The Currency Lad

Urbi Et Orbi

Hello! So, ahem, a few days off led to several of indifference, leading to a month of blog holidaying and onto a couple more of undeclared retirement. From whence I drop in to say that, yes, TCL has called it a day. There is no particular reason for this; the blog simply takes up too much time, to the exclusion of other interests (I have no desire to be online more or less permanently). Blogging for me has always been an on again/off again sort of love. In the Olden Days - going back to 2004 - a lot of blogs like this one (Professor Bunyip's, Gnu Hunter's, Al Bundy's, Cuckoo's) were only updated sporadically but the craft has become more disciplined and daily since then. Not being a full-time newsman, I have no profound desire to become an obsessively eager amateur. Often I feel the desire to post an essay or a gag so I might resurrect the site during next year's election season. But for now - all sentimental nonsense aside - thanks for dropping by and I'll see you in comments at Blair's or Paco's or Saint's or Soon's. Adios!

The Dear Deputy Starts Her Own Personality Cult

Here is the real motivation for all the "national emergency" spending.

The Most Joyous National Moment Since VP Day

Free ceiling insulation now available, says Kevin Rudd.

Minister: Accountability As Traumatic As Rape

A CROOKED, jaded and scandal-plagued government: the Queensland Health Minister - that's now almost an oxymoron - claimed yesterday that he is entitled to an apology just as much as a 27 year-old nurse whose supervisor told her to go back to work after she was raped and subjected to an horrific ordeal on the Torres Strait island of Mabuiag. Stephen Robertson (of the left) has been chiefly concerned to protect his own political hide over this from the start. There is no doubt that health authorities did act with gross incompetence both prior to the violation - a 2006 Queensland Health report said the security risks on Mabuiag were "extreme" and future breaches "almost certain" - and after it. The report existed for 13 months before Mr Robertson tabled it in Parliament - two months after the assault. Because an inquiry has now acknowledged shameful failures, Mr Robertson - the responsible minister since 2005 - cold-heartedly claims to have been vindicated. Anna Bligh's "heart goes out" to the victim but that new report on the affair will not be going anywhere. The Premier is keeping it secret. It contains "sensitive information." Yes, I bet. Galaxy: 50-50.

Mutually Assured Dereliction

DEFENCE strategy, purchases and, more recently, remuneration are never easy matters for the Australian polity to formulate and resolve. A huge country with a remarkably small population, we belong to the Anglophone democratic family of nations but we're so distant from its historical centres that the competition between familial comradeship and regional realpolitik has grown more and more exasperating since 1945. Couple that conundrum with the relatively modest treasury at their disposal and successive governments can hardly be blamed for developing a robust but minimalist approach to foreign deployments. Still, the danger to reputation of wiliness morphing into opportunism is real. Retired general, Jim Molan, advised last week that in tandem with the Obama Administration's decision to escalate in Afghanistan, Australia should now do likewise. The Molan proposal was swamped by the splash created by news of a $25 billion programme to replace the Collins class submarine. That dwarfs even the nominal $16 billion price of 100 Joint Strike Fighters. What a time for a Senate committee to be told Australia has a major shortage of submariners.

On Afghanistan, though, the problem isn't a cart-before-horse story of the recruitment and procurement kind. The problem is the amount of horsepower being allotted to the conveyance. Molan's view presaged the meeting of NATO defence ministers in Poland last week at which, predictably, the assembled fainéants refused to contribute to the new American surge. As part of an old script, the Rudd government made increased involvement hinge on NATO and it differentiated itself from listless Europe by reporting that no American request for a unilateral ADF surge had been received. The Menzies government invited itself to Vietnam. Why, then, for this Good War have the Howard and Rudd governments buffered themselves from a US entreaty with the shield of European apathy? Why, in fact, does a nation with security council dreams have to be asked? A Rumsfeldian might call that approach Old Australia. For the War On Carbon, it's our official policy to "encourage other countries" with a decisive go-it-alone resolve because "we can't expect other countries to play their part unless we play our part." It's time, perhaps, to apply that idea to an arena that matters.

