Is Rudd doing the right thing?

Of course not. How does $950 turned down to $900 "combat poverty" ?
How does a computer per student make an education revolution?
How will sinking the country into billions of debt help the economy?
It is not spending but earning that must be stimulated. Making money, high achievement, success must be promoted, inaction and voluntary unemployment as seen aboundantly in Sydney West, abolished.

Yet we are under an almost totalitarian pseudo socialism with someone at the helm who has no sense of direction and spent his holiday writing an essay against private property and capitalism.
Considering Mao is dead and Castro is not far behind, there is clearly a market there.
Go Kevin go! see who can throw the billions further, you must match your soul mate Old Bamma!

Refer to my previous comment in another post…

Basically I say… No,  We cannot spend out way to prosperity,  the solution is we need to become more productive… hand outs and spending does NOT achieve this,  the consumer as well as the government need to be saving money… Also government created jobs don't even count in my opinion because they are unproductive and achieve nothing,  Remember its productive people "tax payers" who have to pay for government jobs in the first place.

A Stimulus is like giving another hit to a heroin addict…..  Actually,  the bailout should not even be called a Stimulus, Its really a economy depressant

https://www.propertyinvesting.com/forums/property-investing/general-property/4327036?gocid=185399

Well, I come from the country, where a large amount of our exports come from, mining, or primary production.  Degraded roads and railways,and insufficient ports cost our industries is terms of extra operating costs, and lost trading opportunity.  I see it actually happening.  In real life, in our own business, not just on the news.  This is the only area I have any first hand knowledge of, though.  Degraded highways cause additional costs in the transport industries, and overwhelmed rail freight corridors force additional freight onto less efficient, more expensive road transport.

We require adequate law and order, on both a criminal level, a civil level and a corporate level in order to allow investment to flourish, and people to enjoy life. 

I think that the economy does require certain infrastructure in order to function efficiently.

I don't equate building hospitals, and providing medical care with frivolous or unnecessary expenditure.  And I think that providing educational opportunity is the cornerstone of the economy's future productivity. 

While I definetely believe in the principals of capitalism, I also believe that allowing the markets to opperate in a pure way can be a little bit ruthless, and has a high toll on the people at the bottom of the system.  I think there is way too much welfare, and that these cash handouts are stupid, but I do believe that SOME welfare is a good thing.  I believe that disabled and elderely and sick people SHOULD be looked after by society.  There is a BALANCE to be achieved, between allowing the markets to operate freely, without interferance, and protecting the weakest members of society.  I don't pretend to know what the correct balance is, I just believe that part of what makes us human is the way we care for and empathise with others. 

For alot of reasons, I beleive that it is necessary for governments to spend money.  I certainly  beleive that well spent government money has the potential to strenghten the economy by providing and improving transport, law and order and education.  I also beleive that it is much more desireable for us as a species to support those who need support (to a certain level), as well as provide incentive  in the form of personal success and wealth, to those who perform well.  Labor governments tend to get a bit big on the welfare and handouts for me, and I firmly beleive that the previous government had a better balance, though of course, I didn't agree with everything that they did.

Hbbehrendorff, your extreme right wing views have always interested me, and you certainly sound like you know alot about how the economy operates.  I have a high regard for your opinion, and I wish that pure capitalism would bring us the world we want.  But I don't think it would.  Too many people would suffer.  It would be survival of the fitest in the most animal way.  And that's not the sort of world that  I want to live in.

I believe that this is something investors do all the time.  Pretty sure I borrowed money when I bought my last IP.  And, yep, that was cause I didn't have enought to buy it on my own.  Pretty sure also, that when we built our hay shed a couple of years ago, we borrowed money for it.  The hay shed has since added over 100K to our turnover and 20K to our profit per year.  The shed cost $20K.  So I guess borrowing that money put us in better shape.

Ok,  So I have to address the comment above about my idea's being Right Wing,  Some people may think my doctrine is that way,  But from where I am coming from I don't see it that way at all.

Now it is historical fact that the civilizations with the most limited forms of government and reduced bureaucracy creating the freest people are the nations that prosper the most.  Whereby the nations who follow the path of centralized planning,  big government, mass bureaucracy, tyranny and webs of regulation suffer from economic and productive cancer and eventually collapse,  I might also add that this usually precedes a time of anarchy revolt.

