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The Forum > Article Comments > How to get the fair go most of us want > Comments

How to get the fair go most of us want : Comments

By Geoff Davies, published 23/8/2017

It is claimed the neoliberal, free-market regime has resulted in unprecedented prosperity, but it has not.

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Does "cooperative" include being forced to cooperate?

Does "community" mean the loss of privacy?

Does "family" mean making more babies?

Does "equal distribution of wealth" mean taking away the savings of the established old and giving it to young people so that they can make even more babies (then the more babies they make, the more distribution is required)?

The 1960's-1970's were indeed great in many ways, but then people like mice and rabbits used the good economic conditions to multiply, resulting in the fast-paced competitive society that we now sadly face and about which the author complains.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 11:00:59 AM
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Agree, its crazy to import stuff we can grow or make here.
Posted by progressive pat, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 11:09:16 AM
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The ideal of a fair go we used to enjoy and " GEEN IDEOLOGICAL IMPERATIVES," are not mutually compatible.

Yes the clock can't be turned back, but successful principles that always, always work even in a very different world, can be modernised and reapplied to create a better world for us and ours than that which prevails in the 50-70's!

Scrambled eggs that are plainly rotten need to be jettisoned into the garbage bin of history!

So we can start with a clean sheet and determine our own path! Starting with tax! Which ought to be no more than 15% tops and not kick in below $50,00.00 per. Trebling the economy is the way to build quite massive surpluses, even with a very fair low and single, essentially unavoidable tax, taken from those who can afford it!

All profit demanding middle men, with their worthless paper shuffling/secret commissions need to be outlawed!

Which will effectively halve the cost of living or doing business all while adding quite massively to discretionary spending! Given it removes significant cascading and money churning from the economy!

And as a first order priority, roll out thorium powered power! No, not because it's carbon free super fuel, although essentially desirable! But because it provides the cheapest possible power to grow the economy, without any non essential imported population growth!

Lastly embrace your own people and their better ideas, which as to include deionization dialysis desalination and just help as and where necessary.

And preference cooperatives and family startups as being the most efficient and enduring private practise, free market reliant, capitalism, competing for unfettered domestic market share, all while dominating internationally against all comers!

Finally crack on as rapidly as possible with decentralization, and just by rolling out rapid rail and giving various underutilized regions indeterminate tax holidays until they become self regenerating regional economies!

Seems like a pretty fair go template to me!? But that's just my view and divorced from any and all ideological imperatives/disingenuity.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 23 August 2017 12:16:36 PM
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The corollary to what Yuy writes is that "as children are our future"
more babies also means a faster path to the extinction of Homo Sapiens and all other living animals on this (once) lovely planet.
Posted by ateday, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 12:19:38 PM
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Correction and apologies, $50,00.00 Ought to be read as $50,000.00!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 23 August 2017 12:19:51 PM
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We need to work out what passes for 'fair' these days. “For too many people fairness seems to be taking from the 'haves' and giving to people who make little attempt to better their lot, happy to bludge on people who have actually worked for what they have.

“... workers got too greedy and provoked inflation...”. Yes, but so did the businessmen employing them – whacking prices up, and paying managers ridiculous salaries.

The real problem seems to have been the 'gimme, gimme' attitude of the masses; the desire for instant gratification and the need to have immediately what previous generations actually waited for and saved for.

Now, two incomes is not enough to satisfy the needs of ordinary people who have little wealth, earned or inherited.

Geoff Davies bleats that it “was not our doing”, which is total bulldust: it was our doing. Western politicians simply did not have the guts to stand up to the oil cartels and international pirates. They couldn't say no to globalism – greed again. And, the people who said “government is bad” were right! The market is the only thing that works.

Today's problems lay fair and square with the cultural Marxists, most of whom are academics like this fellow. Who else could deny the the free market is the path to growth and prosperity than someone who knows nothing about the real world, outside academe? Government intervention has never worked. The man must be away with the fairies.

The “misguided ideology” is all his.
Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 2:11:20 PM
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Hooray for Geoff!
It is some years now since I have posted this reference which sums up the situation that we are now in - a situation that was not in any way created by "cultural marxists" but by the Milton Friedman and the Chicago boyz inspired "free" market fundamentalists.
http://www.coteda.com/fundamentals/index.html

Plus the books by Sharon Beder which give a detailed explanation of the well organized global forces that have engineered this situation. And of course the books No Logo, and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Never mind that global corporations now rule the entire world and thus determine EVERYTHING that we think, do and feel. And of course effectively decide who is going to live and die, or where the next sacrifice zone is going to be.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 2:49:17 PM
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And anyone who pretends that there is anything remotely like a "free" market should read the two books by John Perkins The Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and New Confessions of an Economic Hitman
.
And two books by George Monbiot, How Did we Get Into This Mess, and in relation to the UK Captive State.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 2:56:55 PM
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Dear Ateday,

"Extinction" is probably too strong - but certainly a continued deterioration of the quality of life, which peaked in the last century and now is in decline.

