The lizard Oz outdid itself this day, with this awesome juxtaposition at the top of the digital page …
Never mind that back in the day European colonials introduced diseases all over the world that did considerable damage to indigenous populations (''damage" is reptile speak for mass deaths) … instead just marvel at the cartoon ...
All thoughts of the cult master Lobbecke were swept from the pond's mind, by the way that the Leak hadn't leaked that far from the old tree, and the entranced pond was transported back to the good old days of The Bulletin in 1895 ...
The pond wondered if, in these troubled times, the reptiles gathered in the parlour around the upright piano, and with one hand caressing the aspidistra on the what not, joined in a jolly family song ...
But enough of the good old days … let us now turn to the meat for the day, and is there any better meat than that supplied by Angus "pure beef mince" Taylor?
Contributor? The pond had thought he was actually a taxpayer-funded MP, who was supposed to contribute his thoughts directly to the Australian people, rather than hide behind a reptile paywall, but given the way he's been out and about of late, perhaps it's understandable why he'd prefer to lurk in Murdochian HQ, where nary a cross word will be said to him, and certainly not of the kind to be found in the Graudian and Nine ...
Frankly the pond couldn't imagine beefy Angus delivering a boo to a goose, let alone energy security ...
Yes, yes, no doubt it's a great idea to buy oil cheap and then store it at vast ongoing expense on American soil, but what about those other matters, including that one here? You know, the splitting of the hairs on the cow ...
In the old days, there might have been jokes about Angus being economical with the truth, but the pond prefers an even older approach.
When confronted with an egregious bald-faced liar, why not say so? But please, let us enjoy your splendid plans and incisive thinking, as detailed here …
Humble apologies, the pond had intended to run another gobbet of distilled minced beef ...
Why not just stick to dinkum clean Oz coal, old chum? Buy cheap and then pay a motza for storage far across the ocean? Why you'd make more sense pretending an invisible document had all the reality of Santa Clause ...
But is it possible to leave the preening, boasting pure Angus beef there? Surely not, surely we should visit the Graudian here …with the bureaucrats finally failing in their heroic mission to prevent the truth, at least partially, coming out ...
Sack him? He's about as good as they've got, the lying, mendacious fraud ...
And with all that done and dusted, the pond knows that there is an insatiable appetite for reptile fodder, and who better as a makeweight than good old Henry, ready to fix the hole in the capitalist bucket ...
Suddenly it's a 'louse'? It's a thing of which we dare not speak the name? And how about a snap of long-forgotten comrade Bill to remind us that the reptiles never forget … as our Henry travels back in time to lousy days ...
How they love Stalin and Lenin and all that … what a nice distraction it makes from the achievements of Fox News …
Never mind, our Henry has something important on his mind. Please, long absent lord, whatever you do, spare the rich. Deliver them from taxes ...
Indeed, indeed, won't someone think of the long suffering rich? Must only Henry trumpet their cause?
They've suffered so much, and each day the pond sheds a tear at the pity of it all. Up against the entitled gig economy contractor, the humble rich do so much for the country, and are never given proper credit.
Why the next thing you know, the idle poor, the scallywags and the scumbags, will be thinking they're entitled, and don't understand the blessings showered down upon them by the Murdochians …
And so to a clever Henry variant, which will please students of the art of the billy goat butt.
Note his style in the next gobbet.
This is first to mock proposals deriving from immense old curiosity shops in a futile search for discarded treasures, but instead of using 'but', instead revert to a 'form of words', as in "to say that is not to dismiss the proposals entirely."
Frankly to say that, immediately made the pond dismiss the doddering old Henry entirely … but dammit, the pond loves a good rummage and the finding of discarded treasures in immense old curiosity shops and even Vinnies, and what fun it would be to dust off "tax the filthy rich" …
And now we really must endure the final gobbet of simplistic blather ...
Actually the pond wonders if the spread has been brought to a standstill. There's a little more to the world than Australia, or what our Henry dreams of in his limited imaginings and restricted world, and at some point, we will have to return to international travel and hotspots, and dealing with all that might be helped by the government having a little in its coffers… perhaps a tax on the rich might help this worthy cause?
