Are Australians really that ignorant?
- Thread starter Anduril
- Start date
Maybe instead of arguing over who is right and who is wrong you could provide your source for this info. That way we can all see if it is a reliable source and we can look for ourselves. I personally do not consider a political party a reliable source.
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I was glad Howard lost his seat because he did say he was going to retire during this term and as a taxpayer I didn't want to be funding a by-election if he did retire.
That was the ultimate joy of this election, seeing Johnny booted out of his seat. Galumptious joy!
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GodsoldierClintus
Veteran
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2006/12/truths-about-australias-recession.html
Bottom of this page.
Does that mean under Crean the interest rates were highest or under Howard? One thing is sure, it's not whilst Keating was treasurer
Bottom of this page.
Does that mean under Crean the interest rates were highest or under Howard? One thing is sure, it's not whilst Keating was treasurer
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GodsoldierClintus
Veteran
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/01/1093938992678.html
http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/002420.html
I agree as an accounting undergrad with what both these articles say about John Howard and interest rates. I voted Labor on the basis of the first article...I have little faith in complete privatisation and a completely free market economy. I doubt Rudd will be too different but I hope he finds the balance of the third way (that is similar to Tony Blair's economic policies.)
Howard has kept interest rates relatively low...but I'm not convinced that his economical policy is the best for the people (particularly the poor). There is no doubt that interest rates are likely to rise under Labor - I do hope that Rudd finds a balance between spending and overheating the economy. If he is a self proclaimed economic conservative and has significant control over Labor's economic policy as I believe him to be then well, I do believe that it will be better for Australians overall.
http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/002420.html
I agree as an accounting undergrad with what both these articles say about John Howard and interest rates. I voted Labor on the basis of the first article...I have little faith in complete privatisation and a completely free market economy. I doubt Rudd will be too different but I hope he finds the balance of the third way (that is similar to Tony Blair's economic policies.)
Howard has kept interest rates relatively low...but I'm not convinced that his economical policy is the best for the people (particularly the poor). There is no doubt that interest rates are likely to rise under Labor - I do hope that Rudd finds a balance between spending and overheating the economy. If he is a self proclaimed economic conservative and has significant control over Labor's economic policy as I believe him to be then well, I do believe that it will be better for Australians overall.
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And here we got exactly our problem, as you said interest will rise now under Labour. They will rise in the whole 2008 and sensible thinking people know why: it's the 'fallout' of Howards super economic politic. Labour, or for this matter, no government can fix this in a year. Of course the press will imediatly blame Labour even if it's not their fault.
On an other note, any government who has such big surplus on money could not have done anything at all, be it infrastructure or services.
So we can only pray, please wake up Australians!
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GodsoldierClintus
Veteran
Not to mention as I may have said before there's a third of a chance there will be a global recession next year...see the intelligence of the Australian people rise to the fore. In the end we pay for the disinterest in politics, for the stupid electoral system, for a country more interested in everything else bar it's democratic process which so few countries have.
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S
simpletrust
Guest
Fan of the Whitlams by any chance?
Yeah, although I was glad, I felt sorry for him too. His speech made me cry a little actually.
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Well i guess they did peak then however they peaked more under Whitlam as the following spreadsheet shows: http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/Bulletin/F01hist.xlsJohn Spong is wrong said:
The issue is whether Howard and Costello are the best prime minister and treasurer this country has had. I don't know how you can possibly claim they are the worst. I think John Spong is wrong is wrong.
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Not really (as in, not same principle) While private healthcover is subsidised by the Govt, the weight it takes off the public health system far outweighs any Govt financial outlay in subsidies, in a financial sense.
In fact, I think medicare as it is should be scrapped, instead the Govt should ensure very citizen has private health insurence (by subsidising those that require financial aid, making the filthy rich pay full price, etc) but that's a whole other topic!
