Graham Richardson does a quick sleight of hand in The Australian.
What distinguishes the average rank-and-file ALP type or even those who have risen to great heights is they want to see the country run efficiently with an eye to helping the weakest first.
It’s more of a trickle-up theory of economics as against the trickle-down theory much loved by the Liberals. They believe, for example, if you make Clive Palmer even richer, the rest of us mortals will be better off.
See that? We have made Clive Palmer rich – he had no role to play in the process. I would have thought that liberals believe that we are all better off in a society where people can make themselves rich through effort and hard work.
Yes if the incentives and rewards are right, then the people at the bottom will be motivated to improve their situation by their own efforts instead of playing the “rights” card and raising third or fourth generation welfare dependents.
And the people at the top may get to be very rich (if they do not go broke as many entrepreneurs do at least once in their lives) and they will do it by community service, that is, producing things that other people actually want to improve their lives.
Of course if you have a puritanical turn of mind like me, you may be critical of the way some people spend their money but it they earned it honestly, why worry?
Rafe
27 Jul 10 at 8:37 am
Graham Richardson went in to bat big time for Penny Wong on Q&A last night as he sat beside her. Essentially he said that the answer she was giving regarding same sex marriage was the party line not her personal view and we should respect her for that. And in the same breath he congratulated Malcolm Turnbull for disagreeing with his own party. Odd indeed but somehow effective despite the hipocracy.
TerjeP
27 Jul 10 at 8:39 am
gosh fancy having to defend Richo but he did say making Palmer richer not rich.
Really Sinkers you are clutching at straws
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 8:50 am
And of course Richo is also Rich from being given lots of government money.
That is far, far worse.
If he’s such a fucking saint why doesn’t he give all his money away to poor people. What an utter fucking turd he is.
Rococo Liberal
27 Jul 10 at 9:07 am
well yes but he got a lot more money from Kerry Packer.
Sinkers also was misleading.
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 9:12 am
Sinkers also was misleading.
Whatever mate. “Ewe” make no sense.
daddy dave
27 Jul 10 at 10:12 am
We have made Clive Palmer rich – he had no role to play in the process. I would have thought that liberals believe that we are all better off in a society where people can make themselves rich through effort and hard work.
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Well yes. But some are born rich and would not be so if they hadn’t inherited it. Some make all the effort in the world and get no further. This is the point that Liberals often miss, just saying.
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There’s no trickle up or trickle down there’s just you make money, I make money.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 10:13 am
Richardson a saint? Someone should tell him I reckon he could use a good laugh.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 10:14 am
actually trickling up is interesting and I wonder how Richo of all people heard about it.
Getting people out of poverty and assisting them to get richer does make rich people more richer
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 10:53 am
how about ‘dumbing down’ Homes? ever hear of that?
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 10:54 am
Er, Homer – how exactly does your process work? If a single mum in Redfern gets off welfare and gets a job in a cafe waiting tables, how does that make a coal miner richer? I would have thought that the wealth of the coal miner is dependent on other variables – the price of coal; how much coal they dig up and sell; the cost of digging up and selling that coal and lastly the amount of tax that you pay on the difference. What is the connection between a latte deliverer in Redfern and a coal miner in Queensland?
boy on a bike
27 Jul 10 at 11:35 am
And of course Richo is also Rich from being given lots of government money.
Stroke of luck that printing press going up in flames too.
Infidel Tiger
27 Jul 10 at 11:37 am
I wonder if Mr Richardson is actually going to vote for the greens. It sure reads like their socialist aka marxist garbage.
Paul
27 Jul 10 at 11:44 am
Richo is a typical ALP leech who has grown wealthy capitalising on his ministerial experience after politics. Hawke now says he kept him away from Transport and Communications because… well, let’s just say he was considered hugely untrustworthy.
C.L.
27 Jul 10 at 11:46 am
BOB,
Its the community overall that gets the benefit.
I wil give Richo the benefit if the doubt here .I think he just thought of Palmer as a very rich man.
