Warring tribes mean moderates are left right out

Mahhrat says:

07:16am | 20/10/11

@Erick, good article and you’re right.  If I read you right, it seems like we’ve forgotten our humanity.

The saying, “It takes a village to raise a child” is a controversial one, but I wonder if something like, “It takes a village to survive” is something worth considering?

old fart says:

07:35am | 20/10/11

what saddens me is that not so long ago on this forum there were similar conversations about third world Africa which degenerated into a chat about population control and here we are talking about similar events and cricumstances happening in the the only remaining first world “super power”.

Why have none of you suggested the same of what you suggested for Africa might also be applied in America?  Your collective discriminatory slips are showing.  All of you may speak of forgetting your humanity about America, but it was clearly evident you had already done so when discussing the African famine. True one is a natural occurence the other brought about by greed.  The result is the same. innocent people going hungry .

Erick says:

08:13am | 20/10/11

@old fart - That’s because America’s problems are not caused by overpopulation. Nor are America’s problems anywhere near as severe.

Also, we’re not being asked to feed the Americans. They feed themselves, and still produce enough surplus to feed other countries.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

08:34am | 20/10/11

Capitalism itself is not the problem. Crony capitalism is and that’s what Americas got. The oligarchs run the US government. It is its abuse and bad business practices that are the problem, in addition to the lack of strong government oversight.

If you want to discuss the likes of controlling the way we bundle high-risk mortgages and sell them on the stock exchange that is a productive discussion to have, and a most appropriate area to regulate. Or that they rig the game and buy out politicians to ensure a non-level playing field that’s fine.

There is a difference though when we’re debating about subsidising people who sit at home on a couch while I work hard to get a better job.

And there are some specific people who have control over their materialism, but society at large never will. A balance must be found where no-one gets left behind but people can also compete and strive, and success is not punished.

St. Michael says:

11:45am | 20/10/11

“And there are some specific people who have control over their materialism, but society at large never will. A balance must be found where no-one gets left behind but people can also compete and strive, and success is not punished.”

The problem with that sentiment is that some people are stupid and/or poor, and always will be regardless of what you do.  And having no one left behind necessarily means you punish success.

Insofar as quoting Aramaic ex-carpenters is relevant, Jesus Christ, the world’s first great communist, himself said “The poor you will always have with you”, assuming you take the Gospels as literal transcription of his words.

People get left behind.  Always.  But in communist or heavily socialist systems, it’s the majority rather than the minority.  That has been the repeated experience across the board.

Capitalism at least allows different avenues towards prosperity, whether entrepreneurship, stockbroking, property ownership, or simply selling stuff.  It also allows you, to some extent, to choose what level of prosperity you will pursue—it is open to anyone in a capitalist or mostly capitalist society to increase their wealth and their position in life by dint of their own efforts, by having the responsibility to weigh up the costs and benefits of doing so.

Communist or socialist societies don’t allow this.  In these societies, there is only one way of increasing one’s wealth: the Party.  Politics, in short.  You only attain greater wealth and influence by your capacity not for honest work or honest effort but by your ability to be a politician.  And the only way the society “improves” is by the government’s level of control growing ever larger over a free individual’s life.  That is, the great horror of a communist or socialist society is that it’s the government running rampant over individuals.  Capitalism, I grant you, allows for oligarchy (which is why you still need a level of regulation) but it at least allows some competition.  Government allows for no competitors.

Socialist societies also have immense economic problems mainly because of the unholy trinity: moral hazard, government spending, and government competing in the private sector.

Moral hazard is basically “Because the government is watching over this aspect of my life, I am free to take bigger risks than I ordinarily would.”

Government spending is basically “I cannot tax enough money to pay for the huge government I run, therefore I will loan enough to do it and not pay it back (causing a debt default) or print enough money to pay it (causing hyperinflation).”

Government competing in the private sector is basically: “Because the government provides basically free housing/insulation services/solar panels, no other small competitors can exist because they’re wiped out by people rationally choosing the lowest cost commodity.”

Esteban says:

11:59am | 20/10/11

Old fart. If someone believed that Afric’a problems were to a large extent caused by overpopulation and America’s problems were caused by budget deficits (overspending or under taxing take your pick) how would you suggest they stated their case without some old fart seeing racism where none exists?

It is bad enough that free speach is being eroded by the PC brigade but as an old fart you should know better.

Get your racism radar fixed and stop playing “gotcha racist bastard”

Global problems will not be tackled if people can’t talk freely about the real cause of problems.

palone says:

12:30pm | 20/10/11

Flawless article, and extremely well balanced. Good stuff! Do I detect a journo with a heart, Tracey?
More later.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

02:15pm | 20/10/11

St Michael - I don’t advocate socialism or communism - far from it. But capitalism does have its limitations which need to be addressed.

“It also allows you, to some extent, to choose what level of prosperity you will pursue—it is open to anyone in a capitalist or mostly capitalist society to increase their wealth ” - here yes because we have placed limitations on the system but not in the US where you have to pay for your education and healthcare. Capitalism is fine as long as everyone has the chance to participate - here they do - in the US they do not.

Dave says:

03:07pm | 20/10/11

St Michael, what a load of twaddle. How old are you? 17? Do you actually believe that crap that you wrote there?  I havent heard a text book run down on government systems like that since the 1980s. You need to get your head out of your grade 5 text books and get out into the real world. Its completely different to everything you seem to think. I am appalled at your level of ignorance of it.

St. Michael says:

04:07pm | 20/10/11

@ MadKat: “here yes because we have placed limitations on the system but not in the US where you have to pay for your education and healthcare. Capitalism is fine as long as everyone has the chance to participate - here they do - in the US they do not.”

The US does actually have a public education system.  Watch the movie “Waiting for Superman” or indeed Milton Friedman’s net-based presentation on the subject (can’t remember its name right now.)  And the problems with the *public* as opposed to the *private* education system are wholly union-derived and union-imposed.  In short, tenured incompetents that you can’t fire for fear of breaching punitive legislation.  In other words: it is the socialist system that makes government schools bad and forces people to private education, not the other way round.

I agree with you there are some limits to capitalism, in the sense that capitalism requires the rule of law to exist and I personally believe one needs “Goldilocks regulation”—not too little, not too much.  Most governments are too incompetent and vote-focused to deliver this standard of regulation.  But I think the balance is much closer to the less regulation than more.

It’s also important to bear in mind that whatever the criticisms of their capitalism, they still were the vehicle for most of the prosperity that we have in the Western world today, whether directly or indirectly.  Everyone likes to yell “F*&k tha police” until you actually need the police.

@ Dave: in short, elected government and the public sector suck.  At best they are necessary evils in their present forms.  If you haven’t figured that out in the course of your life, whether you’re 17 or 70, then you need your head examined, not just life experience.

Alternatively, please show me a communist or heavily socialist system of government that delivered anything other than a majority misery and suffering to its people in the long run.

Richard says:

04:24pm | 20/10/11

St Michael,

I give you…......most of the Scandinavian countries.  Try Sweden or Norway.

You numpty.

Stop presenting your opinions as facts.  It just makes you look like an utter pompous twat as well as an idiot.

xar says:

04:34pm | 20/10/11

MadKat - just a slight correction on your point. Here we DO have people who can’t participate, we DO have groups who have significant road blocks to participation and we DO have systemic problems which are responsible for some of those road blocks or inabilities. Our problems are not the same but they sure as hell are real and they affect people every day.

LC says:

05:50pm | 20/10/11

@ Richard,

No…sorry.

The Scandanavian countries don’t quite fit the bill there. They still allow privately entities to do business in their countries and make sizable profits doing so, whereas in a heavy socialist country they would be unable to offer their products at a price which can compete with the government and in a communist country they would not be able to operate full stop.

Try again.

Abe Lincoln says:

06:13pm | 20/10/11

One percent of the American population, just over three million, have all the wealth. Between 1979 and 2008, the top 5% of American families saw their real incomes increase by 72.7%. Over the same period 5% of the lowest income families suffered a decrease in incomes of 7.4%. But perhaps most astonishingly, in 1960 the highest income earners in the US paid a tax rate of 91%. Today the multi millionaires and billionaires pay only 35% tax.

Debs says:

08:06am | 20/10/11

Those days are long gone. Australians are in the main very individualistic now, our society is based on every man for himself. Remember all the bleating not so long ago about a small tax to fund the Qld floods disaster recovery. Individual superannuation which guarantees that the wealthy will have plenty whereas the less fortunate will damn near starve. Ordinary middle class Australians often refer to unemployed persons as “dole bludgers”, that is until they lose their own jobs. No mate, Australia is no longer a society, its now an economy where the winners take everything.

Jase says:

08:31am | 20/10/11

No Deb, the bleating about QLD flood levy was because the taxpayer is forced to cover the costs of the lack of insurance carried by the state. Would you be a little unhappy if Joe Bloggs down the road crashed his car with no insurance and then asked the community to cover the replacement/repairs?

Superannuation in an attempt to minimise our pension costs in the future, if anything it is for the benefit of the less wealthy. Without compulsory super, most of the wealthy will be able to retire from personal investments, the same cannot be said about the rest of the population. Generally and this is not always true but the people who create large amounts of personal wealth do so through good financial understanding and planning, those who do not, well typically have no clue. Take a look at those who win lotto and blow it within a few years….

John Smythe says:

08:49am | 20/10/11

Jase, fantastic comment. I was going to comment something similar today because I am getting sick of all the wealth envy people are spewing on the forums lately.

The lotto example nails it right there. People ARE given an opportunity, and what happens…blown it within 5 years. I don’t know the figures/averages, but you will find some wealthy people have gone bankrupt not once but twice or more times, and after each time they bounce right back.

The entitlement mentality masses will get it lose it, and whinge til its handed to them again.

All too many people want the wealth, but want it handed to them and are not prepared to do the work to get it!

acotrel says:

09:00am | 20/10/11

@Debs
You obviously don’t live in a country town ?  We have the joy of seeing volunteers racing out of town on fire trucks, to get to save the property of others, while putting their own lives at risk !
In your world, it’s ‘every man for himself’ , except when he needs help.  He then expects it just to be there !

seanr says:

09:02am | 20/10/11

+1 for Jase

acotrel says:

09:07am | 20/10/11

@Jase
There are no free lunches.  Insurance companies require payment of premiums.  Who pays for that ? - the good old taxpayer !  So what do you want - years of paying sky high premiums, or a once - off levy ?
We only have insurance to moderate the consequences of the risk.  In this case the risk approaches certainty, due to global warming.  Do you think the insurance companies don’t know that ? They are in business to make a profit.

acotrel says:

09:13am | 20/10/11

Debs, during the 60s we had the Ash Wednesday bushfires which burned out the Dandenongs.  I had a friend who lived up there.  The locals were a strange lot.  If a visitor’s car broke down on their road, they’d peep out their curtains, and often wouldn’t even open their door to offer help.  When the fires came they expected to get help from the townies - and it happened !  Individualism is a manifestation of delusion - no man is an island !

Peter says:

09:19am | 20/10/11

@Jase
Would you be a little unhappy if Joe Bloggs down the road crashed his car with no insurance and then asked the community to cover the replacement/repairs?

So you would be happy to leave half a state of Australia completely derelict for the betterment of who? Thou has no national pride.

PTom says:

09:33am | 20/10/11

@Jase,
If “Superannuation in an attempt to minimise our pension costs” why has the coalition opposed to compulsory super when so many appear to have poor financial understanding and planning?

@acotrel,
I agree with Debs those days are disappearing, it does surface every now and then.

JT says:

09:36am | 20/10/11

@acotrel “There are no free lunches.  Insurance companies require payment of premiums.  Who pays for that ? - the good old taxpayer ! “

? no they don’t. The customers of the insurance company pays for them and worse we pay MORE because governments force insurance companies to payout to those who don’t bloody pay.

Jase says:

09:48am | 20/10/11

@ Acotrel, You post is confusing at the very least. The state, and many of the businesses/individuals did not carry sufficient insurance or in many cases insurance at all. So as the tax payer we have been expected to pick up the tab for damages. As I pointed out in my post, this is the exact same scenario as if Joe Bloggs crashed his uninsured car and then asked the community to fund its repairs/replacement.

