Thursday 4 April 2013

The government is planning to

raid the superannuation funds. Of course they are making all sorts of claims about only doing it to the "fabulously wealthy" and that this is only "fair" and that the poor are paying for the rich. All the usual arguments are being trotted out by a government that has spent far more than it should - and has little to show for it, indeed which has wasted a great deal of it.
Now I am not sure that the "other side" would have been much better - or that they will be if they get into office. 
I do think they should leave superannuation alone. After all it has been taxed and the money is not just sitting in the bank. It is being used to help the economy grow in other ways. It employs people. They pay taxes. I am sure you get the general idea.
What puzzles me sometimes is the things that governments do and do not spend money on. There were those strange research projects I mentioned on this blog the other day. There are other projects that really don't seem to add up - roads to nowhere, bridges to nowhere, new buildings that remain empty, land cleared for projects that were never granted funds, equipment which is out of date before it is bought and not able to be used because spare parts will never be available.  
It turns out that one of our car manufacturers has had over a billion dollars worth of government money in the past decade. The government has made all sorts of claims about this, about how many people the industry employs, about how Australians want a good Australian made car etc. They have also handed out money to other car manufacturers as well.  Much of that has to do with keeping the unions happy. The car manufacturing sector is still heavily unionised.
They have not handed out the same sort of money to all other manufacturing areas. We have been steadily losing manufacturing capacity overseas for years. We send raw materials off-shore and buy back the worst of clothing and yarn and household goods made by cheap Asian labour. "We have to do it if we want these countries as trading partners," they tell us. Actually we don't. We don't have to accept shoddy, second rate goods at incredibly inflated prices but we do. 
Rather than raid superannuation funds, something which amounts to theft, perhaps the government could question why a pair of trousers made for less than $5 in China retails here for more than $100.  I doubt they will do that though. I am told I do not understand the way international business is done and why it is necessary to do it in the way it is done.
Actually I think I understand it all too well. Slave like labour is used to produce items we are told we want. We buy them because alternatives are not available at a price we can afford. If we were allowed to buy good quality we would not consume enough. Some people would not become fabulously wealthy. 
The problem is that these truly fabulously wealthy individuals do not have superannuation investments. They invest elsewhere. They pay very little tax - and almost none (if any) in this country. 
The government needs to raid them first - but it won't.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The money in super funds is used to create jobs now, and save government expenditure in the future with people funding their own retirement. The more money taken from super funds the more financial support people will need later.