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AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?
- Thread starter Bernbaum
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Meet the new boss
I remember seeing a lecture where, yes, Roo doesn't decree from on high what he wants to see, but rather editors have become remarkably precient in anticipating the type of content he likes to see in his papers.
Geez even Abbott and Co knew to give that one a wide berth.
Alright, but that wasn't what I gathered when you said "they have a bin of money to dry their tears away".
From first-hand experience though I can tell you loneliness and isolation tends to make depression worse. The burden should not be on them to shield themselves from the bitterness. By all means people can attack the things they've done wrong, but to attack their personal grief I think is a low blow regardless of their wealth.
No doubt. This is a family we're talking about though.
Right or wrong, it's going to have to be, and honestly they'd have to be pretty used to it by now. It's not like there isn't bucketloads of bitterness for him out there being expressed every day.
I don't think anyone's doing that. JC is suggesting restraint because attacks on him will affect his family. No one is justifying direct attacks on his family.
Maybe Bill has a shot after all.
It's certainly what the slowing growth, rising unemployment and downward pressure on inflation suggests.
Not to mention that cutting interest rates have done fuck all. Cutting spending would be an awful idea.
D.Lo
Member
You only have a spending problem when you spend more than you earn,
Though personally I think government employee wages should be cut, not jobs. It's the far above market pay and conditions that wastes money.
Other than kept our housing prices growing nicely, and certainly not into some sort of bubble or anything.
Revenue has dropped more than spending has risen (as a percentage of GDP). So yes, he's wrong.
Candescence
Member
That being said, there are some severe wasteful spending on things like fossil fuel mining subsidiaries and other handouts, mainly stuff left over from the Howard days, which he got away with because the mining boom and loads of privatization. The subsidiaries are especially no longer necessary now that mining is rapidly declining, and there's nothing government can do to stop the inevitable demise of coal (especially since both India and China are rapidly moving to domestic coal production alongside renewables with the intent of reducing coal imports as much as possible).
Again, Howard and Costello were probably the second-worst PM/treasurer team after Abbot and Hockey for reasons that are much clearer in hindsight.
Again, Howard and Costello were probably the second-worst PM/treasurer team after Abbot and Hockey for reasons that are much clearer in hindsight.
D.Lo
Member
As I said previously, I think they were demonstrably worse.
The amount of massively profitable, natural monopoly assets they sold was utterly ridiculous. Sold at bargain prices (apart from Telstra which they screwed from both sides). Their main reform was a high administration cost regressive consumption tax they promised to never ever introduce (yes it went to an election but they lost the popular vote in that election so had no mandate) and then they gimped it to get it through the senate.
They neutralised One Nation by adopting all their policies, and a little fellow named Tony undermined them with some dirty deeds.
While they were clearly incompetent I think Abbott/Hockey (or anyone really) would have survived a while in a roaring economy. They could have say dropped taxes and done whatever other stupid crap they wanted and people would have given it all a pass. That's effectively what Howard did.
The Howard government was an extremely poor government. I'll give him props for Gun control and partly for East Timor, otherwise it was a wasted and backward 11 years.
What do you base that on?
The fact that the states are completely broke while the federal government has all these redundant departments who do nothing, or worse. The Federal Department of Employment? Well..haven't they been doing a bang up job? The angrier underemployed side of me wants to say that they should all be fired and blacklisted for gross incompetence but I might be a bit bias. Federal Department of Transport? An entire federal department dedicated to airport runways. Are you kidding me? (Slight hyperbole, but only slight).
Infrastructure, for one. Of all kinds, improved public transport, proper NBN, general maintenance, etc.
But the big one is human capital, the Australian government needs to provide a plan for investing and nurturing the human capital in the country, as it's far and away the most important part of any successful countries story. I don't have any specifics for this area, but I'd commission a white paper on it were I in charge.
Edit: I'd like to add that I don't think that spending in general is good or bad, it's just something that the government must do in order to continue with the running of the economy.
bobnowhere
Member
I'm sure now, with my one University level course in Microeconomics, there is a pretty good chance I could be the next Coalition Treasurer. Holy crap Morrison is a moron, talk about a man completely out of his depth in a kiddie pool.
