Fail!, Facebook, and pillows …?
A few anecdotes before the more serious political post to follow:
- The Valentine’s Day pillow fight was fun!
- My favourite quote from last night’s FAILparty (at a surprisingly cosy bar hidden behind SF’s Federal Building): “I love how the Internet has made ‘fail’ a noun, but I’m sad for ‘ure’. I feel like we should throw a ‘ure’ party, to mourn its loss.”
- Tonight’s Facebook developer event was cool for explaining how the news feed will become first-person and more about sharing, but also because Mark Zuckerburg dropped by to say hi to everyone …!
- And okay, I couldn’t resist some politics. I suppose it was necessary for the US to pass an enormous bailout bill, right after Australia’s parliament enacted our own mini-version, but even though both went through with amazing speed I’m surprised at how much party bickering there still was (in both cases). In WA, for instance, observe how the Premier supported the plan at first, only to fall in with his party and question it two days later!
I can’t resist some politics either
Had I been in the US, I would have been supporting the US bailout – _because it explicitly contained extensive infrastructure provisions_ – making it a bill that is expected to generate short-, mid- and long-term money supply injections. All good things for the US economy, even if some of the stimulus items are potentially earmarked for projects in “certain Democratic senate seats”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009 for the list.
On the Oz side however, the most creative that Messrs. Rudd and Swan can get is “Oh hai, the economy needs a cash injection. Let’s give everyone $1000. We can’t afford that? Oh noes. OK, what about $950? And we need to give $50 of that to pay for Xenophon’s support? K – $900 for everyone that had lodged a tax return last year earning less than $80k. Kthxbai.” Yeah, there’s a few projects in there – but nothing on the scale of some of the projects that have been proposed in the US [on a per capita basis.] See the Gov’t own details: http://www.treasurer.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2009/008.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=&DocType=0
I’ve revisited a lot of my ideas about government, economy, politics and all the associated ideology & philosophy over the past few years, but lack of vision, leadership and creativity on the part of senior politicians when it comes to a crisis that affects every Australian? YMMV, but I find it criminal.
Indeed, I was disappointed that all of the criticism of the Australian stimulus was “look at how big it is” and “aaarggghhh deficit and debt!” when it would have been far more productive to ask where the money was going. I don’t think it’s all bad, but Rudd’s plan was clearly much more rushed and less considered than Obama’s …
Suit yourselves, Im quite happy to get $900!!!