We are all rich now!

Gee… I honestly didn’t see that one coming. Cutting the “welfare for the wealthy” means everybody pays more:

HEALTH insurance premiums will jump by an average 5.06 per cent, or about $150 a year for typical family cover and even more for high earners, who also face losing all or part of the health fund rebate this year.
Premiums for families on high incomes could rise by more than $200 a year, and singles by more than $100 a year, once the new provisions for means testing of the rebate kick in. Premiums will rise from April 1.

Thank you ALP!

And thank you for this too:

ELECTRICITY generators have warned that they face a cashflow crunch of hundreds of millions of dollars to buy carbon tax permits as the latest greenhouse gas emissions figures suggest almost $4 billion of the $7.7bn to be raised in the first year of the policy will come from power companies…

The companies told The Australian yesterday they would try to recoup the cost through higher electricity prices, but because prices are set by bids in the national electricity market, they are uncertain how much they will be able to recover.

And this:

VIRGIN Australia says its domestic ticket prices will rise by as much as $6 per flight due to the federal government’s carbon pricing scheme.

Here are a couple of campaign slogans Julia may want to use:

ALP – Dedicated to lowering your standard of living!

ALP – Driving your prices higher!

ALP – Moving your prices forward!

ALP – Make Prosperity History!

Links via Andrew Bolt

Calculus for ALP members

I said it once and I will say it again. Why are ALP types so hopelessly bad at math? via Andrew Bolt:

Reader K, a chartered accountant, writes:

I note Health Minister Tanya Plibersek is claiming the ALP’s Health Insurance Reforms stop people earning $50K subsidising the health insurance of people earning $250K.

You might be interested to know that a person earning $50K pa pays $5,400 pa including Medicare levy. A person earning $250K pa pays $89,800 pa including Medicare levy. That’s 16.6 times more tax despite only earning 5 times as much income.

Does Tanya Plibersek seriously think people earning $250K spend 16.6 times more time in hospitals? Indeed on a related topic does she think $250K people have 16.6 times more children being educated by the Government? The suggestion that someone who has paid $89,800 in tax might at best get about $1500 back in a rebate for health insurance is some how bludging off the person paying only $5,400 is so utterly preposterous that one wonders how absurdly innumerate Plibersek is to have arrived at this conclusion.

Struggling to count our money

Some brilliant news for the workers in a struggling industry:

GM Holden has agreed to an extraordinary wage deal that will lift the income of 4000 employees by up to 22 per cent by 2014, despite the carmaker seeking a taxpayer-funded assistance package from the Gillard government. In a deal hailed by union leaders as “spectacular”, workers will receive a “guaranteed” 18.3 per cent increase over the next three years, with some workers to receive up to 22.3 per cent.

Even better:

The Australian has obtained full details of the agreement, which the union said contained no productivity trade-offs… Federal Liberal MP Jamie Briggs yesterday questioned pay rises previously awarded to Holden employees, saying recent enterprise agreements did not appear to be delivering productivity and efficiency gains. Mr Briggs said if taxpayers are “handing over large wads of cash”, they would expect that companies receiving support would make improvements to their operations.

This is absolutely shameful. In a modern Australian context, or should I say in ALP/union Orwellian double-speak, a “struggling industry” means an industry that rewards its unproductive workers with money extorted from the taxpayer. Furthermore it feels entitled to reward its workforce over and above of what the taxpaying suckers can expect themselves.

This a brilliant new economy that Gillard government is building.