Thursday, 21 May 2026

Around the Traps 22/5/26

 It is time again  for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

vox wonk

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Wednesday, 20 May 2026

Defining anti-semitism

 It isn't hard to define anti-semitism however too many people want to have a definition which makes criticism of israel anti-semitic.

Jillian Segal came up with exactly that. This was not unexpected given she is a member of the jewish lobby ( they support the government of israel.) The government unfortunately gave in and supported this definition. Timid politicians do not like nuance! Both the ABC and SBS have rightly rejected the defiction. the Royal Commision has not.

what I find curious is that they adopt a controversial definition then sorta have a debate about the topic.

One of the problems of the definition is it aligns all jews anywhere with the government of Israel. Hence some people will criticize jews for supporting Israel committing genocide and war crimes against palestinians in Gaza when a lot do not. It also exacerbates the trope that jews serve two masters and Israel is the major one!

The rise in anti-semitism world wide is related to this. Iran's hand cannot be ruled out either as we know so well here.

It is not fair to ask every jew whether they support every action of the Israeli government just like it isn't fair to ask any muslim  whether they support the actions of any islamic terrorist.

If you wrongly define a  problem then you will not come up with a solution.

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Tuesday, 19 May 2026

the trump administration is totally corrupt

 The $1,776b slush fund is not the final straw, it is merely a very good example of a very corrupt system.

The DOJ is now the legal department for Trump not for the country. They have essentially lost the legal presumption of regularity. Basically because they have been caught out lying and playing loose with the truth

When comey was origginally imdicted we eventually found out from the magistrate judge it was done illegally. The illegal attorney told the grand jury things which we not part of the law. We do not know whether this was deliberate or simply ignorance.

It would not be surprising if this has occurred with Comey again and the Southern Law Poverty Centre. If I was a defendant I would be asking for an investigation of the grand jury every time a suspect indictment comes around.

This brings us to Todd Blanche. He used to have a decent reputation as a prosecutor. No longer. He no longer represents trump but he continues in his job as he does. Trump can only do his corrupt work if blanche okays it.  He signed off that the trumps will no longer have a tax audit. This shows he does not understand what a conflict of interest is not what ethics are.

It is up to the voters in the USA to do something about this. If not they deserve everything that occurs after that if not now. did they not expect a convicted criminal to conduct a lawless administration?????

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Monday, 18 May 2026

domestic politcs

 A few things have caught my eye.

tobaccy tax

The critics have lined up and are saying the g\overnment must cut the tobacco excise to reduce the blackmarket in this good. hold on Surely black market tobacco will always be cheaper then legal tobacco. That's right no matter how much you cut the escise black market tobacco will always be cheaper.

Notice how this argument completely misses out on the supply side. A lot of stores have opened up selling black market tobacco amongst other things. It reminds somewhat of my youth where videeo stores would sell black market porno videos.

Death taxes

This is quite a stretch. critics are alleging that under a trust a kid or kiddies will be taxed if both parents die BEFORE they 'come of age'. Now to be fair I am all in favour of death duties but this isn't that. This is in the extremely unusual situation of both parents dying the children would not get all the money the parents have left. My understanding this occurs if there is no trust anyway as children can only have limited income until they are taxed.

Negative gearing

Negative gearing where interest payments are higher than the rent received only encourages speculation not investment. An investor would require positive gearing. Read Saul Eslake.

Just to end on a related subject Mark the Graph on showing the budget in pictures


Yikes how could I forget Immigration.

Both the LNP and one nation want immigration slashed. Okay first hit are universities. Well they say Australian tertiary institutions should only be for australians. Okay that means more payments to them for the government because aussie students unlike overseas students are NOT full fee paying students. This is a lot of money. 

Most industries in regional australia are reliant on immigrants and/or people with tourists visas (backpackers for example). The building trade needs immigrants to continue to thrive. Count them out and it becomes harder to build houses. Immigrants also bring in more tax revenue than any take in benefits.


Saul Eslake again on a lot

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Sunday, 17 May 2026

Wars

 Russia/Ukraine

My how this has changed. Russia is now suffering shortages from soldiers, ammunition, petrol etc. Most former military people like Ben Hodges, Mick Ryan, David Petraeus etc are now saying russia cannot win. Ukraine has clearly learnt from their unsuccessful advances in previous years and their use of drones and drone technology have them being world class. They are killing russians in enormous numbers and are causing russian many troubles with their supplies etc. Crimea is looking  extremely vulnerable! Ukraine is not allowing russia supply crimea with anything much at all.

