Essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s federal treasurer has criticised the Reserve Bank for raising interest rates, instead of taking responsibility for the green inflation he and his fellow incompetents unleashed.
Jim Chalmers blames interest rate rises for ‘smashing’ the economy, expects weak economic growth
By political reporter Jake Evans
In short:
The treasurer has pointed the finger at successive interest rate rises for a stagnating national economy.
The federal government is anticipating further weak economic growth when figures are released this week.
What’s next?
Economic growth figures for the July quarter will be released on Wednesday.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has blamed successive interest rate rises for “smashing the economy”, as the government braces for more weak economic figures due this week.
Ahead of the release of the latest economic growth figures on Wednesday, Mr Chalmers said the government was focused on walking the tightrope of bringing down inflation without further pressuring people “already being hammered by higher interest rates”.
“With all this global uncertainty on top of the impact of rate rises which are smashing the economy it would be no surprise at all if the national accounts on Wednesday show growth is soft and subdued,” Mr Chalmers said.
…
Mr Chalmers later clarified at a press conference that “of course” his comments should not be interpreted as an attack on the RBA, but didn’t repeat the claim.
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-02/jim-chalmers-blames-interest-rate-rises-smashing-economy/104298162
…
The failure of Chalmers and his fellow incompetents to address grid instability, plummeting dispatchable capacity, and unpredictable price spikes is particularly reprehensible, given that all they need to do to fix this problem is ditch all their green energy mandates, and encourage the construction of enough new coal plants to stabilise the grid.
In my opinion Australia is now all but un-investable. With an uncertain electricity grid, spiralling prices, crumbling wage restraint, rampant inflation and soaring interest rates, and an incompetent government which is more focussed on shooting the messenger than addressing the underlying economic problems, who in their right mind would risk investing in Australia?
At least the USA can hope for a Trump / Vance victory. In Australia our choice is between the current incompetents or the slightly less green mainstream opposition. Let’s just say neither of them is getting my vote in the next election – none of the mainstream parties are focussed on what I believe are the most important issues facing the Australian economy, energy affordability and reliability.
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“At least the USA can hope for a Trump / Vance victory. In Australia our choice is between the current incompetents or the slightly less green mainstream opposition. Let’s just say neither of them is getting my vote in the next election – none of the mainstream parties are focussed on what I believe are the most important issues facing the Australian economy, energy affordability and reliability.”
I understand. But here in the USA, the backdoor stuff that took Biden from the basement to Oval Office is still in place. They seem to be running the same play for Harris, “their” next puppet.
But, when Romney ran against Obama, I voted for “Obama Lite”. (Glad Romney lost but not glad Obama won.)
Voting for the lesser of two evils is sometimes our only option.
(Slow things down until your own Reagan or Trump arises?)
Robert Heinlein said there is always someone to vote against.
I doubt we’ll ever have a Trump style figure in charge of Australia, at least not for long. The Australian parliamentary system makes it too easy to subvert the will of the people by removing leaders who have a reform mandate.
If Tony Abbott back in the day was a US style President, he might have made real progress. But his own party ditched him after they panicked because they were losing the green vote, despite Abbott’s strident energy pragmatism being a big part of why people voted for him.
Australia had a public referendum to introduce a Presidential style system in 1999, but that was defeated, not because Aussies love the British Royal Family, but because the pro-Republic advocates refused to offer the Australian people a US style head of state and defender of the constitution.
The politicians wanted to grab more power in the new system by creating a figurehead presidency elected by and serving at the pleasure of members of parliament – an even worse settlement than our current system, in which the royal appointed head of state retains just enough independence to act against politicians who flagrantly breach the Australian constitution, such as politicians who appear to be engineering a communist coup.
After Reagan, I didn’t think we’d ever a choice such as Trump.
The Dems thought Hillary was a shoe in. But voters came out of the woodwork to elect Trump over Hillary.
He said, as a nonpolitician, what those who stopped voting and gave up on all of the “Lite” candidates the Republicans had been putting, up wanted to hear.