And now back to the war on China and Twiggy, where the pond started this day, because the lizard Oz editorialist couldn't resist chipping in …in the usual righteous and pompous tones, when really it wanted to sound just like a Leak cartoon ...
Of course it all went pear-shaped awhile ago in relation to China…
Talk about fighting words from the deviant orientals.
How could the devious fiends treat pure clean dinkum Oz coal like that? And now the lizard Oz editorialist must step up to the plate to put them in their place...
Yes, noodle-sipping Twiggy, we know your game. Why you're just a lickspittle lackey for a foreign power, unlike the reptiles, devoted servants of an American corporation owned and run by foreigners.
Remember, we're at one with the Donald, and you, Twiggy, are a shocking man, and what an appalling suggestion about the Donald, who is doing such a fine job …
Now you, gentle reader, your dog, cat, the gatepost and the mailman might marvel at the lizard Oz telling business to stay out of politics, when the lizard Oz business is routinely in politics, and assorted reptiles over the years have explained to business how they must fund the coalition government, the IPA, and sundry other ventures … but that's part of the rich dose of irony the reptiles serve in their breakfast cereals on a daily basis, making them the pond restaurant of snap and crackle choice ...
Say what? The reptiles welcome the success of selling iron ore? And perhaps even fucking the planet with dinkum sweet pure clean Oz coal?
Oh well, never mind, the pond really didn't expect the reptiles to take on the Chinese in any meaningful way, not when they can mouth platitudes and keep on with the selling. They really are just sluts, who will flog their coal and iron ore and gas to anyone with a good line of credit ...
But what's that about standing for parliament?
He should do a Clive Palmer? Sweet long absent lord, and didn't that work out well?
But here the pond must apologise for its lack of insight and memory.
There's surely nothing like a studious businessman in charge of a large economy, and each day we can track the amazing progress made, in no small part thanks to the diligent work of the immortal Rowe, with more here …
Good morning Dorothy. Trust you kept warm as you sliced and diced this morning's Flagship, for our benefit It is a bit bleak across the estate today, so it seems that OA leads off again.
ReplyDeleteOn - our man Friday - the Henry.
The ‘webinar’ of Joseph Stiglitz and Wayne Swann yesterday (not, a f a I k, acknowledged in the Flagship) reminded some of us of the report by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, prepared in February 2008, for the then French President, on identifying indicators of economic performance.
They presented the essential problem in the inevitable executive summary - the bit that they expected some political leaders to read, or the advisors to other politicians to take extracts from. This was before Fox ‘News’ became the major briefing source for the President of the USA, so they did not add pictures, or three-word slogans for Hannity to proclaim.
Of course, it related to that other financial perturbation, that many commentators in Australia, and the USA, still claim did not happen, or, if it did, there is nothing we can learn from it, and it was, whooo 12 years ago. Just say ‘pink batts’ three times and it all disappears. Pink batts, roasted bats - it’s all bats, really.
Anyway -
‘time has come to adapt our system of measurement of economic activity to better reflect the structural changes which have characterized the evolution of modern economies. ….. the growing share of services and the production of increasingly complex products make the measurement of output and economic performance more difficult. …..Capturing quality change is a tremendous challenge, yet this is vital to measuring real income and real consumption.’
Although there were several other contributors, of the status of Kenneth Arrow and Daniel Kahneman, this seems not to have found a place on the Henry’s reading list, even though he had tenure at ENSAE in Paris around that time. (in the Wiki as ‘ENSAE ParisTech’)
Or, if it did make some impression on him, like so much of his earlier economic involvement, it has been put aside because the Chairman doesn’t sign cheques for columns that venture into such ariry-fairy speculations. If it ain’t ‘Austerity’ - with a capital ‘A’, and rhyming with 'reduce taxes' (reptile poetic licence) it ain’t worth printing.
Other Anonymous
Ignoring how much the British colonists acted just like SARS-CoV-2 in bringing disease and death to the native Australians and bypassing the nostalgia about the great days of the Australian Natives Association (ANA - which finally completely disappeared as recently as 2007, I think) we get to the core of the Angus "contribution": "...Australians have been well served and we continue to enjoy ample supply of electricity, gas and liquid fuel."
