Category: Gender Politics

The bar at Mos Eisley Spaceport

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Evolution in reverse hypothesis, Gender Politics, General, Hashtag Diversity, Identity Politics, The end is nigh, Transgender Regret Industry (c)

Or the Green Room for Sydney World Pride’s guest speakers?

You decide:

Let’s ease into it gently with the bartender. Looks normal enough. On my planet, the beard would have provided enough information to make the pronouns superfluous, but hey, could be a different species, right?

Next up, starting to get tricky. Sporting probably the weakest attempt at facial hair since Elliot Page did Movember, and a hat that screams “unpacking theology may not end well for you”, this one is anyone’s guess.

Ok, this one’s easy; it’s more than one person in the same body (they/them). Definitely from another planet.

This one is obviously human, unless they have 1970s retro wallpaper on planet Zarg. Good to see the name and aim of the organisation is hiding in plain sight – STRAP(on).

Did you know the previously satirical (now woke and establishment) magazine, Private Eye, used to refer to Her Maj, Queen Elizabeth as “Brenda”? Never needed to mention pronouns though, can’t think why.

Say it loud, I’m she/her and Proud.

Ok, this one is surely having a laugh at our expense. “Tuck”. Riiight.

Next up, “I’m not ready for my close-up now, Mr DeMille”. It’s almost as if, I dunno, she/her hadn’t grown up learning how to apply make up.

I’m pretty sure I saw Dr. Julia Erht (she/her) playing drums for Beltane Fire at the Mean Fiddler in 1989. Or maybe they were part of the crew who built the porch extension for my parents’ house.

Ok, we’ve found the backup captain for the Millennium Falcon, should Han Solo not make it on time. He/him can definitely do the Kessel Run in 12 Parsecs.

P. J. O’Rourke isn’t dead, she/her has just returned to she/her planet, baby.

Walking on the beaches, looking at the…. Aaaargh! Not that!

The great thing about athletes is how healthy they look.

“The crystal ship is being filled…”. How many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters would it take? Not enough have been poured, nowhere near enough.

I wonder whether “multiply neurodivergent” means something on they/them planet? Not sure there’s a direct translation in Earth languages.

This one’s easy; definitely alien, we’ve even got a cartoon from she/they planet.

Finally, this is clearly off-world.

Bill’s Opinion

Happy World Pride, Sydney. You voted for the idiots who are now using your rate money to fund this.

Follow the link to the list of speakers and ask yourself if any of them, even one, would be a good role model for your child?

The Wi-Fi Password people have really have very little in common, the Ls hate the Ts, the Gs only love themselves, nobody understands the Qs and the Is, and everyone hates the Bs. The one thing these people have in common though is they are all very broken.

The good news is, this is their last hurrah. I predict that, in years to come this World Pride will be seen as the high tide of the wokemon bollocks.

Scotland just lost a First Minister because the rest of the country said, “yeah, nah” to it. It’s over, go back to your constituencies and prepare for normality.

Don’t mention the war

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Cultural Marxism, Free Speech, Gender Politics, General, Hashtag Diversity, Identity Politics, Jihad, Too much government, Transgender Regret Industry (c), Whither Government?

I have memories. They may be, as Clive James suggests, unreliable, but I can’t erase them.

One memory is of people often saying “it’s a free country” in response to either a suggestion that they’ve said something offensive or that someone was doing something not illegal but outside of the norm.

It must be two decades since I last heard that retort, TV re-runs and YouTube videos of Hancock’s Half Hour notwithstanding.

What I mean is, “it’s a free country”, was said all the time, by people in the pub, the local market, outside church, in the newsagents.

You pulled a face when they said “Paki” when referring to the cornershop owner Mr Patel, originally from Bombay, India? “It’s a free country”.

Someone raised an eyebrow at a risqué joke? “It’s a free country”.

What about the girl who has moved in with her boyfriend, or the teenage lad down the road who’s just confirmed what everyone had known since he was in Primary School; that he’s gay? “It’s a free country”.

If I were to speculate on the reason it was such a common catchphrase, I’d guess it was a reaction to our opponents in the Cold War. The things we said weren’t policed by government in the way the Russians were. it was a point of pride.

We don’t hear it so often, if at all now.

Perhaps there’s a reason for that.

