Well that was an unfortunate headline and a most regrettable story ...
The pond can only explain this ratings aberration as a deep state conspiracy involving a massive amount of 'leets donning cardigans and dropping in for a squiz ...
Meanwhile, speaking of flogging a dead horse without sauce, indefatigable Sophie was at it again today, and was given a handsome splash for her pains ...
What valiant warrior she is, and the pond can boast it helped the reptile cause by not watching the ABC ... but at the time, the pond didn't watch any of the FTAs, so what use is the pond?
Luckily, there's no need for the pond to go there or brood about Sophie's crusade, because reptile projection is so routine it's hardly worth mentioning ...
As for the rest, the pond almost felt like declaring an 'anything but the reptiles' reading day, or more particularly anything but the reptiles on the budget day ...
There was a Marina Hyde to read, pouring a healthy dose of excrement on the Met in Yes, the Met police threw royal protesters into cells for no good reason – but at least they regret it.
And while the Tuckyo saga is rapidly fading from sight, the pond stays loyal and devoured the Graudian's Tucker Carlson says Roger Ailes would ‘never have put up’ with liberal attack on Fox News.
The story featured a variety of sources, but hand it to Media Matters, what a wall of sound and vision they've constructed ...
And if that wasn't enough, there was Will Saletan's lengthy piece for The Bulwark, The Corruption of Lindsey Graham A case study in the rise of authoritarianism.
No doubt it's all water off a corrupt, sleazy Ms Lindsey's back, and the pond looks forward to the GOP's new presidential campaign slogan, "vote one for sexual assault".
As for light reading, the pond is astonished to confess that it read Notes from Prince Harry's Ghostwriter in The New Yorker, and if anyone has a spare free article up their sleeve, they might find it a droll way to pass a few minutes ...
But eventually the pond had to turn to the reptiles, as is its duty, and observe the reaction and it seems there were two camps. First there was the camp of "king of wishful thinking", with that line dominating the tree killer edition ...
Then there was the "too good to be true" line, to be found down the page ...
The pond gave a deep sigh ... would "Ned's" natter be the baleful, boring as batshit destination for the pond? Was there no other choice?
That's it? Dame Slap doing the Lehrmann matter yet again? Automatic red card. And there was satanic "too good to be true" wishful thinker Jimbo himself, spreading the word behind a bloody Murdochian paywall.
And as for the rest? Well you could if truly desperate read "here no conflict of interest" simplistic Simon stimulating himself in his usual unseemly way.
Or you could do a double take at Paddy shedding a tear for mortgage folk, in some bizarre competition with renters ...
Or not ... because instead you could always take a look at the infallible Pope of the day ...
And so having delayed as long as possible, on with the inevitable ...
It turns out that the usually longwinded to the point of unseemly bloat "Ned" is also feeling a pinch, because after those three tedious catches, all that was left were a few short gobbets ...
Did "Ned" just end by quoting the Satanic Jimbo?
Memo to reptile editors, surely the appropriate ending came a paragraph earlier, "filled with risks", perhaps supplemented and complemented by "the sky is falling" and "we'll all be ruined before the year is out" ...
And that ends the pond's coverage of the reptile budget coverage.
Call it fatigue, call it a sulk, but the pond is done and dusted, and can't even summon the strength to mention $5M Gut-Punch: Jury Finds Trump Sexually Abused E. Jean Carroll.
Instead have a cartoon ...
And then there was the writers' strike and a threat that was so fiendish it was almost unimaginable ...
And let's not forget Clarence, still a good source for cartoonists ...
The reader can't be bothered with all the catches, and instead throws this Quiggin into the mix ...
ReplyDelete"Most importantly, the picture would change radically if the budget included a progressive reform of income tax scales, to take effect in 2025-26, after the next election. This would keep faith with the 2022 promise to implement Morrison’s stage three tax cuts on schedule, and let voters decide whether they want to make them permanent.
"We will see nothing like this. In rhetoric that smacks of deception, self-deception or both, the government has hyped up the increase in nominal interest payments as a major burden on the budget. This in turn is a reason for failing to meet basic needs (although $240 million could be found for a vanity stadium project in Hobart).
