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[Beaniedude]

Oh boy, an eight week election campaign.
This will be fun.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

It sounds like you're ideologically against this but can't back it up with proof so you're lashing out. Lay off the stupid ad hominems.

Then lay off the ideological drivel. Maybe you like Workchoices™ back again?

It sounds good. There's a reason ACOSS is for it. You know, that well known bastion of free market thinking.

I think it was Sweden that implemented a similar program with great success.



The thing to understand is that they're either employed at below a livable wage or totally unemployed. Employing them below a livable wage allows them to get skills to barter for a higher wage. There's no reason we can't supplement their income with welfare while also giving them employment to better their skills.

Actually they are not employed.
That's why they won't get workers compensation. It's just cheap labour that people can be forced onto while they're trying to look for jobs just so they can get a paltry welfare handout. How did that green army BS work out?

 

[roosters93]

I think it was Sweden that implemented a similar program with great success.

Sweden also has high social security, high taxes, etc.
Pulling one particular economic aspect of Sweden's out of context doesn't really carry weight when we lack the other social economic infrastructure that would have allowed that program to go on to great success if it is as you say

 

[darkace]

Then lay off the ideological drivel. Maybe you like Workchoices™ back again?

Literally nothing I've written is ideological. It's just basic economics. Economics 101, if you will. Are you ideologically against science?

And na, not a huge fan of WorkChoices. It wasn't literally the devil but it did go too far.

Actually they are not employed.

Yes, they are.

That's why they won't get workers compensation. It's just cheap labour that people can be forced onto while they're trying to look for jobs just so they can get a paltry welfare handout. How did that green army BS work out?

Dunno, haven't looked into it. Also don't really care, this isn't it. This particular thing is something you have a choice with. Nobody with the requisite skills to find employment will need it. It's purely a way of moving low-skill labour into still-low-but-with-marketable-skills-labour.

Again, there's a reason ACOSS is for it. There's a reason Scandinavian countries have used it. It's just a way of reducing structural unemployment.

Sweden also has high social security, high taxes, etc.
Pulling one particular economic aspect of Sweden's out of context doesn't really carry weight when we lack the other social economic infrastructure that would have allowed that program to go on to great success if it is as you say

Never said it would be a great success, it'll have a minor impact on our unemployment rate. There's also no reason why we can't supplement their below livable-wage income with payments. Which is what we're doing.

 

[HowZatOZ]

How about we actually have politicians give a shit about green energy and the fact it is so profitable. If we had smart politicians in power they would have pushed green energy as the mining boom was coming to a close, instead we had Abbott claiming coal is the greatest thing to ever grace our Earth and is totally not killing our planet.

 

[Elaugaufein]

@darkace
Firstly sorry if you feel dogpiled but I don't want to seem to be just brushing you off either.

But are these skills actually marketable in practise ? a) They tend to be very simple skills, that are easy to learn, to start with (which is why companies are willing to employ people without these skills in those positions at all) and b) You may now possess these skills but you're also now competing against someone without those skills (but who can quickly learn them because a)) and who from the perspective of the business is working for a negative wage (since the government is not only paying the whole thing , they are paying you to employ those people).

 

[darkace]

@darkace
Firstly sorry if you feel dogpiled but I don't want to seem to be just brushing you off either.

Heh, that's fine. I tried Reddit for a bit because the Australian sub is actually active but I stopped after all my posts were shat on by fourteen year old marxists with no idea what they're talking about. And I was banned for calling them all idiots.

This is nothing compared to that. There are a few people on the left and right here with their heads actually screwed on, which is a nice change.

But are these skills actually marketable in practise ? a) They tend to be very simple skills, that are easy to learn, to start with (which is why companies are willing to employ people without these skills in those positions at all)

We're talking about just showing anything on the resume at all. Just having held a job or showing you're willing to show up is a big bonus in a competitive entry-level market. That meme of needing entry level experience for an entry level job is real. Employers are much more likely to hire people with some experience. And that experience leads to more experience, which is the whole idea of it.

