Your problem Poirot, is that Australia is not a large economy and the Australian Dollar is not the global reserve currency, as with the US Dollar. We cannot simply borrow with impunity, as the Americans can.

So your Stiglitz solution will not work here, sorry.

Thanks Yabby,

I take it that's why we're in a deep recession (not)

Perhaps that's something we can all look forward to.

Yesterday's mishmash is only a sample of the incompetence we can also look forward to.

Fasten your seat belts, folks.....

Poirot, our economy has been propped up by the mining investment bubble, which is slowing down. Creating a housing bubble is not going to fix the economy, nor is borrowing ever more money. I am no fan of Abbott, but the other team is even worse. They have been a disaster for agriculture, for instance. Business has lost confidence and without business investing, you certainly will have a recession.

Foxy,

This sums it up well for me.

http://www.brw.com.au/p/leadership/tony_abbott_wins_free_pass_to_government_BsmO65OXfDqC2fEaMAMsLJ

"Can there be any doubt that we get the politicians, and the governments, we deserve? None. This election has nothing to do with substance; nothing to do with the best people for the job; nothing to do with probity, propriety or policy. Barring the greatest imaginable upset, Australia will almost certainly have a new government on September 7.

Even if we accept the well-worn political adage that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them, it is difficult to bring to mind an opposition that has done so little to earn government.

More to the point, the Coalition appears set to claim government having connived its way to election day without exposing itself to scrutiny of its costings and savings for restoring the budget surplus."

"Its mendacity will almost certainly be rewarded with government.

For the most part, Abbott’s evasiveness on the Coalition’s economic strategy has attracted little condemnation from voters, the media and business groups. Nor has the unaffordable and poorly conceived $5.5 billion a year paid parental leave scheme – a major imposition on the Australian economy for very little social or productivity gain – attracted the scrutiny (and derision) that it deserved. Not to mention absurd and expensive policies such as the 15,000-strong Green Army or the Indonesian boat-buyback scheme."

Dear Poirot and Foxy,

Too little too late; crocodile tears.

Six years and a lifetime to learn from past mistakes; but to no avail.
Labor has indeed introduced marvellous and remarkable social/societal innovations - like the old aged pension, medicare and compulsory superannuation, etc - but nearly always seems to insist on running 'like a bull at a gate' to introduce the next, and the next 'big thing', throwing caution to the wind and rushing headlong without due care for fiscal and budgetary limitations (or for any resultant impositions on 'business').
It has then been up to successive conservative governments to 'wind back' to within manageable (and still efficacious) boundaries.
Thus does it seem almost inescapable that history will continue to repeat itself, over and over, ad infinitum - unless the racing leopard may in time be able to change its spots, and learn to hasten more slowly (as did Hawke/Keating - for a while).

Slow and steady has its place (dull and 'ordinary' though it may be).

To take license with a quote:
Well may we say "God save the Queen", for nothing will save PM Rudd and Labor. (At least until the next round, or two, on the merry-go-round.)

Saltpetre,

"Too little too late; crocodile tears."

Are you holding up Abbott's motley crew and their dodgy pre-election presentation as something of quality?

"It has then been up to successive conservative governments to 'wind back' to within manageable (and still efficacious) boundaries."

Howard sold off $72 billion of government assets to achieve his surplus (and $40 billion of the debt he paid off was left over from Fraser)

He didn't build on anything - and he enjoyed robust conditions regarding the world economy.

Dreadful.

(Sorry mate, but if you believe that MSM is on the money and that Murdoch's shameful behaviour is an indication of healthy democracy, there's nothing I can do for you. People are basically sheeple, blown this way and that by big headlines and simplistic slogans and pamphlets