Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,

evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of Homo Sapiens.

But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that

gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the

current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.

Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Hello and welcome, dear listener.

We're back for 2024, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

I'm Trevor, aka the Iron Fist, with me as always from regional

Queensland, Scott the Velvet Glove.

Scott, how are you?

G'day, Trevor.

G'day, listeners.

How are you all?

I hope everyone's well.

Yeah, hopefully everyone's well.

If you're in the chat room, say hello and we'll try and incorporate your messages.

Joe's not here.

I think Joe is caught up in something else in his trip in the UK.

So, but he may appear.

He's actually having a good time over there, I would have thought.

Yeah, so so anyway Wotley's in the chat room and says hello.

So that's good.

Well, what are we going to talk about?

You just, over Christmas, Christmas dinners, gatherings of your family,

did you talk about news and politics and sex and religion with your crazy

uncle, with your boomer parents, with your Gen Z disenchanted youngsters?

Well we're going to talk about news and politics and sex and religion here.

Get you up to speed on what's been happening.

What's going to happen.

Maybe in this initial part of this episode We'll just sort of look at where exactly

are we but the world and what's likely to happen in the year ahead and the

years ahead sort of Generally speaking without being too specific Scott and

I were just chewing the fat over a few things prior to pressing the live button.

So we'll continue that discussion so yeah, I Kiss I had some friends

from America just stay last night and talking to Kate and she was saying,

you know, how do you explain right wing politics and its popularity amongst a

significant section of the population?

And and I was thinking about it and it's a good way to sort of just reflect

on where we've got to at this point in the experiment of human history.

And, Scott, here's my view, as I said in a nutshell, which was, we've essentially,

over the last 50 years seen the demise of the middle class and the worsening

of conditions for, you know, the lower classes, but certainly a distant

a demise of the, of the conditions for working, average working people.

And, and really the rise of, of, of some of these right wing characters

is a reaction to that, where people are not happy with their current

circumstance and they're looking for someone or something to blame.

And for a number of people, they're not quite yet ready to blame

unrestrained capitalism and the neo liberalism experiment that's been

running since Thatcher and Reagan.

And then the only alternative to that is to be a bit xenophobic and to blame

brown people and other people and immigrants and to hark back to the good

old days of the sixties when there was.

A Judeo Christian morality, and if we could only return to those sorts

of things, and that sort of appeal to conservative moral values, and a blaming

of immigrants, a blaming of China for taking all of the business, and A sort

of a lashing out at other people rather than looking at maybe the system that

we've been working under hasn't been doing what it was all cracked up to do.

So, and I think, I think we'll start over the years to see people.

start to accept that the capitalism, unrestrained capitalism

experiment has some major problems.

And in Australia, I reckon people will see that because they'll

just look at housing and they'll just go, this situation is a mess.

We needed some regulation here to fix this and it's not happening.

And I, yeah, I, even here with the units where I stay with one guy,

he's quite conservative, sort of.

Recognising, he's done enough reading to know that Capitalism requires And

without growth, capitalism fails.

It's just an essential part.

And you just run out of opportunities for growth.

You run out of tricks, which we'll talk about later.

So, anyway, Scott.

You can see that happening with India, which is the next

country that's going to move up.

Mm.

And.

As their middle class is starting to grow and that sort of stuff, the

birth rate is starting to decline.

You know, it's only a matter of time before Africa joins

that declining birth rate.

And then we're going to be stuffed.

We're not going to be able to import our population from anywhere.

So we, you know, technically should have been in recession here in Australia, but

immigration, population growth basically bumped up the numbers so that we weren't.

So, uh, so there's sort of a broad brush thing of where I

think we're heading over the next.

Just how long it takes for that to happen, who knows?

Could be decades for that realisation or it might come quicker depending on

what disasters beset us along the way.

So, Alison's in the chat room.

Good on you, Alison.

Alison, if you ever want to come on and do a rundown of where we are with

Secularism and religious instruction and all the rest of it, feel free to, to come

on and give us a rundown of where we're at to, and that conference you spoke at.

So, um, so yeah, so, we've got Trump coming up, Scott

with an election in the U.

S.

and Here's my tip.

I think if he lives, and it's against Biden, if he continues to live,

I reckon if it's a Trump vs Biden election, I think Trump's gonna win.

What do you reckon?

Nothing can surprise me.

I mean, you can only see it, I mean, it's, I find it incredible that the Never

Trumpers and all that sort of stuff and the Republicans haven't made a bigger,

haven't made a bigger song and dance over these 91 criminal indictments he's facing

and as a result, it looks like the bastard is going to be sailing into office.

You know, it's, it's one of those things, I, I, I honestly believe the

problem is in the Democrats, that they have backed the wrong horse, they've

backed a very old stallion and that old stallion is It's too old to put

down now, so I just don't think people will be motivated to get out and vote.

No.

And to campaign.

And they don't have a compulsory ballot and all that sort of stuff,

so you're no longer, you're not arguing to the centre, you're arguing

to the extremes on both parties.

You put enough energy into the left of the Democrats and the middle of the road,

so well fuck it, I'm not going to vote.

And then you, you do that on the right and all that sort of stuff and they think

to themselves, well, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Trump because it's going

to be better than having Biden back in.

Which I don't understand, but anyway, it is what it is.

It's just, well, people are just hurting.

They're saying the system's not helping.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

But why the hell, okay, if you're hurting and that sort of stuff,

why the hell would you turn around and vote for a billionaire?

That first item of government was to reduce taxes on the, on his, on his mates.

