Meanwhile in China

Originally posted by pierogi: ↑

Another good article by Michael Pascoe going where the rest of our slumbering journalists won't.

the “danger” is the pent-up frustration of 130 million Americans who can’t access $400 in an emergency but who are watching rich Americans get fabulously richer, thanks to central bank policies of ultra-cheap money boosting asset prices.
If you have money, you can borrow more money for extremely little to buy real estate and stocks that are being pushed up in price by cheap money, making them even more unaffordable for those without money.
No, it’s not good policy but it’s also in place in Australiawith the same outcome of increasing wealth inequality.
As the government starts to tighten fiscal policy next year,the Reserve Bank’s cheap money for asset price inflationwill remain as the main stimulus prescription.
Without progressive tax and wealth redistribution policies, without evidence that positive reform is possible, when the dominant policy direction has been by the powerful for the powerful, the grievances of the disempowered can only mount. Pressure cookers have limits.
The US Republican Party has persistently skewed towards the lower-tax, smaller-government mantra of the “neoliberal” Right in recent decades. In turn, that has been slavishly mimicked by the usual local suspects, wealth’s politicians, mouth pieces and media.
It’s hard to comprehend what Australian politicians could find so attractive about an increasingly divided, very rich country that can’t even achieve good universal health care and a modicum of gun control.
We are well behind the US example, but dedicated folk are working on it.
Flattening our progressive income tax scales, demonising social security – nowhere better illustrated than by the consequences-free Robodebt scandal – and constantly pushing for cheaper, “more flexible” labour are symptomatic.
In the short term, it can make the rich richer – but history says it doesn’t end well.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/markets-and-shares/2020/11/25/wall-street-civic-unrest-pascoe/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20News%20-%2020201125

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Two excellent posts @pierogi....

The culture war against the ABC is a critical issue for our democracy. It is only siren the Howard PMship that such has become an issue and this, imo, has its foundation on the ABC reports around the 2000 address Howard made to first Australians where he "rejected" aboriginal claims and refused to acknowledge the deepening and widening of the Gap.

Howard blamed the ABC and claimed left bias because the whole address was televised and the news reports showed Howard shouting at aboriginal people, which then resulted in many audience members standing and turning their backs on Howard.

Prior to this there were claims that all journalists were left wing, claims that all journalists were right wing, claims that the ABC was a hotbed of communism and claims that the ABC was in the pocket of politicians.... no evidence of a lack of journalistic integrity and balance on the part of the ABC was every revealed, yet the clearly Right wing media of the Murdoch businesses were allowed to go without complaint.

The Flak that is fired at the ABC is undeserved yet the right wing political view holds such rancour against the ABC that is promoted by the Right wing media that such claims are taken as valid. Howard was the first politician in Aus to use the strategy of repeating a lie often and confidently until the lie was accepted as truth.

The finest example of this was the Children Overboard affair and generally the against refugees and other immigrants. His election statement "We will decide who comes to this country and the manner in (sic) which they come" resonated with primal core fear of the "other" and promoted a xenophobia that has yet to disappear, while Howard promoted the idea of a larger population that echoed the Menzies call, and so was interpreted as true to Mention liberalism but was actually opposed to such as Howard planned a new "White Australia" policy in reaction to Hawke/Keating multi-culturalism.

This is propaganda in the Aus context - the Flak that destroys community and the division that promotes confusion and culture wars.