Debt, Borrow, and Bust

Hands up among those who love watching public freakouts?

The surveillance state is reprehensible and should be fought at all costs. Except when it’s some hapless chap in a Woolworths being accosted by a Karen and he won’t take any of her bullshit.

Much shrieking and misquoting of the Constitution will ensue. Others will rummage around for their phones to ensure full 360-degree coverage. Then, she’ll insist that recording her is illegal (it isn’t) and attempt to grab the phone from our victim (which is.)

Eventually, the cops arrive. Our overboiled Karen will insist they’re immune from arrest because “my taxes pay your salary.” Seconds later, she’s grounded and twitching from a taser shot, wondering why her status as a tax slave afforded little recourse from the thousands of volts coursing through her entitled little veins. Such is life.

Perhaps we need to shift the discourse a little. Instead of pointing fingers at public servants and telling them we pay their salaries; we should tell them we’re paying for all the debt they’ve been racking up in our name. I’m not a parent, but I’d get so mad if my kid used my credit card for Roblox Robux. A sounder currency than our actual Australian dollars.

Take our venerable Communications Minister Anika Wells MP. One half of the duumvirate of censorship (along with eKaren Julie Inman-Grant), she spent $4,000 to fly her husband to cricket matches – plural – in 2022 and 2024. She also racked up a $100,000 New York flight and accommodation bill to spruik “our” Under 16s social media ban. When it is enforced, it definitely won’t be a shitshow and is sure to work just as intended.

Rule one of business is to use OPM – other people’s money – as much as possible. Eventually, that OPM has to be turned into ROI – return on investment. ROI in the government parlance may as well stand for “Rort Ordinary Idiots.”

Friend of this blog and occasional contributor Jordan Ditloff appeared on The World Today News and told us that the debt on the interest the Victorian government has racked up over the past decade is over $100,000 per hour, though after a brief exchange on X we surmised it may be as much as $791,000 per hour based on ABC calculations (if the Australians Broadcasting Communism can’t even hide how bad it is, it must be absolutely catastrophic.)

Even if Victorian Premier Stabcinta Allan made good on her promise (Ha!) of cutting 1,000 public parasites with an average wage of $92,800 per annum, we could parlay that money into knocking off about five and a bit days’ worth of interest. Just like spending $13 million to collect 14,000 machetes at a rate of $1,400 per blade, the problem has officially been solved.

Not to be outdone, Grim Jim Chalmers and his Albonomic enabler will see Australia cross the $1 trillion government debt threshold within a few months. By 2028-29, national total debt (all jurisdictions) will have exploded to $1.26 trillion. My taxes aren’t paying these stuffed shirt bureaucrats’ salaries as much as they should be paying off the debt they made.

Productivity is at a twenty year low according to the ABS, and all that free stuff (especially as baubles to distract from government house arrest during the spicy cold) needs someone to pick up the tab. Psst, that’s you and me! We already know that Modern Monetary Theory (tl;dr – money printer go brrrr) has shredded Gen Y and Z’s purchasing power and consigned us to a meagre existence of perpetual renting, over-taxation through inflation, and working until we’re 103 and plugged into the Metaverse, a division of the NSA-Google-Disney Alliance. Read Tyler Green’s excellent article on sound money here.

Though an individual can spend big on a credit card, there will come a time when the Repo Man will tow away that flashy new car or take that big screen TV back to whence it came. Governments can spend in perpetuity, and us Ordinary People bear the brunt. That means a lower quality of life for our children, and their children. Expropriating OPM leads to ROI, in the government sense.

Prolific science fiction author Philip K. Dick once wrote, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Economic vandals can only get away with it when the pot is full. When it’s dry, no amount of praying or hoping will top it back up. Every poor – or ideologically driven - decision will inevitably catch up to us.

So I propose this: if we’re going to get upset about the government debt – and we should – maybe we should sit in a government official’s taxpayer funded business-class seat next time they’re flying to some big junket. As we’re dragged back into the terminal by two burly guards, we ought to yell, “My salary pays the debt you created to buy that seat.”

We can only hope a few beleaguered souls on the plane get as incensed as we are.