Graic Gabtar posted:

People don't want to be worse off. I don't want to be worse off. Let's find 3 odd billion of expenditure cuts instead.
Hah, that was my first genuine laugh of the night - well done. Actually though, I think the major parties are often interested in what that 20% finds compelling.

Anidav posted:

Well I mean, killing 50+ dogs at once is far from putting down the family dog because it accidentally killed a chicken or something. This isn't Old Yeller, this is basically cold blooded culling in the name of sport.

Who the gently caress puts down their dog in a paddock in 2015?

Konomex posted:

It's a horrible waste, I imagine 50 greyhounds could have fed a lot of people.

Konomex posted:

Here's a tip, if you're having money trouble, stop getting drunk every single day. You said you only post when you're drunk, so you must be sloshed a lot.

quote:

A tax discussion paper released by Treasurer Joe Hockey this week raised the idea of reforming the current tax on alcohol, which sees different types of alcohol taxed at different rates.

The paper claimed the cost of a standard glass of cask wine included five cents of tax, compared to a ready-to-drink beverage which had almost $1 of tax included

Konomex posted:

Here's a tip, if you're having money trouble, stop getting drunk every single day. You said you only post when you're drunk, so you must be sloshed a lot.

CrazyTolradi posted:

What is your source of information for the Government's management of money? Are you an economist? Are you able to critically assess, evaluate and understand budgets of that size? What exactly is "fiscally responsible"? Do you even understand the phrase or are you just mouthing words you've read in the paper?

Konomex posted:

Here's a tip, if you're having money trouble, stop getting drunk every single day. You said you only post when you're drunk, so you must be sloshed a lot.

Graic Gabtar posted:

30% of our budget expenditure goes towards welfare. Feel free. Tax me as much as you want. You'll be back here in five years bitching about how the rich aren't paying enough tax and a third of our budget will still be going towards welfare.

Les Affaires posted:

The vast majority of that 30% is the pension though isn't it?

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Is Prosh usually poo poo?

Gough Suppressant posted:

Welfare is not a waste of money. Consider it an investment in avoiding the guillotine.

Graic Gabtar posted:

If only they had of been able to put more into super.

Graic Gabtar posted:

If only they had of been able to put more into super.

Anidav posted:

Who the gently caress puts down their dog in a paddock in 2015?

Les Affaires posted:

The vast majority of that 30% is the pension though isn't it?

ScreamingLlama posted:

we have actual economic policies as opposed to the Greens just belching out clouds of weed smoke like the factories they profess to hate

Clouds of Weed Smoke posted:

The Greens today announced revenue measures that would fund the repayment of $20 billion of investment in new public transport, schools, hospitals, housing and other social infrastructure, without privatisation or running up unsustainable debt.

The Greens propose to restore taxation measures worth $950 million a year on property speculators and poker machines in the large clubs that were introduced by former Labor Premier Bob Carr in 2004 and then axed by his successor, Morris Iemma, in 2006.

Together with $400 million a year from maintaining the stamp duties on business transactions (the "IGA taxes") that were scheduled to be abolished, a loan of $20 billion can be paid back over a twenty year period, using conservative estimates of interest rates.

The vendor duty would not apply to the family home or farm and would help prevent first home buyers being priced out by another housing bubble.

Rescinding Morris Iemma's tax cut for the most profitable clubs would reduce the money available to them to expand and further concentrate poker machines in areas with high incidences of problem gambling.

Tacking back the tax cuts

Reinstate the Vendor Duty. This would apply to the sale of all land other than owner-occupied homes and family farms, where the value since purchase has increased by more than 12 percent. The duty was designed to address the combination of capital gains and negative gearing tax concessions introduced by the Howard Government.
Revenue: $645 million averaged over four year forward estimates
Restore marginal poker machine tax rates at clubs with profits of more than $1 million a year to the level set by Labor in 2004 (a sliding marginal scale from 25 percent on $1 million to $5 million of profits to 40 percent on profits over $10 million).
Revenue: $310 million per annum averaged over four year forward estimates
Maintain the stamp duties on certain business transactions (the "IGA" taxes) which are scheduled to be abolished in July 2016. These include stamp duty on business mortgages, unlisted marketable securities and transfer duty on non-real business transfers. The duties are forecast to raise $381 million in 2016/17 and $403 million in 2017/18.
Revenue: $400 million per annum averaged over four year forward estimates
Total revenue: $1.355 billion per annum