So let me clarify - It is not the tax payers fault or problem that sufficient insurance was not carried by any individual, business or state in the region. They should have been left to carry the losses as everyone else would be expected to if they were inappropriately insured.

It would have been a good lesson to everyone else who is severely under insured, we see this so often, in natural disasters or unfortunate circumstances. I have no sympathy for people or business or states who do not carry an appropriate amount of insurance.

Jase says:

10:09am | 20/10/11

@ Peter, yes I would be happy to leave half a state fend for themselves, those who were appropriately insured would be in a very good position and those who were not, well should not have been in business anyway. This is no different to the wall street bailout, and to be honest I would have supported letting those banks fail, it would be a hard crash, but it would be short and sweet, unlike this extended curve we are currently on.

All that this QLD flood levy has done, is reassured everyone that “she will be right” and if sh*t hits the fan, the government will bail us out.

@Ptom - Business cannot be expected to cover the cost of increases in superannuation, What labor wants is the increase in super without a decrease in salary, basically they want a something for nothing, surprise surprise…

I would completely support up 20% compulsory super if business was not expected to cover it. It will never happen because it would require a reduction in take home salary, and god forbid we could not have that. Even though it would remove the need for a pension within 40 years and that would eliminate the need for an ever growing population.

It will never happen, because the popular policy will be to expect those who worked bloody hard to accumulate wealth to fund it like we do with everything else.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

10:17am | 20/10/11

PTom - when have the coalition been opposed to compulsory super?

Jase says:

10:30am | 20/10/11

@ John - Thank You! Its not just you who is over the envy towards the wealthy.

Debs says:

10:49am | 20/10/11

@Jase .. the flood levy was to pay towards the repair and replacement of publicly owned infrastructure not to reimburse uninsured individuals or business.

PTom says:

11:23am | 20/10/11

@Jase,
You do realize that parts of pay rise have been held back at time to get the increase from 0 to 9. While at the same time corporate tax rate have been cut to help companies pay.
If people get an average of 2-3% pay rise a year is it so hard to take .25% of that to go to Super over a number of years.

Jase says:

11:40am | 20/10/11

@ Debs, No that was how it was sold to the public, there was significant amounts of compensation paid to individuals and businesses as well. That compensation had to come from somewhere, the government would never have got support for the levy if they had made it publicly know that it would also support individuals and business.

Upwards of $25k was offered for example to small businesses that would not receive full coverage from their insurance company. Where did they money come from?

Jase says:

11:56am | 20/10/11

@Ptom - Where have corporate tax rates been cut?  Last time I checked I am still paying 30%.

Yes it is hard to take 0.25% of a 2-3% increase per annum, because it does not always work like that. What happens when that increase has been made, and the employer is responsible for lets say 20% super and the unions decide that they want to claw back that 0.25% reduction over x amount of years? I can see it now, the argument will be that living costs are out of line with the salary, to hell with the company who now pays 20% super, we want the difference in salary back as well.

What is far simpler, and far more transparent is that super is withheld pre tax from your income, if you want more than the minimum of 20% hypothetically, then great. If not, only 20% is held. Yes you have less in your hand, but you are paying less tax and you really should not have to self invest for the future, as it is now done for you.

Simple is they key.

Debs says:

01:20pm | 20/10/11

@ Jase ... incorrect ..  the money paid to individuals and business came from the Premiers Flood Appeal ... it was money that was freely donated. The flood levy was for public infrastructure only.

PTom says:

01:58pm | 20/10/11

@Jase
Corporate Tax from 1986 to 2001 drop from 49% to 30% at the same time super increase from 0% to 9% for all Australia by 2002.
From 1986 to 1996 the coalition opposed compulsory super.

Again today the coalition oppose tax cuts in the corporate rate which would be used to help increase super the rate.

TKS says:

02:08pm | 20/10/11

I wish people would get their facts right - the Queensland Governement CANNOT get flood insurance. 
http://www.insurancenews.com.au/regulatory-government/no-reinsurance-for-queensland

Labor is Toxic says:

03:02pm | 20/10/11

Damn right Acotrel!!!!

The MUD ARMY and SES during the January Floods are the clear examples of the underpinning strength of the Australian Spirit!!!! We gave money, furniture, clothing, appliances, footware, food, televisions ...... Rosie’s Van and Eddies Van are the less clear examples of what Australians do every day to help the underprivilaged

I remember going to the Coast one schoolies ..... we stayed in a place we labeled ‘Roach Manor’ ...... unfortunately four teenage boys have no idea how to budget and we were saved by three girls who bought down some food!!!

Sorry Debs you must have missed all that!!!

Jase says:

04:38pm | 20/10/11

@Debs - The funding for individuals, ie $1k - $2k came from the appeal, the funding for business came from the commonwealth/qld government under the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements .

@TSK, so then they self insure, they certainly have enough revenue to do so, but clearly did not hold aside enough money to cover any form of natural disaster.

Tator says:

05:30pm | 20/10/11

Ptom,
compulsary super was implemented in July 1992.  Company tax rates were not cut at the same time and it wasn’t until 1993 that the rate was reduced temporarily from 39% to 33% and which was recinded and the rate raised up to 36% in 1995 by Keating.  The Coalition dropped it from 36% to 34% in 2000 and down to 30% in 2001 and currently have a policy of reducing the Company tax rate to 28% which was also taken to the last election.
http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1156/PDF/01_Brief_History.pdf
for the company tax rates and
http://www.liberal.org.au/~/media/Files/Policies and Media/Small Business/SmallBusinessPolicy.ashx
for the Coalitions company tax policy

PTom says:

07:33pm | 20/10/11

@Tator,
1986 Awards worker recieved 3% super.

Where does it say any where Liberal will increase super. No where because it all short term gain for them.

Tator says:

04:14am | 21/10/11

PTom,
that may be true, but those Award based Super schemes were set up by agreements between the employees and their employers with little government intervention and many schemes predated the Hawke Government as well, unlike when it became compulsary in 1992 for ALL employers to provide every permanent full time and part time employee.

Tator says:

08:50am | 21/10/11

PTom,
It is fine for the ALP to decree that superannuation is to increase as they do not have to pay for it and neither does the Australian taxpayer (apart from the government employees that is)  Increasing the compulsary component of superannuation for the private sector is just an impost on business and for businesses which are labour intensive and where labour costs are the largest cost component ie small business, corporate tax cuts of 2% will not cover the increased costs by any margin, and with a large number of small businesses, not even be relevent as they do not pay company tax.
The appropriate way to do this increase is via the enterprise bargaining and not by government fiat as the EB process is where the company can have input as any increase in compulsary super contributions is a defacto payrise as it is an increase in remuneration albeit quarantined into the superannuation system.

L. says:

07:05am | 20/10/11

“You really do wonder how a society can function with such disparity of conditions and yet the opposite, a socialist or cominist state is probably no joy either”

Probably no joy..??

Mate, where have you been for the past 40 years..??

Gregg says:

09:12am | 20/10/11

@L
I might wonder where you have your head with such a shallow comment.
In the past 40 years, I’ve seen the failure of the US with all their military might unable to defeat the will of a peoples in pjamas wearing sandals, not that Vietnam as one communist state is doing too badly considering the well over a quarter century of conflict foisted on to them after another quarter century or so of colonial rule.
And yes, I’ve been there and they have a long way to go, just like a lot of asia and the sub continent.

However, my drift for what it is worth is that though Communism has largely failed, the collapse of the soviet bloc we’ve seen and communism in China has all but morphed into something else for some,  life in a communist country or former one is no picnic for many and travel into the countryside and you could still witness a peasants life, one also available in many non communist countries as well.

And yes, in both communist and non communist, you always have the elite and the peasantry.

The big difference between a Communist state and a Capitalist state like the US is that at least in one you’ll have millions of the peasant class well able to grow produce to feed themselves whereas the alternative witnessed is people unable to feed themselves, the US also very reliant on much illegal and immigrant labour just so they can hand out potatoes.

So where is that head again?

acotrel says:

09:16am | 20/10/11

@L
And how is Mr B.A. Santamaria going these days ? He’s probably up there meeting the ghosts of our Vietnam casualties ?

Erick says:

09:39am | 20/10/11

@Gregg - You seem to neglect the famines caused by forced collectivisation in Communist countries.

Approximately 10 million starved to death during the 1930s in the Ukraine alone. During Mao’s “Great Leap Forward in the late 50s, about 30 million died from starvation. Starvation continues to kill in North Korea today.

Communist nations are rarely able to feed themselves. It’s only when they change their economic system to some form of capitalism, like China did, that they start to improve.

People aren’t starving in America, because the American system produces more than enough food for everyone. And if people can’t afford to buy food, the government buys it for them.

Capitalist systems at their worst are still better than communist systems at their best.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

09:43am | 20/10/11

Gregg - “The big difference between a Communist state and a Capitalist state like the US is that at least in one you’ll have millions of the peasant class well able to grow produce to feed themselves” - not true. Don’t you remember seeing people standing in long lines to get food. At the end of communism the stores were bare and people were starving. Take a look at North Korea now.

James says:

10:01am | 20/10/11

@Erick

Approximately 10 million starved to death during the 1930s in the Ukraine alone.

As a descendant of the those people, it was not the system of government, but the hatred of Ukranian nationalism that was the source for the mass genocide.
The Ukraine is the food bowl of the region.

Erick says:

11:19am | 20/10/11

@James - It still comes down to the system of government in the end. Only a totalitarian system like Communism or Nazism can commit genocide on such a grand scale.

Even in the absence of genocide, the Soviet Union could rarely feed itself and relied on food imports.

Gregg says:

02:41pm | 20/10/11

@Erick,
Not so much forgetting famines just as NK is currently and near always suffering from malnutrition but more comparing the likes of the many agriculturual workers in China, millions upon millions no doubt reliant on growing their own tucker and more for the other millions, no doubt a bit like India and a few other asian nations.

And @Madkat
Sure, NK is a special case and some of the rest of socialist countries have had their problems in decades gone though as I say to Erick, it is the nature of a countries manpower make-up that I am referring to and whereas the US obviously has many unable to fend for themselves too well, with countries that have more of an agriculturual base, they may be less affected by a big economic downturn.

There are plenty of city bound folk in China too but the Chinese would be less reticent about getting them out into the fields if need be and whereas the US and likes of us, Canada etc. also produce a lot with much mechanisation, the economy goes down the gurglar and it’s no picnic for the farmers either and so when the times are really tough there might not be too many potatoes to hand out.

I know of a few ex farmers who are still running their sizable garden plots on small acreages.

Jane2 says:

02:43pm | 20/10/11

Pay levels in organisations seem to work on the 25% rule, each level down earns 25% less than the level above. In a large organisation where there are 12 levels between the mail boy and the CEO, the mail person earns $31,000 while the CEO earns $1m.

If you want to work somewhere where there is les disparity, chose a workplace with very few staff.

James1 says:

09:07am | 21/10/11

Proportionally, the English managed a genocide on a similar scale in Ireland during the Potato Famine.  And England was a democracy (of sorts) at the time.  A system needn’t be totalitarian to attempt to get rid of a population they find annoying.

Erick says:

11:26am | 21/10/11

@James 1 - Point taken about the potato famine.

I should rephrase my sentence to something like “Totalitarian systems like Nazism and Communism typically commit genocide on a grand scale. Democratic and free market systems rarely do so.”

SimpleSimon says:

08:23am | 20/10/11

The Republicans will still complain and will call the Democrats “Socialists”.

One of the biggest flaws with the US system is that they can have a President who does not hold the balance of power in Congress - and by a significant margin. What good is a Government who doesn’t have the numbers to get any of their legislation passed?

Direct says:

01:51pm | 20/10/11

A government that can’t pass legislation is a government that is prevented from further intruding on the lives of it’s citizens. What you perceive as it’s biggest flaw is actually it’s greatest asset.

