Rann Rant

[djr81]

You just made the same point I was about to make; the Dollar was floated. There was bound to be issues with that, and its only due to the dollar being floated that we've been able to enjoy the last 12 years of growth. I bet most people who play the sharemarket are greatful for that fact. That, and the account deficit were killers for the ALP, and so we did in fact need that recession (it wasn't popular but it levelled australia's gross national value vs the rest of the world.

Yeah the strikes/labor movement has been attached to the ALP for far too long now. Its about time they moved to the centre a bit more and stopped listening to the ACTU. The small business argument is twofold; you force them have too many restrictions and the worker suffers (liability, tax, workcover, anything that eats the profit margins). You let the small business have a free hand, the worker suffers (low pages, poor working conditions, no sickleave/insurance/indemnity. Its a balancing act, something the senate is supposed to be checking and balancing but with the demise of the democrats, its a bit of a toothless tiger.

For all the credit that Howard took on the economy, the conditions that enabled this to happen were ALP policies, sad to say. And regarding social security/work for dole/mutual obligation, I find it ironic that the very people pushing these policies were the people who got a free education.

All politicians are bastards. Its a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Rudd's probably gonna be a single term PM unless he pulls his socks up quick smart tho. (PM Turnbull would probably be pretty decent; he has the financial brain as well as a nice socialist streak (for a lib) lol).

-D

The dollar was floated (from memory) in 1983. The last recession was in 1992/3. The two instances are a decade apart so it is drawing a long bow to link them. We never needed a recession. It was (even if you buy Keatings self serving reasoning) due to a monetary policy that was held too tight for too long.

In any case what people forget (conveniently or otherwise) was that the single biggest driving force in the decision to float the dollar was the reserve banks inability to control a fixed exchange rate.

[Nightcrawler]

Some very interesting insights in this thread and I agree with the vast majority of them.

The saddest thing is, as Pete said, that we are just at the beginning of a very shit 5 or so years to come, and we haven't seen anything yet. Slipping property values (Western Sydney has fallen around 25% so far THIS YEAR), rising interest rates (sorry kids, despite what they have been saying in the media, interest rates will hold or even rise for around the next 4-5 years - the current fixed 5 year ANZ rate is 9.15% which strongly indicates they don't believe it will go down), rising unemployment (due to poor Labor fiscal/policy management), strikes (0 strikes in 12 years then how many since Labor came into power - 10 or so already?), continued easy credit and general poor consumer confidence with be prevalent, and will have far reaching consequences.

[Dohmar]

You touched briefly on the Carbon Trading scheme and that Howard didn't want it after much investigation.

I too have a beef with the Kyoto Protocol because the biggest polluters in the world are exempt of it!!

It's funny how you can fudge figures & stats to make them say what you want (alot of talk about fudging lately). Australia was labelled as one of the biggest polluters of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, "huh".........easily done if you base your figures on per head of capita rather than total volume emitted from 1 country!! In 2004 China produced 1/2 the emissions of USA, in 4 very short years they have overtaken them....what will it be like in the next 4, 10 or 20 years? China & India are amongst the worst offenders in the world and will only get worse now that China is building 1 coal fired plant per week to keep up with there ever increasing demand. And get this, even though they have ratified the agreement, they are only obliged to report their useage & emissions and not take any measures in reducing it other than population control, unlike Australia that has to reduce 8% by 2012.

Yeah, thats a shitty thing. We can try to do our bit, and sacrifice our quality of life but the indians and chinese don't have to. I doubt they even could. The chinese have held a 1 child policy for a few decades now out of sheer necessity, cause when you're talking 2 billion people to feed it gets rather hectic. Even gordon ramsey would say "F*&k me" when he saw the size of their order... China and India should be going nuclear, and instead of starting their own R&D, some 4th generation reactor tech would be good...

Howard said after much investigation that ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would result in higher fuel prices and that it would harm industry & the economy big time.....he'll be reminding us of those words to his grave. Now we all understand that Mitsubishi had its back up against the wall and that the 380 was like a last nail in the company's coffin but it's also interesting that for the last 10 years Howard would beg & plead with the Japs to stay here, even shelling out $600 mill for the 380 just to keep peeps in work. As soon as Howard's gone, so is Mitsubishi (I hear the cynics saying coincidence), you can't tell me Rudd didn't say to his cabinet that losing Mitsubishi won't help in achieving his 8 % quota by 2012.......so he just let it go..........1000 peeps out of work.........another 1000 out of work from small business that made parts for them. I now am responsible for the 2000 employees & their families until they find work.....stacks will have to move interstate to QLD etc.

