On the manifest of the ships of fools...

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On the manifest of the ships of fools

David Hirst

October 15, 2008

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A NEW, new world order is emerging and it is now that we had better get a lot of things right. We must learn that the days of a coherent "floor" are forever gone. Now we might be best calling it a deck on a ship to be forever tossed on stormy seas.

For not only are Australians forced to contribute much of their pay and pay rises to this vessel, so are many citizens of the world. The world's banks and even the ships of state are committed to keeping it afloat, though it is untried and possibly unseaworthy.

This world has been transformed following a great panic, but we "the people" have not been consulted on what we want. The issue foremost in the minds of American voters is not an issue in the election to be held in only a few weeks. The new order is a fait accompli, but its form is unknown.

In coming months we will see the creation of a global structure that will shape our collective destiny or we will spin out of chaos into a nether world where everyone must be their own phoenix. Co-operation and co-ordination on a scale never dreamt of must be hastily and roughly hewn and assembled from some untrustworthy beams and planks. But there is no way out.

Bloomberg reports: "US officials are hurrying to address frozen credit markets that led France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria to agree to commit $US1.8 trillion to guarantee interbank loans and take equity stakes in banks. Buying shares of financial institutions has become the latest focus of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's rescue plan."

An odd paragraph if read a week or two ago. How on earth, we'd have thought, would a US public servant be connected with such a vast sum of European money? Soon, as the latest version of the new world order takes shape, we will find a world converging with power over our purses passing to unelected international figures and officials upon whom our security rests. Those currently at the helm have driven us perilously close to the needle-point rocks of recession and worse.