Economics in the Euro Zone.

Thought you might appreciate a quick overview of economics in the Euro Zone.

Some years ago a small rural town in Spain twinned with a similar town in Greece. The Mayor of the Greek town visited the Spanish town. When he saw the palatial mansion belonging to the Spanish mayor he wondered how he could afford such a house. The Spaniard said; "You see that bridge over there? The EU gave us a grant to build a two-lane bridge, but by building a single lane bridge with traffic lights at either end this house could be built".

The following year the Spaniard visited the Greek town. He was simply amazed at the Greek Mayor's house, gold taps, marble floors, it was marvellous. When he asked how this could be afforded the Greek said; "You see that bridge over there?" The Spaniard replied; "No."

Mark my words.

Hello again dear friends and even those who aren't.

Someone once said "It's like De Ja Vu all over again"

Here's the way I see it.  This government is chock full of incompetent career union hacks who have never held down a job that produced or manufactured or contributed to the economy in any way, shape or form.  They have always been takers.  Takers reliant opon the sweat of the brow, strength of the backs or intellectual capacity of those who work and EARN a living, eke out a livelihood in order to provide for themselves and their families.

These union hacks who are supposed to represent the workers do so with their snouts not only in the public trough but are feted by airlines, hotels, sporting organisations and sundry others who lavish them with freebies.  Just check here for the declarations:  http://www.openaustralia.org/

What they need now is a patsy, someone to "take the fall"  someone who will be willing to "take one for the team" and here's the way it will go.

An industrial dispute will come to a head - my pick is back to the waterfront given that Saint Corrigan and Saint Reith lubed them up, bent them over and boofed them like Bob Brown at an after mardi gras party at Greens HQ!

A set-up is in the making where liebor intends to come out smelling like the roses growing from its own shit.  Whether or not section 431 of the GilLIARd act will be invoked is questionable, but be sure my dear reader, that if it is, it will be done with the certainty that any legal challenge will fail.

A setup - no more, no less.  That is the way that these fools will attempt to justify their outrageous incompetence - by setting up a patsy.  It could easily have been boofhead Sheldon, but no, he is destined for higher office.

There will be a sweetheart deal done with someone to show that these liebor halfwits are prepared to stand up to unions and take it all the way to ending a mickey mouse dispute with the fair work legislation.

Well we are not fools and will not be fooled and if this small piece in the cyberspace of the internet universe makes a skerrick of difference and is a wake-up to just a few, then I'll be a happy chappy.

Never in the history of this wonderful country have we been so poorly led and represented by a government that wouldn't know its arse from its elbow.  Fair dinkum, WE DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS!

What about the WHOLE truth?

We have all heard the Oath;  The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

If it is not the whole truth then it is as good as a lie.

In Question Time in the House of Representatives, serial LIAR Anthony Albinese DELIBERATELY MISLED the House and the Australian people with his several answers to Questions from BOTH sides.

He was specifically asked if he had been informed by Mr. Joyce that there was a possibility that aircraft would be GROUNDED?

Let's just go to that question again.  "Were you told that there was a possibility that aircraft would be GOUNDED"?  Up until that time, seven Qantas aircraft HAD been GROUNDED because maintenance had NOT BEEN COMPLETED due to industrial action by engineers.

Serial LIAR sleazy Albinese a.k.a. the #turdinatie stood at the despatch box and answered the question by saying that he had NOT been advised of a LOCKOUT before Saturday just after 2:00pm.

The Prime Minister juLIAR gilLIARd has continued with the line in the media.

"We were never informed about a LOCKOUT"

Perhaps true - why would Mr. Joyce show his hand, BUT, that wasn't the question, was it?

Were you told about GROUNDING aircraft - YES YOU BLOODY WELL WERE!

A simple analogy:  Husband found dead as a result of a shotgun wound.  Wife found with the smoking gun in her hand calling him all the bastards under the sun.

