In which the pond has a super time with the Caterist, the Killer and the Major (who didn't walk into a bar together, but shared space in the lizard Oz this day) ...

 

Before beginning the proceedings, the pond would like to pay tribute to a correspondent''s link to Pearls and Irritations, and another correspondent's link to the crisis in Trove funding, also noted in The Conversation.

In another life, far removed from the reptiles, the pond uses Trove on an almost daily basis, and hopes that what's happening is a funding stakes game of bluff poker, because otherwise the pond is going to turn almost reptilian in its attitude to the federal government and the NLA.

And a correspondent contributed a most excellent joke via The Shovel: The Voice is a "vanity project", says MP who added an extra S to her name, to which might be added This wasn't just vanity, but numerology, which makes a lot more sense. 

There was more, as usual from the pond's correspondents, but the pond must move on to the usual Monday reptile business, only to be astonished by this brazen parade in a reptile rotating fickle finger of fame device ...

What reptile thought that was a good idea? And there was the reptile graphics department in top Lego form offering those hideous solar panels and baleful windmills generating nightmares for the beefy boofhead with an office in Goulburn. 

Did some reptile think a bit of window dressing would be a good idea, a way of suggesting the reptiles were hip and down wit it? Would keeping the company of green power players turn the reptiles just a teeny weeny bit greenie?

The pond was vastly relieved to see that the Caterist was also out and about and this time the feeble graphics department got it right, with hideous threatening Satanic windmills as the right way to start off the quarry flood water whisperer's piece ...

Meanwhile, speaking of Bowen, on that other reptile planet ...

The pond would have none of that sort of nonsense. It was time to step and return to listening to the deepest fears of the quarry flood waters whisperer, and his Satanic windmill nightmares ...

Meanwhile on another reptile planet, there was idle blather about a higher purpose ...

Back to the government cash in the paw man for talk about lower purposes ...

Ah, the man from Kirribilli talking of the idle rich on the north shore, but did any of them have a dinkum decent defamation payment to sort out?

The pond couldn't help but notice that the graphics department had resorted to a canary yellow snap with an unflattering look as a way to break up the quarry flood water whisperer's piece, and luckily on another reptile planet, there was help to hand with fashion advice ...

And with all that, there was just one gobbet to go from the professional climate science denialist, living high on the hog with a never-ending supply of federal government grants ...

Ah the reptiles had just the right contribution to add to help the Caterist with that final outburst ...

And so to see what else, or who else, was out and about this day ...

What a huge relief. The reptiles seem to have given up vocalising about the voice for the moment, but that meant that a super time could be had by all, not least simplistic 'here no conflict of interest' Simon ...

Tempting as time with simple Simon saying is, how could the pond resist Killer sorting it all out in a super way?

The one thing that the pond knows from its American friends is that you don't want to be old and poor in the United States, not with the GOP breathing down the neck. 

For a bit of comedy, correspondents might like to duck away from the Killer to read in the New Daily from back in 2020 ... US fund manager wants Australian-style super as solution to America’s widening inequality.

Well they would run that, wouldn't they, confirming Killer's worst fears, and barely leaving time for the pond to recycle a New Yorker joke ...

Back to Killer for another quick problem-solving gobbet ...

Meanwhile on another planet back in that ancient 2020 report in pdf form ... a dire threat of socialism on the prowl...

...If we are to avoid continued political risk and disharmony which create serious risks to the sustainability of the capitalist system, we need to find a way for those left behind to participate to a greater extent in capitalism, broadly defined. This is an important problem that must be addressed, and it is incumbent upon all of us, particularly those of us who are the greatest beneficiaries of the system, to find a potential solution.

Despite its faults, we are strongly of the view that, while far from perfect, capitalism is by far the best system for maximizing the size of the economic pie. One of the principal problems with capitalism, particularly as it has functioned over the last several decades, however, is that wage growth has not kept pace with long-term wealth creation, which has disproportionately favored the wealthy and the upper middle class. This likely can be attributed to the higher after-tax returns generated by investment assets compared with wage growth over the same period. Without funds to invest for retirement – particularly after the housing crash destroyed many Americans’ only other source of long-term wealth creation – one has almost no hope to build wealth for retirement, or to give the next generation a head’s start. In sum, the American Dream has become a disappointment or worse for too many.

If capitalism continues to leave behind most Americans as the growth in wages has not come close to the more tax-efficient compound growth that has been achieved by investing in the stock market, more and more Americans will seek changes, potentially radical ones, to the current system, or seek an alternative system. Like those who rent rather than own their homes and thereby have no love lost for their landlords, Americans that have no ownership in the success of capitalism, and who are suffering economically, are more motivated to turn toward Socialism or other alternatives.

One potential solution to the wealth inequality problem is to create a way for those with no investment assets to participate in the success of capitalism. We need a program that makes every American an owner of the compounding growth in value of corporate America. Compounded returns over time are indeed one of the great wonders of the world, and every day we wait to address this issue, the problem looms larger.

There are a number of potential solutions to this problem. Among them, the government could establish and fund investment accounts for every child born in America. The funds could be invested in zero-cost equity index funds, be prohibited from withdrawal until retirement, and could compound tax free for 65 years. At historical rates of equity returns of 8% per annum, a $6,750 at birth retirement account - which would cost $26 billion annually based on the average number of children born in the U.S. each year - would provide retirement assets of more than $1 million at age 65.

Dream on bigly.

The pond offers it only as an alternative to the spectacle of Killer kitted out in rose-coloured spectacles ...

Once again the pond is no match for the splendid visual offerings of the lizard Oz's graphics department, with that wonderful snap of an aged Australian indulging in a green slushy ... though it did remind the pond to ask whatever happened to that serve of Oreo on a Monday?

Okay, it's no match for the lizard Oz graphics department, and anyway Killer is now winding down ...

That parallel, powerful unelected government of Australia sadly doesn't include Chairman Rupert and his reptile flock, though how they yearn to run the show ...

And so to the Major, also having a super time. This offering is a tad excessive, an indulgence a bit like someone with 401(k) in hand not having to fret about the stockmarket or other distractions intended only for the idle rich, but how could the pond ignore the Major?

Ah, the inimitable Major, always in the third person, "this newspaper was told", and even more bizarrely quoting that bloody socialist in the SMH ...

Clearly the Major was on a roll ...

The Major quoting the Killer, who perhaps would love to quote the Major, and yet there in the tree killer edition came the alarming news that a small change to only 36,000 people would produce an economic catastrophe that would make armageddon seem like a tea party ...

We'll all be rooned, or at least overcooked, like a lobster in the pot ...

The pond had to bypass the sight of the reptiles pumping up the Dominator's chances, and get on with the Major, alert to those bloody industry super funds ...

And that's why the pond stays with the Major. Who else could advise the pond that compound interest is into swinging? Now stay tuned for Bernie telling "this masthead" ...

The pond has had a super time with the Major, but now there's just time for a last short withdrawal ...

The pond will leave others to feast on the Major's thinking, and will turn to super cartoon from the immortal Rowe for a closer ... though perhaps he should have substituted contented reptiles for fat cats doing a Lidia ...