Are you a fool, a smart ass, or just poorly informed Aidan? Which ever, you must know that the debt is continuing to grow because the senate won't pass any of the government efforts to reduce it.

Get used to it, while we have a senate that is only interested in politicking. Their grandstanding & Gillard's cost time bombs, like Gorki & the NDIS ensure the debt will skyrocket, if they continue this instructional actions.

I can see no reason we should not be expected to finance our retirement with our accumulated assets. However I would resist like hell doing this while Rhrosty "needy" were living off the fat of the land drinking all the milk & honey they were too slack to provide themselves.

When the bludgers are provided with something more suitable to their personal effort, a tent in a camp ground, I'll be quite happy to do more for myself in retirement.

Equal handouts would be a good idea to start with. Don't forget, I paid a levy to go towards my pension when I was younger. The fact that they changed the name has no effect on that.

David. For the greater part of my life I gave a very large component of my fortnightly salary to the government who, through John Howard, Keating and Gillard/Rudd chose to spend it I ways I did not necessarily approve, I am a self funded retiree, have raised 5 children, seen vast sums of money swallowed into giant government ventures, supported increasing numbers of unemployed, covered myself for medical needs etc etc etc. Spleaking personally, I consider I have contributed slightly more than my fair share. My salary has been constantly re-distributed. I am not enclosed to contribute 1$ more.

I do take your point however.

It is a pity that we have a senator, and many who make comments, who understand so little about the financial situation of a currency issuing (sovereign) government.

With a floating exchange rate, and not much borrowing denominated in a foreign currency, a sovereign government is not constrained the same way a citizen is constrained. Such a government can pay for anything it wants to buy that is available for sale in exchange for the currency it issues. The principal constraint it faces is inflation and its only contribution to consumer good inflation occurs when it continues to try to buy too much when the economy is booming.

Paying interest on borrowings by such a government is a political choice that favours the already wealthy.

Such a government contributes to asset value inflation when it deregulates the financial services industry or allows too much money to remain in private hands, rather than taxing it out of existence. That problem is evidenced by the inflation of home prices caused by negative gearing and inadequate prudential restraints on financial institutions. George Souris described that situation as Reflexivity - put an excessive valuation on a house (or other asset), lend a high proportion to the excessive valuation, and the valuation becomes fulfilled (until the market runs out of mugs). Hence the housing and CDO bubble in the USA.

Some writers seem to think that Howard and Costello knew how to operate the economy. Fiscal space diagrams I have prepared show that together they indebted the average citizen far more than any other government in the last fifty years.

It is well known by competent economists that, with persistent Current Account deficits, a sovereign government cannot achieve a budget surplus without causing damage.

The article author will no doubt enjoy his excessive pension provided by less well off citizens.

Unfortunately the Senator's ideological position runs well ahead of his understanding of economics, or even the proper role of government. The present system is both fundamentally unfair and also bad economics. Superannuation concessions overwhelmingly favour the wealthy. Removing those concessions would make some inroad into the deficit in government revenue. There are many other areas of foregone revenue that should be addressed, including more efficient resource taxes, the removal of tax sweetheart deals that have foreign corporations paying only a tiny fraction of their profits in tax, and many more examples. A Tobin tax is also an area of revenue raising that should have an honest appraisal, as is a rationally based GST.

On the expenditure side there needs to be an honest debate about a number of areas, including but not limited to so-called "defence" such as submarines and F35 fighters, the rationale for either being elusive.

As for pensions about which the Senator lacks even a basic knowledge, one step would be to treat it as income (as does NZ and the UK) and tax it accordingly. For most high income earners the effect would be to recover most if not all of the amount paid. It is also much more cost effective than asset testing which any clever accountant can easily avoid.

What is really missing is an honest debate free from the ideological baggage evident in so much commentary and comment.

<<Are you a fool, a smart ass, or just poorly informed Aidan? Which ever, you must know that the debt is continuing to grow because the senate won't pass any of the government efforts to reduce it.>>
if that's what you think, Hasbeen, then you are very poorly informed. Although the senate is blocking some of those budget measures, they've passed others. But even if they did pass the entire lot, it wouldn't solve the problem as austerity would weaken the economy, reducing tax revenue.

David, if you have ever bothered to read it, the OAP is enshrined in our constitution.
I know many people have no clue to its contents, but its existance has resisted change for a long time. It is the ONLY thing we have left to protect our rights.