---

Dear Daffy,

«global corporations now rule the entire world and thus determine EVERYTHING that we think, do and feel.»

Now you have overstepped the mark:

Perhaps you were speaking for yourself, but while I also do not like the global corporations, I still think for myself, every moment, feel for myself and try to do what I practically can under the circumstances.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 3:54:16 PM
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Geoff,
Were you an adult during the seventies? NO recession !
I had a legal practice and suffered a halving of income in Whitlam's 3 years.
My brother's building company , in those 3 years went from building two houses per week to closing down, never to reopen. Most of his competitors in Wollongong did the same and his two ex- partners went bankrupt.
The unemployed rate was multiplied by three at least.

It seems your theories are based on false premises.
Posted by Old Man, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 4:21:33 PM
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progressive pat,
It's far from crazy to import stuff we can make here. A lot of it's low value stuff that can be made far more cheaply overseas. It doesn't make sense to deny our consumers and businesses the benefit of cheap stuff just so there's more low value work available for our workers who are perfectly capable of doing high value work if they have the opportunity.

There are many things wrong with neoliberal economics, but free trade isn't one of them.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Old Man,
Less money going to lawyers? My opinion of Whitlam has improved!
Seriously though, how did he manage that?

_________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn,
Your rant seems rather illogical.
How do you imagine the western politicians could've stood up to OPEC?

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Alan B.,
There's absolutely nothing incompatible between green ideological imperatives and a fair go for all. Indeed in the long term the former actually help with the latter.

But your preferred solutions are not the answer. Thorium power will eventually be reliable, and will probably be cheap, but right now it's neither. And cutting tax is a very expensive way to grow the economy.
Posted by Aidan, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 7:17:30 PM
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Aidan,

I wouldn't waste time trying to explain anything to you.
Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 23 August 2017 10:28:25 PM
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Hear, hear ttbn and well said!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 23 August 2017 11:48:05 PM
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ttbn,
I presume that means you haven't the foggiest?

I daresay there will be other readers who form the same conclusion.
Posted by Aidan, Thursday, 24 August 2017 1:22:47 AM
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Hey Aiden,
Quick question - What's your position on solid gold toilet seats?

I've got this hunch that if the government said were doubling taxes tomorrow to buy gold toilet seats for politicians, you'd support that because it would be growing the economy.
(though I'm not sure it would be)

And if the people rose up and said 'This is outrageous!' you'd oppose the funding cuts for gold toilet seats because it might shrink the economy.

Where do you stand on stupid and wasteful spending?
Spending for the sake of spending when better results can be obtained for less with better policy?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 24 August 2017 6:23:07 AM
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The biggest increase over a decade in real income of the lowest 25% of the country occurred from 1996 to 2006 due entirely to free market economics.

That an economic pinhead wants to cherry pick and rewrite history to shine a positive light on failed socialist policies is symptomatic of the general amnesia shown by left whinge politicians.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 24 August 2017 7:11:08 AM
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ttbn - Free market theory is an absurd abstraction that has nothing to do with real modern economies.
https://betternature.wordpress.com/my-books/sack-the-economists/

ttbn & Shadow Minister - And free markets don't work: postwar years (Keynesian social democratic): growth 5%, inflation 3.3%, unemployment 1.3%. (Under that failed old socialist Bob Menzies.) Nothing since 1980 has come close to those figures.

Old Man - no recession: www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-27/verrender-think-whitlam-ruined-our-economy-think-again/584286
Posted by Geoff Davies, Thursday, 24 August 2017 10:12:29 AM
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Shadow,
What is your source for that claim?
Does it take into account the loss of purchasing power from the introduction of the GST?

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Armchair,

Your hunch is stupid, and shows you don't understand my position at all. I'm completely opposed to stupid and wasteful spending. And I always have been. There are so many more worthwhile things we could do with the money instead.

Besides, stimulus spending is deficit spending! Tax and spend doesn't grow the economy unless the money is spent on something that enables more economic activity to occur (like a road) and/or the spending occurs in depressed regions where it employs people who would otherwise be unemployed. Neither of those apply to a solid gold toilet seat. So you can be sure such seats would NOT be growing the economy.

