The federal govt can spruick all its wants about the financial situation of the country.I don't know about that and don't care.What concerns me is the fact that since Liberal came to power my dollar buys less and less.We own everything and have no debts except the normal cost of living and nowadays we are flat out making ends meet.Even when the interest rates were 17% under labor things weren't as tough.When our bills go up gst goes on top of that.Wages havent gone up to cover the massive rises in everyday costs.The govt coffers may be fine but the lower income earners really are suffering.

I dont know much about economics but I agree with the author of this article.

To my mind one of the most consistent and insightful critics of the governments pea and thimble "accounting" methods is Kenneth Davidson who writes regular articles in the Age. Plus the articles by him and others that he publishes in his Dissent Magazine.

Meanwhile you cant go past ECONOMIA by Geoff Davies which I referred to some weeks ago. A thorough-going expose of the charade (or cultural bankruptcy) that underlies our "prosperity", and how it really is unsustainable.

Howards economic policies are nullifying, socially exclusive and lack a fundemental approach to alleviate poverty, be it in Australia or for his preperation of the APEC Summit.

Poverty is not only deprivation of economic or material resources but a violation of our nations equity where many economic policies don't help.

Poverty erodes both your socio-economic and political capacities ie: access to health, education, housing, food and safe water and access to inclusively particiapate in civic affairs... in both the developed and developing communities.

Howard is out of step with the international community’s approach to the next generation of poverty reduction initiatives.

Household Debt, its disturbance and stress is growing in Australia as wealth inequalities are proactively getting worse.

See the front page of (Cape Yorks) rural Local Cook Shire News this week;

"Home Crisis" Families forced to camp as rents climb and vacancies drop" or South in Tasmania where a single mother is said to have abandoned her severely disabled teenage son with the State Government in sheer desperation.

What is Howard's Government doing at ground economic levels other than divising new laws of enforcement that reflect the growng limititations of peoples enabling civic capacity "to pay".

Alert. This strain on capacity can also be seen through the nations rise issues around Mental Health statisics, as the federal and state battle on health infrastructure continues.

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=31&m=1137&dm=2

As a strategic developed nation we will miss the opportunity to influence, to structurally reverse the causes of poverty and inequality everywhere including in Australia.

We need to take action and re-direct these policies now before the present goodness about the economy slows.

http://www.miacat.com/
.

Exactly! I've tried to convince people that our economy, is in fact heading for disaster because of the neglect of the Howard government. Australia has a chronic current account deficit and huge and increasing foreign debt that can't be sustained, sooner or later this will force a severe recession, probably during the term of a Labor government. The debt morons,will,of course blame the government in power at the time. I agree with the argument about media bias, I'm amazed that Labor governments are ever elected given the fact that most of the media is in the hands of their enemies.

A very good article - tells it like it is. Low and middle income earners have become steadily much worse off over the last ten or twelve years. The constant bleating by Howard and Costello and supporters about the on-going rise of 'real' incomes under their stewardship is yet another example of the great lie in action. The (alleged) rise in cash income means nothing if the life-style advantages exchanged to obtain that rise (eg holidays, sick leave, long service leave, family time, job security, etc) contribute - as they do - to an overall decrease in living standards. As the writer points out, the costs involved in simply attending the work place (not to mention servicing a housing loan), are rising outof all proportion to any cash gain bought about by Howard's draconian industrial relations legislation.
The whole notion of Howard as some sort of economic management genius is a myth, and it is high time that the average informed voter saw it as such. The only promise that Howard has delivered on is his promise to deliver an emasculated work-force to the big end of town. The real tragedy is that it is the emasculated work-force itself that has kept him in power.

I take it the Howard haters are happier with higher unemployment, more welfare waste, less job opportunities and higher taxes. The 12 yes 12 blowouts in the building of a rail line from Perth to Mandurah is typical of an incompetent Labour State Government. I wish this incompetence was one off by the State Labour so to try and discredit Mr Costello's credentials is hypocrisy at its best

The clearest article on this subject for some time. Howard's way was the wrong way even when he was Treasurer in the Fraser Ministry. His Campbell Committee laid out the path to asset value inflation which simply meant that houses became priced out of the reach of wage earners. We are gradually becoming an upstairs downstairs economy again where much of the economic activity is the poor serving the rich. We have lost industries that are essential to the production of infrastructure such as engineering shops and we import many of our needs from countries where slavery conditions exist, a case of out of sight out of mind.
We import most of components for trains, all our trucks and heavy equipment and almost all our furniture, clothing, whitegoods and entertainment hardware and software. Some economy! I hope we never again have to produce the goods to defend our country

It's odd. We seem to be able to absorb the changes around us with remarkable resilience. We seem to still be able to put food on our tables and a car or two in the garage.

A quick look at my own expenditure shows the mobile phone that soaks up $60 a month, internet costs about the same, cable TV's up there too and - oh look, there's about the same on tunnel/bridge/freeway tolls... how does it work?

But I don't yet have a big-screen TV, and I notice that according to GfK Australia, Australians bought 620,419 HD television sets in the 12 months to May this year. Wow, nearly 10% of households in only one year - that's cool.

And I have had the same car now since 1990, and I notice that new car sales haven't exactly slumped.

So, what is it that I have traded off here?

>>Many things that were once either free or very cheap are now out of reach for ordinary people. In the 1950s and 1960s it was possible for my late grandfather to take his family to a holiday by the beach at Maroochydore on Queensland's Sunshine Coast each year for the entire six weeks of the summer holidays all on the single wage of a primary school teacher.<<

Errrr... yes. I imagine that the facilities there were somewhat, shall we say, more basic than they are today? If you were to compare like with like, I'm certain that there are many "unspoilt" (read: undeveloped; uncomfortable; primitive) spots to entertain the kids and grandkids. Just so long as they can still access the Internet, that is.

I know, I know. There are many people who hate any form of progress, and wish fervently that we could live as simply (read: uncomfortably) as we did in the 50s. Or 30s. Or in good Queen Victoria's glorious reign. Or whenever - pick an era.

We are not as badly off as these whingers would like us to believe... collectively, that is; I obviously don't mean every single individual.

Down with smirk-led economics and selling off public goods (water, public land, power, telecommunications, academic independence) and the cynical preparation for a uranium-rush.

State Labor governments prevail only because they are singing the same song (lyrics by Murdoch and Fairfax, Packer et al) and breakfasting with the same property developers (APop, REIA, et al) miners, millers and financers as Smirk and Howard.

If you are not convinced, consider that the Bracks Government GAVE AWAY 20 ha of Royal Park Victoria plus $85 million to Singapore owned Australand in 2006. The infiltration by timber and paper mills of the Victorian ALP is just the tip of a phenomenal iceberg where political parties and politicians are being collected by the rich like football teams and NGO's are just scalps to hang on the corporate belt.

Australia is a Titanic trawling for more passengers and dumping its lifeboats in exchange for more tickets.

The electronic Freepress (like OLO) and www.candobetter.org and free-speakng forums like http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/roeoz are our Resistance; our one and only chance to warn our compatriots about the iceberg and keep Captain Howard-Hook, Smirking Smee and the Craven States officers from commandeering and selling off the last lifeboats and putting most of us in chains to corporate masters. We should vote for the small parties first then destabilise the Federal government by putting it last and [gag]Federal Labor second last since we HAVE to vote them somewhere due to compulsory preferential system. The smaller parties need to be more serious about winning and less serious about pleasing the mainstream press. SEQ Green Larissa Waters has used U-tube well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zI9_66qjJE New freelance commentators deserve amplification http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDhza_aMG2c and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5FA8Lv6rEg We also have to be alert for religious and pseudo-enviro parties which are really creations of the Libs and the ALP. Australia is SERIOUSLY corrupt. So Australians have to get SERIOUSLY politically committed.

This is a welcome and timely article which seems to have struck a responsive chord with many posters. The problem is that there are no published, regular, credible and authoritative competing measures of unemployment, CPI and GDP data which critics can point to. The criterion of employment as one hour paid in the last week is absurd: the German measure is 15 hours paid. The CPI is a cruel number which has little reality for most wage earners - other than to depress their real wages. GDP is, as the author states, grossly distorted by churning financial tranactions. An excellent paper on where Australia really stands is "A Fair Go for all Australians" published by ACOSS (www.acoss.org.au) which includes some devastating comparisons of Australia's perfomance compared with other OECD countries.

Runner,

In regard to the label of "Howard hater" that you wish to put on every person who is against the backward anti-social values that Howard is imposing on this society, it is John Howard, not ourselves who began the cycle of hate.

Whilst I never voted for the Liberal Party, I had considered him a well-meaning political figure with a few quaint old-fashioned ideas, that is, until after he was elected in 1996. Another person who is often also tarred with that brush, Margo Kingston, actually voted for Howard in the 1996 election out of revulsion against the Keating 'Labor' government.

However, not for the first time Howard quickly moved to betray the trust that the people of Australia had placed in him upon 'discovering' the so-called $10 billion Beazley Black hole and embarked upon the program that he had always intended to implement, that is, of vicious cuts to social spending.

One of the programs axed was the Commonwealth Dental Program which allowed poor Australians to receive basic dental checkups and treatment free every three years. Whilst this was a very modest program, and falling far short of the six monthly check-ups which are recommended it did at least save many Australians from losing their teeth.

Now the only treatment available is extraction.

With all the record budget surpluses that his Government has been able to achieve one would have thought that it would have been easy for the Commonwealth Dental Program to have been re-established.

The fact that it has not shows clearly that this Government has cut social spending not because it had to, but because it wanted to.

It would be a fitting end to John Howard if he were made to suffer, in his old age, in the same way he has deliberately made so many of his fellow Australians suffer.

---

The rest of your post is completely beside the point.

James Sinnamon (author)

Runner,

No, the Howard haters are not happy with the 550 billion foreign debt time bomb his government has left us.

Is Runner capable of an intelligent comment on any topic?

Has he ever made a reasoned and intelligent comment about anything?

Perhaps he is too busy running to keep up with his crumbling one-dimensional world-view?

As is typical with many on the right he uses the ubiquitous polarising button phrase "howard-hater" phrase, instead of saying anything intelligent about the topic on hand---and simultaneously downgrading even the possibility of a reasoned debate which is supposed to be the hallmark of a civilized liberal democracy.

Re the word "hater". It is always used by the "right". Perhaps they are experts on hating?

Funny how noone on the "right", especially in the Oz and Murdoch "news"-papers", who constantly bad-mouth Kevin Rudd, are never ever called Rudd "haters"

Runner is obviously one of the people taking home over 1000 dollars a week.Try living on half of that and keeping up with the ever increasing cost of living.I am not politically affiliated and never will be but i know how tough things are financially for people in my position.Earn 10 dollars to much for any help from centrelink but not enough to keep the standard of living we had under the previous federal govt.The rich are doing ok as things stand at present but the poor are getting poorer.
Deny if you can that all luxury items have gone down in price whilst the staples have gone through the roof.I don't care who is in power as long as myself and family can live a decent life.That is becoming increasingly harder with the current regime.

This article is full of unsubstantiated assertions, half-truths and misrepresentations.

Of GDP, the author says “The vast economist herd has ignored this warning, but thinking economists have not.” All economists will cheerfully agree that GDP isn’t a perfect measure of welfare, and can give perverse results in some cases. This does not render it useless, it only means it’s one indicator among many that needs to be evaluated judiciously. Real per capita consumption is probably a better “benchmark” measure of economic welfare, especially over the longer term. This has risen even more strongly than GDP recently.

Land is not included in the CPI, but rents and house purchase costs are. And while excluding land may limit the Consumer Price Index’s usefulness for some cost of living comparisons, it will not have much effect on measured inflation over time. Furthermore broader inflation measures, such as the consumer price deflator, actually tend to show somewhat lower inflation trends over time. This does not mean that some households' living costs may have increased by much more than the CPI – this is inevitably true. But some have experienced falling living costs, and for most, prices have increased modestly, much in line with the trend the CPI suggests.

Average hours worked by Australian workers, have trended steadily downwards in recent decades and surveys suggest that most of the minority working long hours do so because they want to.

For every indicator that suggests that life is worse, it’s possible to find several showing it’s getting better. Our life expectancy is increasing, we are more likely than any past generation to stay at school beyond 15 or go to university, we’re more likely to travel abroad, we have access to technologies beyond the wildest imaginings of past generations – we can even conduct robust discussions with strangers thousands of kilometres away from our keyboards.

If these factors were taken into account, as well as the litany of exaggerated miseries the author presents, I’m sure a balanced account would show our average living standard is indeed improving.

Rhian

"I’m sure a balanced account would show our average living standard is indeed improving."

This is the point of the article, the average may be increasing but the median is not.

That is why 51% of people will give Labor their primary vote.

Did it ever occur to you that people are working longer hours because they have to, of course they want to, they want to survive.

Always seems good to pull out the victim card. As one who has never had a salary over $50000 per annum after decades in the workforce it would be easy to complain about what I don't have. Where I live it is very difficult to get cleaners despite being paid $20 plus per hour. The lines at MacDonalds and Hungry Jacks have certainly not got shorter and few if any houses don't have TV's, microwaves and other so called essentials.

It would not matter how good the economic conditions were or how much welfare we handed out we would still have the poor. Poverty in this country is more about social problems rather than economic conditions.

ruawake : Touche !

Obviously Rhian failed high scholl statistics! It also shows why the bifurcation of our society isn't showing up in the economic data.

Howver, it sure is on the streets, in the hospitals and by the desperation of some of the disadvantaged in our society.

John Howards men are busy making sure those desparate people are too hungry or sick to speak. (... but they do vote!)

runner

You are correct when you say "Poverty in this country is more about social problems rather than economic conditions".

But what has our Govt. done to solve these social problems, once again this is the point of the article, we live in a society not an economy.

Or are you blaming people for the social problems? The I'm all right jack, blame the bludgers argument is lost.

Face it the economic miracle is a myth.

Runner,

You know very well that using the term 'Howard haters' is going to set people on edge. You should also know by now that it marks you as someone who will stick up for Howard no matter what he does, whether it's right or wrong.

Surely someone of your particular convictions should be able to weigh issues up on their merits, and not according to whether one man's name is attached to them or not.

What will you do if Howard resigns, is voted out, has a heart attack or is otherwise unable to represent you? You put yourself in a precarious position by identifying so closely with a single politician who is, like all of them, only a politician.

I wonder whether some people have elevated Howard to a position beyond mere man, politician man at that, to the point where they're prepared to defend him as though he were some other type of being - higher than man?

People want. Wants cost. People want big pay packets. So do the people supplying or manufacturing the wants. People wanting drives the economy and material prosperity. It also drives raw resource costs, material and manufacturing costs, and wage costs, and it also drives waste costs due to over production to lower unit prices. Once everyone is all wearing the same 'in' shirt and owns the latest model car, and there's a plasma in every living room. Throw it all out kids. Your a decade behind as of yesterday and the Jones are again taking the lead. More waste in feeding the ego's. Your living standard and materialism is built on wasted material resources. It got so bad a whole new industry of recycling came into being just to keep up. Before people buy anything they should discover for themselves exactly how much of that items purchase price goes to the advertisement that got them to say oooooh, I want. I found a site on the web that did a search by country on chocolate adverts and the expenditure varied from 200millions to 800millions. How much are you paying for a bar of chocolate?

ruawake, who else is there but the people to blame for social problems?

'We' choose to surround ourselves with the latest gadgets, 'we' in-debt ourselves, John Howard hasn't twisted anybody's arm. This same argument was a factor in the 96 election too. Remember the debt truck?

Governments left and right encourage a dependant populace, its called pork barrelling and buying our vote.

It's the middle-class welfare that's most lamentable.

Ruawake

Your argument makes no sense for many of the welfare measures I describe - educational attainment, life expectancy etc. Or do you think most people are dying younger while a privileged few live to 340?

It is in theory possible that real median earnings or household income are falling while the averages are rising, but neither you nor the author presents any evidence to support of that.

The ABS earnings data actually show median earnings growth slightly ahead of average earnings growth between 1997 and 2006 (1997 data aren't out yet, and there’s no 1996 survey for a neat 10-year comparison), and both increasing much faster than inflation:

all employees median earnings
Aug-97 $499
Aug-06 $750
increase 50%

all employees average earnings
Aug-97 $585
Aug-06 $862
increase 47%

full time median earnings
Aug-97 $578
Aug-06 $900
increase 56%

full time average earnings
Aug-97 $703
Aug-06 $1051
increase 50%

Consumer price index
Q3 1997 119.7
Q3 2006 155.7
increase 30%

ABS household distribution data suggest real growth in household income and expenditure across all household types, not just the affluent.

