You could have knocked the pond over with a feather.
There was the pond deep inside the hive mind, only to stray and see this Ross Gittins' headline: It pains me to say nice things about politicians, but this is a good budget (*intermittent archive link)
The pond hadn't experienced that level of heresy since the days the pond's mother, in her Tamworth Martin Luther days, dragged the pond off to dull, joyless proddie services (say what you will, and the pond says plenty, the tykes knew how to bung on a do for impressionable young minds).
It was like experiencing a black mass:
As for Jim Chalmers’ opposite number, Tim Wilson, he deserves great praise for the honesty of his position. As the Liberals’ Treasury spokesman, he is implacably opposed to any weakening of the negative gearing and the capital gains discount going mainly to well-off older men.
And then the Libs wonder why so few young people vote Liberal.
Even worse the pond stumbled across a couple of Grattan Institute lackeys at The Conversation:
Will this budget really make housing fairer for more Australians? It’s a good start
They would say that.
Surely any talk of sunshine was entirely wrong?
Giddy with alarm, the pond rushed back to the citadel of well-off older men (and the odd woman, the more decidedly odd the better).
Sure enough the reptiles were still in a frenzy,
Teams of reptiles flocked together to sound the alarums ...
Backfiring budget tax measures will hit Gen Z
Jim Chalmers has rejected indexing income tax rates while defending property tax changes that break election promises and could delay young homebuyers by up to a year.
By Greg Brown, Matthew Cranston and Julie-Anne Sprague
Victims! Blood on the floor, the knife in the water ...
Just look at the villain in the uncredited (AI?) collage showing the villain persecuting the younglings ...
The bouffant one was just below, dragooned into whine about broken promises...
PM’s plan to beat ‘liar’ accusations after broken promise budget
After months of Labor dominance and Coalition incompetence, there is a buzz in the House of Representatives as both sides can see a fight underway.
As if comrade Albo could trick the reptiles. It's fight time, and there's going to be plenty of biff in the schoolyard ...
There were a few victims the reptiles managed to step over on their way to the biff ...
Then there was more whining from carefully selected younglings, and what a team of reptiles gathered to help with the affray...
Young Australians say tax crackdown pushes home ownership further away
How Chalmers just made it harder for young Australians to get ahead
Labor’s tax grab in the name of fixing intergenerational inequity will punish the very generation they claim to be helping.
By Paige Fryer, Julie-anne Sprague, Cliona O'Dowd and Pamela Rontziokos
If you don't come away with heart shattered by those tales of woe, you must be like that selfish giant in Oscar Wilde's fairy story.
Ancient Troy, who spends a lot of time wandering in the past, went there again ...
Keating’s warning echoes from the 80s
Paul Keating’s ‘banana republic’ warning echoes as budget spending hits record levels
Former Treasurer Paul Keating’s explosive ‘banana republic’ warning burst from him ‘like a truth fountain’ 40 years ago during a kitchen radio interview, as Australia faces similar spending and economic challenges today.
By Troy Bramston
The pond confesses to being completely bewildered and only a few sideways references helped shed some light ...
Inter alia:
...The anniversary of the remarks that caused shockwaves across Australia comes in the week Jim Chalmers delivered his fifth budget with both spending and taxation projected to remain at their highest levels outside the pandemic since the “banana republic” warning.
At the National Press Club on Wednesday, Dr Chalmers bristled at comparisons with Mr Keating, his political hero, suggesting the economic challenge 40 years ago is not comparable with today.
Although Mr Keating introduced capital gains tax and fringe benefits tax in 1985, he also reduced the top marginal income tax rate from 60 per cent to 47 per cent and the company tax rate from 49 to 39 per cent while Treasurer. (It would later fall further.)
And then over on the extreme far right came the grumpy old codger himself, top of the reptile world ma, with a walk down memory lane that began with Lawsie ...(is there a youngling who has the first clue who that is/was?)
The treasurer was in a noisy kitchen at a wedding venue when the John Laws radio show called. The rest is economic history.