Loved the bit where he kept saying "Some people say..." to justify his ill-informed rants and when Sales pulled him back in saying actually no one is saying that, yep he went on another "Some people say..." rant. Bring back Joe.
Loved the bit where he kept saying "Some people say..." to justify his ill-informed rants and when Sales pulled him back in saying actually no one is saying that, yep he went on another "Some people say..." rant. Bring back Joe.
I get infrastructure, but I'm not sure what you mean by human capital...the Australian government provides interest free loans to study at University, and now government assistance has been expanded into trades and other professions...we are investing in human capital. Big time. I'm not sure what more you could want the government to do in that regard.
D.Lo
Member
The government just said it so it must be true.
Here are the biggest government expenditure items, in order (source: Treasury forward estimates - minus 'stage government help' which is #1):
Pension, Medicare, Family Tax benefit (middle class welfare), Disability Support pension, public hospitals, job seeker welfare payments, Aged care, payments to private schools (WTF), PBS.
I'm definitely open to heavy means testing, including house, for all types of welfare. Abolish all Howard's cash splash middle class welfare.
That's true, but what we really need to do is re-federte and abolish the states.
Or at least go fully national with lots of things - hospitals, schools etc should be no-brainers.
I'd like the government to assist in re-skilling workers left unemployed by the changing workforce of the world. I'd like the government to guide workers towards the jobs of the future, whilst simultaneously actually investing in the industries that have the potential for future growth.
We're cutting our investments in human capital, they're at the lowest levels since Menzies, whilst our government investment in universities is the lowest out of every single OECD nation. Human capital is something with almost unlimited potential, and something that the private sector will never have the ability to properly nurture. For our government to under-invest in this is to forever commit our nation to almost-was.
"Spending is too high" is a completely different statement too "there is some spending that appears wasteful".
Revenue is 23% of GDP and spending is 26%. In times gone by it has been 25/25. To say revenue isn't a problem as Morrison did is just flat wrong.
You can make the argument that we should just cut spending to match revenue, but we're in the process of adjustment to heavily dropping infrastructure investment and facing the likelihood of a recession. Cutting 3% of GDP would be pure insanity and lead to an extended recession. The time to be cutting spending is not now.
Revenue is 23% of GDP and spending is 26%. In times gone by it has been 25/25. To say revenue isn't a problem as Morrison did is just flat wrong.
You can make the argument that we should just cut spending to match revenue, but we're in the process of adjustment to heavily dropping infrastructure investment and facing the likelihood of a recession. Cutting 3% of GDP would be pure insanity and lead to an extended recession. The time to be cutting spending is not now.
D.Lo
Member
Still, the #1 most costly item (debatable if it is spending or lost revenue) is superannuation tax concessions, which overwhelmingly benefit the rich. The lowest bracket of workers pay MORE tax on their super than their non-super income, which is insane, and the rich have massive discounts and loopholes.
Exactly, he';s opened with a very stupid, clearly 100% false statement. Maybe he isn't the golden child after all.
A
A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
This is like saying that you think someone eats too much because you have a different taste in food to them.
I don't think I buy the Keynesian premise that a drop in government spending will lead to a recession. I think that kind of assumes that government is the only vassal capable of expenditure, and I think that's a bit silly.
Sigh, I'm working of the (stupid) assumption that a government would (should) only tax as much as they spend, so getting rid of wasteful spending should reduce taxes overall.
Yes, yes, I'll go sit in a corner now.
Sigh, I'm working of the (stupid) assumption that a government would (should) only tax as much as they spend, so getting rid of wasteful spending should reduce taxes overall.
Yes, yes, I'll go sit in a corner now.
It's not the only vassal capable of expenditure, but it is the one with the greatest ability to create and target spending by a mile.
Not to mention that Keynesianism says nothing about a drop in government spending causing a recession, but that government spending should prop up the private sector when it experiences certain signs. Signs that happen to be plastered all over the private sector at the moment.
