7 March 2014 Thought for the Week:

The Confusion Between Money and Wealth, and its Results: In the sacred book of the Christian religion occur the words, "The love of money is the root of all evil". These words, like those of the sacred books of other religions, have been twisted out of their proper meaning, but, properly understood, I think they are a key to one of the greatest problems which confront humanity.

I would particularly ask you to note that it is not said that the "love of wealth or the love of goods is the root of all evil", but because of the fact that money and goods under our present financial arrangements are interchangeable, a curious idea of a pseudo-moral nature has arisen and has, I think, been fostered, that while it is in the highest degree virtuous to work hard at industrial or economic tasks, it is less commendable if not actively vicious to betray any interest in the outcome of our labours… Money and the money system now occupy the place of religion. - - C.H. Douglas in “Warning Democracy” 1930-31

THE GREAT BETRAYAL: COALITION HAS AUSTRALIA UP FOR SALE !

Prior to the Federal election the Coalition promised to lower the threshold for scrutiny by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) regarding foreign ownership of Australian land. The trigger point was to be lowered from $244 million to $15 million. While the Treasurer was in this mood, he stopped the sale of Graincorp to ADM. However things changed from that point when the Treasurer announced that the Government and FIRB would not stand in the way of Canadian, Saputo’s takeover of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter. Saputo’s offer was cleared while Australian owned Murray Goulburn attempted to ‘jump through’ more complex hoops.

Trade Minister Andrew Robb has now revealed in press reports (Border Watch Feb 18 2014) that under the Free Trade Agreement with Korea, that “Korean investments in Australia will only go to the FIRB for approval if they’re valued at above $1.1 billion…” Instead of honouring the reduced threshold, it has been raised in the case of Korea to over four times the amount. It would appear the Coalition has Australia for sale, free of any restrictions. What has happened to the Coalition Government we keenly sought to replace Labor?
- - Ken Grundy, Naracoorte South Australia

IMMIGRATION QUESTION FROM BBC: 89 PER CENT SAY NO!

Published on Feb 19, 2014: The elite benefit from immigration. The chances are you don't, you never have and you never will. But do they ever ask you your opinion? The BBC made the mistake of asking just such a question. Watch: here....

THE ROAD TO SOCIAL CREDIT

by James Reed:
For some conventional minds, Major Douglas’ idea of a social dividend for all, based upon the techno-productivity of modern society is an illusion. If people were not whipped to work or threatened with starvation, wouldn’t society just fall apart? But the illusion lies with the conventional mind. Technology and other developments are rapidly creating an era of enforced “leisure”, and sadly, poverty.
Adam Creighton (“Remove Hurdles to Employment” The Australian 14 February 2014, p.28) says that Australia’s unemployment rate is now 51 per cent, not 6 per cent. If economically inactive people are included and if one includes people working minimum hours, the 51 per cent is reasonable. After all, the official 6 per cent figure includes people working for one hour a week with or without pay. In Australia, with a population of 23.38 million there are only 7.95 million with a full-time job and 3.51 million in part-time jobs.

Creighton points out that technological unemployment has made “full employment for its own sake… bizarre”. However he goes on to recommend the abolition of unfair dismissal regulations and affirmative action clauses, which is hardly a solution to the grand problem which he has raised. Nor did Keynes understjand when he said : “If the economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional purpose”.

On the contrary, all the best things in the world – the art, science and inventions – have been produced largely through leisure activities. Social Credit, with its social dividend would offer a meaningful life to many, who now are at the mercy of Centrelink and the soul-destroying humiliation of the dole. beyond all else, Social Credit will preserve the dignity of man.

