Gorgritch_umie_killa
@Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone
- Comment on Flying High Dubai. MWM responds to ABC Media Watch 1 week ago:
I’ve no idea. Its unfortunately believable that the Israelis would conduct themselves in this way. But I don’t know
I posted it because Michael West torches the ABC in his response, which I think is warranted, given their prevarication and failure to name crimes.
Although I think calling out unsubstantiated claims hurts Michael West’s reputation as an investigative journalist. I hope he made those comments at least from his personal account.
- Comment on Max Chandler-Mather pitches Mamdani-style $25bn plan to nationalise 200 Coles and Woolworths supermarkets 1 week ago:
Below is the actual report, its eight pages, and really undercooked. Its more like a university report than any kind of plan.
At best, and I mean at absolute best, this is a conversation starter, not a plan. My worry is they haven’t gone into enough depth for such a big policy that the ‘serious’ stakeholders in this area will laugh it off and easily dismiss it with industry based arguments those familiar with the industry may know.
My critiscism.
In its current form a plan like this will fail, and the cost will be hung over the neck of a Greens led government going forward.
- 5 years to build out a system of ~600 new supermarkets would be a herculean and unnecessary effort. I don’t believe it would be done in anywhere near that short a time period, which would blow the report’s revenue assumptions.
This is a massively expensive investment in new and seized fixed capital with large ongoing maintenance costs that at best adds a ‘slow lane’ to the Australian food network’s ‘food delivery highway’. There are smarter ways to achieve the results wanted without causing supplier induced demand.
For those who are interested, supplier induced demand.
It will lead to farmers over producing, or higher levels of imports, to satisfy the demands for vegetables from established grocers and the added Fair Go supermarket chain. We’ve seen this with Aldi’s introduction to the Australian grocery chain landscape.
It will be required for all supermarkets to remain at a decent level of stock, while that level may be lower than before. And there is always a level of wastage at store level, that level of wastage will be increased by these added supermarkets.
The Fair Go chains will be used by farmers as a dumping ground for their poor quality produce, which is great for them, but increases the cost in the cost/profit ratio to those Fair Go stores. This would force the government run stores to cutback in increased areas lessening the accessibility of those stores in incremental but important ways. This leads to a medium term negative feedback spiral, having a noticeable effect on the customers’ engagement with that store. Old, poorly looked after IGA’s are an example of this, people won’t shop there due to the ‘ick’ factor. The only salvage would be they cheaper, but will yhey be cheap enough for the perceived quality? Spudshed may be a positive indicator here, but they have a measure of vertical control over their fresh food. I think this problem will lead to an unexpected decrease in this plans expected revenues due to reinvestment in the stores becoming more diffficult as time goes on.
The last two paragraphs are about ongoing burdens that could only be shaken off by becoming more competitive, but that would mean sacrificing profitability (likely no longer pay for themselves with their own revenues) to maintain the 25% price discount. There are existing examples in each paragraph that demonstrate the resulting problems the Fair Go stores would create and face.
What we’re talking about is a market design problem. First thing I think we should do as a nation is call Alvin Roth for help. ;)
But now for a few of my suggestions,
##Food Vouchers##. Its boring, but they can work. The aim is actually to increase access to fresh, healthy food, not to be a competitor to ColesWorth. The delivery system is already established, but the access to that is quarantined by the width of your wallet. Food vouchers could be triggered automatically by the ATO by flagging a combination of things like location, income, number of dependents, etc, in the yearly lodgements.
Food Vouchers could appear as a direct transfer payment at regular intervals (weekly, monthly) across the course of the financial year based on the expected cost difference that tax payer, in their situation, would be paying for the average basket of fresh healthy produce.
The above design is fairly liberal and places faith in the recipients to spend the money in the intended way. Other methods such as welfare cards that can only be used at certain kinds of stores have been trialled in indigenous communities that have had alcohol abuse issues, those may be another, more conservative, road to go down. And I’m sure theres other less onerous safeguards and nudges for wise spending that could be employed.
This would largely solve the problem for areas with existing ease of physical access to fresh, healthy food. But there are lots of communities without fair access to cheap, fresh, healthy food.
##Fair Go Shelves## these hard to reach areas are low access because Australia’s food delivery system isn’t built for them. But we don’t need to reinvent the wheel by establishing a whole new system of distribution and supermaket centres. The distribution centres are there, the shops are there, its the incentive to extend the system to get the fresh, healthy food to those shelves that isn’t.
Fair Go Shelves could be the PBS for our food, basically a subsidy scheme for putting that extra pallet of fresh food on the truck or plane to the hard to reach areas and then selling them at metro prices.
A mix of these two ideas could likely have better results than ~600 new stores could, it is also a kore dynamic solution that lends itself to alterations more easily.
