The stock market’s fall may also have had something to do with evidence of a growing deflation in consumer prices in America, or so opinionators opined. Well, I guess we don’t have the “inflation dragon” to kick around anymore.

And we’ve had another outpouring of deficit aversion, bipartisanship at last (!), in response to Glenn Steven’s expression of the belief that the government had a responsibility to “borrow to invest”.

And, yet, we’ve had a piece of prime silliness – to put alongside all these other signs of the times – in Crikey‘s editorial:

There’s not a lot politicians can do. The Government handing money to low income earners who’ll have virtually no choice but to spend it makes sense, but there’s only a limited number of times a $10b heart-starter can be administered to the economy. Even the Opposition has been doing its bit lately, prefacing virtually every statement on the economy with the mantra that Australia is best-placed to weather these difficulties.

And there’s not much businesses can do without demand. It’s actually up to us consumers to realise Australia’s economic fate is in our hands, and act accordingly.

Righteo. Hopefully there’ll be another Herringbone sale again soon and I’ll try to do my duty. The rent went up $200 a month – does that help?

But Crikey’s leader writer might like to think about household debt being at 160% of earnings at a time when – even if unemployment is yet to really hit home – the evidence is in that hours and overtime are being cut back all over the shop. And while the mortgage rate may be down, there’s been very little or no discernible movement in credit card rates – something Kevin Rudd acknowledged some time ago, and vaguely promised to look into now that consumer credit is to be regulated by the Commonwealth. If citizens – also known as consumers – are trying to do their own “deleveraging” and get their balance sheets back to something a little more realistic, I hardly think that’s a matter for the loud condemn. Or for that matter, people choosing not to buy more, well, stuff. Do you like stuff? You can never have enough stuff – apparently.

I’d much rather go with Glenn Stevens’ view and look to the government as investor and consumer of last resort.

I do not want to hear people tell me that regulation cripples the economy, unless they are willing to admit that a lack of regulation can also cripple the economy. Not ever. I don’t understand why anyone is so much as tempted to think that “regulation” is good or bad, as a whole: to me, that’s like being for or against “things” or “people”. Some regulations are good, some are bad; obviously, we want people in government who can tell the difference, and implement regulatory systems that work well. However, altogether too many of my fellow citizens were willing to listen to ideologues, and now we all get to pay for their mistakes.

Very oddly, Malcolm Turnbull has proposed that the federal government in Australia should also bail out Australian banks. Now, unless he’s suggesting that the banks should have their exposure to Lehman Bros. etc. paid for gratis by the Australian government, to the benefit of their share price or something, it’s hard to see how this makes any sense, particularly when Turnbull has been blathering all round the shop about Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan “talking down” the Australian economy (and thus magicking inflation into existence – it wasn’t at all Peter Costello’s fiscal profligacy, no matter what the IMF may think). One can only infer from this call that there’s an implication that there’s some disaster waiting to happen domestically.

Unless Turnbull is suggesting that the Australian government should compensate the banks for their exposure to Lehman Brothers or whatever, it’s really quite hard to work out what he’s saying here. Obviously, it’s a bit of politicking, tied up in a neat package as it is with his “bipartisanship” theme, and it may also be designed to imply that while the Bush administration has a Plan, Rudd doesn’t. But it’s difficult to read it as anything other than irresponsible, despite the instant anointing of Messiah Mal with the all important “economic credibility” by the media.