Keating Just Keeps on Giving it to Us! By James Reed

     Does this nightmare ever end? I look at my very favourite capitalist paper, the FIN, and there is Keating doing what he does best.
  https://www.afr.com/politics/keating-proposes-hecs-style-loans-to-fund-aged-care-20200914-p55vcc

“A HECS-style loan system should be introduced to help fund Australians' aged care, former prime minister Paul Keating says. People would be given credits towards their aged care and their estate then used to pay off the loans after they died, Mr Keating told the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. "We're not forcing anyone out of their home in old age, we're not obliging an aged person to negatively mortgage their home," he said on Monday. "You're not asking members of families to chip in and pay for their relatives. I think such a system has a lot of advantages." The latest round of royal commission hearings is looking at funding and prudential regulation in the aged care sector. Senior counsel assisting Peter Gray, QC, told commissioners that aged care providers were not required to report how much they were actually spending on care. Commissioner Tony Pagone asked Mr Keating if his HECS-style proposal could be seen as a death tax by requiring people to pay off their loans with their assets. "Putting on my former hat as a tax lawyer, I can see lots of people trying to make sure they don't have the assets there that can be called upon," Mr Pagone said. Mr Keating said the government would have to introduce policies to make sure that didn't happen. Similar to HECS, Mr Keating said the loan would not have to be repaid if it couldn't, like university students who never meet the income threshold to start paying off their debt. Brick and mortar assets, superannuation, cash and other investments would all be called upon after the person died to pay off the loan, he said. "In such a proposition you couldn't think of much political opposition from any quarter," Mr Keating said. The former prime minister, the man behind Australia's compulsory superannuation, said he changed his thinking on his previously proposed "longevity levy". The levy would tack 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent extra on to super payments to fund an insurance scheme for Australians once they passed their mid-80s.

     We can’t he just go to China and offer his wisdom to them? If you have assets, and don’t want what really looks like a negative mortgage on their home, contrary to old Paul’s denial, then spend some solid bucks and see a good financial planner and a lawyer too, people who specialise in getting around these sorts of things, before your brain gets to my state. I cannot offer financial advice, because not only am I unqualified, but to boot, pretty ignorant on such matters, like the average person. I can offer advice on being an alcoholic, and a general loser, but who wants that; it is like falling off a log, the easiest thing in the world?

     Wow, the pain in my index finger is something else, even the copious quantities of alcohol I have drunk is not taking the edge off the pain. It feels like I am hitting the keys with a slither of glass embedded in my finger tip! Just the tip, not the join, but I can’t see any wound. I asked a homeless person to see if he could see anything in my finger, but he just got aggressive. At least he did not hit me with a bottle, leading to same problem for my head! Looks like I will have to type with one hand, or else do a bit of amateur surgery on my finger:  folks, do not attempt this!