We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Hello and welcome, dear listener.

Episode 445, Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.

I'm Trevor.

I've got a slight cold, but I'm manning up.

I'm being tough.

I'm not complaining.

You'll just detect it in my voice.

It's a little more husky.

Maybe that's attractive and alluring to some of you, or maybe not.

I don't think so.

Scott is in regional Queensland.

How are you, Scott?

Good, thanks, Trevor.

G'day, Joe.

G'day, listeners.

I hope everyone's doing well.

Yeah,

and Joe, the tech guy, is here as well.

Yes, right.

James is in the chat room.

Good on you, James.

Hello to James from Sydney.

So, if you, if you make it to the chat room, say hello.

We will try and incorporate your comments and, um, what's on the agenda?

Well, we're going to talk about, um, international matters, in particular

with, um, well, I just have to cover the atrocities that, um, Israel has

been committing in the last couple of weeks and various other bits and pieces,

but before we do, um, Scott sort of joined Joe and I a bit late, and Scott,

you declared that you're not voting for the Greens this coming election.

Now, that's federally, is it?

Yeah, that's right.

I'm not voting for them federally or state.

Or state.

Yep.

Okay.

And the reason is?

Their petulant behaviour over the, uh, housing bill before the Senate and how

they demanded that the government actually override the Reserve Bank and cut interest

rates unilaterally rather than doing what they have always done ever since.

The Reserve Bank Bill was brought into Parliament in the 40s or 50s or whenever

it was, that the um, I don't know, it was around some time ago that they started

it, which is that you allow the Reserve Bank to set the interest rates and the

government looks after fiscal policy.

Now, why have they done this?

For base political purposes, they have presented complicated

problems with a simple solution.

They said interest rates are too high, we will just go in there and

force the government to cut them.

That would have a potentially catastrophic disastrous result.

If they did cut them too low, too fast, which I believe they would try

to do, you would end up with runaway inflation getting out of control.

Which means the government would then have to slam on the handbrake on the

fiscal spending to reduce the amount of money going into the economy, which would

then slam the economy into a recession.

And I just think that it is the height of petulant childish behavior that

they actually did what they did.

Just before we go

on,

and you're going to also not vote for them in the state

election, even though that's a really much a federal issue.

Tarred with the same brush.

Mm hmm.

Yep.

Okay.

So, um Well, what if they're right And they're not, not right.

They, they're not right at all.

The Reserve Reserve and the Reserve Bank is wrong

because the Reserve Bank has been wrong.

Of course, they have been wrong in the past.

They're not infallible.

No, they're not infallible.

But it was a ridiculous thing that they actually said that you can go in there

and reduce the interest rates yourself.

Mm-Hmm.

, which I just think is a very childish thing for them to say.

Are interest rates historically high?

No, they're not.

They're not historically high.

They're probably still lower than what they have been in quite a while, but

they are higher by what they were during the pandemic, when they were slashed to

try and keep the economy moving forward.

Are interest rates an important part of the economy?

Yeah, they're,

so if we elect governments to run an economy,

but we don't elect a government, we do not elect governments.

No.

If you, why do we sub, why subcontract out?

Alright.

If you hand that, if you hand that over to someone that's got, if you

go hand that over to someone that has to look, has to be looking at the,

um, election and that type of thing.

Mm-Hmm.

They're going to be slashing interest rates when they shouldn't

be slashing them, uh, because they've got their mind on the, um, on the

election result that's coming up.

rather than actually doing what was sensible and prudent, which may have

You could say that almost about anything, in that you can't

trust the government Of course you can.

to be in control of things.

Of course you can, that is right.

Because they will submit to mindless populism.

Well, they would actually submit to it.

I think, I think that they would.

So the argument is that this is too important.

To let the democratically elected government control

is the argument, isn't it?

That's what I'm saying, yeah.

Which would be fine if they had a really good track record.

Well, what have they done wrong?

You know, um, you had Whatsy's name, the last guy that was in charge, and

he said that he didn't think interest rates were going to go up before 2024.

Clearly that was wrong.

Um, Yeah, Keating was the one that was involved.

They totally

misled the economy on that.

People made commitments about what the Reserve Bank was predicting,

and they did the complete opposite of what they were forecasting.

So Yeah, they did the complete opposite of what they were forecasting?

What's your point?

Well, they misled the public as to what they were going to do.

Like, it, it's, it seems to me the counter argument would be, Scott,

is that the interest rates are a key component of running an economy, and

why would we, why would we delegate that function to an unelected group

whose role is not to, to manage the economy in the interests of Australia?

but simply to target a particular inflation rate and not care

how we get there or what damage is done along the way.

And it might be perfectly appropriate to say, you know what, in the current

circumstances, that target and hitting it is less important than

the overall welfare of the economy.

It's a very narrow focused, um, group who's, who's only, you know, they've

only got a, when you've got a hammer, everything you see is a nail, isn't it?

And their only hammer

is, is interest rates, which is okay.

The government could go in and do some things as well.

The government could actually have, um, the government could actually.

Make a compulsory superannuation contribution of coming out of the

employee's, out of the employee's salary.

So, what they would do is they would increase, they would increase the

superannuation contributions when the economy was running too hot to reduce the

amount of money going into the economy.

Yeah, that would be preferable because what they would do is Sorry.

Say that again, that would be increasing the super.

Increasing the superannuation contributions

out of your employees pockets.

Right.

Into their own superannuation fund.

So payroll would have to recalculate how much super you were going to pay.

No,

I just think that the payroll, the payroll could just, what you've

got to do is you'd have to set it up so that you have a compulsory,

I can't think of what it's called.

So you're wanting to

have less money in the consumer's hands so the economy is not so hot.

Exactly.

Let's not give them their wage, let's, let's tuck it away in super so they can't

spend it.

So they've got it, they've got it in the future.

Well,

I don't, where do we go with that?

