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The Forum > Article Comments > A chasm of inequality? Really? > Comments

A chasm of inequality? Really? : Comments

By Peter Saunders, published 14/6/2005

Peter Saunders argues the St Vincent de Paul report is alarmist and hysterical.

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Going to stick my neck out here and fully expect to have my head lopped off.

However, I do believe there is an ever widening gap between the haves and have nots. The money paid out to CEO's as just an example.

I request some latitude here;

Imagine, overnight all our leaders, CEO's, captains of industry, politicians et al disappear from the face of the earth. The next morning trains, electricity, water, buses would still run. Kids would still go to school, teachers could still teach, carers would still care for the infirm and elderly and mills would keep churning, factory assembly lines keep on turning.....

We would still function as a society. I am not going to get bogged down in the anarchy that would ensue as we find ourselves leaderless; the point I am trying to make is that the true value of our world are the 'coal face workers' those who keep our society afloat. We can find other leaders, but who calibrates the machinery? Who maintains the water flow through our pipes? It ain't CEO's and it ain't our pollies.

Our priorities are surely reversed when the powerful state that if we pay peanuts we get monkeys. I ask do we want to employ monkeys in our hospitals, schools, electricity supplies and at the controls of a bus or train?
Posted by Trinity, Saturday, 2 July 2005 1:49:16 PM
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Alchemist wrote:

Wow, Peter Saunders and those like him really do live in
fantasy land. Anyone with half a brain that has experienced
real life, will tell you that the gap between the elite and
the people is getting wider and wider.

I cannot agree more. In Saunders' book "Australia's Welfare Habit" there is no reference to any narratives of how the welfare system in either the US or Australia affects ordinary people. He argues his case based on abstract and selective statistical data and by quoting the conclusions of reports which support his case.

As an example, even though Saunders bases much of his case on the supposed success of Clinton's welkfare 'reforms', he makes no mention of US journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" (http://www.nickelanddimed.net) an account her working in low-paid occupations.

Given that this book was first published in 2001 and had received considerable publicity in Australia well before "Australia's Welfare Habit" was published in 2004, his failure to attempt to refute Barbara Ehrenreich's conclusions suggests an unwillingness to confront facts which don't support his view (and I won't be holding my breath waiting for Peter Saunders to comment on a similar book "Dirt Cheap" by Australian journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen published this year).

He dismisses the value of government job creation progams because of the supposed failure of Keynesian economics in the 1970's (p158). In fact the "stagflation of the 1970's" was primarily caused by the oil embargo following the Yom Kippur war of 1973, of which Saunders makes no mention.

He claimed that "growth rates accelerated" from 1983 until 1993 "as the effect of the Hawke/Keating economic reforms kicked in" and "between 1993 and 2003, the economy surged at 4% average annual growth."(p5).

However, no mention was made of the period prior to 1974 when Keynesian government intervention was practised. The average growth figure from 1960 until was 5.2%, which even given the flaws of the GDP measure, compares quite favourably with the above figures.

If Peter Saunders is serious about wishing to reduce welfare dependence, then perhaps he should re-think his prejudice against Government spending.
Posted by daggett, Saturday, 2 July 2005 4:39:49 PM
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Yawn, snore. More sociopathic raving from ayatollah peter of the economic rationalist taliban. Has he ever actually lived in the nightmare world he's so keen to inflict on the rest of us? Fat chance.
Posted by mikeed, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 11:07:55 PM
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