I empathise with Daggett's CV massaging efforts. I was p*ssed off to read the following letter in The Age today http://www.theage.com.au/letters/?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

"Teacher drain a critical issue

"I AM a 60-year-old teacher at Cobram Secondary College. I thought your story and editorial last week concerning the drastic teacher staffing situation at country schools were both timely in their focus and spot-on in their analysis. At Cobram we are currently experiencing serious staffing imbalances in "hard-to-staff" areas like maths and information technology, despite re-advertising these vacancies widely. The prospects for 2008 and beyond do not look good"

_ _ _ _ _

I applied for the above positions in 2004, 2005 and tried to meet the principal, who played Mrs Elusive. I notice that the jobs are advertised as graduate positions. In my experience there is no shortage of teachers, even out in regional Victoria schools that want to hire metropolitan trained young graduates. This means graduates from the local regional universities are left to earn a precarious existence as emergency teachers trying to get sufficient days work to gain full teaching licences.

So if the job applicant doesn't have exactly the right qualifications blue eyes, right gender, age, right ethnic group then they will be passed over.

Fester, median house prices would vary in every state. In places like WA they
have rocketed up, as everyone scrambles for their McMansion, due to the booming
economy.

If your dream is a low median house price, then bring back 18% interest rates
and 10-12 % unemployment and there will be bargain houses everywhere!

A smart poster like yourself would be able to analyse why houses cost what they
do. Wealthier buyers are one issue, but to build a new average home is still
not expensive. 150k$ will get you a quite reasonable one, according to the
Sunday papers. The real slug is land, as State Govts have been backward at
releasing enough of it to satisfy demand, as they pursue their dreams of
high density living, whilst many people prefer urban sprawl. Huge infrastructure
charges are also applied to every block. The net result is skyrocketing house
land prices, a State Govt, not Federal Govt issue.

Daggett, there are many points in your posts that I could have reacted to, but
I am interacting with not just yourself on this thread. So I chose just one
that seemed fairly ridiculous and still do think that is the case.

As I showed, perhaps its just you and not the system. You have many options,
doctors who bulk bill, doctors with efficient admin systems, going to your
bank when you are going anyhow etc.

Ask yourself why that system was introduced and it starts to make sense.
Govts should spend taxpayers $ wisely and providing unlimited cookie jars for
some to dip their hands in, is not wise. Doctors are free to bulk bill and save on
admin costs, some choose not to. Fair enough, but then patients should know how
much they are charging, so that they are accountable to patients, not to the Govt.

So thankfully the Govt has limited the taxpayer funded cookie jar, but given people
various options. You are free to choose amongst those options. Finding another
Doctor is one of them.

(continuedfromabove)
.. upon which it depends, just one amongst almost countless other examples being Naomi Kleins's "The Shock Doctine" (see http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/shock-wave-troopers http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/the-book).

Breward may be slightly off the mark when he writes that 'economic rationalists' are 'deluded'. I think that most are perfectly well aware of what they are doing. As Monbiot put it, "Their purpose was to develop the ideas and the language which would mask the real intent of the programme - the restoration of the power of the elite - and package it as a proposal for the betterment of humankind." (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/08/28/how-did-we-get-into-this-mess/)

Thus, Howard insists that protection against unfair dismissal was removed to increase employment opportunities and Yabby parrots (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93060) the familiar and discredited argument that the reason why, as an example, in the hospitality industry, "Saturday penalty rates were abolished in 76 per cent of WorkChoices collective agreements, Sunday penalties in 71 per cent, overtime rates in 68 per cent, public holiday rates in 60 per cent, and paid breaks in 55 per cent" (see http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/managers-strip-worker-rights/2007/09/12/1189276809758.html) is to allow flexibility for the benefit of worker as well as employer.

---

The biggest confidence trick of all is that John Howard somehow did not realise that his laws were going to cause savage cuts to many workers' wages. He was warned about this even from within his cabinet, and the unions and opposition parties said that this would be the case from day one. Nevertheless, without any mandate from Australian voters, they arrogantly persevered, abusing their Senate majority that had been delivered to them throught the rorting of the Senate electoral processes.

