SA Ecomomy is going down because SA Adelaide centric governement. There could be a lot more mining activity going on, if the state government wanted to spend money on useful projects like rail and jetties, rather then sports grounds.

SA biggest problem is Adelaide and the attitude of the poeple that live there.

Bring back Tom Playford.

South Australia needs sustainable economic growth based on the human resources, agriculture, mining and energy resources there. The likely alternative is below.

If Adelaidians wait 10 years (until 2023) the Federal Government can make more poor economic-defence decisions. This will include construction of 6 Collins II submarines 2023-2033. As well as sub construction Adelaide can rely on fixing constant Collins II defects and repairs.

Australia will have a new class of third rate conventional submarines in the Collins II.

Oh for 4 to 6 Virginia Class submarines supported by a ship maintenance and large nuclear development industry in South Australia...

Malcolm King,

If population growth brought prosperity, then the folks in Yemen and Afghanistan would be among the richest in the world. If you look at the figures at the CIA World Fact Book or the UN Human Development Index, there is no correlation between population size, density, or growth rate and prosperity among the developed countries. (There is a negative correlation between prosperity and population growth in the Third World.) The population of SA is still growing, in fact, currently at 0.9%, just not fast enough for the business interests that are likely clients for your PR firm. Unless you propose that SA grows to standing room only, then the population will eventually have to stabilise, and there will be a larger proportion of old people. This has already happened in places like Germany, without any major disaster.

With a bigger population, the 1% get bigger domestic markets, higher profits from real estate speculation and privatised utilities, and a cheaper, more compliant work force that they don't have to train, maybe even nannies and gardeners who will work cheap and relatively inexpensive meals at great new ethnic restaurants. The rest of the people get more crowding and congestion, skyrocketing housing costs and utility bills, less open space, overstretched and crumbling infrastructure and public services, permanent water restrictions, more pressure on the environment, etc. Nor do they necessarily get more jobs. Australia has the highest rate of population growth in the developed world, but we still have 10.4% real unemployment and 7.9% underemployment (according to the latest monthly figures from Roy Morgan Research). Why do you want to turn what is considered a very beautiful and livable city into something that looks like this?

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/14-pictures-of-our-crowded-world-2013-6#a-beach-in-chinas-eastern-shandong-province-on-a-typical-summer-saturday-so-relaxing-1

Yemen and Afganistan? What the hell are you talking about?

1. Get a degree in urban geography or economics - read on multiplier effect of capital.
2. .9 TFR is 1.1 below replacement
3. Adelaide's problems are far more complex than population but it's a part of it.

I have made a cursory study of your posts Divergence and I can only presume that you have read so selectively on modern economics that you have completely passed over notions of historical development of capital, the formations of cities, the roles of productivity and workforce participation in driving capitalist economies and even fundamental aspects such as supply and demand curves. You also have almost no idea on how an export/import economy works or the profit ratios nations earn by exporting.

You have though focused completely and utterly on the consumption side of certain resources and have married it with pop writers such as Diamond, which you quote from amply (Hutu genocide, PNG, etc). That is why it is hard to respond to your statements.

Normally I am far more tolerant of posts from other paradigms but yours are laced with racist suppositions and a kind of dogged half learned ignorance which in large numbers of people is dangerous. Its called a mob.

Malcolm King,

Perhaps you could profit by getting a science degree. The founders of the various schools of economics were mostly born at a time when global population was less than 2 billion and the Industrial Revolution had unlocked enormous resources per person. They didn't need to worry about limits to growth. I have given numerous links (which you ignore) showing that real commodity prices are almost all much higher than they were 20 years ago and that the scientific community is seriously concerned about a whole host of threats to our global life support systems. Do you seriously think that they are all fools and liars, that resources are infinitely substitutable and that the environment can take whatever we throw at it? It is foolhardy in the extreme to boost the population when there is a serious threat, for instance, that our climate is going to turn nastier and key resources such as phosphate rock are likely to get scarcer and more expensive, regardless of what the economists might say. Remember that most of them couldn't even predict the Global Financial Crisis.

So far as cities are concerned, I think that living in a big, crowded megalopolis is bad for people, especially if they are doing it under economic compulsion. It is bad for rearing children and bad for people's physical and mental health, with a doubling of schizophrenia and big increases in anxiety disorders and depression

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7352/full/nature10190.html

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/06/23/3251509.htm?site=science&topic=health

What exactly are my "racist assumptions"? Stupidity, shortsightedness, and greed come in all colours, and a lot of the worst offenders are white people.

Jared Diamond is a good popular science writer, but a secondary source, and he gives his references - to people who are eminently qualified. You are trying to shoot the messenger.