Comments on: Albrechtsen: recycling right wing drivel

By: David

David — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Janet who ?

By: brucek

brucek — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Bernard thanks for mentioning the push factor neglected in the debate as far as I can see: people are made desperate for home ownership when the market and/or the state fails to provide a respectable alternative

I mean when no public housing is being built and rents are going through the roof demand for home ownership is going to go up, at least until people start losing their jobs

Responsible social policy meets economic good sense with a large centrally financed and organised program of well-designed and quality built public housing

It's not exactly revolutionary (or Bulgarian John!!) as it happens in many places in Europe and once upon a time before neoliberalism happened in Australia too

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Yes, and sad old Gerard Henderson wrote exactly the same drivel in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald. Neither of them have had an original thought in their lives.

By: John James

John James — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

So let me see if I’ve understood this Left-liberal opinion piece with its undertones of longing to return to the “good ol’days” in Bulgaria, when money was just a dirty capitalist word . Those terrible, money hungry, free market conservatives allowed the major lending institutions of the richest nation on earth to lend to the disadvantaged, with no hope of servicing the debt long term, because they secretly wanted to exploit these minorities, largely blacks and hispanics. Why? Well, to make money! Bernard, Benny, are you guys for real? Too much sun in Havanna? Chasing woof again, Bernard?
Writing in Tne New York Times Business Section, Sept 30, 1999, in an article entitled ’ Fannie Mae eases credit to aid mortgage lending’, Steve Holmes wrote, ” Fannie Mae, the nations biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton adminstration to expand mortgages to low and moderate income people..” “Fannie Mae has expanded home ownershio for millions of families by reducing down payment requirements..said Franklin. D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer.”
Not Franklin. D. Raines? Now, adviser to Obama?
Benny, tell me you’re not lecturing in Political Science 101, ‘Why the revolution failed’ at my alma mater. Maybe Bernard could join the staff, commencing a course ‘Journalism for the Proletariat.
Academia always has a place for you old socialists. Its about as far from the real world as you could get.

By: Glenn Davies

Glenn Davies — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Its interesting that Janet Albrechtsen preaches free markets and individualism yet sits on the ABC board. When will she tell us how much she makes from this gig, compared to how many hours she spends doing it? Ron Brunton, former member, has revealed that board meetings involved silver service meals from a butler; we should have more details about the cost of this as we're paying for it.

As well, her article doesn't mention that her husband makes millions plus a year as a corporate lawyer for one of the big banks, so as Stephen Mayne correctly points out, she should disclose this when she starts discussing the poor put upon banks.

Time for full disclosure Janet! ! ! ! !

By: Shelley

Shelley — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

How anyone can deny that greed did not play a part in the chain of events in america has probably never lived in america (and been mercilessly solicited to take out a credit car/loan/mortgage), and is extremely naieve or disingenous . Albretchson is scrambling for a left-wing conspiracy to pin the blame on what really boils down to a boom and bust cycle, and a particulary extended boom, fuelled by unprecedented growth, speculation, sub-prime investment/financing/packaging (whatever), bad debt and over-consumption. Pity that this time there is so much more to blow up, really, in a nuclear fashion. But everyone’s implicated, left and right, to varying degrees, so to put it down to carter/clinton/left do-gooders etc is just laughable.

By: Kevin Charles Herbert

Kevin Charles Herbert — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

It looks like a certain very childish Crikey commentator is finally being ignored by other commentators….and about time too.

By: Jack the knife

Jack the knife — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Hey Bernald, I have posted a link to a former columnist from Crickey who today in The Australian wrote that it was

“US financial institutions were encouraged to make loans to people who should not have got them under threats of fines for discrimination.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were pressured by Democrats in Congress to take on billions of dollars of securities backed by sub-prime loans. Wall Street simply responded to this bit of social engineering by creating products. Things went bad.”

I wonder do you think that Christian Kerr is “….shameless and completely lacking in any intellectual rigour”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24468260-7583,00.html

By: Benny

Benny — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Albrechtsen and Piers really just write to a formula don't they ?. They simply take any issue and approach it from a right wing angle. I regularly scan their headline or first paragraph and instantly know what they will be saying. It saves a lot of time and every now and then you can read one of their rants and will be proven completely correct. Perhaps it's just written into their contracts that they must take that stance. I therefore put myself forward-even though I don't believe a word of the stuff they write-as someone who could fill the post if either becomes ill or the job becomes vacant. I'd gladly churn out this right wing stuff for cash-no worries.

