(Miscellaneous debris)

[gossipgirl]

You are making too much sense and using logic. A very dangerous combination.

[scoob]

You have to remember that it is not just the public servants there who have lost their jobs. The loss of their income has meant that they have less to spend, giving less income to other businesses, resulting in further losses of jobs. These people then also have reduced incomes, leading to less spending, more unemployment..... less spending, even more unemployment, and so the vicious cycle of Campbell Newman's Liberal policy goes.

The previous government here was massively irresponsible and incompetent in putting Qld in a difficult financial position.
They eventually "came clean" and decided on asset sales to try and recover the sinking ship.
Went down like a lead balloon with the party faithfull.
Now the LNP are having to make unpopular decisions to clean up the mess that the idiots in the ALP gave the state.

You can try and use it for all the propaganda and point scoring you like, but I doubt you really understand what you are talking about.

Interceptor, all I have done is state a very basic Economics lesson, one that every Year 11 student should be well aware of. Thanks for the insult too, I do just have a weeeeee background in Economics
As for the 'irresponsible management', a lot of the spending was required to help steer Queensland through the Global Financial Crisis. Thankfully, Queensland (and Australia) got through it pretty well, compared to most other western countries.
I know that it resulted in deficit budgets and an increase in overall debts, but there are better ways of decreasing the debt and giving the economy a 'soft landing' than what Campbell Newman has done. Many would say that he has already proven to be more irresponsible and incompetent in a matter of months than the previous government was in its entirety.

Cheers

Is that you R&B????

[Jimmy_041]

mmmmmm, the thought has crossed my mind.

[scoob]

You know that you are one eyed when you defend the previous Queensland government.

[bulldogproud2]

You know that you are one eyed when you defend the previous Queensland government.

Then it would appear that a heck of a lot of Queenslanders are now one-eyed

THE honeymoon is over for Campbell Newman, whose blossoming love affair with Queensland voters appears to have soured three months after the Liberal National Party's state election win.
A new Galaxy poll shows Mr Newman's dissatisfaction rating has risen from 19 per cent in May to 49 per cent during which time his satisfaction rating fallen from 64 per cent to 44 per cent - as the Premier continues a redundancy drive through the public service and talks up the need for tough economic measures.

Not only are fewer than half of all voters happy with Mr Newman's performance, but, in a separate measure of support, 49 per cent believe he is performing worse than expected and only 39 per cent believe he is living up to expectations; that includes a quarter of all LNP supporters who believe he has let them down.

By the way, I did not defend them, just stated that a lot of their spending was warranted. If Newman's strategies were implemented after the GFC, Queensland would have been staring at unemployment levels well into double figures. The only thing he seems to be worried about is the level of government debt, not people's lives.

Cheers

[bulldogproud2]

[quote="scoob]
Is that you R&B????[/quote]

Naw, he is the better looking of the intelligent few on here

[Jimmy_041]

Maybe not, but as the Prime Minister recounted the other day, there have been many many many comments made by the Leader of the Opposition degrading her and other women in positions of power.

Yes, just like Labor members degrading the females in the Liberal party.

It is not a one way street!

Okay, tell me which Labor politicians have been degrading which female Liberal politicians in Federal Parliament please.

Here's something for you: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/greens-leader-christine-milne-says-julia-gillard-is-a-sexism-hypocrite/story-e6freuy9-1226495747948

Greens leader Christine Milne says Julia Gillard is a sexism hypocrite
SIMON BENSON
The Daily Telegraph October 15, 2012 12:00AM

GREENS Leader Christine Milne accused Julia Gillard of hypocrisy over her accusations that Tony Abbott was a misogynist, after a derogatory Twitter attack against her by a Labor senator.
Admitting the Greens had made a deliberate decision to stay out of the gender war between the government and the Coalition, Ms Milne admitted the PM undermined her own attack against Mr Abbott as being sexist last week by protecting Peter Slipper. And she warned the PM she would now be forced to stamp out sexism in her own party.
Ms Milne accused Labor senator David Feeney of a sexist and derogatory attack after he tweeted a series of pictures of the Greens leader with captions describing her different emotional states.
"If you're going to call it out you have to call out sexism on all sides, regardless of who is responsible," Ms Milne told Sky's Australian Agenda program yesterday.
Ms Milne said the debate over the past week had diminished the parliament.
"We decided we didn't want to get dragged down into it all," Ms Milne said.

