Dead1

Capitalism was heavily regulated in most western countries between 1930s and 1970s when deregulation and neoliberalism took over. FDR's New Deal was actually the culmination of a 130-odd year struggle to improve living conditions that started at the dawn of the industrial revolution. So it is possible. Only problem in west is globalist free market unregulated capitalist types now dominate the old working class parties. It's why right wing parties now appeal to many working class people even though these parties are also nominally unfriendly to living standards. So current choice is "neoliberal with some welfare to prevent dissent" or "neoliberal with some welfare to prevent dissent." There's no real grass roots movements to stop it either. Major change requires upheaval ala economic collapse or major war to destroy/damage existing power structures. Not talking GFC or Afghanistan/Iraq but more something like Great Depression or WWI and II.

Reserve Bank of Australia assumes people will just draw down on their savings to service higher debt....literally they're banking on jacking up poverty whilst hoping companies don't price gouge too much (which is also contributing to inflation). https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2022/sep/22/workers-did-not-cause-australias-inflation-woes-but-they-will-be-the-ones-to-sacrifice

Would have made sense before deregulation of debt in 1980-00s and introduction of things like credit cards and then pay day loans etc. Many westerners are now culturally accustomed to living mainly on debt. Anecdotally I've known people who would pay credit cards off with credit cards. Deregulation of debt is the single least thing mentioned in modern economic discourse. There is an acknowledgement there is a lot of debt, but not the reasons why or how much of this debt is bad. Indeed this is the same situation as what led to GFC - lots of shit debt that no one wanted to even contemplate as long as the profits were coming in. I don't know if negative equity (ie debt on property worth more than property) will have as big an impact as it did in GFC. There seems to be a lot of chatter about how the main thing is the ability to service debt ie make repayments. Literally it's become a pure cash flow thing. I think it's a bit optimistic and myopic but I do not walk in the ivory towers of the financial elites. Essentially it all comes down to the following: It’s a slow day in some little town…….. The sun is hot….the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from back west is driving thru town. He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the feed store. The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her services on credit. She, in a flash rushes to the motel and pays off her room bill with the motel owner. The motel proprietor now places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money & leaves. NOW,… no one produced anything…and no one earned anything…however the whole town is out of debt and is looking to the future with much optimism. Like Communism it's ideal in theory. In practice not so. I would argue our capitalism worked when heavily regulated by government and before globalisation and computer networks proliferated and derailed every single assumption about it. People like my wife and so many of my friends want to live in them though even my wife admits the build quality is shit. Modern mainstream media and especially reality TV promotes these houses as extremely desirable. And the other mob who don't really care about quality are the property speculators who now form a large part of the market (in Australia due to dreadful tax and immigration laws designed to jack up speculative profits and ensure ongoing demand). They would buy literal cardboard boxes if they thought it net them a couple 100% return on investment. Locally I am horrified how much prime farmland is being turned into subdivisions full of cheap nasty cookies cutter houses.

Nail hit on head. Humans are animals and as such only the vicious, corrupt, greedy and self serving get to the top regardless of culture.

Thanks, I am not well versed on Master's history. It would have been interesting if they released that album in 1985 as originally planned. Today Master might have been bigger than Death!

Very cool - very raw and visceral. Most of the references in interviews are to Master, not Deathstrike. Not sure if the interviewees were aware of the change especially remembering the only way to find out about this kind of stuff was writing letters to other likeminded metallers (which was also main way of getting fanzines like Slayer Mag!).

Aura Noir - Black Thrash Act

Noting it used to have a more left wing bent to early 1970s. Problem is both major political parties have had exactly the same core ideology since 1970s. It doesn't matter who is in government, the core policies remain untouched. System is so engrained that it's unstoppable even when it threatens long term stability or living standards. --- Mind you seems Britain is the same eg latest mini budget is exactly the type of bullshit you expect from Australian politicians.

It just reinforces my statement that regulation in Australia is a confused mess designed to diffuse accountability, transparency and responsibility.

Continuing with the Slayer Mag diaries: So got up to late 1980s and already the author, Metalion, is talking about oversaturation and clones. And most of these bands were putting out 3-5 track demos on cassettes, not full fledged LPs. The terminology starts getting more solid from both author and interviewees - death and grind now seem better defined and are no longer lumped in with thrash. Thrash increasingly becoming a dirty word - bands talking about not wanting to be like Metallica (we're talking AJFA era) or Testament. You can also tell there's a rift between hardcore and metal though the grind guys are clearly closing the gap. Oh and bands assumed as hardcore bands reveal very much their metal roots and influences eg Bill Steer of Carcass loving NWOBHM (something we know today). Fascinatingly enough some references to the biggest elitists of the day being crossover thrash fans...which I also remember Dan Liker talking about in an interview about Nuclear Assault many years ago. And finally, a fact that's overlooked these days but Master was really a pioneer and a major influence on a lot of bands. Though on the surface Master really didn't do anything until 1990, they actually recorded an album in 1985 which wasn't released at the time but was "leaked" to the underground and became quite a hit with the extreme metal crowd.

