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.

Welcome back, dear listener. Yes, we had two weeks off, but we are back as this humble podcast gradually drags its ass towards episode 500, at which time it may not continue. We're up to 4 66 and I'm Trevor, AKA, the iron fist. Coming all the way from regional Queensland. Scott, the velvet glove. How are you Scott? Good, thanks Trevor.

Good day, Trevor. Good day, Joe. Good day listeners. I hope everyone's doing well.

And direct from Peter Dutton's electorate on the outskirts of the north of Brisbane. Yeah, Joe, the tech guy. Yeah. Yes. We're back for another episode. Sorry about last week. I forget what happened. But anyway, what's on the agenda for this show this evening? Well, a little bit of local stuff. We'll talk about the Port of Darwin and working from home, sort of local election issues. And then of course we have to talk about Trump and those tariffs and what the hell is going on with those, what does it all mean? And um, and see where we end up after all that. 'cause it's quite an extraordinary thing to crash the stock market and uh, and piss off pretty much every other country on the planet. Um. He certainly knows how to annoy a large number of people. Scott, he's not

gonna have any friends before. Too long doesn't Oh, did he have any before? No, he probably didn't have any friends, but it's just, you know, if you actually look at the history of tariffs, they've had three, they've had three attempts at it. Yes. They're about a hundred years apart. Yeah. And what was the, what was the result in all in in those first two great depressions? Well, do they honestly believe they're gonna end up being wealthy this time?

I think you're forgetting the very first one, like when they founded the Republic, there was tariffs that were probably quite successful at the time in protecting, well, they probably were in the American industry from the British.

Yeah, but that was before when they had infant, you had infant industry arguments and everything else. Yes. That was probably a reasonable time for them to exercise protective barriers and that sort of stuff. Scott, however,

yes. Put a, you go ahead. No, I was gonna say we, we don't go into Taras, but why not? Let's just keep going. Going, sorry,

keep

going. Yep.

No, because you. It was probably a reasonable argument for them to have, you know, they had infinite industries and that sort of stuff that needed to be protected from the British and the Europeans. Yes, I had absolutely no problem with that. However, to argue that America would be better off reverting back to a time when they used to stitch their own t-shirts is just garbage. You know, they can get t-shirts made in Vietnam for less than 10% of what it would cost them to make them themselves. Mm-hmm. You know, it's just, it's a crazy infantile argument that you can reinvent a mass manufacturing market and that sort of stuff in the United States because the average worker and that sort of stuff over there has enjoyed higher wages for a very long time. And I don't know what you're going to do with these people that. Aren't bright or anything like that. I've got no doubt about that. It's one of those things that I think has been a failing of my side of politics for sure. That actually do want liberalized trade. Which side of which,

which, 'cause you've chopped and changed a few times. Yeah, I know that. Anyway. Did you say yours in the past? Which one? One, one.

In the past when you were a card

carrying liberal. Is that the one or

No, I was a card carrying liberal. That's right. Because we were very much into free trade and that type of thing.

Yes.

Now even the Labor party these days is into free trade. Yeah. Now the probably the only ones that are opposed to free trade on the right. It'd be um, uh, probably the trumpets of Patriots also, um, Pauline Hansen's one nation party. Yes. And then the left, you've got the greens are probably opposed to free trade. Yes. So you've probably got that sort of thing. However, the, the lion's share of the politic politics in this country accepted that free trade was a good idea. Okay, now we have lost a car industry because of that. No doubts there. It's just one of those things. We've got to find a way to reemploy those people. Now, I would've thought that if they were still unemployed, we would've been hearing, hearing stories all over the media about all those people that they still can't find work. 'cause how long has it been since you manufactured cars in this country? Quite a while. It's gotta be what? It's gotta be at least 10 years, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway, it's been a very long time and if we still had people that were unemployed from 10 years ago, I think we would've heard about it, but we haven't been hearing a hell of a lot about it. So I assume that most of them are working again now. Now as to how much they're earning. I dare say it's a hell of a lot less than what they used to earn on the working on the factory floors, but they're earning something. Now,

it depends. If they're a real estate agent, they'll be doing all right. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Because, and I just dunno what you're gonna do with people that have worked on a factory floor all their lives. Reskill, you know, you've gotta say again

so you can reskill them.

Yeah, I know. But doing what? Hmm. See, it's all right for the three of us, because we've used, we've used that in set of different set of muscles, which we've used. The muscles lie between our ears. So we are Right. We can be re-skilled in a whole lot of things, but if you've never used the muscles between your ears, then you could actually have some difficulty reskilling. We reskill 'em into

the building trade.

Yeah. You could always reskill them into building trade.

Yeah. Bring the prices down. A building.

It depends on the skills that you've, sometimes you get lucky and unlucky. Mm-hmm. Like, um, what is it, radiographers reading, sort of ultrasounds or other stuff, you know, a lot of, uh, AI and stuff does that a lot better now, like

mm-hmm.

Things like that. Um, you know Sure. Which is interpreters are probably gonna become out of date, obsolete. Mm-hmm. And I mean, they've been using their gray matter just got unlucky in the field that they decided to do it. People doing coding for example, like a lot of no joke coding's still essential. Oh

no,

no, no. Losing ai,

um, AI makes up some wonderful code that'll keep a, a, a programmer employed for months fixing it.

Right.

Okay. There you go.

In the chat room. Alison's here. Hello Alison. Look, let's, uh, put some structure to this conversation, Scott. So, Donald Trump, um, has basically trashed the World trade system. He claims that the America's trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the us. And he says things like, over the decades they ripped us off, like no country has ever been ripped off in history. And he blames the rest of the world for America's deficit.