On working time, the people working the longest average hours are managers, in short those least likely to be forced to by desperate economic conditions:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/17/1055828328673.html

Overall, average full time hours worked have been pretty flat, and average hours worked by all employees have trended downwards over the past 15 years (the first column shows average weekly hours of all employees, the second of full time employees)


1991-92 __ 34.7 __ 40.6
1992-93 __ 34.4 __ 40.3
1993-94 __ 34.6 __ 40.7
1994-95 __ 34.7 __ 40.9
1995-96 __ 34.2 __ 40.5
1996-97 __ 34.5 __ 41.0
1997-98 __ 34.5 __ 41.2
1998-99 __ 34.4 __ 41.1
1999-00 __ 34.6 __ 41.4
2000-01 __ 33.9 __ 40.6
2001-02 __ 33.7 __ 40.7
2002-03 __ 33.9 __ 41.0
2003-04 __ 33.4 __ 40.3
2004-05 __ 33.7 __ 40.6
2005-06 __ 33.2 __ 40.0
2006-07 __ 32.7 __ 39.4

Data can be verified on the ABS website http://www.abs.gov.au
If we're going to argue stats, maybe you could supply data or sources too?

Rhian,

You don't consider how average house prices have gone up, from 3.3 times the median wage in 1970 to 7.4 times in 2005. This must be a major stress on any budget. See

http://www.findem.com.au/factsheets/housingfactsheet.pdf

Most of the increase is driven by the increasing cost of land, even though block sizes have been getting smaller, so this isn't primarily due to people just choosing to pay extra to have a mansion.

According to a Greens document issued in September 2006 by Dr. Richard Denniss (google his name plus "Let Them Eat Cake"), the CPI includes the cost of building a house, but not the cost of the land the house is built on. Nor does it include the cost of buying an established house or of interest payments. Denniss does not discuss rents, so these may be included, but investors have, at least until recently, been prepared to accept relatively low returns on rental properties, with the main interest being in the capital gain.

Some goods, such as cars and electrical goods have gotten cheaper in real terms, but many staples have gone up, as Denniss' graphs show.

The commonwealth dental scheme was a limited solution, i believe was only for 3 years correct me if i am wrong.
There was no long term thinking when labor did this.

But labor did cut the defence spending and downsized the defence force.
Labor also cut veteran affairs.
Labor also gave us the recession we had to have. All those that lost everything must have enjoyed that.

Labor states only give us 60% of what the federal government gives us.
The unions are only interested in labor getting in.

See this is all about the parties.

I see that living standards have changed and that is due to us. Hello if you have a visa card or any other does johnny make you use it.
Does the government make you by that surround sound system,plasma tv.

If you are going to blame anyone look ina mirror and take a look at yourself before casting the stone for blame.
Just like the corruption,sexual assaults,child abuse and peadophiles within these parties it is us who should share the blame and media for not getting the facts out there.

Do it right use your voice, or just roll over like you all do.
Enough is Enough
I will call a spade a spade and the labor party fits that.
Telling the people the facts and the resume labor doesnt want the people to know.

Stuart Ulrich
Independent Candidate for Charlton

James there is an article in the Quarterly Essay Issue 25 2007 called 'Bipolar nation: how to win the 2007 election' by Peter Hatcher, which discusses the economic myths associated with Labor and Liberal. The other thing that Hatcher notes is that National Security is the other key thing in the election.

I don't think Labor or Liberal can manage the economy in a changing world.

Their support of logging old growth forests in Tasmania is a disastorous thing for Tasmania's huge tourism industry. Tourism, not logging is the key to Tassie sustaining its economy. Thankfully the Greens have protected Tassie's economy over the past two decades through their progressive policies.

Both Labor and Liberal will continue to waste tens of billions of dollars on unnecessary war each year.

Howard's changes to the uni system means that full fee paying places are making up a higher percentage of enrollments and the general cost of study is going up.

The argument used by Howard, and seemingly followed by Labor is that we can't make a big response to climate change because it will damage the economy. In fact it is the other way around - unless we can do all we can to reduce greenhouse emissions then our economy will crash.

Labor and Liberal's failure to roll out solar power across the country means we will continue to pay more and more for our dirty energy whereas if the subsidies were on solar then after some years we would be getting a lot of our energy for free.

Both parties have remained ignorant of peak oil and thus household costs for transport and groceries will continue to rise.

The supposedly low unemployment rate is rubbish. The casualisation of the workforce means it's no longer a good measure of strength.

The Greens are the future for a sustainable economy in Australia and we need to get as many of them in the senate as possible.

Firstly, thank you for all of the kind and encouraging posts. These have borne out my hope that many would have found the article useful, even though it was not as long and as comprehensive as time constraints allowed me to make it.

---

Rhian, I concede that possibly more economists, in discussions amongst themselves, are critical of the GDP measure than I was aware.

However, the fact remains that the GDP and other flawed measures of economic performance - inflation, unemployment, interest rated and various stock market indexes - are used to misinform the public about the levels of economic competence of governments such as that of John Howard.

Possibly 'gross domestic consumption' is a better measure than the GDP, but it doesn't address my objection that all of the extra material consumption of today does not necessarily translate into a better quality of life. As just one of the examples in my article would show, it is ridiculous to hold that the necessary higher consumption of natural resources necessary for more greater numbers of people to commute to work over longer distances through far more congested roads improves their quality of life.

Again and again economic 'rationalists' implement policies which common sense and logic tells us are harmful to our own best interests - privatisation of Telstra, Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank, insurance companies, publicly owned buildings and land, etc, underspending on education and training, health and infrastructure.

Yet proponents of these policies have been able, again and again and again, to dismiss the sound factual reasoned cases against these policies by citing false measures of prosperity including the GDP etc.

As the article showed, a recession in the US manufacturing sector prior to the recent financial meltdown had been concealed by the mis-use of the GDP measure. In the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's objections to the economically and socially harmful neoliberal policies of the Chilean military junta and of Margaret Thatcher were largely blunted at the time by economists misuse of the GDP measure.

All of your figures purported showing real wages growth are almost as meaningless.

When Rhian quoted the ABS statistics for hours of work I was surprised and actually unable to find the data. I thought that ACOSS said that average part time hours of work was closer to 13 hours per week and I thought the newspapers still said that Australian worked more hours per week than other workers in the OECD.

The average full time male wage might be $58000 per annum but the median adult income is $26000. Treasury assumes the incomes under $13000 are subsistence level.
Although ABS says that the workforce participation rate is 67% I am more inclined to believe the OECD statistic for the workforce participation rate for males aged between 15 and 55 as 52%, which is a very low workforce participation rate.

Then we can tackle the problem of CPI. The cost of fresh foods has gone up 10% in 12 months and this is not reflected in the CPI. The only reason that fuel prices have remained static is because the federal election is looming. Rents in my street have gone from $325 to $500 per week this year. Australians have switched their consumption from clothing to communication devices, 10 years ago my phone bill was $70 per quarter, now its $110 per month for phone, internet and mobile.

While governments continue to play games with statistics we are unlikely to tackle the real problems of unemployment and social inclusion.

Divergence
House price rises are a serious problem for first-time buyers who bought homes in the past 4 years, which is a minority of households. Owners who haven’t moved house in recent years, or who traded up, are less stressed by house price rises (and some are substantial winners).

The rental component of the CPI rose by 5.2% in the year to June, but in the longer term has tended to rise by less than inflation.

Some staples’ prices have risen by more than the general CPI, but some have risen by less. The ABS recently analysed growth in the average prices of households’ typical purchases by main income source, and concluded that price rises were pretty similar for all household types, with pensioners experiencing, on average, slightly smaller average price increases than those whose main income source was employment:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/productsbyCatalogue/7EC590E06DB36AB8CA25722F001B1050?OpenDocument

So while official inflation doesn’t refect the experience of all households, it’s fairly typical of most.

I usually disagree with what Clive Hamilton (Denniss’s old Australia Institute colleague) says, but he’s spot on in his description of how some on the left refuse to believe anything but bad economic news:

“… social democrats and democratic socialists have a psychological predisposition to believe that the mass of people are suffering from material deprivation. We thrive on the imagined wretchedness of others. When the economy goes bad we feel secretly vindicated, for our reason to condemn the system is renewed. We revel in a collective schadenfreude.

“But we must face up to the facts of today's world. While rooted in historical fact, the left's ''deprivation model" is today the opposite of the truth. The dominant characteristic of contemporary Australia is not deprivation but abundance.

“… In real terms, Australians today are at least three times better off than their parents were after the war, and the distribution of income is about the same. Unpalatable as it is to concede, inequality is not substantially greater than it was 40 years ago. Even if it had worsened somewhat, given the enormous wealth of the great majority it would not matter.”

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/13/1021002429844.htm

"The ABS recently analysed growth in the average prices of households’ typical purchases by main income source, and concluded that price rises were pretty similar for all household types, with pensioners experiencing, on average, slightly smaller average price increases than those whose main income source was employment:"

That's because baked beans are always on "special".

Dagget
Privatising banks and building societies frees funds for more socially useful investment in areas like schools and hospitals. The case of monopolies like Telstra is more debatable, but do you remember how poor and expensive Telstra’s service was before it was opened to competition?

Economists are not so much critical of GDP as aware of its limitations – it is not “false”, but needs to be interpreted along with other data. Other economic indicators also only give us only part of the picture – employment and unemployment, real wages, consumption and household incomes, the balance between households’ assets and liabilities etc – but all are real welfare measures, and taken together they present a compelling picture of progress in economic welfare.

Most economists will also freely admit that economic data are not a complete picture of quality of life. But your selection of entirely negative examples is absurdly one-sided, and I tried to show that there are many non-economic quality of life measures that are improving.

One of the advantages (and limitations) of GDP is that it applies a common benchmark (money) to the value of a variety of economic activities. There can be no comparable single measure of quality of life because there is no objective or universally accepted way of wrighting or comparing different indicators:

- is the decline in youth suicide enough to offset the rise in youth drug taking?
- Is the reduced capacity to repair your own car (bemoaned at length in the article) offset by the improved safety and reliability of modern vehicles?
- Is the increase in greenhouse gas emissions offset by the decrease in air pollutants such as SO2 that directly harm human health?

This means that there will always be scope for pessimists like you and optimists like me to disagree on whether overall quality of life is getting better or worse. But on the narrower question of economic welfare, the balance of evidence is overwhelmingly positive.

Billie – apologies, my 2 posts in 24hrs are used. I’ll respond with links tomorrow.

Rhian, please don't waste the time of forum users regurgitating the same tired old arguments which are irrelevant to the issue of privatisation.

I think I remember a time when a computer with 128K of RAM cost more than $5000. So what does the fact that telecommunications services were once more expensive than they are today prove?

When Telstra (or Telecom as it was then known) was a publicly owned monopoly, it was, in fact, a world leader in telecommunications.

In "The Broadband Fiasco" in the Spring 2007 edition of Dissent Magazine (http://www.dissent.com.au - edited by the same Kenneth Davidson referred to by Ho Hum above at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92704) Allan J. Williams writes:

"Initially as a government department, the Post-Master General's Department, and then as the corporatised but wholly publicly-owned Telecom Australia, it embarked on a significant research into the digital future. That vision of a nationally-owned information superhighway was encapsulated in Telecom 2000, a report published in 1976 which foresaw a broadband future with open access for information service providers to fibre optic cables of practically unlimited capacity that reached all Australian homes.

"Telecom stood at the international forefront of digital understanding with leading edge research laboratories that were undertaking research on digital switching and transmission. Its engineers were world leaders ..."

So what went wrong?

Essentially the Labor Government was captured by exactly the same neoliberal ideological claptrap that you are now peddling to this forum. The telecommunications market was first deregulated by the then Telecommunications Minister Kim Beazley with the full support of the then Liberal opposition. This deprived Telecom/Telstra of much revenue it needed to continue with its information superhighway program. Then it was partially privatised and then fully privatised by the Howard Government and we have the mess that we have today. For further information read "Caught in no-man's land" by Kevin Morgan from the Spring 2004 edition of Dissent Magazine also at http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/content/3/no-mans-land.html

Other useful information regarding the privatisation of Telstra can be found on that site, mostly at http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/news.html, although it is somewhat dated having been neglected by me for some time.

(James Sinnamon)

Rhian writes at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92864
that “House price rises are a serious problem for first-time buyers who bought homes in the past 4 years, which is a minority of households. Owners who haven’t moved house in recent years, or who traded up, are less stressed by house price rises (and some are substantial winners).”

I would disagree substantially:
House prices have been a problem since land was bought and sold, and, in the British system, dispossession has been the theme since the 13th century. In Australia the Menzies-led trend away from state provision of worker accommodation to privatization of land ‘production’ from the 1960s has made shelter an increasing burden for many and has completely removed the choice of working or self-sufficiency from a growing majority. At the same time land has aggregated into fewer and fewer hands, along with its products (agriculture, mining), along with control over the economy and government.

The ABS statistics, including the CPI, entirely fail to reveal this dismal relationship between poverty and ‘progress’ because they have never ever counted the cost of land. Land-costs comprise the bulk of expenses in a house-land ‘package’, and in farming, mining, manufacturing. Furthermore the cost of land (and related resources like water) form the basis of all other costs. For this reason as land-costs rise, so do food costs and material costs.

The reason that Australians can still afford disposable consumables from other countries is our relatively sparse population in a commodity economy during a commodity boom which raises the value of the dollar and access to credit. This means that we can afford to purchase stuff from ‘developing’ economies where either the cost of land has not inflated the cost of labour or the workers are more or less enslaved. Our own wages must keep up with the rising cost of food and accommodation. Workers are driven harder because of this (“productivity gains” to which Sinnamon alludes with ‘work intensification’). Manufacturing becomes more expensive.

Continued next post

Continued from http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92912

For this reason our economy is devolving into one of globally corporatised primary production, real-estate marketing, and services. Much of our domestic economic activity relies on the import of immigrant land-purchasers and business people who pay the price of entry with a deposit for their sponsors and a deposit for their homes.

In Australia it is the asset holders, increasingly corporatised, who affect the agenda for government. (APop, the Australian Property Council etc).

Rhian’s comments about the ABS stats are beside the point because those stats and Rhian’s comments do not deal with the cost of land; they only deal with the comparatively negligible cost of building. Rents and what you get for them ultimately reflect land-costs like everything else.

I think that Rhian’s comments bear out the effectiveness of government propaganda, especially the ideological remarks about the ‘deprivation model’, which are right from the program we hear and read from the corporate press and government PR. The belief that we have been better off for the past 40 years needs a basis for comparison other than the marketed one of cheap stuff for the land-poor and it needs a much longer historical and cultural context. I was unable to access the Age article, but the Age derives much of its income from property marketing and allied investments and is therefore a very poor source of opinion on the subject of this debate. The only place you get land prices is from the banks and they don't give them out for free.
An important step in democracy and the fight to improve quality of life as opposed to quantity of stuff would be to make these statistics public access and free.

i am aware this is a debate and you can quote statistics until the cows come home but it doesn't alter the fact the price of things have escalated and the average wage has not kept pace.I am not using more electricity but my bill is almost double.Don't eat more food but my groceries cost considerably more.Don't make more 'phone calls but my bill is 1/2 as much again.
I think the sale of big screen tv's is mostly due to the govt giving 12 year old girls 4000 to have babies.
Have had microwave,internet,phone ,t.v and cars since before 1997 thank god because i couldn't afford to buy any of them now if i still wished to eat.I do splurge once a week on fish and chips,cost a total of $10.Long time since i've been able to afford chinese for tea.
Insurance,rates,rego,car repairs or services,all gone through the roof.
Once i could save a little each week.Now i walk through the supermarket adding my purchases as i go.If i'm lucky enough to have any money left i use that for petrol.
The middle and lower income bracket are worse off then ten years ago.People can deny that all they want but i know the facts because i'm one of those people.This has nothing to do with supporting any political party,this is the truth.

Dont expect much sympathy, haygirl. To the intelligent "big picture" people here you are insignificant. I believe that the public interest is being sold out for the sake of a few profiting greatly, much as it has with the USA's health system.

