Kevin Rudd Stimulus Package and Other Spending Freaks!

URLhttp://au.biz.yahoo.com/091226/2/2aim8.html (Retrieved on 27th December 2009)

Aussies $1.2 trillion in debt
Sunday December 27, 2009, 2:05 pm

In a new record, Australians now owe more in household debt than the country's entire economy earns in a year. Reserve Bank figures show mortgage, credit card and personal loan debts now stand at $1.2 trillion, up 71 per cent from just five years ago and equating to $56,000 for every man, woman and child in the country, News Ltd says.

Our spending binge, fuelled most recently by the federal government's First Home Owner Grant, means personal debt now totals 100.4 per cent of Australia's annual GDP - one of the highest ratios in the developed world.

"It's the first time household debt has cracked 100 per cent of annual GDP and it's a terrible, terrible sign," University of NSW economics professor Steve Keen told News Ltd. "It shows we are living beyond our means and many highly geared borrowers are now extremely vulnerable to further rate rises - they are already saturated with debt and will not be able to tolerate much of an increase to their repayments."

Australia's financial headache is likely to get worse before it gets better. The country is in the midst of the peak spending season, when billions goes on the plastic, yet the Reserve Bank data dates back to October's debt levels only, so that means there are another two months of First Home Owner Grant-fuelled mortgage activity still to be taken into account. The extra cost is expected to add billions to the burgeoning debt tally.

Comment:

So much of a so-called 'Stimulus Package', it now lands an average Aussie to debt beyond their means. Its time to work and save, not work and spend! ... Kevin Rudd... Kevin Rudd... May the real Kevin Rudd please stand up!

Well, maybe its not his problem, its the 'people's problems' because its them that are the spending freaks!

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RIGHT to Work: What it Meant?

RIGHT to Work: What it Meant?

Every right has a corresponding obligation (or duty). Says for example, that if an individual has the right to work and earn his living, it is his duty to recognize the same right to others (and concede to them their right to work and earn a decent living). Thus, it also meant to says, that one can enjoy one’s right only if one respects the right of others.

Hence, if the individual (or organization) fail to perform that duty, it is for the state to see that the individual (or organization) act as a moral unit in the society. The state exists to maintain, coordinate and ensure that the individual perform and fulfill that right, to himself and to others.

(Source: Aristotle; Laski, H.; Hobhouse, L.T.; Kapur, A.C.: 222)

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It will get worst before it gets better... But how worst?!

http://au.biz.yahoo.com/090310/2/253kb.html (10th March 2009)

Job ads slump further in Feb: ANZ survey
Tuesday March 10, 2009, 12:49 pm

There was a record fall in the number of job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet in February, a survey has found. The ANZ Banking Group survey found total job advertisements slipped 10.4 per cent in February, the largest recorded monthly fall since the series began in 1999.

It was the 10th consecutive monthly decline and the second time in three months that the survey recorded a double-digit percentage fall. On an annual basis, the number of job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet has back-pedalled 39.8 per cent in the 12 months to February.

This was also the worst outcome in the history of the survey. ANZ head of Australian economics Warren Hogan said the survey suggested a substantial rise in the unemployment rate was likely and pointed to an economy already in recession.

"The current downturn in the economy is likely to last throughout 2009, with little prospect of a meaningful recovery before 2010," Mr Hogan said in a statement. "Recent trends in job advertising are consistent with other indicators which suggest that the Australian economy entered recession in late 2008 and remains in recession in early 2009."

Mr Hogan said ANZ had revised its unemployment rate forecasts in response to the February survey. The bank now expected the jobless rate to reach 6.5 per cent by the end of 2009 before climbing further to 7.5 per cent by the middle of 2010.

"These job advertisement numbers, based on historical relationships, suggests the risks to our forecasts are for higher unemployment," Mr Hogan said. The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes the February labour force report at 1130 AEDT on Thursday. The market forecast at the start of the week was for the nation to have lost 20,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate tipped to reach five per cent, up from 4.8 per cent in January.

