Archive for the ‘money’ Category

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For fuck’s sake, enough already

27 May 2008

Two stories that just won’t die: petrol taxes and free publicity for a stupid movie.

Has society really sunk so low that the product placements in a movie for Cosmo-reading twits are news?

And well done to Brendan Nelson for keeping the petrol tax non-story alive for so long. Fuck our future for an opinion poll blip, why don’t you? But you have to admire the politics. By promising to do something years into the future, which will have no noticeable effect if it ever happens, he forces the Government to do something, or look like they don’t care about the poor struggling masses.

Petrol taxes are TOO LOW, you moron. Until the price reflects the scarcity of the resource and the environmental damage it causes, people have no incentive to stop using it. But try selling that to the battlers.

Posted in media, money, politics, sensitive stuff about chicks | 1 Comment »

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Workplace hazards

19 Mar 2008

Wall St securities trader Stephen Chang, a married man in his early 30s, is seeking damages from the Hot Lap Dance Club near Madison Square Garden, after a stripper allegedly hit his face with her high heel while she was performing a lap dance for him. The club retorts that Chang did not seek first aid or report the incident to club management at the time.

Those dismissing Chang’s claim as shameless or without merit do not realise how hazardous such venues can be for patrons. In these high-risk environments, guests are susceptible to all kinds of injuries, such as:

  • Eye strain, due to having to focus up close on things in low lighting
  • Heart attack or stroke from raised blood pressure
  • Muscle strain, back injury or hernia from supporting dancers’ weight during tricky manoeuvres
  • Heat rash
  • Sequin-related lacerations or abrasions
  • And of course, groin strain.

Posted in money, sensitive stuff about chicks | No Comments »

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Bob Carr: genius

19 Mar 2008

Former NSW premier Bob Carr was often criticised for being too cosy with business. Especially with the development of large infrastructure projects such as the Sydney Airport railway line, Cross-City Tunnel and Lane Cove Tunnel, many believe Carr ignored the interests of citizens to get better deals for his mates in construction and investment banking.

However, recent events have revealed Carr’s true nature: a socialist subversive, intent on swindling the corporate fat cats for the benefit of the good people of New South Wales.

What all these projects have in common, the latest being the Lane Cove Tunnel,  was that once these projects failed to achieve their ridiculously inflated income projections, the investors wrote off the billions they spent or sold off their stakes at a drastically reduced price.

This was all a deliberate strategy on Carr’s part. He was willing to wear the endless criticisms of being a capitalist stooge and big-business crony, because deep down he knew that within a few years, he would effectively have given the citizens of this great state a beautiful gift: free roads and railways!

What better way to build infrastructure than to con a bunch of investment bank money men, lured by false and unachievable promises of revenue, into paying for it?

Cost to taxpayer: zip. Cost to business: who cares?

It’s no wonder Bob went straight from Sussex St to Macquarie Bank. After the people of NSW helped themselves to such an enormous free dinner, Bob’s going to have to wash a lot of dishes to make up for it.

Posted in Sydney, money, politics | 1 Comment »

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Slightly faster broadband

3 Mar 2008

Minister for Broadband Stephen Conroy yesterday delivered the exciting news that the government’s planned $4.7 billion broadband network would deliver speeds “up to 100 times faster than what is currently available”. Sounds great!

It will achieve this by running fibre-optic connections to the telecommunications pillar mushrooms on street corners then using VDSL (very fast digital something something else) to deliver speeds of up to 25Mbps to homes.

Call me a pedant if you must, but that’s not 100 times faster than what’s currently available. I may be decaf soy latte drinking inner city elite, but I get around 19Mbps using ADSL2 and living about a kilometre from my phone exchange. I’m no maths genius, but I’m pretty sure 25Mbps is not 100 times faster than 19Mpbs. In fact I’d say it something closer to 1.3 times faster.

But Senator Conroy’s calculation is based on the claim that “most broadband users currently receive only 256 kilobits per second”. Which is

  • A lie - statistics more than a year old show two-thirds of broadband users on faster than 256Kbps and
  • A damning criticism of how Conroy’s predecessors let Telstra and the rest of the internet industry deliberately retard broadband access and make obscene profits.

Seems like when it comes to technology, the new federal government is as pompous and incompetent as the last.

Posted in damned lies and statistics, money, politics, techno-wankery, turtleneck wearing latté sippers | 1 Comment »

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Eat shit and feel ill, celebrities

22 Feb 2008

Ordinarily, celebrity stories are meant to make us envious. Tales of glamorous, wealthy people dining on fine foods and quaffing bank-account-draining beverages supposedly make us see the futility and meaninglessness of our lumpen existences, which we seek to fill by purchasing the goods and services our celebrity heroes endorse.

The same must obviously be the case for news that guests at ‘actor’ Ashton Kutcher’s 30th birthday party may have been exposed to hepatitis A at swank West Village bar Socialista. Nothing says Cuban socialism like a $600 bottle of Moët & Chandon Dom Perignon Rosé, an $8 appetiser made of lettuce or a 20% surcharge added to parties of six or more.

Celebrity guests including Mrs Kutcher Demi Moore, Javier Bardem, Roberto Cavalli, Eric Dane (who?), Rebecca Gayheart (zuh?), Salma Hayek, Catherine Keener, Lucy Liu, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ivanka Trump and Liv Tyler would no doubt be horrified to discover the most common method of hepatitis A infection is the faecal-oral route.

One can’t help but wonder what kind of cocktails they serve there.

Actually,  several hundred people who were not celebrities attended the same bar on the three nights the infected bartender was working, but who cares?

Upon reading this story, ordinary people will no doubt also wish they were inadvertently exposed to a virus that infects the liver, causing jaundice, fatigue, abdominal pain, loss of appetite,  nausea, diarrhoea and fever.