"The budget measures floated are the kind we might expect from a tired conservative government that has run out of ideas and is trying to buy some time. To see them as the leading measures in the first full budget of a new Labor government is truly depressing.
https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/looking-forward-to-the-budget-not
Now what does SNAFU actually stand for again ?
DeleteAnyway, Anony, I thought I'd contribute something about th economic qualifications of our Treasurer. From the Daily Mail via MSN:
Delete"Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers completed a doctorate in political science and international relations at Australian National University before entering the world of politics.
He wrote his doctoral thesis on Paul Keating's premiership, titled: 'Brawler statesman: Paul Keating and prime ministerial leadership in Australia'.
Despite being in charge of Australia's economy for the last year, Dr Chalmer, 45, does not have any qualifications in finance - but he is well-versed on the subject.
Before he was elected into Parliament in 2013, Dr Chalmers was the Deputy Chief of Staff and Principal Adviser to the Treasurer from 2007 to 2010 and published a book about the Global Financial Crisis in 2013.
Dr Chalmers served as the Shadow Treasurer from 2019 up to Labor election in May 2022. Tuesday night marked the delivery of his second Federal Budget."
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/what-is-treasurer-dr-jim-chalmers-a-doctor-of-budget-2023-handed-down/ar-AA1aW7S4
So that's all one needs to be put in charge of spending Australia's annual budget,
Labor has
ReplyDeleteStill
Not
Aware nor
Found
Us
Meaning they are wedged now as just a Liberal Lefty.
When may I vote on policies not political parties?
When we've got at least one 'party' that can tell the difference between 'policies' and 'identity politics', Anony. Which only Labor is apparently making any attempt to do.
DeleteSo that's answered your question, but can you answer mine: what do we have to do to re-educate the Australian electorate so that we don't get 9 (or more, or less) years of Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison leadership ever again. Nor 11 years of John Winston Howard either.
Though it is worth remembering that 3 of Howard's years are down to the ALP putting up Mark Latham as his opposition in 2004.
A government or so back, members of that body were exhorting us to be ‘agile’ - for the good of the country. Our ‘Ned’, sadly, is lacking in agility, because his writing has not kept up with the communications from LNP strategists (Yes, Virginia, there is an LNP strategist. Perhaps only one) on what the theme for the attack articles in anticipation of the budget should be.
ReplyDeleteThe theme on Sunday was enunciated by the Beefy Angus - that the budget had to combat inflation. When Speers asked how any government should do that, Beefy said that the important thing was that this government had to have a commitment to combatting inflation - and he doubted that they did.
This barely survived into Monday, so the theme shifted to ‘Lucky Jim’. This in response to whispers of a surplus - which had to be down to just dumb luck.
That got no more traction than ‘commitment to combat inflation’ so into Tuesday the theme shifted again to ‘Well, if there is a surplus, it will all be due to what our side did in government.’ That allowed spokesheads - particularly on ‘Sky’ - to do as Christopher Pyne used to do so convincingly - reel off factoid after factoid along the lines of ‘$2 million spent on a study for a new job centre at Ernawoopwoop, $127 thousand to the bowls club at Yankalilla, $6.7 million for a feasibility study on extracting moonbeams from cucumbers at Yankanother.’ Having Amanda Stoker, Susssssan Ley and Jane Hume chanting the same psalm did not make it any more convincing, but that seems to have become the settled theme for the supercoalition of LNP and Limited News. Except that Ned either did not get the memo in time - or had so committed to trying to transform leaden ‘luck’ into journalistic gold, that he was not inclined to reset his thinking.
And Ned has been outdone in sheer imagination by Littleproud, who is saying that, by not giving money for ‘infrastructure’ like Dungowan Dam (will not harp endlessly on Emu Swamp Dam - there are others which display an inclination to even more profligate spending) - this government is effectively levying a tax on farmers. Which displays Littleproud’s understanding of economics - not spending $billions on dams that would never, never pay for themselves, a treasurer is actually reducing tax on the rest of the country. But - agrarian socialism, right?
