Less than a year ago, it was widely held among mainstream economists that the world economy was doing fine, and that, in the face of any eventual problems, Australia would be secure.
Today, they are debating among themselves as to whether this economic crisis will be worse than the Great Depression.
Although it comes from those paid to write commentaries extolling the virtues of the free market, ideologically propping up a failed system, this wild shift should not really come as a surprise.
It reflects just how deep this economic crisis is. The crisis is caused by the ruling elites of society that have accrued masses of wealth at the expense of workers and the Third World through their voracious plundering carried out under the name of neoliberalism.
The measures proposed to help "solve" the crisis are, above all, designed to protect the wealth of the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. Once again, in the name of "coming together to support the nation", workers will be asked to pay — through rising unemployment, cuts to services and privatisations — for a system based on greed.
While corporate elites scramble around to look for other reassuring-sounding phrases to disguise their exploitation, other ominous signs point to the real scale of capitalism's crisis.
The influence of climate sceptics is on the wane as millions around the world (including leading scientists) point to the unavoidable fact that the world is facing another crisis created by capitalism: runaway climate change.
The idea that "business as usual" solutions will work is wearing thin, as more people come to the conclusion that we need urgent radical change now if we want to save the world.
Then there is the food crisis. Take Haiti for example: there, the desperation to find food has become so dire that people are buying cakes literally made out of mud to survive.
While corporations and their governments promote diabolical plans to convert food for people into fuel for cars — biofuels — world food prices are rising sharply and more and more people are going hungry.
The interaction of all these crises means that today it is the system — capitalism — that is in crisis itself.
But capitalism will not go away on its own. The ruling elites will fight to the death to ensure that it is us, the majority of the world, who pay for its disasters. The recent assault on Gaza and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are just glimpses of how bad things can get.
In the face of these challenges, people around the world are rebelling. From the resistance in Gaza to the massive trade union protests in France and the youth and student revolt in Greece, people are not only fighting back but beginning to see the links between their struggles.
Most importantly, some of these struggles, such as that of the people of Venezuela against neoliberalism and imperialism, are going beyond simply resisting, but are reaching towards a better world.
Rising up against the system, the people and government of Venezuela are today fighting to build a "socialism of the 21st century". In doing so, they have paved the way for a rebirth of socialism, not just as an idea but a real force for change, embodied in millions of people.
A system in crisis cannot tolerate such a thing. That is why capitalism has thrown everything it has against the government and people of Venezuela.
The struggle continues to spread, however, with countries like Bolivia and Ecuador linking up with Venezuela and Cuba — a beacon of hope and change for more than 50 years.
How can all these rebellions link up with and learn from each other? How, together, are we able to come up with a democratic socialist alternative to this failed system? This will be crucial to finding a way out of the mess capitalism has created for us.
That is why Green Left Weekly is proud to be sponsoring the "World At A Crossroads: Fighting For Socialism in the 21st Century" conference to be held in Sydney over the Easter weekend, April 10-12.
Organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective and the socialist youth organisation, Resistance, the conference will bring together activists and socialists from some of the most important struggles in the world today to discuss and debate how to change the world.
In the centre of this week's GLW, we have published the agenda and list of speakers who will be attending the conference. We encourage everyone to come and participate in what is shaping up to be an important gathering of people struggling for a better world.