Our Treasurer last week described the Republicans in the United States, using the precise and diplomatic language he is known for, as “cranks and crazies”. Apparently he thought the Republicans were not taking America’s economic problems seriously, unlike say Barack Obama who apparently thinks US debt is around $10 trillion when it is in fact $16 trillion. Anyway, our Wayne thought it was the Republicans who were endangering the future of the American economy by trying to get some kind of debt ceiling in place which is why he used the phrase he did. He was then fully supported by the Prime Minister herself.
I have therefore had a look at this in an article now found at Quadrant Online which comes with the title, “Our Own ‘Cranks and Crazies’”. It begins:
Let me start with this. The justification for the mining tax was to ensure that the entire community would benefit from the minerals boom, the implication being that selling resources bestows no return to the rest of us outside the extractive industries and therefore requires a tax to share the wealth. But with the mining boom about to recede we are being told that, as a direct result, we will all have to get used to a lower standard of living. Absolutely right, but just as the loss of the mining boom has reduced everyone’s living standards, the boom, while it lasted, drove them higher.
Alas, our Prime Minister and her Treasurer were clueless about how we all benefit from growth, even in a single sector remote from our lives, and accordingly peddled one of the most ignorant and pernicious of all socialist memes: the resources of the nation belong to the people. The consequences of their tenure in office will be to our collective detriment for years to come as investors spurn putting their money into Australia, lest Labor return to the Treasury benches once again.
And this is the final para in which I focus on our Prime Minister and her Treasurer:
From the start they have never had much idea about what should be done and what needs doing. They have followed the socialist path of least resistance: re-empowering unions, spending money they don’t have, and because they have mismanaged our finances, leaving Australia literally defenceless in an increasingly dangerous world. The surest sign of Gillard and Swan’s poor judgment is that they can unselfconsciously go about calling others the very names most appropriately applicable to themselves.
If you would like to see what goes in the middle, you can read the whole article here.
This thread is linked to the Final deficit almost double shortfall originally predicted thread.
Swan is transparently trying to build a case that people who believe in economic responsibility can not be trusted to the Labor base.
It is naked politicking which the envy and hate fillied Labor zombies like M0nty love.
Token
25 Sep 12 at 8:05 am
Chris Richardson has a oped in the Tele this morning. He says:
I can cheerfully go one further and say that this may be the tax epic fail of the millenium. When Qld’s and NSW’s increased royalties get compensated for the Federal Government will be taxing mining companies by giving them money.
Wow! Surely not! A tax which accidentally gives money to the victim when it was intended to take it from them? Call me impressed with the worlds greatest treasurer!
Bruce
25 Sep 12 at 8:37 am
Thanks for the link to article and also thanks for writing it.
It’s too late mind you; they’ve already screwed the pooch.
DMS
25 Sep 12 at 9:06 am
Who are the cranks & crazies?
Token
25 Sep 12 at 9:11 am
A direct parallel with the Bligh Govt which resorted to a baseless smear campaign against the Opposition leader and his family because Labor could not run on its record. The song remains the same.
Ivan Denisovich
25 Sep 12 at 9:28 am
World Economic Forum survey that ranks Australia among 144 countries as the 96th most regulated, the 48th most wasteful in government spending and having a labour market that is ranked 123rd for wage flexibility and 120th for ease of hiring and firing.
Great job, Labor. Australia’s own nutjobs, cranks and crazies running the country into the dirt.
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 9:33 am
I’ll say it again.
The ALP and Greens alliance are committed to unemployment.
Great find, Gab.
.
25 Sep 12 at 9:55 am
“The ALP and Greens alliance are committed to unemployment.”
I tend to think unemployment and the disability pension. They want people to feel dependent and therefore grateful to them, it’s probably working to a fair extent, given the polls.
candy
25 Sep 12 at 10:06 am
The ALP and Greens alliance are committed to unemployment.
technically, they’re committed to bring about unemployment in the private sector and bloated levels of employment in the public sector.
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 10:10 am
I worry when Swan and Gillard are characterized as clueless and incompetent. My impression is that they know exactly what they are doing. Their end game in my opinion is to tip the scales where there are more citizens on the public teat than tax payers. More takers than earners. At that point conservative fiscally responsible parties become irrelevant as they cannot win power. Given another 4 years they may well achieve it given Gillard is about to tell New York economists that in the next four years, three times as many jobs will be created in healthcare, social assistance, education and training as in mining. These two scare the hell out of me.
john of sunbury
25 Sep 12 at 10:14 am
Related:
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 10:17 am
Swan and Rudd, the “most respected” pair of non diplomats we wish we never had!
.
25 Sep 12 at 10:35 am
If Romney-Ryan win, what do you think their response should be to Swan?
dover_beach
25 Sep 12 at 10:36 am
Rendition.
.
25 Sep 12 at 10:39 am
If Romney-Ryan win, what do you think their response should be to Swan?
Nothing. No recognition of Swan at all, why lend credence to the idiot? I’d expect them to treat him as an insignificant sub-intellect crank he is. Ignore him.
Gab
25 Sep 12 at 10:50 am
I agree with Gab. Remember how “W” treated Rudd?
Obama has shown what can be done with Netanyahu.
There is no better way to punish the publicity-whores than to deny them the photo-shots.
Token
25 Sep 12 at 10:53 am
Does wiggling imbo Swan agree with Bob Carr BA Hons, CWB that Dred Scott was one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions ever?
C.L.
25 Sep 12 at 11:09 am
Hardly ignorant and pernicious or even socialist, except perhaps in scope and application.
There is great wisdom in the concept that the land belongs to no one, that we just exist upon it for a time.
That the private use of land, and the resources inherent to it, is taking unto oneself something now no longer available to all.