Queensland is a good case in point: There is repeated trumpeting of how population growth is driving prosperity in QLD, yet everything you see says otherwise. The main driver of prosperity has been the commodities boom, not population growth. And with all the extra revenue, infrastructure and services are a shambles, and public debt is projected to blow out to 52 billion dollars in the near future. Queensland had no debt in the not too distant past.

Now you might say that this is due to hopeless governance. But it could also be explained by the enormous cost of coping with a growing population. The truth could readily be found, but the answer might not be what some want to hear.

Hmm, I don't see this issue as black-white, labour-liberal, as
many do. My politics is issue based, not party based.

Yup, overall Costello has done a good job as treasurer. He
continued what Keating started, as they both understand
economics and that Australia could no longer continue as it
had in the past. Globalisation was the reality, we could not
pretend it was not happening. our economy would now be a disaster,
if they hadn't changed direction. I think that Rudd understands
all that too. I don't have a problem with Rudd, its all the
hangers on that could be his undoing, we'll see.

Fact is, young people now have more opportunities then they
ever had, overall people are doing better then they ever did.

The author seems to confuse standard of living with quality of
life. They are separate issues. We each have to decide how
we want to live and how much we value each of them.

I can't really blame rising land prices for houses on the Feds.
Thats a State Govt issue. Many of those in the chardonay set
in State beurocracies, decided that urban sprawl had to be stopped,
high density living was the way to go. People clearly did not
agree and voted with their wallets. State Govts are free to drop
costs on new land releases, Australia is not really short of land.
That would make housing much more affordable.

The internet? That has certainly improved my quality of life.
People have short term and selective memories. In 1995, when
I first went online, I had the option of one ISP here. That
was Frank Blount's Telstra/MSN, at 6$ an hour, eventually
9$ an hour! That Allah for a deregulated market!

Thats just one of many examples. Deregulation and the global
economy benefit me every day, when I go shopping for anything.
Few people take the trouble to be aware of the many benefits.

Some people will just always complain and blame their situation
on anyone but themselves. Thats a very human foible and common
as chips.

You're never going to change the fact that a substantial portion of voters vote in their "narrow short-term self-interest".

The fact that the opinion polls are consistently showing that a large majority of voters are not happy with the current state of affairs is to me the best evidence there is of a disconnect between the "official" GDP and unemployment-figure-based measure of the economy and the actual standard of living that most Australians are experiencing. People will vote in their narrow short-term self-interest, and a large number will vote against Howard because they don't feel that the economic "good times" have made them better off.

I will say though that the most damning evidence that our economic and productivity and wealth has not improved particularly in the last 50 years, official figures aside, is that it now almost invariably takes two incomes to achieve what could previously have been done with one. No doubt our expectations have risen too, and I suspect if you able to travel back in time to observe in detail how your grandfather managed to afford a 6-week family holiday in Queensland every year, you would find their overall standard of living somewhat austere. However, I would question to what extent their overall qualify of life was any less.

For our society to be moving ahead, or at least, not be going backwards, then I believe the following conditions need to be met:

1. That we are, on average, no worse off materially, that is, in the broadest sense, and not in the sense of automatically equating the consumption of resources with prosperity,

2. that most of us are sharing in that prosperity,

3. that all of us are sharing in that prosperity, and

4. That this is ecologically sustainable in the longer term.

I dispute that any of these conditions have been met, whilst Rhian, for his part, only aims to convince us that the first two have been met.

Rhian has shown no concern for the fact that at least a large minority of this country including myself and other forum contributors, have been deliberately harmed by Howard's policies.

John Howard aims to convince a majority that he will look after their best interests better than Rudd and not to concern themselves about those on social welfare, workers whose skills are no longer marketable and who cannot afford the exorbitant costs of retraining, those who don't own their own homes, etc. And they are also to be convinced to care still less about the long term viability of our planetary life support system and the death and destruction that he has brought to people of Iraq.

Howard achieved that in 2004 and aims to do that again in 2007.

---

Rhian accuses me of ignoring the positive changes to our lives and of only focussing on the negatives. If he had read my article carefully, he would know differently. I don't dispute the positives. I love, as much as anybody, computers, the Internet, high-tech entertainment media, and, if I could afford them, and my conscience would allow me, fast cars and more frequent air travel.

However, I think anyone, who considers these a substitute for trees, open spaces, time and the opportunities for the more natural forms of recreation, which have been lost to many in recent decades, has warped priorities.

(moreToCome)

James Sinnamon (author)

Billie
Surely the fact that you now have access to Internet and mobile telecommunications services that you didn’t use were unavailable 10 years ago is evidence that your living standards are rising. If you wanted to do without a mobile and internet you could (many people do), and then in real terms your phone bill would be lower than it was 10 years ago, while your land line services would be no worse (in fact, probably far better) than they were then. But it’s a bit rich to complain that you pay more for telecommunication services including a land line, mobile and Internet than you did 10 years ago for a land line alone.

The hours data are here - you’ll have to install SuperTable (free on the ABS website) to read them:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6291.0.55.003May%202007?OpenDocument file 6291.0.55.003 E

The ABS recently revised its annual average hours worked estimates downwards, as they previously under-counted holidays. Australia no longer looks worse than other countries:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/log?openagent&1352055077_jun 2006.pdf&1352.0.55.077&Publication&D86A10534E2B7743CA2571B0001A6933&0&Jun 2006&20.07.2006&Latest

The OECD’s estimated participation rate for Australian men aged 15-64 is not 55% but 82.9%, compared to an OECD average of 80.4%:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/15/36900060.pdf

Could you give links or sources for your other stats?

Kanga – the comments on the ‘deprivation model’ are quotes from Clive Hamilton, who is hardly a spruiker for “corporate press and government PR”.

Daggett – adjectives aren’t arguments. Telecom world leading? That’s not what international comparisons were showing at the time Labor embarked on its reform program. I do remember waiting weeks to get a phone installed or a line repaired, and paying a fortune for international calls that nowadays cost less than a dollar.

You ask “So what does the fact that telecommunications services were once more expensive than they are today prove?” It proves that there is a strong incentive for businesses in that sector to innovate, and competition to drive down prices. The key issue is contestability, not ownership – as I indicated previously, for natural monopolies like Telstra the case for privatisation is less clear-cut than for businesses like building societies.

Daggett, it seems to me that in your hatred for Howard, you are
confusing philosophies. Its more complicated then that!

I am no Howard fan, but I do try to see things as they are.

Yes, all Australians benefit from the global economy. The
90 billion$ plus a year distributed as welfare, certainly
helps the less fortunate. On top of that, largely free education,
largely free health care. Few on this planet, have it so good!

But Govts can't help people help themselves, they have to do that.
Some will blow the lot at the pokies etc, then blame the world
for their problems. That seems to be human nature too.

As to sustainability, thats a whole other argument, way above
the local short term political issues, by which people vote.

Neither Rudd or Howard are going to turn those around, as we are
such an insignificant part of the global situation. Fact is
that if every Aussie was wiped out tomorrow, the world would take
just 90 days to replace us.

6.5 billion heading for 10 billion, is a global issue.
Even agriculture is questionable in terms of sustainability. I
remind you of what happened to the so called "Fertile Cresent",
where modern agriculture first began.

I'm starting to believe that its a genetics issue, as much as
anything. I am fairly content with my lot in the world, but when
I go and pick up my newspapers, the lotto stand is right there.

Some very wealthy individuals, some of them not even in good
health, go and buy their tickets. I often ask them why they would
want even more then they already have. None has ever been able
to answer that question. Somehow it seems to be some primitive
instinct that drives them.

I agree that it now takes 2 incomes for what you could do in the past on one.I do agree that quality of life was not less years ago.When we only had radio and books, people were quite happy with their lot.I have all the mod cons and appreciate them.These things i purchased when i could still afford to ie before howard.I own my home,don't have credit cards or hire purchase.I can no longer afford a holiday,to put in the lotto,buy new appliances or play the pokies if i wanted to.(which i dont).All i'm saying is ,the small increase in wages has not covered the massive increases in the overall cost of living.As for free medical,we had that before howard.Supposedly free education,we had that before howard.Howard has not done one thing to improve the lives of the lower income earners.We are on the fringe of the income test for govt help.I do not want and never have had social security but this is the first time in my 56 years that i have had to struggle so hard to survive.I raised 7 kids on one income and things were tight but not this bad.Their is only my husband and i now,so why can i not afford to do the things i used to, if the federal govt have done such a good job.Sure i look at my corner of the world but this is the only life i have.

No, Yabby, my 'hatred of Howard' is not clouding my judgement. If you had read my article "Dictatorial Conduct" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6261 you would know that I am prepared to give even John Howard credit where it is due.

---

Yabby, in regard to the issue of sustainability, how much longer are we expected to tolerate governments who refuse to take the urgently necessary measures to prevent environmental apocalypse?

John Howard has misused his years in office in order to sabotage and delay necessary efforts to combat global warming. Notoriously, this man gloated upon his return from the London Kyoto Protocol conference of 1997 that his job was only to look after Australia's best interests, as if climate change can possibly be stopped by each country only pursuing its own selfish interests. Even now he is promoting accelerating levels of exports of Australian fossil fuels, which are fueling the approaching calamity.

If Rudd fails to dramatically improve upon this dismal record, then it is surely our prerogative, in a democracy, to find other political leaders who are equal to the task.

---

Rhian, I had no luck trying to look at those stats on the ABS site. (Did anyone else have any luck?) If it is true that those stats show that actual average working hours have actually fallen, and not increased in Australia in recent years, that flies in the face of much other evidence to the contrary.

However, even if we accept that there has been a decline, this may still does not answer a number of concerns, including some which I have already raised and which you have ignored. These are:

1. That many are working longer hours than they would wish whilst others are working fewer hours than they need to,

2. that due to casualisation, the overall hours worked have been broken down into increasingly smaller periods, of the for more than one employer, necessitating more time and expense wasted preparing for work and commuting to and from work, and

3. that the intensity of work during actual work periods has increased.

James Sinnamon (author)

Your posts are spot on Haygirl. Totally agree!

Daggett, at some point you have to separate as to how much of
what you feel is a feelgood exercise to make yourself feel better
and how much will actually make a real difference to our global
future.

I have a number of friends who peddle to work, to save that 800mls
of fuel and fuss over every lightbulb. Meantime China cranks up
another powerstation a week, world population increases by another
80 million a year. They might feel better about their contribution,
but basically they are kidding themselves in the real world.

Its these global issues that need addressing, in the big scheme
of things, what Australia does, hardly matters. Sadly, that
includes you :(

I certainly don't want a leader who only addresses the feelgood factors.
I want one who addresses the global issues. How many
of these leaders address the fact that many women keep popping out
babies like rabbits, as they don't have access to family planning?

None that I am aware of. Its a given that the world population will
rise to 10 billion, its not even discussed.

Kyoto was all about the feelgood factor. It did not address the fundamental issues.

As to working hours, people are far more free now to make choices.
Some want to work more, some less. Only a flexible economy with
flexible laws can achieve that.

As to "smaller periods of work", what it comes down to is efficiency.
Only productivity will raise living standards, that means cutting
out waste. Having people stand around at workplaces doing nothing
in particular, is an enormous waste, which costs us all. Best that
they work when there is work, do something else somewhere else,
when required, which is about flexibility. That flexibility is
a win-win for everyone.

Regarding the intensity of work. Last I read, plenty of employees
spend something like 20% of their worktime fooling around on the
internet. Seems to me that that would include quite a few
OLO posters :)

Daggett
As I indicated, to open the data cube and see the detailed info you need to install SuperTable, which is free on the ABS website. A summary is also available in Table 11 of the 6291.0.55.003 labour force release which is and excel spreadsheet, which you should be able to open without SuperTable, but it includes only the “all employees” category, not full-timers, and is quarterly, whereas I used monthly figures (it shows the same declining trend, though).
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@archive.nsf/log?openagent&6291012.xls&6291.0.55.003&Time Series Spreadsheet&C913C339BAFF7F01CA2572F9001D5781&0&May 2007&14.06.2007&Latest

The evidence suggests that most employees work the hours they want. That’s true of full-timers and part-timers, including full-timers working comparatively long hours:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6361.0Jun%202000?OpenDocument

You say I unfairly accuse you of accentuating the negatives, but I’ve re-read your article and really can’t see much positive in there at all.

Daggett, I’m not indifferent to the fact that many people are struggling financially, and some are worse off now than they were in the past. Rising housing costs are a problem for some households, as are higher fuel costs. Some quality of life indicators have undoubtedly deteriorated. Governments possibly can and should do more to help. I’m not a Pollyanna or an apologist for Howard (I’d say the Hawke-Keating administrations are probably due more credit than Howard-Costello for Australia’s successful economic reforms of the past 25 years).

The data do nonetheless show that, for most Australians - including those on lower incomes - economic conditions are improving. I sympathise with Haygirl and others for whom this is not the case, and support policies that provide opportunities and financial help for those who need it. But it’s poor reasoning to generalise from the particular, and assume that because some people are poorer, then most are.

The danger is that an excessive focus on the negative can be used to argue for the reversal of the economic policies, implemented by both Labor and the Coalition, that have delivered considerable benefits to the majority of ordinary Australians.

It is beginning to look as if all you anti Howard people are going to get your wish to live in Rudd Paradise. I hope you enjoy it -even if for few weeks.
Then the unions will direct when,how,where,if you work, Ms Gillard will see to that.
Mr Rudd's love of all things Chinese will undoubtably see an inrush of Chinese seeking well paid jobs.[do the Chinese allow unions?]
These forums are going to be interesting to read in a couple of years time.Remember who voted him in won't you!
I look at the fools who make up the state government where I live and I fear for my country.Labor is Labor.

I too am tired of hearing how good the current government is at 'managing the economy'. It is pure spin. While politicians are smirking on the television telling us how well we are doing, many Australians are experiencing financial hardship through lower wages gratis WorkChoices, working longer hours for less, the highest level of personal debt the country has ever seen, not to mention those on pensions receiving a measley rise in their payments based on CPI rather than on real cost of living indicators.

In real terms the living standards of a large number of people are reducing. While we buy into the free trade and globalisation myth we are at risk of losing sight of the impact at the local level. Politicians think we have forgotten that it was not that long ago a family could live on one wage and pay off a house, now it takes two wages to cope with the burden of mortgages and cost of living, particularly with rising fuel and food prices.

While our levels of consumerism and materialism accounts for some of this, it is not significant in the big picture. What happened to work/life balance and the increased leisure time promised by the boom in technology and mechanisation?

I was told by a banker in the early 1990s that the middle class was going to shrink, a few people would remain middle class but the vast majority would become poor. By and large these predictions were accurate.

How many posters know people who were fired / retrenched from their secure job and rehired for the same job later, after they had exhausted all their savings, at a lower wage.

The period from the end of World War 2 until the 1990s because society was upwardly mobile. Now we have reverted to the more typical situation of downward mobility that has galloped under Howard. To be truthful we are following in the footsteps of the United States so I don't think Labor would have done much better. And you can bet what Workchoices has stripped away will not be reinstated by Rudd.

The real sorrow of the loss of the middle class is the vast numbers of people who aren't able to plan their future. Workers are now at the mercy of their employers paid grudgingly when demand for their labour is high and laid off at the the drop of a hat. Meanwhile corporate profits are at an all time high as successful well run companies are bought out by private equity investment vehicles bloated on their extraordinary debt levels.

Rhian,

Glad that it has finally occurred to you, after three days discussion and five previous posts, to mention that you are "not indifferent to the fact that many people are struggling financially, and some are worse off now than they were in the past."

---

Apart from statistics from the ABS, which you insist, suggest "that most employees work the hours they want", you have barely answered any of the arguments in my article. (BTW not being a Micro$oft Windoze user, I can't use the SuperTable software to which you referred.)

If you are correct about those statistics, they run counter to my own personal experience, and it would seem, to the personal experiences of a number of others posting to this forum, much anecdotal evidence including that in Elisabeth Wynhausen's "Dirt Cheap" of 2005 and many studies done into the effects of the "WorkChoices" legislation.

In any case, I hardly consider 'most' to be good enough. Any figure which falls significantly short of 100% is not satisfactory IMHO.

BTW, does the fact that 'most' work the hours they want mean that they are working the hours they need to meet financial commitments or does it mean that they are working the actual number of hours they want to work?

I think that none other than John Howard inadvertently answered that question when he was heralding the "WorkChoices" laws in 2005.

He postulated that some workers would be willing to voluntarily trade in two weeks of annual leave and morning tea breaks for additional money.

