IT AIN’T A-TRICKLIN’

Victoria, once the envy of the country, with the exception of those reprobates in NSW, has always been able to hold its own both nationally and internationally. Over the last twenty years however, since the BIG SALE VICTORIAN INFRASTRUCTURE, things have been going slowly downhill.

One could lay blame at many different feet, but the most fault has to be laid at the feet of the economists, the bean counters, the mathematicians who see nothing but numbers, noughts and crosses.

In this issue I would like to explore the processes involved in our Freeway System, not that we have one in Linton, that are critical pieces of infrastructure for the economy and the country as a whole.

In this first part I would to example to the two different freeway models the states use, and, from this one can see why Victoria’s road, despite the fact with almost the same population as NSW, it only has to provide half the road distances of most of the other less populous states.

In NSW AND Victoria a freeway overpass looks like this:-



There is a major problem in Victoria (right) when every kilometre or so three lanes of traffic are forced to merge down to two lanes, thus choking 1/3rd of the cars. This does not happen in NSW (left) where lanes do not merge and thus do not choke up.

In both instances there is a general merging after an overpass but that is to be expected and as cars merge at the same speeds there is no major congestion
.
In some areas however, when traffic builds up, Victoria has installed traffic lights to ON ramps as there is insufficient roadway for any traffic, at any speed, to merge safely. This seems to cancel out any idea that these are expressways. The very term ‘Express’ means no stopping.

Then we have the examples of the appalling tunnel system in Melbourne. In NSW and Victoria Tunnel entrances look like this:-

Of course there are a couple of exceptions to every rule. These are just my observations.

However NSW has not only provided emergency breakdown lanes inside many  tunnels but installed off-ramps which can be used as emergency slip roads if tunnels slow down or get blocked. Victoria, in general, has missed this point. Along with rarely installing slip roads, except kilometres before the tunnel, giving drivers little chance to divert, they rarely have breakdown lanes either. In the event of an accident, OHS insists on two lanes being closed. In some tunnels this blocks it completely, in others it creates road rage as three lanes try to merge down to one which produces bad tempers and road rage.

Many moons ago, Main Roads Departments in all states had a motto ‘What do we need now, double that and then double it again. That should take care of the next 50 years” Now it seems to be “What do we need, what have we got in our budget, how long till the next election”.

It is safe to say that “No government has ever brought anything in on time and on budget” regardless of all the excuses they trot out. Contracts are so complicated and convoluted that not even the people who write them can explain them. When 17 Public Servants all draw their piece of the puzzle in their own way in their own time, without ever getting together. Little wonder that private enterprise runs rings around government services. In development terms the private sector thinks like mature and logical adults while the Public Sector is still dumping in its nappy.

In the second part I would like to write about……………………..hold it a second

‘Hey you……
Yes you with the fucking hat on…….
Would you stop talking while this person tries to read this story.”

Where was I, oh yes, the Trickle Down Effect. It doesn’t just apply to rich bastards trickling their money down, about as true as the Domino Theory, to us poor bastards at the bottom.

No it applies to the tendering process when building our tunnels and freeways as well. It’s called capitalism, but in name only, the truth is capitalism died years ago and we just haven’t noticed.

When I worked for a government department examining prices and tenders I worked hand-in-hand with experienced Clerks of Works who knew what different jobs entailed and supervised those jobs as well. We were taught to operate on the ‘Goldilocks Principle’ for the prospective tenderer.
The quoted costs would be either too high, too low or just right.

If the cost was too high it meant that a hefty profit margin had been added to the bottom line either by inflating wages or overestimating materials. If the cost was too low it was an indication that the tenderer was either inexperienced, desperate for the work, or was shoddy and unreliable. If the quote was just right, which means it fell between the two or three other quotes it was a good indication that the price was about where it should be and put forward to head office as the successful or preferred tenderer for the arrangement of contracts.

The Trickle Down Effect generally applies these days to all major contracts.
Example: Each with profit margin of 10 percent.
Company One: Designs and tenders. $20 million
After profit $18 Million.
A Major Construction firm is engaged - to oversee the whole job.
After profit $ 16.2 Million
Hire company for construction equipment - After profit remainder $14.5 Million
Sub-contractors for various activities - $ 13.1 Million remains
Hire of safety barriers and notices - $11.8 Million left
Recruitment company for labourers - $10.6 Million with the balance left for purchase of materials and to cover all other other costs including worker insurance, wages and salaries, power and water, etc.
This might leave $ 9 million, less than half of the tender price, for the purchase of the actual building materials.

This trickle down effect was shown adequately when the Linton Replica Train Station was built. Over a period of time, with Golden Pains insisting that the project come in on time and on budget had to keep erasing bits and pieces of the plans until only about half of what was supposed to be stands there today. Funded with Commonwealth money there was no way the council was going to contribute anything to the project except for all the publicity that Council was providing us with this magnificent town gift.

It is an asset to the town, but when one takes into account the many stupid errors during the process, like insisting there was no water there when there actually was water available.

Thanks for staying quiet while this was read.