Cause he's, he's clearly not part of the establishment and they blame the

establishment for where we are and, or where they are in America, at least.

And they see him as anti establishment and, and as somebody who will shake

things up and you know, tribalism, they'll hear what they want to hear.

So, yeah, you know, the Republicans are motivated and I think the Democrats

will be very unmotivated by Biden.

And I think, I think he's going to, the polls show him slightly ahead.

And anyway, I think that's, I think all of his court cases, he'll

be able to hold off long enough.

Till after the election and yeah, but see that case he's facing in

Georgia That's the one that's actually got real criminal time with him.

He could actually end up doing time for that Yeah, he cannot pardon himself as

the United States president against a state conviction So, I suppose it depends

on who his running mate is, as to who's actually going to be the president.

Yeah, well, this will all be dealt with after the election

though, the really hard stuff.

So, I think he'll get in and then he'll, he'll, he'll just claim that he can do it,

and wait for somebody to come and actually arrest him and drag him off, real crisis

of democracy, perhaps, looming there.

Well, I suppose you're going to have the secret services that are there to

protect him and all that sort of stuff.

They could be ending up facing off against Georgia's police.

You know, it's just, it's a hell of a mess.

Yeah, it is.

Here in Queensland, we're going to have a state election, I think,

at the end of the year as well.

And so Pal's gone.

Steven Miles is in.

That was a good move by labor.

Elli is the liberal leader, LMP leader.

He, he comes across as harmless enough.

But I think as people get a better look at his colleagues

and get reminded of who they are.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's the whole point about the LMP.

They have been very heavily overtaken by the Christian, right?

Mm-Hmm.

And I don't want anyone to forget that.

Mm-Hmm.

They are.

under the control of the Christian nutters.

So do not believe that they are all innocent and sweet and

everything else because they're not.

They're the same bastards that did what they did while they were in

office, and they're going to do exactly the same thing again next time.

So someone like Grace Grace, inner city electorate, she's really

Facing it, I think, from the Greens.

Hey, she's really facing an uphill battle.

You know, it's, it's one of those things, especially if especially if she

was still Education Minister, if she was still pushing Christian prayers and

all that sort of stuff, then the Greens would have had a field day with her.

You'd hope so.

Now that she's no longer education minister and all that sort of

thing, she can always just say, oh, it's not me, it's someone else.

Hang on, isn't she?

She still is education minister.

No, she was actually Oh, no, that's right, there was a new one.

She was given a new job, I can't remember what it was.

That's right, but I think the assistant education, like there's an assistant

to the education minister who is Really anti religious instruction,

so hope there that the assistant to the minister is going to push things.

Yeah.

So, so we'll see how that develops and they're just fed.

I think that Stephen Miles has got a pretty good chance of winning.

Yeah, I think he has.

It really wouldn't surprise me if you end up with a minority Labor

government propped up by the Greens.

That's my early tip for the year as well.

So, um, Labor in coalition with the Greens in the state and a Trump victory.

There we go.

Let's hope you're wrong on that.

It really wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah, so, Yes, so just still getting back to sort of crystal ball gazing as

to what's going to happen, so Continued demise of the USA will be accompanied

by the rise of China So you may read things, dear listener, about the

Chinese economy being stuffed and And you know, certain banks in China going

broke, or property problems in China.

China's had a growth rate of 5 percent GDP.

For the largest economy in the world, any other country would kill The

second largest economy in the world.

Well, depending how you measure it, Scott.

Purchasing power parity, it is the largest.

So, you know.

So if you hear rumours of people saying, oh, the Chinese economy

is starved, 5 percent growth.

Most countries would kill for that.

And some of them do.

Yeah.

We've got BRICS.

So that was that's his collection of countries that are are trying to

break away from US control of economic matters and particularly the dollar.

So, um, so, they, the BRICS, have been joined by, so BRICS is Brazil,

Russia Iran, China, and South Africa.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

India, sorry.

India, China.

Yes.

And they've been joined by and this took effect on the 1st of January

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia have joined.

Interesting how they've described a few of the smaller players

like South Africa and Ethiopia.

But anyway, that block of countries.

The BRICS countries now represents 37 percent of global GDP and 40

percent of global oil production and a third of global gas production.

So this is going to be the challenge to the US petrodollar system.

Which I've mentioned on many occasions, but just as a refresher for those

new to the podcast, is the deal done between the USA and Saudi Arabia

was okay, you can sell your oil, but the money that you earn and the

transactions you do it in must be in U.

S.

dollars.

And then you must basically, what are you going to do with those U.

S.

dollars?

You're going to invest them in U.

S.

treasury bonds.

And so anytime anyone in the world has been buying oil, Even though

the transaction didn't involve America, it did involve American

dollars, creating a demand for U.

S.

dollars that has propped up the U.

S.

dollar despite the fact that the U.

S.

spEnds, well, prints money like a drunken sailor, and a normal country's currency

would have been devalued and have caused economic problems, but because

of this unique position that the U.

S.

has had as the world's default currency propped up by this petrodollar

arrangement it's really enabled the U.

S.

A.

to continue doing all the things it wants to do.

And that's going to come to a halt over time quicker than people think, I reckon.

There's my prediction, another prediction, whether it's just in the next 12 months

or whether it takes longer, we'll see.

But there are countries itching.

to break away from having to hold US dollars.

One reason is, if you hold US dollars in treasury bonds and the US takes a

disliking to you, they just confiscate this money if it's in a bank account.

So Venezuela, they just confiscated their US dollars.

Russia, they just confiscated their money.

And so a lot of countries have been reducing the amount of U.

