Interesting stuff
"There is no economic shock from nationalised industries. I’m not sure where you even get this idea ? You take the industries which were once nationalised but which became privatised ....and you renationalise them ."
No offence...but that's a frightfully clueless statement.
For one, it costs A LOT to buy back or to establish said industries, but more importantly is the message sent to existing companies operating in Australia that the playing field may not be level anymore, and with many of those companies being American...well, I'm sure the US govt will just gladly let that happen #wheresmysarcasmemoji
To be sure, I want it to happen, but I know - thank heavens somebody does! - that it'll be an almighty fight to impose it and will cause huge stresses in the Oz economy.
calling it that does not blame chinese people as individuals. there will always be idiots that cannot seperate a corrupt form of government from people as individuals
pandering to these language games just insults people intelligence. SARS was just playing the same game
There's a reason we've taken the path of least resistance for so long.
Neoliberalism = The benefits and profits of a community flowing into corporate coffers.
Social Democracy = The benefits and profits of a community flowing into community coffers.
There is no revolution required. No social upheaval. Just a changing of the political guard . The nation has the same industries- plus others which become viable with the new system - only the outcome is skewed in the nation’s favour.
Our economy would be way stronger. Think Norway but even more so that Australia owns its companies which compete with the multinationals.
The current system is corporations farming our population. This has to end. ALP / LNP have no intention of doing so . And this is the only way out of this mess, so your claim that ALP was a game changer at the last election was garbage.
If a strong leader stood up in front of the people and outlined this strategy with the emphasis on how much it would generate wealth for current Australians and empower future generations - which it undoubtedly would - without any economic shock or disruption then it could not fail.
Regardless....the current debt- laden Ponzi scheme of our economy is about to fall on its face anyway. So your desire to avoid the inevitable consequences of the impending fallout is fantasy.
Couldn't fail like the Mining Tax couldn't fail...
For one Stu , it costs more than A LOT to continue down the path we are on. Have you seen the National debt ? Is it getting smaller do you think ?
No. We are not just getting anally raped individually by neoliberalism , we are getting raped on the National account too.
PS ....the thing about we can’t achieve these goals because the US won’t let us. Bullshit.
The example of the LNG facility has actually played out already . We sourced the gas and commenced most of the infrastructure....
And then gave it all to the privately owned Woodside !
We even spied on East Timor for Woodside . Basically every bit of risk, exploration and research behind the Woodside business was performed by the Australian government. And then we GAVE it to Woodside.
Australia has already done the hard yards. Same with the Ord River scheme ....we invest , design , establish and then give it away for cents on the dollar because.....neoliberalism ( corruption).
Many other examples. Endless really.
Mining tax....WTF ?
You think the Ord Scheme and the Woodside debacle went to an election ? No . Governments just did it.
I don’t remember the mass immigration neoliberal model being taken to an election either. The reason the mining tax failed was because it was NEVER going to be allowed to succeed because....neoliberalism.
It was a show trial. Fuck , I figured you’d at least know that.
You keep making the same mistake. You keep thinking that the ALP wants change but that the population won’t let them achieve it. The game is rigged. The ALP / LNP aren’t actually in opposition. They just take turns pretending to steer the ship.
That you think there wouldn't be any economic pain, that switching economic models is like switching rail lines on a model train set, tells me everything I need to know about your grasp of economics, and politics, and human nature too for that matter.
If it were to happen as quick as that, I'll be buying guns.
"Imagine if an Australian owned gas plant provided cheap power which allowed manufacturing and small industries to be viable again....wow !"
I don't want to have tp point out the obvious , but manufacturing in Australia is generally not viable mostly because our wages are way too high compared to elsewhere, energy prices are just a tiny factor. (yeah sure high regulation is a problem, high rents, high land prices, high energy prices, high disposable cost, high everything)
Personally it does my head in when i hear of manufacturing still being done in Australia, or new manufacturing happening here, its just bad business practise.
And then people complain because of low wage growth.
What are you talking about ?
You reckon that anyone would give a fuck if it said Australian LNG instead of Woodside on a sign ?
You are still thinking that the neoliberal ideology was CHOSEN by the Australian people. That’s why you’re parroting that Facto rubbish about who we vote for.
We don’t get a say in our ideology under the current LNP/ ALP duopoly. It’s voting for the same outcome.
"I don't want to have tp point out the obvious , but manufacturing in Australia is generally not viable mostly because our wages are way too high compared to elsewhere,"
Like Germany?
nope, try again.
