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Trump 2.0

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Trumps latest thought bubble, to give $5,000 to every taxpayer to return some of the money from DOGE savings is another pice of populist stupidity.
Inflation started when various governments injected billions of dollars into their economies in the aftermath of the covid shutdown.
This silly idea will exactly the same.
But then again, perhaps that is what he wants - inflate his way out of debt.
Mick
 
moXJO said:
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.
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Nothing to do with progressives or EU or saving money or trimming government the starting point has been removing oversight, governance that directly affects Musk and Trump the propaganda is the BS Trump is saving the US. He is removing much in the way the US projects power basic dogma way beyond politics
 
IFocus said:
Nothing to do with progressives or EU or saving money or trimming government the starting point has been removing oversight, governance that directly affects Musk and Trump the propaganda is the BS Trump is saving the US. He is removing much in the way the US projects power basic dogma way beyond politics
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US can't afford it. Time for reality, Trump is doing what's needed. Describe to me how "progressives" haven't flipped into neocons?

1. Interventionist Foreign Policy – Neocons advocate for an active role of the U.S. in global affairs, including military intervention to promote democracy and American interests abroad. This was especially prominent during the Iraq War.


2. Strong National Defense – They support a robust military and increased defense spending.


3. Pro-Democracy Stance – They often believe in spreading democratic values, sometimes through force if necessary.


4. Moderate on Domestic Policy – Compared to traditional conservatives, neocons may be more accepting of government involvement in social programs and economic regulation.


5. Influence from Liberal Backgrounds – Many early neoconservatives were former liberals or leftists who became disillusioned with liberal policies in the 1960s and 1970s.
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mullokintyre said:
Trumps latest thought bubble, to give $5,000 to every taxpayer to return some of the money from DOGE savings is another pice of populist stupidity.
Inflation started when various governments injected billions of dollars into their economies in the aftermath of the covid shutdown.
This silly idea will exactly the same.
But then again, perhaps that is what he wants - inflate his way out of debt.
Mick
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I would suggest a better use would be to fund a months free medical appointments for the poor bastards that are chronically ill but cannot afford treatment
 
This is a long piece but IMV it offers an excellent insight into how narcissism can start with leaders and then. literally, infect whole communities.

claireberlinski.substack.com

Impeach Him

Trump's psychopathology and the suicide of a superpower
claireberlinski.substack.com claireberlinski.substack.com
The mystery is not why Trump behaves as he does. However much you pretend it’s a mystery, the answer is obvious: He acts like that because he is very, very sick. The real puzzle is why so many previously healthy Americans have fully entered into his psychopathology. We all know people who, had you told them 10 years ago that within their lifetime an American president would behave the way Trump is behaving, would have responded with horror or frank disbelief. Yet the same people will now defend literally anything that Trump does.
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The only concept that makes sense of this is collective narcissism.
Malignant narcissism, for Fromm, is not merely a personal pathology, but a cultural and political one. It originates in the malignant narcissist’s need to transform reality . . .
Fromm observed that entire groups, societies, and nations can become narcissistic with the leader. When they do, their narcissism typically takes the form of destructive nationalism. In authoritarian regimes, leaders and followers alike exhibit collective narcissism, the key symptom of which is the glorification of one’s own culture or nation at the expense of others:
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Absolute ripper, the final key appointment crosses the line. This guy is sure to shake things up and there'll be many revelations.

FBI nominee Kash Patel confirmed in narrow Senate vote
Patel has suggested his top two priorities were 'let good cops be cops' and 'transparency is essential'
www.foxnews.com

FBI nominee Kash Patel confirmed in narrow Senate vote

President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday in a mostly party-line vote of 51-49, with two Republican senators voting no.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
 
basilio said:
This is a long piece but IMV it offers an excellent insight into how narcissism can start with leaders and then. literally, infect whole communities.
Click to expand...
I reckon there's a simpler explanation.

Now here's an old photo and yes it's from the US:


Now what do you see there? Well I see men and women, working side by side, making a product that was high tech in its day when that photo was taken.

Who in their right mind would throw that away, send everyone off to do a degree for the sake of a degree that doesn't qualify the holder to work in any recognised profession and ship real wealth offshore to other countries who now run the factories whilst we engage in made up non-jobs?

