Economic Stimulus Package
 

This explains everything a little more clearly......


This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is
a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A
format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a
High definition TV set or a new computer, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.

It seems that among those complaining most are those who missed out on their bonus at work and are likely to miss out on stimulus at home and from the government. The rest of us will take any stimulus we can get.

I think your final word was quite apt stormer, especially since you're bordering if nit having crossed over on plaguerism from the Lounge!

Very good stormbird, but perhaps you could explain something for me... are those people who are getting the $938 ( or whatever) happy to get that knowing that the debt for every taxpayer then will be $4,500 in exchange for that $938? If getting $938 in hand gives me $4,500 debt that they can stick it. I would rather see reduced taxation and money spent on the rebuilding of communities in both Victoria and Queensland - that at least will create jobs. What a silly country.

Hi Lizzy,

I hear you sister!! I am struggling to make any sense of this package and I completely agree with your comments.

I was going to follow with a political comment but I'll let it go. I thought the joke was enough. But I say let's get the projects happening and people employed.

Bushranger - I'm sorry but once again I haven't got a clue what you're talking about!

I'll say it very clearly then Stormer!

A very similar thread was in the lounge re similar sentiments aired in the media.

As far as political comments go, I wonder if Krudds bandy legs do come from way too much knee jerking?
He and the government have certainly seemed to be at economy panic stations the last few months, that's when he's not taking time off to watch the cricket or doing his own plaguarising writings on the greedy.

Well, Bushranger I don't believe I've read that thread over in the Lounge. Someone sent my post to me as an email - with no disclaimer attached - so I thought I would post it here to see the responses.

Yours comes as no surprise whatsoever!!!!!

All this expert commentary should have been put before the Senate committee - you all obviously know something that Treasury and the Reserve Bank don't. I do understand of course that for neo libs and cons and others now outside the tent the efficacy of the stimulus response has the potential for even more far reaching implications than complicity in the conduct that gave us the GFC in the first place. Have to admit though that my gut feelings (more sensitive than bile) were that things may not be quite as bad as made out, but hey, it's just too good an opportunity for an old New Dealer to pass up. You'll love this reproduced in today's bolshie <i>Canberra Times</i> from the editor of <i>Guardian America</i> exhorting small 'l' liberals to revel in the new age upon us - &quot;I love the smell of stimulus spending in the morning. It smells like... victory.&quot;

Wow farrermog!

Any relationship to a farmers bog?

And surely around Canberra for a fine day there's plenty of fog.

Not too sure what expert comments you feel ought to go to Senate committees but do please be clearer with your next blog.

Farmers' bog is damn good bait - works every time.

Hey Bushranger, who's your favourite namesake? Was a bit of a Ben Hall fan myself as a kid, but gave away thoughts about taking up the trade when the police got helicopters.

Yep, don't think there's much of a life to be had the wrong side of the law farrer, helicopters or not.

Never really read up too much on the namesakes and other than having a soft spot like just about everyone for Ned, suppose I could frrl some affinity for Captain Thunderbolt, having read a novel way back and travelled the New England ranges areas a bit, think he was also known as Captain Midnight and then the &quot;Wild Colonial Boy&quot; Jack donohue, changed to Jack or John Dooland for too many people were singing the WCB, sort of unofficial national anthem for a while.

You've reminded me that on my next trip south I should make a point of taking my time and stopping at some of the old bush pubs with connections.

Is this about a stimulus package in Australia or the Pacific? ((*))

Jed, Australia props up a lot of small countries in the Pacific and if we don't have some sort of economy then we cannot do that soooooooooo this is about Australia - which is the largest country in the Pacific and as Australians then I guess we have some sort of right to talk about our economic package.

Farremog - this was in yesterdays Australian newspaper
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...3-7583,00.html and I believe that these points would have been put before the Senate BUT I also think that a lot of Senators will take a line that will get them headlines in Newspapers and not necessarily what is best for the country.

Only slightly off-topic some may say, but for anyone interested in visiting bushranger sites in NSW and Victoria, Peter C. Smith's <i>Tracking Down the Bushrangers</i> is well worth having, if you can find a copy.

There are for example quite a number of sites in easy reach of Sydney or, better still, Canberra - the Bushranger Hotel at Collector, adjacent to the spot where Hall's gang shot and killed Constable Nelson [the highly regarded Lynwood Cafe - about to change hands - is a great place for lunch, just down the road], John Gilbert's grave just outside Binalong on the Young road, graves at Gundagai of police killed by Gilbert and Captain Moonlite, Ben Hall's grave at Forbes (close to the grave of one of Ned Kelly's sisters who drowned in the Forbes lagoon), Eugowra Rocks, near Forbes, where Frank Gardiner's gang held up the gold escort [Gardiner was one of the few bushrangers to escape a violent death - he saw out his days in San Francisco], among many others.

