So, the problem was, to a significant extent, inflated property prices, share prices divorced from earnings value, too much personal debt. And the solution is ..... stimulate the housing market, give us all money we haven't earned yet to buy lots of foreign consumer goods and rack up national debt. Okay, the stimulus and other things appear to have got us through the GFC with only a few of us suffering much harm along the way. But surely it also means that we, as a community, still haven't really grasped why the GFC happened and, therefore, why won't it happen again ?

I can understand the case for a modest stimulus package, providing it is well managed and targetted at cushioning the effects of unemployment and business downturn for those in the front line of the GFC, so to speak. But for those of us with secure jobs, the cash splash was a freebie that wasn't warranted. I'm not a masochist, but surely if many of us haven't experienced a little pain during the GFC, why will we change ? I suspect in 50 years' time, economics students will be taught this as a case study of short termism that fixed nothing in the longer run!

You must be a fortune teller or something to predict the longer term.

I note that the school's program has had to be delayed because they can't get builders at reasonable prices. This suggests that whether the stimulus worked or not, it was unnecessary, at least in this form, because the industry would look to be working at pretty well 100% capacity.

At the beginning of this year, all construction projects in my town simply stopped dead. Large numbers of building workers were laid off.

It appears that the stimulus has returned the sector to near-full capacity. Everywhere I drive here, building projects are in full swing once more where six or seven months ago, there were just abandoned construction sites.

There is no doubt when there is taxpayer money being thrown around there will be some bad judgements, mismanagement and some who will abuse the process.

Overall the spin-off effects of the stimulus seem to be working given Australia's position relative to other nations in the GFC.

I am not sure about stimulus packages in the form of rebates - home insulation, solar and water even though the intentions are good. Rebates tend to inflate the prices giving any win-falls to a small section of business (and if you are lucky a handful of consumers).

Spending on schools has been long overdue but I would question some of the projects as being perhaps not as necessary as increasing the bank of social housing to reduce incredibly long waiting lists in some states. And to help reduce homelessness caused by inflated rents, availability of rental properties and the high cost of housing.

Could tax cuts be a better way of stimulating the economy? Spreading the 'wind-falls' around more evenly to stimulate various sectors. Probably not given the money would be spread a bit thin on the ground - $42B divided by the number of taxpayers (anyone know the figures?

Last time I looked the workforce was about 6 million. So that's $7,000 each Pelican. Not that I would have recommended tax cuts, and certainly not of that quantum.

I don't think there is any doubt that the stimulus package was far too large and very badly targetted. And it won't do any long term good to the economy.

But I also have problems with some of the critics who say that the jobs it created cost hundreds of thousands each.

We don't need the type of stimulus packages they might have needed in previous depressions/recessions because welfare takes up so much of the slack in the economy when things turn down.

But we could have used any available additional capacity in the economy to add to the nation's stock of capital at cheap prices. Building school libraries is not one of those things that needed to be done at this time. Getting the infrastructure right for the next upswing was.