Did this tell you anything, Rhian?

It told me that even Howard and Costello didn't believe their own b#@#%!t about how much better off workers supposedly are due to their allegedly brilliant economic management.

For what reason, other than sheer financial desperation, would any worker contemplate giving away two weeks of their measly four weeks annal leave?

So, whatever happened to promises of shorter working weeks and longer holidays that all the newer technologies were supposed to bring to us?

(More to come. Please also see http://candobetter.org/node/162#comment-748)

Daggett
It’s hardly reasonable to say I haven’t addressed the “arguments” in your article. I’ve tried to answer all your main assertions with reason and evidence.

You say GDP is “flawed” but that economists ignore this fact. I’ve pointed out this is wrong – GDP has limitations which economists recognise, but is nonetheless a useful indicator.

You say the omission of land from the CPI is “scandalous”, I say it probably makes little difference to measured movements in the overall cost of living.

You say that increased commuting time and the inability to repair our own cars mean our standard of living is rising by less than official measures such as GDP suggest. I say other improvements in quality of life, such as longer life spans and increased educational attainment, more than offset these losses.

You say mobile phones and the Internet are just another cost. I say they’re also an improvement in our quality of life.

You say many Australians work longer hours. I pointed out that the data show average hours worked falling.

Of the minority of workers who’d prefer different hours to the ones they work, many more want longer hours than shorter ones. The longest hours are worked by well-paid occupations such as managers. This suggests to me that working longer hours is a matter of preference, not compulsion or desperation.

You say that the standard of living of most Australians is falling. I say the overwhelming weight of evidence points the other way – which is not to deny that some people’s living standards have dropped, or that some measures of quality of life has deteriorated.

You prefer anecdotes to evidence wherever the facts contradict your preconceptions. This is the mark of an ideologue, and your persistent refusal to recognise the validity of any indicators suggesting that standards of living are rising seems to me consistent with Clive Hamilton’s telling description of the “collective schadenfreude” of the ''deprivation model."

"For what reason, other than sheer financial desperation, would any worker contemplate giving away two weeks of their measly four weeks annal leave?"

Daggett, you make the same mistake as many do, ie. seeing the world
through your limited worldview.

I happen to know quite a few young people, who are quite ambitious.
They are driven by clear goals. Some couples I know, decide to
work and save, own their first or even second home by the time they
are in their 30s, then do things like have babies, from a position
of financial strength. That should be their choice.

The same applies with workchoices. The ultimate situation is one
where the needs of both employer and employee are met, in a win-win
situation. Good employers realise that the most valuable thing
that they have, are their best staff. They compensate them accordingly, for everyone wins.

Now the terms between these two should be as flexible as what suits
both of them the best. Limiting that flexibility by introducing
3rd parties, new rules etc, really benefits nobody, apart from some
union officials who need a job.

Ok so have a fall back system for those unable to negotiate their
own terms. But leave those quite capable and happy to reach their
own agreements, to do so.

"The data do nonetheless show that, for most Australians - including those on lower incomes - economic conditions are improving." (Quote:Rhian)

Well there you go!

".......I don't care if you CAN see it on the shelf; the computer says we haven't got any........"

"we are more likely than any past generation to stay at school beyond 15 or go to university"

....Yes, and today it is very much user pays. I can remember free tertiary education and benefited from it. Should I have done the same today I would be graduating much the poorer. Now Rhian, you seem to like a mathematical perspective, so you might like to consider how long it would take graduates today to pay off their education debt and a house, and compare the result with graduates from 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago.

"so you might like to consider how long it would take graduates today to pay off their education debt and a house,"

Fester, most education in Australia still remains free for most
students. However last time I was forced to hire a lawyer, he
charged 400$ an hour. The local doctor charges around 45$ for
10 minutes. Why should these guys not pay back their education
costs?

Oh Yabby,

"I happen to know quite a few young people ..." etc.

Have you ever heard of Veblen's robber culture? It is about people who identify with the nasty ones at the top because they don't want to identify with their victims, and so they assist the exploitation of their neighbours rather than standing up for decency. This is very common in Australia these days. A form of denial of one's real status.

What kind of world is it when most are expected to constantly work harder just to get shelter that everyone should be born with? What a waste of time and energy when we could be enjoying life and benefiting the community. Instead we are running round propping up redundant commercial activity because it assists the financial institutions to keep siphoning money upwards to the wealthy low-life corporates now a-top the social dung-heap in Australia, collecting football teams and governments for the ridiculous motive of status.

I work in a hospital where there are many 'ambitious young people' most of whom would rather not work, actually, and they curse what is happening to this country. They know that they will always be in debt; and are appalled at the commodification of necessities; fear illness and old age; see their children already leading very hard lives. They discharge psychiatric patients to the beach or into caravan parks if they are lucky, and many of those patients live by theft and prostitution due to the cost of living, in an area which was once a social haven for people of modest means and which has now become gentrified and full of people competing with each other and against the common good. Half the staff are recent immigrants, employer sponsored wedges promoted above locals. Everyone is aware of this and disgusted. The biggest developers in the area are mafiosi, grow a lot of marijuana and the banks, State and local politicians just kow tow to them. There's a buck in it, after all.

Some of us live in a state of fear. Where do you live?

"Some of us live in a state of fear. Where do you live?"

Oh Kanga. I certainly don't live in a state of fear. I'm also
perhaps fortunate, as I don't give a hoot about status. I note
how many are miserable, not because they are doing so badly,
but because they keep looking over their shoulders and are
envious of others.

The physical State where I live is WA and all I can see there
are huge opportunities for young people, like we just never had
30 years ago. Great stuff for them! What seems to me to have
changed is their expectations of life, compared to what we
had at the same age. They want the lot and they want it now!

I have found that one of the secrets to life is finding out what
you really enjoy and are passionate about, then being paid for
it. If you hate your job, you are in the wrong job. Look
at those who love their jobs, they have a completely different
outlook on life.

As to the evils of big bizz or banks, when I look at the main
shareholders in these institutions, nearly all are super funds,
grey nomads etc. The 9% Super levy has transferred 1 trillion$
into the super funds of workers, thats virtually as much as
the whole ASX is worth. So what they rip off you, your super fund
gives back to you for your old age. Its all a bit of a circle.

What people have today is more choices then ever. You can go be
a hippy on a beach and smoke your joints. You can start your own
business, find a job you love, etc. Its all about choices and
opportunities and they are all there for people for the taking.

But then its also a human foible to blame the whole world for our
problems, rather then ourselves. A little bit of self analysis and
contemplation can solve that for us, if we try

Rhian - I have enjoyed your reasoned debate with James and his responses and find it refreshing that it has not degenerated into a vicious personal attack as so many seem to. For what it is worth, I am also going to make comment: most of the statistics proffered are engineered for specific purposes. The only real test therefore is in how many people are affected adversely by the changes, i.e. the bottom line. I think you could find no better 'bottom line' than Haygirl. (excuse me calling you a 'bottom line' haygirl). Like her I find myself in the same position, enjoying much fewer benefits, lower standard of living, and so on, and less money to do it on. Through no fault of my own, I hasten to add. A quick look at the demographics show this number increasing substantively. I noted that Pericles stated that single incidents should not be used to illustrate points but when they become the collective majority, even though hidden, how can they be ignored? I take Mr Howard's point - that the country is enjoying increased wealth, but the ever-increasing numbers of people joining the bottom of the pile take little comfort from that. Too many people are being forced into 3rd world conditions (and yes, I have seen some). Am I (and I suspect others) better off than my parents 40 years ago? No. On a comparative scale I have far fewer benefits than they did then. More importantly, they agree with this.

Rhian says that mobile phones and internet are a benefit.

Maybe you enjoy paying $18 a month to be at the beck and call of everyone at all hours of the day and night.
I purchased a mobile phone when job hunting so that the breathless headhunter could tell me to apply for the unbelievable opportunity now. I would duly massage the resume, shoot it back to the head hunter and hear nothing . . . . . Then there was the embarassing incident of being rung and effectively interviewed whilst boarding a Manly ferry with every one around me watching and listening in.

In fact I now own a mobile so that I can be contacted at a moment's notice for casual work. So casual that when you are called you had better be dressed for work, ready to find the address on the street directory and drive off in a hurry to get there on time. Then of course you might not be rung.

Now Rhian tell me how that improves my quality of life! I say it demeans my qualifications, experience, destroys my ability to plan and erodes my self confidence.

I think my working conditions are the same as many other workers, however those workers under 30 don't know any better.

(Here's the start of a somewhat long reply at
http://candobetter.org/node/162#comment-749 As OLO limits permit me I will put the whole of that reply onto this forum - James Sinnamon (author))

Let's put under the microscope Rhian's claims to have "tried to answer all (my) main assertions with reason and evidence."

My understanding of Rhian's 'case' is that:

1. ABS stats show that average wage growth has substantially exceeded the cost of living, even though the whole point of my article was to dispute the very basis of such statistics,
2. Evidence from the ABS which "suggests that most employees work the hours they want".
3. An assertion that I have exaggerated the factors which have added to the cost of living and that for each 'negative' factor not included in CPI calculations he can find several other 'positive' factors (presumably also not included in the CPI calculations).

Rhian apparently has, in his own head, taken account of all of the the less-quantifiable 'positives' and 'negatives' as well as his beloved ABS statistics. From all of this he has computed the answer in his head, that is, "a balanced account would show our average living standard is indeed improving".
From this it flows that the picture we are given by the media of Howard's economic brilliance is the correct picture after all, and, being the only matter of any importance whatsoever (as opposed to climate change, peak oil, the Iraq war, the AU$290million in bribes paid to Saddam Hussein etc) we are all beholden to vote this year for return of John Howard's inspired government.

Those of us who aren't able to share in the joy that Rhian and Yabby are feeling are psycho-analysed as being afflicted with schadenfreude.

In regard to point 3: at the risk of being further diagnosed by Rhian as incurably mysanthropic, here are a few more negatives, which I don't believe have been accounted for adequately, or at all, in ABS statistics:

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove - also at http://candobetter.org/node/162#comment-749)

* Bulk-billing has been emasculated. Before Howard stuffed up Medicare we could walk into a doctor's practice and get treatment without having to pay money and stuff around with Medicare claim forms and, when the cheques arrived, having to bank them. I estimate that it takes well over an hour of my time to do all this for each visit to the doctor and I am still out of pocket as the payment from the Government is less than the fee.

* Credentials creep : a degree is necessary precondition for most white collar occupations, whereas year 12 used to be easily sufficient. Occupations which once required a degree now require postgraduate qualifications.

* Loss of on-the-job training such as the apprenticeship and cadetship schemes run by Telecom (now Telstra) and other government owned utilities. Nurses and paramedics now require a degree.

* Loss of career paths for entry level employees. On ABC Radio National's Street Stories of 24 June (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/streetstories/stories/2007/1954374.htm - audio file no longer available) a prostitute in Kalgoorlie revealed that she had turned to prostitution in order to go to University. Asked why she needed to go to University, she explained that she needed a degree to get promoted beyond her entry-level job in an advertising agency. Think about it: the only path to career advancement for this girl was through prostitution. A generation ago most employees who were good enough could hope for career advancement without having to sleep with the boss or turn to prostitution. Rhian, do you think this is a step forward or a step backwards?

* Education is no longer free. Most of today's graduates have crippling HECS bills.
(tobecontinued)

Ok. There are several Factors affecting "well-being"; the material, spiritual, environmental etc etc etc. You can argue until the cows come home that a few bad things negate the good things; you can claim that some new law or other is "fascist", or that "materialism" is destroying the environment, or that Sydney's rail System is a F**king disgrace. Or whatever.

Anyhow "The Economist" magazine does an annual survey of 132 cities world-wide, using about 100 factors, covering everything under the sun, to come up with their livability index. This balances everything (and more) that you could think of which might enhance or detract from quality of life, material and non-material. Bear in mind this is "cities", not countries.

OK. First was Vancouver then Adelaide, then Vienna, then Melbourne, then Sydney, then Toronto, then Perth. OK, of all the world, Australia has 4 of the top 7 cities (containing about 55% of Australia's population). That ends the whole discussion. Aussies have never had it so good (overall, averaged out) and are the envy of the world. We've got it far better than anywhere else. Sure, feel free to fiddle at the edges but get a grip and stop this moaning + whinging; enjoy life; it's short and you got the smooth end of the pineapple.

No point looking for greener grass; there isn't any.

PS. I've lived in a number of the non-Aussie cities in the top 20, and 2 of the bottom 10, and concur with "the Economist". That's why I live here, and why you do too. JWH has done what any competant skipper should do; kept the boat on a steady course and off the rocks, even when the occasional swell comes up. We all know it; that's why we're on JWH's boat and not on some rusting hulk. Cheers

Acticdog,

thanks for your post.

I respect your views and those of others such as Haygirl. I certainly don’t deny your experience, or think it’s your fault.

But the article makes specific claims about the experience, not just of some people, but of the community at large – specifically, that official data misrepresent economic conditions, and most people’s living standards have fallen. It is these claims that I have tried to address.

Apart from the ABS data on objective measures of living standards, the subjective measures too tend to be positive. Opinion surveys consistently show that more people report improving than deteriorating living standards. In Roy Morgan’s most recent poll, 40% of respondents said they were better of than this time last year, and 23% said they were worse off – a net positive balance of 17%. One month’s survey may not be representative, but in almost every month more people report improving than deteriorating living standards.
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/669/

Daggett
You have misinterpreted many of my points.

The questions I posed about youth suicide and drugs, for example, were not intended to “prove” that things are getting better, but rather to show that that there is no common objective basis to compare positive and negative trends in these areas, so there can be no consensus measure of whether quality of life, broadly defined, is improving or not.

Your deductions about “Howard’s inspired government” are a product of your imagination that bears no relation to anything I’ve posted here (my only mention of Howard was to say he probably deserves less credit than Hawke and Keating for our economic successes).

Briefly – trades apprenticeships are at an all-time high:
http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/C29360250F66B9C3CA25732C00207435?opendocument#Untitled%20Section_1

The fact that many more jobs now require degrees reflects that fact that many more people now have them. Again, you pick the most negative slant on any indicator.

The psycho-analysis on Schadenfreude was initially Clive Hamilton’s not mine, though the more I read of your posts the more convinced I am he’s right (on this).

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing indicators that give part of the story on whether standards of living are getting better or worse. Many research institutes are dedicated to examining these questions in detail. One of Australia’s most well-respected is the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM), at the University of Canberra.

Their detailed modelling looks at different income groups and adjusts income from all sources for the effects of different household characteristics and direct and indirect taxes and benefits to derive “equivalent disposable income” as a measure of economic resources (this is widely used in welfare analysis internationally). This should capture changes in pharmaceutical benefits and education costs and many – admittedly, not all – of the myriad other effects we’ve discussed here.

Its research gives some comfort to the pessimists – inequality has risen, they’re not sure what the impact of WorkChoices will be, and they’re suspicious of evidence that inequality dropped between 2002-03 and 2003-04.

But on the key question at issue in this forum – whether absolute living standards have fallen for most of the population, or most at the bottom of the income range – the evidence from NATSEM is crystal clear. For all income groups and all time periods studied, real equivalent gross household income has risen.

http://www.canberra.edu.au/centres/natsem/publications?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHAlM0ElMkYlMkZhbmltYWwuY2FuYmVycmEuZWR1LmF1JTNBNTgwJTJGbmF0c2VtJTJGaW5kZXgucGhwJTNGbW9kZSUzRHB1YmxpY2F0aW9uJTI2cHVibGljYXRpb24lM0QxMDIyJmFsbD0x

The apposition of yours and James view, Rhian, is delightful. May there be more of it! However, again, I am going to stick my two bob's worth in. The point that James makes is that increasing levels of poverty HAS become the experience for the community at large - it is no longer the exception, or isolated incidents, despite some nefarious claims. Like James I was unable to substantiate many of the ABS figures you quote, (but this may be a deficiency more of my ability to get more out of the computer!). However I have to say that the one month that you state can not possibly be representative and determining whether the group polled is representative also presents problems. How can you determine therefore that the figures have not been massaged to produce the desired outcome? Given the large amount you indicate, it appears not, but are you drawing them together in a way that substantiates your view? There are an equal number purportedly showing the opposite view. One more point - it was stated that most cars these days are computerised, making it difficult for running repairs in the garage at home. I agree. However there is a significant group with cars so old they dont have any computerised systems in them. Repairs are still possible. However I am aware that new car sales were higher last quarter than at any time previously. But does this say that the majority of cars on the road are new cars? I think not.

