Conversation - Joseph Stiglitz

The article in this week's "Saturday Paper' by Richard Denniss titled "In conversation with

Joseph Stiglitz" is a must read. Professor Joseph Stiglitz's new book "The Road to Freedom" reclaims the language of freedom from right- wing ideologues in so many ways. For those who may not know, Professor Stiglitz is a Nobel Laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank.

His opinions on freedom and democracy are so, valid that he should be listened to and heard by every Australian in particular. I wish to quote just one of the issues That'Denniss' raises in his article and quote" What would you say to a developing country that was giving more than half of its gas away for free to the world's fossil fuel industry? What advice would you give to that country?"

JS " Well, first we would give the advice that giving natural resources away for free is a foolish idea." He then goes on to say "If it takes subsidies to encourage mining companies to extract your resources, then they should simply stop extracting them ". " Finally, the reality is that the mining companies are making billions of dollars in profits. They are just not going to walk away from those profits. If they can persuade you to give them some more billions of dollars, then why would they not?"

And that begs the question. Why have our politicians, when in government, made such decisions?

Maybe it's because, of the largesse created by the party in charge, their coffers will benefit. Whatever the cost to we, the nation?

With a parliament of independents selected and installed by individual electorates, answerable to their electorates, we would almost certainly not have to challenge those decisions,later?

www.movementforbettergovernment.com.au