Queenslanders go to the polls today in the State election. They get to chose between Anna Bligh, the incumbent for Labor, and Campbell Newman for the NLP who looks uncannily like my brother. Yesterday, Anna Bligh tweeted this video showing her taking on some other pollie types racing down schooners.
Today’s question is:
Tags: bligh, drinking, election, newman, queensland
To some it was a surprise that an African American was elected to the US Presidency in 2008. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is leading the charge for the Republican nomination in 2012. As of Friday, Romney has 562 delegates, according to CNN estimates, nearly half of the 1,144 delegates necessary to clinch the GOP (Grand Old Party) nomination. Santorum has an estimated 249 delegates.
Will he succeed? Will he go all the way? Let me know what you think.
Thanks.
Are we Westerners in any position to lecture the Chinese on how they should run their economy?
I don’t think so.
Its a hot topic given the fact that the Chinese economy has a healthy growth outlook.
Western Europe is deep in the doldrums, the UK is about to go into its third recession in five years or something.
It’s like we Westerners were all gung-ho to take advantage of globalisation when it suited us.
But now the tables have turned.
And power is shifting.
China gets criticised for not balancing the books when it comes to trade.
The countries leveling this charge against the Chinese should be looking at the opportunities to export to China.
That’s the only solution to a trade deficit. They have to make their economy and its output attractive to what will soon by the biggest economy in the world.
There’s also the constant back stabbing about China’s human rights policies.
As if the West has that sorted.
Western systems have concentrated wealth into the hands of the 1 per cent during the last 50 years while the Chinese lifted 600million people out of poverty.
The powers that be in the UK and other Westerns economies should be providing creative solutions that will drive economic growth over the long term.
Not pointing the finger at China and being all holier than thou.
I’m ashamed by the hypocrisy of the West. Short termism and diversionary tactics will get us nowhere.
This BBC podcast (The Forum) provides an excellent example of the sort of sermons that Western experts are pumping out without providing anything constructive on the home front.
When social media came into being it generated a significant groundswell of people that believed that it would be a positive thing for society and community.
By forcing businesses to become more transparent and distributing the means of media production it was argued that our society would change for the better.
This point of view probably peaked in 2006/7 but bubbled below the surface for a lot longer than that.
I fully subscribe to this point of view. I still do.
But there are doubts and questions in my mind.
2011 hasn’t done anything to allay my fears.
Since 2008 we’ve seen major abuses of poor by power elites and institutions in almost every sphere of our existence. Yes, these abuses have been exposed but take the global financial crisis as an example and you can see that little has actually changed despite the exposure of the wrong doers.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Occupy movement spring up but I don’t believe that any Government is actually really listening. Yes, they have a voice. Yes, they’ve gained some media coverage for their struggle and point of view but to what end. Will anything really change? The strong arm tactics employed by the police in the UK, Australia and USA would suggest that the traditional institutions still have the right to operate in the way that they see fit.
Taking a slight tangent here the one thing that really concerns me is this.
The companies that are really benefiting from social media are not complying or furthering the principles of openness and transparency upon which their industry is supposedly based. Companies like Google and Facebook are in fact operating in very shady and opaque ways when it comes to managing information and data.
What hope is there for greater transparency in society when the companies at the forefront of social media are acting in this way?
Marx argued that religion is the opiate of the people. Will social media one day assume this moniker?
Tags: change, facebook, Google, occupy, ows, socialmedia, society, transparency
A collection of big corporations have mounted an financial blockade against Wikileaks – freezing all channels of funding. The companies are Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Western Union and Bank of America. Assange has referred to this as an: “arbitary and unlawful financial blockade”. It has been in effect since December 2010.
Wikileaks has been forced to stop publishing in order to focus its efforts on beating the blockade.
It’s a scary world we live in. More from The Sydney Morning Herald.
There has been much speculation in the Australian media about the possible return of Kevin Rudd MP as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, currently the Federal Government.
He was deposed by his deputy in a ‘bloody coup’ (only metaphorically speaking) last year.
The media has had a field day with the Rudd to Return speculation, which is odd as I simply can’t see it happening.
During his tenure as PM and leader of the party, Rudd was exposed as a very poor leader, he was shown to be controlling and unable to negotiate or compromise. It was widely accepted that he was obsessed with style over substance, manipulative towards the media, travelled too much, enjoyed pointless talk fests and presided over poorly managed public sector programs.
Crucially, he was also very unpopular with everyday Australians.
For these reasons his return would be a kamikaze move by the Labour Party and simply won’t happen.
Yet we’re subject to the endless speculation by the media and the opposition (and possibly fuelled by Rudd), which undermines the Government and detracts from the very very important issues of the day.
There are only two possible explanations – either they think we’re stupid or they actually believe this stuff, which makes them stupid.
The Guardian is reporting on Andy Coulson’s payments from News International (NI) today.
Coulson received ongoing health insurance coverage, a company car, legal advice and severance payments from his old employer during his time as an advisor to David Cameron, according to the paper.
Coulson and The Conservative Party ‘categorically denied‘ any such payments when asked about them. A parliamentary investigation will follow.
This saga leads to another question for me, which is to wonder what NI received in return for the continued support for its ex-employee, who now found himself at the heart of the British Government with unfettered access.
There must have been some justification for this considerable financial expense – what was it?
Tags: cameron, coulson, Government, Murdoch, NI
We often have CNN on in the office at work.
The hop topic of late has been Obama. The so called political commentary now includes direct and personal attacks, which seem to the new norm in politics.
Closer to home in Australia, we’re seeing a similar trend.
The Prime Minister has been re-branded as Juliar Gillard and is regularly on the receiving end of that jibe during parliamentary sittings and Question Time.
You don’t see this kind of behaviour in the business world or amongst normal people, how can it be acceptable in public service?
Shouldn’t politicians in all countries be setting standards for respect and constructive debate between people rather than lowering the bar.
Criticism towards the actions of big business will ultimately lead to a well used defence:
“They have to protect the fudiciary interests of shareholders.”
The implication is – “we’re protecting you”. But you hardly need to scratch the surface of this argument to see it for what it is.
Shareholders/stakeholders aren’t enriched in equal measure.
Often the actions of big business have a negative impact on the wider community/environment/future that far outweighs my dividend return as a shareholder.
And has anyone noticed that share markets are in freefall or at best out-of-control-volatile?
The duty of big business should be to protect everyone’s interests (present and future), not just vested interests.
And as global issues such as climate change, famine, civil unrest and resource shortages demonstrate we’re all shareholders at the end of the day.
*** Update *** Interesting conversation here around the concentration of wealth, which has resulted in the US becoming a centrally planned economy.
Tags: business, ethics, markets, shareholders, shares
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