Shooting an AK-47 underwater leads to all kinds of rad stuff. Cool, cool cool cool.
And they’re off
So, the election has started in earnest, and we finally know the date: September 7th. Today was Day 1, and the action is all under way for Election 2013.
Hmm: let’s recap for those who haven’t been paying attention. Back in 2007, Kevin Rudd was Opposition Leader, running against the tired old policies of Howard. Rudd promised… well, roughly the same policies as Howard, but he’d be nice to the Aboriginals, the refugees, the environment, and the “working families” who were about to be put on cruel and unusual employment conditions.
Rudd got into power, and appointed his deputy Gillard to oversee the transition away from the cruel & unusual working terms (a.k.a. WorkChoices). He then got stuck into the hypotheticals, called a major ideas conference, and then promptly did… well… I don’t think anything actually concrete came of that conference. I’m not sure even something ephemeral did.
Then the GFC happened, and everything else went out the window.
FBT Rule Changes
Excellent post on The Conversation about what is actually proposed by Rudd & Bowen to change with the FBT rules next year:
This means that where the statutory formula method gives a lower taxable value than the cost method, the taxpayer is getting a tax concession.
This is recognised in the annual Tax Expenditure Statements issued by Treasury. The Tax Expenditure Statements contain a list of items where taxpayers are getting a tax concession, along with an estimate of the aggregate of the tax concession.
The statutory formula method is listed as a significant tax expenditure. On the other hand, where the statutory formula method gives a higher taxable value than the cost method and the employer fails to elect into the lower cost method (this will rarely happen), the employer is being (unfairly) overtaxed. This would be a negative tax expenditure.
The removal of the statutory formula method simply moves this part of the tax system back to a principled position by removing a tax concession. These facts have been completely lost in the “debate”.
The whinging of vested interests and the media’s speed in presenting their stories as being utterly valid without question leaves me disgusted. Any business that just complains when their operating environment changes, especially when they’ve been operating on what amounts to a rort, doesn’t deserve to be in the business in the first place. This is a repeat of the mining tax whinge writ small.
Edit: Michael Pascoe in the Fairfax press also has an excellent & incisive piece on this.
Obama: America is not yet a post-racial society
Barack Obama, showing the eloquence he’s famous for, makes the point in the light of the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman case that America is not (yet) a post-racial society:
There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.
And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.
This is something that many who haven’t experienced that side of society’s treatments perhaps don’t realise – those viewed this way notice. People might thing they’re being careful or subtle, but it’s noticeable. I’m not a black man in America, but I’ve seen shades of the same thing, and while 9 times out of 10 it’s easy to dismiss, there’s always the odd moment when you think to yourself that you’re paying for the original sin of appearance, something you can’t control at all.
And let me just leave you with a final thought: that as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race.
It doesn’t mean that we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But you know, when I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they’re better than we are. They’re better than we were on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.
The underlying point here is: electing me – even twice – hasn’t resolved the race issue in America, and it’d be worthwhile to recognise this as a factor.
The Earth from Saturn
See that pale whitish-blue dot over on the right, under the rings? That’s the Earth as seen from Cassini, orbiting around Saturn. Beautiful.
Calvin & Hobbes Documentary ‘Dear Mr Watterson’ coming
News today of a Calvin & Hobbes documentary coming – here’s the trailer:
I love Calvin and Hobbes in a way that I’m not entirely sure how to express – it’s a shame that there’s not more being made, but there were more than enough created that each time I see a strip it feels funny and fresh, and brightens my day. The artwork is superb. Looking forward to seeing the full version of this documentary.
Aussies lacking basic scientific facts
I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear this from the US, but Australia, really? 41% of Australians don’t know the Earth takes a year to orbit the sun:
Three in 10 people aren’t aware that evolution is still occurring, with a similar proportion of the public dismissing the idea that humans influence evolution in other creatures.
On all of these measures, Australians’ knowledge has declined in the past three years, when the academy last polled the public.