All this with hardly any support from the USA. The only problem appears to be war talk from Belarus.This could only be a panic move from Putin to move some Ukrainian soldiers from where they are.

Ukraine have clearly learnt from their mistakes and innovate to the nth degree. russia on the other hand carry on no matter what.


USA/Iran

Two great articles:

Trump like Putin severely underestimated his enemy. As Kagan  points out ( and I have stated before) Trump can only achieve his aims by having boots on the ground. That is highly risky politically. Add in the strait of homuz restricting traffic and the political cost to trump is far higher than those in charge in Iran. The mid-terms are coming. There are no fair dinkum elections in iran and if people protest they get killed.

Iran do not care if they upend the world economy if it harms the USA. Threats to Iran by trump have little effect as they have taken the best the USA can do and are still  going well. The US has wasted ammunition on Iran for nought and now have to plat catch up on producing more just when they are struggling to do so.

Their aim is to attack the US's gulf allies if the US attacks them. This has a two fold aim. firstly it is very bad for the world economy. It also destroys most gulf countries business model. No wonder they are cheesed off at trump!

From Iran's point of view they now know how important the strait of hormuz is to world trade. They understand the importance of asymmetric warfare is from the Russia/Ukraine war. They understand the weaknesses of the Gulf states and finally they now know they must possess a nuke otherwise these attacks will occur infinitum. ( The north korea strategy.)

Aals for the West the USA elected a cognitively challenged person of extremely low intellect who has the concentration of a cocker spaniel. Threats of more bombings are meaningless. What are they going to bomb???


Cuba

Trump is threatening cuba. Indeed some might say by blocking any oil he is committing a war crime as people would have dies and will die from a lack of electricity. This is bad for Cuba obviously and the only thing the embargo MIGHT do is to ignite popular feeling against the government. Whether this can be successful in toppling a government which does not have elections is aanother thing.

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Thursday, 14 May 2026

Around the Traps 15/5/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk

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Tuesday, 12 May 2026

the Budget

 Okay here are a few views:

(If any others come in late I will  link them as well.)
I agree with all three and like ross Gittins am pleasantly surprised by the budget.
A couple of points.
  1. It is about time someone di something about CGT and negative gearing ever since howard and costello gave first home buyers the middle finger. The benefits are highly skewed towards very high income earners See
  2. A lot of people are missing the productivity improvements. they are somewhat nebulous as the  programs have few figures etc but they are substantive.
  3. The structural deficit improves which means there is mild contraction in fiscal policy and overall a deficit of only 1% of GDP is small just ask the yanks.
  4. The improvement in fiscal policy relies a lot on NDIS cutbacks. Will the pollies have the backbone for it. however the improvements are more long term rather than short or even medium term

I laughed at Mark Bouris's reaction. Can someone ask him how many negatively eared properties he has please. It is a lot!!!

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Monday, 11 May 2026

Antony Green on Farrer

 I have put this article on yesterday's post but on reflection it deserves a post of its own.

Here it is

farrer-by-election-post-mortem-where-to-now-for-the-coalition

this is easily the most thoughtful piece on the result I have read. The most basic message. One Nation is an electoral threat to the ALP BUT they are an existential threat to the LNP!!!


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Sunday, 10 May 2026

The Farrer by-election.

 Before I start here are some articles:


Let us put this into perspective. One Nation has taken a seat from Liberal heartland and made it a safe one nation seat.
This is despite a miserable campaign from their candidate and one nation having to 'release from staff a convicted rapist. ( Imagine the furore if albo had to get rid of an convicted rapist on their staff!).

Nothing stuck. voters did not care

The independent candidate was labelled a teal because wait for it she took some money from climate 200. Did her policies mirror those of Teal mp's? Well no.
Thus you had sheer hypocrisy. Criticising the one nation candidate was a personal attack but doing it to the independent candidate was fair game.

