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[Ruthless_Barbarian]

It's happening in Melbourne right now.

http://storify.com/abcnews/protesters-march-in-march-across-australia/?template=grid

 

[Arksy]

Anyone else here participate in the 'March in March' that happened around the country? Had around 3-4,000 people here in Newcastle, was immense. Was a real mix of crowd too, were flags from the Greens, Labor, Communist, Pirate and Hemp parties !

Sounds really diverse!

 

[Jintor]

Sounds really diverse!

that, uh, is pretty diverse

 

[Arksy]

that, uh, is pretty diverse

Psst. It was a joke. (Kind of).

 

[Jintor]

I couldn't tell which direction the joke was pointed in

 

[reptilescorpio]

So cops don't give a shit about this March or what?

 

[Rubixcuba]

We got a police escort down Huntet St haha. Closed one lane of traffic to allow march to head from top of town to Civic Park.

But it was pretty much a gathering of the entire left/left center political spectrum.

 

[Arksy]

My sadness for likely losing the SA election has been quelled a little considering that we're having our first ever deregulation day.

So fucking excited.

 

[lexi]

The example he gives is troubling. I want centers that are responsible for dozens of very young children to be very well regulated, thank you very much.

Let's get rid of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and all other aviation 'regulations' too!

 

[wonzo]

why we still got oh&s

 

[Box of Bunnies]

No, see, regulation is just the evil statist's way of further oppressing legitimate business. We don't need any kind of standards to ensure corners aren't cut to do things as cheaply as possible, safety be damned. Free market, whoo!

 

[Tommy DJ]

I find it somewhat amusing that the same guy who seems happy about deregulation day just called neoliberals scum of the earth.

The whole purpose of deregulation, in the eyes of Tony and Co, is to place power in the hands of private entities. It doesn't really give people any power since the transfer of power is to groups that have a vested interest in providing minimum service for maximum profit. In fact, it probably gives people even less power.

Why Arkys supports this confuses me. The Liberal Party are not Ron Paul. They're really no different from your typical neoliberal.

 

[Dryk]

Deregulation. The freedom to work unsafely for little pay or not at all.

 

[Kreunt]

 

[lexi]

guys you're forgetting all the good things deregulation has done, like the global economic surge in 2007 thanks to lessening banking regulations in America!

 

[Dryk]

From Facebook

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I haven't kept up with the politics. Like since the last federal election. At all.

What's Abbot done to fuck up so far?

 

[JesseEwiak]

When taken non-sarcastically, I agree.

Ironically, for example, the Republican Party had a much wider range of opinions and diverse voting record before the crazy people started getting involved in primaries every time their Congressperson sneezed wrong. Now, Republican Congressman in 'safe' districts who were still sane enough to make deals now can't talk nice about any policy passed after Lincoln freed the slaves.

Now, in a world with compulsory voting, primaries might actually be effective. OTOH, it may just help the Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann's of Austraila.

 

[Dastardly Jerks]

I haven't kept up with the politics. Like since the last federal election. At all.

What's Abbot done to fuck up so far?

http://workinglife.org.au/2013/12/16/tony-abbotts-first-hundred-days-what-have-we-learnt/

 

[Elaugaufein]

My sadness for likely losing the SA election has been quelled a little considering that we're having our first ever deregulation day.

So fucking excited.

I think deregulation for its own sake is madness (in the same way that over-regulation is) and that if there's duplication it should generally be the highest body that's kept (for less horizontal redundancy), with certain exceptions where local knowledge is key. I'm not against streamlining relevant laws all into single cohesive acts (and removing duplication) but this doesn't sound like that at all. It sounds like the standard conservative policy of letting anything go and if/when things go wrong focusing on the money the other party has to spend to fix it, rather than why it happened.

Credit where its due though, Abbott's positive speaking has come a long way, that actually sounded good.

 

[Dead Man]

My favourite sign from today in Adelaide is the greeney bluey one:

 

[Lafiel]

Anyone else here participate in the 'March in March' that happened around the country? Had around 3-4,000 people here in Newcastle, was immense. Was a real mix of crowd too, were flags from the Greens, Labor, Communist, Pirate and Hemp parties !

Yeah I was there (in melbourne) fun times lots of people, ran into friends, caught up with a good friend of mine and hung out with a other two good friends of mine afterwards.

