the golden goose grazes on the Greek grass - and the government is strangled

A 'primary' principle of neo-liberalism is 'starve the beast;' government is said to be useless, so starve it in steps - by cutting taxes (mostly off the rich.)

Yair, yair; the rich get ever richer, as services are withdrawn from the 'stupid & undeserving' (serves 'em right for being poor.) Public servants are also useless, so get rid of 'em too.

Like in Greece; they privatised things like airports, cut taxes but forgot to sack the public servants. Needing money to pay them, the (previous, conservative) government mortgaged the future income from the airports, both 'advised' and then 'aided' by the "giant bloodsucking squid on the face of humanity."

Long story short: (partly?) implementing neo-liberalism drove Greece broke.

IF one keeps cutting taxes THEN Q: Which services to cut? A: Hospitals? (Oh! Already under-funded.)

Lab in NSW & qld are neo-liberalising, as have Lib governments (note: bipartisanship, by offering the voters *NO* choice, is both un-representative and anti-democratic.)

If we talk about golden geese, none would be more golden than the NSW lottery business; a licence to print $s. But sold off it will be, like the electricity suppliers. Q: How does that bring the so-called 'advantages' of competition to the people? A: It just doesn't.

One can build a toll-booth economy, but if so, it's gotta function. France has a) Autoroute tolls and b) Autoroutes from top to bottom, left to right (but tolls cost more than fuel!) Going pro-rata based on the Sydney cross-city, or the latest Brisbane bypass, no-one could afford to drive any long distance - assuming they ever pulled their fingers out and built Sydney-Brisbane 4-lane as a tollway, say. One can only get so much blood out of a stone.

Taxes have to come from somewhere; a mining resource rent tax - based on *SUPER PROFITS* is one of the best places to start.

See
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_rent
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abnormal_profit
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartwick's_rule
etc., especially the latter.