4 ms·

Since you criticize Ardern's left-wing management, what countries and time periods can you point to in which a right-wing government massively improved quality

by smt88 8mo ago

Since you criticize Ardern's left-wing management, what countries and time periods can you point to in which a right-wing government massively improved quality of life? This would primarily mean higher wages, lower inflation, and general social well-being.

cturner 8mo ago
Howard/Costello era in Australia. Reagan 80s. Pinochet - fits your criteria. Arden is indefensible. She increased the size of government, decreased social cohesion via critical theory, housing promises went nowhere. Worse balance sheet, worse outcomes, across the board.
- fud101 8mo ago
  >Howard/Costello era in Australia. Reagan 80s. Pinochet - fits your criteria. Ok, no one really needed NBN and Howard didn't destroy the housing market completely to name just two lasting legacies of the Howard era. Lets not leave out GST either.
  - cturner 8mo ago
    If not a GST, what do you think was the appropriate reform to the indirect tax system?
    - cam_l 8mo ago
      Well for a start, he outright lied about the introduction of the GST. Not once, but twice. First that he would never introduce one, second that it would replace other sales taxes to simplify the system. Well, neither of those were true, and gst we got was used to cut taxes to the wealthy and as a bargaining chip to reduce the power of the states. It is inherently regressive, the implementation increases the tax burden on businesses, and it did't even raise enough revenue to allow them to simplify the tax system.
      - cturner 8mo ago
        For all your words, you have dodged the only question of my last post. By the late 80s, the wholesale sales tax was creaking at the seams. Toys were taxed at 24% but luxury goods at 0%. Also it was complex and expensive to administer. The wholesales sales tax was awful public policy. Keating knew the GST was good policy, but lacked the conviction to stand up to “jellyback” Hawke (Walsh’s characterisation) and his caucus for it. Keating had taken it to the Tax Summit as his preferred policy “Option C”. Lacking meaningful policies of his own, Keating won the 93 election on a platform of opposing the GST and could not engage in reform as a result. In the aftermath of the 93 election, Howard said never ever to a GST. Then, during government, cabinet and treasury looked at the indirect taxation mess and concluded that the GST was the optimal policy. They could have done several things at this point. They could have done nothing, and focused on holding onto power, as Keating had done. They could have dressed it up as a VAT. Or they could have just introduced it with their majority. Instead, Howard gave a speech where he plainly recognised that he had said never, and said he had made a mistake, and his conviction was it was the right policy. He then called an early election, in full knowledge that he was bad in the polls, and made the GST cause the centrepiece of that campaign. This was the greatest act of political courage and decency of our lifetime. They risked everything on that conviction. Costello then ran a meticulous publicity campaign in which he made not a single mistake to open ground to the rerun of the ALP scare campaign. Against those odds, the Coalition won the election and made the reform, which now has bipartisan support. But if you think there was a better reform to the indirect tax system available, let’s hear it.
        cam_l 8mo ago
        >This was the greatest act of political courage and decency of our lifetime. What a frighteningly hyperbolic thing to say. I think you have been watching too much sky news. It was a cynical play at retaining gov in the face of what was sure to be, and what was, a massive swing against the gov. Anyways, I already outlined the issues with the implementation of the tax. I don't need to repeat myself.
- squishington 8mo ago
  Howard era policies have strongly contributed to the housing problems in Australia today. His policies were short sighted.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- cam_l 8mo ago
  Howard may have talked a lot about decreasing the size of government, cutting red tape, and reducing legislation and the cost of government. But all these increased under his terms. Most of the early economic gain was due to the opening up of Australia in the nineties along with the floating of the dollar. Dude was a dog whistling neo con, so I never liked him. But what is really telling is that the shitshow that is the current Australian housing crisis was foretold and discussed at length in the late nineties when he introduced the changes to cgt and ng. He and everyone else knew what would happen even then with these changes. The liberal party thesis, openly discussed, was to prioritise legislation that would promote individualisation in order to break unions and get people to vote against their interests. Plenty written about the other two you mention. Maybe you should read some of it.
- cam_l 8mo ago
  and fuck.. pinochet? arden is indefensible, but you like pinochet? your barometer for a good right wing government improving the quality of life is an actual dictator who tortured and murdered thousands of people? and.. fuck pinochet.
dmitrygr 8mo ago
> and general social well-being. Your question was sane and sounded like it was genuine until that. That is an invisible goalpost that can be moved by the question-asker at will to negate any disliked answer, to allow one to create an illusion that no answer exists.
- smt88 8mo ago
  You think it's insane to consider social well-being? You don't want politicians to consider it at all? That makes you an extreme outlier, not me. Social well-being is quantifiable with things like: - all-cause mortality and disability rates - polls of government approval - consumer optimism - marriage rates (as distressed people are less likely to get married) - affordability
  - dmitrygr 8mo ago
    I think it is insane to name that as a benchmark with no details. That phrase could mean anything and nothing and everything.
    - smt88 8mo ago
      "Imprecise" != "insane" or "bad faith"
damnitbuilds 8mo ago
Left-wing or right-wing rulers are both problems. Like Ardern, they put pushing their stupid populist views to an ignorant electorate ahead of the harder job of making unpopular decisions to manage a country. When a populist Prime Minister outrageously states that they don't care about their country's economy, it is obvious what will happen to that economy under their rule. And it did. And then she left that country. Disgusting.
wahern 8mo ago
Chile. At least starting from the second decade onward Chilean growth significantly outpaced South America generally. Taiwan. South Korea. Many others. Generally, right-wing governments almost by definition tend to be more free market oriented relative to leftist governments, while leftist governments tend to be more populist. You can get alot of graft and corruption either way, but the path to growth and out of poverty, if you can get there at all, is generally more right-wing, certainly at least for developing economies. In poor countries, left-wing and right-wing, the rich hoard wealth, and they generally see the competition for wealth as a zero sum game. Leftism tends toward always seeing a zero-sum game, i.e. class struggle over a fixed pie. It's only certain strains of right-leaning governments that figure out you can grow the pie so rich and poor alike become wealthier. (Second-order inequality, i.e. growing wealth gap despite everybody becoming wealthier, is a thornier problem, but relatively recent in historical terms, and I'm not sure the old left/right dichotomy of political economy schools is useful here.) But relative to historical exemplars, I'm not sure any advanced economy can truly be called leftist, rhetoric notwithstanding. Full throated leftist governments end up like Venezuela. New Zealand is hardly leftist by comparison.
- lostlogin 8mo ago
  > leftist governments tend to be more populist. This might have been true once, it’s not true now.
- cturner 8mo ago
  > It's only certain strains of right-leaning governments that > figure out you can grow the pie so rich and poor alike become > wealthier. Credit to a few. Roger Douglas in New Zealand. Contemporary Peter Walsh in Australia, the Hawke finance minister, also got it. Keating somewhat got it, and put his neck on the line for politically-difficult but structurally-easy growth-pie macro reforms as treasurer, but did not follow through for the politically-difficult and structurally-hard reforms, like wholesale sales tax, and then became a fixed-pie prime minister. Walsh was gone by then.

