KEY POINTS:
Governments the world over have this year thrown billions of dollars into their economies in an attempt to stave off the worst of the global recession. Taxes have been cut, benefits increased, infrastructure projects fast-tracked.
Today's announcement of yet another rescue package by the US Government takes the
total amount of taxpayer money committed by the administration into the trillions.
Here in New Zealand our Reserve Bank has aggressively cut official interest rates, but our governments - both the now-departed Labour administration and the new National team, have been slow to follow the big-hit stimulus path of other nations.
Here's a rundown of how the governments of the world are trying to stop their economies sliding over the edge:
NEW ZEALAND
The Government's December stimulus package will inject about $7 billion into the economy over two years, said Finance Minister Bill English today.
On the campaign trail, National outlined introducing tax cuts next April on top of the October tranche, bringing forward infrastructure spending and helping those hit by redundancies.
USA
It's here where it started and here where the real eye-watering money is being paid out. Buying equity in banks, cutting taxes, paying greater unemployment benefits, buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of asset-backed loans - the Federal Government is digging deep.
The Bush administration has been rolling out stimulus packages pretty much since the start of 2008, each becoming more expensive as the world financial crisis itself becomes ever more widespread. It's been hard to keep track of exactly how much the US taxpayer will be hit up for, but it's well into the trillions (one trillion is a thousand billion)
In May this year, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said "the worst of the United States credit crisis may have passed." This was when the Bush administration and Congress had just enacted its US$168 billion ($217 billion) stimulus package of tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses - the first of many.
The Government also committed US$29 billion to help engineer the takeover in March of Bear Stearns by New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co and US$122.8 billion in addition to Tarp allocations to bail out New York-based American International Group, once the world's largest insurer.
Citigroup received US$306 billion of Government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject US$20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 per cent last week.
* The US Government has pledged US$7.76 trillion to rescue the financial system, according to Bloomberg data.
* This equals US$24,000 every US citizen and nine times what the US has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
* The crisis has erased US$23 trillion the value of the world's companies
UK:
The British government this week launched its major economic stimulus package worth 20 billion pounds ($56.3 billion) to reignite consumer spending and help the UK recover from a deep and painful recession.
The stimulus package totalled around one per cent of Britain's total gross domestic product (GDP).
Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services is being cut to 15 per cent from 17.5 per cent in a temporary move beginning on December 1. VAT will return to its current level at the start of 2010. This cut was described by the Government as the equivalent of giving consumers 12.5 billion pounds.
The government will also lift the highest rate of income tax to 45 per cent from 40 per cent to help fund the package.
However the new band will not be introduced until 2011, a year after Britain's next general election is due.
In the meantime the hike will apply only to an individual's annual earnings above 150,000 pounds.
The UK taxpayer also took on 90 billion pounds of debt when the Government nationalised the failing Northern Rock bank.
AUSTRALIA:
The Australian economy will be primed with a A$10.4 billion ($11.8 billion) injection designed to boost spending in key housing and consumer sectors as part of a growing firewall against the global financial crisis.
The five key measures of Rudd's new economic security strategy are:
* A$4.8 billion for pensioners.
* A$3.9 billion in support payments for low- and middle-income families.
* A$1.5 billion to help first-time buyers into a home.
* A$187 million to create an extra 56,000 training places this year.
CHINA:
The Chinese Government rolled out a US$586 billion ($980 billion) economic stimulus package designed to boost the country's weakening economy and help to counter the looming global recession.
Beijing loosened credit conditions, cut taxes and said it would undertake a giant infrastructure spending programme over the next two years that will amount to up to 7 per cent of the country's gross domestic product.
Investments will go ahead in 10 areas including housing, rural infrastructure and rebuilding after disasters such as the devastating earthquake in May.
JAPAN:
Y27 trillion ($NZ516 billion)
Includes 2 trillion yen in benefits payments, motorway toll cuts and tax breaks on home loans, 5 trillion yen in new government spending, and sets a three-year deadline for increasing the "consumption tax"
GERMANY:
23 billion euros ($55 billion)
Includes tax breaks on car purchases, loans to small and medium-size businesses and money for roads. The German Government also rescued the Hypo Real Estate AG, a commercial property lender for $NZ105 billion.
FRANCE:
Nothing yet, but a package is due within ten days
CANADA:
Nothing
AP/BLOOMBERG/AAP/NZPA/ NZ HERALD/NY TIMES/JAPAN DAILY