I'm just saying it's a possibility that they could do that if they wanted to.

But they've chosen not to.

But also

the, um That's incredibly complicated.

That's not complicated at all.

I was going to say You know, I

put in 200 bucks a fortnight into my superannuation,

no, 400 bucks a fortnight.

So 200 bucks a week is what I put in, and They believe

that unemployment is the trigger, isn't it?

You've got to have a certain amount of unemployment in the economy.

So if employment is getting too high, we basically need to increase

rates so people get laid off.

Yeah, that's what they're aiming to do, yeah.

Yeah, that's the whole theory of this.

Which is a rockin theory.

I know, it's a rockin theory.

It's an absolutely horrible thing to actually do to people.

Let's call it a

hypothesis rather than a theory.

Okay.

And the Greens are saying no.

Yeah, but the Greens are saying no, but they're doing

it for base political purposes.

They're actually trying to make something that is complicated, and they're trying

to put a simple solution on it by saying, oh, we can just cut the interest rates.

Or maybe the Federal Reserve, or sorry, whatever the Australian

one's called, I can't remember now.

Yep, Reserve Bank of Australia.

Yeah, the RBA is, um, doing it for what they think, you know, this is an unproven

theory and they're trying to control the economy by looking at the unemployment

rate and varying the interest to cope with that, because they don't believe

that you can have 100 percent employment.

Yeah, no, they don't believe you can have 100 percent employment.

I understand that now that is, you know, that's wrong because you

could actually go, you couldn't end up having a higher, on higher.

You could end up having a lower unemployment rate than what we've got now.

We've had a lower unemployment rate before and it hasn't been a disaster.

Scott, in the chat room, Essential Lord Don says,

I think you've broken Trevor.

Might need to turn him off and back on again.

That was for my extended pause earlier on.

I'm not turning him on.

That was a good one here, because yeah, it was one of the few

occasions where I am lost for words.

But Scott, you're a lover of democracy.

Yeah, I know that.

In an unelected reserve bank, controlling a major function

of our economy is is anti democratic.

Like, if the government takes control and mucks it up, then you're going

to have Prime Minister Dutton.

Okay, but then we boot him out and we elect somebody else.

I just think it was very amusing.

Okay, but the whole point of the bill that they were trying to get

negotiated with the Greens, was that it was as a result of an independent,

um, inquiry into the Reserve Bank.

Now they recommended splitting the board in two and also doing away

with that provision that enabled the government to actually step over the

Reserve Bank and cut interest rates.

That was the, that was the three things they wanted to do.

They wanted to split the, they wanted to, sorry, two things they wanted to do.

They wanted to split the board in two, to have a governance board

and a monetary policy board.

And the third thing they also wanted to do was actually remove that as

an option for a government to go in and override the Reserve Bank.

Now, that was,

that

was the recommendations.

Now, the Greens have gone two steps forward from that.

They've said, no, not only should you keep that, you should start using it.

Hmm.

I think that's a good idea.

I don't think it's a good idea.

I don't think it's a bloody disastrous idea.

To have the treasurer of the country control the interest

rates is a disastrous idea.

It's almost religious.

The last time it was done was when Paul Keating was in charge of interest rates,

and we ended up jacking them up to 18%.

Hang on.

So you're not saying the Reserve Bank was But that was worldwide anyway.

It was worldwide.

And that was worldwide, but you know, Paul Keating

was in charge of it down here.

Hang on, didn't you say that the Reserve Bank's

been doing it since the 1950s?

No, I couldn't remember.

I

couldn't remember.

Anyway, Paul Keating was the last one, was the last one that had, had his

control over the Reserve, had control over setting interest rate policy.

He was the last treasurer that had any sort of control over it.

Well, Scott.

I guess the argument from you is that the, uh, Reserve Bank are the experts,

the politicians don't know as much as the Reserve Bank, and that they are liable to

just succumb to popular, um, desires, and that we need a sober, controlling hand.

Screwing interest rates wherever necessary to keep inflation under control, no

matter what happens to the economy.

I don't think that And the flip side of that is believe

That's what you're saying.

I do not believe that inflation is as evil as they try and make it out to be.

Well, the Reserve Bank thinks it is, but what's the reason for burning it?

I know they think it is, but they're wrong.

So I think that they've got to have an eye on employment more so than the inflation.

I think James in the chat room agrees with you.

He says, I think, Trevor, there are aspects of the economy that

should be beyond the winds.

of the political headwinds.

If too many aspects are handed to the popularly elected

governments, then you will.

That's part one.

Part one, the rest is coming.

Yeah, exactly.

So once he gets that, I just think it's, I just thought it was very,

it was very childish of the Greens to actually do what they did.

It was, um,

John says, um, it's not true, Scott Fraser was the last treasurer.

Okay, good stuff.

Okay, let's assume that, um, that Keating stuffed it up with the

recession and the interest rates.

And what did Australians do?

Boot him out.

Like, that was a signal that this is just not acceptable, wasn't it?

James says, then you will be electing judges, prosecutors and who knows

what else happening in South America.

It's happening in North America.

You're talking about direct, okay.

I can be in favour of the Australian Treasurer taking control of interest rates

and not be in favour of electing judges.

Like, you know, it doesn't have to be the slippery slope, um, you know.

You know, it just doesn't have to be a slippery slope.

So

I know, but you, it starts, it starts off that way but usually

ends up going down that way.

Do

you know what?

Imagine if there wasn't that existing power and we were sitting

around deciding whether we should divest the government of this power

and give it to the Reserve Bank.

We'd all be thinking, oh, I don't know if that's a good idea, but it's sort of

used to it as being the way things are done, and it's irresponsible not to.

I think we should divest the government of scientific decisions

and let the CSIRO make them.

Absolutely

we should, because, you know, you wouldn't have had this

bullshit over climate change.

Had the CSIRO been involved, we would have had renewables almost

completely rolled out by now.

