Libs release Infrastructure Policy

[lisa jones]

.. and is now spending more than $50 billion on Australia’s largest ever infrastructure project without a cost-benefit study.

Monk .. I have to ask .. why is it that Labor has this chronic issue in mismanaging money?

I mean I can recall Labor having these sorts of problems back in the 70's.

You know I was 5 yrs old when Whitlam was dismissed. How do you think I remember being 5 yrs old?

Since then .. Labor has spent/wasted $$$ .. leaving us with nothing in the coffers every time they've been voted into office.

At least they're consistent I suppose.

[lisa jones]

If you cannot manage money .. you cannot manage anything. And as such .. you are incompetent IMO.

You need money to move policy directions/goals off paper and into the real world.

This generic principle applies to an individual, a family .. and any state or federal govt.

End of story.

[Jovial Monk]

Whitlam left the Budget in far better shape than Treasurer Howard did (or PM Howard would have, but for the mining boom, $400Bn extra revenue and all we have to show for that is the bankrupt white elephant Alice Springs to Darwin railway.)

The HIP and BER were pretty good stimulus programs and the NBN will be real nation building, economy-modernising stuff. The Libs piddled about with about 18 different broadband plans and we still have a million Australians, near enough, on fucking dial up!

You need to find a better source of news than the Australian and the other Murdoch tabloid rubbish. here is a collection of very good links.

You are of Greek origin? Got a link for a good Greek newspaper with an english-language website? Love to add that to that list.

[Jovial Monk]

Hmmmm I was mad as a cut snake about the pisspoor state of bb in this benighted country, but it illustrates both sides are generally crap:

Fucking John Halfwit Howard and his useless Treasurer Peter C*nting Costello really, but REALLY, fucked up privatising Telstra that used to be Telecom that used to be the Postmaster Generals Department (govt owned of course) and all telecom woes date to that stupid, unthoughtful privatisation.

HM money has that idiotic privatisation lost in crap telecoms, opportunity cost etc. At least $26Bn I guess, cost of NBN rolling out a decent comms system finally.

[Leftwinger]

The current Government has spent $2.5 billion installing and removing combustible roof bats, $16 billion on overpriced school halls and is now spending more than $50 billion on Australia’s largest ever infrastructure project without a cost-benefit study.

Anyone else here concerned about this?

I hadn't heard that there was any such thing as combustible roof batts but I guess it sounds scary so they'll throw it in.

The money spent on the BER was nearly all well spent and like most schools, mine is glad to recieve tangible assets that will serve us well for the next few decades at least.

The idea of a cost-benefit analysis for the NBN has been bandied about but would probably be a futile exercise, unable to include possible future benefits. For example, the medium we are using right now is probably the greatest advance in communication in human history. The bulk of it uses the telephone copper wire network. Many years ago, when the copper telephone network was first proposed (and dismissed by some as a white elephant), a cost-benefit anlaysis could not have included the internet - because no one back then foresaw that such a thing would exist someday.

Since then .. Labor has spent/wasted $$$ .. leaving us with nothing in the coffers every time they've been voted into office.

There is at no time anything in the "coffers" of the federal government. A federal budget surplus represents nothing more than a net drain of financial assets from the private sector, which are rendered null by the process - the "money" ceases to exist and the surplus is the record of what was destroyed. It does not represent any kind of national saving. Barring a large external surplus, if the total government budget position is in the black, then the private sector overall must be in the red as a fact of national accounting. However, the mistaken analogy of comparing a soverein government budget to a household budget is so deeply ingrained in the phyche of the electorate that acting contrary to this belief is politically impossible.

[punk]

lmao

[Jovial Monk]

Budget deficits/surpluses are flows at a point in time.

Modern Monetary Theory describes the functioning of the real non-gold standard economy. A summary here You will need to join up but it is worth it!

[punk]

Jovial Monk= skippy

rofl

[Jovial Monk]

Or you could remain an uneducated bigot like Punk.

[punk]

Or you could remain an uneducated bigot like Punk.

lmao!! ((hugs))