He blames the rest of the world for America, deliberately making itself the world's standard for trading and forcing its dollar up high so that they had cheap stuff to buy and makes their stuff ex relatively expensive.

He's, he's blaming the rest of the world because American consumers bought overseas products. Mm-hmm. Nobody held a gun to their head for that particular thing. No. They might've had their, might've had a gun held to their head for other things,

but, but, but they bought things from overseas 'cause they were cheap. And they were cheap because America became the backbone of the financial market because everyone traded in US dollars, which made US dollars expensive. America

de-industrialized. They sent there that they outsourced. Making stuff to cheap, low wage, um, countries, but it was American companies that went over there mm-hmm. And started up factories. The Chinese were smart and said to the any foreign investor, you just can't come here and have a hundred percent owned factory making cheap stuff and selling it. You've gotta enter into a joint venture partnership with somebody local. So they were really smart to Chinese in forcing that, but essentially they just shifted the manufacturing capacity overseas and, um, and left America with a, a finance and service industry, um, and nothing else. And for, for Trump to blame these other countries for America, buying stuff from 'em, um, ludicrous. I could be insane.

Well, the other example is he was complaining about Germany with their cars.

Mm-hmm.

And given a choice between a German car and an American car, which would you buy? I'd take a

German car.

Most, most people would. So, so, yeah, it's like, um,

there was, but why aren't

the Germans buying

American cars? 'cause they're basically shit cars compared to what? The, what? The Germans actually. Well, exactly. Yeah. It's like, um, I saw something very amusing the other day that, uh, Steven Fre was defending, um, El Elon Musk. He said, no, Musk isn't a Nazi. The Nazis made decent automobiles. Right.

Uh, that's a good one. Yeah.

So, well, I heard he was a Nazi because the Nazis were building rockets that went into space. Ah,

well there you go. There is there is that so, yeah. Yeah. Um, right. Tower theory, generally, as you mentioned, Scott, um, kind of, you are alluding to. Tariffs as a temporary measure to nurture an infant sector is a perfectly legitimate practice. Makes sense that you, that you put in tariffs, make imports expensive so people support the local industry until it gets on its feet. In fact, it's potentially, almost likely impossible for an infant sector to get on its feet without tariffs, which is what America has understood through the IMF and the World Bank for decades, where it has forced, um, poor developing countries that one of the conditions for getting loans is they must open up their economies to foreign investors and they must, um, not introduce any tariffs. And that's why so many countries have been unable to. Build a industrial sort of sector because the IMF and the World Bank through the Americans wouldn't let them, wouldn't let them put up tariffs. So, um, so that's the first part of tariffs as a measure to protect sectors that are in the national interest. Like after Covid, when, you know, we couldn't, we needed respirators and we couldn't build them, you might decide, you know what, we need some sort of light manufacture capacity in this country and we're gonna put in tariffs just so that we've got a sector that's uncompetitive, but is really handy to have in emergencies of some sort. And again, that would be perfectly fine practice to sort of come up with that. That makes sense.

But

in both of those, you've got a plan. With Trump, what he's doing is overnight putting in these tariffs. Supposedly because overnight America will produce the products that were previously being imported and that is impossible.

Well, what he says and what he actually wants to do are two different things. Mm. He wants to slash income tax because income tax hit his rich mates. Mm-hmm. And tariffs, uh, are a regressive tax. They affect poor people much more than rich people. Mm-hmm. So he wants to get rid of income tax and replace it with a tax on goods and services.

Mm-hmm. What people haven't mentioned is, I mean, if this does proceed for any length of time, they're gonna collect a huge amount of money in tariffs.

Yeah, they are. And then he's planning on giving that, he's gonna give that all back to his rich mates by extending the tax cuts.

Yeah. So if he was planning to take all that money and give it to the poor, maybe it would be a good, you know, if he said, I'm gonna put all these tariffs in, I'm gonna create some sort of, um, proper. Um, social welfare net. Yeah. Yeah. Then you go, okay, that, that's a plan. But the idea to sell people that, uh, these people have been ripping us off and now we are going to

rip them off,

punish them, but he's actually of, as we know, punishing the American consumer. Mm-hmm. Prices are gonna go up and they have no chance. Even on simple things like, um, beef, you know, overnight, the price goes up. Um, they can't just raise a cow overnight. It does take time, even if you've got the land to actually pro produce the replacements. So, um, and the idea that they are, that anybody would invest in factories, uh, with this incomp compete in charge, um, ludicrous. So. Mm-hmm. So it's just going to add to the cost of stuff. So in America,

if, if we were to run a hypothetical. Hmm. And say that the Soviet Union managed to get an agent placed at the top of the American political system and wanted the, this agent to split up NATO and to destroy America's economy. What do you think they would do? Yeah.

Yeah. So, um,

I mean, I'm not saying that he is, but Yeah. Bloody hell. He's acting like it isn't. I think he's

actually a Russian plant. Yeah,

yeah. Julius has have these Paris tariffs past Congress, yet they don't need to pass. Congress don't need to. Correct. Yeah. And this is the reason why he's doing this as one of his big things is because he doesn't have to negotiate with, um, with Congress. Congress over it. So in theory, Congress could pass a law to try and prevent him from doing it, but um, but then

it would go to the Supreme Court. Yeah. Who like the unitary executive. Yeah. In other words, the president has ultimate power. Yeah. Um, it's interesting that Republican politicians are no longer doing town halls because every town hall that they turn up to, they get berated.

Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things, I can't wait for the midterms just to find out how many of them are left standing.

