P Jack, no excuses from me, as Abbott was never winning the race, Gillard was just loosing it, badly.

Now hers a question for you, if K Rudd takes labor to another victory and, we have more of the same, ending in billions more debt, what will your excuse be?

Belly, if Rudd can lift confidence, especially within the small business sector and go on the form a successful government, we will all be winners.

However, if he wins and fails to deliver, do you honestly think we can afford the gamble.

My tip is his honeymoon will be short lived and his popularity will soon start to decline because after all, the boat people debacle will haunt him forever.

Rehctub, Australia's debt is around 10% of GDP. That's one of the LOWEST debt ratios among ALL first world nations on Earth. And achieved during the WORST financial crisis in history (bar the Great Depression). It's a LOW, LOW, LOW debt, and absolutely 100% manageable. We have a AAA rating.

Nice "try" rehctub. Please deliver more Abbott loving "spin doctoring". You make it too easy for me.

rehctub,

As a comparison - the US has a gross debt to GDP ratio of around 107 percent.

By my calculations they should hit 17 "trillion" in debt in less than a month.

http://usdebtclock.org/

Poirot,

Firstly PJ was quoting net debt not gross debt. Net Federal debt at the end of 2007 was about -5% and is now sitting at about + 12% of GDP, or closer to 40% of annual federal level. It would be like a person on an income of $100 000 running up a credit card debt of $40 000 in 5 years.

The US federal debt is gross debt, which to get to net debt would mean that you would have to subtract all the securities that the US has been buying to drop interest rates which would take the net debt closer to 60%

P Jack, percentages mean little to me, especially when it is likely we won't have a mining boom to service the debt.

I can only assume that you think, that despite the fact that we have seen $20 billion in the bank, turn into some $400billion in debt, as nothing to worry about.

Now which ever way you look at it, that's a worry, because someone at some point has to pay that back.

Rehctub, our debt is SMALL indeed compared to other nations. It's comparable to someone having an income of $100,000 per year with a mortgage repayment of $10,000. Our debt is larger than before the GFC (boom times indeed), because the post GFC spending kept Australia out of recession and in employment. We would have been MUCH worse off without that spending with massive unemployment, an utterly crippled private enterprise and at least DOUBLE the debt we now have.