Hear, hear ttbn and well said!
Alan B.

ttbn,
I presume that means you haven't the foggiest?

I daresay there will be other readers who form the same conclusion.

Hey Aiden,
Quick question - What's your position on solid gold toilet seats?

I've got this hunch that if the government said were doubling taxes tomorrow to buy gold toilet seats for politicians, you'd support that because it would be growing the economy.
(though I'm not sure it would be)

And if the people rose up and said 'This is outrageous!' you'd oppose the funding cuts for gold toilet seats because it might shrink the economy.

Where do you stand on stupid and wasteful spending?
Spending for the sake of spending when better results can be obtained for less with better policy?

The biggest increase over a decade in real income of the lowest 25% of the country occurred from 1996 to 2006 due entirely to free market economics.

That an economic pinhead wants to cherry pick and rewrite history to shine a positive light on failed socialist policies is symptomatic of the general amnesia shown by left whinge politicians.

ttbn - Free market theory is an absurd abstraction that has nothing to do with real modern economies.
https://betternature.wordpress.com/my-books/sack-the-economists/

ttbn & Shadow Minister - And free markets don't work: postwar years (Keynesian social democratic): growth 5%, inflation 3.3%, unemployment 1.3%. (Under that failed old socialist Bob Menzies.) Nothing since 1980 has come close to those figures.

Old Man - no recession: www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-27/verrender-think-whitlam-ruined-our-economy-think-again/584286

Shadow,
What is your source for that claim?
Does it take into account the loss of purchasing power from the introduction of the GST?

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Armchair,

Your hunch is stupid, and shows you don't understand my position at all. I'm completely opposed to stupid and wasteful spending. And I always have been. There are so many more worthwhile things we could do with the money instead.

Besides, stimulus spending is deficit spending! Tax and spend doesn't grow the economy unless the money is spent on something that enables more economic activity to occur (like a road) and/or the spending occurs in depressed regions where it employs people who would otherwise be unemployed. Neither of those apply to a solid gold toilet seat. So you can be sure such seats would NOT be growing the economy.

I'd support thousand dollar toilet seats in the right context (namely aircraft, where if they're sufficiently lightweight the cost can be justified by fuel savings). And I'd support toilet seats with sliver nanoparticles (which have great antibacterial properties). But I can't contrive a situation where I'd support solid gold toilet seats for anyone, let alone our politicians!