In Court, her lawyer asks her; "Did you ever strike your husband"? NO "Did you ever threaten him with a knife, perhaps in the kitchen"? NO.

You see where this is going don't you.

The truth, but not the whole truth.

GilLIARd is running with the line that "We were never told about a LOCKOUT"  Well of course not.

LIES LIES LIES and GROSS incompetence.  WE DESERVE BETTER.

Election NOW.

A Curmudgeons view of the live export ban.

Some will be reading this piece because they have followed a link from Twitter.  I have been described by @HumanHeadline, Derryn Hinch as a "Twitter Tragic".  Excuse the expression, but, guilty as charged!

Since the broadcast ot the 4 Corners programme on the 30th of May 2011, there has been, quite properly, outrage at the cruelty towards cattle in an Indonesian slaughterhouse.  Quite improperly, there has been ill-informed hysteria by the usual suspects including the radical so-called animal lovers, tree-huggers and red to the core greenies.  Surprisingly, uninformed and ignorant comments have come from some from whom I would have expected a higher standard of understanding and analysis.

Perhaps the easiest way to deal with the ill-informed and ignorant is to treat them with ignore, but the easy option simply leads to further ignorance.  Those who are stubbornly cemented to their view can almost never be convinced to look at a situation through another set of eyes.  Then there are the most annoying group.  Those who take the view that makes them appear to be following the righteous trend of the day without any consideration of the consequences.  These are people who are generally not directly affected by the particular set of circumstances, but maintain an opinion nonetheless.  A bit like a woman having a view on male circumcision or a man having a view on women's sanitary products.  Both entirely outside their own ballywick but not to be outdone, they exercise their right to have an opinion.  Good for them.

Good for them perhaps, but not for others, as is the case with the current situation involving our live animal exports.

So that there is no confusion whatsoever as to my stance on animal cruelty, I will state my position as clearly as possible.  I abhor unneccesary cruelty in all its forms, towards men, women, children and all living creatures.  Yes, even the creepy crawly ones!  If there is a way I can say it clearer, please let me know.  You will note the rider, unneccesary, properly inserted so as to avoid hypocrisy.  One would be a dolt not to recognise that some activities require degrees of cruelty in order to protect and maintain human life, and those are the degrees of cruelty that we accept in our day to day lives.  If those have to be explained, then I would be surprised that you managed to read this far!

Lets face the facts here.  Abbatoirs, slaughterhouses and knackeries are not nice places, particularly for the faint-hearted.  Nothing nice happens in them.  They are places of death and butchery.  Whether the animal is slaughtered in a tin shed or in the foyer of a six star hotel, doesn't make it any less dead.  No matter what method is used, there is some form of suffering.  As a civilised society, we can only ensure that any suffering is minimised.  Sadly, it can never be totally eliminated but over the years we have managed to design and construct facilities that reduce animal trauma as much as possible.

Such is not the case in less fortunate societies and communities around the world.  Animals are slaughtered daily in circumstances that are devoid of any humane practices, not as a matter of simple convenience but as a matter of absolute neccesity and there are simply no alternatives.  There have been suggestions that we slaughter livestock here in Australia and send it to Indonesia frozen.  A worthy but totally impractical idea.  Not only are there regions without refrigeration, there are regions, towns and villages where there is no electricity.  By the time a box of frozen meat reached its destination, it would be unfit for anything other than a decent burial.

What has to be understood is this.  When we export live cattle to Indonesia, they are transported in modern well fitted out ships, designed for the purpose and under veterinary supervision.  Most are taken to feedlots for growth and fattening and from there, again, most are taken to perfectly good abbatoirs for processing, but not all islands, towns and villages are close to these facilities.