It was good times.

 

[Shaneus]

Stupid idea having the march during F1 weekend. Totally would've gone :/

 

[Lafiel]

The worst part about the March was it naturally attracted crazies saw a guy with a placard who was speaking out against fluoride in water and there was a pro-gun group too.

That said I might be a bit unfair as they were pretty much a minority within the protest. Plus the speakers were good.. loved the lizards are running the government joke.

I'm a bit cynical that it might go-nowhere unless there's a sustained movement afterwards and it's not a exclusively one-off thing.

 

[Arksy]

Man I so want to be there when they build a giant pyre of repealed legislation.

To answer everyone's hyperbole, I'm not convinced that being pro-deregulation is somehow anti-wage or anti-safety. Sure there are some parts of regulations deal with safety, and some deal with rates, but most regulations basically amount to regulating the number of paintings on a wall and the species of trees allowed in playgrounds.

 

[Dead Man]

Man I so want to be there when they build a giant pyre of repealed legislation.

To answer everyone's hyperbole, I'm not convinced that being pro-deregulation is somehow anti-wage or anti-safety. Sure there are some parts of regulations deal with safety, and some deal with rates, but most regulations basically amount to the thickness of the walls and the maximum number of paintings that can be placed on a wall.

You know how you don't like experts having any say in decisions? Sometimes it helps if you have at least experienced things before you spout nonsense. You can spout about 'most regulations are frivolous' but that doesn't prove it, and even if it is correct it would only be evidence for better regulations, not the removing of all of them.

 

[Arksy]

You know how you don't like experts having any say in decisions? Sometimes it helps if you have at least experienced things before you spout nonsense. You can spout about 'most regulations are frivolous' but that doesn't prove it, and even if it is correct it would only be evidence for better regulations, not the removing of all of them.

No I don't like experts having all the say in decisions. Big difference. Also, what haven't I experienced? Regulations? Because I have. I studied law you know, I've peered over dozens of Acts and regulatory schemes. The law is full of duplication and obscene compliance costs. When you sign up for Consumer Credit (personal loans, interest free terms for example) you're required to be sent about three forms before you sign up that all contain basically the same information. It varies a little but there's no reason why it can't all be consolidated.

I don't know why you seem to get the idea that I'm for the Great Repeal Act 2014 which has section 1 as; all previous laws are repealed. That'd be somewhat amusing but not actually what I'm advocating.

 

[Dastardly Jerks]

Don't worry Lafiel, they come out whenever they can. During the Occupy movement they were a dime-a-dozen. And the Social Alliance was pretty much everywhere.

Either way; voices were heard. Abbott was shook, and you could tell when he was questioned about it.

 

[Dead Man]

No I don't like experts having all the say in decisions. Big difference. Also, what haven't I experienced? Regulations? Because I have. Go take a look at the consumer credit code and tell me it's a good idea to have to send out at least three forms to someone containing most of the same information before you signed them up for consumer credit.

I used to work in mortgages and collections, I know all about lending codes of practise. If that is your biggest issue, you have no issue. Consumer credit is both taken out fraudulently and abused by lenders. Improve the code, don't remove it.

I'm saying you sound like a young child who is parroting things about which you have no experience. Regulations are necessary to protect both weaker parties from exploitations and stringer parties from blackmail and fraud.

The vast majority are things you will never hear about because they work in the background so you don't see them working. You, or those arguing like you, will complain about the 3 regulations you have noticed and ignore the thousands of others that work just fine and serve a valuable purpose.

 

[Arksy]

I used to work in mortgages and collections, I know all about lending codes of practise. If that is your biggest issue, you have no issue. Consumer credit is both taken out fraudulently and abused by lenders. Improve the code, don't remove it.

I'm saying you sound like a young child who is parroting things about which you have no experience. Regulations are necessary to protect both weaker parties from exploitations and stringer parties from blackmail and fraud.

The vast majority are things you will never hear about because they work in the background so you don't see them working. You, or those arguing like you, will complain about the 3 regulations you have noticed and ignore the thousands of others that work just fine and serve a valuable purpose.

You seem to enjoy ad hominem attacks. I'm not exactly sure why, but a fair few of your arguments leveled towards me are arguments rebutting points I haven't even made. I'm sorry I can't be the cardboard conservative you want me to be.

