The latest Morgan face-to-face survey of 897 respondents was conducted last weekend, at the worst possible time for Labor with respect to “utegate”, and it shows their two-party lead narrowing from 57-43 to 55-45. This is Labor’s weakest showing at a Morgan face-to-face poll since August 2008, a month before Malcolm Turnbull replaced Brendan Nelson as Liberal leader. Their primary vote is down from 48.5 per cent to 46 per cent, while the Coalition’s is up from 38 per cent to 41 per cent. The Greens are up from 7 per cent to 8.5 per cent; for what it’s worth, Family First are down from 2.5 per cent to 1 per cent.
This poll is uteless!
This was the Libs Honeymoon period before the Merde hit the coolinbg device on Monday 🙂
ShowsOn,
I’ll Grant you that one!
very, very droll ShowsOn 😀
The European powers were, even in the 19th century, fairly small countries in terms of the world’s population. They were able to establish domination over much larger non-European populations because (a) they were the first to discover the enormous wealth-generating power of capitalism, particularly banking and trade, and (b) they were able to exploit the resources of the Americas, then very thinly populated and open to settlement and exploitation.
These circumstances are not going to be repeated. Now that the whole world has been drawn into the international system of capitalist production and trade, rich but relatively small countries like Germany, France and Britain, even Russia and Japan, will inevitably lose their places as leading powers to larger countries. The three largest countries are China, India and the USA, and they will soon become, and will remain, the world’s dominant powers. The US will lose some of its relative dominance to China and India as the latter two grow richer and more powerful, but a country with 300m people, a whole continent to occupy, a huge lead in technology and enormous military strength (not to mention vast “soft power” as the world’s dominant culture), is not going to cease to be a world power within the next century (unless they elect more Republican morons as President.)
Craig Emerson is one smart cookie, announcing the death of Grocerywatch this afternoon between the deaths of MJ, FF, MT and whoever else.
[Following a heated meeting in Canberra on Friday morning which was attended by Coles, Woolworths, Franklins, Aldi and Metcash executives, the minister for competition policy and consumer affairs, Craig Emerson, made the decision to scrap the grocery price monitoring website, just six days before its scheduled launch next Wednesday. Dr Emerson denied he had been bullied into the decision, which he said was his alone.]
http://www.smh.com.au/national/grocery-choice-project-in-tatters-20090626-czot.html
[Following a heated meeting in Canberra on Friday morning which was attended by Coles, Woolworths, Franklins, Aldi and Metcash executives]
So in other words, these companies refused to provide real time price figures to the government, because they don’t actually like competing against each other.
How come the celebrity POTUS No: 1 has not made any comment as yet?
[British Secretary Of State Culture, Media And Sport, Ben Bradshaw, has added his tribute to Michael Jackson this morning (June 26).
The singer died of a suspected heart attack in Los Angeles yesterday (June 25).
The cabinet minister who, had his first dance at his civil partnership to the singer’s ‘Ben’, praise the Jackson’s contribution to popular music. ]
http://www.nme.com/news/michael-jackson/45620
Inflation is dead, so who cares? It was a cheap populist campaign promise, like Fuelwatch, and is no loss.
Gosh, Adam, that’s very profound. How do you say “like, der” in your language?
I thought Choice were taking over Grocerywatch?
Psephos @ 5
Cogent analysis, Pseph. All the same, I’m afraid Canadians and Mexicans might take exception to your phrase……..”a whole continent to occupy”. LOL
In 2009 the population of Europe was estimated to be 830 million, the USA’s 300 million. It’s no longer about the states of Europe, it’s about Europe.
marktwain, are you referring to 5 or 9?
Its been a long time between blogs but it’s great to see you “hard core bloggers” are still here – truely the salt of the Earth.
That’s what you guys are!
[It’s no longer about the states of Europe, it’s about Europe.]
When Europe has one governmment, one foreign minister and one army, that will be true. Currently it isn’t. Europe can’t even deal with local messes like Bosnia or Kosovo in its own backyard without the US doing the hard work.
[So in other words, these companies refused to provide real time price figures to the government, because they don’t actually like competing against each other.]
Why couldn’t the government legislate to mandate they give the info over?