I think you'll find the 380 died in the arse because *drum roll* it was a piece of shit... how many people actually bought one? Anyone from this forum even? It was an ugly, bland, uneconomical sedan, just like commonwhores and fords. Howard should never have given them money. Its not the place of the govt to prop up poorly performing overseas companies, even when their workers are going to suffer. The writing was on the wall for mitsubishi for years, and all they were doing was putting bandaids on a company that was haemorraging money. Stupidity. While its sad that people lost their jobs, you gotta remember that this is unskilled labour we're talking about (for the most part). It'll be harder for them to find work, but thems the breaks. Last time I got made redundant, I had to go get more training, so perhaps if they do the same, they'll have more job opportunities. Hell, at the end of last year I was so desperate for a job I was consideirng a $5000 course that runs for a week, and then even considering moving to sydney because my field is so competitive.

It's only been 6 months and we've had a teacher's strike (last similar strike 12 years ago) & nearly lost 1/2 our top Doctors; we've lost Mitsubishi; Holden Elizabeth plant dropped their 3rd shift; ask any pensioner if they are better off after the recent Budget; 2 of the recent inerest rate rises were by greedy banks that were concerned about making their shareholders even richer..........the RBA didn't lift rates so why did they?

Dude I totally agree with the thing about the banks being greedy. They've been at it for quite some time. And the thing regarding teachers and doctors striking/quitting; its been building for around a decade. Anyone remember the news reports about the nurse shortage just 2-3 years ago? The pay doctors get is low (yes, compared to the 10+ years of training they have to do to get there), and the teachers pay hasnt scaled comparitively either. To be honest I'm surprised they took the extreme step of quitting in spite of a change of government, but this is another example of Rudd dropping the ball. He didn't cause it but hes done stuff all to fix it. And now these monkeys in charge want to build yet another hospital. Fking great. A brand new hospital with no doctors and no nurses. IDIOTS!

Holden is in the same boat as Mitsi. If you make shit products, don't expect the increasingly savvy public to shell out their hard earned dollars for it, especially when you chuck 5 liter engines in there....Holden never even had IRS on their cars till something like 1997, something the japanese cars had 2 decades before. Now you can't tell me that it was impossible for Holden to implement, they just had their market of glue sniffing bogans to keep happy, who didnt care about such details. Holdens are built by Orks, For Orks. They reckon that they're having problems selling holdens eh? Maybe they should have a thong rack for the bogans to put their footwear on so they can enjoy the sensation of velour and carpet on their feet. Maybe they should ditch the V8 and chuck a hole in the floor so all the bogan families can walk their fat asses across the land, just like the flintstones....

The worst is yet to come I'm afraid............oh and Ben, Bobby Brown for PM?! He needs to focus more on his music and Whitney IMO, lol

lols. Yeah he needs to give up the cocaine too. Otherwise he'll have a mono-nostril. least he didnt do an R. Kelly...

-D

[Dohmar]

The dollar was floated (from memory) in 1983. The last recession was in 1992/3. The two instances are a decade apart so it is drawing a long bow to link them. We never needed a recession. It was (even if you buy Keatings self serving reasoning) due to a monetary policy that was held too tight for too long.

(Apologies, I don't usually steal verbatim from other essays but this is worth it)

"People now believe that if inflation rises, the authorities will respond and inflation will return to 2-3 per cent. Before the recession, people thought that if inflation rose, it could go higher and at best would hover in the 8-10 per cent range. It was these inflation expectations that meant that the 90-day bank bill rate averaged 14.5 per cent during the 1980s.Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser locked in low inflation when he lifted interest rates in 1994 ahead of a strengthening economy. Raising interest rates in 1994 did the Keating government no favours, but it is why Australia now has the gift of low and stable inflation and low interest rates.

Second, we now have a labour market where wages are negotiated on a decentralised basis. That outcome had been an objective since the two disastrous wage explosions of the Whitlam and Fraser years. Although it was not planned, the fact that Paul Keating and Bill Kelty successfully made the switch from a centralised to a decentralised system is directly related to the recession.

