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[Dard Ball Get]

How do you think the sledgehammer approach will work for Australia re China?

I hope we take them to the WTO like has been mooted

 

[Verdun]

I hope we take them to the WTO like has been mooted

Yep - totally agree.

Not sure we should have made some statements that we have though.

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

It's crazy what Americans view as left wing.

Even a staunch liberal voter in Australia could be seen as a lefty over there.

And anyone that leans to the left just with some views e.g. universal health care will be called a socialist.

Some of Nixon's policies would be considered left wing in America, and Hunter S Thompson said that Nixon would be a liberal compared to the post Reagan Republican party

 

[gringo2011]

In your opinion Biden will hold China to account more than Trump? That’d be a pleasant surprise

Biden is more likely to be interested in alliances like Australia than Trump. Trump was chaos, he shat the Chinese off but I'm not sure he was holding anyone to account. China is punishing us hard, there was no way we were getting help from him. China is ignoring international trade laws, while the US was doing the same thing, others weren't going to listen to them. The EU communities don't care about us, the UK has tried to make themselves an irrelevant isolated minnow and so all we have left is the US.

 

[gringo2011]

Disagree. Most people don't vote on economic grounds (which is fair because there's little between them on that anyway). They vote on social grounds. The "coastal elites" stereotype is mostly about the twitter left telling people they're wrong for living the way they've always lived. Until the left finds a way to moderate that tone, it's going to have trouble winning over the majority of any country.

That's probably fair but it goes deeper than that. Both sides right and left feel like politics abandoned them for corporate interests. The right think the "elites" are a bunch of transgender thought police hell bent on making them live on soy milk that control the media.... and the left think the "elites" are a bunch of fascistic corporate shills and billionaires that control the media. At the end of the day the money has all headed to the top of the food chain and less and less people are getting a share of the pie. Both sides are deeply disenfranchised by the system, Donald was just one sides representation of an alternative. The left has Bernie Sanders. While they all make the cash we fight over culture, gripping smaller and smaller chunks.

Biden isn't very promising IMO, he's going to be a tow the line for the corporates and billionaires but at least the country won't be in as much divided chaos. Trump was letting the wolf guard the sheep, Biden is letting the sheep have a king sheep. The difference now and 25 years ago is no big corporations or billionaires pay tax and the global trade system means manufacturing and coal jobs have been sold off overseas so that the bottom of the food chain workers have to fight for scraps.

 

[gringo2011]

Some of Nixon's policies would be considered left wing in America, and Hunter S Thompson said that Nixon would be a liberal compared to the post Reagan Republican party

I saw an article suggesting that Nixon had even contemplated a universal basic income. I can be bothered finding the one I read but there is lots on it. I also remember hearing on radio national an author saying that Nixon was moderate and losing him sent the party balance over to the radical right of the party and the Neocons got hold.

The bizarre tale of President Nixon and his basic income bill

In 1969 President Richard Nixon was on the verge of implementing a basic income for poor families in America. It promised to be a revolutionary step – had the President not changed his mind at the last minute. This is the incredible and largely forgotten tale of just how close the U.S. came to...

thecorrespondent.com

 

[gringo2011]

I don't see how "holding China to account" is really possible. We have no economy without them buying our resources, and people love buying cheap plastic Chinese crap. We gave them all the power in the relationship, now we just have to live with that.

Globalisation is good for someone but it isn't the masses. Chinese poor probably have more money but a worse life expectancy and are living in worse conditions. Big corporations do well because they don't have to pay anyone a living wage in the place that good are sold. Unfortunately it's a Ponzi scheme that will crash down when the people don't have money to buy their shit.

 

[StCicatriz]

I can’t find where I said more responsibile, only that’d I’d prefer his sledgehammer tactics over the lie down method.

What sledgehammer tactics? Are these the same ones that saw Americans lose jobs over his newly revised trade deal?

