The Angry Exile: Tax dollars at work.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday 21 September 2009

Tax dollars at work.

Terrific. Courtesy of the Commonwealth Government We've gone and bought a piece of Birmingham. I'd go and look at what we've got for our taxes but for two reasons. Firstly I've seen it before and secondly, and more significantly, it's TEN THOUSAND FUCKING MILES AWAY.

The Australian taxpayer is to become the joint-owner of Birmingham’s Bullring after Land Securities sold its stake in the shopping centre for £210 million.

The Future Fund, which invests on behalf of the Australian Government, will own a third of the Bullring alongside Hammerson and Henderson Global Investors. The price tag reflects a 6.85 per cent net yield.

I'm sure many people would wonder why they can't spend the money on something here (fair shake of the fucking sauce bottle, eh, Kevin*) but I hope I'm not the only one wondering why it's being spent at all. Give it back, you bastards. If you can afford to buy into a fucking shopping centre in the West Midlands you could have afforded to reduce the fucking taxes and let each of us - the fuckers who earned the fucking money in the first place, remember? - decide for ourselves what to do with it. Maybe it's a good investment and maybe not, but that isn't the point. Even if it pays for itself by an order of magnitude the point is whether or not managing a commercial property portfolio should be a fucking government function. If that money, and it's very nearly $400 million by the way, could produce a huge return on investment in the hands of a really good card player would the government do it? Would voters let them? Of course not, so why the fuck does everyone think it's okay for the bastards can just fling cash around on shit like this?

And who are the Future Fund and what exactly are they doing with taxpayers' money in the first place? Well, this explains a lot (my emphasis):

The Australian Government Future Fund is an independently managed investment fund into which the Australian Government deposits its budget surplus. The purpose of the fund is to meet the government's future liabilities for the payment of superannuation** to retired civil servants of the Australian Public Service.

Ah, right. So the way this works is that when they've taken even more money than they actually needs to cover the cost of essential government functions, plus all the other shit just about every fucking government in the industrialised world seems to think they should be doing as well, they get to spend what's left over on investments to pay the superannuation funds of retirees. Retirees whose working lives were spent working for the government on either essential functions or all the other shit that just about every fucking government in the industrialised world seems to think they should be be doing as well. Or to put it more succinctly, we get taxed more now to pay for the retirements of some of the people who are the reason we got taxed more in the past. Have I got that right?

The stated aim of the fund is to hold AUD $140 billion by 2020; this figure would free up AUD $7 billion in superannuation payments each year from the federal budget.

If those are our options I suppose I'd say buy the fucking Bullring if you must. But if the alternative is having to fork out $7 billion a year I'd say that some shit decisions were made in the past. Could it possibly be that, like Britain, public sector workers have had bloody sweet pension deals compared to the private sector? I've never troubled myself to find out but according to the back of the nearest envelope $7 billion is about 500 bucks from each taxpayer. Per year.

Some choice, eh.

UPDATE: Might be early but there's next to nothing in the media here about it. Funny that.

* The prick.
** Pensions in other words, but they call 'em superannuation funds here.