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!

The national government does not need to borrow money! It may spend on any essential objective, including a universal income. In fact, a universal income is actually ‘funded’ by being a direct deduction from currently stolen economic rents.

Stephen Zarlenga approvingly cited Henry George’s understanding of money here (in the second half).