It's the price of prosperity
Phillip Coorey and Jessica Irvine
August 9, 2007

HOME OWNERS grappling with the fifth interest rate rise since the last election have been urged to accept it as a consequence of the prosperous economy.

John Howard, who promised at the 2004 election to keep rates low, defended the damaging election-year increase by claiming rates would rise even faster if Labor were elected.

"I would say to voters, yes, reflect on what I have said in the past about interest rates, but also reflect on who is better able to manage the finely balanced challenge of economic management and economic policy at a time of great prosperity," he said.
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Gus: CRAP.

It's the price of the illusion of prosperity

In fact, our prosperity — if it was measured in real terms of what we have — would be at the bottom of the barrel. Our problem is that our prosperity is measured by our over-indulgence in grabbing things we cannot afford but are too cheap to let pass by — or by dreams the cost of which have tripled since we started dreamin'.
Thus we have been caught like many other greedy places on earth in a frenzy of credit "surge"... That's why the stock market is "yo-yoing" under the conflict of "wanting more greed" and the black hole of credit... And the Reserve Bank had no choice but to let us know... And dare I may say, the Reserve Bank has been very restrained and generous. The true rate of increase should have been at least half a percent point, if not a full point...
Rattus got off lightly. Had China not being around, we'd be navel gazing at the ruins of this country and its ethics.
Rattus has not managed us well. Sure, he has been opportunistic in making sure we'd buy his porkies on war and all his fiddle of the public services that have gone down the drain or gone private at great expense... But he has turned this proud egalitarian country into a mass of greedy little ruthless monsters, like himself. The greed may not manifest in money terms in his own behaviour, but in the power-grab of everything he can put his little mitts upon...
Prosperity? You bloody work twice as much for half as much return, while the rich get richer at an exponential rate riding on your back. You get the crumbs of prosperity with the headaches of credit.
That's the Rattus syndrome.

Throw him out. 

'Shape up or we're shipping out'

August 11, 2007 07:26am

Article from: AAP

PRIME Minister John Howard has warned the Iraqi Government that unless it makes faster progress towards resolving the country's political differences it faces the prospect of Australian and other Western troops withdrawing.

In a letter to his Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki, Mr Howard urges the Iraqi Government to speed the sharing of oil wealth among all sections of the Iraqi community, including the minority Sunni population, The Weekend Australian newspaper reports.

Mr Howard warns that if the Iraqis fail to make progress, the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq may not be sustainable.

The clear implication in Mr Howard's letter, which was sent last week, is that US public support would also falter without signs of substantial political progress in Iraq, the paper says.

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Gus: from the never-ever kid, the 180-degree-back-flip-with-a-full-twist master who promised us with rock solid certainty he'd (our troops) never leave Iraq without the "job being done", this single crank of the spinning bottle is a dummy spit that takes the cake... Sure, the Rattus UnAustralianus can see when his banana is being peeled since most people in this country object to our troops being in Iraq, so as his election disaster looms, he's back-pedalling with the gravitational rage of a sad circus clown on a gear-less minivelocipedus to make us laugh or cry...

Go! Go away little "lying rodent", take a holiday on a cruise ship that never comes back, melt like fertiliser into the lawn of Kirribilli, but do not, please, do not fiddle with yourself. It smells of hypocrisy...

And urging the Iraqi Government to speed the sharing of oil wealth among all sections of the Iraqi community, including the minority Sunni population, is beyond the pale, since the Iraqi portion of this "oil wealth" is minuscule compare to what the US is eager to make, as we all know, that the true reason Iraq was invaded: re-sour-ces... OIL.

Throw him out!

From the ABC

No plan to leave Iraq, PM says

Prime Minister John Howard says his decision to send a letter to his Iraqi counterpart in no way signals the Government's intention to withdraw Australian troops.

Mr Howard says he sent the letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki a week or so ago but has yet to receive a response.

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Gus: so why warn the Iraqi Government that unless it makes faster progress towards resolving the country's political differences it faces the prospect of Australian and other Western troops withdrawing.?

So why warn that if the Iraqis fail to make progress, the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq may not be sustainable? In fact the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq has dwindled from not much to very little... But the PM is smart to write this letter in these words which, really, don't mean any bloody thing...

Yes Gus, the rattus notion of "sharing" is simply obscene ....

Solemnly suggesting that his bushit pals are making desperate, selfless sacrifices for the ungrateful Iraqis (3,684 US military personnel killed & 30,000 + maimed), our little rattus neglects to mention the more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqis butchered as a consequence of the corrupt coalition's evil & illegal war of aggression.

To then berate the Iraqi government for not "sharing" its country's oil wealth, whilst his criminal pals on the Potomac continue to try & steal it, once again highlights what a pathetic, slimy, dishonest little creature he is.

‘The package of oil laws represent one of the clearest examples of a dynamic that's fuelled much of the country's political instability but is rarely discussed in the commercial media.

While the war's advocates continue to sell the occupation of Iraq as part of a grand scheme to democratize the region, anything resembling true Iraqi democracy is in fact a tremendous threat to U.S. interests.

The law, after all, was not designed with Iraqis' prosperity in mind; plans for throwing the country's oil sector open to (almost) unregulated foreign investment were hashed out by a State Department working group that included major players from the oil industry long before the planning for the invasion itself. These plans were discussed in the White House (under the guidance of Dick Cheney) before that - even before the attacks of 9/11.

The framework law - from what we know from a series of leaked drafts - will hand over effective control of as much as 80 percent of the country's oil wealth to foreign firms with minimal state participation. According to an analysis by the oil watchdog group Platform, Iraq stands to lose tens of billions of dollars in potential revenues under the contract terms being considered.

The administration claims that offering such lucrative terms is necessary given the dire need for investment in Iraq's war-torn oil infrastructure, but those investments could just as easily be made out of Iraq's existing operating budget or financed through loans - despite the chaos on the ground, Iraq's massive energy reserves would be more than enough collateral for even the strictest lenders.

What Unites Iraqis: Blocking Western Petroleum Companies From Seizing Control Of Their Oil

Howard 'irresponsible' on interest rates

The Federal Opposition is looking to capitalise on predictions of another interest rate rise, after the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said a strong Australian economy continues to put pressure on inflation.

A forecast hike in underlying inflation has economists predicting another rate rise.

Australians for Affordable Housing spokesman David Imber says the impact would be enormous.

"That would be dreadful news," he said.

Opposition treasury spokesman Wayne Swan is making the most of it.

"It is just yet more evidence of just how irresponsible [Prime Minister] John Howard was when he promised to keep interest rates at record lows," he said.

But while Labor's plan to give tax breaks to investors who build cheap rental accommodation is being welcomed by the industry, it is being condemned by federal Treasurer Peter Costello.

Mr Imber says that is not good enough.

"The Treasurer seems to believe that this policy isn't generous enough for renters, so we're looking to see an even more generous policy from the Government," he said.