What's what?
Solid and clean at last this morning! And looking good for the next few days. And a new long arm springy. Huzzah!
"Is TT tending right, has TB developed a bleeding heart."
Jeez, are they the poles? Talk about "false equivalence".
Anyway, doesn't TB involve bleeding lung?
I'm in the twin boat too SN, and damn is it a ton of work on the solo days. You're doing better than me to get waves at all the last 12 months have been amongst the driest in memory. Summer approaches tho.
Oooooh shit....
Short sessions and long blacks, that's all I can offer.
It gets better. Mine just turned five.
Haha shit I was hoping for something a bit wiser than that! If my blacks get any longer I'll be licking the bag afterwards.
I've actually managed to sneak a few average sessions in but fatigue, fitness etc hasn't made them very memorable. It's crazy how fast surf fitness/flexibility evaporates when you stop going every week. The weather is warming up now though so I'll get the whole family to the beach more which should put me a few more runs on the board.
Wisdom? Nup, that's what grandparents are for. That and babysitting.
Especially the babysitting.
Apologies for the babytalk to everyone who thinks this thread has gone off track or something...
well done stu, you will look back on these days with your kids as some of the best of your life.
Good luck Gaz....best piece of advice i ever got about surfing and daddyhood was keep it short and keep it regular.
Hey guys, here is the best free online game straight from Japan. It's a pisser.
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Ross Gittins hits (yet another) purple patch. Here's hoping his prophesies come true:
"Why do I get the feeling that cracking down on welfare cheating is, at best, what governments do when they want to be seen to be cutting their spending but aren't game to. Or, at worst, when they want to exploit the popular delusion that we could all be paying less tax if it weren't for the massive sums being siphoned off by dole bludgers and the like."
"What's changed with the end of the era of neoliberalism, however, is the willingness of politicians on both sides to toughen up on the banks and other businesses. They'll be paying more rather than less tax in future, and governments are already far less hesitant to regulate them more closely. I see a lot more coming. Why? Because voters have got jack of arrogant business people."
https://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-most-arrogant-people-in-australia-are…
Read that excellent article today, thought that if Ross is correct about more government intervention in the market its a very long road back to effective governance across the economy. 4 corners last night highlighted that flammable cladding has been fitted to Australian buildings since the 1990s, another outcome from deregulation / self-regulation with no-one in government or industry held accountable.
GS, are you saying that more govt intervention in the economy will lead to less effective governance?
Totally agree with that article with regards to the constrainment of the big end of town.
As someone that's been at the coalface between global enterprise and regional Australia for many years , most people don't realise just how much Australia as a sovereign nation and as a collective of individuals is getting taken for a ride.
I really like Ross Gittins . But quite often the divergence between the world as viewed through the lens of an economist and that through lived reality is quite a contrast.
Something about lies , damned lies , statistics and the dismal science I think is the reference.
No Andy, I'm saying in the absence of any governance some would be good
No Andy, I'm saying in the absence of any governance some would be good
I thought the Gittins piece came up short of addressing the fundamental issues. Corporations and the wealthy may pay slightly higher tax rates in the future and, as the public mood is swinging, governments will adjust their rhetoric accordingly. What is unlikely is that there will be any significant downward redistribution of wealth. Too many profitable public assets have been shifted into private hands at bargain basement prices, while so much tax has been avoided (see Panama Papers) that the return on its investment will distort incomes for generations to come. We have lived through the return of the robber barons and our only consolation is that they didn't manage to screw us in Australia as thoroughly as they screwed the majority of African nations, the US and various other unfortunates.
Blindie, as if it needed saying but it looks like it did. And that's a sad part.
Still.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/the-economy-is-picking-up-an…
Which segues seamlessly into this ....
I'm a bit pessimistic on this and I don't see all these magical pay rises happening for a long time. Economists rarely seem to be immersed in the real world, only the theoretical world. The macro theoretical world at that. Businesses are leveraged against real estate so interest rate rises will work against the workers in most small businesses. Trickle down economics doesn't work anymore especially when our biggest monopolies are largely owned and controlled offshore.
Best way to get a pay rise in this climate seems to be to get a new job.
"Best way to get a pay rise in this climate seems to be to get a new job."
Best way to get a house too...according to the expert advice.
"Get a good job that pays good money" - former treasurer of Australia, Joe Hockey.
To be fair, I guess Joe did practice what he preached. He's now our US Ambassador.
Lazy leaning cock-womble.
From Bernard Keane in Crikey:
Corporate tax cuts to drive CEO windfalls, not jobs
What do companies that pay less tax do with the money? The US experience is that little of it goes to investing in new jobs. Instead, CEOs benefit.
A new US report suggests that the tax cuts the government is anxious to give to large companies will end up in share buybacks and larger CEO remuneration rather than new investment and new jobs.
