Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "ABC News In-depth" channel.

  1.  @YaMumsSpecialFriend  Co-crewing would be the only way possible for Australia to operate LA Class or any other American submarine. I saw an awesome documentary years ago on WHY Iraq was going bad. It was by PBS Frontline and called "Rumsfeld's War" and you can still find it here on YT. About 1/2 way in a retired former general describes the 4 key points of the Powell Doctrine. I'm an engineer and those 4 points translate perfectly into engineering project management and I have used them ever since. One of those key points is Resources (men, machines and money). First we never could afford the ridiculous costs of the French Subs. Were were going to pay 3 times more for a downgraded version than the French Navy's nuclear powered version. PLUS we never had enough submariners to ever crew 12 of them. 60 x 12 is 720 and these days we barely have 250 and most of the time struggle to have 4 Collins in the water. The other 2 are in dock with no crews. Anybody with a brain who could do basic math knew it was crap.
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  2.  @TT-nk5hi  You're absolutely right. If China, America or any of several Asian nations ever wanted to invade Australia there's nothing we can actually do to stop them taking over our country. Its comes down to numbers. There's 25 million of us and hundreds of millions of them. Its the same for any smaller country. However there's the cost, as the Americans found out in Afghanistan and Iraq and as the Russians are finding out in Ukraine. There's some really smart people with military backgrounds commenting sensibly on what's happened in Ukraine. In less than 100 days the Russian lost over 200 tanks and keep losing more every day. Australia has 59 M1 Abrams tanks with an $3.5Billion order for another 75. The Chinese PLA has over 4,600 main battle tanks of various types. Sadly Ukraine cannot win, they just don't have the numbers, but they can make Russia pay a price they can't afford. As America learned form Afghanistan and Iraq, invading is one thing, controlling a population that hates you is another thing entirely. I recently heard an American analyst call it a "Strategy of Denial". Its where you have enough in place that the other guy with the massive military is always asking "What will it cost to start a fight?" So its NOT a matter of Australian being able to do anything to anyone else its a matter of how much do we need so that others wont do anything to us.
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  3.  @kallekas8551  Unfortunately (and I do means this with some sadness) the best you could call it these days is the SA "States of America" because the word United has LEFT the building. It might even be argued that it left the building some time ago and I genuinely mean that saddens me. I had a fantastic time going to college in America and its sad to see what's happened. And if you want to blame Australian born Rupert Murdoch, then fine. We tried to warn the Brits and America what he was like neither of you listened. But feel free to deal with that problem. I'd recommend the Dirty Harry method.
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  4. Way to put yourself out there for the world championship of BS. Keep going and Rupert Murdoch will give you a job.
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  5. You make a valid point about Brandis (or any other politician) helping themselves, but the espionage charge has nothing to do with what Julian Assange's nationality is. The girl beside him, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, has the best point I have seen anyone make in a while. The Oxford definition of espionage is: the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information. How does what Julian Assange did fit that? FYI - I'm from Melbourne but went to uni in America. I did engineering but a bunch of my friends we pre-law and we used to discuss the US Constitution a lot. So I know that in a sensible court this would get thrown out on 1st Amendment grounds in about 5 minutes. Its also not just the free press thing either. That final part of the 1st says ", and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So what do you call the things Julian Assange uncovered like the helicopter gunship shooting innocent civilians and prisoner abuses other than grievances? I'm actually stunned its gone on this long.
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  6. Way back in 2004 there was a documentary called "Outfoxed" one of the warnings in that documentary was that Rupert Murdoch was dragging the entire media industry down into his gutter. Almost 20 years later that warning has become prophecy come true. Here on YT, you can check what's being said across the entire world and its the same everywhere. The complete breakdown of our media is arguably the biggest threat to humanity there is for the simple reason: "How can any of us make any sensible decisions when we are being drowned in hype, garbage, misdirection?"
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  7. Why don't you go an try the simple logic on a fan of Sky NEWS and see how they take a dose of reality. Be warned they take logic, common sense and reality like a feral cat with a tooth ache.
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  8. You are right but the issues go much deeper because the privatisation cancer started back in the 90s and we now have 25+ years of idiotic policy. If you are interested I have written a lengthy comment on this page describing what I know as an engineer.