However, it is also more easy to phase down, or completely remove were a hostile government to be elected. The only solution I could offer there are the political costs detering hostile governments from that course of action, meaning it would need to be a policy thats broadly popular, and well liked in the electorate.
So i’ll try to conclude,
I’ve spent a couple hours on my sofa finding three points of failure in the Fair Go Supermarkets Plan. I’m sure, unfortunately, there are many more that others may highlight.
- Adds an unnecessary and wasteful initial budgetary outlay for a ‘slow lane’ to the Australian food delivery system highway.
- Supplier induced Demand. Farmers and importers will be incentivised to deliver more produce to market at a more varied quality than before due to the price floor. 25% lower than ColesWorth. Increasing operational costs.
- ‘Ick’ factor, due to cost cutting will decrease revenue. Rich and poor alike want to shop in a nice place where they have ease of access to the food ranges they want.
On the other-hand, if the Fair Go Supermarkets plan is simply meant as a conversation starter about our supermarket and food delivery system. Then the Green Institute has been wildly successful with me, as evidenced by this long commentary on their plan.
Then I’ve identified the crux of the solution that the Fair Go Plan failed to identify,
##Its a Market Design problem##
I’ve had a quick go at some alternative suggestions,
- Automatic Food Vouchers based off combination of the annual tax lodgement details.
- Fair Go Shelves, a PBS for Outback greens… and other fresh foods. (The ‘Green’ marketing writes itself for this one).
Finally, now we know the problem, (market design) seriously we should contact the professionals. Market design is an undervalued part of the solution to so many of our problems. Whether its in democratic delivery, food delivery, or money markets, most of the problems we could largely solve by redesigning and maintaining the markets delivering these inputs to our complex liberal democracy.
- Comment on Flying High Dubai. MWM responds to ABC Media Watch 1 week ago:
The Media Watch piece in question,
- Submitted 1 week ago to worldnews@aussie.zone | 3 comments
- Comment on earthquake 1 week ago:
The mAiNstReAm media claims its an earthquake.
Real patriotic Australia sees through the lies and deceits. Victoria just collectively farted from too many beans!
I’m a Vicfart truther.
- Comment on G7 countries to release 100 million barrels of diesel and oil to curb fuel prices 1 week ago:
Its a ridiculous situation the US has put the world in. Every time the US does something like this, the Europeans probably have to cop a lot of it and play nice for now. But should definitely take it as further motivation to remove themselves from the US chokeholds they’ve allowed.
Charles De’Gaul might’ve been a cunt in many ways, but he understood the value of his country’s freedom.
- Comment on New Greens leader: No weapons for Ukraine, curtail the US alliance 1 week ago:
They would have such a strong platform if they understood our own implications for national security and sovereignty the breach of national borders the invasion of Ukraine has for us.
It tells me these people don’t understand that national borders and world peace will take soft and hard power to maintain and vacating the military field only leaves others to fight in our place. If we want to live in a world that has some kind of fairness of rule, instead of might makes right, then we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with others who wish for a world luke that.
Mark my words, you ignore fascists and dictators overseas, they’ll be our on our shores in no time. Ulraine is about our security and sovereignty, not theirs.
- Comment on Curtin’s Cast Episode 60 - 10 June 2026 - Ed Coper – Angertainment: How Social Media Outrage Ruined Everything - Spotify 1 week ago:
Okay, nevermind found the article. After I posted this, I remembered we have these funny things called search engines… because I’m an idiot.
- Curtin’s Cast Episode 60 - 10 June 2026 - Ed Coper – Angertainment: How Social Media Outrage Ruined Everything - Spotifyopen.spotify.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to worldnews@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- Hold the front page! Cost of clean energy transition just shrank by $100 billionreneweconomy.com.au ↗Submitted 3 weeks ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on Cuts, punishment powers and a notable exception: Key changes in Labor's migration shake-up 4 weeks ago:
What absolute flogs. Fucking kids gloves with the Party who has caused the migration culture war issue, and lock and stock and two smoking barrels for the Party reacting to the clear electoral signals a massive portion of the electorate are now indicating they want.
Instead of attacking Labor why haven’t the NFF come together with the Universities and other migrant reliant employers and stamped the positive case for migration against the revanchivist culture vultures if they’ve been such great fans of migrant labour all this time.
…oh no, I forgot its only the migrants the regions don’t like, that have to go. Typical self obsessed industry group, undermining their own prosperity with their narrow bloody-mindedness.
God forbid anything ever negatively effect the precious farmers of this country, haven’t you heard? They’ve already had a bloody gut full /s
Theres going to be a leopards eat faces moment when university fees have rocketed up for their kids who often go to those city universities subsidised by all those International students.
Its going to slap even harder when the government can’t send as much aid in the inevitable floods or fires because the budget has had an international student sized hole blown in our exports.
