Work Choices MKII
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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More wonderful national "leadership" from Abbott and Co: Rouse up the old class hatreds to go with the new racist hatreds, and spend more time talking down the economy while doing absolutely nothing to improve it structurally. Nothing make's me sicker than watching these things unfold, and the usual foolish suspects falling for it yet again, when all Australia needs is a few new skills and new tools, a fresher and more open approach to the wider world, and a focus on other underdeveloped parts of the economy such as tourism, education, science and technology.
If you can't win because you're a slimy, despised embarrassment, you've got nothing to lose, so you threaten to tear the place to pieces if you don't get your way. Corrupt, old money and failed investors have chosen their man in Abbott, and they know the ugliness that lies within him is all they've got to work with. As Keating said, Abbott threatened to wreck the place before the last election if he didn't get his way, and now he's preparing to do it again.
Fall for this, Australia, and you decline further and break your society to the point that it becomes irreparable, like that vile mess of poverty and violence known as the United States. Or, you can stand up and tell that fanatical destroyer and his party that there are plenty of constructive things which can be done to take a great country further without damaging it.
Forget Abbott the Wrecker and his Talibanic lies about all the lazy and bad people corrupting society; that's just lunatic talk. It's Abbott's horrific economics that is threatening the country. Just look at how he went all gung ho on mining, reducing investment and focus on the rest of the economy while posing for photos in mining pits—just as commodity prices were collapsing and everyone knew it. That is the worst case of economic incompetence we've seen in Australia for a very long time now.
And now, when Abbott the Wrecker says we have to spend less, he's lying and got it wrong again. How do we know? Because money is cheap now and inflation is under downward global pressure now. So now is the time to spend more on correcting a few backward areas of the economy to create more high paying jobs, particularly in infrastructure, science and technology, education and tourism.
The extent of the lies and economic mismanagement—outright, to everyone's faces without shame—is beyond belief. Almost everything he says about the economy is the complete opposite of reality:
| Martin, Economics Editor of The Aged wrote: | With 10-year bond rates at an all-time low, the time is ripe to get some visionary projects off the drawing board.
Who'd say no to the deal of a lifetime? Tony Abbott would, and it's our tragedy.
The 10-year bond rate is the rate at which the government can borrow for 10 years at a fixed rate of interest. Right now it's just 2.55 per cent, an all-time low.
It’s rare to be offered money for nothing. All we would need is confidence in the worth of our ideas.
By way of comparison in the 1970s it exceeded 10 per cent, in the 1980s it passed 16 per cent, in the 1990s it passed 10 per cent, in the 2000s 5 per cent, and until now in this decade it has usually been above 3 per cent. It dived below 3 per cent at the end of last year and is now just 2.55 per cent, the lowest in living memory.
If Australia was to borrow, big time, for important projects that took the best part of a decade to complete, it would have no risk of ever having to fork out more than 2.55 per cent a year in interest. The record low rate would be locked in for 10 years.
Australia's inflation rate is currently 2.3 per cent. Although it will almost certainly fall in the wake of the collapse in oil prices when it is updated next week, the Reserve Bank has a mandate to keep the rate centred at about 2.5 per cent. That means that right now our government is being offered billions for next to nothing, billions for scarcely more than the expected rate of inflation.
If Abbott was the chief executive of a company with good prospects he'd grab the money and borrow as many billions as he could without impairing his credit rating.
In Australia's case that's probably an extra $100 billion. That's enough to build the long-awaited Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne high-speed rail line, or to build Labor's original national broadband network, or Sydney's $11 billion WestConnex road project plus Melbourne's $11 billion metro rail project plus Melbourne's $16 billion East West Link plus something big in each of the other states.
And it would cost next to nothing. All each of these projects would need is a positive real rate of return (which several of those listed above lack) and we would get ahead.
All we would need is confidence in the worth of our ideas.
It's rare to be offered money for nothing.
It's happening because interest rates in the rest of the world have dropped to near zero. Japan's 10-year bond rate is 0.24 per cent, Germany's is 0.40 per cent, Britain's 1.54 per cent. Even in the United States, where the economy is improving, the 10-year bond rate is just 1.81 per cent. Without the ability to earn decent returns in the nations to our north, investors are flocking here and buying our government bonds. In order to get them they are prepared to bid down the rates we have to pay them to all-time lows.
It mightn't last. In October, Reserve Bank assistant governor Guy Debelle warned of a "relatively violent" correction in bond markets. He said as soon as it looks as if interest rates will climb, the purchasers of bonds will demand much higher rates in order to cover themselves for what's likely over the next 10 years. The opportunity will vanish.