THE PRECARIAT: THE ROAD FROM SOCIAL CREDIT

Guy Standing’s “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class”, (Bloomsbury, 2011), offers another argument for Social Credit, although the author himself does not explicitly do this. It is the reality which he describes. Globalisation may be raising the levels of some, but countless millions are suffering economic deprivation, especially in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. There are also migrants and youth who have waged protests across the West against globalisation and demanded open migration. (p.1) These also constitute the precariat class. As local unemployed are threatened by open migration, the precariat class is essentially disunited. But, the youth/migrant aspect is only the “tip” of the precariat class, which is mainly comprised of fear and insecurity. These people “are floating, rudderless and potentially angry, capable of veering to the extreme right or extreme left politically and backing populist demagoguery that plays of their fears and phobia”. (p.4)

Standing divides society into the ruling class elites, masters of the universe; the salariat class having a salary; the proficians, having a technical skill to sell on the market, the old working class, a shrinking group, and finally the precariat. The precariat lacks the social contract relationships that the other classes have and lacks status relationships as well. The precariat has no work-force-based identity and is without all forms of labour security. They are not part of any labour community, if they have a job at all. Anger, anomie, anxiety and alienation characterise their world. According to Standing, although accurate figures are not possible, in some countries about a quarter of the adult population falls into the precariat class. The “class” will grow as China and India increasingly take jobs away from the West, and almost all of us could enter the precariat class if the global call turns sour on us. (p.59)

Standing goes on to give a “shock horror” account of the rise of the “extreme right” attempting to recruit the precariat. (e.g., p.149) His book wanders then wanders off into a discussion of his imagined utopian “politics of paradise”. (p.154) He is against the “bad” precariat, angry at governments bailing out banks and “fuelled by nostalgia for an imagined golden age”. (p.156) This was enough to almost cause me to throw down the book (gently, because it’s not mine). To his credit, Standing advocates a basic income scheme and mentions the social dividend in passing. The basic income though should be for everybody to provide security. Much of the welfare system (e.g., Centrelink) could be wound down because it would be redundant. No longer would the precariat’s life be financially precarious.

Standing then goes on to describe the basic income scheme as a “social dividend”, “a return on past investment”. (p.173) Every affluent person in every society owes their good fortune largely to the efforts of their forebears and the efforts of the forebears of less affluent people”. If everybody was granted a basic income with which to develop their capabilities, it would amount to a dividend from the endeavours and good luck of those who came before”. (p.173) Hence a social dividend would go a long way to dealing with the problem of the precariat. In the meantime, the precariat is a group who should be open to Social Credit ideas and this may prove fertile ground to explore.

GREAT BRITAIN LIMITED … AUSTRALIA LIMITED?... AMERICA LIMITED?

Dividends For All: Is ninety years long enough for new ideas to percolate through a society? It seems not. But it is surely time for the ideas of an Economic Democracy to be accepted. While Professor Guy Standing in 2014 is groping for ways to bring his ideas into reality, answers to many of his questions were thought through and answered in the early 20th century. Major C. H. Douglas, in London "Daily Herald" 1920s

