How to Invest Outside the Government-Controlled System

:lol:

Hilarious hiho, but my order would be;

1st - Conroy
2nd - Conroy
3rd - Conroy
4th - Swan
5th - Conroy Again!

 

Surely Penny Wong deserves a mention in your Top 5.

 

You dismiss that government has any regulatory responsibility over the protection of children from pornography but has every responsibility to operate monopolistic businesses that don't even need to make profit while they crowd out private business and cost the taxpayer unlimited amounts to operate, providing them new tools of surveillance and taxation over the citizenry. ? :lol:

I find it amazing that anyone can belive it is reasonable to argue such a position and don't think I can feel insulted by anything such a person may say, so don't worry about it.

 

You catch on real quick bubb

 

When I think about it - besides the numerous numismatics, dealers and pure speculative traders who are members - I would have thought that all other stackers on here are here because they recognise the benefit of removing the government's regulations that have set up artificial currency, monopolistic and undemocratic central banks and legalised fraudulent banking cartels.

I don't know whether Big A.D. is part of the former group but I know that others who have expressed similar opinions about the benefits of substantial government meddling, taxes etc class themselves as "stackers". Seems to be a massive contradiction - albeit semi-understandable since people have to be re-educated from what think is "normal" and "natural". I know I had to be re-educated, but I started stacking AFTER recognising the truths not before. Maybe others get to the truths in a different order.

 

naaah ...

1 - Gillard
2 - Millne
3 - Conroy
4 - Swan
They're all pretty much equally repulsive/repugnant ...
The only ALP/Green/commie member i've ever seen/listened to who didn't give the sh..ts is Steven Smith.
The rest are all a bunch of repulsive ignoramuses

 

you're absolutely correct!!

1 - Gillard
2 - Millne
3 - Wong
3 - Conroy
4 - Swan

That simpleton who used to head the Greens is also definately up there ito repulsive looking/sounding politicians as well.

 

Shame on you if you ever were fooled into thinking that BigAD and his communist ilk are in any sense of the word "reasonable" ...

 

I agree with you 100%.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if BigAD and other big government lovers on here would even applaud government confiscation of privately held PMs - "all for the greater good mate".

 

Did you consider that what they wanted to be tendered was a stupid idea? Instead of asking telcos for options to provide high-speed internet to Australians, they told them what they had to provide and asked for prices. How stupid and Conroy-ish. Same goes for the internet filter, Conroy said what he wanted, he didn't ask what is reasonable or even possible. That is what you get when you put a power-hungry politician in charge of something that requires some technical understanding and a slight grasp of value for money.

As a minister, Conroy is essentially a dictator, and does not care who's money he spends, so long as it is not his own.

 

So... hey - I think the topic here might have been 'How to invest outside the government-controlled system'?

I hope I got that right!

 

The same answer applies to both the NBN in it's current design and the internet filter: the expert consensus is that (a) a ubiquitous fiber network is the best design for providing the majority of the country with high speed broadband access, and (b) trying to block/filter/censor the internet at a national level is an exercise in futility.

Conroy listened to the experts on the network design but didn't listen to them about the filter.

 

Conroy posed the wrong question with the NBN. Ask a stupid question, get stupid answers.

The problem is 'majority'. The Govt wants to provide a single solution for all of Australia, and they want geographical equity - ie, same speeds for everyone.

In a country as big as ours, that is just plain stupid thinking. Politics vs. intelligence.

Also I question these 'experts' and their ability to remain impartial and to account for tax payer $$. Everyone is an expert at spending other peoples money.

 

My thinking is that the NBN wouldn't exist unless the government provides it. It is useful infrastructure and the community will get great benefit from it so I'm happy for the government to build it because, in my view, the government exists to provide a benefit to people that they wouldn't otherwise have.

If private industry can provide something better/faster/cheaper to everybody than the government can, I'm quite happy for private industry to provide it.

I think there are plenty of cases where the government could get out of the way and stop meddling in things and that likewise there are plenty of cases where the free market doesn't provide the best outcome for people.