If we are prepared to grasp it, there's no shortage of projects that would set us up for decades to come. In education, in health, in the delivery to railway lines into suburbs that are at present barely accessible - in all of these areas there are projects whose benefits would exceed their costs and exceed them by more than enough to pay the minimal rate of interest being demanded.
Some are visionary. Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Saul Eslake says if Australia was to get serious about reducing its dependence on coal it would consider paying coal producers to close, and speeding up the commercialisation of battery technologies that would allow Australians with the next wave of solar panels to live off the grid.
The risk is that bad projects would be chosen over good ones and the money wasted. Abbott himself provides reason for concern. Despite promising during the election to "require all Commonwealth-funded projects worth more than $100 million to undergo a cost-benefit analysis by Infrastructure Australia" his first budget funded scores of road projects without such approval. Some of the cost-benefit studies weren't even published, in others the figures were massaged to make them look better than they were.
The Grattan Institute's John Daley suggests setting up an independent statutory authority along the lines of the Reserve Bank to vet proposals for spending big money. Its members would be appointed by the Governor-General for terms of five to seven years, it would report directly to parliament and would publish of all of its findings, complete with the assumptions behind them. He says even cheap money should be spent well.
Could the Coalition grab the opportunity before it vanishes? There are some good signs. With help from the Greens it axed Labor's debt ceiling. Since taking office it has run up an extra $78 billion in debt. But it is unorganised, behind in the polls and a prisoner of some of the silly things it said about debt while in opposition.
We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It'll slip through our fingers. |
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/low-10year-bond-rates-are-the-deal-of-the-century-but-abbotts-not-at-the-table-20150120-12tq4j.html
Just watch Abbott the Wrecker and his team of liars and slimy bad investors who want you to pay for their mistakes threaten to wreck the joint again. It will be 1920s-1950s racist hatred and class warfare through and through if you let them think it might work.
They will damage job and career quality; they will reduce wages further; they will let economic infrastructure rot further because you can't see it on TV; they will keep propping up irresponsible mining investments and low-quality mining jobs, neglecting tourism, education, science and technology because they're best mates with miners and hate the rest of the economy; they will destroy relationships between people in the suburbs by making people less secure and less stable, angrier and more stressed, and more ignorant and less capable of understanding the world; they will damage the environment by refusing to admit they were scientifically, politically and economically wrong and the world is has now left them behind; they will damage the two cornerstones of socio-economic quality—universal healthcare and universal education—because they're too cowardly to do the right thing and close tax loopholes on the very wealthy and their companies who steal wealth from Australia and tax it in Lichtenstein, and won't remove the wasteful and damaging election bribes they have given to the upper-middle class, leaving Australia with a budget shortfall they then blame on some poor sod trying to get a job in their lousy, low-pay, low-skill economy.
Beneath the lies and media rubbish paid for by their sponsors, that is what wrecking the place really looks like. These are not people whose concern is your future—not your short-term future, and certainly not your medium-to-long-term future. Don't fall for the lies of Abbott the Wrecker and co. for a second time.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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droversdog65
Joined: 27 Nov 2014
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I'm in my 61st year nicksters and I have to say those apologists supporting an idealogically based corporate mindset have NFI.
I've worked as everything from a car washer and hay bale hand through telecommunications technician on up to site manager and for the last 15 years have operated my own small business.
Big business - in particular their accountants and lawyers - are TOTALLY focussed on getting every single cent of profit regardless of the consequences to anyone or anything . . . PERIOD . . . without exception. |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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| Perception Stui, Perception! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| 1061 wrote: | | Perception Stui, Perception! |
Yeah, just perception; people's eyes glancing at a page and comprehending words on it would be too much to expect! Except it took all of 20 seconds half asleep to spot these two beauties on p.4, just to get the ball rolling:
| More of the Usual Political Deception Dressed Up as Serious Inquiry wrote: |
• cooperative relations between employees and employers may be more important for innovation, technological diffusion and investments in skills — developments that are critical for future productivity, economic growth and adaptability
Now that is gold! Note the slimy qualifier "may". Yep, it's not terrible infrastructure, shocking tech education, over-investment in mining, and pitiful efforts to build tech-design-film-arts infrastructure synergies that's the problem, it's tensions between employees and employers! Even more laughable when you know most tech folk don't give a rats about traditional contracts to start with; partly due to demand for their skills, and partly due to their independent culture. What a fraudulent, lying excuse for driving down wages in other sectors. I think I might puke.
• the sensitivity of employment demand to regulations that raise the costs of less skilled labour may increase with technological change and the increasingly tradable outputs of the service sector. International outsourcing of call centres; the online provision of music, books, financial services, and airline and accommodation booking systems; and new models of domestic service delivery (as in taxi services) are illustrations of developments that are already in train. These will inevitably change workplaces and the competitive pressures they face
Yet another sleazy mix of stuff that doesn't belong in the same paragraph.
