I can see the Left is practicing there excuses for todays unintended consequences, Western Sydney truly despises your arrogant stupidity and Murdoch is not a factor. A lie, is a lie, is a lie and the Carbon lie shattered any trust of Lefties. The Rudd / Gillard / Rudd maelstrom of lies, incompetence and death generated by the no-hoper, non-worker Leftie class just proved they offer no hope for their children, apart from making it too expensive to wash them every day. A regular shower is not an "Enviro-crime".

You seem to forget that many of your despised Westies (anyone not near King street) have real skills and know first hand what a bodgie job the BER was. Government by "Thought Bubble" (a polite way of saying brain fart) as exemplified by moving Garden Island, NBN, Cash for Clunkers ad nauseam needs no BA to be recognised as stupidity.

Alan

When we talk of trying to explain a set of facts or data by the most parsimonious hypothesis, it is so obvious that it should go without saying, that the hypothesis must be logically coherent in the first place. If it confuses cause and effect, or assumes its conclusion in its premises, or unthinkingly assumes some supernatural agent – all of which you are doing – then we don’t even get to the stage of construing the evidence. The theory is just nonsense.

You can’t just ASSUME that stimulus policies create net social benefits and more than that throwing virgins into the volcano improves crop fertility. But that’s all your cited sources do, and all you’ve done. I don’t care how many priests or co-religionists you can cite incanting the same liturgy, you need to show reason.

I’m not going to be sent on an errand to construct your argument for you. I have shown that your argument is illogical, and you haven’t been able to defend it except by more illogic, so you’re proving my point, not yours.

The statistical methodology you have chosen does not and is not capable of proving causation. If you don’t understand why, let me know, and I’ll explain it to you.

And you still have given no reason whatever that the stimulus policies created net social benefits, all you’ve done is point to benefits and ignore the entire issue of opportunity costs (again!).

Economics by definition concerns scarce resources. Your theory would only make sense if some fructifying agent were introduced into the economy from a moonbeam. You can’t just conjure away the natural scarcity of resources by coerced redistributions and claim you’ve made society better off without accounting for the obvious downsides. It’s not a theory of economics or justification of policy; it’s just a dream of magic pudding.

And that’s all you and Judy et al have got: mindless repetition of a meme that you picked up somewhere without understanding the logical implications of what you’re arguing.

Hello again,

@Killarney, re: “these setting-the-record-straight fact-checks … should have been appearing regularly for the last three years. The ALP should have been doing this long before now”

The ALP is actually pretty good at regular reports and media releases. I subscribe here in France. The problem is your media suppresses anything positive for Labor or negative for the Coalition.

@Phil R: Precisely!

@McCackie, do you realise how hilarious it is to read “Murdoch is not a factor” in the same post as “what a bodgie job the BER was”?

Where, apart from in Murdoch or Murdoch-inspired outlets is there any evidence whatsoever that the BER was other than an outstanding success?

Do you accept that the purpose of the expenditure was to rescue Australia’s economy from the sudden 4th quarter downturn in 2008?

Do you accept the Australian economy was then 10th-ranked in the world – and is now first?

If not, which economy do you think is faring better, McCackie?

@Jardine, re: “You can’t just ASSUME that stimulus policies create net social benefits”

Correct. We don’t. We evaluate the actual measurement of net benefits by the Bureau of Statistics, the Finance Department, Treasury, Infrastructure Australia and elsewhere.

Re: “And you still have given no reason whatever that the stimulus policies created net social benefits …”

The theoretical foundation is straight, conventional, boring Keynesian economics, Jardine. The theory is, in turn, bolstered by examining the experience of all nations through the current global downturn.

Straight, boring scientific method.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz summarised it neatly:

“Kevin Rudd, who was prime minister when the crisis struck, put in place one of the best-designed Keynesian stimulus packages of any country in the world. He realized that it was important to act early, with money that would be spent quickly, but that there was a risk that the crisis would not be over soon. So the first part of the stimulus was cash grants, followed by investments, which would take longer to put into place.

“Rudd’s stimulus worked: Australia had the shortest and shallowest of recessions of the advanced industrial countries.”

Cheers,

Alan

Alan

That's a fail.

Statistics doesn't prove causation, it only proves correlation. To show causation you need a theory, but you've earlier denied that your theory is Keynesian, and now you're contradicting yourself.

It is mere gizzard-lore to point to a great heap of statistics and say it supports your superstitious belief that stamping pieces of paper with a special sign creates real physical wealth that makes society as a whole better off.

