Foyle,

The link you provided is a feeble attempt to show that public spending improves the economy.

It can, but the single biggest difference between this example and the last 6 years is that the wartime spending in the US was on infrastructure, production equipment, training and research, not welfare payouts, public service paper pushers, and useless school halls.

The coalition's focus is to trim the welfare handouts, the unproductive public service, and increase spending on infrastructure, which is similar to what happened in the war time USA.

*As 2014 begins, it's easier to be optimistic.*
Well as you have the foreman's job at last, of course it is. But for the rest of us there is little hope left.

*Markets are the proven answer to the problem of scarcity*
Well that is the answer to all of our problems. We start a market of illegal boat people.
*You can't spend what you haven't got.* So just print some money and hand it out to the top 1%. They will spend it and then we will get some....... eventually.
*No country has ever taxed or subsidised its way to prosperity.* But it has made for prosperity for the big end of town who get the subsidies and they pay no tax.
*And profit is not a dirty word because success in business is something to be proud of.* As long as it is the rich mates who get the profit and not those losers who work for them.

* As always, stronger economic growth is the key to addressing almost every global problem.* Until you find that there is nothing left to grow or anywhere to grow it.

* Stronger growth requires lower, simpler and fairer taxes that don't stifle business creativity.* Because we don't want the 1% to have to pay tax do we?

* We're streamlining environmental approvals * So there won't be any silly regulations to stop polluting the heck out of everything so the 1% can make even more profits.

Well there was one other leader at Davos informing the world his country was “Open for business!”

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/irans-president-tells-davos-his-country-is-open-for-business/

Understandable when his country is coming out from under extensive sanction.

Trite sloganeering if your country isn't.

Can someone tell me when this country was ever closed for business?

Shadow Minister,
Just a few days ago I made the point in one comment on the OLO site that the cash handouts, the school improvements, which by the way were often libraries and science facilities or other valuable add-ons, and the insulation were prompt, short lead time items. They were excellent reactions by the Rudd, Gillard, Swan, and Tanner economics team to the immediate need to avoid the collapse brought on by the operation of many of the world's economies in the unsustainable area of the available fiscal space. Howard and Costello operated the Australian economy in that unsustainable space every year that the held the levers. I have plotted the sector outcomes for those years on Dr Stephanie Kelton' fiscal space diagrams and they show how poor our economic performance was in that era.

I also made the point that from the start of 2010 the government expansionary activities, designed to maintain employment, and through wages, demand, should have been long lead time infrastructure.

Foyle a lot of that Rudd/Gillard stimulus money was wasted. We borrowed $ billions from OS Central Banks and much of the school stimulus money went to Companies like Leightons and back OS again. So we went into debt and OS Companies got the profits.

Dr Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary to the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall St Journal. He has opposing views to Tony Abbott http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/26/how-economists-policymakers-murdered-our-economy/
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/author/dr-paul-craig-roberts/

All is not rosy as Tony Abbott would have us believe. When Kevin Rudd went to the last G20 meeting, he endorsed the concept of "bail in". This means that if or when our banks get into trouble, they will have to power to convert your deposits into their shares as happened in Cyprus. Does Tony Abbott endorse this Kevin Rudd 'bail in" policy ?

Since the 2008 GFC we have seen unprecedented money creation that has gone into inflating share ,derivative gambling and property values. Unemployment around the planet has risen.This means that real production and consumption has fallen, while the volume of money in the financial sphere has exploded. When the share/derivative bubble bursts, where will all this worthless money go?

We will experience hyper-inflation then more stagflation with rising interest rates compounding the problem.

If "bail in" becomes a reality, it will be total anarchy.http://www.cecaust.com.au/