"Australian Exceptionalism"
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We do have a strong economy, but it is seriously worth asking - as Indifference rightly does - what is our Achilles heel here?
Personal vs public debt is relevant, and no doubt worth considering.
But I suspect economic infrastructure is our most serious national problem.
Given, arguably, overseas demand trumps all: Roads, rails, ports - and, let's be honest - their strategically unionised workers, in the end will ultimately probably count more, how do we go forward? Without overseas markets we're probably all toast, whatever the infrastructure spend or industrial relations commitment.
We need economic common sense to prevail both overseas and here at home. No time for ideological agendas now: Pragmaticism only.
Personal vs public debt is relevant, and no doubt worth considering.
But I suspect economic infrastructure is our most serious national problem.
Given, arguably, overseas demand trumps all: Roads, rails, ports - and, let's be honest - their strategically unionised workers, in the end will ultimately probably count more, how do we go forward? Without overseas markets we're probably all toast, whatever the infrastructure spend or industrial relations commitment.
We need economic common sense to prevail both overseas and here at home. No time for ideological agendas now: Pragmaticism only.
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Evand, economic leadership is a progressive issue. It relies on consistent productivity improvements over time.
By your logic the Greeks/Italians should have been able to maintain dominance by logic of the fact that they at a particular point in history they had underlying factors that held their economies in good stead.
My dear boy, you might be quoting left right and centre that 'we have it so well' but i feel that the majority of Australians feel very different to you. They can feel the winds of change, and they are nervous.
Its about net productivity my dear boy, pure and simple. You can ignore it over the short term, but not over the long term. Of course there will always be individual participants within a society that will be able to maintain the status quo (but not society as a whole).
It is really a fantastic time to be around in Australia. With a change of winds, there will be a change in wealth distribution. I plan to profit from this.
For many the winds might not be so favourable.
And yet what is traditionally a labour key productivity enhancer:
infrastructure, and yet where is it?????????
Our major platform is a carbon tax, oh yeah a great productivity improver (yet Evan says its great).
No wonder labour voters are deserting labour. Labour is the new right affinity of the Greens Party.
So again i state, as an individual we cannot determine policy, so our duty is to protect the immidate group around us, so look to profit upon the situation that is given to us
reminds me of alot of 'whites' (to cover Australia, and europeans) who were living in Thailand post the Asian financial crisis. They suddently felt very much comparitively rich. Interest rates in Thailand were high (north of 10%), exchange rate was very low. Much talk of the 'baht millionaries'.
They thought life was good, they looked at things from that particular point in time.
Fast forward 13 years, no longer the case. Interest rates subsequently dropped in Thailand, exchange rate appreciated. Internal cost of living increased.
No longer see to the same extent those old Western 'baht millionaires'. They reminiscence extensively about times gone by, but time moves on.
Could this be a lession for Australia: only time will tell.
Mate, a lot of the time I have trouble figuring out what you're actually tring to say. And whether or not it s relevant to the thread topic.
But. When I see dole bludgers with iPhones and half decent cars I know we are doing pretty well in this country. No need for whinging about minute issues of life. I have travelled pretty much all over the world - and then some - and the only need for complaint this country is anything but economic.
But. When I see dole bludgers with iPhones and half decent cars I know we are doing pretty well in this country. No need for whinging about minute issues of life. I have travelled pretty much all over the world - and then some - and the only need for complaint this country is anything but economic.
Really great article and honestly couldn't represent my opinion of Australia more perfectly. Thanks for posting OO.
Perspective is a wonderful thing, and if you think general sentiment down under is bad, then please take advantage of that high aussie dollar and spend sometime abroad. I'm sure when you return home you will have completely redefined your personal connotation of the word bad.
Perspective is a wonderful thing, and if you think general sentiment down under is bad, then please take advantage of that high aussie dollar and spend sometime abroad. I'm sure when you return home you will have completely redefined your personal connotation of the word bad.
^^^ What he said.
Yes...better class of Bogans ....
I saw quite a few in Perth....Newcastle and Wollongong seem to have a few too. This species is very hard to distinguish....but when they open their mouth there is not doubt!
They are a dying breed in Sydney thought.....
I saw quite a few in Perth....Newcastle and Wollongong seem to have a few too. This species is very hard to distinguish....but when they open their mouth there is not doubt!
They are a dying breed in Sydney thought.....
Yes...better class of Bogans ....
I saw quite a few in Perth....Newcastle and Wollongong seem to have a few too. This species is very hard to distinguish....but when they open their mouth there is not doubt!
They are a dying breed in Sydney thought.....
Beware the words of Mordor, little Hobbits!
Firstly one of the points relates to the fact that it is not conditions today that are important, but conditions into the future (hence the reference to the baht millionaires, they had it good in post Asian financial crisis Thailand, but it didnt last).