IT yes he was very lucky man. His wife worked as a secretary in a Balmain business which laundered drugs but she was oblivious to the fact!
She didn’t think twice about different characters turning up there at all. very naive
Statman you are the expert in dumbing down
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 11:53 am
Palmer made his money by selling stuff that people actually want and need.
Richo made his pile by selling access to the chief extortionist.
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 11:59 am
wtf are you babbling about now Homes? i can’t tell if you’re trying to support your previous point or taint Richo’s wife.
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 12:01 pm
Both Statman.
by golly there are good ways to make money and bad ways to make money.
is this your Clive Hamilton impression?
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 12:11 pm
by golly there are good ways to make money and bad ways to make money
yes Homer
A ‘mining magnate’ contributes more to economic welfare than a lobbyist. One is a positive sum game, the other is a zero sum game
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 12:13 pm
Homer – sorry, initially you said that it would make Palmer richer. Now you are saying that the community gets the benefit. If she makes an extra $200 per week from getting off welfare, does 1/22 millionth of that accrue to Palmer?
Which is it?
boy on a bike
27 Jul 10 at 12:22 pm
“Er, Homer – how exactly does your process work? If a single mum in Redfern gets off welfare and gets a job in a cafe waiting tables, how does that make a coal miner richer?”
As Homer pointed out, the community is better off. The mining magnate is better off in a small way because less of his tax goes to welfare. He may benefit in a different way when the mum buys a Chinese or Japanese car made with steel that was produced using the magnate’s coal. More directly the butcher, baker and candlestick maker benefit from the mum’s wages. The mum’s children benefit from the role model of a productive mother. Etc.
Rafe
27 Jul 10 at 12:27 pm
Rafe, that’s all very nice, but the Homers of the world aren’t interested in reducing welfare dependency.
daddy dave
27 Jul 10 at 12:35 pm
I wonder if Mr Richardson is actually going to vote for the greens. It sure reads like their socialist aka marxist garbage.
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The one thing I think that Richardson is truly proud of is the conservation of Tasmanian forests. This episode, you may recall, launcehd Bob Brown. Richardson’s a Machievel, a good one, and he would think that politically it split the Left. But when he went to Tasmania he became a greenie. Small ‘g’.
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Richo is a typical ALP leech
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No. He’s well above average.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 12:38 pm
I much more interested than you old son.you would put more on welfare through your mad policies
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 12:40 pm
But when he went to Tasmania he became a greenie. Small ‘g’.
He must’ve spotted $$$ in it.
Infidel Tiger
27 Jul 10 at 12:41 pm
Yes. A recent example I encountered was the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm established in 1909. However I don’t overly buy the often cited example of Henry Ford paying higher wages. I don’t doubt that he did I’m just not convinced it made him richer.
TerjeP
27 Jul 10 at 12:42 pm
I don’t doubt that he did I’m just not convinced it made him richer.
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It did Terje. Ford had to pay higher wages on account people hated working there. No verkers, no moolah.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 12:47 pm
Not quite right Adrien.
He paid higher wages because he knew his competitors couldn’t afford it and he could.
He also made unskilled workers semi-skilled workers.
Alfred Sloan then completely demolished Ford where Taylorism was seen as quite progressive at the time.
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 12:50 pm
“Well yes. But some are born rich and would not be so if they hadn’t inherited it. Some make all the effort in the world and get no further. This is the point that Liberals often miss, just saying.
Your second seentence is hairy bollocks, Adrien. That’s because your first sentence is trueand sets out the economic basis of Conservative philosophy. You agree with this ttruth. Ergo you are a Conservative.
Welcome to the side of the Angels!
Rococo Liberal
27 Jul 10 at 1:02 pm
But Homer, the ALP philosophy is that the poor should get richer whilst the rich get poorer. They only care about income gaps between rich and poor. So what trickle up means to them is that the Government, which to them by its very nature is somehow impartial and beautifully wise and moral in all its dealings, steps in and takes money from the rich and pays it to the poor.
