Its an amazing world where the neo-liberals go from one ridiculous economic policy failure (plan) to another as if we are totally without any understanding of what they are up to. The latest examples include the German talk about how growth oriented they are and their sudden concern for the youth unemployment emergency that they now say needs immediate attention. Of-course, this “emergency” has been staring them in the face for nigh on five years and is the creation of their policies. Now they cry crocodile tears and promise a few measly billion in structural assistance, which won’t even scratch the surface of the problem they created. And they have the audacity to think they have credibility. Another example, is the decision by the ruling elites in Brussels to give France, Spain, Poland and Slovenia a further two years to kill their economy and this is being constructed as lenience. So bash your economy to hell slighly more slowly than before and everyone is meant to think that is credible. Why do we tolerate these morons? Then we have the OECD who waste trees by producing their Economic Outlook, which came out yesterday.

We will start with a quiz question today. Its a very hard question so you will have to think long and hard to get the right answer. If you were the government and had the choice of spending $A114,975 per annum (or $A315 per day) to derive zero benefit and cause significant harm to both society and individuals or spending $A63,074 per annum (or $A173 per day) to derive significant benefit with virtually zero harm being caused which option would you take? While the dollar figures are calibrated for the Australian situation, neo-liberal governments around the world have been able to convince us that the first option is superior. There is no logic to it but reflects the extension of the logic that individuals are responsible for themselves and there is no such thing as a macroeconomic or systemic constraint on individual choice and behaviour. It is that folly that is causing all the strife at present and will ultimately bring the system down.

The economics journalists were out in force again today in Australia after being fed their latest copy from the neo-liberal propaganda machine. In this case, the propaganda was in the form of the first report published yesterday (May 22, 2013) from the newly established Parliamentary Budget Office – Estimates of the structural budget balance of the Australian Government 2001-02 to 2016-17. The Report estimates that huge unsustainable budget deficits and has led to a flurry of media activity all just repeating what the PBO told them was the message. I wonder if any of the journalists have actually read the report in detail particularly the Appendix where the technicalities are exposed. Technicalities is too strong a word because it suggests there is something robust going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is another shoddy attempt to bias the public perception towards thinking the current (pitifully small relative to the scale of the problem) budget deficit is problematic.