Australia is rich, dumb and getting dumber

Feb 21, 2002
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Hats off to both major parties who have left us in this parlous state.


Worth a read, and finishes with a good question: Surely an advanced economy such as Australia can do better than Senegal, which is one rank higher on Harvard's list?
 

Hawk Dork

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If Mali are so smart why haven't they encouraged foreigners to buy inflated houses to prop up their economy?

Checkmate.
and recycle a chunk of their money through Australian small businesses, in order to qualify for citizenship,allowing the previous buyer to find a vendor when his paperwork is stamped, rinse and repeat.
 
I'm not sure both sides of politics should equally wear the blame when one of them has been in power with one six year interuption for the best part of a quarter century and they repealed or neutered pretty much everything Labor did in that time when they regained power. The parlous state of the country's economy lies with one Party alone even though Scummo would have us believe his government is still on L plates.
 
I'm not sure both sides of politics should equally wear the blame when one of them has been in power with one six year interuption for the best part of a quarter century and they repealed or neutered pretty much everything Labor did in that time when they regained power. The parlous state of the country's economy lies with one Party alone even though Scummo would have us believe his government is still on L plates.

"On the primary metric used in the database, an index of economic complexity, Australia fell from 57th to 93rd from 1995 to 2017,"

talk about putting all of our eggs into one basket ...
 
Aug 21, 2016
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"On the primary metric used in the database, an index of economic complexity, Australia fell from 57th to 93rd from 1995 to 2017,"

talk about putting all of our eggs into one basket ...

Yeah nah.

1570613754095.png
 

its free real estate

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Different varieties of minerals and agriculture is still just pulling s**t out of the ground which is exactly the problem that the report is referring.
Difference between mining in Africa and mining in Australia is the latter is extraordinarily high cap-ex and technologically sophisticated.
 
Difference between mining in Africa and mining in Australia is the latter is extraordinarily high cap-ex and technologically sophisticated.
Won't mean s**t as time goes on and the rest of the world closes the capability gap, no different to how manufacturing in Australia has died a slow death.
 
Jun 27, 2013
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I'm not sure both sides of politics should equally wear the blame when one of them has been in power with one six year interuption for the best part of a quarter century and they repealed or neutered pretty much everything Labor did in that time when they regained power. The parlous state of the country's economy lies with one Party alone even though Scummo would have us believe his government is still on L plates.
Wowee, you got a dislike from Dazza here :p

Would be great to see the flog post one of these days
 
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Interestingly Auxal has gone around disliking all of dazza's old posts. My bet is that Auxal is a Bomberboyokay alt, a passive aggressive apparition of his sad passive aggression.
Lol whoever the alt is if so

Just showing some serious rustled jimmies there

I just want a like or post from Daz :( will know I've made it around these parts if so ;)
 

Admiral Byng

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Australia is never going to be a broad based high tech economy. We just don't have the population for it. The idea of "Big Australia" with double or triple the population is out of favour.

So what we should do, and do well, is specialise. Agriculture and mining, but we should get into minerals processing and crude metal refining. Some small scale high tech manufacturing in aerospace and shipbuilding - partly for reasons of being able to build our own defence equipment. We should aim to cover our own service industry needs and cover our own civil engineering and infrastructure building skills.

There is no harm in speclisation. Doing what we do best and doing it well. If we adopt this model we will find that we are opposite to most other developed nations and would have a complementary set of needs with other potential trading partners.

We should have a focus on developing rare and expensive metals too. Particularly titanium metal, lithium and REEs. Refining them in this country and not just exporting the ores. Also it would be great if we could develop some way to convert solar energy into exportable form. These should be our national policy goals over and above just exporting more coal.
 
May 13, 2008
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Australia is never going to be a broad based high tech economy. We just don't have the population for it. The idea of "Big Australia" with double or triple the population is out of favour.

So what we should do, and do well, is specialise. Agriculture and mining, but we should get into minerals processing and crude metal refining. Some small scale high tech manufacturing in aerospace and shipbuilding - partly for reasons of being able to build our own defence equipment. We should aim to cover our own service industry needs and cover our own civil engineering and infrastructure building skills.

There is no harm in speclisation. Doing what we do best and doing it well. If we adopt this model we will find that we are opposite to most other developed nations and would have a complementary set of needs with other potential trading partners.

