Indonesia's President recommends Australia-China joint military exercises, 21/11.

Hear, Hear, Mr President.

President Obama to 'pivot' USA into Asia-Pacific, 17/11.

President Obama came, he met many Australians and he cemented a sixty-year alliance .Here is his impressive speech to both houses of parliament.

Eurozone done for; Greece to lead departures, 3/11.

Greece is headed for debt default and exit from the EMU (= 'a flightless Australian bird').  Within a year, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy would also default. While the visiting guru implied that all this Eurozone mayhem would largely be contained within Europe, many in the audience, including Henry, wondered how this could be possible.

'Mrs Merkel has no interest in solving this problem', the guru added. 'She just kicks the can down the road.  The crisis is keeping the Euro low, and with low wage increases and subdued labor costs in Germany this is helping to make German industry incredibly competitive'.

'There are no jobs in Greece (or the other weak nations of Europe) for young people who are queuing up to emigrate'.

'The big central banks are printing money 24/7; banks are not lending but accumulating cash to cushion themselves when the defaults are triggered.  The latest statistics show US base money grew by 37 % in the year to September'. Henry observes that Milton Friedman must be spinning in his grave.

'The US budget deficit is 9 % of GDP, or $1.3 trillion. The Democrats want to raise taxes, and the Tea Party Republicans want to cut spending.  There is complete political gridlock. Bene Bernanke is printing money like crazy and using most of it to but government securities - eg $855 billion of that $1.3 trillion deficit.

'Foreigners are reaching their limit for buying Treasuries and China is selling down'.  More here.

The economics of US polarization, 1/11 

Spengler writes for the Asia Times Online: 'Has America become irrational? Not since the 1930s have politics been so polarized, from the Tea Party movement on one side of the spectrum to the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the other. Why does the right object so vehemently to government spending? And why does the left attack private capital with parallel passion? The answer lies not in the American psyche, but in the statistics.

'America is engaged in class war, but not of the sort one reads about in the mainstream press. The truly indigent - young African-American men, for example, most of whom are now unemployed - have little to do in this war. Large corporations for the most part are bystanders as well; they will make their peace with the victor. This is a war of survival between the productive middle class on one hand, and the dependents of the state on the other.

'The Tea Party's aversion to government spending is as pure an expression of rational self-interest as we have seen in American history. Like any new movement, it attracts more than its fair share of oddballs. The fact that a movement led by amateurs continues to wield so much power proves that it has good reason to be there.

'The Tea Party is a middle-class movement, older, better educated and wealthier than average, but it is not a party of the very wealthy, who are conspicuously absent among its activists. They know from personal or family experience that taxation is destroying the American middle class'.

Read on here.