Phil's blog

As the convenor of the Australian Greens has just said, "perhaps the only thing more despairing than the science is the current politics of climate change". And it looks like Tim Colebatch in "The Age" agrees, with his article "A Race to the Bottom":

Mike Shedlock (aka Mish) is an investment advisor with a popular blog. Despite his conservative political nature, he was not impressed with the Republican handling of the financial crisis and is now even more upset about the Democrat's response. And rightly so. Obama may be winning friends around the world (and Nobel prizes) with his smooth talking, but he is in charge of a ship that is absolutely shafting U.S. taxpayers and, by extension, the economic future of just about everybody else as well.

In his post, Where The Hell Is The Outrage?, Mish recounts some of the incredibly close connections between the White House administration and the top end of Wall St. Here is how he ends:

Here are a select few photos from a week of back country skiing on the NSW Main Range:

Whites River Hut

A rather sober tale today.. just in case I need to say 'I told you so'. Here are links to a few posts that show where I think the world is at and where we're headed.

First, Steve Keen, an Australian un-conventional economist, is recognised in a research paper for being amongst a select few to anticipate this credit crisis:

July 2009: No One Saw This Coming? Balderdash!

The cornerstone of Steve Keen's argument is built around the above long-term chart. Credit as a proportion of GDP has rarely been stable - periods of credit (debt) expansion have been followed by deflationary 'busts' in the late 1800's and then more famously in the Great Depression. Increasing credit (debt) as a proportion of GDP is inherently unstable - we've simply been blowing one bubble after another for too long now. The problem is that conventional neo-classical economic theory does not recognise the role of private credit in the economy, but private debt has become so significant that it IS the economy.

I've spent the last week trapsing around NSW, starting at the Central West Astronomical Society's 2009 Astrofest in Parkes - home of 'The Dish' (better in HD!):