As many of the things that make life worth living such as travel, going to the footy and rock gigs have stopped over the past couple of weeks, I've found myself watching a lot more television than usual... but not the news. All I can say is, thank god for "Better Call Saul" and "Succession". One thing I did catch however when I briefly flicked over to a news channel was the Chairman of the NRL Peter V'Landys making an impassioned plea to the government for a handout because without it, he said an extended shutdown would send the game broke.
On one level, you get that, because rugby league gives a lot of joy to people, no one would like to see the game fold and like a lot of organisations at the moment, everyone has to look at all possible ways and means of getting through the next 3 months until things hopefully return to normal. But on another level, I thought - mate, really?
Leaving aside the question of how a competition that's been running for over 100 years and turns over in excess of $500 million per year only has 4 weeks cash in the bank, this is a person who, when he was involved with NSW Racing, lobbied long, hard and ultimately successfully to reduce gaming tax in the state. So, if you're the government, how would you be inclined to react? Now Mr V'Landys, you've devoted a good part of your time and effort to taking away money we need to spend on things, like, gee, I don't know, dealing with the fallout from gambling addiction, but now you're in trouble, you want a handout? How does "go forth and multiply" sound?
But it's amazing how many people actually think like this. Working in the property and finance industry, I come across more than my fair share of "small government" zealots, and when I try and argue with them about why people need to pay sufficient tax and why business should stop the incessant lobbying for cuts, the conversation always winds up in bizarre and contradictory places. For example, they say "no more taxes" but then when asked about whether the government is tough enough on crime, they say "lock criminals up and throw away the key". Well... that's all well and good, but if the government can't afford to keep dangerous people locked up, what do you expect them to do? Sadly, we all know what happens, they give them a slap on the wrist and send them out on parole far too early, after which they go and do things like shoot people at the Lindt Cafe or stab a much-loved Melbourne restaurateur in broad daylight.
And I suppose that's kind of leads into my point. We all have a go at the government from time to time, but when bad stuff happens, invariably they're who everyone expects to step in and sort it out. A wise man once said, taxes are the price we say for a civilised society, and boy was he right. As anyone who's been to the supermarket the last couple of weeks can attest, it doesn't take much for people to panic and start behaving like savages. Without an appropriately sized and well funded government to step in and take control of the situation, I'd hate to think what might happen. So while like everyone else I like wince when I pay income tax at the end of the year and feel physically sick writing a cheque for stamp duty whenever I buy a house, if it means I can live in said house with enough toilet paper to last a week and without being broken into by a deranged lunatic who thinks he's on a religious crusade, then I'm kind of prepared to suck it up.
So what's to be done about the current predicament (which, thanks to my medico friends and relatives, I now fully agree is an excrement show of the highest order)? Whether they deserve it or not, in a crisis situation governments become imbued with large amounts of political capital and can take measures that would be normally unthinkable. Sometimes these actions create lasting good, like the time Howard pushed through gun restrictions in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, and sometimes they end in disaster, like after September 11 when Bush and Chaney spent trillions of dollars fighting a war on an abstract noun (as of this morning, when I checked dictionary.com, "terror" was still a word, so I don't think it's going so well, but I digress).
In this case, I completely agree with the government pointing an economic bazooka at this problem. No stone should be left unturned trying to make sure as many people as possible stay in work until this blows over, because if unemployment ticks up to 8% in the next few months, the economic and social consequences are going to be immense. So by all means, splash the cash, that's the easy decision. The more difficult one is how the hell are we going to pay for it, because what's needed could easily send the country broke. And again, for my "small government" friends who struggle with this concept, I'll explain this simply - governments are a bit like households, if they spend more than what they earn, they either go broke or run up debt. Which is a lot of the reason why the USA now owes China $22 trillion.
Here's an idea. One thing we know for certain whether it's a killer virus, earthquakes, bushfires or floods, there are going to more disasters to deal with in the future. So what about setting up a discrete fund similar to the way the New Zealand government treats its earthquake relief fund, and into it pay a means-tested contribution in addition to income tax. Being in a discrete fund for disaster relief, the Federal government wouldn't be allowed to touch it to do dumb stuff like the Victorian government does, like pay Lend Lease $ 1 billion to NOT build a road, or hold a state funeral for someone who was collateral damage in an incident Andrews wanted to create panic about.