This is where we need to challenge the left: there idea that Government is somehow always benign, compassionate and caring so that government money cannot corrupt those who receive it is the great fallacy of the our times.
Government is inherently evil. Free enterprise is not.
Rococo Liberal
27 Jul 10 at 1:08 pm
Rococo – Your second seentence is hairy bollocks,
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I think Cl will be upset. Remember I’m an ageing emo metrosexual post-partisan. The bollocks will be waxed.
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Adrien. That’s because your first sentence is true and sets out the economic basis of Conservative philosophy. You agree with this truth. Ergo you are a Conservative.
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I set out the two truths that form the basis of current political philisophical conflict and the class conflict inevitable in democracies. Because I see that they both have limits as well as a basis I can’t be called a conservative. I agree with Hayek viz experiments, private ones.
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I’ve said that I’m a pragmatic anarchist and this is not as glib as it sounds. Apart from conservatives whose function appears to me to be skeptical of dreams, and good they are, other politically literate people tend to harbour some kind of romantic vision about the ‘good life’. My dream is of a world without coercive authority that functions at least just as well. But I don’t expect to see it. And will not try to create it. Doesn’t work.
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Ideologies, for me, are a kind of authority they make you blind. Left wing ideology is more prone to this because inherently incompatible with the ‘real world’. Their point, as Marx wrote, is to change it. Ironically however this makes them very conservative when it comes to ideas. They tend not to accept their failures or the successes of their opponents. They don’t change.
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Just as ironically conservatives do. You know some form of social progress, eg the emancipation of women, has been entrenched when conservatives accept it as natural.
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One thing the Left got seriously wrong was to believe that government can be used to create a classless society. It can’t. And trying to do so can stagnate an economy in a democracy or much much worse in an authoritarian context. So I tend to side with the Right in my suspicion of government. I also am placed with the Right by lefties because I don’t think eradicating class is possible.
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That doesn’t mean I’m going to start siding with the ‘ruling’ class on every issue.
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Additionally, culturally, people in developed nations have been thru a revolution that still has our heads spinning. Liberties have been gained but it has cost us. We no longer have a culture that functions as cultures should, that is we lack: rituals and moral truths that guide us thru the course of our lives; ettiquette; spiritual continuity (for want of a better term). We need consolidation. I’m of the belief that it’s vital that Western culture regain the faith in itself.
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So again I’d tend to see conservative points. However on these matters I would disagree with many aspects of the conservative position (there are several). I’m a bohemian ratbag after all. Albeit one that strongly endorses the principles of classical liberalism.
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I hope this makes sense.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 1:25 pm
Someone reported that Ford paid higher wages to reduce staff turnover after someone worked out what it cost to hire and train new people. There was probably a productivity component as well. Good managers will reward productity if there is a half-decent way to measure it.
Rafe
27 Jul 10 at 1:48 pm
RL where to start,
you generalised claptrap about the ALP and the Liberals or your claptrap about government and free enterprise.
no point
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 1:52 pm
actually Rafe well over 50% of Managers either cannot measure productivity or don’t bother.
no change from the 80s.
Scary actually
Butterfield, Bloomfeld % Bishop
27 Jul 10 at 1:52 pm
Does he think we wouldn’t be better off if Bill Gates was Australian?
MAGB
27 Jul 10 at 2:02 pm
Rafe:
“As Homer pointed out, the community is better off. The mining magnate is better off in a small way because less of his tax goes to welfare”
But he stills pays the same amount of tax. What difference does it make if he still pays $100 tax in year 1 and $50 goes to welfare and $50 to health, education, roads etc, and he pays $100 tax the next year and $49 toes to welfare and $51 to health, education, roads etc? Surely he will only benefit if you use the fall in welfare to cut the overall amount of tax he is paying?
As for the mum buying a car – how will she be able to afford one now that the cheapest end of the 2nd hand car market has been totally distorted by the “cash for clunkers” program?
