Greed is great
“Try as I might, I cannot pinpoint the exact moment or instance, when the world’s conservative parties shifted from extolling tradition and practising good manners, to embracing corruption and malfeasance.”
Henry Johnston AIMN 13 Feb 2020
The rape of the world’s financial system was cleverly shielded under the very attractive banner of, “wealth creation,”
It’s more complicated than that, but there is a timeline that accurately reflects how this mess was created.


The end of democracy in Australia
In Australia, the rot began with the Conservatives plotting the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975
It spelt the end of democracy in Australia although it wasn’t considered so at the time.
It took a few more years to engineer the right conditions and the right man.
Two years earlier, US President Richard Nixon, took the US off the Gold Standard, freeing up the dollar and increasing its value against foreign currencies. It was effectively a coup by the corporate sector in the US over its government, ending their democracy with the stroke of a pen.
The coup in the US was barely recognised by anyone at the time and importantly, gave the Corporate sector valuable time to plan and position themselves during the Ford/Carter administrations to find the right conditions, the right man, to enter the White House. They found him in Ronald Regan.
With Regan appearing to be at the helm, those who were dangling the puppet strings manipulated every corner of the financial services industry, preparing the evolution of a “trickle-up” system that saw a small handful of very wealthy people become mega-rich and incredibly powerful.
But that was just the beginning.
They became so rich and powerful, they were able to control what the government did and didn’t do. They then looked for the right people to spread their ideology across the globe. In Great Britain, they found Margaret Thatcher, in Europe they found people like Germany’s Helmut Khol and France’s Gisgard d’Estaing who embraced this new world order without question.
This rape of the world’s financial system was cleverly shielded under the very attractive banner of, “wealth creation,” a term which resonated well with middle-class America. It ensured its continuation regardless of who was subsequently elected in the US and across most western governments.
In Australia it began, oddly enough, with the election of the Hawke Labor government in 1983. They stayed in power for thirteen years aided by a cosy relationship with the US administration, US corporations and the subsequent support of the captains of industry here.
Hawke and Keating deregulated the financial markets, something the compliant media still tell us was a good thing. Slowly but surely, the one stumbling block that stood in the way of the trickle-up economy, i.e. the trade union movement, was minimised either through government legislation or partnerships; somewhat ironic since the architect of the reforms was its former boss.
Then came the Howard era, with a conservative outlook so far to the right that they redefined the definition of wealth creation and opened the floodgates for the financial industry to exploit a cashed-up, ignorant public, even further.
From the beginning of the Hawke/Keating era through the Howard years to today, many middle-class entrepreneurs have gained great wealth, thanks to greedy bankers, insurance executives and super fund managers, all too ready to put risk ahead of sound management and enjoy the spoils.