Adam The God

The neoliberal EU is about to disintegrate. That was a construct created by the French Socialists. Will the Democrats realise who they're supposed to represent? Who knows, but if they don't they'll be voted out. The neoliberal period has been a disaster for wages and the earth we're living on. The golden age of capitalism saw a full employment agenda. That needs to return. As for the size of the crash, the RBA are modelling a 50% contraction of the housing market and the big banks are putting aside billions to protect themselves against defaulted loans. Problem is it'll be nowhere near big enough. The Fed Gov will backstop them, but that will only prolong the problem. There's too much private debt. I reckon there'll be an election in August to coincide with the Senate half elections. If the stimulus is lifted in March as predicted, there'll be mass defaults, on the eve of an election.

If it's not Trump in four years, it'll be someone else. The Democrats are like the rest of the centre left parties in the Western world. Completely abandoned their base and working people and front big capital nowadays. I hear Pelosi and other 'moderates' have already blastered so called 'socialist' elements in the party for allegedly being the reason for Trump's good showing in this election. When the rest of the party sits on the centre right, it makes the centre left position look radical. Real wages have been in steep decline since the 1970s and it's when all the traditionally centre left parties turned to neoliberalism and fraudulent economics. These economics have been fuelled by deregulation and private debt, and have eventually led to stagnation. So without a change in economics, these parties will be left marooned. If you look at the ALP here, I think they'll win the next election because even with the media oligarchy in this country, you can't have an underutilisation rate of 20.3% and expect to be re elected. I think that underutilisation rate is going to get worse next year too. This doesn't mean the ALP are offering a radically different approach. They'll be better for the country, but not necessarily for working people. Labor essentially sit where John Hewson's LNP did. They're fiscally and socially conservative. The Democrats are the same and with the spectre of COVID lingering for years, people need answers and people need jobs. I'm not convinced the Democrats will provide many more jobs than Trump would. Biden at least has one of the most influential economists in the world on his economic team and I think she could well be the Milton Friedman of the next 25 years in terms of influence.

Public money. Keystrokes at the RBA. You don't have to be in power to get investment for your electorate.

I said this in the other thread, but the Deputy leader of the Opposition is Richard Marles and he's the Member for Corio. He's a key Labor Right powerbroker. He pumps money into the club.

Fiscal stimulus won't hit goods and services at all. The QE program that the RBA has been undertaking since March will mean the private sector shifts to riskier debt in the housing market as bonds dry up. The overnight interest rate has been 0.1% since March when their QE flooded the banks with reserves and drove the interest rate to the floor. The BoEs QE program has done very little except increase housing prices slightly, because it's taking risk free money out of the fund manager's hands and the banks. Fiscal stimulus is needed otherwise we'll suffer the same result as the UK. Our housing market will crash next year anyway as our private debt burden grows too great (second highest in the world). Fiscal stimulus and fiscal deficits create private sector surpluses. Without fiscal deficits or government spending, there is no private sector wealth creation. When that happens, the private sector has to turn to debt. The fiscal stimulus can be poorly directed, but won't directly cause inflation. If the private sector can't save, it gets caught in a cycle of indebtedness that eventually causes stagnation and the system to buckle. We've been in this state for 25 years. The RBA has also been buying up the debt of state and territory governments, and in effect is funding the states and has been since March. This allows the states to deficit spend when it doesn't suit the Federal Government to be seen to be doing this. Keating started our demented obsession with surpluses and kicked off the neoliberal period, but before him both sides of politics understood the importance of fiscal deficits. Menzies ran large fiscal deficits and a full employment agenda (minus frictional unemployment). The neoliberal period has seen real wages flatline and private debt soar. This country is in the midst a paradigm shift and we're heading back to fiscal deficits. It'll be far better for the private sector and our country. And we don't pay for any of this. Federal tax revenue is used to control inflation, discourage bads (alcohol and cigarettes) and encourage goods. The Federal Government spends first by crediting exchange settlement accounts at the RBA. Our GST revenue is filtered down and spent by the states though, but not by the Fed.

