On Wed, 4/2/15, Peter Ross &lt;Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au&gt; wrote: Subject: [luv-talk] An interesting note on NBN To: luv-talk(a)luv.asn.au Received: Wednesday, 4 February, 2015, 10:02 PM The Age today, written by Sally Young http://www.theage.com.au/comment/politicians-media-moguls-and-doomed-ending… "Abbott did reduce funding to the ABC, limiting what Murdoch views as a privileged competitor. And he did hobble the NBN, reducing the capacity for internet-streaming rivals." Why do we pretend there is a competition of ideas? Good night Peter _______________________________________________ Given Murdoch MEDIA doesn't do a lot of what the ABC does, and even less in a similar manner, I think they aren't big competitors! If ABC News/CurrentAffairs showed more "conservative" opinions (& bias?) as his media often advocates, then they would be competing more for the same customers. If he can't have the ABC privatisation he'd like, does he REALLY want that? Murdoch media's recent attacks on federal ALP's supposedly outrageous increase in government debt, (which the KRudd government seems to have been elected to do when expansionist policy was unusually widely advocated), is extremely hypocritical to me when I recall how Murdoch became such a big player globally, by cycles of huge borrowing to buy more media than he could chew, chewing like buggery as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Davey used to say and before he could swallow it borowing more. It seemed to be an example of the old saying then when you can't repay a bank a Million dollars, you're in trouble but when you can't repay them a Billion dollars the bank is in truble. Phillip Adams likes to quote reputably the biggest Casino whale ever, Kerry Packer, as saying he is a big gambler, but he never gambled with his shareholders company. Kerry went on to say that Murdoch has done it a repeatably. My favourite (mythical?) story about Kerry's gambling is when he and friends were sitting on an American beach and some other's were messily playing American football nearby. When someone (Kerry?) asked the footballers to move some distance away one of them said something like "Do you know who I am? I'm worth <20? 30? 60?> million dollars!" Kerry pulled out a coin and said "I'll toss you for it!" (Noooo, I don't think he meant ... ew! Still, I guess I would for a lot less money. Now I want to wash my mind! ;~ (#%#