The thing that Saunders does not understand is that in wealthy societies where there is no starvation or dying from exposure, poverty is about being unable to participate in the society with respect and esteem.

A relativistic definition of poverty is not adopted by ‘the left’ just so they can advocate redistribution of income. It is favoured because it is the only real way of understanding what it means to be poor. If parents cannot afford Nike trainers for their child, the child ‘feels’ poor. The lack of money for trendy shoes ‘means’ poverty in our society.

Getting people into work is a great idea but not if the jobs do not pay an adequate wage. Public education about ‘choice’ is another ‘socialist’ idea that would address the poor choices made by 'the poor'. Social engineering clearly works in other areas (like the current ads about sexual violence against women).

But another way to address ‘poverty’ is to actively promote achievements other than economic success as the measure of a person’s value. Unfortunately, the organisation that Peter Saunders works for is a prime purveyor of the idea that a person's income indicates their success as a person and the idea that economic growth is the only way for us all to achieve wealth.

peter , if so many americans are so rich and being so rich, [ after having consumed more scarce resources to get there than any one else on the planet ] is so good ..... why are they so unpopular with the rest of the world. methinks they are not on the right track . they seem to think mainly of themselves and making and keeping a lot of money , pretending to be democratic while not wanting to lift up their poor , which i would have thought would have been a good example to the rest of us .
bill gates may be a rare and very welcome exception ... i admire what he appears to be doing .

The modern higher standards which are imposed upon all, regardless of income, prevent battlers being able to battle. Frugality has been regulated into a crime in many instances. Gone are the days when one could build their house around themselves,e.g., live in the garage first and progress slowly. Gone are the cheapo first-cars we made do with. Many parents must now outfit their children for school as per prescribed standards using credit &/or govt. assistance.Previously they could cut costs, now denied them. Even the family dog is under seige, as it's now considered that only those 'with suitable means' should have one. The user pay system also created new expenses, especially govt services which once were free; our ambulance service rendered free first aid and services, reducing unnecessary crowding at outpatients and doctors rooms.I also fondly remember the cheap 'Adult Education' opportunities. I would like to see a comprehensive list of the services we've slowly lost. I still believe the maxim 'Frugality is the sister of Prudence', is helpful when one's means are short, and
the fact that the inescapable costs of these higher standards to be borne equally handicaps the 'have nots'. Perhaps with modernity, the less well off no longer want the freedoms to improve their lot under their own steam and affordability!

In this article Saunders' claims, using GDP figures, that real incomes have increased by 14% from 1995 until 2002 and in "Australia's Welfare Habit" (p5) Saunders claims that average real incomes have more than doubled since the 1960's.

This, of course, explains why it was possible for my late grandfather to raise a family of four children, buy a well built freestanding house and take his family to a holiday, by the beach, at Maroochydore, each year, for the entire six weeks of the summer holidays, through the fifties and sixties, all on the single wage of a primary school teacher, wheras today even two middle class incomes are insufficient to pay the mortgage for often a cramped and usually poorly built townhouse unit.

Also, the GDP measure also counts natural disasters, break-ins and traffic accidents as all 'adding' to our prosperity.

It is therefore for very good reasons that Simon Kuznets, who devised the GDP measure, warned in 1934 against its use in the way that Peter Saunders has in this article.

(From "Growth Fetish" by Clive Hamilton, p13: He told the US congress 'The welfare of a nation can scarcely be measured from a national income'. Kuznets watched in dismay as his warnings were ignored and economists and policy makers grew accustomed to equating prosperity with growth in national income.)

I would therefore suggest that, notwithstanding Saunders' cooked up figures, that poverty is real and getting much worse in Australia today, both for welfare recipients and for many workers. Again, I ask him to tell us why the conclusions, of Elisabeth Wynhausen's account of what it was like to try to live as a low wage worker in "Dirt Cheap", are wrong.

Mollydukes, the trouble is that 'participation' is not necessarily related to any income level. If one is to 'participate', then clearly the opportunity to do so must be there, but again, it's not necessarily related to your capacity to buy NIKE shoes for you children. I don't think income is a good indicator of poverty. The perfect example is a sex worker with a heroin addiction. That worker may earn $5000 a week, but have difficulty feeding/clothing his/her children; thus experiencing hardship. Income is not a good measure of participation. There is clearly, as Saunders points out, a "behavioural" component to poverty. My family is one of those low income families (what you call "povo"),single parent [on pension] and 3 children [I'm doing final year at uni, my sister was expelled in year 9 (now goes to TAFE and works 2 jobs) and my brother is currently 14, not going to school & playing Counter Strike all day whilst smoking weed). We manage to more than just 'get by'. Tell me how we're not participating?

Peter Saunders is entirely correct. I no longer give a stuff about poverty in Australia (or anywhere else) because I know that it is a completely debased concept. It's a meaningless word game created by people who think like Mollydukes.

Using relativistic poverty we get crazy results. For instance if we treat the whole world as a single society then we get a lot less relativistic poverty than if we treat it as a set of separate nations and then tally up the poverty afterwards. If we treat the world as a single society then nobody in the USA or Australia is in the bottom 10%.

Mollydukes is talking about "social exclusion" and pretending that this is what we should refer to as "poverty". Well social exclusion in Australia may be a problem but it's not the same as being in Ethiopia during a famine and watching your kids starve to death whilst you sit by helplessly and wait for your turn. And its a complete insult to the plight of these starving people to claim that poverty in Australia has increased when all Australias are richer than they used to be.

Peter Saunders shines light onto a perverted little word game

"Also, the GDP measure also counts natural disasters, break-ins and traffic accidents as all 'adding' to our prosperity."

That is just wrong as a point of fact. A natural disaster will decrease GDP, and the rebuilding after will increase it again. No surprise there.

Also, break-ins do not contribute to GDP. Home security systems do... as they should because they make people safer (which is surely a good thing).

Giving personal anicdotes does not count as making an argument. The fact is that we have more money now. The fact is that, according to any constant (in real terms) poverty line, poverty has decreased in Australia (and the west in general). Perhaps there are other important measures... but we should not ignore these victories.

Given the current measures of poverty, a doubling of everybody's income would increase poverty and a halving of everybody's income would decrease poverty. That is a patently stupid definition, and Saunders is right to question it.

Dear Peter

Thank you for a thought provoking article. I really enjoyed your definitions re poverty and inequality. Lots to think about on that one. Concrete thinkers will clearly have difficulty with your assertions.

After some months (since May 2005) my husband has been on Newstart Allowance and I began Disability Allowance due to a nursing injury. It has been hell living on such a low income - but we do have "quality". I now grow a lot of our veges and herbs and I make all of our cakes, jams and stuff. It has been a real eye opener. We are better for it. We have little money in the bank - but we do have quality of life re food and leisure (our "tinnie" brings in some good fish!).

My husband underwent a Newstart Program last week. He now has a full time job. I will not change the above but it will be great to go out to dinner about once a month and buy some clothes every now and then.

I think that there is a "welfare" mentality (some might say synonymous with poverty?). One of our neighbours moved to our village about a year ago. They are in their seventies. They sold their farm which was worth a lot. They are on the aged pension - and are not self funded retiries. They went to Vanuatu and Fiji etc on a one month trip last December 2004. Some months ago they inherited $100,000. They are currently on a one month holiday in Canada. Before they left for Cananda they complained that they will lose their Centrelink Rent Assistance!

The thinking and re-thinking of your definitions are important for me.

Thank you
Kay

Digiwigi has given examples of factors which used to contribute to the standard of living, but no longer do, and have not been accounted for in GDP or inflation figures.

Kalweb, you are lucky that you have access to land on which to grow your own veges and herbs and that your husband is able to go fishing. Back in the 1960's these sorts of things were virtually free. Today they are beyond the means of many workers as well as welfare recipients. Again, a factor, which has not been measured by the GDP.

I would suggest that the experience of your neighbours who inherited $100,000, (i.e. enough to maybe buy a garage in outerlying Sydney suburb) are not a typical experience of welfare recipients, so I don't see what relevance it has to the issue.

John Humphreys, you are correct that, in and of themselves, natural disasters do not add to the GDP, however it is incorrect to state that they are subtracted from the GDP (as I think they should be from any sensible measure of our prosperity). In fact the economic activity generated as a result of repairing the destruction, does. Consequently, by GDP measures, Canberrans are more prosperous than they would have been if the bushfires of early 2003 had not occurred. This same absurd methodology is used by the economists that Saunders cites to 'prove' that our real income has more than doubled since the 1960's.

The rest of your contribution well illustrates the flawed thinking of those same economists, whose models have almost no real world basis.

If so much of the additional wealth that we are producing since the 1960's - and I acknowledge that much of it is real in a material sense, although it is largely derived from the destruction of our natural capital - is neccesary to protect ourselves from break-ins, which, somehow, people in the 1960's did not have to do to such an extent, are we truly that much more prosperous?

Many would think not, but you evidently do.

2 Poems from my experience of Manila on business. I've got photo's for these, but can't transmit them here sadly...

ROXAS BOULIVARD
The richest of the rich..and the poorest of the poor
here they are, side by side.. how can we ignore
the babe that should be in arms, is lying in the street
while the man walking by is just waiting to be a cheat
the hotels are truly grande, the way is very wide
but the thought of children suffering is hard to put aside

THE URCHIN. (age approx 8)
She watched me as I ate, the urchin girl outside,
at Shakeys I was sitting, in Manila on the seaside
Through the glass she watched, her hand at times outstretched
the pouty look and smile, made it hard to feel untouched
the outstretched hand would then, point back into the mouth
the plea for food was clear, to this traveller from the south
I saved the extra rice, and didnt clean the chicken,
and gave to her the bundle, that her hunger might be smitten
my reward was just a cheeky smile, across her happy dial
She is full tonight, my heart is warmed but …
what about........................................tomorrow.

Tomorrow came so quickly, I saw her in just a while
she was in the hotel lobby, but the edge was off her smile
she had a small tatoo, and figure hugging jeans
although not more than 12, was 'this' now her means ?
How sad this state of things, that she should miss the chance
to have a life thats full, and even to advance
who will be her answer, the one to stem the flow
to take her life and give it a much much warmer glow?

Mollydukes,
Not being able to buy Nike shoes is not a sign of poverty it is a matter of priority.
I buy Dunlops, they go just fine and spend the remaining $100 or so buying stuff for my kids.
I can't afford to eat caviar and seafood all the time but that doesn't make me poor.
Many in poverty in Australia are there because of the choices they make - they choose to smoke and drink rather than save the money or spend it on the necessities.
Nike shoes are not a necessity, feeding and clothing your children is.

t.u.s.

Peter Saunders has hit the nail on the head again. We probably all know people who will always be "poor" no matter how much money they have. They simply cannot handle money, or their spending priorities put luxury items and "participation" in the fipperies of society before essentials like food, utilities and health. There is also a tendency among such people to believe that they should have the same access to the goodies enjoyed by the wealthy without having to put in the effort or exercise any self-discipline.

Kay, I want to commend you on your efforts and attitude.

One thing I am always struck by is the difference between my parents generation and the latest generation.

My mother knew how to cook, grow vegetables, sew, knit and a host of other important skills. My father learnt how to do plumbing, renovations, woodwork, car repairs and much more.

These skills they were taught and learnt of their own bat were crucial in raising our family of 4 kids on a single, relatively low income.

Today, I have friends who don't know how to cook, or even do their own laundry, let alone sew, garden or renovate. Somehow our society has moved away from learning these skills and so instead rely on paying someone else to do so.

Most people aren't in poverty in Australia, they just spent too much time watching TV (and other leisure activities) instead of learning the useful skills that help you avoid paying someone else.

I agree with Peter Saunders quite strongly as I have said this very thing before. Redefining poverty to inequality only serves socialist ideology.

Peter Saunders by arguing differing definition of poverty far from clarifying the issue muddies the waters. I am not sure what his intentions are, but they seem to be to reduce the levels of income support to people who have little or no income or are the working poor.

Instead of attacking business when they receive grants, tax breaks or other subsidies he take aim at the most vunerable and says its time to go it alone. Instead of offering the poor a better job or training or other assistance he advocates leaving them to capitalist market forces which will either kill or cure them of their 'attitudinal problems' and presumably their state of poverty.

