MeDenBlog

Current mood: betrayed

The World In Ratios 003

CHINA & ZIMBABWE

Chinese oppression : Zimbabwean oppression

**See**
Los Angeles Times Article … China silences Tibet folk singer Drolmakyi
CNN International … Opposition rally stopped in Zimbabwe

PS: Guess who supplies arms to Mugabe’s Regime!

Current mood: voluminous
Australian Budget (2008/9) In A Nutshell
(Sorry about the parochialism…)

Exports-led Revenue windfall (no mention of ‘Chinese Human Rights’ trade-off, pardon the pun)
– cost of well-overdue infrastructure investment
– cost of well-overdue investment in pre-skilling the needed workforce
+ convenient youth alcohol bingeing tax windfall
+/- paper-tiger petrol price controls
+/- laborious & excessive use of the word ‘family’ to satisfy a minority party Senator involved in the balance-of-power in the so-called ‘Upper’ House of Parliament
+/- tokenism to ‘stall’ the other one-issue balance-of-power Senator, ‘Mr Pokies!’
+/- Second Term ‘steady-as-she-goes’ ground work

… Oh well …

Here’s some suggestions …
. abolish State & Territory Governments altogether
. abolish the Senate
. abolish the offices of Governor-General and State Governors
. amalgamate and rationalize Local Governments into Regional Administrations
. amalgamate and extensively rationalize all public services/servants across the previous Local, State & Federal boundaries
. comprehensively crackdown on Business tax evasion of any flavour, and especially on the use of expert legal and professional accounting to counter tax
. make Business Managers and Directors liable for business failures

Several things will happen as a consequence of the above …
. We’ll save Trillions, which can be used, in part, to pay Australia’s almost ‘Third-World-Country-Proportionate’ Debt in full
. With vigilance we can reap great rewards of economies of scale
. We can buy back our assets and control over the use and distribution of our resources from foreign control
. Business, both domestic & foreign based, will no longer be able to play the various State & Territory Governments off against each other
. We can set up national energy, especially Solar, and water re-distribution grids across Australia
. We can invest in accommodating Australians with adequate Housing options and long-term planning and provision, as well as effective decentralization across Australia

Martin Eden
Friday, 16 May 2008

? Martin Eden

Current mood: disgusted

The World in Ratios – 002

CHINA
Chinese Armaments : Zimbabwean Oppression

INTERNET
Multinational Internet Companies : Chinese Government Censorship … Human Rights Watch

? Martin Eden

Takeovers

Well here’s a doozy!? So much of this goes on!? Why?

I think it’s part of that race to be the most powerful in terms of beating up the rest, in other words – elimination of competition in a laissez-faire capitalist system supposedly thriving on competition.

My beef is this.? Too much of this takeover-ing is done with borrowed money, and the associated debt servicing comes with costs passed on to the consumer.? An interesting feature of this process is the seemingly inevitable need for debt refinancing by the takeover-er to stall the inevitable passing on of costs to the consumer when they get a bit rebellious by dropping away manifesting in reduced demand.? Debt refinancing becomes necessary when the ability to service debt is compromised by a low or lowering profit margin.? Banks get restless in their usury!

The bottom line is that when the company defaults on its debt-servicing it goes under along with its shareholders, but often not the Directors or Top-Managers.? Interesting isn’t it.

Now I think that any Takeover is a cynical exercise in getting to a position where you have to deal less with the limitations of competition and therefore get to dictate to the market and make more profits.? Doing this with debt is amazingly cheeky to say the least!

So I strongly believe that company law should be made stricter and prevent any Takeover using debt altogether.? Moreover Directors and Top-Managers should be made liable in the event of? a Company failing.? Sorry the Maseratis have to be coughed up to help pay for the fuck-ups!!

? Martin Eden