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Post by caskur on Apr 2, 2013 6:39:26 GMT 10
"A month ago we pointed out that as a result of Australia's unprecedented reliance on China as a target export market, accounting for nearly 30% of all Australian exports (with the flipside being just as true, as Australia now is the fifth-biggest source of Chinese imports), the two countries may as well be joined at the hip. Over the weekend, Australia appears to have come to the same conclusion, with the Australian reporting that the land down under is set to say goodbye to the world's "reserve currency" in its trade dealings with the world's biggest marginal economic power, China, and will enable the direct convertibility of the Australian dollar into Chinese yuan, without US Dollar intermediation, in the process "slashing costs for thousands of business" and also confirming speculation that China is fully intent on, little by little, chipping away at the dollar's reserve currency status until one day it no longer is." www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-31/thanks-world-reserve-currency-no-thanks-australia-and-china-enable-direct-currency-cGood idea? Why? Perhaps economist here can explain. |
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Post by pim on Apr 2, 2013 8:26:20 GMT 10
I'd never lay claim to being any sort of an economist but I believe I can lay a modest claim to a certain linguistic expertise. In other words I know what words mean and how to use them. So to me the thread title gives the impression that Australia and China are adopting the same currency. So what does this mean? That Australia is dropping the $A and adopting the Chinese RMB? Or "yuan" if you prefer? Or vice versa? It's only when you read the news item that you get at the truth which is somewhat different from the verbal spaghetti of the thread title.
As for the idea that Australia should be able to deal directly with its biggest trading partner (I read the other day that Australia's trade with China amounts to $150 billion every year) rather than via the medium of the $US, to me it stands to reason and is a further sign that Australia is becoming more and more an Asia/Pacific economy.
Now you can appoach this tectonic shift in Australia's basic relationship with the rest of the world in two ways: you can decide the glass is half-full and embrace the future with boldness and confidence in yourself, or you can decide that the glass is half-empty and you can be dragged towards the future reluctantly, all the while looking backwards towards the past with longing and nostalgia and crying for your mummy ... or in the case of the US, your accidental daddy.
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Post by caskur on Apr 2, 2013 10:19:20 GMT 10
I think it is a tad more complicated than that!
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Post by pim on Apr 2, 2013 10:23:50 GMT 10
Well of course it is! But Caskur don't tell me you're rejecting oversimplification in favour of multi-layered nuance. Wot?? Here on NTB!!  Garfield won't like this!!  |
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Post by caskur on Apr 2, 2013 10:34:17 GMT 10
I just want to see what others think.
I don't know enough about subject.
I also want to see what my step father thinks as well.
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Post by pim on Apr 2, 2013 12:17:46 GMT 10
Caskur of course it's multi-layered and nuanced and there's no way I can claim to be an expert in high finance, international currency trading, international trade and the commodities market.
But here's what I do know:
1. I know this is bipartisan so any move by ratbags like Garfield to waste your time or my time or the board's time by running interference on the thread with some stupid distraction about "lefties" or "Labor" is an attempt to hijack or derail the thread. This isn't about Liberal or Labor. The Liberals have already said they support the move. So an Abbott Government will leave it in place.
2. Most of Australia's trade with China, on the Australian export side, is in commodities which are routinely traded internationally in $US so not much will change on that score. The only serious rival to the status of the $US as an international reserve curreny has been the Euro. That was 10 years ago before the GFC and the inherent contradictions in the Euro became apparent. I'm not arguing that the Euro is an international rival to the $US today. Clearly it isn't. But there was a time, maybe 10 years ago, when it looked as if it might become one. Now we know better.
3. There is a major Australian export item which doesn't have to be filtered through the $US and that's education. I don't see why the currency transfers there couldn't be directly from the ¥ to the $A. Another big ticket item which involves the Chinese spending lots of ¥ in Australa is tourism. This is already big and it's growing even bigger.
4. Most of Australia's imports from China are manufactures. Why should Australian importers incur the extra cost of paying for these imports through being forced to double up in currency transfers?
You know ... a hundred years ago the world was a little over a year away from WW1, except the world didn't know it yet. Winston Churchill was muttering dire warnings over bad consequences for everyone over "some damn fool thing in the Balkans" (he was right!) but the rest of our great grandparents back then were getting on with their lives in an atmosphere of a excellent international trade and a prosperous globalising economy. Like China today, the new kid on the block back then was Germany which was becoming an industrial and economic giant and demanding a slice of the international action in which, back then, the main players were Britain and France. The US was up-and-coming but hadn't yet reached the stage where you could call it the "American Century". Two world wars would change that but that was in the future.