Answer that and you'll have answered where the Left ran off the rails and made the Right seem at least slightly more rational.

In all honesty I very much doubt most Americans really like Trump. It's just that they've had it with globalisation, inconsistent social ideology and apparent disdain for the working class from the other side.

I mean seriously, who came up with this:

Let's not mess about here. This is nothing more than getting poor people off the roads in order that the rich can more quickly travel from A to B. That's the sort of thing the Left should be going in all guns blazing to fight head on.

What the Left have forgotten is there's an awful lot of people like me. People whose personal circumstances are middle class but their politics is and will always be working class as a matter of principle. People who don't like Trump or conservative politics in general, but who feel the other side has actively turned against them. :2twocents
 
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The Donald Trump presidency is an opportunity and a danger for ARC – Trump will boost conservative confidence across much of the world but simultaneously trash some of the sacred conservative principles as he functions as a rebel ditching respect, prudence and global responsibility.​

‘It’s the culture, stupid’: How the West can be re-won​

Rebuilding Western civilisation in an age of disruption and disunity was the main focus at the 2025 ARC meeting in London.
There is a new vibe for the renewal of Western civilisation. It intersects with politics, religion and public policy but it isn’t owned by any of them. More than 4000 people from more than 90 nations met in London this week to give tangible meaning to the vibe.

This was the second London meeting of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a unique organisational experiment founded in the belief that “a civilisational moment has arrived” – that the West will sink further into individual unhappiness and loss of conviction or find the keys to restoration and renewal.

ARC is based on the profound truth: politicians alone cannot solve problems of our age because they originate in cultural malaise and blunder. The frustration of the people and the ineptitude of the politicians go to deeper afflictions that must be addressed at source. No institution exists to do the job – hence ARC.

ARC’s chief executive, Baroness Philippa Stroud, sketched the scale of ambition: “Decline is not inevitable. Life can be a glorious adventure. We are at a crossroads when our nations must choose what ideas will animate our public life and philosophy in the years to come.

“The time has come for a better story; one that reconnects us with the original inspiration of our civilisation. We believe we can see families flourish, our economies grow, innovation accelerate, freedom established, a culture of responsibility restored and our civilisation set once again on the pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful.”

The driving force behind ARC is the recognition that Western societies are increasingly divided and diminished, plagued by a crisis of meaning, weakened by ineffective governments, suffering from a loss of trust in institutions and beset by a fracture between powerful elites and alienated publics. What makes ARC unique is that it seeks to tackle the malaise at the level of culture and is an international movement because the malaise transcends borders.

It is neither a political party nor a religious movement. But under Stroud’s guidance – where she opens the cultural lens wide – it evokes the foundational idea of liberal civilisation: humans made in God’s image.

As a necessity ARC has no prescribed platform and issues no communiques. Its operational idea is that our future has been compromised by abandoning the things that once made us great and that served for decades and centuries as the lights guiding the West’s long succession of dynamic adaptations. But the model has malfunctioned. For young people, being “cool” today often equates with indifferent denigrationof their own country’s democracy. The focus of ARC 2025 was the rebuilding agenda, to inspire within and across nations the campaign for civilisation renewal from the local school to the family dinner table to the national parliament. The opponent is secular progressivism.

For ARC, its flawed imprint is everywhere undermining life in the West – the legacy seen in narcissistic individualism; its substitution for religious norms; its suspicion of traditional families; its deployment of state power to advance its values; its compulsion to big government and higher taxes; its attachment to false education theory in schools; its promotion of climate catastrophe; its renewable ideology driving soaring energy prices; its hostility to resources development; its indifference to the collapse in fertility and the coming demographic crisis; its promotion of identity politics in an attack on liberal universalism; and its disdain for national symbols and patriotism.

The Donald Trump presidency is an opportunity and a danger for ARC – Trump will boost conservative confidence across much of the world but simultaneously trash some of the sacred conservative principles as he functions as a rebel ditching respect, prudence and global responsibility.

ARC met when the Trumpian revolution was in its dramatic early weeks.

