Yes, wages and prices are funny things, aren't they?
Rehctub is a butcher, I believe. In 1991, I was selling bullocks to the Wingham abattoir for 240c a kilo. A few months ago I was driving into Rockhampton, listening to the local stock report.
Heavy steers were selling for 220-240c a kilo.
How much has retail meat gone up in the last 20 years?
Globalisation is a crock, competing with countries with lower standards of living is stupid, and only a bloody idiot would think it's a coincidence that almost all the countries with -relatively- higher numbers of super rich, also have the worst poverty records.
The rich get rich by stealing (charging money at interest) from the poor.

Otokonoko:>> I was an employee and shareholder of Woolworths Corporation when Roger Corbett drove the company well ahead of its rivals. He is a talented businessman who, along with quite a good team, strengthened an Australian company<<

Otokonoko you give too much credit to the Woolies and Westfarmers management teams, the talent in this duopoly is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who allowed the former mentioned corporate bastards to run small business out of town over the past thirty years.

Westfarmers wasn't in the grocery picture when Corbett was doing his thing. And the ACCC may have supported (and may still support) the duopoly, but it was the executive team at Woolworths - driven by Corbett - that pushed Woolies ahead of Coles Myer (as it was at the time). That's my point, even if it was illustrated through a controversial figure. Big bucks draw good businessmen (and women). If I was valued at seven figures in New York, why would I settle for five or six figures in Sydney?

"Big bucks draw good businessmen (and women). If I was valued at seven figures in New York, why would I settle for five or six figures in Sydney?"

One of the comments that struck me was that of the daughter of a fashion designer. She regularly saw her mother well rewarded and often complemented for her work. She contrasted this with the Indian sweat shop workers who made garments as good for about 12 rupees a piece.

The solution is simple Otonoko. Just don't let people who abandon Australia for riches, live here, invest here or retain the benefits of citizenship, own property etc, here again. We make them ultimately choose to live somewhere else as well. We could still make this place, the place too be, making most smart people want to be here, by providing opportunities for development, other than relying on commercial processes to do so.

If Australia was focussed on it's island continental status, and our collective need to nurture our land, lives, freedoms, privileges, we would probably understand, that we alone probably have the opportunity beyond any other continental mass, to remain a liveable place in the future.

You would only have to go back to the pre Howard days, when there was talk of a Multi Function Polis in Sth Australia. The very kind of thing that would have put Australia at the very fore front of technology and the future, and retained the interest of our boffins, particularly if not controlled by business and driven by profits alone.

In 1996 all such notions disappeared, such as renewable energy; it may have started much earlier, wage indexation might have stayed retaining living standards, we may not have sold Employment services, promoted private health and education at the expense of the public purse. Sold Telstra and had fibre and super fast internet, much earlier and much cheaper, I would have had my teeth fixed and bulk billed through medicare. Ahh but I can only dream.

Now I'll never know now, because they changed the Cross Media Ownership Laws as well, entrenching a favoured few, and reduced public media funding, and stacked the board of the ABC with cronies and funding conditions.

Privatisation has not done my country well, thats for sure, and the current lot (Gov't) haven't got the bottle to take on the magnates(Mining , Media etc), and restore some previous understandings about, "who this country, and it's imagination and it's resources", belong too.

Hear Hear thinker 2.
A very simple way to make Oz internationally competitive would be to let all those primarily interested in fat pay checks move elsewhere, and just keep those who have less material objectives.
Does anyone truly believe Tiger Woods or Greg Norman would stop playing golf, if they couldn't make 20, 40 or 100 million dollars doing it?
Do you really think the likes of Mel Gibson et al would stop being actors, if they thought driving trucks paid better? Natural show offs would pay to be on the stage.
Look at the world's third richest man, Warren Buffet. He's still living in the house he bought for $31k, 3 decades ago. The irony is, if he had been born in a socialist country he would have been a brilliant finance minister.
Or look at Linus Torvalds, and the Linux operating system. Far superior to Windows in almost every way, and totally free; constantly being improved by volunteers, simply because they enjoy what they do.
The problem isn't Capitalism or Communism. It's Materialism. The Russian Party honchos were just as materialistic as any millionaire, and generally lived better (relatively).
Perhaps we need a new way of bestowing fame and glory.
Knights Of The Tin Cup, perhaps?