Talk about rhetoric, this article borders on the ludicrous. Besides telling us how good Labor is with its stimulus package, it contains zero info about the problems that lie ahead for ordinary Australians. I struggle to get ahead, and I am a level B academic.

Heaven help us. Whatever has happended to Labor?

Labor should immediately appoint the ambitious Mr Leigh as a minister for propaganda

You know what really annoys me, and i hope I am not alone, is the silly statement about Australia being the envy of the developed world.

I think most readers of OLO know full well that the benefits Aust has over other developed naitons; notably what is in the ground.

It is about time all serious commentators started to point out the problems for Western naitonsd ahead, and stop making out that Australia is some sort of legend nation that knows better than the struggling rest.

I would have more respect for your article, if you were to report the comparison in annual wage to reasonable new home cost in 2008 or 9 with the same in 1965 or 1970. If you did a genuine check, you wou would find that the cost of a house and land today would be about 10 times in 'wage to home purchase price' to the same ratio as it was in those earlier years, Our politicians over the last 40 years cannot be considered as any better then crap, no appoligies. The same can be said for all the other prices of goods and services, it is the idiot or corrupt politicans with their millionaire mates.

I would suggest that any person wondering about our prospects and how we got to this stage, look up the internet, remembering that we had a depression in the 1930's, so did the US and UK and if you look up "Tax history of the US", "Tax history of the UK" and "Tax history of Australia", also "taxes around the world", Just remember that Australia, the UK and the US all had recession or depression in the 1930's, or really between 1920 and about 1935. Australia's best years were from 1960 to 1970, but they didn't have computers so had to work everything out in their head. Unfortunately our politicans since 1970, don't know how to use a computer and just guess what will make them look good. They miss out badly, don't they? That's being very generous with my beliefs, you don't want to know what I really think, I can't print it.

You forgot to tell us what your point was. Did the introduction of computers make them forget how to add up.

I agree the Libs "all debt is evil" line was pretty disingenuous, but Labour's efforts at selling the reasons were pathetic.
True, we don't *know* the spending spree actually saved jobs, but it seems pretty likely based on conventional (non-political!) economics.
So was maintaining employment such a bad idea, or do we still have a "skills crisis"?
Is cheap labour more important to some interests than job security? (hint: Cheap tied-down labour is more important than *anything* to some interests!)