Capitalism, the best system we have,rides very much on the back of consumerism and credit.
Without both we are in trouble but it is gambling with credit that threatens us most.
I have my doubts Australia can ever compete in most manufacturing, or the China will stop growing.
As for another country finding it has minerals and taking our markets, not very much chance of that.
If Australia is threatened the mining tax a once off payment for once off product looks fair to me.
Well past time to end the bank prop up it only gives fools insurances if they fail we pay.

Yabby said;
As to the longer term, I think Australia will simply ride on the
back of mining to pay the bills.

Not in the longer term. It just won't happen. China will definately
slow, indeed it must. A 10% growth rate is so high that they would
suck up all the worlds iron ore and oil etc in just a few years.
Doubling every 7 years is impossible. 2, 4, 8, 16 etc etc !
Remember the story of the Chinese philosopher and the Emperor.

Yabby also said;
I tend to agree Bazz, but the Australian market lacks solid oil play
companies, most are focussed on gas

For good reason, there have been no decent oil finds for yonks.
What we have is depleting quite fast, about 6% per year if I remember
correctly. We only export some particular types as we import just
over 50% of our usage. As soon as we can no longer afford imported
oil the objections to gas will disappear.

I will stick my neck out !
There will be a major drop in China's economy sometime during 2011.

Remind me of this if it does not happen.

*As for another country finding it has minerals and taking our markets, not very much chance of that.*

Don't be so sure Belly. Commodities go through cycles. There are
huge new iron ore mines and coal mines being built right now.
It just takes years to build them, ports, rail etc. At some point,
both iron ore and coal prices will drop substantially. But I'd
say its a few years off, meantime we can cash in. Luckily our
gas production is about to rise dramatically, once present projects
are completed. So we'll have more irons in the fire.

*Not in the longer term. It just won't happen.*

I think you will find that it will, Bazz, for the following reason.
Right now there is some 200 billion$ of investment going ahead in
new mining developments. Once that infrastructure is in place, it
will generate export dollars for the forseeable future. Yes,
commodity prices will drop, but it will still be profitable and
the infrastructure can't be moved elsewhere.

China doesen't need to keep growing at present rates. But China
and India are both so large, that local consumption by an extra
2 billion people, will use alot of our resources.

Pericles, your Atlassian sounds like an interesting company.
Perhaps Australia is just short of intelligent entrepreneurs who
have access to venture capital.

im looking for the latest keiserr report..[re ice,land/imf]
revealing some huge decietes

interesting search result here

http://www.google.com/search?client=gmail&rls=gm&q=keiser%20report%20rt%20youtube

leads here
http://www.google.com/search?q=keiser+report+rt+youtube&hl=en&client=gmail&rls=gm&prmd=iv&source=univ&tbs=vid:1&tbo=u&ei=qUP_TPKDNsTBcbLNtLQG&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQqwQwAA

anyhow here is whats been goingdown in iceland
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/12/PRREY3nOncU
you will recall
thats where much of this began..
to bite big chunks out..of the tax/payers

Yabby, have you not heard the story of the philosopher and the emperor ?
One grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, 2 on the
next, 4 on the next etc etc. Think of exponential mathematics.

What you suggest is impossible !
They would have to do it with oil, gas, coal, steel, aluminium etc etc.
They would starve to death before they were half way.

Bazz, you are trying to accurately predict the future, when you
don't know all the variables. Get one wrong and the whole game
changes.

What we know right now is that 200 million peasants have moved
to Chinese cities, another 300 million are on their way. We know
that China is massively investing in major infrastructure, for
instance national very fast trains etc. Just recently they
achieved 460km/hr, which is not to be sneezed at.

We know that Australia, Africa, South America, still have massive
reserves of the basic elements. We know that the Chinese have
serious plans about building nuclear power stations. We know
they are serious about making electric cars. So will most of
their cars be electric? Possibly.

Fact is that in 20 years, Asians and Arabs will most likely have
the serious money, Europe and America more likely to be those
with debts.

Australia has land and minerals. We can supply both with food
and minerals, if we just try a little bit. That should be enough
to keep our small population out of jail.

At the moment, we don't even know what minerals that we have.
Most of Australia has never seen a drill.