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  9. @ Yeah that was one of the other outcome scenarios that scared the crud out of everyone. Even a small limited space battle could render low earth orbit unusable for decades. But the biggest killer was the simple fact that eventually something would get through and it only takes a single nuke to EFF-UP your day. Ask the Japanese
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  10.  @David-f5u6v  OF FARK - You have mistaken DELUSION for vision. Can people like you just stop making idiotic claims and for the record its spelt AI not A1 🤣😅😂 And that's before you realise that there's an international treaty that prohibits ANYONE from putting weapons in space. You can't hide either a laser battery or missile battery in space. EVERYONE WOULD SPOT IT FOR EXACLTLY WHAT IT IS.
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  11.  @WilhelmSallsten  You're right on the atmospheric issue but anything in space is effectively a satellite. The thing people don't seem to get is that everything in space not only moves but moves incredibly fast. The Space Station goes around 28,000 kmh or about 100 times faster than a Formula 1 car. This is what I keep trying to explain. Its not a matter of AI or satellite tech or weapon types. Its just the basic reality of orbital mechanics. Its even hard for other engineers to understand because the math is so convoluted.
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  12. Its not so much a matter of corruption as bad practice. I'm an engineer and have left a lengthy explanation in a separate comment explaining how to NOT screw up projects.
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  13. You are a combination of 1/2 right and 1/2 utterly wrong. Your are right the price increases are straight out because of privatisation. As Milton Freidman said “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” As for the reliability of networks you are 100% WRONG. You can get just as much unreliability from private systems as from public. Look at what happened in Texas a couple of years ago. When 5 year old kids are freezing to death in their beds don't try and say private markets work like the M0R0N from Harvard did. You can also look back to Enron. What they actually got caught doing was an unusual form of market manipulation. They'd deliberately trip out a power station every so often. Usually in the late afternoon when there was the daily surge. What that did was spike the local power market at a peak time by causing an artificial supply shortage. Despite losing the income from that power station their other power stations would make a killing off what ever reserve power they had available. As for break downs. I'm an engineer and you can get slack people in both public and private sector employment. These days its a matter of rewards. Traditionally there were none in the public sector. They never tried anything like "If you guys keep the power on by keeping the system well maintained we'll give you a bonus based on performance." And so you know I don't know of many private sector companies that have reward systems for maintenance. I have done maintenance engineering and it sucks because all anybody in the accounting systems see are costs. They never see any benefits. The problem with maintenance is that the better you do your job the less evidence your doing it well exists. Poor maintenance has lots of evidence. Good maintenance has nothing. Famous example of that is QANTAS the Australian airline. Early one when they got their first 747s they had a corporate risk assessment done that said you can't EVER afford to lose a plane. So they built the best maintenance any airline had ever seen. it was so good other airlines took their 747s to it and IT MADE MONEY. After NOT having any 747s fall out of the sky and after having made money QANTAS sold off that division. That's what engineers get for doing maintenance properly.
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  14.  @biggpicture2930  That's actually a reasonably nuanced description. Be careful with Mearsheimer he represents a very narcissistic side of American politics. I watched one of his lectures he did at Yale about 5 years ago on Liberal Hegemony. Its was by far the best I have ever seen anyone describe the flaws in American Liberal Ideology. What you will never see him do is go into any of the flaws in his side of political ideology which he calls "offensive realism." Peter Zeihan called Mearsheimer's suggestion that we simply let Putin have what he wants as HORSESHlT. Putin wants the rest of the world to sit back and let him write the security policies for over a dozen countries with around 270 million people in them and they'd have NO SAY IN IT. So I'd be very careful with what Mearsheimer has to say. He's very smart and very knowledgeable on various topics. He's also a narcissistic sociopath.
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  15.  @Eric-kn4yn  You're 1/2 right. Getting the business relationship with China for raw materials has been awesome and 1,000s of Australians have done well out of it, BUT sending slabs of our manufacturing to China has been a farking disaster and letting the Chinese steal intellectual property and trademarks has been a disaster. However clowns like Hawke, Keating, Howard, Costello, Rudd,... etc. kowtowing to them on these issues has been even worse because now we all have to deal with the ramifications. Its all part of the basic rules of politics. Rule 1: If "it" works then take credit for "it" even if you don't deserve any credit at all. Rule 2: If "it" doesn't work then IBDeW: a) Ignore and act like "it" doesn't exist (as Keating just did on certain questions); or b) Blame someone else for why "it" didn't work (as Keating just did on certain questions); or c) Deflect and change the subject (as Keating just did on certain questions); or d) When all else fails and you can't take credit, deflect or blame the go full attack mode. Call anyone who asks a fraud, fake news, a scumbag or a clown. Just as Keating did when asked about if he'd be just as critical of the Chinese Communist Party and what they have done in Hong Kong and to the Uyghurs. Most importantly NEVER answer their question.
