A Vote of No Confidence

Our previously fearless political leaders have declared that we are currently in a worldwide financial crisis. Around the globe, they are urging an injection of public funds to boost confidence in the market, and are also urging members of the public to remain confident and to spend their hard earned money.

This so-called financial crisis actually represents capitalism failing. It is blatantly evident that the economies of nations are failing to the extent that they are capitalistic. Capitalism, of course, is an economic system in which there is private ownership of the means of production, and thus, a system in which private capitalists decide what is produced when and where.

Capitalism is now on the brink of displaying to the world that it is a paper tiger. It is a tiger that has no real teeth and relies on the acclamation of the masses to give it any semblance of a roar. In other words, it relies upon perceived confidence for it to sustain itself. When an economic system relies upon confidence, rather than on the direct needs and abilities of human beings, it must always run on a razor’s edge.

Politicians, and their hand-maidens, the economists, generally fail to see that the capitalist system is all smoke and mirrors, and is propped up (or puffed up, to be more appropriate) by a banking sector which is also all smoke and mirrors. The devotees of capitalism not only lack insight, but also make the fundamental error of reifying the economy and reifying the market. Both of these are mere concepts, or theoretical constructs. They are no more real than ideas of the Easter Bunny.

Australia is now caught up in efforts to prop up this mirage of a system by such moves as guaranteeing the funds of those who have made deposits into the mainstream banks. It is odd to note that a major member of this community of banks, is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which, until its privatization in the latter part of the 1900’s, was owned by the commonwealth in the fundamental meaning of the term; that is, it was owned by the citizens, or, if you like, it was owned by all of us. Not only was it ours, but our deposits were guaranteed by the government; that is, they were guaranteed by all of us.

Many of the deposits in the mainstream banks are the modest savings of good citizens heeding the call to carefully manage such funds. Now, though, our commonwealth government wants to give substantial aid to banks and financial businesses that lie outside the mainstream of banking. They want to spend such huge amounts to assist these organisations to qualify for governmental guarantees of the funds invested in them. Those funds are not the funds of the prudent man in the street. They are the funds of the gamblers. They are the funds of the greedy. Capitalism is based upon greed and its instrument, gambling. So, in effect, all of the bail-out moves of the commonwealth government are aimed, wittingly or unwittingly, at the support of greed and gambling.

Some of us have trodden this track before, when politicians, economists and pundits had just enough integrity left to be honest with themselves and others by calling the circumstances of the 1930’s not a recession, but a depression. Some who trod that track have actively and enthusiastically contributed to the factors that have been significant in the current mess. Others, who have not trodden that track might be stupid and lacking in insight, and might be arguably not as culpable.

Those who lived through, or just after, the Great Depression of the 1930’s, will be able to dredge their memory banks to re-instate valuable strategies of survival. Many of us do not have to dredge our memory banks, as the survival techniques are deeply ingrained in our psyches as a result of direct experience or as a result of our early socialisation.

It is unfortunate that our Australian governments, both federal and state, have not sufficiently learned the lessons of the Great Depression. They seem to believe that acceptable spending can be many multiples of income. It is also unfortunate that the executives of even our mainstream banks have not learned these lessons, as evidenced by their practice of lending out many times more funds than the amounts they hold as deposits. Still, such executives operate in a capitalistic mould, and therefore are duty bound to be greedy. Our politicians do not even have this dubious excuse.


Battler

Memo: Kevin Rudd/ Wayne Swan/ Treasury/ Reserve Bank of Australia

In the event that the global economy collapses and our Chinese lifeboat begins to leak like the Titanic, call in the clowns . Seriously, forget our great and powerful ally , ring the man with the top hat in the big top . In l933, during the Depression in Australia, the long established Wirths’ Circus, a national institution , outlined a plan to boost the sick economy.

Under the heading SAVE AUSTRALIA , the scheme was explained in a circus souvenir brochure. Oddly enough , the grand proposal depended on selling rice to the Chinese . Australia, it said, should borrow $70million from Britain and put the 500,000 unemployed on 100 acre irrigated farms in the Murrumbidgee River , especially in the Leeton and Griffith areas. It described Australia as the finest growing country in the world , especially for rice. It said our ‘mighty rivers”, running through four states , provided 3000 miles of watercourse . The longest fresh waters in the world, according to Lord Stonehaven, longer than both the Mississippi and Missouri by nearly 1000 miles.

Alas, much of that mighty waterway has gone down the gurgler. However, back in the Depression , Wirths’ Circus was convinced a massive expansion of irrigation to grow rice was the way out of the troubles. It cited the fact that in Moree , NSW, Chinese shopkeepers bought rice from Leeton for $40 a ton and exported it to China where it fetched $60 a ton . There was a massive market for rice in China, India, Japan , Java and Russia . Such a huge demand made rice more valuable than gold. This extravagant statement probably contributed to the ludicrous notion that Australia should be the food bowl of Asia .

