old man emu

I thought that a simple way of thinking about Deficit and Surplus budgets was that a Deficit budget indicates that the government has been spending on its credit card while a Surplus budget indicates that it has not been spending. At times it is important for a government to book up stuff on its credit card and go into deficit. An example is the money spent so far on those AUKUS submarines. They are said to be things we need. I suppose the money the government allocates to disaster relief is spending on credit it the disaster is greater than what was expected. On the other hand, failure to spend by cutting back allocations to existing needs will bring a budget into surplus (windfall income excepted) So the decision voters must make is which Party is making the best use of its income. Is the Party spending for the future, or does it want to horde income for some future undescribed need.

It is possible to put an interpretation on Trump's tweet that it was a good time to buy as being a call to not panic sell, but to keep buying to maintain the value of the market. That is a good thing for the leader of a country to urge. Such an interpretation is very kind towards Trump. While it is a possibility, I doubt its probability, given our opinion of the man. The only way to prove illegal activity by Trump would be through the discovery of tape recordings, a la Nixon. But I doubt if there is much record keeping of private conversations involving Trump.

One Party is promising a tax rebate to be paid to middle-income earners in 2026. The rebate is supposed to ease cost of living. Those middle-income earners are going to incur a lot of cost of living expenses between May 2025 and July 2026. How will a promise ease the pain of reality? The promise is simply pie in the sky. Nomad is correct. Australia, and one could probably say most Western nations, have never thought beyond the next election. It's amazing that political parties whose biggest contributors and advisors are business owners do not seem to understand that for business success one has to take a long term view, and not chase short term windfalls. If political parties did that, then a country might develop a sustainable economy and eventually prosperity might trickle down to the lowest levels. Socialist or Capitalist, any Party that set out a number of long term goals, and refused to be diverted from the path towards them, would be likely to maintain power for many years. We did have the Menzies years where there was economic development to a degree, but that was dependent on maintaining a colonial attitude whereby wealth came from the export of primary products to Britain. Once Britain joined the EEC that source of income began to dry up and Australia had to seek other markets. But since manufacturing capability, which was boosted by wartime production, had diminished, Australia had nothing of greater value to trade. There has never been a real push to do anything to value add to our primary production.

And now the tariff on computers, mobile phones etc. have been drastically reduced because they are mainly made in China and Apple would lose heaps.

I see that 98% of the persons eligible to enroll to vote have done so. I know that some people will say that enrolling is succumbing to pressure, but at least we have freely given every person who is eligible to vote the right to do so as they please, be it casting a valid vote or not. What I have come to realise is that my generation no longer has the majority. It is my children and their children who now have the say in the direction into the future the society my generation and earlier ones created will travel.

As much as I hate saying it, I think I could develop a defence of "plausible deniability" that his tweet about its being a good time to buy was not market manipulation but a call for people to hold steady and trust the market to recover because he was going to make America great again. However, I am also cynical enough to believe he was into market manipulation for the benefit of billionaires. As for insider trading, how far removed must someone be from a public company to not be considered an insider? It's easy to determine for a single company, but when it might involve the complete share board, how far away must one be?

I disagree., While the sentence on its own makes sense if read as "Are you as bored as I am", or "Am I as bored as you are", they imply different things. The first form implies a question posed by another person. The second implies a question from "me". As for me, able I was ere I saw Elba.

That's where the vocabulary of the layman and the specialist collide. I see no problem with using a tern derived from the observation of common things, in this case the shape of an egg, in non-technical situations, and the use of the specifically defined term in technical situations. Context is important. Do you kick a ball or a sphere across a sports oval, or depending on your preferred game, an ellipsoid?

I wonder if the leaders of US industry and military are trying to find some legal way to put an end to Trump's chaos. There are no true grounds for impeachment that have been uncovered. Even the application of Breaker Morant's "Rule 303" is unlikely to alter the administration's course very much. Vance would simply be the puppet of the faceless men who came up with Project 2025. Although less that 50% of people polled approved of Trump, the percentage who disapproved was almost the same. You could say that of those who had an opinion, there is no clear division of opinion. If is approval rate fell to below 40%, then that would be significant.

What might seem obvious is the use of the full-stop instead of a question mark, but Red is too cunning to make it so easy.

Interpretation: "The USA has your nation's defence capability by the short and curlies.

"Ovality" is a word derived from the Medieval Latin ovalis "of or pertaining to an egg", leading to the French ovalle "oval figure," describing a 2-dimensional figure in the general shape of the lengthwise outline of an egg. In describing a shape, oval and ellipse actually have different meanings. An ellipse is a specific type of oval with a precise mathematical definition, while an oval is a more general term for any shape resembling a squashed circle. The shape of a cam is oval, while the shape of a ball bearing is elliptical (the special type of ellipse called a sphere).

Interesting response: A circle, and hence a sphere, is a special type of ellipse (oval). Also, a square is a particular type of rectangle, and an equilateral triangle is a special type of isosceles triangle. My Dad had a near-feral tom cat which was a champion rodent catcher. Dad called it a ball-bearing rat trap.

You've been well and truly screwed!

Il Porcellino, meaning ‘the little pig’, is a larger than life-sized bronze wild boar, anatomically realistic and resting on its left haunch and front legs. It sits outside Sydney Hospital, facing Macquarie Street. The monument in Florence is believed to bring good luck if visitors put a coin into the boar’s gaping jaws. The intent is to let it fall through the underlying grating while they rub the boar’s snout. The sculpture was a gift to the City of Sydney from the Marchesa Fiaschi Torrigiani, who donated the artwork in 1968. It is a memorial to Thomas Fiaschi and Piero Fiaschi, her father and brother respectively. Both worked as honorary surgeons at Sydney Hospital and both had distinguished military careers. Thomas served in the Boer War and World War 1, reaching the rank of general. Piero became a colonel during the same war.