By: Dr Sam C

Dr Sam C — Sat, 29 Nov 2003 03:13:15 +0000

A very interesting and honest letter by an
Expatriate Aussie living in Hong Kong…
http://www.businessdaily.com.au/gottliebsen/message/letters080601.htm

By: Dr Sam C

Dr Sam C — Sat, 29 Nov 2003 02:47:23 +0000

Dear PM, John Howard,
Please read the webpage written by your Minister for Education,
Science and Training, Brendan Nelson…
Insulting Education Policy
http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Nelson/2003/09/n467220903.asp
The content of this “Education” policy is considered very insulting to the
intelligence of most University lecturers and academic staff… It has been
common knowledge that University funding has hardly increased over
the past decade in proportion to the growth of student enrolments. As a
full time lecturer for the past 5.5 years, I can tell you from experience that
most University staff members are overworked and being forced to teach
more students than they can handle… eg. Last year, I taught over 180
students per week for 3 subjects in one semester BY MYSELF without
the aid of additional tutors. It’s even worse this year, where I am in
charge of teaching over 220 students (and 50+ students in Malaysia)
by myself… on average, the workload on University lecturers has more
than DOUBLED in the past 10 years, and the words of your minister,
Brendan Nelson, are nothing but a “slap in the face” to hard-working
teachers and academics who wish to preserve their job security and
keep their salaries.
Basically, that new policy is “Union Busting” and aims to remove the
“representative” voice of the majority of academics in an attempt to
“improve efficiency”… (what an insult)… If you think ONE person teaching
220 students per week (sometimes even working as late as midnight
just to get assignments and exams prepared and marked on time)…
is NOT efficient enough, then all you politicians are totally out of touch
with reality and you just don’t know how hard it is to maintain high quality
education levels on our current “shoestring” University budget.
Deterioration of Quality of Education
Even local TAFE colleges are closing down practical courses in metal
work and fitting/turning (with industrial production machines), because
they simply can’t afford to keep maintaining & upgrading their machinery
due to the limited Government funding. Australia’s “value adding”
productivity only contributes to about 8% of our GDP (earnings), which is
the LOWEST performance for any of the OECD countries. It looks like
Australian “value adding” manufacturing is going to die out.
Why is it that government funding to Universities has not increased in the
last 8 years, despite the fact that the number of student enrolments have
more than doubled? This has created enormous pressure on teachers
and lecturers, as most of them are now unable to provide sufficient
help for struggling students let alone cope with the large numbers of
assignments and exams they must take home and mark. Personally, I
am solely responsible for teaching about 225 student engineers each
week! Another Civil Engineering friend is single-handedly teaching
approximately 320 students, yes, on his own! This forces him to allow
all students to pass his subject, without any assessments or feedback
on how they are performing during the semester. Would you trust one
of his students to design a suspension bridge that you will have to drive
your car over? (if he has not been examined and tested appropriately?)
Would you trust your life to a mechanical engineer who designed the
brakes of your car, if he hasn’t been tested and proven “fit” for the job
of designing machines safely and reliably?
Worsening Standards of Living in Australia
At least Aussies can keep educating themselves on how to renovate
their homes in 101+ ways, with the dozens of “home improvement”
shows on TV… so that they can sell their homes for rip-off prices and
the Reserve Bank can keep printing more money to back up over
inflated Home Loans issued by Banks. The real-estate bubble
can’t get any bigger, simply because there are not enough people with
high-enough earnings to keep houses growing in value… Selling houses
for double their value does NOTHING to improve the standard of living
in Australia. In fact, over-valued house prices and more money being
printed will lead to hyperinflation and a seriously depressed economy,
like that of the US. The truth is, over the years, there has been a gradual
decline and reduction in the availability and affordability of essential
infrastructure and hospital/education services to ordinary tax-payers.
There has also been a gradual reduction in manufacturing and value
adding activity in this country.
The Reason behind the Poverty
