*Take an item, a CD will do.*

But Rectub, the Cd is outdated technology and you cannot
stop the world from changing. Today people go online
and buy individual songs if they want. So music has
become dramatically cheaper.

I've just been putting a whole lot of my old cds onto
the ipod. Some still have the old price tag, 30 bucks,
which I bought decades ago.

See it this way. If I'm not spending money on music,
I'm buying something else, which again creates employment.

Where Australia just falls down badly is in skills. The
Australian army cannot find people to run their equipment.
They need to bring them in from overseas or our very own
army and navy cannot function.

Surely it must occur to some people that flipping burgers
or being a checkout chick is not enough anymore, if you
want to make a reasonable living.

Qualified people have no problems finding work. We need
more of them and our youth of today has to understand
the value of skills. We should be making it easier for
them to obtain them. Look at the apprentice drop out
rate. Something is wrong with the system.

This is where we have a problem when the basic wage and
social benefits are too high. People say stuff further
education, I don't need it, to make a reasonable living.

The same argument has been around since working for a living started. If you automate you downsize jobs. Isn't that why we have growth. So new jobs are created. Businesses are going by the wayside all the time, that is nothing new. Last year with a lack of consumer confidence, no doubt made things harder than normal. Internet shopping will take another toll, but you can-not stop progress. With cheaper goods, power is transferred back to the consumer. Retail margins are far to high, and this drives wages growth. $23 for a stop go sign, maybe that is the going rate or else no one will do it, and where does that get you.

It was an example yabby, but nice try.

579, that's part of the problem in this country, if you don't want to work, you don't really have to.

Yes, retail margins are to high, but only because expenses are to high.

In the 90's I did very well on a 28% margin. Today, 50% is not enough.

579 said;
If you automate you downsize jobs. Isn't that why we have growth.

No it is not, it is merely a symptom.
We have growth because we employ more energy in the process.
Energy, especially high density energy, enables work to be done that
amplifies the physical energy of one man.
One barrel of oil is the same as having 2000 slaves working for you for a year.
This is especially obvious in farming. One man on a tractor can plough
100 times the area that a man with a horse can plough.
This why our population increase from about 1 billion in early 1800s
has grown to 7 billion today and the curve tracks EXACTLY the increase
in the use of fossil fuels, coal, gas and oil.

We are facing a time of transition and how we manage it will decide
whether it will be uncomfortable or traumatic.
The financial problems in various countries are direct manifestations
of this transition now taking place.
Government is going to change over the years but the politicians do
not seem to understand that they will not have the resources to keep
expanding their expenditure.
When I was looking for info on the shopping malls I found that in the
UK many police stations are being closed because of money cutbacks.

We will have to make do with less buying "stuff" and be looking more
to the longevity of products.
The throw it away and buy another era has ended.

rehctub there is certainly a large disparity in wage 'value'. eg. holding up a STOP sign may not require much skill other than a bit of nouse and ability to communicate to the other end of the traffic line, but it must be a boring as bat poo job. Then you look at security guards earning the same or less per hour, or aged care and child care assistants also on an uncommonly low wage.

There are many areas where we would agree there is some gap between wage and 'value' however one might make those judgements.

When I was a wee lass, I did earn a low casual wage and managed to pay my share of the rent, food and other bills. But the big difference is the wage gaps were less overall, thus housing affordability and rents were still within reach of lower paid workers. Young people now pay HECS where once tertiary education was virtually free. There have been a lot of changes since the 70s in relation to cost of living even if you discount the fact that many people do not budget well, credit is too easy and some seem to want instant gratification with all the mod cons.

A married couple could afford to have one of them at home to raise kids if desired. Now that is out of reach for most.

The problem comes from the top down not the bottom up - higher wages at the middle and top end push prices up making it impossible to keep lower incomes steady. It is just a fact of life and it is unfair to paint the lower end of the labour market as greedy.

*We have growth because we employ more energy in the process.*

Only to a point, Bazz. You forget that much of what we do takes
far less energy and we have increasing energy efficiency.

Yes we used to plough, cultivate etc. Now its all no till-deep till,
using a litre of roundup instead. We used to manufacture records,
cds, now its all electronic. How much energy does it take to
manufacture an Ipod, yet it can store what 400 cds used to store.

People used to drive gas guzzlers, not anymore. In fact last time
I checked, energy per person in the US has stayed the same, despite
economic growth per person.

Service industries generate alot of economic growth with far less
energy consumption alot of the time. For example the app "Angry
Birds". Its a fun game for smart phones, Ipads etc. Its generated
around 600 million$ of revenue, but to simply download it would
have used relatively tiny amounts of energy.

When energy becomes expensive, energy efficiency will make a huge
difference. We have yet to address the whole area of logistics to
reduce energy use. But that will only happen when energy is
expensive enough for it to matter