:The world's claims upon food, clothes, housing and the amenities of civilisation must rest upon a new basis.
:The provision of universal economic employment has now become quite automatically an impossibility.
:The idea that the rich class in the past has been an idle class is one of those myths.
:To a man digging potatoes in the field an artist painting a picture destined to become a national heirloom is an idle trifler. It is quite possible that the artist could dig potatoes, but the man digging potatoes would be unable to paint a picture.
:The problem is not a problem of 'employment'. It is one of distribution, and orderly distribution is almost invariably accompanied by something which can be called a ticket system.
:A bank ticket entitles you to a certain amount of any goods and services. A railway company's ticket entitles you to a certain amount and quality of transportation.
:The question of how to distribute is wrapped up with the question of the right to issue and to own the tickets.
:It is important to understand exactly what is the correct definition of inflation.
:True Inflation is not an increase of money, but an increase of money accompanied by a rise of prices -- thus robbing everyone of a portion of his wages.
:It is essential that a greater amount of purchasing power should not be accompanied by an increase of prices, but should be accompanied by a fall of prices.
:At the same time, it is necessary that the producer of the goods does not make a loss as a result of a fall in prices.
:Purchasing power must be put into the hands of large numbers of people who are not in employment.
:We require to do this without taking it from the people who are in employment.
:The necessary mechanism for this purpose is the dividend system.
:It is quite possible to conceive of Great Britain (or any other industrialised nation) in the light of what financial experts call a ''holding company".
:This 'holding company' issues additional purchasing power on the credit of all of them and distributes this purchasing power as dividends to its shareholders.
:Let's call this holding company Great Britain, Ltd., and let's take back from the Bank of England, which is a private company controlled by financiers, the power of actually creating money.
:Great Britain surrendered its sovereign power of creating its own money in 1694 with the setting up of the Bank of England.
:Without interfering with the management of industry, it is possible for Britain Limited, (or Australia Limited, or America Limited) to issue purchasing power in the form of a national dividend, not by taxing its shareholders, but by creating the money in exactly the same way that the banks create it at the present time.
:The amount of purchasing power issued as a dividend will ensure that all goods which are produced can be bought by the true shareholders, i.e., the people, the citizens of the country, be it Great Britain or Australia or America.
:To be effective it is absolutely vital that it should include a method of controlling prices. This necessity of control of prices is so that the additional money does not cause prices to rise, while at the same time ensuring to the producer that he is remunerated.
:There are methods by which this can be done, which have been proved to be successful.
:These methods and other arrangements which would be desirable in the organisation of the country are from their nature technical, and they are, of course, only indicated in the preceding paragraphs.

The destruction of the monopoly of credit, and its distribution somewhat along the lines described above would result in:
:The whole of the population would be free from poverty and the fear of poverty.
:Freedom would be granted on terms which would remove forever the stigma at present attached to unemployment.
:It would also remove the resentment of the "worker" at being taxed to keep the "unemployed."
:Every individual, no matter what his occupation or want of occupation, would receive his birthright. He would, by being a shareholder in the heritage of this civilisation, and the wealth which flows from this heritage, have his share.
:The competition for employment in the economic system would become even keener than it is at the present time among those who are fit for employment. Both the prestige and, at any rate for a time, the remuneration of the worker might easily be higher than that of those who, by temperament or inclination, were found to be unsuited to operate the delicate machine of the modern productive system.
:It is not proposed to 'nationalise' industry. These matters are matters of administration, not of fundamental policy.
:The size of the unit which is found most convenient will largely determine the question of so-called private or public administration. Our civilisation owes very little of the progress it has made to State institutions.

Clearly recognise:
:Our present administration of industry, up to now, has been amply sufficient to provide us with enough, and more than enough.
:To interfere with this existing industrial organisation, which by common consent has resulted in a glut, before making arrangements for the unproved distribution so urgently necessary to distribute that glut, is completely to fail in an understanding of the nature of the problem. It is one matter to understand what is required to end the present tragic situation, but another matter to deal with it. And quite another matter to have the power to put those plans into operation.
:We imagine it is only necessary to have a majority of opinion in favour of a certain line of action. Not so!
:Our freedom of choice of our Parliamentary representatives are too narrow. We have less freedom as to the issues on which we elect them.
:We must ensure that the Member shall apply his attention to dealing with those problems which we consider vital.
:Every Member of Parliament, no matter to which party he belongs, is the representative of every voter in his constituency.
:Every voter must apply pressure to his Member of Parliament. Do it now!

Read further: here....