JamesK would be surely be suitable as well and could be a threat to my canditure as he believes in this nonsense and could be a step ahead of me.

These nutters really just pander to one market, preach to the converted and so on. A bigger worry is dear old Gerard and the esteemed Peter Faris QC who also believe all this tosh and appear to be reasonably intelligent blokes.

By: Jared

Jared — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Low income Americans defaulting on their mortgages played a part in triggering the crisis, but the reason this has blown out into a systemic global financial crisis is due to the volatile and opaque nature of the $700 trillion shadow economy - financial derivatives. Warren Buffet called them out as “financial weapons of mass destruction” in one of his annual reports a few years ago and wouldn’t go near them. He knows (as should any economist) that all market economies run on boom-bust cycles, and could see that whatever triggered the next downturn would set off the waves of cascading destruction as all of the players would be forced to unwind their positions. Rudd got it right, this truly is an epic tale of greed.

By: Bernard Keane

Bernard Keane — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Further comprehensive demolitions of the Albrechtsen blame-the-Democrats lie:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/misunderstandin.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2201641/

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Yes Bernard, she is a dill, but you should probably be playing the ball rather than the man/woman. Having said that, sometimes I wonder whether Albrechtsen and her ilk are actually real people, or just software packages programmed to react to all issues according to a limited, context-free, menu of right wing boilerplate. These guys are the last bastion of ideology.

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Poor John James: He doesn’t, and never will, understand anything. I have a theory which makes as little sense as any other theory. Albrechtson, Bolt, Kelly, Piers Ackerman, and the nearest office labourer, are members of the same witches coven. they get OS printouts, then they slice them up by sentences prior to giving them to their fellow witches in Achtung’s land to read. When a bell sounds; they have to paste in whatever is within two feet of their computers. Thus explaining la comedia infinitiva de la vida para desarrollarles la verdad suyas. Ademas la tragedia de las vidas mismas. Or something like that.
Phil: People of the extreme-right don’t have any productive thoughts, neither can they create. They merely react. For a particularly horrible example of this, read Andrew the bolter, in this morning’s HS. It’s about Bill Henson and should be mandatory reading for 12 year olds, as to how not to write if they want to be believed.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

A SNL skit pulled from NBC and YouTube: The Soros/Sandler bailout satire which would seem to back Albrechtsen! … Whatever your political persuasion It is excellent:

http://patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/SNL’s

By: John jmaes # 2

John jmaes # 2 — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I agree we ( the community ) should help people get affordable housing. Sydney has a number of ‘housing commission’ regions.Areas of public housing which are ghettos, with festering unemployment and resentment.The Subprime debacle is the flip side of the same coin, throwing money at those unable to service the debt. What governments can and should do is facilitate wealth creation that results in real employment and training opportunities. Give people the chance to lift themselves up. Thats what Noel Pearson is saying about Indigenous Australians. The Left’s welfare/nanny state is a disaster. Its killing Indigenous Australians. This subprime mess is just an Amercian version of the same Democrat/Left wing mind set.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Sounds like Bernard Keane could bash Gerard Henderson and Paul Kelly and the Washington Post’s Sebastian Mallaby with the same ‘logic’ (or more correctly lack thereof):

Paul Kelly also in today’s Oz:
“Writing in The Washington Post, financial analyst Sebastian Mallaby said: “The appetite for toxic mortgages was fuelled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the super-regulated housing finance companies” that are estimated to have bought one-third of the bubble’s junk bonds………….. Rudd’s speech means one of two things: either he does not understand the crisis despite his trip to the US and multiple briefings or he cannot restrain himself from resort to populist spin. The moral for Rudd is unmistakable. He is best when he addresses policy on merit and invites trouble when he indulges his “brutopia” philosophy.”

I thought Janet Albrechtsen’s piece was pretty good as well as informative all though I agree the ‘brutopia’ nonsense had naught to do with Rudd’s election win.

Get ready for the invective to follow…….

By: dermot

dermot — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

jack old boy read some of kerr’s past copy for crikey and the Oz if the cap fits wear it.

James k a skit from youtube? What’s next? Mad magazine?