The ridiculous GST ?
It's the ridiculous GST that has kept this country afloat despite Labor's untiring attempts to sink it.
The GST has literally saved Australia & was probably the single most factor that Labor looked as though they got Australia through the GFC. It was the coffers filled by the GST that got us through not the gang that so hypocritically claims to have done.
So, before you ridicule this much maligned yet even more dependent upon Tax think that you're living in a very good country because of it. As for myself I believe it can even be improved by a flat tax. Unfortunately, many people don't want improvement they're much happier seeing it all go down the drain.

I often wonder how you manage to get it so wrong, so often, Arjay.

>>Currently I'm getting feedback from Canada which has a similar economy to us.They are rich in resources/energy like us but wages are half ours...<<

Half, Arjay? Nonsense.

Our average household income has been at the same level as Canada's for years. Depending on the strength of the currencies, sometimes they are "ahead", and sometimes we are. According to the ABS ours presently sits around the A$44k mark, and according to Statistics Canada, theirs is around C$47k.

Do you check anything before you write? Ever?

I know it is a fruitless request, but is there a chance that you could, one day soon, start to educate yourself about the fundamentals of economics? Nah, thought not. So I guess we'll have to put up with this stuff for a while longer...

>>Ron Paul with a partial audit of the Fed found an additional $16 trillion in off balance sheet loans( ie money created from nothing) and loaned out to institutions all around the planet.This money created from nothing,ie $31 trillion will eventually cause hyper-inflation<<

Almost everything in this sentence is completely wrong. Here's the Audit you mention:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60553686/GAO-Fed-Investigation#outer_page_1

Perhaps you could be so kind as to point out the "$16 trillion", and also indicate in what sense it can be described as "off balance sheet"?

I know you are unaccustomed to actually reviewing source documents, but maybe you could make an exception on this occasion?

As an encore, likely to be in the order of a reverse one and a half somersault dive with three and a half twists, please explain how it was "created from nothing", and to finish with a flourish, how it will "cause hyperinflation".

That should keep you busy for a while.

Once again we find ourselves trudging barefoot over the same stony ground.
Here's a nice little vid by Ben Dyson of “Positive Money” UK.

http://youtu.be/JBZWw1DG8zU

To summarise, I believe Arjay is referring to the 97% of all M4 money created by private banks as debts.
In fairness, I think it should be stated that banks don't 'create' this money, but rather facilitate the creation of this money by accepting guarantees; from unsecured lending guarantees to mortgage guarantees to govt tax guarantees (most favoured) to international bank/investor guarantees. When a significant number of these guarantees prove to be ill advised or outright fraudulent... Well, it wasn't that long ago.
The obscenity is that the most successful players in this game have no intention, and never have had any intention of honouring these guarantees. They simply roll them over year after year, secure in the knowledge that lesser players will fall on their behalf.

I don't think so, Grim, he doesn't get off the hook that easily.

>>To summarise, I believe Arjay is referring to the 97% of all M4 money created by private banks as debts.<<

That does not square with his statement that:

>Ron Paul with a partial audit of the Fed found an additional $16 trillion in off balance sheet loans( ie money created from nothing) and loaned out to institutions all around the planet<<

The implication is that it was "the Fed" who created this "money from nothing". If it were not so, how would they be in a position to lend it out to "institutions all around the planet"?

The question you raise - should banks be allowed to lend money at all - is entirely different.

And who are these "lesser players" who "fall on their behalf"?

G'day Pericles, I'm happy to let Arjay fight his own battles, particularly as I don't always understand his arguments -despite us both apparently agreeing on the need for monetary reform.
The “lesser players” could be categorised in a number of ways: those who pay interest as against those who earn interest like mortgagees, as the bottom line guarantors; small investors, whose sheer (economic) size demands they risk all their eggs in one basket...
As I intimated in my earlier post, for the past few decades at least the lesser players and fall guys have been tax payers. Strangely, for a nominally democratic society, we have arguably even less say in how our tax dollars are spent than corporate shareholders.
Can you imagine the American people being asked a referendum style question, like:

“Would you approve of your tax dollars being committed to bailing out and paying bonuses to the very people who caused the crash of 2008?”

Or how about:
“Would you agree the fairest and most sensible course would be to hand all our money to the King of the Thieves (let's call him 'Morgan', after the pirate), as he is most qualified to organise the distribution of said funds amongst all the other thieves, and further that we should pay him a hefty bonus as recompense for all the work involved in said distribution; such bonus being above and separate to the funds he 'distributes' unto himself?”

Getting back to the article in question, although not a great fan of Rudd or the Labor Party I still believe his strategy of giving bailout funds to people who had to spend the money back into circulation, rather than to banks to 'shore up their position' (and pay bonuses), was a good one.