old man emu

I read the article. The US has been involved in sanctions against Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Sometimes sanctions have been eased, such as the time $6M was unfrozen in exchange for 5 US citizens being held hostage (I learned that from the article.) Sanctions are just one of the tools of international diplomacy. There are no rules for their use, just what is convenient at the time. Over the past fortnight we have heard Trump bluster, but he has backed off when he sees the narrowest of winning scores on the board.

I can see your point and I agree with your supporting argument, but you said it yourself, The intangible promise. I was talking about tangible things, like the car. While I may possess a document confirming the contract between the insurer and me, I cannot sell you or anyone else the promise. Sure, if I sell you the car, the ownership of the promise goes with the car, but that ability to transfer the promise was agreed to between the insurer and me when the contract was entered. If I sell the car with 6 months' rego on it, I can't recoup the associated contract costs I paid on entering the contract, not can I recoup the value of the premium that gained me the promise for the 6 months before the sale. So to me, the promise has no value at point of sale. Obviously, it has value to the buyer, but once the sale is completed, the promise has no value to the new owner.

With six you get egg roll.

You could read the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_(film)

It's a fatal mallardy

No peekin!

Have you noticed how quiet the MAGA people are, as their Constitutional Rights are being ridden over?

But he wants the traditional owners of the land to bugger off and live somewhere else. Just because Jordanians and Egyptians follow a similar religion to the Palestinians, he reckons that those countries should open their borders to the refugees. Ask the Cherokee people how well that worked for them. As a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, more than 60,000 Native Americans from at least 18 tribes were forced to move west of the Mississippi River where they were allocated new lands. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama consisting of around 40,000 square miles. You probably have a fair idea of the differences in climate and ecology between those near-coastal locations and the plains of Oklahoma. No wonder that the Indian Wars lasted into the 1890s. He's also sucking up to the Saudis. Remember that the first leader he contacted after being sworn in was the leader of Saudi Arabia.

I said during the heat of this discussion last year, 'let's see how EV sales stack up by December 2025'. You are talking about Tesla products, and the drop could, in fact, be due to Musk's politics, or they could be a result of market saturation. Give it time to see what eventuates this year.

How do we determine if someone is "rich". For me to say that I am "rich" I would have to tally up the market value of what I own. But that market value is a reflection of what you would pay me for the ownership of, say, my car. To the common person, a thing which is not a physical object has no value. So it is said that Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, but surely that wealth is not totally in physical things. Isn't his wealth based on the value of his shareholdings? But what, in reality, is a share? A share is a portion of ownership in a company. Owning a share gives the owner the right to a share of the profits made by the company. A share only has real value if it can be sold. So while Musk has wealth 'on paper', that wealth can't be converted into a physical thing, let's say gold, until someone wants to buy it. If nobody want to buy it, then the share has no value. So, the majority of Musk's wealth is fictitious.

A big seller in Kolkata

That plan is moving at glacial speed. Nothing is coming from it yet.

I'm waiting to hear what he is going to try to do about trade with Australia. In 2023, the United States was our third-largest two-way trading partner in goods and services, worth $98.7 billion. Australia's goods and services exports to the United States were $33.6 billion. Australia's total imports from the United States were $65.1 billion. The problem in trying to work out just what we import is made difficult because we can't readily find out how much military equipment we import. There would be many other things imported that we don't realise. As well, I wonder if the profits from US investments is included in that export total. How much does Maccas, Hungry Jacks, Pizza Hut, Amatil etc, etc send to the USA? The United States is the largest and most significant investor in Australia, with investment in Australia standing at $1.17 trillion in 2023. The United States is also by far Australia's largest foreign investment destination, with investment in the US standing at $1.20 trillion in 2023. Two-way investment has more than tripled since the Free Trade Agreement came into force. I suppose most of that $1.2T is our superannuation funds.

I'm getting a headache from the noise of all the sabre rattling going on between Trump and the rest of the world.

