In which the bromancer fears tanks yet again, there's a standard groaning, and the reformed, recovering feminist promises a good Trussing ...

 

With the bad news continuing in Ukraine - is there any shred of doubt left that Putin on the stink is a raging sociopath? - it was with relief that the pond turned to the bromancer to ensure the safety of the country.

The bromancer recently featured in the pond's correspondence section thanks to a diligent correspondent digging up https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/greg-sheridan-the-west-is-sinking-into-eccentric-unbelief/ - the pond loved the source and the header - but today there's a problem.

Tanks. The bromancer is always on about tanks, he's got a phobia as deep and as wide as Killer Creighton's fear of masks ...

Yes, there's a splendid artist's impression of a ship to start - how the pond misses its candle-powered put put in the bath - but there's also tanks!

The pond hates to distract from a serious matter, but it seems that elsewhere put puts used to be known as pop pops ... and there's still a thriving market ...

That's a dead ringer for the one the pond had in its bath each day ...

Enough already, the pond should be more diligent when attending lessons in reptile class, and get back to that crackers notion of tanks ... as the bromancer struggles to find good words to say about the liar from the Shire's mob ...

All good, and the immortal Rowe had a cartoon set in a sub with water sloshing and alerts sounding ...

But finally ... those cracker tanks...

Someone mentioned tanks, and it sent the bromancer right off into a Quadrant frenzy ...

Um, liking they're sorting out Ukraine? Strong words, a condemnation, a denunciation by the US and the UN, a word salad, while the sociopath lashes out? And if it's not missiles, it's tank warfare? Every night the pond catches some war porn and it's always bloody tanks ... 

And Sharma of the east is standing by to help with a plan involving trainer wheels, a bit like put put boats?

Now they need training? As opposed to some decent kit and some cash?

Never mind, the pond understands we're doomed and is just here for the dubious entertainment, and moving along, it's time for the pond's usual serve of a jolly good groaning ...

At this point the pond can hear somebody shrieking from the back row of the stalls, "Isn't there anything else to read on the pond?", and as it so happens the pond caught the keen Keane carrying on at Crikey with https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/10/10/santos-kevin-gallagher-zero-carbon-future/   (paywall)

Well it makes a change of pace from the groaning ... but shouldn't Crikey note that the groaning is coming from inside the reptile tent?

Never mind,  the pond must return to the Groaner in full stride, building to the usual inevitable conclusion...

Perhaps a deep breath and an infallible Pope before plunging on to the next gobbet, and the inevitable groaning conclusion?

Why infallible Pope, the answer is simple ... we must wander the wasteland in search of a good groaning, and not expect to find our better selves, but instead discover just a groaning and a lamenting about all those bloody renewables, when salvation is under our fossilised noses ...

Yes, yes, huzzah, good old coal, gas and nuking the planet win the day yet again ... and so to the pond's final outing, the bonus of an Oreo on a Tuesday.

Say what, didn't prattling Polonius whiz past on a Monday, still obsessed with the ABC ...

Eek, he did, he did, but that wasn't 37 minutes ago, that was yonks ago, and the pond turned a blind eye, because today the pond must serve up gruel disguised as an Oreo, because there'll be no more fancy biccies, the Oreo has caught a dose of the Truss ...

The bloody nanny state and never mind that thanks to Marina Hyde, the pond discovered the Moggie still had a nanny ...

Truss’s government is now too weak to implement its maddest plans and too ideological to implement its most sensible. Last night it emerged that the government has blocked a public information campaign to help people save money on energy – and, by extension, to conserve usage in the face of suggestions that rolling blackouts could be in the post for this winter.

Apparently Truss regarded it as too nannying, despite it having been drawn up by her own business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg (a 53-year-old who admittedly still has a nanny). One cabinet minister reportedly said “the public is smarter than you think”. Unfortunately, Liz Truss isn’t. If we do reach the blackout scenario, the failure to plan or use foresight will be blamed on Vladimir Putin.

Well it's alright for some to have a nanny while deploring nannying, so it's on with the Oreo nagging away about nannies ...

"Isn't there anything else to read on the pond?", the pond can hear some disgruntled loon yowling from the back row of the stalls, and no, there's not, just more of reformed, recovering recovering feminist doing a Truss ...

But those who want to step out of the tent could head off to the Graudian for 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/09/why-is-trickle-down-economics-still-with-us

Just so you know the source and the subject matter, and true, it was a grim read, starting out this way ...

Within weeks of taking office, Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, and her chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, proposed a radical new set of economic measures that echoed the trickle-down policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – heavy on tax cuts for the rich and deregulation.

Last Monday, after a backlash from investors, economists and members of his own party, Kwarteng reversed one of the proposals, deciding against abolishing the tax rate of 45% on the highest earners. But proposals for other tax cuts worth tens of billions of pounds remain intact, as the government insists it is on the right path.

What’s bizarre about this latest episode of trickle-down economics – the abiding faith on the political right that tax cuts and deregulation are good for an economy – is that this gonzo economic theory continues to live on, notwithstanding its repeated failures.

Ever since Reagan and Thatcher first tried them, trickle-down policies have exploded budget deficits and widened inequality. At best, they’ve temporarily increased consumer demand (the opposite of what’s needed during high inflation that Britain and much of the world are experiencing).

Reagan’s tax cuts and deregulation at the start of the 1980s were not responsible for America’s rapid growth through the late 1980s. His exorbitant spending (mostly on national defense) fueled a temporary boom that ended in a fierce recession. The Donald Trump White House’s tax cut never trickled down.

Yet the US never restored the highest marginal tax rates before Reagan, and deregulation – especially of financial markets – is a continuing legacy.

The result? From 1989 to 2019, typical working families in the United States saw negligible increases in their real (inflation-adjusted) incomes and wealth.

Over the same period, the wealthiest 1% of Americans became $29tn richer. The national debt exploded. And Wall Street’s takeover of the economy continued.

Meanwhile, and largely as a result, America has become more bitterly divided along the fissures of class and education. Trump didn’t cause this. He exploited it.

The situation in the UK after Thatcher has not been dramatically different.

But it helped the pond cope with its bonus Oreo serve, which turned into a good Thatchering as well as a Trussing ...

Good old Maggie, there's nothing like a reformed, recovering feminist and Marge getting together to dish it out to the nannies, except perhaps for a Wilcox and that bloody troll...

To be fair to the reformed, recovering Oreo, she wasn't the only one out and about bleating the usual stuff ...

She was just repeating her master's voice in a dull droning, worthy of a Stepford wife, but this final gobbet will do the pond for the day ... because there's nothing like a bromancer calling for much more spending on defence, and the lizard Oz editorialist demanding everyone live in penury to pay for his dreaming ...

And so on to a good Trussing, because that's what the country needs, and the pond thinks that the reptiles this day helped with the agenda, as summarised in fine gothic style by a riddling Riddell of the Graudian ...

Well the Groaner did the climate, and we've on course with the tax cuts, and now per the Oreo and the lizard Oz editorialist, it's on with the welfare cuts, but sorry, with Brexit you're on your own ... though no doubt the splendid free trade agreement down under has done wonders for both countries ...