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Last updated on July 16th, 2017 at 10:45 am
Stephen Kirchner notes an interesting promise in Labor’s online advertising:
Interest Rates in 2007. Families Today Are Carrying Record Debt. Labor Will Force Rates Down.
Writes Stephen:
Clicking on to Kevin07.com.au, I could not find how Labor proposed to ‘force’ rates down, but it’s an interesting verb choice. Even the government’s claims about interest rates in the 2004 campaign did not go that far.
(Via Andy B.)
Politicians, in their infinite wisdom, “forced” a ten year rate freeze on the Illinois power companies ten years ago.
When the freeze was lifted this year, guess what happened? Rates doubled overnite, of course. And the same politicians started screaming “Heads will roll!”
Just not their own for freezing the rates in the first place. It made them feel good, and got them re-elected, so it was a great thing they did. The greedy power company execs are to blame!
Politicians.
If you don’t let people with less than exemplary credit obtain loans then Abracadabra rates will come down!
Of course Joe Average will be forced to live in a rental apartment, but, hey, the government’s protecting him from the pitfalls of having credit!
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2007 09 28 at 03:38 PM • permalink
America is having the same problems. No one is talking about the encouragement of lending entities by the government make these loans, done by laws, regulations, and incentives to be profligate. No one mentions that people who have no business taking out loans they can’t afford are encouraged to do so anyway. The only people who don’t have a say in the matter, of course, are those who will be doing the paying (ain’t no free anything, as my grammy used to tell me). Instead, the government comes in and uses the mess they’ve instigated to cry for ever more laws and regulations.
I wonder what the actual cost of each vote garnered in this way comes to.
Next up? Wage and price controls! It’s That 70’s Show: Australia!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 09 28 at 04:28 PM • permalink
‘There are two polar opposite approaches to an economy’s operation. The command economy is the top-down, centrally-planned economy of socialism. The market economy is the decentralized economy of the free market.’
To force rates, to manipulate by directive the costs associated with capital, is indicative of a command economy. Under the ALP’s rule, this would be based on socialist economic principles. Australia will be turned into a clone of France from the Chirac years.
“For our next trick, we will eliminate Global Warming and/or Climate Change by forcing temperatures to remain constant and in our comfort zone.” (The Next Labour Pronouncement)
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 09 28 at 05:57 PM • permalink
#9 – from Labor’s Constitution
Origins
1. The Australian Labor Party had its origins in:
– the aspirations of the Australian people for a decent, secure, dignified and constructive way of life;
– the recognition by the trade union movement of the necessity for a political voice to take forward the struggle of the working class against the excesses, injustices and inequalities of capitalism; and
– the commitment by the Australian people to the creation of an independent, free and enlightened Australia.Objectives
2. The Australian Labor Party is a democratic socialist party and has the objective of the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields.
When the start of their constitution contains the oxymoron ‘democratic socialism’ then you know that what follows can’t make much sense. Lots of good intentions but not much of a handle on economics.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 09 28 at 06:07 PM • permalink
What really scares me is the thought that Labor would ensure a healthy environment for the local film industry by forcing us to sit through Australian movies.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 09 28 at 06:09 PM • permalink
- This is straight from the “we’ll just print more money” school of economics.
Or is Kevini planning on buying back the Commonwealth bank?Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 09 28 at 06:52 PM • permalink
We will all be living on welfare in kevnis social utopia – no need to pay interest when the government provides all your dough.
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 09 28 at 07:41 PM • permalink
1. The Australian Labor Party had its origins in:
– the aspirations of the Australian people for a decent, secure, dignified and constructive way of life;
– the recognition by the trade union movement of the necessity for a political voice to take forward the struggle of the working class against the excesses, injustices and inequalities of capitalism; and
– the commitment by the Australian people to the creation of an independent, free and enlightened Australia.
– an Australian sentiment based upon the maintaining of racial purity
- Nationalise business and industry, collectivise all property, especially agricultural holdings, redistribute population centres, control currency trading, confiscate all personal wealth.
That will force interest rates down.Hey, it worked for the Soviets, didn’t it?Krudd will say or or do anything to grab the brass ring.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 09 28 at 07:57 PM • permalink
- #12 That is chilling Jack.
Under Labor it won’t be long before Australia becomes the People’s Democratic Republic of Minjungbal*.
Here are the Wiki lists of PDR’s that failed in the 20th Century and those that will fail in the 21st.*Minjungbal — Present name for what was the Pacific Highway in Tweed Heads. Like Dr Karl’s surname, nobody can remember, spell or pronounce it.
