Politics

[Hogpatrol]

History repeats!

 

[Hank2211]

Is Oz turning more conservative too?!?!


Australia Election Results: Prime Minister Scott Morrison Seizes a Stunning Win

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/world/australia/election-results-scott-morrison.html


The Liberal Party - (that means conservative down under) has beaten the Labor Party (means liberal) in a stunner. (Yea, I know, very confusing for those of us in the northern hemisphere)

It is now safe for Alexander Downer's roll in the attempt to work with the Obama administration to influence the American 2016 election to be fully disclosed without hurting the conservative, I mean Liberal Party in the elections.

It is also amazing how this caught the Australian media so off guard. Kind of like the American media was caught off guard with the Trump election and the way the British media was caught off guard with Brexit.

Will MAGA (Make Australia Great Again) be worn in Oz?

For those of us up north, it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of those of you in Australia.[/QUOTE

The polls were wrong.
In the digital age this doesn't seem to work anymore.
Well, it was a head-to-head race and the reigning premier won.
Just barely.
Although he had Rupert Murdoch on his side, the Gordon Benett of our time.
With the help of his international press group you could also become Prime Minister of Tanzania
and yet it was damn close.
Foxi

I must be getting slow. Once again I’m missing the point. The Aussie PM won because more people wanted him than the other guy. If you’re saying that the people who wanted him were simpletons who were led by the nose, then why weren’t those who supported the other guy guilty of the same? Or is it only ‘conservative’ voters who are easily led?

In Canada, we have a Liberal prime minister who won a majority -he controls the executive and legislative branches of government - with 37% of the vote. That means 63% of voting Canadians wanted anyone but him. This is democracy? Yes it is, because that’s our system, at least until we change it for something better.

I believe that those who win free elections are legitimate by that fact alone. That’s our system. To cast aspersions on those who voted for someone you don’t like is not only unhelpful, it undermines political systems. And those who do that will generally live to regret it. Right Harry Reid?

 

[jeanes]

Polls can often be wrong. Ask Hillary Clinton and her weeping supporters.

 

[Foxi]

I must be getting slow. Once again I’m missing the point. The Aussie PM won because more people wanted him than the other guy. If you’re saying that the people who wanted him were simpletons who were led by the nose, then why weren’t those who supported the other guy guilty of the same? Or is it only ‘conservative’ voters who are easily led?
for something better.

Somehow you have to read something other than what I posted.
It wasn't a breathtaking victory as was dubbed above.
A stunning win is something else.
I wanted to express this.

 

[JPbowhunter]

Many australian voters are pretty dumb and easily lead. We have compulsory voting and many (reiterate many) people i know have no clue about politics, no business voting and will vote either based off an advert or what someone tells them. Labour or liberal (our conservative party) make no difference really. My concern is the growing support for greens (extreme left). All their votes come out of inner city urban areas surprise surprise. They also recently pushed to have the voting age lowered to 16, i think when your demographic is idealistic teenagers that have no clue how the real world works you're highlighting a lot about the party.

But no Australia is not becoming more conservative, we're most definitely becoming more left of centre in the social spectrum, at the moment we're just barely hanging right on the fiscal spectrum which has kept liberals in power, i believe given the slipping economy which has a lot of Australians a bit edgy.

Also, in Australia both major parties do deals with smaller parties for their votes, I'm in one of the safest National seats in Australia so that's as good as a liberal seat as far as they're concerned.

 

[Opposite Pole]

Many australian voters are pretty dumb and easily lead. We have compulsory voting and many (reiterate many) people i know have no clue about politics, no business voting and will vote either based off an advert or what someone tells them. Labour or liberal (our conservative party) make no difference really. My concern is the growing support for greens (extreme left). All their votes come out of inner city urban areas surprise surprise. They also recently pushed to have the voting age lowered to 16, i think when your demographic is idealistic teenagers that have no clue how the real world works you're highlighting a lot about the party.

But no Australia is not becoming more conservative, we're most definitely becoming more left of centre in the social spectrum, at the moment we're just barely hanging right on the fiscal spectrum which has kept liberals in power, i believe given the slipping economy which has a lot of Australians a bit edgy.

Also, in Australia both major parties do deals with smaller parties for their votes, I'm in one of the safest National seats in Australia so that's as good as a liberal seat as far as they're concerned.

My theory is a lot of people are disillusioned with the way politics are. They dislike the liberal/labour combo and vote for all sorts of minority parties. Most folk don’t try to find out what the particular party’s ideas are, they rock up on the day and go “these guys have f..... me in the past and will surely do so again so how about someone else”. And so they vote by name, Greens (presumably falsely hoping they’ll give a damn about environment), Health Australia (hoping for health when in fact the opposite is promised), Child Protection Party (who wouldn’t want children safe?) etc. I fall under NSW Sydney Kingsford Smith division - an ALP stronghold due to large housing commission projects in the area but with strong LPA representation as well due to the fact that certain proportion of this division’s population is affluent, lives on the coast and happens to have this weird habit of picking up their own bills. Still the Greens got a whopping 11.4%, a populist party without and real policies is the 3rd biggest force! Also a stunning number of people make an invalid vote. When we were at uni, my wife (girlfriend at the time) worked on electoral commission and counted votes. Heaps of people handed in voting cards without crosses but instead adorned with a drawing of a penis (never a vagina for some reason) or a “government will f@#$ me anyway” kind of a sentence written across the card. According to her this was a very common occurrence.

Democracy is not free of issues, hard to disagree with what Socrates had to say about it.

