"where did howard miss his turn?"

he didn't- he's had a lovely career, and not done yet.

but he's not working for you, he's working for himself. if you want oz to work for most ozzians, you have to put most ozzians in charge of oz. it's called democracy.

if you're not happy with where oz is going, blame yourselves.

you get the government you deserve. a nation whose people imagine politicians are working selflessly to promote the general welfare deserves to join the empire of ozymandias in the desert sand.

Worthy article:

I often wonder which economy Howard, Costello and even Rudd talks about - even Rudd has assured us he will manage te economy as consewrvatively as the Coalition - so we cant expect any changees on that front soon - or at all -- those boys seemd hypnnotised by the that is seemingly drought resistant with booming stock prices and company profits, a high incidence of share owning Australians, tear away resource prices or the other economy -

Where as th rest of us see the one with trebling rates of mortgagee sales, bakruptcies escalating by 12-15% year in year out, $40 billion credit card debt, students leaving university with debt and a small business comunity unable to pay ther $10 billion tax debt it still owes the Commonwealth

It is well worth repeating - Howards battlers are aspiring themselves into penury faster than ever before.

An excellent article and thank you Richard.

My "twenty's" children have hit overload. I tried to get them to watch "4 corners" last night about energy saving but it was too much information. They NEVER have political discussions and the only ones who do are well over thirty. It seems that young people have given up on trying to change "the inevitable" juggernaut of population rise and constant consumption of junk peddled by highly effective and well financed advertising.

Richard is correct, growth economics has worked but is now redundant and another model is desperately needed if our world is to continue. It is like flying an aeroplane, we are off the ground and in the air of technological advancement and travelling well. Time to feather the prop, cut back the mixture and throttle and trim for straight and level so we can get as far into the future as we can with our limited resources. Along the way we can bring the rest of the world up to our level of amenity by passing on the knowledge of how we have arrived at where we are.

The only way the world will enjoy a respectable quality of life is if the population falls so everyone can get on the plane for the future.