Australians please remember that the glorious days of China -backed pitstock politics are running out.

In fact, so much like the Roaring Twenties, in fact, better look at your history books to find that the free-market needs financial backing.

From a so-said mug historian.

Cheers, BB, Buntine, WA.

As I basically stated elsewhere today: -

How unfortunate, that those who ought to know better still believe in the "Global Economic Growth Fairy"!

Wake up and grow up, folks - economic growth and so-called "free markets" are at the core of so many of our modern problems, not the solutions!

Well said, Mark, Rudd is way off beam on this and many other issues. His stance in the Monthly article has been severely demolished, I think best in an IPA article though I can't track it down right now.

Interesting article. I don't recall ever before reading any economic paper that actually addressed the motivations of those that participate in the economy...and yet, so much is required of small business operators in this country, that for most of us, a strong sense of community goodwill is required just to get us up and producing, day in, day out.

Yet the popular imagination prefers to dwell on an exploitive image, in a two-dimensional, almost panto-bad-guy kind of way.
Our conversation about economic issues - such as labour costs - tends towards a fixation on this rather childish image of employer-as-exploiter.

My family is in small business. We pay ourselves less than our staff, work longer hours, have no benefits and take all the risk. The government should be paying us to collect and generate (yes, including through the PAYG of our staff) all their tax revenues!

In a democracy, it would be beneficial for the majority of the population to be educated, and essentially adult, about the realities of economic generation.

Yet many voters seem, again and again, to prefer easy answers and soft options to the genuine business of adding value, and thereby raising living standards for all.

Productivity, risk, and genuine production improve our lot. Socialist 'Robin Hood' policies in many important ways simply punish those small-medium business owners that had the guts to try in the first place.

The paper I was thinking of is by Henry Ergas at http://www.ipa.org.au/news/1809/the-crisis-and-beyond Well worth a read, particularly by Kevin Rudd. Unlike Rudd, Ergas is always lucid.

floatinglili, as a government economic policy advisor, I constantly stressed - to little avail - the need for policies which promoted private entrepreneurial activity, which made it easier for people to create and retain wealth, to recognise that this was the best approach to job creation. Whatever their rhetoric, the present Federal and Queensland governments have job-destroying policies, they show no comprehension of what drives our economy. Good luck.

Of course! All the problems stem from the fact that we are just not neo-liberal ENOUGH. We are not pure.

No, it's more like Soviet communism - it ran into problems because it ultimately did not work.