Ipsos and Essential Research closed their accounts for 2018 this week, and their combined effect has been to reduce Labor’s lead to 54.3-45.7 after a blowout to 54.9-45.1 last week. This is good for one Coalition gain on the seat projection, that being in Queensland. Full results through the link below.
We’re unlikely to see any more poll results until mid-January, although Newspoll should be unloading its quarterly state breakdowns in a week or so, and hopefully a few state voting intention results as well. Nonetheless, things should be pretty active around here over the silly season, as there’s a backlog preselection analysis to attend to, and I should finally get time to attend to my long-promised Morrison-era overhaul of BludgerTrack.
Ronzy
The pagan festival came first; as the pagan’s arn’t as incline to try and take over the world i have no doubt they won’t mind you using the date for your festival also, and no objection to the excuse used.
poroti
That link was for you 🙂
Robert Reich makes the point that the USA is about to enter another recession, and blames Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/23/us-economic-precipice-donald-trump-government-shutdown
That’s gong to affect us in Australia. But it is interesting for Australia in another way. Try reading the following from this article and replace “America” with “Australia”.
Socrates @ #1599 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 1:26 pm
When it comes to power policy, it is a bit rich for Australia to be calling other countries “stupid” 🙁
“America’s wealthy, meanwhile, have been taking home a growing portion of the nation’s total income. But the rich spend a small fraction of what they earn. The economy depends on the spending of middle-, working-class and poor families.”
And here (but in a US context) is THE lesson to be learned from the GFC and the ALP’s response to it.
To relate that to the upcoming Federal Election here? The ALP went through the GFC. A Shorten Govt in power IF there is a recession in 2019/20 is a much safer bet to manage it as well as possible than ScoMo and the Muppets.
‘The point of the policy is that the company tax is paid once.’
Well for the poor, that is the case. For richer investors it is isn’t. They get a credit that they can use to avoid paying tax that they should have paid.
frednk, another thing; if it caused you so much stress adjust you share port folio; there are heaps of shares that don’t give full imputation credit.
Sorry Frednk, no stress here, just pointing out a crap policy.
And thanks for the advice, I didn’t know that (sarc).
lizzie
A thanks in a advance . Probably work computer settings so will check later at home. I am getting. this message “This site can’t be reached The connection was reset.”.
Ronzy @ #1596 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 9:18 am
Yep, the pagan religions are older than Christianity, so they were untainted by it.
However Christianity is certainly tainted by religions that pre-dated it. Many rituals were assumed and dates acquired in an attempt to subvert pagan religions.
Barney in Go Dau @ #1540 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 11:23 am
I use McDonalds when travelling after our pre-prepared coffee and sandwiches run out. The food is bland but it is fast and predictable, fuel for the drive.
poroti
Sorry. Usually the picture appears. My Twitter is having a Christmas break, it seems, and slowed right sown..
lizzie @ #1600 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 9:27 am
Maybe they can be branded as RWFW glasses, so that more sane people can avoid them. 🙂
lizzie
I am sure it will work fine on my home computer.
don @ #1610 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 9:45 am
I’m not sure if it’s food or drink?
The burgers seem to dissolve in your mouth with minimal jaw movement. 🙂
imacca, Good Point. I like it.
How to sharpen it as a political message? Saying “If A then remember B, so we should do C.”, is a bit subtle. It could use some sort of familiar narrative arc so it takes root in voter conciousness. Sadly, I lack the narrative talent. I am stuck on Little Red Riding Hood and Wolves in a forest.
The deal could be signed off before federal election is called.
Barney in Go Dau @ #1614 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 12:49 pm
Perhaps Maccas are ahead of the curve?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-12-01/lab-made-meat-can-food-be-more-humane-and-less-polluting/9206542
And handily for the Libs, Labor then get to wear the ‘blame’ for the budget going sharply negative again.
If we’re in for a recession I really really really want it to kick in before the current muppets leave power.
So what’s the deal with the seniors and pensioners tax offset on taxes?
Who brought that in, Labor or LNP?
Very welcome. As is the refund from share dividends imputation or whatever, courtesy I think of John Howard / Peter Costello.
If it disappears it won’t matter to us, but like the low cost prescription medicines PBS, I’ll take whatever they offer.
It won’t alter my vote if Labor get rid of them, but they are nice to have, like the pensioner’s discount at the coffee shop.
Barney
From what I’ve read, the ‘buns’ are deliberately sweet and soft, but of little food value, so that having eaten one, you want to go back for more.
Late Riser @ #1617 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 1:53 pm
It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it….
