Miners, charity and corporate tax

[What'sinaname]

[Skids]

It's funny how it's turned into a miner bashing thread.

The industry that is that backbone of our economy, the one that carried the country through covid, the one that produces every single element required for "green" energy production. Funny, but not surprising.

The usual suspects salivating at the opportunity to brand others with the usual labels.

On the 7th of December. Ms Reinhardt will give every single employee (circa 3000) a 30% Xmas bonus. The income tax paid by the recipients alone will be in excess of $160 million dollars, plus the payroll tax paid by the company.

The donations this woman makes to so many charities would blow your mind. She just doesn't get on a soap box and rave about it. The employment programs, sports and recreation facilities, housing, mental health support, Art centres, vehicles and many other additions to outback infrastructure she supports is astounding... yet, those who know absolutely nothing about her, other than what some left wing nazis want to spruik to them in their 7 seconds of fame on the ABC, continue to label her.

My Dad has many opinions, on many things that I don't totally agree with, but if some smart mouth wants to have a go at him, they'll have to go through me first. I'm definitely not going to be 'apologising' for any of his opinions, to anybody.

It's when we all start working together that the real healing can take place. It's sad that the flag burning, insult hurling, hard done by crowd will never be appeased.

[What'sinaname]

^ mining bashing is the domain of the greens and naive left.

[think positive]

Bravo!

Gina bashing here is a sport in its own right! Apparently she and the rest of the mega rich should pay 99% of their income in tax!

I wonder, if she looked like Christie Brinkley would she cop as much flack?

[pietillidie]

There's nothing wrong with mining per se, obviously. The problem is that because it is so over-sized in Australia it has owned government for two decades and distorted policy and sectoral development in the process. Everyone knows this.

Take global warming denial for starters, of which Australia was the epicentre, and which was unfathomably expensive and dangerous. Then add the farce of not scaling solar when you had the chance, and the successive mining-owned Glib governments who positioned green energy and technology not as essential progress, but as part of an idiotic culture war.

Let's not forget the refusal to put money into technology, including agricultural tech, even as tech rose to dominate every single major global market and become the most sustainable source of high-paying jobs and careers across the world. The mining-owned Glibs couldn't even divert enough money to roll out a proper NBN, let alone serious research and funding programmes, or to oversee serious environmental management programmes to deal with fires in a country that ought to have long mastered fire management. Now, there's massive deforestation and accelerating species decline that nothing has been done about for decades, as the country chases its tail cleaning up fires or floods.

All of that is ten times worse than it should be because a thuggish industry was allowed to turn successive governments and peoples brains into mush for a quick and easy buck when it should have been generating long-term value, wealth, communities, infrastructure and jobs.

Mining dominates Australia like heroin dominates an addict. Australians are not somehow naturally dumber than everyone else; however, mining makes countries dumb and always has, hence the term 'the resource curse' in economics. There's absolutely nothing to be thankful for because has dominated and stifled proper competitive industries, starved people of access to other career options, and stopped people from developing real smarts and really smart institutions.

Again, not all mining is bad, and the engineering side creates some good careers. There's also nothing wrong with some easy money and good fortune. But at a certain scale mining is clearly destructive because it takes over everything and makes people dumb and lazy.

[stui magpie]

I don't get how mining somehow prevents innovation in other sectors.

There's plenty of technology innovation happening in Australia, it just doesn't make as much money.

[pietillidie]

Tech and pharma/life sciences companies most certainly do make more money, which is why they dominate global indices.

Take the NBN, which is a perfect case in point of how this parasitic industry wrecks things. People like Rinehart opposed the mining windfall tax and pressured the Glibs on taxes. Hence, worsened goverment revenues and a second-rate underfunded version of the NBN. Now, apply that to programme after programme, infrastructure project after infrastructure project. There's always money for mining transport and freight infrastructure, but not for life sciences parks, venture funds or ambitious science projects.

Or take the lack of tech talent in Australia. It doesn't exist at meaningful concentration or ability because the mining sector (and associated finance sector) lured too many smart people away from the knowledge sector even as it supported a party that grossly underfunded universties, science research and R&D, which are huge engines of technology talent and engineering skills here.

Or take medical tech, ag tech and the life sciences. It takes massive government and private investment to get them to scale, but if you've got one industry draining all the talent and capital, and putting very little knowledge and know-how back into the country, you're draining the life blood of other sectors.

Grabbers like Rinehart see any support that goes elsewhere as an affront to their entitlement; they turn everything into a zero-sum game.

