Rudd calls for era of "social capitalism" (3 Viewers)

[Nebuchanezzar]

I like Peter Schiff's analogy where the recession = a fire and government intervention = gasoline.

Central banks and governments keep throwing gasoline on the fire.

When the fire gets bigger, they say its because they didn't throw enough gasoline on it last time, so they throw even more.

to be fair, if you dump 100L of gasoline on a very small fire it will stop the fire (imo)

but i am a communist.

 

[Trefoil]

Social capitalism?

What the shit is this.

It's basically a fancy term for a welfare state (e.g. universal healthcare and social security) combined with the free market (regulated enough to prevent fuckups like in America under Bush). You might be surprised to know Australia has far more financial regulations than America and Britain, but also the 2nd most stable banking sector in the world. And currently, our 4 main banks are also all in the top 20 list of banks by market capitalisation in the world.

He's just taking the opportunity to make free market fundamentalists look bad. Fine by me. He's not the first though. Sarkozy was raving about this right when the economic crash began 6 months ago, and obviously social democracy as an ideology has existed for centuries. Rudd really isn't making a case for something new, he's making a case to strengthen perceptions about social democracy.

The parts of the speech that Rafy quotes are pretty fiery, but trust him to omit the bits where Rudd says we need to be careful of the far left trying to hijack this event by ushering in too much government control (i.e. communism and totalitarianism). It's a fairly centrist speech which attacks the far right simply because they have far more influence in politics than the far left.

And zstar? Yeah, well, I think he speaks for himself.

P.S. I don't like Rudd (his persistence on Internet censorship is inexcusable), but he's not going to usher in communism.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Does it make you feel impressive to have your posts so long? Rather than decorating your post with unnecessary verbiage, you could have whittled it down to the following:

A social capitalist state is one that mixes the regulated free market with social welfare. This is not new. Most of what he's said lately is designed simply to make right wing lunatics look bad, while remaining firmly centrist.

 

[Trefoil]

Does it make you feel impressive to have your posts so long? Rather than decorating your post with unnecessary verbiage, you could have whittled it down to the following:

A social capitalist state is one that mixes the regulated free market with social welfare. This is not new. Most of what he's said lately is designed simply to make right wing lunatics look bad, while remaining firmly centrist.

I don't take advice from nutjobs that support terrorism, sorry.

 

[Lentern]

Yo dude deregulation isn't what caused the problems in the first place, the actual fundamentals of the financial system (Unsound money) is what caused the problems.

Deregulation is a natural trend over time. Markets are very hard to constrain.

Bullshit! Deregulation is the enemy, A recession is what happen when it gets to the stage where people like you are allowed to think for yourselves because then 40% of the population is doing dumb things with their money.

 

[katie tully]

Bullshit! Deregulation is the enemy, A recession is what happen when it gets to the stage where people like you are allowed to think for yourselves because then 40% of the population is doing dumb things with their money.

Yes but it is their money to do dumb things with.

Who are you to instruct people as to how and what they can spend their money on?

 

[loquasagacious]

A communist.

 

[sdent40]

He's just taking the opportunity to make free market fundamentalists look bad

Thing is, at what stage has Australia ever had a truly free market? The currency used is mandated by the government (legal tender laws), they stop you from using other things as currency via taxes like capital gains tax or land tax, they use price control over the interest rates in the form of a central bank and inflate the supply of currency (creating malinvestment) , and they regulate tonnes of industries heavily (even when things get privatised, they often get regulated).

So what part of the above does Kevin Rudd regard as "free market fundamentalism"?

LOLOL All da gubermint policies (fractional reserve banking is the main culprit) is failing, so let's solve the problem with more of what caused it! More Gubermint policies for every1 lulz. But let's call it centrism or 3rd way-ism so that way we can alienate anyone who has an 'extremist' (yet correct) solution.

