Mega Thread The Random Thoughts Thread Part 1

[Steve Dore]

I like donating to the Salvos

I refuse to donate to the Salvos as I am a pacifist.

 

[Trewth]

The Salvo's are homophobes who don't deserve a cent.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Live is like football. There will always be people who
a want to get the hard ball themselves or
b want to get the easier handball or kick from player a, or
c do combo of both of a and b, or
d isn't really good at either but works hard and does the team thing, or
e isn't really good at either and doesnt work hard, wants to participate, but just wont make you any better, so you stop picking him and eventually ask him to leave.

The question is who wants to work with player e to see if you can improve them enough so they can contribute to some team?

 

[I Dont Care]

I refuse to donate to the Salvos as I am a pacifist.

My grandfather requested they do his funeral thingy, and I asked my grandmother the reason why, and she told me that his father was an alcoholic living in the gutter and the Salvos got him straightened up and off the grog and he married, had children, and I am a result. I may not be here without them...or maybe I would be here, but different. Hmmm. What if I could have been someone else...like a financial superior like Doctor Feel or intellectually superior like Spec Mod...or even a god like REH? Damn you Salvos. Damn you

 

[Doctor Feel]

All you liberals out there can sleep easier tonight knowing that the murdoch media has successfully campaigned for that Q&A guy to not get any money from that crowd funding campaign.

I'm a liberal and I couldn't even give one iota of **** about the whole story, shits ridic. Also i'm pretty sure it wasn't just liberals hating on that guy.

 

[Doctor Feel]

The Salvo's are homophobes who don't deserve a cent.

Don't talk shit about Harold Bishop.

 

[Trewth]

Don't talk shit about Harold Bishop.

**** him and his tuba

 

[Portia]

I like that you have made me feel bad for donating to world vision because I have the money to do so. I'm not sure those with money can ever win from that viewpoint.

No offense, but for the most part I don't care what any of you feel.

I don't care that bigots, transphobes, domestic abusers, paedophiles, and bankers can all access Medicare, or any other welfare. I don't care that burglars might have huge HECS debts for their Arts degrees. I am quite sure that rapists buy smokes with their dole money and I don't care.

I think the main difference here is that I'm reaching my viewpoint on what needs to be done based on `I think', and you're coming from `I feel'.

I think that the family you're born into should not dictate your future, and nor should your race, blah blah, you've heard it before. I think the way to correct that imbalance will absolutely not be done by privatising support into charities and other feel-good funds. I think that people are more than how much they earn. I don't feel any of it.

Donate money: When you donate money to the disprivileged, but still vote for and vocally support government that wants to further class gaps and cut support services, your donation is meaningless. My view on deriving net joy from it is that it is perverse, but go ahead, its better than nothing.

Be Taxed: Pay your taxes, whats to `feel' about that? You can afford your brand new iphone.

Get taxed more: Pay your taxes, whats to `feel' about that? You can afford your brand new iphone.

Invest your money into business: No matter the tax rate, there are people who always find ways to accumulate wealth, in every society. Feel free to invest your money into business. Trying to subvert the economy/tax system/government to disempower individual people, particularly the vulnerable, to increase business profits is a negative impact on society.

Invest in property: Investing in property is fine. Trying to subvert the economy/tax system/government to the detriment of anyone who can't afford such luxuries is a negative impact on society.

Have an education: Education is great.

Inherit money: No problem here, though maybe it should be taxed as iincome for the recipient.

Pay your HECS back despite skyrocketing levels of people not paying their education bills back: HECS was sold to Australia from day one as `if you can't afford it, you don't pay it'. If these people were earning money from their education, they would be paying it, but they're not. This is all within the parameters established when the defunding of tertiary education happened, which frankly shouldn't have happened. Are you saying you want to abolish arts degrees? Or just abolish them for anyone but rich kids?

Have no money: Having no money sucks. You know that.

Now obviously the uber wealthy (as in multimillionaires) could do more, but targeting those on 80-140k is soft. The system is inherently geared towards not touching the uber wealthy, and that is where the issues come from. Governments feel that in order to promote business they have to leave the uber wealthy to do as they please despite them having inconceivable amounts of disposable income. Long story short, target billionaires and multimillionaires for higher taxes, not the average person which in all seriousness is anyone earning 18k-180k.

Um. That is so broad a category as to be meaningless, Feel. Your top end of the `average' is 10 times the earning of the lowest, but you want them treated the same?

And even if 80-140k are targeted, it should be as part of measures that target the top level more. Proportionate income tax, right?

 

[Doctor Feel]

**** him and his tuba

Well he did become a peeping tom, too.

