Howard managed to reduce Public debt by increasing private debt. And by leading the highest taxing government in history. At the same time he increased middle class welfare spending to record levels.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative" John Stuart Mill

FormulaNova said...

cisco said...

(nothing at all)

One thing I find annoying is when people quote other people's information, or in this case a graph, without any explanation or comment on it.

"It goes without saying" is a 'weasily' way of saying something.

In the absence of any text, I will take your comment to mean, "gee, why does the Liberal goverment in this particular sample save so much and where does it come from. Is it magic?" and also " I wonder why the incumbent government during any recessions didn't save their money and instead spent it on creating jobs".

To this, I would say, "congratulations, you understand basic economic policy".

Sorry if my format annoys you Formula Nova. The thread title and the post are posed as a question such as "What do you think about this?" or something similar.

You have to admit the graph is graphic as graphs are supposed to be.

What is of note is the number of red bars and blue bars in the graph. The black bars have not happened yet but are projected.

What the graph illustrates for me is that Labor is far more skillful at running UP debt than the Liberals are at bringing it DOWN.

It took Hawke/Keating SEVEN years to run it UP and it took Howard/Costello NINE years to bring it back DOWN to just under where it was in 89-90.

Then Howard/Costello had THREE good years creating a healthy surplus.

You have to hand it to the Rudd/Gillard lot though. They learn fast.

In just THREE years they have wiped out the benefits of ELEVEN years of good fiscal policy.

Now the graph came to me in an email, so it might not be correct, however it is tagged at the lower left.

I am not really interested in the whys and hows of the past that some are prattleing on about above because I go to the "Church of What's Happenin' Now". What's happenin' now in the main street of my town is businesses are closing and shops are vacant and that ain't no good for nobody.

Fluck Gillard and Swan!! They can have the $900 back and I don't want no digital set top box neither. Conts!!!

"lies ,damn lies and statistics"
"i've never met an economist who was an optimist"

labor did cop the raw end of the deal, but to throw money at people which at the end of the day meant very little to a peoples circumstances was just plain reckless.

now its pay back time= tax

Sounds like Mr Nova is on the same page as I am.


Here's one for you. A friend of mine that has done very well for himself told me that he believes the real problem with our leading politicians is that they get paid too little. Not that we should pay our current boneheads more but if the wages were higher more talented people would take the job. If you are a brilliant person now you'd go work for a bank or a mine and get 4 times as much. Why would you take all of that pressure of being in politics for such little money. I thought it was a very good point.

I have often thought that pollies should be paid a living wage and then a commission or bonus based on economic performance.

That could not work though. Too much scope for corruption and once one lot got in and was getting the money, the other lot would never stand a chance of getting in.

Admittedly the graph only illustrates one aspect of governments' performance and would be far more enlightening if it went back say 50 years and had another line or two that indicated for instance the economic well being of the general population and small to medium sized business activity.

Maybe a graph line not based on economic factors would be helpful. Say one based on technological innovations or a social factor.

A very interesting comparison line would be one based on public infrastructure spending.

CMC said...

Here's one for you. A friend of mine that has done very well for himself told me that he believes the real problem with our leading politicians is that they get paid too little. Not that we should pay our current boneheads more but if the wages were higher more talented people would take the job. If you are a brilliant person now you'd go work for a bank or a mine and get 4 times as much. Why would you take all of that pressure of being in politics for such little money. I thought it was a very good point.

Perhaps...

Consider the other perks, and I don't mean those that are part of the role whilst in office, such as domestic/international travel, accommodation, cars etc, this could be considered part of the job - or any job for that matter.

What happens when you retire from politics, life time salary, life time travel allowances... A little googling, and I found this highly reliable article()...

www.heraldsun.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes

John Howard is costing taxpayers an estimated $300 000 a year in air fares, chauffeured cars and office expenses, on top of a $330 000 annual pension.

It's not all bad for them

What the graph perhaps also says is :

Hawk / Keating, two PMs and 6 treasurers in 13 years
Howard, one PM and one treasurer 11 years
Rudd/Gillard, so far two PMs and one treasurer in four years


and if you want to go back, 'because the graph is only a snap shot of three governments' then the data is :

Two liberal treasurers in eight years
Four labour treasurers in three years
Four liberal treasurers in fourteen years

So - in the last 50 years :
Labour - 11 treasurers in 17 years (1.5 years average service)
Liberal - 7 treasurers in 33 years (4.7 years average service)

And they say Labour is the party of the worker and of job stability.

Carantoc said...

Use the global financial crisis as an excuse if you want (remembering it wasn't global, it was and still is - US and European), but is it good to be in debt ?

Do you really think that Europe and the US are economic islands to themselves? Surely when all of the worlds biggest economies are hit hard, the downstream effects hit everyone - including Australia and Asia.

EDIT: I haven't gone into the question of being good or bad to be in debt because I think others here have answered it better than I could with "It depends".

SomeOtherGuy said...

Carantoc said...

