The pond makes no apology for leading with nattering "Ned" on a meditative Sunday.
What better way to ensure a little extra sleep? What better way to think, well, things are bad, but they could be worse, I might be spending a week inside "Ned's" mind …
And besides there was some anxiety about the level of hagiographic energy inside the reptile 'leet in Surry Hills, just across from the best baristas in the world … with Shanners having done his duty, and "Ned" about to do his, what a false panic that was …
Lay it on Mc"Ned", and be damned be him who first cries 'Hold!':
Ah yes, the bushfires and climate science, so yesterday, unless you happened to be one of the unfortunate punters caught up in the flames, or the insurance companies ready to raise their premiums, or one of the small bunch of Australians who fork out for insurance, comfortable in the knowledge that climate change is having zero impact on their premiums.
But the pond digresses, and should remember that this is a happy clappy tour, and we all must sing bright, perky songs of hope ...
What a pleasure it is to see nattering "Ned" down from the attic, and with the recent pall of gloom cast off, and talk of hope and plan B's, and what good plans they sound, most excellent, and sure to defeat any minor glitch or blip …
Jargon is the redemptive way forward here … when in doubt, always trot in a "scalable"...
Oh dear. After such a good start, "Ned" has reverted to his old form.
Didn't he assure the pond only a few pars ago that there was only going to be a love tap to the budget, maybe $1.8 billion. Yet here he's suddenly talking of $2 billion for tourism alone, never mind all the other impacts, and if it were to last say six months, that'd be tourism down a $12 billion hole, not to count all the other areas that might be affected …
Didn't he assure the pond only a few pars ago that there was only going to be a love tap to the budget, maybe $1.8 billion. Yet here he's suddenly talking of $2 billion for tourism alone, never mind all the other impacts, and if it were to last say six months, that'd be tourism down a $12 billion hole, not to count all the other areas that might be affected …
Hmm, could we be in a Blade Runner illustration moment?
Yes, yes, we are, "Ned", or at least his illustrator, has suddenly gone Asian dystopian … quick, back to the reassurance, a few uppers and mood enhancers ...
Nope, there's signs of a steady, slow decline, and the drugs wearing off. Another downer. Perhaps "Ned" got confused about which pill makes you taller and which one makes you smaller.
This is going to take another couple of substantial "Ned" gobbets to turn the situation around ...
Ah, that's sure to lift the spirits. Fond memories of the glorious days of Captain Smirk at his finest …but wait, more saucy doubts and fears. Can Australia actually handle a crisis?
One thing's for sure, if it can't it won't be the fault of a government incapable of governing, it will be the fault of the deviant, wretched opposition and their entrenched poisonous partisanship … because as everyone knows, the opposition governs all the time when things get tough ...
Oh dear, questions, questions, and the pond was hoping that the SloMo cadre would have had a whiteboard in the PM's office, ready to assign nattering "Ned" a position on the chart, just like they do in other countries ...
Well, we know that Shanners would have got a position anywhere in the organisation chart, but the pond suspects "Ned" will have to work harder to move from foot man to door mat ...
And so to a modern reptile tragedy, unfolding in real time before our eyes.
Poor Polonius, a sad and forlorn figure, valiantly reminding us that right-wing extremism isn't the only threat ...
There seemed to be some mixed messaging going on here as the pond scanned the full to overflowing intertubes …
Left-wing Islamic terrorists? How could the pond have forgotten so soon?
Well an infallible Pope is always worth a repeat, but before we get on to the dull, predictable and tedious attempt by Polonius to deflect away from right wing terrorism, please allow the pond to take a trip down memory lane to a few days ago, when Polonius was showing off his case of obsessive compulsion ABC Plyushkin disease, wherein he collects everything he can that does the ABC down ...
In that case, it was an IPA poll, so say no more, though some might find it amusing that Polonius thinks the ABC is out of touch with ordinary dinkums.
Where on earth does that leave Polonius, in his ivory Sydney Institute tower, and his tedious suits, and his boring, desiccated, right wing air of an undertaker?
Never mind, further down the page came this sad note …and why is it sad? Well in the guise that he's pretending he's a dog, Polonius refers to himself in the third person! And the pond thought it had identity issues ...
Fuck, that third person stuff is deeply weird … but punters can take a bet that the obsessive compulsive desire to report on IPA polls about the ABC will increase tenfold for the rest of the year …
And so to downplaying that idle talk of a right-wing terrorist threat, because our Polonius wants to prattle about rising foreign interference, which is much more interesting than crazed right wingers, seeing as how they might be confused with members of the government or the Sydney Institute or the IPA, or scribblers for the lizard Oz ...