IT AIN’T FAIR - I GOT NO JOB TO PAY FOR STUFF I WANT TO BUY FROM CHINA

In Linton, as the rest of the country we pay as much as 50% more for on-line products than the average world customer. It’s called ‘geo-blocking’ where, like film and TV classifications countries are assigned a financial formula to ensure that the price they pay in India is relative in terms of GDP as Australia. There overall prices are far lower so that global corporations can compete against the local product and if you buy on-line in Linton the overall prices are higher because our wages are higher and global corporations can charge more and still compete against the local product.
Put another way, if a pair of shoes can be made in China by Nike for about $15.00 they can afford to sell them in India for about $20.00 lower than Indian retail and delivered direct from China (a billion potential customers is also a good incentive). In the United States where wages are higher they can sell them for $180.00 or more, while other stores have to pay rent and staff and the like to sell shoes Nike can just sell direct door to door and even discount against there own shops and retailers.
In Australia, despite the fact we think we have the highest wages but don’t, our minimum wage is far higher than the U.S.A so in G.D.P terms we can afford to pay even more, so the shoes will retail here for $220.00, again, delivered straight from the factory with no middle man no locally employed sales staff and as a result extraordinary profit margins.
The major retailers will tell you that ‘price, price, price’ is all that drives their customers. Locally made comes second and quality is sacrificed to price every time. Consumer organisations will tell you that ‘parallel imports’ where shops like Sam’s and Reject will ‘wholesale’ direct from India at  far less cost and thus sell the product far cheaper does nothing for our local economy. Great they say ‘it drives down prices’ but at the same time we are deliberately under-pricing ourselves and driving holes through our employment figures.
What is better - an additional 10% and full employment or 10% less and longer dole queue’s. Already to keep down unemployment statistics a ‘job’ is defined as about 8 hours work and not the 20 hours it used to be.
Here is some sage advice, admittedly information we got through subscribing to ‘Choice’.
When buying on-line (and we only do it when it cannot be obtained within 50Km) we can go through a whole process to purchase something ‘we could not find in Australian shops’ (in our case a Koran in English) only to find at the checkout that it could not be shipped to Australia. Fortunately we already have a spurious overseas address so we arranged for the book to be sent from the U.S address to the school in Bangladesh which was our target destination.
According to Choice these third-party delivery services such as MyUS.com, Lil’ Shoppa, HopShoGo and Bongo give you an American address for parcel forwarding and they can send it on to Australia. Some companies such as Price USA even buy the product on your behalf and use their local agents to ship it to Australia. But be warned - they are not free - they all have a fee of some sort hidden in the pricing structure commonly called ‘package and deliver’. So one needs to watch out for the additional costs.
If the product is not available in Australia then you have no other alternative than to either pay the extra or look for a locally made equivalent product which gives Australians work and probably works out about the same in overall costs. I believe that there are many out there that buy a bargain on-line only to find after the final bill comes in they could have bought it cheaper in Linton.
Regardless of what we are shopping for purchasing overseas can have major problems - no warranty for a start - faked parts is another - and medicines? No - unless you want to kill yourself (seriously).
Being obsessive-compulsive the Astonisher lives by an astonishing number of self-imposed rules and protocols designed to keep idle hands busy. Our policy in general is:-
1: Buy in Linton
2: Buy in Ballarat
3: Buy on-line in Australia
4. Buy where available.
We always believe the Australian economy must come first (a pity our elected representatives don’t care about that) and will lobby for a GST to be applied to all on-line purchases not just those purchased in Australia. If we want a level playing field then we have to apply the same taxes across the board regardless of price or origin. We don’t have GST on goods under a certain value as the bean-counters say it costs more to collect than what they will collect - what they don’t tell us is that GST on pricier items will more than cover the cost of collection on the lower end of the scale - let Peter subsidise Paul. They’re just too lazy and complacent and worried about getting home for the X-Factor to bother putting it in place. Why increase our workload?
The State Liberal Government was turfed out because it allowed 60% of green waste to go into land-fill (only Labor is that wasteful?) but they did rule that ‘geo-blocking’ was in such a grey area in regard to World Trade Regulations that they shouldn’t make it illegal to flout the rules governing such practices. ‘If one could one should’ was the outcome. Pity they don’t like that concept when it comes to personal taxes. Apparently it’s the downloading and not the smuggling of USB sticks up our arse that makes the difference.
Just as a demonstration of differences between countries. Taxes for on-line purchasing in America are for any purchase above $15.00 and in the U.K it’s $25.00 (so much for the too expensive to collect argument) but in Australia the maximum that does not attract taxes is $1,000. Basically Australians can buy almost anything they want and our politicians couldn’t give a toss.
There is another way to get around your Internet Shopping problems. You can save yourself some time and money by getting yourself a legitimate U.S downloading address using a VPN (a virtual whatever) through Free and Paid VPN servers. Readers should Google TorVPN, Logmein Hamachi ( a sort of Beam-me-up Scotty type site) Hotspot Shield, HMA. IPVanish (sounds more like a slash in the dark) and Overplay. You connect to your VPN server (which pretends to be your computer - good if you’re also Julian Assange) and allows you to set up an account and use a legitimate U.S postal address. One is not quite sure if the Sheriff has realised yet that there are 17 million people living in a two-bedroom flat in Little Rock.
Yet another alternative to VPN, if you spend quite a bit on imports (GMH for example) is to adopt a US based domain name such as un-block-us.com for about $5 a month. The Astonisher gets many Linton stories through our domain in Croatia to protect our local sources.

