The pond decided to recycle the pond's Sunday meditation, put behind an age verification wall by a bot - yes, it was most likely a bot, only a dedicated band of pond correspondents ever read the pond, and certainly no living flesh at Blogger or Google - mainly because the pond has a horror at the notion of anyone going on an online database, a horror compounded by impending Labor government legislation.
The pond also suspects that it was the pond's verbal exuberance that created the problem, not the tedious beyond measure reptile offerings.
Nattering "Ned's" offering was deadly dull, so stupefying that it almost defies description.
So why not at least offer an alternative opening, reflecting the pond's reading for the day?
Truth to tell, reptile offerings don't last much longer than a day, before they become digital fush and chups wrapping paper ... and "Ned" is already three days old and with a musty pong about him.
Further to this morning's climate crisis outing came this story: Heat wave to scorch the U.S. this week — and some cities will experience 'feels like' heat index of 115°F, More than 130 million people from South Dakota to Florida are under extreme warnings and advisories.
Impressige, though the pond might just as easily have referenced the massive floods which recently saturated parts of China (Moscow also copped a pounding, SkyNews UK link):
Strange weather days in end climate times.
When not wasting time with the reptiles of the lizard Oz, the pond always likes to drop in on The New Yorker, say David Remnick doing Israel’s Zones of Denial, Amid national euphoria over the bombing of Iran—and the largely ignored devastation in Gaza—a question lurks: What is the country becoming? (*archive link)
In a lengthy piece, Remnick eventually got to the point:
Meanwhile, the cafés and bars of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are packed and noisy, as if the country could celebrate its way to safety. I recalled Etgar Keret’s remark that “the sense of continuity, of any agreed-upon set of facts or story, is gone.” Or maybe it’s that the story never quite resembles the narratives issued from the offices of Presidents and Prime Ministers. Israel has shown, time and again, that it is better at winning wars than at winning what comes after. The celebrations are real, but so is the dread—about the next missile, the next front, the next generation raised amid the rubble and the rage.
Well yes, you can't attempt a genocide without generating a little more hate, way disproportionate to the hateful Hamas killings that set it off ...
In its travels, the pond also likes to drop in on The Atlantic, wherein you might find Hussein Ibish writing Food Aid in Gaza Has Become a Horror, In the scramble for sustenance, Palestinians are gunned down for no reason, with no excuse.
Or Jonathan Chait offering some relaxing comedy, Trump's Desperate Move to Quiet the Epstein Scandal, The president tries to distract his followers with revisionist history about the Russia investigation (that's an archive link) ...
This message contains multiple levels of dishonesty. On the surface, the effort to draw attention away from Epstein is glaring. Below that lies the wild claim that Obama or his top officials might somehow be charged with crimes. And the fantasy of prosecutions rests on yet another ludicrous claim: that Russia did not attempt to help Trump win in 2016. The president has managed to open a debate over whether the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia helped Trump was a crime, when in reality it was not even a mistake.
And so on, and on to Parker Molloy, Trump Has Left Reality Behind. He Took the Justice Department With Him. Fake payments, fabricated treason, AI arrest videos — the president is creating an alternate universe where his enemies are criminals
What actually happened, according to federal campaign spending records, is that the Harris campaign paid $165,000 to Beyoncé's production company. Not for an endorsement — for “campaign event production” costs. You know, the actual expenses of putting on an event. The kind of thing campaigns are literally required by law to pay for.
Trump went further, declaring in all caps: “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PAY FOR AN ENDORSEMENT. IT IS TOTALLY ILLEGAL TO DO SO.”
Except... that's completely wrong. There's no federal law that prohibits paying for political endorsements. None. You just have to disclose the payments. But in any case, again, she wasn’t paid for her endorsement anyway.
The President of the United States is demanding that people be prosecuted — imprisoned! — for violating a law that doesn't exist, based on payments that never happened. He's not confused about the amount. He's not misremembering some detail. He's calling for prosecutions based on pure fiction, and he's doing it loudly and repeatedly.
When CNN asked the White House for any evidence of Trump's $11 million figure, they got nothing. When Trump himself was asked about his source in February, he said, “Somebody just showed me something. They gave her $11 million.” That's it. That's the whole source.
