Criminals, expatriate Australians and pets will be recipients of the Federal Government’s stimulus package due to the government not putting in sufficient legislation amendments to ensure the funds are spent in the most useful way for the economy.
“[Rudd] could have put in the legislation amendments to the effect that the money needs to be provided to people living in Australia, people who are not in jail, and it also needs to go to living people rather than to deceased estates where the beneficiaries of the estate are family pets,” said shadow treasurer Joe Hockey.
Hockey believes the most needy will miss out on the money because their income was so low in 2007/08 that they did not pay any net tax, so they will not receive any government funds.
Economist Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, says governments are giving bad advice by encouraging people to spend their way out of recession.
“If we go back to the old formula of a global economy trying to generate another period of rapid growth based on terribly imbalanced growth structures led by US consumers and Asian exporters, I think we’ll be talking about another crisis period somewhere in a five- to seven-year timeframe,” he said.
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