What a Scam!

No doubt everyone has tales of scams, great or small, which cause disruption and cost in their lives.

As a few have come my way, I have become circumspect about anything needing to “click” through to another online site likely to take me to destruction. Mind you, that is not necessarily an avoidance of bother. A message recently appeared in my Inbox, purporting to be from Telstra. Rather than clicking through to the information, I decided to log into myTelstra account to check the veracity. Security is so wonderful that I could not access my own account, even after 1.5 hours navigating the circle of stupidity between App, Chat, username and password, all declared invalid, despite my own spreadsheet of passwords confirming validity. Gave up in frustration, without satisfaction. A job for another day.

Rarely do I buy things online because of the prevalence of scammers and potential for access to what little cash I have. Changing the policy to purchase a gift advertised on Facebook that was ideal for a special person, found the affordable $36 payable on Mastercard blew out to $110 payable on PayPal (not wanted) with so called currency exchange, taxes, postage and foreign transaction charges. Consequently, I had to deal with the disruption and inconvenience of cancelling and replacing the card, as well as changing established payments on that account.

Again, there was the time when, urged on by my children, I conceded to pay for six months on a dating App. I had been widowed for several years and they felt I should be more active seeking another partner. Six months would be a bit of sport and who knows, I may get lucky! Everyone does it these days!

Months passed without anyone on my feed attracting interest, when “an engineer from Napier in NZ” connected to say how enchanted he was with my story. His background as a widower whose wife had died from breast cancer leaving him with a large house and a son at Uni in the US. Projects in China, then Ghana expanded the narrative.

Chat between us continued, disclosing layers of deceit preying on presumed loneliness of widowhood. One giveaway was he had no knowledge of rugby. Nobody from NZ is ignorant of rugby. Secondly a quick check of White Pages in Napier revealed no one by the name given. I discovered the engineering firm website was a cut-and-paste on a US engineering company. Still, I strung the conversation along for entertainment’s sake. Needed to get something for my investment.

Climax of the scammer’s patient nurturing of our chat relationship ended abruptly when he disclosed two workers were killed in an accident at the construction site in Accra (Ghana). Could I help him out with a mere $20K to pay off the families as is the custom in that country?

Reasoned that any international engineering firm of substance would have ready access to $20K. An online check of Accra news sites showed no such accident. No further contact was made with the guy. The dating App and the experience were reported to ASIC and a refund obtained from the bank when the App refused to cancel renewal. Alerts about the scam operating against US interests were sent to the US engineering company, the American website company and US Embassy in Accra. No bloke from the exercise, but I did get a story out of it.

The foregoing are examples of scams I have encountered which demand we be aware, alert, cautious and proactive about interaction online or with others to preserve our own safety and security. Take notice of advice from banks and governments about how best to protect our interests. Be aware also of what we can do something about, our own proclivities – for fear, greed, loneliness, lust for power or control over others – that might predispose us to being susceptible to scam biddings. When in unfamiliar cultures travelling, have an exit strategy from those who seek to scam unwitting tourists with promises of local experiences, promotion of your products or book if you just pay up front.

Not all scams emanate from individuals tapping away in a dark room: some of the most outrageous come from governments and large corporations combining to assert their power over us, enriching themselves.

Government scams

The few government scams mentioned below have global consequences that affected us all. More reason for each of us to be informed, aware and alert to how national policies linked to global agreements have diminished our lives, making us poorer.

COVID

One of the most egregious scams was COVID, that for a couple of years terrorized people into compliance with ridiculous mandates for masks, movement, spacing and vaccination. Moral righteousness corralled our compliance under threat of loss of job, business, education, health and reputation, polarizing families and groups. Vaccines pushed have since been shown to be ineffectual for prevention of COVID while often causing major health concerns. Straying from the given narrative became the mortal sin of the new belief from which there was no redemption. Big Pharma became uber-wealthy, the poor became more deprived. To date there has been no accountability.

Climate Change/Net Zero

Over the last thirty or so years, the spiritual vacuum caused by the decline in Judeo-Chrisian values on which this country was founded making it so attractive to immigrants, has been filled by belief/cult in various iterations of the climate change/catastrophe/net zero industry. Billionaire proponents Bill Gates, Mike Cannon-Brooks and Twiggy Forrest pushed the Net Zero barrow for their fantastical schemes while milking the government subsidy gravy train. Energy to keep the lights on costs more and is undependable as reliance on un-renewables increases.

Renewable pipelines to Singapore and green hydrogen scams have failed, denting the egos of Forrest and Cannon-Brookes. Gates at last has had an epiphany conceding the world does not face climate catastrophe now that he needs nuclear energy to power his AI frolic.

Just how egregious Bowen’s fantastical scam is evident when Australia will have 8.2 times the required demand from proposed increase in installed (subsidised) capacity from 66GW to 315GW when growth demand expected to be 38GW by 2050. At any one time 277 GW will be sitting idle[1], to be paid for by our grandchildren.

In the table below data compiled from CSIRO and AEMO spells out the cost of ~$2 trillion, though not how to pay. Could not make it up. Yet the morally virtuous have not only been gulled into believing they are saving the planet by pursuing such folly stand in vociferous condemnation of “deniers”.

Renewable tech	Unit cost	Additional planned capacity	Total expected cost
Wind	$3223/kw	121,226,000	$390,711,398.000
Solar	$1464/kw	58,924,736	$86,264,736,000
Batteries 8hr	$3,384/kw	129,237,000	$437,338,008,000
Pumped Hydro	$7677/kw	18,719,000	$143,705,763
Sub-total			$1,058,019,905,000
Uncosted 11,000km transmission lines to connect to grid (estimate)			$1,000,000,000,000
Total expected cost of renewables			$2,058,019,905,000

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

DEI was promoted as a social equity issue when in fact its primary purpose was to expand the USA Democrats’ declining base by Obama. DEI was forcibly incorporated into government policy, defense and corporate operations. Value of merit declined along with performance standards, community division increased as oppressor/oppressed divisions were milked for offence and reparations without hope of resolution or redemption.

Death of black man, small-time criminal and domestic abuser George Floyd at the hands of a white policeman sparked riots destructive of businesses and social cohesion in the USA, costing more than $2 billion and many lives. The Aboriginal Industry in Australia rode the wave, energized for division by the Voice, Treaty, “truth’ telling, reparations and land transfers, including the MCG.

Mercifully, in the USA Trump put an end to such fabricated divisive and costly stupidity by employing common sense, however offensive common sense has become amongst the socialist/Islamist sympathisers whose knowledge of history goes back to breakfast.

The bigger picture

Quite reasonably, most of us are busy with our own lives, trying to live responsibly taking care of ourselves, families, jobs and communities. Occasionally it is worth raising our eyes to awareness of the bigger picture of what is happening around us in our country and globally where Australia is a signatory to international covenants, so all that is precious to us can be conserved. From the teachings of Buddha, lack of awareness is viewed as the greatest weakness in life. For common sense, backbone is needed to stand up for what is right.

Best to be aware that COVID, Net Zero, DEI and Palestine scams that have seriously disrupted our lives over recent years are pushed by nefarious global drivers that seek to divide families, faith and communities for their own power, control and financial gain, on the way to the ever-failed state of communism. Crash is certain. In hindsight it will look little different from investment in black tulips in the 16^th century bubble that went bust.

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[1] Cited from comments in The Australian