Amazulu

Yes, the UK has taught us well

DC10

No argument with that point. I guess it's one way of managing decline.

Amazulu

Neither country is in 'decline'

DC10

Oh ok, so Britain's GDP relative to other countries in 2015 is on a par with its Victorian heyday

Amazulu

Cool. If that's the way you want to look at it, UK is in decline and Australia is not

astera

Australia is in a bit of trouble as for a long while it relied on a gimmick resources economy whereby lots of people made lots of money "using shovels" so to speak and in return the proceeds that should have gone into a sovereign wealth fund to make Australia the world's richest nation have been syphoned away by mining corporations.

The car industry too was subsidised. And with free trade agreements - which are generally a good thing - there is no way to exert pressure on manufacturing locally.

Other exports now rely on being friends with other countries and as soon as relations sour... so do those purchase orders (need I mention Indonesia?).

The UK, on the other hand, got deep into debt so the state of the economy does not feel as positive as it was when I last resided there, and the country doesn't look like it's completely shaken off the effects of the last (global) financial crisis. The real issue is that the gov't is over-reliant on a bogus economy as well - aka "The City." And instead of looking at the big picture it is mainly looking after the interests of the "financial pirate bay" instead of true economy of the country. This isn't Hong Kong where you can be so reliant on the financial sector which is bogus in itself as it's like a gigantic balloon in terms of the numbers and what it really stands for.

Amazulu

Australia is one of the richest countries in the world

Beoz

Australia still makes a lot of money with shovels. When did it stop?

Amazulu

Mining is still expanding

LNG just starting - we are on course to be one of the top 3 exporters by 2018

Beoz

Plenty of bearded fluorescent wearing miners in the Qantas lounge at Perth airport last night. It was heaving. Can't be all bad.

Amazulu

It's bad but mining hasn't stopped - Australia is exporting record amounts

astera

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_wealth_funds

And now compare Australia to Norway for example...

Amazulu

Norway has done the right thing - the only western, resource-rich country to do so. UK, Australia, Canada, US etc pissed up against the wall

What we do have is a $2t and compounding (it will be $8t in my lifetime) superannuation system that is doing basically what the Norwegian SWF is there for. Not as good as Norway but not bad either

Australia compares favourably to Norway - the most successful country in Europe - in many aspects

renth

The government is going to steal peoples super, they are already testing the waters. (By "steal" I mean either force people to buy government bonds or outright nationalisation)

astera

Aren't they already hopping in and clearing out people's bank accounts that are inactive for 3 years?

Of course you can reclaim your money but still I find it shocking that they can just come and empty your entire balance just like that.

As for nationalisation, they ought to focus on the resources industry instead. There's no reason why state-owned corporations shouldn't be running the show, with Australia keeping 100% of the proceeds from all resources taken from this land. Then we'd be giving Norway a run for its money.