Reserve Bank must slow down with the changes

Employment statistics have held up, and it seems many businesses are encouraging people to take leave or work shorter hours to keep trusted and experienced workers on their books.

The budget is now clearly in deficit and the Government has asked for approval to borrow up to $200 billion.

Current stimulus is effectively a burden on future generations, a point the Opposition has made strongly and often.

As we have also said repeatedly, some stimulus is clearly worthwhile, but we have made two points apart from the burden on future generations.

The first is that some restraint, in limiting direct assistance to people in serious trouble, would limit the burden on both current and future generations of taxpayers.

Leaving room for additional stimulus would be a wise precaution, especially given the continued speed of economic deterioration abroad.

From a moral perspective, helping those who do not need help is at best distasteful.

Our second point is that fiscal stimulus so far has focused on boosting demand. A safer course would be to provide additional spending or tax cuts to stimulate the supply side, making Australia more productive and competitive.

Some pause in the headlong rush to stimulate demand might provide time and space to debate these important matters.

Another matter to debate is why the world finds itself in such a mess.

"Extreme capitalism" and "excessive greed" is the diagnosis of the Social Democrats, including Kevin Rudd, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama. That capitalists are greedy and willing to do virtually anything to further their aims (which is to get rich) should come as no surprise.

Indeed, Karl Marx, the philosopher-king of the Left, said in Das Capital: "With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent certainly will produce eagerness; 50 per cent ... positive audacity; 100 per cent will make it ready to trample on all laws; 300 per cent and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged."