While overseas events take on the terrible look of 2008, Australian politicians are locked in a debate about fiscal symbols rather than economic reality.
Fiscal stimulus
graph pr0n 
Bailouts vs. Stimulus vs. GDP
A great data visualisation from the Harvard Business Review showing how large a percentage of their GDP different countries are spending on bailouts and stimulus packages in the wake of the GFC.
Treasury busts some stimulus myths
The GFC might have been an unusual crisis compared to previous recessions, but fiscal stimulus is not as poor an option for such crises as we’ve been led to think. Even the Treasury agrees the government didn’t spend too much.
Political economy: Stop-start fiscal policy still a worry
The US economy is struggling, while China booms. But China’s stimulus will inevitably be followed by a bust down the road, writes Henry Thornton.
Cut stimulus, cut 100,000 jobs, says Henry
Ken Henry has warned that the withdrawal of stimulus spending would cost 100,000 jobs and 1.5 percentage points in GDP growth in 2010.
Henry: Stimulus cut will kill jobs
The removal of the governments fiscal stimulus now would cost Australia 100,000 more jobs, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has told the Senate Economics Committee this morning.
Mungo MacCallum: It’s time for Turnbull to lighten up and celebrate the great escape
Malcolm Turnbull and his colleagues appear unable to come to terms with the single most pertinent fact about the government’s stimulus measures: they worked.
Political economy: costs of economic stimulus
As Wayne Swan heads for London to talk to less successful finance ministers with a positive GDP for the last quarter under his belt, some economists are questioning whether the number is fair dinkum, writes Henry Thornton.
G20 leaders back Swan on stimulus
The world’s finance ministers at this weekend’s G20 meeting are expected to support Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan’s claim that it is too soon for countries to stop stimulating their economies to alleviate to world’s GFC woes.
Don’t stuff this up China, Australia needs you
China had better get its domestic stimulus spending right, without too many fluffs, otherwise we’re stuffed, writes Glenn Dyer.
Obama’s deficit dilemma
Obama’s deficit spending will push up interest rates and weaken the US dollar, say Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, and a massive inflationary storm could be brewing.
China shows no fear in priming its own economy
China has followed the lead set by Australia in boosting its economy, but it has done so on a gargantuan scale, writes Glenn Dyer.
IMF calls: More government spending please
As Labor’s ministerial razor gang plods along with the business of cutting spending to increase the size of Australia’s budget surplus, the head of that very economically conservative body the International Monetary Fund is calling on governments to loosen the purse strings, writes Richard Farmer.