Rising incomes are not indicative of an increase in the standard of living until you compare income with prices ie. cost of living.

It is all very well to show that incomes have increased by say 20% over a period of time, but this means nothing if the real cost of living has increased by 30% in that same period meaning a real decline in incomes ie. spending power.

CPI is not a true indicator. CPI does not include the cost of mortgages,personal debt and other factors.

And so say all of us Pelican.I could not have put it better myself.Just the food alone has gone up over 10 percent.My power bill has just risen by 11.37 percent,it is now double what it was 6 years ago and my usage has remained the same.Every time the price rises gst goes on top of that.If this federal govt has done such a wonderful job of making EVERYBODY so much more wealthy and our standard of living has risen so much,can someone tell me why the polls are showing Liberal heading for a massive defeat.Don't tell me it's because of the IR, laws since everyone is doing so well HAHA negotiating their own working conditions and wages.Don't tell me it's the war in Iraq or because the tooth fairy forgot to leave money under the pillow.It's because the average person is not doing well at all under this bloody govt.I dont believe their is any way to fix what johnny and co have stuffed up.No matter who gets in next time,the damage is done.

(continued from above at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93263 - also posted to http://candobetter.org/node/162#comment-749)

* Each serious job application I make these days takes at least weeks out of my life. This is to update my resume, fill out job selection criteria, write applications and if I am lucky, to attend the interview. Given the number of applicants for the jobs I go for (when I can bring myself to face such an ordeal). Given the number of applicants fro each of these jobs, simply fining a newer better job can easily consume up to a year of one's life, so many just don't bother. Year's ago, I was able to walk into good jobs by simply talking to the boss. At most, a scrappy job application and a small amount of form filing was all that was needed.

* The overheads of running small businesses have dissuaded many people I know from working for themselves. A generation ago, almost anyone could start a business without having to spend weekends filling out out paperwork, or, alternatively, employing an accountant part-time. Where is this shown in CPI figures?

* Housing loan repayment periods are 30, 40 years - some institutions are even planning for 50 year periods - where they used to be 20 years at the very most.(See story about economists, employed by banks, having fiddled statistics to make housing appear more affordable than it actually is at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1335462.htm).

* Overheads of moving home for those growing numbers of Australians who don't own their own homes and are turfed out when their landlords sell or who have to move because they can't afford the rent increases. These include telephone, Internet (around $170 a hit on 5 occasions between 2001 and 2005 in my own case) electricity and gas reconnection, cleaning in order to satisfy demanding inspection requirements, time and effort searching for new accommodation and filing out paperwork, moving or selling possessions in order to avoid moving costs.

Let's now deal with some other examples which Rhian holds prove that we are better off and not worse off:

(tobecontinued)

(continued from above - also posted to http://candobetter.org/node/162#comment-749)

"Is the decline in youth suicide enough to offset the rise in youth drug taking?"

Can't say. Has suicide 'declined' over just the last year, last decade or last three decades? What about mature-aged suicide? All I know is that there is abundant evidence of the growing dysfunctionality of our society.

One example: When I went to school in the 1960's 1970's, I could walk alone or with a group of friends. These days most parents are frightened to let their children walk to school without the accompaniment of adults. So they are obliged to drive them, thereby making our roads more crowded and dangerous, or to run cumbersome parent-supervised 'walking buses'

"Is the reduced capacity to repair your own car (bemoaned at length in the article) offset by the improved safety and reliability of modern vehicles?"

The only cars which are safer and 'more reliable' are new cars. Once they are a few years old, keeping them safe and reliable becomes prohibitively expensive. Thankfully, my older car doesn't have air bags fitted. By the way, an ambulance officer once told me that he and fellow paramedics don't believe air-bags improve car safety and consider them a hazard to their own work. Another case of unnecessary expenses being foisted upon consumers to suit corporations.

"Is the increase in greenhouse gas emissions offset by the decrease in air pollutants such as SO2 that directly harm human health?"

What a stupid question!

(tobecontinued)

Interest rates are down, but you pay four times more for a house.
This is due to increasing demand without any increase in supply.

Same goes for water, energy, fish, food and car parking space.

Your country is being sold from under your nose,

Governments; population target: infinity.

The upside to this population growth however is, environmental destruction, fisheries collapse, and pollution.
Hang on, those aren't upsides.

Please don't entertain Costellos' nineteen fifties economic experiment.

Growth not Population.

Billie,

What Yabby says about plenty of opportunities for young people in WA is also true up here in Queensland.

"Westside News", our local free paper of 5 September has a front page story, "Pizza drive crisis".

If you have your own car you can earn all of $9.90 per hour as well as $1.60 per pizza delivered.

As long as you can find a compatible person of the same gender (or partner) prepared to share a bedroom with you in a share house, I am sure you will have no trouble affording the rent on those wages.

Also, just in case you do miss out on getting one of those jobs, I am assured there are plenty of jobs for junk mail deliverers and traffic controllers who get to stand by the side of busy roads adjacent to Brisbane's many road, infrastructure and building construction projects for hours on end on sunny days or throuigh the night only feet away from car exhaust fumes. When you die of emphesyma, or heart failure you need feel no twinge fo guilt for having indulged in cigarette smoking.

So, stop feeling sorry for yourself and come up here to Brisbane.

And don't forget to fix your electoral enrolment details so you can thank John Howard for providing you with all of these wonderful opportunities with your vote.

Thanks Cacofonix I'll bear that in mind but with my degrees and experience I was hoping to continue earning $200+ to $500+ per day.

Ross Gittins’ article in the SMH today covers many of the issues debated in this thread – the gap between the data on living costs and people’s perceptions, the appeal of the individual anecdote over broader data, and the importance of the question “compared to what” when asking whether living standards are improving.

Like Hamilton, he points to psychological factors explaining people’s refusal to accept evidence of rising living standards.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/please-sir-can-we-have-more/2007/09/11/1189276715265.html

Daggett,

Read what I wrote. I used those examples to illustrate the impossibility of comparing unlike measures to gauge quality of life, not to “prove” that things are getting better.

Two weeks to fill out an application! Heck, what kind of jobs are you chasing?

Of course business overheads aren’t in the CPI – it measures households’ costs, not businesses’. Anyway, you’ll get only support from me (and indeed the driest neo-liberals) on the need to cut business regulation.

The article you link to makes some interesting point about the banks’ affordability measures – including supporting my point that the key problem in the owner-occupied sector is first-home buyers.

Apart from the CBA though, these don’t much influence in the wider debate, where the REIA and HIA affordability measures are most widely quoted. These business associations often emphasise affordability problems in their press releases, as they use poor affordability as a reason to press governments to cut taxes and take other measures in their members/clients interests. The lenders, too, arguably have as much interest in playing up affordability problems as playing them down.

The digs at “economic rationalists” seem gratuitous – the author never explains what link there is, if any, between these organisations’ affordability measures, denial of rising house prices, and “economic rationalism.” I’d say the natural inclination of economic rationalists is to disapprove of declining affordability. One of the most active bodies campaigning for improved housing affordability at the moment is the Institute of Public Affairs, perhaps the nearest thing Australia has to an “economic rationalist” think tank.
(Alan Moran of the IPA has written extensively on this – see his OLO piece here)
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4811

"I was hoping to continue earning $200+ to $500+ per day."

Well Billie, if you can do something useful, like be a plumber,
bricklayer, roof carpenter, mechanic, welder, miner or other skilled
work, then its all out there for you!

In my experience its all about people and their attitudes to life.
Some, as is evidenced on this thread, see problems, gloom and doom
everywhere. Of course its never their fault, blame it on everyone
and anything else. Others see opportunity and go and make it happen.
Perhaps its just genetic, I dunno.

Sheesh, I'm not even a Howard fan. I just see the benefits of
having a flexible economy. Give people opportunities and don't tie
them down with red tape and some will thrive and create opportunities
for others. In that sense Costello has continued what Keating
started.

I certainly don't think that Rudd is going to create some kind of
utopia that some of you seem to be yearning for. I prefer him
to Howard, but its his hangers on that could be his downfall.

Perhaps we need a Govt combining Rudd, Costello, Hockey and a few
better ones, just kick out Andrews and other religious fanatics :)

Sorry, the story was "Pizza driver crisis" and not "Pizza drive crisis".

Yabby and and Rhian sound like self-satisfied I'm alright Jacks who just happen, for the moment, to be in the right place at the right time. Most of us go through periods like this. I remember a time when I sat in an office in Collins Street absorbing the Greed is Good of the 1980s (ALP was in). Along with my collegues I was almost completely isolated from reality and all we had to pass the time in that over-controlled competitive environment was to kid ourselves we were in control and that is was all alright.

Naturally that all fell to pieces when the next government came in and the changed all the laws we administered but kept the bad trip going, just with other peacocks in charge.

You just get tired after a while of the paper-chase and turning up to fraternise with money-freaks in suits with a status compulsion who think that they are getting somewhere when they are really just using up stuff and ripping people off whilst writing their own reports on how great they are doing.

That might be okay if the rest of us were left with a choice, but the Ken and Barbie-doll set who believe all the spin are in charge of the bulldozers which are ruining it for everyone else.

Using up stuff counts as 'productivity' and it's just a lot of self-delusion. We are losing soil, pushing water past safety, losing all our ammenity; turning a beautiful world into a tarnished mirror for an ugly species.

Pity we humans didn't remain on the side of the gorge that the bonobos finished up on. We sure have developed our chimp-troglodyte side.

(That's a reference to Wrangham and Peterson's Demonic Apes, which is a good supplement to Machiavelli's Prince, in case you didn't know.)

"Yabby and and Rhian sound like self-satisfied I'm alright Jacks who just happen, for the moment, to be in the right place at the right time"

ROFL Kanga, a statement like that is litle more then trying to make
you feel better about your self, the rest is pure ignorance.

I try to keep my personal life off OLO, preferring points of reason,
but for once I digress.

The other night when APEC leaders were eating their dinner, it turned
out that one of the products was from a company that I had pioneered
and sold not so long ago. To establish that industry involved
countless innovation, countless clashes with Govt, including Canberra
to change the rules, the State Govt to see reason and taking a European
Govt to court, due to their trade boycott. We won the lot in the end
and went on to win various awards.

When I then read that life is considered tough by some people,
because it takes them an hour to cash their medibank rebate cheque,
I can only smile.

You are correct about bonobos being wonderful creatures, I am a big
fan! But then as Desmond Morris pointed out to me, in evolutionary
terms sadly they have been a dismal failure, protected only by
the huge Congo river. He has a point, if you think about it.

Reality does not go away, when we close our eyes and wish it would.

"Ross Gittins’ article............... – the gap between the data on living costs and people’s PERCEPTIONS!!, the appeal of the individual anecdote over broader data, and the importance of the question “COMPARED TO WHAT”!! when asking whether living standards are improving.

...........he points to psychological factors explaining people’s REFUSAL TO ACCEPT EVIDENCE OF RISING LIVING STANDARDS.!!" (Quote:Rhian)

I'll be frank with you. You are really starting to annoy me.

You are so determined to prove that you are right, that you are breaking new ground in utter condescension.

What extraordinary arrogance!

You Rhian, deal in data and intellectual theory. Haygirl and others deal in reality; in personal experience.

The latter trumps the former every time!

It astonishes me that you have the gall to suggest that those who have really struggled under this utterly self-serving, bullying regime are IMAGINING that they are worse off! How dare you!

Whether you like it or not; try hard to accept that those who do NOT agree with your theory and data are NOT hallucinating!!

I remain staggered at your pernicious tactics to prove your point.

Shame on you!

From The Age this morning http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/managers-strip-worker-rights/2007/09/12/1189276809758.html

"Average pay for workers in liquor stores, fast-food businesses, bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets dropped by between 2 and 18 per cent as a result of the 339 new agreements studied in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. But the worst-affected workers lost more than a third of their salaries through agreements that were legal."

"The study has, for the first time, calculated the real-world pay rates for workers in retail and hospitality who are moved from award rates to new non-union collective agreements, by modelling how standard rosters in these industry interacted with the new pay rates. They found most people were worse off, with part-time, casual and weekend workers hardest hit.

A casual worker in a liquor store doing 12 hours on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday could lose up to 38 per cent of pay, or $114.27 a week. A permanent full-timer working some weekends and overtime could lose up to $145 a week, or 20 per cent of salary."

Work Choices affects people I know like this all the time.

Also privatisation has meant people get bombarded with calls to change telephone operator, electricity retailer, gas retailer, internet provider. That's why people worry living living conditions are being eroded.

Tourist operators have noticed the average length of stay in holiday resorts is 4 days, 20 years ago every one booked 7 day holidays.

Yabby I think I have said this before it takes 3 years to train for a trade after you can find an employer to take you on so when the major employers refuse to invest in training of course you get a shortage of skilled labour.

Yabby, firstly, where did I argue that I considered life tough
"because it takes (me) an hour to cash their medibank rebate cheque"?

You were perfectly well aware that 'an hour' (in fact 'well over an hour') of my own time was just a small part of the larger picture that I was trying to depict.

I very conservatively estimated was that it took 'well over an hour' in terms of actual time taken and the overall disruption to my day to accomplish all of the following: fill out the form, staple the receipt to the envelope, address the envelope, find and affix stamp, walk to and from post box, and then after the cheque arrives, walk to the bank, wait in the queue, bank the cheque and walk home.

Now, Yabby, do you or do you not agree with the adage that "time is money"?

Why do you refuse to acknowledge the obvious stupidity of changing a system that used to be effortless and almost totally automated to the current one in which at least almost as much time as which the money is worth has to be wasted in order to retrieve that money?

That you have chosen to misrepresent my argument in order to trivialise it and attempt to ridicule myself confirms that you are not interested in honest discussion.

I think that if you ended your participation in this forum you would do other participants a great favour.

---

Rhian wrote: "Two weeks to fill out an application! Heck, what kind of jobs are you chasing?"

Yes Rhian, it can, and has, taken me two weeks or longer to apply for one job.

However, before I continue, are you at least prepared to acknowledge that inordinate amounts of time are spent on all sides both applying for and processing jobs as compared with, say, 10 or 20 years ago?

I see the above response as one from someone who will not make the effort to understand the circumstances of others whose plans in life have not gone as smoothly as your own seem to have.

(tobecontiuned)

(continuedfromabove)

My resume is not full of the outstanding academic credentials and professional achievements that seems to be mandatory in just about every job description these days. As my record has been chequered, it has often been a very difficult exercise to sit down and try to massage my own record into a job application which will catch and hold the attention of employment agents amongst dozens of other job applications.

Given the number of things that have gone wrong in my own professional career, I would maintain, mostly through circumstances beyond my own control, having to confront this in the process of writing job applications has actually driven me to depression on a number of past occasions.

Anyhow, this forum is not the place to discuss my personal circumstances or the personal circumstances of other participants.

We should accept that even people with fallibilities and less than perfect records should still have a write to secure, stimulating and decently-paid jobs without first being required to go through the harrowing and demeaning ordeal that applying for a job has become for many these days.

---

Thank you, Ginx. You can be assured that you're not the only one here that takes exception to the insulting condescension that has been employed in a seeming attempt to confuse this discussion.

---

In regard to Rhian's objections to 'gratuitous' digs at neoliberalism (aka economic 'rationalism'), I think it is almost impossible to exaggerate the harm that that ideology has caused and how malevolent and unconscionable and greedy many of its proponents truly are.

Everyone should rush out and but a copy of Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" (see http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/shock-wave-troopers) which is due to be released in Australia any day now. It shows how neo-liberals are practised at the art of expoliting both natural and man-made catastropohes in order to force adoption of their policies aimed at stealing from the less powerful and giving to the rich.

These disasters include the Tsunami of December 2004 and Hurricane Katrina.

I also commend George Monbiot's "How did we get inot this mess?" at http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/08/28/how-did-we-get-into-this-mess/

Daggett

Yes, job applications take longer now than they used to. Still, 2 weeks?

Accusing Yabby of misrepresenting others’ arguments is rather hypocritical, given the systematic way you have misrepresented his/hers and mine.

You say “this forum is not the place to discuss my personal circumstances or the personal circumstances of other participants”. I agree. Yet you also say that my own “plans in life” seem to have gone “smoothly”, when I have given you no information whatsoever about my personal life. You construct images of your opponents from your own prejudices, and then subject your creations to ad hominem abuse. Again, the mark of an ideologue.