The Turnbull government remains committed to giving Australia’s, and the world’s, largest companies a huge tax cut that would drop their tax rate from 30% down to 25% over the coming decade, at a cost of over $60 billion in foregone revenue. The government, and business lobby groups like the Business Council of Australia — whose members already pay, on average, less than 25% tax — insist that the tax cut will increase investment, increase economic growth, increase employment, increase productivity and increase workers’ wages.
However, a report released last week by the progressive Institute for Policy Studies in the United States examined more than 90 of the biggest and most profitable US corporations that paid well below the headline US company tax rate of 35%. The list includes giants such as Exxon, AT&T, Boeing, FedEx, GE, the big defence contractors and major banks, which use tax loopholes and tax concessions to achieve tax rates often in single figures. The study found that, rather than being associated with higher jobs growth, the companies were associated with job cuts: the median job growth for the firms over the period 2008-16 was -1% compared to 6% for US private sector firms as a whole.
Two firms out of the 92 put on substantially more staff in the period: Amazon, which put on 324,000 staff over the period, and FedEx, which put on over 115,000; the total employment growth across all firms was 206,000, meaning the rest of the firms had, on average, downsized. As the report notes, 48 of the 92 firms, in all, cut jobs between 2008 and 2016, downsizing by a combined total of 483,000 positions.
So where did firms direct the higher profits they retained from paying less tax instead of job creation? According to the report, “over the 2008-2016 period, the top ten job-cutters in our sample each spent an average of $45.5 billion repurchasing their own stock, six times as much as the S&P 500 average of $7.4 billion.” This, in turn, helps drive up CEO remuneration via share options and stock price-based performance pay. According to the report “The CEOs of the 48 companies on our list that cut jobs while avoiding taxes collected even larger paychecks. In 2016 their total compensation averaged $14.9 million, 14 percent more than the S&P 500 average of $13.1 million.” That represented an 18% rise in real terms, compared to 13% for S&P500 CEOS.
The report backs up a 2014 National Bureau of Economic Research paper that found that, while company tax increases lead to reduced economic activity, there was little evidence that cuts had led to increased activity, unless implemented during a recession.
A report from the US Congressional Budget Office in March showed that Australia had one of the lower average corporate tax rates in the G20, discrediting the argument that we needed to cut company taxes to stop capital moving to other countries with lower tax rates.
I don't know if we should be thankful that he's gone or pissed that the sack of crap is now taking the aussie taxpayer for every cent he can. I'm sure the "welfare rich single mums" don't miss him much.
Allied to Keane's article, my personal experience:
Our 'CEO' got a salary increase of 35% last year (From just over 600K to high 800K).
At the same time, the organisation that employs him put forward in our Enterprise Bargaining Agreement negotiations a pay increase offer to all staff of 3.75%.
Over the proposed four year life of the agreement this is equivalent to 0.94% per annum!
When the negotiation started (Mid last year) according to the Reserve Bank core inflation rose 1.5% in the previous year. If that inflation rate were maintained across the four years our staff would sustain a 2.25% real wage cut!
And we still haven't signed off anything! More than a year later!
And don't get me started on the conditions - a more important issue in a lot of ways - they are trying to strip out of the EBA!
Dirty tactics Shatner, 0.94% is already chicken feed but they save so much cash by delaying it by just one year over the long term. No doubt the number crunchers are working over time in the back room. Do you happen to work in the media sector?
As long as Australia pursues the current radically high levels of immigration then wages will continue to fall.
The rest of the discussion is window dressing.
Did it just get dumber in here?
Anyway, Gazza, what especially is galling is that those "dirty tactics" as you rightly describe them are all part of the "business model". Along with frequent and expensive trips to the Fair Work Commission (there's a misnomer if I ever saw one!) on any quibbling matter while in negotiation, and of course the big one, as we've seen recently across multiple industries, seeking to have 'disputed' EBAs terminated altogether!
The system is broken! Or rather, it works, just not for the workers.
Oh yeah, another kicker is that I work in a not-for-profit organisation!
Well, increasingly 'corporatised', and if the LNP get there way, it will go full-capo, 'cos that's really worked for our English-speaking major cultural/trade partners!
(again, as with other neo-liberal economic experiments, it works for some...and we all know who they are!)
Shatner , maybe lay up on the bitchy sniping when I post.
Feel free to argue your point , but carrying on in such an effeminate fashion ain't doing anyone any favours.
Law of Supply and demand states that the more freely an item is available then the cheaper it becomes.
So it is with labour and it's cost.
Why else would big business be so into high immigration. I'm talking about businesses without a local consumer base. Not the Gerry Harveys . Do you think they crave diversity ?
Coincidence that wages have taken a dive commensurate with the growth of immigration rates ?
Lawfare is the corporate version of sport these days. Still cheaper to blow $50k in legal stalling than to increase a nationwide payroll by 1%.