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  16.  @sportsfanivosevic9885  What do you mean by that? And compared to what? Do you know what the Collins class cost per boat and what that is in 2023 dollars. That whole program cost A$5.1 billion (1999) for 6 units that's over A$9.2 Billion in 2023 dollars or $1.53 Billion each. Here are some prices for current gen non-nuclear submarines. Swedish Blekinge - A$1,010 million ea. German 212 - A$896 million ea. Japanese Taigei - A$790 million ea. French Scorpene - A$672 million ea. So the Collins class have been damn expensive. As an engineer I can tell you that's what happens when you have a poorly planned project.
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  17.  @skunkwguitar  well put.
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  18.  @S3NTRY  That's a reasonably valid argument but when you consider how these people behave they're garbage. They aren't interested in any facts just pushing a narrative towards an audience that might pay them. In that they are no different to Murdoch, MSNBC, CNN or any of those multi-nationals. Its why their brainless supporters behave as they do.
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  19. Yeah I watched the whole thing (painful) and you are right he made some very good points, but as an engineer who can do basic math some of his claims are utterly stupid. Fine if we bought 45 Collins class subs where do we get the crews for them. There is so much hyperbole and stupidity in this discussion is AND He's not the only one. From the outset of this hour Greg Sheridan spoke complete SHlT At 2:12 he says the intimates the Virginia class can launch "any kind of missile to hit any target in the world." and that is complete nonsense. Anyone can fact check that on Wikipedia. The Virginia class only has the use of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. It can't launch a Trident and it can't launch any of the HIIMARS. Its just a ridiculous statement. From all the sides in this there's just a staggering array of BULLSHlT and not many facts.
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  20.  @markmcdonald9260  As to the this deal is bonkers crazy - YES I 100% AGREE FIRST - Keating is wrong we should have nuclear powered subs because we have a huge area of sea to patrol and they are 50% faster than a Collins. In addition to that the Chinese have made a huge strategic grab in the South China Sea and that does threaten our trade with both Japan and South Korea. That part of the see lane is about 4000NM from Perth. A Collins takes (at full speed) at least 200 hrs (8-1/2 days) to get from Perth into that area. An Astute takes only 133 hrs (5-1/2 days) to go the same distance. That means on any given deployment they get an extra week on station. ITS BONKERS BECAUSE I HAVE from my experience done a full project costing for the construction of and 35 year lifetimes of 5 Astute class and that includes a lot of very generous estimations. The number is around $70 Billion. SO WHERE IS THE OTHER $200 - $300 Billion going?
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  21. I'm Australian but went to college in America on a sports scholarship. YES over 70 million Americans lost their minds when the put Trump back into power, but the other 260 million or so of them are decent people that we really should call friends and allies. The main culprits in this clusterf--k are the Dum-o-crats who utterly lost the plot. Right now Labor seem to have hired the same campaign people because their early ads are all about "More of the same." Remember Kamala Harris's famous answer "I can't think of anything I'd do differently"? That comment was what sunk here campaign and why over 7 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 did NOT vote in 2024. Fundamentally any party anywhere in the world that goes with the "More of the same strategy" is going to lose and lose huge. Even if its to a clown howling that "They're eating cats and dogs!" This is what happened with Brexit and European elections and French elections and other places.
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  22. Well then those people will have NOTHING. Because no matter what anyone wants those power stations will wear out and they will be turned off. As an engineer this utterly frustrates the hell out of me because this basic fact isn't in the discussion. Hazelwood and Liddell were turned off for the basic fact they were old and worn out and could not be kept running. Blame whoever you like for the lack of maintenance but its a fact they could NOT be kept running. The stupidity of the public discussion is that it never includes any engineers and you all of the DUMB CLOWNS in the media and the commentators and think tankers and celebrities wont be building you a new power station it will be engineers and tradesmen AND YOU CAN EITHER start to listen or stop complaining about your power bills.