We would have stopped burning coal.

Well, again, I thought you were all for democracy, Scott.

Yeah, I am for democracy.

You need the CSIRO to advise, and the government to listen to the advice,

and decide whether to take or not.

But,

when the government doesn't listen to advice, then you, you know, it's just

a ridiculous situation that you had a system that was working under Gillard,

and she, she, she lost the election to Tony Abbott because of the Greens, but

she lost the election to Tony Abbott who came in there and tore it all apart.

You know, it was one of the more ridiculous things that

actually this country has done.

In the chat room, at least, I think Wayne is on my side.

The government should control interest rates, otherwise they

are not taking responsibility.

Fair enough,

Wayne, but I don't agree with you.

And James again, interest rates are something that have both short

term and long impacts on the economy.

Governments are inherently short sighted.

Yeah, but we have a government making decisions.

That have long term and short term effects all the time.

That's the whole point of a government.

To simply say interest rates are somehow sacrosanct and it's the one

thing that we keep away from the government because it's so important.

It doesn't make sense.

possibility of a plan of a nuclear power station in the next 50 or 60 years.

Yes.

And AUKUS is another long term one.

I

just think, uh Had sober people been in charge of our defense

policy, then AUKUS being signed up to.

But we haven't had sober people in charge of that sort of policy because, you know,

you had that dickhead, what was his name?

Morrison?

Morrison.

Well, you know, he was just a dickhead.

He's got to be from marketing.

Yeah.

And then after that, Albanese hasn't reversed it.

As much as I hated Morrison, he was the person to make that decision.

It was not to be outsourced to some independent, unelected body.

As to what our future defense force should be.

So that we could then, at the next election, boot him

out for the stupid decision.

Imagine if it was the Chief of Defense who was setting the spending.

He'd want it as high as possible.

Exactly, he'd want it as high as possible.

I don't think he's the expert either.

But as a

matter of principle, just having people who have a specific role means that

they are focused on that role and that KPI and are not taking into account A holistic

view of the entire Australian economy.

economy and the welfare of Australian citizens.

Like, that is not part of the KPI for the Reserve Bank because they are No, the

Reserve Bank is supposed to have, is supposed to have, is supposed

to have their eye on two targets.

They are supposed to be aiming for full employment, they are supposed

to be aiming for keeping inflation between two to three percent.

But we all know that their role now is just inflation.

Oh, no.

And so, it's dangerous to have a group where you say your

only role is to look at this.

Because they will do that to the exclusion of the general

health and welfare of Australia.

Because they'll say, this is our KPI, this is what we're employed for, we don't

give a stuff about the rest of the things.

So it just doesn't make sense to have a group that's so

limited in its considerations in charge of such a vital thing.

I think the Greens are If you can't afford bread, let them eat brioche.

I think the Greens are spot on in questioning this No, I don't

think they're spot on at all.

They're idiots.

They're, they're indeciles.

They are childish

idiots.

But is my argument I basilic and childish.

Yes it is.

I basilic and childish, but it's not considered and and worthy of thought.

, Scott: I you have, you have obviously put some thought into it, but like a

lot of things I do not, I do not agree with your SII can, I can get that.

I

can get

that.

But you wouldn't say it's a childish, immature in basilic thought bubble.

Well, okay, let's go, let's go, let's go and analyze what

actually happened with the Greens.

They actually, they allegedly took this to the party room, but the bloke

that actually came out and made the con, made the actual announcement, I

can't remember, but apparently he went off script when he actually demanded

the government actually go in and take control of interest rate setting.

Because the one guy in the Greens that they actually should have been talking

to, he's the former, he's the former, Former Treasury or Finance Spokesman or

whatever, can't even remember his name, he's got eight years under his belt

working for Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong.

He's got other years over here doing that type of work.

I think you're

right, there's a very well credentialed Greens guy

who's been involved in the banking industry for a long time.

Who's probably, it seems, very uncomfortable with this policy.

He is allegedly extremely pissed off and refused to talk to the, refused

to talk to the guy from, I think it was the bloke from the Saturday paper.

I heard this on, um,

yesterday morning when I was listening to this on 7am and he, I think it was

the journalist from the Saturday paper, actually rang around to find out what was

going on and this bloke refused to talk.

Now, that says to me that the other bloke went out there on his own.

Yep, Peter Wishwilson was the guy.

He was, he, now the other bloke went out on his own and left the

whole thing just out of the bag.

Now the other bloke, who should have been, Making any sort of

comment on that, didn't say a word.

You know, I think that says that there's a fissure in the Greens party room.

There's certainly division in the Greens party room.

And it's divided along the line you'd expect, where the mainstream economists

have the conservative traditional view.

But you know what, as I read more and more, uh, I have less and less

faith in mainstream economics as understanding what's going on in the

world and, and doing their job properly.

Like, it seems to me that economics is one of those professions

that has let us down badly.

And mainstream economics is up for, is up for criticism, I think.

What do

they call it?

They call it the dark arts, don't they?

I don't know, but, um Um, I think, I think mainstream economics

has got a lot wrong over time, so I think some of the, of the well taught

mainstream economic theories have not stood up very well over time.

So, alright Scott, well that's interesting, that's a good one to

start with, so if you're not voting Greens, then Who are you voting?

I will probably find a, um, independent to get my first ballot and

my first preference and then after that it'll be Labor coming through second.

Right.

And the Greens, the Greens will come down as I normally do, as a toss up

between them or One Nation to go last.

Oh, Scott.

Okay.

No, I do.

I am very considerate with my vote and all that sort of stuff.

I work out who I'm voting for ahead of time, and then I go in and I vote.

I go in there and I don't take any of the how to vote cards, and I

vote exactly the way I want to vote.

Right.

My daughter's friend turned up the other day and saw some of the junk mail, and

there was a, I don't know if it was Labor or somebody else, but there was a card at

the top of the pile said Christopher Lee voted against, uh, legalizing abortion.