It's interesting that its pretty much accepted that Neo-liberalism has failed us all at the moment, at the same that workers rights and pay conditions are deteriorating. 15-20 years back when people may have had a chance at stopping it many would have scoffed at the idea.
@Blowin I don't think that immigration really affects wages as most struggle to find a job unless they moved here with a decent job already lined up. Many end up with jobs that were already low paid. So immigration could potentially drive up unemployment if they all vie for the same low paid jobs but I can't see it bringing the average wage down. I could be wrong but that's my experience with the finance side of the industry and employing workers from overseas. Indians/Chinese or anyone with poor english even with a degree and an MBA need not apply unless they are transferring in from an overseas office of the same company.
Not the maritime industry where Phillipino workers are earning $2.50 an hour ?
Not the construction industry where Chinese gyprockers are earning $4/ hour ?
Not the retail industry where international student staff are getting $8/ hour ?
Not at service stations , restaurants , cleaners , IT workers etc etc ?
Everyone that works for less than the award or the industry standard brings down the pay for anyone else in that industry in 2 ways -
1 / Which employer would rather pay an Aussie the award when they can get a visa holder to do the job cheaper ?
2/ If an employer does do the right thing and hire Aussie workers at Aussie pay rates then they struggle to compete with those in their industry that underpay workers.
The entire rort stemmed from the giant corporations plundering WA a decade or so ago. Then our very own home grown whales ( Rhinehart etc ) followed.
Once they'd lobbied government for the initial stream of workers , then the floodgates opened and soon every one was doing it.
Even your local nail salon will have visa workers undercutting Aussie wage conditions with their eyes fixed on permanent residency . Maybe not caring that they are fucking up the system for their own kids in the future.
Fuck sake.
Not "happy, happy, joy, joy" today?
Stick to your fish stories. Or whatever else you can dream up.
Quick, look over there, Indy bumped into a chick wearing a burqa...
"Give me real talk of any stripe over political discussion any day."
Must've missed your own memo, hey?
Peanut.
No-one likes a hypocrite.
On cue.
Self-omission.
AGAIN.
Ya seriously can't make this stuff up.
here you go then , a repeat - I'm obviously no economic expert such as yourself , but I did retire in January at 44 years of age and have since made a tidy bit of coin picking macro and micro economic trends.
So whilst I'm no economic adviser to the stars as you'd like to paint yourself I'd like to think that I've got an opinion on the topic of the economy as qualified as any other punter on here.
Fair enough ?
For what it's worth I reckon you're a mid level union hack . Seems fitting with all the "Comrade " references . A university graduate with a functionless education and very little in the way of real world skills. Typical loathing of the actual working class you claim to champion in your futile attempt to bolster your moral authority as a means of compensating for a lack of any genuine redeeming traits.
And here's a bonus track that sums you up sweetly...
I thought I worked in a bottle-o?
Well, according to you.
And we all know how believable ANYTHING you say is.
Burp.
Parp.
Fuck me Shatner, this is getting fucking boring. Grow up and contribute in a courteous manner or just stay away and ignore it if you don't agree. Move on for fucks sake.
I'll third it.
"Give me real talk of any stripe over political discussion any day."
Fuck mate, enough is enough. If you want to get banned then just keep it up.
Of course, if you were banned you'd perceive it as an outrageous breech of your rights. Correct?
And you'd be completely oblivious of the path that led to this point. Right?
The power hungry moderator shutting down free speech etc etc etc...
Yeah I'm over the shit slinging now too its killing the place.
@blowin I just don't see all these people working for below award pay. Perhaps I have my head in the clouds, but I don't think the examples you mentioned are entrenched enough to bring down the average rate. Obviously nail salons, massage parlors, foreign restaurants etc run on cash so they can get away with it but industries like building & construction are a lot more heavily policed now than they were in the past. Paying people in cash isn't really the norm in an industry unless it gets cash income which it then never declares, otherwise they'd lose out by not deducting it through their books. I can see a link between pay flatlining and unemployment or the dwindling prosperity of small businesses but I don't think immigration presents employers with the smorgasboard of workers that people would believe. As I said earlier, skilled workers have no need to haggle on pay and they are the ones welcomed into oz with open arms. Unskilled workers are already competing for the bottom dollar but the awards set how low the bar goes.
When my wife came here from Indonesia i was actually surprised at how hard it was to find an employer that didn't want to exploit her.
In Indonesia she was a radio DJ so obviously not going to get that job in OZ, so had to start back at the bottom, housekeeping, waitressing, short order cook etc
Seemed it was hard to get a job unless the employer was of a distinct ethnicity (not going to mention the various ethnicity's) then they were keen to give her job but ALWAYS cash and want under award wage, or not employed by the hour, but by other kinds of measurements like room cleaned or by the night.
Happened on Sunny Coast when we were living there then also down here in Vic and I'm not talking once or twice, I'm talking quite a number of times.
While in contrast i always loved cash jobs for obvious reasons and actually found them hard to find unless in the building industry.
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