Saunders in his second paragraph says 'logically there are only two models either the capitalist model or the socialist model. Why cannot there be other models or a combination of both which exists at present?
Perhaps we could adopt the U.S. model where private prisons hold a greater proportion of the population. Many of the inmates of which are there due tyo the failing of the unfettered capitalist system. I think not this is Australia and the grass is not greener in the other paddock.
One of the particular thing thats gets up my nose about these so called 'independent' think tanks is that they are not independent. They as has the Centre for Independent Studies got a particular point of view that they wish to propogate. The centre want to promote a right wing agenda where a capitalist society is free of government intervention.

Perhaps the consultants at the centre of independent studies could try some of there own medicine, live in rented accomodation and try to survive on $200 dollars a week, a typical amount of centrelink income support

tus Hi there. Haven't seen you for ages.

Now if you read my post without your blinkers on you might have understood that I said it first. But I'll say it again in more simple terms for you. Low income earners in Australia are poor only if they feel poor. Do you get that?

Now what is about Peter Saunders view of the world and the way it functions that would let anyone (except superior people like you and me) know that they can choose whether to be poor (because they can't afford NIkes) or fashionably quirky and cool (by buying Dunlop Volleys)?

Trust me, I also do not regard myself as poor either (and I bet I earn less than you) but I understand that it takes some insight and not just 'common sense' for many people to grasp this point, when the most salient aspect of success in our society is the ability to consume conspicuously. Got it this time?

And Saunders group is one of the most obvious sources of the idea that increasing wealth equals increasing happiness.

I don't think Peter or any of the other people who have supported his argument say that more money equals happiness.
He said that many people spend beyond their means and I said that people who prioritise wants over needs are misguided.
Kay put it best - you don't need lots of money as long as you are willing to put in some effort, forgo a few luxuries.
Plenty of people live on what would be considered a low wage, but they are happy.
you were spot on about the Volleys though - but apart from the fashion, they also have great grip for when you clean out the gutters on a tile roof. I'm too poor to hire a professional you see, but I enjoy the sunshine on my back - one of life's pleasures that doesn't cost a thing ;)

t.u.s

Agendas. Doncha hate 'em? Aramis1 thinks Peter Saunders has one, but I suspect that Aramis1 has one too.

"I am not sure what his intentions are, but they seem to be to reduce the levels of income support to people who have little or no income or are the working poor."

I read it as a fairly straightforward assessment of our somewhat squinty-eyed view of poverty. Poverty is an emotional concept, especially as it is a word that can be used for other forms of deprivation - cutural poverty, emotional poverty etc. Relative disadvantage is a completely separate matter, and should be treated by society in an eyes-open manner, if society considers it to be sufficiently important.

"Instead of attacking business when they receive grants, tax breaks or other subsidies..."

Your agenda is showing, Aramis1. You dislike private enterprise, but forget that by receiving "grants, tax breaks or other subsidies" businesses are able to employ people, in exchange for money, which they can then use to keep them from poverty. It sounds as though you are happy to keep a lot of people in "poverty", just so you can rage against the machine...

I'm right, aren't I?

On my 70K a year I'm not able to wear $300 jeans and own a 5 series beemer. Nor can I live in an inner city pad and eat out every night. Though I know there are many others out there who can afford those luxuries and more so I guess I should feel a sense of disadvantage? Luckily I have my priorities right and I know that I'm lucky to have what I do so I really don't give a stuff about what those above me are spending their money on.

You have to ask where it will end. In 50 years when people are travelling to the moon on sight-seeing trips will the poor bludgers who have to settle for the Bahamas be living in poverty?

Good article Peter.

Tus, you did your own gutters! I just finished shovelling 5 metres of gravel for my driveway.

I agree that the poor people who make poor decisions and feel resentful are misguided. But this is NOT Peter’s basic assumption at all.

His solution is to use the ‘stick’ and deprive them of welfare? Fine if your primary motive is resentment of ‘bludgers’, but it hurts the children and those (like schizophrenics and other disorganised people) who need welfare to be ‘easy’ to get.

He certainly doesn’t suggest that poor people should cut back on their consumption or aspiration to be wealthy and would not be in favour of making-do or growing veges. The CIS don’t see this as ‘self-reliance’; they believe that creating more wealth is *the* solution to the problem of poverty.

Pericles, Aramis1 also objects to Peter’s claim that there are only two ways to eliminate poverty. I also see that as a flaw in Peter's arguments.

HarryC There are people on your income who do feel ‘poor’. Peter’s article was not particularly good at all. He makes no attempt to uncover the reason(s) that so many people feel poor when they are not. Clearly it is not just ‘human nature’ since there are so many of us here who do not feel that way.

What is the difference and why does it seem to be getting worse? Peter will blame ‘the left’. I think that the emphasis on economics is also to blame.

Mollyduke,

It seems to me that you want to attack Peters solution whilst side stepping the main thrust of this particular article, which is in seeking to define some objective benchmark for poverty.

The article made the basic assertion that relativisitic measures of poverty lead to flawed policy decisions. I don't know why you want to dress the word "poverty" up to cover all the social ills you are so concerned about. All these issues have adequate names, such as social exclusion, inequity and alienation. Your issue seems to be more with Peter than with his article or its core message.

From what you are saying about poverty (ie that its a state of mind) you yourself reject the prevailing definition which is that poverty means you earn a certain percentage below the average. It would seem that you too are troubled by the prevailing definition.

I think public policy is ultimately better if it is measured by reasonably objective metrics. Do you really think that public policy is best measured and refined in terms of fuzzy anecdotes about peoples shoes?

Regards,
Terje

Yes ,poverty is a relative concept.We have single parents who suck off the public purse increasing taxes and thus increasing working hours for us all.We have too many able people getting disability pensions.15% of the pop of working age is supported full time by the tax payer.The result is that honest and able people must work twice as long and hard to support the bludgers.Hence we have family break down and burn out and fewer babies of real genetic ability.

Our Federal Social security bill is $85 billion pa.For every working person it increases their tax by $8500.00 pa or$163.00 per week.Now add to this all the State and Council expenses on social security and we have monumental waste in the form of Govt bureaucracy.

Our Govt Bureaucracies don't want us to become autonomous since it takes away their power over the masses.It is better to keep us resentful,unemployed,ignorant and beholding to their public service;
Or by a better definition,their Public Priviledged System of Impotence.

New data released by ABS (“Household Income and Income Distribution” Cat.No.6523.0, 4 August 2005) show: “Over the period from 1994-95 there was an estimated 22% increase in the real mean income of both low income people and middle income people and 19% for high income people.” Thus, in less than 10 years, average real living standards of the poorest Australians have risen by almost a quarter.

Daggett, who accuses me of using “cooked up figures,” will presumably dismiss these latest ABS figures too, preferring to rely for evidence on anecdotes about his grandfather’s family holidays in Maroochydore. That got me thinking about my grandfather’s life when he was the age I am now, in England in the mid-1950s.

He left school at 12 and died of heart problems (no by-pass surgery back then) 18 months after retirement. In 1955 he had no TV, no phone, no car, and my grandmother used a mangle to wring out laundry washed by hand in the kitchen sink. They had no bathroom and an outside toilet with ‘potties’ under the beds. Coal was stored in a cupboard under the stairs, and only one room was heated in the winter (you’d scrape frost off the inside of the bedroom windows – no central heating, no double glazing, and of course, no air con). My grandparents never had a foreign holiday or went on a plane, never used a computer or saw the inside of a university, and TB and polio were everyday hazards.

They were not ‘poor’ – this was a respectable working class household, and their lifestyle was the norm. Yet fifty years later, it is difficult to imagine such an impoverished lifestyle existed within my own living memory. The change reflects the way economic growth has raised living standards, and it is the reason I am pro-capitalist.

Daggett believes the income statistics are “cooked” and that "poverty is getting much worse for many workers.” These claims are plainly absurd. How quickly we forget what life used to be like. How easily we take for-granted the benefits that capitalist economic growth has brought us

Peter Saunders
I would agree that living standards have improved over the last 50 yrs in this country and in similar countries (but not all countries, and this may have to do with capitalist exploitation of some poorer countries).

However mean income figures would not give a true picture of the situation, and a bell shaped curve may give a more meaningful picture, particularly if there are spikes on that curve. I have the opinion that the majority of wealth is still with a minority of families, and if there was a bell shaped curve of net family wealth or assets, then this would show up quite clearly on such a curve.

The other concern is with levels of debt, as national debt is increasing (and I understand now equates to about $18,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia). Such national debt would be compounded by the trade deficit, which never seems to decrease much.

Putting the national debt and the trade deficit together, then we may be living beyond our means,and this may come more to the forefront in future years when a younger generation has to establish families with high mortgage costs, paying back HECS fees, paying child support etc, as well as problems with the environment, a possible shortage of oil, high welfare payments, declining infrastructure, shortage of skilled workers, lower commodity prices, possible lower wages etc.

Although we may have a higher standard of living right now, it may be on loan with repayments due in future years.

I have just read over the article again and can’t see at any point Peter Saunders saying we should use absolute poverty as a definition of poverty.

Everyone has different circumstances but some crude measure is needed to help look at planning and delivering for society. The poverty measure espoused by ACOSS et al seems to be half average income as the cut off. This is absurd because it means if I get a big (unlikely) pay rise and double may income this would aggravate or increase poverty. I always thought getting a large pay rise was helping others in hardship. The government would take stacks more money from me via income tax and GST from possible increased consumption. This could be put back into the welfare and health care system.

If the economy has a big down turn the salaries of many higher income earners will drop or they may just get fired. Under the half average income poverty measure a recession is something for which to rejoice as income inequality decreases, don’t bother about the fact that the governments revenue take falls and there will less resources to provide services with.

I am an advocate of half median income as a better measure of hardship. It is far from perfect but a better indicator about the circumstances of a community.

I hope the super wealthy have another fabulous financial year and that all society can share in it from the income tax and GST the such people will be liable for.

Peter Saunders,

You say to Daggett that it is absurd to suggest that poverty is getting worse because the figures show that people's incomes are rising. However, while the price of some things is falling, (and this has negative effects (eg on farmers incomes)) costs for essential things are rising.

It costs a lot more to send a child to even a state school these days. It used to be almost free. That was a good thing.

You say that we quickly forget what life used to be like, and we cease to appreciate how well off we all are now. Perhaps, but some of us feel deprived now because in some ways we were better off in the past.

We don't all feel deprived because others have more; the ones who do are those who are sucked in by the marketing that is essential for high levels of economic growth; the marketing that encourages us to believe that things are good for us and will make us happy.

You probably won't believe it but some Australians used to feel quite proud of being working class - now it seems we are failures unless we are aspiring for middle class status.

And, can you please just get over the cold war? I do not know any of those mythical creatures on 'the left' who still seem to populate your fantasy world.

We are all captialists now but some of us see clearly that 'the market' without some understanding of the frailities of human beings, is just as inhuman as centralised control.

Peter Saunders wrote : "Daggett ... (prefers) to rely for evidence on anecdotes about his grandfather’s family holidays in Maroochydore."

I was suggesting that the experience of my grandfather would have been a common experience of people on single modest incomes of that time: They could afford to buy a decent free-standing home and take their families on long holidays in near idyllic locations. How many primary school teachers does PS believe are capable of doing this these days?

The additional necessary costs of living as mentioned by digiwigi above, the obscene hyper-inflated costs of housing, the costs associated with buying additional cars, when families in the 1960s could get by with only one, the costs and time associated with obtaining extra qualifications to satisfy 'credentials creep', time wasted commuting in abysmally designed cities, longer hours, unpaid overtime, etc, etc have clearly acted to reduce our quality of life, and yet are not included in the GDP figures upon which Peter Saunders relies to prove his case that our standards of living are improving.

Perhaps Peter Saunders would care to offer his explanation as to why he thinks that Simon Kuznets, originator of that GDP measure, warned the US congress in 1934: 'The welfare of a nation can scarcely be measured from a national income'

There is ample evidence that poverty - and not just poverty in a relative sense - is real from Australian journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen's "Dirt Cheap" and, before that, American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed", neither of which Peter Saunders has responded either in "Australia's Welfare Habit" nor in any of the essays that I have read.

One final point, the "capitalist economic growth" to which Peter Saunders refers, is based upon the destruction of our natural capital, in particular our non-renewable fossil fuel reserves, which took at least tens of millions of years to create. Even if our quality of life, which is dependent upon higher levels of consumption of these resources, can be construed as 'better' than it was in the 1960's it is at the expense of future generations. (see http://www.sydneypeakoil.com/, http://www.eclipsenow.org/)

Arjay wrote: "The result is that honest and able people must work twice as long and hard to support the bludgers."