Yeah, we can't afford to have him.

Back in power.

And daughter's friend went, Oh, trust Labor to get personal on this.

Right.

For God's

sake.

It's a little worried how a 19 year old is brainwashed into the

Yeah, I know.

It's one of those things and um, You know, it's like, I actually

felt really sorry for this Labor campaign worker the other day.

He G'day, how are you going?

And I said, I'm fine, thanks.

And I said, Your candidate, she just recently won an election

to the council, didn't she?

And he said, Oh yes, she did.

And I said, so why is she now leaving that job and going in for this one?

And he looked a little bit uncomfortable.

And I said, you know, how do you, had she have actually said, I'm not

going to run for council this time because I'm going to work with whatever

her name is until she stands down.

Then I'm going to put myself up.

I'm going to put myself forward and ask for, ask the party to pre select me.

And then after that, I'm going to run for the state.

That would have got a hell of a lot more votes than what it is now.

Now, apparently what it all happened was, I can't even remember her name, Julianne

Gilbert was the lady who's standing down.

Apparently what happened was the party came up to her and they

said, um, they've got a real dynamo running for the LNP up here and we

don't think he can win this seat.

So they had her stand down and then they had this Belinda Hassan, who

had been just recently elected to council, stand up and say that she

was going to take the position, which she has done and everything else.

Now, that really doesn't sit well at all with me, because I honestly believe that

she must have known something like this was a possibility, in which case she

should have, she should have said, I'm not running for council this time because

I'm going to hopefully stand for pre selection when Julianne Gilbert retires.

And had she have done that, she would have got my unquestioning

first preference vote.

Now, she's not getting my first preference vote.

So, so you're going to put Greens are the first and then No, I'm not going to

put the Greens first.

I'm going to put the Labor Party second, but I've just got to find

someone else that I can vote for first.

So you live in redneck country, it's going to be One Nation.

Yeah, One Nation or One Nation isn't it?

Yeah, there is a One Nation candidate up here, but they

also have a slew of independents that do occasionally turn up.

So, you know, I just, I will probably vote independent and

then after that I'll put the Labor Party down as a second preference.

But when it comes to federally and all that sort of stuff, I've

never voted for any of them.

Even when I was a member of the LNP, I never used to put them

first or I used to put them second.

You know, because I don't like the, um,

uh, federal government funding of election campaigns and all that sort of stuff.

I don't want the private money flowing in the way they do, but I honestly believe

that a dollar, whatever it is, a vote and that sort of stuff, that's just wrong.

Anyway, so I actually try and find someone that's got no chance of

getting 5 percent of the primary vote, give them my first vote, and then

after that I go find somewhere else.

James says, Seriously Trevor, who are you preferencing after the Greens?

That's easy, Labor.

Don't have any problem doing that.

I don't know that.

I, I, I don't know, have the candidates yet been announced?

I want to go and have a look and see which candidates are

less votable or more votable.

I want to actually decide on who they are and what their policies are.

Wouldn't the candidates policies be what the, what

the parties policies are?

I would have thought so.

So usually there's seven candidates in my electorate.

Mm.

Uh, so there'll be the Greens, Labor, LNP.

One notion.

Uh, so that leaves at least three independents, so I want to see what they

are.

What are the Greens policies would you, would you not want?

And then,

what

would the ideal candidate look like then, Joe?

Uh, What would be the

combination of policies, ruling?

I would say a secularist.

Mmm, that's Greens.

Uh, I would say that they are pro science, which, again, I've

not actually Well, historically they haven't always been.

They were anti GMO, which I don't think follows the science.

Right.

So, I think There's possibly better candidates, but at the moment

it probably will be the Greens.

Okay, what other policies?

If there's even a Green.

Um,

I think at a state level, some more funding for, um, health.

I know since my daughter is currently studying to be a paramedic, um, that the

ramping times are awful at the hospital.

And in fact, I recently went to Prince Charles and spent five hours on the

bench outside before I was discharged.

Sorry, in the waiting room.

Despite,

yeah, I was seen by a doctor and then sent out to the waiting room and then seen

again and sent out to the waiting room.

There was no bed available.

So I think, basically, the infrastructure, the health infrastructure up here

is just not caught up with the, um, the growing number of people who are

here.

Yeah, we've got exactly the same problem up here.

The ramping and that sort of stuff that goes on up here is ridiculous.

Yeah.

You know, and that's, you know, I've got private health

insurance, but I prefer not to use it.

And, um, But, if, I think if I was ever involved in a non life threatening

accident, I'd probably prefer to go to the emergency room at MARTA and

that sort of stuff and know that I'm going to get seen a hell of a lot

faster than what I would be if I'd gone up to the base hospital, you know?

It's just, it is what it is.

It's not right, but it does happen.

And I just think that, um, you've got to find your own way around it as much as you

can in this life, because if you rely on government or anyone else to look after

you, you're not going to get the best.

You're not going to get well looked after.

Well, that's why we should vote for a government that will.

Well, exactly.

Yeah, I know.

I think realistically, I'm never going to see a Green, certainly not

in the next 20 years in this seat.

No, not in your seat.

It'll either be, um, I mean, it's currently a Labor candidate.

My concern is that there's a very much a backlash against Labor.

Mostly because people have forgotten how bad it is under the

LNP.

Yeah, see, that's the problem.

Like I was talking to Nigel Dalton up here, he turned

up at Parkrun the other day.

Is this a state person?

Yeah, he's the, he's the state LNP man, but he's the state

LNP guy that's running up here.

Decent bloke, very friendly and everything else.

I said to him, look, I said, I think Christopher Lee's got it.

But I really hope that he's got the, I really hope he's got the bastards on his

front bench on an extremely short lead.

And he said, what do you mean?

I said, well, you know, shall I, shall I list them off for you?