This result means that in the regions there is no safe Liberal or National seat. One Nation on this result will take a lot of 'safe' LNP seats. ( remember what I said about Littleproud resigning!). The Nationals will become a rump party!
The more the Liberals ( and Nationals) advocate one nation type policies the more their safe city seats become 'Tealy'.

Do the math. It is possible one nation becomes the largest party after the next election. However one problem for one nation is that preferences will flow to them from either the Liberals or Nationals in regional australia however it is doubtful this will be as consistent in the outer western seats. Just remember a person voting Liberal will know preferences is now not just an academic exercise!

The major question now is whether voters will overlook one nation quirks and failures. They clearly did not do this with Farley and with at least one candidate in the SA election. At present they do not get interviewed by anyone who is not seen as sympathetic to them.

We live in interesting times

Late but a great article. Antony Green on farrer-by-election-post-mortem-where-to-now-for-the-coalition

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Thursday, 7 May 2026

Around the Traps 8/5/26

 it is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia


Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk


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Wednesday, 6 May 2026

ISIS Brides.

 The last of the ISIS brides are coming home. I see a number of people who want to deny them passage back here even though they are Australiaan citizens. Just remember a number will be charged with crimes if only  for being in an area Aaustraalians cannot be.

On the whole subjest I agree with Ben Saul.

Just remember these are the last of the group. They started coming back when the LNP was in government. We have not had a whiff of anyone in the 'group' doing anything illegal let alone engaging in terrorist activity.

Just a thought but what do you think would occur in  their behaviour towards the group if you showed kindness. Part of this will be people accepting they made wrong decisions and therefore have to pay the consequences/punishment. 

Mothers  usually care more about bringing up their kids than ensuring their children become orphans for a cause. If the women believed that then it would have already occurred!!


I forgot to add most if not all of the brides went there as teenagers and males in ISIS are known as highly misogynous.

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Tuesday, 5 May 2026

The RBA had no choice

 well the RBA raised rates.

see:

and heavily related that great star Mark the Graph

I want to go back into time and do a mea culpa.
I was one of those who thought the RBA was too slow in cutting rates. Everything around us at the time was showing inflation was dropping quickly and wages was NEVER a problem.

That proved wrong. It was wrong becaause the speed limit of the economy was now a lot lower than we previously thought. CBA economic research was first onto this ( after being like me hawkish on rate cutting.) Mark the Graph was also on the job writing brilliantly on this topic.

This also had consquences for fiscal policy. I was sympathetic towards the government. If the RBA is raising rates the budget should be at worst balalnced as Ken Henry has noted. A Government tightening fiscal plicy as the RBA is tightening monetary policy means avoiding a recession becomes quite hard.
However now wee all onow fidcal plocy has to be contractionary. The structural deficit is around $20b and this has to be cut.
I see nothing wrong with the government informing the RBA how much it will cut it. Neither wants to see a recession however the RBA does not want to see any supply side effect turn nito rising inflation!

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Monday, 4 May 2026

The Bondi Royal Commision

 I am not happy with the Royal commision.

To my mind there are two things it needs to make judgement on.

  1. Were the intelligence and security forces doing their properly in this instance.
  2. Why did the two murderers do what they did

I am underwhelmed that Dennis Richardson gave up the ghost on the first. On the surface, as I have constantkly said, it is very hard to stop lone wolf events unless they are incredinly stupid. ( They have been thus far in Australia. We need to see in black and white whether they did their job !

We were told by all and sundry and presumably with the blessing of the various agencies that the two people were very influenced by ISIS. However we have had some politicians like our over-rated premier and some in the media say they were influenced by happenings in Gaza. 

The BIG problem here is the inherent contradiction between these beliefs. IF you are a fervent supporter of ISIS then how in the hell do you support Gazans when ISIS hates them to death. This would be cognitive dissonance big time. Another  problem was the  planning started well before October 7 and the consquences! 

Killing jews in Sydney makes no sense if you believed this for various reasons which are easily apparent.On the other hand killing jews in sydney does make sense if you are a disciple of ISIS.

On a related matter I am dissapointed the council of sydney have not allowed speakers talk on why globalise the Intifada should be banned as a slogan. I have written before how absurd it is for people to believe their lives are threatened in sydney over this phrase. Clearly a lot of education is needed. I hope the speakers can do this otherwise the event will be wasted.

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