Mangled Thoughts

This item addresses the last challenge put by Anon under, Second reply to Anon:

“wouldn’t abolishing or reducing trainee wages allow the market process to operate more freely? After all…”

To summarise the exhange to date, in reference to the clowns of the HR Nicholls Society and their pal, John Day, Anon put a question in comments on apprenticeships and wages.

The question Anon put that initiated the exchange actually turns on: the HR Nicholls Society holds, amongst many fallacies and their subsequent crude blunders, what the ACTU also happens to rely on to attack free labour markets; wage rates are indeterminate. Secondly, to the exchange, they hold the height of wages is decisive for employment and its reverse, and this is also false.

The height of wages blunder is assumed by the nonsense of Hugh Morgan’s tripe, and parroted by Bob Day:

“The ratio of minimum wage rates to the median wage rate explains whether wages are either about right or too high. Wages are 58% of the median, they are too high.”

Wage rates are not indeterminate. They are set by the marginal value of the product of labour. The ratio of capital to labour sets the height of wage rates. This is crucial, and it showed out; the Howard Cabinet swallowed the snake oil pumped out by the HR Nicholls Society that free labour markets raises the productivity of labour. The ACTU and the then Labour Party Opposition seized on this to effortless devestating effect:

Not only is it false, but in free markets wage rates can fall. Why? The problem is the telling ratio, capital to labour and the mvpl. Next, only capital accumulation raises wage rates, because only this raises productivity. To illuminate it, it’s all the difference between using a digging fork to plant 1,000 acres with potatoes and a single man using a massive, modern tractor hauling a seeding machine.

Can anyone doubt who will earn more in a period of time, the second seeding 1,000 in a day or two, or the former manually digging them in over a couple of years? Well, yes, apparently. After all, Liberal Party Ministers only echoed the rubbish labour itself can raise production. Amusingly, the Rudd Cabinet also claims labour raises production. Their twist is, mass re-education, ‘credentialism’, will make labour super productive, a great leap never before witnessed in history. No doubt, if enough bits of paper stamped credential are glued together, the resultant papier mache will be a machine superior to tractor towing seeding machine; except when it rains - paper tends to sogginess and disintegration in the wet.

It must be noted, if the HR Nicholls Society’s grasp of labour market economics was sound, they could have effortlessy have smashed the ACTU on these facts, as well as other facts of economic laws. This is why the ACTU fears Jackson, and not the insular buffoons of the HR Nicholls Society.

In an article in The Australian, Bob Day stated that tradesmen on construction sites are doing very well under labour market reforms. Needless to say, the ACTU seized on this. Combet replied in The Australian with the obvious, Day committed the fallacy of treating what might be true of some as a universal truth. Combet finished off the Day ‘expert paper’ on labour markets by observing that there are those who are not doing anywhere near as well as the HR Nicholls Society claimed they would.

What voters in 2005 correctly concluded was Hugh Morgan, puckering up to the ABC camera ‘who loved him’, telling them that they are paid too much. That, their wages must be cut, and this way Australia will prosper.To reinforce this, the HR Nicholls Society asserted that employees could be compensated by income transfers! It was truly numbing reading their ‘labour market economics’ material.

Returning to Anon:

He put the question:

“wouldn’t abolishing or reducing trainee wages allow the market process to operate more freely? After all, the trainee wage is a minimum wage, not a maximum wage…Rather, a lower minimum wage rate might encourage employers to recruit those jobseekers who are currently locked out of the labour market.”

This is still loaded with the error of the height of wages. If jobseekers are “locked out”, it points to an effective minimum wage is in force. Though, to be sure, this is not intended to unreasonably press Anon’s statement, in view of the qualification:

“I wasn’t suggesting, not for a second, that wages “be forced down below market rates.” Rather, a lower minimum wage rate might encourage employers to recruit those jobseekers who are currently locked out of the labour market.”

It must be observed, if a prescribed minimum does not deliver unemployment, it cannot be an effective minimum. So long as a prescribed minimum is equal to or less than market rates, it is not effective. Anon’s reply raises the question of, is the prescribed minimum effective? It might well be.

