1) Rupert Murdoch owns Newscorp
2) Newscorp has lost billions of dollars thanks to the global financial crisis. Advertising revenue is way down thanks to reduced consumer spending.
3) Kevin Rudd's stimulus package is supported by every economist (even those left-wing radicals at the IMF) to go some way towards propping up consumer spending.
4) Newscorp employs Milne, Made-o-Ham et al to write screeds opposing the very bailouts that would help Newscorp and Rupert.
5) ????????
6) Profit!
5 comments:
And even though the big Rupe himself wants News to go green he still employs Andrew 'bury me in a Y shaped coffin' Bolt.
It's one for the ages man. I don't get it either.
In the states the Repugs are anti stimulus as well. Which boggles the mind considering the spending they did over there pre Obama.
Totally off topic:
Matt Mitcham gets sponsor!
Kevin Rudd's stimulus package is supported by every economist (even those left-wing radicals at the IMF) to go some way towards propping up consumer spending.
Hmm. These are the very same economists who failed to predict the '07 crash. Whereas those who did predict it (Steve Keen et al) point out that these so-called 'stimulus packages' just transfer the oceans of debt that prop up a fake "economy" from private (bad) to public (just as bad).
It's an expensively crap and woefully unimaginative policy. I'm not defending Turncoat's idiotic aping of the Springborg approach to opposition leadership; but we need a real policy for our society and planet, not more pro-global-warming officially-sanctioned ultra debt-pumped consumerism.
ok, what should that solution be? what should it look like? i'm seriously interested in your vision. i just feel that this is like telling passengers on the titanic that next time the shipbuilder should use better rivets. while it is a valid point, it does nothing for their immediate situation.
similarly the time to reform capitalism is not in the middle of a collapse. this is a short term solution. given rudd's recent and historic tirades against neo-liberal economics, i think that he'd be just about the only pm in living memory to actually talk seriously about changing the implementation of our capitalist system.
Rudd's just borrowing the policy implemented by Japan for the last 15 years or so. It failed.
As for the 'solution', I don't have a vision. I'm not an economist. That doesn't justify Labor digging us a deeper hole.
Check out Steve Keen's blog (don't have the url handy). He might have some answers.
I don't think anyone's suggesting government shouldn't spend money to get out of this. Just that they shouldn't do so in a way that continues the consumer/corporate debt treadmill. So, for example, instead of the first home-owners' grant, let's do something about fixing up the civilised world's worst rental sector (ie. not assume it to be a stepping stone towards more debt). Tax the fuck out of big cars. Pump prime some massive investments into locally-produced green energy. Drop HECS (ie. as of today, and backdate it). Dump EISs in favour of rigorous environmental control over all development. Drop limited liability and have investors incur costs for externalities.
Well, I'm not an economist, as I say. But I can recognise a sad repetition of pre-failed ideas when I see one.
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