We could even get a professional fund manager to run it instead of a public servant or union official, and in that event, it would stand a fighting chance of making decent money. Even better, it could be run independently of the government, so that decisions on distributions from the fund are properly assessed on their merits rather than misappropriated to "disasters" in marginal electorates. And like when Jeff Kennett introduced the temporary State Deficit Levy, you'd probably find the country's finances were restored in next to no time.
It would be a bold move, but after the horrendous start we've all had to 2020, would anyone seriously raise an objection?
Anyway, I'm off now to watch the rugby league while the competition is still solvent. Stay safe and try and be a bit nicer to everyone while this is going on. Hard though that is sometimes.
21 March 2020
14 March 2020
For Every Over-reaction, There's Usually a Worse Chain Reaction
OK, so it's not exactly in line with Isaac Newton's 3rd law of motion, but it's the best paraphrasing I could come up with in the circumstances. I thought of the title when I was musing over the events of the last couple of weeks and grappling, as I often do, with how little I understand modern times. In particular, I have been puzzling over how individuals, organisations and governments now react to bad things and how this has changed drastically from when I was a child growing up in the 1970s. You tell young people the story about how when someone in your school class caught chicken pox, parents would rush to organise a play date with the infected child so you could catch it as well and get it over with, and they observe you with horror and look like they want to report your now nonagenarian relatives to the child support agencies. For the record, there's no hard feelings Mum.
Nonetheless, for whatever reason, community attitudes to risk have swung around from a fairly relaxed stance 40-50 years ago to an almost zealous avoid-at-all-costs viewpoint. Don't get me wrong, I am all for any form of non-intrusive initiative which reduces the risk of danger to the community, such as compulsory seat belts in cars and increasing the SPF in sunscreen to a level where it is actually going to stop sunburn. However it's where a measure that is taken to stop or prevent something happening is either clearly ineffective, insulting to one's intelligence, or generates a worse effect than the thing it is trying to stop, that's when my grumpy old man blood starts to boil.
Dealing with banks is a great case in point. As anyone who's applied for a business loan recently would know, due to worries about money laundering or bank accounts being used for illicit purposes, the process that they put you through to apply is completely out of control. I have personally spent hours and hours filling in a bunch of forms that are supposedly meant to inform the financier about the borrowing entity and stop this sort of thing from happening. And yet, due to internal incompetence at the banks, the problems continue. Both CBA and Westpac have recently been involved in massive scandals as a result of customers using accounts for all sorts of illegal and immoral purposes. Is it any wonder people get exasperated by having to conform to a tortuous regime some officious compliance drone has dreamt up but is a complete waste of time?
Some friends of mine who still work in large organisations also get frustrated with the increasing number of compulsory seminars and training they have to attend about things like workplace sexual harassment and occupational health and safety, and which distract heavily from the main purpose of their job. 20 years ago when I worked at Macquarie Bank, they had the balance fairly right. By law, they had to put you through this training so you were aware of your obligations as an employee, but then by and large they left you to go about your business. If you then went and groped a colleague at the bar later on without their consent, then you'd been warned and you'd face the consequences. However the butt-covering mentality is now such that companies feel obliged to treat their employees like 2 year olds. For god's sake, most people are clever enough to realise that if some milk gets spilled in the kitchen, they might slip if they walk in it. You don't need to pay some health and safety officer $250,000 a year to point this out.
And don't even start me on air travel. The notion that some neanderthal waving a wand in your general direction or making you put a lid on your shaving cream is going to make your flight more safe is complete nonsense. However, if these people insist on looking down your underpants and you react in a way you normally would if someone did that to you, namely by abusing the bejesus out of them, they won't let you on the plane. To quote a great line from Jeremy Clarkson about this very issue, it makes your teeth itch with rage.
Which leads me to the current brouhaha we are facing with the Coronavirus. Are the measures that are being put in place around the world an overreaction to the threat? Much though I would like to say "yes", in fairness I think it's probably too early to tell. You can however compare statistics from the current epidemic to past strains like SARS (2003) and swine flu (2009) and the numbers of reported cases and deaths worldwide certainly suggest this is more serious and nasty strain. On the other hand, according to Department of Health statistics, the death rate is quite low (only been 3 deaths so far in Australia), yet a normal flu season kills on average between 2500-3000 people here each year. However, it is not the usual practice to do things like shut down major events or ban travel during a regular flu season, so you could argue, why is this so much worse that we need to do it this time?
