Mordy whacks bolt

[Furphy]

In spite of all this, freedom of speech only extends to "fashionable opinions". You never see Age scribblers or ABC commentators dragged through our courts.

Actually they have been, on many occasions, for defamatory comment.
Name one
Unlike Bolt however, they were sued, and it cost their employers mega-dollars.
The HS had to fork out about $250,000 over comments Mr Bolt made about a cetain judge

There are grounds for Bolt to be sued for the articles in question, and Mordy's judgement indicates that the action would have been succesful.

But it was never about money. It was about revealing Bolt to be an opportunist hack who is fast and loose with the facts before an impartial judge. That has been done.
Sounds like every Age and ABC journo

[GrumpyOne]

In spite of all this, freedom of speech only extends to "fashionable opinions". You never see Age scribblers or ABC commentators dragged through our courts.

Actually they have been, on many occasions, for defamatory comment.
Name one
Unlike Bolt however, they were sued, and it cost their employers mega-dollars.
The HS had to fork out about $250,000 over comments Mr Bolt made about a cetain judge
There are grounds for Bolt to be sued for the articles in question, and Mordy's judgement indicates that the action would have been succesful.

But it was never about money. It was about revealing Bolt to be an opportunist hack who is fast and loose with the facts before an impartial judge. That has been done. Sounds like every Age and ABC journo

I was referring to this case dick-wit.

[Furphy]

In spite of all this, freedom of speech only extends to "fashionable opinions". You never see Age scribblers or ABC commentators dragged through our courts.

Actually they have been, on many occasions, for defamatory comment.
Name one
Unlike Bolt however, they were sued, and it cost their employers mega-dollars.
The HS had to fork out about $250,000 over comments Mr Bolt made about a cetain judge
There are grounds for Bolt to be sued for the articles in question, and Mordy's judgement indicates that the action would have been succesful.

But it was never about money. It was about revealing Bolt to be an opportunist hack who is fast and loose with the facts before an impartial judge. That has been done. Sounds like every Age and ABC journo

I was referring to this case dick-wit.

I'd be very careful about making comments like that

[joffaboy]

ANDREW Bolt is an opportunist who saw a gap in the market for right-wing opinion in the Fox News style and set out to fill it, according to a profile in the latest issue of The Monthly magazine by Anne Summers.
Steve Harris, editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times Group (publisher of the Herald Sun) between 1992 and 1997, told Summers of a conversation with Bolt some time before he became the Herald Sun's Asia correspondent in 1997.
''There was no shortage of people filling the left-hand side [of political opinion], I told him, but there was a shortage of people of the right. He responded by saying, 'Yes, there is a shortage in that area, maybe I can fill that space.'''
On his return from Asia in 1999, Bolt was offered a weekly opinion column and the platform for building his profile.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bolt- ... 1l77w.html

No sane and real person could be as relentlessly rabid as Bolt's media persona... he simply provides a focus, outlet and justification to many people's prejudices and impotent sense of outrage... and it's made him rich.

lol - thats right, his supporters have been PLAYED

Wonder how many will still delude themselves that Bolter speaks for them, or for his pocket

Oh to be duped by your hero - GOLD

[The OtherThommo]

There's lots of great info on here, and good debate too, thanks to The Other Thommo, Grumpy One, avid, Gazrat, ILPK, and everyone else involved. Thanks to The Other Thommo particularly for the link to the Kochs; very illuminating.)

I just love it when timely information presents itself. A couple of days ago, Bloomberg Markets Magazine published an expose on the Kochs. A number of journalists worked for some months on the story. Here is the article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-0 ... sales.html

It's about a lot more nefarious activity, over decades, than the headline suggests. It's also worth noting the source of the article, Bloomberg, is hardly a bastion of leftist politics. The owner, Michael Bloomberg, has run for the Republican presidential nomination and remains a member of the GOP. He is the mayor of New York and has made his money on Wall Street.

I first noticed the reference to the Bloomberg article in this local piece;

http://www.climatespectator.com.au/comm ... t-so-cheap

Climate Spectator is part of the Eric Beecher/Alan Kohler stable, which includes Crikey, Business Spectator and IT Spectator.

The Koch reference in the CS piece is toward the bottom. The piece itself is worth reading. The report on the true cost of coal referred to in the article was done by eminent US economists. It highlights the BS perpetuated by the self anointed free marketeers who rail against pricing carbon, in any way, and describes how the failure to adequately recognise the true cost of coal constitutes a market failure.

It is that very market failure the antiscience lobby is trying to keep hidden. That's why it is a smokescreen and whackers like Bolt are doing the bidding of the "Wise" who believe they have the right, the duty, to perpetuate their "noble lies".