Given that she has just come off welfare, it is doubtful that she will be buying a new car (which would have used coal as a input into the steel making etc). She’ll be buying one 2nd hand. Her ability to buy a car has no impact on the demand and price for coal.
boy on a bike
27 Jul 10 at 2:07 pm
There were many reasons Ford paid highly. This was one of them. Ford’s production techniques made cars (and many other things) widely affordable. But he also enahnceded a certain… alienation?
Perhaps this explains why some wacky employers do so well with their staff.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 2:14 pm
Adrien
It makes some sense.
Like me you are a Tory Anarchist.
Rococo Liberal
27 Jul 10 at 2:43 pm
I’m of the belief that it’s vital that Western culture regain the faith in itself.
I agree with that. Otherwise we’re finished. Wikileaks and its Australian leader – which I commented on earlier in this thread – are a symptom of the self-hatred of the West. If it continues to grow, it will lead to a decline of the west, and dominance of China and Russia.
daddy dave
27 Jul 10 at 2:51 pm
If it continues to grow, it will lead to a decline of the west, and dominance of China and Russia.
Don’t know where you got Russia from DD. At the current rate of depopulation they’ll be half their current population by 2050. China has a very similar problem, and will probably have to invade Russia so that all the horny lonely men they’ve produced can get their freak on.
Infidel Tiger
27 Jul 10 at 2:59 pm
PS I think that all true bohemians have cavalier leanings. True lefties are the modern successors to the roundhead puritans.
Most lefties can’t tell the difference between society and the state, between race and culture and between the sinner and the sin.
Rococo Liberal
27 Jul 10 at 3:01 pm
Like me you are a Tory Anarchist.
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Yes this I think is a fair enough description of my natural disposition. Unlike you I assume I’ve done the Orwell thing. I know what it looks like on the inside of those shacks on the side of the highway. The one’s with the corpses of four cars in the overgrown front garden. Unlike Orwell I think we’d agree that politics can’t change that. (they don;t want to change that).
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And you’re right about cavaliers. It’s a source of tension between the cultural scenery and the political left. The political left tend to be a tad brown and their conversation rarely sparks genuine laughter.
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I try to think of Bohemia as an honourable tradition.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 3:10 pm
I’m of the belief that it’s vital that Western culture regain the faith in itself.
Not sure what you mean by “loss of faith”. Questioning one’s ideals and direction is not loss of faith it is plain common sense. The biggest worry for the West are those with too much faith, who refuse every criticism, who express unalloyed faith in Western processes, who believe that their culture can continue indefinitely and never need to change. The West is and must continue to be an evolving culture.
John H.
27 Jul 10 at 3:13 pm
the self-hatred of the West.
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This ‘self-hatred’ should be a source of pride. The current fashion in the Humanities Academy for equating ‘white male heterosexuality’ with the nefarious is a tired orthodoxy that grew out of a period of rigorous and not so rigorous self-doubt that we experienced following the first World War, climaxing in 1968 and ending with the establishment of said orthodoxy c 1989.
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I think of a film like Little Big Man as an excellent example of the genius of American culture. What other culture categorically dealt with its own history, that history that’s at the heart of their mythology no less, by facing such hard truths about it? The Greeks, the Romans, the British come to mind. Each a little better than before. Also the Czechs, the French, the Scots and of course the Italians.
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And since that era we’ve seen slow but steady progress whereby Americans has progressed toward racial reconciliation despite the blood and suffering of that country’s foundation. It would not happen in China.
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But instead of accepting the progress the Left argues that there’s been none whilst advocating the entrenchment of things that don’t work or make things worse. The Right pretends there was nothing to progress from (or that political agency had nothing to do with it) and we’re stuck in a ridiculous ‘culture war’. We need to get past it.
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Otherwise we’re finished
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Could be. But remember traditionally war is the way the West gets its groove back.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 3:23 pm
John H – Can you see that the dance between the ‘Unfaithful’ and ‘Fanatically faithful’ is breeding ever more entrenched and destructive conflicts?
