Australian Federal Election 2022

[facthunter]

 Yes I've watched it as you have. Sydney to Cowra has little trees left. An introduced pasture grass has stuffed the NT. It's tall and burns really hot.   Nev

[old man emu]

I've listened to the news about the Nation's Environmental Health Check for most of the day. The Conservatives sat on it for about 18 months because of its damning findings. The report exposes the Conservative government's complete disinterest in anything to do with preserving the uniqueness of this continent's flora and fauna.

 

As for habitat destruction, who has been doing that?  Not you and me. Around the cities it has been the real estate developers, all in the name of "housing our growing population", while at the same time they are throwing up block of apartments all over the old suburbs. In rural areas, I doubt if it has been the family farms where vegetation has been ripped out simply to grow more exportable product on a broad acre scale.

 

And then, on the other hand, we have State government's neglect of the use of railways to convey farm produce. The coal trains are running all the time, but previous years' harvests of grain are sitting in trackside silos or on-farm storage because there are no rail services to move it. As a consequence, what grain that does move is by B-Doubles which destroy rural roads which were not built for such huge weights (See the posts about corrugated road surfaces). 50 - 60 tonnes at a time with the fuel usage and wages of one worker. Put it in  a train and you can carry much more with fewer people

 

Using some American figures:  The Gross weight of a loaded grain rail car is  286,000 lbs. ( 129,747 kg) - 60,000 lbs.(27215 kg) for empty car = 226,000 lbs. (102511 kg) max. payload per car

 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/riding-the-grain-train-20130627-2ozrv.html

[Old Koreelah]

Lack of vision by governments and inefficient management of railways has forced most freight onto our roads, where there’s always plenty of truckies willing to work long hours and bring the consignment right to the customer. 
 

Long ago NSW rail corp (or whatever it’s called this month) lost interest in moving anything except coal. The small 48 class locos (only 90 tonnes) were given to Grain Corp to pull grain trains. Flying around you sometimes see a small grain train slowly making its way along branch lines that have been kept open with minimal maintenance.

[nomadpete]

So, we all seem to agree about transport infrastructure and environment

 

How can we get those messages into the ears of those responsible to fix these problems?

[old man emu]

The only way to get anything through their thick skulls is to drag them, kicking and screaming, out of the numerous parliament houses and along the kilometres of sub-standard roads and 19th Century perway. Then after that you could let them dine on coal and iron ore, because there's not much of anything else being carried by rail. 

 

It seems that the civil engineering skills for building 90 kph freight lines are already in use in the Pilbara and coal areas. https://www.railpage.com.au:80/f-p1836130.htm

 

It amazes' me that the "other half" of Conservative governments is supplied by the rural sector who don't have the impact to get things done for anything other than the mining sector.  Are they simply there to make up the numbers to hold onto government so that the City business people can maximise profits for their backers? 

[facthunter]

They want to mine the HOLE of Australia. Do they EVER "restore a Site"? You would think that is the LEAST that should be done. It's not easy either but should be a requirement. The  profit is made by overseas people. The Mess is left out of sight and mind for the profit takers. Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

The  profit is made by overseas people. The Mess is left out of sight and mind for the profit takers. Nev

Shut up, unworthy one. We take away the very ground you stand on and process it into things we sell to you (at a profit). Without us you would not need to labour for twelve hours a day to provide that which your parents described as the Aussie Dream. You would waste your lives on the various philosophies of the Arts and Sciences. You would make music or spend your time debating the Meaning of Life, or creating things of beauty to lift you spirits. 

 

Go, therefore. Toil all your days and at night deaden you pain with alcohol, unhealthy food and reality TV.

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

They want to mine the HOLE of Australia…

The  profit is made by overseas people…

…and they don’t have to pay for it!

https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2019/12/12/tax-big-corporations-pay-none/

 

https://electionwatch.unimelb.edu.au/australia-2016/articles/the-massive-social-cost-of-multinational-tax-dodging2

[facthunter]

BIG Clive wants the Taxpayers to pay for the RAIL he uses..  and Silly buggers voted for him and his outrageous unachievable lies er Promises.. BF fraud. Kelly bites the dust. He always looked as if He'd fallen out of a tree and hit every branch on the way down. HE was a Captains pick by Morrison    (So much for HIS judgement). Nev

[onetrack]

I like the way Rio Tinto hands over an extra BILLION in taxes to the ATO after the ATO went through their scammy transfer-pricing setups. They should've had to pay double or triple in avoided taxes, and I fail to understand how it took an ATO taskforce TEN YEARS to nail them. The ATO must have only allocated 3 or 4 people to the job.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-21/rio-tinto-settles-1b-tax-bill-ato/101256184

[Jerry_Atrick]

I have been thinking about transfer pricing the last couple of days as a thesis of the social damage it does. And I am sure someone has probably already done it.

 

But thinking about it, say, I dunno, the Aussie arm of Global Corproration X are buying product y from a low-tax or tax haven country at more than they can sell in Aus. If it were really more, then Aussie arm of Global Corporation X would have exited the market a long time ago.. Global Corporation X are not in the charity business (or more accurately, in the business of being charitable).

 

So, although Global Corporation X (Aussie Arm) has been "losing" money, they have really been making money but a paper loss avoids them having to pay tax, but also build up a cumulative loss they can offset future taxable income if the rules change in the future.

 

Say Global Corporation X is based in the US, makes cars in China and sells them only in Australia. For the purposes of this, let's say they get all their raw materials domestically in China... so no imports

 

There will be profit to China for the domestic materials/parts suppliers

They Global Corporation (China) will sell their cars to the low-tacx/tax haven countries at a loss, meaning the Chinese arm makes a paper loss.