You know?

And what was that?

The Crazy Christians.

Oh yeah, the Jared Blaze.

He was the worst of them.

Yeah.

I said, you know.

Crazy.

I actually mentioned him, I said he was the same bastard that stood

up after they'd announced they were getting rid of civil unions for same

sex couples, he turned around and said by the way, we're going to do

away with adoption for gay people too.

That was never mentioned in the election campaign or anything like that.

In fact, none of what Newman actually did was mentioned in the election campaign.

So what did this guy say when you, when you said you were worried about

Christian's

front bench?

What did he say?

Uh, he just said, basically, yeah, he said, don't worry, but you know,

he's not a, he's not a hard Christian himself.

I don't know.

Right.

Couldn't tell you.

Mm-Hmm.

Um, it's one of those things that's I realize I should, I should have

actually asked him, you know, how do you feel about the Christians?

Because I actually said to him, you know, some of those dickheads

on that front bench are actually against voluntary assisted dying.

Mm-Hmm.

And I'm very much a big supporter of that.

Mm-Hmm.

. So if any of you, lot, if you lot get drunk on power or anything

else, and try and reverse that.

You'll, there'll be hell to pay and I'll be the one that'll be out

there getting, I'll be out there handing out how to vote cards for the

opposition to make sure that you lose.

You know, now that was the whole point, you know, I suppose I've, I've

had the opportunity to have a shot at both sides, but, you know, I, I think

Christopher Foley has got it though.

I haven't seen any

polling.

This is the Labor state election for those people listening outside of Queensland,

but I haven't seen any polling.

It looks to me like Christopher is going to do it.

And apparently the latest concerns from is that outside of Brisbane and

that sort of stuff, the only seats that they can possibly hold a mirror bar

and Gladstone that Rockhampton and even Mackay could fall, which would be a

hell of a hell of a disappointment for them because Mackay has been held by

the Labour Party for the last 108 years.

Alright, well, we'll see what happens with that one.

Um, Wayne in the chat room says, As a country we need to start shifting

money back to the working class.

Well, the gap between them and the asset class will keep growing.

The Greens are the only party prepared to tax the rich.

I'm not convinced.

Of the first part or the second part?

If the gap between the rich and the poor gets big enough,

then we'll have a revolution.

It'd be nice to do things before a revolution is required.

Well, I don't know.

I think I can get a guillotine up and running.

I'll drink your wine.

I don't think you actually want to go down the idea, I think you, I don't,

I honestly don't believe we don't, we don't want a revolution in this country.

Because, you know, revolutions have not always turned out

real or anything like that.

Like the French Revolution was the first one that used the guillotine.

You end up going right back to Napoleon who ended up crowning himself the emperor.

Yeah, but they did, they did manage to break the power of the

Catholic church over the state.

Oh, absolutely.

They did.

Yeah, they did.

So I think some good things came out of the French Revolution.

Yeah, I know, but you look at the Russian Revolution that ended up with the

Bolsheviks in charge and everything else, then Stalin got let loose and he starved.

They've always had power hungry dictators over them.

They're not used to, yeah, they went straight from serfdom to communism.

Absolutely, and it's just one of those things, like, you know, it just

seemed very natural for the Russians that they would fall for a man like Vladimir

Putin, because he was saying exactly the same sort of shit that they'd had

rammed in their throats all their lives, and they had a brief experiment with, uh

Rampant theft, yes.

Yeah, exactly.

They had a brief experiment with that, which had also did have some

positive stuff that went with it too, but that experiment wasn't long enough

for them to actually get acquainted with it, and then they turned around

and said, well, fuck you, we're just going to go down with this, but

he's sick.

When the oligarchs took control of all the state assets.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're saying they didn't have a long enough go at that to see if it would work.

No,

no, no, no, no.

The people didn't have a long enough go of that to find out whether or not

they'd like, well, they didn't like it.

They didn't actually like having the assets stolen from them.

No.

But the liberty and that sort of stuff that did come with that,

What do you reckon the popularity rating of Putin would

be in Russia at the moment?

Oh, right now it's probably

90%.

Yeah.

Because, you know, you've got a gun to your head when you

actually ask the question.

No,

but if you, if you did not have a gun, if you, if you No,

it's still high because the press is completely controlled by Putin, and

all the people who didn't like Putin have fucked off and got jobs elsewhere.

And they're dead.

But also I have friends who are expatriate Russians because they don't

want to be under the Putin regime.

They're in Europe.

And wars are always good for leaders.

If you take a look at Netanyahu, his popularity was In the toilet,

and now he's in the stratosphere.

And

now it's starting to come up there again now.

Well, it's super

popular.

Maggie got re elected after the Falklands.

Yes,

so, so if you had a genuine opinion poll, where

people were not scared, then you'd find Putin's quite popular.

I'm sure.

Yeah, if there was a Because the Russian economy's going great.

Yeah, it is.

So, economy's going well, winning a war.

Living standards are better than they were before.

People will be going happy days.

Yeah, but hang on, they're winning a war that was going to take two days.

Well,

they're still winning a war, they've still

It's two years later, Trevor.

I don't think, I don't think you could say either side is actually winning

that war because, you know, it's two years later and neither side has

really managed to land a knockout blow.

And, you know, Zelensky If Putin's

goal was to secure the Russian speaking sections of

Ukraine and stop Ukraine from joining NATO, and retain Crimea,

then I think he is winning the war.

He's now got, uh, the two Scandinavian countries that

weren't in NATO to join NATO.

He's not worried about that.

So he's pulled troops off the NATO border with Scandinavia because he's

not worried about NATO invading.

It's all a load of bullshit about he's worried about NATO.

Well, any number of Western experts is bullshit.

Since the beginning of the Cold War, said, Russia will be worried by NATO expansion.

Eastwoods, and they have good reason to be worried, so why wouldn't Putin be worried?