Let's not kick a man when he's down. The poor bugger is only 53 years old. That's too young for anyone to go.

That's the type of lesson from the US election that I was suggesting. On the other hand, will Labor learn from the Dem's mistakes?

That would mean I'd also have to change from Ford to Holden.

While most attention is being focused on the US political scene, I thought I might kick off a thread to discuss how our next Federal election might run. From what I read in the pro-conservative Sydney Telegraph, Peter Dutton might propose taking actions similar to the Trump Administration should he be the one to form government. The article I read intimated that he would go after waste in government operations. I applaud that approach. However, I would like to see the first targets being the money spent by parliamentarians as they gallivant around the country or overseas with s mob of hangers-on. There are so many areas of spending associated with parliamentarians that need to be examined and justified. I'm OK with things that can be justified, but let's get rid of what cannot be. I was going to attack Peter Dutton as a Trumpian Mini-Me, but I think I'll sit back for a while until something worthwhile comes up. At the same time, all politicians' behaviour needs to be examined under a magnifying glass.

FFS! Where do you think that the products of Asia are designed? They are designed and the specifications for the materials used in them are set in Europe or the USA or Japan. In many cases manufacturing plants are in Asia. They simply are given the design package and told to make whatever the package describes. I agree that there are levels of quality in the products bearing a company's logo. This is because those levels are based on who the expected user will be. Take a power drill from a company like Makita. You can pick up two drills that from the outside look identical, but which are priced differently. It is most likely correct that the cheaper drill will use polymer material for its gears, while the dearer one will use metal for the same gears. The cheaper one is aimed at the DYI-er who would use the drill infrequently. The dearer one is for the tradesman using it daily. If you want built-obsolescence, just look to your computer's operating system. I'm told that I should move to Windows 11 because Windows 10 won't be supported after the end of this year, However, my computer, which chugs along happily with WIN 10 might not be able to handle the built-in complexities of WIN 11. I might have to throw out a functioning computer just to do the simple things it does now.

If you understand what I wrote today about tariffs, you will come to the conclusion that Trudeau has missed the point. IF Canada imposes tariffs on US goods, then it will be the Canadian people who will put up the money which the government collects from Canadian businesses that do the importing. Unless I'm wrong, Trudeau should set zero tariffs on US goods for the benefit of Canadians. There would be no change in prices for them. Canada has a problem due to its involvement in the vehicle manufacturing business. It sells components to the USA to be used in USA brands of vehicles. If the US manufacturers fail, then Canada loses its sales. I also said that tariffs are a good thing for a country trying to develop its own manufacturing industry, first to supply it own people, then to develop export markets. The major Western countries have gone beyond that stage and should be able to compete on equal footing with other countries. Therefore, tariffs should not be needed when these countries trade with each other.

Trump and his mates might be billionaires because their involvement in global corporations, but that does not mean they have any real knowledge of Economics. Trump sure doesn't. He goes on and on about tariffs affecting the countries to which the USA owes squillions. A tariff or duty (the words are used interchangeably) is a tax levied by governments on the value including freight and insurance of imported products. Tariffs have long been a part of the economic structure of countries. One could say that "tariff" is the politically correct term for "import duty". Import duties have existed for centuries, but became more important during the Industrial Revolution as a means of shielding local manufacturers from foreign manufacturers whose production costs may have been lower. Thus a country's manufacturing base could be shielded from the effect of cheaper imports. That worked before the global economy developed into what it is today. It should be kept in mind that it was the manufacturing corporations of the USA which moved the manufacture of their product out of the USA to countries where production costs were lower. Now it may be too expensive to re-establish that manufacturing in the USA. To Trump's way of thinking, it is the other country that pays the tariff. However, it is the importer who pays. The result is that the importer has to decide if a consumer is more likely to pay for the imported item instead of buying a locally produced item. The only effect on the exporting country is on volume of purchases the importer is prepared to make. If an importer reduces purchases, then the exporter either suffers financial loss, or looks elsewhere for sales. In the end, it is the consumer who loses. Either the object the consumer wants becomes unavailable, or becomes too expensive. The only winner in the process is the government which collects more tax money.