But what do I know, the geniuses at Murdoch media and One Nation have a culture war to prosecute, and some brown people to shit on to satiate angry bastards five minutes of rage each night.
One Nation is most popular in the regions, Murdoch media is one of two free to air channels, and highly popular in the regions. This is a problem of regional Australia not understanding their gripes have consequences that they have to bear.
If NFF wants this changed, attack the people who have pushed this into a full blown electoral crisis, not the flat-footed Party with tweety birds flapping above their heads.
- Comment on 9/11 25th Anniversary: Rousing the sleeping dragon 4 weeks ago:
Fridge through the sky… 😆
- Comment on Latest poll: Greens surge to record-breaking 16%, ALP’s 2PP lead grows 4 weeks ago:
That day, the link wasn’t just broken… The link was missing!!!
- Comment on 9/11 25th Anniversary: Rousing the sleeping dragon 4 weeks ago:
Not a bad analogy. Very appropriate, as has been proven by the right wing terrorism list reference and how much the US appears in that list. Sorry, I didn’t think I needed to spell out we were interested in the amount the US appeared in that list.
I used both the German analogy and the Republican analogy to demonstrate that you its the individuals that must be held to account while the rest try to bridge the divisions in a society.
Please stop these echo chamber tier insults, you know how much I detest America
Well it gets a bit hard to take you seriously sometimes, but fair enough. I thought that line, and it definitely was a line this time, was nicely pithy though.
- Comment on 9/11 25th Anniversary: Rousing the sleeping dragon 4 weeks ago:
If US republicans in Africa, Asia, North America, weirdly not latin America…
This sentence makes no sense Claude. Recalibrate and try it again.
Lololololol!!! 😆 Its like your heads been buried in the sand for the last 15 years. Do you only consume right wing propaganda? Like on a scale from ‘Zero’ to ‘Only Consume’, how much Sky/News24 do you watch per week?
The right wing terrorists, that vote overwhelmingly Republican, are regularly targetting Democrats, racial minorities, religious groups like Islam all over the USA. Don’t let facts get in the way of good time though…
Heres a list. For interests sake scroll to the bottom for a comparison with Islan and Left wing.
So the point stands. You don’t attack whole groups for the actions of individuals. Even if some members of those groups commit or applaud the commitment of heinous crimes.
This is why all men aren’t in prison for domestic violence against women, its not all men, but theres a pattern of rape and murder of women by men.
- Comment on What 9/11 taught us about coexistence 4 weeks ago:
Coexistence is not the absence of disagreement; it is the decision to live with disagreement without turning the other person into an enemy. Perhaps, after 25 years, this is one of the most important things we can learn from 9/11: that the opposite of hatred is not indifference, but an ethical commitment to living together. An ethical life begins when we stop seeing the others as strangers and recognise them as human beings.
What a great way to end the piece by Sirwan Barzanji.
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to worldnews@aussie.zone | 3 comments
- Comment on 9/11 25th Anniversary: Rousing the sleeping dragon 4 weeks ago:
I’m not saying ‘lines’, I’m trying to get you to wake up to the historic systems that create these sharp divisions and friction points.
I used to think Religion was a cause of hatred, but its actually a post-hoc rationalisation by the people experiencing circumstances they can neither see the cause of, nor explain. That includes people like Bin Laden, with all his wealth he was born into a part of a system, and became a part of that system where the logical reaction is to attack and try to pull down your perceived foe.
You’re hatred for religion, and one in particular helps nothing, and actually hinders the development of a less religious world, which I suspect you see as a better way. It hijders it because you make an enemy out of the majority of the people on the planet, and enemies are famous for having little trust in each other. And trust in each other is key if you want them to take notice of your ideas.
Also a picture of a guy protesting with an ineffective protest sign, like its not even witty its just rage in printed form, and a wikipedia list of recent terrorist attacks by small groups of terrorists is your idea of presenting a case for hundreds of millions of followers and supporters? … pffft thats horribly a undercooked for the population sizes, and doesn’t even make logical sense, as I will explain in two ways below.
US Republicans just had a convention in Texas where someone was advocating shooting some Democrat and was apparently cheered for it. By your incoherrent logic that means all Republicans and those that vote for that Party are blood thirsty murderers, because a guy did a thing at a convention. Its just not true.
Many, not all, Germans genuinely cheered on the Nazi’s for years, but they would never have committed the crimes Nazi’s committed, or thought thats what they were supporting by supporting the Nazi’s. Its one reason why the allied forces decided to march 1000 people from Weimar (or a village nearby) up to Burchenwald concentration camp to witness the attrocities that had been committed there. Because they knew the support was still there, the cognitive dissonance was so strong that without the incontrovertable evidence in so many of the German’s own eyes and nostrils that the attrocities could be dismissed as the occupying force propagandising.
