Recent news in the real world has yielded an issue that I simply MUST make my comments on.
Maybe you can guess from the title of this post;
I am talking about the recent military action taken by North Korea against South Korea.
Of late, my main source of news is the Australian media. With internet and similar technology, we are no longer a day or two behind the rest of the world. However, despite this country being the birthplace of Rupert Murdoch, we have no endemic, worthy investigative media. By this, I mean to say that we get all our news from overseas sources, like Reuters, CNN, Fox (god help us all).
So it's filtered, it's biased, but in this case, it's second-hand.
What I know is this:
North Korea fired some short-range missiles and hit an island that sits in the contentious border zone. The island, the name of which is too long and difficult to pronounce that I will ask you to look it up, is a particular doozy in terms of territory. The island is inhabited by Koreans who consider themselves denizens of the South, and the UN (at the end of WWII) agreed that the island is inside the South's territory. The North, however, never ones to buck their tradition of disagreeing with everything the UN (and USA) say, have declared that the sea surrounding the island is Northern territory. So, to recap this paragraph: the Island is globally recognised as South territory, and occupied by South people, but the North recognises the water the Island is in to be North territory, against UN confirmation.
What are we to do?
I would hope that I have made any reader of this blog aware that the Korean War (started in 1950 by the North) has NOT actually ended yet. Whereas most wars officially end with a peace treaty being signed, there is NO peace treaty for the 1950-53 war in Korea. The North and the South did not make up, and are not merely noisy neighbours to one another.
The Korean situation is one like no other, and is, quite frankly, utterly unnecessary in this modern world, a relic of the Cold War that must be erased.
If I were to tell you the long and interesting story of the Korea War (1950-53), you would go way from me thinking this: "What a fucking waste of time, energy, resources and lives; although Japan did well out of it..."
Yes, after three long, brutal years fighting up and down that peninsula, it ended in a stalemate, with the Ceasefire (not Peace Treaty) drawing the lines exactly where they had been drawn before the war began - ie at the 38th parallel.
Now, we exist in a world where there are two Koreas. One is bat-shit insane, and the other is questionable. Both have been moulded in culture and identity by the existence and hatred of the other. Both harbour unsecret desires to annex, of perhaps destroy, the other.
But the juiciness of this particular issue does not end there! Oh no!
Think about where Korea is. Think about any news you saw the last few years, since the 2006 'nuclear' test conducted by the North. Have you heard the phrase "North Korea won't return to the six-party talks'?
Six-party talks.
Who could the six parties, the six interested stakeholders be in the Korean situation?
Well, obviously two of them are North Korea and South Korea.
Expanding outwards geographically, three more candidates are easily spotted, as the only three countries that exist around the peninsula: China, Japan, and Russia.
That leaves one seat left.
Need it be said, that seat belongs to the USA!
North, South, China, Japan, Russia, USA. Six parties.
Let it be know and clear, the war in 1950 was started by the NORTH. Kim Il Song was his name, the leader who led the North.
Why did he do it??
Stay with me: I am going to give you the condensed version. Ask me for details later. (I strongly urge you to look at a MAP as you read this)
Pre-WWII: Japanese Empire includes all of Korea (and eastern China, Taiwan, many islands)
After Hiroshima nuke, before Nagasaki nuke: Russia declares war on Japan.
End of WWII: USA takes the home-islands of Japan, and the rest of the Empire is decided on. Because Russia got in just in time, Stalin lays claim to half of Korea, and half of Japan (namely Hokkaido). General MacArthur, US Occupation leader, refuses Hokkaido, but must allow halfo of Korea. HENCE, North goes to USSR administration, South goes to US administration (same spirit of the Germany divide at the end of WWII) NEITHER superpower is happy with the arrangement, both of course wishing to hold the entirety of Korea.
USSR and USA spread their own special ways of doing things in their own halves of Korea. Stalin helps install Kim Il-Song, complete with personality and half a brain. Kim runs with what he has, and with Stalin's blessing builds up a cult around himself.