The British and the French response to Germany's demand to "make room" and "we want a piece of this international action too" was to try to shut the Germans out and "contain" them with a ring of alliances to bottle the Germans up inside Europe. The result was two world wars and a Russian Revolution which gave us communism and the cold war.
Oh, and Germany still ended up as one of the planet's major economies and far outstripped the British.
Now, 100 years later, we have another new player on the international stage and that's China. The Gillard Government is talking about the "Asian Century" and the Abbott Liberals agree.
You'd think, after the lessons of the past 100 years, that we'd have learned a thing or two from history ...
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Post by geopol on Apr 2, 2013 12:24:42 GMT 10
I do not think we learn much from history or if we do it is mostly kept within the confines of historians and intellectuals of varying degrees. The politicians don't seem to bother very much and the capitalist pigs don't as they take us from boom to bust every chance they get. Chaos is more likely what we have rather then rationality.....
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 9:35:39 GMT 10
The Chinese have been actively stealing from the Americans for awhile now.
Do you find this an encouraging sign of things to come?
How about them employing missions to our territory in Antarctica without authorization? Was that an acceptable act on their part?
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Post by pim on Apr 3, 2013 10:50:09 GMT 10
The parts of Antarctica claimed by Australia are just that, "claimed". A claim on a territory is worthless if it can't be enforced, and there's no way that Australia can make its claim stick. Have you looked at a map of Antarctica and how much of it is claimed by Australia?  Good luck with making THAT stick! Oh and BTW Caskur, the Dutch could have argued that they had a nominal claim to what they called "Nieuw Holland". It's a moot point because it's a claim that they never pressed. If they had pressed it they may not have got too far and I'm not trying to argue that they would have. But what I am saying is that you could apply your logic about the legality of Australia's "claim" to substantial parts of Antarctica to a notional Dutch claim to your part o Australia:  Careful, Caskur! Go down this path and I might have to start posting to you in Dutch! As for the Chinese "actively stealing" from the Americans ... "actively stealing" is a loaded term and I don't know what you mean by it. You mean that the Chinese haven't done things like respect international copyright? Aww shucks! They were treated as an international pariah by the Americans over a long period, you know. Now they're a large major player on the world stage, and in fact look set to become the largest player, and the Americans (and their little Australian acolytes) feel they can whinge at the Chinese that "you have to play by the rules that we have set!" Yeah, right! Good luck with that one! Like US AWAC spy planes flying up the Chinese coastline and being forced down to land on Hainan Island - Chinese territory. When the Americans object and demand the Chinese return the crew and the plane the Chinese say "Fine! We'd just like to have a chat with the crew first ... oh and the aircraft? We've finished looking at it. See those crates over there? That's your AWAC. Feel free to take it home and reassemble it" The Americans howl in protest and indignation over this, but what if Chinese AWACs were to make regular spy flights along the US west coast? Caskur, we are a nation of the Asia/Pacific and Indian Oceans. Other nations where people look like us, think like us, talk like us, worship like us and live like us are on the other side of the planet. We are the anomaly in this part of the world, not the Asians and we need them a helluva lot more than they need us. That's our starting point when we start to talk about the Chinese. |
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Post by pim on Apr 3, 2013 11:27:39 GMT 10
It seems that the WA border being set at 129° longitude goes back to the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 where the then Pope divided the world between Spain and Portugal. It explains why Brazil is Portuguese-speaking and the rest of Latin America is Spanish-speaking. Apparently the WA border was set by the British taking Portuguese sentiments into account, given that the Portuguese were in East Timor. Should Caskur be speaking Portuguese?
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 13:32:16 GMT 10
I am well aware the Dutch discovered WA PIM...
I like to shove that fact up the Poms noses at boards as often as given the chance. AND the eastern staters here too.
However the Dopey Dutch didn't sail up the Swan River.....otherwise, the Dope Dutch could have had Oz.