So, mining dominance chokes other industries by diverting capital, diverting talent, reducing government revenues and gobbling up infrastructure and support, meanwhile leaving behind monumental environmental problems, none more costly than its role in funding global warming denial, and turning the government against green energy and green technology.

[Skids]

^That sort of stuff is trivial news cycle crap. The much more important point about parasites like Rinehart is that they didn't get the money they use to play god and run PR campaigns for themselves because they were improving the country and people's lives. Instead, she helped keep the wrecking Glibs in power over that whole period I mention above while riding a mining boom at the expense of other industries like technology, green energy, the life sciences, and the environment.

Withdrawing a few crumbs to the peasants is meaningless when you've aggressively supported trillions of dollars of economic, democratic and environmental damage. She not only helped wreck the future-forward mineral resources tax, but also helped turn Australia into global warming, science-hating central.

If the economy was more balanced there would be more money to support women's sport without handouts from the likes of Rinehart. Instead, young Australians can't afford homes, tech entrepreneurs have to go overseas, universities have to parasite off foreign students just to keep their doors open, no one can manage fires or floods, the environmental destruction from her global warming denial and science scoffing is costing billions every year, and Australian species are dropping like flies.

Goodness me. What an amazing perspective. I am seriously gobsmacked and feel saddened that people view things in this way.

[stui magpie]

Tech and pharma/life sciences companies most certainly do make more money, which is why they dominate global indices.

Take the NBN, which is a perfect case in point of how this parasitic industry wrecks things. People like Rinehart opposed the mining windfall tax and pressured the Glibs on taxes. Hence, worsened goverment revenues and a second-rate underfunded version of the NBN. Now, apply that to programme after programme, infrastructure project after infrastructure project. There's always money for mining transport and freight infrastructure, but not for life sciences parks, venture funds or ambitious science projects.

Or take the lack of tech talent in Australia. It doesn't exist at meaningful concentration or ability because the mining sector (and associated finance sector) lured too many smart people away from the knowledge sector even as it supported a party that grossly underfunded universties, science research and R&D, which are huge engines of technology talent and engineering skills here.

Or take medical tech, ag tech and the life sciences. It takes massive government and private investment to get them to scale, but if you've got one industry draining all the talent and capital, and putting very little knowledge and know-how back into the country, you're draining the life blood of other sectors.

Grabbers like Rinehart see any support that goes elsewhere as an affront to their entitlement; they turn everything into a zero-sum game.

So, mining dominance chokes other industries by diverting capital, diverting talent, reducing government revenues and gobbling up infrastructure and support, meanwhile leaving behind monumental environmental problems, none more costly than its role in funding global warming denial, and turning the government against green energy and green technology.

Sorry, I don't buy that it chokes other industries, it's not even competing with them. As far as reducing government revenue, the economy would be $@&^# without the revenue from federal and state taxes and royalties from mining.

[watt price tully]

[watt price tully]

”There's nothing wrong with mining per se, obviously. The problem is that because it is so over-sized in Australia it has owned government for two decades and distorted policy and sectoral development in the process. Everyone knows this.

Again, not all mining is bad, and the engineering side creates some good careers. There's also nothing wrong with some easy money and good fortune. But at a certain scale mining is clearly destructive because it takes over everything and makes people dumb and lazy.

Exactly and well expressed however not everyone knows this apparently. Everyone ought to know it. It’s also been a lot longer than 2 decades though. What ever happened to the super-profits tax or Gina’s role in the shameful “ditch the witch”. May she choke on her iron ore and the quicker the better.

[think positive]

Wow wow wow

Way to avoid the actual subject and also handout some over the top personal insults. This is why the board needs a mod that on the other side of what ever politics this comes from.

Some one once wrote of the tavern “they be demons in there”

Others have said it’s more bitchy than a girls school.


And sadly I actually don’t expect more than those belittling remarks! Do you actually talk to people face to face like that?



As for the thread, tax Bill or not, (how many billions have you guys paid? Like you don’t maximise your returns or volunteer to pay more!) reading the good Ginas company has done for not just the indigenous community, I think she’s more than made up for the heinous remarks made by her father. Not that she had too.

Come at MY intelligence now I really don’t give a ****.


Whatsinaname I totally agree about the majority of this kartrashian social media generation!

[pietillidie]

Sorry, I don't buy that it chokes other industries, it's not even competing with them. As far as reducing government revenue, the economy would be $%$ed without the revenue from federal and state taxes and royalties from mining.

Remember all those people who were swayed by arguments for the Iraq War, or denied global warming, or thought Brexit was sensible, or that Trump was fit for office, or that green energy would never scale?