Then he actually tried to do it. (If not for the “Romneys”, RINOs, his first two years …
I could not imagine anything worse than an American style republic for Australia, the way it forces allies to tear each other apart in the race to the top of the sh!t heap then pretend they support each other without resentment is appalling. Why would anyone want that?
The 75% of parliament model is the only one that can ensure a truly independent President who has the freedom to disband a failed government and force an election. A directed President will always be party aligned and the government will have no check on its power.
This would be like European systems where they haggle for months after elections to figure out the composition of the next government. The only way you would have any hope of 75% parliamentary support for a president would be to pick useless non-entities who never offend anyone.
At least the US system yields a quick outcome. Remember under the US system there is still a check on the power of an unhinged president, there are several mechanisms by which a US president can be removed from power.
Anything less than a directly elected Australian President, via a state based electoral college system, will never attract enough support to carry an Aussie referendum.
Opponents of the weak Aussie republic proposals on offer would rather stick with the royals, than create a system where parliament has unconstrained power to trample the Australian constitution, and instantly replace any President who tried to stop them. Giving the Aussie parliament all the aces is in nobody’s interest except the politicians making such cynical proposals.
Proportional representation seems to ensure that the people don’t get the government they voted for. If the French system banned the withdrawal of candidates from the second round of votes they might have a workable system. The lefties ganged up against Rallye Nationale in the second round. Mind you, if they used First Past The Post, RN would have won.
Australia seems to have the same problem the UK currently has – which Uniparty version do you want. We lack a good Far Right option since the demise of the BNP and our only hope is if Reform can stop being a Farage plaything and evolve into a proper party come the next election.
The reason that you think that a American style republic would be worse is that currently, we have a virtual uniparty. We have establishment politicians of both parties that have ceded their responsibilities to unelected bureaucrats.
These unelected bureaucrats make rules that have the authority of law – until they can be nullified by the courts, which takes a lot of time. It should be easier with the removal of Chevron deference, but it still takes a lot of time.
Our founding fathers devised a great framework for our government that has been bastardized by leftists for at least a hundred years.
I believe your constitution doesn’t have good protection for your freedom of speech or self protection from more immediate threats (gun control). I suppose that limits what you can say on a public forum.
American System was not established for any kind of political parties. The duopoly that we have now is an abomination.
Nobody in his right mind would want trump.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-election-interference-confession_n_66d5592ce4b0f968d26d1ba2
There were well documented irregularities in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. I don’t know if the cheating in Pennsylvania and elsewhere was sufficient to overturn the election, but as defender of the constitution the President has every right to question a vote which includes blatant irregularities.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-judge-permits-campaign-observers-close-view-ballot/story?id=74040279
I’ve served as an election monitor, last time I served I caught 3 attempts to cheat just watching one counting table – short bundles for their favoured candidate. On one occasion the liar who was bundling 9 votes instead of 10 for “her” candidate made the most ridiculous excuse – “Oh sorry, I didn’t know each bundle is supposed to contain 10 votes”. I reported this irregularity to the party official in charge of our team and it would have triggered a recount, except the candidate I supported won by a narrow margin – so the other side demanded a recount.
You need to participate in an election as a count monitor to see how blatant some people are with their attempts to rig the count.
Just this last Spring it was released that 4000 votes in Fulton County, GA, a Democratic stronghold, had been double-scanned during the recount. Trump lost GA by less than 12,000 in that recount. Not enough, but enough to make one wonder how many other mistakes there were.
The whole problem with the 2020 election was that Democrats used the pandemic as an excuse to make voting easier but failed to put in any safeguards to ensure the integrity of the vote. I suspect Trump did lose, but there is absolutely no way to verify it.
I suspect that Trump won.
Trump received even more votes than his first victory while Biden stayed in his basement but still managed to get more votes than Obama did in his elections.
There were several state secretaries that changed election rules without going through the state legislature – illegal changes.
The ballot box surveillance shown in the movie “2000 Mules” shows multiple instances of ballot stuffing. The ballot boxes were designated for a single ballot by a single person and video shows people tossing in multiple ballots and with cellphone tracking were determined to travel to another location to pick up more ballots to stuff into other ballot boxes.
