Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Day 44, and not so much a loud bang as a damp squib ...


Six dollars? There's a budget emergency, and after a sordid assignation in a cheap motel room, ScoMo offers the pond a measly six dollars for the taxi ride home?

That wouldn't get the pond as far as the Tower of Babel being built by the angry Sydney Anglicans at the start of King street...

But enough talk of the pond's hurt feelings or the glory days of the past ...


(And more recent Pope here).

Anyway, it's the pond's painful duty not to dwell on the past or the actual budget present, but instead to brood about the reptiles brooding ...

Now some might think this is a source of easy, cheap humour ...


... but it's the pond's painful duty to report that the Bolter has been traumatised, is devastated and in a state of deep delcon despair ...

He presaged his pitiful condition on his blog ...


Scared, clueless, pathetic, a fraud...

And after the blog promise came the promised splash this morning ...


These days the Bolter sounds more and more like he's in a permanent state of frenzied, demented madness ...


Okay, now the pond's got the tone right, let's get into it ...


The irony here is that the Bolter sounds unnervingly like Chris Bowen ... so hey nonny no, on we go ...


Oh hapless raging Bolter, shouting at clouds, is there no relief?

Will dire threats and imprecations and dark muttering about the election follow?


Yes, there's the threat, there's the horse's head in the bloody bed ...

He'd better hope he will get that second chance ...

The pond just loves the embittered, outraged delcons ... as Labor herds Malware's team of Malcontents towards a ten year plan ... when even the Stalinists and Maoists thought a five year plan was enough forward thinking ...

Hmm, time for a cartoon celebrating the man who prepared this meal ... don't forget the six dollar sugar hit ...


(And more Rowe here).

But the pond is always about balance, and having heard from a raging delcon, it's only fair to hear from that mighty smoter and smiter of delcons, the fair Devine ...



Hang on, hang on, that's not sounding all that positive. The sad reality of our new class war?


Oh dear, is the Devine sounding a little delconnish?

How can she come back from that surly and truculent outburst about the suffering of the rich? After all, she's a big supporter of Malware and his merry band ...

What's the bet that it's all the fault of Labor?


What a relief! The Devine comes through with a comedy styling designed to show that she's more delusional than the delcons ...

His budget is crafted modestly to rein in spending ...

It's moments and lines like that which keep the pond hooked on reading the reptiles, struggling as they do on a daily basis to make the most of the bad cards they've been dealt ...

Who else but the Devine could scribble such a fatuous and foolish line?

One of the most obvious ways to fool the Devine and other dummies is to maintain the line on permanent public servant appointments ... and then piss money against the wall on extremely expensive contractors, consultants and consulting firms used to having butlers serve their coffee ... (yes, KPMG, the pond's looking at you) ...

That's why ...

...there's a better way to measure the size of government than the number of public servants it employs: look at its "running costs" (or departmental expenses). 
They show that the business of government was booming over the past year: these expenses grew almost twice as fast (4.6 per cent) as the economy as a whole (2.5 per cent). Treasury estimates the government's running costs will continue to rise relatively quickly in the coming year, at a rate of 3 per cent. (Fairfax here).

Which is why it's so piquant that - at the end of a rant about the long-suffering rich and the bedwetters (having clambered into bed with the bedwetters), the best that the Devine can come up with is His budget is crafted modestly to rein in spending ...

... when it should have read His budget is crafted modestly not to rock the boat and hopefully to help in the election campaign, while allowing idle, repetitive talk about jobs and growth ...

Jobs and growth, growth and jobs ... thirteen times by the count here ...


Awk, awk, who's a pretty polly ... as we keep on heading down that old election road ...






7 comments:

  1. Devine? Pfffftttttt!!!! Have a gander at Louise Mensch.
    Ted Cruz is onto Murdoch, maybe a little late.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good links UC, and genuinely post-ironic

      She doesn’t lack for certitude.
      “Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee—Ted Cruz will get the delegates for the nomination,” Mensch told me the other day as she sipped chamomile tea at a sidewalk cafĂ© a block from the News Corp. building on Sixth Avenue, where Heat Street resides along with the Fox News Channel, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

      “Really?” I asked, unable to conceal my skepticism.
      “Oh yeah! There’s no problem there at all.”

      Whenever the pond reads of barking mad American loons sipping chamomile tea, it reaches for its Glock, or at least a water pistol ...

      Delete
  2. "Soak the rich"? No, "the rich" derive more of their income from investments. It's high income earners that are taking that particular 'hit'.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some government departments are mandating 15% of staff be contractors. That's temporary public servants hired short term - usually month-to-month) from employment placement agencies.

    Of course public servants do such basic work that it can be easily picked up by someone with no previous knowledge or experience in the area. No training costs involved, no planning difficulties when you don't know how many skilled and experienced people you're going to have to do the work.

    Because it's not really work they do. It's just pen-pushing (or should that be mouse pushing?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe I should try asking my question again: what is it that 235,000 (- 15%) of honours graduate Fed Pubserves do during office hours ?

      But actually, Anon, it's really just a dodge so that the managerialists can get no holds barred "individual work contracts" with people who will never be 'protected' by one of the last remaining unions. And they don't have to 'manage' them or promote them or look after their career advancement or provide free tea and coffee for them.

      Just perfect disengagement, really. In both directions.

      Delete
  4. Here are some tips for Barners so he can hone his evil laughing skills.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpV9bueEZC8

    ReplyDelete
  5. Speaking of Ted Cruz why not check out this essay re the very scary ultra-zealot company that he keeps:
    Cruz Super Pac Head Promotes Biblical Slavery for Non-Christians by Bruce Wilson

    ReplyDelete

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