Having been in retail for 41 + years, I have witnessed a lot of changes and I must say that most of them are now coming back to bite us in the butt.

In those 40+ years we have seen retail go from the butcher, baker and corner grocery store, to multi notional conglomerates controlling our every day lives, training us to slash our own jobs, dominating the fuel, grocery, liquor and hardware sectors and decimating just about every family owns business in the process.

We have seen our local engineering workshops being replaced by Chinese imports, or our once thriving small manufacture's, like TJM for example, send most of their work to the likes of China, all in the name of progress.

Well, given our population is increasing rapidly, and our jobs being created are heading south, will we have to bite the bullet and take a step back in time to move forward just to survive. Me thinks we will have no choice.

Should we be worried?

rehctub,
Well, having over-stepped the mark it'd be extremely wise to take a step back. How could that be explained to the Left's entitlement proponents & the Right's economic rationalists ?
The ultra left & right outfits have the added dilemma of not understanding anything at all to do with functioning society.

No, we should keep stepping forward. Keep getting more efficient and achieve things that past generations (including many of the older posters on this board) regarded as impossible.

It is small business that employs people, not the big ones - that are shedding workers hand over first: the same bastards whom Turnbull wanted to give tax cuts to trouser, with no benefit to workers or the country. Well, they didn't get the tax cuts, thanks to the senate, and at midday today, we should have a PM - something we haven't had since Turnbull stabbed the last one in the back. Once I would have said that the one bad thing was that we are now lined up for a Labor government; but now,thanks to the rotter Turnbull, there is not a cigarette paper between the two creeds. And, many of us here will never see another LNP government again. It's hard to see that that we will ever have a viable opposition to socialism again. That, of course, was always Turnbull's aim - to trash the Liberal party.

Morrison is the new PM - so, not much change to policies!

I doubt we can step back world trade is now so much part of how we live any turn around may see us in big trouble, the corner shop including the butcher shop can not compete with the chain stores just as we long ago learned to live without full driveway service we have to buy within our budget not wishes