Goodbye Bronwyn

[manticle]

Not local? Wet the bed I expect, as a boy.

 

[Tropico]

From the high chair at the front, to the cold and lonely seat up at the back.

Shame, Bronwyn, shame.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

There is no connection between communist Russia/China and Australia under Labor so I'm really unsure of the point you're trying to make. They have almost nothing in common.

I made no connection at all between the 3 countries , never even mentioned Australia sure you are not getting confused with seamad's wealth distribution chart?

 

[goomboogo]

I made no connection at all between the 3 countries , never even mentioned Australia sure you are not getting confused with seamad's wealth distribution chart?

To be fair, the chart was quite confusing.

 

[Dave70]

Let me ask another question... WTF is so bad about socialism anyway?

What type of socialism Dave?

Marxist?
Trotsky?
Libertarian?
Democratic?
Liberal?
Anarchism?

Either way you still end up at the polling booth with a ballot paper the size of a table cloth.
Not for me anyway. I'm a social liberal right wing materialist.

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche..

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Not my usual reading material, could be accused of pilfering it from seamad's library but a very interesting and informative read.

http://leftfocus.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/responding-to-chris-bowen-on-labors.html

 

[Liam_snorkel]

 

[Dave70]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUjymz9tnU

 

[technobabble66]

I'm not sure if that's really funny or really sad - I realized shortly into it, it seems remarkably similar to our current media (w a very few exceptions) and their complete inability to engage in meaningful enquiry and analysis.
Great value though, Monty Python, hey Bruce?

 

[technobabble66]

Ho Ho ho.
Looks like Kathy Jackson et al are not the only ones prone to dipping their hands in the cookie jar.
http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-liberal-party-probes-missing-millions-20150819-gj3akk.html

Maybe it's a good time to suggest general transparency of political funds and their lobbyists.
Rather than just trying to, say, tar the unions as being all bad.
I'm a huge fan of checking the unions for corruption, as the few that are corrupt need to be weeded out and fully prosecuted. But to do it in such a ham fisted way that it looks like a witch hunt is gross incompetency on the part of politicians whose profession theoretically specialize in PR skills. How could a Liberal PM be such an *****?!?
And to claim it's only unions/Labor that might do it is down right ridiculous.
Anyone serious about corruption in our politics & lobbyists should be trying to cast a wider net.
Look at developing & 3rd world nations. Corruption is *the* scourge of a society.
If only we had someone in politics who could be a leader...

I think I should stop being an idealist.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8A4RDemfHo

 

[Dave70]

^That really got my toes a tappin^

 

[pcmfisher]

Both examples of China and Russia are fledgling capitalist countries, ask any of the people in those 2 countries what they would prefer, the life they had 30 or 40 years ago or what they have now.
Having lived and worked in China (milking the cash cow along with millions of Chinese) I know what they would say

Things must have been pretty bad 40 years ago (which they were) if they consider themselves better off today with 800 million (out of 1.35 billion) Chinese still living on less than $15 per day.

This and the thousands of billionaires emerging suggests there is probably as bigger wealth disparity as ever.

These working class 800 million will never be one of the billionaires.

For that you have to be a either a politician or have close links to politics where corruption is rife.

 

[Airgead]

Ok... so i asked what was bad about socialism and got a bunch of stuff about Russia and China which were, as I pointed out, communist.

Not saying communism is a good idea. but really, WTF is so wrong with the socialist aim of giving everyone a social stake in the means of production? Or to put it another way, to treat people fairly.

Why is socialist used as an insult these days?

And to the concern that some people won't pull their weight... sure. And they don't share the rewards. There is nothing in socialism that says we support free riders. Give the workers (ie: not the bludgers... though really there are very very few of them despite what a current affair tells us) a social stake in what they do.

And to Dave70's point about what type of socialism... I'm a fan of the Nordic model of democratic socialism that has seen them leverage their enormous resource wealth into vast sovereign wealth funds to benefit society when the resources run out rather than do what we have done and turn our vast resource wealth into giant profits that are shipped off shore by multinational mining companies who then want to replace local labor with imported workers in special economic zones where they can pay a dollar a day and further increase their profits ate the expense of society..

Cheers
Dave

 

[wobbly]

The Nordic model (Sweden, Finland, Norway etc) is often held up as a shining light without the full story being told such as to the level of contribution (taxation) payed by all (not just a few high income earners) so as to support the benefits that all are entitled to receive. The value added tax (mervärdesskatt or moms) rate in Sweden is 25%, with exceptions for food and services like hotel room rental fees (12%), and for sales of publications, admission tickets to cultural events and travel within Sweden (6%).[3] Further information for 2014 can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden

I don't have an issue with that model as every one contributes to the heavy lifting

Before all an sundry get on the bandwagon company tax is very low at around 9% (or something like that) and if it is earned in the country it is paid in the country which is right and appropriate

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[manticle]

I made no connection at all between the 3 countries , never even mentioned Australia sure you are not getting confused with seamad's wealth distribution chart?

You mentioned Russia and China in response to Airgead before Seamad's graph. This thread is/was about Australian politics.
While I do often get confused, I'm not sure I am in this instance.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

This thread was about Bronwyn Bishop before it went freelance and started covering Aussie rules,racism,socialism,emerging from communism, now we are in Denmark one of the highest taxed countries in the world.Who still haven't solved the problem of the chasm of the have and the have not's

 

[Dave70]

They have boxed smart with natural resources to be sure. Makes us look like chumps.
As far as the Nordic model of socialism goes, I guess you could call it that. Another thing you could call it is wealth redistribution. A rose by another name?
Its of course no accident that the countries who enjoy the highest standards of living, universal health care, free education etc also pay the highest tax. The opposite seems to be true also. This seems to be a concept most people cant get through their skulls. We can all have a government allocated personal gold plated doctor on standby 24/7 if we want, but someones got to pay for it.
I'd be happy to pay more tax if I knew it was to be re invested wisely and not pissed against the wall.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I'd be happy to pay more tax if I knew it was to be re invested wisely and not pissed against the wall.

this seems to be the real issue in this country. I'd guess that most people are in this boat, but just don't trust our elected representatives to... represent us.

EDIT: ****, we almost got back to the original topic there!

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Agree with you Dave we only pay a 2% levy for medicare as opposed to 8% in Denmark and still we complained when Abbott wanted a levy to visit the doctor. My current treatment is costing $10,000 / month, for 2 years or till I fall off the perch or recover, luckily I got on a world wide trial where 360 of us get the drug for free. Seeing all the young cancer patients is truly depressing I would also pay more tax and like to see which ever government is in power to use the tax dollars more efficiently.

`For this years top of the charts for Economic freedom Australia came in at 4th Denmark 11th Sweden 23rd Iceland 26th and Iceland 27th