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

Globalisation is good for someone but it isn't the masses. Chinese poor probably have more money but a worse life expectancy and are living in worse conditions. Big corporations do well because they don't have to pay anyone a living wage in the place that good are sold. Unfortunately it's a Ponzi scheme that will crash down when the people don't have money to buy their sh*t.

The west has nations of consumers with no money to consume with.

 

[Dard Ball Get]

What sledgehammer tactics? Are these the same ones that saw Americans lose jobs over his newly revised trade deal?

Really, job losses?
Before the pandemic/election was in full flight, you had pundits on the left saying “love or hate trump, he’s presided over the best labour market in more than a generation.”
Let me guess, he inherited that from the previous administration?

 

[Pardon me]

Pucovski and Harris doing it again.

 

[Joffaboy]

Pucovski 64 n.o again. Harris 43 n.o Vic 0-115.

 

[Joffaboy]

Really, job losses?
Before the pandemic/election was in full flight, you had pundits on the left saying “love or hate trump, he’s presided over the best labour market in more than a generation.”
Let me guess, he inherited that from the previous administration?

Obama on average created more in his second term.

 

[Joffaboy]

Pucovski and Harris doing it again.

You watching? Pucovski is going at a rate of knots

 

[Pardon me]

You watching? Pucovski is going at a rate of knots

Yep, kicked the kids outside and lunch just ended. Nothing fazes the kid. Close call with a caught and bowled? Next shot: smashed to the boundary.
Hope we see him for the national side

 

[Dard Ball Get]

Obama on average created more in his second term.

True. The stimulus package helped that.
Now the ave wage is higher and unemployment down.

 

[gringo2011]

Really, job losses?
Before the pandemic/election was in full flight, you had pundits on the left saying “love or hate trump, he’s presided over the best labour market in more than a generation.”
Let me guess, he inherited that from the previous administration?

There is some truth to that though and the labour market there and here has moved to a more service based economy with less full time and permanent jobs on offer. People are working multiple jobs to pay their way and not get ahead etc. The living standards have dropped considrebaly in the last 30 years. In Australia you could buy a house car and have leisure time once, now it tales 30 years and 2 wages to pay off a house and work hours are longer, back then it was one person in 8 years.

Trump gave business confidence but it was also that they finally started to come out of the post GFC crash. It's not Obama either, conditions are sometime fertile sometimes not. Modern government policy is unlikely to have any real effect on job growth and if it does it's a fair way down the road.

Stepping away from China as the worlds manufacturing hub isn't a bad thing though and of all his policies that was probably his best. The problem is you can't half do it. You either freeze open global trade and play tariff lead isolation or you go all in. Part of the problem is the US has always bullied in trade agreements. You can't have different rules for different countries.

 

[bergholt]

The democrats are not on the left.

I suppose you think the right needs to moderate their bigotry as well?

Well yeah, if they want to win over the centre then definitely. But I'm generally on the left of the spectrum, so giving the right advice isn't necessarily something I'm interested in.

 

[bergholt]

Really, job losses?
Before the pandemic/election was in full flight, you had pundits on the left saying “love or hate trump, he’s presided over the best labour market in more than a generation.”
Let me guess, he inherited that from the previous administration?

Looks a lot like it!



Ignoring the pandemic spike, since the GFC the unemployment rate in the US has been dropping. Most of that time was under Obama's administration.

(From the Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-rate.htm)

 

[bergholt]

Diversify supply chains. Have a hard line in expansion. Address human rights issues.

I don't understand the second two points, but on the first - supply chains. Companies don't buy from China out of the goodness of their heart, they do it because it's the cheapest. If companies "diversify supply chains" then their shit gets more expensive. Then we all stop buying their shit, they lose market share, go out of business.

I don't see how supply chains can be sensibly diversified without the government stepping in big time.

 

[gringo2011]

Looks a lot like it!