 

[Dylan8]

St

Still don't know what it means!

Eat some grass, grow your brain and maybe you'll find out!! boom

 

[Dylan8]

Both sides of the media and politics are guilty of exploitation in this case.

Difference is the lefties can't see they have done anything wrong.

Q and A has as many questions from right wing perspectives as it does the left. There's no exploitation going on. Something about reality having a left bias.

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

**** the poor

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Q and A has as many questions from right wing perspectives as it does the left....

If you truly believe that then you have a biased view.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

No offense, but for the most part I don't care what any of you feel.

I don't care that bigots, transphobes, domestic abusers, paedophiles, and bankers can all access Medicare, or any other welfare. I don't care that burglars might have huge HECS debts for their Arts degrees. I am quite sure that rapists buy smokes with their dole money and I don't care.

I think the main difference here is that I'm reaching my viewpoint on what needs to be done based on `I think', and you're coming from `I feel'.

I think that the family you're born into should not dictate your future, and nor should your race, blah blah, you've heard it before. I think the way to correct that imbalance will absolutely not be done by privatising support into charities and other feel-good funds. I think that people are more than how much they earn. I don't feel any of it.

Donate money: When you donate money to the disprivileged, but still vote for and vocally support government that wants to further class gaps and cut support services, your donation is meaningless. My view on deriving net joy from it is that it is perverse, but go ahead, its better than nothing.

Be Taxed: Pay your taxes, whats to `feel' about that? You can afford your brand new iphone.

Get taxed more: Pay your taxes, whats to `feel' about that? You can afford your brand new iphone.

Invest your money into business: No matter the tax rate, there are people who always find ways to accumulate wealth, in every society. Feel free to invest your money into business. Trying to subvert the economy/tax system/government to disempower individual people, particularly the vulnerable, to increase business profits is a negative impact on society.

Invest in property: Investing in property is fine. Trying to subvert the economy/tax system/government to the detriment of anyone who can't afford such luxuries is a negative impact on society.

Have an education: Education is great.

Inherit money: No problem here, though maybe it should be taxed as iincome for the recipient.

Pay your HECS back despite skyrocketing levels of people not paying their education bills back: HECS was sold to Australia from day one as `if you can't afford it, you don't pay it'. If these people were earning money from their education, they would be paying it, but they're not. This is all within the parameters established when the defunding of tertiary education happened, which frankly shouldn't have happened. Are you saying you want to abolish arts degrees? Or just abolish them for anyone but rich kids?

Have no money: Having no money sucks. You know that.

Um. That is so broad a category as to be meaningless, Feel. Your top end of the `average' is 10 times the earning of the lowest, but you want them treated the same?

And even if 80-140k are targeted, it should be as part of measures that target the top level more. Proportionate income tax, right?

I gave $20 to a bloke selling pens in George St this morning.

Only because I could. It was unconditional, I didn't give him any directions on how he should spend that money.

I'm not sure how I feel about it now.

I didn't take a pen though, I feel good about that.

 

[Portia]

IMO Q&A is a strawman show. Questions and audience probably lean left, but the topics and guests when they lean right tend very much towards the most ludicrous & objectionable right. Manufactured outrage at its finest.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

IMO Q&A is a strawman show. Questions and audience probably lean left, but the topics and guests when they lean right tend very much towards the most ludicrous & objectionable right. Manufactured outrage at its finest.

Do you consider yourself a deep thinker Portia?


I don't necessarily agree 100% with everything you say but by god it is always well thought out and well considered.

 

[El_Scorcho]

The personal character assassination by conservative media of a generational, entrenched poor person because he asked a question about why the government would widen the gap between rich an poor has been pretty disgraceful no matter how you look at it.

Sent from my HTC_0P6B6 using Tapatalk

 

[Janus]

The issue is the proportionate value of the dollar. Someone who earns 18k is going to value a dollar more than someone who earns 80k, that said - a study was done recently which suggests that those earning more can just as easily live as close to the "living pay cheque by pay cheque" line as those earning less. This is due to self inflicted debt however (i.e big mortgages and therefore higher rates, new cars etc.)

In a sense, both the person earning 18k (option a) and the person earning 80k (option b) have self inflicted issues. One may be through lack of education, taking on a job, laziness while the other is being stupid with their finances. Now you would rather be in option B. However it is worth noting that a sizable chunk of option A are through choice just as much as option B.

Changing the tax brackets is shuffling the deck chairs as you have said, as someone ultimately needs to pay for any tax breaks. There are reasons for both sides and the whole trendy "trickle down" economics thing theoretically rings true with the tax breaks for the rich, they anticipate that 255 a year will be spent going back into the economy in one way or another through investment, which we know in reality it will just go on piss or smokes - same as if we gave 255 dollars to the person in option A.