By Paul Keating
Amazingly there wasn't a single word about the current budget or Jimbo, just a lot of immodest glorification of the Keating treasurer years.
The pond couldn't see the point, except perhaps a hint of an implication that this Jimbo was no match for the banana republic man in his prime.
And that wasn't the end of it.
There were more headlines ...
Sheesh, how could the pond cover all that?
Punters would simply have to learn how to use the intermittent archive, though the pond could at least highlight one story that plucked at the pond's heart strings ...
Billionaires attack ‘crazy’ CGT plan that punishes success
From tech billionaires to storage kings, Australia’s elite entrepreneurs say scrapping CGT discounts amounts to economic self-sabotage.
By John Stensholt
Oh the suffering of billionaires ...
And so on and on... victims forced to go on the run ...
The reptiles were taking care of the most put upon, long suffering, and wretched of the earth ... and what joy it was to see the billionaires giving their due,
But it wasn't just the billionaires and the younglings.
Over on the far right, there were sturdy men armed with cricket bats, ready to take a whack at things...
Will Anthony Albanese’s U-turn on negative gearing and CGT discounts hurt the government? Probably not, but it will be a constant conversation starter in media interviews.
By Jack the Insider
Columnist
Jack at first seemed to want an each way bet ...
(A little verbiage later)...
Even worse as Jack reached the end, he entirely ignored Dame Groan's formula that suggested world events had nothing whatsoever to do with the Australian economy, and that the unfolding disaster was entirely Jimbo's fault ...
Grain yields, especially wheat, are down almost 30 per cent in another of the world’s breadbaskets, Ukraine. The war-torn nation’s production of urea and ammonia has virtually ceased, leaving Ukraine to import chemical fertilisers for the first time in a century.
From the micro to the macro and back again, the shortage of chemical fertilisers means some people will starve while others will pay more to keep fed, and that rule extends to Australia where the agricultural sector routinely creates twice the food we consume.
A farmer friend in rural NSW said the price of nitrogen-based fertilisers has almost doubled while phosphorus is up 45 per cent.
Urea, he said, was available but at a price.
The double whammy of increased costs and reduced yields will flow through the global economy fuelling inflation, and that’s without considering the myriad other sector-by-sector economic impacts from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Overall, more than three million tonnes of chemical fertilisers have been stalled in the Persian Gulf in the past two months. Supply of nitrogen is most critically affected as producers such as Qatar have shut plants because of gas disruptions and the threat of drone and missile strikes. A third of Australia’s urea comes through the Persian Gulf.
After some equivocation, Jack came down on the side of the boomers, and all was well in the hive mind ...
Stagnation killed governments around the world stone dead at the ballot box, from Jimmy Carter’s Democrats down. Stagflation would go on to bring down Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government in 1983, re-elected only six years earlier, having sent Gough Whitlam and Labor to near-oblivion. No amount of government-promoted cross-generational ruckuses will help once the hard, enduring pain of a high-inflationary environment pervades the economy. Like the Fraser government, Albanese and Labor may survive one cost-of-living crisis but two would be a stretch.
Australian political history tells us that is when voters reach for their – we use cricket bats in this country. A well-aged Gunn and Moore Diamond sits in my garage and it is due a day out.
Oh yes, freedumb boy and the beefy boofhead will knock up a century or two, or at least prove they could earn a spot in the English cricket team ...
The pond has only one further reptile to note ...
The Treasurer’s capital gains tax changes could scar Australia’s growth potential for decades by discouraging start-ups.
By Petr Sedlacek
It's not just the younglings and the billionaires, it's the tech bros!
The prof was full of saucy doubts and fears, but all the pond could think about was the opening snap.
Was this snap of youngling athletics in any way related to, or a meaningful metaphor for the start-up sector? Judge for yourself:
Was there any upside in this wall to wall hysteria?
Yes, indeedy do. For some reason, petulant Peta had gone MIA ... just when she was most needed, what with the onion muncher needing her support, and the budget crying out for a rabid denunciation by her.