THE WHITE PRE-HISTORY OF AMERICA

by Brian Simpson:
On Target 13th December 2013 had an article “First to Colonise the Americas Before Christopher Columbus” which refers to an article in The Independent 20 November 2013. M. Raghaven (et. al.) in “Upper Paleolithic Siberian Genome Reveals Dual Ancestry of Native Americans” Nature (November 2013), had done DNA sampling of the 24,000 year-old remains of a boy from the Siberian village of Mal' ta. The DNA showed that he was west Eurasian, but there were also signatures found in native Americans. Whilst the Establishment view is that native Americans are of East Asian origin, the DNA sample indicates that native Americans are a racial mixture of west Eurasian and East Asian. This challenges that view that there are no early European roots to America

THE POLITICALLY CORRECT SUPPRESSION OF VIKING RESEARCH

Pat Sutherland working on Baffin Island

Dr. Sutherland has been working on the archeology of the Arctic for more than 30 years. Her expertise is the ancient native people who lived there. But along the way she started finding artifacts that didn't fit—pieces that weren't made by indigenous hands, but by Norse traders, possibly as far back as a thousand years ago. Ref. here.... Patricia Sutherland and her colleagues have established that the Vikings had reached Canada, on Baffin Island’s Tanfield Valley. Norse stone ruins, woven yarn and whetstones have been found dating to the 14th century, which shows that the Vikings were exploring long after they stopped raiding. While this should be cause for celebration, Sutherland was fired as curator of Arctic archaeology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Her husband was stripped of his emeritus status. This goes to show how deep political correctness now runs.

SENATOR WONG ON WHY THE TPP IS WRONG

by Peter West:
Never did I think I would see the day when I agreed with Senator Penny Wong, but she is spot-on in her criticisms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (The Australian 12 February 2014, p.12) The wheeling and dealings have gone on in secret. The potential impacts of transnationals being able to sue governments for health and environmental reforms have not been answered. The investor-state dispute provision will allow the transnationals to take action against governments for anything not serving their greedy interests. As I see it, this cannot be for our benefit, and no doubt it was never intended. The Liberal Party solely exists to serve up society on a platter to global capitalism. Debating whether the Liberals are actually worse than Labor is like debating how many demons can dance on a head of a pin.

OBAMA’S TPP NEGOTIATORS RECEIVED HUGE BONUSES FROM BIG BANKS

Former Bank of America investment banker Stefan Selig

Global Research: A controversial trade deal being touted by the White House is expected to give American corporations broad new authority if approved. Now according to newly released documents, big banks gave millions to the execs that are now orchestrating the agreement. Investigative journalist Lee Fang wrote for Republic Report that two former well-placed individuals within the ranks of Bank of America and CitiGroup were awarded millions of dollars in bonuses before jumping ship to work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership on behalf of the White House. " The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is a widely-contested trade deal between the US and 11 other nations adjacent to the Pacific Rim, and has been negotiated by representatives for those countries in utmost secrecy. According to leaked excerpts of the TPP and remarks from experts following the news closely, though, it’s believed that the arrangement would allow corporations to oppose foreign laws while at the same time limiting the abilities for governments to regulate those entities.

On Tuesday, Fang wrote that two major United States-based financial firms have significantly awarded former executives who have since attracted the attention of President Barack Obama and subsequently been offered positions that put them directly involved in TPP talks. Former Bank of America investment banker Stefan Selig, Fang acknowledged, received more than $9 million in bonus pay after he was nominated to join the Obama administration in November. And Michael Froman, the current US trade representative, was awarded over $4 million from Citigroup when he left them in 2009 in order to go work for the White House. Republic Report were provided those statistics through financial disclosures included in Fang’s article.

When Selig was asked to head the International Trade Administration by the White House last November — a Commerce Department job — the New York Times considered it “a rare appointment of a Wall Street banker by the Obama administration”. If he is confirmed by the Senate as expected, he will work directly with US trade officials on hammering out final arrangements for the TPP. Froman has been the US trade representative since last June, and according to his biography on that department’s official website, is directly overseeing TPP discussions.

In Fang’s report, he noted that such hefty bonuses aren’t unusual on Wall Street “Many large corporations with a strong incentive to influence public policy award bonuses and other incentive pay to executives if they take jobs within the government,” he wrote. But with the TPP expected to have serious implications on the corporate and financial realms, the appointments of Selig and Froman raise new questions about the potential influence of Wall Street on an already widely-disputed trade deal.