By the end of the 1980s, the Accord had kept wages in check and facilitated a major shift from wages to profits, which reversed the disastrous consequences of the Whitlam and Fraser years. Employment growth was exceptionally strong but employers had little incentive to raise productivity - labour was cheap and profits were high, so why should they bother?

It was essential that employees negotiate over higher wages and higher productivity. The constraint was the intense pressure on the labour market. The surge in the terms of trade at the end of 1987 and the ridiculous lending of the recently deregulated banks had created a property frenzy and surging demand. You cannot decentralise wage negotiations successfully during a period of intense demand for labour.

In 1988 and 1989, if the Accord had lost its grip, over-award payments would have taken over and spiralled through the centralised system. Far from enjoying the prosperity of the past decade, we would have spent the 1990s dealing with high inflation and high interest rates. In 1989, time was ticking and interest rates were the only way to avoid the otherwise inevitable disaster.

In the event, the economy was allowed to run too rapidly for too long, in part complicated by the 1987 stock market crash. And when it turned, interest rates continued to wreak havoc even though the immediate danger of inflation had passed.

We will never know for sure whether continuing to increase interest rates up to mid-1989 saved the nation from a third wage explosion or whether it was overkill. What we do know is that it took this lift in interest rates to deflate inflation expectations; that employment grew at an annual rate of 3.1 per cent in the second half of 1989 and that unemployment continued to fall.

Keating always respected the Treasury and the Reserve Bank and both organisations were allowed the courage to disagree with him. Keating could have used his powers to instruct the bank to increase rates faster and to lower them more swiftly. The boom at the end of the '80s was always going to end badly, but a more dexterous response with interest rates could have reduced the pain. However, no treasurer has ever directed the bank. It may have been in Australia's short-term interests for Keating to have acted, but the precedent would have been dreadful."

Taken from http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Why-...7625206096.html. Bear in mind that its written from an ex Keating staffer (he seems to idolize the man) but for the most part hes right regarding the deregulation of wages, the stock market crash of 87 as well as the point you made earlier, that it had been a monetary policy that had been allowed to run its course for too long...

In any case what people forget (conveniently or otherwise) was that the single biggest driving force in the decision to float the dollar was the reserve banks inability to control a fixed exchange rate.

Yeah... but thats inevitable when you tie the value of the currency to a single other currency or 'fixed' by government regulation. The RBA is supposed to remain impartial, so I'm really not sure why the RBA couldn't control it (its something I don't know much about to be honest)

Tho I'd also like to point this out (again, stolen from another website, http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/meetpm.as...re&pmId=24)

"The currency float was part of a broad financial deregulation program introduced by the Hawke government and guided by Treasurer Paul Keating. It included licensing foreign banks to operate in Australia, and removing direct controls on interest rates and other restrictions that created competitive disadvantage for Australian companies in international markets. Critics pointed to the danger of speculation and of the vulnerability of a globalised economy to market crises. This was demonstrated after the New York stock market slump in October 1987. The very public collapse of some high-profile corporate entrepreneurs in Australia indicated the inadequacy of Australia’s company laws."

Can be summarized as 'The float did make it hard (record unemployment, etc) but it set the scene for aussie companies to profit in overseas"

EDIT* - It can also be summarized as 'the floating of the dollar caused the conditions that are making our petro/cost of livingl more expensive' lol. just depends if you see the glass half empty or the glass half full (but of course if you're an accountant, you see the glass is twice as big as it needs to be )

-D

Edited July 7, 2008 by Dohmar

[SLED]

lol Ben, my head's spinning after all that jargon.....where did you get that first lot of stuff from? Looks like it's a Uni student's (on LSD) thesis or you've been speaking to my Dad with all the "what ifs". Hindsight is a wonderfull thing but when I hear explanations of the strong economic growth experienced in the Howard era was due to all the hard work of the previous govt, I go cold. It's like saying that Malcom Blight's 2 premierships were due to Robert Shaw's great recruiting campaign in '96 and nothing to do with one being a good coach and the other a crappy one.....St Kilda & Freo have had the best lists for the last few years but go nowhere because of their crappy coaches.

Don't always take what you read as gospel Ben....at the end of the day in some cases it's just another opinion barring the facts.

I do agree with the Bogan theory at the Holden Elizabeth plant......you'll be amazed as to how much work I've done following up alot of their lazy workers......and that definitely costs this state money.

Rann's cure to the huge Workcover SA unfunded liability is a knee jerk reaction because 10 years ago the words "unfunded liability' didn't exist, now we're pushing $1 billion.......peeps like Tangles will be the ones suffering in all of this.