Jase says:

08:15am | 20/10/11

I would have to disagree. Compulsory voting gives us an entire group of people who have no interest in politics and are sucked into whatever scheme gives them the most freebies. Look at the attempt to sell the carbon tax, “handouts all round” unless of course you are the one’s getting raped and pillaged of money to pay for all of these handouts.

We now have a government more interested in buying peoples votes rather than coming up with strong policies. This happens with both sides, left and right.

Compulsory voting has lead to a lot of people just ticking a box to satisfy a requirement, we then end up with directionless governments. If we did not have compulsory voting, the structure of the government would be very very different.

Bev says:

08:15am | 20/10/11

I have to disagree.  Compulsory voting I would suggest has allowed the rise of party hacks and apparatchiks who have little or no connection with their electorates as the vote is guarantied.  MP’s in a situation where the vote is not guarantied must “work” their electorates and listen to the voters and have a connection with the people in their electorates something which does not happen now.  It stops professional polies who have worked their way through the system and have no knowledge of working in the real world being parachuted into safe electorates with which they have no connection and little interest in.

Jane2 says:

09:23am | 20/10/11

One thing compulsary voting has done is given us all teh right to complain. We can either complain about teh party we didnt vote for doing stupid things or we can complain about the party we did vote for doing stupid things.

In places without compulsary voting, those that dont vote really dont have the right to complain as by not voting they clearly said that any party will do.

[And think about it, most of Australia is so apathetic about politics, if it was not compulsary here we would probably have 1000 people in 24m deciding on who will run the country!]

Shane From Melbourne says:

09:27am | 20/10/11

@Jase- Come off it, Howard didn’t buy votes? Every election it was some new middle class welfare (only for families, I might add), a tax cut or both. As for getting raped and pillaged of money to pay for all these handouts, singles and childless couples have been screwed for decades….

Kipling says:

09:28am | 20/10/11

Actually, compulsory voting merely ensures that everyone registered will put pencil to paper and cast some kind of vote. In this way it ensures your right to whinge because you did, in fact, vote….

Of course, the other side of the coin is, it would be unsupportive of democratic principles to simply do away with compulsory voting without first having spent a couple of generations time in teaching people about our political system, how it is suppose to function, the rules and regulations that bind it etc etc etc. Uneducated people (wrt politics) do not make informed decisions about who they vote for, why they need to vote or (in a non compulsory system) if they will vote.
Simply put, for the main part it appears (at least) that the majority are of the opinion that Government is something done to them rather than being something done for them and about them. Democracy may well be the best sham of humanity.

PTom says:

09:55am | 20/10/11

Compulsory voting allow moderation in voting by having to cater to the centre but where our system fails but the American work is the primaries.
If we have non-compulsory primaries for major parties it might encourage pollies to actual contest to represent their parties and get the policies worked out before the electorates decides.

But to have primaries we may need to look at fixed terms.

Jase says:

10:20am | 20/10/11

@ Shane -  Both sides, I am not pushing the liberals here at all, both sides buy votes because its the easiest way to gain control. It is hard to get the vote of the highly educated, its not so difficult to get the vote of someone who really does not have a clue, they see $$$ and tick that box. As Jane points out, if it was not compulsory then very few people would vote, and those few people are the ones who are hard to get votes from, the rest just do not care but make up the majority.

Unfortunately the latest government has been the latest to perform the act and I have used them as the example.

Bev says:

10:55am | 20/10/11

Kipling says:10:28am | 20/10/11

Of course, the other side of the coin is, it would be unsupportive of democratic principles to simply do away with compulsory voting without first having spent a couple of generations time in teaching people about our political system,

I would suggest that this would be a natural progression from non compulsory voting first because it would be in polies best interest to educate people something they don’t bother with now.  Second I doubt it would take several generations.  I give people credit for looking after their best interests. It would take no more than 2 elections for people to realize that their vote was important and did count unlike today where in safe seats many go through the motions only because they have to.  The result is pretty much a forgone conclusion.  Something that cannot be said where you don’t have to vote and the result is not as predictable as it is now..

Bev says:

11:00am | 20/10/11

Jase says:11:20am | 20/10/11

As Jane points out, if it was not compulsory then very few people would vote,
Again I disagree. If people are happy with government the vote will fall away over time.  If they are not happy people become motivated to vote as they perceive that their vote will make a big difference

Jase says:

12:13pm | 20/10/11

“If people are happy with government the vote will fall away over time.  If they are not happy people become motivated to vote as they perceive that their vote will make a big difference”

Not true, and my Sister is a perfect example of this. She does not care, one way or another and probably never will. For her vote she just goes and puts numbers in random boxes. How is that good for the country?
I have asked her why she does it, and the response is simply that she could not care less and that they are as bad as each other.

An uninformed decision is the worst decision that one can make.

Yes if voting was not compulsory and an issue was big enough that people voted through motivation, then that is true democracy. Having people just place numbers in a box because they have to is not democracy at all.
Lets say that 1% of the population made random votes like my sister, that would be enough to significantly change the outcome of an election based on pure luck that you received some of those votes. We might as well have the pollies play a Texas holdem tournament to decide the outcomes, they would at least have to have some skill at what they do.

Bev says:

01:18pm | 20/10/11

Jase says:01:13pm | 20/10/11
He I’m one your side I do not think compulsory voting is a good.

Kipling says:

08:24am | 21/10/11

So, supposing compulsory voting is simply done away with. To date there has been nothing occur that would enourage a belief that any form of political education would accompany this move so it is reasonable to assume that many will not bother voting….

The glaringly obvious outcome then is that we no longer have a representative democracy, because the numbers will only be based on those who can be bothered to go and vote. Will their votes be informed? That is impossible to confidently answer. Of course, all those who do not vote will then have no voice, no right of reply and no idea….

I think the removal of compulsory voting can only come after a full and thorough move to politicise the wider public through education.

Politicians are not going to like that though, an informed public is one that can take real political power and do something effective with it.

John says:

07:44am | 20/10/11

The reality is the Americans people are to weak to dislodge their occupiers. This means the occupiers will hang on to power as long as they can then the their economy will crumble because of the law of nature which the bankers can’t manipulate. The occupiers will then flee America to some safe haven in the world. Political, Banking and Media will occur when the system dies. For now life support is keeping it alive, keeping change paralyzed. Once the crash comes, the international bankers are going flee via private learjets with all the gold.

jf says:

07:46am | 20/10/11

Perhaps you could point to one mainstream article or opinion calling for slashes to the wages of lower income workers or legitimate welfare recipients.

As to your comments on capitalism, at least it is the few that are even in the gutters rather than most as in alternative systems. It’s not ideal but to continually rage for a society in which everyone is the same is not realistic or helpful.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

07:49am | 20/10/11

Trevor - “Economics is the study of wealth distribution within a society” - no its not Trevor - its the study of scarcity of our society.

Can’t take you seriously anymore after your post yesterday that the only degrees that should be taught in university are arts degrees, and medicine should be taught at TAFE.

Erick says:

08:10am | 20/10/11

Capitalism is the worst possible economic system - apart from all the others that have been tried.

It’s easy to be blinded to the virtues of a free market if you concentrate only on its faults. Capitalism may not distribute the wealth very evenly, but at least it creates lots of it. A capitalist society in depression is still better off than a communist society at its best.

Jase says:

08:51am | 20/10/11

Well said Erik!

JT says:

09:06am | 20/10/11

Capitalism is simply human nature evolved into economic theory. Every other system attempts to change or deny human nature and thus always end up in misery, death and totalitarianism.

Leave capitalism alone and everyone benefits, interfere with it and you cause bubbles, recessions and pain because every intervention is an attempt to modify human nature and as I said already, that ends up badly.

andye says:

09:12am | 20/10/11

@Erick - The majority of leftists don’t want true communism. The “free market” is anything but, with all sorts of complex exceptions. What I think is a big issue is that we are often arguing between two slightly different approaches to managing this market like they are diametrically opposed political systems.

Tax cuts for the poor? EVIL SOCIALISM! COMMIES!
Corporate welfare? CORRUPT OUT OF CONTROL CAPITALISM!

In the end, most people who (like me) consider themselves left don’t want communism. It is clear that something is wrong, however, when we are (according to an article in the Australian today) the wealthiest nation on earth and the wealthy are crying poor.

It would be good to be able to discuss whether there are imbalances in our imperfect system that can be addressed to help our fellow Australians enjoy this prosperity without constantly being accused of the most extreme political position.

Trevor says:

09:29am | 20/10/11

MadKat, maybe you should go back to that article and read my reponse to you. Yet again you totally misunderstood what I said. I can’t take people seriously people who are so busy concentrating on the micro issues that you can’t see the broader global picture.

Erick. Yes, some of the worst systems in histrory have been ‘socialist’, but some of the best have been also. Read some Plato mate and what how Socrates ranks the various systems. Not that I subscribe dogmatically to his writings like a fundamentalist economic anarchist, however there are some very salient points about mob mentality.

Histroy is like the news, it is only recorded when bad stuff happens and we seem to loose perspective in a constant shift to the right.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

09:35am | 20/10/11

JT “Leave capitalism alone and everyone benefits, interfere with it and you cause bubbles, recessions and pain because every intervention is an attempt to modify human nature and as I said already, that ends up badly” - leave capitalist completely alone and you get corruption as well. There is no such thing as a perfect market system - there needs to be some intervention.

AdamC says:

09:39am | 20/10/11

Spot on, Erick. Nutjob political and economic ideologies always get a run at times of economic distress, the 1930s being a case in point. Sure, when times are bad, liberal capitalism and democracy seem like failures. But, even on their worst days, they are more appealing than the alternatives.

Alternatives that, nowadays, seem vague at best. At least ideas like communism and fascism were reasonably well-articulated. The far left of today, however, seem big on bitching, but light on cogent ideas. (See the increasingly silly occupy-everywhere-but-the-backyard-dunny ‘movement’ for as a rather pointless case in point - pun intended.)

Jane2 says:

09:45am | 20/10/11

Trevor the divide is not so much between those who profited and those too late, although there is definately a lot of that, its between those who banked the profit and those that used it to buy more debt.

There are many middle americans who lost homes not because they bought overpriced property they couldnt afford but because they riped the equity out of it for holidays, cars, college educatiosn for the kids etc. or used the equity to buy an investment property which “would set them up for life” as “property never goes down”.  [Sound familiar Australia!]

It was greeed across all classes who lived debt fuelled lives and are discovering that unemployment doesnt just happen to other people. That have been forced to go from a two income family to single income family (so dont qualify for food stamps) and are seriously struggling.

Capitalism is good, its human greed to have better than your neighbours which is bad and exists under all styles of government including communism.

JT says:

09:46am | 20/10/11

@MadKat ‘‘here is no such thing as a perfect market system - there needs to be some intervention.’‘

True but I think you understand the kind of intervention I speak of.

JT says:

09:56am | 20/10/11

@Trevor ‘‘Yes, some of the worst systems in histrory have been ‘socialist’, but some of the best have been also’‘

Umm no there hasn’t. Socialism always fails. It denies human nature and results in poverty, misery, and tyranny.

Trevor says:

09:58am | 20/10/11

@JF
“Perhaps you could point to one mainstream article or opinion calling for slashes to the wages of lower income workers or legitimate welfare recipients.”
     
I refer you to every article on the punch. Constant calls for unions to just ‘suck it up and take their paycuts’, welfare recipients ‘should be stripped of their entitlements after the first kid’, ‘I strongly object to smokers receiving public money when they get sick’. These are just what I can think off the top of my head from the last few days and representative of the sentiment currently being bandied about by right-wing social illiterates.

“As to your comments on capitalism, at least it is the few that are even in the gutters rather than most as in alternative systems.”

Capitalism would certainly have many people out in the gutters were we to have a totally Capitalist society. Luckily the social safety net has prevented that as we live in a welfare state. Read some Dmitiry Orlov mate, you’ll see that nobody starved after the collapse of the USSR. Sure there were a some hard times, but had that of happened here, I shudder to think what would have happened, especially if we had a conservative Liberal government at the time. Sure China and India have the destitute living in the gutter with no hope for improvement, but ironically enough, they have a more capitalist economic system than we do, so you are dead wrong.