And for some reason no reptile spotted by the pond mentioned the gas spectre ...
With that elephant tucked away, after all that, roll on Friday, where hopefully Our Henry can link the current budget follies to the budgets and economies celebrated in Thucydides ...
How soon before we can forget all this budget blather and venture back into a sane world?
It could be some time ...
>>If you don't come away with heart shattered by those tales of woe, you must be like that selfish giant in Oscar Wilde's fairy story.>>
ReplyDeleteIndeed, DP - I can barely see my keyboard, as I’m blinded by tears.
Those young (and not that young) folk seen remarkably conversant with the Budget’s contents. A cynic might suggest they’d been briefed. Possibly by whoever selected them for inclusion in this article. The cast is certainly a bit light-on with the usual tradies, retail staff and young parents who tend to dominate vox pop groups; perhaps the Reptiles just contacted a local branch of the Young Liberals? Still, how can one read of the difficulties faced by a young couple possibly cheated of their ambition to become landlords without bursting into further fits of bitter weeping? Almost as sad are the tales of youthful stock market speculation; I thought that we as a society were already far too talent of gambling?
Annony correctly notes "Those young (and not that young) folk seen remarkably conversant with the Budget’s contents. A cynic might suggest they’d been briefed. Possibly by whoever selected them for inclusion in this article."
DeleteThey are Charlie's (Murdock rags) 'yoof' angels... aka hit squad.
As I was unfamiliar with the Four Fillies of the Apocalypse, Except When Writing About WEALTH!...
- Paige Fryer, Julie-anne Sprague, Cliona O'Dowd and Pamela Rontziokos ...
I put the Four Fillies of the Apocalypse, Except When Writing About WEALTH!... into DDGo - results? Flagship all the way down.
Goog - Flagshit results, page after page after page...
Any unsuspecting grey haired reader will think these Four Fillies of the Apocalypse, Except When Writing About WEALTH!... are informing them - about our own children! They are soooo right. This poospaper is fantastic a new generation of graony dames to replace our scribblers aligned with our ignorance via bias and bigotry.
Ross Gittins and Ken Henry... intoning DP... "Surely any talk of sunshine was entirely wrong?", which is also a side effect of Koolaid.
"Jim Chalmers’ budget doesn’t fix everything – but it’s an overdue first payment to future generations
Ken Henry
"The treasurer has shown economic reforms should not be left to the too-hard basket, and instead be pursued with a sense of urgency"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2026/may/13/australia-budget-2026-jim-chalmers-economic-reforms-tax-changes-future-generations
The Four Fillies of the Apocalypse, Except When Writing About WEALTH!... will be provided much newscorpse fire-power in future to noble progress. It is the way of newscorpse.
Anonymous - I did not recognise any of your Four Fillies, so searched on a couple of names. Pamela Rontziokos was identified as a 'cadet journalist'.
DeleteNow, some of my best friends have been cadet journalists. Back in the day - the day of actual editors and sub-editors, who were, as our Esteemed Hostess put it, 'grammar Nazis', although this is before the 'N' word was made more acceptable in 'Seinfeld' - the odd cadet might even rate identification, with some writing that the editorial pyramid had smiled upon. In this century, perhaps we should be pleased to see that the reptiles still have 'cadets' in their nest. Will look out for Ms Rontziokos' name on the electronic poster, to see what sort of career path cadets might expect these days, when they have to compete with ring-ins like Freya Leach for column 'inches'.
What the Four Fillies of the Apocalypse, Except When Writing About WEALTH!... are riding against telling their piers...why WE don't suck! All the while eliding and misinforming about...
Delete"Do Young People Suck?
An exploration of a theory of marital decline
Lyman Stone
Apr 23, 2026
But why are marriage rates declining? Many people have theories. One theory you often here is “Because the other sex sucks.” The men are all porn-addled, the women are depressed, the men are gambling their savings away, the women are obese, etc, etc, etc.