First offshoring. Yeah, let's lower wages to compete with Pakistan! That's just what the doctor ordered for the economy! Take jobs off Pakistanis, decrease local productivity, and create a local underclass at the same time!
What complete idiocy. That is a kind of cruel protectionism that causes everyone to suffer and be worse off. Let those jobs go overseas and upskill the folk here who were doing them asap, you effing morons. The longer you hold those jobs, the longer you delay training people into sustainable careers.
But, here's the real sting with this and the irrelevant allusion to Uber and online shopping. Those things are solely included to distract from what the bastards don't want people to focus on: All of those millions of jobs that will never ever be offshored, like cleaning, warehousing, food preparation, repairs and personal services. Use your brains, folks: The deceitful liars want people to focus on outsourcing so you agree to lower wages in fast food or tourism services work that is not going anywhere. One second it's total stupidity, the next it's total deception. |
Now multiply that twenty seconds of scanning by two hours of analysis and imagine the creepy, lying BS that will be unearthed. What lowlife rock apes write this rubbish and still show their faces in public?
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm
Last edited by pietillidie on Sat Jan 24, 2015 1:45 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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PTIL I am on your side.
I meant the Perception most of us have of Stui is that he is an LNP supporter. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| 1061 wrote: | PTIL I am on your side.
I meant the Perception most of us have of Stui is that he is an LNP supporter. |
Okay, sorry! I was surprised because from memory I thought you had similar views on that topic 
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| 1061 wrote: | PTIL I am on your side.
I meant the Perception most of us have of Stui is that he is an LNP supporter. |
I think Stui's arguments can stand or fall on their own merits. No need for snide remarks about what "we" think of his ideological leanings.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^TBF, unless I have missed something, I actually think 1061 was being jovial with Stui rather than snide 
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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FWIW I haven't read the stuff myself, I just thought that people might want to bother to read actually what they were venting about.
As far as what peoples perception of me might be, I can't do anything about that and I actually don't really care.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | FWIW I haven't read the stuff myself, I just thought that people might want to bother to read actually what they were venting about.
As far as what peoples perception of me might be, I can't do anything about that and I actually don't really care. |
Fair enough, and I should've said thanks for the link. By god reading it has made me pissed off, though.
I really have to learn to let these things go. Unhealthy and time consuming all at once 
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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A New development from sept 2014, will/have the LNP allow this?
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/business/dairy/chinas-dairy-churn-we-can-get-more-milk-out-of-your-cows/story-fnkeqg0i-1227061082840?sv=8b52cd42117cdf254c839c0a41a92794
| Quote: | As local workers are hard to come by and expensive, Mr Zhang is keen to bring some of his 2000 employees from China to Australia to milk cows and help lift farm production levels to Chinese standards.
“The milk price paid here to farmers — less than 50 cents a litre — is a joke and so is the fact that you buy milk in a shop here for $1 a litre,” Mr Wang said.
“With labour so expensive — three times more than in China — and milk cheaper, it makes profitable farming very hard; we see the only way is to process the milk ourselves, export it to China and to bring some of our workers here,” Mr Wang said.
“We are ready to buy more farms and build our factory as soon as possible; the only thing that will slow us down is if the milk price paid here stays low and we continue to have problems finding enough good managers and young employees keen to work hard.” |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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That kind of thing really rustles my jimmies. So not only are we literally selling the farm to China, we're also not going to be working on it and they want us to pay more for what they produce while exporting the rest of it back to the motherland.
This must be how India felt shipping all their cotton back England for a pittance. If China wants to run Aussie farms then 100% they should be paying Australian workers, otherwise apart from the initial capital that the previous owners pocket, what benefit is there for us beyond the minimized tax that the Chinese Government owned operator will be paying our government? |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| Joel wrote: | | Culprit wrote: | | I know someone too that drives a petty machine that any monkey can drive, no experience required hey Joel. They miss Family Birthdays, they miss Christmas with their families. They work Sundays, they work at Nights so the motoring public are not inconvenienced travelling to work. He has no choice but to work, yes he earns a lot of money but he gives away plenty. He would take a 20% pay cut if it meant he was home with his family and worked normal hours. Walk a mile in their shoes. |
All true points.
Yet, there are cleaners who do the exact same thing and would not be paid anywhere near as much.
On the other hand many skilled workers have spent years studying (and paid to do so), spending little time with their family, have worked long hours to get ahead and still are paid little. |
C'mon Joel, your smarter than that. Cleaners? Seriously? The group of migrants that have been screwed over the most and you want to use that as an argument to cut peoples wages? Fail there and studying? lmao Sorry Joel, you must have had bad day as you normally argue better than that. |
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