From the Herald Sun.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/ko...er-stimulus-plan/story-e6frf7jo-1225839328952
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/ko...er-stimulus-plan/story-e6frf7jo-1225839328952
Your Grand Childrens taxes at work.
- Thread starter battler
- Start date
yup, this fits with the Pakistani accented migrant at Melbourne airport security, who insisted he check me for bomb residue......funny how I didn't come under such suspicion when in India and Pakistan a few years ago.
not that i am against all centralist government......as long as it is being run with a modicum of street smarts.....and street smarts doesn't seem to filter from the streets to our lord and masters' and Chairman's ivory towers.
not that i am against all centralist government......as long as it is being run with a modicum of street smarts.....and street smarts doesn't seem to filter from the streets to our lord and masters' and Chairman's ivory towers.
"Stimulus" spending, in Keynesian economics, is just that - spending designed to stimulate the economy in a counter-cyclical way. Pure Keynesian theory would probably say the government would be doing just as good a job paying people to dig holes in their back yard and fill them in again, as long as the money then makes its way into the economy at large.
Seems to me Rudd and co are getting blamed for trying to pump some money into the economy, and having a few predictable scammers trying to take advantage. As always, "17 new hot useless water systems for random club" makes better copy than "our public debt remains about 10% of that of almost every other country in the developed world".
Seems to me Rudd and co are getting blamed for trying to pump some money into the economy, and having a few predictable scammers trying to take advantage. As always, "17 new hot useless water systems for random club" makes better copy than "our public debt remains about 10% of that of almost every other country in the developed world".
Stimulating the economy is one thing, but surely there are better ways than simply handing out cash. Pay people to plant trees, or something...
This is not about the stimulus package. This is about the screw ups in the RET scheme.
The new changes to separate large scale and small scale items are because dodgy commercial heat pump installers flooded the market with a heap of certificates for saving power that never would have been used in the first place.
The new changes to separate large scale and small scale items are because dodgy commercial heat pump installers flooded the market with a heap of certificates for saving power that never would have been used in the first place.
Agreed - but the RET scheme is specifically for households, not businesses. This isn't a government screwup - except insofar as they possibly haven't thrown enough money at hiring people to oversee the program properly - it's crooked business owners rorting the system, pure and simple - and lazy bureaucrats - probably hired by Frazer or Whitlam, decades ago - rubber-stamping everything that comes through.
Blaming the government for these crooks is like blaming them for people rorting the workers' comp scheme or the dole - there are always going to be some that use government schemes designed with good intentions as their own personal piggy bank. Hopefully the publicity will get the department to crack down on them...
I agree - but I think the idea is that if you give the money to small businesses, they will then put the money into new equipment, new hires, and other spending that further stimulates the economy, whereas trees have fewer "flow-on" benefits. Even if the crooks involved in this scheme a) get away with it, and b) go and spend the cash on big-screen tvs and flashy utes, the economy still benefits. The environment, not so much...
And as for "grandchildren's taxes" being spent - the hyperbolic header to this thread - the entire government debt is projected as peaking in 2014 at 14% of GDP. To put that in perspective, that is like the average Australian worker carrying a total debt load of about $8,500. In a forum full of property investors carrying debt-to-income ratios of 1000%, 2000% or 3000%, getting upset about that level of debt seems a little hypocritical...
(And yes, it is "good", income producing debt - since it is aimed at stimulating the economy, and thus returning more taxes to the government.)
Here's Ross Gittins' take on the debt. He always strikes me as a pretty sane economic commentator. YMMV
We can twist numbers with percentages, comparisons with other countries etc any way we want to make things look better. But at the end of the day, $8500 PP government debt = $34000 debt per family of four, in only two years of spending on crap.
Interest to service that debt would be what, about $2000 PA for that family.
That's $2000 per family of four, that either has to be made up by raising extra taxes, by cutting govt services or by allowing the debt to snowball (hi grandkids).
I'm not opposed to govt borrowing if it is for worthwhile purposes, infrastructure, essential needs etc, but the cash handouts and tax stimulus initiatives really just encouraged people to splurge on mainly IMPORTED goods or were just a waste of money.
Some people just don't get the importance of running our finances properly.
Interest to service that debt would be what, about $2000 PA for that family.
That's $2000 per family of four, that either has to be made up by raising extra taxes, by cutting govt services or by allowing the debt to snowball (hi grandkids
). I'm not opposed to govt borrowing if it is for worthwhile purposes, infrastructure, essential needs etc, but the cash handouts and tax stimulus initiatives really just encouraged people to splurge on mainly IMPORTED goods or were just a waste of money.
Some people just don't get the importance of running our finances properly.
We can twist numbers with percentages, comparisons with other countries etc any way we want to make things look better. But at the end of the day, $8500 PP government debt = $34000 debt per family of four, in only two years of spending on crap.
Interest to service that debt would be what, about $2000 PA for that family.
That's $2000 per family of four, that either has to be made up by raising extra taxes, by cutting govt services or by allowing the debt to snowball (hi grandkids
Actually, it will be made up largely by two things happening:
1) the breadwinner/s in that family of four won't lose their jobs, or have their hours cut back, meaning that they will pay more tax than they would if they did lose their jobs (and claim fewer benefits)
2) as the economy recovers, a larger proportion of breadwinners will get better jobs, raises, etc, meaning more tax will flow to the government that way.
Note that in neither of these instances is the government either cutting services or raising new taxes. There is simply more tax flowing to the government because people are earning more money.
Are you trying seriously to tell me that you invest in property and are yourself carrying a total debt load of less than $8,500? Because if you are, I think a few people on here would have some words to say about whether you run your finances properly...