Borrowings

$20 billion at 3.25 percent, paid back over 20 years at $1.35 billion a year. The rate is deliberately conservative, compared to the current 10-year Waratah bond rate of 2.75 percent which would require annual repayments of $1.3 billion. Phased borrowing over the 20 year period would increase the total amount of capital that can be sustainably raised.

INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT INCLUDES

Schools, TAFE colleges and hospitals $4.5 billion
Social (including public) and affordable housing $4.5 billion
Public transport (new projects, not yet announced) $1.75 billion
Renewable energy package (already announced ) $2.75 billion
Large scale solar and other renewables $2.25 billion
Sports and recreation $1.5 billion
Other social infrastructure, focused on jobs creation $2.75 billion
Total: $20.0 billion

Graic Gabtar posted:

30% of our budget expenditure goes towards welfare. Feel free. Tax me as much as you want. You'll be back here in five years bitching about how the rich aren't paying enough tax and a third of our budget will still be going towards welfare.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Welfare is not a waste of money. Consider it an investment in avoiding the guillotine.

Graic Gabtar posted:

Well considering how many on welfare are claiming disability then I think most would take their chances that avoiding that investment is safe as pulling hard on a rope to raise the blade would be something people won't dare do in this age of phone cameras.

Pickled Tink posted:

Pickled Tink posted:

See 50 new posts, pop in, and it is just a torrent of abuse between a bunch of shitposters.

People: Please stop being so easy to troll. When you read something here, get up from your computer, walk around your home a few times, then sit down and ask yourself the following question: "Does what I want to say in any way add anything of value to this discussion". When you say yes to yourself, realise that you are a loving liar and walk around the house again. This provides both exercise and makes sure you actually think before you put what passes for thought into words, and maybe will help make this thread less of an absolute shithole.

The problem is not Graic. The problem is you. You are the problem. I know Fruity made the whole "Angry ranty" thing seem cool, but you are all a load of poseurs compared to the magnificence of her incandescent rage. The thread only needs one Fruity (or less), and certainly has no requirement for Gough Suppressant knockoffs. I have the first dog market cornered, and a few other people post interesting or contributive things here and there. The rest of you seem to be engaged in a contest where you see who can scream at thread targets the loudest and only appear to hit anything of substance by accident.

Please try not to act like bigger children than our government.


I confess, I wrote the above because you lot made me have to open up and actually read one of Graic's posts. I've had him on ignore for months now, and been the happier for it. Please note that I am not actually responding to him here, just using what he said because it is a clear example of how many people think:


Welfare will always be a cost. There will always be those who cannot work, are unable to find work, or are in some way unfit for work. Yes some forms of welfare are, in fact, being rorted. The aged pension is the biggest example of this. In the end it boils down to two main competing world views.

One of them is the self centred one, where the person sees what they have accomplished and rightly or wrongly credits only themselves with having achieved their own outcome, and feels that others who have not had to jump through the same hurdles they have do not deserve to have the same or similar conditions and circumstances as they do. These people measure their self worth by how they compare to others in society. This is a more selfish and short term form of thinking.

The others are more society oriented. They recognise, rightly or wrongly, that what they have they have not just because of their own efforts but those of other people around them, and they measure the worth of themselves by the society they live in and how they have affected it. This can be selfish too, especially if you are on a lower rung than the average, but is generally a more longer term sort of thinking.

These are a gross oversimplification, of course. But it is politics, so we need to simplify things to communicate concepts in ways that don't make everyone else's eyes glaze over.

Welfare is a classic example of the divide between the two world views. One fails to recognise that they only succeed because of the work of others, without which their own work would have been meaningless. The other demands that those who have benefited the most from the system pay more to support it. I confess that I am in the latter of the two camps mentioned above. Anyway, I ramble. It is what I do when I am tired and grumpy and have a sugar high and a dozen achy injuries.


