Another thread for lengthy debates, off-topic exchanges, long posts on regular hobby-horses etc.
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Another thread for lengthy debates, off-topic exchanges, long posts on regular hobby-horses etc.
John Quiggin 
Whoopee – another sandpit. Spare a thought for British uni students who have had their uni fees tripled by the conservative fiscal hawk government. Nice one. The bankers crash the economy and the conservative govts shifts the costs to youth.
As one student put it
“Politicians don’t seem to care. They should be taking money from people who earn seven-figure salaries, not from students who don’t have any money.”
Couldnt agree more but we all know how upset the seven figure salary earners get when you mention the word tax. There goes the youth vote for the old fogeys party.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/11/2010111014445069753.html
“They should be taking money from people who earn seven-figure salaries, not from students who don’t have any money.”
How are they taking money from students?
It wasn’t bankers that crashed the British economy.
They have had 13 years of a particularly inept government. In short, the Blair government ran out of British people’s money.
Uni students being asked to pay their own way. Gee no free ride? (sob, sob, sob)
@Jarrah
Its called Monopoly pricing Jarrah – the Monopoly of Government pricing – ie a tax by any other name – There is limited supply by the Government, a captive student pupulation already half way through their studies in many cases, and a sole legislative pricemaker.
Tell me how it differs to a tax except that poor youth are being burdened instead of those on seven figure salaries.
@Steve at the Pub
says “Uni students being asked to pay their own way. Gee no free ride? (sob, sob, sob)”
Another pat cliched comment. Nothing real about the sound of those sobs. More “bugger you Im alright Jack and Id dont want to pay a cent in tax for public capital investment” courtesy of SATP.
Trouble is SATP students like the odd beer in a pub. Im not that amazed that you cant put two and two together.
Alice, you still haven’t shown how they are “taking money” from students. Reducing subsidies is a lessening of giving, not a taking.
JQ, I think Steve at the Pub should be banned until he removes the beer advertisement from his picture icon.
I brought the following non-nuclear comments from the radio-active thread which is currently not accepting new comments.
Myself:
Chris Warren:
to you, unsurprisingly,
Pretty simple to understand for most people. 1 MWh of electricity generated in Victoria causes 1.356 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted. Aluminium smelters pay $20 for 1 MWh, so the electricity supplier receives $20 for each 1.356 tonnes of CO2 it emits, i.e. $15 for each tonne of CO2 emitted. We could pay the electricity supplier $15 for every tonne of CO2 he now emits but pay it without him actually generating the electricity or the emissions. The electricity supplier gets the same revenue as he used to (which should make him happy, especially since he doesn’t have to generate as much electricity as he used to) and it only costs us $15 for every tonne of CO2 emissions avoided.
Chris Warren:
Yes, all you have to do is tell the government they’re stupid and they’ll do anything you want. I can tell you’re the master negotiator, Chris.
@Jarrah
Jarrah – what on earth is that in your icon?
Some sort of voodoo man?
@Jarrah
Higher price for education of students = taking more money from students Jarrah. Why should those students with intelligence and with merit and with a hardworking attitude be excluded from the education market Jarrah. You know the benfits of skills – it adds to productivity. Whoever said education is a market is completely cracked. Education is a public good that adds value now and in the future by training and educating a workforce for the private sector to get value. Only a stupid country run by stupid policy makers would see education as a user pays service Jarrah…and we know many countries have lost the plot in terms of reducing all social infrastructure to market models. Markdown models more like.
It is not exactly “taking” money. It is an investment. They get an education in return for the money. This education enables them to draw a higher salary. This higher salary is theirs to keep.
Socialised cost.
Privatised profit.
It’s a lifesize sculpture in Tasmania, hewn out of wood. I thought it haunting, took a picture, then on a whim chose a close-up as a gravatar.
“Higher price for education of students = taking more money from students Jarrah.”
Actually, since they have a HELP-like system, no money is “taken” from students. They get guaranteed loans from government at a below-market interest rate that only has to be paid back once they go over an income threshold. Students pay nothing, workers who have benefited from an education pay instead.
The changes means more students have access to the loans, more scholarships, and that graduates pay less per month.
See here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/studentfinance
Your ill-informed point of view will now hopefully be tempered by these facts, as you mentioned should occur on another thread.
