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On 11/8/2018 at 11:18 AM, cadete said:

Seriously the Democrats need to reassess what the fuck they are doing, in a two party system to actually win power you need to target the middle... not just your own increasingly out of touch rusted on spiteful voters.

At this point I cannot see how Trump wont be re-elected in two years time.

I expect Trump to be re-elected not because the Democrats do what they are doing. Instead because in the USA it is rare for Presidents not to have two terms. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Herbert Bush being the only ones post WWII.

Additionally, more people voted for the Democrats than they did for the Republicans. It is hard for me to fully grasp the American federal system because the Australian system is so ingrained in me and I know that they are not compatible.

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On 11/10/2018 at 5:46 PM, NewConvert said:

I expect Trump to be re-elected not because the Democrats do what they are doing. Instead because in the USA it is rare for Presidents not to have two terms. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Herbert Bush being the only ones post WWII.

Additionally, more people voted for the Democrats than they did for the Republicans. It is hard for me to fully grasp the American federal system because the Australian system is so ingrained in me and I know that they are not compatible.

I took account of the two term thing when I made my original post... also it George Snr not Herbert Bush.

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On 11/10/2018 at 5:46 PM, NewConvert said:

Additionally, more people voted for the Democrats than they did for the Republicans. It is hard for me to fully grasp the American federal system because the Australian system is so ingrained in me and I know that they are not compatible.

That can happen in Australia too.
Beazley had more votes than Howard in 1998

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1998

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1 hour ago, Deeming said:

That can happen in Australia too.
Beazley had more votes than Howard in 1998

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1998

The Western Suburbs of Sydney have been deciding Australian Elections for a long time, Howard was particularly good for a Lib at appealing to lower-middle class voters from this region.

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On 11/13/2018 at 9:48 AM, Deeming said:

That can happen in Australia too.
Beazley had more votes than Howard in 1998

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1998

 

On 11/13/2018 at 11:19 AM, cadete said:

The Western Suburbs of Sydney have been deciding Australian Elections for a long time, Howard was particularly good for a Lib at appealing to lower-middle class voters from this region.

I think that one major difference in the electoral system between teh USA and Oz is that the sat boundaries are drawn by the federal parliament and for whatever reason the gerrymandering has not been so prevalent. When we say that particular regions have been deciding elections it is not because of gerrymandering but because the people are relatively evenly divided in their political outlooks.

The other thing that we don't have the same population disparity between states which affects the Senate. As an example North Dakota gets two senators with a population of under 800,000 but Texas gets two senators with a population of over 28 million. The worst case we have is Tasmania with 525,000 and New South Wales with a population of nearly 8 million.

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14 hours ago, NewConvert said:

 

I think that one major difference in the electoral system between teh USA and Oz is that the sat boundaries are drawn by the federal parliament and for whatever reason the gerrymandering has not been so prevalent. When we say that particular regions have been deciding elections it is not because of gerrymandering but because the people are relatively evenly divided in their political outlooks.

The other thing that we don't have the same population disparity between states which affects the Senate. As an example North Dakota gets two senators with a population of under 800,000 but Texas gets two senators with a population of over 28 million. The worst case we have is Tasmania with 525,000 and New South Wales with a population of nearly 8 million.

One of the biggest examples of Gerrymandering is South Australia, the way the Coalition did it originally and then the ALP are both works of art IMO. 

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  • 1 year later...
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Getting away from the usual topics...I found this rather interesting. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-15/canada-conservative-party-erin-otoole-speeches-australia-link/12884606

Extract:

"He said he was a firm believer in capitalism and "free enterprise" because they always led to the "most-efficient outcome", but sometimes the most-efficient outcome "does not always perfectly align with our national interest".

"It is more efficient and affordable to make masks, ventilators and gowns in China," he said.

"But as we have learned, to our cost, it is not in our national interest to make those things in China.

"So I will say this — when the most-efficient outcome does not align with our national interest, a Conservative government will ensure that the national interest comes first."

He then complained about the way in which economic indicators dominate life.

"Free markets alone won't solve all our problems," he said.

"GDP growth alone is not the be-all and end-all of politics. The goal of economic policy is more than just wealth creation.

"We need policies that build solidarity, not just wealth."

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19 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Getting away from the usual topics...I found this rather interesting. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-15/canada-conservative-party-erin-otoole-speeches-australia-link/12884606

Extract:

"He said he was a firm believer in capitalism and "free enterprise" because they always led to the "most-efficient outcome", but sometimes the most-efficient outcome "does not always perfectly align with our national interest".