But in any event, you haven't even done that! All you're done is referred to absent authority, alleging that someone else understands it, someone else knows, someone else has worked it out, and that's how you know. That's your method, which is not the scientific method at all, it's the *religious* method. Stiglitz merely makes the same unfounded assumption in favour of Keynes's nonsense that you do. Prove it - *without* appeal to absent authority.

If the purpose of the exercise is not necessarily to provide goods economically, but to stimulate spending even if it's wasteful, then why not blow up a city? This would "stimulate" a lot of "spending" and then you'd get "jobs" for all those builders. Why not legalise counterfeiting? That would get money "spent quickly", wouldn't it?

You have also completely failed to take into account the coercive nature of taxation and monetary policy when alleging the balance of values, and which disproves you theory, oops, that's non-theory.

Thanks for proving my point. All you've got is an authority-based anti-economic irrational belief system that wasting wealth on a grand scale makes society richer. That's why you think that gross over-spending on poor quality buildings, that people aren't willing to pay for, and burning houses makes society economically better off! It's laughable nonsense.

Hello again JKJ,

No, the Nobel Prize winners still make the best sense of things, it seems.

Although you and I don’t actually disagree about all that much really.

Re: “Statistics doesn't prove causation, it only proves correlation.”

Correct.

Re: “To show causation you need a theory, but you've earlier denied that your theory is Keynesian, and now you're contradicting yourself.”

I don’t actually have a personal theory, JK. The one that seems to fit best is a modern version of Keynesian economics as expounded by Stiglitz, Krugman and others, including Australia’s Treasury, Finance and Reserve Bank.

Re: “All you've done is referred to absent authority, alleging that someone else understands it, someone else knows, someone else has worked it out, and that's how you know.”

Maybe. But I've done the spreadsheets confirming Australia’s economy is now in better shape than any other economy ever. That’s on income, growth rate, wealth, employment, government debt, inflation, taxation, economic freedom and credit ratings.

If you believe there has ever been a better-managed economy, then you are most welcome to suggest one, JK.

Re: “If the purpose of the exercise is not necessarily to provide goods economically, but to stimulate spending even if it's wasteful, then why not blow up a city?”

Because that is NOT the purpose of the exercise at all, JK, as explained before.

Destroying and replacing assets creates work. But it does not build net assets. We have to achieve both. Waste must be managed.

Blowing up cities is stupid. Building school facilities is intelligent, as Judy has shown. So are constructing a broadband network, roads, ports and railways and insulating buildings.

Re, “You have also completely failed to take into account the coercive nature of taxation and monetary policy when alleging the balance of values, and which disproves you theory, oops, that's non-theory.”

Not at all. They are coercive. That does not disprove anything really.

Anyway, get back to us with a better-managed economy when you get a moment, JK, if you can.

Thanks.

Cheers,

AA

Well, heavens, you've all been busy while I was offline! I don't imagine for one moment it will create an instant conversion complete with angelic choir, but do look at the various links provided by Alan, detailing economic issues and the influence of Murdoch on perceptions, or to Marilyn Shepherd's link to a previous article on the success of the BER, complete with nice pics.

I am bemused, of course, by Jardine K Jardine's frequent suggestions that blowing up a city would have had the same stimulatory effect as what was in fact done. Not quite. Labor's stimulus did not entail millions of mangled people all requiring rather expensive hospitalisation. Maybe that's the difference between Labor and LNP governments. Foresight. Not to mention a belief in building infrastructure rather than destroying it. O, and there's social responsibility.

I would be fascinated to hear the theories on how austerity measures help during a financial crisis. When that PhD student in America so easily discovered fudged data backing up papers espousing the virtues of the austerity approach, there was a very amusing episode of the Colbert Report. Hilariously, the austerity approach was described as when you keep sacking people until they get a job.

To those who expostulated about the BER's cost - I did deal with that in the article. Currently in Australia, govt-built school buildings have stringent standards applied that others don't have. Reflects the direct responsibility the govt has for kids in public schools.

Speaking of infrastructure, I understand we just passed Mongolia to become 50th in the world for internet speeds. Except for downloading, where we are a little slower than that.And the LNP's broadband version proposes speeds already outmoded overseas. I wonder if we will indeed end up with a two-tier system where some now have and will retain the fast and competitive version, and others will not but could pay thousands to have their LNP version upgraded to the Labor equivalent. Or will the LNP govt will suddenly discover they are 'forced' to complete the rollout after all?