Here’s a few news items to contemplate:

Woman arrested for silently praying in public.

Pregnant woman arrested for Facebook post.

Comedian can’t perform to a sold out theatre.

Film not allowed to be shown in UK cinemas.

This trend is self-sustaining. The political theory of the Spiral of Silence suggests people increasingly self-censor when they perceive their views are outside the Overton Window.

So what topics can we no longer express that perhaps we might have done in the recent past? Let’s call this test the LinkedIn filter; i.e. would I be prepared to hit the 👍 button on an article on this topic for my professional network to see? If the answer is no, it would seem we can no longer discuss this in public.

Here’s a list to get us started:

  • Asylum seekers waiting to cross the English Channel have passed through at least three safe countries already. Why did they not claim asylum in one of those?
  • Openly funding the Ukraine response to Russia is a highly risky tactic for the west and has likely delayed the inevitable diplomatic solution.
  • Some cultures are inferior to those originating in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Islam, in particular, is still desperately needing its version of the Renaissance to arrive.
  • Most of the world’s governments wet the bed over Covid and then failed to admit it when the data was clear in April 2020 and carried on self-harming for over a year.
  • Trans women, particularly the most vocal in the media and social media, are nearly always acting out a sexual fetish, autogynophobia. Their human rights do not trump those of actual women.
  • Stereotypes are often rooted in truth. There’s a reason the Lebanese in Sydney have a reputation for corruption, for example, or Nigerians in London are wildly more successful than Afro-Caribbeans.
  • The gender pay gap has multiple causes, duh patriarchy is unlikely to be a significant one. In fact, we never talk about it when I attend the local Patriarchy Chapter secret meetings.
  • The best way to equalise the gap between Australian aboriginals and the rest of the population is to treat them equally – equal laws, no subsidies to live in remote locations, removal of at risk children, etc.
  • Polyamory is yet another con trick, like third wave feminism, resulting in unhappy and regretful humans.

Bill’s Opinion

There’s loads more verboten topics to go on that list. I may pin this post on the main menu and keep updating it. Feel free to suggest a few in the comments.

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

There were three in the bed, and the little cuck said….

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Cultural Marxism, Evolution in reverse hypothesis, Gender Politics, Incentives Matter

Paging Desert Sun, could Desert Sun please come back to the interweb? This really is his subject area, not mine:

Sexologist Tamica Wilder opens up about living with boyfriend, husband and kids (h/t the Ryan Long Boyscast podcast).

A leading Australian sexologist has opened up about living, until recently, under the same roof as her husband, their two sons, and her boyfriend.

Which makes one wonder who the leading Australian sexologist is?

On this week’s episode of the Parentkind podcast, Tamica Wilder – who is based in the Byron Shire…. Of course she is, where the fuck else in Australia would she be living?

When I met the father of my two kids, one of the first sentences that came out of my mouth was, ‘Yes, I want to be with you, and it won’t be just you’,” the 37-year-old recalled.

The father of her kids must smile wryly at that shared memory.

“I was very clear from the beginning of our relationship that I had polyamorous or open-relating values, and that was something that was a non-negotiable in terms of my relating style.”

“Relating style”…. That’s a new synonym for a much older adjective we’d all recognise.

“And so that kind of flung us into a whole world of not fully understanding what that meant at the time, and it really seemed like the more freedom and agility we gave each other, the closer and closer we became.”

(Bold mine) Let’s come back to this in a while, shall we?

….Tamica met Rob* at a 2018 festival in northern NSW, Australia. “I met this person who’s my partner now, and I came back home to the father of my kids, and I told him all about this person that I’d met. And I’d said, ‘I’m not willing to not see this person again. There’s something there with us, and it’s a thread that I want to follow,’” she said.

“Hi honey, I’m back from the festival and I got you a present!”

“And so [Rob and I] kept relating, long distance, for a while, and then he eventually moved down to Melbourne and into our family home.”

Which sounds rather like, “let him move in or see your children half as much as you currently do”.

It was also important, she explained, that she, Rob and Harry have “lots of conversations”.

As the Boyscast points out, those must have been almost as bad, if not worse, than letting Rob bang your missus.

You can skim through the next ten paragraphs of bullshit justifications for shagging around until you get to the money shot:

Ultimately, she moved with her two sons up to the Byron Shire, where they now live together with Rob.