That the value of land and resources inherently includes a bounty, not derived from effort or risk, but from windfall alone.
That the private ‘ownership’ of persistent monopoly rights to collect bounty is a conceit that comes at and to the cost of all.
A bounty is inherently of unknown value. It’s value can only be assessed as it is revealed, as it occurs. The question then is how should such occurances be managed within a market economy?
The difficulty is manifold. A windfall is by definition uncertain, so will be valued over time at a considerable discount to its actual anticipated worth. In most cases, the further in time the windfall is away, the greater the discount.
Yet a degree of security of tenure is required in many cases to extract any value from the bounty available. If the bounty is not recovered, there is no benefit. And different bounties have different timescales; from seconds to centuries.
So a system of valuing and recovering the opportunity cost lost by all in order to make it avaialble to one should provide both security of tenure and an appropriate scope of time.
And we have many systems of doing so. These vary from licensing, to quota systems, to the outright purchase of the ongoing right for a capital sum.
If any of these is pernicious, it is the outright purchase. Necessarily, the outright purchase obtains an absolute minimum compensation for the assumption of rights. To suggest otherwise is ignorant, or at the very least ill considered.
To allow the persistant purchase of rights to bounty for a capital sum is to frustrate the market for those rights. It minimises the return that each of us as individuals receives for the granting of our inherent potential to utilise that resource.
Driftforge
25 Sep 12 at 11:43 am
“The most ignorant and pernicious of all socialist memes: the resources of the nation belong to the people”
I dunno, there is natural acquisitive justice to the idea, WE got here first, or WE won this by right of conquest. Fair or not, either way its a temptation that is hard if not impossible to ignore, even the most energentic individualist finds it difficult to walk past the “Free Beer” sign.
The Rent Seekers have laid claim to this stuff under the ground, they hold it by force. If you want it, you either forcibly eject them or buy it from them, thats more or less fair. The truly pernicious thing is that the likes of Swan dont conclude the deal on the agreed price, they hit you with additional unexpected costs after you are committed, and your planned profits may become losses.
Jannie
25 Sep 12 at 12:33 pm
The sovereign risk that our esteemed Treasurer so blithely ignores. Up until this government, we had very little.
Driftforge
25 Sep 12 at 12:49 pm
The Labor rhetoric is one long psychological projection of their own in-competencies and guilt. The best example was Craig Thompson in parliament accusing Tony Abbott of being unfit to be an MP.
MichaelC58
25 Sep 12 at 2:06 pm
Gillard’s Labor is truly a Kath and Kim government.
MichaelC58
25 Sep 12 at 2:09 pm
Yet on Their ABC Q and A last night, there they were, all ganging up on Kelly O’Dwyer, the one person there or even in the Labor-barracking audience who actually called them on their disgraceful economic performance.
Of course we can afford this, that and the other, came back the loud protesting voice from the other side. What’s a few more billions?
The money tree grows … lol
Crunch time for the next generation though.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
25 Sep 12 at 2:11 pm
Sensible people are also dismayed at the GOP.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=16394
But it sure is an epic fail for the deputy PM to say that about the potential next US government. He really is a very stupid man.
Pedro
25 Sep 12 at 2:32 pm
Well said, Lizzie, it was a disgrace.
Does anyone here believe that there has EVER been a liberal supporter in the Q&A audience?? I have NEVER seen an audience member so much as nod in agreement in support of anything said by a conservative, yet they whoop and holler at anything said by a leftard.
It needs to be said, and preferably on Q&A. Who’s got the guts to say it? Anybody?
Twodogs
25 Sep 12 at 2:33 pm
Watch this game being placed by Mega-Partisan, the Kouk and the other professional liars for Labor:
The statements will be carefully worded to imply the surplus will “cover” the defecits, trusting that seeing the numbers are in billions most people will not check.
Watch the magic trick.
Ignore the $150B debt in the left hand and focus on the teeny $1.5 B surplus over here in the right hand.
They blow and while sparkles cover the stage they bolt…
Token
25 Sep 12 at 2:56 pm
Re: QandA: Vote with your fingers and watch something more honourable like Big Brother.
Lysander Spooner
25 Sep 12 at 3:01 pm
“Does anyone here believe that there has EVER been a liberal supporter in the Q&A audience??”
I do not watch or listen to the ABC anymore, its bad for my health, and otherwise unpleasant.
I can see why conservatives/libertarians want a fair hearing, but its not going happen on “our” ABC. Playing their game by their rules only empowers them and diminishes our side. I am not saying they should be ignored, keep an eye on them, but dont engage them on their terms.
Jannie
25 Sep 12 at 3:19 pm
No one watches or listens to the austarlian Broadcasting Comrades any more ! The cretins who vote labor think its full of uniwankers ,and the non laborites KNOW its full of uniwankers?
Borisgodunov
25 Sep 12 at 3:58 pm
We have a government of cranks, crazies and crooks–or so it seems—-unfortunately
Jazza
25 Sep 12 at 4:42 pm
Only time when it was obviously a very split audience was when Cardinal Pell was on, and he clearly had his supporters there. What a relief it was too to see some representation of parts of the wider society. And I am not even religous. Pell won hands down in the debate as well.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
25 Sep 12 at 10:44 pm
austarlian Broadcasting Comrades
I’ve always liked “Australian Bolshevic Collective”.
John Mc
25 Sep 12 at 10:52 pm
Swan’s hyperbolic commentary on US politics is amateurish, ill-advised, dreadful diplomacy. It is embarrassing.
incredible. How come the only time I see this shit is on catallaxyfiles? Where are all the learned economics journalists when you need them.
dd
26 Sep 12 at 1:45 pm
Probably on the gravy train, dd.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
26 Sep 12 at 2:05 pm