the long and winding road

In the early to mid 1990s, Tim Harcourt was Chief Economist at the ACTU. Some years after, he became Chief Economist for Austrade and, in that capacity, he has a weekly column in the Business Review Weekly.

This week, his column starts:

There's no choice. As the prime minister has said, Australia has to export
more. And Australia needs more companies exporting.

Well, bugger me. The idea of exporting more never existed before that (insert appropriately offensive desription here) had it written for him to say. Funny, I can recall reading it several thousand times before 1996.

But we have to be reminded that unless the little **** says it, it doesn't exist. See my earlier post about governments mangling the language in pursuit of partisan ends. This is worse (of course, given who is involved!). Ultimate spoon-feeding of the electorate: look for the prime ministerial endorsement, look for the mention of him before believing.

Finally, and not necessarily to argue with (insert suitable expletive here) because everybody does it, but has he heard of mercantilism?

End of the h8ting.