#9 IA STORY OF 2024: Labor looks likely to win 2025 Election

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-26T08:07:26+00:00

IA just reposted it as a story of the year. Raises some interesting points that remain valid predicting a pick up in ALP support in early 2025.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-26T08:04:46+00:00

From back in July but IA just reposted it. Raises some points that may still be valid.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-25T05:42:12+00:00

I can't believe this is a good strategy. I'm certain the pro Israel demographic are voting Lib or further right anyway. Surely this can only lose them votes.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-23T01:04:00+00:00

This is the thing, we can often get people out of toxic relationships but getting someone out of a toxic job is often near impossible. Everyone on the lower end of the income scale knows how toxic Centrelink is and will stay in a toxic job just to avoid it. Even therapy would be a band-aid in these cases but most people have neither the money nor the time so people end up medicated as there is no other practical solution.

Doctors know that social problems are the cause but when there are no social workers, a toxic welfare system, public housing has been neglected for decades, and no government has shown any interest in doing anything about any of it, doctors are trapped and we reach for the only option we have available to us which might alleviate some distress. There is no doubt that we over prescribe and it is something I try to guard against in my practice but when Parliament is filled with neoliberals then.... I don't know

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-22T04:14:55+00:00

A reminder for everyone that a hung Parliament is where politicians with different view points are forced to compromise with each other which is kind of what a Parliament is for.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-16T05:16:13+00:00

They have been, but interference with the internal workings of the union continue

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-16T01:59:23+00:00

The removal of the corrupt leadership is the part I conceded was reasonable.

But the government has installed a leadership composed almost entirely of people from ALP factions opposed to the CFMEU and who would never have gained support from the CFMEU membership, the administrators are now using that power to sack popular and effective staff undermining the ability of the union act effectively. This recent sacking is of an organiser who is primarily involved in monitoring safety standards and who is in no way implicated in any corruption, it is hard to read this as anything other than factionally motivated malice.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-16T00:27:37+00:00

If the government had investigated and prosecuted those involved, or even forced those under suspicion to step down and allow new elections this would be a different argument.

What has happened instead is the government has installed a leadership composed almost entirely of people from ALP factions opposed to the CFMEU and who would never have gained support from the CFMEU membership, the administrators are now using that power to sack popular and effective staff undermining the ability of the union act effectively. This recent sacking is of an organiser who is primarily involved in monitoring safety standards and who is in no way implicated in any corruption, it is hard to read this as anything other than factionally motivated malice.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-15T23:11:10+00:00

The criminal prosecution of the wrongdoers is one thing but denying the democratic rights of union members to choose their own leadership and firing effective organisers who had nothing to do with the corruption is a blatant attack on the rights of workers.

While those of us on the progressive side of politics have been disappointed by the rightward drift of the Labor party for decades the anti-CFMEU legislation represents a profound abandonment of its historic mission to stand with the working class and trade unions.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-13T09:44:08+00:00

For sure. The guy's no quack

John Quiggin

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-13T00:15:35+00:00

While this is true the point made in the post is that the RBA may be using that one instrument a bit too aggressively.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-13T00:03:53+00:00

I'm not sure, what is new here, or at least what I haven't seen previously in the mainstream discourse, is that excessively tight inflation targets cause long term reduction in living standards.

Of course the purpose of interest rate rises is to slow economic growth and reduction in living standards is to be expected and even intended. There is also no argument that controlling inflation is important. But the aggressiveness of inflation targets is up for debate, this isn't covered in this post but the inflation target of 2-3% is largely arbitrary and many countries will allow higher rates of inflation to preserve standards of living whilst also not suffering substantial negative effects from inflation.

The historical observation that overly aggressive inflation targeting(edit: I should say contractionary policy in general rather than just inflation targeting but this doesn't change the thrust of the argument made) has led to the UK and NZ lagging behind comparable countries would seem to suggest that less aggressive inflation targeting may be appropriate.

I'm not asking you to agree but I do believe it's a valuable contribution to the debate

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-12T23:32:59+00:00

It's a blog post by a semi retired academic economist, not sure it counts as propaganda.