And let's not forget the clash of the Titans, essential to any student of Murdochiana ... Trump Says Rupert Murdoch Should be Deposed Within 15 Days in Suit Over Epstein Article, The president’s legal team argued in a legal filing that discovery process for the media mogul should be expedited because of his age and health. (*NY Times, archive link)
In a filing in the U.S. District of the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Trump’s lawyers said Mr. Murdoch, the media mogul founder of News Corp, which owns The Journal, should be deposed as soon as possible because he is 94 years old and “has suffered, but thankfully overcome, multiple health issues throughout his life” and would be unlikely to be able to appear in-person at a trial.
“President Trump is requesting only to conduct Murdoch’s deposition and have him produce documents associated only with his involvement in, and any discussions related to, the decision to publish the article,” the filing said.
Mr. Trump filed the lawsuit against The Journal on July 18, a day after the newspaper published an article about a lewd birthday note that the publication said Mr. Trump wrote to Mr. Epstein in 2003, five years before the financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. The note was accompanied by a sexually suggestive drawing. Mr. Trump has denied he was responsible for the letter or the drawing, calling it a “fake thing.”
The request from Mr. Trump’s lawyers on Monday cited an episode in 2023 when Mr. Murdoch fainted during a breakfast in London with one of his executives, Rebekah Brooks. It also noted an article from Vanity Fair that said Mr. Murdoch had been hospitalized in recent years for Covid-19 and “a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, and a torn Achilles tendon.”
And so on, and as Frank Zappa might sing, nasty nasty ...
But finally there's no getting around what the pond promised to do, so here is the "Ned" portion of the pond's Sunday meditation.
There have been a few minor changes - no need for "Ned" to get hung by way of the pond's own fruity expressions, which suggest that any attempt to impersonate Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) in Deadwood will earn swift and savage bot payback ...
Readers will recall that first came Polonius, and then - yes, and then ...
*********
...And then the pond blanched. There was "Ned" lying in ambush ...
The header: Home truths of universal childcare, Labor’s push isn’t the social good it is promising, and parents shouldn’t be penalised for wanting other options.
With no caption, all that was left was the mindless mantra: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there
The pond didn't know if it could take it.
A silly old loon rabbiting on about childcare for a whole bloody ten minutes? In what outer ring of reptile hell is this?
There are few deeper progressive faiths in Australia than espousal of universal childcare in institutional settings, approved by regulators, subsidised by taxpayers and proof of a caring and egalitarian society, with a coalition of support encompassing Labor, the Greens, much of the female vote, the unions, academic community and that touchstone of morality, the professional and corporate class.
The debate since the revelations of abuse of children has driven Albanese and Education Minister Jason Clare into a justified response. “I think it’s pretty bloody obvious that the system has failed parents here and that we’ve all got a responsibility to step up,” Clare told the ABC’s 7.30 this week.
His legislation is a mix of incentives and disincentives to improve quality, target the 4 per cent of centres below minimum standards and negotiate improvements with the threat to cut off subsidies.
The pond had already begun to find this particular "Ned" Everest climb deeply wearying and exhausting ...
Each day about 1.4 million children aged zero to 12 years attend early childhood education and care at about 19,000 services across the country. The proportion of mothers with children aged zero to four years who participate in the labour force is 72 per cent, pointing to a social revolution across the past 40 years. The number of ECEC places for children has increased by 50 per cent in the decade to 2023 and nearly one-half of one-year olds attend some form of ECEC.
In its September 2024 ECEC report the Productivity Commission, responding to the government’s brief, said the goal should be a “high-quality universal ECEC system that is accessible, within the means of all families, equitable and inclusive for all children” – an ambitious vision that would require years to achieve. Its immediate recommendations were estimated to increase childcare subsidy costs by 37 per cent to reach about $17.4bn a year. This is another version of the grand Labor governance model – a centralised program of taxpayer support distributed across the country guaranteed to win social approval, justified as an economic reform to promote workforce participation and anchored to a liberated view of women seeking fulfilment in careers.
In a recent jarring warning, UNSW Business School professor of economics Richard Holden wrote in the Financial Review that Labor’s vision “has been in the works for years” and is the product of “lobbyists with good hearts but not so good ideas”. He forecast the unfolding direction “will add billions in costs without improving care, while leaving big productivity gains on the table”. Holden warned the nation was heading into a “costly mess” and a vision that “if implemented, will end in tears”.