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 3:25 pm
It’s not so much a ‘loss of faith’ as a ‘failure of nerve’. The people that are being referred to here essentially believe that there is more or less nothing worth preserving within Western culture and their quite happy to assist its dissolution.
dover_beach
27 Jul 10 at 3:25 pm
I think DD is being quite ridiculous equating Wikileaks with ‘self hatred of the west’. Their recent leaking re Afghanistan may well be quite harmful but they’re an equal oppotunity offender. Assenge seems to have the general mission of pissing off all governments and Wikileaks also leaked the infamous Stephen Conroy Internet blacklist, and was also one of the organisations involved in the Uni of East Anglia/climate gate leaks. I don’t think he has any specific anti-western agenda, he’s just an antigovernment spoiler
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 3:39 pm
John H – Can you see that the dance between the ‘Unfaithful’ and ‘Fanatically faithful’ is breeding ever more entrenched and destructive conflicts?
Just to demonstrate how much of a white aging supremacist male that I am I declare that Western culture is the best culture ever. For me that is an indisputable fact and if anyone wants to argue the point I’ll be happy to oblige.
No Adrien, I cannot see that. Can you elaborate?
I reject the idea that the Left sees nothing of value in Western Society. Just because someone is always hammering on about this or that cultural problem does not mean they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This caricature of the Left you people are painting is based on the idea that the Left constitutes this vast quasi communist conspiracy group trying to bring down the West. Yeah sure, I’m gonna believe that.
John H.
27 Jul 10 at 3:47 pm
I don’t think he has any specific anti-western agenda, he’s just an antigovernment spoiler
Yeah, maybe.
I wonder what will happen if his actions lead to Australian military casualties. Nothing probably.
daddy dave
27 Jul 10 at 3:48 pm
so DD was climate gate also an anti-western agenda?
wikileaks was also involved in that.
is opposition to the Internet filter also an anti-western agenda? wikileaks leaked the blacklist for that and pissed off conroy.
Wikileaks has done good and bad things but its general principle is to have complete openness in government. it’s not anti-western but quite the opposite.
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 3:51 pm
.so DD was climate gate also an anti-western agenda?
Okay, I concede your point.
But even so; leaking military information during a war is quite reckless, and suggests that you’re not interested in who wins, who loses, who lives, or who dies.
daddy dave
27 Jul 10 at 3:55 pm
and was also one of the organisations involved in the Uni of East Anglia/climate gate leaks.
Jason, do you have a link for that? I can’t recall their association with that event, but I may be wrong.
dover_beach
27 Jul 10 at 4:05 pm
The people that are being referred to here essentially believe that there is more or less nothing worth preserving within Western culture and their quite happy to assist its dissolution
In my experience Dover they’re generally victims of the wooly thinking that’s wormed a feedback loop thru the education system since the 1970s or so. They know not what they do because they lack understanding.
They lack understanding because their minds have been badly trained and their bodies are shielded from the cruel facts of life. They take the prosperity for granted like a pie that’s descended to Earth from Heaven. They simply think that white male heterosexual rich people have stolen most of the pie.
Essentially it’s decadence. But I’ve met a few intelligent people in their early 20s who are rejecting the whole lot.
Adrien
27 Jul 10 at 4:10 pm
It was one of the servers that hosted the leaked emails but not the only one
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5761180-504383.html
It’s on wikileaks itself
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails,_data,_models,_1996-2009
jtfsoon
27 Jul 10 at 4:12 pm
They simply think that white male heterosexual rich people have stolen most of the pie.
LOL
It’s funny because it’s true.
daddy dave
27 Jul 10 at 4:19 pm
Cheers.
dover_beach
27 Jul 10 at 4:20 pm
IT
China has a very similar problem, and will probably have to invade Russia so that all the horny lonely men they’ve produced can get their freak on.
What an image!
Peter Patton
27 Jul 10 at 4:27 pm
“Wikileaks has done good and bad things but its general principle is to have complete openness in government. it’s not anti-western but quite the opposite.”
An excellent point.
pedro
27 Jul 10 at 5:35 pm