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http://images.huffingtonpost.com/201...ages.arrow.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by plague
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1946 to 1972 is the golden age with respect to incomes equality. Before and after that brief period in history it's been not so great for a lot of people.
Daylight Saving must say ****ing it off is a winner as far as I am concerned.
Why do we even have it
Why the **** does it last 6 months these days.
Want more daylight then get out of bed in the morning FFS
Maybe you should have a word to your mate God.Quote:
Originally Posted by MFKS
He started all this shit yeah?
How!??
Thought the thing was a man made idea.
Not recalling anything about 6 months with the clocks pushed forward in my good book
Tending to agree with a lack of sleep head I currently have. My boy is an early riser at 5:30 the last few months, so that's now 4:30. And no....putting them to bed later doesn't necessarily workQuote:
Originally Posted by MFKS
I just assumed that the big fella was responsible for inventing blokes, the sun and time itself then he'd be able to change it round to suit.Quote:
Originally Posted by MFKS
It's all his handiwork innit?
Your drawing a long bow to make your pointQuote:
Originally Posted by plague
That being said for your point to be accurate I am going to draw a very short bow here
You are a believer in JC then Plague
5 5 5
Nah man. We are having a little giggle at it all.Quote:
Originally Posted by MFKS
I genuinely respect people's wish to believe whatever they want.
Although the chaps who think they are getting a whole bunch of virgins if they blow themselves up confuse all **** out of me.
Like, why not 72 porn stars when you die?
Now THAT would be a good time.
A bunch of timid first timers?
That's just weird.
they tried that but islam heaven became rife with disease
Interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dunster
Do you have an opinion on why?
It seems that the start of that period may have been influenced by a post war economy and the 'nationalism' that comes along with it.
I noticed the end of that period coincided with the Whitlam years, was it a factor? Or was the previous period of conservative rule setting it up to fail anyway?
Or was the world changing and we were heading this way regardless of what we did locally?
Yes - "the world changing and we were heading this way regardless of what we did locally". Pretty much.Quote:
Originally Posted by plague
After WW2 Governments used fiscal policy to fill the gap between actual spending and the level of spending compatible with full employment.
In 1959 the Reserve Bank of Australia adopted a similar approach with respect to monetary policy via the Reserve Bank Act 1959
The end of the golden age was due to a temporary shock to all prices [Opec Oil Crises] in early 1970's. [Stagflation] Unemployment and Inflation rising [Philips Curve]
That opened the gates for the Chicago School Economists to argue that the golden age was only a special case.
As such the Chicago School [Monetarism] became the mainstream ideology - and we went back to the thinking of 18th and early 19th Century economists such as David Ricardo.
Next Union Power was absolutely destroyed via arrangements between government and big business.
The Full Employment goal was replaced by that of price stability..... and through some very laughable methods which all failed [Look up Money supply targeting]
.... and the rest - well we are currently living it.
It used to be that Capital's goal was profit and that workers resisted wage cuts.
The countervailing power between the two groups was the very foundation of the capitalist system.
Today, Capital still has the profit goal but there is absolutely no resistance from workers with respect to wage cuts.
From there. Workers have been forced to live on credit via financial engineering, marketing, and governments accommodating the will of financial capitalists through fiscal consolidation.
Pretty much nothing the Chicago School have indoctrinated the masses with has ever passed any empirical testing. In fact, 99% of it has been shown to be complete garbage.
you guys read Capital in the twenty-first century by Thomas Picketty?
well worth a read
i find it interesting the lack of focus the US economy has had during the election campaigns (on both sides).
So the US is destined to be about $21 trillion in debt by the end of Obamas term. The only politician who has focused on it has been Trump who proposes a bunch of protectionist policies to help fix it.
Sanders has proposed an ideology but given very little detail about how it will be implemented.
So it begs the questions:
Is the figure of $21 trillion a real problem to an economy that size?
Are Americans smarter for not caring about it (as opposed to Australians who obsess over govt debt) or are them dumber for ignoring it and getting caught up in banning cross dressers from public toilets as a major issue for the election?
Whilst you would like governments to at least attempt to control what they can within the economy, more and more countries are like "ahhh screw that lets talk about those darn Muslims".
Government deficit equals non-government surplus.Quote:
Originally Posted by plague
Personally, I don't have a problem with the private sector being able to spend less than they earn.
To argue government deficits are bad it is effectively saying that the private sector should always spend more than they earn. Which I think most people here would agree is not sustainable and completely ridiculous.
Hence, the position of both sides of government is that households should always spend more than they earn.
And it is through consumption spending via credit that the economy is able to grow just fast enough to sustain profits for those at the top of the pyramid [Usually Financial Capitalists - aka: The least productive organisms on the planet].
If the masses were to reduce their spending and they have been for the past few years to essentially make ends meet - then you end up with a fall in spending = fall in income = fall in investment = fall in aggregate demand = firms cutting back production and their workforce.
Meanwhile - the financial capitalists just roll the dice at the casino Stock Exchange / Derivatives Markets, knowing full well if they lose the government will come in to bail them out - like they always have.
It is a good read, however.Quote:
Originally Posted by boz-monaut
His entire thesis is based around the proposition that taxes and bond sales fund government spending. As a consequence of this misguided proposition he incorrectly assumes that income inequality can be rectified by taxing the elites accordingly.
His heart is in the right place but his reasoning is severely flawed.
and this is the bit that intrigues the most.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dunster
Most average people see this as unfair (why 'tax payers' dollars are spent on bailing out poorly performing private companies). Yet here are two candidates that are a realistic chance of stopping that practice happening and throwing a massive spanner in an unfair system yet neither will become president and the status quo will be maintained (and 'tax payers' will keep on moaning).
The reality is that it is a lot worse than most average people realise.Quote:
Originally Posted by plague
There is absolutely no valid reason that the stock exchange or indeed bond or derivative markets even exist other than to provide welfare payments to the laziest pieces of shit on the planet -The Financial Capitalists.
But a few public floats and your mum and dad investors jump on board and everyone seems to think it's a valid form of income generation.
It's not. It transfers wealth from all citizens to a select few. We all used to be part owners in Telstra. Instead of offering the shares to all individuals to trade people were forced to buy them ?
And this is the key to any plutocracy. The more money you have the more influence you have over policy.
If you don't have money [lots of money] you have no voice.
This is why tax policy is a waste of time - the rich have enough money to buy tax exemptions from the government. The rest of us are like lambs to the slaughter every time a politician needs to satisfy the whims of the big end of town.
You wonder who will be next given that the middle classes are rapidly disappearing and small business in general is being slaughtered by big fat inefficient bags of shit we call corporations
So reading about these 'religious freedoms' laws being debated across the US at the moment.
Anyone on this, because on the face of it both sides have a general agreeable point.
But as always the devil is in the detail and the strange little situations it throws up.
Now I'm only talking about private business here, as all govt departments and employees of those departments should be under the one rule.
But
As a business owner it does irk me that even though the govt did nothing to help me set up or run the joint, they can stand over the top of you and say "you must do this or that". So by empowering one part of the population you limit the freedom of another.
Interesting.
(And for the record I've never knocked back a dollar from anyone so it doesn't bother me so much but the principal does).