Rudd's issues with self control, televised

If Tony Abbott smothers himself in peanut butter and rolls through parliament house - I'll vote for him

 

hahahahhahahahahah

 

The best thing the troll could do is call a snap election, yes they will lose it but at least in the eyes of many she would be doing the right thing.
Both the troll and the dudd will go down in history as the worst pm's EVER.

 

Only in Australia could a government that has an excellent economic record look like losing an election. That's because we have accepted trivialities as news and impressions of individuals portrayed to us through the media as being valid. Very, very sad.

Only in Australia can people believe they vote for a Prime Minister. That tells me that education in Australia is failing to educate people as to how our political system operates. The truth is that when we vote in our electorate for a candidate from the winning party we are voting for a member but potentially a Prime Minister. Yes, your federal member could be PM! All that has to happen is for that member's party to put him or her in as leader of the party and bingo, in government that person becomes PM! Amazing innit?

As for all this. Rudd is an absolute disgrace. His ego is approaching sociopathic dimensions, at the very least the man has a severe narcissism problem. He is damaging the ALP by allowing the media - corporate owned right-wing media - to portray the government as being "in trouble". Have a look at the policy achievements, have a look at the polls on particular policies, the government is ahead in approvals. The defeat of the ALP at the next federal election is not guaranteed. Best thing now is for Rudd to be ejected from cabinet and possibly the ALP even though that would make him a dangerous Independent. At least it would stiffen the backbone of the gutless in the ALP Caucus and pull on board the independents apart from Andrew Wilkie.

 

Very true

Also true

True again. But these are qualities which make him a suitable candidate for PM

I agree Gillard is certainly the best person for the job. But I think she has been snookered. The media has destroyed her - and 70% of he population seem to be believing the crap they write. That is sad. She has certainly had some failures - but they are dragging her down. Somehow - Howard could get away "non-core promises", illegal wars, children overboard, bribes to Saddam etc etc - but delivering Labor policy to introduce a price on carbon has been boiled down to a illogical "carbon tax" mantra to the uneducated masses in an appalling display of the dumbing down of politics.

It is hard to see the dumbing down reversing in the short term. The fact that Abbott can still remain the leader of a major party is illustration of this. May as well give Sweary Kev his job back

 

I'm all for berating the media for their trivialising skewed representation of the personalities involved, but where did the impression of Rudd being "... an absolute disgrace. His ego is approaching sociopathic dimensions, at the very least the man has a severe narcissism problem...." come from, if not from that self-same media?

 

I heard that from colleagues that worked with him in the Qld government.
I don't think that assessment is a media beat up

 

Can't eject him from the cabinet. He'd probably throw a tantrum and quit, then they'd be up (*)(*)(*)(*) creek sans paddle. They just need him to back off and shut up for awhile. Should keep him out of the country as much as possible and have the mp's back home keep repeating that they are behind Gillard and that Gillard will be leader at the next election. It's all about repetition.

You can only drag this leadership stuff out so much without anything real actually happening. People will just get bored of it. However much it might sadden them, journo's will need to start writing about something else if they want to keep their numbers up.

For god's sake, they need to keep Gillard away from the cameras! Do not let her do any unscripted interviews for awhile. Only official press releases, official speeches, etc. Keep her away from 7.30 and 4 corners! Leave that to Shorten, Wong, Swan and whoever else. Remind people that they're not just voting for Gillard, they're voting for the ALP.

She needs the spotlight to shift onto Abbott more, so people can actually see how ridiculous and embarrassing he would be as PM.

 

Triangulation. Get info from various sources, not only the media. Check for consistency among those sources. Check that there is a sufficient depth to the data. Draw conclusions based on that data.

 

Hardly, Its easy to spend money on failed programs and increasing the public service to create the appearance of a healthy economy... but it just creates debt.

