Speed Cameras & Speeding Fines Blog

If you say $200 billion quickly it really doesn’t sound like that much.
From Ross Greenwood of Money News

Right now the Federal Government is at pains to tell everyone ˆ
including us the mug-punters to the International Monetary Fund – that it
will not exceed its own, self-imposed, borrowing limits. How much? $200 billion.
And here’s a worry. If you work in a bank’s money market operation; or if you are a
politician; the millions turn into billions and it rolls off the tip of the tongue a bit too easily.

But every dollar that is borrowed, some time, has to be repaid. By you,
by me, and by the rest of the country.

Just after 5 o’clock tonight I did a bit of maths for Jason Morrison.
But it’s so staggering its worth repeating now. First though … here’s
what Chairman Rudd has been saying about – what he calls – these
temporary borrowings. Remember those words … temporary deficit . But
the total Government debt could end up around $200 billion.

So here’s a very basic calculation … I used a home loan calculator to
work it out … it’s that simple.

$200 billion is $200,000 million. The current 10 year Government bond
rate is 4.67 per cent. I worked the loan out over a period of 20 years.

Now here’s where it gets scary … really scary.

The repayments on $200 billion come to more than one and a quarter
billion dollars – every month – for 20 years. It works out we – as
taxpayers – will be repaying $15.4 billion in interest and principal
every year … $733 for every man woman and child – every year.

The total interest bill over the 20 years is – get this – $108 billion.

And remember, this is a Government that just 18 months ago had NO debt ..
NO debt. In fact it had enough money to create the Future Fund to pay
The future liabilities of public servants’ superannuation … And it had
enough to stick $20 billion into the Building Australia Fund last year
….

Ross Greenwood

Alan Jones Comment

……… A note that was sent to me which explains to me that the six
Leading members of the Government from Mr. Rudd down, the top six have a
collective work experience of 181 years, but only 13 in the private
Sector.
If you take out of those 13 years the number that were spent as trade
union lawyers, that totals 11, of the 181 years only two years were spent
In the private sector.

So the people who will rack up a net Federal debt of a minimum of $188
billion, the highest in our history, have virtually no experience in
business.

So out of 181 years:

- no years spent running their own business
- no years spent starting their own business
- no years spent as a director of a family business or a company
- no years as a director of a public company
- no years in a senior position in a public company
- no years in a senior position in a private company
- no years working in corporate finance
- no years in corporate or business restructuring
- no years working in or with a bank
- no years of experience in the capital markets
- no years in a stock-broking firm
- no years in negotiating debt facilities with banks
- no years running a small business
- no years at the World Bank or IMF or OECD
- no years in Treasury or Finance.

But these people have plunged Australia into unprecedented debt, and now
threaten to torpedo employee share schemes which they plainly don’t
understand.

Well, in a way you can’t blame them. It’s clear that the electorate did
not do their homework, because the Government is there by right.

They were given a thumping majority to lead the country. It’s just that
no one seemed to ask, most of all the press gallery in Canberra , in
what direction?