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January 3, 2009
This is the first cartoon by Bill Leak since he was hospitalised from falling off a balcony and hitting his head. It nicely captures the topsy-turvey world we now live in after the collapse of the fantasy of the eternal resource boom in never never land.
Bill Leak
I do expect to see some finger wagging at us consumers for not spending enough and not maxing our credit cards, even though unemployment looms and our investment wealth has been halved. 'Tis a contradiction in neo-liberal Australia isn't it. No mention of the (former) masters of the universe, who said they seen the future and knew how it worked, mainlining on global speculation. No suggestion of the neo-liberal dream of the fusion of Canberra and corporate power.
The biggest contradiction is the benefits of globalisation” would enable vast fortunes to be made with the benefits “trickling down” to the rest of us. Instead we are experiencing a wave of misery, cutbacks, foreclosures and job losses amongst the middle and working classes in the developed nation states, where economic elites are being bailed out by governments they constantly said they despised for intervening in the market.
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Ideologically neo-liberalism derided government with loads of contempt , whilst it traded on the covert support of state power, nationally and globally. Hence the ease with which it could embrace its “necessity” of there is no alternative.