There's no point in trying to pretend you know what you are talking about, Ludwig. You lost all credibility a long time ago.

You wrote:

>>Why do you assume that resources are diverted?<<

It is not an assumption. It is a measurable fact.

>>Some might be while others would get drawn from stockpiles or from increased production. I don’t think you can assume that increased activity in a recovery program displaces activity elsewhere to the same extent.<<

"Drawn from stockpiles", Ludwig?

You don't draw firefighters from a stockpile, Ludwig. You pay some of them, and the rest are volunteers who are diverted from their day job to perform their work on behalf of the community.

You don't draw brickies from stockpiles. They are diverted from other projects in order to rebuild after the cyclone, or the fire has razed the town.

You don't draw nurses from stockpiles. They are trained over a number of years, and when there is an epidemic, they just have more patients. Who, by the way, cannot be counted among the country's productive resources while they are under the nurses' care.

>>My feeling is that it would do to some extent, but that the increase in the recovery effort would well and truly outweigh any decrease elsewhere that has resulted from reallocated resources and labour.<<

Your feelings aren't part of the calculation, Ludwig. You are simply blustering on, hoping to have the last word, even though the words are actually empty of any factual relevance whatsoever.

>>Come on, one of your much-emphasised points is that resources are simply diverted and that therefore economic activity due to recovery efforts after disasters does not lead to an overall increase in GDP.<<

I know that to be the case, because the facts tell me so. Much more reliable than your "feelings".

Nice to know our deceptive hypocritical Govt is sharing "the burden"...
Poirot,
I cannot recall ever supporting such waste & I have on numerous occasions stated my disgust at that. Because Coalition members are nearly as bad as ALP members does not automatically excuse any of it. The point I'm constantly making is a point that you et al constantly miss is the fact that the ALP stuffed up totally whereas the Coalition is stuffing up not quite as bad & under the Coalition we have a chance to recover. Recovery under an ALP government is simply not possible.
Why not ask the federal opposition now if they'd support a salary level reduced to 2007 ? As a matter of fact I'll ask it right now right here. So, if any pollies read this please post your views on this right here. As the Liberal member on Q&A stated last night Australia's minimum wage is too high to compete. It needs to come down as need to ALL other salaries. This moron Maher was like a randy ferret when he waffled on oncessantly about the minimum wage. He clearly has absolutely no idea about economics. Whoever made the decision to employ him & even pay him needs to be castrated.

<< There's no point in trying to pretend you know what you are talking about, Ludwig. You lost all credibility a long time ago. >>

Hahahaaa!

So then Pericles, oh squirmy one, why do you bother with me then? Why do you spend so much time responding to me??

Hahaha, your actions completely contradict your assertion! ( :>)

<< You don't draw firefighters from a stockpile, Ludwig. >> << You don't draw brickies from stockpiles. >> << You don't draw nurses from stockpiles. >>

So…. what about material resources? You’ve conveniently failed to mention those. Could it be because you do realise that some of them could indeed be drawn from stockpiles or be made available by an increased rate of manufacture?

And as for the human resources; where there is a big urgent job to be done, new employees are found as well as those diverted from other jobs. It is NOT a one-for-one trade-off.

You realise full well that I am right on the money with this point – that work done in response to disasters and the material and human resources used therein, is certainly NOT entirely diverted from other jobs, and therefore is NOT neutral in terms of economic productivity or contribution to GDP.

Hey, if there is even a slightly improved economic turnover as a result of disasters, that is: even a slight amount of material and/or human resource that is additional to that diverted from elsewhere, then there will a net economic gain registered in the GDP calculation, yes? And in any large-scale urgent job, there is definitely going more activity than just that diverted from elsewhere. There is always going to be additional employees and additional material resources.

Sorry Squirmicles, you’re busted on this particular point!

"...The point I'm constantly making is a point that you et al constantly miss is the fact that the ALP stuffed up totally whereas the Coalition is stuffing up not quite as bad & under the Coalition we have a chance to recover. Recovery under an ALP government is simply not possible."

And the point you consistently ignore, individual, is that we did have a GFC, and that's why we went into debt. If we'd had an austerity govt, we'd probably have had a sizable debt in any case....except we wouldn't have had a robust economy with an AAA credit rating, low unemployment etc.

Other developed countries went with austerity...many of them are on this graph showing a debt to GDP ratio of between 50 and 100%....ours is under 15%

http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/3727694/data/possum-graph-8-government-debt-as-gdp-data.jpg

I mean look at it...that's our debt to GDP ratio. It's very low compared to other OECD countries. Australia's economy was kept ticking along. You do understand that - don't you?

If that's "stuffing up totally" then I'm living in Bizarro world!

Just a little something else you might be interested in:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/budget-pain-not-for-millionaires-who-pay-no-tax-20140512-zr9o3.html

"The latest tax statistics show 75 ultra-high earning Australians paid no tax at all in 2011-12. Zero. Zip."

Poirot,

Considering that Rudd and Juliar (now accused of knowingly taking bribes) used the jet almost continuously incl one trip for Labor party fund raising, (over which your silence was deafening), the Labor party does not have a leg to stand on this.

Secondly, considering that Bowen has already been caught out lying before the election, presenting figures done "independently" by treasury, when they were based on farcical assumptions by Labor. This is no better.

PEFO and MYEFO are both based on treasury projections which are heavy influenced by assumptions from the government of the day. (Garbage in = garbage out similar to a computer.) The proof of the pudding is that every single Labor budget or MYEFO has been wildly out with vastly increased spending.

Either Treasury under Labor suddenly became incompetent, or Labor lied to them as they lied to everyone else.

Only in the strange, convoluted logic of your own mind, Ludwig.

>>Sorry Squirmicles, you’re busted on this particular point!<<

The fact that you haven't been able to disprove any single point that I have made, and instead rely totally on your "feelings", demonstrates perfectly the quicksand upon which you base your arguments.

>>So then Pericles, oh squirmy one, why do you bother with me then? Why do you spend so much time responding to me??<<

When you post arrant nonsense on economic matters of which you understand diddly-squat, in the guise of situational analysis, then I force myself to respond, just in case there are any gullible folk out there who allow themselves to be misled by your ramblings.

Here's what we are discussing:

>>GDP... is a most terribly flawed economic indicator, which adds all sorts of negative factors to the positive side of the ledger, such as increased economic turnover as a result of fires, floods, cyclones, illnesses due to smoking or alcohol, etc, etc.<<

We have already been able to discard this one. In your own words:

>>Fires, cyclones, illnesses, car accidents, droughts, obesity, and a thousand other bad things, have a negative effect on productivity. Of course as a result of these, GDP would be lower than it would otherwise be<<

Recognizing the inconsistency, you have now chosen to fight your battles in the area of trivia - such as whether "material" might be used up in the reconstruction after a cyclone.

You cannot seem to get it into your head that these events are destructive of GDP. By their very nature, they reduce our capacity, and lower our collective output. Every single example I have presented to you illustrates this point precisely, yet you still wander off into a world of "if" this and "maybe" that.

If this is too difficult for you to understand, then simply accept it and move on.

But please be aware that if you continue to promote this ridiculous concept as being an economic truism, I shall continue to illustrate how wrong you are.