“Australians once led the world in political and social innovation (OK, you might add New Zealanders): the vote, building dams, highways and other infrastructure out of the uplift they gave to our land values, via municipal rates and land taxes, including a federal land tax until 1953. We didn’t really have a federal income tax until post WWII, but we now think it’s been there forever, and aren’t income taxes fair anyway? [Nup!]
Ken Henry’s tax review recommended scrapping most of our taxes on productivity and zeroing in particularly on those economic rents (land and mineral rents) the community as a whole has created, but it fell on deaf ears. The casino rent-seeking economy is now too entrenched in Australia as in most of the western world: you don’t have to work because there’s something you can get for nothing – and that’s OK with the 0.1% who steal by far the greater part of our economic rents. [Let the little people think they can do it too, because it certainly won’t affect us!]
We could turn the economy around overnight:
1) The RBA could sell down the AUD.
2) We should institute the original Henry Tax Review recommendations, but nup, we’re too far gone. Rent-seeking has got Australia by the short and curlies, and the politically powerful want no real change.”
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When, oh when, are we going to be able to display the same smarts as monkeys?
the RBA cannot “sell down” the AUD, the forex market is 5 trillion daily. The market is like donkey kong to the RBA.
The RBA is the problem to begin with in setting rates, i remember bak in 2003 the bubble was rising and they didnt raise rates fast enough.
when nobody is “saving” and they speculate in housing because it never goes down like all the adds tell people, get loans with 5% down who regulates this behaviour? the bank should be left to go out of business if they need a “bailout” later on and maybe worse. And the gov enouraged this behaviour with gearing and tax policy. Those twin towers are to blame.