That dealt with, let me bring up another point – since taxpayers are paying for students to learn (about half the total will be paid by graduates, the remainder made up from the rest of the population), and not all taxpayers went to university, and those that go to university are more likely to be among the wealthier end of the social spectrum, this means that university subsidies are a shift in wealth from the public to people already privileged – in other words, regressive middle-class welfare.
@Jarrah
You mean my quote “if the facts change I change my mind. What do you do Sir?”
Do you know who owns this quote Jarrah and it was used while he was playing poker?
Jarrah and SATP
May I refer you to this quote on the erosion of public funding for education (and Prof would know ALL about how its eaten away at unis).
“And so I really believe very strongly that the willful undermining of universal public education by our governments and the direct or indirect encouragement of private education is the most flagrant betrayal of the basic principles of middle-class representative democracy in the last 50 years.
Start with this link
http://www.abc.net.au/specials/saul/fulltext.htm
Then move to something even deeper and better
http://www.workingtv.com/johnralstonsaul.html
Then come back and tell me if you have changed your minds.
Ah, Alice. If ever I got a response that addressed my points, I’d know it wasn’t you.
1) Would be more regressive if there is a bias toward the more wealthy accessing uni;
2) Society in general benefits from better education, thus putting all the cost on the graduate would be a subsidy to society;
3) Not all uni grads are at the wealthier end of the spectrum (Social Workers, etc.)
Graduates only have to pay for their education if they make big money. Those far from the wealthier end of the spectrum would not be paying.
Society in general may benefit from better education, however the better educated expect to be paid more, society may have paid for the education, but every time that education is applied, society has to cough up (again).
The poor little dearies, expecting to socialise the cost, & privatise the salary.
Jakerman, we already know those who will attend uni (ie before they start) tend to be wealthier than those who do not. I’m not talking about afterwards. Society benefiting is no argument. Positive externalities do not make a public good (another thing Alice got wrong), and there’s an endless list of activities that provide positive externalities – should we subsidise them all?
No so, the wealthy end of spectrum starts at about $55k, but repayments start at $12k lower than that, and below the average income for non-uni/non trade jobs (retail and hospitality).
http://www.livingin-australia.com/salaries-australia/
http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/content/8356.htm&pc=001/002/046/002/013&mnu=&mfp=&st=&cy=1
Yes. We should subsidies them at least to the extent that the sum produces net improvement to society. That is an element of social democracy.
Just like we should tax ‘unsustainable bads’, we should promote ‘sustainable goods’.
The biggest inroads into this disparity came with free higher education.
I don’t think that I know a single person with a degree who came from a privileged background. For my brother took 17 years to get his MBA working and studying part time. My very high achieving mate Lionel, who comes from a zero wealth background, took a lot of years as well to get his degrees with honours paying his way every inch. I’m with Jakerman on this. Higher education should be subsidised, for a lot of reasons. But one of the most compelling reasons is for the contribution to our social, art and technological advancement that comes largely free to us from the work done by universities of all kinds.
“Yes. We should subsidies them at least to the extent that the sum produces net improvement to society.”
So we’re going to subsidise mobile phones, good-looking people, the eating of vegetables, being kind to mothers, durable shoes, sewing lessons, good musicians, webcams, reading Shakespeare, etc etc etc ad infinitum?
How will you measure the net improvement each activity brings? Even just taking my extremely short list, who is going to agree that all those things produce a net improvement at all?
Public goods are a good reason for government funding or provision (though some public goods can be provided privately), but the existence of positive externalities does NOT mean the activity is a public good.
Bilb, your anecdata is undoubtedly true, but meaningless. It is well established that higher income deciles have a much better chance of getting into university. So if you think it should be subsidised, you are in effect arguing that we should subsidise the rich and middle-class.
I don’t have a problem with that, Jarrah. I prefer to think of each young person as an individual starting their life independent of their parents. It is far more probable that unsubsidised tertiary education is a deterent for lower incomed university aspirants that priviledged ones.
We do subsidies telecomunications to regions, and subsidising good looking people in the form of healthy people, and the other “goods” as part of school system.
By evidence, reasoned argumentand and democracy, the later which need some repair to bulster it against plutocracy (which will be aided by good accessible eduation).
I don’t understant your argument in that latter half of your sentance.
Except that the public subsidee reduces the disparity, by broadening the range of people in uni. And increases the public benifit of increasing education.
The current trend to more psuodo market model and user pays is damaging the quality of education and thus is costly to society.