In his opening address prominent ARC financial supporter Paul Marshall, whose British interests include GB News and The Spectator, said “We are not explicitly a political movement”, but the aim was to influence politics.

“We are not Trumpians”, Marshall declared, but added there was a lot in the Trump movement “that we agree with”. The task was to keep the balance.

The Australian contingent including former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, former treasurer Peter Costello and former deputy prime minister John Anderson, who serves on the main advisory body and is the key link to ARC central, were conspicuous in navigating that balance.

Outside the conference Abbott welcomed Trump’s “common sense” on energy, gender and woke “madness”, saying “the swamp does need to be drained” – but he criticised Trump on Ukraine, warning against “a surrender to vicious, naked aggression”, and said any refusal to provide security guarantees for Ukraine would constitute “a sellout”. Many delegates fear Trump will terminate the post-WW II age of Pax Americana and the global stability secured by the US-led alliance system. That would haveprofound consequences for Australia.

ARC functions as a movement united by many common beliefs yet containing significant differences of opinion, testifying to the Trump-induced upheaval within conservative politics.

The situation might be likened to a tension between the Churchillian right and the Trumpian right – the former standing for tradition, the glory of the English-speaking heritage and a muscular outlook on the world, while the latter seeks to dismantle a perceived corrupt established order, claims to act in the people’s name while flouting democratic norms and retreating to a mindset of protection and national self-absorption.

During three days at ARC with 150 speakers and panellists, five central themes emerged – conservative momentum against net zero is gathering immense force led by Trump, spilling into Britain and bound to influence Australia; alarm that high debt levels in the West, conspicuously in the US, constitute a crushing burden eroding military strength and the ability of democracies to meet the challenge of the autocracies; the conviction that excessive state power fused with secular progressivism has weakened the bonds of community, family and society, undermined the optimal way to raise children, compromised the quality of education and contributed to a culture burdened by an advanced low fertility crisis; that the more progressive policies are, implemented by parties of the left or by deluded parties of the right (witness British Tories), the greater the public policy failure, community division and general unhappiness; and that the task for conservatives and liberals, working together, is to build an alternative credo, based on civilisational renewal and the best of our inheritance with policies tied to freedom, economic creativity, government restraint and personal responsibility.

In an age of disruption, omens were everything.

ARC conducted a debate on the proposition “that protection makes us poorer” – virtually a truism – and took a vote on the floor showing protection won over free trade 46-45 per cent. Here in a forum that champions economic freedom and markets. Did the 1000 delegates from Trump’s America deliver for protection?

Veteran New York Times columnist David Brooks delivered a stellar speech – and provoked murmurs of protest. Brooks said contemporary America had created a caste system with elites far distant from the people. But there was no sign Trump was the answer.

Referring to Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk, Brooks said: “They’re anti-left, they don’t have a positive, conservative vision for society, they just want to destroy the institutions that the left now dominates. I’m telling you as someone on the front row to what’s happening, do not hitch your wagon to that star.

“Elite narcissism causes them to eviscerate every belief system they touch. Conservatives believe in constitutional government – Donald Trump says: ‘I can fix this’. Conservatives believe in moral norms – they’re destroying moral norms. The other belief system that they are destroying is Judeo-Christian faith – based on service to the poor, to the immigrant and service to the stranger.”

Brooks enunciated a truth and a dilemma for ARC – Trump is not a conservative. How can an anti-conservative be a role model for a civilisation revival?

When I congratulated Brooks for his speech, he told me a lot of the people thanking him seemed to be Australians.

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The vibe shift began when Trump was re-elected. It’s now global. Artwork: Frank Ling

Historian Niall Ferguson said the sense of a civilisation in “confusion and decline is pervasive” – the Enlightenment as a replacement for the religious Judeo-Christian foundations had failed. But Ferguson said he was more worried about actual war than the culture war.

He warned the axis of the four authoritarian powers – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – constituted a more daunting force now than the Axis powers of the 1930s. A potential world war III was closer than many people realised. Ferguson nominated a law: “Any great power that spends more on interest payments on its debt than on defence will not be great for long.”

And the US broke that law last year. On current projections, by 2049 the US will spend twice as much on interest payments as on defence. The debt burden sends “a signal of weakness”. The problem exists across the G7 countries.

