And big companies too like harvey norman, myer etc, and for one week? big deal! 

Or are they going to give it out again every month untill the world economy picks up?

Goooooone Fishin!

(Colin 1 - Co-founding member of the prestigious Colin Club)

Nice one ody ;)

just had the boss give me a stimulus - up the workrate or else.

this is the world that we live in today, world economies are all integrated, the constant push for globalisation, the increase in free trade, an event in one country will be felt across other countries, such as the Financial Crisis of the US at present is affecting all of the economies in the world.

 U.S the biggest consumers in the world, is contracting, in simple form, people are highly in debt, they dont have money to spend on goods, businesses suffer due to the lack of demand of goods and services, they start sacking people due to low profit forecasts, people become unemployed, crime rate goes up and so does the number of unemployment benefits. 

how does this affect australia, ? goods purchased by the Americans, plasmas, car parts, furniture, fridges, all their components and end manufacturing comes mainly from China, workers are employed in china, they start saving, start buying houses, cars, standard of living goes up, the goernment needs to address infrustructure Roads, Airports, Hospitals, Schools, people there need construction material is needed, this is where Australia comes in with its abundant raw material resources and sells this to the Chinese. 

Business such as BHP, Rio Tinto, Oil And gas (LPG) increase in orders from the chinese due to their increase in demand for resources, increases jobs in Australia. Miners, Drillers, Project Engineers 100K 150K plus, are employed, now they have money to spend on goods in Australia, cars, Houses, Food, this causes a ripple effect to other industries in Australia for where they employ more workers, Construction, Infrastrcuture, Agriculture,... etc... 

At present the problem originates from the US. basically it relates to the U.S dollar falling as a reserve currency, see it as an international currency that is used for trade. The reason for its state at present relates to the US federal reserve bank printing money out of thin air each time the US government needs money. Pretty much lets say the The US gov needs 50 billion dollars for Iraq, they would go to the federal reserve bank ask for that money, for where the fed bank would print it  and then charge the US taxpayer to pay it back with interest. Now imagine taking a number of loans out without finishing the payments on the previous ones. each time the government prints money it causes inflation, the loss of the purchasing power of the dollar. 

 now all these countries in the world, Saudi Arabia, with its oil being traded in US dollars, iongoing nternational trade being carried out by the US dollar, Britain, China, India, Australia, have allot of U.S vested interest in US currency reserves, basically stockpilles of US dollar. Its in their interest to keep the US dollar from falling, by any means, if you read up Australia is not the only country that has economic stimulus packages. The stimulus packages is to BUY TIME for governments to implement a solution for this poblem realting to the US dollar. 

Handing out money may seem as a bad idea,  but in reality, people know that there is a recession its all over the news, job losses, puts fear into people and their spending habits, and remember businesses and their employees  depend on sales, Purchases by people Consumption! without it hardly anyone would have a job. 

 handing money to low income families, these families have little or no disposable income/savings, and its in the interest of the government for these families to purchase those plasmas, those lcd, screens, those clothes, those shoes, etc...

the purpose of the stimulus package is  i believe is to buy time, to cushion the world wide problem by keeping those people in work. through people spending and pruchasing goods and services with the extra money.

Some people say that it should be invested in infrastructure, schools studiums, the problem is that investment is over an extended period of time, the World Wide problem is moving at such a pace that implementing those plans by the gov would not keep the economy stable, would benefit those people in the construction, area, engineering, if you where in these industries and you knew that there is a recession i highly doubt that you would be making any consumer purchases you would be holding on to the money, starving Businesses of their essential life line.

well just remember, the gov, for every minister in parliment especially the higher you go, have a cabinet of advisors. these are professors, mathematicians, economic  geniuses that input these scenarios into equasions all day long. its fair for us to question the government's action, but at the end of the day, ask yourselves how bad is it really for them to give you free money...

my two cents ~