Anyone that thinks the 2020 election was fair, has to be deficient in thought processes.
Georgia has recently enacted several measures which will render the ballot-stuffing and vote-harvesting seen in 2020 much more difficult.
I live in the Socialist State of Illinois and they like to vote early and vote often.
We can’t do anything about local elections nationally, but I would like a federal election law to require IDs and shorten the voting days to a long weekend like Friday to Tuesday and no more. Mail-in ballots to require IDs and certification. That would cut down on the fraud considerably.
You have accurately expressed your state of mind—NOT right.
And only those who “Left” their mind behind voted for Biden … more than once.
I love the phrase ‘Vote early, and vote often’.
Nobody with any part of its mind even remotely functioning… would want Kamala. !
Huffpost is not written by anyone remotely “in their right mind”
So how would they know what someone “in their right mind” would want.
All their writers are ultra-leftist loonies..
The natural place for someone with your ignorant marxist rabidity to get your opinions from.
Why am I not surprised that User would link HuffPo by way of “evidence”? Chuckle. That explains everything!
Nobody in his right mind would think we’re having a climate emergency/crisis.
Then I must be completely barmy, I want Trump elected and I’m a Canadian. Trump would put that cockwomble Trudeau in his place, which is out of government.
Gunga,
Australia’s current economic problem is plain to see.
Not enough people of working age are working.
Therefore, the national cash flow is too small.
It is small because factors like high electricity costs, high wages from union thuggery, unwise interest rate fiddling by RBA, opposition to mining and manufacture etc have made it expensive to work in Australia.
Remedies:
Immediate restart of new coal-fired electricity plants
Drop all restrictions on nuclear
Cease more “renewables” and extra transmission networks
Drop net zero “ambition”
Attract new productive industry like alumina refineries, car manufacture
Drop electric vehicle subsidies
Drop most uni degree requirements for jobs for beginners
Start advertising campaigns around “Go woke, go broke”
Remove climate change as a core part of education at all levels
Drop all racist laws now giving extreme aboriginal advantage, prosecute imposters
Geoff S
Oh Sherro,
I just commissioned our brand-new 7.92 kw solar system today. Electricity is now free, free, free … in fact I’m sharing most of it … until tonight!
Cheers,
Bill
Eric, sorry about Australia climate nuttiness. It will come home to roost.
In Germany, it already is. VW announced to all its employees last week that it is considering closing entire German assembly plants and brands as it loses ‘Energiewende’ competitiveness. A BIG German nono—maybe strategic with a shaky Scholtz Green coalition election coming next year.
Alas, in the US, Trumps election Nov 5 is not a sure thing. The Dems are in full 2024 cheat mode. Two categories of cheat examples for those not US centric:
So we are definitely into ‘Too big to cheat’ territory. Perhaps the upcoming debate (which Kamala is still trying to avoid via the mic rules dispute) will make a difference.
I read several places today that her debate plan is to go on Trump personal attack mode rather than policies—to goad him to lose his cool and female voters. That works only if Trump does not respond in kind, but rather sticks to policy issues.
Dunno, but maybe he can pull the cool off. The newly contrived Arlington Cemetery kerfuffle did NOT go Kamala’s way.
BTW, both my mother and father are interred at Arlington in the Columbarium. We planned a simple service for Dad as for my predeceased mother (in same small receptacle with emblazoned sealed door). The head Arlington Chaplain called me and said, “I have ordered a full military honors funeral with horse drawn carriage, AF flyover, and 21 gun salute. It is so ordered.” OK…
Now, his reason might have to do that when Dad retired from the Air Force, on his last day he received the Legion of Merit from SecDef in my presence in the Pentagon, the highest peacetime ‘military’ award in the US. For stuff that to this day remains top secret.
And I had then to fight back tears when that same Arlington chaplain finally handed me Dad’s folded flag at the end of his interment ceremony. Thank God I had my now departed significant other Patricia at my side that day. Dad loved her, she loved him, and I really struggled that day to honor them both.
BTW, the folded flag and his Medal are both still at my second home in Chicagoland. They will be passed on.
Hi Rud, your mum and dad must have been pretty amazing people.
Ultimately reality is the backstop on climate insanity, but history shows civilisations frequently tear themselves to pieces, even collapse completely, because politicians would rather embrace destruction than admit they were wrong.
I very much fear Germany and likely the rest of Europe and Britain is too far down this path to turn back. The recent state elections in Germany offer some hope, but they may be too little, too late – 2/3 of Germans still believe in this insanity.
Hi, Rud. I second Eric’s words about your parents being special. You’re a chip off the old block, as well. I also have my dad’s WWII medals, pistol, and folded flag when he passed. Warm wishes to you!
The canary in the cage is labouring breathing!
Nothing is over until it’s over. It is not too late. At the end of Soviets when the Regime was clearly dying there was a Martial Law in Poland in 81′, many a people screamed that this means they(the Soviets) will never lose, many were in today’s vernacular “doomers”. In 1989 Poland had a free elections and the Berlin Wall fell.
We are living in a dying Regime today. I know, I lived through the Soviets dying and it feels very, very similar.
Trump cares about one thing and that is himself.
He will go back to being a Democrat again if he thinks that is in his best interest.
Trump has switched parties 6 times in the last 30 years.
Shows he’s open minded.
Shows he is without principles.
Was Winston Churchill without principles, he changed parties twice.
Could you eluciate? How does changing political parties show a lack of principles? You and scvblwxq imply that you know the reasons for Trump changing his political affiliation. So let’s have it. Tell us why, and why this means Trump has no principles.
Btw, Republicans want lots of Democrats and Independents to change their political affiliation, and a lot of them are. I suppose you and scvblwxq would claim those changing to Republican have no principles.
Just admit it, both of you have TDS. Neither one of you can have a rational discussion about Trump.
Harris has flipflopped on policies many time that number.
More times than he can remember, I bet!
b
So wait, changing a party is somehow changing your principles?
So if someone, today, changes a party affiliation from Democrat to Republican this means their values/principles changed? Or maybe, just maybe, it shows that the party changed theirs and is thus unrecognizable?
I have no party in the American politics to call home precisely because my principles did NOT change. Theirs did, though
AF flyover! Wow! Well deserved, I’m sure.
“I read several places today that her debate plan is to go on Trump personal attack mode rather than policies—to goad him to lose his cool and female voters. That works only if Trump does not respond in kind, but rather sticks to policy issues.
Dunno, but maybe he can pull the cool off.”
Trump should fixate on allowing Kamala to talk and not interrupting her.
If he interrupts her, she will whine and cry, and claim Trump is just criticizing her because she is black and female.
So let Kamala talk, Donald. Let her show her ignorance to the whole nation. Just stand there and smile and let her babble. Until it’s your turn. Then you get to talk. If Kamala interrupts, tell her it is your turn, and you didn’t interrupt her and she shouldn’t interrupt you. And smile nicely.
If Kamala’s handliers are smart, they will not allow her on the debate stage.
Trump’s tactic of staying silent and letting Biden talk and thus reveal his senility worked wonderfully during the last debate.
“Alas, in the US, Trumps election Nov 5 is not a sure thing. The Dems are in full 2024 cheat mode.”
It’s a sure thing the Democrats are going to cheat.
But, it might be different this time. The Republicans have signed up about 157,000 volunteer poll watchers with the goal of keeping Republican eyes on every vote in every State and especially in the Battleground States. So maybe hundreds of thoussands of eyes on the subject will make a difference.
The Republican goal for poll watchers was 100,000, and they have 157,000 signed up as of last week.
The Democrats are going to have a harder time of it this time around.
On top of that, Mark Zuckerburg has decided not to spend $400 million helping the Democrats, like he did in 2020, this time around. He says he is going to sit on the sidelines.
Now, we just have to make sure no illegal aliens vote in the presidential election. I think Virginia purged about 4,000 illegal aliens from their voter roles just last week.