Arjay, can you so sure that many of those 'bludgers' would not, if circumstances were different, be capable of filling your shoes? And, can you be so certain, that if circumstances were not different, you would not be in their shoes?

Many of those you refer to as 'bludgers' would have had, until not so long ago had fulfilling jobs. For example 700 workers, who used to work at Mitsubishi in South Australia were unable to find other jobs, it was reported on Radio National's "The National Interest" on 15 May. Do you think that these people, as well as countless others, who have had their livelihoods exported to countries like China and India suddenly decided after all these years that they no longer wished to work?

I guarantee that many of those 'bludgers' you so bitterly resent, would be more than happy to work as hard as you do in order to fill your shoes.

Your attitude only helps to fan unreasoned prejudice against hundreds of thousands of ordinary well-meaning people who have not been able to enjoy the same good fortune that you have, and is, therefore, little better than racism in my opinion.

And while we are on the subject of bludgers, a few years ago when I was considering buying a town house, an estate agent explained to me that, because of the negative gearing laws, one out of three dwellings bought by property speculators were effectively paid for by their tenants.

That is one reason why so many ordinary hard-working Australians have to pay through their noses to have any kind of roof over their heads these days.

In terms of the economic debate (ie looking at income, wealth and material poverty) I think that we need a few international benchmarks.

We could call them:-

Global-Poverty-Line-A. Below this line you are headed for death within 12 months or less due to malnutrition or continual exposure to the elements.

Global-Poverty-Line-B. Below this line you are frequently undernourished and/or your body is often exposed to harsh environmental elements like cold, heat or wet. Such that your physical growth, development or function is impaired.

Global-Poverty-Line-C. Below this line you are often hungry and on average you miss out on 3 meals each week.

Global-Povery-Line-D. You are without some type of medium term housing.

etc,

etc,

etc,

Global-Povery-Line-Z. You can't afford Nike shoes for the kids.

Petr Saunders another thing - I think you are being a bit disingenuous when you 'suggest' that improvements in surgery come from capitalism. That is bollocks. The great improvements in health came about from public health initiatives based on work by 'do-gooders'. The basis of the surgical skills were initiatives - again by do-gooders - to do fix war injuries.

It is the newer more controversial 'improvements' in health care that come from capitalism; anti-depressants, viagra, diet pills.

Terjes, why do you want an absolute poverty level? Would you suggest that I have the same needs for basic sustenance as my friend who has rhematoid arthritis. She cannot shovel gravel for her driveway to save money or wear Dunlop Volley's - shoes with proper support are very expensive

Mollydukes,

You make it sound as though capitalism is driven by something other than do gooders. The essence of capitalism is people finding better ways to do old things and clever ways to do new things. They do it through personal initiative to derive personal profit or personal satisfaction. Those such as myself who advocate an expansion of capitalism do so precisely because we have enonormous faith in the abilities and good will of free people.

You asked why I want an objective measure of poverty rather than a relative one. The reason is simple. I want more social progress. And unless we measure progress with some degree of objectivity we are unable to know whether our policies are working or not. You can't manage what you can't measure. The relative measures that are common today lead us down a dead end lane.

In Niger the kids are starving because their government taxes the people at 50 cents in the dollar once their weekly income exceeds US$16. That is but one of many example in which stupid policies ensure poverty. Who would wish such misery on any society? And yet by relativistic measures nobody is impoverished in Niger. Nearly everybody is equally miserable in Niger unless they have a government job.

Regards,
Terje

Terje wrote to Mollydukes: "... unless we measure progress with some degree of objectivity we are unable to know whether our policies are working or not."

You have ignored my examples which show that the GDP and the ABS's measures of increases in the cost of living do NOT objectively measure our progress. Again, as only one of many examples, how is it that, if real wages have more than doubled since the 1960's, as PS claims, that two incomes rather than one income, are now usually necessary to pay the cost of rent or a mortgage for a typical family home?

I don't know where your example of Niger comes from. Clearly incompetent and corrupt govenments are one contributing cause to poverty in some Third World countries, but no society, either in the Industrialised West or the Third World, can function without raising taxes.

A more significant contributor to Third World poverty can be found in John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". Perkins' job was to write fraudulent forecasts of claimed economic benefits that could would result from expensive infrastructure projects (e.g. dams). These reports would convince Third World governments to make huge loans in order to fund these projects.

They would subsequently find that the expected economic benefits would not materialise, but would still be left with massive debts that they could not repay. The IMF would then force a country in these circumstances, in return for debt relief, to reorganise its economy in order to suit the interests of US corporations, that is privatisation, deregulation, removeal of tariffs, reduction in spending in areas such as health, education, etc.

Frankly, the supposed concern about third world poverty from some contributors to this forum, who evidently approve of multi-million dollar annual salaries for CEOs in this country, whilst many third world workers who work for them, receive around $1 or less per hour seems, to me, to be hypocritical.

Terje

Capitalism is driven by human behaviour, and as such there are do-gooders and do-badders. My point was that Peter Saunders seemed to be suggesting that everything good about our current way of life came from capitalism. This is not the case. There are many good things that came from 'leftist' policies and leftist people.

For another fuzzy anecdote, as my old grandma said, "moderation in all things' and Peter and his fellow neo-libs at the CIS are erring on the side of 'too much' capitalism.

The essence of capitalism is *not* finding new and better ways to do things. This can happen and - read my lips - I am not attempting to do away with capitalism - got that? So while this can and does happen, there are also many negative effects of capitalism.

Lets be aware of the cons as well as the pro's and not get carried away and see neo-liberalism as the religion that will save us.

Anincident in Brisbane recently reminded me of the need for contining social income support by the government. I was near Eagle street where a man obviously down on his luck was trying to sell copies of "Big Issue" ( a magazine on social issues sold by the unemployed and sponsored by Anita Roddrick of the Body Shop). I bought a copy for three dollars.
Well less than a minute later a group of very well dressed men and two women in designer suits & italian shoes walked past and he spruked "Get your copy of the 'Big Issue." Well there was no one else around and most of them stared right through the man as though he wasn't there. Seconds later a heard one of the men grunt. "get a real Job!".
Well the group then proceded to enter "Char Char Char" Restaurant, and have lunch. A place where entrees start around $25 and mains $45.
This is the problem I have with allowing market forces to maintain all members of society. Proponents argue the trickly down effect to sustain the livelyhood's of all persons. It is clear that an average worker cannot support a wife and two children in relative comfort.(ref the Harvester case)
More likely the male works shift work around the clock 24/7 and his wife works full or part time also. The partners meet each other when they are dog tired to sleep wash and eat convenience food.
Similarly there are people who have insufficent or no work(past their use by date of 45) have the option of doing casual cleaning or taxi driving in 12 hour shifts; 3.00 am to 3.00 pm.
This does not take into account single mothers or the disabled.
To date Ive heard nothing from Big or Small business beating down the government door to genuinely help older workers out of the welfare trap, or to put another disabled worker through training or similar.
All you hear about is them crowing for another tax cut so they can go from a six series to a seven series BMW.

QUOTE: You have ignored my examples which show that the GDP and the ABS's measures of increases in the cost of living do NOT objectively measure our progress. Again, as only one of many examples, how is it that, if real wages have more than doubled since the 1960's, as PS claims, that two incomes rather than one income, are now usually necessary to pay the cost of rent or a mortgage for a typical family home?

RESPONSE:-

I did not ignore these points. I just did not see them as relevant to my point.

When I said that poverty should be measured in an absolute sence I think you presumed that I meant by a specific amount of dollar income. This is not what I meant at all.

An objective measure of poverty might look at calories in the diet, access to shelter, and social inclusion. It might even include not being able to buy Nike shoes. The point is that it should be objective in the sence that if we say that from 1970 to 1990 poverty increased then the same absolute measure in 1970 should be used as in 1990.

If our measure of poverty is merely relativistic such that poverty in 1970 is earning 25% of the 1970 median salary and poverty in 1990 is earning 25% of the 1990 median salary then we are not comparing apples for apples.

Define poverty however you see fit, however don't move the goalposts over time and then use the outcome of this shift to claim some trend in poverty

I think both measures have their place. My problem is that poverty is a loaded word that in most people's mind refers more to an absolute notion. I shudder when I hear someone spouting that some huge number of people in Australia lives in "poverty", knowing that many people who listen will think it refers to an absolutist, rather than relative, position.

And I suspect, with no evidence, that this distinction is deliberately hidden by many commentators on poverty when making public pronouncements. After all, the spectre of absolute poverty is rather more newsworthy than suggesting that some people's incomes rise slower than others.

Terje wrote: "I did not ignore these points. I just did not see them as relevant to my point."

No, you were ignoring them as you and your fellow neo-liberal ideologues choose to ignore all the overwhelming evidence out there which does not conform to your world view.

If you say that housing affordability is not relevant to objectively measuring poverty, then I would suggest that millions of Australians out there suffering from acute housing stress would beg to disagree. (By the way, if anyone out there is curious to see how another group of neo-liberal economists, working for two major banks, blatantly cooked up figures to 'prove' that housing had remained affordable by 2003, in complete defiance of the experiences of so many ordinary Australians, check out this story : http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1335462.htm)

My points about the GDP are relevant because the whole of Peter Saunders' case for his agenda of welfare bashing - sorry, 'reform' - which has now, most unfortunately, been largely implemented by this Government, is based upon his claims that "Australians have become twice as wealthy in the last thirty years" (AWF, p6) that all Australians have shared significantly in this additional wealth. If this must be case, and given that Australia could not have been considered poverty stricken in the 1960's, how could anyone possibly be truly poor today? Clearly, anyone who argues that we should be alarmed by the existing levels of poverty today will just never be satisfied.

Many on social welfare may not be in poverty, if they own their own home, or have access to some of the few remaining pockets of Government housing left in this country, but many others, who are not in these circumstances, whether working or not, not will definitely be, by any reasonable measure, due to the obscene housing hyper-inflation of the past 30 years (which PS perversely applauded in this article, last year : http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2369) amongst other factors.

(To be continued)

(continued from above.)

Because the figures upon which PS relies (from the same ABS which tells us that anyone who works for more than 1 hour in a week is 'employed') are clearly inadequate, they just cannot be used as a useful measure of the improvement in quality of life. My own experience, nothwithstanding the wonders of modern technology, is that my material quality of life has got substantially worse in the last 30 years and this is confirmed in Elisabeth Wynhausen's "Dirt Cheap". Howard's welfare and IR 'reforms', both championed by Saunders, will, if they get through, soon make an already bad situation a good deal worse.

Saunders maintains that critics of neo-liberal capitalism would make everyone poorer if they got their way. The situation is the reverse. It is neo-liberal globalised capitalism which is not only impoverishing our society today, but threatening our very survival.

Due to the spectacular inefficiencies and scandalous waste in our economy, which are concealed from us by the GDP measure, the additional material benefits that should have ensued (but, at the expense of future generations) from our increases in the consumption of non-renewable resources, have not been realised. Instead they have been largely wasted as, in the most obvious of many examples, hundreds of millions around the world have been forced to buy additonal cars and waste scarce petroleum to get around their cities through largely gridlocked traffic.

For decades, many of us have accepted the strident assertions made by neo-liberals that the market, will be able to solve all the threatened problems of energy scarcity, global warming etc, etc.

Soon, but perhaps, when it is almost too late, as the price of petroleum surges beyond its current record of $US67 per barrel, it will be undeniable that the Cargo cultists of New Guinea, who worshipped the gods, who they thought, delivered, from the sky, the material supplies used by Australians and Americans in the Second World War, were incomparably more intelligent than Saunders' neo-liberal co-thinkers, who evidently believe that energy and other natural resources are infinite.

Overcoming-Poverty Mugabe-style!
President Robert Mugabe has unleashed a tsunami-like wave of destruction upon Zimbabwe’s urban poor, who also happen to be those who generally do not support his ruling Zanu-PF.

The demolitions commenced on 23 May under the auspices of “Operation Murambasvina” (Restore Order). About 300,000 homes have been demolished leaving 1.5 million homeless. Three children died after being crushed in their homes. Others have died from exposure. 30,000 people have been arrested.

The world was quite oblivious to this tragedy until images of bulldozers, security police, burning homes, and mothers and children sitting amid rubble were secretly recorded and smuggled out of Zimbabwe.