Mate: His Bungling Should Be A State Secret

ONE of the most lame defences ever attempted in the Parliament: "It would have been a much more responsible act for Senator Johnston to come into my office and say, 'mate, I think we have a problem with our Special Forces soldiers and mate, you and I both know we do not want this to become a public issue'." So argued Joel Fitzgibbon today while explaining how democracy and his own reputation would have been better served if the truth about the SAS pay scandal had never come to light. If only Rex Connor had thought of that in the midst of the Khemlani Affair. While the nation's elite soldiers - and now, it has been revealed, fighter pilots - while these men have been risking their lives in war zones and having their pay docked, the Rudd government has allocated or spent $26.8 million on flatulent cattle and $1 million on "happiness workshops" for elite public servants. There have been calls for the Defence Minister to go and they are reasonable.

On Barack Obama: Maybe Andrew Bolt Is Right

About this. Archbishop Chaput will be pleased. I don't blame him.

Confirmed: Botox User Bligh's Straight Faced Lie

There was no business and investment argument for an early poll.

Cartoonist Nicholson explains what the timing was actually all about.

GFC Latest: Rudd Set To Battle Global Fart Crisis

Our grandchildren will laugh at us as we laugh at the flat earthers.

Methane-emitting cows and sheep are the target of a new research project to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. Livestock are the third largest source of carbon emissions in Australia, with a beef cow grazing in northern Australia believed to produce 1500 kilograms of carbon per year.

Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has unveiled a $26.8 million program in support of 18 projects over four years as part of Labor's climate change research program.

"Some of this goes to breeding options, some of it goes to better feed options, some of it goes to dealing with the bacteria in the stomach of the animal to try to reduce the amount of methane that then comes out of the mouth," Mr Burke said on ABC television.

He conceded the farming sector would need to bear increased transport and fertiliser costs, but said the alternative would cost Australia far more.

"There is no cost-free method of dealing with this."

Tony Burke and the Federal government proudly want to make it a lot more expensive for Australians to feed themselves and their families because they're desperately worried about rude, gassy farm animals. And they really believe that spending $26.8 million on this 'problem' will change the temperature of the planet. A better use of the money would be to fund a psychological research study whose objectives are the diagnosis and treatment of deluded warmenists.

Fitzgerald: Christians Taking Over Or Something

Rant city: Costello's hopes should have burned out after sermon.

Bonus: His Supporters Don't Make Bomb Threats

New Yorker Of The Week: Priest Uses Doodles To Feed The Hungry.

Introducing The New Liberal Lefebvrites

AS I've had occasion to say here several times recently, the spitefully nasty attacks on Pope Benedict XVI are not actuated by what - to the eye of a disinterested observer - they appear to be actuated by. There is no tremendous concern amongst the world's Catholics about the re- admission to the sacraments of four bishops of the Society of St Pius X. This has been an ongoing project of reconciliation whose necessity and value are widely appreciated. That one of the bishops has oddball views is lamentable but no person who isn't motivated by ignorance or malice attributes those views to the Church generally - any more than I attribute to all Jews responsibility for the increasingly hateful behaviour of some of them. No, the onslaught on Benedict is actually motivated by a papal campaign to re-orient Catholicism with its own theological and liturgical roots - over against the crumbling idea that Catholic modernity and antiquity are and should remain ruptured. A concerned Ray Blake explains what's going on this way:

What is going on, I think, is a radical rethinking of what Christianity actually is. The "soft" notionalist Christianity of the post V2 period is really dissolving into the "niceness" of contemporary secularism. This is all too obvious in Anglicanism, for example, which to an outsider, and many insiders, seems to have lost not only its moral compass, but more importantly its theological compass.

The only reasonable way forward is for a clear definition of what Christianity is. This is what is happening. The successor of Peter, alone, in a world where there appear to be so many "truths" so many "moral possibilities", gives us this.