From the governments point of view they are the solution to a civilizations problems,  Whether it be economic or anything else under the sun,  No wonder there solution to ANYTHING is more government,  The prescription does not change when the cause of the sickness is caused from government interference in the first place,  I like the analogy where by they cannot see the effect of putting more fuel on the fire,  There solution is ALWAYS more fuel..

Subconsciously people forget that government is not free,  Government makes NO profits and there productivity is Nothing,  Actually its less then nothing, there productivity is Negative,  If government was on a balance sheet it would show up on the liability side,  The bigger they are the more that is finally removed from our country's total output and productivity.

Not only does it cost us the initial expense of paying for our burdens (Gov) but we must also factor in the kinetic loss of wealth through transfer of money,  for example:  If the government collects $100 through taxes it no longer has $100 to reinstate back into the economy again,  It may only have $60 from those initial taxes to spend back again through the effect of erosion they cause,  not to mention the multiplier that is added if that money is borrowed because not only everything else takes affect but now we (tax payer) has the added loss of interest on top of that !  So what am I trying to say ? The government is the biggest leech on the planet and now we are in economic dire circumstances and there solution is to fatten the leech !

Rudd lies to us all and tells us that capitalism has had it's chance and failed,  And now it is up to socialism and big government to bail the free market out.  Lies,  All of it.  We have never had a free market to begin with,  The best we have had is a partial free market.

If our economy was truly free market then we would have sound monetary policy,  But we don't,  We use the federal reserve banking system and our currency is Fiat,  Meaning there is no constraints on the proportion of the money supply,  government can print as much as they like and tax us through inflation and banks can lend 10x more money then what even exists.

Our suffering economy was caused by centralized,  Monopoly like control over interest rates,  Wealth and prosperity was short lived through the creation of easy money that did not even exist in the first place,  When you get your $400,000 110% loan from the bank,  Do you think that money comes from there coffers ? Well it doesn't,  Its a computer entry,  Increased wealth can only be achieved through the formula of subtracting what you consume from that you produce,  If you have a surplus production then that is the increase to your wealth,  Currently we are playing the game the opposite way around and wonder why we are loosing.

Economists tell us that our now gone so called prosperity was caused by the resources boom,  But this only played a small role,  It was the easy false money through bad monetary policy that caused the biggest property bubble the world has seen,  But the 20%+ gains year after year was false and traded for by inflation that should never have happened,  And now the reaper is coming to get his end of the deal.

I also need to very quickly address the few comments made for stimulus,  Money borrowed in the private sector is totally different to money borrowed by government,  The difference is that in the private sector the borrower takes the risks of failure and therefore will be sold up to repay his debts shall something go wrong.

Whereby the government does not take this risk and therefore should not be allowed this privilege.  Not only that but if you took note to my previous passages you will understand how governments are negative productive entities and therefore cannot INCREASE there profits because they make none,  Also they cannot increase productivity,  Its impossible,  You can't do things the opposite way around and except the results,  Even IF the very little money spent on useful infrastructure increases some private sector productivity some way, The fruits of that where already gone before it happened.

Our forefathers knew the disasters that come from what we have done,  How many people know that back in the 1800's fighting the central banks to stop them taking over was mainstream news in the media ?

How many people know that fiat money was outlawed in Europe hundreds of years ago by kings and anyone caught trying to run ponzi scheme's where charged with usery ?

I think I will end this rant now,  It has been rather long and I think is best to finish it before it becomes to inarticulate to comprehend    I hope I got some of my EXTREMIST RIGHT WING,  CAPITALIST points across

Instead of getting a hand out we could actually get the simplified tax cuts promised when the GST was introduced  to replace other forms of taxes. Like Fuel excise,State stamp duty, State Land Tax and Payroll Tax.
Interesting that the GST legislation states GST cannot be charged on top of a Tax.
Oh that's right Excise on Petrol doesn't seem to be seen as a Tax by our treasurer.

The economy will not recover or even begin to stabilize during rudd's term,  Nor the term of the next prime minister.

I think everyone should watch this collection of Economic Video's  I challenge anyone to rebuttal his theory's

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Are you suggesting governments shouldn't borrow? How do they fund schools, hospitals, roads, etc when the economic cycle is at it's lowest ebb? In this current downward turn of the economy, revenue is predicted to be down by something like $115b. If govts shut down spending, unemployment would skyrocket, further driving down govt revenues, creating a viciuos cycle of unemployment and contraction of GDP.

Infrastructure spending, if done properly, (and granted, its a big if) stimulates the economy, creates jobs and revenues for government. The WORST thing for a government to do at the moment would be to stop all infrastructure spending.