The number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers fell by 25.2 per cent in February to an average of 8,524 a week, which more than reversed the 12.3 per cent rise recorded in January. Newspaper advertisements have fallen 55.4 per cent in the year to February, the quickest pace of decline on record.

Newspaper job advertisements were lower in all states and territories, with the largest falls recorded in the Northern Territory (down 33.8 per cent), Western Australia (down 29.8 per cent) and the ACT, where ads fell 27.4 per cent.
Newspaper job ads were down 26.5 per cent in Queensland and 25.8 per cent in NSW, while they slumped 22.2 per cent in South Australia, 19.5 per cent in Tasmania and were 18.3 per cent lower in Victoria.

Internet job advertisements slipped 9.4 per cent in February, for an annual pace of decline of 38.6 per cent.


Worst ever as of late 2008 and early 2009:

Worst economy recorded ever (Billions of dollars lost in stock-market)
Worst weather recorded ever (42-46c)
Worst bushfire ever (208 death)
Worst unemployment ever (Thousands unemployed or being layoff)
Worst fall in job ads (advertisement) ever

PM and MPs said, “It will get worst before it gets better.”

Extreme Weather and Bushfire in Australia

Comments:

Melbourne, Victoria and other parts of Australia over the past months have witnessed a dramatic change of weather, from as cold as 04 celsius in the winter, to as hot as 45c for 3 days in a row in summer (Jan/Feb 2009) ... so much so that bushfire are reported in some parts of Australia, prompting the PM, Kevin Rudd to call for extra budget to help the victims of bushfire. Already 110 people are reported death, and the tolls are climbing as of today. Needless to say, thousands of farm animals are burnt to death in the bushfire. Lost of properties and farm goods are in the millions of dollars.

See news reported below:

URLhttp://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5308391/rescuers-brace-bushfire-horror/ (Retrieved on 9th Feb 2009)

Rescuers brace for more bushfire horror
ABC - February 9, 2009, 10:48 am

Authorities in Victoria have warned volunteers they face a grim and confronting task as they start to pick up the pieces from the deadliest bushfire disaster in Australian history.
At least 107 people have died and 750 homes have been lost in the horrific blazes, which continue to rage throughout the state. Police say the toll is expected to rise today as identification crews fan out to devastated communities.

Fire crews have now accessed many of the worst hit areas left decimated by the intensity of the fires, but there are many areas that rescue crews are unable to get to because of safety issues. "I warn you that there are many areas where there are issues because of sensitivity. Do you understand what I mean?" state duty fire officer Mark Glover told volunteers last night in a reference to bodies left in cars and houses.

He says today will be a day of consolidation. Thousands of homeless people will remain in emergency shelters. Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon told AM the toll would rise.
"It was one of those fires. It was a very fast fire. What we're seeing was people who were in cars and were trying to flee and some people were in their houses and they died," she said.

"People were prepared but it was just so quick." The Kinglake region, north-east of Melbourne , remains the worst-affected, losing at least 32 people and more than 550 homes. Whole towns, such as Marysville, have been burnt to the ground. Thirty-one fires continue to burn across Victoria. Authorities suspect arsonists are responsible for some fires and police are treating some razed towns as crime scenes.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says deliberately starting the fires is mass murder. Mr Rudd was extremely emotional on Channel Nine this morning as he described his reaction to the deaths. The fire that is of most concern is burning out of control in Victoria's north-east, threatening the townships of Stanley and Eskdale. Other places including Bruarong, Dederang, Gundowring, Kancoona, Coral Bank, Glen Creek and Running Creek could also be affected. The flames have crossed the Kiewa River, putting the communities of Eskdale and Little Snowy Creek at risk. Mr Glover says crews are trying to stop the fire spreading in a north-easterly direction. "They're working hard at the moment to bring that around, but it's not working too well, so as a consequence they have issued some advice to Eskdale to be on the alert for sparks and embers," he said.