 

[Dryk]

If deregulation is so great then why are all the examples you give examples of consolidating redundant regulation

As you said, not all deregulation is bad. But forgive me for being cynical considering the track record of conservative governments since the turn of the century.

 

[Arksy]

Because most of the time obnoxious over-regulation increases costs unnecessarily, which squeezes small businesses out of the market and consolidates power in a few big players.

Think of the banks, not in Australia, but overseas. There isn't really a sector of the economy more heavily regulated than the financial sector (arms, and energy especially nuclear energy are probably up there as well). Cost of compliance with the thousands of pages of regulation squeezed all the small lenders out of business, making the big banks bigger and created the 'too big to fail' phenomenon in the first place.

Think of the cost of that? They made really bad decisions, as some businesses do and went bust. The taxpayers were then forced to shell out a lot of money to bail out very, very wealthy people from the consequences of their bad decisions because otherwise the entire economy would've gone belly up.

So you've got regulations that put people out of business, encouraged a monopoly, transferred money in a reverse robin hood fashion from the poor to the rich, and didn't teach the bankers the error of their own ways.

They know they can keep making really bad decisions with other peoples money because fuck it, government has their back.

For what benefit did all this happen? I'm asking seriously.

 

[Tommy DJ]

Wait what? The US banks went under because the accepted an excessive amount of risk and governments did little to prevent them from handing out mortgages that were likely to end up in default.

As Warren Buffet said a while ago, there was an assumption that open financial markets would do the right thing and thus didn't really need regulating. That turned out to be wildly untrue since as we all know, financial institutions like being predators if given the opportunity.

 

[Dryk]

It's not an easy problem to solve Arksy. If you under-regulate large businesses they will do all the horrible things that regulation is supposed to prevent, if you regulate them adequately then small businesses can't deal with it. I'd almost say that tiered regulation is the solution but that would likely cause problems with a large number of under-regulated small business presenting a similar net loss to society than an under-regulated big business.

I don't think I know enough to judge where the sweet spot is in that regard. And I DO think that we need to be looking at existing regulations more than we do. Odds are that there's a lot of redundant, archaic and rushed pages in that American stuff you referred to.

 

[bomma_man]

The reason the banks became too big to fail was because Glass-Stegal was repealed. Before that they couldn't act as both consumer and investment banks (ie they could either be safe or risky, but never a combination of the two).

I like it how you fail to mention that the extremely regulated Australian banking sector was more or less unaffected by the crash.

 

[Myansie]

Glass stegal was around 128 pages long, it has been replaced by dodd frank which is over 3000 pages long. The huge increase is due to all the exceptions written in thanks to corporate lobbying. That huge increase has created a billion and one loop holes, which if you know what you're doing essentially amount to deregulation. This creates a huge advantage to those in the industry over everyone else and helps explain why we are seeing these gigantic bonuses on wall st.

Yes, this is an example of bad regulation, but the real issue is the corruption of the process creating those regulations.

What worries me about Abbott and company chopping up huge swathes of regulations is who is advising them? Is it the banks? Is it Rupert Murdoch? Is it the miners? The IPA? Business Council of Australia perhaps? There are going to be winners and losers here and the losers are those not at the table. Are you at the table Arksy?

 

[Mondy]

So my very white and very middle class mother just had a meltdown a minute ago while watching the news about a story involving 390,000 Australians wanting Duck hunting here.

I point out "HA! Moral outrage over hunting ducks, and yet fuck the boat people."

To which she replies "I don't care about the boat people."

There you have it, folks. Ducks take precedent over humans. The mystery is solved.

 

[Dead Man]

You seem to enjoy ad hominem attacks. I'm not exactly sure why, but a fair few of your arguments leveled towards me are arguments rebutting points I haven't even made. I'm sorry I can't be the cardboard conservative you want me to be.

It's not that you are a cardboard cutout, but that you revel in parading around extremist views until people actually call you out on them. Then you just write a short remark with a winking smiley. You are the one talking about burning regulations without actually explaining any nuance in your position. A debate is more than making statements out of 19th century political tracts.

If you have a response to my contention that you are ignoring the majority of regulation you never notice I would love to hear it.

