Sssh, please don't mention the Donald's taxes, we're down under with the wrascally wreptiles ...

The pond supposes it should be startled, shocked, surprised, at the way that the reptiles have managed to disappear the NY Times' story about the Donald and his taxes. The reptiles have long maintained that they're something of a broadsheet national newspaper of record, but their ability to disappear things means that they're more a Pravda paper of record than the real thing.

Everywhere else the story has been at least given some coverage, cartoonists have run wild, speculation as to what else the Times has on the Donald has been rampant, as if what they've already dug up wasn't enough to go on with. But the reptiles? Nada, zip, zilch, nil, nihil, nowt, nix, not a dicky bird, sweet Fanny adams, zero ...

Still, the pond always lives in hope, and so at last when the bromancer turned his attention to the upcoming debate, the pond hoped that at last some small attention would be paid ...

 

 

Of course the debate will have been and gone early this day, so the bromancer is a bit like an ancient oldie who wandered down late in the morning to talk about the already opened Xmas presents ...

 

Well, it was fine for the reptiles to put Joe in the picture, but surely there would have been better angles to celebrate?

 

Well there's only one more bromancer gobbet to go, let's see if those pesky taxes cop at least a line ...

 

Who wins? The reptiles win. Not a word about taxes or the Donald as a businessman, just the usual waffle about Biden's verbal gaffes, because you know, the Donald never does gaffes and always tells the truth ...

 

And so to a disinterested piece where the scribbler has no skin in the game at all, is completely disinterested, in the sense of being unbiased, unprejudiced, impartial, neutral and non-partisan ...

 

Takeaway? Now there's a man who knows how to beguile the Donald ... though the pond has absolutely no idea why they're doing this grey-out, not when the disinterested one begins with "the growing consensus is that Australia eventually will ditch its largest and most reliable source of energy, coal ..."

Wash out your mouth sir. Why the bromancer explained on the reptile pages, and so in the pond, only a few days ago, how coal, dinkum, clean, innocent, pure Oz coal, was still all the go ... and anyway, most people have done the sums and discovered that nuclear energy is the most expensive option doing the rounds. You wouldn't be dissing coal to sell uranium would you?

 

Oh if the Finns reckon it's okay, great, we can ship all our shit there, and if something happens to the ship, who cares, the ocean's a mighty big place, and given its ability to handle all that plastic, it can probably take a little nuke shit ...

But why this talk of nukes? Is there a sting in the tail? Skin in the game? A hare on the loose?

 

Ah say no more, when the interests become obvious, the perceptions of the facts becomes obvious too ...

And so to the bonus for the day, and the pond had held out hope that Dame Slap would mount a strenuous defence of the Donald, and assault the NY Times, she being a MAGA cap wearer and all, but what do you know, she and the Swiss bank account man squared off over comrade Dan ...

The pond can't begin to explain how batshit bored the pond becomes these days when the reptiles get going on comrade Dan ...

Besides, if it wants an exercise in tedium and ennui, it will always first turn to nattering "Ned", the nonpareil master of the reptile art ...

 

Well he's not going to mention the Donald's taxes, is he, he's just going to rabbit on endlessly about how the rich need their tax break, and how deeply unfair tax breaks are deeply fair, because how the rich suffer, and he'll do it at tedious length by citing the thoughts of others ... but please, never mind, the pond is well aware of its prime duty, which is to bore stray readers silly ...

 

Sweet Jesus, not only can the man bore, what a way to twist an argument. If the media coverage takes for granted that the tax cuts are deeply unfair, what of the actual perpetrators of the unfairness? What of SloMo and Josh? Having devised them, and voted for them, how can they backtrack now? Easily if they wanted to, just as they've backtracked on the NBN, and coal, and gone full gaseousness, and stacks of other stuff ...

Well the pond didn't guarantee logic or reason would accompany the existential sense of alienated 'being or nothing' ennui, so on we plunge ...

 

Around that talk of "progressivity", the pond began to have deep regrets, and a feeling of guilt, especially as "Ned" resorted to his favourite trick to fill up a column, which is to quote someone else at great and tedious length ...

Perhaps a couple of cartoons in recompense, ones with a "progressivity" theme?

 

 

Ah, that's better, now back to "Ned" recycling Deloitte's figures explaining how the rich are doing all the heavy lifting, and all that talk of unfairness is entirely unfair, because those wondrous tax cuts are entirely fair to the rich...

 

Of course in the old days there would have been talk of deficits and such like nonsense ... and some, as John Quiggin in March here, would have talked of repairing the fiscal effects ...

I was asked by a journalist about the long-term fiscal effects of the government response to the crisis. Here’s what I said.
 In simple accounting terms the cost of the intervention so far can mostly be offset simply by cancelling the Stage 3 tax cuts legislated in advance for 2024-25 (this also happened when the Keating Labor government legislated for future tax cuts in the 1990s). These are projected to cost $95 billion over the five years to 2029-30
so the saving would easily offset the crisis intervention over 10 years.
That’s assuming that the crisis ends quickly and everything returns to the way it was before. I think we will end up with a substantially larger role for government, and therefore a permanent increase in the public sector share of national income, which means higher taxes.

Well it didn't go away quickly, and everything will take a long time to return to the way it was before, and there likely will be a substantially larger role for government, and yet in reptile la la land, all that's talked about is the way that the rich need their cash now ... 

Luckily the infallible Pope was on hand to lighten proceedings, and the pond wanted to spare a thought, and perhaps spare another penny for the rich ...

 

Strange as it might seem after that visit to the swamp dwellers, even Deloitte can't sustain the reptile dream of priming the economy with the rich going on a spending spree ...

 

Well that's enough of "Ned" recycling Deloitte and Richardson, and welcoming the tax cuts with open arms, no matter that they're deeply unfair, because who cares about deficits these days and because what we need is more Donaldism down under. And speaking of the Donald and taxes, which the reptiles apparently never do, why not wrap the day up with the usual immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here ...