The weirdest thing i find about people who want our government to control all these things and have socialist beliefs, is they are also always the people that complain about the government .
I mean WFT?. you dont believe the government do a good job and you want to let them run all these other important things?
Remember when we only had one telephone provider?
Imagine if today we still only had one telephone provider which would now include mobil and internet, there would be no incentive to provide a wide range of services and different pricing etc.
You would be stuck with little to no choice.
Even energy....look at things now if you want to support renewables you can choose a green energy provider and support renewables, instead of just being given no choice.
"I don't want to have tp point out the obvious , but manufacturing in Australia is generally not viable mostly because our wages are way too high compared to elsewhere,"
Like Germany?
nope, try again."
Will have to read about that, but only way around it is to do all weird shit like subsidies and tariffs taxes etc on imports which gets very messy and problematic.
Rubbish, Indo.
Take away the ridiculously high real rent/ energy combo and Australia’s industries are much closer to viability.
And you know why wages are so high....it’s because our real estate and energy costs are so high. It’s a reinforced feedback loop. If Woodside can pay Australian wages and sell gas at a profit so can virtually any other type of industry including manufacturing.
The companies who make their shit in Asia generally don’t sell their products for less. They just get to keep a larger share of the profits instead of allocating a fair proportion to labour costs.
Get it ? It’s not more competitive it’s more PROFITABLE. And when you factor in government subsidies due to the company being a national industry then it’s very viable.
That’s the Chinese model in a nutshell. Try and tell me that’s not successful.
Note perfect summary
‘Yes Minister’ has a perfect summary of most Western countries response to the coronavirus outbreak 😷 pic.twitter.com/meuMCqkiAK
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) March 10, 2020
I'm sorry but 'feelz' is almost all we have...
all the accepted economists' bullshit about the merits of increased migration is throughout the literature, ...until trump, or just pre-trump, when a few started to break ranks. I posted an article just after trump's election where an economist said the conventional wisdom is failing, but it's near impossible to get anything that challenges the status quo published in the peer review system. he also said it would be employment suicide to try to do so...
"How would you convince the country to raise additional taxes?
looking at the taxes I pay that's near impossible. I'm happy to pay tax, and I argue with my new migrant workmates that they should be the same, that's why we have the good public services that they enjoy so much, and their countries do not, ....as they tell me of the lengths they go to pay almost no tax...
having few high salary tax payers and always asking them to pay more and more - while others battle over the scraps of opportunities for jobs paying virtually no tax - while there's so much government waste on bullshit peograms and departments can only get you so far ...we're well past that point already...
there needs to be a 'triage' assessment of what the government can actually provide. clearly the 'services economy' with an ever growing bunch of public service positions cannot continue. you've gotta produce stuff to pay for services - public and private - thinking we'll provide financial services and the like to developing asian economies when they can do it cheaper and better was all kinds of dumb
(as foreign investment slows and the govt grows the welfare state and increases public spending)
How would you convince them a bigger government is necessary?
bigger government isn't neccesary, it's a pain the arse actually. we need a more prioritised, more focussed government. canning all their social engineering bullshit and putting it all into health would be a good start, a great start in fact. ndis as an 'economic stimulator' was the most ridiculous economic argument I've ever heard ....but that was the wisdom at the time...
How would you run the newly-formed public businesses in a market environment?
How should we cope with the economic shocks - recession and all it entails - as the country shifts to another economic model?
you can't stave off econmic downturns forever - more bullshit that's become actual belief. humans, markets, nature, work in cycles, usually with an element of boom and bust. artificially prolonging the good times just increases the bust ...as we are about to see...
(make no mistake, there will be blood - economic or otherwise)
Who is gonna convince the populace to take a hit, maybe a few hits, for the country?
it's coming regardless, as I've said before, both sides like to claim the gains and blame the losses. too much artificial intervention achieves nothing but more pain, cue MMT... most people with a scherik of objectivity see through this charade
"Don't answer with the feelz, outline an argument with as much reliance on real world examples as possible, or human behaviour as we know it."
I'm not saying the left should have stubbornly fought tooth and nail to stop globalisation. but they definitely definitely shouldn't have embraced so whole heartedly
tech and transport makes globalisation inevitable, having policies to deal with the externalities and enviromental costs would have been a start. ....but nah we did the exact opposite...
both sides just peddle bullshit, and thank fuck convincing the middle is the game of democracy. the left put all their eggs in one basket and let the right run wild with the economics, the privelaged and connected from the left cashed in too, ....and now... what a fucking mess!!!
balance grasshopper!
shit's been out of balance and artificially suspended for so long the left and right are desperately graspimg at gains that the general public - either missed out on totally - or weren't ever 'in on' in the first place
economic gap widening = ever growing economic priority gap = social priority gap
everything we've done has just widened this chasm
....to breaking point
freeride makes a fair point!
