The ABC-TV program “Insiders” manages each week to discuss the level of federal government debt. This week was no exception. “What’s the government going to do about the one trillion dollars of government debt?” Seems Phil Coorey would like to see more surplus budgets.

It’s not debt, folks, it’s federal government bonds, issued on the pretext that we’re running out of our own currency. Deficit budgets are not at all like household deficits. On the other hand, as William Vickery said, surplus and ‘balanced’ budgets represent major issues for economies. Don’t believe misguided libertarians on this score. They fail to see that land prices are the main contributors to inflation!

We do need to see the government spending wisely, of course, and not giving into things like Western Australia’s pork barrelling of the Goods and ServicesTax.

When oh when, however, is David Speers going to introduce a discussion of the real debt on “Insiders” – the impossible level of private debt that has brought Australia to its knees like this?

Banking, real estate and media interests may not want such a topic to be aired, but the ABC is up for it, surely?

No?

NAMELY, TRUE FREE ENTERPRISE.

THE FIX

THE so-called national debt is 100% bonds and Treasury notes, folks – so why not stop their issue, Federal Treasury? They’re a rort!

Australia has its own currency, so we don’t need to ‘borrow’ our dollars. (Won’t that statement create conniptions in our financial experts!)

No, guys, federal government spending money doesn’t create inflation: It’s almost entirely the private debt we’ve expended on land prices! (Yes, international wars do affect cost-of-living at the margin.)

…. ARE RARELY ACCEPTED.

Let’s trust it’s different this time?

Pauline Hanson got one thing right today: people should be able to access their superannuation when they need it. It is, after all, their money. One Nation, all political parties, need to go further and abolish compulsory superannuation altogether.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is predictably shocked at Pauline. Like Paul Keating, Chalmers views compulsory super as a foundational triumph, driven by the neoliberal myth that Australia will eventually run out of money for people’s pensions. In reality, compulsory super was Keating’s greatest blunder—alongside privatising the Commonwealth Bank in the 1990s.

Today, superannuation functions as a tax haven for the wealthy and a financial burden for everyone else, leaving many women with next to nothing in retirement. We should aspire to more than working our entire lives just to secure a half-decent retirement.

It is beyond time to replace the superannuation hoax and the complex welfare system with a robust universal income.

So, I’m not paying the rent!