But, I'm not sure where's she's going with the photo....

[bulldogproud2]

Still am yet to see any evidence of any Labor politician being sexist against any LIBERAL female politician

[dedja]

true, they closest they get is the old bag jokes with Bronwyn Bishop ...

[Jimmy_041]

true, they closest they get is the old bag jokes with Bronwyn Bishop ...

Yeah, but I'm OK with them

[Interceptor]

Interceptor, all I have done is state a very basic Economics lesson, one that every Year 11 student should be well aware of. Thanks for the insult too, I do just have a weeeeee background in Economics
As for the 'irresponsible management', a lot of the spending was required to help steer Queensland through the Global Financial Crisis. Thankfully, Queensland (and Australia) got through it pretty well, compared to most other western countries.
I know that it resulted in deficit budgets and an increase in overall debts, but there are better ways of decreasing the debt and giving the economy a 'soft landing' than what Campbell Newman has done. Many would say that he has already proven to be more irresponsible and incompetent in a matter of months than the previous government was in its entirety.

I don't necessary agree with everything the LNP government has done (they have made a lot of changes), but fundamentally agree with the aggressive approach to reduce the massive debt, which you seemingly downplay.

This article by Mark McGovern of QUT provides an overview of the debt problem and yes, it is fairly critical of the LNP response. Yet, despite suggesting there are "other ways", he does not provide them and nor do you.

Queensland has grown at a rapid rate for years and yes, spending was obviously required on infrastructure.
However, when the GFC hit, it exposed the previous government's poor overall strategy, as they were punting on the good times continuing indefinitely.
Royalties and other income dropped and all of a sudden they had to borrow more and more to keep things rolling.
Nothing was put aside for a "rainy day" and when that rainy day did hit (and other natural disasters), out came the begging bowl for Canberra.
Now mining royalties have been raised (despite Gillard ridiculously threatening funding to whoever did so) as part of the debt reduction strategy.

You obviously think that no one in the bloated Qld public service should have lost their job.
Perhaps the rest the of Australia should have continued to pay a levy to keep them all employed, as that's probably the only way it would be affordable.
Public service is no longer a "job for life", nor should it be; people are laid off in the private sector all the time. It's happened to me twice.
In reality, the unemployment rate is still relatively low.
Permanent staff would have received redundancy packages that will be spent and spread over time within the Qld economy.
IMO the effects of your "year 11 economics lesson" in this case will not have the impact you think they will.

BTW, I'm sure the ACTU will lead a big scare campaign at the next Federal election, particularly over job cuts.
Yet, when they cut their own numbers, it's apparently okay.

[dedja]

But, I'm not sure where's she's going with the photo....

Taking a leaf from Bob Brown by the looks of it ...

[dedja]

WADH ... again

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 6496617379

LIBERAL firebrand Cory Bernardi has reaffirmed his controversial comment linking gay marriage to bestiality, branding the political and media reaction as "hysteria".

But in an exclusive interview, his first since travelling to Britain after being sacked as Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary a month ago, the South Australian senator accepted he had put his leader in a difficult position.

He said he had therefore decided "to take one for the team".

However, he also said that while he had learnt a lesson from the backlash against his words, he did not resile from their substance.

He claimed there was "integrity" to the argument that if the definition of marriage were broadened to include gays on the grounds of current attitudes, there would also be a case for other changes in the future according to attitudes prevailing then.

"You can bet your bottom dollar there are always going to be demands to redefine it in other ways as well," Senator Bernardi said.

[bulldogproud2]

Interceptor, Australia's Government Debt/GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world, as you will see from the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ublic_debt

It is absolutely absurd for there to be the level of fuss that there is about the Government Debt/GDP ratio as there is at the moment. Compare Australia's 23% with Great Britain's 86% or USA's 103% for instance.
The current level of Govermment Debt/GDP in Australia is pretty much average, compared with our history. Through the late 1980's and early 1990's, the Government Debt/GDP ratio averaged 28%.
Yes, it was lowered a lot through the late 1990's and 2000's, but at what cost?? Extremely little was spent on national infrastructure, placing Australia under significant infrastructure problems and having incredible negative impacts on the competitiveness of Australian businesses. Thankfully, Labor governments have addressed the issues of improving Australia's infrastructure but, of course, this costs money.