I don’t object to criticism of “economic rationalism”, I object to criticism of anything done by name-calling alone. I’d object equally if he used the term “Nazi” or “Stalinist,” not because I approve of these ideologies, but because it’s puerile abuse. Breward gave no explanation of what he thinks “economic rationalism” is, why it’s wrong, and why it’s a suitable label for the behaviour he described. He took it for granted that merely labelling something “economic rationalism”, without explanation, was sufficient to damn it. That’s why I used the term “gratuitous”, meaning “without reason, cause, or justification” (Macquarie Dictionary).

Fir the record (again):

I don’t believe, and have not said, that everyone is better off than they used to be, or that no-one faces economic hardship or exploitation. Nor do I believe that people who are struggling or whose living standards are falling are lying, lazy, guilty, “hallucinating” or “imagining” they’re worse off.

I do believe there is persuasive evidence that this is not the experience of most Australians.

There is a huge difference between the compassion which is the appropriate response to the stories of people like Haygirl, and the critical reasoning and evaluation of evidence appropriate to answering a question such as whether living standards IN GENERAL are falling

Ginx may prefer personal experience to data and reason when considering this question. I don’t.

"fill out the form, staple the receipt to the envelope, address the envelope, find and affix stamp, walk to and from post box, and then after the cheque arrives, walk to the bank, wait in the queue, bank the cheque and walk home."

You are free to try and shoot the messenger! I never claim to be
a diplomat. I make points of reason about which you are
free to argue. Shooting the messenger simply tells me that you
don't have any good arguments.

As to what takes you an hour, takes me about 30 seconds. Most
good surgeries have computers to fill out the forms, patients sign
on the dotted line. They even post them for us in bulk, so savings
all round. My only chore is to open an envelope on arrival and include
the cheque with other cheques, which are all banked together next
time I go banking. Voila, all very simple.

It seems to me that alot of the complainers, harking back for the
"good old days", don't see the big picture. Keating was right,
we were heading for being a banana republic, riding on the sheeps
back. The sheep collapsed as expected. The "good old days"
of inefficient manufacturing, cosy agreements to featherbed everyone
at the expense of very few efficient industries, simply had to end.
They were dragging the few efficient ones down. If Australia had
not faced this reality at the time, we would now be a banana republic.
Keating, Costello, Rudd etc, all understand that, but many Aussies
still don't.

Britain faced a similar problem. Derugulation of their economy has
taken then from the bottom of the G7(now G8) to no 2 in GDP terms.
Perhaps less manufacturing jobs, but challenging NY as the major
banking centre and far more profitable.

But of course many individuals will focus on their little patch,
some complaining how bad things are, rather then understand the
big picture and adapt to a changing world.

Yes Plumbers, Brick-layers, Developers and road builders, all in demand.
And the people that use the new roads and live in the new houses also need jobs, so lets create new short-term construction projects to employ them also, so the cycle continues, reliant on exponential increase of population.

We are consuming a thousand years worth of wealth in a matter of months.
We are killing species, some of which are 400 million years old.

Real wealth is not employment.
Real wealth is affordable land and housing.
You pay 10 average yearly incomes for a house that used to cost 2 average yearly incomes.

Growth not population.
Costellos' economics belongs in an ancient nineteen-fifties textbook, along with plans to build nuclear powered cars, and grow wheat on the moon.

If you believe Australia is not over populated, then you are more brainwashed than a fanatic terrorist.

You are being ripped-off by people with a vested interest in selling off your country, diluting your wealth, and stealing your future.

P.S
Don't forget to only flush after a number 2
And stop watering your lawn.

I'll make the question simpler. How long would it take to buy a median priced house on an average wage today? How long ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years ago? This would mean more to me than knowing how many Big Macs/Apple Macs someone on a median wage could afford.

The economic success of a country isn't everything either. The Black Death was an economic disaster on a national level, but greatly improved the living standards of surviving labourers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/blacksocial_01.shtml

"Ginx may prefer personal experience to data and reason when considering this question. I don’t.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 13 September 2007 4:34:37 PM"

(Data......'and reason'. Skillfully inserted! Data has little to do with reason...)

Rhian may prefer data to TELL US what how we stand. I don't.

"As to what takes you an hour, takes me about 30 seconds..." (Quote:Yabby).

Two clever people. I mean it.

If it works for me; it works for all.

If it's in the stats; it is correct.

What hallowed ground you occupy.

In the '70's when I wanted a job I went in, talked to the boss and was hired, or no job existed at that time. If I fell out with my boss and told him to stuff it, I could quite literally go down the street and have another job the same day. By 1980 you couldn't do that. You had to have some training or education before you could start. By 1990 you had to almost make an appointment to see HR and if any job was available, and you had to have specific training and experience. Today, I work by contract and don't even do my initial leg work. I use an employment service who send my CV to only select companies able to answer my personal expectations. I get back to them if they have checked the appropriate boxes.
Big difference from the first job I ever had. I walked in asked for a job and was handed a broom. Two weeks later I was at a bench grinding machine parts and before three months was up I was learning to weld with an experienced work mate. Can you still do that today? I don't think so. Much has changed. Some for the better, some most definitely not. Change does!

(continuedfromabove at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93410 also at http://candobetter.org/node/162#comment-749)

If the people in control had done their job properly we would not have had to deal with either by now. Can you show us, BTW how we all stand to come out ahead, in your economic model, with the predicted increased frequencies of events like Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in 2005, no doubt helped by Australian coal exports?

If you had read my article I had conceded that significant numbers of ordinary Australians were likely to be somewhat better off, notwithstanding the negatives I have mentioned.

However this has almost nothing to do with Howard's economic management. It is simply their good luck to be sitting on our bounty of our finite non-renewable mineral wealth at a time when the Chinese and Indian economies are expanding with all of the grave hazards that this poses for our global life support system

----

Yabby,

Firstly, I have provided many examples. Why have you disregarded all but one?

In regard to claiming Medicare rebates, why do you presume that your own system is relevant to myself?

Unlike you, I am not in the habit of regularly banking cheques, so if I want the money from the rebate cheque, it is necessary for me to make a special trip.

No, my local GP doesn't have the system in place that you described, so all the steps I itemised are necessary. If you can accomplish all of them in 30 seconds rather than an hour and a half, then you are both a genius and a super-human athlete.

My simple point was that once there was a simple straightforward system that made it possible for us to visit our GP without any need for having to carry extra cash and deal with claim forms and cheques, and now, for many people, there is not.

This is only one of many ways in which the additional time-consuming complexity of life is not accounted for by the indicators which ostensibly measure our prosperity.

---

Rhian wrote, "Accusing Yabby of misrepresenting others' arguments is rather hypocritical, ..."
(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)
He did and I have shown that he did. If you say that I misrepresented yours then show me where and I will discuss it.

---

Rhian, you wrote, "Yes, job applications take longer now than they used to. Still, 2 weeks?"

Is it your intention to discuss the issue at hand or to discuss your own perception of my personal adequacies?

If you must focus on the latter, then why not go back and read, very carefully, what I have written and then try to apply what has been demonstrably lacking on your part so far, that is, empathy.

Just try to understand the task that many job seekers face when contemplating a job description and a set of selection criteria which don't match the credentials and experience that they have, knowing that that there is a huge glut of other applicants.

Try to understand that many people would rather devote their time and talents to more productive and socially useful activities than updating and massaging CV's and addressing selection criteria, as once was possible. Try to understand, as I have already explained, that people who have been in the situation that I have been go through depression and face writer's blocks when faced with this task.

If, after all of that, two weeks still seems inordinately long to you, and if you are not simply taking a cheap shot at me in order to divert the attention of forum visitors away from the glaring weakness of your case, then let's have that discussion elsewhere.


---

In regard to your indignant protestations at Alun Breward having labelled those economists who fiddled figures to give a misleading picture of housing affordability, as 'economic rationalists' (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1335462.htm) I think it is a safe bet that they were. Perhaps Breward neglected to disclose how he came to that conclusion, but his central argument is still highly relevant to this discussion.

There are mountains of evidence that show that economic (ir)rationalists are not only 'threat to our economic wellbeing', but, indeed, a threat to human civilisation and the life support system ...
(tobecontinued)

Daggett,
I’d prefer not to discuss your personal inadequacies, but as you illustrate you points with your own experiences, it’s hard to avoid. Anyway, you posed a direct question to me about the time it takes to full in a job application. You can hardly complain when I respond.

You misrepresented my arguments:

a) on the difficulty of comparing unquantifiable measures of quality of life such as declining youth suicide and rising drug taking, which you misrepresent as an attempt to “prove” that life is getting better

b) on the gratuitous nature of Breward’s comments, which you misrepresent as a defence of economic rationalism

c) on economists’ views of GDP, which you infer are discussed only “among themselves”, rather than being widely known

d) by accusing me of not answering your arguments, when I clearly have

e) by representing me as an apologist for Howard, when my only reference to him was to say Keating and Hawke deserve more credit than Howard for our economic success

f) by claiming that failure to share your views, and insistence on examining evidence, comprises a lack of empathy.

I empathise with Daggett's CV massaging efforts. I was p*ssed off to read the following letter in The Age today http://www.theage.com.au/letters/?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

"Teacher drain a critical issue

"I AM a 60-year-old teacher at Cobram Secondary College. I thought your story and editorial last week concerning the drastic teacher staffing situation at country schools were both timely in their focus and spot-on in their analysis. At Cobram we are currently experiencing serious staffing imbalances in "hard-to-staff" areas like maths and information technology, despite re-advertising these vacancies widely. The prospects for 2008 and beyond do not look good"

_ _ _ _ _

I applied for the above positions in 2004, 2005 and tried to meet the principal, who played Mrs Elusive. I notice that the jobs are advertised as graduate positions. In my experience there is no shortage of teachers, even out in regional Victoria schools that want to hire metropolitan trained young graduates. This means graduates from the local regional universities are left to earn a precarious existence as emergency teachers trying to get sufficient days work to gain full teaching licences.

So if the job applicant doesn't have exactly the right qualifications blue eyes, right gender, age, right ethnic group then they will be passed over.

Fester, median house prices would vary in every state. In places like WA they
have rocketed up, as everyone scrambles for their McMansion, due to the booming
economy.

If your dream is a low median house price, then bring back 18% interest rates
and 10-12 % unemployment and there will be bargain houses everywhere!

A smart poster like yourself would be able to analyse why houses cost what they
do. Wealthier buyers are one issue, but to build a new average home is still
not expensive. 150k$ will get you a quite reasonable one, according to the
Sunday papers. The real slug is land, as State Govts have been backward at
releasing enough of it to satisfy demand, as they pursue their dreams of
high density living, whilst many people prefer urban sprawl. Huge infrastructure
charges are also applied to every block. The net result is skyrocketing house
land prices, a State Govt, not Federal Govt issue.

Daggett, there are many points in your posts that I could have reacted to, but
I am interacting with not just yourself on this thread. So I chose just one
that seemed fairly ridiculous and still do think that is the case.

As I showed, perhaps its just you and not the system. You have many options,
doctors who bulk bill, doctors with efficient admin systems, going to your
bank when you are going anyhow etc.

Ask yourself why that system was introduced and it starts to make sense.
Govts should spend taxpayers $ wisely and providing unlimited cookie jars for
some to dip their hands in, is not wise. Doctors are free to bulk bill and save on
admin costs, some choose not to. Fair enough, but then patients should know how
much they are charging, so that they are accountable to patients, not to the Govt.

So thankfully the Govt has limited the taxpayer funded cookie jar, but given people
various options. You are free to choose amongst those options. Finding another
Doctor is one of them.

(continuedfromabove)
.. upon which it depends, just one amongst almost countless other examples being Naomi Kleins's "The Shock Doctine" (see http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/shock-wave-troopers http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/the-book).

Breward may be slightly off the mark when he writes that 'economic rationalists' are 'deluded'. I think that most are perfectly well aware of what they are doing. As Monbiot put it, "Their purpose was to develop the ideas and the language which would mask the real intent of the programme - the restoration of the power of the elite - and package it as a proposal for the betterment of humankind." (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/08/28/how-did-we-get-into-this-mess/)

Thus, Howard insists that protection against unfair dismissal was removed to increase employment opportunities and Yabby parrots (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93060) the familiar and discredited argument that the reason why, as an example, in the hospitality industry, "Saturday penalty rates were abolished in 76 per cent of WorkChoices collective agreements, Sunday penalties in 71 per cent, overtime rates in 68 per cent, public holiday rates in 60 per cent, and paid breaks in 55 per cent" (see http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/managers-strip-worker-rights/2007/09/12/1189276809758.html) is to allow flexibility for the benefit of worker as well as employer.

---

The biggest confidence trick of all is that John Howard somehow did not realise that his laws were going to cause savage cuts to many workers' wages. He was warned about this even from within his cabinet, and the unions and opposition parties said that this would be the case from day one. Nevertheless, without any mandate from Australian voters, they arrogantly persevered, abusing their Senate majority that had been delivered to them throught the rorting of the Senate electoral processes.

On top of this, they had the unbelievable gall to spend initially AU$55million of taxpayers' money to lie to the Australian public about these laws in an unprecedented saturation-level advertising campaign even before the actual legislation had been revealed. The claims that various entitlements were "protected by law" have since been shown to be false. The costs of all "WorkChoices" advertising totals 'AU$120 million and counting' (http://candobetter.org/node/152#speech). The total cost of taxpayer-funded Liberal Party political propaganda since 2004 totals between AU$800million and AU$1billion.

James Sinnamon

Rhian wrote, "I'd prefer not to discuss your personal inadequacies, ..."

Excuse me?

Perhaps if, instead of being the person that I am, I was a judgmental self-satisfied creep, perhaps, with a better aptitude for self-promotion, then you would be less uncharitable.

Many contributors, including myself, have been personally affected by the maliciously designed policies of the Howard Government (and I would add, since you have failed to notice that I am not enamoured with Paul Keating either, the policies of the previous Labor Government, as well). That some of us choose to discuss how this has affected ourselves, given our own imperfections, I would have thought was both understandable and of benefit to others.

I consider the way that you have seized upon my frank disclosure about myself, in order to to denigrate myself in an attempt to divert attention away from the very serious issues at hand, is contemptible and despicable.

Rhian wrote, "... Anyway, you posed a direct question to me about the time it takes to full in a job application."

Where did I pose this "direct question" to you?

Also, if you want me to take your accusations of my having misrepresented you seriously, then how about quoting me directly?

---

Rhian wrote (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93572),

"I don't believe, and have not said, that everyone is better off than they used to be, or that no-one faces economic hardship or exploitation."

This a gross understatement. What we have in Australia today are massive injustices perpetrated against at least a very large minority. If even one person in this supposedly affluent prosperous country is made to needlessly suffer what has been amply documented here and elsewhere, then that is one person too many as far, as I am concerned.

What you are attempting to do, Rhian, is to belittle those of us who have spoken out against what has happened to ourselves, in order to help influence the majority who have, until recently, at least, swallowed the propaganda of economic prosperity, to be indifferent to the predicaments of others.

James Sinnamon (author)

Daggett
You asked “where did I pose this "direct question" to you?” It was here:
“are you at least prepared to acknowledge that inordinate amounts of time are spent on all sides both applying for and processing jobs as compared with, say, 10 or 20 years ago?”

You also asked me “is it your intention to discuss the issue at hand or to discuss your own perception of my personal adequacies?”, to which I responded “I’d prefer not to discuss your personal inadequacies, but as you illustrate you points with your own experiences, it’s hard to avoid” The phrase “personal inadequacies” was originally yours not mine, and I was quoting you to identify the point to which I was responding.

You accuse me of not quoting you directly, but feel insulted when I do.

I was genuinely surprised that it takes you two weeks to write a job application.

I have not attempted to “belittle” the posters who have argued that their life is tough or getting tougher, and have repeatedly said that I understand that the general economic indicators I look to don’t tell the story of each individual. Yet you presume that anyone who doesn’t share your view of the world lacks empathy and has not made the effort to understand the circumstances of others. You take it for granted, on no evidence at all, that my own “plans in life” have gone “smoothly”. And you insult posters you disagree with, but take self-righteous offence at any perceived abuse directed at yourself, even if it - as in my response to your question about your “personal inadequacies” - we do no more that answer your points.

“Judgmental self-satisfied creep” – your words, again - sums this up rather well.

