HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: brian@mel.dit.csiro.au (Brian May)
Subject: Re: The Lam philosophy
Organization: CSIRO DIT (Melb.)
Distribution: aus
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 05:52:57 GMT


In article <dyfl.724477851@phobos>, dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam) writes:
|> brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones) writes:
|> >It's not "my" value judgement.  It is the value judgement of society as a
|> >whole.  For example, you can see it today - society at large is concerned
|> >about the plight of the unemployed and wants Governments to use their
|> >resources, funded by taxation collections, to attempt to alleviate their
|> >plight.
|> 
|> My point is that value judgements are always subjective in
|> character.  Do you dispute that?  Do you have some means of
|> ascertaining the objective value of something?  Societies and
|> governments are incapable of valuations.  Government involves the
|> valuations of certain people being the directing force over
|> everybody.

Please don't insult our intelligence. You seriously believe that placing
societal control in the hands of business (via pure consumerism) will
result in a fairer, happier etc etc society? Who controls most governmental
policies in the current day?  _Business_. Ooooooh, conspiracy theory.
Better get out of here, you never know who might be reading this thread.....
 
|> >Your ideas are nothing new.  Societal evolution wiped away your concepts
|> >hundreds of years ago - why should it have to happen again just because
|> >you've arrived on the planet and think you've got a *new* idea?  Society has
|> >voted a resounding "no" to your concepts but you don't accept the verdict.
|> 
|> It won't happen again just because I want it to.  If it does I
|> wouldn't have to try to convince the readers of aus.politics.

You will, if the market (aus.politics posters, under the new 'regime')
forces you to.

|> >I've seen no evidence from you, Daniel, that you have any care or compassion
|> >for your fellow man.  All I have seen is greed and selfishness dressed up as
|> >a pseudo-intellectual argument for a "freer" society.  If that's the way *you*
|> >want to live your life, fine, but you'll die a soulless and lonely man.
|> 
|> It does not matter in the slightest whether I, or you, have any care
|> or compassion for our fellow men.  I have deliberately tried to avoid

Daniel, your argument has no value as it does not take _people_ into
account. It's like trying to build sandcastles in the surf.

brian
--
| Brian.May@mel.dit.csiro.au |           Open Systems Program           |
| CSIRO/DIT, 723 Swanston st | TEL +61 3 282 2613 -- FAX +61 3 282 2600 |
|Carlton, VIC 3053, Australia|          Experimental Scientist          |
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: c.oneill@trl.oz.au (Chris O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Fightback! the politics and the sums
Organization: Telecom Australia Research Laboratories
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 06:42:55 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.020650.986@cs.su.oz.au> yar@cs.su.oz.au (Ray Loyzaga)
writes:
>In article <1gk8k7INNfv1@werple.apana.org.au> speednut@werple.apana.org.au
(Mark Jose) writes:
>>Original Message From: chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby)
>>I agree. The fact that the upper tax brackets will get two adjustments
>>to their tax thresholds is a slap in the face for all those middle
>>income workers on the average wage or below who have suffered for
>>years under a totalitarian wages regime.
>
>One of the reasons for this is to bring the highest bracket down to
>the corporate rate, which should eliminate most of the dodgy things
>people do with personal companies etc.

i.e. instead of forcing people to do dodgy things to reduce their tax, the
government just gives up and reduces their tax anyway.

>>The big selling
>>point seems to be "well you'll get more in child endowment". Well what
>>happens if you are single or married and without children. Does this
>
>Tax cuts below $15k average 4.8%, 

Where do you get this figure from?

Earlier this year, I posted the following table showing the Fightback tax cuts
versus income calculated by Dr. John Quiggin from the Australian National
University Dept. of Economics.  This was published in 'The Age' on 28th
November, 1991.

Income level    Real tax cut   As % of       As % of
 $91-92          $91-92        gross income  net income

 7000             118.94        1.7           1.8
 8000             156.94        2.0           2.1
 9000             194.94        2.2           2.4
10000             232.94        2.3           2.6
15000             422.94        2.8           3.2
20000             144.99        0.7           0.8
25000             418.99        1.7           2.1
30000             818.99        2.7           3.5
35000            1218.99        3.5           4.6
40000            2065.51        5.2           7.1
50000            3065.51        6.1           8.8
60000            4267.67        7.1          10.7

This table assumes an average inflation rate of 4% between now and 1995-96 when
the package would be in operation.  The real tax cut takes account of the
fiscal drag that would occur because of this inflation. (Note that the Hewson
tax scales must be based on dollars in 1995-96 or there will be a $2.9 billion
hole in the package.)

We can see that the only people better off with a 4% rise in indirect tax as
a result of GST will be those earning more than $30000.  This is a minority of
people.

These figures take into account the $1.2 billion that the coalition expects to
reap from the black economy.  The coalition expects such a figure even though
Mr. Reith (their shadow Treasurer) has attended a seminar at which officials
from Canada and New Zealand denied their GST systems had produced big gains
from the black economy.

Loyzaga had the opportunity to respond to this when I posted it in January but
my recollection is that he chose not do do so.  So, here is another
opportunity.
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: boyd@prl.dec.com (Boyd Roberts)
Subject: Re: The Lam philosophy (was Re: JJJ...)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - Paris Research Laboratory
Distribution: aus
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:27:36 GMT

In article <dyfl.723949468@munagin>, dyfl@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Daniel Y Lam) writes:
> 
> This is a rather wide task and I can do no better than give a very
> general answer.  Put simply, I envisage a society in which people's
> actions are co-ordinated by the market rather than the state.  Social
> bonds will be contractual rather than hegemonic in character.
> 

Ok, right [scenario mode on].

I have my UZI 9mm machine pistol with me and you're going to use
`market forces' to convince me why I shouldn't just blow your head
off.  Now just how does that go?

    ``Gee those 9mm rounds are awfully expensive,
      and you wouldn't want to waste 'em on me now, right?''

    ``You know, UZI futures are right bull-ish at the moment
      and I know this guy who could trade that UZI for some
      dead-cert junk bonds, and we'll all be laughing this time
      next week.''

    ``[thinks] hmm should have bought up big in Kevlar-29 when
      defeat level IIA panels were $25 a pop...''

And after you're riddled full of 9mm maybe they're be enough left
to sell to the organ bank people, if there was _market_ for it.


Boyd Roberts			boyd@prl.dec.com

    ... the epistemological anarchist has no compunction to defend the
    most trite, or the most outrageous statement. ... he may use reason,
    emotion, ridicule, an `attitude of serious concern' and whatever
    other means have been invented by humans to get the better of their
    fellow men.  His favourite pastime is to confuse rationalists ...
    There is no view, however `absurd' or `immoral', he refuses to
    consider or to act upon, and no method is regarded as indispensable.

-Paul K Feyerabend "Against Method"
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam)
Subject: Re: The Lam philosophy (was Re: JJJ...)
Organization: Collaborative Information Technology Research Institute
Distribution: aus
Date: 15 Dec 92 06:10:36 GMT

brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones) writes:
>The problem you unceasingly fail to recognise is that not everyone has the
>capacity to make value judgements like this.  Not everyone is as brilliant
>as you, Daniel, in being able to unfalteringly assess every aspect of their
>whole life in terms of cost and benefit and make decisions accordingly.  You
>would condemn them those who can't, through no fault of their own, to a life
>of misery, stress, and/or poverty.

So if someone makes a value judgement which appears to you to be
"wrong" or "irrational," you will intervene to prevent them from
acting according to their judgement and impose your own value
judgement on them?

--
	Daniel Lam			Phone 	+61 3 2822426
	Melbourne, Australia		Fax   	+61 3 2822490

In my opinion, the opinions expressed here are my personal opinions.
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam)
Subject: Re: The Lam philosophy 
Organization: Collaborative Information Technology Research Institute
Distribution: aus
Date: 17 Dec 92 02:00:59 GMT

gleeson@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Red Mountain) writes:
>any choices to affect these magical "market forces".

Market forces have nothing magical about them.  In fact, the use of
the term "market forces" has conveyed a false mechanical analogue.
What are called market forces are not autonomous forces directing
history, such as Marxists conceive things, but are just expressions
of the preferences of the people.

