A true neo-lib believer apparently sees no problem in the GFC. The GFC is merely a cyclical event, the trough after the boom, with no need for government intervention, despite good businesses going down as their long standing credit facilities suddenly get cut off.

The market is seeen by neo-libs as the fixer - the only force capable of instigating much needed restructure or liquidation of stressed companies, industries and even national economies, making everything for the better in the next cycle.

In this world view, the market should be treated with the same reverence that people of faith view God.

Neo-libs see deep troughs as great buying opportunities for wealthy, cashed up elites to multiply their wealth many times over. The Republican Party in the USA have many more neo-libs than the Australian Liberal Party.

Many neo-liberal Republicans tend to fuse their religious fundamentalism with fervent free-market fundamentalism. The GFC was God's will where the greedy receive their retribution - not a government bail-out.

Most politicians in Australia recognise that the greedy must be restrained from anti-social excess and that the needy must be assisted to cope with the worst deprivation of living in poverty. Fortunately our weak regulatory regimes controlling financial, consumer and business activity survived the GFC more through luck than through superior regulations or the actions of decisive, responsive, regulators.

Our dysfunctional federal system of government is hemmoraging under mounting debt and poor design of everything from the ways laws are made to the way they are implemented. Despite tentative steps to reform health, Rudd seems very timid when it comes to doing what a free-market would do as a neccessity for survival - merge all 9 state, territory and federal governments into one, saving $50 Billion a year.