S.

dollars they hold as foreign exchange currency, trying to

decouple from that arrangement.

And that's going to be a big problem for the U.

S., so, and there's a lot of oil producers in the BRICS arrangement,

and incredibly, I reckon Scott in that whole thing is, imagine getting

together a group that included Saudi America, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Yeah, it's quite a hell of a lot that they did that.

It's a very very good diplomatic coup that they managed to pull that off.

Yeah, getting those two countries to agree and join a group is amazing.

So it's out of interest, dear listener, who's the largest

oil producer in the world?

Which country?

And you might think Saudi Arabia, but in fact, United States.

Produces 20 percent of the world's oil, Saudi Arabia 12%, Russia

11%, Canada 6%, China 5%, Iraq 5%, United Arab Emirates 4%.

That's not bad by China, hey, 5%.

Didn't realise that they did so much, so.

So anyway, oil and the petrodollar.

Watch that space over the year and the coming years.

of Course.

Western powerful oligarch companies involved in weapons manufacturing

media, fossil fuels and other entrenched industries will not concede power.

As I mentioned before, capitalism demands growth.

There's a guy Thomas Piketty wrote, I think the book's called

Capital in the 21st Century.

Anyway, explains why the whole system relies on growth.

And, there's been various tricks over the last 70 years to ensure growth.

There's been world wars, we had double income, so essentially, where we had just

traditionally the man going to work, the wife, house, homemaker and mother once

women entered the workforce that was Um, uh, a factor that allowed expansion

of GDP and growth for capitalism.

Um, uh, through the IMF and the World Bank, various Western companies have

been able to colonize South American countries and other smaller countries

without actually bombing them.

So that enabled growth for those Western we had low interest

rates inflating asset prices.

That was another trick.

And we've recently had money printing and bailouts.

And these are all things that have enabled growth to continue, at least

on the books and for Western countries.

And they've just run out of options.

There's not many left.

They can't think of any.

You can't really repeat many of those.

The only one you can repeat, unfortunately, is war.

Running a war is something that can be repeated.

USA's itching to start one.

Itching to start one.

Scott, you want to go to Taiwan before they start a war?

No, I want to go to Taiwan while it's still the Republic of China

before it becomes a new province of the People's Republic of China.

So I'd like to see what the Republic of China is actually

supposed to be like, rather than the People's Republic of China.

I have been to the PRC.

I went over there to visit my brother many, many years ago.

Yeah, he lives in Beijing.

He was very good.

In the chat room, John says, what will the US do when the Arabs sell the bonds?

Well, uh, when the demand stops for the US dollar, it will be devalued and what

happens to all countries when they face chronic devaluation of their currency?

It's not good.

So, uh, so we'll see what happens.

It's one of those things.

If America was still a creditor country rather than a debtor country,

they wouldn't have a problem.

Because, you know, if the dollar falls in value and all that sort of stuff,

they still get paid back in greenback.

But, because they owe a shitload of money to the Chinese and everyone else,

then their repayments are going to rise.

So it's going to become very expensive for them.

And I think that whichever party is in power and all that sort of stuff,

they're going to have to look at their, they're going to have to look at their

taxation system to actually return something back to the people and all

that sort of stuff, because they cannot just continually run deficit budgets.

You have to pay that, you have to pay those loans back at some stage.

And You know, the United States has never run a surplus in its entire history.

It's it came very close under Clinton.

You mean a trade surplus or a government surplus?

A government surplus, but never run one.

They've always just had a deficit budget.

It's always just an argument about whose deficit is going to be bigger.

It's going to be the Democrats or the Republicans.

And it's just one of those things.

They've never had to pay anything back.

And if their dollar actually does.

decline in value, they're going to hurt because all that foreign

currency's got to be paid back in U.

S.

dollars, which is going to cost them a hell of a lot more.

Well, I'm not so worried about them running government deficits.

It's more just trade is their problem, is that, is that buying

stuff will get incredibly expensive when your dollar devalues.

It will get incredibly expensive for them.

They'll have difficulty importing things.

Yeah, but because they were once a manufacturing superpower and all that sort

of stuff, they just got to dust off their factories and that type of thing and just

start producing it for themselves again.

Yeah, there's a lot of rust to dust off.

I know there's a lot of rust that you've got to dust off and all that

sort of stuff, but it could be done.

Yeah.

You know, especially that with the CHIPS Act and everything

else that's now starting, they are starting to reinvigorate the

American manufacturing economy.

It's going to take a hell of a lot more than just, you know,

two bikes sitting here talking about it, but it could be done.

It'll be very expensive, but it could be done.

It couldn't be done without massive amounts of government spending,

and they're not going to do that.

I agree wholeheartedly, yeah.

So they're not going to do that.

Well, the Democrats have started that, though.

You know, you've got the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, and you've got

the CHIPS Act, which are all investing back in American manufacturing.

It's started.

Yeah,

but we'll see.

They just don't have the technical capacity to challenge on that issue now.

No, not now they don't, because they have allowed And the cost

of their labour is too expensive.

Yeah, agreed.

To be competitive with the world.

Well, that's why they're gonna have to, if their, if their dollar

actually declines in value Mm-Hmm.

Then they're going to have to spend more.

Mm-Hmm.

But they're gonna be buying stuff that's produced locally than

what they're gonna be importing.

True.

Because it ended up being cheaper to produce it Mac back at home

than it will be to import it.

True.

Massive devaluation might kickstart the American manufacturing.

Yes.

It could kickstart them again.

Mm-Hmm.

It could, yes.