Yeah. Maybe a surprising numbers still are, like they're ISTs. They could say to Americans, look, we're gonna chop your leg off in the short term, it's gonna hurt, but in the long term, it's gonna be better off for you. And a fair number of them would actually, we would actually believe it, it would seem, yeah.

Hmm.

So, yes. Um, so yeah, there's no program to nurture a domestic industry. Uh, so it would take years to build factories and train the workers, et cetera. So in the short term prices in the USA will increase. So overall USA demand will fall as consumers don't have enough money. So we, for example, sell America beef. It's gonna be more expensive. For that reason, Americans are just gonna buy less of it because there's gonna be a whole range of things that they just can't buy anymore at the same price. So that that demand from that country is going to reduce. But lots of countries are, are, are basically going to implement their own tariffs against America. So America, for example, exports beef to Japan, China, South Korea, Canada, Mexico. So all those countries quite likely will put in tariffs against America and beef.

Mm-hmm.

And they're gonna be turning around going, uh, well, American beef is now expensive. Um, where can we get some, oh, those Australians, they've got some extra now that they don't need. Um, and you know, so what we lose in selling to America,

we will pick up by selling to other countries. We,

depending on what it is, uh, there might be a good chance of selling it somewhere else. Um,

uh, have you heard, Veka has said, actually this is gonna work. This will basically devalue the dollar and will make a difference to America's, um, a competitiveness.

Right.

So he, he argues that actually it seems stupid on the front of it, but it, it, moving to the mid to long term. Nothing to do with America, uh, protecting their trade. It's all about devaluing the dollar.

Right. There must have been easy ways to devalue the dollar. Well, I would've thought so. Um, in terms of just artificially, um. Doing things in the bond market and the interest rates. Yeah. And

they, they don't wanna devalue the dollar too much because then it doesn't become tradable.

Right. Yeah. It's a, it's a hard way to go about devaluing your dollar to, to, to do that. But maybe, I mean, uh, knows, I don't

even think Trump wants to do, wants the value, the dollar to be devalued. Does it? He's made all sorts of public statements.

No, no. Apparently, um, not him particularly, but people behind him actually have some smarts. They're saying if we devalue the dollar by the right amount, it makes us more competitive and therefore we can sell more. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Yeah. So, you know, Trump, of course, he just doesn't care, um, about the reality. It's just the, it's just the headline. He, he, he sees surplus countries as winners and the USA as a loser if it's in a trade deficit. So he just sees the world as. Winners and losers.

But, but also, um, he's slapping tariffs on Ireland because, uh, they have a deficit of goods. Yes. But the US has a deficit of, of, um, services.

We will get into the calculation errors momentarily, Joe. Oh, right, okay. Yeah. Um, but just the motivation of the guy is he wants to be a seller, not a buyer. Mm-hmm. So he sees a relationship as a deficit, as an overall buyer, which he just, um, sees as losers. So, um, the other thing of course, is he's not taking into account that a very large share of US imports are from foreign affiliates of American firms.

Yeah.

Uh, so when he sees that America as a trade is in deficit with a country, he's not taking it into account. And in fact, a lot of the dollars flowing out of America to that country in Vietnam or wherever it may be, are quite possibly going to American firms. In Vietnam, places like that. So, but he doesn't care 'cause he doesn't own one of those firms, so he just doesn't give a shit. It's all about,

it's one of those things like under Trump one, he would never have actually continued it for this long because he was actually very aware of the stock market. Mm-hmm. Now, the stock market's been in free fall lately, and I would know, because I watch it every day and I've seen, you know, I've seen my own theoretical wealth, not evaporate, but has gone down substantially. Mm-hmm. Like, I've lost probably $20,000 on the share market. I would've lost probably $40,000 on my superannuation. You know, now you only lose if you sell, which I've got, no. Mm-hmm. I've got no plans on selling, but it's just, I, I just cannot believe that this dickhead is sitting there watching this happen, and he's got to understand that it's his fault, but he just doesn't care. No.

The guardrails have been taken off.

Exactly. And it's just one of those things like at least last time there were some adults in the room. You had that this time he, he's surrounded himself by s offense.

Ju Julia in the chat room says he and his family sold the shares before the announcement. He'll buy in again at the bottom.

That really wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. And in fact it really wouldn't surprise me at all. In fact, Brian said exactly the same conspiracy theory too, that he would've sold his shares and he'd been prepared to go in and buy them at the bottom of the

market talk. Talking of such things. Did anyone see, I can't remember. Somebody is advertising at the moment on Facebook that Dutton sold share just before something happened.

Right. Um, I dun sold that was to do with banks when he

bought some shares, he bought some bank shares and that sort of stuff. At the financial crisis. Same time. Yeah. Global financial crisis. And it was when the labor government announced that they were going to prop up the banks and the shares shot up, um, on that, um, on that announcement. Now I didn't think that Dutton actually knew what was happening then because he wasn't, he was in the opposition. It really wouldn't surprise me that he could have been involved in meetings and that sort of stuff where they would've actually said to him, this is what we're going to do. But I don't know that he was actually guilty of it. All right. I makes for a very good story.

I was gonna say, I was interested that somebody is paying lots of money to smear that around.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I do think that look, it smells, but I just don't think he was actually. In the right position to actually make any money. I think he was in

opposition at the time. I think he was in opposition, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So I don't think that he would been in on those meetings unless one of his mates was in on those meetings and they, his mates came out and said to, Hey Pete, you might wanna go and buy some Commonwealth Bank shares.

Mm-hmm. I couldn't tell you. I'm patting myself on the back. Mm. Dear gentlemen. Yeah. Dear listener. 'cause a week ago, I said to my wife about eight days ago, you know, I think it's all gonna go to shit. Just think, I think this market's ready to go to shit when you are the super. Went into the super and put it all into super conservative allocation, hardly any shares. Boy, am I popular with the wife right now.