“The controversial TPP trade deal has rankled activists for containing provisions that would newly empower corporations to sue governments in ad hoc arbitration tribunals to demand compensation from governments for laws and regulations they claim undermine their business interests,” Fang acknowledged. “A fact-sheet provided by Public Citizen explains how multi-national corporations may use the TPP deal to skirt domestic courts and local laws. The arrangement would [allow] corporations to go after governments before foreign tribunals to demand compensations for tobacco, prescription drug and environment protections that they claim would undermine their expected future profits”.

“Not only do US treaties mandate that all forms of finance move across borders freely and without delay, but deals such as the TPP would allow private investors to directly file claims against governments that regulate them, as opposed to a WTO-like system where nation states (ie the regulators) decide whether claims are brought,” Boston University associate professor Kevin Gallagher told Fang.

When WikiLeaks released a draft version of a section of the TPP last year, the anti-secrecy group warned that “Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards” “No wonder they kept it secret,” internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom told RT at the time. “What a malicious piece of US corporate lobbying. TPP is about world domination for US corporations. Nothing else”.

Last month, leaked memos obtained by the Huffington Post suggested that the US has lost almost all international support from the 11 other Pacific Rim nations engaged in TPP discussions.”

“SOMEBODY PUSHED MY BUTTON”

Couldn’t resist including this item from Roy W. Spencer’s Global Warming website:
“Time to push back against the global warming Nazis”, February 20th, 2014. “Yeah, somebody pushed my button. When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it. They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.

Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back. I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”. The pseudo-scientific ramblings by their leaders have falsely warned of mass starvation, ecological collapse, agricultural collapse, overpopulation…all so that the masses would support their radical policies. Policies that would not voluntarily be supported by a majority of freedom-loving people. They are just as guilty as the person who cries “fire!” in a crowded theatre when no fire exists. Except they threaten the lives of millions of people in the process.

Like the Nazis, they advocate the supreme authority of the state (fascism), which in turn supports their scientific research to support their cause (in the 1930s, it was superiority of the white race). Dissenting scientific views are now jack-booted through tactics like pressuring scientific journals to not publish papers with which they disagree… even getting journal editors to resign.

Like the Nazis, they are anti-capitalist. They are willing to sacrifice millions of lives of poor people at the altar of radical environmentalism, advocating expensive energy policies that increase poverty. And if there is a historically demonstrable threat to humanity, it is poverty.

I’m not talking about those who think we should be working toward new forms of energy to eventually displace our dependence of fossil fuels. Even I believe in that; after all, fossil fuels are a finite resource. I’m instead talking about the extremists. They are the ones who are sure they are right, and who are bent on forcing their views upon everyone else.

Unfortunately, the extremists are usually the only ones you hear from in the media, because they scream the loudest and make the most outrageous claims. They invoke “consensus”, which results from only like-minded scientists who band together to support a common cause. This authoritarianism tends to happen with an over-educated elite class… I have read that Nazi Germany had more PhDs per capita than any other country.

I’m not against education, but it seems like some of the stupidest people are also the most educated. So, as long as they continue to call people like me “deniers”, I will call them “global warming Nazis”. I didn’t start this fight…they did. Yeah, somebody pushed my button.” Source: here....

PROBING ACADEMICS

by James Reed:
Two Queensland academics have been accused of faking an important study of Parkinson’s Disease. (The Australian 21 January 2014, p.5) It seems that the research wasn’t even conducted as no data to prove the study could be found.

This makes me even further sceptical of academic research, if that is possible. If one can get complete fakes in the hard sciences, what do you think lies hidden in soft, politically correct areas such as the social sciences, arts and humanities? Why, we know the answer to this: whole disciplines such as feminism, women’s studies and cultural studies are grounded in nonsense!