by smt88 8mo ago

cturner 8mo ago

Howard/Costello era in Australia. Reagan 80s. Pinochet - fits your criteria. Arden is indefensible. She increased the size of government, decreased social cohesion via critical theory, housing promises went nowhere. Worse balance sheet, worse outcomes, across the board.

fud101 8mo ago
>Howard/Costello era in Australia. Reagan 80s. Pinochet - fits your criteria. Ok, no one really needed NBN and Howard didn't destroy the housing market completely to name just two lasting legacies of the Howard era. Lets not leave out GST either.
- cturner 8mo ago
  If not a GST, what do you think was the appropriate reform to the indirect tax system?
  - cam_l 8mo ago
    Well for a start, he outright lied about the introduction of the GST. Not once, but twice. First that he would never introduce one, second that it would replace other sales taxes to simplify the system. Well, neither of those were true, and gst we got was used to cut taxes to the wealthy and as a bargaining chip to reduce the power of the states. It is inherently regressive, the implementation increases the tax burden on businesses, and it did't even raise enough revenue to allow them to simplify the tax system.
    - cturner 8mo ago
      For all your words, you have dodged the only question of my last post. By the late 80s, the wholesale sales tax was creaking at the seams. Toys were taxed at 24% but luxury goods at 0%. Also it was complex and expensive to administer. The wholesales sales tax was awful public policy. Keating knew the GST was good policy, but lacked the conviction to stand up to “jellyback” Hawke (Walsh’s characterisation) and his caucus for it. Keating had taken it to the Tax Summit as his preferred policy “Option C”. Lacking meaningful policies of his own, Keating won the 93 election on a platform of opposing the GST and could not engage in reform as a result. In the aftermath of the 93 election, Howard said never ever to a GST. Then, during government, cabinet and treasury looked at the indirect taxation mess and concluded that the GST was the optimal policy. They could have done several things at this point. They could have done nothing, and focused on holding onto power, as Keating had done. They could have dressed it up as a VAT. Or they could have just introduced it with their majority. Instead, Howard gave a speech where he plainly recognised that he had said never, and said he had made a mistake, and his conviction was it was the right policy. He then called an early election, in full knowledge that he was bad in the polls, and made the GST cause the centrepiece of that campaign. This was the greatest act of political courage and decency of our lifetime. They risked everything on that conviction. Costello then ran a meticulous publicity campaign in which he made not a single mistake to open ground to the rerun of the ALP scare campaign. Against those odds, the Coalition won the election and made the reform, which now has bipartisan support. But if you think there was a better reform to the indirect tax system available, let’s hear it.
      - cam_l 8mo ago
        >This was the greatest act of political courage and decency of our lifetime. What a frighteningly hyperbolic thing to say. I think you have been watching too much sky news. It was a cynical play at retaining gov in the face of what was sure to be, and what was, a massive swing against the gov. Anyways, I already outlined the issues with the implementation of the tax. I don't need to repeat myself.
squishington 8mo ago
Howard era policies have strongly contributed to the housing problems in Australia today. His policies were short sighted.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
cam_l 8mo ago
Howard may have talked a lot about decreasing the size of government, cutting red tape, and reducing legislation and the cost of government. But all these increased under his terms. Most of the early economic gain was due to the opening up of Australia in the nineties along with the floating of the dollar. Dude was a dog whistling neo con, so I never liked him. But what is really telling is that the shitshow that is the current Australian housing crisis was foretold and discussed at length in the late nineties when he introduced the changes to cgt and ng. He and everyone else knew what would happen even then with these changes. The liberal party thesis, openly discussed, was to prioritise legislation that would promote individualisation in order to break unions and get people to vote against their interests. Plenty written about the other two you mention. Maybe you should read some of it.
cam_l 8mo ago
and fuck.. pinochet? arden is indefensible, but you like pinochet? your barometer for a good right wing government improving the quality of life is an actual dictator who tortured and murdered thousands of people? and.. fuck pinochet.

