COVID-19: who’s going full doomsday prep on this?

Scotty T

Walks the walk
Twiggy is about making money. He's behind the cashless welfare card. He's an old school thinking dinosaur, who makes these social plays to make money and gain power. An Australian with fuck tonnes of money who actually wants good is Mike Cannon-Brookes. Yes they all do good things with their enormous wealth but Twiggy is very different from Bill Gates.

I can't recall the documentary now but it was about Twiggy's activities getting mining up and running on Aboriginal land. He drove in busloads of people from other groups in other areas to join these community meetings and vote in his favour, while polishing it over as consultation with the custodians of the land. It was truly disgusting. It's not hard to do your homework on these people before putting them on a pedestal for their philanthropic efforts. If anyone is riding a high horse, it's those guys on the one they paid for.
 

ForkinGreat

Knows his Brassica oleracea
I'm not saying everything Twiggy does is brilliant but I am saying he could be a lot worse. If you get a minute have a look at his foundation, that's where he says he invests all his dividends from FMG (I have no idea if this is 100% true but that's where all his donations come from) https://www.minderoo.org/ as far as I can tell they do seem to do a lot of good things. Lots of companies do pay tax here otherwise we'd all be completely stuffed. I'm a skeptic along with most people and we have certainly sold our fair share of things to foreign companies but the worst ones are people like Apple, Google etc who all set up in tax havens make plenty of money from Aussies and pay more or less nothing in tax.



 

Kerplunk

Likes Bikes and Dirt
As much as hardly anyone in Australia seems to want to admit it we need China and in a very big way, it's not just Twiggy. Although Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_Australia there are plenty of other places to see China buys the overwhelming majority of our exports. They saved us in the GFC and they are keeping us afloat now.

Should we bow to everything on their agenda certainly not. Should we follow Trump in picking a fight with them now for his political purposes, I for one definitely don't think so.
It’s a 2 way relationship, China is stuffed without our iron ore.. they would have no way to build all that middle class infrastructure that keeps their society intact and the ccp in control. China has no way to source the amount of iron ore we provide them. So it’s not quite as clear cut as you make it. Not to mention they desire our produce because they don’t trust their own food supply.. See how their middle class would react if we stopped baby formula or meat..
The biggest issue I have with China trade is all the strings that are attached.. How fkn hard is it to have a relationship where you buy this, I buy that, we both pay for it and that’s the end of it? Not with China, they use their enormous trade orders as leverage. I think we would be way better off diversifying our supply and trade away to other countries that don’t expect us to bend over and cop it up the arse as part of the deal..
 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
It’s a 2 way relationship, China is stuffed without our iron ore.. they would have no way to build all that middle class infrastructure that keeps their society intact and the ccp in control. China has no way to source the amount of iron ore we provide them. So it’s not quite as clear cut as you make it. Not to mention they desire our produce because they don’t trust their own food supply.. See how their middle class would react if we stopped baby formula or meat..
The biggest issue I have with China trade is all the strings that are attached.. How fkn hard is it to have a relationship where you buy this, I buy that, we both pay for it and that’s the end of it? Not with China, they use their enormous trade orders as leverage. I think we would be way better off diversifying our supply and trade away to other countries that don’t expect us to bend over and cop it up the arse as part of the deal..
True it's definitely 2 way, they definitely need us too, but other than iron ore (admittedly this is the lions share of our export to them) most other things they can get elsewhere albeit for maybe a bit more and they are commercial beasts (in a communist skin). We definitely need to diversify but what we are selling not many (any?) countries want anywhere near the same quantities. Much has been talked of India picking up from China in iron ore but there is no sign of it any time soon I can see. My main issue with the current sabre rattling is what we are fighting over. Sure could China have been more transparent, no question, but is that a surprise to anyone, surely not. After everything was made clear in January the world had months to do anything and most countries didn't, including ours, we were just lucky I reckon. Now South China Sea, human rights issues within China and adjacent countries, Taiwan ...many other things we could dispute with them the COVID-19 thing well I think they were protective but not ridiculously so, it's had a big impact but that could have happened with the bird flu and SARS and MERS nobody got in a big huff about them just because as it turns out they didn't go anywhere. Everyone has 20/20 hindsight, especially Trump who commended the Chinese early on for their transparency and great work!
 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt



I'm no apologist for FMG or Twiggy, I don't know him from a bar of soap but I do know FMG borrowed massive amounts of money and took a huge gamble, it had huge blue sky potential (relying on a high iron ore price which most predicted wouldn't happen but has been sustained) it is now making a lot of money and as I posted it has now paid billions in tax. Those articles are all very old.
 
