Leadership is a very rare commodity when we are in the midst of major uncertainty at the top levels of government. When the only person that seems to have a clue as to what is going on in economic and financial terms happens to be the leader of the opposition, it would seem the government's response to all inquiries is fluster and bluster with total unwillingness to expose to the light of day the economic numbers they hold secret from the rest of the country. Economic numbers that could be useful to a much more experienced leader to plot a non-destructive corrective course of action.

So, what's a PM to do? First gag all ministers from saying anything other than bagging the opposition and secondly, leave the country to pontificate to all world leaders what they should be doing to address their problems.

Meanwhile, poor Aus stews in an economic primordial soup while the government hopes that a lucky lightning bolt from somewhere will restart the economic marvel that was inherited but seems to have fallen off the rails.

I agree with Bruce Haigh that ‘feeling confident’ is not going to make any difference to the current economic situation. Talking about confidence in economic matters at the moment is like hearing of people ‘fighting for their lives’, when only luck and medical know how can possibly save them; or people with a terminal illness being told to ‘think positively’ when it will not make one iota of difference to their impending death.

We have been living beyond our means: greed, too much use of credit, and the belief that the last decade of luxury living (for many) was anything but an aberration; that the ‘good’ times could continue forever.

People have listened to “spin” because the more prudent commentators and advisers have been drowned out. For years now, we have known we have been living beyond our means. Nevertheless, people with access to easy credit have been getting deeper into debt buying services and goods which were once available only to rich people. The really silly thing is that many of the rich people have been the spin doctors; they get what they can from foolish people who really don’t have the financial backing to fund the new lifestyle, and when the punters go bust, the rich have the means to carry on.

The author’s statement that: “Many younger managers know nothing but the good times, so they haven’t been trained to manage hard times” is so true! The importance of history is overlooked. It could be said, I suppose, that the same reference to younger managers probably applied to the 1920’s and the real depression resulting from that era. But, we at least had the history of that to learn from. But, no! Making money is more important than ‘arty farty’ history to go-getters and most economists.

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All is not lost, though, and if the irresponsible, head-line grabbing media tempered the bad news they love with some graphs, facts and figures showing comparisons with figures now and during the 1970’s to the early 1990’s, things would not seem so grim; still serious, but without the ‘she’ll be right mate’ rubbish. Things will improve – too late for many of us – but the Australian economy will never be the same again. It cannot be if we are to avoid in the future what we are now enduring – through our own misdeeds.

It’s impossible to see how Australia cannot go into recession next year. Rudd and his spin doctors tell us that it will not happen. But remember history again. Labor Governments are economically illiterate. Remember Whitlam, Keating, not so much Hawke who had some idea and took advice and stuck to prime ministering, unlike Kevin Rudd who sees himself as Mr. Fixit, not just for Australia, but for the entire world! Spin and megalomania are a very dangerous combination.

The author’s call for “leadership” is wasted on Kevin Rudd. Rudd is a one-man band who has the need to do everything himself, even when he is incapable of many of the tasks he takes on. Both Hawke and Keating have repeatedly, publicly told Rudd to learn to delegate and start to do some thinking. After 12 months, he has shown no sign of doing that. The personality and ego of the man – reflected by spin doctoring in order to make us believe he cannot fail – clearly indicates that he has no intention of changing.

Actually, ‘leadership’ by one person is not what we need. We need responsibility spread over several people who know what they are doing: each co-ordinated with the others, but each dealing with parts, not the whole, so that they are fresh enough to come up with answers. A single person, jet-setting on a weekly basis all over the world is no use to Australia

GOVT removed house prices/petrol prices from the consumer index,thus our real wages deflated,;inflation was spun to be lower that the reality proved.

same spin with em-ploy-ment;working as little as 2 hours is reclassified as fully_employed[thus employment was spun to be increasing[when the hours worked fell]

spin;we have been sold as fact
[by lie of fact and numbers]

govt passed a law that allows public servants to lie to us[and so they are]numbers dont mean they are true

organisations makeup their numbers
unpaid debt is on the books as an asset]
thus]bankers have lots of this debt[bet]that has gone bad

so they'sell'it to another bank[for full value[plus fees charges etc

[all unable to be recovered]
BUT ITS NOT'SOLD'they swap debt for debt
my bookloss as value for yours=sale

result;[on the books we move debt into a sale;[income]
but it will never be income;[its dead_debt]

but two banks record buying an asset/at whatever the value was colluded

it goes on[gets made into a security]they sell on for real credit/cash[via pyramid selling]as long as stockholders THINK they are increasing their wealth they stay quiet

thats what the fake numbers do

its the enron strategy[thus you havnt seen any enron-esq trial reporting]

us real inflation runs at 13 percent
but the spin says we are getting near to deflation[PRIOR TO HYPER INFLATION]

SPIN IS NO CURE
SO im not depressed
so stick the cure give me the truth

but that aint going to happen till we accept the new cure[the carbon tax;who's price gets set by big buisness[who will set this tax[not a credit][thats the spin]it is a tax

but worse FULLY CONTROLED BY THE_carbon_market[forces;ie big buisness]

they will cost what the market needs them to cost
to keep the scam going[the scam is fiat currency and ursury #]

fiat currency issued by the bankers[NOT GOVT,the fed reserve is a banker OWNED entity that fractionally creates fiat currency out of any signed paper]

we give them signed promise[they give[create]the currency
but not the intrest to repay it,thus the lies[the boom and bust]

till the neo global tax drains us dry

Mate, hoping for no spin these days is like believing in God. The reality never arrives.

We don't have leaders. We have elected officials that hop directly into the trough upon election and just disappear deeper and deeper into it until they are thrown out. There are many so deep in there we have forgotten them. They are usually referred to as career back benchers.

Rudd made a huge mistake in giving Swan the Treasurer's role as he is basically a clown. So as a government they have little promise for us.

Turnbull is even worse as he seems to spend all his time looking into mirrors and practicing cliches which may or may not ne relevant. It doesn't seem to matter which to him. He's a fool and how he made money is obviously not due to wise investment. More likely doing what mates told him.

Who is there? Personally I'm hoping for Steve Waugh. An honest man with belief in himself and hasn't caved to the desperate pleas from both parties. He would be a leader but he's not that dumb.

Mr Right,

"Labor governments are economically illiterate", really? During the term of the Howard government, Australia's foreign debt increased each year, and no effort was made to correct our chronic current account deficit. We live on other peoples' money, our Howard-Costello 'prosperity' is a house of cards. Liberal economic 'literacy' amounts to the slogan "public debt bad, private debt good", we know now, how very, very bad private debt can be.