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Taking competitive neutrality seriously: my challenge to the Productivity Commission : Comments
By Nicholas Gruen, published 13/10/2017Around the world, finance is a major policy problem driven ultimately by the ease with which insiders can advantage themselves (sometimes illegally, but mostly legally) against outsiders.
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Thus we got ponzi schemes and derivatives and phenomena like more and more of our finite wealth collecting in fewer and fewer hands and as a consequence The Great Depression.
Which we attacked with cogent credible keynesian economics, which eventually forced the economies of the free world into overdrive and ushered in a period of unprecedented prosperity!
Only to have economic dinosaurs, with carved in rock mindsets, fundamentalists like Reagan and Thatcher use disgraced economic trickle down theory, to unwind all the advancement and return to the same failed system.
Only to see history repeat itself! Why?
Because nobody learns the lessons of history or why we were once the third wealthiest nation on the planet and a creditor one at that!
And mostly because we weren't tied to a nonsense and self destructing economic mantra!
At least while we had bipartisan pragmatists at the helm and cooperative capitalism alive and well in the bush. And we did well!
And so well and so cocksure, we started to invest in stuff like derivatives and ponzi schemes all while economic illiterates used public amenity as if it were their own economic bailout ATM.
And so began an era of mindless privatisation and pork barreling on a hitherto unknown scale!?
While the troglytes muttered mindless mantras about the Government having no business in business.
Thus we were sucked into this economic maelstrom, mad hatters tea party economics and the GFC.
And escaped by the skin of our teeth by quite massively growing public debt and privatising what was not nailed down. Helped to some extent by mining boom mark one and two.
Now we confront the energy crisis with dithering indecision and despair as the smart money divests itself of coal assets and with good reason!?
Look who we have at the helm and their alternative!?
And not a single bi partisan pragmatist to be found among them, least of all, Mz. Please ex-plane?
Alan B.