NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
22nd May, 1914 : The federal Government is offering 233 square miles of pastoral land in the Northern Territory for lease over 42 years. The rent will be set at three shillings per square mile, per annum, for the first 21 years. The leases specify stocking rates and fencing requirements. The Government is also considering starting a dairy industry in the Territory.
[99 years later still considering]
…from the quill of Antisthenes the Younger
I guess that our readers are aged about fifteen years and over, mostly over and some I suspect are well over. Therefore some ancient music for them in appreciation of their support.
Don’t knock nostalgia; if you live another ten or so years, you’ll fondly remember the good old times of Julia Gillard’s benign and prudent rule. Only joking. Hopefully.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
21st May, 1903 : The Tariff League was launched today in London at a meeting to promote a preferential trading system within the Empire. Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, is its sponsor and he expects support across party lines. About 3,000 businessmen have already signed a petition demanding rearrangement of Empire fiscal duties. This follows Chamberlain’s recent Birmingham speech in which he called for consolidation of the Empire through strengthening the colonies. His argument is that the self-governing lands overseas will then be sure to rally behind the Mother Country in the event of attack on Britain by a coalition of hostile European nations. MP Winston Churchill was doubtful about Chamberlain’s tariff reform ideas. He said it was important not to disregard the people at home.
Ludwig von Gress
This is one of the more profound analysis of power and current world developments, almost always misunderstood and misintepreted by the main stream i.e. marxist media.
From Stratfor, with permission:
Anarchy and Hegemony
Robert D. Kaplan
Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well. For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as the balance-of-power system. And that led to frequent wars. East Asia, by contrast, from the 14th to the early 19th centuries, had its relations ordered by a tribute system in which China was roughly dominant. The result, according to political scientist David C. Kang of the University of Southern California, was a generally more peaceful climate in Asia than in Europe.
The fact is that domination of one sort or another, tyrannical or not, has a better chance of preventing the outbreak of war than a system in which no one is really in charge; where no one is the top dog, so to speak. That is why Columbia University’s Kenneth Waltz, arguably America’s pre-eminent realist, says that the opposite of “anarchy” is not stability, but “hierarchy.”
Hierarchy eviscerates equality; hierarchy implies that some are frankly “more equal” than others, and it is this formal inequality — where someone, or some state or group, has more authority and power than others — that prevents chaos. For it is inequality itself that often creates the conditions for peace.
Government is the most common form of hierarchy. It is a government that monopolizes the use of violence in a given geographical space, thereby preventing anarchy. To quote Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, only where it is possible to punish the wicked can right and wrong have any practical meaning, and that requires “some coercive power.”
The best sort of inequality is hegemony. Whereas primacy, as Kang explains, is about preponderance purely through military or economic power, hegemony “involves legitimation and consensus.” That is to say, hegemony is some form of agreed-upon inequality, where the dominant power is expected by others to lead. When a hegemon does not lead, it is acting irresponsibly.
Of course, hegemony has a bad reputation in media discourse. But that is only because journalists are confused about the terminology, even as they sanctimoniously judge previous historical eras by the strict standards of their own. In fact, for most of human history, periods of relative peace have been the product of hegemony of one sort or another. And for many periods, the reigning hegemonic or imperial power was the most liberal, according to the standards of the age. Rome, Venice and Britain were usually more liberal than the forces arranged against them. The empire of the Austrian Hapsburgs in Central and Eastern Europe often protected the rights of minorities and prevented ethnic wars to a much greater degree than did the modern states that succeeded it. The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the Middle East frequently did likewise. There are exceptions, of course, like Hapsburg Spain, with its combination of inquisition and conquest. But the point is that hegemony does not require tyrannical or absolutist rule.
Stability is not the natural order of things. In fact, history shows that stability such as it exists is usually a function of imperial rule, which, in turn, is a common form of hierarchy. To wit, there are few things messier in geopolitics than the demise of an empire. The collapse of the Hapsburgs, of the Ottoman Turks, of the Soviet Empire and the British Empire in Asia and Africa led to chronic wars and upheavals. Some uncomprehending commentators remind us that all empires end badly. Of course they do, but that is only after they have provided decades and centuries of relative peace.
