As we all know Australia is the lucky country and Wayne, Glen and Peter have been the best guardians of this most bountiful country.

Glen has managed inflation exemplary by keeping it with in the target band: 2~3 (high in my opinion)


But we all know when we go to the store (either one of our 2 choices) we spend a small fortune on nothing much, and of pretty poor quality.
Now don't even get me started on housing, water, electricity and gas.
About the only thing that has gone down is electronics (due to Chinese automation).

So it was with some amusement I noticed some graphs which were purportedly created by Deutsche Bank to illustrate how farked up Venezuela has gotten.

Neither Venezuela nor Australia use USD as their currency (though it is very common and necessary in Venezuela).

Besides that, Australia's GDP per capita is five times that of Venezuela.

I'm not sure what your point is but, yep, Australia is expensive!

FlySurfer said...
[br]

So it was with some amusement I noticed some graphs which were purportedly created by Deutsche Bank to illustrate how farked up Venezuela has gotten.

I think I might have mentioned that to you before in passing. The people there prefer USD as they know it'll still be worth something the next month, and the government severely limits the amount of foreign currency you can buy, and also set the exchange rate to really unrealistic values.

They brought in the "Bolivar Fuerte" after the old Bolivar depreciated so badly. I wonder what comes next? 'Bolivar Fuerte Verdad'?

I am surprised Venezuela doesnt get as much coverage, as things there at the moment seem very worrying.


I wonder how skewed using alcohol and cigarettes is when the excise duties have increased, but maybe not representative of other foods and products.

Feel sorry where these things cost a lot in Venezuela, but you earn next to nothing. I haven't had to buy black market food here.

Harrow said...

FlySurfer said...
[br]As we all know Australia is the lucky country

...while other countries have had to make their wealth from nothing. (Switzerland being an ideal example.)....

I thought they made their wealth by sitting on the fence in wartime and looking after the wealth of both sides' rich. Along with facilitating global money laundering. I'll concede they've attracted industries of over-priced watches, yummy-but-tooth-breaking triangular chocolate and big pharma.

Cambodge said...
I thought they made their wealth by sitting on the fence in wartime and looking after the wealth of both sides' rich. Along with facilitating global money laundering. I'll concede they've attracted industries of over-priced watches, yummy-but-tooth-breaking triangular chocolate and big pharma.

Regardless of an opinion on the Swiss, what do we do? Dig up our coal and iron ore, send it overseas, and then buy it back at many times the price as a vehicle. Where would we be without our natural resources? We really are the (dumb)-luck country.

FlySurfer said...

Harrow said...
I'm guessing you're too young to realise that this phrase was meant as an ironic indictment of Australia, criticising the fact that we have just fallen on our lucky dumb asses as a country, lacking in any genuine enterprise and instead deriving our wealth from natural resources, etc, while other countries have had to make their wealth from nothing. (Switzerland being an ideal example.)

The original quote comes from a book by Donald Horne. In the decades following his book's publication, Horne became critical of the "lucky country" phrase being used as a term of endearment for Australia, once saying, "I have had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase."

I think "this most bountiful country" should be evidence of my correct application.
I realize my sarcasm is lost on some... soz.

It really is common for people to believe that 'we are the lucky country' to mean we are blessed, rather than just getting by from dumb-luck. I can understand Harrow's comment. The media always talks about how 'we are the lucky country'.

Emoticons! That's why they are there

FlySurfer said...
I realize my sarcasm is lost on some... soz.

No, not at all. Just adding the history trivia.

What concerns me in Australia, everybody is taking about how governments is increasing taxes, reducing social services and constant chatter about the ever increasing debt levels. Last time I checked, we compete in a global economy which we export red dirt and gas being our main drivers of revenue for Australia. That?s like having a pie shop that only sells steak and mushroom pies with a couple of chips on the side. To add further concern, we have one major customer that purchases our one brand of pie, which is China.

Economists and Government believed that China would be this wonderful customer that would keep consuming our resources at record levels that would help growth for another 20 years. To add further uncertainty, China growth is slowing faster than expected.

What concerns me, we have not been creating or developing new revenue streams or growth industries, which we can fall back onto once our resource boom eases. We all keep blaming Government but it?s not all the responsibility of government to create wealth. It?s all our responsibility but it requires risk and investment into business which in Australia is difficult. We all like to invest in bricks and mortar but unfortunately that does not create sustainable revenue streams for Australia.

Our ability to compete with the high Australian dollar and high cost of business is adding more pressure. Many of our most promising start-ups are choosing to head to the USA and UK to start their global empires because of the high cost of business and the inability to source start-up funding in Australia.

Dom said...

What concerns me, we have not been creating or developing new revenue streams or growth industries, which we can fall back onto once our resource boom eases. We all keep blaming Government but it?s not all the responsibility of government to create wealth. It?s all our responsibility but it requires risk and investment into business which in Australia is difficult. We all like to invest in bricks and mortar but unfortunately that does not create sustainable revenue streams for Australia.

Our ability to compete with the high Australian dollar and high cost of business is adding more pressure. Many of our most promising start-ups are choosing to head to the USA and UK to start their global empires because of the high cost of business and the inability to source start-up funding in Australia.

The government are the only ones that can have the 'hands on the levers' of the economy, so they ultimately are the ones that have to create this diversity of work. They need to manage the value of the dollar to make our industries viable, or subsidize industries, or add levies to imports. The minute you say the word 'subsidy' the public start crying as if its something evil.

They seem to have gone the other way and not worried too much about diversity, although having said that, I read something this morning about 'Universities being a growth export'.

What's that all about? When did they change from being to educate our young to becoming money making businesses? That sucks.

So, who do you think can develop new industries that are globally competitive without help from the government?

A bit of a misnomer of the problem of "cost blowout", In another thread i happen to mention "wage indexation" and "The harvest judgement of 1907" decrees an indexed wage although no definitive limit between changes of inflation and reassigning wage level "award". Either way, with law in Australia whether criminal or civil the cost of living is high because of required individual legal fulfillment e.g. transport and paying fare or toll or registration fees e.t.c. ...
To operate your person legally is extremely expensive as a physical personal individual. So wages are high in human resource terms for employers, And for the individual legal cost of operating a house is the same e.g. dwellings on private land and council zoning and policies.

Second factor, tax on employee wages is a drop in the ocean of the economy for government revenue in operating the public areas, but tax or tariff is always set in levels and generated through "consumption" of a product or service, so it requires buying not saving to generate these, which is why the energy utilities are bunkum, "Use less energy" is the jingle, now you pay less tariff and tax!!!! Moreover,m no-one can afford it, so they don't use it, so they don't generate enough!
It's big business that generates the tax and tariff payments to the government.

In many other countries a person can bolt a 300Kg 8Kw wind turbine to the side of there flat unit or slum or wealthy upper middle class apartment no matter the noise, in Australia you tend to find what you have done wrong by being prosecuted by council though you are the dwelling and land owner!

Everything costs here like a weight on the back.