@aidan

responding to you pt by pt

1. wow...which school of economics you graduated from?
i used to lecture economics for 4th year U students many many years ago
maybe theory of economics have changed
i can understand demand induced growth... but spending more than you have is not going to help any country (except the world's biggest cheat ..USA , which just prints money and they can get away with it for the moment bec they are the defacto world currency...that position is going to end soon)

2. did you watch today's news?
the facts says our welfare system is going to swallow the ENTIRE budget very soon
wonder if you understand the grave situation

3. nobody says propping up of industries is solely done by minimum wages

4. that depends on how you define 'emergency'... the frog in the pot is a happy frog

5..forget about high value and low value work
we need to do them both
learn from our neighboring countries which emphasized on high value work, only to run into big social problems when they had to import low value workers by the million

the objective of this post and the other (oz no longer a world player) is to remind us that we are passe and will continue to be if we do not wake up

I think Aidan must have been one of the old Soviet Union economic advisers. His advise sounds just like the path they followed to destruction.

platypus1900,

1. How much obligation to reduce the government's debt do you think our children are under?

If your answer wasn't zero, I pity your former students!
Worse still, your misinformation is now widely believed, and has resulted in economic decline.

Why do you think the private sector should have the monopoly on spending more than they have?

2. No, I missed the news today, though I caught up with some of it online.
The Liberals may say our welfare system will swallow our entire budget, but the facts say this is impossible.

3. You are saying minimum wages help to prop up industries. Please explain how? And iff you're able to explain how, please explain why you think it's undesirable?

4. The pot is cold! Inflation is low, interest rates are low, and there is no chance whatsoever of Australia defaulting on its debt.

5. What neighbouring countries would those be? And do you really think we're better off when people who could do high value work do low value work instead?

Hasbeen, do you really think it was anything resembling my advice that wrecked the Soviet Union? I was pretty young at the time, but I thought it was their suppression of markets (including the currency market) combined with their huge military spending that caused the problem?

@aidan

i am sorry but i am at a loss trying to respond to your last post

nvm... all the best and have a good weekend

thks