Beyond this, Ferguson identified a cycle of decline – collapsed fertility in the West leading to an ageing population and deeper fiscal crisis; flatlining productivity entrenching economic weakness; educational degeneration; and, reinforcing ARC’s mission, Ferguson said since the 1980s Europe and the English-speaking world had staged a cultural departure moving further to self-expression and secular values against traditional values.

He feared the cultural factor “may be the most profound reason why we are not all thriving” – a reference point to ARC’s core stance that political and economic outcomes are downstream of culture. In short, it’s the culture, stupid.

That leads directly to Costello’s interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and aspiring Republican politician. Costello said as treasurer he had improved the bottom line by the equivalent of 2 per cent of GDP. But the US budget was in deficit to 6 per cent of GDP. He politely asked: how could Musk and Trump deliver their promised $US2 trillion savings?

Ramaswamy explained: it was no real problem, it would be no “great feat”. It was only a matter of getting spending back to US levels in 2019, that’s six years ago and before the pandemic. It was a “technical and a moral” issue. It was about eliminating waste, fraud and spending people never authorised, getting rid of the “nanny state”.

It sounds good and smaller government is needed. But these ambitions and figures belong to a fantasy world.

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Nigel Farage, who spoke at ARC, ‘presents as a poor man’s Trump’. Picture: Andrew Parsons / Parsons Media

It highlights the bizarre nature of Trump’s America – a cultural campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion and identity politics that will have immense traction next to wild claims about tariffs and spending cuts that suggest a major failure of realism.

Commentator and author Douglas Murray said the times should be branded “The Age of Reconstruction”, the purpose being “to put the civilisation back together”.

He warned of the West’s fatal mistake: that in seeking to absorb so many migrants it began to pretend it didn’t have a culture.

Murray directly addressed school education: “In New York state, where I spend much of my time, an average spend for a state school is now per pupil around $US35,000 a year.

“For that sum, kindergarten through to (year) 12, students finish with only about half of them attaining basic literacy and about half basic numeracy.

“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.”

In writing of ARC, Stroud said: “We will know we have succeeded when we can send our children to school and know they are being taught the extraordinary story of our nations and will develop character, hope and a vision for the future. We have a rich inheritance of beauty in the arts, culture and architecture, whether in the music of Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Handel, the drama of Shakespeare, the poetry of Homer, Dante, Keats, Shelley, Blake or TS Eliot, the paintings of Michelangelo and da Vinci or the great cathedrals of Europe.”

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Commentator and author Douglas Murray warned of the West’s fatal mistake: that in seeking to absorb so many migrants it began to pretend it didn’t have a culture. Picture: Andrew Parsons / Parsons Media

One of the most powerful speeches came from Marshall, making clear that the conservative movement is pledged to fight the spirit and policy detail of the renewables-dominated energy transition. This is now a frontline struggle where Trump’s impact will be far-reaching.

With British Labour now in office and Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, Marshall said there was an “emerging split between the continents” on net zero. He said Britain, leading the G20 on emission reductions, had got the trade-offs wrong. It was “wrecking our industrial base”, “impoverishing our people” and “destroying our ancient landscapes”.

“What I’m describing is a European problem, a Canadian problem and an Australian problem,” he said. “These countries have been infected by an ideological zeal which is leading us to sacrifice our economic prosperity and our people’s livelihoods all for the sake of making some fractional changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

Electricity costs for industrial users in Britain were now five times that of the US and seven times that of China. Germany was following Britain in “economic suicide”. Renewables were theoretical low cost but able to function only as part of an energy system balanced by other providers. Britain had enough gas reserves in the North Sea to cover 35 years of consumption yet the UK had refused to grant any new oil and gas licences. The message is manifest.

The politicians pretend to be in control but they’re not. They trade in promises and predictions that cannot be delivered. This is the nature of the energy crisis and transition. Governments of all persuasions are gambling with their economies and the living standards of their peoples.

Australia won’t be exempt. The campaign against net zero is coming and will intensify.

