debate about that here, just noting it.

Now at present Australia exports $183.4 billion a year worth of fossil fuels based on the figures Google brings up with about half that being coal. That's over $500 million per day, every day.

Under the present world order Australia has no alternative to not only continuing that fossil fuel export but increasing it over time. In other words, we need more, not less, CO2 emitted if we're to stick with that economic model.

Now I don't think one needs to be an environmentalist, or even consider climate change to be legitimate, to have at least some concerns about that. Even if someone considers the CO2 to be a non-issue, there's still the problems that gas in particular is a relatively limited resource then there's the other environmental impacts of open cut mines and so on.

I've been consciously aware of and watching relentless decline since Hawke was PM of Australia. Industry after industry has gone, to be replaced with more coal, gas and iron ore exports. To the point that entire industries are now actually extinct in Australia and it's not just cars.

For a practical example of the decline of the West in general, just get a sheet of A4 paper. Nothing fancy, just ordinary white A4 paper. Place it in front of you and take a good look at that sheet of paper.

Now realise this. The process of hardwood Kraft pulping, was invented and first commercially used in......

Tasmania.

That Tasmania yes, the island state south of Victoria. Tasmania Australia. That was the first place to successfully manufacture paper from hardwoods, achieved by heavily modifying processes in use for softwoods at the time. Prior to that, everyone said you can't make paper without pine trees - turns out oh yes you can.

Now if you'd bought a ream of white A4 paper 40 years ago then there was a high chance it was the Reflex brand, manufactured by APPM at Burnie Tas. And that's also where Burnie Bond and Burnie Board came from among other products.

Now that mill was still a technological leader 50 years ago with the process enhancement of AQ pulping.

Go there today and you'll find a derelict site, mostly demolished, and a Bunnings store on part of it. APPM, or simply "the pulp" as locals called it, is long gone.

And it's not just Burnie. Not far away the Wesley Vale mill owned by the same company met the same fate, so did Shoalhaven in NSW and so did every other mill in the country. Today we manufacture no white office paper at all in Australia, the closest it gets is there's still some production of low grade packaging papers and newsprint although the proverbial writing is very much on the wall there especially the latter.

So we can't even make paper using a process Australia invented the first time, then reinvented and improved a second time. With the particular twist that the paper industry, and APPM specifically, were directly targeted by a federal Labor government that blocked modernisation plans, sealing the fate of the industry.

So we've scrapped an entire industry and switched to imports that we balance by selling fossil fuels. I trust the problem here is readily apparent.

Now repeat that for everything from windows to tools to cars to TV's to light switches to shoes to bed sheets. All met the same fate.

Now I'm not exactly a huge fan of Trump as a man, but as I've previously noted in my view he's the wrong man with the right message but all things considered well at least he might bring the change that's needed, because it's pretty clear the others won't.

Because quite simply the path Australia, the US and many others have been on just isn't sustainable in any way. Environment, geology, economics, the tolerance of the general public or a war starts - it's a question of which gives out first but something's going to give if we continue down that path.

So I don't like Trump's approach at the personal level but someone needs to force change and at the international level he's really the only card on the table.

Obviously I can't see Bas losing his mind over Trump. It's pointless arguing with him as the guy has a severe case of TDS. It's actually good to see some of our other left leaners have moderated themselves away from the craziness of the first term. Everyone is watching on to see if what Trump does works.

Not many in my personal opinion like Trump as a man. However, you can respect his tenacity and the fact he is the only one trying something different.
Most of us can see Australia hurtling towards irrelevance and hard times. We have become a quagmire of bureaucracy, stupidity, laziness, authoritarianism, that produces nothing.

The west needs change right now and Trump is the only one that stepped up. This socialist experiment needs to end. Things like the ndis and public service pay needs to be reigned in or this country is on a collision course with disaster. Everything from education to the tax system needs to be rethought.

 

[sptrawler]

The west needs change right now and Trump is the only one that stepped up. This socialist experiment needs to end. Things like the ndis and public service pay needs to be reigned in or this country is on a collision course with disaster. Everything from education to the tax system needs to be rethought.

Spot on Mo, the fact is the U.S is the only market place big enough and cohesive enough to affect China.

China's trade imbalance with the U.S is huge and China is rapidly becoming self sufficient, where in the not too distant future with the aid of Russia and Asia, China will probably not require the U.S market.

IMO unless steps are taken the West will be completely exposed to a dependence on China, that will lead to a global conflict, there just wont be any other option.

As yourself and @Smurf1976 have said Trump is a very unattractive personality, but if something isn't done now to halt the slide, the window of opportunity to use economic methods will close IMO.

