Mystery deepens as 30,000 NSW renters simply vanish!

Shock figures released at yesterday's Housing Budget Estimates committee meeting reveal that 30,000 people have vanished from NSW Public Housing waiting lists in the space of 1 year!

But only about 110 new dwellings have been built.

So where did they all go?

Did they manage to find suitable accommodation in the midst of this nation's greatest housing crisis, when the eligibility limit for public housing hovers near the poverty line?

Did 30,000 BMW owners fess up during the Tenant Fraud Amnesty and voluntarily make way for those "more in need"?

Did those waiting more than 10 years give up out of sheer frustration?

Snatched wholesale by aliens?

Responding to a question from Greens Senator Sylvia Hale about whether the numbers had declined due to frustration at the long wait, or due to tightening of eligibility requirements, new Housing Minister David Borger replied that the decline was thanks to regular surveys to determine ongoing eligibility and better matching of applicants to criteria (which are tighter). In addition, Mr Borger stated that "a number" of products like Rentstart, others products unspecified, allowed renters to make choices in relation to private housing. Umm, Rentstart applies to people with savings of less than $1000 dollars, pays 75 percent of bond, then you're on your own in Sydney's ferocious rental market, and if you're not mentally ill, disabled or aged, but merely on a low income, you haven't got a snowflakes of getting public housing in less than 8 years. In short, we're talking about closer applicant matching to the complete non-availability of housing to anyone on a low income who can still crawl.

What it's all about is that 40,000 sounds a lot better than an embarassing 70,000, and a positively excruciating 100,000 the year before. It reduces the pressure on governments to cough up a greater share of the national cake to help struggling renters.

But before you get up in arms about Housing NSW, who struggle gamely with inadequate funding, blame the Howard government. No wonder there's no new housing. They robbed Public Housing of $3 billion worth of funding over their miserable tenure. And alas, $3 billion these days wouldn't buy you a magnum of bubbly at a Bank Holiday picnic...

Quibble, quibble, foil and squabble...

Quibble, quibble, foil and squabble...
O'er entrails of sub-prime bubble


Here's some choice hocus-pocus from our economic wizard, Malcolm Turnbull and his Sorcerer's Apprentice, Julie Bishop, spotted at dead o' night on Lateline. They'll do anything to foil Labor initiatives

TONY JONES: Earlier today Mr Malcolm Turnbull told a radio interviewer, "We would no doubt have designed it differently", meaning the package. What would you have done differently

JULIE BISHOP: Well, that's why Malcolm said we wouldn't quibble about it. There is no point now saying had we been in government...


TONY JONES: You are quibbling about it. That's the point.


JULIE BISHOP: No, Tony.


TONY JONES: By saying we would've done it differently you're quibbling about it. What would you have done differently?


JULIE BISHOP: Tony, isn't it reasonable for the Opposition to ask what the assumptions underlying the Government's judgment...


TONY JONES: That's not my question. You've made that point, with respect. Mr Turnbull says you would've done it differently, so what would you have done differently?


JULIE BISHOP: I understand Malcolm was saying had we been in Government we may well have done things differently, we may well have looked at a different composition, we might have looked the tax cuts, we might have reconsidered the first home owners matter. We might have got information as to whether or not this would be an inflationary package and if you calibrate it had another way. But what we're say something we would like to know the basis upon which the Government made this judgment, that $10.4 billion should be expended this way with these component parts.

The Chutzpah of Malcolm Turnbull

To those of you who lack a rich Yiddish vocabulary, the classic definition of Chutzpah is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

We might say that Malcolm, having killed off the evil gnome, John Howard, (may his name be blotted out!), figuratively speaking, by to all intents and purposes blotting his vote-losing name out, now wishes to appeal to us on the basis of big daddy's budget surplus alone.

Mr Turnbull never tires of claiming the moral high ground for this surplus, which he claims was accumulated by "sound economic management".

Sound economic management, our ragged ars*s!