How’s that the closer and closer we became thing goin’ for ya?

Bill’s Opinion

The common theme one finds with articles trying to normalise polyamory is that they always finish with one or more parties getting no sex and/or evicted.

It’s analogous to articles bemoaning the lack of true socialism.

But, apparently, you’re the closed minded bigot for thinking monogamy and the family unit are the best societal solution for humans.

Give me back the Berlin Wall

Billy/ / China Flu, Cultural Marxism, Gender Politics, General, Hashtag Diversity, Identity Politics, Incentives Matter, The end is nigh, Transgender Regret Industry (c)

….Give me Stalin and St. Paul
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby
It is murder

At some point in the last few decades, we seem to have lived through what Leonard Cohen predicted in the song quoted above, The Future: There’ll be the breaking of the ancient Western code.

One important aspect of that ancient western code was that children mattered more than any other demographic and we should sacrifice for them, not the other way around.

But consider three significant points of evidence in the argument this is no longer our code:

1. Abortion.

It’s always happened, true. From secret potions to beating of bellies to coat hangers and back street arrangements. In countries where it was made legal, the argument was that, if it no longer carried a criminal offence it might be made safe, early and rare. Those words were much used in the campaign during the original Roe vs Wade ruling.

Early and rare seem to have been dramatically forgotten in subsequent years, however.

Approximately 1 million abortions are performed annually in the USA of which, up to 18,000 are in the third trimester. Let’s hope they were at least safe.

2. Lockdown.

For two years, most countries went through several phases of closing the schools and shutting their children away in bedrooms to be educated remotely. School and community sport was banned, as was playing in the parks or even meeting with friends.

We all knew this would impact the most vulnerable kids, those without computers and parents at home, those with abusive family members, those with emotional and mental health issues. But we did it anyway.

Why? To save them from a disease we knew didn’t pose any material risk to the young. We sacrificed those at the start of their lives for the sake of those at the end of theirs.

3. Transgender.

We’ve accepted fiction as fact and figures of authority have presented this to children.

Quite reasonably, many children have now acted upon this lie and genuinely believe they are born in the wrong body and, worse, this unhappy situation can be ameliorated by a mixture of powerful drugs, life changing permanent surgery and the rest of society going along with this charade.

A study of 81,000 teenagers discovered 2,200 thought they were a different gender to the one everyone in the world would have said they were if asked about 10 years ago.

A not insignificant proportion of these confused kids are going to physically act upon these thoughts by taking drugs, slicing bits off themselves and acting out a cosplay fantasy of their new gender.

We can be bloody certain this will not improve their happiness at all.

Well done, everyone. Seriously, well done.

Bill’s Opinion

Golda Mier famously said of the Arabs;:

“We will only have peace with [them] when they love their children more than they hate us.”

I believe that quote is relevant today but it needs a slight modification to reflect our pathological self-loathing:

We will only have peace when we love our children more than we hate ourselves.

Please define “projection”

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Gender Politics, Hashtag Diversity, Identity Politics, Legacy Press (c)

This is delicious from the Sydney Morning Herald’s Osman Faruqi, Culture News Editor and Columnist:

Diverse representation is important, but so is what people stand for.

Remember kids, everything before the word but is bullshit.

When the eight candidates in the running to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party were officially revealed on Wednesday, one thing immediately stood out.

Four of them – former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak, his replacement Nadhim Zahawi, Attorney-General Suella Braverman, and Kemi Badenoch – are not white. With Sunak considered the favourite, it’s probable that the UK will soon have a person of colour as its prime minister for the first time.

Tugendhat is Jewish, but that’s not a ethnic minority in Osman’s mind, presumably? Wrong kind of minority?

Sunak’s grandparents were born in British India before migrating to East Africa (what is now Kenya and Tanzania) and then eventually making their way to the UK.

So what? So was Gandhi and Cliff fucking Richards. Also, British India? Who on earth calls it that in 2022?

Despite this, Sunak has embraced policies that would deny that same benefit to thousands of other potential migrants.

No. He embraced a policy that would deny that same benefit to people who travelled across (checks the map) at least 4 countries in the EU to then cross the English Channel. Sunak’s family filled in the appropriate form and waited to be invited. Let’s compare apples with apples, eh?

