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A million Yemeni tribal fighters are gathering near the border with Saudi Arabia in preparation to invade the Kingdom, Iran’s Kayhan newspaper has reported. - See more at: http://en.alalam.ir/news/1739925#sthash.zJQbb9yJ.dpuf If you have to scramble for a map to see where Yemen is, blame your news sources. Yemen is a slice of land between Saudi Arabia and the Gulf of Aden, with a corner on the Red Sea. Recently Saudi Arabia began aerial bombardments, up to 200 daily, claiming to be suppressing a rebellion with the aim of returning an unpopular president to power. Saudi Arabia has the backing of the United States and is Australia's ally.

This was posted to JohnQuiggin.com.

J-D,

As I have acknowledged, on one occasion of which I am aware, since March 2001, that is, when Rupert Murdoch's Australian reported about Mother Agnes Mariam, we learnt from that MSM outlet some of the truth about Syria. On every other occasion, the MSM has misinformed its readers, viewers and listening audience, about the Syrian conflict. In the court of reasoned public debate and not the 'law court' in which you would prefer the case to be heard, my case would win hands down.

I find that if you replace 'culture' with 'ethnicity' or 'race', then terms like Mulitculturalism make far more sense. It clears up the contradictions and oddities that one notes. I think that is the whole point of it. Same with "diverse background", this is indirect language for something else. You are right about Australia having different subcultures. The same is true in the USA, where one could rightly consider the south almost another nation as compared to the north. New York is quite different to California. The people even look different. Although I come from what would euphemistically be called a "migrant background", I always found it puzzling when Australia insisted it had no culture or identity. These things take time to develop, and there was clearly one being built, but there seemed to be a sense of inferiority, which I think continues to this day, and exhibited by Australia's need to have the biggest cities ,the tallest building, the most people, etc.. The idea was that people would adopt, or share in 'my background', but how this would actually work was never explained. It was even more puzzling, because Australian history interested me, in particular the explorers of Australias interior. But as Australian culture is now an all inclusive melting pot, nothing specific, I can't see what new migrants would assimilate into. You can't blame your Middle Eastern immigrant for not assimilating into a culture which is just a mish mash of peoples and ethnicities. What are you assimilating into? Hence why I'm pessimistic about this all working.

In the above interview the retired General Peter Gration has shown a sense of proportion almost totally lacking in the coverage by the mainstream newsmedia:

DAVID MARK: The Government might take issue with you about that issue of whether the IS poses any direct threat to Australia; they might argue that it does.

PETER GRATION: Yeah, I'm aware of that. What I think they're talking about is that IS will urge Muslims in Australia to carry out more terrorist acts, but the scale and the likely outcome of that is minute compared to the effort that we are contemplating putting into Syria.

Even much of the anti-war alternative newsmedia is barking up the wrong tree when it warns of 'blowback' by Muslims in our midst supposedly as a result of their grievance at wars that have been waged against their own countries.

At the very worst such terrorist acts in Australia would still only cause the deaths of a tiny fraction of those many hundreds of thousands killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Somalia since 1990. Terrorist actions that have already occurred in Australia, whether or not they were staged with the help of intelligence agencies as appears to be the case with the Martin Place massacre, have only harmed the anti-war movement.

Whilst a small number of ordinary Australians could fall victim to an increase of terrorism, members of Australia's elite are very unlikely to find themselves in harm's way. Furthermore, they can be expected to use terrorism as an excuse to attack our civil liberties and to conduct more wars against the countries on whose behalf the terrorists are supposedly acting.

The Saudi-led forces are using the most deadly US-Nato Weapons that are being tested now on the Yemeni People as the new laboratory as is Gaza. Watch and share. No news at all on CNN-Jazeera-BBC.
No protests from the so-called Ummah ..... not a voice of dissent, its just horrendous.

Can ANYONE say what on earth this bomb is??

https://www.facebook.com/mohamad.shami.33/videos/10153085370107217/?pnref=story

Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemen (a very poor country to its south between it and the sea) into oblivion, but we hear nothing of this from our Primeminister, our foreign minister, or our NATO US 'allies' which include the brutal and oppressive murderous Saudi regime.

