Yes Gary, and none more so than those who use the system to minimize tax, and at the expense of other tax payers.

Welfare for the rich comes in many forms, with arguably super concessions now spiraling into territory, that may well cost the budget more than the aged pension?

Many mums (now aged pensioners) dedicated their lives; and forgone careers plus personal income, to raising selfish self serving little horrors!

That later turn out to be selfish individualists who only ever take and add nothing?

Right wing eternally bitching drones who add nothing but their complaints about everybody else and how much unearned entitlements are costing the rich tax avoiding class?

Or indeed the responsibility and liability avoiding ultra privileged class?

Who seem to wear poverty consciousness as some kind of shield to protect them and all who depend on them for (the missing) creative decisions essential for the real prosperity we could create for our nation, if we could just get the ruling class to stop selling the work and creations of previous, sacrificing nation building generations, at fire sales, at the virtual drop of a hat?

What is costing this country, apart from massive waste, intellectual constipation and endemic tax avoidance, is the Greek disease, where armies of bureaucrats are asked to perform in place of the platoons that could do the job; if but competently led?
Alan B.

The top 10% of earners in Australia pay 50% of the tax bill. 50% of Australians either work in the bloated public service producing nothing, or they live on welfare. Yet, still, the socialists want more in the name of 'equity'. We up to our ears in debt - $1 billion a month in interest payments - yet they want us to be further in debt to give handouts to people who have done nothing to earn or deserve them. The myth of equality is dragging Australia down to Third World standards

@ttbn it was little johnny that setup a lot of the middle class welfare.

@The author I'm going to label this article as "just another Liberal hack wrote somthing". you could have saved us all a lot of time if you just wrote.....

I hate the labour party, I love the liberal party and no factual or any other argument will change that.

Is the title of this article a mistake? It doesn't actually refer to inequity, and only mentions equity once. It mentions inequality six times, though most of the article isn't about that either.

As for what Gary Johns says, it's partisan garbage based mostly on ignorance of economics!

Banks trusting incompetent ratings agencies was one of the main causes of the GFC. But a Royal Commission wouldn't work, as the ratings agencies are based overseas.

The Australian government only borrows in the currency it prints, so bondholders have a 100% chance of getting their money back. If any ratings agency dares to downgrade us, we should sue it for libel.

Gary is lying when he says that "Kevin and Bill know that Australians are paying $1 billion a month interest on the unproductive debt that their Labor government racked up." Firstly, a lot of the debt was incurred by the Libs (the Abbott and Turnbull governments). Secondly, most of it was productive. If you include the value of keeping Australia out of recession during the GFC, all of it was productive.

At a time when interest rates are at record lows, it makes sense to take on more debt.

"The rich in Australia have not set out to destroy escape routes by, for example, destroying public schools and hospitals."
Not completely destroying, but many want to cut their funding. That won't completely destroy the escape routes, but it will partially block them and prevent some people from reaching them.

"Note to the Grattan Institute: designs on the rich are pure envy."
No, it's simple pragmatism: the rich have the money, yet they're the ones who've been the main beneficiaries of changes to the tax system over the last three decades.

So ttbn you see the police, ambos, soldiers, politicians and courts as "bloated public service workers producing nothing"?

Stop swallowing murduchs coolaid. Its bad for you.

Re those employees of the bloated public service who 'produce nothing'. It'd be an interesting exercise to compare the social value produced by ambo's, defence, fire brigade, police, nurses, customs officers and the 'bureaucrats' who organise their training and pay etc with some of these heroes of free enterprise. I'm thinking used car dealers, real estate agents, currency speculators and the list goes on. What do they actually 'produce'?
.

On a related issue, much is made by libertarians of how tax is unfair because it's used to provide 'unearned income' to the unemployed, single mums and the like. Cry me a river. As with most libertarian arguments about the economy, this is a tissue-thin piece of hypocrisy designed to protect society's biggest leaners.
What about the unearned income being paid out to the banks in interest? In 2013, Australian private household debt stood at $1.84 trillion. Even on a conservative estimate of 5% interest as an average, this works out at $92 billion a year that we pay for the use of money that's created out of nothing. And this doesn't consider the hidden costs of interest in the goods and services that we purchase. In the US, it's estimated that 35% to 40% of all money spent goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and shareholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of that nation's GDP.
If anyone has figures on the cost of interest to the Australian economy, please share. It would make interesting reading and surely be Australia's single greatest example of unearned income.
.

yep Gary and the education system has dumbed people down enough not to be able to do simple sums. We are heading towards Greece very fast. Look at the billions wasted on the gw scam, the invitation by Rudd to the illegals. Now they are talking about rewarding him with a UN job. I visited Canberra recently and spoken to a number of public servants. Even with their flex time, paternity leave, dv violence leave, lsl, rec leave and being almost unsackable now matter how incompetent they see themselves as victims. It is obvious why the vast majority of bureacrats vote Labour/Greens. Many of them live in la la land.

runner,
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You're in la la land yourself if you think that we're susceptible to Greece's problems. Australia's public debt is entirely in Australian dollars, so unlike Greece, Australia will never have any problem borrowing more money. Surpluses may sometimes be desirable to control inflation, but right now inflation is below zero; the government should be taking on far more debt.

