The Native Iowan

915am, 2nd day of the 3rd month. My how time flies…

A thought, an idea, a phrase crossed my way last week… “Sorry If My Common Sense Offends You”…

I’m sure this isn’t new. I’m sure its been used for ages and ages… but this past week I kinda heard it for the first time, and it made sense for me…

There is soooo much that “Sorry If My Common Sense Offends You” applies to. There are so many situations where “Sorry If My Common Sense Offends You” works well. I like it a lot… “Sorry If My Common Sense Offends You”.

For decades, generations, for ever there has been conflict between the folks that trade a share of their toil for the safety and security and regulations a society requires to function. “Society” allows ‘Administration” to take a share of their production in exchange for certain securities. When the exchange becomes unfair, unacceptable we end up in civil strife.

No taxation without representation comes to mind.

For some strange reason people in general tend to forget that its their hard earned dollars, taxed by the Administration, that get wasted frivolously, spent foolishly, converted for personal gain.

Succeeding Administrations (world wide) campaign on fiscal management. Less taxes. Wiser use and less abuse of the public purse.

I have been fixated on the word “Liberal” for quite some time. Here is Aus the “Liberal Party” is in fact the conservative side of politics here. Liberal in this context supposedly means “loving liberty”, wanting less administration, less waste, less conversion , less corruption.

The left-leaning side of politics here belongs to the “Labor Party”. Labor = Unionist/ Socialist. And the Labor party here in Aus is very Liberal… with the public purse.

Liberal = liberty loving, or, Liberal = free with the $$$.

Here in Australia that middle class is being erased, methodically, with intent. From the Nut Zero insanity to the foolish granting of millions and billion to “start-ups” doing Green Hydrogen or AI or some other private enterprise stuff the Administration loves to “invest” in… The National Reconstruction Fund has taken a $32 million stake in artificial intelligence start-up Harrison.ai

The governments here in Aus, the past succession of governments, have tried to appease too many fringe groups, invest in too many “winners”, have made some really stupid choices… While enriching themselves… let’s check on Mr. Albo: I see Anthony Albanese has been in politics all his life, has been a member to Parliament since 1996 and has a personal wealth listed as $15million… https://www.networthmama.com/category/heads-of-state/presidents/anthony-albaneses-net-worth

For a guy that has been an elected offical for 20 years, on an average salary of under 250kpa… hmmm… not sure how it adds up, but… it dont add up for me… and its an age old story. How does an elected official on a set salary become wealthy? I’d say it all has to be, even a little bit, corrupt…

“Sorry If My Common Sense Offends You”

In the USA I recall a while ago where a road (I think in Oregon) was going to be laid with solar/ PV ability… at a cost of something stupid… https://www.oregon.gov/odot/programs/pages/solar-highway.aspx … I can’t find a cost here but I see something like 30million spent on it so far… ???? …. !!!!

Many moons ago, as a business-dude in the Solomon Islands, I got involved in building roads for the World Bank… sure seemed like a good idea at the time… the money was stoppiiid… Back in 2005/6 the cost of building a road, a standard tar sealed road of a decent engineering standard was, let’s have. look…. Damn!!! … According to data from the BITRE (Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics), the average cost of a road construction project in Australia is around $5.1 million per lane-kilometer. However, this cost varies significantly depending on the road type, with urban and rural freeways costing closer to $6-6.5 million per lane-kilometer, while rural arterials are around $3 million per lane-kilometer. 

When I was doing this work, the cost per kilometre was roughly 5times the average cost in developed lands. I forget the numbers but they were impressive… Sure, isolation, material availability, expertise, etc, etc add to the cost… but 5times? Much of the cost was to cover the World Bank big-shots that flew in to “help”. These folks always fly 1st class. They always stay in the best hotels, eat in the best restaurants, etc, etc. We could have done the work without their help.

During this project I consistently made noise about the money being wasted. I could build a road for way under 5milUSD per-mile. But I wasn’t allowed to. The food-chain, the money-chain owed too many people, too many NGOs, too many Govt Offices too much to make it economically sensible. There was more than enough money to do a high class job. But the waste and corruption only allowed for a rather mediocre job.

This project eventually got many things wrong, made many mistakes. In the end I was told to simply “get it done” so the project managers could close the project out. Certain materials (culverts for drainage) had not been ordered, had not arrived. We were told to complete the road work without the drainage.

In my opinion this project may have started out as good idea, but turned into yet another example of waste, mismanagement, and corruption. The people involved, in charge were often overly qualified but not invested enough to make it be a good job. They were more interested in the project looking Good-On-Paper. They were chasing a feather in their cap. How positive the project was on the ground was of minor concern.

So, as the USofA rationalises its waste and corruption, and as many many many folks bleat like sheep during a thunder storm, I ask everyone to consider the end result of a positive world that is less greedy, less wasteful….

What is sooooo terribly wrong about shutting off the spigot that fills the trough of graft and corruption?

here is the DOGE report so far… DOGE’s total estimated savings are $65 billion, which is a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings … https://doge.gov/savings

A lot of people are not happy, a lot of people are scared, a lot of people have a lot to lose, a lot of people have their snouts in the trough…

Fiscal prudence all ways makes sense. To be foolish with your $$ is a short term gig. It does not hold much of a future. We have all been financially frivolous, foolish. Short term may be OK. But we have allowed, fostered an Administrative practice of being wasteful.

The US debt is insane. The world-wide domestic debt is foolish.

Time to end the era of fiscal mismanagement and waste. It simply cannot be allowed…

“Sorry If My Common Sense Offends You”

Smiles all around

More later