On top of this, they had the unbelievable gall to spend initially AU$55million of taxpayers' money to lie to the Australian public about these laws in an unprecedented saturation-level advertising campaign even before the actual legislation had been revealed. The claims that various entitlements were "protected by law" have since been shown to be false. The costs of all "WorkChoices" advertising totals 'AU$120 million and counting' (http://candobetter.org/node/152#speech). The total cost of taxpayer-funded Liberal Party political propaganda since 2004 totals between AU$800million and AU$1billion.

James Sinnamon

Rhian wrote, "I'd prefer not to discuss your personal inadequacies, ..."

Excuse me?

Perhaps if, instead of being the person that I am, I was a judgmental self-satisfied creep, perhaps, with a better aptitude for self-promotion, then you would be less uncharitable.

Many contributors, including myself, have been personally affected by the maliciously designed policies of the Howard Government (and I would add, since you have failed to notice that I am not enamoured with Paul Keating either, the policies of the previous Labor Government, as well). That some of us choose to discuss how this has affected ourselves, given our own imperfections, I would have thought was both understandable and of benefit to others.

I consider the way that you have seized upon my frank disclosure about myself, in order to to denigrate myself in an attempt to divert attention away from the very serious issues at hand, is contemptible and despicable.

Rhian wrote, "... Anyway, you posed a direct question to me about the time it takes to full in a job application."

Where did I pose this "direct question" to you?

Also, if you want me to take your accusations of my having misrepresented you seriously, then how about quoting me directly?

---

Rhian wrote (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93572),

"I don't believe, and have not said, that everyone is better off than they used to be, or that no-one faces economic hardship or exploitation."

This a gross understatement. What we have in Australia today are massive injustices perpetrated against at least a very large minority. If even one person in this supposedly affluent prosperous country is made to needlessly suffer what has been amply documented here and elsewhere, then that is one person too many as far, as I am concerned.

What you are attempting to do, Rhian, is to belittle those of us who have spoken out against what has happened to ourselves, in order to help influence the majority who have, until recently, at least, swallowed the propaganda of economic prosperity, to be indifferent to the predicaments of others.

James Sinnamon (author)

Daggett
You asked “where did I pose this "direct question" to you?” It was here:
“are you at least prepared to acknowledge that inordinate amounts of time are spent on all sides both applying for and processing jobs as compared with, say, 10 or 20 years ago?”

You also asked me “is it your intention to discuss the issue at hand or to discuss your own perception of my personal adequacies?”, to which I responded “I’d prefer not to discuss your personal inadequacies, but as you illustrate you points with your own experiences, it’s hard to avoid” The phrase “personal inadequacies” was originally yours not mine, and I was quoting you to identify the point to which I was responding.

You accuse me of not quoting you directly, but feel insulted when I do.

I was genuinely surprised that it takes you two weeks to write a job application.

I have not attempted to “belittle” the posters who have argued that their life is tough or getting tougher, and have repeatedly said that I understand that the general economic indicators I look to don’t tell the story of each individual. Yet you presume that anyone who doesn’t share your view of the world lacks empathy and has not made the effort to understand the circumstances of others. You take it for granted, on no evidence at all, that my own “plans in life” have gone “smoothly”. And you insult posters you disagree with, but take self-righteous offence at any perceived abuse directed at yourself, even if it - as in my response to your question about your “personal inadequacies” - we do no more that answer your points.

“Judgmental self-satisfied creep” – your words, again - sums this up rather well.

"and Yabby parrots the familiar and discredited argument"

Err hang on Daggett, Yabby doesen't parrot anything. Yabby
has actually been an employee, employer, started businesses
that have succeeded and understands a little bit about
economics. So Yabby has learned from experience, I'll
leave it up to you to parrot the theories.

Business is all very simple. You supply a service or
product that consumers want and you need to make a profit
or you shut it down and do something else.

If I was hard up tomorrow, I'd buy a broom, bucket and
a vacuum and have "Yabby's Cleaning Services" up and running
by tomorrow night. Next I'd be hiring other people like me
to join in. If they turned up with a log of claims and a bad
attitude, I would not bother hiring them in the first place.
If they made the business money, I'd give them a share of
the profits, it pays to hire happy campers, not constant
whingers.

You are free to start your own business tomorrow and dictate
your own working conditions.

But as they say, you can take a horse to water, you can't make
it drink. Very true.