"It is more efficient and affordable to make masks, ventilators and gowns in China," he said.

"But as we have learned, to our cost, it is not in our national interest to make those things in China.

"So I will say this — when the most-efficient outcome does not align with our national interest, a Conservative government will ensure that the national interest comes first."

He then complained about the way in which economic indicators dominate life.

"Free markets alone won't solve all our problems," he said.

"GDP growth alone is not the be-all and end-all of politics. The goal of economic policy is more than just wealth creation.

"We need policies that build solidarity, not just wealth."

Close to my thinking. In my instance is that GDP does not allow for risk/insurance. Hence so many of our medical products are made by various companies in China making it nationally a single point of failure hence the freaking cost. So there was no insurance in the form of sufficient stockpile (akin to a battery) and no alternative supplier nation. Sure we saved a few pennies over 30 years but now the bill has come in.

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1 hour ago, NewConvert said:

Close to my thinking. In my instance is that GDP does not allow for risk/insurance. Hence so many of our medical products are made by various companies in China making it nationally a single point of failure hence the freaking cost. So there was no insurance in the form of sufficient stockpile (akin to a battery) and no alternative supplier nation. Sure we saved a few pennies over 30 years but now the bill has come in.

And what disturbs me is that I don't hear anyone at a Government level talking about changing anything. Just returning to the situation we were in before COV-19.

Stockpile is actually of little use in many situations unless they are ginormous.  At one point the Vicgov was proposing to stockpile a few million single use face masks. IIRC the stockpile was going to be less than one mask per Victorian - wouldn't have lasted too long...

We need to restructure our economy. This is what Morrison and Co. should be focussing on rather than taking smartarse shots at State Governments.

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2 hours ago, jw1739 said:

And what disturbs me is that I don't hear anyone at a Government level talking about changing anything. Just returning to the situation we were in before COV-19.

Stockpile is actually of little use in many situations unless they are ginormous.  At one point the Vicgov was proposing to stockpile a few million single use face masks. IIRC the stockpile was going to be less than one mask per Victorian - wouldn't have lasted too long...

We need to restructure our economy. This is what Morrison and Co. should be focussing on rather than taking smartarse shots at State Governments.

I was actually thinking of stockpile for primary health care workers otherwise there would be issues such as quantities (as you said ginormous) and often limited lifespan. The second source would also need time to ramp up production. The general population would have to live with it until new stock arrives.

The problem with politicians is that they are not likely to have the necessary skilset  to develop an alternative (plus the current lot are wedded to ideology rather than pragmatism). The bigger concern is that the public service mandarins (treasury, reserve bank, productivity commission) have been so debased that they are also wedded to an ideology rather than pragmatism. Our universities are also not up to the task. This is my concern.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't understand how Australia thinks it will benefit from these repeated spats with China. I would have thought it's fairly obvious which country holds the  power. Having spent years sending most of our manufacturing to China, and heavily dependent on it for trade, what do we gain?

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1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

I don't understand how Australia thinks it will benefit from these repeated spats with China. I would have thought it's fairly obvious which country holds the  power. Having spent years sending most of our manufacturing to China, and heavily dependent on it for trade, what do we gain?

You need to stand up to the bully at some point though. I'm sure if the masses that kept silent through the early part of the Nazi regime had spoken up earlier then history would have gone much differently.

China has gotten itself into a position where it can economically strongarm countries into compliance, its fantastically clever strategy. The countries dependent on China only continue to weaken their position by delaying the point they decide enough is enough though, so i think standing up to them before its too late is critical.

Perhaps others view it differently, but China taking the US's place as the world's policeman would be a terrible result for freedom and democracy.

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49 minutes ago, bt50 said:

You need to stand up to the bully at some point though. I'm sure if the masses that kept silent through the early part of the Nazi regime had spoken up earlier then history would have gone much differently.

China has gotten itself into a position where it can economically strongarm countries into compliance, its fantastically clever strategy. The countries dependent on China only continue to weaken their position by delaying the point they decide enough is enough though, so i think standing up to them before its too late is critical.

Perhaps others view it differently, but China taking the US's place as the world's policeman would be a terrible result for freedom and democracy.

Valid point. But I'm not sure getting hot under China over an image published on a website is worth a trade fight. If we're really serious about China's growing influence then we need to look at a whole lot of things not just those that bubble to the surface from time to time. Business migration , property transactions and international students included. 