Other bombs they have dropped here:

Having just read David Macilwain's remarks on and transcript of this interview, published here: "With 'friends' like ABC's Liz Jackson, Syria does not need enemies to keep those refugees flowing". Whilst Liz Jackson is not the only party in the ABC who is guilty of not interviewing the other side of which representatives here and overseas are not lacking (e.g. try interviewing Bashar al-Assad or people in Syria or Australians for Reconciliation in Syria, who, at least, were interviewed recently on Golburn Regional ABC), she, along with all the others who promote US wars with such enthusiasm, should be held to account by the Australian public.

The most notable question to ask such irresponsible interviewers is, What gives you the right to deny Syrians their elected representative? If the world ever succeeds in establishing an effective war crimes tribunal, there will be a lot of Australian journalists called to explain themselves. See "Why do even some of those opposed to war with Syria repeat media lies against its democratically elected President?".

Yes, these fossil-fuel reared big apes have nothing to rein them in except each other and they are acting with unbridled savagery in their mad grabs for power, where they will actually kill any other ape that does not bow down to them. Hence Australia and Europe in Syria, following the psychopathic apes from the US. Merkel seems like a really bad codependent female in this alpha pack, if you accept the premise that male apes tend to dominate. By the way, I am currently reading Richard Wrangham's Sexual coercion in primates and humans (2009) in case anyone wants to discuss it with me. Even the kindle version cost a packet - over $60. It is a collection of scientific articles, or chapters, on the subject by various people.

According to RT recent articles saying that Putin is going to send in militia to help Syria are without source and have not been confirmed by Russia. "An unsourced story originating on an Israeli website claimed Russia was about to deploy significant military assistance to Syria to fight Islamic State. This set the media aflame and had Washington issuing warnings. The story was not only unsourced, but also untrue. But it did reveal how the West frames its illegal war against Syria." The debate below involes Eric Draitser, Danny Makki and Fawaz Gerges on the show Crosstalk.

This has been posted to a discussion on Syria on JohnQuiggin.com

J-D

I note that you have yet to provide even one source to substantiate your own views on the Syrian conflict.

Presumably, I was right to say that you are arguing that the video that I linked to on September 4th, 2015 at 02:16 on the "Monday Message Board" of 24 August 2015, and innumerable others like that video were staged and that many thousands of very good actors were hired to stage those videos. Presumably you also think that the many more Syrians, whom we are told by the MSM, oppose President al-Assad have been hidden away from the view of all the local and international journalists who recorded those scenes.

J-D on September 11th, 2015 at 16:55 wrote:

... you trust the five international observers because when they made their claims they were not contradicted on the spot by their audience of journalists.

You are attempting to make my views seem crude and simplistic in order to be able to parody them. What I wrote on September 11th, 2015 at 01:26 was:

If the mainstream media claims about Syria were true, then what those observers told the press conference must have been a pack of lies. Any competent journalist would have had no trouble in tearing to shreds the claims made by those observers. The fact that none of the observers' claims were challenged shows me that either :

1. The journalists, who had been reporting elsewhere that Bashar al-Assad was a brutal mass murderer, were grossly negligent in not having put that to the observers, or

2. Those journalists knew that the 'reports' they had written about Syria were untrue and that they would be shown up for the liars that they were if they had attempted to present that narrative to the press conference.

Given that the Syrian conflict was so much the focus of the news at the time, how do you explain the complete failure of the media outlets that had so demonised President Bashar al-Assad to even utter a word at that media conference, let alone report it?

Why is it that when it comes to taking in the rest of the world, that the demand is always aimed at European countries and the Anglosphere? Note that they are calling for Eastern Europe to 'share the burden' and not China, which has empty cities? Note when Communism fell in the East people started asking whether Eastern Europe would soon be ready for immigration, is if it were a mandatory step? Why doesn't this also apply to Asia, or Africa? Why is it that we get upset when Hungary decides not to take refugees, but are silent when rich gulf states like Saudi Arabia or Qatar take NONE? I think this belies a racism far worse than the "racist far right". It reveals a racism which far surpasses that of the Front National or UKIP, or even the BNP. Not even the BNP, hell, not even Golden Dawn have proposed demographic displacement and engineering as a "solution" to a population problem. They may demand repatriation, but that is nothing compared to what people are proposing today, which is wholesame demographic transformation, with no European nation left alone. Not a single one. They will blame the far right for tensions, but I think the truth is even scarier than them gaining popularity. The real disturbing thing is that when it comes to protecting the rights of workers and the society, they have the best rhetoric, and they may, after all, be vindicated in their concerns about Europe's demographic changes and the forces pushing for it.

