Category Archives: Economics

Bastardry – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au

Note: this poem is a result of my blood boiling over from years of federal govt inaction (Until the recent change of govt and the implementation of the Royal commission) over unjust and unfair treatment of welfare recipients. Robo debt is an online process of debt recovery by a govt dept from welfare recipients deemed to be overpaid or who are not entitled to payments. The process used an averaging system. It might seem to be a storm in a tea cup until you realise that this process was prosecuted fully against the most vulnerable people in Australia and that the averaging was a false process, it took one off payments or fluctuations in income as regular and averaged that as annual income and calculated a debt on that basis. So that a welfare recipient who might have claimed unemployment or part time employment under the threshold and welfare to top up, who declared a cash job of $80.00 was deemed as earning $2, 000.00 and should repay that amount against their welfare received. This meant that the Dept. viewed this as either infringing reporting, falsely declaring, or at the very least owing the govt. The debt didn’t exist but no one in the previous government was bothered. The Commission is in full flow and a picture is emerging of error and misdirection, which has deeply affected people’s lives. The findings will evolve to recommendations for govt to take action, and the way will become clear for those affected to take legal action. Little joy for those whose family members took their lives in response to overwhelming pressure and loss of hope, and those whose mental health was wrecked.

Govt and debt is a slippery slope – the full federal court ruled in 1984 that the dept – Centrelink, bore the onus to prove debt and not the recipient.

“The reason that robo-debt is an issue for law and lawyers is a simple one. It is because the debts do not exist in law.” Professor of Law Terry Carney AO in the Legal Studies Journal 1.8.19

Bastardry 

How does $80.00 become $2, 000?
That's really good interest, 
magic you might say,
where can I get that?
But no, this is not your bank or 
your retirement fund director calling
with this fantastic news.

The question revolves around that
iniquitous and devious method called
income averaging for welfare recipients,
a smoothing (sic) in some parlance,
an online compliance process,
targets must be met, 
the budget must swell.

As a result,
if you did earn $80.00 once off
it was imagined by
the government no less
in a sweet Uriah Heep glaze,
that you were in fact earning weekly,
at least fortnightly, over a year of
your pain encrusted desperate life.

It didn't matter that you weren't in fact earning,
this nightmare held you in its drenched talons
as guilty until proven guilty,
the travesty,
priest as judge and executioner,
no redemption,
no voice,
no hope,
just an endless suicide.



Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Filed under Economics, Free Verse, injustice, poem, politics, quote

Now To Sing A New Song – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Maruf_Rahman at pixabay.com Flood in Bangladesh

“With considerable justice, Bangladesh’s leading climate scientist says that ‘These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouses are coming.'” Noam Chomsky

Now To Sing A New Song

Walking ever so softly across life
listening to the voices of trees
asking us to live for all things,
these are important questions
interwoven,
predicate, 
subject,
object,
action,
follows a pattern,
ends with dilated hesitations,
why should I inhabit more than necessary,
consuming my neighbours?
I weep for the anthropic scene,
time to change our view of 
recalcitrant history,
never to repeat,
now to sing a new song.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Filed under awareness, ecology, Economics, environment, Free Verse, injustice, life, nature, poem, politics, poverty, quote

Hey You – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Sanaa is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a poem in the style of the Beat Generation.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation

Photo: found at climatesavior.com

“Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.” Thomas Piketty

Hey You

Were you a true believer, ever,
selling your sanity to the screeches of
those unhinged saxophone doors,
trusting those hollow voices to 
pledge your vote for the repeat robbery
every four years of soulless lies,
buried in factory drudge and mortgage blues,
ammunition pin-cushions for those cowards
of mealy morals for the circuit generation,
held as forever infants in the corral of
dumbliness in a pinata world awaiting,
unconsciously of course, the beating stick
to spew those candy brains
on stained streets of harrow,
bleeding with anguish at the revelations
in newsprint voices alight across a
million regretful ears now strained,
holding virginal shock, asking
who knew, not wanting to know,
not ever, who destroyed  the dream of
landfill and plastic obsolescence that
sparkled like summer with cheap hopes
we could sweat for in eulogies of
ill-health for codependents whose
bass line was dirged with fear,
that all would be lost,
and it was all completely lost,
in that cul-de-sac of avarice that
drove the freight train that ran over us,
spilling our philosophies of doggerel dollars
for homeless rainbows where I still see you,
sitting, waiting for the tooth fairy to turn 
that crank once more for old time's sake
with the same excitement as finding a 
toy in the cereal packet.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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The Moment -a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: plasticsoupfoundation.org

“A very faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behaviour as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.” E.O. Wilson

The Moment

The moment between asking and answering a question
is the moment of significant weight waiting to shift,
one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right,
and in the moment identifying our own game of denial.

Is the moment of significant weight waiting to shift 
merely a trope of the human imaginative longing,
one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right,
or is it perhaps a significant axial irruption in our midst?

Merely a trope of the human imaginative longing,
suggesting that there is no salvific moment beyond dreams,
or is it perhaps a significant axial irruption in our midst,
at best our childish myths deserted our desperate need.

Suggesting that there is no salvific moment beyond dreams,
one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right,
at best our childish myths deserted our desperate need,
the moment between asking and answering a question.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

19 Comments

Filed under awareness, ecology, Economics, environment, life, nature, Pantoum, poem, politics, quote

The Piggery – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: found on pinterest.com

“The “they all do it” excuse isn’t good enough any more.” Michael Pascoe

The Piggery

Trotters in the trough,
snort, snort, snort,
wallow in the scoff,
bought, bought, bought.

