The Donald said he was going to do it and now he is.
The Great Wall of the Rio Grande, the Trump Wall will stretch almost 2,000 miles (3,100kms) from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, putting a gleam in the eye of graffiti artists everywhere. Banksy is said to be drooling in anticipation.
The estimated cost of this stunning feat of architecture is anywhere between $10 and $20 billion depending on who you listen to. Construction time is also a bit of a back-of-the-envelope exercise but by the time an exhausted bricklayer slaps the last bit of mortar on it, it is probable Donald Trump will be around 90 years of age.
In centuries to come anthropologists will marvel at it and wonder what far-sighted genius brought it into existence. Maybe even an old shyster like Erich Von Daniken will propose some unlikely theory that the Trump Wall was built by God who arrived by spaceship with the blueprint and a couple of trillion tons of prefabricated concrete.
Full column here.
PM Turnbull revealed tonight on the ABC Mr Insider that he had donated $1.7 million to the Liberal Party last year. Goodness me I thought this cove was good with money, who would want to fritter such a large sum away on a sloppy old organisation like the Liberal Party. Unless of course “one” was wanting a “safe return” on the “investment” mmmm that could be it!
Bella 05:59pm.
Well done Bella , as long as you enjoy gathering in the team bloggers, oK by me you crashing through the barriers expressing your point shaking the foundation or the tree for us monkeys to fall taking note. Speaking monkeys, David Attenbough , us watching right now on Fox all about the colony life and breeding patterns .
Cheers Bella.
Our politicians must be rejoicing as a heavenly multitude. The focus on Trump has wiped their travel rorts off the front page. Turnbull has been sent to page 5. Shorten is just in ahead of the funeral notices. Cullerton has been culled. I hope it dies down soon. I’m already tired of hearing every Trump utterance and the some very odd predictions of what they mean. Does anyone know what they mean? Nothing Trump says or does will stop Carlton making the finals this year, and likely thumping the Tiges in the big one. I focus on the big issues. We need a Trump slump.
RE: Dismayed says:
February 1, 2017 at 5:52 pm
“Middle America” do tell us where you that is?
Dismayed,
Now now – I showed you where it was on the red / blue graphic!!
Don’t try to be a ‘smartarse’ it is above your status.
Just scroll through and you will find it – but if that is too much like hard work:
https://ig.ft.com/us-elections/results
P.S. It is the red bits!!
You do make it hard to maintain a degree of equanimity given your combative style!!
Are you serious?? I ask the question and I am a “smartarse” you ask the question and it is perfectly acceptable? You again prove your hypocrisy. I am combative but you believe it is fine for you to attack me. You again prove me correct. You are fraud and a hypocrite. No graphics needed to see that.
At his National Press Club Address, Malcolm accused Labor of being a high taxing government. This is
blatantly wrong. The Liberals have always been the highest taxers as the figures here clearly show. These are the ten highest taxing governments. 1986-7 (Hawke 23.2%); 2000-1 (Howard 24.1%); 2001-2 (Howard 23.2%); 2002-03 (Howard 24%); 2003-4 (Howard 23.9%); 2004-5 (Howard 24.2%); 2005-6 (Howard 24.2%); 2006-7 (Howard 23.7%); 2007-8 (Howard 23.7%); 2019-20, MYEFO Figure, (Turnbull 23.2%). How do the Looters constantly get away with this lie?
Hey Bassman, what happened between 2008 and 2019? Then we can see for ourselves.
What would be good also is expenditure and borrowings for the same year.
The Looters have always been the biggest SPENDERS ditto. I have provided figures on this as well. I have not provided the other years because they were NOT the highest taxing years. Read what I wrote. You want more? Isn’t this enough on the Looters for you.
Here ya go…keep voting for them. Keep turning the other cheek. They love you….
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/hey-big-spender-howard-the-king-of-the-loose-purse-strings-20130110-2cj32.html
JS read what is written. “These are the ten highest taxing governments” This has been proven beyond doubt.
You left out Ruud and Gillard, and Abbott. Do you have numbers for these?
Again I quoted the highest taxing years.