…collectivise all property, especially agricultural holdings…
That is already happening under socialist state and local government bureaucracies.
I have just pulled the plug on a non-profit project to gift a house block to each of my two kids on my rural land. City council bureaucrats required that I give 26% of my rural block to the city to become “public open space”. My “democratically” elected division councillor was powerless to help me in my three years of battles with the bureaucrats.
The costs of other development approval conditions have blown out from initial estimates of $70k to around $480k which is beyond the family’s resources.
I have lost the $200k that I spent on council infrastructure before I finally had to pull the plug, but I still have the deeds to 100% of my land.
Hate to think what a “democratic socialist” Federal Government will do to that “ownership”.
#23 Skeeter, how can they do that? Wouldn’t they even give you any financial recompense or were you just expected to sign over all that land for nothing?
Farking socialists.
And as for Kevni’s being a christian socialist, that’s an oxymoron. No way I’ll vote for a moron of any shape.
Did that once here in Melbournistan and we’ve been stuck with Labor ever since.
I miss Chairman Jeff.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 09 28 at 09:41 PM • permalink
The law of unintended consequences of course says that if you lower interest rates, people will just borrow more money.
They’ll end up forking out the same amount on interest payments each month, and they’ll owe a lot more.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 09 28 at 09:56 PM • permalink
I wonder what retired people and people approaching retirement will think of the Labor government undercutting their retirement income.
And Penguin – unfortunately that already happened when Hawke appointed Kelty to the RBA board – which started a convention of having the ACTU secretary on the Board. A convention that ended when the coalition gained power but will undoubtedly be revived.
#24 Nilk, don’t get me started.
Not only did we have to sign over the land for nothing but pay all title-transfer costs and taxes.
We also had to re-vegetate the land before gifting it, and enter a maintenance agreement to keep the trees alive for two years.
Re-vegetation required planting trees at 1 metre spacing (4,800 trees). The seedlings had to be chosen from a three-page list of local species.
I tried but was unable to get help for this part of the project from various save-the-planet organisations, but they are only interested in selling carbon credits, not actually planting trees.
How can the bureaucracies do it? The process is actually a form of blackmail. They will not approve the reconfiguration of the land unless you comply with all their conditions.
I asked one pimply-faced power freak what regulation or by-law she was using to take our land from us. She replied that there was no regulation, it was just policy, and if we took them to court we would probably win. But that would mean at least two more years’ delay and untold costs.
- #27 A very good point, Francis H.
I estimate that John Howard’s support of self-funded retirees has allowed Mrs Skeeter and me to stay off the Aged Pension for about seven extra years, compared to the situation when he took over.
I fear that the socialists will have us on the pension in about 12 months.
- Skeeter
I recall something came out from the local council in my little town and it was to make it difficult for people to sub divide a part of their farm property to put houses on for their kids, which was the way it was done up until it became unviable for kids to take over their parent’s farm.
I can see that it’s been made impossible now.
My sister and her hubby are similarly screwed here in west Oz. He has quite a bit of nice acerage allong a river next to a national park down south. Because his parents built a house on the land he is not allowed to subdivide, sell, loan against or pretty well do anything with the remaining land.
He has an asset worth (conservitavely) millions of dollars subdivided and develloped which he cant even take a loan out against because of government resrictions.
To top that off the state government has begun charging around $12.000
per block to connect country properties to mains power. That power by the way also cuts out, browns out and surges quite often due to chronic underspending in the ravensthorpe area. (Near the new BHP nickel mine)Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 09 29 at 12:42 AM • permalink
- #34 Mole, our kids were going to be forced to connect to town water after we had coughed $33k to bring it to the street. Nobody in the street is going to connect voluntarily because they don’t want to be involved in Level 6 water restrictions.
$12k to connect to power is cheap. Our next big expense was going to be $55k to take down two poles and transformer, then bury the cables along our 85-metre street frontage. The rest of the street was stuck with aerials until some dummy came along to pay for under-grounding.
- #33 Kae, our council allows a second dwelling on a rural block. The approval is contingent on a few nasty conditions:
The second dwelling:Can only be occupied by employees or close kin.
Be no bigger than half the area of the primary dwelling.
Must be constructed from similar materials and colours as the primary dwelling.
If more than 10 metres from the primary dwelling, it must be attached to the primary dwelling with a substantial structure.None of these restrictions would present any problems for socialists, of course.
- What part of , “my property” do they have trouble understanding?