 

I'm not 100% against the idea of the NBN, and I partly agree that the Govt should spend 'some' money on such infrastructure, but it is a waste of money in its current form because it pursues this silly idea of geographical equity.

How about fibre to metro areas, and wifi to rural areas - much cheaper. If councils choose to get fibre, they can pay for it with a small subsidy from Govt.

They could probably halve the cost of the NBN and stroll get good coverage to rural areas.

 

Well, you could say the same thing about law and order too. If you were to do a Cost-Benefit analysis on the police service, you'd probably find that it isn't economical to have them enforce the law in a large part of the country because the population density of cities creates efficiencies in the provision of services.

On that basis, we should probably let anything west of the Great Dividing Range revert to lawless badlands and only expect civilised society to exist in coastal cities.

Being a qualified expert in something means your opinion on something in your field of expertise is worth more than Joe Blogs' opinion.

I know enough about network design to know that I'd trust the people building the NBN to build something really good (and by that I mean experienced network engineers like Mike Quigley and not idiot politicians like Stephen Conroy).

 

That is understandable enough. Optus, Vodaphone, Three, Virgin etc managed to successfully set up mobile phone networks of varying quality, convenience and price WITHOUT Government involvement. They provided substantial benefits to people that they wouldn't otherwise have. I am positive that access to decent quality internet nearly anywhere in Australia will also happen WITHOUT the involvement of a Government owned/funded entity.

I don't think any of us are disputing whether a super fast fibre optic network around Australia will bring lots of great benefits. (Many are disputing whether linking nearly every home in Australia is cost effective.) As I said earlier, each and every person only have so many resources to distribute between a huge variety of things and I currently prefer to spend it on things OTHER than broadband and remote conferencing. If I choose to pay for high speed broadband then that means I derive more personal benefit than the million other things I could do with that money. In the case of the NBN (and many other things), I am not being given an option of how to spend my meagre resources I am being forced to pay for something that someone else deems is for my benefit.

If the Government is really trying to maximise my welfare, then it should let me decide how to do it myself. Given we are already burdened with a Government then they should do things like Gino suggested and restrict their activities to regulating flows (but not to censor) and potentially to INFORM me of how great a super fast broadband network would be. As we all know, information is a very valuable commodity and if the existing Government that I am forced to live with wants to meddle then simply tell me WHY there is a better alternative but let me make my own choice if I don't want to choose that alternative right now.

The Government doesn't know my shoe size nor does it know which of my shoes (work, sport, smart casual, etc) needs to be replaced within the next few weeks, nor does it know which colour and variety is best for my purposes (do I need steel caps, leather, rubber soles, black, brown, velcro, slip-on, stilettos, etc etc). Only I (well, technically my wife) know this. Yes the Government could go out and buy me a pair of shoes (with money from my wallet). They may get the size and colour right, but I doubt they'll buy the best ones for me (and they'll charge me a commission for the privilege of them buying ones that I can use but didn't actually want).

 

Again, we tried that way of improving access speeds and it didn't work well at all.

This isn't a new problem. We're well past the "request for comments" stage and are already into the actual "getting stuff built" part.

To be honest - and I don't mean to be rude to anyone - but Australians seem to spend so much time talking about what they think should be done that I think the case with the NBN has come as a shock to a lot of people's systems. We're so unused to big public infrastructure projects getting past the planning stage and actually being built that some people are upset because they don't feel their views were considered.

 

Police service = essential
High-speed internet = non-essential

Besides, I wasnt saying they'd get no internet, just slower than fibre due to the declining value for money issue of rural internet provision

Mike Quigley = jobs for mates

 

Did we really try it?

No point commenting to a dictator, they won't listen to reason.

Besides, most people arguing against the NBN aren't debating whether govt should build infrastructure at all, they're arguing that the NBN is a poorly planned waste of money. Govt is notorious for that kind of thing - poor planning, budget blowouts, stupid investment decisions. Common sense is the antonym of politics.