Obviously, not all empires are morally equivalent. For example, the Austrian Hapsburgs were for their time infinitely more tolerant than the Soviet Communists. Indeed, had the Romanov Dynasty in St. Petersburg not been replaced in 1917 by Lenin’s Bolsheviks, Russia would likely have evolved far more humanely than it did through the course of the 20th century. Therefore, I am saying only in a general sense is order preferable to disorder. (Though captivating subtleties abound: For example, Napoleon betrayed the ideals of the French Revolution by creating an empire, but he also granted rights to Jews and Protestants and created a system of merit over one of just birth and privilege.)
In any case, such order must come from hierarchal domination.
Indeed, from the end of World War II until very recently, the United States has performed the role of a hegemon in world politics. America may be democratic at home, but abroad it has been hegemonic. That is, by some rough measure of international consent, it is America that has the responsibility to lead. America formed NATO in Europe, even as its Navy and Air Force exercise preponderant power in the Pacific Basin. And whenever there is a humanitarian catastrophe somewhere in the developing world, it is the United States that has been expected to organize the response. Periodically, America has failed. But in general, it would be a different, much more anarchic world without American hegemony.
But that hegemony, in some aspects, seems to be on the wane. That is what makes this juncture in history unique. NATO is simply not what it used to be. U.S. forces in the Pacific are perceived to be less all-powerful than in the past, as China tests U.S. hegemony in the region. But most importantly, U.S. President Barack Obama is evolving a doctrine of surgical strikes against specific individuals combined with non-interference — or minimal interference — in cases of regional disorder. Libya and Syria are cases in point. Gone, at least for the moment, are the days when U.S. forces were at the ready to put a situation to rights in this country or that.
When it comes to the Greater Middle East, Americans seem to want protection on the cheap, and Obama is giving them that. We will kill a terrorist with a drone, but outside of limited numbers of special operations forces there will be no boots on the ground for Libya, Syria or any other place. As for Iran, whatever the White House now says, there is a perception that the administration would rather contain a nuclear Iran than launch a military strike to prevent Iran from going nuclear.
That, by itself, is unexceptional. Previous administrations have been quite averse to the use of force. In recent decades, it was only George W. Bush — and only in the aftermath of 9/11 – who relished the concept of large-scale boots on the ground in a war of choice. Nevertheless, something has shifted. In a world of strong states — a world characterized by hierarchy, that is — the United States often enforced the rules of the road or competed with another hegemon, the Soviet Union, to do so. Such enforcement came in the form of robust diplomacy, often backed by a threat to use military power. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were noted for American leadership and an effective, sometimes ruthless foreign policy. Since the Cold War ended and Bill Clinton became Continue reading
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
20th May, 1907 : Thousands of wine growers rampaged through the streets of 
Perpignan last night, burning down the town hall and police station in a protest at high taxes and the adulteration of wine by producers in other regions. Twelve people, including three policemen, are reportedly injured during the demonstration which began peacefully. More protests are planned.
[So French have been at it continuously for more than 100 years!]
…from the quills of the dead white poets
František Gellner (1881 -1914)
Miloval světa divy,
moře, ledovce, ženy,
pohled náš roztoužený,
lačný a divý.
Požárem plálo to v hlavě,
a vášeň zmítala těly.
A naše ruce se chvěly
nedočkavě.
Krvi má, proč jsi kdys vřela?
Touho, pročs vyletěla?
Duše má, jak jsi zcela
zapomněla, cos chtěla!
Hledí oči v dny příští
chladny, lhostejny, němy.
A pohár padá k zemi
a pohár se v střepiny tříští.
…from the quill of Antisthenes the Younger
Very long time ago I had a discussion with an older, Europe-born friend, who expressed a strong disapproval of United States of America and of the example she is setting. Pressed, he said, “America is not what it used to be. I liked America then“. That was well before Obama made America what it is today. Now even Americans are getting worried, and the slogan: My country – right or wrong is fading into oblivion:
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
18th May, 1956 : A search party sent out to look for a 19-strong French patrol, missing in the mountains between Algiers and Constantine, came upon a pool of blood near tents of Arab nomads. In a silo close by, the searchers found the soldiers’ bodies, decapitated and hacked to pieces. This is just the latest in a series of atrocities perpetrated in the increasingly savage uprising of Arab nationalists. Last week 20 French settlers were massacred, and their farms burned down, some 20 miles west of Oran. In the Tlemcen region, near the Moroccan border, 16 French soldiers have been killed and twenty taken prisoner.
