some 'small' improprieties ...

  .. and some not quite so small

-=*=-

McMahon: “the ecodomy is basically sound”[1].

Haw! Now we're gunna get 'negative growth' (detested US-speak, spit!)

Whitlam succeeded McMahon; Whitlam's single-payer health system endures, although crippled and 'in competition' with medicine-for-profit (wha' d'ya get? Mainly profit), despite all the sly and malicious attempts at sabotage down through the years, but apart from any other problems, Whitlam had to contend with incessant corrosive criticism from the out-of-power 'born-to-rules,' the dirty Digger's (aka Murdoch's) 100+ days of lying 10cm black-ink headlines, and an external oil-shock.

The wheel having turned pretty-well full circle, here we are again.

After a decade-plus of booming exports under the Howard Liberal's 'economic genius' Costello, the Aussie economy is still deep in external deficit and the internal deficit has been converted to a deficit in services; after deliberately (halving CGT) caused asset-bubbles in stock- and house-prices (the latter having crippled the great Aussie dream for sooo many, perhaps for ever), after the Aussie sheople® have been coaxed, encouraged - or bludgeoned (via their Super, say) into becoming share owners, after the sheople having been encouraged to borrow themselves to the silly hilt via drawing-down on their home-mortgages or credit-cards or both, the born-to-rules are once more out of office and now these new-generation born-to-rules are reviving the same-old incessant corrosive criticism tactics, Murdoch's rags are once more on the vicious howl - and the great US-inspired, US-created finance-crash is setting the stage for another 1975, as well as another 1929 while they're at it. Clever, eh?

-=*=-

  «Oil prices dived underneath $US60 per barrel» - from about a $US150 peak a few short months ago.

Tell us that's 'supply and demand,' and not greedy speculators - eh?

  «... fears have sent world stocks spinning lower, with Tokyo hitting a 26-year low»

Tell us that's 'serious investment,' and not a gambling casino - eh?

-=*=-

The sub-prime mess blew up recently, and GWBush&Co tried to solve it by planning to hand out some $US700Bio (!!? - a truly stupefying sum, and by no means all of what's thought yet to be needed), this stupefying sum to be handed out essentially no-strings-attached to the very people - self-termed 'masters of the (financial) universe' - who caused the problem in the 1st place. Europeans, on the other hand, have suggested different approaches, including taking part-ownership in institutions under threat, and guaranteeing (savings) deposits. The latter path is also part of the Rudd government's response.

-=*=-

  «ELEANOR HALL: Yet another mortgage-based fund, Colonial First State, has frozen its redemptions as the sector feels the bite of the Government's deposit guarantee scheme.»

Tell us that "feels the bite" is 'balanced reporting' - eh?

  «JOE HOCKEY: Clearly the Government's action ... it is quite obvious that when the Government provides an unlimited guarantee at no cost as they did on October the 12th then it would create enormous distortions in the markets.»

Tell us that's 'clever commentary' - eh?

My comment: any 'unlimited guarantee' - as opposed to some 'capped' guarantee, can only be exploited by the real fat-cats, rapaciously greedy that they Oh-so obviously are. There are estimated to be less than 0.5% of Aussies who have $1Mio+ available to 'benefit' from such an 'unlimited guarantee.'

Q: Does Hockey really mean to imply that this 0.5% would deliberately cause trouble, themselves 'enormously distorting the markets?'

  «MALCOLM TURNBULL: Chris, the answer is, because look, you are making a debating point. We have got a crisis in our money markets now which has been going on for two weeks because the Government introduced an unlimited guarantee which has caused money, not just small depositors but large deposits to stream out of non-guaranteed institutions and funds into the guaranteed ones.»

Tell us that's a fair summary - eh? To blame this crisis on the Rudd government is a lie that the AusBC should not tolerate, let alone broadcast. Politicians will get away with lying like this as long as the media do not challenge them. That is after all the 4th Estate's job - and the AusBC are paid by us, we the sheople - so it's about time they actually started to work - for us - as opposed to against us. Earlier on, Turnbull said: «a new tax which will be a fee, a compulsory fee on all deposits over a million dollars. ... It will put upward pressure on interest rates.»

My comment: more utter rubbish, as well as outrageous scare-mongering. Even Blind Freddie can see that interest rates will not go up in any near-future, yet Turnbull trots out the scare. Worse, Turnbull is also saying that the 0.5% super-rich are a problem. Have both Hockey and Turnbull taken leave of their senses?

  «ALAN KOHLER: Well, we're witnessing a hedge fund crash. The global hedge fund industry is suffering a run on redemptions; a bit like our mortgage trusts.
And they have to repay the debt as well at a much greater rate that they get the removal of redemption. So they're having to sell everything, all the risk assets they've been buying; which is commodities, emerging stock markets and Australian dollars.
So you're seeing the hedge fund run exacerbated by the fall in commodities, which is also caused by hedge funds, and therefore the Australian dollar is getting sold off.»

My comment: great, 'a hedge fund crash.' In other words, this crisis has its roots in speculation - just like 1929. And guess what? The clever idiots - Repugs and Dummos both, have managed it, partly if not wholly, by dismantling all the protections installed after 1929. Again, clever, eh?

Just as measurable as the tiny proportion of rich having got ever grossly richer (their confiscatory 'share' having gone well past the merely obscene), is the reduction in living standards of the working class, the unions having been largely sabotaged, many workers having been turned into contractors who dare not complain, as they struggle to pay off their plant, and the middle-class having been hollowed-out by their borrowings and squeezed-out by job off-shoring. Globalisation, ain't it grand?

This is a bloody catastrophe, and it all goes back to greed and stupidity. The US-Repugs destroy the currency as they go to thieving, murdering wars-for-spoil. 1Mio essentially innocent but oil-owning Iraqis dead in their latest filthy 'escapade.' The Aus-Libs hang on the US-Repugs' coat-tails. The US-Dummos ape the Repugs, and the Aus-Labs hang on the US-Dummos' coat-tails. Altogether, the world is ripped-off by an exceedingly small, exceedingly greedy already rich-beyond-avarice minority, and we all know what's coming next - not 'just' a financial collapse, but 'the big one,' a possibly terminal climate collapse.

Where are the adults?

-=*end*=-

PS One thing that people might like to keep in mind, is that although the fat-cats may well be able to afford gambling, most of the sheople simply are not - in fact, quite the reverse. To see savings, struggled for years to accumulate, then wiped out in a few moments of greed-inspired madness - is not nice. We the sheople *demand* that our saved money be safe - and Turnbull and Hockey and their ilk be damned.

-=*=-

Ref(s):

[1] A not-so-random quote:

  «By early 1972, when I came to Canberra to work in the Commonwealth public service, the fragility of what Charles Kindleberger came to call “the long boom”, was evident to all. Or 2 nearly all, for the Prime Minister of the time, Billy McMahon, kept repeating: “the economy is basically sound”.»
[Ian McAuley/Insiders and outsiders]