You would be, yeah. It is just one of those things, like, I don't,

I'm not a trader, but I just had a feeling in my water.

You probably had a, you probably had a gut feeling that it wasn't going, you know, it's just one of those things like. I accept that the share markets goes up and down like a, well, I better not say that. It does go up and down a fair bit. So I was expecting that it would go down at some point because what goes up must come down. Mm-hmm. It's, I just never expected it would be such by such a deliberate, ridiculous, bloody thing that's been done. So when gonna

buy in?

Say again? Good, good question. I reckon it's gonna trundle along. Uh, dear listener, this is not a podcast that gives financial advice and if you do take financial advice, telling you my, what I'm doing, I'm not suggesting anything about the same, what you should do. It's a bit late now anyway, so, so, uh, I don't know. I'm happy just to sit on it for a little while. Right. But, um, my other one, because I don't trade at all except I did one other thing three years ago and bought just a little punt on gold.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I think it was two and a half years, maybe three years ago. It is running at. 30% per annum sense of water, like unbelievable. And that was because I've been talking on this podcast about, uh, the Chinese are selling us bonds and they're, they're buying gold as hard as they can. And I thought, oh shit, I should probably buy some gold myself. So, um, yeah. So anyway, that's the only two little financial things. I got lucky if I'd got unlucky, I probably wouldn't tell you, but, um, no, I'm got an ounce of gold happy with those two punts. Yeah.

I've got an ounce of gold that my mum left me when she died. Yeah. Uh,

Julia says, yeah, but everything Trump has done so far was flagged by him during the election campaign. Why did people not take him at his word? It's true.

Like it is very true. He's doing exactly what he said he was going to do because,

because he blustered last time round, he was chopped off. And also, 'cause he says so many different things. Yes. You, you can't tell sure you, you know, hindsight is 2020, but he says opposing things on two different days. Which one do you take 'cause of gospel?

True. But last time when he was in, he didn't understand how it worked and people told him he couldn't do things and he kind of believed them. He spent four years stewing over it thinking, when I get in next time I'm not listening to these people who tell me I can't do stuff, I'm just gonna do it.

Well, also he managed to get three people into a Supreme Court. Justices Yes. Who, uh, believe that the president has the ultimate power to make any decision he wants.

Yes.

So,

um, yeah, I mean, including anybody looking, including his

political rivals,

nobody could look at this and go shock, I would never have expected Donald Trump to do this sort of thing. Like, this is clearly the sort of thing that you could expect from him. So, um mm-hmm. Yeah. So, well,

it's one of those things like, you know, I cannot believe that people actually read all the reports on Project 2025

mm-hmm.

And

said, oh, that's my man,

you know? Mm. Well, no, but he said he wasn't involved, so they believed him. Yeah, I know.

It's just. Alright, gentlemen. Mm. How long until it gets reversed? Substantially. About that long. Joe, on the screen indicated a very small gap, it seems. Anyone want to guess, you know, let's, let's put down the, an Nostradamus hat, but say, okay, there might be a few exceptions here and there, but the majority of this site is gonna disappear. At what point do you think he's gonna say, eh, I've had discussions probably six

months time. I, I reckon after he's lost the midterms,

right? Mm, yeah. When the due to take effect sometime in April, aren't they?

Uh, yeah. It was, it was the second, well, it was basically

starting now, aren't they? It was the second I think.

Right. Yeah. It's what he said.

You know, it's like in the, the, um, announcement about Australian tariffs and that sort of stuff. He says, I love Australians, I love them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, they don't take any of their beef, so we're not gonna take any of this.

Yeah. I, I'm, I'm with you, Joe. I reckon four to six weeks and a lot of it will have been reversed. Yeah. But, um, who knows Crazier things have happened. I, I

think he's gonna bluster through, he doesn't care until it starts hurting him politically.

Mm-hmm. And well, given that he can't run for election again, well,

well, he is

actually looking into it.

Yeah, exactly. Never say never.

You would think, how can things harm him politically if he can't run again, what have you got to lose? But he is hinting that he has some possibility of something. Oh, making a third term.

Yeah. I mean, don't forget he's got a Supreme Court that's in his pocket.

Yeah.

So they just have to find some excuse that he can run for a third term.

Mm. One of them is that JD Vance would run as president. Oh. Having got Oh, for day. Yes, yes. And having got elected would then resign and Trump as vice president, would then become president again. That's sort of one of the things. But, uh, Trump has hinted that there's lots of ways that it could happen. So, um,

be a shame if all those burgers caused him to his heart to explode in the meantime. Yes.

So, um,

it's one of those things I just think to myself that, you know, because they've put tariffs on Australian beef and that sort of stuff, they reckon the price of Big Max's gonna go further roof.

Um, so he doesn't care. We've just gotta remember that the rest of the world is just gonna trade between and amongst themselves. Yeah. As much as they ever have. Yep. And more. Yeah. I've actually heard that. I heard that this morning and more. So all, all, all of that trade, it's so, okay, we sell stuff to China and maybe China's gonna be depressed a little because they're not gonna be selling as much to America because Americans just won't have as much to spend. But, um. Uh, but you know, they've been focusing on other markets. The importance of the American consumer to the world economy has been decreasing. So, um, in the same way that countries don't need what America produces unless they're Israel and they're into buying bombs, then, um, uh, it's also in terms of the American consumer, um, less important than they were 20 years ago.

Well, I just think it's absolutely hysterical that, you know, their closest neighbor and that sort of stuff, Canada's actually signed a deal to buy, um, their, or whatever you call it, you know, that radar system from Australia?

