| by Baron Claude Borlz
Last Writes you will always find on the last page of ABR,
because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
How True!
The Financial Nail of 25 April arrived too late for me to include
this in last month’s issue, but what they published in their Did
You Hear page, is still relevant. They asked us to ponder the
thoughts of some great thinkers of the past on the ruling class,
and it is indeed instructive, particularly after our recent foray to
the polls on “Elect a Thief” day:
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French writer and philosopher Voltaire: “In general,
the art of government consists of taking as much
money as possible from one party of citizens to
give to another”
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Former US president Ronald Reagan:
“Government is like a baby’s alimentary canal,
with a healthy appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other”
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US founding father and second president John Adams:
“I have come to a conclusion that one useless man
is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a
government”
US author Mark twain: “Suppose you were an idiot. And
suppose you were a member of government. But then I
repeat myself”
Irish playwright and social commentator George Bernard
Shaw: “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can
always depend on the support of Paul”
US civil libertarian PJ O’Rourke: “Giving money
and power to government is like giving whisky and
the car keys to teenage boys”
And for the final one, and my favourite, as it
perfectly describes our present incumbents.
Greek slave and story teller Aesop: “We hang the
petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public
office”
Stupidity is Dangerous to All
I have been hanging onto this snippet for quite some while now,
and since it fits in quite nicely with the election results, I think it
is time to unleash it. I refer to one of James Clarke’s Stoep Talk
columns in the Star newspaper where he comments on a
study by Dr Dagmar Andersson of Lindberg University
Medical Centre in California, where she found that
out of 500 heart attack patients, 62 percent
showed few of the usual physical risk factors,
but they all suffered from the same stress –
working with seriously stupid people. “Their
heart attacks came soon after having a
major confrontation with one of these oafs”
she says. One woman was hospitalised
after her assistant shredded tax documents
instead of copying them.
“mediocre”. They’re not university material and their reading matter
is,