(Miscellaneous debris)

[bulldogproud2]

Psyber, it is true that banks do create money with every loan as only a small amount needs to be kept in a liquid form. However, the debt issue is quite separate to that.
The reason why Australia's debt level should not be of major concern is because it is very low. It is currently 6% of national income.
As such, it is equivalent to an $18 000 mortgage on a $300 000 house or a $42 000 mortgage on a $700 000 house.
As we are still not blessed with great infrastructure, those who advocate rushing to pay the debt off rather than improve the infrastructure are akin to people living in a house that has the roof falling in deciding not to fix the roof but to put all the money into rushing to eliminate the mortgage in one year when they could take thirty to pay it and fix the roof.

Cheers

[scoob]

Psyber, it is true that banks do create money with every loan as only a small amount needs to be kept in a liquid form. However, the debt issue is quite separate to that.
The reason why Australia's debt level should not be of major concern is because it is very low. It is currently 6% of national income.
As such, it is equivalent to an $18 000 mortgage on a $300 000 house or a $42 000 mortgage on a $700 000 house.
As we are still not blessed with great infrastructure, those who advocate rushing to pay the debt off rather than improve the infrastructure are akin to people living in a house that has the roof falling in deciding not to fix the roof but to put all the money into rushing to eliminate the mortgage in one year when they could take thirty to pay it and fix the roof.

Cheers

And how much do they pay in interest to take 30 years vs 1 year?

[mick]

Psyber, it is true that banks do create money with every loan as only a small amount needs to be kept in a liquid form. However, the debt issue is quite separate to that.
The reason why Australia's debt level should not be of major concern is because it is very low. It is currently 6% of national income.
As such, it is equivalent to an $18 000 mortgage on a $300 000 house or a $42 000 mortgage on a $700 000 house.
As we are still not blessed with great infrastructure, those who advocate rushing to pay the debt off rather than improve the infrastructure are akin to people living in a house that has the roof falling in deciding not to fix the roof but to put all the money into rushing to eliminate the mortgage in one year when they could take thirty to pay it and fix the roof.

Cheers

Typical Labor response, everything on the credit card and the never never

[bulldogproud2]

Psyber, it is true that banks do create money with every loan as only a small amount needs to be kept in a liquid form. However, the debt issue is quite separate to that.
The reason why Australia's debt level should not be of major concern is because it is very low. It is currently 6% of national income.
As such, it is equivalent to an $18 000 mortgage on a $300 000 house or a $42 000 mortgage on a $700 000 house.
As we are still not blessed with great infrastructure, those who advocate rushing to pay the debt off rather than improve the infrastructure are akin to people living in a house that has the roof falling in deciding not to fix the roof but to put all the money into rushing to eliminate the mortgage in one year when they could take thirty to pay it and fix the roof.

Cheers

And how much do they pay in interest to take 30 years vs 1 year?

A reasonable amount but at least they still have the house!!
They also pay a lot less per year, easing the annual burden.

Cheers

[bulldogproud2]

Psyber, it is true that banks do create money with every loan as only a small amount needs to be kept in a liquid form. However, the debt issue is quite separate to that.
The reason why Australia's debt level should not be of major concern is because it is very low. It is currently 6% of national income.
As such, it is equivalent to an $18 000 mortgage on a $300 000 house or a $42 000 mortgage on a $700 000 house.
As we are still not blessed with great infrastructure, those who advocate rushing to pay the debt off rather than improve the infrastructure are akin to people living in a house that has the roof falling in deciding not to fix the roof but to put all the money into rushing to eliminate the mortgage in one year when they could take thirty to pay it and fix the roof.

Cheers

Typical Labor response, everything on the credit card and the never never

Wrong, everything gets paid, but we keep people employed!!
Cheers

[scoob]

Psyber, it is true that banks do create money with every loan as only a small amount needs to be kept in a liquid form. However, the debt issue is quite separate to that.
The reason why Australia's debt level should not be of major concern is because it is very low. It is currently 6% of national income.
As such, it is equivalent to an $18 000 mortgage on a $300 000 house or a $42 000 mortgage on a $700 000 house.
As we are still not blessed with great infrastructure, those who advocate rushing to pay the debt off rather than improve the infrastructure are akin to people living in a house that has the roof falling in deciding not to fix the roof but to put all the money into rushing to eliminate the mortgage in one year when they could take thirty to pay it and fix the roof.

