“it can’t afford to carry lazy and expensive manufacturing industry anymore”

Yabby “Afford” is a curious word in that at the time you mention we were running a balanced current account and we could afford what we consumed, unemployment was a real 1.5%. What we can’t afford is the current situation where this country borrows a billion dollars a year so we can keep a huge number of people near or bellow the poverty line wasting their productive capabilities that’s what I call “lazy”. We are now and until our credit runs out a successful “cargo cult”. The concept of the “lazy manufacturing industry” has been shown to be a furphy by the last thirty years of current account deficits.

What of that deficit? The banks borrow the foreign currency to cover it and in the long term the creditors hope that we will eventually earn sufficient foreign currency to pay them back. But we have been running continuous deficits for 32.5 years! The banks are then stuck with the Aussie dollars that they changed, what have they done with these? They have aggressively lent them out and people have bid up the price of real estate all over the country to unaffordable levels! People have also bid up other assets to ridiculous levels! The banks are running out of borrowers. Also our interest rates must maintain a margin above the US rate.

Yes a few tens of thousands of people could get jobs in Western Australia, but there are a few million in unemployment or underemployment trouble.

On technology, in 1966 we were third on the space race podium being the third country to launch a satellite Wresat. Now who do we buy a nuclear reactor from? Argentina! There is currently an exodus of solar voltaic experts. Yes we have a handful of high tech companies. But no country in the world has developed technology without government help, this includes USA Europe, Japan, China, India etc. Where would we need to look now to find a country as technologically unsophisticated as Australia? Probably West Africa!

Brightspark, I remind you again and again, that the debt you talk
about is not our country's debt, it is private debt. If you as
an individual go and pay far more for a house then it is worth and
the price crashes one day, that is your problem. The Economist has
pointed out time and time again that Australian houses are overvalued
based on the fundamentals.

No furphy at all about "lazy" manufacturing. Either they can
compete on world markets or they can't. They can't expect other
efficient exports to keep subsidising them, or they will drag them
down too. Thats the problem with manufacturing, it sucked on the
protectionist tit for far too long. Without it, many are battling
to cope.

You keep telling me about all these unemployed. Well they are not
in WA, but then WA, with only 10% of the population, generates
30-40% of exports. If we can compete on world markets, why can't
you?

Yes Australia has invented many great things, with good scientists.
Thats not the problem, the problem is taking things from that point,
to the point of actually making money. That should be the role
of industry combined with venture capital. Australian industry
is unlike American industry, where there is plenty of venture capital
and they take calculated risks.

What has changed in Australia in the last 15 years or so, is the
one trillion $ that now sits in workers superannuation accounts.
Thats as much as the whole ASX is worth. We need to use more of
that huge sum as venture capital for new startups. Its starting to
happen, but slowly.

So there is now money there, where there was none, it just needs to
be used in an efficient way in the future and some of it invested
in calculated risk, such as solar etc. Just doing the science and
then have everything goes offshore, is not the answer.

Er... Yabby....

You can only compete on a world market by digging it out of the ground and flogging it off to some other developed market!

Where's the value add in that?

FU2, I have an old geography school book from the 60s, in which
it states that it was illegal to export iron ore from Australia!
We thought we had none, or very little. It turns out that we
actually have 500 years worth, that we know about. We can
thank Charles Court for making that happen, the man had
vision.

If you ever bother to go to the NW, today's mining is a pretty
sophisticated industry and the spin off from mining has been
various manufactured gear for that industry. In my past life
I used to go to the cargo area at Quantas, three times a week
or so. I'd see what was being flown out each day. You would
be amazed as to how much mining gear is flown out, despite it
being so heavy and expensive to airfreight.

If you look at Africa, Russia and various other parts of
the globe, there are actually still quite large amounts of
resources to be mined. Doing so efficiently is not as easy
as you might think and the West Australian mining industry
is now using their developed skills to apply that knowledge
elsewhere.

In farming we once again lead the way. Look at where subsidies
go, its nearly all to the East

(:-O) Whistling in the wind

“Where would we need to look now to find a country as technologically unsophisticated as Australia? Probably West Africa!”

You might even suggest Nigeria, however, our level of political sophistication tends to hide our technological naivety.

It is really sad that some folk seem to have this short term perspective of how Australia rates in world terms. Having lived in Europe, USA and Australia, I prefer to rely on my own experiences, rather than second hand opinions of journalistic hacks ro TV shows. Anyone who thinks there is a better place to live and bring up a family than Australia is singularly mistaken. Sure we do not have the competitive dynamics of USA, and we don’t have the violence either. We do not have the history of Europe and we don’t have the rigid class structures either. We don’t have a lot of things but we do have the opportunity to form our own society, something which most parts of the world have less individual influence over.

For some of us the glass always starts half full and we top it up by our own efforts and industry.
For those who expect life to deal them a perfect hand to play or expects the government to make sure no one else is allowed to get a better hand than them, it will always be half empty.