Ronzy, sorry to tell you this but
a) there is not a skerrick of archaeological evidence that Jesus ever existed and those who cite the Gospels are citing works that contain multiple anachronisms, all bar about 6 parts have been proven fakes and those that are likely ‘original’ were written well after the timeframe they purport to describe.
b) the 25th of December in the northern hemisphere has always been a pagan celebration – the day the sun is reborn and begins its awakening from the dead of winter. The solstice takes 3 days from the 22nd.
These two things are evident to any historian/archaeologist of worth.
Belief is fine, but facts do not support your post.
lizzie @ #1620 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 1:55 pm
Not as bad or as sweet as bread in the lower 48 but. And you can at least determine your portion size. The servings in the US have to be seen to be believed, a huge plate heaped high is the norm.
jenauthor @ #1622 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 1:58 pm
How do you work that out? The solstice is the 21st/22nd of December, depending on the year. Not the 25th.
On Xmas eve 50 years ago this iconic photo was taken.
Apollo 8’s Earthrise: The Shot Seen Round the World
“Hey don’t take that, it’s not scheduled,” Commander Borman said. Then, like good humans, they grabbed cameras and clicked away.”
https://outline.com/A9fgGT
I’m sure player 1 you had the very best of the nuke industry propaganda, it just doesn’t square with reality.
don @ #1624 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 10:02 am
Look back at when the date was established.
When we used the Julian calendar the year was slowly slipping at a rate of 1 day a century.
I’d imagine that would provide your explanation. 🙂
So toying with the idea of lab-grown meat, why would you pursue lab-beef rather than say lab-lobster or any other currently rare or even illegal delicacy? And why only muscle tissue? And then with a bit of GM to spice things up, an explosion of new ethical meaty flavour sensations are on the horizon. Wonderful opportunities for craft meateries would open up. (only half serious)
Mathew Snow in Jacobin Magazine makes the case against charity: that we should be stopping institutionalized taking instead of promoting a culture of individualized giving.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/peter-singer-charity-effective-altruism/?fbclid=IwAR1UtN5RIjop3PB1VS_kkpzZlOFINcOndf4MGCTKPuyimzKHWrpBn3Dw5Ko
Trust people to bring religion into Xmas. I used to be an atheist,but the trouble is you get no holidays.
Trump is panicking due to huge slide in Dow jones
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/2018/12/23/treasury-secretary-makes-unusual-pre-christmas-call-top-bank-ceos-amid-market-mayhem/?noredirect=on
336, so the 25th would have been the equinox then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
steve davis @ #1630 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 10:14 am
Who’s talking about religion? 🙂
What’s wrong with a holiday when everyone celebrates? If we protest that we’re all atheists and don’t want Christmas, the Scrooge fraternity will soon take the holiday away (as they’ve taken weekends away). #profitbeforehappiness
Don, if you read what I said … the solstice takes 3 days and 22nd is shortest day. The pagans celebrated (the equivalent of) the 25th December as the rebirth of the sun. When ‘light’ started to become longer – and the stars were no longer static in the sky as the mid-season turned.
Occurs in most religions in some form or another
KayJay & Don
With regard to Robert Gottliebsen’s letter to Bill Shorten on franking credits it says
Some of Boo’s mates are on government pensions and will get their cash franking credits entitlement.
My sister who worked for ATO says she pays income tax on her pension.
There is talk of investors who own shares inside an industry super fund will still receive the franking credits – not all industry funds permit investors to own shares
If the refund of excess franking credits is abolished, we will both pay tax of $10,500 on our $35,000 taxable investment income. If we were still earning personal income (pre-retirement) of $35,000 each per annum our tax liability would be $3500 each — the difference in tax liabilities ($7000) is not a retirement tax. It is a retirement SUPER TAX!
Boo and his wife EACH have $700,000 work of shares. if they can become eligible for a $1 of Aged pension they can keep their franking credits ie less than $500,000 in shares between the 2 of them
https://outline.com/xHyev5
Paul Keating introduced franking credits in 1996?
In 2006 John Howard said SMSFs whose beneficiaries were aged over 60 or 65 paid no income tax. That’s when SMSFs started investing heavily in companies with fully franked dividends, distorting the market making bank shares worth more than they really are worth
Reza Aslan’s excellent book Zealot distinguishes between Jesus of Nazareth (the historical figure) and Jesus Christ (the divine figure).
There is sufficient contemporaneous documentary evidence to be reasonably confident that there was a Jesus of Nazareth who was a preacher and miracle worker (there were quite a few of those in 1st century Judea) and who was crucified for sedition. We have to infer a lot of the details of this man’s life but there is enough evidence of his existence.
