Interesting Analogy!!

[Wood Butcher]

Just received this in an email!

THE ORIGINAL STORY OF THE ANT & THE GRASSHOPPER

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well-fed.The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so his dies out in the cold.

THE MODERN AUSTRALIAN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The freezing grasshopper calls a Press Conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well-fed, while others less fortunate (like him) are cold and starving.

The ABC and Channel 9 show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable, warm home with a table filled with food.
Australians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while "others" have plenty.

The Democrats, the Greens and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house.The ABC - interrupting an Aboriginal cultural festival from North Queensland with breaking news - broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome".
Bob Brown rants in an interview with Ray Martin that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".
In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity & Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of summer.It is quickly passed through the Senate.

The ant's taxes are re-assessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly-imposed retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful Agribiz company.

The TV stations later show the (now fat!) grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food - though Spring is still months away - while the government owned house he is in ( which just happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, Kim Beazley now is appointed to head a Commission of Inquiry that will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose.The Sydney Morning Herald blames it on obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders (praised by the government for enriching Australia's multicltural diversity) who promptly terrorise the community.

[ozwinner]

Funny bugger...

Al

[Auld Bassoon]

Regrettably, more than just a semblance of truth in that tale, in several dimensions too.

[Zed]

sorry cant delete any of that....

I love a sunburnt country,
a land of sweeping rains,
of pontificating politicians
and dole bludging whingers..

(sorry couldnt find a rhyme off the top of me head )

[Iain]

That reminds me of my ex, after we split up she went out and bought a new car which she couldn't afford to repay.
I, yes 'I' got a letter from her solicitor demanding payment and what I intended to do about it.
The response, I might add, was very brief and to the point.
She got the family home, a car, my boat, most of the contents of the house and left me with bugger all.
She squandered the lot and now is an epitome of the grasshopper, and screams fould because I got off my asre and started again and look after myself and new family.
Rant over.