White Line Fever wrote:Nothing left to sell off after all the utilities and lotteries have previously gone by a greedy government after a quick buck and no care about a future steady revenue.
Makes me rage.
At the end of the Bannon era, not only was there a huge debt in the state bank, but something like
another $7 billion hole in the State Superannuation Fund because it had been spent too.
It was simply too much to sustain because there was nowhere to get the funding to pay the daily costs of the debt and the debt was thus multiplying itself.
And that was without even trying to put the superannuation reserves back.
The sell-offs thereafter were not only to reduce the debt but also to offload the huge unfunded superannuation liability.
The bidders got the state services and utilities relatively cheaply because they took on the workers and the superannuation liability.
It was the same in Victoria.
At the time the Federal government was not going to bail out SA or Victoria, any more than the EU will bail out he Greeks now if they won't agree to stop over-spending.
This time there are not even those assets to sell, and the Feds are likely to be in a deep hole too.
As the Greeks are about to learn you can't have years of financial profligacy, to buy your voters support, then expect someone else to rescue you without your citizens experiencing the consequential pain.
(The supporters of those parties were, apparently, happy to take the benefits without thinking about the bill having to be paid eventually, and the fact that you can't keep borrowing more and more forever.)