[Resembles Obama's disaster at Benghazi recently.]
…from the quill of Antisthenes the Younger
Despite my original intention, I could not watch Swan’s speech for long. It was not just the hypocrisy of the Labor apparatchik delivering yet another soured borscht of promises and falsehoods; I expected that, but the gallery behind him put me off. Gallery of nodding toys such as we occasionally still see on the dashboards of old Holdens, but not so cute. They were nodding in unison as trained seals, without blushing at the most outrageous lies. They form the most disastrous government Australia ever had the misfortune to have.
I wonder – Why do they hate Australia so much? They were Australians once, at least some of them. We got some sort of explanation once from comrade Wong for turning out as she turned out – she mentioned some real or imagined racial slight while she was a teenager, but the rest of them? Abusive fathers? Bad toilet training? Bullying? Many kids were bullied at school and remained honest. Future psychiatrists will have a messy but fertile field to plough.
If you think I exaggerate, read in the Financial Review the spiteful, illiterate ramblings of Latham, who, with the full support of the Labor party and the mainstream media, almost became a Prime Minister. One would not be surprised if after the election, whenever it may be, Gillard gets a column of her own in that extreme Left Melbourne tabloid The Age in order to reveal the most real Julia.
Many centre and slightly right of the centre commentators such as Akerman, Bolt and Blair write about Gillard and her gang as “trashing the Labor brand”. I disagree – Australian Labor Party under Gillard is showing what it really is and what it stands for. As Gillard said at some party congress, “We are us”. Yes, they are them, no doubt about it. Would those commentators say that Hitler was trashing the National Socialism brand?
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
17th May, 1951 : British and Australian troops have thrown back a mass attack on their lines by bugle-blowing Chinese infantry, south of Chunchon. After being battered by tanks and artillery, the Chinese withdraw, leaving 400 dead on the moonlit battlefield. The attack was part of a general offensive which is still in its earliest stages. So far the Chinese have not shown the “win all, lose all” determination of their attacks last month, in which the Gloucesters, under Lieutenant-Colonel Carne behaved with such gallantry. Details are still emerging of their stand at the Imjin River against overwhelming odds. One man, “Big Bill” Speakman, running out of ammunition, threw rocks and beer cans at the Chinese.
[Nothing much changed since. Chinese are still advancing and Australians still are throwing rocks (iron ore, uranium ore, bauxite and coal lumps) and beer cans and wine and wheat to no avail.]
Also, see my post Managing Public Opinion.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
16th May, 1956 : “We are glad to …(help) in the development of weapons which are a threat to no one but are intended as a deterrent to anyone who might wish to threaten others.” With these words, Professor Ernest Titterton, an expert in nuclear physics at the Australian National University, summed up the reasoning behind the development of A-bomb and tests of this awesome weapon in Australia. Professor Titternon said today that as long as peace had not been guaranteed, the modernising weapons was an obligation in the defence of freedom. That Britain was conducting tests in Australia was only natural, since the threat of radioactivity was little cause for concern in the expanse of the Central Australian desert.
[So far so good]
…from the quill of Antisthenes the Younger
Yesterday we were regaled with another, already fifth?sixth? instalment of an escapist fiction from the World’s Greatest Treasure, Wayne Swan. Colloquially and euphemistically know as “The Budget”, it has nothing to do with a budget such as a family or a business may have. Hardly any figures in it are real, assumptions are piled upon assumptions; it is an attempt to escape from reality and electoral consequences. A shell game, if you will.
It is true that beside the journalists there were also many normal people waiting with a baited breath for the grand finale of the budget speech – will he commit seppuku? Or at least resign? Of course, that would be too much to hope for. Integrity in politicians is rarer than hen’s teeth. Furthermore, resigning for dishonesty and incompetence could set a bad precedent and could leave the coalition in power without any elections.
I may digress here. It is an old saying that we believe what we wish to be the truth. Many, including people who ought to know better, like Andrew Bolt, seem to believe that we will have elections on the 14th September this year, only because Gillard(!) said so. Gillard, a person who has managed to break her every promise so far, perhaps a record. Some people remain for ever young and naïve. I think that September election is likely, but not certain. Gillard may hope that something will turn up. It is after all, her personal philosophy.