This is what is behind the migration push and the wars. The power elites want continuous population growth and disorganisation. We can see that the Vatican, which is only a huge bank, is in there amongst these despicable and arrogant people who consider that they are human and the rest of us are not. "EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’ says UN migration chief" "Peter Sutherland is a former Attorney General of Ireland, a non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International, and a former chairman of oil giant BP. He has also attended meetings of The Bilderberg Group. Pope Francis has appointed Sutherland as an adviser to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, which manages the Vatican’s investment and property portfolios, and he is on the advisory board of Opus Dei’s flagship graduate business school. The EU should “do its best to undermine” the “homogeneity” of its member states, the UN’s special representative for migration has said. Peter Sutherland told peers the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural. He also suggested the UK government’s immigration policy had no basis in international law. He was being quizzed by the Lords EU home affairs sub-committee which is investigating global migration. Mr Sutherland, who is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former chairman of oil giant BP, heads the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which brings together representatives of 160 nations to share policy ideas. He told the House of Lords committee migration was a “crucial dynamic for economic growth” in some EU nations “however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states”. ‘More open’ An ageing or declining native population in countries like Germany or southern EU states was the “key argument and, I hesitate to the use word because people have attacked it, for the development of multicultural states”, he added. “It’s impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated.” The UN special representative on migration was also quizzed about what the EU should do about evidence from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that employment rates among migrants were higher in the US and Australia than EU countries. [...] Read more: EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’ says UN migration chief

I've noted that people are speaking against Assad far more now. ABC Radio in particular. The argument is that Assad is killing far more people than ISIS. Whether that is true or not, may not be all that relevant. Inteview with Putin Vladimir Putin: We talked about this on numerous occasions a long time ago. I believe this is an absolutely expected crisis. If you remember, or look it up in your archives, we in Russia, yours truly in particular, said a few years ago that we are in for large-scale problems if our so-called western partners continue with their misguided foreign policy, as I always referred to it, especially in Muslin regions, in the Middle East, North Africa – the policy they are actually still conducting. What is this policy? That of imposing their standards without taking into consideration the history, religion, culture or national characteristics of these regions. This is, primarily, the policy conducted by our American partners; Europe blindly follows the lead, complying with its so-called allied commitments, and then it bears the brunt. Putin is correct here. As I've discussed before, I think one of the reason the West is now incapable of helping out, even by taking in refugees (especially by taking in masses of refugees!), is that the culture in the West is so far removed from how the rest of the world works, that we simply don't understand the world anymore. As we have been de-culturalised, neo-Liberalised and believe in some ersatz, "Politically Correct" morality, which is really just a religion, and disowned the ideas that the rest of the world still values (such as putting your own before others, ethnic loyalty, traditional values, respect for culture and history, sentimentality), we just can't understand the rest of the world. Our opinions of what should be done in Syria and elsewhere is based on our own bias, that our anomalous society is the 'normal', and is what the rest of the world would be like, if only they could be 'free' from from whatever it is that holds them back. We model our solution on the assumption that they would also have no bias, no loyalty above neo-liberal economics, and would abandon their heritage and their identity because it may be profitable or 'democratic' to do so. We've seen this fail in Iraq, and have learned nothing. So our attempts in Syria will fail. Quite simply, the people in the Middle East, as elsewhere want to be governed by their own, even if it second rate compared to being subjected to our systems. Selling out your people and your future isn't something the rest of the world does as keenly as the west. Which makes Europe's eagerness to take refugees ironic. It is precisely because Europeans are willing to threaten centuries of history and culture and demographic identity on a whim, that makes then unprepared. Europeans who think nothing of transforming their country, and themselves for the moment, for some temporary moral gain are the LAST people to understand how to fix the rest of the world. These people can't understand what the rest of the world wants, and will push solutions which will end with disaster. The million+ refugees that Europe will admit (permanently) will result in social strife, riots and division, and possible civil conflict in a generation. They'll be destroying what people want. Unfortunately, there is no "Left" anymore, as they are too busy with "Social Justice" issues. This leaves the populist "far right" as really the only viable option. This also means that the West has little choice but to shut the doors, and close its ears. There is no government capable of understanding the situation, and in Europe and the West, it is Putin, and not Merkel or Cameron, or Obama, or Abbot, who can realise the situation for what it is. The rest writes itself.

The following was posted to JohnQuiggin.com. I am advised, as of 12:45AM on Saturday 5 September 2015 that this comment is awaiting moderation.  ₁ 

J-D asked in response to my earlier two posts:

Why do you trust this source?