President Truman installs a government that aspires, somehow, to democracy, but leaves us with someone whose name I never actually learnt, and that's after doing at least two university papers on the subject (so the leader of the South was unimportant).
Next important thing to note: USA Congress, President Truman, and General MacArthur all agree that Japan requires the most attention. Their motives are clear: just as a dependant Western Europe could provide new markets for capitalism once rebuilt, so too could the industrial potential of Japan (Japan did just wage a war with amazing effort. This cannot go ignored). Rather than punish Japan, the USA sought to rebuild it, and placed the bulk of post-war troops in the Japanese territories. South Korea was left marginally defended.
Kim Il Song understood the lax situation in the South, and took his advantage. On June 25 of 1950, he attacked from the North. Southern forces and US support were caught with pants down, and routed all the way back to Pusan.
The USA had to retaliate, and Truman seized the opportunity to show how effective the new UN could be. Miraculously, Russia was not present for the meeting in New York when the UN decided to sanction action against the North's aggression.
MacArthur came in, undid the Northern army's work, and got all the way back to China.
MacArthur had an itch he needed to scratch:
In the five years since Japan was defeated, Mao Zedong had managed to unify China (until this point a broken, divided mass of aimless wandering and civil war). The bad news was that Mao called himself a Communist, and came to power through no help from the USA. In fact, he was good friends with Stalin, and hated the USA intrinsically.
MacArthur's itch: having pushed the communist North all the way back to the Chinese border, MacArthur wanted to use nukes on the Chinese army that had volunteered to bolster the North Korean efforts. TO be clear, this means the USA goes to nuclear war with China, and Russia as an ally of China.
As Truman rightly thought: not good. Truman was already dealing with the idea that he'd personally allowed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to happen. Over his dead body would he allow MacArthur to nuke Chinese civilians for the hope of getting military targets.
MacArthur and Truman had a tiff, and Truman pulled rank and fired MacArthur's arse in 1951.
This really is an interesting story, but what does it mean for Korea now?
Well: MacArthur's replacement was a man whose name escapes me, for reasons I will now make obvious: the replacement General was not as good as MacArthur. Plain and simple. the frontline of the Korean War fluctuated twice more, once south, once north, and by 1953 both sides were seeking diplomatic ends to the conflict.
In peace negotiations, no solid agreements could be made. In fact, the 1953 talks were so unsuccessful and lacklustre that all they really succeeded in doing was to call the 38th parallel the official borderline, and declare a de-militarised zone (DMZ) on either side of the line.
This seems like an OK idea, until you figure that a map is just a representation, and a line on a map does not take into account the villages, buildings, and families that had been severed by that 38th parallel. Really, nothing could be brought to a close in 1953, and it's safe to say that the only reason the 38th parallel was agreed on was because the idea already existed. It's a twisted form of incumbency.... the worst reason to do anything if you ask me.
To this day, on 25 November 2010, the 38th parallel still exists.
President George Bush dropped the ball on everything, including nuclear development of the North. However, it isn't totally implausible to think that China just gave nuke technology to North Korea (the same way they gave it to Pakistan in 1998).
So now, today, we have the NORTH: still batshit-crazy, led by the 'divine' son of Kim Il Song, Kim Jong Il, in possession of Nuclear weapons, closed off and pariah, stubborn and unpredictable.
The SOUTH: actually made the jump from Developing to OECD nation (Developed, though their methods are questionable in terms of longevity), close military alliance with the USA, their own version of Democratic, non-nuclear, but more than capable of fast development of weapons (or could just ask the USA).
NEITHER the North nor the South should EVER be said to be "good" or "evil". These are words only fit for fantasy novels and the Bible, not for the real world.
From my perspective here in Australia, and for a year or so living in Japan, I can say that the North really does seem to be belligerent. But who can blame them?
They backed the wrong horse in the Cold War. China is their only ally, and treats them like the cousin at the family Christmas party that they wish hadn't come. They have no profitability in ANYTHING, their leader is certifiably crazy, US dollar counterfeiting is the main industry, and there is no contact with the outside world.