The club may well try this, but I wouldn't.

I can go with everyone but Smith. I'd play Melksham or Fritsch there.

Each to their own. If Harmes was tried off half back for a few games and it didn't work, it is what it is. This is not what happened. He was tried off half back the entire year, except for the last quarter before he got injured. It was patently obvious it wasn't working and yet we persisted. Poor management IMO. Jake Melksham. Was very ordinary all year and struggled to stay involved for large parts of games.

Good post. I like this. I'd hold Viney forward and get him to attend forward stoppages and play pressure forward otherwise. I think we can get this balance right.

I'd be more likely to believe that Yze has come in and gone WTF are we doing playing him off half back? Get him into the midfield. Someone mentioned yesterday on Demonland that Harmes' role would be different next year, so makes enough sense. Alternatively, that Goodwin is simply prepared to play him in midfield next year. He did finally throw Harmes into the midfield in that final game where Harmes got injured. He was in there for the final quarter and almost turned the game. Blind Freddie and all that, but with longer quarters next year, we should utilise a larger midfield.

So arrogant.

I wouldn't go near Rohan. It's hard enough working out whether a guy that can kick goals consistently in Fritsch canactually be afforded to play forward when he doesn't tackle. Not only does Rohan not kick goals consistently, he doesn't tackle consistently either.

It completely depends what the offer for Gus was/is.

I'm fine with keeping Baker on the list, but I'm not fine with relying on him to be our second winger. I also don't think we'll rely on him solely next year.

Let's wait until it finishes.

This sounds like you should have followed them up. If you asked for a call back and weren't free for the call back, it's beholden on you to call them back IMO.

All of this has already been reported on Demonland, but fair enough.

And yet we still signed Dawes. I reckon there's still a strong chance he goes.

Settle down. Trade week hasn't started yet.

I reckon you're taking Mahoney at face value far too much. We need to shed players on the list first, so we can accumulate something resembling trade currency.

Come on mate. As if Mahoney is going to come out and lay his cards on the table on the eve of trade week. It just doesn't happen that way, nor should it. He's postulating.

He does have a record of playing a very straight bat. And almost always, we have something on the go in the background.

Good post. The bolded bit feels pretty close to the mark. The attraction of Smith was probably threefold: i) cheap ii) from a good culture iii) elite wingman. Now that he's slipped through the other options are not quite as good. Polec is arguably as good as Smith, but is expensive. Phillips is cheaper, but his kicking isn't as good as Polec or Smith. Adding Phillips would still improve us, but the trade off has to be between holding our future first rounder and landing both Brown and Phillips with a second rounder, which seems fair for both. We might be able to get Phillips for a third rounder given the salary cap squeeze, but it depends whether a player goes back the other way. I reckon they'll also have an eye on the long term as well, which means trying to get back into the first round this year if we like one or two players. Bringing in another young kid that is ready to go, but will grow with Jackson, Rivers and Pickett must be apart of our thinking. Certainly, it would be tempting to give Taylor another hit at a first rounder, otherwise our picks are speculative and will likely go on upgrades as @Lucifer's Hero points out. The other spectre is, as you say, the COVID-affected draft year.

I'm more inclined to think we've landed our main target in Brown, we expected Smith, but he pulled the rug out from under us, so now we have to wait on other deals. We have to rely on Preuss, the McDonalds, Vandenberg, ANB and maybe Nev finding new homes, and depending on what comes from those trades, we'll then have plan b, c and d in mind to move from there. I think we'd like Phillips, I think we'd like a small forward and anything else that falls out from other teams this trade period we'll be open to at the right price. It could be a really interesting trade period for us or a really uneventful one outside of Brown. It's the McDonalds and Preuss will go too at a minimum.

Something that still enables us to sign up the Oliver's and Petracca's to new deals when they come around.