Many big-shot corporate executives (and politicians) seem obsessed
with getting as rich as possible and living lives of shameless luxury and
excessive pleasure-seeking, at the cost of hard-working people who do
not have much money to save due to the high costs of living in Australia.
Like I have told you in previous Emails, Australia is following the
disastrous course of “privatizing everything”, including all the tax-payer
owned assets and utilities companies… The US has done that with most
of it’s public infrasture already, and look at the complete mess the US is
in today! So many power station failures (because many privately owned
corporations are only concerned with making a quick buck and running
away with a lot of money, without investing money into infrastructure
upgrades/maintenance and repairs)… The Australian Government
should get away from selling away all of its assets (just for a quick buck),
because the new owners are only interested in profit (charging higher
prices to get rich quick, and putting in as little money as possible into
maintaining and/or improving their services). That’s why the US is in
such a big mess. The Enron Energy company collapsed, because its
director’s got too greedy. The same story goes for OneTel (here in
Australia), and even Ansett (which got abused by its Air New Zealand
owners). Whenever you have private owners involved, their main
motive for being there is NOT to improve services or reduce the cost of
such services, but to make a quick buck and abandon the company to
retire early, fat and rich, in the Bahamas.
Our government should NOT try to privatize (sell off) Universities and
other publicly owned assets (like airports, council bus services and
even Australia Post), because standards of service and value for money
have always worsened, here, and in similar cases overseas. What
next? Let’s sell off our High Schools, and maybe even the Police? Why
not privatize the Police Force, so that whoever can pay them the most
must be in the right, and Police can be paid to arrest anybody a rich man
doesn’t like. You see where it is leading? All this cost cutting and
privatization? It is simply destroying Australia’s standard of living and
making things more expensive for ordinary people to afford. The average
Australian spends upwards of 82% of his/her before-tax income on paying
for essential “costs of living”, such as rent/mortgage, car maintenance and
fuel (mainly used for going to/from work), and compulsory household bills
(phone, power, water, sewage, council garbage collection, emergency fire
and rescue levy), etc.
Let me give you a quick reality check Mr Howard. The Australian Burueau of
Statistics (ABS) reported last year that the AVERAGE Aussie taxpayer only
earns $31,500 per year (gross) before tax. (Remember, 50% of people
earn less than this)… Now let’s look at our cost of living with numbers:
COSTS OF LIVING PER YEAR FOR AN AVERAGE AUSSIE
$31,500 GROSS pay (before tax)
now from this, subtract all the following MINIMUM expenses:
- $5,800 (compulsory income tax)
- $6,000 (food expenses, breakfast, lunch & dinner for ONE person)
- $14,300 (mortgage on an average $200,000 house @ 6.1%pa )
- $600 (home & contents insurance for a $200,000 property)
- $1,000 (council rates)
- $4,000 (general household bills: telephone, power, water, sewage)
- $2,000 (car fuel to get to work – assuming only 1 car fully paid)
- $400 (comprehensive car insurance)
- $400 (car maintenance and repair – twice a year)
- $424 (3rd party compulsory insurance & 1 year car registration)
__________________
- $3424 EARNINGS
Yes, the AVERAGE Australian LOSES $3424 per year after their BASIC
costs of living are deducted. This does NOT include other costs such
as repayment for a car loan, entertainment, or even the occasional
holiday. Even if such an AVERAGE Australian does NOT have a house
mortgage to pay off, assuming an average weekly rent of $140 per week
($7280 per year) and no home insurance, that EARNINGS figure would
only be $4196, or about $4200 per year in DISPOSABLE INCOME,
which that person can save or invest to improve himself.
Ok, if the BEST an Average AUSSIE can save is $4196 per year, then
that amounts to a net daily profit of $4196 / 365 = $11.50 cents per day.
That is barely enough to buy a McDonald’s or KFC snack for two…
Oh, and I forgot to mention the $6.00 per month account keeping fees
charged by banks, which amounts to about $72 wasted per year .
Is it any wonder why Australians are so careful with their money and they
don’t want to spend it? The very high cost of living in Australia is what is
pressuring people to avoid raising children, because children are very
expensive to support. When people don’t spend, businesses just close
down and sack more people, or if they’re smart, they head off overseas.