Global Corporation X (in the low tax/tax haven country) acquires the cars at below cost.. Then sells then to Austtralia at above the market value.. so they sell at a loss in Australia.

 

There is a massively inflated profit in Global Corporation X (Low Tax/Tax Haven), from the value created in China and Australia, of resources owned in the USA. Say the country with the over-inflated profits is a low tax country.. say 5% of coprporate profits.. For every $1bn Global Corporation X makes on paper in a year, that country gets $50m for registering a shell company. But the country of the people and resources receive nothing* - in fact the fruits of their effort are now subsidising the low tax country as this would be tax revenue they would not mornally receive and do not arise from real economic activity and value-add. Meanwhile, that is tax to, in this case, China and Australia, that is not paid, so the local population are missing out on sorely needed public reesources.

 

$50m may not seem like much, but our corporate tax rates are a bit higher, so we are missin out, on say,  $250m (or more likely $125m as China would be porobably generating at least 1/2 the total $1bn profit). Multiply this by the number of companies and high net worth individuals who are doing it, and it becomes a big drain in the wealth of an economy, or country.

 

I picked China as a country, because, although I don't know the tax laws of China, I am sure if it were a problem (i.e. net loss to the country - or just an optics issue), it would be stopped. And that is a benefit of an autocratic country.

 

* Note: When I said the countries that add the value get nothing, of course, that is not strictly true, as even these schemes create local jobs and therefore taxes. And of course, indirect employment springs up as well. But they don't get the value of the net-above PAYE/PAYG wealth created on a marginal basis. The reality is though, as soon as a local operation stops making real money, it is closed down pronto.

[onetrack]

Amazon's AI has been watching my computer searching and reading, very carefully - and sent me an email asking if I'd like to buy this book. For once, their suggestion is accurate.

 

https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/1610397118

[facthunter]

Check prices on other sites. Nev

[onetrack]

Nev, I always extensively check the price of everything before I purchase. Interestingly, the seller on Amazon is Book Depository, and Amazon list it at $34. But if I go directly to Book Depository, its $24. Want to guess how Jeff Bezos managed to acquire $200B? Another prize corporate looter.

[willedoo]

58 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Nev, I always extensively check the price of everything before I purchase. Interestingly, the seller on Amazon is Book Depository, and Amazon list it at $34. But if I go directly to Book Depository, its $24. Want to guess how Jeff Bezos managed to acquire $200B? Another prize corporate looter.

onetrack, there's a reason some books from Book Depository are cheaper than other sellers. They sell a lot of cheaper reprints - cheaper quality paper and printing etc.. That suits me because I usually just want to read the book and am not too fussed on quality.

 

The book you mentioned at Amazon for $34 is the original quality book by the American publisher. Book Depository also have that same book for $35, but they have the cheaper print by Harper Collins for $24. Amazon own Book Depository.

https://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=The+Looting+Machine&search=Find+book

Edited July 22, 2022 by willedoo

[old man emu]

9 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I have been thinking about transfer pricing the last couple of days as a thesis of the social damage it does.

Thanks for that description, but it suffers from only one thing - not many of us have the experience in the money shuffling business that your career gives you, therefore  Graecum est; non potest legi .

 

I doubt, too, if any politician or political aide could understand it. So politicians avoid doing anything about controlling it like the Plague.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Alas, my career has nothing to do with taxation or accounting, or money shuffling, which is what transfer pricing is about. What I was interested in is the [potential] social and economic impact it has, and using maths/stats to develop the appropriate models.

[facthunter]

IF there's dough to be made by corrupting  something, it will be.   Nev

[nomadpete]

The last word on the federal election. We were at this point and for a while it looked a bit like we were destined to stay in that truck for another 3 years.......

[red750]

Not sure if this is verified or true, just as received.

 

AFL vs NRL

Keep scrolling down…

AFL vs NRL... this will open your eyes and even maybe surprise you??!!
 

36    have been accused of spouse abuse 

7  have been arrested for fraud

19  have been accused of writing bad cheques 

117 have  directly or indirectly bankrupted at  least 2 businesses 

3  have done time for assault 

71,  repeat 71   cannot  get  a credit card due to bad credit 

14 have  been arrested on drug-related charges 

8  have been arrested for shoplifting 

21  currently are  defendants in lawsuits and

84  have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

 

 

Can you  guess which organization this is? AFL? NRL? 

 

 

 

 

 

Give up  yet? . . . . .   scroll down

 

 

 

 

 

Neither,

 

 

 

it's the 535 members of the AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT in CANBERRA!!

The same group  of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year, designed to keep the rest of us in line.

 

 

You've   got  to pass this one on!

[facthunter]

I'd doubt the accuracy of that. Bankruptcy precludes you from being in the parliament and any crime punishable by more than one years gaol. (for starters). Nev

[Yenn]

Given the behaviour of the ex PM I am not surprised. I see today that he got himself sworn in as a minister for 3 portfolios that already had a minister. And that minister didn't know. It would appear he was going to become the minister for everything. Following in Russ Hinzes footsteps

[facthunter]

He later told his church followers not to trust in Governments. ( Certainly NOT the one HE ran)   Amazing and dare I say, Miraculous.  Enough to make you lose your FAITH. Nev

[rgmwa]

He obviously didn't even trust his own government.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Even potato head is claiming he was in the dark.. Not sure I believe it.. But at least the leaked texts of the Beetrooter seem to have some substance of how much of a prick he was.