There were strange signs pre-budget night. Firstly, Labor media hack Laurie Oakes, renown for his infallibly wrong predictions, unwavering adherence to the Labor Party line and having a future PM (Kevin Rudd) cleaning his toilets, turned on the Labor treasurer in a manner hitherto reserved for conservative and semi-conservative politicians. Could it be that Gillard plans to dump Swan and then in her usual comradely fashion blame everything on him?
Swan: Well, I think what we have to continue to do is what we have always done …
Oakes: … Your budget speech last year – would you agree in retrospect it makes hilarious reading?
Swan: Well, it’s certainly true …
Oakes: … You said for example, “The deficit years of the global recession are behind us, the surplus years are here”. Now, that’ll have people laughing in the aisles…
Swan: … There is no credible economic forecaster who predicted this nature of revenue write-down for this year …
Oakes: Joe Hockey predicted it.
Swan: Well, Joe Hockey’s always, always out there preaching doom and gloom.
Oakes: He’s been proved right.
Swan: No, he hasn’t been proven right …
Oakes: We read in the newspapers that in the budget you’ll set out a plan to get back into surplus by 2016-17. Is that right?
Swan: Well, we’ll set out our plan …
Oakes: Why would anyone believe you after the fiasco of last year’s budget? … Are you going to get up tomorrow and start your speech saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, circumstances can change, so what I’m saying tonight can be taken with a grain of salt”? … Another part of your speech that reads like stand-up comedy from last year, you were boasting about spreading the benefits of the mining boom via your mining tax. That tax produced no money, people see that as another bungle … The opposition says you’ve created a $5 billion black hole because you forecast a slowing down of asylum-seeker boat arrivals when in fact records are being broken by the day … That’s cooking the books?
One would expect this sort of questioning from a real journalist, not Oakes.
Secondly, a few days ago Wayne Swan discovered the truth: “The truth is that the global economy is capable of changing dramatically, quickly, and having different effects on the economy at different times.” Better late than never, one could say, but – this person is in charge of Australia’ financial future. He discovers something so obvious now?
That truth is good as an excuse for the past fiasco, but as far as the future is concerned: “However Mr Swan, who recently warned long-term forecasts can be unreliable, says his own 10-year funding plan for schools and disability care will be “absolutely” meaningful.” About as meaningful as anything he ever said.
I have to admit that being neither a market nor an economic commentator, I was not surprised: “In a surprise to markets and economic commentators, even after being softened up with pre-budget warnings of a current $17 billion revenue write-down, Mr Swan has revealed a fiscal shortfall for 2012/13 of $19.4 billion in place of what was forecast to be a budget surplus of $1.1 billion…”
The real figure is probably close to $22 billion. Yet, according to Newspol, on two-party preferred basis, 44% of voters wish to be ruled over by the ALP, exhibiting a firm belief in a cargo cult – vote Labor and someone will provide. Perhaps the good times will never end.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
15th May, 1989 : In the austere vastness of the Great Hall of People, Mikhail Gorbachev shook hands with the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, today. However, the historic moment was totally overshadowed by the extraordinary events taking place a few hundred metres away, with up to 500,000 students and supporters from every walk of life occupying Beijing’s huge Tiananmen Square calling for democracy. Incredibly, in a country where respect for authority is paramount, many of the marchers’ slogans have been openly defiant. One aimed at deng, until recently regarded as China’s saviour, read: “Down with the emperor!” Until now the demonstration has been peaceful.
[The Tienanmen massacre occurred not long afterwards, on 4th June 1989. Communism showed its bloody fangs once again.]
Ludwig von Gress
The latest Australian defense white paper or rather a white feather paper is not to be taken too seriously. I didn’t even bother to download it. Anything our politicised public service produces is suspect and, in any case, after the elections LibNats will f…k up Australia’s defense in their own sweet way.
Beside reassuring communist China that Australia is theirs for asking, the document does a little more. It might confuse voters, who take no interest in Australia’s future, and it allows the usual gaggle of Labor apologists in the media to cherry-pick this or that in order to claim that this socialist Government is not a treasonous one.
Not that much can be expected from the Coalition. The politicians of all colours salivate at the prospect of lucrative contract from the Chinese state corporations, when their time of bamboozling benighted voters comes to the end. Poor fellow, my country.