I'm not saying it will, but it could.

Yeah.

Every clout has a silver lining.

Well, it does for the American manufacturing unions and

all that sort of stuff.

I'd say this is a great deal for them.

But, it's going to take some money and it's going to take some concerted

political effort to get it done.

Watley says Scott, America can never be what it was again.

So, yeah.

Yeah, but Watley, you are very much down on the Americans and will they ever

be, will they ever be back here again?

Will they ever be back to where they were?

No, they won't.

I think that ship has sailed, you know, they won't be ever getting back to where

they were, but they could actually end up, they could end up being very comfortably

in number two position behind China.

Usually when empires fall, they sort of, yeah, they usually collapse.

They, they usually collapse into a heap and that sort of stuff.

And then, and the barbarians come in and it's quite a mess

for a long time, isn't it?

Yeah, it normally happens when Empire Falls could be.

Yeah.

You know, it, it could, it could.

I mean, how's that Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Belgium Empire the

German Empire and the British Empires.

How did they go after their decline, you know, it was, well, Britain

was, Britain was a, it happened.

It did decline and it went through a very long period of a very slow descent down.

They're completely stuffed now.

Yeah, they are, because they have, they have kicked a

massive iron goal by leaving EU.

Yeah.

You know, it was a completely stupid thing for them to do.

Anyway, they did.

And God alone knows how long it's going to be before they actually

realise what they've done.

And whether or not they actually start secret talks with Belgium

about possibly coming back in, you know, it's one of those things.

I don't see how the hell they can do it, but they might be actually faced

with no choice because it is, it was a completely stupid thing that was done.

It was completely insane.

Right.

What else have I got here?

Oh, the other thing that happened during the year, of course, was Nord

Stream was blown up by the Americans.

It's still not proven that it was the Americans, but it is highly, it is highly

likely it was the Americans that did it.

As a consequence, the German economy is now stuffed.

Because it relied on cheap power to make stuff.

It relied on cheap gas from Russia, which was a mistake.

And also, by the same token, the other thing that they're doing, which is

bloody stupid too, is that they They've gone ahead with their turning off their

nuclear power, which is absolutely insane because, you know, they're not

Soviet reactors, they were built by Germany and all that sort of stuff.

There has not been one single accident in Germany.

Now, at the same time as Germany was leading the world in renewable energy and

all that type of thing, they also had a substantial amount of their electricity

was generated by the nuclear industry.

So it was very stupid of them to actually say that we're going to turn them off.

Now, if they had not turned them off and all that type of thing, then they

could have very slyly, but surely they could have converted their housing from

heating by gas to heating by electricity.

And they could have had a.

flow of electricity from their nuclear power, while they were still building

windmills and all that sort of thing, to transform to renewable energy.

But they didn't.

They went with cheap Russian gas, which was turned out to be a bloody mistake.

Yeah, they didn't think the Americans would blow it up.

So, yeah.

I know, but they also probably didn't think that Ukraine was

going to get invaded either.

It's one of those things that I just think to myself that, you know,

if you want the, if you want my argument on that, I think that Angela

Merkel was responsible for that.

John in the chat room says, I think the Germans have delayed

the closure of nuclear power.

He thinks they might have delayed the closure of it.

Well, if they have, that would be very good, but I didn't hear that.

I had heard that they were still going ahead with their closing

down of the nuclear power.

Dear listener, on this podcast, over the years, I've made it very clear

that nuclear power in Australia is a completely nonsensical idea.

Agreed, but in Europe, we have already been doing it.

I have no idea about in Europe in particular because I just don't

know whether they have the sun and the wind and I haven't seen the

studies on those countries to see whether they can survive without it.

I just know that we can.

So, uh, all my comments about nuclear power have been basically about

Australia and our experience here where we clearly don't need it.

It's too expensive.

It's a terrible option.

But anyway, it might be.

The best thing for Germans, I don't know.

It's one of those things.

It's a, it's a good transitional energy and all that sort of stuff that they

could just continue to use at infinitum, but they've decided to walk away from it.

So anyway, I hadn't heard that they hadn't heard that they were

delaying the closure of them, John.

I think the Americans blowing up Nord Stream have learned a

lesson and they think actually that was a pretty good trick.

Wouldn't surprise me.

Here's another tip for 2024 and the years ahead.

The Americans to blow up some other key infrastructure.

Of Scott, either an enemy or of an ally, because it works both ways.

So, in the case of Nord Stream, that was both.

I mean, that was half owned by the Germans and the Russians, wasn't it?

Like 50 50 ownership or something like that?

I thought it was owned by the Russians, wasn't it?

I thought, I thought they were, I thought they were shared ownership of that.

So, so yeah, from the American's point of view, you know, if you're wanting

to cause a problem for China, you know, blowing up a dam or something

or causing some infrastructure damage might be something they would consider.

So look for them to lash out and blow up some infrastructure somewhere.

Why not?

It worked with Nord Stream.

Well, I heard you rule.

So, yeah, here's another tip, Scott.

If Trump does win, maybe he will cancel AUKUS and the submarine deal will

finally be put down, because he might say, quite rightly, from an American

point of view, we don't have enough subs as it is, and with his anti China

rhetoric, he might say, I want us to keep the subs, I don't want Australia

to have them, we don't have enough.

I'm cancelling the deal and I'm cancelling effectively Orcus.

That would be great.

I'm all for a Trump victory if that's a potential result.

It is a potential result.

He is the sort of character who might do that.

I've got an idea that Orcus has got a time limit on it, and if Trump wins then

that time will be accelerated, you know.

