Benq
Another question, or questions.

Do you think the wasted money from the stimulus was a good thing. Wasteage such as on gambling, or those tens of millions sent to OS people, or the $600K tuck shop, or the bungled insulation program and the possible billions needed to fix it, or the wasted millions on the solar rebate system.

I suggest you try telling your story to those who have lost their jobs, or lost their ligitimate businesses, or, lost thier family homes, or even worse, lost thier lives, or those of loved ones.

Do you really think they feel the billions have been well spent and that your beloved 'lord Rud' is the cleverest man on the planet.

I doubt it!

I think you are a typicle 'one eyed' labor brainwashed toss!

Wake up and smell the roses.

Dear rehctub,

If benq's a "labor toss," as you so rudely
put it, then what are you?
And if we wouldn't have had the stimulus
package - the entire country would have gone
down the gurgler just like Greece did.

In the opinion of the rest of the world -
Australia was one of the very few nations to survive
the global financial disaster thanks to the fast action
of Kevin Rudd and his government.

Would you have preferred to see Australia with massive
unemployment, bankruptcy, even suicides, but millions
of dollars in the government's coffers?
Obviously, you must have salted away your wealth at
the expense of those around you and you really don't
care for the survival of your own country and its
people. In my opinion it sounds criminal on your part
to accuse the previous PM for saving the country and
its people from a major disaster.

*And if we wouldn't have had the stimulus
package - the entire country would have gone
down the gurgler just like Greece did.*

Sorry Foxy, but that is basically nonsense.

Greece has gone down the tube, through far
too much "Govt debt, including cooking the
books. It eventually caught up with them.

Australia came through the GFC so well, because
what Costello had set up. Tight regulation of
banks, so they had no shonky loans to deal with,
as did British and American Banks. No Govt debt,
one of the few Govts in the world to be in this
position. An economy that had been booming, perhaps
even too strongly before. In WA restaurants could
actually find staff again, so could farmers, unlike
before, when things were overheated.

If there had been no stimulus package, unemployment
might have crept up a bit higher, maybe to 7% rather then
5%. But contrary to popular opinions, a bit of a recession
is not such a bad thing. Those who took too much risk,
overborrowed, run businesses who are not viable anyhow etc
go under, new businesses later on open, stronger healthier.

Greece is in a totally different position. Govts borrowed
so much for so long, that lenders started to question
their ability to repay their debts and wanted higher
interest rates, due to the higher risk. What it came
down to was that because of all the debt, higher interest
rates would send the Govt broke, they simply can't pay the
bill. So they need cut spending, less social services,
lower Govt wages etc and now people are rioting, as they
refuse to accept it. That is driving tourists away, so
they will be even worse off, then before.

What Costello had set up saved the Australian economy,
not what Swann did

No yabby, Mr Costello did NOT set it up. That's a "liberal" myth.

The truth is, the MINERS were responsible for our surplus. Any, I repeat "any" treasurer would have been capable of building such a great surplus if, like Mr Costello, they rode on the back of ............... THE BIGGEST MINING BOOM TIMES AUSTRALIA HAS EVER HAD IN IT'S ENTIRE HISTORY. As a result, for several years, our economy was literally GOING THROUGH THE ROOF! Thanks to the miners.

A trained monkey could have produced a great surplus during those boom days!

But it's a nice "myth" yabby, and has become a part of PC Liberal folklore. Trouble is, only staunch Liberal party faithful "believe" it. Why? Because they see political gain in the propagation of the myth.

Not so Benq, because of course Mr Costello started making reforms
10 years before that. The price of iron ore and coal rocketed
10 years later.

What Costello did provide was an economy for business to flourish,
and so it did. What Costello did was pay off debts for years
and put money away for public service retirement costs.

We know what happens when Labor is faced with a cookie jar, the
cookies are soon gone. Perhaps they should have hired a trained
monkey, rather then Mr Swann.

I accept that it was Keating/Hawke who started with economic
reforms and Costello continued with them. But Swann ain't no
Keating, nore a Costello. More like a goose, I'm afraid, as we
saw when he was about to ruin the mining industry.

Yabby,

I'm actually quite impressed that you accept that Keating/Hawke were responsible for reforms. I've always heard that their's were the real reforms and that Costello/Howard were good managers of those reforms.
Perhaps you can explain which team was responsible for which reforms.
This is not a trick or snide question - I'd really like to know.