Secondly, labour is not homogeneous. A prescribed minimum might be only a minimum in some cases, but can be an effective minimum in others. The problem is, it is not market processes setting minimums.

The statistic Anon gives, 45% of apprentices are paid above the minimum centrally prescribed rate is useless. The only additional remarks to be made are stresses, e.g.:

- Some of the 45% might be apprentices who, some time into their apprenticeship, do have higher mvpls, and so will be paid more.

- Some of the 45% might reflect the ACTU is enforcing closed shops and effective minimum wages. Next:

“After all, the trainee wage is a minimum wage, not a maximum wage, so employers would be free to pay above that rate, as many (52% of employers) already do…”

As a price floor, is it an effective minimum? This is a real concern, contained in the real problem: If it is, it wipes out the opening of some apprenticeships.

The trainee wage rate, however, was raised as an attempt to counteract imposition of effective minimum wage rates, and the capacity of the ACTU to extort effective minimum wage rates. The floor was actually lowered. The ALP hotly contested this in Parliament and to check here are some documents from Hansard:

WORKPLACE RELATIONS AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 1996: Second Reading

Unemployment: Youth Wage

Apprentices

Training Packages and Wages

Youth Wages

These are only a tiny fraction of the documents in which ‘trainee and youth wages’ is a price ceiling is the subject of the document, or one of the subjects raised.

To reiterate, the problem is, it is not free market processes setting rates, it is capricious central authority, in no position to discover market rates, fixing them.

It must be noted that employers are not bound by ‘trainee wages’ as a ceiling. Next:

“I don’t think the 45% statistic is completely meaningless. To me it demonstrates that employers value some workers more than others and so, I think, reinforces your earlier point that “labour isn’t homogenous.”

In addition to the above remarks, this sentence also treads dangerously close to Adam Smith’s error.I’m not saying Anon intended it but it does read so. Smith resurrected the erroneous notion of the value of labour. It had been demolished as false long before Smith. Why did Smith commit it?

Perhaps it was because of his Calvinist background. Smith’s mistake is now a vulgar commonplace. Some clergymen, for example, echo it when they bang on about the dignity of labour and the labourer is worthy of his hire. To the former, dignity of labour, this is rubbish. Only those who hold really nice, comfy jobs are prone to this nonsense. The scholastics, drew the right distinction, work is a fact of life, we are physical beings.

They asserted the dignity of the man, not work. They held no nonsensical, mystical sentimental belief about work. They simply said, we have to work, we have to produce, in order to live, advance, prosper. They did not insult modest men, women and children that in their day engaged in backbreaking, and for some also very dangerous work to earn modest pay indeed.

The scholastics observed market prices was for the labour supplied. There is nothing personal about wages. Market rates are not an insult, it is the value of labour at the time.

The problem is, to say employers ‘value some workers more than others and so…’ injects a false moral note that obscures labour markets and the economics of labour markets. Let’s put it in the ACTU’s slang, “Fair pay for a fair day’s work…equal pay for equal work”, also committing the fallacies of indeterminancy and, from perfect competition, labour is homogeneous.

Adam Smith also committed the error of indeterminancy, and this leads into the next matter Anon raises:

“…a lower minimum wage rate might encourage employers to recruit those jobseekers who are currently locked out of the labour market….I can’t see what is wrong with this:

“The solution lies in allowing… tradesmen and apprentices, regardless of age, to negotiate indenture agreements which satisfy both parties.”

Bob Day’s expression is ‘indentured apprenticeships’. Now either this is a silly misuse of language, to appear scholarly by throwing in an anachronism, indentured, or it means exactly how it reads, binding apprentices to an emplyor. Day asserts that this will resolve retention of apprentices. Let’s return to more errors committed by Adam Smith, and Mr. Jackson who remarks:

“According to Smith employers can force labour into “compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number can combine much more easily”….

