An awful lot of unsubstantiated claims in this article. I was excited to find a link that might shed some light - and maybe offer some cold, hard facts - but the link simply led to another of John's articles with a number of unsubstantiated claims.

Amicus has a point, and I think it hits home when we consider John's arguments about underemployment. Apparently, we have many people in this country who can't work enough because their employers can't afford to pay them for many more hours. The solution to this, then, is apparently to tax those employers more.

I don't object to welfare in legitimate cases. When we bring up youth allowance, though, I think it is a shoddy program that needs an overhaul. When I was at uni, I worked 20 hours a week and grossed just shy of $300 in each of those weeks. As a result, I earned too much to qualify for any youth allowance at all. That was fine - I'd rather work for my money, and got by just fine because I could live off my parents' hard-earned income for another few years. I certainly couldn't have afforded to travel interstate or intercity to study, though, without working many more hours and letting my studies slip.

What bothered me, though, was the number of colleagues I had who limited their hours not to give them more study time, but because youth allowance could make up the difference for them. I worked twenty hours a week, a friend worked eight and we both took home the same pay packet. The difference is that my pay was money for labour, his was money for ... well ... for the sake of it. We both graduated with similar results, so it's not like the government's investment paid off with a better-qualified graduate.

Amicus,

You are right.

Everytime a Bank CEF carts home a barrow full of lovely Dollars, he is exactly diminishing the Capital of that bank, is he not?

After the carting tha bank has less money to lend. Its earnings diminish unless the interest rate is increased.

If one does not have a mortgage one cannot understand this kind of logic.

It is all a joke, is it not?

Even if there are generational dole bludgers, good on em. Who decided that the purpose of life was fifty years of meaningless drudgery and consumerism? Gillard makes me sick with her home-spun verities and her obsequious work ethic. I know one or two creatively unemployed people and they're no drain in the system (more's the pity), and their lives are infinitely richer than the wealthy drones who stack their excess income in life insurance--poor deluded bastards!
This is a wealthy country--far wealthier than it deserves--and it shouldn't be grumbling about the few crumbs that fall from its table and are gathered up as the barest subsistence by their "betters". In our consumerist heaven it stays in circulation anyway.
Anyone would think this miserable nation was maintaining its wastrels, its aged and its infirm in five star accommodation rather than on the poverty line!
The real parasites are indeed the moguls and their minions, and even the middle classes, raking in their millions, puffing themselves up and bending over backwards to minimise and evade their wonted contribution.
Gillard is of course merely chasing votes; she can't leave Abbott to court the vicious egos of the well-to-do supremacists--there's enough of em to win him the election. So as usual it's tough on crime time, protect our borders, and vilify the ne'er-do-wells. Our political campaigns offer a lovely snapshot of the Australian mentality!

gosh squeers, we should get the government to take everything over and dole out everything exactly equally.

The we could all be like your mates and be ever so grateful and happy, and lead such fuller lives, with just a pittance each.

No more insurance for old age, no cars, nothing .. we all might get a little plot of land to farm.

ah .. good times ahead eh.

Just one thing, hasn't that been tried already? Failed dismally?

Capitalism is here to stay, like or not if you suck at it, well, such is life. We have welfare as a catchall, not as a way of life. If no one pays taxes, then no one is better off.

My parents worked hard, so we could have a better life, not a worse one, why should I disappoint them?

As I've said before,the whole system is rigged against the worker.We have a $ 1.4 trillion economy ie GDP pa.We usually have 3% growth + 3% inflation.This means that $90,000 million of our wealth is added to our economy each year as debt.Who conjures this money out of nothing to equal this? The answer now is the private banking system.

So what should be tax credit is now debt( 90 billion must now be doubled) or over $180,000 million plus interest owed to the private banking system.Now under these present rules our banks cannot create it all,so they have to borrow from the Global Central Banks.This why we have such a poor balance of payments even though we are flogging off all our resources.Keating should never have sold off the Commonwealth.The GST was brought in to service Govt debt owed to private banks.

In our system,the more growth we have the more debt we endure since our growth is expressed as debt by the private banking system.We cannot win by being good honest workers.

Tax the fractional resevrve system of banking,it is the mechanism by which banks own our increases in GDP+ inflation and loan it back to us at interest.Welcome to the modern world of economic serfdom.

Who is worse ? The bloke who shirks work & collects the dole or the bloke who rose to a high position in the Public Service via the Peter principle & gets $120,00 per annum plus taxpayer funded Superannuation of $500,00.
There are quite a lot more of the latter than the former. How is our Madam PM going to sort that out ?