The Guardian 30 April, 2008
Editorial
Gimmicks and spin
The Federal government has embarked on a number of economic gimmicks, perhaps to cover up the real pain that is likely to come out of the work of the razor gang in the Budget or to make it look that something is being done about some serious problems.
We’ve had the idea of a "petrol watch" which is supposed to bring down petrol prices. Of course, nothing is being done to control the prices imposed by the major oil companies or to bring down excise duties imposed by the government despite it being awash with money.
Binge drinking is to be controlled by increasing the taxes on alcoholic beverages. That measure may have a limited result but binge drinking is as much a social problem as one of price. It is encouraged by the nonsense that roaming the streets waving a bottle or a can is part of Australia’s culture.
The fact that hotels are open to all hours of the night and that bottle shops are located almost inevitably next to every supermarket is never mentioned. Any restriction on hotel hours would produce a huge scream from the hoteliers who, through liquor sales and poker machines, make huge profits. The hoteliers use part of their profits to buy the votes of politicians whether Labor or Liberal.
Now we have an attack on supermarket pricing used by the chain stores to put small businesses out of business, thereby reducing competition. It remains to be seen whether this policy has any effect at all. Does it mean that supermarket prices should be pushed up to be on a par with the local corner shops which, apart from specialist shops, have all but disappeared from many suburbs already.
This policy is not likely to have any benefit for consumers because it has a primarily political objective of winning small business to support the Labor government. Furthermore it is difficult to see the government really cracking down on Coles, Woolworth, K-mart and other similar big retailers.
All these mostly empty policy statements divert attention from the very real economic storm that is beginning to sweep the capitalist world.
The same goes for the government’s concentration on inflation as the main target. The war on inflation enables the government to assert that workers’ wages are the culprit and that the slash and burn by the razor gang is essential to put the inflation genie back in the bottle.
This is not to underestimate the consequence of inflation. Every time prices go up it takes more money out of the pockets of consumers.
Very little is being said by the government about the debt bubble in Australia that has already had devastating consequences in the US. It has created an extraordinary situation where the big banks and lending institutions are putting up interest rates without waiting for the Reserve Bank to do so. The federal government has not lifted a finger to stop this practice by the banks.
As remarked by Lenin almost 100 years ago, finance capital now predominates over industrial capital which at least produces useful commodities. Finance capital has turned money from being a means of exchange into just another commodity which, in the course of being circulated, can create huge instant profits while producing nothing.
If government spokespersons were to make an analysis of the debt bubble it would expose the corrupt and parasitic nature of today’s capitalist system and the economic crisis which arises from within the belly of capitalism. It would explode the claim that the crisis is one of inflation and is a consequence of workers’ wages and the never ending efforts of workers to maintain their living standards.
Far from a willingness on the part of governments to tell the truth about the current gathering storm they will stop at nothing to shore up the system and rivet it more tightly on the nation.
This was a major aim of the 2020 Summit although this objective is obscured by layers of spin of which Kevin Rudd is a master, far exceeding the skills of any previous Australian prime minister.