mhaze,

We're going to have to agree to disagree on the
issue of Kavanaugh.

Have a nice day - and again Thank You for sharing.
Your opinion obviously means a great deal.

Aidan,

Within the constraints of a few hundred words, its not possible to talk about all the nuances of a argument. OF coarse not all the left fail to understand the importance of economic growth to achieve true redistribution. I did talk of Hawke etc.

But in the main, the left is distrustful of capitalism and the market and, when they seek to achieve growth they seek other routes...and those other routes almost invariably lead to problems.

A case in point here was Whitlam. He, by his own admission, was an economic illiterate. He's seen the previous multi-decade growth and, not knowing how it happened, built a career on spending the new wealth. I agree the fates conspired to cause the post-war economic miracle to evaporate just as he took over. But that didn't cause him to pause in his desire to implement programmes designed for better times. He and his party just ploughed on because they had no understanding of how to respond to new circumstances. To be sure, they did try to enhance growth (eg the disastrous tariff cuts) but that only created more problems. The end result was unemployment more than doubling, even after a precipitous fall in the participation rate, and inflation getting completely out of control, at least in Australian terms. As per their programmes, workers were given significant pay rises but inflation ate that up even for those who kept their jobs.

The government thought that the government could save the bacon by doing what governments do. So they borrowed and spent, even illegally. Only right at the end did they get good economic managers in place (previously they'd had an ex-communist Jim Cairns as Treasurer) in the likes of Bill Hayden, but by then it was too late.

/cont

/cont

Its true that Venezuela has relied on oil. But that rather is the point. Over the decades, rather than use the wealth to provide stability to the economy, they simply spread it around. And when the oil wealth disappeared, rather than learn, they simply doubled-down on more welfare spending until they got to the current quagmire. Argentina was similar. Its true that if oil remained high (or wool in Argentina's case) then their policies would have been OK. But those commodities did decline and it was insane to assume they wouldn't. As Glenn Reynolds says, socialist countries always seem to have a lot of back luck. He's being factious!


" Poverty is the inability... to fully participate in society. "

Well that's one definition. That's relative poverty. There will always be relative poverty because the only way to eradicate it is to introduce policies that destroy the economy. Australia's poverty line is basically designed to ensure that 20% of the population will fall below that line.

I've no problem with that understanding. But people, such as david f go from that truth to assuming that all poverty is the same. But today's poor have a standard of living that would be the envy of yesteryear's rich. But there is a lack of understanding that progress continues and the poor are getting richer. Fail to understand that and you fail to understand why the left's programmes are to be feared.

mhaze,
When you say the Left is distrustful of capitalism, you should be a bit clearer on what you mean. Because if by capitalism you mean keeping capital scarce so that more benefits flow to the financiers rather than the producers, the Left are right to be distrustful and it's a major failing of the Right that they're not. Whereas if you mean free market economics, the criticism is valid but could equally be applied to many on the Right. Tony Abbott in particular is very distrustful of the market, and the Liberals in general seem to have an even worse track record than Labor. In fact, considering you described Whitlam's tariff cuts as "disastrous", you seem to be rather distrustful of the market yourself!

Absolutely everything, including the Do Nothing option, leads to problems. The more sensible options also solve problems. Leaving everything to the market is often a false economy: firstly the markets often have a strong short term bias, and secondly the most profitable option isn't always the one that's best for users or the public.

(tbc)

mhaze (continued)
In 20th century Venezuela, the government was deeply reliant on debt. If they'd had a floating currency, that wouldn't have been a problem. But with a fixed currency it was a recipe for disaster, especially when the oil price crashed. Eventually the government was forced to make unpopular and very damaging cuts, shrinking the economy and impoverishing the population. That was the main reason why the socialists came to power in the 1999 election.

As for Argentina, remember Australia was also heavily reliant on wool. But we'd floated our dollar before the wool price crash, so it was easy for us to recover.

>" Poverty is the inability... to fully participate in society. "
>Well that's one definition. That's relative poverty.

No it isn't. Relative poverty is earning less than half the median wage. That does not determine your ability to fully participate in society. Indeed by investing in community facilities, the government can reduce poverty even while relative poverty is rising. Conversely by closing community facilities, the government can increase poverty even while relative poverty is falling.

>the only way to eradicate [relative poverty] is to introduce policies that destroy the economy
Even if that is true (which I strongly doubt) it doesn't mean policies that reduce relative poverty from its current level would damage the economy.

>But there is a lack of understanding that progress continues and the poor are getting richer.
That's because it generally isn't true. As governments in rich countries accepted the neoliberal consensus, the poor stopped getting richer after more and more of the burden of taxation was shifted onto them, and wages have hardly grown at all.

You appear to fear change because you fail to see the enormous problem with the status quo.

Must be left!I do not trust the banks
Did not trust the government refusing to have a Royal Commission in to them, 26 times!
thanks m haze for putting me on the right track