Secondly, if the cake is not growing, then individual wealth can be built by taking from others. Instead of sharing a growing cake, take part of the cake belong to someone else. This is statement about wealth distribution. I would much rather participate in a growing cake, but ones actions are governed by the environment presented.
I'm thinking no need to start a new thread for this, on the kindle, gotta love technology, one for the kindle, but also for global business, education, transportation of ideas, just being in the midst of travels (both international and domestic) lately, my wandering has not interfered with business, it's more than likely enhanced my business acumen:
Borderless Economics, by Robert Guest
Brief description, excerpt only for those that might be interested also:
An audio interview here:
From The Economist, How the world gets smarter
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Borderless Economics, by Robert Guest
Brief description, excerpt only for those that might be interested also:
An audio interview here:
From The Economist, How the world gets smarter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Its Official! Tony Abbot wins Australia's Biggest Whinger.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/to-those-who-put-a-whine-in-our-strine-20111216-1oyir.html
And so it's time again for our gala ceremony to announce the Australian Whinger of the Year. I got more than 400 emails from readers last week, most agreeing with my short list of Tony Abbott, the retailer Gerry Harvey, those meddlesome priests George Pell and Fred Nile, and the moaning, mining magnates Twiggy Forrest and Gina Rinehart.
But there was a slew of other nominations, headed by Christopher ''Poodles'' Pyne, the manager of opposition business in the Parliament. Or Whiny Pyney, as one reader dubbed him. Scott Morrison, the ''Shadow Minister for Xenophobia'', Andrew Robb, the Liberals' lugubrious finance spokesman, and Barnaby Joyce also got gonged.
Kevin Rudd won a couple of mentions. Inexplicable, that, for as Kevin never ceases to tell us, he is sublimely happy being Foreign Minister, working hand in glove with Julia Gillard for the national good. (Pigs cleared for takeoff.)
Advertisement: Story continues below
The media also copped a hammering, including my good self. One nark suggested a winning trio of my Fairfax colleagues Michelle Grattan, Peter FitzSimons and Richard Glover; an eclectic combination, to say the least.
There was a torrent of scorn for the radio ranters Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, for Melbourne's village idiot Andrew Bolt, and for his News Ltd alter ego in Sydney, Piers Akerman. Bolt was singled out for his week of tear-stained self-pity after he got done for breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. And The Australian took a heavy beating, too, exquisitely birched by one reader for ''its bullying, fact distortion and the flagrant abuse of the newspaper for News Ltd's own corporate purposes''. Deary me.
Quite a few emails nominated all of us. The Australian people, that is. ''I suffered some pretty nasty reverse-culture shock,'' wrote a man newly returned home after three years as an aid worker in Laos. ''I couldn't believe how bad things had become here: the rampant sense of middle-class entitlement, aggressive self-interest, the constant braying over a thousand petty grievances. There is no sense of proportion on how lucky we actually are.'' Good point.
But there'll be no surprise at the outright winner. The best of our national leaders have sought to draw out what Paul Keating calls the golden threads of our society. Robert Menzies could do this when he chose to; Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke understood it instinctively.
Tony Abbott does not. Like his mentor John Howard, he plays to our base instincts of greed, selfishness and fear. He wallows in the politics of NO, apeing the hysteria of the shock jocks: we are on the brink of economic disaster; climate change is ''crap''; we are ''threatened'' by gays and left-wing social engineering; a flood of ''illegals'' is swamping our borders.
We have the ''worst government in our history'', he howls, blithely ignoring Billy McMahon's Coalition shambles of the 1970s and Arthur Fadden's wartime conservatives of 1941, who collapsed in a heap after just 40 days in office.
And so on and on, ad nauseam. Tony Abbott: you are the 2011 Australian Whinger of the Year.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...-our-strine-20111216-1oyir.html#ixzz1gwUkUcXw
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/to-those-who-put-a-whine-in-our-strine-20111216-1oyir.html
And so it's time again for our gala ceremony to announce the Australian Whinger of the Year. I got more than 400 emails from readers last week, most agreeing with my short list of Tony Abbott, the retailer Gerry Harvey, those meddlesome priests George Pell and Fred Nile, and the moaning, mining magnates Twiggy Forrest and Gina Rinehart.
But there was a slew of other nominations, headed by Christopher ''Poodles'' Pyne, the manager of opposition business in the Parliament. Or Whiny Pyney, as one reader dubbed him. Scott Morrison, the ''Shadow Minister for Xenophobia'', Andrew Robb, the Liberals' lugubrious finance spokesman, and Barnaby Joyce also got gonged.
Kevin Rudd won a couple of mentions. Inexplicable, that, for as Kevin never ceases to tell us, he is sublimely happy being Foreign Minister, working hand in glove with Julia Gillard for the national good. (Pigs cleared for takeoff.)