I imagine there are illegal aliens registered to vote in every State, especially in the Battleground States. The Democrats send the illegal aliens to places where they think it will benefit the Democrats.
The Radical Democrats are trying to steal our nation right out from under us. They are close to doing it.
Maybe Republican efforts to secure the vote will offset the Democrat cheating and corruption/lawbreaking.
The Democrats are going to have a harder time of it this time around.
Some are making contingency plans. I heard one a few weeks back talking about passing legislation to bar Trump from holding office – after a Trump win.
Trump drives the radical Democrats crazy.
That’s because if he wins, then that means that their ideology is not supreme in the land, and this distroys their “worldview” and nobody wants their worldview destroyed.
What do you do if your worldview is no longer valid? Well, a rational person would change their view. But radical Democrats are not rational, otherwise, they wouldn’t be radical Democrats.
Trump winning means Democrat Socialism loses, and a lot of Democrats can’t handle that mentally. They can’t see that their Party’s loss is the nation’s gain.
Radical Democrats really do live in a completely different world than the rest of us. Radical Democrats live in a horrible, scary world, and they want the rest of us to live there, too. Not me. No thanks. I prefer to live in a rational world.
Story Tip
It is happening, from the UK Telegraph:
Car makers are rationing sales of petrol and hybrid vehicles in Britain to avoid hefty net zero fines, according to one of the country’s biggest dealership chains.
Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, said manufacturers were delaying deliveries of cars until next year amid fears they will otherwise breach quotas set for them by the Government.
This means someone ordering a car today at some dealerships will not receive it until February, he said.
At the same time, Mr Forrester warned manufacturers and dealers were grappling with a glut of more expensive electric vehicles (EVs) that are “not easily finding homes”.
He said: “In some franchises there’s a restriction on supply of petrol cars and hybrid cars, which is actually where the demand is.
“It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want.
“They [manufacturers] are trying to avoid the fines. So they’re constraining the ability for us to supply petrol cars in order to try and keep to the government targets.”
The chief executive blamed the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires at least 22pc of cars sold by manufacturers to be electric from this year.
This target will gradually rise each year before reaching 80pc in 2030, with manufacturers made to pay £15,000 for every petrol car that exceeds their quota – unless they have so-called carbon credits to spend.
But the scheme has prompted stark warnings from bosses at major brands, such as Vauxhall owner Stellantis and Ford, which have said they cannot sacrifice profits by selling EVs at large discounts indefinitely.
Instead, they have previously warned they may be forced to restrict petrol car supplies to artificially boost their ZEV mandate performance.
The warning from Vertu is the first confirmation that carmakers have now begun doing so.
Thanks michel, we covered that one back in May. Hopefully Farage will get enough votes next time to kick the bums out of office – assuming Starmer allows right wing candidates to run for office in the next election.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/13/ford-threatens-to-ration-uk-gasoline-vehicle-sales-to-meet-climate-targets/
Eric, yes. And I thought back then that this was if not inevitable at least the most likely outcome of the quota system. But the difference in the Telegraph’s latest piece is that now its actually happening. The government is in effect, though whether by intention or incompetence isn’t clear, shrinking the size of the auto industry in the UK. This is going to have very big consequences.
My prediction is that the UK car fleet will age gracefully. Eventually replaced by Chinese made BEVs with or without self-immolation as a no cost option.
Average vehicle age in the UK has now reached 10 years. Basically the same as Australia but still younger than USA at 12.6 years. China has now reached 5.3 years.
China’s vehicle fleet is growing fast so vehicles development in China is supercharged by the size of the market. Their vehicles are developing at an impressive rater as they borrow technology from the developed world. The economic productivity is only limited by the productivity of their coal mines
I said to my wife last week that if we ever get another vehicle, it could be made in China. I expect China will be manufacturing around 90% of the vehicle fleet by the time we need to think about a car replacement; if ever. China built 32% of the global vehicles fleet in 2022. China’s proportion will continue to rise dramatically as greenflation wipes out economic competitiveness of the developed countries.
Any vehicle manufacturer wanting a future will need to manufacture in China. And that will require a Chinese partner that gets the technology and learns all the necessary skills. China is not artificially hobbled by the CO2 demon.