As for your comments re how to incorporate a 'softer landing', all it takes is to be not as severe with the level of cuts that have been taking place in Queensland. They should have been phased in gradually instead. Agreed, not all public servants deserve a 'job for life' but look at all the cuts to services that have taken place in Queensland. No wonder the general public are turning out in force against the Newman Government.

Re your comment that the redundancy payments would make up for the loss of income in the economy, we both know that is complete madness.

[bulldogproud2]

Sorry, ran out of room above.

If the redundancy payments were going to have the same impact as keeping these public servants employed, why make them redundant?? After all, the redundancy payments are still paid by the Queensland Government. What you are actually saying with your statement is that no money is being saved but a huge amount of services have been slashed!! Seems an absolutely absurd idea!!!

[bulldogproud2]

Ross Gittins puts it quite well:
When you consider the genuine worries of the big countries, you realise how silly it is for us to worry about our tiny budgetary problem. They have levels of public debt up about 80 or 90 per cent of their annual national incomes (gross domestic product). Our present budget deficits and consequent borrowing are expected to leave us with a net public debt that peaks at $94 billion in 2013.

Does that sound a lot? If it does it's because you don't realise how big our government and the Australian economy really are. It will represent just 6 per cent of our annual national income.

Let me ask you a personal question: how big is your mortgage relative to your annual income? If it amounted to just 6 per cent of your annual income, how worried would you be? It's common for people to take out home loans that are three or four times their annual income.

Unlike the rest of the developed economies, we went into the global financial crisis with no net debt. Peter Costello and the Howard government get the credit for this.

They introduced and stuck to a ''medium-term fiscal strategy'' of keeping the budget in balance on average over the economic cycle. That is, it's OK for the budget to go into deficit during recessions, provided it goes back into surplus during the recovery, thereby eventually paying off the debt incurred during the period when the economy was weak and the budget was propping it up.

The Rudd/Gillard government is following this same strategy. Indeed, so successful has the opposition been in putting the frighteners on the public over deficits and debt that Labor is on its best behaviour, promising to find spending cuts to offset all new spending promises. The usual vote-buying auction has turned into a Dutch auction. Amazing.

As I've argued all along, the Liberals' relatively recent obsession with deficits and debt (it was the creation of Costello, never being part of John Howard's rhetoric when he was treasurer or in opposition) is way overdone. But when you look at the problem the Europeans' and Americans' budgetary laxity has got them into, you realise our antipodean obsession with avoiding public debt has its advantages.

We've been more frugal than we've needed to be, but it has certainly kept us out of trouble.

In economics, however, there are no free lunches. Everything comes at an (opportunity) cost. So successful has Costello been at demonising all government debt - state and federal - that we've failed to invest in enough economic and social infrastructure. Our debt level is minor, but we're living in the worst house in the street.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politi ... z29NGHMdJr

[Interceptor]

Re your comment that the redundancy payments would make up for the loss of income in the economy, we both know that is complete madness.

Oh please. You've completely twisted the intent of my statement and came to some sort of silly conclusion that I meant redundancy payments would have the same as keeping those folk employed. Nope, of course not. It gives them (to varying degrees) a softer landing and money to spend as they see fit.

Edit: I agree that trimming of the public service could have been done in a slower fashion.

As far as debt goes, nice attempt at deflection by comparing the Australian Federal debt compared to rest of the world.
Did you actually read the article I linked?
Qld's debt is quite dire, but you just can't seem to admit it.
You can claim it was justified due to spending on infrastructure all you like, hell anyone can dip into the big public purse and spend like a drunken sailor, Labor are great at that. What they are never too good at is knowing when to stop and consequently overstepping the mark.

[bulldogproud2]

Re your comment that the redundancy payments would make up for the loss of income in the economy, we both know that is complete madness.