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3 hours ago, jw1739 said:

Valid point. But I'm not sure getting hot under China over an image published on a website is worth a trade fight. If we're really serious about China's growing influence then we need to look at a whole lot of things not just those that bubble to the surface from time to time. Business migration , property transactions and international students included. 

Totally agree.

FWIW i actually think that we are doing what no-one else has dared to do yet, but many are looking on and taking notice, and dare i say it, applauding us for our courage. If the rest of the West follows, a big if perhaps (but anti-CCP sentiment is also very strong globally atm), we may well be able to credit ourselves with actually changing the world for the first time in our history.

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Hard call on this one. We are a liberal democracy that needs to be defended from within and without. It is a strength and a weakness. Unlike China we cannot ban the iron ore companies from exporting to China (actually there are laws that enable the government to do this but no trigger point exists - thankfully in some ways). So whilst we are getting some exports battered the ones that matter to China are not.

And we are not without fault - we have had governments of all colours do deals with Chinese enterprises without allowing for risk of things going pear shape (and don't get me started on risk). We treated China as if they were New Zealand. And now that the Gang of Four has been resurrected in the form of Xi Jingpin our political class has been left floundering.

And Scott Morrison does not have a way with words the way that Hawke or Howard. And that is a big part of the problem.

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2 hours ago, NewConvert said:

Hard call on this one. We are a liberal democracy that needs to be defended from within and without. It is a strength and a weakness. Unlike China we cannot ban the iron ore companies from exporting to China (actually there are laws that enable the government to do this but no trigger point exists - thankfully in some ways). So whilst we are getting some exports battered the ones that matter to China are not.

And we are not without fault - we have had governments of all colours do deals with Chinese enterprises without allowing for risk of things going pear shape (and don't get me started on risk). We treated China as if they were New Zealand. And now that the Gang of Four has been resurrected in the form of Xi Jingpin our political class has been left floundering.

And Scott Morrison does not have a way with words the way that Hawke or Howard. And that is a big part of the problem.

We actually agree.

Actually it’s not just Morrison. Things started going pear shaped with Kevin “Do what I say” Rudd and the trend kept going.

We could do a few things from here in the retaliation space, but all come under the category of “cutting off your nose to spite your face”, so are best avoided.
Ultimately bullies never respect people who kowtow. Best to stick the course, though it will come at a price. 

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3 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

We actually agree.

Actually it’s not just Morrison. Things started going pear shaped with Kevin “Do what I say” Rudd and the trend kept going.

We could do a few things from here in the retaliation space, but all come under the category of “cutting off your nose to spite your face”, so are best avoided.
Ultimately bullies never respect people who kowtow. Best to stick the course, though it will come at a price. 

Good shout. The trick here is there's a fine line between cutting your nose off to spite your face, and making a stand on moral, ethical and ideological grounds. The Chinese know this too well and will 100% use it against us.
IMO full credit to Albo and the Labor party for coming out and backing Morrison for taking a stand rather than seizing a political opportunity that will serve no-one but themselves in the short term.

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2 hours ago, NewConvert said:

Hard call on this one. We are a liberal democracy that needs to be defended from within and without. It is a strength and a weakness. Unlike China we cannot ban the iron ore companies from exporting to China (actually there are laws that enable the government to do this but no trigger point exists - thankfully in some ways). So whilst we are getting some exports battered the ones that matter to China are not.

And we are not without fault - we have had governments of all colours do deals with Chinese enterprises without allowing for risk of things going pear shape (and don't get me started on risk). We treated China as if they were New Zealand. And now that the Gang of Four has been resurrected in the form of Xi Jingpin our political class has been left floundering.

And Scott Morrison does not have a way with words the way that Hawke or Howard. And that is a big part of the problem.

Morrison is a blundering oaf. We desperately need a statesman who can tread the fine line between making a stand diplomatically and really upsetting the rest of the necessary relationships between the two countries.

Edited by jw1739
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3 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

No country on earth would have meekly accepted that tweet.

imagine what China would have done if we’d created a Hong Kong one?

It's very peaceful when you don't use "social media" at all. A lot of people should try it.

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9 hours ago, NewConvert said:

Hard call on this one. We are a liberal democracy that needs to be defended from within and without. It is a strength and a weakness. Unlike China we cannot ban the iron ore companies from exporting to China (actually there are laws that enable the government to do this but no trigger point exists - thankfully in some ways). So whilst we are getting some exports battered the ones that matter to China are not.