“But the scheme has prompted stark warnings from bosses at major brands…”
Time for more than stark warnings. Time to play hardball.
“It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want.”
There’s no “almost” about it. That is what is happening.
The government has interfered in the Free Enterprise system and this is what you get when government bureaucrats dictate to businesses.
No good will come from this inappropriate interference.
These politicians are destroying their own economy and seem oblivious to the ramifications of their attempts to run private businesses.
The Radical Left is destroying the Western World. Many in the Western World see this for what it is, but are there enough of those to make a difference at the voting polls? Is it too late? Do Western nations have to crash and burn before the Radical Left is thrown out? Will the Radical Left be thrown out? I guess it depends on how much power they have and how ruthless they are in its use.
Soviet style controls come with Soviet style rations.
My mother in Socialist utopia, waited for her car 5 years. Brittons are still amateurs compared to this!
Kamala’s plan on price controls will bring the same Soviet time ration cards to the US.
Everyone in the West will get a chance to experience the beauty of a Socialist Utopia. Such a happy event to all of the champagne socialists in the West.
No worries though the kids will complain about it (cause it will be so much different from their rosy imaginations of the coming Regime) and this is how they will discover the beauty of Soviet gulag.
I actually don’t think this will come to pass but I think I would then fight because I lived through this once and don’t intend to live through it again, this is how absolutely fantastic said life was under Soviets.
I have been monitoring the development of the Star of the South wind farm off the Gippsland coast of Victoria.
This project has a development timespan not dissimilar to a mine. There is a huge effort in assessing the environmental risks and establishing the construction infrastructure before anything gets built. All similar to a mine. The average time frame for an onshore windfarm in Australia is 9 years. I expect it will be longer fort the offshore windfarm.
There is a major difference between a mine and a wind farm though. The mine will produce something of value. The wind farm only exists to rob electricity consumers. It does not improve the productivity of the nation. It is make-work. Like paying someone to break windows and then paying someone else to replace windows. It completely pointless other than transferring wealth from the community to the proponents.
These make-work projects are highly inflationary.
I like the term green inflation. How about even closer linkage for this reality greenflation.
Green flatulation?
Grid reliability would be nice to have. I type this message on day two of running on a petrol generator (which is an essential piece of kit for anyone living out of a large town, since the electricity supply often goes down for extended periods, both planned and unplanned) after a particularly strong wind storm took out power to almost the entire Eastern half of Victoria. Large towns and some outer suburbs of Melbourne were without power for almost a day, but here in my rural location, the timeframe for restoration of power is somewhat unknown. It might come on in 5 minutes, or it might be a week, no one really knows. I’ve got it lucky though, at least my property was largely unscathed by the wind, just a few broken trees (snapped off mid trunk). The wind speed was gusting up to 124km/h at the peak.
I spent a lot of my youth in Victoria but I can’t imagine ever living there again, every time I switch on the news it gets worse.
I have an old friend, tough as nails, currently does roadside vehicle assist. He has to fight off false call hijackers at least once a year, he’s the kind of guy you want in your corner in a bar fight. He absolutely refuses to enter Melbourne for any reason, he thinks Melbourne is too dangerous to visit.
So heating for next winter sorted then.
I’ve got 2 acres of bluegums planted by the man who originally built the house, so I’ve got an effectively infinite supply of firewood. I already had several years worth waiting to be cut from the last time the power company came through and felled some trees that were getting a little too close to the HT powerlines that cross my property.
Here’s a photo of one of the trees that was snapped. It’s interesting that the break looks like it was twisted off. Somehow the broken branch ended up wedged in the tree it came off. Must have been a powerful and turbulent gust of wind.
I have a friend in Melbourne with a brother living near Bendigo. His cost of firewood has soured in the last couple of years. He used to be able to just pick it up from people he knew but they sell it now. Firewood is selling for $180/Cu.m in Bendigo.
Wind induced torque is a problem for trees. Sometimes it is due to swirling wind but often it is due to the tree being lopsided.