Oh please. You've completely twisted the intent of my statement and came to some sort of silly conclusion that I meant redundancy payments would have the same as keeping those folk employed. Nope, of course not. It gives them (to varying degrees) a softer landing and money to spend as they see fit.

Edit: I agree that trimming of the public service could have been done in a slower fashion.

As far as debt goes, nice attempt at deflection by comparing the Australian Federal debt compared to rest of the world.
Did you actually read the article I linked?
Qld's debt is quite dire, but you just can't seem to admit it.
You can claim it was justified due to spending on infrastructure all you like, hell anyone can dip into the big public purse and spend like a drunken sailor, Labor are great at that. What they are never too good at is knowing when to stop and consequently overstepping the mark.

Yes, I have read that report and you will find it contains a number of flaws. Firstly, the level of debt it refers to is Gross Debt when it should be Net Debt. Secondly it states that Australia's current level of interest rates are 'historically high' - way off the mark there. Read this for a better analysis:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-07/u ... bt/4247858

[Psyber]

... a lot of the spending was required to help steer Queensland through the Global Financial Crisis...
Cheers

I've never been totally convinced by that economic theory.
Sure, some spending may be warranted but you have to be realistic about what is a sound limit of debt if you are not to perpetuate the boom and bust cycle.
Of course there are those "heterodox economists" - as they call themselves - who think government debt doesn't count as the government can act to create notional money to fund what they want to do.

Here is something I received from one of them - I'm still trying to make any sense of it.
I suspect though they don't admit it that it may drive ALP thinking:

1) First you must understand that banks "print money" constantly and in huge quantities. 97% of the money supply is bank credit. We are paying interest on almost every dollar in circulation. When banks lend money, nobody's bank balance goes down. On the contrary, total bank deposits go up. This shows that banks increase the total money supply with every loan. Initially a deposit magically appears in the cheque account of the borrower. The borrower uses that newly minted credit-money to pay for a house or whatever and it duly appears in the deposits of the people who were paid from that loan. That "printed" money eventually gets destroyed - but it might take 20 or 30 years to extract and eliminate all of the credit money created by that loan. Credit money gets destroyed as loan balances are paid down. If we attempt reduce debt levels, we only starve the economy of the lifeblood it needs to support economic activity.

2) There is no difference, from an inflationary point of view, whether the flow of money into circulation is supplied by new money "printed" by private banks or by money "printed" by a Currency Issuing Sovereign Government. What matters, is that the total amount of money in circulation remains in balance with the needs of the economy. This requirement serves the social goal of maintaining a "stable" value of money. It is equally true to say that if banks are allowed to create money, it would generate hyper-inflation, unless constraint is imposed upon them.

The banks and their many allies do not want governments to rediscover their currency powers because, assuming a regime of responsible management, every dollar created by government means one less dollar created to earn interest for the banks. That is the reason for the fear mongering and exaggeration about a "slippery slope" to the Weimar Republic or to Zimbabwe.

3) If we wish to reduce debt levels but simultaneously maintain an adequate money supply for healthy economic activity, there is no option but to start replacing the huge proportion of bank-credit money (currently around 97%) with debt free-money printed by the government. Failing to act on this means that debt must keep expanding in the hope that the real economy can keep up with the built in financial Ponzi scheme. Here's a clue. The developed economies have reached the end of growth, and their old Growth Economies are threatening to collapse.

That's enough from me - let's hear from the qualified experts.

Firstly there is this site... http://era-blog.com/
Start at the bottom to get a chronological sequence of loosely related articles. This page has only a small number of articles so it does not seem daunting.

Prof Phil Lawn, of Flinders Uni, has done some good work explaining these matters. I have attached one of his PowerPoint presentations [Money, deficits, and debt.ppt] and the script which goes along with the slides [Money and deficits_3.doc].
Why not throw in the flyer promoting the event too? [Money and deficits_flyer.doc]

Much more of a Pandora's Box is Bill Mitchell's blog.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/? ... more-17637

[Psyber]

true, they closest they get is the old bag jokes with Bronwyn Bishop ...

Didn't Amanda Vanstone cop a bit a few years ago?