In news:68uhnnF2vgvbhU1@mid.individual.net,
Rod Speed typed:
> Don H wrote:
>> "Sir John Howard" wrote in message
>> news:53dc49b8-826a-43aa-8dfa-f4e5898142ea@w4g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
>>> http://business.smh.com.au/inflation-monster-stalking/20080513-2duf.html
>>>
>>> If it's true that political leaders fall into two broad categories -
>>> pleasers and doers - then Kevin Rudd's first budget reveals him to
>>> be veering towards the "pleaser" category.
>>>
>>> For the first budget of the first term of a new government, the time
>>> when a government should be at its most ambitious, it displays an
>>> unseasonably strong desire to be popular.
>>>
>>> A former chief of staff to Paul Keating, the economist Don Russell,
>>> said recently that pleasers "subscribe to the notion that if you are
>>> nice to the electorate, the electorate will be nice to you".
>>>
>>> Doers, on the other hand, "believe that the electorate is much more
>>> impatient and believe that unless you are being useful, the
>>> electorate will inevitably tire of you and replace you".
>>>
>>> There is some doing in the budget, but its overall character is to
>>> try to please.
>>>
>>> The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, talks tough. He trumpets it as a budget
>>> to "fight inflation first", yet it is a budget that actually squibs
>>> the fight.
>>>
>>> How? The Government will proceed with tax cuts. It will honour $8.3
>>> billion in tax cuts pledged by the Howard government, plus it will
>>> enact $7.1 billion in the first year's Rudd tax cuts that were
>>> promised before the election.
>>>
>>> Together, this will tip over $15 billion into taxpayers' incomes in
>>> 2008-09. Plus, this budget will increase overall federal spending,
>>> after adjusting for inflation, by 1.1 per cent. Whereas the last
>>> Howard budget spent $275 billion, this one is set to spend $288
>>> billion.
>>>
>>> These are both measures that will stimulate demand and add to
>>> inflation.
>>>
>>> Swan declared yesterday that the budget delivered a "mild
>>> tightening". But, in truth, the budget is stimulatory. It will add
>>> to inflation, not fight it. That leaves the Reserve Bank to do the
>>> tightening instead.
>>>
>>> It's true the Rudd Government has not spent as wantonly as the
>>> Howard government in its final term. A former director of budget
>>> analysis in the Department of Finance, Stephen Anthony, described
>>> recent Howard budgets as "Christmas night at the pirate's cave".
>>>
>>> The Howard government's final budget increased real spending by 5.2
>>> per cent, according to the budget papers, and by 2.5 per cent in its
>>> penultimate budget.
>>>
>>> But this is a mismatched comparison. Howard's was an aged government
>>> approaching an election; Rudd's is shiny and new, in the full flush
>>> of a decisive victory.
>>>
>>> A better comparison is with the first terms of the Hawke and Howard
>>> governments - these administrations cut real spending by more than 2
>>> per cent in their inaugural budgets, while Rudd is adding to real
>>> spending.
>>>
>>> And, despite the Robin Hood rhetoric of taking from the rich to give
>>> to Rudd's "working families", in truth, the rich emerge from this
>>> budget unscathed and, on some measures, better off.
>>>
>>> The budget does give generously to the "working families" previously
>>> known as Howard's battlers.
>>>
>>> The "typical working family" illustrated in Government budget
>>> pamphlets has a primary breadwinner, Patrick, earning $60,000, and
>>> Susie, earning $27,000, and two young kids. The family will receive
>>> total new benefits worth $4160.
>>>
>>> This comprises tax cuts worth $1050, an education tax refund of
>>> $375, plus an increase in the child-care rebate worth $1255, and
>>> benefits through the first home saver account of $1480.
>>>
>>> All together, that's an increase in Patrick's and Susie's disposable
>>> income of 4.8 per cent a year.
>>>
>>> In his 2005 book Postcode, Swan described families like this as the
>>> "splintering middle" of the Australian electorate. This group was
>>> "feeling left behind in the race for prosperity, they feel
>>> pressured. These are the people who increasingly determine the
>>> outcome of our elections."
>>>
>>> His first budget is plainly designed to stop the splintering - to
>>> stop families from splintering financially, and politically, to
>>> prevent them from splintering away from Labor, to bind them with
>>> largesse to the Rudd Government which is governing so ostentatiously
>>> in their interests.