SOUTH AFRICA’S UNDECLARED WAR

by Nathan Freeman Gillits, South Africa
In attempting to understand the present plight of South Africa, which I described in my paper “Nelson Mandela and the Reality of South Africa” (see On Target 7 February, 2014…ed) the works of that great intellectual Ivor Benson need to be carefully read. Those concerned about this issue and the future of the West with the creation of multiracial/multicultural societies should start with Benson’s “Undeclared War: The Struggle for Africa” (1978).

The book opens with an epigraph (quote) from Benjamin Disraeli: “No one must lightly dismiss the question of race. It is the key to world history and it is precisely for this reason that written history so often lacks clarity – it is written by people who do not understand the race question and what belongs to it. Language and religion do not make a race only blood does that”. Those seeking to destroy South Africa and who have already plunged it into the state of anarchy described by Ilana Mercer in her book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot”, know well the lessons of race and how race can be used as a political weapon. Benson observes when reflecting on the United States: “The facts are everywhere to be seen in the United States and have been set down and well documented by Wilmot Robertson in his book “The Dispossessed Majority”. No one can pretend any longer that the masters of America are the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants – the WASPs”. (p.16) In fact perhaps for centuries, these societies have been ruled by a secret elite who at least for the last few hundred years have been engaged in a world-wide conspiracy to create a “new world order” or world government.

Benson describes this conspiracy in detail, drawing upon scholarly sources such as D. Carroll Quigley’s book “Tragedy and Hope”. Quigley notes that Sir Cecil John Rhodes had led a secret society to set up the British Empire as the seat of world government. However the shift of the centre of gravity of global high finance moved from London to New York, and the emergence of other globalist groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations, has led to a shift of the network to the United States. The objective though remained the same: “a world system of financial control in private hands to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole”. (p.11) Ironically, this globalist elite have since eliminated the British Empire and are now well on the way to eliminating Britain itself and are even further advanced in wiping South Africa off the map.

Benson observed that there has been a change in the ownership and control in the directions of the global conspirators. There was an overthrow of the WASP elite and a replacement by another (p.15) And who might they be? If you cannot guess who, you can read the answer on page 23 of Benson’s book.

I have said that race is being used as a weapon by the globalists to break down cultural resistance to their strategies in a “divide and conquer” mode. One cannot get better than Ivor Benson’s “A Message from South Africa” (1972) which explains the real meaning of “Apartheid”. Apartheid was about “group self-preservation” and “separate ethnic development”. When two large racial, ethnic or religious groups meet, there can more often than not be violence; Benson mentions the fact that when India gained independence uncounted millions of people lost their lives as the two main ethnic groups separated into India and Pakistan. (p.4)

When the Boers first came to South Africa the land was largely unoccupied and the Bantu were only just entering the land from the north-eastern corner as the Boers entered from the Cape peninsula. Only small roving bands of Hottentots and Bushmen passed through the otherwise empty interior of what was to be South Africa. Separate development was an attempt to try to prevent the racial chaos which has gripped many other parts of the world. Now, however, South Africa has embraced social disintegration so accurately depicted in Ilana Mercer’s “Into the Cannibal’s Pot”. We of all races – black, white and coloured – have indeed been plunged into this globalist’s “cannibal pot” where our world is slowly cooked and boiled down into a universalist homogenous stew, the real meaning of the “melting pot” metaphor.

Benson’s book was published after the White Australia Policy was unofficially abandoned, but few were aware that this had occurred. He gave a warning to Australia pointing out that communists and globalists have always sought to “destroy national integrity by mixing the races”. (p.11) The campaign against Apartheid and the White Australia Policy were “only different aspects of the same Fabian Socialist-Communist conspiracy aimed at setting up a Socialist World State. (p.13) Homogenous nations are capable of putting up resistance to the one-world goal, and hence the one-worlders have sought to destroy them, at least in the West. The same strategy may be effective against Japan, but will not work against China’s vast racially homogenous army. It will be interesting to see how they intend to tame China and bring it to its knees.