One of the most current examples in the Catholic world of Christianity transmogrifying into the mere "niceness" of contemporary secularism is Brisbane sect leader Peter Kennedy's defiance of his archbishop and his invention of a strange new religion of tambourines and boastfully trumpeted welfarism. Kennedy no longer subscribes to the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, the authority of the apostolic successors or the true nature of the Mass. He refuses mediation and says that, if necessary, he will leave and take his flock with him. Not Christ's flock - his. Kennedy, then, is a Benedict-era Lefebvrite - a bolter who won't accept a Church that does not conform to his personal tastes.

Unlike the old Lefebvrites, Kennedy is astute at media manipulation. He depicts himself as a martyr - persecuted for helping the poor - and denounces "Rome" and the pacific Archbishop Bathersby as "bullies." His demented admirers, meanwhile, threaten violence and death. The aggressive mendacity is echoed on the other side of the globe by The Tablet - the old-fashioned Catholic left's periodical of choice. What did it do when it found a priest faithfully bringing to life Pope Benedict's restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass by offering it with the newer rite from week to week? Viciously attacked him, of course. This is how the New Lefebvrites roll. Like so many leftist movements, they always do so while pretending to love and represent The People.

Economics 101

VERY effective questioning of Wayne Swan in the House today by Joe Hockey. He is definitely off to a good start. The new shadow treasurer cited a detailed inventory of dubious employment creation promises made over the past three months which, added together, now amount to 330,000 jobs. Mr Hockey wants to know why there is no evidence this impressive goal is being met. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd played the card of arguing that Opposition members were asking such tough questions because they were callous opportunists. Mr Swan - the man who adroitly established wiggle room on jobs creation by re-badging it jobs "support" - described the alleged employment effects of pump- priming as "economics 101" and as "important." He didn't and couldn't provide any evidence that the government's stimulus measures have or ever will create 330,000 jobs. This, then, is the essence of Keynes - politically advantageous but unfalsifiable mysticism.

Mr Springborg Versus The GFC Boogie Monster

FORESEEN by almost everyone, Premier Anna Bligh lied to the people of Queensland yesterday by calling an early poll. "No, absolutely not," Ms Bligh said in October. That was before the Prime Minister decided to give a $900 handout to Australians - from which she now hopes to extract a significant benefit - and before she had to acknowledge that capricious spending had driven the budget into a sizeable deficit and squandered the State's hitherto sturdy AAA credit rating. Fearing bad publicity from continuing fiscal deterioration and the blowback from increased taxes and charges, Ms Bligh decided to go while she thinks the going is relatively good. Predictably, she is selling the manoeuvre as a Churchillian strategy to Fight The Financial Crisis - a crisis whose potential consequences were clear to everyone when she "absolutely" forswore a Paddo surprise last year. She is more or less admitting she was economically clueless in October but, mercifully, has now caught up with reality. If you believe the Premier's excuses for grubby self- aggrandisement, there's another story I'd like to sell you.

A politician lying isn't exactly news. But the fate of Alan Carpenter proved there is no guarantee that voters will just ignore arch-cynicism combined with an already years-long record of media manipulation and official incompetence. Getting ahead of unemployment, the budgetary decline the Premier herself caused and a looming Japanese recession might conceivably be too smart by half. And while conventional wisdom suggests that Ms Bligh's trick will pay off under the Devil You Know rule, Lawrence Springborg could benefit from something other than LNP chaos being hyped as the real threat to prosperity. If he runs a disciplined campaign, that is.

That would be ironic and befitting: a budget-destroying Premier - who now cites the State's economic instability as the paramount reason for returning her - gets a beating because the massive international crisis she keeps raving about makes voters forget the diehard meme of LNP unreadiness. With bitter inter-coalition feuding now largely a thing of the past (albeit the recent past) and a government strongly associated in the public's mind with more than a few medical and infrastructural scandals, the new Mr Springborg is no longer so easy to caricature as titular head of a comparatively disorganised rabble. One of his initial themes - the now umbrella-conscious government's failure to prepare for a rainy day - is solid. Even the Opposition Leader's oft-mentioned lack of charisma might not be the big disadvantage it was in previous years. True, Peter Beattie and Ms Bligh have both made an art form of PR and scripted charm offensives - Labor's la-de-da nickname for the Premier is simply Anna - but flashiness in Queensland politics is fairly new and dourness not quite passé. Especially not when the shameless Weakener-in-Chief says we must Keep Queensland Strong.