Have they? Yeah. We, we sell a radar system.

Yeah. And, um, I think they're looking at, uh, a couple of countries have canceled their audio. Um, their orders buy 35 orders orders. Yeah. The joint stroke fighter. Yes. So they're gonna buy, buy, be very hard at the Saab.

Yeah. Which is from Sweden, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things, like, I just think to myself that the Yanks have probably really shot themselves in the foot here because the F 30 five's gotta be serviced by them and that sort of thing. Mm-hmm. So I just think to myself, they're probably the western countries are gonna be looking for, because America has now proven themselves to be a completely unreliable ally. Mm-hmm. I just think to myself that, you know, do the French still make the mirage yet?

Uh, I think they make an updated one maybe.

Yeah. They probably do make an updated mirage. It's just, I just think that, um, the French and the Swedes are gonna be the real beneficiaries of this.

Well, and who, who are the big German? Um, I couldn't tell you. I, I can, I can't remember the name. It's on the tip of my tongue. Anyway. Uh, lots of people are looking at buying their artillery systems. Mm-hmm. Of course. They just don't, all the Americans arms, nobody's trusting the Americans. Even if you bought them, when you've got a, a friendly regime. You get another Trump and you shit outta luck for spares. Exactly. There's one

country that's still trusting them. Joe. Yeah. Australia. Australia.

Oh, fucking hopeless. Australian politicians. It

is absolutely insane. You know, because Jackie Lamber thought hit the nail right on the head where she said, there's time we tell them to piss off. Out of, out of, um, what's the name of the secret? Basic No.

Oh, pine Gap.

Pine Gap, yeah. So tell 'em to piss off, out to Pine Gap. And I think she all, then she might have whispered under her breath. I think it's time where she'd tell them to shove their submarines up their ass too.

Well, a perfect opportunity. Peter Dutton. It's,

it's a perfect opportunity for us to actually say to them, we are not gonna give you any more money because we don't trust you.

Peter Dutton suggested that our defense relationship should be used as a tool to negotiate with the US and what did our labor. Oh, is he, uh, defense minister Richard Miles say he came out and said Peter Dutton has been reckless with his suggestion that our defense relationship should be used as a tool to negotiate with the us even former liberal pm John Howard thinks so. It's a dangerous assertion, and Peter Dutton is dangerous, don't risk Dutton. So we've just got the most manic USA loving defense minister and he's inner labor government. And even when a liberal opposition leader is hinting, yeah, maybe we should start looking at defense as a, you know, a bargaining chip. No, no, no, no, no. You can't do that. That's outrageous. That is in the, the duopoly that we've got here. When it comes to, uh, our defense force with these two, this mm-hmm. Labor has gone more to the right than. Than the liberals in some sense. Incredible. If you wouldn't think it's possible, it's absolutely stupid. Um, but that's where we're at. Vote Green if you don't like that. Hmm. Yeah. So, um, back to you mentioned, um, Joe, the calculation. So Trump was quick to produce kind of a chart. Mm. Showing the, the tariffs being charged to the USA. And he would say things like, China is charging 67% European Union, 39%, Vietnam 90%. And what he was doing was saying, we are being quite generous. We are only gonna charge half of what they're charging us. So China charges 67, we'll only charge 34. European Union charges 39, we'll only charge 20. Vietnam 90, we'll only charge 46. So those awful other countries that are ripping off America by charging a high tariff on their own citizens, according to Trump, he's being generous by only imposing a tariff of half that amount. One problem the most figures, most of these

countries don't charge those tariffs, but figures that

he works quoting are completely bogus. Hmm. These countries are not charging the tariffs That No. Says that apparently

it, it's the total trade balance divided by their deficit.

Yes.

It, it's, it's basically the amount of outstanding balance between the two countries.

They took the trade deficit of the country and divided it by the country's exports.

Right?

That's how they, that's what they did, um, when calculating these. So they didn't look at the actual tariff structure that might be in place. So to give an example, um, uh, Indonesia and America, 17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. So it exports to America 28 billion. Um, and the deficit is 17. So 17 divided by 28 is 64%. So Trump says that ratio is actually the tariff rate and it's nothing to do with the tariff rate.

Correct. And also, apparently they've pulled this from the world fact. Uh, CIA World Fact book or whatever it is. Yes. Because Norfolk Island, it's, it's apparently for some shoes that Norfolk Island never made and was misattributed by somebody in some ledger somewhere. And the same with Herd and McDonald Island. Yes. Again, was a misattribution.

So, so territories of Australia got charged. Yes. Different rates. Yes. And in doing that calculation, not only is it just a crazy calculation, but they did it only for goods and not services. Yeah. So in some cases, these countries might be, might have a surplus with America when it comes to trading in goods, but they might be in deficit when it comes to services and might be overall in a deficit and like that they're being penalized. Yeah. As a result. So it's a completely um.

And now is a good time to be selling services into America because you don't have to pay any tariffs on them. Yeah.

So, um, so yeah, that's the sort of thing. Um, the EU was an example where goods were, um, high one way services high the other way. Pretty much line ball Trump's ignored that in his calculations. So, so, so the idea of just taking a ratio of, uh, and saying that is the, the tariff that these countries are imposing on American goods is just ludicrous. But that's where we're at in the world, just completely ludicrous, made up shit. Mm-hmm. And, uh, um, that's where we're at. So of course, and just even for some countries where there is a, uh, you know, they're in surplus with America. Um. That's one example here. Um, take the example of Lesotho. Is that how you pronounce it? Latu. Thank you. One of the poorest countries in Africa struck with a 50% tariff under the Trump plan. It's a member of the South African Customs Union and applies the common external tariff structure established by this trading block. So there's five countries, um, South Africa, uh, Namibia, Botswana, Tini, and how do you pronounce it? Joe Les Tu Latu two. They're all part of the same block changing, charging the same tariffs in actual fact. But, um, they're all getting different tariffs rates from the us. Um, south Africa's 30% the MI year, 21%. That's one of 37. Tini 10%. So even though they're part of the same trading block or the same terrace, they're being treated differently because their actual trade proportion ratio is different.

