individual,

I find it interesting you discount the 'User Pays' philosophy constantly encouraged by the right.

Belly,

I agree, especially with public transport. We just don't have the population density to pay for it. People want a train system like in Hong Kong or London, but don't want the population density that is necessary.

I find it interesting you discount the 'User Pays' philosophy constantly encouraged by the right.
Houellebecq,
Hm, I'm missing something here. Discounting user pays ? I am suggesting a user pays system in an everyday situation. when someone is in need then I suggest the rest of us help. I just can't see where user pays is being discounted by suggesting that useful locals take precedence over superfluous & over compensated bureaucrats.
Aren't I grasping your meaning perhaps ?

Belly, "how do we pay for better?"

If you live in Sydney and travel along the M7 motorway, it's costing just unbder $7.00 each direction, and that money GOES to America. I know as I get the exchange rates on my credit card.

So let's put some perspective on that...I/we pay hundreds a year in motor registration, out of every $1.40 of fuel, there's $1.00 of State and Federal excises and taxes, and I contribute another $100 per week to those coffers, along with a couple of million other people.

After the thousands per year we each contribute to government in the cost of fuel alone individually, we still pay an American company to travel on a road in the heart of Sydney!!

How do we pay for better? Get rid of the incompetent criminals that are stealing/misappropriating our taxes! That's how. Between fuel and tolls, I pay $627 per month to get to and from work. I can buy a new car or half a home for that money, but I pay an American company for the privilidge to get to and from work, in the most resource rich country on the planet. What's wrong with THAT picture?!?

We have more land than you can poke a stick at, but the price of housing is higher than New York, going by figures released just prior to the GFC. I mean, WTF?!?

It's about time the Autralian people woke-up to how we are being ripped-off blind by our own representatives. We are being made poor by poor representation. And we don't expect any better.

We accept the BS, and so we expect more of the same.

TBC...

There's a fundamental principle in management...expect what you inspect. This means if you expect your staff to wear poliched shoes, for example, that you occassionally inspect that this is the case. If you do not ever inspect their shoes, you cannot expect them to be polished.

I suggest that conceptually, it's the same for a community and its expectancies of government. We expect them to be liars and thieves, and so are not disappointed. We expect our technology to become redundant, so we will have to purchase (consume) more. Nothing is built to last, but to fail. And we are not disappointed, we just pay a few hundred dollars more for "extended warranty"...and we are still not disappointed with the waste of our monies and efforts, let alone considering bigger pictures of wastage of resources.

MindlessCruelty,
Unfortunately one of the frustrations about morons is that you can't make them understand. I share your dilemma.

Thanks individual.

I have to add...

We're so technologically advanced, that my new PlayStation platform with 12 month warranty, dies after 13 months. They used to take 3-5 years to die, but we can kill them quicker now and with greater accuracy, thanks to technological advancements.

We're so technologically advanced, that every phone company can offer us $350 of phone usage for only $49. WTF?!? They're either mathematical geniuses or benevolent societies for the cash-rich and stupid.

We're so technologically advanced that for some reason, my blank CD's that say they can hold 650 MB of information, can only hold 22 songs, each the size of about 5 MB. More strange maths.

We're so socially advanced, that a plumber gets $80 per hour and a Registered Nurse gets $27 per hour. Now that's a fair comparison of skill and responsibility levels, isn't it? Let's see, after income tax, superannuation, fuel costs, tolls, car costs and insurances and maintenance, that nurse only has to work for about 3 months to afford that plumber for an hour. Slight exaggeration and my own creative maths, but you get my point. No shite.:-)