There are better ways of achieving what Turnbull is trying to, but they're politically impossible (e.g. removing the minimum wage and penalty rates and then implementing a negative income tax. I love this one but it's never happening). This will have problems (e.g. subsidised labour crowding out legitimate private employment, as you've alluded to), but the other nations that have tried this have shown pretty good results. Unless the Turnbull government goes seriously overboard with this I can't see it being a net negative. It will also only impact entry-level jobs, nobody paying more than minimum wage will be able to use it as no workers would ever go for it.

I'm not saying it's a perfect policy, but it's a damn sight better than allowing a whole bunch of people without marketable skills sit on welfare without being able to gain access to the labour market through no fault of their own.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Just saw a positive Liberal ad by the way @Rubixcuba . So you can look forward to it. Haven't seen any Labor ads at all but not really expecting to get a lot since we've got Sat TV here, which means that demographically speaking it's probably an enormous waste of money to splurge on it.

 

[bobnowhere]

Just saw a positive Liberal ad by the way @Rubixcuba . So you can look forward to it. Haven't seen any Labor ads at all but not really expecting to get a lot since we've got Sat TV here, which means that demographically speaking it's probably an enormous waste of money to splurge on it.

I just saw one from both back-to-back. The Mike Baird carbon copy positive one from the Libs and one promising 100 new policies from the labor party. That one was a little less professional but was banging on about fairness. To be fair, the adds aren't aimed at the ACT, they are probably aimed at Eden-Monaro all around us.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I just saw one from both back-to-back. The Mike Baird carbon copy positive one from the Libs and one promising 100 new policies from the labor party. That one was a little less professional but was banging on about fairness. To be fair, the adds aren't aimed at the ACT, they are probably aimed at Eden-Monaro all around us.

Yeah, the Liberals aren't exactly likely to win the ACT (ever), let alone at an election like this where it's looking to be super close so I can't see them meaning to spend money on you guys.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Yeah, the Liberals aren't exactly likely to win the ACT (ever), let alone at an election like this where it's looking to be super close so I can't see them meaning to spend money on you guys.

They did win it in the 70s.
Liberal internal polling has Eden-Monaro at a loss. If they keep it it'll be a miracle.
But the ALP ad looks like a Coles ad. K-I-S-S.

 

[D.Lo]

Liberal ad:

Plan strong plan strong plan strong plan economy strong plan we have a plan it is strong.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

I'm not saying it's a perfect policy, but it's a damn sight better than allowing a whole bunch of people without marketable skills sit on welfare without being able to gain access to the labour market through no fault of their own.

If you sincerely think this is true then you are deluded.
Wage and penalty rates aren't stopping unskilled people from getting employment.

 

[darkace]

If you sincerely think this is true then you are deluded.
Wage and penalty rates aren't stopping unskilled people from getting employment.

Great, lets put the minimum wage up to a hundred dollars. This will have no impact on employment and make everyone rich.

What is stopping people from getting employment?

 

[Jintor]

very soon it'll be below minimum wage interns you can churn through for $1000 a pop taking the roles actual jobs should go to

i kid, i kid.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Just saw the Labor ad, gotta say at least some of those 100 positive policies are actually negative.

Also Vote Compass does kind of suck this year, way to many of these questions are far to ambiguous (eg I don't agree with legislated Gender Quota's for the House or Senate to increase MP representation but I'm perfectly fine (even supportive) of parties choosing to do so internally and I don't object to legislating temporary quota's for party selection) and several questions are similar ambiguous (so I may strongly agree or disagree based on information they aren't providing or because I'm interpreting the question differently).

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Great, lets put the minimum wage up to a hundred dollars. This will have no impact on employment and make everyone rich.

What is stopping people from getting employment?

Hmm, let me see...

...people without marketable skills...

...without marketable skills...

...marketable skills...

Huh?