 

[Dead Man]

Because most of the time obnoxious over-regulation increases costs unnecessarily, which squeezes small businesses out of the market and consolidates power in a few big players.

Think of the banks, not in Australia, but overseas. There isn't really a sector of the economy more heavily regulated than the financial sector (arms, and energy especially nuclear energy are probably up there as well). Cost of compliance with the thousands of pages of regulation squeezed all the small lenders out of business, making the big banks bigger and created the 'too big to fail' phenomenon in the first place.

Think of the cost of that? They made really bad decisions, as some businesses do and went bust. The taxpayers were then forced to shell out a lot of money to bail out very, very wealthy people from the consequences of their bad decisions because otherwise the entire economy would've gone belly up.

So you've got regulations that put people out of business, encouraged a monopoly, transferred money in a reverse robin hood fashion from the poor to the rich, and didn't teach the bankers the error of their own ways.

They know they can keep making really bad decisions with other peoples money because fuck it, government has their back.

For what benefit did all this happen? I'm asking seriously.

You've missed the fucking point by a substantial margin. Australia has some of the stricter financial legislation, how did we do? We may not have a thriving big 4 but that is far from a monopoly, and we have healthy credit unions and smaller lenders. Ignoring Australia is ignoring the big argument in favour of regulation.

Your comparison results in regulation looking very bloody good indeed, as long as it is the right sort of regulation and not corporate protectionism as is seen in America and elsewhere. That regulation is fucked, of course it is. But the fact that you have to look overseas for your example of why regulation is bad for Australia destroys your argument immediately.

And governments are not some monolithic entity that never changes, if they are bad, they can be changed, if a private company is bad, then without regulation the recourse is what? Hope? Wishful thinking? Your entire political view is wishful thinking. The majesty of markets, the glory of direct democracy, it doesn't work.

Edit: Double post, that's what I get for posting hungry, lol

 

[Arksy]

Actually I think I've explained the nuance of my position quite clearly. Regulations drives up costs that get passed on to consumers, and drive out small businesses.

That's not missing the point because a comparison can be done both ways. You can harp on all you like about how America isn't regulated (which it is, arguably more regulated than Australia), but what about the UK? The financial centre of the world. The UK pales us in comparison to the amount of quangos and regulatory schemes that control the financial centre and yet, and yet, their banks went bust and had to be bailed out.

Having regulation on its own means dick fucking all in achieving any concrete positive outcomes. Regulation can be "good" or "bad" depending on your political views but it ALWAYS drives up costs in proportion to the amount of regulation that is applied through sheer cost of compliance. So regulation always has a negative side, but only sometimes has a positive side.

I'm all for having a mature and well reasoned debate about this, what's working and what's not, but it doesn't seem like anyone is up for it because as soon as deregulation is mentioned everyone acts hysterically like we're going back to the wild west and re-establishing the slave trade.

 

[Dryk]

I'm all for having a mature and well reasoned debate about this, what's working and what's not, but it doesn't seem like anyone is up for it because as soon as deregulation is mentioned everyone acts hysterically like we're going back to the wild west and re-establishing the slave trade.

Because deregulation has picked up those connotations over the years. Maybe a less loaded phrase would be a better conversation starter?

 

[Arksy]

Well deregulation was the word I used, not Abbott. To his credit it's a "Cut red tape" day.

I really should stop complaining, Australia does have the third most open and free market economy in the entire world. Behind Hong Kong and Singapore.

 

[Jintor]

It's weird arksy. I often find myself agreeing with the general thrust of your arguments but you always seem to take them to some strange theoretical apocalyptic future where you're scared of your own damn shadow, instead of the practical consequences of what actually ends up happening.

 

[markot]

Well deregulation was the word I used, not Abbott. To his credit it's a "Cut red tape" day.

I really should stop complaining, Australia does have the third most open and free market economy in the entire world. Behind Hong Kong and Singapore.

I hope that one day we also have second class citizens like those bastions of freedom.

 

[Tommy DJ]

Hong Kong is an interesting case because the country is well and truly fucked economically and socially for the next generation because of how poorly they've handled their land markets. The housing market there is absolutely dire and basically the thing that makes Hong Kong so wealthy since land value there is absolutely artificially inflated.

