What influences your vote...?

[silentC]

I still don't understand why we are so tuned to owning our own home as the be all and end all of life?

It's not. But it sure beats lining someone else's pocket. Having rented for about half of my adult life, the only good thing I can say about it is that you don't have to pay to fix the hot water heater when it blows up.

Arguments over whether a home is a good investment or not aside, the problem is that people do take out mortgages that are only marginally affordable to them, and so when interest rates go up, those people lose their houses. The only people who benefit from that are banks and real estate agents. Someone who is still paying off interest after 5 or 6 years can walk away with nothing - I suppose one way of looking at it is that they are no worse off than had they been renting.

On the upside, there will be plenty of cheap houses going for those who can afford to invest.

[masher]

It's not. But it sure beats lining someone else's pocket. Having rented for about half of my adult life, the only good thing I can say about it is that you don't have to pay to fix the hot water heater when it blows up.

The only way you can get ahead when renting is to invest the difference that you'd pay between rent and a mortgage.

Say average rent is $1000/month and the average mortgage is $2000/month. As long as you invest that $1000 difference, you should be OK.

or at least, that is what I saw on the TV...

[silentC]

My fortnightly mortgage repayments would barely cover a week's rent in Sydney!

[SilentButDeadly]

My fortnightly mortgage repayments would barely cover a week's rent in Sydney!

Same here!! Mind you...my mortgage repayments are half that of a typical monthly rent in my town anyway.

See.......living in a tin humpy in the back of beyond is not all bad!

[astrid]

can i lay this old cheese re rich/ poor suburbs and drug use.
I live in one of those leafy green suburbs with loads of money and private schools.
some parents are known to
a} supply their 14yo kids with alcohol and dope when there having a few friends over.
b) give their 14yo kids $100 perday pocketmoney. what do they spend it on??

the drug problems at these schools are well published.
the local 7/11 and service station get regularly knocked over by local kids.
ever get tailgated by a 18yo in a landcruiser?
too many people here think thier kids are safe because they are visiting the homes of "nice people"

dont you believe it

Astrid

[Andy Mac]

Have I changed my vote since the election campaign started ...no, but I wasn't likely to! I can't stomach the fear mongering ads, whoever puts this tripe together doesn't deserve a paid job. How about putting out something positive, something upbeat to inspire voters, not pander to our negative side?!
I think that's why (on top of all the swerving, broken promises and downright lying we've endured) I can't warm to the guy...as said by someone before, he is no statesman. There is no bigger vision than lining your pockets in the short term, and the best that can be said he is a clever political animal.
As for the alternative, yes Kev does seem to come across as a bit wooden, I'm trying to think of it as a bid not to put a foot wrong, at whatever cost! After all, the shadow of Latham lays across his path. No doubt he's inexperienced at this level, his first campaign as leader. I keep coming back to one of the coalition's criticisms of him a week or so back, saying he lacked experience. That surely is a moot point, how can you get experience if you don't have a go, or do the job? Did our Johnny have experience before he started? Don't see too many other people with PM experience lining up!
Anyway, what influences my vote now...still the same thing. Someone with a vision would be good, but I'll be content with a breath of fresh air.
Regards the fear of interest rate rises, I think they are well out of our Federal govt control: bigger players overseas, and our market responds accordingly...apparently to the eternal damnation of whoever's in power here at the time.
As the sole bread winner for a family with 3 kids, buying a house (and working partime at that), do I want a tax cut as an election softener? NO..I'd prefer to see the huge tax surplus, reaped from us, to go to fixing the health & education systems, water and roads. No ifs, no buts, just bl**dy well spend the money we give you- for our benefit.

But can I watch the box anymore...? The ads are driving me crazy

[Sebastiaan56]

Did our Johnny have experience before he started? Don't see too many other people with PM experience lining up!

and

But can I watch the box anymore...? The ads are driving me crazy

Johnny was in the Fraser cabinet. The only one to oppose allowing the Vietnamese fleeing the commos coming to the country. Only five weeks of torture to go.....

[pawnhead]

Just for fun:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOUKX-Myc0"][Axis of Awesome] Rudd vs Howard[/ame]

[jerryc]

One of the issues of this election is economic management. In part that will determine my vote. Only in part as there are many other issues needing attention.

The fact that Costello of the big smirk and smart ???? comment has built a reputation as an economic manger is a trifle baffling.

The reason we pay taxes is so the Government can use the money it collects to benefit the population in infrastructure and services. Surely it's bad economic management either to take too much money or not to use what it has taken in areas where it is needed.

Any company that salted away profit to be sprayed out as massive dividends around annual report time would not be considered a good economic manager. Each company looks carefully at what it has to do with with profit. How much to give as a dividend and how much to reinvest in the company. Anything over six percent return begins to border on suspicious .

Here we have a government that calls itself a good economic manager, but for three years of its term overtaxes that is in effect, it takes money out of circulation, then pours it back into the economy, not at a time of the country's need but for it's own political expediency.

Jerry

[Notsquare]

Governments of either side don't have much of a say anymore. The economy drives itself, and both sides pretend they are in charge. Not anymore. I would vote for the party that pushed the idea of fixed terms, e.g. 4 years at a fixed date, and similar to the US, the PM job can only be held for 8 years. Otherwise, even the most levelled person gets tickets on themselves and cannot see that others around them could do a better job.

[Studley 2436]

Governments still have a big part in the Economy. It is not as if they are the only player though.

As long as the Howard Government has been I have been less than satisfied with Howards leadership and thought that the whole thing hung on how well Costello was managing Treasury.