“It’s not ideal but to continually rage for a society in which everyone is the same is not realistic or helpful.”

I’m not raging for everyone to be equal. Only for a society where people such as Bill Gates can’t accumulate enough wealth for 10,000 lifetimes and still feel justified in whinging about ‘intellelectual property rights’. A system where the high end of town kick people out of there homes for falling behind in mortagage repayments yet put their hands out for trillions of dollars of PUBLIC money when they make poor business decisions. Sure MadKat is going to pipe in in their defence with ‘but they paid the money back!’ which may or may not be true. Fact is, if we lived in the capitalist society that you aspire to and to which they hold the less financially blessed so they should have been allowed to go to the wall, regardless of the consequences. Hypocrites.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

10:12am | 20/10/11

Trevor - I haven’t misunderstood what you said, I disagree with what you said - but it’s the same old crap with you - you know everything and everyone else knows nothing.

BTW, doctors do some very critical thinking - they don’t go through their careers just parroting what they learnt in uni. Your analogy of a mechanic starting a car to a doctor saving lives is crazy.

Erick says:

10:12am | 20/10/11

@andye - Yes, some form of modified capitalism is the obvious solution to most people. You might think that communism has been thoroughly discredited by now, but unfortunately the communists were very good at one thing - propaganda.

You only need to look as far as Gregg’s comment at 10:12am above, to see that some people still harbour serious delusions about communism. You’ll also find lots of people who think communism is viable among students and academics, and the Wall Street protesters too.

That’s why it’s important to keep repeating the facts, even though they may seem obvious to us.

reddragon says:

10:27am | 20/10/11

@Adamc. Saw a good quote yesterday about the “Occupy Everywhere” movement which sums it all up so well:

“We’re here
We’re unclear
Get used to it”

MadKat of Melbourne says:

10:54am | 20/10/11

Erick - socialists and communists are quick to criticise capitalism however fail to apply the same investigations to their own economic theories. They paint a picture of a utopia however fail to explain how to get there.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

11:12am | 20/10/11

Trevor - “MadKat is going to pipe in in their defence with ‘but they paid the money back!’ which may or may not be true” - I didn’t pipe to anyone’s defence. My post consisted of one line of fact to a wrong assumption you made - I never wrote an opinion on the fact so don’t put words in my mouth. But you never let facts get in the way of one of your rants.

If you bother to read my posts I have never defended the corporations or the US government in their roles in the GFC. Read my posts here today for examples. You look like a fool Trevor.

Erick says:

11:13am | 20/10/11

@Trevor - “Read some Dmitiry Orlov mate, you’ll see that nobody starved after the collapse of the USSR.”

No, but well over 10 million died of starvation starved during the reign of the Soviet Union. Nobody is dying of starvation in the US or Australia today.

The USSR, like all communist systems, could never provide the needs of its citizens.

Jase says:

11:32am | 20/10/11

@ Trevor - Why should an individual not be allowed to accumulate as much wealth as they desire?? This response is bound to be good.

If someone works hard to obtain a small or big fortune, what right do you have to sit there and criticise them for doing so?

If i was content with living a mediocre lifestyle then I would simply find a partner, make some babies and go on the dole. I would then be provided with housing, income and benefits to live a lifestyle that would be considered upper class in most third world countries.
I would not have to worry about taking risks with my own money in an attempt to better myself and my family, you know most millionaires did start with zilch at some point? Or do you just assume that they are all born with a money tree…
I would not have to worry about working 24/7, yes 24/7 when things go bad, guess who gets the phone call? My mind is on my business at all times of day and most nights, I think back to when I started and at times it was not uncommon to sleep only 2 hours a night for a week or longer on end.
I would not have to spend countless hours studying, to better myself in the hope that someday I would live a comfortable life and to make sure that the decisions that I make are the best decisions possible.
You forget that the money does not just fall off a tree, it is EARNED.

People spend years building the wealth that you appear to want to strip from them to fund the lazy and incompetent. Can you see why the attack on wealth is taken so personally by most? Because we worked HARD to obtain it.

Actually I would go as far as saying that the more and more society looks to blame the wealthy for the problems, the more contempt they hold against society for making us out to be the problem and that is driving your class gap. Stop making them out to be the problem and more of them would be willing to show more compassion.

I am very pro capitalism and I do not agree with any bailouts, for big business or individuals or countries for that matter. They should have let them default, however you would have then piped up about what a bad decision it was letting the banks and the economy fail because the government would have been unable to pay welfare because it quite simply had no revenue.
Actually we were almost at that point only a few months back when they would not lift the debt ceiling, within less than a week the government would have been no longer be capable of making welfare payments. What then?

No revenue = no welfare

Trevor says:

11:39am | 20/10/11

MadKat, nice try. In that thread you asked me whether you understood correctly and I pointed out that you didn’t. Don’t be a braggart now and try to put it over on me that you understood the entire time.

“but it’s the same old crap with you - you know everything and everyone else knows nothing.”

Never heard of a bigger hypocrite than you MadKat. In my life. After my very first post on this website where I was talking about GDP and Tragedy of the Commons you came out with this:

“I have a Masters in Economics and can tear apart any argument you put forward.”

So please don’t lecture me about thinking I know everything. You couldn’t lie straight in bed!

Give me an example of a doctor that uses critical thinking skills for purposes other than diagnosis? Which is where the analogy with the mechanic comes in. I acknowledged that it is at a much higher level than that, but a similar sort if thing. Same with economics and law. I don’t think it’s an insulting to doctors to hold this opinion at all, however you appear to.

Ever had an original idea MadKat? Or do you just continually parrot the shit the main stream media and ‘academia’ pumps out?

AdamC says:

11:55am | 20/10/11

That’s clever, reddragon. It seems to me that the OWS people created a protest before they worked out what they actually wanted. It’s the wrong way around!

St. Michael says:

11:58am | 20/10/11

@ Trevor: “A system where the high end of town kick people out of there homes for falling behind in mortagage repayments yet put their hands out for trillions of dollars of PUBLIC money when they make poor business decisions.”

It’s disingenuous to put those two together.

The first is a decision by the private sector.  It’s entirely justified.  When you sign a contract, you make a promise.  If you don’t decide to keep up on that promise, you have basically cheated the bank out of a large sum of money since you agreed to pay it back and then decided not to.  So the bank needs to recover its losses.

The second—the bailout—depends on the public sector.  And the public sector, or rather the government, is completely amoral.  It doesn’t care about anything except enough votes to keep it in power.  The government decides to bail out banks, not the people.  If you don’t like that, change the government.  Don’t put private sector and public sector decisions together, they’re so far apart one simply does not comprehend the other.

jf says:

12:08pm | 20/10/11

Trevor says:

10:58am | 20/10/11

“I refer you to every article on the punch. Constant calls for unions to just ‘suck it up and take their paycuts’,”

I believe that you mean union members because union executive sure as hell aren’t going without. On that assumption, link one article that is calling for union members to take pay cuts. Just one.

“welfare recipients ‘should be stripped of their entitlements after the first kid’, ‘I strongly object to smokers receiving public money when they get sick’.”

Is that a mainstream author making these comments or a random reader (who may or may not be in the extreme fringes) making these comments. You yourself say that these are the comments being “bandied about by right-wing social illiterates”. So again, post one article by a mainstream conservatives calling for welfare cuts for those genuinely in need and/or are genuinely disabled.

“Capitalism would certainly have many people out in the gutters were we to have a totally Capitalist society. Luckily the social safety net has prevented that as we live in a welfare state.”

I don’t quite understand what you are getting at here, but if you mean a society in which there are no rules then regulations then I agree. But that isn’t capitalism, it is feudalism or anarchy. A genuine capitalist society does have rules and regulations, it does organisation and centralism and it does have a safety net for those that are genuinely left out.

“Read some Dmitiry Orlov mate, you’ll see that nobody starved after the collapse of the USSR.”

Do you mean when it stopped being a Communist dictatorship during which period millions starved to death and more were murdered? Hardly an endorsement of your point. I think you may also be referring to Orlov’s theory that the USA will fare worse when their system collapses. Well, I guess we’ll wait and see. In the meantime, I would much rather have lived in the USA during its worst period than in the USSR during its best, particularly if I was poor or inclined to speak my mind. 

“Sure there were a some hard times, but had that of happened here, I shudder to think what would have happened, especially if we had a conservative Liberal government at the time.”

Why? We have had conservative governments through some of our toughest economic times and have been well governed. Compare that with what is happening in Australian now – widespread discontent with the Government, rolling strikes throughout the country, business struggling, home prices going down, forced home foreclosures increasing, bankruptcies increasing.

“Sure China and India have the destitute living in the gutter with no hope for improvement, but ironically enough, they have a more capitalist economic system than we do, so you are dead wrong.”

Are you referring to the communist dictatorship of China or the socialist government of India or a China and India in some other parallel universe.

“yet put their hands out for trillions of dollars of PUBLIC money when they make poor business decisions”

On this, I agree with you. Shouldn’t have happened.

Trevor says:

01:49pm | 20/10/11

So much to respond to! With the 5000 word limit (that I found out last night writing a dissertation totally discrediting MadKat which never got posted!), I’ll have to address each of you briefly:

St. Michael.

“@ Trevor: “A system where the high end of town kick people out of there homes for falling behind in mortagage repayments yet put their hands out for trillions of dollars of PUBLIC money when they make poor business decisions.”

It’s disingenuous to put those two together.”

I don’t think so, not when you are talking about regimes which I thought was apparent. A regime, as opposed to a government, is an entrenched system within a society (a paradigm if you will) that is widely accepted by both political parties in the interests of self promotion and profit. That’s what I meant by ‘the high end of town’.

“And the public sector, or rather the government, is completely amoral.  It doesn’t care about anything except enough votes to keep it in power.”

Very mercenary concept there that flies in the face of the fact that the current Gillard government is implementing unpopular policies for the good of the nation’s future despite the poor poll ratings. I could say this about the private sector: “And the private sector, or rather companies, are completely amoral. They don’t care about anything except returning exponentially increasing returns to shareholders.”

“If you don’t like that, change the government.”

After the GFC and Bush gave all that public money to the private sector ‘Too Big Too Fail Banks’ people did ask for change and elected Obama. Who picked up exactly where Bush left off and even increased the money flowing to the private sector. Refer to my first point regarding regimes. This is a massive part of the frustration of the OWS protestors.

Trevor says:

01:51pm | 20/10/11

Jase

“@ Trevor - Why should an individual not be allowed to accumulate as much wealth as they desire?? This response is bound to be good.”

Simple. Because there is only so much money in the world. A zero-sum game.  And as we all know, the more money we have, the easier it is to accumulate more (not harder). Now of course I realise that with a fiat currency the money supply is increasing, however as you will point out this is because of ‘hard working individuals’ generating wealth. The problem lies with the ‘trickle down theory’. Certainly you aren’t going to argue that Bill Gates is going to spend that $50bil in his lifetime, so it sits in his bank account not trickling anywhere. There need to be a limit for trickle down to work.

I don’t deny that he should be handsomely rewarded for all his ‘hard work’ (won’t say the same about Oprah Winfrey), however how much does one person need? Good luck with the business mate, entrepreneurs do have a vital part in a fair and just economy.

“People spend years building the wealth that you appear to want to strip from them to fund the lazy and incompetent.”

No, I want funds to be redirected to our decrepit health system, competent defence forces, aged care facilities, schools etc. That lazy and incompetent crap is just right-wing rhetoric. However, why should an incompetent person have to live in a society where he lives in the gutter because he can’t compete?

“They should have let them default, however you would have then piped up about what a bad decision it was letting the banks and the economy fail because the government would have been unable to pay welfare because it quite simply had no revenue.”

Where did you get this from? Everybody would have had to take a haircut and normal economic growth could have resumed, rather than the limping train wreck of an economy we have at the moment.