What source? To which of my two posts are you referrring?

Had you looked at the article linked to in the second of my above posts, you would have noticed in one of the footnotes, a link to a story of a press conference which ocurred on 19th June 2014 at the United Nations headquarters in New York. That story includes a 53 minute embedded video of the press conference. At that press conference, five independent observers attested to the fairness of the Presidential election which had been conducted on 4 June 2014. At that election 88.7% of the 73.42% of eligible Syrian voters who voted, voted for President Bashar al-Assad.

Given the proxy war that was going on at the time, and which is continuing to this day, and the obstruction, by countries like Australia and France, of expatriate Syrians who wanted to vote, I would say that that was a most impressive result and one which totally refutes the lie from the mainstream newsmedia that President Bashar al-Assad is corrupt and brutal tyrant. Strikingly, not one of 'reporters' from Australia or elsewhere, who had been pushing that narrative before and since, bothered to show up to that press conference to challenge the testimony of the election observers.

The fact is since March 2011 Syria has faced invasion by sociopath killers from almost every corner of the globe. These sociopaths have been paid for and armed by the United States France, the UK and their regional allies including Israel, Turkey, Jordan and the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The cost borne by the people of Syria is terrible - over 220,000 dead by one estimate, but in spite of the terrible cost, the Army and the people of Syria have stood by their government against the invaders.

The people of Syria have seen what happened to neighbouring Iraq as a result of two illegal wars since 1990 and economic sanctions in which Australia shamefully participated, and are resolved not to let the same happen to them. According to Ramsey Clark, who was Attornery General of the United States under President Johnson in the 1960s, as many as 3,300,000 Iraqis may have died as a result. A 13 minute of a talk by Ramsey Clarke can be found here.

Fortunately, voices, which are demanding that the decision by Tony Abbott for Australia to participate in the war against the people of Syria be debated in Parliament, are starting to be heard. One of those people is retired Army General Peter Gration.

Footnote[s]

1. ↑  Why this is the case is unclear to me. All of my previous posts to JohnQuiggin.com, except where I may have inadvertently included more than one link, have been immediately published. Usually only posts with more than one HTML link are moderated by Professor Quiggin. The copy I posted there had only one link which linked back to this post.

On 18 April 2015, before the current refugee crisis began, the Iranian PressTV News service reported that "Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi has called on the Syrians forced to flee to neighbouring countries due to the ongoing conflict in the Arab country to return home."

The report continued:

"He said Syria is home to all Syrians and that the government is ready to embrace all the displaced citizens and provide decent residence to them. Earlier this month, the UN Refugee Agency warned about the dire situation of the Syrian refugees abroad especially in Jordan, saying the Syrian exiles are facing recruitment as child soldiers, sexual violence, and exploitation for labour. The report released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on August 6 said a large number of child refugees are deprived of schooling and vulnerable to be recruited by armed groups that aim to take them back to fight in Syria. The world body noted that the threat is not limited to children and adults are also prey to such recruitment, while all refugees, including youngsters, are being forced into labour. The UNHCR also warned about domestic and sexual violence as a particular danger for refugee women and children. The report said both organized crime networks and Syrian opposition groups operate in camps in order to pursue their financial and political objectives. It further warned that lawlessness and high criminality in the camps are driving refugees back home."

Since then hundreds have drowned on crowded ships in the Mediterranean and more than 71 have perished inside trucks in Austria. In response hundreds of pro-refugee activists have protested in Germany and Austria to demand their governments admit more refugees. Strangely, as far as I can tell, none of those ostensible humanitarians protesting for Syrian refugees have expressed any opposition to the current war against Syria.

Many other ordinary Europeans are rightly concerned at the prospect of hundreds of thousands more refugees and economic migrants settling in their country. So, demonstrations against the offering of asylum to large numbers of refugees have also occurred. The participation in these protests of far-right-wingers and even neo-Nazis has been used by pro-refugee activists and the mainstream newsmedia to discredit those protests.

Fleeing from danger, refugees cannot help solve Syria's crisis. It can only make it all the more difficult for those Syrians remaining behind to defend their country. Inevitably, by fleeing to the very countries whose governments are openly complicit in the war against Syria, including France and Great Britain, the Western mainstream newsmedia will spin the flight of so many refugees to reinforce their narrative that the Syrian government is a brutal dictatorship thereby providing more justification for their ongoing proxy terrorist war against Syria or even direct military aggression as, for example, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott indicated he was willing to do by conducting Air raids into Syria, ostensibly to bomb ISIS.