And we are not without fault - we have had governments of all colours do deals with Chinese enterprises without allowing for risk of things going pear shape (and don't get me started on risk). We treated China as if they were New Zealand. And now that the Gang of Four has been resurrected in the form of Xi Jingpin our political class has been left floundering.

And Scott Morrison does not have a way with words the way that Hawke or Howard. And that is a big part of the problem.

Lol, this is a bit of a tangent, but I never thought I would ever hear someone say that Howard had 'a way with words'.

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58 minutes ago, malloy said:

Lol, this is a bit of a tangent, but I never thought I would ever hear someone say that Howard had 'a way with words'.

I think he's more generally saying that Morrison's CV just isn't in the same class as Hawke or Howard. He's where he is by default.

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1 hour ago, malloy said:

Lol, this is a bit of a tangent, but I never thought I would ever hear someone say that Howard had 'a way with words'.

 

52 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I think he's more generally saying that Morrison's CV just isn't in the same class as Hawke or Howard. He's where he is by default.

Correct JW. Howard was painful to listen to because he was no orator but if you read his transcripts he was measured in his words in a way that Morrison is not. To give an example at the start of COVID-19 back in March/April (geez that sounds like a lifetime away)  Morrison said he was going to the footy (NRL) but less than 24hours later crestfallen he said that it was not wise. Howard would never have said that in the way Morrison did - Howard would have added that his plans were to go to the footy but to keep their ears to the ground because things may need to change. Same with calling for an international inquiry into COVID-19, Howard would have said it differently because after SARS & MERS & Ebola the international scientific came together to review and study. All Morrison had to say was that he hoped that the same spirit would prevail. Howard was savvy enough to have known this and would have said it differently placating both the Chinese and Trump.

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1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

I think he's more generally saying that Morrison's CV just isn't in the same class as Hawke or Howard. He's where he is by default.

I gathered that was what NC meant, but my comment was merely expressing my amusement that Howard be described in such a way since, as NC stated above, Howard was 'no orator'. A word that is largely synonymous with the term 'way with words'.

I do not doubt that Howard was an intelligent man and knew what he wanted to say he was very hard to listen to at times, granted he did improve in his later years as PM.

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7 hours ago, Young Polak said:

Half expected Australia to respond that China shouldn't have a say while they are exercising ethnic cleansing and building concentration camps for Uighur Muslims in their country 

Its very interesting the lack of mainstream coverage that gets. Perhaps suggests that China's tentacles are everywhere and people are too scared of the financial repercussions.

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4 hours ago, bt50 said:

Its very interesting the lack of mainstream coverage that gets. Perhaps suggests that China's tentacles are everywhere and people are too scared of the financial repercussions.

Because nobody in Australia really cares in the first place, and then you're quite right that we are unequal combatants and China has the whip hand.

China is very clever at creating an issue out of nothing - as an example, publishing a cartoon or doctored image - and then waiting for the target to blunder into making an ill-thought out response - and then retaliating with whatever was really on the agenda - for example slapping a tariff on imports. Rather like a spider spinning its web and waiting for the fly to entangle in it.

Unfortunately Morrison blundered into the web. He should have held his fire until he had thought out a diplomatic response - still making his point ("regret that the image was published") but in such a way as to NOT give China a reason to retaliate ('the Australian Government takes its international obligations seriously and has given top priority to a close examination of our alleged actions in Afghanistan as described in this report").  Either Morrison ignores his advisors or the latter are inadequate in the first place.

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1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

Because nobody in Australia really cares in the first place, and then you're quite right that we are unequal combatants and China has the whip hand.

China is very clever at creating an issue out of nothing - as an example, publishing a cartoon or doctored image - and then waiting for the target to blunder into making an ill-thought out response - and then retaliating with whatever was really on the agenda - for example slapping a tariff on imports. Rather like a spider spinning its web and waiting for the fly to entangle in it.

Unfortunately Morrison blundered into the web. He should have held his fire until he had thought out a diplomatic response - still making his point ("regret that the image was published") but in such a way as to NOT give China a reason to retaliate ('the Australian Government takes its international obligations seriously and has given top priority to a close examination of our alleged actions in Afghanistan as described in this report").  Either Morrison ignores his advisors or the latter are inadequate in the first place.

I disagree tbh, i think Morrison knows he can't be seen by the public as kowtowing to China. I think the majority mood across the country is very much fuck them, and that we'd rather deal with the economic repercussions than sell our soul to the commies.
That's just my perception obviously, but i would certainly think thats the strong theme from most people i have spoken to about it.