Mr. Medcalf, the director of the international security program and Mr. Brown, the military fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, wrote in theWall Street Journal of 6th May, 2013:
“…Canberra on Friday released a major defense white paper, the first since 2009. The document offers a glimpse into the current state of official thinking on the threats facing Australia and how to deal with them. It reveals a government that seems less than fully convinced about the seriousness of Asia’s strategic challenges, with potentially significant implications both for Australia and for its allies.”
It is unlikely that this Government has any convictions whatsoever. It certainly is not convinced that Australia is worth saving.
“One point jumps out in particular. The government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard uses the white paper to present a subtle line on China, declaring that Australia “does not approach China as an adversary.” The paper describes China as a military partner, and holds out the prospect of bilateral exercises and an Australia-China Military Culture and Friendship week.”
This with the regime which killed over 77 million of its citizens so far, and with its human rights record so atrocious that even the left leaning Amnesty International noticed.
This marks a big rhetorical change from the last white paper, released by Ms. Gillard’s predecessor Kevin Rudd in 2009. That spoke of fending off “a major power adversary” (code for China) through a much stronger Australian Defense Force armed with new-generation submarines, cruise missiles and joint-strike fighters. Beijing certainly got the message, and the white paper’s release and clumsy diplomatic handling exacerbated the political mistrust between the two.”
If I remember correctly, the previous White Paper was delayed to allow China to study it, and, presumably, recommend changes. Something may have got lost in the translation – Rudd’s Mandarin is only sufficient to impress Australian journalists.
“And in an intriguing twist, the white paper makes Australia the first country officially to define its region of strategic interest as the “Indo-Pacific.” This is semantics with a punch, since the term not only reflects East Asia’s economic and energy dependence on Indian Ocean sea lanes but also affirms that India belongs in the Asian power game.”
I didn’t go to Australian schools but I always believed that India is a part of Asia and a change from “Pacific’ or ‘Asia-Pacific’ to ‘Indo-Pacific’ thus means diminishing the region of Australia’s strategic interest.
“But there is one major problem that could undo all these alliance-friendly aspects of this white paper—how to pay for it all. The funding for Mr. Rudd’s ambitious white paper never materialized. And the new white paper sends confusing messages about how Australian governments, including a new one likely after September elections, will cope with alliance-burden sharing.
The problem is acute given the political pressure to keep Australian defense spending below levels that a challenging strategic environment requires. Since 2001, Australian defense spending hovered at around 1.8% of GDP. But last year it was slashed to just 1.56%.
Even that abysmally low figure is just a projection. The real figure, considering the “expertise” and “integrity” of the Treasury’s Left leaning public servants could be 1%.
“Australia’s Defense Minister Stephen Smith speaks of extracting a “peace dividend” akin to America’s now that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, and with it Australia’s, is winding down. But while Washington is cutting its defense budget from a relatively high 4.7% of GDP, Australia’s spending was already so low that the new cuts put it barely above Luxembourg on a per-capita basis. …
This could have a significant impact on Australia’s ability to stand alongside the U.S. and others as a confident ally at a time when other defense budgets in a turbulent region are rising rapidly. For example, Canberra is showing itself in no rush to acquire new submarines, even though it says it will press ahead with building 12 to replace its troubled fleet of six. If American force planners were counting on a big Australian submarine contribution to coalition operations, they may have to wait until the new boats are ready probably in the 2030s.[Fog of Chaos - Maritime will; Fog of Chaos – Strictly surface submarines]
“…Australians have fought alongside the United States every time it has fought a major conflict since the First World War. Their ability to do so in future will come under increasing question unless an Australian leader proves willing to turn around the decline in defense spending, and soon.” [Full article - Australia, America's Too-Frugal Ally]
There is no such leader even on the distant horizon.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
14th May, 1905 : Neck chains for Aborigine prisoners have been banned in Western Australia. Under new rules, the use of chains in prisons has also been prohibited, except as punishment or with the sanction of the Colonial Secretary. Under rules to protect natives, police will not be able to force Aborigines employed without a contract to stay with their employer. They will also move to stop native women boarding pearling boats and to punish crimes against native children’s morality.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
13th May, 1953 : One hundred and fifty thousand cattle from the wast and remote stations of the Northern Territory have begun a trek that will take some of them over 1,000 miles, and four to five months droving, to the railheads, markets and slaughterhouses of Central Australia, Queensland and Western Australia. This year’s overland movement is a record. Last year there was no droving because of draught, and the bullocks that would have gone then have been mustered for this year’s trek. The biggest single movement involves the Wesley stations which alone are sending 40,000 head.