I do think you can get it, but you've probably never got into the subject or been motivated to question an everyday pragmatic view.

Here's a simplified version, albeit one that is verbose by social media standards. Start with these questions:

(1) Name one economic entity in which an over-focus one one area does not divert capital and skills from another area.

(2) Name one economy in which an over-focus on one area has not resulted in political and regulatory capture by that industry.

(3) Name one advanced economy in which political and regulatory capture does not result in sub-optimal economic decisions and relative under-development.

(4) Name one high-rent industry like mining which is still subject to the competitive market discipline of goods and services industries.

Of course, Australia is not trapped in a resource curse scenario like Russia or certain AME nations because it developed a broader economic base well before events such as the iron ore boom of the 00s. But Australia most certainly does have the attendant problems of political and regulatory capture, the secrecy problems of what are called high-rent industries, and the relative under-development that accompanies those problems.

Australia as the genuinely lucky country has such an idyllic position, this can be hard to detect. Australia had abundant natural bounty, but also had advanced civilisation, skills and technology lifted straight from the most advanced civilisation of the day, England (tough early colonial times notwithstanding).

Arguments about national performance are never about how good something is compared to unfortunate countries; they're about how good something is compared to what it could be. So, there is no way America should have so much dire poverty and backwardness as it does. As the most powerful nation on earth, which had all of Australia's bounty and more, it should have a far higher quality of life across its citizenry.

Similarly, there is no way Australia should have long-term falling real wages, long-term rising inequality, a housing affordability crisis, something like 18% of children living in relative poverty, a cost of living crisis, unchecked urban sprawl and its attendant problems, too many people in low-quality unsatisfactory careers, massive environmental degradation and species loss, and so on. The luckiest country in the world should be the best, not merely better than the most bat$hit.

Granted, when you hear about the nightmares elsewhere, it can be hard to judge and easy to take for granted. But let's not get lazy with our analysis.

Rents from mining in Australia are as high as those from many African nations, while GDP output is heavily weighted to mining. This is important because mining is not like manufacturing or services in that the economics are highly non-competitive.

In economics terminology, goods and services are subject to competitive forces such that supply expands until profits are effectively driven to zero. What that means is that companies are under massive market-facing competitive pressure, and can readily be replaced by competitors. As a high-rent, high-scale industry, mining puts all of its efforts into political and regulatory capture, and creating national dependency. This is well-known in economics and uncontroversial, even if its less well-known amongst the general public.

So, that means the output and benefits for the country and citizenry are suppressed.

Mining is also an extremely high externality-causing industry, mostly through environmental damage. Think, say, particulate inhalation in NSW and Queensland coal mining areas that someone will eventually pay for, or the ghost towns and devaluation following busts, and then all of the classic environmental problems such as waterway pollution from unfilled pits or what have you. So, for a start the externalities are high.

But I'm not worried about some externalities because they can be mitigated and I do accept a moderate degree of environmental impact. So don't think I'm worried about every pockmark or bit of pollution. And most of Australia's environmental damage and species loss comes from a vastly more ignorant age through deforestation and poor agricultural practices, so I'm not blaming mining for that.

But global warming takes the already high cost of mining externalities to an astronomical level, and this is where things take a sinister turn. The Australian mining industry was the epicentre of global warming denial. And global warming denial has cost Australia billions already, cost the world trillions already, and was a godsend for the most vile tyrants around the world.

The slow might struggle with small percentages of big numbers, but we are only percentages and percentage points from catastrophe across many measures; not just natural disaster intensity and sea level rising, but global instability. Start at Iraq and finish with Putin's destabilisation and inflation, still ongoing, and start costing the role of mining companies in supporting catastrophe and delaying energy transition. Add that to the already astronomical cost of global warming and climate destabilisation, and attribute whatever fraction you want to the political capture and propagandist efforts of mining capital, and the prolonged dependence on old energy at the hands of mining capital, and you're dealing with monstrous numbers and monstrous destruction.

Now, bring that back to Australian politics, where there is no money for science, no money for a proper NBN, no money for proper technology, an abandonment of hectare after hectare of waste land, no effort to plan settlements properly and deal with housing affordability, an underdevelopment of high wage green tech, ag tech, life sciences and tech industries and skills, a string of very poor Glib governments that have overseen support for the Iraq War, support of global warming denial, real wage decline, environmental decline and a rise in inequality and child poverty, and you're starting to get a sense of the cost of Australia's dependency on the high-rent economic sector of mining.

