There can be only one winner each day in the pond's seasonal holyday hunger games, which is the only reason that some Pearls of wisdom made the cut ...

 

Disappointing news in the pond's hunger games, with the hole in the bucket man apparently ruling himself out by being a no show. 

Our Henry would have been the automatic Friday choice, up there like the bromancer as essential reptile reading.

With the erudite Ergas lost in the holyday silly season, the pond was stripped of a chance for its usual Thucydides references, and instead had to resort to tales of that modern Hercules, busy saving Xmas, as featured in MAGA Gets Roasted for Claiming Trump Saved Christmas.

The irrepressible Tommy T. was right on this one. A visit to the tangerine tyrant's store showed a plethora of ways to save Xmas and make King Donald I richer:

The Trump Store has a gift for every patriot on your Christmas list.
It’s a little late for this year’s celebrations, but you can get a very early jump on next year and count down with the $38 Trump Advent calendar. Or trim the tree with a $95 Mar-a-Lago bauble or a $16 MAGA hat ornament, sold in nine colors. (A glass version of the hat ornament is $92.) Stuff stockings with an $86 “GIANT Trump Chocolate Gold Bar” and a $22 pair of candy cane socks printed with “Trump.” Prepare a holiday feast with a $14 Trump Christmas tree pot holder and $28 Trump apron featuring Santa waving an American flag.
The profits from these holiday trinkets do not benefit a political committee or a charitable cause, but the Trump Organization, the Trump family’s privately owned conglomerate of real estate, hotel and lifestyle businesses. As the company encouraged customers to celebrate the holidays with Trump gifts for all ages, President-elect Donald Trump personally profited off of his upcoming term in a manner that is unprecedented in modern history — even during his unconventional first stint in the White House.
The Trump Organization thought of everyone celebrating Trump’s nonconsecutive terms this yuletide season, rolling out a line of merchandise printed with “45-47,” including $195 quarter-zip sweatshirts, $85 cigar ashtrays and $38 baseball caps. Fido can’t go without his gear, of course: The store also sells gifts for dogs, including orange leashes and camo collars emblazoned with Trump’s name. And don’t forget the kids! How about a $38 teddy bear wearing a red, white or blue Trump sweater, $8 MAGA hat stickers or an array of Trump sweets, including $16 gummy bears?
All of these gifts can be wrapped in $28 golden Trump wrapping paper or stuck into Trump ornament gift bags ($14 a pair), and accompanied by a note on $35 stationery featuring bottles of Trump wine.
“Make the holidays that much greater this year with essentials from the Trump Home and Holiday collection,” the website says, over a photo of an Elf on the Shelf toy and a lime-green MAGA hat.

There was an abundance of goodies on view, suitable for all price points:

Yes, you too can buy your man an apron - it's got King Donald I's name on it, so the cuck will wear it with pride - but the pond did have one problem:

What's this talk of the holyday gift guide? Surely it should be the Merry Xmas gift guide.

Everywhere the pond is seeing dangerous signs of rampant, sinister secularism. Even an Xian as devout as the mango Mussolini seems tempted to wander away from the true spirit of the season.

In other tangerine tyrant news, Elon Musk Dramatically Puts MAGA Split With RFK Jr. on Display, a yarn which juxtaposed drug-addled Uncle Leon with conspiracy theorist RFK Jr, with Junior blathering about the need for Americans to fortify their immune systems by removing harmful chemicals from their food. 

You know ...

Have an injection of Mounjaro, Junior, or perhaps a course of some semaglutide ... it'll settle your nerves.

The pond supposes it must turn to the domestic lizard Oz hunger games ... but what a loss with our Henry ruling himself out ...

The news that the Ruskies might have shot down that plane barely made the cut, alongside a blathering Nevis ... who also turned up in the extreme far right side of the digital edition ...

Nova's contribution was so egregious and demeaning and pitiful and pathetic that the pond immediately disqualified her from the hunger games...

She was being abjectly Philistine in quite the wrong way, and the pond sentenced her to a reading of the wiki for Palestine ...and added as punishment a little reading on Zionism, which isn't 4,000 years old ... more like late nineteenth century ... 