He is not alone. In his path-breaking 2024 book, The Care Dilemma, British journalist and social analyst David Goodhart describes the prime feature of modern life, an “undervaluing of the domestic realm” – a paradox when more people and employers are accepting the shift to work from home.
With the idea of a successful life now revolving around professional and career achievement, there is under way a massive transfer of taxpayer funds, personal energy and social status into the public sphere and away from the domestic sphere. It touches nearly every family. This trend is tied to a false consciousness – the great delusion of modernity – the belief that we care even more about our children.
Indeed, we care so much we insist that in the first three years of life our children must be subjected to a benevolent state bequeathing financial subsidies to ensure young children are placed in childcare because this is the superior model for their growth and development, a contentious claim where the evidence is disputed.
Recall that much of this thinking springs from the same intellectual reservoir that in the dying days of the Gillard government produced the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Gonski school agenda, schemes of soaring cost that delivered major advances yet were plagued by unsustainable flaws.
Goodhart calls for a policy rethink – effectively a revolt – based on the principle that “policy should support both work-focused and family-focused mothers”. This principle is anathema to progressive orthodoxy in Britain and Australia where, as shown by the financial flows, institutional-based childcare is the enshrined model.
Then came the illustration and the caption that broke the camel's or at least the pond's back, Parents need real choices for childcare, including the option to be subsidised to stay home, says Judith Sloan.
Dammit, that did it, the pond has seen that collage umpteen times already, hassuffered through endless reptile repetitions of that snap and endless groanings and the last thing the pond needed was to sit through "Ned" regurgitating Dame Groan.
(At this point, the pond decided to pull the plug and move on to something else ...Snappy Tom, to be featured tomorrow.
The pond promised, when finished with Snappy Tom, to return to the rest of the "Ned" Everest climb, so that mug punters wouldn't feel short changed).
It being a Sunday meditation, the pond had wanted to be amused and to play. After all, if it were good enough for the Emeritus Chairman's hound ...
... then it was good enough for the pond.
At the very end of the Sunday meditation post came the rest of "Ned", as good a reason as any to ban the reptiles for life, or send a bot into a frenzy ...
After a clip showing the form of the dreaded Jennings on CNN, the pond resumed play):
And at that point the pond would usually declare business closed for the day, what with it being a Sunday.
But the pond made promises, and so it's best to keep promises for those who want to walk miles into the deep.
The pond promised it would finish off "Ned" for those mug punters keen to complete the Everest climb for the day.
The pond stopped just as "Ned" was about to recycle Dame Groan's groaning.
Carry on stubborn punters, enjoy the reminder of the groans ...
In her many articles on this subject in The Australian, economist Judith Sloan has called for a “move away from our obsession with centre-based care”, raising several options – from child tax credits to tax deductions for home-based care, the purpose being the radical leap to giving women more options.
The many, many, many articles by Dame Groan urging that womyn get back into the kitchen?
That's why the pond gave up on this climb ...
In 2019, in conjunction with Rosalind Dixon and Melissa Vogt, Holden outlined a reform model allowing parents to choose between getting the childcare subsidy or a tax deduction for childcare.
No household would be worse off. People could stick with the existing subsidy if they wanted or opt for the tax-deductibility option. The idea was to promote accessibility, affordability and competition in childcare. Holden warns that while current abuses must be addressed, “a government takeover of childcare isn’t the answer”.
There are three policy issues here – an alternative model promotes competition by expanding supply; it promotes individual choice leading to more family satisfaction; and it promotes better social cohesion since all surveys show many women, if given a financial option, would work fewer hours or choose the home-care option. Indeed, the current Labor model works against competition and choice and is justified on a disputed foundation – that centre-based care is best for kids when it is best for some kids, often disadvantaged, but not for other kids.
In the recent US economic policy book Abundance, much loved by Jim Chalmers, the warning is stark about subsidising demand with limits on supply, the guaranteed consequence being higher prices – and higher subsidies. This is Australia’s recent past and its coming future. Childcare for an infant costs on average $36,000 in Massachusetts and $28,420 in California. In Australia some subsidies are close to $40,000 a year.
