Amazulu

That describes the UK to a tee as well - apart from the mud!

At least Australia has something to sell

asprilla

Of course, the answer is "yes".

You will read on here that so many people talk about how they want to move to Australia, not for the money or the big house or the pool, but just to have a "better lifestyle and bring their kids up in a better area".

Yet when the exchange rate turns, suddenly not many people want to make the move.

That's because our concept of a "better lifestyle" is unavoidably linked to money, and spending power.

The strengthening of the AUD, and also the weakening of the GBP at the same time, also leads to people in the UK becoming dumbfounded over the cost of living here in Aus. Yet very few of those people will be looking at the cost of living in real terms, i.e. trying to work out what % of their take home pay will they need to hand over at the bar to get a pint of beer. Instead, they will be getting an extremely distorted view - going on holiday to Perth, paying $10 for a pint of beer, and then going home telling friends that they paid over GBP6-00 for a pint in the pub....

the troubadour

Nothing goes forever and it is reasonably well documented, that the Chinese ecconomy is over heating along with an over inflated housing market of their own.

The dollar being a commodity currencey will adjust downwards accordingly.

jimbo_d

However in reality that's rubbish. The stats for Europe are not good unless you're in France, Germany or Switzerland, which are comparable in costs of living to Australia. You may well be able to take your strong AUD and convert to GBP, but you're going to need a good job to back it up. Whilst I see the manufacturing, finance and engineering industries starting to fire again, there's no hope for anyone outside of these.

The UK is experiencing a large dose of inflation and standard of living has fallen for the 1st time in 30 years...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/b...wo-years.html#

If I were looking at going to Aus now I would think again it is expensive to a UK migrant, however there's no way in the world I'd want to go back to the UK right now.

isgraham

Agreed but it still isn't sustainable and I can make vastly more in the UK than Australia. You barely get a living wage in IT in Sydney these days.

Amazulu

It's the opposite for me. The only way the UK is going to prosper in future is to start making stuff again - and lots of it

bcworld

Australia isn't exactly a manufacturing powerhouse. 12% of GDP and overtaken by 'property & business services' as the largest sector. I don't think the numbers for the UK are much different. Both economies are massively services-centric.

Amazulu

Sure, but Australia exports massive amounts of commodities (mineral and agricultural). Like it or not, this generates a lot of money. What does the UK have? Which country's economy is in a financial mess? Australia does not have a history of manufacturing, the UK does. Saying that, we should be developing non-mining industries - lots of talk about it but nothing ever gets done.

aussieuk

Australia have lower inflation rate then UK (2.7%):

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Econ...spx?Symbol=AUD

UK have 4.4% inflation rate:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=19

US have 2.1% inflation rate:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Econ...spx?Symbol=USD

jimbo_d

Don't forget tourism - it may be suffering due to the high dollar, however if the resource boom were to falter, the dollar falls and all those newly enriched Asians come over for a holiday. It's quite surprising how well tourism has held up even with the high dollar. One thing Perth could really do with is stimulating a tourism industry, it's got the beaches for it, add some good shopping a few theme parks and it would be a great attraction.

bcworld

Mining (and agriculture) accounts for 10% of GDP...what else should be being developed that doesn't already exist?

aussieuk

But who is going to buy such expensive stuff, UK need to de-value GBP as soon as possible (comparable to China) ?China is already making lots, lots of stuff and everything is cheaper as yuan is cheap:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12905205

bcworld

I think they've done a pretty good job of that already!

GarryP

The best bet has always been to move later stages of the value chain onshore eg rather than exporting raw ore rock, do the initial refining processes onshore, then progressively later stages. Not only does that put more jobs onshore, it enhances the value of what you are exporting and decreases the volume. You can push that behaviour by setting the taxation regime appropriately.

Its strategic thought that has always been lacking in Oz.

Amazulu

I know it's been tried before, but I'm surprised that we don't have steel mills here. There are modern systems that require minimal manpower that I'm sure could be efficient - although would not be compatible with a carbon tax. We should process uranium too.