[Inline 6]

i think its all politics, everything these days is all politics

this topic is far over the head of the average age sau visitor of the tender age of 21 and i hearby recomend moderators be deleting it or place a parental warning on it.

or alternatively just keep me the hell out of it as i have difficulties being serious

[Dohmar]

lol Ben, my head's spinning after all that jargon.....where did you get that first lot of stuff from? Looks like it's a Uni student's (on LSD) thesis or you've been speaking to my Dad with all the "what ifs". Hindsight is a wonderfull thing but when I hear explanations of the strong economic growth experienced in the Howard era was due to all the hard work of the previous govt, I go cold. It's like saying that Malcom Blight's 2 premierships were due to Robert Shaw's great recruiting campaign in '96 and nothing to do with one being a good coach and the other a crappy one.....St Kilda & Freo have had the best lists for the last few years but go nowhere because of their crappy coaches.

Don't always take what you read as gospel Ben....at the end of the day in some cases it's just another opinion barring the facts.

Hi pete

I think you're comparing apples n oranges here. Football teams change per season, governments change every 3-4 years depending on which country yr in. For that reason alone, any financial policies can take years to take effect.

And I don't for that matter just take what is written as being gospel. I make my own mind up. I voted Howard in, and I voted him out. I voted Ruddy in and I might just vote him out.

thx

-D

[Madaz]

^^ so your to blame

im with Dan but im 34 and most of it is over my head i flaid shcool

[OzCarImports]

Agreed. The death toll has remained fairly static around 100 but population has risen and cars have got safer etc. Never will be zero... purely revenue raising on straight roads in low speed zones. Should be blackspot only.

Its out of control I have lost my Licence because of this stupid speed camera set up due to speed several time 76 in a 70 km zone etc etc.

But a mate of mine has been done twice blow over .05 but not .08 and still has his licence.

UMM that s road safety.

Lets all get high and fly home!

[SLED]

yeah good point & welcome onboard ozcar

[4door_Sleeper]

Rann's cure to the huge Workcover SA unfunded liability is a knee jerk reaction because 10 years ago the words "unfunded liability' didn't exist, now we're pushing $1 billion.......peeps like Tangles will be the ones suffering in all of this.

In the early years, WorkCover theorised that they could save money by ignoring the Legislative intent and begin offering substantially lower redemptions to permanently injured Workers on benefits.

The WorkCover Board agreed and applied the strategy from 2000. In 2001 the Actuary (John Walsh) allowed the projected cost savings.

The value of redemptions fell 65 % in real terms between 2000 and 2006. The number of redemptions fell 80 % over the same period.

By 2003 the incoming Government had removed the former Actuary and their new Actuary identified the policy was flawed and warned it had created the reverse effect to that theorised leading to increased continuance thus a blowout in the claims liability.

In 2000 WorkCover had an outstanding claims liability of $277 Million and by 2007 the outstanding claims liability had increased to $2.3 Billion. The compounding impact on a liability this size is $100 Million

Despite including the Actuaries warning in his first Annual Report, Mr Carter and the WorkCover Board took no action to cease the pilot strategy and it was this inaction that cost South Australia $2 Billion Dollars.

By no longer paying redemptions that extinguish the long tail benefits, WorkCover began to bank money and lots of it. In 2000 WorkCover had just $50 Million in cash and investments and by 2007, WorkCover had $1.4 Billion in cash and investments.

WorkCover’s decision that what Mr Clayton called “the strategic implementation of Redemptions” become an offer of token redemption followed by attempts to bully injured workers into acceptance failed. With the 180 permanently incapacitated Workers annually rejecting token redemption offers remaining on benefits the multi Billion Dollar claims liability we are now confronted with evolved.

As the number of Workers trapped on benefits increased it created jobs for some 300 administrative and case management staff and increased the annual operational cost of running WorkCover by 100 percent. WorkCover employed spin doctors to suggest the increasing number of permanently injured Workers trapped on benefits were somehow malingerers and used the skew in numbers to suggest a declining return to work rate was responsible for the mess their errant corporate policy had created.

The truth is there has been NO change in Annual Return to Work rates, just an increasing number of permanently disabled workers trapped on benefits creating the anomalous skew in the figures.

The solution to the WorkCover problem can be found through compliance with the existing Legislation, not in slashing the rights of Injured Workers.

