My university office is far from clean so next week when I get back there I suspect I will find some more old insightful articles in the boxes remaining to be sorted to comment on. I haven’t much time today as I am in transit. But there are two interesting developments in Australia that are worth commenting on while the iron is hot. The first is that one of Australia’s fat cat banksters, fresh from enjoying the benefits of the federal government’s loan guarantees is now advocating cuts in the unemployment benefits to make the unemployed more desperate for work. The benefit is already well below Australia’s poverty line and there are 3.6 odd unemployed for every vacancy not to mention the 8 per cent of workers who are underemployed. The bankster thinks that by pushing them further into poverty they might up house, pack their cars and travel across the other side of the continent to work in the mining sector. Little does he know. The second piece of news was that two major mining projects have been shelved by BHP as the outlook for the sector deteriorates.

Sometimes I read things and consider either I live in a parallel universe or the writers do. I always conclude the latter. There is an increasing number of articles and commentaries coming out which aim to re-write history in favour of the writer’s reputation or that of his/her mates. Revisionism, which includes the practice of personal reincarnation is rife at present. Everybody seemed to predict the crisis. Even those that clearly in their own writing didn’t have a clue that the trouble was coming predicted it. As part of this process, key organisations that should be learning from the crisis such as the BIS are demonstrating that they are in an educational void. They have become just another propaganda machine. And so the crisis continues as ignorance is elevated to higher levels.

I went for a walk at lunchtime through a main shopping area where I am working today. In the past you saw Sale signs twice around twice a year – post Xmas and mid-year. The advertised discounts at this time were modest except for some enticement items that might have been discounted by 30 per cent or so. You may check this out going through archives of Catalogue AU. You rarely saw Closing Down/All Stock must go signs. You rarely saw massive discounts – such as 80 per cent off and the like. Times have changed and there seems to be a permanency to these sales and the discounts are huge. Previously well-to-do shopping strips are now slowly being punctuated with empty shops so the Sale/Closing Down signs are now interspersed with For Lease signs. And Australia is meant to be going through a one-in-a-hundred years mining boom and the Government tells us we are doing so well that they have to undermine aggregate demand by running a surplus to give the economy room to grow even more. The problem is that our political leaders are in denial and continually bombard us with lies to perpetuate their ideological stances which work against the well-being of the majority of citizens. It is clear that the system is failing and that means we have a choice. The problem is that we first have to identify that we have that choice.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) released its Global Employment Trends for Youth 2012 report today (May 22, 2012). It is harrowing reading and I will consider it later in the week. It tells us that youth unemployment is rising and will be unlikely to see any improvement until at least 2016. The ILO recommend a raft of government initiatives which would require budget deficits to expand. But, of-course, the dominant political narrative is to cut deficits in the false belief that this will engender growth. Exactly the opposite is happening and for good reason. I came across an article from 1982 today which tells us why austerity is dangerous and damaging. It also conditions us to understand that budget deficits are neither good nor bad but policy choices can be.

I was going to write about military expenditure today in the light of large cuts to defense spending that the Australian government made in last week’s Budget and the decision by the Obama Administration to make it easier for American firms to export military equipment (to who knows where!). The concept of the military-industrial complex is interesting and, to some extent, the issues that are being raised by the US decision were discussed during the Great Depression (I have been reading a lot of material from the 1930s lately). While some might (from a micro perspective) conclude that reducing spending on the military is a good thing (less violence etc) they also have to be mindful of the macro perspective which considers a $ spend on a tank to be equivalent in its impact on aggregate demand as a $ spent on public education – well nearly. But I will write about that tomorrow. There were two interesting interventions into the public debate in Australia yesterday from the current Treasury boss and the recently departed Treasury boss which have general application everywhere. While they are current I thought I would consider these general points today.