Cheers

And how much do they pay in interest to take 30 years vs 1 year?

A reasonable amount but at least they still have the house!!
They also pay a lot less per year, easing the annual burden.

Cheers

I'm glad you are not my fianancial advisor.

[bulldogproud2]

I'm glad you are not my fianancial advisor.

True, would hate to give advice to someone who would ignore it and see the house totally go to ruin just so that they can pay the mortgage. At least my clients would have somewhere adequate to live

[scoob]

I'm glad you are not my fianancial advisor.

True, would hate to give advice to someone who would ignore it and see the house totally go to ruin just so that they can pay the mortgage. At least my clients would have somewhere adequate to live

I can always use the money I save to rebuild - short term pain for long term gain... until someone comes in and spends my savings again.... leaving me with a leaky roof and a large debt

[bulldogproud2]

I'm glad you are not my fianancial advisor.

True, would hate to give advice to someone who would ignore it and see the house totally go to ruin just so that they can pay the mortgage. At least my clients would have somewhere adequate to live

I can always use the money I save to rebuild - short term pain for long term gain... until someone comes in and spends my savings again.... leaving me with a leaky roof and a large debt

True
However, the cost of rebuilding will be far more than the additional money you would have spent in interest, especially after taking into account inflation. Borrowing from the Reserve Bank at 3.5% will mean that the impact of interest rates is extremely low (just above CPI).
Additionally, the inconvenience of having nowhere to live for two years whilst you rebuild
Cheers

[scoob]

I'm glad you are not my fianancial advisor.

True, would hate to give advice to someone who would ignore it and see the house totally go to ruin just so that they can pay the mortgage. At least my clients would have somewhere adequate to live

I can always use the money I save to rebuild - short term pain for long term gain... until someone comes in and spends my savings again.... leaving me with a leaky roof and a large debt

True
However, the cost of rebuilding will be far more than the additional money you would have spent in interest, especially after taking into account inflation. Borrowing from the Reserve Bank at 3.5% will mean that the impact of interest rates is extremely low (just above CPI).
Additionally, the inconvenience of having nowhere to live for two years whilst you rebuild
Cheers

All valid points and would be good if the ALP spending was more akin to repairing roofs rather than having a p!ss up when the wages come in.

[bulldogproud2]

[quote="scoob]All valid points and would be good if the ALP spending was more akin to repairing roofs rather than having a p!ss up when the wages come in.[/quote]

Perhaps, but most of the money has been spent on stimulating the economy after the GFC so that you could be employed, receive income and have your own 'piss up'. That, plus spending a lot on badly overdue repairs and improvements to infrastructure.

Cheers

[Gozu]

I'm old enough to remember when the Democrats were a viable political party, true story:

The Australian Democrats -- which narrowly survived an attempt to shut them down earlier this year -- appear to be on the brink of oblivion once more.

The party has no national president, is paralysed by a nasty internal split, and has not commenced preselections for the federal election. It has dwindling membership, less money, no MPs, and is fielding what critics say may be a fake candidate in tomorrow's ACT election.

"It could be over," one party member told Crikey.

It's not a noble end for the trailblazing party, which held the balance of power in the Senate several times, promoted female politicians before it was fashionable and won seats in most state parliaments.

The AEC attempted to deregister the Democrats earlier this year for not having 500 members (the minimum required to register as a party); the AEC initially rejected the party's membership list, but relented when fresh material was supplied. Hopes for the party flared briefly when former senator Brian Greig became national president in July, but he resigned in disgust at the party's factionalism less than a month later.

More than two months later, the party has no national president and apparently no one acting in the role; there is no date set to vote in a president.

The party has been riven by a power struggle between forces sympathetic to Greig, and those in what critics call "the Sandra camp" -- the faction of former South Australian MP Sandra Kanck.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/10/19/bel ... r-of-them/

[Sojourner]

I'm old enough to remember when the Democrats were a viable political party, true story:

Remember them well and voted for them also on at least one occasion!