North Korea has therefore become the most dangerous thing in human sociology. From the outside, what we know urges us to say that the entire country is inhabited by brainwashed sociopaths, who live in starvation and fourth-world conditions and still thank their Dear Leader for it all.
If the North were to start another war, things would go very differently. Like I said, Kim Il Song had a golden opportunity when the USA was busy focusing on Japan in 1950. There was no strong military presence in the South, and his attack was one of opportunity more than anything else.
NOW: The South is ready, and has been ready for generations. The general population (and I speak from personal experience here) falls into three main categories: culturally staunch, and unresponsive to the idea that other parts of the world can be different; liberal and capable of wanting to get out of it; or somehow missed all the news and propaganda, and cares more about their phones and hanmail. I'm yet to meet a Korean who doesn't fall into one of these categories.
Sadly for the young men, every single young man (unless he can escape) must serve two compulsory years in the national service. This means that at any moment the entire male population of South Korea is capable of arming himself, and reporting for duty. Surveillance and weapons technology has been boosted by the US alliance. All of this is because the South does not want to be caught off-guard again.
So why would the North fire those missiles the other day? This is the question I came to answer.
The Answer: Kim Jong Il, the batshit-insane leader of the North, is dying of about six different ailments and cancers. he had three legitimate sons (and god knows how many illegitimate). One is a poofter, and openly so. One was caught trying to get into Tokyo Disneyland on a fake passport a few years ago. The youngest is a giant question-mark for the West. So, when it comes time to decide whom to leave the nuclear weapons and cult-demigod leadership to, Kim's choice has already been made for him.
The unknown son, his name is Kim Jong-Un. remarkably unimaginative, I am sure his name is some sort of musty old Korean convention that pays tribute to the wonderousness of his father.
All we know about Jong-Un is that he went to a school in Switzewrland for a few months, and loves basketball. This has led a friend and I to imagine that when he takes the reins from daddy, he will start to offer governmental positions and honourary military posts to the likes of Michael Jordan and Shaq, in the hopes of getting his boyhood heroes to show-up for his 26th birthday party and eat Kimchi with chopsticks made from farm-workers' bones.
This person, Jong-Un, is too easy to make fun of. And that is what you get after decades of fucking crazy shit such as what happens in North Korea. I had a history teacher once suggest that the North was misunderstood. I think that has some merit, though very little. They are misunderstood, yes, but they do a damn good job of both playing close to the chest AND throwing curveballs. I hope that mix-up of analogies makes my point clear.
The missile attacks the other day are explained thusly:
Jong-Il will die soon. He hogged the spotlight inside and outside of Korea for decades, and didn't choose his heir until only last year! The North Korean media goons are in overdrive, fabricating the backstory for Jong Un, just like they did for daddy so many years ago ("born on a mountain-top, surrounded by angels, >and other fantastical ego-masturbation garbage inserted here<")
The missile strikes were undoubtedly for the benefit of those INSIDE North Korea, not outside. the target was marginal, questionable, and only killed a few people. Personally, it is unacceptable, and although the UN won't back up its condemnation of it with anything of substance, I wish it would! But from the North's view, it was a use of weapons (check!), on the decision of the new leader (check!) that hurt the South (check!) and got some attention abroad (check!). All the boxes are checked in the North Korean media's handbook for making a new leader known. Even more proof for me is the fact that for several months North Korea featured nowhere in global media.
So the conclusion: the attacks in the last week are negligible. They SHOULD lead to the UN finally doing something about North Korea, but they won't. Russia has other things to worry about (like rebuilding the USSR under Vladimir "this time it's permanent" Putin).
The USA could not possibly launch any kind of conventional military intervention - I hope you;ve been reading the news at any point in the last two years to know WHY I just said that. The USA could use their stockpiled nukes, but probably not. Japan can't do anything, having cut off its military balls when it tried to attack the USA 60 years ago, and with the birthrate and all the other cultural adaptive problems, there won't BE a Japan to do anything soon enough.
China is the only party that might be able to do anything about North Korea. I've outlined the relationship. China is too economically tied-down with the USA, and too geared towards profit-making to engage in a costly war for or with the North. If anything, they will send strongly worded messages to whichever Kim is in power, and hope for the best.
