Ah Michael K I am sure that if your mindless drivel was in the least intelligible, I would find it offensive.

As it is, your severe lack of ability to communicate in simple English denies me that sense of outrage which I might otherwise feel.

Oh how blessed am I that you are so enfeebled.

Have you ever wondered why the national language of Australia is English, rather than whatever twitterings it was around which you formed your native tongue?

It is because 200+ years ago this fair land was colonised by England, the institutions, culture and history of which formed the mould for those deployed here.

That you seem to have problems dealing with that historic fact is your issue and nothing to bother other good folk about.

I will trust that when you have developed sufficiently to espouse your views lucidly, you will have also acquired the manners and respect for people who know better than you, allowing you to at least dispense with the inane.

RobP,

I think that a person who chooses a 'time rich' lifestyle will be penalised in terms of income. And also, being too 'time rich' isn't so great as it may first seem. Having no purpose in life can lead to a crisis of meaninglessness and despair. I prefer a mid-way approach, and wish I could find satisfying part-time work - for which I would be willing to make the sacrifice of misssing out on a full-time income.

re: Kirner and Cain - they presided over a period of financial stability that occurred nation-wide. Private banks also went into crisis, but these were bailed out by the Commonwealth. The CBA, on the other hand, was privatised because of Keating's ideological agenda. I agree, though, that Labor should not have bought into the argument re: Pyramid, and must accept culpability for reassuring investors.

This should not be enough to forever destroy Labor's financial management credentials, however. Had a Conservative government been in power, the State Bank would also have been managed 'at arms length', and the results would have been out of control, beyond the ability of the government to manage: except through restored financial regulation, prudential supervision etc.

The Conservatives have created an obesession re: debt that is preventing public investment in vital infrastructure, and which is leading to wasteful PPPs that line the pockets of private investors at the expense of the public. Ultimately, this obsession with debt with mitigate against productive investment in infrastructure when the next downturn comes, and the consequence will be a deeper and more destructive recession. In the meantime, we need investment in infrastructure now; not just as a counter-cyclical measure, because it contributes to the productivity of the entire economy.

Tristan

Tristan,

I agree that infrastructure spending is necessary. For example, beefing up our broadband network could only be a good thing for productivity. (This is part of the capacity constraint argument that has been doing the rounds lately.) The question is, who is best able to do it? Or, what combination of government and private sector involvement will do the trick? There will be an optimum way to proceed. But finding it will entail some trial and error.

Dear Rob,

re: broadband infrastructure; just briefly, I think it would be best for the project to be handled entirely by the public sector. Under Rudd's model, you have significant private sector involvement from a consortium of private investors. This in turn creates a part-private monopoly that can be abused.

And once the infrastructure is built, there is little incentive to build parallel infrastructure; and in any case, this would add to the cost structures of the whole sector.

I am worried, though, that Howard will do a deal with Telstra before the election that side-steps the ACCC. One way or another I fear we are going to get a private or part-private monopoly, and it will be consumers who pay the price.

When we understand the way that FTTH is now been delivered, we realise that if the Government tilts towards any party than we will pay a very heavy price if the product is bundled.

The truth which is been hidden from us, Landline Telephony is not required to deliver the service.

Below is a brief description of the trend in America.
How does FTTH work?
The Internet "backbone" is made up of fiber optic cables (very thin glass filaments) that have enormous bandwidth and use light pulses to carry information. Most customers, however, connect to the backbone through copper-based technologies like twisted pair and DSL or Hybrid Fiber Coax cable, which have limited bandwidth and limited capacity to carry integrated voice, video, and data services. This creates a speed and service bottleneck in the "last mile," the distance between the fiber optic backbone and customers.

Some providers are beginning to deliver integrated services over fiber optic cables that go from the Internet backbone directly to customers' homes or businesses. These cables may be buried, strung overhead or run through existing structures like sewer lines.

Providers primarily offer FTTH through two types of architectures, point-to-point and passive optical network (PON). Point-to-point requires providers to install an optical transceiver in the provider's central office for each customer. PON uses a single transceiver with a splitter to serve up to 32 businesses and residential customers who share the bandwidth. The splitter is located up to 30,000 feet from the central office, and a single strand of fiber can carry the signal another 3000 feet to the customer. Once the fiber reaches the customer's home or business, an optical electrical converter (OEC) on the side of the building converts the optical signal to an electrical signal that can interface with existing copper wiring. The current standard for PON is the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)-based ITU-T G.983. Some providers are also using Gigabit Ethernet over fiber to provide customers with broadband access.

Tristan Ewins,

You are utterly right speaking of having strategic microstructure telecommunications definitely are public-managed as in the USA it mostly happens.

However, a human factor is the most, and in a semi-colony of England where car dealers/real estate agents Col.Rouge as figured from his postings perfect example is, pretend on superiority over professionals because of a biologically-motivated birthright only, at this time your suggestion is a wished dream as English skills themselves have a little with a real professionalism denied for colonies to keep them attached to overseas masters:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/i-want-to-die-in-the-independent-republic-of-australia/2007/06/12/1181414295905.html?page=1

That is an option - and for LP too.