…Smith is viewing wage rates as indeterminate…”

[The H. R. Nicholls Society torpedoes the case for deregulated labour markets]

Observe that Smith also commits the fallacy of ‘imbalance of power”. As another example, in this quote Smith committed both errors:

“[They] should receive a wage sufficient at least to support a standard of living that allows them to participate actively and fully in the community.” (Wealth of Nations)

The HR Nicholls Society committed it too, and the importance of this is: The ACTU asserts ‘imbalance of power of employer over employee. Day commits it too and, unfortunately, so has Anon. Anon must appreciate that in the insular, narcissistic world of the myopic “Right”, they don’t believe the man in the street should draw conclusions and act accordingly, they should do as they are told. Also, the callous “Right” believe in benign tyranny and hold rather feudalistic sentiments, and the man in the street acts. We can be sure of this because not only did the HR Nicholls Society blow the fight for reform out of the water, they blew up the Liberal Party with it. The man in the street told this lot of arrogant prigs:

“Nick off. We are not your slaves.”

They did so in the 2007 election when enough put on their steel capped, hob-nailed boots and sent the Liberal Party scudding across the House onto the Opposition benches.

Lastly:

“Here’s another statistic for you: around 53% of trade apprentices fail to complete their training. Again, I can imagine some people (I’m sure you can guess who) claiming that increasing trainee wages would help reduce the high drop-out rate.”

I’m not sure ‘who’ would say that. I certainly would not say that. However, the matter of retention is part of the HR Nicholls Society’s desire to press ‘indentured’ labour. They believe employers must be an updated version of vassal lord? They have delivered enough evidence to say they in fact do hold this peculiar notion, leaving:

Employees should be grateful to an employer for taking them on and they are ingrates for daring to consider leaving employers. And, accept humbly whatever an employer capriciously decides to pay them.

It might be those who do not complete have found a different line of work that for them pays higher, which means they are engaged in work that has a higher mvpl. Secondly, these alternative jobs might also lead to greater opportunities into the future. It is rational to leave jobs that are dead end streets - short with a hard stop at the end. Yet, this is a subjective matter; some-one’s dead end is another’s open highway.

It is possible to list infinite reasons and motives but this has nothing to do with the matter in hand, wages and generation of apprenticeships. It is not the height of wages that is the trouble. It is whether effective minimum wage rates are in force, and whether Union closed shops are still asserted. I do note Bob Day’s concern for the unemployed. Unemployment is vicious, but it is not cured with abject nonsense purveyed as the analysis of labour markets.

To the contrary, abject nonsense destroys sound correction, as the HR Nicholls Societ masterly destruction of the fight for reform demonstrated. Now what do we see? These cretins blaming Howard for what they did. At least one of these unctious moralists, Bob Day, whining about their inability to obtain labour, preferably in vassal form. These illiterates still doing their best to ensure the campaign for reform is permanently buried. This lot are as much responsible as the ACTU is for this abysmal state of affairs and the appalling upshot of high unemployment. They supplied the ammo to ensure this abysmal state of affairs.

The saddest thing is, Liberal MPs, did not challenge the HR Nicholls Society clubmen, including Peter Costello and Senator Nick Minchin. They did not seek out sound alternative advice. Committed to the ignorant man’s intellectual heights, pragmatism, they swallowed the snake-oil and lived long enough to tell Australians what a wonderful potion it is. Then they died.

In addition to food riots, the Canadian government is paying ham producers to kill their capital, pigs. Why? Feed for pigs “costs too much”.

Déjà Vu: The Fed’s Interest Rate Dilemma, BrianWesbury (chief economist,First Trust Advisors, L.P.), 30/4/08, Wall Street Journal

Ottawa to pay struggling pork producers $50 million to kill 150,000 pigs by fall
EDMONTON — In what is being called an unprecedented move, the federal government will pay Canadian pork producers $50 million to kill off 150,000 of their pigs by the fall as the industry teeters on the brink of economic collapse.