Cattle are taken to small islands and villages and are killed on a needs basis.  Remember, no power and no refrigeration so when an animal is killed, it is butchered, distributed and eaten.  These villages have no modern facilities and must make do as best they can and here is the crux of the matter.  You have a massive beast of several hundred kilos, and make no mistake, we're not talking about Daisy the dairy cow here, we are talking about a large snorting angry beast that has to be killed and believe me, they take some killing.  We can't sit in judgement of the people who kill these animals in whatever manner is required, but what we can do is train, educate and provide assistance where possible, but we can't do it all.

What our government has done with this knee-jerk reaction to banning live cattle trade with Indonesia is to have metaphorically cut the throat of a three hundred million dollar a year trade at a cost of between ten and fourteen thousand jobs!  They are not going to stop the slaughter of animals in Indonesia.  Livestock will simply be purchased from other suppliers who will be rubbing their hands with glee at the opportunity that this stupidity has presented.

If those hand-wringing ignoramuses who have demanded this halt to exports are fair-dinkum, then they would demand a blockade of Indonesian ports banning the entry of any livestock to the country, but no, that would never do.  So here's the hypocrisy from this mob of unthinking halfwits, we know that the slaughter of brown-eyed cattle will continue but as long as they are not our brown-eyed cattle!  The other alternative, let the people starve. Irony, anyone?

I have a name for argument put forward by the hand-wringing do-gooders.  I call it the Swiss Cheese argument where the points are the holes.  All of the points have individual merit and are held with the best of intentions until the holes start to align.  Before you know it, all you are left with is a big, empty hole.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why abbatoirs and operating theatres don't have glass walls?  Perhaps it's because some folks of a gentle disposition are better off not knowing what really goes on in there.

Gillard et al hoisted the white flag again for the sake of popularity and not practicality, but who are the real losers?  Salt of the earth farmers and rural communities whose lifeblood is being drained out of them on the slaughterhouse floor in Labor's abbatoir.

I decided to refrain from tweeting over the past few days in order to properly gather my thoughts on this issue.  Some of the comments being made on this topic were so far off-the-wall and devoid of logic, that frankly, I had difficulty in recognising some of the people who made them, given that I had previously considered their views on other topics to be valid and intelligent.  Emotion is a very powerful human trait and a tool used by many from retailers to governments in order to manipulate decision making.  For many, emotion and ego are two things best left at the door when entering into debate.

Go kindly
The curmudgeon's curmudgeon
BillfromBendigo

Anthony Albanese, Member for Grayndler and Leader of the House is a LIAR

At approximately 6:00pm on Friday 29^th April, Member for Grayndler, Minister for Infrastructure, Leader of the House, Anthony Albanese produced the following message.

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AlboMP Anthony Albanese

On the Royal theme, Prince Charles gets stuck into Tony Abbott http://tinyurl.com/4x6xxma

22 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

I followed the link to a nondescript article by David Batty of The Guardian, appearing over two-and-a-half months ago on Thursday 10 February 2011.  I read the article with interest expecting a firebrand no holds barred criticism of the Leader of the Opposition by HRH The Prince of Wales, alas, there was not a single mention of him, or anyone else for that matter.

In a charitable frame of mind, I sought out a transcript of the speech made by HRH and read it thoroughly, lest the Leader of the House had mistakenly referred to the wrong link. The Speech can be found here.

http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/content/documents/Transcript-4.doc

Sadly for the Member for Grayndler, there is no mention of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Tony Abbott here either.

I repeat the statement made by Albanese:

“Prince Charles gets stuck into Tony Abbott”

Just seven words, hard to misinterpret or to confuse.

Seven words that are a fiction, seven words that form A BLATANT BALD FACE LIE!

I claim that Albanese has deliberately, callously and knowingly lied and misrepresented the facts.  Make no mistake.  There can be no confusion, just seven words in a statement where he has verballed not just anybody, although that would be bad enough, but HRH The Prince of Wales and heir to the throne.  Can it get any worse?

I now publicly and without reservation call you, Mr. Albanese A LIAR and invite you to respond.

So What Have We Learned In 2065 Years

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.  People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."       Cicero - 55 BC