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  23. Your 1/2 right but sadly the issues with our power industry go much deeper than energy storage. If you are interested I have written a lengthy comment on this page describing what I know as an engineer.
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  24. I'm not quite certain to say about her performance here. As a man I don't know what I can say that wont get me banned from YT.
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  25. Sorry but there answers they just aren't the sorts of answer that ANY TV station wants to air right now because some of the numbers are very scarry for the uninformed. I am an engineer and If you are interested I have written a lengthy comment on this page describing what I know as an engineer.
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  26.  @leskobrandon4518  Its arguably the biggest problem and threat to Western Society (across the board) even more than China's ambitions. We are being drowned in opinions to such an extent that its almost a full time effort to workout what the facts on any matter actually are. Plus all those opinions are coming from the specific ideological viewpoints of the presenters & producers or even worse the money. We now have chunks of our societies totally confused about what's real and what's not and they are being egged on by a rapid pack of money grubbing narcissists screaming "free speech" when ever they are questioned about what they promote. This can't end well.
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  27. YEAH and WTF are they biased about in this? A lot of people like you scream and rant about ABC bias. What about Murdoch media bias? What about Channel 7s bias? What about Channel 9s bias? What about Channel 10s bias?
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  28. Your opening question is actually a really valid question and one not likely to be asked too soon on Qanda. I'm Australian but went to college in America so I have slightly more nuanced take on the whole American thing than most Australians having lived there. There is no doubt that Australia's alliance with America has brought many significant benefits, BUT it has also meant acting at times like a 51st state. There was a really interesting moment about a year into Trumps presidency when DFAT had to accept 2 facts. 1) Australia could not simply us the standard foreign policy of "What does America want now?" which had been in place for almost 50 years because Trump was all over the place. 2) DFAT had no experience and nobody with any experience in writing foreign policy without American involvement because it hadn't bee done for over 50 years. So at the Diplomatic level Australia, thanks (🤷‍♀🤷‍♂) to Donald Trump, has gained some separation and independence from the US State Department. The problem is that Biden (and the people yanking his strings) want all that control back under their control.
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  29. On the demonization of other countries for the sake of globalization, I think you have that a little flipped around. I don't think they are demonising countries FOR globalization but to deconstruct globalization. America (again thanks to Trump 🤷‍♀🤷‍♂) is trying to de-globalize and that's the one policy of Trumps that Biden is running with. In fact it possible to claim, if you consider the computer chips, that Biden is even more hawkish than Trump on that subject. On China there 's a couple of interesting things that are starting to come out. Peter Zeihan talks about their demographics and its a disaster that's slowly eating the Chinese economic model. The 1 child policy was way more successful than anyone realised and it was kept in place for way to long. Those factories full of cheap labor have a problem. As the older workers retire there's not enough younger people to replace them. Its created a labor shortage and that's caused wages to rise making China less competitive. If you then add in what Biden has done on the microchip front and Chinese industry has a problem. Its really quite simple after exporting jobs fore several decades America wants those jobs back in America. Because of Trump's hawkishness that's being pursued aggressively. AND it includes dragging jobs out of Europe. Sure the yanks will still buy 1,000s of Audis, BMers, Mercs and Porsches. They'll just be made & assembled in Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas,... There'll still be some bits made in Europe but most of it will be in America. Never forget in America nothing wins elections more effectively than jobs.
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  30. You are absolutely right that the main stream media have twisted stories to suit certain agendas and been doing it for decades. BUT DON'T wildly claim that these independent journalist don't do the same. SOME of them are truly disgusting narcissists who will twist any story and promote any lie for money, attention or both.
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  31. Careful I first read that as MSN not MSM (main stream media) and assumed you meant MSNBC which is part of Microsoft, which is also a massive part of the overall problem or corporatized media. If you get a chance go back and check the 2004 documentary "Outfoxed" in it they warned that Murdoch's methods were dragging the rest of the media into the same business model. That's why politics in the media as well as the media's incessant need to hype stories into full frenzy mode like the A Current Affair story shown here, has become the giant maelstrom of garbage it is.