It's one of those things I think that we're going to have to go cap in hand

to the Japanese and just say, look, you know, those, those 12 subs you're

going to build for us, yeah, we want you to build them again, please.

Those million, yeah, those, those 1 billion subs, as

opposed to the 50 billion subs.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Of course.

The other thing that will happen climate change will continue, Scott,

and there's a lot of cans that can be kicked down the road, but I think

eventually climate change is the one that's going to perhaps create a bit

of a catalyst for action on things.

Well, you've only got to see the weather and that sort of

stuff that we're experiencing up here in Queensland, you know.

Amazing rain.

Oh, it's incredible.

Poor Douglas two metres in two days and things like that.

Crazy amounts of rain, so, I think I think for every degree of temperature

increase, the atmosphere can hold.

7% more moisture.

And so we've already increased 1.5% and so there's 10% more moisture in the air than

there was say, 70 years ago or whatever.

Mm-Hmm.

And that moisture has to fall at some stage, leads to these

massive downpours and also big snow events in cold countries.

So, uh.

Um, and Scott, we're just going to have more issues with, imagine these

poor people in like, Springbrook and whatever had housing and their roofs

blown off, trying to get a builder to come in and do insurance work

and, and, you know, fix up a house.

It's going to be really hard to get stuff done.

So, uh, so yeah, climate change is one of the things that will have a continuing

effect and Scott, I reckon all these things, cans get kicked down the road,

nobody's prepared to do anything.

It's all too hard and they just want to get through to the next election

without having done anything and without having offended people and it's

going to take maybe 50 or 100 years or some disaster might happen where

we have quite a systemic collapse.

I reckon at that point, Scott, we need to be ready with a new

constitution and we What do with it?

And people need to have it written out and argued and done and dusted

and just put on in the top shelf.

No, on a wall, Scott, behind a glass a sheet of glass with a sign on it,

in case of emergency, break glass, and then we pull out a new constitution.

I'd like to, Scott, this year, as part of our podcast, is imagine you know, It's

some sort of apocalyptic event and, and we are charged with writing a constitution

that would then they'd break glass and say, well, here's one we can use.

People have had time to think about this in the cold light

of day and argue about it.

And we'll use this as a, as a better constitution.

Here are some ideas, Scott, for what would be a better constitution.

So proportional voting, Scott.

So rather than.

I'm not talking preferential voting, I'm talking proportional, so this

sort of thing where we're just broken down into districts and we, and we

have a member for our electorate just doesn't make sense to me.

It should be all the voters, which what, 15 million or something

like that Australian voters?

I mean the population is 27 or 28 but the voting population

is 15 or something like that.

So, just, Voting for as a collective for our federal parliament, and if

15 percent of us vote Green, then 15 percent of the federal politicians

are Greens politicians, for example.

What do you think of that?

Proportional voting.

Yeah, that doesn't make me offended or anything like that.

I suppose the only real problem with that is you'd end up killing

off the independents because they would have to get a hell of a lot

more votes to actually win a seat.

It's one of those things, I think, that would kill them off.

I don't know, maybe you'd get No, I don't think get some national

figures who could come in.

Yeah, you could end up with Zali Stegall and that sort of stuff winning.

Yeah, yeah.

But I don't think you'd end up with the number of teals and that sort of stuff.

They'd have to run under a banner of the teals.

Hmm, yep.

Then they'd have to get involved in that sort of stuff.

They'd have to work together and all that type of thing.

They'd have to run a party and that sort of stuff so they'd get up.

Hmm.

But it would be a breakdown of this two party system which Oh I would, absolutely.

It's failed, it has failed, so I've got no problem with that.

So yeah, break glass, new constitution, proportional voting.

Intergenerational stuff, Scott, like, yeah.

Now what do you mean by the intergen intergenerational routes of Norway?

Well, what I'm saying here is, for example, in Norway, they've, when they,

they've retained ownership of their oil.

As they sell it, and the money from that goes into a wealth,

sovereign wealth fund, right?

And then the income from that is used for various projects, but the

fund itself is not really touched.

That's there for future generations, right?

So, essentially, what we've got here in Australia is We're allowing private

operators to mine and we're taking royalties, but we're not slotting

that money away as sort of a capital.

Yes, you want a sovereign wealth fund.

Yeah, because it's really a theft by the current generations from

the, from the future generations.

And future generations ago, you bastards, you had this, you know, coal and gas and

oil and iron ore and you sold it, but that was belonging not just to your generation,

that was a multi generation asset.

I, I think there should be some law to stop.

Generations dealing from each other.

Yeah, and I agree, and that would be something, if you're setting up a

sovereign wealth fund and all that type of thing, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah, so if you are extracting a capital item like that, that you

can only do once Then you just can't spend it on recurrent expenditure.

It's got to be on something that's lasting.

Anyway term limits, Scott.

Like, I like the idea that people can't hang around for too long as politicians.

Like two terms, three terms or something, but move on.

Post political career employment.

There is absolutely no way these bastards who are, you know, Minister of Defence,

can do Two weeks after leaving office.

Or 12 Months, are suddenly taking up cushy jobs with

Lockheed Martin and other groups.

You just, you just can't allow it.

Freedom of Information, where we've got to be able to just

find out what is being discussed.

There's way too much hidden secrecy.

Media Literacy.

There's no way of stopping the amount of deceptive shit out there.

The only defense is to teach people how to recognize it.

When they see it and smell it.

War Powers.

Scott came out recently over Christmas.

Release of some cabinet papers that comes out every, every new year.

Essentially John Howard taking us to war in Iraq.

