I don’t believe that government “…must be applauded for being prepared to act swiftly and decisively…”

Governments do only the things that enhance themselves: in this case a big splurge at Christmas time so that retailers chortle about ‘record’ profits, ‘best Christmas for years’, and all the other palaver fooling everybody into believing the Rudd Government is not so bad after all.

Watch out though. The Government is already backing down on aspects of its bank balance guarantee, so there’s nothing to say they won’t do the same to happy shoppers.

Rudd knows that the people who will receive this taxpayer largesse are not people known for their saving skills; they will spend up big, and be back where they were before Christmas, asking for more handouts.

Mr. Cleary’s wish list about infrastructure, housing etc., is fine and items listed should have been started years ago. But, that’s not the way of governments when they are floundering. They use the you beaut, give-it-to-them-now quick fix to give themselves breathing space and hope like hell they can think of something sound while the handouts take people’s minds of the real problems.

Bread and circuses it is

Correct Mr Right, bread & circuses it is.
It all reminds me of the last days of the Roman Empire.

It is not the Barbarians at the gates, although some would call the
foreclosure agents barbarians. While ever houses are purchased with
loans on two incomes the houses will be unaffordable except to the the
middle to higher paid.

It is not generally mentioned that in the US the collapse in mortgage
payments, caused by the resetting to higher interest levels coincided
with high petrol prices and the resultant high food prices.
This is what caused the unexpected rush of defaults.

The same happened here but not to anywhere near the same extent.
If things get as bad as some expect due to the outstanding derivative
debts, and some are talking of tens of Trillions, then with energy
about to start depleting in the next 1 to 5 years we will need to
restructure the financial system for a sustainable model rather than
a growth model which may well have failed because energy production
has been flat for three years so far.