Rudd's $42 billion 'nation building' plan (1 Viewer)

[loquasagacious]

Bishop of London says that redundancy is good for the soul -Times Online

Redundancy could be a blessing in disguise for City workers who have fallen victim to the credit crunch, the Bishop of London said yesterday.

"Sometimes, people seem to be relieved to get off the treadmill and to be given an opportunity to reconsider what they really want out of life. One of the great implications of this turbulence for us is to re-boot our sense of what a truly flourishing human life consists of. The 'CrackBerry' culture is dangerously addictive and switching off from it is notoriously difficult,"

And lets face it:
-poor people are more likely to believe in God
-redundancy makes you ask and gives you time to ponder what it's all about
-If you don't have a job what better things do you have to do on a Sunday morning?
-There's often free food at churches - good if you're skint

Ergo more redundancies means more bums on pews. Now consider the pope, he looks evil and he was elected in 2005 not that long before the first ripples of this started to show.

Conclusion: the pope conspired to bring this whole thing about and drive people back into the clutches of the church.

 

[Iron]

I was lollin til you dissed the Pope like than man

not cool man
srs not

 

[katie tully]

Only think this (nsw's state of affiars) is partly due to the redistributive measures of the gst?

Yeah ... The GST was heaps bad. Imagine getting rid of a heap of little taxes and having a broad consumption tax, and the states get the proceeds of this tax.

The horror.

 

[Gerald10]

Ok, so with the understanding that we could reasonably service a debt of 45% of GDP before we had problems, and acknowledging that although it would be serviceable it would be absurd to take on debt of that magnitude, is it feasible to look at a ballpark figure as a cap for national debt?

Whilst I understand we need to stimulate the economy by spending money we don't have, I cringe at the rhetoric that we are in 'unprecedented times' and the government is willing to place the country into a debt level of 'whatever is necessary'.

I guess however, as we progress through 2009 we'll hopefully have more information on how much needs to be spent, and in what areas.

The reason I say it would be ridiculous to go into that much debt is that I don't think we will need to. The rest of the world (particularly europe and USA) are in it deep because they don't have functioning financial systems. Until that is fixed nothing else matters. In Australia we just have your garden variety fall in aggregate demand caused as our Terms of Trade and exports fall closely followed by confidence (which is the real problem).

To me this is the business cycle taking its course (it isn't really unprecedented in Australia anyway) and the government is doing what it should as adviced by the leading economic experts in the country and the world.

 

[The_highwayman]

i wouldnt mind so much if at the end of all this debt we had something concrete to use for another hundred years or more.
the great depression saw the construction of the harbour bridge
post ww2 saw the snowy mountains scheme
Recession 08 sees everyone buying booze and wasting money on gambling and a sudden increase in hospital costs. Woo rudd!

 

[blue_chameleon]

i wouldnt mind so much if at the end of all this debt we had something concrete to use for another hundred years or more.
the great depression saw the construction of the harbour bridge
post ww2 saw the snowy mountains scheme
Recession 08 sees everyone buying booze and wasting money on gambling and a sudden increase in hospital costs. Woo rudd!

2009/10: Tearing down the Opera House in replacement of a giant statue of Comrade Rudd!!!

 

[Iron]

If the West doesnt use this chance to reinvent its energy and environment policy then all is lost
Hopelessly lost
End of the road
That's all she wrote
Goodbye and thanks for the memories

 

[The_highwayman]

so long and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Iron]

YouTube - Rudd Labor Debt

Not Whitlam and Keating!
We must flee!

 

[loquasagacious]

I was lollin til you dissed the Pope like than man

not cool man
srs not

Who said I was dissin' on him? I admire the cool calculation and puppet-mastery on a grand scale. Think Bismark.... We should all aspire to be like that.

 

[Gerald10]

Because they were so great about predicting this mess in the first place. Iraq had WMD's, too, wait no it's about democracy, wait if we get Saddam it will fall...

Yawn. The markets collapsing was because of malinvestement, they needed to collapse in order to reflect the actual value of the holdings of those companies. Recessions and collapse are a good thing, but the business cycle is caused entirely by fiat currencies.

[/economics]

Well the experts in Australia were prudent enough to give adequate regulation to ensure the same problems in other parts of the world didn't happen here. As for Iraq thats entirely irrelevant - that kind of logic (that experts got it wrong and hence will do it again) is the sort of crap that gave us pin head politicians who act on the whim of their gut instead of any sort of rationalisation of thought - Bush being the consumate example.

And no the fuck up of the financial system was caused by idiotic idealogies and regulations in the USA. Recessions and collapse are terrible things which cause mass human misery and should be avoided as best as humanly possible which is why we must go into debt. And the business cycle existed before fiat currencies became common place. Anything else.

 

[SashatheMan]

Does anyone here who opposes this stimulas package think that the government should do nothing, or thinks that something else could be done instead. Please state what that would be.

 

[SAVAK]

got a noob question, how many solar panels/ wind mills do you need to run an house on absolutely 100% natural energy ? consequently your energy bill will be zero?

 

[withoutaface]

got a noob question, how many solar panels/ wind mills do you need to run an house on absolutely 100% natural energy ? consequently your energy bill will be zero?

Windmills do not work that way.

 

[SAVAK]

Windmills do not work that way.

well solar panels?

im just curious, australia is a damn rich country...cant the govt just set up wind farms our in the desert? we would run whole cities with the amount of land we got.

 

[withoutaface]

well solar panels?

im just curious, australia is a damn rich country...cant the govt just set up wind farms our in the desert? we would run whole cities with the amount of land we got.

There's very little wind in the desert for the same reason that there's very little rain.

 

[whatashotbyseve]

Lol this reminds me of Top Gear last night. They were testing eco sports cars and they figured out wind powered travel would take six days to charge for a trip from London-Glasgow. And thats if it was windy.

 

[Gerald10]

well solar panels?

im just curious, australia is a damn rich country...cant the govt just set up wind farms our in the desert? we would run whole cities with the amount of land we got.

Because the Australian coal exporters can put coal on the market in Holland (including travel etc) for around half the cost the germans can do it. Or at least thats what it they could do.

 

[boris]

got a noob question, how many solar panels/ wind mills do you need to run an house on absolutely 100% natural energy ? consequently your energy bill will be zero?

windmills pump water and grind grain and shit

 

[Lex152]

Does anyone here who opposes this stimulas package think that the government should do nothing, or thinks that something else could be done instead. Please state what that would be.

The stimulus package is aimed at stimulating what? Construction and retail???

Construction, well infrastructure would stimualte this sector...

But retail, who the hell stimulates retail consumption... This is idiotic, most of our products are produce internationally, and yet the economists sight the multiplier in confidence...

Okay so my perspective, direct spending into Australian economy will boost activity at the first instance, but as the money circulates the economy more will be lost in leakages...
Solution: Invest in R&D (targetted around universities and tafes (reskilling or extra skilling)) and investment in infrastructure. It won't stimualte the retail industry, but the retail industry won't stimuatle the economy.

Secondly whilst our banks are in good shape we still need to redesign our laws on private debt. We need to reduce debt-spending, i.e. money borrowed for consumption rather than investment as this will only damage our economy.