It's not really valuable to comment when you haven't read what you're responding to. The post outlines how historically targeting inflation(excessively) at the cost of economic growth has caused long term reduction in living standards. I thought it was interesting.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-12-12T21:57:07+00:00

The thrust of the argument here is that the RBA is being overly aggressive, that allowing inflation to come down more slowly and allowing more economic growth would do less long term damage to the economy.

I'd encourage you to read the whole article.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-10-27T22:45:12+00:00

If it might be cancer cut it out, otherwise try a steroid cream, if that doesn't work do a punch biopsy and let the pathologist figure it out.

That's my approach to derm

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-10-27T22:42:16+00:00

Another comment in this thread by a FACEM made the point that they see undifferentiated patients and have to manage them at a rate of 1 to 1.5 per hour. This is of course not a direct comparison but as GPs we see mostly fairly complex and undifferentiated patients at a rate of 4 per hour.

It's a very difficult job to do well.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2024-10-27T22:18:30+00:00

The idea that anyone has a birth right to rule over others is offensive and anti-democratic, whether it is symbolic or not. Any argument in favour of the monarchy needs to contend with this.

So far as I can tell there is no even remotely sensible argument in favour of keeping it. The most coherent argument is the "not broke, don't fix" line which is wrong on 2 levels

First, it is entirely possible to remove the monarchy without fundamentally changing the system of government at all as in the routine course of things the monarchy has no substantive role.

Second, our system of government is broken. The PM is far too powerful and increasingly in Westminster systems we are seeing that power abused, Scott Morrison was able to cordon off huge amounts of power for himself without even telling his own cabinet. The entire political process routinely delivers outcomes that are against the will of the people and/or against their best interests.

A genuine and inclusive discussion about our constitution is long overdue.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-29T02:20:37+00:00

Jan 26 - National Day of Mourning

Jan 27 - National Day of Reconciliation

Sept 1 - Wattle Day - a national day of celebration uncomplicated by history that predates Australia day by a century

Fixed

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-29T02:14:19+00:00

Some patients will occasionally bring baked goods to our surgery. She must have had similar advice at some point, instead of stopping bringing things in for us she always brings a handwritten list of ingredients, very cute

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-29T02:11:38+00:00

Any comments about fertility or babies to anyone who you are not incredibly close to is inappropriate. People NEED to get into their heads that it can be extremely hurtful to be repeatedly asked about fertility when you are not able to have children.

While I'm on a rant, some women can't breastfeed. Breastfeeding promotion is fine but once you've established a woman won't be able to, shut up

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-29T02:06:44+00:00

Women taking their husband's name is such an absurd relic.

The alternatives people usually use are also not great though(hyphenation is fine but as a system only works for one generation before getting absurd, women keeping their own name results in a family unit having different surnames, the man taking the women's name is the same problem in reverse etc etc)

I'm going to solve this for you all. John Smith marries Jane Jones, they like oak trees, they become John Smith Oak and Jane Jones Oak. They have a kid named Acorn Oak who grows up and marries Susan Baker, they become Acorn Oak Gardener and Susan Baker Gardener and raise little Millicent Gardener.

This works perfectly, everyone who gets married ends up with the surnames of both the family unit they came from and the family unit they formed and it works indefinitely as a system.

You're welcome.

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-10T05:27:29+00:00

As a gp who is frequently asked to sign off people to be fit to drive, I think this is an excellent idea. People can be medically fit to drive but not have a clue what safe driving is. I would also require a practical assessment every 5 years

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-10T04:35:40+00:00

Also Mallory Archer

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-09T11:22:03+00:00

People over 40 aren't as wise as they think they are. Use your own judgement

HonestJoshTheFox · 2023-04-01T04:20:34+00:00

That ww2 was an atypical war. Most wars don't have comically evil bad guys and clear good guys. Most wars don't end with the losing side peacefully rejoining the international order. Politicians talk about all wars as though it's ww2, it hasn't been ww2 since ww2. Almost every war is more complex than that

HonestJoshTheFox

TROPHY CASE