Assessment Task 3 - A Contentious Issue

36200 Argument, Evidence and Intuition

Assessment Task 3 -

A Contentious Issue

Anthony Hamilton

Student No.  10168577

The Presentation / Report can be found at

http://anthony-hamilton-36200.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-quantified-self.html

The Reflection can be found on the last page

Should Australia increase the rate of the GST ?

Over recent years Australia’s government expenditure has been greater than its revenue, well since 2008

Figures from the ABS

In the recent figures published by ABS at the end of the September taxation revenue decreased 15.1% to $99,763m from $117,469m in the June quarter 2014. Furthermore, general government sector expenses exceeded revenue resulting in a Government Finance Statistics net operating balance of –$19,288m. or in other words we are spending more than what we are earning.

Why has expenditure increased? Well spending has increased just as it has historically and yet revenue has also increased although not kept pace with expenditure. The challenge we face is that rate of spending has accelerated past the revenue. Therefore suggesting that we don’t have a spending problem we have a revenue problem.  Even though the actual revenue figure have actually increased since 2006

Is there a case for Australians paying higher taxes, OECD report suggests that Australia had a relatively low level of indirect taxes as a percentage of the gross domestic product — 7 per cent compared to the average of 12 per cent.

OECD Report – Revenue Statistics 2014 - Australia

In Australian the GST is now an accepted method of tax collection as Stephen Koukoulas  writes for the Drum on the ABC Network  suggesting “The beauty of the GST is that it is a transparent tax that is well understood and widely accepted by both business and consumers.”

GST offers unifying benefits where weaker state can be supported by other stronger states economically speaking. So each state has the opportunity to offer same government services in terms of budgetary spending when it comes to health and education.

Furthermore it also removes tax variations between states along with have one source of collection offers cost savings rather than having 6 states collecting taxes at differing rates.

Therefore Australians are comfortable about the idea of a GST yet one who imagine that they are less comfortable about the idea of increasing the rate of the GST

Is the answer a higher GST or growing the pie? In terms of changing the rate at which revenue is increasing a simple solution would be to increase the rate of GST. This Australia would be less likely to embrace this option without additional trade-offs or for some incentive to change.

Peter Reith writing for the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that “Broadening the base on food might raise $6 billion to $7 billion, and of that about $2 billion might be given back in compensation”

Who should pay more If businesses where to pay more in terms of taxes , would that mean they are less like to invest in training new employees and investing in the youth of future? Current youth unemployment is around 17% in some regions across Australia. By directly increasing tax would certainly affect business activity.

Would the tax payers of Australia be happy to pay more if so which sector could higher tax payers offer more or would high tax payers be encouraged to avoid paying more tax? Just like the big multinationals tax minimising.

One thing is clear it that both Australians and Australian business would like to see  the big multinational pay more in tax therefore reducing the amount consumers and business need to pay.

Heath Aston writing for the Sydney morning herald suggests “Apple has shifted an estimated $8.9 billion in untaxed profits from its Australian operations to a tax haven structure in Ireland in the past decade” basically robbing Australia tax payers.

Have better management of our tax collection processes offers an opportunity of increase the revenue growth rate, yet tax avoidance of big multinationals is not a new problem it has been going on for years.

In a recent OECD Report suggests that Australia’s Structure of Tax Receipts receive higher revenues from taxes on personal income, corporate income and property. Yet a lower proportion of revenues from taxes on goods and services. Furthermore we receive no Revenue from social security contributors, but Australia has higher revenues for payroll taxes compared to OECD as a whole

Historically Australia’s tax against GDP has been relatively low

Is the slow growth rate in Revenue a cyclic issue or is it a permanent issue? Falling commodity prices suggest less revenue for the Australia Government or less money floating through the economy.

Falling oil prices could hurt the Australian economy as Australia is an energy producer, with coal and natural gas being in the top five commodities exported

A recent article in the economist suggested the basis for falling oil prices is that there is less demand for oil and the energy sector as the United States of America is producing more oil from shale gas and drilling of more wells “ perhaps 20,000 new wells since 2010”

Australian Treasury figures

Looking at Australian Treasury figures they suggest that tax to GDP ratio is cyclic relationship that is predicted to recover in coming years this would make sense to some extent, with commodity prices as the world emerges out of the Global economic crises or returns to historical rates of growth.

Now if this is not the case and the reduction in the revenue growth is one of a permeant nature we may need to review our longer tem spending commitments better Management of fund and possibly reducing super tax concessions.

In concluding should Australia increase the rate of the GST or should we be boarding the base of the GST. Do Australians need to pay more tax as our contributions in comparison to other countries? Do we need to change anything and hope that our revenue growth will return as the world economy returns to higher rates growth?

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5519.0.55.001

The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21635472-economics-oil-have-changed-some-businesses-will-go-bust-market-will-be

The Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockey-confirms-tax-office-crackdown-on-multinational-tax-robbers-20141209-1234gr.html

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/gst-increase-no-solution-for-raising-revenue-20140519-zrh2r.html

OECD Report – Revenue Statistics 2014 - Australia

http://www.oecd.org/ctp/consumption/revenue-statistics-and-consumption-tax-trends-2014-australia.pdf

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA:  http://www.gstdistributionreview.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=home.htm

http://www.treasury.gov.au/PublicationsAndMedia/Publications/2013/Economic-Roundup-Issue-2/Economic-Roundup/Tax-to-GDP-ratio

Assessment Task 2 - Developing a Self Study Program

36200 Argument, Evidence and Intuition

Assessment Task 2 - Developing a Self Study Program

Anthony Hamilton

Student No.  10168577

The Report

Area of interest – Gambling Horse Racing

The challenge can Mathematics as predict the result of a horse racing event using Pythagorean equation and if there is any difference in using Euclidean metrics

Goals

The aim of this mathematical calculation id to discover or document the come of a number of race events to establish if a mathematical formula can predict the outcome of a horse racing event

The equation would take an existing data which is readily available such as a horse’s previous form along with the odds at publication  

The equation would be for a number of specific types of race that is races where horse have qualified or won a least one race to enter

Pythagorean equation

To begin we test two variables Odds of Horse winning against the sum of the horses previous form

Testing these results using Pythagorean Theory

To Quote Wikipedia

“In mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem, also known as Pythagoras's theorem, is a relation in Euclidean geometry among the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the sides a, b and c, often called the "Pythagorean equation”

For Race Results and Calculations Appendix A

Euclidean metrics

In mathematics, the Euclidean metric is the "ordinary" distance between two points in Euclidean space. In terms of space we plan to plot the Odds of a horse winning at time of publication against the Sum of the Horses previous form and against the odds 5 mins before the race.

For Race Results and Calculations Appendix B

In comparing the different forms of mathematical calculations Euclidean metric is more likely to offer a more accurate result as it has the option to take into account the more of the variables in to account.

Additional variable that could be taken into account would be the horse speed or average velocity in its last race and or average speed or velocity over the last 600 metres.

Now have said that we are also assuming that that all of these values are equal in terms of scale

In terms of predictability we were able to predict one winner in eight races having said that if a gambler had picked the favourites in each race they would of have the same results.