 

[Wheels]

Thanks for the info regarding politics in Australia. Helps us northerners understand things better.

 

[Brent in Az]

 

[Hogpatrol]

When I listen to the majority of the Dems running for POTUS, I have to wonder if the people that elected them are all on some sort of mood altering drug.

 

[Wheels]

When I listen to the majority of the Dems running for POTUS, I have to wonder if the people that elected them are all on some sort of mood altering drug.

25% of the Democratic base are pushing all the candidates further and further left. This is alienating many centrist Democrats. 2020 has the potential makings of a blow out.

 

[Hogpatrol]

The majority of candidates are espousing more and more government programs. One needs to ask them, who's going to pay for this stuff? The $15.00 an hour tax base won't do it.

 

[sgt_zim]

The majority of candidates are espousing more and more government programs. One needs to ask them, who's going to pay for this stuff? The $15.00 an hour tax base won't do it.

"The 1%" tax base can't pay for it either.

If you taxed the 1% at 100%, and seized all of their assets (and then somehow found buyers for all of those income-producing assets) for cash, it would be enough money to operate the federal government for about 9 or 10 months. And then having killed the goose that lays the golden eggs, what does the federal government do for revenue the next year?

The US federal government, like all governments presently, does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.

If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists.

 

[WAB]

Hayek and von Mises, awesome hunting topic

 

[sgt_zim]

Hayek and von Mises, awesome hunting topic

I never miss an opportunity to weave those guys into a conversation.

 

[cagkt3]

The US has an obscene amount of oil reserves and fracking has given us access to cheaper oil than ever.

I wouldn't quite say it is cheaper than ever - new technology has certainly unlocked reserves that were previously uneconomic to produce, but technology is expensive. There is a reason that the rig count fell so sharply when oil prices dipped to the $40 range - no one could afford to keep drilling and make money. The data below is a bit old, but we are still only around 825 rigs with oil around $60-65/bbl right now.

 

[sgt_zim]

I wouldn't quite say it is cheaper than ever - new technology has certainly unlocked reserves that were previously uneconomic to produce, but technology is expensive. There is a reason that the rig count fell so sharply when oil prices dipped to the $40 range - no one could afford to keep drilling and make money. The data below is a bit old, but we are still only around 825 rigs with oil around $60-65/bbl right now.

A very large part of that crazy rig count into 2014 was Chesapeake's folly. I don't recall their exact rig count in Eagle Ford, Permian, North and Central Mid-Con, and Barnet, but it was off the charts insane. Plus they had more than a few in eastern Ohio and western PA at that time as well. As I recall, they capped about 90-95% of the holes they drilled. They found a ton of NG in addition to the oil, but the market for NG would have cratered if they pumped out everything they found.

The good news from that is that we can afford to be a great deal more cautious about drilling. I believe CHK alone found enough NG from 2009-15 to keep us supplied in NG for about 2 centuries.

 

[cagkt3]

A very large part of that crazy rig count into 2014 was Chesapeake's folly. I don't recall their exact rig count in Eagle Ford, Permian, North and Central Mid-Con, and Barnet, but it was off the charts insane. Plus they had more than a few in eastern Ohio and western PA at that time as well. As I recall, they capped about 90-95% of the holes they drilled. They found a ton of NG in addition to the oil, but the market for NG would have cratered if they pumped out everything they found.

The good news from that is that we can afford to be a great deal more cautious about drilling. I believe CHK alone found enough NG from 2009-15 to keep us supplied in NG for about 2 centuries.

CHK's heyday was more in 2008 (the previous spike in rig count). That boom was driven by natural gas and condensate wells in OK, LA, TX, OH, PA and even some in WV. Their stock in 2008 was $60+ per share...it closed at $2.30 today.

The most recent boom was driven almost exclusively by the Permian, and to a lesser extent the Eagle Ford (with a little help from the SCOOP play in OK). CHK certainly remained active in both the Eagle Ford and SCOOP, but the Permian Basin carried nearly twice as many rigs as the Eagle Ford. (CHK exited the Permian in 2012.)

A big key for NG will be further development of LNG assets in the US that allow for export to other countries.

 

[sgt_zim]

CHK was still really active until late '13 or early '14. That's when their rig count went into free fall. I was IT mgr for a data aggregation company at the time, and CHK was our biggest customer.

I'm sorta back in the oil bidness again (I work for Oceaneering now, but in IT security, not infrastructure). We're doing a lot more ITAR business than oil business these days, but most of our oil business is wet, so it's a lot slower than the dry land stuff I was working on 7 or 8 years ago. As I recall, Eagle Ford rigs took about 14 or 15 days to get the bit into gas or oil, Permian and SCOOP taking a bit longer, maybe 25-30 days.

I think as far as LNG, what we really lack is the capacity to efficiently compress it to liquid state. If we can build some efficient compression stations in Houston, New Orleans and/or Baton Rouge; and maybe Newport News and Long Beach, the gas business would boom. As I recall, there's about a $6-7 difference between what we can get in the US vs what we can get in Europe for NG. We probably don't have the fleet of ships capable of carrying the volume of LNG we can produce, either. But I think there's a pile of money to be made there, with a huge capex investment.

 

[wesheltonj]

This maybe some what unpopular, but look forward to the day of higher price per barrel of oil of at least $70 and put back to work some of my fellow Texans in the Eagle Ford.

 

[Saul]

This maybe some what unpopular, but look forward to the day of higher price per barrel of oil of at least $70 and put back to work some of my fellow Texans in the Eagle Ford.

Not if it costs me engine displacement! I rue the day that electric cars take over and combustion engines are banned.