I dont think the ALP have lost it yet. What the ALP does best is attacking the Libs and they did it nonstop when they were in oppossition but now they are in government they havent had time too.... until an election is announced. The ALP will be able to drum up sentiment and fear to get people to support them.

Saying the right owns the media is silly, most all corporations are politically right so most everything of any size is politically right. Who owns the media doesnt really make much difference in TV media because its the inclination of the reporters which determine the slant. The TV media is very political left, its why the Bolt Report was made, to show the ALP supporters how the Lib supporters see the TV media behaves. TV media is much more influential to the public then print because of the way it is digested and its duration.

 

We don't have a problem with debt.

G10 Debt Distribution
Posted 10 hours ago

The US does have an enormous national debt - indeed, it is higher than most other countries in the G10 as a share of GDP - but it's the UK that is struggling under the highest burden.

http://www.alankohler.com.au/

 

What's up with the UK financial sector debt?

 

Having any debt is a risk. We are borrowing more and more every day. Comparing us to the rest of the world does not absolve us of having a debt problem, especially at the time when the rest of the world is soo messed up financially. Its like saying the person on the stern of the bow first sinking ship is not drowning.

 

Wow, using a sinking ship analogy for the Australian economy? You've got to be kidding me.

Our economy is in good shape, the only thing really hurting us atm is the high dollar. Having debt is only a "problem" if you can't pay it back, and we can. Taking out a mortage isn't the equivalent of a "sinking ship" is it? As long as you can pay it back.

We have 5% unemployment, a mining boom and a low level of public debt with both sides of politics committed to bringing in surplus' starting from next year.

And then we have Hockey/Abbott's plan for hiring a "green army" of public servants 15,000 strong as part of their "direct action", most of which relies on highly experimental and unreliable methods of reducing carbon emissions. As opposed to a market based mechanism that assumes that individual companies are better placed to make energy saving innovations than the govt. Not to mention the other 70 billion + in unfunded promises. Winding back carbon pricing and lowering the tax free threshold from 18k per year that the government instituted back to 6k per year. Meaning about 1 million more people need to file income tax returns. And they're... wait for it... shrinking the size of the government? Are they really? lol

 

Sorry Zig but i will take my financial commentary from someone that actually has a clue on it...
Quoted by: Ross Greenwood of Money News..

Right now the Federal Government is at pains to tell everyone - including us the mug-punters and the International Monetary Fund, that it will not exceed its own, self-imposed, borrowing limits.

How much? $200 billion. And here's a worry.

If you work in a bank's money market operation; or if you are a politician; the millions turn into billions and it rolls off the tip of the tongue a bit too easily. but every dollar that is borrowed, some time, has to be repaid. By you, by me and by the rest of the country.

Just after 5 o'clock tonight I did a bit of math for Jason Morrison ( Sydney radio presenter). But it's so staggering its worth repeating now.

First thought; Gillard, Swan, Wong, before that Rudd, all of the Labor Cabinet, call these temporary borrowings, a temporary deficit.

Remember Those Words : Temporary Deficit.

The total Government debt will end up around $200 billion.
So here's a very basic calculation .. I used a home loan calculator to work it out..... it's that simple..
$200 billion is $2 hundred thousand million.

The current 10 year Government bond rate is 4.67 per cent. I worked the loan out over a period of 20 years. Now here's where it gets scary .... really scary.

The repayments on $200 billion, come to more than one and a quarter billion dollars - every month - for 20 years. It works out we - as taxpayers - will be repaying $15.4 billion in interest and principal every year .. $733 for every man woman and child - every year.

The total interest bill over the 20 years is - get this - $108 billion.

Remember, this is a Government, that just 4 years ago, had NO debt. NO debt.

In fact it had enough money to create the Future Fund, to pay the future liabilities of public servants' superannuation, and it had enough to stick $20 billion into the Building Australia Fund .....

A note was sent to me which explains that the six leading members of the Government, from Ms Gillard down, have a collective work experience of 181 years, but only 13 in the private sector.