The circus pointed out that Russian wheat farmers had damaged Australian producers in l931 when they sold wheat for one shilling (10 cents ) a bushel . By growing rice in Australia , Russia would become a customer, not a competitor , as it could not grow rice. To promote the rice proposal , Wirths’ advocated an advertising campaign featuring huge posters like ones used in Melbourne to promote the tour of Russian Cossack riders who performed in the circus .

The souvenir brochure contained another two pages headed BOOST AUSTRALIA with items supplied by the Australian National Travel Association. One pointed out the rice growing industry was extremely successful , the first commercial yield in l924-25, 16,140 bushels, proving to be far superior than the imported product. The l929-30 crop had risen to 2,000,000 bushels of paddy rice, producing about 39,000 tons, more than the local demand, about 25,000 tons. Dealing with the make up of our population, 6,500,000 , 97 per cent were of British stock , rapidly developing into a distinctive race- tall, strong and athletic . There were about 62,000 fullblood and l8,000 halfcastes (sic). Of these ,about 40,000 were said to be nomadic and still living in remote , unsettled areas of the interior and Northern Australia “in the primitive style of the Stone Age , using the firestick , stone knife and tomahawk.” Most of the remainder were employed on sheep and cattle stations , or on “ government supervised camps”.

On the sporting side , Australians could indulge in all kinds of activities, more intrepid ones doing a bit of pig-sticking, buffalo and crocodile shooting . Clearly, a massive rice growing project in Australia is now not on . But how about mung beans ? Around the time of NT moves for self government , when not one mung bean was grown in the Territory, a trade mission toured Asian countries asking if they would buy our produce , including invisible mung beans . Strange as it may seem, all countries replied in the affirmative . Somehow , the idea of a mung bean led recovery does not seem feasible , nor does it sound overly sexy .

Cyclops

The American Nightmare

Just as corrupt as its banking and investment system is America’s way of voting. Running about America at the present moment are “thousands” of lawyers challenging the right of millions of people to vote. This in the land held up as the champion of democracy. The Statue of Liberty must feel like sinking into the sea with shame. Having “stolen ” the last election by voting irregularities , Bush winning by 500 votes due to the good old cronies in Florida , the Republicans are at it again. Some of those being scrubbed off rolls entitling them to vote are soldiers daily risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The obscenity of this action is breathtaking.

Until there is a major overhaul of the American voting system the nation is in dire peril not from outside external terrorists but the fascists within who use money, legal chicanery and mobster tactics to keep themselves in power. The corrosive influence of money in US politics is beyond doubt. Ralph Nader colourfully said politicians adopt their normal position, down on knees, when approached by big business wanting anything put into legislation.

One of the suggestions being put forward for electoral reform is that impartial election officials conduct elections and the counting of all votes. That’s one tiny step which could see the US walking on the moon . It is also an open admission the present system is rotten to the core and does not serve the people. In other words, it is not democratic .

Cyclops

Space Invaders are Liquidating Us

Though fragile, my mother proudly says that she still has her marbles, reads a lot, takes an interest in politics and showers members of the family with free advice, causing young ones to roll their eyes.

Discussing the obvious looming Depression and dire warnings about the ramifications of global warming, she says the world is in a frightful mess. With a nervous laugh, she wondered if now was the time for aliens from outer space to come down and save the world. While I jollied mother along , I did not tell her that I know for certain that humanoid creatures from another galaxy are already here and, as repeatedly revealed by the X-File, are wiping out -not saving- inferior earthlings.

Due to their cunning ways , I am in the process of being obliterated , lost in space and erased from computer records. Don’t scoff. Read my coffee stained case history before it is scrubbed by malevolent aliens covering their devious tracks.

At the suggestion of a GP, I underwent an eye test at an optician’s , and rang for a follow up consultation. Certainly, come to the op shop. Arriving at reception , I was welcomed like one of the family, the computer was tapped . What is your name again ?... When were you here ?... Who did you see ?... What was the nature of the consultation on that occasion ? I had obviously been transported to another dimension. I did not exist .

Told to sit down , the bod who saw me in the first instance , emerged and had a close look at me, then darted back into his dark den. When he re-emerged , we had this rather strange conversation as if he could not remember my visit of two weeks ago. I repeated that I had been experiencing painful , needle-like jabs to the eyeballs. His solution : a squirt of el cheapo eye drops.

Returning from this expedition to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World , I decided to ring the local hospital to find out what had happened to my appointment to see a cardiac specialist . It was about three months since I first rang and had been told they would ring back . I gave my name…Clickety-click could be heard over the phone … Who ? I repeated my name …When did you first ring here ? I gave the date and name of the referring doctor who had faxed through my case . Clickety-click.

