Who would have thought (Roy Rodgers)

If you've been following this blog you would no doubt be familiar with the total disregard some of the contributors have for economic competence of the aussie media. Personally, I seem to be in a state of perpetual confusion ... its really my own fault ... i watch way too much ABC (or as its otherwise known the AlpBC).

The last couple of days have proven to be very perplexing.

For a start I cant begin to understand why my lovely little abc reporter felt he had to whole heatedly endorse the latest load of crap from the democrats in the states that attributes obama's growing unpopularity to RACISM.

At no point in the good five minutes of coverage this story got, did my lovely little red fisted abc reporter even mention that some of the protest against obama may result from his recent attempts to socialise a health system in what must be the most liberal country on earth. No way would that piss people off ... no they must be racist.

And is there any evidence to back this claim of racism? well no .. i didn't see a single white sheet or burning cross on any of the footage. But i did see allot of placards protesting obama's proposed health policy. If to simply disagree with obama's policies is racist, then the man is the single greatest threat to American democracy since FDR. It is basically akin to instituting an African American infallibility clause.

The other thing that has left me incredulous is the seeming lack of comment regarding the fundamental precedent set by the Commonwealth in showing total disregard for private property rights. I'm talking TELSTRA.

No one has yet mentioned that this week saw for the very first time in the history of the Australian Federation, a Commonwealth government demand a totally privately owned company divest itself of a significant proportion of its assets.

It doesn't matter if you love or hate TELSTRA. No matter how much more competitive you think the world is going to be, no matter how cheaper you think your phone bill will be, you can not ignore nor underestimate the importance of what the Commonwealth is proposing to do.

Never before has any Australian government ever forced through coercion a private company to effectively dissolve .... NEVER.

Whats more they don't actually have the power to do it up front. They have to do it via black mail. Gone is any pretense at procedural fairness any attempt to avoid administrative bias. They are basically holding the company to ransom, in such a way that would totally violate the procurement policy for any state government, you can't exclude a company from a tender simply beacuase you dont like its market share ( i didn't mention the commonwealth's procurement policy cause I'm assuming its okay with them).

Love TELSTRA or hate it ... you should still be alarmed at this attack on one of the fundamental building blocks of our modern economy ...