Cue a coy snap, A recently launched grassroots campaign calls on the Albanese government to broaden the use of its childcare subsidy to include care at home by grandparents, nannies, au pairs and co-working spouses. Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP
(Here the pond flung in a distraction with a naughty word. The pond doesn't want "Ned" to be hung for the pond's crime, so here it is with a distinct chilling effect).
Was it just coincidence that Paul Krugman wrote about The General Theory of Ens****ification, and if so does the theory explain the Ens****ification of lizard Oz illustrations?
(It's still risky because the word is embedded in the link, but the risk must be taken)
To be fair, "Ned" was incredibly fair about being fair:
But to be fair to the PC, it was worried about costs. Indeed, its report raises serious questions about the value for money of the proposed expansion of childcare. Its cost estimate of $17.4bn a year underestimates the actual cost. It says more investment would be needed to rectify availability and inclusion gaps. Does anyone recall the massive initial underestimation of the NDIS cost?
In its report the PC assessed different ECEC models. Consider for a moment their economic value. Its preferred model – raising the maximum rate of subsidy to 100 per cent of the hourly cap rate on incomes up to $80,000 with half of all families eligible for a subsidy rate of 90 per cent or more – would mean an increase in costs of $4.7bn. What would be the benefit in more female participation in the workforce? The answer: “negligible”. Female participation is already high, no more meaningful gains there.
But the model initially preferred by the Albanese government – replacing the subsidy with a flat fee of $10 per child a day – was far more expensive and estimated to cost an increased $8.3bn. How many jobs would that create? An extra 7300. Think about that – an extra $8bn to deliver a touch more than 7000 jobs. How irrational is that?
What is the justification for such extra fiscal burdens to fund childcare expansion when the federal government is in deficit for the next decade, with Treasury saying tax rises and spending cuts will be required?
Then came another dismal visual interruption, The PC report raises serious questions about the value for money of the proposed expansion of childcare.
No credit, none wanted and none revealed. It's the basest of base smiley stock footage, akin to AI slop.
Naturally "Ned" dragged in Petey boy to put the knife into the aged and the other enabled:
In relation to expanded childcare, there is no economic justification arising from more female participation in the workforce. The PC said all options meant higher demand for ECEC but “minimal changes” to labour force participation. Here’s the set-up: more fiscal cost, less economic gain.
Perhaps the justification lies in equity. Unfortunately not – there’s an ever bigger problem here. Consider the PC analysis of the Labor-attracted $10 flat-fee model – it says a “disproportionate share of the increased government support would go to families whose incomes are in the top 25 per cent of the income distribution (those with a disposable income over $160,000)”. Of course, Labor may not mind, given well-off professional women with political clout now constitute a growing pro-Labor constituency or, at least, an anti-Coalition lobby.
In fact, there’s a double problem. As the PC says, the kids who most benefit from childcare come from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds while those who gain the least come from high-income families. What is the justification for a model that expands ECEC usage with a strong bias in favour of children belonging to the seriously better-off?
What, then, is the justification for such an expanded spending agenda? The obvious point resides in its political popularity. Indeed, it is fair to say expanded childcare now assumes the status of a social contract bordering on morality. The expectation is irresistible. Yet it is exaggerated.
Oh indeed, it is most fair, is it not? So much fairness, the pond is fair sinking under it.
And then came a snap of a smirking Pom, the last thing the pond needed, British journalist and social analyst David Goodhart describes the prime feature of modern life, an ‘undervaluing of the domestic realm’ – a paradox when more people and employers are accepting the shift to work from home. Picture: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
Pardon the pond if it thinks that what this smirking Pom means by the "domestic realm" is this ...
The pond will take "Ned" seriously when he scribbles a long and urgent treatise on the need to fund men so that they can stay at home, embark on child care full time, and sent their womyn out to work ... but it does help explain the ongoing Liberal party problem with womyn ...
He also quotes London-based researcher and writer Ellen Pasternack saying: “Because domestic labour is undervalued, there is a failure to recognise childcare as proper work unless it takes place in a designated workplace, by unrelated individuals who are employed to be there.”
A grassroots campaign launched two weeks ago by four Queensland mothers, under the title For Parents, calls on the Albanese government to broaden the use of its childcare subsidy beyond the existing centres to include care at home by grandparents, nannies, au pairs and co-working spouses, thereby allowing parents to keep their children close.
