Up until about 40 years ago, Our own manufacturing provided economic and profitable industries for our states and commonwealth, they kept our workers employed, our large and small businesses alive and active, there was a 66.6% top tax. So what has happened in the meantime.
First, our politicians realised that the taxes applied then, supplied much more income than was needed. So reduce the taxes. When the top tax was reduced, it was an incentive for those who were in a position to increase their income, to do so.
Over the last 40 years, the top tax has been decreased from the 66.6% on an amount which would be somewhere about $450,000 today. Unfortunately, the consistently increasing salaries of those uncontrolled people have created such high prices on all the goods we had been manufacturing, and services, that our workers cannot now afford to buy the homes they could before nor clothing made in Australia, etc..
The mining enthusiasts claim high prices and profits, and if this was justified, why is Anna and the Queensland Government crying poor? I have never heard of any responsible evaluation on the price of coal or any other of our non-value-added mined goods, coal, iron ore, bauxite, uranium ore or any others and when you get 65 ships lining up at Dalrymple Bay port and another 15 at Gladstone, you have to wonder – are we being short changed for our coal, and what do we get in lieu for it.
Well what we do get, is all of those goods, or quite a lot of them, that Australia used to manufacture previously, that now put our wage earners out on the street and damn near the gutter. Woolworths, Coles-Myers Wesfarmers and hundreds of others are buying these goods to pay the price for the coal and other exports in preference to buying Australian manufactured products, which would keep Australian workers properly employed in keeping Australia's economy viable.
Why is this happening?

My friends will not join a party, say they have pride in their integrity, and suggest it would be a slur on their intelligence. Of both the Liberal and Labor parties, they both breach their constitution. You might as well say they prostitute themselves as far as their constitution goes, with their decisions which affect the wage earners. It is doubtful that they ever look at their own constitution or even of that of the commonwealth, because this is sometimes in doubt. The depression in 1930, and recessions or depressions appear in countries when the top tax rate gets below about 50%, Here also is showing the tax applied around the world, explaining why our politicians claim we are in a recession because it is a “global recession” it is global because the politicians around the world can't be described as anything else but stupid. It needs only a tax of an average of 30% to pay for the needs of the country, but our people in parliament can't get it through their skull that – as some people will take as much as they can get their hands on, the top tax has also got to be be high enough to to prevent this, and the tax on lower incomes could be dropped, no tax below $30.000 or so. Such an attitude seems to cause our members of Parliament no end of worry, a brain seizure as they would not be able to point to the newspapers and say “it's a global problem”.
Look at the History and learn. “ The only thing we learn from history is – we never learn from history”. The economy of our country is being destroyed by our own members of Parliament and Previous members, They never learn, they have neither the intelligence or the integrity. Look On the internet at "Tax history of the US", "Tax history of Australia"' "Tax history of the UK", and "Taxes around the world". See if you gain some information, and for party members, some intelligence.

*No, but every time it moves, or gets processed, energy costs get added on.*

True Bazz, but cheap energy prices for the last 100 years have
encouraged wasteful energy systems along the way, so small
amounts are carted long distances, due to consumer choice.

So bread production, marketing and distribution, involves huge
waste. IMHO, that would change, if energy costs forced change.

For instance, AFAIK, you can't legally sell yesterdays bread,
or freeze it. So its thrown out, huge amounts. In the end,
the consumer pays for that. Our little town, has a small
bread van, driving long distances, just to deliver a few
loaves every day. Its all built into the price.

Technology has changed alot. Today I can buy a small flour
mill, grind my own wheat and bake a loaf of bread, right here.
For me its even easier, the wheat is right here in a silo.
I actually bought a small mill as an experiment.

So my point is this: People in our town, or even in cities,
could be supplied with bread which has used a whole lot less
energy down the chain, then is presently the case.

See it this way Bazz. A hundred years ago, people lived quite
happy lives, without all the huge energy consumption that we
have today. A backyard with some fruit trees, veggies and
chooks, is not a bad way to live. No doubt if energy costs
rocket, many will go back to that. So its not all gloom and
doom.

Good post, Yabby. People seem to forget that for the most part of humanity's time on this rock, we lived without oil at all.
Some would even welcome a return to those days :)

The problems I see is bureaucrats legislating to make being self sufficient harder, because it cuts into their revenue stream.
Councils are making it near impossible to do anything on your own land these days. And the greens, they're a pox on humanity that needs DDT'ing.

Bazz ok.
I said early in the thread we could run on gas,you rebutted LPG but said natural.
I agree.
I also spoke about governments owing those who own oil,service stations, exploration projects, the whole lot.
And gave my thoughts the cash invested is stopping true new fuels being given mass support.
We could switch our fleet to gas, not import oil,, ever but is any party any government game enough?
Bazz bloke, oil played no part none in the GFC

*The problems I see is bureaucrats legislating to make being self sufficient harder, because it cuts into their revenue stream.*

Yup RawMustard, but that is today. If we were truly required
to change, bureaucrats would have no choice but to comply with
how people change.

In my last venture, I was once threatened by a bureaucrat.
She claimed that she could shut me down, if she wished.
So I made it quite plain that her name would be on the ABC,
Channel 7 and Channel 9 news, if she tried. She never bothered
me again :)

People forget, we've also developed technology to save huge
amounts of energy and raw materials. For instance, I still
have a huge cupboard full of old LPs, from years ago. It
would have taken a huge amount of oil and energy to produce
them all. Today the whole lot would fit onto one of those
keyring storage devices. Its the same with books. A whole
bunch of e-readers are coming on the market, Google are
starting with 3 million downloadable books. In a few years
most papers will be downloaded, no need for all that energy
to chop forests down and ship papers around the countryside.

So lets say that high energy prices mean that we don't flit
around the world anymore, for our holidays. So what? We'll
simply holiday locally.

Virtually every car company around will have their first
electric vehicles on the market next year and 2012. People
will have a real option, to use cheap power at night to charge
batteries, base download power, much of which is being wasted
right now.

I watched an interesting doco yesterday on Discovery Science,
about the history of flight. In the 1930s, the Boeing 247
held exactly 10 passengers!