The animals are being destroyed at slaughter plants and on pig farms in a bid to cull the swine breeding herd by 10 per cent…

Canadian Press, 14/4/08.

“It’s really a perfect storm,” says Schlegel, a hog farmer himself.

“I’m going to try to weather the storm,” he says. “We’ve been successful over 30 years … but we’re trying to reduce costs, we’re trying to buckle down and become more productive. We believe long-term that the hog business will be profitable.”

Schlegel says that is not the case for many other farmers who are facing three main obstacles. First is the unprecedented rise in the value of the Canadian dollar — now trading about par with the U.S. dollar — which means pork prices north of the border have halved. Meanwhile, feed prices have almost doubled, which Schlegel says is primarily due to ethanol demand and fuel policies. (Radio station NPR, 1/5/08).

Well, its because grain supply has been blasted and heading towards zero because of the ethanol criminal fraud. It’s a criminal fraud on a massive scale Australia’s Right supports, as one of their foghorn’s, Andrew Bolt, has made plain a number of times, and was implemented by their Rightwing heroes who stuffed the Howard Cabinet.

Bolt hears no evil, sees no evil, and speaks no evil because he is a propaganda tape recorded message for the scumbags behind a scheme that beats the also Green’s dictated ban on DDT for the sheer scale of the murderous scheme. What’s Tim Blair’s excuse?! Let’s not forget Kennett and his Rightwing buddies who, if they had their way, would have perpetrated this horrendous crime in the 1990’s, just to make Bolt’s buddies even wealthier by savaging Australians (oh, Timbo, crickets only disturb silence from you, and it’s broad daylight.)

Ah, should the scam be killed stone-dead, the Right have their fall back position, direct carbon taxes. A number of Rightwing thugs hope to enrich themselves to the tune of billions of dollars from these measures. Who can forget Hugh Morgan and his pal Ron Walker pushing for the federal Government to kill off capital in efficient, clean, coal based energy firms and shovel billions of dollars of stolen property into their bank vaults in the name of not efficient nuclear power (if it were efficient, entrepreneurial firms would build them on a genuinely free market basis).

There are also the likes of the CIS, in particular Mr. Yates and his interest in the Peony Company – based in China! The pseudo-business of this company is to rake in fortunes out of carbon taxes.

I’ve not heard Tim Blair attack the scumbags for their vicious actions against Australians. Types who claim to be ‘free market Liberals”. These are the scumbags Bolt acts for, and Blair persists in shielding, while attacking the hardcore Left for pursuing the same violent aims. But wait, there’s more joy in the morning:

Announced this morning: Rudd and his Cabinet have decided to literally cut power supply to all Australians

Rudd has announced a planned take-over of Australian coal based energy companies by an external major. Radio news reports this morning also related, this will drive up energy prices for Australians. Well, no, not on a free market basis, but the Rudd backed and planned takeover will do it. The reason it will punish Australian firms and consumers is:

The objective is to reform the Australian firms on the mercantilist definition of exchange, which ignoramuses equate with free trade. The ignoramuses are not all leftists. Many ignoramuses happen to be on the Right. Numbers of these treacherous ignoramuses happen to be Liberal MPs, and others recently retired Liberal MPs. These types, in the decade of the Howard Cabinet, pushed mercantilism. The objective is to dedicate power production to, guess whom, the regime Rudd sucks up to, the Peking Geriatric Buggery Club.

The plan is to cut supply of cheap, efficient coal generated electricity to Australians, and export the energy to Rudd’s ‘mastahs’ in Peking. That’s correct, readers, this is the grand mercantilist scheme Rudd has devised. Needless to say, and it’s a guess but a good one,there will be Rightwingers who will be in on it, to grab a slice of the billions of dollars to be stolen from Australians by the Rudd Cabinet by this fraud. After, all that’s what they are good at, aiding the hardcore Left in order to enrich themsleves by means that spell ruination for millions of Australians.

The great thing about this wheeze is, Rudd will be able to:

1. Blame a foreign company for the consequent misery it will cause.
2. Blame capitalists.
3. Blame free market economists.