Bne (swine Flu) 02/2018 Strain A/ H1N1 still kills from 2009
All Oz trivalent + Quadrivalent Flu Shots guard against 2009-18 Bne Swine Flu
Stats do show Swine Flu ramped Oz Flu Shots by extra 1.5m/yer (All without Panic)
Swine Flu never abated + Fed Govt never once provided enough vaccines to cope!
New Pandemic layers our currently active "Swine Flu Record Oz Pandemic" Shh!
Not need to Alarm the Zombies! We'll just keep that intel between the crew! Ok!
Oz likely needs Corona vaccine to interlock with a new 5x strain Flu Booster Shot!
Why? Because Oz is heading into Swine Flu/ Corona Peak Season! ( Ain't no Joke!)
In truth both OZ Swine Flu + Corona Virus is killing Aussies...choose either end!
Crew can easily Ute Drop the Slab on yer Slab...saves spreading virus at yer wake!
Pecking order > advance order > over order then bin much needed world vaccines.
50% / Poorer nations Lotto Draw wins 5min dumpster dive @ Chemist Warehouse.
Flu season in Italy, a country that always has a higher death rate than the rest of Europe, in 2016/17.
25,000 deaths were recorded.
No one panicked.
Corona Virus is twice as bad as the flu, and should be treated with twice the caution, give or take
Something something empty G Land something something
Some fascinating to and fro on here. Fascinating for a variety of reasons.
Some of the 'received wisdoms' and readings of history!
And therein lies the rub for the politically disengaged. The quiet and relaxed and comfortable Australians are not best served by the disseminators in this country.
On here Stunet, you're talking about reading worthy books to people who barely read posts, let alone links! And they're NOT the politically disengaged (apparently)!!!!
71 years of federal Liberal governments, more often than not.
An inconvenient truth?
I've been waiting for someone to pipe up and point towards our state government voting as as a refutation of sorts. But then again, for every Don Dunstan (not that there's been many...any others?), there's a Joh. Actually, sticking to SA, the longest serving premier was Thomas Playford...a Liberal.
Now, imagine if we didn't have compulsory voting.
Maybe the Govt. could start the new LNG revolution in Australia with our money and then once its up and running properly, sell it in shares to resident Australians and Australian Super companies.
"That’s the Chinese model in a nutshell. Try and tell me that’s not successful."
Guess wu?
Hahahaha.
"nutshell" Hmmm who used that, ad nauseam............
Hahahahahaha. See Mrs Marsh, it does get in!
Coronavirus A Lister Tom Hanks finally puts Gold Coast on the Map *****
GC Mayor promises Tom the #1 Stop on Celeb Penthouse Mausoleums Drone Tour.
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/tom-hanks-tests-positive...
@Blowin
Not true at all.
Especially rents, rents are only set by what people are willing or can afford to pay.
Prices for some things are the same set by what people can afford to pay, but not all things many prices of things are set by manufacturing cost plus a certain percentage of profit and how competitive the market is etc
Im sure you are old enough to remember how expensive most manufactured goods were compared to wages 30 to 40 years ago.
I remember in the early 80s in kmart a kids BMX bike cost $120 the smaller version $99 i got the $99 bike for xmas.
Go into Kmart or big W today etc and the bikes are just as cheap 40 years on and quality in many cases pretty good..
Same with clothes and electronics, white goods etc
Manufacturing in Australia in most cases can't compete because to make a profit they would have to sell at a much higher price often up to ten times more and the overall quality of Asian made goods now is actually pretty good.
The main reason being because our wages are so high and we are right on the door step of Asia where it's dirt cheap to manufacture almost anything.
Obviously it's the same with countless other types of jobs that now have or are going offshore, why pay an Aussie to answer a phone in a call centre for $30per hour when you can pay someone $3per hour?
I mean the same shit even happens with things like seafood, gets caught in western countries processed in Asia then sent back here or USA etc to be sold.
Now that's crazy...but its done because its cheaper to do so.
yep, that's the miracle of neoliberal economics: cheap stuff. All the cheap shit you want, cheaper and cheaper every year.
the other shit; housing, fuel, insurances, education, health.......the actual shit you can't live without, you get reamed every which way on.
