As it turns out, there's more about Cory Bernardi that's worth knowing. We could have guessed it, but it bears pointing out:
Bernardi first sensed a problem in 2009, when during a heated and divisive partyroom debate on whether the Coalition should support Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme, one of his colleagues, the now deceased West Australian MP Don Randall, rose to his feet and said: "I don't give a stuff about the national interest, I want to get re-elected and this needs to go away."
Bernardi went back to his Senate office and wrote down the quote. He never forgot it. It was the beginning of the end.
I don't know how else to put it but that right there is the mocking gun that these Liberal Party politicians are nothing but hacks sucking on the pubic teat. As if Bronwyn Bishop and Sussan Ley weren't enough proof, here in the segment above is the distilled essence of how these bastards think.
The late WA MP Don Randall said he doesn't give a stuff about the national interest, he just wants to get re-elected. It begs the question why the hell we need to re-elect such a person; as it turned out, he died shortly before the recent election and truth be told, judging from the quote, it was probably a good thing too, because he certainly had no intention of serving the national interest. It's easily arguable that the most he served the national interest was when he died, thus depriving himself of more opportunities to suck at the public teat.
That Cory Bernardi thought the quip was worth writing down as quote to which he is going to make his political credo, tells us well enough that he too doesn't think much about the national interest - he too is all about getting re-elected. It's strange that he thinks he has a better chance not as the Liberal Party's No. 2 on the SouthAustralian Senate ticket but as an independent. Maybe there's more money in being a leader of a party of one. It's hard to figure how the dollars an cents work out, but it would be remiss of the media if it didn't investigate this strictly pecuniary angle. After all, the man's motto amounts to, stuff the national interest, he's only in it for himself.
If I may offer a bit of gratuitous advice to Corgi BurntNazi, it is that the ALP have found "Disunity Is Death". Leaving a major party that would put you in as a senator is likely the dumbest move he's made in politics.
If I may offer a bit of gratuitous advice to Corgi BurntNazi, it is that the ALP have found "Disunity Is Death". Leaving a major party that would put you in as a senator is likely the dumbest move he's made in politics.
Grexit Again?
If there's one thing that really puts the fear in the markets the world all over, it's the notion that Greece will default on its debts. That being said, the narrative to date has been, the Euro Zone won't let that happen, and the Greeks have to eat a lot of humiliation not to be allowed to default or leave the Euro. This has resulted in the ECB cycling through a lot of money that pays off the debt for Greece in exchange for Greece making immense cuts to its expenditure - some of which might have been reasonable but others that have resulted in terrible cuts to services. There doesn't even seem to be any coherent link between the cuts demanded by the Euro Troika and how the money is spent seeing that most of the money goes to paying off the bonds. And as the Greek economy shrinks and shrivels, it loses any chance paying off the debt.
With that in mind, here's something from Yanis Varoufakis, the ex-finance minister of Greece.
The weird thing is that the UK need not ought to have voted to leave, while Greece needs to leave if it wants any semblance of control over its finances. The horror show of bluff and intimidation made by the Troika to keep Greece in the fold and to keep taking the austerity medicine in a sense informed the UK public as to the failings of not having control. Even more ironic may be the case that the UK already had kept its pound sterling as opposed to adopting the Euro, so in a sense it was the state with the least problems of losing control to the Euro Zone. thus if the UK still seems it fit to leave the Euro Zone, then it follows that perhaps Greece needs to reconsider its desire to stay.
If all things are equal, the next time the Grexit show hits the road and world markets panic over the possibility of Greece leaving the Euro Zone, it might be better to put your money on the likelihood that it does leave, and that it's a good thing.
If there's one thing that really puts the fear in the markets the world all over, it's the notion that Greece will default on its debts. That being said, the narrative to date has been, the Euro Zone won't let that happen, and the Greeks have to eat a lot of humiliation not to be allowed to default or leave the Euro. This has resulted in the ECB cycling through a lot of money that pays off the debt for Greece in exchange for Greece making immense cuts to its expenditure - some of which might have been reasonable but others that have resulted in terrible cuts to services. There doesn't even seem to be any coherent link between the cuts demanded by the Euro Troika and how the money is spent seeing that most of the money goes to paying off the bonds. And as the Greek economy shrinks and shrivels, it loses any chance paying off the debt.
With that in mind, here's something from Yanis Varoufakis, the ex-finance minister of Greece.
“This two-pronged preparation is the only way to prevent another excruciating retreat by the prime minister in the short term and [German Finance Minister Wolfgang] Schaeuble’s plan in the long term,” Varoufakis wrote.
In his article, Varoufakis suggested that Schaeuble’s strategy is to lead Greeks to the point of exhaustion so they ask to leave the euro themselves.
Noting that the “parallel payment system was already designed in 2014”, Varoufakis stresses that Tsipras had “two delusions” that led the government to the current impasse:Both of these “working assumptions” were based only on autosuggestion, the ex finance minister stresses adding that he tried to explained this to the Prime Minister on the night of the referendum
- a. that on the night of the referendum, the dilemma was between Schaeuble’s Grexit Plan and the 3. bailout
- b. that the obedience to the 3.bailout could be political manageable through a parallel, society-friendly program.
“In reality there was never a basis for hope that the toxic 3 bailout would be gradually rationalized, in terms that the European Commission would support Athens so that the austerity and anti-social IMF measures would relax, the IMF would force Berlin to accept debt restructuring and lower primary surpluses, the ECB would include Greece in the bond purchase program (QE),” Varoufakis wrote
He accused leading European negotiators of lying.
“That Moscovici [EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner], Coerer [ECB] and Sapen [French finance minister] might have given such promises was not an excuse.Greece remains the thin end of the wedge. If Greece goes, then, the dominoes are in play for the rest of the PIIGS, and will lead to the destruction of the Euro. While it stays in the Euro Zone, the world can live with the fiction that everything is okay, except there is the glaring issue of Brexit, whereby cozy assumptions about the health of the Euro Zone can't be ignored. If the UK can leave, then it offers a practical blueprint for Greece to leave.
Since May 2015 we were fully aware that these gentlemen know how to lie and fail to deliver on their promises when they do not lie.”
The weird thing is that the UK need not ought to have voted to leave, while Greece needs to leave if it wants any semblance of control over its finances. The horror show of bluff and intimidation made by the Troika to keep Greece in the fold and to keep taking the austerity medicine in a sense informed the UK public as to the failings of not having control. Even more ironic may be the case that the UK already had kept its pound sterling as opposed to adopting the Euro, so in a sense it was the state with the least problems of losing control to the Euro Zone. thus if the UK still seems it fit to leave the Euro Zone, then it follows that perhaps Greece needs to reconsider its desire to stay.
If all things are equal, the next time the Grexit show hits the road and world markets panic over the possibility of Greece leaving the Euro Zone, it might be better to put your money on the likelihood that it does leave, and that it's a good thing.
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