Would the voting power of the oldies and a bit of fear from the youngies that Their turn will come, mitigate that? Let’s just say I don’t feel confident relying on it. Macfarlane certainly identified health care as an issue that has the potential to become contentious and divisive.

One thing I believe works against getting a more cost effective health care system is that the medical profession is a very powerful self interest group that has had a high degree of success in convincing the community that only very high standards as set by them are acceptable. (Of course the fact that Australia seems to have developed a mindset of Let’s sue the pants off them when they get it wrong doesn’t help either.)

But I can actually see the potential for improving the system overall by relaxing some of the very high standards. And looking for more cost effective and quite workable alternatives.

One very simple example: It makes no sense to me that highly qualified people like GPs probably spend 90% of their working day argeeing with people that they have an ailment that the person has just told the GP that they have. If we can’t find a way to improve on that, we just aren’t trying.

Our media is probably a significant part of the problem. They want to sell “newspapers” and while times have changed, people haven’t. People still revel in being told how hard done by they are and why they deserve more.

We do see a lot of incongruous stuff – Anectodal only (but from a bloke I’ve not known to tell a fib in the 35 odd years I’ve known him) – About a chap who runs a nice little “cash” business as a cleaner and even employs at least one other bloke. Whose long term lady is on the single mum’s pension. Between them, the chap and his lady probably don’t have an ounce of money management skills and will always be broke. Despite the fact that they presumably have a pretty good tax free income and a lifestyle that is heavily tax payer subsidised.

So from the other side of things, I can also understand people who are reasonably well off but know about that sort of stuff feeling a touch miffed on missing out on Rudd’s various freebies.

Barack Obama – About all I’d say is that as an American president he can be expected to do what he thinks is best for America. And as a politician he can be expected to execute those actions in ways that he thinks are likely to keep him and his in power.

America and a long period of decline – That fits pretty well with my general take on it that stagflation is a very likely outcome. But I continue to remember that the country has a huge amount going for it long term.

I also agree that handing out freebies just creates problems. I guess I might be a little “old school” in that I reckon you appreciate things more if you worked hard for them. If you believe you can live okay from handouts where is the incentive to work and learn new skills? Some people will of course always push to improve themselves and work hard but the fact is plenty of people will not.

I would like to see the nation create opportunities for people to advance themselves and where jobs are there for people who want them, not simply redistribute wealth because I think that creates the wrong environment in terms of driving people to succeed. Of course we need to look after people who cannot work or are unable though no fault of their own, to provide for themselves or their families.

So rather than any government getting into social engineering I would prefer they just managed the economy in such a way that jobs and opportunities were created. This should the focus of the government now, not on settling some old scores with the wealthy or big business etc.

Finally I have to say President Obama worries me a little, he is splashing around the cash but I wonder when U.S debt will be under control again or will his term be the one that tips the U.S. a long period of economic decline?

Without dwelling on all the obvious examples of people at the bottom looking up, some examples of the opposite we’ve seen recently in Australia is people who are reasonably well off looking at Rudd’s handouts and feeling just a touch miffed (or worse) because they don’t get any.

A chap with a PhD in his early 30s who described himself as “destroyed” when he found he was going to miss out on the $900 – He’d planned to put it towards his mortage. Admitedly the PhD was in media production or some such so he may have been a bit of a natural dramatist anyway? (And it was a media report rather than anyone I know personally.) But one example I do know of personally:

Someone earning maybe $200,000 pa in a secure job but with a spouse who “only” works part-time and four pretty expensive teenage children thinking that they deserve it to – And certainly could use it given their fairly high standard of living generally. And surely has paid their fair share of tax over the years. A fairly committed ALP supporter for what it is worth?

And another on a national level – An American who reckoned Barrick Obama was great at least partially because their impression was that Obama would re-distribute the nation’s wealth more equitably – But on being pressed as to what they thought about the prospect of China’s real per capita GDP just maybe going up over time while America’s went down, really didn’t warm to the idea at all.

Lots of perspectives is about all I can say. With people probably needing to try to be realistic. But it does point out the moral hazard that can come with doling out freebies to anyone.

I do think public hospitals are important of course and I am sure many people have had positive experiences with them, my point was that there should be “choice” and that having a viable private hospital system is the way to create that choice.

I agree with your point about the schools…there are a lot of issues nobody wants to deal with. It is a fact that some parents send their children to a private school simply to avoid going the the public schools in their area because of their poor reputations.

With Australia having an ageing population I would have thought that getting the health and hospital system right would be more of a priority. In the not too distant future this issue is really going to need to come into sharp focus.

The Government wants to take early action on something like climate change – action that will have no impact on global emissions or the environment – but it is not prepared to take early action in preparing the country for its changing demographics. What are going to be the impacts of something like this? Could this pose more of an immediate threat to our economy and way of life?

From what I can hear, one of the big issues in education is that the standards of the home tend to come into the school. Although no politician wants to hit that problem head on I imagine.