Obviously in reality we'd like to make friends and keep the economic game rolling, but i do think its starting to become abundantly clear that China have been playing a very different game than the rest of the world for a long time now and we were all too naive to realise it.

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17 minutes ago, bt50 said:

I disagree tbh, i think Morrison knows he can't be seen by the public as kowtowing to China. I think the majority mood across the country is very much fuck them, and that we'd rather deal with the economic repercussions than sell our soul to the commies.
That's just my perception obviously, but i would certainly think thats the strong theme from most people i have spoken to about it.

Obviously in reality we'd like to make friends and keep the economic game rolling, but i do think its starting to become abundantly clear that China have been playing a very different game than the rest of the world for a long time now and we were all too naive to realise it.

I personally would welcome disengaging ourselves from the policies and politics of other countries, including the US, and becoming a far more independent country than we have been in the past, including what I regard as insane military adventures in various countries. If that is the case then there's no point in us simply trying to return to a Pre-COVID-19 economy, which is heavily dependent on China. If we rebuilt our economy then sure, we can be far more independent. But I don't really see us trying to do that so far.

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8 hours ago, bt50 said:

Its very interesting the lack of mainstream coverage that gets. Perhaps suggests that China's tentacles are everywhere and people are too scared of the financial repercussions.

I would have thought that its because it is difficult to get actionable information. The reason why the topic is on this forum is because the MSM has picked it up but information from the area is hard to get (the CCP runs an effective hermetic seal - not as good as North Korea but effective none the less). And as it has been noted there are too many dollars to take a moral stand.

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16 hours ago, Young Polak said:

Half expected Australia to respond that China shouldn't have a say while they are exercising ethnic cleansing and building concentration camps for Uighur Muslims in their country 

If and when we make a noise about that, China will merely get stuck into us about our record with our indigenous people. We're hardly squeaky clean. And many Australians don't care a fuck about that either.

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23 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

If and when we make a noise about that, China will merely get stuck into us about our record with our indigenous people. We're hardly squeaky clean. And many Australians don't care a fuck about that either.

They're vastly, vastly different and separated by many years as well.
That's not to say there is anything pleasant or acceptable about what happened back then and our failure to 'solve' the problem to this day, but its kinda nowhere near the same as rounding up a group of people and putting them into a detention camp in a modern setting either.

There's not a country or race on earth that has a 'clean' history if you want to go back far enough so whilst its important we learn from the atrocities of the past, its not particularly helpful to dwell on them either imo. China are doing that now, despite all the lessons that humanity should have learned over the past 80 or so years

Edited by bt50
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34 minutes ago, bt50 said:

They're vastly, vastly different and separated by many years as well.
That's not to say there is anything pleasant or acceptable about what happened back then and our failure to 'solve' the problem to this day, but its kinda nowhere near the same as rounding up a group of people and putting them into a detention camp in a modern setting either.

There's not a country or race on earth that has a 'clean' history if you want to go back far enough so whilst its important we learn from the atrocities of the past, its not particularly helpful to dwell on them either imo. China are doing that now, despite all the lessons that humanity should have learned over the past 80 or so years

These tit-for-tat exchanges are not about reality, they're about perceptions. Whilst our worst dealings with indigenous people may be in the past, we're not exactly world leaders in the field today. And what we think isn't the point, it's what's said about us that others believe.

And I was not actually equating the two , merely saying that's the type of retort that China would use.

Interestingly they are now saying that Morrison's reaction to the image and it's tweet(s) was "unfortunate."

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  • 1 year later...
  • 7 months later...

Surprised that British politics did not a get a run. For me, I would like to thank the English people for choosing Brexit (neither the Scots nor the Irish voted for it) and a particular shout out to the Conservatives who voted for Liz Truss.

First, I always wondered how strong was the evidence as to how much international trading contributed to the GDP of a nation. Thanks to Brexit, the evidence indicates that it is very strong as the British economy has shrunk from 90% of German GDP down to 70% of GDP over six years. That is very conclusive in my books.

Secondly, by electing Liz Truss the world got to see what the beginning of a Libertarian economy would look like. And the markets convulsed before the public did. Hence, the idea that libertarian economics is what the world needs is a dangerous fallacy. The net result of those 45 days was that the British economy went from, according to BoJo, a raging success being talked down by remoaners to Rishi!'s we are in one of the gravest economic perils.

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