"Canadian Reporters Have No Idea What Visiting Australian PM is Saying"

[jolshefsky]

As The Lapine's slogan goes, "Rabbits eat onions". A little Canadian humor directed at the big island of Oceania: http://thelapine.ca/canadian-reporters-have-no-idea-what-visiting-australian-pm-is-saying/ .

[SeanB]

Have you ever turned on the subtitles on any of Dave's videos? Those auto generated transcriptions are hilarious and often have absolutely no bearing to what is being spoken by Dave.

[Bored@Work]

The last few seconds say it all

[zapta]

Garbage collection of nonsense laws. That's a refreshing idea. We need it here as they keep piling. The recent ones are bans on free supermarket bags and leaf blowers. No surprise the 'common good' types hate him.

http://www.mychristiandaily.com/index.php/aus/169-news-item-1-australia-nz/9870-tony-abbott-s-war-on-red-tape-starts-with-repeal-day

[Stonent]

Garbage collection of nonsense laws. That's a refreshing idea. We need it here as they keep piling. The recent ones are bans on free supermarket bags and leaf blowers. No surprise the 'common good' types hate him.

http://www.mychristiandaily.com/index.php/aus/169-news-item-1-australia-nz/9870-tony-abbott-s-war-on-red-tape-starts-with-repeal-day

"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40 percent of our income that is spent by government ... How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes." - Milton Friedman

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Garbage collection of nonsense laws. That's a refreshing idea. We need it here as they keep piling. The recent ones are bans on free supermarket bags and leaf blowers.

As a concept repealing nonsense laws has a lot of merit, and simple law does seem to discourage loopholes.
But which so called nonsense laws are being repealed?
I for one think that you should pay for the disposable of goods you buy as you buy them. Including plastic bags.
And leaf blowers, well if you want to use energy blowing leaves then I think you should pay some amount of tax for any polluting byproduct of this process.

IMO some laws that do need repealing or fixing are Family Trusts, Diesel rebate, discounted capital gains tax, superannuation tax loopholes, offshoring of profits by multinationals, Family tax benefit, RnD incentives, Drought relief (they should get insurance like anyone else). Yeah the more you look at it the list gets bigger, I'm not holding my breath waiting for these changes though.


This guy who is Prime Minister is a bad joke and is well summed up by the word 'dickhead'.
What would be good for Australia and the world for that matter is if the Liberal Party got rid of him and brought in Malcolm Turnbull.

[SeanB]

I am all for getting old redundant stuff off the law books. Things like needing a walker in front of a car to warn horses and other old superceded stuff. Ideally many things can be repealed and made simpler. Who can comply with a 900 volume tax law? Or local law that has stuff dating back to when horses were the fastest method of transport, and houses were lit by candles. Ideally any new law should also repeal one old one or more at the same time, so that it gets down to a manageable level where " the average competent person" can understand at least the broad principles of all of it.

[ecat]

"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40 percent of our income that is spent by government ... How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes." - Milton Friedman

So to paraphrase that quote from Mr Friedman:
"The problem is taxes. The problem is not taxes. I'm in favour of cutting taxes. The Government should cut taxes."

I think I know the book he got that idea from...

"Money is a national resource and as such belongs to every citizen but every resource needs guardians to ensure it is put to the best possible use and not squandered away.

Time and time again history shows the best guardians of money are the rich. They became rich through their skilled handling of finances and they remain rich through these same means. The poor most often remain poor. We live in the same country, befit from the same systems, have access to the same opportunities, yet they still remain poor. The evidence is all around, the evidence is obvious.

Taxation is insanity. It removes money from the very hands of those most capable of keeping hold of it and puts it into the hands of those most likely to squander it. Allow a rich man to keep a million dollars and you can be assured he will invest it in an attempt to make himself two million dollars but take that million from his hand and distribute it amongst a million poor people and it is spent in an instant on drink and drugs and whores.

So government, please listen to we the economists and financiers. Have we ever lied to you? No. Have we ever let you down? No. We have never robbed a bank or held a gun to your head demanding handouts. We are the guardians, the trusted and indeed some less humble than I would say, the rightful owners of the money. All of it." - A.N.O Economist (Masters Degree in Self Interest and Sucking Rich Dick)

Apologies for drifting off topic.