There is contemporaneous documentary evidence that his Jerusalem-based disciples attested to the resurrection and stayed in Jerusalem after Jesus’s execution to continue to teach Jesus’s take on Judaism. That is what distinguished Jesus of Nazareth from other miracle workers of that time: he was the only who had some followers who all swore that they saw the executed miracle worker rise from the dead and proclaim himself the Son of God. The disciples stuck by that story and many of them died for doing so.
The divine figure of Jesus Christ was created not so much by the Jerusalem-based Jewish disciples, but by the Apostle Paul, who was a Greece and Asia-Minor based Jew and leather worker who never met Jesus and who didn’t believe Jesus to be the messiah until Paul had his famous “blinding light and scales falling from the eyes” conversion while travelling on a road to Damascus. Paul, more than any other person, launched the legend of Jesus Christ.
I remember i was in a hotel room once, and I was that bored I sent down for another bible.
Nicholas,
Charities exist to solve real problems that shouldn’t (exist).
This story is a few years old now, so blurring with time, but in answer to a request for a donation to help feed children made homeless because of domestic violence I asked the two earnest youngsters, did they know our federal government had just cut funding to DV shelters by $X million. They didn’t realize. So I suggested they put their efforts into learning about this, and then I gave money.
The point is that while the reason for personal charity and organised charities is chronic, the needs are acute.
jenauthor @ #1635 Monday, December 24th, 2018 – 10:22 am
You’re neglecting the calendar.
I have no objection to the holiday, for whatever reason, nor for those who are adamant christians. We live next to a Russian Orthodox Church so we have lots of singing and bell-ringing to look forward to some time in January.
My argument comes when belief is purported as fact.
Am currently reading a very interesting book “On The Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason To Doubt” by renowned academic Dr Richard Carrier (Biblical Historian). So far he has confirmed my skepticism.
Did anyone see/hear our great and glorious leader today?
Politically correct joke:
An ethnic shopkeeper was very unhappy at having to go along with an arranged marriage.
“I’ve never even met the girl,” he complained to one of his customers. “How can I know whether I want to marry her? But my family say I must, according to my religion.”
The customer advised him to change religion, but on his way to the church the ethnic guy was run over by a car and killed.
He went straight up to heaven where St Peter was waiting at the Gates.
“What do you want?” asked St. Peter
“I have come for Jesus.”
St Peter looked round and called out “Jesus, your taxi’s here?”
I prefer these than ASX updates I have to read through the cracks in my fingers.
Simon, you only realize the losses if you sell the shares.
The claims made for the biblical Son-of-God – from conception to resurrection and ascension, and all stops along the prophetic way – in themselves illustrate an epistemogical argument against the existence of a deity. For these claims to be true, the cosmos would have to be subject to irrational forces; to be “miraculous”, to be unknowable, arbitrary and self-contradictory. Yet the cosmos is knowable. A knowable cosmos is completely inconsistent with the idea of a deity-within-the-cosmos. Such an entity that would be a priori unknowable or ineffable. The best that can be said of the conception of “a deity or deities” is that they represent the mystification of the unknown.
Of course, if there is no such entity as a deity, then there can be no “child” with a deistic parentage. Allowing this, even if a person called Jesus of Nazareth existed, he could not have been the son of a non-existent deity.
The biblical tales are all very highly elaborated magical thinking. Their acceptance involves not only the acquisition of belief. They also require the willing suspension of disbelief; a subscription to make-believe. They are premised on the availability and action of irrational forces.
When the Julian Calendar was devised the Saturnalia date (and solstice) was on December 25. Sol Invictus was established on date a short time later – which became tied to 25th December.
The primary celebration of Aset (Isis) was December 25.
December 25 became Christs official birthday after Pope Julius decreed Jesus’s birth should be celebrated same date as other sun gods.
Different countries/churches juggled dates over time.
Oh, Barney – didn’t Pope Gregory delete 10 days at one point to bring the calendar back into sync?
“From what I’ve read, the [McDonalds] ‘buns’ are deliberately sweet and soft, but of little food value, so that having eaten one, you want to go back for more.”
I read somewhere that the food was designed so that people could absorb it without chewing properly e.g. having no teeth.
For those who prefer their burger and fries even more easily absorbed, there’s a US recipe book available:
https://www.bookdepository.com/Ultimate-Blender-Cookbook-Rebecca-Ffrench/9781581572957
If somebody says they have $700k in shares in their super fund I would ask how big is the fund?
And is the $700k now or before the market started tanking a few months ago.
Unless the fund is worth at least double that, he is an investor who is way braver than me or not well advised.
But don’t expect the spivs and shonks in the investment game to tell the full story.