>>>
>>> But this budget does not give to them at the expense of the winners
>>>
>>> Proud to be mean, the cut-lunch assassin
>>> How strange it is to see a Treasurer trying to convince us of his
>>> brutality. Wayne Swan, bringing down his first budget, spent the
>>> first 20 minutes of his press conference talking up the nasty bits
>>> of the thing and barely mentioning the nice bits.
>>>
>>> Sure, there are tens of billions of dollars in tax cuts and lovely
>>> new Medicare for thousands of people previously dragooned into
>>> taking out private health insurance, but all the Treasurer wanted to
>>> talk about was the slashing and burning. The Slaughter of the
>>> Innocents, in which thousands of babies lose their automatic $5000
>>> lucky door prize!
>>>
>>> The brutal Cut Lunch Tax Assault, in which office workers can no
>>> longer escape fringe benefits tax on their sandwiches from the caf!
>
>> Any government is obliged, if it is honest, to fulfil its election
>> promises, and, if this involves tax cuts, and spending, then
>> so be it - even if more/less than what the Coalition promised.
>
> Wota silly little wanker.
>
>> That there is a pruning of commonwealth expenditure, in other
>> directions, while it might be needed due to previous govt's
>> extravagance,
>
> Or just different prioritys.
>
>> can also smack of a forelock-tugging labour reaction to the boss,
>
> Only with fools like you.
>
>> or of a Dr.Death doing what comes naturally.
>
> In spades with that mindlessly silly shit.
>
>> However, better to get the nasty bits over well prior to the next
>> election.
>
>> No social democratic party is going to overthrow capitalism, but it
>> will try to humanise it.
>
> Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you have never ever
> had a .ing clue about anything at all, ever.
>> Nor can any govt, elected by geographic democracy, do much
>> more than try to appeal to all of its heterogeneous constituents.
>
> No govt is ever stupid enough to try that, its completely impossible.
>
>> Capitalist economics tells us there is an Upper
>> Class, a Middle Class, and a Working Class,
>
> And only fools like you buy that sort of mindlessly superficial crap.
>
> Welfare bludgers arent in any of those, fool.
>
>> and, while the term Upper Class is rarely mentioned,
>
> Because they have long ceased to matter a damn.
>
>> the other two are played off against each other, to good effect.
>
> Only in your pathetic little pig ignorant drug crazed fantasyland.
>
>> No aspirational family
>
> Whatever the . thats supposed to be.
>
>> likes to think of itself as other than Middle Class,
>
> Wrong, as always.
>
>> 'cos who wants to sink into the nether regions, and live on the
>> Western side of Melbourne, for example - unless it becomes trendy to do
>> so.
>
> Thats not what aspirational means, stupid.
>
>> As Geographic Democracy
>
> No such animal, wanker.
>
>> has electorates which vote predominately either Liberal or Labor (in
>> the suburbs),
>
> Its actually the non suburbs that mostly do that now.
>
>> it is the "marginal" electorates (those aspirationalists)
>
> Wrong again.
>
>> who are pandered to by both sides of politics - as they can decide
>> elections.
>
> The real ones that can are the ones who are prepared to change who
> they vote for, stupid.
>> Who are the Workers? Most of us. After all, if you have no
>> alternative but to derive the majority of your income from "sale
>> of your labour power", then you are a damn worker, like it or
>> not - and this includes "independent" contractors.
>
> But doesnt include people like othopedic surgeons who still derive
> the majority of their income from the sale of their labor, stupid.
>
> And then there are the hordes that work for themselves, the self
> employed.
>> Yeah, the whole set-up is rather farcical,
>
> Just your mindlessly superficial categorisation.
>
>> and only an upgrade to Industrial Democracy will really make much
>> difference.
>
> That wont make any difference at all, because its pure fantasy, just
> like your 'workers' are.
>> As to Inflation, that current bogeyman of economics,
>> you control it by controlling Prices, one way or another
>
> Again, mindlessly superficial and not even possible.
>
>> - and cuts to govt spending, while assuaging the Top-Enders,
>> are no guarantee Inflation won't still continue an upward trend.
>
> Specially when the bulk of the current inflation is actually due to
> fuel prices and interest rates.
Minslessly superficial diagnosis, .wit.
|