Ah yes, ASIO has had the matter in hand, and all is well, in much the same way as ASIS kept those wretched East Timorese on the straight and narrow in negotiations.
But already the pond had started to nod off, and felt the need for a cartoon ...
That's better, because the pond knew that Polonius was warming up for one of his notorious history lessons …
What? No mention of Francis De Groot, the New Guard, the fascists in Lawrence's Kangaroo, and the down under fascists who surrounded BA Santamaria and worshipped Franco?
Yeah, go onion muncher, go Polonius, go Catholic church, and go Franco, get those commie swine doing down Jesus, piercing his heart with bullets …and can we have a few Nazi planes to help out? Just asking for an onion munching friend ...
Phew, the pond needs a cartoon, a smiley one ...
And so to the final gobbet for Polonius … and the distraction from any talk of those right-wing folk ...
Job done, distraction complete, right wing threat undermined and tossed in bin.
And now, since Polonius likes to boast about how he foresaw the coming of the Donald, and seems quite happy the Donald has landed, a few more cartoons ...
What, Ned, so good government starts today?
ReplyDeleteWell yesterday would have been too early and tomorrow would be too late: good government, in fading reptile eyes, always begins today, Merc.
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDelete“Fiery the angels fell, Deep thunder roll'd around their shores, Burning with the fires of Orc.”
Roy Batty misquoting William Blake in Blade Runner.
Nice to see that “Ned” was able to pull up some independent economic modelling from Deloitte Access Economics indicating that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
I do wonder though if Deloitte Access Economics has any relationship with a certain Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu who appear to be making a motza from Government contracts.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/deloitte-s-government-business-grows-by-179-per-cent-in-five-years-20180927-p506i8.html
In any case I’m sure the rigorous modelling was carried without any thought of fear or favour.
DiddyWrote
The EDITOR-AT-LARGE (wonder what you have to do to have that so-important title in UPPER CASE?) must be working with a new keyboard - to which 'the computer guy' has not fitted an app essential to those composing material for limited news. In citing Deloitte Access he has included amongst the 'four great hits to national income' something called 'the income fall in the GFC over 2009-10'.
ReplyDeleteSo his keyboard, instead of setting off visual and audible alarms when he entered 'GFC', has accepted it. Often happens with new IT systems - they don't automatically carry over the cautions of the previous system, including the one that said something like 'GFC - term not to be used in any context other than by Economic Editors disparaging economists who are not paid by this organisation. This organisation does not recognise that there was any perturbation in the world market economy around 2007-8. Opinion writers are authorised to make passing remarks of the form 'crazy solutions to a non-existent problem, like cheques from the Government, school assembly halls and pink batts.' but not to speculate on any event that might have justified such actions.'
Other Anonymous
Oh I dunno, OA, I really enjoyed my crazy solution cheque from the Gang of Four back then.
DeleteWill we see the like of the Labor 'Gang of Four' ever again ?
And - those cheques ARRIVED. Conversation around our (very rural) area now seems to be taken up with 'have you heard about your application for drought or fire support? - then moves on to 'has anyone heard of anybody seeing any actual money from all those funds that were announced every week - no? anyone?'
DeleteOther Anonymous
You betcha they arrived, and I enjoyed spending mine as indeed, to help stimulate the economy, I was supposed to.
DeleteBut otherwise, funds from governments or public charities ? Whoever heard of such a thing ? Who has a legally enforceable role in ensuring that at least some of the money is distributed in a timely fashion ?
How is this time any different from previous times for which some people are still waiting for their "handout" ?
Ah well we all remember when Access Economics - headed by Chris Richardson - was Australia's prime homegrown neoliberal consulting organisation. Never ever told a Liberal government anything it didn't want to hear. And since the Deloitte-Touche-Tohmatsu takeover - disguised as a "merger" of course - it has continued in that role.
ReplyDeleteSo of course any "modelling" by them is fair and honest and usually quite "mistaken".
While Dorothy has moved on - sacrificing part of her Sunday for us, by reading the Dame Slap contribution (for which we are, ever, grateful) my source has sent me some amusing detail, from the front page - a contribution from another Shanahan (well, we know there are a few of them) and David Tanner. No titles, but apparently it is Exclusive.
DeleteIt says 'Just as in 2004, when John Howard backed forestry in Tasmania to shore up two seats on the island and got a huge boost on the mainland because he was protecting jobs, the Coalition's pro-coal campaign in Queensland last year spread to mining communities around Australia.'