DP would doubtless be familiar with Dungowan, Chad, as it’s only a hop, skip and jump from Tamworth, in the way to Nundle. Anyone who has ever travelled in that area would know that already in existence just a few kilometres away from Dungowan is the Chaffey Dam (appropriately names after a bloke distinguished solely by having been the Country Party State MP for Tamworth for several decades). For most of its 45 or so years of existence the Chaffey Dam has been nowhere near full - indeed, for long periods it’s been dangerously low. So of _course_ the Nats - and Barnaby in particular - thought it was worth a few &Billion in public funds to construct a massive new dam that would benefit a handful of farmers…..
DeleteBe fair Anon, Chaffey Dam is full of carp, which produces some spectacular die offs. And as for Dungowan pub, the pond fondly remembers being entranced by the talking cocky the publican once kept in long lost days ... while serving up a classy lemonade, no doubt from Lillymans. Amazing how it once was the centre of the known universe and should have been the capital of New England and now can only produce Barners ...
DeleteAh, DP - Lillyman’s Soft Drinks! Or was that Cordials? Long gone, alas, another victim of Big Fizzy…..
DeleteDorothy - were you hinting that the talking cocky was eventually elected to Federal parliament? Might even have been leader of one of the parties for a while?
DeleteChadders, Chadders, as if the pond would defame a talking cocky by comparing it to a talking clown. No, it was a genuine talking cocky, of the kind that they had in a cage on the main drag in Manilla for years ...
DeleteYou have to head to Canberra to find your genuine talking clowns ...
A star-studded - well, gaslit - array of Budget commentary from the Reptiles today. I note, however, the absence of both Dame Groan and Our Henry. Normally that would be worth celebrating, but aren’t they both - theoretically at least - economists? The sort of people who you might think would comment on something like… oh, I dunno, the Federal Budget? I realise that the Dame has probably downed tools after reaching this week’s word quota, and might be a bit confuse by all those graphs and tables, while Henry is probably working out how to link in the Enlightenment, classic liberalism and Thucydides - perhaps we’ll see the results on Friday. Nevertheless it begs the question- what’s the point of having a couple of scribblers on a retainer whose supposed expertise is in the field of economics and not utilising their services (such as they are..:) to comment on the biggest economic statement of the year?
ReplyDeleteAs for Ned - is there actually commentary in there somewhere?
The pond was extremely disappointed with the reptiles this day, but tomorrow is always another day. (And no, there's not).
DeleteOh c'mon Anony, it's just good old-fashioned 'reputation protection' - not that Groany and Henry really have any reputation to protect, but maybe they, and some of the reptile editors, think they do. So if they were to attempt to make serious commentary on the Budget (on any serious matter, in fact), they might attract the attention of economics commentators who actually do know some economics - such as Quiggin, or even maybe the likes of Gittins as an 'educated layman' - and have some unwanted critical attention drawn to their normally very forgettable contributions.
DeleteWouldn't worry Ned though, who thinks his reputation is 'unstainable'.
Anonymous - you seek actual commentary from our Ned? He does write of what he terms a flaw in Labor’s long-run growth strategy, that ‘productivity is weak, economic growth is unconvincing and private sector investment falls short of what Australia needs.’
ReplyDeleteTiny problem with that for Ned - for too long, under the Coalition, the Reserve Bank made money dirt cheap, with the express wish that the private sector would take all they could use, to boost productivity, so in turn cranking up wider economic growth, and encourage further private sector investment. What happened with too much of that cheap money was that the long established private sector used it to acquire smaller competitors in each industry segment - which tends to reduce productivity, and otherwise tended to buy in its own shares, rather than expanding the business. Yes, that had the appearance of boosting the share price, with direct effect on salary packages for senior executives, but - well, why is all that being left to hard-working private sector? New startups? Nah - way too risky, and takes far too long, when, as an executive, you can see results in a matter of weeks from mergers and acquisitions, or from just fattening your own shares - with no benefit to productivity, nor to expanding the overall economy, if that is to be a desirable objective.
As so often - Ned was about one-third right. He nominates the problem, but attributes it to the wrong political side, and in so doing cuts himself off from any prospect of indicating a solution.