Hair Follicle Revival Experience Was The Clincher

Obama Taps Biden to Oversee Stimulus Package Implementation.

Governor-General Decrees: Keynesianism is Bunk

Her Majesty's neo-liberal: Bryce puts a halt on big spending projects.

Hewson: A Masculine Legend In His Own Mind

SO failed Liberal leader, John Hewson, the he-man who had the balls to walk out on his wife and children on Christmas Eve in 1985 - thinks Peter Costello is a failure who should give Point Piper Labor identity, Malcolm Turnbull, an unimpeded shot at defeat in 2010. Nothing new there. He has been preoccupied with Mr Costello's testicles since last August. Nor should we be surprised that the professor of economics who mispronounces those Rs and Ws is still ranking himself before all others. In the 15 years following his loss of the Unloseable Election in 1993, Dr Hewson has dined out on Fightback! like it was a mastercard of greatness. Sure he lost to Paul Keating - at that time, as popular as Robert Mugabe - and sure his weighty economic plan disintegrated in seconds when he couldn't explain to frequently drunk journalist Mike Willesee how it applied to a store-bought Birthday Cake. And sure, his reputation as a seer took a hit after he famously insisted of Bob Carr - in his usual homo-erotic terms - that voters would be "suspicious of a bloke that doesn't drive, doesn't like kids... when he's up against a full- blooded Australian like John Fahey he hasn't got a hope."

Sure. But now we're supposed to regard it as important that this bitter manliness aficionado - this meticulous book-keeper who left no test in politics un-lost - is mocking somebody who dominated Parliament as he never could and successfully managed the nation's economy as he never did. Sorry, no. And how seriously should we take the emphases pushed by an economics press that totally ignores Wayne Swan being backed into a huge Birthday Cake of his own while presenting this as a newsworthy "stumble"? Now it's possible Dr Hewson may have been a good Treasurer at State level where communications and conceptual clarity aren't so important. In the Federal sphere, like Julie Bishop, he was a stunned-looking robot who came across as a graduate student expatiating on a cherished footnote in his latest thesis (he wrote four of those). He was applauded by commentators - when he was safely John McCainised - for tabling a policy agenda. Fine. But John. Enough is enough. Mr Costello - or, rather, the situation he's now in - may be exasperating to the impatient but, whatever the outcome, he'll loom large in Australian political history. You, John, not so much.

Secure Treasurer Hits Out At Retired Backbencher

Costello is not as good as he thinks he is: Swan. Someone's got issues.

Not The Time For Mumbo Jumbo

I'M sure Andrew Bolt didn't actually want to criticise today's bushfire memorial service but as I observed two weeks ago, the field of politics cannot be left open to ratbag manipulators by the sensible under the auspices of etiquette or national unity. In some situations, to do so is to allow a travesty to become an entrenched norm by default. Today's racist "welcome to country" pieties and other semi-liturgical customs like the "smoking ceremony" were totally inappropriate. Bolt:

Actually, I think those who mourn the dead of places like Kinglake and Marysville consider that their relatives and friends died in land that was also theirs - and will be buried in land that was also theirs, too. They need no one to welcome them to the land where they lived and died.

Quite. I'd go further and argue that the increasingly official imposition of such politically correct religiosity is contrary to the spirit (at least) of Section 116 of the Constitution. It's not simply ad hoc anymore but a new protocol requirement for all State occasions. And turning from functions to functionaries, ABC lifer Quentin Dempster claims to know the bushfires were caused by "climate change" and he says the 13,000 professional firefighters of Australia and the Climate Institute have "concluded views" on that. No need, then, for a Royal Commission. We should just rely on Mr Dempster and the opinion of the Labor-linked cabal that runs the firefighters union - who, by the way, are no more educated to analyse meteorological phenomena than divinity school dropout Al Gore or dinosaur pooh specialist Tim Flannery.

