spooked into policy on the run

Rudd was spooked into blowing 1/2 the surplus by "Freefall Friday" and by being politically outmanouvered by Turnbull. This is thoughtless, desperate, populist political decisionmaking. We blow the surplus on CONSUMPTION before Christmas. Great! Most of it will go on higher prices for low quality imported goods due to the depreciation of the $A. Watch the inflation geanie leap out of the bottle now. It was excessive consumption fuelled by cheap credit that got the Western world into this mess in the first place. Stupid, stupid man. He's gunna look a goose by December if the credit and equity markets settle. There is no place for knee-jerk reactions in economic management.