They need to market failure to stay hidden because they profit from the arbitrage opportunities available when markets fail to recognise true cost and true value. They play the failure, while extolling the divine virtues of their "free market".

The vast majority of the uber wealthy have made their money precisely because of market failures. The Rockefellers with silver were a good example many years ago, so are the Russian oligarchs more recently.

Meanwhile, people like Murdoch use conduits like Bolt to deflect and distract the fearful and the ignorant from the reality. Whether Bolt is one of the "Wise", a cynical exploiter or just a dopey lap dog, I still can't work out. The piece in The Age today would suggest he's probably the middle one. But, based on his trembling bottom lip outside the court last week and the "poor me" crap his paper has been publishing ever since, he might have at least a bit of the dopey lap dog about him. I'm pretty confident he's not one of the "Wise", but you never know.

[The OtherThommo]

"Ohhh, shot".....

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion ... 1l53v.html

[I Love Peter Kiel]

Do you really think something written by Anne Summers in The Monthly is going to be unbiased. It was probably 'as told to' Robert Manne.
Puh-leeze!
I haven't read it...maybe we need to see what she says 'between the lines'.

[To the top]

In this left/right debate, the irony is that under a Centre-right Labor government the advice of Treasury and the RBA has been taken but under a far-right government (which the Liberal Party has unfortunately become) the Treasury Secretary leaked a memo re "bad policy" and the RBA increased interest rates DURING an election campaign, which was unprecedented.

The inflationary policies of the far-right Liberal Government, with their tax relief for business and high income earners (Vanstone's "sandwich a week" for average income earners), tax breaks thru the likes of Trust arrangements and other rulings and the 50% break on Capital Gains Tax plus the non means tested hand outs (distributing the proceeds of the Mining Boom Mark 1) saw credit growth maintain at double digits levels year on year.

This saw our mortgage debt borrowed from our lenders increase from $334 BILLION in 2000 to $1.226 TRILLION in 2010 (and our banks put on International Watch Lists accordingly, where they remain), the same size as our GDP, a GDP which, since 1901 has grown at an average annual rate of 3.5%.

Further, our GDP is 70% reliant on the Service industry (debunking the presentation that we rely on our mining industry), 21% reliant on manufacture and 3% reliant on agriculture.

The importance of the government keeping the (anecdotal) un-employment figure at or around 5% is obvious - we needed and need to service our mortgage debt - including to protect our banks on the subordinated debt market (our Net Foreign Debt is to the order of $800 BILLION borrowed principally for guess what).

If we have a government which operates government as a business and looks to accrue budget surpluses in a time of a slowing economy (including because of international pressures) and falling government collections (and further reduces tax rates for baying business and high income earners), then "austerity" becomes the driver as government slashes its expenditures (look at the public protest where this is the mantra of government) and recession and worse become enivitable.

Damage becomes permanent.

Government has to support its community - and particularly when the economic drivers in Australia are as detailed earlier.

Australian's have realised the danger in these drivers and are adjusting their habits with credit growth having slowed to 3% and savings increasing to 8% (from zero!).


The continuation of this trend will, over time, mitigate against the risk we are currently confronted with.

Government debt is a miniscule 6.1% of GDP, so government can assist by providing further stimulation if and as needed - again aimed at the Service Sector and employment.

The Cash Rate is 4.75% (above the 10 Year Bond Rate) so the monetary policy levers are also present - and are prudently being kept in abeyance.

In argument such as this Bolt and his crusades have no significance.

Simply, he is uneducated.

And, in my opinion, in all matters.

[Austinnn]

In this left/right debate, the irony is that under a Centre-right Labor government the advice of Treasury and the RBA has been taken but under a far-right government (which the Liberal Party has unfortunately become) the Treasury Secretary leaked a memo re "bad policy" and the RBA increased interest rates DURING an election campaign, which was unprecedented.

The inflationary policies of the far-right Liberal Government, with their tax relief for business and high income earners (Vanstone's "sandwich a week" for average income earners), tax breaks thru the likes of Trust arrangements and other rulings and the 50% break on Capital Gains Tax plus the non means tested hand outs (distributing the proceeds of the Mining Boom Mark 1) saw credit growth maintain at double digits levels year on year.

This saw our mortgage debt borrowed from our lenders increase from $334 BILLION in 2000 to $1.226 TRILLION in 2010 (and our banks put on International Watch Lists accordingly, where they remain), the same size as our GDP, a GDP which, since 1901 has grown at an average annual rate of 3.5%.

Further, our GDP is 70% reliant on the Service industry (debunking the presentation that we rely on our mining industry), 21% reliant on manufacture and 3% reliant on agriculture.

