What has Trump done now?

[Jerry_Atrick]

"... because some day, maybe they're not our allies..."

 

Apart from the grammatical error, he should reflect - America's allies were very loyal - yes it was a two way street, but maybe he should have said "maybe some day we may cut them off as our allies..."

[Marty_d]

It's seriously scary what he's doing to the US democracy.

Several people here have described his behaviour as "Mafia-like" and it's not a bad description, although, also as previously mentioned, even the Mafia have their own twisted code of honour where he has none at all.

 

I don't think that the leaders of countries like ours truly understand what's going on here.  I think Trump has plans for there to be 3 spheres of influence in the future - USA, Russia and China.  Europe isn't part of his calculation and neither are middle countries like ours.  He wants to basically carve up the world like the old time empires (think England, Portugal and Spain) did.

Some countries to be taken over directly by this trio - he's already made quite clear he wants Greenland and Canada, for a start - Russia would like not only Ukraine but then the other ex-soviet countries, and then, who knows - parts of Western Europe?  And China of course will start with Taiwan and then maybe proceed southward in the Pacific.

Any countries not directly taken over will be treated as lesser partners, always on the worse end of any trade deal and subject to any whim of Emperor Trump.

 

We cannot treat the USA as a "special ally" any more.  We are not under their protection, if someone invaded us they are under no obligation whatsoever to protect us and wouldn't unless it suited their interests.  And watching what he's doing with Ukraine, he'd probably want all our uranium or rare earth minerals in return for "stopping" the war by giving the aggressor whatever they wanted.

 

[rgmwa]

He's a throwback to an archaic imperialist world view. He, Putin and Xi Jinping are all on the same page and understand each other perfectly well. I suspect that many leaders of countries that have been long-time allies of the US also recognise who he is and what he's up to but don't want to publicly say what they really think until the reality can't be denied any longer. They also don't want to get him off-side because he will attack at the drop of a hat.

In my opinion he's a thoroughly nasty, impulsive and vindictive character with no redeeming features or moral values. In his first administration there were enough people able to throw sand in the gears to stop his worst instincts. Not so now. He has draped himself in the Royal Purple Robes with the connivance of the Supreme Court, dared anyone to stop him, and surrounded himself with enablers and sycophants. His Achilles heel is his basic ignorance and incompetence combined with his arrogance and highly inflated opinion of himself. That may yet see him come to grief before long. We can only hope.

 

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

Even I'm laughing at that, (Bi-plane jet), it's quite funny. But when allies get the latest jets, they still must be able to afford to put them into the air. We can't, our budget is skint, and so is the RAAF's, I haven't seen many planes flying over my place lately, the RAAF flight path. Just a Hercules or two, nothing else.

 

What ever the planes look like, we must still be able to afford to send then up, otherwise we may as well not have them. An economy based on mined dirt and how many Asian take-aways are sold each year is not the most reliable foundation for buying very expensive military equipment, and enough of it to protect our Southern Pacific patch. We need a lot more investment, Aussie investment, to make Australia greater than a chicken chow min take-away.

Edited Sunday at 01:58 PM by Grumpy Old Nasho

[Jerry_Atrick]

You're absolutely right, GON. Sadly, we don't properly tax those that extract our wealth, especially the multinationals. Add to that the fixed price gas contracts that the Howard government wrote, so we have to end up importing gas at market prices when we sell ours for a song, and we are just dumb lucky to be able to afford anything.

 

But, we shouldn't put us down. Australia punches above its weight with innovation. Sadly, some, like Thales Australia, is foreign owned and developed; Some is sadly sold off to foreign buyers.

 

What we have not been great at is manufacturing - we used to be good at it. It is something our federal and state governments could really invest in to kick start it (not at the bottom end - we'll never compete with low-cost economies), but they are still tepid at doing it.. all talk, little action.

[old man emu]

I happened to come across a newspaper produced for workers in the mining industry. I was flicking through it and what struck me was the number of stories and ads about little companies that manufacture or supply bit and pieces for the mining industry. Our impression of mining is often of massive diggers and transporters and kilometre-long trains, but we forget about the support industries which provide employment and increase the Nation's level of technical skills.

[red750]

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

What I find strange is that our management/business inferiority status is perpetual. It's a sector always waiting for a foreign multinational to rise out of the Geny bottle .. "Oh Master, my wish is for an overseas multinational with plenty of knowhow and a big wad of money". Once it appears, the sector then brims with confidence, smiling from ear to ear, plenty of photo ops, and happily spruiks "We need foreign investment". We fall for it, then whinge about the pittance in tax they pay. But it stays perpetual, nothing changes. 

 

Exceptions are sole traders Forrest and Rhinehart. Not multinationals, but billionaires just the same, and they now really should branch out and become Aussie money lenders to Aussie entrepreneurial innovators. Remember the Nomad that Fraser put a stop to because a rivet came loose or something. Well that wasn't a failure of the Nomad, it was a failure of no-hoper Fraser. He simply didn't believe in Australian ownership, or pride in it. The Nomad project could and should have been handed over to the private sector to improve it and market it. 

[red750]

 

His popularity is growing.

 

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

THAT NOMAD was a Piece of Crap. GON. Nev

[nomadpete]

41 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

happily spruiks "We need foreign investment".

That's my gripe of the day. I don't think we ever had a government that hasn't spruiked the greatness of 'foreign investment'.

 

In my opinion, every foreign investment is just exploiting an opportunity to siphon wealth out of our country. The foreign investors seldom give back in proportion to their profits. And usually minimise their tax contribution.

