the Squirrel and the Grasshopper. .

[Phil Perry]

A moral tale: The Squirrel & The Grasshopper

 

The real world version

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving 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 squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

 

The politically correct version

The squirrel 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 squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. The British press informs people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome".

David Lammy rants in an interview with John Snow that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter Inner London.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile.

The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.

The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug 'illness'.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in the UK.

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.

The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister. The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

Oh and the Squirrel? He posted a comment on social media about how he thought it was unfair and was arrested and imprisoned for hate speech, losing his job and home

• 
  

[spacesailor]

HEY

That sounds right.

spacesailor

[Yenn]

At least they were not forced to vote at the elections. Just imagine those 3 fat ladies seen on TV news fighting over toilet paper are expected to vote when we have an election. Is there any wonder the country is so poorly governed?

[ClintonB]

Why does that story work in the uk and australia. We must be suckers for the way we support bludgers that have learnt to suck the system dry.

[Yenn]

I don't know that we are suckers, it is the media that delight in such stories and they get far more air time than they deserve. Plus the pollies listen to all the sob stories and react to make themselves look good in the eye of the illiterate voter.

[Marty_d]

Typical neo-con BS dressed up as a fairy story.

 

We spend 10.9% of GDP on welfare, roughly 160 billion a year. That's all welfare. If you're just bashing the unemployed, which is the usual right-wing modus operandi, then we only spend 10.2 billion on them. (So for one overpriced submarine, you support all of Australia's unemployed for 5 years. Not taking into account that they spend every dollar they get into the economy, which submarines don't, so they're good value for money really).

 

Defence spending is 30 billion a year, three times as much as supporting the unemployed.

 

Now, if you are single and unemployed, you get the grand sum of $279.50 per week. Plus a maximum $69 of rent assistance.

The median amount of rent in Australia is $436 per week, or $80 more than everything you get from the government.

 

As a comparison, the average full time earnings is around $1700 a week.

 

So we don't pay someone on Newstart enough to rent a house, let alone rent plus eat plus look for work.

 

Now let's look at the other end of the scale.

 

Australia's top 10 CEO's took home $150 million between them in FY2018, or as much as 10,344 unemployed people. TEN people got as much as over 10,000 people. Guess where CEO salaries come from? Same place as the unemployed's pittance - you, the consumer.

 

So next time you want to go kick the unemployed, maybe you should pick on someone who's really a bloated tick on society.

 

Sources:

https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/welfare-expenditure

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-03/federal-budget-2019-sliced-and-diced-interactive/10959808#spending/breakdown/2020/defence

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/newstart-allowance

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/rent-assistance/how-much-you-can-get#a1

https://www.corelogic.com.au/news/rents-across-australia-rise-over-first-quarter-2019

https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6302.0

https://www.gq.com.au/success/career/australias-10-highest-earning-ceos-made-over-150m-in-fy18/image-gallery/3c1ed3bcd06fd1ea8d89aba56de28fdf

[willedoo]

And then there's things like rural socialism. I personally know a couple who were receiving taxpayer funded drought subsidies to buy hay. All at the same time they were jetting off to Uluru for a bit of luxury accommodation and to climb the rock before it was banned.

 

Every section of society, from top to bottom has their hand out, or in someone else's pocket. The unemployed just happen to be an easy target for every other bludger in society to kick.

[old man emu]

Those who must live on, say $50,000 p.a. or less, the working class (employed or not) circulate the money they earn through the Economy. They are not able to amass the amounts needed to buy their own homes, or invest in the stock market. With GST at 10%, and allowing for non-taxed food purchases, the working class would probably be axed 6-8% on the money they spend. That's a big financial hit to a small income. Earn over $100,000 and there's still plenty of money for investment.