Snout in the truffles,
slurp, slurp, slurp,
ever blind snuffles,
burp, burp, burp.

Pigging on the treats,
rort, rort, rort,
sucking the public teat,
sought, sought, sought.

Oinkers in the mud,
squeak, squeak, squeak,
supping all your blood,
bleak, bleak, bleak. 


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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The Evil Tide – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at perthbirdsandbush.com one of several types of Cuckoo native to Western Australia and across Australia.

The Cuckoo sings nicely, looks pleasant, but is a cunning bird with a mean behaviour, forcing other birds to rear its young by deception and competition, often meaning host birds lose their own offspring. The host birds never realise until it is too late that the cuckoo has invaded its nest. Surely a modern proverb for the moment.

“You see, cuckoos are parasites.” Casandra Clare

The Evil Tide

The cuckoo has played its game well,
poisonous views and paranoia well hidden,
while the host is completely unaware,
the birth of lies subtly creeps life.

Poisonous views and paranoia well hidden,
the drain is swamped by cunning cucks,
the birth of lies subtly creeps life,
encompassing, contaminating everything.

The drain is swamped by cunning cucks,
too weak to stand against the evil tide
encompassing, contaminating everything,
from decency to integrity all is tainted.

Too weak to stand against the evil tide,
while the host is completely unaware,
from decency to integrity all is tainted,
the cuckoo has played its game well.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Filed under awareness, Economics, injustice, Pantoum, poem, politics, quote

Our Dreams Swallowed – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: found at in-cyprus.philenews.com

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislators, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” P.J. O’Rourke

Our Dreams Swallowed

We were born to rove but the days are rough,
innocence was wasted along the roads of youth,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.

I never thought we'd ever do life so tough,
scammed, spammed, and damned of truth,
we were born to rove but the days are rough.

Hear the piggies wallowing in their trough,
nothing we can say will delay the proof,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.

I simply wish we could push through and bluff,
but that would bring us to the gutter uncouth,
we were born to rove but the days are rough.

My anger boils in ever righteous wrath
at this maddening destructive spoof,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.

So transparent their evil cut of cloth,
how have these villains missed the noose,
we were born to rove but the days are rough,
our dreams swallowed in political sloth.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

18 Comments

Filed under awareness, Economics, injustice, life, poem, politics, quote, Villanelle

For Maxima Acuna – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for Peru, Máxima Acuña (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

“This isn’t a cause of fear for me – it’s not a motive for us to stop fighting, to stop defending.” Maxima Acuna(when asked if she was worried given Berta Caceres’ assassination)

Maxima Acuna is a wife, mother, farmer, weaver, environmental activist who has had her home destroyed (twice), has been beaten unconscious with her daughter, has been physically beaten with her husband, and has had false charges laid against her. I really admire her tenacity, strength, and sense of justice in the face of pure evil in both protecting her way of life, her rights and the environment.

There is a short video worth seeing at – https://youtu.be/Gz8eZx8V4Uo

For Maxima Acuna

In the Northern Highlands of Peru the
diminutive Maxima and husband Jaime
bought a farm in the Tragadero Grande,
they built a simple earth shack to raise a 
family, and they respectfully subsist and
produce while caring for the land
but came the miners with engineers, 
security, even local police to raise their 
home to the ground for a mining company,
some time later they returned to beat her
and her daughter unconscious and despite 
the recorded evidence no appeal to the 
courts would be heard, instead Acuna was 
blamed and false charges stuck against her,
resulting in an eviction order with huge fines,
until outside voices raised the alarm,
but the dismissal of the false charges has
not lessened the threat and abuse, beatings,
and intimidation of Maxima the farmer, the
weaver, the maker, the land and water carer,
who refuses to surrender the land and life
in her care.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Filed under awareness, Economics, environment, farming, Free Verse, injustice, life, poem, quote

Sweet Dreams – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from viacampesina.org “Protracted fight against all injustices.” Protestors in Paraguay drawing attention to the loss of land and human rights in the face of mining and forestry businesses.

“Disadvantages faced by indigenous peoples are related to dispossession and exacerbated by powerlessness and poverty.” Roberto Mukaro Borrero

Sweet Dreams

There is no edict for you to leave your
home tonight as armed militias glare
at you with trembling trigger fingers,
while benign police stand back shrugging.

No one is bulldozing the graves of your
loved ones or setting fire to community 
facilities in order to persuade you to leave
the place where you have set down roots,
generations of love and friendship and work.

No one is turning your land in to agribusiness 
at the cost of community, even life,
you are not losing your freedom tonight,
or your basic rights, even your dignity
remains in tact despite corrupt politicians.

No one is making laws to target you as an
enemy of the state because you refuse to 
surrender your home and land from which 
you sustain life and no one despises you 
because you refuse to surrender your heritage.

But if you live in Paraguay then,
this night they will indeed come and
kill, burn, rape, torture and imprison
while stealing your land under guise of
legislated corporate rights and resumption.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

34 Comments

Filed under awareness, Economics, farming, Free Verse, Indigenous, injustice, poem, protest, quote

Tax Deductible – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: theindependent.co.uk

“International aid is just another praetorian business enterprise.” Arundhati Roy

Tax Deductible 

The paralysis of the west is its deep,
unspoken anxiety of imposter syndrome,
that it is a living lie of heroes and bare 
trinket chests covered in cheap, gaudy
promises of solutions wrapped in dreams
of self-serving outcomes pretending to
be hope, masquerading as moral piety,
offering platitudes chained in addiction.
The anxiety of the west is rooted in its
narcissism.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

31 Comments

Filed under Economics, food, Free Verse, life, mindfulness, poem, politics, quote