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Chris Ayres on;
ELECTIONS, HOLDING TANKS AND THE G.F.C
Might seem an odd title to some, but I am sure TPC readers will instantly see the
connection.
It was explained to me by a man I met at a pub a few weeks ago. He was a redundant
accountant (now isn't that an oxymoron! Like an honest banker or a truthful solicitor) now
sailing the last of his super fund he had cashed in on a yacht before his now ex-wife, her solicitor
and his ex-bank-manager had helped themselves.
Recognising me as an expert in holding tanks (now dear reader, please refer to my earlier
literary exploits from the bilge) he put his problem to me. How do you empty a holding tank
when there is nowhere to empty it? The Premier Marina where he was moored for the time
being charged $100 a litre to pump it out ONCE they had restored their pooh extractor to
working order. The next pumping station was somewhere north of the Whitsunday's, which
meant many many sad days of eblutive abstinence.
“Try the ocean?” I innocently suggested.
“How do I extract?” Came the response. Apparently the designers of his yacht; some fancy
model from the US of A hadn't worked that one out, relying on a small pump, inside the tank
which had failed of fright with the first owner. Or on a working pump-out station.
“Ah ha”, I said and got up to escape.
“Help me!” he pleaded, “I'll buy you a scotch”
“Laphroig 15 year old cask strength and bottle of it please.” No chance in the pub we were in
so I settled for a double Teachers. I used to be a teacher in a former life and liked the
connection and the price which fitted my superannuated circumstances since my escape from
the ATO. Yes, fellow travellers, the ATO. In my declining years I ended up a lawyer - a TAX
lawyer. Re-hab has worked, dear friends, and I am now fully restored in retirement. But I
digress.
My advice was simple. Slip your yacht. Disconnected the offending object, plugging all points
of access and egress to aforementioned holding tank and leave it sit in the cockpit. Buy a new
tank, and fit it above water line. He had plenty of space on a double bunk that was surplus to
requirements now - so it was an ideal place for a bitter and twisted ex-accountant cum solo
sailor. Fit exit valve below water line, and inlet directly from the macerator. Allow the largest
vent possible to allow escape of unpleasant odours and ventilation, thus preventing the
disaster that had beset a former friend of mine (I had omitted to mention the latter detail),
whose tank burst its seams once filled to beyond capacity. Next, on a dark night, remove the
old tank, exercising the greatest care and leave it outside Parliament House as a gift to the
government that had imposed the hated Law of Pooh upon all honest yachties. Are there any
other kind?
Next week, he found me gazing at an empty glass.
“Works like a treat” he said. “I owe you. What can I do to repay you?” Knowing he was broke,
but being a curious cove, I asked, “Fill this please and explain to me how come we have worked
all our lives, saved scrupulously, but find ourselves in senior years broke?”
It was his turn to “ah ha” now. “You want to know about the economy! It is best understood
by a formula, discovered by a Nobel Laureate and his colleague. The Black-Scholes formula. It
is a mathematical model of a financial market containing certain derivative investment
instruments. It predicts future market trends.”
“Ah ha” I said. “I understand. Black Holes. That's where our money goes.”
“No no” my holding tank evacuee replied. “Black-Scholes. It was used to predict the Bull
market in 1987, the Dot-Com boom of the late 90's and the Global Financial Creaming of 2008!”
“Um, weren't they all financial catastrophes?”
“Of course not silly!”, he replied. “Not for us in the financial industry! Look at the bonuses
bankers get today! Never been so good! All paid now by the tax-payer.”
“And those in the financial industry aren't they tax-payers?”
“Don't be daft man! We wrote the rules. The government has to save us and bugger the rest.”
“But what when all the tax-payers are out of work and on the dole?”
“Dole? Dole. Silly old fart, there is no dole! The government simply cuts out all social
security payments and sells all its assets to save the financial industry! Life goes on as normal.
For us”
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Oh I was made redundant. Bank went offshore. So now I have decided to follow in - my
boat”.
As I walked back to Lady Lonsdale that night, humming the old song, “It's the Rich wot gets
the Gravy, The Poor What gets the blame” , a light-bulb moment; no, a stellar explosion
moment hit me.
Once we voted for change. We hoped for a better world. We still do. But the politicians don't
change and their policies now that there are no “Reds under the Beds” can safely reward the
captains of the financial industry.
Whatever you vote for, the result is the same! Nothing to vote for? Don't vote? GO TO
GAOL! No free lunch for you, boyo. Just stabbed by the SPER - that rather delightfully named
tool of enforcement - SPER - State Penalties Enforcement Register. This will ensure you never
have a credit card again and any pension or earnings you might grasp will be torn way from you.
Thou MUST Vote! The law says so! Enforced Democracy it is.
Remember voting to sell off Telstra? What about the referendum to privatise the
Commonwealth Bank? Or Qantas, or our electricity supplies, roads, railways etc etc. And the
ballot to bail out the banks? YOU DON'T??
So, voting is a bit like the holding tank. It is something we have to do, go when we have to.
Not so much nature calling daily as SPERED into going every few years at the whim of
government.
Remember the sinking of the USS Bogger? A Destroyer. blown to smithereens she was and
nowhere near the Gulf of Tonkin so a mystery it was. But I know the truth. It was the holding
tank that did it. Able Seaman Randy Rogers was a bit of bolshie. Disobeyed orders he thought
unfair. Smoking in the heads was forbidden. To hell with that! He had had enough of being
told what to do! He lit up his Camel (his cigarette, not the ship of the desert) and enjoyed his
fag, not caring about lung cancer since the government had privatised medicine beyond the
means of working mortals and AB's years ago. He dropped the stub down the loo. Methane
makes a hell of a bang when ignited and that was the end of Randy. And of the USS Bogger.
Now what if that holding tank outside Parliament House went off, sort of Guy
Fawkes style? Might leave a nice big BLACK HOLE we could fill with something
useful? To everyone, not just the top 1%?
Chris Ayres, SV Lady Lonsdale