SMALLVILLE AND THOSE WHO DWELL WITHIN

by Richard Miller:
Being a wee bit younger than the older guys who write at this site, I like a bit of popular music and DVDs. Living alone after my lady went to work in France, I tend to watch DVDs whilst eating dinner. I pick up discount stuff from the shops for cheap entertainment: you can’t work on psycho-political warfare 24/7!
I recently watched a few episodes of the series Smallville, series 9. This is about Superman growing up, but it has lots of supporting characters who look good. It is very much about young people, and only secondary about Superheroes.
The plot of season 9 features a small army of Kryptonians who made it to Earth years before Clark Kent. They came as clones of primary Kryptonians, travelling as eggs. The space ship lay hidden for decades. Among the survivors is Zod, the leader. The group hide their identities and real purposes from the Earthlings. They don’t have Superman’s powers but dearly want them. Zod obtains his powers Superman saves his life after Zod is shot. He gives up blood to Zod, and bingo, we have an evil Superman. Zod begins making an army of evil supermen and women… I don’t know how the story ends yet.

ENERGY ASSET PRIVATISATION FAILS TAXPAYERS: ECONOMIST

brisbanetimes.com.au, February 20, 2014. “Energy sector privatisation in Australia has been a “failure” which has produced “no benefits” for consumers, but has resulted in “large fiscal losses” to taxpayers, a new report has found. Economist John Quiggin, a laureate fellow at the University of Queensland, reviewed energy sector privatisation and the related process of electricity market reform between the early 1990s and now, and found no long term benefits for either governments or consumers. The report, which was commissioned by the Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union, found electricity prices were highest in privatised states, and had “risen sharply” since the introduction of the National Electricity Market.

Concluding comments in Professor Quiggin's report
Professor Quiggin said his review also found customer dissatisfaction had risen “markedly” in privatised states (primarily Victoria and South Australia) and “efficient” investment and operation had not occurred, with money instead diverted to areas such as management and marketing. He found that while state-owned enterprises were presented as being a burden on the public purse during privatisation campaigns, they tended to be “consistently profitable” and “in all cases, the option of continued public ownership yielded long-term returns as good as, or better than, the option of selling assets and using the proceeds to repay debt”. “My general conclusion is that privatisation in general hasn't improved the financial situation of state governments, as is one of the primary motives for selling,” Professor Quiggin said. “The entire process of electricity market reform hasn't worked in terms of bringing improved outcomes for consumers…” Read more: here....

MATHEMATICS, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND DUMBING DOWN

by James Reed:
Have you ever wondered why Australian students are doing so poorly in mathematics, and why, from an international perspective our students are spiralling down the league ladder of number dumbness? Well the answer is now clear: lack of not only rigour in teaching, but also lack of sound content.

For example, the Queensland Studies Authority, as a suggested activity in the national mathematics curriculum, wants children in their first year of school to learn arithmetic based on Aboriginal methods of counting, as well as Korean counting games. The idea is to hit the young with three cross-curriculum priorities – (1) indigenous histories and cultures; (2) Australia’s engagement with Asia and (3) sustainability. These ideologies, of course, are a part of the humanistic religion of the Left which dominates education. (The Weekend Australian 15-16 February 2014, p.1)

Traditional Aboriginal society did not use the base 10 system, but the base five (one hand) system. How better to destroy numeracy skills than to begin with such a radically different number system for the young? Surely one should begin with the number system used through education and society. Having mastered that – have a look at other systems such as base 2 (for computers) and then the Aboriginal system. Maybe spend one less on it. But what we have here is nothing but crude Leftist brainwashing against the young. The idea no doubt to inject Leftist ideology into their brains before the age of five or six so that they will be infected by the Left wing “mind virus” – for life. Having won the cultural war of attacking Australia’s past, the march now is to deal with mathematics and science and level them down as well. The national curriculum review needs to knock this nonsense on the head. Noel Pearson is right to favour an education approach based on good teaching with a sound curriculum for all children, including Aboriginal children. Politically correct tokenism will harm all children. But the national curriculum review includes “specialists” in the teaching of mathematics and science, who are not necessarily mathematicians and scientists. They are likely to be influenced to follow fashionable ideologies rather than sound content.

