AUD17 Bill - what would you do?

[Sebastiaan56]

The Federal Government budget surplus has hit 17 bill. That is about 80 mil for every person in the country. What to do.... Spend it a once and send the economy into rabid inflation?, save it in equities and keep the share market spiral going?, give it to the states for hospitals, schools etc?, dig very big dams in Northern Australia and sell expensive water to the southern states? Buy New Zealand outright?

[rtfarty]

And you could buy the All Blacks with the change!!!

[johnc]

Thats Amercan Billion not the UK version which equates to about $800 for every Australian not 80 mil. Even if it was UK it is still only $800,000. What would I do with $800, the wife would take care of that so a bit of a no brainer.

[AlexS]

I'd spend it on public service advertising just before the election.

[Sebastiaan56]

Thats Amercan Billion not the UK version which equates to about $800 for every Australian not 80 mil. Even if it was UK it is still only $800,000. What would I do with $800, the wife would take care of that so a bit of a no brainer.

I though we were part of America...... still a lot of money,

[Waldo]

G'day,

Everyone (mostly) always wants something like reduced taxes, the best thing to do is pay off foreign debt and build infrastructure for technology and manufacturing.

Look at the bigger picture.

Serious rant off.

I'd like more toys in the shed. Getting my tax done this arvo and the refund will be paying for the decking.

Correct Billion is the U.K i.e. 1000,000,000,000 not the adopted U.S. 1,000,000,000.

Alex, if you shove some moneyt under the table to me I'll say I'm using it on political advertising, but really I'll buy some more toys. C'mon the WWS

[Gra]

G'day,

Everyone (mostly) always wants something like reduced taxes, the best thing to do is pay off foreign debt and build infrastructure for technology and manufacturing.

The problem is the Govt cant pay off the foreign debt, it isn't theirs. The foreign debt is mainly corporate. The Govt still has bonds issued, but it needs a certain level of issuance to keep the bond market open and fluid. If they don't keep the market fluid it will dry up and when they do want to borrow there wont be the investors or the infrastructure to do it. It was discussed by the RBA to pay off all Govt bonds (The govt could have done this about 10 Years ago), but wasn't for these reasons.

[q9]

Everyone (mostly) always wants something like reduced taxes, the best thing to do is pay off foreign debt and build infrastructure for technology and manufacturing.

You could also argue that the government should actually have run a smaller surplus and spent more money on building port and transport infrastructure when it could have borrowed money quite cheaply a few years ago...

We need to make exports much cheaper to get out of the country (ie more efficient) as we are about to get hit with a rising dollar value.

[Frank&Earnest]

You could also argue that the government should actually have run a smaller surplus and spent more money on building port and transport infrastructure when it could have borrowed money quite cheaply a few years ago...

We need to make exports much cheaper to get out of the country (ie more efficient) as we are about to get hit with a rising dollar value.

Conversely, we might use the strong dollar to buy what we need to build the infrastructure.

[Sebastiaan56]

Conversely, we might use the strong dollar to buy what we need to build the infrastructure.

We could also spend it on some education so that we have some expertise in this country rather then importing it. We are amongst the lowest in the OECD in education spend. This will reap its own reward in future generations. A lot of us took advantage of the free uni's as we were growing up but my kids will be lumped with a mortgage like debt for what was previously provided by the society for the good of the society. The Govt is robbing future generations so it can have a good looking surplus.

[Frank&Earnest]

We could also spend it on some education so that we have some expertise in this country rather then importing it. We are amongst the lowest in the OECD in education spend.

Yep, schools and universities are the most important part of the "infrastructure" no argument here. Maybe one day we will be able to teach people how to divide 17,000,000,000 by 20,000,000. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

[Sebastiaan56]

Yep, schools and universities are the most important part of the "infrastructure" no argument here. Maybe one day we will be able to teach people how to divide 17,000,000,000 by 20,000,000. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

No worries, I never said I passed,