 

 

[facthunter]

"Mining Companies" Certainly. You can't even get THEM to "Tidy Up" afterwards.  Nev

[red750]

In January 2025, the Trump administration froze billions in foreign aid, claiming it was necessary to realign spending. Critics argued it was a political move. Nonprofits filed a lawsuit, claiming the freeze violated Congress’s control over spending. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered the funds to be released, but the administration appealed. 

 

Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court ruled to allow lower courts to determine how the funds should be disbursed, rejecting the freeze. The majority argued that funds approved by Congress must be released as planned, while the dissenting justices believed the lower courts overstepped their authority.

[facthunter]

The DICKtator won't wear that. He's Got a MANDATE to be Da King of CANADIA and thereby, of England and the rest of the EMPIRE. .. Didn't PANAMA just Beat USA  at some game or other, Yesterday?  Obviously It wasn't GOLF.  Nev

[red750]

Speaking of golf, I lost the link, but someone who had played against him did say a lot about his cheating. Many have accused him of cheating, but others claim he is an exceptional golfer.

 

https://www.sportbible.com/golf/donald-trump-golf-cheating-pga-976968-20250321

 

 

 

 

 

[red750]

https://johnmenadue.com/pine-gap-no-price-could-ever-be-right/

[onetrack]

GON, the Nomad aircraft was a badly engineered piece of equipment from the word go, and it would have needed billions to re-engineer it to make it durable. One of the problems with it, was a decision to use thinner aluminium sheeting than originally called for in the design. There were a substantial amount of additional design flaws, including faulty engineering calculations, that made it a death trap.

 

Don't forget it killed its chief structural engineer and test pilot on a test flight, and it ended up with a Godawful safety record. It was a disaster from go to whoa, and you can't blame Fraser wholely and solely for the Nomad fiasco. He took the correct decision to scrap it, because it was a national liability. I wasn't a fan of Fraser either, but he did make some good decisions occasionally.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAF_Nomad

Edited yesterday at 03:29 AM by onetrack

[Litespeed]

For all Frasers flaws at least after politics he developed a substantial legacy in human rights and development for the third world.

 

Instead of showing his nose in the public purse and trying to rule from the sidelines as did Howard, Abbott etc.

 

The Nomad was a dud.

[facthunter]

Malcolm Frazer was a a Vintage Car enthusiast. The Lancia Lambda was one of his favourites, He also rode Bultaco bikes on his farm. He very Publicly resigned from the Liberal Party and He and Gough Whitlam became good Mates in the Later years. He held the seat of Wannon, now held by "Dazzling DAN" Tehan. Nev

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

1 hour ago, Litespeed said:

The Nomad was a dud.

Yes we all have a perpetual defeatist attitude. That's what's wrong with us.

 

We couldn't even get on top of a few flaws in a light plane. Was the guy sacked who used thinner sheet aluminium? Why was he allowed to get away with that, or was he killed in the crash?

 

Now we're too scared to even make a toy balsa plane, we wouldn't know how.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

Malcolm Frazer was a a Vintage Car enthusiast. The Lancia Lambda was one of his favourites, He also rode Bultaco bikes on his farm. He very Publicly resigned from the Liberal Party and He and Gough Whitlam became good Mates in the Later years. He held the seat of Wannon, now held by "Dazzling DAN" Tehan. Nev

Yeah, all while veterans and conscripts were committing suicide, or firing at police, or beating their wives followed by divorce. Fraser never gave a hoot.

[nomadpete]

Whenever a politician sends his/her countrymen into a war, they should be compelled to be the first person to go to the front.

[red750]

Pauline Hanson has stolen Trump's playbook.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14529307/Pauline-Hanson-announcement-one-nation.html

 

 

[onetrack]

Oh dear, talk about "knee-jerk" politics! She sounds like Gina Rinehart! I wonder if she's going to propose poisoning all the Aboriginal watering places, too!! - like Gina's old man suggested!!

 

 

Edited yesterday at 08:34 AM by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

24 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

Now we're too scared to even make a toy balsa plane, we wouldn't know how.

You do live in an alternate reality. We still have aircraft manufacturers. notably GippsAero, Brumby, Jabiru, Australian Light Wing, and the list goes on. There have been a couple of failed recent ventures, including Whitby (?)  aviation, which made a great little two seat C152 competing trainer - unfortunately when the non US aviation world were calling out for the slicker European trainers.

 

What we have in Australia is a lack of secondary industry risk taking. Super funds and life insurance companies are awash with cash, but fiduciary rules means most of them invest in established financial securities with comparatively low risk. Same in the UK, but now the government has put out a pension policy that funds should invest 10% of their value directly in UK businesses - off share market - i.e. they use part of their funds to help develop local industry.  Of course, it is not a splash of cash, and prudential assessments have to be made to determine the risk and appropriate reward.

 

Where Australia really flounders is that its governments don't support Australian companies first. This is in two ways.. First the ACCC and FIRB are too slack on stopping takeovers. In addition, they don't fight hard enough to maintain intellectual properly. Ugg is a big US company that basically appropriated the Aussie name for moccasins, Ugg boots and the like.

 

Secondly, government procurement has been, if anything, almost anti-Australian. Their rules make it hard for smaller Aussie companies to get up and compete. In addition, they are often about a race tot he bottom in price, where multi-nationals can get in on the act as they have economies of scale. They hide behind gettign the best value for the taxpayer, but what they don't realise is that spending a few extra $ to keep the employment and profits in the country is usually far better overall value. This is the current Buy Australia web page: https://www.finance.gov.au/business/buyaustralianplan

 

A bit of waffle but not much detail.

 

Then there is Aussie consumers.. For many, they have little choice but to go for the cheapest. But for many of us, we should be prioritising buying Australian first.. Over here, for me, with the exception of wine, it is British first, then Aussie, the European, then rest of the world. Wine is Aus, NZ, then European...