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  32. You are right on the money. During a recent American 60 minutes a US Navy commander commented about containing China and his reply was "Do the Chinese need to be contained?" and it was in reference to what China has done in the South China Sea. Its exactly the same thing with journalists. "Do journalists need to be contained or limited?" I think that after all the cappy misinformation and nonsense they have been pumping out in recent years the answer is YES THEY DO LIMITS! But we also need to be very careful of what those limits are because if they cant tell us about things we should here about that's dangerous.
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  33. You guys should interview Scott Galloway because he summed up Biden's legacy quite simply when he said "The only thing Biden deserves is to be buried in the same hole as Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Diane Feinstein." Scott's one of the few people in America willing to stand up and tell these SELFISH geriatrics that include Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and others to get out of politics and let younger people have a go. I can't say I agree with Scott on all of his views but on this I am 100% in agreement. Even though I am Australian I went to college in America and the problem with these geriatrics is their stubbornness and selfishness has GLOBAL ramifications. Unfortunately the American system promotes people staying in office until they die of old age.
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  34. And nobody wants any of this culture war garbage either. A day is coming when I can see a very angry mob storming the Sky News studios and beating the daylights out of everyone of them and then that mob going down to the Coal Board and doing it again and then going to the offices of a few mining companies and doing it AGAIN. At some point the younger generation is going to realise how much of the future is stuffed AND THEY ARE GOING TO EXPLODE. There's dozens of historical lessons to learn this from. When you strip the peasants of HOPE they revolt.
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  35. There's already variations to the original Monopoly game but they are all licensed by who ever owns the rights.
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  36.  @nephriteitsarock5377  That's a damn good answer - well said. Its about going FORWARD. If there is one thing I would have like to a have seen happen before now is a discussion with the Sami people of Scandinavia who were the first to get a voice to their parliaments in Norway, Sweden and Finland. I'd have 3 questions for them. 1 - What's worked? 2 - What hasn't worked and there's always something that didn't? 3 - What can we do to learn from their experience and get it right?
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  37.  @TT-nk5hi  They might not be wanting to take over Australia in a military sense but they damn well want to control our resources. The most important of those is agriculture, because food security is the major issue facing Asia and other large populations. Its why the Arabs are buying every farm they can in Australia. Don't crap on about us needing Chinese agriculture technology its the other way around. We have some for the most advanced agriculture in the world. Go watch ABC Landline and look through the back episodes, we are so far in front most countries its a joke. Our great risk is not looking after that sector or letting too many foreigners control it and they already have too much control. Ukraine isn't a land grab. Go look up Peter Zeihan he's a geopolitical strategist who specialises in demographics. He's explained WHY Russia invaded Ukraine and why they had to do it now. Its got to do with control of territory that's been used for 1,000 years to invade Russia again and again. they had to do it now because like many other countries they are ageing and if they didn't do it now in 10 years they wouldn't have enough 20 years olds. Its actually why China might need to invade Taiwan now rather than later. Their population is also ageing rapidly and they are running out of 20 year olds and wars are fought by 20 year olds.
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  38.  @TT-nk5hi  Go look up Peter Zeihan he's commented extensively on the comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan. Ukraine had some preparation and a land border. Taiwan has been in preparation for decades and is surrounded by a moat. How will China invade. If its by air they'll get shot down and it if its by sea they'll get sunk. Eventually they'd overwhelm Taiwan, but what would they gain other than an utterly destroyed island.
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  39.  @TT-nk5hi  Which is exactly what the Chinese are doing with predatory loans to smaller developing nations. AND WHY THEY ARE ANGERING PEOPLE. Have you stopped to ask why would any country take a loan they have to pay back instead of straight development grants from wealthier nations???? They pay off government officials. The Chinese haven't just got corruption in their system they have actually industrialised it. Go look it up. Government officials being paid to do favors is a key part of the Chinese system. So they have no issue with paying government officials in other nations to take on loans. Its how they do business and they do it everywhere.
