From the SMH

Balance? Don't ask an economist

March 7, 2007

Ross Gittins explains Gittinomics.

 

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Economists are experts in one important but limited aspect of life: the material. No one knows better than they do how best to maximise our production and consumption of goods and services. When a community follows their advice - as we pretty much have been for the past 25 years - it gets rich.

Trouble is, sensible people don't maximise the material aspect of life, they optimise it. That is, they balance it against other, non-material objectives.

For instance, most economists know little about the question of fairness and, for the most part, ignore it. Press them and they'll tell you frankly that it's outside their area of competence.

Likewise, they're largely oblivious to the social and spiritual aspects of life. Will the policies they advocate damage family life, for instance? Sorry, never given it any thought. Why don't you consult a social worker or a priest?

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Gus: or our one dimensional treasurer?

 

Yes Gus ....

You've got to the heart of it in my view.

Do we want to live in an economy or do we want to live in a society, where the economy is just one - albeit important - element of its broader fabric? And do we want a society (& therefore an economy) that operates in the interests of all, rather than just a favoured & privileged few?

For those content to survive in an economy - being measured, treated & valued purely as units of production - little rattus will deliver you complete satisfaction & then some. For those who think that there should be just a little more to life than becoming loyal, dumbed-down serfs - labouring only to survive, whilst enriching their "betters" - little rattus offers nothing ... with even his occasional cakes & circuses by now stale & exhausted by repetition.

The biggest problem that the rattus genus has is that in order to serve its oligarchical masters & thereby protect its own status, it must betray & rob from the futures of the majority of the disinterested electorate; all the time pretending - with skilled sleight-of-hand - that everything being done TO them is for their benefit - like "keeping us safe" from those dreadful "terrarists", whilst working overtime to create more & more of the same.

But, like bushit, blair & all the rest of the one-eyed phoney flakes who've trodden the boards over the millennia, you can fool some of the people some of the time but, eventually, not all the people all of the time.

When the populace wakes-up to the fact that they've been had, they strike back with a vengeance & fools like hubris-filled howard wind-up being consigned to the dustbin of history.

As bushit puts it: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

I think the collective psyche of the awstralyan people has finally woken-up to the dishonest swindling ways of the rattus genus & is ready to spring its collective trap & evict the evil bastards from their taxpayer-funded nests. I hope so ....

Some argue "what's the point" though? Aren't we simply replacing one gang with another? Don't the same venal economic interests ultimately corrupt whoever the electorate entrusts with the task of maintaining some balance & creating something more for us to celebrate & measure our meaning with than a few paltry dollars & sense?

And, of course, they're probably right.

Do any us really think that Rudd & his band would ultimately value us more - after a decade in office - than little rattus howard does? I don't, that's for sure ....

But as long as the electorate refuses to value, protect & nurture the precious elements of a richer society, including the freedoms hard-won over the course of our history, then the only security that any of us have against the extremes of the visigoths (regardless of which meme they might be peddling) is the ironic fact that, ultimately, they wear-out their welcome & become unfashionable - like overstaying relatives. We grow tired of them & chuck them out - just like everything-else in our dumbed-down, materialistic world.

There might be precious little real justice these days but, fortunately, our corrupt political masters haven't yet found a way to escape poetic justice.