Agressor - Neverending Destiny Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh Hellhammer - Apocalyptic Raids Pig Destroyer - Book Burner

This is Australia. The whole legal system is based around creating confusion to avoid responsibility, accountability and transparency. Remember our banking system was found to be corrupt and yet they barely got a slap on the wrist. Or when a large number of nursing homes were found to be abusing or neglecting patients, the only outcome was a call to give them more money. I had a complaint with Optus once because their Indian based call centre had openly ripped me off and blocked my service even though I was up to date with payments because they changed my service plan without telling me. They were trying to get me to pay a couple of hundred bucks to have my account unblocked. Even my Optus app said I was fully paid yet my service was blocked. As their complaints division was useless, I went to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. They rediverted me back to Optus (who assigned an Australian based worker to resolve my dispute which they did). (EDIT: I stayed with Optus because of a lack of choice. We had previously been with Telstra who were terrible and kept charging us hundreds of dollars for changes to plans they instigated or literally because the contract term lapsed and we didn't renew and which they every time withdrew after we called and complained). Turns out that Optus, Telstra and iiNet sit on the board of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. The TIO us funded by telecommunication industry (who pay a fee for any complaint made against the telco). https://www.tio.com.au/about-us/board So the regulatory authority is compromised from the start. It has no real independent ability to do its job. It certainly does not have an interest in improving the current system. I would argue its goal is reducing impact of complaints on telcos. This is the same for many industries who are self regulated: https://treasury.gov.au/publication/taskforce-on-industry-self-regulation-final-report/chapter-3-types-of-self-regulation-in-consumer-markets-in-australia Even when they're not self regulated, regulations are watered down drivel and regulators toothless tigers. It's all just smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of consumer protections. In reality Australian business is allowed to do pretty much as it pleases - as the banking, aged care and telecommunications industries prove.

As one of their customers who got screwed over by this, I hope the CEO, CIO and tech guys involved do the honourable thing old school Japanese style.

Autopsy - Severed Survival Entombed - Left Hand Path Fleshcrawl - Descend Into The Absurd Slayer - Divine Intervention

I liked this one https://tyrannyoftradition.com/2016/06/25/new-sunn-o-album-is-silent/ A silent Sunn O))) album would be a massive improvement IMO.

I didn't think it was that jarring especially as Surge mentioned it's common in tech metal these days.

Decameron - My Shadow... Exodus - Bonded By Blood Gruesome - Twisted Prayers - never understood if these guys were really a Death tribute act or if they are meant to be a serious band! Obituary - Cause of Death

I am not generally a fan of melodic black metal but this is quite good (and a lot better than Dissection or same period Opeth - early Opeth more black metal than death metal IMO)! :P). There's enough non-BM seques to keep me interested and the music is well written and production good (ie not over produced and fits well with classic 1990s melodic death metal production). EDIT: In fact it takes me way back to the late 1990s when I was discovering a lot of this stuff.

It makes the music even more pointless and background as the music will be even more generic than now.

Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys I Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys II

Also at least one riff ripped from Peace Sells too. I like Dystopia except for its over sterile production.

It's nowhere near as melodic as most of RIP.

RIP David Andersson (Soilwork guitarist). Only 47 years old - mental health and alcohol mentioned as factors in his death. https://consequence.net/2022/09/david-andersson-soilwork-guitarist-dies/

If the coos are anything like the medical profession they protect their own to minimise Also Australian systems are awesomely designed to obfuscate and limit transparency,accountability and responsibility. Again I work with this all the time. You wouldn't believe how much corruption and nepotism and negligence occurs yet it is all done through due process but with sloppy paperwork. We make it so hard for patients or their families to complain. And what complaints get through are literally wahsed away with generic form letters and no action You could kill patients and get away with it. The Lonnie hospital has done this on numerous occassions (as shown on 4 Corners) they covered for a known pedophile for 20 years. ---- Also I never said the locals cops were all corrupt. Rather they are lazy and don't care and a bit mysoginstic and racist. Not all but judging by both my own and my wife's interactions (hers are everyday) they are somewhat misogynistic and racist. Stats are misleading. Context is critical and often what isn't covered by them is just as important as what is.

Back in the 1990s they got a guy from Scotland to reform the NSW police force which was extremely corrupt. He was asked in an interview if he would sack all the corrupt cops. He answered if he did that he would be left without a police force. My own experience is local cops don't care and are lazy. The stories coming from my wife who works in the system and has done for many years leads me to conclude mot only are they lazy and don't care but they are also somewhat mysoginstic and somewhat racist. As for corruption who knows. Their shit attitude to paperwork and due process could be hiding some corruption. After working 16 years in an increasingly inefficient and corrupt health bureaucracy I have realised that chaos and inefficiency actually work in a lot of people's favour even if it doesn't meet the goals of the organisation.