This can't be explained in a glib, smart-ar$ed news cycle quip. As I say, it's all about relative performance along the lines of an xG calculation, not about how bad others are doing, and involves fractions of astronomical numbers. In my view the reason the internet has made politics worse is that glib, dumb, mischievous answers drown out careful answers of the sort that pass as acceptable in science, that disciplined mode of thinking which underwrites contemporary civilisation and development.

That's why so many people foolishly fell for the mining anti-global warming lies that are costing Australia billions and the world trillions. That's why people can't compute how species loss and opposition to funding its reversal affects them. Or how an increased frequency of adverse natural disasters hits their hip pocket and leads to less funding for services and infrastructure, or how hundreds and hundreds of half-ar$sed NBN-like projects are delivered by political capture, as are horrible decisions like Iraq or fevered opposition to green energy investment that helped give Putin the leverage he has today that he otherwise would not have.

People can not buy this all they like, just as they dismissed global warming, but that's a failure of effortful computation which they can get away with because no one is going to try hard enough to question them or ever hold them responsible for their views and votes.

Contrary to the far left, the problem isn't markets and development. So don't get me wrong; as I have long said I'm a competitionist according to a specific definition, namely that high-quality, genuine competition makes everyone better off, and that involves a strong mix of enterprise and government investment (i.e., as much competition as you can except in areas of natural monopoly where pretend markets just lead to rubbish services, or in areas of very high capital entry cost where you need government investment, such as in education, the life sciences, etc.).

And I am in no way opposed to mining. No way at all. I am opposed to too great a dependency on high-rent industries like mining, because unlike goods and services, mining leads to capture and corruption. This is very orthodox and very basic economics, studied and understood for decades. The examples I've given above, and the mechanism as described, are very standard and very expected. Russia is an extreme case, but every step you take closer to that kind of scenario through high-rent industries leading to political capture degrades quality of life.

Picketty's formula, looking at the relationship between return to capital and output growth, or general benefit, is ingenious. In ancient, brute civilisations, or failed states, the returns to capital greatly outweigh the general benefit, which is why you get a tiny handful of very rich people, and a vast multitude of peasants. For various reasons, after the world wars growth was very high and the returns to capital low, which is ideal because you can develop whole societies that way and make everyone better off. And that's exactly what happened.

But that post-war situation started to reverse towards the end of the 20th century. And the central cause is presumed to be political capture, which enables people like Gina Rinehart to distort national policy in their favour, and put the costs onto everyone else. Thus, Australians face falling real wages, a collapse in housing affordability, an increase in child poverty and societal inequality, worsening environmental degradation, a refusal to invest in the future, declining government revenues, and so on.

Still better that than the even worse situation here and still worse situation in the US. But still nowhere near as good as it could be. All it takes is small fractions of very big numbers and an increasing grip on government to instigate that kind of decline. Subtle enough that people can excuse their way out of it, but real enough that careful thought and measurement can map it.

[pietillidie]

I am seriously gobsmacked and feel saddened that people view things in this way.

It's not personal and I'm not against mining and certainly not insulting your involvement therein. You are not Rinehart or a representative of big mining capital distorting national policy. Of course, to the extent you may have supported her global warming denial, tacitly or otherwise, and to the extent you may have supported the industry's regulatory and political capture, or dumping of externalities, or stunting of Australian green tech investment, then there are questions there worth you considering.

But I am by no means against mining. It's very obviously a fundamental industry and work historically and still so today, but it also also associated with some extremely ugly and subtly destructive things. So don't confuse my arguments with those of the far-left or those who oppose mining per se.

The above are very orthodox economic arguments. I am just as much against tech or pharma when they abuse their market position as they do in the US, or when they distort global taxation or rip off poor countries. It can be any industry, it's just that mining is particularly prone because it's a high-rent, closed-door business with an extremely dubious track record, and the topic is the Australian economy. That doesn't fall at your feet by any means.

So try not to feel saddened or attacked or dissed. This is not about individual workers or industry participants, and we are all participants in mining whether we like it or not. It's about those who actively block mitigation of the problematic aspects.

The situation is a bit similar to my opposition to housing being too dependent on the private rental market. That can make TP feel attacked, but I don't oppose what she's doing as long as she doesn't actively try to stop the government mitigating the housing affordability crisis.

It's not about any of us being perfect or even close thereto. It's really about not coc% blocking solutions that can improve everyone's lives. 10% improvements might not sound like much, but much like investment, quality of life and society are about small improvements that accumulate and compound. That requires agility and accepting some ambiguity, not going all in with one side of something as if it's a religion, no matter the cost.

Read my longer argument directly above.

[What'sinaname]

[quote="watt price tully"]
Now I see why the herald sun has so many many subscribers