Jane2

“Capitalism is good, its human greed to have better than your neighbours which is bad and exists under all styles of government including communism.”

Do understand the underlying principles of capitalism? It main thesis, upon which all else follows, is that people are generally good and want to help their neighbour. It’s this line that justifies the economic anarchy that is capitalism. Read Ayn Rand, the poster girl of the right wing.

JF

Sorry mate, I meant comments, not articles.

“I don’t quite understand what you are getting at here, but if you mean a society in which there are no rules then regulations then I agree. But that isn’t capitalism, it is feudalism or anarchy.”

Do you understand that pure capitalism is essentially economic anarchy don’t you? Limited or preferably zero interference in the market. Law of the jungle stuff. This socialism stuff is rhetoric. Everytime budget cuts need to be made, commentators will take up the ‘socialist’ attack method. Look at the Tea Party calling universal health care ‘Socialism gone mad’. Same here with the Carbon Tax. Universal health care withstood the Macarthy era communist hunting days, but it’s in trouble now.

“A genuine capitalist society does have rules and regulations.”

No it doesn’t. Don’t think we live in a purely capitalist society today. It’s a welfare state.

“Are you referring to the communist dictatorship of China or the socialist government of India or a China and India in some other parallel universe.”

You are referring to their political systems. I explicitly said ‘economic systems.’

Glad we agree on the last point.

The Jackel says:

02:06pm | 20/10/11

Trevor | I see you posting fevoured piles about a left-wing utopia vision but little substance on how to attain it. Do you actually have any practical ideas on a framework to achieve this vision or is it all just hot-air? I’ll give you a couple of pointers to start:

Are you advocating all means of production to be the property of the state? What about the distribution of the production, is that state controlled as well? What would you change about this process which has made all other socialist and communists economies fall? What advice would you give to the State when trying to tackle the Economic Calculation Problem that befalls all socialist and communist economies?

Any thoughts??

JT says:

03:43pm | 20/10/11

@Trevor ‘‘Simple. Because there is only so much money in the world. A zero-sum game. ‘’

Bloody hell Trevor, how could anyone take you seriously when you make such a glaringly stupid mistake. Wealth IS NOT a zero sum game. It is such a astoundingly bad mistake that pretty much every single other belief you have can probably be dismissed as bulldust right now.

St. Michael says:

03:56pm | 20/10/11

“Very mercenary concept there that flies in the face of the fact that the current Gillard government is implementing unpopular policies for the good of the nation’s future despite the poor poll ratings.”

Right.  So that’s totally why Gillard said no carbon tax before the election, but in order to stay in power now and secure the Greens’ support for government, there is one.  It’s still mercenary.  It still amounts to vote buying.  You just haven’t learned to subtract as well as add yet.

“No, I want funds to be redirected to our decrepit health system, competent defence forces, aged care facilities, schools etc. That lazy and incompetent crap is just right-wing rhetoric.”

Where do you think the money comes from? Government does not make its own goods to sell for a profit.  (Or when it does, it’s incompetent at doing it.)  In short: you want more money from people who worked to earn it for government departments that did not and do not.

Additionally: more money does not make government departments work better.  If it did, essential and squeaky-wheel departments like health, schools, and the unions that back them should be turning out ninjas by now.

“However, why should an incompetent person have to live in a society where he lives in the gutter because he can’t compete?”

There’s no such thing as “can’t compete” in a society where charity begins at home and where people are expected to be responsible for their own station in life.  There’s only “won’t” compete or “hasn’t yet figured out how to” compete.  (Extreme disability is an exception.)  Not to mention that the consequence of trying to change the whole system for one person is that you drag ever more people down into it due to the moral hazard you create.  Resorting to extremes is a poor way to make your argument, you ought to rethink it.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

06:25pm | 20/10/11

Poor Trevor - its takes you a whole 5000 word dissertation to discredit me while I can do it to you in a couple of lines. And still crapping on about my first post to you from months and months and months ago - well cry me a bloody river - you need to toughen up and stop acting like a baby -

“@Trevor ‘‘Simple. Because there is only so much money in the world. A zero-sum game.”

“zero-sum game” doesn’t exist in economics - let me get technical and see if you can keep up:

If a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a condition in which a agents gain (or loss) of utility is precisely balanced by the losses (or gains) of the utility of other agents. So total gains are added up and total losses are also added up and then the sum of gains and losses will equal ZERO.

How then do you account for economic growth or economic decline for that matter. Name me one economy where the condition has been a zero sum game.

“Because there is only so much money in the world” - governments print money all the time - theoretically there is an infinite amount of money in the world so the world economy could never be a zero-sum game.

Trevor says:

10:54pm | 20/10/11

Well done people, you’ve jumped on my obvious mix-up and intentionally disregarded the second part of that statement which would have made it obvious to a 2year old what I meant. When I said:

‘Simple. Because there is only so much money in the world. A zero-sum game.  And as we all know, the more money we have, the easier it is to accumulate more (not harder). Now of course I realise that with a fiat currency the money supply is increasing, however as you will point out this is because of ‘hard working individuals’ generating wealth.’

Swap the ‘money’ and ‘wealth’ in the first and last sentences respectively. That is what I meant to write but got mixed up. Congrats.

By wealth I mean stuff. Houses, cars, assets. There are only so many in the world and the economy stopped producing anything of real value a while back. The information technology revolution is the last real ‘thing’ that has entered the marketplace to facilitate the growth that modern capitalism requires.  Hence the bubble economy that has followed.

Trevor says:

12:03am | 21/10/11

Oh yeah MadKat, here is the link to yesterday’s article just in case you do want to read my thoughts regarding your moral superiority to my humble self:

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/punch-on-open-thread-19-10-2011/

MadKat of Melbourne says:

08:09am | 21/10/11

“Oh yeah MadKat, here is the link to yesterday’s article just in case you do want to read my thoughts regarding your moral superiority to my humble self:” - Trevor I would if what you think really mattered but I don’t really want to waste my time reading a whinge-feast because your little feelings are hurt - have another cry and then go have a lie down, you’ll feel better -

Trevor says:

08:40am | 21/10/11

Jackal,

Also applies to Erick. MadKat, JT and whomever else has me marked for a ‘crazy leftie’.

I’M NOT, AND NEVER HAVE, ADVOCATED A COMMUNIST TOTALITARIAN REGIME!!!!!!!!

I defend socialism to try to shine some light on the better aspects and to counter the anti-red propaganda that seems to be being vented everywhere recently here and in the US. Aspects that have been acknowledged to be good and melded with capitalism by our venerated forebears for the betterment of society. Universal health care and education, humane aged care, a safety net for those out of work and the poor etc.

I’m writing in defence of the welfare state in its current-ish form. The system that has provided humans the highest standard of living in history and which we are in danger of losing due to the anti-communist and socialist propaganda that is being pushed by the right as well as the neoliberal agenda espoused by flat-earthers such as Milton Friedman originating in Adam Smith.

Erick (the quintessential staunch right-winger) himself concedes above that “Yes, some form of modified capitalism is the obvious solution to most people.” but is blinded by his right wing rage at ‘dole-bludgers’ that he can’t see that such a system is struggling to exist in front of his very eyes. It hasn’t been undermined by dole-bludgers and single mothers, but by the entrenched globalist neoliberal agenda that compels governments reduce corporate tax rates to attract offshore investment, reduce income taxes to buy votes and privatise income earning assets for short term ‘profit-realisation’. All to the chant of ‘growth at all costs!’  This growth has turned malignant. As David Suzuki once said, ‘the only thing that grows continually is cancer, which then kills the host and thus itself.’ Well growth is over, something is going to die soon!

Check out this link:

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-20/role-energy-economic-growth

Continued next post…

Trevor says:

08:41am | 21/10/11

So I guess I would start by putting us back on the gold standard. Good time to roughly coinciding with the end of growth (Peak Oil). Maybe a 90% tax rate for incomes over $1mil p/a? Compulsory retirement once your bank account hits $50mil? I have many ideas that I have spent various amounts of time reflecting upon. I’m sure you people will delight in telling me how such ideas are rubbish and utopian, but I think it’s more creative and worthy of consideration than ‘kicking mothers off the dole after their first kid’ or ‘denying public health care to smokers’. Pissant little thought bubbles that would have no economic advantage. (Note I’m not attributing these quotes to you Jackal,  they are representative of the comments I have seen on the Punch recently).

“What would you change about this process which has made all other socialist and communists economies fall?”

Maybe the megalomaniacal United States? Capitalism is stronger than Socialism economically. So with the US continually blockading, sanctioning, economically undermining and attacking everywhere that Communism has taken root, it’s very hard to tell what it would have looked like without such interference. Very interesting topic though on which I would love to spend more time studying. Google Curtis LeMay.

Once again I refer to Plato: Might does not equal Right.

Trevor says:

08:42am | 21/10/11

MadKat,

I can’t win with you can I? When I make assertions such as ‘we have entered the end of growth epoch’ you demand references, sources and names. And when I provide them take the piss and arrogantly proclaim to be able to dismiss me in a single line (again!). I’ll acknowledge that I did get a bit carried with my little boast about ‘totally discrediting’ you, however I maintain that you are a humourless, unimaginative, pedant without an original idea of her own. Only ardent and petty criticism of other people’s ideas.

Did you even read my ‘dissertation?’ It’s posted now in two parts. I don’t think I’m being a baby at all, calling you out on your constant hypocrisy. Just that that claim was the single most breathtakingly arrogant, bullying attempt at belittlement I have ever seen. I’d be embarrassed. However I find it funny and I’ll remember it for a while. If you had of read it you would also know that I’ve been around the block a bit, so I can look after myself thanks.

Anyhoo, just because you couldn’t be arsed opening that thread, here are the links I posted:

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-19/energy-trap-0

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-17/review-lieutenant-colonel-fleming’s-us-army-war-college-thesis-peak-oil

http://www.postcarbon.org/article/178709-the-end-of-growth

http://www.postcarbon.org/article/254838-earth-s-limits-why-growth-won-t-return

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

I’d be interested in your thoughts

Trevor says:

08:44am | 21/10/11

Furthermore MadKat
“How then do you account for economic growth or economic decline for that matter. Name me one economy where the condition has been a zero sum game.”

The mercantile system that existed for millennia, loosely based on gold, is one that springs to mind MadKat. It gets technical but it’s all tied in with population growth and energy usage- do try to keep up *squeezes cheeks*.

Before the industrial revolution, populations were relatively stable and all had only one source of energy-the sun. A stable population lets commodities find their own price level, based on universal economic laws. In accordance with Malthusian population laws, populations slowly increased with the increase of travel and technology. For example, when the Spanish discovered South America it precipitated the ‘Columbian Exchange’.  Potatoes found their way to China which increased the Chinese population from 150mil to 300mil. This population growth never really outstripped…. You know what- fuck it. Someone like you will find some poxy little mistake and trumpet it from the rooftops in condescending shrillness. Read the frickin articles above and give me your genuine opinion- that is if you really give a shit about making the world a better place like you proclaim and are not just paying lip service.

““Because there is only so much money in the world” - governments print money all the time - theoretically there is an infinite amount of money in the world so the world economy could never be a zero-sum game.”

You sound like helicopter Ben Bernanke! That worked out so well for the Weimar Republic didn’t it?

Trevor says:

08:46am | 21/10/11

St. Michael.

“So that’s totally why Gillard said no carbon tax before the election, but in order to stay in power now and secure the Greens’ support for government, there is one.”

FFS. Reading your other posts I gave you more credit than that mate. Didn’t take you for one of these people in histrionics over Gillard’s ‘lie’. There are many ways to argue that point but I’ll lift one from your own retort. You know the deal with the last election and acknowledge that with ‘…in order to stay in power’. Is she a mind reader? Did she have the intention of reneging when she made the infamous statement? No. However to do a deal to secure power she made a deal. Big frickin whoop. Which the coalition would have done in a heartbeat and was probably offered behind the closed door negotiations with the Greens. Are you going to hold the coalition to their ‘blood promise’ to roll it back?How many times can Abbott backflip on the climate change issue anyway? He’s like one of those wind up toy monkeys that does back flips given his semantic gymnastics on that issue.