The extent of the devastation is now well known. What is still unclear is what is really happening in Zimbabwe, for other details indicate that this operation is indeed much more than a badly handled urban renewal project and really is a Mugabe/Zanu-PF war against opponents. It appears that, in the light of the recent Velvet, Rose, Orange and Cedar “revolutions”, Mugabe and his Zanu-PF are merely engaging in a little “revolution prevention” by shattering, impoverishing, dispersing and possibly even killing the opposition before it can get organised.

Three years ago, when Didymus Mutasa was Zanu-PF’s Secretary for Administration and in charge of food distribution, he commented regarding food distribution to the opposition, “We would be better off with only 6 million, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don’t want all these extra people.”

In April 2005, after his election victory, Mugabe appointed Didymus Mutasa to be his Minister for State Security. This role puts Mutasa in charge of the Central Intelligence Organization (secret police) and in charge of Operation Murambasvina.

On top of this, Mutasa’s Ministry for State Security is now in charge of food distribution, although Mutasa claims that there are no food shortages in Zimbabwe. When a journalist challenged Mutasa with reports from Zimbabwean Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube that people are starving to death in Bulawayo, Mutasa replied, “The cleric [Ncube] has a psychological disease and he needs to have his head examined because he is a liar.”
[Cont]

Defining poverty - oh so boring

Rather than define what people would presumably strive to escape - let us, instead, define "wealth" - that would at least define a "goal" and something to persue and strive for.

Wealth is not a mono-dimensional quality.

"Wealth" is more a state of mind than a full larder.
"Wealth" is a sense of peace more than a piece of gold.
"Wealth" it the attitude which accompanies us in all our endeavours.
"Wealth" is making ethical choices rather than expedient ones.

Thus, defining "poverty" is as pointless as trying to define "Wealth"
and those who would attempt to "define" it in economic terms merely illustrate their own deficiency and blindness in not seeing beyond the immediate / material.

I would futher suggest "Wealth" is a state of being in which one is reliant upon ones own effort and not the hand-outs of the state for ones sustinence.

As Peter Saunders suggests
"One of the greatest ironies of the poverty debate in this country is that the activists and academics who keep insisting that poverty is a huge and growing problem also argue for more welfare spending to solve it"

- long term, wide based welfare schemes entrench and institutionalise poverty on the generations of recipients who grow up in a culture of not needing to bother for themselves - because the state will provide everything for them.

Col, brilliant post. Thanks.

R0bert

The point here is to respond to Peter Saunders 'agenda' in his article - not to argue what poverty and wealth are. What is poor and what is wealth are things that we can decide for ourselves if we understand the available alternatives.

What Peter wants to argue is that it doesn’t matter how large the gap between rich and poor grows (and it is growing larger), as long as the poor are ‘better-off’.

I would say that the problem is that Peter is not poor and although his father was, this does not qualify him to understand poverty now. Although his figures indicate that low income earners have more money coming in, many of us do not feel better off.

The fact is that although we seem to have more money and more things, health (psychological and physical) problems are increasing at the same time. Many of the posters here have described aspects of the things that capitalism has brought us that have not made us 'better-off'.

There seems to be some sort of correlation here between more wealth and less health that neither the welfare lobby or the CIS are able to explain.

Mollydukes wrote : "The fact is that although we seem to have more money and more things, health (psychological and physical) problems are increasing at the same time."

The problem is that this does not seem, to me, to be a sufficiently compelling argument against neo-liberalism, and I would suggest that over-reliance on this sort of argument has allowed neo-liberalism to grow to overwhelmingly predominate over our political agenda since the 1970's when, rightly, it should have been confined permanently to the dustbins of history after the crash of 1929.

I believe it is possible, although, perhaps not altogether easy, to measure the values on all the things that used to be virtually free and which we now pay through our noses for, but which have not been accounted for in either GDP or inflation figures.

A six week holiday in Maroochydore, right beside its magnificent beach in my Gradfather's large marquee tent was practically free due to the very low camping charges in the 1960's. Even those few people who are lucky enough to be able would still have to pay much much more for the same privilege.

I believe that neo-liberalism is impoverishing us on two levels. On one level there can be no dispute. That is the level of the unsustainable destruction of our natural captital (e.g. energy stocks, fresh water, global warming etc.). No-one who relies on, for example, on income generated from a bank deposit alone, can survive indefintely if they draw more than the interest earned.

Yet economists (and unfortunately, not only neo-liberals) seem to believe that our civilisation can go on indefinitely if it consumes both the interest on our natural capital as well as the principle itself.

On the other level, over which we have been arguing, it may be possible to argue that our greater consumption of non-renewable resources has improved our objective material well-being, if only in the short term, but I would dispute even this.

The only chance we stand is to ditch the baggage of economic so-called 'rationalism' as soon as possible.

col ,there is nothing wrong with helping the impoverished and disadvantaged to a better education , better health and a better life .
there is nothing worse than seeing unhealthy, disadvantaged children hanging on to their poor and uneducated parents .their lives will be stunted, along with their hope for a better tomorrow . unless peter saunder's ideas can produce hope and health [not necessarily bagfulls of money ]for the poor they should be dismissed .

QUOTE: The only chance we stand is to ditch the baggage of economic so-called 'rationalism' as soon as possible.

RESPONSE:-

For what its worth I see very little neo-liberalism actually being implemented (although I would be more interested in classical liberalism anyway).

As a people we are taxed more highly than at any time in our history and welfare expenditure continues to dominate the federal budget. Neo-liberalism is popular in rhetoric but pretty rarely seen in practice.

Just for fun could you tell us what you propose as the replacement for "economic rationalism"

POVERTY IS A STATE OF MIND! NO MAN IS POOR WHO HAS INTUITIVE ENERGY AND A CREATIVE MIND THAT HE GAINFULLY EMPLOYS.

Philo

Your theory sounds fine at first glance. But, if there is no food, the brain does not fire due to lack of protein. Without that the notion of employment is not on the cards.

The problem: "poverty"
The solution: "Love your neighbour as yourself"
The Source: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart"

Trite and cliche'd yes :)

James Chapter 2 (New Testament) 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.


So we have St Vinnies, Salvation Army, Mother Theresa, etc and our own fellowship has a 'food bank'.

I would add to all the above,(its there in principle anyway) to just respond to the condition without responding to any root causes will simply perpetuate the cycle. (instutionalized structures creating poverty and possible personal issues,lack of training/skill).

But these things should come mostly from our own hearts, rather than some legislative regime. When we just rage in the streets for 'government' to do it all, we cop out of our own responsibility.

Isn't it depressing when we hear all the quaint phrases from the Politicians who use these issues for scoring points, only to be elected and then 'reneg' on a 'free' way and make it a 'toll' way, or hand out lucrative consultancy contracts to 'their' flavor professionals (both sides do this of course) disproportionatly re-allocate finance in terms of their own political constituencies...pork barrelling etc...

I think social redemption is up to the socially redeeemed and spiritually renewed to pass on at a personal and smaller group level.
After all, as Senator Bob Collins once said.. "Politics-is about POWER not fairness". The jury just came in, and the verdict is read- "true"

Boaz-David, I wonder where you get the idea that anyone here is 'raging in the streets for government to fix things'? I see no call for that.

You are making the same error that Peter Saunders makes when he says there are only two alternatives. You yourself advocate another way; one that has, over the past 2000 years been proved inadequate as a way of producing decent societes (of course it can be a wonderful thing for producing decent individuals but often is not).

Terje does not see that there is much neo-liberalism around but then Terje believes in absolutes. As for an alternative to neo-liberalism one small idea (not a theory by any means) is to require that capitalists take some responsibility for the effects of their actions.

It seems a bit unfair for the consuming indidivual to have all the responsiblity to make the right choice, particularly when people just are not able to know what the right choice is, but the marketing individual has no responsibility.

Robert – Thank you

Kartiya - where do you draw the assumption that I am not advocating “helping the impoverished and disadvantaged to a better education , better health and a better life.”?

The point I made was not about the “to do or do not” – but about the “how”

My point is much the same as has often been used –
“give a man a fish and he eats for a day – show him how to fish – and he can sustain himself indefinitely” –

Most of the welfare programs, certainly in Australia are expeditions in just giving people a fish and when a positive outcome is suggested attached / made a condition – like attending job interviews or a course of study, such conditions are often resented as an unfair demand on the rights of the recipient.

Philo – your post and mine converge

Terje wrote: "Just for fun could you tell us what you propose as the replacement for 'economic rationalism'".

(Thinks : Ahhh! The TINA argument again.)

Funny you should have asked me that. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now, except to say as I posted on Margo's webdiary the other day on a discussion about the shortage of oil at:

http://webdiary.smh.com.au/archives/margo_kingston_comment/001367.html

<quote>
The essence of the neo-liberal economic orthodoxy which drives virtually all government policy these days seems to be that no community at any level - local, state, federal or international - is allowed to combine their resources in order to deal with problems common to that community.

Instead that community is always obliged to hand that responsibility across to some other body, that is a private corporation, and to pay that body for assuming that responsibility its behalf.

And even when those corporations aren't interested, because they are not able to make a profit, the community is still barred from acting to confront those problems, lest the markets lose confidence, if the necessary taxes were collected or loans raised.
</quote>

(As I have written elsewhere in online forum) Franklin Roosevelt turned his back on this idiocy in the 1930's when he employed millions of previously unemployed Americans to restore ruined agricutural land, and build roads and other items of major infrastructure.

Even the late President Reagan as well as Colin Powell have expressed their immense gratitude to FDR for having taken their fathers off the scrap heap and having given them a decent income and useful purpose in life.

(Will be back. How long have you got? All day and all night, I trust?)

We have more money and we are healthier than we have ever been. People are not getting sicker, life expectancy is at all time highs.
It is the poorest people who have gained the most in terms of health (apart from the indigenous community who have been hindered by too much welfare.
Relative measures of poverty are fraught with danger. By this logic, if rich people average $100,000 and poor people $40,000 and the income rises to $120,000 and $50,000, the poor people are worse off.
Be happy with what you have, don't worry about comparing it to someone else. Keeping up with the Jones is destructive Molly.

t.u.s.

Daggettt, I do agree with you but am not an economist so cannot argue about this aspect. I do have some knowledge of health and social issues and that is where I have to target my criticisms.

tus, your figures are out of date. Even the neo-liberals at CIS agree that there is an increase in health problems.

Diabetes and asthma are increasing, to name only two physical health problems.

Depression and anxiety disorders are also much higher. Check out Jeff Kennett's Beyond Blue organisation - no-one would suggest that Kennett is a welfare advocate.

Life expectancy has improved during the earlier part of this century, not because of capitalism. As I said earlier this was because of public health programs (get that? because of governments) that provided people with clean water, waste disposal and decent housing. However, life expectancy has ceased to improve during the past decade.

It is not the fact that there is an increasing gap between rich and poor, but the loss of the Australian idea of egalitarianism, of self-reliance and ingenuity and a 'fair-go' for all.

As Daggett says, he neo-liberals want private industry to provide everything and want us to buy more and more. I can't see how that makes us better off. We already have more than enough stuff but not enough community.

There is an increase in the diagnosis of some things - especially in the mental health area. Stress-related illnesses abound of course, with more and more doctors willing to give people pills to solve their perceived illness.
Maybe it was just people were too worried about their TB back in the old days to worry about their "stress".
Asthma and diabetes are hardly the same as polio and TB and because of research and devlopment are almost entirely treatble today.
Cancer seems to have increased for no other reason than people have to die of something - it is more prevalent in the older generations.
A child born today in Australia is expected to live longer than at any other time in our history.
t.u.s

col , "show him how to fish " ??,- today the howard government has said they want to import another 20,000 skilled tradesmen and women and professionals to boost the economy , while they withdraw support for state technical colleges and put up the cost of university education for all australians .
now that's choice .!!

Kartiya –
Importing skills is fine – I was allowed to migrate only when “demand” for my skills were unable to be met from the local “supply” (I had to wait 8 years until that occurred).

I recall Joan Kirner (labor premier who oversaw the rape of the Statebank, imposed a fuel levy to cover the promise her treasurer (woefully named Jolly) had made to bale out Pyramid – typical socialist strategies of disastrous proportions) who also closed the technical schools in Victoria and then debased the schools exam system to the point of uselessness.
So note, the TAFE budgets are administered and controlled by the state (labor) education ministries.

I would additionally recall Beazley thinks we should all have university degrees, presumably to enable us to “qualify” to scratch our own ar*e holes.
Then there are the union officials who demand fulltime adult wages for someone who is being trained (apprenticeships).