Just ask any of the toothless wretches living around DH's estate.

The budget surplus, Malcolm, was extracted from our teeth!

And then there was the $3 billion cut from public housing.

Then there were the cuts to disability services, and the disability organisations that advocated for them,

What a master of the excision of memory.

Come back, Elites, all is forgiven!

DH of course has always been a member of the elite.

The elites as we know can be recognised by 3 things:

• a love of lattes
• a pied-a-terre in the Inner West
• some rudimentary level of higher education

And DH qualifies on all counts

Some people might say: But how can DH be one of the elite? She:

• does not own a major share in the means of production
• can't afford dental care, holidays, new clothes, or even a friand to go with her latte
• doesn't jet around the world, own a yacht, or get invited to weekends away on the Packer's estates

Nah, doesn't matter. According to experts on elitism, Miranda Devine, Gerald Henderson, Michael Duffy, and all those other champions of the "real people", that doesn't count. The real give-away is having a social conscience and a few brain folicules to rub together.

Well, we elites have been generous and patient. We have let bona-fide battlers, like George W Bush and John Howard have a turn in the play pen. We're even giving Malcolm Turnbull, that child of hard times, a bit of a go.

But with Western Civilisation about to go down the gurgler thanks to the free rein given to President Bozo the Clown, it's time we elites clamped down.


The final straw was watching Michael Duffy's pin-up girl, Sarah Palin, humiliating herself in an interview with Katie Couric.

Noblesse oblige, surely, dictates that we put these dummies out of their misery.

Has the world gone completely mad? What have we come to when a politician's greatest claim to office is her own stupidity and wilful ignorance?

More of a worry is that no matter how low these characters nosedive, there are still huge numbers of people who will vote for them!

Couldn't we send anyone who is now, or has ever been, a registered Republican or a member of a Pentacostalist church, to Guantanamo for some re-education in the "American Way"?

"Free Market Experiment We Had to Have" tanks

YIPPEE!

The Free Market Experiment We Had to Have has tanked!

Socialists are back in business! (Just don't breathe the S-word out loud)

Didn't we tell them so!

So let's get back to bashing the rich which is right and proper.

Yeah! How cool would it be to sink the confederacy of dunce presidents, carpetbaggers, robber barons, corporate criminals, greedy Pig bankers, hucksters, subprime pyramid salesmen, craven politicians, spin merchants, welfare bashers, and all the dumb schmucks who've been duped by them, the pentacostalist nincompoops, the Joe Sixpacks - the ignoramuses who feel entitled to comment on things they're too lazy to educate themselves about.

Bit of a worry though that this bunch of dolts and crooks could be the concrete shoes that drag the rest of us down the gurgler...

Unfortunately DH doesn't understand high finance well enough to know whether sinking the banks will sink the rest of us. It's tempting to want to gloat, but history does teach us that when things tank, it's the poor that bear the brunt.

Bail out People, Sink the Banks

Bail out Main Street not Wall Street

In the US, they're calling for:

• Putting real regulations back on runaway financial corporations, and taking an ownership stake in exchange for any taxpayer support
• Providing mortgage relief so ordinary Americans stop losing their homes
• Putting millions to work by investing in new green jobs and infrastructure
• Investing in a health care plan to cover everyone

It all seems pretty relevant to Australia. Just add " invest in affordable housing" to that list.

How to fix the Wall Street mess

Can't go past this item by Michael Moore! Here's an excerpt:

The richest 400 Americans -- that's right, just four hundred people -- own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion.

During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion -- the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the "bailout." Why don't they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They'd still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!

Of course, they are not going to do that -- at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a $127 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not his, he did what the rich prefer to do -- spend it and never look back. Now we have a $9.5 trillion debt. Why on earth would we even think of giving these robber barons any more of our money?
I would like to propose my own bailout plan. My suggestion are predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps.

Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times:

There... is... no... free... lunch.

And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare!

So, there will be no handouts from us to you. (more...)