Is (diversity) just about having a room full of people from different backgrounds, genders and sexualities to tick a box and make everyone feel good, regardless of what those people actually do with their power? Or is the goal really about leveraging people’s lived experiences to ensure policies take into account the needs and desires of groups that have been historically marginalised?

Or it is about everyone agreeing with me, Osman Faruqi, sole holder of the Sacred Compass of Truth?

Undoubtedly, there is something seductive about the narrative of a “first non-white” or “first female” prime minister, because of the supposed signal it sends about social progress. But without interrogating the ideology behind those firsts, and the kinds of policies they intend to implement for the groups they represent, the signal doesn’t mean anything.

Or, “you’re not really black if you don’t agree with me”.

Bill’s Opinion

Osman likes diversity but not that kind of diversity. See also; people who like freedom of speech except for speech they dislike.

Maybe, and I’m just going to put this out there, the colour of your skin doesn’t matter as much as the content of your character?

The global IQ tests continue to be set

Billy/ / Evolution in reverse hypothesis, Gender Politics, General, Hashtag Diversity, Identity Politics, Religion

How did you do with this week’s IQ test? Pass or fail?

You may have failed if you’ve recently started a post on social media with the words, “As a <insert inherent characteristic you have no control over> person, my opinion on the overturning of Roe vs Wade is….”, or words of a similar sentiment.

Newsflash: nobody gives a fuck what you think, especially if you haven’t actually read the Supreme Court ruling and are opining on the newspaper reports of it instead.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of that statement on a blog post about it but, in my defence, people come here by choice for my opinions.

I’ve written about abortion twice before here. First time about an individual, second time specifically about New South Wales. My opinion hasn’t changed; I’d prefer to live in a world where abortion didn’t happen for factors of convenience but only for safety reasons.

Many of those who loudly champion abortion on demand leverage that last reason, stating the mental healths risks to the mother, inferring the risk of suicide. But that same logic has resulting in several thousand teenage breasts being sliced off in the last decade and, frankly, piss off with that as a justification.

If your best argument for taking a physical action with extreme consequences is a possible risk of suicide, perhaps you might want to investigate psychiatry and the possibility of dedicated round the clock nursing care.

But I digress.

Despite what the public statements of organisations such as Dick’s Sporting Goods or Atlassian might suggest, abortion is still legal in the USA, it’s just been downgraded from a Federal right enshrined in the Constitution, to a matter each State’s legislative body can write laws about. If you think this means California is about to ban or limit abortion next week, you’ve not been paying much attention to the changes in political mood of that State since Ronald Reagan was Governor.

But think about this for a moment; those who are wailing about the end of the world following this ruling are questioning that it should be a democratically-decided matter.

How confident must one be of the moral certainty of your position if you’d prefer it if your fellow citizens weren’t given a choice?

As for the front page coverage of the lesbian Wendyball player, Megan Rapainoe’s rambling and incoherent unsolicited Zoom broadcast (sorry, “press conference”); we’ve truly gone down the rabbithole. What next, A ten minute monologue from Elton John on his favourite brand of tampon?

Bill’s Opinion

Cool yer jets, everyone.

Abortion has not been made illegal in the USA. It may, in future, become so in a couple of states. If so, it adds yet another to our list of choices for those who are “pro-choice”:

  1. Abstain from having sex.
  2. Abstain from having sex with someone you know you don’t want to be be with for the rest of your life.
  3. Use contraception, but be aware this carries a residual risk.
  4. If an “accident” happens, carry the baby to term and decide whether you can cope with parenthood after it’s born.
  5. Offer the child up for adoption to one of the desperate couples who can’t conceive naturally.
  6. Drive across the border.
  7. Kill the damn thing like a virus.

If jealousy burned calories

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Gender Politics, General, Identity Politics, Incentives Matter, Legacy Press (c), Me, Myself, Mary Madigan

…we’d instantly solve quite a few people’s major life issues.

But sadly, the effort expended on envious feelings is neither material nor measurable. This is both good and bad news for Mary Madigan, freelance writer for Mammamia (now there’s a career path to infinite riches!).