The unfunded liability is a Rann stunt to further continue down a path of ecconomic rationalism at the expence of society. The unfundel liability of which they speak is the cost if all workcover clients were to remain on the scheme until retirement, and ignores the fact that most are only in the scheme for les than 12 months. In 1996 the number of Workers on Benefits for 12 months or less was 2141 and in 2006 the number was also 2141. For 24 months or less between 1996 and 2006 the number increased from 2640 to 2788 an increase of less than 1.5%.

The number of workers on benefits for periods greater than 24 months increased from a low of 1126 in 1999 to 2788 in 2006. This represents an increase of just 179 Permanently Injured Workers per annum.

Workers who have suffered a Workplace Injury of significant consequence that they remain on Benefits for 36 months or greater have only a 6% chance of returning to work.

The $ value of claims paid out by the scheme increased marginally from $343m in 1997 to $426m in 2007, an increase of just 24%. The CPI increased 29% over the same period.

In contrast, Scheme Revenues increased from $375m to $734m over the same period representing an increase of 97%

Scheme assets, predominantly cash on investment increased from $648m in 1997 to $1.5 Billion in 2007.

If my home budget was as healthy as this I would be very happy.

[SLED]

The other thing WorkCover SA have done is reduce the amount of claims agents handling their claims in the last 10 years. Every 3 years they review their claims agents & investigation companies on their panel. 10 years ago they had between 11 & 13 claims agents, 5 or 6 years ago they slashed that to 4 and for the last 2 years they have had only 1 insurance company handling their claims, EML which is Sydney based.....they even got rid of all the investigation comanies in SA off their panel and appointed 1 SA mob called Kingswood Invesigations & brought in an outsider from QLD called Verifact (owned & run by Dan Crowley - a rugby player). I've had direct dealings with Dan and even done work for him but never again. They've gotten rid of all the middle men & managers to cut further costs and we're expected to handle the files from start to finish without being able to charge them anymore. I've said seeya later to Workcover work now and focus mainly on CTP (motor accident commission) and corporate investigation now.

The way the industry is going I might have to start a TV show called "SLED's Cheaters" and go and spy on husbands & wives!!!

[Madaz]

^^ oh yeah need a driver get one of those Nissan vans that looks like its an A-Team Jap spec import

[SLED]

nothin stopping us from doing it steve....I've already got the company & all the right licences.

Privacy & harassment laws might be abit different between Aust & US though

[Madaz]

once your out your house your become in the public eye type thing ??

[SLED]

once your out your house your become in the public eye type thing ??

true, but harassment is your biggest problem.......that sort of work is not my cup of tea really.....you end up ruining alot of lives on TV just like Today Tonight do and Adelaide is too small a place to hide which is why I stay away from that kind of work.

I did a little bit of that stuff years ago when I first started out but hated it and when dealing with the public you never get paid.

[Garage Menace]

Slightly off-topic but this interesting little anecdote sums up the direction Australia is headed under a monopoly of farken Labor governments...

The squirrel and the grasshopper

REST OF THE 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 END

THE AUSTRALIAN 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 ABC 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 Australian 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 Housing Commission of Australia demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The ABC, interrupting a cultural festival special from St Kilda with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome".

Bill Shorten rants in an interview with Laurie Oakes that the squirrel got 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 Melbourne city centre.

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 Housing Commission 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 Australia as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Australians' 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 make 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 people's credit cards.

A 60 Minutes special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the Housing Commission house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.

He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug "Illness". The cats seek recompense in the Australian courts for their treatment since arrival in Australia.

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 million and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers. Legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Australia'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 $1 million each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in Australia.

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.

THE END

[SLEEPR85]

^^ spot on garage menace. It seems that the hardest working Australians are always critised for being well off, when the people on who 'don't like working' are always babied through their whole lives on government grants and so forth. We live in a society where the minorities have more power and rights than the rest of us and it seems that every tv station wants to cash in on these 'sob stories' to make us feel guilty. I have 2 jobs and you know how much i get taxed!?... A F@&K'N shitload!! This is not a communist country, we are not all equal, your success is measured by the amount you put in, not what you can scam off your neighbour!

Edited July 10, 2008 by SLEEPR85

[mid life crisis]

i call a fake story we dont have squirrels in australia only possums i call a troll lol

[Madaz]

lol Dean why you not at work

oh read update in Clutch thread putting it there now

playing possum