If the aim of the Transport Workers' Union and cutely-name Airline Pilot's 'Association' has been to damage Australia's reputation and set industrial relations back 20 years, then by all accounts it's 'mission accomplished'.
In a staggering display of self-interest, both pilots and ground staff have demonstrated that they couldn't care less for the economic viability of the national carrier, much less the long-suffering passengers.
The English-language website of Xinhua, China's state-owned media agency, was quick to point out the potential damage to the country's reputation, however it can be argued that this has already occurred. That the mouthpiece of a socialist government is commenting on our industrial relations climate with distaste, is disturbing indeed.
It somehow seems to escape the cognitive abilities of Qantas workers that the airline must compete in a global marketplace where other airlines pay far less to its workers and pilots and have shorter routes to travel in order to fill their aircraft. The comparative size of the pay packets afforded to these staff, especially the pilots, has not prevented them from holding the airline to ransom, and it is unlikely that a union-backed and controlled government will really intervene any time soon.
Welcome back to the 1980's, Australia.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Can you spare a dollar, Wayne?
News.com reports today that our beloved Treasurer suggests assisting the Europeans in managing their debt issues, by discussing "ways that resources can be made available to the IMF to further assist European countries respond to the issues" of sovereign debt.
Coming hot on the heels of his recent award by Euromoney magazine for being the "World's Best Treasurer" (which is code for 'Taking Credit for a Predecesor's Economic Conservatism') , Swan's finance ministerial love-in has seen him rub shoulders with the very people who have put Europe in the economic sluice in the first place.
And that's the really the point, isn't it?. The incumbent government shares the same flawed economic philisophies that have severely damaged the fiscla health of the Europeans - a kind of neo-Keynesian fixation on big spending that has, at best, a very limited short term economic response, drives a spike in inflation and interest rates, and locks in long-term debt.
Such economic illiteracy is indeed alarming in the world's greatest treasurer.
The liberalism and sense of entitlement that big spending has fostered in the European economies has to date, curiously not raised any question amongst those, such as our previous Prime Minister, who were so quick to blame capitalism for the Global Financial Crisis. In fact, no one from the current government has sought to explain this apparent anomaly amongst those economies that have habitually spent up big and can now no longer afford to pay the bills.
For as much as the Europeans found a convenient scapegoat in the US for 'Le Mess' of the GFC, it was their own pechant for spending that made them vulnerable to the downturn and the fact that they can now no longer spend their way out of trouble. Any serious analyst would also identify the decision by the Democrats to force though legislation requiring sub-prime mortgages for low income earners and minorities as being a major factor in the GFC debacle. Further proof that it was not the freem market that was to blame, but government interference in that market.
Sadly, no one in liberal Europe, nor our own dream-team of economic marvels seems to have realised that their undergraduate economic philisophies are useless in the real world. For spending big is still on the agenda and the addiction of the Left to other people's money doesn't look like it's going to abate any time soon.
Coming hot on the heels of his recent award by Euromoney magazine for being the "World's Best Treasurer" (which is code for 'Taking Credit for a Predecesor's Economic Conservatism') , Swan's finance ministerial love-in has seen him rub shoulders with the very people who have put Europe in the economic sluice in the first place.
And that's the really the point, isn't it?. The incumbent government shares the same flawed economic philisophies that have severely damaged the fiscla health of the Europeans - a kind of neo-Keynesian fixation on big spending that has, at best, a very limited short term economic response, drives a spike in inflation and interest rates, and locks in long-term debt.
Such economic illiteracy is indeed alarming in the world's greatest treasurer.
The liberalism and sense of entitlement that big spending has fostered in the European economies has to date, curiously not raised any question amongst those, such as our previous Prime Minister, who were so quick to blame capitalism for the Global Financial Crisis. In fact, no one from the current government has sought to explain this apparent anomaly amongst those economies that have habitually spent up big and can now no longer afford to pay the bills.
For as much as the Europeans found a convenient scapegoat in the US for 'Le Mess' of the GFC, it was their own pechant for spending that made them vulnerable to the downturn and the fact that they can now no longer spend their way out of trouble. Any serious analyst would also identify the decision by the Democrats to force though legislation requiring sub-prime mortgages for low income earners and minorities as being a major factor in the GFC debacle. Further proof that it was not the freem market that was to blame, but government interference in that market.
Sadly, no one in liberal Europe, nor our own dream-team of economic marvels seems to have realised that their undergraduate economic philisophies are useless in the real world. For spending big is still on the agenda and the addiction of the Left to other people's money doesn't look like it's going to abate any time soon.
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