Australia voted in a Leftist Govt last night

I mostly agree with you, but it is not so simple as that. Australia has clear sunny skies and is closer to the equator. Solar power could work out well. But it will not completely replace other sources of energy. It's just excessively expensive to be able to store that energy.

Australia could get 70% of its energy from solar, but just switch to other forms of energy at night, or the rare occasions where the sun is concealed by cloud cover.

If solar energy could be viable anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.

A lot of people (including politicians, it seems) are just stupid. It's an information-overload for them. Too much to think about.

 

But this could result in drastically lowered standards of living.

Look at the "equilibrium" in Third World countries.

 

It's not just a matter of minimum wage. This will affect wages across the board.
You can't just solve all that problem by raising the minimum wage.

 

Australia is not a third world country. It doesn't have the overlay of engrained corruption that prevents economics from actually working in those sorry polities. You're like us. You do your best to write your bigotry into law but you just can't bring yourself to actually brutalize your own people enough so that reality bends to your will and your nation becomes the very shithole all these people are escaping

 

Why not?

The way I see it working out in a properly functioning economy minimum wage is very rare because employers cannot get people to work for it.

 

In systems where power was centralized, liberalizing was associated with de-centralization. In America, liberalization meant allowing the central authorities do be more active. Neither sense is positive or negative in itself, but the sense is reversed.

 

~ Yes that makes sense — use solar/wind where feasible and practical , with conventional power generators on standby.

" A lot of people ( including politicians, it seems ) are just stupid. It's an information-overload for them. Too much to think about."

~ I would say especially politicians . They are influenced by special interests — not the citizens best interests.

 

I can guarantee you that within 100 years the mainstay for all baseload electricity will be fusion generated.
You won't have to burn coal, or wood, or camel dung anymore.

 

But people like you will turn it into one.

Maybe an interesting thread here you'd like to see:
On the Effect of Immigration on Destination-Country Corruption

If you send lots of people to a country, they will make it more like the country where they came from.

 

The “Democrats” won

 

You really need to make up your mind if Progressives are wealthy, elitist yuppies or some other demographic Du Jour.

 

If there are issues, and the ruling party has not been able to fix them they will likely be replaced. It works same for both/all parties, and it works the same in every democracy. It will most likely happen in the US this year too. The ruling party is almost always voted out in 1st mid terms after new president is sworn in.

 

Stoking fear and hatred held the Coalition in power – finally Australia had enough

David Marr

Preventing the future became the great cause of Coalition politics in this country under Tony Abbott. Social change? Stop it in its tracks. Climate change? Let coal burn. Tax reform? Keep propping up the prosperous.

So we have lived with logjam. Many see this as a failure of politics. They’re wrong. It was the triumph of a political mission for which there was never more than scant popular support.

Rather like steam buffs with an ancient locomotive, the electoral technicians of the Coalition worked to keep the whole thing going. Indulge a few fears here and stoke up some hatred there and the conservative majority held together election after election.

We watched them at work for a decade.

Refashioning language so that elite and progressive and virtue become pejoratives takes time and money, but it can be done to stifle decent voices in the party. Then redefine progressive wealthy electorates as – gasp – inner city as if the rich streets of Bellevue Hill and Canterbury were old slums with dangerous politics.....

More here:

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...alition-in-power-finally-australia-had-enough

@crank

 

Minimum wage works well in Australia and we've had it much longer than all these inflationary issues.

Arguing that a minimum wage doesn't work and creates inflation (based on some theoretical American model) is like arguing that a public health system doesn't work (based on some theoretical American model).

I suggest the reason that they haven't been implemented or haven't worked in the US is largely political.

 

Not sure about that I am watching what is going to happen with green hydrogen/ammonium

 

to fix things.

 

My country has natural resources.

 

Not always. Particularly not when Greens have any power .. or powerful lobbies work against development.

 

It's also social.

 

Most see liberalism as simply tolerance of a wide range of ideas. Since that habit is no longer prominent on the Left, they've long since lost any claim to it.

 

Here’s what the American left are calling for over here across the pond

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/washington-socialist-candidate-breaking-into-homes

 

You really don’t know what a “Democratic Socialist” is do you?

 

do you have enough of every natural resource, don't need any, want to use up what you have of those finite resources, then ones kids have to beg other countries for them

 

I said American left. Is a democrat socialist left or right? DS

 

She is a democratic socialist not a democrat socialist. There is a difference