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- 14 February 2005
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I agree totally with the point you're making.
Pragmatically though, well as I see we're not going to fix the problem here so there's no point killing ASF, a valuable resource as a stock market forum, for the sake of making a point. I think Joe's been pretty patient thus far in that regard (and so far as I can work out he's also firmly in the "free speech" camp).
It's a practical reality though. We're not going to fix it here and if it's going to kill the forum well then that's not really helping anyone.
Looking at the whole thing more broadly, none of this is new. There were people talking about quite a bit of what's lead to the current overall situation in Tasmania during the 1980's.
Yes, Tasmania. A place that's of minimal importance nationally and of absolutely no relevance whatsoever in terms of global politics. Quite a few knew what was coming though.
Brilliant foresight? Not really no. Just that a few had realised that the train had left the station and that unless something changed, the ultimate destination was a given. Once the West started down the track of currency debasement and deindustrialisation the rest was pretty much inevitable unless drastic change occurred. You can't rip real wealth away from the masses and hollow out the entire economy without serious repercussions. Once that started, the rest was really just detail as to how it unfolded.
By about 1995 the West was basically doubling down on money printing and the Fed got going with perpetual bubble blowing. Give or take a few years for each detail it's when the whole going on holidays, bidding up house prices and watching reality TV thing was getting going and manufacturing was increasingly grinding to a halt whilst the current account deficit / surplus stopped being considered as even newsworthy whereas once it was headlines.
There was some debate on another thread on ASF about nuclear power and I pointed out that purely as a means of generating electricity for use on land it doesn't really stack up economically in Australia and that the reason to do it would be if the real aim was plutonium for military purposes and the electricity was just a convenient by-product. Fossil fuels are cheaper or if we don't want those due to emissions well then renewables with large scale storage are also cheaper.
That debate got a bit tense but somewhat surprisingly nobody mentioned the elephant in the room.
What's this assumption that we don't want plutonium? What's this assumption that Australia won't be pursuing a nuclear weapons program at some point? Don't anyone start mentioning treaties - all that sort of thing is falling apart around us so let's not pretend anything there.
I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the world is marching toward war at an alarming pace and that if the US falls in a heap or can't be relied upon well then realistically Australia's in a very vulnerable position. I won't be surprised at all if Australia massively ramps up its military and that includes acquiring nuclear or other "mass destruction" weapons. I also won't be surprised if such a move comes in the near future. Things are escalating rapidly and the pace of that escalation is itself increasing.
Free speech? Well I sure as hell agree there's a problem there. It's just that I can't see how stuffing up this forum is going to fix it.