It seemed like another sign of the lizard Oz's sharp swerve to the hard left, what with Dame Slap lining up alongside the Bolter to deliver Malware's Liberals a round of hard slaps to the chops ...
What's left for comrade Bill to do, whither the pond as it subsides into complete irrelevance?
Of course these Libs have missed the point - let us not discuss the NBN yet again - but now the pond must be little missy echo to stern Dame Slap?
Naturally there's a little more than meets the eye, and a wondrous example of Dame Slap hypocrisy, but for that the pond needs the whole dose of Dame Slap fury ...
Truly wondrous to read, this talk of illiberal forms of nanny-statism, apparently the behaviour of paternalistic, far-left greenies ...
But where was Dame Slap when the ABC was running Welfare quarantine on the cards for thousands of Queenslanders in Wide Bay Region ...
Well we know where the greenies were and what they thought ...
The Government wants to continue the rollout of this program to new sites, they have legislation before the Parliament. But it can be stopped if the legislation isn't supported in Parliament. If you don't support this approach you need to be telling politicians that.
At the moment the Labor party are saying that the card should not be rolled out nationally, but they support the card if a local community supports it. They supported the previous legalisation despite the lack of proper community consultation in Ceduna and the East Kimberley.
The Labor Party’s position will be key in blocking further legislation on the card.
The Greens urge you to phone or write to your local and federal members of Parliament, to tell them to say NO to this legisaltion. (sic, oh greenies, sic, fully sick).
You can find the details of the elected representatives in your area here. We strongly encourage you to get in touch with them. (here).
But no one much cares about hapless mugs reliant on welfare.
Punishing them and acting out the role of big paternalistic government is fine with that lot, because there's not much money in them for the blood sucking finance industry rorting people by way of rental and leasing deals ...
Punishing them and acting out the role of big paternalistic government is fine with that lot, because there's not much money in them for the blood sucking finance industry rorting people by way of rental and leasing deals ...
And as a result Dame Slap doesn't much mind that form of paternalism ... it's just when it comes to rorting consumer leases that it's a problem ...
Moral of the story? Paternalistic illiberalism is fine when it comes to people on welfare, but extremely dangerous when it comes to rorting consumers who make the mistake of entering into rental deals to get their paws on glittering consumer goods otherwise just out of reach ...
The pond has seen up close the mayhem those leasing deals can produce in those who can't afford it. And it's usually the poor, dropping a little bit down, and a lot more a week, and then the hammer eventually falls ... and the few consumer victories that result are as rare as a sense of economic reality in Dame Slap ...
A Victorian Mum of four has won a settlement of nearly $4000 after she took legal action against Flexirent Capital Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the ASX listed company FlexiGroup Limited.
Michelle Thompson (26) of Wonthaggi alleged that Flexirent failed to comply with its responsible lending obligations and entered into unjust contracts after it leased her products purchased at a Harvey Norman store.
Between March 2011 and January 2013, Thompson entered into four separate rental agreements (commonly known as ‘consumer leases’ or ‘rent-to-buy’ products). Although the items were only valued at $9,917.78, the total amount of the rental payable was over $18,500. Despite this, she did not have a right to keep the goods... (here in full)
What a scam, what an industry of scammers preying on the poor ...
Of course Dame Slap is on the side of Flexirent. What's the point of capitalism if you can't score a good rort, and how dangerous for that mum to score a win ... which is why governments have to spend much time and effort warning of the dangers ...
(here for the hot links and more warnings).
It's a bit like the mugs who fork out money for Christmas hampers, and pay in little sums what finally amounts to an exorbitant sum, only to end up with a half-arsed, cheapskate hamper that could have been bought for half the price if paid for upfront.
The pond knows the all too human reasons why they do it, and the pond also knows the all too human willingness to exploit the vulnerable and sell them expensive duds, dressed up as a form of fiscal benevolence, and blessed by the likes of Dame Slap, urging those who bought the snake oil just to drink it and shut up ...
The pond knows the all too human reasons why they do it, and the pond also knows the all too human willingness to exploit the vulnerable and sell them expensive duds, dressed up as a form of fiscal benevolence, and blessed by the likes of Dame Slap, urging those who bought the snake oil just to drink it and shut up ...
Is it any wonder that for serious commentary the pond always reverts to the Pope for some astute financial advice, with appropriate, expected, predictable and shameless government response, and with more papal insights here ...?
Dame S. "They understood that a system that taxes work and investments while subsidising non-work has an inherent flaw of discouraging work and investment and encouraging non-work."
ReplyDeleteYep, there's this very long and noisy queue of those overworked CEOs wanting to abandon their $millions annual salaries for the glorious freedom of non-work on the dole.
Why, Dame S. herself will surely soon become a living example by taking up the luxurious lifestyle of the encouraged non-worker. And hopefully all the other reptiles showing total solidarity with her.
The Dame's tone always reminds me of one of those street preachers. Climbing onto a box and declaiming loudly at passers-by, hands waving, spit flying this way & that.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit rich for people like the Dame to characterise themselves as champions of liberty or upholders of some sort of enlightenment tradition. Whenever she strays from grand, poorly defined notions back to the real world her views are remarkably mean-spirited & narrow. The unemployed & the gullible are to be left to their own devices - government obviously exists for the protection & advancement of the privileged.
If I was passing that soap box I might be tempted to say "fuck off".
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteWith economic growth stagnant and interest rates low it is difficult for the hard working financial sector to make a healthy profit.
At times like this it becomes necessary to look for more creative ways to make a buck and what business model looks like it could reap a big return, why the ancient practise of being a loan shark.
Find the poor mugs with bad credit ratings and lend them money at exorbitant rates of return. Sure some will renege but government can help out in making them cough up and anyway those that descend into a spiral of debt will have delivered vast profits before the end.
Payday loans and hire purchase deals are where the savvy financial service lenders are making the big cash. So much money they can drop off some as political donations to their favourite party and get Dame Slap to write glowing testimonials for them.
"Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. " - Karl Marx
DiddyWrote
Ah, DW, once upon a much more innocent time, we had such wonders as 'hire purchase', a form of 'deposit and installments' way of allowing the poorer people to acquire useful things (eg refrigerators and washing machines - or even useful little things such as electric jugs and black&white tv sets). It was also known as 'time payment' or 'buying on the never never' (that being how long it might take to pay off a fridge). It was something invented by the Pommies back in the 1800s, but found its way all around the 'Anglo' world.
DeleteSee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hire_purchase
Now I'm not sure just what killed off the HP golden goose in Australia - yes, there still is HP to be had but nowhere near the level of it back when I delivered the Melbourne Argus on my morning paper round. It may have been the seduction of the universal Bankcard - remember them ? Basically issued to every bank customer regardless of credit worthiness. If you think about it, a Bankcard provides a 'lease service' not unlike those praised by Planet Janet, except that you did buy and own the goods and if you couldn't pay off your Bankcard, it was up to the banks to sort things out.
But then, you see, every species - not only homo sapiens sapiens - has its thieves and cheats and grifters. [See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_(biology) ]
Though most species simply don't have the capacity to continually invent or vary their ways of cheating and grifting. Not like the 'lease companies' that our very own low class grifter, Dame Slap, so enthusiastically praises.
Oh it's such fun being a member of such a criminally inventive species as hss, isn't it. Especially when we have such as Dame Slap to lecture us about our need to revere our criminal class.