Personally, I think we should be very worried, worried about where we are now, in comparison to just over ten years ago.

Back then we had zero debt, where as now I believe our debt is around 680 billion.

Our retailers are replacing staff with machines, online retail is taking a strong hold, and many small retailers are looking shaky.

So, here we are a decade later, with fewer REAL jobs, less potential jobs due to automation, which means less taxes to pay down the debt.

So I ask again, should we be worried, and is there any way we can get back on track.

Bricks and mortar retailing is in trouble. There used to be 18 general bookshops in Adelaide, now there is one, Dymocks. People are buying books online. I confess to downloading e-books from Google: half or less the price, and no need for vast storage space.

For every one job created by Amazon (which sells everything) 30 jobs in retail are lost.

What can be done? Damned if I know.

I would add high on the list, both political parties want to fill the country with 100's of thousands of more people when most big cities infrastructure is straining to cope with what they have at the moment.

It is possible your $680 Billion needs to be corrected or broadened to include other institutions that borrow lots of money, "Australia’s net foreign debt is in excess of $1 trillion — more than 56 per cent of gross domestic product — which means that Australian financial and corporate institutions are heavily exposed to international overseas economic events, especially as they pertain to the international credit market."

I will be interested what Aidan says it was only recently he stated quote "We are a rich country", there is the problem with not only him but a lot of others who have that opinion.

The people who create the problem don't worry 1 because it is not coming out of there pocket and they have there indexed for life pension.

Of the OECD countries Australia's PM is the highest paid leader, that is ludicrous.
Gillards pension is over $200,000 per year, plus other benefits.

Dear rehctub,

I watched "Q and A" last night (28/05/2018) and questions
from the audience certainly painted a picture of concern
regarding jobs and Australia's economic future. It seems
that you're certainly not the only one who's concerned.

I've always had full-time secure jobs so I couldn't get my head
around the "gig" casual type of employment that they were
talking about and the problems that these job represented.
I guess times are changing and whether we should be concerned
or not - I frankly don't know. I'm not an economic expert.
However according to links that I've read it seems that
our future depends on decisions made today and that means it is
important to get some early insights into what the
alternatives really are.

We're told that we need careful though in any personal,
community, regional, and national planning.

I don't know if this will help but Mike Callaghan gives
an insight that might be of interest:

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/does-it-matter-if-australia-no-longer-among-top-20-largest-economies

I doubt we can get it back on track rehctub. Decades ago I read somewhere that democracy was ultimately self destructive. Garbage I thought. I filed away the idea that as more people discovered they could vote, rather than work for a living, democracy would die of starvation.

Then I watched the UK ship building & car making industries destroyed by the unions, pricing their members out of their industry. The workforce not willing to produce enough to pay their way.

I watched the growth of the disability bludger in Oz. Smiled as some commissioner told a doctor that they might have to close his surgery, as it appeared that just walking through the door of his surgery gave people a bad back. Still it got worse.

Now the starvation is setting in, as half the population receive more in handouts than they pay in tax. They actually contribute nothing. Only some major catastrophe, which totally changes our attitude from takers to self sufficient providers can save us now. I think we may have had it too good for too long now, for us to do the hard stuff ever again.

Hasbeen.

You oversimplify the problem this country has become.
Kicking the unionists and welfare cheats cans down the road, is juvenile.

What about a focus on the other end of society. Let's say Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten.

Don't you think there is something to be said about the leadership of a country being guided by a wealthy tax cheat, (an embezzler of public funds), and a thieving union organiser, who stole from the poorest of the working class; cleaners!

Focus also on the Chinese takeover by stealth. Only a fool would believe the nonsense proposed by politicians on the electoral trail, that Muslims pose a national threat in any way to this country, greater than that!

Instead of standing back from the light of truth, that the Saudis are funding a radical brand of Islam throughout south East Asia and Australia, let's see them fess-up and actually admit the fact. The problem with Islam is actually Malcom Turnbull and Bill Shorten, they are not the solution.

So the problems of this country run much deeper than the poor and desperate, finding it necessary to cheat the system, just as the leaders of it demonstrate their ability to do, with much much more reward.