When U.

S.

diplomats, ambassadors, Kissinger, for goodness sake, said, we

can't expand NATO, Without the Russians being worried about it.

This is before Putin was even on the scene.

So when you say Putin had no right to be worried about it, you're totally

against Western diplomatic theory.

But Poland is

sitting there going, hang on.

We've got Russia next door to us.

Russia has invaded us fuck knows how many times.

I don't trust those bastards.

We'll side with NATO.

We'll get in there.

Honestly, the Poles in America are really worried that, um, Trump will

get back in, and they are supporting Kamala because they're worried about

Trump basically rolling over and letting Putin invade Poland without warning.

Let's

just maintain, when you say Putin had no reason and didn't care about

NATO and Ukraine, it's just not right.

No, I mean he sees Ukraine as his vassal state, the same as he

sees Belorussia as his vassal state.

Well he may well have saw it as a neutral state.

No, he

sees it as a vassal state.

Because The argument from, from the West was there should be

neutral states between NATO and

Russia.

The problem is what's the, what's the guarantee that Russia

won't invade a neutral state?

It's, it's the whole point of what would we think if we were, if

the roles were reversed and our enemy was putting missiles on our doorstep.

We would say back off.

We want

neutral territory between us.

I don't think missiles are, that are a big argument anymore.

Like during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when you didn't have the

ICBMs or the ICBMs were very rare.

Mm-Hmm.

. Then it was a real threat to the Americans to have a missile base.

Only 90 kilometers, only 90 miles south of America.

Now.

Exactly the same as the having the American missiles in Turkey.

That that was where there was a real concern.

Now with an ICBM, you can launch them from Moscow.

Go downstairs into your bunker, wait for the Yanks to actually throw

missiles back at you, and it's all over.

Oh, so, so, America won't be worried if China puts a whole

bunch of missiles at Tijuana.

No, of course they're going to be,

of course they're going to be worried about

it.

Nothing to be worried about.

No, of course they're going to be worried about it.

Nothing to be worried about.

It's, the missiles are going to land anyway.

It's just going to be a short time.

It's just one of those things.

It's one of those things, like, you know, you've got to actually, the

missiles will come down regardless of where they're fired from.

So America shouldn't be worried if there's a Chinese missile at Tijuana?

No, I don't think so, because the, because the Chinese Sure they would

be.

Absolutely they would be, but I don't think they should be,

because the Chinese aren't, the Chinese, the Chinese understand

what side their bread's buttered on.

Well, a Russian missile.

And they do not want a

war.

Let's make it a Russian missile.

America shouldn't be worried if there's a Russian missile base at

TWA.

If it was a mutual defence where they agreed that if either country got

invaded, they would come to the defence of the other country, I don't see

there's any problem with that pact.

So, okay.

Mexico and, and, and Russia get into a mutual

defense pact into, into a mutual

defense pac.

Yeah.

And then Russia puts missiles on the border of the

Rio Grande aims at America.

And you're saying that's, that's good for world peace?

Uh, I wouldn't call and America would

be silly for being concerned about

Well, I, I was gonna say, why do they need the nuclear missiles there though?

Why, why does NATO need to move into Ukraine?

So NATO needs to move into Ukraine because Putin has proved his

willingness to invade sovereign nations.

Well,

Russia would say that Mexico needs missiles because America's proven time and

again its propensity to invade countries.

Yeah, um, although I don't think We would say it's not good.

It's not invaded Mexico in the last hundred years.

Whereas Russia has invaded Ukraine on dozens of times.

Georgia.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're gonna just agree to disagree on this one, we're hearing you guys.

Czechoslovakia.

Shall I go down the list of where Russia's invaded?

Let's write a list.

I'll write a list of countries America has invaded in the last 70 years,

and you write a list of countries that Russia's invaded in the last 70 years.

Let's see who's got the longest list.

Who is the most warmongering country out of the two of them, who should

the world be most fearful of?

I think the Yanks are probably, are probably the greatest warmongers

of the world, you know, because they've, they have been the biggest

kid on the block ever since the 40s.

You know, you're saying as if, oh, NATO is just a friendly defensive

force, nothing for Russia to worry about.

But, you know, Serbia, Libya, like it's been used as an aggressive force.

Yeah,

I know, but Serbia was, Serbia was a different story because

Serbia was actually Serbia was a

genocide.

Serbia actually was, the Serbian government and that sort of stuff

unleashed Exactly the same sort of thing that Europe hadn't seen since the 40s.

They had men and boys were being taken away from the rest of them, and

the men and boys were being marched down to pit ditches and shot into it.

It was one of those horrific things that needed an international response.

It came from NATO.

So NATO stopped Serbia misbehaving.

And Slobodan Milosevic and everything else who's now dead.

He, if it was the 40s and that sort of stuff, he would have been facing the

rope, but he didn't actually have to face the rope because the Europeans do

things in a democratic way these days.

And Libya?

Yeah, Libya, probably the Yanks probably overshot the mark there.

Felt

good to get rid of Gaddafi.

He was

promoting a non US dollar currency, bit of a pain in the butt,

let's just use NATO and get rid of him.

Yeah, I know, and

Was it NATO?

Yeah,

they were involved in Libya.

Or was it not an Arab Spring?

It was one of the things, I thought it started in the Arab NATO was

involved in Libya.

I

thought it started in the Arab Spring and that sort of stuff,

so NATO just came and helped it along with the end, didn't they?

Anyway, we're diverting it down a track that I never thought we'd

get to, because none of this was in the show notes, but Now we're done.

And you will worry if you've

run out of things to say.

We've only got 15 minutes left, so

You know, at least in the chat room, John is 100 percent Joe.

And, uh, Putin has secured nothing, according to John.

So, John is with you guys on that one.

What did I have in the notes?