We should have a focus on developing rare and expensive metals too. Particularly titanium metal, lithium and REEs. Refining them in this country and not just exporting the ores. Also it would be great if we could develop some way to convert solar energy into exportable form. These should be our national policy goals over and above just exporting more coal.

Australia is not doing any of that though. We are not doing anything. Our governments latest brilliant solution is to hire a reality TV personality to attract more tradies. True genius.

Meanwhile manufacturing and pretty any blue collar task that can be moved off shore has been moved off shore. We cannot even deal with our own rubbish - so ship off shore :rolleyes:

This was followed by every possible administration task being moved to Asia. Call centres, billing, yada yada.

Now that is complete as much white collar work as possible is also moving off shore including legal services, accounting, and presumably engineering and other specialist consultant services.

We are reaching the point where there will be no turning back and nothing left to squeeze out.

I have no idea what happens then but I sure as hell know Australia does not have the leadership to deal with it.
 

Admiral Byng

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Australia is not doing any of that though. We are not doing anything. Our governments latest brilliant solution is to hire a reality TV personality to attract more tradies. True genius.

Meanwhile manufacturing and pretty any blue collar task that can be moved off shore has been moved off shore. We cannot even deal with our own rubbish - so ship off shore :rolleyes:

This was followed by every possible administration task being moved to Asia. Call centres, billing, yada yada.

Now that is complete as much white collar work as possible is also moving off shore including legal services, accounting, and presumably engineering and other specialist consultant services.

We are reaching the point where there will be no turning back and nothing left to squeeze out.

I have no idea what happens then but I sure as hell know Australia does not have the leadership to deal with it.

Bit of a glass half-empty way of looking at it, but not much I can find substantial fault with.
 
May 13, 2008
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Bit of a glass half-empty way of looking at it, but not much I can find substantial fault with.

It is horrendously pessimistic but that is Australia.

It is also the reason that the myth of worlds biggest coal mine just decided an election. It was the best hope either party could offer. And it’s a mirage anyway
 
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Australia is not doing any of that though. We are not doing anything. Our governments latest brilliant solution is to hire a reality TV personality to attract more tradies. True genius.

Meanwhile manufacturing and pretty any blue collar task that can be moved off shore has been moved off shore. We cannot even deal with our own rubbish - so ship off shore :rolleyes:

This was followed by every possible administration task being moved to Asia. Call centres, billing, yada yada.

Now that is complete as much white collar work as possible is also moving off shore including legal services, accounting, and presumably engineering and other specialist consultant services.

We are reaching the point where there will be no turning back and nothing left to squeeze out.

I have no idea what happens then but I sure as hell know Australia does not have the leadership to deal with it.

America was heading that way under the Democrats. Didn’t they dodge a bullet there?
 
The problem is that you don't kick start an industry from scratch without significant government intervention and in Australia, that's seen as filthy communism and anti-competitive behaviour.

In 35 years, Brazil went from making twin-seater propeller planes out of knock-down kits sent from the US to designing and building some of the best regional jets in the world. In the same period Australia went from designing and building five different cars to having no automotive industry at all. Enough said.
 
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Hats off to both major parties who have left us in this parlous state.


Worth a read, and finishes with a good question: Surely an advanced economy such as Australia can do better than Senegal, which is one rank higher on Harvard's list?
Exhibit a - this forum. We've seen an influx of the stupid
 

its free real estate

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The problem is that you don't kick start an industry from scratch without significant government intervention and in Australia, that's seen as filthy communism and anti-competitive behaviour.

In 35 years, Brazil went from making twin-seater propeller planes out of knock-down kits sent from the US to designing and building some of the best regional jets in the world. In the same period Australia went from designing and building five different cars to having no automotive industry at all. Enough said.
Problem was we set up our car industry all wrong, instead of them being Australian owned and operated companies, they were overseas subsidiaries that had zero interest in developing the car industry here, and were only after the govt subsidies. The subsidies themselves had little point other than keeping people employed in manufacturing.

Also so few people were buying them. My dad mourned the loss of the Australian car industry, but I had to point out to him that he hadn’t bought a new Australian made car since the 70s (the venerable HQ Holden Kingswood).
 
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