That’s where most of our best talent and brains are going… overseas…
Look at all the famous Australian Hollywood actors/actresses, engineers,
inventors, scientists and business people who have left this place.
Is it any wonder why so many formerly Australian-owned businesses
are selling out to overseas buyers? Aussie business owners are so
tired of struggling (paying two-thirds of their earnings to the tax office)
that they would rather sell off Australian control of their company, so they
can get out of this country and retire. eg. Why do many of the big name
tennis stars keep their money offshore? All the banks here seem to keep
increasing their fees and charges, eating away at all our little savings…
Why did the Treasury end up with a HUGE budget surplus of about
$7 billion dollars? Did you also know that the Australian Government
collected (in tax) money equivalent to 43% of Australia’s Gross Domestic
Product? Where is all that money going? Why are politicians continually
getting higher and higher pay rises? (many in excess of $200,000 per
year – where ministers and senators have up to 14 to 20 times the
DISPOSABLE income of the ordinary Average Aussie)… while Australia’s
hospitals, educational institutions and road systems and not being
maintained and upgraded?
The worldwide problem of Globalisation
Please read:
http://www.larouchein2004.com/economics.htm
and you will learn the truth about why the US is in the worst economic
depression in history. Australia is following the same path at the US it
seems… None of the leaders here seem to care about anything else
except getting as filthy rich as possible, even if it means ripping off hard
working taxpayers who do all the work in society. Watch out for
March or April 2004… Larouche has predicted a major stockmarket
crash in the US (the largest crash in history is soon to come), and
most people are still in denial they they are living in a economic
depression… (Larouche had successfully predicted the last 4 major
stockmarket crashes in world history, and this time, he is certain the
world monetary financial crisis is inevitable – banks and most of the
world governments just cannot pay back their debts)
A question of Incentive
Why should the Government politicians have to care at all? They are
all going to be multimillionairres when they retire ($1.5 million super
payouts, at the taxpayer’s expense)… and if monopolistic energy and
telecommunications company’s wish to charge an arm and a leg to
rip us all off, then why should the Government come to the aid of the
ordinary struggling tax-payer? Because the Government ends up
collecting more money in tax from that privatized corporation that raised
it’s prices unnecessarily… (eg. Why are Telstra monthly phone line
rentals now around $25 per month, when they used to be only $13 per
month a few years ago? Who else COMPETES with Telstra in providing
phone line installation for houses? So clearly, Telstra is still a monopoly
organization and faces no pressure to lower its prices)… so the truth is,
the RICH WILL KEEP GETTING RICHER (from not doing extra work) and
the vast majority of Aussies will keep GETTING POORER, feeling more
financially hopeless as there is no more control over the ever increasing
necessary costs of living… inflation is increasing at a MUCH faster rate
than our DISPOSABLE INCOMES, and things are simply getting worse as
the years go by… Why should the Government stop Banks from charging
ever increasing fees (legalized theft) from our savings accounts, which
is NOT done by many major banks overseas? Why? Because the ATO
gets to collect MORE tax from such banks who rip off their customers,
and more money is available for politicians to award themselves pay
rises every month.
Sky-rocketing house prices are also not justifiable… and pretty soon, it
will be impossible for the average Aussie to afford a new home, let alone
a deposit on a house, the way stamp duty and charges keep rising. Just
look at the news stories lately. Most young Australians cannot afford to
even move out of their parent’s home and buy their own house, let alone
afford a wedding celebration. The costs of living have become too high
for most people without a “white collar” stable job. The majority of the
wage/salary earners in this country have been reduced to a “slave” class
destined to spend the rest of their lives spending almost everything they
earn and work hard for, on basic (essential) costs of living, while all the
wealth and profit they generate goes to the coffers of a few rich business
owners, banks and politicians. Australia is fast becoming an
UNcommon-wealth nation, because most people do not have any
savings, nor any potential for savings, under our current tax laws and
