First there was Troy wanting to do a Guy Fawkes and blow up the Canberra swamp, and then the reptile reactions to the impending Santa budget ranged from the tepid to the disdainful …
Shanners was out of the gate early, but he was already looking to the next poll …
The result was a bit of a spakfilla column …
So it's more the Last Budget, or if you will, the Last Picture Show …
And so it's not the budget, but election fever, that's gripping the reptiles, and promises many columns to come …
Meanwhile, Dame Groan was in eight fits of tedium …as if keeping the company of a first class clown was somehow beneath her dignity ...
Washing up more important?
ScoMo boring and full of slogans and factoids? Head banging all round?
By golly if Troy the Guy is looking for a comrade, Dame Groan might just fill the bill …
Such alienation, but Dame Groan is surely mistaken on the migrant matter. Our man, the mutton Dutton, is on the case …
There you go, good clean Xian growth taken care of … now surely there can't be any more complaints?
Dearie me, such suffering, and at this point, the pond felt the need to triple down and turn the day into a budget marathon.
No doubt weaklings have already dropped like flies, but the oscillating fan called, and he too was compelled by poll matters … though it took the pond a little while to identify the strange-looking uncle on the right in the photo below that kicked off proceedings ...
Ah, the onion muncher … always turning up, though this time he's been reduced to a small coterie, and the reptiles - having decided that the fan's piece needed some photos - produced a snap of a cheerful ScoMo - boring factoid laden wretch that he is - rather than feature the onion muncher ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, did the oscillating fan just refer to the Bolter and the rest of them on Sky TV as an echo chamber?
First they blew up Canberra, and then they came for Sky?
And the fan isn't far from Dame Groan with his talk of myth-making. Is it all a lie? Well that's the right time to produce a snap of Comrade Bill ...
Ah, that's right, that kindly uncle was actually spreading rumours about Santa Claus, as if she'd come down from the North Pole, and suddenly in a trans fit, turned into ScoMo … as if this Santa figure could possibly match the mutton Dutton, keen to bribe the arriving farmers with much welcoming largesse …
Well for anyone wondering how much more might be endured, there was just one last oscillating fan gobbet to go …full of speculation and a hope of wars to come ...
Stark contrasts?
Is it possible to have stark contrasts between assorted forms of jelly?
Well, the pond never thought it would join Dame Groan, but there's washing up to be done tonight, and by golly the pond will be doing it … and then it will be looking forward to the assessment of the budget by the onion muncher …
Yes, there's the great budget meltdown of 2014 that lingers like a head-banging factoid in the onion muncher's mind, and the thirst for revenge lingers on and on ...
It's likely we won't even have to break the encasing glass so thoughtfully placed around the onion muncher this day by the caring Rowe, with more Rowe here ...
"Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 [pounds] 19 [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery."
ReplyDeleteOscillantis meum fan: "And what about polls that suggest voters want greater government spending rather than personal tax cuts ?"
"Suggest" ? They only "suggest" ? Every single time that I have seen this matter polled, "voters" are quite clear as to wanting sensibly targetted (ie life enhancing) government spending. But this is the precise time that pollies go all Burkeian on us, and refuse to surrender their own ignorant judgement to our clearly stated sensible desires and wants. And then, of course, we vote for them yet again.
Judie Groan cliams that she has "worked as a professional economist for more than 40 years"
ReplyDeleteNow apart from indicating, to my simple mind, that the entry qualifications for being a "professional economist" are minimal, it also caused me to seek out the advice given by another professional economist, Simon Wren-Lewis. I thought we might keep his advice handy in order to be able to intelligently review what the Groan has to say after the budget has been released:
How to spot fraudulent economic arguments: an example from Lexit
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com.au/2018/05/how-to-spot-fraudulent-economic.html
How to be aware that you may be reading a piece of political persuasion rather than serious analysis.
The first sign that the wool is being pulled over your eyes is wildly exaggerating your opponents case. It is so much easier to attack a straw man.
A second sign of a fraudulent argument is to focus on a single study that supports what you want to say, and ignore all the rest.
This leads to a third tactic: tar academic work that goes against what you say with some broad assertions that have only a grain of truth.
Another tactic that if you see being employed you should start to worry is to impugn the motives of your opponents.
The fifth is less obvious to the non-expert, which is to inconsistently use lots of broad brush statistics that do not get to the heart of the issue, or which are problematic for other reasons.