The inevitable chaos caused by such large influxes will make it easier for the elites of those countries to continue to rule against the best interests of the majority of these countries' inhabitants. This would included the conducting of further wars against people in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

Little of the coverage, even from normally truthful and informative alternative newsmedia sources, is of much use. Nearly all try to pull at the heartstrings of readers in order to persuade them to support the right of refugees to enter Europe without proposing any workable solution to the crisis.

The small number of articles which address the real issues at stake include: The Migrants' "Long March" across the Balkans to Western Europe (31/8/15) | Global Research/Oriental Review, Western-made refugee crisis (1/9/15) | RT - CrossTalk,

Other, less helpful, articles include: Australia tells Europe: Join ISIS strikes and you'll solve your migrant problems (31/8/15) | RT, Tolerating Refugees, Not Criticism: Protester Charged for Heckling (28/8/15) | Sputnik, Refugees arrive in Austria, final destination unknown (31/8/15) | PressTV, Tens of thousands march in Austria against abuse of refugees (1/9/15) | PressTV, UN chief calls for 'comprehensive' response to refugee crisis (29/8/15) | PressTV, Amnesty accuses Austria of violating refugees’ rights (14/8/15), 'Foreigners out!' 30+ police injured after clashes at anti-migrant demo in Germany (22/8/15) | RT, Hungary bans refugees from main railway station as hundreds attempt to ride Vienna train (1/9/15) | RT, Tales of Darkness: Europe's Refugee Woes (31/8/15) by Binoy Kampmark | Global Research, Why the Refugee Crisis (31/8/15) by Stephen Lendman | Global Research, 'Merkel stays silent': Twitter mocks German chancellor for not speaking out over attacks on refugees (26/8/15) | RT, Tolerating Refugees, Not Criticism: Protester Charged for Heckling Merkel (/9/15) | Sputnik, Merkel to Visit Anti-Refugee Protests-Hit Heidenau Following Clashes (25/8/15) | Sputnik, German Activists Boo Merkel During Visit to Protest-Hit Heidenau (26/8/15) | Sputnik.

Sheila, not the answer was NOT one line, but actually said very little, and referred me to the above DEWLP web page. According to the letter, migrants arrive where there are jobs, opportunities and amenities. and government has the job of planning for the growth! It's assumed their hands are tied, and they are not implementing the growth. or have any part in promoting it. The government, they claim, is meant to provide infrastructure and housing to manage the growth, but this is failing now, and will be unlikely to be able to cope in the future. They are passing the buck, and not claiming responsibility. Why continue with the facade of providing "affordable housing" when it isn't? As for jobs and amenities, we are facing high youth unemployment, and there are few amenities in fringe suburbs already. They just get the generic "population growth" letter from their files, print it, without directly addressing or responding to concerns, taking responsibility, or admitting to the contradictions.

Victoria's population will explode to 10 million by 2051! There's already entrenched disadvantages in Melbourne's fringes. Dear Mr Wynne, With due respect, why do we need Melbourne's massive projected population growth? What can't we do now that will improve with 8 million people? What about after mid century? Will growth end? Mr Wynne will tell a conference looking at how Melbourne will cope with such rapid growth that state governments have the "duty and an obligation" to ensure planning decisions mean outer Melbourne suburbs have proper access to transport and infrastructure. Read more: The Age: Being born on city fringe must not disadvantage says Planning Minister Richard Wynne Other than housing growth, the beneficiaries will only be the banks and property developers. There's already massive shortfalls of public service, and infrastructure, especially in outer suburbs. We'll almost be bigger than any other city of Europe, except Moscow? Just what will be the benefits? In the past we brought migrants to build infrastructure, and build our nation. Now, we must spend $billions on infrastructure, so we can bring migrants? Where's the net gain? With unaffordable housing, unemployment, crime, evaporation of manufacturing industries, and traffic congestion costs, there's really no social, environmental or economic reason for this population growth. Accommodating it means nothing will be done at Federal level to manage our borders, and put the brakes on our unsustainable rate of immigration. Surely your "duty and obligation" should include actually questioning this socially-engineered population growth? Planning now is just about deregulation, and more people! Please, could you discuss this Melbourne at 8 million plan with your colleague, MP for Wills, Kelvin Thomson. The reply: DELWP: Victoria in Future: Population and household projections Governments are committed to providing adequate housing and infrastructure. ( Already there is inadequate housing, homelessness, and massive infrastructure deficit. As for "strong" natural growth, Victoria has one of the lowest fertility rates! The growth is largely due to migration, but it's still considered inevitable - and questions not answered!)

