The Prime Minister of Australia shows us the way, Comrades.

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: Time for a new world order: PM

Phillip Coorey Chief Political Correspondent

January 31, 2009
KEVIN RUDD has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and called for a new era of "social capitalism" in which government intervention and regulation feature heavily.

In an essay to be published next week, the Prime Minister is scathing of the neo-liberals who began refashioning the market system in the 1970s, and ultimately brought about the global financial crisis.

"The time has come, off the back of the current crisis, to proclaim that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed, that the emperor has no clothes," he writes of those who placed their faith in the corrective powers of the market.

"Neo-liberalism and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy. And, ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself."

You had me at "social capitalism", Kevy!
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The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:] Mr Rudd writes in The Monthly that just as Franklin Roosevelt rebuilt US capitalism after the Great Depression, modern-day "social democrats" such as himself and the US President, Barack Obama, must do the same again. But he argues that "minor tweakings of long-established orthodoxies will not do" and advocates a new system that reaches beyond the 70-year-old interventionist principles of John Maynard Keynes.

Yes! Social Democrats! Brilliant new name, Kevy! Simply brilliant! I'm no Communist, friend! I actually happen to be a SOCIAL DEMOCRAT! Brilliant!

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: "A system of open markets, unambiguously regulated by an activist state, and one in which the state intervenes to reduce the greater inequalities that competitive markets will inevitably generate," he writes.

Yes! Oh, activist state -- now we're talkin', Kevy! Now we're talkin'! We need to, er, reduce the greater inequalities through activism because, well, that competition crap always creates inequalities and that is just... just... well, barbaric and we can't have any of that taking place. Feelings could get hurt.

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: He urges "a new contract for the future that eschews the extremism of both the left and right".

Well of course he had to throw that in there. We can't let the peons think we are going full tilt into the extreme left without first telling them that we wouldn't do such a thing. No, we wouldn't dare lurch to the extreme left or right, friends! We're the government, trust us!

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: He mocks neo-liberals "who now find themselves tied in ideological knots in being forced to rely on the state they fundamentally despise to save financial markets from collapse".

Purity is the goal -- not knots. We want ideological purity, Comrades.

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: He advocates tighter regulation and policing of global finances, and identifies the immediate challenge as restoring global growth by 3 per cent of gross domestic product, the amount it is expected to fall in 2009. Next week, as Parliament resumes, his Government will chip in with a second economic stimulus package.

Yes! Yes! Make it tighter! Suffocate productivity! Strangle dissent! Kill competition! Tighter, Kevy! Tighter!

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: Mr Rudd commits to keeping budgets in surplus "over the cycle", meaning deficits should be temporary. In a further sign the Government is not contemplating additional tax cuts, which would deliver a permanent hit to revenue, he stresses that stimulus measures have to be paid for when the economy recovers.

Yes, yes -- only temporary, folks.

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote: Mr Rudd singles out Thatcherism as a culprit, as well as the former Howard government. His essay implicitly attacks the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who this week urged the free market be allowed to dictate commercial property values as he slammed a Government measure to prop them up.

YES! YES! SAY IT, COMRADES! SAY IT LOUD!

THATCHERISM! Thatcherism is to blame! Blame Maggie! Oh, and blame Ronnie, Georgie I and Georgie II, as well! Hell, blame all of them, Kevy! Blame them all!

It's about time comrades. It's time for some old time social democracy. We need a 5 year plan for economic recovery. Denounce the market, the people are just a means to an end, the state shall regulate and equalize outcomes. The political elite er class um cast shall ensure a smooth transition. Leave it to us, no really, we have your best interests at heart. The era of unrestricted & unregulated capitalism is at an end!

It is good to see change being so infectious. It started with The Big O (sound of the jew harp, the conch shell, the hacking asthmatic, the spoons, and everyone MUST bow down!) and we are starting to see the formerly fascist dictators fall just at having He Who Formerly Had No Real Job take the seat of power!

Australia is falling!

Will the People's Republik of Kanada rise up and throw Harper into the frozen depths of Lake Superior?!

Will the progressive German masses who have agonized under the oppressive thumb of Angela Merkel select among them another Gerhard Schroeder?

And Sarkozy...well, he's a FINO...I guess he can stay, but purists like Pupovich will not be satisfied until we have someone who is red through become First Mime among equals!

Scandinavia is mostly ours. I am a little worried about Denmark, though. Their flag is the right color, at least, but something must be done about that mouthy queen of theirs!

And here, in the Amerikan Siberia...we long for the day when we can bridge the Bering Strait--in more ways than one!

I quite literally swooned when I read that--and when I woke up I had to change my underwear. Kevin Rudd is my new hero, my pin-up boy. Why Bruno even had heart palpitations about it and took down his Liza poster to put up one of Kevin.

Of course we must control the free market because it might actually start to work. I mean, all that complexity generated without top-down dirigisme means that bureaucrats and statist planners might be out of work and that won't do. Then they'd have to be pulling your coffees in Starbucks and you know they'd screw that up.

How I long for a totally top-down economy. Say I want to buy a shirt. I go to the store or order one on line. That's too easy.

We need a National Shirt Service, which is regulated, for the Common Good(tm) of course, and when I want a shirt I'll fill out a form as to what color I want--khaki--and what size--extra large--and long or short sleeve--long. Filling out the form is essential even though there is only one shirt available.

Then I have to pay for it with shirt coupons. I will have traded butter coupons with my neighbors for shirt coupons so that I can have enough shirt coupons for my long-sleeved, extra-long khaki shirt, which will arrive just as the only other shirt that I have falls apart.

Vive la Regulation! Vive la dirigisme!

Social Capitalism? Well .... Ok ... Why not! We have "People's Democratic Socialist Republics". The two terms make about as much sense as "Postal Service". Me thinks Kevy has suddenly gotten a burr up his butt!!!! Maybe Lady Sonia fix that for him.

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"Social Capitalism." Well what better than to be defined by an oxymoron?