Centre-right politics in Britain is badly fractured, split between the discredited Conservative Party, now led by a black woman, Kemi Badenoch, and Reform UK, a populist party surging since the 2024 election, headed by Nigel Farage. Both leaders spoke at ARC. While Farage presents as a poor man’s Trump, he operates within the British parliamentary system where the pose of a populist president is unavailable.

Badenoch, facing a daunting task to revive Tory fortunes, said of Britain that “we see so many social and economic challenges that we doubt ourselves”, while Farage asserted the Conservative Party was “not on the right” because it had delivered high taxes, illegal migrants and net zero enshrined in law.

Speaking on the theme of “Responsible Citizenship and the Social Fabric”, one of the strongest messages at ARC came from clinical social worker, author and parent guidance expert Erica Komisar, who made clear that parents are primarily responsible for the plight of today’s children.

In her longer conference paper, Komisar said the “tear in the social fabric” was undeniable.

She said: “We are raising children who are self-centred, self-focused and without the inclination or ability to take responsibility or to sacrifice for others. This change is occurring despite the research that shows how happiness is tied to the ability to give to others and giving to others is tied to happiness.

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US academic Erica Komisar.

“Our children are affected in many ways from this shift towards self-centredness. Some are just less happy, more dissatisfied and more bored with their lives. Others are more obviously symptomatic, suffering from depression, anxiety, ADHD, suicidal thoughts, personality disorders and loneliness – all of which are on the rise.”

The culture is at the heart of the issue. Komisar quoted Pew Research that 18 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds do not want to have children and only 45 per cent of young women in the poll want to have kids.

“They feel that having children is a burden which would require them to sacrifice time, money and personal freedom,” Komisar writes. “When they do have children many do not want to raise them themselves.

“The repercussions of three generations of self-centredness and a lack of empathy mean parents are modelling their selfishness to their children.”

The cultural transformation has seen men and women being taught that children were “an afterthought to their education, career and personal goals”. Komisar said: “If we place our ambition above those we love there is a price to pay.”

In her advice on parenting, Komisar said: “Prioritise your children over your work or any of your other pursuits.” She warned of the myth that women “can do it all at the same time”. The culture, however, cultivates the notion that the individual is more important than the family or community. The wider environment beyond the home is important – Komisar said it was best to raise children in “caring, faith-based communities which promote self-sacrifice, volunteerism and empathy”.

In conclusion she said: “It is only by changing ourselves that we can change the path for our children and that we can change the world.” Core point: again, it’s the culture, stupid.

Paul Kelly travelled to London as a guest of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.
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This episode covers a range of topics, from Donald Trump’s unexpected return to the presidency to unconventional proposals like transforming Gaza into a luxury resort. Alongside these, they explore the evolving landscape of trade policies, the growing influence of China, and efforts to reconnect with core American values like the pursuit of opportunity and stability—what many call the American Dream.​
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The conversation delves into Heritage’s perspective on strengthening self-governance, addressing China’s advances in technology, and reassessing how alliances function in today’s global environment. Kevin offers straightforward insights into issues like the conflict in Ukraine, the potential role of tariffs in economic strategy, and the cultural challenges that have sparked debate across the West. Together, they examine how conservative approaches might influence policy and leadership, not just in Washington but in capitals around the world, providing a window into the ideas driving this moment of transition.​
​
Kevin D. Roberts, PhD, was named President of The Heritage Foundation in October 2021. Roberts previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), an Austin-based nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute and the largest state think tank in the nation. Kevin also hosts The Kevin Roberts Show, exploring politics and culture.​
 
JohnDe said:
Britain had enough gas reserves in the North Sea to cover 35 years of consumption yet the UK had refused to grant any new oil and gas licences. The message is manifest.
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JohnDe said:
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ARC conducted a debate on the proposition “that protection makes us poorer” – virtually a truism – and took a vote on the floor showing protection won over free trade 46-45 per cent. Here in a forum that champions economic freedom and markets. Did the 1000 delegates from Trump’s America deliver for protection?​
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Quotes are from the article posted.

Having been involved in rather a lot of discussions, meetings and other debate over the past 30 years on all this, I'll make a broad observation as to what the problem is.

Engineers, industrialists, scientists, military strategists and the like tend to think long term by nature. If you tell then you're thinking 30 years ahead, they'll be quick to point out that's the absolute bare minimum and you should try and improve on that if at all possible.

