Friday 18 July 2008

The poor will always be with us and poorly compensated for social and economic change

There is a lot of nonsense being talked about people living on or below the poverty line being adequately compensated by government, for rising costs due to the introduction of a mandatory national Emissions Trading Scheme.
This will not happen.
Any individual or family compensation will follow an historic pattern of an increase in benefit, allowance or tax rebate, which will have its real worth whittled away over time because the frequency of cost of living rises either markedly outstrip government expectations or government does not attempt to fully match post-ETS CPI rises.

Renters will be even worse off because it is highly unlikely that landlords will install water and energy saving devices in existing housing.
Any pensioner can tell you that the lag, between real cost increases and increases in pensions or allowances, mean that bills are often being met from dwindling resources.
So I have little sympathy for business or industry bitching over the 'sweet' deal they are getting from the Rudd Government.
Their own company bottom lines are unlikely to suffer - they will all make sure that the poor cough up to pay their increased fees and charges.

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