Difference is, option A needs a chance to make something of that 255 dollars while Option B really already has or has had a chance with their wealth and has spent it on cars and whatnot.

Low income earners/people on welfare value 1 dollar more than someone on 80k, IN THEORY. What the actual dollar ends up going towards is the issue here. If the rich are to fund more tax to go to the poor, they have the right to know that it will go towards the betterment of that person and their family rather than smokes, the TAB or for them to sit on their ass. Welfare needs to be quite strict for this reason. Welfare is incredibly complex and every individual is a different case, especially asylum seekers. I'm not fond of them, but I accept them as a fact of life and a burden we have to bear as a rich nation - we can't totally say no to them for more complex reasons and by binding laws through the UN etc., but they do need strict regulation which is undoubted given the examples in Europe.

TL;DR: Shuffling the deckchairs.

lol how cool would it be if the rich could sponsor a particular welfare recipient and get letters on how they are going in regards to education, finding a job and so on. I'd do that. Some of these people genuinely need mentors, they can't break the chain of the fourth generation career welfare recipient if they have never seen someone succeed before. They don't know what success looks like.

I'll mentor him/her to get a government job and post on bigfooty about welfare recipients.

I'm not saying there isn't a social responsibility to those who are on welfare. All I'm saying is that he was complaining about something that was in reality just making sure that those in the middle tax bracket stay there and don't jump up into the next bracket due to inflation and wage increases (which means they have to pay $17,547 straight away in tax and then 37c in the dollar over $18,201, as opposed to $3572 straight away and then 32.5c in the dollar over $18,201).

It's the people earning in that 32.5 percent bracket that drive the economy - the people earning more than 37k but under 85k...earning just enough to have disposable income but not enough to sink that money into investment and superannuation. Once you start earning more than that you look for ways to start paying less tax through things like negative gearing so your income is less...another reason why they focused on that tax bracket. If I'm earning $82k a year, I can either pay $41,152 in tax...or I can reduce my income to under $77k by writing off 5k as an loss of income with negative gearing and only pay $22,681 in tax. So on one hand you get $40,848 to take home...on the other you get $54,319.

However, if you raise the threshold just by 5k...suddenly the guy who earns 82k is only paying $24,306 in tax and gets no benefit from negative gearing because it doesn't reduce his income to the lower tax bracket anyway. So he has more money to spend - $57,694 - doesn't have to bother with negative gearing which theoretically makes housing cheaper and everyone wins.

So the reality is - it's the same amount of money injected into the economy - around $50 a week - except it doesn't cost as much to the taxpayer and actually helps reduce housing prices.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

The personal character assassination by conservative media of a generational, entrenched poor person because he asked a question about why the government would widen the gap between rich an poor has been pretty disgraceful no matter how you look at it.

Why was he there?

Who put him there?

What were they trying to achieve?

He doesn't strike as the type that would regularly watch Q&A.

 

[Portia]

Do you consider yourself a deep thinker Portia?


I don't necessarily agree 100% with everything you say but by god it is always well thought out and well considered.

I consider myself an overthinker, and it rarely pays off for me personally.

 

[Dylan8]

There's plenty of reasonable right wing questions, mostly about immigration and concerns about the taxes of the middle class going to welfare.

 

[Dylan8]

Why was he there?

Who put him there?

What were they trying to achieve?

He doesn't strike as the type that would regularly watch Q&A.

Might just be that people surprise you and not all poor people are dumbdumbs tuning into gogglebox. You talk as if it's some grand conspiracy. Ridiculous. There's questions like his all the time, because a lot of people are struggling and the show is a good chance for ordinary people to hold politicians to account.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Might just be that people surprise you and not all poor people are dumbdumbs tuning into gogglebox. You talk as if it's some grand conspiracy. Ridiculous. There's questions like his all the time, because a lot of people are struggling and the show is a good chance for ordinary people to hold politicians to account.

Riiiiiiiiight

Memo to self the left is never wrong.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

Might just be that people surprise you and not all poor people are dumbdumbs tuning into gogglebox. You talk as if it's some grand conspiracy. Ridiculous. There's questions like his all the time, because a lot of people are struggling and the show is a good chance for ordinary people to hold politicians to account.

I think they are fairly reasonable questions spec mod.

 

[Steve Dore]

Why was he there?

Who put him there?

What were they trying to achieve?

He doesn't strike as the type that would regularly watch Q&A.

How did he get there?

Can't afford to take kids to movies but can afford to travel to Sydney to be on Q&A.