Again - rerouting your internet connection through a DNS server (we know that one to be Domain Name Server - Duh!!!!) by changing the setting on your computer (in our case permanently on another computer but not something we can tell you how to do - a Geek did ours for us) can also trick the site you’re attempting to hack (line through) access into believing your computer is in that country.

A word of warning at this point. Be warned about the possibility of bill-shock from excess data usage charges on the faster 4G network if it ever gets to Linton which has been found to increase data usage by up to 50% in some cases. Much of this caused by the multiple routing and other data sapping uses you might put your computer through for some of these exercises.

After whining on about buying Australian I’ve just realised I’ve told you all about not employing local talent with the exception of local geeks setting up nefarious ways to beat the system.

IT’S NOT OUR MONEY

The Linton Astonisher once had a thought that we should get rid of all political parties. That turned out to be a bit pie in the sky as political parties are the only ones that can form a government after an election. One can imagine the problem with 156 individuals all wanting to be the Prime Minister. I still believe it would, and should, apply to the Senate so that politicians would begin to represent their state and not their party very few Ministers and no Prime Ministers have ever come from this Upper Chamber anyway.

Individual members could coalesce around the laws and poilicies and vote in favour for only those policies they believe are best for their electorate, their state and not hjave to worry about the threats from Whips and other party leeches that ‘you’ll never get power if you don’t toe the party’s line’. They don’t seem to realise there is more power in the hands of a few crazies like Palmer and One Nation than ever being in government itself. You can be a pretty small tail and still wag the dog pretty vigourously as so ably demonstrated by the tree-hugging Greens.

Now you might be astonished to read that I believe we could also save a lot of taxpayers money by not allowing government employees to throw our cash to the wind in frivolous spending sprees. It is common knowledge, and I experienced it year after year when I was unproductively employed, that an attitude of use it or lose it becomes a common practice at the end of year civil servants sale.

This entails getting rid of any money you haven’t spent by the end of the financial year in the fanciful fear that you won’t get as much money next year. This is a furphy of course but is bandied around all government departments at all levels. Stupidity would reign if budgets were cut and then had to be increased again six months later, but then again stupidity is almost the exclusive domain of civil servants and pollies and in all three tiers of goverment, or as Golden Pains calls it  ‘community leadership’.

As a genetically programmed tight-wad I always treated my budget as almost my money and did not just spend it in a cavalier fashion. By the end of each financial year I might have had about $500 left over and I had mandatory instructions to spend it. As a result my office had enough stationary to last the next decade and every year I had to buy more productive items, it stretched my imagination to the limit.

What I did need was a new computer but there was never enough in the kitty to buy one. My pleas to put the money aside for the next year fell on deaf ears of course, funding from Community Services to N.G.O’s had to be spent without arguement and apparently on their part without conscience. It ended up by my applying for a special grant to buy a computer which could well have been funded from existing money and not yet another drain on the taxpayers purse.

‘Jesus! It’s only taxpayers money …. not yours’ was one response from my funding body.
So there we have it. The taxpayer around the end of June every year helps to pay for bonding exercises (see also wankers games), staff picnics and movie nights to develop relationships between the wage-earners (a.k.a dinner, movies and a free booze-up) or even paying for sessions called ‘personal development’ (including palm reading and star-sign interpretation) and in extreme cases large amounts can be exhausted on entire week-ends at a spa or other health resort (in my case it was a long-weekend at a Mount Victoria Boutique Hotel) and given such names as Peak Organisation Conferences (in my case the Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Parramatta) where we learnt more about celibacy and family counselling, or Advanced Community Development where we learnt how to sway the system towards giving us more money to spend on frivoulous personal pursuits disguised as work.

The ultimate answer is to freeze the budget at a certain level for four years (a much favoured number for governments) and enable departments and individuals in the community sector to earmark the money that is left for use the next year. It would have the effect of making civil servants more accountable and economical when spending our money.

Over the next four years the Auditor-General could check the frugality of departments, their ability to use our money wisely and ensure that tenders for building works or provision of expendable supplies are within the same playing field as the private sector. When a normal house can be built for $150,000 why should the government pay $350,000 for the same project. When a good set of bookshelves cost around $3,000 why should Senator Brandis spend $14,000 on the same thing let alone a previous Prime Minister spending $5,000 on a desk which was priced at $2299.00 on the showroom floor. You would have heard about Gillard’s $100,000 School Tuck Shop about the size of a standard single garage.

Now its up to us, after all its our money, to start asking those ‘born to rule’ what they might do about this blatant waste of money. Little wander we are going further into debt at government level, they just don’t know when to stop spending.