Mangled Thoughts

The hard Left is having a fun time of it, due to the incompetence (buttressed by ignorance) and venality of the sclerotic “Right”. First, there is a troubling aspect of the non-existent economics debate in Australia, typified by comments by Professor (economics),  Professor Neville Norman, The University of Melbourne.

Last week, in a radio ‘discussion’, he asserted there is a risk of recession and it might occur next year, 2010. Reassuring, though, was the boom Christmas spend up that, naturally the media commentariat waxed lyrical over; how splendidly retailers had done, Australia is saved.

However, due to the ‘financial crisis’, Norman continued, things will be difficult for some firms. He recommended investing in service businesses, tradesman is a very good service ‘business’ to be in. This, from a University Professor in economics! Does Norman also hold to the rubbish of the ‘dual economy’, or as McCrann of the Herald Sun put it, the “real economy” and the “other economy” of  financial markets?!

The media commentariat, the idiot “Right” and their anti- free market think tanks the CIS and IPA reflects the abysmal state of what is passed of as the advance of economics in universities. Though, one is certainly not saying one doubts Professor Norman is on the same plane as the likes of Professor Saunders (CIS) and Professor Sinclair Davidson ( CIS & IPA). These two are so unbelievably bad that, to repeat, when I mention their names in the company of other senior economics also grounded in what is imparted in the Universities, they break up in fits of uncontrollable laughter, and so do some heavyweight businessmen.

Professor Norman continued: he regrets his predictions because they have all been bad news. This induced a bit of head scratching over a puzzle. What predictions worth bothering with has he made? To my recollection, none. If he had, he would have long ago commenced attacking the RBA for its criminal Keynesian monetary expansion which sent Australia into recession before 2007, with data throughout 2008 confirming the fact. What Norman’s statements did remind one of is the Delphic oracle. In his mitigation, at least his comments are somewhat more intelligible than the incoherent straining of the CIS and IPA.

I’m not taking Norman the economist lightly. The Professor has a CV that makes those of the developmentally arrested, petulant schoolboys ’s engaged at the IPA and CIS read as those of a 1^st day fresher. Readers can check for themselves here. Neither is it to single out Professor Norman. He is not a-typical of the Universities. That’s the depressing problem.

Australia has been long now in recession. Recession hit before the bursting of the stock market bubble mid last year. Stoock market bubbles are a phenomenon caused by Keynesian monetary expansion. Economic laws cannot be defied without peril, and bursting bubbles are only one nasty, late symptom.

Here’s the latest analysis of another recession we did not have to have but for Keynesian, criminal bastards:

 Economic commentators still clueless about the recession

 ”The latest Australian Industry Group performance of manufacturing index report began with the statement: “Manufacturing activity fell for a seventh month in a row in December”. And still our economic commentators are at a loss as to what this really means. They shouldn’t be. The report is telling us that Australia is in recession and has been for some months. The report found all of its 12 sectors were not only contracting but had fallen below 50. In other words, the sectors showed negative growth. We should not be surprised, therefore, to find that capacity utilisation had dropped to its lowest level 1992.

“Falling back on the fallacy that consumption drives the economy, the authors assert…”

Bingo, that is what professor Norman is asserting, the consumption fallacy. What, Norman, of savings and so production? What of capital theory, and the power of money? To save time:

Government spending makes recessions worse

“Laissez-faire economic ideas (deregulation, tax cuts) are currently out of favour but the fact remains that the Krugman and Keynesian policies of bailouts, deficit financing, and public works have never really worked. They didn’t work in the U.S. in the 1930’s; they didn’t work in the 1990’s in Japan.

“They don’t work because they prop up unsustainable investments in the private sector rather than clear the way for new entrepreneurship…”

What a turn up for the books, ABC radio, Brisbane. The Western Lines drew attention to an interview by ABC’s Steve Austin. His guest was Austrian economist Peter Leithner. Due to the format, Leithner’s explanation is stripped by brevity but he makes some essential points crystal clear:, monetary expansion is the cause, and Rudd’s consumption policies will compound the damage, greatly. He naturally stressed this plank of keynesianism will liquidate what is required, savings.

Western Lines,   Rudd crashing the Australian economy

We will leave this item at that. It is leading into something, but the above is very important to consider, before resuming the item tomorrow, with the attack on the second leg, the “Right’s” non-defence of capitalism.

Readers should attend to the other recent articles on Brookesnews concerning the recession. The media is flooded with, to be polite, misleading commentary and the problem with it is, it is very nasty in its force.