1975

11/24/2024

“Jim Chalmers [the Australian Federal treasurer] to announce $900 million fund for states to boost competition and productivity”.

My first thought was “good, Queensland needs it because it takes them 3 years to replace a roundabout.”

However, it makes me wonder if all these grants and handouts, with accompanying bureacracies, were simply cut and the people and companies taxed less accordingly, what would be the “productivity impact”?

I guess I’m asking what is the optimal level of taxation as a % of GNP, GDP or export revenues?

I know right now that we’ve long overshot the optimal point, which was probably around 1975.

We did this because we could afford to, and people aren’t that smart. Collectively we want over-government and we want to pay to remove all risks, even the dumb ones.

For example, the feds want to spend $900m to remove the risk that a report on productivity that they voluntarily commissioned might impact their salaries after the next election.

It just proves that in the face of widespread gross self interest that 29 million people can’t calculate any type of cost benefit analysis, individually or collectively.