They did very well when they portrayed themselves as "Centrist" and got good support from people from different political perspectives. There end came pretty swiftly when they tanked to the left and tried to portray themselves as an alternative to the Greens and found themselves having to debate the Greens on which party more deserved to be the third party in politics. The Greens easily won that fight and internal brawling within them finished them off for good.

I think the "Libertarian" Party is likely the best chance we have of a Centrist party, interesting that they got their highest ever vote in the Port Adelaide By Election. Could be that there is still a place in S.A politics for a centrally based party?

[Gozu]

I think you'll find the Democrats died off when they got in bed with the Libs (i.e. went to the Right).

But it was fitting really as they were born out of the Liberal Party anyway.

[Psyber]

I think you'll find the Democrats died off when they got in bed with the Libs (i.e. went to the Right).
But it was fitting really as they were born out of the Liberal Party anyway.

It really does depend on where you are looking at the history from - I think their death started a little sooner.

Initially, as you say, they were born of the Liberal Movement, and became a centrist force aiming to "Keep the Bastards Honest!"
That was their initial strength, the appeal to the swinging voter in the middle ground.
I had been a Liberal Movement supporter and initially supported the Democrats.
I lived near John Coulter in their last days as a centrist group and knew him fairly well.

However, from my perspective, the cause of their death was slightly different from what you see.
They were gradually infiltrated and taken over by the authoritarian left and initially their numbers grew as that group joined them.
But, in time, this meant they moved so far left that the middle ground started to desert them - as I did.
They then embraced a new role commensurate with the aims of the new dominant membership group, as a sort of left wing of the ALP.

Later, when the new leader saw the drift of their new supporter base towards the Greens coming and tried to return them to their roots, she was overthrown by the residual of that new controlling group. That triggered the identity crisis and their death.

The middle ground had given up on them, and the move of the authoritarian left towards the Greens then accelerated, leaving the Democrats gutted.
It was happening anyway so that gamble just hastened the inevitable trend.

[Sojourner]

Wayne Swan announces cuts to the Baby Bonus Scheme and for University Funding.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3616118.htm

[Sojourner]

Christine Milne gives everyone a few thoughts on behalf of the Greens on the cutting of funding to Universities and other items and asks the question of why its so important to achieve a budget surplus in one year? Probably not an unreasonable question to ask in the current financial climate.

AUSTRALIAN Greens leader Christine Milne says the Federal Government's forecast budget surplus has been built on the back of education cuts and failing to help the poor.

The mid-year economic and fiscal outlook (MYEFO), released today by Treasurer Wayne Swan, forecasts a revised surplus of $1.1 billion based on $16.4 billion in new savings over the forward estimates.

Senator Milne said the Government had failed to deliver a $50 increase in the Newstart allowance and remained committed to cutting back single parent support.

The Government was preparing to write down revenues from the mining sector, while cutting spending on education, training and research by $1.8 billion, the Tasmanian senator said.

"We've lost on the clever country, we've lost on the caring country," she told reporters in Canberra, adding the most vulnerable were being driven closer to poverty.

"We've failed to raise the revenue that is out there that we could be raising from the resource sector."

The budget surplus had taken on a "political significance".

"Everybody agrees that you could delay achieving the surplus," Senator Milne said.

If the Government was really serious about nation-building, it would be investing in research and development and education and training.

It would get a national disability insurance scheme up and running, and make provision for the implementation of the Gonski review into education funding.

"Instead of that, the Government said it would return to a surplus in '12/13 and it's as if that is the holy grail," Senator Milne said.

The Greens would consider any legislation arising from MYEFO on its merits but would not immediately commit to passing any of the changes, she said.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/20 ... -news.html

[Jimmy_041]

I think you'll find the Democrats died off when they got in bed with the Libs (i.e. went to the Right).

But it was fitting really as they were born out of the Liberal Party anyway.

or was it when Cheryl Kernot got into bed (literally) with Labor?

[Psyber]

I think you'll find the Democrats died off when they got in bed with the Libs (i.e. went to the Right).
But it was fitting really as they were born out of the Liberal Party anyway.

or was it when Cheryl Kernot got into bed (literally) with Labor?

That was certainly when they lost any claim to trying to "Keep the bastards Honest!"...
And when any residual centrists finally gave up on them.

[dedja]

so that was the root of the problem?