As millions of battling Aussie families get an unexpected multi-thousand dollar cash bonus from the Rudd Government in an attempt to bail out the ailing Australian economy‚ CEC Leader Craig Isherwood said today‚ “Rudd’s $10.4 billion stimulus package is simply a drop in the wrong bucket!”
Mr Isherwood said‚ “It is clear that Rudd and Swan do not understand that we are witnessing the disintegration of the entire global financial system‚ driven top down by an exploding debt bubble comprising quadrillions of dollars in financial instruments‚ mainly derivatives‚ which are sucking the lifeblood out of the real economy of all nations on the planet.
“To throw money into a bankrupt system‚ by seducing the most vulnerable within our community to ‘spend‚ spend spend’‚ will‚ in the current period of rapid physical economic collapse and deflation‚ lead to massive hyperinflation like in Weimar Germany. So‚ our most vulnerable will suffer much more in the future than now‚ directly as a consequence of Rudd’s action.
“Whilst many Friedmanite-turned-Keynesian economists and commentators may applaud the necessity for such action‚ aren’t they the same economists that have been advising us for the last 20 years‚ and got us into the mess in the first place? Are we going to listen to the doctors who gave us this financial disease‚ again?
“The only solution for this disintegration is to heed the American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche’s call for a New Bretton Woods system‚ and place the entire world’s financial and monetary system into bankruptcy reorganisation.” Mr Isherwood declared‚ “Nothing else will work! This astronomical debt cannot be paid! We have to then establish a National Banking credit system‚ and then embark on ambitious large-scale development projects.
“The real physical economy—the one that produces the food we eat—depends on policies that support the basis of economic production. Real wealth comes not from ‘money’ (which you can’t eat) but from the quality and quantity of goods we actually produce‚ which must be supported and developed by high-quality publicly-owned and operated infrastructure.
“When Dr J J C Bradfield stood on the banks of Sydney Harbour‚ he envisioned a Sydney Harbour bridge that was not to merely satisfy the immediate demand for infrastructure‚ or some bailout. He envisioned his bridge acting as a catalyst for the future physical economic development for the entire Sydney region and to provide meaningful employment for thousands of workers.
“So‚ instead of just one city‚ what about Australia?” Mr Isherwood urged.
“We need‚ today‚ to immediately embark on the greatest public infrastructure development program in our history‚ to save Australia from collapsing into an economic depression worse than the 1930s.”
Mr Isherwood said‚ that it is not simply sufficient to build state-orientated Ring-Roads‚ or rail systems (whilst necessary) around existing cities and within State borders. Today we need the economic impact of large-scale‚ cross-state-border nation building projects.
The CEC has proposed a series of large scale projects that can open Australia up to real economic development‚ but using infrastructure to solve the “tyranny of distance” problems associated with producing goods and getting them to market. One such proposal‚ is to build the high-speed Australian Ring Railway of Professor Lance Endersbee. This Melbourne to Darwin line (and then down to Perth) could transport fresh goods from the southern states to the northern port of Darwin within 24 hours.
Connecting with Australian-made high-speed shipping‚ we could get goods to the massive Asian ports of Singapore and Jakarta within three days.
Combine this with urgently needed water infrastructure and nuclear power‚ then new cities can be developed in the previously unpopulated areas of Australia. Who knows‚ we might even get the 40 million people that Dr Bradfield proposed we need as a population?
This rail system would do for Australia‚ what the Continental Railway system did for the United States in the 1870s. It would open up vast tracts of country for new industry and agriculture.
Mr Isherwood said‚ “As I have said before‚ globalisation has left our economy completely vulnerable to the accelerating collapse of China‚ and we’ll only survive if we reindustrialise around agriculture and manufacturing‚ and the best way to do that is by building infrastructure.
“The fraud of Public Private Partnerships is being shown up by the global financial disintegration‚ so all infrastructure should be publicly-funded by government credit‚ amortised over 25-50 years‚ with the finance sourced from a new Government-owned national bank‚ a ‘people’s bank’ like the old Commonwealth Bank when it was publicly owned.
“Now is not the time for Rudd and Swan’s banker bailouts or ridiculous Keynesian pump-priming—now is the time for nation-building‚” he said.
“Has Rudd got the guts to do this?”
For a free copy of the CEC’s special edition New Citizen‚ “The Infrastructure Road to Recovery‚” click here.
To purchase a copy of the book What Australia Must Do to Survive the Depression‚ click here.
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