>Haven't you learnt anything in your 20-odd years on this earth? Or do
>you want an itemised list? Not that it would do much good, seeing the
>way you selectively reply to the objections people raise to your system.

If I were to reply to everything, the number of daily posts would
grow exponentially.

Most of the criticisms of me have been of the form: "Your views are
not accepted by society.  Society has rejected your policies."  Now
there is no need to remind me that my beliefs are contrary to those
of the vast majority of people.  I know they are.  I have examined
the views held by society and I have rejected them.  My contention is
that the interventionist policies supported by the vast majority of
people leads to general impoverishment and diminishment of
happiness.

I am not trying to defy the opinions of society and implement my
policies even though they are utterly unpopular.  That is impossible,
and I do not try to do the impossible.  If society wants, say,
minimum wage laws, it will get minimum wage laws.  All I'm trying to
do is to convince people that minimum wage laws do not accomplish the
ends that they are supposed to, viz., improvment in the standard of
living of the workers.

One last point.  People on this list, in the opinions they have
expressed on the history of the Industrail Revolution, seem to have
been exposed to only one historiographical tradition.  I have been
shouted down for even suggesting that the view that the Industrialist
Revolution led to widespread poverty is false.  This is sad indeed.

--
	Daniel Lam			Phone 	+61 3 2822426
	Melbourne, Australia		Fax   	+61 3 2822490

In my opinion, the opinions expressed here are my personal opinions.
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: GST - double tax?
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Date: 16 Dec 92 10:11:38 CST
   <1992Nov29.230744.872@trl.oz.au: <1992Nov30.212635.10445@cs.su.oz.au>       
 <1992Dec3.052537.3504@trl.oz.au> <1992Dec4.004255.477@cs.su.oz.au>   
 <1992Dec4.070821.17423@trl.oz.au> <1992Dec7.173015.165332@dstos3.dsto.gov.au> <1fv4rrINNqsk@huon.itd.adelaide.edu.au>

hoconnel@iti.org (Heath O'Connell) writes:

>	What sort of disasters? These State Government disasters are invariably
>linked to financial operations to which the Government just is not suited. 
Agreed, especially when they were being used as a milking
cow for state income subsidy and being presured to
overperform. In Queensland we did not have such disasters
although we have state owned (highly profitable) financial
institutions because we had a good (reasonably independent)
upper echelon of public service people (now gone thanks to
Goss) looking after them. Also the Govt, accepted the
dividends that these enterprises chose rather than forced
them to pay out more.

>	So what happens after SAGASCO is sold? There's still quite a
>shortfall.
True, but we are significantly better off because we had that to sell.

>> I.e. they have just sold
>>off their immune system.  Also remember that by
>>definition, private enterprise will not buy the inherently
>>loss making govt buisnesses. And so what we will end up with
>>is a lot of services which need funding, and no income.
>>Smart move. 

>	Taxes?
Precisely my point. Or cutting of services.

--
Michael Pilling				Phone: +61 8 259 7017
DSTO ITD/SE 171 Labs          		Fax: +61 8 259 5589
PO Box 1500				Telex: AA82799
Salisbury SA 5108, Australia		michael_pilling@itd.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: GST - double tax?
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Date: 16 Dec 92 09:36:32 CST
 <1992Dec3.002607.8618@cs.su.oz.au>   
 <1992Dec4.095631.165309@dstos3.dsto.gov.au>   
 <1992Dec4.003841.13904@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> <1992Dec7.112433.165322@dstos3.dsto.gov.au> <dyfl.723703108@phobos>

dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam) writes:

>>[MP: stuff about imported drinking water]

>You are being misled by macroeconomic indicators, in this case the
>balance of payments figure.  The balance of payments does not
>directly measure economic well-being.  To take a silly case, we can
>achieve a balance of payments of 0 by stopping all economic activity,
>importing nothing, exporting nothing, borrowing nothing, and lending
>nothing.  Yet that would not be a more pleasant state of affairs than
>we have now, with an "unfavourable" balance of payments.

I am not blindly arguing that all debt is bad, and I am not
saying that we should not run a debt at times if it improves
our overall long term wealth. In this case it is so clearly
not the case that your counter point is misleading.