Going on comments over the wall, admittedly a small sample, in response to Turnbull’s policy speech at the Press Club, it seems that voters may have stopped listening. This happened to Julia and Tony – with fairly predictable results.
You don’t have to be an over the wall commenter on Mr Insiders blog to know Australia has stopped listening to the fool and time waster Turnbull, Yvonne. Lets hope in the not too distant future Australia gets some good leadership for all the people, rich, middle class and the less fortunate. Under Turnbull no hope imho. Australia needs jobs urgently.
Yvonne,
It’s hard to be surprised that people stop listening to someone who never listened.
He’d be a hoot at relationship counselling I recon. As for his small sample, I’m not touching that.
Begosh and Begorrah he should be called Gladwrap! You can see straight through him. Like many Irish, i’m optimist by nature, and each new leader brings a new wave of optimism. With Rudd it faded, and Gillard faded even more quickly, bare hours. The return of Rudd offered nothing and delivered well. For a brief few months Abbott stoked my optimism, but Turnbulls light blinked out in weeks. I hold ticket for neither major party and the minors are more minor by the minute. When the pollies speak of deficit, I can never be sure if they mean budget or leadership. With eternal thanks to the good Lord and his subbie the AFL starts this week and I can turn off the politics until September. It were a very long summer to be sure.
Chad Sayers runs through the WACA’s with another 5 for 68 still cant get a look a in. Well supported by K. Richardson again who cant get a look in. Sean Abbott best performed bowler in the BBL cant a get a look in. Stanlake picked again. Good to see the young WACA quick picked though. Jake Lehmann closing in on another FC 50. FFS. The disgraceful Hohns comes out and has ago at C. White down playing Whites career. Hohns was nothing more than a fill in bowler when he played his handful of tests Peter Sleep was the better option and took his position. White’s bowling was almost as good as hohns and his batting is certainly much better. Hohns has to go for the sake of Australian cricket. Good to see Maxi get selected.
Noted!
Hey Bassy!
You obviously know a lot about Avon.
Just doing the ironing – not my most favourite task. I iron the sheets too – challenging, but there’s nothing like sliding in between ironed sheets! But it got me around to thinking that there must be a way that I need not be doing the ironing at all – maybe even a Spanish speaking housekeeper to do it – and the cooking too……..
Which brought me full circle back to Avon
Tell me, is it one of those pyramid thingies, you know, like Tupperware and Amway, whereby the person at the top most likely lives next door to the Trumps – and if I work really hard, and identify those amongst my friends who would have absolutely no excuse not to come to my Avon party – why in 6 months or so I could be living on a yacht in the Caribbean?
In which case I have a renewed interest – I could even use the free samples myself and become absolutely blemish-free whilst making all this money. A whole new world of opportunity awaits.
There is always a silver lining on a dark cloud!
Nah! Thing big. Emulate Bernie Madoff.
Sheesh bad advice JS! I wanna be free to enjoy my zillions.
Yvonne, after all that dirty talk of sliding between ironed sheets, I got so excited I had to make sure Milton wasn’t anywhere near you. Stop it you wanton wench.
As for the party plan, sell irons to ladies in maid outfits. Some get it kneeling, some get it stealing, matter of fact I got it now.
The first yacht cruise is on me, out of your retainer of course.
I’m in! LoT
Nothing dirty about my sheets Lou! Crisp and clean mate
Was just a joke…Yvonne is the go. I really don’t know why people iron things though. I only used to iron the front of my shirts and THAT’S ALL!! Kindest personal regards….
I was in a hurry once a couple of years back and tried ironing the front of a shirt I was wearing. Cool iron of course. It was going ok until the shot of steam went off uninvited. Not recommended.
You IRON the sheets mate? Never heard of that!
Truthfully I give ironing a big miss nowadays.
As for Avon, be assured that their products are not tested on animals.
I do know you’re not serious!
Enjoy the Wooden Boat Festival, sounds so lovely i wish I was there.
I don’t do fitted undersheets Bella. Too hard. But topsheets and flatsheets – yep! You can feel the difference as they say!
straya gr8 m8
https://twitter.com/i/moments/826614638095634432
The homeless have access to some pretty fancy signs Smoke.