If you take out of those 13 years the number that were spent as trade union lawyers, 11, only two years were spent in the private sector.

So out of those 181 years:

- no years spent running their own business
- no years spent starting their own business
- no years spent as a director of a family business or a company
- no years as a director of a public company
- no years in a senior position in a public company
- no years in a senior position in a private company
- no years working in corporate finance
- no years in corporate or business restructuring
- no years working in or with a bank
- no years of experience in the capital markets
- no years in a stock-broking firm
- no years in negotiating debt facilities with banks
- no years running a small business
- no years at the World Bank or IMF or OECD
- no years in Treasury or Finance.

But these people have plunged Australia into unprecedented debt.

Well, in a way you can't blame them.
It's clear the electorate did not do their homework, because the Government is there by right.

Ah, but they are Labor and people vote for them because Labor is good for the working family - right???

If you have read this you may like to pass it on to your friends to help educate a little as you, them and I, will be repaying the above.

 

LOL, clearly you didnt get it. I wasnt indicating the country was sinking, I was indicating that if countries are sinking and you put yourself on the safest part of the ship, then its likely your going to sink as well. The ALP, clearly clueless how to run government from spendings it whole time in opposition being professional complainers and whingers and running a work experience program for their own leadership, so when they got in office all they did was start reviews into everything so they could pay people to tell them what to do in 2 years time so they could make policy announcements for the next election cycle .... since they didnt have to work having won the election. Unfortunatly for the ALP the GFC hit when they were in charge so clueless as ever they simple follow the US in how to react, and as a result pitch us onto the same path as the other countries.

 

That's assuming they are paying just 4.67% now and this rate won't change for the nexty 10 years for the next 10 years.

 

No, not at all. Our capitalist economies depend on debt. Having no debt wont put anyone or any country in any better position if the world economy has a meltdown.

 

Depends on the meltdown. You cant argue that no debt is no better then debt. Having no debt simply means more money available and therefore a greater capacity to acquire debt if needed. Sure an economy cannot operate without using debt as its a fundamental process, but debt equals risk no matter how much the risk can be mitigated if things do not go as planned... and we are talking about the ALP running Australia into increasing accumulation of debt.

 

I'm sorry, the federal government had "no debt" just "four years ago"? Did it really?

Australia has had much higher levels of debt in the past (adjusted to GDP obviously), particularly after WW2.

And again, govt has committed to paying down the debt over the next several years, so has the opposition.

Is this actually something that Ross Greenwood wrote? Link?

 

The banks. They were hugely exposed. That was Cameron's job, to protect The City. Bit like in the States, "too big to fail".

 

The level of government debt we have is low. There will always be government debt though, it ebbs and flows. People keep thinking of a household budget when they think of debt but for governments there are other rules. As long as the debt can be serviced then it's not a problem. Private (as in corporate) debt is always an issue though, if that gets too high it can threaten an economy.

 

Yea but its better not to have it is the point, and the ALP actions needlessly took us down that path.

 

Yes it is better not to have it. But sometimes it's necessary. It's necessary to protect an economy; it's necessary to go into debt to fund infrastructure projects that require too much capital for private corporations to raise. It's necessary to go into debt to fund a war. All these are normal actions of government. The main thing is that the debt can be serviced and that the interest paid to creditors doesn't damage the normal financial functioning of government.

The fetish about budgets being in the black is a sideshow but it's populist so it works.

 

Both parties suggested a stimulus package, both parties had an ETS as an election promise in 2007.

The global economy isn't like a "sinking ship" either. We came out very well from the GFC and remain in a strong position.

Pay down the debt when things are good, spend money when they're not to hold off recession. Standard. Things are coming good again for the Australian economy, and the govt has committed to multiple surpluses. So no we're not headed towards Greece, Italy, Ireland or the US.

Everything you've said is just nonsense, reviews and royal commissions are a standard part of govt. This govt has put through the biggest economic reform in a decade.