Stimulus Package voted down by Mr X

[Jovial Monk]

And this is Rob Oakeshott, newest member of the Reps and one of the intelligent independents killing the Nuts

Oakeshott stood in Lyne, former seat of nuts Leader Mark Vaile. Read Possum re the nonety the Nuts ran against him! Oh boy! A mayor so incompetent the council got dissolved! Cordially hated by most of the electorate and the Nuts ran him against the VERY popular Oakeshott!

[Jovial Monk]

The Piping Shrike say on the package

[Jovial Monk]

The Costello interview last night showed how Rudd is managing to do this. It wasn’t as though Costello said anything wrong, and it was certainly a better performance than Turnbull’s the night before. Indeed a lot of what Costello said last night was correct, such as his highlighting of Rudd’s rapid U-turn over the last twelve months.

What Costello should be worried about though, was that Rudd could do that U-turn so easily. He and Howard were supposed to have placed economic debate in the straight-jacket of economic conservatism, the application of which allowed them to claim credit for the economic boom. That Rudd could so easily cast them aside shows that those old rules have gone. In fact, the supposed champion of free-market principles spent most of the interview claiming credit for all the regulation he brought in. The desperation with which Costello tried to keep the old battle lines is shown by his reference to Rudd’s cash hand-outs as ‘Whitlamesque’, which means barely anything to anyone under 50 (and actually seems to be quite a plus to the 20-somethings).

Good old Tip, doesn't get much right

The HUGE amount of undisciplined spending he let the Rodent do and the tax cuts are waaaayyyyy beyond Whitlamesque!

http://www.pipingshrike.com/2009/02/big ... #more-2175

Just including this to show what a real blog could look like, as against the sheep bleatings on the Sheepfarm.

[Jovial Monk]

George Megalogenis on the recession, deficits and the Rudd/Turdbull longer term strategies.

[Jovial Monk]

Some praise for Wayne Swan from Kerry-Anne Walsh:

Swan continues to grow tall in the job. He's not a media tart and his parliamentary performances are now punchy and well-targeted. Memo Kevin: your fellow Queenslander could teach you a thing or two about how less is more.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/xenophon- ... ml?page=-1

Heh, and unlike his predecessor Swan knows his economics!

[Jovial Monk]

Japanese economy to shrink by 10pc

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy

Posted February 16, 2009 08:40:00
Updated February 16, 2009 08:39:00

Japan is set to launch a fresh stimulus package, as economic figures out later today are expected to show the world's second largest economy has contracted by 10 per cent.

The Government has already spent over a $1 trillion trying to weather the global financial crisis.

Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and public broadcaster NHK are reporting that the Government is now planning to inject $165 billion into the economy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... ion=justin

Shrink by 10 percent!

Every country is launching a stimulus package, so calling Rudd/Swan's $42Bn stimpac "election buying" is wrong!

[Jovial Monk]

The risk of higher taxes was raised by ANZ Bank chief economist Saul Eslake at the Senate committee inquiry into the Government's $42billion stimulus package announced last week.

"It may well ultimately be true that servicing or repaying the debt incurred now will ultimately require higher taxes down the track," warned Eslake who, incidentally, broadly supports the fiscal stimulus.

"That would be in many ways regrettable, in my view, but it may also reflect the fact that the tax cuts in the middle years of this decade were only sustainable to the extent that the commodities boom, which paid for them, continued, which it inevitably has not."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/bu ... 18,00.html

The article is crap but the above quote from it shows that what I have been talking about, mining boom, unsustainable tax cuts etc was 100% right.

Another choice bit:

The weaker tax base also will confront the build-up of middle class welfare financed by the temporary revenue bonanza of the China-fuelled resources boom in the later half of the Howard-Costello government.

Copy of my post in the Sandpit.

I was right about all of this!

[Jovial Monk]

The handouts will be spent

The actual study:

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/christi ... ending.pdf

Treasury quoted this study. Tax cuts provide a very low stimulus per $ spent

[Jovial Monk]

Not a burden on our children

No wonder the Fibs are no longer seen as better economic managers!

[Jovial Monk]

The Dutch love Rudd!

For instance, Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his second major injection. In 2008 he had already spend an extra $4 billion on infrastructure and knowledge. The bulk of the new Australian $42 billion-dollar stimulus package will be allocated to education infrastructure and public and defence housing. Almost $15 billion will be injected into primary school buildings and in maintenance for both primary and secondary schools.

The money will be used to upgrade large infrastructures such as libraries, to build 500 new science laboratories and language centres and to provide $200,000 for each school for maintenance. $2,5 billion will be made available to reduce school dropout numbers. Furthermore, almost half a billion will be spend to stimulate and support lifelong learning programs.

According to Rudd, the program represents the single largest modernisation of schools in Australia's history. In an address to the nation he declared, “This investment in every one of the nation's 7,500 primary schools is designed to build the primary schools we need for the 21st century."

Deputy secretary general of the OECD, Aart de Geus agrees. He warned Australia could be one of the hardest hit economies by the global financial downturn because of steep falls in commodity exports. De Geus said at a forum at Sydney University “the Federal Government's stimulus packages have strengthened the economy without threatening financial sustainability.”