Not to mention that Keynesianism says nothing about a drop in government spending causing a recession, but that government spending should prop up the private sector when it experiences certain signs. Signs that happen to be plastered all over the private sector at the moment.
we're doing everything in a power to tell these people, who are seeking asylum from something, to go back to where they came from, because it will totally be safe and stuff
i mean it'll be better than the shithole we call offshore detention right? so really we're just thinking of them
i mean it'll be better than the shithole we call offshore detention right? so really we're just thinking of them
Not in all cases, but right now, yes. Keynes would suggest cutting spending in times of high growth. Government spending is the only reason last quarter was in positive growth. We had a once off spend on some military hardware (can't recall what) that cost 0.4% of GDP and we had 0.2% growth. If not for that, there would be a lot of recession talk about now.
That's the goal, but you have to be careful in the execution. "Getting rid of wasteful spending" always means sacking a lot of people. Those people will have to go on unemployment benefits anyway, so you don't want to sack a bunch of people and push them out into a contracting economy to find work.
Well, you have to admit they're doing a good job keeping asylum seekers out of Australia.
I mean, the ADF can't even find someone with Arabic language skills to run their anti-ISIS twitter account for goodness sake.
I mean, the ADF can't even find someone with Arabic language skills to run their anti-ISIS twitter account for goodness sake.
Statements like that then expressing concern for what is happening on Manus makes my head spin.
As for, the Greens senator, how about halving your vote? Linking penalty rates to some sort of 'white Anglo Saxon' privilege is a extraordinarily leap.
Pauline Hansen was right about Asians taking our jobs! D:
I love how they ran their English tweets through a web translator and then claimed that they have competent staff who are translating them.
A
A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
It's not about only, it's about capability and purpose. A government has greater spending capacity and is less limited in the occasions and reasons it can spend than a profit oriented private sector agent. If you think that in the absence of government spending that the private sector will always pick up the slack then you'd have to believe in one of three things:
- That the private sector is actually lazy and slothful and foregoes low-risk production and consumption unless it's absolutely needed to stop a recession (where risk apparently no longer matters).
- Ricardian equivalence (that people are always thinking long-term and will save to pay for future tax increases to reduce deficits).
- That government spending always causes crowding out, either real or financial. Real crowding out is characterised by inflation, which is modest in Australia (and barely there in much of the developed world) and financial crowding out is a myth because central banks like the RBA control the interest rate.
That's fine as a preference, even if I disagree with it, was more referring to the difference between criticising the levels of spending and taxation and criticising their distribution, composition etc... An extreme pacifist may have criticised the use of deficits and federal income taxes to fight the Nazis, but that's not a view about macro-economics or the efficiency of resource allocation.
Investing in training is pointless without also nurturing industries for those people to work in. We're paying to train other countries workers otherwise and that doesn't really help us.
wait where they planning to use the same method they used on unions on BoM?The world was against him.
like is that what I'm reading here
IPA driven Oz published anti-BoM conspiracy theories were pretty popular for a few months. I'm not at all surprised at this, and I don't mean that in a cynical way, I mean I assumed this is what would have been happening at the time.
We probably don't talk about domestic violence enough in this thread.
Package details: http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...ull-to-commit-41m-to-tackle-domestic-violence
Opinions about this? What would something like this look like? Is this a cop out to not fund womens shelters?
Reading about the DV package it sounds like the bulk of the money will be "to train front-line employees, including police, social and community workers and medical staff." But the real issue has to be, a couple is living in their home on the assumption of shared financial resources. So if the suggestion above is that the woman and kids stay home and the man gets kicked out, why does the $41m not include any financial assistance to compensate for the presumed loss of income?
We probably don't talk about domestic violence enough in this thread.
Package details: http://www.9news.com.au/national/20...ull-to-commit-41m-to-tackle-domestic-violence
Opinions about this? What would something like this look like? Is this a cop out to not fund womens shelters?
Reading about the DV package it sounds like the bulk of the money will be "to train front-line employees, including police, social and community workers and medical staff." But the real issue has to be, a couple is living in their home on the assumption of shared financial resources. So if the suggestion above is that the woman and kids stay home and the man gets kicked out, why does the $41m not include any financial assistance to compensate for the presumed loss of income?
thanks
also jeezus christ "wife bash" like lets ignore that 10-20% of the problem with DV is that it can happen to anyone: husband, wife, gf, bf, defacto, straight & SS-relationship.
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