over-pricing society.
I grew up in Australia since the age of 2 (since 1974) and I have only seen
our standard of living continue to get worse over the years. There are so
many poor people now in this country, and I see many businesses
selling out to overseas owners and abandoning this country to work
overseas, where conditions and taxes are fair and reasonable. At least
there, they feel like they can save some money for their retirement.
The Solution
Remember, the BEST that the average Australian can earn each year is:
- $3424 (debt)…
This is really a crying shame for such a resource-rich country with so
much potential for productivity and economic growth.
Get rid of unproductive jobs which do not involve PHYSICAL WORK or
value adding. eg. too many politicians that are not doing anything useful,
Bankers, Financers, Share-market speculators who trade nothing but
paper (which keeps increasing in value)… Australia should follow the
path of China’s economic progress by VALUE ADDING… forget following
the Americans and the British… they don’t do much value adding anymore
and they aim to maintain their control of the entire global financial world
by manipulating currency values to their advantage, via the IMF/World
Bank… in effect, adjusting the “value” of other currencies relative to theirs
so they can exploit poorer countries and purchase products dirt cheap,
at the expense of the hard work of people in developing countries who
look up to the US and the UK for leadership. The “free trade” policies of
the G7 (most developed) countries amounts to nothing more than
legalized slavery and looting, taking advantage of people in poorer
countries. Get rid of this unfair modern-day slavery system that enriches
the laziest pleasure-seeking countries (the US, UK, Australia, and other
Western-like nations). Return to the Gold-standard, where every
currency is FIXED in value, relative to every other currency.
For example, if I work 2 hours to buy a product that retails at AU$250
here, a British person (with their higher UK pound currency) can come
here and buy that product with only UK100 pounds, which would have
cost him only less than 1 hour of hard work to earn, if he was doing the
same job I am doing in the UK. In other words, why does the 1 hour of
work by that UK person equal 2 hours of work for me? Are the British
people just “better people” than Australians? Clearly, the much higher
currency value of the pound gives the British a huge buying advantage.
That’s how unfair the foreign exchange system is! And if I am going to
the Philippines, why does my $1 equal around 20 of their peso (dollars)?
Why does it cost me the equivalent of under 10c Australian to buy a can
of Coke in Philippines? When I pay $1.40 for it here? Clearly, the world
currency market was designed to allow the wealthier nations to exploit
the hard work and efforts of people in the developing and poorer
countries, so that people in the richer countries (with the higher currency
values) don’t have to work as hard… That clearly goes against all
principles of fairness and “equality” of all men.
But watch carefully as the US economy sinks deeper and deeping into
history’s worst depression… Australia is following closely behind, and
we can expect more protests, strikes and social breakdown as people
will find it harder to find work and pay off their essential costs of living.
The super-rich bankers and financiers who control our monetary
systems would rather say: “Screw the people, they must pay back their
debts or let them die! So what if society stops functioning, as long as
we get back our money with interest!” (Money earned from “interest”,
which is not generated from value-adding, physical work… “interest”
charges added to money that does not even belong to them, but which
was printed by the country’s Reserve Bank)
What Politicians must do…
Lately, the organizations that protested against the Governments pay
conditions & policies include: nurses, high school teachers, doctors,
police and now, University lecturers! Don’t you think you had better give
us Aussies a little breathing space so we can TRY to enjoy some
rewards of our hard work, how little they may be? If you don’t, your
government will quickly be voted out of office, I can guarantee you that.
Your job, and the job of EVERY politician… is not to seek ways on how
to shortchange taxpayers so you can all get increasing salaries, but to
KEEP AUSTRALIANS HAPPY… and leave them with at least 50% of
their income to SAVE as disposable income. Without any disposable
income, people will only get deeper and deeper into debt, and become
unable to support local businesses with regular spending activity.

Comments on: High taxes lower fertility – it’s official

By: Dr Sam C

By: Dr Sam C