I wonder if the anti-budget, anti-Abbott protests on Sunday will make any difference? It does feel like an Americanization mentality in Abbott’s agenda (regarding welfare, education, health etc.) and it is encouraging to see Australians don’t want that. But if our politicians really looked into what is happening in the USA they would discover that it is a complete basket case.
I reported earlier about the wage discrepancy there, but there are many more disturbing trends in the USA. For one, Federal agencies are stock-piling weapons (e.g. 2 billion bullets and counting) for use on ‘internal affairs’? Even the USDA – The United States Department of Agriculture – is set to purchase an unknown quantity of submachine guns (read here). What in the world are they planning for? A revolt from the organic farmers?
USA aside – I stated in a previous blog (“What’s the End game?”) that the devil of the budget is probably about privatisation. Scare the people about the debt (Problem); come out with a harsh budget causing pressure for the States (Action), then instead of raising the GST, sell off the people’s assets (Solution). All week I have been waiting to hear an in depth discussion on the privatisation plans of tens of billions of the people’s assets, but almost nothing – except for a brief mention by Clive Palmer. This asset selling to fund private-government infrastructure partnerships is also a corporate welfare scam that will reap untold rewards for global corporations in the New Australian Century (Corporate) Project.
Well lets look at one example of privatisation in the UK; Royal Mail. A 500 year operation – owned by the people, and apparently it was running efficiently and making money. But they sold it. And by undervaluing Royal Mail this cost taxpayers in the UK the equivalent of A$1,347 million just in one day’s trading. And a windfall for corporations. And what did government do? Attempted to disguise the spiralling long-term costs of privatising the Royal Mail with figures in the budget that show a short-term boost to the government’s finances. The political “book keeping” did not go unnoticed (here and here for example). And what then? What is expected when profit is the primary industry? They started axing jobs and hiked up stamp prices. They sold a honey pot. And it was a SMASH and GRAB raid by the UK Government and the financial world on an asset which was the people’s.
Well don’t expect anything different in privatisation in Australia. The electricity fascists have the Victorian government under their thumbs, with the government doing their bidding in the mandatory roll out of potentially hazardous and more-expensive-to-the-consumer smart meters. Today just one example exposes the results of ‘profitisation’ of a once State asset: In early March, Energy Australia wrote to a customer with a new electricity and gas offer. They picked the wrong customer that day – a retired actuary from Lindfield in Sydney. Looking through the new offer he discovered that he’d be $600 worse off annually. Well that’s just business for these companies – they bank of bigger profits by (duping) hopeful customers into doing nothing, thus accepting, by default, the worst deal possible. (Read here)
So beware – I’m sure Hockey and Abbott are busy meeting with CEO’s and lobby groups, and are being wooed by corporate tongues to do their bidding (e.g. the TPP) and ‘experts’ that will have persuasive arguments in favour of selling off Australia to deal with the Federal government debt (probably a banking asset?). I still wonder whether there is some secret mind control or hypnosis program rolling out on the Crown land called Canberra – land that was acquired without payment in 1911.