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FAO: pkc (pg. 4)
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
here we go! :p
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
GST - You and every other man in Australia hates this, as the public it as an "additional" tax, stripping them of yet more money that was rightfully theirs. This is not the case at all. Many items and services were taxed at high rates like 20%, while others were low, like 5%. All GST has done is even those rates out to make taxation flow smoothly. As a result this has reduced thousands of hours of paperwork for businesses of all sizes, increasing their viability, and reduced spending and red tape for the taxation department itself, saving the government money. |
well, i hardly need the GST explained to me ;) and i didn't say the GST was negative, i merely mentioned it because it was a signifant part of the howard years and i didnt want to gloss over it.
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
Union-smashing - This was NECESSARY. I will not go into it here, but I assure you, I have first hand and soul destroying evidence of the tyranny of the unions in the '90s- multiple, multiple cases. If I ever meet you in real life I could give you a two hour run-down of my experiences in this matter. The CFMEU was run by a bunch of lazy, power hungry men out to exert their will on big business to account for their own failings in life. A curbing of their power was needed. |
again, i didn't say it was unnecessary. the stevedores debacle was definitely necessary, and only the coalition could do it. they way they went about it though left a bit to be desired. peter reith is a lying cvnt.
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
"outrageous" IR laws - Again, necessary. With workers vs big business, you walk a very fine line. There are good guys and bad guys on both sides that will try and screw one another. Prior to Howard's IR reforms, that power balance was grossly in favour of the workers. The IR reforms restored the balance to some degree. Personally, I think it's nigh on impossible to get the correct balance, but currently it's pretty good and hard to say who is in favour now. Note that at the time of the IR reforms, which everyone saw as a huge negative for the workers, my parents were forced to pay their sixty-odd staff an extra $2 an hour, despite already paying a very generous rate. This cost them around $20,000 a year. |
there was a need for definite reform, but as the election showed us, those reforms went way too far. an ability to appeal to an arbiter for wrongful dismissal should be a right of every worker.
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
Reigned in government spending - This was necessary after the splurging of the previous government, which was deep in debt. I find this comment funny when, further down, you have commended Keatingt on his "radical economically conservative" attitude, which, in layman's terms, means "decreased spending"; the very same thing which you criticised Howard for. I don't know where you got this from anyway, the Keating government spent truckloads. |
this is just a misconception created by the howard government. go check the stats on howard's years as treasurer up until 1983. keating passed on a pretty similar economic outlook that he was handed back then. the government wasn't "splurging" anymore than howard did in his last term.
no, i meant "economically conservative" because of the so-called economic rationalism instituted by hawke and (mainly) keating. australia was a laughing stock globally for our antiquated taxation and banking systems.
keating made australia a boon for competitive banking (the labor govt single-handedly made it possible for corporations like mac bank to get started), as well as lowering company tax by a massive amount (60% to something like 37%), and like i said, created superannuation (which this and every country badly badly needs). he instituted a sharp and decisive tariff-reduction policy.
you only need to look at reagan, bush #1 & bush #2 to know that "reduced spending" = conservativism is a complete fallacy.
economic conservatism actually ties in with liberalisation of the economy, and as far as that goes keating was the messiah of modern australia.
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
The floating of the Australian dollar is very admirable, however this is something that any Prime Minister at the time would have done, just as any Prime Minister now is forced to invest in Internet infrastructure. |
not really. fraser choked on the opportunity so it was left to a man with a greater set of testicles. honestly, the economic reforms of the keating era were huge and showed a pretty distinct ability for him to manage various interests (not just the unions) with a political acumen rarely seen.
The superannuation scheme is very commendable; I'd say that this is Keating's greatest contribution to Australia and will save the country from collapsing in the next century.
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
"Held wage growth through the accord" - I like that, very funny. That's a diplomatic way of saying, "he upheld the country through the depression". A DEPRESSION THAT HIS GOVERNMENT CAUSED, and which garnished the now immortalised quote "blah blah blah...the recession we had to have". No Keating, we didn't have to have a recession. |
no, what i said was that he put downward (or at least static) pressure on wages (ie unions took better conditions over pay rises). the recession was a recession australia had to have, that's current just economic opinion. you don't get all these liberalising reforms for free:
| quote: |
What has been lost from the debate is the fact that two monumental structural changes occurred as a direct result of the recession and that these two changes are the pillars on which the prosperity of the past decade rests.