Good news because she can get a couple of hundred dollars knocking out heartfelt columns about why we shouldn’t celebrate an obese celebrity losing a lot of weight. Bad news, because Mary is burning emotional energy being bitter over other people’s good fortune, and even more mental energy avoiding reflecting on poor life choices she has made.

The back story is a minor Australian celebrity (if that isn’t a tautology), Chrissie Swan, dropped a wheelbarrow load of weight recently and has been congratulated by lots of commentators. Her Instagram feed has a flood of positive comments, many of which are middle aged men who’ve suddenly decided she’s hot.

Our “plus sized” columnist takes issue with their sudden change of opinion. Chrissie was always attractive, she claims. It’s a backhanded compliment to suggest she’s now looking great, according to our self-appointed moral arbiter.

Context is everything, of course.

This is Mary:

This was Chrissie Swan:

This is Chrissie Swan now:

I’m sure we can all agree on what a terrible and destructive transformation she’s inflicted on herself.

The feedback from Mary’s syndicated article was predictable. By which I don’t mean lots of stupid people went on the internet and called her rude names but that she would feign shock and surprise at this reaction and then post a self-obsessed semi-naked picture on Instagram affirming to herself how gorgeous she is and her superiority in the victim olympics.

It’s been a very tiring week because my inbox got flooded with abusive messages after an article I wrote for Mamamia got picked up by The Sun & New York Post. Obviously, when men attack women on the internet the insults are always about your looks. Fat, unattractive, unfuckable…. It’s unoriginal but it did make me feel sad but then I remembered I’m gorgeous and now I’m back.

Bill’s Opinion

There is no problem with Chrissie Swan’s weight loss. We celebrate it because, as decent human beings, we give positive feedback to obviously good life choices made by others.

It’s a social contract; we tell each other what we’re doing well and try to kindly point out areas for improvement.

If Mary doesn’t like that social contract, it’s incumbent on her to describe the alternative system she would suggest we employ.

It’s always dangerous to attempt to diagnose mental illness from a distance but it’s clearly an unhealthy thought process to convince oneself being grossly overweight is somehow a positive choice.

Would Mary sympathise with 500 words written by a chain smoker trying to convince us it’s wrong to celebrate someone giving up the cancer sticks?

Perhaps it’s just the sunk cost fallacy to wish to convince other people of these illogical views. In addition, the editors of the publications paying for these columns are encouraging negative health outcomes by printing it. Perhaps the editors are analogous to the circus ringmasters introducing the freak show exhibit.

It’s as if we are being asked to casually put aside several million years of evolution and consciously ignore the instinctive mental rank order sorting of other humans by attractiveness. Perhaps that’s possible, but the clever money and every sexual interaction in the history of the planet suggests the exact opposite is more likely.

This denial of reality can be neatly explained by Sailer’s first law of female journalism:

The most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking.

More chins than the Hong Kong phone directory…..

Jenna Hates…. women leaders

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Gender Politics, General, Incentives Matter, Jenna hates...

We’ve not had one of these for a while. Jenna Hates has penned another masterpiece. This time it’s on the Liberal Party’s problem with women leaders.

For those outside the bubble of mediocrity that is Australian politics, the “Liberal” party is nominally the right of centre party here. Of course, like all political parties claiming to be champions of the free market, they are no such thing. They’re as bad as the left but the cronyism and corruption has a different face and flavour.

Anyway, Jenna Hates is deeply concerned about the electability of the Liberal Party in New South Wales. Deeply concerned as, under normal circumstances, she’d be a natural voter for them, you understand.

She’s particularly disappointed about Gladys, as she’d definitely have voted for her this election.

Not one single woman’s name has been mentioned as a possible successor in the aftermath of Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation. Not the premier, not the deputy, not the treasurer. Instead, it’s blokes akimbo: Dominic Perrottet, Rob Stokes, Stuart Ayres, Matt Kean. In 2021, how is that possible?

Well, given the current themes this month about “people who are pregnant” and “bodies with a cervix”, maybe the Liberal Party didn’t think it mattered so much? I dunno.

The Liberals resist quotas with the force of a thousand kelvins. The market will make women if that’s what the market needs. Women, they would say, don’t need a hand out, but the Labor experience shows quotas work.

Kristina Keneally was the only Premier the Labor (sic) Party produced and she was an unmitigated disaster. She came to power in a backroom coup and left after a massive loss at the polling booth.