"and Yabby parrots the familiar and discredited argument"

Err hang on Daggett, Yabby doesen't parrot anything. Yabby
has actually been an employee, employer, started businesses
that have succeeded and understands a little bit about
economics. So Yabby has learned from experience, I'll
leave it up to you to parrot the theories.

Business is all very simple. You supply a service or
product that consumers want and you need to make a profit
or you shut it down and do something else.

If I was hard up tomorrow, I'd buy a broom, bucket and
a vacuum and have "Yabby's Cleaning Services" up and running
by tomorrow night. Next I'd be hiring other people like me
to join in. If they turned up with a log of claims and a bad
attitude, I would not bother hiring them in the first place.
If they made the business money, I'd give them a share of
the profits, it pays to hire happy campers, not constant
whingers.

You are free to start your own business tomorrow and dictate
your own working conditions.

But as they say, you can take a horse to water, you can't make
it drink. Very true.

As I said; two very clever people.

Good for you Yabby. You're a smart man. Some are smarter; some not so smart, they offer the skills they have. It is much harder for them today. I applaud your capabilities, truly; but easier for you does not equate to easier.

"I have not attempted to “belittle” the posters who have argued that their life is tough or getting tougher...". (Quote:Rhian)

That is accurate isn't it? You didn't 'attempt'; it IS what you DID.

Judgmental self satisfied creep is very much in the eye of the beholder I think. However you are not a creep Rhian.

Yabby is a wise person. Once there was a saying, 'you cut your coat according to your cloth'. Now everyone wants their coats free from Dior of Paris.
Little people should start little and work their way up. It is the only way to security and to serenity.
Put a small deposit on a McMansion and bleed from the heart appears to be the modern way of life.No wonder there is so many crying depression'

It's a pity that Yabby wasn't around during the economic depressions of the 1890's and 1930's to espouse his wisdom. I can imagine all those unemployment queues having vanished overnight.

... and don't anyone pay the slightest attention to those stories of most small businesses failing before their first year. Just follow Yabby's advice and pick up a broom, a bucket and vacuum cleaner ...

I am impressed, Rhian.

You will go a long way, if Australia becomes the kind of society you would have it become.

On the one hand, because of my frankness, you have assumed a license to denigrate me not once, not twice, but three times.

On the other hand, your feigning of outraged indignation at my indiscretion (understandable, I would have thought in the circumstances) of having presumed that your plans in life had gone smoothly, was masterful.

Was it an honest mistake on your part, Rhian, to have misquoted my words in your 'direct quote' as 'personal inadequacies' rather than 'personal adequacies'?

---

Let's recount the exchange, shall we?

Initially, I wrote, "Each serious job application I make these days takes at least weeks out of my life. This is to update my resume, fill out job selection criteria, ... to attend the interview."

Possibly this is not entirely typical, nevertheless, the point remains, that large numbers of people have to spend inordinate amounts of their own time applying for jobs. This is widely acknowledged. Many categories attract large numbers of applicants for each available job. Therefore, the amount of time that must be expended on average even for those who are much faster at writing applications is still ridiculously high and is one of a great many factors which are not taken into account when the likes of John Howard rant on about how we have never had it so good.

You asked, "Two weeks to fill out an application! Heck, what kind of jobs are you chasing?"

I wrote, "Yes Rhian, it can, and has, taken me two weeks or longer to apply for one job."

I then explained at length how the task of matching my credentials and experience with very demanding selection criteria often led to depression and writers block.

None of this seemed to have registered in spite of your professed capacity for empathy. You responded, "Yes, job applications take longer now than they used to. Still, 2 weeks?"

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

I wrote, "Is it your intention to discuss the issue at hand or to discuss your own perception of my personal adequacies?"

I continued, "Just try to understand the task that many job seekers face when contemplating a job description..."

I concluded, "If ... two weeks still seems inordinately long to you, ... then LET'S HAVE THAT DISCUSSION ELSEWHERE."

If you were still puzzled after having read all that I had written you could have contacted me personally (and you should be smart enough to work out how to do that) to take the matter further, but instead you chose to post again, misquoting me:

"I'd prefer not to discuss your personal INadequacies, ..."

---

Yabby,

Your participation in this forum is becoming tiresome.

How much longer do you intend to persist trying to convince me, against my own direct experience to the contrary, that the task of visiting a GP has not become far more time-consuming and costly thanks to this government's wanton neglect of bulk billing?

And, if you find yourself unable to address my other points, why attempt to sidetrack this discussion into the issue of to what degree visits to the GP should be paid for by the taxpayer? Why not have that discussion elsewhere?

Sorry, I just don't know of any practices nearby that bulk-bill or have the wonderful time-saving systems in place that you describe. For all I know that may change, but right now, it hasn't and the system that worked very well before Howard came to power has been changed greatly for the worse.

I explained to you before and I will explain again: I don't normally go near the bank. If I try to save up banking my cheque until I go near the bank it could take many months, by which time the cheque will probably have been lost.

---

Moran's 'solution' to housing unaffordability (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4811) doesn't impress me. He shows no consideration whatsoever of the social and ecological cost of urban sprawl. When I grew up, environmentalists warned against the loss of agricultural land. ...

(tobecontinued)

James Sinnamon

"Your participation in this forum is becoming tiresome."

Well then don't read my posts. Others sometimes compliment
my posts, so just because I point out the flaws in your
posts and don't agree with you for good reasons, you
clearly don't like the messenger.

The GP story was just one little point to show that perhaps
its not the system at all, but your attitude, which might
just perhaps be the problem.

Thats what I see around me every day, people blaming the
Govt, blaming anything but themselves for their problems.
Sure it makes people feel better, but I also found that when
I started becoming honest with myself and questioned what I could
actually do to change things in my life, little doors opened up
everywhere.

Sometimes, just sometimes, we need to pick ourselves up by
the bootstraps and turn our lives around, it can be done, heaps
are doing it.

I am an issues person, not a political party person. I say
it like I see it, no matter which party they belong to.

But just you ignore my posts, I have no problem with that.
I shall just continue to add my 5c worth of wisdom anyhow :)

Daggett
Apologies, I misread your “adequacies” as “inadequacies”. It was a genuine mistake – it’s pretty rare to see the word as a plural noun, and I misread it for the much commoner form. In the context of the discussion, does it really make such a difference?

As for denigration, again your complaints seem hypocritical, given the abuse you direct at other forum users.

You say I have “failed to notice that I am not enamoured with Paul Keating”. Not at all, I’d expect you to dislike Keating, for the same reasons I rather liked him – because he initiated a series of economic reforms that Australia badly needed and which helped set up our current sustained growth and rising prosperity.

At the time, this took considerable political courage. Happily, as both mainstream parties have come to see and understand the benefits that economic reform has delivered, your anti-reform views have become a minority view in the major parties (though they have not entirely disappeared). With the exception of the IR rules, a Rudd government will not wind back the reforms instituted under Howard, which is one reason Rudd’s looking highly electable.

Your anti-market views are, however, more common on the political fringes, both left and right.

Even there, though, views are mixed. As the material I quoted from Hamilton indicates, many on the left dispute the “deprivation model” that insists that things are bad and getting worse.

There are also many right-wingers whose analysis and rhetoric are strikingly similar to yours, notably in the National party and its offshoots (e.g. Katter) and One Nation. One Nation’s policies include opposition to privatisation (especially water, Telstra and postal services), a national bank, abolition of the Coalition’s IR laws, antipathy to the IMF and multilateral trade agreements, the reintroduction of tariffs and agricultural and manufacturing protection, “buy local” policies, winding back competition policy, abolition of the GST, free healthcare, opposition to outsourcing, subsidies and below-market interest rates for small business, immigration cuts and antipathy to “deregulation, free trade, globalisation and economic rationalism.”
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~triumph/intro.pdf

This ideology cuts across conventional party and left-right lines.

(continuedfromabove)

... They were ignored, so that a previous generation of property speculators, with no concern for the future, could make windfall profits. Now the prices of vegetables, that have to be transported hundreds of kilometres, with increasingly expensive petroleum, have gone through the roof.

If you have acknowledged that the environment is in a precarious state, then you need to consider how much worse rampant urban sprawl may be for Australia's environment. It is already dry and fragile. Many scientists believe that we risk turning Australia wholesale into a barren desert. If this does happen we won't be the first civilisation to have collapsed as a result of urban sprawl. This happened to the ancient Mayans and the Chaco Anasazi of North America (http://candobetter.org/about#chaco).

If we want affordable housing, we simply have to stop population growth now, which effectively means cutting back immigration completely. If we must allow it should be for humanitarian reasons only, or to obtain essential skills that cannot be obtained from within this country. To cram an additional 1.1 million by 2026 into South East Queensland to suit land speculators and property developers when we don't have enough water now as 'smart state' Premier Anna Bligh wants to do now is unbelievably irresponsible.

---

To those who may suspect that there is a link between 'daggett' and 'cacofonix', there is indeed. He is a friend who visits me from time to time. He posted earlier today from my PC and I accidentally posted using his log on. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me and probably won't be the last.

---

Rhian,

Your apology is appreciated.

Yes, I have been aware that some of my views are shared by those who can be labelled 'far right'. I don't this is really central to the issue, however.

In any case, I don't believe "anti-market" views are confined to the political fringes. As an example, 70% of Australians opposed the full privatisation of Telstra in 2005 when the legislation was passed by the Senate.

James Sinnamon (author)

"Now the prices of vegetables, that have to be transported hundreds of kilometres, with increasingly expensive petroleum, have gone through the roof."

So let me see, 8 tonnes of veggies carted 200 km would use around
100$ worth of diesel, so 1.25c a kg. Hardly the reason for prices
going throught the roof.

Urban sprawl, compared to high density living, could well be the
solution, rather then the problem. Switch the power off in
any major city for a day and you have disaster! Compare that
to 100 years ago, when people had their half acre, a veggie patch,
some fruit trees, some chooks, the kids cycled to school, dad worked
locally. They actually coped with very little energy. Life was
all about the local community.

Forget the farmland stuff. A huge chunk of Australia is used to
grow merino wool for zilch profit, day by day its becoming more
of a niche industry, as the world changes.

Given that city blocks cost 300-400K$, compared to 10-50k for
country blocks or three times the size, give me country living
any day! 150k$ can still buy you 100 acres to do your own thing
on, grow all the food and biodiesel that you want.

I'll leave the ratrace to the rats :)

Daggett
I raised the point about anti-market ideology existing across the political spectrum, but being concentrated on the fringes, primarily to refute your claim that I failed to notice that you are not enamoured with Paul Keating. I don’t assume that hating Howard means loving Labor.

However, it raises a broader point.

If you agree with me that neither major party is likely to turn back the reforms of the past 25 years, and if you are right that these reforms have led to falling living standards for most ordinary Australians, then the obvious question presents: why do people continue to vote for them?

There’s a strong likelihood that Labor will win the next election, a small chance the Coalition will, but none whatsoever that the One Nation Party or Greens will be forming government. Nor do the combined primary votes of all of the minor parties, independents, informal voters etc in the House of Representatives amount to the number of votes achieved by either one of the majors.
http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Federal_Elections/

Granted, there are lots of reasons to vote for or against a particular party besides their economic policies. But if the reforms of both Labor and Liberal have really been as damaging as you say, shouldn’t more people be voting, say, Green or One Nation? Especially as a vote for a minor party is never wasted in our electoral system - eventually our preferences wind up allocated to the winning candidate or runner up, so protests votes are relatively risk-free.

Rhian,

Your argument seems compelling on the face of it: There are clear alternatives to Labor and Liberal who both support free market policies. The fact that the alternatives to Labor and Liberal don't achieve higher votes confirms that the public supports the free market.

But life isn't as simple as that. Part of the problem is that the Greens don't even seem to take themselves seriously as an alternative to Labor and Liberal and they don't, in my view, coherently and strongly argue against the free market.

We also need to take account of the insidious role of the corporate newsmedia which misinforms the public and did so blatently prior to to 2004 elections.

As just one of almost countless possible examples, how could the media have allowed Howard and him ministers to have gotten off so lightly over the AWB scandal in which AU$290million was paid in bribes to the Hussein regime - the same regime that Howard assured us only months later in 2003 was such a threat to the world, that we were left with no choice but to immediately overthrow?

Imagine how the anti-war movement would have been treated if any in their ranks had been suspected of even giving a small fraction as much help to Hussein.

Either John Howard and his ministers were incompetent beyond belief, or they were criminals. It has to be one or the other.

And if they were so incompetent how could the same newsmedia then turn around and protray them as such brilliant economic managers?

---

In my experience, most people agree with my views when I am given the opportunity to explain them. They are not considered extreme or fringe.

If we had a balanced and honest newsmedia, I believe that people would understand the issues and the choices before them more clearly and use the preferential voting system, as you suggest, to vote for parties such as the Greens which stand for something better than either Labor or Liberal.

I’d agree the Greens don’t argue coherently against the free market. Some, such as Hamilton, accept that free markets create affluence, others are closer to what I understand to be your position - that under free markets, the rich get richer and the poor poorer. More fundamentally, they are divided about whether raising living standards is a desirable objective.

We get a much more consistent anti-free-market message from parties such as One Nation.

As a fan of free markets (in most circumstances), I’m certainly no defender of AWB – in fact, I’d argue that the corrupt behaviour of this agency is one of the moral hazards we risk when we give the government’s imprimatur to a business to try to gain monopoly profits by using market power. This could only happen because we have the single desk.

Blaming the media seems too simplistic, even if they really are out to mislead the public, which I find very implausible. In my experience, people take what they hear/read in the media with several pinches of salt, and are capable of recognising bias and partiality. Furthermore, the Internet and independent papers etc give many opportunities for alternative voices to be heard.

Anyway, as you’ve argued in this forum, people are not going to be deceived about their own experiences. If most people really are worse off, and believe the policies of the mainstream parties to be responsible, then these parties would lose votes.

Rhian,

I think we have allowed the discussion to be sidetracked.

The discussion is not about the merits of the AWB's monopoly.

It is not about the bias (or lack of) of the corporate newsmedia and it is not even about whether or not the views I am espousing have widespread support amongst the population. I would be more than happy to discuss those issues elsewhere.

The discussion is about whether or not the Government's record for good economic management is deserved (regardless of whether Keating deserves any of the 'credit' for the 'achievements' of the Howard Government). In my article I focussed on how the measures of prosperity upon which Howard's claims of rising living standards are obviously not a complete and accurate picture. In my article I gave examples of both the degredation of our quality of life and of increases in the cost of living which have not, as far as I can tell, been included in CPI adjustments.

One of these was the coat of land. In regard to land consider the facts:

As divergence pointed out "average house prices have gone up, from 3.3 times the median wage in 1970 to 7.4 times in 2005" (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92771).

As wizofaus pointed out it now takes two incomes to pay for a house, when it used to only take one (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92938).

And as Alun Breward pointed out, mortgage loan repayment periods have been extended to 30 or 40 years, where they used to be 20 years at an absolute maximum (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93681). I have even heard of 50 year loan repayment periods being offered.

Is it any wonder that arcticdog's parents agreed with him that "On a comparative scale (he has) far fewer benefits than they did then."? (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#93239)

All of this evidence which you choose to dismiss as 'anecdotal', however I would think that if your 'broader data' were correct, then there would have to be at least some anecdotal evidence in support of it.

If living standards and costs are so great now and people can afford to live on their wages,why are so many in so much debt to credit card and hire purchase companies?I'll tell you why,it's because our wages are not covering the massive increases in the cost of living.People are robbing Peter to pay Paul more then ever before.Sure you get people who max credit cards out on frivolities but i think more are using them to survive than to have a good time.The whole system stinks at present.Maybe the current govt wants to starve out the little people so only the wealthy will be left,then this will be a nation of wealthy people only.I think Howard and his henchmen have forgotten that the little people are the backbone of the nation.

Daggett

I haven’t dismissed the examples you cite as anecdotal, nor denied that housing affordability has deteriorated. I said:

“House price rises are a serious problem for first-time buyers who bought homes in the past 4 years, which is a minority of households. Owners who haven’t moved house in recent years, or who traded up, are less stressed by house price rises (and some are substantial winners). “

House prices are highly cyclical. The REIA housing affordability index shows affordability at its lowest level since the late 1980s, but not as bad as at the peak of that house price boom. Prices in Sydney have dropped quite markedly since their peak in 2003. Price booms are usually followed either by busts (as is happening in the USA at present) or drawn-out plateaus, when prices stagnate and affordability steadily catches up through rising incomes (as happened in most Australian capitals in the early 1990s, and again later in the decade after the mini price-boom of 1993-1995).