Oh I know. Instead of putting money into training and education (which has been gutted by the coalition) let's make them work for $4 an hour instead of them trying to find jobs or get training. Just like the Abbott's green army corps scheme it'll be a flop.
What skills are they going to learn? Nothing that they can sell. Noone's going to give a job to a LTU because they stacked shelves at Woolies.
And lets not forget that this isn't a voluntary scheme. If your case manager says you have to work, guess what. You have to work.
And if you had of followed the kerfuffle this week the scheme in the legislation as it is before parliament does not give these people a status of employed.
they are still unemployed. If they get injured or hurt, tough. They've said "oh, that's an oversight, we'll add that later" but who would trust these bastards?

 

[bobnowhere]

David Johnson, the ex defence minister who said he wouldn't trust the ASC to build a canoe has been relegated to 6th on the Coalition senate ticket in the WA. With the Coalition unlikely to win 6 anywhere and Labor's strong rebound in WA he is gonski. He was one of Julie Bishop's chief supporters and it is being seen as Julie losing influence in the party.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I seem to exist to break Vote Compass in strange and subtle ways, as usual it puts me somewhere between Labor and the Greens on the compass but closer to Labor, but I agree more with the Greens policies more often. I feel special.

 

[darkace]

Hmm, let me see...




Huh?

Oh I know. Instead of putting money into training and education (which has been gutted by the coalition) let's make them work for $4 an hour instead of them trying to find jobs or get training. Just like the Abbott's green army corps scheme it'll be a flop.
What skills are they going to learn? Nothing that they can sell. Noone's going to give a job to a LTU because they stacked shelves at Woolies.
And lets not forget that this isn't a voluntary scheme. If your case manager says you have to work, guess what. You have to work.
And if you had of followed the kerfuffle this week the scheme in the legislation as it is before parliament does not give these people a status of employed.
they are still unemployed. If they get injured or hurt, tough. They've said "oh, that's an oversight, we'll add that later" but who would trust these bastards?

You're only looking at one side of the problem, which is education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_product_of_labor

This is what wages are derived from. The marginal product of someones labour is almost always below the minimum wage in minimum wage jobs. If it is below the minimum wage then this will result in both structural unemployment and a market in which the employer has disproportional power as supply of labour will outpace demand.

The way to solve this is to increase peoples marginal product. There are two ways of doing this, increasing their skills through education, or increasing their skills through experience. We could educate everybody, but not everyone is for this. The other way is to remove barriers for employers.

That is what this does.

You're literally arguing we should increase marketable skills and then saying that experience doesn't provide a marketable skill. That's ridiculous.

If they are unemployed then they're also eligible for further wage subsidisation, which is a good thing. Should they be employed, technically? Yes. But the way that this is done means they can live on the below-living wage while still being able to live.

 

[Candescence]

Quite frankly, youth unemployment (and unemployment in general) is a structural problem that is not going away anytime soon, and if anything, it's gonna get worse for those with lower-level skills with automation greatly improving and businesses using automation more and more. We're gonna have to accept that an economy with a big chunk of the populace either not willing nor able to do 'traditional' work is going to be an inevitability. That being said, by the same token, we're also going to see resources that people need to survive lose any functional form of scarcity, especially food. Which will come first and whether climate change will render the question entirely moot (because we'll be all dead) are two different matters entirely. Better education will help a lot until we reach that unavoidable stage, of course, but we can't put off solutions to said inevitable stage.

A Universal Basic Income would be far better in the long run than anything else to address this structural problem, but many see it as political suicide at the moment despite the idea coming back into mainstream political discussions and actually has appeal on both sides of the political spectrum for different reasons (the left likes it because it addresses the inequality issue and raises the economic floor, some in the right like it because it reduces the size of government through eliminating the need for most of the bureaucracy of regular welfare systems). It would also have the side-effect of making it a lot easier for people working in fields of much less obvious/immediate economic value, such as artists/creators and such to get by.

 

[seanoff]

I'd like to see a govt of either side that had a pair but that wont happen

a lot of them. who i work with BTW, are only in it for the politics. read the bios, they come out of uni, work for a member of parliament, move up the chain, end up in a ministers office.then get preselected and end up an MP. yay fuckers have no actual experience except playing politics

find the Henry tax review. read it weep. its a fantastic document and a great plan. but it doesnt fit either sides agenda and its too hard. so we get playing on the edge which does nothing.

same for everything else important. if its not politcally expedient it cant be done

both sides suck for different reasons.