My neighbour has a huge swamp gum that threatens three houses, his, mine and another neighbour depending on the wind direction. His trees are all listed so require a council approved arborist to lop or trim them. I paid for an overhanging branch (about 2 tonne of wood) to be cut off. After the job, the arborist considered the tree tio be substantially better balanced and much less inclined to suffer torque induced failure.
It survived the recent wind without any loss of limbs. But dead branches up to about 30mm thick often fall off it.
Good luck with cutting that one. I’d leave it for the woodpeckers.
Yeah, I definitely leave the hang ups alone. Got plenty of windfall lying conveniently on the ground.
Government really is the problem, take away all tax preferences and subsidies for renewables as well as all mandates and nearly all of Australia’s problems go away. Bad government is a really bad thing, Australia as well as the US are loaded with it.
Most of the world’s problems originate in leadership. Applies to companies too.
I agree.
Trump left the economy in ruins with a 6 percent unemployment rate the last time he was in office. That is a large part of why he was voted out.
Cherry-picking on stilts and just to set the record straight:
The US unemployment rate was 4.7% when Obama left office in January 2017 and was uniformly reduced during the Trump term to 3.5% in Feb 2020 then shot up to 14.9% due to Covid mitigation measures then declined to 6.4% by Jan 2021 when Biden took office and has remained most above 3.5% since but now is rising the latest figure being for Jul at 4.3% (Trading Economics).
It’s really terrible how objective data ruin a good story.
Yeah, Trump actually did an amazing job with the U.S. economy considering it was shut down over the Covid virus.
The unemployment naturally shot up skyhigh, but with Trump’s efforts to stablize things, the unempolyment rate came back down rapidly, and the Stock Market was actually higher when Trump left office, than it was right before the Covid virus shut down the economy.
So the economy was well on the way to recovery. Trump’s last quarter in office saw 500,000 jobs added, which Biden promptly took credit for after he assumed the presidency in Jan. 2021. Biden wants us to believe that he is responsible for the 500,000 jobs added during Trump’s last quarter.
Biden is standing on Trump’s shoulders.
Everything Biden did was detrimental to the economy. He’s almost got us in a recession now with his inflationary spending and his war on coal, oil and natural gas.
Biden is the Worst President Evah!
Trying to debate sc about Trump is pointless. He is immune to facts, and refuses to actually respond to any challenges. (says a lot about his position, doesn’t it?). Apparently he would rather have a Harris administration and all that would bring.
My own .45 ACP is extra special. My godfather was shot down over North Korea with it as his officer sidearm, and ‘Uncle Joe’ made it back to friendly lines using it. Gifted to me when he passed of brain cancer many years ago. Has been well used since.
Catch22 for State sponsored dumping as only domestic rooftop solar gets to vote in numbers-
Energy transition: wild winds blow up solar farm profits (afr.com)
Bearing in mind over a third of Australian homes are sporting solar panels and growing. So short of fessing up to a massive dispersed fickle energy problem the climate change cult have to chip away at it rolling out smart meter controls and feed in charges while funding coal to stay open plus standby diesel gennys top up power bill handouts etc etc. Repeating the mantra ..fickles are cheaper…fickles are cheaper…
More virtual contracts for struggletown-
What they are not yet doing is to invest significantly in bulk clean energy – wind and solar – that would help replace the coal capacity that is expected to retire over the coming decade.
Queensland’s biggest battery to double in size after AGL signs “virtual” contract | RenewEconomy
Lock in some base funding with 10 year life batteries so they can cream off the top of the fickles problem with FCAS and then they’re outta there but then the climate changer numpties are between a rock and a hard place.
It’s pathetic isn’t it. Australia’s demand peaks at around 31GW, and continent wide renewable outages can last for days. If we assume 48 hours, we need around 1488GWh battery capacity to firm a fully renewable based system at full capacity.
So AGL’s new battery represents 0.06% of what is needed to provide a stable firmed renewable grid supply.
I strongly suspect the virtual deal will be hidden behind some virtual corporate entity that has no funds in 10 years time when the batteries are worn out. The pathetic part is the Gretaheads over at Reneweconomy are so proud to bring us all their good news.
