yuyutsu

Firstly, I should state that I'm not that badly off. I own my home outright, am completely free of debt and have substantial savings. I'll get by, pension or no pension. My point was more of a moral one.

I don't think it helps to blame various governments for driving the nation into massive debt. Australia's public spending patterns are little different from most Western countries over the last few decades.

In the same way that families can no longer survive on one income, through no fault of their own, countries can no longer survive on taxation and investment alone. The contemporary world places huge financial demands on governments. Where once they mainly only had to fund public infrastructure and services, they now have to be all things to all interest groups - globally and domestically.

Keeping up with technology, corporate sector demands, tax-incentive madness, administering regulations for this and regulations for that (to name a few) drains even the most sturdy of public koffers. Globalisation has sent capital tax profits offshore and a criminally rigged global financial system has creamed off the investment profits that governments once relied on to supplement taxation. So, is it any wonder that governments will sneak off to the nearest pawn shop?

Not sure where it will all end and I don't particularly care - as long as I can pay for my nursing home.

Alan B

You want fries with that?

A simple fix would be to offer an opt out for church groups and they can privately manage all their social security concerns, leaving more money for those on the public system and getting rid of the bad debt very quickly, who knows, maybe the private system may even be in surplus and it could be donated back to the public system as well.

Not every debt is bad. There are good debts, the ones who can be paid off easily and which will provide profit in the future.

David Leyonhjelm, published 9/1/2017 This year the Government is increasing its gross debt by more than $80 billion. At least $25 billion of this is unmistakeably ‘bad debt’.

The good senator will be advantaged by learning how money is created by the banks through credit accounts.

The good senator will learn the only reason national debt is rising is because not only do have to borrow the principle from the banks but we also have to borrow the money to pay the interest on the principle. It does not matter how many hands it passes through or whether it results from profits or losses, it has to be borrowed into existence in the first place.

Many people are under the misapprehension that all countries borrow money from each other. This is patently incorrect because if that were the case then all each country would have to do is forgive each others debt and we would all be back to zero national debt wouldn't we??

If the good senator researched the creation of money he would learn that there is no reason the govt cannot or should not create money for its own uses using the exact same method the banks use. That way there would no interest and therefore no tax but only a small administrative charge.

Perhaps the good senator might like to consider starting with:

The Remarkable Model Of The Commonwealth Bank Of Australia by Ellen Brown,