So they just need to export through the cheapest one. Yes.

Yes. In bypass. Yeah. It's so ludicrous. Um, and, you know, uh, Latu, uh, it basically imports two 36 million in goods and services in goods while exporting, um, 7 million worth of, um, no, America only exports $7 million worth to Latu, because guess what? This poor African country can't afford fancy American products, whereas the Americans buy the diamonds that Latu produces. So,

I was gonna say, most of the American goods that will be given to these countries will be given. Right will be, will be charity.

Yes. So there we go. It an unbelievably stupid idea. If your reason is because, well in Trump's mind, these countries are evil and have been taking advantage of America for selling Americans. Good. But you know,

he's been saying this since the eighties. Yes,

yes. There was some tape of him, Joe, um, talking similar.

He, he put, uh, he took out newspaper adverts complaining about how Japan was taking advantage of America.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah. You've been piddling

the same bullshit for years.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And as you mentioned, uh, um, well, Australia has been given a rate of 10%, uh, Norfolk Island, 58%. Yeah. Oh, oh. Well, it's, it's claimed that there's a deficit of 58%. Or it, it's that Norfolk Island is imposing a 58%. Yeah, exactly. Tariff on America. This, despite being

part of Australia.

So he's charging Norfolk Island 2019, all

1800 people.

Yes. So don't go running. That's,

that's a huge impact on their markets.

Yeah. So don't go running your export business through Norfolk Island 'cause you'll

be charged or herdon McDonald Islands. Yes.

With the, with,

with a permanent population of several thousand penguins.

Yes. They're at least, um, got a 10%, um, same as Australia.

Okay.

Um, 10%

was the minimum.

Yes. But it's just a bunch of penguins. Yeah. Like to actually list it as a, um, as a different item on the spreadsheet is ludicrous.

Apparently an island of

penguins.

Apparently there are fisheries out of herd and McDonald Islands that do sell into America.

Ah, okay.

And it's a premium fish. Right. Okay. But, but the, uh, deficit wasn't calculated on that because they're all sold from Australia. Of course, it was just a screw up on somebody's accounting spreadsheet that went, oh yes, these came from here. And they didn't.

There we go. Ah, there was one country left off the list in terms of being hit with tariffs. Joe, one guess, uh,

Russia. Yes.

I

wonder why.

So what was that theory you had earlier if you had installed a secret agent? Yeah. What ideally would you get him to do?

Well, exactly. How, how would you get him to isolate America from the rest of the world? Break up nato.

Yes. Help Russia in a war against Ukraine.

Yep.

Yep. And yeah. And as you are scheming with him. And you're saying, look, go and impose all these tariffs on everybody. Mm. And by the way, don't impose any on Russia. He'd be go, oh, come on. I've gotta at least put some on Russia. No, not, not, not one. So for all of this, for all these

countries that have received special tariffs, well only can't trade with Russia anyway 'cause there's sanctions on Russia.

Well, but I know that's the argument, the argument from the press secretary was Russia was left off because US sanctions already preclude any meaningful trade. However, the US still trades more with Russia than with countries like Mauritius or Bruna that did make Trump's tariffs list.

And he's talking about relaxing tariffs. Anyway.

Yeah. So, um, so quite remarkable that of all the countries in the world. Mm-hmm. To be left off the list for tariffs, it had to be Russia. Of course.

Yeah. He doesn't wanna upset Daddy, daddy, Vlad.

Mm-hmm. You know, imposing the sanctions on Russia, which it's done for a long time now, actually worked in Russia's favor because, um, it allowed Russia to develop in industries that otherwise couldn't get off the ground. And, um, that's why now Russia is, is not really feeling the pain from US sanctions anymore because they've had the time to develop the infant industries. It's as if they put in tariffs themselves to, to protect infant industries, which would've been against World Bank IMF sort of guidelines. But it was imposed externally by sanctions. So it's worked well for Russia in that sense because they took the time. To go, you know, what the rest of the world hates us and gonna get is gonna keep imposing sanctions on us. We better learn to make cheese and other stuff that we need rather than importing it like we used to be. So, um, so that's what they did as, uh, a heavy sanction regime was put on the Russians. There you go. Yeah. Ah, what else have we got here? Um, ah, and, um, what did Senator, um, Marco Rubio say? Um, it's not that complicated. China threatens our security and prosperity at today's meeting with Indo-Pacific Partners. We agreed the region needs to be free from China's coercive and unfair trade policies. Our security depends on it. So, um, so Trump imposes sky high tariffs and countries around the world. Threaten cuts off fade. What's that?

And cuts off fade. Yeah.

Threatens to cause a severe crisis in many economies. And Marco Rubio claims China is the one engaging in coercive and unfair trade policies. Of course,

they're a pack of idiots.

Yeah. So, um, actually I did have one clip from JD Vance explaining what's happening. Um, we borrow

money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those

you guys get that it seems to cut off with me when I play these clips. Yeah, yeah,

it does. It jumps six seconds usually. Yeah. But on the

actual, what people hear out there seems to be okay.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. So, um, what did he say, uh, Vance? He said, uh, we borrowed money. He bought money from the Chinese to buy peasants Chinese goods. Yes, yes. To buy things at Chinese peasants manufacturer. So, um, that's what he's doing there.

