It seems our political class have no idea where wealth comes from:

EMPLOYERS have reacted angrily to the passage of Julia Gillard’s mining tax, saying an associated superannuation boost will cost businesses $20 billion a year.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said Labor’s 1 per cent company tax cut would be swamped by its hike in the superannuation guarantee from 9 to 12 per cent.

ACCI chief Peter Anderson said the superannuation rise would leave firms worse off than they were before the mining tax.

The cost of doing business and living in Australia should be the number one election issue.

The USA’s biggest retail bank Wells Fargo has a net interest margin of 3.89%. What do you think the CBA’s net interest margin is? With all the bank bashing from Swan you’d expect it to be higher. However, in 2011 it was only 2.19%.

Mr Narev’s attack centred on federal treasurer Wayne Swan’s claims that banks’ profit margins had recovered to levels before the downturn.

“Our net interest margins are not back at pre-GFC levels,” Mr Narev said.

The bank, Australia’s largest, raised its standard variable rate by 10 basis points on Monday.

Mr Narev, who became the chief executive in December 2011, defended the profitability of the domestic banking sector.

“We have heard from some parts of the community that the Australian banks are far more profitable,” he said.

“We need to put some facts against this conjecture.”

Mr Narev said Australian banks’ profitability, on a return on equity basis, was on par with Canada’s banks, which are comparable to the domestic sector.

Wayne Swan instead is complaining that the banks are putting the interests of shareholders ahead of customers. Well, that is their legal obligation Wayne!

I see the arguments for both sides, but if we are going to get rid of auto car subsidies lets get rid of all business subsidies, especially for ‘renewable’ energy.

Senator Carr said that one million Australians are employed in some form of manufacturing and that the automotive industry is the foundation stone of manufacturing.

He said that, at only $17.80 per taxpayer, the Australian government’s level of support for the car industry was very low compared with Canada ($96.39), France ($147.38), Germany ($90.37), Sweden ($334) and the UK ($27), let alone “the great home of free enterprise”, the US ($264).

“Nowhere in the world – nowhere – does the automotive industry survive without substantial co-investment by the governments,” said Senator Carr.

Some months ago ABC’s 4 Corners ran a story in which they claimed that Indonesia were abusing Australian cattle. The story was weak and poorly sourced and based on a brief bit of video footage. There was never any confirmation that the cattle were Australian, that the abattoir shown was in any way representative of the cattle trade and some doubt arouse that the persons involved may have been paid to abuse the cattle. In any case the cattle that were abused numbered less than ten. Nevertheless, the ALP government banned the entire live export trade to Indonesia, even though the trade provided the protein requirements for millions of Indonesians. So insulted by the ban, the trade has never recovered and now the Indonesians have taken additional steps:

In a move that has surprised the live export sector, Indonesia cut its demand for Australian cattle by about half to 285,000 next year.

The Opposition has called for Senator Ludwig to be dumped as Minister over his handling of the live export trade with Indonesia.

They say the cuts in quotas are a result of the Government’s poor handling of animal cruelty in Indonesian abattoirs earlier this year.

….

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says Senator Ludwig should have been dumped in the recent ministerial reshuffle.

He says Senator Ludwig is only in the job because of his father Bill Ludwig’s involvement with the Labor Party and because the Prime Minister did not want to send Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd to sort out the problems in Indonesia.

“We have a totally incompetent minister, Joe Ludwig, still in the Cabinet because he’s not only a faceless man, he’s a hereditary faceless man,” he said.

“He was one of the people who deserved to be sacked from the Cabinet. Instead the Prime Minister sacked or sidelined the people who she feared.”

It is pretty incredible that a government can so easily destroy the livelihood of tens of thousands and risk the nutritional requirements of millions based solely on a flimsy 20 minute left-wing hatched job by ABC’s 4 Corners. It should concern every Australian who is trying to run a business and everyone else that is dependent on those businesses.