Without quotas, the remaining solution is the sisterhood, for women to pull other women up behind them.

Without quotas, the only solution is female solidarity and (therefore) favouritism?

Imagine being so convinced men hate women so much they are all actively conspiring against their success and the response is for women to actively conspire to do the opposite.

In Berejiklian’s time, that never happened. There never was a hand up. It is true she invested time as patron of the Women’s Council and there are indeed lovely photos of her, girlboss moments, surrounded by women aspiring to get elected.

Girlboss. Really?

Faced with another all-male revue, NSW Liberal women are not pleased. For the past three days, phones have run hot – how to get more women members, how to get more women in the ministry, how to get more women in cabinet. They are lobbying furiously, but it’s a pipeline problem, a timeline problem. They’ve been working away, some for years, and this latest upheaval has come earlier than anyone expected.

How likely is it this paragraph is factually correct, do we think? Compared to, say, party members ringing round trying to promote candidates for office who most closely reflect their views on the economy, the response to the Kung Flu, transport, education, the environment?

Last year, the NSW Liberal Party’s state executive decided to bite the bullet, believe in women. After all, NSW had a female premier and the party had survived, even thrived. Until last Friday, the sky had not fallen in. In a surprise move for the Liberals, the NSW state executive then confirmed gender targets for the upcoming local government elections and reaffirmed those targets in 2021 – 40 per cent women for winnable positions on council and 40 per cent in unwinnable positions, which at least gives those women some experience at running as candidates.

Hang on, you just said Berejiklian did nothing for women candidates? Do you even read this stuff before pressing “send”?

In the Liberal Party, men don’t respond to boundaries, particularly when it comes to improving gender equality, carrots not sticks, more a process of “negotiation and persuasion”, says Mary-Lou Jarvis, the female vice-president of NSW state executive. Jarvis genuinely believes the men in the party are finally on board.

“Men don’t respond to boundaries”? What, like rapists?

It was helpful of Jenna Hates to let us know Mary-Lou was female too, otherwise we’d be left awkwardly guessing her pronouns. Who knows what offence may have been taken.

Isn’t it terrible that we require women to fix the man problem? Sure – but what are the options when the organisation itself is teeming with men who believe merit exists objectively?

Perhaps, unwittingly, Jenna Hates has hit upon the real problem in that last sentence.

Bill’s Opinion

Despite what Jenna Hates might believe or wish for, competence in politics is highly rewarded, regardless of sex, sexuality, religion or ethnicity.

The nuance is, the competence that’s rewarded is the skill to navigate one’s way up the greasy pole within the political party, not the ability to deliver good outcomes for the voters.

Presumably Jenna Hates is comforted that Gladys had to resign due to a corruption investigation, thus slightly redressing the gender balance of that particular category of Premier?

Anyway, what a trivial and pathetic thing to be concerned about at this time.

Jessica Irvine, single mum battler

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Economics, Gender Politics, General, Legacy Press (c)

Life comes at you fast when you’ve got a brain the size of a planet. Content generator and Mumsnet poster Sydney Morning Herald economics writer, Jess Irvine is dipping a Rubenesque toe into the property market again.

She starts today’s masterclass in gonzo economics writing with a flashback to the halcyon days when she first set out on her real estate journey:

….A few days after my unsuccessful bid, I bit the bullet and inspected a few properties in a suburb one out from my preferred location. I found a unit I liked, of similar size and age to my unsuccessful bid. I made an offer the same day of $870,000. It was accepted. I found my forever home.

“Forever” is doing a lot of work in that paragraph; she bought an entry level tiny apartment 10km from the Sydney CBD, not some grand estate in the Home Counties or a bijou apartment in the Eighth Arrondissement. It shows a lack of life ambition or understanding of the English language if that’s where she thinks she’ll retire.

Flush with the success of that canny investment, she’s quietly abandoned her previous public decision to show everyone how to make a fortune in the stock market, and has now decided to stick with just a single asset class, real estate.

Amongst the Dear Diary teenage girl writing style, she makes a serious point; the financial incentives are weighed against true investment and rewards property speculation.

T’was ever thus in Australia though. The amazing thing is that it’s taken an “economics journalist” 41 years to notice.