All right. Or is it that because there's a balance of US dollars and the Americans don't want to sell US dollars 'cause that deflates their value, they then get forced to basically invest them in Russian, uh, in, sorry, in American, uh, bonds,

uh, who invests in American bonds.

So say I'm selling goods into America

Yep.

And I get lots of American dollars back.

Mm-hmm.

I can't cash that out into anything useful.

Mm-hmm.

All I can do is buy American bonds as a place to park those dollars.

Yes.

Yes. So we are borrowing money from the Chinese peasants is basically the money that we won't let the Chinese peasants take away, because that's the, the value from all our deals Yes. Is paying for the American government to get a very good rate of interest on their borrowing.

Correct. So, uh, just going back to the, um, the Saudis and, uh, I've said it before a few times, but I'll say it again. When the, when the dollar was decoupled, um, from gold and basically they said to the Saudis, uh, go on, go around the world selling your oil, but you must sell it in US dollars, and you of course are gonna accumulate a lot of US dollars. And that doesn't mean you can take those US dollars and buy lots of businesses in America and lots of property will restrict what you can actually use those US dollars for. Um, but you'll be able to buy treasury bonds, which is basically meaning lend the money back to us. And they did the same to China and other, and other, uh, countries. So that's what created a demand for the US dollar. Which has kept the US dollar quite high, even though the Americans, in one sense, a Banana Republic that's just spending more money than they earn and are running deficits all the time. And the Chinese who had accumulated a lot of US treasury bonds under that system, uh, for many years now, have been increasingly getting rid of them wherever they can and buying gold instead, uh, and other things. And that's why they did the Belt and Road Initiative as a place to spend their money, uh, on infrastructure projects because they get stopped from buying stuff like, uh, infrastructure in the Panama Canal or ports in Darwin. Where maybe they are allowed to buy them at one point, then they're told they can't buy 'em anymore. So that's one of the reasons for the Belgium Road initiative was they're sitting on a lot of US dollars and they gotta start spending them. And they can't buy companies and traditional assets. They have to build these things, um, in order to acquire them. So that's kind of how all that happened. But, um, that allows me, Scott, to circle back to the first item on the agenda, which was, um, the Port of Darwin. Both parties say they want it back for national security reasons. So we have at the moment, dear listener, a, a Chinese company, whether it's controlled by the Chinese government or not, who cares? And they own, or they've leased on the long term lease port of Darwin and. Uh, both parties are saying as part of their election pledges, we are going to end that in the Labor's case. We are gonna buy it back from them. Um, the company itself has said, well, nobody's talked to us about a price, so I dunno what you're talking about. But, um, the whole idea that this is some risk to our national security is complete bollocks. Mm-hmm. Because what is the worst case scenario? We go all out war with China and they own the Port of Darwin

deal. Then eventually just it, we just nationalize

it. It's, and we say, well, we're gonna take over the port. We don't care. Of course that you own it and we're going to not let your naval vessels in. Like, it's, the risk is all China's by. But this whole Belt and road initiative is China's risk. 'cause it's building assets in other countries and taking the risk. Those other countries would get pissed off with them and reclaim them. They're unhappy. There's a bigger risk

mm-hmm. In that all the infrastructure, because it's all computerized, uh, they could in theory break and you would need to come in and put your own infrastructure in. Well, yeah,

but that's, that's something that, you know, you'd probably have to do anyway, you know, because if you go, if you go, if you've got a, if you've got a what tr in Trevor's, uh, in Trevor's story, you've got a country that was, did own the port and has become an enemy combatant country. So you'd actually have to go in there and put in new infrastructure. You'd have to go and rip out all their old computers and everything else and put your own computers in

there. Yeah. I mean, if it was done cranes, it would be a fairly simple thing. But because it's all computerized. Yeah, there's a, I don't

know, I don't know how computerized the Port of Darwin is, uh, from what

I've heard of other ports, and I'm assuming that the Port of Darwin is the same.

Mm.

That yeah, they are. Because just efficiencies.

I can't imagine that many containers go through the Port of Darwin.

No,

I'd

be

extremely

surprised. There's an awful lot of beef. Yeah,

it could, it could go through another port if it had to in, in any event. Mm. A full defense department security assessment was done on the deal in 2015. The department head, Dennis Richardson, and um, and he gave testimony, basically it's a simple, concrete thing. He appeared before a parliamentary inquiry to give a detailed explanation of how defense considered the implications of the lease in the runup to the decision to advise treasury that defense had no objection to the move. This is the original decision. To sell the lease to the Chinese, that the defense Department looked at it and said, no problem. And, um, he said, defense assess the risks of a shutdown or sabotage cyber attacks, the port being used for intelligence gathering or stealing intellectual property. We did our due diligence very carefully over an extended period of time. Nothing has been said since the announcement that has given us pause for thought. And he, he mentioned that he ordered a special review of the deal after security experts in Australia raised espionage concerns. He says, after a couple of weeks of it, I personally thought, gee, have we missed something? He said Intelligence agencies backed his initial assessment. The written advice I received on that was that there was no significant implications and it was fine. So, um, he rubbished concerns from security analysts that the deal could give the Chinese Navy access to the port. As alarmist nonsense and simply absurd and, um, no, but it's there. We winner. Yeah. So it's not a vote winner for me. I'm just going you idiots. And Dutton Dutton was the defense minister who voted for the sale of Darwin Port. He and Turnbull flogged it, and the trade minister Andrew Rob, got a six figure job with the same company thereafter. Yep. It's, and, and labor spineless gutless, stupid idiots as a major platform of the election are going. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll, uh, we'll take it back.