Um,

Um, I saw this thing on Twitter, this, somebody's post, which was, I have

a mental illness that makes me think that people will change their minds

if I present the correct arguments with the appropriate facts and data.

He's

obviously not been looking at psychological studies because

we know that is not true.

Yeah, I used to think that.

I am no longer suffering from this affliction.

I find myself now just presenting the arguments and facts to shut people up

with no expectations of changing minds.

Look, if arguments, if rational evidence changed minds,

there would be no religious people.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

I like finding I'm finding hints of religious fervour in a lot of the

arguments that we tend to have these days.

Scott, your adherence, your adherence, Scott, well, with people generally, your

adherence to reserve bank control of interest rates is almost religious, Scott.

It's

not religious at all.

It's almost faith based.

It's the economic doctrine that has been adopted since Yeah, which is a religion.

For God's sake, it's not a religion.

No, no, no, I mean, honestly, um, what's it called now?

The Prevailing Doctrine?

The Study of Monetary Theory.

What, Monetary Theory?

Well, no, that's one of the hypotheses.

Economics.

Economics is, is just, we're trying to rationalise how money markets work.

We don't actually know.

And, uh, Keynesian economics is one school of thought.

What's, what's the Chicago school?

Neoliberalism.

Uh, yeah.

Yeah.

But especially

gotta go school higher

that Yeah.

So there are two opposing schools of thought on Yeah.

ATO austerity is needed to

Yeah.

Get countries under control.

Yeah.

Um, so there are two very, very much competing theories.

Mm-Hmm.

So just because the RBA happens to believe in austerity and neoliberalism

doesn't mean they're right.

Mm-Hmm.

Doesn't mean they're following the actual evidence.

Mm-Hmm.

Anyway, you know, like I'm looking at.

I'm finding the whole Israel situation really depressing, not just because

they're just crossing a lot of what would be previously red lines.

Like since we last spoke, we had the story of the exploding pages,

so imagine if another country inserted explosives into devices.

And then caused them to go off maiming thousands of people in another country.

Like, we wouldn't have stopped talking about it.

But it's over and done with in a 24 hour news cycle.

Oh yeah, the Israelis have done that.

You know, our kids were killed.

Yeah, okay.

Medical personnel were killed.

No doubt, lots of innocent people were killed.

Oh yeah, wasn't that clever of Mossad to organise that?

And then We've got this latest bombing in Lebanon where they dropped these

bunker buster bombs on like six apartment buildings to kill the leader

of Hezbollah knowing that hundreds of innocent people are going to be in

those buildings and it just doesn't matter if any other country did this.

The world would be talking about it, but it barely rates a page two

article in the Courier Mail, and we move on to the latest Lion's Victory.

It's just, this country is pursuing the most radical, um,

bombing raids, irrespective of, you know, not giving a shit about,

um, civilian casualties, but because they're part of the West.

The, the, the Western mainstream media is just giving them a free ride.

Netanyahu ordered that bombing of, from his hotel from in,

from the UN headquarters.

He was visiting the un and

he, he was, he ordered it from East Hotel Room.

So what's happening is, uh, he then spoke at the UN and.

A lot of the delicates, um, just walked out of the room, refused to listen.

And we're just getting a huge divide now between what's known as the

traditional West and, and the rest.

And it's just a real changing of, of power in the world that we

haven't seen for a long, long time.

And power is moving from those Western Um, countries back to the east and

the global south, which it hasn't been the case for since before,

um, sort of Spanish, Portuguese, British sort of empire building days.

You know, it's returning to, to an Asian, it's returning to an Asian dominance.

And we just haven't seen that for a long time.

China and India, China and India were always the

richest countries in the world.

Yeah.

And given populations, they should be at the end of the day.

But you can't talk to people about these things with, because of their

pre programmed indoctrination, which is almost religious.

So, for example, I've got a family friend who is Jewish.

And of course is completely pro Israel in their posts on Facebook

about what's going on there.

And another friend who's very right wing and is normally caring about other people,

but sees Muslims just less than human,

and

of course Israel is right, because again subjected to a lifetime

of propaganda, so you just can't get through to these people in a normal way.

Facts and arguments, you know, you just can't say this is totally

abhorrent and unacceptable to be.

Bombing and killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza.

But I've come up with an argument to say it's all okay.

And it's because of that indoctrination that we just can't get through.

I find it quite depressing.

Are

you not depressed by it?

I find the world very depressing.

It's a little bit depressing.

You know, but you

Anyway.

You're gonna have to get over it, Trevor.

Well, you know, I reckon These they're crazy

enough to use nuclear weapons.

The

Israelis are?

Yes.

Absolutely they are.

And if they were being let's say that America turned off the tap

when it comes to the supplying arms.

I reckon That Israel would launch some nukes on Iran.

For sure.

That's

very foreseeable.

That's super scary for the planet.

And you don't think Iran would launch them straight back?

I think they would.

That's what is scary.

But I don't think Iran would do it first.

I think Israel would.

I don't think the Israelis are mad enough to launch a strike on a

country that has nuclear weapons.

Given what

they've done so far.

I think, can't underestimate what they would, it seems that nothing is off

the table for these people, and they would rather go down in a blaze of

glory with nuclear weapons than Sarkar.

Well of course, that is exactly what the evangelicals would love.

Yeah.

I, because Jesus will come back when the nuclear war kick off.

I honestly think it's the likelihood of it is really high.

Yeah.

You, you don't think so?

No.

No.

I don't think they're actually gonna launch it against Iran

because they know they're Iran would actually hit back and yeah.

I suppose it comes down to who's got the most bombs, probably

the, probably the Israelis who got more bombs than Iran does.

So.

You know, I don't think either side is going to win any sort of exchange, and

either side wins from a nuclear attack.

It's

Israel is a much smaller country, you need less bombs to Yeah,

that's very true.

Very true.