People affected by the Victorian bushfires will be able to apply for payments as part of a $10 million disaster relief fund set up by the Federal Government. The money will go to people who were seriously injured or hospitalised, and to those who lost their homes. Eligible adults will receive $1,000 and an additional $400 payment will be made per child. The Department of Human Services is distributing thousands of recovery booklets to fire-affected areas. Spokesman Steve Pivetta says help is there for those who most need it urgently. "We have personal hardship grants, one in particular is just over a $1,000, which is not means-tested, that's an emergency assistance grant which provides basic assistance for immediate basic needs only," he said.

URLhttp://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5308723/australias-deadly-bushfire-kills-108/
(Retrieved on 9th Feb 2009)

Australia's deadly bushfire kills 108
February 9, 2009, 9:54 am

WHITTLESEA, Australia (Reuters) - Australia's deadliest bushfire crisis eased on Monday, but the death toll kept rising with at least 108 people killed as families searched for scores of missing in the twisted, charred ruins. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the bushfires, some of which police believe were deliberately lit, constituted "mass murder," with media reporting the death toll could reach 170 as authorities searched hundreds of burned-out homes.
"This is of a level of horror that few of us anticipated. There are no words to describe it other than mass murder," Rudd told Australian television. "These numbers (dead) are numbing...and I fear they will rise further." The previous worst bushfire tragedy was in 1983 when 75 people were killed in the "Ash Wednesday" fires.

A massive bushfire tore through several small towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night destroying everything in its path. Many people died in cars trying to flee the inferno, others were killed huddled in their homes, yet some miraculously escaped by diving into pools and farm reservoirs or hiding in their cellar.

"It was a most horrible day. It's going to look like Hiroshima, I tell you. It's going to look like a nuclear bomb. There are animals dead all over the road," survivor Dr Chris Harvey told the local media. More than 750 houses were destroyed and some 78 people, with serious burns and injuries, are in hospital. Thousands of firefighters continued on Monday to battle the fire and scores of other blazes across the southern state of Victoria, as well as fires in New South Wales state.

While cooler, less windy, conditions helped firefighters, 10 major fires remained out of control in Victoria. The bushfires have burned out more than 330,000 hectares in Victoria. Wildfires are a natural annual event in Australia, but this year a combination of scorching weather, drought and tinder-dry bush has created prime conditions for blazes to take hold. Green lawmakers have been urging stiffer climate-change policies to reduce the risk of more such summer disasters. The Victorian bushfire tragedy is the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. In 1899, Cyclone Mahina struck Australia's northern Cape York, killing more than 400.

"On Another Issue: Asian Culture in Australia"

Today I managed to request that the person who want to enter my unit to ‘kindly take off their shoes’ (They were coming to check the Internet connections in my unit). This may sound rather a small issue, but, countries like Australia, United Kingdom, and United States of America, where European simply wear shoes into their houses, thus, they also ‘expected’ to do the same to Asia /Muslim houses (when they enter them).

I have Aussies entering my unit (house), and refused to take off their shoes, I have no choice but to let them in, as they belong to the university staff members. And I do not want to be ‘stamped’ as anti-establishment.

But, coming to think of it, I am the one that is paying the rent, thus, I have every right to my unit. Those European may not like the idea of 'taking off their shoes', and that’s fine with me (as long as they do it outside my house or in public places, or in their houses), BUT if they ‘want’ to enter my house, at least all they can do is to show some respect (at least when they are in my house), and kindly take off their shoes!

Europeans must learn to respect if not appreciate other cultures (Asian cultures), in a diverse global village in the new era. Understanding and tolerance with each other is the key to civil society.

University MEWS
Dated as at: 14 January 2009

Note:

The other day, I also managed to request the university staff who came to check the fire extinguisher in my unit, to kindly take off his shoes. He reluctantly took it off, so what IF he is upset, at least, my unit is free from the ‘dirt’ that may endanger my kids (furthermore, I hate to vacuum my unit again). It was a success for me, at least a small one. I respect every European culture, so they should also respect my culture, at least when they are in my unit (house).