One good thing I suppose is that unlike their ham-fisted handling of bushfire season, the government is this time listening to experts and acting on their recommendations. However, they also need to be very aware that if these extraordinary measures stay in place for any length of time, the consequences for not just the economy but for people's every day lives are going to be extreme. Already job losses are mounting heavily in the tourism and hotel sectors, some people are going to lose their houses, and if schools shut the disruption to families trying to manage both jobs and school aged children is going to be horrendous. As someone with a daughter doing VCE this year I really don't want to think about it.
Much though it fills me with dread to say these words, I just hope the government knows what it's doing.
Nonetheless, for whatever reason, community attitudes to risk have swung around from a fairly relaxed stance 40-50 years ago to an almost zealous avoid-at-all-costs viewpoint. Don't get me wrong, I am all for any form of non-intrusive initiative which reduces the risk of danger to the community, such as compulsory seat belts in cars and increasing the SPF in sunscreen to a level where it is actually going to stop sunburn. However it's where a measure that is taken to stop or prevent something happening is either clearly ineffective, insulting to one's intelligence, or generates a worse effect than the thing it is trying to stop, that's when my grumpy old man blood starts to boil.
Dealing with banks is a great case in point. As anyone who's applied for a business loan recently would know, due to worries about money laundering or bank accounts being used for illicit purposes, the process that they put you through to apply is completely out of control. I have personally spent hours and hours filling in a bunch of forms that are supposedly meant to inform the financier about the borrowing entity and stop this sort of thing from happening. And yet, due to internal incompetence at the banks, the problems continue. Both CBA and Westpac have recently been involved in massive scandals as a result of customers using accounts for all sorts of illegal and immoral purposes. Is it any wonder people get exasperated by having to conform to a tortuous regime some officious compliance drone has dreamt up but is a complete waste of time?
Some friends of mine who still work in large organisations also get frustrated with the increasing number of compulsory seminars and training they have to attend about things like workplace sexual harassment and occupational health and safety, and which distract heavily from the main purpose of their job. 20 years ago when I worked at Macquarie Bank, they had the balance fairly right. By law, they had to put you through this training so you were aware of your obligations as an employee, but then by and large they left you to go about your business. If you then went and groped a colleague at the bar later on without their consent, then you'd been warned and you'd face the consequences. However the butt-covering mentality is now such that companies feel obliged to treat their employees like 2 year olds. For god's sake, most people are clever enough to realise that if some milk gets spilled in the kitchen, they might slip if they walk in it. You don't need to pay some health and safety officer $250,000 a year to point this out.
And don't even start me on air travel. The notion that some neanderthal waving a wand in your general direction or making you put a lid on your shaving cream is going to make your flight more safe is complete nonsense. However, if these people insist on looking down your underpants and you react in a way you normally would if someone did that to you, namely by abusing the bejesus out of them, they won't let you on the plane. To quote a great line from Jeremy Clarkson about this very issue, it makes your teeth itch with rage.
Which leads me to the current brouhaha we are facing with the Coronavirus. Are the measures that are being put in place around the world an overreaction to the threat? Much though I would like to say "yes", in fairness I think it's probably too early to tell. You can however compare statistics from the current epidemic to past strains like SARS (2003) and swine flu (2009) and the numbers of reported cases and deaths worldwide certainly suggest this is more serious and nasty strain. On the other hand, according to Department of Health statistics, the death rate is quite low (only been 3 deaths so far in Australia), yet a normal flu season kills on average between 2500-3000 people here each year. However, it is not the usual practice to do things like shut down major events or ban travel during a regular flu season, so you could argue, why is this so much worse that we need to do it this time?
One good thing I suppose is that unlike their ham-fisted handling of bushfire season, the government is this time listening to experts and acting on their recommendations. However, they also need to be very aware that if these extraordinary measures stay in place for any length of time, the consequences for not just the economy but for people's every day lives are going to be extreme. Already job losses are mounting heavily in the tourism and hotel sectors, some people are going to lose their houses, and if schools shut the disruption to families trying to manage both jobs and school aged children is going to be horrendous. As someone with a daughter doing VCE this year I really don't want to think about it.
Much though it fills me with dread to say these words, I just hope the government knows what it's doing.
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