I still am not convinced that to be, say, a nurse requires a university degree any more than to be a plumber would need one.

So you better get it right, State Technical schools and TAFE s are the responsibility of the (labor) state governments – not the federal government. I would further note the federal government is working to try and get states to accept simple things like electricians and certain other trades licensing to be recognised and automatically acceptable between different (labor) states. This is to facilitate a better servicing of the market, instead of tradesmen being unable to ply their craft (reciprocal acknowledgement of qualifications), should they want to move interstate (commonly called a massive “restraint of trade”).

If there is a demand for certain skills, we are as well serviced by getting them met from overseas intake. The alternative is to let market forces push wages through the roof (tried to get a plumber recently?) and is a better national solution to taking in the flotsam and jetsam of “non-English speaking” wanna-be economic refugees who fall off leaky Indonesian fishing boats and only add to the underclass of the unemployable and useless.

tus your desire to be an independent thinker and thereby demonstrate your superior understanding of the world is admirable. I understand that you function well and think that if you can do it everyone can.

Clearly, you understand all the financial aspects of making good choices about home loans and superannuation and other financial decisions that determine how 'wealthy' we can be.

You obviously are easily able to resist the very cleverly constructed messages from advertising (this includes all the lifestyle shows and magazines) that tell us that we need certain products to be happy and feel wealthy.

Unfortunately, few of us are as intelligent as you and so sure that we know it all.

Many of us feel quite out of our depth and not confident that we are making the best choices or that we will be able to be self-reliant in the future if we make bad choices now. That is very stressful.

There was less stress in the past because we did not feel that we had to make so many choices. Back in the 60's and 70's we were confident that we could afford health care, that the local school was good enough for our kids that we would have a pension when we were old. These things are no longer secure.

The effects of this type of stress has effects that are only just being realised. For example, recent research shows that babies born to mothers who feel stressed are more likely to develop depression in adolescence. This may also relate to the growing incidence of schizophrenia.

Use your intelligence to weigh up the options rather than assert your individuality by arguing for the sake of it.

Mollydukes
“Unfortunately, few of us are as intelligent as you (t.u.s.) and so sure that we know it all....

Many of us feel quite out of our depth and not confident that we are making the best choices or that we will be able to be self-reliant in the future if we make bad choices now. That is very stressful...

Use your (t.u.s.) intelligence to weigh up the options rather than assert your individuality by arguing for the sake of it.”

Why?

What fealty does t.u.s. owe you or all these depressed mothers?

Why should t.u.s. curb his individuality? – It will not make you feel less stressed and will only cramp or constrain t.u.s. in pursuit of his own truth, reality and the fullfilment of his own aspirations.

Go for it t.u.s. I have always valued your insightful commentary and would commend you to excel because we will all benefit from you being your best, rather than settling for the mediocre level of performance which will keep the self-esteem of low achievers in their comfort zone.

There are those who “can” and those who “cannot”.
The world advances and is a better place when the ones who “can” actually “do”, rather than being held back by the ones who “cannot”.

Mollydukes - stress and depression are issues we can all suffer from and all struggle to overcome. You suggest Schizophrenia might be a result of some mothers feeling insecure – but they would be "insecure" regardless of how “individualistic” t.u.s. aspired to be.
They would likely be less insecure(and by your analysis, less likely to produce schizophrenic offspring) if they were to follow t.u.s. example of self-reliance and individuality, instead of dwelling on their own depression.

t.u.s.

I have been nursing since 1971. The assertions that you present about diseases are quite erroneous in the main. And the figures that you contend are simply not true.

I was drafting a lengthy reply to you and then I came across Kevin Pittman's article which says all of the things that I would have suggested to you. It is an accurate article on another thread in this Forum, vis a vis: "The Frightening Reality of Chronic Diseases". I will be interested to read your thoughts on same.

Regards
Kay

Whew, a lot to get through here.
Col thanks for the nice words
Mollydukes, what we are talking about here is not feeling confident to do things it is about prioritising. If people do not spend first their income on shelter and food and instead choose wants (vices) over needs, that is not my problem.
I have been in a situation where I had a low income, I was at uni, my wife and i had a baby and we were renting a one bedroom unit. I didn't have enough money to drink or gamble or smoke and we got by, even if we only had a small tv and no dvd player.
Contrast this to some families I know who complain about money yet they have a huge TV and drink a carton of beer a week. Not my problem if they are in debt.
i am not going to apologise for using my intelligence and common sense and hard work to get where I am.
Kay, saw the article about chronic disease and don't see where exactly it makes me wrong. The author mentions that some diseases get worse because of ageing (you have to die of something) and it also says medicine helps people live longer (something about living twenty years after a heart attack.). Similarly- asthma and diabetes are easier to manage than TB, as i said.
He also mentions lifestyle disease which again is not my concern - if someone eats crap and smokes - not my problem, they knwo the risks.
as for obesity. the latest research from the States shows being a bit overwieght is a lot healthier than being underweight and there is no such thing as the obesity epidemic. The evidence is simply not there that our kids are going to die younger from obesity.

t.u.s

LOL Col, I have just as much right to tell tus what to do as you do to post your silly comments.

Do some reading and thinking rather than making obvious your simplistic and naive view of what would solve all the problems.

Did you realise that scientists have found out a lot of things about how the brain works and about genetics?

It is clear that some people are more vulnerable to certain diseases because of their genetic inheritance. Now you might think that we should do away with all the 'bad' and 'weak' people - the ones who are not like you.

But scientists think that a diversity of genes (ie lots of different genes)is a good thing because it makes us more likely to survive as a species because we are able, as a species, to adapt to different environments. This means that some of us might be different to you. Some of us might not be able to ignore things that you probably don't even notice. It does take all kinds - lucky for you.

So life in this increasingly complex world is not a level playing field where the 'good guys' get what they deserve and the bad people go on welfare.

Furthermore, try to be truthful when you quote people. Beasley did not say that we should all have uni degrees. He said that we should all be able to go to uni if we want to.

RE nurses not needing to go to uni; once upon a time doctors didn't need to go to uni either. They just did an apprenticeship. Are people who went to uni as bad as welfare bludgers?

I suppose you think that nurses are just doctors' handmaidens and should stay where they belong, making beds and emptying bedpans? Have you noticed that nurses perform very complex and technologically demanding tasks these days? Not surprising, if you haven't as not many doctors seem to notice this either.

Daggart,

I am all in favour of communities, collectives and not for profit organisations. Just not compulsory ones. Once membership becomes compulsory such organisations quickly lose their way.

Regards,
Terje

Terje wrote : "I am all in favour of communities..."

According to yesterdays Newspoll, which is consistent with every poll which has been taken on the issue of privatisation in recent years, 70% of the Australian public say that they want, AS A COMMUNITY, to run their own telecommunications service, which they now own and have paid dearly for, through their parliamentary representatives and keep it out of the hands of greedy investors who have shown that they don't give a damn about any customers except those who have lots of money.

They are being ignored, because this Government has bought, using our money, the votes of people (and not just Barnaby Joyce) who were elected to parliament promising their electors that they would oppose the sale.

The last time I checked, we were still supposed to be a democracy. What kind of a Government, in a democracy, ignores the wishes of 70% of its citizens?

Anyone out there who wants to help us to do something about this, and not just take it lying down, please get in touch with us at :

http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com

and, also, please check out the page,

http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/whatyoucando.html

Personally I don't want to own any of Telstra. However if the other 70% of Australians do then I don't wish to stop them.

I would have been just as happy if they handed out shares to Aussie Citizens rather than selling the thing.

In any case this is a long way of the topic of whether relative measures of poverty are truely meaningful. I continue to assert that its stupid to try and measure progress in any meaningful sence using a poverty measure that merely relates to the number of people in a given income percentile

Terje wrote : "Personally I don't want to own any of Telstra. However if the other 70% of Australians do then I don't wish to stop them."

This is an evasion. The government is intent on selling property which belongs to the Australian people, without their consent. Do you think it would be acceptable for a used car dealer to be allowed to sell your car for you without your consent, or for a real estate agent to be able to sell your house on your behalf without your consent?

Terje wrote : "I would have been just as happy if they handed out shares to Aussie Citizens rather than selling the thing."

And what do you think that would achieved by all the bureaucracy, paperwork and expense entailed in giving shares to each and every Australian citizen (although admittedly it would be fairer than what the Government is now trying to bring about)? Would such a scraps of paper make Telstra, as a whole, any more valuable to the public? Do you think that, also, shares for Australia Post be handed out, as well as shares for Medibank private? for the Snowy Mountain Hydro scheme? for all our roads, our schools, our universities, our libraries, our dams and water treatment plants, hospitals and national parks?

Don't you think that 20,000,000 Australians have more important things to do with their time than to be stuffing around with yet dozens more of the necessary scraps of paper?

Terje wrote "I continue to assert that it's stupid to try and measure progress in any meaningful sense using a poverty measure that merely relates to the number of people in a given income percentile."

The GDP measure, itself, is seriously flawed as has been demonstrated, so of course any poverty measure based on it must be meaningless, whether or not we use the method described.

The point is that, I believe that many hard-working Australians deserve a lot, lot better than what they get today, as documented in "Dirt Cheap". This includes unskilled as well as skilled occupations : cleaners, chid care workers, couriers, labourers, delivery drivers, retail workers, junk mail delivery,telemarketers etc, etc.

If they are truly so much better of today than they were 30 years ago as Peter Saunders maintains, then I hate to think what it would have been like back then.

Saunder's argument against relative measures of poverty is only a barely disguised rationale for his agenda, now largely being enacted by this Government, that can only increase the poverty of both welfare recipients and the working poor.

Under the social welfare 'reforms', many people who would previously have been entitled to disability benefits or supporting mother's benefits will, instead, get the significantly lower unemployment benefits, and be obliged to compete with Australia's current working poor for the inadequate number of jobs out there.

If the IR so-called 'reforms', long argued for by Saunders, become law, then their wages and conditions will spiral down towards third world levels.

That is the real issue behind this debate.

To The Usual Suspect, you say "someone eats crap and smokes -not my problem ". yuk !
Fair enough if you don't care about the society you live in .
What if you decided to help your son's [bottom of the ladder]reserve side footy team to a "flag" at the start of the season and had to work at getting them fit ? would you ? probably no . Too hard !
Our society is like a footy team - if the club coaches and trainers don't care and see indifference in the president , your team suffers and no matter what their aspirations, will stay at the bottom of the ladder !

kartiya,
You have my total support on your last post. Too many operate on the blame and hoplessness of the past, rather than on a clear vision and hope of the future. Gathering food involves expenditure of energy to capture the prey or waiting for the crop to mature. This is the same in every society.

Good footy analogy Kartiya, I have coached and played football and let me assure you the team will go nowhere if people are not committed to themselves, each other and the team.
You can guide the team and tell them what you want and even try to inspire them with words of wisdom but ultimately it is up to the individual to have a go and do the best they can.
Very few premierships are won with passengers or people who are not willing to put in the hard work.
Which is all I advocate - people putting in an effort, regardless of their ability.
From what I have seen from my former community, there were a lot of people who didn't put in the effort because they could rely on welfare.
You can't help people who don't want to be helped or won't help themselves.
t.u.s

Mollydukes – I agree, you are entitled to your silly comments too.

My “simplistic and naïve” view (as you call it) has been refined by doing more than just reading Womans Day, TV Soap magazine and back issues of the socialist worker (which, from what you post, would seem the likely sole source of your insight and philosophy).

As for vulnerability to disease and matters of selective breeding etc., if you had “read” any of my posts, you would have picked up on my view of eugenics. I suggest you go “read” before you make “simplistic and naïve” (where have I read that before) assumptions to what I might think.

Your own “naïve and simplistic” perception of “good” and “bad” displays the sort of tunnel vision which makes you impervious to the process of “lateral thinking” (outside the square).

Your rapid defence of compulsory degrees for nurses ignores the issue of over-skilling in different “trades” which produces pointless barriers to the less academically inclined to pursue a worthy vocation.