Abolish the RBA + abolish the govt = problem solved

 

[Will Shakespear]

the era of social capitalism should be followed up with a complete removal of capitalism in favour of socialism

and then the addition of nationalism

 

[moll.]

and then the addition of gulags.

 

[Riet]

Fractional reserve banking is the Australian governments doing? The RBA controls interest rates? Capital gains tax preventing other shit from being used as currency? What are you talking about?

 

[Trefoil]

Thing is, at what stage has Australia ever had a truly free market? The currency used is mandated by the government (legal tender laws), they stop you from using other things as currency via taxes like capital gains tax or land tax, they use price control over the interest rates in the form of a central bank and inflate the supply of currency (creating malinvestment) , and they regulate tonnes of industries heavily (even when things get privatised, they often get regulated).

So what part of the above does Kevin Rudd regard as "free market fundamentalism"?

LOLOL All da gubermint policies (fractional reserve banking is the main culprit) is failing, so let's solve the problem with more of what caused it! More Gubermint policies for every1 lulz. But let's call it centrism or 3rd way-ism so that way we can alienate anyone who has an 'extremist' (yet correct) solution.

Abolish the RBA + abolish the govt = problem solved

lolarchism.

 

[withoutaface]

It's actually the Bank Notes Act 1910 which puts a tax of 10% or something ridiculous on all transactions in private currencies which makes private currency so unworkable.

Australian Bank Notes Tax Act 1910 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[sdent40]

Fractional reserve banking is the Australian governments doing? The RBA controls interest rates? Capital gains tax preventing other shit from being used as currency? What are you talking about?

Essentially, what Schroe said.

Fractional reserve banking is imposed on us by da gubermint.

The RBA is essentially an attempt to centrally plan the interest rate, or at least influence it via buying selling treasury securities (effectively allowing the money supply to expand or contract, which is also responsible for inflation and the boom/bust cycle)

CGT helps stop people using other things as currency instead of money, like land cos you have to pay tax on the value of it every time you sell it.

Oh yea and Ty to Waf for the bank notes thing, didn't know that. By not allowing private currencies, the govt is actually circumventing a free market check on the system (LOLOL "obviously we have had a free market in australia for too long"). Because if you knew the currency was just losing value over time (because they just keep printing more and more of it), you'd switch away to another currency, but the gubermint effectively bans this. Probably the best way to avoid losing value to inflation is to hold physical gold or silver.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Yo dude deregulation isn't what caused the problems in the first place, the actual fundamentals of the financial system (Unsound money) is what caused the problems.

Deregulation is a natural trend over time. Markets are very hard to constrain.

rape is also a natural trend

legalise raep

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Eating wall candy again, are we?

been soldering with some lead

but hey you know i have a point mang :burn:

 

[Lentern]

Yes but it is their money to do dumb things with.

Who are you to instruct people as to how and what they can spend their money on?

How you spend your money, or how anyone spends their money comes back to effect me as indeed it does the entire community. Governments should indeed be able to confiscate the money and place it in the control of economic experts who can then steer it round the economy in the most effective way.

 

[withoutaface]

How you spend your money, or how anyone spends their money comes back to effect me as indeed it does the entire community. Governments should indeed be able to confiscate the money and place it in the control of economic experts who can then steer it round the economy in the most effective way.

...

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There are no words.

 

[Riet]

...

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There are no words.

Hitler improved da economies!

 

[withoutaface]

Hitler improved da economies!

You see we should all put our money into this big machine in Canberra, which can optimise our lifestyle decisions. Having Jews around was suboptimal because they worked harder than anybody else, thus creating an unequal distribution of wealth.

EDIT: The most efficient way for the economy to work is when people are making their own choices about what goods and services they wish to purchase, and when they can fulfill those dreams by working towards them. When the government decides that we need to subsidise an industry it's effectively saying to the individual consumers "No, you're wrong, you shouldn't be buying cars from Japan so we're going to force you to fund half the cost of a Holden whether you end up buying it or not".

EDIT2: Fuck socialism.