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  40.  @petersinclairphd6626  Yeah I know its not new, but its something NOBODY in Australia is discussing. Its also a huge issue in other places. Leslie Dewan pointe out in one of here talks how after Chernobyl and Fukushima that the number of students enrolling in nuclear engineering collapsed and America lost an entire generation of engineers. I just started watching the MIT Open Course lectures on basic nuclear engineering. Its easy to have gotten the basics as I did from physics classes but these lectures go into a lot more detail. The truly surprising thing is how small the class rooms are, but then that course only has 12 attending students. Here in Oz the Murdoch media are pumping "nuclear, nuclear, nuclear" into the air waves. I swear Rupert must have shares in something, but there is utterly no mention on time frames or training. As I have said in comments i worked with an ex-USN nuclear power plant operator a while back and he told me about the years of training that took. Peter Zeihan the geopolitical strategist points out how China (through the 1 child policy) has a shortage of 30 year olds. the problem is it takes 30 years and 9 months to make a 30year old. Its not as bad as that for nuclear techs but you need to grasp the scope of the task which more than anything for us is starting from scratch.
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  41.  @topologyrob  Then why does American media refer to "Team America?" Why was the film titled "Team America World Police" instead of "Team USA World Police" or would that have confused people?
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  42.  @kallekas8551  Interesting times????? I'll be on this weeks Steve Keen & Friends and I'll show you interesting because this is "sort of" trivial compared to what's in a particular US congressional budget Office report into family wealth that has gotten very little air play and even less analysis.
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  43.  @JamesTulip  Great reply. On the first point I 1/2 mostly agree because I think one of the biggest mistakes made too many times is relying on America to lead outright rather than being more collaborative at the leadership level. Often you must have a clear person leading, but even then they need support team. Too often too many of us just sit back and wait for America to do everything or at least most of it. This is a major flaw in NATO and will eventually repeat in AUKUS because it will eventually become JAUKUS, SKAUKUS or CANAUKUS or some other multi-national behemoth incapable of doing anything like NATO and the UN are now. On the second point your are 1,000,000% right. America has some incredible systemic issues. I used to warn my American friends (because I had studied Orwell) that ANY society could fall into a totalitarian state. That was what Orwell was actually warning about rather than being specifically against communism. They used to tell me that it was impossible for that to happen to America because VIA the Constitution there were the systems of Checks & Balances. Well thanks to Mitch McConnell the Senate is a disaster and thanks to the Federalist Society SCOTUS is a catastrophe and they are the 2 main parts of the Checks & Balances to keep Congress, the Whitehouse, the Military and other agencies from going too far. So, sadly the system is broken and wont get fixed because there are too many people with too much vested interest and are making mountains of money from the broken system that they helped break. On the 3rd point you are also correct and it goes to the first point of over-relying on American leadership. On the 4th point you are even more correct. Australia MUST focus on better relations with the major economies of Asia. As to the South Pacific, our FAILURES there are so bad it should be seen as a national embarrassment that will take years to fix. None of those nations should respect us until we EARN IT BACK and I can't scream that loud enough. I am going to be on the Steve Keen & Friends podcast in a few hours and might bring up a couple of these points because they are so on topic. Just note it will be at 2:00am EST.
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  44.  @roughhabit9085  Go look at the YT Channel the Analysisnews hosted by Paul Jay. He has recently re-posted an interview he did with Gore Vidal in 2005. Its titled "Mini Doc: Gore Vidal's History of the National Security State" Its right in line with your quote from Mencken As to your second point on food production. Sorry but there is no evidence at all that its guaranteed that a government in charge of food production will cause mass starvation although I will agree that it has happened. One of the most notable times was Mao's "Great Leap Forward" when he pulled people off the farms and shoved them into factories. It would have worked had he given the remaining farmers tractors and mechanised sowing and reaping machinery. What you are claiming is the same sort of nonsense that Milton Friedman claimed which is that governments can't do anything right. I'll give you 4 things on that. 1) The Apollo Program not only did as intended "Get a man to the Moon and safely return him to the Earth" but also gave America such a major technological boost that the money spent was easily recovered via American industry exploiting it. FYI - I did aerospace engineering in America in the late 80s. After the Challenger accident when there were calls for NASA to be disbanded the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics commissioned a study by an economist as to the value of NASA. Due to time constraints the report focused on Apollo. They found that by 1986 Apollo had returned $9:50 for every $1:00 spent making it the most profitable investment in history at that time. Considering that the things it returned money on (industrial output) ahs NOT stopped then that $9:50 is likely to be much higher these days. 2) Here in Australia like many other countries we privatised our power industry on the promise that: "competition would provide better services at lower prices" We now like many other places pay much higher costs for electricity. 3) Private Industry constantly claims it is overregulated and taxes are too high. FIRST - deregulation hasn't helped any industry or shareholders BUT IT HAS massively helped the top 1% make around $200 Trillion since the 1970s. SECOND - deregulation hasn't helped the general population anywhere. Not only has it not delivered for the average person but many services have decline, most consumer protection has evaporated and (1 I hate) is that its lead to things like the Boeing Max-8 where they built a plane that was always going to crash. 4) Here in Australia we have spent over AU$20 Billion on consultants (PwC, KPMG,.......etc) in the last decade or so and yea that number has stunned us. Those consultants were hired by successive governments from both sides to help various government departments do their job better. You will not find many who think we got a damn thing out of that AU$20 Billion because nothing is working any better and that's because most of the consultants are ex-Government employees. Its just 1 giant ongoing scam that was started by Margret Thatcher. Its spread across the entire developed world. So yeah I get Milton Friedman's point that the government can suck, but the solutions his advocates have served up have FAILED and FAILED and FAILED.
