Back in warm and sunny Newcastle. It is quite amazing how strident the attack on government deficits has become. There is very little recognition of the scale of the economic disaster that still plagues our economies. Even relatively unscathed economies like Australia is carrying 12.5 per cent labour underutilisation rates. That is bad enough. The majority of nations are in much worse shape. The scale of this disaster is so great that you might wonder who is going to be made to pay – given that the crisis was brought on by human folly. Why are those responsible being brought to account? The reality is that the criminals who led us into this disaster have done very well out of the bailout packages that they now oppose. You would have to indict the majority of my profession to achieve justice. So we might want a “national reconciliation” process to allow us to move on and forgive those that caused this. The problem is that the perpetrators are not humble in their failing. Far from it – they are now leading the charge attacking budget deficits using the same economic theories that caused the crisis. How the hell does anyone think these characters have anything to say any more? They were wrong before … so what’s changed?