Dear Volcanic Glass ( very clever Obsidian),

You are correct in highlighting the need for an aggressive entrepreneurial class.

The problem in Australia is that the social design of massive population growth, leads to the mindset of why risk money in innovation commercialisation..when land speculation is "no risk".

A stable population removes real estate speculation from windfall profits and provides the environment for entrepreneurial interest in innovation...........apart from the holistic benefits of looking after our natural assets and decreasing debt.

Cheers,
Ralph

Pericles,
That is an interesting observation regards Israel.

I work for a company that has produced some freeware. Unheard of in Australia, it is downloaded about 10 times each hour (24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, month after month), mainly by people in countries from Europe, Africa and the Middle-East.

Having read some blog sites, we know why some people in these countries are downloading it. They are copying it.

However, in the process of copying it, they may make one change. If they make only one change or improvement, they are now innovators.

The freeware is rarely downloaded from Australia, and in fact it, has been downloaded more times from Cameroon than from Australia.

In Australia, it seems that people have become so complacent, they are not even interested in copying something. They simply use what has been produced elsewhere, and eventually their brains will wither away, and they will become consumers only