We'll see how long it takes fuel retailers to pass on the cut in oil prices.
Yep, amazing how everything is cheap except for what you really need...
"yep, that's the miracle of neoliberal economics: cheap stuff. All the cheap shit you want, cheaper and cheaper every year.
the other shit; housing, fuel, insurances, education, health.......the actual shit you can't live without, you get reamed every which way on.
We'll see how long it takes fuel retailers to pass on the cut in oil prices."
Not true at all.
Public education is dirt cheap, only expensive if you want further education or private.
Health is also dirt cheap or free if public, when i broke ribs and collapsed lung and was in hospital for a week etc i dont think i prod anything the whole time (all public)
Most expensive things was the carpark fees when my missus visited.
Most of the things that are expensive in Australia though that have increased in price have one thing in common, produced here or a service that cant be offshored.
Fuel seems to have come down where i am about $1.20 been up to $1.50 of late
BTW. Me thinks Blowin might be getting those slabs of beer good little vid, its going to be quite an event this Corona virus thing
Oz manufacturing is immposted by a rare greedy service tax off backs of workers.
Very few nations shoot themselves in the foot..
The few that do exclude Housing & Rent & Transit & Export so on.
Many also equally include GST on all imports to square up the game.(Not Howard!)
Howard's GST is biggest penalty upon ones own Nation's progress...easy to check!
NZ 15% GST but never dream of hitting folk for GST on own House or Rent.
World only has one real greedy heartless cunt capable of destroying all nations!
Howard & his pet monster GST killed off OZ dream & all Oz tech/ labour industries.
tbb knows, because 'our' GC OZ #1/2 House builders went from 60/mth to 6/mth.
All can see it was tbb's job to get to the root of such poison & weed it out!
Ask! Who the fuck is such an arsehole to increase Oz house prices by 40% o/n?
Then not give a fuck about OZ #1 Trade skills & broken families left in his wake.
Compounding GST tax timeline upscales tax to price out multi labour & production.
Tech/Build requires multi onsell of components,processing,Labour,Transit,Storage.
The GST goes into interstellar Orbit from 10% ramping to 50% tax of market price.
Oz hi tech 100% GST goes bust.."Hand me Howard's 1950's B&W Lego kit!"
Howard's 1950's B&W Lego Brick a+b=c / GST world has long passed us by...
Multi part Technicolour world compounds 10% each micro layer = $t's GST burden.
Howard's compounding GST cowered OZ into a one cell B&W 1950's economy.
Show how one can assemble a two scoop ice-cream without Howard licking it.
Kill Howard's GST & Make Australia Make stuff again... It's that fuckin' simple!
If Howard has a streak of coward left in him, he would apologize for Killing Australia.
"....why pay an Aussie to answer a phone in a call centre for $30per hour when you can pay someone $3per hour?"
because the service is shit, not only because of the english as second language problem but also cultural differences make it shit. hence why many companies actually advertise they now have an aussie call centre
"Public education is dirt cheap, only expensive if you want further education or private."
yes it's dirt cheap relatively, but it used to be free, real free, not free with additional charges
TAFE? Uni? user pays, a bit of a fee is fine from my perspective, but the fees are getting a bit ridiculous
all those cheap products are an environmental disaster, pollution at the source, slave labour, transport costs, and land fill and high turnover here. I saw a sign from a european bus shelter "if you can't recycle it, reuse it, or repair it, it should be illegal. sounds fair to me
all externalities and environmental costs need to be counted in any model of globisation moving forward
our hospitals are amazing, yes, still, just!
GP visit? $50 min. now- if you can get an appointment. x ray? pay pay pay, specialists? waiting lists over a year with costs, chemist medicine? still subsidised, but getting very expensive by the day
neoliberalism good? ...yeh nah....
I've always wondered about the business model with overseas call centres. It defies logic. It's a call centre - you are calling them for help. Imagine if the bloke from the RACT/NRMA/RACQ/etc rocked up and couldn't string two words of english together. How long would that caper last???
Thats fine if companies do have Aussie call centre people etc, but that extra cost has to be covered somewhere so it's always the user that pays more.
Yeah 100% if everything was made in Australia it would be heaps better environmentally, because yep most of us wouldn't be able to afford all those luxuries.
I personally never pay anything to go to the doctor, and i only have a medicare card nothing else, pretty much all our local clinics bulk bill.