In short, no-one will do anything. The missile attacks on the South Korean island are an isolated incident. The North will continue to shriek like a spoilt child every few months, and the South will continue to burn through many billions of Won to counter the possibility of the North attacking again. This will continue ad infinitum into the future, until someone makes an active choice to intervene. Even then, economic circumstances will dictate just how far one can move.
So, there will be no second Korean War. Not now, anyway. And if I'm wrong, then it will become nuclear quickly, and there will be no-one around to tell me I was wrong.
I hope that lets you sleep easier. Not the holocaust bit, the rest of it, about no war happening.
Good Night.
From The Tominator.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
To Uluru, and Beyond!
My Peoples,
I write to you with news that some of you may already know, but which I should say here in my humble blog, nonetheless.
A week from tonight, next Sunday, I will be going to bed in a place that I have never been before. After a (somewhat needlessly) protracted stint in Sydney, I have finally recalled what is most important and necessary at this point in my life. It is not a woman, it is not money, no. It is ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!
I will be arriving in Uluru, Ayer's Rock, smack-BANG in the middle of Australia, to begin a new chapter as a Japanese Language Tour Guide.
In this endeavour, I have so far identified three key objectives that I must achieve:
1) See the Rock, and the amazing surrounds (more of my own country!)
2) Get experience in Life, and also in a job of a kind that I have not really done yet (a break from teaching, FINALLY!), and also some field study for my grand political Theory of Everything, Societal Evolution, or "SocEv" as I now call it for short.
3) Create Contacts, meeting and fostering relationships of all kinds that will one day form part of my global personal network.
I think these goals are pretty damn good, and three seems like a good number. Most of you will know that I also had three goals when I last went to Japan, and I managed to accomplish all of them resoundingly and in full, even if it took me 15 months.
At this point, I don't know how long the Uluru stint will last. The answer to that will very likely be clear come April/May of 2011 (next year).
But for now, since it is 11:40pm, and I want to get up before 10am tomorrow, I will leave you with this post as it is, and these final words as I spend the next 6 days prepping for my departure, and bracing myself for the searing, dry heat of up to 45 degrees Celsius in the Australian desert:
It ain't over till it's over.
Your life is only as small and boring as you have neglectfully allowed it to be.
I'll see you on the other side.
From The Tominator.
I write to you with news that some of you may already know, but which I should say here in my humble blog, nonetheless.
A week from tonight, next Sunday, I will be going to bed in a place that I have never been before. After a (somewhat needlessly) protracted stint in Sydney, I have finally recalled what is most important and necessary at this point in my life. It is not a woman, it is not money, no. It is ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!
I will be arriving in Uluru, Ayer's Rock, smack-BANG in the middle of Australia, to begin a new chapter as a Japanese Language Tour Guide.
In this endeavour, I have so far identified three key objectives that I must achieve:
1) See the Rock, and the amazing surrounds (more of my own country!)
2) Get experience in Life, and also in a job of a kind that I have not really done yet (a break from teaching, FINALLY!), and also some field study for my grand political Theory of Everything, Societal Evolution, or "SocEv" as I now call it for short.
3) Create Contacts, meeting and fostering relationships of all kinds that will one day form part of my global personal network.
I think these goals are pretty damn good, and three seems like a good number. Most of you will know that I also had three goals when I last went to Japan, and I managed to accomplish all of them resoundingly and in full, even if it took me 15 months.
At this point, I don't know how long the Uluru stint will last. The answer to that will very likely be clear come April/May of 2011 (next year).
But for now, since it is 11:40pm, and I want to get up before 10am tomorrow, I will leave you with this post as it is, and these final words as I spend the next 6 days prepping for my departure, and bracing myself for the searing, dry heat of up to 45 degrees Celsius in the Australian desert:
It ain't over till it's over.
Your life is only as small and boring as you have neglectfully allowed it to be.
I'll see you on the other side.
From The Tominator.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Aussie Dollar
Recently something amazing has happened in Australian economics.