Market economists, politicians and MBA's tend to think the exact opposite. Tell them you're doing x because we'll need that 20 years from now and they'll say it's a complete waste and "cross that bridge when we come to it". The thinking of the two groups couldn't be further apart.

Now if we use gas as the example, you won't find an engineer or military strategist who thinks the UK or Australia have been wise in what they've done. Both countries having ran through their economic gas reserves at an unnecessarily rapid pace by choosing to use gas in place of coal for baseload electricity (UK) or simply exporting it (Australia). The argument from an engineer, industrialist or military strategist is it'd be much wiser to use gas only for high value purposes, for example running factories or cooking food, thus maximising the lifespan of the resource and avoiding future reliance on imports at high cost and from geopolitically problematic countries. To use gas for base load electricity that can easily be done using more abundant resources, or to simply sell it all, is a tragic waste.

On the other side the MBA's, market economists, lawyers and politicians will counter that with an argument based around net present value, the interests of shareholders and free market ideology. They'll argue that if we've found gas then the aim is to get it out of the ground as quickly as possible, turning it into money, and that the future will take care of itself. Money in the bank today is far more valuable than money earned 30 years from now they'll argue.

Go back 50 years and the West was run by technocrats. It was the engineers, industrialists, scientists, military strategists and the like who called the shots indeed in many cases politicians gave them virtual autonomy to make things happen. That was the prevailing approach for an extended period and made the West the envy of everyone else.

Then it changed and today you'd be hard pressed to find anything at all where anyone technical is truly in charge. Follow the chain of command upwards and ultimately you'll end up with a lawyer, MBA, politician or economist. Rarely will you find anyone with a STEM background at the top.

From a personal perspective I saw it coming but that's not a claim of brilliance, simply because so many others saw it coming too. Putting aside the gas and looking at it more broadly, the problem with focusing on the short term is that tomorrow does come.

If you're 20 years old well then 30 years into the future seems like an eternity. Too long to worry about "they'll work something out" becomes the thinking. But if you're 50 years old well you remember being 20, it doesn't seem all that long ago, and you're consciously aware of how little has really changed in that time and that had we made bad decisions 30 years ago then no, we wouldn't have been able to "work something out" at least not without adverse outcomes.

Which brings me to the next point - age.

The technocrat decision makers were invariably a few decades old and had plenty of experience both in their profession and in life generally. Versus the modern day decision makers who tend to be much younger, often literally straight out of uni into writing policy.

Australians would be truly shocked if they realised where much of our policy originates. Rationally you'd expect that if you went to a physical office and found the people doing it, then you'd be surrounded by a lot of serious looking 50-something year olds with grey hair and glasses. People who've spent decades working in whatever field, who've learned everything about it, and are now advising government on the subject. People for whom advising government on policy is their last job before retirement, passing on knowledge for future generations. People who were hired for their technical knowledge of the subject.

In truth if you went there that's not what you'll find. Rather you'll find a lot of young people who haven't even seen the thing they're writing policy about, let alone have any practical experience with it. It's their first job not their last, all their knowledge coming straight from uni.

Now it gets even worse than that once you realise what they studied at uni.....

In saying that it's not personal, I've nothing against economists, MBA's, lawyers or even politicians. It's more nuanced than that and comes down to the needing to put experts in charge if we want high performance.

If the subject is music, decisions need to be made by musicians, composers, audio engineers and so on. Because you don't need to listen to more than a few seconds of a song to work out that it's "corporate", was produced to appease the demands of someone who knows nothing much about music, and is devoid of all artistic merit.

If the subject is law well getting advice from a lawyer is a good idea yes. Keep the engineers away from it, because they're just not very good at it.

If the subject is business administration well then an MBA is a relevant qualification to be making decisions certainly. Tradies usually aren't much good at this one, so keep them away from it.

If the subject is engineering then an engineer is the right person to make decisions. Anyone with a wordy qualification just isn't qualified so keep away.