They are all as bad as each other and in it for themselves, but in this society of self-advancement-at-the-cost-of-all-others who can really blame them? Here you are defending people worth billions, regardless of how it’s made, yet expect politicians to be any better? If the chance of power was dangling before your eyes would you have the will to say ‘No, I made a promise. And even if it costs me my dream of the prime ministership I won’t reneg.’ Doubt it.

continued…

Trevor says:

08:47am | 21/10/11

St Michael

“Where do you think the money comes from? Government does not make its own goods to sell for a profit.  (Or when it does, it’s incompetent at doing it.)  In short: you want more money from people who worked to earn it for government departments that did not and do not.”

I know where the money comes from wiseguy, I might be crazy but I’m not stupid. Governments may not be good at generating profit directly (arguable-arms industry?), but they are damn good at large infrastructure projects and other major works. Without government money people would never have entered space, which in itself has had many money generating spin-offs. Satellites for example. So really it’s the taxpayer that has footed the R&D bills for such technology while the profits go to private enterprise. Such examples are endless and form another of the OWS memes. Socialisation of risk and privatization of profit.

“Additionally: more money does not make government departments work better.”

Don’t really understand that one I’m afraid. I thought I was pretty clear. More hospitals, more rail, more nurses, more schools, more doctors, more universities etc and maintenance of those existing. Does the ninja comment imply that more money should be spent on upgrading rather than expanding to meet growing need? Strange way to look at it.

One last bit… you’ll like this one.

Trevor says:

08:51am | 21/10/11

St Michael

“There’s no such thing as “can’t compete” in a society where charity begins at home and where people are expected to be responsible for their own station in life.  There’s only “won’t” compete or “hasn’t yet figured out how to” compete.  (Extreme disability is an exception.)  Not to mention that the consequence of trying to change the whole system for one person is that you drag ever more people down into it due to the moral hazard you create.  Resorting to extremes is a poor way to make your argument, you ought to rethink it.”

Are you a Mossad sniper St Mick? That’s cold. Although nice to see you let the ‘extermely’ disabled a break.

I see it more a question of philosophy and human nature. Where is it written, that by the very act of being born, we have to enter this endless circlejerk of cutthroat competition just for the very basics of life? Which have been provided free for the majority of human history? I think that it’s almost a symptom of human cogniscence, like religion, that always questions the manner in which we should our life. Most people are happy joining the rat-race, but there will always be a small minority who reject that. Like teenagers who never grow up. It is this small fraction that you right-wingers get in lather over, accusing them of being fat, lazy, kid-poppin’, couch-bound slobs. From a certain perspective you are right, but let me assure you, they are not living the high life. Attempts to cut the social safety net, or alternate way of life, of these people usually will historically ferment into revolution etc when dissatisfaction starts to infect the lower rungs of the rat-race class. So really it’s in the interests of both society and the rich to keep this demographic small, by making life in the rat-race fair and tolerable, and happy, by continuing to provide them funds to continue to be economic beings. Which is forced upon us by being born into a totally commodified world.  Ontological enough for you?

My philosophical musings only. Any thoughts on my other points St Mick? This is the festival of ideas is it not?

The Jackel says:

09:38am | 21/10/11

Trevor | 

“By wealth I mean stuff. Houses, cars, assets. There are only so many in the world and the economy stopped producing anything of real value a while back.”

Even substituting wealth instead of money you are still wrong. If you mean “stuff” like “cars, houses, assets” there are an infinite amount. People can demolish a house and build a new, more expensive one or even just renovate. Cars are used, thrown away and new ones are bought or, alternatively, more expensive cars are bought as people’s wealth increases. The fact that car manufacturers are coming up with more and more luxurious models for the consumption of economic agents adds to the cycle. Your version of a zero-sum game only works if assets and their relative prices stay static which in the real world they don’t. To think in finite terms displays a very limited view of the world.

“The information technology revolution is the last real ‘thing’ that has entered the marketplace to facilitate the growth that modern capitalism requires.  Hence the bubble economy that has followed.”

The tech bubble didn’t transpire because it was “the last real thing” to facilitate growth. If only it was as simple as you presume. And if that were true then the economies would have stopped growing at the time of the bubble. There is a flaw in logic.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

10:11am | 21/10/11

Trevor - by the amount of your rants and the length of them just from this morning I can see you’re still having a cry - 2x2 parters and a 1x3 parter and 2 parter for me yesterday - classic.

Same old, same old I’m a hypocrite and don’t have any original ideas because I don’t agree with your worldview and don’t let you have your own way. Just like when you compared other posters’ intellects to a 2 year old this morning when they didn’t agree with another one of your assumptions.

“You know what- fuck it. Someone like you will find some poxy little mistake and trumpet it from the rooftops in condescending shrillness” - what’s wrong Trevor - I might actually disagree with you and no-one’s possibly allowed to do that.

I actually have work to do - you obviously don’t with the amount that you’ve written this morning - so no because I’m a real person with a real job I can’t possibly write a satisfactory reply to your gooble-d-gook from this morning -

The Jackel says:

10:52am | 21/10/11

Trevor | “I’M NOT, AND NEVER HAVE, ADVOCATED A COMMUNIST TOTALITARIAN REGIME!!!!!!!! I defend socialism”

Yes socialism. My original questions still stand. Socialism is an economic system based by which the means of production are commonly owned and controlled cooperatively.

You dislike the following:

“entrenched globalist neoliberal agenda that compels governments reduce corporate tax rates to attract offshore investment, reduce income taxes to buy votes and privatise income earning assets for short term ‘profit-realisation’” So if you don’t like to privatise income earning assets my original questions stand because you are advocating that the means of production be coorperatively owned.

“What would you change about this process which has made all other socialist and communists economies fall?” Maybe the megalomaniacal United States? Capitalism is stronger than Socialism economically” You can’t blame the US for the fall of communism/socialism. That’s deflecting the blame and creating an excuse to dismiss the internal problems of these regimes. I would think that is why you didn’t answer my question about the Economic Calculation Problem. 

“Maybe a 90% tax rate for incomes over $1mil p/a?” So you advocate the punishment of success. All that will happen is that these people will take their money and what assets they have left after they have been stolen on behalf of the state and live overseas.

“So I guess I would start by putting us back on the gold standard” Unfortunately gold is a finite resource. If you talking about introducing it on a world scale then enough gold has ever been mined that can handle that tall order so that’s the first problem to overcome. Funny that you would advocate this when the Austrian School of Economics does and they also advocate the laissez-faire approach. If you’re talking about only adopting it in Australia then I couldn’t outline all the negative consequences in a post.

“I’m sure you people will delight in telling me how such ideas are rubbish and utopian” Yes we probably will. Do you have any issues with people displaying alternative views?

“Pissant little thought bubbles that would have no economic advantage.” Until you can display some thought bubbles that show any coherent, well defined economic advantages I wouldn’t be criticising other posters.

St. Michael says:

12:01pm | 21/10/11

@ Trevor:

“Did she have the intention of reneging when she made the infamous statement? No. However to do a deal to secure power she made a deal. Big frickin whoop. Which the coalition would have done in a heartbeat and was probably offered behind the closed door negotiations with the Greens. Are you going to hold the coalition to their ‘blood promise’ to roll it back?”

You’re falling off the point, and you’re getting into histrionics to disguise it.  Crashing through does not impress.

You tried to say that Gillard making unpopular decisions demonstrates that governments do not operate solely on the basis of what will buy the most votes or what will secure them power.

I then gave you the carbon tax.  Before the election, Gillard said there wouldn’t be one.  After the election, she said there would be.

She said so because she had to form a coalition with the Greens to obtain government, and the Greens demanded a carbon tax.  She made a deal - which destroys in your argument that governments putting unpopular policies in place indicates they are thinking with anything other than power or votes in mind.

I would hold Tony Abbott to his promise, just as I would if he presumed to turn around and mess with Workchoices again.  In both cases he made unequivocal promises.  In both cases I imagine he’ll probably break them - because such promises can’t be made without sacrificing power to do so, whether it’s demanded by the voters or by his own party.  For these reasons I distrust all politicians of all stripes in the present system of elected government: none appear to understand the meaning of the word “promise” for more than 3 years at the outermost.

The remainder of your posting amounts to foaming at the mouth, and does not deserve a response.

Doctor K says:

01:32pm | 21/10/11

Being a long time reader and rare contributor of this forum feel I must interject at this point.

While Trevor obviously does not have a exceptional level of knowledge of economic jargon, his wisdom in connecting all of the dots outlining the problems current capitalism is actully quite impressive. He demonstrates a very broad understanding of literature, from the classics all the way through to today’s writers and references them in many places to great effect. He has demonstrated an exceptional understanding of the philosophical framework behind modern civilisation which is actually very rare.

He has done a remarkable job of trying to explain his views long past the point where others would have given up. Yet you continue to attack him on petty matters on nonmeclature and avoid any direct engagement with him on the issues he obviously feels strongly about. And in my opinion to feel strongly about social issues to this degree shows a remarkable strength of character.

He has plainly attempted to paint a picture of the problems he sees as affecting modern society. Yet most of you have hidden behind the safety of established norms and social mores, and in some cases refused to acknowledge him or his arguements at all. I also see the courage of his convictions and actually admire his tenacity in the face of overwhelming hostility.  Reading this thread alone I see many quite original ideas that you have dismissed as unworkable. What is the guy supposed to do, offer no opinion without a cost benefit analysis or social impact statement?

Lastly I would add that he has shown humility where required and acknowledgement of his mistakes. Yet some of you accuse him of the direct opposite. He qualifies many of his statements with words such as ‘I think’ yet you describe him as going on ‘rants’.

You really should take a leaf out of his book if you wish to high note yourselves to the degree that some of you do. I understand his frustration.

I am a political lecturer at an Australian University so know what I am talking about. With the level of deep analysis of the issues some of you have shown here, I would not pass you in my class.

You should be ashamed.

Please do not respond to this comment.

The Jackel says:

03:40pm | 21/10/11

Doctor K | If you are a University Lecturer then I’m a monkey’s uncle. I’m an old retired man who has worked in the diplomatic services most of my life, travelled the world, and lectured in Universities both here and in England and I can tell you that Trevor shows a deep lack of understanding about the issues he is discussing.

In fact it does surprise me that this was posted by a university lecturer, as it is so plainly one-sided when other posters have contributed coherent, well thought out facts, you personalise Trevor’s frustration, you praise where it has not been earnt and signed off with a “please don’t reply”. Trevor has been neither humble nor shown tenacity. His arguments have substantially been rebutted by many posters and I fail to comprehend the thought processes of a university lecturer that would so willingly step into an online debate in an attempt to stifle opinion and criticise the discussion of opposing views.

In the end I suspect that this was posted by Trevor himself in order to prop up himself up and not a university lecturer at all.

LC says:

05:51pm | 21/10/11

@ Doctor K,

Nice try Trevor but you didn’t fool me and Jackal, and likely MadKat would not be fooled either if he/she comes back.

Trying to dismiss people with finishing up with “Please do not respond to this comment” was a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think?

MadKat of Melbourne says:

11:14am | 22/10/11

Yes LC and the Jackal - definitely something not quite right with the post from Doctor K - I also suspect it’s written by Trevor. With Trevor’s behaviour on the blogg I don’t find this at all surprising - a little bit more demented than usual perhaps - but not so surprising. Obviously he’s not very emotionally mature if he needs to resort to this. And he thinks we’re stupid. I actually feel sorry for him in a way ...

Trevor says:

04:11pm | 22/10/11

Afternoon peeps!

Just finished with the Saturday morning routine with the kids and with this hangover from the piss-up last night I might be a bit more disjointed than usual, but bear with me.