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  45. A number of years ago I saw a saw a couple of WW2 comparison studies into combat effectiveness one was the Hurricane compared to the Spitfire and the other was the Sherman versus the Tiger tank. In every fundamental department the Tiger was superior to the Sherman - better armour, bigger gun,..... But it also had some fatal flaws. It was heavy and in soft fields it was easy to get bogged. It was also incredibly complex and difficult to maintain, but by far its biggest issue was how many man hours it took to produce them. The Germans simply didn't have that many and they were simply overwhelmed by the Sherman often outnumbered 10 to 1 or more. If you check Wikipedia there were 1347 Tiger Is and 492 Tiger IIs The Germans also made about 6,000 Panther medium Tanks. By Comparison there were over 49,000 Shermans made. Its pretty easy to see what the Russian plan is. They'll use these old tanks to swarm the Ukrainians and force the Ukrainians to use huge amounts of munitions to deal with them. There's already been serious issues with the consumption of ammunition especially things like stinger missiles being used against drones and javelins used against tanks. Eventually they will simply run out. They're using less stingers now as they have German Anti-Aircraft hardware to shoot them down now. Don't be surprised in there's some incredible carnage this year.
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  46.  @stuartspencer2161  No problems there. As I have pointed out to a few they should never have interviewed Bolton or of they did set him up and let him hang himself. I love the show but this was disappointing.
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  47.  @yimmeistaryimmeistar7239  Where are you from? Do you even know the show at all?
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  48.  @cestoblique  That's why people swing to the right as they get older they go from idealistic but stupid to selfish & brainless.
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  49.  @jitteryjet7525  READ WHAT I SAID The impossible bit was terraforming Mars and that simply comes down to where are you going to get several hundred trillion tons of air in the first place. Forget all the issues with having enough gravity to keep it place and a million other details. Its simply a matter of where do you get that much air from?? As for Earth Yes its arguable some places are getting 6C and others 1.5C but the average for the planet is still at 1C with most of the inhabited regions at 1.2C A lot of that depends on which year they are comparing their data to. Type this into google "NOAA NOAA climate change global temperature" The first link should take you straight to NOAA's page with the current data. That's the most reliable source.
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  50. ENGINEER HERE: This is the sort of story that utterly infuriates engineers, because its engineers who have to do the work to fix this disaster. NOT Economists, NOT Lawyers, NOT Overrated TV personalities and NOT Politicians. Engineers have been trying to tell Australia for over a decade that these power stations were getting too old to keep them running. Like any machine they eventually wear out. I'm mainly from manufacturing and mining and first became aware of how precarious our situation was in 2016 when I did a small project into Australia's energy sector. Other than being shocked at our situation was I found the same situation is prevalent across the developed world AND ITS CUASED BY ECONOMISTS. This is why hearing another Economist blab on as if they know what they are saying is so infuriating. Economists have managed to do more damage than politicians, lawyers and religious fanatics combined. They told everyone the privatise everything including energy BUT they had no idea how energy works in an economy. Go look up STEVE KEEN. He's one of the few economists who's actually awake to how badly the rest of the economic profession has been. We can fix this mess but the clown brigade need to SHUT UP and GET OUT OF THE ROAD.
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