It looks like youve fallen for Abbott's GW scam. And though Rudd's refugee policy didn't work, his ending of the Howard government's persecution of refugees deserves commendation not condemnation. Surely you, as a Christian, know that we should never resort to evil?

BTW Rudd has virtually no chance of getting that UN job.

Cobber,

Who said Howard was innocent? He was a politician, and look what happened to him for his sins. NB the author used to work for the Labor party.

Aidan,

You are the one totally ignorant of economics. Borrowing is borrowing - it costs, and it is we who are paying $1 billion monthly in interest, no matter who racked up the debt. You know nothing; you are just a political bigot. Low interest rates merely encourage people who can't afford to borrow to spend more via borrowing, while punishing savers and self-funded retirees. As for 'borrowing in Australian dollars', of course we do - converted from the yuan and other foreign currencies. It has to be repaid. Your 'economic sovereignty' is a load of ignorant BS.

mikk & jingelic,

They are essential services, but they produce nothing. Only idiots would confuse them with the pen pushers I refer to. And the 'rich' would still be paying the the same amount of tax for politicians to waste no matter how many dole and welfare bludgers were cut loose. How thick can you be!

So many people appear to have the views that the media owners want them to have and train them up via the TV to have.

Its obvious the media is training the people of Australia to hate the welfare system for individuals and the people who claim it. Stories demonizing the welfare system for individuals and those who claim plague the 'current affairs' programs.

When was the last time there was a story on TV demonizing corporate welfare and the companies who claim it?

When was the last time we saw a story on TV talking about how much money corporate welfare is costing the Australian tax payer?

When was the last time there was a story on TV telling us how the banks create money out of thin air using our signature and how the govt can do the same thing using the exact same method and a signature of a treasury official and spend the money into the economy by providing all the goods and services required by the economy, including incomes for all?

No, all we ever see is how the people on the bottom end of society are responsible for all the nations economic ills.

Funny how the people on the bottom end of society are never responsible for any good economic news.

People with good ideas and self starting initiative are those who create wealth.

Take Microsoft, three guys with a shared idea and a dream, started something in the family garage. And created a multi billion dollar Enterprise that now directly or indirectly, employs thousands.

However, it takes very little imagination to dig a hole in the ground and exploit the enterprise and endeavor of others to mine wealth.

Yet mining and smelting the tax dodging barons of industry, will hold themselves out as examples of enterprise?

Or self made men born in the log cabin carved from the wilderness with their own two bare hands.

And all to often forget that they are not rich because of their own efforts, ideas or example; as they stand up before their bloated peers, parroting the blindingly obvious, like it was the sermon from the mount and from the mouth of the oracle? (business guru and suppository of all wisdom)

Yet expect to be treated as venerated royalty? And would complain all the way to the bank if we ever got true tax equality!?

Of course some folks pay more tax and rightly so, given they "earn" most of the taxable income.

Me I'd love to pay more than a million a year as my personal tax burden, and just for the privilege of being in a country that enables the sort of enterprise that would allow one to earn enough income to be able to pay that much tax!

I also believe we have a responsibility to all those other (chains of) hands and minds that earn our income for us.

For mine the only folks that actually earn their own money; are farmers and very small business operators busting a gut from dawn to dusk for their families and generally for the betterment and benefit of the wider community.

When you've spent a day running beside a truck and hand loading (throwing) square bales of green lucerne hay, you might even get to understand that?
Alan B.

What's wrong with inequity? Well, one only needs to be able to compare some of the super bloated waistlines that bloat out our T.V. screens from time to time, and compare that to those starving infants with their emaciated bare little bodies to understand what's wrong with inequity! Or even take a trip to Townsville and look into the desperate eyes of former smelter (mortgaged to the hilt workers) to understand what's wrong with inequity?

And something a former slave owner, might have inquired of a slave? Alan B.

Garbage Alan B., & even more garbage

Those who worked for the Zinc smelter were part of the problem. Overpaid by a factor of at least 2, they have done very well, with little effort, other than bloody minded union actions. They will now receive huge redundancies for what, turning up for work most days, & being damn well paid for it.

As for people earning their living, I agree farmers work hard if not smart, I've loaded a few bails myself. That bloke throwing bales onto that truck would have been loading hay by pitchfork onto a horse drawn implement, if someone smarter than him, had not used his brains to earn his living. It took brain work to imagine & develop petroleum powered farm equipment, trucks & bailing gear.

Hell if some smart bloke had not figured out how to produce iron, your farmer wouldn't have had much hay to load anywhere, ploughing with a wooden plough behind an ox, does not produce much.