ReplyDeleteQue ? All those reptile and wingnut complaints about how vulnerable our electricity supply is and how it all fell apart in South Australia and how there will be frequent blackouts over summer and it's just another greeniey disaster - what happened to them ? And how we haven't got enough gas because we sell it all overseas and have to buy it back at greatly inflated cost ?
Did I just imagine all that ? But DP, when you say "He's about as good as they've got, the lying, mendacious fraud ...", surely you can't mean Golden Boy: "When Angus Taylor was elected to federal parliament in 2013 he was feted as a man to watch, a prime minister-in-waiting."
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/30/the-angus-taylor-story-from-the-liberalsgolden-boy-to-a-man-on-the-edge
Oh well, the Libs never seem to get that "prime minister-in-waiting" thing quite right, do they.
And so on to Holely Henry and his concerns for the survival of "louses". And didn't Henry provide us with a homely little account of 'Dear little Grandfather Lenin' and the wiping out of the typhus epidemic (where's Polonius when he's needed ?).
What a rousing story ... but never mind, because SARS-CoV-2 is much hardier and more adaptable than any old typhoid louse. Why it's gone off and mutated in Malaysia already:
Health D-G: ‘Very contagious’ mutation of coronavirus detected here
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/04/29/health-d-g-very-contagious-mutation-of-coronavirus-detected-here/1861449
So good to know. But now Henry is terribly worried what we might do to help right the economy. He really doesn't want ScottyfromHorizon to actually raise taxes: "... under the guise of budget repair, many of the proposals Bill Shorten took to the last election are resurfacing, even if in modified form, including restricting negative gearing, curbing refunds of franking credits and increases in capital gains taxes."
Well, we can't have that, can we; after having to tacitly admit that the Rudd Gang of Four, aided and abetted by Ken Henry, had actually got the response to the GFC right after all, now wouldn't be a real good time to admit that Bill had got it right too.
The LNP comprises a bunch of really terrible economic mismanagers, and they keep on getting voted in by a populace which knows no better.
Meantime, Henry was so impressed with the quality of his contribution, that he put a link up on 'Catallaxy', and waited for enthusiastic approval from the DWAGs.
DeleteEarly response was a gripe that it was behind a paywall (so much for the sanctity of the market) until a subscriber put up the text. Another contributor, taking up the 'louse' theme, added item that “Typhus has broken out in the leftist state of California.” which garnered a response 'That’s what happens when people defecate in the street.,'
That missed the point about the 'louse', and what is known from 5 centuries of study about epidemiology of typhus, but was consistent with the consensus on anything Californian, of this particular flock who claim to be libertarians.
Oh, and just for reference - although typhus is bacterial, and is one of those conditions that often kill more people in wars than guns do - there is still no commercially available vaccine. No doubt the Henry assumed his readers were familiar with the significance of the 'louse'.
Other Anonymous
Astonishing effort, far beyond the call of duty, to report in from the remote planet of Catallaxy. At least we now know they don't watch any Hollywood movies at all, for fear of catching visual typhus ...
DeleteAs in: California is full of contemptible or unpleasant persons ?
DeleteBut here's some praise for Henry from Nicholas Gruen: "A conversation with Henry is usually both exhilarating and depressing. Exhilarating because you find out lots of things – often at a quite fundamental level, that you were unaware of in the literature. Depressing because you go away with about five or six books to read, one or two of them pretty compulsory, all of which Henry’s read and (what’s more) remembered closely."
Now is that even remotely like the Holely Henry we know from loonpond ? At first I didn't think so, but then ... it's like watching Mastermind (or maybe even The Chase Australia): people saturated with knowledge of trivia, but can they reason intelligently. Mostly not, it seems.
As the 'Einstein' character in 'Insignificance' says to the 'Marilyn Monroe' character: "You know too much and understand too little."
So, was that praise from Nicholas Gruen, or just well camouflaged 'sarcasm' ?
GB - truly interesting how these exchanges meander around. I think the Henry did some good work early on. As you have gathered, my disappointment is that he has forsaken that for the Chairman’s pelf. To be charitable, I wonder sometimes if his meanderings, and investment in works of art, has left his retirement fund a bit light on. I have had colleagues who enjoyed the international postings and who, I know, were not able to build up a solid, if old-fashioned, superannuation in Australia.