To me i find it weird that i don't pay anything, I'm not disadvantaged like on government payments etc i could easily pay to visit a doctor, even when i did my ribs and lungs i was shocked that i didn't have to pay anything at all.
I mean im not complaining i will take it, but its not something i expect and could 100% understand if i had to pay a percentage.
But maybe thats how i was brought up that i had to work for things and didnt expect them handed out to me.
But most of you guys are older than me, so its hard to say your thought pattern is different because you git everything handed out on a plate, like many people these days expect or demand these things and socialism is weirdly popular among young people who dont know its history of failure.
When people use this "neoliberalism" thing.
What are people actually thinking "neoliberalism" is?
When i read about what it is it, it just seems like common sense, anything else has always proven to be much more problematic especially the further away from it you move. (which is really just moving away from a natural society)
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp
"Neoliberalism supports fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, privatization, and greatly reduced government spending"
"fiscal austerity" Who wants the government to borrow more?
"deregulation" who wants more regulation?...over regulation is a huge problem.
"Free trade" Ideally you want to keep things as simple and natural as possible rather than getting complicated.
"privatization" In many cases is a positive in others a negative, but once again...if you dint believe government does a good job, why on earth would you want the to run more things that affect your life.
"Greatly reduce government spending" less spending means less tax?...you dint want that?
I guess yes in a sense this does go against my love of Singapore...
The way i see it anarchy sits at one end communism at the other and then going in you have Capitalism and Neo liberalism and the Socialism at the other end (Maybe there is more) obviously you just want to find the right balance in the middle between the extremes, which is exactly what we have.
US bans Europe + Oz will soon follow.
Indo, neo-liberalism in Australia is the IPA, biggest cunts in the country. Go and read their 100 point plan. Personally I want the Govt. here to borrow to the shithouse and build infrastructure, they can lock in the cheapest $ in history ATM and stimulate which the RBA Gov. has begged them to do. Free trade is an excuse for multinational corporate exploitation, privatisation is the worst thing they could do in many cases, just an excuse to put public money and assets in private/mates hands, PPP's are a con, I suggest you read "The Game of Mates". In short neo-liberalism and trickle down are some of the great cons of this and the last century, it only serves the 1%. Everyone else can get fucked, that's neo-liberalism.
Scotty the Salesman should immediately ban all travel to/from American given their health “only for the rich” system.
"But maybe thats how i was brought up that i had to work for things and didnt expect them handed out to me."
What about your dole bludging years?
"The way i see it anarchy sits at one end communism at the other and then going in you have Capitalism and Neo liberalism and the Socialism at the other end (Maybe there is more) obviously you just want to find the right balance in the middle between the extremes, which is exactly what we have."
What is this??
Looks like it wasn’t the Asian uni students we had to worry about bringing the virus in, it was Iran and the good old USA. The States must be riddled with it based on the cases arriving here.
Pretty simple Facto:
On one end of the spectrum you have.
Anarchism: where you do away with government and control all together and just let chaos reign, obvious disaster.
Then you have
Neo liberalism and capitalism where you have as less interference from governments as possible, free markets, deregulation etc
Then you have the centre where we are and most developed countries are which is a mix between the above and below, it's obviously what works best, the argument is always in which measures of capitalism and socialism do you have..
Then i guess on the other side of the spectrum you have Socialism that gives a lot more control to governments and public ownership etc
And then on the very far edge you have communism which is basically socialism on steroids.
Yes?
Personally i think neoliberalism and capitalism has too much negativity connotations around them, yeah sure if taken to the extreme it's not good but it still works for most of the community just not the worst off.
Socialism on the other hand often has positive connotations around it, especially among many young people, but we all know it has never worked for anyone and always ends badly, people try to paint some Nordic countries as socialist countries but they are far far from it they just have different mix to places like Aust or USA etc.
Indo, some things from neo liberalism sound good ....especially in an overly over regulated country like oz....
but when the government sells assetts like electricity and water - assetts that provide essential services that should always be in government hands for many people - under the ruse it will make things cheaper and better, and then they are not, they are shitter and more expensive...its a fucking joke
then once the momentum gets going they start to sell money making assetts like lands title offices and the like, it becomes a fucking joke. for a quick deceptive cash fix, the public has lost an assett for a pittance return. then they want to sell visa application processing etc. - stuff the government should control to kerb corruption - it becomes a real fucking joke...
once these assetts are gone, there's little chance of getting them back. oz is selling everything, to fund the ridiculous over promising of benefits and services to baby boomers
we (they actually - baby boomers) are stealing from future generations to fund a ridiculous over commitment of good stuff to the boomer generation - a generation that got everything, that's EVERTHING for free
it's bloody criminal...