Or she might catch up on the latest headlines about the land grabs and the ongoing genocide ... with these yarns featuring in the NY Times:

And this headline turning up in WaPo ...

With Nova joining our Henry on the sidelines, the rest of the field provided slim pickings.

The lizard Oz editorialist made a feeble attempt by working "woke" into its headline, as in Woke frippery giving way to economic realities of life, Labor’s danger is that Middle Australia will conclude the government has lost control of the economy.

The reptiles justified this in the text:

Tough economic times force people to concentrate on what matters most. Woke frippery quickly falls by the wayside for households and business when real choices have to be made about putting food on the table and company survival. Cost of living dominates the minds of voters, and companies watch on as the number of insolvencies continues to rise. It should be of little surprise then that analysis of the recent trends in Newspoll shows voter sentiment is moving firmly back to the centre. Labor has lost electoral territory in key demographics as well as in the two most populous states, NSW and Victoria. The Greens, far from the boasts of socialist leader Adam Bandt, are losing support among the young. The Coalition is now neck and neck with Labor in NSW and Victoria, and has recaptured the support of female voters. Peter Dutton has won over the Middle Australia mortgage belt demographic, the 35-49-year-olds, considered the key group to swing election outcomes. The Coalition either leads or is level with Labor in all the age demographics with the exception of younger voters. It leads Labor 62-38 among those over 65.

Sorry, as well as a disqualification, that immediately required the pond to run its standard correction:

Really, fuckhead reptiles editorialist, still campaigning in the silly season, as if the price of eggs and bacon was the way forward, as if we haven't already been hearing many tales of fooling around and finding out emanating from the United States ... as per WaPo headlines ...

So many FAFO moments ahead, so little time.

In the same vein, Elizabeth Buchanan made a valiant attempt to compensate for our Henry's absence by proposing the answer lay not in the soil, but in the billionaires, Confused Varghese review flags need for philanthropic disrupters, Censorship and the institutionalisation of risk-adverse groupthink are some of the only things flourishing in Australia under the Albanese government. It’s high time for our billionaires to disrupt the sector.

Really? Gina hasn't already done enough with the IPA?

...In the spirit of Christmas, here’s a wishlist of sorts, personalised for our richest tycoons. Gina Rinehart could gift strategic policy research funds to examine the character of our strategic culture. In other words, what would an “Australia first” strategy look like? Andrew Forrest might offer strategic research funds tied to understanding our energy (in)security. Harry Triguboff could fund strategic research into securing Australia’s sea lines of communication.
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar could ignite the next generation of researchers to innovate AI and consider the security implications of machine learning. Anthony Pratt might fund an Australian chair in Australia, not just the US. Lindsay Fox could underwrite strategic research to overhaul Australia’s transportation network and inject some semblance of resilience.
Australia’s think tank ecosystem is struggling to survive. This review exercise will further impede the sector by inviting deeper government control over security and defence policy contest in Australia. Censorship and the institutionalisation of risk-adverse groupthink are some of the only things flourishing in Australia under the Albanese government. It’s high time for our billionaires to disrupt the sector.
Elizabeth Buchanan is a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Sorry Liz, if IPA Gina is the answer, perhaps you didn't understand the question.

If one dipped beneath the fold, as the pond did in search of our Henry, the meretricious Merritt made a play for attention ...

..Trump’s attack on censorship might cause difficulties for digital platforms in this country that have agreed to abide by a voluntary code of practice known as The Australian Code of Practice of Disinformation and Misinformation. The code goes beyond targeting unlawful content.

If that results in the suppression of lawful US content – such as contested assertions of fact or opinion – the platforms might need to choose between complying with Trump’s proposed new law and Australia’s voluntary code.

The Australian code commits its signatories to reduce dissemination of content that is “verifiably false or misleading or deceptive” and is reasonably likely to cause harm.

An ACMA report on the code published in September says current signatories include Meta (parent of Facebook and Instagram), Google (which includes YouTube), TikTok, Apple (including Apple News), Adobe, Redbubble, Microsoft (including Bing and LinkedIn) and Twitch.