DeleteOf the Gruens - I wonder about the father/son effect. In my paid existence, I was involved in areas in which Fred had generated some outstanding studies to guide policy. More importantly, he was that rare being - an economist whose advice governments followed, almost to the letter. Most initiatives with his name on them were successful. He will never get enough acknowledgement of the long-term benefit of the Whitlam tariff cut. In the sense of actually getting things done, he was one of the dismally few, truly influential economists, in this country.
I have heard Nicholas speak - which he does well. I have no doubt he is widely read, but he has been nowhere near as influential as his father. So he has become that ‘public intellectual’, throwing good ideas into the maelstrom, but, I suspect, with no expectation that any of them will come to fruition.
In that sense, his approval of the (earlier) Henry is valid, but neither of them is likely to be able to point to a masterstroke on the scale of an across-the-board tariff cut of 25%.
Other Anonymous
Fred was a Dunera boy, after all, and a very intelligent and highly motivated person. He was also there during the post-war period when change was on the move somewhat. It still took a serious political event - the coming of Whitlam - for Gruen to get his tariff cut through though.
DeleteStrangely, a quick google turned up a Fred Gruen contribution in JSTOR titled 'The 25% Tariff Cut; Was It a Mistake?' in the Australian Quarterly back in June 1975. I can only get a brief bit of it (can't login through a library), but I bet he finds that it definitely wasn't a mistake.
Nicholas had a somewhat easier path I'd say - apparently his first two degrees were law (at Melb. U) and history (at ANU). But he was, supposedly, a significant part of John Button's regime and especially the car plan, so I guess he wasn't entirely without influence and effect. He does make a good 'public intellectual' though, especially in Club Troppo and Mandarin.
Otherwise, I guess Henry had to have some achievements somewhere, sometime so I'll take your assurance that he actually "did some good work early on". But being the very casual would-be-diletante that I aspire to, I've never encountered any of it.
Before my muddled cranium contents forgets entirely, OA; about your colleagues and their 'superannuation'.
DeleteNow my recall, from the various years I spent as a Commonwealth pubserve (three separate stints, Naval Stores, Army and Health, ending in mid 1977), the Commonwealth PubServe had a very good contributory defined benefit retirement scheme based on your final salary level - about 65% or so I think - which for anybody on or above Class 8 was pretty good.
In fact I recall one chap back when I was with Naval Stores who got a significant promotion in his last year before retiring; he could either forego the extra pension that applied to his last year's salary level, or he could pay his contribution in full out of his last year's salary. He chose the latter and had a total take-home pay of about 50 quid for the whole year (it was a couple of years before we went $).
Maybe, however, your colleagues spent up while overseas and didn't acquire durable assets - eg a good house - and therefore had considerable after-retirement expenses. It wasn't unknown.
And along that line, I remember hearing a story about Jim Cairns after he'd left parliament that he cashed in his pension - after all, he was going to make a good living from selling his books, wasn't he ? - and then having to use his ex-Ministers air travel allowance from time to time so he could fly to Sydney and back and therefore get two in-flight meals for free. Dunno if it was true, but it sounded like Jimbo in his later years.
Were the Bard to assess the bucketman’s efforts, I fancy he might critique them thusly -
ReplyDeleteTo follow all that’s hollow, bland and shallow
Peek at his petty page from day to day
To the last syllable it’s some sort of crime,
And all he has to say sounds right to fools
Who praise this dunce’s words. Out, out, oaf know-all!
He’s but a waffling cipher, a dour plodder,
Who strikes and sweats for hours upon the keys
And yet his work is poor. Here is a tale
Penned by an idiot, full of cant and theory
Clarifying nothing.
I'm sure Henry would be flattered to have been found worthy of the attention of the "bard", Kez.
DeleteKez - sadly, that is right and appropriate (but so well done, thank you). Dorothy - aw shucks, but whizzing by planet Catallaxy is an entertainment, for days when the temperature across the estate does not get into double figures. An occasional treat, like visiting the circus, although this one has a much higher proportion of contortionists (philosophical and just plain verbal) than circuses I recall from last century. Swift would have found much good material on it.
DeleteOther Anonymous