Darth Vader has announced he will be quitting politics at the end of the year. Sorry, I seem to have got that a bit wrong. Yvette D’Ath, Queensland Attorney-General and former Health Minister during the pandemic has decided to quit politics. She tweeted, “Today I can announce that I have decided not to recontest the seat of Redcliffe in the upcoming election. I remain committed to representing the people of Redcliffe and fulfilling my duties until the election in October.” At a press conference yesterday, she said she was committed to helping Labor remain in government. “Whether I’m running or not is irrelevant. I’ll continue to do everything possible to work for the Miles government. We’ve got an election to win.” As Minister for Health and Ambulance Services during the dark days of the pestilence, she kept us up-to-date with the latest health information. So it seems like the main role of Ms D’Ath as Health Minister was to continually talk about something that started with the letter V. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m glad she’s on the way out. Hopefully the current Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has more than just one topic to talk about: “Anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman, and as the Minister for Women, all people who identify as a woman are a part of our policies and strategies to advance gender equality.” God help us! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGlFFw9vuac

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ~ H. L. Mencken, American essayist I’ve decided that I’m stepping away from politics. It’s just not for me anymore. The main reason is that politics has become incredibly divisive. It causes hostility between people. If I loudly proclaimed in this video that I supported the Labor party, many of you would become upset and send me angry messages. “How can you support a party that’s going to drive Australia into the ground!”. If I proclaimed that I loved the Liberal party, a large number of you might be equally upset. “How can you support such a backwards thinking party? Their time is over!”. If I showed public support for The Greens, some of you would call me a tree-hugging communist. One Nation or the United Australian Party… “You right-wing fascist!”. There is no side of politics that I could possibly take that wouldn’t result in somebody becoming angry with me. Quite frankly, I don’t want to get into fights with people. I’m happy for you to support whichever party you like. If you support Labor, great! If you support The Coalition, no worries. I don’t want to fight my precious viewers anymore, especially not over politics. Not to mention that my vote doesn’t even matter. I live in a Liberal stronghold, a stronghold like Maranoa in southwest Queensland. If you live in Maranoa, it doesn’t matter how you vote. Liberal National Party are going to win. Whether you vote for Labor, or the Greens, or the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party, the LNP will always win. It would take multiple generational change for this to be any different. My vote essentially does nothing. Here’s the current results for the 2022 election, and as you can see, even though Labor only got 32.8% of the votes (so less than one third), they won the most number of seats at 73 and will be forming government one way or another. The Coalition who got 35.8% of the vote (apparently, an electoral bloodbath according to the media), only won 54 seats. And yes, I understand how Australian preferential voting works. But don’t you think it’s funny that the party that got the lesser number of votes won so many more seats and will be forming government? It shows you that our electoral system is kind of broken I suppose. Anyway, I’m not suggesting that I have a better idea, but in an ideal world, you’d think that a group that won 32.8% of the vote would hold approximately 32.8% of the number of seats, or about 50 seats in this case. But if I dare suggest such that a thing, people will start yelling at me on the street! Furthermore, I’m just not that interested in politics anymore. I know it’s important, but I just feel that our system just doesn’t support my vote anymore, and realistically I suppose it never has. Whenever I talk about politics, I always get lots of angry messages, and quite frankly, I’m tired of fighting about it. I don’t want to be on your bad side, and I think your political persuasion really shouldn’t affect our relationship in anyway. As I said, it doesn’t honestly bother me how you vote, because I know your vote is equally as useless as mine. We sometimes pretend that our vote counts, but unless you live in an incredibly marginal seat, most votes in Australia achieve very little, and I think that’s how the powers that be want it. We’re just a tiny little ant pretending that we have sort of control over this giant ant colony that we call Australia. Perhaps in the ant’s mind it lives in some kind of democracy, but as we all know, the moment the ant is no longer needed, it is dumped in the midden and recycled. MUSIC Melancholia by Godmode #AustralianPolitics #Election2022 #ByeByePolitics ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWJzHBlhizs

Nicholas from the YouTube channel itsnicholas ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWWZeDpMNaozlusrtF8xAIA ) has a small rant about why Millennials (people born 1981 to 1996) have such a tough time buying property in Australia. Go check out Nicholas’s channel if you’re interested in all things to do with investing. He’s got lots of good information and tutorials for the casual investor with a focus on investment apps and websites. MILLENNIAL INVESTMENT BOOK Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune by Patrick O'Shaughnessy ▶ https://amzn.to/2RLGjy1 MY GEAR Rode NT-USB Microphone ▶ https://amzn.to/2OjhgB4 Lenovo ThinkPad Edge Laptop ▶ https://amzn.to/2TKMdB5 IMAGE RIGHTS Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay OUTRO MUSIC Fortress Europe by Dan Bodan (https://www.youtube.com/user/danbodan) SOURCES https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/533632/new-guidelines-redefine-birth-years-millennials-gen-x-and-post-millennials https://www.macquarie.com/dafiles/Internet/mgl/au/docs/booklet/macquarie-january-property-insights-report.pdf https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6306.0/ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-14/wage-growth-remains-stagnant-in-q2/11412228 https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/managing-your-money/budgeting/australian-spending-habits ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybCffCWHtlE

Artificial scarcity is a term often associated with capitalism where goods or services are deliberately made scarce despite technology or production methods existing that could easily create an abundance. It’s basically a way for capitalists to make more money. 10 Cent Photographs I rarely have to print out photographs as I’m quite happy looking at pictures on my laptop or mobile phone. However, occasionally a situation arises where I have to print some out. The other day, my son’s kindergarten requested that we print out some pictures of the Easter holidays. I didn’t realise that I would be experiencing artificial scarcity first hand. I noticed that Kmart were advertising 10 cent prints, so I went there. I had seven photographs to print so was expecting to pay 70 cents. Makes sense, right? However, the lady at the counter told me that if I wanted the photographs now, I had to pay double that, $1.40. “Okay… How do I get the 10 cent prints?”, I asked. She said if I was happy to wait one hour, I could pay 15 cents each for a total of $1.05. Again I asked, “What about the 10 cent prints?”. She told me that I would have to wait 24 hours to get them for 10 cents each. I wouldn’t have been too concerned if the staff were super busy. However, there were almost no customers there (being late on a Saturday afternoon and all), and apart from myself, nobody was in the photo section. I saw on the girl’s face that she thought the whole situation was completely ridiculous. I loaded up my photos and could see that I was the only order on the computer next to the printer. I could also see a big “Print” button, ready to be pressed. She literally only had to push a single button and I would have had my photos. But in order to do that, Kmart dictated that I had to pay double the price. I completely understand what Kmart are trying to do. They figure that most people would just throw up their hands and go, “OK. I’ll pay double the price. I can’t be bothered coming back tomorrow”. I didn’t do that, however. I saw an advertised price of 10 cents and that’s what I was set on paying. I’m not going to be tricked into paying more just because of some Kmart created artificial scarcity. Yeah, I know it sounds petty, but it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. We’ve got to stand up against these ridiculous capitalist scams. Although Kmart got my money this time, all 70 cents of it, what they didn’t count on is that I won’t be going back. Yeah, sure they get some short-term gains, but if they piss people off in the process, they ultimately lose customers. Capitalism Is Efficient! Capitalists will always harp on about the efficiency of capitalism. It’s a complete lie as shown by my Kmart encounter. Efficiency isn’t the g ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFieXFWotIc