By James Donahue

The flawed economic policies carried on by the Bush Administration and now triggering a global meltdown has drawn some sharp barbs of criticism this week from three interesting parts of the world; Iran, Venezuela and Australia.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have both spoken out on the subject, saying the world financial crisis is a crack in the capitalistic system that may mark “the end of capitalism.”

The two leaders of a socialistic system proclaim what is happening a sign of the failure of liberal democracy and perhaps even a “divine punishment.”

“These people see the outcome of their bad deeds,” said Ayatollah Ali Janati, head of the Guardians Council. And Ahmadinejad said “the reason of their defeat is that they have forgotten God and piety.”

The Iranian president said the financial crisis is a divine sign that “the oppressors and the corrupt will be replaced” and that “an Islamic banking system will help us survive the current economic crisis.”

To date, the Tehran stock market, which operates without a large influx of foreign investors, has remained unaffected by the losses occurring on markets in neighboring Gulf states heavily linked to American business interests.

From Caracas, socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is mocking U.S. President George W. Bush for the government’s “nationalization” of major private banks. Chavez reminds the world that the Bushites were critical of him when he nationalized U.S. business interests in his country, but says Bush has now become a “hard line leftist” like himself. Chavez went so far as to call Bush a “comrade.”

In a public statement this week Chavez said “Bush is to the left of me now. Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks.” He said Bush really is clueless and merely parroting the words of his aides without any understanding of what he is doing.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also has joined with the voices of world leaders speaking out against U.S. financial policies. He said this global economic crisis resulted from the “comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism.

Rudd, who leads the Australian Labor Party which leans toward socialism said greed and fear were the twin evils at the root of the collapse that began in the United States before sweeping the world.

“What we have seen is the comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism – extreme capitalism which now turns to government to prevent systemic failure,” Rudd said.

Australia has joined governments around the industrialized world that are now pumping billions of dollars into their financial sectors in an effort to head off a world-wide depression.