 

[bobnowhere]

Being bored I went through all the other nominations for the coming election, interesting stuff:

• The first 3 on the coalition ticket for NSW are female while none of the 6 are female in Tasmania.
• Andrew Bartlett ex Democrat leader has joined the Greens and is running in QLD.
• Angry Anderson is 2nd on the ticket for the ALA (Australian Liberty Alliance) aka The Q-Society or Reform Australia or the nastiest bunch of racists around.
• Derryn Hinch running in Victoria probably so he can name pedophiles under parliamentary privilege.
• John Madigan has formed a new party called the Manufacturing and Farming Party, might get zero votes.
• General Jim Molan the architect of the boat policy will be elected in NSW for the coalition.
  

 

[Window]

I think the minimum wage partially exists because the idea that wages = marginal revenue product (more directly relevant to the conversation than marginal product of labour) is too simplistic. There are a lot of factors which affect wage determination leading to different outcomes (see the efficiency wage theory) and I think the minimum wage acts as a benchmark set by the govt to assist in arriving at an equitable and (close to) efficient rate.

First time in my life that I am eligible to vote! Excited.

 

[Arksy]

I liked it better when I was the only right winger. D:

 

[darkace]

I still can't believe Rudd didn't go through with the massive simplification of the tax system that the Henry review proposed. Not even raising taxes, just remove the shitload of minor, inefficient taxes that provided no major public good or revenue. It would have been good, bi-partisan policy that cost them next to no political capital for a moderate long-term gain. Instead the idiot blind-sided the major mining companies with a mining tax that was clearly designed to pick a fight rather than to be good policy.

Fuck I hate Rudd. Even his handling of the GFC can't make up for wasting the major chance to act on climate change, wasting the Henry Tax Review and giving us Abbott.

Also I'm not right wing

And you're right @window. It's very simplistic, I was just giving a broad overview.

Obviously MW and penalty wages don't create huge structural unemployment, and most studies find mild-to-no structural unemployment effects from mild raises. But that's among the broad population. I was talking specifically about the low-skilled, who are disproportionately affected by it. And they absolutely affect bargaining power by distorting supply and demand.

 

[bobnowhere]

I still can't believe Rudd didn't go through with the massive simplification of the tax system that the Henry review proposed. Not even raising taxes, just remove the shitload of minor, inefficient taxes that provided no major public good or revenue. It would have been good, bi-partisan policy that cost them next to no political capital for a moderate long-term gain. Instead the idiot blind-sided the major mining companies with a mining tax that was clearly designed to pick a fight rather than to be good policy.

Fuck I hate Rudd. Even his handling of the GFC can't make up for wasting the major chance to act on climate change, wasting the Henry Tax Review and giving us Abbott.

Also I'm not right wing

Liiberal to win

I prefer Abbott over Turnbull but there is no way I will ever vote for Labor and Shorten

I think this guy might be! That or he is Tony Abbott or possibly Kevin Andrews.


Rudd was a strange one. I suspect his narcissism and obsessive populism took over once in office and he junked everything that wouldn't bathe him in the glorious light of public adoration. Then once he royally fucked up his climate change policy he was so mired in indecision that his demise was inevitable. I imagine if he'd gone to a DD then he might still be PM now and Tony Abbott would just be a strange bloke pottering about on the back bench, oh wait...

 

[30yearsofhurt]

You're only looking at one side of the problem, which is education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_product_of_labor

This is what wages are derived from. The marginal product of someones labour is almost always below the minimum wage in minimum wage jobs. If it is below the minimum wage then this will result in both structural unemployment and a market in which the bla bla bla bla drivel drivel drivel.

Oh boy. I was right. You really have done economics 101 and think that basic economic theory explains everything about the labour markets in Australia today.
Thanks for the economics lesson. We other economics graduates must be so stupid and ignorant. We must have all been asleep during first year to not know about marginal productivity. We so stoopid.