dmitrygr 8mo ago

> and general social well-being. Your question was sane and sounded like it was genuine until that. That is an invisible goalpost that can be moved by the question-asker at will to negate any disliked answer, to allow one to create an illusion that no answer exists.

smt88 8mo ago
You think it's insane to consider social well-being? You don't want politicians to consider it at all? That makes you an extreme outlier, not me. Social well-being is quantifiable with things like: - all-cause mortality and disability rates - polls of government approval - consumer optimism - marriage rates (as distressed people are less likely to get married) - affordability
- dmitrygr 8mo ago
  I think it is insane to name that as a benchmark with no details. That phrase could mean anything and nothing and everything.
  - smt88 8mo ago
    "Imprecise" != "insane" or "bad faith"

damnitbuilds 8mo ago

Left-wing or right-wing rulers are both problems. Like Ardern, they put pushing their stupid populist views to an ignorant electorate ahead of the harder job of making unpopular decisions to manage a country. When a populist Prime Minister outrageously states that they don't care about their country's economy, it is obvious what will happen to that economy under their rule. And it did. And then she left that country. Disgusting.

wahern 8mo ago

Chile. At least starting from the second decade onward Chilean growth significantly outpaced South America generally. Taiwan. South Korea. Many others. Generally, right-wing governments almost by definition tend to be more free market oriented relative to leftist governments, while leftist governments tend to be more populist. You can get alot of graft and corruption either way, but the path to growth and out of poverty, if you can get there at all, is generally more right-wing, certainly at least for developing economies. In poor countries, left-wing and right-wing, the rich hoard wealth, and they generally see the competition for wealth as a zero sum game. Leftism tends toward always seeing a zero-sum game, i.e. class struggle over a fixed pie. It's only certain strains of right-leaning governments that figure out you can grow the pie so rich and poor alike become wealthier. (Second-order inequality, i.e. growing wealth gap despite everybody becoming wealthier, is a thornier problem, but relatively recent in historical terms, and I'm not sure the old left/right dichotomy of political economy schools is useful here.) But relative to historical exemplars, I'm not sure any advanced economy can truly be called leftist, rhetoric notwithstanding. Full throated leftist governments end up like Venezuela. New Zealand is hardly leftist by comparison.

lostlogin 8mo ago
> leftist governments tend to be more populist. This might have been true once, it’s not true now.
cturner 8mo ago
> It's only certain strains of right-leaning governments that > figure out you can grow the pie so rich and poor alike become > wealthier. Credit to a few. Roger Douglas in New Zealand. Contemporary Peter Walsh in Australia, the Hawke finance minister, also got it. Keating somewhat got it, and put his neck on the line for politically-difficult but structurally-easy growth-pie macro reforms as treasurer, but did not follow through for the politically-difficult and structurally-hard reforms, like wholesale sales tax, and then became a fixed-pie prime minister. Walsh was gone by then.