The Ant & The Grasshopper
The ant 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 ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no
food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.THE MODERN AUSTRALIAN VERSION
The ant 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 ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why
the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less
fortunate like him are cold and starving.The ABC and Channel 9 show up to provide live coverage of the shivering
grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home
with a table filled with food.Australians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Democrats,
the Greens and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the
ant’s house.The ABC, interrupting an Aboriginal cultural festival special from North
Queensland with breaking news, broadcasts them singing “We Shall Overcome.”Bob Brown rants in an interview with Ray Martin that the ant has got rich
off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the
ant to make him pay his “fair share.”In response to polls, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and
Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of the
summer.It is quickly passed through the Senate.
The ant’s taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire
grasshoppers as helpers.Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed
retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful agribiz company.
The TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of
the ant’s food though Spring is still months away, while the government
owned house he is in, which just happens to be
The ant’s old house crumbles around him because he hadn’t maintained it.Inadequate government funding is blamed, Kim Beasley now is appointed to
head a commission of inquiry that will cost $10,000,000.The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Sydney Morning Herald
blames it on obvious failure of government to address the root causes of
despair arising from social inequity.The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by
the government for enriching Australia’s multicultural diversity, who
promptly terrorize the communityGrasshopper’s family sue for pain and suffering from the needless loss of a loved one.
CATA
Asset Protection Specialist
[email protected]….but the Grasshoppers family were too poor to afford their own Leech, so they were assigned a Govt appointed Leech, who quickly latched on and bled her employer for everything she could get.
And the Grasshoppers looked on… and were well pleased.
And the Ant looked down from afar…and was well pleased he left.
And the moral of the story…in the end everyone was happy and no-one was hurt (except the dead Grasshopper)…and isn’t that the most important thing children ?? We know a song about that…don’t we children ??
Originally posted by Milly:The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house
and laying up supplies for the winter.I thought the modern version would be:
“The ant trades 5 winter’s worth of food for a second house, knowing full well that by the time the winter came he’d be able to trade that house for 10 winters worth of food, and even if it wasn’t, there’d be heaps of grasshoppers prepared to trade food for it…”
My perspective may be different to many here, but I think the whole moral of the fable was that you should save a little of what you earn for a rainy day (winter), not that a negative savings rate is fine as long as its the result of ‘good’ (tax-deductible) debt.
Cheers, F.[cowboy2]
(Parties like a grasshopper, saves like an ant.)
Debt free.That is fantastic.
As long as the grasshopper can blame everyone else for his situation, he is powerless to do anything about it.and the grasshopper’s outlook on life will be passed onto many generations of grasshoppers who also would take no responsibilities for their actions.
Milly, I love this one!
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