Pretty simple, pretty simplistic.
Indo, all functioning societies require governing bodies to provide for said society. Anarchism is a crock, we're pack creatures, and since the First Agricultural Revolution that's what humans have done, created hierarchial societies with central bodies to protect and nourish the population, whether it be Church, feudal lords, or later the nation state and the various forms of governemnt that lay the rules but protect the constituents.
In the Western world, the nation state has been very stable, largely owing to Britain, namely the Magna Carta, and the Westminster system and versions thereof. It's no overstatement to say that the Western world's owes its propserity to those things. It took many years to shape and to arrive at this point (Magna Carta signed 800 years ago) and there's been many challenges, however the value of concepts such as rule of law, separation of powers, and parliamentary democracy has been proven over and again. It's still the very best thing we've got, by a long margin.
Neo-liberalism is the greatest challenge to that system as it co-opts central governments and hands the central power to corporations, all of whom care more about shareholders than they do the population of the country they operate in. In Australia, the LNP has facilitated this shift to neoliberalsim, though Labor hand's aren't clean either.
Government 'of the people, for the people' is a crock in the age of neoliberalism.
I could go on but I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it and likely to devolve into insult and you know what Blowin thinks about that.
.... now public lands, water rights, mining rights, just about everything, is sold to overseas interests for a pittance, as a stop gap measure to deal with decades of failing government policy
poor old farmers have no water, meanwhile, chinese investors are buying up all the water rights...
look up 'cubbie station', one of the biggest in oz, has all the water at the top of the catchment, sold to the chinese, now hoarding all the water, while the farmers downstream are watching their properties turn to dust
... but meanwhile, the boomer's ridiculous percentage government worker pension plans (that should've never been promised) are safe as houses....
then there's 'my aged care' the most ridiculous handing out of services to an already over privelaged generation. my aged care provides excellent government subsidised services to a bunch of folks with all the cash to pay for them. my poor old man couldn't practically get any help at all from my aged care whilst on his deathbed ....but they did send a never ending stream of overpaid 'consultants' around (from a heap of different 'private' competing companies 'competing' but funded by government) to assess his situation, ....and tell him basically he could get nothing....
that's neoliberalism!!!!
Didn't deregulation and privatisation in Australia generally start under Hawk & Keating?
(obviously continued under Howard)
Like anything its obviously about balance, some things benefit from privatisation some things don't, generally anything that runs in an o[pen market benefits and anything that is just a one off service with no competition doesn't.
Some things make sense not being run or owned by the government and some things should remain owned and run by the government, but ideally you want to keep things being run by the government to a minimum.
Anyway, i think its way way way more complicated than most people make out getting this right balance, i think there is a weird naive idealistic view that is popular these days that is very anti big business or dont understand that foreign investment in some cases is very important.
No one will ever agree on what the balance should be though, and maybe there really is no perfect balance or maybe that balance should always be ever changing.
Just watched Morrisons speech about what the Govt's doing. Nobody can tell me they would rather have somebody else in charge at present. We are fortunate to have a half decent leader at present who has a few bucks in the bank and at least some idea what hes doing.
Ha ha don't think your comment will get much love Optimist but yeah last year didn't we break even on the budget (neither surplus or more debt) which is going to help us to a degree getting through this.
The US and UK had already begun dismantling their economies prior to the '83 election, so Australia had to follow suit. It was less about Hawke and Keating beginning an action, as them following what the rest of the world was doing, but fortunately we had those two at the levers or we may well have had the whole neolib catastrophe including privatising Medicare. The whole Hobbesian theory that Liberals think is the natural order of man - with the rick pricks at the top of course.
Under H and K's control the introduced changes were called 'Economic Rationalism', generally a leftish approach to neoliberalism that involved a balancing act amongst all players: citizens, worker organisations, private capital, but that social contract was burnt at the stake under Howard who went to war on unions and ceded the power to multinational corporations.
Some of those things were good moves selling the Commonwealth bank, Telstra, Qantas just off the top of my head.
I',m not sure about this scomo stimulus package.
not sure at all.
small/medium businesses get payments of 2 to 25 grand to supposedly keep workers employed.
Is there accountability for that or can bosses just trouser the money and lay workers off anyway?
I don't see any media coverage that guarantees that money will do what it is supposed to do rather than just be a hand-out for business people to pocket.
Have it cunts