No written submissions, no detailed assessment.

It was just him and a handful of people sitting around having a bit of a chat

and saying, Yep, okay, well we're in.

It was a pathetic Poor level of consideration for such a major thing.

War powers should be the entire Parliament, House of Reps and

Senate, comes together and votes.

If you can't convince all those people and get a majority, then you don't

have a good argument for going to war.

And that's got to change.

And things to do with climate change and inequality, the whole,

you know, different things.

We could do in terms of like none of this can possibly happen

except in a crisis of some sort.

But like Naomi Klein says with the book Shock Doctrine, if you haven't read

that book, dear listener, go out and read it, which basically talks about

how countries that suffer from a shock, whether it's an economic shock or a maybe

a tsunami or, or some event like that.

Basically, in the case of a tsunami, villages wiped out that had traditional

sort of sea shacks on the foreshore and fishing villages and what not,

they end up going to higher ground.

Their, their residences have been completely wiped out and Corrupt

governments and land developers move in, bulldoze what was, you know, the remnants

of their homes and whack up you know, tourism developments before these people

can gather together and, and readjust and And, and, and fight for their rights.

And while they're still in shock, these other groups are sitting there waiting

for this sort of event to happen.

And they move in swiftly and do their dirty deeds while

people are still in shock.

And that's the whole sort of theory behind shock doctrine.

So, yeah, that's that.

What else have I said here Australia in particular?

I think Murdoch's influence has to wane even further, Scott.

As the boomers die out and just young people don't pay attention to it.

They're not paying attention to the news.

Hmm.

Or newspapers.

So, surely his influence has to wane.

I suppose it depends on how good he's control is of the television.

Because the television and that sort of stuff, that probably still grabs the kids.

They don't watch Fredo.

They don't watch Fredo.

Well, you were just saying yourself, you don't watch it.

Well, I don't watch Fredo.

I just watch it on the on the Foxtel and that sort of stuff.

You know, I just go and choose.

I go and choose my news there.

I go and choose the SBS news.

So I just don't see young people consuming.

Do they consume content from Murdoch much?

No, they're not going to consume it in the volumes that our generation did.

Our generation, you know, you probably still bought a newspaper

and all that sort of stuff.

You read it from cover to cover.

I didn't buy a newspaper, but I watched, I listened to news radio and

then watched the ABC and everything like that for an hour every day.

I watched it between 7 and 8 every day.

These days I just shift everything over to SBS because ABC's got really Pathetic.

I read the Courier Mail every day, cover to cover, for a good laugh.

That's where you get most of your content from.

Yeah.

So yeah I'd say yes, the housing problem in Australia, it's going to be exacerbated

by natural disaster repairs and the Greens will force Labor to tinker with

rent freezes and sort of Other stuff, but nothing substantial will be done.

Here's a prediction, Scott.

Less tattoos in Australia.

Saw this article.

Are you in favour of tatt Do you like tattoos, Scott?

No, I don't like tattoos.

You know, just, you know, to each their own, but not for me.

Mm.

So there's this article that said at the turn of the millennium, just 10

percent of Australians over 14 had a tattoo, and they were mostly men.

Now, dear listener, 20 percent of Australians have a tattoo, right?

And they're mostly women.

And I would actually believe that up here, like, there is an incredible

number of ladies that have got tattoos on them, you know, and they're not

just, they're not just subtle ones.

They're getting the whole sleeve done.

Yeah.

The rise is driven by the young, about 30 percent of Aussies

aged 22 to 36 have a tattoo.

But, according to this article, the big issue right now, cost of

living, inflation, adjusted wages are falling, tattoos have to be paid

after rent, so people, he's saying, are sort of Struggling to afford a

tattoo, and there's sort of evidence of tattoo shops or tattoo parlours,

Scott Struggling to find clientele in recent times demand has dropped.

And he says that over 50 percent of Australians get their first tattoo 25.

And once you've got a tattoo, that gets you more tattoos.

Most Aussies who have a tattoo have more than one.

So if you make it to 25 without your first ink, you're far more likely

to keep your skin as is forever.

So maybe, with the cost of living crisis, people unable to afford them.

If they can't afford them till they're over 25, then

they may not get them at all.

And and he also says, you know, it could become uncool because at the

moment, most of these young people, their parents don't have a tattoo.

But when your parents have a tattoo, suddenly it's not so cool, so, so the

group coming through maybe it's spelling the end of the tattoo phase, so that's

a change that that we're likely to see, so, Scott, sure, you have a question?

Okay do any of your kids have tattoos?

I found out that one does.

Really?

Yes.

Boy or girl?

Oh girl.

Right?

Yes.

The youngest one?

Yes.

Tiny little, tiny little tattoo.

But yes, we didn't know, and until Christmas.

And so, essentially, those statistics, because I have three surviving

children and what did it say?

That um, Um, about 30 percent of Aussies aged 22 to 36, so one third, and yes,

one third of my children have tattoos, and it was a girl was the one who had

it, so those statistics bear out when it comes to my personal experience, Scott.

But I find tattoos just, I've never seen, I just find them ugly.

I find that The artwork, to me, is very aesthetically unpleasing to my eye,

and I find them just things I saw this comment in this, I think it might have

been in this article, that most tattoos look like something that your vaguely

artistic friend Doodled into the back of his math pad during his spare time.

Like, kind of what they look like.

It's one of those things I, like Brian and I were talking rather existentially over

New Year's Eve and that sort of stuff.

And he says, what would you do if I died?

I said, well I'd go get a tattoo of your name put on my, on my left

side of my chest over my heart.

