“Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland"

Ludwig... do you have any idea about the amount of taxation generated in these economies? It is three times the amount paid in Australia. These economies also don’t believe in what we call "the equal distribution of income and wealth", meaning, that there is a hell of allot of hungry and homeless people walking the street with bad physical health. The homeless and long term unemployed, in these countries, are also considered not apart of general society, As also in America, and, therefore conveniently, are not shown in the annual statistics that you and I judge these nations on.

“if the pile of money is forever bigger, but the population is also forever bigger, and the problems with our environment and social infrastructure are forever bigger”

This comment is complete and utter crap! If the value of the Australian monetary policy is rising and population growth is rising, supported by the lowest unemployment rates that Australia has had in thirty years, then the economy would be in a situation were the Australian dollar is appreciating. In this circumstance environmental management and infrastructural improvement would be given the highest of priorities. This circumstance underlines economic growth, yet you make comments like “you need to very seriously question your belief that continued unending economic growth is the bottom line”.

“Let’s have real per-capita economic growth for a while and then stabilise the size of the economy at a point that provides a sufficiently high quality of life for the majority of us to be happy with.

First of all, if the Australian government restricted the growth of the economy then the value of the Australian dollar would fall. Secondly, our resources base is the biggest it has ever been with continued trade deals with China, America, England, and Japan for our natural resources. thirdly the situation to “stabilise the size of the economy” would cause stagnation were growth would fall, employment would fall, value of the dollar would fall, value of trade deals would fall, QUALITY OF LIFE WOULD FALL!

Hold on Kartiya, I thought we were talking economics here, not misconceived opinion fuelled by emotion. As I have outlined to Ludwig, economic growth is the bottom line. Without it, the value of the dollar would fall, employment would fall, exports would fall, inflation would rise, the quality of life would fall and the distribution of income and wealth would become even more warped. I understand you views of an ideal situation but it is simply NOT possible without significant economic growth supported with the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment.

It may be hard to realise, but, there is only a set amount of difference the Australian economy and government can make on environmental management while still remaining a high income economy.

You also made a comment that “Shorter hours can produce more jobs”. You are exactly right in this. However, is it appropriate at the sacrifice of many full time employees? In context, the availability of part time jobs is rapidly increasing at the sacrifice of many full time jobs at the back of new industrial legislation laws. Just because there are more jobs does not mean that these jobs are appropriate to the needs of the labour force.

I thank you for your opinion Kartiya.

Gamble

The fact is that some countries with the highest living standards have the lowest rates of economic growth.

Good on them for having higher taxes than we do. That presumably assists greatly in the overall provision of services and average quality of life.

Rates of homelessness and long-term unemployment are not significantly different to those of the US, which is predicated on rapid continuous economic growth, so you can hardly hold them up as consequences of stable economies.

“This comment is complete and utter crap!"

For goodness sake, our resource base and environment are being rapidly degraded to keep up the rate of economic growth. Of course some of the profits or taxes are being put back into environmental issues. But far too little compared to the damage being done.

The value of the dollar, low interest rates, low inflation, high overall economic growth (but low or zero or negative per-capita economic growth) are things built upon the unsustainable notion of continuous growth, on a continent with obvious finite resources. They are predicated on an extremely flimsy foundation. In fact it is starting to crumble with rising fuel crisis; the first really significant resource-stress issue to affect us, which causing rising interest rates, rising inflation, rising personal stress rates, and will soon lead to rising unemployment and real problems with many peoples’ ability to make ends meet.

Exports are booming at the moment. But obviously this rate cannot be maintained. And yet we will come to rely on it, and then scream foul when it starts to decline. Politicians will then be severely criticised for rising unemployment, interest rates and the rest, when the real cause of these things will be our grossly unsustainable system that is built on this short-term growth as though we can sustain it forever.

Let’s get the hell off this crazy system that is built on the premise that the whole kaboodle has to be forever bigger, and direct it onto a stable sustainable basis.

In the end your premise is a fantasy that cannot be achieved no matter how hard we argue the toss. The simple fact is that the advantages of continuing economic growth far outweigh the disadvantages of environmental damage. Should the Australian government implement policies that would break the Australian economy and thus destroying the quality of life to redirect our attention conservation and preservation, or should the government do everything possible to conserve the environment where practical? There is only one real answer. We both have equal and different points of view, although they may be slightly different. You do seem to make ridiculous and unsupported arguments through.

You pointed out the "rising fuel crisis". Are you unaware that the concept of running out of oil in the near future is a myth? All this concern has stemmed from a supplier created shortage in the 1960's and 70's and has continued to be of increasing concern. What most people don’t know is that there is still about 90% of deep water that has not been researched and that new technologies are being created everyday to reach these new depths of rich oil reserves. So there is hardly a "rising fuel crisis" its just what the major oil companies would expect you to believe and what the media thrives on reporting. Even if the fuel does run out there will be alternatives available. A USA company has developed a car that runs on water and Liquid Propane Gas sales have tripled over the last year.

We both have equal and different points of view, although they may be slightly different.??

typo!

we both have equal and different point of view

This is completely bizarre. Gamble, even politicians, business people and others who would dearly love to maintain rapid economic growth are admitting that rising fuels prices are resulting directly from the stabilisation of the supply rate of oil compared to the still rapidly increasing demand.

We are not actually running our of oil….yet. But the ability to provide this finite resource at the enormous rates required is faltering, resulting interminably rising prices. Of course, prices are not going to rise evenly. They will dip and jerk. Currently they are dipping back, but we can expect a jerk forward at any time.

There has been a lot of debate about peak oil on this forum. It seems that you haven’t encountered any of it.

The changing economics of this one resource alone is going to greatly affect our whole economy…..and even more severely affect economics on a personal basis, for a large portion of the population.

I have not struck anyone on this forum who has the extraordinary belief that economic growth is the be-all and end-all, or that it can just continue forever, or that we should be striving to uphold it for as long as we possibly can in a world of obvious finite and stressed resources.

You seem to just have no understanding of the laws of supply and demand or the concept of finite resources, or of potentially renewable resources that are being consumed at non-renewable rates.

And you are in the most amazing denial syndrome that the most obvious, the highest-profile and one of the most important of our finite resources – oil – is displaying grave symptoms of the untethered economic growth that it has facilitated over the last century and will not be able to facilitate for very much longer at all