OT: Current Affairs and Politics

[strider]

Without having too long to think about it I like the $2 a week idea .

Its basically increasing the medicare levy and he just broke it down to suggesting its equivalent to $2 a week .... dunno how it would work as the medicare levy is a % so assume the usual where the more you earn, the more you pay

 

[Poupou Escobar]

I'm sure they will be, peoples lives are geared to their income, it's not that simple a thing to adjust to.

We saw that in the GFC around the world, the poor remained poor. The rich mostly remained rich, and the middle class collapsed.

Even this package, as generous as it might seem can't solve the problem that someone earning a reasonable wage is going to have a life geared to their income, personal debt is still f**king high, and it isn't going to go away.

Although there is a solution, but the complete freezing of all existing credit is admittedly a pretty radical measure. Though starting with mortgages and rents might well not be.

Agreed, though for some their investment properties might be their only income. Although if that's the case they can get off their f**ken arse and go to work. However they're likely to be very old.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Put gst up 1% - 5 -6 billion a year

-Any earnings over 80k super payments go to half rest goes to budget for next 5yrs for people under 50.( no idea revenue)

-Anyone enter country pays a $120 entry fee unless Aus citizen for work. About 1 Billion a year.

This will get us about 50 billion in 5 yrs.

Bludgers will find a way to get the government to piss it all up against a wall. Even conservative parties are pro-spending these days since geriatric healthcare and pensions are key concerns for their voting base.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

The USA are paying the price of inaction bc Trump decided to downplay C19 because he thought that a shutdown would harm his election chances. In fact the opposite is true. I suspect that Scotty’s approval rating would be sky high right now, a direct contrast to his dimwit handling of the bushfire season.

Federal governments are responsible for the economy. Hospitals are the responsibility of the states. Fancy politicians at each level caring about their responsibilities.

 

[hindy111]

Without having too long to think about it I like the $2 a week idea .

I do not see it generating much
About 28 mill a week or 150 million a year. It would take 35yrs

 

[Bandwagon]

Agreed, though for some their investment properties might be their only income. Although if that's the case they can get off their f**ken arse and go to work. However they're likely to be very old.

If rents collected are your only income, and the government through policy takes that away from you, then having zero income should mean that you have some form of support, same as anyone else whose loses their income.

The alternative might well be that your tenants who have lost their jobs can't pay you, and you can't evict them now, on account of the moratorium, so all you can do is keep adding it up and try to recoup it later.

Or of course you could just sell up if you had to. It's an investment after all, and sometimes they turn sour.

 

[Bazal]

I do not see it generating much
About 28 mill a week or 150 million a year. It would take 35yrs

Your maths is off by a zero, mate

 

[Bandwagon]

Look at all you merkins thinking up ways the government can take more of your f**king money, to pay down a debt that doesn't need paying down. It's got me f**ked why anyone buys into this shit.

It's politicised nonsense, all this talk about debt and deficit, and what have the government done over the last six years about it? f**king nothing that's what. Well, they have kept adding to it, so I suppose that's something. Oh, and they've lowered taxes, on account of the debt and deficit disaster so f**king urgently needed to be addressed???

Because you know, governments have to save for a rainy day and all that, because otherwise when it rains er.........well, it's f**king raining right now, and guess what, it's near raining money as well, go figure.

It doesn't need to be paid down, due to the magic of the time value of money, add in inflation, and economic growth, in time that debt just literally disappears.

Puff

Gone.

Like magic!

 

[Chipmunk]

I've got a bit sidetracked...what has been going in the Current Affairs and Politics scene of late?

 

[Gary Gutful]

I've got a bit sidetracked...what has been going in the Current Affairs and Politics scene of late?

Current affairs.

Politics.

 

[Bazal]

Current affairs.

Politics.

Not many affairs going on actually. Social isolation

 

[hindy111]

Your maths is off by a zero, mate

350yrs f**k
I'm up for that

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Look at all you merkins thinking up ways the government can take more of your f**king money, to pay down a debt that doesn't need paying down. It's got me f**ked why anyone buys into this shit.

