Good article.

On the one hand governments hold themselves out as the saviour of the economy, and the promoter of "jobs" and economic growth; on the other hand they waste trillions of dollars on programs intended to stop economic growth and deliberately make energy more expensive.

How appropriate that the doomsday cult of the Church of Climatology should be behind the modern politically-driven book burnings: http://www.cnbc.com/id/34703166

Governments' disastrous monopoly on the supply of money and credit, driven by its addiction to inflationary finance, are what caused the GFC, not "unregulated capitalism"; and in any event, obviously anyone supporting the current fashionable fad (hysteria) for policies to fine-tune the weather in 500 years time should be rejoicing at economic depressions and the bigger the better. Let their jobs and homes be the first to go!

The missing concept is freedom.

Underlying all interventionism is the assumption that government knows how to allocate scarce resources to their most valued social ends. They don't, because people in government have all the same ignorance and greed, faults and follies, as capitalists and other human beings, but
a) have the additional vice that they are backed by a legal monopoly of aggressive force and fraud; and
b) governments officials lack the incentive, and the ability to calculate economically without relying on the market data they are constantly destroying and corrupting.

A world as much better than ours is today, as ours is than the world of 200 years ago, awaits us but the "progressive" (totalitarian fascists) have to realise that the coerced labour of taxation is no more able to take us forward to it, either ethically or pragmatically, than the coerced labour of slavery was then.

Paul Collits apparently needs to catch up with modern economic theory.

Dr Stephanie Kelton, Cahir of the Economics Department at UMKC, recently presented an excellent power-point supported article at a meeting of the Field Institute, Toronto, Canada. Slide 48 showed the sustainable operating space for a sovereign currency area.

From 1997 to 2007 the Howard Government's policies resulted in the Australian economy operating each year at least marginally within the unsustainable area of Kelton's chart. Some years the economy was substantially within that area. The period in the unsustainable area was the cause of the turn down in the Australian economy in 2008.

The increase in private debt in the Howard era far outweighed the Federal Budget balance gains.

We are still suffering massive underemployment because of the foolish belief that budget deficits always cause inflation. Sovereign government spending to utilize available resources does not cause inflation.

Shortage of available resources causes inflation. At the moment Australia has about 12% total underemployment and plenty of spare manufacturing capacity. We could be employing both without causing inflationary pressure.

The sovereign, currency issuing government can afford a deficit if that deficit puts available resources to work to provide things that will benefit the community.

Somebody sit on this bloke quick.

He can't be allowed to get away with talking so much sense.

Note to Foyle: Keynesianism is a throw-back to dark ages economic theory.

The ideas that we can make society wealthier by
a) engaging in superstitious activities such as stamping special squiggles on pieces of paper, or
b) looting A to satisfy B,
are flatly incorrect, and it doesn't matter how much appeal to absent authority you make in an attempt to assert they are correct.

Jardine Jardine
Before making such a comment you need to become aware of, and read, some of the blogs at,
www.neweconomicperspectives.org

That is the blog site of the Chair of the Economics Department, University of Missouri, Kansas City, Dr Stephanie Kelton.

A good introduction would to be read J D Alt's item about the USA mobilisation for WW2 at, http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/08/mobilization-and-money.html

You could then follow that reading up with some of Alt's earlier articles and the article and slides by Dr Kelton at the Field Institute as mentioned in my earlier comment. The most pertinent slides are Nos.10 to 30 and 48 to 54 from memory

Economist James Galbraith, son of the Author of "The Affluent Society" is satisfied that the best economic comments in the world presently come from UMKC.

Even Paul Krugman's articles are getting close to the UMKC views. Do some study of up to date alternative views before placing your foot clearly in your mouth.

Good heavens, Paul, I would have been happy to have written that myself. Delighted to find someone in Queensland with such understanding. Thanks to JKJ and Hasbeen too.