Trivialities here.

You raise a very good point that humans cannot evolve at the rate of technology nor to the speed required to keep up with a dynamic world. But the focus of all governements must be on prosperity, i do not care what medical or sociological reasons say otherwise.

We as Australians need to keep our situation improving, to keep in line with the rest of the worlds development and to protect the very way of life we are accustomed to.

Yes, I am susceptable to the stress, breakdown etc, but we must remember here that for Genration Y like myself, we have the benefit of the information age and the wealth creation strategies so that unless we make mistakes, retirement etc will be a choice, not forced on us at 65.

I am very happy as a business owner to be living in 2005, to have twice the stress for hopefully half the period of time, as we are undergoing a change in the life strucutre of human beings.

These mental illnesses etc will happen as we are pushed far grater messages that we were even 20 years ago, resulting in brain overload for some.

Also, the ability to identify mental illness has improved considerably.

At the end of the day, we have no choice in the direction of our society unless we all decided we should cut ourselves off from the rest of the world and live in pleasantville. It just wont last very long is all.

We just need to work on with the population the ability to prevent these illnesses by teaching how to handle/manage the life pressure these days, but this needs to be ingrained from our early years via the various methods available, not when it is too late.

I am sorry Richard you are leading everyone up the garden path.
Political intent and political spin are the same thing.
They can NEVER be separated. There is no "either/or".
Politics is the spin. Politics is the intent.
So in your mind it's the economy Richard. No it is not.
It is 'control' of the people. No more no less than telling people what to do, how to do it, when to do it and there is a terrible consequence if you don't follow orders.
Isn't that a lot of power. A lot more power than economics.

Agree with the posters above.

I would just like to add that the mental illnesses and human dissatisfaction that showed up in the survey referred to in the article, I would attribute to political policies that were carried out during the time that was pre-Howard, pre-Bush. In fact, I further believe that the attitudes expressed by Mr Eckersley as being the desirable direction to aim at, social engineering, political correctness, so-called social justice, etc - typical Marxist policies - are indeed the exact reason for the demise of the problems he identifies such as loss of Western optimism and social breakdown.

Whilst I do not have much faith in capitalism either, I see that the current Howard-Bush-ism is a first step in righting the social wrong doings of the previous three decades of Marxist influence.

And if everybody prospers along the way, then hey, that sounds all right to me too.

I think Richard is on to something here. He seems to echo the words of that well known anti-establishment figure Jesus when he said words to the effect "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" Life is more than work, money and wealth creation. It is about family, relationships, helping others in need and sharing what we have.

The problem with an IR system that does not set up some form of protection for workers, is that our headlong rush into the mad world of "money is all that matters" will allow greedy people to take advantage of the lack of minimum standards.

Who can eat money?

Eat Money!

The age old wise indian once said. It is nice to pinch good quotes.

You are right, but if you use money to place yourself in a situation where money is not the issue, you can achieve all of this.

Money is no curse. The root of all evil is not money, IT IS THE LACK OF IT That is the root of all evil.

The other things are inportant, but the difference between humans and animals is that we want more than just survival, we want to minimise pain and maximise pleasure, and as you all know every decision derives back to this.

Each to thier own accordingly, but in order to have security in the 21st century, you need wealth to buy it.

Money haters, i hate chasing money and being a slave to it, by i would rather sit in an air conditioned office drinking coffee than being less than content with a family i cannot provide adequately for.

If you have wealth, money is no issue, if you dont, it is the only issue. Why cant you quit your job today then if money is not important?

The great thing in the information age is that we can create wealth from nothing and choose our destiny more, and determine our own pathway in life. Jesus was modest, yet his churches alongside the Monarchy controlled the wealth and helped shape what we've become.

To Realist,

Most of the time I find your opinions reflect my own, so please don't take this as a personal attack - it isn't.

But your remark of "the great thing in the information age is that we can create wealth from nothing..." isn't at all realistic. Creating something from nothing simply isn't possible in a real world. It's like a person being able to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps. It can't be done.

Yes, some people in the right situation can create money - dollars - from nothing, but wealth isn't money. True wealth is in value, not in ideas or sentiments or information or cash. True wealth is tangible. It is real. It is touchable and it exists. Values put on intangibles such as knowledge and information and money are abstract and perhaps that is what Robert.W. was talking about when he wrote "you can't eat money". I don't know.

History records the fact that money, knowledge and information are intangibles and useless to a person in a world of scarcity. That's when the gold standard takes over. Gold is real, it is precious because of its scarcity. Money has no fixed or real value. It is intangible. It floats, as in situations of extreme inflation, for example - pre-Nazi Germany. Then, money couldn't buy goods including food. Money was useless. And you certainly couldn't eat it

True wealth only comes from primary production - farming, mining, hunting and gathering, which is simply exploiting natural resources. Ultimately all real wealth comes only from the Sun or the Earth and today, a tiny little bit has come from the Moon in the form of rocks.

In the information age you CAN create MONEY from nothing. But money is not WEALTH and it isn't real. Money does not equal wealth. That's an important truth!

I hope that doesn't upset your day. Have a think about it.

And to Robert.W. - Jesus also had a slightly more important message to the world than you presented - the message of God. That is really somewhat important.