Its a pretty nice place for wealthy Chinese to dump their ill-gotten gains since the idea is that the land value will only go up, up, up (doesn't this sound like UK/US pre-2008?). This won't last forever, of course. The minute the Chinese start cracking down on internal corruption and offer better investment opportunities domestically, the bubble will burst. It already is bursting AFAIK.

The vast majority of people cannot afford decent quality housing since even a shoebox costs a quarter lifetime's worth of wages to pay off. So you get a large number of people forced to live in very poor housing stock in terms of actual livability. There's urban consolidation and there's living in 400 square feet rooms that cost half a million. We're talking about what are basically shipping containers under major overpasses. This is what some people actually seriously suggest as a solution to the housing problem. Not to mention a large amount of people live in conditions many consider to be below the poverty line.

Meanwhile, you have a property developers squatting on land and purposely keeping housing vacant to inflate the value of property. Its a very wealthy country but a lot of it is tied to the real estate market and so much of that is detrimental to everyone who is not wealthy or connected enough to play this game. Regulations are designed to prevent this sort of garbage from happening but politicians are too scared to act because they (rather the people) either don't want land value to tank or are in bed with developers. I'd love to read the history of the Hong Kong housing market just to see what instigated this madness.

 

[Arksy]

They've got an incredibly large public housing program. As far as I remember, most people live in government owned apartments.

Surprised that you didn't mention cage houses in Hong Kong, now those are a serious, serious problem.

 

[Myansie]

That's not missing the point because a comparison can be done both ways. You can harp on all you like about how America isn't regulated (which it is, arguably more regulated than Australia), but what about the UK? The financial centre of the world. The UK pales us in comparison to the amount of quangos and regulatory schemes that control the financial centre and yet, and yet, their banks went bust and had to be bailed out.

Having regulation on its own means dick fucking all in achieving any concrete positive outcomes. Regulation can be "good" or "bad" depending on your political views but it ALWAYS drives up costs in proportion to the amount of regulation that is applied through sheer cost of compliance. So regulation always has a negative side, but only sometimes has a positive side.

Did you not read the chapter on Thatcher? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(financial_markets)

They got rid of their equivalent of Glass Stegal as well as the US.

 

[Tommy DJ]

They've got an incredibly large public housing program. As far as I remember, most people live in government owned apartments.

Surprised that you didn't mention cage houses in Hong Kong, now those are a serious, serious problem.

Public housing generally isn't the answer if the public housing stock is poor. The tiny environments have a serious impact on Hong Kong society, especially when we're talking about birth rates and distribution of services. Its not like they don't have land to use, its just land policy is locked and land that is available is being exploited by developers and investors. This editorial (yes I know its SCMP but he's said nothing wrong) best highlights the ongoing struggle between society and the government/developers - as free and wealthy the markets may be, the quality of life is not particularly good.

The point is that adequate housing is extremely, extremely expensive. Even if you work, you can only afford a tiny square about the size of a typical Australian living room. Which costs half a million USD, which is huge for the wages that most Hong Kongers actually earn.

The reason being those prices are due to accepted land market speculation and poor land policy. The 2nd can be solved by changing how land use and development is approached; the first is solved via regulation, namely vacancy taxes and better regulating land valuation.

 

[Arksy]

Public housing generally isn't the answer if the public housing stock is poor. The tiny environments have a serious impact on Hong Kong society, especially when we're talking about birth rates and distribution of services. Its not like they don't have land to use, its just land policy is locked and land that is available is being exploited by developers and investors. This editorial (yes I know its SCMP but he's said nothing wrong) best highlights the ongoing struggle between society and the government/developers - as free and wealthy the markets may be, the quality of life is not particularly good.

The point is that adequate housing is extremely, extremely expensive. Even if you work, you can only afford a tiny square about the size of a typical Australian living room. Which costs half a million USD, which is huge for the wages that most Hong Kongers actually earn.

The reason being those prices are due to accepted land market speculation and poor land policy. The 2nd can be solved by changing how land use and development is approached; the first is solved via regulation, namely vacancy taxes and better regulating land valuation.

Fascinating, thanks for the links. I don't really like the idea of a vacancy tax in theory, but sheer geographic necessity might justify it. It's definitely something I'd get behind in HK.

 

[wonzo]