Neu Leonstein
07-11-2007, 10:58
I have never been quite as angry watching TV, short of when my Italy beat Australia at the World Cup.
As some of you will remember, Australia has been doing very well in the past decade or so. Good economic policies introduced by the Keating government and continued by Costello, combined with a boom in resource exports thanks to globalisation and China have drastically improved living standards for a lot of people.
Basically, people who used to be white trash are now called "the mortgage belt" (formerly known as "the Aussie battler"), because they found better-paying jobs and got big mortgages to buy houses. This is a purely external change, of course. Sadly, marxism doesn't quite hold (;)), and these people are still white trash. They have been Howard's saviours the past two elections: little worthwhile education, xenophobic and willing to listen to anyone who can make them feel important.
Last time he won by saying he will keep interest rates low. Interest rates are of course set by the reserve bank, independently of the government, to make sure inflation doesn't get out of the target range.
This gross lie wouldn't go through if it wasn't for a grain of potential truth: excessive government spending can indeed create inflationary pressures, which in turn would be tackled by the RBA. But that's not what it said in campaign ads - there it just said "under past Labor governments interest rates hit 17%" like that is evidence.
Of course he won, and with today's announcement there have been six interest rises since. The inflation hasn't really come from big government spending, but from the aforementioned resource boom, a shortage of skilled labour in all industries, higher oil prices and so on. There is basically nothing the government can do about these things: they've pushed the economy on for many years now, but we've reached the stage where we're beyond capacity and things need to catch up in one way or another. That's the cold, hard truth.
So today the RBA announces that rates are now up to 6.75%. That's getting slowly but steadily into the uncomfortable range, but that's life. What does Howard do? "Well, we're now at a new era of difficult economic management ahead, so trust me." and "They would have been even higher under Labor!"
The difficult economic management will mainly be about blame shifting. The second sentence is farcical, because Labor has not pledged any major spending campaigns in either election campaign I've paid attention to. In fact, the biggest spender in both was Howard himself, who's been using the budget surplus to shower marginal electorates with money. He recently announced 34 billion dollars worth of tax cuts - anti-inflation, he reckons. Of course.
And today, while I was peacefully watching Futurama, the new Liberal campaign ad comes out:
"Under Whitlam, interest rates were 17%! Under Hawke they were 16.25%! Under Keating they were 12%!"
He's doing it again. And the worst thing is: because the mortgage belt is still white trash at heart, I'm really scared he'll get away with again. In a display of cynicism the likes of which I had not thought possible in public, Liberal MPs are even suggested the interest rise was good, because it highlights economic issues. That just confirms it: if Howard was serious about interest rates, he would have said as much and then told voters he would not spend an extra cent of money on the campaign in order not to fuel inflation. But he couldn't give a shit.
If this goes through, if this even ends up being a tight election, I am done with democracy forever. It's destroying itself right in front of my eyes. Any businessman who used that sort of ad would have his ass sued to Nirvana by the ACCC. But in politics, it's okay.
Does there need to be a limit to what politicians can say and do to be elected? Can people be trusted with their vote? Is it okay to feel this powerless in a democracy?
As some of you will remember, Australia has been doing very well in the past decade or so. Good economic policies introduced by the Keating government and continued by Costello, combined with a boom in resource exports thanks to globalisation and China have drastically improved living standards for a lot of people.
Basically, people who used to be white trash are now called "the mortgage belt" (formerly known as "the Aussie battler"), because they found better-paying jobs and got big mortgages to buy houses. This is a purely external change, of course. Sadly, marxism doesn't quite hold (;)), and these people are still white trash. They have been Howard's saviours the past two elections: little worthwhile education, xenophobic and willing to listen to anyone who can make them feel important.
Last time he won by saying he will keep interest rates low. Interest rates are of course set by the reserve bank, independently of the government, to make sure inflation doesn't get out of the target range.
This gross lie wouldn't go through if it wasn't for a grain of potential truth: excessive government spending can indeed create inflationary pressures, which in turn would be tackled by the RBA. But that's not what it said in campaign ads - there it just said "under past Labor governments interest rates hit 17%" like that is evidence.
Of course he won, and with today's announcement there have been six interest rises since. The inflation hasn't really come from big government spending, but from the aforementioned resource boom, a shortage of skilled labour in all industries, higher oil prices and so on. There is basically nothing the government can do about these things: they've pushed the economy on for many years now, but we've reached the stage where we're beyond capacity and things need to catch up in one way or another. That's the cold, hard truth.
So today the RBA announces that rates are now up to 6.75%. That's getting slowly but steadily into the uncomfortable range, but that's life. What does Howard do? "Well, we're now at a new era of difficult economic management ahead, so trust me." and "They would have been even higher under Labor!"
The difficult economic management will mainly be about blame shifting. The second sentence is farcical, because Labor has not pledged any major spending campaigns in either election campaign I've paid attention to. In fact, the biggest spender in both was Howard himself, who's been using the budget surplus to shower marginal electorates with money. He recently announced 34 billion dollars worth of tax cuts - anti-inflation, he reckons. Of course.
And today, while I was peacefully watching Futurama, the new Liberal campaign ad comes out:
"Under Whitlam, interest rates were 17%! Under Hawke they were 16.25%! Under Keating they were 12%!"
He's doing it again. And the worst thing is: because the mortgage belt is still white trash at heart, I'm really scared he'll get away with again. In a display of cynicism the likes of which I had not thought possible in public, Liberal MPs are even suggested the interest rise was good, because it highlights economic issues. That just confirms it: if Howard was serious about interest rates, he would have said as much and then told voters he would not spend an extra cent of money on the campaign in order not to fuel inflation. But he couldn't give a shit.
If this goes through, if this even ends up being a tight election, I am done with democracy forever. It's destroying itself right in front of my eyes. Any businessman who used that sort of ad would have his ass sued to Nirvana by the ACCC. But in politics, it's okay.
Does there need to be a limit to what politicians can say and do to be elected? Can people be trusted with their vote? Is it okay to feel this powerless in a democracy?