[LINK] This makes me angry.

[TKoltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Craig Sanders
> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012 11:09 AM
> To: link at anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] This makes me angry.
> 
> 
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 06:59:34PM +1000, TKoltai wrote:
> > 
> > I expect the man in the street not to get it, after all, 
> he's there to 
> > pay taxes, consume beer, buy cinema tickets and shop at 
> Coles, not to 
> > understand why he pays taxes....
> > 
> > But when an organisation like Get-up [Can you spell Publicly Funded 
> > Political Lobbyist] deliberately misleads the public... Then I get 
> > angry under the collar.
> 
> what deception? from what i can see, they're pointing out 
> facts. fact1: mining companies ARE subsidised by the public 
> to the tune of billions of dollars per year. fact2: budget 
> cuts are being considered that will impact on public sector 
> workers being able to do their jobs or even to keep their jobs.
> 

Actually, the facts can be found at:
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/stats-pubs/australia-trade-by-state-
and-territory-2010-11.pdf
And The authoritative compendium of statistics on merchandise exports
and imports, this publication analyses the growth, direction and
commodity breakdown of Australia's trade over the last five years. It
also includes individual reports showing the composition of trade with
over eighty of Australia's trading partners.
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/stats-pubs/cot-fy-2010-11.pdf

In case you might be unsure of how to read one of these, I have
extracted the two important numbers.

Exports for 2010-2011
Total rural exports 36,114 
Total mineral resources exports  179,233
Total commodity exports  211,815

(I think those numbers speak pretty factually for themselves. 

The subsidies have nothing to do with the government prioritaisation of
funds for under privilidged persons.
Get-up is being used as a citizen funding political policy activitst
organisationunder the guise of helping the poor.

In the USA, organisations like Get-up are forced to register as PAC's so
that their funders become a source of public knowledge.

> if you don't like the implications of those facts, whinging 
> about being informed of them is not a sensible response.
> 

Well actually I advanced an alternative to increasing welfare and
altering well meaning and long established Government/Mining Company
relationship practices. Unfortunately you stopped reading before you got
there.


> > Here is a excerpt of their latest advertisement:
> > 
> > Quote/
> > [...]
> > /Quote
> > 
> > I don't understand what the hell public sector workers have 
> to do with 
> > mining companies...
> 
> it's about priorities.
> 
> when there are limited resources (i.e. always) then 
> expenditure has to prioritised.
> 
> the implicit question in getup's ad is whether corporate 
> welfare should be prioritised over public services.
> 

Err, it would seem to be so. However I would suggest that it might also
havbe an element of political manouvering to establish the current
Government as being a strong ally of the people against the monolith
corporate country rapists.

> how you answer that is up to your own judgment. there isn't a 
> right answer. but AFAICT, you're pissed off because you don't 
> want to even consider the question, you'd rather just ignore 
> it. fine, stick your head in the sand if that's what you 
> choose to do, but quit whinging about getup - or anyone else 
> - trying to get the public to at least thing about something.
> 

Well then it's a shame you didn’t read the end of my last email as it
had a pretty damned fine idea on how to fix the unemployment problem and
involve the mining companies in a meaningful useful manner in
resuscitating Australians economy woithout picking the richest person in
the room to main and would so that their wallet can be picked.
 
> what makes me angry is the mindless adoption of libertarian 
> values (i.e. unregulated capitalism) that automatically 
> forgive any business for any transgression or hypocrisy, yet 
> hold the public sector and individuals accountable for even 
> the most trivial.
> 
> "free market" businesses can suck at the socialist teat as 
> much as they want to, but individuals are worthless thieving 
> scum if they do, and the government is evil for allowing them to.
> 
> individuals *deserve* to starve if they can't get a job and 
> poor people are poor *because* of their own moral failings, 
> but it would be an appalling tragedy that *must* be averted 
> if a big enough business were to fail due to incompetence, 
> bad planning, obsolescence or any other reason.
> 

I don’t think I said that.

