Now firstly both of you must really be distended in the head thinking that foreign debt and its impact on the economy has nothing to do with the government. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. However I don’t blame you as it reflects the liberal party’s ideology when it comes to economic management which both you retards have embraced.
In Australia the Treasury department has the responsibility of managing Australian government liabilities in the form of securities and loans. To the two retards, is this not related to the governments economic policy?
Who is to blame for Australia's rising foreign debt?
The current Government blames you and me. It says:
We must work harder and smarter;
We must become more efficient and productive;
We must privatise government enterprise;
We must accept lower pay;
We must accept cutbacks in education and health;
We must save more;
We must be more competitive.
Notice the “We’s”
For the last 20 years the current account deficit has been equal to the growth in bank credit plus the currency the government has printed. Of the total growth in banking lending and currency, 94% is the growth in bank credit and only 6% is the growth in currency. It is the expenditure financed from these sources of funds that causes the economy to buy more than it produces and thereby bring about the current account deficits that raise foreign debt. None of the Government polices to deal with the problem have had any effect. The current account deficit and our growing foreign debt can be prevented. The rules relating to the banking system can be changed so that we buy more Australian products, employ more Australian workers and pay off our debt.
But the Government, public servants and Reserve Bank do not want to know that they have a problem in the banking system. They have deregulated the financial system and they want us to think that the system is perfect. They would rather blame the people of Australia for the problems, than accept that they made a mistake. We, the victims of their policies, are being made scapegoats for their failures!
They do not want to consider the evidence. Unfortunately it is a fact of life that "the greater the impact of new information the more strenuously it will be resisted."
Many things have been changed in the economy but none has had any effect on this basic relationship between the growth of bank credit and currency and the current account deficit.
The money we earn enables us to buy as much as we have produced. We are entilted to the goods we buy because we have produced goods to sell. We do not cause the nation to buy more than it produces. The banks create more money or the government prints more money and this finances the excess spending. The money they create enables them to buy products to which they are not entitled. It causes the nation to buy more than it has produced. It causes current account deficit and causes foreign debt.
The Government should stop blaming the people of Australia for the current account deficit and foreign debt. It needs to look again at the rules that govern bank lending. It needs to look at its own practices related to printing money. They are the causes of our international debt problems. The people of Australia are not the problem. It is the financial system that is flawed.
When the Howard Government took office, Australia's net foreign debt was $193 billion. It is now more than double that, $393 billion. In the past two years alone, export earnings shrank by $10 billion as we borrowed almost $120 billion in new transactions on global markets to keep the big spending going.
This is the most critical area in which globalisation has changed Australia. But imports have risen from 16 per cent of GDP to 22 per cent. Since 1980, Australia has managed just three tiny trade surpluses and 21 often large deficits. Last year we ran up a record deficit of $24 billion, or 3 per cent of GDP.
Since 1997 our export growth has lost pace. From 1986 to 1997 we were an Asian tiger. Export volumes grew on average by 8 per cent a year and manufactured exports by 15 per cent a year. But in the past seven years, that average has crumbled to just 5 per cent a year for manufactures and 3 per cent for all goods and services. Since 2001, export volumes have fallen while import volumes rose 31 per cent.
Labor has hammered the Government over falling exports and rising debt just as John Howard and Peter Costello did in 1996.
Foreign money has been the fuel for our house price boom. In five years, the banks have lent out a net $329 billion for housing, but just $87 billion for business. Singapore and Korea borrowed heavily overseas to expand their industries. We did so to expand our houses.
But the economists and the Government say that is no problem so long as buyers and lenders are careful. They call it the "consenting adults" argument: if one person wants to borrow money and another wants to lend it, why should anyone else care? But economic opinion is swinging away from that view. Foreign borrowing has inflated real estate values beyond sustainable levels, creating the risk of a bust that could bring down the economy. The global markets will not keep lending to Australia indefinitely, and the transition could be ugly and brutal. At best, borrowing to consume more means consuming less later, implying a long period of lower growth.
The Coalition's focus on ensuring that interest rates stay low has encouraged Australians to take on more debt, increasing the risk of a bust. Labor has highlighted the dangers of this path.
Zahid--- I have used many sources in compiling this reply, ill put em up in the morning.