Long ignored by the rest of the world as a backwater of the British Empire, and then as a 'European transplant' on the arse-end of Asia (thank a former Malaysian PM for that pearl), Australia has been a quiet achiever in pretty much everything we do:
- When we had active secondary industries, we made quality goods, and even sold them abroad.
- Currently, our primary industries are feeding the inexhaustible hunger of China's rampant growth.
- More actors, directors, and films in Hollywood than you may know are of Australian origin (or from New Zealand but claimed by us because hey, what is NZ going to do about it??).
- Our politicians, more notably our last PM (knifed in the back by his own party, see earlier blog posts) have liked to use the phrase: "we punch above our weight". This applies truly to our commitment in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and every other American war since WWII.
So, as you can see, we have been quiet achievers, but also high-achievers.
Economically, it has been a different story.
The Australian economy was a protected economy leading out of World War II. There is little wonder why, since it was based on agricultural exports (mainly wool and food to Europe), and a general aura of racism saw Australians constantly weary of the fluctuating Asian economies in most immediate proximity.
But in 1983, our dollar was floated. The PM and Treasurer at the time (Bob Hawke and Paul Keating respectively) were the magic team of the Labor Party, and it fell to them to do it. In short, the boom period of the 1950s was sustained by a very socially conservative government, which remained in power (though under differing leaders) for 23 years. By the mid-1970s, social change was briefly enacted by a new PM Gough Whitlam with a famous election in 1974, and an ensuing Constitutional Crisis (the first of its kind in the country) followed by the Dismissal of the PM brought that wave of reform to a grinding halt. (this is a pretty big part of Australian history. I'm not going to do it justice in this context, however. Ask me later!).
The next PM, an ambitious, imperious, yet sad and uninspiring man, Malcolm Fraser, then enacted similar reforms to his dismissed predecessor, only on a much easier-for-the-public-to-swallow basis.
Then America faced facts about Vietnam in the mid-1970s and felt impotent, and the world at large was also hit in 1979 by the Oil Crisis. Economies tanked overnight, and fear was injected into the veins of politicians everywhere. Australia was no exception.
After the recovery in the early 1980s, and the dawn of the Reagan and Thatcher eras in the countries that mattered (USA and UK), the rest of the developed world followed their new ideas.
Thatcher and Reagan, led by the nose by economists who had lost big in the 1970s, allowed their governments to stop behaving like national governments and start behaving like money-grubbing capitalist corporations. Hence began the 1980s corporatisation of national governments - also known as Reaganomics. (I think 'Thatchernomics' is harder to say and type.)
Australia, ever-dependant on the whims of the "great and powerful friends" had no choice, and was not spared. Some of you may know the mechanics behind a protected economy. Hawke and Keating 'floated' the Aussie Dollar, and we all watched in 1983 (not me, I was born in 1987) as the dollar, no longer supported on artificial stilts, sank to find its 'real' market value. It settled somewhere closer to 50c US than above US$1, where it had always been. Needless to say, we had ourselves a little recession that year. But Australian history remembers it as "the recession we had to have", as for a decade later, right up until the crash of 2008-09, Australia rode the crest of the wave of boom-time, which began that day back in December 1983.
For those that don't here is the short version:
Protected economy: the national government states the value of the dollar (or currency). It is NOT as simple as that. Regular people and especially stock-brokers cannot be expected to agree on the value of the Australian dollar, and trade at the stated value ad-infinitum. If anyone wants to sell an export or buy an import, one has to agree with outside economies on the value of the currency being used. And at the most basic level, unless the economy is entirely cut off and isolated from the rest of the world, the BANKS have to transact currency exchanges daily.
In the Protected Australia, tariffs support home-grown industries. Whereas it may be cheaper to buy a Japanese Toyota than an Australian Holden in the 1970s, Mr Australian Taxman comes into the scene and says "You must pay an exorbitant price if you ever want that Toyota to come into Australia!"
Domestically, the national banks must control the value of the currency. This is done, in the simplest terms, thusly:
Today, the Australian Dollar must be set at US$1.20. Yesterday it was $1.15. Tomorrow, it needs to be at $1.10 (...for whatever reason - it's not important WHY, just HOW right now in this example).