> 
> > Who does Get-up believe is leading the charge in Australian 
> Economic 
> > Stability...
> > 
> > Is it those public sector workers ?
> > Could it be Wayne Swan ?
> > Would it be well thought out and long term sound economic 
> Government 
> > policies ?
> > 
> > or would it be the Mining Industry ?
> 
> certainly not the latter.
> 
> i'd say it was largely due to the reasonably good (but by no means
> perfect) regulation of business and especially banking and 
> finance in this country that prevented OUR greedy-bastard 
> bankers and executive and investment classes from getting 
> away with the same level of fraud and scamming and outright 
> theft that they were allowed in the U.S.
> 

I presume in that statement that you have made exceptional allowances
for the Australian banks that lined up for the free multi-billion dollar
handouts from the US Federal Reserve in 2009, saving the Australian
Government from having to do it...

> so that would be Government policies.  And legislation. and a 
> willingness to enforce the law against the rich and powerful.
> 

Hmmm. From where I'm sitting, I have observed that the only law that is
enforced in our justice system would seem to be on the side of he/(she)
that can afford the most expensive representation.

> > A paltry 3 billion in subsidies to provide direct jobs for how many 
> > Australians ? A paltry 3 billion in subsidies to provide how much 
> > percentage of Australia's export earnings ?
> 
> funny how 3 billion is "paltry" when it's a handout for the 
> already-rich.
> 
> > Politicians are almost never about assisting the economy.
> 
> if you think a politician's job or the government's job is 
> solely (or even largely) about the economy then you have lost 
> the plot, you have been suckered by the relentless 
> neo-liberal propaganda that there is no such thing as 
> society, that only the economy matters.
> 
> the economy is not an end, it is a means.
> 

No Craig, in a court case, divorce, education choices, shopping choices,
it is almost never about the society, it is always the money. Ask any
Sap that has been the recipient of the Australian/Foreign Brides 2 year
Automatic Restraining Order scam.

> > Politicians are about assisting politicians.
> 
> mindless libertarian sloganeering.  "govt is bad. biz is 
> good. rah rah rah."
> 
Well actually, before Government, there was either an oligarchy or a
Dictatorship, often assisted or at war with  the Holy Mother Church
(another Oligarchy) yet business still carried on and provided for the
benefit of the community.

What Government did achieve was in the area of Health Care Reform with
free hospitals being made available to all, regardless of financial
means.

But it would seem that has been regulated out of existence by your
government.
Another positive aspect of Government in the last century was Education
reform where all children were given a free education. 
In this regard, universities now charge fees for their educational
services with the majority of the benefits going to the only people that
can afford to attend, foreign students.

Another excellent evidentiary element of Government Regulation,
insisting that Universities charge for education. Well done the
Government.


> the percentage of business-people who are motivated only by 
> self-interest is far higher than the percentage of 
> politicians so motivated. at all levels of business - but far 
> more so at the big end of town.


No, I'm afraid you are wrong. 
My father taught me at a very young age that the only difference between
a rich man and a poor man was the amount of zeroes on the transaction
amounts.

The motivations of all entrepreneurial folk from the lowliest 711 store
owner to Solomon Lew are pretty much... "God please send me more
shoppers and help me increase my profits."

For the small stall holder it would end with a "so I can afford to pay
me rent" and for Coles it would be, "so that we can afford to offer a
bigger dividend to shareholders this year so that the share price goes
up a bit higher."

> > Australians need to be aware that a mining company is no different 
> > from any kind of organisation. If you pull out the 
> financial rug from 
> > underneath it, it will lay off staff, maybe not today, or even 
> > tomorrow, but there will be a long term negative knock-on effect. 
> > Anyone that doesn't get this needs to stop pretending to play at 
> > politics.
> 
> "too big to fail".  now where have i heard that before?

Err, the same place that says that 97% of all (real GDP) generating
employment in Australia is provided by private enterprise.