But they, you know, they wouldn't be able to, if they considered the

Palestinians as civilians, they wouldn't be able to remove, they wouldn't be

able to eliminate civilian deaths too.

Cause if they, if they dropped, if they dropped significant bombs on

What are the three Israeli cities?

You've got Jerusalem,

Tel

Aviv, and there's another one, Haifa.

Yeah,

if they blew up those three, then the fallout and everything would

probably irradiate a significant portion of the Palestinian population too.

Probably the Lebanon as well, and Egypt, although it'd only be the Sinai.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Well

I suppose it depends on what sort of nukes the Iranians have got, have

they got hydrogen bombs here or not?

I don't even know what they've got yet.

I mean, you know, there was a deal done to allow weapons inspectors

Yeah, but Donald Trump turned his back on it.

Yeah.

Said we're cutting that deal, so who knows what stage they've

got to, um But he's a great

negotiator.

He'd have only got the best deal.

Yeah, um,

yeah,

okay, maybe it's just me, am I being particularly pessimistic?

Well, I think the American situation depresses me more than

anything else, since you've still got 50 percent of the population being prepared

to give Donald Trump another shot.

Again, it's not Donald, it's not just Donald Trump, despite

the fact that he can't even string a sentence together these days.

Hmm.

It, it's JD Vance sitting behind him who is a crat.

Yeah, I know.

He's even worse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, it, it is the, the po the, the plan that they have.

2025.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but also, um, the plan to basically lose half of the votes.

So they're, they're volunteering to go and work in the polling

stations and then see, uh.

Untoward behavior, which then means they go running off courts, which delays

the, um, certification of the results.

Mm-Hmm.

, they're, they're talking about how they're gonna steal this election.

They're talking about sacking the civil service, because the reason Trump

didn't manage to be a wrecking ball in the last administration because of

the civil service, because the civil service said, no, you can't do that.

They drag their heels.

So he wants to sack the civil service and employ loyalists to do the job.

Now, whether they can actually pull off running a government with people who don't

know what the fuck they're doing, I've no idea, but even the thought that they're

going to try to do that is a really, really scary, you know, this is the, this

is allegedly the bastion of democracy.

Yeah.

This is the thing that I grew up as America is the place that everyone

has their freedom and their liberty and Republic of Gilead is coming.

Exactly.

It's one of those things that, that is the part that does scare the

shit out of me, is the number of people that actually have ignored Project 2025.

Less and less.

Have you seen about the black, uh, Nazi?

Yeah, he was a nutcase.

The black Nazi?

Yeah, so this, uh, Is he governor?

Lieutenant Governor.

Assistant governor of one of the states, they've now found his

secret, um, dating site, uh, profile.

Where he was saying, I want to own, I want slavery to come back.

I want to own slaves without realizing that he'd be one of the first slaves.

And then saying, Oh yes, I'm absolutely a Nazi.

Some of the stuff he was saying was just, what the hell?

The guy's insane.

Alright, well,

you know

what?

We've reached an hour.

Yes.

And didn't get to any of the

topics or was all my fault.

So, um, It was all

my fault, because you wanted to interrogate me about

why I'm not voting for the Greens.

Yeah, um, did you have any thoughts, just on something

completely different, social media ban on young people?

I don't know how they're going

to do it.

You

know, um, Joe's probably got more of an idea than I would, but it

seems to me that you're still going to be relying on people saying that they

were born in 1983, not 19, not 2003,

you know?

It seems impossible, Joe, to enforce.

It's the same as the porn bans.

All it means is you get a whole load of data collected by people,

either the government, and that ends up getting leaked, or private

contractors who then end up selling it.

Um, it's basically unworkable.

Um, it really needs to be down to the parents.

And possibly, um, discussions in schools about appropriate use,

exactly the same as pornography.

It's down to having discussions in schools about how these things

are a snapshot of the world.

You know, pornography is fantasy, it's not real life.

And social media isn't the full world, even though it might feel like it.

It seems that the only solution is education and media

literacy and to just sort of try and tuck things behind a wall and, and

But education is hard.

Yes.

And it's easier to pass a law.

And it's just so lame from Labor again.

Just another, add it to the list of disappointing things that

But it was Labor who wanted to do the porn filter last time around, wasn't it?

I can't remember.

Under Kevin Rudd, wasn't it?

They wanted to block porn on the internet?

Possibly.

But

how hard would it be for Albanese just to say,

Look, that's not the solution.

Banning kids isn't going to work.

They're going to get around it.

We need education rather than that sort of Useless Band Aid measure and, and offer

something, but no, he couldn't do it.

God, he's such a disappointing.

He doesn't, he doesn't have the wherewithal, the gravitas to

actually take anything on, does he?

No, he's

very, uh, Pitiful little man, actually.

He doesn't like to be challenged.

He

doesn't want to lead anything.

No, he just wants to go with the flow.

He just wants the

power, for the power's sake of being the Prime Minister.

Not to actually get anything done that a Labour leader should want to get done.

Quite pathetic.

Yeah.

Happy International Podcast Day, by the way.

Yes.

Oh, is it?

Fair enough.

Well, dear listener, next week there will not be a live podcast because I'm going to

be on Magnetic Island having yet another holiday, um, but I'm going to record

something between now and So, um, see ya.

Look for the audio next week.

There won't be a live stream and we will be back together live

in two weeks time is the plan.

You'll be around then, Scott?

Yeah, I'll be around.

No.

Okay.

We're gonna be down

in Brisbane next weekend, actually.

Okay.

All right.

Long weekend.

Reach out to people who want to catch up.

Yep.

Alrighty, that's it.

Um, glad the people in the chat room enjoyed that spirited discussion.

It was a bit like, uh, like Days of the Twelve Men, so it was good.

Anyway, okay guys, we'll be back next week.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night from him.

Good night.

Marty quit drinking.

Found religion for a while.

I didn't love that.

To be honest, I preferred him before.

He had a sense of humor then.