I've read many articles lately on oil, and other resources that are becoming scarce and the fight for control of those by the competing richer countries. What I find links the Americans and the Chinese is the fact that neither country taps into their own supplies. Despite both having considerable oil reserves under their own soil these are purposely not used instead leaving their exploitation to the future when they are scarce and the price is higher than today by orders of magnitude. This is both strategic and economically advantageous. After all why deplete your own supply at these low prices when you can get all you want from client countries whose resources are all they really have to keep them going. Especially when you can buy these resources with "money" you are creating out of thin air. Australia is one of these sucker countries too. Our resources are being bought as product or increasingly in the form of sale of tenements and companies by Chinese companies buying up with their own printed currency. We are selling off the jewels of this country for paper. I think we need to think about this more and resist the sale of our assets to foreign entities. The resources must be kept with proper "husbandry" and we must be responsible stewards. It's not as if the resources if they are kept in the ground are going to be worthless in the future. In fact the opposite is true.
I've always thought the government should keep reserves of all our resources, for example all of the Coal Seam Gas in QLD is pre-sold to foreign interests, not one joule stays here. Whereas the WA government keeps 15% of all gas produced at woodside for domestic consumption. Instead of trying to rip more tax off these companies we need to keep a % for our National Resoruce Bank
Yes APLNG is but there's Origin and Santos to name but two that own and produce Qld CSG and sell domestically (and have existing long term contracts and are still writing new ones, albeit with one of these having significant issues in meeting the contracted production requirements written through their subsidiaries). Edit: and GLNG but these are entities used specifically for the foreign LNG contracts. They don't operate all the Qld CSG.
I think your on the money here. I was thinking about this the other day. The Gold / Silver, fiat game can keep going until there is nothing else worth while to buy. These countries are smart in depleting other nations resources first before your own. Costello was dumb enough to sell off our gold reserves for bugger all back in the early 2000s. Australia is a real sucker for selling what we mine at the prices dictated by the paper markets. Slam
Bollocks. This is simply protectionism and nationalism hiding behind the skirts of "future value". It is neither strategic nor is it economically advantageous. The only thing I agree with is that the people who can manipulate the stock of money will undeservedly obtain the productive fruits of others which is an argument for sound money not for protectionism in the presence of unsound money.
bordsilver Bollocks. This is simply protectionism and nationalism hiding behind the skirts of "future value". It is neither strategic nor is it economically advantageous. Quite right. What does a country like Australia do for income? We are not like Switzerland and can support only so many farmers, professional sportsmen, cowboys and salesmen. It would take us decades to get both the education and skills base as well as the infrastrtucture to produce something that the world markets demand. As it stands now, the populace enjoy a standard of living that would not be possible otherwise.
I agree with the core argument that Australia should look at what we get for iron ore and gas, but thinking that paper money has no value is silly, paper has value in fact more value in trade than gold or silver, try to buy fuel with a 1oz silver coin not going to happen. PM's made go up in value yes and currency made go to $0 but the fact remains that this has not happen so far. Australians need to remember that Australia isn't the only place to get iron ore, PM's or gas so Australia needs to be able to deliver in a completive market or sink to the bottom of the shark tank.