So, Yesterday = $1.15 Today = $1.20 Tomorrow = $1.10.
Since we can't just agree on the value and go about our business, the value MUST be backed up and supported by something.
**Quick note: every damn term used in economics is metaphorical. I'm sorry. It gets hard to follow. I'll make it quick. But ask yourself: why all the Metaphors?? Because none of it really exists! It's all rhetoric! Did you get the same answer I got?
To support the value of the dollar, the Australian national bank (once the Commonwealth Bank, now the Reserve Bank) had the legal prerogative to BUY or SELL Australian currency at will. By buying up currency today, the supply of AUDollars lessens, and its value goes up. Hence the bank could artificially change the value from Yesterday to Today from $1.15 to $1.20.
Tomorrow, to hit the mark of $1.10, the bank can sell the currency to whoever wants it. And there is always someone who wants it Tomorrow. After all, Today it was worth $1.20!
The Bank could therefore artificially control the value.
Of course, there are other more drastic measures a national bank could use, too - like printing too much, or burning a whole pile of cash. But things never got that bad down here.
And NOW, on November 4, 2010, things seem to be good! Amazingly good! Incredibly GOOD!
And it is incredible - not credible.
This week, for the first time since 1983, the first time since artificial valuing and protection, the Australian dollar, which is free to float on the international markets, and the value of which is determined by the free market, rose to and above PARITY with the US dollar.
Let me put this into crystal clear perspective for you.
Australia = long-time backwater, never truly 'independent' from the Queen (not that we needed to be), quiet-achiever, incapable of protecting its borders completely, arid desert continent, less than 10 major cities, and barely 2 with populations over 1 million. The largest our population ever hit was the current census, which stands at an estimated 23million (based largely on immigration). We have a constant drought, we sold all our secondary industries to China, we sell China our Primary industries at unnecessary discounts, and our tertiary industries are bloating into incompetence. None of our Universities are older than 150 years, and no-one in the rest of the developed world grows up wishing to attend any of them. We have no space program, a small military, no nukes, and always follow someone else's lead. If ever any major nation pays attention to us, it is always met with an initial shock, akin to the one you get when you attend a big meeting and daydream for a few hours before someone calls your name for the third time and you jump and wipe the saliva off your face!
USA = Superpower, leader of the free world. First man on the moon. First to develop nuclear weapons, won the war against Germany AND Japan AT THE SAME TIME!, controlled the Keynsian global economic system, fights wars in other countries at their own pleasure, home to major global universities, contains California (which in and of itself could be a G8 nation if it were independent), largest population expansion hit over 300 million, top of the world, etc etc. yada, yada, yada. If you are not aware of the status and power of the USA, then you really should keep hiding under that rock you've been under for decades and decades.
I realise these comparisons are unedited, but they are clear and true.
So, I ask you, HOW the HELL did we in Australia get to parity with the US dollar????
I can tell you, that NOTHING has changed, and nothing could have possibly changed, to make the small Australian economy rise to match the US dollar, no matter how high above our own weight we punched.
So if Australia's dollar didn't go UP, then.....
...I guess the US dollar has sunk that much!
For a country that lives and breathes by the free market, the USA is totally ignoring what the free market is saying about the state of its own economy.
President Obama, who, as of yesterday, now faces an absolutely hostile House of Representatives in Washington DC, has succeeded in accomplishing absolutely NOTHING to change the horrific course of events that George Bush set in motion as he stole America's future.
I can see a pretty clear future for America, and I am going to tell you about it in the next post. I warn you, though, that it is not pretty, and may seem quite bleak indeed. For starters, it will use the phrase "President Palin". But I strongly recommend that you read it, just as soon as I post it!
America, just like the Galactic Empire of Asimov's Sci-Fi epics, is on an irreversible slide into decay and ruin.
But time marches on.
We will need to change our perspectives in the new world, and remember one thing:
We did it to ourselves.
Freedom is not a concept to be taken lightly, and not an idea to be twisted and exploited.
From The Tominator.
