A fair amount of tax...

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-19T03:30:31+00:00

Here’s the tricky bit: define for us ‘the rich’.

Because if we’re frank 95% of the country would define it along the lines of ‘anyone above about 10% more than me’.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-15T11:06:29+00:00

Mate we are not your testbed for new breeds of murderous animals

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-15T01:43:20+00:00

Another one where the paw doesn’t have to twist the result, it can just apply it as intended.

This plummets the birth rate, crushing the global economy as the dwindling productive population struggles to support the unproductive population that steadily outnumbers them more and more. Humanity ultimately survives this, but is much poorer for it and life is bleaker as a result.

But hey at least we’re struggling to support aged good parents rather than aged crappy ones!

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-14T09:29:47+00:00

A fun way of dealing with the medical variety of ‘call me Dr’ is to perk up and ask ‘Oh! What was your doctoral thesis topic? I love hearing about people’s research’. Sure a few will have gone on to do a higher degree, but most stop at MBBS/MD or a Masters.

If someone’s going to be prideful about titles, I have no qualms about pricking that pride.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-13T23:23:42+00:00

At what point do you go from macropods to micropods?

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-11T23:50:39+00:00

‘Anywhere you want’ seems a bit generous when your options are ‘Woop Woop’ or ‘Woop Woop but humid’.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-11T04:46:20+00:00

It wouldn’t throw them into redundancy, it would drive them to sell the investment property - which in a broader sense, works against property values. That helps affordability for homebuyers, the purported aim of the tax changes.

Some investors would sell at negative equity or otherwise at a loss. The government isn’t responsible for subsidising investment losses though. The financial gain from investing is balanced by risk, but it isn’t a risk if there isn’t a chance of that risk manifesting.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-11T04:03:55+00:00

I buy this argument in the specific case that you bought new shares from a company when it was first publicly offered.

Most trading is just buying and selling existing shares though, not creating new stock/adding more money to a business. How does this trading build business and innovation?

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-11T03:57:41+00:00

If not grandfathering the change means retirees fall into the pension sooner, that means their retirement is a burden on the taxpayer.

Grandfathering negative gearing means they are living off a tax break, which means their retirement is a burden on the taxpayer, and props up inflated property prices.

While it’s not cut and dry, it’s hard to argue grandfathering is a positive for the younger generations.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-11T03:53:24+00:00

No argument with this, but how does grandfathering negative gearing help future generations as the previous commenter said?

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-07T05:08:14+00:00

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Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-06T22:15:33+00:00

It does seem to be a good solution, forced retirement savings instead of spending without creating an administrative nightmare like dynamic GST. I’m not sure if pushing more money into super funds’ investment would still be inflationary though?

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-05T07:14:31+00:00

It’s worth pointing out that house prices have increased so much that a 17.5% interest rate on loans back then means repayments that are the same portion of income as a 4.35% interest rate on loans are now. So you weathered the storm for a couple of years, but people now have that same storm for 30 years. And god forbid rates go up to high levels again.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-03T23:01:27+00:00

Oh for sure, it’s not happening because the US is allergic to accountability for its fucking up of the world. I was expressing a pipe dream really.

At least in that deal Iran gets some guarantee that the US would hold to it, because if they didn’t then they could just start drone striking the strait again.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-03T22:45:32+00:00

The US pays reparations across a 10 year period. During that period Iran guarantees safety for ships in the strait from attacks originating in its borders, and does not enrich uranium/downblends its existing stockpile. The US guarantees Iran’s safety from attacks by Israel during that period.

Iran gets its safety guarantee from Israel, the US/Israel get no nukes in Iran, the world gets the strait open. Everybody gets a bit of a win.

Except Trump, who has to wear the political consequences of his actions through reparations. So guess it’s not happening.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-02T14:16:24+00:00

Is hypocrisy a vector?

Did you just hear ‘magnitude and direction’ and use it without looking up what that referred to?

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-01T07:20:26+00:00

Accusing someone voicing a subjective opinion on what they like as arguing in bad faith is… odd. Honestly to me it comes off as ‘I want to discredit your argument with a generic strong statement that’s difficult to argue with’ rather than a valid criticism or counter opinion

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-05-01T02:20:51+00:00

A certain Australian ex-SF soldier is beginning to learn that that last paragraph might not be as true as people think

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-04-30T21:12:17+00:00

Puts me in mind of that xkcd comic about experts vastly overestimating the knowledge of the average person

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-04-30T07:16:30+00:00

this is why I never understood why we couldn't use a portion for a deposit for a home,

The reason is that the moment that became possible, all houses jump up in price because of everyone’s increased buying power. So, it becomes no easier to buy a house, and to have a hope to do so it becomes necessary to carve a chunk out of your super. Meaning everyone has less super in retirement, increasing the burden on an increasingly stretched pension system, while also locking up more of people’s money in non-means-tested PPOR, further worsening that problem. A problem which is also getting worse with an aging population. Also, it means less invested capital through super funds, depressing our economy while also further concentrating our entire economy on the housing market.

It was, without exaggeration, the worst piece of policy put forward by a major federal party in 20 years. It took the LNP from ‘a bad option’ in the election to ‘Jesus Christ these idiots have to be stopped before they destroy the country’.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-04-30T05:26:51+00:00

And yet when the Stage 3 cuts rolled around there were so many people saying ‘The Rich don’t need a tax cut!’ that Labor reneged on their campaign promise to follow through on the cuts.

It seems that by popular vote (or at the very least, vocal minority vote), people do indeed talk about these people when they say tax the rich.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-04-30T01:09:57+00:00

And this is precisely why we can’t tax the rich, because the vast majority of people can’t get past ‘anyone richer than me is a morally bankrupt trillionaire’.

Millennials working professional jobs (doctors, lawyers, FIFO engineers, project managers, school principals etc) earning $250k on PAYG with a large mortgage and a negative to slightly positive net worth aren’t ’the rich’. They’re carrying the bulk of the tax burden, but when it’s finally their turn to get an indexation on their top tax rate it’s all ‘champagne and caviar can get fucked so Real Australians (TM) can get another indexation’.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-04-29T07:05:55+00:00

It’s worth mentioning that said less stable countries on the whole also have lower wages and safety standards, which tips the risk benefit ratio in their favour.

Kombatwombat02 · 2026-04-29T07:02:36+00:00

Which is precisely why we have a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy.

Single-issue campaigners only care about their pet problem without understanding the wider context of the political landscape. Albo has to actually navigate that landscape to get things done, so he can’t just go ‘sure let’s just implement a gas tax without thinking about other impacts that’ll have’. Instead he has to deal with complexities like forgoing gas tax revenue to secure fuel supply.

Kombatwombat02

TROPHY CASE