First up, I’m not Doctor K! A bit patronising but it’s nice to get a bit of support. Thanks Doc. I suppose I should acknowledge that you are all displaying the skepticism that I have been ‘ranting’ for the last few days, especially you MadKat! I’m humbled! I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the 911 ‘Truth’ Movement with this level of suspicion and skepticism. I’d be the one arguing of behalf of the establishment! Ironic much? I’ve had a military career spent being screamed at, pushed physically to the limit daily and shot at, I don’t need to pose as a fan of myself for my own esteem or whatever. I can look after myself.

Even if I had, wouldn’t I have added something like: ‘I can tell by the size of this guy’s intellect he must have an equally huge appendage’?

He never even claims that I am correct, only that you guys haven’t done a good job of addressing my arguments! Ridiculous.

MadKat

So you’ve got enough time to count my number of posts, accuse me of intellectual dishonesty (after the bandwagon is up and running of course), yet when I put serious arguments to you and back it up with research you come back with:

“I actually have work to do - you obviously don’t with the amount that you’ve written this morning - so no because I’m a real person with a real job I can’t possibly write a satisfactory reply to your gooble-d-gook from this morning –“

Same as last time MadKat, dimissing me with “I could go over the details of your mistakes but frankly I don’t have the time and I don’t think you you’d get it’ rather than ‘the couple of lines’ you claim to be able to do above. Jesus wept. I shouldn’t be angry with you though; I notice none of you have responded to the links I posted so I shouldn’t direct it directly at your good self. I’m talking about the end of frickin civilisation itself here people so would love to be proven wrong, yet none of you can even be arsed reading the links I post. And then call me out for ‘goobel-de-gook! Didn’t I pretty much acknowledge that I’m doing a shit job to explain this stuff and referred you to these articles in my stead? FFS.

“With Trevor’s behaviour on the blogg I don’t find this at all surprising”

My behavior?!? You have referred to me as a ‘cry-baby’ in several posts yet get on your high horse when I infer that a 2 year old could understand what I meant above. This coming from the person who several weeks ago posted a heartfelt and tearful farewell to the Punch because she was being picked on? Hypocrite x 3! I thought been pretty good humored about this? Please explain. If you have the time of course.

Trevor says:

04:13pm | 22/10/11

Jackal

‘plainly one-sided when other posters have contributed coherent, well thought out facts,’

Who, in this thread have posted ‘coherant, well though out facts’? (Sorry to descend to MadKat’s level of pedantry, but how can facts be ‘thought out?’) St Michael has sort of got a point that politicians buy votes (public still is much more socially minded than private enterprise IMHO), and you have raised an interesting point about people moving overseas if we ‘punished’ the rich and the gold standard, but they are hardly clear victories and I would love to argue these points further. I would have thought that my capitalised sentence made it clear that I believe the means of production needs to remain in the private sphere? Other than that all I hear is ‘The remainder of your posting amounts to foaming at the mouth, and does not deserve a response.’ and ‘gobbel-de-gook’. Oh yeah, MadKat’s assertion that her slightly different definition of ‘economics’ discredits me somehow. No-one has provided any response to most of my other points let alone the articles to which I linked, on two different threads, which is the only thing I ended up relying on! And I hardly see how I am ‘foaming at the mouth’; I thought I was pretty demure, even sprinkling a bit of humour in here and there!

‘I’m an old retired man who has worked in the diplomatic services most of my life’

I’d love to have a beer and a chat with you if this is indeed the case. We could discuss 911! A few members of my family have and are employed by DFAT and associated sub-branches. You might even know some of them! You might even know me if you were associated with a certain branch within DFAT- I was the one who put in probably the worst assessment centre performance of all time! That was in 2006.

Anyway, you might be right about Doctor Ks level of competence. But be assured that I am not he. Refer above.

Still waiting for a response to those articles…from anyone?...

LC says:

06:41pm | 22/10/11

@Trev,

9/11 truth movement? Seriously? Wow, where the hell did that come from? There was an article posted here by a member of a local 9/11 truth movement last month. St. Michael and I did not greet it too happily.

Speaking of the 9/11 truthers, you MIGHT be interested in seeing this photo I unearthed earlier today of you precious “Occupy” protest in Melbourne:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/photo-gallery/gallery-e6frf94x-1226172508027?page=75
Now look directly to the right of the gap in the barrier for a grey sign with black text. Mind telling me what it says?

Not sure whose the one associating themselves with truthers, but it’s not me, MadKat, Jackal or St. Michael.

Thanks for chucking in that red-herring though.

Trevor says:

12:37pm | 23/10/11

JC

Surely you are just being obtuse now?

It was intended as a good-humoured piss-take on yourselves. Was it too subtle?

Although I didn’t see the bit where you and St Michael took the local 911 Truther to task, I appear to have correctly surmised that staunch right-wingers like yourselves would hold such people to ridicule.

So when you, Jackal and MadKat put together you own little conspiracy theory that I would pose as a university professor to support my own argument, rather than accept the more simpler explanation that there may actually be someone who supports me, I deliberately attached you to the most crazy conspiracy movement of all: the 911 truth movement in an attempt to display your hypocrisy. A futile attempt as you simply didn’t get it.

I have however humoured you and opened the link you posted, unlike the discourtesy any of you have shown me by opening mine. The sign says ‘911 was an Inside Job’. So what? You have, in a way, supported my jibe at your good selves!

Maybe next time I’ll just descend to MadKat’s level and call you the most insulting name that the moderators will let through. Would that work for you?

MDG says:

02:34pm | 21/10/11

So…you agree with Bob Brown and the Greens, thn?

andye says:

08:34am | 20/10/11

@Tubesteak - The GFC was caused by “the welfare state”?

Funny, I thought it was caused by a speculative bubble in Credit Default Swaps. Silly old me.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

08:48am | 20/10/11

What’s wrong Tubesteak is crony capitalism - abuse and bad business practices are the problem, in addition to the lack of strong government oversight. Its politicians being bought-off. The GFC started in the US and they are not a true welfare state so how is it the welfare state’s fault. Education and health didn’t cause the crash, bad business practices did.

The US government didn’t keep interest rates low because they were focused on welfare. They kept them low because alot of corporations were making alot of money.

Rose says:

09:19am | 20/10/11

The point of the article has just been proven. You’re blaming the welfare state but not giving any responsibility to the power brokers who created the need for a welfare state. .

Peter says:

09:27am | 20/10/11

Government under-regulation helped created the chaos, proponents of the free market need to rethink how far we can let pure capitalism operate in our society.

Tubesteak says:

12:23pm | 20/10/11

Andye
Do you blame a runny nose for the cold, too?
It wasn’t CDSs that caused the GFC. But an over-inflated system created by the government.

Madkat
Any system that tries to give people money who haven’t earned it is a welfare state. Our system of middle-class welfare is a welfare state.
It wasn’t bad business practices that caused the crash but a government fuelled debt bubble with little to no oversight. The government doesn’t keep interest rates low, that’s done by the Fed Reserve who wanted to do it so as to not cause any economic hardship and cause undue pressure on government.

Rose
The power brokers who create the need for a welfare state are the voters who keep ticking the box of parties who say “we’ll give you more free stuff”.

Peter
Pure capitalism works. What went wrong is the government tried to run a pure capitalism model in a system with no checks and balances and was completely artificial. Banks operate based on risk and reward. If the government takes away the risk (of loan defaults because the government says they will cover them) then banks only look at the ample rewards.

andye says:

01:01pm | 20/10/11

@tubesteak - oh do you mean “corporate welfare state”?

I think I misinterpreted you.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

01:13pm | 20/10/11

Tubesteak - couple of points of clarification because your obviously didn’t read my post

“Our system of middle-class welfare is a welfare state” - your original post was about the welfare state creating the GFC. The GFC started in the US so logically I assumed your were talking about the US being a welfare state. I know our economy is a welfare state however I would beg to differ if you think the US is.

“It wasn’t bad business practices that caused the crash but a government fuelled debt bubble with little to no oversight” did you read the part where I said “in addition to the lack of strong government oversight” or did you just skip over that part of my post.

“The government doesn’t keep interest rates low, that’s done by the Fed Reserve who wanted to do it so as to not cause any economic hardship and cause undue pressure on government” - the government relaxed lending controls and the Fed artifically kept the rates down from 2002 when they should have been raising - this caused the bubble that caused the GFC -

Direct says:

01:45pm | 20/10/11

Tubesteak, true capitalism doesn’t work. Did you learn nothing from playing Monopoly as a child? Government intervention is require to promote competition and to prevent consolidation that is not in the best interests of consumers.

SimonFromLakemba says:

01:46pm | 20/10/11

Invesnt firms that were leveriged to the hill hilt, sometimes 27:1 caused the GFC, if there was any fault in the government it was that there was no regulation.

Merryl Lynch went down and was eventually bought out for $27 a share and the CEO that caused the demise got $161million handshake!

They knew they were buying loans that were done fraudulently and didnt meet standards and they still did it anyways cause the riskier they were the more money they made in the swap.

Tubesteak says:

03:30pm | 20/10/11

Andye
No. The welfare state where the US government encourages loans to poor people who can’t afford them and then doesn’t regulate banks sufficiently or cover for moral hazard and agrees to bail out banks from the beginning all in order to win votes from poor people and the middle class.

Madkat
There is a significant amount of welfare in the US. That was one of the problems with the debt ceiling and debt crisis they are going through. Most of the money that is government debt is owed to the US citizens.
No, I didn’t skip over your post. I think you fail to realise the complete oversight of the US government from beginning to end.
Keeping rates low encouraged the bubble. It wasn’t the cause. Or at least not the sole cause. A government encouraging one sector of the economy was the cause.

Direct
Pure capitalism does work. As soon as governments interfere in an economy then they need to be aware of everything they are doing. The US government failed to do this.
As for the old market power myth, as soon as one company decides to become a monopoly and charges high prices (super profits) other companies will enter the market trying to get a piece of that action. Over time, prices will reduce as competition occurs. The reason economic theoruies about limiting market power fail is because they fail to realise that other large companies are always on the look-out for new revenue streams eg Virgin’s and Tiger’s foray into the Australian air travel market.

MadKat of Melbourne says:

06:52pm | 20/10/11

Tubesteak - three things to note

Government making it easy to get credit doesn’t make it a welfare state. It just makes it easy to get credit with bad government regulation.

Pure capitalism doesn’t work - no economist believes that a pure capitalist market works because of the following reasons:

The model relies on a host of assumptions: the market must consist of large number of buyers and sellers; all buyers and sellers must have complete knowledge of all relevant prices, quantities, conditions and technologies; there should be no barriers that prevents firms entering or leaving the market; there should be no spillover or external effects, so that all parties bear the full costs and receive the full benefits of their production and consumption activities; there should be no unexploited economies of scale; all parties must know their own best interest; and there should be no uncertainties or ambiguities.

Where have you ever seen all these assumptions hold true?

Then you do have things like monopolies or even oligopolies - what if no competitors enter the market or sometimes its not easy for new firms to enter markets (chainstore paradox). Market power is not a fallacy - you can have such barriers as economies of scale, capital requirements, no substitute goods, control of natural resources, externalities such as a network. Then you get higher prices, lower quality, limited varieties and innovation is diminished.

“It wasn’t bad business practices that caused the crash but a government fuelled debt bubble with little to no oversight” - so you think that Wall St business practices had nothing do with the GFC. So you don’t think that the way that bankers and traders were being compensated would encourage them to take on too much risk and leverage, making the global financial system vulnerable to a severe crisis. Or that ratings agencies were to blame for not doing their homework and giving now failed securities AAA ratings.

pheelion says:

03:15pm | 20/10/11

Agreed. I see life a bit like travelling down a river.  If you go too far left you get tangled up in the reeds and if you go too far right you get smashed on the rocks.

The Jackel says:

11:03am | 21/10/11

It’s probably more enlightening to see the dispute as being not about the properties of markets so much as about the proper role of government.

iansand says:

11:05am | 20/10/11

The difference is that the Rust Belt has been in decline for decades.  Last time I looked Arizona (and Phoenix in particular) was the fastest growing place in the US.

St. Michael says:

11:47am | 20/10/11

Note also on that: not much union presence in Arizona.