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 13:40:10 GMT 10
Looks like the Chinks are busy... Don't it? www.jsonline.com/news/crime/medical-college-researcher-charged-with-stealing-anticancer-compound-ls9cnn4-200958961.htmlA researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin has been charged with stealing a possible cancer-fighting compound and research data that led to its development, all to benefit a Chinese university. Huajun Zhao, 42, faces a single count of economic espionage, according to a federal criminal complaint, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Zhao was arrested Saturday and held without bail over the weekend pending a detention hearing in Milwaukee federal court on Monday, when he was ordered detained until trial. No date has been set. John Raymond, president and CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, said the school is cooperating with the FBI, and directed all other questions to the FBI. According to the complaint, Zhao worked as an associate researcher at the college, assisting professor Marshall Anderson by conducting experiments in pharmacology. |
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 13:51:39 GMT 10
Bloody 'ell. these little buggers get around, don't they? ____________________________________________________ Congressman Frank R. Wolf, through information gathered from whistleblowers, not only found that secret defense information was stolen, but that the Obama administration, including DOJ, may have shut down the investigation. According to a whistleblower speaking to Aviation Week, the Chinese nationals obtained high-level, cutting edge technology, including: … Missile defense technology…High-performance rocket engines, fuel and oxidizer tanks from an “ASAT” (anti-satellite weapon), guidance and terrain-mapping systems from the Tomahawk cruise missile and a radar altimeter from the F-35… www.westernjournalism.com/obama-lets-china-steal-top-secret-nasa-technology/buying Australia... polluting their homeland... fobbing off their poisonous food while pilfering Aussie fish stocks... stealing rocket technology from Nasa for what? Maybe they need a new unpolluted homeland for some of their 1.3 billion strong population... maybe they need some uranium enriched continent to power their Asian century... maybe our land and wildlife should bend over while they arse rape us into extinction! Now, that sounds like a plan, huh? |
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Post by pim on Apr 3, 2013 15:00:37 GMT 10
I am well aware the Dutch discovered WA PIM... I like to shove that fact up the Poms noses at boards as often as given the chance. AND the eastern staters here too. However the Dopey Dutch didn't sail up the Swan River.....otherwise, the Dope Dutch could have had Oz. My problem is that I allow tiresome facts to get in the way of falsified history. I understood that it was Willem de Vlamingh who first sailed up - and named - the Swan River on 10 January 1697. In fact I recall standing in Kings Park and a plaque informed me that an Aborigine standing in that spot and looking down on that stretch of the Swan River on 10/01/1697 would have witnessed the progress of de Vlamigh's flotilla up the Swan. I can't remember the names of all of the ships. There was the Geelvink which means the "yellow finch" and the Nijptang. I remember my father used to have a "nijptang" in his toolbox. At least, that's what we used to call it until we learned that in English you call it a pair of pincers. So the Dutch did sail up the Swan. And having seen it, they sailed on and didn't colonise. In fact the Dutch saw lots of other places on the WA and southern coastlines that were green & pleasant. I've been to Cape Leeuwin. Now I can tell you that "Leeuwin" is Dutch for "lioness". Apparently it was also the name of a Dutch ship that sailed around that coastline in 1622. And let's not forget Abel Tasman whose name is recalled in the name of a certain Australian island state. Not only that, he went on to bump into New Zealand which he originally called "Staten Land". The fact that NZ is named after a Dutch province bordering Belgium (Zeeland) would indicate a certain dutch influence there. These are all places that are green and pleasant so why did the dutch not colonise them with Dutch settlers? Because they're "dopey"? Well, they would have been dopey if they'd been looking for places to colonise with Dutch settlers and passed up that chance, but they weren't looking for places to colonise and seed with people from the lowlands of north=west Europe. They were planters and they worked for a private sector outfit called the "V.O.C." which stand for three very long and impossible-looking Dutch words which translate as "United East India Company". It's a bit like asking me to tell you what "KLM" stands for. Trust me, you don't want to know! So all Dutch exploration of the Australian coastline was a private sector operation. As such they were interested in the company's bottom line first, foremost and last. These businessmen were planters. They wanted a cash crop, or set of cash crops, that they could cultivate, transport back to Europe on ships (hence the need to explore the WA coastline as a shipping hazard) where they could sell it for 2000% profit, and a large native labour force that could be put to work growing cloves, or nutmeg, or mace, or tobacco ... Australia had none of the above. So they weren't interested. In fact the Dutch never populated Indonesia with white Dutch settlers during all of the 300 years they were there. Like the British in India which never numbered more than 100 000, there were never more than a few thousand white Dutch in Indonesia. The thing about successful imperialism is that a successful imperialist gets the locals to do his dirty work for him. Ruthless? Canny? Cruel? Yes to all of those. But "dopey"? Now that shows your ignorance! It's noteworthy that some 150 years after the voyage of the "Leeuwin", Cook's report to the British Admiralty after his 3 year voyage on the "Endeavour", during which time he'd charted the east coast of Australia and had made a detailed chart of the entire coastline of New Zealand, said that he had "made no significant discoveries". It was Joe Banks who gilded the lily on the east coast and even then the best idea the British could come up with was to use it as a dumping ground for Britain's human refuse. |
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 15:31:48 GMT 10
I was just checking to keep you on your toes...
now about the criminal actions of the Chinese we deal with...
how comfortable are you with that?
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 15:35:55 GMT 10
Dirk Hartog...
look 'im up...
We don't need Asians at all..