If anyone wants to read a not only a good rollicking yarn, but IMHO the best economic history book ever written about the rise of Europe as an economic and military power, David Landes “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” hits the spot.
It makes other attempts, like ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ look positively pedestrian.
Why is “salt of the earth” good, but “salt the earth” bad?
Number 5, Adam. The only people who think Poland or Mexico will become superpowers are the tards who buy George Friedman’s book. I was rude in that post and didn’t really mean it, but I don’t believe you should waste your time composing arguments that are common sense to anyone with an IQ in the triple figures.
Now, will you admit you were incorrect on the swine flu myth hoo-haa or not?
Rudd Government eventually realises “good intentions” no substitute for thought… Grocery Choice is Dead
Funny timing with the release of that though. It was was such a slow news day this Friday at 4:45pm.
What with Michael Jackson dying, Farrah Fawcett dying, it would have been so easy to miss that…
Anyone might think the Rudd Government was hoping no-one would notice!
“The Government had hoped to revamp the site with the help of the consumer group Choice, but today Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson pulled the plug completely. “I don’t believe that consumers would get reliable timely information,” Mr Emerson said.” (ABC online)
Sorry Choice, it always was a lame duck. Who really cares that you can save less than what a cup of coffee costs on a $175 basket of groceries if you have to go to a different supermarket? But worst of all it didn’t help those people who need a bit extra, the elderly, poor and infirm.
More analysis here http://42south147east.info/2009/05/29/grocerywatch-open-letter-to-duncan-kerr-mhr.aspx and here http://42south147east.info/2009/05/29/the-frog-lady.aspx
Last word to Duncan Kerr whose brilliant idea it was “I wouldn’t have done this for so many years if I didn’t think it was a good idea” LOL
yep Grocery Choice gone, how will the Rudd Govt recover from such a mortal wound?
FuelWatch, GroceryWatch, DeathWatch, WristWatch, NightWatch are just small watches.
There are bigger clocks for the Govt to tick over with like GFC, TGR, CC, EduRevol and Building Australia, and dont forget Malcolm Turnbull.
Ms Twain, I’ll have you know that Adam made an unfortunate slip of the tongue.
He wasnt talking about Swine Flue being a myth and posing no danger – if you look closely, the conversation was actually about the future of Peter Costello and Adam said, quite appropriately, that All Tip’s latest bout of Spine Flue was a myth.
And that he would, in fact, take the easy way out and retire.
marktwain, it’s one of my weaknesses that I cannot see error without attempting to correct it. I was responding to the view widely held among hopeful lefties, here as elsewhere, that the days of the US as a world power are coming to an end. Unless the US does something really dumb like electing Mike Huckabee president, it will remain a world power for the rest of all our lifetimes. You are free to ignore my didactic posts if you already know all this.
Grog @19
Because St Mark wasn’t a Roman, and everyone hates the Carthaginians? Or the other way round?
I am a swinging voter, it is Nov 20 2010, I am in the booth… who to vote for…. hmmm… thinking….thinking….thinking…(can’t they give us a decent sized pencil?)… thinking……hmmm…oh geez, that’s right, they screwed up Grocery Watch, that was the last straw! Malcolm all the way!!!
Interesting piece in an Age editorial from earlier this year.
[Political debate becomes unhealthy when any opposition to the Government is automatically dismissed as stemming from ideologically corrupt or self-serving motives (are you with us or against us?). To be effective, Mr Turnbull must be credible.]
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/malcolm-turnbulls-embarrassing-supporter-20090207-80f0.html?skin=text-only
I’m still not persuaded that swine flu is any more lethal than normal flu. We have had four deaths in the two months since the start of the epidemic. How many flu deaths did we have last winter? (A lot more than four.) How much publicity did they get? (None.) These deaths have been in people who had H1N1 infection, but they also had other illnesses. It doesn’t mean that H1N1 actually killed them, although it probably hastened their demise.
[Because St Mark wasn’t a Roman, and everyone hates the Carthaginians? Or the other way round?]
Well I always hate the Carthagnians when I play Civilisation (ducks head and runs away before being labelled a computer games nerd)
Fair enough, Adam. I am a lefty who has never believed that the days of the US as a world power were coming to an end, and nor do I want them to. In actual fact, I like the place. Shocking but true. Like a lot of lefties, however, I do have that weird little place in the back of my mind that shouts CIA/Latin America/South America/IndoChina/Nixon/Reagan/Aaaargh!! and just gets a little irritated.