One thing people who oppose welfare need to realise is that the economy is all connected. People who receive welfare get what amounts to table scraps with which to make ends meet. This money is spent on goods and services, what little extra there is gets put away towards quality of life or emergency purchases. They do not gather up vast piles of unused capital. Every dollar that gets spent on welfare for the poor, unemployed, and disabled is put right back into the economy again. It becomes the wages that store clerks earn, the profits that drive your businesses share price, the grease that keeps the wheels of the economy turning without which the wealth that those of the selfish group would neither have existed in the first place or retain value today.

The true poison to an economy is not those who are on welfare. As mentioned, they spend pretty much everything they get thus producing economic activity and growth. The problem is those who accumulate capital and then don't do anything with it. This sucks money out of the economy. By amassing and hoarding millions of dollars for no better reason than to keep score, the selfish group cause the economy to contract. As it stands, this group are currently the ones in power, and they largely control the political discourse in the western world. They rig the tax rules to benefit themselves (Capital gains tax rates? low. Income tax rates? medium. Consumption taxes? high. Exemptions? Many if you are wealthy, few if you are poor) and serve the goal of further accumulation of wealth. The Austerity narrative is part of this.

It is very very easy to blame and vilify the unemployed. Blaming the victim circumstance for the circumstance is the easiest way to avoid acknowledging that you might actually need to do something yourself. This doesn't have to be followed maliciously. You can be too busy, or your own circumstances can be too stressful to worry about doing things for others. This whole series of complaints about the welfare system is essentially a manufactured distraction from the fact that the system that needs a major overhaul is not welfare for poors, but taxes for the obscenely wealthy (Both individuals and companies). It has become increasingly self evident that the wealthy are not paying their fair share to support the system that enabled them to be in the position they are today. Companies shift assets overseas and debts to onshore subsidiaries so they can claim a tax credit for a loss that doesn't really exist in the larger structure of the company. The wealthy hiding money away in offshore bank accounts and in ways that are taxed at vastly lower rates. The budget problem is one of income, not expenditure.

The reason welfare has not been cut entirely is not just because it is unconscionable, but also because stripping people of everything they have, and leaving them with nothing but crippling debt forces many of them into crime in order to survive. The scare analogy Gough suppressant provided comes into play at this point:

Though it is less guillotine and more having your poo poo stolen, possible kidnappings, etc.

Those who support cutting welfare down or off entirely either don't think it through to its logical conclusion, or they do, but believe either that they can simply flit off to another country where they don't have to worry about the angry mob, or that somehow they'll benefit from the police state required to keep order in such a society.


tl;dr: Welfare spending is not a problem, and is in fact a good thing, both socially and economically. lovely regressive taxation is the problem, and Welfare is just thrown up as a distraction by those who benefit from the status quo to prevent action being taken to meaningfully change it.


I apologise for this rambly post, but I am too tired to engage in more than a brief proofreading.


PS. Stop acting like a bunch of loving children.

Drugs posted:

I post in 4 (four) threads on these entire forums and Craig is trying to ensconce himself as a regular in three of them.

Thank god for The Other Place

Murodese posted:

MUYB I feel your posts have taken a turn for the excellent lately

Kommando posted:

Netflix adopters have realised Australian Internet is poo poo, really poo poo and started complaining. iinet blames Telstra.

http://m.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/iinet-blames-telstra-for-slow-netflix-connection-speeds-20150331-1mblrj.html

Murodese posted:

MUYB I feel your posts have taken a turn for the excellent lately

Fruity Gordo posted:

26 women murdered in 12 weeks

http://www.womensagenda.com.au/talk...43#.VRudSsQaySM

Fruity Gordo posted:

Ciarg psychopathic post, I'm gonna get into a two page argument with him about this awful post stay tuned

Fruity Gordo posted:

srsly?! fuuuuuuck

nah

Negligent posted:

iiNet was like the one successful company from Perth and the second they get taken over by TPG they will go to poo poo because TPG has the magical excrement finger