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Haakon

Keeps on digging
I'm no apologist for FMG or Twiggy, I don't know him from a bar of soap but I do know FMG borrowed massive amounts of money and took a huge gamble, it had huge blue sky potential it is now making a lot of money and as I posted it has now paid billions in tax. Those articles are all very old.
Yep, must be nice to be rich enough to take that punt.

imagine if that was the state doing that and plowing the profits into a national fund (coughNorwaycough) and rolling out social awesome on the back of it.
Nah, fucken commies, fuck that shit lets privatise the profits and socialise the losses, fuck the peasants.
 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Yep, must be nice to be rich enough to take that punt.

imagine if that was the state doing that and plowing the profits into a national fund (coughNorwaycough) and rolling out social awesome on the back of it.
Nah, fucken commies, fuck that shit lets privatise the profits and socialise the losses, fuck the peasants.
And that's just the point I believe he has been bust before and could have been again. There is nothing to stop the state from doing it but we aren't a communist country so it relies on the private sector taking a risk, they did and now they are paying taxes, I guess if you want communism you move somewhere else but even Russia and China looks pretty commercial these days.
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
And that's just the point I believe he has been bust before and could have been again. There is nothing to stop the state from doing it but we aren't a communist country so it relies on the private sector taking a risk, they did and now they are paying taxes, I guess if you want communism you move somewhere else but even Russia and China looks pretty commercial these days.
Yeah, Norway is well known for being a commie haven.
Lucky we had (cuntyfucksticksarsehat) Howard to save us from such madness.
 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Twiggy is about making money. He's behind the cashless welfare card. He's an old school thinking dinosaur, who makes these social plays to make money and gain power. An Australian with fuck tonnes of money who actually wants good is Mike Cannon-Brookes. Yes they all do good things with their enormous wealth but Twiggy is very different from Bill Gates.

I can't recall the documentary now but it was about Twiggy's activities getting mining up and running on Aboriginal land. He drove in busloads of people from other groups in other areas to join these community meetings and vote in his favour, while polishing it over as consultation with the custodians of the land. It was truly disgusting. It's not hard to do your homework on these people before putting them on a pedestal for their philanthropic efforts. If anyone is riding a high horse, it's those guys on the one they paid for.
I don't think any of these guys are above reproach, fromour favourite AFR columnist on MCB https://www.afr.com/rear-window/mike-cannon-brookes-doesn-t-merit-being-listened-to-20200223-p543in I don't know the details of Twiggys deal in the Pilbara, I know there are some indigenous folk that hate him and some that think he is good, but I still think we are better off with people that give money away even if they make a song and dance about it than keep it all to themselves.
 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Yeah, Norway is well known for being a commie haven.
Lucky we had (cuntyfucksticksarsehat) Howard to save us from such madness.
Yes with you on Howard.

Of course we too have a sovereign wealth fund just with nowehere near as much money in it, wasn't Norways primarily estab;ished through oil royalties?
 

Kerplunk

Likes Bikes and Dirt
My main issue with the current sabre rattling is what we are fighting over. Sure could China have been more transparent, no question, but is that a surprise to anyone, surely not. After everything was made clear in January the world had months to do anything and most countries didn't, including ours, we were just lucky I reckon.
The sabre rattling is because of the ccp cover up in the early stages.. It’s looking likely atm that they knew and let it spread. Whether maliciously or by negligence who knows. There is a lot of talk in the US that the rest of China imposed domestic travel bans on Wuhan yet let international flight departures continue for 5 days. If true that’s going to be a huge problem for the ccp..
I think Australia’s request for an investigation is perfectly legit, especially for western countries that haven’t dealt with sars, mers, swine flu etc. The Who also supports Australia’s request. The timing probably was a bit too soon but China throwing a tantrum over it, breaking diplomatic protocol, and threatening a trade boycott is ridiculous..
There is some form of accountability there for the ccp, that’s why they are ultra defensive..
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
Well increasing the existing royalities on resources I see as quite different to the state developing it's own mines.
my apologies, I misread your post. Norway didn’t just take royalties. Statoil (now called Equinor given oil money is on the nose in Norway...) actively own and operate the gas developments. And hence it’s not jsut royalties, it’s the full blown profits.

And then to really double down on the money, Norway’s government through the sovereign wealth fund started using that money to push their agenda globally via the investor clout.

We had a larger amount of money potentially available and could have owned the world. But Howard and other cunts happened.
 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
my apologies, I misread your post. Norway didn’t just take royalties. Statoil (now called Equinor given oil money is on the nose in Norway...) actively own and operate the gas developments. And hence it’s not jsut royalties, it’s the full blown profits.

And then to really double down on the money, Norway’s government through the sovereign wealth fund started using that money to push their agenda globally via the investor clout.

We had a larger amount of money potentially available and could have owned the world. But Howard and other cunts happened.
Yes that's definitely different! I don't recall any real proposals for state owned resources development, I'm curious though was it Oil & Gas or Iron Ore?
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
Yes that's definitely different! I don't recall any real proposals for state owned resources development, I'm curious though was it Oil & Gas or Iron Ore?
Norway is gas. But same same, natural resources owned by the state. The state can keep the profits or they can hand them off to the private sector and take crumbs like Australia...

 

downunderdallas

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Norway is gas. But same same, natural resources owned by the state. The state can keep the profits or they can hand them off to the private sector and take crumbs like Australia...

Yes I meant here was the proposal here Oil & Gas (i.e NW Shelf) or Iron Ore ?
 
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