When my ancestors arrived here, there were no Asians.
We do not need more crooks.
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 15:44:34 GMT 10
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Post by pim on Apr 3, 2013 15:48:49 GMT 10
Dirk Hartog? Of the "Eendracht"? The guy's name, and the ship's name, translate as "Dirk Duke" of the "Concord". I don't need to look him up. I heard about him long before you were born. When you say that there were no "Asians" when your ancestors arrived, does that mean that Aborigines aren't "Asian"? I agree that Aborigines themselves would deny that they were "Asian" but if they chose to pass themselves off as"Asian" they'd have a lot more cred as "Asians" than people like thee and me. Are you saying that all "Asians" are crooks? Cor blimey you really are a mess with all those prejudices, Caskur! Are you one of those bogan white supremacist sheilas or somethin'? Was that you who swore at that nice Jeremy Fernandez and called him all sorts of racist names? Or are you one of those bogans who yell abuse at Asian tourists on buses? When the Aborigines had the place to themselves, there were no whitefellas. Then the boats started arriving ... Started a trend that's still going strong |
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 15:54:56 GMT 10
Dirk Hartog? Of the "Eendracht"? The guy's name, and the ship's name, translate as "Dirk Duke" of the "Concord". I don't need to look him up. I heard about him long before you were born. When you say that there were no "Asians" when your ancestors arrived, does that mean that Aborigines aren't "Asian"? I agree that Aborigines themselves would deny that they were "Asian" but if they chose to pass themselves off as"Asian" they'd have a lot more cred as "Asians" than people like thee and me. Are you saying that all "Asians" are crooks? Cor blimey you really are a mess with all those prejudices, Caskur! Are you one of those bogan white supremacist sheilas or somethin'? Was that you who swore at that nice Jeremy Fernandez and called him all sorts of racist names? Or are you one of those bogans who yell abuse at Asian tourists on buses? When the Aborigines had the place to themselves, there were no whitefellas. Then the boats started arriving ... Started a trend that's still going strong yes, I'm prejudice and getting more and more prejudice as I watch my country disappear under a barrage of money grubbing mongrels. Is that wrong? |
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Post by pim on Apr 3, 2013 16:08:18 GMT 10
Yes, change always makes some people feel uncomfortable. I guess it would make you feel better, then, to yell incoherent racist abuse, with lots of F words and C words, at fellow passengers on public transport who look "different". May you live long enough, Caskur, to know, love and hug your Muslim Eurasian great-grandchildren ...  |
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Post by pim on Apr 3, 2013 16:20:00 GMT 10
yes, I'm prejudice and getting more and more prejudice as I watch my country disappear under a barrage of money grubbing mongrels. Is that wrong? ? I'd have thought you could be prejudice d, but never be prejudice itself.  If by that Caskur means that she is so prejudiced that she is prejudice personified then her statement "Yes I am prejudice" is remarkable for its honesty and candour ... and yet all the more appalling for it  |
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Post by geopol on Apr 3, 2013 16:45:54 GMT 10
The quintessence of smug?
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Post by caskur on Apr 3, 2013 17:22:44 GMT 10
I will save Australia from the money grubbers..
you will see!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2013 17:57:06 GMT 10
It is unfortunate Australia is falling to white pride nationalism espoused by RW media like 2GB Alan Jones, and including our Prime Minister Julia Gillard with her comments of jobs for Australians first.
Racial abuse is become more prevalent where not so long ABC presenter Jeremy Fernandez was abused on public transport, indeed it is a alarming trend.
The hate of racist such as displayed here is out there in the community and will continue to rise if something is not done to quell the upsurge of racism that will lead to violence and hate crimes.
Requires good leadership to educate these ignorant people, and that is not coming from Gillard and least of all from Abbott.
Chinese people have been migrating to Australia since the 1700's, every major city has a China Town, Australia was not built by just whites who think that this is their own private nation and everyone else is to be excluded.
China is Australia's biggest trading partner, Australia exports more to China than what is imported, China is advancing to solve its pollution problems with a nationalised carbon tax by 2015.
As with much of Europe already having carbon taxes, the US is also planning to tax carbon, just as New Zealand was first in this direction...Caslurs ignorance and child like thoughts on different races is pathetic nationalism...what a dullard closed mind who cannot see the enjoyment to hear another language, another culture that enriches Australia.
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Post by caskur on Apr 5, 2013 23:56:40 GMT 10
Just think... now that our north Kimberley will have Chinese occupation... the black market trade in Australia fauna with THRIVE... oh what joy... AND not only that, the Chines can help themselves to eating all that remains of our wildlife while smuggling in heroin... we can all become smackheads... yaaayyyy!!!!
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