http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12715#219894
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12715#219919
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12715#219920

Tristan Ewins,

re your argument with PH, there are aspects to capitalist exploitation, your forgeting.

Anybody with savings, regardless of where the money came from, $1,000 or $1,000 trillion, can invest that money in a bank, real estate, etc & recieve interest/profit after expences, pay income tax on that income & spend the rest on anything they like. it is a simple concept called freedom.

The same person can alternatively buy shares which pay dividends/interest which is taxed & spend the rest in any way they like.

All of this has nothing to do with whether the investor is physically working as well or not, a self employed businessman takes both wages for work AND profit or loss on their capital AND pays income tax on both.

The real problem, if there is one, is in CEO's, boards & senior management who sometimes are getting too much in salaries & bonuses, even though some of them also have some of their own money invested in shares in the corporation. When this happens they are stealing from or defrauding the proletariat shareholders AND the proletariat workers.

The problem with all left wing politics is that they are ignoring the plight of more than half the proletariat & of course ALL of the proletariat workers now risk having their retirement savings stolen when super schemes are ripped off.

The poor productivity of women that Antiseptic mentioned is not about whether they can do the job or not, but the cost of having both parents in the workforce. There is NO reason why a "career woman" cannot support a full time stay at home house husband.

While we are on the subject, the allegedly high cost of the "aging population" was caused by "career women" CHOOSING not to have children. i propose the "Juliar Dillhard Tax", all women age 28 & over who have NOT produced 3 healthy children should pay an income tax surcharge according to the CSA child support formula. This money could then go towards the cost of nursing homes, pensions, importing migrants, importing guest workers, etc.

Tax Reform; the coalition does not have a policy concerning tax reform apparently, not being able to find their way to the forum.

For Peter Hume; answering some of your questions;

re: a 'fair wage' of wages; For years we had a regulated labour market in Australia; I am suggesting a regulated labour market where it would work - where it would not cost irreplaceable jobs; But I'm also suggesting a social wage to enable fairness and flexibility at the same time.

Re: 'a fair rate' for corporations - First they need to pay for the use of infrastructure and services; Then there needs to be an amelioiration of exploitation.

re: LToV again - I'll give an even more extreme example - If a doctor was paid $200 an hour at a private clinic and professor of physics was paid $1 an hour at a private university where students paid $1000 per class to attend - with one class a day; a) Would you assume this was fair because 'it's all relative'?; and b) wouldn't you assume the professor was being underpaid?; My point being you can tell if someone's being ripped off regardless of relativities and the inability to be 'precise'. And regardless of a 'precise' price you can nonetheless assume that the value created has come from labour and nature. And if you accept this then there are cases - where people are making profits out of such injustices - where you can reasonably assume a surplus is being extracted...

re: Why don't we socialise then?

Well first we don't want to be cut off from the global economy because our economy would suffer; we'd be isolated diplomatically too; and regardless of exploitation consumers can take advantage of the innovations of transnational corporations. This is important at a practical level for quality of life. And the prevalance of Ideology means citizens are raised to have skepticism of socialism and social democracy in any case. If change comes it will be gradual. But if we can achieve something it is a democratic mixed economy. (no more room)

For 'Former Snag', 'Wattle' and 'Antiseptic'

re: Dividend Imputation and 'ordinary people becoming capitalists'

Stilwell and Primrose have produced research that shows despite superannuation: "the richest fifth of Australian households each have, on average, forty times more wealth than the poorest fifth of the population."

This means that a small cut in Dividend Imputation will mainly affect the wealthy - not most Australians. And the revenue gained could go towards compensating low-middle income Australians with tax relief, welfare reform and social wage expansion. So these people would gain more through these means than they'd lose because of the reform.

Superannuation savings below a certain level could also be excluded.

Finally the line about ordinary people becoming capitalists has been around a long time. But with wealth distribution as it is, it doesn't really mean much. The big banks, funds and capitalists still effectively control these funds... And most of these people have no hope of accumulating such wealth that they can becone a 'rentier class' as with many capitalists.

Antiseptic: What you say about women in the labour market shows that ideally we should have free education; that partners who remain at home need support; and that aged pensions need to be bolstered because superannuation discriminates against women in this regard...

The American economy has gone to far towards liberalization, and you see what happens. Russia went two far into socialism, see what happens.
A mix of both worlds, as labor promotes is a more balanced economy. A better distribution of wealth, and tax sharing. Our economy because we tend to change govt; which have differing views, and results in differing wealth and tax distribution. So govt; is changed again.
We import liberal ideas from US, when we have a liberal govt; which is not always to our lifestyle. Australia is a stand alone economy and lifestyle, so a good mix of liberal and socialist reforms could keep us in good shape.

buggar it, lets solve everything by getting the government to tax everything and just distribute everything to everyone.

Everything else is completely pointless and irrelevant isn't it Tristan?

damn it's enough to make a man retire. no tax, no stress and only money from government.