knockoff nige

Ignoring the 42% he thought he was entitled to. Ignoring the below inflation increase he eventually ok'd for public servants. Headuphizass is a word I would use to describe him.

paulry

It's easy to blame the tories for damaging the UK but we all know it was labour who presided over it all


No I dont.

Well, given that a senior employee for a medium sized company can easily earn a third of that income then I would consider for someone who's running a state the size of a good sized country, $380k is about right.

Here you go then: the non-Mormon version.

knockoff nige

If he wants a comparable salary to a private job, he should be working in the private sector where his ego won't cost tax payers money. The lower income earners in such a company can then decide whether to have him as a leader or not. Plus his head would be on the line more if he didn't deliver results year on year. Not so when in government. His position is safe for three years and his pension is locked in for life, available to him before you'll be eligible for yours.

Yeah, the guys been slumming it.

GarryP

From bad to worse!

An "Ayn Rand is wonderful" site.
Her followers are even more deluded than the mormons !

Interestingly even this makes my previous point (before going off to la la land) - that communism(far left) and fascism(far right) are aspects of the same power grab culture. As I said, wouldn't it be good if you could contrast your own far right ideology with, say, social democratic approaches? Or even true liberal approaches? After all, its usually policies to the right of these that you are usually railing against.

paulry

nice icon!

Nice try to discredit it and the Mormon paper (I suppose there's not much else that you can do is there?) because their core assertion that fascism and communism, AKA socialism are both chips out of the same nasty ideological block. As you'll no doubt know, but if you look closely you'll see they share many common characteristics.

Ouch, I bet the truth hurts!

GarryP

Err, that's what I've been saying. The authoritarian, screw the people, nasty ideological block that you and the communists both partake in are bed fellows. It's the social democratic/true liberal block that are the real alternative to your 'f**k the people' ideology.

I think the thing that you may be missing is your 'free market' phasing actually means corporatism and money running rough shod over the people - really, who cares if they are out of work, it's their fault, not the billionaire that moved the work to a dictatorial hell hole to put another zero on his net worth. Your mates on the far right that made it possible.

The 'lib'ertarians are even worse - in their rush to be 'free' they seem not to understand that their world makes them slaves to those with power and money - with no recourse, no control. The original useful idiots.

paulry

So now you are saying you and the labour party are not socialists?

GarryP

Look at their policy position :Nope, of course they aren't. Both the UK Labour and Oz Labor parties are social democrat at most, personally I'd put Oz Labor as slightly right wing.

As for me, never have been on the socialist end of things - and in fact don't really play with any of those ideologies (when you get ideology you stop thinking). Think of me as looking on at that left<>right split from a different dimension....

Amazulu

looks like a duck
quacks like a duck
walks like a duck

It's a duck

Blair, Brown, Gillard, Rudd, Miliband - all socialist. Champagne socialists (socialism for everyone else but themselves) for sure, but socialists none the less

paulry

Yes, absolutely, without a doubt, it's a duck

BadgeIsBack

If Facism and true socialism (define exactly what this is) is evil and the middle ground of the Free Market is also corrupt I am not sure where this entire experiment is going.

As I've said before - apart from superior living standards for many in the West I am not sure we are progressing. I say that reluctantly because I am not really one who looks to solve the world's problems. I think globalisation is the thing that is changing us - and whilst the economy will always grow it will be at the expense of some group. Meanwhile most of us will fool ourselves that we are happy. We are seeing the growth of the middle classes but the middle classes are still alienated - just in different ways. (I'm drawing from Marx now he he). Where is Zen? He would say that just because we have access to 100 types of pasta doesn't mean we have progress. I think in some ways we would be better off rolling back all this progress because when a man owned no property but had some part of his common land he was probably happier...

What makes me laugh is that my own politics are naturally conservative - and socially more so - but not necessarily right wing per se. I joke that I am a 19th century Liberal - someone with a conscience but I am for 'trade'. My grandfather used to say I was basically a 'Whig'.

I suppose noone has got a true Social Democrat existence apart from the Scandinavian nations - and that is all paid for by high taxes.

GarryP

Err, who said that?

I said communism and facism end up at the same place because they valued the state over the people - but many would say that communism wasn't socialism anyway precisely because of that. The free market is anything but - it costs.

Basic problems with the status quo of this left<>right model, as I see it:

• Money is king. Everything revolves around it, yet it's amoral, greed centric, and valueless in the final accounting. No wonder things get screwed up.
• Ideologies tend to drive behaviours, such that the answer is always one thing, and one thing is the answer to all. 5 seconds thought should show that this isn't true - but somehow nobody seems to give those 5 seconds.
• Democracy is a nice aim, but we've never had it and probably never should.
• Finite, sustainable, resilient, independent - these should be key driving forces; yet few really give them the attention they need - left and right both seem to actively work against them.
• The things that make us good human beings, as well as happy, are orthogonal to the political discussion - so what's the point of it in the end? Not fit for purpose, as its defined.
• They are resolutely focused on the past, at least 100 years old. Of course they are wrong for today - that world no longer exists.

As I've said before, I don't hold with the right OR the left.

BadgeIsBack

I see the middle ground in the Uk as parties who tender for contracts: the contract to run the country.
Labour wanted a job so gave up the old in the 80s. Blair is not even a champagne socialist he is a member of the metropolitan elite: that is my new word for the month.

Labour in Australia has to reckon with the battler unions: so are truer to form but they are the same.

If I am not mistaken Aus politicians get paid a fortune: surely more than their UK counterparts? Not so long ago even the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on just over GBP100k...could be wrong.

BadgeIsBack

Noone...I was shamelessly hijacking the discussion and sort of interpolating and driving the discussion in an excuse to mouth off myself. I sort of agree with you from a practical point of view that left and right are 'the same' and wanted to say the middle ground is having an identity crisis....

Swerv-o

No, you're absolutely right. It amazes me that the premier of QLD, with it's vast population of just over 4.5 million, and practically no national/international responsibilities, earns $110k more than the PM of the UK, with it's 60 million population, armed forces, (including nuclear deterrence) and portfolio of international obligations.

How is that even remotely justifiable?


S