Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 09/02/2000
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Wednesday February 9, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd, the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
[Music up, music down!]
Egalitarianism. What a horrible doctrine. The belief that no matter how unequal we are in ability, no matter how unequal the efforts we put in, no matter how unequal our achievements, we must all be ground down to roughly the same level of remuneration for our efforts & skills. Egalitarianism is a New Zealand icon, & has produced two unappetising phenomena among the sheeple: 1) an unhealthy preoccupation with what others earn; & 2) a tendency to baaaa deafeningly loudly when they discover that some people earn heaps more than they do. Baaaaa! Baaaa!! Unfair!! Unfair!! The bleating is especially loud from those many sheeple who strictly speaking "earn" no money at all, but steal it legally via the government's welfare system.
In the wake of the Hawkesby affair, the salaries of all our television newsreaders have been made public. Even at the lower end, the Campbell-Hirschfeld duo, the salaries are handsome by New Zealand standards, causing the sheeple to work themselves into an uncharacteristic frenzy. "Why should anyone be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars just to sit on his bottom & read the news out to us for one hour a day? It's not fair! Baaaa! Baaaa!"
Now even if it were true that that's all it took to be a newsreader, it would still be the prerogative of television companies & newsreaders to negotiate handsome remuneration packages. It's certainly not something politicians should meddle in. But if that were all it took to be a newsreader, anyone could do it, & there'd be no point in a marketplace of supply & demand to paying someone very highly to do a job that the next person can do just as well. The reason our newsreaders command high salaries is the rarity of their skill. They are not mere reciters of information; they are, in the best sense of the word, performers. They must possess & project intelligence, authority & knowledgeability. They must be telegenic, articulate, smooth-voiced & quick-thinking. They must be able to move seamlessly from reading script to asking sensible, pertinent, & sometimes impertinent questions of their interviewees. They must have that special "something" that causes viewers to want to watch them rather than the readers on the other channel. This combination of qualities is not plentiful, so of course, it does not come cheap. Neither should it. In the freer & bigger television market of the United States, newsreaders are paid, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of dollars a year for their expertise. That's as it should be - it's the market at work - but the Marion Hobbes & Helen Clarks of this world, of course, hate the market & would close it down, to a chorus of approving baaaaas from the sheeple.
That inveterate socialist & Labour lickspittle Brian Edwards, echoing the hideous egalitarian theoretician John Rawls, once said to me that opera singer Jose Carreras should be paid no more than a garbage collector; the government should equalise their incomes so as to compensate the garbage collector for the unfair hand fate had dealt him by giving Carreras a better voice. Interestingly, Brian left this philosophy outside the door when he went in to negotiate a new contract with National Socialist Radio - he asked a great deal for his undoubted & rare skills (much, much more than a garbage collector) & was turned away! Poetic justice?!
In an ideal world, the government would not be involved in radio & television & the subject of presenters' salaries wouldn't cause a commotion at all. The advent of such a world would require a decisive break with our egalitarian past. That's not about to happen. But where there's a Politically Incorrect Show, there's hope!
Politically Incorrect Show, applauding tall poppies - 309 3099.
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