Our Treasurer last week described the Republicans in the United States, using the precise and diplomatic language he is known for, as “cranks and crazies”. Apparently he thought the Republicans were not taking America’s economic problems seriously, unlike say Barack Obama who apparently thinks US debt is around $10 trillion when it is in fact $16 trillion. Anyway, our Wayne thought it was the Republicans who were endangering the future of the American economy by trying to get some kind of debt ceiling in place which is why he used the phrase he did. He was then fully supported by the Prime Minister herself.

I have therefore had a look at this in an article now found at Quadrant Online which comes with the title, “Our Own ‘Cranks and Crazies'”. It begins:

Let me start with this. The justification for the mining tax was to ensure that the entire community would benefit from the minerals boom, the implication being that selling resources bestows no return to the rest of us outside the extractive industries and therefore requires a tax to share the wealth. But with the mining boom about to recede we are being told that, as a direct result, we will all have to get used to a lower standard of living. Absolutely right, but just as the loss of the mining boom has reduced everyone’s living standards, the boom, while it lasted, drove them higher.

Alas, our Prime Minister and her Treasurer were clueless about how we all benefit from growth, even in a single sector remote from our lives, and accordingly peddled one of the most ignorant and pernicious of all socialist memes: the resources of the nation belong to the people. The consequences of their tenure in office will be to our collective detriment for years to come as investors spurn putting their money into Australia, lest Labor return to the Treasury benches once again.

And this is the final para in which I focus on our Prime Minister and her Treasurer:

From the start they have never had much idea about what should be done and what needs doing. They have followed the socialist path of least resistance: re-empowering unions, spending money they don’t have, and because they have mismanaged our finances, leaving Australia literally defenceless in an increasingly dangerous world. The surest sign of Gillard and Swan’s poor judgment is that they can unselfconsciously go about calling others the very names most appropriately applicable to themselves.

If you would like to see what goes in the middle, you can read the whole article here.