The way to solve this is to increase peoples marginal product. There are two ways of doing this, increasing their skills through education, or increasing their skills through experience. We could educate everybody, but not everyone is for this.

You're increasing experience in performing unskilled work. That doesn't increase your productivity.

The other way is to remove barriers for employers.

That is what this does.

Yes it makes it easier to replace employees with unpaid grunts on welfare where employers don't carry any can in liability for providing a safe work environment.

Who wins and loses in this? This is basic economics buddy.
The employer wins. Free labour. No responsibility or cost.
The person they would have had to employ loses.
The person who could be looking for a job is forced to work eight hours a day for the same amount. Not more than the dole. The same fucking amount. Well they lose.
They could have some marketable skill but if their case manager says you have to work, tough luck. They don't even have to be LTU.

You're literally arguing we should increase marketable skills and then saying that experience doesn't provide a marketable skill. That's ridiculous.

Yeah why should we be educating people. that's a bad idea eh?

 

[Arksy]

Also, I wish A More Normal Bird was still with us.

 

[darkace]

Oh boy. I was right. You really have done economics 101 and think that basic economic theory explains everything about the labour markets in Australia today.
Thanks for the economics lesson. We other economics graduates must be so stupid and ignorant. We must have all been asleep during first year to not know about marginal productivity. We so stoopid.

No, I was quoting it because you're arguing somehow that unskilled people getting skills won't help their employment opportunities. Obviously it doesn't explain everything. I don't understand how you've taken an economics class and can't realise how this will help. You're being blinded by ideology.

And given above that you argued minimum wages and penalty rates don't increase unemployment when that's literally econ 101, I don't think you've actually taken econ 101.

You're increasing experience in performing unskilled work. That doesn't increase your productivity.

Is this a joke? It doesn't matter how skilled the work is. If you're better at doing it, your productivity has risen.

If I could previously chop a carrot a minute, but can now chop two carrots a minute thanks to experience, my productivity has risen. Productivity gains come about through many ways, one of them is workers skills increasing. How can you possibly argue this? If you increase outputs for the same number of inputs, that's the literal definition of a productivity increase.

Not to mention that's not even the biggest factor. The biggest is signalling to potential employers, which is what many job seekers attain education for.

Yes it makes it easier to replace employees with unpaid grunts on welfare where employers don't carry any can in liability for providing a safe work environment.

Obviously this will have some crowding out effect. I may have even said this directly. It's a kaldor-hicks improvement.

Who wins and loses in this? This is basic economics buddy.
The employer wins. Free labour. No responsibility or cost.
The person they would have had to employ loses.
The person who could be looking for a job is forced to work eight hours a day for the same amount. Not more than the dole. The same fucking amount. Well they lose.
They could have some marketable skill but if their case manager says you have to work, tough luck. They don't even have to be LTU.

So your conclusion is to resign people that are low-skill, haven't gone into further education and haven't found a job to welfare? But also bitching about how they haven't found jobs because the jobs aren't available, mainly because of a structural mismatch that this goes a way towards addressing? Educating everyone isn't a valid answer, as numberous reports into our tertiary education system have found. At some point you have to look beyond merely increasing avenues to education.

Yeah why should we be educating people. that's a bad idea eh?

Yea man why don't we just blatantly misrepresent my position. Good on you. I get the feeling I'm wasting my time here.

Also what happened to a more normal bird? I saw his account get nuked but I wasn't around when it happened.

 

[Candescence]

Newspoll is up again, 51-49 towards Labor. The budget did absolutely nothing for the government aside from maybe preventing the polls from getting worse, which is not exactly comforting for them. I imagine the polls will hold for a bit then go back to deteriorating as the election drags on unless Turnbull comes up with something, but considering he can't do anything good without pissing off the right-wing, he's fucked.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Newspoll is up again, 51-49 towards Labor. The budget did absolutely nothing for the government aside from maybe preventing the polls from getting worse, which is not exactly comforting for them. I imagine the polls will hold for a bit then go back to deteriorating as the election drags on unless Turnbull comes up with something, but considering he can't do anything good without pissing off the right-wing, he's fucked.