Think again, my Dear. Private Insurance as it is: the greatest swindel ever supported by a government. For example, if test, etc. are not done when hospitalised, the insurance won't pay. My wife got the highest (diamont) cover with NIB and now have to pay $ 450.- for test by a heart specialist. Also no gap payment and with our surgery rate is $ 3.50/MINUTE and medicare pays only a very small part of it, so our health system is not very healty at all.
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Think again, my Dear. Private Insurance as it is: the greatest swindel ever supported by a government. For example, if test, etc. are not done when hospitalised, the insurance won't pay. My wife got the highest (diamont) cover with NIB and now have to pay $ 450.- for test by a heart specialist. Also no gap payment and with our surgery rate is $ 3.50/MINUTE and medicare pays only a very small part of it, so our health system is not very healty at all.
The premiums seem to get higher every year (around April I believe) and the amount you have to pay to cover "the gap" seems to get higher too. I have had 2 babies in the private system, and the only good thing we seem to get out of it is choosing the obstetrician, and you do get a private room which is nice, but well... I don't think it's worth it really. Also I recently had my wisdom teeth out and the total bill was 1700, health insurance paid 600, but we were still 1100 out of pocket.
I don't know what the answer is but it seems to me that every year you get less value for your money in private health insurance.
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DavinMochrie
Well-Known Member
Yes that is a lot of money for any family!
Honestly it annoys me that there are all these gaps in cover etc.
It would be good to have a real universal health system.
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So would you say that it's better to still have private health insurance but without the gaps?
I would love to see private health insurance without the gaps but imagine what the premiums would be.
I would love to see private health insurance without the gaps but imagine what the premiums would be.
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DavinMochrie
Well-Known Member
Working in insurance, I know how different 'health insurance' is run in Australia. It's tightly controlled. In actual fact it's not proper insurance in the real sense. It's more like a fund. Health Fund.
I don't know if there are any easy answers. The problems are the cost of health, and the fact that Big Pharma makes a lot of cash of teh mosery of people. BUt to break that stranglehold we would have to have many countries agree to shut down these mega companies.
It's probably not going to happen.......Hmmmm when is judgement day again?
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and in which post do you put forward the idea that this is the issue? It isn't in any post of yours I've read in this thread untill the one I've quoted here. The debate was over who had the highest interest rates. Although looking at the article quoted by Godsoldierclintus it is clear that part of the reason for high interest rates under hawke was due to a policy of reducing inflation. A policy that the liberals have claimed credit for despite all the hard work and hard decisions being made by hawke and keating before them. So while it does seem that they were higher under Frank Crean than they were under Howard it should not be forgoten that the difference is not even half a percentage point!
I must admit I do find all the arguments about interest rates amusing. Think about it people. Look at the percentage of Australians who either own their home outright or who rent. It is actually in the interest of those people to have high interest rates because then you earn alot more money from bank accounts and other investments. The percentage of people who have a mortgage is low compared to those who don't.
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This happens because the federal govt passed a rule saying they can only increase their premiums at that time of year. So every year the health funds always increase the fees just in case they need to. Before this they would hold off for awhile if they could. The reason the law was introduced was because health funds offered more than they could afford especially when people had to have insurance otherwise risk paying extra tax. So people followed the thinking that if I have to have this insurance I'm going to claim everything I can. So people would claim a pair of glasses every year even if they didn't need them.
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It was raised in JSIW's post where he claimed John Howard was the worst PM. Keep up Dag.TheDag said:
Yes and Fraser/Howard also inherited interest rates that were rapidly accelerating. 8% when they took office. Not surprising really as we all know Liberal governments are generally voted in to fix the previous Labor government's mess.
I don't think you have thought this one through. Tenants usually rent from landlords who pay interest on rental property loans. Increases in repayments get passed on to the tenant. There are many Australians who are renting and paying off their homes who will struggle wth hikes in interest rates. With housing affordability so low right now this is not favourable for them at all.
