Not in all cases. When you're a net importer, as in Australia, all it means is some of the cash goes into the retail chain, then straight out overseas.

How does that help your economy? The money isn't reinvested back into your own economy. It was a waste.

To put it into perspective, $50bn of it increased our GDP by $6bn.

That sounds like a pretty shit investment to me.

As I said. All the same.

Regarding the US, "Bush was 1 trillion, Obama is 12 trillion" is simply not true.

According to the US Treasury dept, right now the US is $11,901,429,311,747.91 in debt (as of today)

On January 20, 2009 when Obama was sworn in, the US was $10,626,877,048,913.08 in debt.

That's a change of $1,274,552,262,834. NOT 10 trillion.

Interestingly, when Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, the debt was $5,727,776,738,304.64. So he managed to double it in his tenure. When Clinton took office, the debt was $4,188,092,107,183.60.. so in 8 years, Bush increased it by $5 trillion. In 8 years, Clinton increasd it by 1.6 trillion.

See the Treasury Dept debt calculator at [www.treasurydirect.gov]