[Senator Joyce in The Canberra Times on 9 May 2013.
“Fred Pascoe's family goes back a fair way in the Gulf, possibly about 40,000 years.
His family didn't meet a “whitefella” until 1904. That was his great-great grandfather, "Kangaroo". In Fred's words a "lusty" fellow who had seven wives. Fred jokes with a smirk that unfortunately that part of the family genes did not flow down.
Fred's great-grandfather started working the cattle that have been a fixture of the Gulf ever since. His love of the country was too strong for the city. He died six days after moving to town in retirement.
Now Fred manages his own cattle property. Cattle have given Fred and his family a additional connection to his country. Cattle are now part of their culture.
Cattle are part of the nation's culture too. The economy of the north depends on cattle. The truck drivers depend on them, the stock and station agents depend on them and even the local show and rodeo would not exist without them.
That's what makes the government’s bungling of the live cattle saga a few years ago so galling. It was an attack on a culture. A culture that has been built up over more than 100 years, and now threatened by a combination of government incompetence, the roaring of money printing presses in other countries and the failure of monsoonal rains.
We can't do much about that rain. I will leave that one to the local graziers and their God. We can, however, stop making bad policy decisions and start a debate about the high Australian dollar.
When we shut down the live cattle trade, we affect the food supply to a nation of more than 250 million people next door. Because of the undisputed barbaric acts of a small number of people in a very large industry we impugned an entire nation’s culture. The message was implicit but clear: we don't trust you enough to provide you with food anymore.
Our government engaged in a prejudicial policy condemning the many based on the actions of a few. Since then the Government has made little attempt to support our own domestic cattle industry or make amends with our largest neighbour.
Because governments caused these problems, there is a moral obligation on them to help solve these problems. On Tuesday, I attended a beef crisis forum in Richmond. In a town of only 500 people in the Gulf, a crowd of 500 turned up, in a mood, not to vent frustrations, but to propose solutions and to look for leadership.
One of those solutions was for the government to purchase 100,000 head of cattle to put an immediate floor price in the market. Because the live cattle trade fiasco has dropped demand by about 300,000 head of cattle a year, beef prices are plummeting. In Longreach, cattle sold for $20 per head last week. That's the equivalent of buying your scotch fillet for 10 ¢ a kilogram.
But the price of the dollar means our beef is still expensive to those overseas. More than 30 foreign central banks now hold Australian dollars, along with Google, Apple and Berkshire Hathaway.
The Botswana central bank is not diversifying into the Australian dollar because they share our love of a sunburnt country and wide, open plains, but because we are becoming a “safe haven” currency. Our exporters are paying their insurance policy.
Our terms of trade have fallen by 15 per cent, and economic growth is being downgraded. Still, our dollar remains relatively high.
The Reserve Bank recognised this on Tuesday by cutting interest rates, in part aimed at the high dollar. The Australian dollar is not a sacred cow.
The RBA has clearly announced that its monetary policy is now looking to target the dollar, and we have intervened directly in foreign exchange markets on 35 separate times in the past 24 years, including eight times since 1997.
Other nations are not as restrained as we are. The United States is now delivering quantitative easing at a rate of $85 billion a month. The Swiss have imposed a ceiling on their currency, and the new Shinzo Abe government in Japan is actively adopting policies to devalue its currency, by 20 per cent since last December.
Meanwhile, we are keeping our innocence and making life near impossible for those who we are relying on to figure ourselves out of our current financial mess. What’s the good of being pure, if you end up broke?”
Barnaby Joyce is the Nationals’ Senate Leader and the Opposition Spokesman for Regional Development, Local Government and Water.]
…from the quills of the dead white poets
William Shakespeare (1564 -1616)
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s decay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does makes cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
[From Hamlet]
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (ALMOST)
11th May, 1921 : With only a few hours to go before the expiry of the Allied ultimatum, the German Government has finally agreed to pay the war reparations. The issue had threatened to precipitate a crisis because of the vehement and well-known opposition by several Ministers from right-wing parties and their resignation would have brought down the Government. At the last minute their parties gave them special dispensation to stay. It was a pragmatic fudge because, although the reparations deal, which included disarmament and the trial of war criminals, was very unpopular with the German people, there was never any realistic hope of resisting it. Failure to agree would simply have meant an Allied occupation.