I wager the developers believe they aren't personally affected. Another short walk, and I counted at least 10 houses demolished to make way for units that I hadn't seen before. The new homes which are being built have no lawn, no trees, no natural environment. Think of all the resources that are being wasted tearing down good houses, to build crappy houses with no natural yard and poorer energy ratings. Vandalism to our suburbs, our environment, society and economy. This is what happens when "Banksters Capitalism" runs amok, a system of hyper economic rationalism manipulated by the banksters. If Western Civilisation adopted this system at the end of fuedalism, it would have never gotten off the ground... Oddly, this is one of the worst abuses the Capitalist system is imposing upon people, turning a necessity into a financial instrument for gamblers (and thereby forcing people wanting to put a roof over their head into gambling), yet none of the very active anti-capitalist political groups want to touch it.

This is the observation I have made where I live. All houses are sold for the land. All of them. Bar the ones already subdivided. No matter the condition of the house, its suitability for habitat, it is only the land size. This used to be the case for old, small houses on large blocks. But now even nice houses on 500m2 blocks, are sold merely to subdivide. What is happening, is that prices have elevated to the point where it only makes sense to buy a house to subdivide. It is a losing proposition unless you're a property parasite. This is going to impoverish those who buy the subdivisions, because they cannot do the same. The wealth transfer is accelerating. How much longer can this go on? I'm not sure. Perhaps until every house is subdivided, but this would require so much debt that it would grind our country to a halt. Either Australia will rapidly turn into a 2 class society (with a deteriorating standard of living), or this will crash and burn. The latter would be more desirable.

Investment in wars promotes flight and moves money. A few years ago Francis Ronsin, a contemporary French historian, wrote, La Guerre et L'Oseille - War and Lucre. This book consisted of a revealing collection of economic journalism leading up to and during the war on the fortunes of the Parisien stock exchange. Economists were upbeat about war and the stock exchange reflected this. as people put their money on the side of the enemy if they thought it was winning. Money and the market were already divorced from social consequences as vast as WW2. Watching what is going on in the Middle East reminds me of this. We see Australia's allies, the US and NATO, shamelessly and criminally provoking war and mayhem in petroleum rich zones. Their obsessive focus on removing the democratically elected Assad Government from Syria by any and every means, notably through the financing of gangs of psychopathic opportunists calling themselves 'rebels' and 'ISIS' is utterly chilling. Similarly chilling is the way Australia's public broadcasters and its commercial media whitewash and promote this incredible cruelty and corruption with patently false stories. How can the public be so uncritical of the way our government remains friends with the long-corrupted Saudis who they have launched a full-scale war of unbridled atrocities on Yemen and treat their own people the worst in the Middle East? The result of Australia's unhealthy friendships in the Middle East is vast numbers of economic and political refugees from all the lands that Australia has supported the devious 'interventions' in. We now see bankers and big business, in league with government, promoting the idea that all these people must be given asylum because they will provide cheap labour. It is obvious that marketeers are looking forward to cherry-picking the richest, the highly qualified and the docile labour content from these floods and using them against the citizenry of the host nations to raise house prices, lower wages and increase populations. The citizens here and in Europe and the United States, have not been consulted and have misinformed about the motives for these wars and our government's criminal responsibility in provoking homelessness on a grand scale and vast exoduses. Most breathtaking has been the constant failure by Murdoch press, Fairfax, ABC, CBC, and the European press, to report on the fact that the Assad Government was elected last year in a big majority. Read about it here: /taxonomy/term/6173, This scale of malignant propaganda is only equaled by the continuing transparent propaganda that the Syrian government is responsible for killing its own people when clearly it is defending them from death squads launched by Australia's allies. Our governments and press cynically demonise the peoples of the Middle East as religious nuts and cynically portray refugees both as heros and as poor wretches, whilst undermining local governments and armed forces and actively financing and publicising gangs of true religious nuts and psychopaths so scary that people will flee from them rather than stand and fight. With regard to Syrian refugees, we should be cautious, because the Assad Government has maintained protected areas for the Syrians, Palestinians and Kurds in Syria, to which people can safely flee. Yes, there are people who have no alternative but to flee from regions where the 'rebels' have taken over. And, in the end, as economies collapse under the weight of Western investment in war, no-one will want to stay. The solution is to criminalise all investment in foreign intervention. The Assad Government has continued to fight the 'rebels' and ISIS, while Australia's allies seek to remove that government on false grounds. 'Rebel' criminals fleeing justice can pass for refugees and hide in camps and economic diasporas. The interventions Australia supports in the Middle East and in the East (Ukraine) not only cause disorganisation and social disintegration there; they are being used to undermine social contracts and industrial democracy in the West, the better to subject all populations to the increasingly uncompromising Market. To stop the flight of people caught in these Middle Eastern wars, Australia and her allies must stop sponsoring the terror squads that are dismantling government there. For this to happen, people need to realise that they cannot trust Australian and other mainstream media. The people of the 'developed world' need to inform themselves about what is causing economic and political flight from the countries where we are backing economic destruction.

