Monday, November 22, 2010

Hockey's 'bank-bashing' redefines the notion of 'Liberal'

The Blowfly has sometimes been possessed with a fascination for things on the North Shore of Sydney.

Mostly the garbage! It's always of a higher quality!

And recently the noises by the federal Member for North Sydney have reinforced The Blowfly's views that the garbage on the North Shore is more comprehensively enticing, mystifying and strangely tasteless.

Not to mention John Howard's book----which surely must rate an all-time high in respect to North Shore refuse!


Joe Hockey is trying to establish himself as the champion of the little voter by becoming a 'bank-bashing boofhead'.

His line is simple!

The Australian banks have ripped Australians off and are continuing to wreak havoc on economic activity in this country.

The Blowfly learnt during the week that the big four Australian banks are all in the top 20 safest banks in the world as rated by Global Finance magazine (interestingly enough there are no US banks in the top 20 safest banks).Rankings were NAB (11), Westpac (12), CBA (13), ANZ (16).

The Blowfly has also absorbed Phil Ruthven's column in the Business Review Weekly this week. Phil points out that all the journalistic reporting on the nightly television focuses on the quantity of profits rather than the relative profits.

If you look at the profits in relation to the amount of shareholders' funds required to produce them you will find a different story to anguish about.

Ruthven points out that none of the 4 banks rate in the Top 10 largest listed companies in Australia when it comes to returns on shareholders funds. In fact he reports they are well down the Top 30 list.

Now here is the tightrope that Hockey is walking.

In these times when other countries around the world are still experiencing stress and failures Australia's greatest asset could well be its strong banking sector. We need to nurture that situation.

But in terms of capital employed our banks are being outperformed locally by Fortescue Metals, Telstra, AMP, Coca Cola Amatil, Woolworths, BHP Billiton and QBE Insurance Group.

This leads The Blowfly to his juiciest dilemma.

The Blowfly's simple understanding of being a 'Liberal' is that the private sector should be left alone as much as possible to pursue it's goals and then we all benefit from the fruits of 'private enterprise'.

Our friend Joe, The Blowfly believes,is simply trying to get traction by making a noise. He knows that we all hate the banks.

But his antics hide the real dilemma for Australians!

Which side of politics will spend the time developing the vision for our nation.

Possessed of a robust banking sector, armed with a National Broadband Network, endowed with a raft of mineral resources and prettied-up by some bloody good intellectual resources, beaches and sheilas we have a lot going for us as we slide into the future.

Will we be able to exploit all this to put Australians into a position where our children will be able to look back in 50 years time and admire us for the astute and visionary way we tackled the future in 2010?

We might well ponder the words of Grouch Marx:"I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions------the curtain was up!"

Unfortunately for Hockey the curtain is up!

Let's hope intermission comes soon.The second act could only be better!

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:56 am

    How phoney he is. The last thing he cares about is 'little people'.

    ReplyDelete