Basil Fawlty Economic Commentary

One of Basil Fawlty’s favourite bits of hyperbole was “This is just how Nazi Germany got started!”  Over at the otherwise respectable On-Line Opinion, James Cumes, a former Australian diplomat, makes the same claim in relation to the RBA’s latest rate rise:

Hitler came to power in early 1933. So did Franklin Delano Roosevelt but even the “New Deal” was too little and too late to turn the economic tide around - or the drift into world war. Unfortunately, we are doing the same thing now. We are persisting with policies that can only be self-destructive. That applies not only to Australia but especially to the United States - and indeed to many other countries.

The rest of the piece is as economically illiterate as it is overwrought.