He says, Oh, you wouldn't, would you?

I said, No, I'm not.

It's just one of those things that I don't have a desire for

a tattoo or anything like that.

It would have to be, it would have to be an existential threat to the two

of us that would actually motivate me to go out there and get ink.

Yes.

Whatley says And I think I would stop at one though.

I would stop at one.

Watley says, it would be nice to not have to listen to the lame

justifications given for their ink.

Oh, ouch!

Watley.

I agree with you though, Watley.

That is, it is one of those things, I, you know, they sit there and

they talk about it and that sort of stuff, and I think to myself, does

my face look like I'm interested?

Because I'm not, you know?

It's just yep, okay.

And Maddock Man has finally made it to the chat.

Good on you, Maddock Man.

So, um Yeah, my dad joke that I like to tell when I ever talk about

tattoos is You know, there's so many tattoos nowadays, that when I go to

the beach, I don't take a book with me, I just read the guy beside me.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Boom boom.

Yeah!

Right, I mentioned before, de dollarisation.

And there's an interesting podcast called the Geopolitical Report,

often gets into this sort of stuff.

And Oh, quoting an economist there, and he says that if you adjust for the price

changes in the dollar share of official global reserves so this is what countries

hold in their reserve currencies, the it used to be 73 percent US dollars, and

that's dropped to 55 percent in 2021.

And then 47 percent in 2022.

So from 73 percent to 47%.

So he's saying there's already been a large drop in that.

Right.

Quickly just on Donald Trump as well.

So I'll just play a little clip here from Donald Trump speaking about Qatar.

And, he's initially talking in 2017 about Qatar, and then he's

talking in 2018 about Qatar.

See if you can spot the difference.

At a very high level.

We have a gentleman on my right who buys a lot of equipment from us, a

lot of purchases in the United States.

The nation of Qatar Sorry, I think I had that just starting not at the beginning of

the clip, so I'm just going to rewind it back to the beginning and try that again.

Here we go.

The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of

terrorism at a very high level.

We have a gentleman on my right who buys a lot of equipment from us, a

lot of purchases in the United States.

Those countries are stopping the funding of terrorism.

That includes UAE, it includes Saudi Arabia, it includes Qatar.

Thank you.

There we go.

So in 2017, Qatar is a funder of terrorism.

2018, stopping the funding of terrorism.

Yeah, because they're purchasing weapons from the US.

Well, and also in between those statements Qatar bought a 6.

5 million dollar apartment at Trump World Tower.

Hmm.

I wonder if that had any connection to it.

Of course it had everything to do with that because, you know,

he's a corrupt old bastard.

Yeah, sorry.

Let's see.

I can't get spurred for that, can I?

Calling Trump a corrupt bastard?

No, you'll be fine.

That's good.

Yeah.

Right.

Um, last podcast or the one before, I was talking about Yasha Monk and Identity

Synthesis and listener Liam, who's been on the podcast and convinced you, Scott.

He's convinced me to vote Green in the next two elections, after that I will

be returning back to the Labor Party.

There you go, yeah.

So anyway, he referred me to an episode that was sort of critical of Yasha Monk.

And good criticism in some respects, because he is one of these guys

who sees woke stuff everywhere.

And particularly spends a lot of time in his book talking about experiences in U.

S.

classrooms and universities and probably over eggs the problem of wokeness

and identity in those environments.

And this particular podcast which was on, it's called If Books Could Kill,

so if you want to hear a criticism of Yasha Monk, go to the podcast If Books

Could Kill and you'll see it there.

But in my defence Liam, my sort of, review of Yasha Monk was really

looking at what he had to say about Foucault and Derek Bell and Kimberley

Crenshaw and that sort of development.

And in that podcast they said that essentially the way that he described

that process was essentially correct.

So the bits that I extracted from the book for you, dear listener, were the bits

that at least in that criticism I said, yeah, more or less he's got that right.

And, I guess, if Monk was overstating racial profiling examples, I was

reading it the voice in mind.

And I don't think that was a minor matter of racial profiling myself.

So, I think there you go Liam, that's my response to all of that.

Everyone can have a look.

at If Books Could Kill and Yasha Monk.

He is one of those guys who will appear in the same sort of places

that Jordan Peterson would appear.

So, you know, that is a problem.

You know, Dave Rubin will probably have him on, for example.

That sort of thing.

You've got to pick these things.

Sometimes stop clocks are right.

Garza, Scott.

It's still going.

It is incredible that the Jews, the most famous example of a persecuted

group, could commit such an atrocious persecution of another group.

Incredible.

Yeah, I agree that their persecution of the Palestinians is wrong.

I agree wholeheartedly with you there, however, given what Hamas has actually

said about the Jews and that sort of thing, that they don't have a right

to exist on their land and that sort of thing, that they should be wiped

off the face of the earth from the river to the sea and that sort of

stuff, it should be all Palestine.

That means everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean

Sea should be Palestine.

Where's Israel going to sit in that?

Yeah, but the five year old girls, the four year old boys, and the

two month old babies are not the ones who have been saying that.

I know that.

I know it's a terrible, terrible thing that's happening.

Just because Because they are being led by a group of people that are Brutal

thugs who are actually using them as human shields and everything else,

that they're trying to hide behind them so that the Israeli bombs are

going to blow something up, so they're going to blow up the human shields

that they're putting in front of them.

Not even trying.

The Israelis are purposefully just killing massive amounts of innocent people.

They're dropping bombs knowing they're killing innocent people.

They just don't care.