- Comment on 9/11 25th Anniversary: Rousing the sleeping dragon 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, i felt writing that and not recognising Bin Laden’s wealth was an oversight that she needed to address for her narrative to work properly. I don’t think it disqualifies the narrative though, but glad someones highlighted that.
Not to mention theres still open questions about how much the Saudis knew, the extent of their involvement, and how high that went. And they are by no means poor or powerless, even then.
Yeah for some reason it’s always one particular religion
Thats just incorrect bigotry about a whole religion, spanning many sects and classifications, not to mention countries and cultures
Definite props though for stating later (not ALL muslims). But blaming a whole set of people at all for the crimes and shit behaviour of a few is never right.
Its like blaming all Jews for what Israel is doing to Palestinians, or all Christians for what the IRA did to British people. Or vice versa in all cases. Was the Pope responsible for Bloody Sunday?
I think theres something real in what you’re picking up on though. But i think its a systemic issue to do with the historic construction of what has become the ‘Islamic world’. European colonialism was influential here, but also more localised and ongoing tribal conflicts. Even environmental pressures.
The conflicts across the Sahel due to the expansion of the Sahara pushing groups into each other’s lands they use for subsistence has been an underlying driver of conflict across that region. Tim Marshall Prisoner’s of Geography was a good distillation of that.
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to worldnews@aussie.zone | 10 comments
- Comment on Australia declares its new air defense missile system combat ready 4 weeks ago:
Ah yes, the humvee. I like that line from the humvee commander in the movie Black Hawk Down. “These things are bullet magnets!”
I suppose a possible answer if they’re determined to have heavier armour is compartmentalised and autonomous setups. Having the operator in a separate location to the cannon could reduce the armouring requirements of both and splitting them up could make delivery separately on those c130’s possible. Of course the draw back is a platform far more susceptible to electronic warfare.
- Comment on Australia declares its new air defense missile system combat ready 4 weeks ago:
, but every new generation of people looking at war inevitably say “ah, this next war we won’t need armor we need to make everything as lightly armored as possible!” and then that strategy fails spectacularly until people create more heavily armored version and the cycle repeats…
Seems like you have an interesting historical annecdote your drawing on where this has happened. Is it a story worth sharing?
- Comment on Real Capitalism Hasn't Been Attempted (tm) 5 weeks ago:
This is the sane response of a normal person. But sanity has near zero engagement. Soooo, obscure and unrelated macro-economic debates it is! Yay!!! 🙌
- Comment on Real Capitalism Hasn't Been Attempted (tm) 5 weeks ago:
Too true.
- Comment on Real Capitalism Hasn't Been Attempted (tm) 5 weeks ago:
I saw a post breaking down how that Saxony election in a ‘first past the post’ electoral system would have delivered all but like three seats to AFD on only ~42% of the vote.
Ueybmore evidence that its the preferential voting system for the representative win!
Too bad places like Britain and most of the US won’t pull their fingers out on this system flaw.
- Comment on Right-wing candidate used fake AI portraits in council campaign 1 month ago:
- Comment on Right-wing candidate used fake AI portraits in council campaign 1 month ago:
“Physical attractiveness has been shown by extensive research to have a clear positive impact on electoral success,” Rodrigo Praino, professor of politics and public policy at Flinders University, told Deepcut.
“This is particularly true in the case of low information electoral contests, that is, when voters typically do not have very large amounts of information on the candidates, their policies and their records.”
I mentioned this to my partner, highlighting it as one of the less covered reasons I think the Secret Harbour election was lost so convincingly. The ON candidate doesn’t have the worst mug out there, added to this, I saw some very unfortunate photos of Georgia Tree.
In a possibly unfortunate turn of events for Herdegen, now he’s in office, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
- Submitted 1 month ago to australianpolitics@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Comment on IDF soldiers heading to Australia to compete in the Sydney Marathon 1 month ago:
If you wish to contact the relevant Minister Tony Burke, as I have done this evening. The contact form is here
I lost the copy of the text, (too much copy/pasting). I spoke about the horrific war crimes alleged against the IDF, and how such allegations demand visa approvals processes have a carefully considered assessment. I acknowledged that every case will be unique, but allegations of abuses, torture, murder or allegedly acting in aid of those crimes should be enough for Australia to determine the person is not currently of ‘good character’ to enter our borders. If we can’t even stand up for the moral value of ‘dont do genocide’ for something so trivial as a marathon then we really are an embarrassingly supine and supplicant state.
We’ve got to grow a backbone and stand steadfast for the, mostly, peaceful values we live our daily lives by in Australia. Stop bowing to the twisted and broken logic of a morally bankrupt state.
- Comment on IDF soldiers heading to Australia to compete in the Sydney Marathon 1 month ago:
What the fuck are we doing!