The importance of the government keeping the (anecdotal) un-employment figure at or around 5% is obvious - we needed and need to service our mortgage debt - including to protect our banks on the subordinated debt market (our Net Foreign Debt is to the order of $800 BILLION borrowed principally for guess what).

If we have a government which operates government as a business and looks to accrue budget surpluses in a time of a slowing economy (including because of international pressures) and falling government collections (and further reduces tax rates for baying business and high income earners), then "austerity" becomes the driver as government slashes its expenditures (look at the public protest where this is the mantra of government) and recession and worse become enivitable.

Damage becomes permanent.

Government has to support its community - and particularly when the economic drivers in Australia are as detailed earlier.

Australian's have realised the danger in these drivers and are adjusting their habits with credit growth having slowed to 3% and savings increasing to 8% (from zero!).


The continuation of this trend will, over time, mitigate against the risk we are currently confronted with.

Government debt is a miniscule 6.1% of GDP, so government can assist by providing further stimulation if and as needed - again aimed at the Service Sector and employment.

The Cash Rate is 4.75% (above the 10 Year Bond Rate) so the monetary policy levers are also present - and are prudently being kept in abeyance.

In argument such as this Bolt and his crusades have no significance.

Simply, he is uneducated.

And, in my opinion, in all matters.

Blimey, my eyes always glaze over when talk turns to GDP and percent. I know it's important, but just can't get my head around it. Any chance you can sum up for the financially ignorant like me?

This thread has come a long way!

[gringo]

In this left/right debate, the irony is that under a Centre-right Labor government the advice of Treasury and the RBA has been taken but under a far-right government (which the Liberal Party has unfortunately become) the Treasury Secretary leaked a memo re "bad policy" and the RBA increased interest rates DURING an election campaign, which was unprecedented.

The inflationary policies of the far-right Liberal Government, with their tax relief for business and high income earners (Vanstone's "sandwich a week" for average income earners), tax breaks thru the likes of Trust arrangements and other rulings and the 50% break on Capital Gains Tax plus the non means tested hand outs (distributing the proceeds of the Mining Boom Mark 1) saw credit growth maintain at double digits levels year on year.


Good call, we are politically naive in Australia because we have always had pretty decent governments. If you travel overseas you get a sense of the corruption of the media and governments running agendas for big business. How the US can keep paying taxpayer money to the executives that bankrupted investors and businesses and then refuse to remove private jet tax breaks because they "stimulate the economy" is laughable from outside. There was a good doco on Enron the other week which showed how ugly politics and business in the US have become.
This saw our mortgage debt borrowed from our lenders increase from $334 BILLION in 2000 to $1.226 TRILLION in 2010 (and our banks put on International Watch Lists accordingly, where they remain), the same size as our GDP, a GDP which, since 1901 has grown at an average annual rate of 3.5%.

Further, our GDP is 70% reliant on the Service industry (debunking the presentation that we rely on our mining industry), 21% reliant on manufacture and 3% reliant on agriculture.

The importance of the government keeping the (anecdotal) un-employment figure at or around 5% is obvious - we needed and need to service our mortgage debt - including to protect our banks on the subordinated debt market (our Net Foreign Debt is to the order of $800 BILLION borrowed principally for guess what).

If we have a government which operates government as a business and looks to accrue budget surpluses in a time of a slowing economy (including because of international pressures) and falling government collections (and further reduces tax rates for baying business and high income earners), then "austerity" becomes the driver as government slashes its expenditures (look at the public protest where this is the mantra of government) and recession and worse become enivitable.

Damage becomes permanent.

Government has to support its community - and particularly when the economic drivers in Australia are as detailed earlier.

Australian's have realised the danger in these drivers and are adjusting their habits with credit growth having slowed to 3% and savings increasing to 8% (from zero!).


The continuation of this trend will, over time, mitigate against the risk we are currently confronted with.

Government debt is a miniscule 6.1% of GDP, so government can assist by providing further stimulation if and as needed - again aimed at the Service Sector and employment.

The Cash Rate is 4.75% (above the 10 Year Bond Rate) so the monetary policy levers are also present - and are prudently being kept in abeyance.

In argument such as this Bolt and his crusades have no significance.

Simply, he is uneducated.

And, in my opinion, in all matters.

[andrewg]

Sooooooooo this got very serious!! Come on guys we talk footy to get away from this real world crap

[Austinnn]

Sooooooooo this got very serious!! Come on guys we talk footy to get away from this real world crap

With respect, not all of us do.

Some of us can handle the footy AND the real world crap.

Honestly, with all the drama at St Kilda right now, I talk politics to get away from the footy, not vice versa.