What’s more interesting through is how we are quietly informed she’s now a single Mum. This is a bit of a shock, frankly, particularly after all those Instagram posts and column inches dedicated to telling us how awesome she is at life. This one, for example, where she explains she can lose weight because she’s clever and you’re not.

But then there’s this fiction. My bullshit radar is flashing red:

“Fixed income sources”, for example. Most of us would call that line “salary”. It’s uncharacteristic of our Jess to not overshare, what’s being hidden in that number do we think? Cough, child support, cough.

“Mortgage interest” suggests a little less financial canniness too. So, she’s renting from the bank, in effect. Interesting that the “mortgage principle” line item is classed as “savings” and counts to her smug 31% of income saved each month.

Someone less kind than me might suggest the “food” line item seems a little short too. Good to see she’s teetotal though.

Bill’s Opinion

Don’t take financial or life advice from someone who pays union fees, has a love/hate relationship with their weight and has been rejected by every single man in the Greater Sydney area.

Harsh? Maybe.

True? Of course it is, that’s just unconscious knowledge.

Desperately seeking alpha

Billy/ / Australia; Frontier Nation, Economics, Gender Politics, General, Hashtag Diversity, Legacy Press (c)

WilliamofOckham.com content generator and great friend of this organ, Jess Irvine has written another informative Facebook post on her child’s nursery chat group.

Before we get into it, let’s have a quick reminder of an important phenomenon; the Dunning Kruger Effect. This has been summarised thus:

“.…If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent … The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.“

With that context in mind, let’s have a look at Jess’ genius Mumsnet story.

Jess tells us she’s knocking on the door of her 40th year and has never invested in stocks outside of her Superannuation fund, which presumably is managed by somebody else. I’m not sure this is the sort of admission a “Senior Economics Writer” should make in public. One would be sceptical of a surgeon who admitted to never actually holding a scalpel, after all.

But still, not one to be worried by inconveniences such as competence, capability or knowledge, Jess has announced she’s going to be sharing her top stock picks over the near future.

I may need to write a “Jess Irvine piss take bot” to cover these announcements.

The secret to Jess’s investing success starts, as with all of Jess’s advice, with a spreadsheet. To a man with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

So, with the spreadsheet, she has categorised the stocks in the ASX into her own unique budget labels: housing, household, utilities, transport, food, health, education, appearance, lifestyle and professional fees.

Curious minds might wonder at this point, why Jess’s investing strategy is limited to the Australian exchange, especially as most major tech companies are on the NASDAQ and the world’s major corporations are listed in London or New York? Keep wondering, as we aren’t told. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with a lack of knowledge and experience.

If you’re paging down the column looking for the first stock pick, don’t bother, we’re being made to wait. After all, Jess doesn’t want to rashly splash her $10,000 on just any old crap.

Wait, didn’t I mention this entire column is to tell us that one day, sometime in the future, Jess may buy up to $10,000 worth of shares?

That’s not strictly true, she does manage to get a mention in about her astute purchase, at the last market peak, of a tiny Sydney apartment, which she now owns is renting from a bank and, that she’s got nearly $300,000 in her pension, which suggests she’s made three fifths of fuck all alpha on the principle over the 20 years she’s been paying in.

The only missing components of a classic Jess Irvine’s Mumsnet post are mention of her coming last in a marathon and having a baby. Plenty of time for that when the stock picks are shared though.

Bill’s Opinion

There’s no real way to confirm this but I’m going to wildly speculate about Jess Irvine, Senior Economics Writer at the Sydney Morning Herald:

  1. The only reason she has that job title is because of her gender. She could not, surely, have been the most qualified business and economics writer available to that newspaper.
  2. The ongoing requirement for the news desk to maintain diversity quotas has emboldened her to push this kind of pointless and, frankly, embarrassing writing on the editors and, being spineless, they roll over and publish it.
  3. All of Jess’s stock picks will rise at least 10% in value over the next year. This will be hailed as genius (self-assessed). proof of her financial acumen and mastery of a pivot table.

In the meantime, nearly everything on the ASX will rise 10% too, what else can it do in an era of central banks hitting CTRL P to infinity?

My advice is don’t take slimming advice from an overweight person and don’t take stock tips from the shoe shine girl.