Quote:

................The Labor government is back in deep debt, the endowment funds for education and health infrastructure have been run down and the Treasury head is proposing a new tax on the resources sector. What we have to show for the China boom are insulation batts and local school halls. When the Henry tax review is released this weekend, it will use the extraordinary profits of the mining sector to argue that it should pay higher taxes. But remember that the existing taxation arrangements - royalties on production and company tax on profits - increase the tax take as production increases and profits increase. The government does not need to change the taxation arrangements to collect more from the mining industry. The current arrangements do that already. Changing the arrangements is just a plan for a double bite. The government wants to increase the rate at which it gobbles those increases. There would be no need to go looking for new money if the old money had not been spent in the way it was. There will be a lot of talk between now and the budget about savings to improve the bottom line. Savings can offset spending, but the easiest way to improve the bottom line is to stop new spending. If a member of your family had a credit card debt and asked for help, you could give them advice on how to save in all sorts of ways and let them go out and use the plastic some more. Or you could confiscate the card. If you stop new spending, you do not have to find so many savings to pay for it. The best saving for the government would be to stop spending on all those school halls. At last it's stopped spending on insulation batts. (Of course, a better idea would have been not to start that spending in the first place.) The budget will show that just as it is looking for savings, the government will go on rolling out ''stimulus'' spending for next year and the year after. Just as it puts the left foot on the brake, it's got the right foot pumping the accelerator...............

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/mining-boom-riches-nullified-by-labors-spending-bender-20100427-tpy1.html

Well what do you expect with Kapitan Kruddy at the helm??????  ::)

Right. And how do the rightards ruin an economy?

They allow hedge funds to sell toxic loans around the world to inevitably create a global financial crisis.

They invest in huge military spending that cripples their national economy, and the infrastructure - and lives - of others.

They refuse to impliment a national health insurance plan, but subsidise drug companies in the billions to pay for seniors' medication.

I could go on, but you get the point.

stick to the topic karnal

mod - pse delete karnals offtopic posting.

I see you've become a Hall Monitor now, SC. Ah, well...

Quote:

Right. And how do the rightards ruin an economy? They allow hedge funds to sell toxic loans around the world to inevitably create a global financial crisis. They invest in huge military spending that cripples their national economy, and the infrastructure - and lives - of others. They refuse to impliment a national health insurance plan, but subsidise drug companies in the billions to pay for seniors' medication. I could go on, but you get the point.

What do you mean you could?  You do go on...

None of the above of course happened in Australia and no Australian government Right, Left or Centre has allowed it to happen.

Grendel wrote on May 1^st, 2010 at 5:50pm:

Quote: Right. And how do the rightards ruin an economy? They allow hedge funds to sell toxic loans around the world to inevitably create a global financial crisis. They invest in huge military spending that cripples their national economy, and the infrastructure - and lives - of others. They refuse to impliment a national health insurance plan, but subsidise drug companies in the billions to pay for seniors' medication. I could go on, but you get the point. What do you mean you could?  You do go on...

Listen, pal, this post shouldn't even be here. SC's post was about leftards, not rightards.

Please stick to the point.

yawn
Pal?  That's dog food right?

cant debate, cant refute...

To keep this relevant to the article, I'll just say I'm opposed to the proposed tax, and I don't like Kevin Rudd's management of the economy.


Karnal wrote on Apr 30^th, 2010 at 10:49am:

Right. And how do the rightards ruin an economy? They allow hedge funds to sell toxic loans around the world to inevitably create a global financial crisis. They invest in huge military spending that cripples their national economy, and the infrastructure - and lives - of others. They refuse to impliment a national health insurance plan, but subsidise drug companies in the billions to pay for seniors' medication. I could go on, but you get the point.

Huge military spending isn't exactly "right wing". Allowing people and companies to right to organise contracts that are fair between parties is not a bad thing, and people should understand that they are responsible for the risks they take. Subsidising drug companies has higher benefit/cost than nationalising drug companies. When more than 85% of the country chooses to cover themselves with private health insurance, there is no need for the government to intervene as they are only going to force health costs upwards.

Hlysnan wrote on May 1^st, 2010 at 10:29pm:

Subsidising drug companies has higher benefit/cost than nationalising drug companies. When more than 85% of the country chooses to cover themselves with private health insurance, there is no need for the government to intervene as they are only going to force health costs upwards.

JaeMi, this is a rightard argument, so you're on track.

Giving money to private companies is rightard. Owning them, like our government does with Medicare, is supposed to be leftard.

The difference?

Well, that's a big question, but from what I can see the incentive of private companies is to make money.

But a doctor doesn't usually work harder the more you pay him/her. I've been to doctors for no fee at all.

And medication doesn't work any better the more you pay for it.

The role of the state in medicine? Until the invention of the hospital, there was no role at all. Then the state decided to send the men off to war, there were massive battlefield casualties, and the hospital and socialised medicine came out of that. After WWII, the bargain was we got state-funded health services and pensions because the state was scared all the soldiers would reform their ranks and fight the state.

In some places they did.

Anyway, some things work better in private hands, some work better in public hands. Each nation-state is different, and there are no clear prescriptions for all this, no real formulas, despite what Milton Friedman would have you believe.

Margaret Thatcher found this out with various industries: privatisation and the introduction of competition does not necessarily improve services and make them cheaper. Sometimes things get much worse.

Margaret Thatcher, of course, believed there was no such thing as society at all, just individuals and self-interested consumers.

And maybe she was right.

But in America (before Obama - the leftard's - reforms), people were refused treatment in hospitals and health funds made up their minds on whether to pay for your treatment - treatment you had paid them to insure you for. Some people could not get any insurance at all because they had existing health problems. Many of them died without insurance, even if they could pay for it, and without treatment.

Can you imagine having a ruptured appendix and being refused treatment? It happens in many places today.

If this is the sort of "society" individuals want, they need to be saved from it. Saving your life is not the function of a nanny-state, it's the reason people live together - to help each other out.

This is the reason people become doctors - or should. If all you want out of medicine is a house in Double Bay and a Jag in the driveway, you're in the wrong business.