Tag Archives: rant of the week

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Let’s All Avoid Responsibility

The Swedish government is once again proving itself utterly useless. Whilst Saab is struggling to make it to the next round, endangering the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people in Sweden and around the globe, the decision makers are enjoying a good game of ‘I’m not responsible’.

Victor Muller has been extremely busy ever since he acquired Saab trying to make sure the company gets a good re-start. Thanks to his efforts there’s been more going on at Saab in the last year than during the last decade of GM ownership.

Admittedly, Saab is still struggling. It’s taken longer than expected to reach sustainable sales figures, but Victor’s taken care of that as well by lining up investors who’re ready to help out. Vladimir Antonov is one of them. He’s expressed his interested in Saab on countless occasions and is literally ready to jump-start the company back to life right now.

But he’s not allowed until the EIB give their approval. Meanwhile, many people are asking the Swedish government to step up and put pressure on the EIB to hasten their decision. And what do our beloved politicians do? Nothing. As always. They avoid all responsibility in the matter and refer to either the Swedish National Debt Office, or GM or the EIB, whatever is more convenient.

You would think that preventing mass unemployment is top priority for any government, but apparently not so for the Swedish. So while production is standing still, orders are piling up, staff haven’t gotten payed and Antonov is trying to invest his money to get things going again, the government is doing its best to do nothing, much like they did during the sale of Saab.

Back when the Global Financial Crisis hit, many countries took measures to help their car industries stay alive. Germany invested millions. France invested millions. Even the Bush administration helped out. Pretty much everyone except Sweden recognised the value of keeping the car industries afloat.

What sort of government is running Sweden? What good does it do to lose a key industry and increase unemployment? And I know windmills are all the rage, but why not build windmills AND cars?

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Rant of the Week :: Where my books at?

Rant (Illustrated by Chris Harding)

This is going to be the first in a series I’d like to call “rant of the week”. Basically, I’ll use this as an opportunity to vent any frustrations I might have. There’s a lot of beauty in this world, but sometimes you just have to wonder…

I was actually looking forward to going to Borders this easter weekend and finding something interesting to read. To my disappointment I found six different books on Barrack Obama, endless piles of Ben Cousin’s biography and a feature section full of Justin Bieber.

Blocking out all that irrelevance I finally got to the science section tucked away in the far reaches of the store only to find it featuring a very tiny selection of books. And not a single one by Carl Sagan!

Worse still, stretching a massive four shelves right behind me and packed with literature was the cooking and food section. Who needs that many books on food? The story was much the same in the philosophy section, yet the self-help area stretched on forever.

That’s just messed up! And I’m not blaming Borders. They’re just supplying what their customers want. But what’s wrong with these consumers? Are they seriously just interested in gossip, food and self-help? Maybe if they read books with more substance they wouldn’t need all that self-help.

No, that was a serious disappointment. If you’re looking for a good bookstore in Perth, go to Boffins. I didn’t even know about this store up until last weekend, but man what a difference a store makes! They got everything a real reader could want; science, history, design, reference books… the list goes on. Boffins!

Illustration: Chris Harding