Quote Originally Posted by plague View Post
oh man, I've numbered these so we can go through them one by one.
1. No vision? As opposed to the land of milk and honey we've been on track for for the past 115 years? You may come to find that Pollies are awesome at 'saying' they are gonna do something and actually going through with it. (i.e they are all full of shit).

2. OK dude, you may want to go back and look at who actually owns all this prime farming land that is getting sold off. You might find an overwhelming % is privately owned (i.e farming folks and private companies). They have decided to take the best offer they can for their assets. I can only imagine you would be sweet when you are selling your house that the Govt came in and made you take less (or not be allowed to sell it) despite someone offering you over the odds. Yep, I'm sure you'd be all like "yeah cool cool ill take the financial hit TO KEEP DEM DARN CHINESE OUT OF OUR SUBURBS GADAMNIT".

3. The jobs you speak of are generally in the manufacturing industry yeah? cool, well then go look at Your car, fridge, tv, phone, clothes etc etc etc. The jobs aren't going anywhere because of the govt, they are going OS because people like you and me buy shit cause its cheaper to get it from OS. you want tariffs back? protectionist policies. dear oh dear, lets just build Donald Trumps wall and be done with it. dang foreigners.

4. OK, so one dude out of a population of 24 odd million is not a good sample size. but anyway, can you define the term "better off". because people equate that with cash in hand at the end of every week. try factoring in health care, national security, your retirement, roads, environment, education etc etc etc. just cause its not in your hand every week doesn't mean its not being spent on you.


im ok with your generalisations but seriously dude, think a bit more about the way the world works before spouting nonsense like this. to act like none of this isn't our fault is naive.
1. Governments vision is whatever the top 1% of wealth holders tell them it is.
2. You are forgetting that groups succesfully lobbied the Howard administration for changes to super and the like which artificially doubled the prices of land / houses overnight.
3. The models of free trade are little more than text book wankery. Once you introduce money, uncertainty, product differentiation, and finite supply and demand constraints things aren't quite so cherry. You are arguing against tarriffs from a perspective where tarrifs are what lined the pockets of those currently praising free trade.
If the world ran like a textbook than certainly free trade with nil tariffs would be the way to go - but that's not how the world works.
4. I would determine life expectancy as the best guide to peoples well being. Many, many indexes of human well-being exist with varying degrees of relevance.
Currently governments are not spending enough on healthcare, jobs... and so on.