2022 Federal election
I think we had an election topic last time, so let's see how long it lasts...
The thing that had me wanting to start this topic are the new tv commercials by clive palmer this week, because it is making me frustrated that someone can claim things that he can't realistically deliver, but would convince a lot of worried or angry un-educated voters to believe it and vote for him (using trump's playbook, because those people who don't know how things work, will believe anything that sounds plausible).
One commercial has him claiming that if his party was in power, he would cap home loans to 3% for 5 years.
There is so much wrong with that...
- firstly, the government doesn't own the banks, nor does it regulate the homeloan market... the banks are non-government businesses, so if the government was wanting to dictate home loan rates, the government would need to subsidise the banks or "nationalise" them (take over control of the banks), because as noted, they are non-government businesses.
- if the government did take over the banks to force them to stick to 3%, the shareholders would sell off their shares, making their shares worthless, which would cripple most people's Super funds (most Super funds have billions of dollars invested in the share market, with the major banks being a primary investment of your Super fund money).
- the banks get their money from global markets which is dictated by Reserve Banks and their official cash rates, so if the official rates are expected to go up by 3-4% over the next couple of years due to the rebounding economy post-covid, the Banks have to raise their own rates on everything to keep making money (for their own operating costs and their shareholders' profits)... to prevent Banks from raising their own rates would result in banks going out of business, or raise fees and rates on other things like savings accounts or Super funds. Stopping homeloan rates from going up just means home owners will pay for the difference in some other way.
- Finally, if the government did nationalise the banks (take them over or buy them out), or if the government subsidised the banks to offset the money they would be losing from being forced to have 3% homeloans, our taxes would be paying for it, and taxes would have to go up... so again, home owners and the rest of us would still have to pay the difference in some other way.
Meanwhile, another commercial from clive palmer (who is noted on these commercials as the UAP's Treasury Advisor, when he clearly has no idea about how economics work), has him saying that all Australian Super Fund money invested overseas should be forced back into Australian investments. In theory it would be a great way to boost the Australian economy when there is a recession, as well as fund more necessary infrastructure projects, but with the Australian economy now already overheated (inflation is climbing), pouring Billions more dollars into the Australian economy right now would push inflation (and prices) even higher, which will push up the Reserve Bank's official rates to levels we saw in the 1980s (good for savings accounts, but bad for anyone who has a credit card, home loan, personal loan, etc).
The thing to remember is that when you (a business) invests money somewhere, it is to make back more in return. So if a business (or Super Fund) is investing billions of dollars overseas (like in the US or UK Stock Market), it is generating money that comes back into Australia while the original investment remains overseas to continue earning money. Removing that invested Billions of dollars means that Billions of their foreign money (the profits over many years) doesn't come into the Australian economy. All he would be doing is giving the Australian economy a short lived "sugar hit" of the investment money, but then no more of the annual profits from foreign investment comes in (which most Australian Super funds need, for them to keep increasing in value by 10-20% each year).
So if he was in power, our Super funds would be getting a double hit, which he doesn't care about because he has hundreds of millions of dollars and doesn't need a Super fund.
Tonight I saw a new one, saying that we need to buy new submarines now (and not wait for the nuclear ones that are still about 10 years away).
Okay... how are we going to pay for that? If he wants them purchased immediately (this year), that's Billions of dollars that needs to be spent from the budget (with our tax dollars... taxes that he doesn't pay thanks to accountants and tax deductions), and then more money spent on the Nuclear ones that would already be committed, and to pay for (like the French ones that still cost us over a Billion dollars just to cancel the contract to get the nuclear ones).
The problem with clive palmer is that he is only in it for himself, which he proved last time he was elected - he helped get some tax cuts go through for the rich that he benefited from, and then didn't show up for 95% of the 3 years he was a member of federal parliament, because he didn't care about anyone or anything else.
He just sees how much money can be made through politics by watching the American system of government being run by the big money lobbyists, and that it only takes a small amount of people with limited education to get elected. Very few people would understand or have an interest in understanding the complexities of national and global economics, so if you promise the general public things that they want instead of the things that they need, you can essentially "buy" votes without even having to worry about making it happen, because you just claim that your opponents have sabotaged your efforts if you did win, or that the election was rigged if you don't win.
There is endless material on Morrison online and on the news, so I don't need to go into any of it for now, as this election is deciding if the alternative is better or worse... so for Albo, how can you be the leader of a party that is likely to be in power at some stage eventually and not know the two primary economic numbers of the country (employment rate and Reserve Bank official rate). They are two tiny numbers, so they aren't hard to remember if you are in that line of business (a federal politician who wants to manage the national economy). His new glasses and hair may have given him a new look on all the visual media around an election, but he really needed to study up, not just the basics, but all of the specifics as well, because he would not do any good in a live debate, that the pair should be doing at some stage. (his umming and arrring when he talks all the time, makes him look like he doesn't know or understand much, which he really needs to fix if he wants to inspire confidence from voters)
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Originally Posted by griffin