In terms of a profitable exercise by placing a bet of $2 on a place for each selection a punter would of lose $6 in across eight races

Assessment Task 1 - The Quantified Self

36200 Argument, Evidence and Intuition

Assessment Task 1 - The Quantified Self

Anthony Hamilton

Student No.  10168577

The Presentation / Report can be found at

http://anthony-hamilton-36200.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/the-quantified-self.html

The Reflection can be found on the next page

The Report

Introduction
As Technology continues to evolve handheld devices offer a cost effect way of recording large amounts of data on the human being. The Quantified self is about tracking one's person it offer an opportunity to set goals and live a more healthy life. This report is based on my personal Kilojoule counting.
Method
To record the number of kilojoules consumed on Smart phone and or iPad through my daily activities. My Fitness Pal has been downloaded and installed from www.myfitnesspal.com data has been record from a 2 week period ending on January 21st 2015.
Foods consumed have been recorded by selection from the My Fitness Pal data based or entered manually.
 Kilojoules Consumed
Counting Kilojoules has be an informative and yet motivating process to meet a goal of consuming 10,544 Kilojoules per day, this was set for a person of my size to lose weight in a healthy fashion with a target weight of 90Kgs

One of the benefits to have a data base of foods and there kilojoules it offers one a chance to look at my regular daily foods and compare them to the My Fitness Pal food data base. It has offered an on formed choice what in terms of potential Kilojoules consumption prior to consumption.

On the 18th of January I was feeling ill one could suggest it was due to that amount of alcohol intake from the previous evening where one did not wish to get out of bed on the Sunday. Although from past experience that amount of alcohol consumed was not significant it could have been a build-up of lack of sleep burning the candle at both ends.


Disscussion
Is there a difference in the average kilojoules intake between countries and cultures?
There are some many differences between our countries particulary when it comes to what we eat and or what we have available to eat

In comparing kilojoule intake from a snap shot of a number of countries across the globe it seem that the Asian countries such as Japan and China have a lower Kilojoule intake on average.

Generally speaking this may stem from their rice based diet or cultural differences if one could call marketing of fast foods a cultural difference in comparison to western countries.

Does the amount of kilojouces we consume on a daily basis affect our health in term of our height and our size or how much we grow?

In comparing the average daily kilojoule intake to the average height there seems to be no reliable relationship. As Italians on average are generally shorter than the Asian countries yet have a higher kilojoule intake.


Can the amount of kilojoules consumed on a daily basis affect our life expectancy?

China rules out any relationship between life expectancy and the amount of kilojoules a citizen consumes on a daily on average



Personal - Weight Gain Weight Loss

In terms of my personal weight gain / loss for the tracked period, there was little variation in the initial stages yet this may be down the scale used.

Initially I used the scales at home yet in the second week of data recording the scales at the local gym offered higher degree accuracy or offer a high degree of variation.



Conclusion
On the grand scale comparing the data for country to country these seems to little evidence to show any consist relationship between the daily kilojoule consumption and any of the metrics we measured. This is not to say that the daily kilojoule consumption may be a component that part of the equation



References

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations - http://www.fao.org/about/en/

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs -  http://esa.un.org/

Wikipedia.org - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

Reflection

In reflecting on the quantified self-exercise is that it is easy to make changes to your life style if you have all of the data. My Quantified self-assessment was based initially on counting Kilojoules and with the used of My Fitness Pal it has made the task somewhat effortless to calumniate data.

Having said that remember to record the data was the challenge in get a high degree of accuracy. Personally I have more confidence in the accuracy of data when it is entered on a daily bases.

Recording the data or matching the foods consumed with My Fitness Pal data base was challenging at first yet and after installing the application on a hand held device scanning a foods bar code removed all doubt in terms of matching the food consumed.

Discovering that the average kilojoules consumes by an Australian was in the vicinity of 13K Kilojoules per day and over the past 14 day I was yet to exceed 12K Kilojoules was quite a relief, although it made one feel that they could indulge a little bit more.  That also assumes that the average Australian consuming 13K Kilojoules in not increasing their body weight.

One unexpected outcome was that I expand or extended my exercise routine, one could suggest that this was due to becoming more aware of one ’s self or the choices one could make. Moreover I now have a goal to work towards, where previously there was no or little self-management or idea of what direction to take.

Having a data base of foods including nutrients along with historical data offers me a more informed choice in terms of daily food selection and as a result better health management.