Excellent posts, Bucko, SHONGA, Ludwig and MikeM!

Australia's supposed economic boom amounts to little more than the destruction of our natural capital in return for manufactured artefacts and packaging that will largley end up in landfill in less than 12 months.

A national Government with the true interests of current and future generations of Australians at heart would take immediate steps towards the winding back all industries based on the extraction of non-renewable natural resources, particularly our coal, oil and natural gas.

It would also take steps ensure that what non-renewable resources that were extracted from now on, were put towards building the kind of infrastructure necessary to make this country, and others, sustainable rather than for the manufacture of throwaway junk.

Through flow shares are only part of the solution.

The boom will end when the infrastructure to transport the materials hits capacity. Not end as in collapse, but end as stop growing. As many mine sites are remote, are not electical or gas grid connected, many will also suffer from rising energy cost inputs (diesel).

Then there is the people factor. There have been as many busts as booms and in these the number of engineers, surveyors and geologists gets repeatedly culled. In these professional groupings there is a demographic time bomb - (average ages) > + 45. A graduate takes 4 years to produce. A graduate that can satify ASX and the Coprporations Act in terms of public reporting needs another 10 years experience.

The extractive industries are not carping about the lack of skilled labour for nought.

The tright response has been to import the skills, however the places we import the skills have the same boom, so this wont be a cheapish solution.

It is very rare, if not unprecendented, to have a multi-commodity boom, oil, the base metals, the precious metals, the bulks (iron ore and coal) all gangbusters at the same time.

Now industry is competing for a small pool of professional labour, instead of picking from a large pool of under-utilised labour.

So, demand exceeds supply, and supply is in-elastic.
Watch this space.

North Queensland is full of new minerals, but we can't even get a decent national highway section up here, so where do all the taxes go, not back to the part of the country from where they are generated that's for sure.

Shonga,

At the hands of one anal-retentive federal treasurer and a clutch of anal-retentive state treasurers, taxes are going to pay off all government debt. Peter Costello has announced that the federal government will be completely debt-free by tomorrow.

If any large corporation ran its balance sheet the way our governments do they would be laughed out of court. It is just as prudent to borrow modestly for projects (such as roads, rail and ports) that generate future earnings, as to avoid borrowing for current consumption that does nothing for the economy. Say goodbye to your home, municipality and the company that you work for. It is going down the tubes.

If this investment strike by governments continues we will eventually be in dire straits. The best that could happen is that private capital steps in and the whole of Australia ends up being owned by a Macquarie Bank investment trust.