To this wonderful political boon, he will be able to stir up the passions of Australians against large scale firms, and direct those passions into solid backing for what I was sure of long before he was flung into office. Rudd is a National Socialist and that is how he and his fellow dictators in Cabinet are proceeding, imposing an undiluted fascist regime. (However, the reality is, the following are to blame: the Right, their pals the Left and Kevin Rudd.)

Between the windmill fraud in Victoria, which the Right in Victoria also supports to the hilt, carbon taxes, and now this grand fascist plan Rudd has cooked up overnight, Australians are in deeper trouble than I had hitherto conceived. This is before contemplating the fact, the Left and the Right are driving towards totalitarianism - it’s just that Rudd has put the pedal to the metal and is shooting along at a few hundred miles an hour.

The Right also pump the Green lie Co2 causes no longer global warming but climate change. The mystics dropped “global warming” when this was killed stone dead by sound science, and seized on climate change. Right wing MPs pushed it when in Federal Cabinet, and they push it from the opposition benches of States’ and Federal Parlaiments. This is before we take into account their think tanks:

The CIS fully agrees with the lie, as their Humphreys’ position paper shows. The Rudd Cabinet is using their ‘case’ to justify the imposition of capital destruction via carbon taxes, which is also what the ethanol crimninal fraud is. It’s jsut that, in view of Rudd’s announcement, it will be effected far sooner than expected. I now await in anticipation for the forthcoming extravaganza: why killing efficient coal power production is economically good for Australians.

The IPA’s stance is to have a leg in both the Yay and the Nay camps. One thing it has done for some time now is to argue they can aid governments in imposing Kyoto compliant, capital smashing, immiserating ‘regulations’ the Right way. In view of Rudd’s declaration, I await their bumber extravaganza on why cutting off power the mercantilist way to Australian companies and millions of consumers is a good thing.

Spot, readers, another problem - oh darn, I only set it out during the last couple of days. Hmm let’s develop it further with another problem that follows, which is rooted in the Green cult of death and destruction and their Lie Co2 emissions cause climate change.

The lie is rooted in nothing more than a pack of primitive magical beliefs. A complete fraud, boosted by pseudo-scientists. However, the Green’s lie is a front for the real aim, the demolition of capitalism, thus free markets, and thus civilisation. Here’s a chap who forthrightly states this again, as so many have over very many years now - except the thugs of Australia’s Right:

The Left’s latest excuse for imposing totalitarianism on free men and women, Co2. This is being achieved through nationalism as opposed to patriotism, the subjugation of the individual. It is not only, for example, the Bracks-Brumby Cabinets who have imposed totalitarian measures. The Right when in office have through regulation overthrown real rights, and what is more, beaten the Nationalist drum, including that congenital idiot Peter Costello, who desires with all his heart, body and the peanut he has for a brain to chuck out Rudd so that he, instead, will emerge the triumphant Grand Pooh Bah in jackboots. Ah, this is what I’m looking for:

Rise of Nationalism Frays Global Ties,, The Wall Street Jounral:

During the long march toward globalization, international borders and trade barriers came down. Communism fell. Protectionist walls in Latin America and elsewhere were dismantled. Governments — long prone to meddling in trade — took a back seat to broader market forces…
No longer. The global economy appears to be entering an epoch in which governments are reasserting …

What was that the CIS is pushing again, ah yes, carbon taxes. They are oblivious to not only the fact it is dictated large scale capital destruction, but also to the fact it entails elimination of more property rights, subjugation of Australians, stripping them of their inalienable rights. Oh, you don’t have to take my word for it. Von Mises stressed this point, but here’s another gentleman making the same point:

1. The theoretical net benefits of a carbon tax (AGW cost reduction — reduction in output created by diverting behavior to activities that will produce less economic output) are not a free good. We have to “purchase” them with incremental compliance costs plus incremental deadweight loss that the political process might create. It is unknowable, but highly plausible, that in the expected case these would outweigh the theoretical benefits of the tax.