Ouch thats steep, the 12,000 is for houses in areas with a powerline nearby, I shudder to think what extra it would be for anyone futher out.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 09 29 at 02:04 AM • permalink
- #37
I have a friend at Injune, about 100k’s north of Roma, in the brigalow. He has cattle. To get power from the road to his shack on his property would cost have cost him about $33k about 8 years ago – I’m not sure how far it is, less than a kilometre if I recall correctly.
He doesn’t have mains power in the property shack.
It is easy to force down interest rates. You set up a Marxist-Leninist government with unlimited powers – which is what Julia Gillard supports according to her adoring fans.
And having set up a Marxist-Leninist state is there any place for pampered multi-millionaires such as Kevin Rudd and his wife? Any government that can force down interest rates can easily separate the rich from their money. The Rudds might become Australia’s Romanovs.
When I hear about theft of private property by stealth by governments, councils, shires etc as skeeter and the ‘mole have described above, I get incandescent with rage.
Can these government parasites even comprehend the concept of private property?
Pre Whitlam and his attempt to create Soviet Australia, owning property and saving was encouraged and rewarded by personal prosperity.
Then those commo spivs saw a golden opportunity “create a fairer Australia” and promptly proceeded to thieve and give away the nation’s wealth to society’s bludgers at a prodigious rate. After 30+ years of slow recovery, we are once again a wealthy nation, and the sons of the Whitlam spivs are drooling at the prospect of getting their hands on the keys to the treasury.
And it seems there are millions of gullible fools who are prepared to hand those keys to Krudd and his gang of commos and union thugs.
There are none so blind . . . . . . . . .
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 09 29 at 03:16 AM • permalink
- An interesting article in Reason Magazine that is also relevant to Australia:
“The 4 Boneheaded Biases of Stupid Voters”
Skeeter and frollicking, that is just gobsmackingly awful.
How on earth the local councils that supposedly look after you can get away with that shite is beyond me.
And people want krudd and ko in some sort of position of authority?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 09 29 at 09:39 AM • permalink
You can force interest rates down. Simply ban 30% of the country’s businesses from continuing to operate, effective immediately. The resulting severe depression, with its massive unemployment, plummeting demand, and deflation is guaranteed to result in very low interest rates—maybe even negative.
Problem solved. Almost certain to reduce greenhouse emissions as a bonus!
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2007 09 29 at 01:23 PM • permalink
He has an asset worth (conservitavely) millions of dollars subdivided and develloped which he cant even take a loan out against because of government resrictions.
Perhaps you need to have Hernando de Soto give speeches across your country. He might get it through their heads that what they’re doing is transforming the place into a Third World country.
Then again, it’s possible that’s their goal.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 09 29 at 04:06 PM • permalink
This reminds me of the old story of Canute trying to hold back the tide.
At least Canute undertook that act as a demonstration to his followers that he was not all powerful. If only some politicians could be as sensible and humble as him.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 09 29 at 05:35 PM • permalink
- O/T, but maybe not.
Just wandered past the teev and noticed Ray Martin (gag) in depth report on Muslims and how we (WE! being other Australians) have to do MORE to understand them. To integrate them.
Last talking head was I dunno who, but she could be a blonde version of Margork (not quite as hatfullof)(but near enough), who said that whoever gets in to government must do something about the racism. Racism is here and we must do something about it.The general gist of the five minutes I caught, by accident, was that muslims are good people and we love them and we must learn to understand them.Sorry, I need to be sick now.
Kae, I too caught parts of it. To save my teev, I switched to a channel showing adverts. This stupid bint was from Issues Deliberation Australia, a counterpart to a US pop-psych think tank. And here she is, Dr Pam Ryan.
“As Managing Director of IDA, Dr Ryan has headed the team of psychologists, sociologists, researchers and over 100 project team members to ensure the success of numerous political psychology and public policy projects: national Deliberative Polls on whether Australia should become a Republic and Reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians; a “future perfect” Economic Growth Summit and a Constitutional Convention on parliamentary reform for the South Australian government; a cross-country comparative study of True Believer voters in Australia and the USA; and a cross country comparative longitudinal study of the well-being of citizens, particularly in relation to fear and terror.”
So she produces documents that are drawn from peoples fears, misunderstandings and prejudices. Nice gig you got there Pam. I’m sure she contributes to the GDP of Australia in a positive sense.
Oh look, CB, Bolta is all over Ray Martin…
You missed the obvious answer, Tim. When sharia is imposed as a nod to Australia’s Muslims who yearn for repression, interest will be illegal!
See? Multiculturalism works.