New York health authorities have warned said celebrities to get a vaccination quick smart. (It should be noted the health department warned the non-famous patrons as well.) Though to be honest, if they didn’t, you can’t imagine the world would be worse off. Shame hepatitis A is almost never fatal.

Posted in media, money, science | 1 Comment »

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Note to self: get pregnant, move to marginal seat, start religious private school

21 Aug 2007

The treasurer today announced a budget surplus of $17.3 billion, a whopping $3.7 billion higher than anticipated when the budget was announced in May.

A substantial $7 billion of this will go into the Future Fund (portrayed as ‘a sensible investment for the future’ instead of ‘politicians lining their own pockets‘). Another $6 billion goes to the Higher Education Endowment Fund. Medical research infrastructure gets $2.5 billion.

That leaves a good $1.8 billion to spend on . . . who knows? Tax cuts for the rich? Handouts for breeders? Pork barrelling in marginal electorates? Sorry, I meant to say ‘responsible spending on infrastructure that will not drive up inflation or interest rates’. Snort.

My only advice is: work out some way to cash in before October.

Posted in damned lies and statistics, money, politics | No Comments »

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Dour outlook for Dow editorial independence

1 Aug 2007

So Rupert Murdoch has got his hands on Dow Jones after a few months of negotiations. However, not everyone is convinced Big Rupe will be able to resist using his considerable influence on the editors and journalists of the Wall Street Journal, which he will soon own, to advance his other commercial interests.

Some Bancroft family members were fearful that Mr Murdoch would destroy the Journal’s editorial independence, but he conceded to establishing an editorial oversight board if he won control of Dow Jones in a bid to appease such opposition.

Dow Jones reporters and a union representing its reporters also said that Mr Murdoch would use the Journal to promote his wider commercial interests if he succeeded in taking over the prestigious business paper.

The Australian onlineJust look at the online front page of The Australian today. A large picture - unusually prominent in the left-hand column - of Rupert Murdoch. Lead story: News Corp clinches Dow Jones deal. Top business story: News Corp clinches Dow Jones deal. Top media story: News Corp clinches Dow Jones deal. Top opinion piece: John Durie, Dow deal a personal coup.

You can’t imagine where they might have got that idea.

Posted in media, money | No Comments »

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Off your trolley

25 Jun 2007

Another week in John Howard’s Australia, another poor-and-vulnerable-screwed-over-by-Work-Choices story. It is great, of course, that the media brings these stories to our attention, but one worries that bad publicity seems to be the only way any kind of justice is served. And one wonders what will happen when these cases become so commonplace the media gets tired of reporting them, or if the subjects of the stories are not particularly photogenic or social-justice-issue symbolic.

This story reminded me of the chap who used to work at the supermarket near my parents’ place when I was growing up, corralling trolleys and mopping floors. He didn’t talk much, and I gathered he suffered from some sort of mental impairment, but he usually had a smile and a wave for me.

One time when I was leaving the car park, a train of  trolleys got away from him and slammed into the side of my mum’s beat-up old Volvo. Of course I didn’t give a rat’s arse about the paint job, but I will never forget the look of utter terror on his face. You can only imagine the tirade - and direr consequences - he was expecting, especially if it had been some horrible rich bastard’s Merc or Toorak tractor instead of a crappy old station wagon.

Although these days I am a horrible rich bastard, at least it occurs to me that when we talk about vulnerable people being exploited by heartless politicians and unscrupulous companies, we’re talking about people like him. And that I should do more about it than write pathos-filled reminiscences.

Posted in media, money, politics | 1 Comment »

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Behold the fiscal prophet hath spoken

7 May 2007

With the powers of prophecy the Lord has granted me, I can predict a full 24 hours before the treasurer publishes the federal budget that it will contain:

  • Handouts for breeders in McMansions
  • Handouts for old geezers
  • Pork barrelling for marginal seats
  • More money allocated to advertising than alternative energy research
  • Meretricious and ineffectual spending on health, education, climate change, infrastructure or anything else useful
  • Piddling tax cuts that are an outrage given the enormity of the surplus of our money the government has taken from us and then refused to tell us why we shouldn’t get it back, which are at the same time criminally negligent tax cuts, given we know Australians will spend the extra money on plasma TVs and poker machines instead of saving it, thus driving up inflation and interest rates
  • Absolutely fuck all for me.

The Lord has blessed me with the uncanny ability to determine that when you see something happening again and again and again, you call it a pattern.

Posted in money, politics | 3 Comments »

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Religious ≠ trustworthy

2 May 2007

Brit backpackers Caroline Day and Mei-Yin Lee’s elation when they found out they won $574,000 soon turned to shock and dismay when it turned out the friendly chap at the newsagency, Chrishartato Ongkoputra or Chris Ong, had done the old switcheroo and submitted a claim form with their ticket and his name on it. NSW Lotteries paid him the money and he mysteriously left the country.

Day and Lee had to sue NSW Lotteries to get the money, which they did, and now the lottery and the newsagent (and the newsagent’s insurance company) are in court to see who’s liable. The newsagent Michael Pavellis admitted he didn’t check the form before sending it off, explaining:

He was a religious person; he went to church twice a week. I know it sounds strange after what has happened, but he was an active member of the church band. He was a well-liked person.

Classic blunder, assuming a religious person is trustworthy. There are plenty of people who display all the outward trappings of religiosity while being complete scoundrels or deviants.

We assume otherwise at our peril.

And let’s not forget modern, hip Christianity tells us God Wants You to be Rich and God Wants You to be Wealthy. (I never really understood that thing about rich men, camels and needles or why Jesus knocked over the moneylenders’ tables anyway.)

Surely Ong was just being a Good Christian.

Posted in filthy kike propaganda, money | No Comments »

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