Further, British Conservative Party thinker, Daniel Hannan is right to warn us that based on British experience in developing a national curriculum the “permanent Left bureaucracy” will drag it to the far Left, undermining it. (The Weekend Australian 15-16 February, 2014 p.6)

But how’s this for an answer? As part of our “engagement with Asia”, how about sacking the entire Left bureaucracy and replacing them with Asian bureaucrats sympathetic to the old style literacy and numeracy? Being replaced by Asians is a fitting end to Leftist politically correct ideologies – for if they oppose sacking, isn’t that racist?

SAY GOODBYE TO WELFARE

by Len the Un and Under-employed:
According to the Minister for Social Services, Australia’s welfare system is “unsustainable”. (The Australian 21 January 2014, p.1) There are too many people on the dole and on the disability pension. The Abbott government is looking to do something about it. Perhaps slavery could be reintroduced and cripples like me, whipped to work and fed half a rotten banana a day! How the captains of capitalism would love to lash at slaves, as in the good old days!

Or maybe they will just eliminate Social Security, ultimately. That is what US libertarians and anti-government conservatives want. Pure survival of the fittest. Let people like Len just die. What a cruel and rotten world this is when you have nothing! That is why Uncle Len is a social crediter: it means that losers like me can at least live with a little dignity before death or madness comes. Oh, I know, we do not believe in global warming, but boy oh boy, it sure has been hot living in my friend’s toolshed this summer.

ASIANISATION AND SEX SLAVERY

by Mrs Vera West:
Asianists and multiculturalists frequently sing the praises of the Asianisation and multiculturalisation of Australia. Merits, they claim, include diversity, interesting food, trade and money, money, money. But logically if one can speak of merits and advantages, there is also raised the possibility of disadvantages.

Some downsides have been illustrated in recent media articles, though of course, they are not discussed in this context. “Forced Underage Marriage ‘Common’, The Weekend Australian 8-9 February 2014, p.5, quotes the NSW Minister for community Services saying that forced marriages of under-aged girls, some as young as 12 was commonplace in “certain communities”. New-immigrant communities, according to another official “were often ignorant of local laws and customs”. And yet – here they are.

Then there are the young Asian women being lured to Australia and once here are forced by criminal elements to work in brothels. (“Slave to Sex” The Weekend Australian Magazine 1-2 February 2014) The women are raped, beaten, and their lives threatened. In Australia an Asian brothel owner has been convicted of possessing slaves, and for keeping Malaysian students in sexual servitude.

Slavery today is at an all-time high, with 30 million people being enslaved worldwide, with 70 per cent of them in Asia. The “Slaves to Sex” article has an interesting comment from a human rights lawyer who describes human trafficking as the “dark side of globalisation” and playing an important role in the economies of developing countries. This lawyer is quoted as saying: “Human exploitation is driving much global economic growth. Cheap labour, cheap sex and cheap goods are woven into the fabric of our economy, our community and our individual lives”. Next time you hear someone rattling on about the joys of globalisation, Asianisation and multiculturalism, ask them their opinion on all of the above.

LETTER TO THE PRESS:

To the Editor of The Australian 21st February 2014
Ron Spielman's moral equating of Craig Thomson's 'denials and lies' with 'Holocaust denial' (21/2) needs to be challenged. It appears that Thomson has engaged in unethical and criminal behaviour. By contrast, Holocaust revisionists (the term 'Holocaust denial' is misleading) are scholars of integrity and courage whose theses should never have been censored, let alone punished with fines, gaol sentences and public defamation in the media. As for Tim Wilson, he has not yet committed to the repeal of legislation against 'racial hatred', which is the devious machinery by which dissident commentators on the Holocaust and other sensitive issues can be wrongfully punished.
Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic