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The Forum > Article Comments > European crisis no laughing matter > Comments

European crisis no laughing matter : Comments

By Julie Bishop, published 7/3/2013

At a recent political rally of the German Social Democratic Party, a candidate for Chancellor, Peer Steinbrueck pointed to the political situation in Italy as a challenge for all of Europe.

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It is really difficult to apportion blame for a country's woes when one is dealing with the likes of politicians, bankers, oligarchs or corporations.

One thing is certain. Most of them are crooks. They are not working for the betterment of the country or the society or the world but only for the betterment of themselves.

We know from the insect world that intelligent creatures put the survival of the nest or hive first. Individuals are given short shrift.

Humans, filled with conceit, think that they can survive by putting the collective of people last and by elevating individuals like Murdoch and his grasping ilk to stardom.

As the world is consumed by nuclear war, the insects will demonstrate their obvious superiority over humans.

King Cockroach is waiting in the wings!
Posted by David G, Thursday, 7 March 2013 7:47:24 PM
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Debt and Deficit hysteria is what Tony Abbott is now whipping up in the pre-election period as the core of the Noalition's campaign, in place of the flopped Great Big New Tax.

Read my words … slowly … carefully ...

There
is
no
need
to
"repay"
ANY
Commonwealth
Debt.

Australia still has one of the lowest Government debts in the world. Net government debt is about 8% of GDP, whereas private debt is over 150% of GDP . It is too low to impose any restraint on our economic options, unlike the U.S., Japan, and all European countries.

It is often claimed that net government debt was negative at the end of Howard’s time. But that was equally true of Whitlam.

It is increasingly clear that Hockey and Abbott et al also want to replicate NATO/Eurozone austerity. As there, they aim to preserve the graft looted by the moneybags during the long boom that that preceded and caused the Great Recession.

Quite frankly, the article submitted under Julie's name is of senior high school standard. Can Do Better. B-
Posted by R. Ambrose Raven, Thursday, 7 March 2013 9:54:47 PM
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Ambrose Raven,according to the Centre for Indpendant Studies we should be looking at gross Govt debt which is 25% of GDP.Our total debt is over $20,000 for every person in Aust.

Most of this debt is absolutely false and unnecessary.Private banks should not be able to create money from nothing just like we as individuals should not be allowed to counterfeit money in our garages.This the the crux of our debt slavery.

The immediate way forward is to get our RBA to at least create our inflationary money debt free.Inflation is the theft of our currency or spending power by the creation of too much money.Our inflation averages 3% which means a loss of $ 36 billion plus interest to our country which is created as debt by the private banking system.

The solution is to get our RBA to create at least our inflationary money debt free either as infrasture or loans to our private banks.
Our private banks will benefit since more money will stay here and they won't have to borrow from foreign Central banks who just create it with the click of a computer mouse.
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 8 March 2013 12:03:16 AM
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GOP, and RAB,

Keynes advocated excess government spending in the case of a recession, to maintain employment, but also advocated running a surplus when there is no recession to reduce or remove the deficit to ensure that the state has the reserves to spend. The problems in the EU are purely from the socialist governments running deficits in the good times and finding themselves up poo creek without any resources to mitigate the recession.

As Labor has pointed out, at no point has Australia been in recession, and the unemployment has always been low, so while there was some justification for running a deficit in 2008/9, there was no justification for running a deficit after mid 2010, and trying to claim that this is following Keynesian economics is pure bollocks.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 8 March 2013 12:42:27 PM
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In reply to Arjay, briefly: NO.

Firstly, the CIS is a pro-Noalition Hard right lobby group.

Secondly, a better measure of government debt is net rather than gross debt, and even better is the net rather than gross interest repayment burden, expressed as a percentage of GDP. “What really matters for countries with large government debt is the size of the net interest repayment burden. This is what separates the US and Japan – countries with a relatively high level of government debt – with the basket-case PIIGS nations (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain).

Australia is currently situated in an excellent position, and even if the government debt:GDP ratio were to rise, this does not necessarily translate into higher net interest repayments if the Reserve Bank further cut interest rates from already historical lows and purchased government bonds.”

Thirdly, Arjay, does your bank lend to you on the basis of your gross earnings or your net earnings?
Posted by R. Ambrose Raven, Friday, 8 March 2013 2:03:07 PM
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Ambrose,there is no necessity for any Govt to go into debt.Govts can create all the money they want within growth paramaters.Why pay private central banks to create you money when yo can do it yourself?
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 8 March 2013 5:21:17 PM
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