future economy 2005-6-7-8-9

Australia is facing an economic crisis, greater than the 1930s depression. This is a certainty, because the entire world economy is heading toward a crash.The United States, the world's biggest economy, is bankrupt. After four years of the dumbest president in history, and facing four more, it has built up "twin towers" deficits, in the annual federal government budget, and its current account, which has a deficit of more than 6 per cent of GDP.These deficits are driving the collapse of the US dollar, the world's reserve currency, which in turn threatens to bankrupt the entire world. China, Japan and Russia hold hundreds of billions of US dollars and US treasury bonds, and are in a catch-22: they hold their dollars, and lose their savings, or they sell them and buy euros, which will collapse the dollar, and the world economy.Conservative US economist C. Fred Bergsten told the Davos World Economic Forum that the twin towers deficits require the US to draw in $5 billion from around the world per day, to stay afloat. One active proposal to generate this income is unilateral free trade agreements, wherein America convinces nations to open their economies to more US exports; Australia has been the most enthusiastic participant so far. Bush also plans to steal $2.5 trillion from America's public pension fund, Social Security, to shovel into Wall Street.However, these measures are doomed to fail, because this crisis is systemic—the entire IMF/globalisation system is bankrupt. Take Australia as an example: after 20 years of globalisation and economic rationalism beginning with Hawke and Keating, our $800 billion economy has a $400 billion foreign debt, and a 6.5 per cent current account deficit, greater than the US. This reality explains why our supposedly wealthy economy, can't afford adequate public healthcare, decent education, proper roads and railways, reliable electricity and adequate water.