Co-founder Cecilia Cobb said: “For too long, government funding has favoured one model: traditional, centre-based care. But that model doesn’t work for everyone and it certainly doesn’t reflect the diversity of Australian families. Families shouldn’t be penalised for choosing care which works best for them.”
The petition, which now has more than 10,000 signatures, seeks a change in subsidy eligibility and a basic shift in policy direction given that childcare expansion over the past decade has been overwhelmingly through growth of private, for-profit, centres. The more the public is aware of this entrenched policy, the more public reservations will skyrocket.
The advocacy group is dismissive of the current In Home Care program, saying it is irrelevant to their demands with fewer than 1 per cent of families using the highly restrictive model under the program.
Why does she have to watch the nanny reading? Why can't she do the reading herself? Because she's spawned a couple of kids? Tell that to the pond's grandmother, who managed eight without the government springing for a nanny.
Never mind, the pond knew there was a reason the pond abandoned "Ned" ...
“A Pew Research Centre poll found that 18 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds do not want to have children and only 45 per cent of young women in the poll want to have kids. They feel that having children is a burden which would require them to sacrifice the time, money and personal freedom. When they do have children, many do not want to raise them themselves. Women never before questioned the importance of mothering until these social changes shattered all prior evolutionary preconceptions and standards.
“Men and women were taught that children were an afterthought to their education, career and personal goals: the myth was born that they were self-sufficient beings who could raise themselves and be just fine. Women who wanted to stay at home with their children faced self-doubt and societal judgment. The rise of two-working parent families meant no one was home raising and nurturing children when they needed it most.
“There is nothing wrong with ambition. However, if we place our ambition above those we love, there is a price to pay.”
Cue another smirking snap, US academic Erica Komisar.
Then came a line that stopped the pond in its tracks:
Her analysis led Komisar to offer unqualified advice to the Australian government:
Unqualified advice? The pond will take that to mean lacking the necessary skills and experience for a specific task or role, and not the other sense of the word.
(In either sense, the pond prefers qualified advice, because advice without qualifications always ends in a bad concrete pour).
Do go on with your unqualified advice ...
The essence of progressive ideology, by contrast, is that childcare is either the desirable or, in the contemporary world, the best model for the infant’s growth and development. As other justifications for the state’s commitment to childcare erode, this has been elevated as the primary purpose for the project and the vast financial commitment being imposed on taxpayers.
Effective childcare and preschool can be an advantage for a child proceeding to primary school. This was reflected in the comment by Clare when interviewed by David Lipson on the ABC on July 2: “This is a service that helps our children get ready for school. Ask any principal at the local primary school and they will tell you they can tell the children that have been in childcare and preschool and the ones that haven’t.”
Much of this, obviously, is true. The larger truth is that each child is unique. Each child will respond in different ways, depending on background, family and age. Some children do better in formal care; other children do better in home care. Is this truth too hard to accept? Is it too hard to act on and offer genuine choice to Australian families without disadvantaging those who prefer the current system? Why does the Labor Party preach diversity yet deny diversity in its childcare policy? Can we not assess the current childcare experiment – because it is an experiment – with an open mind?
An open mind? A reptile wanting an open mind?
Been there and done that with open reptile minds...
Did "Ned" survive the bot?
Did the bot care?
If "Ned" survived the bot, did anyone survive "Ned"?
If so, the pond will move on to Snappy Tom tomorrow, same time, same bat station ...
The pond's main regret, since "Ned" was clearly no less than terminal tedium equivalent to waiting for an EV charge in Tarcutta?
Ending with a reference to a TV show, rather than with a cartoon ...
After trudging through Ned’s dreary offering - so many “experts” quoted, all strangely supportive of Ned’s pearl-clutching - I’m increasingly of the view that the bot was motivated by a concern for the well-being of the Pond’s readers.
ReplyDeleteB-boom tish! Good one Anony. :)
ReplyDeleteNed and Dame sitting in a tree
ReplyDeleteOne says boo and the other says me,
Regurgitate my vomit
I'll spu on you too
We're all in rupert's thrall
Self referential we shall be
Swill a bit more Koolaid
My conscience is free
Kez! Where is Kez?