It was someone working with their brain that built the factories to build all the gear we need today, & employ all those too dumb to organise their own employment.

The man who is smart enough to imagine & build the factories & run them profitably, employing thousands is entitled to become wealthy doing it.

Garbage Hasbeen? Well I bow to your in depth knowledge and expertise on Garbage given little else is produced in any of your posts?
Alan B.

What’s so bad about inequity? From the point of view of the people who are not on the receiving end of it, nothing.

Let me make a prediction;
After the budget is presented tonight there will be total uproar about
who gets what and who pays what.

It will all ignore the real problem.
The politicians are all promoting growth more growth and still more growth !

This is the "source" of all their largess.
Well it won't happen. Growth was yesteryears world.
We are now coming into our zero growth world and all the post budget
argument will be about nonexistant GDP and how to spend borrowed money !

We need to plan for a sustainable economy that will have to live at
a lower standard. How much lower will depend on how sensible both the
public and the politicians are in their expectations.

The end is nigh for the centrelink chequebook.

'The end is nigh for the centrelink chequebook.'

Not true Bazz, not until they steal every cent from those who have worked for their money.

Bazz,

Technology is improving; so too should our standard of living.

______________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn,

The reason you think I'm totally ignorant of economics is because what I say contradicts what you believe to be true. Indeed it contradicts some things that I believed to be true a decade ago, but I have since improved my understanding of economics. I suggest you do likewise instead of smugly assuming your understanding to be perfect. Start by googling "sectoral balances".

"Borrowing is borrowing"
Borrowing for unproductive investments differs from borrowing for productive investments.
Borrowing when you know you can service your debts differs from borrowing when you don't.
Borrowing when you're planning to retire differs from borrowing when you'll always be working.
Borrowing when you have limited credit differs from borrowing when you have unlimited credit.
"you are just a political bigot"
Funnily enough that's the opinion I hold of you, despite your disillusionment since Turnbull took over. Tell me, what party do you think I'd always support?

"Low interest rates merely encourage people who can't afford to borrow to spend more via borrowing"
No, they also increase the amount that people (and more importantly, businesses) can afford to borrow. Hence they make long term investments profitable.

"while punishing savers and self-funded retirees"
Not punishing them; just not rewarding them. I know the usury lobby thinks the world owes them a living, but I disagree.

However, if you do want interest rates to rise, the solution is to support more government deficit spending so that less private borrowing is needed to get money into the economy. Because if you're not getting money into the economy, businesses can't afford to afford to employ enough people, people spend less, share prices fall, so the self funded retirees are likely to lose a lot more money (and tax revenue also falls so the government ends up in deficit anyway).

(TBC)

ttbn (continued)

"As for 'borrowing in Australian dollars', of course we do - converted from the yuan and other foreign currencies. It has to be repaid. Your 'economic sovereignty' is a load of ignorant BS."
But we only owe them Australian dollars. They chose to buy Australian dollars because they thought it was a good investment. If our dollar falls we don't have to increase our payments to them; if they lose money that's their problem not ours.

The need to make foreign currency repayments introduces a risk of hyperinflation (indeed that was part of the reason why the Bolivian Peso collapsed). Not borrowing in foreign currencies eliminates that risk for countries with floating currencies (unless they have to make foreign currency payments for another reason, such as war reparations).

If in any doubt about the socialists;
Venezuela Doesn't Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money

It cannot afford the paper to print its money !
Now that is what I call inflation.
The cash arrived in dozens of 747 jets and chartered planes.
Under cover of security forces and snipers, it was transferred to
armored caravans where it was spirited to the central bank in dead of night.

The note printers are not being paid.

Also, electricity is being rationed.

ttbn said;
Technology is improving; so too should our standard of living.

Now there is a classic misunderstanding of the real world.
I am afraid that ttbn has a very common belief, and our pollies also
have that attitude. No thought that if we have money to improve
our standard that we should instead get rid of some of our debt.

All in all we are heading for a problem that no one wants to to talk
about or even consider to be a possibility.

Bazz,

The socialists of Venezuela are fools; not because they're socialists but because they failed to float their currency, instead keeping it fixed against the US dollar.

When the price of oil was high, they were OK. But when oil prices crashed, they were in trouble. A wise government would've avoided the problem by floating the Bolívar. An unwise but competent government would've addressed the problem by immediately devaluing the Bolívar so that Venezuela could export its way out of trouble. But instead the Venezuelan government officially kept its currency at the old value until this year (and then only devalued it slightly) even though it was actually worth far less. The catastrophic collapse of its unofficial value shows they can't deny reality for ever.

'Twas I who said improving technology should result in improved standard of living. And I stand by that comment. Even on an individual level there's often more productive things we can do with money than paying down debt. But governments also have to consider the macroeconomic results of their actions. And unlike people, governments will never need to be debt free. Governments may sometimes find it desirable to run surpluses to control inflation, but they never have to worry about the debt itself as long as it's in their own currency.