The National Library in Canberra holds the papers of the popular historian Frank Clune who wrote <i>Wild Colonial Boys</i>, a revolver said to belong to Ben Hall and a gold medallion awarded to the Faithfull boys who took on Hall's gang on their property near Goulburn.

Bushranger history and folk lore was quite popular a while back (in the years around the centenaries of many of the main events), with bushranging reenactment weekends (such as the one I attended in the village of Murringo near Young in 1974), but interest seems to have waned as older popular history buffs have dropped off and the four wheel drives of their descendants have found more interesting exploring further afield.

To the contrary farrer, so much on topic for you cannot forget the old pubs as far as stimulus being needed.

Jed should know that and that it is far better for the public to be associated with stimulating local economies much more so than hearing pollies mouthing off on it.

The Bushranger did come to mind and it is typical of when something is in your own backyard and you do not bother with it for I lived in Goulburn a number of years and travelled over to Canberra often enough but like on trips between A to Z you rarely bother stopping at J or Q.
My one memorable stop near Collector was at about 3 am one frosty morning and seeing as there was little traffic as you would expect and in a car on which the speedo had just failed, a company car actually and so I was not flying but quite possibly motoring a tad above the limit and blow me over with a feather for who is out on the Federal Hwy that time of a morning but a Motor Cycle Copper - he must have been freezing!

Cheap rooms there too as you get in most country pubs, something our overseas travellers usually give a miss.
Surveyor General in Berrima is another to be tried.

Yeah, the wallopers were always pretty active both ends of Goulburn and around Collector. Pub breakfasts were much looked forward to (in the days before cholesterol counts) and there were some pretty decent steak sandwiches to be had at small town rodeos. Perhaps there's something to be said for a rubbity-led recovery - we'll be happy if it works and past caring if it doesn't.

Lizzy &lt;I guess we have some sort of right to talk about our economic package.&gt;

Indeed, you do. But it was not clear to me which country was being discussed. Since the US stimulus will affect other countries, I just wanted to make sure. I assumed there was no problem in asking a simple question.
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Bushranger &lt;Jed should know that and that it is far better for the public to be associated with stimulating local economies much more so than hearing pollies mouthing off on it.&gt;

I'm not sure how that applies to my question. ((*))

Sorry Jed, didn't mean to be mean - guess the horror that has been going on here in Australia i.e the deaths and destruction have taken a toll.

PS Jed: I guess my first reply to you was about as well thought out as the Economic Stimulus system that is about to occur in Australia which will do bloody nothing except put everyone in debt for years to come. If, and its a very big if, it does anything good then I will be very pleased but I fail to see that it will and only an ostrich with its head in the sand or up its .... would think otherwise.

A big problem here is that the conservatives have been so successful in demonising public debt [public anything one might say - taking a lead from their fellow travellers on the rabid right in the US] that we haven't got cracking with the infrastructure development this big country so desperately needs.

Government fails to get it up -

So-called independent Senator Nick Xenophon whose major [only?] claim to fame to date is running on a 'No Pokies' [slot machine] crusade has joined with the piqued merchant banker led Tories to torpedo the Government's economic stimulus package, because ... wait for it ... he's upset it won't stimulate water flow in the Murray Darling river system. 'Hubris' is a Greek word, isn't it? The next episode of The Chaser [Australia's premier political satire show] should be a cracker.

It was laughable to see them knocking the $950 back to $900, $50 to go to environmental projects the Brown Greenie was promoting as well as making it easier for unemployment benefits.

Personally when you see the Kruddy song and dance on Carbon trading, his 20/20, promises to indigenous peoples, a housing program all of which seem to have gone nowhere and on top of that emphasing so called twenty first century smart education, I've absolutely zero faith in the guys or the Labor parties ability to run much of anything let alone let him loose with putting us another $42B into hoc.

You cannot expect Australia to develop infrastructure anywhere near the rate of the Europe, the US or even populous asian countries as there's one big difference and that's population.

Both liberal and Labor governments have squandered the opportunity to do something the country really needs and that's a Snowy Mountains type project to harvest a lot of all that northern tropical rainfall and head it south to connect up with the head waters of the Darwin and construct some massive wetlands/storage basins along the way - something that could stimulate agriculture, perhaps N-S shipping channels, newer less crowded cities and all sorts of tangent growth whilst at the same time giving some water security to the south.