I think this is a bad theory, but a lot of people believe it. This article is responsive to online discourse provoked by Patrick T Brown , but specifically responding to Leah Libresco Sargeant ; Ivana Grecojoined the party as well, I suspect Cartoons Hate Her will enjoy it, and Derek Thompson is favorably cited, so there, tags.
In this post I will explore to what extent the youths really do suck.
TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains discussions of self-harm, substance abuse, illegal drugs, legal drugs, pornography, pornographic violence, other violence, sex, sexual violence, Korea, and Derek Thompson. I include Derek here because it’s scary how nice he is to people. He’s hiding something.
...
So I think it’s safe to say young men and young women agree with a relatively negative view of themselves, at least compared to prior generations.
If you think that self-assessment is decently accurate, then young peoples’ assessments of themselves is consistent with a declining mate quality thesis. They think they themselves kinda suck!
...
https://lymanstone.substack.com/p/do-young-people-suck
While Ms Rontziokos does carry a title, apparently Petr Sedlacek does not. He occupies a chair at UNSW. UNSW is a 'supporter' of e61, and Sedlacek appears on a couple of that institute's publications. So he is justified to pick the odd cherry from those publications.
ReplyDeleteIn the context of this most recent budget, and his caution that 'we will have to wait for more date', he might also have put before readers one of the 5 aspects of the Australian economy that e61 tells us are unusual. Specifically - "Australians hold substantial private wealth, much of it in housing and superannuation, and yet the average Australian still has access to large amounts of liquidity. Australia appears unique for the widespread use of offset and redraw accounts, which offer a means for mortgage holders to build home equity without sacrificing liquidity. This contributes to liquidity being concentrated among older and higher-income Australians"
But I suppose that might have set off the alarms with whoever compiles reptile content these days.
#@$%&*^% spelling predictor - wait for more data.
ReplyDelete+100 "#@$%&*^% spelling predictor"!
DeleteBonus article.... "to clear a common space where the social sciences and computer science and engineering can discuss the social consequences of AI."
ReplyDeleteGreat framing, references and observations.
"AI as Social Technology
Artificial general intelligence does not hold out the promise of truly post-human bureaucracy.
BY HENRY FARRELL & COSMA ROHILLA SHALIZI
MAY 11, 2026
...
"... to map what is best grasped as another stage in the Long Industrial Revolution. AI may turn out to be very important, but in quite different ways than our inherited myths suggest.
"We build on ongoing collaborative work (Farrell et al., 2025) with Alison Gopnik and James Evans which argues that it is a category error to think of “large models” as self-motivated agents in the making. Instead, they are better understood as “cultural” (Yiu, Kosoy and Gopnik, 2024) and “social” technologies, resembling libraries and languages on the one hand and markets and bureaucracies on the other. Here we focus on how to study these technologies’ consequences for human society, emphasizing the social rather than the cultural aspects. We particularly emphasize how AI is a social technology, a systematic means of reorganizing social relationships among human beings (Therborn, 1978). Earlier social technologies include not just other information technologies, but institutions of governance such as bureaucracies, markets, and even democracy (Farrell, 2025). We will focus on LLMs over other AI systems. This downplays some important aspects of modern AI (e.g., its use in straightforward scientific problems such as protein folding) but helps highlight connections to other social technologies.
"Briefly: LLMs create social relations between their users and the authors of the text in their training corpora. With the right access to the model and the corpus, one can trace the connections from system output back to individual source texts and their authors (Grosse et al., 2023). These social relations are mechanically mediated, giving users the illusion that they are interacting with just the machine and not an assemblage of people. But mediated social relationships and their illusions are a common fact of modern life. The social relations created by LLMs in turn cut across, and interact with, other social relations, including those shaped by other social technologies.
"Our goal here is to clear a common space where the social sciences and computer science and engineering can discuss the social consequences of AI.
...
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-as-social-technology
Via
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/13/vibe-governance/#k-hole