What to do to get out of this mess

[Jovial Monk]

I am talking world-wide as well as Australia.

For thirty years we have lived the neoliberal dream: tax cuts for the rich, 'free' trade that is not so free, the government getting out of the economy (sorta, middle class welfare etc) through privatisation and it has led to what? Huge and growing rich-poor gap, greed getting out of control, regulators not doing their job (subprime lending, really 'junk mortgages') and the like ending in a massive crash and loss of confidence. Education has really suffered, here in Oz anyway.

Ironically in the aftermath of the crash of 2007 governments have nationalised banks and other financial institutions. As Lefty pointed out in a great post (http://www.jovialmonk.com.au/KevinRuddW ... f=15&t=104)are we going to go back to the things as they were just before the Crash? I THINK NOT!

Those tax cuts Howard & Costello gave as the economy was booming (and so boosting inflation) can be recovered through bracket creep. Mantra has said she would like to see the middle class welfare (and upper class, huge subsidies for private schools) cut, freeing up money for other purposes like building real surpluses and improving public schools, the Unies etc.

I think in a recession where the government is spending as it ought to to stimulate demand it is hard to justify removing subsidies. Childcare is a hard one to remove anyway as there is such a shortage of skilled workers here.

Training and education needs to be stepped up massively, and the Ruddster is doing that with the stimulus package if the Minor Egomaniacs let it through. (I predict the Green vote will plummet, the polls already show it declining but if they destroy the stimulus package they are finished.)

And the income distributions needs to be flattened: the left's cry for egality is a profound economic statement, who'd a thunk?

[Ethnic]

I woudn't blame the education decline on neoliberalism. That is more due to education courses and teacher development courses becoming more social-based rather than dealing with how and what to teach. The government does need to say 'enough is enough' and install a back to basics program though. I would love Julia Gillard if she told the current load of poor excuses for uni lecturers to fuck off and install new lecturers with a focus on teacher training only and no social agendas.

If you're advocating that government has more control over mortgage lending then yes I am for that. I can't understand how people are given approval for mortgages they have no hope in hell of repaying, thus pushing house prices up to the sky. Bloody arseholes, get rid of those stupid home loan lenders (wizard, beat etc). They are crooks.

[Jovial Monk]

What I said was, Howard CUT education spending. We were the only country to CUT spending on higher education. So universities relying on overseas students could not let the cash cows fail so standards slipped BIG TIME. Your hero Howard is responsible for the decline in standards in higher education as good people left.

Now that there was experimentation in teaching methods I don't doubt: there seems to be a return to orthodoxy there nowadays.

[Ethnic]

My hero Howard? Fuck. Nothing I hate more than uninformed people putting words in my mouth. Just because I refuse to condemn Howard to the firy pits of hell doesn't mean I'm in love with the man. He did some good things and not so good things and I acknowledge the good things he did. I didn't realise that was a crime.

[Jovial Monk]

I agree Howard did good things. Trouble is, can't remember anything good he did apart from the gun buy-back

[Ethnic]

I would also think paying off a $95 billion debt and handing over loads of gst revenue for the states were also good things but what would I know.

[Jovial Monk]

The repayment was done by willy nilly privatisation, firesale of public assets. Very likely expenditure on infrastructure would have been better than paying back all that debt.

Implementation of the GST was very flawed (yet we were the last to introduce one!) and the rich got HUGE income tax cuts and the poor got a pittance that left them WORSE off! No discussion was held about alternatives, a WST on all goods and services (or abolishing the fucking states!)

I have seen a lot of RWDBs say the states spent it on bigger burocrazies tho I have never seen actual figures provided.

[Jovial Monk]

Copy of Lefty's post in the Sandpit:

Hi all. Just a couple of words about Howard paying off Australia's debt.

It was largely achieved through the biggest fire sale of publicly owned enterprises and assets in Australia's history. A large tranche of that was the sale of Telstra, who as a (now) private enterprise responsable solely for maximising dividends to it's shareholders, has demonstrated that it is not remotely interested in forward thinking plans by governement regarding the nations future. The national broadband plan would already be underway if it were still publicly owned.

Another interesting sale was that of the national defence industry provider to a company that turned out to be largely owned by the French government. You might say that the French more or less own the supplier of our armed forces.

Howard must have done some good things - not too fuckin' many though - but the deeper you dig, the more disgusting and dispicable he becomes. He was a political opportunist of particularly poor character, a poisonous little dwarf and not worth pissing on

[JW Frogen]

Another interesting sale was that of the national defence industry provider to a company that turned out to be largely owned by the French government. You might say that the French more or less own the supplier of our armed forces.

Does this mean we have tanks with only a reverse gear?

[slimD]

Oi! Leave the frenchies alone. For all i know, the company in question is the one i work for.. its owned by a LARGE french company with big defence ties. Its not the french managers i dislike - its the australian bosses who are the pains in the ass.