Super tax for the rich and corporate tax crack down are now the agenda for governments as they battle to recover from the position we are in as a result of prior mismanagement, during the mining boom, and down writing of revenues from our major miners, along with current governments waste.

What people really have to understand is that of the 23 odd million of us, some 74%, or 17 million reley on the other 16%, the wealthy, or wealth creators by way of financial support.

Do we really want to ask these them pay even more than they are already paying, either directly through taxes, or indirectly through jobs created or taxes created as a result of them choosing to operate in such an expensive country to do business in.

Talk about bite the hand that feeds us.

The problem of understanding what is happening to our economy as well
as that of most other developed countries is widespread.
The left as well as the right, business as well as unions, the finance
manipulators as well as the investors, the democrats as well as the
facists, in all these groups the majority do not understand that the
world has changed.

Goldilocks is dead !
There is no longer a "Just Right" price for oil.
The highest price the economy can afford is lower than the lowest price
the producers can afford.

This is one of the results of peak oil. It is here now.
As governments, oppositions, banks etc do not recognise that we are
now in a time of zero growth everything they propose just makes things worse.

Rehctub, you example of taxing the rich is just one example.
It is why neither austerity or money printing has not helped.
The US growth rate so far this year is 0.2%.
If that does not ring any bells what will ?

An explanation, that US growth rate is what the yearly rate will be
if it continues as is.

"Why do we insist on bitting the hand that feeds us"?

More likely, the hand which is slyly picking the pockets of Oz...

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tax-office-statistics-reveal-the-55-millionaires-who-paid-no-tax-20150429-1mw2zp.html?stb=twt

"Tax Office statistics reveal the 55 millionaires who paid no tax

Fifty-five of Australia's highest earners paid no income tax at all during 2012-13, not even the Medicare levy.

All earning at least $1 million, they managed to write their taxable incomes down to below the $18,200 tax-free threshold, although for most the exercise was expensive.

Tax statistics released Wednesday reveal that 40 of them claimed an extraordinary $42.5 million for the "cost of managing tax affairs" meaning they each paid an average of $1 million to an adviser prepared to help to bring down their taxable income, which is itself a tax deduction.

Between them they reported earning $129.5 million, an average of $2.3 million. By the time their accountants had finished with them they reported losing a combined $12.8 million."

Bazz: You've harped on about petrol prices before and how you believe that the last few year's price changes has had a major effect on the economy. So below I've reposted the main part of a response that I gave you a while back. (Note: I've updated the petrol price inline with http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/retail/ulp/index.htm):

... on the whole, a large increase in the at-the-pump petrol price wouldn't cause the massive, destructive effects to the economy that people claim.

Let's do the numbers:
Using these 2012 statistics from the ABS : http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9208.0 : the total fuel consumed was about 32,000ML of which 57% was petrol and 38% was diesel. So if the current at-the-pump price of about $1.35/L petrol and $1.30/L diesel *doubled* to $2.70 and $2.60 respectively than that would be an extra: $(32GL*0.57*$1.35/L) + $(32GL*0.38*$1.30) = $40.4B over a year.

The Australian economy's GDP is $1.525trillion (2014- from wikipedia). So the percentage of the extra cost to GDP would be about $40.4B/$1.5T*100% = 2.7%

Now, 2.7% is the grand scheme of things is not a great deal compared to other potential disruptive events-- such as large international currency fluctuations. Indeed, if you say that the average person works 50hrs a week than 2.7% is equivalent to 81 mins or about 16mins each day (for 5 days) which is less the time wasted by a lot of workers with coffees, Facebook/Tweeting/general internet, chatting to colleagues, etc.

Note, it should be remembered that these sums above were for a *doubling* of price and that this is a very generous assumption. It is unlikely for such an increase over the next few years.

PS: I acknowledge that impact of increasing the petrol price is not just a simple case of subtracting the cost from the total economy but is a bit more complicated than that-- eg: if someone decides not to drive to the shops one less time a week to save fuel then they won't spend the money at the shops that they would otherwise have. But these figures do give you a good indication of the impact.

Thinkabit, I would not dispute your figures, however the increase in
the price of oil is of the order of $20 billion a year.
That is the before refining increase, and before transport costs.
However that price gets multiplied through the system and turns up in
many places such as the price of food.

There is a rather well known graph which shows that every recession,
except the dotcom recession, was preceded by a spike in oil prices.
In those cases the economy recovered because there was no "tightness"
in oil supplies. However in 2008 that situation no longer applied.
After 2009 the fracking of expensive tight shale rock covered up the
"tightness" in oil supply.
However the higher prices in recent years together with more efficient
cars and many other cost savings, resulted in a decline in demand
and the resultant fall in price.
Using that graph it would be interesting to calculate the sensitivity
of the economy to oil prices. There may well be enough data in that
graph to calculate that sensitivity.

If you have never seen the graph referred to above I will attempt to
find it again and put the link up here.

Dear rehctub,

Whether we preserve, modify, or change the system
that we have created is ultimately up to the
people themselves in this country. The following
link gives some thought to the debate as to -
should rich people pay more taxes. Read it and
see what you think:

http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-rich-people-pay-more-taxes

Rehctub,

You assume that because the rich pay more taxes that they therefore must have created more wealth for society and are actually hard done by if they are asked to pay more taxes. To see the problem with this argument, consider an old-style banana republic. 2% of the people own 98% of the wealth. Apart from a tiny middle class, the bulk of the population are ragged peons toiling for bare subsistence on the estates of the elite. It is obvious that the money to run the government has to come from the elite, since the peons don't have any surplus over what they need for bare survival. So you have 2% of the people paying all the taxes. What terrific lifters and what rotten leaners! Now imagine what would happen to the economy of that country if all those peons just disappeared. The peons are creating wealth. It is just that the bulk of the wealth they create is expropriated by an unjust social order.

Of course, Australia is a lot better than that, but there is still labour exploitation and crony capitalism. There are rich people who have created far more wealth for the community than they have taken for themselves, but there are also plenty of people who have gotten rich by being greedy and ruthless or by taking advantage of government sanctioned monopolies, as well as the rich people who were just lucky. Since the rich benefit more from our society than other people, they ought to be taxed at a higher rate. If your house or car is more valuable than average, it will cost you more money to insure it.

Superannuation ought to be for providing decent living standards in old age, not for providing a tax shelter for people who can well look out for themselves. I would like to see a system where taxes on super depend on the amount accumulated and all tax concessions end when people have accumulated enough for a comfortable retirement.

Wrecktub: Is this the sort of "unfair" taxation on the rich you are complaining about?
Tax Office statistics reveal the 55 millionaires who paid no tax
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tax-office-statistics-reveal-the-55-millionaires-who-paid-no-tax-20150429-1mw2zp.html
Fifty-five of Australia’s highest earners paid no income tax at all during 2012-13, not even the Medicare levy.
All earning at least $1 million, they managed to write their taxable incomes down to below the $18,200 tax-free threshold, although for most the exercise was expensive.
Tax statistics released Wednesday reveal that 40 of them claimed an extraordinary $42.5 million for the “cost of managing tax affairs” meaning they each paid an average of $1 million to an adviser prepared to help to bring down their taxable income, which is itself a tax deduction.
Between them they reported earning $129.5 million, an average of $2.3 million. By the time their accountants had finished with them they reported losing a combined $12.8 million.

I must apologise to Poirot, I had not absorbed this post which I in effect duplicated.
great minds think alike?

It's really a universal questions and the answer lies in human psychology.