They might create companies here that sell resources to OS companies for a pittance, but I bet the government puts a market value test on those exports.

Additionally the companies have an infrastructure sunk cost that current operations have probably not paid off yet, so they are not just going to abandon them.

I’m not arguing anything here, just suggesting some facts that are applicable to the discussion.

The question about governments using their tax money well is a vastly open one. No government could exist if the taxed population refused to pay whenever they felt it was inefficient. Its really, as Chris is saying, a matter of competition but its quite complex. People who live in a country benefit (or not) from the taxes paid to the government, whereas overseas businesses with investments here are effected in different ways.

This is always where the contradiction and hyprocrisy lies with socialist forms of government (not that I am saying America’s rapacious free market capitalism is the answer either).

And in any case, it is simply market competition of various tax regimes. If the govt taxes the hell out of companies they move. Like James Hardie. This is fact.

Plus I find it strange that a government should be applauded for being inefficient and asking companies to make up for their mismanagement, but a govt that runs things efficiently and delivers tons of services for its people gets bagged.

But I also appreciate that I may be bagged for saying this.

To most Australians they will win from this plan to better share the massive profits from non-renewal limited resources that belong to all Australians; now and in the future.

The way the proposed tax works is to target super-profits over and above the profits needed by the owners to satisfy their need to stay in the business. Many exemptions and reductions to the proposed tax will apply.

News is becoming encumbered more and more with this shallow, useless way of reporting. I want some more knowledge from news like that. Why did the mine collapse? Was it preventable or just a risk that people live with? What are the details of the rescue system? Was it a special one of design or something kept on stand by for just such an occasion? Who designed it? What is the Chilean governments actual role in all this? What about the guys that did die? What’s the financial aftermath? And on and on.

The pope is making public pronouncements anywhere and everywhere in order to sway public opinion to his backward way of thinking. Its good to see intelligent public rebuttals of their crap.