You probably did not know of the studies that have identified, people rely on a range of capabilities or competencies to function in life, yet schools focus almost exclusively on just the one, the “academic” (and that the socialist minded think they should not measure). Through one on my involvements, I am engaged in a project to represent these diverse skill sets in a comprehensive assessment tool. Hardly the sort of pursuit for someone with the “simplistic and naïve” perspective which you, in your complete and utter ignorance, presume to label me with.

t.u.s. keep up the good work, like me you have found, the only path for a successful life is the one we cut for ourselves. Mollydukes’ socialist super-highway has been worn smooth with the countless steps of the sheep who went that way before and washed with billions of tears when they arrived at its end to find an empty wasteland where the only available skill was to ask how to get the handout – but no one skilled in making anything happen.

In your haste to find someway to denigrate ideas you perhaps do not understand, col (and tus) you have strayed from the point of this forum.

The point was that although Peter Saunders may have pointed out some problems with the way we judge poverty, the ideology that comes from the economic rationalists at the CIS is not the way to address these problems,

The economists there ignore the cooperative aspect of humans. Humans eveolved in groups, not as individuals and some of us find it very hard to be totally self-reliant because we are not made that way. The economic rationalists fail to acknowledge that cooperation is an important aspect of a decent society.

The CIS believe that valuing things other than material wealth is dangerous and that conserving things rather than buying new things is not good for the economy and so these things should not be encouraged. They actively want everyone to 'aspire' to more economic success.

Selling Telstra is one example of the error of their thinking. Telstra is an asset that brings revenue to the government. If the government sells all their/our assets then the only way they have to make money to provide services, is from taxation.

But the CIS is happy with this because they do not want any government services. They believe that private industry can provide almost everything, including police and prisons.

Col get a grip! Maintaining that humans are cooperative as well as competitive and asserting that governments have provided many of the things that have made our lives so good, is not being a socialist.

Helping those who are not as capable of being self-reliant as others does not mean that one is a communist - can you understand that? There are many positions in-between, free-maket captialism and socialism.

Does everyone here realise that CPI adjustments in Australia stopped taking cost of housing/land a few years ago?

It's worth thinking about why that might be when considering the idea of poverty as a relative concept.

I would say that land-poor and land-rich is a pretty useful way of thinking. In a country where there is little industry except speculating on rising landprices, if you don't have more than one property you are doomed to pay the costs of property inflation without any of the benefits.

It sickens me that churches and welfare organisations are too much impressed by having rich people sitting on their boards making them look respectable to really slam what is happening. But then all those welfare organisations are knee deep in land speculation themselves.

I work in a hospital where we discharge patients to sleep on the beach because they cannot work and cannot afford to pay rent. Many of our patients have rotting teeth by age 20. Many come from third generation unemployed. The situation reminds me of London during the creation of the Gin Lane paintings by Hogarth.

My impression is that I am looking at the dying off of people at the margins of Australia's population at the moment. Aborigines, old people, young people - all those without shelter and security, no place to cook, no place to lie down safely.

It's a pretty mean materialistic society we have here. I don't think we should wait until most of us are as poor as Ethiopians to feel justified in protesting.

Kanga

Thank you, Kanga.

I knew I smelt a rat when I read, in defiance of my own experience and of common experiences of other people, figures of how the quality of life was supposedly improving so astronomically, not just the rich, but for everyone.

This further confirms some of what I had long suspected.

Now, perhaps the learned Peter Saunders would care to comment on whether he thinks it is appropriate that the cost of such a basic necessity as shelter should be excluded from the figures on which he bases his conclusions about poverty in Australia.

Let’s have Telstra on a pie plate in another forum.

I find it strange that replies avoid using the Henderson Report or his “poverty line” mentioned by Peter in his article. Perhaps I missed something or its not so valid today. Also the forum seems to have drifted onto the full sale of Telstra as an alternative theme.

My interest in the poverty line dates back to the original report. That document was used as an English exercise but the class wanted to get into the practical and find poor people. That we did one night in the streets of down town Melbourne. Later the core group tried building a new political party. Some of us got round to promoting the concept of a national income support scheme as a birth right based on GNP year by year. Who remembers that?

Peter Saunders: Did you ever interview homeless men or try and change their wish to remain that way or live on the street? Attitudes are a big issue regardless of the cause.

I look forward to a proper Telstra debate before its too late, but I must say before the topic is wound up Mollydukes has posted well on the original theme

Mollydukes – suggesting that tus and I lack understanding is rank hypocrisy when we test what passes for “reason” in your statements.

Holding on to Telstra because it is some icon of nationalised industry is a stupid an idea.
Governments owning Telco meansgovernments cannot deal equitably with either Telstra or its competitors in that industry because of the “vested interest”.

Whilst Telstra may achieve some revenue for government, government will also achieve significantly greater “revenue “ from the sale of shares than the trickle in net profit.

With the increase in competition in the telecomm industry, the future income streams from Telstra are more than not assured or secure- they are under direct threat.

Certainly their will also be significant capital injections into the telecomm industry in the coming decade, this could possibly negate the revenue effect, at the cash flow level, not a good strategy for government to be burdened with.

“economic rationalists” observing the nature of “market economies” - even blind pew could see that , “cooperation” (between buyer and seller) is essential in any market– thus your claim that they “fail to acknowledge that cooperation is an important aspect of a decent society. “ is patently a complete crock.

I would suggest the following provides a better definition of a “decent society” than any leveller-defined socialist claptrap -

“We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the state is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the state.”

Margaret Thatcher –

In that society – the individual, through compassion attends to the needs of the less well equipped – instead of the state – I suggest you also read what Noel Pearson, aboriginal leader, thinks about how the "welfare state" has wreaked upon remote aboriginal communities – the very goal you promote is a blight on the people it is set up to help – destroying dignity and self esteem. All welfare does is leave everyone “equally” desolate.

Col,
A good post. Australians has become too dependant upon welfare it is destroying our personal responsibility and work ethic, not only the aboriginal population. If the money spent on welfare were spent in legitimate National development employing people on welfare we'd be still the lucky country. It has become unhealthy in the minds of some to perspire anymore.

Get a little dirt on ya hands boy, get a little dirt on ya hands; Is considered out of date.

Great segment on 60 Minutes tonight (unusually) regarding the ascendance of South Korea as the worlds cargo ship building capital. The contrasts in attitudes with our present day society that have driven this couldn't have been starker. And it has nothing to do with cheap asian labour, their floor workers are paid very well, it's the 'can do' attitude that prevails. I can see a lot here aren't bothering with doing as they 'can bludge'.

Col Rouge wrote "... government will ... achieve significantly greater 'revenue' from the sale of shares than the trickle in net profit."

Can I suggest you read some of the words of Nick Minchin, himself, at : http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/telstra-deal-may-shrink-federal-coffers/2005/08/18/1123958182708.html ?

It begins : "THE loss of billions of dollars of Telstra dividend payments means the Government will have to run down budget surpluses or spend less on health, education and infrastructure, Finance Minister Nick Minchin has suggested."

(Can I now suggest further discussion on Telstra be held here : http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/08/20/dont-minchin-it ?)

Yes, Noel Pearson has some interesting ideas, but his pronouncements on social welfare are not the final word on the matter.

I don't know from which parallel universe the observations of "market economies", you refer to comes from but it is not the one in which I inhabit at this moment. What I often observe between buyer and seller is often not "cooperation", rather is deception, fraud and the naked abuse of power on the part of one against the other. Just talk to any farmer is forced to deal with Woolworths in order ot obtain a livelihood. The whole system is geared to favour those who are prepared to employ the most ruthless and unconscionable means.

Rather than bolstering your argument by referring to the fantasy world which only exists inside the heads of neo-liberal ideologues, how about responding to the concrete examples I and others have given?

From Kanga "Many come from third generation unemployed"

This says it all about the dangers of welfare. I have seen it too often people who are second and third generation welfare who are suffering because they are addicted to not working. And i can guarantee that there will be fourth and fifth and sixth generation welfare unless the system changes and people are encouraged to work hard rather than accept a handout.

Keep up the good fight Col, hard work pays off.

t.u.s

oh for gooness sake, tus.

Addicted to welfare? lol!!

Children who grow up in houses where nobody works just do not learn about 'work' or 'working'. They just don't have the skills (like organising, like planning, like thinking about tomorrow) that will allow them to be able to work or study.

These things do not come naturally. Humans are social animals and need to be socialised (by the way we are brought up) to understand how to behave the way our society wants us to behave.

So it is not enough to just get people off welfare, they need to be be given the skills that will give them a basic understanding of what it means to work.

Col's adage about teaching 'a man'(!) to fish is relevant here. But I don't see Peter Saunders advocating that the govt give any fishing lessons. However, check out the new article by the alternative Peter Saunders.

Philo said , "get a little dirt on your hands boy " . strange , that's what i said to the station Aboriginals i worked with in the Kimberlys in the 60's .
They worked hard for their trousers, boots and shirts . they had white sugar, flour, and off-cuts of meat and offal as payment, along with the luxury of a few sticks of tobacco a week to chew on .
Funny how the "pay dirt" never seemed to get them more than an galvanised iron humpy, sick kids and a nasty piece of work on four legs if they complained .

Daggett – the simple realities of life – the immediate income the government would achieve by the sale of Telstra will significantly exceed the immediate income from dividend – unless you are suggesting Telstra’s Dividend Yield was 100% with, presumably, a PE ratio of less than 1 - and even monopolies do not achieve that sort of payback.
The future dividends of Telstra will be significantly and increasingly influenced by competitive pressures and activity of other tel-cos – this competitive pressure is more likely to decrease the earnings (and thus the share price / value) of Telstra than increase them (Telstra maintaining the same risk profile) - simple logic.

I would further suggest the interest earning capacity of the 30 billion, or so, dollars will go some way to balancing the loss of Telstra dividends.
None of the above is “fantasy” or “fanciful” – so suggest you desist from such invective if you wish to remain untarnished.

tus – Like you, I rely on what I have studied, observed and know to be true; not what some sparrow brained, guilt ridden and incompetent leftie economics lecturer vomits up to try to impress the vacuous minds of the underdeveloped and gullible.

Mollydukes –

1 “Good kids” can come from bad homes.
2 “Bad kids” can come from good homes.
3 “Good kids” should not be shackled to the performance of “bad kids”
4 It ain’t the hand you are dealt that matters, it is the attitude you adopt in playing that hand which determines “success” or otherwise. TUS and I both know that – yet it seems to evade your reasoning.

Kartiya – “They worked hard for their trousers, boots and shirts . they had white sugar, flour, and off-cuts of meat and offal as payment, along with the luxury of a few sticks of tobacco a week to chew on” – that might well have been market economics – although in adopting such practices you may well have violated various State Truck Acts – (of which only the ACT seems to present in an internet accessible format).

Col Rouge wrote: "I would further suggest the interest earning capacity of the 30 billion, or so, dollars will go some way to balancing the loss of Telstra dividends."

The finance department, itself admitted we would could the Australian taxpayer "$255.5 million between 2004 and 2008" if the sale procedes. (see
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Business/Telstra-sale-plan-to-cost-millionss/2005/02/15/1108229978698.html)

Today, The Adelaide Advertiser reported that it will cost taxpayers $500 million to sell Telstra. (See
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16351874%255E911,00.html)

All of your other arguments are complete nonsense and have been refuted again and again and again and again in recent years. Can I, again, suggest that the discussion continue some place else, perhaps, here :

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/08/20/dont-minchin-it/

?

Col Rouge writes: "None of the above is 'fantasy' or 'fanciful' – so suggest you desist from such invective if you wish to remain untarnished."

Even many economics lecturers will tell their students that the neo-liberal mathematical economic models are deeply flawed and have never been confirmed by the experiences of the real world. This has been demonstrated in Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics" and Geoff Davies' "Economia".

ROFL, Col, you are a hoot. I do hope you enjoy writing your posts as much as I enjoy telling people about them. Surely the only thing you have studied is Maggie’s little blue book of hypocrisy.

Now where does that ‘attitude’ come from? Is everyone able to adopt the right attitude? How does one know the right attitude?

So in your reasoning, we are all exactly where we deserve to be by dint of the ‘attitude’ we have adopted? So that the CEO of Telstra is a better man than you, since he earns so much more. He must have worked harder or had a better attitude? Or did you just not want to be that wealthy?

What do you mean by ‘good kids can come from bad homes’ and ‘bad kids can come from good homes’. Are you so sure about what a good or a bad kid looks like?

I don’t think that it is that easy to distinguish between good and bad homes just by looking. I was talking about learning (of attitudes) in the home.

There are many incontrovertible studies that have shown that the things we learn early in life, (as well as the genetics we inherit) are very very important in determining how we behave. The Jesuits knew this a long time ago, when they said ‘give me a child until he is 7 and I will give you a Jesuit for life’.

