An excellent article. We don’t have much left to stimulate. And as for giving the retail sector a boost, well that’s just sending money to overseas manufacturers. I remember looking at how much the US depends on retailing and being appalled. We are going the same way.

We sent our industries overseas; now we are sending hard cash.

We have a low dollar, but our exports are in trouble. More people are seeking pensions because of the recession’s effect on superannuation – something governments decided should be compulsory, instead of allowing individuals to make their own investment decisions.

While the dummy is sprouting about plans numbered from 1 to infinity to save and create jobs, jobs are being lost right, left and centre, never to reappear as everything goes overseas.

‘Free’ trade and globalisation is now biting us on the bum as it was always going to.

Rudd the Dud encourages more lending for housing, hands out ‘packages’ and we all wait for the time when interest rates rise again, and starry-eyed young people start losing their houses again because they are borrowing $300,000 plus with the Dud’s encouragement. Banks are letting people borrow 95%; some builders are accepting just whatever the government handout is by way of a deposit.

“Can we trust our lawmakers to make the right decisions?” asks the author. No. We can and never could trust an ALP Government to make sensible economic decisions.

Only governments that balance the books and cut back spending on all but essential infrastructure can be trusted in a crisis.

Competition policy reforms applied to the domestic economy were too hard to deal with by state labor Governments and now we have government created jobs like Queensland's labor election promise of 3000 taxpayer financed green jobs at $19,000 pa pulling our weeds down at the local creek which will produce a education accredited certificate/degree. While education authorities say nothing, nothing at all, as they are prisoners of their own complicity and lack of performance, reliant on the public purse hiding behind the screen door, mum...

Art. Leigh & Dallas have outlined exactly what everyone I know reflects .
The Big Picture however is how do we change things so "it" wont happen again ?
How will we do this without having the "Dead Hand of Bureaucrats" crawling all over "The Free Market" ?
Perhaps someone can outline the Islamic Laws Of Usury ?

There a number of faults , one might be Performance Bonuses where concealed activities might lead to gambling rather than a properly constructed risk assessment .

The size of the Bonuses and the Breath of the Pay Cheques is breath taking , how could a Genius of this quality not see the Nemesis of his Company arriving .

This spending is kind of like throwing your money on the fire to keep it burning. Instead you could say invest in a gas supply line and do it that way, but it takes skill and know how, and it won't be an immediate fix. Easy come easy go...

A good article and I agree with most of it.

But what is global dimming pray tell?

Kulu

Global dimming is a phenomenon caused by light (heat) reflected back into space by cloud cover.

A theory supported by limited time-frame research during the massive reduction of commercial flying following 9/11.

Cloud formation is a result of two mechanisms. The first is seeding by naturally occurring particulates in the air. The second is seeding by man made particulates including those in exhausts from high flying aircraft

The more cloud cover, the more light (heat) reflected away from the earth's surface.

It has the opposite effect of global warming in which greenhouse gases trap heat within the earth's atmosphere.

Global dimming could be reducing the direct overall effect of global warming.

It is possible that eliminating aircraft exhaust gas particulates could reduce the overall reflective cloud cover and increase the effects of global warming.

Because of the interaction of the positive and negative effects of global warming and dimming, searching for a solution to repair our earth's environment, must consider the two as linked.

The increasing reduction in industrial activity and flight schedules created by the global economic crisis provides an ideal window of opportunity to monitor the real effects of the phenomena.

Arthur Thomas

Thanks Arthur T. I have heard of phenomena you describe - the name given to it must have passed me by.

It is an interesting complication to be addressed in the quest to learn more about climate change. A complication it is - one that has short term effects on planet temperatures as opposed to the much longer term effects of CO2, MH4 etc. Oh that we could keep pumping benign particulates into the atmosphere at an ever increasing rate to combat all the GHGs being emitted and accumulating there.