& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Third World Blues Down Under

Australia is feeling down and out as it goes through the worst recession in decades. Kalinga Seneviratne of EPS reports.

by Kalinga Seneviratne
Australians these days may sometimes feel like citizens of a struggling Third World country Instead of belonging to a resource-rich continent of just 16 million people with an industrialised First World economy.
Their Lucky Country', as Australians call it. Is now suffering through its worst reccs sion in 60 years.
In the last decade, Australia's debt has skyrocketed from US 86.4 billion to US 399.7 billion. The current account deficit In 199 1 reached US 811.3 billion.
Unable to compete with cheap imports, local manufacturers are closing shop and relocating overseas. A record unemployment level of 10 per cent is predicted to go up to 11 per cent this year.
High-flying Australian businesses are trying to pay off their debts by selling their assets to foreigners or flee the country to European tax havens, leaving their creditors high and dry.
Overcome by US and European Community (EC) farm subsidies, the farm sector Is losing up to US 8757 million a year In export Income. Over 1,000 Australian wheat farmers have applied for government aid to walk off their land.
At a high-powered gathering of academics in Melbourne this week, experts soundly thrashed the -economic ra tlonaltst" policies of new Prime Minister Pau) Keating whom many Australians view as the architect of the recession.
As treasurer of the former Bob Hawke government. Keating was instrumental In pushing through the policies - -deregulation of financial mar keta, slashing of industrial protection and rural subsidies — that have been blamed for the high unemployment, low Investment and loss of jobs.
Thundered sociologist Michael Pusey: "Economic ra ttonalism arrogantly assume* that economic*, market* and
money can always deliver better than states, bureaucracies and the law. And so wc must shut down the public sphere and forget all about nation-building, national goals, and public money."
Prominent feminist Eva Cox said economic rationalism had wrecked Australia's social fabric. Melbourne academic Belinda Probcrt called for those right-wing thugs with economic degrees who dominate the opinion columns of
leading newspapers" to be given a rest
Both trade unions and Industry now want the government to suspend Its rationalist beliefs and return to govern ment Intervention In the economy. With an election due within the next 14 months, Keating Is under severe pres sure to do a policy U-turn.
Political economist Terry Flew of the Sydney University of technology argues the big growth In borrowing came after the 1983 deregulation of financial markets when Keating responded to a foreign exchange crisis by removing all controls.
"Most of the takeovers and speculations (in the »tock exchange) that followed was funded by borrowing*,' Flew told UPS. "The taxation system encouraged borrowing by making all interest payments full tax-deductible. Profits, made In speculating on stocks and shares were much higher that Investing in productive actlvl-Ues.”
What worries many economists 1* not so much the foreign debt as the current account deficit — the difference between import* and export*
"We are losing US 811 to US S15 billion a year," economist Phil Riven. “We are running the country at a loss."
The problem, according to Riven, is that Australians haven't been saving enough money of their own.
The problem started a long time ago when we stopped to be a thrifty society, when we sued to save about 13 to 15 per cent of our income," he said. "Now it's only four or five per cent and most of it through su per-annuation."
Despite Australia's First World status, it has not diversified its export economy away from its commodity base, analysts say.
During the last decade and a half, Australia is the only advanced country not to have achieved a large Increase in the value of exports tn knowledge-based industries such as computer and financial services.
According to the Sydney-based economic weekly. The Dulletln, this recession Is different from any that Australia has had before. In other recessions. blue-collar workers lost their jobs and new entrants failed to find any, Casual and part-time workers were laid off and there were no seasonal jobs on offer.
In today's recession, the while-collar workers have been badly hit and even the government servants don't have job security anymore, the paper said.
The trade union movement is organising a series of marches and rallies to protest against public service cuts and to call upon the government to provide protection against unfair competition and introduce Income security and Job creation measures.
The Australian Financial Centre Committee (AFCC), a pro business lobby group, has suggested that Australia be turned Into the financial and corporate headquarter* for the Western Pacific.
— IFB