Senator Assange?

[Aractus]

Australia did not go into a recession during the global financial crisis.

Actually it did. Three consecutive quarters of negative growth, job losses to higher unemployment, low consumer confidence, retail sector hit. The Government stimulus spending is the only thing that tells you we didn't have a recession, everything else tells you we certainly did have one.

Our reserve bank could devalue the dollar easily by printing more money. However they fear that would lead high inflation (anything above 3%), which the reserve bank has stated it wants to avoid as much as possible.

Incorrect. The RBA is not allowed to make decisions based on political policy. They make economic decisions only. They would print money to prevent deflation, for instance, they shouldn't and wouldn't do it to raise or lower the AUD. Also, if the RBA did print money, it would result in higher interest rates, so that may not automatically devalue the dollar as much as you would have hoped.

Businesses and households take out loans which they pay with future money. Governments likewise take out loans which payback with future revenue.

Actually you're wrong about both of those points. That's the simplistic way of looking at it. I'm a fiscal conservative, I don't like the idea of the future generation being made to pay for the squander of the previous.

A more accurate way to look at it is that somebody is willing to pay for what you want today, and that in doing so you are put into their debt. 2/3rds of our public debt is foreign owned, thus it profits foreign nations and not Australia.

The only thing I would criticize about the Rudd-Gillard government fiscal policies in the area of government, is that the money should have been used for more useful purposes, like upgrading the national highway and railways systems, which would have produced great benefits to the economy in the long term.

A minute ago you called them "incompetent", now you have only a minor criticism??