Talk Back Radio

I was a little unsure what to write for my next blog post. Having recalled a 1986 nursery rhyme as my first blog, then added a birthday memory and a couple of preamble entries on being a grassroots football cameraman, I realized I wanted to do something contemporary. All this retrospective stuff was locking me into the past.

So yes, I was a little unsure what to write for my next blog post… that is… until I received a JokeMail. It originated from XXXXX and so therefore, I treated it as not-spam. It arrived today, so that filled the credentials of being contemporary. Perfect.

The subject title told me nothing other than, “Ross Greenwood”.

Do I know him? Who is Ross Greenwood? Should I know him?

I opened the email. I read it. Then I scratched my head a couple of times. After a couple of internet searches, I now know that Ross Greenwood is a 2GB TalkBack Presenter. He has a show called Money News.

Now, apart from the obvious connection that 2GB TalkBack is run by that crackpot Alan Jones, I was wondering why(?) I was being sent an email with contents claiming to be current (today being the 19^th of February 2012), when the contents were from June 2009? There it goes again, even my attempt at being up-to-date gets locked into a time-warp and throws me back to 2009!

Well, I guess jokes can be universal and not necessarily time-stamped either, Mark Twain, Groucho Marx and the Abbot & Costello routine “Who’s On First?” are great examples of that. But this JokeMail didn’t make that grade… and if I have ever made an understatement, that was it! To use a Borat style idiom, “This is funny … PAUSE… not!”

No, this was certainly no joke! It was in reality a propaganda chain-email. It was the “if you agree, send it on” type.

It was a TalkBack Radio rant. The gist of it being; Australian Government Debt is a plunging Australians towards financial disaster. The Labor Party (Gillard, Rudd, Swan etc) have no experience running a business (small or large), no years working as a director of a public company, family business… no years of anything except being Trade Union lawyers. One sentence would have said it all… “They are incompetent and have no experience.”

To keep the vitriol folksy, he even says he uses a home-loan calculator! Figures are produced to explain this debt and how it affects the Australian people. $200 billion is $2 hundred thousand million. $733pa for every man, woman & child over 20 years to repay this debt. (2009 figures)

The rant concludes with, “If you have read this you may like to pass it on to your friends to help educate a little as you, them and I, will be repaying the above.”

The tag line is “Confirms my long held belief that we go to the ballot box to vote in people to manage our country that we wouldn’t employ.”

At first I felt like replying to XXXXX, asking him…”Why are you sending me this Ross Greenwood/Alan Jones Quote from 2009?”

BTW: I call it this Ross Greenwood/Alan Jones Quote for the following reason. It is a combination-quote, and by that I mean… it actually combines a direct-quote of this Ross Greenwood – 2GB Money News fellow, with an Alan Jones direct-quote (who is not attributed for his contribution).

Did that make sense? Can I put it this way? The whole direct-quote is attributed to Ross Greenwood, but it isn’t all his. He only said half of it. Well… why quibble with that? … let’s just assume that Ross Greenwood might have said it - if only Alan Jones hadn’t gotten in before him. Alan Jones employs Ross Greenwood at 2GB, so maybe it’s in his best interests not to quibble either?

I have listened to Alan Jones on the radio. (If you don’t know who he is, look him up). He owns the radio station 2GB and expresses views that are…. well…. ummm … let’s put it this way… Alan Jones is very good at isolating a piece of information to suit his political agenda. He extrapolates, expands and distorts that piece of information into opinions of his own… opinions that are very out of context with the original fact. Why should Alan Jones be concerned about that? Extreme views are provocative, and therefore boost his ratings.

Yep, his resulting view/opinion is often quite ridiculous and makes you wonder how he started using that particular fact to get where he ends up? It’s classic train-of-thought stuff, and if he didn’t actually own and run the radio station, it would be easy to dismiss him. But he is a powerful voice. Dismissing him as a crank doesn’t work.

Debt? Good or bad? The people of Greece wouldn’t be ones saying it’s good, nor the people of the USA paying for the trillions they spent in Iraq. But looking at the way the News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) empire was built on debt, there are clearly two sides to any issue, but what do I know? I am no expert.

Gillard, Rudd, Swan & Co? I am certainly no fan.

So? How to turn this piece of propganda back into a JokeMail? Mmmm, let me see? Unlike those jokers from the Labor Party… of the 18 points listed that disqualifies the Gillard/Rudd/Swan crew from being competent managers (or even employable)… How do I rate? ie: I have experience …

spent running their own business ü - spent starting their own business ü -  spent as a director of a family business or company ü - as a director of a public company – in a senior position in a public company ü– in a senior position in a private company ü – working in corporate finance – corporate or business restructuring ü– working in or with a bank ü – experience in the capital markets – in a stock-broking firm – negotiating debt facilities with banks ü – running a small business ü– at the World Bank or IMF or OECD – in Treasury or Finance.

As you can see, I personally have 9 of the 18 positively ticked. Can I add one more they forgot? Multi-Million $ Project Management ü

That means… (according to Alan Jones & Ross Greenwood), I am half way there in qualifying for the job of running this country!