Welcome to the New America, Australia

Australians seem to have a healthy sense of skepticism about the economy. Although they have not been greatly affected by the global financial crisis, the Australian financial news is filled with worry about what might happen the Australian economy based on reports of what's happening in America and Europe.

As we know, the global financial meltdown was the result of crimes committed by greedy, ultra-wealthy Americans in search of more money. Conclusively demonstrating that the American federal government is utterly corrupt, its response to these crimes was to bail out the institutions who profited from them rather than to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. The result has been utter disgust from the American people, a further loss of confidence in our governmental institutions and leaders, and people protesting in the streets of every major US city for months.

And now the Australian people are unfortunately getting a taste of what it's like to live in the New America, as the one-percenter thieves have finally arrived on these shores.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Australians are quite proud of their car-maker, Holden. But Holden was bought years ago by the poster child of corporate welfare, General Motors. GM made inferior cars and trucks for years and was just about to be driven (pardon the pun) from the car-making business by the market forces worshipped by the big capitalists running the US government. But Uncle Sam came to the rescue, just in the nick of time,  and GM now seems to be "back on its feet" after accepting hundreds of million dollars of US taxpayer money to continue its operations.

Amazingly, living off the dole hasn't caused GM to "go all socialist." In the true spirit of US crony capitalism/government, where profits are privatized and losses are socialized, GM is now blackmailing Australia by threatening to take its Holden manufacturing operations "offshore" (read: somewhere in SE Asia, where they can avoid paying a living wage and abiding by environmental regulations) unless Australia gives it some spending money.

Recognizing that automobile manufacturing is "crucial to the health" of a modern industrial economy, the Australian federal and South Australian state (where the GM-Holden plant is located) governments will pay GM about $200 million to keep Holden manufacturing in Australia. The news reports do not say how much time this bribe will buy Holden, but my advice would be to get that term in writing.

Welcome to the New America, Australia. It sucks, unless you're in the 1%.