We have finally got back what Gough Whitlam cost us or perhaps that was Jim Killen's work as treasurer either way one labor government cost Australia 30 years. Do I want to risk having them in charge again NO but that is my choice after all.

So far as the tax system goes we are paying too much. Our best and brightest leave Oz and go elsewhere to benefit from better tax rates because they can. They call it churn money is taxed government gives it back but suffers costs along the way I believe it would be much better to have much less tax and much less welfare, largely middle class welfare such as child care benefits. The old dry arguement of smaller government and less tax still rings true I doubt Rudd Labor will give it to us, a Costello led government might, the Howard Government hasn't but that is politics after all. Menzies himself said "we are all socialists now" but he governed as the people would let him that was his genius. Perhaps Howard is the same although he lept ahead with Work Choices. The Business community was saying when he brought it out that he had really taken it a bit far. People have to accept it after all. Being able to sell your policies is crucial and they didn't sell that one all that well. Should have left it with knackering the IRC making it legal for individuals to negotiate without the Union's say so and remove the Unions right to entry on any workplace they chose. Then if the Unions complained the Government could just say well they had a priveledged position and they are upset about losing it.

Studley

[jerryc]

studley
I am at a loss to follow this comment about labor responsibility in the Whitlam years

"Jim Killen's work as treasurer" . Are you saying he was the treasurer responsible for whatever dire results you refer to?

Problem I have is, that to the best of my knowledge, SIR Jim Killen was liberal member for Moreton. I could be wrong in this but as you seem to have a definite view about the results of economic management in that period I am willing to be corrected.

Jerry

[Studley 2436]

My mistake that old lefty Jim Cairns was Whitlam's Treasurer.

The problem was that they felt they had their hands on the keys to treasury and could buy anything they wanted. This was OK until the OPEC oil shock of 73 when they were forced to ramp up the spending to prevent recession. Had they pursued a conservative policy with the treasury to that time there would have been no harm done but this vast Government pump priming sent inflation up to unheard of levels and unemployment went up in concert.

Prior to that time there was the assumption that Inflation and Unemployment were at two ends of the see saw. One was high the other low but under Whitlam they both became high. This was something Economists describe as the Phillip's Curve. It all went wrong as Whitlam and Keynes pursued a Keynesian philosophy.

Through this time the Monetarist philosophies of Hayek and Friedman were discredited apart from a few brave or larrikinistic types who railed against Keynes and his socialistic notions.

Keynes boiled down was largely have as much deficit as you want it doesn't matter and the Monetarists felt that balancing the budget was important. Today the Monetarists have been proved right. We are today in Boom times that make the post war boom of the 50's look thin. Should we go back to the centralist philosophies of the past? I say not. You should never forget that popular ideology in the Labor party is that people don't know what is good for them, they need us to look after them. I think that people know much better than Government how to spend their money and should be allowed to do so.

That is something of a potted history, however everytime that Rudd comes out with something about fixing say petrol prices it sends alarm bells off with me. The fact is he could regulate and make petrol cheaper but the cost to the rest of the economy would be too much. Likewise remember that most ot the cost of petrol is Tax either to the Federal or State Governments.

People accuse the Howard Government of being a do nothing Government however the fact is that Government and Bureaucracy are not ment to do anything but gum up the works. If they don't dampen the exuberance of the Market the whole thing will fly off the rails like a roller coaster that isn't fixed tight under the rails. Reach a corner and just keep going straight unimpeded.

Labor has a history of gaining government and with ideas of equity and fairness mucking the whole thing up. The crucial difference is equity of opportunity or outcome. You can legislate for equal outcomes and tax the successful out of existence for the sake of the less tallented and everyone ends up poor. The other option is to say equal opportunity (so much as is possible rich kids always will get a better run at life) and then use some of the greater wealth to provide a welfare safety net for the less successful.

Studley

[Sebastiaan56]

Hi Studley,

Part of the issue for me is that they actually believe that have to continue doing stuff, for me less government is better government.

Now, parts of the country are broken, water is overallocated, educational standards are slipping, hospitals are underresourced, aboriginal people live in poverty and our bravest are being killed off overseas for no sensible reason. The world as a whole lives unsustainably and we are leaders in that respect.

But, and here is the big BUT, the economy by and large works, people are better off than before. Still the tax laws are now volumes large spawning a whole parasitic industry of tax accountants, financial planners and the like. The Workplace laws passed last year are over 500 pages long. All these buggers are doing is behaving like rock stars and create over large volumes of laws to keep their mates (irrespective of political persuasion) in a job trying to unravel the crap that they wrote.

The Moniterist / Keynesian argument has been settled worldwide as Australia was not the only country caught up in the zero unemployment philosophy. Moniterism is now conventional wisdom. It too will get knocked off when a new crisis hits. The Government of the day will then be the pariah to future generations. And still we will live unsustainably.

I pity future generations as none of the current lot of candidates have the balls to make real decisions. eg renewable energy vs non renewables, water allocation and reuse, habitat destruction and worldwide loss of species, pollution etc. Future generations will live in a world bereft of resources, in an ever more hostile environment.

Meanwhile the arguments revolve around how to spend the surplus, and who has a more righteous moral character, who did / said what 5 or ten years ago, its pathetic really.....

Sebastiaan

[Studley 2436]

So far as the water "crisis" goes I think it could be solved by the market. Letting people have water rights is foolish really and growing rice in Hay is just ludicrous. Rice is meant to be in tropical paddys.

So if there were a market the government would only have to decide how much can be pumped Australia wide and put it to market. It would then be bought by traders by conglomerates and so on. Water would be priced according to it's true value for everyone from the cotton farmers in QLD to the suburbs of our towns and cities. It would then be used and treated as a valuable commodity

Studley