General

Every now and then the mask slips and we see the true face of the corporate dictatorship that Every now and then the mask slips and we see the true face of the corporate dictatorship that pretends to be democratic Australia.to be democratic Australia.

Which bank? Umm, the whole lot of them, actually. But let’s start with “the bank”, the Commonwealth Bank, because its profit report came out last week.

Remember the “wealth effect”? Rapidly rising housing and share prices made people feel wealthy and so they borrowed big-time and became big-time spenders, and this supposedly makes for an endless economic boom. Just about every capitalist economist was singing from that cheery song sheet — until recently.

When federal environment minister Peter Garrett paid a visit to a Sydney public primary school last term he discovered that the school had installed enough solar panels to supply three-quarters of its electricity needs.

We could see this disappointment coming a mile off. First, Professor Ross Garnaut’s report tells us the global warming problem is dire and demands immediate response, but then, he comes to the diabolical conclusion that we should leave the solution to a dodgy market mechanism: carbon pollution permit trading. Now, the Rudd Labor government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper on this all-important challenge offers to hand the biggest carbon polluting companies free permits to pollute.