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The Forum > Article Comments > Completely plucked and hissing loudly > Comments

Completely plucked and hissing loudly : Comments

By Mikayla Novak, published 11/12/2009

The weight of submissions to the Henry Tax Review amply illustrates that average Australians feel completely plucked.

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Arjay: I completely agree.
Rather than creating borrowings from savings we have allowed the banks to create virtually unlimited spending. When this unsustainable situation almost corrected...the government provided guarantees and let the profit train roll on (for a bit more).
Savers have to speculate rather than just save...thus making pre-canned profits for Super funds, share traders, and the property business.
All the while "inflation" has been re-defined into statistical uselessness, as has "unemployment". This allows the government to hide the slow decline of our quality of life.
Whatever the new tax system does, I just hope it doesn't create more comfy millionaires at the expense of the rest of us...again.
Posted by Ozandy, Monday, 14 December 2009 9:24:44 AM
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Don't get sucked in by (Eeyore) Arjay's rants, Ozandy.

He believes that fractional reserve banking is responsible for NSW's drought, 9/11, Osama bin Laden's dyspepsia and Bronwyn Bishop's hairstyle.

>>This allows the government to hide the slow decline of our quality of life.<<

Perhaps you could elaborate on this a little? Most people believe that our quality of life has improved dramatically over the years.

It wasn't that long ago that we were scuffing along on a 50x150 block, with black-and-white TV, fixed-line phones, no computers, no Internet, a stunted choice of automobiles (Ford or Holden), a tiny range of foodstuffs at the local store, no Playstation, massively expensive airfares to get away anywhere etc...

There's quite a long list of stuff that most folk list as having improved their lives.

And the stunning thing is, it is almost entirely due to the availability of money, with which people have started new businesses and expanded both our horizons and our economy.

>>Rather than creating borrowings from savings we have allowed the banks to create virtually unlimited spending.<<

Limiting borrowings to that which has been saved is a recipe for instant stagnation, Ozandy. You only have to think about it for a couple of seconds to realize that the credit that has been created is the lifeblood of our economy. As we noticed - particularly in Europe and the US - when the GFC required a tightening of credit, businesses toppled over, left, right and centre.

Cutting it off entirely, as you seem to favour, would send your precious "quality of life" into a tailspin from which it would not recover in your lifetime.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 14 December 2009 12:09:45 PM
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Pericles,

I don't want to comment on the financial system, as I don't know enough about it to have a sensible opinion. I'll leave it to people like you, who have the background knowledge to understand it better. Being mathematically literate, however, I do understand that a system based on unending growth of population and/or consumption is bound to crash.

So far as quality of life is concerned, there have been undeniable benefits from technological progress, which we would have enjoyed, however, without the population growth, as they have in Europe. Otherwise, life within and around our big cities has become worse. More crowding and congestion. A choice between slow and unreliable public transport (if it exists) and nightmare traffic with endless hassles over parking at the end. More road rage, tree rage, and other forms of conflict that you get when too many people are crowded into too small a space. More ethnic tensions. Casualisation, unpaid overtime, and other forms of exploitation at work. Deteriorating environment. Shrinking block sizes, denying the ordinary person the chance to grow a few flowers, fruit trees, or vegetables. Housing costs rising from 3.5 times the median wage in 1973, with about 30% representing land costs, to 7-9 times the median wages, with 70-75% representing land costs, with the exorbitant housing costs resulting in overworked mothers with full time jobs and tiny children left for long hours in child care. High density hells for low income people. Permanent water restrictions, with people encouraged to spy on their neighbours. Endless fees for things that used to be free, and more and more means testing of benefits. More rules and restrictions. Crumbling infrastructure and public services. More homeless. Prisons and the streets used as de facto psychiatric hospitals... Tell us all how wonderful it is.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 4:03:25 PM
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You have my sympathy, Divergence.

>>a system based on unending growth of population and/or consumption is bound to crash<<

There is absolutely no doubt that you are mathematically correct in this statement. What you have not allowed for is any change in human behaviour, as a result of adjusting to changing circumstances.

Which is something the human race has been particularly good at over the years. Whether by accident or design, is difficult to tell.

But dire predictions of everlasting doom and gloom have also been with us through the ages. Malthus was particularly voluble on the topic in the dying years of the eighteenth century, Henry Wallace had a good shot at it in the nineteen thirties, and Ehrlich gave it another whirl in the sixties.

I'm pretty confident that there will be a new Cassandra strutting her stuff, every fortnight between now and the sun-death of the universe.

But what is really sad about your post is the long list of ills.

Are you really that miserable? Or have you been watching Grumpy Old Men, and just wanted to let off a little steam?

I hope it is the latter, because no-one needs to be that unhappy with life.

Especially in Australia.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 4:52:41 PM
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Pericles wrote:
"Are you really that miserable? Or have you been watching Grumpy Old Men, and just wanted to let off a little steam?

I hope it is the latter, because no-one needs to be that unhappy with life.

Especially in Australia."

I'm afraid I have to agree with Divergence. It's pretty much the nature of things where I come from in Victoria and I'm on the South Eastern outskirts of it but still getting hemmed in :(

It was wonderful out here 20 years ago, it's a hell hole now, looking for a country, mountain change! Hopefully, by the time we're hemmed in again, I'll be pushin up daisies and enjoying a well deserved rest :)

At least in the great land of Oz we still have an escape, but for how long?
Posted by RawMustard, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 5:41:43 PM
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Pericles,

I note that you don't dispute my long list of urban ills. I accept that conditions are even worse elsewhere in the world, but that doesn't mean that they haven't deteriorated here.

Your picture of conditions always getting better, despite the Cassandras, is more than a little simplistic. I refer you to the work of the Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc. In his book, "Constant Battles", he identifies a recurrent theme in human prehistory and history. People outbreed their resources and overexploit their environment to maintain living standards or just survive. When they become desperate enough, they then try to kill or drive off their neighbours to take what they have. See

http://discovermagazine.com/2003/may/featwar

Times of peace and plenty can occur when new technology or new crops have expanded the carrying capacity, or when there has been a big die-back of the human population, as with the Black Death, but more and more mouths inevitably eat up any surplus and restore the customary level of misery. The average European was taller and had higher real wages in 1400 than in 1800. You are generalising from a very small and atypical slice of human history.

With the benefits provided by the Haber-Bosch process, the Green Revolution, and modern contraception, we have had a chance to stay out of the trap and help others out as well, but it is all being subverted by mindless growthism.

Thanks, Raw Mustard. Your posts are like a blast of fresh air.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 10:03:05 AM
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