I'd support thousand dollar toilet seats in the right context (namely aircraft, where if they're sufficiently lightweight the cost can be justified by fuel savings). And I'd support toilet seats with sliver nanoparticles (which have great antibacterial properties). But I can't contrive a situation where I'd support solid gold toilet seats for anyone, let alone our politicians!
Posted by Aidan, Thursday, 24 August 2017 10:20:51 AM
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Geoff,

If you had an ounce of economic nous you would know that Keynesian economics is based on a free market economy and deals largely with times of higher unemployment and government funding to boost the economy. Keynes was the first to declare that in times of high employment that the economy should be run in surplus. As the situation post war was of devastated European economies and a US economy that was winding back its war effort. Huge expenditure was justified to stop an impending recession and rebuild infrastructure.

Monetary policy deals with times of high employment when government spending simply displaces private spending and generates inflation. As employment in Aus is roughly 5.6% nearing full employment and growth is about 2% Stimulus is not called for.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 28 August 2017 10:03:22 AM
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Dear Shadow Minister,

“The biggest increase over a decade in real income of the lowest 25% of the country occurred from 1996 to 2006 due entirely to free market economics. That an economic pinhead wants to cherry pick and rewrite history to shine a positive light on failed socialist policies is symptomatic of the general amnesia shown by left whinge politicians.”

What a crock!

In 1949 China and India were about level pegging in terms of their economies, both countries having been victims of plundering colonialists for many many years. India, being very much a willing adopter of British capitalism, never really developed a sense of the 'common good' which became so ingrained within China. The differences in the trajectories of the two countries has been sobering and reveals just how superior a socialistic foundation underpinning any form of capitalism really is.

Unfettered laisse fare capitalism is a blight on any nation. Its biggest exponent, the USA, has to jail its citizenry is world record numbers just to contain the deprivations it causes.

Socialist policies like Medicare are vital to this nation and the fact they come under constant attack should be of concern to any thinking person.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Monday, 28 August 2017 11:21:03 AM
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SR,

Actually, the reverse is true. Pre 1990 the socialist Chinese economy was moribund, the death of Mao, the scrapping of the iron rice bowl and the wholesale adoption of the free market changed everything. China is far closer to unfettered capitalism than any OECD country. It is capitalism without democracy.

Want to build a factory? get your party mates to evict families with little to no compensation. Complain and you go to a work camp or get a bullet in the head. China is Orwell's animal farm on steroids where the new elite are party members and the people haven't risen up because capitalism has boosted their standard of living and the consequences of protest.

India since the liberalisation of its economy in 1990 has also grown in leaps and bounds with growth generally between 5% and 10%, even recently overtaking China's growth which is slowing in spite of huge stimulus packages.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 28 August 2017 12:05:28 PM
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Shadow,
"Keynes was the first to declare that in times of high employment that the economy should be run in surplus."
He certainly wanted the economy to be run in surplus in the boom times. However ITYF he wanted all times, not just the boom times, to be times of high employment!

Nowadays, with a floating currency and therefore zero danger of running out of money, we don't even need to run surpluses in the boom times, though IMO doing so is good policy because it keeps interest rates low.

"Monetary policy deals with times of high employment when government spending simply displaces private spending and generates inflation."
Government spending NEVER EVER SIMPLY displaces private spending. If it did, it wouldn't generate inflation to any significant degree.

Instead, government spending competes with private spending for workers and commodities. That competition drives up wages and prices, creating inflation. To prevent this, monetary policy is used to reduce private sector demand.

"As employment in Aus is roughly 5.6% nearing full employment and growth is about 2% Stimulus is not called for."
On the contrary - lots of stimulus is needed. We are VERY FAR from full employment. The 5.6% figure is just the people who Centrelink deals with. But there are plenty more who would work if they had the opportunity but don't meet Centrelink's eligibility criteria or don't think the payments are worth completing Centrelink's requirements. Plus there's a lot of underemployed people.

The last time we were anywhere near full employment was 2008. And at that time there were problems caused by its uneven distribution - in some areas a shortage of workers was causing inflation, while elsewhere there was still a shortage of jobs. A great advantage of using fiscal policy rather than monetary policy alone is that it allows government spending to be targeted to where it's least inflationary and most effective at increasing the employment rate.

As for the 2% growth, that's coming off a low base. We should easily be able to sustain that rate at any time, but right now we could do much better.
Posted by Aidan, Monday, 28 August 2017 8:56:22 PM
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Aidan,

Everyone wants full employment always just as everyone wants world peace always.

Nothing in economics is entirely simple and one does not need CAPITAL letters. The closer you get to full employment, the less that public spending creates jobs or boosts the economy, and considering that full employment to be 4%-5%, 5.6% is fairly close, considering that most of the OECD countries have roughly 10%.

The other major factor in reaching full employment is labour flexibility so in countries where unions make it very costly to employ or fire people unemployment is 9.5% even when the economy is growing, whereas, in the UK where the unions are weaker and the labour market freer, employment is 4.4%
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 29 August 2017 9:15:56 AM
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