Living in a land of economic illusion

THERE are some among us who wish to see meat on the bare bones of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's international triumph and his assertions of Australia's world economic leadership - reiterated again at the weekend, this time in Lima.

Planet Wall Street is seriously out of step when it comes to interpreting Australia's role in the post-G20 world and doubts the nation's ongoing vital importance in world economic recovery and its role in preventing a full-blown international economic catastrophe.

PWS does not agree with Rudd and his faithful allies who every day, in every way, trumpet Rudd's domination of the world economic agenda. And they and the PM are, in turn, totally out of step with the rest of the world.

Or to be more cruel, no one outside Australia, absolutely no one, is even aware that Australia leads the world in creating a new economic environment.

I defy anyone to find a source that even reports Rudd's so-called initiatives.

It is a grand delusion played on Australians and I fear it will be repeated to establish a mythological leader that exists only in dreams and only in this country. For all the yards of video and newsprint devoted to Rudd's international leadership, PWS has yet to find one article that reflects his achievements.

From Washington to Lima, and on to every conference that shall be held on economic leadership, a pattern is emerging.

This involves the creation of a phoney consensus, new true believers who uncritically accept the PM's message that Australia is out in front leading the world through this time of turmoil. The message naturally falls on ears that want to hear.

As the world economic collapse is yet to hit Australia, this is a comfortable and convincing position.

And non-believers get the following - I cite our Prime Minister at APEC last weekend: "There is now a substantially advanced boutique industry called gloom and doom. It's all about describing what's going on and telling everyone how bad it is and how much worse it's going to get.

"That's terrific - that's called commentary. So you can either be part and parcel of that process, or you can take up the mantle of leadership and do something about it."

Who is saying this? Who are the members of this "substantially advanced boutique industry called gloom and doom?"

Who is the PM talking about? Some of us, very few, may paint a less than rosy picture of times coming but to suggest we are somehow not doing the nation a service is a reminder of what an important service those that challenge economic orthodoxy do. Challenge!

Today, the Government has no economic policy, nor does the Opposition. Essentially, that's an admission that we have little control over events. We don't. In the absence of that, our PM, whether he knows it or not, is brilliantly exploiting our, and all other nations', hapless fate while pretending to be a world leader.

This is an excellent strategy - to turn one's weakest point into strength. It can work for years. Karl Rove successfully launched an attack on working-class America and blamed weak left-liberals, who had not seen power in generations, for its downfall, omitting to mention that Clinton-Bush jnr, both committed free-market patrons, had been hard at work following up the attacks on labour launched by Carter, Reagan and Bush snr. It worked a treat until last month's great calamity.

But we are fed international leadership and again I beg readers to find and send me a single article that takes these reports seriously. For every such story I will send a certificate of ownership of five stocks in a fantastically well-appointed Australian mining venture currently on hard times and a certificate of ownership in a bridge I own in Brooklyn.

Australia now enters the most dangerous period in its post-World War II economic history, with no economic leadership from either party, but instead a belief that the problem will be solved by Rudd's world leadership.

Today we have a marked opportunity to provide leadership and if the PM were to do so, he would be universally congratulated. But the fact is, he is universally ignored.

Why, because he has nothing to offer except his credentials.

In that lies hope. He is well credentialed and can help join the East and West, the great divide. But we must have something on offer. What we are hearing at the moment is so empty it simply cannot be reported, except in grandiose claims. The PM has repeatedly been in a position to enlighten us of his five points, or any other economic scheme policy or determination, and has yet to do so.

Rudd is perfectly positioned and is capable of actually leading Australia into the new world. But first he will have to leave the old one. And that, I fear, is his quandary.

"Yes, Prime Minister, that would be a brave move."

"Brave, Sir Humphrey, brave? What's wrong with it?

"Nothing Prime Minister, but it might just upset our friends in the US and disturb the money markets if you were to suggest ..."

And another prime minister bows before the unelected officials that always run this country and the propaganda machine tells Australians the PM is doing all the things we would wish.

And nothing happens. Because unless we meet face-on the historic facts behind the Anglo-Celt demise, including understanding the elements of colonialism that still dominate world economic authority, we won't grasp the problem.

Unless we are prepared to maintain an honest appraisal of what has gone wrong with international capital - and the core of that is basic accountancy, no less no more, unless we face the mark to market "fundamentals", we are doomed.

This Rudd's version of an international accord does not do.

By blaming outside economic forces for what are essentially problems Australia is yet to endure, the PM has taken the high ground to the point that poor Malcolm Turnbull will be deemed a traitor if he but questions our glorious leader.

Turnbull knows that the idea of Rudd as an international leader is now "conventional wisdom" and it would be borderline unpatriotic to question his genius. At present.

Indeed, given the number of people who should know better, who have swallowed the transition from "Deputy Sheriff" Howard to "Marshall", or should it be "Ranger", Rudd, it can be expected these histrionics will have legs. Common sense from Canberra will be in short supply for a long time.