At around A$1bn/GWh for a battery installation, that’s A$1.488T or US$1T. A$156,000 (US$105,000) for each household. To be renewed every 10-15 years.
Wot they ought to do is catch the wind on windy days, stick it in the ground and wen it stops blowing let it all out again. Then you would not need batteries. A bit like Snowy 10.
Cop the size of the shock absorber junk in ten years time that’s being added to power bills right now just to make existing fickles dispatchable and avoid greenouts-
Australia’s most powerful battery ready for commissioning after achieving grid’s biggest connection | RenewEconomy
Gold rush times folks-
Here come the batteries: Six new big battery projects in line for capacity payments in W.A. grid | RenewEconomy
Latest battery storage tender swamped by offers and six times over subscribed | RenewEconomy
This precarioius situation can be described very concisely using the ABC of intermittent energy. Apparently this has to be said over and over again because I have been putting it around for months but I don’t see anyone picking it up and using it. Please let me know if there is something wrong with it😊
Wind droughts, ‘Dunkelflautes’ in Europe, are the root of the problem but meteorologists gave no warning and wind planners never checked. The transition to RE is not happening and the reason is simple as ABC.
A. Input to the grid must continuously match the demand.
B. The continuity of RE is broken on nights with little or no wind.
C. There is no feasible or affordable large-scale storage to bridge the gaps.
So the wind and solar transition is impossible with current storage technology.
Subsidies and mandates for unreliable energy are driving out conventional power, mostly coal in Australia.
A TIPPING POINT is approaching where the capacity of coal power generation will not be sufficient to meet demand on windless nights.
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/
The same thing is happening in all the grids in the world where net zero policies are in place. Britain, Germany and South Australia have passed that point and keep the lights on precariously with imports and deindustrialization to reduce demand.
The wind drought story: the failure of the meteorologists, independent wind-watchers in Australian come to the rescue but are ignored despite the efforts of Joanne Nova and the Energy Realists of Australia.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2024/06/things-that-go-slump-in-the-night/
A Champion story Rafe! However, I think the ABC of dud renewables in reality is Albo-Bowen and Chalmers. This trio of energy misfits are all belief in climate ideology and no substance, if renewables were really cheaper over time than conventional fossil fuel power generation, we would not need to subsidize them so heavily.
The fact that wherever these unreliable inefficient power sources with their inherent limited battery backup have been allowed to dominate recent infrastructure spending as in California and Germany, power prices have risen substantially, and governments have had to curtail industrial use or blackouts occurred when weather conditions were not optimal.
Therefore, use of these power sources above 10-15% of total generation capacity will ultimately destabilize the grid on a semi-permanent basis. We cannot allow this stupidly to continue any longer when lives and the whole economy is at risk. This `renewables’ experiment has just turned nasty, not only for the public re rising costs, but also governments who allow climate/ energy ideology to cloud their rational thinking and their duty to safeguard our public infrastructure, defense capability and economic welfare. This is not just leftist politics gone bad, it’s a whole case of rotten apples from the environmental bandwagon we are being subjected to by the post-modern PC cultists infesting our liberal institutions. We will need more realistic rational thinking to get out of this self-induced nightmare, to regain cheap reliable and increasingly more energy to power ourselves into the future.
The brains trust in Canberra is introducing the NVES next year similar to the UK-
Why your new petrol car won’t be delivered for months (msn.com)
Welcome back to the Covid era ICE car shortages and the smart money profiteering with regular deposit ordering to flip popular models to more urgent buyers who can’t afford to wait in Gummint induced queues. A one way bet if EVs can’t reach increasingly tough target sales percentages. Lefties always mean well.
“At least the USA can hope for a Trump / Vance victory.”
But once that victory occurs, it will start a trend in other nations to follow suit.
If that victory occurs, it will take time for other nations to follow suit with tremendous suffering occurring. The establishment governments are in it for power and will fight for retaining it with abandon, no matter how much suffering the citizenry endures.
FKH