HOUSE OVERSIGHT 029676 prosperity deal. He says American conservatives abandoned the middle ground represented by Republican presidents such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Bush Sr and became radicals. The derailment, he argues, began under Ronald Reagan and reached its zenith under George W. Bush. With the goodwill gone the US "is not able to produce a medium-term credible fiscal trajectory or get agreement on rebuilding its infrastructure". This paralysis "is significant not just for the US but for the world." Keating links the collapse of this "prosperity compact" to the financial crisis. Too many Americans were unable to sustain themselves from wages and salaries. How did they get by? They used the easy credit of the banking system, thereby feeding the frenzy that ended in bad loans and meltdown. Keating's book has an abiding message for Australia: in the transformed world we "will find ourselves increasingly on our own" having to master our own destiny. The job is to rediscover the productivity and savings agenda of the 1990s. Why did Australia survive the 2008 financial crisis? "Because of the flexibility of the economy," Keating says. "Flexibility which came from the reform of Australia's financial, product and labour markets that began 25 years ago. This has given us one of the most flexible economies in the world - arguably the most flexible. But further structural changes are ahead of us." He lists them. It is a mix of the new and old Keating agenda: a shift in resources to the extractive industries; a lift in capital inflow driving a high current account deficit putting a premium on savings; recognition that competitiveness will lie "in the creativity of our people as much as it does in our oil and gas"; a renewed emphasis on the value of hi- tech and education; and above all, a cultural change that integrates Australia more into East Asia. "Cultural transformation is the key for us," Keating says. He rates it as more i