Also most Australians do not generate enough interest income to care about the additional interest as they would need a substantial amount to begin with. If they had that much they wouldn't even care about small increases in their income. They generally have other investments anyway like shares and managed funds.
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This is going to sound really dumb and ignorant (yes I have a brain that's turned to mush lol) but what exactly is a global recession, I think I know, but explain exactly what it is
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GodsoldierClintus
Veteran
It just means that the entire global economy is going to decline, due to to how the economy works. This is very simplistic but the economy works in a cycle (sort of). The aim is to have the economy grow in a cycle. (so it's generally going up, but it's allowed to grow occassionally and fall occassionally) Back in the days of the world wars, growth was seen as the best thing ever...so it was encouraged at whatever cost...the result was a massive boom and explosion of economy, totally unregulated. There was an overheating of the economy - Leading up to what is known as the biggest global depression (which is a recession for an extended period of time) - the great depression.
Modern economic theory created after the great depression stipulates that growth must be carefully monitored (in Australia most notably by the Reserve Bank, and indeed most other economic powers) that whenever an economy starts to grow too much, the Reserve Bank will lift interest rates to make prices of mortgages etc rise...making less money for citizens to spend, causing a downturn in economy. The idea as said before is to keep the economy to grow in cycles, so that it never overheats. The RBA tries to keep inflation at a level of no greater than 3%, everytime it meets, it looks and see whether the economy is growing or slowing down too fast. It will lift or drop interest rates accordingly. The reason that it is independent of the federal government so that interests rates will not be adjusted conveniently for a government's purposes, but rather according to the economy.
So in effect the Reserve Bank of Australia will deliberately make things dearer for the people, cause small "recessions" so that a large and uncontrolled depression will not occur. In the same way when the economy slows down it will drop interest rates so repayments will be cheaper for people, hence more money to spend, hence economy speeds back up.
A global recession just indicates the recent trend of growth in the global economy, and that it will be followed by some controlled slowing down. Economists have estimated 1/3 chance its going to happen next year, depending on global economic conditions. They can't be certain because economies such as Japan/China are run differently from that of US, Europe, and sudden growth/fall in the Asian economies will have a huge impact on global economy, especially Australia's.
I'm not an economic's student, so I'm still no entirely sure how the government "controls" interests rates. I have no doubt it influences them - but to see Howard and Costello make public statements pressuring the bank during the campaign only goes to show that they made too many assumptions over how much control they had.
Modern economic theory created after the great depression stipulates that growth must be carefully monitored (in Australia most notably by the Reserve Bank, and indeed most other economic powers) that whenever an economy starts to grow too much, the Reserve Bank will lift interest rates to make prices of mortgages etc rise...making less money for citizens to spend, causing a downturn in economy. The idea as said before is to keep the economy to grow in cycles, so that it never overheats. The RBA tries to keep inflation at a level of no greater than 3%, everytime it meets, it looks and see whether the economy is growing or slowing down too fast. It will lift or drop interest rates accordingly. The reason that it is independent of the federal government so that interests rates will not be adjusted conveniently for a government's purposes, but rather according to the economy.
So in effect the Reserve Bank of Australia will deliberately make things dearer for the people, cause small "recessions" so that a large and uncontrolled depression will not occur. In the same way when the economy slows down it will drop interest rates so repayments will be cheaper for people, hence more money to spend, hence economy speeds back up.
A global recession just indicates the recent trend of growth in the global economy, and that it will be followed by some controlled slowing down. Economists have estimated 1/3 chance its going to happen next year, depending on global economic conditions. They can't be certain because economies such as Japan/China are run differently from that of US, Europe, and sudden growth/fall in the Asian economies will have a huge impact on global economy, especially Australia's.
I'm not an economic's student, so I'm still no entirely sure how the government "controls" interests rates. I have no doubt it influences them - but to see Howard and Costello make public statements pressuring the bank during the campaign only goes to show that they made too many assumptions over how much control they had.
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