Another first downunder

AUSTRALIA has racked up an embarrassing economic milestone of 50 consecutive monthly trade deficits.

The Liberal government of John Howard has traded heavily on its ‘fiscal responsibility’, saying it loud enough and long enough that the truth is often obscured.

To be sure, they have been paying down the debt, but at what cost? The cost is the one off sale of national assets and reduction in social programs, just the sort of thing we expect from a conservative government.

Business is king to the Howard regime, but business is not repaying its favorable treatment, back into the country. It is that ‘trickle down’ which never does.

So that puts my favourite triumvirate – Australia, Britain and the USA – together in the economic toilet. The great neo-economic plan clearly stinks to high heaven.

Let us hope, for the sanity of this world, that the dismal economic performance of these dismal governments is making sufficient impact on the average voter. In my experience that is the only thing which really gets them on fire, a shrinking lifestyle.