I do disagree with ‘theoretical benefit’. There is no theoretical benefit, for this assumes it’s rooted in sound scientific theory. It’s not, it’s root is belief in voodoo and magic. Apart from this, Mr. Manzi lists more reasons why the tax is a packet of nuclear missiles aimed at civilisation.

As for two ‘journalists’:

Bolt and Blair, they arethe media’s carboard cutout of an awesome duo. They fight for untruths, totalitarian plans and generally, screwing Australians, and protecting the bastards responsible for bringing about the current dangers, the Right, and joining in on the great game of smearing genuine Liberals. Well done – Ah:

Australians are being well done in, and the thugs who are really responsible for the fascist regime of Kevin “brown pants” Rudd, the Right. The Right, over ten years on the Treasury benches, did in delivering much of what the Greens’ demand. The Right, during that decade, and with other measures they rammed down that suit the hardcore Left, prepared the way for Rudd. They trumped their great efforts by flinging the little fat parasitic slob into office. With pals likes this lot, genuine Liberals don’t need other enemies but sadly, they are saddled with the official Leftist foe too.

As for Bolt, scientists shame him - they are making him appear a determined liar, noting that “A World Bank study has estimated that corn prices “rose by over 60 percent from 2005-07, ‘argely because of the U.S. ethanol program” combined with market forces”. Bolt likes invoking science against the Co2 lie per se, but not when it comes to what he is pushing, and he is deliberately ignoring economic analysis:

Food scientists say stop biofuels to fight world hunger

WASHINGTON - Some top international food scientists Tuesday recommended halting the use of food-based biofuels, such as ethanol, saying it would cut corn prices by 20 percent during a world food crisis.

But even as the scientists were calling for a moratorium, President Bush urged the opposite. He declared…

If leading nations stopped biofuel use this year, it would lead to a price decline in corn by about 20 percent and wheat by about 10 percent from 2009-10, said Joachim von Braun. He heads the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, the policy arm of CGIAR…

Another scientist, not associated with the group, agreed with their call for a halt on the use of grain for fuel.

What is shocking is watching a good man go off the rails and join the thugs crushing Australians, and deliberately starving millions more around the world:

Energy security is what Bush emphasized in his press conference. When asked about the conflict with world hunger and the rising cost of food at home, he said the high price of gasoline would “spur more investment in ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.

“And the truth of the matter is, it’s in our national interest that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us,” Bush said.

Still, Bush said the international food crisis “is of concern to us” and said the U.S. government earlier this month added another $200 million in food aid.

Shocking, truly appalling, and so is Australia’s treacherous Right. Boy, are Bolt and Blair hot.

Note: I know Bolt was warned about the force of the ethanol criminal fraud 12 years ago. He chose to ignore it then and has steadfastly refused he was fully apprised of it. Now we know why he chose to ignore it, his Righwing mates.

Oh, and this:

Cuts of food supply in Australia now emerging :Australians facing food shortages

Spiralling food prices mean, for Bolt’s benefit, and his Rightwing pals, a cut in supply, which means a cut in production, and here it is:

Monthly grocery bill up $139

SOARING food prices have added $139 to the average family’s monthly shopping bill in the past year.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released yesterday, in three years bread prices have jumped 99c, or 39 per cent.

This is the beginning only of the obvious, spiralling reductions, matched by shooting prices.

Starvation is a real prospect, as well as capital destruction, now power and a fascist regime in place. Australians know who to blame, the Right. Remember this: it was these bastards who brought this fast developing hell about.

Smart: Did you have to cosh him (the chief)? Couldn’t you have just shooshed him?

Seigfried: This is Chaos! Ve don’t shoosh here.

Adams has been shooshed, not coshed, by leukaemia.

He was a handsome devil.

It’s not Ponting, it’s the ACB.

There is one thing that I didn’t mention before, Ponting has a weakness, he’s insecure. He has to stiffen up. It showed when he apologised for the losses, justifying some of his decisions such as the light option, saying, `he consulted with the team’. A captain never `consults’, he takes advice and, calls the shot, his word is his battle order. He might demur to a brain like Warnie, face it, no matter how ruthless and competent a captain is, if a Warnie say, `Look, Guv, there will be 3 slips, silly mid- off, silly, long gully and a couple to stop boundaries, because I’m going to take this bastard’s wicket this over’, the only thing to say is, `Right-ho, Warnie’, no need to add , to Warnie (to others maybe), ` just make ruddy well sure you get it’, for, he delivers. Then, a rather odd thing to say, `it was important that I played well’ . It’s a rule of thumb, someone is captain because he is a cricketer before he is what a captain ostensibly is, a cricketers’ cricketer - which makes the statement all the more odder. Odder still is, `I had to do the right thing by me and the team’. A word of advice to Ponting, if he wishes to establish himself as captain, he must forget about the self-centred bureaucratese-pyscho-socio-babble which assholes in govt. and zoos called euphemistically schools drviel out every second sentence these days. It’s even worse, however, a captain who’s worried about himself is not only insecure, but has yet to discover, to twig onto an inkling of what captaining a battle-cruiser is all about, though, these days, the Oz 1st looks increasingly like a frigate of a bygone era, the day of paddle steamers and canvass and so, perhaps, he will do after all.

They are flaws which, if Ponting doesn’t iron them out and in quick-time, will see his captaincy a brief flirtation. There is one more. Does he have the bottle to take command of his team, make it his, deploy it so, and dictate who is and who is not in. This requires telling the ACB to thuck off, don’t piss on my turf. He needs to have the spine to say to them, you may advise me of up and coming talent only and that’s it. Ponting is flakey, it’s clear whose team it is, the ACB’s, they have just pissed all over the Oz Ist and Ponting’s captained toes.

Damien Martyn is out, Katich is still in! Of the two, if either is to be retained, Martyn. Despite a low during the ashes, `178 runs in five tests (at an average of 19.77) ‘ , he’s the better of the two.

No objection to, out are Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz . In the case of Gillespie, it would have been better if he had have bowed out in style rather than waiting for the d notice. Saying , something like:

`It’s been an honour and a pleasure to have played in the Ist, a side which has covered itself in glory. Irritating though it is, it might be time to retire, it might be for the best that I take my leave. Not being altogether sure, I’ll return to the Sheffield aka Pura Cup side to re-assess my form and give the opportunity for a young blood to test their mettle in the side. Should I not return to the side, I look forward to seeing the side continue taking victory after victory and, myself, now look forward to a new job in cricket, bringing on and developing a new generation of test bloods. ‘

Supporters would have said, `Hear, hear, one the best’ and all that rot. And, no doubt, Gillespie being no dullard, will do well indeed after his playing days. Much better than being forced out by the the D notice, and, worse, wearing the humiliation of seeing it splashed all over the newspapers and t.v.

Queensland youngster James Hopes was a surprise inclusion in the-one day squad and is under serious consideration, along with Katich, to replace Hayden as an opener.

Hayden had a tough time, the English bowling was bloody good, first time the top order sweated and stumbled at the crease. But, up and down though he is at the crease, he’s a fine batsman, and to consider Katich over Hayden, Murph’s explosion, `Giles Fucking Auty’ rings well. Different is, if Hopes is a talent and enjoys belting the attack right from the first bowl.

Shane Watson is in! He had promise but hasn’t developed as a spin bowler. His technique is not good enough as opposed to Macgill, in. Not flashy, just determination, meticulous attention to his action, has served MacGill the fine, wicket-taking bowler he is. MacGill combines well with Warne and the pace-men.

Victorian bat , Hodge is being considered to replace Martyn. haven’t a clue about Hodge. To replace Martyn, he has to be good or, Murph will do what Ponting has yet to work up the nerve for, stomp into the clubhouse and twist the goolies of each of the ACB.

