Ahh – end of the week – survived another one

Thank you Roger for letting me know about the be-barnacled torpedo – and Winston, you rascal you, a radiation trefoil would have been most entertaining

It appears that cyclone Albo could morph into an upper level trough.

Bugger!

Meanwhile in the Socialist State:

High-risk teen criminals wearing ankle bracelets are set to be placed in state school classrooms from next month, the Herald Sun can reveal.

Secret documents detail a two-year state government plan to allow up to 50 young criminals aged 14 to 18 to go to mainstream schools while ­receiving support to ensure they do not face stigmatisation from other students.

Those involved in the trial will have a high risk of bail noncompliance or reoffending.

Some will be permitted to ­attend school without ankle bracelets if ordered by a ­magistrate.

These measures come as youth crime has skyrocketed to its highest level in 15 years, with some of the state’s worst repeat youth offenders having been bailed up to 67 times.

Herald-Sun

In Champion of the Working Man news:
Albanese’s pitch on beer – temporary freeze on excise indexation

The Albanese government will temporarily freeze the indexation on draught beer excise, in what it describes as a win for drinkers, brewers and businesses. 

The freeze is for two years and starts from the next due indexation date in August. Indexation changes are made twice a year, with the most recent one in February.

Well, that’s huge!
And Election Winning popular!

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said, “This is a modest change but will help take a little bit of pressure off beer drinkers, brewers and bars”. 

Chalmers said it would equal less than one cent a pint, and warned outlets not to “rip off” or mislead consumers.

Oh.

Is Apple investing in USA production facility before China takes over its Taiwanese sub-contractor?

A Cassandra moment:

Self-made billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey is not even bothering worrying about minority government, a hung parliament or some mishmash of Greens and teals calling the shots after the election, warning a “day of reckoning will come” no matter who is in charge as we rush into a black hole of debt fuelled by the worst energy and industrial relations policies in the world.

“Well, the thing is the history of government in Australia in the last 20 years is pathetic, and it can’t get much worse. You’ve got an energy policy that’s been, over the last 20 years, completely stuffed up, our energy policy in Australia is probably one of the worst in the world,” Mr Harvey told The Australian.

“So you look at that, and then you look at our industrial relations problems, again, we would be up among the worst in the world. But then you look at our standard of living and it is among the best in the world so you have got this strange situation – how does Australia keep going so well?

“How do we do so well, doing so many things so badly?

“What has the government done in the last 20 years that’s been good? You can nearly say we don’t need a government, we’re doing well without it, we might be better off. The whole thing in Australia is the engine room is small business right across Australia, that’s the engine room, small business, as well as commodities and agriculture.

Yes, yes it is.

And the unavoidable fact is, when these are the fundamental resources you’re working with, in a huge and naturally difficult country, you are faced with certain Iron Laws:

You need cheapest possible factors of production – particularly energy and human productivity,

You can’t sustain a 27 million population on service industries and public sector employment,

You have to remove all unreasonable regulatory impediments from those productive activities

You can’t afford the luxury of handing control over the development of the oceans and 60% of the landmass to the Wagyl and the Environmental Defenders Office,

And you can’t have nice things that don’t pay for themselves.

As Harvey notes, irrespective of the electoral fortunes of our sorry leaders, Australia is going to have to discover these realities the hard way. Because nobody involved in government sees the need.

The only real question is whether this discovery will be by creative destruction or degeneration?

Looking at the state of the social compact, I’m worried…