Nice job Wayne, Julia, Penny & Co. Maybe we should increase taxes some more, maybe an extra levy or two? Certainly don't want to hold back on welfare spending! People may notice they're destitute and really can't afford their world leading house prices and debt servicing! This is all on a knife edge I reckon. Or maybe it really is different here and Australians are special.
The beauty of 'Globalisation'! I did think it was a good idea at the time, but it turned out to be economic suicide. OC
What drives me crazy is the shear incompotence of our governments, past and current. A few simple remedies to increase Australian manufacturing, agriculture, etc. 1. No more car subsidies. Throw the internationals out and start an Australian car manufacturer and keep the dollars here. 2. If the internationals insist on closing the refineries, let them and start an Australian owned one, refining local oil first. Like ethanol, a percentage must be included in standard petrol. This also protects us from any international rationing. 3. Chop the Aid dollar. If a country needs food, we send it. If they need blankets, we make and send them. Limit dollars to disaster relief only. 4. The Defence dollar should be spent here; uniforms, vehicles, weapons, all manufactured here. I could go on and on as I am sure others can. I mentioned in another post, sell our overseas gold and buy up all the local gold with the money. Poassabilites are endless. Who cares if something is cheaper from OS, add the unemployment created to it and see how cheap it is. Not a rant, but something that deserves critical study and consideration.
I think it is only fair to point out that of those factors reported to be affecting Australian Manufacturers, the government is not really responsible for the high value of the Australian dollar. However, both Wayne and Julia have congratulated the IMF chief over their policies and have praised the currency debasement policies of the US and other nations. So if they are not directly responsible for the factors that are seeing the decline in Australian manufacturing, they are cheerleading what other countries are doing to decimate Australian trade and jobs. Sigh ...
Protectionism and nationalism - a nasty mix. Basically, division of labour is good for you personally, it is good for a company, it is good for your local economy, it is good for your regional economy, it is good for your state economy, it is good for your national economy then it's also good for the international economy. Open economies always do better than protectionist economies - just ask Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea all of which have s.f.a. local resources (I'm not saying these guys are perfect - no country is - but they're more open and free than many others). It's true that a skilled carpenter can probably do everything better and with less time than an apprentice carpenter, but the skilled carpenter only has so many hours in the day so it's better for everyone if they focus on the highest value work and let the apprentice do the lower value work even if it takes them twice as long for the same job. The total amount of production increases by people focussing on the best use of their scarce resources through division of labour rather than everyone trying to do everything themselves.