Much union presence in the Rust Belt, though.

SimonFromLakemba says:

01:55pm | 20/10/11

Sums it all up perfectly, you have lobby groups basically writing their own bills and then owning senators in the congress to pass them, makes you sick.

Bev says:

11:30am | 20/10/11

I don’t think people complain about “potato” welfare they don’t like welfare which is handed out to those who over time could remove themselves from welfare or who have an entitlement mentality because of social engineering or government vote buying.

Horns Up says:

01:52pm | 20/10/11

Which is entirely not my point Bev. Who would queue for a potato a day when they can get out of that situation?

Republicans are saying that the problem with America is too much welfare and too many taxes…clearly this is not the case when people are queuing for food.

\m/

Kipling says:

03:43pm | 21/10/11

“Tea tastes like Piss.”  How would you know that unless…... EWE!

Max Weber rules says:

12:29pm | 20/10/11

.. I couldn’t finish that damned thing and it always amazes me that anyone would read it plainly as written and assume it had any chance of success, anywhere, as a model for statehood. Even China isn’t communist as described by those guys.
It is doomed to failure by its own reasoning - they start by saying the worker is subjugated to the boss, and this is bad. They end by saying worker and boss together should be subjugated to the state - but this is not the exact same thing with a mere substitution of the term ‘boss’ with ‘state’ because… something something thats as far as I got because it’s utterly illogical and I stopped reading and picked up Sartre cos he’s waaayy less self-indulgent.
Orwell didn’t even need to have the calamity of Red Russia sitting in front of him in order for Animal Farm and 1984 to still be absolutely valid and inevitable outcomes of any society that tried to use the Marx model as a system of governance.

Erick says:

12:49pm | 20/10/11

@prosperity - I read it long ago. I read Das Kapital and Mein Kampf as well, for good measure.

I suggest you read some 20th century history in order to see just how those theories worked out in practice.

prosperity says:

01:55pm | 20/10/11

I am glad some people are well read in aspects of political science.  There are some (American leaders) who say welfare measures and pension payments are “Communist” and I don’t think they know what they mean. We have never seen either the theory of communism or capitalism properly translated into practice. Most economies today are a mix of socialism and capitalism - in Australia a fairly successful one.

St. Michael says:

02:49pm | 20/10/11

“There are some (American leaders) who say welfare measures and pension payments are “Communist” and I don’t think they know what they mean.”

Wait a minute, you actually think any moron trying to make people like him and vote for him isn’t going to use hyperbole?

That’s a problem with politicians and government.  It’s not the ignorance of the right at large.

Tanya says:

04:03pm | 20/10/11

Based on predictive calculations less so than ideology,  Marx and Engels aimed to demonstrate that capitalism would eventually bleed out through the economic and social dynamics of an uneven distribution or concentration of wealth. This would now appear to be the case in the US and some parts of Europe. Although the tenets of Marxism remain constant, I don’t believe Marx predicted the extent to which Globalism would degrade the ability and independence of national economies to recover and balance themselves. Democracies are flailing because in the West at the most basic level, incumbent governments legislate with relative immediacy in favour of either the ‘haves’ or the ‘have nots’ through the introduction of taxes or tax cuts and neither side remains in power long enough to implement a long term vision and level the playing field. In theory, if a conservative government is given a decent term, the deregulated economy should grow and foster opportunism to reduce the gap between rich and poor. Alternatively, if a Labor government is granted the opportunity to work toward a vision, national investment in welfare and education should achieve the same end state. There is validity in both principles. But in the context of globalism and the concentration of resources, democracies have lost their economic and political self determination. Policy and legislation about *local* matters is almost inconsequential with so many outside variables. And it is a fairly impenetrable argument that capitalism as the dominant ideology of the last two centuries is the root cause.

Excellent article, Tracey – thanks. We’d better look after Australia.

ibast says:

12:40pm | 20/10/11

The collective noun for Atheists is a Logic.

Erick says:

12:56pm | 20/10/11

“Humans left on their own will turn back into animals…...”

It’s true. I walked past the park yesterday morning, and an old man was there sitting on a bench by himself. When I walked back later, there was a pigeon where he’d been!

fml says:

01:07pm | 20/10/11

“Watch me get attacked by a flock of Atheists”,

I am not going to attack you (despite what you may think), i am just going to point out that people generally are not going to be very happy when you blame the worlds ill’s on them.

Dan is not a good Christian says:

02:17pm | 20/10/11

FML - And THAT is the problem…it’s everyone else’s fault (not mine)  !!!!
at least religion says it is most likely your own fault.

Erick - lol, probably a feminist turned him into one.

ibast - lol / Points for cleverness   but did you the collective noun for a group of Christians is Truth

fml says:

03:44pm | 20/10/11

@Dan is not a good Christian,

I dont really understand where you are coming from.

“And THAT is the problem…it’s everyone else’s fault (not mine)  !!!!”

Isnt that exactly what you are doing by blaming the non-religious?

Chris L says:

04:40pm | 20/10/11

The grand church of the people-who-believe-the-Earth-rests-on-the-back-of-a-giant-turtle condemn Dan’s blasphemous post!

(Watch me get attacked by an armada of crockoducks)

Erick says:

05:38pm | 20/10/11

@Chris L - Heretic! Everyone knows that Earth rests on the backs of FOUR GIANT ELEPHANTS who stand on the back of a giant turtle!

Dan is not a good Christian says:

06:58pm | 20/10/11

FML - I could have worded it better but I meant that “it’s everyone else’s fault (not mine)”  is the common attitude of everyone these days.
But in reality everyone (inc. me) is to blame as we all fail to live in harmony with each other.

Chris L - I hope the Grand church can forgive my sin for metioning the GrandER church may have been right all along.

Anna C says:

02:23pm | 20/10/11

Palone, don’t misrepresent what I wrote. I wrote that the truth lies somewhere in between what both sides are claiming. Rampant capitalism isn’t good when it goes unchecked as is evidence by the GFC but neither is it good having a system where too many people rely on welfare to survive when times are good.
 
The banking system in America needs more checks and balances so that they can avoid another financial meltdown in the future. Also the US government needs to offer more assistance and incentives (e.g. tax cuts) to ordinary people so that they can make a smoother transition from welfare to work when the economy is back on its feet.

St. Michael says:

03:05pm | 20/10/11

“Anna, the ‘welfare system’ is not just the handing out of food stamps. It is also a method of caring for the under-priveleged, the sick, the disabled, and the disenfranchised.”

If the welfare system stopped at that it would be at least partially morally defensible.  Even in this form it suffers from the moral deficit that the welfare state by definition means the government doesn’t trust its own people to be charitable.  So it takes some of your money and does it instead.  The anger over people donating millions of dollars to the Queensland flood appeal only to discover the government was going to tax them and thereby force them to be charitable all over again is one reflection of this.  Charity shouldn’t be tied up with government any more than churches should be.

In passing, the welfare state as defined on the US experience is a bit different to the Australian experience.  One of the biggest areas of gross welfare overspending there is on military pensions: basically, do 20 years in the armed forces, and you get half your highest grade of pay for the rest of your life, along with generous pharmaceutical benefits as well.  That’s irrespective of whether you find other work in the interim.  That’s irrespective of whether you served in combat or not, whether you have a medal or not.  And by sheer force of statistical demographics, those claiming that pension have not seen combat at all but are in the mid-to-upper-mid officer ranks, whose command usually amounts to a desk and chair.  That is one of the reasons their public debt is roughly 10 times what they take in by way of tax per year.

For me, the debate about the welfare state really comes down to this: people used to be ashamed to go on welfare, or charity, or get payments from the government because it was considered a blight.  (Some still are.  Salvos still don’t identify a lot of people on their leaflets).  The reason it was, or is, shameful is because receiving the money implied you had insufficient control or responsibility over your own life to make your own way in the world.  And welfare was intended as a truly “just get you by” sum of money, not enough to keep you in reasonable comfort; because the people who first invented it quite rightly understood that if you made the payment too high, you removed the incentive to ever stop taking it.

The most cogent argument against the welfare state is the cesspits pass for Aboriginal communities out in the sticks, but also in the metro areas as well.  By and large, they’re funded on unconditional welfare.  By and large, they are failures.  By and large, they only get solved when you start making people earn their pay or force them to start taking responsibility for their own lives.  That is the sin of the welfare state: it instills the moral hazard that you don’t have to take responsibility for your own life.

Tanya says:

04:39pm | 20/10/11

Welfare is integral to maintaining a healthy economy and the picture Tracey just painted of Arizona illustrates perfectly what occurs when it is reduced or dispensed with. Without it, the rise in crime, illness and homelessness creates a pretty bleak landscape. If a positive approach was taken to it insofar as it was understood to be something we contribute to in order to sustain our high standard of living as opposed to the negative belief that it is draining the economy purely for the sustenance of bludgers, we’d be a whole lot closer to a progressive approach. The answer lies in more regulated welfare and welfare programmes, not more welfare.

Erick says:

05:10pm | 20/10/11

@palone - Your defence of communism is just a No True Scotsman fallacy.

If only a few of the attempts to implement Marxist theory had resulted in abject failure, you might have a point. But when every single one ends with mass murder, mass political imprisonment, slavery, and material shortages, that’s a sign that the basic idea is wrong.

palone says:

08:20pm | 20/10/11

Poor Erick. He can’t handle being ploughed under by his own ill-considered verbosity. Do you really think that your childish attempt to paint the monsters Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, marxists. Are you so determined to win every point from every opponent that you just make up crap?
And I purposely waited until you fulfilled your own “prediction” before commenting. You proved that you are simply a stager with delusions of grandeur by doing what I and others expected of you. Read your several posts proving me right and you completely wrong all the way down the page.
The only Marxist civilizations were around long before Marx and Engels, you dimwit. And they didn’t fail. Some of them, and one glaring example was here in this Country, lasted for thousands of years. And you’re gonna hate this. Many of them were Matriarchal.

John says:

10:45pm | 20/10/11

Marx is time traveler!  I knew it! using reptilian space ships! Typical Marxist all about my speech and all about silencing the others. This is called a mental illness! It’s called schizophrenia! Did you know that communist party blew the heads off 20,000 polish intellectuals because of their paranoid schizophrenia and murdered 42 million via starvation and other depravitys. The entire communist party’s were a mental asylums let lose on the world. They caused so much death and destruction.

Nick says:

01:42am | 21/10/11

@palone - dude you have got to be kidding. Your solution to our present troubles is a 40,000 year reign of tribalism where the wheel wasn’t invented? I’ll turn to Nazism before I vote for you commie loons.

Erick says:

04:38am | 21/10/11

@Palone - Now you’re just being ridiculous.

Marxist revolutionaries weren’t Marxists? Give me a break. Have you ever read a word of Marx, or of history?

Aborigines were Marxists? Sure, I can see them sitting around their campfires talking about dialectical materialism and the alienation of labour.

You’ve just launched off into Loony La-La Land with that crazy comment.

Ghost says:

04:03pm | 20/10/11

Tracey also forgets to mention that a substantial number want to be on welfare.

The Jackel says:

04:19pm | 20/10/11

Alternatively you could say why are the Occupiers protesting - they have 4 times as much wealth as a US adult so what is their problem.

John says:

06:15pm | 20/10/11

International bankers benefit from Socialism and Capitalism. Nations borrow counterfeit money from them, pay the unemployed, inflates your nation while you do it. Then you have the international bankers lending for people to buy homes, iPods and cars. They want everyone to consume. Then when the country’s can’t pay it back, they buy out the country’s national assets or want some sucker country to bail them out. The end of all this the world will be owned, by the international bankers. The populations around the world will be their slaves. The international bankers are like loan sharks. We as people are funding our own gulags, our own enslavement, our own prisons, our own corrupt politicians.

marley says:

06:31pm | 20/10/11

Let’s see if I’ve got this right.  The failure of capitalism is due to free trade and free markets.  Umm.  Ok.  So, you’re saying you prefer a system that doesn’t have free trade and free markets - say a communist system?