My personal experience of the private and public hospital systems is different to yours. I feel comfortable enough going public. Because I’ve mostly found it thorough and professional. Although stretched and no frills. Private health insurance was convenient for things where the public system would put a person on the back-burner though. But my expectations really aren’t too high when it comes to hospitalisation I think. Fix me and let me out when I’m up to it. I definitely found the private system was real keen to reclaim the bed for the next lucky chap on one occasion. I might have just hit them at a very bad time. But it didn’t leave a good impression of the quality of the service. It was just a bit too mercenary.

If people want to send their children to a private school where each kid is issued a pony how does it really hurt me? In fact it takes pressure away from the public school system and remember the parents that send their children to private schools still pay taxes, so they are still funding in effect the public school system.

As far the public hospital system is concerned all I can say is that my experiences with it mean that I would use my last dollar (almost) and crawl to a private hospital before I went anywhere near a public hospital. Many public hospitals are simply badly managed and I doubt that throwing more money at them will lead to long term improvements.

So why does the government want to force people towards a hospital system with systemic problems? Maybe they should first fix the problems, raise the standard of care and then worry about attacking private health care?

Then it just could be that Rudd inclines to the view that everyone should get the same service while Turnbull reckons if you can afford it you should be able to buy it? (They’d both have way more balanced positions than that I fully imagine but could be coming at it from different angles.)

With Rudd it might be useful to remember that we have a bloke who seems to have gotten a good dose of misfortune in his early life followed up by Whitlam as a bit of a saviour regarding his education. Pretty much a social democrat waiting to be reborn perhaps?

None of that actually addresses the problems that are presumably coming in Oz health care though.

I just had an evil thought regarding politicians. Maybe we are coming at it from the wrong slant, as in rather than reserve the right to vote them out, the job should be a life sentence with annual KPIs we vote on, and failure to meet target results in 10 strokes of the rattan plus halving of salary or some such. With the only way of getting out of the job being to successfully meet all KPIs for a decade. Let them stay there until they get it right! (The Marquis de Sade would be proud of me – Smile.)

Plus they are “proud” that the following three projects are going ahead: A new art gallery, a learning centre (tricked if I know what that is?) and a library. We’ve also got “streetscaping” happening. And we are going to investigate putting in “a multi-story commercial development” in an existing economic hub. All such things being described as a “council-driven stimulus plan” – So the rates payers get to pay for it of course.

I am informed that these initiatives will “help build business confidence”, “provide a catalyst for urban renewal”, “create a thriving cultural hub”, “breathe new life into” an “historical heart”, “help attract additional business activities”, be “a visitor attraction”, make things look pretty etc, etc, etc plus “encourage employment opportunities” of course.

Hmmm … While I’m sitting here considering whether to drop my house insurance or not – The contents insurance is long gone. As is my private medical insurance. And a fair few other things. I’ll never make it as a Keynsian economist of course. I’m obviously an Austrian born and bred. (Sometimes I consider if I’m Ebeneezar Scrooge reincarnate? Nah, these blokes just love debt – Leastways when someone else is paying for it – And I don’t.)

Never mind, I’ll hang around until I see the outcome of Ken Henry’s tax review – With its focus on economic, social and environmental capability building. But if I don’t like that, I’ll have to look for friendlier economic climes and leave dear little Oz to sort out it’s debt and give it’s citizens lots of social and environmental capabilities without me.

No point whinging to any of the incumbents. The difference between them and the opposition is too negligible to be of consequence.

There’s jobs that are productive and worthwhile and others that are just fluff. I’m not big on paying for the fluff ones. Which is why I would have liked to have seen a lot more evidence of some thought having gone into what the stimulus monies would be spent on as well.

I think their haste in introducing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is once again more driven by ideology then facts and science.

There are more pressing matters to deal with first such as this current economic situation.

You can’t have a budget trying to sustain jobs on one hand and a policy that is going to hurt jobs and an entire industry on the other. All this right at the time when unemployment is rising. It just does not make sense to me.

I also do not like seeing a budget being used in a sneaky way to implement social policy. The first priority should be to support the economy not for Labor to try and settle some old scores by attacking things like private healthcare and employee share schemes.

Rudd would argue the ROI is jobs saved/created I guess while we are in a holding pattern waiting to see where the world goes. That’s fine – I like jobs too.

What I don’t like is being fibbed to about multi-year 4.5% growth projections for Oz after the world comes out of recession to help Kev balance his books mid term. There are only two ways that can happen for mine: Either a) world governments fail to stave off a bust and we are recovering from a lot lower level than Kev is presumably assuming (which won’t be good for his books anyway – not that I’ve seen them so that is purely speculative) or b) we get some pretty big time inflation happening world wide which is a bit scary in itself – High inflation never ends well and it is surely no guarantee of growth and genuine job creation anyway. As I’ve said before it is starting to sound a lot like stagflation to me – For Oz at least.

Why would Kev be cooking the books? Well, he does have an election to face some time next year and a lot of frightened voters will choose to believe him rather than reality if reality is sounding too scary I think.