The budget did absolutely nothing for anybody. It's just a litany of half arsed cost-cutting and totally unhelpful tax cuts.

 

[Elaugaufein]

It's primary purpose was to most definitely not shoot themselves in the foot like in 2014 while throwing some not to public outrage arising bones to high income earners and corporations and it succeeds admirably at that.

It's not going to be one of those budgets that go down in history as brilliantly foresighted and revolutionary but it's a solid budget for the circumstances they were in.

 

[bomma_man]

The problem I have with liberal employment policies is that there's a fundamental dishonesty about them. This isn't the worst, but generally they portray unemployment as an individual moral failure. But they don't want 0% unemployment, nobody does. 'Full' employment is about 4.5% iirc. They know that there will always be unemployed people, and they have no desire to change that. So why blame the individual that has no control?

 

[Fredescu]

I want a very fast train!

Cheaper just to buy a motorbike isn't it?

So why blame the individual that has no control?

Because that "resonates with voters" more than "roughly 4% of people will be looking for a job and any less is indicative of a problem". Also pushing the "tough love" barrow lets them justify helping their mates.

 

[SmartBase]

This election's parties and policies are like the movies in an episode of "Best of the Worst", they're all shit. Might just give the Greens a pity vote since my electorate's an eternal LNP quagmire.

 

[Fredescu]

This election's like an episode of "Best of the Worst", they're all shit.

It's kind of the underwhelming second season of that.

 

[Bernbaum]

The budget did absolutely nothing for anybody. It's just a litany of half arsed cost-cutting and totally unhelpful tax cuts.

I can't really sneeze at the changes to super. It's definitely used by people on high incomes as a tax shelter. I top up my super by salary sacrificing to just below the current threshold and I know plenty of other people that do exactly the same. I'll have to change that once the change clears parliament but I'm okay with it. If I have to pay income tax, then old rich people with lots of savings should pay tax too.

 

[legend166]

I don't know who to vote for. My political views are now so far out of align with any of the major parties I might have to try and find a smaller party to vote preference as 1.

 

[Rubixcuba]

The Daily Telegraph has joined the game.

 

[Aarglefarg]

The Daily Telegraph has joined the game.

I would like to think they couldn't convince anyone because they are so transparent, but obviously I would be wrong.

 

[Fredescu]

The Daily Telegraph has joined the game.

I thought that side loved a good war?

 

[Antiwhippy]

Yes, the Coalition sure showed how great they are at managing the economy these past few years didn't they?

Spoiler

Sarcasm, btw.

 

[Rubixcuba]

It'll be curious to see how hard Newscorp goes against Labor/Greens. The other media outlets are all on the fence going off their front pages and editorials. The Tele and that have been pretty critical of Turnbull?

Going to be a weeeeeeird election.

 

[Marky Mark]

At least with the election officially called we'll probably see the end of the stealth campaign ads on TERRORISM and INNOVATION that have taken over the airwaves for the last 2 weeks. The innovation ones at least aren't awful but the Terrorism ads are the kind of creepy paranoid distrust sowing sludge that makes me want to throw things at the TV.

His laptop has things about Isis and being a hero in Syria. ;(

 

[bomma_man]

Cheaper just to buy a motorbike isn't it?



Because that "resonates with voters" more than "roughly 4% of people will be looking for a job and any less is indicative of a problem". Also pushing the "tough love" barrow lets them justify helping their mates.

It was a rhetorical question

 

[Fredescu]

It was a rhetorical question

I was kinda riffing with you rather than presuming to answer you.

 

[bobnowhere]

Apart from the ridiculous nature of the Daily Terrorgraph I get the feeling that most of the media has already tuned out Turnbull's rhetoric. The whole "It's the most exciting time to be an Australian" is pretty much parody at this point.

 

[Fredescu]

Yeah, Turnbull is trying to be positive, but you can't sell papers without fear and divisiveness.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

I might just stick with Labor for House and Greens for the Senate. Unless the Sex Party gets resurrected.