Stage 3 tax cuts

[think positive]

Gees if that’s the going rate I’m glad we gave sparky friends!

Rego is necessary, stamp duty us daylight robbery

[Skids]

[pietillidie]

^What'sinaname, prices should only be fixed in natural monopoly circumstances where there is no competition. E.g., a market where there is one broadband provider (and in many cases that could be several should they be indirectly colluding by setting prices against a dominant provider), or one bus route, etc.

Trades markets are competitive and the quality of work and reputation varies markedly.

The problem in the UK and Australia is that natural monopolies are very oft3n not policed properly, which is a good example of my point above about wealth distorting legislation, contracts, and market rules.

The privatised trains here are a disgrace; very expensive and appallingly unreliable and crowded in many cases. Absolutely no market discipline, yet the wealth behind them manipulates and bribes appalling contract conditions out of the political class.

To bring it back to taxation, now multiply that corruption across all national infrastructure, which by definition involves mostly natural monopolies, and you get a direct link between income, wealth and economic underpermance. The income becomes wealth, the wealth captures politics and regulation.

Progressive taxation not only enables a minimum quality of life, and therefore a minimum stability, skill level and productivity, but if it were done properly and extended to wealth, it would also minimise political capture.

To go back to Picketty's work, and the reason why countries are being held back, the extent to which you stop political capture is the extent you have a high quality, highly productive society.

The nexus between mining companies and big capital in Australia, such as pension funds, is a great example. The capital benefitting from mining revenues and stock valuations basically owned the Glib government, resulting in rubbish policy after rubbish policy, with no mind for the whole and no mind for the future.

Too much capital in too few hands is the killer, and it starts from an ineffective progressive taxation system that either doesnt redirect enough capital because its rates are too low, or because of loopholes and/or ineffective policing.

If capital was politically neutral, it would matter less. But it's not, and at scale it undermines national good and is so dumb and short-termist it even makes itself poorer. The smarter and more deserving it thinks it is, the dumber it gets.

This is why Picketty's work was so important. If you look at microeconomics, the individual is maximising his wealth. But the macro-data doesn't show wealth maximisation; it shows wealth corrosion. And the mechanism by which this happens is that wealth captures politics, and the poor legislation that follows undoes what are otherwise rational microeconomic decisions by individuals. In other words, individuals feel rational and feel deserving, but alas after starting rational they become delusional.

The interesting thing is this is exactly what you see in individuals. People make balanced decisions right until the point they start thinking they're superior and incredibly more deserving. At that point, their brain turns to psychopathic mush. You see it in individuals, organisations, religions and classes.

The size of the middle class is crucial because they're the most sane class, being pulled between feeling superior and feeling inferior, and having one foot in both camps. At an individual psychiatric level, that's actually healthy, because as individuals we need to feel good about ourselves, and reckon we're a bit of alright, but not so much that we start justifying damaging others.

Thus, economics, law, morality and social quality meet, and why a welfare state with a big and healthy middle class, and a strong and effective progressive taxation system, is the optimal system thus far in the history of civilisation.

[stui magpie]

So you agree that whatisname should have shopped around for a cheaper sparky?

[pietillidie]

^Haha, yes, although he might be in one of those unlucky markets with little competition.

(Just going through my long-form phase).

[Pies4shaw]

Drove my wife and daughter to a performance in Brighton last evening. Had to kill an hour and a half and walk the dog, so I drove to the end of Bay St, parked and wandered along the walking/cycling path beside the Bay for a bit. All I can say is that it's quite surprising what $200K per year, since everyone on that income is apparently wealthy, can buy you - house after house (stretching as far as the eye can see) worth many millions, some tens of millions. I bet they're all Leading Teachers in our secondary school system on dual $125K incomes.

[What'sinaname]

[think positive]

[think positive]

Brilliant to see an investigation into Medicare fraud, $1 out of every $12 is bogus. Doesn’t sound much til you add zeros.

I’ve always thought it would be worth the money to employ proper policing investigators into welfare fraud full time. Before I get called elitist it entitled, I have inlaws who’s whole careered have been in welfare, and the can go on endlessly about obvious fraud they have no power to stop. Some of the reasons people go in and ask for extra money are incredible and ridiculous. It’s not about me paying less tax, it’s about the kid who needs a specialised wheelchair, the amputee who needs a better type of prosthetic, and the mentally challenged who simply need more support to get them at a healthy standard to enjoy life.

Yes it’s rife, I can rattle off names of people throughout my life who were not only gaming the system, but bragging about it!

It’s not an exaggeration, It’s literally organised crime!

[David]

Even if you're right that it's widespread, the important question for me is: if the solution to welfare fraud is to tighten the screws and give people more hoops to jump through, how many people get hurt as a result? How many people miss out on welfare that they're not only entitled to but desperately need?

We just saw a royal commission launched a couple of months ago into Centrelink's robodebt scheme, a supposed accountability mechanism that ended up with people being hit with massive automatically (and often incorrectly) calculated debts that they had to either pay or appeal via a labyrinthine process. As has already been reported and I'm sure we'll discover in further detail when the commission lays down its findings, this had a catastrophic impact on people's lives and mental health, with multiple suicides linked to it – and anyone who's lived on or close to the breadline will understand perfectly why. That kind of thing should bother us far more than a few slackers getting disability pensions they aren't entitled to.

And if we're really worried about money being leeched from the system, I'd look first at the much bigger problem of tax avoidance and closing accounting loopholes, which many people happily exploit and aren't ashamed to tell the world that they do – talk about people "not only gaming the system, but bragging about it"!

[think positive]

I’m suggesting stopping cheating before it happens.

And yes we do make sure we get the tax breaks WE ARE ENTITLED TO!

You need to watch more mainstream news, bikie gangs and the mafia actually carry out systematic welfare rorts! Google it!

On the Brekky show a head doctor guy said $8 billion dollars a year is fraudulent

But yeah hard working people should pay more tax

[David]

[watt price tully]

Correct weight. Medicare anyone? Various systems get ripped off just the wealthier can hide it better. They’ll never do it but a small inheritance tax would be useful for say over $500,000 in property or other forms of inheritance. I also think a small like 0.5 % tax on all share trading for certain types of companies / corporations.

[stui magpie]

There's rorting happening at all levels because the whole system is overly complicated and in severe need of an enema. It needs a complete reimagining.

For a start, you could increase the tax free threshold and tie it to the minimum wage for a full timer.

Eg, Minimum wage for a full timer is just over $42k. Centrelink pays $17k for a single.

Set the tax free threshold at 75% of the minimum wage which brings it up to $31.5k and cancel all work related deductions for people on PAYG tax, 20% kicks in then, 30% kicks in at the average full time wage and so on.

Cancelling deductions would be a saving and you'd get back extra in GST with higher disposable incomes for the less well off and create a genuine incentive for those who can work to get off Centrelink.

Raise the GST if you want.

[think positive]

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/gps-push-back-against-alleged-8-billion-medicare-r

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/06/medicare-by-providers-is-rampant-and-government-bulk-billing-figures-are-a-lie-review-finds

this is what i was talking about, this needs to be fixed, not by more money to be available to be scammed, but by stopping the scammers

https://9now.nine.com.au/60-minutes/organised-crime-networks-targeting-vulnerable-australians/aef7079e-a7e7-4106-82ed-08fdd0838f39