The US Government has come up with its latest plan to solve the financial crisis which has now well and truly become a real (GDP and employment) crisis. While the initial reaction from the financial markets is generally favourable (and why wouldn’t it be), if you appraise it from the perspective of modern monetary theory and impose an equity bias then you conclude: (a) it will represent a major redistribution of nominal wealth to the already wealthy; and (b) it probably won’t help reduce unemployment because it is not tackling the real problem.

The US President appeared on the US commercial television show 60 minutes program on March 22. He was talking about about the AIG debacle, the economy, and his first challenges in his new job. His responses to questions about the economy though were positively scary. The most powerful man in the World and he doesn’t understand how the modern monetary economy works. Very scary indeed.

A document was leaked from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which showed it is planning to sack around 200 staff to pursue efficiency dividends to allow a pay rise to occur. I was interviewed by ABC economics commentator Stephen Long as part of a segment he put together on the national ABC current affairs show PM tonight which examined this issue.

Put People First group are running a grass roots campaign for all of us to send a message to the G20 about their priorities. The campaign symbol is the megaphone logo appearing below. Their campaign will culminate in a march in central London on March 28, 2009 to push a case for jobs, justice and climate. I am not associated with this group but I share their priorities, even if I might see them in different terms. Anyway, this is the first of my messages to the G20. In summary: they need to learn how the economy actually operates and then they would use their fiscal policy capacity to ensure everyone has a job in a sustainable economy.

Today I heard that our Federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner is suffering from insomnia because of the growing Government debt burden. Poor thing. Why is he worrying himself sick? Well I have the cure. If he reads this blog and understands it I think he will back in slumberland sooner rather than later.

Yesterday, the Opposition leader published his reply to the Prime Minister’s grand attack on neo-liberalism. He claims that the apart from hypocrisy, the PM’s other failing is that he is mimicking a “corrupt police officer” because his essay attempted to blame the former Federal regime “for crimes it did not commit”. It is time that we understood just how bad the previous Federal government was.