Aidan wrote: "When you say the Left is distrustful of capitalism, you should be a bit clearer on what you mean... if you mean free market economics, the criticism is valid"

Well I did say "the left is distrustful of capitalism and the market" so I guess we are agreed "the criticism is valid". :)

Aidan wrote: "..considering you described Whitlam's tariff cuts as "disastrous", you seem to be rather distrustful of the market yourself!"

I'm mostly in favour of tariff cuts. But Whitlam's were done entirely the wrong way and for entirely the wrong reasons. They need to be done with forewarning and incrementally. Because they were done in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons they destroyed industries and jobs. Perhaps acquaint yourself with history before jumping to conclusions about my position.

You go on to offer reasons why this or that nation failed. Let me stipulate that every nation has its own unique proximate causes for going down hill. But the overriding underlying cause is that leftist need to redistribute without regard to economic circumstances. That was the point of the joke about socialist countries having lots of bad luck. People like you always want to look at the proximate causes without regard to the background. eg you want to say that Australia absorbed the wool price fall because of a floating exchange rate as opposed to Argentina. But you've git the timing all wrong. I was talking about the way wool enriched Argentina and Australia in the 1900s not the 1980s. Floating rates or not, Australia had long since moved beyond agriculture as its mainstay wealth creating. Argentina didn't.

I know you have this fetish that devaluations can fix every governmental and policy error but it just isn't true in all cases. Places like Argentina and Venezuela demonstrate it. Devaluations as a solution to economic woes is only valid if the nation has other wealth sources to fall back on. But socialist nations don't have creation of those other sources as a priority.

/cont

/cont

"Relative poverty is earning less than half the median wage."

No that's being below the poverty line. Relative poverty is a term in juxtaposition to absolute poverty. People on $2 a day are absolutely poor in any terms. People below the poverty line in Australia are poor relative to others in the society but not absolutely poor ie they can feed and house themselves based on the welfare they receive.

"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."

Well now you're just making it up. The real value of the poverty line in Australia has grown by over 30% in the past 3 decades. So someone on the poverty line today is 30% richer than the same person on that line 30 years ago.
The poor don't pay income taxes.
Real wages have continued to grow over any period over a year you care to mention.

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

I'm all in favour of change. But I'm against economic suicide. "enormous problem" is a relative term. I'll bet the people of Venezuela or Russia or even China would love to have our enormous problems.

Belly, YOU may think what you like, luckily, this an opinion forum.
The unfortunate thing is that the left are good at making demands and spending other peoples money.
Your ilk are so eaten up with feeling like the underdogs, you refuse to accept that without the right, there would be no opportunity for the left to make ANY demands.
The left may see itself as some kind of saviour of the people, when it is the right who have that title.
The word left in Latin, roughly derives from the word 'sinistra', which relates to the word, sinister.
The left has always had a sinister connotation, this is the foundation of the 'left'.
The right have never been 'underground', unlike the left, who have a whole history of being so.
Without the right, the left would have nothing.
You speak of reform as if the left have a clue about it.
For the left to make it's self righteous demands they can only do it when the right create the medium by which the left can make demands from.
If it were up to the left, nothing would happen.
The left and their philosophy are a failure, and history confirms this.
The left refuse to accept the blame that ALL the industrial problems and failures over the years are directly created by the narrow and blinkered, irrational and arrogant attitude of the left.
Without the right, there would be no left.
This Aussie right may be crap, but it does not mean that the Aussie left is the answer.
Socialism and communism are just two of the social failures, but just because you don't like the word capitalism doesn't mean it isn't the answer.
You don't get to spend someone else's money so the left can set up their own companies and then they can preach to the world, but only if/when it actually succeeds.
As this has never happened, I would suggest the left shut up and learn how to manage/spend their income by learning to live within their means.

ALTRAV sorry but let me be honest you are the last person I will look to for intelligent thought

The left and their philosophy are a failure, and history confirms this.
Altrav,
That statement belongs in Wikipedia & other encyclopedia. It is the most apt I have read thus far.

mhaze
>I know you have this fetish that devaluations can fix every governmental and policy error
If that's what you think you know, you have COMPLETELY misunderstood my position.

It's floating currencies that I support; not devaluations.

One reason for this is that the small real-time devaluations the market makes ensure the country is always competitive, and avoid the need for the bigger (and much more inflationary) devaluations that can become necessary with a managed exchange rate.

Devaluations were necessary in Argentina and Venezuela. If they had let the market determine their currency values, no such action would have been needed.

>Devaluations as a solution to economic woes is only valid if the nation has other wealth sources to fall back on.
Though I'm all for the development of other wealth sources, I don't follow your logic here. Surely a nation reliant on a single wealth source would have FAR MORE need to devalue if that wealth source becomes uncompetitive, BECAUSE OF the lack of alternatives to fall back on?

>But socialist nations don't have creation of those other sources as a priority.
Although that's true of (present day) Venezuela, it's not true in the general sense - the economic philosophy of the government does not predetermine its priorities, and it's not only socialist countries that have become reliant on a single commodity.

Another reason I support floating currencies is that they enable countries to put all their resources to good use, whereas fixed currencies require governments to waste resources defending the currency.

I'll reply to the rest of your post later, but meanwhile I hope you now understand my position on this issue and the reasons for it.