“Costello had over ten years to move on climate change. He did nothing. Instead he handed out baby bonuses and told us all to procreate. How out of touch is that in a world beset by population pressures? Costello's answers in the current economic downturn would be very much along the lines of getting us all back to business as usual, which is completely unsustainable from a health and environmental standpoint, and would only result in another financial crash further down the track anyway.”

You’ve got it Bronwyn. It is impossible to imagine who might be a worse PM than Costello!

“It was much more than poor enforcement of laws, as you claim. The laws were no longer there. And it's why people like Pelican, myself and millions of others are calling for a thorough re-regulation of the banking system.”

Yes, and a thorough reregulation of the connection between governments and banks and other all-powerful big-business entities. A complete ban on political donations would be a start.

I'm quite happy for you to change the analogy Arjay, change "heart" to "oil pump" and life blood to oil if it suits, but you can't mix metaphors, the medium with the mechanism, a pump is a pump and the medium (oil,money,lubricant)what flows through it. If the money don't flow that system won't go.

What do you mean by "tangible production" to meet "needs and wants of real people"? Is this another way of saying "demand creation"?

Great discussion everyone. and very civil for an OLO debate.

This is not a left/right debate, both are equally guilty. Where does this leave the great man himself, the great financial deregulator and seller of the CBA PJ Keating,for instance?

Arjay,
you are right. When money/credit/debt gets too far out of whack with production the economy will go bust eventually. Sound banking practice has always been based on a ratio of credit creation to deposits, and this rule has been grievously flaunted.

Regulation of credit creation for speculative purposes needs to be introduced. By that I mean gambling on stock market or real estate bubbles (and not venture capital or valid entrepreneurial activities) with money loaned from banks.

We don't need socialism, just proven banking practices. Kevin still has time to prove himself, altho I've no great faith in him, witness the $2billion to prop up the value of (largely) inner city office space. Turnbull nailed The Milky Bar Kid on this one.

I don't know that a gold standard could work anymore- maybe a realistic 'GDP Standard' would be workable.