Society/Culture The terror of 'socialism' being fed as a moral ideology.

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Or, alternatively, we could raise the funding necessary to develop and cultivate our own military by ceasing the obnoxious levels of pork barrelling that goes on when right leaning governments buy votes risking our safety by overly relying on US manpower for our defense. Not to mention the level of corporate welfare that occurs, either...

And it isn't as though they get nothing out of the deal, either, or do placing military bases on Australian soil within reach of China/SE Asia mean nothing?

Can you list some examples please.

$191.8 billion on social security and welfare in the budget. We get the social benefit of that because we don't need to spend that much servicing an armed forces.
 

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May 1, 2016
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The pork barreling as differentiated from other political spending that you mentioned.
https://independentaustralia.net/po...he-howard-and-costello-economic-disaster,5686
According to a Treasury report in 2008, between 2004 and 2007, the mining boom and a robust economy added $334 billion in windfall gains to the budget surplus. Of this, the Howard Government spent, or gave away in tax cuts, $314 billion, or 94 per cent.
Peter Hartcher, quoted in the same article:
Yet the truth is that tax revenues were gushing into the Treasury so powerfully that the vaults were bursting — Howard and Costello could deliver surpluses and still spend rashly and irresponsibly.

Howard spent $4 billion on his own ‘cash splash’ in his final budget, and promised another $4 billion in his election campaign, in the middle of a boom. In other words, there was no economic rationale whatsoever. On the contrary, Howard's handouts were helping to overheat the economy. These payouts were economic vandalism and political bribes designed to buy votes.

Negative Gearing, and its effect on Capital Gains Tax: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...at-australian-dream-and-distorted-the-economy

And you have the fairly well established by now new corporate tax cuts the current government wished to pass through in the upcoming budget, the 30 or so billion dollars they gave to the Murdoch press just cause, the defunding of health and the CSIRO.

Look, I do not disagree with you in that, currently speaking, we do overly rely on America for military aid, but since the fall of Keating we have seen significant largesse from the liberal party, in order to obtain votes from the middle class, whilst coupling that with corporate welfare; they opened up new markets for private enterprise by selling off government assets like Telecom, against the public interest, and sold off 2 thirds of Australia's gold supplies at the beginning of the Howard/Costello tenure (https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/1359493/the-truth-about-howards-inherited-debt/). While the Labor party has definitely had issues (pink bats) the majority of those 23 years have been spent under a Coalition government, and the majority of that money has been spent by a Coalition government. Put very simply, could some - any percentage - of these funds, instead of going into the hip pocket of the wealthy and the old, have gone to supporting the automotive manufacturing industry (a necessary function for a nation this size in a time of war) or have gone to supplementing our military budget with recruiting and infrastructure?

That is without calculating the ongoing costs at budget level of negative gearing.
 
Mar 17, 2009
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Nearly 3 out of every 4 billionaires are self made entrepreneurs and innovators.

Continuing to harp on about the 'evil' top 1% only reflects poorly on yourself.

They probably contribute more to helping society in a year than you would in a lifetime.

No doubt they work hard. Bill Gates worked hard. He was born to a wealthy family so had a privileged upbringing in the best schools. I think they'd be a lot like that. Getting that sort of start clearly makes a difference.

Zuckerburg was a very bright kid but his parents were financial enough to get him into 'the right' school. He hit on a brilliant idea. Good on him.

Remember, plenty of people work hard just to make ends meet. They just don't seem to get the life chances. Don't just associate wealth with hard work. Many work hard, get sick & lose everything. Or have no luck in trying or taking risks.

Just stick to a sensible discussion without resorting to the 'evil' accusation. You'd done well until then. :)

Gates has the money to be philanthropic & I dips me lid to him. I do some volunteering. If I'd been a billionaire I'd be philanthropic in areas of Education, health & fitness.

What would you like do?
 

CatFan79

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More interested if you think it was wrong to bail them out in the GFC. ‘Because capitalism’

The Government set the rules, the banks played the game. I don't know how easier it can be articulated.

Ultimately the Government had to intervene to prevent the s**t storm they were responsible for.

The point is, what caused the GFC is as far from Capitalism as you can get.
 

Pessimistic

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The Government set the rules, the banks played the game. I don't know how easier it can be articulated.

Ultimately the Government had to intervene to prevent the s**t storm they were responsible for.

The point is, what caused the GFC is as far from Capitalism as you can get.

'Not real capitalism'...'Not real socialism'
 
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The Government set the rules, the banks played the game. I don't know how easier it can be articulated.

Ultimately the Government had to intervene to prevent the s**t storm they were responsible for.

The point is, what caused the GFC is as far from Capitalism as you can get.

What?

Bank deregulation so they sold loans to people who couldn't service them long term & the murkey world of subprime loans & selling debt.

Very much greedy capitalist behaviour. Instead of responsible finance provisioning, they went stupid with little regulation to control them.

Sure blame Government, but it was basically about irresponsible greedy banks not operating responsibly.

Yet the finance industry still wants more deregulation!!!

Just look at our recent Finance royal commission & see what sort of greed & criminal behaviour that goes on.
 

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There it is!!! Cheers for proving my point.

Let me repeat... The Government set the rules, the banks played the game.

The banks arent the system. The system is capitalism. Funny that you and the like suggest 'leaving' capitalism and living in a socialist country, yet then seek to say it somehow isn't capitalism i(you are leaving) f it doesn't suit the argument
 

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It's called Crony Capitalism, look it up.

Doesn't matter what you call it. Any person you find who identifies as 'Socialist' will blame the banks for the GFC, and they're wrong.