Did you learn your bigotry in your early life?

Oh and you know what? Tus went to a uni! But only because the socialist government provided welfare for people to study and a scheme so that the poor could (if they had the right attitude) get off welfare.

Without the Labor government, with your neo-liberals, only the rich can go to uni.

Col Rouge's ,excuses the effect of "market economics" to keep employed, profit generating Aboriginals in poverty and cosequently ill health in the 1960's ?? Worked well for nearly two hundred years i guess .
Howard will attempt to take away workers' rights and conditions via his power over the senate . The results will be equally as disasterous for Australian society . "Honest john" will blot his copy book again .

Thanks daggett – for proving the very point I was attempting to make

You wrote
“The finance department, itself admitted we would could the Australian taxpayer $255.5 million between 2004 and 2008”
And
“Today, The Adelaide Advertiser reported that it will cost taxpayers $500 million to sell Telstra”

Now lets assume $30 billion for the sale ofTelstra – and apply RBA rate of 5.25% interest to that I get $1,575 million

So the return from Telstra of $500 million on the $30 billion share value suggests a meagre 1.67% the other figure – 255 million - 5 years 0.17% return.

I am not going to comment on what I think about a return of 1.67% and below - that is about what the CBA offers on Christmas club passbook Accounts, not what people who deal in the “real world” expect.

I suggest if your economics lecturers are spouting these sorts of returns as “realistic” you come talk to me. Depending on your circumstances, I can get you around 10% after tax (franked), very low risk and you will not even need to use your own cash.

As for economics models - Keynes and Co used plumbing pipe and buckets of coloured water for theirs –If you want to make comparisons about economic models – I build them (corporate style but only if you have enough cash)– every model is “flawed” but at least I do not need to be a licensed plumber to build the neo-liberal ones.

Mollydukes, as expected, quick with the invective, slow with the reasoning.
That is why you are where you are and I am where I am. Md, “dreaming” is cheap, “doing” takes effort.
Dream on Mollydukes – maintain the fantasy Rage.
Leave issues of the real world to those of us who know how to make things happen.
Oh please tell all your friends, if they are anything like you, they need all the help and education they can get.

Kartiya, sounds like you have a case of sour grapes their too. Not much of a market for them

Philo and tus, thanks

Invective, Col? I have re-read my post to check for this, because I do not usually use invective. I guess you mean the bit where I ask about your 'bigotry'. This is the only word or phrase that remotely comes close to being a term of abuse. You might like to count the number of abusive words and terms you have used and ask yourself some questions.

I really was asking for an explanation of how you think people develop the 'right' attitude. I do try not to make assumption and jump to conclusions about people and their ideas. I learned this behaviour from my family and from the training I had at - wait for it - a University.

I am dissapointed that you seem unable to provide a rational explantion of how kids become bad or good and how a person can get to have the right attitude. I don't have many answers but I do have lots of questions.

I wonder if for you, the 'right' attitude is to make as much money as possible from any source as long as it is legal, or even illegal as long as you don't get caught? I'm pretty sure that was Thatcher's idea of the right way to use her position. She sure did feather her own nest comfortably.

I wonder what it is about this society with it's apparently exorbitant spending on welfare that means you are not free to show compassion. Would you show compassion to those with the wrong attitude or only those with the right attitude? But then those with the right attitude do not need compassion.

I also wonder how you 'know' where I 'am'? Is this an example of your abilty to 'know' things and of how you have the 'right' attitude?

Terje,

You clearly have not understood the Age Article at:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Business/Telstra-sale-plan-to-cost-millionss/2005/02/15/1108229978698.html

Surely, the Finance department would have already factored in the money which could be gained by investing the $30 billion elsewhere, otherwise what use would these figures be? and what possible interest could they have in giving ammunition to opponents of the sale by omitting this?

Please don't waste any more of everyone's time in this way.

“Terje” ?? I think you meant Col Rouge!

Never a good sign of “competence” when you address the wrong poster –
but when does “competence” ever feature for consideration in your posts?

Now “Surely, the Finance department would have . . .”

I make no presumptions to what the finance department “surely did” or “surely did not” do.
You brought them into the debate, you are responsible for following that up.

There are multiple variables and caveats involved in calculating the appropriate financial return expected from 30 billion dollars.

It is not simply a “dividend payment” or even a “net profit” in any given period that matters.

In the case of one of the biggest companies operating in Australia what matters includes

Net Cash Flow (at risk because of competitive activity and commercial rollout of new telephony developments and innovations)
Capacity to raise capital (presently not possible)
Commercial Risk Profile (distorted because of government ownership)

(I will stop their, I am not getting paid for lecturing and what you must be learning is priceless)

I guess you have not heard the Prime Minister so far today.

He echoed the very point I made about “umpires owning teams” producing “conflicts of interest” as I presented in my previous post and is the source of the “raising capital” issue which I mention above

As for “Please don't waste any more of everyone's time in this way.”

When you can produce posts of any merit, you will be in a position to criticise mine.
All you have done is beat the socialist-simpleton drum and whine like some snot nosed street urchin.
Take the opportunity to learn from my posts. I am an Accountant with multi-national experience and multiple qualifications. What I know about finance completely eclipses your "pigeon understanding".
As I wrote of another of your ilk on another thread “you are out-classed, out-smarted and out-performed”.

Mollydukes The “Right Attitude” is the one where people start by taking full and complete responsibility for themselves instead of expecting the government to “Nanny” them from cradle to grave

Col Rouge (and not Terje - my apologies, Terje),

According to The Age article of 15 Feb, the Labor Party had asked the Department of Finance "to estimate the savings the government would make if it remained Telstra's majority owner."

Clearly, if the Department had done what it had been asked of it, it would have taken all factors into account INCLUDING the earning capacity of $30billion. The $525million figure over a four year period would have been the total that taxpayers stand to lose.

Your comparison of this figure with how much could be earned on $30billion is, therefore, completely meaningless.

It is not possible to know whether the Department properly took all factors into account, because they did not provide further details, but I doubt if it would have gone out of its way to understate the claimed benefits of privatisation. So, this figure makes nonsense of your earlier claim that "the immediate income the government would achieve by the sale of Telstra will significantly exceed the immediate income from dividend".

In any case, I would suggest that the loss of revenue only begins to give the picture of what the Australian community stands to lose should Telstra be handed completely across to a private corporation dedicated only to its own bottom line. (More can be found at http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com)

Yes, I had heard today, from our PM, and many many times before, the nonsense that a Government cannot be regulator as well as player.

And why not? Telstra was here first. If the other carriers did not like the situation, no-one forced them to come here.

Anyone can see, as an example, we were far better served when the Commonwealth Bank was wholly government owned and only required to pay for its operating costs, instead of gouging its customers for every cent they could. Since it was privatised, it has formed with the other banks into an effective cartel, and the Australian community are paying very dearly for it, today.

Col Rouge wrote : “you are out-classed, out-smarted and out-performed”.

Perhaps others should be the judge of that.

Col ,unbelievable, now your mate johnny has said the rich need another tax break!!
For me he continues to turn my sour grapes into sour coconuts . he fails to give hope and lift the spirits of the poor..... and i suspect peter costello now has a pallet of sour watermelons .

Daggett
1 “Your comparison of this figure with how much could be earned on $30billion is, therefore, completely meaningless.”

Daggett your Ignorance shows – and Oh how it shows.

My calculation was 30 billion @5.25%.

5.25% is the RBA base lending rate and the absolute minimum return for zero risk ventures.
Real world (the one which I live in and which seems to elude you) - a “risk venture”, any commercial undertaking whether government or privately owned, would produce a market value in which the return would exceed this risk-free rate. Your statement show a profound absence of commercial experience and understanding.

And

2 “the nonsense that a Government cannot be regulator as well as player.”

Obviously you believe in a situation where such conflict of interest would not exist. History has proved nationalised industries have held governments to ransom by bullying unions and retrenched employment practices. The communist economic basket cases which proliferated under the “benevolence” of Stalin, his successors and his ilk are legacy of the economic disaster which you are promoting.

If you think your view will ever work I suggest you stand for parliament on that manifesto – in the meant time I will continue to support the more prudent and reasoned view of our Prime Minister.

3 “Col Rouge wrote : “you are out-classed, out-smarted and out-performed”.

Perhaps others should be the judge of that.”

Oh they do – among my “commercial involvements”, I design and implement corporate financial forecasting models. The current price I charge for these is in excess of $25,000 each. I am currently turning work away because I do not have time to handle it all.

I, for one, am happy to count the ones who pay for my services as judges – they put their money where their mouth is and invariably come back for more.

Kartiya – If the poor want their “spirits lifted and to find hope” – suggest with under 5% unemployment, they get a job, or a second one – gainful employment is a great source of fulfilment and self esteem

CORRECTION

Firstly, a few posts ago I should have written "The finance department, itself admitted we would could the Australian taxpayer "$255.5 million between 2004 and 2008" if the sale PROCEEDS."

This should have read, "The finance department, itself admitted we would save the Australian taxpayer "$255.5 million between 2004 and 2008" if the sale IS STOPPED."

-

My apologies for any confusion caused to site visitors from the negation of the meaning of that sentence. (That makes two mistakes I have made in this discussion thread, so far. However, I notice a reference to "retrenched work practices", whatever that is, in Col Rouge's latest post, so I suggest that he not throw too many stones my way over this one, however ...)

Col Rouge writes "Daggett your Ignorance shows - and Oh how it shows."

This is no substitute for argument.

Of course I understand what interest is and know how to work out what could be earned if the $30billion was invested at 5.25% interest.

(money earned over 4 years = ($30billion x 1.0525^4) - $30billion

= $6.83 billion
... if you don't believe me).

The correct figure to compare this with would be projected earnings, and NOT the $525 million figure I gave, which must have already taken the above figure into account, if the Finance department had given the Labor Party the figure it had asked for.

It baffles me that, with all your financial background and the
$25,000 plus you say you charge for corporate financial forecasting models, that you can't grasp this simple point.

You are suggesting that dividend earnings will go down because of the regulatory and competitive environment, in which case, those buying the shares at its current value are paying too much. If this is true, then why would they buy the shares, and not, instead invest the money at a minimum, as you say of 5.25%.

If they choose to buy, then I would guarantee that they have other plans to recoup their money at our expense, and we will pay very dearly for this in future.

(to be continued.)

(continued from above.)

I admit that my knowledge of finance is limited, but I would suggest that a great deal of financial knowledge is unnecessary to be able to understand the issues at stake.

Any teenager can understand that it makes no sense to sell your house to pay off your mortgage, or, in this case, if you don't owe any money on your mortgage, to pay for some other future anticipated liability.

The only argument that the case for the sale hangs on (apart from the spurious 'half pregnancy' argument - what complete fool made it 'half pregnant' in the first place, then?) is that it is somehow 'unfair' for the Government to be both regulator and a participant in the telecommunications sector.

This is a value judgement.

I would suggest that having broken up the natural monopoly of telecommunications at great expense, including for example, the shutting down of the analogue network valued at $5billion, in order to obtain the agreement of Vodaphone and Optus to come here was 'unfair' to the Australian community, that is, the current owners of Telstra, 70% of whom don't want Telstra sold, if you hadn't already noticed.

Having cut into Telstra's earnings so much as you, yourself, have alluded to in order to allow other players to duplicate so much of our existing telecommunications network was also 'unfair' to taxpayers, and ultimately 'unfair' to consumers who must ultimately bear the costs of all the unnecessary duplication.

Does holding such a view mean that one is an advocate for 'socialism', still worse, Stalinist 'socialism' together with secret police, gulags and mass executions?

If you are adamant that it does, then I won't try to convince you otherwise

Col Rouge writes - >>if the poor want their “spirits lifted and to find hope” – suggest with under 5% unemployment, they get a job, or a second one – gainful employment is a great source of fulfilment and self esteem<<

Let them eat cake then Col!

1. The unemployment rate does not reflect the reality when employment is calculated at a hour a week - hardly a living wage.
2. Many people are not even registered as unemployed - preferring to survive on their savings until they find work - as I understand that Trinity states she is doing.
3. a second job - how blithely you pontificate - raise kids - quality parenting & work two jobs - and somewhere fit in having a life.
4. "gainful employment" - is a right and everyone should be encouraged & supported to find employment which pays a living wage and therefore brings about the "fulfillment and self esteem" that such employment provides. Only a minority bludge - don't persecute the majority.
4. Your talk of your business indicates that you are in the 'bigger end' of town, doubt you really know what it is like to be on the dole.

daggett - your summary of the telstra sale is founded in common sense rather than Howard-style rhetoric.