[TMM]

The last few seconds say it all

The sad thing is that they didn't have to search high and low for those clips - almost all of his speeches are like that. I'm still lost for words as to how he got elected.

[zapta]

Time and time again history shows the best guardians of money are the rich. They became rich through their skilled handling of finances and they remain rich through these same means. The poor most often remain poor. We live in the same country, befit from the same systems, have access to the same opportunities, yet they still remain poor. The evidence is all around, the evidence is obvious.

It's not about class war and rich and poor, it's about personal liberty. Taxes are confiscation of one's property and are often transferred to other citizens.

[zapta]

It's interesting that in Australia, 'liberal' really mean a liberal, as in classic liberal. I like it. Around here the term has now an opposite meaning referring to big government labor and socialists.

[zapta]

Here is another proof that garbage collection is important

http://www.click2houston.com/news/man-living-on-roof-after-home-too-littered-to-live-indoors/26469224

We have a class of legislators who measure their success by the number of laws they pass.

Kudos to Abbott for performing a garbage collection, even a modest one.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Kudos to Abbott for performing a garbage collection, even a modest one.

What you don't understand is that he isn't actually performing a garbage collection. He is going to start some sort of enquiry into performing a garbage collection.
They are not the same so don't think that they are.
So no kudos till he actually does some garbage collection and then decide whether to give him kudos or not.

It's interesting that in Australia, 'liberal' really mean a liberal, as in classic liberal.

The Liberal party apparently does hold liberal ideals close, but some glaring exceptions are Gay Marriage, Immigration policies, Euthanasia.
Really they are just profession politicians who dont seem very liberal, run their own agenda (which is fine as we voted for them) but really will say anything if it suits.

[Marco]

It's not about class war and rich and poor, it's about personal liberty. Taxes are confiscation of one's property and are often transferred to other citizens.

Land is not property, land is the commons.

[vk6zgo]

"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. … because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. I believe our government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40 percent of our income that is spent by government ... How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes." - Milton Friedman

So to paraphrase that quote from Mr Friedman:
"The problem is taxes. The problem is not taxes. I'm in favour of cutting taxes. The Government should cut taxes."

I think I know the book he got that idea from...

"Money is a national resource and as such belongs to every citizen but every resource needs guardians to ensure it is put to the best possible use and not squandered away.

Time and time again history shows the best guardians of money are the rich. They became rich through their skilled handling of finances and they remain rich through these same means. The poor most often remain poor. We live in the same country, befit from the same systems, have access to the same opportunities, yet they still remain poor. The evidence is all around, the evidence is obvious.

Taxation is insanity. It removes money from the very hands of those most capable of keeping hold of it and puts it into the hands of those most likely to squander it. Allow a rich man to keep a million dollars and you can be assured he will invest it in an attempt to make himself two million dollars but take that million from his hand and distribute it amongst a million poor people and it is spent in an instant on drink and drugs and whores.

So government, please listen to we the economists and financiers. Have we ever lied to you? No. Have we ever let you down? No. We have never robbed a bank or held a gun to your head demanding handouts. We are the guardians, the trusted and indeed some less humble than I would say, the rightful owners of the money. All of it." - A.N.O Economist (Masters Degree in Self Interest and Sucking Rich Dick)

Apologies for drifting off topic.

I  realise the satirical intent of your posting,but where did you get that load of old codswallop from?

Not the quote from General Pinochet's best mate,the other one.

It sounds a bit extreme,even for Gina Rinehart.

[mtdoc]

Unfortunately, in the USA (and other parts of the world) the masses have mostly been suckered into the false blue versus red, liberal versus conservative, go team go mentality. The corporate state has been able to hoodwink people into focusing on emotional hot topics such as abortion, gay marriage, etc.  They goad the naive on the right by throwing around emotionally charged labels like "socialist" while getting them to do their dirty work in the name of "lower taxes" while  they goad the naive on the left by having their sock puppet politicians give lip service to the idea of "social justice' - while they take away their civil liberties and steal more of the their wealth by other means.

The newest twist is the Tea Party- which is being used as catch basin to pull in the shallow thinking Libertarians who don't quite understand the game but have figured out that the radical right wingers in the republican party aren't doing enough to further their idealistic goals.