Use the global financial crisis as an excuse if you want (remembering it wasn't global, it was and still is - US and European), but is it good to be in debt ?

Do you really think that Europe and the US are economic islands to themselves? Surely when all of the worlds biggest economies are hit hard, the downstream effects hit everyone - including Australia and Asia.

EDIT: I haven't gone into the question of being good or bad to be in debt because I think others here have answered it better than I could with "It depends".

Not islands no, but China is the worlds second largest economy. In 1900 it was the world's largest, by 2020 it is likely it will again be the world's largest.

China's economy isn't exactly in crisis ?

The only economies in anything like 'crisis' were US, Iceland and a few Euro zones one. Although arguably those ones are in nothing like the 'crisis' they will be in the not too distant future. Japan has been where it is for quite a long time, just seems to carry on.

By the way did you know out of the 196 nations the big corporations Wal-Mart and Exxon-Mobil (well biggest western non-chinese-government owned corporations) would be placed about number 30 if they were countries.

Wal-mart reported $16 billion profit last year, Exxon $30 billion, both on increased sales volumes and increased revenues.

Australia inc. posted a $40 billion loss on the back of record sales and record revenues.

Carantoc said...

By the way did you know out of the 196 nations the big corporations Wal-Mart and Exxon-Mobil (well biggest western non-chinese-government owned corporations) would be placed about number 30 if they were countries.

Wal-mart reported $16 billion profit last year, Exxon $30 billion, both on increased sales volumes and increased revenues.

Australia inc. posted a $40 billion loss on the back of record sales and record revenues.

Interesting. What were their schools like? How do their unemployment benefits stack up to ours? Do they have a good health service? How powerful are their armies?

Honestly, if you want to compare apples and oranges then you can make any case at all!

EDIT (Sorry just can't seem to stop these second thoughts today): When you compare the above list in the US to Australia - worlds biggest economy against a middle ranker - you'd have to say the US stacks up fairly poorly except for the military. And their debt is huuuuggggeeee!

CMC said...

Sounds like Mr Nova is on the same page as I am.


Here's one for you. A friend of mine that has done very well for himself told me that he believes the real problem with our leading politicians is that they get paid too little. Not that we should pay our current boneheads more but if the wages were higher more talented people would take the job. If you are a brilliant person now you'd go work for a bank or a mine and get 4 times as much. Why would you take all of that pressure of being in politics for such little money. I thought it was a very good point.

I thought that for a while, that if they were more highly paid then you would get better folk.

Now I realise that the shakers and movers in our political system are filled with sociopaths who get paid better than we will ever realise. When they leave politics that is when their pigeons come home to roost.

I have maintained for a long time that one of the reasons so many of our brightest are enticed into doing medicine, law or banking is because the last thing they want is smart people with time on their hands to reflect that not all is well. Just a theory but it will do me

To Owe or not to Owe hey!

The question we should be asking is this, who do we owe?

There was a time when the US government issued money based on a gold and silver standard. They lost their freedom to the federal reserve. The same people, younger generation, control this ponzi digital scheme that rules our lives globally. Our illusion of democracy is bought and paid for. They control the media, virtually all of it. George Orwell was a bit out on his timing but TV has produced a population of zombies.

The whole point of the lib vs lab debate is to keep people divided whilst throwing up a smoke screen that hides the truth. For **** sake, we have the whole world in debt. To whom and for what? You can't eat money, well you can but even if you could eke a little nutrition out of a five dollar note you would starve pretty quick anyway because most of it is digital. Trillions and trillions of utter crap.

All based on debt.

Reflect for a moment. Why would the people who engineered the Great Depression push for legislation against a gold standard? I can remember when a Rand promised to pay the bearer in gold on demand.

Then ask yourself what would happen to anyone who showed promise of taking back the issuing of money by a government of the people.

Wish I had had the smarts to buy some gold way back. I reckon there is still an opportunity there because a lot of people are waking up to the fact that we have been had

Then if we took our country back we could focus on wind

SomeOtherGuy said...

japie said...

Reflect for a moment. Why would the people who engineered the Great Depression push for legislation against a gold standard? I can remember when a Rand promised to pay the bearer in gold on demand.

Then ask yourself what would happen to anyone who showed promise of taking back the issuing of money by a government of the people.

Wish I had had the smarts to buy some gold way back. I reckon there is still an opportunity there because a lot of people are waking up to the fact that we have been had

*sigh*

Q: What's a lump of gold worth japie?

Can't eat it, smoke it or drink it. Can procreate with it. It doesn't produce anything .. or consume anything for that matter. Your life is no better with it than it was without it other than some intangible sense that you have something.

A: It's worth whatever someone else will give you for it. Same as a bit of paper. That's why everyone abandoned it.

I agree entirely. But you cannot degrade gold. I spend far too much of my time, my most valuable asset, exchanged for digital dollars. They are degrading fast. Especially in relation to gold.

If we must have a currency then let's have something solid that cannot be manipulated by avaricious people.

The answer is simple for this democracy. Do as I say