Asked if humans inhabited Earth at the same time as dinosaurs, 27% of respondents said yes. This is down slightly from 2010, when 30% of the population thought humans lived alongside the prehistoric creatures.
I mean, what the hell, right? Do kids these days think Jurassic Park was a documentary?
Kevin’s Back
Possibly a little late to be jumping into the schemozzle that was Federal Politics last week, but now that Kevin’s back, there’s quite a few people giving Labor another look. It’s fascinating to me because the policy differences between Rudd and Gillard are minimal, so the difference boils purely down to personality and perception.
Anyway, that point aside, here’s Pollytics on how the 2013 Election is actually shaping up to be a very, very interesting one:
The “Swing to the ALP” figure is the change to the ALP two party preferred vote since the 2010 election. As we can see, there’s big movements to the ALP in Qld, but large movements away from them in Victoria and South Australia, with NSW and WA remaining static.
If we plug those numbers into Antony Green’s Election Calculator, we get the ALP currently sitting on 77 seats, the Coalition 71 and 2 Independents (Katter and Wilkie). The Tasmania, ACT and NT results all come from small samples in either the ReachTEL or Morgan SMS results – so they’re a bit iffy, but you get the general picture.
My election simulation produces a similar result 76 seats to the ALP vs. 72 to the Coalition, with 2 Independents.
Wait, what? That’s not supposed to happen. Labor is ahead on its own merits, and QLD seems to be the key.
Very, very interesting electoral maths about to occur.
South America: Part the First
When I first thought about a trip to South America, I had some ideas in my head about how things were – I knew it was no longer the place of the past decades, when some revolution or another would push one government out for another, be it from democracy to communist or military junta, or indeed vice versa. Hell, Brazil is right on the list of economies challenging the developed nations.
I do admit though there’s a little part of me that clung to the notion so deeply instilled by the Tin Tin comics, of all things, where one dictator was replaced by another only to himself be thrown out at the end of the day. It’d be a hell of a thing of it did happen, but let’s just say I wouldn’t mind Tin Tin’s role :-)
With this kind of context in mind, getting into Buenos Aires, I first felt a shock of the new – Ezezia Airport is very new and nicely fitted out – and then the polar opposite as we approached our hotel. In an ostensibly decent neighborhood, there was a feeling that you were in a place you didn’t necessarily want to hang out at night, judging by the sidewalks and the graffiti, which was ubiquitous. I felt a perverse thrill that perhaps trouble was bubbling under the surface…
So what did we do after putting our stuff down at 10pm? Naturally we wandered outside, assured by the nearby lights, late night pharmacy, McDonalds… And it turns out appearances are deceptive, because this was the kind of neighborhood where people were out with their kids at 11 in the evening, as others strolled to restaurants to get started on their meal.
Continue reading “South America: Part the First”
WSJ: The Poor Little Rich People Are Getting Slugged
So this is apparently a real thing from the Wall Street Journal.
The Onion couldn’t top this. Whether it’s the sad faces of all these put-upon dejected rich people, or the elderly minority couple who is depressed despite not paying extra taxes (or was that the point?), or the distressed single Asian lady making $230,000 who might not be able to buy that extra designer pantsuit this year, or the “single mother” making $260,000 whose kids presumably have a deadbeat, indigent dad just like any other poor family, or that struggling family of six making $650,000 including $180,000 of pure passive income and wondering how to make ends meet, mockery is almost superfluous. The thing mocks itself. That $650,000 family in particular is bizarre to the point of incredulity: those people could literally stop working entirely, live extremely well on $180,000 while doing nothing but watching television all day and staying home with their kids, and leave their high-salary jobs with their oh-so-onerous tax requirements to people who actually appreciate them.
This is astonishing, and exactly the kind of thing that enables people earning two hundred thousand dollars a year to think they are ‘poor’ or ‘middle class’. Holy hell, these cartoons would make more sense if the incomes mentioned above were all cut to 1/10th shown. But then the tax increase wouldn’t be there, and the WSJ would have nothing to report on, would they?