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The Forum > Article Comments > Inequality and poverty > Comments

Inequality and poverty : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 22/5/2014

Humans themselves are not equal in any way: height, weight, beauty, talent, parents, circumstances when growing up, character, style, moral fibre, and so on. We are all unequal in every respect. That's not unfair - it's just the way it is.

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might makes right
prepare..for martial law

http://investmentwatchblog.com/america-u-s-special-forces-foreign-troops-practice-martial-law-invasion-in-florida-may222014/

RELEASE US:
a short film on police brutality by Charles Shaw
http://xrepublic.tv/node/9037

Cop Assaults Air Force Capt..for Not Knowing Neighbor,
Says He Could Have Tased or Shot Him Instead
http://xrepublic.tv/node/9036

clearly..no-one..is safe/when public servants need guns and goons to protect them>

signs of impoverishment..are reflected..in the policeing forces numbers..[more cops=more resistance.keep the mongrels honest/busy.

but still..its a nice job..jobs jobs jobs/was how they built this survelance system..kits fed by money made from illegal drugs/thugs thugs thugs

follow the money/the opinum war was the prototype/make people understand/we must stand[stop paying the fees service charges and iinvestment banker set demands[the beast feeds on our woork/giving us paper/stop spending the paper/much of the debt burden you pay=odious debt..[odious debt=criminal..and a criminal cannot gain from his crime

but the criminals run the roost/there must be a way..to shut the meltdown/down..this sun day//the pope prayes..then on monday/the prayer is replied..in the very place..last supper decried.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/japan-begins-purposely-dumping-100s-of-tons-of-radioactive-water-from-fukushima-into-the-pacific/
Posted by one under god, Friday, 23 May 2014 9:05:50 AM
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Opinion seems sharply divided on this post. I must say that running through the hostile comments is the theme of envy: 'some people have much more than others, and that's wrong, because [I'm] one of the others'. No matter what society you look at there are some who have more than others. Yes, there are very rich people who don't pay income tax, because they've organised their affairs to avoid it. The only way to deal with them is to get rid of income taxation altogether and tax everything that is purchased, and have really high scales of taxation on expensive houses, cars, boats, planes, and so on. I don't think many people would enjoy such a state of affairs, and the very rich would still be very rich. Some will have moved to somewhere else, taking their wealth and initiative with them.

The capitalist system enables high rates of economic growth, and encourages the acquisition of property, and thus personal wealth. On the whole, I think it's better for most people most of the time. The alternatives didn't work in the Soviet Union or in China.
Posted by Don Aitkin, Friday, 23 May 2014 5:03:39 PM
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The whingers complain about inequity but they are not prepared to take the risks the wealthy take to get where they are. Also the whingers don't have the skills, foresight or anything else needed to get wealthy. We need the wealthy because they make us all better off. They make the country better off. If we over-tax the high income earners they'll move elsewhere and take their entrepreneurial skills and business acumen elsewhere. And the up and coming will prefer to be employees rather than employers. Why would they take the risk of starting a business if you do as well by being an employee?

An article by Grace Collier in the Australian a week ago “How to get ahead by trying” is applicable. Excerpt:

“We need an attitude realignment and government should use taxation policy to realign us; hard work, entrepreneurism and success; these are not attributes we admire enough. In this country, we want everyone to be the same, even if it means none of us progress. We have a bizarre focus on jobs, as though the only way to earn a living is to be a wage slave. We obsess about sending everyone to university, as though there is no other way to be a success.

High-income earners are seen as lucky people who can always “afford to pay more” and business people are seen as greedy crooks.

These ignorant, backward views are a great shame because the people they hurt the most are the ones holding them the closest. Look into the faces of the fearful, suspicious audience members on the ABC1 program Q&A. What is likelier to make the lives of these people better: encouraging them to hate the rich and not want to be like them or encouraging them to admire the rich and consider trying to copy them?

cont...
Posted by Peter Lang, Friday, 23 May 2014 5:49:35 PM
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What if inside every low-income earner there is a high-income earner just screaming to get out? I like to think there may be. However, the societal permission, incentive and teaching to make them emerge is sorely lacking. This is where very high personal tax rates are a killer; they convey societal disapproval of wealth. And, sure, wealth is no guarantee to happiness but people are better off miserable and rich than miserable and poor.

The romantic admiration of the poor Aussie worker needs a reality check. Does this person even exist any more or are they sitting at home jobless, wearing a sulky expression, blue hair and an eyebrow ring? Look into the faces of the people doing the low status, minimum-wage jobs. Taxi drivers, cleaners, security guards, the girls in those dreadful sweatshop nail salons; these are migrants, new Australians, doing the jobs existing Australians don’t want to do because as Sach, the man who drove me home the other night, so aptly said: “Australia, too easy, sit home and get the money.”

Sach came here from India nine years ago as a student to become a chef. During his studies he worked security shifts. Within five years he married and saved $20,000. With the money, he imported a container of chairs.

While Sach waited for that container he stressed himself half to death. What if the chairs didn’t arrive, what if his money was lost, what if nobody bought his chairs.

He drove from town to town, visiting shops, with pictures of his chairs, asking for orders. When the container arrived, the chairs all sold. Sach put the earnings back into another container and repeated the process.

Four years later business is good, the profits are always reinvested, so in his spare time Sach drives people around so he can buy a house. Sach says “work is everywhere” and cannot speak highly enough of the opportunities he sees in Australia.

cont ...
Posted by Peter Lang, Friday, 23 May 2014 5:52:01 PM
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In India he could never be a success, he says, because “everyone else trying just as hard as me. Here, not many people trying, easier for me.”

Sach and I agree; overall the government is taking our country in the right direction, but income tax was already too high and now it is even higher. Putting a tax on success sends the wrong message.

A personal tax cut, even a small one, would send the message that earning lots of money is a desirable activity. The way for low and middle-income earners to react to budget cuts is to be inspired, like Sach, to find ways to earn more.

END
Posted by Peter Lang, Friday, 23 May 2014 5:52:53 PM
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Good piece, Peter — and Sach's is a good story, too. I could match his account of things with others, and I guess many of us could. The young people least likely to go to university, when I was deeply involved in it, were the children of British migrants. The next group, the biggest, were the Australian-born of Australian-born. All other groups, all children of migrants, had higher proportions, Indians, Chinese and Vietnamese the highest of all. And they were in the faculties whose graduates go to high-paying professional careers. Tells you something.
Posted by Don Aitkin, Friday, 23 May 2014 7:19:18 PM
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