As our pseudo-economic master, Rattus fullobeanus, keep telling us that Rudd and his team are not ready to tackle the economy, he reminds me of the bean-counters of the early seventies who decided to save money left, right and centre in a big enterprise until there was nothing to produce, because there was no proper investments for development and production. Sure, there was a lotta beans to shift around the globe and make a buck on the exchange rates that were going mad like yo-yos... (Many people lost their pants due to taking a debt in Swiss Francs, a bit later on)...

Eventually, I might say, as we, the employees, had forewarned the bosses that the business would go down the drain on that gloriously inflated fake bottom line — a sound business that employed more than 450 people — the said business bit the dust hard, on the greed of the bean-counters alone, who forced production to a halt by maximising profits for a little while but killed the goose.

Yes... Johnnee's magic is on par with such a feast of imbecility. Costello's management of the purse is not healthy despite "his" "big surpluses". In fact, these surpluses do not come from being good managers, but from inflated real estate prices, cheap goods from China and from a timely worldwide resource boom that also fuels the economies of Russia and South Africa... Unlike these countries, mind you, our trade balance is a very sorry affair, a black hole...

So by being petty and insensitive to the reality of people who now can't afford to send their kids to uni without second-mortgaging — or when one can't scratch one's head without the though-police swooping on us — Costello tells us we never had it so good. Rot.

It could be so much better. Now your overtime rate is reduced to nothing much... and in some places management will ask you to work 10 hours a day and get paid for eight with a few cents extra for the late bus fare... and sometimes you will end up working 12 hours... It could and can be better for all. But not under Johnnee.

We must reinforce that, in the Rudd team, there are many people who are expert managers without being the tight-arse scrooges that the Liberals are. In the Rudd team, there are good people with sharp intellect and moral fibre. Yes, we can spruik that Johnnee is in a class of his own when selling porkies and we can expect that the Rudd team won't spin as much as the Rattus Porkii's does. It would be truly impossible for any one else to lie with such brilliance as he does.

Economic management is not the exclusive domain of the Liberals. In fact they have often mismanaged the people to maximise profits at the expense of what really matters. Distressfully, Rattus has even sold the unique soul of Australia to the devil dollar, claiming the high moral ground for it. Rotten act. Rotten to his UnAustralian core, he has been trying to turn us into mad greed machines on the way to become individually poorer rather than be humans with a richness of heart.

He should be thrown out with his team of greedy bean counters. Rudd can do, and will do, a better and more equitable job.

‘The philosopher Michael Oakeshott, in a brilliant essay, The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, talks about the importance of a continuing historical conversation. He observes that a multiplicity of voices need to be heard, to be a part of the public discourse.

What John Roskam fails to understand (Opinion, 6/6) is that, as David Marr makes clear, the conversation has been blunted and bagged. When the conversation ceases, transparency in and by government ceases.

Democratic habits begin with conversation, with the civilised exchange of views and the building up of a democratic ideal that is first and foremost a moral one.

Contrary to Roskam's argument, it is not a matter of comparing our society with Colombia, Zimbabwe or anywhere else. We are free enough, or should be, to understand that if our institutions, practices and perspectives are being subverted in alien ways, then we are obliged, for the sake of our future, to make our voices heard before they are muzzled.’

Shutting Down A Democracy