That report outlines ACMA’s involvement with the platforms in “managing” information about last year’s voice referendum – something that would not be permitted in the US under Trump’s proposed changes.

ACMA wrote to the platforms before the referendum and they “undertook initiatives to manage misinformation”. Exactly what was censored is not revealed in the report.

The bottom line is this: Trump might be on the verge of doing more to protect freedom of speech in Australia than this country’s own government.

Chris Merritt is vice-president of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia.

Of course that required the pond to ignore all the GOP-inspired book bannings and criminalising of libraries and librarians, such that even the bible isn't safe to be read, but it did remind the pond of what a fuckwit the meretricious Merritt is ...

In the end, the pond had to settle for a little Pearl clutching, as pearls of wisdom were trotted out in The cost of nuclear energy? A guide for the perplexed, Will the Coalition’s nuclear power policy reduce or increase the price of electricity for east coast Australians?

As always, the story began with a snap of, if not Satan, then one of his key helpers, Australian Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen holds a press conference in Sydney. Picture: Jeremy Piper

The Pearls of pricing wisdom began to flow immediately, though the pond had to wait until the very end for the very best Pearl punchline ...

Will the Coalition’s nuclear power policy reduce or increase the price of electricity for east coast Australians?

Earlier this month, consulting firm Frontier Economics estimated that it could result in “substantial cost savings”. Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor have claimed these could be as high as 44 per cent compared to what the government is proposing.

Not surprisingly, Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Treasurer Jim Chalmers have rubbished this suggestion and the modelling it is based on.

Writing in The Australian last Friday, Bowen accused the opposition of basing its case on “slippery” assumptions and “conscious mistruths”, insisting that nuclear power is the “most expensive” form of energy.

So who is right?

In my view, Bowen and Chalmers have – at least so far – failed to land a glove on Frontier Economics’ work. That said, the latter gives me no confidence that, under the Coalition’s plan, future electricity prices will be lower than they are today.

Let’s start with Frontier Economics’ results. Its starting point is AEMO’s Integrated System Plan, which models the system-wide (generation, storage and transmission) cost of the government’s largely renewables-dependent strategy to meet future electricity demand. Using largely the same assumptions as AEMO – including for future electricity demand – it estimates this amounts to $594bn between 2025 and 2051. Yes that’s right, over half a trillion dollars. This has not been rebutted by the government.

The reptiles slipped in a snap of the man dedicated to nuking the country to save the planet, Peter Dutton discusses the Coalition’s approach to energy. Picture: John Gass

It seems that Pearls of wisdom are mainly constructed by regurgitating the usual reptile lines ... and so there was no need to discuss any of the arguments tilled from exhausted soil ...

It finds that once the Coalition’s nuclear plans are factored in – with 13,000 megawatts of nuclear generation gradually coming on line from 2036 – this figure can be lowered by $150bn (25 per cent). A key reason for this is that nuclear power stations can operate at a higher capacity (90 per cent) than the renewables facilities they take the place of (30 per cent given the vagaries of the wind and sun).

This means that with nuclear, fewer additional facilities are needed to meet any given future electricity demand, reducing system costs. Fewer new power lines are needed as well.

(A further source of cost saving is Frontier Economics’ assumption that our existing coal plants will have slightly longer lives than AEMO does, which is what their operators have in fact announced.)

Frontier Economics also models a different scenario based on a more conservative outlook for future electricity demand than the one AEMO – and the government – favours. One where the future take-up of electric cars, for example, is lower. But this still results in a 25 per cent cost saving from the adoption of the Coalition’s policy. Bowen and Chalmers have huffed and puffed about the “fatal flaws” in this modelling, but on closer inspection their arguments have fallen flat.

For me, the key giveaway has been their focus on Frontier Economics’ alternative demand scenario, which both have claimed is the “biggest” flaw in its modelling. It is no such thing.

As we have seen, this makes no difference to its key finding. Yes, 25 per cent is a lot less than the 44 per cent saving Dutton and Taylor have claimed (by combining the maximum cost of one scenario and the minimum one of the other), but it is still substantial. In his op-ed, Bowen also assails Dutton for attacking “the fiercely independent and impartial staff” at the CSIRO, who have consistently found that nuclear energy “is the most expensive of all available options”.

