The Monkey Speaks

Those privileged enough to see the New York Times' Head Performing Monkey, Tom Friedman, on Lateline the other day were in for a treat. Beginning the interview with his trademark lack of humility - "And I'd just like to say hello to all my fans in Australia" - Friedman, disconcertingly resembling Dr. Phil in appearance, content and delivery, went on to offer his scarily off-the-planet analysis of the causes of the US financial crisis.

Friedman, who writes about global economics with all the subtlety of an ADD child playing Hungry Hungry Hippos against himself, told the host the following (I'm paraphrasing, as usual):

"This year, the world hit not one wall but two. The first was financial; the second, environmental. This year, the earth hit its carrying capacity. The US business model is unsustainable. We borrow money from China so that we can borrow more of their junk, devaluing our currency in the process by stacking the Chinese treasury with US dollars. Then we do it all over again. When the US lost the ability to pay for the junk, the system collapsed.

Now that other developing countries are starting to consume like Americans, the earth could no longer sustain what we all were doing and it said, 'enough'."

This is true in a sense: the US-based model of growth is unsustainable all right. But Friedman effectively blamed the rising middle class in the developing world for what was going on. Of course, this is nuttier than feeding time in the elephant enclosure. The world didn't suddenly hit an 'environmental wall' in 2008, and the developing middle class's increased resource consumption didn't cause the crisis.

The crisis occurred because - and this is something that the frantically pro-US Friedman is congenitally blind to - the US financial system is run by criminals. I don't mean that in a bug-eyed Chomskian way, but criminality is really the only logical definition of what was going on. The US, like Russia, had become a society based on gangster capitalism. And now that Obama and co. have done their best to ensure that this clique of suited psychopaths will be able to continue pretty much as they were - albeit with a few mild spanks on their Armani-cosseted botties - we can all look forward to a Dow Jones recovery curve flatter than Boris Karloff's head.

The conversational low point was Friedman's assertion that "the time for fairness is over" - as if 'fairness' was something that only know-nothing NASCAR-appreciating Joe Sixpacks wanted. By denying the need for a massive, exhaustive purge and nationalisation of the US banking system and shifting the blame onto those nasty poor people screwing up the environment, Friedman confirmed his status as the most hilariously over-promoted source of authority since Prince Charles.

So, please allow me to present my alternative analysis of the causes of the financial crisis (note: metaphorical representation only):