 

[mullokintyre]

Obviously I can't see Bas losing his mind over Trump. It's pointless arguing with him as the guy has a severe case of TDS. It's actually good to see some of our other left leaners have moderated themselves away from the craziness of the first term. Everyone is watching on to see if what Trump does works.

Not many in my personal opinion like Trump as a man. However, you can respect his tenacity and the fact he is the only one trying something different.
Most of us can see Australia hurtling towards irrelevance and hard times. We have become a quagmire of bureaucracy, stupidity, laziness, authoritarianism, that produces nothing.

The west needs change right now and Trump is the only one that stepped up. This socialist experiment needs to end. Things like the ndis and public service pay needs to be reigned in or this country is on a collision course with disaster. Everything from education to the tax system needs to be rethought.

I don't think the craziness is confined to the West.
China is in a demographic decline, becoming more authoritarian, and more beligerant.
The middle eastern countries are still a basket case, with Syria joining Lebanon, Iraq and Iran as dysfunctional societies where religious zealots screw the rest of society. I would expect that thanks to the ultra orthodox Jews in israel, it will go the same way.
Religious extremism by Hindus is holding back India from where it should be, and exactly the same can be said of Indonesia except in that country its Muslim extremism.
South Africa's decline is well noted, and very few African nations have even a semblance of stability.
South America, apart from perhaps Argentina, have economies that have been or are in the process of being run into the ground.
The Asian Tigers, corrupt one party states most of them.
Mick

 

[moXJO]

I don't think the craziness is confined to the West.
China is in a demographic decline, becoming more authoritarian, and more beligerant.
The middle eastern countries are still a basket case, with Syria joining Lebanon, Iraq and Iran as dysfunctional societies where religious zealots screw the rest of society. I would expect that thanks to the ultra orthodox Jews in israel, it will go the same way.
Religious extremism by Hindus is holding back India from where it should be, and exactly the same can be said of Indonesia except in that country its Muslim extremism.
South Africa's decline is well noted, and very few African nations have even a semblance of stability.
South America, apart from perhaps Argentina, have economies that have been or are in the process of being run into the ground.
The Asian Tigers, corrupt one party states most of them.
Mick

There's "decline" then there's westerners trying to destroy their society with stupidity. We replaced religion with wokeism. Eventually people need to realise that nothing gets done without a touch of nationalism. Too many groups with agendas provide constant chaos.

 

[Knobby22]

This is how I see it.

Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while
Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders, we're getting in tune
The music's played by the mad man

Forever Young Dylan, Alphaville

 

[JohnDe]

Larry Fink has conceded the business cultural pendulum had moved “way too far to the left” and was rapidly moving in the other direction.​

​

The comments comes as a new Trump administration in Washington is rapidly resetting corporate culture. This includes aggressively rolling-back regulation, boosting oil and gas, while unwinding billions in former president Joe Biden’s renewable funding programs.​

​

More recently in Trump’s sights have been corporate diversity targets, which has seen some on Wall Street to stage a retreat from more explicit plans.​

​

“Our job is to be working with both sides, and yes – as governments change, you can move from a more progressive view of life to a more conservative view of life, and it doesn’t change our responsibilities”.​

​

“This is what I have to remind everybody. We’re not, you know, we’re our job is to be focusing on 30 year outcomes for retirement. Our job is to be working on other issues. And so, yes, there is a change of environment.​

​

“We’re going to adapt. We’re going to change”.​

The pendulum ‘swung too far left’: BlackRock’s Larry Fink

Larry Fink, the head of the world’s biggest asset manager and one of the most powerful investors on Wall Street, has conceded the business cultural pendulum had moved “way too far to the left” and was rapidly moving in the other direction.
The comments by the head and founder of the New York-headquartered BlackRock, which has $US11.6 trillion ($18.2 trillion) under management, comes as a new Trump administration in Washington is rapidly resetting corporate culture. This includes aggressively rolling-back regulation, boosting oil and gas, while unwinding billions in former president Joe Biden’s renewable funding programs.

More recently in Trump’s sights have been corporate diversity targets, which has seen some on Wall Street to stage a retreat from more explicit plans.

Fink had generated ire in recent years – particularly from some Republicans – for urging companies BlackRock invests in to move quicker on tackling climate change.

Speaking to The Australian in Sydney, Fink said society was not static and was always shifting its outlook. His job is to move with the environment.

“The pendulum was very far left, and the pendulum is moving right, and it's fine,” he said.

“Our job is to be working with society, working with government. Last year, we were awarded $US641bn client money. Our job is to be working in any environment”.

“Our job is to be working with both sides, and yes – as governments change, you can move from a more progressive view of life to a more conservative view of life, and it doesn’t change our responsibilities”.