It might have protected at least one job - that of John Winston Howard - but do they really want to remind readers of that bit of populism? Yes, yes, there were big trucks sounding horns, but - employment in the statistical category 'Forestry' for Tasmania has declined since that day. By the 2016 census it was one third of numbers for 2004. Sound numbers since then are difficult to find, because the discussion suggests it has become a bit like audited circulation of newspapers - forestry businesses are anxious that the public not find out what a small employer forestry is now.
To be fair, none of this was reflected in any 'economic consulting' for that, or succeeding, Liberal governments.
Other Anonymous
Ah yes, but just think, OA, how 'Forestry' employment in Tasmania would be even fewer now if Honest Johnny hadn't run his protection racket. That 'forestry' is an industry that consumes its raw product way faster than that product can regrow should now be somewhat obvious ... but then hoi polloi seriously believe that Liberals know best how to run the economy.
DeleteBy the way, have you (anybody) noticed that the word 'fewer' has almost disappeared from English now: people use 'less' and 'lesser' for everything. I was taught that few and fewer applied to small numbers and/or integer variables whereas less/lesser applied to large numbers and/or continuous (real number) variables. So I might have less money because I've got fewer banknotes.
Like 'continual' applies to things that occur in discrete instances, and 'continuous' to ongoing things; eg a train operates continuously but stops at stations continually.
GB - yes, have noticed that with 'fewer', but, in fairness to DP, whose site this is, I should not risk hijacking it with too much side commentary on solecisms and barbarisms, even if they were restricted to examples from the limited news publications.
DeleteOn the mathematics of forestry, I find it interesting that although Colin Whitcomb Clark explained (45 years ago) in his 'Mathematical Bioeconomics' that the yield equations that generations of foresters have been taught actually breach some fundamental principles, that demonstration was largely disregarded by forestry schools. I note that Colin produced a third edition just a few years back, but I have not read it to see any more recent comment on forestry methods. The forestry establishment gets by by splashing 'sustainable', and 'stewardship' across its PR publications, so needs no real science.
Other Anonymous
You are a treasure trove and general liberator of things I know nothing about - never heard of Colin Whitcomb Clark until now.
DeleteWouldn't worry to much about hijacking the site though; DP, as you might have noticed, is a sophisticated appreciator of things linguistic, so I think the 'disappearance' of fewer would interest her. In any case , she'll let us know if we transgress too far.
I see that Clark's main contribution was the bioeconomics of fishery, another area where humanity's rate of consumption far exceeds the rate of replenishment.
DeleteBut then good sense that counters wishful thinking - if indeed any actual "thinking" is involved - has never been in vogue, has it.
Not much worth noticing in Ned the Natterer's piece today as he continues his Cheshire Cat of the reptiles fadeaway. Just this, perhaps: Ned said: "The balance of private sector forecasters back a more expansive fiscal policy, warn of a more serious growth slowdown, believe gains from more Reserve Bank cash rate reductions are marginal and argue for productivity enhancing reforms."
ReplyDeleteApart from noting that "the balance of private sector forecasters" does not include Deloitte-Access, we have: "cash rate reductions are marginal." Is "marginal" how "negative" is spelled by neoliberals nowadays ?
But otherwise, way too sane and sensible for ScottyfromMarketing - he'll stick to his own pentecostal nonsense and Frydenberg doesn't understand any of it anyway.
But now, onto the Bloody Awful Saint Mary. Polonius says of B A Santamaria that: "Yet if his life was the failure he often protested it was, it was a magnificent failure that changed and improved our country and hundreds, if not thousands, of its leaders."
Can anybody point to even a single small way in which anything done by Santamaria "changed and improved our country" ? No ? Ok then, how about providing even a single name of the "hundreds, if not thousands", of its leaders who were "changed and improved". No ?
The thing is that the wingnuts and reptiles simply have no idea why Santamaria called his life a failure. So just maybe they have never heard of nor read any of the words of David McKnight who, in The Monthly, put it this way:
"Santamaria's later demoralisation was not due solely to the selfishness promoted by economic liberalism. From the '70s, the Catholic Church in Australia was undergoing a renewal - as he saw it, a degeneration - which horrified him. For many years, Santamaria organised his large, sympathetic cohort of priests and church-goers to resist this tide and attack his enemies. At the heart of his commitment was his faith. Yet in 1990, he said in a letter that "my retention of Catholic belief ... is a constant struggle over an innate scepticism.""
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2007/april/1298352928/david-mcknight/resisting-tide
But then, I wouldn't expect that any of the Munchers, Bromancers or Polonius's of this world would understand that.