Howard managed to reduce Public debt by increasing private debt. And by leading the highest taxing government in history. At the same time he increased middle class welfare spending to record levels.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative" John Stuart Mill
I can't help thinking that people feel that Australia as an isolated island bordered by the Pacific and Indian oceans in the East and West should survive on it's own despite the conditions of the GLOBAL economy.
What does that mean? It does not matter who is in power or how the economy is managed right now in the sense that things are tough everywhere. We are not on our own planet, we do not have a self sufficient isolated economy if the dollar is high we can't export, if it's cheaper to import, if people are nervous because they see the world is falling and wonder when its our turn to fall they stop spending.
The Labor party like it or not DID NOT CAUSE THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS. Don't confuse things being slow with who's in power. Guess what Liberal guys, unfortunately things would be no better right now globally if Liberal was in power either.
labor did cop the raw end of the deal, but to throw money at people which at the end of the day meant very little to a peoples circumstances was just plain reckless.
now its pay back time= tax
Sounds like Mr Nova is on the same page as I am.
Here's one for you. A friend of mine that has done very well for himself told me that he believes the real problem with our leading politicians is that they get paid too little. Not that we should pay our current boneheads more but if the wages were higher more talented people would take the job. If you are a brilliant person now you'd go work for a bank or a mine and get 4 times as much. Why would you take all of that pressure of being in politics for such little money. I thought it was a very good point.
I have often thought that pollies should be paid a living wage and then a commission or bonus based on economic performance.
That could not work though. Too much scope for corruption and once one lot got in and was getting the money, the other lot would never stand a chance of getting in.
Admittedly the graph only illustrates one aspect of governments' performance and would be far more enlightening if it went back say 50 years and had another line or two that indicated for instance the economic well being of the general population and small to medium sized business activity.
Maybe a graph line not based on economic factors would be helpful. Say one based on technological innovations or a social factor.
A very interesting comparison line would be one based on public infrastructure spending.
What the graph perhaps also says is :
Hawk / Keating, two PMs and 6 treasurers in 13 years
Howard, one PM and one treasurer 11 years
Rudd/Gillard, so far two PMs and one treasurer in four years
and if you want to go back, 'because the graph is only a snap shot of three governments' then the data is :
Two liberal treasurers in eight years
Four labour treasurers in three years
Four liberal treasurers in fourteen years
So - in the last 50 years :
Labour - 11 treasurers in 17 years (1.5 years average service)
Liberal - 7 treasurers in 33 years (4.7 years average service)
And they say Labour is the party of the worker and of job stability.
OK... so who actually misses any of the ****e lil' John sold?
When it comes to selling ****e cheap, I think the labs are not doing so bad either... enter Christina Keneally*, and everyones favourite person with disabilities, Anna Bligh... But then there was bloody Jeff... Jeff Kennett sold everything... suffer in your jocks Vic
*maybe this was a Labs love in, as Christina knew of Julia's real carbon plan Then again, they didn't seem that close And, if they were ever close (physically), someone would have been stabbed in the eye!
The telecoms infrastructure frustrates me... there should be one set of infrastucture, and companies pay to access it - rather than 3 different mobile poles in the one spot
To Owe or not to Owe hey!
The question we should be asking is this, who do we owe?
There was a time when the US government issued money based on a gold and silver standard. They lost their freedom to the federal reserve. The same people, younger generation, control this ponzi digital scheme that rules our lives globally. Our illusion of democracy is bought and paid for. They control the media, virtually all of it. George Orwell was a bit out on his timing but TV has produced a population of zombies.
The whole point of the lib vs lab debate is to keep people divided whilst throwing up a smoke screen that hides the truth. For **** sake, we have the whole world in debt. To whom and for what? You can't eat money, well you can but even if you could eke a little nutrition out of a five dollar note you would starve pretty quick anyway because most of it is digital. Trillions and trillions of utter crap.
All based on debt.
Reflect for a moment. Why would the people who engineered the Great Depression push for legislation against a gold standard? I can remember when a Rand promised to pay the bearer in gold on demand.
Then ask yourself what would happen to anyone who showed promise of taking back the issuing of money by a government of the people.
Wish I had had the smarts to buy some gold way back. I reckon there is still an opportunity there because a lot of people are waking up to the fact that we have been had
Then if we took our country back we could focus on wind