Well, that doesn't surprise me.

It honestly doesn't surprise me because if they would actually put the, if they

would actually put the hostages on buses and move them back out, that would stop.

The aerial attacks would stop immediately, and then they would withdraw from Gaza.

But because they haven't.

The Israelis are going to continue fighting until they're all dead, or

they have liquidated the last of the Palestinians that are in their range.

Imagine a handful of Aussies did something terrible on the world

stage, and then whoever they did it to decided to persecute you and

I, who had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, that's true.

I agree with you there.

It's, it's one of those things.

Too bad, Israel.

You have to suck it up.

What, they're going to suck it up?

Yes, but the response that you have chosen is not acceptable.

You have to find Okay, what sort of response should they do?

You have to suck it up.

You can't just bomb the Gaza.

You have to find a way of working towards mutual cooperation.

You can't just obliterate.

Yeah, but Hermes has already said they will not cooperate with Israel.

Well, that's, here's the problem, when you've, when you've just artificially

plopped a group into an area and said to the existing people, too bad.

I agree, I agree.

A terrible mistake was made in 1947.

So that's the Terrible, terrible mistake was made.

Yeah, and that's the So as a consequence, they have to work as hopeless as that

might be, but they just can't obliterate tens of thousands of innocent people.

It's shocking this has happened, that the world is just watching on, and countries

like the USA through the UN, refuse UN resolutions calling for ceasefires.

For ceasefires, I know.

And countries like the US supply weapons to them, allowing it to happen.

It just shows how little faith we can have in the future when a country

can just decide to just obliterate a group of people in response to that.

What hope have we got?

It's Anything's possible.

One of those things.

Had they not Had Hadamars not actually pulled the trigger on that October 7th

attack, none of this would have happened.

Well, what was happening already, though?

What was happening already?

Okay.

They had them locked off.

It's terrible.

They had them locked out and that sort of stuff.

They weren't allowing them to cross the border to get a work or anything else.

They had them locked out in Israel.

Yeah, so the sort of conditions, what this has done is highlighted what's

been going on in the Gaza and in the West Bank and highlighting what

an apartheid state they've created.

Yeah, and you've actually got a group of people that feel like they've

got no choice but to take up arms.

So Israel is potentially also responsible for Hamas taking up arms.

But, had they have actually not just walked away, had they have actually stayed

on the negotiating table with Israel and all that sort of stuff, had they have

taken the path that Egypt did and that sort of stuff after the Yom Kippur War,

where they actually acknowledged Israel had a right to exist and all that sort of

thing, they could have set up some sort of diplomatic relations, then they could

have worked towards a two state solution.

But Hamas said, no, fuck you, you got to get out, which I think is terribly

childish in the, it's also terribly childish, but it's also playing with

fire because Israel does not have a good record for walking away from a battle.

I mean, they needed to do the hard work of encouraging more

moderate Palestinian groups.

Yeah, absolutely.

Somebody they could deal with.

Yeah, exactly.

Rather than Netanyahu doing what he did, which was to encourage Hamas to

knock off the Palestinian Authority, well, you know, all your chickens

have come home to roost now, buddy.

So anyway, they've completely obliterated the sympathy that the world has for

And that is why there is so much anti Semitism being spilled around the place.

It's not just, it's not just from Arab Australians or anything else.

It is being spread throughout the world and it is coming up because Israel is

behaving in such a terrible fashion.

But is there, is there a lot of anti Semitism or is it just anti Zionism?

Ah, it's probably more anti Zionism than anti Semitism.

But anyway, it is, it's.

It's got some expression as anti Semitism, but it is basically anti Zionism that

is being, that is being pilloried about.

Scott, we've come up to 8.

34 and this podcast these days only lasts an hour.

So, dear listener It's because Landon Hardbottom hasn't been in contact

with us for a long time, has he?

Yeah.

So, so now, dear listener This podcast is going to change to Monday nights

and at a slightly later time of 8pm.

So, for personal reasons, They did want to start at 8.

30, listeners, but I actually put my foot down because that's my bedtime.

Yeah, so it will coincide with my my wife and I's, our job of looking after

some grandchildren on Monday nights.

And it will free up my Tuesday night to, Wealthy Listener, some of you

may know that I'm a keen squash player and I'm trying to improve my

squash and maybe enter some Masters events and in order to prepare for

that I really need to play some comp nights, which are on a Tuesday night.

And so, so yeah, there's no other special reason other than it suits me,

so I can play squash on Tuesday nights occasionally, but so yeah, it's gonna

be It suits me well too, because I can go to schooner runs on Tuesday nights.

There we go.

So in future, it's going to be on a Monday night as the regular night for the

foreseeable future, starting next week.

So we'll talk to you then, Monday night at the new time of 8 o'clock.

Bye for now.

And it's goodnight from him.

George, where it is so clear it is a lynching at the highest level,

nobody can deny it, and I thank God that we have people in the streets.

Can you imagine this kind of lynching taking place and people are indifferent?

People don't care.

People are callous.

You have just a few people out there with signs of I recall the moments

in which during the Reagan years, there was a few of us out there.

In the 60s, you had masses out there.

Now you've got a younger generation of all of these different colors

and genders and sexual orientations saying, We won't take it any longer.

But you know what's sad about it though, brother?

At the deepest level?

It looks as if the system cannot reform itself.

We've tried black faces in high places.

Too often our black politicians, professional class, middle class,

become too accommodated to the capitalist economy, too accommodated

to the militarized nation state, too accommodated to the market driven culture

tied with celebrity status, power, fame, all of that superficial stuff.