Secondly with the comment:

"Do you accept Australia’s economy was 12th in the world in 2007, behind the USA, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Finland, Iceland, Taiwan and Luxembourg?"

The answer is NO. I have looked at various criteria, and the countries mentioned certainly don't have better economic measures.

"Is it is number one now? If not, which is?" Norway, Singapore and Taiwan are all doing better.

"Is Australia’s economy today healthier than any economy the world has ever seen? If not, which is?" No, it was healthier prior to 2008.

"Australia’s stocks of roads, railways, energy and water facilities, schools, insulation, social housing, defense housing and other public assets have increased substantially?"

It has increased but only minimally, and certainly no where near $260bn worth.

It's too late, Alan. The LNP has run around for months screaming the sky is falling in, equating us to Greece and Cyprus, and it appears to have been successful while undermining confidence with the aid of the Murdoch press.

Unless Labor squares off on this directly and hits the LNP head-on over the economy in this last couple of weeks it won't fly. Demonstrating that debt management is under control and that unneeded "cuts, cuts, cuts" are the LNP's solution is what is required at saturation pitch.

That the LNP says it has all its costing and budgeting in place but refuses to divulge this until election week, says it all. Meanwhile it refuses any Treasury scrutiny claiming some "prominent Australians" will do this better whilst maintaining that everyone's going to be a winner.

This is not an election, it's a heist.

Luciferase,
You and Alan Austin are among the few on this discussion who understand what has happened since 1996 and particularly over the last six years.

In Summary;
1. Howard sold public assets and managed to increase private sector debt substantially.

2. Over his time as Treasurer to Fraser, and as PM, Howard reduced financial system regulation (first strengthened by Menzies) and even ignored the requests, from 1998, of Ian Macfarlane (then Reserve Governor) to retighten the system. The G7 press release of 31 October 1998 made similar suggestions to all western political leaders.

3. Criminal 'liars' loans' in the USA and elsewhere, and speculation in idiotic derivatives, causes a bubble which, as always, burst, leading to what is known as the GFC. Offering a liars' loan to a economic illiterate poor person was like showing a bucket of money to a state treasurer.

3. The Gang of Four (Gillard, Tanner, Swan and Rudd) plus the Reserve Bank used updated Keynesian policies to save Australia from the GFC consequences. I listed the four politicians in that order as that is how I personally rank their competence.

4. Abbott and Hockey have campaigned dishonestly on the budget position for three years and the Australian public, especially the 20-30% in the middle of the income and wealth and voting distribution do not have the knowledge to understand what has been happened. As A UK politician once said, "Conservatives mislead the lower classes to vote against their own best interests."

So it looks like we are in for another round of bubble and bust under neo-liberal nonsense! A Lucky Country? Not in MHO!

I wrote:

>> as it [mining boom] winds down, or changes into a different form with a lower overall profit intake and employment rate, discontent will grow … <<

Alan, you responded:

<< Why? Demand, trade and profits are all likely continue for at least 60 years. The data simply does not support this pessimism, Ludwig. >>

But history has shown that even small downturns in profits and employment rate cause considerable consternation and have our government jumping up and down trying to stimulate the whole caboodle.

Notwithstanding some terrible mismanagement, if we can accrue debt during the best of times, we really are not likely to alleviate that debt when things pull back even just a little bit from the best of times.

Our political reality is that we have two parties competing to show who can create the most meaningful short-term gains. It is actually not in their interests to concentrate on the bigger picture. If they fail to impress in the short term, they will be out on their ear at the next election!

The whole system is strongly geared towards the short term and hence towards spending big and borrowing in order to do so. This is the general pattern in democracies the world over, is it not?

<< The data simply does not support this pessimism, Ludwig. >>

Well I certainly hope you are right Alan. But I can’t see it.

continued

Alan, you wrote:

<< Australia has enormous capacity yet to spend, Ludwig. You could triple your gross debt tomorrow and still be better placed than Canada, Germany, the UK, the USA, France and Singapore. No? >>

Yes, we have enormous capacity to spend…. if we are not worried about accruing a whole lot more debt… and tying ourselves into eternal big interest payments and just about no chance of getting out of the debt spiral.

But if we want to balance the books, or keep our debt small and manageable, we have scant little capacity to spend. Certainly we have considerably less capacity to spend if we want to do this than our current magnitude of spending.

And this is where our enormous immigration rate comes right into the picture. If want to moderate our national spending rate, then we really do need to moderate the rate of increase in the demand for everything.

We absolutely need to look at the demand side of the equation as well as the supply side…. and to STOP just leaving the (rapidly increasing with no end in sight) demand side completely out of the discussion!

I put it to you Alan that a much-reduced immigration intake should go hand in hand with a plan to reduce debt.

Indeed, the concept of achieving a sustainable Australia needs to go hand in hand with our whole economic and financial strategy.

BTW, it is great to see an article author come back and fully partake in the discussion. And in such a patient and polite manner. This doesn’t happen often enough on OLO!

Australia may well have a low debt : GDP ration compared to many other countries - its good to know the facts.

It would also be good to know why Australia has had to borrow so much when we are supposed to have been living in a 'mining boom' ...

How come the overseas companies that made super profits are paying next to no 'minerals resource rent tax' ? And how come our banks have been propped up by government, enabling record profits to be extracted from ordinary citizens ?

How much of the "credit-card debt" has been spent of welfare / subsidies as against expenditure on infrastructure ?

Apart from some school halls and pink bats in a few thousand homes, our highways are third world; our railway system is broken (a single track between Sydney and Brisbane ..) yet we dream, of a 'very fast train' ... and we've been talking about a 2nd Sydney airport for 30 years !!

I borrowed to buy a house, but damned if I would continue borrowing to meet my normal living costs.