Affordability will probably improve.

As to the causes, the Moran article discussed earlier contains elements of truth - regulation and government policies restricting land development have led to land prices soaring.

Freer markets, then, are part of the solution.

However, Moran is too simplistic. Many other things have contributed –shortages of skills and materials, the fact that neither public sector planners nor private sector developers and builders anticipated the extend of the growth in demand in recent years, rising incomes and tastes shifting to larger/better fitted homes and more desirable suburbs, changes in insurance conditions on builders, etc.

Further, it’s hard to slate this home to Howard’s management. If any layer of government bears most blame, it’s probably the States, whose policies have most effect on land supply and development costs, followed by local government.

Commonwealth policies giving favourable tax treatment to homeowners are also probably ill-conceived, and may add to the tendency of price rises to become bubbles. But they’ve been around a long time, and politically its hard to see the government getting rid of them.
(Gittins again – see http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/renters-cant-home-in-on-jackpot/2007/09/18/1189881508793.html)

Rhian,

The 'improvement' of housing affordability that you believe will 'probably' happen is just not good enough as far as I am concerned. We need to establish in law the principle that decent affordable shelter is a birth right and take housing back out of the hands of property speculators.

Today we are suffering the consequences of Menzies' privatisation of housing and population growth forced upon us by govenments to suit the demands of land speculators and property developers. I have had something to say about that at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#83259

As I have become fond of saying on OLO, the Housing Trust of South Australia provided good quality housing to all levels of South Australian society for decades and never cost taxpyers a cent. This proves that wher there is a political will Govenments can do a far beter job of providing housing than private investors.

I do agree with you that Moran's solution is simplistic, but I woud go further and say that it is plain wrong for reasons I have given above. I also agree with Gittins that it is idiotic for the Government or Opposition to propose to 'solve' housing unafordability by giving various tax breaks to first home buyers. How can it possibly do other than fuel housing inflation until either the supply or demand for housing is fixed?

Dagget,
I entirely agree about first-time buyer tax breaks, they do just push pu prices.

Moran gives less weight than I’d prefer to the social and ecological cost of urban sprawl, though I’m not sure he entirely ignores it. But I'd agree with his point that policies to prevent sprawl come at a cost, especially in terms of housing affordability, that was not intended by the planners. Bad social outcomes are often unintended consequences of well-intentioned but ill-informed government interventions like this. There are better ways of addressing the costs of sprawl than banning development , such as factoring the true cost of transport, sewerage services etc into the costs of new developments.

I’m not as hostile to the housing trust example as you’d expect. Agencies like this are often better at creating and running social housing than government departments, and often do it more effectively and at a lower cost. The community sector plays this role.

It’s simply unrealistic, though, to expect new social housing alone to solve our current housing stress problems. The expansive construction in the 1920s and 1930s was against a background of under-used economic capacity and high unemployment. Neither the private not public sector has the capacity to engage in additional large-scale construction at present - the skills, materials and capacity just aren’t there.

Rhian,

HOUSING

Yes, it will be harder now to fix the problem of housing than it had been before, but I think you need to confront the question of private versus public solutions to housing.

I think you will also need to acknowledge that Australia's ecology is fragile with relatively little fertile land and little water, and that many scientists fear that further demands made upon it in order to house an increasing population could well turn this country wholesale into a barren desert. (See "We Fiddle as th Continent turns to Dust" 0f 23 October 2006 by Paul Sheehan at http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/65/23370 http://www.smh.com.au/news/scorchedearth/we-fiddle-as-the-continent-turns-to-dust/2006/10/22/1161455605817.html) So, we should even be very wary of any plan to convert substantially more amounts of land into housing, whether it is currently being used for agriculture, or simply performing essential ecological services as bushland.

I don't see how the housing crisis can be solved until we stabilise our population and, at least, bring the private housing sector under control. It seems self-evident that property speculation has distorted Australia's economy and will make it unsustainable in the longer term. As I have also mentioned a few times before on OLO, the cause of Australia's housing problems are explained in Sheila Newman's excellent Masters thesis of 2002:

The Growth Lobby and its Absence :
The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing
Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France

It's core is 248 pages but IMHO it is well worth effort of downloading from http://candobetter.org/sheila, printing and reading.

---

John Howard has only recently 'discovered' that housing unaffordability should be of concern to his Government. It wasn't long before that he was crowing that the high cost of housing as if it was some kind of achievement of which his Government should be proud and for which the Australian people owed him a debt of gratitude. As he put it prior to the 2004 elections (quoted at http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/07/20/a-bit-more-on-housing/):

'"I haven't met anybody yet who's stopped me in the street and shaken their fist and said: "Howard, I'm angry with you, my house has got more valuable."

AUSTRALIA'S DEBT LEVEL GREW BY AU$200 BILLION LAST YEAR (I.E. 20% OF ECONOMIC OUTPUT)

Other points I have neglected to mention include Australia's dependency upon debt as economist Steve Keen author of "Debunking Economics". A very interesting, as well as alarming, interview can be found at:

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s2036407.htm

According to Keen "the INCREASE in debt last year was $200-billion, 20 per cent of the level of output of the economy."

So, it appears that all those other indicators (the value of which I question, anyway) which are cited by the Govenmenment and their various media spin-merchants as evidence of the Government's economic competence, are depenedant upon an unsatainable increase in Australia's foreign debt. Accoriding to Keen, when this is reined in, as must happen soon, Australia will fall into recession.

---

See also post at "And Deeper In Debt" at http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/?p=39#comment-312

"Yes, I agree with both of you that the Coalition government so-called economic superiority is complete rubbish. For example, look at some of their false claims:

"Myth 1: The economy requires careful management that only they can deliver"

...

"Myth 2: Under Labor, interest rates would be higher than under Coalition.

"Reply: Although it is true that under the previous Labor government, interest rates was high (18%+ was the figure right?). But people do not understand that during that period of time, global interest rates was high too. For example, Singapore's interest rates was higher than 20% at that time. ...

"I remember that in an ABC interview just before the previous interest rates rise, Peter Costello was confident in predicting that price inflation will turn out to be benign and that there wouldn't be any interest rates rise. It turns out that he was COMPLETELY WRONG. Price inflation figures was bad and interest rates rose. Either he is a complete moron or he was just sprouting out propaganda to soothe the ears of the electorate.

"The Coalition government is behaving like Baghdad's Comical Ali. The scary thing is that no one cares or takes notice."

James Sinnamon (author)

Daggett,
Yes, outstanding credit has increased substantially, but bear in mind about $100 billion of the increase in the past year was borrowed by business, where the risk falls mainly on shareholders and lenders (and anyway business debt levels are historically low and manageable, as Keen says).

Household sector debt has also increased rapidly, but assets have increased more rapidly still, not just in housing but in shares, bank accounts, superannuation etc. Over the past 10 years household debt as a percentage of household disposable income has risen from 75% to 160%, but financial assets (superannuation etc) have risen from 210% to 315% of income, and total assets (including housing) have risen from 530% to more than 800% of income.

Overall the household sector’s balance sheet – assets minus liabilities – is as healthy as its been since this data series began in the 1970s:

(see table B21 here: http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/Bulletin/index.html)

I’d agree that the current rate of growth in debt cannot go on forever, but that doesn’t mean it will end in crisis, or that special government intervention is needed to make it stop. Many economic variables take unsustainable trends for often quite long periods of time then turn themselves around naturally as markets rebalance. For example, the negative household savings ratio of the beginning of this decade was not sustainable, and has now disappeared.

It makes good sense for households to continue borrowing to accumulate assets when the growth in their asset values exceeds growth in liabilities, and servicing costs are manageable. As and when this ceases to be the case, borrowing will slow.

As Stein’s law says: “if something cannot go on forever, it will stop."

Rhian,

When you talk about the increasing assets, you are talking about ultimately, in large party paper property values, which have been inflated well beyond what median income earners can hope to pay, let alone low income earners, as discussed above.

If a large of corporations are in debt to foreign interests, the potential for this to seriously affect all Australians is obvious.

An example is how Chris Corrigan's debt to financiers, who had bankrolled his operation to destroy the Maritime Union with mercenary strikebreakers and rottweilers, tied his hands in being able to reach a settlement with the Maritime Union in 1998. As consequence, the Maritime Union saw no option but to accept the second-rate settlement on offer from Corrigan. (If I had been a member of the Maritime Union I would have voted against it, but that is another argument.)

In the same fashion, large borrowings by Australian Corporations could easily lead to circumstances where these companies could either collapse outright or be forced to shed jobs and reduces wages. Of course, this is the explicit goal of private equity deals, such as the recently aborted plans to ransack QANTAS. So clearly it is of concern to all Australians.

If those Australians who have borrowed against the equity of their own home (inflated by immigration-driven population growth and speculation) are unable to repay, then large numbers of Australians face ruin.

We can make assertion and counter assertion, but I think Howard apologists should at least have the honesty to mention foreign debt when they list all those other stats to prove the brilliance of Howard and Costello and allow Australians to judge for themselves.

I suggest that if you are so confident of your case, that you take it up directly with Steve Keen at http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/?p=39 (Currently you may have problems registering an account, but that should be fixed soon.)

Also you should post to the form in relation to Klaas Wolkdring's article "The Lucky Country revisited" about the shambles that Howard and Costello have made of this country at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6421 and tell him why he is wrong.

This is a response to what Rhian posted to the forum related to my article "Can Labor bring about a Just society?" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6395#94835

Rhian,

You wrote:

"Falling living standards are (or were) central to your hypothesis. ..."

No they were not, and your quote does not prove that to be the case. My central hypothesis, which I have proven with many examples is that the indicators incessantly cited by Howard and his apologists, which 'prove' that living standards have risen since he came into Government, are highly suspect.

To simply provide a handful of counter examples, where factors, which have improved our standards of living, have also not been accounted for in these ABS indicators, is not a refutation of my case.

Given these many examples, and given that it takes two incomes these days and not one and, at that, with 30, 40 and 50 year loan repayment periods to purchase a house, then it is clearly nonsense to suggest as many that living standards have doubled since the 1970's as, for example, I recall neo-liberal ideologue Peter Saunders claimed on page 6 of "The Welfare Habit".

I offered my own subjective view that if if all these factors were accurately measured then they would "probably reveal a substantial drop in the actual standard of living of most Australians and a massive drop for many on the lower end of the income spectrum," and that is also the subjective view of most posters to this forum.

I would also give back all the technological advances that have been made since the 1970's to return the country to the way it was then, for all of its faults, and I think I would not be alone in holding that opinion.

(tobecontinued)

This is a response to Rhian's; question posed on another forum in relation to the article, "Can Labor bring about a just society?" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6395#95419

"Can you name a single non-capitalist country whose citizens enjoy either the freedom or the prosperity that we do?"

I am posting my response here because I believe it is more relevant to this thread and because of the OLO restrictions.

---

Rhian, I would suggest to you that large numbers of this society are neither free and prosperous. This might have been the case for those people before Keating's and Howard's economic 'reforms', but it is not today. The evidence has been provided in my article "Living Standards and Material Prosperity" and this related forum discussion.

In this forum you attempted to side-step the hard evidence severe hardships intentionally caused to at least a very large minority of the people of this country by implying that, somehow, if Howard, can convince a majority of the population to vote for him, then that somehow makes it OK for him to go on kicking in the guts those sectors of society he deems to be expendable: the low-skilled, the unemployed, welfare recipients, middle-managers scrapped in many successive waves of 'downsizing', those who don't own their own homes etc. In your own words: "If most people really are worse off, and believe the policies of the mainstream parties to be responsible, then these parties would lose votes." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#94074)

Anyone who has no choice but to spend most of their time in activities year after year in which they have no interest is not free in my opinion, and that is the lot of Australia's low-paid unskilled and semi-skilled workforce. It is commonplace for many to have more than one job, because they cannot make ends meet on one income alone. That is what I learnt from a discussion with a large group of hospital cleaners the other day.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

What sort of quality of life is that? How do you think that sits with Howard's claims of having raised everybody's real standards of living by 20% since he won office?

It is also the lot of many of Australia's professionals who are forced to apply their talents to occupations that they find morally repugnant, for example architects working on environmentally destructive housing developments, or senior public servants or company executives forced to lie through their teeth for their masters everyday, because they would face financial ruined if they, instead, followed their consciences and told the truth (remember Michael Scrafton?).

On top of that our guarantees of political freedoms have been largely removed by measures ostensibly aimed at fighting terrorism, and by libel laws which often penalise community activists who speak out against wealthy corporate interests (e.g. Gunns).

I consider your challenge to compare the freedoms of non-capitalist societies with those of our own to be a red herring to divert attention away from the important political questions I have raised. I don't intend to pursue it further here except to state that the argument that socialism has been tried and found to have failed is rubbish. Every attempt to establish a socialist society since at least 1871 has faced ferocious adversity by capitalist nations with enormous resources at their disposal. In the case of the Soviet Union the devastation caused by the First World War, Civil War and the military intervention of ten capitalist nations made it possible for Stalin and the corrupt political caste he represented to take control. Those who hold Stalin's ghastly police state to be the embodiment of socialism conveniently neglect to mention that by the mid-1930's he had murdered, imprisoned or exiled nearly all the original leaders of the 1917 revolution.

Having written this, I am not uncritical of the socialist movement or the original leaders of the Russian Revolution as I have written at http://candobetter.org/socialism and http://candobetter.org/node/110

James, are you aware of the original socialist experiment "New Harmony"? That was an experiment in voluntary socialism that failed simply because the ideology behind it doesn't match up to human nature, which is the argument that people have made against socialism ever since.

OTOH, if you want a positive example of some socialist principles at work, then many Scandinavian economies seem to be about as good as you're ever going to get. The success of these economies has largely shown that Hayek and various other free-market economists were unjustified in believing that high taxes, universal welfare and significant government control of economic activity were a guaranteed recipe for failure. Of course there are examples like France, where arguably similar policies have led to economic downturn and social unrest, but the lesson from this is that it's not just how much tax, or how much welfare, or how much govenrment intervention that matters, but a rather more complex interaction of social attitudes, government policy and, as always, good or bad fortune.

wizofaus,

No, I was not aware of the socialist experiment at New Harmony.

However, I think the issue of whether or not socialism can work is somewhat beside the point.

Whatever label we put on the kind of society which manages to get us through the grave environmental, social and economic crises which are looming ever closer, it will need to be one in which the selfish elites which run our society today and are leading us over the cliff, do not wield the same power.

Felt I had to revive this thread...very interesting article in The Oz today: research from largely LEFT-wing think tank The Australia Institute accepts that Australia's middle class is actually doing rather well, financially: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22626262-12377,00.html

On that basis, it has to be admitted that the economic policies of the last decade or so *haven't* been as polarising and detrimental as some would suggest (unlike the situation in the U.S., where the middle class has definitely suffered). Which is not to say things couldn't be a good deal better - but there really is little evidence that I can see for claiming that returning to the economic policies of, for instance, the 1970's, would make life better for most Australians.

Wizofaus,

As I have argued earlier the unprecedented prosperity, whether illusory or real, is at the expense of our planet's ecology and future generations. The prosperity is being paid for by mining and exporting our non-renewable natural resources at an accelerated rate. As divergence pointed out on another thread "Privileged 'whites'" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6482#97005 the CSIRO predicts that our mineral reources will run out in decades.

How will John Howard's supposed economic brilliance look then? And will those of us who covered up for the fact that his supposed economic performace was only due to using up our endownment of natural resources look any better?

In any case, as I have shown before, many things that used to be free or very cheap and which are no longer so have not been properly taken into account, nor is the extra time and expense which is now necessary for us to be able to particapate in society been properly accounted for. As I wrote in the original article, if we take all this into account and take regard of the simple fact that two incomes, rather than one income, are necessary to maintain this 'prosperity', and take account of all the earlier anecdotal evidence on this thread, then I think a more accurate measure of prosperity would show that we are, on average behind, rather than ahead, contrary to even what the Australian Institute appears to be saying.

This also neglects the point that many Australians are indisputably now suffering the intentional consequences of John Howard's policies including "WorkChoices" and cut-backs to social services and his deliberate inflating of the cost of housing.

Even if it cannot be shown that this group does not comprise an outright majority in today's artificial and unsustainable boom, does that make this OK?