DVD Reviews By A Blogger Bored With The News

Flawless

IF you're anything like me (!), it's filmic action, fast-paced adventure, exotic locations and a cracking good yarn that genuinely, mindlessly, entertain. I don't want to think at the cinema or be "challenged" and I don't really believe a movie should necessarily revolutionise the way I see anything. I love the glossy travel brochure with dialogue that is the Bond franchise, the fantastic triumphalism of the Bourne Trilogy, the vicarious 'yeah, damn straight' morality of the Eastwood canon, the elegance of 1940s film noir and the enjoyment of watching certain actors perform - Pacino, Burton, De Niro, Hackman, Bergman, Bogart, Mitchum, Boyer, Monroe... you know the ones: their big names alone give any film the benefit of the doubt. Now for me, Michael Caine and Demi Moore are not members of that pantheon. I am fond of Caine - lovely, witty man - but, as he humbly concedes, acting for him is a job and he'll casually take a role in a stinker just for the cheque. Moore is probably the most impressive of the original Brat Packers - apologies, Judd groupies - but I won't get down on one knee at the DVD store to search for one of her deservedly unappreciated classics.

And yet I loved Flawless, the Caine-Moore caper which premiered in Germany in 2007 and was given a limited showing in America a year later. That trajectory usually reeks of Steven Seagal but, in this case, I can only assume the classy mature genre has now become unsaleable in the mass market. The film tells the story of Laura Quinn - a middle manager trying to get ahead at the hyper-masculine London Diamond Corporation - and of the LDC's mysteriously well-informed janitor, Mr Hobbs, who - retiring soon - doesn't want to bow out with a pittance. Separated by a prestige divide as stark as the gender imbalance Miss Quinn confronts every day, the unlikely duo form a righteous alliance whose purpose is a seemingly impossible theft. Are riches their only goal and is the odd Mr Hobbs a loveable widower or a sinister freak? Finding out - while the Colonel Blimps of the diamond trade sweat - is a gently-paced, not unexciting delight. The pre-hippie sets and styles are superb. Caine is fabulously Caine. Moore as a 45 year-old playing a 38 year-old - and as a made-up senior citizen looking back - extracts sympathy and admiration even from this non-feminist.

Meet The New Hitler, Same As The Old Hitler

Hope: enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.

Obama To Chinese Rights Activists: Drop Dead

Activists 'shocked' at Clinton stance on China rights. (Via GP).

209

The epacris impressa - floral emblem of Victoria - will feature on the masthead today in memory of the 209 people killed in the bushfires. The exact toll may be higher but its calibration would seem to depend as much on intelligence about missing persons as on the discovery of remains in every case. A national memorial service for the victims is presently underway at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena - at which State and political leaders as well as Princess Anne representing the Queen are in attendance. Premier John Brumby observed that "in these that have been the worst of times, we have seen the very best of human nature." Proverbial but no cliche, this is always the case after natural and other calamities in Australia. That tradition mirrors nature itself as budding regrowth in the midst of a terrible blackness. It also offers the abiding moral lesson of the disaster: there is nothing more natural than that human beings are pre-eminent in nature. Appreciating that is to practice the only ennobling form of environmentalism.

A Growing Problem: Jewish Anti-Catholicism

YOU read that right. The phenomenon has arisen anew partly because of Vatican sympathy for the Palestinians, partly because of hysteria surrounding SSPX 'bishop' Richard Williamson's re-admission to the sacraments, partly because of lingering mythology about Pope Pius XII and partly because of an overarching standoff on the importance of the Jewish people in salvation history. For these reasons there is a distinct animosity towards Catholicism being shown by some Jewish commentators and culture warriors. All of these factors have become pronounced simultaneously in recent months. Last year, prior to the Williamson affair, I mentioned the swastika-emblazoned montage of Pope Benedict XVI that was posted on the website of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima party and this image - with explanatory slime - appearing at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Now a new uproar has started in the Holy Land over a comedic broadcast ridiculing and vilifying Catholics and what they hold dear. Not that an SSPX-related excuse was needed last October but this time around the ubiquitous Williamson was the convenient justification.