It's politicised nonsense, all this talk about debt and deficit, and what have the government done over the last six years about it? f**king nothing that's what. Well, they have kept adding to it, so I suppose that's something. Oh, and they've lowered taxes, on account of the debt and deficit disaster so f**king urgently needed to be addressed???

Because you know, governments have to save for a rainy day and all that, because otherwise when it rains er.........well, it's f**king raining right now, and guess what, it's near raining money as well, go figure.

It doesn't need to be paid down, due to the magic of the time value of money, add in inflation, and economic growth, in time that debt just literally disappears.

Puff

Gone.

Like magic!

Your magic solution rests on some pretty big assumptions. Endless government debt is another bubble waiting to pop.

 

[Gary Gutful]

Puff

Gone.

Like magic!

 

[Bandwagon]

Your magic solution rests on some pretty big assumptions. Endless government debt is another bubble waiting to pop.

Your reply here wrongly asserts I am discussing endless government debt,

If you keep adding to it, obviously it doesn't go away. It gets larger

Remember your comment re the magic of compounding interest, well, when it comes to debt, inflation works kinda the same, because it too is compounding, except it works in the opposite direction and devalues debt.

I really don't think that assuming we will have inflation in the future is that big of an assumption, do you?

The only real risk is a lack of economic growth, because whilst government debt is a great big bogeymen used to scare the kiddies into accepting things they really should not accept, if they are spending that money in the economy, it will grow with that expenditure.

Yet taxing the f**k outta the economy in order to pay down debt hinders economic growth and transfers that debt to people and business, thus shrinking the economy ( that all being relative to the growth that would otherwise have been had the government done neither )

So therein lies the conundrum for the government, if they are true to their projected political ideology of economic conservatism, they will attempt to pay down the debt through "painful measures" and the like, yet if they are true to their stated principles of lower taxes and being the " better economic managers ", they'll ignore their political ideology and let the debt take care of it's self.

I'm betting on the former, rather than the latter, and merkins will use that to say hey, look how bad debt is, see all the damage it's done, but the reality is that it need not be that way.




.

 

[Bandwagon]

FFS

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Your reply here wrongly asserts I am discussing endless government debt,

If you keep adding to it, obviously it doesn't go away. It gets larger

Remember your comment re the magic of compounding interest, well, when it comes to debt, inflation works kinda the same, because it too is compounding, except it works in the opposite direction and devalues debt.

I really don't think that assuming we will have inflation in the future is that big of an assumption, do you?

I do actually. It's up there with population growth as a thing that has a very definite end date, including globally.

 

[Bandwagon]

I do actually. It's up there with population growth as a thing that has a very definite end date, including globally.

That's an interesting opinion, what leads you to form that view?

EDIT

Cause basically you are saying that's the end of capitalism as we know it, which isn't in and of itself a radical idea, but still, it's outside the box.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

That's an interesting opinion, what leads you to form that view?

Birth rate trajectory:

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/the...-in-the-world-declining-populations?r=AU&IR=T

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/07/world-population-stop-growing/595165/

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...early-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/

These sources discuss not just a levelling out, but a decline with potentially no end:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-world-might-actually-run-out-of-people/

https://onezero.medium.com/by-the-e...-population-will-start-to-shrink-2f606c1ef088

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/...n-demographic-transition-population-explained

Obviously there are just some trends that can never be predicted. Anything is possible but counting on continued population and economic growth might be the assumption that ruins everything for national planners.

 

[Bandwagon]

Birth rate trajectory:

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/the...-in-the-world-declining-populations?r=AU&IR=T

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/07/world-population-stop-growing/595165/

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...early-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/

These sources discuss not just a levelling out, but a decline with potentially no end:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-world-might-actually-run-out-of-people/

https://onezero.medium.com/by-the-e...-population-will-start-to-shrink-2f606c1ef088

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/...n-demographic-transition-population-explained

Obviously there are just some trends that can never be predicted. Anything is possible but counting on continued population and economic growth might be the assumption that ruins everything for national planners.

That's all about slowing population growth, nothing about inflation?