Interesting, way back when various governments jumped onto the privatisation bandwagon, it was originally justified as selling off non-profitable concerns in order the pay off government debt. Yet Telstra is clearly profitable and apart from the National Debt, our economy is in surplus. I doubt that it will be used towards the ND. Wasn't it originally earmarked for environmental issues?

Xena; one incentive for rolling out this privatization bandwagon was the need to get rid of AUSSAT. May I suggest certain elements of our government infrastructure were embarrassed back then and a buyer was “made” for the occasion. But to make that deal square with the public we had to have an environment for “real” competition. Telecom would need to be shackled then strangled. We also had to stir the pot so someone could introduce a whole new bag of tricks including one called HDTV.

Moving on, the issue here should be who minds the backbone once it is fully sold. Excellence in communications in the bush and the big cities won’t just pop out of the slush bucket. Our way forward requires real skill as it always did. Who trains the technical would bee’s in the practical when all the shareholders want is a quick buck? In my day some 80,000 technical were lopped off. I will bet my rightful Telstra share to your dollar most of them have ducked off from the industry by now.

A Senator wrote “I can see that we are all worse off if those skills disappear” after I made a case for our regions putting their hand in the bucket for home grown skills development after Telstra is dismembered. I said the PMG once offered me a lifetime in radio engineering but I declined. But I think it’s sad others won’t get that chance in their country town. Also the industry that did train me then send me off for a look see at other advanced technology is all but shut down today after share raiders grabbed the natural assets for raw exports.

Elsewhere I wrote “Fudging figures on our current practical skills is now a national occupation”, in regards to this issue, others and our hospitals in particular. Things like tower rigging are not a subject at university. These must be acquired on the job over time under direct supervision from an expert.

Has anyone else thought government should also look at the role of industry educator?

Daggett “I admit that my knowledge of finance is limited, but I would suggest that a great deal of financial knowledge is unnecessary ….”

Knowledge helps – especially when you introduce matters of “profitability” and “dividend”.

I am not going to nit-pick your numbers and calculations – the more I look at them the stupider they seem.

Real point of your post

“Having cut into Telstra's earnings so much ...... in order to allow other players to duplicate so much of our existing telecommunications network was also 'unfair' to taxpayers, and ultimately 'unfair' to consumers who must ultimately bear the costs of all the unnecessary duplication.”

I guess the matter of “competitive pricing” has not entered your tiny mind, being a concept likely omitted from someone where “knowledge of finance is limited”.

The point is – monopolies exploit consumers in two ways
A price control
B service obsolescence (the deliberate exclusion of innovation to enable existing technologies to be exploited for greater profit) – this for the exclusive benefit of the monopoly owner (telecom employees & unions)

When competition exists, (A) prices tend to reduce to absorb the available supply capacity to the point where entry of additional marginal supply is no longer viable -
because prices are then at breakeven with the return expected from the industry risk profile,
Marginal supply being based on (B) industry best practice / technology (eg fibre optic v copper wire)

Introducing competitors into the telecomm market benefits the consumer.

Anti-competitive behaviour is curtailed by organisations like ACCC in Australia, Monopolies and Mergers Commission (UK) and Federal Trade Commission (USA). These organisations aggressively pursue oligopolies and anticompetitive behaviour (just ask any concrete company in Eastern Australia or funeral directors in USA).

I was always amazed Woolworth / Safeway Coles / Myers mergers got through but that was a long time ago when labor held the federal reigns, so all forms of incompetence is understandable.

Nationalised industries in Australia, like elsewhere, stifle innovation, keep prices artificially high to protect the status quo (unions / employees government dividend hogs) and should be sold-off / abandoned.

I am not sure what Peter Saunders is basing his information and experiences upon. I have certainly witnessed people who do not have enough money for basic food,heating or shelter. In Australia.Currently. I have witnessed people going without food so they could pay for heart medicine or going without heating to afford basic food which does not last though the week. I have brought food parcels to clients that I am working with to try and find more affordable accommodation,if I hadn't they would not have eaten for several days. So when I think of poverty in Australia,I do not imagine it as people not being able to go to a restaurant. If by the fact of poor health or age Peter should find himself on a benefit of between $180.00-240.00 per week I would like to show him the limited options of accommodation -generally starting at a rooming house-$100.00 per week rent alone that he would face and see how he would manage electricity,food,public transport and medicines for remaining $12-$20 per day. Stuff happens Peter and to those who you would never imagine!

I have to ask when Col Rouge last contributed to the building of any communications network. Although Col appears to knock down most arguments in other posts I am not convinced he has a thing to offer in any systems engineering. Like most things modern we get pretty much what we pay for including telecommunications.

Arguments relative to overseas experience can’t be directly applied here due to factors like distances, volumes and lead times after design. We have sometimes developed unique engineering; Telecom’s DRCS in the outback was a good example. But rapid technology change here frequently requires materials from overseas manufacturers who simply can’t keep up to the demand in their own backyard. Having the will is one thing finding the skill is another. Col seems well organized (self-actualized?) though, perhaps he can grab a bucket of cash (Nat’s slush fund), hop in the jeep and jump up a hill or two and see how he can communicate with it.

Aren’t we lucky in this sunburnt country, there’s always smoke signals to be learned

Col Rouge wrote "I am not going to nit-pick your numbers and calculations – the more I look at them the stupider they seem."

They are not my figures. They are the Finance Department's figures. They show in black and white that taxpayers will LOSE money, instead of gaining money from privatisation. Either you are too stupid to comprehend the simple meaning of the Age article or you are not capable of admitting that you were wrong.

Col Rouge wrote "I guess the matter of 'competitive pricing' has not entered your tiny mind."

Of course 'competitive pricing' has never entered my tiny mind. I have only been following the debate over economic (ir)rationalism for about twenty years now.

By the way have you noticed how much more 'competitively' priced all our banking charges have become since the Commonwealth Bank became privatised?

And has it ever entered your tiny mind to ask just who ultimately pays the cost of all the idiotic duplication in our telecommunications sector? - five digital mobile networks covering the same geographical areas in the major cities, whilst many rural users miss out altogether and the pointlessly duplicated roll out of fibre optic cables by both Optus and Telstra in the major cities in the 1990's?

Even if competition were to cause the different telcos to reduce their margins to zero, could the overall costs charged to the community be any cheaper than what would by charged by a publicly owned monopoly? Common sense would say no. If you have figures that would prove otherwise, I would be most interested to see.

We have already lost badly as a result of partial privatisation. As just one of many examples, monthly line rental charges rose from $11.65 per month in 2000 to at least $26.95 per month in 2004.

If full privatisation proceeds, we will all pay even more dearly, whilst a tiny minority including stockbrokers, investors, accountants and overpaid financial advisors will gain out our expense.

Good post Daggett but let’s get Col out of some his advanced policy rhetoric. The process of streamlining big business through privatization always creates casualties apart from immediate job loss. Raiding the capital assets including a background of good will from the public certainly reduces research, innovation and development within an industry in the long term too.

Long term training or retraining can’t happen in a climate of fierce competition either. Sure prices will fall as owner drivers do longer hours but risks escalate however more transport regulation won’t solve that issue.

My theme remains focused on practical skills retention.

When we expect others to do all our housekeeping chores through a process of contracting we inevitably become redundant too. In the end we can’t fix a puncture or mount the roadside curb or a flight of steps in our wheel chair.

Note too, if its not made in China we can’t afford it now.

We may not be all poor yet but we are again dependent for sure. Who here can build their own pair of wheels or make a set of cutlery? Shifting our all orders to the cheapest source is pure folly if we wish to keep a full range of relevant manufacturing but perhaps our smartest wish to live in say India or China.

I see I misunderstood part of Col Rouge's previous post. He wasn't ridiculing the figures from the Department of Finance. He was ridiculing my efforts to demonstrate to him that I understand the concept of compound interest.

So, Col, could you please explain to me, and to everyone else, how my formula for compound interest was wrong?

Evidently, until we can satisfy him that our knowledge of finance meets his high standards, Col would have all of us sit back and allow this Government to effectively steal from us what little value still remains in Telstra, after years of having its value eroded by stupid policies of deregulation and partial privatisation, so that he can charge his clients $25,000 per report to advise them how to profit at our expense.

Thanks, Taz for such a useful post. If, as a society we had though through the issues as clearly as you have 20 or so years ago, we could have avoided taking all the steps which today are leading us dangerously close to social, economic and ecological ruin.

We should get in touch some time.

Thanks Kit,

Your point further reinforce the points I, digiwigi, Kanga and others had made earlier. (see above) The statistics used by Peter Saunders to 'prove' that levels of poverty in Australia are not serious, are largely meaningless, and fly in the face of the experiences of people, who, unlike Peter Saunders, are in touch with welfare recipients or working in low-pay casualised occupations.

If anyone wishes to further discuss the planned privatisation of Telstra, the discussion arising from Ben Rees's article, "Telstra: when is a subsidy not a subsidy?", may be be more suitable forum. It is located here :

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=211

One of the biggest problems for the havenots, is that the people making the decisions that most affect them are made by haves with little or no understanding of what it is like to live in poverty in this society. Many of your subscibers are obviously well educated, with university degrees who treat this discussion as purely discussion.A programme well worth watching "30 Days" by the maker of "Super Size Me" graphically portrays what it is really like to live in poverty. How many know what it is like to live on less than $20,000 per annum,(for a family) when the average wage is $50,000 per year. How many of your subscribers know what it is like to be unable to buy food, pay the rent, not even afford second hand clothes
or shoes, cant go the Doctor or buy the prescription needed, cannot
afford decent glasses, can maybe run a car, but cannot afford to maintain or insure it, cannot afford home insurance and the list goes on. For those in poverty there is so much that most take for granted that they cant afford. And the display of wealth by the haves, without any consideration for those less well off, is offensive to the havenots. No wonder we have crime and spiralling rates of despair and depression. Australia is for the clever ones, for those without a high rate of intelligence and ability,there is little space. They are shut out and deprived and live in both economic and psychological poverty.In our endless search for profit we are denying many the means for a worthwhile life and creating poverty. CMcK

CMcK,
Poverty in Australia is a state of mind or otherwise a poor management of Centrelink payments. I am a pensioner now on basic age pension. I have grown up in a large farming family who survived floods, drought and fires. We lived on Bank finance and managed by hard work to repay debt.

Anyone who has two capable hands is able to work and has no need to cry poor. We have a very fair welfare system to assist the vunerable, aged and carers. Envy is the greatest cause of a mental criple.

Today I do voluntary work greatly rewarding for self esteem.

Philo,

Would you care to explain your personal circumstances? My guess is that you own your own home in a pleasant area close to all amenities and have and been able to have stocked it well with furniture, white goods and tools from when you had a wage.

Whilst it may be to your credit that you are able to live, as a pensioner, more modestly than most on a pension, if I am correct about you, I don't believe that you are in a position to cast judgement upon many who have not been as fortunate as yourself.

Have you read "Dirt Cheap" by Elisabeth Wynhausen published in 2005? She is a journalist who chose to attempt to live for 12 months as a low-skilled low-paid worker. She found it literally impossible to exist on those wages.

I suggest that before you make any further pronouncements against Centrelink payment recipients and low-wage earners that you take the trouble to read that book and to suggest to Elisabeth Wynhausen how she should have better managed her finances during that year.

Note I made a similar challenge to Peter Saunders and he has, unsurprisingly, failed to respond. But of course, that won't prevent him and his kind from continuing to peddle his message that allows so many Australians to remain indifferent to the treatment of their fellow citizens by this government.

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CMck (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3737#89863),

Thanks for your excellent post. (If you will permit me to beat my own drum, have you had a chance to check out my article "Dictatorial Conduct" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6261 ?)

Apologies.

The sentence in my previous post, which began:

"Whilst it may be to your credit that you are able to live, as a pensioner, more modestly than most on a pension, if I am correct about you, ..."

Should have began:

Whilst it may be to your credit that you are able to live, as a pensioner, more modestly than most, ..."

---

Interesting that Philo, with his harsh judgemental views about the working poor and welfare recipients is also a very vocal fundamentalist Christian. Check out http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=940#16356

I doubt very much that if the historical Jesus would have been very impressed with Philo's views either here or there.