Advertisement: Story continues below
The media also copped a hammering, including my good self. One nark suggested a winning trio of my Fairfax colleagues Michelle Grattan, Peter FitzSimons and Richard Glover; an eclectic combination, to say the least.
There was a torrent of scorn for the radio ranters Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, for Melbourne's village idiot Andrew Bolt, and for his News Ltd alter ego in Sydney, Piers Akerman. Bolt was singled out for his week of tear-stained self-pity after he got done for breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. And The Australian took a heavy beating, too, exquisitely birched by one reader for ''its bullying, fact distortion and the flagrant abuse of the newspaper for News Ltd's own corporate purposes''. Deary me.
Quite a few emails nominated all of us. The Australian people, that is. ''I suffered some pretty nasty reverse-culture shock,'' wrote a man newly returned home after three years as an aid worker in Laos. ''I couldn't believe how bad things had become here: the rampant sense of middle-class entitlement, aggressive self-interest, the constant braying over a thousand petty grievances. There is no sense of proportion on how lucky we actually are.'' Good point.
But there'll be no surprise at the outright winner. The best of our national leaders have sought to draw out what Paul Keating calls the golden threads of our society. Robert Menzies could do this when he chose to; Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke understood it instinctively.
Tony Abbott does not. Like his mentor John Howard, he plays to our base instincts of greed, selfishness and fear. He wallows in the politics of NO, apeing the hysteria of the shock jocks: we are on the brink of economic disaster; climate change is ''crap''; we are ''threatened'' by gays and left-wing social engineering; a flood of ''illegals'' is swamping our borders.
We have the ''worst government in our history'', he howls, blithely ignoring Billy McMahon's Coalition shambles of the 1970s and Arthur Fadden's wartime conservatives of 1941, who collapsed in a heap after just 40 days in office.
And so on and on, ad nauseam. Tony Abbott: you are the 2011 Australian Whinger of the Year.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...-our-strine-20111216-1oyir.html#ixzz1gwUkUcXw
LOVE it!!!
Hilarious, yet strangely factual assessment.
Just add the quote about virginal girls as gifts for mankind and we truly have our new Messiah of Doom...have a great xmas Evan...
And you. Even tho im atheist, i still celebrate with my kids.
Re the article, what i dont get is why people support this bunch of fools. From the hysterical and ridiculous right wing shock jocks to the bunch of 'NO NO NO' permanent whingers in the Lib/ Nat party. Isn't it obvious what a bunch of losers they are?
Maybe the Australian electorate doesn't think enough to realise it. (I'll refrain from mentioning this forum) Do they just follow like sheep? Dunno...........sigh.......
Re the article, what i dont get is why people support this bunch of fools. From the hysterical and ridiculous right wing shock jocks to the bunch of 'NO NO NO' permanent whingers in the Lib/ Nat party. Isn't it obvious what a bunch of losers they are?
Maybe the Australian electorate doesn't think enough to realise it. (I'll refrain from mentioning this forum) Do they just follow like sheep? Dunno...........sigh.......
I think that Keating did a good job with his economic reforms, and Howard did a good job in reducing govt debt, between the two of them they set Australia up well.
The current mob (on both sides) aren't much chop.
At least the Labor party keep a dignified, stick to the facts composure at all times. As head politicians as leaders of our country should. Unlike the hysterical, fear mongering Liberals and their shock jock supporters.
Tony Abbott et al is finding out now how hard it is to have stuff-all policies and not being able to whinge and say NO NO NO any more because the polls show the electorate is over it and awake up to it. Its all down hill from here Tony.
So, no, I wouldnt say the are the same at all. Not even close.
Replying directly to your points tho. The only reason Howard got Australia out of debt was from:
1: On top of Keating/Hawke reforms.
2: Not spending much needed infrastructure funds and squirrelling away money like a good little Menzies acolyte.
3: Being in power at a time of huge world growth & prosperity, which was ultimately found out to be built on debt, which imploded as the GFC and which he passed on to the Labor party. Great timing.
Nothing to do with being a good PM or a decent party.
Tony Abbott et al is finding out now how hard it is to have stuff-all policies and not being able to whinge and say NO NO NO any more because the polls show the electorate is over it and awake up to it. Its all down hill from here Tony.
So, no, I wouldnt say the are the same at all. Not even close.
Replying directly to your points tho. The only reason Howard got Australia out of debt was from:
1: On top of Keating/Hawke reforms.
2: Not spending much needed infrastructure funds and squirrelling away money like a good little Menzies acolyte.
3: Being in power at a time of huge world growth & prosperity, which was ultimately found out to be built on debt, which imploded as the GFC and which he passed on to the Labor party. Great timing.
Nothing to do with being a good PM or a decent party.
At least the Labor party keep a dignified, stick to the facts composure at all times.
LOL, anyone that believes that currently any party is dignified, sticks to the facts and retains composure at all times is either a rusted on supporter
or
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