It is Friday and in Newcastle today it feels like Winter is back although I am aware that complaining about 19 degrees centigrade is somewhat disingenuous to the Northern Hemisphere and temperate region dwellers. But still we complain – more than one person today has said “isn’t it freezing”. So I have been bunkered down reading a lot. Which isn’t that much different to any other day real – hail, rain or shine. The European laboratory is dominating the daily news though and providing us with scripts that no professional playwright could conceive. This week we have seen the European Commission release its latest gee-whiz (you-beaut) plan to save Europe from itself and like all the previous announcements lots of speeches and photos were taken but the substance is missing. The only development that these plans seem to be leading to is a suppression of national democracy. That is my assessment of the EC’s latest proposal. From an economic perspective it maintains the rule – austerity begets austerity.

I am sitting typing this at the airport and the TV news screen in front of me is providing a profile of the new Italian Prime Minister and claiming he is well-equipped to rescue Italy. I read a similar argument in a Bloomberg Editorial this morning (November 16, 2011) – Technocrats Step In Where Political Leaders Fear to Tread. The rise of the economic technocrats is being hailed as a model to avoid complicating factors like worrying what the voters might think or want or do. We know best so shut up and take the medicine. There are two problems with this. First, it is undemocratic. Second, even if you are not worried about that, the technology these technocrats bring to bear is the same box of tricks that created the problem in the first place. Somehow they think if they just scorch these economies into submission, the market will finally start working again. Quite apart from their flawed technology, the reality is that the private sector will not be in a position for some years to drive growth strongly again on the back of a credit binge. Public deficits will have to persist. The very anathema of these economic technocrats. That is now emerging as the problem, quite apart from whether you think the people should get a say in who they elect.

At Melbourne airport last night the Qantas jets looked resplendent with their red flying kangaroo and the “Spirit of Australia” logos. I chuckled to myself about the sheer audacity of an airline that continues to promote itself as if it is our “national carrier” yet is systematically trying to undermine aspects of our culture that we value highly. It is dangerous territory to try to define a national identity. But in Australia we continually emphasise fairness as a hallmark of our national aspiration. Yet, reality is often different to our romantic perceptions and imagery. This blog is an extended version of an Op Ed I wrote for the Fairfax media today on the Qantas dispute, which has gained some attention abroad and been the topic of choice in Australia over the last week. The reality is that the gung-ho union-hating management of the airline are now engaged in a death battle with the union movement and aim to destroy working conditions once and for all and turn the airline into a cheap, low quality outfit principally flying out of Asia while still trading on the fact that we consider it to be (as a historical artifact) an Australian icon. The only way forward for Qantas is for the Australian government to nationalise it and get it flying in the national interest.

The only question I have been toying with today apart from all the other ones is whether it was the big bazooka or not. The Melbourne Age article (October 28, 2011) – Euro summit fires ‘bazooka’ at debt monster – lead me to believe that the big one had come out, but then the Financial Times article (October 28, 2011) – Merkel’s mantra works without ‘big bazooka’ – suggested the bazooka was left in the rack. Perhaps the bazooka was brought into action but the big bazooka was left at home. That conclusion would reconcile things nicely. It is very confusing though isn’t it. About as confusing as trying to work out what the EMU leaders might define as leadership. The way I understand it the only bazooka that the EMU has at their disposal refused to play ball and stayed at home in Frankfurt. The result – no matter what the political spin is and no matter how much the governments pledge to put into the EFSF or claim they can get from the Chinese the situation remains – they are recursing back to insolvency. None of the member governments can ultimately stump up the euros when Italy, then France or any other member state requires bailing out. In the end, they will be picked off one by one. I guess they did bring out some sort of bazooka – but just aimed it at themselves.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement grows and is spreading to other cities in the US and other cities around the World, my profession is “feverishly” trying to discover the “financial sector” to plug into their New Keynesian models. The global financial crisis caught them out badly. Now they are fixing that “deficiency” up and we will all be better informed again once the boffins do their work. That is what the Bank of International Settlements is trying to tell us anyway. As usual, the BIS is part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. The OWS movement is a recognition of that and anything the mainstream macroeconomists dish up will only inflame the resistance further. It is becoming clear that more people daily are saying “we will not pay for your crisis”.

Its hard to know where to start today. I opened my hard copy version of the Financial Times this morning and every page was “Greek yields off the scale”; “Greece default talk”; “Number of Americans in poverty at highest in 50 years”; “Rome set to identify next asset sales”; Fears of Greek collapse prey on French banking”; “Brics to debate possible eurozone aid”; and so it went. You couldn’t make this stuff up. To avoid sinking into an inconsolable depression, I closed the orange pages and, maybe foolishly, turned my attention to the Wall Street Journal. That came up with gems such as “Limiting the Damage of a Greek Default”; “Exit Strategy Goes Right Out the Door for Euro-Zone States”; “Yields in Italian Bond Auction Highlight Financing Challenge”; “China Not Seen as Knight Riding to Rescue of Italy”; at which point I wondered – given my current geographic location – what happens if I get stuck here? And then, to ease the day’s burden I wondered why the WSJ spells the Eurozone with a hyphen. That seemed to calm things down. Researching the use and mis-use of hyphens splitting words in two. But the thought kept lingering – this is so bizarre that you couldn’t make all this stuff up.