Quote:
Originally Posted by JamieA
The scary thing is that I have often thought exactly the same thing.
I am not against helping people in need, and I am not against paying my fair share of taxes, as much as I don't enjoy it. But what riles me up is that the current social climate fostered by Labour is one of us and them, something I never experienced during the recent Liberal era. There is resentment against people who have done better and that is a bit rich, because they are happy to take our taxes, so why kick us in the teeth as a thank you.
Also this whole anti-capitalist sentiment conveniently glosses over the fact that those who have taken risks to develop businesses, or sacrificed to climb to a managerial position are those who create the job opportunities for these so called "working families". Shouldn't success then be celebrated, because through the success of entrepreneurs all our boats lift with the same tide, be it community engagement, the payment of taxes, the provision of jobs directly, or the spending of the capital that they have accumulated which creates jobs in secondary markets.
It amazes me that Sharon Burrow can stand in front of news cameras with a straight face and attempt to justify why awards should go up by 6%, reducing job opportunities for her members, when most managers are taking pay cuts, being retrenched or on salary freezes just to keep companies profitable, and to do their bit. All hot on the heels of their jubilation of the new workplace laws which will make the labour force more rigid and will create further unemployment. It seems to me that the union and Labour movements are really about being seen to do something, even if that ultimately means more jobless people amount their ranks because they feel that they have some imaginary score to settle with "the rich", which in actual fact is cutting off their noses to spite their face... I often worry that our recovery will be slower than it needed to be, and despair over what mess our children are going to be left to clean up after the debt binge morphs into the inevitable hangover...
There you go, enough soap box for a Friday evening...
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+1
Nice opus.
I totally agree with what you've said. As for the rationale behind this backward mentality, i think it all comes back to tall poppy syndrome. Which i believe stems all the way back a couple of hundred years to our convict settlers and the animosity they felt towards the british and those in power. Otherwise I can't think of a good way to rationalise it, as you don't get such an attitude anywhere else in the world.
As for the recovery, i think from some of the previous economic discussions i've participated in on here, i'm a bigger bear than most & don't think the whole Australian 'oh it can't happen here' mentality is going to get a rude wake up call in the next few years.
Love the unions & the related workplace laws, they just don't get it. But then again thier communist forefathers never got it either... So there probably isn't much point trying to debate with them... Kind of feels like waiting for the catholic church to apologise to Copernicus... they'll eventually come around, only about 400 years too late.