RobbyH: yes, Turnbull "doing what his mates told him" is about as blunt a truth as we could hope for about that guy's "success". The FAI-HIH scam and Goldman Sachs mobster connections are what really count for Turbull's life story and "economic credibility"!

Bruce: it is fanciful to think that Turnbull has some clue as to what is going on. He may seem less flustered than his more Fabian opposites, but he's more certainly a psychopath, so he's not particularly bothered if masses go out of work, are evicted or even starve to death; psychos actually get off on that sort of thing. But just being a smug spiv does not mean that he somehow "gets it": in fact, he's oblivious to the real systemic implications here, because his whole schooling and experience is in the deluded fictions of mega-usury.

It is rather repulsive to hear yet again some misanthropic or at least ultra-conservative notion ("non-rich people have been living beyond their means"!) about the dynamics of this dysfunctional system in its death throes. The people "living beyond their means" are the hedge fund parasites (like Turnbull himself) who backed the QUADRILLION dollar derivatives bubble that Greenspan and Co set up. On this point, One Under God grasps well the essentially corrupt nature of the monetarists' entire thought process here.

Poor people - and I count myself here - have been overwhelmingly strict in paying their debts, rents, etc. And if some got hocked into bigger debt just for the plasma TV, so what? It does not compare to a derivatives portfolio that has actually depended upon getting more and more of us into debt anyway while compelling every type of business to run up much larger debt than the apocryphal proles-with-plasma-McMansion-beemer cliche. The DERIVATIVES are what cannot be paid - not most of the plasmas or even the beemers and McMansions, when viewed in isolation.

(cont.)

This is a systemic disintegration from the top. It is about the only case where the “trickle down” concept has actually functioned, but not as the neolibs and econorats meant of course. The debt bubble of derivatives trading among hedge funds has all compelled more and more debt throughout the entire economy. The screwing of workers, students and even many elderly has all intensified in order to ensure that they get into massive debt, so that they do their bit, as it were, to keep pumping the derivatives bubble!

Debating over which of the two buttons to press is really just "spin" also: the oligarch-driven Lib/Lab nonsense is as silly as that Rep/Dem farce in the US recently. Which corrupt and cowardly party apparatchik would you choose to save the corpse?!

The system is entirely bankrupt – has been for some time now – and must be junked, along with its latest IMF pipe dream of a global bankers' dictatorship. It's Game Over guys. Time for some substantial leadership a la FDR, Jack Lang, JFK - take these nasty monetarist bloodsuckers off their artificial life support of bail outs and other tax scams from their fawning toadies in the mainstream party apparatus.

Way to go, Mil-observer - that certainly sounds like the kind of no-frills, Yellow-band talk Bruce was calling for.

But just remember too, that some of us weren't taken in for a moment by the spin.

That was those of us living a completely separate and unregarded existence. We looked about and we saw unemployed all around us. We were the unemployed. But we didn't even exist according to the statistics. Or at least a large percentage of us didn't exist

When I first went to the dentist here he was shocked at the state of my mouth and asked why I had neglected it for so long. I told him truthfully that in Australia I couldn't afford dentists. Similarly, when I lost toe and finger nails to an infection shortly afterwards, I had admit that it was because I couldn't afford the cream I was prescribed in Australia. I was also exhibiting other symptoms of mal nourishment after 7 years of poverty in Oz. Imagine how those who have spent a lifetime there present?

We've been hollering down in the dark all along. But we have no power; no representation - so no-one heard us. Except, mainly, for those who seize the chance to tell us we are unAustralian; no-hopers; bludgers. They also, ad nauseum, stifle us with smug comparisons of how they worked hard for all they'd got.

But at least we were not taken in on the spin.

Down in the dark underbelly of Australia is a country which is so alien from the over-spending, over-eating, over-indulgent, over-gullible world to whom the blame for this mess is starting to be ascribed, as to be another country.

Ps. We also knew there were no WMD!

"Gird your loins, we are in for a tough few years but as a nation we will come out of it stronger, more cohesive, more efficient and more self-sufficient."

If the current financial crisis has the effect of clearing out the stables and making us more efficient and self-sufficient, bring it on is all I can say.

As to Kevin Rudd's jetsetting ways, it's surmised by some on The Insiders on the ABC that he's positioning himself for the job as Secretary of the UN. If true, that would explain why he's directing his energies overseas. It might also mean he's not much longer for the job of PM.

I've been thinking for a while about Rudd's spin. I know that the Liberals (mostly Tony Abbott) have said Rudd's a fraud and he can't deliver on what he talks about, but at least he's being optimistic and not reverting to an unimaginative conservative political pattern. In my opinion, the Labor party is the instigator of change in Oz politics while the Liberals are the capitalisers. It's always easy to say the Liberals are better because they associate more with winning and with amassing this and that, but without Labor infusing its qualitative values into the country's affairs, we would have a poorer and less well rounded country.

The fact is we need both major political parties to be given a go steering the ship. But, it's society's job to throw the Government out whenever it exceeds its sustainable bounds and goes too far or too quickly with its agenda.

Well said RobP. I have been mulling over Rudd's style, personality and character. By temperament and intellect Rudd is a small l-Liberal, but emotionally he is not.He does not seem to have a capacity to feel and in that he is the antitheses of both Hawke and Keating.
He reminds me of many of my former colleagues in DFAT.He is ambitious and has his career moves worked out, to get there he will keep his nose clean and make no decision that might come back to bite him.
He is still the bureaucrat. I see him as being insecure and a little immature. He does not seem very integrated.
In DFAT terms he has achieved the top posting.
Like you I was interested to hear what Bolt had to say on Insiders.
Seems to me that Rudd believes in very little. There is no agenda that he feels passionate about or would die in a ditch over. That is not to say that he does not know what needs to be done, but it is the commitment of a bureaucrat and not a statesman. He gives the impression that he is trying to impress a boss rather than meet and match his own standards.
My contention is that Rudd would not mind if he had one term as PM.
He will have achieved his ambition, he can tick that box and unlike Howard who burnt all his international, accademic and corporate bridges, accademic and international opportunities await Rudd.
For the sake of his ego Rudd will certainly pull all stops out to win the next election, but his heart is not in it, if it were, he would have ended the intervention, changed the refugee regime, removed privatisation from water, repealed the Howard terrorism laws, removed Keelty and put in place checks on the powers of the AFP and reduced the excessive level of aid to private schoools.
Next year as the pressure builds, Rudd might decide to walk.
Rudd is neither saviour nor statesman.
Bruce Haigh

Bruce,

I agree with what you say. I think it was Keating some time ago who called Rudd "dangerous". It was probably in reference to the robotic and supremely clinical style Rudd had showed during his career. I'd just add one thing to what you've said. His statement to the stolen generations was unemotionally brilliant. This is one thing that an academically gifted person can do very well. I couldn't imagine Hawke or Keating making such a clear and unequivocal statement, as they probably would have felt it too politically complicating as well as being incongruent with their style.

Sometimes the out-of-the-box, ambitious boy on the block can achieve a lot more than one would think. It's sometimes worth throwing them in the ring and seeing what they can do.