First, people now believe that if inflation rises, the authorities will respond and inflation will return to 2-3 per cent. Before the recession, people thought that if inflation rose, it could go higher and at best would hover in the 8-10 per cent range. It was these inflation expectations that meant that the 90-day bank bill rate averaged 14.5 per cent during the 1980s.
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Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser locked in low inflation when he lifted interest rates in 1994 ahead of a strengthening economy. Raising interest rates in 1994 did the Keating government no favours, but it is why Australia now has the gift of low and stable inflation and low interest rates.
Second, we now have a labour market where wages are negotiated on a decentralised basis. That outcome had been an objective since the two disastrous wage explosions of the Whitlam and Fraser years. Although it was not planned, the fact that Paul Keating and Bill Kelty successfully made the switch from a centralised to a decentralised system is directly related to the recession.
By the end of the 1980s, the Accord had kept wages in check and facilitated a major shift from wages to profits, which reversed the disastrous consequences of the Whitlam and Fraser years. Employment growth was exceptionally strong but employers had little incentive to raise productivity - labour was cheap and profits were high, so why should they bother?
It was essential that employees negotiate over higher wages and higher productivity. The constraint was the intense pressure on the labour market. The surge in the terms of trade at the end of 1987 and the ridiculous lending of the recently deregulated banks had created a property frenzy and surging demand. You cannot decentralise wage negotiations successfully during a period of intense demand for labour.
In 1988 and 1989, if the Accord had lost its grip, over-award payments would have taken over and spiralled through the centralised system. Far from enjoying the prosperity of the past decade, we would have spent the 1990s dealing with high inflation and high interest rates. In 1989, time was ticking and interest rates were the only way to avoid the otherwise inevitable disaster.
In the event, the economy was allowed to run too rapidly for too long, in part complicated by the 1987 stock market crash. And when it turned, interest rates continued to wreak havoc even though the immediate danger of inflation had passed.
We will never know for sure whether continuing to increase interest rates up to mid-1989 saved the nation from a third wage explosion or whether it was overkill. What we do know is that it took this lift in interest rates to deflate inflation expectations; that employment grew at an annual rate of 3.1 per cent in the second half of 1989 and that unemployment continued to fall.
Notwithstanding the 1991-92 recession, the architects of our current prosperity are Keating, Kelty and Bernie Fraser. |
link
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
Like any seasoned debater, you conveniently "forgot" to mention the negative points about Keating's term, but I suppose you'll insist that there were none? |
of course i haven't forgotten, i was merely highlighting the monumentally huge reforms carried out by each government, in an effort to illustrate that as far as (economic) reform went, keating did far more than howard did. |
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| Domesticated |
Now I remember why I respect you, poof.
Anyone else would be saying: "GsT was ing gAY, LOLS! i Had 2 pai 2 buks a wk exTra for DArTs! j0Hn HOWaRd is a reTArded!!!!", or taking their own liberal vs labor agenda into account (which I already wrote you off for).
I would love to continue this discussion, however I have a lot of work to do right now. All I have time for today is more snide one- liners in conspiracy threads. Perhaps we could resume on Monday? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
the only reason i dont have an opinion on the GST is because i havent read anything one way or the other. i don't like consumption taxes, but it hasn't seemed to have a negative impact so i will grudgingly accept that my opposition to it back in the day may have been in error ;)
yeah, monday is fine haha. though that's my first day back in my old (less paying) job, so ill prob be ty! |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| You cunts ruined this thread. :mad: |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
You cunts ruined this thread. :mad: |
that'll learn ya for sending me PMs :p |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| Instead of going to work tomorrow, I feel like sitting outside Blair House with a sign that says "This is why we love Kevin Rudd, you cvnt." |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Instead of going to work tomorrow, I feel like sitting outside Blair House with a sign that says "This is why we love Kevin Rudd, you cvnt." |
well, we DID love rudd until he decided to censor our internets :mad: |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| What do you expect from a guy that speaks Chinese? He's obviously heavily influenced by Beijing. You had to know that going in. Now you know your choice, Australia. Are you with Bush? Or Mao? |
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| Domesticated |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
You cunts ruined this thread. :mad: |
How so? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
How so? |
This is an "Americans hate racist Australia" thread, and you had to go and get all intellectual. :mad: |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| well, shut up and learn something you miserable piece of trailer trash! |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
well, shut up and learn something you miserable piece of trailer trash! |
Yeah, well why don't you go to a Wallaby rodeo and leave me to enjoy my NASCAR??! |
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