weststigers
Well-known member
What you illude to, which I agree with, in a slightly different way, is your mention of dividends back to the public purse.Do you like modern hospitals & a great health service? Do you like to drive on well maintained roads & highways? Do you think we should have an equitable, safe, dignified Aged Care Service? Child Care Services? Do you think we should have modern up to date infrastructure that enables business to operate more efficiently with greater profitability? Do you believe we should have a world class education system to provide a world class workforce?
These things don't grow on trees. Tax isn't a dirty word.
Power was a lot cheaper, employed more workers, was more unionised, better maintained and returned dividends to government (thus to the budget to spend on better services) prior to privatisation.
Like power generation/transmission, just about ANY previously publically owned, dividend returning asset you can name that has been privatised has ended up costing consumers more, for a less well maintained service with job losses & profit prioritised over customer service.
I can't think of any previous dividend earning public asset being cheaper for consumers or providing a better, well maintained service once privatised in my nearly 60 years on this planet.
This doesn't need to be achieved by making every aspect of society publically owned.
We can invest money into a soveriegn wealth fund which returns dividends, or revenue, to use a better term to pay for these things.
What is clear, with say, healthcare, or aged care as you mention is the system worked when we had a younger population. The workers paid in to cover a smaller ageing population.
Today, our population is far older and the burden on the tax payer, as a percentage is far higher. We try to solve this by pumping up tax revenues through immigration. The untold story is that it has had a major impact on housing demand and prices, locking out a generation of people to the housing market.
Investing in a soverign wealth fund means the tax payer invests that dollar once and it provides a return. Today, we spend everything we get and borrow to cover the shortfall. You're heading for disaster if you do this in your own home and you're headed for disaster if you do this with your country.
Tax, frankly is a dirty word especially when it's wasted. Not all, but a lot of money is frittered. It would be nice if governments respected how hard we worked for it and tried to get us a return rather than spending the lot.