And so on, same with everything. It's not just about DEI, it's broader - we need competent people making decisions. Administrative people making decisions about administrative things is a good idea yes, as is technical people making decisions about technical things. Where we're going wrong is with deeming a degree, any degree, to be an intelligence test and ending up with those with no relevant qualifications or experience calling the shots on important matters.

Quite simply we need to get back to genuine expertise being the basis of hiring, of decision making and so on. It's nothing personal as I said, there's a place for the economists, lawyers and so on it's just not in doing things that'd be better done by someone with technical knowledge of the subject, that's all.

That loss of technical competency and focus in the West extends right down to individual business level here in Australia. Personally I've done formal written exams and practical assessments simply to progress within the same business and that used to be a pretty common thing in technical workplaces, generically referred to as a barrier exam.

Those who hadn't passed the exam, either because they'd failed it or simply hadn't attempted it yet, weren't simply not paid at the rate that comes with having passed it. Oh no, they weren't allowed to do the associated work either unless under direct supervision as a training exercise. Because letting anyone who hasn't proven their competence near important or dangerous things is just asking for disaster.

Suffice to say such a concept is far less common today where it's anything goes, near enough is good enough, in most places. What happened is non-technical people in personnel, Human Resources, people and culture as it's now called in modern progressive workplaces determined such "hard" approaches to assessing staff competency weren't acceptable and must stop. And so we have people employed to do technical things hired by non-technical people and asked purely non-technical questions during the interview. Processes that ensure those with the best "cultural fit" are hired - never mind if they're competent to do the job.

So it comes down to putting the right people in charge. Sometimes that's someone with a law or business degree, sometimes it's someone with an engineering or other scientific degree, sometimes it's someone who's just proven beyond all doubt they know all about it despite not having any fancy bits of paper hanging on the wall. But we always need competence. :2twocents
 
Smurf1976 said:
I reckon there's a simpler explanation.

Now here's an old photo and yes it's from the US:


Now what do you see there? Well I see men and women, working side by side, making a product that was high tech in its day when that photo was taken.

Who in their right mind would throw that away, send everyone off to do a degree for the sake of a degree that doesn't qualify the holder to work in any recognised profession and ship real wealth offshore to other countries who now run the factories whilst we engage in made up non-jobs?

Answer that and you'll have answered where the Left ran off the rails and made the Right seem at least slightly more rational.

In all honesty I very much doubt most Americans really like Trump. It's just that they've had it with globalisation, inconsistent social ideology and apparent disdain for the working class from the other side.

I mean seriously, who came up with this:

Let's not mess about here. This is nothing more than getting poor people off the roads in order that the rich can more quickly travel from A to B. That's the sort of thing the Left should be going in all guns blazing to fight head on.

What the Left have forgotten is there's an awful lot of people like me. People whose personal circumstances are middle class but their politics is and will always be working class as a matter of principle. People who don't like Trump or conservative politics in general, but who feel the other side has actively turned against them. :2twocents
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Most aspirational working class people, who want to see a future for their kids and grandkids, think exactly the same.

It is deplorable the way that Government has become a career path for hacks, rather than a calling for people with integrity to stand up, now those with that ethos are torn down or scared to stand up.

We really should be ashamed at the state Australian politics has become IMO.
 
Smurf1976 said:
Now if we use gas as the example, you won't find an engineer or military strategist who thinks the UK or Australia have been wise in what they've done. Both countries having ran through their economic gas reserves at an unnecessarily rapid pace by choosing to use gas in place of coal for baseload electricity (UK) or simply exporting it (Australia). The argument from an engineer, industrialist or military strategist is it'd be much wiser to use gas only for high value purposes, for example running factories or cooking food, thus maximising the lifespan of the resource and avoiding future reliance on imports at high cost and from geopolitically problematic countries. To use gas for base load electricity that can easily be done using more abundant resources, or to simply sell it all, is a tragic waste.
Click to expand...
I had a manager ( with a double degree in Electrical and mechanical engineering) of the energy company, tell me that it is a travesty to be burning gas to make electricity, it is the best and most versatile fuel we have and it shouldn't be wasted going through a boiler or gas turbine to make electricity.

Then again I've had muppets on the forum that I know SFA, so there you go, there are smarter people than the experts smurf unfortunately they are self anointed. :roflmao:
 

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