The opening paragraph read “National debt will continue to balloon throughout the first term of the Coalition government, despite harsh spending cuts to be identified by a Commission of Audit, a crackdown on public service jobs, and a promise that government would be smaller”. Of-course, the journalist meant to say “because of” rather than “despite” but his neo-liberal keyboard thwarted his better understanding. The article was about the debate now in full swing about our debt ceiling. That’s right, suddenly, Australia has a debt ceiling debate. As if the nonsense in the US wasn’t enough. We had to show the world how stupid we are as a nation by having our own ceiling and then spawning a debate about, which then sees salivating journalists chasing politicians around asking them all sorts of questions about increasing it etc. None of the above has any foundation in economics yet will lead to poor policy choices being taken which will undermine social and economic prosperity. What a vacuous world politics and the industry that is fed by it really is!