mfd101

Fascinating. Well worth watching right thru.

Many things here to learn & to relearn.

Perhaps you might want to consult a doctor.

Working on the principle of the Death of the Author (the one who says 'I' in the text is not dead), I started last night on 'Shadow of the Wind' which has spent 16 years waiting discreetly on my shelves for me to read it (first in Canberra, now in Prasat).

I got to page 6, with only 515 to go. I expect to lift my reading rate very soon.

What is actually the most interesting sentence in the Australian reports is the one that says that the counter-measures taken by the Oz government are not only defensive.

1 hour ago, 5633572526 said:

If you couldn’t afford to go before you will not be able to go in the future 

It's not the money that's stopping me.

36 minutes ago, uhuh said:

Not many Asians would trust a British person about anything related to covid. 

But, in NZ, anything British - and particularly English - is sacred.

As the attachment makes clear, the rating is 70% based on fatalities per capita (not on infections).

As I understand it, Thailand had many deaths from 'pneumonia' in the period Dec-April, before they had even begun to go thru the motions (so to speak) testing for coronaV. The way the Western stats-collecting people check on this - including for China - is to check the total deaths from (in this case) pneumonia for a given period against the same period last year. Which of course assumes only one major variable - CV - but it does provide an estimate of the size of the unreported CV deaths.

The list does also rather knock a few self-appointed 'best in the world' countries off their perch. Notably NZ, which claims to have eliminated CV completely. Which it may well have done, but it's not so good on fatalities per capita.

If people leave to travel in countries where the pandemic is still dangerous (eg India, US ... ), then - if Australian - they will want to return to Oz ...

Most of the Asia/Pacific countries have signed up to the pact, except of course the US (which was gonna under Obama then not under Trump then changed its mind only to find that Japan & Oz had organized everyone to go ahead without the Not-Indispensible Country).

The problem for Thailand is: What will Big Fren' in Beijing do to us if we do sign up.

Chooks round the yard = No ticks.

Here are the international growth figures for real GDP growth in the March quarter (Jan-March), published today in the 'Australian' newspaper:

China minus 10%, Italy & France minus 5%, Germany & Canada & UK & OECD average minus 2%, US minus 1.8%, Korea & Japan minus 0.5%.

And Oz? Minus 0.3%.

Oh, come on, Oz! You can do better than that! Why aren't you keeping up with the rest of the world?

10 hours ago, johnpetersen said:

Really? They've done virtually all that can be done in that river system. It's the most intensively managed system on the planet. There just isn't enough water.

And massive floods in Qld & NSW about once every 5 or 6 years ...

The priorities of modern cultures ...

4 hours ago, pixelaoffy said:

The noun ' pointless ' could be used to describe alot of the current measures in Thailand

Yes but it's the appearance that counts.

Actually I think the full-guard ensemble is actually a Marxist plot, to get rid of as many self-appointed hi-sos as possible. Good thing too.

Public whipping would be effective.

8 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

I would hate to see what a recession looks like in Australia, given that a 30 year boom economy has resulted in a $600 Billion debt, a currency that is worth nothing, a country that doesn't manufacture anything (not even white-goods) and the worlds biggest real estate pyramid scheme.

 

Something is fundamentally wrong if the country needs migration to feed the pyramid scheme. 

It has worked beautifully for me throughout the whole of my adult life. Good-to-booming economy most of the time, and cultural enrichment from large migrant intakes and from comfortably-off Aussies travelling the globe.

Government debt has been low till the current pandemic when the federal government has pumped cash enthusiastically into the economy. Predictions are that it will take decades to pay off. Personally I doubt it. More boom times to follow as immigration, foreign uni students and the mining industry pick up (the latter already going strong). And - contrary to the public image - a number of booming high-tech & service industries, including small naval vessels exported to the US from W.A. and Atlassian software that has turned its 2 young developers into multi-billionaires.

Wow! Life in Usofa is so exciting. Conspiracies everywhere, and so clever!