Other examples are easy to find. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was founded in 1917 and, like other networks, now has a stable of "blogs". Capital J, run by JTA bureau chief Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut, is one of them. On Thursday, Kampeas wrote this post in which he lies about Richard Williamson being "reinstated," lies about Benedict XVI "hectoring" Nancy Pelosi and mocks the pope (who's generous to anti- semites) for admonishing the top Democrat for her "pro-reproductive rights stance." (A euphemism worthy of Himmler and astonishing in a critique whose ultimate target denies the Holocaust). The day before, Kampeas described Benedict as Williamson's "pal" and suggested the pope shared his (alleged) view that Ms Pelosi's Jewish grandchildren deserved to burn in hell. Note well that the JTA is a very mainstream organisation. Fingerhut, for his part, is a well known Ohio Democrat. Catholics of my generation and inclination will never abandon Israel but we do unashamedly brush off arrogant bigots like Ron Kampeas as hatemongers who are cynically using Judaism as a gold pass to their own fabulous world of consequence-free malevolence.

Yes, By Their Fruits You Will Know Them

THE passage (Matthew 7:16) was quoted by Brisbane sect leader Peter Kennedy during the week in a disquisition whose theme was his own resemblance to Jesus. The fruits of his movement already include the hate mail sent to Archbishop John Bathersby by Kennedy disciples as well as sundry other negligences committed by him personally. Since Kennedy's official dismissal Thursday, he has deliberately stoked the already simmering controversy involving his vainglorious separation of his parish from the Catholic communion. Now more fruits from his bitter harvest have appeared for theological consumption. Police are investigating a bomb threat made against the Archbishop's residence and Fr Ken Howell - the priest tapped to take over St Mary's - has been cautioned by police not to attend his inaugural Masses tomorrow "for his own safety." Fr Howell reports that many people have decided not to attend St Mary's "because they are concerned about their own, and their families' safety." Kennedy refuses to see the connection between his aggressive grandstanding and these latest tragic developments. As for his supporters, they're still well and truly out there.
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In other denialism news, Nancy Pelosi has met Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican where she was reminded of her vocation to defend life in all its stages. During last year's presidential campaign, Ms Pelosi lied about what the Church taught regarding abortion and was chastised - with civility - by the bishops of the United States. That the pope saw his meeting with the Speaker as a solemn teaching opportunity rather than as a conventional diplomatic tête-à-tête was underscored by the brevity of the meeting, the fact that no pictures were released by the Vatican and, most significantly, that the communiqué issued by the Holy See's Press Office only mentioned Benedict having spoken about "the dignity of human life from conception to natural death." Brilliant cherry-picker that she is, Ms Pelosi's statement on the audience made no mention of the key subject but instead recorded that she had taken the opportunity "to praise the Church's leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming..." George Weigel wonders if Benedict and Madame Speaker were at the same meeting. Laura Ingraham says the pope's message was quite simple: the cafeteria is closed.

Premier Bligh Sends The Sunshine State Broke

ANNA Bligh has stunned observers with a $1.6 billion deficit. Ratings agency Standard and Poor's has reacted by stripping Queensland of its AAA credit rating for the first time. The fiscal blowout is a $2.4 billion deterioration from black to red in nine months. Most commentators now believe Ms Bligh will attempt to head off the political damage by heading to Fernberg next week to seek approval for an early election. As with stimuli elsewhere, Treasurer Andrew Fraser's deficit gambling is an attempt to buy electoral salvation by convincing voters that he's Doing Something. Yesterday he kept to the new Keynes 'n Catastrophe script by panhandling for sympathy while admitting the splurge won't work. If you want a taste of how the media will marginalise Lawrence Springborg but cheer war-leader Ms Bligh, note Sean Parnell's advice for brave Dear Premier: "The only thing left to do is to govern through Queensland's darkest hour and make all those agonising decisions to save who you can and comfort those affected, while remaining strong and displaying some hope for the future." I'm teary-eyed.

