Comments on: Aussie Banks Addicted to Foreign Borrowing

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:32:18 +0000

Pete it is also scary how little people know about the mugs they vote for as well. I would guess that more than 60% of voters could not write a half page summary of the person they voted for at the last election in terms of achievements, work experience and qualifications etc. It is even worse if at the State level. No wonder we end up with so many duds sitting in Canberra.

By: Pat Donnelly

Pat Donnelly — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:23:51 +0000

Australia is a continent. It has a small population but is engaged in shipping food and minerals and GOLD! to the rest of the world. Dan misses a point possibly deliberately: there is no shortage of capital for good investments. When the country has 50Mn pop then be worried if we still need foreign investment. Workers here are underpaid and property is at fair value. Hence the least affordable housing in the world. But migrants bring capital. We brought 400k and 50k a year. And five kids.
You and Bill are welcome to Australia, Dan but try to understand it: the bolthole for those who know a bargain when they see it! Especially economically astute yanks!
Are you still pushing land in Argentina and Costa Rica? How are they doing now?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:10:06 +0000

"Dan, it's a relief to read a couple of paragraphs of sanity on here every now and again, in the face of the flippant and baseless rubbish that's all over the daily papers. People are too quick to forget where money comes from when they see shiny politicians polishing shiny dung."

And yet, the sheep continue to march to the slaughter.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:22:20 +0000

There's plenty of them Greg. And I suspect that most of them vote too. A surprising number of people know almost zilch about the economy. You'll have to excuse my gender-ism (~I got moderated~) here but I think 'the economy' is seen as a largely male topic and therefore ignored by a large portion of the female population. But that said, a lot of the male (esp. youth) know zilch about it too. Then you get some later generations who know plenty about the economy of the 1990's. It doesn't particularly help understand todays economy, but they are happy to give such advice to the generations below. That, the awful media coverage we get nowdays, and extremely distorted politics contribute quite handsomely to the naivety of a nation.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:21:17 +0000

There's plenty of them Greg. And I suspect that most of them vote too. A surprising number of people know almost zilch about the economy. You'll have to excuse my sexism here but I think 'the economy' is seen as a largely male topic and therefore ignored by a large portion of the female population. But that said, a lot of the male (esp. youth) know zilch about it too. Then you get some later generations who know plenty about the economy of the 1990's. It doesn't particularly help understand todays economy, but they are happy to give such advice to the generations below. That, the awful media coverage we get nowdays, and extremely distorted politics contribute quite handsomely to the naivety of a nation. But I am happy for sites like this that can give us an idea of what is 'really' going on, rather than have crap spouted to us from the likes of Wayne Swann, David Koch, BIS Shrapnel, Ric Battelino, etc etc etc (it's a very long list).

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:44:18 +0000

I can't argue with that Pete. The thing is that many people do not even realise they are being taxed! I have even met people who do not think there are any State taxes. They say quite seriously that only the Commonwealth Government taxes people!

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:22:40 +0000

I think you mean 'what the government taketh, the government taketh away more if it wants to'

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:36:09 +0000

Pete I was not offering any counter view, just simply saying taxes have been raised and will be again. What the government giveth the government shall taketh away

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:40:57 +0000

I agree Greg, but please don't imply that you are offering a counter-argument when in fact both our points are equally true. I was merely disputing prozak's claim that a Gov's only revenue is through tax. If a Gov needs money, sure, they can tax the people. But they also run the risk of hindering any economic recovery by doing so. Also there is only so much you can tax a country before it starts to deplete an economies output, and therefore revenue...and therefore the amount that can be taxed in the future. I think taxing high income earners too much will hurt a lot in the future. Try getting someone to invest in your new company when you have no high income earners left in your country (well obviously they won't all leave). I think a Gov is more likely to start 'quantitative easing' than to tax it's citizens 90 cents in the dollar. Let's hope they never have to make that decision.

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:24:02 +0000

Pete, governments have already started raising taxes or started to hit those who will be the target of future tax rises. In the UK the government has taken measures to increase the tax burden on high income earners, in Australia the pension age will be pushed back to 67 (a tax by another name) and in the U.S. Obama is going after companies and has made so secret that he will go after the top earners as well.

Oh then we have the Emissions Trading Scheme which is... simply a tax.

This is just the beginning because there is no such thing as a free lunch as they say (unless your an MP on a great pension plan!)and all the debt that is being piled up will need to be dealt with at some point.