My post is badly written. I should have made my intention clear, which was that the media has been shooting from the hip with its reporting. The media from both sides hasn't bothered to concentrate on the operational reason for the Washington incident. To my mind, it was caused by human error. Unfortunately I have to accuse the helicopter pilot of making the error, based on what seemingly factual information I've seen. The ATC operator did broadcast a warning to the helicopter pilot, and I can only assume that the commuter aircraft was established on a standard final approach. I haven't heard if the commuter plane's crew made any broadcasts. Happily, all the radio traffic at the time of the incident will have been recorded, so that will aid the investigation. Trump's attack on the FAA heads is completely irrelevant to the cause of the incident. Actually it's not because he sacked them a few days before, and the FAA's DEI policy was introduced by Trump during his first term. A consequence of Trump's DEI rant is that the family of one of the military personnel has refused to disclose the victim's name. Why? Because the victim was female and the family fears being attacked by MAGA types. By the way, both pilots were White.

Over the past two weeks the US media, Left, Right and Centre, has done a great job of raising the hysteria surrounding Trump's Executive Orders through bad reporting. Not that the media hasn't been quick to broadcast events. The problem is that commentary on those events doesn't provide the background that good journalism requires. Let me give an example. Let's look at the two recent aviation incidents. For those of us with in interest and knowledge of aviation, we have most likely decided that the cause of the Washington DC is most likely to be pilot error. The other one could be simply a mechanical failure, since it occured on takeoff. However, the media has homed in on Trump's political attacks on the FAA management. Sure Trump sacked several heads of air safety organisation in the days prior to the incident, but those people were not sitting in the control tower. Instead the media has focused on the effects of DEI policies, which were in fact introduced by Trump during his first term. What reporting has there been of the short-staffing of the control tower arising from lack of adequate funding? Trump implies that air traffic controllers can be plucked from the lines of the unemployed and immediately be seated at a console to handle air traffic. Don't forget that a few days earlier he had caused emails to be sent out offering a chance for Federal employees to leave their jobs with a bit of a golden handshake, so he could fill their places with loyalists to his agenda. If I were an FAA air traffic controller, I would be grossly offended by Trump's inference that I was unintelligent and incompetent at carrying out a job I had been trained for. What Trumps said must be seen as defamatory. Sounds a bit like Hitler's approach to placing Party members in government jobs.

Sorry to not have expanded on that phrasing. "Public places" - anywhere everyone can be in, like a shopping centre, sports ground, public house, toilet block. Think of the old "Ladies' Lounge' in a pub. Change rooms for men and women at swimming pools. Obviously toilets. The Ladies' Stand at Sydney Cricket Ground. A lot of these places are now open to all, but the separation in toilets is still supported in most places. For some reason, women continue to prefer to eliminate away from the presence of men. Probably it is a carry-over of Victorian era ideas of modesty.

The fault in the argument is that it deals with the right of an individual in contrast to the rights of a group. Is it wise to walk into a mosque and unfurl an Israeli flag, or to do the opposite in a synagogue? In either place the action would cause upset to varying degrees. Probably since the beginning of the Industrial Age, our British-based society (and I include the USA here) has developed a societal practice of separating men and women in public places. Sometimes that separation provided a safe refuge for women and that aura of safety remains. That aura is broken if a man enters without reasonable excuse, eg a tradesman coming in to fix something. However, if the man enters without such a task in mind, then is it any wonder that women there would feel threatened? In trying to deal with this matter, I find that I lack an important bit of knowledge. I don't know how a woman's upbringing has shaped her thinking. Don't forget that women have been subjected to the propaganda that unknown males are a safety threat. How a woman deals with that propaganda is the crux of the discussion.