> > Whilst I'm a strong believer in social services, I'm also a 
> believer 
> > in a fair, equitably and balanced approach to funding a 
> welfare state. 
> > Leaning too far to the left ensures that our young fairer sex will 
> > find reasons to emulate their UK peers where the average 
> house mother 
> > has five kids by the time she's thirty to ensure her 
> financial future.
> 
> i stopped reading here.  i couldn't stomach any more of your 
> net-kookery.
> 
> craig
> 

Sorry to offend with my net-kookery and as always, you are welcome to
your opinon. However my statements were formed based on voluminous
material submitted by literally hundreds of UK researchers into the UK
becoming a Social Welfare state and the permanent damage that has done
to the economy, the social interaction between the people and the
resulting lack of interest in finding jobs by people that are
thirty-five years old and have never had a job or are even desirous of
finding one. 

 e.g.:

Market Means and Welfare Ends: The UK Welfare State Experiment
PETER TAYLOR-GOOBY a1, TRINE LARSEN a2 and JOHANNES KANANEN a2
a1 Professor of Social Policy, SSPSSR, CoNE, University of Kent CT2 7NF
email P.F.Taylor-Gooby at kent.ac.uk
Abstract
The UK is distinctive in having the most liberal market-oriented welfare
system in the European Union and the most majoritarian governmental
system, capable of rapid and decisive action. The 1997 New Labour
government abandoned the traditional neo-Keynesian/social democratic
approach of the party and embarked on a programme of market-oriented
welfare state reform. This reflects many aspects of policy direction
(pursued more gradually and under different circumstances) elsewhere in
Europe, and advocated in the European Employment Strategy and OECD
proposals. The UK is thus a suitable test case to assess the impact of a
new departure in welfare policy: welfare ends through market means. This
paper shows that New Labour has achieved real successes in mobilising
the workforce, broadening opportunities for women and reducing poverty.
However, the approach faces intractable problems in stimulating and
regulating private providers of welfare, and limitations in the extent
to which it is able to reduce poverty among those of working age who are
not in the labour market. These result from the incompatibility between
welfare and market objectives: secure, adequate incomes for all, and
work incentives for citizens and market freedom for providers.

And from the former UK minister for Welfare Reform ther Rt. Hon. Frank
Field; in his online dissertation entitled: The Welfare State - Never
Ending Reform

Who summarised hois viewpoint:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/field_01.shtml

Quote/One notable academic observed that to study welfare was to
highlight the values of the society within which that welfare was
provided. I would argue that our values determine to a large extent what
we observe. Hence it was observers believing in state collectivist
solutions who have generally written up the story of the coming of the
welfare state and the final arrival of state provision. Any deviation
from this model is seen not just as defeat, but as essentially
retrogressive. That view is now under attack./Quote

Much of which debate was commented upon in a Sunday times article in
2o06:

Quote/
    The report says that in 2001, more than 8% of British households
were headed by a single mother aged 18-35, while the UK also has one of
the highest rates of benefits for single mothers.

    In 1994 a single mother with two children who worked for about 18
hours a week could expect more than £2,000 a year in benefits. By 2001
the figure had increased to more than £3,500.

    The researchers do not say outright that high benefits accelerate
family break-up. Others, however, believe the study shows that generous
benefits for single motherhood provide an incentive for women to have
children alone.

    Frank Field, 

    the former Labour minister for social security, said: “I’ve always
believed in a causal link between benefits and the number of single
mothers.

    “We’ve got to change so that people don’t become single mothers. For
some, they become single mothers by accident, while for others it’s a
deliberate choice.”

    The study contrasts the situation in Britain and elsewhere in
northern Europe with Mediterranean countries such as Spain, where
single-mother families constitute less than 1% of the total. Spanish
single mothers received £137 in special benefits a year in 1994, which
by 2001 had declined to £38.

    Spain, along with Greece, Portugal and Italy, have the lowest
numbers of single-mother families in Europe.

    Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show
single-mother families in Britain have steadily risen from 1% of all
households with children in 1971 to 11% in 2004. 
/Quote

Or you could buy a book on pure Net-kookery, entitled: 
The Welfare State We're In [Hardcover]
James Bartholomew available from Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1842750631/welfarestate-21
Of which Milton Friedman, Notable Prize Winning author, said;

Quote/
"A splendid book. It's a devastating critique of the welfare state. A
page-turner, yet also extensively sourced. Demonstrates how attempts to
achieve good intentions have led to horrible results -- increasing crime
and violence, worsened conditions of the very poor, an extraordinary
deterioration in the quality and character of British life.
Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winner."
/Quote


Therefore dear fellow Linker... As much as my kookiness obviously
offends you, possibly a quick peek at the facts would be beneficial.


TomK