@jakerman
One thing that always amazes me amongst the “pro private markets anti public services view” is that they absolutely deny in many cases that, as May stated so well in another post
the concept of user pays (and pays and and pays and pays) is now becoming quite commonplace ie so called private provision has not increased competition in many privatisation expeditions, but instead has granted monopolies to private firms who now engage in monopoly or oligopoly price tactics.
Yet the market faithfuls dont seem to notice that many such services are now hideously more expensive ie bank charges, toll charges, energy costs, rates, grocery costs and are accompanies by governments scrambling to get their income from new creations like registration fees, levies, parking fines and traffic fines…
which all conspire not only against the household budgets of the poor but also of the middle and the wealthy.
So we are overally paying higher prices for many now “marketised” services that were once public. The economies of scale have been lost to the government and to private firms as a result of this fundamentally flawed view that the market always does it better and cheaper.
Its a nonsense view and its costing us all more – not just the poor but its also slowly sapping the economy.
The reality is some people would rather pay much higher prices across the board for many services, higher than any tax rise by the government, just so that their taxes do not go to help another single human being in need.
@Jarrah
Lol Jarrah. You know we sit on the opposite side of the fence on this one. We could go around in circles for days (weeks..years even). Kind of interesting Avatar though.
Or you could acknowledge the plain fact you got it completely wrong, as did the student you quoted, when you said they were “taking money from students”, and no circles need be gone around.
@Jarrah
Jarrah you also say…without any recourse to the history of rises in hecs since 1990..
“It is well established that higher income deciles have a much better chance of getting into university.”
My point exactly. The parents of the poor cant afford the books or hecs or subsidising their kids needs whilst studying. Its not cheap. That is why subsidies and lower hecs and no hecs for the poor are needed. Every child in Australia should have access to tertiary education if they want it. In many cases they now need it when we have been made to all “get used” to the idea of a higher permanent NAIRU (what a load of garbage), unions have been smashed, the rich have gotten richer and now the mailroom boy needs a degree to work in mail sorting – add to that the removal of once publicly subsidised government vocational training like nursing and policing to unis where you now need a degree in nursing and a degree in policing plus they probably now have to buy their own uniforms (standard issue once).
Jarrah – the government has come a long way in fifteen years in shrinking not only itself bit its fiscal committment to and responsibility for pro employment policies.
In other words they have saved themselves a bucket load by shifting the costs on to our youth.
Im not surprised more rich are likely to go to uni Jarrah…now. It wasnt always that way. Hecs wasnt always so onerous and you know what they say…the higher the price etc
I dont want to go back to the years where only the elites can afford to go to uni. Do you really Jarrah? What a very bad idea that is when the mailroom boy needs a business degree. Do something about lowering NAIRU and you can charge what you like at unis, so those who can afford it can swan about studing hieroglyphics, and those who cant can get work, but you cant squeeze both ways.
@Jarrah
No such luck. I never got it wrong at all Jarrah. Neither did the student.
A huge problem I have with only the rich going to uni is also the fact that the bastards will be sure to develop policies that are pro rich when they are there, so the rich will employ them after graduation and they later earn a rich salary and develop rich ways to pay less tax.
“I never got it wrong at all Jarrah. Neither did the student.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Delusional to the bitter end, I see. Immune to facts. Students pay nothing, but according to you money is being taken from them!
“the government has come a long way in fifteen years in shrinking not only itself”
More delusion. Government is bigger now than ever before.
“when the mailroom boy needs a business degree.”
Delusion upon delusion. Even accepting this statement as hyperbole illustrating a saner idea, the dilution of degrees and the inflation of requirements is down to the proliferation of people going to uni, not the other way round!
@Jarrah
says “Students pay nothing”.
In the delusion stakes Im running a sad second to you. Now back to the link between NAIRU and going to uni instead of getting a job? You dont see any substitution effect there at all? Why do you think the government is so keen for youth to head off to “training”? Why do you think the private sector moans on and on about the need for “skills” and ‘education”. If they want it so bad and think ot will improve productivity (and give them more profits) why shouldnt both government and business tip in?
In the 1990s there was such a thing as “the training guarantee levy”. Even now some firms will pay for the education of their employees but many more would fight such legislation tooth and nail just as they did when we had it.
Consider compulsory levies on private firms for education it a user friendly way of imposing a higher price on those who also get the benefits of a students education – giving something back to employees who have been shafted by the great neoliberal scam.
Jarrah – keep the capitals down as well or you will over excite youself.