“This is what I have to remind everybody. We’re not, you know, we’re our job is to be focusing on 30 year outcomes for retirement. Our job is to be working on other issues. And so, yes, there is a change of environment.

“We’re going to adapt. We’re going to change”.

BlackRock’s money is mostly in shares and bonds. In recent years, it has been making a bigger push into private credit, a fast-growing area of long-dated debt that allows business to bypass traditional banking or debt markets.

He counts some of Australia’s biggest super funds as clients, including AustralianSuper and the Canberra-backed Future Fund. He’s just come off a series of back-to-back meetings with big investors here and says there’s a note of optimism. This is in contrast to Europe, where the feeling among big investors is one of “doom and gloom”.

“I think there’s a basic calmness about Australia. Maybe that’s all relative to the noise from the US … and this feels pretty good here,” he said.

Fink has long talked up Australia’s superannuation system as a model for the other countries to follow in helping to fund retirements. However, he said even with the massive pools of patient capital, the conundrum with Australia is around the challenge of making it easier for private money to invest in the necessary infrastructure.

“I think this is true in every part of the world where and with many economies where government deficits are growing. We are, we need to find ways to use less fiscal stimulus and unlock more private capital”.

“Much of these themes have been what President Trump is advocating. Let’s reduce regulation, let’s accelerate the permitting process. Let’s get, let’s get moving”.

“I mean, Australia and the United States have many similarities. We have excessive power, and we have a poor power grid. How can that be? Both Australia and the United States, have housing affordability issues. How can that be?”

“So I think about there’s quite a bit of similarities, and a lot of it is because underinvestment, in both cases, is just underinvestment, and if we unlock more private capital, that’s going to create a lot of jobs, and a lot of opportunity”.

 

[mullokintyre]

It seems that some of the data that came from the WH via DOGE may be exaggerrated, or used incorrectly.
Although there is little doubt that there are more people on the Social Security database than are counted US citizens, and indeed some of them are well over 120 years old, it does NOT mean they were being paid benefits.
It seems people cannot be removed from the roles unless death certificates are issued and other legal procedures are met.
Until then, they stay role.
Until some further data mining is done, and payments are shown to have been made, its just an administrative balls up, not a fraud.
Same with all the people who are supposed to have the same SSN.
Until data is shown to prove that money went out to these duplicates, its another administrative procedural error.
Its the difference between using AI for data scraping and real data mining.
there are still plenty of things to investigate among all those treasury payments with no TRS codes, but tit will be less easy to trace where they went.

Mick

 

[sptrawler]

It seems that some of the data that came from the WH via DOGE may be exaggerrated, or used incorrectly.
Although there is little doubt that there are more people on the Social Security database than are counted US citizens, and indeed some of them are well over 120 years old, it does NOT mean they were being paid benefits.
It seems people cannot be removed from the roles unless death certificates are issued and other legal procedures are met.
Until then, they stay role.
Until some further data mining is done, and payments are shown to have been made, its just an administrative balls up, not a fraud.
Same with all the people who are supposed to have the same SSN.
Until data is shown to prove that money went out to these duplicates, its another administrative procedural error.
Its the difference between using AI for data scraping and real data mining.
there are still plenty of things to investigate among all those treasury payments with no TRS codes, but tit will be less easy to trace where they went.

Mick

There must be a huge amount of bloatware in the U.S administration, we have enough of it in Australia and with only a population of 25 million, oh sorry 27 million.
With a population of 334 million, not including those who aren't registered, the inefficiencies must be huge, especially when you consider the amount of jobs for the boys, jobs for the mates, jobs for the family that must go on in such a huge society.
From the structures they show on the movies, a lot of positions seems to work on nepotism, that may be incorrect but it is certainly portrayed in U.S based T.V shows.
Then there also must be problems with each State and County not using standard systems, that are not compatible with each other, it must be a nightmare trying to coordinate data transfer of information.

 

[Knobby22]

There must be a huge amount of bloatware in the U.S administration, we have enough of it in Australia and with only a population of 25 million, oh sorry 27 million.
With a population of 334 million, not including those who aren't registered, the inefficiencies must be huge, especially when you consider the amount of jobs for the boys, jobs for the mates, jobs for the family that must go on in such a huge society.
From the structures they show on the movies, a lot of positions seems to work on nepotism, that may be incorrect but it is certainly portrayed in U.S based T.V shows.
Then there also must be problems with each State and County not using standard systems, that are not compatible with each other, it must be a nightmare trying to coordinate data transfer of information.

Interesting post with photo. Hmm.
Crown looks good on him.

The White House
@WhiteHouse
"CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
–President Donald J. Trump

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