The problem with Libertarianism  is that just like Communism, it sounds great in theory but in practice it's a whole different matter.  It's become just another facade to provide pseudo intellectual cover for the greedy and uncaring who already have gotten theirs.  They want to indulge in all the benefits of a civil society in a country with a developed, publicly funded infrastructure and social safety net but don't want to pay for any of it - "get your government hands off my Medicare'.... etc, etc.

It all designed to keep the eyes of the masses off the ball. Get them to vote against their self interest and play right into the hands of the Plutocracy...   

[zapta]

The problem with Libertarianism  is that just like Communism, it sounds great in theory but in practice it's a whole different matter.  It's become just another facade to provide pseudo intellectual cover for the greedy and uncaring who already have gotten theirs.  They want to indulge in all the benefits of a civil society in a country with a developed, publicly funded infrastructure and social safety net but don't want to pay for any of it - "get your government hands off my Medicare'.... etc, etc.

It all designed to keep the eyes of the masses off the ball. Get them to vote against their self interest and play right into the hands of the Plutocracy...

Personal liberty is the core value on which the US was established upon.  It's sad that elements on the left try replace it with the socialist 'greater common good' and 'equal outcomes' that increases the population' dependency on big government and stir a class war as an excuse to take from citizen A and give to citizen B. 

Voting for personal liberty and government fiscal responsibility is not against my interests.

[Marco]

Personal liberty is the core value on which the US was established upon.

Perhaps, but it's not the one it grew up upon ... it grew on the confiscation of land, it grew on the massive monopolies granted railroad companies and their subsequent trust busting, it grew on the imminent domain powers necessary to form the interstates, it grew on cheap oil and the large income derived from it by government for federal lands allowing it to spread some wealth around.

The core values did not shape the US, the state did in their direct opposition ... and in the last half century it created vast wealth inequality in the process, it seems strange to me to see cementing that wealth inequality in place as a good idea (by slashing most taxes except those needed to pay for protecting property rights of course).

Especially where it concerns land.

[zapta]

The core values did not shape the US, the state did in their direct opposition ... and in the last half century it created vast wealth inequality in the process, it seems strange to me to see cementing that wealth inequality in place as a good idea (by slashing most taxes except those needed to pay for protecting property rights of course).

Especially where it concerns land.

Freedom creates inequality of outcomes. So is the FIFA world cup. It's not the role of the government to force an equal outcome, taking from citizen A to give to citizen  B. That's oppression.

[vk6zgo]

Mostly,it isn't citizen "B" who wants the rich to pay a bit more---it's citizen"C",who is a normal working person,tired of paying for everything,& who would like those who benefit more to pay more.

Many people  are rich because their father,grandfather,or great-grandfather became wealthy by hard work,or in some cases,chicanery.

They don't really like Capitalism,they really would love to be Feudal "Lords & Ladies of the Manor",with Serfs bowing & scraping to them.

Great-Grandad might have been the archetypal Ebenezer Scrooge,living in a cheap & nasty house,begrudging every penny spent on non-essentials,but this mob think it is their right to live like kings.

[Stonent]

I'll toss another quote, this time from former President, Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Of course back then there was no system for the unemployed. If you didn't work, you didn't eat.

[vk6zgo]

I'll toss another quote, this time from former President, Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Of course back then there was no system for the unemployed. If you didn't work, you didn't eat.

And,of course,dear old Cal had a University education,was the product of reasonably prosperous parents & had a Grandparent & Great-Grandparent who were both elected Politicians.

Hardly in the "log cabin to White House" tradition.

[dannyf]

Mostly,it isn't citizen "B" who wants the rich to pay a bit more---it's citizen"C",who is a normal working person,tired of paying for everything,& who would like those who benefit more to pay more.

I am all for having the rich AND the poor to pay more.

If it is a government of the people for the people, it better be funded by the people, all of them.

[dannyf]

The rich actually pays more today than they did decades ago, both in terms of absolute $s or percentages. I think in NYC, like 5000 richest pay something like 60% of the city's income taxes.

Our issue is that there are always going to be people who want to redistribute other people's money. The easiest solution, and the happiest solution for all, is to separate them into two parts, the Right States of America where you keep your money, and the Left States of America where you redistribute other people's money to your hearts' content.

In 10 years (likely sooner), we will know for sure which system doesn't work.

[vk6zgo]

Who is going to look after all you rich guys when "everybody is rich & nobody is rich"?

By the way,it's not all about you Yanks!