My solution to homelessness, assuming that squatter’s rights still exist, is to clandestinely change the locks on all those empty foreign owned units and houses, distribute the keys to the homeless and sit back and watch the sport as the lawyers scurry around with eviction notices and the rent-a-crowd barricading buildings in support of the homeless.
The whole matter though is no joking matter
They do that in London I think! Stately townhouses owned by foreigners and standing empty. They just break a window and move in -when the owner finally hears about it it’s court orders and the whole shebang to get them out!
yeah setup nicely ….no fading signs here
and yes empty residences are abhorrent
I mentioned in another post here that I have an empty house on my property. About 3 years back I heard there were a camp of homeless at the showground in Toowoomba. I went by and offered the empty house rent free to any family who wished to take it. None did. It’s a good house not a ramshackle. Too far from town they said. They all looked the gift horse in the mouth and didnt like the teeth. A tent at the showground beats a house in the bush. I still don’t get it.
That was also very kind of you and I can see how it would be bemusing.
I don’t know about your particular situation, but sometimes when people are really on the bones of their arse, they cannot afford in the short term to make the very changes they need to make to improve their situation. Or at least, they fear the risk that the change won’t have the hoped-for effect, perhaps rationally, perhaps not.
You can only take a risk if you have the resources to absorb a failure. This is something that people who have never been really, completely broke often fail to understand. Perhaps your people needed to be close to opportunities for work, or begging, or even rubbish-bin pickings. Like I said, I don’t know.
In the same way, people sometimes scratch their heads when young unemployed don’t want to go to rural areas to pick fruit. But a similar logic applies. Many of these people are renting rare cheap accommodation close to urban areas where they have a chance of finding ongoing work. If they relocate for temporary rural work, they make a small amount of money, but they will either have to give up their hard-to-find cheap digs and add house-hunting to their list of worries when they return, or pay double for accommodation while they’re away. Meanwhile, by not being available to respond to ads and employer calls, they’re missing out on opportunities for continuing jobs that might come up at home. In most cases, it’s just not a smart option.
Nonetheless, your generosity was admirable!
You make good points that I had not thought about. I have no experience with homelessness or unemployment so cant put myself in the mind of those folks. I were not offended by the refusal, I just didn’t understand it.
This is one issue I think we agree on JS, although it’s not just foreign speculators, most of them are local. It’s a disgrace that vulnerable people are sleeping rough, that a whole generation do not have access to sufficiently secure employment to get finance, and even those lucky enough to have decent jobs are mostly priced out, all so a privileged but electorally significant minority can treat a human need like housing as if it were poker chips. When nine out ten dwellings are bought by speculators, it’s time to change the rules.
Property booming here in Tassie. Because it WAS cheaper than the mainland and therefore a good return as an investment. So what we have now is Airbnb’s popping up all over the show – every second house here in my suburb it seems. And way more lucrative than renting them out to permanents. Houses selling within a week to buyers that have probably not even sighted them. And the locals are getting priced right out of it. Not nice.
Negative gearing needs restriction – to perhaps one property only? I dunno…….
I read a report a while back about a test project that provided free housing (small but safe and clean) to homeless people, allowing them to come and go as they pleased. The result was reduced welfare payments and it basically paid for itself. I think that was in seattle but I cant remember.
Just reading articles from the Murdock Press title :”Rise Of The Outsiders”{Trump -Style Revolution Is Coming Here} by Mark Lathan.His title called COLAGIN ,meaning, Coalition -Labor-Green-Insider agreement to support a national platform of high immigration ,high personel taxation,,big government,heavy business regulation,social engineering programs and divisive identity politics.Through the petty squabling in the media ,Coalition,Labor and Green MPs try to pretend they are debating big policy differences .
He then goes onto say, in reality ,they are all locked into a system of cross -party compromise,practising a timid ,,suffocating brand of political correctness.
A 10 point planned followed from him showing why party politics is heading the P Hanson way . Amazing his 10 point plan he details that would get this country moving removing the crap regulation putting the brakes on this country now not far off stalling.