Statists Lose The Debate But Win The Treasury

MANY electorally terrified governments, crestfallen economists and intellectual refugees from the 1960s have convinced themselves that the world financial crisis and the resultant stimulus mania herald the triumph of "social democracy." They eagerly wanted to Do Something and it was no difficult thing to extrapolate the special circumstances surrounding the advent of TARP in 2008 to the political economy of the world as a whole. All that was needed to pass off this reactionary opportunism as a legitimate 'paradigm shift' - so it was thought - were a few sophomoric treatises about "extreme capitalism" and the "same tired arguments." That may be unnecessarily insulting to sophomores because these analyses are yet to surpass the low-brow intellectuality of the new American President's brattish, narcissistically declarative kindergartenism. (Emulated by failing news magazine, Time). In this country, Kevin Rudd's now notorious essays on Friedrich von Hayek and "neo-liberalism" have been totally destroyed by - amongst others - Sinclair Davidson and, more recently, Gerard Jackson.

Why, though, has the debate about stimulus economics been far more polarising (admirably so if the stimulation of the Republicans is any yardstick) in the United States, where - according to Rasmussen - a majority of respondents have limited faith in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? Leaving aside the ephemeral Clinton-Gingrich chapter of vaguely passable economic modernism, the US Democrats have always been a lot more ideologically comfortable with the sort of paternalistic statism inaugurated by Franklin D. Roosevelt back in the 1930s. Unlike the Labor Party and the British Conservatives, they have never superintended a multifaceted national economic reform agenda in the contemporary, post-Oil Shock period. It shouldn't come as a surprise, therefore, that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats have so enthusiastically embraced what for them is a still living rather than archaeological belief system. Even as the market plunges, the radical totality of their nostalgia - combined with the sheer volume of monies involved - has certainly revivified US economic polemics.

Australian anti-stimulus campaigners are less congruent. Jackson's red meat demolition is a tour de force but imperiously prescinds from popular political discourse - and thus reality - in a way that mirrors Mr Rudd's contempt for the axioms of economics. Tony Abbott and the IPA do not deserve F grades, except for being too restrained on the rehabilitation of Keynes. It isn't the trial of Formosus exactly but allowing Mr Rudd to breathe new life into a discredited cadaver - while calling his foes champions of a dated worldview - should, by now, be an hypocrisy of national renown.

Malcolm Turnbull was exactly right to oppose the government's $42 billion programme to neutralise the risk of losing office after one term but it was a former Treasurer who came up with a saleable description of the Prime Minister's bewildering foray into GFC scholarship. It was, Peter Costello explained, "the biggest U-turn in Australian economic history." How true that is was demonstrated this week when - not for the first time - the Reserve Bank made clear that Australia would cope well with the present turmoil thanks to an era of sound government in which Kevin Rudd, as it happens, played no role whatsoever. It's now plain, moreover, that not even the government believes its so-called stimulus package is key to saving Australia from going into recession. ANZ chief economist, Saul Eslake argued on Wednesday that Mr Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan are only spending money to massage the quarterly figures as part of what he amusedly labels TRAP - technical recession avoidance programme. In other words, Keynesian pump- priming doesn't work but it is good politics and theatre.

The upshot is that Australian "social democrats" have lost the history wars component of GFC discourse because of their sudden, fantastic abandonment of the same Hawke-Keating liberalisation agenda they cherished in the Howard years. In the US, the case for statism has had to rely for intellectual rigour on President Obama's childishly banal I- won-ism. The criticisms have been far more substantive - just as the evidence that social democratism was the most virulent contaminant of US financial prudence is historically irrefutable. So where does that leave Keynes? Where it always does: relying - note the nuance - on the pre-emptively telegraphed post hoc ergo propter hoc ruse. Stimulus bills passed, Mr Swan and Barack Obama have both said the full effects of their fiscal extravagance will not be noticeable for some time. Ken Henry takes handily vague escapism even further by arguing we may never know if it works or not. The economic cycle will turn, however - it always does - and when that happens the new Keynesians will say: 'See. We did something and, afterwards, things got better.'

To The Table With The Same Tired Arguments!

Obama's Housing Bailout Draws Comparisons to McCain's Plan.