Did I have an appointment to see a gynaecologist ? Definitely not ! I am of the male gender and can produce overwhelming , but small , evidence to prove it . My daughter, however , had seen a gynaecologist. After this amazing exchange which left me wondering if I was Arthur or Martha, I eventually got an appointment. When I fronted the reception desk to see the heart doc a woman, mesmerised by the computer , possibly receiving invasion details from Planet Zog, tapped away, not acknowledging my presence.

Without making eye contact, she eventually asked for my name , which I supplied in a deep, manly voice. Clickety-click . Strangely enough , it did not take long to find me , no doubt due to the fact that I had established early in the piece that my fallopian tubes were firing on all cylinders like a NASA Saturn rocket.

As there was no Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, I rejected the crapulous magazines on offer in the waiting room. However, when the ECG technician , who had been calling people out by their surname, hesitated and trumpeted my Christian name , I knew once more the aliens were at work .

You guessed it, I had undergone a christening in the waiting room baptismal font and, to my surprise, my surname was now my first name . Comparing notes with an old buddy who frequently has to visit or is rushed to the same hospital in an ambulance, he told me he carefully checks the name on all medication there as on several occasions they have tried to give him somebody else’s potent brew which could worsen his severe ailments , conditions which have brought him close to death on several times.

Kevin Rudd must be from another planet or has a million schoolkids on computers working out a green paper solution if he thinks he can straighten out the sick , creaking medical service of this nation which has been battered almost to death by Martians , under funding , ideology and base vested interests , not to mention those brave medicos scared to blow the whistle on dangerous situations which are evident to staff lower down the pecking and kicking order.

On my latest visit to the heart doctor, the same spaced out receptionist, looking suspiciously like a re-incarnation of Queen Nefertiti , due to extensive use of eyeliner , was transfixed by her computer screen . As expected , the doctor called me by my christian /surname. When I asked him what was the result of my ECG , he hit the computer. Clickety-click. Clickety-click. Clickey-click. That’s strange , for some odd reason, it was not there. Further evidence that I was in the process of becoming a non-person , another H. G. Wells Invisible Man .

A knowing smirk on his face, the doctor told me to come back in a year’s time . Was he in league with those evil ones, armed with computers, taking over the troubled world ? Would I be turned into iodised salt long before the next appointment? Mum might still have her marbles, but I suspect I am losing mine, including the beaut Connie Agates made from fascinating imported moonstones.

Cyclops

Chinese Multi-Coloured Peril

Sympathetic towards Chairman Mao and his Great Leap Forward , I bought an early made in China axe , probably made from pig iron produced in those do- it- yourself blast furnaces which dotted the land . There was bright red paint on the blade. It proved to be awful axe – heavy and blunt , very so. Each chop reverberated through my body. A series of files failed to sharpen the cutting edge and , thankfully, the handle broke .

Years later , about the time of the Cultural Revolution, I bought a made in China hatchet to chop up a tree riddled with white ants. It had a yellow wooden handle, a nice feel and a sharp blade. Obviously part of the big hop forward. Several energetic blows and it broke, the blade spinning backwards , cutting my right arm .
When I examined the hatchet, I discovered that what looked like a metal wedge in the top of the handle was red paint. My uncouth comments about Chinese cutting tools would have filled three volumes about the size of the famous little Red Book .

Nursing my wound which became two permanent scars , I discussed Chinese axes with a handyman who said Chinese axes and other tools were junk that should not be allowed into the country. Buy Australian , British or American , he advised.

In recent times my wife bought a made in China electric stove and a top element suddenly burst into flame. Still covered by warranty , an electrician was called in and said it was the second stove in a week that burst into flames, which was odd.
As he tinkered away he drew our attention to the wiring , saying it could not be any thinner and implied that Australian standards were not being observed . Thereafter , we were never confident about the stove. Later , a member of the family had another made in China stove snugly fitted into a made over kitchen and said he was surprised at the amount of heat it put out and its likely impact on adjoining cupboards. He also commented on the thin wiring .

This morning I hear that a variety of vegetables imported from China are being examined to see if they have any toxic content.

When you read about the monstrous pollution of air, waterways , dog food, rice , baby milk, lollies and chocolates , there are strong grounds for concern . Are our regulatory agencies up to the task? Are we constantly being sold a Beijing Duck? The residents of Toowoomba , Queensland, rejected the idea of drinking recycled water . A recent Australian traveller to China who took in agricultural regions as well as the dazzling new cities, said his abiding memory of the country was the overpowering smell of human faeces. He has gone off tossed salads.

Cyclops