You really are tenasciously clinging to your communisistic idealogy aren't youTristran?

Look what that belief system has done for you?
It produced Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Deng as well as the Socialist Baath parties of the mid east. Egypt as well. And in Ausstralia it has led to the debasement of the party of working people, the Labour Party with its despised Gillard and Rudd and their personality politics with the attendent disregard of it's true base
A nd yet you still think they are the best for everyone.

Mate the rest of us look at the Obeids, the Thompsons, the Macdonalds, the Willuamsens and all the others of their ilk and at those who knew and did nothing and we shake our heafs in disgust.

You try to suggest it's all ok and a little tweaking of policy will change things.

Mate you are delusional.

Tristran:

The central economic problem of the age was summed up very well by Niall Ferguson in the 2012 Reith Lectures as follows:

"Governments can no longer provide to the welfare community the standard of living to which they feel entitled from the revenue the government can gain from the taxes that people are willing to pay".

In other words, rapidly rising medical costs, coupled with the ageing of the population, means that the current welfare budget is unsustainable. Superannuation was introduced by Keating to alleviate this by making people save enough so they would disqualify themselves from the pension.

Stupid governments on the US and Europe have attempted to put off the evil day by borrowing, and we can all see the result. Unfortunately this now means that the living standard of those here on welfare will have to be lowered. This can be done gradually, or suddenly in a crisis, such as in Greece and Cyprus.

This is why economics is called the miserable science. Some governments try to solve the problem in the short term by confiscating the assets of the wealthy. The only problem with this is that it can only be done once, and that a lot of the most productive people in the country will then leave (as in East Germany). To counter this you then need Berlin Walls, etc.

Australia went through this in the last depression, when our loans were called in, and I don't think many people thought it much fun. I can only hope we have seen the light in time.

The only sustainable future for Australia that I can see for the rest of this century is a neo-Victorian age with a much greater gap between rich and poor, considerable social turmoil (but hopefully not too many people shot by the police), and older folks going on about the "golden age".

Plerdsus - You suggest there is no option but a new "Victorian Age" with massive inequality as a consequence of a ageing population and increased health costs.

Well the wealthy would like us to THINK there's no alternative. That's what Thatcher tried to do.

But we could rake in almost $100 billion from removing superannuation concessions and past income tax cuts alone. And there's another lot of more than $20 billion if we got rid of Dividend Imputation.

And maybe consider more robust economic rent taxes for mining and the banks.

I'm not saying do it all at once. But I am saying we have CHOICES.

If middle class and upper middle class households could upgrade their car less often; travel overseas every second year and not every year; and if the genuinely wealthy - millionaires and multi-millionaires - were taxed at a fair rate; THEN we could afford to pay for Aged Care and broader Health Costs; All the while maintaining equality of opportunity in education. And maintaining a fair retirement age, and a fair working week without excessive (often unpaid) overtime.

If there's a choice between this and an overseas trip and updated car every year for the middle class; Or a choice between this and multi-millionaires enjoying a 'self-funded retirement' (actually paid for through tax breaks paid for by the rest of us - and more generous than a great proportion of full time workers manage) what would we choose?

There's no need for 'a new Victorian Age' - because regardless of an ageing population we live in an era of material abundance - with massively increased productivity as a consequence of technology.

But the wealthy and their allies in the upper middle class want us to believe there's no choice; We need the clarity to understand our own material interests; the choices we have before us; and the decency to stand in solidarity with the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

Plerdsus; You make out as is there's no choice except between two extremes - between Stalinism and a brutal, barbaric neo-liberalism.

In fact there is a Social Democratic tradition - which originally took its inspiration from Marxism - which was the first to promote equal and universal suffrage; the rights of women, and indigenous and colonised peoples; and most of the civil liberties we enjoy today.

Stalinism perverted that Marxist tradition and was seen to discredit it in the minds of many. But Social Democracy - including Marxist Social Democracy - was ALWAYS the most robust opponent of Stalinist Terror and atrocities. Think Karl Kautsky, Julius Martov, Otto Bauer. And on the far Left think Rosa Luxemburg - and her prophetic critique of Leninism.

So as against Stalinism there is a democratic Marxist and social democratic tradition - which included the peace activists from World War I, and the anti-fascists and democratic forces in interwar Czechslovakia, Austria, and France. And also the reformers from within the USSR and Eastern bloc. Including Dubceck and Gorbachev.

And there is a largely non-Marxist tradition which developed in areas of northern and central Europe - the most modern day robust examples include Denmark, Sweden, Holland... There is a robust (non-Marxist) social democratic tradition which is at the heart of many European nations and has nothing to do with Stalinism.

Tristan:

We would all love to live in the perfect world you envisage - the only problem is that it does not, and cannot exist. For example, countries such as France are discovering that they have reached the peak of the Laffer Curve, and increasing taxation results in less revenue, together with the much publicised emigration of accomplised French men and women. This is the core of the dilemma, and why Europe is now is a state of economic paralysis. The Americans are almost as badly off, with all sectors of their society riddled with vast amounts of unrepayable debt. However their recent discovery of massive new energy resources, together with their tradition of self reliance, may just see them pull through (and I certainly hope they do). However the only future I see for Europe is for southern Europe to revert to the military governments they had 40 years ago, which will only serve to speed their demise. When you talk of ever higher taxes remember that our major trading partners to the north have tax rates closer to 15% than the european level of 60%, and after all, this is set to be the Asian century. The illusion of paradise in countries such as Sweden has recently been swept aside by ugly race riots, which set an ominous precedent for the future. I am sorry if I upset you with my outlook, but the obvious fact is that the world cannot cope with 7 billion people and when it gets to 10 billion things will be very much worse.

Regardless of what you say about Sweden today, you have to account for the fact that they had high progressive taxes and high levels of social expenditure for decades; and at the same time had close to full employment and low inflation. If higher taxes and higher social spending mean 'declining revenue' as a rule, then how do you account for Sweden? BTW - I'm not arguing for something I view as an 'extreme'. Rather I think progressive tax could potentially rise by about 4%-4.5% of GDP over three terms of Labor Government. This would bring us close to Canada, and still well short of the Nordics.

BTW - We don't know how far we can go with collective capital mobilisation either. And cuts to superannuation concessions could see substantial funds diverted into a Sovereign Wealth Fund or public pension funds - to be invested locally; and supporting investment in infrastructure and welfare.

Perhaps very high Company Tax would produce a disincentive. But where we are now is not acceptable - whereby we have an infrastructure deficit - and to the extent it is made up for that is through effective 'corporate welfare'. Increasing consumer taxes would also affect consumer confidence. But collective consumption counts for something as well; and infrastructure bottlenecks will hurt the economy and productivity as well.

Those bottlenecks can't be corrected most efficiently without public investment; and public investment would have to mean higher taxes to service and pay off the debt.