In the future, public pressure will assure that decentralization replaces inner city development! It is madness to put the jobs and commerce where the people aren't, then expect them to spend hours commuting on gridlocked highways!

We can afford absolutely non essential state governments or intelligent fully funded decentralization! Just not both!
Alan B.

So Ross we are expecting to run out of the capacity to borrow money to pay for all this non productive work around 2041.

As our welfare spending already exceeds what we can afford, & our earning capacity falls, with the loss of productive industry, I'll be a bit surprised if we manage to get that far before our race into bankruptcy stops this growth.

So Hasbeen, why is it so difficult for you to understand that because Australia owns the Reserve Bank, we can never run out of the capacity to borrow money?

Is it because you still don't understand that as we have a floating currency and practically no sovereign debt, there's no possibility of hyperinflation; the worst that could happen is competitive devaluation?

Yep Aidan is right. In fact I think the government should borrow enough money to buy every citizen family a small holiday house on the Mediterranean and annual first class tickets thereto. After all, we can borrow all we want with no adverse consequences...apparently.

mhaze your comprehension is very poor. I never claimed a lack of adverse consequences from what the money is spent on.

Well that wasn't too hard.

I've seen Aidan, over the past year or so, pontificate his silly notion that borrowing capacity is unlimited and we can do it with impunity.

But the slightest push back and he caves. It now seems that adverse consequences will ensue with irresponsible borrowing. I wonder if borrowing to cover welfare payments is responsible borrowing.

I'm afraid Aidan doesn't delve far enough into the consequences of borrowing. Its true that the initial result of excess borrowing would likely be a slow (or fast?) market driven devaluation. That of itself is inflationary. Then, as the overseas lenders perceive that they are risking being paid in less valuable $A, they'll begin to expect higher interest rates to cover that risk. That's inflationary. Hyperinflation may well be off the table for the next decade or so, but its not permanently off the table.

We are urged to adopt 'prudent' policies to avoid some undefined climate risk four generation hence. It would seem reasonable to adopt prudent economic policies to avoid easily defined risks one generation hence.

If we lived in the US, Aidan would be sort of right given that the $US is the world currency. The US government can, and probably will eventually, print and inflate their way out of debt. But we aren't in that position.