Comments on: The economic conservative pulls it off

By: Rena Zurawel

Rena Zurawel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:39:16 +0000

As long as we believe in credit economy we will never get out of the crisis. Credit economy is no economy. And interestingly enough, our so called economists have their figures always either ‘better than expected’ or ‘much worse than predicted’ but they will stay ‘cautiously optimistic’ and will feed us with all those pathetic cliches. We tend to compare our lovely figures to the OECD countries, which is sort of funny as some successful economies do not belong there and cannot be compared with our happy doings.. In the meantime, our politicians cannot tell us where the country is going. Will we ever get a reasonable enviromental rebate? Are we ever going to solve the water supply problems?. We do have plenty of water. Or can we start buying very cheap solar panels from China? Do we ever plan to introduce environmentally friendly public transport and get rid of ugly parking sites? Shall we continue with ‘economic boom’ based solely on plundering our natural resources? How many foreign companies are we going to support with our taxpayers’ money? (sorry, ‘to encourage to invest’ in our country?) Can we ban usury from our banking system?
So far, South Australian government’s latest achievement is banning plastic bags free of charge and introducing ugly, ecologically unfriendly paid for monster bags. People suspect that some friendly businessman is getting heaps of money for this junk. Neither economy nor environment involved in this enterprise. A friend told me that it is a matter of time before new plastic bags would choke the Torrens.

By: MichaelT

MichaelT — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:43:33 +0000

I agree with you most of the way, Bernard, but the last part of the analysis is based on the assumption that the recovery continues.

However there will be more bank and other shocks, and the recovery will not be sustainable until the US consumer goes back to spending more than s/he earns - and this is a day that needs to be postponed!

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:34:54 +0000

When, not if, the big climate shocks hit the country, guess what? The economy will crank upward greatly. Like a car crash makes work. If we are really ‘lucky’ the RBA will have raise interest rates pronto at that time - you know to suppress profiteering on say clean water, refrigeration, sanitary services … that kind of thing.

So is all this stimulus 1 & 2 driven activity simply ‘harvesting the position’? Like a corporation that knows it’s business model has hit the wall and starts raising prices and paying out big bonuses to its executives because it’s got nothing to reinvest in?

That’s a great political economy, good work. Keep going, she’ll be right.