“Now back to the link between NAIRU and going to uni instead of getting a job?”
Desperately trying to change the subject isn’t going to work, Alice. Admit you were wrong, blatantly wrong, in your original claim at comment #1, or give up any pretence of being a member of the reality-based community. I’ve given you the facts, and linked to the source so you can check for yourself. Persisting in this delusion does you no good at all.
@Jarrah
Im not trying to change the subject. You are. I raised the issue of the higher NAIRU which keeps getting higher on the premise we should all “get used to it because its a ‘natural’ rate – which I dont buy for a moment – but which excludes the youngest and the most inexperienced from employment – so what do they do – go get ‘training’ and a ‘uni education’ instead – which is exactly what I would do whilever governments ignore the fact that economic policy isnt creating enough jobs because it thinks the private sector can do it ably (neoliberal claptrap) and neither is the private sector left to its own devices in a free market…
actually creating enough jobs. Im not into impoversihing our youth Jarrah through higher uni fees when they face the highest unemployment rates if all. You may find it acceptable to apply the user pays price mechanism to this situation but I dont.
As for your links I will address them and I await your response to my posts and links also which you have not yet responded to (on the link between NAIRU and the need for further education as it affects our youth, who suffer a much higher unemployment rate than NAIRU, to be specific – so dont play this “you did not respond to my post or links” game with me Jarrah.
I’m not interested in your diversions, Alice, until and unless you acknowledge that the facts, plain as day, show that your baseless claim about students having money taken from them was at least an error. If you repeat the error, in the face of the truth, it becomes a wilful lie, and I’ll not bother anymore – it suffices that you’re willing to demonstrate your mendacity to the dozens of people reading this thread, and have it go on the permanent record that is the internet. In a way, I hope you do just that.
@Jarrah
Students are having their money taken from them Jarrah. They are enrolled in A uni. The government has monopoly pricing power. A student enrolled in A uni is not in a shopping mall and there are significant barriers to freedom of choice and freedom to switch. Their tuition fees are not a market price in any sense of the word and nor should education ever be solely be seen as a private good. It is a public good with significant positive externalities to which both governments and other citizens should contribute Jarrah. Government subsidies of public goods to which you, I and everyone else contribute with our taxes generate wealth Jarrah.
It is you who simply doesnt get it and you can get as personal as you want and call up the spectre of the dozens of people who in your mind might be reading this thread. Im happy to be on record Jarrah. The government is taking more money from British students and others of lesser means in the UK and elsewhere across Europe relatively in the name of severe austerity measures to correct the widespread effects of a financial meltdown that likely had little to do with those now paying the thing you want to call a higher price for tertiary education Jarrah. Complete nonsense.
So, despite the fact that no-one pays any money until they are no longer students, you are going to stick to your claim that students have money taken from them. Right. No more need be said then – someone so divorced from reality is not worth the effort.
PS Here is the definition of public goods. You should probably have it for future reference, since you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.
@Jarrah
Jarrah – I understand the concept of public goods and dont need your link – thanks all the same. I find it odd someone like you doesnt acknowledge the public good in education but …its entirely a matter for you to work out. Ive tired of the personal attack style of your posts Jarrah…as I have tired of this style before – but hey this is the sandpit and I acknowledge your right to throw as much of it about as you want. Thats what the sandpit is all about.
@Jarrah
Oh and I dont care when they have to pay the money Jarrah – until then they have a debt burden around their necks. Enough of a debt burden to kill entrepreneurial inclinations and take a safe job working for someone else.
I dont subscrine to placing encumbrances such as this on youth. There isnt enough of them as it is to support the ageing population. Time to remove the user pays (and pays) shackles from peoples lives Jarrah. Its bloody well costing more than the miserable tax people like you want to save.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about – higher prices? higher tax? Either way they both come out of a pocket. Trouble is the prices are higher than the taxes would be. Your damn private sector markets donmt know how to compete Jarrah and the government has sold its economies of scale down the river to keep a few rich bastards happy paying less tax.
So what. Its a scam. Support it if you want. Be a scab economist for all I care. Its your life. I hope your conscience doesnt bother you as an old codger.
“Jarrah – I understand the concept of public goods and dont need your link – thanks all the same. ”
Actually, your own words show you don’t – you seem to think positive externalities make a public good. This is false. What is it you purportedly teach again? Because if you’re teaching that you should be reported for academic misconduct.