View attachment 1006406

Ignoring the pandemic spike, since the GFC the unemployment rate in the US has been dropping. Most of that time was under Obama's administration.

(From the Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-rate.htm)

And again it was really recovering from the GFC spike so really external forces effect the labour market. Unless governments start to do a Roosevelt style New deal where large scale public works and taking over of essential services then the market dictates jobs. Trump did no large scale structural changes that would have had an obvious employment spike. Most decent sized enterprises pay little to no tax there anyway so it's not like dropping taxes actually does anything other than increase corporate profit.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

There is some truth to that though and the labour market there and here has moved to a more service based economy with less full time and permanent jobs on offer. People are working multiple jobs to pay their way and not get ahead etc. The living standards have dropped considrebaly in the last 30 years. In Australia you could buy a house car and have leisure time once, now it tales 30 years and 2 wages to pay off a house and work hours are longer, back then it was one person in 8 years.

Trump gave business confidence but it was also that they finally started to come out of the post GFC crash. It's not Obama either, conditions are sometime fertile sometimes not. Modern government policy is unlikely to have any real effect on job growth and if it does it's a fair way down the road.

Stepping away from China as the worlds manufacturing hub isn't a bad thing though and of all his policies that was probably his best. The problem is you can't half do it. You either freeze open global trade and play tariff lead isolation or you go all in. Part of the problem is the US has always bullied in trade agreements. You can't have different rules for different countries.

Serviced based economies suck, and its bizzare that they used that as the definition of "developed".

Just a food processing factory has a huge selection of different jobs for people with different skills.

We're dumbing it down.
Retailers ( who use more automation than ever , and more online sales ).
Lawn mower and coffee makers ( no offense mowman and Plugger ).

You used to to Uni and study Engineering or Science if you wanted to get ahead , but there is generally an oversupply of qualified people in those areas now, due to limits in opportunities. ( our governments have foolishly considered if we train more engineers we will have more engineering ).

Unless you can get into top end IT , or law, you may as well become a plumber or a sparky .

In Orstraya , we build houses to live in, and shops to shop at and roads to go from the house to the shops, while we all drink lots of coffee. Lucky we have a few overpaid white collar workers who can afford to get their lawns mowed.

We have a tonne of individual wealth on paper. But unless we can actually live with that wealth in another country , it all gets eaten up by our service industry.

 

[gringo2011]

I don't understand the second two points, but on the first - supply chains. Companies don't buy from China out of the goodness of their heart, they do it because it's the cheapest. If companies "diversify supply chains" then their sh*t gets more expensive. Then we all stop buying their sh*t, they lose market share, go out of business.

I don't see how supply chains can be sensibly diversified without the government stepping in big time.

I think we have to factor it in though. It was ridiculous that we couldn't supply ourselves with necessities for the pandemic because we have lost capacity to manufacture just about anything. If we had a war with China are we going to call them to equip us? It will be interesting to see if the world steps back into more localised economies after this. There is strong public sentiment for it on both sides of politic. It would be much better for the world not having shitty poorly made cheap items that go to land fill after 6 months. Corporate America probably has more say than the public though so not really likely.

 

[StCicatriz]

Really, job losses?
Before the pandemic/election was in full flight, you had pundits on the left saying “love or hate trump, he’s presided over the best labour market in more than a generation.”
Let me guess, he inherited that from the previous administration?

Well yeah the data supports that

 

[StCicatriz]

I don't understand the second two points, but on the first - supply chains. Companies don't buy from China out of the goodness of their heart, they do it because it's the cheapest. If companies "diversify supply chains" then their sh*t gets more expensive. Then we all stop buying their sh*t, they lose market share, go out of business.

I don't see how supply chains can be sensibly diversified without the government stepping in big time.

I think you answered it. Governments will step in from a national security point of view and to ensure supply chains remain open if shit hits the fan.

They will moving more to some of the other developed nations moving forward. For example the recent agreement with India.