I’M starting to see many similarities between the economic realities of the USA and those of Australia.
Principally in the rising debt levels and the fact that the country’s leaders are just realising that something needs to be done about it before their populations realise the size of the predicament.
President Trump, who is no stranger to excessive debt, has instituted tariffs on imported goods as his initial way of generating enough funding to lessen the impact of this debt.
Elon Musk was given the task of heavily reducing the staff of the US public service to reduce its costs on future budgets.
Plus, it has just been announced that there needs to be an immediate reduction of another US$640 million in its current year’s expenditure.
In Australia, our government has just realised that its mounting debt has developed to the position where it now costs some $5 million in interest payments every day on its debt load.
Clearly, if Australia is to continue to develop in the direction that its population seems to be demanding, then something needs to be done in order to reduce or eliminate its present excessive debt problem.
Both nations have an increasing debt burden, so it is becoming interesting to see how each administration goes about solving it.
In Australia we are hearing different ideas by the Prime Minister and his Treasurer as to their directional choice when addressing these issues.
The first wants no new taxes in this term of government but the Treasurer, buoyed by their election win, is driven to do something big within our taxation system, so that tussle will be another reality we all need to watch most carefully.
By John BLACKBOURN
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