I’m old enough to have got over it by now.
[In 2009 the population of Europe was estimated to be 830 million, the USA’s 300 million. It’s no longer about the states of Europe, it’s about Europe.]
Where does turkey fit into “the european thing”
Like all great powers in their day, the US has done many bad, foolish, immoral and harmful things. But as hegemons go, it’s not a bad one. It’s a democracy, so it can correct its errors without having to have a revolution – as it is currently doing under Obama. It’s usually well-intentioned, and is willing to be criticised and learn from its mistakes. I’d rather have the US as world hegemon than Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Ahmedinejad. Recall that the US is the largest donor of food aid to North Korea – how many previous world hegemons would feed their enemies in this way?
[Where does turkey fit into “the european thing”]
Gus, in the oven they fried.
[The United States has roughly half the world’s swine flu cases, with nearly 28,000 reported to the CDC so far. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/25/us-swine-flu-cases-may-ha_n_221240.html
Swine flu is not more lethal than normal human flu, but the reason the WHO and the media went hard on it in the first place is that we didn’t know that fact when the outbreak first arose. There was the initial problem that the small village in Mexico where it was first reported had a rather unexpected level of severe flu symptoms in people who were not expected to show these symptoms – namely young and middle-aged healthy adults. Very young children and old people, along with people with co-morbitities, are always the ones who die from flu. That is not in question. A lot of research has gone into understanding the 1918 flu, and the fear was that this might be a repeat. That it hasn’t done so far is a good thing. That it might do in the future is the problem.
The very, very scary prospect that faces the world is if this thing gets into Africa. It has been contained reasonably well in Thailand, but that probably won’t last and widespread infection in southeast Asia is a dreadful thought. Africa, however, is where it may very well become a horror story.
About a month after the intitial outbreak I spoke to one of Australia’s leading microbiologists, a person who led the WHO fight against SARS (which worked) and has helped with bird flu recently (which hasn’t quite), and from what he told me, I was safe in the belief that neither the health authorities’ warnings nor the media reporting were wrong.
Please forgive me if I get a little irritated at times. You surely know how I feel.
[THE stress of a hugely-anticipated series of comeback shows in London caused Michael Jackson’s death, his close friend Uri Geller said]
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,28383,25692752-5019113,00.html
More likely, Jackson died so he could get away from frauds like Uri Geller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKmhv9uoiQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4HQOVqyAxM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Y7QR314xA
Finns
I’m reading a great little book “people of the book”
The forgotten history of Islam and the West
by Zachary Karabell
One interesting part is the ottoman empire (and its control of large chunks of europe)and its decline from hegemony beginning in 1685
though it took the first world war to finally finish it off
Just to follow up. Duncan Kerr has a few good ideas. His Doctor Watch has saved us several hundreds of dollars over the years.
Pity Rudd didn’t have the guts to implement that one.
But no 4am courage there.
“Labor, if it’s easy we’ll do it…”
Psephos
Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
When Europe has one governmment, one foreign minister and one army, that will be true. Currently it isn’t. Europe can’t even deal with local messes like Bosnia or Kosovo in its own backyard without the US doing the hard work.
Your assuming projection of military power matters. Given the “great” military success of the last 10 years surly it’s obvious political solutions are required, and attempted military solutions do little more than burn gold.
Which economic unit has expanded it’s borders in the last 10 years; honestly answer that and reflect on the consequences, as an example consider Bosnia , it will probable be a candidate in 2009. Europe spends it’s surplus capital on economic expansion, the USA on bombs. There are consequences.
If things keep going as they are Russia will be part of Europe in less than 100 years, if it is, Russia will no longer be in consideration as a second order power, it will be just another European state.
It’s worth nothing, but in my view in 20 years the economic order will be:
China (if they can keep it together)
Europe (as I point out they are the current leader)
USA ( if they don’t elect too many more right wing nutters)
India.
I think there is a real risk the USA will slip to 4th. At some point their declining economic fortunes are going to force them to stop building bombs and start paying off debt.
[“Labor, if it’s easy we’ll do it…”]
“Liberal, if it’s fake we’ll believe it”
Turkey is negotiating as it has been for over 20 years.
Sorry, I meant “morbidities” in my last post.
Must take teddy off to blow my nose and free the typos.
fredn, neither Bosnia nor Kosovo was solved by EU diplomacy. They were solved by US firepower or the threat of it, with the Euros in subordinate roles. And this was in an area where the US has no real strategic interest. Even the diplomacy in Bosnia was in the end provided by the US, with Holbrook and the Dayton Accords.
Emails have never been a Turnbull strongpoint according to this Laurie Oakes interview.
[LO: Well let me ask you about petrol excise, another Nelson policy that you’ve embraced. When he proposed it, you sent an email saying that’s bad policy. Why have you embraced bad policy?
MT: Well Laurie, that is our policy. We agreed on that as a party, as a Coalition. We took that to the Gippsland by-election, we won the Gippsland by-election, we made a commitment that we would reduce the excise by five cents and so we will do so. We do’t go back on our word.
LO: Even though it’s bad policy.
MT: Look Laurie, I actually have never said it is bad policy.
LO: You said that in an email?
MT: No, I didn’t. I didn’t say that in an email.
LO: What did you say in the email?
MT: Well I won’t go into it. Look there are arguments ..]
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/newsroom/oakes/635081/the-oakes-interview-malcolm-turnbull
[Europe spends it’s surplus capital on economic expansion, the USA on bombs. There are consequences.]
This makes no sense. The reason the U.S. has a huge military is because it has a massive economy. It may only spend a few points more of its GDP on military, but it has such a huge economy that those extra points equate to hundreds of billions of dollars.
[China (if they can keep it together)]
As Paul Dibb pointed out in this week’s predd club address, China has a hopeless military. This year it celebrates the 60th anniversary of communism, compare that to the Soviet Union when 60 years after the revolution it had nuclear thousands of weapons, hundreds of ICBMS, and at least a dozen spy satellites. China has a few nuclear weapons, and maybe 40 ICBMs are that are 1970s technology.
[Europe (as I point out they are the current leader)]
Europe is not the current world leader, the United States is the only superpower. Europe required the NATO treaty just to keep the Soviet Union under control, i.e. the United States under wrote most of Europe’s security during the cold war.
[I think there is a real risk the USA will slip to 4th. At some point their declining economic fortunes are going to force them to stop building bombs and start paying off debt.]
What declining economic fortunes? The United States economy is the same size as the other top 4 economies put together.
China won’t grow at 10% a year, because its corrupt political system ultimately will make it inefficient.
You also omit India which is a bigger challenge than China because it is a democracy.
All very true, but who is going to end up with the territory in their economic zone, and yet as you point out, the USA spent the gold to make it happen.
Yes the USA has a great military machine, but it’s costing them, it is not earning. It is a miss directed investment. Economic units that miss-direct investment for too long collapse.
fredn, the EU can expand all the way to Vladivostok, but unless it has a united foreign policy and a united military command, and unless it has the willingness to threaten force and use it if necessary, its size and wealth will not make it a great power, because WORLD POWER = SIZE + WEALTH + HARDWARE + WILLPOWER, the EU only has the first two.
[You also omit India which is a bigger challenge than China because it is a democracy.]
you should talk to the Indians. they prefer China than their own “democracy” that only money can buy. how romantic.
[All very true, but who is going to end up with the territory in their economic zone, and yet as you point out, the USA spent the gold to make it happen.]
One of the reasons the E.U. exists is to STOP European countries invading each other. So your question “who is going to end up with the territory in their economic zone” is just bizarre.
[Yes the USA has a great military machine, but it’s costing them, it is not earning. ]
The same can be said for any military. Again, you are completely ignoring the fact the U.S. has a powerful military is because it has a massive economy. You can’t say the same thing for the E.U. where they don’t have a single military, it is based on the spending of each individual country, which tend to spend less on military.
Given that fact, it is impossible to argue that Europe has a more powerful military than the U.S.
[It is a miss directed investment. Economic units that miss-direct investment for too long collapse.]
On the one hand, you are trying to argue that the E.U. is the world’s only super power because it has a bigger economy, on the other hand you are arguing that the U.S. spends too much on its military.
Which statement is right?