Around this point the reptiles interrupted with an AV offering:

Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres says Opposition leader Peter Dutton has “no answer” for the supply gap issue – among other roadblocks – which come with the implementation of nuclear energy in Australia. Australians are likely to head to the polls none the wiser about either side of politics’ 2035 climate targets. The climate change authority has signalled it will delay providing its advice to the government to assess the impact of Donald Trump's presidency.

The Pearls of wisdom kept on flowing ... and as expected, renewables were the key problem ...

This is a red herring, as Bowen must surely know. In its report, Frontier Economics assumes that nuclear power costs $10,000/kilowatt of capacity, which is higher – not lower – than what the CSIRO assumed in its 2023-24 GenCost report. In any case, the question at hand is the entire system cost of the government’s and opposition’s plans – that’s what Frontier Economics models.

Finally, Bowen objects to Frontier Economics’ assumption that nuclear facilities will operate at 90 per cent capacity, arguing that this will force some renewable energy (mainly solar) out of the power system. But as we have seen, Frontier Economics argues that that is precisely why – under the nuclear scenarios it examines – future costs in the system could be lower.

So why am I sceptical about the Coalition’s plans for the grid lowering future electricity prices?

Let’s put to one side the truism that forecasting future energy costs several decades away can be no more than a wild guess. Particularly for nuclear power.

The crucial point is this.

As Frontier Economics admits, under the opposition’s blueprint, “renewables continue to dominate the provision of electricity to consumers”, with wind and solar accounting for between 50 and 60 per cent of electricity generated in 2051 and nuclear between 38 and 29 per cent (depending on the demand scenario chosen).

Given that wind and solar currently account for 32 per cent of electricity output, their system-wide share will rise significantly under the Coalition’s plan. This is a recipe for still higher power prices. It means that subsidies for renewables must continue to rise, new transmission networks built, and expensive system back-ups must be put in place for the inevitable renewable droughts and gluts.

Ah, yes, we must banish renewables. Surely fossil fuels remain the only answer.

Then for no apparent reason, the reptiles interrupted with a snap of Danny Price, now a legend in his own costings lunchtime:

Then it came to the final collection of classic Pearlisms and the pond's climactic understanding of where these Pearls of wisdom were really coming from:

Make no mistake, this amounts to an escalating negative supply shock to the economy, lowering living standards and growth rates. We are already experiencing this.

As their policies currently stand, both Labor and the Coalition want this to be our energy future, with the latter’s nuclear twist making only a marginal difference. Both parties’ adherence to net zero means they must ditch low-cost coal, which currently provides 60 per cent of our power.

But this need not be our fate.

As I have argued in these pages before, Donald Trump’s election has effectively killed off the Paris climate agreement and net-zero agenda. As John Maynard Keynes would say, “the facts have changed”. Regardless of your view on climate change, it therefore makes no economic or environmental sense for Australia and other small economies to cling to net zero: it’s a pointless act of economic self-harm.

As Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, there are better – less anti-growth – ways to deal with climate change. Our “road to Damascus” moment may still be some way off, but I dare say we are closer to it than our political elites realise.

David Pearl is a former Treasury assistant secretary.

Thank you dispenser of Pearls, though you presented the pond with a deep conundrum. 

Was your talk of political elites more risible than As Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, or should there be a joint prize this day?

Dare the pond say that perhaps that talk of the 'leets should win the day, what with the line about you being a former Treasury assistant secretary following so hard on 'leet heels ...though credit where credit is due, the Bjorn-again one is an eternal inspiration.

Why then didn't you dispense his pearl of wisdom, one that he has dispensed over the lizard Oz counter too many times to count:

Spending tens of billions of dollars annually on low-CO research and development to innovate the price of green energy below fossil fuels will drive down the price of future green energy, eventually making it rational for all countries, and especially the world’s poor, to switch.

Such a font of wisdom, and so to wrap up proceedings with a Luckovich ...