>Ultimately, economic well-being means how well the people are able
>satisfy their wants, i.e. to get what they want.  Some people like to
>waste their income on tap water imported from overseas. 
Fine, let them fully pay for it. Your argument also says
that we should not account for the extra environmental cost
of carting water from one side of the globe to the other.
The cost of petrol does not include the environmental cost
involved, i.e. the depletion and/or devaluation of our major
capital asset the planet. I find it amazing that people who
talk about free markets etc never want to include that
capital on the balance sheet.

>They are not
>hurting anybody by doing so, unless you think that by refusing to buy
>edible underwear I am "hurting" the manufacturers of edible underwear
>who should then have the right to force me to pay them.
This is a really spurious example. In the case of water,
they are hurting the community by
	Increasing our foriegn debt for no good reason. I
	don't mind if they want to do that, but let them pay
	for it fully. 

	Wasting and depleting capital resources. Again let
	them pay for it fully so they are truly aware of the
	costs and can make an informed decision.

>It is a good thing to have a positive balance of payments under free
>market conditions, but to achieve it with distortionary taxes,
>tariffs, or subsidies is useless.
How is it useless and how is it cheeting? On the contrary I
think it is grossly cheating to only have half the equation
(cashflow without capital account) on the balance sheet and
even then not account for the interest costs.

> It's like achieving a high score
>in an IQ test by cheating:  the indicator looks good, but it isn't
>indicating what you're really interested in -- economic prosperity.
Have you distinguished needs from wants here. The need is
good quality pottable water, the want is a trendy brand
name.

--
Michael Pilling				Phone: +61 8 259 7017
DSTO ITD/SE 171 Labs          		Fax: +61 8 259 5589
PO Box 1500				Telex: AA82799
Salisbury SA 5108, Australia		michael_pilling@itd.dsto.gov.au
From: brendan@cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Medicare == manslaughter?
Date: 12 Dec 92 01:54:17 GMT
Reply-To: brendan@cs.uq.oz.au
Distribution: aus

In <miw.724045080@cc.uq.oz.au> miw@cc.uq.oz.au (Mark I. Williams) writes:

>False. There are plenty of medical practitioners in Australia as it is. Have
>you ever had any trouble gettig a doctor's appointment? What we are
>short of is gear and hospital beds, etc.

I regularly have to wait upwards of an hour (with an appointment) in a
doctor's sleeping room. This is for people who charge half again over
the scheduled fee.

--
When soldiers form lines or hollow squares, you call it reason.
When wild geese in flight take the form of a letter V, you say instinct.
When the homogeneous atoms of a mineral arrange themselves into shapes
mathematically perfect you have nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason."
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Telecommunications and the free market
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Date: 16 Dec 92 11:05:27 CST

c.oneill@trl.oz.au (Chris O'Neill) writes:

>Wasn't the point that because the supply of information is restricted (by cost
>or whatever), the consumer's choice becomes more of a random choice and hence
>the market forces become more like random forces.  "Not operating properly"
>means that the market has a random influence on it.

Yes, and also difficulty of calculating the optimum,
and in this particular case by the fact that you really
didn't have a choice, there was only one brand of payphone
at the airport.
--
Michael Pilling				Phone: +61 8 259 7017
DSTO ITD/SE 171 Labs          		Fax: +61 8 259 5589
PO Box 1500				Telex: AA82799
Salisbury SA 5108, Australia		michael_pilling@itd.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: chris@suite.sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby)
Subject: Re: production == consumption?
Organization: Softway Pty Ltd
Date: 17 Dec 92 00:50:25 GMT

In <dyfl.724481630@phobos> dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam) writes:

>Let me correct an omission which may cause confusion.
>
>I said:
>
>>The general argument goes: in order to produce goods which consumers
>>want, which perhaps require a lengthy produciton process, it is
>>necessarily to save and accumulate capital, i.e. to have an excess of
>>production over consumption.  Therefore production is good and
>>consumption is bad.  This is nothing but faulty logic.  The end of
>>production is consumption.  There is no point in producing anything
>>which will not be ultimately result in additional consumption.
>	      ^
>Insert "not" in position shown.

Unless you save the production too. That is, return it to the capital
you started with; the thing that provides you with the raw materials
of production in the first place; the earth.

