Then again why not invest 100% of Government funds into stimulus 24/7?
In a period of market decline the government dollar goes a lot further than in a period of market stability or market growth. The difference between 94 and 95% employment is a lot bigger than that between 95 and 96% employment. When that number really starts falling it snowballs, it doesn't snowball up. Ultimately the Joe Hockeys and the Scuba Steves of the world have a point, the debt does need to be paid off but the two options are:
-Destroy capital, undo several years of creating wealth before finally the machine stabilizes and begins clawing its way back up. Or
-Stimulate, go into deficit, keep producing capital until the machine has regathered its momentum then put a comparably small drag on it to raise the funds to repay the debt.
1. You're arguing the equivalent of employing people to dig holes and fill them in again.
2. When you direct capital to areas of the economy artificially stimulated it hurts growth in the long term compared to having just some of that capital redirected to areas where there's long term potential for super fun happy widgets. Compare also to tax cuts (which would also stimulate the economy, we could've slashed the corporate tax rate to 10% or bumped the tax free threshold significantly).
3. What the graph actually shows is a statistically insignificant correlation between stimulus and economic growth, but that even if we go by the treasury's numbers, it doesn't show anything close to the mythical Keynesian multiplier we keep hearing about.
1. No, I'm not talking about creating jobs for jobs sake I'm saying creating jobs for production sake there is a difference. There could be improvements in the stimulus:
I heard Karl Kruzelnicki on the radio the other day saying that given all the subsidization that goes into the coal industry now the real difference in cost between solar power and coal is negligible, I tend to think that might have been better investment than school halls, pink batts and 900 dollars no questions asked.
Anyone who knows anything about water will tell you that recycling is undeniably the best way to address the water shortage so I tend to think water recycling facilities might have been another wiser way to stimulate the economy.
That is not creating jobs for no other reason than having people earning money which is what you have asserted, it is because people who are working produce real capital(most of them anyway, I'm not a fan of accountants) people who aren't don't
2. You are wrong it does not hurt anything in the long term it allows growth to be sustained for the long term, it creates real capital, it means the difference between children of employed parents having world class educations (which sadly requires some private assistance in this modern Australia) and the abilities that come with them as opposed to the bare minimum and a lifetime of moving boxes in warehouses and distribution centers.
3. The graph is short sighted, overly simplistic and generally wrong.