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 -

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

<which will do bloody nothing except put everyone in debt for years to come.>

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 "bankrupting the nation" 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.