The Price of Civilization

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Greed is Good

Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006):
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.
(Jordan Ellenberg, Less Like Sweden, How Not To Be Wrong, Part 1, Chapter 1, Penguin, 2014)


Foundation for Young Australians:
Over the past 15 years:

• incomes of the top 10% have grown [25% faster] than the bottom 90%.
• Incomes of the top 1% have grown [twice as fast as the bottom 90%, and]
• incomes of the top 0.1% have grown 2.8 times faster than the bottom 90%.]

(The New Work Order, 4 September 2015, pp 8 & 26)


Nicolas Herault & Francisco Azpitarte [Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research]:
[The] direct effect of tax-transfer policy reforms [in Australia] accounts for half of the observed increase in income inequality between 1999 and 2008 …
(Understanding changes in the distribution and redistribution of income: A unifying decomposition framework, Review of Income and Wealth, 12 December 2014)


George Megalogenis (1964):
This is the part of the Great Recession we did not avoid.
We had imported the AMERICAN DISEASE of budget-busting TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH.
(p 39)

Both sides of politics have fallen for the line that in order to maintain our record run of prosperity you have to squeeze:

• the employee,
• the student,
• the single parent,
• the consumer

— anyone, really who

• does not run a business, or
• own an investment property.

(p 27)

Business has convinced itself that globalisation means it owes no obligation to society other to generate profit.
(p 26)

[Indeed, business has, if anything,] become more presumptuous since [the 2008 global financial crisis:]

• Give us a cut in the company tax rate.
• Fund it with an increase in the GST.

There is NO economic logic here …
(Balancing Act: Australia Between Recession and Renewal, Quarterly Essay, Issue 61, February 2016, p 27)


Josh Frydenberg (1971):
I was thinking yesterday, as [Jim Chalmers (1978)] was coming into the chamber — fresh from his ashram deep in the Himalayas, barefoot, robes flowing, incense burning, beads in one hand, wellbeing budget in the other — what would the yoga position be that the member for Rankin would assume?
(Hansard, 27 February 2020)

Labor and @JEChalmers want to replace responsible economic management with a yoga mat, beads and a “wellbeing budget”.
(26 February 2020)

[A "well-being" budget is] laughable …
Labor hasn't delivered a surplus since 1989 so it should surprise no one they're going to look around for some other way to measure economic output.
('Laughable': Josh Frydenberg rules out adopting Jacinda Ardern-inspired 'wellbeing budget', SBS News, 20 February 2020)


Peter Martin (1958):
In an important way, Chalmers first "wellbeing budget" will have more rigour than any of the budgets prepared by Frydenberg or any of his predecessors. …
Introducing measurables wouldn't be about supplanting GDP, but about including it along with other measures of prosperity as outcomes against which the budget could be assessed, along with measures of health, the environment, gender, children's welfare, and the welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
It would let us see whether we are making progress or going backwards on the environment … living standards, inequality, health and other things, and what the budget is doing about it.
(Why Labor's first 'wellbeing' budget will have more rigour than any before it, The Conversation, 19 July 2022)

Things To Be Afraid Of

Hell on Earth

How Not To Be Human

The Working Homeless

Well-being budget

Inflation Panic

Alan Kohler (1952):
Some people might … have to sell the house because they can't afford to make the repayments.
And god help them if they have to go and rent, because there's just no rental properties available and rents have gone up far more than interest rates have gone up.
Rents in Adelaide and Brisbane are up 13% to 14% in 12 months … that's if you can get a place.
(ABC News Daily, 5 October 2022)

Tax cuts funded by welfare cuts

Conservatives love tax cuts

Blowing the budget on $9,000 bonuses for the rich

Broken Promises

No Taxes, No Services

How civlized you want to be?

Richard Denniss:
[Out] of the 38 OECD nations, [Australia has] got the 10th lowest tax in the developed world [— $115 billion dollars per year less than the OECD average.]
[Tax] is the price [you] pay for a civilized society …

(Jeffrey Smart (1921 – 2013), Labyrinth, 2011)