Terry McCrann says Barnaby Joyce is less worrying than his critics: BARNABY said some silly things last week. Much sillier were the things said by those who jumped on him. Especially the Canberra Press Gallery collective, the government and former ANZ economist Saul Eslake. Barnaby - no surname needed, and that’s partly why he sparked such a visceral reaction; he’s hated for being effective - said essentially three things. The US and Queensland could default on their debts - an interesting pairing - and we should ban Chinese government investment. All could have been better put. But which is sillier? What Barnaby said or Eslake lecturing him pompously as only Eslake can, that of course the US couldn’t default as its debts are in US dollars: it could just print more? Technically Eslake is right: that’s not a default. But is he seriously suggesting that we should take comfort in the ‘non-default’ of the US printing trillions of dollars of paper money, Germany-1920s style? Oh, that’s all right then. Then we had Radio National’s Fran Kelly adding her two-bobs worth; instructing Barnaby that how could the US possibly be at risk when it was triple-A rated. Seemingly blithely unaware of all the securities rated triple-A that blew up and gave us the global financial meltdown. The substantive point Barnaby was making about Queensland was that it was sliding into a debt hole; and Kelly take note, has already been downgraded by the ratings agencies she seems to think are infallible. |
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