Ian Chappell has noted, the replacements aren’t young things. In other words, the ACB, since they are not merely replacing Gillepsie and Kasprowicz, but replacing a large number of the order, have not decided on young tyros. The replacements are nearly as old as the old hands. The force of Chappell’s observation is clear enough. Recollect, when Warnie set forth, he was barely out of adolescence, belted around for hundreds in his first outing agaqinst India but, he had two things going for him: ruthlessness and determination. he didn’t despair, his opponents musing, despite the drubbing Warnie wasn’t demoralised, instead he studied each ball, studying what it did, in order to correct his technique. The rest is history.

And what of not pace-men but, genuinely terrifying speedsters?

The ACB has pissed all over the team, it’s their side, not Captain Ponting’s. His nightmare will not cease with the `Super-test’. The line-up does not look like a battle -cruiser. It might seem rum, but Ponting might have insisted on rebuilding the team, retaining the best of the old hands to anchor it, and using the `Super-Test’ against the `World XI’ to blood young tyros, to start sorting out who has the gizzards to play at test level and the facility to develop. With 15 months until the next real game, the Ashes, Ponting could captain, once again, a battle-cruiser which instilled fear into the enemy, and wrought carnage on the high seas of cricket. But, he’s fudged it, Ponting must muster the bottle and master the distinction, a gentleman is a gentleman in the presence of ladies, in the club, to grannies but, out on the battlefiled, he’s a complete bastard, and a cmplete bastard to those who while they address you as captain, treat you as a go-fer. Ponting has been go-fered. He did have to work up the bottle to tell the ACB where they could take a hike to and it cannot be overlooked, one of the many reasons but a major reason, why Bradman, Benaud, Chappel, Border and Waugh, fielded great teams is, they happily scrapped with the ACB and took control of their sides and who would be in and out ( it’s easy to overlook Benaud, after Bradman, and his steely determination in ensuring the Oz Ist and captain were not treated as the English Ist were - until the last few years, the issue of which is plain, they have the Ashes). It’s nice to be able say, Chappel himself confirmed my assessment when he said, that that is exactly what Ponting has to do.

He hasn’t. Ponting is a fine bat, and believe he could make another very good captain but, unless he spits out the snag dummy and acquires the manners and spine of a gentleman, he might be stuck with Murph’s sobriquet for him, `Pancreas Lad’.

Believe me, it’s no pleasure spotting all that, I’ve plumped for England all the long lean years and it was jolly nice to see them flail the Oz Ist. Having said that, Murph is right, the defeated must be resentful in defeat, to retain the blood lust. It never does to,

Now that the Ashes series has ended, I must say how amazed I am by the number of Australians who are saying ?Isn?t it nice to see the Poms doing well in the cricket??. Surely this is not the sort of thing that Simpson or his donkey would approve of. Even Tony Abbott might think it a bit rough.

Some of these people suggested that the Aussie side was a bit arrogant. The Aussies arrogant? Just look at the Poms. They have been in the cricket wilderness for a mere 16 years and people feel sorry for them. This is the…

Ha, the Oz Ist will feel sorry all over again, very soon. They are now about as intimidating as the old antique frigate. Looking forward to seeing them blown out of the water all over again. The ACB might dig a bunker and hide, Murph will do to them what, evidently, Ponting hasn’t.

Murph, Special Sauce.

Hmmn, Ponting is set to earn another distinction, undoing the fine job Bradman, Benaud, Chappel, Border and Waugh did in giving the ACB a thorough bashing. He’s too ductile at the moment, as well as lacking the gentleman’s code.

Farkin Larkin Parkin has been dumped on a tarmac in the U.S. The Govt. lobbed on his head, for good measure, a $11,000 bill for the effort.

Now all they have to do is, do it to PETA and thier affiliates, Greenies, traipsing into Oz ,and other assorted animals ; Gueverra’s daughter is one, should she land in Oz again.

Farkin Parkin is shaking his feeble fist, declaring, he will sue the Govt. Go straight ahead bozo boy, that’ll cost you the fees for solicitors, barristers, court, and the Govt’s. fees and charges for counsel.

Joy in the morning.