TLTR,talk in real numbers that people can understand.Your analogy is like 1984 double speak.My stats speak the truth.

This is a new one. We now have the Right criticising the government on the basis of the numbers of pages of legislation.
The clear intent of course is to smear the government with the stain of inefficiency: bloated legislation.
Like many other commenters i struggled to find a spine to this article. Perhaps that's because it's incoherence overpowers its eloquence.

Just recently I compiled a list of the fifty people who make sense on this site. John Roskam isn't one of them.

JOHN ROSKAM! JOHN ROSKAM! Oh Graeme. Has OLO sunk so low, become so idiotically right wing that you give oxygen to this profanity? Sheesh.

So Graeme. I see you now publish articles by lots of IPA guys. There's quite a few by Alan Moran. And you've published this pile of s h i t by John Roskam.

One of the most depressing experiences of my Internet life has been watching OLO become the habitat of the wingnut right. OLO used to be compulsory reading. Now it's full of this sort of dross from the IPA. THE IPA! Honestly. Does anyone take you seriously now Graeme? I suppose when I next have a look at OLO (in another twelve months time, if you are still around), it will be full of articles by Andrew Bolt. You really have sunk a l-o-n-g way Graeme. Sad.

Arjay, you stated:

"TLTR,talk in real numbers that people can understand.Your analogy is like 1984 double speak.My stats speak the truth."

It took me a while to stop laughing, but now that I have, allow me to present you with a brutal truth.

My last post provided direct maths.

You said there was 900 billion worth of debt.

I took that figure. I divided it by the most recent estimates of the Australian population - 23 million.

The figure that came out was less than half of your projection of debt per person.

I've read 1984 - once in the past and once recently. The truth is, that pure mathematics is the one science that can't be disputed. It's the furthest thing from doublespeak that exists.

That's not doublespeak. That's singlespeak.

A competent 14 year old with an abacus can back that up.

However, I ought to thank you for the chuckles.

As for the rest of the post - GDP versus debt is the most common tool used to measure the economic performance of a country. At least, it is in economic circles.

Go on - google GDP, to public debt ratio. There's an entire secion of wikipedia devoted to it, but I don't think it's factored in the recent stimulus packages.

Put simply, this is the amount of debt a country has, to the amount of money it produces. (This is simplistic, but I'm wondering if such simplicity is necessary).

Australia, even with the stimulus packages, has a projected debt to GDP ratio that is below 10%. There are many estimates for the next half a dozen years. They're all below this figure.

Certain countries are well above 100% and other ones are catching up rapidly. Frankly, an internet dispute isn't worth spending hours gathering the precise statistics, though if you can find me a reputable information source that indicates Australia is anywhere near the US or other stagnant economies in terms of this ratio, then I'll take you seriously, Arjay. Otherwise, you haven't proved your comments should be anything but dismissed as hyperbole coupled with dodgy maths.

TLTR ,it was per working person,ie 10 million.Glad to see I do entertain.Cheers.