In other words it is possible to "produce" without "consuming". In the
same way we are now "consuming" (resources) without "producing" them.
-- 
Chris Maltby - Softway Pty Ltd		Internet: chris@softway.sw.oz.au

PHONE:	+61-2-698-2322	"I'm waiting for X-Windows to become just that;
FAX:	+61-2-699-9174	 Ex-Windows" - A McGrath.
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: ajw@squid.mel.dit.CSIRO.AU (Andrew Waugh)
Subject: Re: Hewson carefully shoots himself in the foot-in-mouth.
Organization: CSIRO, Division of Information Technology, Melbourne
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 23:12:03 GMT

In article <1992Dec10.210326.804@cs.su.oz.au> yar@cluster.cs.su.oz (Ray Loyzaga) writes:
>GST (mark I) is currently exempted on second had car sales, home sales
>(new homes get the flow on of GST in the materials and building process)
>but no tax is paid on the total price and medical expenses.
>It has nothing to do with the "essentials of life". It has a lot to do with
>providing a positive stimulus in that direction. It also has a lot to do
>with the fact that GST on most of these wouldn't work. Are you advocating
>GST on HECS, just to be fair? Or 15% on share transactions, life insurance,
>car insurance, bank services like loans, deposits, withdrawals ...
>now I can handle a GST on agents fees but the underlying transaction
>must remain GST free.

The whole point of the GST was that it was to tax everything equally. A
claimed benefit of this was to ensure that the Government did not distort
the economy by skewing policy so that some things were not artificially
expensive or cheap.

Now you are stating that certain items were exempted on the grounds of
"providing a positive stimulus". Sounds like the Liberals favoring certain
sectors of the economy to me. This, of course, just leads to the question
of why those sectors and not others.

andrew waugh
From: speednut@werple.apana.org.au (Mark Jose)
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: JJJ take it off.. no way!
Date: 15 Dec 1992 20:27:01 +1100
Organization: werple public-access unix, Melbourne
NNTP-Posting-Host: werple.apana.org.au

Original Message From: dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam)
 
>What I object to is precisely force.  Forcing others to pay for what
>you want.  I don't see how this implies any restriction to thinking
>solely in monetary terms.  What simply happens is this: you want
>something, you can't get it by your own efforts or by engaging others
>in voluntary cooperation, so you take it by force.
 
 
Sorry to butt in.
 
Daniel, if you don't want to live in a society where some of the
resources are diverted away from your use to others, then you will be
hard pressed to find one on this planet.
 
Let me give you an example:
 
We all want to be protected, and so the need is their for a defence
force. We can't individually pay for it so we all have to. Simplistic,
yes, but surely you get the gist.
 
Translating this to the nth degree, the purchase of a motor car could
well be out of the range of most people if no subsidies, tax
write-downs, depreciation etc etc were allowed in the motor industry.
I am sure that you would agree that we have to somehow allow business
some lee-way in order to make the end product more affordable.
Yes?
 
Newsgroups: aus.politics
From: dyfl@kbs.citri.edu.au (Daniel Lam)
Subject: Re: GST - double tax?
Organization: Collaborative Information Technology Research Institute
Date: 15 Dec 92 06:27:56 GMT

gleeson@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Red Mountain) writes:
>Really? Japan must really be in a hopeless economic state then...

The Japanese economy is in deep trouble.  Their domestic markets have
virtually collpased, owing mainly to the lack of foreign competition.

--
	Daniel Lam			Phone 	+61 3 2822426
	Melbourne, Australia		Fax   	+61 3 2822490

In my opinion, the opinions expressed here are my personal opinions.
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Manufacturing Consent: film on Noam Chomsky
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Date: 16 Dec 92 09:16:51 CST

zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:

>> The documentary film "Manufacturing Consent" is showing around Australia 
Is currently playing on SBS tuesday nights, saw the first
eposode last night - good but very intro - hope the next
episode is more meaty.

Michael
--
Michael Pilling				Phone: +61 8 259 7017
DSTO ITD/SE 171 Labs          		Fax: +61 8 259 5589
PO Box 1500				Telex: AA82799
Salisbury SA 5108, Australia		michael_pilling@itd.dsto.gov.au