Greg's View of Todays News - 03/06/2009

• Keating identifies the elephant in the room

  Mr Keating said governments in the US, Britain and Australia had been right in implementing budget stimulus packages, even if they had erred on the side of doing too much.
  
  He told the forum, organised by the British high commission and international policy think tank the Lowy Institute, that countries that ran large external deficits-- such as Australia, Britain and the US - needed to save more.
  
  The recycling of Chinese savings into the US financial system had been the driving cause of the crisis, he said.

  • The US and Europe would need to cede political power to emerging powers such as China.
    

    "The room for the big confidence effects I think will come when people see that the world is going to be run differently," Mr Keating said.

    • ... and there is the 'elephant in the room'. Now that it has been identified, the rest of us have to come to terms with the fact that traditional market forces will not be allowed to find a solution to the crisis. Bring on the new world order! - post by gnaylor

• Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will try to get back millions in government aid to Pacific Brands

  THE federal government will try to retrieve taxpayers' money given to Pacific Brands in view of the company's decision to slash 1850 jobs, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.

  • "I think what Pacific Brands has done is, frankly, in so many respects, beyond the pale,'' Mr Rudd said on Fairfax Radio Network.
    

    "In terms of the money they have got from the government, we will go through all of that in terms of what can be extracted back from them.''

    • The government should extract every last cent of taxpayer funding they can get - even to the extent of sending the company broke. Their survival is of no concern to the public. After all, if we continue to buy their products, it will be Chinese jobs that we are supporting - post by gnaylor
    
    
  • The collapse of Pacific Brands' share price in the past year could cost CEO Sue Morphet close to $1 million in payments.
    • ... and that would be a just reward for the CEO un-Australian approach to corporate greed. - post by gnaylor

• Printing money: £150 billion leap in the dark for Bank of England

  It pledged for the first time in its 315-year history to start effectively printing money as its main means of controlling the economy, warning that this was the only way to prevent the UK from suffering a lengthy recession and potentially becoming mired in deflation.
  
  The decision to create more cash, announced by Bank Governor Mervyn King and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling yesterday, is regarded as a last gasp measure for the authorities to prevent Britain from sliding into a 1930s-style depression.

  • 
    • How on earth can Gordon Brown simply print money to 'protect' the British economy and, at the same time, warn the United States againstt 'protectionism'?
      
      What hope is there when our leaders haven't got a clue? - post by gnaylor

• World Leaders are larger than life

  Barack Obama was wearing a stylish bulletproof suit when he took oath as the 44th President of the United States. Miguel Caballero, the famed Bulletproof Tailor of Bogota and the only company in the world to make them, has for years been designing high-end armoured fashion ware for the world's elite

  • It seems our world leaders are actually larger than life - with their bullet proof vests. Leaders like Mugabe and the President of Dafur appear to be stocky men - now it seems they are probably, and with good cause, wearing body armour - post by gnaylor
  • With a clientele that includes several world leaders and the wealthy elite, a company located in the kidnapping capital of the world is expected to take no chances.
    • It seems our world leaders are actually larger than life - with their bullet proof vests. Leaders like Mugabe and the war criminal President of Sudan appear to be stocky men - now it seems they are probably, and with good cause, wearing body armour - post by gnaylor