The conservatives' crude demonising of public debt for shabby political motives does a great disservice to the nation. The use of debt should be related to where we are in the economic cycle and the uses to which it is directed, current or capital. Many seem to forget that it took the Hawke Keating Labor government years to swing into surplus from the deficit inherited from Johnny what's his name's time as Treasurer (his inability to count was the greater worry). Perhaps we should be working on a grand plan to fertilise marginal country with piped Senate swill - mix it with all that tropical water in a vast inland jacuzzi and stimulate the microbes - we may be on to something here Bushranger.

Lizzy - ((F))

We see the fires on the news here. How sad and awful.

&lt;which will do bloody nothing except put everyone in debt for years to come.&gt;

This is the same thought that many of us in US have. ((*))

Yes Jed, they have been damm awful and with some towns having been closed off, there's every possibility the final body count is going to be something none of us will want to envisage, that's if the powers that be feel their public are up to handling it.

On that stimulus, and don't Australia, the Pacific, the US and all countries bordering or bordered by the pacific and back in ye ol worlde all need something.

There is always going to be the theory that we should spend, spend like there is no end to financing and hell, lets just print some more money!

But one countrys and certainly not the planets economy is not as simple as that and at some stage, somehow, the bill is going to have to be met or maybe we just make the whole planet bankrupt and re-distribute the wealth, kick Gore out of his mansion and wouldn't it and the White Houses of the planet make for great backpacker hostels.

People could be given the option of working with whatever skill they had if that was needed or out on the farms to keep the food conveyors runnning - don't want to work at something then you starve!

Marx would be happy.

farrermog, well said and thank you for a timely excursion into the real world, as uncomfortable a place as that can be for conservatives.

Reading posts here and in the Lounge I get the impression that many posters have never so much as opened an economics textbook, or followed the more astute financial commentators in the daily press.

The same crude accusations of &quot;bankrupting the nation&quot; were made against FDR when the New Deal was floated. The verdict of history is now clear. Keynesian theory is still very much relevant, as long as (as you say) we match spending to the economic cycle. There's nothing sinful about ruhnning a budget deficit, any more than there is in an individual taking out a home mortage, as long as the resultant borrowings don't crowd out private sector borrowings.

I've heard none of the Government's critics, including our pompous windbag of an opposition leader, propose any reasoned alternative to the stimulus package - unless it's to sit around on our collective backside and do nothing, which was the hallmark of the Howard government for 11 years.

By sounds of some claims it must be par for the course for outgoing governments to leave huge deficits for the previous government also inherited a doozy!

But hang on are things a changing?, well only temporarily for the whereas the previous government had left a nice $22B surplus end of 2007, not only has the current government blown that away so far to be facing an enormous deficit, the Dill Krudd had the gaul to claim in parliament little more than a week ago that it was his government management of the economy that had them with a surplus through 2008.
What absolute BS

And going into debt to hand out money for lollies, pokies, smokes and beer is a far cry from sensible stimulus action and to draw a parallel with taking out a housing loan is just absurd.

Budgeting to blow even more money away on alleged building programs is even worse than absurd when the country suffers from massive building industry workers but oh Krudd will fix that with his smart education policy whatever that is if he or his education minister knows.

Do you think this smart education policy and billions on computers will stimulate any economies other than where the computers are manufactured and what of maintenance and update costs - a brilliant policy and then will it also give us more trade training to ease building industry shortages?

All we're getting from Krudd is one empty promise after another and then concrete ones to weigh the nation down with massive debt, money just frivolously spent whether it is needed or not and certainly of limited long term benefit.

It is no wonder though when avid supporters dwell on the dark ages of 80 years or so ago and cannot realise that a lot of water flowed under the bridge since then and we do live in different times.

Comrades, we're the ones livin' in the here and now and for the future, even the bastions of the the glorious private sector, the big banks know that -

http://tinyurl.com/azl2yo

Apologists for the ancien regime forget that debt, the interaction between deficit and surplus units, forms the very basis of the capitalist system - otherwise we'd all be living a subsistence lifestyle (and self-funded retirees would have even more reason to whinge about not getting an adequate return on their savings).

You do know don't you farrer that a lot of economists coming out the weeties boxes are stale and greedy!

Whilst there would be a reasonable road somewhere between subsistence and boom, bust and doom and gloom sending us to subsistence I doubt that the greedy will ever allow it to be seen and yes we all have our own styles of greed.

Interesting post, Bushranger. I for one though haven't the faintest idea what you're trying to say. Perhaps LizzyF can interpret.