Why not raise taxes to slow inflation?

[owen87]

If you think raising the GST for a temporary period wouldn't become permanent, you've got rocks in your head.

I'm not against a raise but it would never be temporary, governments would soon waste the sugar hit and want more.

Who cares if it does? It doesn't impact essentials and the price of luxury items going up by a percent or two isn't a major issue - and they'd reprice accordingly over time anyway.

This idea that the Government would 'waste' the tax revenue as though it's somehow better off in the pockets of mostly already wealthy people who do SFA to assist or improve to society is a serious furphy. Sure, the Government might not be the most efficient organisation, but I'd sure as hell rather the Government spending even 50% of every dollar I pay in GST on luxury items on healthcare, education and infrastructure than the big banks hoovering up more profits from mortgage stressed people that ultimately ends up disproportionately in the pockets of wealthy shareholders and overpaid bankers.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

You keep coming up with bizarre statements without any facts or figures.
What is “close to work” for example ?
What was minimum wage 30 years ago ? Since 2010 the minimum wage has increased pretty much in line with CPI thanks to the FW Act and until 12 months ago interest rates were at historical lows.

What was the cost of the unit?
Was their mortgage approved on the basis of one or two incomes?

A couple on minimum wage now is earning $1756 pw ($882.80 each)

7% rate on loan of $400k is $2661 pm- $665 pw

It is do-able

400k

 

[Demonic Ascent]

The withdrawal of negative gearing for properties rented as air BnB for a start.

1600 Australians become homeless each week because of the rental shortage.

Source: More than 1,600 Australians pushed into homelessness each month as housing crisis deepens, report finds | Housing | The Guardian

Yet our threads resident Marie Antoinettes’ are arguing that low income earners can buy a house.


They can’t even rent a funking house!!!

Well then they should be able to save for a deposit! The marketplace at work (just ignore all the government intervention that has benefited me)

 

[Demonic Ascent]

You probably would get a more civil conversation if you leave out the insults.
Surely once you have a property you can do what you want with it ?
Air BnB landlords pay tax on that income.

I’m not immune to the plight of the homeless.
Successive state govts in SA have failed miserably in retaining public housing let alone increasing it. We have instances where these accommodations have been empty for years. There are a myriad of reasons for someone being homeless / DV, mental health issues, unemployment etc and that is a different argument altogether.


However - affordable housing for people employed and not entitled to public housing is still available. It may well mean you move away from your parents as I did.

But this whole “homeowners in the 90’s never had it so good” is simply not true. Your graph does not show repayments or interest rates.

We had 2 mortgages - my wife worked until the second one was paid off before we started our family. It was quite common to have the second mortgage.
We also downgraded our car to help with the deposit.

Did you also pay over $120 to fill up that downgraded car with petrol? $10 for a jar of Vegemite or peanut butter? Thousands a year on utilities? Etc etc

 

[Carringbush2010]

"Capitalism" doesn't mean an unfettered free for all. That's what these neoliberal "magic of the marketplace" ideologues will never get.

Sideways to the topic, "Capitalism" shouldn't mean an unfettered free for all.

Many on here tend to confuse capitalism with neoliberal 'capitalism', capitalism is not intended to price gouge which is what we're seeing now and for decades and decades now.

It's profiteering with a view to eliminating price controls, deregulating markets, and lowering trade barriers. < All of which stifles competition in the market and that's why we've ended up with a supermarket duopoly, a limited amount of financial lenders (the 4 banks) etc. that have ended up with record profits, and we end up paying more.

In others words it squeezes out the middle and small competitors.

Capitalism is intended to have regulated price controls, markets and trade protocols, so everyone has equal opportunity to compete.

It's been hijacked by corporate greed, and we need regulation, yes more social elements to keep the greedy c**** in control.

I'd be in favour of govt. controlled banks and energy providers again for example.

 

[evolved2]

Is there a point for you where our banks have moved from merely being financially healthy to making extreme profits? If so, where does that lie? If not, given that their profits mostly come from the Australian people and banking is a vital service that we can't do without, shouldn't the Australian people own the banks rather than private shareholders, many of whom are not Australian?

If there is, we haven't reached that point yet.

Let's use the first example in nut 's post, the CBA. Dividend yield accounted for 74% of cash earnings over the most recent financial year at around 4.5%. That's hardly an extravagant payday for investors while accounting for a large portion of their liquid profit.

While the CBA has performed well, they're an outlier for Australian banks. The other 3 examples in that post have performed poorly for investors in recent times. Number 2 on the the C7 hitlist is the NAB. People bought NAB shares for current prices in the last century.

There's no external rules and regulations preventing Australians from buying shares and being part owners of the big banks. Your money is probably better invested elsewhere though.

Let's say our politicians decide the banks are the enemy and should be taxed higher, and the public agrees. What good will that do? We'll destabilise the banks, putting at risk savings accounts of many vulnerable people and barely put a dent in the $1T gross debt of the Aus government.