Long ignored by the rest of the world as a backwater of the British Empire, and then as a 'European transplant' on the arse-end of Asia (thank a former Malaysian PM for that pearl), Australia has been a quiet achiever in pretty much everything we do:
- When we had active secondary industries, we made quality goods, and even sold them abroad.
- Currently, our primary industries are feeding the inexhaustible hunger of China's rampant growth.
- More actors, directors, and films in Hollywood than you may know are of Australian origin (or from New Zealand but claimed by us because hey, what is NZ going to do about it??).
- Our politicians, more notably our last PM (knifed in the back by his own party, see earlier blog posts) have liked to use the phrase: "we punch above our weight". This applies truly to our commitment in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and every other American war since WWII.
So, as you can see, we have been quiet achievers, but also high-achievers.
Economically, it has been a different story.
The Australian economy was a protected economy leading out of World War II. There is little wonder why, since it was based on agricultural exports (mainly wool and food to Europe), and a general aura of racism saw Australians constantly weary of the fluctuating Asian economies in most immediate proximity.
But in 1983, our dollar was floated. The PM and Treasurer at the time (Bob Hawke and Paul Keating respectively) were the magic team of the Labor Party, and it fell to them to do it. In short, the boom period of the 1950s was sustained by a very socially conservative government, which remained in power (though under differing leaders) for 23 years. By the mid-1970s, social change was briefly enacted by a new PM Gough Whitlam with a famous election in 1974, and an ensuing Constitutional Crisis (the first of its kind in the country) followed by the Dismissal of the PM brought that wave of reform to a grinding halt. (this is a pretty big part of Australian history. I'm not going to do it justice in this context, however. Ask me later!).
The next PM, an ambitious, imperious, yet sad and uninspiring man, Malcolm Fraser, then enacted similar reforms to his dismissed predecessor, only on a much easier-for-the-public-to-swallow basis.
Then America faced facts about Vietnam in the mid-1970s and felt impotent, and the world at large was also hit in 1979 by the Oil Crisis. Economies tanked overnight, and fear was injected into the veins of politicians everywhere. Australia was no exception.
After the recovery in the early 1980s, and the dawn of the Reagan and Thatcher eras in the countries that mattered (USA and UK), the rest of the developed world followed their new ideas.
Thatcher and Reagan, led by the nose by economists who had lost big in the 1970s, allowed their governments to stop behaving like national governments and start behaving like money-grubbing capitalist corporations. Hence began the 1980s corporatisation of national governments - also known as Reaganomics. (I think 'Thatchernomics' is harder to say and type.)
Australia, ever-dependant on the whims of the "great and powerful friends" had no choice, and was not spared. Some of you may know the mechanics behind a protected economy. Hawke and Keating 'floated' the Aussie Dollar, and we all watched in 1983 (not me, I was born in 1987) as the dollar, no longer supported on artificial stilts, sank to find its 'real' market value. It settled somewhere closer to 50c US than above US$1, where it had always been. Needless to say, we had ourselves a little recession that year. But Australian history remembers it as "the recession we had to have", as for a decade later, right up until the crash of 2008-09, Australia rode the crest of the wave of boom-time, which began that day back in December 1983.
For those that don't here is the short version:
Protected economy: the national government states the value of the dollar (or currency). It is NOT as simple as that. Regular people and especially stock-brokers cannot be expected to agree on the value of the Australian dollar, and trade at the stated value ad-infinitum. If anyone wants to sell an export or buy an import, one has to agree with outside economies on the value of the currency being used. And at the most basic level, unless the economy is entirely cut off and isolated from the rest of the world, the BANKS have to transact currency exchanges daily.
In the Protected Australia, tariffs support home-grown industries. Whereas it may be cheaper to buy a Japanese Toyota than an Australian Holden in the 1970s, Mr Australian Taxman comes into the scene and says "You must pay an exorbitant price if you ever want that Toyota to come into Australia!"
Domestically, the national banks must control the value of the currency. This is done, in the simplest terms, thusly:
Today, the Australian Dollar must be set at US$1.20. Yesterday it was $1.15. Tomorrow, it needs to be at $1.10 (...for whatever reason - it's not important WHY, just HOW right now in this example).
