topic Re: The scary big debt in Community Spirit

The scary big debt

***super_nova*** — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 02:40:46 GMT

This article gives bit of a perspective on our debt:

http://theaimn.com/2013/08/15/history-and-why-our-grandchildren-should-be-paying-off-debt/

Liberals are fond of using household budgets as an analogy, and I suspect that my son would rather be left with a small mortgage on a house that was safe for him to live in than being debt free but homeless. That’s the thing with debt, it’s always relative to assets. The Australian Government – or the taxpayer – may be $300 billion in debt, but servicing that debt is only costing $2 a week for every working Australian (my source is a Murdoch paper!) And as for assets, well the $300 billion is less than a quarter of our Superannuation. Or about equivalent to what the Government spends in a year.

Basically, the debt isn’t that bad. We can pay it back over ten years by just a small increase in tax.

Re: The scary big debt

the_hawk* — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 03:25:30 GMT

@***super_nova*** wrote:
This article gives bit of a perspective on our debt:

http://theaimn.com/2013/08/15/history-and-why-our-grandchildren-should-be-paying-off-debt/

Liberals are fond of using household budgets as an analogy, and I suspect that my son would rather be left with a small mortgage on a house that was safe for him to live in than being debt free but homeless. That’s the thing with debt, it’s always relative to assets. The Australian Government – or the taxpayer – may be $300 billion in debt, but servicing that debt is only costing $2 a week for every working Australian (my source is a Murdoch paper!) And as for assets, well the $300 billion is less than a quarter of our Superannuation. Or about equivalent to what the Government spends in a year.
Basically, the debt isn’t that bad. We can pay it back over ten years by just a small increase in tax.

If thats true then how did the debt get so big to start with?

Why hasnt .50c or a $1 been added to reduce it?

and as for increasing taxes we are already one of the highest taxed countries in the world

Re: The scary big debt

newstart2380 — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 08:56:35 GMT

@***super_nova*** wrote:
This article gives bit of a perspective on our debt:

http://theaimn.com/2013/08/15/history-and-why-our-grandchildren-should-be-paying-off-debt/

Liberals are fond of using household budgets as an analogy, and I suspect that my son would rather be left with a small mortgage on a house that was safe for him to live in than being debt free but homeless. That’s the thing with debt, it’s always relative to assets. The Australian Government – or the taxpayer – may be $300 billion in debt, but servicing that debt is only costing $2 a week for every working Australian (my source is a Murdoch paper!) And as for assets, well the $300 billion is less than a quarter of our Superannuation. Or about equivalent to what the Government spends in a year.
Basically, the debt isn’t that bad. We can pay it back over ten years by just a small increase in tax.

So you are suggesting every working Australian pay an extra $2 a week to reduce the debt the Labor government caused ? This may be a grandeous idea but that will only pay the interest on the debt and the $300b debt (growing like a planter wart) will grow and grow. In the mean time the government has to run the country so what would you suggest it uses for money ? more borrowings ?.

Re: The scary big debt

the_great_she_elephant — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 09:11:58 GMT

We have a big scarey debt here in WA too, but luckily for us it was incurred by an LNP government so it's not really scarey after all

Re: The scary big debt

***super_nova*** — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 22:39:50 GMT

So you are suggesting every working Australian pay an extra $2 a week to reduce the debt the Labor government caused ?

Who do you think benefited from the money spent? It did not go to the outer space. It was spent in Australia, it paid for schools, and insulation (insulated houses cost less to heat and cool = saving for the occupants), it provided jobs and the people doing these jobs also spent their money and therefore further stimulated the economy. The spending got us through the GFC.

And before you start talking about the 4 people who died, maybe better look at this:

The Coalition’s concern for the pink bats related workplace deaths is very selective. Channel Nine recently reported on 62 building workers losing their lives on the job http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8698656, but there has been no mention of those cases.