And yet bank shares have been hammered in the previous months... With very low interest rates, they are finding it harder to keep their profit margins. On top of that, there are requirements for them to increase their capital to withstand falling valuations. The ANZ share price dropped about 10% when they did it. Commonwealth Bank fell too. Low interest rates mean the margin between what the bank lends, and pays drops. Investors are growing concerned about their ability to sustain the bubble. Despite the fact their profits are good, people are sceptical about the future. The banks are even raising interest rates where the RBA wont, to try and keep profits. AMP has stopped lending to investors. and has jacked up rates. Even the banks are finding the situation displeasing! Yet the RBA is dropping rates, and the government refuses to address the issue. In the last year or so, the housing bubble has gone from something people have cheered, to a real source of concern. There is a growing consensus that it is out of control. Glen Steven is an idiot. There is no other way to put it. He is a downright moron, concerned about 'crazy' house prices, but knowingly keeping interest rates down, which anyone with a room temperature IQ now knows, just goes into housing speculation and nothing else. Just this morning as I was driving I saw a perfectly good house, modern brick, large, new, well kept on an 550m2 block of land being sold. The advertisement billboard merely showed the land area. This perfectly good, NEW, clean, modern house is sold just to be demolished and subdivided. Normally, people have done this with old weatherboard houses, but every house, even new good ones are being torn apart in the rush for profit. No one is buying but investors... When even the banks are worried now, you have to sit up and take notice. But with the RBA keeping rates low, and the government wanting to keep votes, it seems our society would rather let this consume us all, than face reality and allow the market to correct. Which is why I predicted that there is a good chance that instead of prices falling, our society and opportunities would take a massive leap backwards to compensate. Otherwise this implodes. But as prices and mania is accelerating, the damage this will cause is greatly increasing. I think I will take my family overseas. This kind of activity demonstrates this country is full of idiots. Sorry, there is no other way around it. Few, if any other Western countries would take this as far as we have. Even Canada put a stop to it.

@quark, Curriencies around the world are being dropped. Your observations about our currency seeming to be more like the Rupiah reveals more than you realise. That may be what is actually happening. Think about it. Who HAS the trillions in their saving accounts which banks lend out? If everyone has mega-mortgates, where is the corresponding increase in deposits from savers? Banks are lending out far more than a few years ago, but do they have people who are saving far more and having far bigger deposits? What is happening, is that money is appearing out of nowhere, and our share is decreasing, as it becomes a smaller and smaller proportion of the funny money used to inflate these prices. So in a sense, our currency IS dropping in value. Our banks share prices have dropped dramatically in the past few months, because they need to raise more capital (to cover potential house price falls). and they will need to raise more money again, and take another hit.

House prices have for as long as I have been a "grown -up" been part of the boring conversation at dinner parties of aspiring young couples . People used to get excited that their houses were nudging $100,000 in value. But one's satisfaction is relative to others with whom one normally compares one's self; not with endless increases -if one gives the matter any real consideration. If the average home cost $100,000 the aspiring classes would be happy if theirs were worth $150,000 to $200,000! Now the same sort of people are disappointed if the value of their houses are less than $1,000,000. A million dollars used to be an unimaginable, breathtaking sum uttered almost with reverence. Now it is glibly glossed over in real-estate parlance as "$1 point something"! Anyone who gives it a moment's thought will realise that our Aussie dollars now sound almost like Indonesian Rupiah such is the inflation of our dollar largely through rising house and land prices