So, Yesterday = $1.15 Today = $1.20 Tomorrow = $1.10.
Since we can't just agree on the value and go about our business, the value MUST be backed up and supported by something.
**Quick note: every damn term used in economics is metaphorical. I'm sorry. It gets hard to follow. I'll make it quick. But ask yourself: why all the Metaphors?? Because none of it really exists! It's all rhetoric! Did you get the same answer I got?
To support the value of the dollar, the Australian national bank (once the Commonwealth Bank, now the Reserve Bank) had the legal prerogative to BUY or SELL Australian currency at will. By buying up currency today, the supply of AUDollars lessens, and its value goes up. Hence the bank could artificially change the value from Yesterday to Today from $1.15 to $1.20.
Tomorrow, to hit the mark of $1.10, the bank can sell the currency to whoever wants it. And there is always someone who wants it Tomorrow. After all, Today it was worth $1.20!
The Bank could therefore artificially control the value.
Of course, there are other more drastic measures a national bank could use, too - like printing too much, or burning a whole pile of cash. But things never got that bad down here.
And NOW, on November 4, 2010, things seem to be good! Amazingly good! Incredibly GOOD!
And it is incredible - not credible.
This week, for the first time since 1983, the first time since artificial valuing and protection, the Australian dollar, which is free to float on the international markets, and the value of which is determined by the free market, rose to and above PARITY with the US dollar.
Let me put this into crystal clear perspective for you.
Australia = long-time backwater, never truly 'independent' from the Queen (not that we needed to be), quiet-achiever, incapable of protecting its borders completely, arid desert continent, less than 10 major cities, and barely 2 with populations over 1 million. The largest our population ever hit was the current census, which stands at an estimated 23million (based largely on immigration). We have a constant drought, we sold all our secondary industries to China, we sell China our Primary industries at unnecessary discounts, and our tertiary industries are bloating into incompetence. None of our Universities are older than 150 years, and no-one in the rest of the developed world grows up wishing to attend any of them. We have no space program, a small military, no nukes, and always follow someone else's lead. If ever any major nation pays attention to us, it is always met with an initial shock, akin to the one you get when you attend a big meeting and daydream for a few hours before someone calls your name for the third time and you jump and wipe the saliva off your face!
USA = Superpower, leader of the free world. First man on the moon. First to develop nuclear weapons, won the war against Germany AND Japan AT THE SAME TIME!, controlled the Keynsian global economic system, fights wars in other countries at their own pleasure, home to major global universities, contains California (which in and of itself could be a G8 nation if it were independent), largest population expansion hit over 300 million, top of the world, etc etc. yada, yada, yada. If you are not aware of the status and power of the USA, then you really should keep hiding under that rock you've been under for decades and decades.
I realise these comparisons are unedited, but they are clear and true.
So, I ask you, HOW the HELL did we in Australia get to parity with the US dollar????
I can tell you, that NOTHING has changed, and nothing could have possibly changed, to make the small Australian economy rise to match the US dollar, no matter how high above our own weight we punched.
So if Australia's dollar didn't go UP, then.....
...I guess the US dollar has sunk that much!
For a country that lives and breathes by the free market, the USA is totally ignoring what the free market is saying about the state of its own economy.
President Obama, who, as of yesterday, now faces an absolutely hostile House of Representatives in Washington DC, has succeeded in accomplishing absolutely NOTHING to change the horrific course of events that George Bush set in motion as he stole America's future.
I can see a pretty clear future for America, and I am going to tell you about it in the next post. I warn you, though, that it is not pretty, and may seem quite bleak indeed. For starters, it will use the phrase "President Palin". But I strongly recommend that you read it, just as soon as I post it!
America, just like the Galactic Empire of Asimov's Sci-Fi epics, is on an irreversible slide into decay and ruin.
But time marches on.
We will need to change our perspectives in the new world, and remember one thing:
We did it to ourselves.
Freedom is not a concept to be taken lightly, and not an idea to be twisted and exploited.
From The Tominator.
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