I'm not 'any person' and I'm not blaming the banks, just saying true capitalism would have seen them go under 'because market forces'. Just as capitalism and 'laissez faire' let countless other sectors of the economy go under in the preceding decade or so.
 

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The Government set the rules, the banks played the game. I don't know how easier it can be articulated.

Ultimately the Government had to intervene to prevent the s**t storm they were responsible for.

The point is, what caused the GFC is as far from Capitalism as you can get.
Didn't the government force the banks to give low interest loans to people in disadvantaged groups? Now those same government people are saying the GFC impacted those disadvantaged groups the hardest.
 

smokingjacket

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What you are saying is true, but the general public barely had access to any of the technological benefits. The difference was in how people went about their daily activities and in what conditions they lived. Communal apartments with shared kitchen and toilet were not conducive to a comfortable standard of living, you can still find them in many places in Russia and CIS. Public transport was a nightmare and factory workers were placed not according to the task they can perform "the best" but pretty random, hence output suffered. Old Soviet people still use this saying "they pretend to pay this and we pretend to work" . It's almost hilarious to hear this in this day and age. This is why amongst Soviet workers alcoholism was prevalent, and people were taking little pride in their work. Skilled workers were also demoralised. The massive effort in the Soviet Union in education to create a skilled work force could not compensate for an economy that functioned poorly. Instead, education was producing talent that was being poorly employed. The result was obvious:

The famous quote from this article in the 70's:

"Brezhnev and his colleagues wished Soviet citizens to be as prosperous as those in the capitalist nations, and to produce more for consumers they tried to incorporate innovations from the West. ".

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch33-2.htm

From the 1960s there was in the world more production of consumer items such as automobiles, electronic devices, pharmaceuticals, civilian aircraft – a production that was more knowledge intensive, more plastic and less cement. There was more production for consumers – away from the kind of heavy industrial production that had developed under Stalin.The Russian Government wanted the same from the people :to increase the production and be innovative despite they could not keep up with the western countries in their technological developments in science and technology though in steel,cement ,oil their were giving tough competition to the States.
No argument from me. Central planning doesn't work. You only have to read an account of how central planning actually operated to realise it was doomed. The only thing wrong is your statement that central planning causes alcoholism. While I did have a chuckle at the irony, alcoholism is a cultural phenomenon of the area and not related the economic system. Alcoholism spiked dramatically when the Soviet system collapsed, not the opposite. You could make a context argument about the living arrangements too. The Soviets had to rebuild 40% of their housing stock after WWII, it's not easy to build luxury apartments for 40 millions people and despite your snobbishness, the Khrushchyovkas are popular places to live in, even today.
 
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its free real estate

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The only thing wrong is your statement that central planning causes alcoholism. While I did have a chuckle at the irony, alcoholism is a cultural phenomenon of the area and not related the economic system. Alcoholism spiked dramatically when the Soviet system collapsed, not the opposite.
I don’t read Total Power posts as a rule, but that is genuinely funny. Central planning causes alcoholism!

The US is currently going through a version of what the Russians did in the 90s, is that caused by central planning or what?
 

Dixie Normous

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John Lydon and Marky Ramone discussing socialism and specifically Marx's concept of socialism as a stratagem paradigm of his concept of man

 

smokingjacket

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I don’t read Total Power posts as a rule, but that is genuinely funny. Central planning causes alcoholism!

The US is currently going through a version of what the Russians did in the 90s, is that caused by central planning or what?
The opioid crisis is caused by the Obamacare, which is socialism, apparently.
 

Pessimistic

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https://independentaustralia.net/po...he-howard-and-costello-economic-disaster,5686

Peter Hartcher, quoted in the same article:


Negative Gearing, and its effect on Capital Gains Tax: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...at-australian-dream-and-distorted-the-economy

And you have the fairly well established by now new corporate tax cuts the current government wished to pass through in the upcoming budget, the 30 or so billion dollars they gave to the Murdoch press just cause, the defunding of health and the CSIRO.

Look, I do not disagree with you in that, currently speaking, we do overly rely on America for military aid, but since the fall of Keating we have seen significant largesse from the liberal party, in order to obtain votes from the middle class, whilst coupling that with corporate welfare; they opened up new markets for private enterprise by selling off government assets like Telecom, against the public interest, and sold off 2 thirds of Australia's gold supplies at the beginning of the Howard/Costello tenure (https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/1359493/the-truth-about-howards-inherited-debt/). While the Labor party has definitely had issues (pink bats) the majority of those 23 years have been spent under a Coalition government, and the majority of that money has been spent by a Coalition government. Put very simply, could some - any percentage - of these funds, instead of going into the hip pocket of the wealthy and the old, have gone to supporting the automotive manufacturing industry (a necessary function for a nation this size in a time of war) or have gone to supplementing our military budget with recruiting and infrastructure?

That is without calculating the ongoing costs at budget level of negative gearing.

The same mob that say we are stealing from future generations
The same mob which splashed so much cash around yet public schools got what, a measly flag to salute
What a miserable human being howard is
 

skilts

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I asked first.

Joking about gulags is not on.

When I was a kid I read One Day In The Life Of Ivan...and it impacted me on a cellular level. To this day I use the last bit of my bread to mop up every last scrap of food and condiment on my plate.
You must stop reading books, or has this one experience already put you off it?
 
Except when the libs need a "culture" diversion

anyway you wouldn't be able to wash your hands of something like that in socialist soceity.
If the corporate tax receipts alone were able to fund all current social policies, what should the personal tax rates be?
 

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