Yep the people in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea all have it so much better than we do under a dictatorship
Are they really the only alternatives you can think of? Despising one of the least worst options doesn't mean we prefer the worst worst.
well politics have a lot to do with what you thread was about <> the closure of retail shops. When abbot rips 75 billion from the economy that is a potential 75 billions dollars that wont be spent in retail shops further quickening their demise. As I mentioned above the monopolistic wholesale / import / distribution contracts and the rip off scumbags like Frank Lowie and the like are also very much to blame for a lot of problems with the B&M retailers in this country.
As much as I'm not a fan of Tony Abbott, I think the issues facing small businesses in retail and manufacturing are way beyond the control of any political party. Regardless of who gets in, small business is going to have to keep adapting to the way the market is shifting.
A little short Frenchman once referred to England as "a nation of shop keepers" mind you, he got his arse kicked at Waterloo not long after
Well we have it right there that you don't know how the economy works. For the government to have $75 billion to spend (and it is $70 that Labor talk about, don't inflate their inflation) they need to take that money out of the productive economy first, plus a premium to pay for waste and government inefficiencies and administration. So to spend $75 billion they probably need to tax $90 billion out of the economy. A bogus figure out of my head of course but I want you to understand that the money you're talking about is my currency/money and your money and your neighbours money taken off us and taken out of the economy. Then a portion is respent after the costs of collection are taken into account. I don't know how many times this can be explained in a different way.
As opposed to the GST where everyone but the end consumer of a good or service receives a GST credit for the GST already paid in the value chain of the good or service, the carbon tax is 10% on top of all power bills in the value chain of every good and service that uses electricity. So there is a compounding effect, it's there but hard to quantify. And it adds to the cost of everything we use that uses electricity. Which, again, is everything. My 1st power bill when the carbon tax came in was 19% higher compared to the previous quarter, and is now about 33% higher than before the tax. Of course the tax rate/'price on carbon' has gone up in rate twice (I think) since it was instituted, as per the Labor plan. Furthermore in NSW privatisation had already begun under the previous corrupt Labor State government, and rate increases were marginal. Furthermore the electricity generators were prevented from upgrading their systems by that same corrupt Labor government which required huge investments to infrastructure in the private and government elements when Liberals finally took over, requiring price rises. So Labor have hurt me twice on elecricity in the last couple of years. Mining tax watered down? Maybe, but without the tax the nation would be benefitting from more mining investment, which of course has almost stopped. I recall the Olympic Dam mine expansion in SA was cancelled because of the Mining Tax, as were many others before the tax came in. How can you stand up for a job destroying failure of a tax policy. Deposit levy a worthwhile scheme???? It is at the orders of the IMF who have ordered all G20 nations to do it, to our own detriment. The levy is expected to take billions (repeat: Billions) out of our deposits yet contribute a paltry $740 Million (not billion) in deposit insurance. It is just another tax, can't you see that? From an accountants perspective, the alcopops tax will remain, yes, as the compensation required to consumers were the tax to be finally discovered unlawful would cripple whichever government department was given the job of undoing the damage. The alcopops tax is so woven in to the fabric of business and government that if it is unlawful the costs to undo it would probably be more than what the tax collects. Which is another unintended consequence of a bloated government!
Point of order sir. My bill was higher too, but the carbon tax increased the price by 9 percentage points and the rest was from the state government owned grid owners gaming the regulatory system for higher profits. They get a regulated return on the capital value of their infrastructure. Some idiot somewhere along the line thought that this was best measured as a percentage of the value of the infrastructure. This means that the more stuff they build, the more profit they make i.e. 7.5% of $1 billion is $75 million, but 7.5% of $2 billion is $150 million. The "7.5%" is fixed, so if they want to go from making $75 million to $150 million they just have to build another billion dollars worth of transmission lines - whether they need them or not - and so that's exactly what they've been doing. You're right that it's a complete rort, but it's fairly and squarely in the hands of the state governments who are the ones reaping the extra dividend cash (along with the private utility contractors and the corrupt regulators they have in the pockets). The mining tax was not responsible for the Olympic Dam expansion project being mothballed. Marius Kloppers, CEO of BHP said himself that neither the mining tax nor the carbon tax was a factor in deciding to shutter it. He said it was because of project costs, the high AUD, falling copper prices and falling demand for uranium after Fukushima. The mining tax is only levied on coal and iron ore anyway, so how it was going to have a negative impact on a mine producing copper, uranium, gold and silver is a very interesting question. Somebody asked it of Tony Abbott at time and he said back then that he hadn't even read BHP's statement on their decision to postpone the mine expansion before pulling this rubbish about the mining tax being to blame out of his arse.
+1. I was going to basically say the same but you beat me to it. Edit: Forgot to add that - as alluded to by Big A.D. - the WACC's used in the allowed regulated price increase calculations is higher than their true cost of capital. Hence gold plating the infrastructure is pretty much a no-brainer.
You just faked a post from me that I did not write? What a low act. I want an apology from you, falsifying yourself as another member and making a fake post is a serious breach of forum etiquette. DO NOT change people's names in quotes and present yourself as them and post malicious content. You just misrepresented two members. .