Uh, I, I did see a lovely, uh, article that was saying that Trump has weed Dutton, because he's trying to. Appease the trumpet of Patriot voters to try and get them into his party.

Mm-hmm.

Whilst trying not to upset the mainstream liberal voters who don't want a bar of Trump tariffs. They don't want the doge, they don't want, um, uh, kicking all the illegals out because he is gonna work in the fields

and, and guess what? The average Aussie wants to work from home a fair bit as well. Yeah.

Strange though.

So Scott, um, you, did you hear about the black flip?

Yeah, I've read about it, yeah. This afternoon.

So, you know, again, one of, it's

just one of those things. They've got this obsession with the public service. They reckon it's fat and bloated. It's not fat and bloated. It's

just so, um, there is a certain government department that I was aware of that went to future ways of working, which was, we don't have enough desks in the office for everybody. Ooh. Because we know that some people will be on leave, some people will be sick, and, and some people can work from home. And so actually we are only gonna have 50% of the original floor space. We used to, we're gonna pay less rent, we're gonna have less infrastructure, we've got less cooling.

Mm-hmm. You

know, got huge savings by having people work from home. But people who are forced to go and do our work, you know, work in a factory or whatever, are resentful of that, despite the fact that their commutes are less because there's less people on the road.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and so there is a, a, a feeling that they're getting away with doing nothing. Mm-hmm. And actually, I think the, the reports are back, most people are more efficient working from home. They are the odd shier, but most people are actually more efficient.

Yeah. So anyway, it was one of their few policies that they come out with was, we're gonna force all public servants to. Uh, work from home. And so that meant a, that anyone who's a public servant who enjoys working from home wasn't gonna vote for the LAP. And it also meant people who are in the private sector began to worry that this was a thin edge of the wedge. And this would encourage their companies to adopt similar policies in the private sector. And, uh, so people really didn't like this idea. And, um, and so Dutton has done a back flip and gone, uh, we listened to the people and, um, uh, we have got it wrong. We've apologized for it. We support flexible workplace arrangements. He told reporters, yeah, these guys are just so amateurish. Honestly. They're, they are, there's no way they are at ready to run a government. Um,

no, exactly.

Just a handful of policies. Um, one of them, like this one have just back flipped on others, like reclaiming the Port of Darwin, uh, equally stupid. It's just populist shit, isn't it? Yes. Just populist shit. So, well,

they've gotta actually do something that stops people thinking about their nuclear article.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Having said that, I still think I'm still gonna go with my prediction of a Dutton victory.

I don't think so.

I hang around a lot of boomers down here on the coast.

Yeah, I know. But the boomers are actually a, uh, a smaller voting block.

I'm, I'm just hoping that Ellie gets enough votes to get rid of them. Yeah.

I know they're Scott, but I just see there's a lot,

a lot of them still, I know there are still a lot of them, but they're not, they're not in the majority anymore.

I, but Scott, I, here's my argument. I said before, everyone who voted for Scott Morrison in his most recent victory, they're ready to vote for Dutton.

So there's good news. If you're prepared to vote for

Morrison, you'll vote for Dutton.

Apparently there's gonna be a heavy flu season this year.

Is there?

Yeah.

You think that might affect some things?

That might take out some boomers, there'll be less of a vote,

right? Uh, election's not far off.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. How's that independent going in your elector? Is she busy?

I saw a group of people on bicycles with placards at the weekend, cycling around. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Showing her green credentials. Mm-hmm. I had a look at her website. It's all very vague. I mean, there's lots of pro green energy, and aside from that, everything else is incredibly vague and I can't tell which side of politics she's on. Right. I assume she's a liberal.

Mm-hmm.

It's given that the LMP, uh, uh, haven't lost the seat in 20 years. Mm-hmm. I assume that she's a liberal light. Mm-hmm.

It's one of those things I, um, I was actually looking at the, um, change in dutton's placards and that sort of stuff. Mm-hmm. Has gone from saying, you know, whatever it was, you know, you'll be better off under the LNP to now he's actually quoting her and that saying I'm a greenie. Mm-hmm. You know, so they're obviously panicked about her because they've started to attack her. Mm-hmm.

Obviously hearing something where I think one of his lines is, are you better off than you were ago when Mr. Albanese was election years ago, four years ago? Yeah. Something like that. And his psychological sort of tactic that's quite effective. Mm-hmm. Because psychologically people are reluctant to admit that they are better off and then mentally. Think of the things that are bad rather than the things that are good. And so if you frame it that way, people would often say, no, I don't think I'm better off than I was, uh, four years ago. But if you said to them, have you ever felt like you are gonna lose your job, that you're at risk? Or have you felt you're not gonna be able to pay your bills or these things people are going, no, no. And um, and some other sort of questions like that. So it's just an interesting way of framing it is to say, are you better off than, do you feel you're better off than you were three or four years ago? And, um, can't you buy eggs? Yeah. And it, it just, it works at a psychological level. So Scott's losing his connection. But that's okay, Scott, because mind, um, we, uh, have made it to the hour. Scott is, Aw, no, Scott's with us next week. So I'm here next. I'm here next

week.

Yep. Then

away for a couple of

weeks.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, so anyway, not sure what next week will bring, but uh, we'll be back with something. Thank you for the people in the chat room, Alex and Landon, and, uh, Andrew and Julia in particular. And Alison was there earlier. Good on you. We will be back next week. Bye for now.

And it's a good night from him.

He couldn't hear, I don't think. I think his Internet's gone.

No, it looks like very frozen.

Yeah. I'll end this. Bye.