As it's more than 100 days now, it has been suggested that a new thread was needed. The current govt has been breaking promises and telling lies at a rate so fast it's hard to keep up.
This below is worrying, "independent" pffft, as if your own doctor is somehow what? biased, it's ridiculous. So far there is talk of only including people under a certain age 30-35, for now. Remember that if your injured in a car, injured at work or get ill, you too might need to go on the DSP. They have done a similar think in the UK with devastating consequences.
and this is the 2nd time recently where the Govt has referred to work as welfare???? So when you go to work tomorrow (or tuesday), just remember that's welfare.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-20/disability-pensioners-may-be-reassessed-kevin-andrews/5400598
Independent doctors could be called in to reassess disability pensioners, Federal Government says
The Federal Government is considering using independent doctors to examine disability pensioners and assess whether they should continue to receive payments.
Currently family doctors provide reports supporting claims for the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
But Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews is considering a measure that would see independent doctors reassess eligibility.
"We are concerned that where people can work, the best form of welfare is work," Mr Andrews said at a press conference.
“Government should be identifying what competitive advantages Australia has as a nation. And, based on that, backing industries where we have that competitive advantage as a world leader,’’
— while there is currently great risk appetite in the financial markets, there is still a huge reluctance to take risks by investing in the “real economy” to bolster productivity.....
Why are Australian companies not investing in the real economy?
The RBA’s and Government’s mad chase for “confidence” has delivered another consequence. Housing inflation is really land price inflation, a crucial input cost for business that contributes to capital values, rents, wage demands, inflation, interest rates and, thus, the value of the Australian dollar. When you put all of these together and measure it against the same in other economies you get what is called the real effective exchange rate (REER):
So, what is the answer here? Is it to gather with the “leadership” boffins of Australian Davos Connection on Hayman Island to whine about slack confidence? Is it to earnestly discuss the rise of regulation over a pina colada? Is it to bluster from your banana chair about a lack of innovation? Is it to start picking winners and building hubs around bureaucratic favourites as you haul in a fat coral trout? What are they then? Tech? You’re going to compete with Silicon Valley are you? Agriculture? Sort of but it’s not really growing much either. Resources? Guess so but hasn’t the super cycle ended? Manufacturing? Of what that China won’t rip off in six weeks? The picking winners thesis is throwing darts with a blindfold on. Pass the sun tan lotion will you!
The real answer is to address the REER.
The notion of improving competitiveness should not be confused with some simplistic drive by corporate Australia to neuter unions and drive down wage costs. That is the US path that has resulted in the hollowing out of its middle classes and has dramatically widened the welfare gap, as well as undermining demand for the very products that the same corporates sell, creating a feedback loop.
Capital waste is at unbelievable proportions in housing, mining, utilities and, soon enough thanks to Abbott pork, in infrastructure.
Repairing the REER is a national interest project in which all parties must participate on the basis of mutual sacrifice and protection of the vulnerable. It requires monetary, wage, tax, productivity and competition reform. Right now the RBA has done far more harm than good in cutting interest rates without using macroprudential policy to contain housing prices so that the dollar could fall, and the Abbott Government has directed policy diametrically backwards in its assault upon the vulnerable and protection of rent-seeking corporate margins.........
If Australia wants to remain a high wage, high cost economy - and it should – directing effort towards restoring innovation and sophisticated value-adding is the right thing to do, as the RBA’s Phil Lowe argues. But it can’t be done when the REER is so outrageously bloated and policy so ill-directed at protecting rent-seekers.
A simple example makes the point better than I can. Blood products manufacturer CSL is one of the outstanding success stories of Australia’s 1908s REER repair job. It’s exactly the kind of high wage, high value-add global niche business that Australia can excel in. It’s still investing it’s butt off, announcing a new factory just last week. But it’s going to be built in Switzerland where the REER has been held in check by adult macroeconomic policies that include a currency peg to the euro, low house prices, very low inflation and competitive tax rates. Nobody there is whining about “confidence”, they’re too busy making money.
excerpts :
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/08/pasconomics-is-killing-the-economy/
my fav comment to follow:
Well said. Confidence in the Australian economy right now to take Australian society somewhere significant (the implied message) is bull**bleep**.
Confidence is ultimately about 2 things. It is either an innate sense of ability to be able to do whatever task it is which needs to be done, against the backdrop of known risk factors, or it is the bluff carried out by those wanting to portray a sense of that ability, particularly in a way which influences the actions of others competing for the same outcome.
In Australia’s case the ability in question is the ability to drive meaningful economic growth.
The reason our elites are all of a sudden cottoning onto the idea of ‘confidence’ is that they know that they are dealing with a dictatorship of dullards who’s closest approach to sophistication comes in sporting endeavours, and who will think of confidence as something to be portrayed on a sporting field, a’la Warne at his peak, or Wayne Carey maybe (and there will be for sure a rugby league equal) – the posturing, the aggression, the sublime technical ability, the sense of self, as well as (on occasions) the bluff to shape a contest.
But anyone thinking in this manner about the Australian economy is going to see confidence for what it is in this case – the bluff seen in almost any minor league cricket or football field by a lesser individual. A lesser individual who can invariably be ‘knocked off’ in one way or another, be it a punch at the right moment, discipline, extra aggression, or maybe even something as banal as fitness – A lesser individual invariably seen as a ‘wan ker’ by those about to do the knocking off. Australia’s economy isn’t in the Warne or Carey league – our elites want us to be that **bleep**er.
Have a think of the Australian economy and its competitive position. We sure aren’t going to be remotely competitive on anything resembling a currency playing field with the AUD where it is.
Then on top of that our national economic and political behaviours have been shaped by 24 years of economic expansion to leave players who are terrified of either being level with themselves or competition.
What Australia’s elites want is the confidence of the result of the game, of retirement, of safety, of the ‘winnings’ safely in their hand – of investment properties rising in value or generating real rents, or corporate responsibility handed off to someone else. They want the confidence to bulls hit the game until the final siren sounds. It isnt confidence, it is fear of what may happen if they dont put on the appearance of confidence.