“I find it odd someone like you doesnt acknowledge the public good in education”
I do, and have done on this very thread. So stop lying.
“Ive tired of the personal attack style of your posts Jarrah”
Pot, kettle, shade darker than grey, etc.
“Oh and I dont care when they have to pay the money Jarrah”
You set the terms, dear Alice, and I showed you how they were wrong. Now you want to pretend that your own terms were irrelevant. That means we can’t trust anything you put forward as an argument because you’ll just abandon it when convenient.
“Enough of a debt burden to kill entrepreneurial inclinations ”
Oh, please. Since when did you care about entrepreneurial inclinations? Regardless, your claim doesn’t even pass the laugh test. You could, of course, try to back up your hand-waving with facts and figures – say by comparing employment after graduation both before and after Australia implemented uni fees – but you’re highly unlikely to change your tactics at this stage, so I won’t hold my breath.
@Jarrah
Shame Jarrah.
Actually Jarrah – Ill say why I think shame on you. You know as well as I do that raising student fees in the UK is part of austerity measures imposed by a conservative government in the wake of the GFC. Why should the poor, the young starting out and pensioners or public service workers be made the bear the brunt of the global financial crisis.
Thats what this fee rise is all about. Dont play ostrich with me. Education has significant positive externalities and Im completely in favour of education being solely in the hands of the government so that each and every child can access it without regard to means if they have the merit to do so.
I dont agree with your views that its something only those who can afford to pay should access. I certainly dont agree with your views that there should be minimal intervention by government in public goods like education. They are trying this model across the industrial world and its not working. They use this model in underdeveloped countries because they are too poor to afford public education.
And yes I do care about entrepreneurial inclinations in youth and I do see the dampening effect of a large education debt hanging around new graduates necks as a reason they are less inclined to undertake risker but higher return entrepreneurial activities after they graduate.
Unfortunately you cant and I doubt you will. The trouble with you Jarrah is you dont connect the dots.
“I dont agree with your views that its something only those who can afford to pay should access. ”
When have I said that? You wouldn’t be lying again, would you? Wait, you’re typing, so yes you are.
“They are trying this model across the industrial world and its not working.”
No, they aren’t. They really, really, really aren’t doing that. That your worldview is sufficiently warped to think that this is what’s happening says a lot about the fog in which your mind works.
“the fog in which your mind works”
Naturally I’m using the word ‘works’ in its broadest possible sense 🙂
@Jarrah
Providing the income threshhold at which repayment of outstanding debt begins is set high enough to be consistent with an income for which a university degree would be a probable prerequisite and the interest charged on the outstanding balance relatively concessional, the repayment schedule not onerous and the inital costs to which the loan relates close to the cost of providing the services I see no reason in principle to object to loans.
@Jarrah
says “says a lot about the fog in which your mind works.”
Insults dont get you with me Jarrah…..but this is the sandpit and you can say what you please but dont think I wont come back to you becaus I will.
As for the boradest possible sense…I still find it a pretty narrow comment.
@Fran Barlow
Sorry Fran but that is utter nonsense too – yer comment…
“provided the income threshold at which repayment of outstanding debt begind is set high enough to be consistent with an income for which a university degree would be a probable prerequisite and the interest charged on the outstanding balance relatively concessional, the repayment schedule not onerous and the inital costs to which the loan relates close to the cost of providing the services I see no reason in principle to object to loans.”
Bla bla bla…Oh ramble on you two – you are both of the same mind…(yourself and Jarrah).
I mean FREE – education should be FREE to students. 100 percent FREE. Read my lips FREE. Subsidised by taxpayers as an INVESTMENT in the younger generation and the future and society, who the older generation expects them to work and contribute to pay for them in their old age. Plus actually be entrepreneuirial and create businesses of their own and jobs.
Not work in penury and debt to a miserabl tightarse government obsessed witn flattering and fattening the old rich. What about the new young potential rich?
Take their chains of and make it free and get your hands off your tightlyu shut wallets and pay in tax for youth (better investment than paying for bwanker bailouts Im sure).
I mean FREE because its a publoc good. I mean free because society and private sector employers also get the benefit of the younger generations skills and knowledge. I mean free because every child should be able to prove themselves a positive good to society. I mean free because Im sick to death of whingers moaning about public deficits when the real problem is private debt and I mean free because it reduces the elephant in the room.
Private debt.
As much as I love both of you (Fran and Jarrah) – you are on a track I think is way off beat (and very Foggy minded I might add).